NOVEL NEXT 27. Cure Grass
Species: Cure Grass
Sobriquet: Munchers
Description: An evolved member of the Poaceae family, a species known for its ability to grow virtually anywhere and restore vitality upon consumption.
Alignment: Life
The ink spots on the Aloe Veritas rearranged to form the same description that Aloe saw before with the grown Cure Grass blades.
“So, it works with seeds too...” That was her first controlled reaction. The next one was not so much. “Yes, yes, yes! An evolved plant!” Aloe stood up on a brink, tightly gripping the ink-tainted black seed.
All the doubts she had had about Karaim, the vital arts, and Evolution completely vanished. She had sensed it, and above all else, experienced it.
Vitality and Evolution.
The possibilities were endless. If it truly worked like she hoped it did, this meant that any plant could be evolved, and if they were half, nay, a tenth as useful as the Aloe Veritas then she would be set for life.
Her stomach grumbled, reminding Aloe that she had still to eat. She took a step forward, but her legs faltered, sending her to the ground. She tried to grab the desk to stop her fall, but her arm was even in a worse state after the evolution and it failed to support her weight. Aloe impacted violently against the side of the desk and dropped to the dirty floor.
“Ugh...” She grunted in pain, her left shoulder killing her. A few coughs escaped her mouth. “I feel, ugh... dizzy.”
The clothless girl stood up but failed halfway through. Aloe lay her back on the desk wall, the wood feeling cold as it grazed her burnt skin.
“Is this starvation?” Another cough assaulted her. “No, it doesn’t look like it.” She looked at the arm holding the Cure Grass seed and it felt... lifeless.
That image, that lack of vitality, reminded Aloe of one of the first pages she read of Karaim’s cultivation technique. “I wish I had discovered Evolution earlier in life. Not only because of the time I could have dedicated to the craft, but because I would have enjoyed more vitality to dedicated to the plants if I was younger.”
“Vitality...” It was rather obvious in retrospect, but Aloe hadn’t noticed until now. “He wasn’t talking about his actual age, but his vital energy... And it looks like after you evolve a plant your vitality is... spent.”
Aloe tried to stand up once more, but she felt incredibly tired. And it certainly didn’t help that her head was spinning around, and her shoulder was killing her. Not only she had spent her vitality – whatever that may entail – but she was also famished, half-dehydrated even after drinking, bruised, and suffering from a mild insolation.
“Ugh...” Aloe grunted once more. She felt like puking right now, but her stomach was totally empty. Her breakfast had been rather light. “I... I need some food right fucking now.”
A shiver of desperation clung unto her, and whilst her legs and arms were wasted, she wiggled through the floor, sand painfully clinging to her exposed skin as she approached the steaming cauldron.
She was panting, short of hyperventilation given her stress, once she made it to the hearth. Her body and mind were screaming for her to stop, but also to have some food.
With great difficulty and a colossal effort, Aloe managed to climb up the hearth and rest her arms and body on the kitchenette counter. Very slowly, and wary to not fall again, she picked up a wooden bowl and with a ladle at hand, poured herself a steaming stew.
“The spoon...” She realized how far away the utensil drawer was and stopped dead in her tracks. “Fuck it, the ladle it is.”
She let her body fall to the ground with the most grace she could gather, and slowly, began to eat the stew.
It tasted horrible.
Not only she wasn’t a good cook, but she had dedicated no thought to preparing the meal. Though that didn’t even matter to her now. She was too tired to even focus on the taste. And her body was still unhealthily hot that even after rushing with a spoonful into her mouth, she almost didn’t feel the boiling hot stew.
Keyword: almost.
“Fuck!” Aloe panted, cooling down her burned tongue. Tears came out from the corners of her eyes as she looked for water, but the nearest waterskin was on the ground. And it was the one she had already downed. Even if she wanted to pour some water from the amphora, and she wasn’t sure she even could, she was scared of breaking it and losing all the remaining water she had. “Nothing’s going right today.”
She knew it wasn’t true. In half a day she had managed to plant the banana seeds, the potatoes, and the beans, plus learning how to sense vitality and evolved a plant. It was an overwhelmingly productive day, but there was nothing that could soothe her mood now.
After blowing multiple times, the bowl no longer looked like Sadina’s baths, so Aloe gave it another try.
Spoonful after spoonful, it didn’t take Aloe long before she finished the bowl. She was far from satisfied, but now she didn’t feel like she was immediately going to pass out. Or away.
“Ugh...” She rested her head on the kitchenette counter, her eyes closed. “Never again using vitality with an empty stomach.” She promised.
It had been an atrocious feeling, and whilst not as bad as her menstrual cramps, it was not something Aloe wanted to repeat. At least she had interiorized her menstruation as something inevitable, she would have to deal with it for all her life. But better to not double down on the suffering.
Aloe dozed a bit, her eyelids suddenly becoming impossibly heavy.
“I’m... ah~” A yawn bulldozed her way out.
She blinked, and the next time she opened her eyes the windows showed an orange sky.
“What?” Aloe blinked multiple times in quick succession. “Oh, great heavens, it’s afternoon already.” She stood up from her awkward position, her body and mouth grunting in protest. “Ouch! Mental note, never sleep on the floor naked whilst sitting. Ugh, my whole body hurts.”
She dusted her skin off, the many grains of sand had deeply imbedded in her body, leaving ugly marks everywhere. Thankfully her dark skin hid most of them.
A plethora of thoughts assaulted her mind, whether continue reading the cultivation technique, checking on Fikali, or taking a bath on the oasis. Because, let’s be honest, she was a mess. Her dark skin was a shade lighter from the front with all the dust, and her back still burned. And the thick and slimy layer of sweat covering her didn’t help.
But no, the thought that rang louder than the rest was...
“Damn, I need more food.” Aloe walked up to the cauldron and refilled her bowl.
The hearth’s fire had died a while ago, but the stew was vaguely hot still. She put the lid on top to cover the cauldron. That stew would at least last a day more, two if she wasn’t starving tomorrow too.
She led the ladle to her mouth, too lazy to search for an actual spoon.
“Yeah, can’t call this crime against humanity a stew, let alone fasolia.” The heat had hidden the taste before, cold it was outright garbage. That didn’t stop her from eating it, though.
A lady had their priorities, and holding off starvation was damn high up on the list.
“Yeah, curse my pride, I’ll ask Mirah to teach me how to cook. This is foul.”
When she ended, Aloe left the bowl on the counter and reached for the amphora. Her tomorrow self would worry about doing the dishes.
“Not a lot left, ugh.” Aloe groaned and drunk. “Tomorrow I’ll have to start boiling water again.”
Her plentiful waterskins had lasted her two days, which said a lot about her resource management skills. Once again, she let her future self deal with the problem, now her attention was focused on the diary.
“If you managed to infuse and evolve the seed, firstly congratulations, secondly you should feel lethargic.”
“That’s mildly putting it, but yes.” Aloe sighed. “And also, I should start reading the whole page before killing myself. That would be useful, yes.”
“Some people have the misconception that vitality is their life force, that using it will consume their lifespan, but this is false.”
“Oh...” Aloe’s mouth hung slightly open. “I didn’t even consider that, but that’s a scary thought.”
“You have to think vitality as stamina. It’s not directly that, even if they are connected, but it isn’t a finite resource. If you rest, have a nap, eat, drink, anything that makes your body recover, your vitality will replenish. A healthy and well-built body will also have a greater capacity for vitality, but also a faster recovery. This is why I with my advanced age didn’t get far to explore the incredible art that is Evolution. Any infusion would leave me breathless, nearing a heart attack. If it weren’t because of my high consumption of Cure Grass, I couldn’t have gone with it as long as I did.”
Aloe read the last sentence thrice and then looked at the Aloe Veritas leaf with the Cure Grass seed information still written, specifically the description section.
Description: An evolved member of the Poaceae family, a species known for its ability to grow virtually anywhere and restore vitality upon consumption.
“Restore vitality upon consumption.” She reiterated. “Oh my... I’m such a colossal moron.”
Aloe grabbed her head in frustration. Hopefully, she wouldn’t cry herself to sleep to forget her subhuman intelligence.
I don't have a drawing of Cure Grass because it's just... well, grass. Instead, I present you a sketch of Aloe, our favorite cultivator, waking up.
Sketch by @_Therusan_
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