Cultivating Plants

"My liege, I have brought what you have asked," Shinobiyorutsurai appeared before him in his laboratory. Xochipilli couldn't help but think that the actual assassin was her as she was seemingly able to appear out of nowhere as her body was more of a colony of vines than a single organism, therefore allowing the dryad to practically liquify herself.

"Oh, nice," the druid added with a heavy, tired tone. "You can leave it on that counter. I'm going to check it in a bit."

"My liege, how long has it been since you have slept?" The dryad asked with worry, even though she complied with the commands.

"Sleep is not needed for a cultivator of my level," he responded dismissively.

Shinobiyorutsurai opened her mouth for a brief moment before closing it and nodding. Noticing that the dryad still had thoughts of defiance, even if she didn't voice them out, the Prince of Flowers continued to talk.

"The hastier we are, the better. And I still haven't found which is the source of the Heartgrowth. With all the clues we have, it's obvious that it was a being natural to the Qiraji, but there are thousands of such organisms, even if we only take into account plants, fungi, and lichen. And that's without taking into account that Aloe evolved it two centuries ago, with the introduction of the Evergreen demolishing the previous ecosystem, it's completely possible the source of the Heartgrowth no longer exists."

"Would it not be possible to create one from myself?"

"I appreciate your offer, Shinobiyorutsurai, but you are sterile. All dryads are," Xochipilli sighed and rubbed his eyes. "Some of your sisters do have wombs, but I don't think they would be capable of creating new dryads. I doubt they can generate any new life. For better or worse, your existence was a literal miracle, so we don't know how much you can do, or what you can't. And no one has been crazy enough to try them, nor you all are curious enough to try to do so. But one thing is certain, you are created from a single Heartgrowth seed that doesn't bear any fruits."

"I apologize for being barren," the dryad bowed.

The Prince of Flowers chuckled grimly. "I've told you; it's not your fault. That's just how you and your sisters were born. The only thing we can do is find the origin of your inception. Origin of your inception… how reiterative."

Unable to concentrate, the druid pushed himself out of the desk. All the recent evolutions had failed except a plant called Mandrake, but as the veritas description proved that it was a harmful plant, he decided to ignore it. Xochipilli had decided to ignore most plants, not just now, but over all the years. So many evolutions and new nonexistent beings had he created, but he didn't approach his master's level. Not yet. Not yet. But I will.

Even though he had been donning recovery for days now, Xochipilli grabbed a glass of water and drank it. His body didn't need the water; sleep, food, air… most things were beyond him when he donned this stance, but the water kept him cool and cleared his mind. The thoughts were already overwhelming, and the extra substances that infected him didn't help.

"Now, let's see if that theory I had was correct," the Prince of Flowers left the glass where it was, underneath a dripping Flourishing Spring, and stood up to check what Shinobiyorutsurai had brought him.

It was a Blossomflame.

He needed to check a hypothesis of his, and it was either the flower or a Radiating Undergrowth. And whilst the latter was more common and less guarded, he wasn't sure how the veritas might interact with a dead specimen – which was required to use the veritas on it – so he had sent the dryad to steal a Blossomflame from a hospital. It would certainly create a ruckus, but he needed a Blossomflame created by Aloe, and especially one from a hospital.

If his network of information was bigger or he had more time he could have tried to find where the Caliphate stored the Blossomflame seeds so he wouldn't need to take it from a hospital, but they had survived without Blossomflames for a long time, so he guessed they could do without one of them.

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"Alright, let's check this little girl." Emphasis on little, for the Blossomflame was the size of a palm instead of the meter-wide he knew.

The Prince of Flower cut a leaf from his potted Aloe Veritas and dried one of the petals of the Lifefire Flower with the ink. He soon had his answers.

Species: Minute Blossomflame

Sobriquet: Pixie Lifefire Flower

Description: A member belonging to the Pyrofloresco family, their species is known for their ability to drown their enemies in flames, heal those they consider allies, and their pocket size.

Alignment: Life, Chaos

The Tecolatan man couldn't help it out but let out a small chuckle.

"Were you right, my liege?" Shinobiyorutsurai asked with an intuition far sharper than any of the dryads.

"Quite, my dear helper," he chuckled. "This isn't a pure Blossomflame, but some kind of… mutation. How queer."

"What does this mean?" The dryad inquired with curiosity as she shifted around the druid.

"I am not quite sure, this is something I haven't seen before," Xochipilli scratched his chin deep in thought, only to realize that there were a handful of pointy bits of facial hair, if minimal. I guess it was about time, he chuckled internally. If I grow a beard, Aloe will at least lose the excuse of me being a child. He sighed before focusing back on the conversation. "This isn't something I know Evolution can do… and if I had to say something, I doubt Evolution can do this."

"Then what does this mean, my liege? Another vital art?"

"No, Shinobiyorutsurai," the Prince of Flowers smiled at her 'vassal' and patted her on the head. "We have more than enough vital arts in our hands. Far too many, in fact."

"So we are dealing with one of the others? Is it Infusion?"

"No," he confirmed. "And I'm reticent to consider Infusion a vital art. When we are expulsing vitality outward, we are just doing that, there's no 'art' in play. And for the internal and external infusions… we are just applying Nurture through Evolution… Of course! How did I never think of it? The assassin-cultivators have been doing the same with Enlightenment through Nurture for ages!"

"So… it's Infusion?" The dryad tilted her head in confusion, though she pushed it against the man's palm, partially submerging it on her vines in a soft gesture.

Xochipilli smiled at her. "No, my ramblings were a… separate thing. It's an important thing, mind you, as it may lead us to understand the vital arts far more than now, but it's not the subject at hand. Why must heavenly revelations always come at the worst of moments?"

The druid sighed and grabbed a pen and started scribbling some haphazard notes on the nature of the vital arts. It was an academically arousing topic, but it wasn't the subject at hand, and it wouldn't bring him the power he desired. At least not with the speed he needed. Once he finished taking notes, he grabbed a birch seed from a glass pot full of them and evolved it as his vitality had recovered enough to use it up again.

This evolution was one of his many discoveries – for Aloe had never had the chance to interact with many trees – but that didn't mean it was exactly useful. The evolved birch, or Spectral Birch as it was its name, didn't have noteworthy applications but it was hellishly expensive to evolve, which was far more valuable to him than any property the grown tree may have had. It required around one thousand six hundred and nine Haya to evolve – a ridiculous amount – and whilst he did have that maximum capacity, he couldn't say his current vitality was at that level.

Unlike Aloe, he didn't have centuries to increase the power of his recovery internal infusion, and he couldn't allow himself to wait that long to evolve plants.

So he evolved them without the needed vitality.

His master had prohibited him from doing such a thing as she predicated that it could lead to dangerous outcomes, starting from vomiting to potential death at the end of the spectrum. But after many experiments over the years, he had never been led to even the first level, and that was with him constantly increasing the percentage of vitality he was not using.

It hurt him, yes, but it was nothing to write home about. As a matter of fact, the more he performed these 'anavitalic' evolutions, the easier they became. His body was getting used to being starved of vitality, to giving it away, to growing from it. And he couldn't have enough of it.

Thanks to the anavitalitc evolutions and increasingly more expensive evolutions he discovered like the Spectral Birch, he could grow at a faster rate than Aloe had managed. Perhaps his master had had time on her side, but he had the backlogged knowledge of centuries. Not only hers but also the cultivators and the assassins. He alone wielded the vital arts in a perfect hybrid…

"That's it!" Xochipilli jumped out of his thoughts and from his seat at the same time. The dryad was startled as he removed his hand from her viny head.

"What is it, my liege?" Shinobiyorutsurai hid her displeasure, though if someone looked closely, they could see a pout.

Of course, the Prince of Flowers paid her no attention.

"I've understood what Aloe has done with the Blossomflames!" The druid exclaimed with bright enthusiasm, his exhaustion evaporated. "This is no vital art at all, I'm one hundred percent sure of it now. This is a completely natural and biological phenomenon which you and your sisters partake in!"

"Yes?" The vine dryad tilted her head almost by ninety degrees to the side in confusion. "And what is it?"

"Hybridization!" The Prince of Flowers announced his glee.