Chapter 50: Plant Soup

I walk into the kitchen and up to the potted plant we brought back.

“What do you want to test?” Jen calls out to my back.

I return to the couch and place the plant on the table between Jen and I.

“Induced growth,” I say with a childish grin.

Jen’s face shifts from curious to worried.

“..and what exactly does that mean?” she asks.

“Healing magic piggybacks off the body’s naturally ability to heal itself, so it may be possible to use it to stimulate plant growth,” I reply.

Jen shifts her gaze between me and the plant.

“You can use magic to grow plants?” she asks.

“I actually don’t know, I haven’t thought to try it before, and I don’t perfectly understand the mechanical process that plants use to bear fruit, so this might not do anything,” I explain.

Jen nods along, but her eyes glaze over like I’m speaking a foreign language.

I manipulate my magic and mix it into the energy in the air, then press it into the plant. From the skinniest roots to the end of the fruit, I fill the plant with magic and visualize the rough process of plant growth. The roots pull in water and nutrients from the soil, the leaves absorb light and create the chemical energy needed for growth, and my magic supplements it all.

The plant vibrates slightly, then the small tomatoes start growing and reach the size of the ones we used earlier.

“What! It actually grew!?” Jen yelps.

“Yea, but it stopped..” I reply.

That can’t be the limit of how large the tomato can grow - we harvested several that were larger. I scan the plant, but nothing looks wrong. I look down at the soil it’s in, and it looks dry, almost like sand.

“Hmm, it might not have enough nutrients..” I mumble.

I can feel Jen’s gaze, but I’m too busy thinking to say more.

I’ve got it. I pull lobster scraps, a large bowl, and a few stones from storage, then puree the lobster shells with earth magic. I pull the plant up delicately, pour the DIY fertilizer into the soil, and add water until it’s nearing a soupy consistency. I place the plant into the refreshed soil soup and work my magic again. I maintain a connection between myself and the plant through healing magic to better monitor the effects. The roots grow and spread to the edges of the pot, then thicken as they pull in nutrients. I feel the roots stop, then the tomatoes start growing rapidly, and nearly double in size.

I pluck one of the tomatoes and pop it into my mouth. The skin is still a little bitter, but it tastes fine. I sink back into the couch and chew the tomato. But Jen interrupts my moment of triumph.

“What the hell did you do?” she asks.

I sit back up and swallow the tomato.

“I used a makeshift fertilizer to give the plant more nutrients, then used healing magic to force the plant to pull in those nutrients and use them to grow the fruit,” I explain.

Next to flying, this is the most shocked look I’ve seen on Jen’s face.

“B-but that means healing magic can just make food?” she asks with a stutter.

“Sort of, healing magic can speed up the process of growth, but it can’t create the building blocks of that growth,” I explain.

Jen’s eyes glaze over again as she slouches back into the couch.

“Right.. that makes sense.. to someone who isn’t me,” she mutters.

“This actually has wide-reaching implications. Healing magic can’t be put in spell stones because healing needs to be tailored to what’s being healed. But for plant growth, I just accelerated the base process it would go through anyway, which means it could work in a spell stone.” There goes my stream of consciousness again.

A puff of steam comes off of Jen’s head as she lies down on the couch.

“Please.. please stop talking,” she pleads, “my brain.. it’s not like yours.”

I mix all of my lobster scraps into a fertilizer before heading to bed. With the amount of lobster I eat, I probably have enough for an entire field.

Jen and I share one last breakfast together before flying back to the capital. We arrive in the shopping district we left from before noon, and I place Jen back on her feet.

“That was fun, Jen, thanks for coming on a trip with me,” I say, it’s my honest feelings about the matter.

Jen blushes slightly, but smiles widely.

“Thanks for doing field research for a restaurant you’re helping me create.. and for inventing a magic that helps.. and for sharing your insane house.. and.. my head hurts,” she trails off and grabs her forehead.

“We did a lot, you should rest,” I reply, “and I’m going to be traveling while school is out, so you have the month to do whatever you please.”

“Right.. I heard the academy is on a war break..” Jen says uneasily.

“The war is pretty over, but you should still be careful,” I say gently.

“I heard the royal castle dealt with a small invasion.. but is that really all that will happen? Won’t a larger force attack from the east?” Jen asks, not accepting my words.

“Nope, I can’t get into it, but there won’t be a large-scale invasion by the Alarian Empire,” I answer confidently.

“Oh.. you seem pretty sure, I guess you’d have more information since you went with the Princess when news broke..” Jen replies suspiciously.

“Yea that wasn’t a big deal either, nothing worth worrying about,” I say with a largely fake smile.

“Right, well, I’m going to rest my head. Thanks again, Alfred, I’ll see you when the academy starts back up,” Jen says with a wave and walks away.

I walk through the merchant district and up the stone path to my dorm. I need around three weeks to do what I have in mind for this break, but how should I approach getting some land for the tomatoes? Go through Father? Talk to the royals? I could just make a ton with magic, but it’d be better to have a supply chain that doesn’t start and end with me. I may get eaten by a dragon or exiled as a war criminal someday. Decisions, decisions.

I arrive at my door, but it’s not fully closed. I jump back and release a wave of magic to scan the area. Two people inside, one’s a knight. I know that knight. Balls. I know that girl. The Princess.