Asuka pressed the back of her pen and jotted down her observations on the newly introduced swamp fauna. They had gathered these frogs from the nearby marshnd—one poputed by lizardmen, no less—so these little amphibians should adapt to their new environment rather easily. They, like most frogs, had green pigmented skin, porous to the point of producing mucus on the surface constantly to keep the amphibian moist.

  They had four-toed fingers with circur suckers at the bottom of each ligament. They had a tiny tail that allowed them to dexterously swim around deep waters without using their thin legs and a circur head with a dome at the top to gather water.

  The appropriately named Kappa Frogs swam about in the breeding pool that had been dedicated to their particur species. Bottles of experimental mana potions she produced from the local flora had been poured into the pool to give it magical potency. Any and all eggs produced here should hatch tadpoles that had been influenced by magic.

  For now, exposing local creatures to magic was her main way of mutating them, as Aoi was still far from finishing her project. Given the size of the Kappa Frogs, however, Asuka assumed that even if they had access to the organ, these little amphibians would not be able to carry it within their meager bodies.

  A nurse came by and handed her a small sack of food. A part of the factory had been dedicated to producing these extremely nutritious—strictly speaking, this only applied to insectivores—pellets made from local insects, root pnts, and seedy fruits. The Kappa Frogs, or better yet, various species of toads in the breeding pools, did not mind what they ate as long as it wasn't poisonous.

  They were voracious little critters, which made increasing their size much easier. Add on the fact that amphibians already had the ability to grow to abnormal sizes as long as they had access to food, and one could see why Asuka found her current task boring.

  She hoped to work on more dangerous organisms in the future, but for now, she would have to settle on these tiny beings as they would serve as the building blocks for the swamp's rger ecosystem. The primary consumers had already been pnted across the terraformed ndscape by Mare—fish and insects that would serve as food for the frogs she was breeding.

  They too had been exposed to a decent concentration of magic—not too high, lest the animals die—but so far, neither the fish nor the insects had shown signs of mutation. Over time, they would, and mutation wasn't the main purpose of exposing them to a magical environment. Asuka merely needed them to gather mana into their bodies so that when the frogs were released, their food would have magical properties.

  Like most food chains, the secondary consumers—the frogs, and eventually birds—would have to wait until their nesting pnts became magical. However, Asuka couldn't have their eggs unexposed to magic if she wanted this to work. The secondary consumers would have a rger amount of magic concentrated in their bodies, as they would consume organisms with magical properties. When the tertiary consumers came, they would have the highest concentration of magic, thanks to their diet primarily consisting of secondary consumers.

  It was a natural process that had existed in countless ecosystems—even the ones in the Nine Realms, as strange and confusing as those may be.

  Her task in setting up a copy of the swamps of Helheim was actually a little loose, allowing her a bit of leeway in deciding how the food chain should operate in the long run. And Helheim, while the perfect pce for the Supreme Beings to live in as it showcased their strength, was not really an ecosystem she wished to perfectly replicate.

  Helheim was dangerous, incredibly so. It made the Supreme Beings, who conquered such a pce, much greater in Asuka's mind, but that had already been proven, and no one in Nazarick would dare to question the greatness of Ainz Ooal Gown.

  Thus, it was only right for her to create a sustainable ecosystem that, while independent, was not able to produce a series of invasive species that would eventually consume the rest of the world due to how hardy and powerful they all were.

  Asuka feared that if the Nine Realms weren't separated and were instead bunched up into one great realm, the entities within would start to fight and breed with one another until what remained was an ecosystem consisting of super-powerful creatures that would put the strength of True Dragons to shame.

  And perhaps that was why the True Dragons were so powerful? They had lived in a time before the Nine Realms shattered and thus experienced a vastly different environment compared to that of the Nine Realms, which, by their standards, must be so much weaker than before.

  Asuka put her theories aside and continued making notes on the changing physiology of the Kappa Frogs. The amphibians were not much, and they would continue to be this way until they properly mutated into magical creatures. Breeding them was a boring and tedious task, but one that allowed Asuka to have control over how they would develop, and to her, that small bit of leverage she had over the amphibians was enough to give her joy when working with them.

  At the end of the day, Asuka went back to the first floor to give Sakai her findings. The specter was someone she aspired to be at some point—a state between life and death and a soul so powerful that it became physical. It was a fascinating state to imagine herself being in, though she was sure that whatever her mind could conjure up would never amount to the real thing.

  "Asuka, how is the swamp?" Sakai had already manifested when she entered the control tower, which meant that Antikythera must have just passed by.

  "The same as yesterday. The progress in which the Kappa Frogs accumuted magic into their bodies is quite slow, but I assume their offspring will be much quicker in doing it." Asuka reached her hand out to hand Sakai her report, and the logbook she held got digitalized right in front of her very eyes.

  It dematerialized and turned into streaks of light, which flew over to the logbook Sakai was holding.

  "Exempry work."

  "Thank you." Asuka smiled beneath her mask. Her smile disappeared when she heard what Sakai had to say next.

  "Antikythera is waiting for you in your office. He says he wants you to analyze a pnt species he found from the vilge the scouting unit observed."

  "I'll get right to it." Asuka wanted to sigh. Oh well, her work could wait until after she was done analyzing the pnt for Antikythera.