I Woke Up as a Sapling (1)

A bird came flying.

It landed on a charred branch and pecked at the leaves, tap tap. Ash powder sifted down from the sooty foliage.

Suddenly, the sapling's branch trembled. The bird startled and shot off into the far sky. Consciousness slowly stirred awake within the Lightning-Struck Sapling.

Whuh...?

My head felt foggy, as if I'd just come to after passing out. My whole body ached and dragged like I'd been beaten all over. When I shook my branches as if coughing, more ash powder rained down.

What's wrong with me? What happened last night?

I clearly remembered basking in the rough wind like any deep-rooted tree should. So why had I blacked out partway through, only waking up now?

Dazed, I retraced my memories.

The wailing cry of thunder and lightning came back to me.

Waaah? I got struck by lightning?!

When I inspected my body, sooty ash powder was everywhere. The surface of my trunk was charred and split, and some of my leaves had fallen away, leaving me patchy and bare.

I had definitely been a Magic-Infused Sapling, but I'd been forcibly converted. Getting struck by lightning was certainly a bigger event than simply being infused with mana.

Wow...

With a sigh of admiration, I groggily performed my Dew Face Wash.

Using mana-laced dew, I carefully rinsed my leaves one by one. As the ash powder washed away, scorch marks gave way to the blue-green surface beneath.

Once my branches and trunk had their wash too, I finally looked somewhat presentable.

Yoohoo... So glad I learned the Dew Face Wash. Otherwise I'd have lost all face as a mystical sapling.

Warm sunlight glinted off my scorched leaves. It felt toasty.

There we go.

Now that I've had at least a minimal wash... maybe I should just space out while my body recovers.

I basked in the sunlight and let my mind drift.

A month passed.

Every day starts with a Dew Face Wash.

I rolled the mana-laced morning dew across my leaves.

The clean dewdrop polished one leaf to a shine, then tumbled down the branch, rolling along until it reached the next leaf.

When I finished my wash and spread my branches, the verdant scenery was dazzling.

Yoohoo, I'm all healed up.

The lightning scar still marked my body, but I was a perfectly healthy sapling again. After a month of sunbathing and spacing out, I finally had some peace of mind. Sunlight, I owe you one.

First, I surveyed my surroundings. Lightning had struck right in front of me, so I was worried about the neighbors.

The Yellow Flower Field was unscathed, though a few scorch marks remained in the grass. Since we grew pressed right up against each other, the damage must have spilled over.

Thankfully, the rain that fell alongside the lightning meant no fire broke out. It would be sad, I think, to be the only one left standing in a wasteland while everything around me burned.

But not everyone had come through unharmed.

When I checked on the neighboring sapling, only the mark of lightning remained where it had stood. The impression of earth, roots torn loose by the violent wind, was vividly clear.

The one who had shown me my dream had passed from the world before me. I always knew that in the natural order of things we would someday part—but I never imagined it would happen like this.

A bitter, complicated feeling welled up inside me.

Maybe this isn't just a goodbye, though.

‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠

When those charred roots return to the soil, flowers and trees will grow above them and drink the dew. If the breath of new life rides the wind and reaches me, then we'll be neighbors forever, unchanged.

Different in form though it may be, the neighboring sapling was here in the world with me all the same. There's no need to grieve the parting too much, is there?

That was what I found myself thinking.

After gazing at the neighboring sapling's empty spot for a while, I turned my attention to myself and checked my own designation.

I wasn't a Magic-Infused Sapling anymore. Had something changed?

What exactly is Divinity?

When I tried to examine the details, nothing appeared at all. There was no detail window whatsoever. Was it treated differently from mana?

I checked whether some new mystical sense or energy had emerged, the way it had when I first gained mana. I swept my senses thoroughly through my body and scrutinized even a single leaf outside it, but I couldn't tell.

Something must have changed, though.

Divinity aside, there had been an enormous change in my mana.

‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠

Whoa? What on earth happened?

I had no memory of the moment the lightning struck, so I couldn't say why. One thing was certain, though: the lightning had left something good behind.

A vast reservoir of mana shimmered within my body. It even felt a little burdensome, a little heavy to carry. Was that because I hadn't earned this mana honestly, but stumbled into it by chance?

I'd assumed my body ached from being struck by lightning, but maybe it was actually the sheer volume of mana. More is good and all, but what am I supposed to do with all this?

First things first—I should get this new mana out of my body.

Moisture beaded on every one of my leaves. As I gathered it together, the droplets gradually merged and swelled. A hefty mass of water settled precariously onto my branches.

It's huge.

It had grown so large that my current mana senses struggled to control it. I braced the water mass as it sloshed with the wind and gravity, enlisting my twigs and leaves to hold it in place.

What am I supposed to do with this? It's way beyond what a sapling barely out of the Sprout stage can handle.

It would've been nice if it were at least a little smaller.

Huh?

The mass of water convulsed.

It floated upward, rotating as it slowly compressed. Before I knew it, a tiny droplet had formed at its center.

The droplet caught the sunlight and gleamed.

All of my mana condensed into the tiny droplet.

Light burst forth.

Within the radiance, the droplet changed shape.

It became a leaf of water, then shifted into flower petals; it mimicked a honeybee, then imitated a hummingbird, turned into a rabbit, and finally—apparently unable to find a shape it liked—returned to being a droplet.

The droplet flew freely about my surroundings, its water-bright trail scattering the sunlight into dazzling sparkles.

It had been a tiny water droplet.

The little droplet that drank the morning dew and washed my seed leaves. The droplet that shared the rain with me and played in the wind. It had been with me all along—I just hadn't realized it.

The droplet hopped merrily from leaf to leaf. Once it had bounced across every leaf on one branch, it moved on to the next, conquering them all.

Yoohoo, I have a mystical little droplet now.

The Water Droplet Spirit was a being independent of me. It was half-connected to me through mana, but it could think and act on its own.

It would peer at a blade of grass, circle it curiously, then slide down the leaf; perch on a flower and bounce up and down.

When a hummingbird came by, it would chase after it in flight and startle it for fun. It would watch ants at work, then flick a droplet down at them and leave them flailing—a slightly mean prank.

But what truly convinced me it was a fully independent being was the moment the droplet, flying freely about, drifted beyond the edge of my field of perception.

Whoa? It went outside...?

I shuddered my branches in dismay, but nothing went wrong.

The Water Droplet Spirit wandered beyond my Influence Radius and came back just fine. Whether it had discovered something fun or not, it even ventured out again from time to time.

Only half-tethered by mana, it was truly its own being.

I see.

I have family now.

And family I need to look after, at that.

I'm going to become a sturdy tree. A sturdy tree the Water Droplet Spirit can return to and rest against whenever it tires of playing.

I must strive harder.

I'll become a great tree that anyone can lean on without holding back.

When I became a Magic-Infused Sapling, my Influence Radius had expanded dramatically. Which meant the underground territory I had to pioneer with my roots had grown just as much.

My roots hadn't grown at all during my month of spacing out, so I had to do the work myself.

As the range widened, I ran into plenty of thorny obstacles.

Whenever I stretched my roots into a new section, I was consistently blocked by something. A gray mass of rock, boasting enormous size.

It's so big and hard.

It was far beyond my weight class—I couldn't even dream of gripping it with my roots and snapping it in two. For the time being I detoured around it, expanding my roots while I thought the problem over.

I could probably break the rock itself. If I bore into it with mana-wreathed roots, even that boulder would fail to hold out and crumble to dust.

But perhaps because I'd just witnessed my neighbor's death, a deeper thought surfaced ahead of the obvious one.

This rock isn't here to be my obstacle.

The rock packs the underground firm and solid with its weight. Above, it supports the soil, creating stable ground where plants can grow.

If I greedily drove my roots onward, grinding every visible rock to dust, everything would look wonderful—for now.

But the day would come when the ground I took for granted collapsed, and I realized I had been nothing more than one member of the world's whole. By then, it would be too late to turn back.

Instead, if I wrap my roots around these rocks, they'll become steadfast neighbors to brace me when the storms howl and I sway.

I wound my roots around the rocks and detoured past them. For the boulders too massive to circle, rather than shoving the mountain aside I carefully bored only a hole through them, like carving a tunnel.

Roots are done, so shall I work on the branches now?

My branches had grown well too—it was just that I'd never focused nutrients on them on purpose. Honestly, my roots were the only part that had grown absurdly large. My branches were already at a respectable sapling level.

Looking it over, since the branches inevitably depend on the trunk, the trunk's height was counted into the maximum as well.

I am a 1.3-meter sapling.

A sapling that can grow far, far bigger, at that.

The question was whether my height could grow all the way to the limit of my perception range, like my roots could.

Not being able to see beneath my own roots I can accept, but not being able to see above my own branches is just strange.

If a bird landed on my topmost branch and I couldn't even tell what kind of bird it was, that would be truly heartbreaking. Even if it were possible, I didn't want to live with that.

So I focused nutrients into my branches, partly to test that limit. I gained a Resource Concentration Strategy trait for them like the one my roots had, and together with my trunk I grew lazily, steadily upward.

My trunk stretched and lifted the branches higher. Twigs forked out from the branches. They reached for the sky, unfurled their leaves, and cast shadows upon the earth.

Mana dew filled my countless leaves. The wind blew, and mana clung to the dew. Bit by bit, the volume grew.

The branches must have overlapped in function, because my collection rate didn't grow in step with my range—but it still shot up enormously.

When I looked around, the mature trees ringing one edge of my perception somehow felt familiar now.

They're all bigger and taller than me, but I feel like I could catch up soon. Just twice my current size and I'm there.

My branches and leaves held up the sky.

Sunlight poured down through the gaps between them.

Yoohoo, I'm a 6.4-meter sapling now.