I couldn't see where my assailant was or what he was about to do, all I knew was that my mind was continuously electrocuted by my newfound instincts screaming "danger". What felt like an adrenaline rush had me channeling the kernels I'd absorbed over the many weeks it'd been since I'd become an ear of corn, where I then dispersed them all around me and into the many dozens of nearby cornstalks. The way a person grasps as a fork, I felt myself obtain a degree of control over the nearby stalks as my spreading kernel energy washed over them.
Detecting a buzzing honey bee searching for its next pollen haul, I grabbed control of the flying insect via a kernel link as I'd done with the mosquito earlier, again providing my motionless vegetable body with a bird's eye view of the action. Lysander was a split second away from attacking, time seeming to slow down as his scythe swung towards my stalk of corn, a fiery heat radiating from the blade.
"DEFEND ME" I ordered, thinking desperately to my reach of kernels. As if my consciousness had expanded to the corn plants surrounding us, I was able to watch from my new bee host as the stalwart stalks suddenly became as sharp and as pointy as spears. In one unison motion, they all suddenly dipped by their roots and pointed towards the dark-armored man in front of me.
"What in the world?" Lysander muttered as he stopped moving mid-attack, finding himself staring down dozens of moving, pointed cornstalks. "Abyss, get airborne!"
Cawing, the giant crow flapped its wings and lifted into the air. A second later, the scythe-wielding man leapt up to grab the great bird's dangling talons, pulling him up just in time to avoid getting skewered by the nearest weaponized plants.
"Well I'll be, I underestimated you, cultivator," Lysander laughed in amusement as he watched the speared stalks gradually return to normal. "That was pretty clever of you to lure me into a trap like that. Unfortunately for you, it didn't work, so prepare to burn up along with your corncob minions."
Climbing onto the crow's back, he aimed his scythe down towards the field as they gained altitude. I didn't know what he was about to do, but I knew it wasn't going to be good for me. Sadly, I'd unconsciously done the whole weaponized cornstalk thing, operating on instinct alone to use the energy I'd absorbed to effect the nearby plants. I was out of tricks, and apart from maybe using the bee under my control to sting Lysander's butt, I couldn't think of anything. Thankfully, help arrived in the nick of time.
"Hey!! Crow boy!" a booming voice yelled from somewhere below. "What do you think you're doing to my crops?"
Turning my bee host, I could make out a large, burley man dressed in a dirt-caked white shirt beneath sun-bleached blue overalls. His thin brown hair was nestled beneath a large straw hat, and there was a pitchfork within his gloved left hand.
"Go back to your other fields, geezer, I'm on government business," Lysander replied as he turned his head to look down at concerned farmer.
Taking advantage of the briefly-distracted mage, I now focused on dulling all my energy. Having since grasped a relative ease of control over my thoughts, I allowed my mind to go completely quiet, almost entering a sleep-like state as I then purposely disconnected myself from the world around me. The bee under my control hovered in place, stalled along with my thoughts. This ended up working as I intended, where upon looking back down at the field, Lysander again chuckled.
"It's a little late to hide your qi now," he remarked, his scythe smoldering as a ball of fiery energy appeared at the end of the blade. "I know you're still in the field somewhere, so I'll just burn every inch of it if I have to."
Hiding wasn't going to work, but thinking quickly, I transferred a good chunk of kernels over to the bee using my link to it, where the tiny insect now felt amassed with the donated energy and most importantly, now appeared to have the same reddish-glow that my corncob's kernels gave off. Speeding the bee forward, I flew it right in front of Lysander's field of view, making sure that he couldn't miss it.
"You thought I wouldn't see you trying to slip off as a tiny insect?" the black-armored man grinned, turning to track the bee and the kernels that it was now giving off.
My improvised plan worked. Now aiming his scythe at the bee, Lysander fired a streaming fireball at it, where I quickly steered it out of harm's way. I next set the bee flying on a straight path as fast as its wings could carry it, speeding off into the distance.
"Seriously? Let's go after them, Abyss," the mage sighed as he ordered his crow to pursue the bee, where the two flew off after it.
Relief flooding through me, I felt bad that I basically condemned that little bee to fly until its wings disintegrated or until Lysander managed to fry it, whichever came first. What that whole encounter had done, however, was give me great confidence in these unique abilities that I seemed to possess. Presumably alone in my thoughts for months, I'd gained the ability to cultivate the energy that everything passively gives off. Lysander called it "qi", but I decided to keep referring to it as "kernels".
Speaking of which, something else that I'd learned was where I was. According to the mage, and after witnessing an inkling of magic, it was clear that I'd been given the old isekai treatment and been reborn in another world. As corn. Despite that setback, it sounded as though I wasn't the first person to be reincarnated into this world as a "cultivator", although Lysander alluded to the fact that they were being hunted down and killed as he tried to do to me.
Faced with a brand new world, and now having been given a way to fully interact with it, I wondered what else I could do with this "qi" or "kernel" energy.
I was excited.