41. Date (Patreon)

She had fallen asleep, there was no shame in admitting it. Her body hurt from being sat in the doorway all night long and the rest she had gotten out of it was awful. The first light woke her far, earlier than she used to wake up. Even if she had gone to sleep earlier, she hadn't appreciated the longer sleep.

“Ugh...” Aloe groaned as she hugged her body. Her hands were cold, and so was most of her body. “Uh... it’s a miracle I haven’t gotten a cold when I’m only wearing a dress out here.”

Desert nights were brutal, especially in the winter, so to say Aloe was flabbergasted to find herself fine was putting it lightly.

She stretched her arms as more groans, and partially yawns, escaped her mouth. “I didn’t think it was possible to get even worse sleep than the ones I have having lately.”

The girl stood up and walked away from the doorway, closing the flimsy yet solid door behind her.

“I guess I’ll go to sleep again, but first...” Her stomach cut her off with a groan of its own. “First, I need to get some food. I didn’t even have dinner yesterday.”

A plethora of yawns assaulted Aloe as she grabbed the date bowl from yesterday. She had been so focused on the seeds, that she had not finished it.

“Ugh... need water.” Aloe groaned and yawned her way to the amphora and poured herself a glass of water. Not because she was thirsty, but because she tasted more her mouth walls than the dates as she ate them.

Once she finished with the bowl and her stomach was satisfied – and it needed a lot of food after evolving that Flourishing Spring before falling asleep – Aloe undressed, dropping her dirty dress to the ground, and fell asleep nearly instantly in the comfort of her bed.

{*}

“Huh,” Aloe grunted after seeing the light pouring into the house. “I guess it was to be expected.”

The sun shone powerfully.

It was already noon.

“Oh, well.” Aloe stretched and donned her dirty dress before going outside. “There are more chores to be done.”

She could have worn fresh clothes, but as the following activities were going to be a bit dirty and she also wanted to take a bath today, Aloe decided to go with the dirty ones.

First thing she did was to reignite the fire at the oasis to boil more water. It only took her a couple of tries to start the fire.

Next, Aloe planted the new Flourishing Spring in an empty parterre of the greenhouse. Not before infusing it with ‘accelerated growth’, of course.

“What a shame it will take a bit to grow up.” The novice cultivator mumbled on her way out of the greenhouse. “I know that I can get plants to get twice as fast than any other farmer – even frice as fast if they are evolved – but dunes, it really makes a girl lazy to just have to wait weeks on end to get some results.”

Aloe sighed, even if there was nothing she could do. ‘Accelerated growth’ only did so much, and if Karaim – who had been practicing with Infusion for years – was not able to modify the factor of growth speed from two to a greater value, then Aloe doubted she could manage it. At least not soon, that was.

“Wait, talking about Infusion...” A thought that itched her on the first days she had been reading the cultivation technique resurfaced. “How did he manage to change infusions?”

Aloe found herself entering again the greenhouse, her eyes set on the biggest piece in exposition. Her hands caressed the ter’nar’s white bark, they slid easily, the bark presenting no resistance whatsoever.

“This won’t do...” She was able to sense the vitality of the plant, but that information wasn’t enough. “What part is the natural vitality of the tree and what part is the infusion?” Aloe supported her body in the trunk, easily capable of supporting her light weight. “If I want to investigate this, I need to check two specimens of the same plant, one infused and the other not, to make a comparison. But do I have them?”

Aloe went through all her plants mentally. All the ones Karaim had planted were already infused, so that already only left hers. But at the same time – like Karaim – she believed leaving plants uninfused was a fool’s errand. Doing so was an avoidable sacrifice in productivity.

“Ugh...” Aloe groaned in defeat, her head lying on the trunk. “I need grown plants, seeds won’t work... or will they?”

At the end of the day, she wasn’t lacking in seeds. She still had some medicinal plant seeds from her first visit at Umar’s apothecary, and not even accounting for the ones she still had to evolve, Karaim had reserves of common seeds from before the vital arts.

As she made her way out, she realized the sheer magnitude of seeds at her disposal as her eyes landed on the oasis. Every tree out there, with its fruits hanging on its leaves and branches, was a seed.

“Yeah... I should try this first.” Aloe rushed home with almost child-like giddiness. For the first time in a while, she felt ecstatic. Joyful enough to overpower her fatigue. “A rest from all the evolution tests.”

Before losing her mind in more vital arts business, Aloe rekindled the hearth. It was already noon and she had to eat at some point, not now, but she would forget otherwise if she didn’t start preparing lunch right now.

She didn’t even need to go far to get seeds, she had a bowl full of discarded date seeds on her desk from this morning.

There was no internalization, no meditation, no need to concentrate. Aloe picked up a seed – the seed of a tree at that – and infused it. Now she realized she had underestimated a bit her reserves as the date seed took two-fifths to become infused.

“Oh, right.” She grunted after blinking thrice. “I have never infused dates nor coconuts before, have I? I guess dates are bigger than banana trees.”

All her assumptions on tree infusion costs were based on the several banana seeds she infused. And, as a matter of fact, Aloe had never seen a grown banana tree in person. She just knew that they came from trees.

“Okay, forty percent isn’t thaaaat much, just almost all my vitality pre-vital arts.” The infusion hadn’t left her exhausted; she was just shocked by the increased cost. “Alright, let’s check the difference.”

Aloe put a date seed in each hand – uninfused in the left, infused in the right – and then checked their vitalities. The difference was obvious, and that was the root of her problems. Forty percent of her vitality wasn’t something to scoff at, the small seed in her right hand had as much vitality as an adult person; the difference with the one at the left was abysmal.

“Yeah, this is why I wanted to experiment with grown plants, I need closer values...” A spark of sunlight lit her mind. “Or do I?”

Studying in an academy hadn’t made Aloe a scholar, far from it, but the logic she had been taught told her that if two seeds weren’t enough test subjects, she just needed more of them.

Common seeds weren’t enough though, no matter how many of them she had.

She found herself infusing a new seed, this one with a different intent in mind, therefore a different resulting infusion. Considering she wasn’t going to plant these seeds, or at least wouldn’t see them grow any time soon, she decided to perform some other tests. How about waterless seeds? Is that possible?

Logic dictated that no, it wasn’t possible. But Infusion was magic, and bedtime stories had told her that magic could do everything. Of course, she was a child no longer, her analytical mind reasoned that there were obvious limits, but trying would cost her nothing.

“Okay, waterless infusion. Surprise me.” Aloe poured her vitality into the date seed and accepted it. That wasn’t enough confirmation, as it was an infusion it could fail and simply default to ‘accelerated growth’, so she kept thinking of the result she wanted.

Less water. Waterless. No need to be watered. Her brain circled around these permutations hoping one would stick.

Soon enough the infusion ended, and Aloe exhaled as no more vitality left her body. It was a heavy exhalation; she had used almost all her reserves in a short span which made her tired. And hungry.

“I hear the soup bubbling already, so that won’t be a problem.” She cracked her neck before inspecting the seed. “It’s a shame that I cannot check the specific infusion and only see if it's infused or not... Or can I?” Her head turned to the Aloe Veritas’ leaf jar. “I mean... I never tried to check an infused seed before, have I?”

Aloe reached for a leaf – the last one, not counting the ones she put in yesterday – and rubbed the newly infused date seed, the Aloe Veritas instantly changing to reflect the information.

Species: Phoenix Dactylifera

Sobriquet: Date Palm

Description: Member of the Arecaceae family, a species known for its sweet fruits and size once fully grown.

Infusion: Drought Resistance

She was pleasantly surprised, to say the least.