After hours of trying, Licht’s best approach to resolving the situation had been to go to sleep.

Not literally, as he wasn’t quite desperate enough yet to start pining for solutions in his dreams. But instead he put other matters aside and singularly focused on the first skill of the two, [Construct Body]. Just from the name and the fact that it had replaced [Withe Body], Licht believed that it was supposed to take the place of his body skill, allowing for a freer range of movement and physical capability.

He had chosen to stick with this one as [Arboreal Sense] had felt a tad too abstract for Licht. Being far from understanding what it did, he decided to focus on the body skill for the moment.

As Licht had realized he could now move the bark, roots, and branches of trees at will thanks to the improvement of his [Wood Manipulation] skill, he tested his theories of the passive body skill.

Setting his glass-like body down on the stone overhang he had previously made to keep the blossoms dry, he imagined a body.

Around him slithered roots and branches. They had come, reacting to his thoughts that were unconsciously being conveyed into usage of the manipulation skill.

“A body has…well, arms, legs, a torso, head.”

But what more could he add? What would make sense?

“Hair, organs, muscles, skin, bones.”

Licht hummed, closing his “eyes” as he spoke from his unmoving position that looked like he was asleep.

“More specifically, I guess a skeleton would make sense, add a heart, and the veins to go along with it. I suppose that would make a skeletal and cardiovascular system, but then don’t I need a respiratory and nervous system?”

The body, at least the human one which was all he was familiar with, really was one complicated beast. More things kept getting tacked on as he spoke.

Licht continued while imagining, in his opinion, the ideal form for a humanoid plant life.

At that point, he stopped thinking about the skill and just started listing off things that came to him. Weird ways in which parts of the body could be replaced with functions of certain plants.

And when he finally stopped and waited for the pain to come, nothing happened. His vision opened to light once again to see the world much differently.

“Woah.”

Licht received familiar sensations. The cool, grainy surface of the stone beneath him. The cold, sharp breeze floating from the treeline. The smells! The musty yet slightly tangy smell of the forest. Like an old car air freshener that’s been hanging for a week too long.

Licht looked down at his form.

“Huh, it’s different than I imagined.”

To his mild surprise Licht lacked many of the features he had envisioned, yet was adorned with things he didn’t expect. Instead of a well defined torso with, as he envisioned, a modest 8-pack and toned pecs, he found a bumpy surface of root and branch-like protrusions.

His entire body save for his face, seemed to be composed of incredibly dense interlocking roots. Not a spec of anything resembling skin could be found. He reflexively swept the surface of his body and was reminded of those diagrams of people without skin, looking like red and white sinewy muscle-statues.

As he put a five-fingered hand over the surface of his face, he reacted in shock.

Not because of the apparent smoothness of his face, seeming to be made out of a single plate of some kind of bark, he would have to check later, but because of his features. Judging by that cavern he just stuck his hand into, he had a mouth!

Could he do it now?

Licht let out an unsure whisper, tenderizing his vocal cords with their first use.

“...Ehhhh? Ooh!”

Yes!

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“I can speak!”

Licht’s voice echoed across the clearing of concentrically arrayed trees. His voice carried the now evident male tone while being spiced with a slight grit, like the cold shaking of a tree branch in the winter.

“Hahahaha!”

Licht didn’t pay much attention to his tone and let out a hearty laugh. Despite the current predicament with his farm and connected forest, this elated him.

“Goodbye shoddy commune skill! Goodbye darkness everytime I try to talk to someone!”

Licht raised two fists triumphantly in the air, pumping victory. By doing this he also fulfilled a wish he had earlier, Licht happily realized.

It took a few minutes before his mood stabilized.

Once he wasn’t so excited with the new human-like features of his body, he inspected it.

True to its appearance, a dense spider web of roots covered every inch of his exterior like skin, save for his face plate. Even his head beyond the plate extended slightly upward, nearly giving him the feeling of hair. Nearly.

Licht walked over to a pond to get a better look at himself.

“That’s right. Walked!”

Licht happily said aloud. Bending down by the water he gazed forward at his image.

“Huh. Not quite as handsome as I pictured in my head, but not so bad looking either. At least I won’t drive anyone to tears with this visage.”

…Not that he had as a human.

But it was strange. Licht’s face had the crevice for a mouth, and apparent facial structure for cheeks and a nose and such, but he had no eyes? More like, he had the slight dips into his head where one would normally see eyes resting in, but no fleshy orbs occupied them.

“That’s weird. I don’t think I would have planned for those if I didn’t have eyes?”

Licht didn’t bother asking why he was able to see if he didn’t have eyes, it was clearly something to do with his main body orb. He had been able to see as just an orb before, although not in as refined a manner. It made sense to him then that the body would just rely on his orb for vision, which was positioned within his head where the brain would normally be.

[Psychometric Observation]

Licht used the skill on himself, interested in knowing more about the structure of his body. The face shape seemed particularly interesting. As it was activated, the skill targeted everything Licht was touching, which was determined to be his whole body.

Amongst the stream of notifications, a few significant ones caught Licht’s eye.

[Foxfire Wood (D-)]

“The hardened inner material of the Foxfire Tree. This sample appears to have been subject to incredible pressure, and is coiled around itself in twisting patterns that form a highly dense protective layer.”

[Human Skeleton (E+)]

“The skeletal remains of a human in the prime of their life. Its surface has been slightly marred by dents and chips, but has all bones accounted for. The skeleton has been reinforced over time by the previous host’s possession of Ambient Force, but hasn’t reached its potential hardness within a body that was never trained.”

[Imperial Delia Bulb (C-)]

“A bulb of the Imperial Delia Tree. Usually serving as a resource well for their trees, this bulb appears to have been modified to serve as a liquid conveyance system. The poisonous hairs have notably been shaved from its surface to expose the membrane of the bulb. Several roots are plugged into it, pushing in and extracting a foreign substance.”

[Manacle Blossom Sap (C-)]

“The extracted sap of a blue flower that rarely grows around the mouths of damp caves. Contains a minute amount of liquid ambient force. This sap appears to have been repurposed to serve as a nutrient and energy carrier, but must stay warm in order to be effective.”

As Licht finished reading he had a blank look on his face.

“So that’s where my facial features came from. Turns out I fished old Chuck out of the ground while I was lost in thought.”

Licht would spare no pity for such a character, and didn’t dwell on it for a moment. Instead he leaned further into his watery reflection.

“Hmm, more like a crown than hair, if I do say so myself.”

Licht rubbed his chin as he admired the other parts of his body.

“All I had to do was think about it and the parts came together as if by themselves. A bulb for a heart, sap for blood, a skeleton…for a skeleton, and my orb for a brain. Not to mention the Foxfire wood that encapsulates it all, forming an incredibly dense physique. So this is the true use of the [Construct Body]… wait!”

Licht facepalmed. For the first time he felt the limitations of having a purely text-based system, or at least one without a ‘correct pronunciation’ feature.

“This whole time I thought it meant Construct Body, not construct body!”

Or maybe it did mean it as a noun and not a verb, either way, the utility of the passive skill was finally revealed to him, and why it was a passive to begin with. Although he could now handily shape plants at will, that was thanks to the upgrade of [Wood Manipulation].

What [Passive Construct Body] did on the other hand, was set the design for his body, and then maintain it at no cost to him! It was a thousand times easier to move than the root of a connected tree!

Or at least it seemed that way, for a few minutes.

As Licht returned to the central tree from looking at himself in the pond’s reflection, he froze.

Creeaaak

His body grinded against itself dryly. All of the threads in his body bundled up and frayed. Licht was forcibly paused mid-step.