After a few days of shut eye, I rustled my branches and got back to work grinding my levels. I say that, but I didn’t really have much to do. I checked out my surroundings to find that the Orc corpses had decayed greatly and were being eaten by a few scavenger birds. Other than that, not much had changed. Well, except for my height.

  While I was sleeping, my new skill had apparently put my growth into overdrive, doubling my passive growth to a full two inches a day. I was now 34 feet tall, and my roots reached exactly that far out all around me, creating a giant bowl under me.

  With my new height came a need to lengthen my vines, so I got to doing that while contemplating my next plan. I still had my 35th level up skill slot to use. I could use it to buff one of my current skills, but I was honestly pretty happy with my current skills. Just as a refresher, I pulled out my skill list again to see what exactly I had.

  Skills: Photosynthesis, Iron Bark, Domain of Awareness, Rapid Growth, Vine Control, Fire Resistance, Improved Digestion, Resource Berry, Wood Crafting, Water Magic, Earth Magic, Body Manipulation, Mental Magic, Mana Circulation, Improved Sap Flow

  I could improve Photosynthesis to increase my EXP gains, but I don’t know what to do with my current skill level as is, so no rush there. And speaking of EXP...

  I quickly killed the trio of Orcs that had just wandered into my little territory.

  I’m getting plenty of kills lately, so I’m definitely not worried about that. Though I am slightly worried about the number of corpses laying around here. Maybe I should see if BBW wants to make an agreement for easy access to meat. But anyways, skills.

  I continued thinking of my skill list while I was growing out my vines until something small and shiny caught my eye in one of the older corpses. Luckily, it was one of the ones that was closer to me, so I just needed to shoo away the birds to get a better look.

  At first, I thought it was just a particularly shiny piece of bone, but upon closer inspection, the thing that caught my eye was actually glowing on its own. As I kept examining it, I realized it was emitting mana.

  This is a monster core!

  Lilly had told me a bit about monster cores and how they only showed up in stronger monsters. She described how some monsters can get stronger by killing and leveling up just like the rest of the sapient life forms. It had something to do with taking in the excess mana of their deceased victims and the mana in their bodies condensing to take physical form. I have to assume this was an example of that happening. This must have been an older Orc that had plenty of victims in its past.

  I used a vine and grabbed the small marble sized core. When I touched it, I could feel the mana more clearly. I used a bit of Water Magic to clean the core, and it took on a green hue.

  I think it has something to do with it coming from a nature-based monster? Or is it just green because the Orc was also green?

  I decided to put it up in my canopy for now. I had a small divot in one of my branches that worked as a nice temporary storage spot for it. After I had it nice and secured, I went back to my skill selection.

  I’ve already put in a good bit of effort into making my golem, so I was tempted to just use the level bonus to get a golem creation skill. I feel like that would be the best use of my time for now. I doubt I could get the bees to migrate over here, and I don’t think I really need anything else at the moment.

  After a few more hours of contemplation and another trio of Orcs killed, I made my decision.

  New skill [Golem Creation (R)] has been partially obtained. Skill will be automatically fully manifested after the next 3 level bonuses due to high rarity.

  I immediately regret my decisions.

  Holy shit! I was not expecting that! I figured maybe another one or two level bonuses, but now I can’t get a new skill through level bonus until I reach level 50! That’s so freaking bogus! It’ll take forever!

  I grumbled a bit, threw a few Orc corpses around, then gave up. I guess I had to wait a while before my little puppet could get its own way of life. Luckily, making all that noise caused another group of Orcs to come my way. It was the perfect excuse to let out a bit of anger.

  I thrust my mind into my doll and prepared for combat. I flexed my fists and made the four blades pop out. I was planning on only using these for now, but if I needed to, I would bring out the leg spikes too. Since I was used to piloting the dirt puppet and had a few minutes of experience with this one, I was able to quickly bring myself over to my opponents for a proper fight.

  I started the fight by side stepping a charge from the front Orc. These weren’t smart creatures. They pretty much only had their high strength going for them, which meant nothing to me as I was using my bottomless energy reserves to back my puppet.

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  As the first Orc went sprinting by me, I stuck my foot out and tripped the stupid thing. It fell on its face hard. So hard that it actually broke one of its tusks. It howled in anger, but I ignored it as I had the other two to contend with.

  The second and third Orcs ran up together and both swung their meaty fists at my puppet’s face. I ducked under the combination attack and unleashed a devastating attack of my own. Since both of their armpits were exposed, I shoved my claws deep into them, forcing their limbs to go limp.

  The two that I just attacked let out a loud howl of pain. It was music to my extremely annoyed ears. After my first few Orc kills, I had gotten to the point of being able to just use Earth Magic to shoot a stone spike up from the ground and impale them to cause a quick and relatively painless death. I usually hated causing them pain, but I wanted to let out a bit of steam here, so I kept on with my puppet boxing match.

  I ripped my claws out of their now useless arms and shook off the blood. These two would be out of the match for a moment, along with their third friend, but it appears that luck was on their side. A second trio of Orcs showed up to offer their help. Either that, or they were attracted by the possibility of an easy meal.

  What’s with all these Orcs recently? I went three years without seeing a single one of them, and now it's like they’re spawning all over the place!

  Just like with the first trio, one of the Orcs charged at my doll, but this time, it spread its arms out to catch my sidestep. This caused a minor scratch to the body of my puppet, which I really didn’t like.

  At this point in the fight, I would usually ignore the one who charged me to fight the other two, but I was now royally pissed off. I used more Earth Magic to trap the legs of the first trio that I attacked, and the legs of the two who had yet to do anything. I was about to have some fun dissecting this bastard that dared to scratch my beautiful creation. I had put way too much work into this for it to be marred by the likes of a puny Orc.

  I dragged the captured Orcs to the side as witnesses to my revenge and locked them in place. Then I turned to face my new nemeses. It would regret the day it first breathed air.

  The ugly monster turned to face me and pawed the ground, preparing to charge yet again. This time, rather than sidestep, I retracted my claws and caught it by the tusks. Its momentum pushed me back a few feet, but a bit of Earth Magic and an old Orc corpse caused us to quickly slow down and stop.

  While I had a good grip on its face, the monster’s arms were still free, and it swung at the torso again. I released its face to catch its arms, which just allowed it to attempt gouging my face instead. But I was prepared for such an occurrence.

  My arms might have been busy, but I wasn’t human anymore. I had other weapons.

  The vines on my puppet’s head slithered to life and caught the monster by the tusks again. They might not have been long or thick, but there sure were a lot of them, and they proved to be enough to catch an attempted facial attack.

  I had the monster completely subdued now. I had caught its arm attacks by the wrist, and now I had control of its head too. I could use Earth Magic to trap its legs too, but I decided to finish this off using just the puppet.

  I flexed the leg “muscles” and forced the leg spikes out. I used my left one to take out its right knee, forcing it to the ground, then did the same to its left knee. It cried out in pain, tearing its face from my grip. The Orc tried lashing out again with its arms, but I pumped more mana into the puppet, enforcing my will onto the creature.

  What happened next was something I was not prepared for.

  A giant, fat, pale, humanoid creature with a small head burst through the ring of trees and crushed my puppet. It then went around freeing the Orcs from the traps I had set them in. It appeared to be the leader, as all the Orcs cowered from it in a very submissive way.

  While on one branch, I was utterly horrified of the creature that had just broken through trees that were thicker than I was, I was also enraged that the monster just crushed my masterpiece. Well, one good news was that one of the leg spikes had managed to impale itself into the giant's hand. However, my mild joy at its pain was crushed the moment it ripped what looked like a small splinter out of its hands, and the wound was practically instantly healed.

  What the fuck, what the fuck, what the fuck!!!

  I was now in full blown panic mode. My only saving grace was that I was too scared to move at all, which caused this new monstrosity to ignore me, as it thought I was just a simple tree and had already defeated its foe. One thing I could tell though was that when it destroyed the puppet I made, I could feel some of my mana being sucked from the puppet into the monster, which gave credit to what Lilly told me about monster cores.

  After my kills were stolen, I became too afraid to act. I knew that realistically, I could probably put up a crazy good fight if I so wished, but as it stood, I was more interested in waiting for this crazy big bastard to leave before I made another golem to possibly farm for more kills.

  Unfortunately, the big bastard seemed to like my clearing. After he freed the Orcs, it started checking the place out. It was getting dark, so I had to assume it was looking for a spot to sleep for the night.

  I was both annoyed and happy about this. I was annoyed because that meant that I had to delay making my replacement battle puppet until it left, but I was happy because that meant that I might be able to try a late-night assassination.

  As it stood, I only needed to buy some time.

  As I mentally rubbed my hands in a villainous way, the giant started throwing all the decayed Orc corpses away. By that, I mean that it scooped up two of the bodies, dirt under them included, and overhand threw them way out of my sight. It was an impressive feat of strength that made me second guess my plans. I was happy to get rid of the disgusting sight though.

  After the giant got rid of the old bodies, it grabbed some of the newer bodies and piled them at the base of my trunk. I was confused as to what it was planning on, but it became evident that he was going to use the dead bodies as pillows.

  The monster laid its head down and stretched out. Its body reached from the base of my trunk all the way to the edge of my clearing, making it a full 30 feet tall.

  Good god, he’s a literal giant. Hopefully he falls asleep soon, otherwise, I might just have to call this whole thing off and wait.

  With that, I had to wait for him to sleep. And wait. And wait.