Gunther awoke to the sun shining on his face. It took him a moment to realise why he had been sleeping outside, but when he did, a smile crept back up on his face. It had been a small thing, but the scene of yesterday night had somehow calmed him down a bit. Ever since he had arrived on Elovar, he had been slightly tensed unconsciously. He felt different now. Not just because he had relaxed a bit, but also because of something else. He didn’t know what it was exactly, but the forest around him somehow seemed more friendly. Deciding to check his notifications for an explanation, Gunther read them.
Achievement gained: One with the forest
By forming a special connection with the world around you, you have earned the achievement One with the forest. Achievements are rare and whichever one you have gained will grant you with great boons. But beware, because as with everything else there are downsides as well.
Forest Connection unlocked:
You understand the forest and the forest understands you.
* Your mana regeneration is boosted by the plants around you
* The Wood Attunement skill has changed to Forrest Attunement
* If there are no plants around, your mana regeneration will be greatly diminished
* Using mana for anything but subskills of Forest Attunement will be harder and more expensive
Passive Skill Evolved: Wood Attunement becomes Forrest Attunement!
Forests are places full of life, but death is hidden within.
You can manipulate the forest using mana.
Gain understanding of forests with every level in this skill.
Become more powerful when inside a forest you know well.
Higher levels increase the boost gained by knowing the forest you are in as well as increasing your abilities regarding the manipulation of forests.
‘This is amazing! It’s almost like having a class, at least as far as I understand the benefits of those things. Too bad it doesn’t give me free skills and stat-points for killing monsters…’
Gunther then noticed some notifications telling him he had gotten two points in Intelligence, one in Wisdom and surprisingly three in Charisma.
‘It might be because I connected myself to so many flowers, since this world seems to consider plants sentient. Maybe there are sapient flowers or trees around here, or even Ents or Dryads. That would be amazing!’ Gunther thought, excited at the idea of meeting those mystical creatures.
Deciding to see what kind of difference the new skills and achievement made, Gunther walked towards his tree. He felt a bit stiff because he had slept on the ground, but it wasn’t actually much worse than his tree. He supposed he was lucky he hadn’t been eaten by some monster that came out at night.
Arriving at his tree, Gunther closed his eyes and felt for the tree with his mind like he had done for the flowers last night. He sensed it at once and was surprised at the ease of the progress. He had to put in a bit more effort to find the part of the tree where he had made the hole. He had just a vague idea of the location of the tree and its general shape, but eventually he found a part that somehow felt broken. Reaching out with his magic, again with an ease that hadn’t been there before, he instructed it to grow back in the way he wanted it. He tried to keep an image of how he thought the hole should look like in his mind. It took some time, but eventually he felt it was done. He didn’t really know how he knew, but he just did.
Opening his eyes, Gunther looked in surprise at the tree, the hole looked exactly as he had envisioned it. It was more detailed of course, because he wasn’t able to just create an image in his mind, but it was still very similar, almost eerily so. He rationalised it hadn’t been mind reading since he had imposed the vision onto the tree, but it was still a little unsettling to see something from his mind so directly implemented into the real world.
‘I guess that bit of work is done now, however creepy it may be. This achievement is really quite powerful, my mana is even fully replenished by now!’ With that thought, Gunther realised that if the achievement’s beneficial effects were so strong, its detrimental effects could also be really strong.
Slightly panicked, Gunther decided to try it. Taking a rock from the river which was about the same size as the first axe head he had blown to smithereens, he used his explosion skill.
Explosion deals 1 hp damage
‘Oh damn, that used to be 20 damage! Only five percent of the power remained? What about healing, will that also be so much less powerful?’ Giving that a try as well, he noticed it took him 20 mana just to heal that one hp. It was more than just a 95% reduction of efficiency, probably because the description of the achievement had also talked about an increase in mana cost.
‘This is bad. I need to find some other way to heal myself. Maybe there are plants with healing properties, those seem to be commonplace in most games at least.’
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Having realised the downsides of his new powers, Gunther was suddenly a lot less excited about the whole achievement business. He then remembered the skill telling him he would become more powerful if he knew the forest he was in better.
‘Exploring and searching for useful herbs or perhaps mushrooms seems like the best course of action then. I will have to find a way to defend myself first though, because I don’t think I will be able to take on even two rabbits, let alone more dangerous creatures. I also need a way to determine what herbs are useful and which ones are poisonous, but that will come later.’
Having decided on a course of action, Gunther calmed down a bit again. He started to think about his options, aided by his Analysation skill. Commanding the roots of the trees to constrict or pierce his enemies would probably be a no go for now, as would most direct applications of Plant Control. The skill was not suited for fast applications, or just too low level. All his other skills were practically useless because of the achievement. That left him with two options: using Forest Attunement to create a new subskill, or getting creative with Plant Control.
Deciding he’d rather wait with new subskills until he got some healing skill, in case there was a limited amount of slots available, Gunther went with the second option. Since using plants directly wouldn’t work, he had to find some way to prepare some attacks. The main problem with directly ordering the plants to attack was the lacking speed. The attacks would probably lack some punch as well, but that problem would already be partially solved if Gunther somehow managed to speed up his control significantly. Unfortunately, that didn’t really seem possible to achieve in a reasonable amount of time.
Preparing some attacks would be the best option then. Growing a strong weapon out of a tree was probably the most feasible option, but Gunther didn’t want to exclude other possibilities as well. The Luminent Bluebells, as Gunther had decided to call the flower lamps, could maybe be amplified to blind his enemies and there might be other secrets waiting to be unveiled, hidden inside those little flowers. Gunther strongly doubted the only thing they could do was look pretty. They had managed to survive here after all and if the rabbits were anything to go by, the wildlife here was pretty extreme. Where most plants on Earth could survive just by being numerous or perhaps slightly toxic, the same could probably not be said about those on Elovar.
This was all just pure guesswork on Gunther’s side though, so it could very well all be wrong. Instead of pondering over it much longer, he knelt down next to a red flower and inspected it. Not finding anything useful by just looking, he activated his Mana Sense and inspected the flower with it as well. He noticed a faintly glowing present in the middle of the flower head which was probably responsible for the light function which he had discovered earlier. Not finding anything else, even with his Mana Sense, Gunther went on to gently insert just a little bit of mana into the flower and watched what happened. A part of the mana seemed to spread throughout the whole flower while the rest went to the light part he had sensed earlier to turn it on.
‘Maybe being pretty is actually the only ability it has, if it can use it to get me to willingly donate mana to feed it, maybe it isn’t actually that bad of an idea.’ Gunther realised. ‘Let’s just hope I can turn it into a weapon!’
“Muhahahahahaha! I will take this innocent flower and turn it into a weapon of mass destruction!” Gunther shouted, feeling a bit silly and then laughed. He was glad he still had some opportunities to laugh and joke around here. It would become depressing very quickly if all he could do was focus on trying to survive.
‘Jokes aside though, it’s kind of sad I have to turn something so pretty into a weapon…’ He thought somberly. Deciding it was okay to procrastinate a bit, Gunther walked back to his tree. He realised it was probably better to actually have some form of a weapon before trying anything else anyway. He tried to use his Plant Manipulation to grow a small stick out of the side of the tree. To his relieve it actually worked and he sat down next to the tree.
Since he felt like visualisation and intent were important parts of magic, Gunther thought it was a good idea to at least sketch out the weapon he wanted to have. Using the stick he had just grown, he started to draw out some of his ideas. He started by drawing a sword, but quickly realised it wasn’t really practical to use a wooden sword, since it wouldn’t stay sharp very long. That also meant any weapon that relied on its edge to deal damage was automatically out.
‘And here I thought I would become some badass samurai…’
That left Gunther with some sort of hammer, staff or maybe a spear as options. The hammer he ruled out almost immediately, because he was nowhere near strong enough to effectively use one. The choice between a staff and a spear was harder. A spear would allow Gunther to keep enemies at bay effectively, which was definitely a good thing for him. The spear would however have a similar problem as the sword with it’s tip needing to be sharp. A staff didn’t have this problem, but was less effective at keeping enemies away. The main advantage of a staff was the ability to add some weight to the ends to let it function a bit like a club, as far as Gunther knew. After some sketching and thinking, Gunther decided on a staff with pointy ends. It would not pack the same punch as a staff with weights at the ends, but did allow him to stab at things. He would probably experiment a bit with it after he had found some way to heal himself, which was his main goal for now.
After refining the sketch a little bit, Gunther stood up and placed his hand on the tree. He focussed on his magic and made his very first real weapon grow out of it. At first glance, it looked like a normal spear, a large fancy stick with a pointy end. Anyone who would watch closer would notice some oddities however. The first difference was the fact that it had two pointy ends, perfect for accidentally stabbing yourself in the foot. The second and main difference were the grips. It had three of them, one in the middle and one at both of the ends, just above and below the spikes. The grips were rougher than the rest and there were some slightly thicker parts on both sides of them, to make sure the weapon wouldn’t slip from your hand. The rest of the spear was very simple, just a boring but sturdy stick.
Gunther weighed his new stear in his hands and decided he would have to think of a better name than that. Thinking it best to call it a spear instead, he inspected it. It felt good in his hands, though he had no idea if it was actually properly balanced. He took hold of the middle grip and swung it around a bit. He then let loose and shifted his hands to one of the ends as quickly as possible. Gunther was a bit disappointed when it took him about five seconds to get a firm grip. Promising himself he’d practise, he swung the spear around with all his strength. Deciding he was satisfied with his new weapon, Gunther started to walk away from his new home. It was time for his first true adventure in this new and strange world called Elovar.