Manning

"Is that corn?" Another teenage venture into the forest to explore was providing me with entertainment. It'd been a couple more days and I hadn't seen my regulars in a while, which gave me hope that the first 'trial' just might be complete before they re-enter. As much as I didn't mind pretending not to be a dungeon and growing my forest on the surface, the urge to kill a couple people was really starting to ramp up. Ever since Copper and that swordsman died within my borders I'd had the taste of their mana on the back of my mind, ever present and ever taunting.

"You know, Manning, most forests don't grow corn, enchanted or otherwise. Actually they don’t grow any of these domesticated plants."

"I see what you mean Ash, but it's not like I'm doing any harm. How many dungeons do you think grow corn and potatoes?"

"..." It seems I'd stunned my dryad companion. "That isn't really the point. Growing all these foods is going to make them suspicious" Never mind.

"That's okay. That weird elf is back and still convinced that there is a nature deity growing in the forest. Who knows, maybe you'll get to be a dryad goddess soon."

"It would take a lot more than a cult led by a lone elf to raise someone into divinity."

"Wait, that's a real thing that can happen? I was just making a joke."

Ash decided not to deign me with a response to that question, smirking instead and walking towards the back of the clearing. It was time to create some guardians for the first trial anyways so I redirected my attention towards the hog getting ready to give birth.

I'd managed to grow a wildflower which released stunning pollen, and sprinkled them around the brush off the trail. With the discovery of these flower I had a burst of inspiration. Back when the boars first entered my forest and I captured two of them, they had mushroom spores on their tusks. I'd been wondering more and more what would happen if I tried to merge a plant and animal during birth and was ready to start experimenting.

The squealing of the sow brought me out of my thoughts, and I prepared to welcome life into my forest. To be fair this was going to be my second attempt to create a plant-like boar, the first had been during pregnancy and resulted in a miscarriage. This lead me to believe that modifying them too intensely during incubation wouldn’t work out, as the mother boar wasn’t equipped to grow them. I was confident however that my idea was possible, and I was going to keep trying until I got it. As a piglet squeezed into the world for the first time I quickly realized my mistake.

The piglets were not born with external tusks, how was I supposed to enhance them at birth?

The rest of the litter was born into the world without real complications, numbering thirteen. Without wasting any time I decided I would try to graft the stunflower pollen and seed where the tusks would eventually grow and accelerate the growth of the boar.

The first boar expired with an explosion of stunflowers growing into its face as it passed adolescence. Okay maybe that didn't work out. Boars number two and three were also failures, as I'd tried to accelerate their growth to the point that tusks began to form before grafting. Instead of dying in a burst of dandelions, the flowers sprouted and wilted instantly before falling to the forest floor.

At least they survived I guess. There were only two more male piglets in the litter and I was starting to doubt the feasibility of forcing the stunflower to spread into the tusks. I decided to try something else for the next one.

Boy boar number four stumbled forward a couple steps and I started working on it. Instead of a flower, I tried to ingrain the ironwood into the boar as it grew. In a stroke of pure luck, as it started rapidly ageing the ironwood spread along its skeletal system instead of just growing a tree out of the boar's skull. Lucky surprises. I further enhanced it by convincing the tusks to grow longer and sharper, and somehow managed to grow a third tusk out of its forehead. I guess this one was technically a horn.

The horned iron-boar stood about three times taller than the two who survived their flowerings, and had a wicked look to its eyes. Even the fur took a slight metallic shine to it, gleaming a dark red-brown.

"Perfect. I'll call you a Uniboarn."

"No. Beside the fact that the name is terrible, Manning, you have a no-naming policy. Remember? You were going to let the sapients name your creations that way you didn't end up calling them something different."

"Pfft. I won't have to worry about it. If they miss my stroke of genius the forest goddess can just appear from the forest and correct them. Besides, we need to refer to them somehow until the sapients start naming them."

"I'm not a goddess. I am not even officially a matriarch until the Sylva is reborn from the pear tree."

Ash was starting to get a bit flustered so I decided to leave her be. Some people cannot appreciate true humor. Since I already had a guardian, I went back to my original idea. I wanted a boar that could use stunning pollen to disable a party before gouging out their stomachs. I also wasn't ready to give up on my plant-monsters yet. The ironwood boar felt more like a metallic beast than a plant, even if it was technically the bark of one of my trees coating it.

Even as far as the piglets went, this last male piglet was far smaller than the others. I spent a couple minutes contemplating the way forward. No matter which way I cut it, growing plants near the skull would most likely end up with roots invading the brain. Even if it survived the process unlike the first one, I didn't want a brain dead defender.

I settled with coating the piglets back with seeds instead. I started 'rapidly' aging the boar as slowly as I could so I could keep an eye on the process and see if there were any areas I could modify it. To my surprise the piglet started growing with little-to-no issues arising from the field of flowers on its back. Tiny yellow flowers shot up, bloomed, spread their seeds, and died in a rapid cycle. The boar's fur started shifting colors to match the bright green coloration of the flower as it gained mass, but it remained healthy.

Fifteen minutes later I was staring at my first nature boar. It was twice the size of my regular dungeon-enhanced boars, but still smaller than the uniboarn. The underside of its belly remained a light tan but turned greener as you followed it towards its back. Coating the boar's back, and even its head somehow, were my stunflowers which had also mutated. They were much larger and leafier and gave the boar a look that resembled a flowering berry bush. I watched it as it shook and the stunning pollen was airborne, quickly paralyzing the female piglets from the litter.

I wouldn't know how it held up in combat but I was more than happy to have yet another varied boar for combat. Now if only I could figure out how to make the boars fly... Oh well, a question for another time.

I'd figured out a while back that the inbreeding seemed to be fine so long as it was within a single generation. With that in mind I decided to splurge the mana to finish growing the rest of the litter and split them between my uniboarn and plant-boar for breeding. Hopefully the changes would be genetic and I wouldn't have to evolve a female boar to match them. It was far more expensive to do that, and I was curious if it would even be needed.

The newly born females followed their assigned mates as they went off to claim their own slice of the forest, and the two failed experiments were sent out closer to the pear tree. Even if they failed to evolve the way I wanted them to they may evolve naturally.

I watched as Ash pet the head of the sleeping mother boar who was sleeping off her ordeal. Even after enhancements I assumed birthing thirteen piglets was not pleasant. Without much more to do I cast my 'eyes' around the forest.

Along with the farmers’ children trying, and failing, to hunt my squirrels with a poor-quality short bow, there were a couple dwarves chopping down a particularly large oak tree I'd grown the night before. I drank in the passive mana they put off into my environment, enjoying my peace and quiet. Secretly I was hoping for the axe head to break off a dwarf’s axe and hit someone, or one of the teens to shoot their friend in a hunting accident.

There was nothing as tasty as the mana from a deceased sapient. Well, if the mutant was to be believed I guess the coppernuts might be as tasty. Where was he anyways?

"Oh! I've got it." I projected my thoughts so loudly that Ash shot up from where she was sitting and glared towards my core.

"Got what, exactly?"

"The name for the plant boars, what else Ash would I have gotten?"

She tilted her head and narrowed her eyes at me. No worries, even somebody with a sense of humor as poor as hers could appreciate this one.

"Hedge-hogs. Get it? Because they look like bushes!"

"Manning! No!"