Cultivating Plants

Aloe almost cried out of joy upon seeing the rocky ground before her, but that would have been a wasteful use of her very limited water, so instead she satisfied herself kneeling on the hard ground.

Then she instantly regretted it.

"Heaven almighty!" The cultivator clutched her hands in pain and noticed how there were several small cuts all across them. "T-they," she held her tears, "weren't joking when they said the highlands led you to a death by a thousand cuts."

For the next few minutes, Aloe sobbed and licked her wounds. She took out the Blossomflame from her backpack out of fear that it would try to heal her and instead would set ablaze the backpack.

"Okay, you are still too young to heal, good to know." The evolved flower did partially react to her through some very slight wiggles. So minute in fact that she only really became sure after switching to acuity.

Painfully and regretfully, Aloe soaked a rug with a waterskin and cleaned her wounds. If this was Sadina, she could have just donned toughness and forgotten about them – pain included – but she didn't have the luxury to waste her only infusion on that.

"If I could get an external infusion…" She mussed as she strolled across the highlands. It was weird walking on true solid ground after so long. Even the sandstone and the pavement of the town she stopped by was rather soft to the feet.

But alas, getting an external infusion was impossible. If her theory and personal experience were right, then she would need another person to infuse her. Ignoring how much vitality that person would need to infuse her – she had never infused a cultivator after all, and penetrating someone's vitality was hard – there was an issue too big to overcome before that.

Teaching someone else about Infusion.

Not only Infusion but vital arts and vitality itself. That person would need to be taught on sensing vitality, increasing their reserves, and then applying infusions. Aloe doubted she could ever again get to trust someone after everything that happened, let alone teach them.

Unfortunately, she would never have the chance to wield two simultaneous stances.

But that loss of an opportunity and future was compensated with a rocky outcrop. Sure, it wasn't much, but her vision was blurry, her head was throbbing, and she hadn't slept for around a day, or two if she didn't count the pitiful nap she had after collapsing from the battle against the djinn.

It was still early and the day and logic told her that she couldn't go to sleep, but she also felt like dying – and not metaphorically – so the urge of unconsciousness won out.

She didn't make a makeshift job out of her litter though. First, she checked that the ground was truly solid even if she had walked quite far from the Whistling Sands, enough so that the song of the white desert was barely audible, because having monsters burrow from the ground and kill her in her sleep would be a disappointing way to die after everything that happened.

At this point, death was just disappointing for Aloe, sadness and fear had died along the journey.

And many other things too.

However it may be, other aspects of her sleeping place she took into account were that visibility was low so she wouldn't be seen from far away and that the ground didn't bleed her to death over her sleep.

That last part wasn't much of an issue after extending her blanket on the ground and deploying her sleeping bag. And whilst not exactly comfortable, she used her backpack as the pillow as she didn't want to leave anything up to chance.

After donning recovery, it didn't take Aloe more than two heartbeats before falling asleep.

---

"Ooohhh…" The petite cultivator groaned her way into wakefulness. "Not bad, not bad." It spoke great lengths about Aloe's latest rest that sleeping in a pile of razor-sharp needles could be considered 'not bad' sleep.

Aloe struggled on the sleeping bag for a few minutes, still too drowsy or unwilling to leave her hard-fought sleep.

Quite literally at that.

Once she opened her eyes though, she was surprised.

"Did I only sleep an hour?" Aloe said after judging the current position of the sun and where it was before she went to sleep, then scrubbed her eyes as if they were working incorrectly.

She had to check on the Blossomflame, which she had left outside the backpack to not crush it in her sleep and also to let it get a bit of sunlight, and only after checking the moisture – or lack thereof – of the pot's soil, she realized what had happened.

"How?" She howled at the heavens. "How in the nince-damned hells did I sleep a whole day?"

Nothing answered her, except the nearby song of the Whistling Sands.

As infuriating as it was knowing that she had lost a day of travel, she had desperately needed that rest. If not for her body, then for her mind.

"Also, damn… Twenty-five hours of sleep times six for the recovery factor… that's a hundred-fifty hours of sleep." And even with that much virtual rest, she still felt sleepy.

After getting out of her sleeping bag, which took her more time than she was willing to admit, Aloe pondered what to do with the Blossomflame as she poured some vitality into the plant with the flowing stance.

"It's a bit dry, but I can't waste too much water. Though the Blossomflame is maybe even more valuable than a few drops…" Her dilemma went for so long that she poured – it felt wrong saying 'infuse' as that had different connotations – two adults into the evolved flower. "I… should I pee on it?"

The dilemma went on for a bit longer as she questioned her life choices. People peed on trees and grass all the time so it must be good for them, though in the end, she decided against it as she realized that she would have to carry her urinated pot with her in the backpack.

Thinking so much about urine left her disgusted and disgruntled for the whole morning.

Much to her dismay, Aloe watered the budding flower with actual water.

"I hope I don't regret it." She drank from the waterskin after giving the Blossomflame its fair share.

Carefully, she placed the plant on the highest position of the backpack so nothing would squash it, but still closed the backpack tightly so the plant wouldn't fly away when she was running like a madwoman.

The logistics of carrying a potted plant across wastelands were quite tedious.

Once she recovered the vitality she had used with her Forced Growth flowing stance technique, which wasn't long thanks to the regeneration stance, Aloe donned the speed stance and marched forward.

The first thing she noticed – besides not struggling to fall asleep with every step – when she ran was that it was way easier to plant her feet and move on solid ground. It may seem quite obvious, but her common sense had dulled after living the last few days in a frenetic invisible pursuit on unstable ground.

That also meant that any fall would be much more dangerous, but considering the ground was easier on the feet and that she could switch to toughness in a blink, she didn't worry about falling at all.

Sort of.

The sharpness of the soil of the Ridged Highlands was quite terrifying, even with toughness in play. What if any dust, or whatever there was on the ground, clung to her clothes or skin after a fall and then everything cut her all at once when she deactivated toughness?

She feared nothing… not many things when she was wielding toughness, but what happened after that did worry her. Bleeding out by a thousand cuts sounded less than pleasing.

For her first rest, Aloe was careful where she sat. Fear was a powerful motivator and a good way to keep her guard up. Something she kind of lacked as of late, if just out of tiredness.

Because the rocky ground was so easy on her feet, she allowed herself a longer rest as she felt like she had traveled more distance than she would otherwise have in the sandy ground. The 'longer' rest wasn't enough to restore enough vitality for a second round of Force Growth on the Blossomflame, but her body appreciated the rest, nonetheless.

Once she was ready to go away, instead of switching for haste, Aloe wielded toughness to dust her clothes. She had sat on a rock instead of the ground, but better safe than sound. Paranoia had only helped her so far – or so she would like to think – and the whole process only took a couple of minutes.

Even though the landscape of the Ridged Highlands was more varied – there even was grass sometimes! – than the Whistling sands, it felt more monotonous to Aloe. The sight was too dull with its greys, and the song of the desert did provide her some paltry entertainment.

At least the progress was fast.

The only problem was the many crevices and ravines she found from time to time. Because the terrain slumped downwards rather than upwards, her visibility of the holes was great, though that meant that sometimes she had to stop on her foot to circle around some nasty drops. Too mighty to be scoffed by toughness.

The highlands were called ridged for a reason.

With each break, Aloe's mood slightly improved overall. Not only was she practically in Loyata, but the growth of the Blossomflame was going smoothly. It would only take a day or two until it was fully grown at this rate. Way worse than the single night it took her before, but that time she had spent a lot of vitality pills. For that same reason, she now didn't have many at her disposal. The term "for emergencies" now rung truer than ever.

For a good time, she had thought she would go past the fortress city of Selen, as the landscape was dull and desertic. There was truly nothing on the horizon, so a landmark as big as a whole city was easily missable.

On one hand, it would be nice to overshoot and already be at Loyata.

On the other hand, though, Selen would be her last stop where she was guaranteed to find people who spoke Ydazi. From there, it would only become harder to acquire provisions. Especially considering she would only be able to trade with drupnars from wandering merchants or brokers who valued the metal.

Her fears ended up being unfounded as night came by. Once she was thinking of setting camp, she saw light on the horizon. Dim, as always, but quite eye-catching as the moon's size and light had been on the decrease this last lunar cycle stage.

Though her paranoia was somewhat justified as she only saw the fortress from the corner of her eye, meaning that if she had reached her current position during the day – especially morning as the sun would be blinding her – then she would have most likely passed by without noticing the city.

Aloe could have rushed to the fortress, but she decided instead to set camp. If a town couldn't offer her lodgings at this hour, a fortress would be even less likely. She searched for the biggest rocky formation around and found a nice arch, bigger than a pavilion.

Not that she had one herself. If she had stayed with the nomads, then maybe…

With a bit of help from potency, the cultivator climbed the near-vertical surface without breaking a sweat and laid down for the night.

From her prone position, she could see the warm lights of the fortress city of Selen calling her.

"Tomorrow…" Her words weaved with a yawn.