I spent my morning foraging for food, storing information using an Info Dump, and going over everything I had learned. Root was resting in my soul, where he had better sleep and was better protected. Not that he needed it, but the comfort helped. Clearly, he was tired as he was going on half a day of sleep at this point, as we went to bed at sunset, and I woke up around sunrise. It was currently at least an hour or two after, as the mist had cleared up a lot, and I had been walking around for a while just taking in the environment. I wasn’t in any rush to get things started, as I wanted to actually understand the forest before doing anything.

My foraging took place around the pond where we had slept and in some surrounding shrubs. I picked up some dandelions, wood sorrels, mallows, mulberries, and some cattails to pick at. I didn’t have any bowls or cooking utensils to make a soup or salad, so I had to eat them as I went, but it was good to understand what was nearby. I saw some clovers around, too, which I could use in some tea. I never really loved it, but I did miss my mother’s herbal concoctions now. They really kicked me awake.

I also took a bath in the pond, as while I had been kept clean in the slumber pod, I still felt the need to wash myself physically. I took some soapwort I found nearby and processed it with my innate mana to make some makeshift soap to help me out. It would be better to do it with some tools, but it will have to do for now. Looking down at the pond water, my amber eyes stared back at the unfamiliar figure, an older and more mature version of myself I hadn’t seen. Before I could see more, I looked away and finished washing myself.

After I was done, I left the pond, dried myself off with thicker moss, put my shorts back on, and continued on. Luckily, they were self-cleaning as I had forgotten to grab anything else from my old clothes left behind. I hadn’t wanted to revisit my old stuff yet, so I had partially forgotten about it.

As I went along, after washing myself, I made sure to sprinkle some of my own innate mana into the patches of plants I ate from and into the areas I passed by, though in more limited amounts. Sleeping had helped bring me back to full mana concentration, but I had barely expended any yesterday, so that was no problem. If I used up a lot more, I would have to spend a lot of time gathering mana and then forming it into my own. Luckily, my soul could convert it quite quickly with the nature mana, giving it a natural boost in conversion. Other affinities would help different beings in unique ways, and I was quite happy with mine. Gathering and converting mana counted as actions that were automatically cataloged, so that was good too.

Speaking of that, I took some time to look at the notes in my Soul Library that went over my actions, specifically when I was manipulating mana. There were pages of notes that listed my efficiency, mana usage, area covered, time it took, and more. I could spend a lot of time going over them to see what to improve on, making my own assumptions, but I wanted to test another ability I hadn’t yet used.

I conjured a small page of paper made of my innate mana that was more knowledge aligned and wrote down a few words on it. I then gathered up a few pages of data I wanted and put them on top of each other, including the small note. Then I rolled them up into a scroll and used a thread of my innate mana to tie them all together. Picking it up, I held it out towards the top of the sapling, and one of the branches wrapped around it, hanging it like a really screwed-up banana. I looked for a few moments to make sure it wouldn’t all unravel and go to shit. Tendrils of knowledge mana swirled around the scroll, not yet entering it, and I smiled as I realized it worked as I intended. This was another of my sub-abilities, Researcher’s Analysis.

Its function was to write a note requesting a specific research topic, then to make a scroll to be tied to subsequent notes related to that subject. The scroll would be placed into the Tree of Knowledge’s branches, and after a certain period of time, it would be done. I leveraged the unique properties of knowledge mana to form this ability, and it was one of the ways I intended to make up for lost time.

There were tons of variables in how it worked, including the subject, the number of notes used, the request, additional resources used to support the process, the personal work put into it, and the topic's affinities. These factors all resulted in a certain time frame, and a mana cost for it to be completed. Knowledge mana had to be “fed” by my innate mana in order for this to work, but it needed a while to process it and spit out a result.

The request I submitted was to analyze my own mastery of Mana Pollination and develop a training regimen to make it more efficient. The mana cost was about 10% of my current innate mana stores, and then I would have to wait two days for it to be done. It wouldn’t start until I gave it the required energy, which was why the threads of knowledge mana hadn’t yet entered the scroll, starting the process.

I could speed up the research by providing more mana, but it would get incrementally more expensive the closer to the end time I wanted to get. For example, getting rid of just one hour costs 0.5%, but an entire day costs 20%. This was all based on what my max innate mana stores were, not what my current mana was after already expending some. If I wanted to have it immediately, I would need to spend 50%, which I wouldn’t do, as I was fine waiting. Of course, this ability could get stronger.

My mana reserves were based on how much I had pushed my capacity limits in the Gathering rank, and due to my special circumstances, I filled up 100% of my soul. The other part was something my grandfather and parents had taught me, the QQV. This stood for quantity, quality, and vessel.

Quantity referred to the amount of mana, but the quality was the type of mana I filled it up with. Due to consuming the soul core of the Tree of Knowledge, the quality of my mana was super high as it contained soul, nature, earth, and knowledge mana that came together as one. Usually, the higher the quality of the energy one had, the less quantity one could store. The other part of the equation was my vessel, which was one’s primary Origin of Self, and in my case, was my soul.

A vessel usually couldn’t be improved in the Gathering rank except for special circumstances. Luckily, I had that opportunity, so I could store a massive amount of high-quality energy due to how powerful my soul was. When one reaches the end of the Gathering rank, they go through the Transformation Ordeal, which is where one needs to guide the energy of the world to transform their body to produce its own innate mana. This is all based on the QQV and the work one puts in to raise them all to their highest point. The result was an Innate Origin of Self in tune with the higher-tier energy one now produced and used.

All of this was basically to say I had a really high starting point for the Formation rank.

Now I had to use my innate mana to form innate abilities, basically engraving them into my soul. The Soul Library I currently have takes up just 10% of my soul, and the end goal is to make it 100%. It gets significantly more difficult as I expand it, and if I make a mistake, I can seriously injure myself or even die from a serious misstep.

Most beings would follow the examples of those before them, such as other Forest Trolls learning from the mistakes and lessons of our ancestors. The only downside for me was that all the Forest Trolls I knew started with their body or mind as their primary Origin of Self, while I had to start from my soul. Of course, when one reached the third rank, like my father and mother, they would have to start working on all three of their Origins of Self, but they weren’t here to even provide a bit of advice. That was why I had to utilize my unique advantage of having knowledge mana, which I had never heard of anyone else having before, to assist me.

That was why I dedicated myself to fully going in on Soul Library and making sub-abilities based on it. It would allow me to build a solid base, and though it was mainly utility-based, it could help me fill in the gaps by quickly learning to fight or do other things. The abilities would only get stronger as I had the library take up my entire soul, and I had to become very skilled in mana manipulation to do so.

That was why I chose to try to get better at using my innate mana to fertilize my environment. The technique required very fine mana manipulation and efficiency, both of which I needed. It also helped strengthen my connection to my environment, aligning with my goal to expand the grove.

As I thought of all of this, I was sitting within my soul, and I exited it, now done with thinking and using Researcher’s Analysis. I looked within the outskirts of my soul as I left, seeing Root orbiting around the outside of it, still sleeping, and smiled to myself. It helped that I had someone to fight for.

For the first time in a while, I gazed down at my wrist where the vine bracelet with two flower buds was attached. It didn’t really seem real that my parents were in there, their minds and souls dormant just waiting to be supplied with energy. I knew it wouldn’t happen quickly, as while I couldn’t sense how much I needed, I could at least guess it would take more than this entire forest had. The best thing to do was to take one step forward at a time.

For now, I would begin exploring the forest and wait for Root to wake up as I did. I needed to understand where I was and get some information based on what Spore had told me yesterday. She had mentioned there were stronger creatures from outside the forest, and if one thing was going to get in my way, it was competition from them.

I was born and raised in a high mana concentration environment, in the Jungles of Geru. There I saw plenty of powerful creatures and unique places, all of which I knew I wouldn’t be able to even breathe near without dying now. Before I had my family to protect me and show me what the world had to offer. For that I was grateful, but now I had to be the one to step up.

I glanced down at my chest, to my soul where Root resided. The smile on my face emerged once more. I didn’t have to carry that burden alone.

All the plants mentioned in this chapter are all used in the accurate way they should be.

If you’re enjoying, please follow, it helps the story reach more people. Thanks for reading!