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Our M.C. takes back what was his

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-- POV Grass –

It’s almost morning, let’s see what the damage from that snafu is.

Name:---Age:4 DaysGender:♂/♀Level:2Class:Plant SageRace:Bermuda GrassHP:2/2Mana:0/0Growth Points:19.4Growth Rate:0.45 pts/hourStrength:1Vitality:3Agility:1Intelligence:116Roots:4 (+0.1 pts/hour)Leaves:3Titles:[td colspan="3"] [Destined to Die], [Reincarnator], [Martyr], [Boundless], [Late Bloomer], [One of Many] [Eaten Alive] [/td]

Abilities:[td colspan="3"], , , , , , , [/td]

That brush with potential death woke me up to the seriousness of my situation. This fantasy world I’m in made me lose focus. If I stayed attached to the other plant, I feel like it would have just went on a growing spree continuously and drained me dry every time I generated energy.

It seems like there is a difference between abilities I create using genetic mutation and those that I can just learn normally. Abilities I create work specifically how I imagine they do, and the cost is associated with the exact knowledge I have on the mechanisms and the DNA that control said mechanisms. Probably the only reason was so cheap was that we routinely tried to remove cell-death, or autophagy, from fruits and vegetables to prolong their shelf-life.

The reason why link didn’t do what I thought it would, just connect our roots together and be able to communicate using chemicals, was that I didn’t create that ability. It worked based on this world’s idea of what the ability should do. Linking here for plants must be a method of self-defense, so if one needs energy after being partially eaten, they can share it between them all. Something that I definitely don’t need at all, judging by how much I was drained by a single other grass bundle. I must have a much higher growth point generation speed, thanks to my titles or class or something, than any other grass. Nice, but it also has some downsides, as linking with most other plants would be a net negative for me. But if I ever find a plant with a ton of juice in it, it might be worth it!

Since the sun is peeking over the horizon, I’ll just regrow my lost root before the day starts to get back to whole. There we go. So today I need to focus on hoarding all of my points to take over that brat to my right, or whichever way he is. I just know he’s close. I don’t want plant control or self-mutilation, I want full-blown plant assimilation. Each day I can hoard a maximum of 42.6 points a day, and 6.6 at night. Going by what happened yesterday, I lose about 8 points a day dealing with bugs and healing myself from other damages, but thank goodness it’s restricted to just some bugs, and it’s nothing like that horrific day I was eaten alive. 8 points seems way excessive, especially considering how much I got drained by, how else do the other grass stay alive during all of this?

..

…

….

Oh, wait. I think I know the culprit for this, it’s a combination of my titles, the one I got after almost dying, [Eaten Alive], and [Destined to Die]. Sigh. It must be attracting ALL of the bugs in the glade, with only a few being dissuaded by my other title, [One of Many]. Might as well consider those 8 points a day a sunk cost. So instead of 49.2 points a whole day and night cycle, it will be closer to 41. Since I have 15 in the bank, after two days I would have enough to absolutely destroy my arch-nemesis, the free-loader!

This time I’m going to save up more of a bank firs. Even if I would have 97 points after two days, after a few hours in the sun I will quickly surpass the necessary 100 growth points I need for plant assimilation. But I want a little bit of a bank before I do that, so three days of waiting, then D-Day, I’ll storm the beach and take back what’s rightfully mine!

Huh, it’s already been a few hours that the sun’s been up. I seem to be able to resist it better today. I wonder why. I’m able to separate my thinking better, and only give in about half of my thinking over to pleasure and it be enough. I wonder if an ability of mine upgraded or something, or maybe I gained pleasure resistance (I hope not :( it felt so good, and I don’t want it to cause problems later, if I can ever do THAT again).

Time seems to be going really fast, must be me only thinking at about half speed. Let’s look, out of my abilities, [Inner Mind] must be the one helping me now. Let’s see.

Rank: A[td colspan="2"]Passive: Due to your intellect exceeding a predetermined amount, allows the user to know in-depth knowledge of oneself. Grants modification of self through [Genetic Mutation]. Now grants the ability Multi-Tasking, can be upgraded through use. As long as one part of the mind is separated from a mind-affecting effect, the user will have autonomy over most actions based on willpower. [/td]

Yupp, just what I thought. I got a kickass ability! It’s about damn time! And it can be upgraded, YES!!! Right now I’m thinking really slowly, and I feel like I can only really work on one other thing during the day, but if I do this every day it should become awesome!

Oh, it’s night. Sweeeeet. How many points I got? 49, pretty much what I expected. Now at night most bugs that eat me should be sleeping, or dormant, never really paid attention to the bugs’ habits, just how they damaged plants and how the plants fought back. I just hope that I’m right. Wait, there are slugs and their ilk that are active at night. Thank goodness they usually go after more leafy plants.

Nothing new happened today, everything is within expected variance in points, and I feel safe. Maybe I should sleep, I kind of miss dreaming and I’m starting to feel sluggish. I know plants have periods of lower activity and higher activity on a rhythmic schedule. Let’s at least try, hopefully nothing eats me if it works!

……

……

……

Fwaaaaaaaa, that was nice. Wonder how long I was out? I feel better, much more alert now. And the sun is just peaking over the horizon, baking me in its warm light. Let’s check my point bank, which should give me a good idea of what happened over the past however long.

.

…

….

PERFECT! My revenge is nigh! My total growth points are 138 points! But wow, that was dangerous. I don’t remember anything that happened between when I slept and now, it must be a plant specific thing since most things are based on instincts, needing consciousness isn’t needed. Shit, but I feel so much better now. Uggh, I’ll have to ration my sleeping to only when I have a good amount of points and am mostly safe.

But now, finally, let’s fucking do this!!!!!!! Now that I’m thinking clearer though, there’s no real way on Earth of just assimilating, or absorbing another plant. There’s parasites, fungi, and symbiotic ways to take over a plant by killing it, but to completely take over another plant and replace it has never been seen. So I can’t use [Genetic Mutation] to reduce the cost. I could kill it off by attacking it directly, but that’s not very cool, and I feel like assimilation will help me in the long run anyways.

I will dominate the grass beside me, taking everything that it is and making it mine! I WILL TAKE WHAT I WANT THROUGH FORCE, MUAHAHAHAHAHAHa!

Sometimes, you just have to let it all out there, especially when you’re alone. Only when you’re alone. I would be soooo embarrassed if I did that in front of anyone else.

Let’s go, let’s learn that plant assimilation and be like The Thing (1982), but better!

..

Yes, I feel all powerful! I have less energy, but I now have this alien feeling inside of me, I can feel the way my cells have changed, but I don't know how. They feel more slippery, and aggressive. FUCK IT!!!!! Let’s …….

Wait. Wait wait wait. Let’s look at the fucking ability. Thank you sandman for the sleep.

Rank: S[td colspan="2"]Passive: Plants that have been assimilated will appear to others as separate being from yourself, but your class and abilities affects each plant as long as you stay connected to the plant. Separated plants will die off without a controlling force. Active: Assimilate(X+Y), cell by cell, a plant. Causes extreme, tortuous pain on the assimilation target. Invasion starts via a connecting branch, root, or stem. Costs X+Y growth points, where X is the total amount of points needed to grow that plant from scratch and Y is the energy the plant has in storage. Abilities and titles of the plant assimilated do not transfer, but all physical traits of the plant remain but cannot be upgraded or spread until learned by the host plant. [/td]

…

OK, THAT IS BADASS AS FUCK! Sucks that I can’t take their abilities, such as magic if they exist, but if they have poison or other abilities, like SENSING MANA structures in the plant, I can potentially learn about them, or use them as an extension of myself if I feel they are too dangerous to integrate into my main body. Also, if one of the plants gets sick from a pathogen, I should be able to jettison the plant and it will die by itself, hopefully without spreading it to my main body.

I’m really looking forward to this, like REALLY looking forward to this. If I activate this during the night, the evil grass beside me will release chemicals into the air calling for beneficial bugs to eat the bugs that are killing it. As far as I know, there isn’t a call for plant attacks. So for maximum effect, I should definitely start the attack in the morning!!!

But wait, I’m not exactly the best thinker during the day. Decisions decisions, and the ability doesn’t say how long it will take for me to take over the plant. Points wise I should be fine, it stole 5 growth points from me earlier and was draining me quite fast, so it must not have very much normally. So let’s say it should take me at most 10 points to assimilate the insidious grass beside me, leaving me with about 28 points left.

I can deal with 28 points in the bank, but this sun is constantly filling it back up. Tonight I should have an extra 34 points, bringing me back up to 62 points, a healthy amount of war funds.

This evening I strike. Yippee ki-yay motherfucker, here I come.

Oh, it’s evening again. Nice, let’s storm the beach! Let’s see, first I need to be touching the other plant. I can grow a root over to where it is, or I can initiate link again….. Let’s not do that again. I learned my lesson, and I have no idea how link will interact with plant assimilation anyways. Let’s avoid the unknown, and insidiously take over the enemy in the cover of night.

Ok, let’s slowly grow a root out…… There! I feel another root nearby, success!

Now I just need to extend the tip to touching it…. Peeeerrrrrfect. Now let the assimilation begin!!!!!

Ahhh, I can feel my cells and energy invading the grass beside me, and suiciding into their cells and replacing them. Oh, the grass roots are struggling to be released, but it’s too late already. The tip of my root has fused to their root, well now it’s becoming my root. Maybe if they had cell-death, or self-mutilation they could escape, but not today. That crap costs a lot, no way ordinary grass should have that ability.

There we go, my cells and energy are overflowing from my new root connection into their main body, YES! I can sense I haven’t hit their core being yet, but more like their limbs are slowly becoming mine. My cells and energy are surrounding and dissolving the enemy cells, then replacing them as they go on. I can sense the chemicals of distress the grass is emitting, it sounds like a scream to my ears. I want to maybe stop, but I still need to do this. If I want to survive, I have to go on the offensive. No way can I survive without increasing my growth rate and my abilities, and in order to do that I need more information, and a larger area of affect. If I didn’’t have those titles I may not have to do this, but that godly being is what brought this upon the world.

Ahh, the spread is slowing, I must be close to finishing the poor guy off. I have control over two leaves and the root I connected to, with inroads on the rest of its body. His screams are getting more sporadic, and his energy opposing me is growing dimmer.

Hmmm, a new energy wave is opposing me now. It’s steady, and doesn’t feel panicked…… Wait, did this motherfucker link to another grass beside him? Where’s it coming from, damn, I need to quickly find out which root or leaf it’s coming from and kill it!!!!!

Where

Is

It!?

I’m losing energy too fast. I need to focus, roots vs leaves. Definitely roots, just got to flood all the roots as fast as I can with an overwhelming energy surge, then kill off the ends of each root I find. This could be extremely dangerous if I don’t end this quick, the ability didn’t mention what happens if I fail. This has to work!

There, found the motherfucking connecting roots, there are three connections, gotta cut them off!!!

FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCK, that hurt. I guess replacing the cells in the plant with your own also transmits pain back to you. That could wait until AFTER I was done with the pain nerves, uggh.

Now that I have the noose around its neck, its isolated from its allies, now I just need to squeeze.

..

..

It’s stopped screaming. Damn, it sucks to listen too, so I’m glad it’s over. I’m going to have to be more careful next time though, especially with a grass species. I should have thought that if I have link, they would too. And many grass systems share root networks and water sources, since their roots can only spread along/near the surface for water.

But now I’ve essentially doubled my energy absorption rate, so for each grass bundle I take over, I’ll get more and more powerful! Eventually this whole field will be mine!

Name:---Age:7 DaysGender:♂/♀Level:3Class:Plant SageRace:Bermuda GrassHP:3/3Mana:0/0Growth Points:36Growth Rate:0.75 pts/hourStrength:1Vitality:4Agility:1Intelligence:117Roots:7 (+0.1 pts/hour)Leaves:7Titles:[td colspan="3"] [Destined to Die], [Reincarnator], [Martyr], [Boundless], [Late Bloomer], [One of Many], [Eaten Alive], [Cannibal], [Kin-Slayer] [/td]

Abilities:[td colspan="3"], , , , , , , , [/td]

Not surprised anymore about the terrible titles I’m getting. I’ll look at them later, I feel really tired. Maybe a nap will help again, taking over another being cell by cell is tiring.

Zzz.

-- POV other grass –

‘shiver’

-- POV Owl –

Hoot-hoot

That grass-not-mana-weed plant started shivering, and so did the grass next to him. Then it ended, but nothing changed. What an odd plant.

Hoot-hoot