Naia was not a vet, nor did she study much on this before, so she wasn’t sure how to deal with this. Should she just bring it back to a vet?

Would it be able to handle the movement? Even with her unprofessional eyes, she could tell that it was dying.

Then she remembered her space. When she thought of it, her gaze ended up on the mother-snake, and then...it disappeared.

"..."

It was more of an instinctive reaction, and she immediately got nervous when she realized what she had done.

After all, she had tried placing animals inside—Big C’s chick—but to no avail. What if she ended up harming it now?

The dad snake panicked, making hissing sounds, and she ignored it, heading straight to the space to check up on it.

She found the snake under the mango tree, and she could hear the buzzing of the bees above as they hovered around their hive.

There were plenty of fallen fruit now. Except for a few that burst, the others should still be fine to eat. The number of bugs in her space was minimal, so the fallen fruits were not immediately targeted and ruined by them.

The space did not have an automatic cleaning function like in those novels, but when it came to the ’green area’, she adopted a more leisurely attitude. For the fallen fruit she didn’t pick up, she’d let the bugs eat it and let it nourish the soil. Now, if animals get in, they could eat it too.

Naia walked over the snake and was relieved to see it was fine. Its condition wasn’t exactly improved, but this meant she could at least bring it back to a vet without worrying about rough travel.

"Are you alright?" She asked, touching the snake with her gloved hand.

Hiss

The mother didn’t seem to be in worse pain than it already was. Rather, it seemed to be a little more stable than before. Even if it was out of its familiar nest, it did not show panic. It must’ve instinctively realized that she was not going to be harmed.

Her intuition was telling her it would not get worse in her space. In fact, she could feel the vague energy of her space start to condense a bit more around the snake, but she didn’t have the leisure time to study this.

The dad-snake must be panicking to death.

She went out, heard the frantic hissing, and then placed it into her space. She went back to check and then set up blockages so they didn’t go beyond this area.

Her space had a lot of new area now, but to outsiders it was an empty void for now. Only Naia could see the overlay over the outside world.

She looked at the couple again, this time not worried about harm coming to her anymore. Any critter that entered her space, it seemed, would not be able to harm her. She didn’t know the limitations or exact implications for this, but it was convenient enough for her.

Regardless, for the wild snakes, this was a safe place for them. The snake seemed to recognize this, and it coiled around her feet. "Well, you look comfortable," she said, chuckling. "Do you want to stay?"

They hissed, and she could sense it was in agreement. However, she had not forgotten these were predators—poisonous ones at that.

"You cannot attack anyone, anything, or take anything without permission, okay?"

By this time, she had more idea that she could really control bugs, but she wasn’t sure how effective it was for the small animals yet.

She studied them, thinking about the sustainability of this. She couldn’t consider them as an emergency meat supply because they were smart and sentient.

But taking them in would mean more mouths to feed. If she had unlimited resources, why would she not want to preserve as many species as she could?

She thought about it and decided to allow an ecosystem to exist. She already had a small section of forest with the bees. She also took in a small patch of land with different flowers for them.

She studied the plants, and they were growing well and quickly, so she didn’t have to worry about the lack of sun. The plans for an ecosystem was also to make sure that even if she took in animals, she wouldn’t have to worry about their food and water. She just needed to set an area for them, let them live on their own.

Anyway, the space’s vitality was strong. She didn’t believe it only affected plants.

To further enrich the ecosystem, she captured more patches of forest, taking about a hundred square meters per area, and took different patches from different places. She ended up with several hundred square meters of new forest area, which was a small fraction of her new acre-large space.

In this area, she took in a nice pond. It was not big, not even two meters in its largest diameter, but it was deep. It was more than 2 meters deep, and she later realized it was spring-fed. This meant that it would recover on its own, and she did not have to feel guilty about taking a water source from the animals.

As for replenishing it, it didn’t look like there would be rain in her small space, so she’d set up an AWG and let one of them drip down to the pond. As long as she had solar panels in her space, electricity would work.

After some time, she realized that the reason why her space felt like an overlay over the real world was that it technically was. It was like folding a paper in broad daylight, slightly unfolding it, and let people look over at different angles. They would see different sides, but all sides would still receive sunlight.

What excited her the most was that, even after taking in this much forest area, it didn’t affect her as much! Before, even absorbing a small part would’ve made her faint. Now, she just felt a little tired, like she had just gone through a long run with weights.

She ended up taking in a few other animals as well, including rabbits and squirrels. The biggest one was a lone deer...

And there were a few nests in areas she did not see. Plenty of birds were also taken in those few hundred square meters of forests, and the biggest one was actually an eagle!

It had a family there, which was quite amusing.

"Do not eat and capture more than you need," she ordered and finally left to continue walking to her trike. She did not bother to blink. She needed to preserve as much as she could if they encountered actual danger rather than her just being lazy to walk.

When her trip was just about to end, she felt alarmed and moved sideways.

Her peripheral vision caught an arm about to grab her.

She followed her instincts and pushed the stretched arm forward, bending her arm to use her elbow to attack the opponent’s neck.

Her retaliation invited more retaliation, and somehow they engaged in a full-on fight.

PAK!

BAM!

SLAM!

The other party kept trying to get a hold of her, to restrain her, while she refused to be held back regardless of how much she hurt the other party.

Things happened quickly, so she couldn’t get a good look at the enemy, who was really strong and skilled, and could only focus on his attacks. 𝐟𝚛𝕖𝚎𝕨𝗲𝐛𝚗𝐨𝐯𝐞𝕝.𝐜𝗼𝗺

If there were an outside there, their eyebrows would rise because of the speed of exchange happening. It simply wasn’t something you see often, even among fighting experts.

Naia did notice that there were no murderous attempts here, so while she tried to get an upper hand, she didn’t make excessively morbid moves either.

If she did, she’d have long summoned a random crate and crushed the opponent to bits.

At the same time, she couldn’t stop and initiate a peace talk either. It was just a reflex on her side. She might, however, stop if the other party did it first.

Sadly, he did no such thing.

PAK!

SLAM!

Naia was smaller, so when it came to a battle of brute strength, she was at a disadvantage. However, she had rich combat experience, most of which stemmed from life and death situations, so she had plenty of ways to go around this.

She could time the enemy momentum well, redirecting it away from her as needed, causing the enemy to waste energy instead.

However, she was fine at the beginning, but eventually the gap showed. Naia might be skilled, but her body was not trained. It was the classic case of the brain knowing what to do, but the body struggling to follow.

BANG!

One wrong, or lagging, move, and she found herself pushed against a tree and rotated, her hands pulled behind her back.

She felt the man’s breath behind her, encasing her small frame.

Her eyes sharpened, wondering whether to release the bee or the snake or use her ability to escape when—

"FREEZE! POLICE!"