Status!

<System Interface>

Name: Mikael Amorous

Race: Tree Spirit

Level: 1                          

Skills: Germinate, Hibernate

Talent:

Nature’s Child (innate)

Environmental Regeneration (racial)

<System Interface>

Okay, it seems that me turning into a seed, my true or main body considering that change in my race information, has unlocked both talents.

It is best that I check their uses first before I start growing. At the very least a basic understanding as to how they can help me grow in this state.

What do my 2 talents do, System?

[Nature’s Child: You are innately blessed by nature. It gives you a higher affinity with your surroundings, especially with plant life. This means that you will have an improved developmental speed with anything related to plant life, and due to this, you also have a greater level of affinity with normal mana.

Environmental Regeneration: Due to being a tree spirit, this grants you the capability to rapidly absorb the resources of the environment for your recovery or strengthening. This also can be done in the other way, meaning you can also increase plant growth in your surroundings by giving out your mana. ]

That is rather vague. It is not exactly being specific as to the quality of the increase in speed.

Let’s start moving I guess.

First, let’s see if I can absorb mana despite me being still a seed.

So, according to the information I have and the most likely possibility. This fluid like thing in the atmosphere that I can sense, is probably mana, which probably means that I can already sense mana.

I try to somehow absorb the mana that passes through me. I tug at the passing mana, I tug and tug at it.

It is kind of working fine, I am absorbing bits of mana from the surroundings, which is just as quickly filled up with the rest of the atmosphere’s mana.

I do this for a few minutes, and eventually, I feel like I am full. I still am able to absorb more mana, though I have feeling that it is probably not wise to absorb too much while being in this state.

Okay, time to germinate.

[Germinate]

I can feel my seed body crack, and a tiny root rapidly grow out. My seed body is as large as a marble if I remember correctly, while according to my feeling, the root that I grew is incredibly thin.

It is most likely, at least 20 times thinner than my seed body. And Oh! I lost the [Germinate] skill, pity.

I direct it downwards, trying to hit the skull’s upper portion. It only took me 10-15 seconds to feel the hard surface of the skull.

Wow. Is this normally how fast roots grow? Okay, with this information, it is time that I start growing to have access to the guy’s entire body’s resources.

With this in mind, I started growing my roots like a hungry ghost, somehow trying to fully utilize the man’s body. My growth speed being fueled as I gain more access to resources, until I hit a bit of a roadblock.

My mana is fully depleted, and my growth rapidly slowed. I tried multitasking, absorbing environmental mana while also growing my roots with my guidance.

My growth is a lot slower initially due to lower level of mana consumption for my root growth, but I eventually managed to regain my speed when I covered more area and I discovered something.

It seems that my roots were only absorbing water from the corpse, leaving much of the flesh’s nutrition unused.

I tried forcing the roots to also absorb the flesh of the body, it took me half a minute to do it, and it came with a surprise.

<System Interface>

[Skill Gained: Carnivorous Roots

Skill Information: The ability to absorb matter and convert it into life force

<System Interface>

So the system records the abilities that we gain as we improve ourselves, and the different feeling that the mana I managed to squeeze out of the flesh that my roots is consuming is probably referring to life force.

I should probably ask about the specifics about life force, the information might be useful for later purposes.

What is life force, system?

[It is the raw mana converted from matter, especially the living kind, and has a regenerative nature]

Okay, so life force is obtained from living things, and probably matter as a whole though there seems to be a clear line of difference between matter and living matter.

I started testing the new skill I gained, and it seems pretty good.

My roots need to constantly have a steady covering of mana that converts the matter that the roots take, which pays for itself and gives me the net life force for further development.

My natural mana recovery has also expanded due to the higher coverage of my roots, though it eventually reached a plateau.

Combined, this resulted in me having a slightly higher growth speed than when I was actively using my stored mana, a balance between consumption and supply.

Eventually, 25 minutes later, I already have enough roots to access most of the body’s resources. I also gained another skill, leveled up, and found something out about my perception of time.

While I was busy growing, I noticed that the temperature is dropping, it is subtle but got noticeable enough for me to sense it through my exposed part of the seed.

I managed to notice that the temperature is rising, from the cold that it turned into.

This made me speculate that my perception of time could be very sluggish due to my change, though the hour to minute perception is a bit off, but it trends towards making the ratio fairer.

This conclusion of perceiving time a lot slower is also supported by how fast the flesh that I am in got weaker, and easier for roots to dig through, though not much.

So I am thinking that it should already be dawn now, and the sun is rising. It is perfect.

I already occupy the entirety of this corpse, and I have a sizable stored mana to rapidly grow myself and finally grow upwards to become a sapling.

Status!

<System Interface>

Name: Mikael Amorous

Race: Tree Spirit

Level: 3

Skills: Hibernate, Carnivorous Roots, Mana Recovery

Talent: Nature’s Child (innate), Environmental Regeneration (racial)

<System Interface>

According to the system, I lost profession because I am in the monster category, and will gain my tree type when I finally grow a sprout.

Mana Recovery was gained when I broke the plateau, apparently the Mana Recovery skill is different from my natural mana recovery. The main difference being, is that the Mana Recovery is a direct action to stimulate mana gain.

Now time to grow.

I start pushing all of my stored mana into growing upwards, and suddenly had a system notification when doing so.

<System Interface>

Options:

Blood Tree (Evil Variant)

Root Sprawler (Root Variant)

Magic Tree

Elder Tree

<System Interface>

That- That’s more options than I expected, I guess it will take some time to digest it all before I can truly grow into a sapling.

System, show me their descriptions

<System Interface>

Blood Tree: A tree spirit that is capable of manipulating souls and its emotions. It is incredibly resistant to soul corruption, and has small resistance to direct soul attacks. Have high levels of magical affinity, average physical quality, and high resilience.

Root Sprawler: Cannot grow its own trunk or trees, and does not have a central area. It is highly invasive, and can quickly turn a foreign tree into part of its own, it can include any form of plant life. It has low magical affinity, low physical quality, average resilience.

Magic Tree: A tree spirit that is highly attuned to casting magic. Small resistance against magical attacks, and has a large amount of versatility. It has high magical affinity, low physical quality, and average resilience.

Elder Tree: has a suppression effect on other plants and great resilience. Can take the life force of plant life surrounding it, and has access to healing magic. It has low magical affinity, high physical quality, and high resilience.

<System Interface>

Mmmmmmmm, how did I get the Evil Variant, System?

[Due to your racial talent, innate talent, and the relatively high presence of corpses around your surroundings, it has caused you to store a lot of negative or evil energy. The negative energy is just barely enough to give you access to the Blood Tree option]

The root variant is pretty explanatory. I got it because expanded my root system quite far before making a sprout, I think.

Elder Tree and Magic Tree seems to be the standard types, considering that there is no variant note nor do they look like something I would have gotten from my 1 day long life as a seed.

Time for elimination

First, root variant. According to what I saw when I was coming down from the truck, I was a bit relieved to know that it is somewhere I know, though not so much now.

This is the state university in the area, and it is not near any large collection of trees that can fully utilize the assimilatory capabilities. And it shows no apparent usage when I assume it can only expand my root capabilities.

Second, elder option. Same issue, I also don’t think it would wise if I just wait for my enemies to come to me, I need to actively hunt if I don’t want to be destroyed by something that grew faster due to their active habits.

That leaves us with Magic Tree and Blood Tree.

There is a high possibility that there won’t be any prey that would waltz near enough to be killed by magic. Blood Tree mentioned about being able to control souls and emotions, which could possibly open options for mind control or lures, which seems to be the most relevant to the improvement of my food source.

Assuming that the evaluation of the tree types is relative to each other, Blood Tree also has a higher average in its 3 mentioned qualities at the end.

Finally, one more concern of mine.

System, what are the effects of ingesting negative energy?

[Corruption of the mind with negative emotion, severity varies on the amount of negative energy consumed]

Blood Tree it is then, it seems to be an equal or even superior option to magic tree and guarantees an extension of my life when I consume the corpses around me.

Mikael chooses the Blood Tree option, and his growth is no longer stopped. The Seed fell apart completely and out comes a stem that quickly grew 3 small leaves, its growth visible to the naked eye.

The tiny sapling, is barely 3 inches tall, with equally tiny 3 leaves that made that 3 inches figure possible. Its wood is brown, with red vein-like patterns, accompanied by a smooth surface. The leaves are bright red that would remind one of blood.

<System Interface>

You leveled up! You gained 1 level

Skill gained: Fruit bearing

Skill gained: Mind Eater

Skill gained: Blood Aura

Skill gained: Mana Vision

<System Interface>

I look fine enough, if you ignore that I pretty much grew out of someone’s head that is.

My roots also has the same design as my stem, brown with tiny red veins, quite pretty if you must ask me, though is that considered narcissism if I say it is pretty?

Let’s slow down a bit with the skills though, those 4 sounds too… edgy

Mikael immediately started inspecting the state of his body, noticing that the roots also have the same pattern, and most importantly, his mana capacity seems to have increased dramatically.

He starts absorbing mana, which became a bit different from the pre-sapling stage.

It now absorbs mana from the atmosphere and converts it into a light-red mana, light enough that it can almost be mistaken as pink, unlike the neutral mana that he once wieled. What’s even better?

The worth of mana that I can store is 4 times higher than what I was originally storing, a result that is only possible due to the increase in quantity and quality.

This is quite the change, now let’s check our new skills.

System, show me the info for the 4 new skills that I got.

<System Interface>

Fruit Bearing: the ability to make fruits. You are capable of only making blood fruits or fruits infused with evil mana.

Mind Eater: the ability to absorb emotions and souls into oneself. They are stored in your body till used or naturally dissipate.

Blood Aura: you give off a threatening aura that is similar to killing intent manifested through magic. It also has a corrupting nature.

Mana Vision: The ability to observe the world by using mana as receptors.

<System Interface>

So I gained a potential weapon and storage from the first skill, my natural ability as a blood tree from the second skill, my limited aura that is supposed to manipulate emotions from the third, and a skill that I didn’t get earlier due to mana limitations from the fourth.

Back to growing as usual.

Mikael tried [Mana Vision] to see his surroundings, revealing what happened after almost a day of not knowing the exact details of what happened.

The [Mana Vision] was retracted looked at the building for a while, only for it to deactivate. Mikael would be silent for several seconds after that.

In the building floor is a bunch of bodies with varying injuries, ranging from ones that luckily only got their necks slit, to those that look like their entire abdomen is missing.

The walls are laced with splashes of blood, decorating the bland white walls of the room with terrible strokes of death. The glass doors are no more, providing a gaping entrance into the building.

Eventually, Mikael would activate his [Mana Vision] again and start planning to extend a root towards his now lifeless body, and towards the rest of the bodies in the room.

After 10-20 minutes, there was a notification from the system.

<System Interface>

Planet Earth’s sealed state is officially broken.

Planet mana isolation is broken.

Increasing planet size!

<System Interface>

I tried to sense if something changed within the mana content in the air, which just looks and feels the same. And I am not sensing any changes on the ground under myself.

I just shrug it off after a moment of pondering, and continued to focus on filling his former body with roots now.

Eventually, day 2 of the apocalypse finish. I managed to replicate my work on my former body from the soldier, and is about half finished with the 3^rd body. Unfortunately, my consumption is starting to deplete the resources of the first body.

Mikael managed to change the way [Mana Vision] is executed when activated, being able to partially widen or focus his [Mana Vision].

This made him come to the conclusion that each skill can be molded in different ways, other than the convenient automatic activation that the system gives. Though, he is not certain if the system will acknowledge these changes at some point or not.

{Day 3}

I tried experimenting on the flies that came to do their business on the rotting bodies.

Using [Blood Aura], since the system described evil mana as being corruptive, he tried to see what the flies would feel when the normal [Blood Aura] is fueled with a lot of mana.

I made the interesting discovery that I can actually possess the flies’, though it is limited in range and duration.

And I actually gained a skill from this, which is [Mind Control].

This skill gave me an increase in the efficiency in the usage of the [Blood Aura] to dominate a creature’s mind, which gave him the information that the system acknowledging a skill improves it slightly or even substantially.

I also decided later in this day to use the skill [Hibernate], or rather the consciousness dormancy type that he derived from it. Originally, hibernate is a way to preserve as much energy as possible.

Consciousness dormancy would cause me to enter a quasi-conscious state, which allows for lack of supervision while I grow with the same efficiency as I would be when awake.

I decided that the increasing ratio at which he can observe the world is far too troublesome to work with, I also doesn’t see it necessary to continue observing manually when there wouldn’t be much of a difference even if he is awake.

I plan to continue research on his mystical capabilities when I have a larger pool of mana to conduct larger scale experiments.

{Day 4}

Nothing much, I was not in the dormant state for almost an hour to plan the roots’ path of growth. By this time, I am almost finished with the 5^th body, which is still far from occupying the entirety of the dead bodies within the building.

In fact, I noticed the lack of scavengers or apparent feeding session that should have occurred in the bodies, instead only the flies and bacteria is eating them, if you exclude me of course.

Though, I was only able to count the number of the dead bodies today by using [Mana Vision] like a radar, which was not pleasant considering the amount of mana it took. There are a grand total of 118 bodies, including the wolf guy that the undead man argued with when we were in the truck.

All of the bodies are made up of flesh, with no sign of the ones that doesn’t have a flesh body, or didn’t have the normal standard of being living like that undead man, skeleton guy, and even that vampire-like dude.

I also lament about how absurdly low my mana storage is considering a low-level detection spell is more than enough to cut through half of his mana storage.

{Day 5}

This day, I managed to assimilate 1.28 corpses. My speed was supposed to be 2 corpses a day already, which was scratched because that speed is supported by consuming the bodies he already has his roots in.

The first body is already a husk, with the bones being the only thing that can possibly contain something useful. The second body also known as my former body, is also showing signs of turning into a husk like the other.

Seeing the husk and the near-husks made me contemplate whether or not there is actually a use for the corpses. Though, even if I wanted to keep the bodies, decomposition will just take them away.

That is until I decided to experiment again today, and that is using [Blood Aura] to coat the dead bodies near my main body to see if it could delay decomposition. It was successful, and gave me 2 useful information.

Yes, the bodies can be partially preserved using mana. And I can actually use them as a mana storage and possibly even raise them from the dead.

I considered the possibility of raising them from the dead when he possessed those flies, but it was quickly dismissed due to the lack of mana and the decomposition of the bodies.

I stayed conscious for an hour more this day.

{Day 6}

Due to my lower amount of water supply because of my decision to preserve the integrity of the bodies, he was forced to experiment again by seeing if mana can be a substitute to water with its functions. And, somehow it was successful.

I was already amazed by the uses of mana, and the mana-based growth rate made me consider if it can somehow replace the purpose of water in the process of photosynthesis.

Today, he decided to change tactics. He wanted to see if absorbing the light or rather the energy within can increase his overall resource supply.

It took him 8 hours, 8 hours of constantly trying to finally make a single successful attempt at using solar energy, 2 hours and several more tries for the system to finally acknowledge his work, giving him the skill [Magical Photosynthesis].

The consumption of mana only became inferior to the gain when the system finally acknowledged it, which something I used to comfort myself about actually proceeding with this action.

My stalk is also already 14 inches tall, with more even more leaves. Giving it a more luscious look.

I was awake for at least 9 hours in this day, and only managed to grow 0.38 corpse worth of roots, with most of them being only meant to connect the corpse to the main body.

{Day 7}

My speed at which I am absorbing mana and in turn creating more wood should have been a lot faster due to his higher coverage, but it stagnated in the past few days, until it dramatically increased today.

The skill [Mana Recovery] upgraded, at least that is what the system said, though the effects were clear.

My mana gain more than doubled, at which I estimated I could easily do 5 corpses a day if I wanted to divert my entire mana gain to corpse section of my growth.

Instead, this higher amount of mana is used on trying to see how much I can afford to cover constantly with my mana while still having a net positive mana gain.

So, it is at most 53, any more than that and it would thin too much. This little experiment also managed to cause [Blood Aura] to improve, causing it to have a stronger integrity in front of the atmospheric mana.

This also caused my mana to have a higher quality. And since the 53 figure is not reliant on the root system to cover, it might be possible to cover 80-100 as long as I have a root connecting to them.

I focus on root growing and since it takes at least more than 7 times root to fully access a body, and I only need to connect the bodies to me for better mana flow.

I managed to connect 78 bodies to his main body for this day.

{Day 8}

The day that I finally managed to connect all the dead bodies, and started partially preserving them, emphasis on the partial considering that I can’t afford to do much more considering the mana cost.

I also managed to upgrade his [Blood Aura] and [Mana Recovery] again, I am starting to think that affinity greatly helps in improving one’s self.

Currently, with all my upgrades and level ups, it takes 65% of my mana recovery to maintain the preservation, meaning I have 35% to invest into other things.

I am already level 9, and I decided that it is about time to make the blood fruit. With the goal in mind being to have a concentrated unit of energy, that will then be used as a support for the high-energy cost plans in the future.

I start growing the fruit rapidly, with my meager 14 inches tall main body which produced a tiny flower and eventually started growing into fruit.

I actively watched for most of the day and night. Noticing that there is some howling, which was not there the last time I was awake at night as a tree. Wait, why can I even hear howling? I have magical eyes not magical ears. Maybe it is from [Mana Vision], which should just be called [Mana Senses] then.

Everything around him was mostly calm until around 3 pm, when the fruit is nearly ripe and fully filled with evil mana, something came to disturb it.

It is a large dog, around 2 feet tall and 5 feet long. It has a thick body, with an equally thick fur, filled with dried blood. Its mouth is growling and salivating, with its mad eyes fixed on the tiny blood-red fruit.

[Author's Note: Please do leave feedback, really appreciate it]