Though Licht found the sudden expansion of his senses to be an intoxicating feeling, he did not forget about the Giving Tree’s warning. On the contrary, now that he had more tools at his disposal, he found himself in a position unable to ignore the incoming threats. The exact time of the hunter’s future arrival was uncertain, but he agreed with the Giving Tree that it was likely he would be sought out.

The crown of white leaves adorning his body left a startling impression when compared to the monotony of green ceilings found in abundance around him. Even a simpleton would question his presence. Licht was even more nervous if these hunters happened to be human. He knew his own people well, and any measure of scientific curiosity toward his own form would likely be followed by a swift chopping down and hauling to a nearby settlement.

That’s why he elected to act sooner rather than later. First, he tried to solve the obvious issue: the white leaves. With his newfound control over his tree body, he thought about just shedding the leaves, but quickly ruled that option out. Not only would that not solve the core of the problem, but it would also deprive him of any method to gather sunlight, which he had realized was something akin to a vital resource for his main body and the tree to grow.

After that he considered changing the color of the leaves themselves, but as he didn’t know what caused the pigmentation change, he couldn’t address this. He knew that on Earth leaves were green because of something to do with chlorophyll, but he had no idea how it worked here. Plus he wasn’t confident in changing aspects of his form as minutely as that.

That left the only realistic option at the moment, camouflage. He could make the existence of the white leaves less obvious, though even that would be less than easy. Lich extended the roots of the tree in the air, looking a bit like an octopus. He made sure to leave a few in the ground to prevent himself from tipping over. With the extended roots, he pushed them into the ground just in front of several other trees, attempting to form a web of connected roots with himself at the center.

Licht figured that if he could connect with other roots using the branch virtue, then maybe with the root virtue he could connect with other trees. Licht fumbled silently for a moment underground trying to fuse his roots to each of the other tree’s root systems.

“Why does this feel like hacking? I’m not doing anything immoral here.”

Before long Licht felt a click, and his senses expanded in one direction. Then he felt another click, and then another. In a few minutes, Licht had successfully connected himself to all of the trees in the immediate vicinity.

“Alright, now to camouflage.”

With a quick count from three in his head, Licht prepared himself for exertion.

PLUP. PLUP-PLUP. PLUP.

From far away above the treetops, one could see half a dozen or so trees rise above their surroundings and bounce closer together, sending minor ripples through the nearby foliage.

Licht was controlling all of the surrounding trees to rise above the ground, his own roots connected into each and tracing from behind like umbilical cords. They walked on the forest floor, using their roots as stumpy legs.

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“It’s working! Hahaha! I can’t believe it!”

If Licht had eyes they’d be shining in delight. He half expected his attempt to fail, but who would have thought he could pull it off flawlessly. Now came the hard part.

Crsssssh. CRACK.

Just as Licht was reveling in his success, one of the trees coming toward him started to lean and fall over. Each of its supportive root legs snapping as they failed to hold its weight.

“Shit! One less to work with.”

Licht quickly cut off his connection with the fallen tree, letting his spare root snake back toward his position. The rest of the trees had arrived. Each of them were pressed up against his trunk and by Licht’s control, starting to plant themselves in the ground around him.

Although at this point, Lichts form was entirely obscured, and the white leaves now lost in the sea of overlapping green mesh, it wasn’t a convincing enough disguise yet. From a distance Licht may look like a particularly thick tree, but up close it would not hold up. He anticipated a human hunter, and he knew that they would recognize what was half a dozen or so trees circling around a center point.

Clearly not something natural, would be the reasonable assumption. So Licht had one last thing to do.

Crrrrrrck.

The grinding of wood against wood reverberated through the tree line as the circle of trees around Licht began to twist around him and compact into a single mass. With a heavy use of [Wood Manipulation], and thanks to the root virtue, he was able to fuse the different trees together as they became more compact and denser around his core. Cycling this compacted mass that was essentially already his cells to the outer layer and bringing in the closer layers he started to convert the group of trees into his own being.

Soon enough, the entire mass of trees had formed into a single, but extremely thick tree.

“Hoh, that went very well I think. Good thing I avoided converting the bark. Not only is it much tougher than what I would have been able to convert it into, but I think if I fused the entire group of trees into me the leaves would all have turned white.”

Licht was tired from the ordeal, but very satisfied. He had successfully hidden himself for the moment. Sure, a tree as wide around as a car wasn’t particularly common in this forest, but it would stick out much less than a tree with white leaves. At least this way people would come to cut him down for perceived medicinal effects.

As for the problem of his white leaves, they were still there, but he was able to bury some of them in the gargantuan amount of leaves he still had while placing some on the tops of other green leaves, obscuring them from the vision of anyone below.

As far as the bark and green leaves not being actual parts of him, it was a nonissue. The bark could be mended by using [Wood Manipulation] instead of [Biogenical Growth], and he could use the green leaves for photosynthesis once he connected his own withe tendrils into each of his branches.

“Great, now with that out of the way…actually…”

Licht looked around himself with slight confusion.

“Where did all my cover go?”

Nearly thirty feet around Licht in all directions was now devoid of any large plant life. Leaving only the tracks of walking trees in the dirt and a single felled tree in the tall bush.

“This is actually worse than before, isn’t it?”