Cultivating Plants

“Not a single nince-damned sofa on this house!” Aloe protested as her body dropped on the chair next to the desk. “How in tarnation do you buy tens of iron tools but not a single sofa!”

The satisfaction from her cleaning job had totally and utterly disappeared, only exhaustion and anger remaining. She had messed up the boiling again, making her do more rounds. Her waterskin was empty as she had been left incredibly thirsty after all the exertion in the greenhouse.

The wooden chair pressed hair against her back, her posture uncomfortable and unhealthy. Aloe pondered if she should lay in bed for a while, but she knew she would fall asleep if she did so. And the last thing she wanted right now was to lose another batch of water because she was sleeping.

And she also had to eat.

Her breakfast had been already modest, and this was probably the day she had exerted the most... ever. She was a banker’s apprentice, not a farmer. She was ignorant to tiring herself. The only pain she had truly known was carpal tunnel or her butt going numb after a whole day of being sat. 

Also migraines. A lot of migraines, actually.

Surprisingly enough, Aloe currently didn’t suffer from any hunger. She knew she had to eat, but her appetite was nowhere to be found. What she had was an unquenchable thirst. What a shame most of her water had evaporated away.

“I guess I can make time by reading the ‘cultivation technique’ until I’m hungry.” She added with a sigh.

Aloe opened the diary back when she left it last time, on the page about the Aloe Veritas. She hoped the next one would be about the Na’mul Ter’nar.

“Yeah, I’m not going to say that whole thing every time,” Aloe said as she slowly passed through the pages. “But using the sobriquet feels dumb. I’m not gonna call a magical tree just ‘Blue Tree’... hmm... yeah, just gonna say ter’nar.”

Her arms were so tired that even the thin pages felt heavy under her fingers.

Rereading the last page, Aloe noticed that the other plant that Karaim mentioned that had Arcane and Information alignment was the Na’mul Ter’nar. The continuation of what she read was basically more of the same, baseless theories on what alignments were and how they worked. Unfortunately, Karaim seemed as lost as Aloe on the matter.

“Ah, this is what I was looking for,” Aloe commented as another Aloe Veritas excerpt made its apparition.

It was identical to the one she had found herself in the greenhouse. The species name, the sobriquet, the description, and the alignment were all identical. She somehow hoped to see some difference and partially didn’t believe the descriptions could be reliable. They came from a plant that suddenly gained information out of nowhere, that didn’t seem a... trustworthy source.

But sure enough, as it happened with the Aloe Veritas, there were no distinctions in the wording. That led Aloe to question the working of the magical plant.

“With humans it shows their names... so what would happen if someone changed their name? Will a written leaf change, or only take place after using a new one? Will it even change? What if they don’t legally change their name but start calling themselves differently... Yeah, let’s leave this out for now. Food for thought though.”

She doubted the diary would have the answer for such niche and absurd questions, but Aloe continued reading, nonetheless.

“The Na’mul Ter’nar is an interesting tree. Unlike the Aloe Veritas, which shares the same Alignments, it doesn’t possess flashy effects but it’s interesting nonetheless.”

“Oh, right. He stopped talking about the Aloe Veritas to focus on the ter’nar.” Aloe mussitated, her chin laying on her hand as she read. “Oh well, it wasn’t that important of a question anyways.”

“I found its effects after reading the description. This is also a thing I found out after inspecting a lot of plants. The description may give the properties of the plant but not how to make use of them. For example, Aloe Veritas doesn’t tell you you have to wet with its sap to inspect a living being. Anyways, after reading that the Na’mul Ter’nar was described as a delicacy I tried using its leaves as tea. And surprisingly it worked. The taste was... curious, but that you can check it yourself. What matters here are the properties.”

The page ended, prompting Aloe to flip to the next one.

“Whenever I drank Na’mul Ter’nar tree I felt reinvigorated. It didn’t restore vital energy; I have other plants that do that and I have become rather acquainted with the flowing of vital energy. No. Whatever the Na’mul Ter’nar does it isn’t replenishing my vital energy, but every time I consumed it my mind felt faster. Not clearer, I would dare to say the contrary, it was difficult to think under the effect, but somehow faster...”

Aloe raised her brows upon reading the text. “Karaim, if I didn’t know better, I say those are drugs...” She made a mental note to try the ter’nar leaves at some point. “Anyways...”

“The Na’mul Ter’nar and the Aloe Veritas are the only plants I managed to create that have an Alignment that isn’t Life, next I’ll detail the creation process of both. Let’s begin with the Aloe Veritas. Alike every other Evolved plant, I began affecting an Aloe Vera with my vital energy but it wasn’t until-”

“Nope, nope, nope, no-pe.” Aloe swayed her head violently in disbelief as she read the next words. “You must be joking, right? This cannot be how the whole Evolution thing works. This is moronic!”

“-it wasn’t until I dropped by mistake a recently cut aloe vera leaf and some seeds into an old tome. Most of the seeds became inert and lifeless, but a single seed pod had changed. Though the leaf in question had also mutated. I don’t know what happened back then, I have yet to recreate it, but the seed rooted into the tome and form the leaf sprouted a white growth. Somehow, at the same time, I managed to create my only Aloe Veritas and Na’mul Ter’nar plants.”

“I can’t believe that for an instant I bought this whole Evolution and vital energy ramblings. The old man was just senile. Ha, ha.” But as she laughed, dismissing the journal as the madness of an old man, Aloe’s mind wandered to the Aloe Veritas. “But what about that plant then... That, that wasn’t normal. Is he telling... no. This ‘vital art’ cannot be this simple, can it?”

Aloe found herself at a crossroads. She had seen the power of the Evolved plants at work, but her pragmatic mind couldn’t begin to process how the mystical plant that had access to unknown wisdom was made just by mistake. And in a such stupid and convoluted matter.

She closed the book and inhaled and exhaled four times, clearing her mind from the stress, in the fifth inhalation for a total of nine exchanges, she stood from her chair and left the house.

“I should check the water.”

The water was boiling by now, but unlike before, this time she hadn’t lost most of it to the atmosphere. As she was going to grab the cauldron, the written words of her grandfather flashed through her eyes.

“Tea...” She couldn’t manage to believe that the coiled blue tree had appeared from a leaf and a book, but Karaim put the ter’nar tea in an interesting light.

She unloaded the water of the cauldron into the water vase, but instead of refilling the cauldron with oasis water Aloe went back into the house and picked up the kettle. She then did a quick trip to the greenhouse and yanked some leaves. Karaim probably had some in his jar storage, but if she was going to make tea, she was going to use fresh leaves.

As she waited for the water in the kettle and leaves to be ready, she picked up the vase and brought it back home, and refilled her waterskin. By now she had more than enough water for today and the trip back.

Instead of going back to reading her grandfather’s cultivation book, she took advantage of her free time to do some inventory. Seeds were expensive and lightweight, unlike the tools at the greenhouse. Whatever she decided to do with the property, selling some of the seeds at Sadina would be a good money injection. Karaim certainly had some expensive seeds, but Aloe didn’t know how much time the seeds would last before they lost their ability to germinate.

Once she thoroughly inspected the contents of the cupboard, it became apparent that Karaim didn’t have that many seeds. Most of the jars were common flowers, and the rest were leaves of the plants at the greenhouse or the oasis. Flowers were expensive, especially exotic ones, but she doubted she would get much from them.

The only real one that looked expensive was the cannabis seeds. Aloe left the small pot on the desk and went back to the oasis to pour some tea. After having a late lunch, she would go to sleep early so she could march tomorrow at first light.