By afternoon, Pinaka had already picked up two new Spells. The pace was nuts, but he had enough raw power to build the constructs in under a second.

  With his current power, he could probably fire them off a hundred times without breaking a sweat. “And off you go…”

  He mixed sawdust into the topsoil and spread it evenly across the farmland. If a soil testing expert happened to wander by, they’d spot signs of his tampering everywhere—but no one checks, and no one cares.

  ‘As long as I finish my tasks on time,’ Pinaka thought, glancing toward the three soldiers stationed on one corner of the wall surrounding his hectare of land. He flashed them a wide, mean grin. ‘They’re the only ones I need to worry about seeing me.’

  “Now, for the real prep,” he muttered, then casually triggered the wheat crops to grow, one after another, until they reached his knees. Once a patch was tall enough, he crouched among the crops, hidden.

  He pointed his index finger forward and activated his power over flesh. A cluster of optic nerves coiled around the tip and extended outward. An eyeball formed, gradually veined with red as it strained to stabilize.

  Without the aqueous and vitreous humors, the eye began to break down almost immediately. The one he just made didn’t have either, and it was taking damage fast.

  “This is what it’s like?” He focused his power on his eyes and did his best to recreate the two fluids, molding them into place around the new eye. Once it stopped breaking down, he brought it closer to his head, optic nerves still dangling from his finger.

  He wanted to connect it to his own optic nerve, just to see if his brain could process the vision from this improvised third eye.

  But right before he went through with it, he froze. “No, too risky. One mistake and I could go blind.”

  At Level 2, Pinaka could create living tissue—including full organs—but he still couldn’t regenerate injuries. Instead, he had to craft matching muscle tissue and manually merge it with the wound using precise control.

  It was kind of like DIY plastic surgery.

  If he messed up and wrecked his optic nerve, sure, he could make a new one and swap it in. But that kind of repair needed skill he didn’t have yet. ‘Just because I can doesn’t mean I should mess around like an idiot.’

  “Step by step. Build knowledge, build skill, build experience. Only then can I start pushing limits,” he muttered. Then he shrugged. “Though... there’s something else I can try.”

  He tucked his index finger down into the wheat and extended his pinky. Another eye grew from it. He closed his own eyes, tapped into his control over flesh, and began sculpting a replica of his own body outside of himself.

  He could technically make two at once, but he didn’t have the focus for that yet. So he went piece by piece—body part after body part—until he finally closed it all up inside a rough skull.

  “Damn,” he muttered, staring at it. “What an abomination.”

  Elven muscle strands looked way more fibrous than human ones, and without skin, the face was straight-up nightmare fuel. Definitely creepier than a human’s. ‘Then again, I’ve only ever seen diagrams of skinned human faces... way tamer than the real thing. Guess I shouldn’t jump to conclusions.’

  “Alright, let’s give you life.” He attached the arteries and veins trailing from the neck to his own body, letting his blood flow into the head. He couldn’t go completely off the rails here—covering his tracks would get way harder. This was the middle ground.

  “You alive?” he asked—then nearly jumped when the mouth twitched and the eyeballs focused on him.

  “Awa… wawa… waaa…” The throat moved slightly, just enough to show it was functioning. The sounds, though, were like a baby’s babble.

  ‘This is way more complicated than I expected,’ Pinaka thought, studying the head, ‘I copied my own brain when I made it—everything, even my memories. But it’s just… blank.’

  ‘Did I screw something up?’ He stayed connected to the head, which was all it took, thanks to how intuitive the power system was.

  Just like when he first made those shoes, he hadn’t been precise. Tons of mistakes. It was only through trial and error that he’d improved. For something as delicate as the brain, those mistakes were enough to make a useless copy with no memories at all.

  ‘So I just need to keep training until it works.’ His goal was simple. Now that he’d reached Level 2, he could create lifeforms. So… if he made a copy of himself, would it have his authority?

  If yes, he could flood the entire place with clones overnight. ‘Only one way to find out.’

  He kept tinkering with the head, using his power to reshape it again and again. Since the materials were already made, it was like working with clay. He’d mold a new head, compare it to the previous version, and break it back down into components.

  Bone, muscle, brain matter—he separated them all, then built the head from scratch again. Over and over, each time asking the same thing when he was done:

  “Can you speak?”

  “Guaaa!”

  He tried again.

  The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

  “Awwuu…!”

  Another attempt.

  “Aii...caaawww!” This one sounded like a toddler.

  Pinaka was exhausted by now. He disconnected the arteries and veins, then broke the head down again. This time, he shaped the pieces into small chunks and planted them into the soil, letting them touch the nearby wheat stalks.

  “They’re your nutrients. Take them. Grow!”

  And they did. That was how he cleaned up the evidence.

  ‘Still got a long way to go,’ he thought, working for another hour before calling it a day. By his calculations, he was on track to finish his quota in time. ‘Just bare minimum to stay off their radar. Nothing more.’

  “Now…” He flopped onto the ground, the warmth of the soil seeping into his back as the wheat stalks curled over him like a blanket. “What’s the source of my Authority?”

  The question reminded him of long chats with scriptwriters back when he worked as a stuntman. They'd spin wild martial arts stories between takes, especially during desert shoots with no signal.

  Martial arts stories were one of the most popular ice breakers because of the action sequence discussions.

  ‘Then there were those eastern fantasies. In every one of those, there was always some kind of energy center—a core or dantian—that acted as the power source.’

  ‘Is my system like that?’ he wondered. ‘Or is it more like the superhero kind, where the power just… exists?’

  The more he thought about it, the clearer it became—his powers didn’t seem to come from anywhere specific. They just were. As natural as breathing or digesting food. Whether it was his Control Authority or Creation Authority, he could use it endlessly.

  His only real limit was physical and mental exhaustion. ‘If I don’t get tired, there’s nothing stopping me from going full blast.’

  In theory, he could keep spamming Wood until the Gangnea Continent got swallowed up by it. Which, apparently, was how the continent expanded in the first place. ‘Elves create Wood, Humans burn it into ash and merge with the Earth to make fertile soil. Ogres create Stone. Dwarves make metal. All of it enriches the land and helps it grow steadily.’

  ‘There’s a system here.’ Even with his half-baked understanding, Pinaka could tell each race played a role. Using their Authorities, they mass-produced their respective elements, which the others used or absorbed. Over time, it all blended into the environment.

  That’s how the Gangnea Continent kept growing—slow, steady, endless.

  Pinaka circled back to the core question and landed on one conclusion: since his Authority didn’t seem to have a fixed origin point, he needed to redefine what a “source” even meant. ‘If I had to break my body down and point to the part that acts as the source… there’s only one answer.’

  The Nervous System.

  Made up of the central nervous system—the brain and spinal cord—and the peripheral nervous system branching out from there, it was like the body was just a mech suit, and the nervous system was the one piloting it.

  Since his power didn’t have a clear source, he figured the next best thing was to identify the smallest part of his body that could use his Authority. ‘And that’s gotta be the nervous system.’

  He had a very specific reason for chasing this line of thought—remote activation.

  There was a major flaw in how their power system worked: it needed physical contact. If a Human wanted to control Fire, they had to be touching Fire. Same deal for Elves.

  When Pinaka created Wood, he couldn’t just summon it out of thin air in front of him. The Wood had to stay connected to his body the entire time. To others, it looked like the Wood was growing out of him.

  This rule applied across the board—no touch, no Authority. And that was one of the key reasons the Elven race had fallen so hard.

  Didn’t matter how powerful an Elf was. The Humans had figured out flight. They floated high above and rained down walls of fire, turning the battlefield into a burning hell.

  The best the Elves could do from a distance was shoot arrows—basically wooden sticks. And when the flames were hot enough, even those were reduced to ash midair.

  That was all the Elves could do. And it wasn’t enough.

  But Pinaka wasn’t just an Elf. He was a High Elf, with Authority over Lifeforms. He wasn’t satisfied with those same limitations. He wanted to know if a clone of himself could use his power. But more importantly, he wanted to find the exact organ that let him channel his power.

  ‘I’m still not completely sure… but if this works, everything changes!’

  His plan was simple: craft a copy of his central nervous system, tuck it into an arrow, and shoot it.

  From the outside, the arrow would look completely normal. But hidden inside, the spine would be carrying his Authority. And once it was in the air, it could start spamming Wood, rapidly increasing the arrow’s size mid-flight.

  The speed would stay the same, but the growing mass would make the impact devastating.

  By the time one of Pinaka’s arrows hit its target, it would be the size of a house. Burning through something that massive wouldn’t be easy, especially with the spine still pumping out more and more material.

  Since this power system let him create matter from nothing, remote activation was the only thing holding him back. If he cracked that, he’d be able to destroy enemies from a distance with arrows the size of buildings. ‘It’d be like calling down a meteor storm.’

  And he wouldn’t stop at one. He could spam them. ‘I just need the right stats—and the skill—to pull it off.’

  ‘No rushing. Patience.’ He closed his eyes and took a short nap, letting the thoughts settle. When he woke up, the sun was dipping low. He wandered the farm for a bit, clearing his head, then rejoined his group of six when it was time to return to the prison.

  ‘They removed him.’ As they stepped inside, Pinaka subtly glanced at the pillar. It was empty. His throat tightened, his eyes stinging slightly, but he forced himself to stay composed. No reaction. No suspicion.

  ‘That… is fucking insane.’ He cursed internally, as now that Rulruka was gone, the apparatus that was used to keep him nailed to the pillar was fully visible. ‘How twisted do you have to be to design something like that?’

  ‘Then again,’ he sighed, ‘I might not be far off myself. Maybe I’m already there.’

  He noticed a soldier scanning an unfurled scroll, lips twitching in anticipation. ‘So… who’s next in line to be turned into a potion factory?’

  “The one I call for, come out.” The soldier finally looked up, voice loud and clear now that all the Elves had gathered. “You’re being given the honor of serving His Majesty directly.”

  He smiled with pride.

  “As a potion factory.”

  …