The backyard of the villa was once a wonderful garden full of blooming flowers, well groomed bushes, and fruit bearing trees, now however everything has been plucked clean by the experimenting Subrina, the bushes withered and died while the trees were barren of any greenery

The only new flora present within the ground were a bunch of small roots scattered about

"I thought it would be spread further"

Commented YuJu, Subrina merely smiled and remained quiet

Sensing the approaching two these little roots suddenly burst from the ground to reveal their true size

With a thickness of branches and a height of more than half a meter the root spirit greeted its master in delight, if it wasn't stuck in the soil he guessed the wiggling wood would be all over him right now

"Calm down, let me get a good look at you"

The root stopped its vigorous greeting and lay still in his open hand as he inspected it

"Hmm, other than a larger size you seem to have given it a way to improve its skin, presumably through extracting the dermis of a tough animal's hide and refining it before mixing it with blood allowing the Vampiric trait of the root to take effect, the problem here is that the method used in mixing is crude and unsuited for this type of indirect evolution of skin trait, I can fix it though by purifying the bloodline within the roots so it's no problem"

The smile on her face froze as he easily analyzed and put apart her methods, he didn't even seem surprised by its size or tough skin much to her disappointment

It didn't discourage her though, merely gave her a bout of pity, she quickly pulled herself from the dampened mood after that

"Your ever so sharp Master, I apologize if my work caused you extra trouble"

"Not at all, I'm glad your putting your knowledge to good use, do consult me while I am here though so as to help the root walk a clean evolution pathway"

After advising he took a look at its status

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Name: None

Race: Vamperic Root Spirit

Gender: N/A

Level: 44

Class: None (Guardian)

STR: 7

AG: 8

VIT: 51

INT: 5

INS: 0.1

AP: 105

Titles: FirstBorn: The first of its kind

Gained +10% to all attributes

-Forest Spirit: All stats +15% within Nature biome

Special Status: Contracted Master: Yuju

_________________________________

The lack of level-ups didn't surprise him, with how the smoke scared all creatures from approaching it stood to reason the root wouldn't get any, while the potential guardian class came about due to its protective actions

"Hmm, what name suits you most"

Propping bony fingers under his chin he scoured his memory for names and their origin as he did with every other one of his followers, he wanted something to inspire the right feeling with but the name, there were indeed many such names but he faced a problem this time

"Your path is muddled, too unclear to pick out a certain future aspect"

It was indeed the case and he found himself unable to pinpoint one defining feature

It didn't stump him though, sometimes having too many a choice was the best feature of all

"Given you guard the entrance to my House, keeping watch over the doorways in times war and peace, allowing none who seek harm a passage as you progress toward the top with your ever changing blood, I shall name you Iānus"

The roots once more whipped about in joy, finally it was given a name of its own just like the rest of its family

While it was still brimming with excitement YuJu already moved onto distributing its status

"Vitality will naturally increase with time, there is no need to artificially raise it at such low levels, it would even be harmful due to the vampiric nature that requires blood to build strong foundations"

With that stat out of the way he quickly passed over the strength and agility

"Strength will naturally follow vitality, as for agility, well I would have to wait and see, maybe it will naturally increase or I might have to intervene, either way its a waste to pump the points now when it can easily get past the first hundred or so on its own"

Finally he moved onto the two stagnant stats

"Intelligence and Insight huh, Hmm…. Well it would be best to raise Insight in hopes of acquiring a useful skill since it will be quite the while before I decide on its class, but that would be counterproductive at such an early stage where Iānus hasn't manifested any unique aspects, it would only waste the first enlightenment and possibly end up with a useless skill anyway"

Now that he eliminated every other stat there was only one choice, intelligence

"Master, how about we save it then?"

Subrina couldn't help but comment from the side, it was an eye opening experience to hear how her master thought through their advancement, but it didn't seem right to her that one should pump a stat just because he had to wait on the others

"You think we should save it until Iānus reaches a bottleneck?"

"Yes Master, I would assume it would be the most productive course of action"

He nodded at her words at first but then shook his head with a laugh

"This is why a lot of smart people die in the Infidome, they always think they will live long enough to spend the points with whatever meager power held within their grasp"

He turned to the dutiful maid of his with a smile

"Subrina, keep in mind that while I do cherish Iānus, I still brought it here to protect you, it's duty is to guard as well as its reason for existence, just as you exist to serve, in order to ensure that duty is upheld Iānus needs to get stronger fast enough, especially with me not being around"

It touched her how much he did for her, though that didn't seem to be his point here…

Turning back to the still root who sensed the serious atmosphere and stopped dancing he continued

"Its Intelligence won't be advancing easily either, with the nature of Iānus it will most likely go down the path of strength so it wouldn't really be a waste, furthermore, I really do hate hoarding things the most"

With that he used the status to dump all the AP into Intelligence

Puff!Puff!Puff!

Dirt flew about as Iānus thrashed in pain, its vines twisting and clenching while striking the innocent ground, it would have even hit the two in its rampage if not for YuJu's quick escape with Subrina in his arms

"Cope with it, I hope you gain something useful out of this"

He spoke, knowing the chances of that weren't high, one could only hope it wasn't something completely lack luster

"Master…"

Subrina's shy and quiet voice came from within his arms, distracting him from observing the pained guard of his as he looked over her figure lifted by the knees and waist

Her cheeks held a ting of pink, eye shifty, looking anywhere but into his own, one needn't be a genius to figure her feelings out

To this YuJu merely cast an indifferent glance, he could easily tell that she loved him ever so much for reasons he didn't understand, even if he did however he cared not for it would remain a one sided feeling, love would not bud in a dead heart like his

Putting the shy maiden down he resumed watching Iānus thrash about, observing the process as well as standing by in case it needed assistance in any manner, much like he once helped Ellis cross the threshold