4 Deserted

Finally, he was born. But, it wasn't quite what he expected. He didn't cry, obviously, but he hadn't expected there wouldn't be any doctors. Or any nurses. Or any parents.

Where the fuck was he, honestly?

It was terribly dark, there was weirdly colored purple fog, and the ground was barren. He supposes it was better than a creepy forest, but he couldn't help but feel cheated. He definitely wasn't human, and he hadn't even considered planning for that possibility.

On the plus side, he was some form of humanoid. Based on the fact he was currently floating, and didn't have wings, he'd even assume something powerful. However, he had no idea what it was.

He was perhaps the size of a toddler, he figured. He looked down at his hands, which seemed rather childish and weak compared to what he was used to. His skin was pale, and almost seemed to glow slightly. If he willed it, he stopped glowing. He wasn't sure what function that served, but as much as he enjoyed light, he didn't want to stand out in the creepy fog place.

Beyond that, he seemed perfectly human. If he chose, he could walk fine. Despite appearing to be a toddler, his feet weren't cut by the sharp rocks, nor did they track dirt. Rather, he didn't leave footprints at all.

He was perfectly capable of lifting small pebbles, but the bigger rocks were beyond him.

'No superstrength, then, unfortunate,' he sighs internally.

He pulls up his character sheet, which naturally used inspect on himself.

Name: Prol Helman

Age: 0

Species: Unknown

'Well, that's real useful. Inspect has nothing to compare me to, I guess. In retrospect, I actually should've used my research ability to analyze myself, first.'

He adjusted it to do so. An inventory was useless if he didn't know his species.

Okay, that was a lie, but he felt this took priority. For one, he had no idea what he was supposed to eat or drink. Then again, he had a weird ability, so that probably didn't matter.

He checked his system clock, and it'd been a week since he first started thinking.

Being born apparently didn't take long for this species.

He was passively monitoring everything, so he'd eventually get a more correct time. In a couple years, he'd probably even be able to determine the month.

Regardless, he wasn't keen on exploring the creepy dark fog, but he had to do something. He tried to float up, finding he could almost fly. However, he couldn't go more than a few feet into the air, and all he saw above was more fog. He either was outside, or the ceiling was fairly high.

There wasn't even a single weed, so he figured either there never was sunlight, or this was some sort of post-apocalyptic world.

'That would suck, actually. I don't want to be alone forever. The premise for my entire character relies on the fact other people exist, even. Then again, being out in the middle of nowhere is somewhat typical for a hidden expert. The only problem is I have no idea what I'm doing.'

Prol wandered around for a bit, but found his body felt weaker when he got too far away from when he was born, and it was rather uncomfortable. As such, he returned back to his point of origin. He started in the other direction, but quickly found that there was a crater. He wasn't inclined to fuck with that, so he checked out the other directions.

Besides the crater near his spawn, nothing else really stood out. Everything was barren, there was lots of bits of stone, and not a single trace of life. He didn't think it was likely he was born on in uninhabited planet, because otherwise it wouldn't have a magic system. Wait, it wouldn't, right?

Regardless, he probably didn't need to worry about being alone on the world. He was probably in some sort of deserted, well, desert.

He lay down, watching the fog. There was nothing left to explore, and he wasn't in the mood to develop himself until his research finished. So he didn't.

After an hour or so, the results of his research came back.

Name: Prol Helman

Age: 0

Species: Forest Spirit

Racial Description: Forest Spirits are responsible for the creation of forests. Though they have bodies, they are functionally immortal. Their lifespans are tied to that of their forest.

Without a forest, they can live for limited periods of time.

Power is estimated to increase with the size of their forest.

Racial Abilities:

[Create Main Body]

Form the main tree body, where the spirit body can rest.

This body's growth is tied to that of the spirit body.

'Perfect. I'm a fucking tree, and I didn't even know it. I guess being born with a house isn't all bad, though.'

He ponders for a moment, before creating an incredibly small sprout at his spawn. Considering it was only as big as the toddler's pinky toe, he felt like everything he just said was bullshit.

However, with a thought, his body entered the grass-sized tree, and he was well at home. Despite the small external size, inside the tree it was quite roomy- about the size of a small tent. He wasn't sure if this was tied to his dimensional magic, or perhaps inherent with his species.

He pulled up his Self Control menu, and added quick growth. Beyond that, he didn't have any brilliant ideas. Attractive, strong, flexible- These sorts of things also worked for a great tree, he supposes. He wouldn't want to have stupid looking branches, after all.

When he entered this body, he gained the ability [Hibernate]. It wasn't particularly exciting, and the effect was pretty obvious.

He set his research back to inventory, and queued investigation of his tree and spirit bodies after that. Oh, and then spirit vision. If he wasn't human, he should be capable of 360 degree vision. It could be useful, in case there was anything that hated trees, and also felt it necessary to try and sneak up on said trees.

He ponders for a moment, before adding fire resistance to his desired traits. Hopefully it worked like that.

Then, he decides to hibernate. However, he didn't know the details of the ability. It'd be a shame to just sleep forever. So first, he pulled up his programming interface.

With a bit of effort, he set it up to alert him and disable his hibernate ability if a life form approached sensory range of his tree. While he was at it, he added a map feature, recreating the terrain around him from his perfect memory.

On the topic of terrain, the fog was suspicious. He added research on his surroundings to his tasks. Once he built up a larger database, Inspect could likely give him instant results. But for now, it pretty much just told him "this is fog." He needed to know more than that.

Having done everything of immediate interest, he finally activated [Hibernate].