Gaius was surprised by so many things that he had to stop and take a deep breath. First of all, the treant that he could summon had gotten way too weak… but at least it looked like it could get stronger without fighting, it probably wouldn't share that experience with him, though. It couldn't be helped since it made sense... but at least it made him wonder if there was a way for him to become stronger passively without his summons.
The other weird thing was the fact that Gaius could use Photosynthesis as well… while he wasn't a plant, he could use it to recover energy faster. That was convenient, but it only worked during the day on sunny days… It was too restrictive.
"No matter, I just need to make good use of it wherever I can," Gaius shrugged. "It would be useful to be able to use an earth spear, but this isn't half bad. This will make my training more efficient too and I will recover from damage... once I get hurt, that is. Oh boy... I just jinxed myself."
Gaius had to wait for two minutes and he eventually had two-thirds of his mana back. He did some other experiments and confirmed that he could kill the Treants by using half of his total mana… it was a bit of a slow process, but he couldn't complain since he wasn't using the best option when it came to fighting those creatures. Moreover, they granted him five thousand points of experience per kill… so, it wasn't a half bad idea to hunt them for a few days.
In the end, Gaius lost sense of time and when he realized it was midafternoon… he didn’t want to lie to his mother about what he did during the day, so he sure hoped that she wouldn’t ask. In any case, Gaius managed to level up two times in that single day and it was quite something.
“The Treants don’t need to invade our territory… they can grow this strong just by existing… so, what made them come here?” Gaius thought while he called his Hawk. “Their speed is slow, so it must be something that happened quite a while back…”
Before returning home, Gaius looked for a place south of the village, near where the goblins lived to summon his treant… he confirmed that the area had been left alone since the villagers already had too much work on their hands with their numbers, so the treant wouldn’t be bothered for a while.
Still, Gaius felt like sighing when he summoned the creature… it cost so much mana and yet, the treant was barely bigger than fifty centimeters… it couldn’t fight anything aside from a few insects.
“You have a bit of mana, so you should be able to use magic to hunt a few things… Still, don’t do anything… let’s just see how much you can grow by yourself in a day,” Gaius thought.
Gaius ran back home and managed to return it in half an hour… he could run pretty fast now even though he crossed twenty kilometers. Moreover, he wasn’t that tired since he was used to running for several hours thanks to the daily training. Kaira was taking another nap, so Gaius sighed in relief.
Kaira didn't ask anything when she woke up either and soon Zairus returned and asked about his day, but he just said that he took a look around the area… he didn't lie, technically. Still, the life of secrecy was annoying... she already knew what he could do with magic, so perhaps just saying that he was helping his Dad wouldn't be a real problem.
The next day, Gaius woke up and checked the progress of his Treant. Although the creature only had three hours of sunlight, it still managed to get thirty points of experience. That wasn't half bad… the pace would slow down eventually, but that much was fine… Gaius gained a creature that could get stronger over time by itself. Besides, the skill the creature granted was better than the fighting powers that it had…
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Over the course of the next few days, Gaius only went to hunt the Treants now and then. He could have made his other creatures come and hunt the beasts as well, but they could only do so much with their current strength. Still, Gaius made them hunt with him when he showed up… even with his spear and using his Spiritual Armor, Gaius still had somewhat of a hard time dealing with them. Aside from Earth Spears and the Razor Leaves, the beasts also could use Vine Whip and they always went for Gaius' neck. He blocked those countless times, but it felt like the monsters were making the vines come out from their asses.
Gaius dealt with quite a bit of Treants in the next few weeks, but it looked like they were endless… he finally could understand the reason why the guards and his father were tired. Moreover, they were getting stronger just by existing… he had to think of another way to help them.
"Young master, it looks like the population here is starting to prepare for another large-scale war… the atmosphere is getting quite tense, and we aren't being that welcome in the villages and towns anymore," Relia said when Gaius decided to receive the reports from his soldiers.
Gaius wanted to sigh… he should have seen that coming, it was impossible for him to have some time to think things through calmly and come up with an optimal solution.
Although he was still receiving reports from Rein and the guys in the south, they didn't give any real piece of information on the people in the south… that really bothered him.
"Focus on working at night, there is no need to expose yourselves now," Gaius declared. "Still, you all should head to the battlefield and give a hand if you have the chance… as long as we buy enough time, everything will be fine."
Besides, that was another chance to get a lot more experience…
When Gaius’ vacation was about to end, he realized that he was becoming someone pretty calculative… to deal with the problems of the Treants, he decided to use his Poison Snake alongside his Hawk to deal with the Treants, he figured out that their poison would be highly effective and it was…
Although the monster couldn’t hunt them that often thanks to its low level, after a few kills, its level began to increase and Gaius improved its Magic and Wisdom. After one week, the snake leveled up twenty times…
Another thing that made him realize that was the fact that he considered another war just another tool that could help him… he was thinking about protecting the village, so his intentions weren’t completely crazy, he was planning to use the death of others as leverage for his goals.
“I guess I am letting myself be molded by the environment,” Gaius thought when he began to pack his things to return to the training grounds.
Gaius was quite the pacifist in his previous life… he didn’t think that in such a modern world, people should solve their problems with their fists or weapons. Still, he was no longer in a modern world… It was a world of magic and monsters. There was some semblance of order and militaristic forces, but it wasn’t enough… people still could be exterminated like insects in wars. He wanted to deal with that, but he couldn’t while being a pacifist.
"He who fights monsters should see to it that he himself does not become a monster. And if you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you… It makes a lot of sense,” Gaius thought. "Still, the trick was not to let the fear take over me. Running away is never a good thing, even more so in a world like this where people can become stupidly strong."
Gaius decided to save those words in his mind in case something happened in the future and he was led astray from his goal… he didn’t want to think that one day he would become power-hungry and dominate the world, it seemed too troublesome and tiresome, but he already changed from a pacifist to a warrior that didn’t blink when killing enemies in less than ten years… People can change a lot.
"We didn't have many chances to talk because of work, but I can tell that you are doing well," Zairus said on the day Gaius was returning to the Capital. "I will work for us to have more time together. I also want to have some pieces for when your little brother or sister arrives."
"No worries," Gaius said. "If you need a hand, you can write in the letter, don't worry about small things like what will happen if I come here to help."