I stab the ground with my bare hand opening a hole for the thousandth tree as the math for my construction runs in my head.

Unless I had full access to the inner world and I could just rocket through the entire place at supersonic speeds, I don’t really have a chance to mop up the number of beasts spawning. They simply appear all over the place. I will only have a chance to last long enough with something at my back and as strong as I may be, I still need to sleep and rest, so a small fortress is in order.

A couple of seconds with one more planted tree, I spin as fast as I can and chop my hand at yet another level 101 beast. Each of them shows equivalent power to the HLZ beasts, but not only is my level higher, but I also have a lot more experience, stats and my own resources to rely upon.

I glimpse the reason why I stayed as long as I did last time around. I may not actually remember my stay inside, but simple math taking the temporal compression of the instance into account, I spent about 3 months if my memory serves me.

The beasts slowly grow stronger and back then I had a much thinner margin last time around. I managed to last a while, but I didn’t find whatever victory condition this other trial had.

I half dread and half anticipate the system’s actions in trying to steal my memories at eh end of it all, but I have a few surprises in place for when or if that comes.

My island and Aether constructs are the cornerstones of my efforts, either of which might be enough and I’m definitely gonna combine them. I can probably alter my own body to contain that knowledge in a cipher of some kind, but given that return to normal that system put us under before on the way back, I don’t trust that. With a sufficiently complex interweaving pattern of the memory palace, I could probably make something that the system would need to erase my entire memory to get rid of everything, but that sounds like the type of daring initiative against the system that would only lead to me only remembering my own name.

A few other ideas kick around, but most if not all of them would be countered by the system.

If I could take my book of knowledge inside the trial and write on it the problem would be mute, but that is not to be.

Concentrating on more immediate concerns, I hit a drum like construct while whistling. Sound vibrations that would have burst the ear drums of anyone within a hundred feet of me without hearing protection before the system attracts attention from the beasts. Dozens of the mobs start to charge my position.

Maybe its not the most neighborly thing to do, but considering that any stray noise is enough to send them on a murderous rampage, clearing an area a couple of kilometers wide sounds prudent.

A minute later, after cleaning up all the mobs that tried to tear my throat out, an anomaly pops into my perception field. Stealthily flying, its also while aiming at my neck. I turn around to face the bird. With a 3 meter wing span, but little more mass than a cat, not even reaching 20 pounds, it would have a hard time fighting someone like me. Even if it had been stronger and higher level. But what calls my attention are its stealth capabilities. That’s a new skill, a new way of going unnoticed. Curiosity drives me and I send out a single pulse of the nearly unused skill based perception field.

As I half expected, I only sense the faintest of disturbances and I know its position down to a fraction of a millimeter with my real perception field.

The world lays itself before me, to grasp, understand and to change, should I ask and study it, but the system is playing tricks again. The little flying beast changes direction instinctively realizing I’m not only aware of its presence but I can actually see it. Not that I was trying to hide that fact.

I follow it for a few seconds as it circles around me, but without full access to my power or even the inner world, I can’t do much at this distance, so I turn to my own work. What would have been an impressive forest dwelling before the system, especially given the very first layer took me some 10 hours to build. Even now, that little bird could burrow a hole or even knock down my ‘fortress’ in seconds. Still, every single of the constituent parts is healthy and alive, perhaps not in the same sense as Pando, Aspen or the other seeds, but alive nonetheless.

With a hint of fear and trepidation, I touch the door from the outside. No sense in hiding inside and risking more damage than is strictly necessary during the day. Without all the extraneous use of my Qi and other resources, a hint of the wonder of simply ‘communing’ with nature and altering it as humans have done for millennia comes over me.

A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

I may have different limitations in a fundamental sense in this place, but like a blind person, my ‘other senses’ expand and my brain shifts in response. With that in mind, I train myself to be more, significantly more. The instant and careless approach to most of my work slowly vanishes and my entire being perfuses the little home ahead. A chorus of voices from disparate trees and brambles tries to mix song and speech in a chaotic display. Each one is louder and more prominent than the last. I know it would work itself out in time, but I hasten that convergence. I’m the maestro and with sheer presence that has nothing to do with my height or physical makeup, I both ask and impose a hint of order.

I understand the limitations, but I take this step with faith, trusting my instincts to warn me of danger.

Slow movement comes from everywhere. The very basic knots tying the tree trunks in place and keeping the structure solid become an addition to the slowly forming connections. The disparate notes disappear as the entire thing tries to become one.

A tiny fortress grown from true nature.

Only a single step in a long journey, a journey I would normally take a minute at the most, now will require weeks and I’m strangely grateful for it.

Two weeks just to ‘complete’ this first step. Even with my constant prodding, nature moves at its own pace and I don’t rush it, I only guide it. I need to learn to live with reality, instead of trying to override my will on the world every time. With as little leverage as I have now, it wouldn’t even make much of a difference.

A spike of warning breaks me out of my state probably some ten minutes later. I wait another second and a half before spinning to grab the bird's neck in a single move.

My hands hold it like a vise but I don’t squeeze.

It squawks, flails and tries to scratch me, but without leverage, all its efforts are futile. The closest class many would probably classify me before the system: a Druid manifests now hiding behind all the weight and pressure I put on top of myself. I feel for the little creature. I had worked long and hard on moving without stopping and as a consequence, those instincts lay dormant far more often than they should.

My actual class: One with the World, helps me connect with the bird. I glimpse its entire history in a single moment.

Albatross - Lv.104

The barest glimmer of intelligence hides behind its eyes. With hints of blood underneath the thick dirt around and standing amidst the graveyard from a thousand of its ‘brothers and sisters’, even if the system had taken the corpses away, I know I have a choice in this. A choice that I cannot turn back now, even if I can almost feel the tainted Aether leaking from its ears as the other beasts had and I took from the system.

This albatross had already been resurrected a couple of times, but it’s mentally intact enough that I could see it surviving further if it managed to overcome the rage the system and its corrupted Aether induced on it.

It probably won’t, but I’m not gonna be the one that is gonna make that journey harder.

If I leave it alive now, it won’t be a significant threat to me tomorrow.

I bring its beak close to my face.

Its nails are capable of scratching deep steel in the tips of its flappy feet, and its beak could probably injure even my skin if I let it, but it still carries that same overall recognizable Albatross shape. Even with my constitution, I can’t just ignore its threat entirely.

“I may not be able to afford to do this to all my enemies, especially when they are bearing down on me trying to tear my throat out, but you are free.”

I try to infuse my words with meaning, to use that hint of the language of the heart and last but definitely not least, I send a spark of Life and my attuned Aether hoping to counterbalance the corrupted Aether of the system. I see potential in this creature and I have to fight my own desire to horde the precious resource. But I understand that I can’t, not if I still want to look myself in the mirror.

I drive meaning beyond words into its brain, relying on the visceral and unmistakable knowledge of the gut that is the closest thing it might understand.

“I’m so strong, you aren’t even a real threat. You can grow, you can join me or you can stay out of the way. Now be gone.”

That hint of language I’m trying to transmit interfaces with my own runic language skill as I twist it out of shape, not in a mild manner like using a wrench slightly off its axis to give room for its handle. That is still using a tool in the general manner its creator intended.

No.

I feel as if I’m taking an electric screwdriver and using it as a sledgehammer. I warp the skill and my soul beyond anything recognizable for a moment. That allows me to bridge the gap and I see the barest of glimmers of understanding in its eyes.

My soul and the system’s Aether constructs snap back into shape like a rubber band leaving the customary sting, but I don’t mind the cost. Doing anything would have been callous.

The Albatross squawks and flees but I keep my perception field trained on it. Even kilometers away, beyond the circular volume of the perception field, I can see with the narrow corridor. Its nest is some 7 kilometers away and as it hides afraid of the world and myself, I know there is more to it.

As simple as its thoughts may be, not reaching the barest level of true sentience, It knows who is stronger and that it will never defeat me.

I look at the plains and I turn around to my work in earnest.

I opened up the path of that little creature, at a cost, now it’s up to him to take the step, if he so chooses.