In that moment, is the second time where I tried to utilize a huge percentage of my mana. But instead of trying to destroy a dog, this time it is to save a dog and the rest of my blood servants.

At that time, a massive collection of destructive evil mana has gathered on the middle of my crown, with the occasional flashes of red lightning that traces my branches, etching marks into them.

In that moment, I also noticed that resistance to soul and blood magic is relative to my strength. While I did have my doubts far earlier than this particular moment, it did confirm it as I feel like my body is being crushed by gravity while my mind feels like it is being ripped apart as I try to control the energies.

In hindsight, I probably should have poured less energy but the thought that I would lose all of that assets because of a single operation made me panic a bit.

So with the enormous amount of mana, I managed to project a 4 inch thick ray of red fire that whistled through the air as it rapidly goes to the location of the battle.

Using the tiny connection that I still have, I made the energy go through it and reinforce it, causing it to avoid any obstacles that it may come in its way.

Surprisingly, despite the panic that I was feeling at that time, I was not stupid enough to just blast through the forest. Trying to manipulate it in a more complicated manner would have not been possible with the energy amount poured and skill that I have.

With the amount of energy that was initially released and the speed at which it traveled, it managed to only become small wisps of energy by the time it arrived at the location.

But it was more than enough.

It only took a few moments of constant energy inflow for doggo to break the effects of the mental blast, quickly retaliating before it sustains more damage from the bat’s relentless scratches and bites.

It smacked the bat’s face with its left paw before it can add even more wounds to the already severe situation of Doggo, following up with a bite.

But the bat flew off Doggo, and went towards the still stunned blood servants, jumping between the blood servants with blood seeds.

With its speed and its mouth, it rapidly started biting off the throat of a still immobile blood servant, while jumping onto another blood servant to do the same.

Meanwhile, Doggo is lying still as his wounds rapidly heal using his evil mana with the support of the mana that I am sending. Fortunately, it is healing fast due to its minimal usage of evil mana causing it to finally stand up before the bat can bite off the 13th blood servant.

I also broke the mind entrapment cast on the 5 blood servants near Doggo, my connection moving on the to the other blood servants.

But before they could start moving to stop the 13th death, a sharp blue light suddenly lit up from Doggo’s left.

A bolt of lightning as thick as a man’s thigh hit the bat’s side, causing it to fly off and knock down an entire tree before stopping.

A bolt of lightning also hit Doggo’s head, causing his forehead to rupture while the skull had a massive crack in the middle. In that moment, I managed to redirect a good part of the light out while the rest is sent towards the spine.

If I haven’t redirected any of the lightning energy, it would have been certain that Doggo’s brain would have been nothing but fried. It was either a coincidence or the intervener can properly gauge the amount of mana needed for a kill.

Though I am not sure when I consider that the bat was not hit in the head but instead on its side, while my blood servants that was attacked with a lightning bolt was not hit in the head but rather on places near the abdomen.

It was probably trying to shock the heart or cause internal bleeding on the soft parts of the body, it might have been a coincidence that it decided to hit Doggo in the head since it was the closer body part.

Either way, the intervener was the pudgy brown bird, the fifth on the list of my targets. It is almost as large as a small eagle, with most of that apparent size coming from its body since its legs are thin like a flamingo and its beak is tiny compared to the rest of the body.

It is kind of a large pidgeon, with a rounder body, longer and thinner legs, and of course brown. There was still occasional sparks of lightning within its feathers when I saw it through my connection while Doggo and the rest of the blood servants are using their evil mana to recover.

It is currently perched on one of the branches on the border of the clearing and the rest of the forest, looking at us menacingly with its light-blue eyes and aura. Though more cute with its chonky appearance rather than intimidating.

Fortunately, the bat should be greatly weakened or dead by now, which is great considering that it is the one with a high level of incompatibility with my blood servants.

Most wounds can be recovered in due time using mana alone, but they still need to maintain the integrity of their brains or at the very least have a large enough piece to grow back into a full brain again.

This is important as the brain is the vessel of the consciousness that runs the body, and the Mind Bat can directly damage that consciousness, and even disable the brain by making the consciousness destroy its own brain causing the blood servant to lose all function.

Given, I can restore the brain as long as the damage doesn’t cause it to deteriorate beyond saving, but depending on the level of damage, it can range from minor to looking like it is trying to match the conversion process’ consumption itself.

An enough amount of damage also causes any experience accumulated to disappear. I have considered trying to develop a technique to store memories after brain death but for now, I only have the soul formation option from the system itself.

And I lack neither the will nor purpose to develop it for now as I have no particular need for experienced blood servants, as the ones that does not have blood seeds have not developed a level of intelligence that would utilize such memories.

And even the ones made with a blood fruit losing its accumulated memories occasionally would not be too detrimental.

Though seeing the difference in quality with the blood servants, and the blood servants with blood seeds in this fight, is quite an eye-opener that I can’t be too stingy with my projection force for expansion.

But the development of a seed-oriented fruit is still set aside just like the rest, as much as the blood servants made with blood fruits have a stronger physique and reliability due to their makeshift mana core of some sorts.

The blood fruits are spherical, with spherical seeds inside. These seeds act as storage and manager of evil mana within the body they are in, while also speeding up the process of refining atmospheric mana and passively improve the blood servants’ physique.

I was a bit surprised when I noticed a small but denser mana signal within Guava, 2 days after rising from the grave. Examinations show that they are quasi-corporeal, but when there is no sign of bodily recovery within a day, will start absorbing the surrounding flesh and mana to gain a corporeal form.

And that they are as large as pingpong balls, with formation time dependent on the used blood fruit’s size and the amount of time they spend absorbing energy towards improving their levels.

I may or may have not used a blood fruit to raise a corpse for purely experimental purposes.

Originally, I was planning to use the corporeal blood seed as a base for my project but for now, there are promising results that I can latch on to for now before resorting to using the seed.

Continuing our recollection of the battle

The pink flower suddenly lit up again with a pinkish glow, releasing a pink streak of light that went towards where the bat should be.

I suppressed the thoughts of doggo and blood servants attempt at trying to stop the pink flower, it is best not to make a move when the lightning bird is observing our movements.

The slit throats of the blood servants are already healed and the poison is starting to finally wear off completely as they stand up. While the blood servant humanoids that was hit with a lightning bolt is already mostly recovered, while Doggo only has a bit over 50% of his wounds recovered despite the support I am giving.

It had really taken a beating from those 2

The bushes started rustling, and out came the bat, climbing up on one of the trees and looking cautiously at us and the lightning bird.

Unfortunately, this is a stalemate. Most of humanoid blood servants might have recovered their injuries but at the cost of most their evil mana while Doggo is still recovering and rapidly consuming his mana pool.

Meanwhile, the lightning bird seems to be in good shape, ready to strike. And the revealed bat shows that it had somehow recovered from the lightning bolt while regaining both of its legs that was torn off, most likely the result of that pink streak but it no longer emanates a strengthened aura.

And that ends that confrontation as I made my forces slowly retreat from there, as continuing to do so does not have any more good possible outcomes and I needed to stop the strengthened connection.

Though I am not certain as to the next events there if the Lightning Bird, and the Mind Bat duked it out after my forces left, as most of the blood servants that wasn’t near me at that time was called to come rushing back.

I also needed to stop the connection, partly because of its unfair cost but mostly because something had a massive gall and iron balls, leaving only a small connection that could be used to relay a distress message when necessary.

In that moment, I was surrounded.

Rats. Lots and lots of rats that rivals cats in size.

They have dark fur with eerie silver pupils, with sharp teeth with a metallic sheen. They are in the surrounding buildings that I haven’t decided to be collapsed, they are in the cement pavements, grasses, dirt, branches.

They are everywhere

At that time, I actually didn’t manage to sense their mana signatures or anything at all within my mana vision until they showed themselves.

The rats all have similar signatures, with the exception of a strong collection of mana signatures due south, with about 4 members and around 130 meters away from my main body.

There are currently only 10 blood servants stationed to be around my trees, while the others is out with their usual duties too. Fortunately, I did consider the possibility that I would have to battle near my main body.

And it is by no means a disadvantage.

10 roots suddenly burst out of the ground, with the length above ground easily surpassing the height of my stalk. They have the same color as the rest of the tree, but 0.50 meters near their tip has a denser amount of red veins until they completely turned the tip red.

The place where the roots pop out is 20 meters from the main body, while their position is in a circular manner.

Visible amounts of the red energy concentrated on the crown starts rapidly moving back inside the trunk, proceeding towards the vines to start preparing for any sign of movement.

And movement it came as the rats in every direction comes rushing at me.

Slaughter too showcased its head as the 10 roots cuts the air as they pierced rats in rapid succession, leaving behind a rat body with almost its entire neck or head decapitated in a single strike.

The roots leave behind hints of afterimages as they pierce around like they are in some kind of steroid, though to be fair, I am the one controlling them so I am in steroids?

Of course, not all rats is killed and stopped before they can even reach the 20-meter line of roots but they are immediately taken care of with the 10 blood servants near me, holding a buckler-shaped shield and a spear.

Bodies quickly pile up which smaller roots quickly attach to, their bodies shriveling up at a rapid rate causing wisps of red energies to slowly rise up from them. It also doesn’t help for the rats that Blood Aura and Mind Eater is dulling the senses of the rats, and will continue to get worse as the evil mana mists accumulate.

But suddenly, within 5 seconds of never-ending waves of rats, they started running away with the same vigor as their assault, the offense-type roots quickly trying to kill as much rats as possible before they go out of range.

The strong rat collection south also started moving, and fortunately not trying to attack again.

That didn’t mean that this is the end though, there is a price for everything.

Dozens upon dozens of normal roots came out of the location 130 meters south from here, their surfaces barely having any red veins at all as they wrap around the rats in this location.

They were far larger, as big as a tiger but no substantial differences aside from their large size and silver claws and teeth. The small rats had a tooth-like nails and they are shorter relative to their size.

These large rats had long silver claws and shiny silver teeth, which when pulsating with silver-colored mana of theirs, was able to cut the roots that I especially designed to be able to withstand attacks.

Though they are used more for constricting enemies as I haven’t truly made a wood feature specifically designed to block out attacks.

While all of this was happening, the 6 of the offense-type roots borrowed back into the ground and vigorously started ripping apart dirt towards the large rats, while the rest stand guard for any assaults.

And assault did came, as the entrapment of the 4 large rats seems to have caused the small rats to start swarming me again even more vigorously this time. But it was all for naught.

The offense-type roots once again bursts out of the ground near the 4 large rats, who are desperately trying to claw and bite away at the persistent roots.

4 of the offense-type root tips starts flaring up like when they were slaughtering the small rats, but a lot stronger, like comparing the initial burn of a match and after the initial burn. The other 2 tried to prevent the nearby small rats to try and intervene into what is happening.

The 4 large rats seemed have been panicked by the presence of the offense types and the mana flares as they add more and more silver mana into their strikes to cut away at the roots that tries to bind them.

Within an instant, 3 out of the 4 large rats are dead. 1 got an offense type into the upper floor of its mouth and out of its head, 2 got their brains damaged as the root pierced their forehead and into the other side of their head.

The remaining one was somehow able to decide that defending would have been viable, as much as it felt it was futile and not its expertise. The offense-type root was barely missed the brain by slightly tilting its head at the right moment with the support of its silver mana.

But It did not leave it unscathed as a big chunk of one side of its head is exposed, revealing the white brain matter inside.

And its life was only barely extended as all 4 offense types descended on it like hungry snakes.

This death seems to have woken up the mad offensive of the small rats as they tried running again, but still in the same unity as when they came and attacked.

This has caused me to believe that there could be a rat king of some sorts, hiding within some kind skill that masks it.

I tried to sense it by once again trying to evolve mana vision into a full on 360 degree vision that also includes the ground. It was in that moment that my “Mana Vision” evolved into “Mana Detection”, causing my line of sight to be all within the sphere of mana that I generate with the skill.

It was greatly overwhelming, as there was just too much information barraging my brain, mimicking the pain a mega migraine and at some point feels like my brain is being hammered every goddamned moment. And what seems to be similar to my human body felt like needles were constantly piercing me at every centimeter of skin.

I managed to filter through the information, revealing a rat that is only 72% the size of the large rats. It emanated a silver aura that is as strong as the Lightning Bird, which somehow gave off the feeling of imperiousness and nobility.

Its entire fur, teeth, and claws are silver. It has a diamond shaped silver crystal on its forehead that acts as the gateway between its sprawling energy connections to its minions.

It somehow jerked and suddenly looked directly at the direction of my tree, its eyes sharp and showing intelligence that dwarfs even the Mind Bat that my servants just fought.

The silver crystal suddenly lit up a bit

“You are far more sophisticated than I expected, mere tree” An elegant sounding voice suddenly entered into my detection, which is composed of mental energy only and came from the streak of light that the silver crystal released.

I also managed to notice the entourage of 11 large rats surrounding the alleged rat king, which is more than 5 kilometers south.

The group started moving away from my position until they disappeared from my 5 kilometer dome of observation.

And that is what happened at month 1, day 3.

It is quite a handful and has given me benefits to the development of my skills, also providing further information into the power levels of the forces surrounding me.

The entirety of my blood servants only managed to gather together in almost 2 hours, mostly because some of the scouts is very near the border what I consider my sphere of influence.

Everything returned to normal after a few hours, and business returned as usual.

In that battle, I managed to gain the skills “Far Projection”, “Mana Detection”, and “Mana Control”.

A few skills also got improved like “Carnivorous Roots” and “Magical Enhancement”.

Right now, it is month 1, week 4.

I did not increase the amount of the blood servants that I have despite the improvement in capacity, instead, I focused on trying to improve their physique without using blood seeds as managers.

Also sent them to attack more beasts to level up and bring me more nourishment.

So far, my servants have only encountered the Lightning Bird and not the Mind Bat. Attempts at spying at where the Pink Flower and the Mind Bat should be have shown that there are no longer there.

And according to the environment there, no battles happened between the Mind Bat and the Lightning Bird after my forces left, at least not there if it happened.

But, I did manage to procure magical plants that might be useful to me in the future.

There has also been an increased level of activity in killing the little lords, removing 24 members within a week and a half. But I found 15 more that could qualify as little lords.

In month 1, week 2 or also known as present.

The Clone Project has finally shown results that I have been waiting for, or rather, investing and working on.