[BT] Them Plants - Chapter 22 (Patreon)

I could now leave at any time. Since the guardian chimera wouldn’t attack me as I left, all I’d have to worry about is getting there. A thing I literally just did.

Yeah, not going to do that quite yet. After all, if getting in here requires you to fight that thing? Well, if that stupid mage was able to come get me I’m doomed . Better to take some time to improve in a way that doesn’t involve throwing myself at the monsters down here.

So I sat myself down and spent most of the next week practicing. Good thing the technique wasn’t like something from one of those cultivation novels. It’s a simple exercise guide, with the only twist being that it is an exercise for the mind.

And not in the sense you see puzzles and such so often described. This exercise would be the equivalent of lifting weights. There was no finesse or cleverness to it. 

After only an hour, my first attempt resulted in me as a puddle on the floor, exhausted. And I’m not exaggerating. My gel had literally turned semi-liquid.

I probably should have realized that was a possible outcome, though it might just be one of those hindsight things. After all, what do you expect when you exercise past your limits? It isn’t like you’ll be all fine afterwards.

On top of that, my body consisted entirely of ectoplasm and I knew the exercise would make it sturdier. Makes sense overdoing the exercise could result in the reverse. Whatever the case, I made sure to not go too hard after the first time. Feeling like jelly after exercising? Bad enough when it was only a turn of phrase.

The good news is unlike with muscles, I don’t have to wait for something physical to heal. Or I guess, maybe it would be faster now if I was to try building actual muscles? You really have to wonder how my regeneration would have affected that sort of thing.

Anyway, mental recovery was easy, I just had to take a nap. Which I admit, is quite odd for me. I always tended towards having a hard time getting to sleep. That wasn’t a problem after the psionic exercise. I could drop right to sleep after a session.

Now, I said I spent a week doing this and that is what I believe. However, it might not strictly be true. A week was just what my general sense of time told me. I spent most of it sleeping. Probably a three to one ratio of sleep to exercise. Oh, and occasionally going out and hunting a snack.

My gel wasn’t depleting all that quickly, but I felt better keeping it close to capped. Who knows what might happen next? Anyway, what happened next was a sudden breakthrough in the exercise.

It wasn’t a magnitude of difference or anything. My core psionic power did the equivalent of going from nine to ten. Not a big difference, but I did go from single digits to double digits, which was a qualitative change.

The most obvious change was that my scales looked like actual scales. Before, even if they were opaque, the scales had a translucent quality to them. Now each scale was fully opaque.

On top of that, it was at this point where I would say I had become fully scaled. Though maybe that had happened before this? It was one of those slow processes I hadn’t really noticed. A simple matter of my scales covering more and more of my body.

Then I look down, and what do you know? All scales! Was it because of the exercises? Possibly. Either way, I looked like a right proper lizardman or maybe some sort of half dragon.

Didn’t change anything, except maybe a bit more defense. The bigger change was back when my head decided to keep the snout full time. Whatever the case, I could also tell that the exercise wasn’t going to show any more rapid growth in the near future, so better for me to head out.

Me sticking around this place for a week or two was one thing. If I tried to wait it out for years, that would just be asking for trouble. That damn wizard should still be able to tell I’m alive and so not exactly likely to slack off. Even if he can’t find me. I might have shed the flesh he has locked onto, but I was still metaphysically the same guy.

So, after one final good night’s sleep, I walked away from the hidden outpost for the last time. And right into fight after fight. After all, just because I found a new way to progress, doesn’t mean the old ways no longer work! That and I may have gotten a little bit lost.

It wasn’t my fault! Pretty certain the tunnels shifted around, or at least the various junctions could open and close paths. There simply was not that many three-way paths last time I went through the place.

At least I got to test how my body had changed. As not all changes were without downsides. For instance, while my scales were indeed sturdier, this also meant I quite as flexible.

Didn’t stop me from curb stomping the low end bugs and rous. That didn’t mean there weren’t any good fights. I had been avoiding them, but this time through, I took the fight to the plants.

I won’t bore you with my first few fights. They were a bit embarrassing, I must admit. Oh hell, why bother hiding it when I’ve already admitted to that?

The first fight took me over an hour to end. It wasn’t even a fight I meant to take. The plant had just been a field of grass that didn’t look too much different from the rest of the ground cover. Except as I was about a third of the way into the field, they revealed their true form.

Instead of a bunch of small blades of grass, the monster had actually been hiding most of the length of those leaves. So yeah, they shot up around me and tied me down. I, I didn’t do too well with that.

Ended up pressed flat against the ground and heavily secured. The saving grace being that it couldn’t pierce my scales. So uh, good results there? Anyway, I did eventually get out of it. Though it took a lot of straining and more gnawing at the grass than I would have preferred. Stuff tastes rank.

So, of course, I stumbled into the next plant monsters right after. Though this fight was a lot quicker. It was another ambush plant with a method of capture. I got out quicker because it didn’t literally tie me down.

Now, I felt doubly stupid for this one. It was a variety of those pitcher plants I had seen down here previously. The biggest change being that it had sunk itself much deeper into the ground and had gotten some ground cover to grow over the lid. Stepped right into!

Damn thing was full of slimy acid. The rous, which were its primary prey going by what was left in the acid, would have found it impossible to claw their way out. The slime did a good job of coating even mine, to prevent any attempts to slice and dice.

I’m sure a rat of unusual size would have soon found all sharpness melted off their claws. Even my ectoplasm felt a slight burn. Which, given my experiences in the lower area meant this was some serious acid. Kind of surprised that any of the prey had managed to remain down there.

Or at least I was until I killed the plant. Within moments, any sense of a tingle faded away. So yeah, that stuff wasn’t actually high quality acid. Rather, the pitcher plant had some kind of ability to acidify the liquid inside of it.

So, once a rous was reduced to bones, the plant likely turned off the ability to not waste the energy. While it could dissolve everything, it was much better to focus on extracting the much easier to digest flesh and leave the bones to be slowly broken down.

Besides, it isn’t like the liquid wasn’t acidic. It just wasn’t only a “reduce bones to goop in minutes” sort of acid. I’m sure it was just as capable of killing those rats. If anything, the boosted acid was likely in case any of the bugs managed to fall in. Though that would require quite a small bug.

Like ants. Did I mention I ran across some ants? No? Well, that’s what happened next, so let’s get into it.

Unlike down in the lower region, this wasn’t an army of ants. Rather, there was a group of maybe thirty ants, each about the size of a cat. And then I learned my scales were where most of my acid resistance resided.

Being a bit cocky I waded into their midst to lay out the smack down. And I did! While cat-sized ants aren’t weak, their exoskeletons were about as successful as the mantises had been. Except, while the exoskeleton isn’t as tough as the beetles, that doesn’t mean they can’t bite me.

And so I found out the above fact, as their jaws were able and willing to inject me full of what I presume was formic acid. That burned something fierce. Left little hollows in my legs.

Worse, even after I killed the ants, their acid didn’t suddenly become water like with the pitcher plants. This meant I had pockets of acid burning away underneath my scales. I uh, had to pierce some holes to let it drain out. At least my claws did a decent job of it. Anyway, after that I started to stomp on all the plants I came across.

Flowers with exploding seed pods? A bit nasty when the seeds actually managed to pierce my scales, especially as those that did attempted to grow. Good thing I’m not made of flesh so they didn’t do much before starving.

A vine curtain predictably ended up wanting to strangle me. I didn’t give it the chance to try. A few quick swipes a claw and the curtain got a haircut.

More pitcher plants, not that interesting, but it shared space with some enormous sundews. Those were a thing, so big they had to grow horizontal. Of note, I actually got to see one eating. The sundew had captured a rous, all rolled up in the sticky goo it produced. But yeah, not exactly the most threatening when I could avoid the trap part and just cut them off at the root.

After that, though, things got a bit repetitive. More of the various plants, more rous, more ants, and more beetles. They all fell to my claws!

Not that I wasn’t worried. After all, where did the ants come from? I took a while exploring the tunnels before this and yet suddenly there is a new species? One which might be a legit threat to me?

A new area must have opened up and released the ants. An area that I made sure to avoid to the best of my ability. While 30 or so ants was a simple matter to smash, an entire army? Not so much.

Besides, I had no way to determine if these cat-sized ants were actually as big as they got up here. Down under there were certainly much larger ants to deal with. It was just a question of if those bigger ants could exist up here.

I’d bet no, but I also wasn’t going to stake my life in a bet I don’t have to. Besides, why try and find the source of the ants, when I finally started to recognize things? The chimera should be just a bit farther ahead of me.

Not that I was recognizing any marks I had left behind or even the tunnels themselves. No, I assumed it. The plants and even the dirt had begun to shrink, leaving only bare stone.

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