~Wait! Wait! Cancel! No!~ However it was already too late. Lucius had completely forgotten about the recovery period he had gone through when the solis fragment was first installed, and now Pagan was down for the count, right after he had just woken up.
"Captain, Paga-"
"I know. Don't worry, he'll be up in a few days," Lucius interrupted, pissed at himself for forgetting.
~He didn't even get to learn how to use his hands. But I bet the idiot is smiling in his mind right now,~ he thought as he attempted to pick Pagan up.
The whole process was a bit awkward due to him not being able to stand, but after a bit of struggling he came back and the commune proceeded with their photosynthesis session.
This time, however, Lucius stopped at minutes, 5, 10, 15, 20, and so on, to check if there were any leaflings who wanted to stop there. They still had work to do, and he couldn't afford all of them passing out like they usually did.
As usual, Alpha pushed longer than everyone else, clocking in at 30 minutes this time. However, it seemed he had pushed himself a little too far as he had to take quite a long rest before he was ready to get back to work.
*
"Ghost, come with me," Lucius called out as the other leaflings returned back to their sleds.
"Finally, I thought you'd never call me. So what are we doin this time? A new kind of move? Some cool concepts?" she asked excitedly.
"So you were spying on us?" Lucius asked.
"Only to practice," she said, looking away.
~I hadn't noticed, but then again my guard was completely down. Maybe I should stop being so comfortable, even if this is our base,~ Lucius thought to himself before saying out loud. "We're going on an expedition. While we're on it, I want you to follow me without being spotted. For every time you're spotted you'll have to do one lap around the camp. And if you lose track of me you'll have to do 50 laps."
"Sounds fair enough," Ghost replied, clearly up for the challenge.
"Follow me whenever you feel safe," Lucius said, before galloping out into the forest.
Part of the reason he was taking Ghost on this trip was to increase her stats before she evolved. He was certain that Alpha's stats were top tier, and though he also wanted to increase Hannibal's stats a little, he felt it would be more beneficial to have him study instead.
After a few minutes of running, Lucius picked up quite a bit of speed. And once again he felt an itch in his mind, teasing him to launch off one of the tree trunks.
~Okay, lower this time,~ he thought to himself falling into temptation. He jumped up, bounced off a tree trunk, and was launched into the air. As he sped through the air, his tail began moving of its own accord, causing him to move in the direction of another tree trunk.
~I see what you're doing,~ he realized, bracing himself for impact before launching off once again.
[+10 Agility.]
He repeated the process several more times, each time feeling more and more familiar with the movement. After only 5 minutes he had amassed 150 Agility points, however, the amount he received from each bound had now been reduced to 2.
~Quite the interesting mode of movement,~ he thought to himself stopping to take a quick break.
[+20 Stamina.]
[+10 Strength.]
~But it's very exhausting, to say the least. My limbs feel like they're on fire,~ he thought, before carrying on with the journey.
*
The expedition lasted five hours, three hours longer than Lucius had expected. However, on the plus side, he did find viable candidates for the required rock types.
He found a rather abrasive group of rocks an hour away from the main camp. And though it dusted easily when he tried rubbing a pebble against it, it got the job done.
As for the cutting tool's material, he found another cluster of rocks at least 45 minutes away from the first. They had a hard-crystal composition from what he could see, and a layered structure, hinting that they could be broken more easily than other mineral rocks.
The other rock clusters he found were of subpar quality and were even further away from the camp. So he decided to focus his efforts on the two for now.
~Now comes the hardest part,~he sighed to himself as he took a rest.
The rocks he had found were way too massive to move around. Even the smallest ones in the cluster were almost three times bigger than he was.
~I'll probably have to forget about taking them back to the camp unless I find something to make a pickaxe out of,~ he thought to himself. And right now, he had absolutely no clue what he could use.
Pebbles wouldn't work well as pickaxe material because they weren't as hard as the rocks, and he couldn't use the rock material because he had no way to break chunks of it. From what he could tell, there was only one solution.
"For now, I'll have to make do with pebbles. I'll bring them here to get sharpened and take them back. I'll make stronger materials once I've grown a little larger," he sighed, realizing that the one-hour march with pebbles would be quite tiresome.
Already he had gained 230 points into stamina, 190 into agility, and 40 into strength. Carrying the pebbles, with a sled no less, would probably result in some unreal number of stat gains.
~I have to carve out wheels sometime later as well,~ he decided, looking up to the sky.
It was mostly clear, but there seemed to be a good amount of clouds coming in, from what he could see past the forest canopy. ~Rain?~ he thought to himself, before looking at his surroundings.
"What is that?" he whispered, noticing something moving in the distance. A moment later he realized what it was, and his fatigue washed away like it had all been an illusion to begin with.
He galloped towards the spot, launching himself from tree to tree without a care in the world for stealth. In a moment, he was face to face with his target.
A shroom-being.
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