Chapter 88: Happiness over practicality
One seed done, eleven more to go.
With Selia’s mana right at my fingertips, there was no reason for us to stop.
What put a dent into my own reserves didn’t even amount to what Selia passively regenerated in the time it took for me to use it.
And yet?
’Is this procrastination kicking in?’ I thought as I realized the extreme sluggishness with which I reached out to grab another seed.
Just like when I tried to dabble in some writing, where completing a single Chapter filled me both with a sense of achievement... but also a great desire to just put the work aside and bask in that sense of achievement while ignoring the reality of just how much more I would have to write to fully make use of my time.
It was a shameful memory of time I, plainly speaking, wasted, wallowing in that sense of achievement and using it to hide away the reality from my very own self. The reality that the novel I was trying to write back then was nowhere near completed. Heck, with just one Chapter, the plot barely progressed at all!
And right now, the situation was pretty much the same, if not for two things.
If not for Selia’s soothing presence within this weird mental head-space I was in that silently encouraged me to keep going.
And if not for how, despite my inner desire to just drop everything and slack for a while under the pretense that I would take a quick break and then go right back to it, I reached out and grabbed the next seed.
’Good boy.’
My eyebrows shot up my forehead when I felt Selia’s thought.
It wasn’t telepathy, mental transmission or anything fancy like that.
Maybe it was my brain translating the feeling her presence gave me? Or maybe, contrary to what I thought, it actually was some very basic telepathy?
’Well, it doesn’t really matter what it is, does it?’
I closed my eyes and took a shallow yet long breath.
By now, I’ve got enough practice with my breathing technique that even something as small as this shallow breath was enough to help me regain my focus.
A fact that spoke a lot, given how I’d only started to practice this technique when I appeared in this world. In less than a week, I’d kept doing it over and over again to the point I’d actually reached some degree of mastery in it!
"Dear..."
This time, Selia didn’t resort to using the mental transmission, telepathy or whatever the hell it was, opting to just use her voice instead. And because I was merely focused on my ability rather than deep in the dream-realm, I could hear her without a problem.
"Yeah, sorry, let’s get back to it."
With a renewed focus, I put all my attention to the seed in my hand.
This time, however, rather than manipulating the sliders one by one, I took a moment to recall the finalized state of the last seed... before pouring mana into the projection itself, focusing not on a single slider but a whole picture instead.
The mana poured through me, into an unknown space where my ability was located and then, through it, into the seed, adjusting all of its sliders all at once to bring them into the exact same position as they were in the first seed we’d completed.
"Aaah!"
A melodic moan escaped from Selia’s lips. Somehow, I could tell she wasn’t prepared for this much more intense exercise of her mana, even if it was nowhere near the level of the degree of power she used when wielding her own abilities.
Still, that moan...
’Calm down, man,’ I thought while taking in a deep breath, holding it in and then slowly breathing it out. ’There will be time for that later, at the end of our date...’
My thoughts stirred a little... only for Selia’s presence to waver in a way that mirrored my thoughts.
’Oh, right...’
Even though this bond of ours existed for a while now, I still wasn’t used enough to it to remember how our minds, to a certain degree, were now connected.
"My bad, sorry for that," I said with a small grin, perfectly happy with such an opportunity to tease Selia back a little, before quickly pushing my thoughts back into the proper direction, back towards the job, quite literally, at hand.
With the second seed now made to mirror the state of the first one, I took a moment to consider my options... before gently placing it back on the tray and then picking up a third one.
’Having just a single plant is too risky. It’s best if we double our chances with each configuration.’
Given the lack of reaction from the saintess, she either agreed with my thought or, at the very least, didn’t have any qualms about it.
And so, with the third seed now in my hand, I got right back to it.
’Strange,’ I thought as I pulled on Selia’s mana to repeat the same process of replicating the finished state of the first two seeds onto the third one — this time without Selia’s excessive reaction now that she knew to expect the stronger pull on her mana. ’Given my nature, completing the second seed should send me in that state of achievement where I wouldn’t even think to keep on going...’ I thought, waiting for the sliders to slowly move into place.
Then, I started to alter them up once again, seeking another combination of attributes that would result in a satisfactory result.
’Maybe it’s because that second seed didn’t really feel like much of work?’ I thought, taking a moment as I mindlessly tickled one slider after the other while watching the results, the same way I would mindlessly roll the gacha of item stats in the game while waiting for a good set of perks to appear.
In the end, I didn’t feel all that pressed to take a break after the third, fourth and all the way until the sixth seed, when we’d managed to complete a third set of double seeds. And, funnily enough, it wasn’t even my own mentality that pressed for the break, almost as if working on two seeds in a row was enough for me to build enough momentum not to even think about taking a break.
"Let’s stop here, at least for a while," Selia requested, even going as far as to reach out and grab my shoulder before giving it a swift shake, helping me get my mind out of that ability-infused state.
"Hmm?" I raised my eyebrows in slight surprise. "Why would we? Are you tired or something?" I asked as concern flashed through my eyes.
’Right, it was all easy for me to do all of that, but it was at the cost of her strength!’ My concern rapidly grew. ’Don’t tell me I made the same mistake of disregarding her safety yet aga...’
"No, it’s nothing like that," Selia quickly interjected, not letting my thoughts get out of hand while now using both hands to shake my shoulders before my worries could spiral out of control. "I just thought that..." she hesitated for a second. "You know, since we now have a set that we can accelerate the growth of with just mana alone, wouldn’t it be prudent to test how it goes?"
I squinted my eyes before lowering them down to the beddings, only to then lean back and look up to the ceiling where Selia’s mostly naked legs weren’t there to pull my thoughts astray.
Even though she changed, her relatively short skirt was doing her a bit too many favors while she sat down with her legs crossed.
"I mean, it would be great if we could test it out, but isn’t it a bit too risky?" I asked after another series of practiced breaths that allowed me to look back down at Selia’s face. "Seed-wise, I mean. From what I understood, mana can now be used to reinforce its growth... but if we force it to grow too fast, won’t we drain all the nutrients from the soil? And even if that’s not that big of an issue, what if we bring it to a state where there are no more nutrients for it to grow from?"
To my understanding, the current coffee seed could now use mana to reinforce its growth pattern. What Selia wanted to do, however, was closer to accelerating its growth cycle by feeding it excessive amounts of mana. And while, with her mana reserves, that kind of process could work... the same couldn’t be said about the state of the earth the seed would grow from.
"Then, we could just replant it a few times, whenever the seed loses all of its fertility... But for that, how could we judge when is the right time to replant? And wouldn’t replanting come with its own risks?"
As much as I wanted to help make Selia’s idea into a reality with how it would take this task from something she merely supplied me with mana to complete into something that we actually worked on together... the more I thought about ways to make up for the shortcomings of her idea, the more problems I would see within the possible solutions!
"Right... I didn’t think about it," Selia put on a smile, but her voice?
Her voice made it clear that while not exactly sad, she did feel the bite of a slight disappointment.
’Shit, that’s not good!’
While this small hit to her mood wouldn’t affect our experiment at all...
Right now, more than getting the coffee to grow I hoped to make it into a fun little memory that we could share.
And from this perspective, even such a tiny disappointment was a huge blemish I simply couldn’t allow to leave a permanent record on this core memory for us.
"Then, what if..." I spoke before a full thought could even form in my head.
By the time I gave it a few seconds to think it through, Selia raised her face a bit and gave me a curious look, mixed with just the faintest of sparks of hope.
I gulped my saliva down.
Now that I thought my idea through, it was anything but good, anything but safe or rational.
But if it could make Selia happy by making her suggestion viable...
"If I do recall, the vegetation back in that jungle of death can regrow back to its fully matured state overnight, doesn’t it?" I suggested, recalling a seemingly small detail I’d observed just a few days ago when surprised by the lack of markings left on the jungle despite the size and power of monsters roaming it. "Then... what if we cleared out some bushes there so we could plant our coffee seeds in their place?"