Chapter 18: The True Reasons

After getting through the first floor that only takes a day, I proceed to the second floor where I met the basilisk. After catching it and extracting its ability through a Devil fruit, I got the [Petrification resistance] just like Hajime. However, unlike Him who immediately gives up, I study the body, especially its eyes to find out what went wrong in obtaining the legendary mangekyou...Ahem, I mean "Evil eye of petrification".

From slicing it, planting it using a devil fruit extraction method, and even smashing it to the ground, I finally know what went wrong! Although it is called Evil eye ability or eye power, its power is not only from its eye but also a special organ that can change mana transmission from particles to waves.

It looks like mana is just like many elementary particles in the world like electrons as it exists in the form of both matter and waves. The specific organ is responsible for this specific conversion which allows the mana to be beamed with the Basilisk eyes toward a target except for air and water particles.

If the common use of magic is through projectiles, then the basilisk uses its magic through a beam of mana in the form of waves of a certain frequency. This is probably the original concept of many other eye powers which might also exist in this world.

To get this skill, I need to go on a length of obtaining the [+Mana Wave Conversion] skill from the organ first then [Petrification Eye] from its eye using the devil fruit extraction method twice. Although in the end, it is twice the effort, it is also twice the reward since I got 2 skills.

Getting [Petrification Eye] can be considered a milestone for me as with this super OP skill I immediately speed run through many levels. I met a lot of monsters like the shark in the tar, chameleon, frog, butterfly, etc, and gained many of their skills and abilities.

This fast pace speedrun finally slowed down after three days as I finally found out my true objective. I go to this dungeon only for this. The reason I even want to go to this shithole where I am forced to be a vegetarian was only because of a monster in front of me, a Treant.

Although it is a monster, it can also be considered as a plant which, of course, belongs to my jurisdiction. While Hajime almost hunted to extinction in the original(also the reason why I speed run the whole dungeon) due to its delicious fruit, the fruit was never my goal! This Treant represents something greater for me, something that even wished upon by many scientists in my previous or even current world. The birth of Artificial Intelligence!

Of course, this Treant is probably only a simple top-down AI that is incapable of learning, commanding, or even having an emotion. However, it is still sufficient for me to use this Treant as the basis of my plant Army. You get that! An entire army!

An army of Treant moving around and attacking others using their branches may already be sufficient to wipe out an entire town or city. However, who am I? Am I a stupid who only know the human-wave tactic or in this case, the Plant-wave tactic? As a 21st century student who learned sciences, I will be very ashamed of doing that.

My army shall use modern weaponry! The Treant should not only move and move its branch like a whip to damage an enemy. I can install it with a cannon to make it a mobile artillery. I can even reform its shape and reinforce its shell to make it like a Tank. I can even create more based on this from soldiers, heavy vehicles, and more! And what's the best? They are not afraid to die and even can be grown like cabbage or leeks!

Seeing those Treants try to hit me, I immediately control them using [Plant Manipulation] as apparently, this skill works even when they are clearly a monster!!

"HAHAHA, MUDA MUDA MUDA!!"

I immediately capture some of them and proceed to use my [Plant Appraisals] that apparently have evolved into [Plant Understanding]. This skill allows me to understand new plants I found more completely to the extent I can just form a new seed after using these skills. Furthermore, this skill apparently also comes with a bonus as I am now able to sense the feelings of plants and even share the sense perception of Plants that I grow by myself.

This allows me, to a certain extent, to view what Hajime has been doing as He is currently starting a fight with the boss bear and probably being confused by the Pirate Bear in front of Him. Where is the plant you ask? Of course, it is the prosthetic and the eyepieces of the Pirate Bear.

Of course, this is not in the form of an HD image or even 3d vision but only a Heat signature since plants I previously grew only perceive their surroundings using thermal detection. Since I can't watch their fights, I just ignore their youthful fights and continue to do my own thing.

I first tried whether I can still extract their abilities first using the Devil fruit extraction method which ended up being futile since I actually already got their skill the moment I understood them and was able to form a new seed for them. This is thanks to [Plant Symbiosis] allowing me to get my plant's skill and abilities.

Next up on my to-do list is to make a plant soldier. I make the form of my soldier be divided into several types; Melee, Ranged, and Sniper. I probably will make new types later on but for the moment, I only think of these three.

For the melee, at first, I plan to make it a humanoid before finding that it is impossible due to the fact they don't have any experience of walking with 2 legs. So I postpone this plan since I can't just let these Artificial Intelligent that is still stupid plant to learn how to walk, well… Let's just call it Artificial retardation before I go get my true Artificial Intelligent in the flower field level where the dryad-like plant controls all the monsters in the whole floor.

With humanoid shapes out of the way, I decided to make them into a bush with the shape of a pine tree (just imagine a Christmas tree) without its log. I put several legs with sharp thorns, allowing it to climb into any surface which actually works!

Next, I make the center of the bush rotatable as I make every end of the bush like a thorn using the Spikeball's spike-like end and making its form to resemble a sword instead. This will make them capable of turning themselves into a chainsaw when finding their enemy which will probably be gruesome and will be used for monster killing or special purpose only.

Besides the body that is able to become a chainsaw, I also make 3 hands with spear-like ends that are able to stab enemies' defense. Not only will it stab them, but I also make the end and the inside hollow as I put some chemicals like poison, neurotoxin, and acids for both lethal and non-lethal purposes. This is an excellent killing machine I created as I named them 'Bushfighter'.

For the ranged soldier, I based my creation upon the Gatling Pea like in PVZ but with a sturdier 6 legs that are also able to climb to any surface. I also installed a shield in front of it that can be folded by itself making it look like a Shield Turret from some FPS game when looked at from afar. Of course, I also install metallic vines as coils to turn them into Gauss Gatling guns which will shred the enemy like cheese.

For the Sniper, I honestly am not sure what form it will take before deciding to make it look like a big flower with the Railgun Sniper hiding in the inside of the petals. Don't think that the Big flower petals will make it easier to spot them as I also give several abilities I got from the monster like [Hide Presences] I obtained from the sharks monster just like Hajime, [Optical Camouflage] I get from a chameleon-like monster and [Thermal Camouflage] which can be found in several snakes or cold bloated monster I found.

I spent around 2 days perfecting them before finally continuing with the next one. Troops of this scale are still not capable of mass destruction and in a way not strong enough to fight colossus monsters. That is why I decided to add an additional firepower to my army before continuing my journey, a Tank.

Tanks, which in World War 1 were created based on the idea of a moving artillery or moving fortress, are already a proven concept in modern warfare. However, after literally copy-pasting a tank structure into my plants, it doesn't really work… This is not the problem of metal and plants but the problem in the way a plant moves and a machine moves.

A machine, like an engine, moves mostly by rotation which can be transformed to other types of movement using gears, shafts, or other sorts of movement. However, plants move similarly to your muscles which are stretching and compression movement. Although I can make them like our hands using joints as I transform the plant fiber muscles-like movement into rotational movement, the efficiency of that is very low. This results in the Tank I created being very slow… even slower than the Tank used in WW2!

Thus I finally decided on a new design that I called, the 'Spider Tank'. Instead of a trackwheel, I decided to use 8 legs that look like spider legs. I also decided to make the 8 spider legs to be capable of transforming from the flat end for a normal road to a pointed end which allows them to climb and even pierce the enemies that are too close around it.

For the main cannon, I of course use the Railgun and decided to create 3 kinds of shells for now. One of them is the piercing shell which I created using an enlarged penetration round bullet. The second one is the high explosive round which takes a lot of experiments and explosions to make an 'explode on contact' mechanism using spring and gear mechanism.

This takes the majority of the time as I finally give up using the spring and gear mechanism like modern HE rounds but instead using a chemical that will explode upon high shocks when experiencing impact. I set the impact to be quite high so that it will not explode when it only penetrates water or glass which I rarely see in this world.

Of course, all these Soldiers and Tanks are incorporated with a Magic crystal which is now farmable through planting Treant to the ground. Currently, I am practically (almost literally) farming money from the ground. Looks like I will never be worried about money in the future.

Anyways, besides the magic crystal, I also put inside what I called a 'plant brain'. Normal plants are unable to think as it only relies on intelligence emergence through a group of cells or basically, the brain is its whole body. The plant Brain is an organ inside the Treant which allows them to think and move using the mana inside the magic crystal which a normal plant cannot do. Basically, this is the brain of a monster plant just like a brain is to a human or animal.

The Plant Brain has a different structure than humans and animals. If human brains transfer information through electrical signals in the synapse and neurons inside them, plant brains don't have them. Instead, they transfer electrical signals through a unique organelle that is similar to those but different in composition. Although they differ in composition, it is still a carbon-based structure so the electronic signal still transfers through electron transition.

For all this, I take around 5 days to finalize and experiment on the most optimal shape and arrangement which is very hard for me. In the end, I end up finishing them until they are considered usable before continuing the journey to the higher floor. After all, as many of them say, only in real battle will a technology or weapon be truly tested. After around 2 days of speedrunning, I finally chance upon a huge gate with 2 cyclops statues guarding it.

'Looks, like I finally halfway through the Dungeon huh…'