"Hellooo and goood morning, everrryyone," announced a voice that was definitely not Iva. "It's us again, Soil 2, your favorite evening show for plant-based journalism! Today's first news comes from a local seed who got touched indecently by a rather rude fellow. Let's say hello to I**!"

'audible applause' 

"Ok, my dear I**, tell us, what happened?" asked the hostess of this totally real show. "By the way, we distorted her voice to ensure the safety of her identity."

"I-I...I was just walking home...from the garden after a long night, and out of nowhere an ant walked over to me and, and just...just...it just touched my root and ran away! I-I felt so dirty!"

'audible gasping'

"I'm really sorry to hear this, I**. This must have been a shock! Sadly, my dear audience, I** is not the first young seed that ran into this root grabber. So, to help our seedlings out there, we went out ourselves and tried to catch them, and we did! Now greet the infamous ant and let it tell us their side of the story!"

'enraged booing'

'totally not dead ant body enters the show'

"Okay ****, we brought you here to listen to your side of the story, but I'm not gonna lie, it looks rather grim for you. So, what do you have to say 'gainst those charges?"

'silence'

"Don't play dumb with me! Tell us, why you are doing idiotic shit like this?" Iv—the anchorseed asked.

'deafening silence'

"So, you are saying that you are forced to do so by someone who calls herself 'Queen Ant' and that this shady individual has built a kind of slave-like culture? What a scandal! What, you're threatening and telling me that I'm the next one on her list? Oh, I'm sorry, but this won't happen if I strike first—muahahahaha! *Cough Cough* Now send this dirty insect back where it belongs—under the ground!"

'agreeing shrieks'

"So, my dear audience, with those stunning news, I will pass you to my colleague—Orbinia—who will tell you all about the weather."

...

"Oy, colleague?!" Nothing happened.

...

"Orbinia, it's your turn! Wait, what do you mean you don't want to do this shit? Hello, it's for the audience, you know? Of course, they are here! Can't you see them? My god, just this one time, okay? Pshaw, fine, then don't do it, bitch!" yelled Iva and began to cry crocodile tears.

'Ding' Congratulations! You learned the General Skill 'Acting'.

Acting – lvl 1:
You are better at hiding and manipulating your outward emotions. Other parties are more easily fooled by those emotions, and it is also harder to see your true intentions. 

"..." Iva looked stunned at this message. "Yay?" 

She sighed internally. Not gonna lie, this play was somewhat fun to her if only Orbinia wouldn't be such a party pooper sometimes. Either way, she only did all of this in the first place because she had to wait. Killing ants wasn't that hard with her mana shock, but the time needed to refill her mana was rather annoying. At least she leveled up her skills and race a few times in the last ten days, but she hadn't distributed the new stat points into anything until now. In addition, her original plan to commit insect genocide was still lingering in her mind and made her restless.

-------

Name: Iva White
Race: Awakened Weeping Willow Tree Seed[]
Age: 63 days
Race Level: 2/20 → [5/20]

Components [State – Seed]:

Root System – lvl 1

Available Roots: 0
Available Branch Augmentations 1/??? [Seed Form]
Remaining Enhancements Points: [Locked]

- Active: Free Slot [Locked – No root available]
    [...]
- Active: Free Slot [Locked – No root available]
    [...]
- Passive: Mana Root – lvl 1 →[2] 
    [...]
- Passive: Free Slot [Locked – No root available]
   [...]

Seed Body – lvl 1
- Active: Mana Shock – lvl 1 →[3]
- Active: Overgrowth – lvl 1 
- Passive: Manary – lvl 1 →[2]
- Passive: Free Slot 

Race Skills: 
- Absorption – lvl 1 →[2]
- Auto-Growth – lvl 1

General Skills: 
- Acting – lvl 1 

[...]

Stats:
Remaining points: 1 →[25]

[...]

Health: 5/5 →[7]
Energy reserves: 46/55 →[70]
Mana: 1/5 →[9] 
Mana-Regen: [1/24h] →[2]

 

The constant use of her skills clearly led to acceptable overall development, yet, it still wasn't enough. So after a long time of weighing the pros and cons, Iva decided to use her skill 'Overgrowth' rather than waiting another four days before her mana was full again. 

Suddenly, she felt like everything exploded. Her inner walls stretched unnaturally, tore, ruptured, grew out of shape, broke, and healed again. Not only them but also the roots that fared the same. It was like somebody broke your bones, reformed and put them back into place over and over again. But at the same time, more and more sensations overloaded Iva's mind. How the roots bored deeper into the soil, and in turn, smaller branches emerged out of them. It was a warm and pleasant experience how the earth around her gave way. She felt as if she was stretching. 

Then, another sensation happened, and full of amazement, she 'watched' how the closed-up part in her inner world opened, and the shoot finally dragged itself out of the embryo. It didn't get very far, though, but at least a little bit, much to the joy of Iva. 

And when her mind succeeded in regaining true comprehension about what just occurred, a whole day already passed by. She looked at the open System messages.

'Ding' You suffer from 'Mana Aridity' for two days. Your Mana-Regen gets slowed down by 95%. Using skills costs you 70% more mana. 

'Ping' A root has reached the minimum required size to be used in the Root System.

'Ping' A root has reached the minimum required size to be used in the Root System.

Iva's mind gleamed, well, not at the first message, but at the other two. She was pretty happy to see that some of her roots were available to the Root System. To her surprise, no further messages lit up to show new things she could learn. 

Maybe I need to fulfill some requirements first? Or do I need to have a certain level? Maybe my stats need to reach a certain number? She pondered for a moment and looked over the first notification again. Overgrowth, on the other hand, is somewhat problematic and OP at the same time. I didn't expect it to have such strong side effects. Right now, they aren't super bothering, but if I grow tall enough to breach the surface, I might need to defend myself unexpectedly against the wildlife. This debuff could literally kill me when I use it unprepared in the future. So I just should utilize it in the early stages of my growth and later on when I have a way to protect myself even if I'm manaless. 

She made a note to herself, so she wouldn't forget it and went back to more important business—experimenting with her stat allocation and its possible effects on the Root System.

Stats:
Remaining points: 0

Vitality: 2 →[5]
Endurance: 3 →[5]
Strength: [Locked]
Dexterity: [Locked]
Flexibility: [Locked as seed]
Flexibility Roots: 2 →[15]
Intelligence: 3 →[5]
Wisdom: 10 →[11]
Growth: -2 [Locked]
Root Growth: 4 →[5]
Root Spreadability Range: 2 →[5]

She gave every stat a few points this time but went all out on the Flex stat. One might ask why she would do something like this, but her reasoning was rather plausible—she wanted to move her roots. How she understood this stat, it was akin to how moveable her roots were overall and how easy it was for them to bend or how far they could twist at all. But in all honesty, her true intention for today's allocation was the memory of the other worlds' fantasy films, where magical trees used their roots to walk and fight. She simply thought that this was a great idea—what a dimwit. 

'Ding' Your roots are truly flexible! Due to this, you learned 'Domination Root'.  

Active: Domination Root (small) – lvl 1:
The 'undertaker' of roots. Its whole purpose is to be controlled by your mind, fulfilling every possible action you order it to do. Smash, squash, skewer or slice your enemies. Show the world that trees can be feared too!
Yet, this root is not only valuable for killing fine; no, you can also interact with your environment, move objects and even build things if you are skillful enough. 
This root uses 'Energy' [10%/10min] or 'Mana' [15%/5min] to move around. While using energy, your attacks scale with 'Strength', 'Dexterity' and 'Endurance' while it scales with 'Intelligence' , 'Wisdom' , and 'Endurance' when you use mana. 
It constantly consumes 10% of your mana for its own growth. This effect can be toggled on or off—two-week cooldown.  

'Ding' Due to learning 'Dominiation Root' (small), the stats 'Strength' and 'Dexterity' are now unlocked.

I-it worked? It worked! And it unlocked two new stats, even if I have no clue what this whole scaling thingy means and how it possibly works. But never mind that. I have a way to actually attack now, even if those using costs are relatively high. I hope these numbers change somewhat after I level it up a few times. 

So, the question is, what I should do next? My energy reserves are my lifeline, so I won't use them until I get to the point where it is high enough to use the root for a long time. So it's waiting for mana...again...with a debuff on it...greaaat.

Iva wasn't keen on waiting again, but after more than sixty-four days, another few didn't matter that much. And then, then she would finally be able to start her little war against the insects and level up like hell and hopefully evolve into something cool and unlock a path to become more human-like again. 

...truthfully, this particular topic was something that bothered the little seed for a while now. Did she want to become something like a human again? She'd thought about it for some time already and couldn't decide if this was something she truly wished for in the future. She'd only considered it so far because it was the only logical conclusion to be a human again after living as one before...but 'she' hadn't really lived as one. It was confusing, and Iva would surely find a satisfying answer at some point, but for now, it was time for another episode of Soil 2.

 

---

 

—Deep, deep in the underground beneath Iva—

A queen supervised her countless little children and was happy how fast they all thrived after such a short time. She was certain that her empire would be glorious and become mighty enough to invade the world above. She still could remember when those surface dwellers attacked her mother's hill and killed everyone they could find. She was still young back then, too naive to understand that those two-legged creatures never would see her kin as something equal to them. 

So when the queen fled the hill as its only survivor, hunted down by those fiends, and managed to find a way in the furthest depths of the underground, she swore to revenge everyone. 

Yet, lately, something weird had happened. Some of her little kids died, which she'd sent out to the nearest places above the ground as scouts and builders. But up there in her tunnels was nothing, only roots, seeds, worms, and other insignificant stuff. Therefore there shouldn't be a threat, but they still died somehow. And even the next group of scouts she'd sent up there failed to come back. Her instincts told the queen that something was wrong, but she couldn't quite put her antennae on what it was. 

So she did the only logical thing and ordered some of her younger warriors, who were eager to prove themselves, to go up there and solve this little problem.