2-Did they 'desert' me?
(A. N. I was only going to publish this on Sunday, but I decided to give you a freebie)
It's been 1 hour since I was thrown into this desert, and after a while of panicking at the prospect of being abandoned in the desert alone with nothing but my 'parent' cactus and sand for at least 10 square kilometers.
Followed by a little while longer celebrating at the prospect of living a second life with my whole memories intact, I finally calmed down enough to think things through.
After I reincarnated a few things have changed, besides having a body similar in appearance to cacti back on earth I also gained something else.
Call it instincts or whatever but I kind of know what I'm capable of doing and what I can grow into, something like a evolution tree in a game but... more complex?
{status}
<name: 'Prickley' Peterson Drat Sonoran>
<specie: attached normal cactus pup>
(A.N. Small cactus are called cactus pups and can grow out off their 'parent' cactus)
<possible evolution:
1)independent small normal cactus [needs to be separated from parent cactus to unlock]
2) parasitic normal catus pup [needs to take over a part of parent cactus to unlock]
3)independent small ice cactus [need to be separated from parent cactus and be in a place filled with ice elements to unlock]
4)etc....>
At the moment I don't have any possible evolutions given that I just gained consciousness.
Speaking of wich, I also seem to have a {skill page}
{Skill page}
<body skills:
1)tiny heat resistance ( lvl 3 )
(ability to resist minor levels of heat)
2)tiny water absorption ( lvl 2)
(ability to absorb minor amounts of water)
3)young root growth ( lvl 1 )
(ability to grow young roots)
4)young root manipulation ( lvl 0 )
(ability to manipulate young roots)
5)minor photosynthesis ( lvl 5 )
(ability to performe photosynthesis. By absorbing water, sunlight and CO2 the needed sugar will be produced) >
<soul skills:
1)focused omnidirectional vision ( lvl 2)
(ability to see a focused range of 20° on any chosen direction) >
<magic skills:
1)none>
So... there's a lot to unpack here, the first thing that brought my attention was the photosintese skill, because of it and the water wich my roots are absorbing from my 'parent' I'm probably not going to have to worry about dying any time soon.
What I don't understand is the 'minor' part of the skill, back in my world I only learned that plants absorve water, light and CO2 and produce O2 as a side effect.
If this is a minor skill, then what will it turn into once it increases lvl or rank? Better efficiency? No O2 creation?
Another thing that I noticed is the weird omnidirectional skill, this one I understand, because I've been using it for the past hour.
It basically allows me to see a 20° view, from every part of my body, not at the same time though. If I wish to see the sky, I will stare from the top of my body into the sky, if I wish to see my 'parent', I will stare from the side I decided to classify as left (given that it is kinda hard to classify left and right, when your eye-level can literally inverse)
Hmm... My powers are kinda lame. I'm just a pup, so I don't have hard spines like my 'parent', mine are only useful to absorb water and light, nor was I born during a particularly hot summer, so I don't have a in-born fire or heat element like I assume that glowing orange cactus over in the distance has.
I could try to grow my roots and then use them to cut the roots I was born off, wich are attached to my 'parent', but then I wouldn't be able to absorb water due to my 'young' roots and my 'tiny water absorption' not being good enough for this time of the year, if I want to do this, I would have to wait for winter, where the air in the desert is more humid.
But that would only apply if this was a costal desert, if this was another kind of desert...the winter would be no better for me than this one, because the winter air would be dry and and any kind of water in the atmosphere would freeze, besides my body would probably freeze too.
I don't believe this is the case due to the fact most cactus can't live in extreme cold like that, but given the fact that this is another world, where status and sentient cactus exist and the fact I have a possible ice evolution on my status, it wouldn't be hard to believe, albeit improbable given that my 'parent' cactus doesn't seem to have the 'ice' element, he isn't glowing after all.
Another possibility I have, is growing my roots inside my father and hope I can parasite of it in order to evolve into a kind of parasitic plant.
There are many other options for my growth and given that, I have nothing to look at, nor do, I'm probably going to learn about them all sonner or later.
(A.U. The next chapter has a little bit of math, as such, you can skip the calculations if you want, I'll publish the stats from time to time)