Chapter 2: Choosing skills and getting adopted by elves
Reincarnated as a blade of grass by IsekaiWriter
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You should probably just ignore the mathematics I added for calculating mana and whatnot. I'm going to try to make a fantasy setting that has no mechanics that would inevitably cause imbalance, like a skill that's easy to get and makes you too powerful, and to do that I'm adding complicated formulas for mana costs so you can't do anything with too little mana. I also just love math.

I opened my clairvoyant eye to see: grass. Wooo. There's grass everywhere for miles around. Looking at myself, as my species description said, I'm rather yellow. I actually look almost like wheat, but wider and thinner instead of a tube. The sun was moving very, very fast. In 6.5 seconds it had already done a full rotation, and I had grown a noticeable amount. An animal that might have been a deer or something zoomed by faster than a speeding bullet train. The sun went around again. Clearly my hypothesis that grass thinks slowly was correct. Everything moves too fast for me to see properly.

My mana hasn't drained at all. I regenerate it faster than I'm using it. It costs 0.1 an hour, or 2.4 a day (assuming you've put the eye directly on top of yourself) and I regenerate 10 a day. The maximum distance away from myself I could put it and still regenerate mana faster than I use it is 0.6 meters since that would increase mana consumption to 9.6 a day. Oh I died.

System message:

Your body was destroyed at the age of 43 days and due to the trait "Relatively transcendent" your soul was transferred into the 19 day old body of your relative.

In a flash I was in a new place. My new body looked much younger than the old one, obviously. I was still in a field, but this time there were some trees nearby, leaves moving so incredibly fast I couldn't trace them. I should probably get another skill that will help me see things like a human would. Yes, I've already accepted the fact I'm not longer human. Staring into the void for a day and a half will do that to you. The way you get skills in this magic system is to constantly try to use them. I imagine, for example, that to get a fireball skill you would repeatedly mimic a magician throwing a fireball until it worked. I, personally, mimicked a plant trying to see for nearly 3 years straight and then suddenly became able to. There's probably some factor that made it take so long. Perhaps it was the fact that I perceived it as a mere two hours. Perhaps plants just aren't supposed to be able to see. I can't imagine a human spending 3 years doing nothing but trying to see with their eyes closed just to get the clairvoyance skill, so there must be something that makes it faster for humans to get skills than grasses.

In any case, I've decided which skill to try and get. I'll spend a few hours (years in human time) imagining everything slowing down until I get a skill that lets me think faster. 

And I did just that, for 7 hours, until I got the following notification:

New skill gained!

Time Manipulation++* (Rarity: SS-) (0.0%)
Allows the user to select an area and alter the flow of time there. Altering it to a high time scale will make things think and move faster or slower, but also be easier or harder to break for things outside of the area. They will act as if they have less or slower mass, and will fall faster or slower. They will also be able to exert less force.1
TLDR: You're stronger but slower or weaker but faster. Harder or easier to break.That's just how altering time would work, I didn't make up all that. Speeding up time is effectively the same as making yourself lighter, weaker, and more affected by gravity. If any physicists want to correct me in the comments, I'd love it. EDIT: After thinking about it some more, I concluded that I am not a physicist. For the purposes of this story, here is the (POSSIBLY UNREALISTIC, I HONESTLY DON"T KNOW) way that time manipulation would works. YOU DO NOT HAVE TO READ THIS. IT IS ONLY IF YOU WANT TO HAVE A THOROUGH UNDERSTANDING OF THE STORY, AND SIMPLER EXPLANATIONS WILL BE GIVEN LATER.1:A person under *faster* time manipulation (for this example we will use a factor of exactly 10) will feel normal, but it will look to them that the world is moving slower. You'd be able to jump no higher or lower than usual, as your legs store 1/10 energy but you weight 1/10 as much. If you fell off a cliff, you'd feel like you were falling normally. An object (outside of time manipulation) that weighs 10 kilos will now feel like 100 kilos. It now takes 10 punches to deal the damage a single normal punch would. Shooting a bow and arrow (Assuming both bow  and arrow are under time manipulation) would be very weird. The bow now only shoots with 1/10 of the poundage. The arrow weighs 1/10 of what it usually would. Subsequently, the arrow would go at the same speed it would when shot normally, but because it has less mass, it will do less damage. It will look like it is  going rather slow to you. The plus side? You can draw, aim, and shoot 10 time quicker! This next part I am not so sure about. Everything before this can be concluded using logic, and working under the assumption that this ability will allow you to output no more or less energy than when you are not using it given the same amount of time. This next part is purely speculation, and also what I WANT to happen so I can create an interesting story. I ask for the benefit of the doubt, and for you to remember I am not a physicist. A sword would go through you 10 times easier. An arrow would lose 1/10 of the speed, might even go through you entirely. A mace would crack your arms with just 1/10 of the usual force. Of course you can move faster so these are easier to dodge, but if you stood still and took it, you would be hurt 10 times more than usual. AGAIN, I DON'T KNOW HOW WELL THIS LINES UP WITH ACTUAL PHYSICS, I COULDN'T FIND ANY PAPERS ON IT. The exact opposite is true for slowing yourself down. 10 kilos would feel like one. An arrow you shot would move at the same speed, but when it hit it would be like you were hit by a sharpened telephone pole. You'd fall too fast to really catch yourself, so it's probably not good for normal walking. You can jump no higher or lower than usual! This is because gravity is pulling down your torso at a normal speed, so it can MAINTAIN IT'S MOMENTUM. Even if it's moving at 2 miles an hour, it takes 10 times as long to slow down from gravity. Falling down would still feel very fast. That's how I think time slowing/speeding up would work, and the way it will work throughout this story. This can be counteracted by any magic counteracting skill or trait. Time scale must be a whole number.
Upgrade perks: lower mana cost, dramatically lower mana cost
Divine modification: can be targeted at the user's soul. mana cost is 0.1 per hour when being used on the user's soul at a time scale of under 20,000 and above 10,000

Mana cost for speeding things up: 0.1 + (0.2 * (1 +"distance from user in meters") * (1 + "size of area in cubic meters") * (1 + 1/5 * "time scale")) per hour

Mana cost for slowing things down: 0.1 + (0.2 * (1 +"distance from user in meters") * (1 + "size of area in cubic meters") * (1 + 1/5 * "time scale")) per hour

Note from the system god: "I don't think this is the one you were trying for, but it's funny as hell for a grass to have this so it's what you're getting. LMAO. Btw, the pluses after the name of the skill represent how many times it's been upgraded. The asterisk is a modification I made just for you. The un-upgraded versions of this skill couldn't have done what you were imagining for a reasonable amount of mana, so the system couldn't give them to you, but you begged for 10 years non stop so I pushed a few buttons and called in a favor so you'd get this modified version. Try to be more specific with the skills you try for in the future, the system is honestly pretty dumb, and I won't help you out again."

Well I have plenty to talk about now. First of all, let me say that 7 hours is a long time to sit and do nothing but watch grass grow, literally. Secondly, I saw a lot of different settlements all over the world since I'm constantly transferring over to the healthiest blade of grass. We seem to be in the middle ages. A lot of craftsmanships have been invented but electricity has not. Also, no one writes in English. I saw a couple of battles between monsters and adventurers, but it was so fast I could hardly tell who won. Several people noticed my clairvoyant eye. Most of the humans took a quick glance and then ran away. I suppose clairvoyant eyes are something it's common knowledge to stay away from. Elves, on the other hand, seemed to be able to pick up on my presence and acknowledge my existence. This happened about 3 times, but the last time he actually dug me up and put me in a pot in his house, which is where I have been for the past 8 months or so.

I think he's using some sort of elf magic to preserve me, since I usually would've died of old age by now. The man, who is about 175 centimeters tall, is (usually) well dressed, rather slim, has grey hair, and waters me daily. I still can't feel, but I get the feeling that the watering helps. It might just be a placebo. The house I'm in is carved into a tree. The door has wooden hinges that appear to have been crafted with wood magic, like the house itself. It has minimal furniture and a bed made from some type of straw, with an animal fur on top. The other houses, which I can see by moving my clairvoyant eye outside, are much the same, although some seem very high up and have ladders to get to them.

Finally, let's address that notification. It seems like I need to imagine things better, or the system won't be able to tell what skill I want. It also seems that the gods can see what we're trying to get, considering he noticed my futile efforts and helped me out.  As for the actual skill, I appears it will let me do several things. I can change my perception of time to match that of a human's. I can change my perception of time to be even BETTER than that of a human's by nearly 2x. I can make something move faster and be weaker or move slower and be stronger. I can make my perception of time even further from that of a humans, which I would do to make the acquisition of skills take less mental time. I could make myself perceive time up to 7 times slower than I do now, which is already 12960 times slower than a human does. In all, I'll be able to get skills more than 90,000 times faster than a human could, although I feel like I'm being stunted somehow. There has to be some condition that would allow me to get skills faster that I'm not meeting.  That said, I need to get a skill that will let me hear these elves and learn the language, so I think I'll get to it.

Clairvoyance off (takes up mana I need for time manipulation)

Time manipulation on (makes time pass 7 times faster for my soul, but my body ages at the usual rate)

Please let me hear. Please let me hear. Please let me hear. Please let me hear. Please let me hear. Please let me hear. Please let me hear. Please let me hear. Please let me hear. Please let me hear. Please let me hear.

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