Seedling 18

Rolling hills, dirt, more rolling hills, plains with knee high grass, more dirt, more rolling mountains.

Travel in this world is boring beyond all belief.

I mean, perhaps to a normal individual the goblin horde we encountered, or the wolf pack of a few hundred, stuff like that might be a challenge.

Yeah, not for my escorts.

The goblins died choking on a face full of spellcasted suffocation, and the wolf pack was ripped into meaty chunks.

Now though, after a few weeks of travel, the Colosseum in all it’s glory rises up in the distance.

I can tell the damn thing is huge because I can see it from here days away.

Someone took Sun Wukong’s Staff and threw it right down from the heavens.

The super-sized staff.

Rustle.

Get your mind out of the gutter for the Godly Gardner’s sake.

Anyways, the whole place seems to be made of the same grey stone.

Probably because whoever built it couldn’t afford anything better, sub-contracting suck sometimes.

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Apparently due to space constraints the whole place is enchanted to be bigger inside than outside. Guess when you get bloodthirsty Archmages together for kicks they do a few favors to grease the palms.

“Now remember, as a representative of the Fox Clan, please…do not burn the Colosseum down.” Tevril said to me with a devious grin.

I can’t believe some of the crap that gets thrown on me, what am I? Some type of pyromaniac?

Rustle.

Always with the ‘Great Fire’ that was just not my fault. You don’t hand matches to small children, or seeds!

After a short nap I’m inside the gates and being transported by a group of slaves to my new rooms.

There is a short break to sign a magically binding contract for the room.

It says I have to fight every year, I’m not allowed to burn the Colosseum down, and I’m responsible for any spectator deaths.

Wait, aren’t the spectators guarded by a massive force shield thing?

Rustle.

No, I would not just randomly see if I could burn it out for the joy of melting random bystanders.

This reputation of being an evil tree that burns things at the slightest provocation is just completely unwarranted.

Now that there’s no one around to bother me, time to start my new project.

First, I release several thousand types of fungi, mold, bacteria, and spores into the air around me. Soon the entire room is coated in a thick covering of rich velvet green moss. From there the base of the food chain is established. Seed pods that I have carefully kept within my leaves open up releasing a vast array of earthworms, spiders, centipedes, beetles, ants, and bees.

After some time passes, I let loose the next batch of seed pods containing different mice. All of the mice have a magical affinity towards one element or another, like I requested. The mice that favor water affinity create small pools of constantly renewing water, which further fuels growth. Earth affinity mice create burrows, while fire mice sleep underneath me.

Slackers. Just because I favor them, they get a free pass. The benefits of nepotism.

The wind mice float around harvesting flying insects to eat. Since the fire mice are my personal favorites they are treated like royalty by the others. Food is brought to them without issue.

More seed pods open revealing the next layer of my forest kingdom. Seeds flow outward creating flowers of all shapes and sizes fueled by my mana to grow fast. Bees immediately take to creating a hive in the corner of the room. Lastly, I place the seeds of several different trees around me in a circle. They grow rapidly to shadow me. The ceiling becomes the ‘sun’ as I place a light spell on it to mimic the movement of the real sun.

The light spell was gotten from Tevril after I explained one of the advanced theories of aerodynamics to her. She’ll probably become a grand Archmage in the future.

My second to last set of seed pods release a large amount of young birds that immediately take territory in the trees.

Finally, my crowning achievement, my last seed pod remaining releases a pair of beautiful foxes.

Now that I have all my test subjects available, things should proceed nicely.