Within the province of sichuansat a national park known as Juizhai Valley national park. Home to serene scenes such as the five flower lake as well other lakes. The mountain range is also home to many vast waterfalls.
Such sighs created a serene and peaceful atmosphere within the national park. The entire park being vibrant and colourful with its various lakes.
Beside a random lake within this national park, a few dozen meters from the waters edge, nestled between a few inconspicuous trees sat a small sapling.
This is Chen Xuan, currently having a breakdown right now. Chen Xuan was screaming in his head, recalling his death.
He was a loner who didn't go outside much before death. He often never left the house, always opting to stay at home. However the one time he left his house, he had gotten quite unlucky and slipped off a bridge into oncoming traffic.
Hence, Chen Xuan died and by some stroke of luck, now found himself within a small tree sapling.
After a few minutes, Chen Xuan slowly calmed down slightly, though his internal voice remained shakey
"W..where... where am I.... what happened...the bridge....bridge...the...bridge"
Looking around Chen Xuan saw himself in a forest surrounded be oak trees, standing tall and wide all around.
"Forest...? But I was just..." Chen Xuan trails off his thoughts as he looks around in shock, unable to comprehend how he got to this forest.
Upon trying to move, Chen Xuan found himself stuck, unable to move even a centimeter. Not his feet. Not his body. Not his head.
Overcome by a sense of fear, Chen xuan looked around with worry before freezing as he saw his body.
Finding a small twig like base sticking from the ground with only a couple of leaves on the top of his head.
"I'm....I'm...I'm a..."
Chen Xuan stuttered, feeling a lump form in his throat, metaphorically of course. Chen Xuan didn't continue his sentence, not wanting to finish it and somehow make the words into a reality.
Alas, no matter how much Chen Xuan was opposed to his current predicament, he had nowhere to complain to, having to suck it up.
Before Chen Xuan did anything else, a small string of text popped up in front of him, slightly transparent and elusive but somehow still clear.
+0.01 life force
Slightly startled, Chen Xuan curiously looked at the text which faded after a few seconds, only noticing after calming down some more that a strand of strange energy flooded through him.
Starting from the top of his crown slowly spreading down to the base of his roots, spreading its warm current.
The feeling however was fleeting and only lasted a few moments, leaving Chen Xuan slightly disappointed.
"What was that?" Chen Xuan asked as he waited a bit more, expectantly waiting for another bout of the strange energy which happened to calm him from his experiences.
Alas, the warm energy did not return even after a minute of waiting. "Oh.... OK um... so I'm a tree in a forest now...I guess.."
Chen Cuan mumbled to himself, attempting to rationalise his current situation.
"Must be reincarnation...or rebirth or whatever you call it just like the books..."
Looking around, Chen Xuan curiously looked around with his senses, able to see in every direction.
"Wow...cool"
While looking around and slightly enjoying the views, Chen Xuan suddenly froze as he heard a loud creaking sound.
Looking up towards the direction of the sound, seeing a towering shadow grow bigger and bigger over his small form.
It was a tree, a large 30 meters tall, slowly creaking. Its roots slowly unearthing as the Long trunk slowly fell towards Chen Xuans small sapling body.
"Crap! Crap crap crap!"
Chen Xuan yelled in his head while the tree slowly fell towards him. Closing his eyes, Chen Xuan braced himself for a wave of pain.
1 second...
5 seconds...
20 seconds...
After 30 seconds, he heard a loud rumble and an intense quaking, making Chen Xuan flinch.
After waiting a dozen seconds longer, Chen Xuan slowly opened his eyes. The light once more flooding his senses as he saw it.
One side of him sat a large tree trunk beside him, looking slightly decayed and old which caused it to fall in the first place.
The large tree fell only a meter from Chen Xuan, by luck only missing him by a short distance.
The intense wind and rumbling he felt before was clearly just the trunk falling, not from being hit by anything.
Sighing in relief, Chen Xuan felt like he was sweating despite not being able to, clearly thinking he was already going to die.
After spending a few minutes calming down, Chen Xuan took a deep breath as another line of text showed up.
+0.01 life energy
Upon showing up, the warm energy once more returned, spreading through Chen Xuans body once more.
The warm energy prompted a soft sigh from Chen Xuan, helping him feel relaxed and comfortable despite the slightly traumatic scene just minutes ago.
Once dissapearing, Chen Xuan curiously looked around, trying to find the cause of the strange energy.
However he could fund no source of cause which made his eyes widen slightly as an idea popped into his head.
"Could it be...? A system?!"
Upon saying thw word 'system', a sleek and pristine blue plane of light appeared within his mind, its contents clear.
The panel was a light blue with only a few lines of text visible.
Name: Chen Xuan
Age: 0.002 years
Race: World Tree
Cultivation: None
Life energy: 0.02
To Next Level: 020%
Skill points: 0
The system prompt caused a wide smile on Chen Xuans faceless expression, giddy at having a system.
As a shut in who spent his days reading and gaming, he had always dreamed of obtaining a system of his own.
After a few minutes of celebration, Chen Xuan sent a mental message to the system by speaking in his mind.
"What else can you do?"
Chen Xuan stated with excitement and glee, awaiting the system panels change or response.
However, despite waiting a few seconds, the system panel showed no response to Chen Xuan, still displaying only his stats.
"Um... helloooo? System? You broken or something?"
Stating to the system, still eliciting no response in the panel in his mind even after minutes of talking, ranging from questions to statements to complaints.
"Of course every one else gets a god like system that does everything but me?! I get a stupid stats checker! Just go away!"
Chen Xuan yelled in his mind from frustration and annoyance, finally eliciting a system response. The system panel fading in an instant.
Seeing the system dissapear from his mind only annoyed Chen Xuan more due to it only listening to open panel and close panel.
Sighing with frustration, Chen Xuan looked around as he waited for another dose of warm energy.
Thinking that based on the time between the warm currents, Chen Xuan expected another dose of it.
Yet none came, only silence and the swaying of leaves around him. "Damnit"
Chen Xuan muttered to himself as he looked around, waiting for anything to happen.
Being bored, Chen Xuan looked around and actually noticed that his body had increased in height by an inch in such a short time.
Assuming it was because of the warm current, Chen Xuan smiled and waited expectantly as he looked around.
Minutes passed, then hours, then finally a full day. A full day of nothing but swaying leaves and walking ants which Chen Xuan watched to ease his boredom.
Once a full day had passed, Chen Xuan finally got another notification text pop up
+0.01 Life Energy
The prompt caused a weary smile to appear on Chen Xuans figurative face. Part of him happy at having more energy, clearly assuming its useful. While the other half weary at the fact that it took a full day to arrive once more.
"Well..could be worse, just hope that it doesn't ramp up more..."
Letting out another deep sigh, Chen Xuan opened the panel and tried to do anything with it, trying his best to elicit any response. His endeavour however was useless except for wasting time.
Days ticked by like this, Chen Xuan watching plants sway, ants run around and the occasional bird fly overhead. Rarely seeing rabbits hop by.
As the days ticked on, Chen Xuan recieved the usual notification every 24 hours, around mid day.
Other than the few moments after receiving the energy, the rest of his day felt boring. The boredom only making time flow slower for Chen Xuan.
Until finally, 7 days later, just as the sun reached its peak, Chen Xuan saw the usual notification of 0.01 points. Smiling widely to himself, Chen Xuan opened the panel with glee, happily looking for any changes.
Name: Chen Xuan
Age: 0.02 years
Race: World Tree
Height: 7 inches
Trunk diameter: 1.2cm
Root circumference: 0.98 m
Cultivation: None
Life energy: 0.1
To Next Level: 100% (Upgrade?)
Skill points: 0
Without any hint of hesitation, Chen Xuan immediately thought about the 'Upgrade' button besides the To Next Level row.
Upon clicking the button, Chen Xuan felt a warm current once more surging from the crown. This time spreading quicker and hotter, feeling more like a hot hotspring bathing over his form.
Hissing lightly, Chen Xuan felt a slight burn like the water is a bit too hot in a bath. After a dozen moments, Chen Xuan felt the heat dissapear, the points on his display now fully reset to 0.
Strangely, as he looked around, everything seemed slightly smaller, if only a little bit. Quickly turning his attention back to the screen, he noticed that 5 rows in particular had changed.
Height: 12.5inches
Trunk diameter: 2cm
Root circumference: 1.4 m
Cultivation: Stage 1 - lower
Skill points: 3