Chapter 18

Initially, Jack was a little worried about traveling again without Kai there as a safeguard, but it had been three days and nothing so much as approached them. He would see the occasional giant chipmunk or deer but it would always keep its distance and leave the two of them alone.

For the most part, the days were not very different from traveling with Kai. The only real change was that after each rest period Jack would practice his Hydraulic Leap.

Once his Stamina was full, he would stand next to a tree and prepare to jump. The trees were anywhere from four to five hundred feet tall, and the lowest branches were around fifty feet from the ground. Jack’s goal was to be able to reach the branches, but he was nowhere near that goal at the moment.

When he first started this exercise on day one without-Kai, he was only able to get around twenty feet into the air. After Hydraulic Leap leveled up to four, he was able to get twenty-five feet. After some experimentation, he was pretty sure he had the basic mechanics of the skill down.

  A single jump would cost him two stamina.

  Each additional jump after that would cost one extra point. The second jump cost three, the third cost four, and so on.

  His average maximum height seemed to be about five times his skill level, but this didn’t seem to be completely set in stone. Occasionally if he really concentrated and pushed whatever muscle(Heart?) was associated with this, he could jump a little higher but it cost way more stamina.

  If he waited around a minute or two after the first jump the cost would reset.

  It would take longer to reset for each additional jump up to around a maximum reset time of about ten to fifteen minutes.

His last note about the skill was that the reset time definitely had something to do with his heart rate. Each reset was equal to how long it took for his heart to go back to a resting rate, whether that was a part of the skill or his actual biology he didn’t know and would have to experiment more.

Aside from the level in Hydraulic Leap and two in Impact Resistance, Jack received an unexpected skill up, Researching. Apparently trying to figure out how a skill works falls under Researching.

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On day four without-Kai, Jack woke up with a start. The sky was still dark, and it felt like it would still be a few hours until dawn. He didn’t know why he suddenly woke up, but he had a prickling feeling that he was being watched.

The night before, he had found this small clearing and decided it was a good place to settle for the night. There were quite a few large bushes in the area, including one with these purple berries on it. He figured the bushes would give him some extra cover throughout the night since he still didn’t quite know how the blanket’s camouflage worked. While the berries looked edible, there was no chance Jack was going to risk eating something poisonous.

Looking around the clearing, nothing seemed out of the ordinary. He listened for the sounds of movement but could only hear crickets. Another scan of the clearing and Jack noticed something odd. The bush with the berries had been on the opposite end of the clearing when he went to sleep, and now it nestled in between two bushes six feet away.

Jack felt Lucy wake up next to him, most likely disturbed by the amount of panic going through him. She enjoyed sleeping under the blanket curled up next to him. It made sense that she liked cramped dark spaces being a spider and all. She had started to crawl up towards Jack’s head and out from under the blanket before he placed a hand on her to stop her.

Also under the blankets to the left of him lay his staff. With his other hand, he tightened a grip around it.

As quick as he could, he threw the blanket off of him. He scooped up Lucy and swiftly got to his feet facing the berry bush, taking a few steps backward to put some distance in-between the two of them. Placing Lucy on his shoulder, he held his staff in a defensive position.

He stood there for several minutes staring at the bush, looking for the slightest movement. He began to doubt himself. Had he slept closer to it than he thought? Was he just being paranoid?

Tired of waiting for it to do something on its own, Jack extended his staff to make it twelve feet long. Thanks to his increases to strength, he could easily hold the staff high and swing it down hard onto the bush. One of the branches snapped and a bunch of the berries fell onto the ground. But nothing happened.

Still cautious, Jack shrunk his staff down to six feet and waited. He was about to smack the buff again when he suddenly felt something grab his ankle.

Looking down, a pale white root sticking out of the ground had wrapped itself around his right ankle. In the blink of an eye, the rest of the root tore itself from out of the ground leading back to the berry bush. The root became taut, pulling Jack’s ankle out from under him, and dragged him towards the bush.

Lucy hopped to the ground and let out a hiss towards the bush. Jack, now on his back, dug his pole into the ground to try to stop the root from reeling him in. He also used his other foot to try to kick the root off of his ankle with little success.

To Jack’s horror, the bush rose out of the ground. Attached to the bottom of the bush was a pale white bulb the size of a barrel. The front side of the bulb split open vertically revealing hundreds of black jagged thorns. It was like a giant garlic iron maiden.

Angler Bulb Level: 12 Current mood: Angry

Not quite smart enough to be considered intelligent and not quite dumb enough to be considered a mundane plant. The Angler Bulb uses its delicious berries and sweet smell to lure in unsuspecting creatures. While they gorge themselves, the Angler Bulb will work its roots through the ground setting up a biological snare trap. Once snared the victim will be pulled into its hollow bulb where it will be impaled and digested over many months. The Angler Bulb senses its prey through vibrations in the ground and its heat-sensitive roots. Most active at night an Angler Bulb can practically glide through the soil leaving almost no trail as it looks for a new spot to wait and fish.

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Age: 6 months

Highest Attribute: Vitality

Highest Skill: Tremorsense

Two more tentacle-like roots were attached to the bulb. Jack’s staff found a firm hold on the ground, keeping him from being pulled in as he continued to try to remove the root from his ankle.

The angler bulb, seemingly upset that its meal would not come to it easily, shot its two other roots out to Jack. One wrapped itself around his left leg, squeezing it tight and preventing him from kicking at the first root. The last root, instead of grappling him, struck at his torso like a whip, leaving large bruises and minor slashes in its wake.

With two roots pulling on him, the small hold his staff had could no longer prevent Jack from being dragged closer. Jack picked up his staff and shoved it into the hollow bulb, preventing him from being pulled into its thorny mouth.

Knowing that this was a temporary solution, Jack tried to think of some way to cut the roots. Remembering the scimitar from the dungeon, Jack summoned his inventory. Quickly reaching over, he grabbed the sword.

It took two hacks of the scimitar to free his left leg and a single one for the right. The cut roots did not just shrink back to the bulb, as he had hoped. Now released from his legs, they both began to whip him as well.

No longer being pulled in, Jack got to his feet while protecting his face. The whips, while painful and leaving the occasional gash on his body, were not doing any critical damage. He was wondering what it was trying to do with the weak attacks when he looked up and saw the bulb close and start to sink into the ground.

Jack dropped his staff, “Oh no you don’t!” He charged forward past the whip-roots earning him a few more gashes on his arms. He reached the angler bulb just as the bulb part was completely submerged and the bush glided away.

Reaching down, he grabbed the base of the bush and pulled on it to keep it from going anywhere. The whip-roots started to frantically hit the arm holding the bush. Crouching down, Jack slashed where the roots were coming out from the ground. He cut through two of them before the last sunk underground to safety.

Now that he was no longer being assaulted by the roots, Jack took a moment to breathe. The bush kept tugging, trying to get free, but it really wasn’t that strong.

After a few minutes, the bush stopped tugging, either giving up or it wore itself down. Deciding that it was a good sign to move, Jack pulled on the bush trying to make the bulb resurface. The thing was heavy but Jack had an even ten in his strength and the blub wasn’t putting up too much of a fight so he was able to slowly pull it out.

Once the bulb was halfway out of the ground, the last root shot back out of the ground to attack him. Fortunately, Jack was waiting for this. A quick slash and the root was gone.

Getting the bulb completely out was easy after that. When he exposed one of the areas the tentacle-like roots connected to the bulb, he would give it a quick chop removing any chance this thing could grab him.

Now fully out, Jack inspected it. It really looked like a giant garlic clove with a bush on top. On closer inspection, it actually had tiny hair-like roots all over its bulb. They were actively wiggling and reaching towards the ground. The hair-like roots that were touching the ground seemed to try to dig back down. Pushing aside dirt and pulling it into the ground with a force that those tiny roots shouldn’t be capable of.

Every thirty seconds or so, it would dig down around half a foot and Jack would pull it back out. It did open and snap shut one time, seemingly trying to bite him, but without the long powerful roots, it didn’t have a way to lunge forward or pull him in.

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The sun had been up for about an hour and Jack was sitting cross-legged about five feet away from the angler bulb. In one hand was a rope tied to the spot where bulb met bush. In the other hand was his staff poking at the ground near the bulb.

In the hours that Jack has been watching it, the tentacle-roots had slowly been growing back. So far they were only four to five inches long, but he didn’t feel the need to trim them because they were giving him some interesting information.

When tapping the ground with his staff, it would send a small vibration through the ground. He could see the bulb’s reaction when the vibration got to it. If a root was touching the ground when it felt the vibration, it would wiggle. Then all the roots around the wiggling one would start wiggling themselves, and on and on. The effect was like little waves going across the bulb. Once one of the ‘waves’ reached the stumps of the larger roots, they would start reaching towards where Jack hit the ground.

While they were reaching towards the spot he tapped, if he brought the staff right next to the bulb but not touching it, they would not sense it was there. On the other hand, if he moved closer and placed his hand anywhere near the bulb, all the hair-roots would go crazy wiggling around. Instead of waves, though, it was a constant movement.

He knew that he got a lot of this information through Identify but it was still really interesting how these little hair-roots controlled its senses and how sensitive they were.

**Skill Up** Mimicry Level 4

**Skill Unlocked ** Through observation, you have unlocked Focused Senses with Mimicry. Would you like to learn this skill? Yes No

Huh, he thought he would get Tremorsense or maybe Heatsense, but instead, he unlocked Focused Senses. He didn’t know why, but for some reason, he knew this was the right skill, that if he wanted Tremorsense, this was the way to unlocking it.

Lucy’s Hydraulic Leap changed its name to Hydraulic Assist when she evolved it, but his Hair Manipulation didn’t change. If he were to try to learn Hydraulic Assist would it just give him the leap instead? It seems unlikely. Otherwise, he would get a free evolution out of it.

Either way, Focused Senses was probably still a win. He clicked yes.

**Alert** You are already at your Skill Limit would you like to replace a Skill? Yes No

Please choose a skill to replace. Hair Manipulation 6 Hydraulic Leap 4 Researching 3 Impact Resistance 3 Staff Mastery 3 Wanderer 3 Burrow 3 Baking 2 Cleaning 1 Fear Resistance 1 Medicine 1

Looking at the list, he saw an absolutely simple choice and clicked cleaning.

**Skill Acquired** Focused Senses Level 1 Enhance a sense temporarily through concentration.