Ch41. Shiba's Garden

After all the elves entered the portal, Rei followed, entering as the last one right after Solution, closing it behind himself. What greeted him on the other side flabbergasted him. The elves were all crying, some loudly wailing, others just silently standing in a daze with tears streaming down their cheeks, whereas a few of them even kneeled or sat on the ground with reverent expressions as they stared at the trees of the forest they were currently standing in.

Rei had an inkling of what caused these elves to be so emotional, after all, he could clearly feel the massive surge of nature magic flowing through the lands, but nevertheless, he approached Ylven who was one of those elves standing in a daze, silently crying. Unlike the others, she, however, didn't show reverence or awe. Her expression was firmly scrunched in confusion.

"What is happening with you?" Rei asked, causing Ylven to snap out of her dazed state and turn to him.

"I... I can't describe nor explain what I feel." Ylven said, clearly conflicted. "I am peaceful? At home? Soothed?" She furrowed her eyebrows, "What the heck is this!?" She asked Rei in panic.

Fortunately for the stupefied Rei, Kerith approached them, followed by her resurrected daughter, Kareath, a dark-skinned teenage girl with silver hair reaching her lower back decorated with occasional braids whose two purple eyes shyly stared at Rei with curiosity and gratefulness. She really resembled a teenage version of her mother with the sole difference that Kerith had shoulder-long hair and her eyes were not as bright as Kareath's.

"Milord, where are we? This feeling... it's even stronger than the feeling of peace and home of the sacred forests in the Draccia Empire where our village was located." Kerith asked, wonder apparent in her voice.

Rei had no idea what Draccia Empire was but from the context he guessed it was an empire of Dark Elves. As for why the Dark Elves were so emotional... 'So these sacred forests in their previous country were full enough of nature magic they made elves feel good at a spiritual level?' He inwardly reasoned, 'Considering this world is full of nature magic... yeah, that's the most logical explanation.'

"The feeling you are experiencing is thanks to the nature magic in this world," Rei started. Honestly, he was extremely surprised when he felt the sheer volume of nature magic coursing through the world. Even he, despite his level, was slightly overwhelmed. It was no wonder these low-level elves would feel as if they just stepped into paradise. Especially with their innate sensitivity towards this particular magic. The only question that remained in Rei's mind was where the hell did all this nature magic come from since it was definitely not supposed to be in here. "As for where we are... This is Shiba's Garden. My personal... world." He decided not to call it a personal dimension since he doubted the elves would understand.

Ylven's, Kerith's, and Kareath's eyes slightly widened when they heard Rei and that this blissful place belonged to him. In here, they felt wonderful!

Ylven slightly shuddered, realizing this was just another ploy of Rei to cement the loyalty of her tribe. 'With every move, he is ensuring the loyalty of the people. How many steps ahead did he plan?' She thought with bated breath, staring at Rei in awe. 'First the resurrection and now this... Isn't he just subtly giving my people more reason to worship him? What a terrifying man.' A spark of something indescribable, something she never experienced, appeared in her chest as she found herself unable to tear her eyes away from Rei.

Unknown to her, that couldn't be further from the truth as Rei really had no idea this would happen.

"We... we will live here from now on!?" Kareath excitedly exclaimed, loudly enough to attract the attention of many elves that gazed at Rei with eager anticipation, almost begging him to confirm it with their stares.

Rei chuckled, "Yes. This place will be your new home." He said, sending a wave of excitement through the crowd of dark elves.

To be perfectly honest, Rei wasn't truthful when Ainz asked him what skill he bound to himself with the [Potential to Reach the Heavens]. The [Last Man Casting] that enabled Rei to change his stamina into mana was not a skill he gained through that process. In fact, this skill was made for Rei on request after he used [Wish Upon a Star], and Rei only asked them to name it [Last Man Casting] because it was a good cover. Hence, despite giving Rei almost endless mana in a sense, this ability was not really as overpowered as Ainz thought. The developers would simply not make it so.

The real item Rei changed into a skill with the [Potential to Reach the Heavens] was not a World Item with powerful offensive nor defensive ability. Rei was deciding for a very long what item to use to get the most benefits out of it and in the end, the answer was simple. Power could be gained in many ways. What Rei really needed was access to resources. As such, the item Rei bound to himself and turned into a passive skill was called [Gateway to the Lost World: Shiba's Garden].

[Gateway to the Lost World] was an item that provided players in Yggdrasil with access to their personal farming pocket dimension that could be leveled up. At first, this pocket dimension was really shabby, small, and insignificant. It was also hard to level it up since it required a lot of EXP and resources so not many players bothered. Only people who loved crafting and needed a steady supply of rare resources put an effort into obtaining and leveling it up.

But even those hardcore crafters didn't level it up to the max level because of how ridiculously hard it was. The difficulty was somewhat justified though. In the later levels of this item, the developers gave the players the ability to build their own mini-world instead of just a small patch of land. It would be weird if they made it easy on them. The problem was... they didn't tell the players the later levels would enable them to do so.

[Gateway to the Lost World]'s max level was fifty which equaled to leveling up a character from 1 to 100 at least thirty times over and Rei spent three full years leveling up this personal pocket dimension before HeroHero gave him Solution. Even after that, most of the EXP Rei earned, did, in fact, go into improving this item as even after reaching max level, EXP and money could be used to increase the pocket dimension's size and its various features.

Most hardcore players only raised the level of this item to twenty which basically unlocked the ability to spawn a small amount of extremely rare and hard-to-find resources on daily basis. Then they stopped because of how much money and EXP the subsequent levels needed, hence, most people had no idea that from level forty and up, the small patch of land where a limited amount of resources could be placed to be gathered on daily basis would transform into a bonafide mini-world that would grow exponentially with every level-up.

While level twenty item contained just a small piece of land the size of a small island that contained five resources that renewed each day, Rei's level fifty with countless improvements was an actual small planet. It was the culmination of years worth of effort and nobody could complain since the shitty devs didn't set the limit to how much one could upgrade the farming place after reaching max level. Rei doubted the developers ever dreamed somebody would invest so much effort into a farming place.

For Rei, it was a no-brainer to bind [Gateway to the Lost World: Shiba's Garden] and change it into a skill. He put so much effort into building his own personal mini-world that endlessly spawned rare resources, it would be foolish to rely on an item to access it. After all, unlike skills, items can be easily stolen.