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 took, and I don't know how many I had before starting, but I'd say that was around a twenty mansworth evolution cost. Nice."

She was delighted with the result; this was what she was searching for: a middle ground to work as an anchor point for the inevitable living plant evolution.

"Eight for the Cottonpull, ten for the Radiating Undergrowth, and now twenty for… whatever this is." Truth be told, Aloe still hadn't seen what the evolved lichen looked like as she was still donning recovery, and she had no intention of switching it off just yet as she was on the border of depletion.

Sluggishly and blindly, Aloe walked to the Aloe Veritas. She knew the layout of her camp from memory, so she had no difficulties walking in complete darkness. Though for the cutting process, she first had to cut herself to have some light.

Even if she only lost a single drop of blood from the cut as a bit of blood stuck to the knife, the motion made her dizzy. This was the first time she had spent this much vitality in one go and a simple wound like this one was magnified many times over. Even the Radiating Undergrowth infusion fiasco had been spread over several hours. Aloe simply took a deep breath and switched to acuity.

With her vision recovered, she looked at the evolved lichen and it was…

"Pink?" Aloe put her finger before her eyes and inspected the new lifeform. "Hmm, it has quite a vivid color and it's very shiny. Also," she pinched the evolved lichen, "rather gooey."

As it refused to separate from her body, Aloe cut a veritas leaf and then carefully dipped her finger on the wound so it only touched the pink plant.

"Now, let's see what you are." The parchment's ink splotches shifted and assembled into readable text.

Species: Torpor Mycelium

Sobriquet: Slowtide

Description: An evolved member of the Chrysotrichaceae family, a species known for its ability to slowly expand over any terrain and trap prey in its non-Newtonian surface with soporific properties.

Alignment: Death, Space

There were many things to highlight about this new evolution, but Aloe's first reaction was…

"Holy shit," she threw all decorum out the window. "Soporific properties? Were you listening to me before and evolved into something I wanted?" Aloe brought the pink fungi closer to her face and sniffed it. "Doesn't smell soporific I can say that much…" She blinked a few times. "Why did I do that?"

She had no answers to that question.

"Anyhow… I don't understand what the description is talking about surfaces there. Complex words and terms, they sound scholarly, though." This was the first time Aloe failed to comprehend a veritas description due to a lack of knowledge. "The 'expand over any terrain' part is also weird. It says expand, not grow, but it's also lichen so… what does this really mean?"

Lichen grew on many surfaces, especially the one she had collected as it was a growth on a stone wall. But something struck her as odd in the description even if she couldn't quite put her finger on it.

"I've been jumping all over the place, but let's go back to the start. The name is Torpor Mycelium, which indicates two things: it's related to sleep in some way or shape, and it is a fungus." That struck her as odd as fungi weren't quite exactly a lichen, or rather, the inverse. "And there's also the sobriquet. Slowtide. Tide, ocean connotations. Could it grow into some kind of liquid? It's gooey now, after all."

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Not all names could be this closely inspected, but Aloe couldn't help but find more and more contextual clues to the Slowtide's name.

"What about the 'slow' part? Slow indicates movement, can you move?" The cultivator asked the gooey mycelium on her fingertip. It failed to respond. "I think this is just my paranoia talking," she sighed. "Finally, the alignments. I knew it would be Death because it has evolved after being in contact with dead matter, which, by the way… Yay!"

Aloe jumped on the spot in a cutesy manner after her theories and requirement materials proved to be correct.

"I love being right," she giggled, then coughed on her first. "Even though it has the Death alignment, I'm not getting any instant heebie-jeebies so I can assume the mycelium isn't… bad. Also, the Space alignment. I saw it for the first time yesterday and now all of a sudden I have two evolved plants – fungi, thingies, whatever – with it. Not that it changes anything."

After discovering the new alignment with the Cottonpull evolution, Aloe had no idea what Space's requirement would be besides jokingly commenting on it being outdoors. Which she technically was, if one stretched the sense of the word a lot.

"Let's plant you," she told to the Slowtide. "You are kinda sticking to my fingertips a bit too much." Aloe tried to unlatch the evolved lichen from her. And failed. "Maybe a whole lot too much."

The cultivator frowned and switched to potency. With the help of the internal infusion, she had no difficulties pulling away the Slowtide, but the fungi took a bit of her skin with its departure.

"Nince-damned hells!" Whilst it wasn't much skin, mostly dead tissue, it still hurt, nonetheless. The nearby Blossomflame seemed to agree with her as it lit itself and healed her with a handful of embers.

Even if the healing fires had already restored her finger, Aloe still blew on her fingertip and licked it.

"I shouldn't have licked it," she realized a bit too late. Luckily, she didn't instantly fall asleep in a manner worthy of comedic works. Or die. But she didn't fear that outcome. "Maybe the soporific properties need more… of an oomph to work."

Aloe shrugged and planted the Slowtide on a stone wall, though 'stick' would have been a more apt verb. Like the Radiating Undergrowth, she wanted to test the growth properties of this evolved being. And considering the Slowtide's form was a lichen, it should have no issues whatsoever with growing on a vertical surface or outright rock.

If not… well, she could and would have to evolve more of them in the future. Even if the Slowtide had taken her a lot of vitality, it was still waaay less than whatever the living stones' evolution was.

"I need to check later if that vitality estimation of twenty mansworth was even accurate, I did take a lot of vitality pills, after all."

She was still recovering vitality from all the Cure Grass pellets she had consumed as her stomach was lacking behind greatly, even though it was practically empty with all the puking she had done.

"Oh right, I still haven't washed my hands, nor the puke stain." Her excuse was that she was excited her last plant was a hit. She couldn't even be disgusted at having her hand covered in vomit, she had done way worse, namely every time she wanted to do her business.

Before going to eat, Aloe cleaned herself – full body now that she was already washing herself – and that puke pool. She used one of her more mistreated rags for the task. Slowly but surely, she was running out of 'fine' textiles, all of them becoming just rags.

Once she had her meal of mushrooms and tubers, Aloe went back to the evolved lichen at the wall and proceeded to infuse it. And infuse it. And infuse it.

"Am I being the victim of some sort of cosmic prank?" Aloe asked the heavens, and they refused to answer back. "How is it that in a question of days, not only do I find an evolution that takes unheavenly amounts of vitality to be infused, but also a second one?"

Indeed, much like the Radiating Undergrowth, even after pouring two whole reserves of vitality – she slowed the infusion rate and restored it with recovery over a long period – the Slowtide was nowhere near to being infused.

All the vitality she had poured into it was just a grain in the desert.

"How big are these plants?" She shouted, her voice coming back to her in a very distorted echo. As it would appear, the only answer she was going to get was her voice. "Maybe I was right in thinking that my theory on 'size equals vitality cost' with infusions was wrong. It makes no sense that out of nowhere I find two evolved beings that have virtually infinite size."

She had in mind that perhaps she didn't have enough vitality to infuse these beings as they were too big for her at the moment. But that was too difficult to accept. It had to be her theories that were incorrect rather than her being too weak!

"This really put a dent into a girl's morale, huh…" Aloe half-sighed half-groaned. "Well, I should now have enough vitality to evolve Cottonpulls without external assistance after this, so that should be my next target. But first, I will need to grow more cotton plants."

Spending her blood on infusions wasn't an option as she barely had the eight-ish mansworth to evolve the Cottonpulls, so between today and tomorrow, her duty would be that of boosting the growth of the planted cotton plants with her Forced Growth flowing stance technique. If she evolved enough cotton plant seeds, then she could switch to evolving death caps. And if she evolved enough death caps, then it was time for the Slowtide.

And if she went over that point, and even managed to get her vitality reserves to match that of future living stones' evolution… then perchance it would already be time for the next step.