ALL NOVEL 42. Type
“Okay, if I’m thinking this right, there are only two options on how Karaim reinfused the same plant and changed its type of infusion.” Aloe pushed her hair backward to refresh herself after considerable seconds of silent ponderation. “Either: one, he has changed the properties of the vitality inside of the plant – somehow – or; two, he has taken the vitality out of the plant and inserted fresh vitality with a different ‘intent’ type.”
She had absolutely no idea how Karaim managed to do that, and he also appeared to have none, but logic dictated that those were the only two possible options. If an infused plant didn’t accept new vitality either you modified the existing one or removed it.
“I have no idea where to begin, but…” She said with a coy smile as she looked at the jar filled with dirt and a single Cure Grass seed. “I do have a plant that doesn't require a lot of vitality to infuse and multiple other infused seeds to try.”
On the desktop lay multiple examples of grass seeds. Normal grass seeds, the one grass seed she had infused, the Cure Grass seed evolved by Karaim left, and the infused Cure Grass seed inside of the jar.
“I may not have been able to sense a distinction between infusing a normal grass seed and an evolved one because I’m dealing with negligible amounts of vitality, but maybe having them next to one another will help.”
Aloe placed one hand on the infuse normal seed and the other on top of the dirt.
“Let’s try.”
Vitality sensing, if she was even going to call it like that, wasn’t as straightforward as seeing. She wouldn’t go as far as calling it a sixth sense, it mostly felt like… colorful touch.
As she closed her eyes, it became easy to isolate her other senses and just concentrate on what she had on her hands. The dirt was humid but the seed was dry. But it wasn’t true sense of touch that she wanted, but the colorful and refreshing energy that was vitality.
Aloe breathed.
In a very convoluted manner, vitality was similar to air. A refreshing sensation that filled her with energy, invigorating her. But she wouldn’t attribute smell to that sense. A mixture of sight and touch. Taste, smell, and hearing had nothing to do with vitality. Only her eyes and flesh.
If the vitality needed to evolve the Cure Grass was a thunderstorm, the infused common seed was a single thunder. Not the best analogy, because it used sound, but it got a bit better when compared to the Cure Grass infused seed. The evolved plant was lightning, the whole package.
The thunderous explosion and the dashing flash.
Yet still not as powerful as the complete thunderstorm.
“I think I need to evolve another Cure Grass to quantify how much vitality I need. I have the feeling that I just fainted because it was my first time using vitality – and also being dehydrated and starving – rather than consuming a lot of it.”
So she did.
Karaim had a pot full of normal grass seeds, so it wasn’t like Aloe was in short supply of them. And besides, she was more confident in her ability to manage vitality than her first time.
“Intent…” She muttered. “Cure Grass evolution test begins… now!”
The muscles on her arm quickly strained as vitality poured into the seed. She had forgotten about it, maybe because she wasn’t in the right place of mind back then, but Evolution was much different from Infusion, even if both basically resumed to pouring vitality into a spot.
Whilst Infusion was like a fountain, pouring vitality as a fountain did with water, that didn’t accomplish much. Pure vanity. But Evolution… was different. It had a purpose. In very, very small scales – ones she couldn’t even comprehend – Aloe could feel the seed shift in her hand.
“It’s like Karaim said, I’m truly evolving the plant, I’m changing its structure…” Aloe’s voice died out as the vitality was more than she was expecting. “Oh, yeah, this is far more than the bananas.”
Her visage contorted in a mixture of annoyance and fatigue, but not pain. Vitality was not stamina, that was a statement she had read and checked herself, but using a great amount in a short span did make her tired.
“Oh…” Aloe grunted between pants. “Well, at least I didn’t pass out. That’s good.” She grabbed the newly made Cure Grass seed between her fingertips. “Maybe it’s a little bigger?”
But after putting the evolved grass seed and a normal one next to each other, she couldn’t identify any notable distinctions. If there were, they occurred on the inside of the seed and not the outside.
“That was around… two-thirds of my whole vitality? It’s really difficult to make out concrete numbers. I don’t even know how much vitality I have myself.” Aloe left the seed on the desk. “But that’s infinitely more than what it’s needed to infuse either grass or Cure Grass. If Evolution follows the same logic as Infusion, I cannot fathom how Karaim managed to evolve such big plants as the ter’nar or Aloe Veritas.”
Theory-crafting was interesting, but Aloe was currently interested in the practice.
“Let’s see how different a normal and uninfused Cure Grass is…”
She placed her hands on both evolved seeds, but she failed to detect any major differences.
“Hmm… maybe I can tell that the infused one has more vitality, but I don’t know if that’s just my mind playing me tricks. These amounts are just so negligible!” Aloe groaned. “An infused normal seed and an infused evolved one have a lot more differences between the two because Cure Grass just has a lot of vitality by default, comparing two Cure Grass seeds makes no difference!”
Another theory brewed in Aloe’s head relating vitality usage and swing moods. She wasn’t exactly a tame person, but she quickly realized that shouting after a few minutes of experimentation was rather… childish. Aloe wasn’t a scholar of the university, but she could comprehend that research wasn’t an overnight process.
“I need a new mindset and a definitive idea. What I want to do is…” She stopped talking because she realized she didn’t have an actual plan. Another sip of coconut milk ordered her thoughts. “Okay… what I want to do is check how did Karaim manage to infuse different properties in Cure Grass… I think I need a stronger drink for this.”
Maybe not culturally an adult yet, Aloe wasn’t unbeknownst to alcohol. Mainly thanks to the rather negative influences of Uncle Jafar. But unfortunately, or fortunately, Aloe hadn’t brought alcoholic beverages with her. Doing so was an easy recipe for dehydration and quick death because she was too drunk to drink water. And her luggage was already packed full.
But Karaim did have substitutes.
The ter’nar leaves were considerably good tasting… and they did present a fresh mindset. Also, Aloe already had boiling water outside of the oasis as part of her routine to purify the water. It didn’t even take her five minutes to make herself a kettle full of ter’nar tea.
The steaming liquid was… eye-opening to say the least.
“Yeaaaah…” Aloe spoke in a half-grunt. “Definitely drugs.”
She added as she took another sip of her cup.
“I feel a weird energy inside of me…” Aloe looked at her hands. “Not vitality, but equally refreshing. What’s this… Oh yeah, but the characteristics of the… But I should water… No, no. Think about the growth… Is that profitable… What about… Maybe… Uhhh.”
Aloe’s thoughts quickly devolved into an ever-shifting mess, her mind functioning at astounding speed, what a shame that she couldn’t linger in any thought more than a few seconds at a time.
“Karaim did say that, didn’t he?” Aloe pondered after a few seconds of clarity. Those quickly vanished as she took yet another sip. “Okay, okay, but what if…” She stopped herself, hoping for her mind to switch to another thought, but it didn’t. Aloe lingered with a frown for a few more seconds before continuing down that path. “Evolution is mindful intent on evolving the plant. Infusion is mindless intent. But that’s the default infusion! What if Evolution is just a side of Infusion and the mindless intent just defaults to accelerated growth?”
She may be tripping, but her thoughts spoken aloud sounded solid.
“So… in theory… if I were to infuse a seed with ‘bountiful harvest’ as an intent… maybe… just maybe… it would just simply work?”
There was only one way of knowing it. By trying.
This didn’t resolve her questions on how Karaim managed to change the type of infusion of an already infused plant, but if she managed to make a new type of infusion, then progress would certainly be made.
“Bountiful harvest… Bountiful harvest…” Aloe repeated in a mantra as she pressed the newly evolved Cure Grass seed between her hands.
Concentration was hard to come by, her mind riddled by the influence of the ter’nar leaves. It also didn’t help that she couldn’t stop herself from drinking, therefore prolonging her euphoria. It became quite obvious that the ter’nar had some addictive properties.
The infusion ended before she noticed, her head kept elaborating thoughts completely unrelated to the subject at hand.
“Yes!” Aloe fist-bumped as she finally became aware that vitality had left her body and infiltrated the Cure Grass seed. But in her high highs, a new thought made its nasty appearance. “But how do I know if it’s the right type of infusion?”
She didn’t.
