"I-I evolved," were the only words he could say.
"?volve??" whispered a confused leafling, looking to his peers for some sort of explanation.
"No, no. I think what he said is ????olve?. Yes, yes," said the leader leafling, shaking his leaf up and down as if in a satisfied manner.
"Lighted one, how does one dissolve and become... become so big?" asked the first leafling, stepping a little closer.
"Evolve. And it's because-" he took a moment to compose his thoughts, thinking of the best way to explain what had occured.
"Hmm. Okay, what I'm about to tell you all might seem a little crazy."
"There's this weird... system in my mind. It sends me messages every day... quests if you will-" the leaflings just stared at him, as if questioning his sanity. It all sounded even crazier as it left his mouth.
"Anyway, it gave me the ability to photosynthesize. The thing that happens when I start glowing, remember?"
"??o?o??n??e???e?"
"Yes, I remember. All you have to do to ??o?o?l?n??em??e is stand in the sunlight, if I'm not mistaken," said the leader leafling, stepping forward as he said this. "Don't you all remember? The day he became the lighted one?"
"Oh, yeah. That did happen," whispered a few of the leaflings.
~What a conceited idiot.~
"Yesterday it gave me a quest, I was told to absorb water and grow. Grow until I reached my growth cap," Lucius continued quickly.
"Growth cap?"
"At the end of it all, I passed out from exhaustion. And when I woke up, I was this," he said, gesturing towards his new body.
Though Lucius was certain that they didn't understand a word of what he had just explained, he was content that they weren't scared of him anymore. After asking a few more questions, and getting any doubts they still had cleared, they went back towards the camp.
"The Lighted One truly is different from the rest of us," chattered a few of the leaflings as they left. Only five of them remained behind; Ghost, Alpha and three others, and for a moment there was only silence.
"Teach me," said Ghost, before walking around his new body, examining him like some kind of inspector.
"Me too, I want to learn," said Alpha.
"Can we learn too?"
"I'm not sure if you guys ca-" he paused to think about it for a moment. If he could somehow get everyone in the group to evolve, then he wouldn't have to worry about defense as much. He could help them climb their way up the food chain.
"Hmm, I was going to teaching you guys anyway, so I can slip a few lessons in here and there. Anyway, I'm not certain if all of you will be able to do the things that I can, so as a test I want you guys to attempt photosynthesis."
"How do we do that?" asked Ghost.
"Simple. Just close your eyes and clear your mind. Imagine that the sun's rays are entering your body," he explained before walking forward.
"Sun's rays?" asked one of the three leaflings under Alpha's command.
~Perhaps not a good choice of phrasing,~ Lucius realized.
"Imagine that the sunlight is entering your bodies, imagine that your skin is sucking it in and trapping it inside."
"Seems easy enough," said Ghost, closing her eyes to take her first attempt.
As the other leaflings closed their eyes as well, Lucius decided to inspect the changes to his system.
~Player Stats~
┏━━━━━━༻❁༺━━━━━━┓
─────⋅☾ Player Details ☽⋅─────•
[Lucius Elwood ]
[Level 2: 0/200]
[Leaf Being lvl.1- [0/100]]
[Sunlight's blessing] +5 to all stats
─────⋅☾ Stats ☽⋅─────•
[Agility: 1(6)]
[Strength: 1(6)]
[Stamina: 1(6)]
┗━━━━━━༻❁༺━━━━━━┛
~Hmm, so that's why I felt stronger, my stats increased. What about the new items in the system shop?~
[System Shop]
[Evo points] -100 Helios
[Solis fragments] - 1000 Helios
~Solis fragments huh? Okay, now the new 『Quests』 tab.~
[Quests]
<Absorb water> 20 exp
<Buy 1 Solis fragment> 80 exp
<Unlock new skill> 100 exp
~Hmm, If I do all these quests I could get to leve-~
"It's not working," interrupted Ghost, a look of defeat on her face. The other leaflings didn't seem to having much luck either.
"I expected as much," replied Lucius.
"Maybe if you showed us again," said Alpha, just now giving up.
~Well, I do have a quest, might as well tick it off,~ thought Lucius before sitting down into a meditative position. The leaflings followed suit and sat down next to him with their legs crossed as well.
[Absorbing 2 helios per second.]
Lucius sat still for 5 minutes, at first the leaflings were just trying their best to imitate him, but after a while they gave up and decided that just watching him was enough. They had never seen something so beautiful before, his whole body glowed with a vibrant green hue, and the space around him seemed distorted, as if the light were being sucked in.
"Isn't it beautiful?" asked one of the leaflings, stepping a close to try and touch the green hue.
"Don't touch him, you'll break hi-" however it was already too late, the tip of the leafling's leaf was already feeling against Lucius's skin.
[Shared photosynthesis commencing.]
[Absorbing 2.025 helios per second.] Just then, for a second, the leafling's body also glowed. But the sudden message interrupted Lucius's train of thought, and photosynthesis came to a halt.
"What was that?"
"S-Sorry Lighted One, I just wanted to know how it f-"
"I mean how did you do that?" Lucius interrupted. Shared photosynthesis? He had never heard about that before, though the fact that it increased the amount of helios he absorbed seemed to be worth investigating.
"I-I just touched you. I'm sorry, you just looked so... beautiful." Silence.
"Ehem," Ghost coughed akwardly, once again breaking the silence.
~Anyway, is this because of catalyst absorbtion? Do the leaflings have some sort of catalysing effect when their in contact with me?~ Lucius wondered.
"Do it again, all of you, do it," he said, before closing his eyes.
The leaflings looked at each other in confusion, before Ghost took the iniative and touched him. The other leaflings followed suit, and once Lucius felt that all five of them were touching him, he began photosyntheis.
[Shared photosynthesis]
[Absorbing 2.125 Helios per second]
