The day of the competition had quickly arrived. After this class, we would be pinned against one another in a battle of life or death.

"Three hundred and seventy thousand years... it feels so long, but looking back, it went by so fast," I turned to the elf girl sitting next to me, "Are you ready, Julia?"

"... Yes, I am," she responded; her voice was soft yet full of resolve, "I know we'll win!"

Julia and I had spent the last ten days talking extensively about our strategies for this competition. She ultimately decided to stay on the defensive for the first few days after listening to my development breakdown. Despite her realm being full of mana, her elves were still very unfamiliar with it. As of now, they could really only use what they had picked through sheer instinct. Her elves were practically equivalent to my humans if they had exchanged a portion of their strength for simple magic. It would be completely reckless to go on the offensive with how they were now- defense would be key until they developed more.

"I know you'll be okay. Mana aside, I can't even imagine anyone getting through your continent- you seriously did an amazing job!"

"It is pretty good, isn't it?" Julia wore a smug expression but sported a faint blush from the compliment.

The praise wasn't unwarranted- her realm was seriously built perfectly to defend. It was vaguely shaped like a bow notched with an arrow- the invader buffer zone being at the tip of the arrow. Her realm had four land masses making up the bow all connected through land bridges. Of course, her temple was at the handle of the bow- the region furthest from where she would be attacked. Since there was only one pathway from the invader buffer zone to her main continent, invaders would be forced to go through the middle land mass where they could be ambushed from all sides. It was simple, but if communication was good throughout her continent and the elves could work together, her realm could be impregnable.

Sadly, this communication, or any real cities to communicate with for that matter, had yet to develop. A pincher plan could not exist without the forces to execute one. It would be a dog fight, one group at a time, in this first battle phase for her people.

Julia knew this well, and no matter how confident she was pretending to be, it was inevitable that this first battle phase would be bloody.

I really hope it all works out.

Leaning in closer, I whispered to Julia.

"You remember the plan, right?"

She nodded her head, "Get the Oracle, hint at magic, build a force, and set traps."

"Good! Just remember, no matter how bad it gets, you can't do more than give hints to the Oracle."

"I know, don't worry."

The regulations on what we could say to the Oracles we chose were extremely tight. While we could do things such as give orders or missions, we could not teach them technology or provide information that would ruin the integrity of the competition. If I were to teach my oracle how to build a steam engine, or if Julia taught her's how to use magic spells unknown to her realm, it was certain that the punishment would be many times worse than anything losing to an invader would do.

Julia did have a bit of leeway, which is why we mentioned 'hints'. While she couldn't outright teach the Oracle spells, she could give advice such as "concentrate" or "focus". If these simple and non-specific orders happened to result in improved skills, it would be a happy accident. We had all of the specifics about the rules drilled into our heads during this past week, so we were well aware of the limits on what we could say. If someone were to break the rules, it was assumed to be intentional.

Restrictions were a bit looser while actively engaging in battle. Rulers are free to give any information about the battlefield and act as a sort of commander for their Oracle. This was another benefit to staying on the defensive; defending rulers could see everything going on in their realm, while the invading ruler could only see from their Oracle's line of sight.

"Maybe you'll get lucky and not get invaded? I mean, if others have the same strategy as us, there might not be too many people attacking," I said optimistically.

"... There's a chance, but honestly, I doubt I'll be that lucky," Julia sighed and turned toward me, "What about you? Do you think you'll be fine against Levon?"

"Oh, yeah definitely. Honestly, I'd be surprised if he even manages to get through the buffer zone just given the climate. If it was anyone else, I'd feel bad about handing them a Tier III punishment, but he deserves it. Really deserves it. Really really-"

"Yes, yes, I know," Julia interrupted me and rolled her eyes jokingly, "You've been talking about how much you hate him all week."

"... Gross. Was I really?"

"Mhm."

"I'm so sorry for tainting your adorable elf ears with talk about him. After today, you'll be the only one on my tongue!"

"... Did you have to word it like that?" Julia muttered- hiding her face behind her hands.

"I have no idea what you're talking about," I feigned ignorance, "By the way, your ears are red-"

"N-no they're not! Stop looking!"

As I struggled not to laugh at her flustered expression, the sheep instructor walked in.

"Good morning, Seedlings! As you all know, the battle preparation phase will begin following the conclusion of this class. If you are attacking, make sure to select your opponent as soon as possible or you may risk someone else stealing your target. I know that you are all anxious about the competition, but we still have a class to do, so please be patient."

Her lecture went by in the blink of an eye as she started a new unit focusing on battle strategies. I wrote down a few things, but ultimately, it was nothing ground-breaking.

"That just about wraps it up. Remember, Seedlings- no matter what happens during the competition, I expect you all to behave in this class tomorrow. Make the Founder proud- class dismissed!"

The moment those words left her mouth, a loud "Return to domain!" was shouted from nearly all of the creatures. It took less than a second for most of the lecture hall to be empty.

Well... there goes the hope about not many people attacking.

"Julia-"

"I know," she cut me off with a look of sadness on her face.

"...I'll be rooting for you. No matter what happens, I know you'll be okay- I know they'll be okay. They do take after you, after all."

I put out my arms and Julia quickly grabbed me into a hug; her slender arms lightly squeezed my sides.

Gently, I rubbed her back as we sat there.

This girl was completely beating me up in training yesterday. How can someone be so tough yet so fragile at the same time?

I pulled her a bit closer, her body was fully in my arms now.

There's nothing I want to do more than protect her... but there's nothing more I can do now.

"It's in your hands now. We worked so hard for this moment- all of the training, the strategies, the lectures... you did your best through all of it. Now you just need to put it together."

I felt her head slightly nod on my chest.

"Whether you win or lose, I'll be waiting here after the battle to give you another hug just like this. Everything will be okay," I finished.

Julia slowly released her grip and separated herself.

"...Thank you, Jacob. Really," she said while raising her head to meet my eyes.

A faint smile was plastered on her adorable face, along with a light blush spreading from her cheeks to her ears.

"You know you don't need to thank me, I'm just doing what I want. Good luck, Julia. I believe in you!"

Her smile deepened slightly- her face which was filled with despair at the end of the class was almost back to its usual glory.

"You too, Jacob. Go crush that lizard!"

My god she is so cute.

"I'll do my best!" I said with a laugh.

With one last quick hug, we both went back to our domains.

What the heck is this?

Instead of the darkness that usually greeted me when I went back to my domain, the room was illuminated by a red hue.

On the screen that normally displayed my realm was a projection of a certain red salamander. The words "Invasion Imminent" were plastered beneath the picture in red writing.

"Ew... please tell me I can get rid of that," I muttered while walking over to my desk, "This dude couldn't even wait a minute before sending that thing."

Luckily, it only took me a few minutes of messing around before I was able to successfully clear the warning. The flashing red warning lights soon halted and the room receded into the darkness that I had grown so used to.

That's a bit better... but something's not right. Wait a second-

"Oi! Mister Flippers? Where did you go?" I called out for the missing penguin.

No answer.

Where the heck is he? I know he didn't fly away...

My eyes shifted to the massive ice palace behind me.

Right-

I opened the palace doors and walked inside.

"Mr. Flippers? You here?"

I made my way through his living room, kitchen, and private pool, but he was nowhere to be seen. I continued up the staircase, checking every room on every floor as I went by until I eventually reached his bedroom on the top floor.

Knock! Knock! Knock!

"Mr. Flippers? Are you in there?"

After waiting for a few moments, I decided to open the door. His room was absolutely massive and filled with various decorations including paintings, stacked stones, and even a few ice sculptures of penguins.

Although I originally thought the room was empty, my focus shifted to the giant bed tucked against the wall.

Squatting down, I checked under it. Sure enough, a tiny black and white creature was curled up shaking.

"... What are you doing, Mr. Flippers?"

"Squawk!" The penguin immediately turned around with eyes full of fear.

After realizing it was me, he slid out from under his bed and jumped into my arms.

Man, I really am getting a lot of hugs today.

"Squawk! Squawk!"

"It's okay, I'm here- don't worry." I said gently, holding the tiny creature, "You really are scared of that guy, aren't you?"

"Squawk!"

"Mhm. You being under the bed is just a coincidence then. I totally believe that," I responded to his denial with a sigh and made my way over to his balcony.

Seeing that the warning lights and Levon projection were gone seemed to calm down the tiny penguin and he soon wiggled out of my arms.

"It's about time we get ready to fight that guy. Wanna come help me get ready?"

"Squawk!"

With a small bundle of enthusiasm by my side, I returned to my desk and began scouting my realm.

A lot of changed in terms of development over the last week. For starters, the humans finally advanced enough to start building somewhat adequate shelters. They sort of resembled tipis- their cone-like shapes dotted the plateau. Probably because large animal hyde was practically nonexistent, the walls between the sticks were covered by a mixture of leaves and sheets of bark.

These homes extended past the plateau. As I predicted, the exploration of the continent had begun roughly 5,000 years ago in mortal time. A few small settlements now dotted the land- some had even managed to cross the big river splitting the continent thanks to a landslide creating a pathway. The mysteries of fire were not yet understood by the young humans, and although they settled both in the east and west, they did not venture far north due to the colder winter climates.

That's not to say that fire was not made occasionally- I witnessed a few accidentally whack some of the flint I scattered around leading to some unfortunate events. It was figuring out how to utilize this fire and how to make it reliably that they had yet to grasp so far.

Due to the majority of the humans being concentrated around the plateau which was warm year round, it was very difficult for them to find a use for the flames. Fire was simply not essential to their survival. If any human were to realize the importance of such a resource, it would be one from an adventurous group that journeyed far away.

In fact, the most advanced humans in general on the continent would not be found near the temple. There were no real threats the people in that area had to face- the weather was perfect, the food outside of the plateau was plentiful, and there were no predators to speak of. It was sort of like a small Garden of Eden where the humans could live their lives without worry.

Did this help my population grow? Yes.

Did I enjoy seeing them happy and thriving? Also yes.

Did this also severely limit their development speed and stress me out? Bingo!

Without a sort of motivation to improve, people naturally seemed to keep to the status quo. The only major developments made on the plateau were the creation of tipis to protect the humans from rain and the invention of some small tools for hunting to solve their need for food. Had I made some sort of bigger threat, sure they would have struggled, but there was a great chance they would have been much further along than they were now.

And so, my search for an Oracle led me to one location. It was the spot on the continent with the greatest threat: the mountain range up north.

It was currently early summer on the continent which meant the mountain chickens were in full hunting mode. Both the males and females had come down from the mountain range and the young hatchlings were learning how to hunt. I had watched this scene thousands of times- the mountain chicken families which had spent the entirety of the winter fighting each other all unitedly descended the mountains in one giant herd. If one were to see it for the first time, they might mistake the scene with a massive avalanche with all of the stampeding chickens.

This giant herd would usually stay together until they all crossed the northern river which ran eastward to the gulf. Unlike the massive river that split the continent in half, this one was relatively shallow and could be crossed at many different points.

The stampede is terrifying but oddly beautiful. It's a bit annoying too, though. I have no idea how my humans will ever be able to settle north of the river with that happening every year.

Knowing that the river was the furthest point where I could find a human, I decided to start my search there and work my way south.

This might take a bit...

"Keep an eye out in case I miss anything, Mr. Flippers," I said as I slowed down my domain time to match the realm.

"Squawk!"

The penguin stared at the screen with an intense focus looking for any signs of humans.

He's so cute.

I moved the screen around the continent in rows going left to right then going slightly south if nothing was found.

Hours quickly passed, then days, then weeks. I was not too worried about the time with the hour I had left before I could choose an oracle being equivalent to almost 42 years in the domain. Of course, Mr. Flippers and I took breaks, so we weren't staring at the screen nonstop. Eventually, I sped up the domain time a bit to motivate myself to hurry up and witnessed the chickens' cycle repeat many times. We continued to scout the wilderness despite this. The size of the continent could not be underestimated and I was being very cautious- if I wanted to spot a lone human, I needed to be extremely zoomed in.

"Squawk!"

"Good eye, Mr. Flippers!"

Finally, after years had passed in the realm, we caught our first sight of humans. It was a group of about 6 people and they were stealthily moving through the cherry tree forest with clubs and rocks in their hands. Judging by a carcass one of them held, it appeared that they were hunting chickens.

It's a bit further south than I thought. No wonder it took so long to find these guys.

Their location was roughly 500mi to the north and slightly to the east of the star-shaped plateau. Since all of the people hunting were male, I figured that they had a settlement nearby. I watched them hunt for a while, and sure enough, they made their way back to a small group of tipis before nightfall. 

It was a pretty sweet sight- the women and children welcomed the hunters with open arms and cheered when they held up the slain chickens.

Using the mouse, I clicked on a certain icon on my monitor allowing me to hear their cheers. I had found this function a while back and had actually been learning their language as they developed it. Although I was able to understand their speech instinctively just like I could with the other creatures in the academy, I felt that since they were trying so hard to communicate, I should at least take part in their efforts.

Their language was rusty to put it lightly- the vocabulary was extremely limited and the grammar was fairly inconsistent and convoluted. It was entirely expected though; language itself had only been invented 10,000 years ago in the realm and optimizing their communication would take far longer than that.

Still, what they had put together was enough to get the general idea of what they wanted to say across.

The small community of roughly thirty people gathered around a bundle of sticks and leaves as one hunter lit it ablaze with a few smacks of flint. 

This group knows how to use fire? I guess it makes sense considering how far north they are, but how didn't I see this earlier?

When I was looking for humans, the first thing I looked for was signs of smoke. It didn't even need to be said that the search came out empty-handed. It must've been an extremely recent development in the realm.

I listened to their conversations while basking in the pleasant surprise, as they sat around the fire eating the chickens. It appeared the women gathered some mushrooms and cherries to go along with it.

"Kungu uun lun opu kon du"

"Huga can uun fignis! Raa~"

"Urgu urgu! Uunga cag? Sun Uunga cag?"

The community was interrupted by one woman frantically calling out.

She's looking for someone.

"Uunga? Ah. Kun kow..."

"Uunga no."

"Uunga uun tine kon ru!"

Contrary to her desperation, the men dismissed her- some even seemed to be annoyed at the mention of this person.

Dejectedly, the woman sat back down and slowly picked on her piece of chicken as a nearby woman placed her hand on her back. The dinner continued as night fell upon the settlement.

Just as they began to finish their food, a small figure approached the fire with its hand behind its back.

The kid looked to be no older than seven, yet scrapes and bruises covered his body.

"Uunga!" The woman shot up and ran towards the boy.

She pulled him in for a hug as the community looked over with varying expressions.

This must be a common thing... she really needs to keep better track of her kid.

Ignoring the embrace, the kid revealed his hand from behind his back- the corpse of a chicken coming into the view of those around the fire.

The community that was flooded with chatter just moments before fell silent.

"Uunga!"

"Ra~"

"Cok kun tine Uunga!"

Cheers quickly echoed through the night.

I pulled my attention away from the screen and my eyes immediately met Mr. Flippers' who sat on my lap.

We found our Oracle.

HypnoticNovels

After so long- Uunga is finally here!!! Oh my god, I have been so excited to introduce him :D hopefully, you guys will like this little guy as much as I do. I actually like this chapter a ton! I re-read all of mine to look out for mistakes before I post them, and I guess this slipped under the radar for me! It's nearly 3,500 words too which is a bit crazy. This chapter marks the start of my absolute favorite arc in anything that I have ever written! The quality should be so much better than at the beginning of this series too, so I am so excited for you guys to read this :D . Thank you guys for sticking with me throughout all of the introduction- the competition starts here!