5 Magic Runes

A large part, 800 years to name a number, of my previous life, had been spent researching and experimenting with runes. Runes were, rudimentary speaking a symbol that, in exchange for reducing the efficiency and casting speed, allowed a mage to circumvent elemental affinity. As a nifty bonus, it also allowed imbuing objects with long-lasting magic effects.

Now, these symbols made up a language of their own, including varied stages of complexity. Generally speaking, the more complex ones were, of course, superior in every way, regarding performance, but even the smallest deviations could lead to disaster.

Not wishing to end my blooming existence, I decided to stick with the simplest of the simple for now.

The hardening rune that had already allowed me to kill the squirrel. It was a simple rune that essentially hardened the object it was applied to. Since I had nothing better to do and needed practice anyway I inscribed every tree I could control with my nature magic. The difference between now and last time though was that I wanted the rune to be permanent or as close as I could get. So a rushed job like before wouldn't do.

I elaborately formed every single detail of every rune with my mind, letting it sink into the leaf one after another. After the completion of the first tree, there was a pleasant surprise waiting for me.

<Congratulations to host for acquiring the skill [magic runes].>

And there the system went again, giving names to things and categorizing everything. I, on the other hand, continued giving each and every one of my trees an arsenal of leaf blades that I could fire at my discretion. And after that came the bark, the wood, and even the vines and roots weren't spared. It took me a whole year to completely perfect my new line of defense.

I had now gained enough practice to try a more advanced rune. One that I had my eye on for quite a while now. The spy rune used to record content and show the user. Its primary use in human society was, as the name suggested, to spy on other people without actually being there. One of its perks was that it could directly transfer image data to the mind upon contact.

Now, who do I need to spy on? No one of course. I was most interested in the image data transfer. If I set this rune upon myself and had it transfer the visual feed instantaneously I could potentially see! I mean there's nothing wrong with magic perception or anything like that but I still preferred seeing things the way I was to and not in all kinds of weird swirls and elements.

The rune took me a while to complete as its complexity was clearly superior to the others but it was all worth it. I could see!

The trees and grass gently swaying in the midsummer breeze, I should probably mention that I have yet to experience any sort of winter like season, the sun shining brightly in the sky above and a few other squirrels running around in the distance. I could even spot an occasional bird flying by. Yet most interesting things weren't in my vision and since I couldn't turn my head, I created some more spy runes to get a complete 360-degree field of vision.

I could now tell that I stood at the back of a relatively big clearing if you ignored the trees I had grown. The clearing seemed unnatural, artificial even, and on the other end of it, directly opposite of me, I could vaguely make out an open path leading somewhere into the distance. Apart from me and my creations, there was also another tree in the clearing, it was a giant acorn tree, presumably the source of food for the squirrels in the area. This tree stood tall above all other trees even including myself and I'd wager even three grown men couldn't span around the whole tree if the hugged it. Its leafs had a dark green hue that made its crown stand out from the others and I felt a slight magic presence from it.

'System, why is this tree different from the others?'

<Tree in question is naturally absorbing surrounding magic and will soon become a magical acorn tree similar to host in the past.>

'So it's a magical tree?'

<Scanning... Negative. Tree in question has already grown acorn due to its inheritance and is able to skip this step of evolution.>

'Will I be able to talk to it once it evolves?'

<Host is mistaken usually trees only attain consciousness after reaching an incredibly high stage of evolution. Host possesses the Heir of Yggdrasil system and was reincarnated, so it was possible to have consciousness earlier. This is also the reason for the exponential growth speed that host has been experiencing.>

'What do you mean by exponential speed of growth it's taking me years to get anywhere.'

<Host might not know this but the acorn tree mentioned before has been growing for multiple centuries and despite its inheritance, it still hasn't reached as far as host has in six years. To reach host's current stage of evolution an ordinary tree is judged to need many millennia's.>

'Millennia such a long time! I feel quite fortunate that I don't have to spend so much time doing nothing.'

Having learned of the exceptionality of my existence I couldn't help but feel uneasy, there were bound to be people in this world that would want to use me for their gains.

Despite these bad premonition, I had continued living my calm life and concentrated on growing. But then one sunny day there was a great commotion going through the forest. Birds flew away in panic, rushing through the sky into all directions, the squirrels retreated into their tree holes and an unnatural stillness descended upon the forest. Then, at the entrance of the clearing they appeared, humans.