Ash waited patiently. Calming down his twitching fingers and feet as he tried his best to blend with the surroundings.
Well, if you could say a whole human-tall patch of crimson vines as a good disguise, then Ash was doing a good job.
But it didn't matter much.
What mattered was his thorny vines, which were currently holding a branch of the alluring berries and staying still.
Doing its best in mimicking the real bloodberry bush.
Several other creatures who weren't his target tried to eat the berry, but a quick poke with the crimson vines easily scared them away.
Now, Ash was at his most critical moment of his very carefully built plan.
The ravens might not have been taken by the alluring berry because of their prior knowledge of the berry being poisonous.
But just like any creature without a proper mental enhancement skill, the alluring magic the berry passively exuded still got through.
A raven sat on a particular tree branch. It scanned the surroundings, searching for anything that it could hunt or scavenge.
And it didn't take long for the raven's eyes to fall upon the berry.
As if being charmed, the raven kept looking at the berry.
A faint call repeating in its mind, telling it to fly and grab a bite of the berry. Snatch it out of the branch.
The raven's wings twitched. It wanted to fly and snatch the berry right this second.
'Take it before other creatures take it. Do it now while nothing else is around you to steal the berry from you. It's all yours.' This feeling echoed over and over.
The raven took a good look at the berry, its seemingly glowing color promised a heavenly taste no one had ever had before.
But as the image of the berry went into its mind, the raven noticed. It was the berry that its mother had warned about.
The deceitful berry that looked like the best meal in existence when it was actually something that killed you with a single bite.
The raven found it strange that it could see one of them here. It had intentionally avoided the places where the berries resided.
The raven took a better look at the berry, thinking that there might be a chance that it was a completely different berry altogether.
When he thought that, the urge to consume the berry returned twice as strong.
Its wings flapped on their own, and they almost took flight.
But it held strong. The raven believed all the things its mother had taught it, and it had survived and grown into an adult in the forest that was filled with predators.
It wouldn't change its principles now.
However, the poor young raven didn't realize.
While it was having an internal battle with itself, a certain viney creature had already gone to its back.
"Catch it!"
Ash's voice boomed in the surroundings, startling the raven.
The raven didn't feel anything yet, but it decided to open its wings and fly away.
It didn't want to risk anything.
The raven's heart raced when it saw a couple of vines wrapped around the place where it used to stand.
All the power it had in its whole body was sent to its wings, flapping as hard as it could to get away from the tree.
Ash's half-assed camouflage broke down as he saw the raven had dodged the doppelganger's vines.
He just ran through them, pulling his hair in frustration.
"Damn it! We almost got i-"
But his words were cut off.
When Ash had given up, his doppelganger hadn't.
Just like any other task Ash had given it, the doppelganger will carry it with its life on the line.
Seeing the raven escape its grasp, the doppelganger launched itself off the tree.
Using its vines to launch itself even further.
It had now become a flying doppelganger, quickly catching up to the flying raven.
Fortunately, the raven wasn't able to fly at full speed yet.
As if not caring for how its body looked, the doppelganger spread all of the vines in its body.
Abandoning its humanoid shape completely.
A large net made of vines spread around the raven, blocking the sunlight before swallowing the raven's body whole.
The vine net wrapped itself into a tight ball, making sure the raven didn't even have space to flap its wings.
The ball smashed to the ground, but it made sure the creature inside was unharmed by sacrificing its own body to lessen the impact.
At the end of it all, a ball of vine stayed still on the ground, occasionally shaking as the creature inside tried to break free.
Ash's mouth was left gaping throughout the whole process.
His eyes glued to the ball of vines that was supposedly his doppelganger.
Ash clapped before holding the ball in his arms, whispering softly to it, "You are really more than I could ever hope for. Thanks, viney doppelganger."
It might have been his imagination, but Ash could feel the vines squirm in his hands, as if returning his thanks.
"Now, let's finish this second trial!"
Ash activated the seed, sending out his mycelium through his doppelganger to reach the raven.
Surprisingly, he also learned more about his doppelganger.
Which were surprisingly very simple for a very reliable creature.
Essentially, the doppelganger's organs and body were purely made out of vines.
However, there was a certain DNA, one that was responsible for both moving its body and following Ash's command.
It would be interesting if he could manually create more doppelgangers, but Ash put it aside for now.
His mycelium and the silvery green mana had finally reached the raven, finally calming the creature down.
Making it possible for the doppelganger to finally open up the ball and return to its original humanoid form.
Now it just stood there, staring, possibly silently judging what Ash was going to do.
"Now let's see what made you special in this forest full of mutated beasts!"