Author’s Corner: Since the pre-poll question became so popular, I decided to go ahead and include the poll in this chapter, but give it 2 days to run. That said, it does not mean he’ll learn his next magic in 3 chapters, just that it will already be decided on by then! As always, the flow of the story is something that comes as it comes.

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The rest of the day was spent cultivating my Plant Affinity in the room I had rented. Surprisingly, this affinity was increasing faster than either my Wind Affinity or Earth Affinity had, but that was likely thanks to the elven village being made entirely out of plants. Long story short, I managed to get 5% affinity before dinner, and received a lovely ability to go with it.

New Ability Unlocked!Plant Manipulation - Plant Affinity - ★

Through the use of your mana, you are able to manipulate the shape of various plants, as well as their traits. With sufficient mana, it is possible to induce rapid growth in plants as well.

Congratulations! You qualify for a druid Sub-Class!Plantshaper

Those who are able to become one with plants, and adopt their most dangerous aspects, can be just as deadly as any monster. Though able to recreate the effects of near any plant, they must first study it.

Advanced Class path: Plant Lord, able to shed the flesh and become a plant, or manipulate other plants with but a thought.Do you wish to accept? Y/N

Again, I quickly selected no. I didn’t want to become a Plant Lord, but a Xeno-Shifter. They seemed pretty different to me, as one dealt with plants whilst the other dealt with sentient species. I shuddered again as I thought about what I’d need to do to get that Sub-Class.

For some reason, the game decided that Plant Affinity would start out as a full star rank, rather than half star. Maybe if had extra potency since it relied on there actually being a plant to control? Either way, it was getting to be time for dinner, so I pulled the brown orange(I really need to find out what this thing is called or I’ll go crazy from thinking about colors) and studied it. Deciding to immediately test out my new ability, I focused on the fruit in my hand, and gently pulled the seeds out of it.

Within moment, six tiny seeds fell out from the bottom of the fruit and into my hand. I smiled in satisfaction, before willing the skin to peel itself from the fruit. I was a bit surprised this worked to be honest, but again, moments later the thick skin of the whatchamafruit was peeled. If not for my previous inspection with my mana, I’d be worried that this might not be safe to eat. However, I knew, therefore I shrugged and took a bite of it.

…

This just should not be possible… I was frozen in place after that first bite. Not because of a status effect or anything, just yet another of this world’s surprises. How can it taste like chocolate!?

I was now determined to do everything in my power to bring this miraculous chocolate orange to the real world. I mean, come on! It’s chocolate that is actually good for you! My eyes looked down to the six seeds I had extracted from the fruit, causing me to grin broadly. Now I just had to figure out how to create these seeds from others in order to make it work.

Looking over to my birds, Yin and Yang, I noticed that Yang was moping a bit. Yin, however, seemed to be puffing her chest out and boasting. If I had to guess, Yin was the one that brought me the chocolate orange. Reaching over to pet her head to congratulate her, I then tried to communicate that I wanted more apples and chocolate oranges. They seemed to be learning fairly well, or just were able to understand from the bond we had, because they immediately flew off through a hole in the wall that served as a window.

About half an hour later, they returned. Yin was carrying three chocolate oranges in her tail feathers, while Yang was carrying three apples. Using the same trick I had tried on the previous chocolate orange, I first extracted all of the seeds from each fruit. Then, I carefully analyzed each with my mana.

My ability said that I could alter the traits of a plant, but how far does that go? My first test was with the seeds. Using a chocolate orange seed, since they produced six seeds rather than the five from apples, I tried to shift its mana to match the patterns of the apple seeds. This was the same type of magic that I used to grant myself bird wings, but used on the seeds rather than myself.

I was surprised to find that it took a full 50 mana to initiate the change, even with my Plant Manipulation skill. However, soon enough the seed looked perfectly identical to one of the apple seeds. Smiling, I then reversed the process, spending another 50 mana to turn it back into a chocolate orange seed.

My next test, of course, was changing an entire apple into a chocolate orange. For this, I spent a full hour studying the little intricacies of the brown fruit, before getting to work. Thankfully by that time my mana had already recovered, because it took 350 mana just to change one apple into a chocolate orange. I was getting increasingly worried as I kept pushing more and more mana into the fruit, waiting for it to show signs of change. However, once I passed that 350 threshold, it had begun.

The red skin of the apple turned brown, and began to thicken. Next came the shape as it became more spherical. I made sure to keep the transformations going until it almost perfectly matched the chocolate orange I studied previously. Now, came the final test…

Since I was already nearly out of mana, I grabbed my Chain Dagger and used it to cut the skin off the chocolate orange manually. With a bit of hesitation, I slowly took a bite of my experimental fruit. I can’t say that it was a complete success, because I still tasted a bit of the apple from before. However, that didn’t exactly make it bad. It was like an apple infused with chocolatey goodness.

At this point, I had decided that I would plant a chocolate orange tree in my yard in the real world. While it was possible to change them one fruit at a time, I wasn’t sure how effective it would be outside of the game. Since the mana concentration was thinner outside, it might mean that it takes more magic to do things, or even that I would recover mana more slowly.

Still, I was very happy with my find. If only there was some way I could create these from the seeds. But naturally, in order to get the fruit from the seed, I’d need to turn it into a tree first. And there was really no way I could carry a tree around with me, right..?

I tried thinking about it logically. If I was able to turn partially into a plant, I could then theoretically grow the fruits out of my own body. However, wouldn’t I need to use just as much, if not more energy to create the fruit then I would get back by eating it? Still, the idea of turning partially into a plant did make me think about something. I’d need to try it out once I got out of the forest.

After finishing my delicious dinner, I laid back and allowed myself to sleep for the night. I still had business to attend to tomorrow, and then I’d head back to the grove to finish my training. Too bad I didn’t study that snake after I killed it. That thing had some pretty powerful muscles, and the ability to contort my body like a snake would have been nice.

Despite those thoughts, I did not entertain the possibility of hunting down another one, if simply because it hurt enough to kill the first snake. I did, however, think back to my former dream of plant-based arrows after I woke up. But in order to make it work, I’d need to study different plants with particular characteristics.

First, I’d need a vine that grows rapidly, at least enough to be a meter long within a week. Then, I’d need something that was able to produce large quantities of seeds. Next, I’d need something like bamboo, that would be a long, sturdy plant. What else… I’d need something with thorns to use as the arrowhead. And ideally, throw in a poison as well. Combine all those plants together and I’d get the perfect plant arrow. Sadly, the only part of that I had so far was the poisons, but I at least had magic that would let me create the arrows once I found the components I needed.

After holding my morning internal monologue, I had an apple for breakfast, as well as a glass of water provided by the inn. With that taken care of, I left for Harlan’s store. I wanted that armor for a couple reasons. One, obviously because it’s freaking armor. And two, it’s armor made from an animal, meaning I should be able to copy it.

By the time I was there, he was already waiting for me. “Ah, there you are. Just had the finished product brought in a few minutes ago. Come, take a look!” He grinned as he led me to the back again. Rather than the giant snake I left there the night before, there was now an armor stand, with a complete set of green scaled armor on it.

The chest armor was large, easily a size bigger than me, but had a hood that came up to cover the head. Its sleeves only went down to just before the elbow, but after that was a pair of bracers that left barely any skin exposed and went all the way to the hands. There were five holes for me to slide my fingers through, making them easy and comfortable to wear. For the pants, they went all the way down to just above my ankles, where the boots filled in the rest. Like the chest, the entire thing was a size too large, which had me curious.

Nonetheless, I tried it on. It was surprisingly comfortable, as the inside of the armor was padded with what felt like cotton. As each part came on, it shifted slightly, resizing to match my body. By the time I had the full suit on, it felt like it was made exactly for me. And, to be fair, it was. “This works great, Harlan. Thanks.” I smiled to the shopkeeper, who nodded happily.

“Anything for a paying customer. Be sure to bring in any more unusual items you find and I’ll give you a good deal.”

I nodded to him, saying my thanks once again before leaving. Jacobs said he’d be in town today, but before I bother him to see if this can be enchanted anymore, I wanted to see about copying the armor scales. I figured the more changes were made to it, the harder it’d be to copy.

Since I already had the scales ‘isolated’ from the rest of the snake, it was a simple matter to memorize their mana patterns. From there I did the same thing I had done with the wings, and applied it across my skin, making sure to resize it so that I wasn’t crushed by suddenly smaller skin.

The sensation was a bit different this time, as I felt my skin forming the scales all along me. To be honest, it felt like my whole body had ‘sweated’ the scales out. It wasn’t painful… just strange. And when I looked at the result, I was very surprised to find that the armor I was wearing had actually merged with my body, rather than having me wear two layers of scales.

New Spell Unlocked!Aspect of the Armored Beast - Nature Magic - ★★

By studying the various skins of armored beasts, you are able to apply those effects to your own body, increasing your skin's durability. Be warned, this spell will drastically alter your appearance.

Mana Cost: 150

In a moment of panic, I hastily dismissed the spell, afraid that my armor may have been lost in the process. Thankfully, it appeared on me as normal when I was once again a half-elf. Curious, I decided to create my wings with Aspect of the Bird again. As I did so, narrow slits opened in the back of my armor to let the wings through. So… the enchantment to make the armor fit my form.. I guess that meant when I took a form based on the armor, it combined with me? And since it didn’t lose the shaping enchantment, it doesn’t lose them during the process… that’ll be fun to experiment with.

I grinned a bit more before contacting Jacobs. “Hey man, just got the armor, you available to give it a look?”

When he agreed, we decided to meet at the edge of town. Not because this was any big secret, but because we didn’t want to be in everyone’s way while enchanting things. While walking, I did a little experiment with my affinity cultivation. I was quite easily able to maintain one type of cultivation while walking, so long as I paid attention to it. When I tried to cultivate both Earth and Wind Affinities, it became somewhat difficult to focus on where I was going. Once I added Plant Affinity to the mix, I started tripping over every root and obstacle in my path. So, I decided to focus on cultivating Wind Affinity for now, and work on the other two once I was back in the grove.

Roughly ten minutes after I arrived, Jacobs got there and took a look at my armor. “Very nice, definitely going to protect you better than that outfit did.” He smirked, before giving it a more detailed look. “I should be able to enchant it, but it’s already got one set enchantment on it. So, it can only hold one more low quality enchantment. I can either enchant each piece individually, or enchant it as an entire set like what was done with the other one.” I knew he was talking about the ‘form fitting’ enchantment.

“Pros and cons?” I asked simply.

“Well, getting each piece done individually means you can have various different effects. However, if I enchant it all together as a set item, then you’ll need to wear the entire set to get an effect, but the effect will be significantly stronger than the sum of its parts.”

“Let’s go with a set, then. What kind of enchantments can you put on it?”

He nodded, and put his hand on the chest armor. “It seems to resonate with strength the most out of the types of enchantments I know. Also dexterity, but not to the same degree. Those would be the strongest enchantments I can put on this kind of material right now.”

I thought about it, but it wasn’t a very difficult decision. “Let’s go with dexterity then. I’m not a strength build by any definition, but dexterity will help me with any number of things.”

He nodded again, and had me take the armor off so he could work with it. Thankfully, I was still wearing my beginner outfit under it. Then, he laid the entire set on the ground, making sure to place them in the pattern as if they were being worn. After using his staff to draw a circle around the armor set, he again began tracing magical runes. Though, this time they were in the air above the armor, and he traced the same pattern roughly. Around the eight time he traced it, he furrowed his brows, and the black gem on his staff began glowing. Once done, he let out a sigh and let me put the armor back on.

After I had the full suit of armor on, I was surprised to find that my dexterity had increased by a full 30 points thanks to this armor buff. “Wow… thanks.” I smiled wide, and decided to use my new spell to once again become one with the armor. Still investigating my stats, I was happy to see that the buff remained. When I shifted back, I noticed that Jacobs was standing there looking rather surprised by my previous performance. Maybe my face changes when I shift?

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This is roughly what his face looks like when shifted into his scale form, except green, smaller scales, and without the glowing blue eyes.

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