Just a Sprout (4)

Dew had gathered on my cotyledons.

I rolled the water droplet around and swallowed the dew. Moving with practiced grace, I gave my other cotyledon a thorough face wash as well, then rested the droplet delicately on the leaf.

The warm sunlight heated the droplet. Mana-laced moisture rose into the air, and only a portion of that mana merged wholly into me.

Looks like I'd gathered more than my limit.

I eyed the number skeptically for a moment, then tilted my cotyledon. The droplet fell with a plop, dampening the soil. As my roots drank it in, the surplus mana set off a change.

Whoa, it grew.

Something about it felt reassuring, and I liked that. Which meant that from now on, my water droplets were three times the size, right? Awesome.

But then a question just had to pop up.

Why does this work? What's the principle behind it?

Pure mana, closest to nature. Well, of course — I'd gathered the mana clinging to the dew purely through condensation, nature's own principle.

That much I understood. Clean dew was pure enough that even just washing my face with it left my mind feeling refreshed, as close to nature as anything could be.

But what did it mean to circulate mana through the natural order of sky, earth, and flora?

I pondered it, but couldn't quite grasp it for certain.

Still, even without fathoming the deep principles, if I repeated the form over and over, understanding would eventually arrive.

Every dawn, as I repeated my dew face wash and watched the dew clinging to my neighbors' petals trickle ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠down, something slowly dawned on me.

Oh, I see. Dew is the sky's cold energy settling onto plants.

Some of it returned to the sky, but some trickled down and wet the earth. The roots drank up the moisture, then sent water vapor back out through the leaves.

The sky descended to the earth, passed through the plants, and returned to the sky.

The Natural Circulation Method was an act of mimicking this cycle. Gather the dew, wet the soil, absorb it, release it as vapor — the great wheel of nature, embodied in one small body.

In this ever-turning cycle, sky, earth, and plant were all merely temporary distinctions. If mana could linger in the sky, it could linger in the earth, and in plants as well.

And guiding it to linger in a plant — that was the Natural Circulation Method.

Suddenly, the scenery around me took on a completely different meaning.

All this time, I'd simply enjoyed the sway of the grass blades, the dance of the petals, the rustling song of the leaves. But perhaps I'd only been seeing the surface of things.

In truth, all of it was a single connected vista. Just as flowers gathered to make a flower field, and cloud shadows settled on that field as if the sky were cradled within it — we were all connected to one another.

Beautiful.

Even far away, even invisible at this moment, we were all neighbors. Neighbors bearing the same sky, living upon the same earth.

Truly, the world is beautiful.

And everything that dwells within it — all of it is beautiful.

After finishing my dawn face wash, I let the dew fall.

The Natural Circulation Method had changed my body.

Yoo-hoo, the sky lingered inside me.

And the good news didn't stop at one thing.

Even as I savored my dew face wash, my other work had kept going. Gathering dew took ages, so in the meantime, results had piled up on this end.

My level had already climbed to 4. My field of vision had widened too, though the difference itself wasn't dramatic.

I'd spread my roots as wide as they could go.

With the nutrients I'd been pouring into root growth now freed up, my body was shooting up nicely. Probably another five days of basking in the sun would do it.

The sun set and the moon rose. When the stars faded and the sunlight returned, I repeated my dew face wash.

My stem grew, and my cotyledons swelled.

Then one day, my level went up.

Yoo-hoo, max level achieved.

The flower route had vanished from my options.

Was it because my hierarchical root network design so faithfully imitated the strength of a tree's roots? A little disappointing, sure. But I'd already decided my path was to ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠be a tree anyway. Some things you just have to let go.

So instead, I examined the two futures laid out before me.

The first, the Greedy Sapling.

Doesn't that name sound a bit negative from the very first word? Why would this future even be offered to me?

I quietly retraced my steps so far.

With a heart set on seeing a wider world, I'd thrust my roots out boldly and without restraint. I'd embraced as many resources as I could and claimed as much land as I could hold.

Behold: the Expansionist Root Plan.

Well... I suppose I *was* rather greedy, wasn't I?

Greed was the right word for it, no doubt about that.

To be fair, I hadn't wanted to compete with my neighboring plants, so I'd extended my roots deep underground as I spread. But I couldn't deny that I'd gobbled up all by myself the territory where other wondrous sprouts like me might have been born.

I didn't think it was an evil deed, exactly, but it did leave me feeling a little repentant. And maybe if I didn't reflect now, something somewhere would go spectacularly off the rails.

My roots themselves would keep up their expansionist march. But from now on, I resolved to listen a little more carefully to my surroundings.

Which meant the remaining choice was...

My body began to transform, unhurried and serene.

My stem lengthened, adding height inch by inch.

My cotyledons separated and became true leaves, then branches stretched outward. More branches followed, and a canopy of countless leaves unfurled.

Everyone, your neighbor has become a sapling.

The world had become so much bigger.

The vast field of yellow flowers covered one region of my world all the way to its edge. The pink flower, as ever, still bloomed alone.

When I turned my attention to the opposite side, past the grass and beyond my neighboring sapling, trees came into view — grown-up trees in full possession of thick trunks and luxuriant foliage.

How magnificent. That's a forest over there, isn't it.

If trees also stood beyond the field of yellow flowers, then this place was the heart of the forest. If they didn't, then this was the borderland between plain and woodland.

Either way, it was wonderful. I really did seem to be one lucky sprout. A sapling now, technically.

I skimmed through my status window.

Exp: 0/1,000,000

A million, huh?

I stared blankly for a moment, then turned my attention to the rest.

Influence Radius

1,050cm → 7,450cm

It had exploded outward all at once.

Each time I'd grown into a new designation, my ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠Influence Radius had multiplied by four. But becoming a sapling had multiplied it by forty.

Saplings were a good deal, apparently. I could see the advantage of a life with a clear direction — I was free to grow wholeheartedly toward whatever I wanted to become.

If my roots grew in proportion to my range, I figured a million or so would be within reach.

It would take longer, of course, but a plant's life is a leisurely thing by nature. A few tastes of sunlight, a few soakings in the rain, and the time would fly by.

Alright, next up.

「Mana Lv.2」

Yoo-hoo, becoming a Magic-Infused Sapling had raised my mana level too.

I contemplated the mana within my body. The amount hadn't changed. But the mana itself registered far more keenly against my senses.

It felt like I could do something with this.

Just as before, I gathered my mana into my roots. Root production didn't increase. But when I wrapped a sheath of liquid mana around the surface of a root, it no longer seeped into the soil like before — it stayed moist, holding itself together.

I poked that mana-clad root at an underground pebble. The pebble caved in with a crunch, cracks spidering across its surface.

Whoa, I've become an excavator root.

Then a good idea flashed through me.

Could I do this with my branches too? My leaves?

Why had I wanted to become a tree in the first place? Because the sight had been so beautiful — a dew-bedecked sapling swaying its branches, playing the wind like a song and conjuring rainbows.

This wasn't a dew-plentiful dawn. No rain had fallen either. But I had liquid mana.

Alright, let's try it right now.

Tiny beads of mana beaded up across my leaves like dew — dew, yes, but a firm, unspilling dew of mana. Since I was imitating dewdrops at their very smallest, I could coat a good number of leaves, if only thinly each.

I swayed my branches in time with the incoming breeze. The cool wind brushed between my leaves, and the sound of foliage washed over the world — that bustling yet tranquil music of nature.

Ah, it's like flying through the sky with the wind.

Every single leaf whipped through the open air, flapping free. True, each leaf was bound to its branch — but the partner it danced with was a wind that had wandered the whole world over.

Oh, I see it now. I'd assumed I was merely a neighbor playing the wind with my branches, but every single one of my leaves had been dancing like a flower all along. Flowers and trees were no different.

And the wind hadn't come to the party alone. It carried mana with it, letting the two mingle among my dewdrops. The dew swallowed the mana and swelled in volume.

Huh?

The wind sweeping across my leaves was being filtered of its mana. My sharpened senses coaxed at the startled mana, which had been about to flee from this unfamiliar dew.

The old gathering process — atmosphere → dew → droplet — had been streamlined into atmosphere → dew.

I'm... a large-scale structure?

Well, I'm young, but I *am* a tree, aren't I?

I swayed my branches.

Yoo-hoo, this is so fast.

I felt like a wind turbine.

The efficiency varied with the wind and the weather, but there was simply no comparison between passing dew through a filtration process and me playing the role of the dew itself.

I gave my branches a single vigorous shake. The dew shook loose, and a small rainbow bloomed. Mana passed through sky, earth, and plant, refined to purity.

Mana beyond my limit seeped in and began changing my body.

In that case, I should feed nutrients to my branches too, right?

The wider a swath of sky I covered, the more mana I could gather. Sure enough, when I checked, my branches' mana-gathering output had dropped, just as my roots' had.

But my roots were the foundation, so roots first.

I kept concentrating nutrients into my roots as always, and enjoyed the song of the wind.

Raindrops began to fall, and cloud shadows settled over the flower field. The steadily rising wind told me a dark storm was brewing.

If ever there was a time to run my wind turbine at full capacity, it was now.

A deep-rooted tree does not tremble before the wind — it spreads its branches instead. So I spread them wide. My leaves fanned out across the sky.

The raindrops thickened into a proper downpour. The wind blew fierce, whipping my branches, and my leaves teetered on the edge of tearing loose. My stem ached from the strain of resistance. I drove my roots deeper and held firm.

Rainy season again, is it? Summer had truly arrived.

Even this field of yellow flowers, clutching itself tight against the savage gale, would one day see its petals fall and bear fruit. If I got to watch the field wither and bloom again in all its glory, I'd be one truly fortunate soul.

Suddenly, light flickered. A thunderclap rolled after it, shaking the air.

Whoa, lightning.

Amazing, that it could be this powerful.

The light flashed erratically across the world. It wasn't striking the ground, but it seemed to crackle busily within the storm clouds.

And then — a faint, tingly static charge on my leaves. As they battered against one another again and again in defiance of the fierce wind, static electricity had built up quite naturally.

Whoa, static electricity.

Static electricity...?

The sky blazed.

A vertical bolt of lightning slammed into my body. The vast energy of nature tore a path straight through me.

Whaaa—?

My mana resisted, and the thunder followed. The bellowing cry of the storm swallowed my consciousness whole. The laws of the great natural world crushed and hammered my mana into shape.

My mana gave up its artificial resistance.

It opened the way for the energy that had come down from the heavens to circulate into the earth, and lent itself to the journey. The lightning passed through my leaves, descended from my branches, slid down my trunk, raced through my roots, and burst into the soil below.

For one fleeting instant, a small, small creature served as the bridge between sky and earth.

My consciousness drifted far, far away.