Novels2Search

44. It's All Coming Together

“Within the week. Kushal doesn’t want to stay for long. Something about catching a bird? I couldn’t tell. Although I speak Aurum, I don’t know all of the proverbs that elves use.”

As Licht listened to Racheal, he mentally sorted Aurum as the language that elves spoke. From the way that Racheal talked about it, it likely wasn’t the main language of these parts.

“How will that affect you guys? Is there anything you need help with?”

Racheal smiled.

“Although I’m inclined to say we’re good, I’d like to ask for some of those azure blossoms for the kids. It was proven with our injured members that they accelerate growth, and I think they’d be good for their growing bodies.”

Licht ‘nodded’ his roots in a friendly fashion.

“That’s no problem at all. I’ve got more than I know what to do with!”

“Then thank you.”

Licht’s consciousness swam back to his main body and looked at the farm. In truth he “didn’t have more than he knew what to do with”, but he had said as much like a giddy schoolboy just because he felt like helping Racheal out. Well, it wasn’t like he couldn’t spare a few bundles of the stuff.

In fact by now he had already grown the Imperial Delia seeds that were spread out all alongside his main body, so the cluster of glowing trees no longer looked like a fraction of a pie chart but a solid circle. He hadn’t done so before because he didn’t have the manacle blossom production to merit it, but now that he was growing so many at a time it was worth spreading them out amongst many trees. At this point he counted somewhere around five hundred manacle blossoms being grown at once. Thanks to the input of his nutrient stream, they each took barely twelve hours to grow. He expected to reach his goal of five thousand before long.

Licht checked his interface.

“Hmm. Not bad at all.”

It was only a few hours away, actually.

The reason why Licht wasn’t speeding up the process even further with [Biogenical Growth] was that the skill was too exhausting, and he didn’t feel the need. Quite simply, he was being lazy. Although from this distance, supplementing a single bulb with the skill would be quite easy, doing all of the bulbs for each cycle of growth would be an overstretch. As for overfarming the trees? It didn’t seem to be an issue. Thankful to heaven and earth, Licht had discovered that the Imperial Delia trees suffer no adverse reactions from repeatedly messing with their bulbs. And thanks to the nutrients he was pumping into the trees himself, they no longer relied on the bulbs to act as nutrient and water banks.

As Licht sent a bundle of the blossoms down his root line over to the camp he wondered. If he had missed the existence of these trees this entire time, what else remained undiscovered by him in the forest?

The Fool’s Oasis had been instrumental in his ability to fight against the caravan, and more and more he was being convinced that he would need to rely on the forest itself to gain offensive ability. Whatever species the Giving Tree was, he was confident it had nothing to do with him. He could see no path forward that would allow him to gain bladed roots and the same reflexes as the gargantuan tree, and believed entirely now that those differences were thanks to a different evolutionary path. However simple the jump from his current type of root to that kind seemed, it had proved outside of his capabilities.

And he had proven thus, as over the past week farming manacle blossoms was not the only thing he had done to increase his strength. Emulating the giant tree had returned no results, but he wouldn’t be deterred.

“Luckily I’ve already scanned large parts of the forest so I’m not completely blind, but I haven’t been as thorough as I could have been.”

It was time to think about his next evolution. As the past events had proven, his actions would influence his options for evolution. At the time of his last evolution, he had barely existed for a few days and yet was given three options. This time, months had passed and he had accomplished much. So would he be given more options? Or would he get the same number but higher quality choices?

Licht had no idea, but he was brimming with excitement! No to mention farming, and attempting to control his root shapes, but in the past few days he had also been hunting. With the ever expanding territory of his connected forest, he had finally stumbled upon a stronger beast like the rabbit!

If you stumble upon this tale on Amazon, it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.

It had been a type of bear called a uh…Licht looked back at his system notification.

[Defeated Bronzefur Bear Beast - (Unnamed)]

[+263 Experience]

A bronzefur bear, that was right. Luckily, although it seemed stronger than the rabbit had been, it was asleep when Licht had found it. Using the Fool’s Oasis once again (which was much easier to grow in patches than the manacle blossoms) he had killed it silently.

Like the rabbit in the past, he had noticed that the system denoted this animal as an actual ‘beast’, and had shown its status as “unnamed”. Although Licht didn’t know what all that meant, he figured that the biggest difference from the other critters in the forest was that the bear counted as a ‘beast’, and so could probably use AF? Licht figured this was the case because it had given him AF from absorption, and a bit more than Chuck had. When he absorbed it he received a full 150 points, when the human had given him just 100. 150 would convert to 7.5 points of actual AF, which the system rounded down to 7.

The name thing though, reminded Licht of a certain web novel he had read concerning a slime. Now that he thought about it, they seemed to be in similar predicaments? Well, whatever. It’s not like he was about to start taking advice on real life from what he could remember from a web novel.

Back to the topic of evolution, his constant hunting over the past few days had allowed him to grow to level nine, with his experience just barely a hair away from reaching the bottleneck to the next level. As for why he had such a plentiful time in a mere few days? Well, let's just say the bear was female, and it's the time when young are usually raised…

Licht didn’t feel the best about his actions concerning that, but the whole experience with the slaves had dulled his response for things like this. He could now be more callous in a survival situation if he needed to because of it.

What that meant, was that all Licht had to do before evolving was finish gathering the five thousand manacle blossoms. If his actions affected his evolution, he wanted to gain that last virtue before going on.

“Dum deedee dum dada dum…”

Licht mouthed nonsense as he waited for his latest batch to mature. Finally, after a few more vocal warmup exercises that only served to wear out his mental state, they finished their growth cycle.

[Absorbed Ambient Force: 2750/3000 AF]

Accumulated Benefits: 137 WIS, 137 AF, 3 CHA

[??? Progress: 5000/5000]

[Virtue Learned: Spark]

[Skill Gained: Light Manipulation (D+)]

[Skill Gained: Warmth (D)]

[Learned Virtue Organically!]

[+1000 Experience]

“Yes! Finally!”

Licht’s mood hit the sky and he couldn’t help himself from thumping the dirt with his roots. This was progress! Real, visible progress outside of just increasing his AF values. Although that had helped him, gaining new skills was unbelievable!

And unlike when the Giving Tree had used [Bestowal] on him, he gained two skills instead of one this time! And in the light category! Although Racheal had never been able to explain his abilities, he could now officially consider himself an anomaly. Being able to use two different types of spells would allow him to…allow him to do…well, what?

Licht pondered, his mood cooling back down to room temp. He first needed to figure out what his new skills would do for him. [Light Manipulation] was high ranked, indicating it was better than [Wood Manipulation], but what would that do for him? He was a tree after all. Other than photosynthesizing faster he wasn’t sure of its uses. [Warmth] on the other hand sounded more like a run-of-the-mill spell. He could definitely see some spectral running around with this skill, though once again its uses seemed limited in his case.

His rank had also jumped nearly a whole stage! Going from D- to D+ instantly because of a single virtue. Licht wondered if that was because he now had two specialties.

Well, first he would start by–

“ACK!”

A mind-shuddering pain swept throughout Licht’s body. Not from his tree's roots or even along its bark, but his main body! His orb-body felt like it was convulsing, threatening him with passing out. He knew this feeling!

Licht looked at his system and confirmed his suspicion.

[Level Up Available!]

[Evolution Available!]

[Level: 9]

[Exp: 5104/5000]

[Name: Licht Welles]

[Race: Woodland Ego (Adolescent)]

[Health: 200/200]

[Stamina: 20/20]

[Energy: 187/187 AF]

[Rank: D+]

[1 STR, 3 DEX, 152 WIS, 20 END, 3 CHA]

[Virtues: (Twig), (Branch), (Root), (Spark)]

[Specializations: Wood, Light]

[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+), Light Manipulation (D+), Warmth (D)]

“You feel that burn? That’s what progress feels like. Now stop dawdling and evolve!”

Licht had cut it too close, and had gone overboard with experience and into the next level. He was overdue.

It was time to evolve!