[Defeated Human]
[+33 Experience]
[Defeated Human]
[+104 Experience]
Licht’s mind was too numb with shock to properly process the notifications of the interface.
“What the hell is wrong with these people?”
Licht watched in silence as the trio of men walked steadily through the thick muddy bog. They were very animated in their body language, and from what he could tell, had gotten into some sort of argument.
Swipe
“Woah!”
Licht was shocked as the clear leader of the party suddenly swiped his sword at one of the others, cleanly separating their head from their neck. That had then led to a short chase through the muddy basin which had then led to both men falling into one of the pitfall traps he had set up earlier.
Between the crude wooden spikes at the bottom of the pit impaling them and the thick mud that had no doubt played a part in suffocating them, they had died without much resistance.
“What a brutal way to go…”
Licht felt a pang in his heart. It was one thing to catch critters and other small animals, but it was totally different to see humans that Licht could relate to on some level die because of him. Or at least the system seemed to deem it as such, as he got the notification for their kills.
“Hoh, well let’s at least open it up.”
With a sort of a burden now on his shoulders, Licht opened up his interface.
[Level: 5]
[Threshold Reached!]
[Exp: 513/1000]
[Name: Licht Welles]
[Race: Woodland Ego (Juvenile -> Adolescent)]
[Health: 100/100]
[Stamina: 20/20]
[Energy: 50/50 AF]
[Rank: D-]
[1 STR, 3 DEX, 15 WIS, 10 END, 0 CHA]
[Virtues: (Twig), (Branch), (Root)]
[Specializations: Wood]
[Skills: Psychometric Observation (D-), Biogenical Growth (D+), Passive Nutrition Absorption (E), Passive Acid Resistance (E), Passive Withy Body (E), Wooden Commune (E), Wood Manipulation (D-), Bestowal (D+)]
“So the threshold both increased my rank and my race has matured. That came at the cost of increasing the experience required from here on out, but that’s hardly a heavy drawback.”
It was very interesting to Licht that he was able to become an ‘adolescent’ Woodland Ego just by crossing level five when as a Nature’s Ego he had required an evolution. Though come to think of it, the evolution had triggered when he had been level five back then, so maybe that said more about the limits of a Nature’s Ego.
“It would make sense that the Nature’s Ego race is overgeneralized, and so they are more limited growth-wise. I probably made the smart decision to pick a more specialized ego race. It seems like the Woodland Ego will be able to mature and grow faster than I thought.”
Retrospectively, it seemed like he had actually made a decent choice with the Woodland Ego. It nearly prompted a shudder to think about his possible life if he had chosen to stick with the generalized Nature’s Ego, or worse, the Warngreen Parasite.
He likely wouldn’t have been able to connect himself to the forest as easily, which had since become his basis of confidence in his survival.
“I should put more focus on leveling up.”
Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
The other thing he had noticed was his health increasing. Without him even having to absorb anything, it had exactly doubled. He wondered if this was how he was supposed to progress if he didn’t have the [Nutrient Absorption] skill.
“No wonder there are so few intelligent plants if this is how we’re supposed to get stronger!”
It was kind of a sham.
Though, that did give him an idea. If his health had increased, had the cap on his absorptions increased too? Licht swallowed some surrounding water through his roots to test. Before, the system had said he needed to either evolve or increase his rank to absorb more. He was now ranked D- as considered by the system, and surely that was enough of an increase.
“Ugh, this water is starting to taste like crap. It’s become way too muddy.”
[Absorbed Water: 3203/5000 L]
…
[Absorbed Water: 5000/5000 L]
[+1 END]
“Haha! It does work!”
Though the process now required him to funnel it through his roots that had his withe fibers since he was no longer in direct contact with water, it was still hundreds of times more efficient. Licht kept soaking up the water to reach threshold after threshold. Eventually, it capped him once again at a gain of five endurance points.
[Absorbed Water: 26.4K/50K Gal]
Accumulated Benefits: 10 END
Pretty soon the amount of water he had absorbed was converted from liters to gallons. Though Licht knew that that figure meant roughly one hundred thousand liters. It was still probably nothing compared to the amount of water he had funneled into growing the forest. For a moment, it struck Licht how impossible it was to store that amount of fluids within his tennis-ball sized body, but he just filed that away under all of the other weird shit he had seen so far.
“Now let’s get the other side capped up!”
Licht expanded his vision to search for squirrels, birds, lizards, even fish, but nothing came up.
“Have I really exhausted this area?”
That was a huge problem. If Licht had no method of gathering experience, he would very quickly find himself in a stasis.
“I could probably wait until the water levels decrease further to see if any animals come back…but what if they don’t?”
That would be the worst-case scenario. Licht hummed, thinking about what he had on hand. At some point, his focus lowered to beneath the muddy waves of water, to the three bodies lurking there.
“Is it really immoral? I mean, I’m not even human anymore…so isn’t it just about survival? I didn’t really kill them anyway…er, did I?”
Licht disregarded that thought. All that mattered right now was that there were three human bodies in the bog underneath him, and he could choose whether to make them useful or not. He made his choice.
Nearby roots extended and curled around the headless body and its missing top. At the same time, the roots that served as spikes being impaled into the two other men expanded into funnels and began to absorb the organic matter. Licht casted aside anything he couldn’t use. Namely clothes, weapons, and whatever they had on their person. This was all dragged by underground roots and buried near the central tree where his orb was.
[Absorbed Organic Matter: 468/500 Lb]
Accumulated Benefits: 10 END
The absorption of the men had gone far quicker than of the water, and Licht hit the stat cap faster than he thought. Looking at his total combined stats from the use of [Nutrient Absorption], he was amazed.
“How is this skill only E rank?”
[Health 200/200]
User’s Current Stats:
[1 STR, 3 DEX, 15 WIS, 20 END, 0 CHA]
[Max END reached! Evolve or ascend in rank to increase END further.]
Based on the increase in stats and some simple division, Licht finally realized what was going on with his stats. The increase from juvenile to adolescence hadn’t given him a bump in health, but increased the ratio at which his endurance converted to health. It was now at 1 END to 10 HP, when before it had been merely half of that.
“Uh, what is that?”
As Licht was watching the numbers on his interface tick up like some crazed webnovel author, he felt a clogged sensation in one of his roots.
“Don’t tell me…I have to take a shit?”
He focused on the root in question, finding it was the one that had been absorbing the leader of the trio. Pulling it out of the ground, he examined it with his vision sense.
“Nothing seems wrong with it. Actually, it looks healthier than before I connected with it, but that should be the case for all of my roots…”
Licht decided to reconnect his senses directly with the root, instead of with just the tree it came from. It was something he had long stopped doing in order to save himself a headache. Upon entering the root with his senses, he could see the problem.
A blue crystalline sheen had formed along the interior of the root. Like how moss spread, the crystal pattern covered the entire tubular hollow section of the root from the tip down to the root until about a dozen feet.
“What should I do about this? Absorb it?”
Licht figured ‘what the hell’ and did just that.
[Nutrient Absorption]
[Absorbed Ambient Force: 100/500 AF]
Accumulated Benefits: 5 WIS, 5 AF
…
User’s Current Stats:
[1 STR, 3 DEX, 20 WIS, 20 END, 0 CHA]
Licht’s mind exploded in chaos. Those crystals were AF? Ambient Force, was that what it stood for? And it had given him wisdom! What did that even mean?