My Bark Is Worse Than Your Bite

Prol was awakened abruptly. He looked around, and found himself in a massive room. When he'd gone to sleep, he was in a room about the size of a tent. Now, his home was closer to the size of a mansion. It was still completely empty, though.

Confused by such a thing, he opened up his stats page.

Name: Prol Helman

Age: 10

Species: Forest Spirit

"Eh? I slept for ten years?" he asks, stunned.

He pulled up his research pannel, and found it had just been researching the area for a while, on repeat. The system would go over his memories, and new discoveries, and continually evolve more information.

This also meant his inventory and soul vision were done.

He activates his soul vision with a thought, and finds himself in the middle of a clearing. The ground was the same as before, dead and covered in rocks, without a trace of life in sight.

There was a massive canopy casting a shadow over the area, and the dead leaves from several seasons come and gone having built up, and degraded into a rich soil. He looks through his logs, figuring out everything that happened while he was asleep.

The world used a standard 24 hour day, and months were about what he was used to. It was currently late spring, and each season had roughly three months. There wasn't much in the way of nutrition for a tree, but sunlight came through the fog in the daytime. He had a rich display of leaves which absorbed every bit of light they could get, giving him plenty of power.

His roots had naturally evolved to be stronger, deeper, and more immersive due to the poor soil. Thanks to [Devour] he had no problems with poor soil. Even if it was just stone, he could take it in and turn it directly into energy. That energy coursed through his wooden form, flowing naturally as it provides energy to his every leaf and twig.

His inventory finished, and apparently his subconscious saw fit to store a large amount of water in there. Was he a cactus, or a tree? Well, whatever. It proved it rained around here, and the logs even indicated purple snow.

The analysis of those things came back as very poisonous. It explained why, despite there being water, there was no life. The only reason he was fine was likely because of his poison immunity.

Perhaps, something akin to fate wanted him to revive this dead part of the world. Or, perhaps, he was just really lost. Still, this seemed like a naturally fortified location, so it would be great. With standard plotlines, something would find him soon enough. Even if it took a while, trees were basically immortal, so whatever.

He kept scrolling through his logs. The winters weren't particularly harsh, as far as he could tell. But, to be fair, there was no other life to judge that off of. His self analysis had identified more abilities. Or, perhaps, they'd developed over time.

[Growth Aura]

Enhances the growth of plant life around the main body

Allows surrounding life to take some of the strengths of the main body

[Spawn Plant]

Create a known or random plant life

[Bear Fruit]

Ability of the main tree body to produce a fruit filled with a portion of the energy of the body

They used a portion of his energy, but he had a large reserve, so he wasn't really concerned.

After that, most of his research had been kind of pointless for a while, until his roots found new and interesting things. For one, there were various fragments of all sorts of metals and stones in the dirt. It seemed like whatever made the crater and the poison obliterated what had been built previously, leaving fragments of it mixed into the soil.

As his roots ventured into the crater next to him, deep underground he'd found a crystal. His research had spent a long period of time on just that crystal, since it was filled with magic formations. Fortunately, it was a library core crystal, so it had tons of good information in it.

It had cultivation manuals, magical spells, and a list of magical signatures that would greatly help his inspect ability. There was also the plan of the castle that had once been here, and information on some of its formations. The majority of the books were on formations, honestly, and that was something that interested him.

After all, a tree probably can't use a human's cultivation manual, so everything else wasn't as useful. However, he could draw, so he could probably make formations.

The crystal was completely researched, so, theoretically, he'd mastered everything within. He'd just never practiced any of it. For one, how a tree cast magic was likely completely different from humans, so he'd have to account for that.

Still, he was tired of sitting alone in the world, so he needed to expand his forest. His passive aura allowed him to make more plant life, but he added research to integrate that effect with his scripting and networking ability.

He didn't mind helping strangers, but if someone attacked him, he'd definitely want to stop protecting them from the poison. Currently, he could only toggle the passive on and off, so he needed to research more detailed control.

With that setup, he leaves his empty home. The moment he does so, he pauses, feeling a large shadow over himself. He looks up at the massive branches of his tree, which looks to be closer to a hundred years old, rather than ten.

'Oh. Right. I used growth acceleration.'

He pauses, before looking over himself. Trees didn't really get old, far as he knew, so he doubted he would ever age too much. But, he was already seemingly in his teens. He was probably at the high end of five foot, and his skin was pale and perfect. His body had a toned form, but still felt flexible.

'This ability is overpowered. I sleep for ten years, and I get muscles just because I said so?'

He sighs. The world was unfair. Fortunately, he was on the side of the unfair this time.

He was about to start expanding his forest, when a small white ball makes its way out of the crater.

'Oh. Right. I had to have woken up because a lifeform was nearby.'

The little white ball of fluff put one paw in front of the other as it crawled back up the cliff of the crater, before panting as it gets to the top.

Then, with a crazed look in its little blue eyes, it directly charges his tree body. Its little maw opens wide, and it tries to bite down on the bark.

Its little teeth sink into my bark, and a triumphant glint enters the foxes eyes. However, as if the tree were rubber, it suddenly springs back, and the fox goes flying back into the crater.

'Ah. Maybe I let it get too flexible. Now my bark is worse than its bite. '