51. Last (Patreon)

“Augh..” Aloe panted heavily as she fanned her shirt. It was too open for her liking, but she couldn’t care right now. That was her level of exhaustion.

She whipped the sweat out of her forehead, only to end with a soaked sleeve.

“Oh, wow. That’s a lot of sweat. I have gone assassin there.” She took a deep breath. “How about you, Fikali? How are you faring?”

“Hrooooooo!” The dweller grunted with hatred as she frowned. “Huoooooo!”

“Yeah, sorry,” Aloe admitted, looking down at her hands. Both her arms and hands were numb. “This is the most I have ever seen you grunt.”

“Wrooooo!” Fikali responded with indignation.

The ‘strength’ test had been a resounding success, but she had overestimated her increased power amidst her ter’nar-laden stupor. The augment in strength was explosive and significant, but it was a multiplicator. If her base strength was pathetic as it currently was, it didn’t do much in the grand scheme of things. And the internal infusion did nothing to boost her stamina, actually quite the opposite.

Because Aloe had shifted all her focus into strength, that meant she had almost no endurance to speak of. Other physical capabilities were also diminished by the shifting of attributes, the most obvious of the affected ones was equilibrium. She had near to none. That also happened when she applied ‘toughness’ to herself, it became difficult to walk straight without tripping once or twice.

“Maybe I’m wrong with internal infusion...” Aloe questioned as she lay on the grass bed, her soaked hair resting on the blades. “Karaim said that it consumed so much vitality that it was useless, but what I did was use what I had. Nothing was lost, except my other physical capabilities that diminished. Maybe I did a totally different thing to Karaim’s infusion... Arghhhh! Why couldn’t you have explained it with more detail on the cultivation technique, old man?”

Aloe mercilessly assaulted her scalp, scratching it in a mad attack. She was working with many suppositions, the foundation on her feet was flimsier than shifting sands.

“Hmm... if there’s another way to infuse myself I should explore it. Karaim spoke of insane vitality consumption, so either he managed to infuse a single physical trait without forgoing others, or... or he was wrong...” Aloe didn’t discard that possibility. “Maybe he confused the shifting of vitality flow for a massive cost in his deposit... I mean, I still have applied the ‘strength’ typing, it won’t disappear until I change the flow again...”

As her voice died out, Aloe focused on her breathing. It was loud. Yeah, shouldn’t talk this fast without breathing. That also allowed her to focus on her skin.

“Ugh, I need a bath.” It was still in the morning, and she was sweating as if she had worked for a full day. “Mental note, check if ‘strength’ infusion has effects on sweating.”

Without caring for her sanctity, Aloe threw her clothes away and dived into the oasis. She had left the soap next to the coast as carrying it up and down made no sense. She left it next to the not-longer-makeshift drying rack with a towel permanently lying there.

It wasn’t exactly smart leaving a towel out in the middle of the desert, the air carried a lot of sand, but Aloe didn’t care. Having a towel at hand at all times was more important than getting a few specs of dust on her skin when she dried.

As she tried to swim a bit on the oasis, she was instantly surprised by a colossal splash reaching two meters of height caused by the movement of her arms.

“Oh wow...” Aloe blinked several times in bewilderment. “I forgot to deactivate the ‘strength’ infusion. That could have been problematic if I tried to do delicate tasks... I cannot control my strength that well in this mode.”

Aloe sat on the coast, half her body submerged underwater as she meditated. Changing internal infusions was easy, especially once she discovered them, but it was mind-numbingly slow. Normal Infusion was already slow, some taking up minutes, but internal Infusion was even worse. The vitality she saved on the infusion was now paid by an increased time to perform it.

She puffed a worrying amount of air as she finished shifting her vitality. The flow had gone from a furious stream back to a slow but powerful current.

“I feel incredibly tired...” As soon as she undid the infusion, all the adrenaline left her body. “I need to experiment more with internal infusions. I feel like passing out at a moment’s notice.”

The touch of water was soothing, but the contrast between cold and hot was not. Aloe dived underwater to avoid the melting rays of the sun, her head becoming clearer as her body temperature slowly dropped.

“Ah!” She inhaled after surfacing. “I fear water breathing won’t be possible, but how about increasing my lung capacity? That seems doable... I need to try a lot of things.”

But before doing so she finished rinsing her body and got out of the oasis. There were a lot of tasks still remaining before she could get started with her experiments. Namely, watering the plants and boiling water for her consumption. And most likely, do another washing session. It had been a few days since she had either washed her closed or done the dishes.

The rest of the morning was spent quietly doing her daily chores. Boring, but mandatory. By the time she finished, it was already noon, also known as yet another chore time!

Some people took pleasure in cooking, but Aloe wasn’t some people.

It was yet another chore, and she wasn’t even good at it, so any time she spent on it was making absolute and barely edible garbage.

“At this point, I prefer to survive with dates and coconuts alone.” Aloe wouldn’t do so, but she couldn’t deny she saw the appeal. “Potatoes and beans only get you so far, and I’m running out of jerky.”

So, her alternative was to infuse the shit out of every food on her plate with the ‘better taste’ typing. Reasonable? Not really. Functional? More or less. The taste ultimately ended up being decided by how good of a cook she was, and her awful cooking meant that having better ingredients only made the end result remotely better tasting.

“Fuck it, gonna infuse dates. If the main dish isn’t good, then I’m gonna make the dessert heaven-worthy.”

After having her stew of infused potatoes and normal beans – it was too bothersome infusing every individual bean as it cost the same as a big potato – and grabbed a handful of dates. The irony wasn’t lost on Aloe, she would infuse really small amounts of food to make their taste barely better. But a person couldn’t exist without their daily dose of hypocrisy.

Then reality choke-slammed her into the ground.

“Fuck!” Aloe cursed with a date on her hands. “Fuck, fuck, fuck!”

The farmer’s apprentice dropped into her desk, sadness and desperation overflowing her visage.

“Why can’t I have nice things? Why heavens?” She shouted melodramatically. “The dates are still infused with ‘bountiful harvest’!”

Karaim had stated several times that the palm trees in the oasis had been modified with the ‘bountiful harvest’ typing, but – for some reason – Aloe hadn’t expected that infusion to translate to the fruits.

“Why couldn’t you add to the cultivation technique how to change an already established infusion, old man?” Aloe all but rolled in the desk, disappointment and anger visible. “You are the worst writer ever! All my problems come from your inability to redact a comprehensive and complete text!”

Aloe could never thank Karaim enough for introducing her to Evolution and Infusion, quite literally at that, but it was true that the man had several lacking capabilities. Especially on the tutoring side.

“I need how to learn to change infusion typings, right fucking now.” And honorable enterprise, if one ignored that Aloe’s main motivator was having tastier dates.

After ending her meal, Aloe decided to before doing that she would try her last untouched seed to evolve. She found the banana peels on a side of the kitchenette, and it wasn’t that difficult to find them because, after a few days of lying there, they started smelling awful.

“I need a composter... there are too many wastes... going to waste.” Aloe cringed at the horrendous wordplay.

She sat on her chair, a banana seed in one hand and a handful of Cure Grass pills in the other. If the evolution worked, she may need more than one pill. She wasn’t as stupid as to try to evolve the seed with a full stomach, she had taken a nap before this because she was beaten after her ‘strength’ testing.

“Alright, here goes nothing.” She added without much hope for the seed's evolution and started pouring vitality into the seed.