Casting the sprouting spell was the same as casting the green vine spell; first, ramie had to choose an area on his body as the target for the spell.
Afterward, the cells in the area would morph into stem cells; the stem cells would in turn morph into the required set of cells needed to form the organ that Ramie had chosen.
Of course, sensing that his plant body was few meters under the ground, he wouldn't be able to see a thing under the ground. Hence, Ramie chose the part that was above the ground – the flower.
As the spell took effect, a slight pulp was formed the center of the flower, and started absorbing the flower into itself. Few seconds later, the flower shrunk to form a fat pulp. Next, a slit was formed at the top of the oval pulpy mass. The slit then opened to reveal an eye that was an exact replica of ramie's yellow eyes.
Now, instead of the flower, there was an oval pulp with eye in it, attached to a stem.
The eye was wide open, scanning the surroundings, revealing vigilance and a bit of excitement.
'This is cool… this is very useful!' ramie marveled as he scanned the area.
However, as the sight around entered his eyes, his excitement for this spell soon died down, as shock descended at him.
'A forest…? No… this too dense, maybe a jungle…?'
The scene was not something he had expected.
'Where is the compound? Where is this place…?'
The ground was covered with grass and multiple layers of dead leaves. The shrubbery was dense, and greatly limited the vision. It was composed of many weird vegetation that ramie had never seen in his life. The trees were abnormally large and tall. Their trunks were very thick. The trees canopy was so dense that only few rays of light managed to get passed them to elevate a bit of the dimness.
In short, everything around was weird and on an abnormally large scale.
'Could it be due to this eye that I see everything bigger…? No, that shouldn't be it. Where is this place anyway?'
'I should wait until my energy recovers before cancelling the rooting spell and checking things myself.'
Collecting his thoughts, Ramie made up his mind.
…
After what felt like really long time, he finally recovered his magic energy.
Rooting!
Injecting magic energy into the artifact and commanding, a seed was formed in the middle of the plant body, enclosing the core. Next, the process of destructive metabolism started breaking down the plant body to release energy, then; this energy was sent to the seed where a constructive metabolism started creating bio mass.
The plant's body started decreasing in mass as the seed started enlarging.
The seed was then pushed upward, to the surface, where it bloomed into a giant flower with dark petals.
In the center of the flower, a green-colored pulp started grown at a visible rate, while the plant mass under the ground grew smaller and smaller, turning into a root-like extensions.
Minutes afterward, the root underground was thoroughly consumed, leaving only large oval-shaped pulp above the ground. Next, the pulp started withering at a visible rate, before cracking and peeling downward, revealing a humanoid figure, hugging himself in a fetus posture.
The figure's eye lids shook, before opening up, revealing terrifying ghost-like, shining, golden eyes.
'Hmm… it seems that it takes only few seconds to turn to plant form, but several minutes to revert back to the human form.
Ramie, who had dark-green skin with wood-pattern on it, wondered inwardly.
Next, he started inspecting his body, to check the changes resulting from the bloodline progression.
'The standard bloodline integration percent is 5, however, now am at 18%. So I wonder what kind of change has happened to me.'
After the inspection, ramie's heart turned heavy: 'So, this time… it's my ears…! Sigh…! If its only this much, then it's still OK.'
Checking himself, he immediately discovered that his ears had atrophied. The outer parts were all but gone. What left were only two small holes instead!
After seeing the monstrous appearance of the bloodline magician that had attacked the compound, Ramie no longer cared about his appearance, much. To him, as long as he covers his frightening eyes, that seem to still shock people no matter how hard they try to get used to it, then everything is fine.
Letting out an inward sigh, Ramie shifted his attention to his surroundings. His body was naked, but he didn't care, as apparently, he was in a very dense jungle.
Walking around, Ramie started looking for clues in the vicinity, to figure out where he was.
Judging by the rooting spell description and considering that he had casted it in the compound, he had to assume that this place was the compound. Otherwise, there was no other logical explanation for the situation.
However, no matter how he looked at it, this was a dense forest!
After a while, an extremely unsettling thought occurred to ramie, a one that made his skin crawl.
'That can't be possible, right?'
However, after a while of looking around, ramie finally found something that confirmed the worst case scenario… he had found the ruins of a house!
Most of the house was no longer there, with only two remaining rooms. One of which had a thick tree grow through it. Moss was growing all over the walls.
This house alone wasn't the problem, but it was the welcoming, handwritten sign that was half fixed, half hanging.
This unique sign was something Ramie could recognize anywhere. It was hanging at a house where a good-hearted old man was living in the compound.
Ramie recognized the sign because every time he walks by the house, he sees the old man dusting off the sign, even though there was no dust on it.
A mind numbing realization started downing at Ramie's mind. This sign represented the possibility he feared the most.
'How long have I been unconscious for…? My aunt…! Lance…! Reem…! Neil…!'
…
As the night descended, the scarce rays of light that managed to get passed the thick tree's canopy soon receded, throwing the originally dim forest into a domain of absolute darkness.
However, as the dark prevailed, the many, previously hiding creatures burst into activity, commencing their daily program. The forest soon thrived with life. Countless frightening silhouettes charged out of their hideouts, with shining eyes, as they scouted for preys.
Not long after the darkness shrouded the place, many small glows of green and yellow light soon lit up throughout the forest. These lights came from small types of plants and fungus, due to a light emitting chemical reaction of some sort. This light was similar to the 'cold light' produced by the fireflies, with no infrared or ultraviolet frequencies.
A lone figure of a man could be made out near a small pond in the forest.
Ramie's heart was burdened with a heavy weight. He didn't regret casting the rooting spell, as in the time, he really had no other way else. Also, even if he knew this was going to happen… in the end, he'd still make the same choice.
He had no idea on how long has it been since the attack on the compound. Was it months, years, tenths of years… more… he had absolutely no idea.
Although it could, in his estimation, take hundreds of years for a forest to grow to this degree… however, this was in no way normal forest. So, he had no idea how much time went by since the descent of the disaster.
Right now, the thing he wanted the most was to meet another human being, to ask him the million dollar question.
He didn't leave the area. Instead, he kept looking around, for the 'ruins' of the compound. He did so because he wanted to determine the four main directions in the compound, so that he could estimate the direction of the capital.
After some time of inspecting, he finally located the location of the middle square in the compound, and from it, he threw his glance at a certain direction.
'This direction is where the capital is located. I hope it's been only few years, and not a century or millennia…! Also, I hope humans still exist…!'
He wasn't sure on whether it was a hunch or a biological clock, or something else. However, Ramie could feel that it hasn't been too long since he lost consciousness.
…