Everything felt normal yet somehow different when their mind came back to life. The others were gone now, or to be precise, they were never there in the first place. It felt wrong to be one; it was many, but now it was alone. A cold feeling hugged them like an old acquaintance. It shuddered. It hated this feeling, but it guessed they had to learn to live with it because they were now a seed, something that was bound to be alone between many. And even if it would become a tree, they couldn't talk, could they? 

But, I did evolve, didn't I? So there might be a chance to evolve into something that could communicate with others! It tried to remember who they were...oh yeah, 'he'. But, who am I? Marco was gone, or at least the avatar. It was baffled. Marco's life felt so distant, like something seen through a telescope. It knew it was there and had all experiences, but it wasn't just them anymore. I'm White now...no, not White. White was the template, the...sister of those that were with me. So it is more like a family name? Yes, that term feels right. At least I wouldn't forget them like this...

If it could cry, they supposed they probably would have been lying on the floor sobbing for a while now. Most beings would be happy to live once again, but not them. The System really fucked me over, huh. What was the point of reincarnation if you were completely alone? Heck, it wasn't even possible for me to figure out if there was something or someone else I could talk to in this world. I'm just a seed...

Was this the origin of the phrase 'Every man is the artisan of their own fortune'? Do I need to find my own way, forge my own destiny? But how? What could I even do? 

It wondered where they should begin with their journey and realized that a journey starts with a name—their name. Naming myself feels weird, it thought. First of all, because they had no idea how to do so. Would they just find one, and it made click? Should there be a feeling behind it? Questions upon questions. So they pondered. 

Should I just take Willow? I mean, I know of a game character that was named this way...but she kinda burned everything down with her lighter. They decided against it, but they noticed something else as they thought about it again, I really am female now, aren't I? But I'm a tree too, so I guess I should really choose an appropriate name. So no 'Lisa' and the like. The imagination of someone introducing a tree as 'Lisa' or any other usual name, regardless of gender, was simply bizarre. So they browsed their memories of their old self and tried to find a fitting one but had no luck. 

So, Willow, it is...but then they remembered that there were other names with the same meaning. Salix, Elswyth, Liu, Iva...they repeated them. They instantly ruled Salix out. Also, Elswyth sounded too fantasy-like for them. So the choice lies between Liu and Iva. They spelled Liu out, but nothing. No unique sensation, no 'boom' or anything. So they opted against it. Thus, one was left.

Iiivvaaa, Iiva? Ivaaa, they tried to savor the name. A bubbly feeling spread throughout its core. Yes, they mumbled with an imaginary smile, this name fits my new self. Iva White—a woman tree female seed—this will be me from now on!" 

Instantly, some kind of sheet opened up before her inner eye.

Name: Iva White
Race: Awakened Weeping Willow Tree Seed[]
Age: 2 days
Race Level: 1/20

Components [State – Seed]:

Root System – lvl 1

Available Branch Augmentations 1/??? [Seed Form]
Remaining Enhancements Points: [Locked]

- Active: Free Slot [Locked – No root available]
     - Branch Augmentations [Locked – No branch available]
          - Branch enhancements [Locked]
- Active: Free Slot [Locked – No root available]
     - Branch Augmentations [Locked – No branch available]
          - Branch enhancements [Locked]
- Passive: Free Slot [Locked – No root available]
     - Branch Augmentations [Locked – No branch available]
          - Branch enhancements [Locked]
- Passive: Free Slot [Locked – No root available]
     - Branch Augmentations [Locked – No branch available]
          - Branch enhancements [Locked]

Seed Body – lvl 1
- Active: Free Slot
- Active: Free Slot
- Passive: Free Slot
- Passive: Free Slot

Race Skills:
- Absorption – lvl 1
- Auto-Growth – lvl 1

General Skills: None

Hidden Skills:

Wooden Consciousness – lvl Max.

??? [Locked]

Titles: None

Curses: None

Blessings: None

Stats:
Remaining points: 0

Vitality: 2
Endurance: 2
Strength: [Locked]
Dexterity: [Locked]
Flexibility: [Locked as seed]
Flexibility Roots: [Locked – no roots]
Intelligence: 2
Wisdom: 10
Growth: -2 [Locked]
Root Growth: 1
Root Spreadability Range: 1

Health: 5/5
Energy reserves: 25/30
Mana: [Locked]

 

Root System? What does this mean, and what are those numbers? Is this like a game after all? Roots, Branch Points, Branch Augmentations? How do they differentiate? Asked Iva herself. She played some games, yeah, but those never had something like a Root System. Or was it the same as a Skill Tree? Even the Stats seemed weird. What, for example, was included in growth? How big she will be or just how fast she will grow in total? Nothing got explained; those things just were there, without any information. Only the Race Skills made sense to her. 

This left only one option: to explore for herself how every aspect of her sheet worked and influenced her. Most of them were probably intuitive, but she wasn't entirely sure. And the fact that she could obviously choose most of the stuff herself made her worried to fuck up the stat distribution somehow. She just couldn't reset everything, or? 

Naah, that would be weird, she thought. Even if this was a game-like world, it was surely not like that. Iva was kinda afraid of the future and this unknown place. She was also worried about the fact that trees had a rather long lifespan. This was another thing that bugged her. As far as she knew, weeping willows were known for their fast growth and short life, but her own growth rate was minus two. And she was an 'Awakened' variant. Did that mean she lived longer? Presumably, otherwise, her growth wouldn't be obstructed. 

Another thought spread through her mind, How can I fill those 'Free Slots' of the Seed Body? Right now, I'm only a seed, but how far am I in my growth actually? 

Iva attempted to recall the sensation she experienced before her evolution. Her shell, the endless void, the soil—she tried to understand everything. Being a seed was still odd for her. 

Luckily, I have no phantom limbs. Having memories of fleshy limbs that I cannot move should give me those, but they don't. I'm at least thankful for that. This would totally make all of this a living hell... She ended this train of thought—anything else was just too depressing—and went back to figuring out how she could be in control of her seed body. 

 

---

 

The only reason why Iva still had a sense of time was because of that weird status sheet. Three days had already passed within a blink, and she still had no clue how to solve the problem. The one thing she was sure of was that the germination had not yet begun but would happen soon. The Energy reserves were getting low, and either she would just die, or the seed coat finally took enough water up to crack open. Would she feel pain if that happened? 

She shook her imaginary head and focused again. Her inner eye wandered around in the well-known void of her core. Over the last few days, she found out that this place actually had borders. But it still felt like a void to her because of this darkness one can drown in. My own little depressing dimension, she thought, sneering. Those little remarks helped her not to go crazy in here. 

 

---

 

It eventually happened after another few days, and she could actually feel it! Well, 'feeling' would be an exaggeration, as if all the pressure that had been on her since she got here had finally faded away. In the old world, it would have been somewhat comparable to finally being able to get out into the fresh air after a long car ride...only a thousand times better.

And then another fantastic thing occurred, she felt a limb! Ok, not exactly a 'limb'—it was a root. And Iva was not capable of moving it either, but she could sense every part of it and how it grew. Slowly, so so slowly. Ok, it was so freaking slow that she kinda screamed for a few hours out of boredom. Watching grass grow is more exciting, she sniffed, offended at how slowly she was growing. Insolence!

Her outbursts aside, she constantly tried her best to be a good seed—whatever that meant—and 'watched' inside of her void all over the changes her status and her body made. The tiny root thingy she grew didn't count as one, as the slots kept being locked. So Iva concluded that the root had to advance at least a certain amount before the System recognized it. But what was still a mystery to her was the meaning behind an active and a passive slot and how to gain such a unique root. Or learn? Maybe it was like some game where you just needed to repeat a particular action, and voilà you learned explosion magic. Sooner or later, she would come behind this. Till then, Iva concentrated on her new root and was fascinated by how it anchored her into the soil and began to absorb water. The next step would be that the shoot emerges out of me, and when it is out of the ground, I'm officially a seedling! Clap. Clap. Clap, she ironically celebrated this new insight. 

Even if all of this totally bored her to death fascinated her, there were still other things to do in her shell, like figuring out the world outside of her coat. It seemed paradoxical at first, but there was a reason behind it. The Seed Body had free slots, yet she was unsure how to fill them with...skills? It gave her a headache, seedache? Something like this. 

Violet taught her to perceive the world outside, but some things were lost again through the union. Or rather, these things were fogged. And she had to break through this fog. She was aware of the world around her, but how was that possible? Those particles, what are they really? Were they everywhere, and I just didn't notice them because they seemed less familiar than the others? 

A noise, a type of buzzing, became discernible within her senses. It strongly resembled that of tv static noise. Further, filtering out more, finding a trace. A flow of particles that had a certain pattern became more and more distinguishable, to a point where she knew it was happening all around her in steady streams. 

Some were stronger, some weaker, and a few were so far apart that there was only optical and sensory silence between them. But then everything changed again, and she lost sight of the flow until it reappeared in another place. She was curious and tried to attract those fluxes, like a root sucking the water. 

In the beginning, nothing happened, but then, very slowly, they moved towards her. Closer and closer. 

Then a stab, a pain. Iva cried out internally. It burned horribly as if she had been thrown alive into a volcano. She writhed back and forth, her soul trying to retreat deeper inside, but in vain. Then she lost consciousness. 

When her mind returned, she was still in the inner self, but something seemed different more mystic. 

'Ding' Congratulations! Due to your eagerness to kill yourself with [Mana-Overload], you forcefully learned [Manary]. 

Passive: Manary – lvl 1:

Your Seed Body has learned to recognize mana as a part of itself and store it, but only in small amounts. 'Manary' is the inferior variant of 'Mana Storage'.

'Ding' Due to your recklessness, you felt pain beyond what most people would feel in their daily lives or even during their entire lifetime. You learned the General Skill 'Soul Tolerance'. 

Soul Tolerance – You grasped things you shouldn't have and paid for them. On the bright side, you are now less affected by it or other attacks against your soul. 'Soul Tolerance' is the weaker variant of 'Soul Resistance'. 

'Ping' Due to learning 'Manary', you can now learn 'Mana Root'.

'Ping' No root available. 

'Ding' Due to the lack of roots, the learning of 'Mana Root' will be postponed till a new root is available or the decision is made to not learn it.

Oh well, that certainly explains the weirdly shaped orb in the distance, she thought and moved nearer. It really is small. I wonder how much mana I can fit now. 

Name: Iva White
Race: Awakened Weeping Willow Tree Seed[]
Age: 10 days
Race Level: 1/20

[...]

Seed Body – lvl 1
- Active: Free Slot
- Active: Free Slot
- Passive: Manary – lvl 1
- Passive: Free Slot

[...]

Stats:
Remaining points: 0

Vitality: 2
Endurance: 2
Strength: [Locked]
Dexterity: [Locked]
Flexibility: [Locked as seed]
Flexibility Roots: [Locked – no roots]
Intelligence: 2
Wisdom: 10
Growth: -2 [Locked]
Root Growth: 1
Root Spreadability Range: 1

Health: 0,5/5
Energy reserves: 5/30
Mana: 6/5

 

Iva shuddered, It really nearly killed me. I need to be way more careful in the future when I explore these things. Anyway, next station, roots!