Because the Holy Stars had settled hundreds of planets, Chiara had gotten the idea that it was easy. Obviously it was a large project that would take a lot of work, but people knew what they were doing. First Sprout shouldn't have been any different.

Except… finding experts was difficult. Apparently, they didn't tend to reach higher cultivation levels and many of them had passed away due to age. One of the downsides of the old way of doing things, unfortunately. Martial pursuits were treated as above all forms of cultivation, leaving those who wanted practical things to scrounge for themselves. It wasn't too big of a problem when the worlds were brimming with excess spiritual energy.

The people Chiara had weren't incompetent. They were skilled and they were doing their best, but there were a million problems they hadn't anticipated. That might not even be an exaggeration- and she didn't necessarily have to count the same sort of problem twice. Healthy ecosystems needed thousands of species of animals- planets needed millions. And that was just animals. That wasn't plants, fungi, and the various other forms of life that made things up.

Chiara only took the highest priority tasks each day- she did try to get competent subordinates after all. But ultimately, there were some things that needed a wider sweeping authority or some sort of additional context to deal with.

"Okay, so," Chiara avoided holding her head in her hands just because her image was important. She wasn't trying to be a divinity, but she at least wanted to be respected. "The problem here is… plants aren't growing because there are too many birds eating the seeds before they sprout. Which in turn leads to seasons of feast and famine for the birds, and the things that eat the birds, and then inevitable dieoff and the fields are years behind schedule."

"More or less, Holy Settler," the woman said. The title wasn't one Chiara had chosen, nor was she quite certain she wanted it. But people were comfortable with it, and she didn't have a strong enough objection to make them stop. "Normally, it isn't an issue. With higher levels of natural energy, the plants sprout more quickly. Once they are past the seed stage, they can't be consumed. And birds would need to eat fewer of them. They wouldn't reproduce quite as much… and so on."

"And we need the plants to improve natural energy levels," Chiara said. "I'll… figure out a solution."

The forests were doing better than the fields, but only just. Humans needed both, and the whole point of this planet was to settle it for humans. They weren't creating a wildlife preserve, though she understood that the Lower Realms Alliance did such things.

The frustrating part was that solutions were only ever a step away. The tasks weren't insurmountable. Humans had done this over and over. However, the Holy Stars had only ever settled systems with already high natural energy. That was why they needed the techniques that the Lower Realms Alliance had for building things from low energy levels.

All of the information was available. Using it didn't actually bother Chiara, since the whole point of what they were doing was to prove the value of the techniques. The real issue was that she needed people with experience making use of this style of living. Whole planet or distributed system energy growth with a focus on stability. She could take the information, but she couldn't just take the people or it wouldn't be the Holy Stars doing the work.

But the problems were piling up. Chiara had to find a balance of success and failures over time. She also had to decide precisely how much direct aid to accept from the Alliance. They had experienced people who had solutions for all the listed problems. The information was available to the Holy Stars… but people needed to thoroughly follow decade long training courses. Some were more.

It was like trying to teach millions of people new cultivation styles without a master. No, it wasn't like that. That was exactly what was going on. The information was available and the Alliance wasn't shy with notes. Chiara just needed to accept more training sessions or question and answer sessions. It was a difficult balance.

All that, and she had to train her ability to work with people. She didn't lack social skills previously, but there was a large difference between a functional member of society, a talented manager, and actual social cultivators. If she was good, she could spot problems before they grew. Solve the real issues brought to her that weren't always stated.

She was actually learning. And she had to, because they were coming upon First Sprout's two decade mark. They really should have something to show for it. Obviously a fully developed planet could take centuries, but they still had people living out of prefab buildings. If the atmosphere hadn't already been stable, they might have ruined the development already. As it was, they might be ruining it.

Chiara hadn't even gotten to the human caused problems. She wasn't talking about poachers or infighting and things like that. Those things could be handled. Humans doing things wrong on purpose was actually a very small portion of their negative impact. It was the unintentional things that were causing the most trouble.

Humans needed to eat, so they fished and trapped and hunted. The Holy Stars had some idea of how much they should consume, and they weren't wiping out ecosystems or anything… but they were causing significant side effects. The problem was side effects. Traps could catch the wrong sorts of animals. Debris from construction could ruin animal habitats- or make them think that the debris was their habitat, even though it might only be around temporarily.

Animals had to be relocated, which took time. Fishing lines tied up sea mammals. Birds ate trash because they didn't know it wasn't food. The total number of incidents wouldn't be too bad if it was only limited to mundane incidents, but they were cultivators. Materials could be charged with natural energy. Chunks of material from faulty formations could ruin the energy flow in an area. Creatures could mutate as they encountered unfamiliar natural energy and simply tried to cultivate instinctively. A balance would always be reached after some generations survived, but along the way many would die.

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And some would become dangerous to humans, leading to overreactions setting them back another few months here. A couple weeks there. A year for a lake as they accidentally flooded a valley. A volcano erupted at a bad time, and it might have been their fault. Either way, despite the ash being great fertilizer that also set back some of their projects as it was large enough to change the weather in neighboring regions during an important growing season.

Personally, Chiara thought she deserved to be an angel for not going crazy with how much could possibly go wrong with a simple colony establishment. She also needed this to work to give people hope- humans were drawn to growth, and she needed something to demonstrate to the Holy Stars since their old way had fallen apart.

At least others were more positive than her. People cycled in and out of the project, and most of them seemed to be bringing back positive reports of what they could do. The natural energy levels were rising, it just wasn't fast enough. And people might not be growing as fast as she would like. And then there were things outside the planets that were a problem, like a whole distortion beast nest that happened to drift by.

Devon said the Alliance wanted that for some reason. Chiara couldn't imagine why, but maybe they needed weird materials. Either way, it was one thing too many for the Holy Stars project at the moment… so she let it slide that she was technically receiving direct help there. They could have exterminated it themselves- though it would have taken Oriana's help most likely. Since the angels were all weak as hell.

-----

"Thanks for the nest!" Bear Hug said. "I can take it the rest of the way. Klar needs this one."

"You couldn't grab one from closer?" Devon asked. He had only dragged it a couple systems away- a rather short project- but he really did need to get back to Chiara within the week. Just in case something happened.

"Klar is the closest! We have others going as far as Aipra or the western reaches. The Holy Stars killed a lot of our distortion beasts during the war and the balance is all off."

"Ah… right." Devon wasn't involved with any of the distortion beast conservation projects… but he did understand the idea. They were part of the natural world. They were how Aipra got most of their new resources- at least traditionally. They could trade with the rest of the Alliance more easily now, with subspace travel being almost trivial. But they had a proud history. "Is it really that bad just from a short time?"

"Most of the distortion beasts were on the borders," Bear Hug explained. "They passed through and fought them. The Alliance didn't really keep many nests inside our territory because… well, you know. They're very bitey. Mostly, we're stopping future problems."

"I see. Does transplanting these nests ever cause problems?"

"All the time! They love to eat each other. I mean, they're doing it right now even. It's more when there are new ones. But our space beasties around Klar need to eat something besides each other sometimes. If they don't get enough subspace protein in their diet they might not maintain spacefaring capabilities."

"I have no idea how much of that you just made up," Devon said.

"Only a little bit of it! Did you know that upper realms sects are also concerned about distortion beasts dying out?"

"Who? The Disciples of the Beyond?"

"I'm pretty sure we killed them…" Bear Hug tilted their 'head'. "Either way, I don't talk to them. It's mostly people like the Dancing Slayer Sect doing the conservation work."

"The Dancing Slayer Sect… doing conservation."

"What would they hunt if everything was dead?" Bear Hug asked. "There are only so many nice planets like Second Gift. Sometimes we need to develop wild planets. Where everything has big teeth and wants to eat you. Or sometimes you need to fight a distortion beast in case you need an infinite number of mysterious bone spikes."

"Mysterious?"

"Mysterious," Bear Hug emphasized. "Anyway, just because they're really bad and nobody likes them doesn't mean nobody needs them. Even though they aren't ever peaceful and won't be my friend."

"Are you sure you can transport the nest?" Devon asked. "You're not a Unity cultivator."

"I don't get tired," Bear Hug said. "As long as I have enough of me resting. I'm way stronger than when we were doing Second Gift. Besides, I mostly have to push it around. Make sure it doesn't get snagged on any subspace tangles and stuff."

"And the distortion beasts?"

"I'm not going to be pushing them around. They'll just chase after me and try to eat me, I'll leave them behind and come back and push their nest a bit more."

-----

Bear Hug did all that, and almost never got any bits of them eaten. It really helped to have practice from Briar, though Briar didn't try to eat Bear Hug anymore because they were friends. It was only ever pretend.

These distortion beasts didn't pretend, though. They also didn't have the weaknesses that human cultivators had against Bear Hug- thinking Bear Hug had vital organs. Distortion beasts didn't know any of that stuff, so they just tried to annihilate and devour everything that they could sense. But at the same time, they were stupid. Or rather, they were called beasts for a reason. They didn't think, they didn't cultivate intentionally. Their growth sometimes came with weird things, but nothing like the insights that had been imbued upon them by the Disciples of the Beyond in the past. That bunch had been trouble, though Bear Hug hadn't fought them much.

It would have been very easy to ignore Distortion Beasts and let them die out. That would be a problem, though. Not just because Bear Hug liked their home system Klar and also Aipra and even more Paradise who ate a lot of them, but because forgetting about anything, no matter how weird, was a bad precedent. If they ignored the mere existence of distortion beasts, people might also follow up with other animals. Or people. People could be very different. Humans, Akrysians, other people that came from beasts like Fuzz's wolf family, void ants, plant adjacent people like Bear Hug, or maybe metal people like Reneden.

Of course, some might say that people and beasts were different, and they would be right. But it was about the attitude. If people didn't care about things, that might spread to other areas of life.

Also, while distortion beasts were usually existentially terrifying, Bear Hug also thought they were cute sometimes. But pretty much nobody agreed with that part.

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