About the difference between Skills and skills, Classes and classes:

Ah, you see, this one is not often asked but I often feel the need to explain it a little.

It is rather simple, a word takes a capital letter for various reasons, the more common ones are for it to be a name or at the start of a sentence. You can find other reasons in books about grammar, just be aware that those reasons may change according to language.

One reason that never changes, no matter the language used, is the link to the System.

It is rather easy to understand, a person being skilled is a person able to do a task while a Skilled person is a person having a Skill granted by the System.

In the same way, a system is just a way of doing things while the System is what governs the world in all of its globality. Even Gods are subject to the System, or at least in most of the major religions.

To further my example, a Class is granted by the System while a class is where people go to learn from a teacher. And someone having class is like me.

Professor Tirtonius Frotnam,

Casin’s Imperial Academy.

14th of Ryol, 1225 KC.

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After a language lesson with Greeny, Bazil resumed its slow growth and its inspection of its surroundings, and it found something.

It had now been weeks since the sentient plant had regained consciousness and started exploring the lab by growing stolons.

It had been a fucking long and bothersome work to do. Two things in particular had hindered Bazil in this endeavor. The first being that its captors had the bothersome habit to scoop up the wandering roots and to put them back in the planter, or to even cut them off, it had made it really hard for the Grass to learn about the lab.

Bazil was glad that Greeny was able to tell him about local stuff. At first, it had feared that if she shared with it that kind of information her sisters could tell it to their own chosen. But the green entity had clarified that if she told Bazil where it was itself, then the others could only tell their guys where they were themselves, not where Bazil was. For them to learn of the plant position they would have to reveal their own to it and each other.

Bazil now better understood that the information it would receive from Greeny was not the exact same her sisters would give, it was more relative to each person. As long as Bazil didn’t ask for stuff about its competitors, it would be relatively fine. Relatively because other things could happen to him and they could ask about the plant.

And speaking of stuff happening to Bazil, the second thing preventing it to explore its surroundings by itself was the fact that it was occasionally pulled out of its planter to be... harvested.

But it had developed something to get around that last hindrance. Bazil had grown a long spiraling root without the Strengthen structure Skill reinforcing it. The last time the plant had been extracted for harvest, the root had uncoiled itself and its tip root had managed to stay in place.

Growing this particular root more Bazil had managed to reach every corner at the bottom of its planter, and a level for its Growth Skill. Finally being able to inspect the planter and particularly to plan growth in it without the risk of losing it by being uprooted, Bazil had grown the root and found something valuable to it.

In a corner, at the bottom of the planter, there was a tiny crack. Nothing big but in its previous life, Bazil had seen plants grow in the tiniest fissures and in time destroying the hardest stones. This particular crack meant that Bazil could try for an escape.

Well, any kind of escape would be complicated, with Bazil being a plant and unable to walk and all that. But the sentient Grass had an idea, it could grow a root in the crack, find a fissure in or under the wall hidden behind its planter or try and make one itself. Then it would grow its roots in it and explore the place some more. Bazil hoped it could find a place to grow more of its plant organs and transfer its consciousness in the other sprout. That time when the two parts of itself would be severed, Bazil’s mind would stay in the secured one. It even had a plan to cut the connection itself once sufficiently installed.

Hopefully, it would allow the plant to escape its captors without them knowing about it, they would still have Bazil’s original body. A strange thought for sure, being able to escape bodies by growing more, the sentient plant had the impression of being in some science-fiction world with cloning rather than in a world of sword and magic. Maybe something to look into in a far off future, having clones or multiple bodies could be a boon.

But before being able to escape Bazil needed to work on the crack in its planter. For that it decided to grow the tiniest root it was able to make right in there, then it would grow the root in volume, enlarging the way out, all the while it would still grow the root further in the planter’s wall.

Putting it in other words, Bazil would grow a tiny root in a tiny slit, then it would make it hard and big to tear the crack wide open, and would put its hardwood further in. It was kind of lewd and that particular fact was upping Bazil’s spirit.

And having its spirit lift up a bit was good for the plant. Because, despite its now daily chats with Greeny and the support from the girly green entity, Bazil was kind of depressed. The plant’s attempts to grow nice and good on its flesh bag had failed.

‘Flesh bag’ was what it used to reference the poor man, Akim according to Greeny, and Bazil had tried its best to keep the man alive as long as possible. But unfortunately, the bad state he was in when he was deposited in Bazil’s planter had made it so the man had not supported the sentient plant penetration.

Bazil had used a root with thorns to scratch the man’s skin and then it grew other roots under it, those were obviously poison-free and without thorns on them. At first, it went nice, Bazil’s roots were drinking blood and at the same time plugging the wounds, preventing the guy from leaking all of its blood in the planter’s dirt. But as Bazil grew its roots, following the blood system, and eventually, the roots had reached bigger vessels. At some point, one root had perforated a vein - or an artery, Bazil didn’t know - and the plant had not been able to stop the hemorrhage. In the end, Akim had died of internal bleeding.

Bazil had killed him by accident. And now, its flesh bag was starting to rot. The plant would not be able to use it more than for food. It had plans to learn how to highjack the nerves and control the body and stuff. It was all very horror movie and such plans, Bazil would spread out spores and parasite brains to control armies of plant controlled zombies and whatnot. But it had all stopped when Akim died. Bazil would have to wait to put its roots on someone else to learn to do all that, but that would take a very long time. All depressing thoughts to the selfish and self-centered evil being.

Fortunately, Bazil now had something new to focus on. It had to escape and plan what to do once outside. It had a few ideas on this front.

Ideas like buying the Blooming Skill it had passed what seemed like ages ago. After that it would find a way to make fruits, that would probably be hard to do, the Botanic Skill was informing Bazil about pollination. Fruits and flowers were mainly used by plants as means of reproductions, even if some manage to get more use out of those. More important for Bazil, a flower needed to have female parts to grow fruits. The male parts of a flower were responsible for pollen production. It meant that if Bazil wanted to be strictly male, like it was when Human, it could never grow any kind of real fruit, and that if it wanted to grow fruit it would need female parts.

Bazil had been appalled by the obligations of plant biology until it found, thanks to its Botanic Skill, an option. Bazil could go the hermaphrodite way and have both male and female parts. Lots of plants had both male and female flowers or even flowers that were both male and female. The last worry the sapient grass had with this situation was that it wasn’t sure if it would be able to choose its sex.

And that opened a whole lot of questions Bazil never had to ask itself until now. In its previous life, it was male of gender and sex and was perfectly fine with it. In its plant body, being deprived of any sexual organ, it had more thought of itself in neutral terms. But that had been more of an unconscious thing than a conscious one. Those were things Bazil would have to deal with in time, it wasn’t like the sex or gender of a tentacle plant monster was of real importance when raping and killing.

Bazil stopped thinking too much about the question of gender, it did not felt concerned enough at the moment and focused back on what it would do when it would be able to make fruits. Those would serve as bait in traps.

Bazil was certain that the bandit town had rats or other vermin roaming around. At the beginning of its new life, Bazil had been afraid to meet those kinds of creatures, as it wasn’t ready to take them on. But now, armed with better Skills and arms, such as thorns, poison, and stronger structure, the sentient plant felt almost ready to tackle these kinds of creatures. The fact that the biggest part of it would stay safe in the cracks of the walls was in no small part in Bazil’s assurance.

Something else Bazil would make was to stock some useful things provided to it by its captors. Up until then, they had fed it with several kinds of potions to see their effect on it and Bazil had simply drunk them like any other liquid. They had effects on the plant and Bazil could divide them into three categories, with a little help from Greeny. Healing potions would help Bazil regrow the roots or other parts that were cut out. Stamina potions would boost its growth speed by noticeable amounts. And mana potions would make the sentient plant feel weird all over, according to Greeny it was the exes mana going through its body as it was slowly either absorbed or released in the environment.

The green girl had told Bazil that if the men experimenting on it kept on feeding it with mana potions, it would be easier for it to unlock magical Skills. Bazil was expecting this with great envy.

But the healing and stamina potions were of no real use for Bazil as it was now - well, maybe the stamina ones could accelerate its escape - so, once it was able to grow hidden in the walls outside the lab, the sentient plant would grow conduct in its roots, move the potions, and gather them in dicktatoes for later use.

Bazil had already tried to displace the potions, it was a mild success. It was able to take liquids from the tips of its roots and displace them to other parts of its body. For the moment it was used by Bazil as a way to focus the effect of the potions on parts of its body where they would be more useful. Unfortunately, the potions lost potency when traveling in wooden conduct. But still, Bazil would have stocks of healing, stamina, and mana potions to be used when needed.