3 3. Exploring the forest

( One month later )

It's been one month since I've arrived in this world. ' Let's see this month's progress,'

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

[Stats] ( An: perks will only be shown when there is a change)

[strength: 34]

[vitality: 36]

[stamina:35]

[agility: 40]

[intelligence: 30]

[will: 21]

[money: 10 million beli]

[Skills]

[plant - plant fruit control lvl 33]

[boxing lvl 31]

[architecture lvl 24]

[gardening lvl 30]

[wood working lvl 20]

[blacksmithing lvl 25]

[cooking lvl 21]

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

In this one month I used the my devil fruit abilities for almost anything, as a result it improved a lot. I have long since graduated from using just bamboo. Now I can grow trees upto the height of 50 meters in an instant and a mini forest of 50 meter radius in just a few seconds. I also developed some offensive and defensive moves like wooden spikes that shoots from my body or the ground that can move around in a radius of 50 m and pierce opponents; and strong and elastic vines that has the same range but primarily used for capturing opponents. There is also wooden golems ranging from palm sized to giants standing at a dozen meters tall that can follow simple orders like fight, chase etc or the big ones can be piloted by me from their inside like a mecha. I can now make any wooden structure that has the highest dimension less than 50 m in a few seconds, larger the object more time it takes, from .5 sec to 3 seconds. For defense I can erect a wall from any side to block attacks and a wooden dome around me a few meters thick to cover all sides.I can also grow an armour from my body in an instant. Another development was that I found out I can change the hardness of the wood I created, for now I can only increase it up to the level of stone. I am confident about increasing the hardness upto the level of steel or beyond. I even studied some books about plants to better use my devil fruit. It had the side effect of increasing my intelligence stat.

My physical training progressed nicely too. I followed the excercises in body training manual and even started wearing weights while training. The result is my physical stats is more than 3 times that of the average human. Boxing training has been eventful too, I can now use the basic moves like jab, punch, hook, uppercut etc proficiently. Now i have a technique to fight properly instead of street brawling. All that training had the side effect of increasing my will too, to properly increase it I need to start training in haki.

All those excercise and training did wonders to my body, I now had a lean muscular built and my height increased to 185 cm. I was 189 cm in my previous life, I will most likely cross 2 meters in this life.

Done checking my stats I looked towards my new and improved base. Now that I can make wooden structures I upgraded this base to a proper wooden fort with 30 meter high walls covering a 100 meters in all 4 directions. It even has a 10 meter deep and 12 meter wide trench filled with sharp wooden spikes with thornes surrounding it and has a draw bridge for passage in an out. The mechanism for it was designed in a way that when I am near it I can remotely raise and lower it with my devil fruit powers. The draw bridge mechanism and the portcullis were made by me by buying iron from the shop. I had to spend 1 million beli on blacksmithing instructions but it was worth it. There are steps to the top of the wall from the inside of the fort where there are lookouts of wood golems. In the centre of the fort there is a cosy wooden home where I live. Around the house there are a 100 of my special fruit trees and special rice paddies that daily produce high yield of rice and dozens of humanoid golems collecting the fruits and rice then storing them in a large barn near my house. I only keep the necessary amount of rice and fruits for daily consuption the rest is sold to the shop for a daily earning of around 1 million beli. There is a small vegetable garden near the house that is always full with vegetables due to my devil fruit powers. There is also a field of different coloured flowers near my house.

There is also a shower and proper plumbing, the tricky part of this was making a tree that can filter the ocean water it's roots absorb to pure water and transport it to a water tank near the house. It took me 2 hours to grow it all from the beach to the house. Don't ask me how it works bcause it's impossible with normal trees, I can only say devil fruit bs.

I even fitted out a proper kitchen from the shop for everything except that can be replaced with wood like wooden plate, containers etc I even learned how to cook food by buying an instruction manual for another 1 million. Hey anything for a properly cooked meal. I don't grow spices because of preparatory steps in making them from raw ingredients I have better ways to spend my time. So I buy spices and meat from the shop. All in all I have made my home nice and cozy.

But today I decided to leave my safe zone and explore the forest. Proper training is all well and good but I need real battle experience. Of couse I'm not going to take a risk with my well being, so I will be in my wooden armour hardened to the level of stone all the time and have multiple vines that move around me.

After a few minutes of hesitating at the edge of the forest I took a deep breath and went in.

( 3 hours later)

All in all my forest exploration was a very rewarding experience. There all types of animals here, both the normal earth animals like lions, tigers, bears etc and weird one piece animals like 4 armed gorillas, all jacked up on steroids. At first it was tough with me being unfamiliar to fighting but I quickly adapted and knocked out the animals and tied them up with vines. Fist I fought with a pack of tigers I fought one on one with a tiger while my wines restricted the others. Once I was confident in fighting I increased the number of opponents slowly till I could face the hole pack alone. This continued with the other animals till I came to the centre of the forest where the rulers of the forest resides.

In the forest center there were about a 100, 3 meter tall apes with the biggest being 4 and a half meters tall. They were stronger than the other animals in the forest and had good team work. They were dispersed in different groups of about 5 - 10. Even though the were a better challenge I defeated them all with some effort even the big one.

That's when things got intresting, some of the apes that woke up from being knocked out challenged me again. This time they were using rugimentary boxing moves. I was shocked for a second and nearly got hit. Waking up from stupor I beat then unconscious again with more effort.

That's when I remembered about a special kind of ape in one piece world that lived in muggy island called the Humandrill. It learned by imitating what the local humans do and can even learn to use weapons. I thought they were only present in one island. And here I was worrying about fighting experience. With my newfound sparting partners my progress is going to skyrocket.

I then sought out other groups of apes and sure enough the used boxing moves. In the end I got 2 additional levels in boxing bringing it up to lvl 33. Even though it will cut into my free time I added 2 hours of fighting with the humandrill into my daily schedule.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

progress in stats and skill in this chapter

[boxing lvl 31] > [boxing lvl 33]