Chapter 2

What I found while perusing the skill lists was, well, I wouldn't say, interesting. Maybe more troubling. But there were also grayed skills within both the T1 and T2 categories. The one I wanted from the T2 listing was called Devourer. This one would let me eat dead things at the lower levels and alive things at the higher levels when ranked up past T2. When consuming food, I would gain Energy and Tokens, with a small chance of acquiring new skills or mutations. From my understanding, Devourer wasn't a mouth ability but a root one. My roots could shoot out and attempt to drag a target down into the depths of my root system to then be devoured.

The problem was that I needed to be a full flower and not just a seedling. I also needed to unlock the skill: Root Control and Monstrous Height first. Just so you know, neither of those skills is listed anywhere in both unlocked categories. Which makes no sense!

With nothing to really do but grow and collect Tokens, I focused on alternating between Hydrokinesis and Absorption. Hydrokinesis at my current level only gave me enough control to squeeze the moisture in the air to form enough water droplets to keep me from feeling thirsty. That was a feeling I hadn't experienced until I skipped three days of no water. At least I'm learning my limits. Reminds me of my drinking days… I miss those.

Absorption finally got me a T1 skill after 48 days' worth of attempts. It happened during a major storm that dropped so much water I think I started to drown. I tried to use Hydrokinesis first, but it was just too much water and too little control. Gambling on my remaining energy point, I acquired the Skill: Water Breathing T1-L1. By the end of the storm, the level rose to 4.

Day 71 meant I had 60 Tokens saved up, and I finally had enough to buy a skill from the T2 list called Astral Eye T2-L1. The other ten Tokens I did spend was to increase my Energy Max to 5. This was needed since using the Astral Eye for ten minutes would cost me 5 Energy.

Making sure I wouldn't go thirsty for the day first, I activated Astral Eye and… oh my! It is safe to say I'm not in Kansas anymore or Earth. In fact, I think I'm not even on a planet, but rather a moon. I could see the Sun off in the distance, but the massive planet with rings around it felt like it was close enough to touch. The planet was and wasn't like Saturn. It had the rings but resembled Earth in that it had oceans, landmasses, clouds, and lights from civilizations.

Remembering I had only so much time, I decided to turn my gaze away from the planet and closer to my surroundings. I was on the side of a mountain but closer to the base, where it was still warm. Below, I could see a field of orange grass, and other flowers of multicolors. There were trees here and there, along with a larger forest a bit farther off. The trees were larger than what I would say was on Earth, but I wasn't close enough to know for sure. The leaves looked to be a mix of blue, gold, and even pink. Brown bark? I think.

Then, as I was trying to squint to see further, I moved. No, my perception moved. Huh… I could move the Astral Eye around. Sweet. I zipped down the mountainside and hovered just above the grass. I could see strange-looking birds, critters, and some large bison-like creatures, but with a few more legs than expected.

I could feel the time running out on the skill, but I pushed as far as I could go to see as much as I could because, honestly, I was starting to lose my mind in the darkness with only a System Menu for company. As I rounded a bin, I caught signs of a smoke trail over a tree line and guessed it was about several miles away. So, there were people, or aliens, somewhat close by. Right before I lost connection to the skill, I saw one final haunting image. A monster the size of a house pouncing on several of the bison-like animals.

If I had to label it as something close to what is found on Earth or even in myth, I'd say it was a Troll. It was blue, with large tusks jutting upward out of its mouth, but it had four arms and large bony spikes protruding off its back. It also moved like a gorilla but with two of its arms held off the ground and gripping crude weapons. Ha, I mentally laughed. It looked like a person riding a horse, bearing weapons, but all wrapped up into one monstrosity.

Yeah, I'm going to do whatever it takes to acquire defensive and offensive skills. Or even a camouflage skill. For now, I had to start thinking like a plant, or specifically, a flower. Once I bloom, I was going to have to consider things like pollination and other plant like things. Will I have colors or a scent that will attract what I need? Will it attract herbivore predators? Did I ever expect to say the words… herbivore predators? Like, we all know a vegan or two, and they're not what you would call strong and predatory.

Still, what would I need exactly? What could I do with the mutation options I have now? I could acquire Thorns, Illuminate, and Spores in just a few days. Thorns wouldn't do much to the monsters I saw, but I doubt I'd be attracting them anytime soon. Critters were more of a danger at this stage. Illumination might be needed to help attract bees… maybe. But I'll focus on Thorns first and then Spores, which, if I recall, was related to forming fungi. Maybe I'll even get a new menu… I'm so excited that I'm mentally waving tiny flags…

I waited five days first and grabbed Thorns. I felt a strange sensation as my body grew thicker and, hopefully, a little taller. Then, large, wicked, needle-like thorns formed all over my stem. Nine days later, I got the Spores and Yahtzee… it came with a new menu.

Okay, so I can currently create Mushrooms or Bulbous Attachments. Mushrooms would grow at my base and spread out from there, while Bulbous Attachments would grow on my stem and eject their effect through the thorns. For the effects I have unlocked, there were Paralysis, Poison, and Ki Restoration. That caused me to pause and say, "What now?"

I don't use Ki. My System clearly states I use Energy. Then again, I don't have a mouth and wouldn't be the one to eat my mushrooms or be stuck with a thorn. But regardless, that brings a lot of questions about how things work. I have been thinking about the Realms for a while now, and I was wondering if it was related to Cultivation like some novels and anime I've seen growing up. However, I had no indications of how that worked or if I needed breathing or meditation techniques. So, I had just been going along with what I knew, which wasn't much.

The author's tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

Perhaps with skills like Astral Eye, there might be skills for telepathy, and I can start communicating with people. If any people ever explored this way. I went ahead and began the process to grow the Bulbous Attachments first, since the System would only allow for one production at a time. I chose, for now, Paralysis. Would hate to kill the first people with poison that stumble by this way, so I'll start with just teaching them not to pluck me.

The Bulbs would each take three days to grow, at 3 Energy each day, for a total of twelve bulbs to attach to my thorns. Until whenever I bloom and find out what happens next, I'll focus on fungi production, drinking water, and growing larger. I'll use the Astral Eye about once a week to not only keep my sanity but keep up with nature, weather, and threats. For the rest of my Tokens gained each week, I'll use them to expand my Energy Max.

It took another three months to get a System Notification about my Bloom status.

System Notification!

Bloom will become available in three days. Cost: 20 Energy.

New Features will become available.

Oh, nice. The cost is fine since I am now up to 22 Energy per day. For now, I'll continue to work on Mushrooms. While Mushrooms do start to grow at my base and then spread out, I also found I could place them at any location along my root's path as long as it's within a few inches of the root. So, it took a while, but I started to spread some of my roots outward in all directions of my base, just below the surface.

Tinkering with the design parameters of the Mushrooms showed that I could modify the number of generations each subsequent Mushroom Spore would be capable of spreading. So, the first four Mushrooms would create three each, then those would create three each, and then after that, each generation would create one less until no more. This would give me a foot and a half or so of Mushrooms with the Poison attribute. These were represented as white Mushrooms with green dots.

Then, at the edge of those shrooms, I would create Paralysis fungi with the same parameters as the poison ones. These would have yellow dots. Once those were done, I'd start on the outer layer of Mushrooms with the Restore Ki attribute. Lastly, these had blue dots. The hope was that after I bloom, any critter that might find me enticing would instead eat the Restore Ki shrooms and hopefully be satisfied. If not, then if they eat the next ones, paralysis would hopefully encourage them to go away. Then, if all else fails, I have poison shrooms and paralysis bulbous thorns.

Most of the time, I am not able to see the outside world. My skill has leveled a little, granting me about fourteen minutes of view time but at a cost of 6 Energy. I had stretched out several roots and at the tip, I stuck it out of the ground so I could try and judge the distance away from my stem. Eyeballing the distance wasn't very helpful. I have no real concept of size or distance, so at best estimation I would say about three and a half feet long so far.

Based on that, I would also say I've grown vertically about a full foot, which would make me one large flower. It's not gigantic like a sunflower or even the Titan Arum. That one can grow between eight and ten feet with a four-foot diameter.

Pushing my roots out had another two unintended side effects. The first was that my Growth skill leveled up to 2, which caused my growing distance to speed up slightly. The second was that I felt something nibbling on the end of one of my roots. Using Astral Eye at level 2 gave me a bit faster travel time, which was appreciated but not needed at this moment. All I wanted was to see who the hell was feasting on my roots.

It was a critter similar to a squirrel but had two tails and four eyes. The mouth was thinner but wider as well, which, when it bared teeth at something I couldn't see, revealed rows of tiny, sharp, shark-like teeth. At least it had fur and was vaguely brown in color. I slowly retreated my root while it was distracted, and when it looked down again and saw it was gone, it suddenly turned red. Like the fur shifted colors to a blood-red color, then it sniffed the nearest Mushrooms and changed back to brown as it started to eat those instead.

Hopefully, the plan will work because I don't have much time to watch him and didn't want to waste the rest of the time I had. So, this time, I zipped up the mountainside to see how high I could get and what kind of view I could see.

I didn't even make it a quarter of the way up since, from my position, the mountain was just too high to even see the top. The clouds blocked the view. But turning around allowed me to see much farther into the distance. Many plumes of smoke rising from chimneys somewhat past the forest area. I even saw a group of people fighting a new monster of sorts. I couldn't make out what they were wearing or the type of weapons, but it looked like at least a dozen of them surrounding the beast. Then my time ran out, and I was back to the boring old Status window.

I could continue to read skills since, even now, I hadn't gotten close to finishing. It wasn't like I didn't have time because that was all I had, but mentally, it was exhausting. Instead, I often found myself daydreaming about the thousands of stories and characters I've read in my previous life. Usually, I'd imagine some of their endings since I would never get to find out now. I also slept a lot because once I use up all my Energy points, the drowsiness tends to kick in.

Three days later, when I awoke, I was greeted with a new prompt to activate my Bloom for 20 Energy. I quickly said the word Yes and felt a wonderful sensation of my bud opening. It was unlike anything I had ever felt before, and not just as a flower. It almost felt magical, if I had any idea what magic felt like. I guess technically, I'm using Skills, which is sort of like magic. But those just activate, and then I'm doing whatever it is I'm doing. This was a sensation occurring to me, and I felt like taking a breath for the very first time. I spent the Tokens I had saved up to restore my Energy and then cast the Skill Astral Eye.

Okay, okay… I looked similar to a Black Lotus flower. The inside was a purple and black swirling pattern. But when looking closer, I could see stars and galaxies, all in motion. Underneath was a glossy black. The very center of my flower was also a soft, glowing purple color. There were tiny strands protruding from the center, which I think were called the Anther and Filament. Together, they were called the Stamen. The filament was the long part and was a blue color, while the top Anther glowed softly white. Wait, what the hell? When did I learn that knowledge? I've never studied plants!

Ahem… Sorry for that outburst. I would have to see this at night, I am wondering if they do actually glow. Retreating from the Astral Eye, I found a new prompt.

System Notification!

Bloom completion is 100%.

New Skills, Items, and Mutations have become unlocked.

Species is now Astral Flower.

Terra Stage has advanced to 2 of 9.

New Skill acquired: Terrakinesis T1-L1

Ooh… now that last one could come in handy. I’ll have to ponder on that a bit. Well, for now, let’s see what became unlocked.