High minded thoughts are left to the wayside as the scrawny goblin makes the final approach and even the effort of growing my root network in the HLZ goes in the background.

I wait the last few seconds, as the flying bicycle on its last drags of mana sets down skidding on the grass a dozen paces short of my hut. The very same goblin I inspected with the perception field, and therefore could recognize by a hundred different metrics including how many hairs he had comes before my eyes.

His green skin and bald head, a child’s body, but a young adult’s posture. The rough and cheap leather clothes, a backpack, a dagger, and last a wooden and lousy staff with incomplete runes imitating the works of goblin shamans.

He approaches and while I would have taken a lot more care under different circumstances, put on the thinnest of root armor suits and retract the covering from my hand and face. He walks up to me resolutely and touches my extended hand with no hesitation. Closing his eyes, instead of hearing my first sentence, his body spasms.

I felt the system’s attention with greater strength than ever before, and it is not even directed at me. The very winds seem to shift and its displeasure is obvious.

I feel the very chemistry in this goblin’s mind shift as the system tries to force him to attack me. But now just meters away, I can connect with him in a different way. One Step Towards Connection comes into full bloom.

My very first connection to something is not a plant or an object and it is not exactly a friend but to this being. I can almost see into his mind, as he bends like a green bamboo shoot in the storm. The ‘impossible’ to resist system pushes him down and then the skies clear and he flushes everything else out.

He may not look impressive, but this…. even the Arch Shaman doesn’t dare to defy the system directly. He instead chooses to manipulate his actions so that he will not be stricken by this… torture. And if I hadn’t seen this small goblin in person and felt what was happening, I would be hard pressed to believe it.

Even I can learn some things about defying the system from this little being.

“You are not what I was expecting.” He sands through the link with such perfect clarity that I almost think he knows English, but as I reply to the mental images in my head, I realize what he has done. He modified his images on the fly, while they have the distinct flavor of speech I came to expect from the seeds inside copies of my brain. It seems I have much to learn from him.

“What were you expecting?”

“A being of wood and leaves, to rival a hundred of the anemic one you send my way.”

How do you know that I’m not a servant of the great Aspen?

He looks at me and then replies:

No, you are not. You don’t bow lightly. It is more likely he is your partner or something.

Do you still plan to… ‘change sides’?

I have already made the decision. After jumping off a cliff there is no going back, so it matters little who you are.

And what decision is that?

To survive.

So you want to save your planet, maybe even your race.

He lets out a chuckle, then a laugh and it builds until he bends over, letting out the bundle in his chest, but slowly he comes back.

My race deserves nothing from me. I won’t do anything to help a single one, for there is none that can be redeemed…. Well, maybe one or three females. But besides any I pick, they can all go stuff themselves.”

I think others of your race can surprise you.

He sighs and for all his power in dealing with the system, it feels like the defeated speech from a child.

“No, they can’t.” He waits for a few seconds before composing himself and then continues. “If you weren’t kidding about Aspen, I would like to meet him.”

I open a portal to the inner world, just hinting at the enormous internal size, and ask Aspen to extend a tendril out so he can communicate with the new addition to our Banner.

As they talk, I open a second portal leading to the bigger goblin still hiding in the inner world in his fully shielded cell. I leave the portal to his side, but he is simply too engrossed in his talks with Aspen.

“Yes. I think you can just reach out and connect to the growth I have added in our village.”

“Small?” Aspen asks back.

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“About twice the size of this clearing.”

I look around at the clear slight hill some 300 meters wide that surrounds my hut. If it is twice that size and right underneath the enemy's forces... That opens up so many possibilities.

He talks freely growing more at ease with every passing second telling all he knows about his former village.

He hates them and he takes no half-hearted measures. Does he think I will throw him out if he doesn’t prove himself useful or does he think that dealing with Aspen directly is different from dealing with me?

It is no matter. As different as he may be, he is a friend of nature and already fast becoming Aspen’s friend. This is better than a stuffy elf showing up thinking they know what is best for all beings of nature or something. Are there even Elfs around?? I had read references to other races, but no Elves so far. That… may show up in my book now that I’m thinking about it.

I shrug my shoulders and start putting the knowledge that he brought about how the others detect my network to full use. Apparently, it is a system function that we didn’t have access to in the normal way and while it is a highly complex set of instructions, in practical terms it means they can any plant that is connected to a mana source or is somehow handling it. Even Qi alone seemed to affect it the same way.

That didn’t seem to make much sense, but it was not their ability to see mana, but that part of the plant somehow was recognized as on our side by actively working with resources on it, and then the system assumed all of it was hostile and marked it.

I want to test it properly so I reach the connection place between the main tendril and the kilometers-wide area I just expanded into. Pushing mana to the area and trying to connect both of the networks together without melding them and making the area become a sore thumb glowing and calling down the enemy’s attention.

I make hard barriers to not only stop from mana or Qi flowing the wrong way lighting the whole section up but to make both parts of the network separate entities altogether.

It takes me a good half an hour to develop the technics for a multilayered ‘firewall’. A well spent half an hour that relies on droplets of my Life resource coming to the rescue again.

I could probably do the exact same thing without using any Life, but that would take forever given how slow the natural growth of plants is.

I try to make it as good as possible and push it as far as possible while holding my breath. I extend my perception field throughout this external part, past the firewalls and my transition is nearly seamless.

Goblins laze about guarding the area above completely oblivious to my efforts.

Even the HLZ normal beasts can’t sense my gaze. This gobbling attack party, however, steps over the roots and gets within range of even the smallest of perception fields constantly.

Still, not all is roses as I struggle to even direct this protected network to grow in the direction I want at their normal plant growth speed.

“Uhrhum.” Ahjrahh, the Arch goblin clears his throat which brings a smile to my face just as Milthree launches into what seems like a long tale of his adventures. He may have demonstrated patience for the last hour, but it’s clearly not infinite, and as the new goblin looks to the side the raspy and strange language of the goblins comes to my ears.

“Gruu zhra I Ishiodra….”

I tune out their words as I move another pair of portals around making skin contact with both of them and getting a read on their emotions. Though I miss a lot, what I do get is definitely worth my time.

**************

Milthree’s POV

“But you are not my shaman,” I reply simply through the small portal to the person stuck inside a shielded cell, the least he deserves.

“You are a failed apprentice and I take you as mine to see if you really are without hope.”

“What would I ever learn from you? I already escaped because there are no redeemable creatures to be found in our race and you want me to just go back to being an underling?? Nah, I like being the boss.”

“There are reasons for my actions.”

“Yeah, you are going to make use of my skill to defy the system and loophole your way to not even suffering from its judgments. You are attacking and wasting mana right now exactly because of your own inability to resist it. What could I ever learn from you?”

The Captured Shaman lets out a broken laugh after failing to contain it. But slowing himself, with each heave, soon the sound is nearly echoing as loud as ever.

“Who do you think I’m?” he asks.

With gusto I start:

“From the pathetic thunder you are throwing, a two-bit shaman that can’t even talk to the spirits and relied on the system’s blessing to even get the skills levels and stat points to qualify to assume your current position. Can’t fault you for that, but then my question stands, what could you teach me?”

If before his laugh was a pair of people playing violin, Ahjrahh becomes the whole concert and I stare as the faint stream of uncontrolled lighting, becomes a beam of purple death.

Only a smidge of mana flows from his mana pool but is pushed in a hair-thin ray that pokes a hole in the shield an inch from his fingers aimed at my head.

I try to back away as my mind screams.

And then it halts mid air.

“You may have the bravado of youth and defy the system in minor ways with near impunity, and that is an amazing accomplishment. But I’ve long surpassed the standards for a simple Arch-shaman.”

I open my eyes and I look back, at the purple stream of Death halts a finger from the portal. The purple death ray is blocked by a shield.

With trembling hands, I reach out and try to see who has protected me from this crazy old coot, but after just an instant, even as I see Nash wide eyed the mana flow coalesces and I realize. There is no mana powering the shield from anywhere else.

It is self-sustaining. A projected shield powered by the transformation of lightning back into mana.

“That… I didn’t know was possible.”

“Like I said, I’m no common Shaman. Not even a prodigy Arch shaman, I stand above all that.”

I try to hold still, but saliva accumulates in my mouth and I’m forced to swallow it. Kneeling, I call out:

“Master, what would you have of me?”

A loud laughing sound assaults my ears again, but this time it is not dry. It is full of life and cheer.

“I take you as an apprentice and assume your state purpose as my own.”

“What?”

“Nothing.” He says, touching the shield around his cell and breaking the entire thing with perhaps 2 or 3 mana points and raw willpower.

Uuuuu… I want to learn how to do that.

“Now.” He continues: “Tell Nash everything, EVERYTHING he needs to know.”

His chin points to the human. Nash instead of being alarmed at the display of power, just shows his blunt teeth and grows the portal so my Master can walk out.

Well, he has a much greater grasp of the situation and I did agree with him to become an apprentice again. Why did I do that? He is strong, but I liked being my own boss for the five minutes it lasted… Never mind. I did agree and so it is time to keep my word and spill all the secrets I managed to dig up in from the tribe.