Tree Monarch - Chapter 2

The Poll results -

1.Limited Sight [Visual based] - 0 votes (oof!)

2.Limited Sight [Energy based] - 8 votes

3.Increased height, size & durability - 4 votes

4.Limited Movement - 4 votes.

Winner - Limited Sight [Energy based]

Disclaimer - I don’t own Marvel or any of its characters. The Mighty Mouse does and I hope it is not standing behind me with a shotgun cocked and ready to blow my brains out the second I have the audacity to press PUBLI——

Point Nemo, South Pacific Ocean, Earth 

–Caden–

He slowly came to awareness, unaware of how long had passed since he chose to upgrade his body, so to speak. Instinctively, he checked the stores of energy and fuel he had and whoa!

That was a lot of energy! It made sense, though, since he was near a very fiery area with tons of thermal energy and since the roots had no standing orders to expand, all that energy and fuel were just sitting there in his reserves.

He knew he was not full, nowhere near it but this was the largest build up of energy he had felt ever since he came here. With that said, he, with a nervous anticipation, turned outward and—

If he had a mouth, he would have gasped as he saw! Finally! He could see again.

Okay, it was very much limited and he could only see splotches of colours all around him, and not even in 360 degrees but it was something. 

He swiveled his sight with a mental flex and immediately had to lean back a bit, which did nothing since his body was not capable of executing that movement but goddamn! 

That was some heat right there. An entire direction, filled with red and orange, and the other being warmer shades of blue which turned dark blue as he looked at the water that was closer to his body.

That, coupled with the fact that he could see through his roots and could actively see thermal energy being extracted from the ground, changing its colour slightly only for it to return to its normal level, denoted by the fiery red and orange in the air, made him realise something.

He had not gotten actual color based sight, which would have been useless this deep down anyway but he had gotten thermal sight, the ability to perceive temperatures and more importantly, the changes in temperature.

If he had a face, it would have been sighing in relief, as it meant that he had not just wasted a bunch of energy and fuel for something useless. The upgrade came at the right time as it allowed him to see through his roots as well, how far? That was to be seen but at least it was something.

Also, he had a hunch that it would grow as he upgraded himself more and more, essentially becoming a higher-tier skill as he grew his own levels. Which worked out for him. 

Sending out the mental commands once more, he thickened the root network in the direction of the volcano or something, creating an entirely new branch from his trunk, to siphon off more energy, while burrowing deeper underground as well as branching in the opposite direction as well.

Seeing the energy and fuel stores rapidly deplete themselves should have concerned him but since he had what was essentially an unlimited source of energy right now, he could afford to splurge on expansion. Eventually, he knew he would hit hard rock or something, and become incapable of pushing past that layer, so he was also branching out.

He also recalled from his school days that the land near volcanoes was exceptionally fertile, which meant that these circumstances were almost tailor-made to be perfect for him. He could easily absorb energy from the volcano and once he was able to upgrade his overall durability, just plunge his roots into the volcanoes for better energy absorption since he could feel the slight inefficiency right now, and the soil was very fertile and full of fuel for him.

Ah! Suckking felt great!

Wait—

That felt gross.

He shrugged, or at least tried to, man the disconnect between his mind and body would have to be addressed someday. It could not be healthy for him to always perform some action and to see that his current body was incapable of it.

He should address it sometime in the future? Maybe by creating an avatar of sorts? That he could manipulate with ease?

Sighing explosively once more, he moved on to checking onto the roots and the feedback he got from them. While he could see through his roots and even his trunk, he could not really focus on all the data all at once. There was a limit and it was the trunk and a section of the roots.

He could see in one direction around his main body all the time and around a section of the roots at one time, a two live feed scenario. How far could he see? That was not something he had the means to measure right now.

He could also feel that his body had gotten stronger, a bit more durable. He could not turn his thermal sight on himself, or maybe he could?

With a little push, he waited as another network of roots sprouted from beneath his body, ignoring the costs of doing so, and instead of letting it burrow underground, or expand underground, he commanded it to turn upwards, keeping a close watch on the thermal image he could get from the root and as soon as the root’s tips broke ground, he saw.

“Whoa,” He muttered to himself, as he saw himself. A big block of blue, with the entire surface very cold, water swirling around the rectangular block, with periodic changes in temperature. He also noticed he was noticeably hotter near the bottom and very cold at the top, which meant that most of the energy and fuel must be stored near the bottom, which made sense since that’s where the roots came from.

He pushed the root upward, to get a closer look, only for the root to just fall on the ground, having no support or actual muscle like mechanism to direct and move the roots themselves. 

“Oh, well,” He said and moved on, using the root to just absorb thermal energy. It was nice to have roots that can do both, absorbing energy and nutrients from the soil. Though, he had a hunch that specialised ones can do their job much faster, though he had yet to unlock that.

Maybe in the next upgrade cycle? Who knows when that will be because according to his intuition, he had maybe 5% of the required stores for the next upgrade.

He wanted to explore more of the area he was situated in, before he could start hoarding the resources and begin upgrading himself.

The roots in the other direction of the volcano continued to spread, borrowing deeper underground as well as laterally, with the central root network burrowing straight underground, whilst absorbing nutrients as well. 

While his roots could not just expand and absorb stuff at the same time, he had figured out a way to make that process very efficient, by his standards. He had tons of roots, with 5 different standalone networks right now, counting the pretty useless one that is just sitting on the ocean bed.

What he did was he had a single root line expand endlessly, whilst the other roots continued their work. Once that root line had reached a sufficient distance, he had that root line switch to absorption, and then move on to the nearest root line, which began expanding once more.

This way, he was sacrificing speed for continued gathering of fuel and energy, but he had a hunch that this would be the best solution in the long term.

Also, he was a timid individual by nature, so doing it this way was the most secure since he wouldn't just lose his energy storing capacity. As far as he could tell, he had no limits to root network creation, despite his root network already being very, very much disproportionate compared to his actual body.

So, humming a tune to himself that he could remember still, he kept a watch on the root network expansion, occasionally stepping in to stop the singular root line from going further whenever it encountered something incredibly hard, like a stone or something. Otherwise, most of that stuff happened automatically.

Man, not having a sense of time sucked, since he could not accurately gauge the cost vs time ratio of his activities. Was it sensible to expand his network for the sake of security?

Or was it actually the wrong choice and the correct one was to just endlessly absorb everything he could get his roots on and then continue upgrading himself, so that he can create an avatar as soon as possible and then return to his human roots?

Ugh, it was all very confusing and distressing because he knew, he knew that no matter what the answer, he would be doing the same thing here because there was no way he could actually nudge the upgrades in the direction he desired and who knows how long he would have to wait before the option of creating an avatar opened up to him.

Sighing once more, and then being reminded that he could not really sigh, he moved on from that existential crisis and focused on the things he could do something about. 

Roots.

XXX

He did not know how long he continued the current process, of expanding cautiously, whilst storing energy, at a reduced rate since the root expansion had to be fueled in some way until he hit a mental wall of some sort, boring him out of his mind.

There was nothing to do anymore! 

He could only look at so many thermal images of the same water undergoing the same change in shades of colour before he was bored out of his mind. For some reason, he had not yet gotten the Tree mentality down, which meant that he was still an impatient little human with problems with attention spans. 

He tried to create a map of sorts, about his root network but for that to happen, he needed more data, more sensory data that he did not have. Looking at the volcano got boring as well, so he did the only thing that he knew could help with boredom, especially in this place where mental stimulation was rare.

Meditation.

Part of the problem with being situated in a place that was over 1600km away from the nearest coast was that the activity in this place was zero. NO human activity, though, depending on the time period he was in, there might not have been much of that even if he was much closer to the coast.

This meant that while he did get a pretty safe area, and judging by the volcano nearby, a nutrient and energy rich area, it also meant that he was way too far from the dry world, of which he was a permanent member of, up until very recently.

Shaking his head, or at least trying to, he tried to tune out his senses and focus inward.

It was easy to get rid of the thermal sensing since it was new to him anyway, and it was like a switch that could easily be turned on and off, but when he focused inward, the first thing he saw was the energy stores he had in his body. They were growing at a nice enough pace, by the way.

It was hard to meditate because most of the time before he got the thermal sensing, was spent in total silence, with very little sensory output. Hell, the only feelings of note he got back then was being burned due to the heat or his roots hitting some stones, forcing him to take control of the root expansion.

It was very different from his previous life, where he lived a life of constant sensory bombardment, where just tuning out the noises and focusing on the noise of breathing was enough to mentally calm himself, the prerequisite for meditation.

Here? He was already at the first step and it did nothing! All he could see were the energy stores and that was not what he wanted to see.

Yet, he remained patient. He knew that meditation did not come easily, especially not to ones who had been dimensionally displaced and placed into bodies that their souls did not conform to.

So, he kept trying to focus on himself. Since he had no breathing to focus on, he tried to focus on the flow of energy into his body, since it was constant, with no ups or downs. It helped.

After what felt like an eternity of doing just that, he felt something click and when he opened his eyes, he found himself in a dimly lit space, with a dull yellow glow all around him. He looked down and froze–

He had hands now! He immediately patted himself down and realised that this was probably his mental landscape, and his current image a representation of his soul, which still looked just like his old self, which was understandable.

“This is freaky,” He muttered to himself as he took a step forward, and kneeled down to take a look, only to lean back a bit as he found himself standing on top of some glass, with dozens of fine roots beneath the piece of glass.

The roots were constantly transporting what looked like yellow balls of energy, which somewhat explained the yellow glow of this place. Not completely, but somewhat.

“Huh,” was all he could say as he continued to move about the place, set on exploring it completely. It was the most stimulation he had received since coming here.

Anything to get away from looking at roots and thermal imaging constantly. With the expansion slowed down to a halt and automated orders placed, he could explore this area while his body outside gathered energy and fuel for his next upgrade.

He wondered if he could find a way to nudge the upgrade process in this place? Probably not but even if he could not find that, it would be fine, just for the mental stimulation.

XXX

What does Caden find in his mental landscape?