Cultivating Plants

The vegetable woman's ears rang in the absolute nothingness of space as she found herself drifting away from her home world. This is quite the predicament, Mother Nature calmly thought to herself.

The sun threatened to burn her away like it had done many centuries ago when she had first started with the vital arts, but unlike then, her passive toughness was so beyond human standards that its violent radiation barely stung even if the heavenly mantle of Khaffat was no longer protecting her succulent skin. The Radiating Undergrowth seemed capable of doing more damage than this unleashed sun.

Are those motes of Cottonpull? How queer! The druid leisurely thought as tons upon tons of clouds of antigravitational cotton gathered at the threshold of the planet's atmosphere beneath her. Hmm, why does all that Cottonpull gather at that height? Shouldn't it continue escaping towards space like I am currently doing? Hmm… I don't think this is the moment to think about this. Ugh… my mind hurts, those nince-damned assassins and their drug-magic…

Mother Nature ached to groan, but of course, no sound left her mouth. Which was even more interesting considering her ears rang so loudly.

Whilst the light of the sun wasn't much of a problem, nor was it the lack of breathable air as she had long transcended the necessity of breathing, pressure was another matter altogether. It wasn't lethal per se, but it was highly uncomfortable as her body threatened to burst open. The druid switched to toughness which greatly soothed her discomfort. The liquids in her body still tried to get out of it, but now the tension that her skin and flesh her body exerted upon the liquids was mostly enough to counteract the differential in pressure.

Not that she was fully conscious of why that was happening. She had read some books on the modern discoveries of the world, but she wasn't a scholar by any means, and she doubted that no one knew exactly why everything she was experiencing even happened.

I doubt anyone has gotten here before. I didn't even realize Cottonpull could get this high up either! She pondered with a complete trail of thought to her first impressions on the stationary clouds of yellowed cotton. Ugh… focus! These assassins and their tricks! How is it that I'm still getting this affected by their Enlightenment nonsense when I'm this far away?

A heavenly revelation struck her, and she peered into the world of ideas.

Of course, there's absolutely nothing in terms of observation between the surface and space. We aren't that far away from each other. Could I use that to my advantage? Only to kill them, but not to go back down. And talking about going down, how am I supposed to do that?

Between the ringing in her ears and the constant – if minimal – assault of the assassins on her mind, Mother Nature was at her wit's end as any thought she managed to formulate was sluggish, nonsensical, or not appropriate for the time-sensitive nature of her quest.

Her movements were slowly becoming more rigid as the side of her body that didn't face the sun frosted. The growing frost wasn't actually her body freezing as her body temperature and toughness were too high for that, but small leftovers of humidity that had gathered on her skin as she left the atmosphere. At best it was annoying, but at worst… it was true that her vitality was slowly dropping.

Even though she only needed to breathe and sleep every handful of years she still needed to do so at some point, which meant she hadn't fully transcended the needs that bound living beings; just extended the limits to impossible degrees. Now that she donned toughness her body could withstand massive temperatures – the full, unadulterated brunt of the sun was trivial – but the same couldn't be said for infinitesimal temperatures.

How cold is it here for my body to freeze over? Mother Nature mused with a hint of annoyance.

A part of her wanted to test her limits, to see how long she could live without assistance in space or even check if one of the many tricks in her repertoire could allow her to thrive on it, but at the same time, she was well aware of the passing time.

First, let's kill this momentum sending me to the heavens beyond. With a twirl of her body, she faced the infinite heavens with its myriad colors and put her back against Khaffat. As she deposited her hand inside the Slowtide in her chest cavity, small streams of air managed to escape. In Khaffat such a reaction would have been non-existent as the pocket in her chest shared the same pressure as the planet, but out there in space, it created quite a violent reaction.

And an equal propulsion.

The energy of Naila's throw was overruled by the stream of air pouring from her chest, but it ceased as soon as it started, only vaguely accelerating her toward the planet.

I need something more if I want to get back in a timely manner. Otherwise, I will take… she performed some quick calculations, around two days to greet the atmosphere again. Whilst that was better than endlessly drifting in space, it wasn't a deadline Mother Nature was satisfied with.

The Slowtide pocket offered her no more possibilities as its surface had frozen solid after being exposed to the harsh conditions of space with her last trick as the evolved lichen wasn't technically part of her body and therefore didn't benefit from the bonuses of her backlogged vitality.

Could I use the flowing stance to create more air? She pondered as she ever-so-slowly approached the planet. No, the flowing stance cannot generate new things, it only infuses vitality into existing ones. Then how about…

Nurture wasn't the answer to her problems, and whilst there were some possible applications with Enlightenment, Mother Nature didn't like that vital art much to begin with. Especially now as the assassins kept bombarding her from hundreds of kilometers away.

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Evolution was the only way forward.

Perhaps the druid didn't have a plant that could produce air at her disposal to push her. But many other things could create push too.

Her first try was with Blossomflames, but those quickly perished under the hard conditions of space, and the small flames that they managed to sputter out created little to no push. Erring especially on the 'no' side.

Her second try, though, provided more success.

Mother Nature twirled on her axis and faced her home world again. Infinitely close yet impossibly far. From her back and the palms of her hands, she grew several Radiating Undergrowths. The vitality needed to grow them to maturity could have grown a whole plantation of Cottonpulls the size of the Sultanate of Sadina, but she cared not for that.

Only that their radiation pushed her forward.

It started slowly at a pace far more grueling than the march of a snail, but as time went on, the pace picked up. Her speed kept increasing and increasing as her acceleration was constant and there was no medium holding her down.

Between the vitality spent to withstand Naila's launch and the harsh conditions of space, and also the one used to grow the evolved mushrooms, her vitality dwindled.

It was hard for her vitality to dwindle – for she only gained it – but now it just kept going down and down. And she knew that rate would increase once her body met with the heavenly mantle of Khaffat.

The only saving grace was that the Radiating Undergrowths didn't die from the extreme temperatures or the lack of pressure. In a way, they thrived, as if space had been their home all along.

The vegetable woman discarded those thoughts and pushed more vitality into the evolved fungi to increase their radiation. Steel would have melted like butter on a hot summer day in the desert, yet her body prevailed as her speed kept increasing.

It was a matter of seconds before her speed exceeded any other speed that would have been possible in Khaffat. The air resistance could get so powerful that even with her donning the speed stance she could only obtain a fraction of the speed she had now gathered.

Even the ridiculous speed at which Naila had thrown her off of the planet through the greatest feat of strength the vital arts had seen paled in comparison to the speed her body kept accumulating.

A minute later, she had finally made contact with the threshold of the atmosphere. The point where the discarded clouds of Cottonpull lingered.

Upon meeting with her, they were all set ablaze.

Her re-entry carried so much energy that her surroundings were set on fire and clouds were sent to Oblivion itself.

Mother Nature discarded her Radiating Undergrowths now that they could no longer accelerate her and dived headfirst into the thick sea that was the atmosphere. Air couldn't rush away from her fast enough, a phenomenon that created even more fire at higher temperatures, which in turn affected her.

For the first time in ages, Mother Nature felt her vitality go down. The gesture was so alien to her that she nearly puked as it dropped by a measly ten percent. Of course, that one-tenth of vitality was enough to create multiple Nailas, so it was quite a decrease in her physical capabilities. It was like going from peak conditions to the most horrendous and mortal fever ever in a matter of seconds.

Her vitality kept decreasing, but so did the violence of her descent as the air kept seeping all her momentum away. The world liked inertia by default, and now, it was aching for it.

Even through her divine toughness, the vegetable woman felt her body heat up. But before it could reach perilous temperatures, the ground came first.

It had only taken her seconds to meet the ground going downwards when it had been minutes for her speed to become manageable going upwards, so the ground didn't like when it had to mitigate all that remaining momentum as seconds weren't enough for the air to do the job.

Earth shattered.

Fields burned.

Air exploded.

But Mother Nature remained intact.

"Ah…" She groaned, finally being able to fill up her lungs with air and talk. "That was quite the concussion."

As the druid cracked her neck to put it back in place – the violence of the impact had left some things out of place – she peered into the heavens she had come from. Even though the sun had just been burning her a moment ago, the starry mantle of the night now greeted her. Unfortunately, she was not met by the chill breeze of the night – for there was no cold air around her, for starters – but by a person.

"You have arrived quite fast," Mother Nature commented as she placed the last bent part of her body correctly.

"You… you burned the sky," Naila said with abject horror.

"Quite," the druid giggled. "I did not know that friction alone could set ablaze air."

As the vegetable woman looked around, she saw how parts of the ground had crystalized and all the surrounding vegetation to the impact crater was completely carbonized. As for clouds, there weren't any for several kilometers around.

"I…" The Sultanzade's grip on her dual blades trembled as she put more strength on them, words fleeting her.

"Now," as Mother Nature calmly talked, the former burning air cooled down and gained the softness of a nocturnal breeze. "You have made me lose quite a lot of time, Naila. Critical time. To this, I offer you a proposal. Call it a gift for our long relationship. Leave now and let me continue with my business or… perish."

The calipha's heartbeat accelerated upon hearing that vitality-loaded word as her breathing halted for a blink. The bicentennial cultivator thought about her course of action before taking a very tired sigh.

"Aloe, I do not want to do this."

"Then stop being in my way," the bicentennial druid said with a smile so warm that it sent shivers down Naila's spine. The contrast was too much for her.

"I wish, I truly wish, but…" the Calipha of Ydaz adopted a fighting posture, "you are a danger, Aloe. An existential menace. Your actions have cost thousands of lives today alone, my subject's lives, and that I cannot allow. Heavens knows what you may do in the future if this was just a 'game'. I am sorry, Aloe, but I cannot back down."

"I see…" The vegetable woman added softly, almost portraying regret. Emphasis on almost. "I wish I could say the same thing, but a part of me aches for this. To reclaim my stolen quest."

The druid exhaled and the temperature dropped even further.

Then she switched internal infusions.

Naila-al-Ydaz, the ruler of the greatest nation in the world and the most powerful pure cultivator, gagged and whimpered as she saw how all the work she had done became undone in a single blink as the vitality of the woman in front of her went from half empty to completely full.

"I do not blame you for having thought that the charm stance was my most powerful as that is the one I always used, or maybe the defense one as it was my most used one in our time, but the truth is, the only stance I have honestly trained is the recovery stance."

But the changes didn't stop at the full vitality deposit; the druid's body was also altered. The vegetable woman's previously naked skin became covered by a dress of fire-red petals; her feet and hands shifted into inhuman shapes resembling roots; her hair grew violently like weeds and turned into thick and thorny vines; her back became populated by colossal flowers that sputtered into flames, and alongside that, fire sprouted from her limbs; but most strikingly, her height increased from her already towering two meters to an additional one, truly becoming a tree as she stood three meters tall.

"You are right, this is not a game." Spoke the monstrous figure, one that couldn't be classified as human. "But you are also wrong," her voice was no longer melodious but hostile, her flames growing to accentuate that. "You are not fighting 'Aloe'. You are fighting Mother Nature, goddess."