Chen Xuan sat perfectly still, not wanting to attract the attention of the large leopard. Stewing in fear and revulsion, even though he was a tree now, he had been human for far longer.
Wanting to be fully hidden, Chen Xuan closed off his senses, just in case the leopard could sense Chen Xuan's gaze.
For days, Chen Xuan sat still, not daring to peek out for fear that the leopard was still around, only seeing the pop-up notifications.
+0.07 Life Energy
+0.068 Life Energy
+0.064 Life Energy
Evidently, the large quantity of lower-level materials worked but rapidly lost their effectiveness.
Three days after keeping his senses locked off, Chen Xuan had calmed down a lot, deciding to look at the points he now needed.
Life energy: 2.63 / 5 (52.6%)
Seeing that his life energy had increased by such a substantial amount in such a short time, Chen Xuan couldn't help but smile for the first time in a few days.
"Halfway there..."
He muttered; however, with his diminishing point gain, Chen Xuan had to open his senses once more, slowly opening them in case the leopard was close by.
Chen Xuan looked around carefully, observing every detail around himself, and only after a few minutes of observation did he relax slightly.
Slowly and quietly, Chen Xuan bloomed one of his blue flowers before using it to summon an ant towards him.
Repeating the process from earlier, Chen Xuan sent the ant back before sending a big order to the ant colony to bring any food in the surrounding area.
Like last time, a lot of fresh items were brought to the base of his tree, such as dead ants, spiders, or any other insects, along with some things like mushrooms and other plants.
However, when Chen Xuan noticed one of the ants was carrying a deep red-colored ball, his eyes widened. Chen Xuan sensed a bit more life energy within the red ball, but once it got closer, he was shocked.
Quickly ordering the ant away and not to bring back that kind of food, the direction the ant came from was the same that the human had run to before screaming.
The ball was evidently a part of that human, revolting Chen Xuan, making him nauseous once more. That, combined with the mental strain of the thousands of ants, made Chen Xuan feel terrible.
After a few minutes, Chen Xuan repeated the process of sending the ants away and breaking the connection once more, feeling the burden decrease greatly, leaving him feeling bad but not terrible.
Sighing lightly, Chen Xuan muttered to himself, "Calm down... you don't have the luxury to freak out," his voice shaking even in his own head.
For the next week, Chen Xuan did nothing but watch around him, occasionally getting the ant colony to gather more materials for him to top up and not decrease his energy intake.
Just before the week was over, Chen Xuan finally gathered enough life energy to upgrade his level once more, finally gaining the 5 points needed.
Wasting no time upgrading his level, Chen Xuan pressed upgrade, feeling the warm energy start to spread.
However, unlike before, the heat didn't stay at a consistent pace. The warm energy continued to increase in heat, starting to feel like standing under the blazing sun.
If Chen Xuan were human right now, he would be sweating buckets due to the heat. Along with the heat, Chen Xuan's mind clouded, becoming hazy and foggy.
After a few seconds, Chen Xuan's mind blanked, all thoughts disappearing like a stone in the ocean.
Once his mind was fully clouded, he couldn't resist as he fell into a deep slumber, unable to observe around him nor move at all.
One hour later, Chen Xuan slowly regained consciousness, his mind still hazy but able to form coherent sentences now.
"What... happened?" he muttered groggily as if roused from a deep sleep.
After a few moments, Chen Xuan realized what had happened, his mind focused, swiftly using his senses to look all around for any threats.
Relaxing only after checking every direction around him, he let out a sigh of relief before opening his panel, wondering what exactly happened.
Name: Chen Xuan
Crown Radius: 4.7m
Trunk height: 3.6m
Root Radius: 8m
Trunk diameter: 0.73cm
Cultivation: Tier 2 - lower
Life energy: 0 / 6 (%)
Life energy Capacity: 6.5
Skill points: 3
Upon seeing such a large increase in his stats, he was immediately shocked; if he had a jaw, it would have definitely dropped.
"I guess it was worth it..." he muttered, remembering when he complained about the 5-point requirements, feeling relieved now that he saw the reward.
Moving on to the skill points, Chen hesitated before putting 1 point into roots and then 2 points into his crown, wanting attack power due to the encounter from last week.
The warm energy once more permeated Chen Xuan's crown and roots, strengthening both the leaves and branches on his crown as well as the roots beneath the earth.
This time, after a few dozen seconds, the warm energy retreated and dissipated as it finished its job.
After putting 2 points into the crown, Chen Xuan felt that his crown was brimming with energy and strength, feeling smoother and stronger.
Wanting to test out his new strength, Chen Xuan started to swing around his branches, testing their speed. Chen Xuan then proceeded to do a few tests with a couple of his branches, ranging from small to big branches.
Chen Xuan could tell that the speed was about 1.3 m/s, shooting up massively with the new tier upgrade as well as the 2 points into his branches. Wanting to see what else he could do, Chen Xuan wrapped a branch around the rotted tree trunk that had fallen a while ago.
Taking a deep breath, Chen Xuan exerted all his strength in one of his medium-sized branches, trying with all his strength to lift it, but it didn't budge even an inch off the ground.
Sighing, Chen Xuan added another branch before attempting to lift it once more; this time, he managed to budge it slightly, but it didn't really lift up at all.
Adding a few more branches, Chen Xuan lifted once more, finally managing to lift it off the floor by about an inch.
"Hmph... heavier than I expected, but I could still lift it... must be at least a dozen pounds per branch, right?" Chen Xuan muttered as he continued testing with the tree; due to there being no other objects for reference, he couldn't test overly accurately.