53. Budget (Patreon)

Progress was slow in the oasis, unlike time. That flew by at impossible speeds. Every time Aloe blinked a day seemed to pass by. Time was but a distorted mess. Much like her vision.

“Uoooh!” Aloe shouted having severe problems keeping herself upright. “This is too faaaast!”

She thrashed her arms around trying to regain equilibrium, but with every step she took she was but a step closer to falling down. Desert terrain was already treacherous with the sand for the ground and the many changes of elevation, but her speed didn’t help.

“Fikali, heeeeeelp!” Aloe cried a few seconds before crashing down. She managed to curl herself into a ball before impacting against the sand, reducing most of the lethality of her fall.

Similar to a dweller, Aloe found her head buried under sand. She was under no threat of asphyxiation, her fall had been light, but the darkness and the hot needles that were the grains of sand unsettled her. Thankfully, before she even had to unborrow herself, Fikali came to her rescue, biting on the back of her clothes and yanking her out of the ground.

“Puaj!” Aloe expulsed all the sand out of her face. None had made it to her eyes or mouth, but a lot lingered on her forehead and lips. “Thank you, Fikali. That could have been troublesome.”

“Wro.” Instead of a ‘no problem’ or ‘no worries’ that felt more like a ‘Why are you diving into the sand you fool? You are not a dweller.’

The lack of air must be affecting me hard if I even came up with that. Aloe pondered, dusting her clothes. She just grunted once, even if I were remotely right, it’s impossible for her to transmit all that information with a single grunt.

“I am going to need a bath after this, and not only because of the sand. My whole body is sweating, even parts I didn’t know could sweat!” Aloe groaned. “Infusion has really weird effects on the body.”

“Hro.” This grunt contained a hint of disdain, but Aloe quickly identified that Fikali’s feelings were directed to the bath rather than herself.

“Ugh, I’m beaten. Fikali carry me. The ‘speed’ test has left dry.”

“Wro.” The dweller responded with understanding as Aloe laid on her back.

Riding her without a saddle was painful, and Fikali wasn’t saddled today since this was planned to be a short trip. And it was, but Aloe was truly beaten. She preferred having her legs numb from riding Fikali than from walking. But because the travel was short, and Fikali was big whilst Aloe was small, that allowed Aloe to lay on the dweller’s back as if it were an oversized pillow.

There was a comfortable feeling to Fikali’s sandy yet soft leather. Aloe would have even fallen asleep if the dweller didn’t sway more around than an imperial procession with all their tambourines, people’s steps, and other strident instruments.

As soon as she made it to the oasis, Aloe took a quick bath.

“Life anew~” Aloe moaned as she made her way out of the water, grabbing the towel and drying her hair.

The sun was starting to shine with potency as noon was approaching, prompting Aloe to go inside her home and perhaps start making lunch. She had done all chores before testing her internal ‘speed’ infusion as she expected to be uselessly tired for the rest of the day, a foresight that rewarded her greatly. Clothes were washed, dishes were done, water was boiled, and plants were watered.

After getting her clothes changed, Aloe took a look at an Aloe Veritas leaf. It was of a plant she managed to evolve a few days ago. The banana seed.

Species: Oxalt Doya

Sobriquet: Myriad

Description: Member of the Doya family, a species known for their ability to survive with light alone and convert sand into glass as they grow.

Alignment: Light, Chaos

Aloe sighed at the description. Even after a few days of having evolved it, the seed had yet to germinate. And the problems didn’t end with Aloe’s lack of patience, the description itself presented a lot of them.

“Two new alignments, another ‘survive with something alone’ detail, another ‘non-evolved’ evolved plant, and a special effect that I have no idea what it does.” Those were a lot of reasons to sigh.

Most of these observations Aloe had already annotated on her parchment.

“Species: Oxalt Doya, name sounds like an actual name but in a language I don’t recognize. Source? My gut. Sobriquet: Myriad, good sounding sobriquet. I think most of the sobriquets are meant to be the actual name of the plant and the species just some archaic scholar denomination.”

These were the least interesting notes, and they weren’t that well redacted. This was but more attempts at trying the Aloe Veritas ink. Aloe was slowly trying to shift the concentration of water on the ink to make it more comparable to squid ink. So far, attempts had been met with mixed results. But slowly she was coming to a better product.

“Description: a lot of interesting details. Like the ter’nar or the Flourishing Spring, it states that can survive with something alone, but instead of mana it states light. Light is more comprehensible to me as plants already mostly do that, this just seems to take up that quality to the maximum extent. Myriad is NOT an evolved plant, like the ter’nar, it does not state ‘evolved member of X species’. I don’t know if it will be a tree, as this is not an evolved banana tree, but some sort of mutation like the ter’nar. Also, ‘convert sand into glass’? I don’t know how it will do that, but it seems I’ll have to plant it in the desert instead of the greenhouse.”

The description had taken most of the parchment, almost all of it, as a matter of fact. This one had been one of the most interesting plant descriptions Aloe had seen.

“Alignment: Chaos and Light. Two new alignments I have not seen. Found alignments so far are: Life, Arcane, Information, Light, and Chaos. Five in total. All alignments have been mostly self-describing so far, but I don’t know what to expect out of Chaos. It sounds too ominous. Light, on the other hand, sounds incredibly simple. I think that alignment comes from the ‘survive with light alone’ statement.”

Aloe had ended up writing quite the dissertation, but she was happy with it knowing that she didn’t do such a poor job like her grandfather. Even if she didn’t intend for anyone to read her notes.

“Heavens I hope not, this calligraphy is awful with this ink. I can hardly understand it myself. And don’t let me get started on the redaction. Not bad, but... improvable.”

As Aloe had stated in her notes, she decided to plant the Myriad on the outside. Still, she was a bit scared of someone finding the plant, so she planted it in a small valley between two dunes behind her house. She had yet to water the plant as she wanted to test how veritable the ‘survive with light alone’ statement was. The ter’nar had done a nice enough job surviving for a month without water, though it's true that after she irrigated the tree, its leaves gained a nicer shade of blue.

After having a quick lunch, mostly composed of potato soup with some dates, Aloe decided to check on the greenhouse. She had watered it this morning, but she was bored out of her mind and didn’t know how to spend the rest of her day as she was also tired. And it was impossible to sleep with this heat.

Naps were the privilege of the lucky.

“Oh, that’s a nice color,” Aloe commented as she observed the Flourishing Spring sprout.

It had been more or less a week after she planted it, and its growth was visible. The plant was infused with ‘accelerated growth’ halving its growth period, but on top of that, it was an evolved plant. Karaim didn’t state exact numbers on the cultivation technique, but Aloe assumed another factor of two, shortening its growth to a theoretical quarter.

Overall, the Flourishing Spring looked like a normal sprout if not for a single characteristic.

“Blue,” Aloe added as she lay on the ground, her elbows on the parterre’s dirt, her palms holding her head, and her feet lightly kicking the air. “Are all arcane plants blue or something?”

Her first thought was the ter’nar which sobriquet was appropriately called ‘Blue Tree’. But she then remembered about the other arcane plant in her possession.

“Nah, the Aloe Veritas is not blue. Or is it?” She pondered, tilting her head to the side. “Perhaps the ink is not black, but just a really dark blue...” The plants were already making her question if she was colorblind.

Aloe lay on the parterre for a while more. The growing sprout was like that of a flower, a blue-colored flower several times its size. She had no knowledge of how tree saplings looked like – maybe they were identical to flowers – but what the Flourishing Spring sprout was showing her was not a future tree. Just a flower, albeit a tad bit larger than most. By some orders of magnitude if the size of the sprout resembled the final product...

“I have not seen evolved plants grow yet. I need more data on them, but I’m officially out of other seeds...” She didn’t count Cure Grass as its growth period was likely to be affected by the already short time it took normal grass to grow. “I guess internal infusion is the way to go until I get more seeds on my hands. What should I do? Maybe buy one of every seed? But how can I even do that? Apothecaries won’t sell ALL seeds, and I guess I’ll also have to try foods on the market...”

Aloe jumped out of her resting position and dusted the dirt out of her clothes as her head was starting to bloom with ideas.

“Ugh, I’m getting really bored here. I’m just a bit over half a month already so I could wait. But nothing is forcing me to stay here. With just Fikali and me, I guess we could make it to Sadina in half a day. No loads, minimal rests... sounds plausible. Fikali is getting more energetic as the days go on. Somehow.”

Aloe shrugged and closed the greenhouse door, least said dweller was to enter it and destroy her seeds. Even if she had been well-mannered around the crops on the oasis proper.

“And I could get going the next day... Hmm... I need to ponder this with the pillow, I don’t want to be called a chicken for running away only after two weeks. I guess I could go in and out of Sadina on the same day if I really don’t want to see anyone, but I’m really low on money after buying all the provisions and Fikali... I need to make money somehow if I want to continue trying things with the vital arts. Individual seeds are not going to be expensive, but I want A LOT of them...”

Money was hard to come by. Aloe had left her mostly unpaid apprenticeship, and her mother’s work was grossly underpaid for someone in her position. Sure, both women were living far more luxurious lives than the rest of the common folk, but it hurt to even think of reducing herself to a lower level. This wasn’t going back to humbler roots, Aloe had never known humbler times.

This was the most humble life she had had. And it included being a landlady, owning a glass house, and an actual house.

“I think I’ll continue with ink tests, maybe I can make something respectable then I’ll actually consider going back to Sadina. With my current budget, it makes no sense.”