Reincarnated As A Plant Life

Chapter 117 Natural Builders (3)

After around 20 minutes of morphing, Lucius used every bit of mushroom that had been allocated to this group and found that it was not sufficient. Of course, he could make the structure he was envisioning a little smaller, but he doubted that it would be able to house 50 shrooms comfortably.

"This is not enough," he said out loud. "We'll need at least five times this amount to build a suitable structure," he continued.

The chieftains looked at each other in fear, perhaps worried that Lucius might get angry due to the inconvenience.

"Can you guys bring the mushrooms that the other groups collected.... and order them to go collect as many more as they possibly can," he ordered after some thought.

"Not you guys, you guys stay," he said quickly, as the chieftains were about to stand. Even if the other groups decided to run away, so long as he had the chieftains it wouldn't be a complete loss.

The shrooms stumbled over each other to carry out their task. While they were doing this, Lucius began experimenting with this new skill of his.

First, he tried morphing the dirt but found that it was not possible. Then he tried a nearby stone, and again nothing. Lastly, he tried morphing one of the chieftains, and that as well did not work. This confirmed that the skill did indeed only work on vegetation.

Next, he tried morphing a branch on a nearby tree, however, he found that its weight was way above what he could currently handle. Afterward, he tried morphing a few nearby vines, snaking them along the ground toward himself.

The chieftains watched in awe. Every second, their thoughts being pushed to a single conclusion. The creature they were currently watching, the one that had sent a monster to kill their elder, that same creature was the savior of legend.

"The shri'killian," one of them whispered as Lucius used Elmando to turn the vines into what seemed like living snakes.

~I'm not quite proficient enough to weaponize it,~ Lucius thought to himself as he played around with the vines. ~Though perhaps with a bit more practice, it might be viable.~

After a few more minutes, a few hundred shrooms came carrying the mushrooms they had been ordered to bring. Once they sat them down in front of Lucius, they waited in silence, expectantly staring at him.

~They must've told the others,~ he thought to himself.

There were close to 270 mushrooms on the ground, and in mere seconds he turned them into paste. He then added them to the structure he already had laid out, and stretched it as thin as structurally viable, before reshaping it.

In the end, the structure he had created was a sort of oddly shaped dome, similar to a miniature stadium. Its radius was about 28 centimeters on the inside, and 33 on the outside, leaving 4 centimeters as thickness. Its ceiling reached a height of 21 centimeters, and its roof 35.

He had decided on this taking into account that the average shroom was about 10 centimeters tall, and took up an area of around 3 by 3 centimeters. This meant at least 273 shrooms could fit in the structure if he packed them like sardines.

He had carved a few windows into the structure and did what little he could to make it more aesthetically pleasing, but in the end, it still looked ugly. Which was to be expected as it was his first time doing this.

~I would need at least 6000 mushrooms to create a structure about the size of a human room, but that's ignoring the fact that mushrooms might not be viable when creating structures that big,~ he thought to himself as the shrooms began chattering around him.

~No, I'll have to start training to morph wood. Yet another thing to add to the list,~ he thought to himself. Though he put it as a lower priority than experimenting with his crux.

"Pagan, come here," he called out, noticing that Pagan was standing a distance behind the crowd of shrooms.

As Pagan was walking towards him, he quickly opened his shop, and just like he had expected, the skill [Elmando] was listed there now. He bought it and sent it to Pagan.

"Did you receive what I sent you?" he asked.

"Y-yes lighted one," Pagan replied, the information on how to use it being fed into his mind.

"Once the shrooms bring back more mushrooms, create a structure similar to the one I created. It would be ideal if they could bring enough to create additional structures," Lucius began, before going into detail about the dimensions.

"Build one at each of the 8 camps I set out. I'll be back to help you in a bit," he said finally, before turning to leave.

"Oh, and don't forget to feed the shrooms. The beasts we hunted today should be enough to feed them all at least once," he added with his back still turned to Pagan.

"I will do so, Lighted One," Pagan replied, though little did Lucius know that the shrooms would have to endure endless work before they would be fed.

Lucius headed to where they had stashed the meat they hunted before tearing off several small pieces. After placing the pieces in one of the worm sacks he had taken from the camp's storage, he proceeded toward the arachnid cave.

It was now dark, but the moon shone brightly, so the path was visible even with the trees covering much of the light.

On his way he made sure to watch for any decaying vegetation, fearing that the undead creature might have invaded this part of the forest as well. However, he found that the vegetation was as it had been before, withered, but not quite as decayed as the presence of the undead would indicate.

Once he walked into the arachnid camp, one of the little arachnids ran towards him, before running circles around him.

He brought out his crux to shed some light and found that it was the arachnid baby that had eaten all the meat he brought last time. He could tell this because it was a shade of blue, whilst the others were closer to purple.

"Okay, okay, here you go," Lucius coo'ed, holding out a piece of meat in the palm of his hand. The arachnid scurried onto his palm, before digging into the meat. Not at all worried about its safety.