Alright.
I finally got it, after waiting for an entire day. A leaf. I am overjoyed, as the monotony of being a mushroom with nothing to do is extremely boring.
Without further ado, I thought "decomposition" but nothing happened. In a slight panic I went into the system window and tried to find out if I missed anything when reading through the skill.
It read: Focus on the object you wish to decompose, and activate the skill.
Alright, focusing on the leaf. I tried to only see the leaf, nothing else. The leaf suddenly got a slight glow to it, and an information window popped up. Melian leaf. Huh, that''s the name of the tree I guess? Alright, focus again.
"Decompose!"
The system let me know that decomposition had begun, and I felt like a wizard that just cast his first spell. Speaking of, there is magic in this world right? There are skills, so I hope there are mages and druids and all of that aswell. Otherwise I am gonna complain to mister figure-guy. Oh right, where was I?
Decomposition time: 2 minutes. Mana value: 2. Exp value: 1.
Yeah that''s not great. I need 14 exp to get to level 2. And I regenerate around two mana per hour with my regeneration skill at 2,6. Well, it is just a leaf. I don''t know what I expected. Back to the life of boredom I guess. Yesterday I read through the skills more carefully (although I forgot about the focus part of decomposition). It seems the firecap is more interesting than just a beautiful red mushroom. It has two skills that I can activate. The first one is "firespike". It shoots out a spike made up of fire, from anywhere on my cap, within a range of 3 meters. It costs 5 mana, so it isn''t cheap for me right now. The other skill is called "furnace" and I don''t quite think I get how to use it yet. It activates the blood red pores underneath my cap, and emits a high temperature downwards. It costs 2 mana per hour. If something gets under my cap, and it is a threat to me, I think I am already screwed at that point. So it probably isn''t meant to be an offensive skill.
All of a sudden I felt as if someone hit me in the head. Everything went black for a half second. I got a notification that I had taken 20% of my health in damage. I had 80% health left on my firecap. I looked around hurriedly, trying to find what was attacking me. And the only thing I could see was.. an acorn?
Did I just get attacked by an acorn? No that is just ridiculous. It probably just fell down from one of the trees nearby, I was about 4 meters away from the nearest Melian tree. I looked at that tree, and realised something just moved on it. It was quick, and had already reached the ground when I realised what it was. A green squirrel with three brown stripes on along its entire back. It had claws that seemed far too long for a squirrel on its front paws. They were atleast 5 centimeters, and thicker than I thought squirrel claws back on earth was. The squirrel itself also seemed bigger than what I was used to.
I now saw an issue. The squirrel wanted the acorn. The acorn was very close to me. That squirrels claws was a death sentence to me if it decided to take a swipe. The squirrel had hopped closer, and was inspecting me. I wondered if my firespike would be enough to scare it away. It was all I could do, and I had to use it before the squirrel got to the acorn. If it got that close, I doubted I would have time to react if it slashed at me.
I focused on the squirrel, and a window popped up. Green Nutrat, level 4. There was no more information. I waited, for a tense 30 seconds while the nutrat slowly moved closer, careful and aware of me. As it got closer, I realised it was no longer going for the acorn. It had locked on to me. As it entered within two meters of my firecap, I pulled the trigger.
"Firespike!"
It sizzled as it flew out of me, with a slight orange trail. It was maybe 5 cm long, and looked like melted iron that you saw in movies. Vividly orange, it was wedge-shaped, with a sharp edge in the front and a blunt end in the back. I had tried aiming it at the nutrats face, but it reacted quick. Not quick enough though, as it hit its left front leg, where it connected to its body. It staggered.
I didn''t wait for it to recover.
"Firespike!"
This time it hit it beneath the throat, in the upper chest. The first firespike had set the nutrat on fire, and the second spike made it collapse. The second firespike was then driven into the body of the nutrat as it leaned on it while it collapsed. I waited for a few seconds as I saw it die, and then got the notifications.
[You have slain Green Nutrat, 28 experience awarded]
[Congratulations, you''ve reached level 2]
[You have unlocked the skill: Mycelium Expansion]
I did it? I did it!!! I do get experience from killing enemies! That nutrat was worth the fear I felt just moments ago. I took a few moments to calm myself. The fire on the nutrat was already dying out, so I assumed it was a product of the mana in the projectile, and that it didnt actually ignite the nutrat. It suddenly occured to me. Not just leaves, but bodies are biological matter, I can decompose biological matter. I once again focused on the nutrat, and used my skill.A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.
Decomposition time: 6 hours. Mana value: 112. Exp Value: 56
Oh, so it gives me double its value in experience when I decompose it? That is outright amazing. The mana is amazing aswell, but I will need to use mana during the six hours so I don''t lose out on any of it. I had a look at my new stats, and they all increased by atleast 1, regeneration increased by 3, so it is now on 5,6. Regeneration seemed to be regeneration of resources according to the system. Not only mana, but currently that was the only regenerative resource I had. I assumed that I could get another somehow, but that felt like a later thing to figure out.
Next level was only 21 exp away, so I''d get that in the next 2-3 hours. I then had a look at the new skill, [Mycelium Expansion]. It allowed me to use mana to grow my mycelium faster. Faster? Ah, the growth stat makes my mycelium grow naturally. The skill consumed 1 mana per hour, and increased the growth rate between 25-150%. Why the widely different percentages? Maybe it is based on how tough an area I am trying to grow in. The skill didn''t specify, but I went with that assumption.
Oh, the acorn! I had forgotten about that since the battle, and now I focused on it and decomposed it.
Decomposition time: 40 minutes. Mana value 20. Exp value: 20.
Why is it worth the same experience as the mana value? Why is the acorn different than both the leaf and the nutrat? Hm, I have no idea. From what I can see there is really no way to figure it out. I decided that it wasn''t that important to figure out right now, and simply counted myself lucky. I then tried out my new skill.
"Mycelium Expansion!"
I felt a little bit silly exclaiming the name of my skill in my head loudly everytime. If I had a mouth I would''ve screamed it, is how it felt. It still made me feel like a wizard, and since I didn''t actually speak out loud it didn''t embarass me in front of anyone. Not that anyone was around here anyway. Next on my list of what to do is check out the small puffcap. I grew it at the edge of my mycelium, as I assumed that it''d give me extra vision. I was right, but it only increased it by about two meters. I guess for a measly two mana that was actually perfoming better than the firecap in terms of vision. It was a small mushroom, with a brown roundish cap, that seemed uneven. It had small black spots on its cap, and it had a white stalk that was almost as big as its cap.
It only had one skill, and it wasn''t an activatable one. It released a cloud of spores when stepped on, or when enemies were near. The spores caused irritation to eyes or other sensitive areas, and itching on skin. It wasn''t a great skill, but again for two mana I wasn''t expecting much.
Now, all I had to do was wait for experience, use my mana and wait for the next level up.
---
[Level 3 achieved] Huh, no congratulations this time? Stingy.
[Storage Mushroom] Unlocked.
Choices for the next skill are:
[Resource Extraction] Uses the mycelium to extract different elements and metals from the ground.
[Directed Mycelium Expansion] Skill upgrade. Allows for the focused expansion of Mycelium in a specific direction.
Oh nice, I get choices now. Would have been nice if Figure-man gave me a choice to not be a mushroom. Although, if I am going to be honest, I am quite enjoying my mushroom life. Hm, I assume I might be able to do something with the resources I extract on a later level. Directed Mycelium Expansion seems more immediately useful. But I don''t have a direction I really want to grow right now.
I am going to pick Resource Extraction, as I would beat myself up if I ended up lacking some resource next level. I could always just wait for my mycelium to grow naturally anyway. I also built a storage mushroom at the edge of my mycelium, in the other direction from my small puffcap. The storage mushroom gave me no vision. It''s a mushroom bigger than my firecap, with a big, wide cap. The cap is brown, and so is the stalk. On the stalk there is a hole, where I assume resouces go in or out? I can''t really check. I also activated resource extraction, and it seems to cost no mana.
A few hours later I''ve made another firecap, two and a half meters from my central firecap. I want to be able to cover the firecaps within the firespike range of each other. I don''t quite like the idea of my central firecap dying, and that acorn ambush took of a fifth of my health. It is almost fully recovered, but as I have a low healing stat (only 2,8) it is slow to recover. The acorn didn''t even leave a bruise or mark or anything on my cap. I need to find solutions for my incredibly weak body, I have also found out about the Mycelium Core that can save half my soul. It is located right under my central firecap. Great. So if someone does an area of effect attack I am just dead. Hopefully I get a skill to move it, or a skill to atleast improve my toughness soon.
The resource extraction got me a few grams of iron and some other assorted elements. If I focus on the storage mushroom it tells me it is 0,4% full. Atleast it is working, now let''s hope that the next level unlocks something that uses resources.
[Level 4 achieved]
[Trading] Unlocked.
Choices for unlockable mushrooms:
[Sugardrop Mushroom] A mushroom that periodically releases drops of high sugar content syrup beneath its cap.
[Fungal Worker Quarters] A mushroom that spawns, and maintains fungal workers.
What?
First, why would I want Sugardrop Mushroom? If all it does is drop syrup on the ground, it is only good for baiting things that enjoy sugar to it. And I don''t particularly want a bear to come over and stomp on me. Now, fungal workers? That seems amazing. Is it actually gonna be little mushroom men walking around and getting stuff for me?
I couldn''t hold myself back, even though it cost nearly all my remaining mana, so without really thinking it through I picked the fungal workers. I then immediately spawned it closeby to the storage mushroom, assuming that the workers might need the resources for something. I was not disappointed. The mushrooms was like a little house, it even had a brick colored cap that looked like a roof, and the entire mushroom was rectangular. On the front of it, on the long side of the rectangle, it had a little door, and a window next to it. The stalk that made up the walls of the house where white.
Out came three creatures that can only be described as adorable. They had small yellow caps that looked like engineer hats, and their stalk was a chubby version of a human build. The legs were chubby, the arms were chubby. They didn''t have any visible elbows or knees, the stalk resembled a starfish with only four appendages. I got a system pop up when all three of them reported in at the central firecap.
[Decide the roles for the fungal workers]
I could choose builder, researcher, or forager.
This world is the best.