I was traveling to the fifth crater after having visited several others with fruitless trees. In every crater, I would explore, enjoy the sometimes vastly alien greenery, and study my spells while draining the massive trees of their mana to infuse my seed. My mana drain skill had already leveled twice, which was a nice side effect to this whole affair. I was getting close to the next crater, the giant tree a nice indicator for where to find them, since they always grew quite a bit higher than the lip of the crater they were in.

Once I finally managed to see the inside of this crater, it immediately stood out as different from the others. While every crater I’d visited so far had been a multitude of colorful plants, this one was heavily leaning into a purple theme. Purple grass, purple leaves on the trees, thick, purple vines snaking along the ground, and even the water in the small streams flowing toward the center was died purple for some reason. It was actually a bit offensive to the eyes, but in an odd, alien way, still beautiful.

I touched down at the edge of the crater as I always did and hopped down into the purple forest. I liked taking my time exploring the craters since there were always fascinating plants to find that simply hadn’t existed on Earth. Sure, I’d seen some weird plants up to this point, but never really had the chance to enjoy their presence. I’d always had to fight for my survival first and stopping to admire the weird and interesting things hadn’t exactly crossed my mind.

Now? I’d gotten more powerful by leaps and bounds and this layer didn’t present much of a threat as long as I remained vigilant of potential strong monsters. I’d occasionally use my hunter radar to make sure I wouldn’t accidentally run headfirst into one of them unprepared. As for the monsters in this crater? More of the fire-themed monsters that littered the entire layer, none of them an actual threat to me, and were quickly dispatched.

Every now and again I’d come across a monster that was seemingly just as fascinated by the flora of these craters, that they just kind of… did nothing. I caught several of them sitting in the same spot, looking around like a fascinated child walking into Disney Land for the first time. I usually left them alone, not intending to hurt my fellow plant-enjoyers.

I fought my way toward the center of the crater, picking some odd purple fruit into my inventory every now and again for later testing. The tree wasn’t surrounded by water this time, the purple stuff going into a rather large pond off to the right of the tree. I didn’t pay it any mind, instead carefully approaching the tree in an attempt to get into range to identify it with the archive of asphon. The description was always the same, describing the tree monsters as fiercely protective of their fruit, and I didn’t yet know how exactly they went about doing so.

Ready to jump or teleport back at a moment's notice while watching the roots and branches above for any movement, I got closer and closer to the tree until I was finally in range. Another bust. I sighed as I relaxed, the fruitless tree posing no threat to me. A bit disappointed, I started climbing the tree, preparing myself for yet another long session of studying magic and infusing my seed.

When I was leaving the tenth crater, I was starting to wonder just who or what was going around collecting all of the fruit from these trees. I would understand if the fruit were in some way incredibly attractive to all monsters and eventually one of them managed to snatch it. Or maybe travelers that passed through this layer all got the same quest and collected a fruit each, making it so there were barely any left. The fact that I was given the quest by the system made me hopeful that there was at the very least one fruit still around.

On the bright side, all of this fruitless searching, pardon the pun, was helping me a lot with both infusing my seed and my studies on magic. Looking at the magic bolt variations had been easy enough to understand and most of my poison spells weren’t outlandishly difficult to understand either, even if they were a tad more complex than the bolt. My void spells on the other hand…

I’d always known that the spell matrixes of these spells were a lot more complicated than everything else in my repertoire, I was casting them multiple times a day after all. Yet, I’d never really given it much thought. The system provided me with the exact knowledge I needed upon acquisition of the spell, which was enough to properly cast the spells with a bit of practice. But boy oh boy, when I started seriously looking at the spell matrix for void jump I almost got an aneurism.

The spell consisted of over a hundred runes, consisting of multiple closed loops that somehow interacted with each other anyway. If I went through the runes one by one, I knew what the runes' meaning and purpose were thanks to my passive skill. I had absolutely no clue how they worked together to let me jump through space, though. I gave up fairly quickly and returned to studying my other spells instead. I should try to understand basic math before tackling rocket science, after all.

As I was approaching the next crater, I got an odd ping back from my hunter radar. The closest hunter was in the direction of the crater I was going to, but I hadn’t thought too much of it. Now that I was getting closer, the ping was moving. I veered to the right, flying so that the crater was to my left instead of straight ahead, and activated hunter radar again. Sure enough, the ping returned from the direction of the crater. It would seem like this crater was home to a hunter.

I only weighed my options for a short time before deciding to engage. I’d fallen into a bit of a boring routine and fighting a hunter was just the right thing to spice things up a bit. Not to mention the rewards I would get from defeating one of them.

I flew away from my latest spell-analyzing session with a good feeling. The hunter that was in this crater had been on a bit of a rampage when I arrived, killing monsters left and right. The hunter this time around was some fucked up giant monkey. It had six limbs, all of which were entirely too long and almost made it look like a spider at first glance. Its long and spindly legs had no business supporting the mass of its upper body but still defied all reason to do so anyway.

The four arms that terminated in massive fists were both used as walking support and a delivery system for a free flattening. Several pancake-shaped monsters were left in its wake. Deciding to play it safe, I rained down hellfire from above. The poor hunter had no counter to this, aside from throwing giant rocks and trees at me, which I all dodged with ease. It was almost anti-climactic how easy the fight had been, but I still walked away with the usual rewards.

Special evolutionary energy, as well as a free choice of a C-rated skill which I saved up for later. My first instinct was to get more resistance skills like the lightning resistance I’d gained, but I decided that I could maybe get a skill that would solve a problem I’d face in the future instead.

By now I was level fourteen and all of the attribute points I’d gotten were promptly invested into wisdom to further my mana pool. I needed ridiculous amounts of mana for my seed, and putting points into wisdom not only increased my available MP but increased the recovery rate as well. Win-win. At this point, I also saved up fifteen skill points. As for the buyable nodes of the skill tree that made sense, it was either spend twelve points for an attribute bonus or spend all fifteen points for a bigger attribute bonus. Since I was going for as much wisdom as possible, of course, I bought the more expensive one, raising both my intelligence and wisdom by twenty each. Due to my passive bonus, that was raised to forty each.

Eighty attribute points in one fell swoop, what a deal!

With my newly gained strength, I continued on to crater number twelve, hoping to find a damn tree with a fruit. As always, the space in between craters was almost completely empty. Only black rock and the occasional monster few and far in between were visible. I began to resent this boring, lifeless place, longing to return to the lush area inside a crater. I wasn’t entirely sure what it was, but the beauty of these places was just so… captivating.

So it was with great joy when I came close to the next crater, and what a sight for sore eyes it was! The vegetation had made it out of the crater, growing in all directions in an attempt to reclaim the barren wasteland. Compared to the other craters I’d been in, this one was definitely the most beautiful of all. The colors of the flowers, the trees, and the other plants worked together to make what I could only describe as a piece of art. I immediately dove for the ground, landing on the soft grass and looking around at the playful colors all around me.

I slowly crawled forwards, opting to take a leisurely stroll instead of beelining it for the massive tree in the center of the crater. I was so absorbed in my observations that I didn’t notice the monster in front of me until I bumped into it. I got startled and got ready for a fight, but the large cat with visible purple veins only looked at me dumbly, almost staring through me. A fellow enjoyer of the local flora, I see. I left the spaced-out cat well enough alone and continued my stroll through this amazing forest.

I encountered more and more monsters as I went on, it was almost as if the system didn’t have a hold on the monsters’ minds in this place. There were no signs of fighting to be found anywhere, the residents seemingly opting to preserve the thriving nature instead. I came across a bubbling creek noting that several other monsters had made this their resting place, watching a mesmerizing display of a large tree in full bloom. On a whim, I decided to join them, appreciating the landscape with them.

So absorbed in watching the tree I was, that I didn’t notice the roots slowly emerging from the ground, wrapping around the rhino monster somewhere to my right and carefully dragging it underground. It didn’t resist the roots, calmly letting itself be taken away, no doubt to an even more beautiful place.