Epsilon Twilight
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72. Slime
🕑 Added 2024-12-17 12:05:55 +0000 UTCAloe rested for the following weeks. The massive blood infusion had wrecked her body more than she had originally thought, even five days later she was feeling a modicum of discomfort. But that didn't prevent her from evolving five Slowtides per day. Whilst twenty mansworth were still a considerable amount of vitality, she now had frice that much, so her body could easily assimilate such taxing evolutions if she scattered them along the day and took breaks.
However, her experiments on Heartgrowth were forced to stop regardless of her intentions. As it would seem, the seeds of a 'dead' Heartgrowth weren't fertile, but it wasn't like she knew if the seeds of a living Heartgrowth were fertile, to begin with. Though common sense told her otherwise.
A plant wouldn't have seeds if they were infertile, after all.
"Is the term infertile or sterile?" She found herself mumbling after the seed she had planted failed to grow days after doing so. Not even Forced Growth seemed to change that. "I mean, infertility just means lowered chances of conception in humans, but at the same time, when you say that soil is not fertile it means that nothing will grow there… I never expected to have a philosophical – ontological? – discussion with myself about the fertility of plants."
As she couldn't grow new Heartgrowths from her existing one nor evolve new ones at the moment, Aloe distracted herself with other experiments.
It frustrated her to no end being unable to find Umar in the world of ideas, but she was also satisfied with her control over her dreams induced by the Dream Spore. She could almost shift into the world of ideas at will! A bit of an exaggeration, and even if it wasn't, there wasn't much utility to it.
"The world of ideas seems to be a replica of the of our world but based on… observation. I guess there's a utility as some sort of astral projection, being able to gaze the real world without obstacles nor being able to be detected, but that isn't of much use, is it?"
Aloe had originally thought of using that connection to spy on her acquaintances but considering what she had done to half of them with her departure and that some others may be at Asina, she held herself from doing so. It left a bad taste in her mouth to even think of trying.
It was a cowardly thing to do.
And she was also scared of what she might see.
She was incapable of looking at little Aya even if it was from worlds apart.
Her focus was now on substituting some of her daily Slowtide evolutions for Radiating Undergrowth ones to halt the growth of the existing Slowtide. The pink slime grew slowly, but just to be sure, Aloe used some of her vitality to force the radiating fungi to grow.
There were some issues with planting on the wall though.
"How do I climb this?" She pondered as she looked at the vertical growth of the Slowtide. It reached tens of meters high. "I mean, with a potency jump I could reach it easily, but the Slowtide underneath worries me…"
Unfortunately, she couldn't allow herself to be deterred by worry. Heavens knew what would happen if she left the Slowtide to grow unchecked. With her heart on a fist, Aloe evolved a death cap and jumped above the Slowtide to plant it above it.
And…
She was successful. After applying a bit of force, the glowing spore at her finger stuck on the wall, rooting itself to grow in the future. With the use of the sense stance, Aloe was able to control her airtime and movements, so she was able to redirect her fall to the side instead of on top of the Slowtide.
"A bit scary, but not even close," she puffed her chest in victory. "Two more to go!"
The Slowtide pool was so expansive that she wanted to have some redundancy so the slime wouldn't grow around the Radiating Undergrowths.
But before making any further attempts, she had to rest a bit. Even if she now had enough vitality to evolve eight Radiating Undergrowths in a row – may be infinite as her vitality regeneration with recovery on was no joke – her body still was exhausted after any given evolution. It just so happened that the more maximum vitality she had, the lesser that exhaustion became.
Though resting for her meant different things compared to most people. There wasn't much to do down here, after all. Her main activities that could be counted as leisure time were either drawing or exercising. It sounded preposterous to exercise as a way of taking a break, but when taking into account that her recovery internal infusion could give her a complete rest in just five minutes, and the fact that using vitality wasn't the same type of physical exertion, it wasn't that farfetched to say.
After having sweated a bit, Aloe evolved a new Radiating Undergrowth and planted it on the top of the wall. No issues whatsoever. Being unable to go back to training after the interruption, Aloe decided to evolve the next death cap without resting. Her reserves had already been topped out, after all.
She didn't think much of it, evolving it only took her a minute, and pushing the spore into the wall even less. So she did it.
With potency on, Aloe jumped above the Slowtide and pressed her hand against the wall. The spore had become a bit lodged on her fingerprints, so it took her a bit of finicking to get it stuck on the wall.
Not much time, but enough to lose her footing and fall down.
Panic overtook her mind, but her body was far calmer. She simply pressed her feet against the wall…
"Oh," she mumbled in realization.
The surface underneath her foot wasn't a rock wall. And most importantly, she had been so calm that she had introduced it slowly.
The Slowtide devoured her foot.
"Move!" Aloe yanked her foot out of the vertical slime growth, but the movement killed her horizontal momentum, only the vertical one from gravity remained. "Uh, oh."
The cultivator smashed hard against the ground. The fall hadn't been severe, and because she was able to wield toughness in less time than it took her to blink once, she basically didn't feel it. It also helped that the fall had had some force behind it, meaning that she wouldn't sink on the Slowtide.
"Ugh, that could have gone worse." Aloe groaned whilst scratching her head, and slowly stood up. "Oh," she realized.
Of all the ways she could have stood up, she had chosen the worst one.
Her body plummeted into the slime.
Now it was time for her body to panic.
Of the many internal infusions her body could subconsciously choose, it opted for recovery. Aloe already knew the liquid properties of the bright pink slime, so as she struggled against the liquid and submerged herself even more as a consequence, her breath didn't decrease at all.
When her body became fully covered by the slime, she finally acknowledged that and consciously chose to keep that infusion. The regeneration stance would allow her to sustain herself for minutes, if not more.
She struggled and tried to push her body forward, but try as she might, the slime was too thick to push around for her diminished – or rather, default – physical capabilities. If she wanted to get out, she would need potency, but she held herself on to that for now. The moment she switched out of recovery, she would be in a race against time.
How deep is this, by the way? Aloe asked herself as she had already been falling for a few seconds now. It has to have a limit, right? She wasn't so sure of it. There's only one way to check it…
As she opened her eyes expecting to find complete darkness or severe irritation in her eyes, Aloe was greeted by a bizarre image.
What the…? The space around her wasn't completely dark but a limitless void of illuminated bright pink. How? How can I see? Isn't this slime? She moved her hands around and there was indeed resistance, but she could see as if it was air surrounding her. The horizon looked pink, but the slime trapping her body was practically translucent.
This… is interesting. Even though she had fallen into a death trap, Aloe couldn't help but be fascinated by the sight. Not only aren't my eyes being melted by the slime or something along those lines, but I can clearly see.
After stopping her struggle, the slime settled into place, keeping her from falling and allowing her to continue observing without fear of falling even deeper. Okay, I have a bit of time before I should stop worrying about my life… so let's explore a bit.
Aloe observed her surroundings and no matter the direction, she was unable to find any end to the slime.
Is there no end, or can I simply not see it? She mused. Now, I don't see the entrance, but gravity seems to be a thing here, so it must be upwards… Truth be told, she should have been more scared about not finding the place where she had entered this liminal void, but she felt oddly at peace.
Uh, oh. I fear those are the soporific properties of the Slowtide speaking. Instead of feeling ecstatic at finally having found those elusive soporific properties she had been hunting for months, Aloe panicked. Gotta get the fuck out of her.
She sluggishly moved her head upward and looked at where the entrance should be. Well, here goes nothing. She switched recovery for potency and swam upwards with all her might. The solid slime became liquid from one moment to the other and gravity started pushing her downwards again, but her strength was far greater than any pulling force.
It only took her a handful of armfuls to get out of the slime.
"Aaaaah!" Aloe gasped for air, but as the Slowtide continued to push her inwards, she rushed for the edge and grabbed onto firm land, removing herself from the slime pool without thinking it twice. Not a trace of slime stuck to her body. "Dunes, that was scary!" She shouted with her augmented lungs. "But…"
The cultivator bit her thumb as she pondered. She had been at death's door a few seconds before, but now, curiosity was leading her. There was an arousal in knowledge and casually ignoring death.
"The Slowtide almost managed to make me fall asleep and possibly kill me, but I didn't fail to notice how its insides are apparently infinite in size. I wonder if I can use this…"
Fear was substituted by desire. A ceaseless and uncontainable desire to experiment to know more.
Comments
The3rd
Infinite sweets and goodness are here 🍨🍦🍪💖🍫🍬🍭🍮🍯🍰🍩🎂♾️
