After the newest development, I simply cannot leave this for later. Goblins in the HLZ. Even if before they didn’t care much about my intrusions, now… they were taking it a little more seriously.

The hours pass in the afternoon as I madly prepare. I call every single one of the avatars and all the seeds mature enough to understand what I was telling them.

“This will be a dangerous task and if I don’t pull your core seed back in time, you may die. Any volunteers?”

At first, just about every single one of the seeds piloting avatars raise their hands, but after explaining in minute detail the dangers, only three quarters keep their hands up, so I chose 10 to head over. Most of the others sit and connect to Aspen driving and using the main mana battery liberally to expand our area. Given their protonic and very rough control of Mana, I nearly call them off, but if they never start they will never learn. Their straight line speed of growth is not that impressive, but the sheer number of tendrils the entire group can grow covers a lot of area quickly. That is not a capability that I can refuse.

Ohh, my twenty million mana in the main battery of the inner world, how fast will you be gone?

If before I was exporting loads of mana that I simply didn’t have enough storage for with the ever expanding number of colonies in the inner world, now things are likely to change if I keep this exercise for any amount of time.

Ten root bodies sit on the ground, simultaneously grown with an abundance of Qi, though I take my time to make each Brain individually.

Deeply connecting to the seed and the consciousness tied to it, I transfer them over the network to another identical seed in the middle of another brain. That single action that is essential for my plans is successful. One by one they get up and explore the surroundings.

What I just did ought to have sent out a signal throughout the HLZ Area, but no beast, goblin or even a scout shows up.

I grow cameras and life force sensors in the region. The beasts and HLZ inhabitants seem to be able to sense them so I usually don’t rely on them simply staking over the territory, but they are a nice addition for now.

Each second a near complete mesh with so many tendrils that it nearly boggles my mind extending outward even faster than I expected. Each of the root avatars runs in circles shooting hundreds of seeds all with plenty of mana and the team with about seeds is masterfully directed by Aspen in connecting up everything on the ground. Like bacteria growing in a petri dish, we take over territory seemingly at an exponential rate.

An hour after we get to full steam, everything in less than 3 kilometers of the center is part of my territory. 2 hours and everything less than 5 kilometers as I begin to run into spots that were the territory of beasts, but before I hit 6 kilometers, it all comes grinding o a halt.

Out of nowhere, an attack comes obliterating one of my avatars.

I instantly call out the other 9 seed controlled avatars and they drop to the ground. Pulling their consciousness roughly towards safety, only their bodies remain. Then I head for the injured one.

I focus my perception field and find half of his head that was blown off, but the main seed is intact.

Excitement wafted off him hiding a hint of fear just as I pull his consciousness underground. Moments later, entire swathes of the network go dark.

That should be impossible.

But even as the thought crosses my mind, I realize what happened. Gigantic attacks like the mana blade target all plant matter along lines. It takes me a moment to reacquaint myself with the whole place given the distance and relatively narrow bandwidth from hundreds of miles away.

The mental map comes back fully into place and I see that the damage is worse than I imagined. I only managed to keep most of the area connected through sheer redundancy and the few roots deeper underground, some of which are more than 50 meters underground, but they are the exception.

I move my perception field out taking in the hundreds of goblins and several types marching forward in a circle around the entire place. About a third of them focus on a spot that was there for months trying to simply sever the ten kilometer long tendril reaching into the HLZ.

Just about every single one of them is a common fighter, not a single shaman or higher leveled enemy, but they can use this cursed skill. With their main troops all level 100+, their extra skills and stat advantage are annoying, but this mana slash is the worse. Not because of the distance or damage, but the capacity to partially bypass meters of Earth and focus their power on the living targets underground.

The only slight upside is that the dirt did consume a lot of the power of their blows and they managed to cut the thinnest roots deeper underground. They could cause havoc in the village if they attacked now. Attacks targeting only living things bypassing the walls are a nightmare fueling situation. Even the squishiest of mages had both mana shields and at around 20 points of vitality that made their skin more resilient than normal wood, let alone the supple green roots they are severing, but being attacked when you were not expecting… that is dangerous.

I should take this opportunity to test the limits of their skills, and how to not only defend against it but make parts of the network invisible to them. After all, it is not like each of them was a druid that could connect to nature and sense at least some distance from them.

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

Eager Goblin’s POV.

“This is your fault.” Screams out the underchief right in my face and I retreat to the corner of the war council room.

“Don’t be stupid.” The Arch Shaman chides him. “Just because he brought a giant seed and though it was sent by the spirits, doesn’t mean he is in collusion with whoever is out there. He hasn’t done anything to help the invader. All it means is that he is kinda stupid.”

I swallow a dry lump, already knowing that I will get a few knocks on my head from the underchief for having incited the shaman to call him stupid. Godammit, I appreciate the intent, but why do the big ones always make things worse for me?

“He is just a burden. His malformed and dwarfish body makes him all but useless. Even you kicked him from your apprenticeship because he has no talent to communicate with the spirits.”

Come, no fair, they don’t want to talk to me and I’m not malformed, I’m just…. small… and weak.

I take painstaking efforts to not say that aloud or even show it in my face. That would make things even worse.

The underchief moves to kick me out and I don’t make a fuss, but right that instant the actual chief shows up and he holds himself back. After all, even if I’m nearly useless, mistreating me too much would just worsen my job performance and the chief is not keen on that.

I think to force the issue after the chief has shown up and for once in my life show some spine, but as I stretch my arms back at shoulder height, the result tells informs my decision. My very bones almost bend and my joints nearly pop out of place as I touch my elbows together. A lot farther than even full dexterity build warriors could do, but a sign of my weakness and strengths.

I will not survive playing by their rules, I just need to be like a bamboo shoot and bend with the wind instead of trying to stand for that is my strength. Flexibility. Although they were right that the seed didn't come from the spirits, they are the stupid ones for not seeing its majesty.

A pang of fear as the ruthless eye in the sky senses my thoughts, but unlike the slow change and adaptation of a few moments ago, I meet the wave and fully comply in an instant, becoming the shape I need for that brief interaction.

Nigh infinite flexibility.

Weezing and shaking on my simple walk away from the hut becomes a spectacle. A few goblins poke their heads out as stare at me with a mixture of disgust and pity seasoned with a smidge of fear. How little do they know, if they knew that I stand against the orders on the eye in the sky this effortlessly… They can only dream of doing that, for their heart would stop and their bones be broken if they dared to not fold immediately.

I get to my home, the smallest and crappiest one in the whole village, a dilapidated mud hut that no female gobbling would be caught in even if I managed to drag one inside with my weak arms. Even if I had the strength to take one inside by force, they would care little for dishonor and would willingly enter the hut of any warrior in the middle of the night until they found one that didn't kick them out or slit their own throats if no one else wanted them.

But that is my lot in life, at least I have a little friend. I pull my cot and look underneath it. The same seed I was supposed to bash into a pulp.

I did bash, spending days grinding a similarly colored nut that I stole from the food stores and after presenting the proof of my work, I gorged on the delicious nut flour. I now knew that it didn’t come from any god or spirit, but as I touch it and send nature mana through it, a large network comes to my mind growing ever so slightly.

For all their vaunted wisdom the shamans didn’t really know much. Were they even telling the truth about the spirits talking to them? If the ruthless eye in the sky didn’t tell them of the incursions in the HLZ, they wouldn’t know jack.

“There you are.” A voice calls out from behind me.

Shit, shit, shit.

I shrink in instinct fear, though luckily my body blocks the seed, and the narrow opening of the door blocks any other angle. He can’t even enter my hut without pretty much crawling, nor stand in the 5 foot tall ceiling.

I exaggerate my trembling and pull my bed covers to the side hiding my little secret.

“What are you doing?”

“I’m just praying for the spirits to forgive me.”

“Uhh, you can’t talk to them, you useless piece of garbage, I’m just waiting for the day the chief will realize that your work is not even worth your food allotment and the meager work you do.” I see in his eye that while he doesn’t want to enter, even a thick skull like him managed to see I was hiding something.

He feigns disinterest as he talks, loving the sound of his own voice, but for all his vaunted strength, anyone with half a brain would know that he barely has the wits of a bird. The purposeful way he doesn’t look at what is behind me is so obvious that I don’t even have to look at him to KNOW with certainty that the jig is up.

I let his feigned dismissal drop my shoulders slightly and relax my whole body. His smile is confirmation I don’t need. He walks away without another word and I pretend to simply lean against the outside of my house.

My mind however is moving faster than ever.

No, no, no, what the hell I’m going to do?

He disappears around the corner and I turn my head so I can keep a lookout. A few seconds later he peeks back at me, but I’m languishing there looking at him from the corner of my eye. As soon as he is out of view a second time, the plan coalesces in my mind.

Bag, food, my weapon as useless as it will be and finally the seed. I reach and try to yank it from the ground, smaller as it may be after growing so much, but it is firmly attached to the ground. I send my mana pushing and pulling but nothing succeeds until I send a plea its way. Though it doesn’t answer with words or even impressions, it disconnects from the ground.

I cover the small hole in the ground and try to pack dirt on the off chance that it will delay them another few minutes. I walk out seeing a pair of other goblins. Low on the totem pole, but nobody was lower than me, not even the females.

I stroll and sing in my out of tune voice.

“Patrolling again. Bloody patrolling again. Working all day and night long….”

They chuckle at me I round the corner in the opposite direction to where the underchief headed off. Seeing no one else, I take off in a jog. I may be physically weak, but at least my stamina is up to snuff, I almost reach the average.

For the hundredth time, I set out from the village, though for the first time I know I won't be back one way or another, at least not alive.