I go to my next subclass after the very first choice. I could probably sit here in my clay hut in the middle of the forest and meditate all day long about the implications but I had stuff to do…important stuff.

Pando’s Carrier - Scarce (50% Effectiveness - 1/2)

Nature connection

Skills:

Lv. 25 - Animal control

Lv. 50 - Plant growth

Lv. 75 - Avatar

Just like I expected, I have to choose another skill. I went from two unlocked to four and I can choose one more.

I read through the list starting at the top with all the seriousness this decision merits, but as I come across the first skill I burst out laughing. The one I didn’t choose the last time around is not even a consideration. It may even have a different understanding than the normal meaning of control, but that is the furthest thing from my and Pando’s mind. The very skill’s name puts me off. Even animal handling wouldn’t be very appealing, let alone control that implies a lot more guidance. Something like friend to the fauna would be more mine and Aspen’s speed.

Amongst the real contenders, things are different and I need to use my judgment to make a proper choice. Unless there is some fundamental shift in how I work with the help of these skills, they are both stuff I’m already capable of, so they are likely to only help me in furthering my control. I can substitute Plant Growth with truckloads of mana and as for Avatar: I just need to be in the range of my network for it to effectively work.

I could be totally wrong on how these skills are supposed to work and their limitations, but I don’t believe I’m too off the mark.

Plant growth is likely to be the same as my mana control range, which just increased to 80 meters or at most like the nature connection skill that extends that number a little. I could maybe cheat that a little further with inner world shenanigans, but even then it will have a sharp limit. The other skill however I’m not so sure about. Avatar likely has range restrictions amongst other limitations, but I don’t feel like just 80 meters would do it justice.

I stop and try to pass my Aether through the system’s window and interact with the prompt in every imaginable way possible, but there is no more information available. Even my book, as I open its last page with the question burning in my mind proves to be no help.

Everything that my Aether reveals is a logical extension that I can easily guess. Once in a while, the system randomly throws out a lot of information to an ‘Aether user’ like me, but it really doesn’t like to let us know what skills are all about, hugh? That’s something to note.

I come to think deeply about what is proper development for me. The growth skill could be amazing and had its own benefits, but I could always take it later if something else amazing didn’t pop up. Avatar has a chance however small to be more. It was more open ended and so it becomes my final choice.

Raising my hand and tapping it skill like the final keystroke of a particularly heavy piano piece and I take a deep breath in wait.

New knowledge streams into my mind. A novel sensation I only heard about until now. Thoughts that are not my own stream in and invade my very being. They are ever present in my mind and then in an instant, it is over. I breathe deeply and try not to curse.

I have come so far, and it has changed nothing. I can’t change what happened and it is not the first and likely not the last violation the system is likely to commit against me.

Creator – Uncommon (50% Effectiveness - 1/2)

Create

Skills:

Lv. 10 - Imbue

Lv. 50 - Sculpting

Lv. 75 - Create (Upgrade)

I look at the two additions and realize there is no contest, not for an instant.

Imbue has a chance that it’s going to be good and sculpting feels like it isn’t just limited to static art pieces perhaps even integrating with other skills nicely, but upgrading a skill like create… Even if I still hadn’t found its proper use, nor increased it in level enough to make full use of the possibilities I already had come across is the right choice.

I even sensed a bit of envy from Blackwood when he found out I had it, though it was quickly overshadowed by his happiness for me. Create is such a broad skill that it feels almost like cheating, but I also didn’t take the proper time to learn about its use.

That is going to be added to my list, soon enough.

Again I tap the skill with the meaning and gravity the situation demands and brace for the system’s invasion into my mind, but not even a hint comes my way. Which after a moment's hesitation is not that surprising. This skill may be awesome, but the system had made clear the price for such a skill, I had to figure it out all by myself just like all the others before.

Last, I go to my main class. Though there I don’t have to choose anything, as I will get all the skills, not just half or a third of them.

All main classes just assign people their skills instead of giving them any choice as subclasses do. Without wasting any time, I open the screen, and what I find also leaves me no choice but to put on a smile.

Now we are talking about it.

Perception field - Lv. 10

Perception field Upgrade - Lv. 25

Hunter’s concentration - Lv.50

One step Towards Connection- Lv.75

The first two skills are old news, but the other two… the very feeling my gut gets as I even glance their way is different.

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They are not just sitting idly there, they are important pieces of the puzzle that I may not have gained actual knowledge of like I did with the Avatar skill, but my body had already gotten used to their existence and knew them a bit better than my conscious mind.

I try to draw on what my intuition is telling me on how to use Hunter’s concentration.

The world draws down into a narrow focus and my perception seems to expand for what is right before me for an instant. The sharpness I get with my eyes surpasses the realm of plausible and heads straight to fantasy land.

I stare at a blade of grass meters from me and it is like my eyes just turned into the hybrid of a microscope and a telescope. The light of the sun shines through the blade of grass and I see the strands along and structures that seemed to be wall’s from cells if not quite the individual cell structures.

Without me being even fully conscious, I’m drawn into it, mixing my vision with the perception field drinking in the moment and the information that this single piece has to offer.

Through it all, I don’t even pay attention to the slight filter of the world still present, I just let this sliver of nature become a part of me.

The state seems to last forever as I reach for connection, for understanding the small and seemingly simple glade of grass, but it comes to a close as my thoughts start racing again in my mind and the sun moves down enough that the light is no longer directly hitting.

I’m left with a silly grin that hides a true understanding of the life before me.

It is in a protonic state it likely has no chance of ever becoming more than a single blade of grass amongst its dozen of brothers sharing a single root, but it is content in the smidge of knowledge of its existence and the simple purpose engraved in its very DNA, simple as its thought processes may be.

I look to the sky and wonder. Are there beings that could look down on me and say the same or is the very fact I consider the question proof of the epitome of my arrogance? Proof that I consider myself superior?

The seemingly simple questions have no easy answer and I have no time to ponder and debate philosophy for the eons that it would take. Such a fundamental question goes to the back of my mind as I continue cross legged on the ground in the middle of my hut.

Just thinking and meditating. Not in a forced or mechanical exercise as I sometimes put myself through, but reflecting on the nuggets of wisdom that the skill I was just taught, however incidentally, left behind. And for other questions, I’m lucky enough to find answers.

The system may be cold and unfeeling, but its roots, its original purpose sometimes shines through. However mechanical the system is still a thing, a construct that in its inception seemed to have been designed to lift sentient beings. I just need to make the most of it without being tied to its orbit and powerless without its grace.

I could be wrong given all my conclusions come from inference instead of actual facts, but the origins of the system beget a wondrous work of engineering and magic beyond any single being in scope and depth. It may lack its own consciousness, but if the capability to develop one of its own had been the plan, the council’s efforts put a firm nail in its coffin.

What could I do to change that? What chance did I have before a gang of graverobbers, that were alive for eons and ruled entire swathes of the universe?

The best I could do is to help protect my little corner of the galaxy. If I managed to shield Earth and possibly a few additions I would already be content.

Even that is not something that I take lightly. That will require every smidge of ingenuity and cheating brainpower to accomplish what I have available.

I give one last glance at both skills, unwittingly having used both when I was just trying to use one of them.

They are… perfect for me.

Hunter’s concentration would take all my senses, including the precision of the perception field to the next level. I have never felt so close to becoming one with the world. I not only observe the world passively, I feel it down to my bones, and I take one step toward understanding.

Even when my consciousness was spread miles wide with Aspen and the roots surrounding the village, I still didn’t really feel part of nature and the soil, just another being inhabiting it. This is the first real step to a change in my mentality and it is quite a significant step.

I move to get, up and test out my last two skills when I remember one last thing to do on my stat sheet.

My stat points. I just increased 50 levels so I should have 50 free stats.

Compared to the hundreds, no… the near thousand stat points spread over my stats accumulated from several sources, these 50 seemed almost… trivial. But are still a good chunk and with the percentage multiplier they will add up quickly.

I could spread them around… or put it all on a single stat. Either option has its advantages, but the remnants of my connection to the blade of grass are still fresh in my mind and I don’t hesitate in my search for more.

+50 Points in perception

I tap the button to confirm my choice and my total stat jumps well to over 300. Nearly doubling my average which is already monstrous, but as expected, it doesn’t change my resources a bit. What does undergo yet another change are my senses, each ever so slightly sharper with the instinctive knowledge that I will have an even easier time using my main class skills.

Stretching my taut muscles from the couple of hours sitting down, I walk out prepared to test the limits of my new skills and I want to start with Avatar.

It doesn’t seem all that complicated and it was even the first skill with proper knowledge of how it's supposed to work that I gained from the system. Though even this skill is very light compared to what I heard the others got.

Though that is not a hard rule, most people tended to have weaker skills if they all came with detailed explanations from the system and slightly weaker with basic explanations, but that was just a general trend.

I also didn’t relish the system invasion of my mind, though most others probably couldn’t feel it so keenly against it.

All that doesn’t matter. This time I will have a little help and it should be a good skill. I reach with the part of me that controls plants, looking at first just for the system skill and then mentally connecting with it.

I pull on my Qi unsure of what exactly will happen if I use it, but to my surprise, the skill takes it in greedily. It is almost like the system had been designed with some accommodations in mind, not as a crutch, but of course, the council had to come and screw it up.

I shake my head and put my mind back on the task, slowly growing a body for myself from a single thin root on the ground. With meticulous detail, from my bones and muscles to the smallest of organs, they are all replicated in precise shape before me. Or at least as precise as my roots can get.

Harder and inflexible ebony and the supplest of green roots mix to form a body worthy of even Pando if small in scale. Not that he has ever shown any interest in becoming one of us moving beings, but others were a lot more eager to move than he even if only occasionally.

The very first formation comes so naturally like I’m drawing by simply putting curved rulers down and tracing the steps with little dexterity needed. But it doesn’t seem restrictive, but proper guidance and without my memories, I could swear I have been doing this my entire life.

Deep in my gut, something tells me I should make the most of this first time because most of the help will be over after this first formation. I try to absorb not only the movements, but the intent behind them just like watching Blackwood working, but my own body, though thankfully the system is not working against itself in its teachings.

As the last layer of skin forms above, a sense of connection starts to form, a pull to my very consciousness even as something else is taken from me but I ignore it and let myself be dragged inside the Avatar. With nary an effort, I float while keeping my mental arms wide for my mental comfort, but that proves to be an unnecessary precaution.

My senses change. With the perception field still showing me the same things, but my eyes stare back at my old face. My human flesh body.

I panic for an instant, spinning and moving the perception field around, but that shows me everything is right. I’m still in my own body, the skill is just tricking me into thinking this is my actual body with my normal senses but it can’t affect my natural perception field, my Aether, and likely other stuff that I will find if I look for it.

I let the fears fade concentrating on the possibilities. I try to extend the perception field out, not the natural version, but the system’s one. There is a duality as both skills go online, but I only have one mind and it cannot cope with overlaying the views.

Ohh, I’m liking this, but how far can I go before losing control?

With the simple thought in my mind, I sprint off ripping the little root used to grow my new body to the ground, and not to my surprise, it doesn’t feel like a drill losing power after unplugging from the wall, but closer to the slowly dwindling of a battery running out from a cordless tool.

Now I just have to find its limits.