3 Chapter 2: Learning the system

I've been waiting for forever and a half! Who knew that just hanging around on a ceiling would be so mentally straining? Despite the fact that I felt like falling asleep I couldn't sleep. So, I guess I answered the question of whether or not plants do sleep, I guess. While waiting very few creatures passed through this tunnel. Worse yet they all looked like far too big of fish for me to handle.

There was a scorpion that was many times my size, a group of three rats three times as large as me as well as what looked like a giant monitor lizard larger than even the bison monster I saw. This was beginning to confirm my suspicion that flowers like myself were just mob trash that even goblins can scoff at. Which raised another problem. How the heck was I supposed to get myself a meal if everything else was far stronger than I am? I can barely manage to drag myself to safety!

But it wasn't all that bad. I was able to use this time to get to know my new body just a tad bit better. For instance, I found where my teeth are. Ends up my petals open up and on the inside of the innermost petals are dozens of small knife-like teeth. I bet it makes me look like some type of horror flower monster. Or maybe just like a certain space venus fly trap in a little shop. I also have found that I can manipulate the leaves on my stem to roll up to make them smaller allowing me to display my thorns better. I haven't found any new ways to attack stuff yet but there must still be some-

Wait what's that?

There was a small patch of brown that looked like it moved on the cave wall. After a few moments of focusing my mana sense on it and getting no reaction, I decided it was just nothing. But then it moved again a few inches! There's something camouflaged over there and whatever it is it's even smaller than me! Dinner here I come!

Using my roots, I began to make my way towards the moving brown spot on the cave wall. As I drew closer, I noticed that it had six thin insect-like legs coming out of it. It seems my little friend is some type of bug. The bug never moved as I approached most likely depending on its camouflage to stay hidden from me. So, I decided the best way to get close to the bug without it scurrying off was to crawl by it while pretending it is not there. Not the most exciting of tactics but I'm ridiculously slow when using my roots to climb upside down. I'd be genuinely shocked if this bug couldn't outwalk me.

As I closed in on the bug, I was able to make out its physical features. The bug was only around a fifth of my height and twice as long as it was tall. Its back was made up of several segmented plates that were all colored a mottled mixture of browns and greys. Just as I was about to walk past the small insect my petals unfolded to reveal the teeth that lining the four innermost petals and darted my head forward wrapping the four petals around the bug before it even realized what was happening.

Within moments, however, it began fighting back as it bit back with weak mandibles at the soft flesh of my petals. However, I began to apply force to the carapace of my prey and my teeth tore through the chitinous material with relative ease.

[Pebble mite slain.]

[2 XP gained.]

[New species killed. Additional skill point rewarded. Basic monster entry unlocked.]

[Skill point earned.]

[1 point of mana absorbed.]

[Compatible monster core detected. Assimilate for one mutation point?]

Woah. That was a lot I just earned from killing one tiny bug. But obviously, give me that monster core! The monster core which was in my mouth with the corpse of the pebble mite turned into a faint white wisp that was drawn into my body before disappearing.

[Monster core successfully absorbed. One mutation point gained.]

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I began to climb my way back up to the ceiling while considering my options. It seems that killing creatures gives me XP, skill points and absorbing monster cores gives me mutation points when absorbed. Not to mention the extra skill point and monster entry that's unlocked when I kill a new species. Pretty handy. But all those goodies were gained from just killing one small weakling. What amount of rewards would I have gotten for killing one of those enormous scorpions or that bison? Probably a ridiculous amount.

That meant if the rest of those monsters also had this system thing going on with them, they'd most likely gain strength at a ridiculous rate and therefore making it even more important that I avoid picking a fight with them. For now, though its time to spend my recently acquired wealth and check out the monster entry.

[Pebble mite (Tier 0 lifeform): A common and weak monster found in the higher cave systems. They'll typically rely on natural camouflage to avoid predators and ambushes to take down weak prey.]

Handy to know. I'll need to watch out for these suckers, but on the plus side, they'll be good for hunting while I get stronger.

[Current skills: Universal plant language (Common) level 1; Thorny defense (Common) level 1; Photosynthesis (Common) level 1; basic mana sense (Uncommon) level 1

Available skills: Drowsy pollen (Common); Tunnel sense (Common); Climbing (New common); Stealth (New common)

Current mutations: Petals level 1; Stem level 1; Thorns level 1; leaf level 1; thorny teeth level 1; Enhanced root strength level 1

Available mutations: Toxic thorn (Common weak) Chainsaw teeth (New common)]

Hmmm. It looks like I have some new options. Based on the options I can surmise that unlocking new options directly correlates with what actions I take. The stealth is a must-have skill and climbing might be useful since that's the main way I have been traveling. But chainsaw teeth sounds rather gruesome. The fact that it's a common mutation though means my fellow flowers most likely use it. And between a weak toxin in my thorns and the potential of being able to deal out similar grievous wounds that a chainsaw can inflict then I'd say the chainsaw teeth are the best choice. As soon as I confirmed my choice an irritating burn started to heat up my inner petals causing me to shake my head vigorously.

This hurts way too much! Owowowowow!! This is absolutely terrible!!

After several seconds of spasming, the pain finally settled down while I drooped limply from the ceiling. I suppose that mutating your biology within moments wouldn't exactly be painless. Now that my biology a tingling feeling was sent through my body as the basic knowledge on sneaking and making my climbing more efficient trickled into my mind. As opposed to the pain of the mutations learning skills is faintly disturbing with the system basically messing with your mind and all.

But either way now that I upgraded myself its time to start moving. I continued stealthily climbing along with the ceiling away from the place I originally started out at. This time unlike earlier I could already detect the improvements that the climbing skill made as it helped me find better areas to stick my roots to dig them easier and gain a better hold of the ceiling. It wasn't that much but the difference in my climbing speeds rocketed as I climbed slightly faster than I was able to before.

Opening up my petals to test out these new chainsaw teeth I found I was able to wiggle them back and forth which created a rather terrifying image with how many teeth I had in my mouth. But with this, my damage output has increased a bit.

The next thing I should focus on is improving my roots. They serve as my main mode of transportation and they weren't very strong right now. That's something I definitely needed to change. I want to be able to run circles around my would-be predators all day while taking nips at them with my fang-filled mouth.

While walking I made sure to check my status and just like I thought my mana went up to 6. While it's great that my mana count went up but that means that magic-using monsters might not be as uncommon as I'd prefer. Up ahead though I could spot what looked like a large hole in the ground blocking off the way forward for those who walk on the floor.

Not for me, however, I can climb right over it! While walking over the hole I stopped briefly to examine it. I knew the hole was big but it's seriously big. The tunnel itself was wide enough to accommodate two bison monsters standing side by side (however big that is) and this hole covered the whole area and could comfortably fit those two bison beasts.

Not only that but it was deep. Deep enough that the hole gave way to darkness with the exception of the occasional glowing fungus dotting the walls. And then the walls of the hole were also noteworthy. They were smooth. Way too smooth. Up till now the walls, ceiling, and even the floor of the caves have been bumpily filled with cracks random soft dirt parts and had random stalagmites and stalactites. This hole had none of those things. There wasn't even a sign of any visible cracks.

The only things that I knew of that were smooth like this were things constructed by humans. Did this mean that there were humans here? Maybe. But this world has magic and monsters which means it wasn't far fetched to think that some type of monster made it. Whatever made it I was sure I didn't want to meet it. Even if they were humans, I couldn't say for sure they wouldn't kill me because I was a monster.

I had a monster core for crying out loud! I mind as well be dropping money when I die with loot like that. If I was ever able to communicate with people and be able to safely assimilate into society, I'd seriously consider it, but for now survival time. Humans might not even be an existing species after all and that's why I was reincarnated as a flower.

I continued past the tunnel not wanting to stick around and find out if whatever made that hole in the ground would come back. As I plodded along, I found that the tunnel was gradually getting wider and side tunnels that were much smaller than the one they connected to became more and more numerous. Perhaps the weaker monsters were inside of the smaller tunnels to avoid larger more powerful monsters like the bison creature and the giant scorpion I saw which were based on my memory too large to fit into those tunnels. After some consideration, I decided it would be best to go into one of those smaller tunnels. I am after all one of the weakest creatures I've seen in this cave system so far.