Chereads / The life-story of a cactus! / Chapter 3 - 3-Da rude sandstorm!

Chapter 3 - 3-Da rude sandstorm!

(A. N. A pun with Darun-sandstorm, a famous song)

If you ask me who I am, I'll say : "I'm a smart person".

If you ask my friends they'll say : "An arrogant prick", after all, they did call me Prickley Pete for a reason.

What about my parents? Well, it doesn't matter if it is my old world parents or my new one, they would call me the same... "parasite".

turned into

I have begun spreading my roots around the roots of my 'parent'. While the prospect of growing on my own is cool, the danger of running out of water due to my small root reach, is too big.

While my roots can breach the sand of the desert, I'm currently unable to breach either my 'parent' hard armor-like cuticle nor his thicker top roots, my only hope is to surround his roots in order to absorb some of the water and nutrients they are bringing to his body, while trying to grow and manipulate the roots I have had inside of him since I was born.

I instinctively know that I need to take over at least 5% of his steam so that I can evolve.

To bad, my roots are brittle, I can only assume it's because they're 'young' roots, the speed at which they grow isn't anything special either, at level 1 it was 0. 01 cm per hour, and at level 2 it only increased to 0.02 cm per hour....

I hope this is a multiper (skill lvl * last value) instead of an increment (skill lvl * 0.1), else it will take forever to accomplish anything.

If it's a multiplier, by level 3 I would have 0.02(last level value) * 3 (skill level) = 0.06 cm per hour, If it's a increment, It'll only grow 0.03 cm per hour...

'Young root manipulation' isn't much better, the roots take to long to move, nearly an hour in order to move them 1 cm.

I know for a fact that given enough time, which is the only thing I have, I'll be able to level this out...but God, is it disheartening, I've already been at it for several hours after all.

turned into

turned into

{Skill description:}

< young root growth ( lvl 3 ) >

(ability to grow young roots)

[Extended description]

*ability to grow 'young', 'normal' - type roots at a rate of 0.04 cm per hour.

(max reach= 3 KM)

< young root manipulation ( lvl 2 ) >

(ability to manipulate young roots)

[Extended description]

*ability to manipulate 'young', 'normal' - type roots at a rate of 2 cm per hour.

IT'S NEITHER OF THOSE THINGS! .... the ( skill lvl * last level value ) would be better, but I can only be happy that it's multiplier of ( 2 * last level value ) instead of (0.1 * level) .

I can see this being good, by level 10, I would be able to grow 5,19cm PER HOUR!, which now that I think about it is hella OP, after all.. When this skill reaches level 30....It will grow around 53KM hour, so I can only fear, what kind of plants there may be out there, that and hope there is a level cap.

If I assume 'young root manipulation' works by the same logic, it would be (2*last level value) and it would move at 512 cm /hour at level 10, and around 5368 km/hour at level 30

Hmm... At the moment my roots sounds good enough in orderfor me to scavenge for water and such, but not all that good for combat, I hope that when I evolve, my spines can fix this issue. I'm afraid of being eaten up by some species in order for them to drink water.

Speaking of fear, I have just noticed using my omnidirectional vision, something BIG and brown in the horizon, I hope it's not what I think it is, because if it is... I'll have to somehow strengthen my grip around my 'parent' roots else I risk running the risk of being sent flying to kingdom come, and saying goodbye to my 'parent' domination plan.

Hmm.. Unlike back, on earth, where I could only do one thing at a time, due to me only having two arms, here I can afford to manipulate multiple roots at the same time.

That, is exactly what I did, I manipulated a patch of my roots to surround my 'parent' steam, another patch to surround the already existing roots around my parents roots, strengthening their hold

Finally I tried to strengthen my hold inside of my 'parent', but unfortunately his hard cuticle got in the way, and I didn't fully manage to do so.

At some point...the sandstorm had reached me.