45. Failure (Patreon)

“Bean test begins... now!” Aloe poured her vitality into the single bean on her hand.

She kept very close to her heart the Evolution mantra. There weren’t any specific words in her head, but as Karaim had said: intent was what mattered. Instead of mindless pouring like she did when she had infused all the crops and medicinal plants, her whole being revolved around the idea of evolving this single bean.

Aloe didn’t even need to check that she had failed.

“Fuck.” The ex-banker’s apprentice swore. “That was the same amount of vitality needed for the infusion. Beans aren’t evolvable.” She chose to believe Karaim’s theory that not every plant could be evolved because otherwise, she had no idea on how to do it. “I would have liked for the bean to evolve on a colossal, sky-piercing plant, but alas, it seems I was daydreaming.”

Whilst the failure demotivated her, she still had a lot of plants to meddle with. And besides, another reason why she chose to follow Karaim’s theory was that it encouraged her. Because not every plant could evolve, that meant she wasn’t failing, she just had chosen the wrong plant. The difference was just in semantics and psychological tricks, but it motivated Aloe to keep pushing forward.

“Alright, then. Potato’s next.”

Infusion had shown her that a single chunk of potato was enough to count as a full seed, but she didn’t want to risk its evolution because of half-checked theories. Aloe grabbed a full potato from the sack, a smaller one, but a full one, nonetheless.

“Potato test begins... now!” She repeated the same set of actions as with the bean.

It didn’t take her long to notice that she had failed once more. The consumption of vitality was too few and similar to an infusion.

“Yeah, that checks out the chunk-seed theory. That or...” A new idea bud in her mind. “Or I don’t know anything about Evolution costs?” She realized. “Nothing tells me that evolving a plant must be more expensive than infusing it. That’s one of the few possibilities that Karaim managed to evolve the ter’nar and veritas after all...”

Aloe left the infused potato on the desk and grabbed two Aloe Veritas leaves. If the Evolution costs could be lower than the Infusion costs, why not identical?

The parchments quickly got flooded by ink revealing the information on the bean and potato.

Species: Solanum Tuberosum

Sobriquet: Potato

Description: Member of the Solanaceae family, a species known for its perennially, growth in harsh environments, and nutritional values.

And:

Species: Phaseolus Vulgaris

Sobriquet: Bean

Description: Member of the Fabaceae family, a species known for its easy growth, bountiful harvests, and tolerance to droughts.

Aloe was disappointed, but not surprised to discover to the plants in front of her were infused ones and not evolved ones. Yet curiously enough her first thought wasn’t on the format of the Aloe Veritas’ description, but a random one.

“Wait. Are beans drought resistant? I always thought needed a lot of water!” World-shattering revelations aside, the description’s format didn’t evade Aloe’s eyes. “Hmm... it’s like a mixture of both. It has a species name and sobriquet, but no alignment. Also, what are these species names? Solanum Tuberosum? Phaseolus Vulgaris? Are these some kind of hexes? These don’t sound like names at all!”

The names of evolved plants were simpler and the soubriquets even more so. But with normal plants, the species names were archaic incantations and the sobriquets were the actual names, confusing the life out of Aloe.

She sighed. “Ignoring the plants' antics, it’s a shame they didn’t evolve. What would an evolved potato even look like? The aloe vera changed a bit after evolving, but not much. And the grass is indistinguishable. The only weird plant is the ter’nar, and the Aloe Veritas doesn’t even consider it an evolved plant...”

Even though she already knew that the two vegetables weren’t evolved plants, Aloe checked the vitality inside of them, nonetheless. And, unsurprisingly, they felt like the other infused beans and potatoes on the oasis. There was merit to checking though.

“Well, at least I can confirm the chunk theory with absolute confidence. A full potato or just a chunk of it takes the same amount of vitality for infusion.”

As she eyed the infused potato, Aloe’s gaze fell upon the cultivation technique as she recalled something. Opening the thin book confirmed her doubts.

“Yes, here it is...” Aloe mumbled. “Karaim infused plants and gave them a ‘better taste’ typing. Hmm...” Her eyes greedily looked at the potato. “That’s indeed a faster way to check if my infusion with different types worked. But now I’m more concerned with something else... Does infused potatoes taste differently?”

As it was nearing lunchtime, Aloe decided to stop for a rest. Not only she could test her new theory, but also regenerate her lost vitality before trying to evolve the medicinal plants. She hadn’t lost much with the infusions, certainly less than a quarter of her full vitality, but better to take head on such matters with a full deposit.

“Hmm... how do I cook the potato?” Aloe considered it rather dumb to cook the bean as with a single one she wouldn’t notice much difference. A whole potato, on the other hand, was of a different magnitude. “Steam it maybe? Perhaps mash it?”

She wouldn’t like to cut the potato. Cure Grass hadn’t shown signs of vitality loss after she had ground it down, but logic told her that the more she brutalized the ingredients, the more vitality would be lost in the process. Like the jam that stayed in the knife after spreading it on the bread.

“Oh, jam~ I want some jam~ A jar for my greenhouse!” Theatrics aside, it was true that Aloe had spent a while without jam, and she had grown a bit nostalgic for the taste. Even if in reality she hadn’t even had jam a week before going to the greenhouse. She wasn’t an avid jam consumer, just a melodramatic girl teenage girl.

Aloe opted for mashed potatoes and beans as her lunch, dinner, and probably tomorrow’s lunch too. That was how cooking for one just worked. You went one cooking session at a time, leaving most for later.

“Is this how independence feels like?” Aloe joked as she readied the kitchenette. Truth be told, she had been independent since young.

She hadn’t depended on her parents for years now. She was the one who cleaned the house, did the dishes, washed clothes, and cooked. And that was without taking into account her apprenticeship that she had been doing for a couple of years now.

Her life and schedule hadn’t really changed after going to the greenhouse. Sure, now she also had to water the plants and take care of Fikali, but she had less workload than before. Her apprenticeship was a mostly unpaid job and she now only had to take care of one person. Herself.

“Huh, how will Mom fair alone?” Aloe pondered as she stirred the contents in the cauldron. “I think she has some servants in the court, but no one to help her at home. Is she going to contract someone to keep the house?” She sighed. “I actually hope she does, she has too much weight on her shoulders to be doing dishes and such now.”

Not before long, Aloe finished cooking and pour herself a hearty portion. If she kept eating this much, she would probably run out of provisions before the month ended, but she wasn’t to eat this much always. And if she did, there were a lot of dates and coconuts out there.

“I don’t taste rainbows on my mashed potatoes. Either I suck at cooking or putting dubious substances on potatoes doesn’t really change their taste.”

Aloe slouched her shoulders.

“Disappointing, but not unexpected.” She had another spoonful. “I guess I’ll have to modify the infusion of the plants first to make them taste better. Oh... will this work with meat too? Karaim said I could infuse myself, so maybe I could make better meat. Or... infuse myself? Sounds kinda scary, I’ll leave it for later. Indefinitely.”

Overall, a decent meal. Not awful like her totally-not-stew she did first, on the potato soup as second, but far from a feast.

“Ugh, now I’ll need to unearth one of every medicinal plant.” Aloe groaned after noticing that little fact as she was putting her dishes on the kitchenette countertop.

She took the single infused bean from the desk to plant it with the others before making a mess on the farmlands. This one would take a while more to grow, but making the infused bean a plant was better than sending it to her tummy.

“The banana peels are still somewhere, so I guess I could search them and retrieve the seeds to try,” Aloe said as she whipped the sweat off her forehead after planting the single bean. “Only a psychopath eats the black tip of the banana.”

Her first attempt may have ended in failure, but Aloe believed – or at least highly hoped so – that the medicinal plants would bring some results. Infusion had been rather disappointing, immeasurably useful but not bewildering. Evolution was undoubtedly magical, a feast for the eyes and mind, and Aloe wanted to evolve a plant all of her own.

With her own magic.