Epsilon Twilight

60. Lively

Even though her calculations told her she was on track for greatness regardless of what she did, Aloe couldn't help but press herself forward. She had nothing to do now besides evolving and training, after all.

She couldn't wait to change he...

59. Revelation

They were forced to mobilize. Loyata and their assassins had declared war on them before they were completely ready. Her half-sister utterly hated having her hand tipped, but Naila was thrilled.

There were a lot of things yet to be done, but...

58. Compound

Whilst it was unfortunate that Aloe was unable to find her much-desired sedative, she chose not to dwell on it. She had more things to do. Namely, keep evolving cotton plant seeds.

Now that she could evolve three seeds per day without harmin...

57. Expansion

The cultivator scratched her scalp at the headache of a problem before her. The Slowtide wasn't that expansive, only around the surface of an average person as it decided to grow on an oblong shape biased toward the ground. The highest part of the...

56. Lighting

"Okay, there's a bit of a problem with the logistics first," she mused as she pondered about the 'absurd nutritional value' statement of the Radiating Undergrowth's description. "Hmm, I'm liking the lighting though, I can read the veritas without ...

55. Reclusion

"Nope, nope, nope. Fuck that shit." Aloe cursed as she hastily left the mountain's peak, not even bothering to climb it down and instead donning toughness and constantly jumping to her death.

If she wasn't nince as tough as any other person,...

54. Marching

"We are running out of time," Grandmaster Nugar stated after barging inside the room.

"I'd prefer if you waited a bit before informing me," Hassan calmly responded as he stood up from bed, moving his arms gracefully to let the two Loyatan be...

53. Gazed

Even if she now had permanent access to light, Aloe found herself aching for sunlight after all these months. But she knew going out just to experience sunlight was dangerous, so she prepared herself a shopping list to serve as an excuse.

"W...

52. Hallucinations

Darkness was all she saw. All-consuming. Ever-present. An eternal mantle of coldness and hostile penumbra. In that absolute void, Aloe cried. She gagged for air and writhed on the cold stone floor.

This was reality.

Her awful and cold ...

51. Sunlight

Sunlight warmed her skin. The lovely touch of the sun's embrace made her drowsy. There was no better feeling than lying on a soft surface whilst at the mercy of the life-giving heavens. She knew she had to wake up, but it was so comfortable…

50. Training

It was tiresome to harvest her potatoes and mushrooms and then replant them, but that was what a woman had to do to eat. Even then, what was more tiresome was to re-infuse all the food from their respective internal infusions to better taste. Now,...

49. Accelerate

With all her plants, fungi, lichens, and whatnot; Aloe had finally evolved all the living beings in her possession that could be evolved currently. Well, maybe except for herself, but Evolution could only affect non-developed, non-grown living bei...

48. Mycelium

Aloe almost collapsed into a puddle of vomit from exhaustion. Instead, she was able to catch herself, and only soak her hands in vomit.

"That's a new record," the cultivator said between pants. "I kinda lost count of the pills I too...

47. Death

Aloe woke up as if she never went to sleep. She couldn't quite exactly put it into words, but even if she felt rested, her mind didn't share the same rest. From her perspective, she had closed her eyes and opened them a moment later. This had alre...

46. Heiress

The walls of Asina lured the eyes of the beholder with their vibrant blue as always. Rani had made her go to the capital on a whim, and whilst she was an expert of the speed stance at this point, Naila didn't have a potent enough Nurture to match ...

45. Cotton

Aloe had the bad trait of believing her spontaneous theories as the absolute truth, and that way of thinking punched her in the gut when she went through half of the seeds and all of the requirement conditions she had thought of and found no new e...

44. Alignment

The next day, Aloe relaxed with the evolution experiments. She wasn't in any real haste, and she no longer had her sanity trickling out of her body thanks to the growing supply of Blossomflames and light, so she dedicated the day to unwind, draw a...

43. Spore

It would have been easy to go directly for the next evolution attempts, but Aloe had learned the need for a good rest. She had used thirty mansworth in a matter of hours, far more than she had ever consumed before, and even if she felt well at tha...

42. Undergrowth

There were some things wrong with the description she had before her eyes namely, how it was highlighting both a Death alignment and a high nutritional value.

"I'm no scholar but these two words… they don't exactly merge together," she did...

41. Reserves

To say that the near-death experience of drowning in the river had scared Aloe was an understatement. The pain induced by the Blossomflames' very healing wasn't forgotten either. She was already paranoid about the assassins being in every shadow, ...

40. Council

A war council was the last thing Naila expected to come out of Rani's mouth. Though at the same time, it wasn't like it came directly from her.

"As you may have noticed or heard," Rani announced to her council, "assassin attacks have intensi...

39. Water

Cold.

That was the first thing Aloe felt. The second was breathlessness. Water poured inside her nostrils and mouth, filling her lungs with the frigid liquid.

Her thoughts were sluggish but primal. If she remained here, she would die. ...

38. Giggles

There were no words to describe how much Aloe had needed to draw. Not just as an activity to pass up the time, but as an outlet for her stress and frustration. Her skills were crude – even if she had good calligraphy from her previous profession...

Writathon

Hello there,

For those who haven't heard, I'll be participating in Royal Road's Writathon. This means I'll be writing 55k words in 5 weeks, though I can't say for sure if I'm going to publish them as editing takes a long time. Time that I'm ...

37. Parchment

In the following days, Aloe dedicated all her blood infusions to the Aloe Veritas. She went easy on her body and just performed one per sleep cycle as exhaustion kept accumulating no matter how much she rested. Even if she was rested for the first...

36. Routine

Aloe woke up in pain and blood. Fortunately, she had enough foresight to wield toughness before going to sleep, meaning her cramps didn't jolt her into wakefulness and insanity. Any other internal infusion amplified her sensation of pain, which wa...

35. Roasted

A sweet perfume, a soft caress, the warm rays of sunlight, the feeling of skin meeting skin by a partner on the other side of the bed, the pleasure of fingers seeking more pleasure eagerly, the exchange of kisses that didn't necessarily need to be...

34. Knighthood

"You need to explain yourself," Rani stated authoritatively as she crossed her legs, looking at her over the shoulder from her seat.

"There is not much to be explained, truth be told," Naila nonchalantly added.

"It would seem that actu...

33. Gathering

Using up twice as much vitality as she was used to certainly took a toll on her body. Which infuriated Aloe to no end. If Aaliyah could spend hundreds of mansworth in a single blood infusion, she wouldn't allow herself to fall behind, even if her ...

32. Blood

Aloe started the day with the most tedious and exhausting activity: evolving a cumin seed. She barely tethered on the edge of being able to evolve them without external assistance, so not evolving a Blossomflame when her reserves were topped was a...