The next few days were a blur of growth and relaxation. I had grown out my fifth leaf, and after that, my energy levels were greatly increased again. I was gaining 3% of my Stamina pool every hour, meaning I could now add an extra growth spurt every day. Unfortunately, that energy growth pattern seemed to cap at that, since I didn’t get any boost from my next eight leaves.

I was up to just over a foot and a half tall, and my root system was spread out in a two-foot radius from my trunk. The roots weren’t very thick yet, but they were plentiful. My thickest roots were almost half an inch in diameter, the rest were all much smaller, branching from the main three.

I was due to get to level 6 any moment now. I was ready for the next Photosynthesis upgrade I was going to get. With how well the last few worked out for me, I knew it would be vital to my continued growth in this world. I even planned on getting my next 5 levels as upgrades to just Photosynthesis.

Dusk finally came, and so did the long-awaited notification. It had been more than two weeks in the coming.

Congratulations! You have reached level 6!

...What? That’s it?

Where’s my skill upgrade option? Or what about my new skill? That would still be better than this... nothingness!

I mentally raged for a few more minutes before calming down. I guess it made sense that I couldn’t constantly upgrade my skill like that. It would be practically a cheat at that point.

I still silently fumed at my misfortune. All my plans now had to be thrown out the window and new ones had to be drawn up.

When will my next skill upgrade option be? Will I get another chance to upgrade like that? Did I waste all my chances?

I can’t truly say that I wasted any of my chances. Everything I’ve done so far has worked out pretty well, all things considered. I’m almost ready to say I’ve done pretty damn good.

I spent the next few minutes patting myself on the metaphorical back, when a sharp pain in my leaves got my attention. It was very similar to the last pains I had gotten, which threw me into a mild panic attack.

But... the pain this time was extremely dull compared to the first instance. I almost didn’t even register the actual feeling of it. I was more hurt by the memory of the pain than the actual pain itself.

That being said, the top part of the leaf was still removed, although a much smaller portion of it was taken away this time. It also took a lot longer to remove than the last time as well.

User: Willow Race: Tree

Level: 6 Exp: 0/40

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H:99% S:93% M:100%

Skills: Photosynthesis, Iron Bark, Self-Awareness, Rapid Growth

Rather than nearly 15% of my health, it only took away 0.5%. That wouldn’t have been an issue, except I was suddenly aware that six separate leaves were all being attacked at the same time. Each one only dropped my health 0.5% though, so I was still keeping a relatively cool head for now.

I only really started to panic when they went for the leaf stems again. Whoever was attacking me was a to more persistent this time than they were before. They had given up relatively quickly last time. This time though, I could feel my stems being slowly chipped away at.

An hour later, the attackers finally gave up on trying to remove the entire leaf, and they instead stripped much of the meaty part of my leaves. I took pride in knowing I was still able to relatively defend myself, compared to my last encounter with being attacked.

When all but three of my leaves were stripped down to the stem, the attackers finally relented and retreated. I felt the weight of whatever was on my leaves suddenly drop, and I no longer was getting attacked.

I waited with a baited breath, hoping to get another notification about fending off an attack and an upgrade in my Iron Bark skill again. Unfortunately, it was not to be.

I checked my health and saw I was at 85%. I waited a while and saw that my regeneration was decreased down to 2% per hour again. I waited until I had five grown leaves before checking again. It took seven hours before five were grown back

User: Willow Race: Tree

Level: 6 Exp: 0/40

H:100% S:100% M:100%

Skills: Photosynthesis, Iron Bark, Self-Awareness, Rapid Growth

How was I at 100% health when I still had so many damaged leaves? That feels wrong to me. Unfortunately, my regeneration was already switched off, so there was nothing I could do about it.

I went ahead and spent the next few minutes on having another growth spurt. I focused all the energy towards regrowing my leaves, which seemed to only make more leaves grow instead. I even got a new branch starting to grow as well. I will no longer be just a pole with some leaves growing out the sides.

The next 10 days were spent in cycles of growing and regenerating stamina. My new branch had grown out about half a foot from my main trunk, which increased my Exp gains from 2 per day to 4 per day. It let me reach level 7 really quickly.

I got the same disappointment at level 7 as I did 6. Just the level notification. No new skill or skill upgrade.

One thing I noticed as I continued using my Rapid Growth skill was that I wasn’t growing as fast anymore. Much more of my Stamina was going towards thickening my trunk than it used to. Rather than gaining almost two inches a day, I was now reduced to getting an inch a day. It still brought me up to over 3 feet tall now.

I had stopped checking how far my roots had gone after they went past the 4-foot radius mark. It left me slightly dizzy trying to keep up with everything going on down there, so I opted to keep my mind focused mostly on my trunk. I still sent my Rapid Growth to assist though.

I was starting to feel that my rate of growth was getting too much to handle, so when I hit level 8 after 12.5 straight days of Rapid Growth use, I decided it was time for me to take another nap.

I woke up briefly again when I hit level 9 and got the level notification, but I went back to sleep quickly after dismissing it. Level 10 was my main goal, after all.