In front of me, sit a couple of simple but effective wooden devices. I tested them a dozen different ways. I would not call it idiot proof, that was just dumb, but they are simple and reliable. The overall shape can be changed from something like a staff to a shoebox design with little thought on my part, all I need is a few minutes, and they are done. On you go to plant Pando’s seed seeds. I need to come up with an appropriate name for the little guy I brought with me. Just the third generation is already a mouthful, imagine what a single extra generation would cause.

Shaking my head, I come back to the matter at hand. Making a good seed. I have grown hundreds of designs but nothing stands out to me. All of them would work, but none of them hits the mark spot-on. My constant companion was also at a loss given he didn’t understand what was missing.

I come back to the drawing board. What do I want?

A small, and lightweight seed.

A seed that will grow fast

A resilient seed should the conditions not be optimal.

I prefer to maximize the speed with which it spreads its roots, instead of how deep they are.

I have seeds that hit a few of those points, sometimes marvelously. But for each strength, there seems to be a drawback twice as large. With such big shortcomings, they are not worth the trouble.

Like the apple-sized seeds? How many apple-sized seeds someone can carry? A hundred of them would already start to burden them. I wanted something practical that can be included in people’s normal routine, not something that would require a lot of dedicated time and effort. Anyone without an inner world like mine was effectively limited to a couple of pounds before they start to be inconvenienced. So I was reserving those big seeds for myself, and coming up with something else for general use.

As an idea comes to mind. Something that if works, will be perfect. I drop the wooden runic formation in my hands and enter a deep meditative state. I find a spot along with the root network that will facilitate the growth of a new type of seed, and in communion with Pando’s seed, start to work.

I set up a fairly hard shell with plenty of nutrients, about half an inch long and slightly thinner at the middle. With the capabilities I’m endowing to it, breaking the shell will be easy work. Tangled within there are hundreds of feet of the thinnest root I could make, much thinner than even the thinnest roots my companion normally grew. Barely above a human's hair width, I manage to fit in a few strands of about 30 to 40 feet each and a dozen from 2 to 4 feet long.

At the tip of each, a spike and a little contraption use a smidge of mana, and nutrition from the ground to drill through the earth at a quick pace. Everything working properly, on normal soil the full 15-20 meters extension would take about 1 day. When it ended, from each of the tips, new growth would start to happen.

This solved a couple of problems, but another is the question of seeds. I didn’t want it to rely only on growing itself, the capability to reproduce should be available.

No matter how far it was, it would eventually connect to the main collective, but while it didn’t, this would be a much faster way of growing. Especially as the hundredth of a single point of mana stored in it would have long since been used up to speed its initial growth.

The problem is that without interaction with me, the original seed, or a lot of time to grow, trusting it to create new seeds sounded like a bad idea. The solution that just came to me, is to not give it the capability to independently reproduce until much later in life. Which was the normal way things happened. What I did give it were proto seeds.

The same size as apple seeds when fully grown, I could fit thousands of them at the beginning of their formation, and that would mean thousands of growths near wherever they were planted. An hour later we are finished and the final iteration is ready for growth. Well, The launch version of it at least. I could always modify it later.

I get something that checked all the boxes. It had everything I wanted, so I start to grow hundreds of thousands of them throughout my inner world and in a strategic place of the village.

It wouldn’t be very convenient to be digging meters underground just to get a single seed to plant elsewhere. Next, I start on the planting staffs. I could make than in other shapes, but I found that staffs worked well while not being unwieldy. So I stuck with the shape.

Making each one is faster, and faster, but soon I hit a bottleneck. Each one still takes me at least five minutes. So I start trying to make several at the same time. At first, the mental shift is hard, nearly impossible. But I keep trying. And because I’m just making copies, I finally succeed. And even accounting for the rocky start, I manage to finish the first batch of five in only 20 minutes. Faster than doing them one by one.

Next, I attempt to increase the number, but more than 6 is impossible for me at the moment. So I go back to five while focusing on making the move as natural for me as possible. By the end, I’m forming the runes in less than 10 minutes. That is 30 staffs each hour with a minute or two of rest.

In the next four hours, I make 100 staffs.

As the night is coming close to an end, I find a good spot near my favorite tree in the village to sleep. Barely conscious, all around me I feel as my companion starts to grow a protective cocoon. He is gaining more awareness, which is good.

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I wake feeling much more refreshed. Even before I open my eyes, I can feel the giant cocoon Pando’s seed grew around me through my new sense. The perception field was now nearly permanently up. Light from the sun just started to peek through the sky, but it is mostly blocked by the branches around me. There are so many amazing things to do today.

I get up and skip in my step. My mental focus goes to forming the battery as was my usual task when I wasn’t doing anything too mentally extraneous.

It takes me a minute to notice my side is bothering much less than usual, and after a peek I notice the tissues started to bond together. With a big grin on my face, I hurry to the doctor's building beside where I slept that first night.

As I get there, there is none besides the very doctor in his office. As far as I can tell just attending a shift. Not because it was an important take to warm the chair, but because people would know where to head in case of emergencies.

In this new order much had changed, but there were reasons for some of the things back on Earth being the way they were. Slowly the village was adopting some of the old habits back.

I feel as he tries to manipulate mana through a water rune. At least he is not wasting the time here, though he is having trouble with even this simple exercise. That was the main reason we didn’t have any more mages. There were plenty of people trying, and most that dedicated the time could easily throw a fireball or two. But some people seemed to have an advantage that their previous beliefs and ways of thinking helped immensely in manipulating mana.

In my best guess, this distance would shrink by the day, but for now, we had less than 30 proper mages and about 100 people that put in enough time that they could reliably use a fireball in combat. Before heading in, I send a tendril of Aether and try to help him for a few moments. I soon stop, but even this small action might shorten the time he needs a little, and so I’m glad for it.

I enter the office, and he instantly stops. With a mix of happiness and concern somehow mixed in his voice he asks:

“Hi Nash, are you feeling alright?”

“Yeah, healing up nicely. I wanted to see about removing the stitches.”

“Are you sure? You barely survived after a very serious injury. Probably the most serious case to survive in our village. The system is still too new, so we don't know how stuff that serious will work.”

“Yeah, I’m sure.”

“Ok,” he says still sounding unsure, but he guides me to the operating room in between the office and the recovery room. “Just lay here, and I will take a look in a moment.”

I head to where he indicated with help from my roots and uncover most of my chest and abdomen to give him a good look and space to work. The nurse on shift arrives and asks the doctor.

“You asked for me?”

“Yes, help me take the stitches from Nash, It won't take long.”

“Ok, just make sure the comm system is online if we need to call for help.”

“Already did.”

The next few minutes are a little uncomfortable but nothing overwhelming. I take one of the healing potions as I leave to speed things along. Moving as little as possible, though I’m actually feeling better than in days, I go back to the cocoon and lay meditating until about noon.

I feel no pain from my side when I come to, as it should be, but I’m not going to abuse. I feel ready to start walking slowly again. I make the superstructure on my smaller root armor even lighter and more flexible. It supports most of my weight and I can easily walk around with its help. This is exactly what I do, relishing the feeling of actual movement, instead of the facsimile I achieved while simply laying in my “motorized bed” the last couple of days.

Now was the time to head for the smithy. There was far too much I wanted to discuss with Blackwood, chief amongst, the fact I eventually could be in my house and still help him forge the +5 swords.

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The wind blew, and the first rays of sunshine hit the leaves atop my trees. It was time again for the trial of the system. What enemies and how many would show up was still unknown. But what I knew is that it would be at least as hard as the one before.

I stare at the strange contraptions I have assembled. My friend would have been impressed.

A few of the trees closest to the middle of the forest have been changed. They can now move much faster than before. Their main advantage is the tips of their limbs. They are now embedded with the strange implements of the invaders.

I doubt I have figured out their full use, but this strange new resource is now much more economic. At least when I’m using this new fangled ‘MANA’ to make fire. It was a good defense against the invaders.

If they arrive at the core of the grove, they will find a nice surprise waiting for them. In the last attacks they have managed to penetrate deeply my territory, but depending on the goals and specific strategies they adopt, along with how I chose to handle them, how deep they get varies a lot.

Still, the main way they could harm the grove would be to finish off the offspring of the moving beings hidden in the middle of the grove. The very reason I focused most of the defenses there.

Higher thoughts halt, as I feel on the furthest edges of my domain someone coming. This is different. A single being approaches this time. A lithe and slender being that moves on two appendices, similar to my friend, except even taller and thinner.

Around him, I feel a familiar aura. Something that reminds me of my friend. Leaves shake at the thought, at the strong reminder, but I file the thoughts away for later. A closer look at this reveals why I was still so much apprehensive. It’s not just about the curious time. The smidges of Aether and vigor escaping from this new enemy tells a very distinct story. I taste each of them trying to discern even the smallest of flavors.

He came to bring me down. Why and how is irrelevant. It doesn’t change his hostile intentions. He is not a friend to the grove. I get ready and wait for his next actions.

He tries to connect with me using the new resource, gently at first. Just a sliver of ‘MANA’ that brushes against my smaller saplings. It’s strange almost losing control of my own body, even just a small portion of it.

Curious, more than afraid, I take full control of the mana that entered me. I quickly send it to an Isolated place away from him. I will analyze it later, to see if it has any useful properties and if I can replicate it. Through the strange sense that permeates the entire forest, though I found out I’m the only being around with this sense, I see the startled being jump and take a couple of steps back.

If you just mind your own business you would have nothing to be startled about.

Now alert and much more aware of what is happening around him, I feel as tendrils from outside my domain start to extend towards him. Remembering about it, I try using the strange skill the system has provided me, and identify this new being. After a couple of attempts, the only discernable thing I can find is:

$*(##*&( Elf &¨*#@*()&$#*&

Elf. I roll the strange word around my mind and try to make sense of it. What happens next, drags my attention back to him as all my senses scream. Absolutely nothing else matters. More mana than I ever felt from an enemy invades me. The strange sensation of losing control of pieces of me tries to overwhelm me, but I don’t let it.

I try to take control back, and I can fight it, but even my best efforts do little more than slow them down. I keep trying different things with most of my attention, while another part focuses on what I already know works. I pull the mana from the grasp of these hostile beings. It’s not a fast process, and I can only pull so fast, much slower compared to what so many of them can put out at the same time.

Let’s hope their mana reserves are limited like all the other enemies to this point.

I think over how to eliminate the Elf that is wielding all this mana. But with my roots and branches, I can do nothing so close to him. He simply takes control of them.

Even with the massive amount of mana, he has no chance to take control of the whole grove if I understand how this works, but he is more than capable of stoping any of my limbs within a young tree length around him.

A small pack of the strongest wolves gets to him. Surrounding him most of the rest of the defenders start to accumulate, but only the 50 or so wolves join the fight to deal with this single enemy.

The results are wildly different from my expectation. He protects himself with my own roots, and while the wolves are confused for a moment, they continue trying to eliminate him.

My actions are however different. I wanted to save the bulk of my mana for later, but I know enough of how to use fire that I can attack him even without the implements on the middle of the grove. More mana than I ever wielded at a time, pools near him for a singular purpose. And I make all around him burn. It doesn’t start too strong, and so, the defenders of the forest drawback being only singed in the process.

The fires burn ever hotter until they become so hot the very even stones under his feet melt. He tries to run but is not successful as I move the focus of the fire around. A line of glass covers the ground as e collapses and the strange Aether interaction that signifies his death comes, and I instantly stop.

All the trees close to the focus of the fire are hurt, but it was needed. I look and find I only have a little more than half of my mana pool.

I despair at the thought of having to deal high more of these creatures before the day is over. As the trees and surroundings cool of, and I take full control of my roots again, I send the barest of slivers of mana to them, just enough so they will be able to move again after having been burnt so deeply.

The only thing that survived, is the strange metal implemented in the hand of this enemy. Being able to survive after that fire must mean it’s valuable. And so I will study it and the new type of mana I found.

They are bound to be useful.

For now, however, my focus is on the attacks today.

Vigilance, recovery, wait.

Vigilance, recovery, wait.

Vigilance, recovery, wait.