If I was being honest with myself, there was really only one obvious choice. However, I’d be an idiot if I didn’t consider them all.

  Right off the bat, I disregarded the lowest evolution options of every path. The Middling choices, the Great Tree, and the Nature Sprite and Spirit were all off of the table. Given the names, I had originally thought Nature’s Avatar would have been the last evolution of the Nature Being options, but it was clearly wildly different, so Pixie and the Avatar were both viable options.

  The next choice to be taken off the list was the Grand Tree. If I were to remain on the tree evolution paths, I’d rather go with the Great Mystic Tree than the mundane Grand Tree. Based on the evolution descriptions, I would hate myself for giving up the magical advantages for the mundane options.

  And the last somewhat obvious choice to give up was the Great Mystic Tree. I was already doing pretty damn good with my magic as I am now without the bonuses that this choice would have offered me. I mean, it would have been nice if I could take it for a test drive so I could have a feel for what I would be throwing away, but I can already create firey tornados of death and destruction on a whim. I don’t really need the bonuses.

  “And then there were two.”

  Of the options that I remained as a tree, Nature’s Avatar was undoubtedly the best. It honestly felt like it was tailor made for me. I already planned on eventually taking over as much of the forest as I could, but this evolution is basically driving me to pick up the pace. I already do my best to help the wildlife flourish while taking out the orcs that keep popping up around me. It was honestly scary how high the number of orcs I’ve slain through my golems is.

  But then there was the Nature Pixie. Frankly, the biggest alure of this evolution was the chance to gain a humanoid form again. I missed being able to walk around, stretch my legs, and BREATHE. Well, I don’t know if they breathe or not, but the rest was still valid.

  The more I thought about it, though, the weaker the argument felt. Sure, I wanted legs, but the Nature Pixie didn’t have legs, did it? It was basically a core with a mental projection of a human laid over it. I don’t think the video demonstration of the Nature Pixie even showed it walking.

  And on top of that, I could still technically have the experience of walking vicariously through my earthen constructs. How many times have I creates a human shape out of dirt just to dance around with it? I didn’t really need a whole evolution path just to walk around.

  I kept rereading the Nature Pixie evolution description over and over, trying to talk myself into taking it, but I just couldn’t do it. I feel like I just HAD to choose Nature’s Avatar. And as I read the description once more, the decision solidified in my mind.

  “Alright. Moment of truth.”

  Do you wish to evolve into [Nature’s Avatar]?

  I took a big mental breath, and said, “Yes.”

  Then I blacked out.

  When I woke up, the thing that I noticed first was that my body didn’t feel ‘roomy’ anymore. Before, it felt like I was more of a being that existed inside the trees I controlled. I could move my mind through my body and focus on one spot at a time. But now, it felt like my mind had expanded to encompass the entirety of the forest I controlled, and there was a lot of land to cover. It was a bit disorientating at first, but as the days passed, I began to feel more at ease, more at home. I realized that I had begun to tense up, and when I relaxed, I felt the forest relax as well. It was then that I opened my ‘eye’.

  The evolution description of the Nature’s Avatar mentioned that the restriction on sight that most other trees had would be removed, but I hadn’t anticipated just how much I would see.

  I turned my vision up, and for the first time since I was brought to this world, I was able to see the sky myself, and not through the eyes of others. The sun was currently setting in the west, creating a masterful piece of art along the sky. It turned the sky orange, and I watched as it lowered slowly, and then the stars came out. The moon was giant tonight, and I could almost see the craters that littered its surface.

  I spent the night enjoying my new vision. It wasn’t until the sun came back out that I realized just how long I had spent staring off into space. It was worth it, in my opinion.

  Bringing my thoughts back to a more planetary level, I looked around the forest I controlled. No, controlled wasn’t quite right. The forest I inhabited. The forest I was.

  I was now able to see the entirety of the piece of nature that was my body at once. Again, it was a bit disorientating, but I was getting used to it pretty quickly. I was able to zoom in to take a more natural point of view, but I still maintained my sight of the rest of the land at the same time, but much less detailed. It felt like focusing on my hands but still being aware of my feet at the same time.

  I focused my attention on what used to be my main body, and I saw that it was actually under attack by a group of 12 orcs at once. I started to panic, but I saw that my golems were taking care of them. As I watched the battle, I realized that they weren’t actually my golems, they were the dryads I had created and sent out to cull the orc population. The golems I made were thrown around the clearing, none of them moving. I started to panic again.

  I quickly flexed my mana and sent an earth spear through each orc. As the mana spiked through the ground, I realized much more was sent through than I anticipated. A dozen large columns of hardened dirt rose through the ground, the orcs being thrown hundreds of feet into the air, sailing right past the canopy of my previously main body. I was in too much shock to register what exactly happened. I had to conjure a strong gust of wind to help Rudolph down gently, as he has been caught up in the fiasco. I placed him on the ground next to Harambe, the gorilla dryad.

  After making sure Honey and her hive were safe, I started questioning the dryads about what had happened. I was answered with quite the tale by Rocky, the tiger dryad. Not to be confused with Tiger, the first dryad I had created which was humanoid. He was also there, of course.

  A couple of weeks ago, Rocky had been out hunting the annoying orcs, as his master and creator has ordered him to do. In all honesty, Rocky didn’t particularly care for the orc himself, but for some reason, his master wanted them all exterminated. Rocky, being a good dryad, decided he would follow his master’s orders.

  Rocky had just finished hunting another trio of orcs when he started looking for a nice spot to spread out, relax, and recharge. His leaves were undamaged during the last fight, so he only had to use his Body Manipulation skill to patch a few gashes he earned during the fight. The biggest of the three orcs had managed to get its grubby little tusks under Rocky’s belly, but it paid for that mistake with its life.

  Unauthorized tale usage: if you spot this story on Amazon, report the violation.

  Just as Rocky found a good spot to lay down and activate his Photosynthesis and Short Rest skills, he heard a fight going on. Despite desperately wanting to take a nap, Rocky knew it was his duty to check out the disturbance.

  Rocky prowled over to the area in which he heard the fighting going, activating the Stealth skill he earned after one of his earliest hunts. He had gotten quite a few skills by following the instincts that his master had given him, all of which made fighting much easier.

  When Rocky found the location of the fighting, he saw that it was one of his fellow dryads taking on a trio of orcs on its own, but it seemed to be having more trouble than he would have expected. Rocky watched for a few more moments before taking an opportune moment to pounce on an orc that had its back turned to him, activating his Surprise Attack skill, which increased the amount of damage his first attack did after breaking stealth.

  Rocky jumped on the orc’s torso, grabbing its neck between his powerful jaws. He raked his claws against the orcs back before shaking violently, ending the orcs life. With one less opponent to worry about, the other construct finished the fight victoriously. Rocky was tempted to help some more to get in on the experience distribution, but he felt that that would have been cheap, so he opted to sit back and watch his humanoid construct companion finish the fight. Besides, if this dryad was having trouble finishing off just a single group of orcs, then it was probably a level 1 dryad, fresh off the branch.

  Orc x1 has been killed. Experience has been awarded based on contribution.

  The two shared a companionable silence for a few moments, then Rocky headed back to the spot he found to take his rest. He was running low on Stamina, so he needed to recharge before he went out to continue his hunt. It was just his luck that the humanoid dryad followed him. As Rocky stretched out, the other dryad found a spot to sit and watch for enemies.

  When Rocky awoke from his cat nap, the two went out hunting. For several days, the two stuck together. Rocky learned that the humanoid had hidden claws in its hands that it brought out when it fought. Other than that, though, it seemed to rely on its agility and ability to dodge attacks to win its fights. Rocky could approve, as he wasn’t a fan of getting injured himself.

  As the duo fought more and more battles, Rocky leveled up and got stronger. He didn’t have any mana, so he prioritized putting his free ability point into either his Constitution stat or his Agility stat. The first helped him to tank any hits he took, and the second helped him to hit faster and avoid taking any hits all together. As he continued to level up, fighting got easier and easier for him, but it also became harder to reach that next level. He wasn’t worried though, as it always came eventually. But, oddly enough, the fighting never seemed to get easier for his companion.

  After two weeks of fighting and leveling, Rocky realized the issue. His companion wasn’t a dryad like himself; it was a golem, one that lacked a name and therefore didn’t have access to the System in the same way that Rocky did. Instead, all the experience that his companion earned went straight to his master, making him stronger instead. Rocky had mixed emotions about this, but he knew his master knew better than he did. He also knew that his master had sent out far more golems than dryads, so it was inevitable that he ended up meeting with one such being.

  Rocky didn’t particularly care that his fighting companion was a golem. It was still decent enough in a fight as is, and he made for good company. The scratches behind his ears didn’t sway his opinion at all.

  A few more days went by, and the duo had slain dozens of groups of orcs. While Rocky was the only one getting stronger, they were still growing together as a team. It was working great for them, at least, until it wasn’t.

  One day, Rocky was taking his cat nap and using his companion’s lap as a pillow. The ear scratches were amazing, and he swore it helped him refill his resource pools faster. He was a little irritated when halfway through the nap, the scratches suddenly stopped. He opened his eyes and looked around for any sign of what caused the golem to stop performing his duty and greatest honor, but couldn’t find anything. Finding nothing, he went back to laying down.

  The golem’s arm was in an awkward position, but Rocky managed to shove his head back into the construct’s lap. He pawed at the golem’s legs, signaling him to get back to the scratches, but nothing happened. Minutes turned into an hour, and still nothing. The golem’s hand was stuck in the position that it was in when it stopped petting his head.

  Rocky was starting to panic, thinking that something had gone wrong with his friend. He grabbed the golem in his mouth and started dragging him to his master’s clearing. He was a bit worried that his master would reprimand him for abandoning his task, but Rocky was too worried to give it much thought.

  The run only took a few minutes, given Rocky’s impressive Agility score. When he reached the clearing that was home to his master, he only found chaos and panic. Apparently, Rocky wasn’t the only one who had come back here. Rudolph, Harambe, Vinny, and a few others that Rocky didn’t know about were all fighting groups of orcs. From the looks of things, they had been fighting for a while.

  Rocky dropped his friend off a safe distance away and joined in on the fight; with his help, the orcs were quickly slain. Once that was done, he looked around for answers. Unfortunately, none of the dryads had a method of communication. At least, not until Rudolph had a stroke of genius.

  Rudolph used his vines to start writing in the ground. He asked if anyone knew what was going on and why the golems were shutting down. Rocky didn’t know why either, but Harambe speculated that their master might be in some sort of sleep mode, and that’s taking the golems “off line”. Rocky didn’t know what that meant, but he wasn’t really given much in the way of book smarts. The thing he knew best was about the fighter that he was named after. Apparently, the human had the “eye of the tiger”, which is why Rocky was given his name.

  Rocky brought his golem friend over and placed his near the bushes surrounding his master. With any luck, when the master woke up, so would his friend.

  Rudolph took charge from there, instructing all the dryads to gather the orc bodies and bring them out of the clearing. He said something about the meat rotting and being bad for the bees, which was enough to get everyone to act quickly. They brought the orcs out to the road and they gathered back at the clearing. They had nothing to do but speculate and stand guard over their master.

  Rocky brought the remaining golems from their spots around the clearing and brought them over to join his friend. Since they were no longer working, they would be a liability in a fight. It was best that they be moved out of the way of the fighters.

  Another week went by, and the group was assaulted numerous times a day by the orcs. Without the dryads and golems out there to steadily cull their numbers, the orcs were growing in numbers. Towards the end of the week, they were getting attacked by sometimes 30 orcs a day. It wasn’t so much trouble for the elites of the dryad squad, but having to defend the bees and garden of their master made things tricky for them.

  On the tenth day after their master started his nap, he finally woke up. The dryads could all feel the forest around them flex and tense to their master’s will. They grew hopeful that the golems would finally join them in the fighting again, but they had no such luck.

  Two more days went by, and they still hadn’t heard from neither their master nor the inert golems. Another three days went by, and still nothing. The dryads had continued to grow tense, as had the forest around them. They were scared that to their master had abandoned them, leaving them to die to the orc army that seemed to only be growing.

  A week after their master had woken up, the forest finally seemed to relax. The branches of the surrounding trees creaked as the tension was let out of them. Everything around them seemed to let out a breath that they didn’t know they were holding. From then on, the fighting seemed to grow easier.

  It was still another two days after even that that they all felt their master’s attention.

  The group was in the middle of fighting the second largest group of orcs they had gotten that day, a nice even dozen orcs. The group before them had been of 15 of their kind, but they were taken down easily enough. They struggled more with this group since they had used so much stamina taking care of a few other raiding groups before this today, but they all knew their master would be able to take them out in an instant now that he was here.

  Rocky’s opinion of his master grew by leaps and bounds as 12 pillars of rock shot up from the ground, throwing all the orcs way up high in the air. He was worried for only a moment about Rudolph, who had his vines wrapped around on of the orcs when it happened, but a gust of air brought him down safely next to Harambe.

  Rocky looked around expectantly. He was happy that his master was back and awake but he was still eager to be with his friend again. As he was looking, he found the arm of his friend buried under one of the orc bodies from the previous fight. He gingerly picked him up by the arm, freeing him from the bodies. It was finally the day he would return. Rocky was so excited!

  Discord Here!