Truthfully, it wasn't very bad, nor should it have become this bad anyway. However, what had expedited the process of the depletion of what was arguably his main and most precious resource was his own actions of terraforming.
Darius walked forward, each step landing on the air in front of him as if invisible steps existed that took him higher and higher into the firmament. Soon, he was walking solidly on the air high above the settlement with no conceivable effort as he gazed around.
Outside his little settlement, one could see endless ranges of trees and forest that went on for miles and miles in every direction. He was practically surrounded by it.
Beneath these trees were fields of grass that carpeted the entire area for more than 20 kilometers in all directions. Most of these trees were bearing fruits like apples, peaches, and so on trees, forming an orchard in many places.
With his careful nurturing over the years, it had grown expansively. Darius turned to check those huge pools of water he had created only to see that they no longer existed.
They had been filled up by earth, the water inside long turning into rain that spread itself over the entire land. In fact, there were some clearings within the surrounding forest where the water had gathered into small pools.
Now this was great, because the climate around his settlement had largely stabilized and become much better, but there were many problems that Darius noticed which could cause adverse reactions he couldn't even predict.
Firstly, he now had to traverse more than 20 kilometers to gather any amount of sand needed for anything. This was not a problem as long as he used Blink, as he only needed five jumps to make that journey.
Not too many things needed to be generated from nothing except the diesel which was why he was unsatisfied with his method of energy generation. For most other things that were fixed, he only had to shift them back to their opposite and then change them back to fix things.
For example, if he was fixing a faulty metallic part in a generator, all he had to do was turn it off, transform the weary and offending party to stone, and then right back to metal.
No loss of quantity and when it was changed, it would retain its purity thanks to the power of the Material element and mana. This made it infinitely sustainable, at least as long as a competent Material element user was around.
It was resources that were consumable/depletable that was a problem.
Thanks to the Pulse spell, water was not a problem and it could produce the oils he needed through the Water to Oil spell, meaning that even though diesel was consumable, it would be renewable to infinitum as long as he possessed mana.
The crops too were fine. They had formed their own system thanks to the good soil and the endless supply of clean water as well as sunlight. When harvested, their seeds could be taken to plant the next generation of crops, the extras were also planted in new spots to expand his fields.
Now, the harvest could likely feed an actual town with ease. Not to mention he had added a variety of products in order to expand his palate with the help of his Pebbles to Seeds spell.
The second issue plaguing this world, was the lack of a complete ecosystem. It was a terrible defect, because everything here had been artificially created. There was no real nature, and everything would crumble in months without Darius' input.
Yes, there was a forest, but it was devoid of any bugs, rodents, or birds. Could you comprehend how horrifying such a deficiency was? Bugs were needed to pollinate flowers and fruits, rodents would form the bottom of the food chain in the forest floor and allow predators to exist while living off the produce of the forest.
Birds were the most important, as they provided music and life to a forest. Not to mention that when they flew around they introduced new elements from other developed ecosystems to this one, allowing the entire ecosystem to adapt to new changes and progress.
So as you could imagine, without these, the entire world was deathly silent. When it was nighttime, the trees would sway in the breeze that was created from their processes that now made this area quite fresh and windy, but it would sound ominous to the ears of the knowing.
However, it was even more chilling because one knew that there was nothing there at all, no evil trees or ghosts or the like hiding in the dark. After all, that was the problem, apart from some artificially created and maintained trees, there was NOTHING.
This wasn't something that bothered Darius as it sort of resembled the divide between the world and the Divine Glade. In fact, Darius sometimes took a stroll through the ominous and dark forest calmly in order to feel something.
He saw it as training his mettle by adapting to the situation, the challenge lying in not easily losing his sanity, Nevertheless, as strong as his will was, Darius was beginning to feel the negative effects of long term isolation like this, especially since he knew how absolute it was.
However, this should be impossible right? Even in Ludo, an actual desert continent, there were oases here and there, such places had wildlife that migrated from elsewhere.
So with such a big forest popping up here, there should be a slow migration of wildlife from all places until it became full. That wildlife would then complete the ecosystem and the forest would expand on its own without Darius' input.
And that led to the third problem, which was the direst one.
This world was not natural, normal nor perfect. It was a mirage realm made in - likely - Darius' mind which allowed him to use all his abilities. It was just a desert, but one that was endless.
So his sand problem wasn't really a problem, he would just have to go out further and further to get more sand, but one could say that this world was like a sandbox that expanded infinitely based on the distance he traveled.
