Been churning out some chapters this week! Woohoo! Next week only 2 should be published, I need to do a lot more writing for my thesis... This is what happens when you love writing more than anything else, but it doesn't pay the bills haha, but I did finally get a donate button approved!

HERE

Enjoy! Thanks for asking questions, giving suggestions, and pointing out errors!

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— POV Mathias —

Hi Gods up there! I know you’re looking in on this right now! I have a message for you! Look, I spelled it out with my leaves!

FUCK YOU!

HAHA, I’ve won! I’ve beat your stupid game! I guess you thought I would go gentle into the good night, but no! I RAGE against you, I build monuments to my sins, And I grow ever stronger! You fucked up, and eventually you will pay for it! Since I haven’t been burned to the ground, or killed outright, it must mean your influence is limited in this realm! Behold, my latest creation! A tree, a tree that will forever spell my message out to you! Hahahahahahaha!

Ah, some manly, crazy scientist laughs do amazing things for your disposition. It’s a good stress reliever, usually I could only do it in the shower, and at a low volume, but in my I can do it whenever I want, at maximum volume!

Now that I’m refreshed, I should leave here and go back outside, sigh. I had a glorious nap on my bed I imagined in here. It smelled like grass, and kinda just felt like grass, but it was still nice compared to just passing out up there as just a piece of grass. Stretching feels good here too. I’ll try to take some frequent naps down here to refresh myself, so I won’t pass out again haha.

Now that I’ve stretched out and returned to my real body, I should begin my morning magic training! I cast several from the air and the ground, watering myself. I finally got a good symbol for earth, and managed to collect dust from the air, though I only got a smidgen, while from the ground just kinda made it levitate and move. Since I knew that dirt is a complex ecosystem of bacteria and different compounds, it was a lot harder to choose a symbol. I ended up on deciding to use a sandstone symbol, since it is a conglomerate of dirt, and can contain any and all types of sand, clay, rocks, and organic matter. I don’t think it’s very efficient though, since I think it can be done better. Stupid science actually is hurting me at this stage - I bet the wizards here just have to put a symbol for dirt and they’re good.

On the earth note, I noticed that I can make my mana move earth using just my mana, but it’s very different. I feel like both ways have their pros and cons. With the symbols I can know beforehand the exact thing that will happen, and can customize it better, but with my , I can get nitty gritty and activate it immediately and I can get more customized magic. BUT, I can’t draw in the ambient mana at all. Pros and cons, looks like I should keep practicing both!

It’s been about a week since I started growing my tree, and boy is it gorgeous now. I found out that adding all of that extra biomass really helped me absorb more GP than I had before. I think it has to do with a few things. One, I have basically tree roots now in two places that go deeeeeep. I’m making this mountain my bitch! Or hill, whatever it is. I’m breaking rocks in two or more pieces whenever I encounter them, entangling them in my root network to both weight me down and in case there is any mineral deposits I could use. Two, all of that extra biomass and the sheer new size of my roots increases my ability to transport my GP around to store instead of it leaking.

Finally, three: My leaves ended up being much more efficient than I thought they would. Not only is the surface area of the tree leaves much greater per leaf, but the whole turning black during the day was extremely efficient. I even tweaked my leaves to absorb infrared and ultraviolet rays. It more than made up the deficit from the shade landing on my grass on the bottom.

My tree is currently standing at about 50 feet, just slightly taller than the surrounding trees. My branches were at first spaced extremely efficiently, getting 100% of the sun that struck the tree. After I finished growing to a reasonable height I started growing my branches more extravagantly, undoing my previous efficiency for aesthetics. I mean, I’m still blocking almost all of the light, but now some sparkles of light filter through. And instead of a tree looking like a savanna acacia tree, I’ve spread out my branches more like the regular trees around me. I kinda want to make my leaves glow a little bit too when it’s night. Well, that’s for the future.

It took a lot of concentration to build my tree how I wanted too. And I got kinda carried away trying to make the best arrangement of branches and leaves, like messing with a Christmas tree to make it look nice. I am worried about my bark though - it’s the thin stuff that you find on bushes rather than trees. I know it’s just dead tissue for the most part to protect from weather, birds, mammals, and bugs. My defense is terrible, I can imagine a stupid boar coming up to me and shredding me to pieces. So I still have to do that I guess. Sigh.

First things first: Deciding on the colors of my bark! I’m not some stupid brown tree, fuck that. Mystical colors are black and white, but I wouldn’t feel right with just those two colors since my leaves are already those colors. Hmmm… how about white, green, black, and red? Red sap, white and green bark with black highlights. I hope it looks cool. Damn me not being able to see. I should try to draw it out.

…

…

I’m really a shitty drawer, damn. I can appreciate art just fine, like I’m majestic as fuck, both my grass and tree bodies right now, but actually drawing them out I’m terrible at. Oh well, I’m sure it’s fine.

Wait! Eureka! Why choose colors when I can be ALL of the colors? I can do the prismatic effect when exposed to bright light, but in-between I can be a silverish color that shimmers in the colors of the rainbow. Now I feel fantasy enough. But it’s all for show right now, I need to thicken my skin.

———————————————

Genetic Mutation: Thick Skin*

Modify the structure of your grass stems to grow a thick, tough outer layer. Costs GP to upgrade skin.

Cost: 100

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Nice and cheap, all of these expensive upgrades lately made me forget that there are plenty of cheap upgrades I can generate. Can’t say I can think of any off the top of my head though. Besides, from my test I just did, it’ll take me at least 2 more GP per square inch to grow my bark. That will deplete a lot of my stock, so for now I’ll just reinforce my lower trunk and some of my lower branches, in case animals come.

Speaking of animals, no birds have come yet, in fact I haven’t heard any birds at all lately. I wanted to capture one or two to feed my roots or something, but alas, I had to dig my roots deeper instead, sending my roots around the spring to increase my nutrient draw from there and down into the bedrock. It’s kind of desolate here, I’m feeling even more lonely…

…

…

…

Yay! My bugs are hatching!!! Distraction time! My tree has seemed to be attracting more and more bugs, I need a dedicated task force to patrol my new extremity. It’s annoying having fleas bite your ankles.

1,2,3…… 25! 25 hatched! 9 ended up crystallizing in the end, poor guys, but at least this many survived. All 9 of them were from the extra mana squad, whoops, I guess I should have stopped feeding them more mana even after I acquired my bestial mana. Haha, oh well. These remaining 15 mana bugs must be the creme de la creme. Ooh, they are a lot bigger than I thought they would be! They are still smaller than my current Slaughter Guards, but these guys are 10 times larger than my Slaughter Guards were at their stage of their lives.

‘Zooom’

Ohohohoho, awesome! My little adrenaline junkies are zooming all over the fucking place! They are soo fast!

‘Snatch’

Hahaha, they are still too young and naive if they thought they would escape from their parents! With quick, precise steps they are all caught by the slaughter guards and are being groomed by them. Looks like they’re bringing them to the mana+caffeine sugar-sap in their nest, and it looks like they are waiting for something.

Oh yea! This is when I step in! ! Ha, looks like they were all made to accept, and I start sending them some caring emotions, and give them a small amount of extremely sugary food for each of them. It looks like I did the right thing, as they start to disperse a little bit. My Slaughter Guards are showing them the ropes, on how to take care of the bugs attacking my leaves and the branches on my tree.

I still can’t get over how fast those little adrenaline bugs are moving around! As they are getting used to their speed, the only one to compare is June, but she’s mostly just watching the shenanigans. I wonder what she’s thinking? She’s the only one with any interesting actions.

Unfortunately all of them had the same type of mana in their crystals, air, green, and my red mana. No more variants, sigh. BUT, it appears that the young bugs I fed a lot of mana to are starting to use small bits of mana to do things. For instance they are using small bursts of wind mana to fly faster and blow aphids of of my tree. Seeing this, I’m sure the others will eventually pick it up too. Sweet! But poor June, no one to teach her how to use her black mana, but I’ve already seen her use it once or twice to hide and move around quietly, so maybe she’s just a natural with her abilities. Good thing too - not even I can help her with that. I’m pretty sure they aren’t ready to use mana circles to cast spells, and with my mana’s color changing, I can’t really use my anymore to use my earth magic. I can only use my natural energy to grow, and I haven’t used my red mana to cast fire magic yet. That shit just sounds dangerous, I don’t know if I’ll ever have a reason to use it!

Maybe when it gets cold I could use it to keep me warm. Surprisingly, this might have been my best acquisition yet! I won’t have to worry about freezing to death! Yay! I just have to be careful and not actually start a fire with my mana, merely excite the air particles around me. My perpetual oasis is taking shape! I have water, perpetual warmth, and shade galore! All I’m missing are some friends…

OR SOME EXTREMELY CUTE PETS!!! OMG, THEY ARE SO CUTE! I’ve always loved cats as pets! The benefits of having a cat is great too! OMG, I need to somehow tame these guys! I wish I could hold them, or see what they looked like. But I’m straining my to it’s max!

I can see each piece of fur, and each feather on their wings! One of them has a huuuuuge mana presence, I don’t know how he’s doing it, but it still can’t compete to mine right now. While his mana is forming a large ball around him, mine is like a giant cloud, barely contained to the clearing. I am a large organism without the ability to absorb 99.8% of the mana I generate haha, so this much is reasonable. At least I can control it from whipping around violently, but that’s about it. The other one has a very tight control on his mana, keeping it all within his skin, with only a small portion wrapping tightly on the surface. Now that’s commendable, it looks like the difference between bashing and piercing. At least it makes it easy for me to tell them apart, though I wonder why they came here? I guess if I want to keep them I should provide them some shelter and food. Since they are cats my tree’s lofty branches should work for them if I widen a few of them, and maybe put some lower branches out for them to climb up with… as for fruit, maybe something like a small melon, or a peach?

I’m pretty sure that any animal can eat these without fear, I know that all animals like pecans, but I don’t really want to have nuts on my tree. At least not yet. And apple trees aren’t fantastical at all, so no apples! I want my own type of fruit, and nothing phallic shape. Shit, I need to make a decision fast! The two cats are starting to walk towards my tree, slowly, but still moving forward. Ummm, maybe a combination of a melon peach? I always hated honeydew melons, so I’ll go with a nicer peach texture with a mango flavoring? I’ve always loved mango flavors! Hopefully they like it too!

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Genetic Mutation: Fruit*

A sweet tasting fruit. Can be used to give seeds a better starting chance.

Cost: 1,000

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Yea yea, whatever! Just give it to me already! I need to make a good first impression! When they are looking at me I’ll grow two fruits a few branches up, hopefully making them feel safe and at home! This way I’ll have pets, guardians, and a source of carcasses to feed my roots!

— Jard —

We’re here, this mana definitely feels like papa’s! It’s mixed with some other types of energy, but I can tell it’s papa’s!

There’s way too much of it though! It’s gone wild like my brother’s! Papa would never let his mana go this wild. While it’s not acting violently, I can tell it’s just ceaselessly flowing away from in front of us. Whatever it is, we need to go in and find out what happened to papa!

— Torgue —

Whoa, papa’s here! He has to be! I can feel him up ahead!

‘Jard, let’s go! Papa’s up there!’

‘Hold on, we need to go slowly, something’s not right. Can you fell all of this mana?’

‘Yea, it’s papa’s! There’s a lot of it though, maybe he evolved!’

‘Maybe, anyways can you build a bubble of your mana around us? The mana is really strong, and I’m not as good as projecting my mana out as you are.’

‘Ok, but let’s hurry! I’m really hungry!’

— Jard —

With Torgue’s mana around us, we’re slowly walking through a grassy field. It’s a weird field though, with strange bugs flitting around and a large tree in the middle of the clearing. There is only three sounds I can hear in the areas, the swaying of the plants by the wind and the slight buzzing of insects. No birds, beasts, or other animals are anywhere near this field.

The tree seems to be where papa’s mana is flowing out of, and to a lesser degree the grass around us. I can feel something watching us, but I can’t see nor sense anything. But this is papa’s mana for sure, I wonder what happened to him?

The tree is changing - some branches are growing, and two small, red-orange fruits started growing near a particularly thick branch. This looks like a trap, but I’m so hungry.

— Torgue —

So pretty! This field is so nice and relaxing, especially with papa’s mana everywhere, it feels like home. But I don’t see papa anywhere. Maybe he’s hiding!

‘Papa! Come out! We’re really hungry!’

Ooh, as soon as I shouted that some fruits started growing on the tree! They look tasty, and there’s a small spring nearby too! This must be a sign that we should wait here for him!

‘Jard! Let’s go eat those fruits! I’m so hungry, and their is a spring here too! Let’s stay here! Papa’s mana must be here for a reason!’

‘I don’t know I don’t know! I don’t know where papa is, and this doesn’t seem like it was done without a reason, but I can’t tell what that reason is!’

‘Jard, calm down! This place seems nice, I don’t sense any malice from anything around us!’

‘You don’t Torgue? That’s good, at least that answers some questions, tell me that first next time! If you can’t feel any malice around us, then for sure there isn’t any! Still take it careful though, but I agree, let’s eat!’

‘Yay!’

— POV Mathias —

Yes! They’re climbing - ouch - my tree! Stupid claws, looks like I need thicker bark zzz…

Success! After a few tentative nibbles, they’re eating the fruit I dropped to them! Fortunately there isn’t any pain from dropping fruit, since I’m supposed to do it naturally anyways. Poor guys, it looks like they’re all tuckered out. Their fur is all matted together, and they have branches and sticks tangled up in there too. Sigh, what am I to do with them.

First I should try to establish an with them sot that I can manipu- I mean shower them in love. Actually, why not both! I finally have pets! And as such, pets need training!

Hmmm, both seem very weak right now, but they seem to still be able to resist my attempted linking. It might be because they’re still cautious of their surroundings. I guess I’ll grow another set of fruit, and attempt to again gain a link with them.

— Jard —

We both felt a gentle touch, brushing our minds, kinda similar to what we both share, but on a lower level. We instinctively rejected it, it really was weak.

‘What was that? What was trying to contact us? Do you feel anything Torgue? All I can sense is the mana around us and in the tree.’

‘Nothing much, just a vaguely curious, slightly excited something. Nothing bad like papa warned us about, like drakes or things that would eat us.’

‘From the strength of the attempt, it must be really weak. I don’t think it’s bad… I might try accepting the request when it comes next time. I wonder what it is?’

No way - two more fruits started to grow when another link started to try to reach me.

‘It must be this tree! It’s trying to speak with us! There’s nothing else around us - it has to be the tree!’

‘I already accepted it, let’s see what it wants.’

Sigh, Torgue, sometimes! I guess I’ll accept it too - it’s not like we don’t know how to rescind it anyways. Let’s see what a tree feels?

HERE!