Looking at his status page, Ethan was thinking about how most of his stats are below the average of a pre-Judgement Human.

'Plants really have it bad, huh. Well, does a Fungus count as a plant?'

After throwing the tangential thought aside he thought in his mind, 'Help, Class.'

The screen changed once again to show the heading "Class" however below there were no pickable options, instead the description of the class began on it's own.

'So.. I'm like a mushroom wizard or something? That sounds incredibly lame but I suppose if I'm part Spore Lord or whatever I can eventually be badass? At least I'm not part cucumber or something. Little things and silver linings, I guess. Go back.'

Returning to the status page and moving on to the stats section, Ethan didn't feel the need to examine these stats as their names were pretty much self-explanatory and anyone who had ever played an RPG would know what most of the stats do, the one thing that did stick out however was that his agility was locked and he needed to know why.

'Help Agility'

The screen changed again displaying the information he wanted to see.

Reading this for a few moments Ethan felt himself get irritated.

'This fucking thing! You lock my race telling me I can't change it without changing my class, lock my class and say I have to change my race, which is a catch-22, making both unchangeable and now you lock my agility also to my race?! What the fuck is this fucking system. Why is agility locked, I can move my roots! That's moving! Fuck!'

Taking a breather to calm down Ethan tried to think of positive, optimistic things. Something difficult to do with his generally apathetic personality.

'It's fine. It's fine. I don't need to move. I can use my roots to bring things to me, it might be painfully fucking slow but I will definitely, at least probably, be able to do that.. I hope. Wait, plants don't need the toilet right? No, plants don't poop, surely. Ignore the fact that I'm some type of living mushroom wizard I definitely don't need to poop. Deny. Deny. Deny. Go back.'

Back at the status menu it was time to look at the racial abilities section, this was the most interesting section in Ethan's mind.

'Finally here, these are my powers. MY powers. I'm like a superhero or something now. I don't see laser eyes anywhere or ultimate regeneration, not even invisibility. No, wait, Warlocks get more as they level up and get older, that means I'll get more powers eventually I just need to stay alive long enough to get them.'

The excitement Ethan was feeling was the most he'd felt in years, the last time he felt this excited he had just been handed the leadership of his first rate, third-in-the-world ranked pvp guild in a fad mmorpg that only lasted for three or four years, it wasn't until later he realised why he was given leadership- all the good players left to play a different game and emptied the guild bank on their way out!

'Damn it, why did I think about that, way to put a damper on myself. Help, Racial Abilities.'

The new screen showed a brief description of what racial abilities were and then had Ethan's currently unlocked ones below it with the information within shown and another scroll bar at the side.

'I hope these ones get collapsed down when there's more added or I'm going to be doing a lot of scrolling.'

'Well yeah, I guess plants need light to eat right. I guess the fact I have this means I'm not a fungus that lives in dark places.'

Briefly considering what his life might've been like if he had to live in a dark wet cave forever Ethan felt his mood improve slightly. Moving on he began to read through his skills and the first one alone made his metaphysical mouth gape open wide.

'Hell fuckin' yeah! That's fucking broken as shit! I can make spores that do basically whatever I imagine them to do? Spores are seeds right, so they can grow into whatever I want them to? Or can they already be created as what I want them to be? That can't be right. I need to test this ASAP when I get out of here.'

Ethan excited at the potential abuse this skill would allow continued reading, the next ability was pretty standard.

'Passive huh. So this one will level on it's own, no wonder Warlocks get stronger with age.'

'Makes sense, glad it's another passive so it'll level on it's own. Also explains why I had that little 'incident' when I tried to feel all my roots at once.'

'Now that's interesting, the text implies I can manipulate roots from other plants when I get to a higher level. This skill must be why I can move my roots around. It actually reminds me of a novel I read about a tree that would impale people who got close using its roots and suck out their nutrients. Not that I'll do that, probably, but if I'm starving or something I guess I can't say I wouldn't do it, sorta like those people who had to eat other people in that plane crash in the mountains.'

Having spent some time reading the stuff of interest from his status menu, coupled with his tangent thoughts on how best to become the best mushroom wizard around and having an impatient need to test out his seemingly OP ability, Ethan left the screenspace as he had taken to calling it and was back in his physical body.

'Ugh, the smell seems worse this time.'

Now back in his apartment Ethan was acutely aware that the smashing sounds being brought by the wind from outside had gotten closer whilst he was in the screenspace.

'There's something or someone moving around out there and whatever or whoever it is, it's going into buildings and breaking stuff.'

The sun had moved slightly whilst he was checking his status and when the sun was at this specific angle, it was able to somewhat enter a window in the hallway outside of his apartment, just barely lighting it up. Had it not been for the fact there was a window in that hallway he wouldn't have seen the rapid flicker of shadows moving past through the gap under his door, but then that wouldn't have mattered since the shadow stopped at his door anyway and knocked.

*Knock, Knock*

'Oh shit.'

"Ethan, are you home?!"

The sound of an older man with a strong Indian accent came through his door.

'Oh it's just Mr. Rajesh, that scared the shit out of me- wait a second! If he comes in and sees me now that would probably be pretty bad right, I'm basically a monster!'

Working through his anxiety he decided it was best to shout back and pretend everything was fine, he did still have a human face afterall.

"Yeah Mr. Rajesh, I'm in here and I'm absolutely fine. Bit shaken at the crazy screen that popped up though and the blackout."

Ethan noticed the pitch of his voice was slightly higher than before given to his smaller size, around that of a small sized dog, but unless you heard the voice often, you wouldn't notice it.

"That's good to hear, I'm going door to door to check on the residents of the building since the power went out. Luckily we still have running water and most folks seem okay but a resident from the second floor that I saw you speak to a few times, Byren, he turned into some lizard man or something, it sounds crazy I know but we have him barricaded in his apartment for now. He keeps yelling that he's not a monster but we can't trust that, it's too dangerous especially with the sounds of him smashing stuff coming from inside, also, what's with the water coming out from under your door?! Is it a broken pipe? Do I need to get maintenance?" 

'Byren? That asshole? Good, he fucking deserved it. I remember when he borrowed my bike and it got 'stolen' while he was 'at work.' The fucking guy probably sold it to pay towards his rent, the guy's a freeloader and has been lowballing his rent for months with bullshit excuses but Mr. Rajesh is such a nice man he let him get away with it. I bet Byren turned into a snake monster or something, that would be fitting. That aside I knew that they'd react in some crazy way to anything non-Human, I need to stop him coming inside.'

"Woah, that sounds completely crazy! You mean he just turned into a man with a lizard body like a centaur? And no, don't worry about the water, I just spilled a cup of water when I blacked out, bad timing I guess."

"Oh, alright, make sure you get it cleaned up pronto, I don't need water damaging the wood boards. And no, not like a centaur, more like if a lizard was in the shape of a man. On another note, how come you're not opening the door?"

'Shit, there it is, I have to make something up.'

"I, uh, I've got company and we were, uh, busy before you knocked on the door, we'd like to get back to it if you don't mind."

'Awkward as fuck but that should do it.'

Mr. Rajesh stood outside slightly surprised by the honesty. He would've been embarrassed but at his age it would take a bit more than accidentally interrupting a young couple having sex to shake him up.

"Oh, OH! Good on you young man! When I was your age I had the prettiest girl in my village on the end of my 'spear', oh to be young again. I'll leave you to it then. Remember to clean up this mess as soon as you're finished or you'll be paying for water damage."

'Old people war stories, great, now I have this image in my head.'

"Sure thing sir, good luck with the door checks and I hope everyone else is alright!"

Mr. Rajesh walked away with a small smile, remembering his first wife and some of their escapades and also with a slightly higher opinion of the loner introvert from apartment 4D, he didn't think the lad had much in the way of dating skill.

After the man had left, Ethan breathed a sigh of relief, glad he bought himself some time. The only problem was he had no idea right now of how he could clean up the mess. There were only five floors to this building, which meant that the Landlord, Mr. Rajesh, would be heading up and then back down. Ethan could only hope that the genteel landlord would ignore the puddle the next time he passed, however it seemed unlikely he would.

'Great, now I'm in trouble, he's going to come back down eventually and see that I didn't clean the water up.'

Several moments of contemplation and Ethan had an idea.

'Right.. I can do that!'

After thinking about it and connecting the obvious dots, Ethan began to will his roots towards the door of his apartment, it was over seven feet away from where he was, almost in the center of the room, but he didn't actually need to reach that far, he hoped.

The roots moved incredibly slowly, so slowly. Definitely too slowly. Ethan's focus on the roots did make a difference to the growing speed, as he felt the roots around him stagnate as all his body's energy went into growing in that one direction, but the skill level was so low that it was almost unnoticeable and it certainly would have been to anyone looking at it from any perspective except Ethan's.

'This is going to take a while.'