Happy that he has something to do now, Chen Xuan smiled to himself as he kept hypnotizing ants and other insects that slowly moved towards his flowers.
After a few hours of hunting, the surrounding ants within eyesight were mostly gone or had at least burrowed away in their nests due to the smell released from the dead insects.
Now gaining points 4 times per 24 hours, Chen Xuan was gaining a steady 0.02 each time, due to the increase in nutrients in the ground from the insect corpses beneath his trunk, nestled between his roots.
Chen Xuan's branches each dyed with a slight greenish color from the insect corpses while small mounds of multicolored bodies lay around him.
Sitting himself, Chen Xuan slowly started burying the bodies into the ground, trying to hide the scent of death surrounding him.
While burying the bodies at a snail's pace with his branches, a small hare slowly jumped past from out of the bushes.
Appearing to be a young hare of only a month or so based on its size, its youthful ignorance left it oblivious to the dead ant corpses.
The sudden appearance of the hare caused Chen Xuan to freeze his movements, some of his branches half-buried in the surrounding dirt.
Staring at the hare with slight excitement, Chen Xuan waited for the hare to look at him before he intensified the flowers' color, focusing on making all of them bloom in the direction of the small hare.
The small hare, upon seeing the vibrant flowers, was slightly attracted, but even as a small and young hare, its instincts still sent danger signals to its brain.
Its instincts conflicted with the intense visual attraction it felt to the strange flowers on a small tree.
"C'mon dammit! That's surely a lotta points!"
Grunting with frustration before focusing more intently on the flowers, he made them release a very small scent, almost impossible to detect other than from a small hare close by.
The scent combined with the intense visuals pushed the hare over the edge, slowly hopping towards Chen Xuan, still hesitant but unable to resist much.
Sighing with relief at finally entrancing the small hare, Chen Xuan slowly moved his largest tree branch over to the hare, only being able to move slowly and also not wanting to startle the hare.
Upon the branch reaching the hare's head, Chen Xuan stopped, deciding to use most of his branches to slowly encase the hare as it got to the base of Chen Xuan's roots.
Upon getting to the base of the tree, the hare struggled slightly, twitching as it wanted to get away, its instincts screaming at the hare to escape and get away.
Just as the hare escaped the hold of the flowers, it turned its head but found itself encased in some branches.
Scared deeply, it tried to run into the branches and kick them with its hind legs, erratically trying to escape the enclosure.
Instantly, Chen Xuan quickly started tightening the cage made of his branches while quickly bringing the strongest branch between the hare's eyes.
The hare remained unable to escape, a mix of its underdeveloped body with the strengthened branches barely managed to contain it.
Though the branches only barely held, some of them broke, causing a few small holes in the cage.
Not a moment too soon, Chen Xuan winced slightly as his branch killed the hare, its body freezing and falling limp against the dirt.
Sighing lightly, Chen Xuan relaxed, slowly moving some of his intact branches down to the corpse, starting to move the corpse down to the base of his trunk.
Moving as fast as his meager speed allowed, Chen Xuan slowly dug a small pit beneath his base, pushing the corpse down while digging in an attempt to hide it from any predators.
After finally burying the corpse 2 meters deep, Chen Xuan let out a sigh of relief, finally relaxing after taking a few hours to finish burying it.
"Finally... better be worth it at least."
Wincing slightly as he now truly felt his broken branches, mostly the smaller ones aching lightly.
The branches, however, had already started healing slowly, just like a lizard that regrows its tail; his branches slowly started growing back.
Smiling to himself internally, Chen Xuan looked around for some more things to hunt but could find nothing; all insects were scared out of his range while animals were rarer near him.
Sighing to himself, Chen Xuan decided to just relax, so after releasing a bit more of the flower scent, he unblocked the colorful flowers.
The release of the scent was Chen Xuan's attempt to cover up the scent of the corpse beneath himself.
Still releasing a faint scent, Chen Xuan slowly moved his branches back into the normal position above him.
Due to the aching and dull pain in his crown from the broken branches, Chen Xuan sighed and relaxed his body, remaining outwardly normal but internally more relaxed, like lying in a bed when ill.
+ 0.03 Life Energy
After an hour of doing nothing, Chen Xuan saw a notification pop up in front of his eyes, prompting a faint smile.
With his smile, Chen Xuan looked to his panel, deciding to relax until the next time he levels up or sees an animal close enough to him.
Name: Chen Xuan
Crown Radius: 1.5m
Trunk height: 0.78m
Root Radius: 1.6m
Trunk diameter: 2.9cm
Cultivation: Tier 1 - middle
Life energy: 0.12 / 1.2 (10%)
Life energy Capacity: 1.7
Skill points: 0
Smiling to himself in satisfaction, Chen Xuan muttered to himself, "Should be about 9 days... let's keep up the hunt then."
For the next 9 days, Chen Xuan was hunting nothing but ants and other insects before burying each body beneath his roots, both to get nutrients better and to hide the scent of the necromones emitted by the ants.
However, Chen Xuan was not lucky enough to find any hares approaching, likely due to the scent of death even despite the fact that it was masked slightly by Chen Xuan's flower aroma.
Finally, on the 10th day, Chen Xuan finally built up enough points to level up once more, luckily avoiding predators.
After these 10 days, Chen Xuan's branches had fully regenerated but to Chen Xuan's disappointment, 0.1 life energy was used up in the process, making it take a day longer to level up.
Life energy: 1.2 / 1.2 (100%) (Upgrade?)