《Novus Lumen》 Chapter 1: A short life story Mike wasn¡¯t anything special, in his past life. He worked hard to make his life better, died single at the age of 24 due to being allergic to high speed bullets, some thug wanted his wallet and left him with a parting gift. Either due to circumstances miracles or godlike intervention Mike was reborn in another world with memories intact, unfortunately magic wasn¡¯t as easy as other fiction books presented them, a mage needed to be of at least 3rd circle in order to practice magic without the assist of a wand or staff or some other gadget meant to help focus magic itself, and a farmer boy like him would never afford one. His new life was quite simple and fulfilling, the only thing society, his parents or anyone else expected of him was to work hard on the farm and fulfill the yearly quota of produce to the local lord. He still was curious by nature, so he read every book in the village and was quite respected as the village know it all, for good or bad. By fate or someone¡¯s anger when he was no older than 15 the village was raided by bandits, with no special abilities and no magic and most importantly no combat training, he was bound to lose. He saw the bandits kill, rape, and pillage their way through the village. With his last will of strength, or idiocy, he managed to kill one of the bandits with a rake earing him the ire of their leader, which ended with him beaten black and black. At the end the survivors of the village were captured the wives raped, the men starved and beaten and the young girls preserved for a better price. Once they were done with all of them they were sold in to slavery, Mark included. For better or worse he had quite a will, maybe it had to do with the fact that he was living his second life, or that he faced death and kind of lived to tell about it. This time around it was both a blessing and a curse. When he started his life as a slave, he knew there was no way out. In this world there were slave collars, or used to. In time they were proven ineffective and a new method was devised. A rune mark was carved on to the forehead of the slave. Once activated tendrils of magic would coil around the limbs of the victim, his torso and head, leaving them with vine like patterns on their whole body. When the rune was activated pain would be distributed to the victim, making it more useful than a whip, the rune would give off a mana signature which could be easily traced and with a simple array the movement of the slave could be limited, if he goes beyond the limit zap, pain, and the master would be notified. And best of all, it only took a 1st circle mage with a rune carving knife and 30 min to do it. And Mike as a slave adapted quickly, he was made to work even harder than when he was a farmer, but he was used to it, the guards would shock him from time to time with their control gems for fun but he would ignore them and continue working, for better or worse neither his mother or father worked at the quarry he did. Day after day, night after night he was worked to the bone, and in a world of magic tenacity pays off. Eventually he became stronger than he looked, faster, smarter, he was slowly becoming a warrior. And he was happy for it, it meant that he would be promoted from a quarry slave to a soldier, maybe even an escort to one of the shipments. He was moving up in the world. But little did he know that his positive thinking and little luck he had would run out. A few days before he could truly become a level 1 warrior of the 1st circle, a friend of the quarry manager came. He was an old man a mage if judged by the robe and attitude, and he came looking for strong willed slaves for his experiments, and in the quarry most of the guards and slaves knew Mark, he was the quite guy who worked hard, he always worked more than needed so he got more to eat and more rest time when he was sick, he even helped quell some rebels who tried to destroy the little semblance of life he made. And that came to bite him right in the balls. And as expected he and a few others were sold at a premium, enough to replace them all with slave 1st circle warriors. Poor Mark was still optimistic, he thought that the mage would experiment on them in such a way that maybe he would forcefully awaken their talents. Mark was confident in his will if nothing else. Unfortunately, his world came crashing down once again. The mage was a soul mage training his mind magic, and the only way to do so effectively and quickly was to use against valid targets, namely the new slaves. This led mark to change his view of the world, so far he tried to look at the best of everything but once the ¡°training¡± sessions started all he wanted was to kill and punish those who ruined his life, the thief who ended his first life, the bandit who sold him in to slavery, the foreman and guards at the quarry and most of all he wanted to rip the mind and soul of the mage who tortured him for days on end. Days went by and from the ten or so slaves who were bought together with him Mark was the only one left. He kept fed and watered by a weird druidic spell that made vines crawl in to your body and fed you. And every single day the mage would come and train on his best dummy. Lately he was been saying how Mark was becoming stronger in mind and how he would awaken as a mind mage which was extremely rare, most would have to be at least a 1st circle mage and train their mind via magic and when they reach a certain level of mastery they can start to invade others minds for practice, starting from simple animals like rodents and slowly training against stronger opponents. However, the mage didn¡¯t know that Mark was holding back. Early on Mark started to notice a large improvement to his mental attributes, 3 months in he could hold his own against the mage if he wanted to, but he held back he was using the mage to train as much as he was using him. On one specific evening the mage was preparing to kill off Mark, afraid of him rebelling. But mark was ready, he was always ready, when the session began the mage invaded marks mind trying to go where he had never gone before, and he wasn¡¯t holding back. Mark wasn¡¯t expecting him to be this vicious, in other words mark was caught with his pants down. The Mage went in to his mind, memories and where his self lied and started to kill and maim everything he could, doing his best to destroy Marks mind trying to turn him in to an empty shell. But Mark held on tight to his everything and let the mage get deeper in his mind, in his territory and when the time was right he attacked from all sides leaving no chance of escape. Though Mark held an upper advantage in the beginning due to his trap, the battle took quite long due to the mages magic but in the end he won. With his current master dead his slave seal was unbound so mark could properly remove it, though he didn¡¯t know how, he tried the only way he could think off, he used a hot knife to deform the seal. This method was simple and effective but it also brought backlash from the seal itself. After another grueling battle fought with his mind and body he finally triumphs one again. Due to all these years all that¡¯s left of Mark the farmer was his love of crops and this Mark hated humanity for what they are, where is the good in suffering? Where is the hero to save him? Where are the saints who proclaim that using mind magic on another sentient being is evil? And so Mark decided to leave the human lands, luckily for him the mage lived on the border between the Belur kingdom and the Eternal Forest. And so he started his journey in to the wilds. The first few months were pretty bad, he didn¡¯t know what was poisonous and how to properly survive, but he could hunt without a problem due to his mind magic. He was a 1st circle Mind flayer and a 1st circle Mage now so it wasn¡¯t so bad. He could drink elemental water to satiate his thirst and kill and devour the mind and body of beasts.Unauthorized content usage: if you discover this narrative on Amazon, report the violation. Within a year he was closing in on his 2nd circle of both classes. And that¡¯s when something invaded his mind once more. During the years he used his mind magic to not only devour the mind of his prey but also talk with some of the animals, so he was aware of the positive sides of his abilities, but he never forcefully entered another¡¯s mind, to him who lived through the experiments of the mind mage he was disgustedly that prospect. Mind of the dead creatures is one but to forcefully invade the mind of a living was his bottom line at best he would use a limited telepathy to communicate. And worst of all was the voice. It was the voice of an middle aged woman who simply said ¡°Come to me my child¡±. It wasn¡¯t some telepathic message no it was something that bore in to his mind, in to his conscious in to his very soul and attempted to imprint the image of an lady in her prime with a motherly aura around her. It wanted to twist his perception of her and made he look friendly and approachable, trustworthy even, and that he hated. Unfortunately for him the message was transmitted through the forest itself so he couldn¡¯t pinpoint her presence. So mark did what he always did, he sectioned off a part of his mind and let it be corrupted, with all of his might ready to purify it. And it did not disappoint, not only did it try to force a perspective of its own but also change his morals, make him think the forest was sacred and the greatest sin was to hurt one of its creatures and best of all it showed him where to go. It was a small glade with a big tree, it would take him about three weeks of travel to get there so he set out ASAP. Once he got close to the glade and was sure the damn woman was there he slowly showed himself, she was surprised but delighted and started to talk some crap about him corrupting the forest with his mind and how she would show him the proper path. While she was somewhat caring in her words and demeanor she sort of forced mark to come here. She could feel his displeasure so she withdrew the small changes to his mind. But he was sure he could Flay her mind if he wanted to and he was sick of people telling him what to do, and the moment he found peace in this forest this bitch shows up. So he did the only thing and angry slightly crazy mind mage would do he flayed all he thoughts in his mind and let a mind blast saturated with only one sentence ¡°LEAVE ME ALONE!!!¡±. As the shockwave hit her, along with the flaying of her thoughts she was pleasantly surprised to say the least, for her a druid of the forest to find someone so young with such power of the mind was astonishing, and when his will crashed in to hers all she could hear was the pain and suffering of his words. She knew what her forceful meddling had upset him, and children like him without proper guidance could become corrupt and devour the minds of everything gaining unimaginable power but losing their minds in the process. That¡¯s why she was so invasive, after all it was the reason her husband died. For better or worse, her granddaughter had decided to come today and when she saw the mind blast she took it as an attack and with accuracy of any elf could show she aimed at his eyes and fired, with intent to kill. Unfortunately for her a mind mage of his caliber could even effect the physical realm with his will, and as the arrow was about to kill him he managed to deflect it just enough to lose an ear instead of his life. Due to the provocation and the knowledge she tried to kill him without hesitation he perceived the little elf as a threat, and threats to his life are to be eliminated. So used a simple mind flay skill on her, making her lose focus and almost black out and with his magic reinforcement he closed in behind her and put a knife to her throat. And with a look at the middle aged elf he gave her the look of ¡°Give me one reason not to kill her¡±. The elderly woman of course was aware of the circumstance so she begged for the life of her foolish granddaughter, even if she was in the wrong. And so Mike spared the girls life and left her with a parting gift, to relive his first week of memories from the time he was tortured by the mind mage. For a week. ¡°This should give her some perspective about mind magic¡± he thought after all experience was the best teacher there is, and with that he left. With no interest in the druid or what she had to offer. Mark believed that he was in the right and that the punishment he gave the elf was light considering she tried to take his life. But the girlie thought otherwise, for the duration of the week she screamed and beg the torture ad pain to end, she even tried to take her life, but even her grandmother couldn¡¯t remove the nightmares. In the end of the week the girls mind was full of murderous thoughts of Mark. Even though she was warned to leave the man alone and let them both cool down a bit and then her grandmother would go with her to try persuade the young man again, she agreed on the surface, showed all smiles and acceptance like kid who learned a lesson, but down below she was full of rage and hatred of him and wanted him dead for defiling her mind, so she secretly gathered her friends and went on a manhunt, it took them weeks to find him but when they did they strike without hesitation, after all the girl was telling them about the foul fiend they are hunting and how he corrupts the minds of the innocent. Of course during that time Mark was prepared for some type of attack so he developed a new technique, he would kill the animal, devour its mind and place a fragment of his own, basically making flesh puppets. So when the brats arrived a battle ensured Mark fought fiercely overwhelming the enemy with numbers but they were elves and they were old compared to humans and so they had stronger abilities than him. In the end he lost managing to take half of them down with him and corrupting the mind of a fourth leaving only a fourth intact. The girl and her friends won, but they were terrified, this human was barely 2nd order mage but he fought close to 15 3rd order ranger, warriors and mages, managing to kill half. Unfortunately for them it wasn¡¯t over. Mark was angry, all he wanted to do was live in peace and quiet, he spared her life and she came and murder him? He would kill them all, this time there would be no mercy, and no god would stop him from killing them all. Unknown to him, Mark was reanimating as an undead due to his strong will and desire for vengeance and some magic. The elves were even more terrified, the foe they killed riddled with mortal wounds stood up and roared with a soul crushing cry. They knew death was upon them and couldn¡¯t live so they ran, ran as fast as they could hoping to reach the elven city and warn the others of the menace that approaches. But Mark hunted them down, and only the girl survived all her friends were dead or reanimated, chasing her down like the animal she is. But fate would have it otherwise a small detachment of guards sent to patrol the forest managed to save her killing all the undead, Mark wasn¡¯t among them. He moved south to the human kingdom Belur. Due to his recent death he was in a haze so he still thought of himself as living human, and hoped to recruit some mercenaries to help him kill the bitch. And as expected the humans tried to kill the unknown undead, to them he was a kill on sight kind of threat. And boy was Mark angry, so he did the only thing an undead mind flayer with a flair for magic with necromantic powers. He killed and raised all who opposed him, before the elves and humans could regard him as a serious threat it was already too late he had legion of undead marching from village to village, city to city and devouring the living. Of course Marks wasn¡¯t Speedy Gonzalez so he was kind of slow in his march which gave the humans time to perform the legendary hero summoning, and the summoned was the thief who killed Mark in his first life. Belur and the elves of the Eternal Forest, bought time for the hero to train and become stronger. The struggle lasted 2 years. From the start of the war Belur lost over 50 villages 15 towns and 4 cities and population in the thousands along with several acers of land in the Endless Forest and a few hundred elves. In the end it was time for the final confrontation. The united army fought against the undead legion stalling them for time and the Royal Arch Mage of Belur used a teleportation spell to the backlines of the legion in attempt to kill Mark and end to the horrors he brought once and for all. Up to this day Mark had never met the hero, and once he did he was full of rage malice and the will to destroy, flaying the mind of his enemies and blasting them with the arcane arts he learned himself. His legion in their masters¡¯ rage turned their back at the united army and charged at the heroes party forgoing any defense. At the end of the battle the losses were a lot lower than expected but the loss of talent far greater, from the heroes party only the hero himself and the girl survived and it was all due to the kind elf grandma¡¯s timely intervention. In the end all that Mark wanted was to be happy and left alone, and apparently death was the answer he always seeked. And know he didn¡¯t want to die, he wasn¡¯t happy, every time he found some semblance of life and happiness people took it away. So now he would go to a place where there are no people. But fate was bitching at him again, on his broken corpse the priests and druids of the alliance used purification spell meant to destroy the spirit, preventing him from rising once again. And mark with all of his will tried to keep his spark of self lit in his soul, to prevent his consciousness from fading. When the priest and druids job was done they thought Mark was gone, and called the end of the March of Death he brought upon them. Little do they know his mind has found shelter in a seed carried by the wind to fate unknown. Chapter 2: A new beginning In a glade 50km from the border of the Endless forest, winds blew and with them a small grass seed lighter than air floated about. As the winds came to a stop it dropped to the ground, hiding amongst the multitude of grasses. But this one was different, it radiated such life that one could swear they felt a presence of a highly intelligent being. This seed was the vessel that Mark used upon the death of his body, this vessel would be his new life one that he would control from the beginning. He already lived close to 50 years with his past 2 lives so he was overqualified to live as a simple grass. He would still bear a grudge though, not to the whole human and elven race mind you, just those two who ruined his life over and over, but considering their positions it was safe bet to assume that their race would guard them with their lives. The first was Robert Williams, the summoned hero. But Mark remembered him as the thief who killed him back on earth, which resulted in him reincarnating in this world. The other was Rose Ironwood, an elf noble lady who in their first meeting tried to kill him but due to her grandmothers plea, Liliana Ironwood, he spared her life. Instead he placed a weak mind corruption which made her experience his first week of torture under a mind mage. It wasn¡¯t that bad compared to the last few months under his care so it was light punishment in Marks opinion. But the weak willed princes found it a torture of biblical proportion which almost drove her to madness. In result she hunted Mark down like an animal with her snobbish friends. But mark wasn¡¯t a weakling. He killed half her friend before they managed to bring him down. In the end the hatred Mark had for her and his will power brought him back to life¡­ kind of. With his new undead visage mark hunted her and rest of her friends down, but as fate would have it she managed to survived by pure luck as she ran in to a forest patrol. In the end due to being undead and having no control over his emotions Mark went on a rampage, which resulted in a 5-year war with the Human and Elven Kingdoms. The humans summoned a hero and with the help of elites from the both factions, with enough training Mark was supposed to be an easy kill. But due to his Mind Flayer class and the overall lack of proper mind resistance against proper mental attack he was easily able to fight 10 on 1, though he knew he couldn¡¯t win so he pulled back is Legion and fought the so called Heroes with everything he had. And almost won until Liliana came and helped her granddaughter in defeating him. As he laid defeated and was struggling so survive the purification performed by the priest something surprising happened. Liliana help him to protect his mind, but only the fragment which held his self, his ego, his personality, his very mind which lead to him losing all of his accumulated power leaving him with only his weakened mind fragment, strong enough to survive a few days and be implant himself in some insect, probably an ant, he liked ants. But she had other plans, and gently put the fragment of his once great self in a tiny grass seed and left it to drift amongst the wind with the words ¡°Live, life may have been unfair to you but try not to bear a grudge against the world. And remember anger and revenge will never allow you live a happy life¡± and she let the wind carry him with a smile. Currently Mark didn¡¯t know what to think, his mind has been mostly empty and he was going through his pent up emotions. He didn¡¯t know what to do. He followed his instinct and preserved his life. And now what? If he continued to live would fate take everything from him again? Would he fear for his life and be hunted for what he is? Would people really care for him? Would he finally stop being a virgin? His mind stopped on the last one now that he thought about it he never got laid in his previous life times. In the first he was busy with work and school college and all those marshmallows. In his second he was eying the quite girl from the edge of the village for his future wife and then then bandits attacked and enslaved him and from then one he couldn¡¯t actually get laid in the quarry there were only men and only the guards could get some slave girls for the night. He wasn¡¯t in to animals so that a no go in the forest. And then he was undead which kind of derailed his sanity somewhat. And now he was a grass seed, so no hope in the future. He could almost feel a drop of liquid sliding down his surface, a gassy tear of loneliness and solitude. But now he has a chance to have a new beginning, though he would forgive the races as a whole he would not forgive those two he would murder and kill them both in body, mind and soul not leaving a fragment. So what is he supposed to do now? He knows how to live as a human but a plant? Well he should start with his status plate.
Name: None Age: 0 Race: Grass
Age: 0 Potential: 0,00010 Subrace: Meadow Grass
Grass: 0 Level Points: 0 Level: 0
Strenght: 0,00001 Endurance: 0,00001 Physique: 0,00001 Agility: 0,00001
Dexterity: 0,00001 Inteligence: 0,86427 Wisdom: 0,63482 Willpower: 1,96482A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.
Control: 0,73281 Perception: 0,00001 Charisma: 0,00001 Soul Magnitude 1,05201
Well he is grass, that¡¯s for sure and the most common one meadow grass. It usually doesn¡¯t grow taller than 10cm due to ¡°predators¡±. But if grown in seclusion it can reach close to 1m in length before it¡¯s too heavy to support itself. Now grass won¡¯t be able to view its status, and what¡¯s with the abnormally high will? Sure he has a title that boosts willpower but not that much 1.5 max so it should be close to 1.5 ish. So he decided to viewed his skills
Class Skills: Skill points: 0
Grass: Non-Class: Traits:
Growth (lesser): 1 Unbreakabable Will
Photosynthesis(lesser): 1 Know thy Self
[Ok everything is so empty I had around 20 skills last time. Guess those priest really did purify me to LVL1. I¡¯m not sure if I should be happy or angry with them, most definitely happy with Liliana for giving me a good start. I probably would have chosen an ant or something but a grass seed? What do I get as grass anyway?]
Grass: (0/ 25) You are grass, no way to put it any better, and as such you are at the bottom of the food chain, even trees will feed upon you, but don¡¯t fret you gain a boost worthy of your kind and witch each level up you become more resilient and better able to sense your surroundings and control you roots. As any other plant you ¡°plant¡± for the long term allowing you to grow without any problems and as a bonus you can harvest energy from the sun itself. Gain: Growth (Lesser); Photosynthesis (Lesser) +0.00001 starting stats +0.00002 Endurance per LVL +0.00001 Physique per LVL +0.00001 Control per LVL +0.00001 Perception per LVL
[Well I¡¯ve never been a plant so I got no idea whether it¡¯s good or bad. And what about my traits]
Unbreakable Will; The holder of this title has been through unimaginable obstacles in his life, he has fought bled cried but kept moving forward, never looking back and smashing everything in his path with his will. It will be hard to find many, such individuals across the world. Double effective Wisdom
Know thy Self¡­ Yu have trained and examined yourself for countless days, and have gained better understanding of the self in the process. Allows one to view his own status.
[Well impressive I guess the Unbreakable will is considered a tier 3 trait, too bad I don¡¯t know how to get the others from 2 tier and up I used to have intelligent for being a sarcastic smartass. From what I know most people are born with the better titles like genius, charming etc. guess it¡¯s my luck. I wonder what the skills do.]
Growth (Lesser) (1/ 25) Like many other you learn to grow one step at a time. With every level improves speed of growth. Gains a bonus level every 5 skill lvl instead of 10 and an extra skill point for maxing out skills. Applies to all skills.
Photosynthesis (Lesser) (1/ 25) A basic skill for a plants, it allows them to use sunlight with the nutrients extracted from the soil to produce food for themselves. Higher levels improve the efficiency of gathering sunlight.
That explains his increase wisdom his title Iron Will has improved. The weakest version is Strong willed which give 1.2 modifier to willpower he gained while working in the quarry and the Iron Will with the mind mage. When it comes to monsters and people alike, power is divided in to circles and levels. Levels aren¡¯t that important and are gained by killing monsters, in other words a quick way to get strong, on the other hand every time a skill gains 10 levels it gives a free level which you can add to a class of your choice and every 20 you gain a skill point which can be used to improve a skill and 10 skill points to upgrade the rarity of the skill making it give more bonuses witch each grade you get 25% stronger in almost every aspect. Most skills don¡¯t show grade until upgraded but will be usually assigned a grade. It starts from lesser, minor, common, greater and grand. Now for a person to be considered a 1st circle Mage, for example, he has to have at least 1 mana point with density of 1 or 10 with density of 0.1 etc, a mage related class, and a mental attribute above 1. Now the level of the class is not important as the skills you have. A wise sage once said ¡°I¡¯m not afraid of a mage with 10000 spells, I¡¯m afraid of a mage who trained a single spell 10000 times¡±. The only thing classes provide is extra skills and stats. And stats only effect the mind, body or soul, so far the only known soul attribute is Soul Magnitude which is a direct representation of the souls¡¯ strength, the easiest way to increase it is to live, every 1000 years of life would increase by one. As for the other attributes there are five physical ones which depend on the body, four mental, which depend on the mind. The last tree attributes are perception, charm and the before mentioned soul magnitude, the first depend both on body and mind, and as a matter of fact all 12 attributes are dependent on each other you can have the greatest intellect in the world but use is it without the wisdom to manage it. The natural potential of the humanoid races is 1. Humans are a prime example as every one of their stat can reach a base maximum of 1, with training and elixirs potential can be moved from one stat to another, but they can be only surpassed by pushing yourselves to the limit, of course you can go beyond the limit with the bonus stats from classes and some rare skills. But you won¡¯t truly be breaking your limits. For instance, those who follow a god, like paladins or priests have double the potential due to a blessing of their god, or thoroughbred noble families whose offspring have close to 2 limit but their stats would be multiplied by 2 along with their upper limit, so they have to breach past 2 points instead of 1. An exception to this is again the soul magnitude, even if it reaches past one point it doesn¡¯t give any benefits. Elves on the other hand are born with a blessing of the forest that increases potential by 20% and they have some inborn skills to shuffle the caps around, but that¡¯s about it. In short a 1st circle need 1 specific stat above 1 and a resource of 1 with density of 1, and maybe a purity of 10% A 2nd circle needs 2 specific stats above 1 or one above 2 and a resource of 10 with a density of 1, and maybe purity of 20% Now purity would be total ratio of resources like mana in the person¡¯s body, for example if at the first circle your mana is 10% pure fire mana you are considered a fire mage, with that one tenth mana you could make pure fire spells which are both two times stronger and two times cheaper, in other words four times better, but that¡¯s just a formality to be recognized as an elite. And so on and so forth up to the 10th circle, what¡¯s beyond it nobody knows. After all the closest Belur kingdom has a court mage of the 5th circle. And why was the grass seed previously named Mark was thinking all about this? Who knows he recently had his mind and soul cropped so let¡¯s hope it isn¡¯t mental. And in the end all he had to do was wait, not that hard when you have almost 2 points in willpower. While waiting and enjoying the darkness that having no sensual input brings, Mark decided to choose a new name for himself something to symbolize hi new fresh start, there was no way someone would know he is a plant now anyways ad Liliana won¡¯t tell anyone, why would she? She was the one who put his soul in to a grass seed in the first place. So with a thought he inputted his new name on the status sheet, one that represents his bright new beginnings (Author: as a worshiper of the sun god ) Novus Lumen Chapter 3 As Mark or should I say, Novus waited in a meditation induced comma like state, after all he had nothing to do other than let the time flow and let his seed grow. In the Endless forest day turned to night, the hunters slowly started to look for prey but none crossed the small circular glade in the middle of nowhere, at its very center a gentle golden light pulsed over and over, it looked just like a little firefly decided to land and rest on the soft grass and wait for a mate to pass by. On a closer look one would notice that the light is no bug, but a tiny seed the size of a pea. On its surface golden smooth lines like veins started to form and spread, those on the bottom slowly separated from the seed and slowly burrowed in to the ground. And those at the top weaved in to the veins of the blade of grass. It slowly protruded upwards until it reached about 2 cm in height and about 1/10cm in width, only then did the glow slowly recede back to the seed. Next morning Novus, in the middle of his meditation had awoken by the feeling of a gentle breeze, like a mother slowly combing with her fingers her childs hair to wake him up for the day. As his mind slowly loaded back to optimum he finally found out that he was feeling like something was gripping his arms and legs and left his 5th appendage to hang. With a bit of focus, he could feel out his body he looked like a lovely young glass blade if he ever saw one, just because he was the first one he saw it still counts. And just above the ground was a small round seed from which it all stemmed. His blade long and thin reaching for the heavens preparing to steal the light from the world, most of his thin and beautiful roots were intertwined with those of the grass around him, and surprisingly he could feel what they could, like an extension of a limb, and a few free roots were almost 10cm deep in the ground greedily sucking minerals and water, and using the light on his skin to feed him. He felt both full and happy to be alive. With a bit of probing and sharing of senses with the other grass he found why there was a glade here, sort of. On the edge of the clearing there were thin tree roots trying to encroach on the small grassland but they were slowly being sucked to death by the tens upon tens of small roots. The grasses used their numbers to prevent the trees on the edge from growing too big and casting an unfavorable shade on every one and even stealing their nutrients. For all Novus knew this was his first day as a common piece of grass but he already felt like part of a community. First things first, as this wasn¡¯t his first rodeo he knew that all skills had a passive and active ability. So for instance the Mind Flay skill of the Mind Mage class is quite hard to train but its passives are worth it, passively it makes you mental attacks more powerful and allows you to just shred trough mental defenses. Its active is a charged Mind Flay blast was the mind equivalent of a fragmentation grenade, it would go off and make a mess of your enemies mind preventing them from concentrating and mounting a proper offensive. And another active was to combine it with something else like Mind Blast which a simple are of effect of psi energy which is meant to stagger and confuse for a moment and with Mind Flay it¡¯s even worse, It can easily disable multiple opponents especially those is close range, making the easy pickings. So now he had to figure out how to control those skills, usually there are tips in their descriptions which is why a lot of people try to get the ¡°Know thy self¡± trait instead of paying money every week to the church for them to do it for them and even then their truthfulness and your privacy leave more to be desired and its pretty obvious what Novus used. The first tip is obviously from the Grass racial class, racial classes are something the monsters have instead of professions like humanoids, they aren¡¯t as powerful but upon completion allow the individual to rapidly evolve in to something greater and maybe even something new never seen before. And the tip being about collecting the light of the sun, and controlling the roots, for now they could only probably grow in a specific direction but if it is to be believed he could actually fully control the roots eventually, and this is Novus legendary optimism on display. The roots themselves will need practice, maybe learn to wiggle some small one he would grow on the surface then slowly work his way down. As for the light he had no idea, it¡¯s one of those things the more you know the harder it gets but he will figure something out, maybe treat it like mana? Now to mention the elephant in the room, the crappy ¡°plant¡± joke. It probably means he could plan out the development of his body with something, and the only thing is the growth skill, from his days as a farmer he could try to force his roots to grow tubes like a potato and eventually try to store some semblance of mana, turning them in to organic mana stones of some sort.If you encounter this tale on Amazon, note that it''s taken without the author''s consent. Report it. Work, work. At least if he is ever overloaded mentally he can just relax and sync in to the collective mind of grass, it¡¯s quite pleasant and primitive, the only thing they do is enjoy the sun and dream of sunny days. With all of his planning he never noticed when the warmth on his leaf cooled down and the temperature slowly started to drop. Night was coming. And with it the unheard howls of wolves and beasts alike. And on the peaceful glade several creatures decided to try their luck to see what was here the night before, maybe they would gain essence or more commonly known as experience or some skill that would give them an edge in the fight for survival. No matter how much they waited nothing seemed out of the ordinary, other than the beasts surrounding a tiny grass meadow in the middle of a forest. As the moon and stars slowly rotated in the sky and dawn approached, the beasts were still standing, stuck in a limbo between a Mexican standoff and a Mexican wave, in the end none chose to start the slaughter as they slowly retreated with only one thought in mind, what a wasted night. On his second day Novus was ready for action, well as much as he can anyway. First he checked himself and found no change even his roots didn¡¯t grow longer, at this rate he would be stuck here for eternity, as for his neighbors roots looked a bit longer and thicker to him, you know the whole grass looks greener on the other side jig. So he tried to get the whole ¡°I am feeling full¡± feeling and direct it to the tip of his roots, because from what he remembers the roots grow from the tip not from the base. For the whole morning he tried to feed his longest root trying to make it even longer. With little success, which was more than the nothing for the whole night of growth, he was even starting to feel puckish. So he kept going making it longer by a whole tenth, he even managed to split the root in four different directions before continuing straight down. He was elated and slightly peckish. From what he could tell he shouldn¡¯t be able to grow that fast, and where does the material for it come from? As night slowly came once again he decided not to sleep and instead focus on growing and if he was hungry he would try to actively use photosynthesis in the morning. So it was the same old same old, grueling focus and concentration with boring job equivalent of watching paint dry, but Novus isn¡¯t bored in fact he is having fun. Exploring the sense his so called nutrients carried with themselves around his body from where they come and where they go and how they move and how they interact. And even without looking he could tell that his skill has improved at least once, as for his roots it was closing in on its 16th centimeter and he decided to branch out the roots every 2nd cm, and so far other that the main root he was barely growing everything else and he was positively hungry, what a great way to start a day. And now he had to properly eat. Going by the logic of the growth skill, which he used by supplying nutrients to the area he wanted to grow instead of telling it how to grow and having it use the needed materials itself. So he decided to use the things he felt again. The sun he could feel on his small blade of grass with the occasional moving cold spot which could only be the shadows of the other grasses swaying in the breeze. So he locked his mind on the warm feeling, then he looked to his roots and felt around for something new, and soon he noticed a tiny trickle of something moving from his roots to his seed and then to the leaf, and finally an even smaller stream that he could only describe as tasty was moving down to his seed. Those small feelings he observed for the bigger part of the day, he noticed two things. The stream coming in to his seed and the one going out were not the same and the tasty feeling was nutrients, it was slowly being supplied across his whole body at a rate that he would need a few days to notice a minor difference and it would take about a two weeks to achieve what he did in a day. So he once again decided to force nature to work faster. He took the minerals with water stored in his seed and slowly increase the input to his leaves. When they seemed full he would circulate the warm feeling he got from the sun until the food was ¡°baked and warm¡± then send it back down to his seed for storage. He slowly repeated until he got a nice slow cycle going, just like a baking factory. From one end comes raw dough and the other comes out tasty baked bread. Simple but effective. And he managed to fill his hunger with just shy of peckish, he really needed to modify his status to show hunger. It would help a lot. When night came he decided to rest his mind, even though he could probably last without sleep just because he is a meadow grass doesn¡¯t mean he shouldn¡¯t, after all, intelligent creatures need sleep, and he tries not to be an exception. On the next day it was of the same, he took water with minerals from his roots directed it to his leaf then he slowly turned it into nutrients and then redirected it back to his roots to grow. By midday he found a logistics problem, he was getting too much input from his roots and too little output from his leaf, and his roots were getting harder to grow due to the increased density of the soil. So he diverted half of his nutrients to the leaf for the first time and let it grow naturally, and the other half he used on the branching roots trying to make them longer and cover larger area. From his shared connection he could tell that the longest roots of other grases were over 30cm up to 40 while the average for this patch of grass is around 20 with most branching roots going for depth rather than coverage, and due to their close proximity they form something between a cone and a net. Although it was quite sturdy, Novus found it quite inefficient as far as gathering nutrients goes. Thankfully his neighbors aren¡¯t that aggressive so he was getting a steady supply of raw materials for processing and going for depth rather that width with his main root. On a small meadow not too deep in the forest, if one stopped for a day and observed the life around they would notice that animals consider this a forbidden zone, and the moment someone curious animal tries to enter they would be assaulted by predators who lie in waiting for something in it, and each of them watch each other closely preventing themselves and others from entering. But if one watched the middle the last few days they would notice a small blade of grass growing rapidly at a pace never seen before, outside of druid¡¯s interference. Chapter 4 Growing so fast feels kind of weird to Novus, and one anomaly he noticed was his seed. Other grasses don¡¯t have it and probably can¡¯t store materials like he can, he doesn¡¯t know whether it¡¯s due to the seed itself, namely Liliana used a special seed instead of a normal one, or his presence somehow change it, considering he doesn¡¯t have a skill for it means that it¡¯s probably natural. [ Like my fast growth, even though that one is purely due to the active use of the skills. Now it would take me quite a long time to evolve to something other than grass but it is halved due to the effect of growth passives, it would give me bonus level every 5 skill levels instead of every 10 and an extra skill point every time I max out a skill. Which to a humanoid is overpowered, no wonder monsters are stronger than a human of the same circle, and best of all is that now, I¡¯m kind of considered one.] [I wonder what skill monsters have, it can¡¯t be growth, it sounds too plant ish? Maybe adapt? Anyway I need to work on my growth as fast as possible and start developing skills, preferably find some way to automate active growth and photosynthesis.] [ For my rapid improvement the past 3 days I managed to get 4 in growth and 3 in photosynthesis, which makes a nice 1 extra level which will put in grass, not that I have anything else, and by the looks of it is no wonder there are so little rare plants, it might have taken me a three days to make such progress but most plants are acting only on instinct with no real thought in what they do. Even if they max out the two skills they need to actively try and improve them for the skills to gain an increase in grade. And if they didn¡¯t have luck in that they need at least 3 more lesser skills to max out before they could evolve in to something else, and that¡¯s a whole other unicorn sitting under a rainbow with golden horseshoes kind of luck for a plant.] With those thought Novus, continued to rapidly expand and improve his body, although he stopped drilling downwards with his roots when they reached 20cm or so, so that his leaf can catch on, he still made them thicker to support bigger flow in the future and make them stronger and more resilient. When expanding his roots to the sides, he noticed that he was getting less materials further he went, which isn¡¯t surprising considering that a patch of grass has quite an intertwined network of roots, his intentions set on making himself part of the whole. On the up side he was getting more feedback the more he integrated himself, which gave him a better feeling of the grass field as a whole, he couldn¡¯t feel individual blades of grass like he could his bit it was as close as he could get. The most surprising thing was a secondary root system a few centimeters under the ground. It was a sort of fusion of roots from different grasses, he was wondering if he should connect to it but decided not to for the moment, you never found something even remotely similar in his previous lives. And he was getting quite a bit of info with just intertwining his roots with others, he couldn¡¯t even imagine what he could feel when he connected. Honestly he was a bit afraid. Although he has close to two units of willpower and grasses have 1/100000 of it at best, but there were tens of thousands of grass blades, and he didn¡¯t like his chances. For all he knew once he connected with the network they would bleed him dry or kill him due to his unique nature. And he didn¡¯t dismiss those thoughts, his paranoia is what kept him alive. Even when he was kind of dead that one time. For now, he would grow, and secure his position. On the up side he was damn sure the plants already knew what he was and how fasts he grew, if he could feel them just by touching roots what¡¯s to stop them from doing the same? Well he would worry when the time came, for now he had growing to do, and he was quite enjoying it. *** A few cycles ago a new soul joined the collective, it was new and unique. All the individuals normally couldn¡¯t think for themselves but when all of them did so together it brought a semblance of a mind, they are one yet still many, working for the betterment of the whole. When one is injured, all that can, help it heal. When one is in danger all help to protect. The mind knew this new individual was special, in just a few feeding cycles it grew faster than any other, when its roots got too long it would grow its leaf, it even spreads it roots close to the network. But it didn¡¯t become part of it. The mind was curious why it didn¡¯t, we all help each other we are many yet we are one. The mind used the new connection the unique one made and tried to feel it, it didn¡¯t sense hunger, malice or any emotion to suggest it would hurt the collective. What it felt was a happiness, curiosity and a bit of fear, emotions of a mind close to its own. It spiked the minds curiosity, it always tried to grow as a whole, but this lonely grass grew for itself, it didn¡¯t do it in a way that hurt those around it, the collective felt an emotion it never did before it felt empty, it felt lonely.The author''s narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon. The fear the new one felt was not directed at some predator but the collective itself, it made it sad but it somehow understood. The new one didn¡¯t need the collective to grow so it was afraid that the collective would be bad for it, like it would devour its will and self. But the collective knew it never devoured the minds of its own. Most grasses chose to be merged to the collective for it to becomes stronger, but most just wanted to grow in peace and ignorance, only helping with food for those who needed, in expecting the same help in return. So the hive mind did the only thing it could, it tried to gently welcome the new one in to the fold, first it would make a tiny connection, one small enough to feel each other¡¯s minds then try to show it means no ill will. This was a first for the mind, it never tried to connect to already highly intelligent being other that the forest, but it was both confident and happy at the new edition it will add, maybe it won¡¯t become part of the collective mind but it will become part of the group, and one thing it knows is that two blades of grass are better than one. **** On his fifth day Novus finally grew his leaf to 6cm. It wasn¡¯t big as the average blade of grass in the glade but it was getting there, he was starting to grow his leaf, so that it can refine two to three times the input it gets from the roots, after all he can¡¯t photosynthesize during the night. His roots on the other hand were progressing quite lovely, he made them two times thicker, which surprisingly increase the input by more than a small margin he expected, not surprising considering he only grew them on length the first few days. So now he has to invest almost twice as much in roots to grow them properly and the deeper they go the bigger they need to be. Just as he was enjoying the sun rays on his skin while making nutrients, his instincts were going bazonkas for some reason, you don¡¯t get to live in forest full of monsters for two years without developing some form of sixth sense. But for some reason it wasn¡¯t very strong, like there was some danger close by but it was just taking a nap. He stopped his work and used the senses of the whole glade to look sense around. Although he could see, he could feel the individual blades of grass if he focused very hard. For a few minutes he didn¡¯t notice anything weird, no unnatural movements which displace the grass, nothing. The feeling was still there so he sensed everything about himself. Nothing weird there either, finally he took a look underground via the glade roots. Nothing he looked around and nothing, when he was about to return to work and ignore thinking it was probably some hungry rabbit looking at him he saw a root from the fused system slowly growing towards his, it was slow and would take a few hours but it was quite fast, maybe a maxed out grow skill with active use. He didn¡¯t know what to do. He couldn¡¯t degrow his roots or move them, he was a plant so the only thing he could do was try to drain the soil around him for every nutrient he could get and refine them in to food to store, he hoped he didn¡¯t need the food, mainly due to the fact he didn¡¯t know how to use it to defend himself other that reinforce his body and roots a bit. He waited and waited and finally after six hours close after sunset, the root system connected to his. He was prepared for a parasitic mind, for a war of attrition trying to devour him. But what he wasn¡¯t prepared for was a warm and bubbly feeling simply translated as ¡®Hi¡¯. Lest just say that for the rest of the night Novus was a bit shocked at his own idiocy, the grasses collective mind wasn¡¯t made of intelligent species, only plants and plants don¡¯t know what is to want kill something, they like to stay in one place and just grow and enjoy the sunshine. Not murder plants just for resources, well some do but those don¡¯t grow in lush green glades. When the time came close to sunrise, Novus felt a bit of concern in his mind a foreign emotion. Concern [I¡¯m such an idiot, I guess living under the whims and cruelty of humanoids made me quite paranoid, this mind is even purer than a child, it is the collective stats of most of the meadow given form. Hell it even was worried about me going blank and was sending as much nutrient as it can trough the connected root. And so far this is all it need to connect our minds so if it wanted to do something it wouldn¡¯t scheme it would just do it.] He quickly sent a feeling of apology and appreciation to the mind, he even started to feed back the nutrients it gave him, he didn¡¯t need them, and had plenty in storage due to his paranoia, he never went below 50% hunger after all. [This is going to be a long day, by the looks of it all grasses are part of the collective, but not all are part of the hive mind, so due to the connection I need to merge most of my top layer side roots, since they barely give me any resources, this will increase the circulation of resources between me and the other plants, and give me better access though the whole glade, maybe I can teach the mind a few tricks and learn a few myself, never been a part of such a tightly knit group before] And with that the new day began. *** The predators waiting around the glade felt their hair stand on end, all of them knew how weird this place is but all accepted the danger in order to wait and find the thing they felt almost a week ago. But know things have changed, usually when small critters like rabbits and mice try to eat the grass in the glade, the grass itself will slowly surround the critter and start constricting him choking the life out of him. And today the feeling of danger increased more than double, like the glade itself became more. But none of their mind could fathom why and how, but all knew one thing it wasn¡¯t worth it. Even if they could use their brute strength to rip the grass apart while searching for it, while it tried to constrict them, they would tire out eventually and that¡¯s when the end comes. None chose to take the risk, and all left the glade in peace. Chapter 5: Growth After getting acquainted with his new fried, the hive mind collective which he now affectionately called Mint, Novus life was quite slow. For the moment he had nothing to teach, after all it only understood emotions, images and some simple concepts. [On the up side the whole glade had some mana in circulation, which was surprising to say the least, unfortunately it wasn¡¯t consciously gathered and as such it can¡¯t grow its reserves and density. The only a small amount it has is used to manipulate the plants for defense against predators, which for plants are herbivores, and some limited mana sense.] On the 17th day of his new birth, Novus noticed for the first time what the glade can do, §Ñ rabbit with floppy ears hopped in to the glade, it sniffed around hopping and smashed some grass, nothing happened until it started to eat the grass, then the very same type of grass it feasted on elongated above him pinning him the ground. Even though the rabbit tried to rip the grass away there was always more replace the lost ones, in the end it fought until it was tired out, the tiny green blades slowly constricted the tiny ball of fluff until it suffocated. What followed were roots growing from the ground, which slowly crept up and crawled through it orifice and in less than 8 hours it was drained like a mummy, in 16 there was only bones left and in 24 it was like nothing disturbed the glade. How a patch of grass can devour bone, he didn¡¯t know. Most of the nutrients went to border of the glade to reinforce the grasses fighting against the trees encroachment, and the rest was distributed almost equally giving almost trice to the grasses that did most of the work, surprisingly the mana was constantly going up and down, but almost never depleted, that would mean that the glade has quite a bit of regeneration but lacks capacity. With that knowledge Novus tried teach the glade mana manipulation, core formation, mana gathering and mana compression and maybe mana refining, but nothing really stuck and his lack of skill in most of those can be put aside. In the end he chose focus on maxing out his only two skills. And by the end of the month it was so. Time wise the calendar of this world is quite interesting, each month is 30 days and each day is 24 hours, with a 360-day year, strikingly similar to the one from is past life and surprising, considering that the little knowledge he has a bout the world says that it¡¯s a lot bigger than good ol¡¯ earth. The creator of the calendar was a quite the pragmatist as seen by the total lack of cultural and religious input in to its making. The months aren¡¯t fancy named like ¡°Month of Apollos Grace¡± or something, just simple 1st to 12th month, there are no actual weeks in the calendar but the commonly used one is a 10-day week with 9 work days and 1 rest. What weird is the seasons, there is barely any change all year round and the more you go to the north the colder it gets and further you got south the hotter it gets, it is to the point where there are some folklore stories about Ice queens in their crystal castles and burning demons in their fortresses. Or it could be just the terrain, he was never interested in it too much, at the time of his farm days, if you could think about useless stuff you weren¡¯t working hard enough. After maxing out his Growth and Photosynthesis skills, this normally this is the part were his lesser skills upgrade themselves minor, but no luck. Maybe they need some prerequisites to be met or for him to be an evolved form of grass or something. In the end Novus will have to develop new skills from scratch in order to get those levels. The first one he thought about was growing tubers, and maybe condensing nutrients somehow, reason being his seed or core as he now calls it, due to its central place and contribution, is starting to get a bit small. And he won¡¯t try to grow it due to its exposure above ground, if could somehow burry it underground he would try again. He is already close to 30 cm height and 1m long main root with around half a meter wide. So far the only notable thing was a few rocks he grew his roots around and the increase in moisture as he went down, thankfully the glade was protecting him from predators and there were no bug problems for now, but things could change. First things first, due to his superior capabilities as a grass he was producing far more than he needed so he was giving the surplus to Mint, and now he was going to try and fatten some of his roots with the extra. The first rays of morning showed the beginning of a new day and with that, Novus chose one of his deeper side roots as a guinea pig and slowly thickened it so that it can transport as much as the main one. Then he limited the growth length to a growth of width and started to pump it full of nutrient without any sense or reason, just pump it till its full. At first the root started to grow but he willed it to stop and as the nutrients started to build up he could feel his limb clogging and cracking bit by bit so he tried to will it to grow sideways a bit more and so the root fattened up over and over until it cracked on the surface. It now looked like an old white-ish cucumber full of cracks, and from the cracks themselves yellow sap was flowing. [Damn that was unpleasant, not painful but definitely not something weak willed individuals would try again. So why did I fail? From what I know tubers are like underground fruits, so they are filled with nutrients either for the new seeds to grow or for winter. In my case I was filling the root, maybe I should try and compress the nutrients?] First thing first, clean up duty. The mess will be hard to clean first he has a big deformed and barely usable root leaking nutrients, second he can¡¯t just reabsorb it and be done with it. Wait, why can¡¯t he?Reading on Amazon or a pirate site? This novel is from Royal Road. Support the author by reading it there. And that¡¯s what he did, he pulled back overflowing juices and tried to squeeze it out of every last drop, when the root was mostly empty there was a type of resistance, at first it was slowly drying up and after a few more pulls it felt like a crack and started to shrink and wither leaving behind only a tiny withered root. After a quick check he had gained a new skill not the one he wanted but, it was better than nothing.
Nutrient Absorption (Lesser) (2/25) Forcefully absorb nutrients from friend and foe alike. The more skilled you are the more nutrients you can take with better quality and at faster rate. When used, it depletes available resources, using it against valid targets will cost more depending on its resistance.
Thankfully the skill was kind of easy to increase, and now he has a way to grow backwards, kinda. However, he still needs and try to try and make tubers, storing materials will be viable and maybe he could turn them in to mana fruits or cores of some kind. So he repeated the same process, before the root could be damaged, he slowed down the input and focused on the already present nutrients in the root. He started to will them to stay together to compress and become solid. This roots expansion was restricted to growing only in width not length. Just like the previous one, and when it was about to get cracked he would stop and try and compress the nutrients over and over, it kind of reminded him of the mana compression method which mages usually use to increase the size of their mana pool and increase the pressure for refinement. Then again the only mage who he heard talking of magic was the mind mage and that one was only interested in warping the minds of others so the techniques he used were more or less self-made. After almost the whole day the root he experimented on was ten times its original size, even bigger than the main root, the only difference being the large amount of nutrients in it, he checked his skill and found no change other than an extra 2 levels in Nutrient Absorption, it was probably due to the use of Mints resources once he ran out of his, a bit before sunset. Well the night is still young so he decided to continue, he slowly syphoned resources from the system and fed them to the tuber it grew and grew until it was almost a 5cm wide elongated sphere of about 7cm, then it started to slowly shrink with the compression of nutrients. Until finally when the first morning rays came he decided to stop. [Mint was a bit upset about the large use of nutrients but it was also curious about what I was doing. Let¡¯s see¡­ I got two skills? Isn¡¯t that a bit too easy? Well let¡¯s see]
Nutrient Compression (Lesser) (3/25) Allows you to compress nutrients in a more compact and practical form, increasing the ease of transportation and usage. With higher proficiency you can compress faster and waste less materials.
Tuber Growth (Lesser) (7/25) You can saturate your roots with nutrients storing it for later use, ease of storage and speed of growth of said tuber increases.
[It feels like I am developing too fast, then again those skills are quite useless by themselves. What can I do with tubers other than store food? Feed someone to death? What¡¯s surprising though is the nutrient compression, with it I can increase the energy density of my nutrients and store more in less space but if I read the description right there is the tradeoff of losing materials as a whole, but its good. All my skills are lesser but that¡¯s even better, I can build solid foundations with those] [Usually when someone is though a skill from a teacher they get the common version of it and when the master it, it becomes Greater and finally Grand grade. But training lesser abilities to minor and then common is a lot better, you get the bonuses from the lower tiers. Classes give a free rarity upgrade if you have the given skill present or an entire new one, preferably a unique. I still remember my starting combat class was lesser mind mage and sense I already had Mind Flay (Lesser) it was immediately increased in rarity to Mind Flay (Lesser) (Uncommon). I wish I could see the look on my face when I found out that you can buy a class based on your skills, then again I also remember the shock of learning the price of 5 skill points, my poor 3 skill heart couldn¡¯t take it.] [So if it¡¯s something similar I should save my points for later and maybe buy a few lesser species jobs and become a hybrid, maybe some magic plant and a plant monster would be fine, I do like the glade but¡­ I should probably stay here and improve as much as possible, a tree in a forest will gain much less attention to itself than an overpowered root monster.] [I do hope no humanoids will find me, cuz I know what they do when they find something new and unknown, they rip from its home and sell it the highest bidder. Elves will probably try to enslave me with nature magic and when they can¡¯t they will mark me as an abomination to be hunted.] After the small walk on memory lane Novus started to teach Mint how to make tubers and compress nutrients. It took it a while to understand the need for them but soon it understood that sometimes, the glade produces more than it needs and becomes either wasted or thrown against the tree roots in a desperate offence. Not long after some roots from the shared system started to grow downwards until they reached 2 meters in length, recommended by Novus, and started to from tubers. Soon the roots of the whole glade started to grow longer and wider, the grass blades bigger and stronger. Not to lose Novus started to grow his roots rapidly. But he knew that there is more to skills than the description shows and after some experimentation he found a good synergy between his last two skills. The tubers could store a lot more, when the nutrients in them are compressed, unfortunately there is a limit of about 5 times the standard and it requires about 7 times materials in conclusion there is about 30% loss of food but it is a good backup in case of needed resources. After the rapid expansion Novus was the tallest grass blade around towering at 1.2m meters, with a width of 4 centimeters with a curve on the blade to support his weight. His roots were coming close to 3 meters and he was sure that he was the richest blade of grass there is If someone was to ask him he would say that he felt more like a leaf than a grass. *** On the mysterious glade another change occurred, over the course of two weeks the grass grew both day and night tall enough to reach a man¡¯s waist, it became thicker more lush and had an aura of unmatched vitality not losing even to the trees around it. Many herbivores watched the miracle happen with hungry eyes and watered mouth but none dared to intrude on the glade known to devour anything that wanted a bite out of it. Chapter 6 Flesh of Magic [ Star date 18.7.2831 AC, we have encountered some hostile incursion on the border of our territory, the cabalistic species of ¡®Rabin¡¯ have been eying some remote colonies, as such our ship has been tasked with intercepting them and to dissuade further unprovoked attacks. Shields up, weapons online prepare photon torpedoes!! ¡®Received conformation (Mental nod filled with amusement)¡¯ FIRE!!!] On the small glade, of about a meter wide, gasses have bowed down and entrapped a stone the size of a fist in their blades, then suddenly a force of vitality permeates them as they straighten up and loosen their hold on the stone. It flies in an arc up to 5 meters in the air until it comes crashing down next to an unsuspecting bunny which was hesitating whether to nibble on the tastiest grass it has ever seen or not. With a beating heart, a scared and scarred mind it hops with unmatched speed away from the danger, deep in to the forest. [Warning shot has been effective. Proceeding to power down weapons and await further orders from command] With a happy imaginary smile Novus receives a mental message of content and pride form Mint, the past few days he was playing around due to boredom, first it started by growing Tubers in different shapes and sizes, excluding the one that looked like a phallus. Then he went as far as to make some handmade ritual circles, which surprisingly did work but most were mana gathering ones which freaked out Mint due to its loss of mana and then a lengthy apology for the minor inconvenience, Novus tried to explain how useful those were but he couldn¡¯t quite teach the Plant Hive mind about such stuff very easily, in the end he used the newly thought skills and some creativity and started to throw rocks, at unsuspecting bunnies who tried to eat the tastiest grass around. That proved more troublesome than expected communication wise but easier practice wise. It was mostly due to the new overall density of Nutrients Throughout the whole glade that gave the plants more energy faster, and the tubers could be used as a turbo or to stockpile materials in a certain place for a project of some kind, or a bad season. Eventually and after some training, Mint as a shooter and Novus as a spotter, they managed to scare off quite a bit of wildlife to the point that there is no sound of birds singing, perceived via the shared mana sense something both of them found quite pleasing to the mind. On the up side, thanks to all the moving of the plant life he was able to get a hang on the Movement technique. And while it is not considered as much as a skill as it is a clever use of growth and nutrients absorption which in turn made it quite useful. With how things are going Novus is getting inpatient all this grassing around was quite fun and entertaining in the beginning but not so much at the end. Honestly he misses his magic. While you could say that he was a training freak, it was mostly only with magic, it is quite fun after all to try and develop telekinesis for the sole purpose of flying but due to the lack of actual talent he couldn¡¯t get the hang of it. The mind magic affinity he gained the hard way and was only minor, and that was after he became undead. At that point it was able to suppress 10 people with at least 1 circle above him. This simply shows how hard is to get mental affinity and resist its effect without prior training. The same can be said about other fields of magic, though most who learn it start at the common level for both skills and magic spells, but they also don¡¯t get the bonuses of the previous two levels. As such a mage who started from the ground up can defeat a mage who started midway. Affinities excluded of course. But that¡¯s why society looks down upon people with lesser skills, most probably a maneuver by the rich and powerful to dissuade people from growing properly in order to keep their superiority, not to mention the increased potential of noble and royal bloodlines. On the up side he is now a plant, a monster? A monster plant then. And since he is able to start from scratch and with tremendous bonuses from his growth skill he should be able to grow stronger faster, he might even be tempted to try the revenge thing again if he gets prodded hard enough by greedy people. He is the unique snowflake after all. While his more than lacking knowledge in ritualism is apparently useful, it is quite useless without having your mana pool in order to guide the ritual properly. He only knew some simple mana gathering circles, which were kindly liberated from the dead mind mage, and never bothered to learn anymore cuz why would he need them in a forest? The increase in mana density might make his mana regen faster but it would also attract predators that are searching for a tasty snack. And while Mint was disturbed by them due to messing with his pseudo mana pool, which wouldn¡¯t happen if it was a normal one, it didn¡¯t attract much attention due to the small size and overall weirdness of this lovely glade. With all said and done Novus really wanted to start making magic happen, first he would need to figure out what affinities he might get then train his attunement and refine mana to a single element in order to boost effectiveness. First off he is a plant so maybe nature and due to the all of the sun absorption maybe light or a derivative. As far as element go there are ten, the four basic- fire, earth, water, wind. Three primal- light, dark, space and three abstract- mind, body, soul. The last three can be represented by the stats in the stats sheet, the rest can be seen in nature all the time. Mostly in combination with each other. For example, since he is a plant and could probably awaken Nature affinity, after some training it could be divided in to water and earth, then use those to make other affinities like compressing earth mana until it becomes metal, water to ice and again with water to make ice water element, which a very cold liquid that can freeze air itself. That particular piece of knowledge he found out by himself. Since telekinesis was apparently an element of its own, he used a combination of mind and space, since he didn¡¯t have affinity for it he supplemented it by using a bag that was bigger on the inside and a lot of effort, but it resulted in a subpar lesser telekinesis. In the beginning it could barely sway a blade of grass but the end of his Lich days he could deflect an arrow volley with his will alone for a few times, so some good came out of. Anyway with some review out of the way Novus started to try and see if he could make his own mana pool first. He did try when he first found out about Mints own but he wasn¡¯t sure if it could work and he could potentially damage himself. Now he had plenty of nutrients to spare and extra limbs to ¡°burn¡±. First he used the deepest tuber he had. It was a bout 2,5m under and was the smallest since it is quite hard to grow something so deep, as the ground around it tries to squash it with its weight. On the other hand, this tuber has the current highest concentration of nutrients of around a factor of 8. With that he asked Mint if he could use the mana it has, and after a smug approval of the type ¡°If you can.¡± He focused and slowly tried to feel the mana and influence it with his will. It took a few days until it started to wobble a bit in his direction, and almost a week until it started to flow slowly to his tuber. Although it seemed slow to waste almost two weeks to move mana from point A to B, it must be known that Novus developed Psi capacity which is used by mind mages on his 3rd month of intense torture and mana when he killed the mind mage and absorbed a tiny amount from him, and even then he lacked the knowledge and skills to train properly.This story has been taken without authorization. Report any sightings. When he hunted in the forest he used at most mana bolts, darts and orbs without any affinity to boost its power. Well he did mostly just make his enemy confused to the point where it can¡¯t resist and then killed him the fastest way possible, which was quite slow in the early days, quite similar to torture might I add. During his reminiscence the mana has slowly floated to the deepest tuber and he was slowly forcing it to stay there. What he is trying to do is make it in to a core for his magic. After that he would have to bury his seed in case its important, can¡¯t risk it too much. Better safe than sorry and all that. Not long after the tuber tried to start expanding, its nutrients were diluting and increasing in volume, so he applied Nutrient compression to the point where he had to use a lot more energy than normal compression and it was rapidly rising in proportion to the mana, no wonder Mind kept the mana spread out throughout the whole glade. Intelligence is always a trait that species which strive to survive not only today but tomorrow have, those that prepare for the future. And Novus was over prepared, he had enough food to last 2-3 months stored in tubers, in case there is winter season, or drought, or some bad event that would starve the average grass, and that¡¯s not counting the high density of nutrients which flow in his body, he could last another 2 months if he devoured parts of himself. With struggle and concentration, he kept pushing his will in to the mana and boy was it slow as a snail. Novus didn¡¯t even bother to keep track of time and used pure focus to overcome the inability of a low grade plant to compress mana by itself. He kept pushing and pushing both nutrients and mana from Mint which surprisingly wasn¡¯t bothering him and was having its attention focused on the event as well. Not long after the nutrients which were in the tuber were slowly changing, or more precisely charging with mana, their color changing from the slightly yellowish to rich brown all the way to light golden from the view of an outside observe. But He was not satisfied, it¡¯s all and good to have mana enriched blood but the moment he used the magic in it, it would revert to normal, and his body can¡¯t produce more of it on its own, for now. So he kept pushing even more, but alas his will wasn¡¯t strong enough yet so he looked at it from another angle. If he could produce those new type of nutrients on his own, albeit with heavy effort, what would happen if he compressed them by themselves. So he kept the pressured to the highest possible degree and slowly started to syphon the new nutrients, which he now mentally designated as nectar, out to a new tuber that is grown from the nectar itself. He pushed and pulled compressed and made for as long as he could until he created a sphere of about 2 cm diameter at the base of his thickest root around 2m underground. From an outside point of view, it would look like a shining yellow orb almost amber like, nestled between roots as it pulsed with unmatched strength and vitality. When Novus got out from his trance with a job well done, he was surprised by the result, although he was aiming for a core, which he often found in monsters during the good ol days, he still got something quite close to it or more properly the plant equivalent, it doesn¡¯t have the same density of mana as a core of its size but it still passively absorbs mana from the surroundings, at a very, very slow pace barely noticeable but still fast enough to matter, and that¡¯s not including that it is a new type of tissues he can make with it. With this he may be able to enrich his whole self eventually. But something was missing. [For some reason Mint was pretty quiet, usually when I make something new or fun it is pestering me to show it how to do it, quite odd.] When he spread his mind around the root network he noticed something growing about 5 meters west of him, the best description was a wriggling mass of roots. It was absorbing all the mana it can get its hand on and all the nutrients from the common tubers via the root network. Whatever it is it was just starting to form, and it was hungry. It probably had to do with Mint, but he didn¡¯t know how exactly, the good news is that it isn¡¯t immediately harmful to him, the bad news is that the stored nutrients of the whole glade would last at most another week, his excluded, at this rate and he doesn¡¯t know when it will stop growing so he did the only thing he knew how. For the second time of his new life he grew rapidly in a frenzy like state. First he grew more leafs in a half circle shape very close to his main grass stalk, and was making something similar to trunk, one layer at a time, and growing his roots deeper while circulating nutrients trough the nectar core in order to enrich them with mana as best he can and increase his growth speed. Once the height of his improvised trunk reached close to 4 meters, he connected the leaf layers making them as close to as one possible and started to grow new leafs from the inside out. From the outside it looked like a green stalk rapidly rose from the glade and leaves sprouted like an umbrella. When he felt satisfied he started to actively produce nutrients during the day and enrich his body during the night, in between he lowered his seed for about 50cm underground were it would be safe for the moment. From all of that he fed the access nutrients to the new root growth hoping it won¡¯t starve the glade, he kinda liked it here. When he made his best palm tree impression and produced enough nutrients to feed the new glutton he had some time to think. Novus noticed of the positive things about being a plant is that he barely keeps track of time. Some moments blur others together lasting barely a second others, like a sunrise, may stretch to almost eternity it becomes quite surreal. And on the plus side he has two new skills and managed to max out a few more including his racial class, on the down side he hasn¡¯t evolved or noticed anything prompting him to. Due to the ¡°Know thy self¡± trait everything was more rpg-ish than instinctual, so he thought that a screen would pop up with three variations for further evolution or something. But alas he was mistaken. As for the skills:
Nutrient Enrichment (Lesser): 4/25 Developed by living organisms who were born and lived in an area of high mana density, this skill increases the mana content in the flesh of the individual. It makes it stronger, more resilient and better conduit of mana. Higher levels of mastery allow for a higher speed and degree of Enrichment and in turn better bonuses.
Plant Mana Regeneration (Lesser): 2/25 When a normal plant becomes enriched with mana, it becomes a magic plant. This skill shows the ability of said plant to draw in the forces of the arcane. Higher levels of mastery show how much of the body is magical and in turn the speed of mana regeneration or accumulation.
Those two sounded marvelous but, he still didn¡¯t have an actual mana pool. The nectar which he could now make were more potent in active components so to say, or if you prefer layman term he could grow faster using them, and if they were even packed with more mana he could grow in faster spurts, even develop a skill similar to earth spike or root spike in this scenario, noted and catalogued for further experimentation. He now was at a loss, Mint was doing something weird and he was only able to provide large amount of nutrients to its pet project but, even in magical worlds the laws of nature and physics are unbreakable for mortals, our resident reincarnated included. In short the nutrients in the soil were running out due to aggressive harvesting. There are only two options. To dig deeper and wider or to reach out for the edge of the glade and start parasitizing from the trees. Usually a normal person would choose one or the other, or just watch the weird thing do its thing. But this particular overgrown grass is kinda attached to the disembodied conciseness of its only true friend, of sorts, since it came to this world of magic. And in this case he chose to help. He still kept actively producing nutrients and fattening his tubers with the extra like mad during the day, barely enjoying the sun like a proper plant should bordering on self-abuse. And during the night he would grow his root system deeper and wider and using the content of his tubers to keep a steady income of food for the root blob His roots were already nearing 6 meters deep and the moisture to one of its eastern roots was higher so he hoped there is a subterranean water soruce or river of sorts. The width of the glade itself was close to 30m in diameter and his root system was covering about a third of that when it comes to width. Once he went past the 4m depth mark he started to encounter rocks and thick roots, probably from other trees or part of a similar intertwined network of roots present their glade. For the moment he grew around them trying not to disturb them and make even more trouble for himself. As time passed by he was getting a lot of himself enriched with mana, first he went up from the nectar core to his seed, in which he packed it full with the new nutrients and up to the stalk all the way to his improvised palm like leaves. He barely bothered to count the day night cycles and honestly he didn¡¯t care. For now, all he had to do was provide Mint with food while trying not to starve the soil in which the glade was growing. Chapter 7: Memories of past and present. PART 1 Our main entertainer takes a back seat and lets us see what has happened and is happening in the rest of the known world. How fates interact and intertwine to produce something far more amusing to watch. Let us start with the Belur kingdom. Date: 23.2.2830 A few days after the Undead horde was defeated, and the Mind Lich Markus was slain. Kingdom Belur, Capital City Belur, Royal Castle, Chamber of Elders. *** In the chamber of elders, a place in which the day to day decisions are made for the common people, have gathered the most important figures of the war against the terror that plagued the land for the last 5 years. ???-¡°We have gathered here to discuss the future of my people, your people and our alliance. As such we propose to seal our new formed alliance in such a way as to not be lost in a mere decade or so. Due to the brought instability by the recent events which lead to the death of many to both our people we have to rebuild and make sure nothing similar ever happens in the future.¡± ???-¡°With all due respect King Garus, the church disagrees, while we have suffered, the threat is yet to be over. The Lich showed the weakness that all of us possess, and as a such many will try to exploit it. Even it is with a 100th of his power it will be enough to create more chaos than the horde of death itself. As such I propose to help my paladins to seek and ¡®Invite¡¯ all known mind mages and hunt those considered a criminal element. As shown, a single 5th circle mage was more than enough to face a squad of up to 10 elite warriors and magicians of the 6th circle, including the hero Robert wo was 7th circle at the time, now 8th. This will help in containing the rise and interest of mind magic as it is hardly a secret of the defeat after defeat we suffered at the hand of the heretic, furthermore I would like to request funding to train the paladins against mind magic so that they can protect the Kingdom.¡± King Garus- ¡°Mother Lucilla, your concern is commendable and I sincerely await the churches help, however our granaries to the north have been devastated by the war and the land ravaged due to almost constant skirmishes and as such my kingdom cannot spare any reassures to help with your endeavor, I would also like to ask Sentinel Solis if he could send some druids to help with the restoration, after you are done with the forest that is.¡± Sentinel Solis- ¡°King Garus I prefer Prince K¡¯van when speaking with friends with which I shed blood, as for the druids we could send them as soon as possible, in the meantime I¡¯m sure Arch Druid Ironwood would gladly help.¡± King Garus- ¡°It will be our honor to accommodate the Seer of the Forest as our guest. But one must wonder, a little bird told me that you, Missis Ironwood knew of the Lich existence before even he rose from the grave, care to elaborate?¡± All the eyes in the room turned to Lilliana, some were curious like those of the King, other were mocking like the ones of the sentinel, and the last ones were judging like those of the Hero Robert and his fianc¨¦ princess Cassandra Belur, both present. With a nostalgic and somewhat sad smile Lilliana looks at the others seated comfortably on this round table and with a glint of regret she speaks: Lilliana Ironwood- ¡°I have indeed met the boy¡± Some looks in the chamber turn odd at those words, almost spoke by a mother who lost her child. ¡°At the time he was barely past the 2nd circle and he was lonely, confused, scared and still very much thriving in the eternal forest. So I chose to help him, guide him, as I have some experience with mind magic you see. Unfortunately, due to some misunderstandings he left just as fast as he came. This failed encounter made him more careful and harder to find and as such when I finally found him it was already too late to save him, at the end he died at the hands of an elven border patrol¡± At these words the Sentinel of the Eternal forest slammed his fist on the table in objection, how could he not? It was widely known that undead are born most commonly by having a lot of resentment and grudges before death. Her very statement suggested that the elves were responsible for this war of death. Lilliana Ironwood-¡°Do calm down Sentinel, while it is true that it was the elves who are responsible for his death and subsequent resurrection from the dead, he was well aware of his death and new form and while still trying to procure allies from the humans to fight his vengeance, mercenaries as they are called, with the bounties which he gained during his days hunting beast of great power and rarity, He was recognized as an abomination by the decree of the gods and attempted to be hunt down which led to the overall tragedy that befell us¡± She paused and waited for her words to sink in, for them to comprehend the simple truth, that it was either every ones¡¯ fault or no ones, and the narcissism of rulers, even as fair as the Kings or filed with grace as the sentinel all would chose to blame someone else but themselves. And in this case it is obvious that while both are at fault due to the laws they set, they are not responsible for all the actions of their subjects. Sentinel K¡¯van Solis- ¡°Well I do have to agree that the fault does not lie with any of us but what about you Arch Druid Lilliana? Or more precisely your student?¡± The moment of thoughtful silence broken buy the sudden question and replaced with inquisitive looks towards her, but all she could do was give a warm smile and say nothing. As an Arch Druid she is connected to the forest itself and was well aware of her granddaughters¡¯ exploits and subsequent failure. Even Mother Lucilla was puzzled, true her order did do an extensive research on the Lich¡¯s past but never have they looked at the place of his death, for them he was only a mage with nothing but greed for power. Even after his true death she still believed that to be true but today she was being surprised over and over again. And she only had a curious look for the sentinel. Sentinel K¡¯van Solis- ¡°The forest guardians always keep a record of every beast hunted or killed, balance must be kept after all and it help when you know what has been hunted. Around five years ago a border patrol saved your granddaughter, Rose Ironwood, from a horde of beast that knew no pain and felt no fatigue led by a mind mage who apparently was quite zealously chasing her. Thanks to his one track mind and determination, which were easy to exploit most of the patrol survived. The description of this man was quite similar to the reports of the Mind Lich during his earlier days of activity.¡± One piece of information after another were thrown around, who thought that after the war the different faction would start pointing fingers at each other? And from all that pressure, Robert Williams the Hero himself, wanted to speak and give his opinion, but his fianc¨¦ Cassandra Belur first Princess of the Kingdom, put her hand on his thigh and squeezed, not wanting him to enter the battlefield of politics. What can he say that would warm up the chilly atmosphere?Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings. Before he could summon the courage to ease the atmosphere the King himself tried to defuse the situation. King Garus Belur- ¡°Huuh¡­ does It truly matter whose fault it is? We gathered here today to make our future brighter by uniting our kingdoms in an alliance, and I know sentinel that you are no king it¡¯s a figure of speech¡± The king said knowing that the sentinel a bit of a sucker for details. ¡°Yes Rose Ironwood is responsible for the agitation of a mage o unknown power and subsequent ¡°man hunt¡± of him which failed and then the forest guardians prevented him from taking his vengeance and even murdered him, when in fact he was in the right. And to top it off they didn¡¯t even dispose of his body properly and gave it a chance to rise again, and chose to retreat and escort the so called VIP who was probably thought to be mentally scared, oh the poor snowflake.¡± With that last sentence he looked the Arch druid, the accusation in his look was evident and many knew how spoiled her granddaughter is. Not the first time she caused trouble, but it¡¯s definitely the first time it blew out of proportion so fast. Who knew that a spoiled princess could cause such a calamity? King Garus Belur- ¡°And then we have the church whose doctrines have no wiggle room and have indoctrinated the simple folk in believing what is good and evil. Which is quite presumptuous considering that one of the laws of your so called god of light is free will and you impose your beliefs on others and those that don¡¯t and exercise the right of free will are ostracized from their people. Now you might be wondering what my kingdoms fault would be? Well it would be the lack of proper patrols security and the bunch of corrupt pigs that breath on my neck all day long with their stupidity and greed, they would drive the kingdom to the ground if wasn¡¯t for the few loyalist that help me keep a semblance of order. Don¡¯t get me started on the slavery system.¡± Well¡­ no one in the room expected the king to explode like that, it was obvious he had enough of almost every one acting like a kid trying to one up one another, at least the hero and his daughter were keeping quiet and not adding to the heavy atmosphere around the room. The sound blocking enchantments on the walls also helped somewhat. The Druid and Sentinel were quiet like scolded children but Mother Lucilla and the princess had small smiles on their faces, it wasn¡¯t the first time the king had enough of them bickering like children, the only difference was the hero who looked quite surprised as he was mostly on the front lines during the war and rarely participated in the meetings. With a light cough the king took reign of his emotions and continued with his speech. King Garus Belur- ¡°Now that everyone has calmed down we should focus on the alliance itself. I propose that the northern part of the devastated land both in my territory and the forest be declared neutral and a new academy be established. This one would have no restriction on age, occupation and ancestry. There we would send children with promising talents to learn in not to be prosecuted and hunted because no one understands their talent and considers them a threat. One of the first magic subject should be about Mind Magic. Though I would think many would apply few would fully pass after all from what we know of the lich he awakened his abilities during unregulated mind training, it won¡¯t be wrong to call it torture. Any questions?¡± The whole hall was silent, this proposal was so daring and disregarding for the nobility of both nations that it would probably cause an uproar but since it would be on neutral ground it won¡¯t have any problems with political pressure, on the surface at least. The lack of questions from the other 3 parties was mostly due to surprise and not the lack of one but they could see how the academy could help. They can send some of their younger talents to study their make connections and recruit unaffiliated students after they supposedly graduate. It won¡¯t be stretch to say that it could easily become a cesspool of corruption but if managed properly it can become a gold mine. King Garus Belur- ¡°No? Well let me finish then. As for the commoners, I recommend that we sent yearly examiners to every corner of our countries and have them look at the potential of the populace and bring those that they find back to the academy, we would give them the first year for free if they pass some sort of test and have them pay one way or another for the rest of their education. Worst case scenario we will have a list of most of the talents in both kingdoms, their mental profile and they would be easy to track with enough resources spent. And best of all we will give them a home or a place to belong reducing the chance of another Mind Lich incident¡­ oh and make sure that the nobles influence is choked to death, or else this plan will probably fail.¡± Still the people on this room kept thinking, mostly on how to make this whole plan work, it¡¯s a given that it isn¡¯t the first time a country would make a school for the elite and certainly wouldn¡¯t be the first time a joint academy between two or more would fail but what those lacked was a proper location and a common cause that can unite not only the nobles but also commoners, and boy would the benefits be worth the backbreaking work. Mother Lucilla- ¡°While I wholeheartedly agree to this proposal it could backfire, it would mostly depend on proper leadership and management, even though I am quite busy with my duties I would gladly take the mantle to guide the younger generations.¡± For a while the few not so deep in to their thoughts watched in awe at the shamelessness of the Church Mother, the Arch Druid even covered her mouth to hide her warm smile, the sentinel on the other hand well¡­ Sentinel K¡¯van Solis- ¡°Buahahaha¡­ haha.. uhhh haha ha¡­¡± His merry laughter rang across the room and more than half of them thanked the gods for the n-th time in gratitude for the sound barrier enchantments of the room, after all they were not acting according to protocol and the outburst of the elven prince would probably cause a large commotion and flak from the lower ranks of the Church of Light. His voice still ringing with merry melody common amongst the elven races, as he was heaving for air and obviously nearing the end of his happiness, The Church Mothers face was hard as stone and only her right brow twitching is indicating of her mood. Sentinel K¡¯van Solis- ¡°With all due¡­ respect.. pfft¡± He covered his mouth with his hand trying to negate his joyous mood brought by the Churches Mothers gall, yet royally disappointing himself as the tiniest of sounds leaked ¡°But you already have plenty of youths to guide, after all isn¡¯t your job to guide the common folk to the path of light?¡± With a smirk he looked at the mother and continued ¡°Why not chose someone with less responsibility and ability to guide, I doubt that a religious group proficient in indoctrination can lead an academy that might and quite honestly probably will represent the freedom of the mind and choice. I uhm.. counter propose for Arch Druid Lilliana to guide it while she may be an elf and an honorary advisor to the sun court she is by no means connected to the elven politics and mostly due to her isolation. As she is quite ol¡­ experienced in life she will be a great teacher and leader of education.¡± Mother Lucilla- ¡°Do you forget her hand in the birth of that abomination?¡± Sentinel K¡¯van Solis- ¡°Didn¡¯t we already agree that it was a sequence of unfortunate events coupled with his unique talents that spawned him? I do remember you being responsible for the incident as much as the rest of us even more so as you preach that all undead defile the sanctity of life even the Intelligent ones who chose of their own free will to do no harm.¡± With this a point has been sent across, while she may be a Mother, it is in title only, after all she is in the end a servant of her god, and would drive its agenda without taking a step back to reconsider for those not of her faith. King Garus Belur- ¡°I do agree with Prince Solis,¡± Before the king could even finish his sentence he was shot a glare by Lucilla¡± on the subject of Arch Druid Lilliana being the headmaster, of course us three¡± He swept his gaze past the Sentinel and Mother respectively ¡°Will become head of a council that shall be in charge of the big decisions of the academy and since we are mostly busy with our own problems we should convene a council meeting bi annually maybe a few weeks after the newly recruited commoners would be brought for registration. Any other ideas?¡± With that the meeting continued with the small details being ironed out and trade and defense pacts being assigned by the three factions that slew the mighty Mind Lich, well it was mostly 3 bullies beating down on the kid throwing a tantrum but oh well, everything lives on.