Growing as a nature mage

After saying goodbye to Naldo, Nathan went back home, mulling over what he'd been told. He should be able to level his class by using his nature sense skill, but progress will be slow. Nonetheless, nature sense is the basis of everything, so it would be good to start there. He goes to his backyard, a small grasspatch with an apple tree in it. The apple tree reaches up to halfway the first floor and the branches extend a bit over a meter in each direction. The apple tree barely grows any fruit each year, so the tree is more of a decoration, than that it is useful.

Nathan puts his hand on the trunk, closes his eyes and activates the nature sense skill. With the skill active, he can feel the sap gently seeping through the branches. He keeps focusing on the flow of sap through the tree and he becomes aware of small amounts of energy being generated in the leaves and being transported down to the roots. Interesting! He focuses on the roots more and he feels how the roots slowly extract water from the ground. He can also feel the tree extracting nutrients although he senses, that the tree isn't able to extract all of the nutrients it needs. Focusing a bit more, he senses that the tree doesn't seem to be able to draw enough potassium from the ground.

That seems a bit complicated. Naldo told me that basic mana infusion is possible, but macro nutrients probably require complex mana molding. Maybe I can grow things though? He remembers the description calling him "human miracle grow". The system is trying to tell me something.

Nah, System really wasn't. The original description was something about: develops an awareness of the cycle of life and uses mana with awareness to affect the natural world. It was boring, so System changed it into something fun and exciting! Who knows where Nathan would have ended up if he didn't blindly believe System's description, but his belief was about to turn into a great boon for him, his entire village and even all of Systemia.

Maybe the fruit tree is not the best tree to experiment on. He walks to the forest on the north-east edge of the village. Before he starts his experiments, he decides to use nature sense on the mother of the forest, so he crosses through the forest, looking for his destination. There is a tree in the middle of the forest known as the mother of the forest. The tree is said to be well over a thousand years old, though Nathan isn't sure if he believes trees actually get that old and even if they do, how would they know its age?

The tree stands proudly in a clearing on top of a hill. The massive tree looks awe-inspiring, towering over the forest from within it's clearance. Before he walks up to the tree, he gives a small bow of respect. The mother of the forest is well respected in the village and some revere it as a symbol of strength and vitality. He stares at the massive trunk for a second. Enormous roots wave over the ground. There aren't any offshoots off the trunk until well over his head. The lower branches are thick enough to be able to carry the entire population of the village. Enough staring, let's get to work.

Once again he puts his hand on the tree. This time he is touching a brown root that is taller than he is. The brown root lifts off the ground, then it dives deep underground. He activates nature sense and closes his eyes for concentration. This time it is a completely different experience. The tree is so big, that he can't focus on the whole tree at once. He starts directing his attention at the massive trunk. Wrapping his attention around the whole trunk takes up a lot of his concentration. He pushes himself to exert more mental energy, overexerting himself in the process.

*DING* *DING* nature sense reaches level 2

The feeling of exertion eases off a bit, but he still feels like he should take a rest. He is too curious to stop here though. Nathan can feel the sap flowing through the edges of the massive trunk, but the core of the tree is different. He has some difficulty getting through to the core of the tree. He calmly circles his attention around the core, until at some point it hits him. The core is dead!?! How can that be? Is the tree dying? But his nature sense doesn't give off that feeling. His nature sense seems to be telling him that the tree is perfectly healthy. It's as if the tree having a dead core, is a natural state for the tree to be in. The core is supporting the tree as a pillar, but other than that there aren't any juices flowing through it. Odd. He moves his focus towards some of the leaves that are not too far away from his position, only focusing on a branch at a time. Nathan shrinks the range of his scanning to reduce the pressure on his head that is starting to cause a headache. He feels the same generation and transportation of energy from the leaves. Then he brings his attention down to the roots. At which point he realizes that the roots saturate the entire hill he is standing on and they spread further and deeper in all directions. No wonder there isn't anything else growing in the area surrounding the tree! There is no ground to grow roots in and other plants won't be able to compete in extracting nutrients from the ground.

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Then his attention is drawn to a congregation of roots that have a thick sap flowing through it. The sap is seeping with power, which is unusual. He didn't feel power from the apple tree, just energy, nurtrients and water. He follows the sap in the direction where the power is getting more intense. Deep underground the power gets stronger and stronger up to the point where it is starting to scare him, yet it is still rising. Finally, he gets to something that feels like a core. He circles his attention around the core, trying to figure out what it is. He is a little fearful of what might happen when he connects his senses to the core itself. Nathan internally debates what to do, but there is nobody to offer wisdom. Finally, he decides to take the risk and he carefully probes the core with his senses.

The instant he probes the core, the power in the core overwhelms his senses and he feels the core staring back at him. Dread engulfs his heart and permeates his body. He falls backwards onto his butt and scuttles backwards akwardly on his hands and feet as if he were a tremendously confused spider. Meanwhile, there are some dings in his head that vaguely pass the margin of his awareness.

System just sees him touch a tree and then run away shit scared ( •_•)

Once he is far enough from his point of contact, he turns over, jumps up and runs off the hill, remembering the reach of the roots. He keeps running until he passes the first trees again. Then he falls to his knees and starts bawling. This was not what he signed up for! It's not that there was any anger that was directed at him. He didn't feel any malice. Given his emotional state, he couldn't fully trust his own judgement, but it seems like the spirit had a sense of curiousity? Nevertheless he was overwhelmed by the sheer magnitude of the presence of the spirit. It was as if he had been staring at a deity without any filters.

After a while he collapses onto his stomach and starts to calm down. What the hell was that? Do trees have spirits? I need to talk to my dad. He remembers the dings and checks his notifications. Just by making contact with the spirit, I gained 2 levels on my class!?! This is madness! I don't really want to go through that again though. Oddly enough, his headache has receded a little. It still hurts though. Maybe the increase of my vessel is allowing me to bear a greater burden now? He turns over to his back for a bit, takes a deep breath and decides that he still needs to do his experiment.

He walks up to a young tree and puts his hand around it. The tree almost reaches the top of his head and is no thicker than a pen where he holds it. The tree bends towards him under his arm's weight. He closes his eyes, runs nature sense through it and quickly develops an awareness of what the tree is like. It's much easier of course, for a tree this small. Then he tries to focus on his own mana, which he only has a vague awareness of, since he doesn't have any mana skills. He can tell it's there, but not much more. He tries to push his mana into the tree, but he feels like he is pushing against a sticky goo that flows off his fingers and goes right back into place. Nathan doesn't give up easily though. He closes his eyes and as the minutes start passing he increases his ability to push a chunk of mana towards the tree. Over time his headache starts increasing and right as he is about to give up, he can feel a small droplet of mana flowing into the tree.

*DING* *DING* you gained the skill strengthen plant

*DING* *DING* class nature mage reaches level 3

His burning headache somewhat dampens his enthusiasm and he decides that that was enough for the day. He stumbles back home, holding one hand on his head. It's dark by the time he gets home and his head is still hammering non-stop. It's not as bad as when he just gained his spell, but he still wants nothing other than to lie down.He enters the door and his dad looks up from a conversation with Innis, one of the elders.

Nathan: Dad! I think the mother of the forest might be over a thousand years old after all, still holding his head.

Villagran: Did something happen, son?

Nathan: Let's talk about it tomorrow.

Nathan scuttles back to his room and crashes on his bed. This was the start of long, committed period of studying magic for Nathan.

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Nathan

id: 209,543,479

name: Nathan

age: 15

HP: 40

MP: 40/48

classes: nature mage (apprentice) - level 3

VIT: 4

STR: 3

END: 3

DEX: 4

INT: 24 (16+8)

class: nature mage (apprentice)

INT +5, +1/lvl

MP +INT

skill - nature sense (2): you can feel natural energy

spell - strengthen plant: makes a plant more resilient for an hour, strengthening depends on mana spent.