The potential risks to Licht had only increased in his eyes. From his standpoint, the benefits of revealing himself to the fungoid woman had turned out to outweigh the hazards, as he now had a stronger grasp on his situation. In hindsight, it had been a good decision. It would’ve been hard for him to go it alone with his information about his situation being next to nothing.

Licht and Racheal had continued to talk about what he should do to survive. He had told her his name as well, to which she only commented that she had never heard of anyone with a similar name before.

Not even going to comment on why a plant gave itself a name? Well maybe he was a nature spirit, but still! Licht thought a little incredulously.

Actually, scratch that, he recalled Muan.

“Really Licht, I don’t know if I’m in the best position to give you advice anymore, but it is without a doubt that you need to become stronger. I don’t know how you’ve managed to reach this extent so far, but I would say while continuing everything you’ve done so far would be good, you need to do more.”

“What, like, move my roots differently? Actually, I have wanted to get more capable using them offensively. Dealing with the guards would have been a lot smoother if I could have just attacked head-on.”

Racheal shook her head.

“I don’t know exactly what you have in mind, but your strategy of incapacitating the guards was likely the best move to make. None of them were spectrals, from what I knew, but even normal men can be dangerous when weaponized. Especially humans. They have tools and other devices that could have jeopardized our escape if they had been awake to use them. Their incapacitated state was the whole reason why Kushal took the chance to loot them. We were lucky only four were unaffected enough to fight.”

“Kushal is that tall elven man, right? The one who was leading the fight that happened?”

“Yes. He was highly regarded in our caravan as an advocate of unity. He didn’t want us doing anything until everyone was on the same page. Especially when we were still enslaved.”

“Was highly regarded? What happened?”

“I heard that he surrendered himself in the middle of the fight. Likely leading to Kabir, Ishaan, and Delia being injured. Respect for him within the group has dwindled.”

“Hmm.”

Licht didn’t like the sound of that. This wasn’t Survivor, they couldn’t just vote him out. Licht had seen enough in his lifetime to know that an individual isolated from the group would only stew in contempt. That was doubly so for a person who had been popular in the past. Also, to Licht it seemed the man favored democracy, and it would be a shame to let such a forward thinking person like that go to waste in a medieval era. Although he could agree it was bad that the elf’s decision may have led to more injuries, so what if he was a little cowardly? So was Licht, at times.

If Licht could find out how to communicate with non plant-based life forms he would try to talk to the man. For now, maybe he could write something in the mud? Though he didn’t know their written language, or if they had one…

“For now, I would forget that and continue using the resources afforded to you. If you want to get stronger, maybe look around your territory. The flowers, Licht, what did you say they were called?”

“Fool’s Oasis.”

“Yes, the Fool’s Oasis flowers were very effective in incapacitating the guards. Maybe try something along those lines and incorporate it into your connected area? You don’t necessarily need something sharp or resembling human weapons, as I’m sure there are many poisonous flora around here.”

Although neither could see past the inky darkness of the skill, Racheal made a motion with her hands, gesturing to the surrounding forest.

“Thank you for the advice, you’re very knowledgeable. You wouldn’t happen to be a botanist or something?”

Even to Licht that would’ve felt a little too convenient. For the plant life form to study plants just seemed too fitting. Though he supposed that would make her some kind of doctor for her own kind?

This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.

Racheal rubbed her collar. She had been doing that a lot lately.

“Botanist? I’m not sure what that is, but no. I was an alchemist’s apprentice in my village, and that was why I was visiting the Filigost Woods a few months ago.”

Uh oh, alchemist? Licht considered Racheal a friend by now, but he had to make sure with her that she wasn’t about to go searching for his main body. She had told him that beings like him were favorites as alchemical ingredients, hard as it was to believe. He wasn't trying to end up in someone else’s ED potion. Racheal laughed.

“No, I would never do that! I’m glad you see me as a friend though, I feel the same way.”

Racheal smiled, two hues of purple rising to her cheeks where the line of her mouth met its end. Two amethyst splotches against tangerine skin.

Licht did his best approximation of a thumbs-up he could with roots, ending up creating some sort of vaguely-offensive gesture. Racheal laughed again, apparently the thumbs-up was known as she had understood what he was trying to do.

After talking some more about future plans, they bid each other farewell for now. Both thanked each other in equal measures for their help. Licht watched as the woman returned to the clearing of tents.

…

Licht was happy to have met his first true conversation partner. Racheal was kind, but more importantly she spoke in full sentences. Muan and the Giving Tree were both alright, each having their unique quirks, but there was something about speaking with another member of the articulate that made him feel like a human again. Despite all his newfound abilities, and an outlook on life that was growing more positive each day, he had only spent a little under two months in Hadea. It was hard not to be more comfortable doing ‘human’ things. Like speaking.

“Though I suppose plants do that here too.”

Licht’s vision panned back to HQ, his vision stopping briefly over Muan for a moment. The plant looked like it was concentrating, how a bush could look like that he didn’t even know, but he decided to leave it to whatever it was doing for now.

“Let’s see, what to do…? While it’s good that the elves and Racheal are all sorted out and everyone’s recovering, it sort of makes me feel like an empty-nester. Well, I can’t keep bothering them forever. Oh, wait, I didn’t even check my system yet?”

Licht had only used his system lately to open the backlogs. It was odd, the way the system worked. He only simply needed to call out in his mind what he desired to see, and it would appear in front of him, on a translucent screen. There was no navigation that was strictly required, unless he felt like going analog and using the buttons.

[Defeated Human]

[+27 Experience]

Licht looked at the meager experience given to him for the one human he had dealt with during the fight. Expanding his mental capacity to manipulate wood past its limits had allowed him to drag off one of the distracted guards, who he had then permanently silenced in the woods beyond the clearing. Another point he made sure to look at was his health in the system, which had returned back to a full two-hundred.

Licht had felt the ceasing of a headache about a day after the event, so it was likely that his current health was so low that it didn’t take long to regenerate, even from a mental wound.

“Yeah, I’m still well within level five. Though this amount of experience is lower than what I even got for that skinny guy who was with Chuck. I wonder if that’s because he was deemed a weaker opponent by the system, or maybe had been weakened by the Fool’s Oasis? No AF here, though.”

Licht checked his roots after absorbing the body. His counter for organic matter already had been reached, so he didn’t both shuttling it all the way back to his main body, he just distributed the nutrients to the trees around the clearing’s perimeter. The nutrients contained in human bodies was evidently very potent for tree’s growth, as several of the fruit-bearing ones immediately ripened their stock.

The bones of the guard, however, Licht was unable to absorb once again, leaving him to just pull them under their dirt and possibly forget about them.

If the elves hadn’t long stacked the bodies of the guards and burned them, Licht might have mentioned it to Racheal so that he could absorb them. Oh well.

With that out of the way, Licht thought about how to progress. Racheal’s logic was infallible. You could only afford to live in peace if you were strong enough not to be bothered. He needed to get stronger. There was a noticeable lack of proper hunt-able game around his territory, although the number of small critters and birds was definitely increasing once again. He probably couldn’t kill something like that gigantic rabbit-beast yet, and luckily enough he hadn’t found anything similar in his vision. They were probably pretty rare.

“So then if gaining experience is a no-go, I’ll have to stick with auxiliary methods, like Racheal suggested. Actually, I have just the perfect thing!”

The Manacle Blossom, which contained a ‘minute amount’ of AF, would be great for those purposes. Although it might not contribute directly to his strength in a very flashy way, it would allow him to absorb AF assuming he could farm it. Also with the large assumption that absorbing such matter had no limit with the skill, he could be able to increase his connected range indefinitely. That would give him the space to figure out what to do next.

In any case, farming the blossoms would surely be far less of a headache than trying to trap hundreds of those little critters.