Chapter 86: Manipulating the seed
’What a weird feeling...’
My lips curved up, forming a small smile.
It felt almost like a tickle, a desperate itch I just had to scratch and yet, my fingers had no way of ever reaching.
Just that... it didn’t itch. Nor did I feel like scratching it.
It was just this sense of this feeling existing just beyond the realm in which I could interfere.
’I guess it only makes sense, given how it’s the inherent nature of a foreign object... no, foreign organism.’
While but a plant, it was still a seed of a living being, even if it didn’t follow the same principles as organisms from the animal kingdom.
But how could this be the extent of my ability if I made it quite clear in my quest that I should gain the right to manipulate those attributes that I could feel but not interfere with right now?
There was something missing. A part of the picture that I didn’t consider, didn’t take into account.
’Oh.’
With this line of thinking, I’ve managed to easily connect the dots. Not because I was special, built different or exceptionally intelligent. It was simply because of something I’ve noticed long before, all because my situation in this world perfectly fit a passage from a novel I’ve read in the past.
’While I don’t remember the details, it was something about the ancient mage who found a way to literally cheat death talking with a military intelligence officer, about how he finally figured out just what was making that mage feel so weird about the officer.’
I barely managed to chuckle at the thought.
It was a scene of a deep cooperation between a civilization with an advanced technology and a civilization with magic and the very earliest form of guns.
And what that ancient mage found odd about the officer was how, despite his great understanding of the principles of nature and how things really worked according to science...
Was how that modern man never really considered magic to be a part of science.
For the modern man, magic was always a sort of cheat, trick, manipulation, something that science encountered just recently and thus had no means of explaining.
On the other hand, the locals of the magic-oriented world considered magic to be as fundamental of a force as gravity, winds or fire, the very crucial element of the puzzle called existence.
And right now, I was in pretty much the exact same shoes. Stuck in a world heavily based on magic, even going as far as to exploit said magic and cheat the inner workings of fates to my advantage... while still considering it as something foreign if not outright inferior to my own, scientific understanding of reality.
’If I can’t make sense out of it myself, doesn’t it mean I should just try to use a bit of magic?’
There was mana in my blood.
I didn’t know since when or how it got there. Maybe it was the air that I breathed, the food that I ate or even those moments when I touched Selia’s skin. Regardless of how, I could feel this distinct energy... existing within me, like a degraded limb I was born with but never learned how to use.
And now that I’ve found myself unable to complete the process of my ability regardless of how hard I tried... I reached out for this force hidden inside of me.
There was no rhyme, logic or strict process to it. I didn’t grab anything nor take physical control of it in any way or form. I just... took a hold of it and brought it forth before using it to reach for the qualities of the seed in my hand in ways neither my mental nor my physical self could reach.
And then... I moved it.
The very moment I slightly adjusted one of those imaginary sliders, I felt a bit of my mana vanish just like a drop of oil burning out to provide energy to an engine while the projection of the grown-seed changed.
The change was minuscule. It now grew a finger’s width higher than before.
’So that’s how it works...’
My eyes, while closed, turned wide.
Now that I used this ability once, I just... felt how to do it. And so, I continued to play around with the options.
One slider was responsible for how high the plant would grow. But once I ramped it too high, I could feel other sliders move in the other direction. And as it happened, the color of the projected plant grew duller, less intense, while the number of its flowers decreased.
’Everything comes at a cost, huh?’ I thought, bringing that particular slider back to its original position and moving on to playing with the others.
Soon, I’ve managed to classify several dozen different sliders, even if I could only judge their role through the effects adjusting them would have upon the projection of the fully grown plant.
Then, I found a different kind of slider, one that I couldn’t freely adjust either way, but one that I could change only through precise steps.
It took a considerably higher amount of mana to turn those sliders by a whole step... but the degree of change to the projected plant would match the mana expenditure.
For other sliders, a step-sized adjustment would barely bring out a change, either by altering the size of the fruits and flowers, or by intensifying the number of leaves on each of the plant’s levels.
But with this particular slider, each step brought a total change to the projection, turning the projected plant from a thick, low-growing bush into a tall and narrow one. Then, with just one more step, it turned into a perfectly round bush and later into a leafless, dry bunch of sticks.
’If not for that last change, I would assume it’s all about the shape of the plant, but now...?’
In the end, I had to mark this slider down as ’powerful but unknown’, after failing to find a rule according to which it operated.
But that didn’t mean I was willing to give up, not until I still had even a shred of mana to keep on going!
So, I tried again. And again. And again.
Adjusting one slider after the other, observing the effects it had upon the projection, mentally assigning it a name before moving on.
It was futile work, really, given how I’ve only managed to go through roughly fifty of the sliders by the time my limited reserve of mana started to dry out... Fifty, out of several hundred different sliders I could access and then a few dozen more that required way more mana than I could afford to manipulate them.
Or so anyone sane would think, if not for my persistence finally paying off just three attempts before I would sap the last of the fumes I was on by then.
’Hmm?’
With the lack of mana dulling my thoughts and filling my flesh with a sense of physical exhaustion, it took me a moment to realize what another step-based slider did, even when the change stared me right in the face.
Because the moment I manipulated it, a projection of a simple bush turned into what I could only describe as an ent’s youngling.
It had all the qualities of it - two distinct legs and arms based on branches coiled upon themselves, a clearly manifested torso several times thicker than its limbs and even a head - the only part where there were some leaves growing from the wood to create a perfectly well-trimmed, round bush.
’Yeah, best if I don’t use that...’ I thought, pushing myself to revert the change and then... cutting the whole sensation off before using the last of my strength to put the seed down onto the tray.
"How did it go?" Selia asked, perfectly able to feel out when I’ve left my ability-immersed state and returned to the waking world.
"More or less, as expected," I revealed as I leaned my back against the side of the bed and took a deep sigh. "Save for just how many options there are for me to customize. And how mana-sensitive just testing those options is."
"Is that a bad thing?" Selia rolled onto the bed to lay across it, with her head landing right next to mine allowing her to glance upon my face with those pale-blue eyes of hers.
"I wouldn’t say bad," I twisted my lips into a slightly dissatisfied grimace. "Just that I won’t be able to do it all in one go. If unlucky..." I took a moment to calculate, "I might need even a week or two to get everything tested and then another few days to get all of the seeds into their optimal state."
"That’s quite some time indeed," Selia admitted before turning her eyes over to the seeds.
Even without looking, I could feel a sense of longing and impatience rising in her heart, only for the saintess to then quickly suppress it.
"But, if you would care to entertain my idea," she then brought herself up on her arms only to then move above me and bring her head down, putting her face right in front of mine while causing the storm of her silvery hair to fall down, pretty much creating a separate dimension with nothing but the silver of her hair, the beauty of her face and the cheekiness of her slightly bratty smile, "what if I shared some of my mana with you?"