Chereads / A Tree's Life / Chapter 3 - What's a Skill

Chapter 3 - What's a Skill

From that moment on, I continually absorbed energy from the light and cool dampness but after a while something odd happened. The light began to fade, my surroundings became cooler and cooler. Eventually it was completely dark again.

This came to me as a shock. The light is gone, that means half of my food is also gone. What am I going to do. The dark is far less enjoyable than the light. It's also quite cold now. Ah... I'm getting tired. I can't focus anymore. I did do a lot recently without rest. And as such my consciousness began to fade.

When I regained consciousness, to my relief, the light was also back.

"Ahhh, welcome back light, I missed you", I thought as I stretched myself out to absorb more light. That is when I noticed that I had more of the green blades protruding out of me. And when I looked down I saw that I had in fact grown taller as well. I was now about twice as tall as the green blades around me. Not only that but my color changed. My green blades were were as green as all the other green blades around me but my main portion was starting to turn a little brown.

"Interesting, when did this happen? "

This was indeed a very curious thing but there was nothing I could about it and I feel no discomfort so let's not worry about it.

I once again returned observing the world around me again. As time passed I noticed a pattern, eventually the light would go away and due to the lack of energy my consciousness would fade but when I regained consciousness the light would be back. And as if magic had happened I would be bigger than I was before. Of course the amount I grew was different every time though. This cycle repeated itself many times and as I grew taller I could see farther.

Now I was about ten times taller than the green blades next to me and as I looked out I could see a spot a way away that the light seemed to be stronger. "If I were to go over there wouldn't I be able to take in more light? But how would I get over there."

Over the passed few cycles I observed that there was, above me, in the brown obstructions a brown bowl. From this brown bowl there was a blue fluffy thing that would come out and by waving its appendages, which were equally fluffy, it would float and soar away. It always returned before the light went away, every time announcing its arrival with sweet chirpping noises.

If it could move by waving it's appendages maybe I could to. I took a look at myself. As I had grown taller my main portion had grown thicker as well. And protruding from it were some brown appendages which had a relatively larger green blade at the end. I had multiple appendages but there were two exceptionally large ones to either side of me. So to test it out I started waving them. And lo and behold as I waved and waved my appendages.... nothing happened. A waste of energy is all it was.

Ah ha! The pink tube from several cycles ago was moving through wiggling, perhaps I could do the same. So this time I started wiggling moving whole self from side to side. Of course, once again nothing happened. Now I was quite perplexed, how am I supposed to make it to the spot with stronger light?

As I thought upon this, it dawned on me that I wasn't moving because I had a rather large portion of me underneath the cool dampness. This was hindering my movement. As I focused on my lower portion I put strength in it to wiggle it out of the cool dampness. After a while I did it! I was free of the cool dampness my lower portion which looked like an entanglement of brown tubes came out. Unfortunately, immediately after I was free of the cool dampness I lost my balance and fell over. Now sprawled on the cool dampness I was determined to make my way to the stronger light.

Having fallen over the range of my view was extremely limited. Thus doing my very best I bent upward at an attempt to figure which direction I should go. I lifted myself up a little bit with a help of my appendages. After figuring out which direction to go I started wiggling in that direction.

It was difficult at first. Simply wiggling didn't do much. It was difficult to move in any direction and I had little control over which direction I was going as well. After some experimenting I figured out that if I were to grab onto the cool dampness with my upper portion, I can pull my lower portion towards my upper portion. This process would bend my self into an arch which at this point I can use my lower portion to push my self forward.

"You have acquired the 'Locomotion Skill'. "

"the 'Limbless Locomotion Branch' of the 'Locomotion Skill' is unlocked. "

"You have acquired the skill 'Inching'. "

As soon as I figured out how to move a series of noises ran through my mind causing me to shrink in shock.