As my vision clears up I find myself inside a strange room with strange things and a bed in front of me.

Lying on the bed was daddy and seeing him I nearly cry as I jump at him but suddenly pass through everything and hit the ground with a resounding thump.

“Levi, you are only here as a spirit and have no body here. Not even I can touch you.” Daddy says.

I get up with teary eyes and only to see him with strange glasses on.

“Don’t cry Levi, I let this happen to myself and I am recovering really quick. See?” He says sitting up and flexing his arm but I could see a hidden pained expression from having to move so much.

“Don’t move so much daddy.” I say worried for him.

“Don’t worry, daddy is stronger than he looks. Now how are things?” He asked with a slightly pained smile.

“Good, I got the Lancer class and am training with my master but… I brought her into the hive wilderness, is that fine daddy?” I asked while looking down at the floor and fidgeting.

“Since it’s already done it’s done, just ask her to keep it a secret.” He says.

“Good… oh right 12 bugs reached tier 2 and some of the habits merged or grew.” I tell him and a grin appears.

“Good girl, which ones?” He asked.

I tell him all the bugs that grew and he entered deep thought.

“Hmm, make sure to be careful with the breeding, the ants we don’t need to worry about because they are a really balanced race because of the feeders and because it's the queens that are the only breeding units for now. How strong are the bomb ants anyway?” He asked.

I told him about being able to crush a tree and he looked slack jawed.

“They can lift something 20 times their own weight and being a bit muscular at 15 cm I think around 2 kilos is their weight for hunters. It's a racial trait but their other stats aren’t even at 1 yet besides strength.” I tell him.

He understood what I meant after I explained.

“I see, well for now keep an eye on them, try and make the Queen more intelligent when breeding more queens. The smarter they are the more intelligent the ants will get later.” He says and I nod.

“For the other bugs do I need to be actively breeding?” I asked.

“Split into groups of single stats and double stats depending which is better and breed them. The new bugs will be using swarm tactics skill and will meet more trouble unlike the first bugs we got. Also look for more humanoid races. Goblins and such would be good additions because of their fast breeding rate.” he tells me and I nod. The bugs do need a lot of humanoid food to reach the next stage or they will turn into monsters if they only eat monster meat.

“I think the rabbits have turned humanoid. I remember finding something called a Jackalope that looked like a hare with horns and looked a bit humanoid with shoulders and longer front arms but still really animal.” I say.

“Nah a Jackalope is a horned hare in simple terms. A magical creature but not humanoid, I’m sure other monsters require humanoid beast blood to reach humanoid state. Goblins are a good method to form a good number of humanoid tribes in the world. There are the rabbit men we caught before as well.” Daddy said.

I nod understanding, I was a bit sad that it was almost business talk we were doing.

“Now then, tell me about yourself and the fun you have been having or the training you have gone through?” he asked and a smile appears on my face.

From there I spent a lot of time talking with him just about what I was doing and about my teacher and when I described her his brows twitched and he had a muffled laugh but I didn’t understand him.

After an hour I heard my stomach growl very loudly making my face turn bright red.

“Let's stop for now okay, go back and get something to eat, can’t have you skipping out okay.” He said with a smile.

I walk over and try to give him a kiss but my lips pass through him but the intent is what matters.

Then my vision darkens and I wake up in my room and get up with a bright smile on my face as I run to the kitchen.

“Drone! I want a large meal of War God Bear seasoned with a mild spicy taste and roasted.” I said.

“Combination doesn’t satisfy your taste my queen.” The drone said.

It was true and we hadn’t been able to actually eat the War God Bears with Masters seasoning.

“Now that I think about it, where is master Mary?” I ask.

“Still in the storage inside the freezer.” The drone replied.

I walked out and went into the freezer before looking at the rather imposing double metal doors that opened at a single touch of my hand.

As the interior opened I found shelves upon shelves of different items stored in different manners and it left me rather stunned. In the back I saw Mary throwing several pelts and other furs into one pile.

“These items are all fire attributes so put them in a storage space with lots of fire mana to keep their condition better. Seriously what is this, why are there so many items miss matched here!?” She cried. “Lightning attribute, water attribute! Why are they stored so improperly!?”

“Master?” I called and she turned towards me.

“Levi! Good! Tell your servants to separate every last item into separate storages by magic attribute! Fire attribute items should actually be stored in a place with lots of fire mana and not one with ice mana! The quality has dropped tremendously already!” She shouted.

I blinked surprised and looked at the drone.

“Do you wish to move the storage into the Holy Land?” the drone asked.

I thought a moment and nodded.

“Split all the items into storages for different magic types and only that specific element should be present inside each storage. Maybe a cave or something to hide the building from anything wishing to attack.” I say.

“Holy Land has no beasts until your bugs reach maturity but I shall do as you ask.” The drone said and gestured for us both to the door.

Mary nods and we walk out only to see the doors close by themselves and vanish.

“Can I see the storage now?” Mary asked.

This time I was really stuck on what to do.

“Well…” I mutter.

“Come on? Or is this Holy Land something special?” She asked.

“Well… it's a place with super high levels of mana.” I said and didn’t know what to do.

“Come on, I am much stronger than you and can handle quite a few levels above normal of mana density.” Mary said and seeing no way out I made a portal into the Holy land and walked through followed by Mary who almost instantly fell to all four and sweat covered her face as she shook violently before a torrent of mana rushed out of her and created a dense bubble of mana.

Finally getting enough of the foreign mana away from her she stood up.

“Get… me out!” She said and a portal opened instantly as she jumped out.

Walking back into my bedroom where the portal was connected I looked at her on the ground.

“What happened?” I asked.

“That… what was… that?” She asked.

“Well… each habit is essentially located in one region or another of daddy's body and well… Holy land is inside his Mana pool. As his Hive, which you call a Grove, grows bigger the concentration of mana grows. If I add more magic stuff or make better bugs the habits adapt and get bigger if there are enough requirements met.” I explain.

“So that's it… inside the Mana Pool… no wonder I couldn’t enter.” She said with a sigh.

“Let’s leave it at that, just have your drone make a door here so I can inspect the storage and then it can be placed back.” She said and that was done and after a few minutes she looked then all over.

At that time my stomach growled like a dragon roar and she looked my way.

“Let's go get those War God Bears cooked shall we.” She said and we went and gathered the bears before going to take them to cook.

Flor PoV

“Hmm, this is a very interesting breed… let's store a few and experiment…” I said as I looked at a beautiful but common plant but to me there were several interesting hidden properties in the plant making me want to gather the plant and plant it inside my Grove.

The grove had also grown from the 5 meter diameter rock into a 30 meter wide rock allowing for some freedom.

Grass covered the rock now and looked rather nice and flowers of many types existed each having hidden effects only professionals can isolate but with her level of Nature magic she is still experimenting with them.

“Hmm, lets see, low on mana so let's try that mana potion recipe.” I muttered and found the plants that constitute the recipe and examined their structure. I isolated the parts needed and felt the energy in them and then with my mana I made the same mana signature before slowly mixing them.

You gained a level in Nature Magic: Magic alchemy.

“Sweet, level 5 already, it's getting easier to do this.” I say and activate the spell on myself.

Feeling my mana drop a moment before my recovery rate shoots up and I start absorbing much more before returning to full.

I open my status to look at my current capabilities.

Status

Name:

Florista

Race:

Human

Level

20

Stat points

0

Health

100%

Mana

100%

Stamina

100%

Class:

None

Satiety

76%

Thirst

65%

Strength

24

Agility

10

Dexterity

72

Endurance

25

Intelligence

95

Wisdom

82

Skills

Speed reading [Passive]

Plant Lore [Basic Level 3]

Identify [Basic Level 6]

Nature Magic [Basic Level 6]

Nature Magic: Alchemic Heal [Basic Level 4]

Nature Magic: Alchemic Mana Heal [Basic Level 3]

Nature Magic: Magic alchemy [Basic Level 5]

Blacksmithing [Basic Level 6]

Alchemy [Basic Level 5]

Meditation [Basic Level 4]

Mana Aura [Basic Level 5]

Mana Vision [Basic Level 3]

Archery [Basic Level 8]

Magic

Air Manipulation [Basic Level 3]

Water Manipulation [Basic Level 4]

Fire Manipulation [Basic Level 2]

Earth Manipulation [Basic Level 4]

Plant Manipulation [Basic Level 7]

I sighs satisfied with my stats and levels.

“Now then, time to experiment with transforming a part of my body.” I muttered and looked around.

I already knew what she wanted for her Dryad form.

Walking to the area with several trees I saw several mushrooms and after looking through them she found the one she wanted.

Grand Mortis

A large mushroom that at adult size can reach half a meter tall with a mushroom cap that is 1 meter in diameter. The Blue cap with white dots on top signify its immense poisonous nature.

The poison of this mushroom is unique in that it can present different effects depending on each being. This is considered the third most deadly mushroom known to man but the poison is also the best medicine making material.

The mushroom is also unique in that it possess a unique aura wavelength and abundant mana in its body that in a few rare cases they become a rare breed of Mushroom men who are docile but can become deadly if attacked.

“Now this will be a bit hard but I need to try and figure out how to slowly integrate this thing’s aura into my own.” I thought for a moment and began to study the aura.

I didn’t even dare remove the mushroom from the tree it was parasitizing. It is a very hard mushroom to find and breed but in the surrounding trees there were over twenty which showed my dedication to breeding a plant I wanted to study.

Using Mana Vision, I looked at the Mana Aura, which was a signature every being containing a unique one creature. Even the same plant had that slight difference.

“Hmm, this is harder than I thought, let's see one at a time. Mushroom cap first.” I muttered and left the Grove before I began to cover my body in mana.

The reason I was willingly doing this is because I have a unique crystal gained by Maggi that inscribes my own complete aura into the crystal and allows me to revert myself back to normal. I have a second one which I will inscribe my own dryad form to make sure she can properly remember it.

As she starts to make the mushroom cap she feels a powerful wave of pain from her head as her body rearranges herself.

Transformation failure! -70% hp

Seeing the failure I quickly took out the crystal and reverted back and used my magic alchemy to make a high healing potion effect and put it on my body.

“This isn’t working, how does she expect me to work this?” I commented.

“Don’t try something beyond your limit.” A voice called from behind and Maggi appeared.

“How come it so hard to try and integrate the plant's effects?” I asked.

“Of course, because you are trying to add a mushroom and adding something new to your body. First try to slowly change the parts you have, slowly going from animal to plant. Things like changing your cells to have photosynthesis and other things. Also your plant affinity needs to be trained but I guess you wouldn’t be expected to know all this. Try this first.” She tossed me a crystal towards and felt the aura inside.

I look cautiously then slowly change my aura to that one.

From the palm of her hand, where the crystal was, a light green color spread from it riding up her arm through my skin, until it covered her body. My hair turned a darker shade of green. I felt a few changes in my own mana as it began to match up to the plants around me finally from the side of my head something sprouted and kept growing until it matched my own hair length.

Putting my hand there I felt a leaf's stem and looking back I saw a single large red plant leaf over her green hair.

Your race has been changed into Dryad [Healing Herb Variant]

You have learned the Aspect of Plants.

You have integrated part of a plant throughout your body becoming one with the plants.

You have successfully integrated a plant's properties to your body. You have accomplished the requirements for the subclass Plant Shifter of the Druids.

Plant Shifter

Those who are able to become one with plants, and adopt their most dangerous aspects, can be just as deadly as any monster. Though able to recreate the effects of nearly any plant, they must first study it.

“What is this?” I asked.

“This is a low leveled form I made to get you used to being part plant. It's made from a healing herb as the base. You can keep the crystal, this way you can alter this form slowly matching it to your own needs. I think this is all I can really do for you at this point.” Maggi said.

“Yeah thanks for all the help.” I said and got up and hugged Maggi for her help.

“Now go train yourself so you don’t need the crystals. Also your ability to control vegetation is greater in this form so don’t forget that. Also don’t limit yourself to just forest dryads. There are many types. Here.” She said and pulled out a few more crystals.

“How do you have so many?” I asked.

“You can make them by mixing seeds of light and dark into a light mana crystal.” Maggi said with a smile.

Nodding I took the crystals and found them blank.

“Use these to store different types of plant forms, you want to go to the desert so you can form a dryad race specific for desert environments and so on.” Maggi said and I finally understood what was said before.

“Alright, thanks, now I accept the subclass.

Your class has changed from Druid to Plant Shifter

Plant Affinity has risen to 10%. You can now only integrate plant features to your body. You can now communicate with plants. Plant based monsters will not immediately attack you if you are 10 levels below and will ignore and hide from you if you’re above 10 levels of them unless they are boss monsters.

Seeing this, I nodded and looked at Maggi who had turned but remembered something.

“Maggi, I forgot but isn’t it possible for Druids to also breed monsters?” I asked.

“Yes, druids regularly take up monsters as companions and let them live within their grove and call them out when needed. For Plant shifters, and Plant lords we do the same but with plants. You will have to experiment with plants to make them into monsters though, the grove is a stable land and monsters don’t spawn unless you do it personally but you should have a few plants that can become monsters easily.” She said.

Remembering the Great Mortis I nodded.

Seeing as there wasn’t much to do now, all I needed was to train my skills so I sat down and began to rapidly condense more Essence of Nature so that I can cause rapid growth in my grove as well as allow me to train my manipulation skills. Then picking up a few young trees around me and planting them in the grove to make a suitable habit inside before I experiment more and train my transformation and study the dryad form to understand how to transform into a better form and to do small transformations instead of a full body one.