Olympics delayed the release - gotta support your country!

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--POV Grass –

Ahh, this is the life. I've reduced my point loss per day from 1 growth point per leaf on my main body and 0.2 per leaf on my extended body, down to just 2 points total! My loss increased on my extended body as my slaughter guards have traumatized the aphids to leave my main body, but in the process, the injured aphids and the displaced aphids are eating whatever is closest to them. Eventually I need to expand my army to my whole body, but these slaughter guards will not leave me undefended. They will stay with me no matter what, I won't let them go. The second generation will protect my extended holdings.

I guess I should look at my status, since I haven't checked lately.

Name:---Age:18 DaysGender:♂/♀Level:5Class:Plant Sage+Race:Bermuda GrassHP:5/5Mana:0/0Growth Points:295.2Growth Rate:132.6 (12.6) pts/hourStrength:1Vitality:5Agility:1Intelligence:118Tamed Species1Tamed Total13Titles:[td colspan="3"] [Destined to Die], [Reincarnator], [Martyr], [Boundless], [Late Bloomer], [One of Many], [Eaten Alive], [Cannibal], [Kin-Slayer], [Bug Tamer] [/td]Abilities:[td colspan="3"], , , , , , , , [/td]

Oh nice, my class upgraded to Plant Sage+!

Class: Plant Sage+Rank: S+[td colspan="2"] Unlocked due to unique evolutions created in plants you own. Unlocks additional evolution paths for plants you design, and even custom evolutions. Contains all abilities of Plant Sage class. [/td]

And I got a cool new title too!

[Bug Tamer]Rank: F[td colspan="2"] Increases the growth rate of bugs you tame. Increases affinity with bugs.[/td]

Not too happy with that affinity thing though. Uggh. Just go away bugs. Except you, my Slaughter Guards. You can stay. All 12 of you I consider my friends and closest allies. Just point out your one friend from earlier from among you, and everything will finally be perfect.

Fuuuuuuuu.

Well, again I find myself in a state of not needing to really do anything. My temporary goals are accomplished, I’m generating a surplus of energy, and the sun is coming back over the horizon. Maybe, just maybe, I can chill for a couple more days. But, the sunlight is dimming. My growth rate is changing quite a bit, and the sunlight is flickering across my leaves.

‘Plop’

Oh, rain. Of course haha. These days do happen, plants kinda need it to keep growing. I could eventually trap fog, or condense my own rain in the future, but those are really inefficient compared to naturally occurring rain. I never really thought of rain though, mainly because the soil here is fairly moist.

The reason the water table is so high means I must be by a river.

Oh.

This could be bad. How close am I to the river? Too close, and a bad rain will sweep me away in a flood. Shit. Being lackadaisical will get me killed if I keep this up.

I don’t know how rain should feel, like is this a light shower or an intense rain? All I know is that I feel a good amount of plops on my leaves, and I’m not getting washed away.

Shoot, I can control this. I have plenty of points, let’s grow a root anchor into the ground so that I don’t get swept away just in case. The soil is really loose and wet, so growing a root down should be easy.

Ok, let’s grow a root 10 points down, and look for a rock or something………

I feel rock, but it’s huge. I think it’s bedrock, or a rock slab. Thank goodness I’m a plant though, we were made to break rock! And this should work quite nicely as an anchor, just gotta find a crack and go to town!

Success! I managed to dig into a crack, and I spent a further 5 GP increasing my space down there and filling up all the space I could. I ended up cracking the rock more, but it still feels solid, and most importantly, heavy.

It looks like every day I’m narrowly avoiding death. Thank goodness I think pretty quickly on my feet.

-- POV Owl –

Hoot.

Knew rain was going to come. Felt it for days. Turned out to be just a little sprinkle. It’s not like we need it though, the spring just near the top of the hill gives us plenty of water here.

Hoot-hoot.

-- POV Grass --

Pheeew, crisis averted. But really now, I’m sick and tired of not being able to see, or even know where I am. This whole experience feels like I’m hallucinating inside of a sensory deprivation chamber. I know that’s not the case, but still, they say people can go crazy in those things if they aren’t careful. That’s always a good thing about being a scientist – we are already a little crazy to begin with. Who else would forgo their life, socializing, and enjoyment for the pursuit of knowledge?

Sigh, the good ‘ol days. I didn’t have to worry about life or death too much, there’s not much I could’ve done anyways. One man, in a dead world.

Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu.

‘Metaphorical Slap’

One more time, I’m going in. I need to see. I will make myself see through other means. In my undergraduate work, I worked on a machine learning algorithm that used a network of sensors to localize a fungi infestation. I can do sorta the same thing here, I will create a huge sensor net on the ground, and determine from the signals I’m receiving the specifics of the environment I’m working/living in.

Oh shiiiiiiiiiiiit, fuck yea. I can kill two birds with one stone this way. Fuahahahahahahahahhahahaha! Fuck YES! If I do this, and spread my roots all around this clearing / a good portion of the plain I’m in, I can attack and assimilate the grass around me all at once. No united front for them, but a chaotic killing spree from my insidious root network! God, I feel like a motherfucking evil scientist.

Ah, but night is upon me, and checking in on my GP, I have about 349. Not YET enough to enact my takeover plan. I want to maintain ~100 GP just in case, but I might as well start my root network now. The spread doesn’t really matter, or where my roots go, as long as the spread is decent enough. I’ll try to follow the way slime molds solve mazes. Just keep spreading until something interesting is, then split from there. This way my density equals about how dense the environment is and saves me some energy. Each day I generate 145.2 points, so I’ll spend about 150 points a day until I Fill my environment.

Ok, if I assume I’m in the middle of a field, a perfectly circular area should be detected as far as I can go. Should I choose to go one direction and be greedy, trying to detect the edges of my environment first and then spread? Or should I try to focus on detecting my near area first, then send some tendrils out after say ~5 meters, or a mixture of both?

If only I could see, I could instantly choose the correct algorithm.

‘Pointed sigh’

Hmmmm. I have some information. For instance, my species and what I’ve experienced: rain, no floods, loamy soil, and a good source of sun without burning. I originate from the Middle East and Africa. I have reasonably deep roots for grass species, but can’t survive extreme heat or cold.

Deserts are out. Tundra out. Taiga out. Volcano out. Beach/Island maybe, but doubtful. Forest maybe. Plains maybe. Rainforest doubtful.

From the animals, I have an inkling that I’m not in a plains environment, but it’s really weak. I can only decide that based on the fact that the animal that ate me ate me pretty slowly. That only happens when the animal feels at home in the environment, all safe-like. So it must have some sky-cover, and be in a remote area. I’m leaning 51% to the forest side.

It’s decided then, to work I go! I’ll do a spoke-pattern around me in roots, and only branch off every 2 meters or so to continue increasing the density of rays as I go. This avoids the super dense-matrix near the hub, namely me, and is extremely efficient for searching. If I don’t detect anything once I reach 392 rays, I’ll fortify my position and become one with the area within my circle of roots. I should then cover an area of 314.159265 m^2 with a diameter of 20 meters (3381.6 sq. ft with diameter = 65.617 ft).

Each root is about 8 cm long, so per 2 meters of root network I’ll need 25 GP……….. Looks like I’ll need a long time to generate this energy, fuuuuuu. In total, my network will need (3*(n-1) ^ 2+1)*8*25 GP to complete, where n is my radius/2meter increments. Oh, wow. 9800 GP total.

Ok ok, I guess I’ll use 157 GP a day to make the math easier. That will take just about 65 days.

Yea, not happening.

Algorithm rethink time. Ok, fuck it. Algorithms were never my strong suit. The largest drain is the 3 and 8 numbers in that equation. If I reduce the number of initial spokes to 6, and instead split the spoke instead of branching it, I end up with this equation: (2*(5-1) ^ 2+1)*6*25 = 4950 GP used.

OMG, that’s so much better, I just have to wait 33ish days to extend my network. I can do that. Maybe I can try some other things too while I’m waiting.

Morning is around the corner, so to start I’m going to grow each initial spoke.

‘Grow’

Well, that went quickly. 150 points, ‘poof’, gone. Dang. I forgot to take into account for the increased GP generation from growing the roots. A nice surprise, but a surprise nonetheless. Each ‘spoke’ is now generating 2.5 GP/hour, so my daily generation is now really high, at 505.2 GP/day……

I’m rich bitch!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I’m so dumb, I should have invested in roots this whole time!!!!!! It’s the dark horse between them and leaves, but they generate 24/7 as long as there is water, and they are predator sparse! Yes!!

If I spend 400 pts tomorrow morning, I will be generating a HUUUUGE amount of points a day!

Is it, is it finally time to go crazy?????????

I’ve always wanted to just let loose. But I’m not quite there yet. Eventually, eventually. For now, I will wait……….

…

…

…

Well, that was quick. I’ve mapped out my area, my growth rate is awesome, and I’ve learned a lot.

First off, my area kinda looks like this: (I’m the red/white circle)

Secondly, it looks like my roots have sort of a bandwidth on them. Makes sense, since the roots are only grass roots. Each spoke is only bringing in 100 GP per day, and adding more spokes doesn’t really work. I feel I’ve reached some sort of ceiling from my species or core body. I need to upgrade somehow, but for now this is pretty good! I can still sense things along my root network, but the further I go, the less I sense. Stupid bandwidth! Maybe trees will have a better structure. I’ll shelve that though for later.

Thirdly, I’m mostly safe! I’m in some sort of clearing on the side of a hill. I’m on the downslope of my clearing, with some rocks near the top. The slope isn’t steep enough for those rocks to really roll down and hit me, but I can definitely be hit by a mudslide. Thankfully, the various rocky outcroppings show that I’m mostly safe from that, showing this hill to be mostly rocky instead of muddy. AND there’s a water spring nearby. I’ll never have to worry about water and rain! This is paradise!

This was my best idea ever!!!!

-- POV ? –

‘roll’ ‘ooze’ ‘wiggle’

-- POV grass –

‘Ouch’

Hmmmm, what was that? Something’s eaten my furthest root by the water. I’ve been gnawed on a little by some ground larvae, but this is different. It ate the whole root.