Pando’s POV

My friend is back from wherever he went to.

A so called “instance”.

He was the very first two legged to return. But that was not even a surprise, I almost expected that of him. Most of the others two leggeds near the grove were too slow and encumbered with a lack of vital force. I let my senses reach out just a tree height outward so I can stretch myself a little, but I encounter hundred other beings inhabiting MY space.

My instinctive response is to push them out driving their much weaker wills back to wherever they belong, but a moment later their nature becomes clearer as a familiar sense waft off them.

And one of them I almost recognize.

Thousands of seasons too young to match me, but not just a seed in my family but he felt like part of my roots. And it showed the strength of youth clearly with each shift in its mental image.

Hi, I’m Aspen.

I feel the words though that name means little to me. As I dissect what Aspen sends my way, hints of him confirm my suspicions.

You… you are the little seed that I gifted to my friend.

Yes... I grew.

Each of his words seems to have the same complexity and mirth that I came to expect from Nash. But he is a plant being, a being that moves with the seasons, not at the pace of falling leaves like the moving beings.

How? You feel different, you all feel different. Each of your moves starts before the last one ends.

It is all because of Nash. He made ‘brains’ for us. He is asleep, but we can probably whip something up if we connect deeply enough with him and we manage to interface with his skills.

That sounds… difficult.

We haven’t succeeded so far, but we now have time, knowledge and your sheer willpower.

Knowledge. I lack all of it.

Yes. And WE lack most of it, but we will share our discoveries and even the hints we discovered doesn’t amount to a lot.

A new age.

A new age.

Obstacles of a different nature that forced me to alter long my ingrained ways. Though if I hadn’t, the wave enemies would have overwhelmed me in a few seasons.

Don’t worry: we are back and together we can do so much more.

I find my resources and draw mana to thicken the connections before moving out and spreading myself back to my grove. Subtle differences pop up everywhere, but it is still familiar enough.

The impulse to hide, the fear that any second a lighting fast being is going to attack and a hundred other things to be careful about assault me, but I brave forward.

I can’t let a sapling like Aspen show me up. Though I deeply hope that his confidence is fully warranted.

---------------------------

The sun rises and falls a couple of times and though Nash maybe is in such a deep sleep I can’t even get glimpses of his dreams, I let simultaneous interaction with hundreds of seeds replace the talk I wish to have with my friend while he is asleep.

Even several sun cycles later after getting excited their thoughts grow too fast for me. Hundreds of saplings nearly incapable of doing two independent things at the same time.

Just about every question I had about the system, at least one of them knows the answer or they ask someone that knows. I try to interface with his inner world and though I can grow my roots inside and integrate them with the ones outside, the effort is still confusing, and I couldn’t do whatever is needed to hold it steady.

I encase Nash’s sleeping form in the tree in the middle of the as they begin laying down foundations for a hundred different endeavors of the moving beings.

I feel a mixture of happiness and sadness as I witness the masterful and economic approach they take with their large mana supply. It is not quite at a level that full ‘system users’ are capable of, but it is a large step in the right direction.

What hasn’t escaped me the last sun cycles as I keep learning, is the sense of connection that I felt with Nash.

He was so much more open than before, he almost felt ready to fully become a piece of me.

Whatever injury happened in his ‘soul’, another nebulous concept they introduced me to, might have something to do with it, but in the end, the reason is immaterial.

My friend was back and soon, I will be in place to fully take over when I find where the forest protectors migrated to.

With dexterity that only thousands of seasons could develop, I draw my will in a tight little space surrounding the fully encased Nash.

You said you were ready to be a vessel, let’s see if you are right.

I push my will into his body and power through melding with his sleeping form. I become that which is not bound by the limitations of my form.

I do that with a thousand times greater focus and power than anything someone as young as another one of the seeds, including Aspen, could manage, but something is still missing.

So I do it again and again, slowly learning the intricacies of the constituents parts of his body, down to the membranes separating the smallest structures all thought out his body. Growing closer and more familiar with his ‘cells’.

While I had immense knowledge in my area, I could always learn more and the system was a wonderful hurdle prompting me to fully engage and experiment. Now that Nash was back, he could fill in the gaps of what I didn’t know, even if I had to suck the knowledge out of his brain.

I drive harder and harder, as the two legged in the instance that managed to remain awake help me figure it all out. What and how I could connect, even while they are affected by the slumber the system tries to impose on them.

And I finally learn my big mistake: Accumulating too much Aether, though being too intelligent without also being a system user didn’t help. After I was targeted and drained of almost all of my Aether I also got lucky in being able to hide.

After all, even if it was technically possible, only a fraction of a fraction of beings in my position survived.

I reach out once again and amplify my senses until I can hear and feel everything around then I tune out what I don’t need.

Everything goes to the simple action that I never spend time consciously thinking about.

I draw in the ambient Aether, which had grown so much compared to before that a dozen seasons would let me again rival my stolen stores but a moment later, I stop.

I had a few more friends and Nash was back, but I wasn’t ready for the wrath of the system, not really.

I have a lot to get in place before I’m secure.

A while later Aspen tries to explain to me how they can be so much more mana efficient than myself.

Form that shape with mana.

All these runes? Just for a simple fireball? I don’t see my attacker using any runes on simpler attacks.

They may have chosen not to use them or they may have replaced them with chanting, which is a viable choice for many races, but one that few humans got it working. But while the savings are relatively small, that is for a system user. Runes are not the only thing that helps reduce costs, but for anyone mostly outside of it, it is the only realistic choice. We don’t have system guidance.

So… there are even different guidance levels depending on the spell?

Yes… you could say that. The system diminishes and sometimes even totally withdraws its help from someone doing something against its wishes. Now, back to it: Shape the mana.

I do as he directs, trying to be precise in my drawings. Constant mana flows, two dozen runes, and a hint of my will. The first time the whole thing puffs out in a small explosion, but after a few tries, I get the hang of it for a simple spell like the fireball.

Using less than half the mana, I get a better and more focused result which opens up a world of possibilities.

Water, earth and even air all follow next with their own uses as I start to expand to more complex mana combinations, though the one I pay the most attention to is obviously Nature mana which will help immensely in fueling my expansion.

Plans slowly form in my mind as the sun cycles start up again and I revel in the simple rhythm that I missed in my long absence. The winds that tickles my leaves, the relaxing warmth and nourishment from the sun. Even the wet and refreshing touch of the soil was so muted as I hid like I haven’t felt it in a thousand seasons.

Still, even if progress is significantly faster than previously with all the guidance from people that knew this stuff a lot better than me, it is still a relatively familiar action that I took over the seasons I was alone. However, what most of my attention focuses on is Nash.

I feel the life in him can’t be denied, but at the same time, it is hidden deep inside in a small corner of himself. In a way just like me having left my thousands of limbs behind. I pull on the roots holding him steady and puppeteer his body with him deep asleep, a sleep that nobody wakes from with small perturbances.

I move his arm up and down a hundred, a thousand times like the seeds mimicking his natural moves when he was the one casting fireball, though I knew that wasn’t strictly needed. I pull on my mana letting it pass through his body and try to connect with him deeply enough that the system considers that he is the one casting the spell, maybe even exerting his will unconsciously with my prompting.

At least at first, because I had already seen hints that this particular plan would work.

With predictable regularity, I raise his arms, even as so much vigor keeps pouring into Nash’s body that it would have filled his former self in less time than a droplet of water takes to fall. But even if I don’t have his senses, it is clear that the system isn’t just keeping him asleep, it is stealing all the Vigor I send his way before it really gets to him.

I push it again, in a different manner but this time something is different, from the start of my move I feel something coming to the surface. Nash’s unresponding limbs get a hint of life back and then as I keep the momentum trying not to screw it up, a hint, a shadow of his prodigious willpower manifests… well… prodigious for a being his size.

The few mana points manifest in full glory, even if it would normally have generated a fireball the size of a leaf with my own will backing it or a puff of smoke if I tried to channel it through Nash.

A thing of beauty smaller than my usual attack and not quite as damaging given that some mana leaked out before he got a good grasp on it, but the power is more concentrated and it flies off in the distance twice as far as my absolute beast efforts alone.

With my first real success heavily aided by Nash himself, I had seen a real hint of progress and a path forward that wouldn’t rely on his actions every time, only his connection to the system.