Elvenhome village and the Lair were located at the two opposite ends of a narrow valley between tall impassable mountains. The valley itself hosted a variety of ecosystems. There was a conifer forest of tall, imposing trees and sparse underbrush, permeated with the smell of sap and pine needles. There was a river, flowing rapidly with its clear, blue waters.

There were plains and green rolling hills. Prairies of blooming flowers of sweet scents. Patches of strange trees, sometimes tall and at other times no more than bushes. Other trees were lone wolves, like giant knotted statues watching over nature itself.

Albert had explored almost all of the valley already. He stood roughly in the middle of it, between the Lair and the village, a position he had found easily thanks to a creative use of the Teleportation Map which also doubled as a not-so-handy conventional map that could be used lacking any better means to get his bearings.

He had brought over the Iperborea seed the elves themselves had given him as a reward for defeating the golem back when he first met them. It felt like an eternity ago, and perhaps it was. At least to him it was. So much stuff happened since then, and those felt like easier times despite not really being easier.

The world used to feel smaller, safer, and more peaceful.

Albert knew from appraising it that the seed was in a dormant state. However, he also knew that it was at least theoretically possible to awaken it, and the racial evolution quest gave him a hint about how to do it.

Just planting it would probably not be enough but it was a good start. Thus, making use of the shovel he grabbed from the shed in his house’s backyard, he began to dig.

“Now what?” He wondered out loud. He had made the hole, put the seed in it, closed it up until there was a little mound of loose earth and had even watered it. Too bad nothing happened afterwards. No quest update, no notifications, and nothing was moving when he inspected the area with the full spectrum of his [Perception] skill. Barring the Entropy perception, of course. That particular part was still problematic.

He paced around. What else could he do? Try to send some mana into the soil and the seed perhaps?

He sat down. It was worth a try, if anything.

Albert closed his eyes and began to get a feel for his own mana. Truth be told, it had been a while since the last time he manually moved around mana like he wanted to do now. He was rusty. Unbelievably rusty.

Time passed with no discernible results.

Albert shifted and moved around, trying to keep his focus until his nerves threatened to jump out of his skin. By now he was so frustrated at the lack of progress that his legs were twitching, his muscles ached, his skin felt itchy and sticky from sweating under the now midday sun, and he felt like punching a tree or something just to get the rage out of his system.

Instead, he chose to meditate.

The action failed.

But there had to be something he could do.

“Fine. I’ll use the trump card. Analysis Mode.”

The world seemed to recede behind a muffling blanket of white cotton. A cold, still sensation of focus enveloped Albert’s mind. Slowly, tendrils of mana began to extend from Albert’s body and to seep into the earth, penetrating deep in the soil and changing it. They surrounded the seed as if in a cocoon, under Albert’s watchful direction, ever so slowly.

Hours passed, but with Analysis Mode active, time was just an afterthought, something that didn’t matter nearly as much as it usually did.

The sun was about to set when a system message finally snapped Albert out of his trance.

[The Iperborea Seed resonates with you. Do you want to bond with it?]

Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

“Yes.”

[Survive.]

“What?”

Albert shot to his feet as his surroundings suddenly changed. In the blink of an eye it was no longer twilight, but the full light of day was shining on him. Then the day turned to night, momentarily robbing Albert of his ability to see well. As soon as his eyes adjusted, he noticed that he was surrounded by a sphere of translucent energies he couldn’t cross, creating a large bubble with the seed at its center.

Four figures stood at the four edges of the space under the silver moonlight, close to the threshold of the bubble. They were far, but he could see that they were like strange inhumanly tall people with long, knotted limbs.

“Appraisal.” He said, as the four walked towards him in unison from all directions.

[Dryad. Hostile creature of the forest. Its body made of wood can regenerate quickly, and its limbs can extend to--]

He didn’t have time to read more, because true to what he was reading about the dryads, they were already attacking him from afar. Their arms extended like branches of a tree growing at an extreme rate, trying to skewer him from all sides.

He activated Bullet Time, but even then, the speed of the incoming branches was so great that dodging them was almost impossible. Falling into a flow state to use Dodge was out of the question as well, and instead Albert opted to just jump to a side, taking the sword he got from the Singapore dungeon out of his inventory.

Its extremely sharp edge that never dulls would surely come in handy.

Doing what he did meant that he was out of the trajectory of two of the branches, but not of the others. With the sword he managed to cut a third one, while the fourth impacted against his ring projected shield. The impact was so violent that the shield briefly flashed white, the branch exploded on impact, and Albert felt a push try to send him flying. But the shield held, and he managed to keep his footing.

He might be able to tank another hit, but certainly not two.

The dryads kept walking towards him, and since their steps were already rather slow in real time, in Bullet Time they almost looked immobile.

Albert rushed to one of them, careful not to fall into the trap of thinking that the dryad was actually as slow as it looked. Right on cue, as soon as he was close enough the dryad reacted by jerking its body and shooting even more branches at him, while lunging forward with incredible speed.

It was met with a barrage of fireballs, thrown one after the other. They did little damage, however, despite the initial flames because the dryad simply shed the outer layers of charred and burning wood and fresh bark just grew to replace it. At least Albert could keep Bullet Time active almost indefinitely thanks to its very low mana consumption.

Behind Albert, the other three dryads encroached. Despite their slow steps, he was wasting a lot of time dancing around this one single enemy, cutting the branches, shooting fireballs.

He drained some mana crystals to replenish his reserves. It was time to think creatively.

He teleported right behind the dryad, making use of some space he had managed to buy himself by retreating. As he did so, he was already swinging his sword in a vertical cutting motion so that when he appeared, the edge of the blade was right above the dryad’s head.

It cut the plant monster in two. But Albert knew it was not over. The two halves immediately began to stich themselves back together, tiny roots and branches and even leaves growing out of the two parts and pulling them back together.

He too was not over, though. The inner parts of the monster were still exposed, and he was close enough to throw a fireball right at—

Two incoming branches at the edge of his vision told him that he needed to make a choice. He could tank the hits and secure a kill, or he could flee and be back to square one.

Fuck it.

If the system wanted him to play dirty, he was going to play dirty. The fireball exploded out from Albert’s hand following a skill-empowered punch that put it right inside the dryad’s guts. Albert pulled out his hand, bloodied and scratched with not even a grunt, making use of his ability not to feel pain, right as the two branches were about to hit him. One of them depleted his shield for good, shattering it.

The other plunged right into his stomach.

He grinned. It didn’t hurt one bit.

The dryad must have thought he was wide open for another hit. But when it tried to retract the branch to its body it found an unexpected resistance. Albert was holding it tight with both hands, [Strengthening] making his grip tougher than a vice.

He yanked at the branch. It buried itself deeper into his guts. He only needed to—

Suddenly his vision grew blurry. His eyes struggled to focus. With an immediate, urgent rising sense of panic, Albert looked at his wound for the first time.

He cursed. He took out the sword he had put back into his inventory when he killed the first dryad and cut himself free, struggling to lift the blade before he blacked out. It used to feel so light and easy to move, yet now it was heavy and his movements clumsy.

He slumped to the floor, letting go of the sword and grabbing a handful of crystals.

They slipped. Most of them fell to the ground, useless. He couldn’t hold onto them with his shaky, weak hands. He might not feel pain, but the blood loss was making his muscles act up.

But… He only needed one. He desperately tried to cling to consciousness, willing his fingers to wrap around the elusive crystals.

He fucked up, didn’t he? Not feeling pain, he hadn’t realized that he had been hit in a vital area.