Chapter 3: Appraisal
Chapter 3: Appraisal
After finishing the test of the Wind Control skill, Zhai Guangyi felt that he finally had an attack skill now, giving him some self-defense capability.
He currently had 75 Skill Points left. First, he spent 50 Skill Points to upgrade the Basic System to a Level 3 Normal System.
Then, he spent another 10 points to upgrade Fruit-bearing to Level 2. The Fruit-Producing Skill could assist Brother Bear and the others in hunting, which was also very helpful for him.
With the remaining 15 points, Zhai Guangyi decided to upgrade Photosynthesis. This skill could enhance Magic Power recovery and speed up Spiritual Power absorption. After all, he couldn’t rely on Brother Bear forever. Like today, if Brother Bear had lost instead of the leopard…
All along, Zhai Guangyi had only been able to rely on Brother Bear for sustenance. Rather than depending on others, it was better to rely on himself.
After completing the allocation of Skill Points, Zhai Guangyi looked at the panel again.
Race: Bone-Devouring Demon Tree (Nameless) – Can choose evolution after reaching Level 20
Level: 10 – Distance to required upgrade Spiritual Power: 2000
Life Value: 5000
Magic Power: 200
Skills Owned: Normal System – Level 3 (Assists host), Photosynthesis – Level 3 (Can absorb Natural Energy to grow), Fruit-bearing – Level 2 (Can produce recovery and berserk-type fruits), Wind Control – Level 5
Current Spiritual Power: 90
Skill Points: 0
Upgradable Skills: Intermediate System – Level 4 (200 points) (Unlocks System Shop), Photosynthesis – Level 4 (50 points) (Can absorb Natural Energy to grow), Wind Control – Level 6 (200 points), Fruit-bearing – Level 3 (20 points) (Can produce growth-type fruits)
Learnable Skills: Skeleton Manipulation (10 points), Blood Absorption (5 points), Appraisal (20 points)
Zhai Guangyi was dumbfounded. How could he be a Demon Tree? He was clearly so pure and kind. Apart from eating leftovers, licking bones, and consuming Spiritual Bodies, he hadn’t done anything immoral!
And the learnable skills had all become evil. But this Skeleton Manipulation… seemed…
Kind of cool!
Moreover, he could evolve after reaching Level 20. He wondered if he could evolve into a different type of tree. If he kept developing as a Demon Tree, one day he might be burned to ashes. Being a good tree that bears beneficial fruits was the friendly development path.
Although he hadn’t encountered any Humans here yet.
This Appraisal skill was also good. Appraisal is great! Unfortunately, he was too short on Skill Points now. Leveling up only gave 10 points, which was a bit too little. Calculated this way, even reaching Level 100 would only give 990 points, which was far from enough to distribute.
“Ding, congratulations to the host for upgrading to the Normal System, unlocking the mission function. Current mission: Obtain a Follower.”
“Detected that the mission ‘Obtain a Follower’ has been completed. Reward: 10 Skill Points, 100 System Currency.
New mission: Obtain 5 Followers. Current: 3.”
He hadn’t expected the System to finally start working. Upgrading the System was somewhat useful. Zhai Guangyi had thought it would just provide a bit more information and that was it. Now he had a new source of Skill Points and could also obtain System Currency. As long as he upgraded the System to Level 4, he could unlock the System Shop.
Finally, it felt a bit like an Otherworld. But in such a vast Forest, where would Followers come from? These three bears seemed to have gained intelligence, but other creatures probably wouldn’t.
If only he could develop Humans… He could only take it one step at a time.
The three bears witnessed Zhai Guangyi instantly grow taller, thicker, and stronger, and even produce miraculous fruits, leaving them utterly in awe. The two cubs now looked at Zhai Guangyi with entirely different eyes.
After finishing the Wind Demon Panther, the three bears continued to bury the bones beneath Zhai Guangyi. The two cubs seemed overly nourished and fell into a deep sleep, while the Giant Bear also rested peacefully, lying down to sleep under Zhai Guangyi’s shade.
Since Zhai Guangyi’s Photosynthesis had leveled up to Level 3, his Magic Power would occasionally overflow, automatically producing fruits. In truth, Zhai Guangyi could choose not to produce them, but with excess Magic Power and no other use for it, it was better to bear fruit for the bears to eat.
With the Recovery Fruit and the Berserk Fruit, the Giant Bear’s hunting abilities grew even stronger. The other two cubs also seemed to have grown after consuming the Wind Demon Panther, accompanying the Giant Bear on hunts every day.
Their hunting range expanded further, likely because they were with the cubs, preventing them from hunting Magical Beasts like the Wind Demon Panther that carried Magic Crystals. Instead, they caught only ordinary beasts, but the sheer quantity allowed Zhai Guangyi’s Spiritual Power to increase rapidly.
After a month of hunting training, the two cubs were already capable of hunting small animals on their own.
Moreover, whenever they encountered larger animals they couldn’t handle, they would run back to Zhai Guangyi. Naturally, Zhai Guangyi would use his Wind Control ability to manipulate leaves, taking their lives without a trace.
After discovering that Zhai Guangyi could also protect her cubs, the Giant Bear became more active. She entrusted her cubs to Zhai Guangyi and ventured out alone to hunt more advanced Magical Beasts.
Like Zhai Guangyi, the two cubs could only grow stronger by absorbing more Magic Crystals.
Another month passed.
During this month, the Giant Bear hunted many Magical Beasts, but most were low-level ones without any Skills, unlike creatures such as the 5th-level Wind Demon Panther. Otherwise, Zhai Guangyi could have directly absorbed them to gain Skills.
Nevertheless, over these two months, Zhai Guangyi had grown significantly stronger. By manipulating leaves, he eliminated many intruding creatures, and the three bears trusted him even more. They no longer just fed him bones; sometimes, they would even toss the internal organs to Zhai Guangyi. Since the two cubs had limited capacity to absorb Magic Crystals, most were given to Zhai Guangyi to absorb.
Zhai Guangyi’s current panel:
Race: Bone-Devouring Demon Tree (Nameless) – Can choose evolution at Level 20
Level: 19 – 3000 Spiritual Power required for Level Up
Life Value: 9500
Magic Power: 380
Skills: Normal System – Level 3 (Assists the host), Photosynthesis – Level 3 (Can absorb Natural Energy to grow), Fruit-bearing – Level 2 (Can produce Recovery and Berserk-type fruits), Wind Control – Level 5, Appraisal – Level 1, Skeleton Control – Level 1
Current Spiritual Power: 1300
Skill Points: 45
Upgradable Skills: Intermediate System – Level 4 (200 points) (Unlocks System Shop), Photosynthesis – Level 4 (50 points) (Can absorb Natural Energy to grow), Wind Control – Level 6 (200 points), Fruit-bearing – Level 3 (20 points) (Can produce Growth-type fruits), Appraisal – Level 2 (50 points), Skeleton Manipulation – Level 2 (20 points)
Learnable Skills: Blood Absorption (5 points)
After learning Appraisal, Zhai Guangyi could now see others’ panels, though not in great detail. Basic information was available, and most importantly, he could see their health bars.
The Giant Bear’s panel:
Race: Frenzied Black Bear (Nameless)
Level: 20
Life Value: 3000
Magic Power: 10
The two little bears, Zhai Guangyi temporarily called them Xiong Da and Xiong Er. Xiong Da is a boy, and Xiong Er is a girl.
Xiong Da’s Panel
Race: Frenzied Black Bear (Nameless)
Level: 7
Life Value: 500
Magic Power: 20
Xiong Er’s Panel
Race: Thunder Battle Bear (Rare Species) (Nameless)
Level: 4
Life Value: 450
Magic Power: 70
Zhai Guangyi never expected that Xiong Er would be a Rare Species, with limitless potential.
After two months of interaction, he discovered that the two little bears were truly highly intelligent. They would run when in trouble, lay low, never confront head-on, ambush whenever possible, and if they couldn’t win, they would flee to the Giant Bear or to Zhai Guangyi—extremely clever.
The most, most, most unbelievable thing was that they could start a fire!
Zhai Guangyi was dumbfounded. They had tried drilling wood to make fire but seemed to find it troublesome. After succeeding once, they still followed Brother Bear in eating raw food.
This made Zhai Guangyi increasingly suspect whether these bears were his fellow countrymen. But he couldn’t speak up, and if they were indeed fellow countrymen, he would have to be even more careful to avoid being sold out while still counting the money for others.
Before he had sufficient self-protection abilities, he didn’t want anyone else to know his secret.
1 Comment
Login Required
You must be logged in to comment on this chapter and rate the novel.
Login to rate this novel
Starting fire?!!