ALL NOVEL 41. Pot
Truth was, Aloe sucked at cooking. She was better off having dates and coconuts than eating meals prepared by herself. Having postponed her ink tests for the moment, she dedicated the rest of the day to watering every plant in the oasis and greenhouse, plus also infusing the beans.
As she woke up for her sixth day in the greenhouse, she was grateful for the foresight of routine. She had gathered and stashed some dates and coconuts on the kitchenette, meaning that she no longer had to collect fruit in the morning.
“After several tests on infusing different plants, I can ascertain that the cost of infusion depends on the final point of growth of the plant.” Aloe wrote down on parchment with the Aloe Veritas. She was done with those tests for now yes, but she wanted to try if humidifying the ink with water could recover its properties.
The results? Mixed.
The consistency of the ink was too variable, making it so some sections of the text were barely visible whilst others were splashes of ink. That didn’t matter to her right now though.
“This means that seeds of similar size will require vastly different amounts of vitality as what matters is not the present of the seed, but the future of its growth. After comparing with random flowers, palm trees, and small-sized crops, this hypothesis seems to hold true.”
Her intention wasn’t to make another diary like her grandfather, but it was true that she needed to write over extended periods of time and length to get better data on the aloe ink. She left the quill on its stand and rested her back on the chair.
“I need to try it on evolved plants. Karaim said that it was double as difficult to infuse them compared to normal ones, but all the planted evolved plants have been infused already.” Aloe’s wording was precise for a reason. “All the planted evolved plants, of course.”
Aloe gripped the Cure Grass seed that she had created. The first plant she had evolved.
“Karaim has somehow substituted all the normal grass in the oasis with Cure Grass, but that doesn’t make sense. Grass is invasive, and you can never be certain it has fully disappeared. Unless…” She peered into the evolved seed. “Unless its evolved version is even more invasive, meaning that the normal grass has died out so Cure Grass can flourish.”
It was a theory, but it made sense. Aloe had tried random spots around the oasis to check if everything was truly made out of Cure Grass, and she had yet to see an Aloe Veritas leaf show her otherwise. The ‘Cure’ was always present, never solitary ‘Grass’.
“Karaim never bothered to infuse the grass on the oasis, so I could technically infuse any blade of Cure Grass, but I want to run some tests. And besides, I need to infuse seeds. Grown specimens won’t help me as the only type of infusing I can make is accelerated growth.”
That was the main reason why she wanted to use her own evolved seed. And Aloe wouldn’t deny she had a minimal sentimental tie to the small seed.
Instead of planting the Cure Grass specimen on the oasis or greenhouse, where she wouldn’t remember or distinguish where it was, Aloe grabbed a rather small jar of clay to use as a pot. Grass didn’t need many nutrients, so she expected Cure Grass to work similarly. Until now, she hadn’t found any evidence proving otherwise.
The first thing in the morning Aloe did, after having breakfast, was to pick up a scoop of dirt and put it in the jar. It sounded simple, but it took her more time than she had thought as she wanted clean, unseeded dirt. And there were a lot of plants in the oasis. It took her a bit of finicking, mostly removing roots by hand, but it wasn’t difficult. She shoved her Cure Grass seed into the jar and readied herself for the infusion.
“I wish I had access to normal grass,” Aloe muttered as she cleaned her dirty hands on the oasis. “Oh, I do. I guess seeds work just fine.”
Running tests on normal grass wasn’t exactly productive, it was just grass. But Aloe wanted to test Karaim’s claim of evolved plants taking twice as much vitality to infuse than their default versions.
“Normal grass tests begins… now.” Aloe infused her vitality in the small grass seed. “Hmm… that isn’t a lot of vitality.”
She looked at the seed, it was indeed infused, even if there was no outside physical change. Just in case, she checked the vitality of another grass seed, and it was true that it contained less vitality than the infused seed.
“This supports the future-size theory of infusion. Grass is small, so it doesn’t require a lot of vitality, but this is too few. I almost fainted when I evolved the Cure Grass…”
Karaim had stated several times that Evolution worked in greater magnitudes of vitality than Infusion, but that presented a new question.
“Does Evolution follow the future-size theory?” She inquired. “It doesn’t make sense though. If it was like that, how did Karaim manage to evolve the Aloe Veritas and ter’nar? The ter’nar is a tree, and he would have commented about it. Or outright killed him if it works by the same logic as Infusion… Two possibilities then. Evolution has its own vitality cost logic, or… I actually don’t know. That’s the only solution I can think of.”
Aloe sighed and had a glass of coconut milk. Not exactly cold but refreshing, nonetheless. And that was more than enough.
“Anyways… the workings of Evolution should affect the cost of infusion if the thing he said about evolved plants having a double infusion cost holds true.”
The dirt on the jar was still humid as Aloe clawed her fingers in. She didn’t need to go deep to feel the vitality of the Cure Grass. Unlike when she was trying to infuse crops, Aloe didn’t face any difficulty to find the seed. That was mostly the reason for cleaning the dirt, another test to see how other plants after her ‘vitality sense’. And the answer was yes, the more living beings there were, the more difficult she found it as their vitality interfered with each other.
“Cure Grass test begins… now.” And she dropped her vitality into the evolved seed. “And… pitiful. Yeah, I can’t even notice if that’s double the cost or not. It’s just negligible.” Aloe sighed. “I guess if I want to prove his claim I must need to evolve a new plant.”
Aloe brushed the dirt away from her fingers with a rug. A rug made out of Karaim’s clothes.
“I think Karaim mentioned the ter’nar came from palm trees, the problem is the description. It’s really weird if I want to evolve it. Let’s see… it must be somewhere…”
Considering she hadn’t thrown away the used Aloe Veritas leaves, they had to be somewhere. Where that somewhere was though was a difficult question to answer.
“Yup, that’s weird.” Aloe bit her thumbnail as she read the ter’nar description.
Description: Member of the Ter’nar species, a species known for their ability to survive with mana alone. Their leaves are high on mana and are considered a delicacy.
“It doesn’t state that it’s an evolved plant, but a new species altogether. What’s the difference between those two? Karaim stated that infusing the ter’nar almost killed him, but it ‘technically’ isn’t an evolved plant, at least according to the Aloe Veritas. Hmm…” As she explored the vital arts deeper, more questions drowned her mind. “And still, what in the heavens is mana? No other plant has used that term and I haven’t heard it in my life. Is it a type of nutrient? It says it can survive in mana alone, so maybe?”
Aloe groaned and yet again took a sip out of her glass.
“I’m getting sidetracked. What matters right now isn’t if the ter’nar is an evolved plant or not, even if it’s an interesting question. No, the question is: what plant should I evolve to test the double cost statement?”
The answer was quite obvious: Aloe Veritas.
Karaim had only evolved three plants in total and the other two had already been discarded, so it was the only possibility that remained. But.
“I kinda want to make a new evolved plant,” Aloe stated as she peered into the pot of future grass. “Karaim said it was trial and error. Not every plant worked, but I do have several plants in my position that he didn’t.”
Her eyes didn’t separate from the dirt, another thought bud in her mind.
“Wait, but how did infuse the same plant multiple times?” She realized and directed to the cultivation technique. “Yeah, he said he changed the infusion on the palm trees from ‘accelerated growth’ to ‘bountiful harvest’ but how? An infused plant doesn’t accept more vitality.”
The seed of thought in her mind started blooming.
“Unless…”
And yet again, Aloe got sidetracked. Her only hope was that it would be a productive type of sidetracking. Probably.
