Kaden was alive! All the horrors of his prior life were gone and reincarnation finally gave him a chance to right his wrongs. No more being lazy, no wasted opportunities and nothing but good isekai fortune lay ahead! There was only one... slight issue.

Rather than being born into a human body, he now was a tall, spindly brush of grass.

Wait... how... what-

Kaden didn't understand what was going on; he could see not only the feel but himself. He could feel each sway of the clump as if every individual plant in the patch was part of him. It was an otherworldly experience that few could comprehend. His feet - his roots - were buried and yet every time he tried to move it was pointless, as the wind caught and swayed him back.

EH!?

This kind of reincarnation was unheard of right!? Kaden couldn't really have been born as a collection of plants, right!? He pried his mind for solutions yet no isekai had something like this; at the very least everyone wasn't inanimate... or at least not effectively rooted into one place! As beautiful as the field around him was, staying here forever wasn't going to keep his sanity. Gentle winds and an eternity of nothing was only going to break him!

"Enjoying yourself?"

The voice came from... behind? Kaden wasn't entirely certain how his new body's senses worked, given he lacked a lot of sensory organs. It was actually comparable to a third-person game, however; his sight was just up and back, letting him pan it freely of his form. Behind him, the stickman stood strangely in his two-dimensional glory.

Hell no! Why am I a plant!?

"Well, you said you wanted to protect in your new life, didn't you? This will be how you'll need to do it."

Kaden had to protect? The man wished he had a body so he could grumble; instead, all he could do was continue examing the vast open field.

What am I supposed to protect in a giant field like this!? And how can I do it with my body like this?

The stickman said no more, however, and left his question unanswered. In an instant, he vanished... but in his place was an egg. Roughly a foot tall, almost spherical rather than oval or oblong. Its exterior was simple-patterned with white spots, while the egg itself was blue. A menu erupted before his eyes - or rather perspective - just like the classic RPGs of old.

Protect the Egg! - Introduction Quest An egg of unknown origins has appeared within the Great Fields of Kave; Tales will one day be sung if it can come to hatch!

Kaden isn't quite sure how he's supposed to protect the egg but this is great! If the world is gamelike, that means he got the holiest of holy isekai! He was reincarnated into an evolution isekai! Of course, his knowledge was going to be helpful... but all those years playing games for escapism also had a purpose in a world like this. This sort of luck made things much more different! If he persevered, he could likely escape this body and take on a new form! Maybe even that of a plant person!

His hype was restrained for now, however; he needed to figure out what his form and options were to doing this quest. There wasn't time to check into if there were levels or stats until he knew the right way to proceed.

His plant-like body was simple but in truth quite different from normal grasses; in this field alone, he rose almost two meters high and stood out even among the taller plants. He was tightly packed similar to Cheo pet foliage, yet every strand occasionally wiggled itself free from the collection and rippled the other nearby stalks in its motion. Along the outside of his formation, he could see half-grown stalks of new grass; it was likely that growing for him wasn't so much upward but outward.

Yet it was the golden glitters that forced him to zoom his camera-view to the maximum; along every strand at random intervals between one to three inches, he had golden thorns. Not gold-colored but actual gold. His body was a treasure in itself! Every thorn was only about an inch big but was sharpened into fine points, ensuring that one would be quite miserable if they were to enter! It was the idea body for resisting... well... animals that didn't want to get pricked. Kaden's pride faltered a tad but that's fine; with a body like his, he wasn't as completely helpless as he thought. Immobilized with some form of defense was a type of situation he could achieve. He'd spent many years playing instruments seated and standing to know that even someone who's stationery can achieve similar goals in the right fields. Protecting the egg was doable!

Except I can't reach it!

He unnoticeably swayed and demanded his form to move, yet nothing he could do got him to do more than lean over an inch in the windy field's hold. The egg was a foot away from him but if he couldn't protect it then anyone and anything could do as it pleased with it! It wasn't as if he knew what kind of creatures or predators existed in this world, but there were tons of hazards in the plains that didn't want to eat an egg! The trampling of a larger creature - such as horses - was only one possible idea without considering egg-eaters. It was time to get creative and think of this as a game world.

Menu, open!

If there had been crickets, they'd have been chirping. Kaden needed to figure out a command!

Open menu! Options! Cheats activate! Start!

The interface dinged open and revealed the most pivotal options in every RPG menu: Stats, Skills, Magic, and Items. So this was a world that differentiated skills and magic! Plus, there was always the chance it was a hidden menu world; if he had no physical body, how could he wear equipment? But that same logic made him curious about how the 'Items' option worked without any storage; possibly pocket space? Kaden had a good eye on the egg just beyond his menu, so, for now, he'd take time to figure everything out. There would be a lot of excessive information but he could always highlight the important things to collect his thoughts.

Stats Explanation

As far as stats go, Kaden currently has a simplistic organization of them. In order from the top of the menu to the bottom, they're currently only twelve stat fields.

Level, the pivotal part of any game world. Kaden was level 1.

Class, a core element of RPGs around the world... and also slowly being weeded out. His class is Evolver. Not that it tells him much.

Race, an expected part of it. Kaden's race is known as Barripatch Thorn Grass.

HP, the staple of everyone's health! And a measurement of it. It's probably based off his stats, but his HP was currently at 20.

MP, mana or magic points, every wizard's best friend! As a humble... Barripatch... whatever... he has 30.

Strength, brawn and might! Kaden's strength was... 1. Great.

Dexterity, the speed, range of movement, and one's overall finesse. Kaden's first non-1; his dexterity was 2!

Constitution, one's physical defensive capacity. And it's a 1.

Charisma, tool of leaders and the skill for peace playthroughs. Sadly, inanimate plants like Kaden only have 1.

Intellect, the ability to use one's brain! Very strangely, his intellect was 10; maybe it's connected to his human consciousness?

Resistance, defense against magic and the supernatural. Probably. Kaden's resistance was also 10; it must have something to do with his personality.

Luck, a trait every thief and adventurer lives on! Kaden's luck may only be 1, but he was already pretty lucky to get another shot at life.

A use of a Help option - which took some time itself to spot - reveals that stats are very difficult to raise naturally and often move through multiple levels, class changes, or titles. Maybe he'll learn more about titles later.

Skills Explanation

Skills are - from the help menu dialogue the stat menu popped up with - effectively special moves you might see in something like Nabas' Force Fighters. They're acquired through leveling up or receiving training; so Kaden will need to keep an eye out here but for now he currently has none.

Magic Explanation

Magic is very straight forward; you're either a wizard or you're not. Similarly to Skills, you can acquire them through learning or leveling. Not only that, but everything is inherently attached to an element. The interface doesn't provide any way to examine what a spell does specifically; instead, it provided vague information that he was able to test during the day. But unlike skills, Kaden actually has two spells already!

Growth; a Nature spell that costs 30 MP (he has just enough to cast!) and allows him to accelerate his growth an entire week's worth. It mentions that it needs to scale up but it might cost a significant amount dependent on his size, age or race.

Earthy Grasp; unlike Growth, this Earth spell costs about 10 MP. It's an AoE spell that causes the grown to rise up and close, dragging its target toward the center of a five-foot wide area. It doesn't crush those within it or anything though like some of the fancy earth magic in fantasy. It was useful for moving things around... maybe he can improve this somehow in the future.

As for an exploration of what elements there are in magic, that would need to wait; no help interface nor resource he had would explain this more in-depth. His testing of the spells did reveal that MP regenerates at a pretty okay pace; it might be tied to his intellect, however, but he was able to regenerate all 30 MP from casting Growth in only thirty minutes. Better than some worlds, at the very least!

Items Explanation

Items shouldn't need an explanation but Kaden felt it was worth to look. This world uses a "slot" system, which can be stacked up to various amounts depending on how it's stored and where. Without a backpack, pockets, or a hammer space like most anime, it wasn't surprising that he has no slots or inventory space.

After an eventful two hours - or what felt like two hours to Kaden - he had gathered quite a bit of knowledge. Now it was time to apply it; his camera rotated its way around to the egg once more, Kaden taking a deep mental breath.

Earthy... Grasp!

The final word resonated with the wind ruffling across the Barripatch body in perfect harmony; the blue glow of mana radiated from every stalk of grass at once and then down through his roots. The ground just beside the egg rose jaggedly and pulled it, rolling it slowly across the grass toward the spell's center. The egg was gently clutched between the rocky walls for a few seconds more before the spell ended... and the spotted egg rolled its way down a small hill and right through his brush. Thankfully it didn't hurt the egg nor him when it rolled its way into the thorn-littered brush; in fact, the brush seemed to pull and slowly move the egg deeper within. It felt strange but Kaden actually felt the egg.

Although this was his first quest, he had to endure this much if he wanted to evolve! The quest to protect the egg was more than that - it was also the quest to make this world his! Kaden was an isekai protagonist, even if it meant being a small child or animal's worst nightmare... in the context of nature!

Wait... what's that noise?

He panned his camera and attention upward to where the egg had been and immediately regretted it. His first encounter with something from this world had come to face him.

It's... a bunny? Why... why am I genuinely intimidated by this little shit!? I have magic! I have... I... I'm... oh lord.

I'm a plant and that's a herbivore! Nooooo!