I’ve been sitting here for two and a half hours, just focusing on growing out the twigling. Most of the time was spent growing the base structure it’s attached to under the ground. It’s a giant ball of roots storing a lot of nutrition. My best guess would be it’s like some kind of base station for the things, it probably needs to recharge every once in a while. At first this was interesting, but this last stint is going to make my head roll off my shoulders, it’s so tedious. I wonder if I can speed this up at all. Maybe if I push more mana into it? I’ve used the magic enough to get a feel for the reserve of mana within me. I have a good grasp on where it is, though I don’t think it’s physically there per say, it’s complicated as hell. Either way I think I can give it a bit of extra oomph, but I don’t know if that will move it along faster, only one way to find out.

I try pushing more mana into the outgoing stream, to my relief it works, but only so much. It’s like using a muscle, a muscle that I have never used before. I can feel myself quickly tiring out, I won’t be able to hold the increased rate for more than a minute at most. The best I can compare it to would be pushing against an inflatable that you are trying to get the air out of. Except this inflatable is filled with mana and refilling faster than it could possibly empty. It’s pushing back, and eventually I get tired and can’t exert the force required to keep pushing. I let out a huff, feeling exhausted not physically or mentaly but, spiritually I guess? I don’t know what part of me deals with mana, but it’s exhausted right now. Maybe in a few minutes I can give it another go.

Speaking of going, the construction did in fact speed up. That little minute of pushing took off about four minutes of waiting. I wonder if there are other ways of speeding this up, maybe leveling the skill? The description says it makes it more mana efficient with every level, nothing about speeding it up, so probably not. Speaking of leveling up I need to spend those points I got today, but what should I put them into. Blend is always a candidate, but I wonder if I can level up my spells at all, they don’t display anything when I look at the spell list. Maybe I need to level it up before it shows. I know universal understanding did that initially. Well, I think I’ll try to put one point into weak heal and see if it takes. I try to push a point into it and to my surprise it takes.

Skill points: 42

******************************************************************************

* Spell List-Life Magic:

* Weak Heal - Level: 2

* Weak Regeneration - Level: 1

* Weak Cleanse Disease - Level: 1

* Weak Cleanse Poison - Level: 1

* Weak Body Reinforcement - Level: 1

* Weak Body Enhancement - Level: 1

* Weak Body Focusing - Level: 1

Ok, what the hell! Why didn’t show the levels before, god damn this buggy piece of crap! Uggg, now I got so much more shit I need to level. All of my spells now show as level one. I can level them but they don’t have descriptions, so I have no idea what the hell leveling them even does. I’ll deal with that pain in the ass later. Right now, I got forty two points and a few skills to spend them on. Of course, none of my paladin skills can be upgraded. So that leaves me with the general skills. Blend is a good candidate, never hurts to be better hidden, maybe less discoverable would be a better way of putting it. Plant forming is not up there on the list currently, I generate enough mana to keep things building for now. Mobile podding is also up there on the importance scale. I don’t know if I’ll ever need to bail out quickly on a moment's notice but having that skill unleveled if that happens would be a death sentence. So for now, I think I’ll max blend and invest the rest into mobile podding. I shove points into blend until it maxes out then swap over to put a level on mobile podding. Unfortunately, I only have four points left over from blend so I only get the one level on mobile podding. A bit annoying, but at least I can sleep knowing that people won't just randomly discover me when I walk through town, hopefully.

General skills:

* Universal Communication – Level: 1 (Max)

* Blend – Level: 10 (Max)

* Plant Forming – Level: 1(+)

* Mobile Podding – Level: 4(+)

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So, I got a bit distracted. How much time did I lose on my little construction project? I give my current project a quick look and see that it only slowed down a little. Maybe I’m a good multi tasker? I kept willing it to build in the back of my mind while I was focusing on other things, looks like that was enough to keep it going, albeit slower than the regular pace. Maybe fifteen more minutes of tedium and I’ll get to play god. Get it, because I'm creating life? I’m losing my marbles, telling jokes to myself then asking if I understand them. I’m going to need therapy when this is over, lots of therapy.

Hmm, therapy reminds me of Alex’s leg. I wonder if he will need physical therapy now that the leg is fixed, or does magical bullshit cover all that? Uggg, I’m an information tech major, not a damn nursing student. Well I’m a delusional plant monster lady now, so it might be more apt to say I was an infotech student. Well, I guess it could be worse, I could have been turned into some non-humanoid monster. Imagine being turned into a slime, I mean it was a good read, but holy crap that would suck in reality. Especially out here, where everything wants to kill me.

I need to find something to do, if I keep loathing I’m going to spiral and that won't end well. I need a few things, and after the goblin encounter today I realize a shield is one of them. So, let me see if I can make myself a shield. This is also a good opportunity to test if I can build two things at once. I pick out the tree in my field with the sturdiest bark and start trying to shape it. Immediately the work on the twigling stops as I feel all my effort redirect to work on the shield. I try to split the effort fifty fifty but only succeed in jumping back and forth between the two rapidly. So, that’s a no go. Damn, I was hoping I could multitask it at least. Well I started on the shield so I might as well finish it.

I divert all my attention to the shield. Now what do I want it to look like? Let’s just go for a simple round shield for now, I know normally you want to strap the shield to your arm but I’m just going to have to make due with a single handle in the middle for now. Once I have the image solidified in my head I start trying to make it as dense as possible. It’s actually fairly quick with my new skill and within a minute it’s as tough as it’s going to get at my current level. Then I shrink the parts still connected to the tree until it breaks away from the tree, emitting a small thunk as it hits the ground. Now that that is done I go back to working on the Twigling. Only ten more minutes to go.

It’s the slowest ten minutes of my life as I watch with massing anticipation the closer my creation gets to being completed. Finally it’s finished and I feel a new presence of sorts on my network. It’s the twigling, it’s alive but, I don’t know if I would classify this guy as sentient. It’s like I’m looking at a machine, he will follow orders, but will only do something proactively if it’s a part of his programming or orders. No free will, and minimal intelligence, I honestly should have expected that. I don’t know what I was expecting, maybe a friend? Someone to talk to? Well that puts a hole in my enthusiasm, well I can still probably find a use for these guys. They are customizable, both them and their base station. I can probably whip something more impressive, and maybe a little smarter, at a later date. For now let's take this bad boy for a test drive.

Twigling (Lesser) (Level: 1)

I call out to the twigling over the network, getting its attention. It turns its metaphorical gaze to me, waiting for orders. I tell it to go pick up my shield, it stops for a moment, then responds. It doesn’t know what or where the shield is. OK, I guess that makes sense. It wasn’t alive when I made the shield. I wonder if I can tell it over the network. I wonder how I would go about doing such a feat when it suddenly occurs to me that I already know how to do it. Got to love instincts, I think it’s instincts, either way works for me. I tell the twigling to go get my shield and bring it back over to me, while also transmitting the information on where the shield is to it. It’s weird, it’s almost like transmitting a thought and memory over the network. I don’t know how that even works, much less how it can comprehend my knowledge in such a way. But it is working, the twigling has made his way outside the hedges and is walking towards the shield. Once it gets there it picks it up, turns back around , and walks it back over to my pod. Once it gets here it just stands there, holding my shield by the edges and upside down. I order it to place the shield down on the ground, and it just drops it straight onto the floor. Yea, low intelligence, but I might be able to work with this.

I start production on a second one in the background while I keep messing around with the first. I give it orders to pick up the shield again, which it does but is still holding it the wrong way. I tell it how to hold the shield but it doesn’t respond, so I order it to hold the shield properly. Only then does it correctly hold the shield by the handle. But it’s holding the shield at an odd angle, oh boy it’s going to be a long day.