A skill shop. What is this an mmorpg? Then again I have been gaining experience for a while now, so why not throw in a skill shop at this point. The question is do I want to upgrade what I have or add to it. The only way to figure that out is to open the skills shop, so that's exactly what I do,

  It feels like a scam. The ones I really want I can't afford. And what's with that soft bark skill anyway? What self respecting tree would choose that skill? Although thinking about it I suppose it would make moving your branches and roots easier. Even so the drawback is being easier to harm. So best case you'd essentially be trading defense for offense. Which makes no sense when you can get offensive spells and skills, such that you don't need to rely on body manipulation. I'm sure that choice makes sense to some but I just can't see it.

  For now I ignore the ones I can't afford and focus on what I can afford. This still leaves a lot of really great options. For one I can expand my senses by two, three if a choose light. Not sure why I would though I can already tell where the sun is based on how it effects my leaves. The existence of mutant beasts does have me thinking I should focus more on combat ability though. So really the choice is between thorny bark, root spear, root snare, and some type of magic. I do want to eventually get Iron bark so that rules out thorny bark. I don't know that those two are incompatible but I'd rather not take the risk. That just leaves magic or some kind of root attack. Or I could choose to upgrade an existing skill. One things for certain, the way that mutant dog looked at me that won't be the last time I need to defend myself.

  In the end my curiosity wins out and I choose to upgrade Self awareness. I already have more awareness of my current body than I ever did of my human body so I can't even Imagine what an upgrade would even give me. Right after confirming the selection I feel my awareness start to expand out, beyond my leaves and branches, past my roots, until It encompasses my entire domain. Then suddenly just like that I can see. At least within my domain. I can still kinda see outside my domain if I focus on life sense, or death sense. The difference however is like looking at a drawing done by a small child vs actually being able to see the thing. It was great when that was all I had but now I'm suddenly aware of how lacking it is.

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  One thing catches my eye as I'm looking around though. The dog looks relatively normal. Aside from the fact that it's the size of a bear. I was expecting some weird alien equivalent of a dog but no, it's literally a basset hound that somehow grew to monstrous proportions. I would feel bad If it hadn't been eyeing me like I was a drumstick. My guess Is that it was someone's pet before being mutated. Maybe even the guy it was chasing. Perhaps something about the mutation process turned it feral while also making it hyper aggressive. It's also possible that it was getting revenge for how it was treated I suppose. The third option is that whoever or whatever caused it to mutate also controlled it's mind. I'm sure I'll figure out which it is in time. For now I decide to bring up my status panel again.

  One thing that immediately sticks out is that self awareness has now become domain of awareness. I still have just as much awareness of my body as I ever did so this really is just an upgrade. Either way it's time to get back to relaxing. I mean how common can mutant beasts be anyway right? For the next week or so I'm able to just relax. Nothing of any significance happens. I almost start to think that fight with the mutant dog is just a weird story I'll tell the young saplings one day. Then one day I fee something gnawing at my trunk. I had been ignoring the little critters scurrying about but perhaps that was a mistake. Using my body manipulation skill I bring one of the nearby branches down to flick it away. I know it's normal for animals to build their homes inside of trees but that hurts dammit.

  There is something a little unsettling about the way it looks at me as it simply lunges for my trunk again to continue it's assault. I will admit I may have panicked, just a bit, when it lunged for my trunk the second time. The second time It dodged the first branch and the second branch but I finally managed to flick it away with the third branch. This time I wasn't taking any chances and as soon as it landed I began wrapping it up with my roots. The fight didn't last much longer after that. When It was over I once again retrieved a mutant beast core, level 3 this time, thus proving it wasn't a normal squirrel. I also got 3000 experience points, which isn't much considering I already need tens of thousands per level up, but at least I have another way to gain experience. Looking back on it the squirrel's teeth were able to tear through my bark way easier than they should have been able to given it's size. So I guess mutations aren't always about size. At least I got another mutant beast core to trade for more shop points.