I felt disgusted as this new mind invaded mine. My mind was my safe space, my temple, and most importantly, one of my most powerful weapons. It was an affront that this was allowed to happen to me.
I fought with all my might to prevent this tree from merging with me until I realized that what I thought was happening wasn’t quite right. The tree wasn’t combing with my mind, it was being absorbed by my mind. I could feel my thoughts become ever so slightly clearer and the tree’s mind was becoming less and less.
As the tree’s mental faculties decreased, something odd happened to its body. Its bark, once a deep shade of brown, started to dull into a soft grey color, almost like a storm cloud laden with water. It actually started to resemble… my… bark…
As the last of the tree’s mind was dissolved and fed my own prowess, I realized the true horror and potential of this ability.
I pulled up the skill description and thoughts about the possibilities of what was to come.
Parasitic Takeover (R): Active. Feed the host and consume their mind; user exchanges nutrition for mental fortitude. When the host’s mind is fully absorbed, the user takes over the host’s body, adjusting it to make it more in line with the user’s body, needs, and skills.
Basically, I have to feed a tree some of my nutrients and insert my mind into their body, then I can feed on their mind and make their body mine.
I checked out the new extension of my body and saw that the root that I had wormed my way in through had combined fully with mine. I was no longer feeding the tree, but it was still sharing in my nutrients, almost like it was a part of me like one of my branches.
Oh. OH! Does that mean that the tree now counts as a branch for me to gain Exp from?! If that’s the case, then I think I should consider… expanding my influence. That would provide such an enormous boost to my levels, it’s not even funny how quick I could shoot up in power. Hell, I might be getting golems a lot sooner than I expected!
While there were some amazing positives to this manner of growth, there was also an enormous moral conundrum of if it’s ethically okay for me to absorb the minds of the trees in the forest around me. On one hand, they were non-intelligent life forms that had no free will. On the other, I felt like I was cannibalizing my fellow arborian neighbors. They were innocent in this and didn’t really get a say.
Well, I could always try contacting the tree through Mental Magic before absorbing them into myself. If they showed signs of being able to think beyond that of a carrot, then I would leave them alone. If they were just a collection of cells that held no opinion on anything, then I guess it would be the same as a human chopping down a tree to use for firewood. I would essentially be using the resources I had at my disposal, and there was nothing wrong with that.
Despite the arguments I had made for myself, I figured I wasn’t exactly in a rush. I could always choose to take over more plants in the future, but I wasn’t sure if I could undo my mental domination.
As I decided on not deciding, the Laughing Viper trio had just come back from their daily hunting. I hadn’t realized how late it had gotten until they started talking about making dinner before it got dark.
“How was the hunt?” I asked Axel.
“Not bad. Aspen needs to get her act in order though. We could have taken on a lot more if I had more magical support.” He seemed to have a few cuts that were mending as I watched along with a large purple bruise on his ribs that were slowly fading.
“It wasn’t my fault that you got distracted and got yourself hurt! I told you I was running low on mana and needed to take a short break for me to recover! We’ve been over this! I can either attack using a lot of small spells to distract the Orcs, or I can use big spells to take them out. The big spells take a lot out of me, and I need to rest after using so many of them in a row!”
The two bickered back and forth a few minutes while Archy cleaned what looked like a fresh Orc stomach. They say it tastes just like bacon, “but a little more chewy.”
“I don’t get how you all eat that. Orcs are just too close to human for me to even consider absorbing their blood. I did take blood from the Giant, but that stuff was like Orc on steroids, so I got over it. This, this just feels wrong.” I joined in on the bickering about food, and we all ended up agreeing to disagree.
Archy turned to my puppet which had joined them in sitting by a fire to ask me, “Well, Willow, have you made any progress towards getting Fire Magic yet while we were gone?”
I considered telling them what I was up to during their ventures but decided to keep this new skill to myself. I didn’t want them to get any wrong ideas about it until I decided what to do.
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“No. I mostly just relaxed and enjoyed my ever-expanding view. Every day brings more and more land into my Domain of Awareness, and I took some time to check out the new ground I was under.” I came up with a somewhat realistic lie. I mean, would they really doubt that I spent half of a day just checking out some dirt?
Ooh, I wonder if the skill works on grass or bushes too?
I continued thinking about my skill as we discussed our days. When the sun went down, the trio turned in for the night. I gave them some privacy by averting my attention elsewhere, but still kept an eye out for danger.
While I was still unsure about what I would do with the skill, one of the benefits of it was that I was able to gleam some more information on what constituted mental power. I felt my mind grow from absorbing the tree’s mind, and I was pretty sure that I could do the same thing to other trees in the area to grow my mind even further. It was a tantalizing idea, but I refused to go at this halfheartedly.
Throughout the night, I switched up between focusing on learning Fire Magic and considering the moral implications of using Parasitic Takeover to expand and consume all the trees in the forest. Towards the end of the night though, I made a minor breakthrough.
I had been repeating the gathering of an explosive gas and using that to create fire in very small quantities, but doing it multiple times at once. Doing it this way allowed me the chance to study the explosion and try prolonging it like Aspen said to. I had made some progress and managed to make something akin to a vertical flamethrower that lasted for a few seconds before going out. It produced a bright, steady heat that shot up around 5 feet before dissipating. I felt like I was getting closer, and now all I needed to was replace my usage of air with mana to complete the final step in acquiring the skill.
I gathered my mana into a ball and prepared to add a steady supply to maintain the spell. I imagined my mana becoming more volatile and flammable. I started vibrating the mana the same way I did with my first success and hoped for the best.
As I watched, a ball of fire about half a foot in diameter appeared. I had to quickly supply it with more mana as it rapidly burned through the stuff. No pun intended. Once the ball had been burning for 6 seconds, I got a notification.
Through hard work and dedication, you have learned the skill [Fire Magic (U)]!
I did a little celebration, which involved unconsciously flexing my mana. The result was the steady ball of fire flaring out and singing the bottom of a nearby vine. It stung a little, but it wasn’t that bad thanks to my Fire Resistance. Speaking of which, I now had a way to work on training that from (U) to (U+) and maybe even (R) eventually. Though I was sure that would take some serious dedication.
I might not actually, as I’d rather not go through all that pain when I can always use Water Magic to put out any fires that might appear in the area.
My pyromantic fantasies were disrupted by a second notification.
You have acquired all four basic elemental magics. You have earned the achievement [Elemental Sage (R)]. Progress in the elements further to upgrade the achievement.
Oooooooh baby! That’s what I’m talking about! Now what does it give me?
Elemental Sage (R): A title given to one who has obtained the ability to use all four of the basic elements. The four elements can be wielded as one would their limbs. Further progression increases the user’s ease of elemental use.
Oh hell yeah! I can wield elemental magic easier, which should theoretically allow me to upgrade the rarity of the magics I possess faster than before. I haven’t tried upgrading Water Magic or Earth Magic yet, but it will be easier to do so now that I have this, for sure.
As a test to see how much the title change affects me, I created another fireball. I was able to cast it a lot faster than just moments ago, and I didn’t have to put so much effort into it either. That might just be a side effect of absorbing the tree’s mind though, so I can’t say too much for that.
I focused on the fireball and got ready for the most important test for this kind of magic: throwing it.
I imagined the path the ball would take, sending it in the opposite direction of where the Laughing Vipers were sleeping. I didn’t want to needlessly awaken them, but I also didn’t want to wait for them to wake up before trying this out.
I ‘threw’ the fire ball, and it almost immediately winked out of existence as soon as I stopped feeding it my mana.
Okay, that’s not gonna cut it.
I tried throwing it again a few more times, but it just wasn’t reaching as far as I had hoped. It was going maybe a foot and a half before it simply stopped existing. I guess I’ll need Aspen’s help to get that part of the spell working.
In the meantime, I could work on my flamethrower spell instead.
I made the fireball again, since that was the first step before as well. When it was burning steadily, I prepared a ball of ‘combustible mana behind it that would act as the fuel to ‘spray’. When it was ready, I sent a fast stream of the mana through the ball and watched as it ignited in the fireball and shot out the other side.
I had successfully made a flamethrower! The best part was that the lifetime limit for the spell was only determined by how long I could keep ‘spraying’ the mana through the fireball. Technically, I didn’t need the fireball to cast this, I only needed a source of heat to ignite the spell. If I had a campfire going, that would work just as well.
The size of the initial fuel ball was irrelevant as well. I just did that to test my theory of if the ‘spell’ would work or not. I could just form the fuel for the spray as I went and provide it from any direction, though I would do my best to not burn myself, as that would just be embarrassing.
The fun part of the spell was that I could control the distance the fire went by controlling the pressure through which I sent the mana through the ignition source. I could increase the pressure to increase the distance, increase the flow to increase the size of the spray, and even increase the heat by adding a bit of air to the mix. It was honestly an amazing spell.
I discovered all of this in the two hours prior to the Laughing Vipers awakening. When they did wake up, it would be time for me to show off my new skill and the spell work I could perform with it.
Then it was time to kill the Giant.
Should Willow become a super tree and take over the forest?
