Thankfully Tane managed to pick up Mana Barrier pretty quickly so I left them to practice their new magic while I went back to building the longhouse that I had been working on. Eventually Tane decided that they’d had enough and asked whether they could help me out. At first, I just asked Tane to help the scorpion hold the various pieces of the longhouse but that changed when Tane discovered that I was using wood that had originally be a part of their main body.

We had been planning on working out whether Tane could use an ability similar to my Nature Shaping Skills later that night but when Tane came into contact with the wood their new body froze. After a few seconds, the tree turned Ent-thing turned towards me and said that they were fairly sure that they could manipulate this wood like they could with their new body.

This was actually quite a relief to me since I had left things quite late when it came to building the longhouses. I immediately grabbed another piece of wood that wasn’t from Tane’s main body and asked if they thought that they could manipulate that as well but Tane had shaken their head in a way that they must have learnt from watching me before replying that they didn’t think that they could.

However, this did mean that Tane could help much more with making the longhouses than we had previously thought. We managed to get the longhouse that I had started before Tane had woken up done before I decided to call it a day which I was quite happy about. While we had been working on the longhouses the Gel Colony and Dragonfly had also been hard at work. Now that the Gel had evolved again it and the Dragonfly were more than capable of hunting the Bugs on their own, so we now had a small stock of meat that was beginning to build up. It wouldn’t last us long after the Yajash arrived but hopefully they would have at least some supplies of their own as well as some people who were healthy enough to hunt or forage on their own.

Tane settled in to ask their usual barrage of questions while I cooked my dinner ranging from a detailed of explanation of everything that had happened while the tree had been dormant to more questions about how magic worked. While Tae had been mostly aware of things that were happening close to their main body the further away things were the harder it was for the tree to detect so Tane had missed most of the fight with the Scaled Gorillas and Crawlers the other day.

The I started asking my friend some questions of my own. Starting with the name of the Skill that had given them their new body. Tane then excitedly explained that the new Skill was called Treant Form and according to Tane this was the smallest form that they could take using the Skill which Tane had enough MP regen to use constantly. However, Tane could increase the amount of Mana that they were using which would increase the form’s size and its physical Stats. Tane explained that using the maximum amount of Mana would allow them to take on monsters that the tree normally wouldn’t even be able to ward off with its telepathic abilities. At least for a couple of minutes and then the tree would run out of Mana completely and fall dormant for an indeterminate length of time.

Tane also had a several other Skills which were just as if not more useful that allowed them to boost the Stats of anything within 2 metres by a certain amount. While these Skills might not be as useful as the tree’s ability to massively increase the Stats of its new body at the moment, they would be far more useful once the Yajash got here.

We continued to chat for a couple of hours once I had finished dinner before I decided that it was time for me to go to bed. Tane was a bit disappointed by this at first since the tree had basically been sleeping for a week and was looking forward to actually doing something now that they had a body of their own so I suggested that Tane could spend some time making pieces for more longhouses which was an idea that the tree seemed to like.

The following morning when I woke up, I was surprised to see that Tane seemed to have spent most of the night making pieces for more longhouses before running out of wood and calling it quits. Sensing that I was up and about Tane’s Treant body which was sitting down next to the results of their labour stood up.

“Morning Tane,” I greeted my friend. “I see you got quite a bit of work done last night.”

“Yeah,” Tane agreed. “I used up the rest of that branch that broke off my main body a while back. Hopefully, we can use all of the pieces that I made will be useful to you.”

“I’m sure they will be Tane,” I chuckled. “Even if we have to change them to something else you still saved me a bit of time. Now just let me make something to eat and we can take a look.”

“Alright, I do have a few questions if that’s okay?” Tane asked.

“Sure, that’s no problem,” I nodded. “What about?”

“I was wondering what you thought I should do with my Aspect Points,” Tane replied.

“Well, I’d have to know what Aspects that you can pick from first,” I replied. This was actually something that I was quite interested in learning about myself and in all honesty, I wasn’t really sure what Tane should pick if they had anything like the Aspects that I had.

“I already completed my Aspect of the Godtree which is why I have my Treant Form and a couple of new Auras,” Tane told me as I started setting up for cooking my breakfast. “So now I can pick from Aspect of the Warrior, Aspect of the Mage, Aspect of the Crafter, Aspect of Toughness, Aspect of Constitution, Aspect of Intelligence and Aspect of Wisdom.”

“Well, that depends on what you want to do,” I replied. “Personally, I would pick from either Aspect of the Warrior, Aspect of the Mage or Aspect of the Crafter first though.”

“Why, what do they do?” Tane asked.

I blinked in surprise at this question before realising that a tree like Tane didn’t have a frame of reference for words like warrior so I spent the entire time that I was cooking my breakfast explaining what each of the Aspects that Tane had access to would actually do for Tane.

“Alright, what do you think would be the most useful one for me to pick right now?” Tane asked.

“Again, that depends on what you want to do,” I sighed. “Honestly your most useful abilities right now are either your Stat Boosting Skills or your ability to help me build things. However, neither of us know much about your Treant Form Skill yet so Aspect of the Warrior could actually be an even better option in some ways.”

“Hmm, well I don’t really like the idea of moving my Treant Form too far away from my main body,” Tane replied. “So, I don’t really think that Aspect of the Warrior would be all that helpful to us.”

“Well, that’s a decent point,” I acknowledged. “So, it’s down to Aspect of the Mage or Aspect of the Crafter now.”

“You know what?” Tane asked after falling silent for a few moments. “I think that I’m going to pick Aspect of the Crafter. If you’re right about me unlocking an Aspect that increases my ability to build things like walls to protect us, then that just seems like the best option for us. I’m also Level 12 so I can pick Aspect of the Mage after this as well.”

I nodded slowly in agreement as I took a bite of my breakfast. While Tane was several thousand years old the tree didn’t really have any need to kill anything over the course of their life which meant that their Level was really low despite their impressive age. However, it was still much higher than my own which meant that Tane would be able to pick up either Aspect of the Mage or Aspect of the Warrior after Aspect of the Crafter which to be honest was actually a massive help as far as I was concerned.

“Huh,” Tane grunted after a few seconds. “I got a few Skills from completing the Aspect of the Crafter including one that seems to be particularly useful. It’s called Rootmolding and it allows me to control the growth of my roots to create different things.”

“That sounds like something that you should’ve gotten from your Aspect of the Godtree,” I said once I had swallowed my mouthful of food. “What rarity is it?”

Luckily, I had already explained Skill Rarities to Tane, or I would’ve had to spend even more time explaining how that worked.

“Rare,” Tane replied causing me to whistle in surprise. “It also increased my Growth Rate by 2 Wisdom and 1 Constitution.”

“Well, that’s a bit of an odd combination,” I mused. “But I suppose that it does make a certain amount of sense. “What other Skills did you get?”

“Woodworking and Alchemy,” Tane replied. “Woodworking is just a normal Skill that improves my ability to make things with wood which is relatively useful but I’m not sure how useful Alchemy is. It is a Specialised Skill, but I don’t really get how it works.”

“Well in my experience Alchemy is usually a Skill used to make things like healing potions from plants with medical properties or poisons,” I replied. “But it might do something else I suppose.”

“No, I think that makes sense,” Tane replied. “But how do I know what I can use to make these ‘potion’ things?”

“Well, normally that would be something like Herbology,” I replied as I rubbed my chin in thought. “But I honestly don’t know Tane.”

“Alright, would it be worthwhile to try and get this ‘Herbology’ Skill?” Tane asked.

“Actually yeah, it really would,” I replied after a few moments of thought. “If you decide to pick up Herbology then proving to the system that you have an understanding on the properties of different types of plants should do it. Which I’m guessing won’t be too difficult for you.”

“No, I have a pretty good idea of what most things in this forest can do,” Tane chuckled. “Alright, if you think that it will be useful then I’ll try to get the Herbalist Skill.”

“Cool,” I nodded. “Right, let’s go and get these buildings completed. I can’t wait to see your new Rootmolding Skill can do.”

As it turned out Tane’s new Skill was just as impressive as we had thought, and we were able to get the first of the longhouses that we wanted to get made up in just a couple of hours which was quite a bit faster than we could earlier and Tane also picked up Nature Construction which will hopefully increase the speed of construction even further.

However, when we were about to start making the next longhouse a screen suddenly appeared in front of my face making me leap backwards as I cursed in surprise. Once I had recovered from my surprise, I started reading the screen that had appeared in front of me unbidden.

Message from Admin-51340

Greetings Rick and Tane. I hope that you are prepared for the Yajash to arrive tomorrow. I will be sure to give you a few hours of warning before they open the portal and was wondering where you wanted them to open it.

“We’re about as prepared as we can be,” I replied with a sigh as Tane wandered over to read the Admin’s message. “Unfortunately, we had a few things that got in the way of starting to make some shelter for the Yajashians but as you can see Tane has been able to help out with that.”

I still wasn’t really sure how Tane was able to read these messages, but it would make things much easier for us later.

Message from Admin-51340

Well, you’re still doing better than most of the other survivors from your world. Finding Tane was a real stroke of luck for you. As was your ability to summon Minions. As such I will be sending you one of the largest groups of surviving Yajashians. Don’t worry too much about your lack of available shelter for now. This group has a good number of Crafters among them, and they can handle a couple of days outside in this environment. However, I would like to warn you that this group is currently under siege so there is a chance that some enemies could try and follow them through the portal.

“Uh, will the Redian’s be able to use the portal after the Yajashians come through or have they trapped it somehow?” I asked nervously. While I was confident that I was fairly powerful for my Level thanks to my Soul Aspect I knew that my Level was going to be much lower than most which would make things very difficult for me if overpowered monsters like the Redian that Tarko had managed to bring down started coming through a portal.

Message from Admin-51340

That’s a good question. While the Yajashians have indeed managed to trap the portal, it won’t slow the Redians down for awfully long since they have unfortunately managed to capture a high ranking Yajashian who understands how the portals work and torture them for information. So, they will be able to repair the portal eventually.

“Well fuck,” I groaned after reading the newest message. “That’s really not good.”

“I don’t want those things anywhere near me,” Tane told me, and I nodded in agreement. I had already explained the situation the Yajashians were in so Tane knew about the Redians. So, it wasn’t surprising to me that the tree wasn’t interested in having ay Redians anywhere near them.

“Uh, how about setting the portal’s exit up on the plains that I passed through on my way here?” I asked after thinking for a bit. “That way if they do manage to repair the portal, they’re not too close to us.”

“Sounds like a plan to me,” Tane agreed. “It’s far enough away that they shouldn’t be able to find us very quickly and hopefully the more powerful monsters in the forest will ward them off as well.”

Message from Admin-51340

Alright, that works. I will give them the coordinates for the plains. Just be aware that they are trying to move across a truly massive distance so they may be a little bit off.

“That’s fine,” I replied. “We’ll sort it out on our end. They just need to make sure that they get here.”

Message from Admin-51340

Excellent. If anything changes, we’ll let you know.

As soon as Tane and I finished reading this final notification it faded away leaving the two of us wondering how we were going to handle things the next day. In the end we decided that we needed to get at least this next longhouse up before working out what our game plan was going to be tomorrow.

As expected, we did have to adjust a couple of the parts that Tane had made last night but we still managed to get the next longhouse up pretty quickly. Once the longhouse was completed, I started getting ready for a light lunch while we brainstormed our next move. Since my minions had been out all morning hunting, they had managed to hunt down and kill a decent number of Bugs which meant that I was actually getting pretty close to Levelling Up again. It also meant that we were approaching an amount of food that was actually useful to us providing the Yajashians were bringing supplies with them. And even if they weren’t Tane would be able to teach them what plants should be safe to eat so we shouldn’t be going hungry. In fact, the only thing that I was really worried about on that end was overhunting the Bugs but Tane was pretty confident that wouldn’t be happening any time soon. According to the tree Bugs could breed incredibly quickly forming new swarms of over 10 members overnight if the members are old enough to breed.

I was hoping that we would be able to capture some and start breeding them for ourselves when the Yajashians arrived, but we would have to see if any of the refugees had any experience in doing such things first.

While I was worried about the many things that could go wrong if the Redians somehow managed to follow the Yajashians through the portal I was also excited for the new possibilities that having them here would open up. I could finally learn more about how the System actually worked instead of playing things by ear like I had been up until now.

“Well, I suppose that I should go over my Skill Increases before we make any more decisions,” I sighed once I had finished eating my slightly belated lunch. I had been putting this off for a bit since I wasn’t really sure what was going to happen over the next couple of days but now that the Admin had contacted us to try and organise things, I didn’t see any reason to hold off. If anything went wrong tomorrow, then I was going to need the boost since I was certain that my Level was going to be among the lowest of even the weakest of the Yajashians coming through the portal let alone the Redians that might be following them. I really hoped that it wouldn’t be necessary but if anything went wrong then I would probably have to sacrifice my minions so that we could escape.

Skills increased!

Labourer increased to Lvl 13.

Nature Construction increased to Lvl 5.

Growth Rate increased by 1 Wisdom.

Nature Shaping increased 16.

Mana Manipulation increased to Lvl 25.

Growth Rate increased by 1 Wisdom.

Telepathy increased to Lvl 10.

Growth Rate increased by 1 Willpower.

Swarm Control increased to Lvl 18.

Create Giant Dragonfly increased to Lvl 5.

Growth Rate increased by 1 Unassigned Stat Point

Biomass Absorption increased to Lvl 3.

Available Aspect points increased by 10

Total Aspect Points: 10

Seeing that I only had another 10 Aspect Points to use was a little disappointing since it wasn’t anywhere near enough to complete my Aspect of Willpower 2. Still, it was cool to see that my Biomass Absorption Skill had finally Levelled Up. It seemed to me that I was starting to reach the point with a lot of my Skills where Levelling would start to slow down which was a bit worrying considering how busy I was going to be over the next while.

I placed the 10 Aspect Points into my Aspect of Willpower and braced for the newest vision of my internal world. This time I found myself in the middle of what seemed to be either the ocean or a truly massive lake which surprised me for a few seconds before I spotted what looked like a massive water strider heading towards me at incredible speed. Despite the slightly odd appearance of normal water striders, they were quite dangerous predators. As such I was really interested in seeing what I was going to get from this.

The water spider skated around attacking all sorts of things ranging from small fish to other smaller water striders before the vision faded and I was left staring at a new screen telling me what I had earned from my Aspect of Willpower 2.

Aspect of the Willpower 2 has reached 37/50

Willpower and Intelligence are intertwined in a way that serves to strengthen them both. If people didn’t have the Willpower to stand up for their ideas, then many of the greatest scientific discoveries of any species would never have been made. Similarly, Intelligence is an important thing for any leader to have lest they find themselves being betrayed by those they trusted.

Intelligence increased by 4!

Aspect of Evolution (World of the Swarm) has reached Lvl 337!

A new predator has appeared in your internal world that can skate on the surface of the water at extreme speeds allowing it to strike before its prey is even aware of its presence.

Agility increased by 4!

Growth Rate increased by 1 Agility!

“Well, that wasn’t anywhere near as good as I was hoping,” I sighed. “Oh well. Let me just take a look at my Stats Tane and we can work out what we’re going to do.”

Status

Level 5

Exp: 87%

HP: 517/517

MP: 1120/1242

HP Regen: 40.9 per minute (+1)

MP Regen: 73.8 per minute

SP: 393/393

Essence: 142

SP Regen: 38.4 per minute

Control Points: 97.7 (27.7)

Str: 61 (+15/Lvl)

Agi: 81 (+16/Lvl)

Con: 78 (+11/Lvl)

End: 66 (+10/Lvl)

Tou: 73 (+12/Lvl)

Int: 172 (+45/Lvl)

Coor: 59 (+11/Lvl)

Vit: 58 (+10/Lvl)

Wis: 108 (+30/Lvl)

Will: 146 (+46/Lvl)

Per: 97 (+29/Lvl)

Cha: 54 (+12/Lvl)

Additional Growth Rate: +31 Unassigned Stat Points/Lvl. +40 MP/Lvl. MP regen increased by 1.4/min per Lvl +5 Control Points/Lvl.

Unassigned Stat Points: 0

While I was a little disappointed about not getting a Skill from my Soul Aspect, I had to admit that the boost my Agility was actually quite nice. It was now my highest physical Stat and hopefully it would allow me to avoid getting too badly hurt if things went wrong tomorrow.

Having finally dealt with all of that Tane and I decided that I would start making hammocks and blankets and things like that while Tane started collecting some plants that they thought might be edible so that I could test them and make a list of things that the Yajashians could forage tomorrow. Hopefully, we would also find some things to test out Tane’s Alchemy Skill as well since that could be quite useful.

“Alright then,” I said. “Let’s get to it.”