[@Zeroth] [@Stabby]

Femus was gratified and relieved that Nira had finished the slime off, though he hoped that she still had more time before her evolution.  He would have to wait till she came back to find out whether or not the countdown had started for that.  So, he busied himself with more practical concerns while trying to ignore the residual shakes from his… flashback.  The implications of him having flashbacks were not something that he had time to examine right now.

However, the implications of having completed his Growth skill were far more important.  It seemed that Growth functioned a bit more like a minor enchantment than a healing spell, augmenting a single aspect of the affected plant so long as it received a sustained flow of mana.  With that, it would allow exactly what he had wanted.  He would be able to encourage his Blue Yill flowers to go to seed so that he could cultivate them… and possibly make other things from them as well.  But…

At this point, he realized that his mana was depleted.  He also noticed the approaching young goblins.  He never would have thought, in his previous life, that he would find the information exchanged by quarrelsome goblin teenagers to be fascinating.  But, knowledge is knowledge, regardless of its source.  The petty squabbling was largely worthless but there were several worthwhile pieces of information in the argument.

First, there were sources of metal in the North as well as colder temperatures.  This meant that any tool using creatures in this area with methods of resisting the cold would probably head there to find such valuable materials.  After all, the ability and techniques necessary to refine metal from ore was probably unknown within the bounds of this forest.

Second, there was a river with fish to the East that also happened to be on the border with another goblin tribe… though the gobs here thought that it was a weaker one.  Food, water, and weaker surrounding enemies could be a good thing, but it wasn’t likely that something like this tree would be a common occurrence.  Moving away from here would have to be a… calculated move.

The goblins were coming closer.  They couldn’t see where Nira was yet but they didn’t seem to be looking for something as small as a pixie just now.  Still… they needed to be watched.  Femus meditated as efficiently as possible until his mana was restored.  Then, he focused on reducing his aura, as well as his glow.  He sought to deaden even his thoughts so that they would not stand out and control his mana circulation to make him seem absurdly average.  In this way, he manually used Suppress Presence to hide himself while continuing to observe.  For all that he wanted to gain power, carelessly slaughtering enemies that have some kind of intellect would be foolish.  It was just he and Nira.  They did not need the enmity of a group that they weren’t strong enough to destroy or flee from.