Samantha was breathing hard as she began her last lap around the rack, pushing harder as she approached the finish line.

“Pick it up Smalls! When I was your age I’d be running circles around you!” Gordon called out to her from his chair as he timed her.

“Eat... shit... Gordon!” she huffed as she threw herself over the line, laying on the ground exhausted.

“Not bad, a touch faster than last time, but your start was a lot cleaner than before. Always good to be able to get moving at the drop of a hat, sure saved my kiester more than once in Vietnam. Got to work on that endurance though, not point getting away for them to catch up around the corner. Now get up and try again.”

Pulling herself up, Samantha grabbed a bottle of water from near where the old man was sitting and took a drink, pouring the rest over her head.

“Can’t we take a break? The Kurtza people were pretty clear that you can’t improve your stats by exercising.” She said with a huff.

He grunted. “They also mentioned that exercise will get you more out of those stat things. Now your family has always been good to me, best neighbours an old vet could ask for. So when you asked for my help to get you ready to fight and protect your family, I'm happy to help. But if you’re doing this, you’re going to do it my way, no lazing about, now relying on these fancy numbers, or those fancy alien doodads.”

She sighed as she nodded. “I remember what you said Mr. Lincoln, ‘Train hard, work hard, Fight harder and bring Marcus home’. It’s just... hard sometimes. It’s been a week since we came to New Earth and I still don't even have a clue on how to begin looking.”

For the three quarters of the population that had been selected, the reality shift had been a largely smooth process. Cities, farms and entire industries had already been prepared before their arrival, all being brought up to the minimum standards of the systems efforts. This meant there was free energy, zero pollution, and more than enough food to go around. The elderly and sick had been given a new lease on life, with people like their neighbour Gordon Lincoln, a man in his nineties who could barely see, hear or walk, now almost back in his prime.

In the week that had followed, representatives of the Kurtza empire had come to teach them the workings of the System and the ways of the world they found themselves in. The blue skinned, three armed beings had caused an initial stir but after showing a few pictures, they quickly proved they were quiet tame by the systems standards. The fact that most races followed the basic bipedal form was something biologists and scholars of the system still argued about.

One of the first questions they’d asked was to have humanity vote for the official name of their new home. New Earth had beaten out Earthy McEarthface by just 18 votes, something Samantha was slightly disappointed about.

After that strange poll, they’d explained the core of people’s strength and growth, classes, and encouraged everyone to select one from the options the System presented them with.

“Which class is best?” One of the people in Samantha’s group had asked.

Their teacher had shaken his head. “No class is better than any other, at least not by rank. Each beginning class has certain specializations and strengths, but overall each class starts at the same point. But as your grow, performing great deeds and achievements and improving yourselves, you will have the chance to evolve your classes into stronger ones. There you will see the five best options the System can give you, and the more you have accomplished, the better those options will be.”

“Then which class is the best for finding things?” Samantha had asked as people considered its words.

“Oh?” they said with a smile. “You’ve been here for just two days, have you already lost something?”

“My brother, he... didn’t make it to New Earth.” She answered with a catch in her voice.

Their smile faded. “My apologise. Finding someone at that scale would be a monumental task, though with effort and a high enough level, not an impossible one. To begin with, I’d recommend selecting the ranger if you’re willing to fight or the cartographer if you aren’t. Both of those lead to a number of directions that should put you on the path. From there it’s up to you to put in the effort, and the System shall provide.”

And put in effort she did. After recruiting Mr. Lincoln to show her the ropes, she’d spent almost every hour doing everything she could to get stronger. She’d become a ranger, unwilling to let someone else make the sacrifice for her again, and Gordon had been happy to show her every trick he’d learned to get by. Guns apparently were of little use anymore, they and other chemical based weapons faring poorly against the powers the system could grant. With only a few lessons, her class was letting her use a bow with force than the average pistol, and she as only getting better.

“You’ve taught me all this stuff, but I don’t know if any of its going to help me find him.” Samantha said dejectedly.

“Oh it was never going to help with that.” Gordon replied, waving her off.

She started at him. “What? Then what was the point of me running in circles all morning?”

“Endurance, speed and discipline. That stuff was for you, not him. You’re not gonna find and rescue anyone if you can’t even look after yourself. But if you want to get started on a few lessons on how to track and sweep an area, I guess the System has sped things along enough.”

Rifling through his pockets, he pulled out a red billiards pool.

“In my hand I have a ball, representing your target. At I've hidden three identical balls around town, within eight miles of here, and tomorrow I’ll hide this one as well. I've carved some numbers into them so you’ll know if you’ve got the right ones. Go find them.” he finished, pocketing the ball and beginning to walk back to his house.

“How am I supposed to do that?” she called after him.

“Any way you can Smalls. I'm asking you to find a needle in a hay stack, you’re looking for a grain of sand in the ocean. Find it any way you can.”

~

The past few days had been rough for Marcus, but things had been looking up. He’d kept walking along side the same stream for almost another whole day, looking for any sign of people that could help him, but the only thing he’d found was what he’d thought were voices, but had revealed themselves as horse-sized birds. Their brightly coloured feathers had fanned out when they spotted him at first, trying to intimidate him at first, then they’d calmed down and raced away leaving him confused.

Everything he’d seen seemed like it’d be able to kill him easily, but other than the stag on his first day they’d all left him alone. Even the stag just wanted a few leaves, which had grown back since then. It had taken a particularly grisly scene for him to work out why.

It had been early in the morning on the third of travel, and he was getting worn down, still not having found anything to help him. He hadn’t been paying much attention as he absently thought of home, and was bowled over as a boar the size of car sprinted from the tree line. From the place where he’d been thrown he watched as a pack of wolves raced silently after it.

As quick as the boar was its predators had no difficulty in catching up to the animal, snapping at its flanks as they circled and hampered its movement. It attempted to fight back by swinging its head around; large tusks carve tracks in the ground and shattering rocks in the stream bed. The wolves, despite seeming out matched and out of place, no bigger than the ones from earth, moved as if physics was only an option. They leapt and twisted in the air, stepping and turning on nothing at all as the boar’s attacks came close, avoiding effortlessly each time.

They weren’t going for the kill, Marcus realised as he watched on in shock, but were trying to tire it out so they could attack safely. It was only when the boar stopped its attacks, panting heavily, that a wolf slipped in and went for the throat. The last desperate movement s of the beast did nothing to shake it loose, and it wasn’t long before the rest of the pack finished it off.

Standing atop their kill the wolves howled loudly, triumphantly declaring their kill. It was only now did Marcus put few things he’d noticed together. The surprisingly high pitch of the howls, the fluffiness of their fur, the somewhat oversized paws... they were only pups.

The howl hadn’t been to declare victory, it’d been to show off their kill to the adults, who walked from the trees without a sound, not a single leaf moving to give away their presence. Each wolf had was the same size of the boar the pups had taken down, but moved with liquid grace as they walked over, sniffing and checking their young for injuries. They began to feed on the boars corpse, ripping through its hide like it was paper.

He wondered if he’d die there and then when one of the adults walked over to him. Frozen in fear, he couldn’t move an inch as it sniffed at him, close enough that he could see the flecks of blood on its snout. But after a few moments of investigation it just walked back to its pack.

That was when it really set in, why the animals were acting this way. They didn’t care. He was, when it came down to it, a weak plant. He wasn’t prey, he certainly wasn’t a threat, and he didn’t even make for a decent hiding place. He was just another part of the woods to them, one that moved for some reason, but still just a tree.

Taking one of the biggest risks of his life he went to test it, and slowly approached the feeding wolves. He flinched when several of the adults moved around to get between him and the pups, but it was only caution, not hostility. Like any parent they worried about anything getting close to their children.

The children themselves had no such fears, as one immediately tackled him, throwing him to the ground as it investigates the strange moving stick, driving the air out of him.

“C-cough... nice wolf?” he said as his back burned fiercely. “Get off now. Gently does it.”

Doing is best to push the curious animal off himself without angering the lethal parents watching them. He gingerly rolled to the side and stood up carefully, a small red light in his vision confirming what he felt.

-Warning! Health below 20%-

It was only the playful nudge of a young animal, yet it had almost killed him.

Unwilling to risk another pup coming to try and play he limped away from the area as best he could, looking for a place to rest. In a sad kind of horror he saw a few pups begin to follow him, but they were quickly intercepted by rest of the pack. Eventually he hobbled away far enough that he doubted they’d follow, chastising himself the whole time.

“This is just like the time with the electric fence. I just had to then, and I just had to know now.”

Carefully reaching back, he carefully probed at his injury, trying to figure out the damage.

“No blood at least,” Marcus thought. “Never been good with my own blood. Okay that hurts, that bit hurts, THAT spot stings... little bit worried that this spots not hurting...”

From his best guess, almost half his back was cracked open, with a number of rocks and bits of debris wedged in the wound. Putting his long fingers to work, he grabbed a stick to bite down on and began fishing around to pull out the foreign material.

“Hnnngh!” Exhaling in pain, he slowly pulled them out one by one, some having gone deep enough that there was some greenish liquid on them.

“Oh god it’s my not-blood.” He thought faintly, feeling sick, but getting the last one out.

-Warning! Health below 15%-

“I am very much aware, thank you System. You can stop that now.” He said aloud, in no mood for the messages.

-Low health warnings deactivated-

“I didn’t mean... its fine. This is fine. Everything is fine. Ok, healing, healing, I know I saw something about that in the menu...” he muttered, trying to focus on things other than his back. “Okay here we are...’can naturally recover and regenerate’. What does that meeeeean?! I swear it’d be so much easier to survive in the middle of nowhere if someone just left me System to English dictionary. Well it’s in this section so maybe...?”

Standing upright, he looked down at the lumps that were his feet and tried to ‘push’ them into the ground. Experiencing the strange sensation of having his non-existent toes wiggle, he watched as roots spread out from the base of his feet, anchoring him in place. As soon as they were in the ground he could feel them, like another hand that had just been asleep this whole time. But now it was wide awake and feeding him not only nutrients and energy, which felt amazing, but also information. He suddenly knew that soil was drier than it should be, that there was an overabundance of nitrogen in the ground around him, that an ants nest was several metres below him and how to have his roots avoid there tunnels.

“Who needs a milkshake when you’ve got dirt.” He said happily, but wincing as his movements pulled on his back. “Ow, ok, what’s next... plants need nutrients, water and...” he trailed off, looking upwards at the blue sky.

Grunting, he managed to get his arms stretched out wide as he faced upwards. He took a breath then paused for a second.

“Why do I always ending up yelling at the sky lately? Is it still crazy if it works?” he wondered then shook his head and got on with his ‘plan’.

“PHOTOSYNTHESIS. PHOTOSYNTHESIS. PHOTOSYNTHESIS. PHOTOSYNTHESIS. PHOTOSYNTHESIS...”

Fifteen minutes and the complete loss of his dignity later, the System made another appearance.

-Through repeated actions, a racial effect has been unlocked.-

-Sun Eater- Exposure to sunlight while rooted accelerates healing, growth and processing of nutrients. Can be used to replace sleep for a while-

“PHOToooooo yeah, that’s the stuff.” He said with a happy sigh, closing his eyes as he felt the sunlight pour into him, the leaves on his body widening and turning to face the sun. “This could definitely prove to be addictive.”

He has warm, fed and could feel his back very slowly putting itself back together. It was the most peaceful he’d felt since the Earth had vanished and he’d ended up here. He rested there for the rest of the day, and went night fell, while it hasn’t the same he still saw no reason to move on, happy to just...be.

“Wait, is this why trees don't move?”