38. Streak (Patreon)

The soup was passable. Somehow, it had aged wonderfully, the flavor being better than when she had cooked it. The taste was mostly salt though. Not to say that salt didn’t taste well. Aloe liked her salt and potatoes, but she would prefer something better.

It didn’t take her long to have her meal, even though she ate two servings.

As she couldn’t continue infusing even if she had her deposit full because her stomach was also full, Aloe decided to continue manufacturing her Cure Grass pills.

Thankfully, in the time she had taken to eat, nothing had happened to the Cure Grass paste. She mulled it for a few more strokes just to be sure.

“Hmm,” She pondered over the mortar and pestle. “I need the sap.”

With a soft groan, Aloe stood up as her knees protested and walked to the greenhouse with a big bowl in hand. Extracting sap from Aloe Vera, whilst easy, was messy and tended to leave everything covered with a coat of sticky liquid. She hoped that a big bowl would be enough to make the process tidier.

There was no shortage of Aloe Vera as unlike with the Aloe Veritas, there were multiple plants and Aloe didn’t constantly deprive them of their body.

The joke was not lost on her.

The process was slow and tedious, but it was enough for her that it wasn’t painful. That was how low the bar had fallen. Some leaves had more sap than others on them, so it wasn’t a linear endeavor, but after cutting by half all the leaves of two plants – she remembered hearing somewhere that such pruning was actually better for future growth – the bowl was filled to the brim.

The midday sun slapped Aloe as she walked back home, having gained much strength as she collected sap. She internally cursed for leaving her hat at home, but the stroll was short-lived.

As before, Aloe formed the Cure Grass paste into small pellets and then soaked them in Aloe Vera sap. First, she dipped them in the bowl and left them on a tray, and after she was done with all the paste, she poured the sap on the tray, covering all the pellets in a second layer.

Her medicine-making skills were pathetic, and she knew it; every apothecary in Sadina would probably cringe at Aloe’s attempts, but what mattered was that her pellets worked and nothing else.

“I guess I could ask Umar about it, maybe he can give me some pointers,” Aloe mumbled as she left the sticky tray on the windowsill, no longer occupied by pots with rotting Cure Grass. “Yet another person to ask so they can train me in their life skills goes into my list.”

Her stomach was feeling much lighter as an hour had already passed, but she was not comfortable with continuing the evolution tests with just two pills so whilst she waited for the new ones to settle, Aloe opted to infuse the Grace’s Exaltation.

Even if the newly evolved seed ended up being a tree – and unless it was bigger than a banana tree which she doubted as the plant sounded a lot like a flower drug by its description – it shouldn’t take more than her whole deposit, probably just two-thirds.

“The sobriquet with this one is really weird,” Aloe commented with the golden-trimmed seed in her hand and the Aloe Veritas leaf with its information at the side. “’Her Divinity’s Ecstasy’, I mean, what does that even mean?”

She hated how many questions the Aloe Veritas always brought when she read its leaves, especially the archaic alignments. But at the same time, she would have had more questions if she didn’t have them. She would have planted the Thousand Cuts if she didn’t have access to the Aloe Veritas, and whilst she could never know for certain what the plant truly did, she surely didn’t want to risk it.

Anyhow, the Grace’s Exaltation drank her vitality easily. It wasn’t much vitality, between thirty and forty percent of her reserves, so it was easy to assume that it was around the size of a big flower like the Flourishing Spring.

For the next ‘rest’, Aloe cut another palm leaf pipe. This one was for the newly infused evolved seed.

Therapeutic was the perfect word to describe the occasion. As she sat under a palm tree herself, the sun just barely caressing thanks to the protection of the canopies, and the slow repetition of the cuts, Aloe was comfortable. So much so that she had to fight against the urge to sleep.

The temperature and the breeze were just right for a midday nap, and even if she should have taken such a golden opportunity, she continued dutifully cutting down the leaf.

It didn’t take her long.

After cutting it, she planted the Grace’s Exaltation next to the cannabis plants. As she inspected the distance from the Flourishing Spring to the newly planted seed, it became apparent that no pipe was needed.

“Why did I even make a pipe if there was still space around the spring?” Her face tilted toward the placed pipe. “Oh, right. The Blossomflame. I put it away from the group because I feared it would set everything into flames. Damn.” She smacked her lips in ponderation. “My memory is getting faulty, isn’t it?”

She compensated for her flawed memory by cutting some leaves of the Aloe Veritas as she did remember that there weren’t many left. Aloe donned her leather gloves, giving the poor ignored pieces a bit of use as she didn’t want any drops of ink to fall into her hands whilst she was cutting them.

Like before, she cut a handful of them and left them to dry in the greenhouse’s cobblestone walkway. The Aloe Veritas had some coagulant properties, and those extended even to its cut leaves. It didn’t take them long to stop bleeding ink and close the cut section.

Carefully, Aloe brought the leaves home and placed them in their jar.

“I guess it’s time for more tests?” She added unsure of herself.

Her vitality was topped again, and her stomach had already digested her lunch, so she went on with it and picked a new seed. This one was light brown and had a little tail at its back. It only had a single ‘hair’, unlike the seed that evolved into the Thousand Cuts, which had something that could be considered a mane.

“Alright, evolution test number...” Aloe struggled for a moment to recall the number, “...ten, staring now.”

And to her surprise, it was hit.

The seed eagerly drank her vitality, the intent of evolution had been accepted but... the surprises didn’t end there. As soon as she poured her vitality into the seed to evolve it, it stopped intaking more vitality.

“Huh?” Aloe tilted her head in confusion. “What?” She tried pouring more vitality still with the evolution intent. “It’s no use... What’s happening here? Did I lose concentration? No... I don’t think so, it was too fast for that to happen, and I did lose like a tenth of my reserves. But then what went wrong? What if...?”

Aloe decided to infuse it again without intent. If she had truly lost concentration and the evolution had failed, she wanted to check the question she had earlier in the day. If botched evolutions affected the seed in any way.

Her fears were partially swept away by the wind as the seed took her vitality once more. And it wasn’t shy with its consumption. The cost of vitality swiftly passed a fifth of Aloe’s reserves, but it quickly decreased from there.

It’s either a big plant or it’s an evolved one. Aloe kept to her mind, not trusting her concentration to keep up if she talked. If it had even been a problem of concentration.

After a few seconds, the seed stopped drinking Aloe’s vitality. It has consumed something, but not that much. She mussed then groaned. “Anyways, let’s see what the veritas has to say then.”

Aloe grabbed one of the old leaves – not wanting to reopen the recent wound of the new ones – and dyed the strange seed with its ink. As always, the dark spots on the leaf’s surface changed into human-esque writing.

Species: Taraxacum Luna

Sobriquet: Moonlight’s Tooth

Description: An evolved member of the Asteraceae family, a species known for its ability to send its seeds airborne and innate bioluminescence.

Alignment: Life, Arcane

“So it was an evolved seed!” Aloe exclaimed. “It was so cheap that I almost didn’t notice! Now I want to know if the same will happen if I try to evolve Cure Grass again...”

As she fell into random thoughts, Aloe looked back at the leaf and reread the description.

“Moonlight’s Tooth? Why does that sound familiar?” The girl looked back and forth at the evolved and unevolved seeds. Both had that tail on top. “Wait... are these lion tooth seeds?” She caressed the little tails. “Hmm, well. They do look like lion teeth that don’t have those white things on top...”

There was no reason to be this surprised by the revelation, but in her mind, she didn’t think the things on top of the lion teeth were their seeds.

“This Moonlight’s Tooth must not be that big, around the size of the Flourishing Spring judging by the cost.” In total – Evolution and Infusion combined – Aloe had only lost half her deposit, way cheaper than the Blossomflame had been. “Neither the description nor the alignments show anything outstanding. I can't deny I’m a bit curious about the bioluminescence statement. Depending on the amount of light that it produces, this could be a very useful plant. Or downright useless.”

Aloe put her hands on her hips as she thought what to do next as she recovered the rest of her vitality reserves, and sighed.

“Well, that’s another successful evolution. I’m on a streak!” Aloe shouted as she held her closed fist high in the air. “Though I doubted that will last long.” And finished her statement sheepishly.