Claff
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Chapter 10
🕑 Added 2025-01-13 03:00:26 +0000 UTCWow. This might take a while.
My root system had grown to be massive over the last few months. I now took up around a 28-foot radius around me underground. The roots closer to my trunk were decently thick, at around 2 inches on average. The farthest roots were little baby hairs though. They still worked great to absorb nutrients and water, but it felt much weirder having my mind extend through them. It felt like I did back when I was first starting in this world: small.
I tried spreading my mind out evenly at first, but time seemed to flow very differently like that. Two days passed before I was able to bring my mind back to being concentrated in one area again. It was both extremely relaxing and scary at the same time.
When my mind was back to being concentrated in the base of my trunk, I started to extend a small tentacle of thought down one of the 3 main roots I had rather than all 3 at once.
It was a lot less freakish this way, in my opinion. I was able to keep a measure what was going on both above and below the ground, which was good progress compared to before where it felt like I was on a bad shroom trip in my old body.
Using this manner of thought extension, I was able to get a good feel for how my roots worked. They seemed to be aiming for the soil richest in nutrients around me, but since I happened to be growing in some pretty great dirt, they were evenly spread. I guess I had some sway on the matter when I was focusing on growing my roots out before though. Now they just go to the best dirt they can find.
I sunk my mind a bit deeper into the third of the root system I was looking at. I was trying to get a better view of the process and see if there were any inefficiencies I might be able to shore up.
It took me a few days to realize it, but while I was watching my bottom half, it seemed to be much more productive than when I was focused solely on my top half. I only saw it when I was splitting my focus as a butterfly flew by. The sap seemed to flow faster and easier wherever my mind was focused.
I tried the trick of spreading my mind out through my root system again, but limited myself to a radius of 10 feet from the base of my trunk instead of the full 28 feet. The end result was so incredibly better that I barely even noticed a difference in the passage of time.
I stayed like this for 2 full weeks, just watching my body work. I tweaked a little thing here and a little thing there, until I was eventually at double the energy production efficiency I was at before. It was beautiful, and I even earned a skill for it.
Through hard work and plenty of corrections, you have earned the skill [Improved Digestion(U)]!
Not at all what I thought I’d be getting, but I guess it seems to do what I was hoping for, so I guess that counts for something.
I pulled up the skill description to check it out.
Improved Digestion (U): Passive. User absorbs nutrients much faster, greatly increasing resource pool regeneration.
I like the sound of that! I wonder what the result would be if I upgraded it during my next level?
The thought of having unlimited Stamina to grow rapidly with was amazing, but I had to cool myself. I spent too much time focused below ground that I haven’t checked above ground in a while. Not that I was expecting any visitors, but it’d be fun to mess with Club and Dagger again.
I brought my mind out of my roots and took a look around myself. The grass blew in the wind, the Sun was bright and shining on my canopy, there were no Ants in sight. All was good in the world.
I decided to give spreading my mind throughout my entire body another try. While it made time feel different, I thought I could actually get used to the idea of spending some time like that.
I slowly spread my thoughts all throughout my canopy instead of just letting my mind rest in the base of my trunk. I felt the different branches basically drink in my existence as I spread out. It felt a lot like putting pants on after a while of going commando.
This was different to what I usually did, given that I mostly kept myself in the trunk. I used to only send a small tendril of thought down the branches to control the vines as I wished, but now, I felt every last piece of bark, every leaf on my branches, every twig sticking out at seemingly random places.
Now that I was stretching out, I could actually tell why the branch grew the way it did. It was to maximize the collection of sunlight and also resided in a spot that angled off in an odd way in my body. This little twig would become a new main branch, given the chance to grow. It would add to my collection, bringing me up to 5 main branches, though this would take a few weeks to grow fully. I could pump the growth speed up with some Rapid Growth skill usage, but I wanted this one to grow naturally.
With all my thoughts on increasing my Stamina Regeneration, I never thought about what I’d do with all the extra I now had. I planned on bringing out my roots a few more feet to even it out to a flat 30-foot radius, but after spending so much time down there, I feel like it would be best to let myself grow naturally for a awhile.
Most trees don’t usually grow 15 feet in a single year. At least, it’s been a year by my estimation. I hadn’t really been able to keep track all that well, between passing out so many times before being able to stay awake during the night, and all the time I’ve spent Sunbathing.
Wait, you’re getting distracted. Back to the point of what to do with my extra Resources.
Can I store excess Stamina in my body for later use? How would that even work? Could I do the same with Health? What about Mana?
I thought about the idea of what Stamina felt like to me. I activated Rapid Growth, focusing on the feeling of Stamina leaving my body. I set it to the lowest setting I had to prolong my experiment.
The feeling was both warm and cold mixed together to create an equilibrium. The cold was alertness. It kept me awake during the times that I would have otherwise passed out. The warmth was the feeling of a long day at work. I could feel the energy flowing through my body the same way it used to through my arms and legs when I was human, but so much more intense.
I ended the skill, but kept the feeling of Stamina firmly in the front of my mind.
Stamina gave me the feeling of a very bright Yellow. The color of the sun. The color of energy. It brought a bit of a sour taste to my mind, but I didn’t have tastebuds to really enjoy it though.
I sent that feeling toward one of my vines. I condensed the Stamina down into one little bubble on a leaf. This caused the leaf to change from the deep green color of the rest of them to a bright yellow. It was the yellow I had envisioned on my mind as I moved more Stamina into the leaf.
The yellow leaf started to coalesce into a little berry. It looked like a yellow grape.
When the little berry started to feel too full of energy, I stopped the flow of Stamina into it. I checked my pool and saw the whole experiment only cost 1% of my Stamina, and that was quickly replenished.
New skill [Resource Berry(R)] has been learned!
That sounds about right.
