Rules of Biomancy: A LitRPG Healer Fantasy

“Cleaning that won’t be easy,” Elijah muttered to himself as he looked at the ceiling of the laboratory, where the top of the Sundrop Flower was pressed against. The peak of the plant hadn’t taken the barrier well, pollen covering the wood in long lines as the flower heads had rubbed against the ceiling for several hours. If he wasn’t mistaken, Elijah could even spot a few branches trying to go through some of the minor holes that could lead them to the second floor. “If only you’d grown like that while I was around.”

It would be incredibly helpful if he could continually harvest from this one plant at a steady rate instead of doing weekly excursions into the dungeon to get the necessary amounts. If it grew this amount in the time it took him to sleep during the night, however… Elijah would prefer the dungeon.

Nothing was saying that this was permanent, however, and this growth was because of his previous manipulations. Nothing stopped him from making another attempt. And, so, that’s what he did, nearing the plant and letting his Mana leave his hand and float towards the stalk of the flower.

To his surprise, it closed the distance with its own thread before he had the chance.

‘Hi!’

Neither did he get a chance to say the first word, that childish voice invading his mind before he could even blink. It was powerful, sounding weirdly hungry, and… a little smarter than the last time that they had talked. How Elijah could tell the intelligence or the level of hunger the plant had from one word alone couldn’t be explained in proper terms other than it being a conceptual one. The Tier 2 Spell might’ve allowed complete sentences to be understood and replied to, but the Tier 1 had always been focused on imagery, feelings, and desires. The new upgrade of the first Spell wasn’t replacing the basics but instead building up on it.

‘... Hi?’

Another, more hesitant message, as if the plant was unsure about his silence. A new emotion that hadn’t been seen before. A new kind of wisdom. Elijah was intrigued.

‘Hello,’ he finally replied.

‘Hi! Hi!’ the plant quickly repeated again and again, ecstatic to hear his voice. ‘Can I have food?’

At least that hadn’t changed from the start, Elijah obliged the desperate attempts and sent in several doses of his Mana into the stalk. He could see as it spread out across the entire body of the plant, cycling through every piece and back as more and more of it was absorbed. An efficient process, even if it wasn’t fast, and he saw it as the flowers were given just a slight nudge in their size.

More than what Elijah could’ve done alone when growing plants by hand. It was another piece of proof that his methods were nowhere near as effective as they had the potential to be.

‘More?’ the Sundrop Flower asked, sending out more tendrils of Mana to connect with his hand. A strange method, but not one that Elijah entertained as he firmly rejected the notion.

‘After I ask a few questions, we can talk about it,’ he said, the plant seeming to vibrate in response. Glee, lacking ability to wait but nonetheless fighting for the chance to get more food later. Such a different way of looking at the world compared to his own, and the vivid imagery only increased in strength the longer he was connected to the plant. ‘First, I need to ask a favor of you.’

‘I will do anything.’

‘Including becoming smaller again? Your size is becoming unmanageable here, and I would prefer it if your height was halved. Even if I wanted to, harvesting your top flowers would be too hard for me.’

… For a second, Elijah wondered if the plant would reject the idea of reducing its size, knowing that one of its base desires was to grow and prosper, but in the next moments he had to dodge several large stalks as they fell from above.

Without mercy, and without considering who was standing below the plant, the top half had been cut in one fell swoop by the flower itself. Elijah was stunned at the sight, barely caring for the considerable pile of golden pollen on the floor as he studied the point where it had been broken off.

It wasn’t a clean cut, closer to a jagged and unruly method that separated the top half wherever it was weakest. An attempt to minimize the energy required to do it.

Intelligence was shown off yet again.

‘Can I have food now?’ the Sundrop Flower asked, to which Elijah gave it another dose of Mana.

He watched in silence as the energy cycled through the body of the plant once again, this time with a heavily reduced size. It was… interesting, the smaller mass making it more obvious what kind of spiraling was being done. Some of the methods used were closer to what Ruebus had told him to do than he expected. Were plants naturally talented at the usage of Mana, or was this one an exception?

‘Would it be possible for you not to grow as wide and tall as you did before?’ Elijah asked when he saw the visible growth restarting. New thin stalks were already growing where the older ones had been cut off, showing off small buds on the sides within mere minutes. If anything could be said about the plant, it was the fact that it was incredibly effective. ‘Growing out to the same size will make you need to cut half off again.’

‘... Oh,’ came the reply. ‘Will you give me more food if I give you half again?’

Elijah sighed. So much intelligence being shown off, but the base desires still had control over its choices to some degree. It wasn’t akin to a human in wisdom and mental capacity just yet, and instead closer to that of a dog.

‘No, but I’ll give you more if you follow my instructions,’ Elijah replied, to which it instantly accepted. ‘Can you… grow a flower that isn’t a golden coloring?’

…

‘What is golden coloring?’

As he should’ve expected, it started becoming much harder to work with the plant once any complex instructions were given out. The Sundrop Flower was perhaps incredibly willing to obey and perform as asked, but that likewise required that it understood what it was being asked to do.

Flowers didn’t have a firm grasp on color theory, as he learned rather quickly, instead working on how much warmth each coloring gave. Translating that took a while, with Elijah needing to give dozens of reference points for colors and how much warmth they gave, but it ended up with an amazing discovery.

Through prodding and a little help, it was possible to turn the flower petals of the Sundrop Flower green.

It sounded like a purely cosmetic change, which Elijah also thought until he was able to accomplish some alterations to the plant and study the results from processing the new colors.

As it turned out, the effects of the new variant were much more long-lasting than anything the golden one could accomplish.

One well-studied side-effect of the regular paste was the feeling of warmth that washed over a person when applying the healing paste. It wouldn’t hurt, it wouldn’t make them sweat, but that omnipresent feeling of heating up was very much there regardless. Not long enough to cause concern either, as it only lasted for a maximum of thirty seconds.

Looking at the clock, the green variant had lasted for ten minutes.

Yet even that wouldn’t be something that Elijah would get excited about in a vacuum. No, it was the effect that the heat was directly correlated to the initial burst of effectiveness from the paste.

Whenever he had more superficial injuries, like cuts or bruises on his skin close to the paste, the feeling of heat would dissipate faster but the injuries would also fade with the same pace. An interesting quirk, though not one that had been important in the past.

Except when the heat doesn’t waver as quickly.

By using the green-colored Healing Paste, Elijah was suddenly granted a ten-minute space where he could get minor injuries like cuts or bruises and have them instantly healed. Many more than the original variant could deal with as well, along with deeper ones that at least had reduced severity without getting fully healed. Any truly serious injuries needed as much time as normal to heal, but that was fine in his eyes.

Within just an hour of experimentation with this gift of his, he had been able to create a new variant of Sundrop Flower that he was sure Olivia and her men would love to have their hands on.

‘This has been a great success,’ Elijah sent to the plant, which greedily absorbed the Mana he brought along with his words. ‘Can you make seeds so that I can grow the variant in the future as well?’

‘If I get more food.’

He obliged, sending most of what he had left so that it could work its magic while he was gone.

‘And, remember, I don’t want you growing massive while I’m away,’ Elijah said once again. The plant had gotten in the habit of forgetting that particular request while he had been working with it, the stalks consistently increasing in size over time. ‘I can’t work with you as well if you do.’

‘What do I do instead of growing big?’

‘Improve yourself in your current size,’ Elijah supposed, compiling and sending over a batch of images to take inspiration from. Just about any plant that he had worked with in the past decades, animals that typically ate them or used them for nests, and how they otherwise interacted with the world around them. ‘If you feel that you can enhance yourself in some useful way, I give you the freedom to try it out.’

‘... Anything?’

‘Don’t grow bigger,’ he reiterated, as the plant replied with the idea of trying to imitate an acorn tree. He currently had no interest in figuring out how far the flower could get in doing as much. ‘Go much smaller. Smaller than you currently are, even, if you want to. Just nothing bigger.’

‘Okay. I will do it for food.’

Elijah wasn’t sure exactly what the Sundrop Flower had planned, as it began going through several images of birds making nests in bushes and flowerbeds, but he trusted that it would do something that didn't require his direct intervention.

A final burst of Mana was sent along, a promise to check in on its progress in the morning, and then he headed out to assist Aleksi with food for the night. It had gotten later than he intended it to be, and he knew the giant was waiting for him to arrive.