Epsilon Twilight
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49. Accelerate
🕑 Added 2024-11-15 12:32:32 +0000 UTCWith all her plants, fungi, lichens, and whatnot; Aloe had finally evolved all the living beings in her possession that could be evolved currently. Well, maybe except for herself, but Evolution could only affect non-developed, non-grown living beings.
Her main chore for the day was growing the cotton plants she had sowed so she could evolve more Cottonpulls in the following days. Blossomflames still worked just fine, but if she wanted to grow her reserves faster and without pushing herself through multiple daily evolutions, she needed to up her game with more expensive evolutions.
For today, she poured twenty mansworth into the most grown cotton plant and also evolved a cumin seed. After that, she was so exhausted that she couldn't move her body without heavily panting.
At least cooking didn't require to put on sweat and tears, just blood.
The next day was a bit more of the same, except she was able to evolve two more cumin seeds as she hadn't been decimated by evolving a twenty mansworth lichen.
As always, she planted all the Blossomflames she had been evolving, and by this point, the numbers were getting ridiculous. If she controlled her words and wounds, she should be able to keep the fires up indefinitely.
She brought her potted Blossomflame to the crevice alongside her litter a while ago, but she had yet to find a way to keep a Blossomflame going all night long. She couldn't talk to them or keep her wounds open whilst sleeping, after all. The best plan of action was still transplanting several of them so the passive heat emitted by the evolved flowers was enough to keep her warm and cozy.
"Can't waste vitality on something this trivial," Aloe muttered to herself. "I'm teetering the boundary to evolve Cottonpulls without assistance, I can't waste it."
The next 'day' – she was getting the feeling with each passing that she wasn't even close with her guesses – wasn't enough to have the cotton plant grown just yet. Forced Growth was just that inefficient. The difference between her default flowing stance technique and the blood infusions was day and night, but at the same time, one was free, and the other one had a steep cost.
She had yet to put it into numbers just yet, but a single blood infusion had the cost of several Blossomflames' worth of vitality gain. A couple of her days at best, a full week at worst.
That was why she was so reticent about using them.
Blood infusions were undoubtedly powerful, but also a major setback. Perhaps once she was dealing with more costly evolutions like the Radiating Undergrowth or – even better – the Slowtide, then she could afford to perform blood infusions in a trivial manner.
Those days were still far away, though.
In the end, it took her a couple of days more to have a fully grown cotton plant. Fortunately, cotton was a plant she knew well as some nobles liked to grow them for their gardens and greenhouses – beyond the obvious textile applications – so she knew that the seeds were to be found inside the fluff of the cotton balls.
Instead of just gathering the seeds, Aloe also harvested the cotton. Not that she had a place to store it.
"Hmm, I can't process the cotton for textiles, but it is fluffy. Maybe I could use it to make pillows and add a bit of a cushion to my sleeping bag." All her education leaned towards economics and diplomacy, subjects which were useless when what she needed more now was artisanal wisdom.
The single cotton plant she grew didn't produce much cotton, mostly because it had only matured, not flourished. Aloe expected to have much more cotton in the future, but for now, enough to make a small pillow was sufficient.
"Alrighty," Aloe dusted her hands after placing all the cotton on her backpack. "Time to evolve a cotton seed."
She had her vitality pills at hand's reach, but she fully expected to have enough vitality by now to evolve them without assistance as the growth of the cotton plant had taken way longer than she had expected. Enough for her to draw the plant in its multiple growth stages.
As it was a requirement-less plant – placeholder terminology – Aloe infused it straight away her vitality without the need for catalysts. Obviously, the cotton plant seed eagerly accepted her vitality and intent.
"Oh, catalysts," she mused. "I like that name for the alignment requirement items and conditions."
The drainage was faster than the Blossomflames', but she had had worse. When she was done with it a couple of minutes later, she was panting from the evolution process. Even if it was way cheaper than the Slowtide, she had expended her entire reserves in that single go.
"No pain, only exhaustion. That's good," she told herself.
Vitality spending played a role in her exhaustion, but the major actor was without a shadow of a doubt the number of infusions-slash-evolutions she performed. Perhaps trivial amounts didn't influence like with the Cure Grass, but anything beyond or close to a mansworth could already strain her if she did it repeatedly.
"Gotta check on the afternoon if repeated Cottonpull evolutions mess me up." Aloe groaned as she stood up and went to plant the newly evolved seed.
Over these last days, all her newly evolved plants had grown, but as she was frugal with her blood infusions and most of her evolutions couldn't be infused with accelerated growth, their growth had been tame so far. The Cottonpull wasn't a fungus and the Radiant Undergrowth and Slowtide were uninfusable which meant they were growing at half the speed – or rather, their normal speed – though the growth rate of the latter had surprised her.
The evolution that had progressed the most was the Dream Spore which was slowly getting to the 'cap state' as she liked to call it. By that, she meant that the mycelium of the fungi had finally grown and soon the mushroom – the visible fruit of the fungus – would start to grow. For now, it was just a sprout. Or whatever the fungi equivalent of it was.
"Why are mushrooms this weird?" Aloe asked herself the same question that all botanic scholars did.
Going back to the Slowtide, the lichen seemed to grow faster than her other patches. Though that was a bit of an exaggeration as in all these days, the Slowtide had grown from a pinky fingernail to a thumb in area.
"I guess it makes sense for an evolution whose description talks about expanding," Aloe mused as she caressed the gooey growth. "Maybe I can't infuse it because it has no limit to its size?"
That was her favorite theory on why the Slowtide seemed to accept limitless vitality without being infused. The problem with that theory was that the Radiating Undergrowth should also have infinite size by proxy.
Which was, statistically speaking, unlikely.
She smelled her finger and even licked it, but she still was unable to witness any of the Slowtide's soporific properties. After that, she washed her hands and proceeded to cook her meal for the day. She had never enjoyed eating, but her enthusiasm was at an all-time low after eating the same food for weeks without end.
There was a limit to how many ways potatoes and mushrooms could be cooked, especially when her only ingredients were potatoes, mushrooms, and water. Not even salt.
Aloe was surprised at her own resilience. It bewildered her as she wasn't even wielding toughness all the time, but acuity, which should be the stance that would allow her to push through any mistreatment. By all accounts, she didn't think a person could just survive on potatoes, mushrooms, water, and air, but she was doing just fine. Maybe she would like to add sunlight to her diet, but beggars can't be choosers.
After eating and drawing for a bit, Aloe evolved the next Cottonpull. She was panting heavily by the end of it, but still no pain.
"Okay, this is a massive upgrade," she added after recovering her breath. "Two Cottonpulls are around four Blossomflames, and I normally evolve three per day, and the exhaustion will only get better the more vitality I have. I'm making big numbers!"
She refused to compare them to that of the sultanzade, especially the sultanah, otherwise, she would become instantly depressed.
"How much vitality am I gaining per evolution, though?" Such was a tough question that she hadn't even managed to answer with the Flourishing Springs or the Blossomflames as the amount increased per evolution was infinitesimal. "I need to keep track of evolutions starting now. I've got two Cottonpulls evolved, and I've started somewhat past the eight mansworth mark. If I continue counting the evolutions, then once I have evolved one hundred Cottonpulls, I'll have a good estimate of how much a single one provides. Simple and clean arithmetic!"
That was without considering potential losses in the form of blood infusions if not other sources.
"For now, I'm still ahead of the curve," Aloe reassured herself. "Sultanzade can only gain around three-fifths of a mansworth per month, and I've obtained a whole one this last one even when accounting for blood infusions. With Cottonpulls, my growth should only accelerate."
There were many things to be done in her little enclave, but Aloe decided to cut today short. The Cottonpulls had left her truly exhausted even if she wasn't writhing in pain. Sixteen mansworth were nothing to scoff at, even if she had done way worse. For the first time in a while, Aloe went to sleep with a smile on her face, knowing that her progress would inevitably accelerate, and her vital arts along with it.
Comments
The3rd
Infinite cookies are here 🍪♾️
Zachary Patterson
Thank you for the chapter!
