NOVEL SIMPLE 48. Sprout
Description: An evolved member of the Nigella Sativa species, a species known for its ability to survive with mana alone and sprout streams of water.
Many questions bloomed in Aloe’s mind, namely “Wait, how do the streams of water work? Are they pressurized or more river-like streams?” or “Does the water come from this ‘mana’?” Unfortunately, she had no way of checking such questions. She had to wait for the Flourishing Spring to grow for her to find any closure.
As she had decided beforehand, Aloe planted the evolved plant inside of the oasis. There were three parterres free, so the single plant had a lot of space to grow. Because she didn’t know if the Flourishing Spring was a tree or not – the Aloe Veritas description didn’t specify it – Aloe played it safe and planted it in the middle of the parterre, so it had enough space to grow.
She waited impatiently for the evolved plant to grow, but not before infusing it. Unlike when she evolved the black seed, Aloe was very conscious of the danger. She kneeled on the dirt, one hand on the patch where she had planted the seed and another holding a Cure Grass pill.
If it took more than enough vitality than she could handle, she would instantly down the pill. She had also not eaten anything for a few hours, so her stomach was entirely empty and free to digest the grass as soon as it came in contact with her stomach.
Aloe inhaled and exhaled heavily, she made herself aware wordlessly in harmony with the pregnant aura drowning the greenhouse. Evolved plants took double the vitality to infuse. If the Flourishing Spring was a tree, she would face a severe drain in her vitality. Lethally so.
Gripping hard on the Cure Grass pill, at the point that the aloe covering was beginning to crack, Aloe infused the Flourishing Spring.
Like the wild streams of a river, the vitality flowed potently out of her body. The small seed was able to take amounts of vitality big enough to infuse a patch of crops. But it was doable. Her fingers weren’t locked in the seed like when she had evolved it. It was manageable. Whilst strong, the drainage didn’t put a strain on her body. Evolving the Flourishing Spring had been painful, the original black seed had drunk copious amounts of vitality at a rate that it impeded Aloe to cancel it.
The infusion, on the other hand, was something she could work around. It took more than any other plants she had infused before, even more than the banana seeds. But it was still far less than her entire deposit.
After a complete minute of silence, Aloe managed to infuse the Flourishing Spring with the default accelerated growth typing. The vitality’s total consumption?
Half of her deposit.
With some quick and coarse mathematics, she discarded the possibility of the Flourishing Spring being a tree. A single banana seed had consumed a third of her entire deposit, and taking into account that evolved plants needed twice as much vitality as they should, the base value of the Flourishing Spring was at a fourth of her entire deposit. Or zero point seventy-five times the cost of infusing a banana seed. It wouldn’t be a tree, but if her calculations were to be trusted, it wasn’t going to be a small plant.
After having used more than enough vitality for a week, Aloe took the next days slowly. All the plants were infused, so even if Karaim highly recommended Aloe to keep using her vitality, there was nothing else left to be infused.
Except herself.
The concept was terrifying. Changing one’s body.
If infusion with plants almost led to mortal consequences, how bad could infusion on the same body where the vitality came from be?
Aloe didn’t know the answers, but her prediction was: a lot.
“How do I even do this?” Aloe waited, lying in bed. “Where do I begin?”
She had just woken up and it had only been two days since she infused the Flourishing Spring. The idea to infuse, boost her own body was intoxicating but mostly terrifying. What if something went wrong?
“Karaim didn’t linger much on it, but he almost made it sound inconsequential, so it can’t be that difficult...” Aloe extended her arm to reach the nightstand, where it rested the cultivation technique.
The idea to infuse herself wasn’t something she had just decided to do after waking up, but she had been already entertaining the concept since yesterday night. The lack of elaboration on the subject and Karaim’s carefree attitude on it made Aloe think that it wasn’t an endeavor as difficult or dangerous as she made it sound.
“Oh, and before I forget. Yes, you can infuse yourself. But the sheer amount of vitality needed makes it worthless.” Aloe read aloud. “He’s so nonchalant about it. It can’t be dangerous if it’s as useless as he says...”
She didn’t believe her own words.
“Anyways, how do I infuse myself and what are the infusion types? With plants, it was somewhat straightforward, so maybe it’s the same with people? Can I just infuse myself to be taller? But even if I can select the types I want, what’s the default one? With plants it was accelerated growth, is it the same with people? If that’s the case, what does accelerated growth in humans entail? Faster development? Then it’s useless to me, I’m almost an adult. And if that were the case, how it would affect the development of a child? Would it learn faster?” Or...” Aloe groaned. “It’s too early for this, I need a cup of tea.”
As she waited for the water to boil, Aloe had some dates and watered the plants. In these few days, all the seeds Aloe had planted had germinated. Even the bananas. Most were tiny sprouts, far away from their grown size, only a prick that had dug the earth to see the heavens.
To Aloe’s surprise, even the Flourishing Spring had germinated.
“Well, not much of a surprise there. It’s infused and it’s an evolved plant. Did Karaim mention how much was the growth factor compared to normal plants? Was it also double? That means that an evolved plant with accelerated growth infusion should grow four times as fast as its normal counterpart. Woah, that’s fast. Some plants take a full year to grow, with this, they will only take a season! What a shame pistachios or potatoes didn’t have an evolution. Otherwise, I could have a harvest of potatoes every other week!”
Coming back to the house, Aloe found herself with yet another surprise as she checked on the windowsill. Two jars lay there.
On one pot, a single grown Cure Grass blade. In a few days, it had grown to its full size, more than twice the length of Aloe’s middle finger.
On the other pot, a wild growth of short weeds, barely the length of Aloe’s rather uncared-for fingernails.
“Oh, wow.” Aloe blinked multiple times as she assimilated the image before her. “Well, the ‘bountiful harvest’ typing has worked. Definitely. What a shame I don’t have any kind of feedback when I infuse plants. That way I wouldn’t need to wait until it grows to check if it worked. Why do I feel empty upon seeing this though?”
Before her, Aloe had a pure display of magic. She had manipulated the structure of a plant and made it grow in the way she wanted, but the sheer rusticity of the accomplishment rendered all its glamour null.
“Bah,” Aloe groaned and deflated, “however amazing this is, I won’t be able to infuse plants with different types until they finally grow. I guess I could check today on an already-grown potato the ‘better taste’ typing. Also, mental note, I should standardize the names or something. Or should I? I’m the only one using them after all...”
The whistling of the kettle reached her ears, so she stopped pondering in the middle of the sun, rushed back home, and poured herself a ter’nar tea.
“Ah, yes. This hits the spot.” Aloe relaxed on her chair after taking a sip. “Definitely addictive. I should stop, but it doesn't seem to have any bad properties. Just mild lightheadedness. Or that’s just me being me. Bah!”
As she had her tea, Aloe infused the biggest potato she had on the sack with the ‘better taste’ typing. Or so she hoped. The lack of feedback was horrendous, but at least she had gotten proficient enough dealing with vitality that she almost didn’t notice the drain. Potatoes already had a low infusion cost but compared to the monstrosities she had tolerated to evolve and infuse the Flourishing Spring, it was but a tickle.
“Practice makes the master, or so they say.” She said between sips, satisfied with her progress in such a short span of time.
Her mind jumped from subject to subject thanks to the clearly-addictive, possibly-psychedelic properties of the ter’nar tree. Her wandering thoughts only lowered her self-consciousness and self-preservation instinct.
Exactly what she needed to apply dubious magic to her body.
Once she downed the first cup and refilled the second one, Aloe braced herself.
“I can’t believe I’m saying this, but let’s modify my body.” She added with a lethargic sigh, hiding her fear, but above else, her expectation.
This isn't the type of story, but body horror interests me greatly. You can see a bit of that facet in my short story Alta Chimera.
And talking about Alta Chimera, yesterday I got my first ever fanart, and that made me very happy!
I'll post it here because there are a few readers from Alta here and there, but without the context, it may be strange (though with the context is even more strange).
You could also just read the story. It's only 200 pages long!
Thanks to my patrons on Patreon and Ko-fi! You can read two weeks of chapters in advance there!
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