‘Can I have food now?’

Elijah blinked slowly, blinking away memories from decades ago as he looked down at the Sundrop Flower. Not up, not at eye level, but down. During the night, when he had tried and failed to rest properly, the plant had decided to follow his request to the extreme and shrink down to a size that made it fit in his palm.

And that shape…

‘Yes, but please explain what you’ve done to yourself,’ Elijah replied, awakening his Core as he siphoned Mana from it to send to the flower. It accepted everything he transferred over greedily, letting it swirl around before consuming it with glee. He noted that the absorption wasn’t followed by an increase in body mass.

Very intriguing.

‘You said to become smaller like in the other places,’ the plant replied. The child-like voice came back at him with clear enthusiasm, as it attached the multitude of images that he had sent the night before as a form of reference for its growth. It’s been an experiment to see if it could even follow such a vague order, and… technically, it had. ‘You said I needed to choose something and become it.’

Looking down at the plant again, Elijah noted how so many of the images he’d been sent back had included birds.

It’s trying to look like a damned bird.

It wasn’t all perfect, several flowers still sprouting off to the sides to absorb whatever it could, but there was consistent progress in making the main body look like that of the winged animal. Elongated, golden petals made up the middle to create something akin to a feathered body, green stalks that curved came up at the front to imitate a slightly-too-long neck, and more petals along with some… harder variant of the flower top appeared at the end to make the head of the bird.

Ignoring the flower hat on top, Elijah supposed it wasn’t the worst impression of a duck. The fact that it had been able to make something close to a beak and eyes was enough to make him respect the effort.

‘Do you want me to go back?’ the flower asked cautiously. It was probably afraid of getting less food, due to his grumbling as he studied the changes closely. That it had been able to use part of the flowerhead to make such convincing feathers was incredible. It infuriated him that he’d never gotten guidance on how to use Biomancy up until this point if this had been possible to do all along.

‘No, I’d prefer if you try even harder,’ Elijah finally replied as he sensed the plant grow anxious at his silence. The morning was making his mind work a little slower than he preferred. ‘You have a few flaws here, here, and here. There’s also some inconsistency there if you think you can solve that somehow, and… I don’t know if it might be possible for you, but making legs instead of just connecting the entire underside of the main body to the earth would be much better.’

Each correction, each suggestion, and every possible angle was given a clear reference for the plant. It absorbed each part given instantly, Elijah able to feel it as the wild mind looked it over and began to make changes instantly. It was slow, of course, but there was no delay between the idea and the attempt to follow that guideline.

‘Will you give me more food, if I have legs?’

‘I’ll give you all the food I can if you can walk.’

Those were the magic words, Elijah chuckling as he saw the earth physically moving while roots were recirculated to make them connect at two main points instead of going to the body at dozens of different spots. As he rose back to his full height, he could likewise see the plant start to raise the body upwards, two stubs steadily pushing upwards.

If it actually became able to walk… he wasn’t sure what he was going to do at that point. Laugh, maybe? Go even further and see if he could make the plant grow wings capable of making it fly?

Now that was something he wouldn’t mind seeing.

But if growth can be manipulated to such a degree, could the size also go into the extremes?

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Elijah didn’t exactly have space inside the house to check such an idea, but the Dungeon wouldn’t be the worst testing ground for that. It would be a while before he could do as much, of course, but a few days of waiting was nothing to the decades he’d already sat through.

As he headed out of the laboratory, intent on finding something to fill his stomach, he heard knocking on the front door. Quick ones, not structured, and light enough to not be from a certain head guard.

Aleksi was faster than him at answering it, opening the door and revealing a certain Wind Mage standing there with a book in hand.

“Grace,” Aleksi said cheerfully, wrapping up the tiny woman in a massive hug. A shriek left the mage as her feet were lifted off the floor, but the subsequent giggling made even Elijah feel his stone face gain a few cracks. “It’s been a while since I saw you. Did you get taller?”

“It’s only been two weeks,” Grace protested, handing over the book she’d brought to Elijah, who accepted it with a nod. The old leather-bound tome was surprisingly heavy, and the warning on the back made him wonder just where Rubeus had found it. “Sorry for not coming by with it yesterday. My mentor was suddenly swept up in helping organize some expedition of sorts, and he didn’t have time to go through the restricted parts of the library to find that until this morning.”

“An expedition?” Aleksi asked before Elijah could.

“Into the dungeon,” Grace explained. “Because of that surge, he talked about yesterday, you know? The crown prince was told about it and wanted to make sure there wasn’t anything dangerous from it.”

“I can respect the wariness,” Elijah commented, looking at the tome in his hand yet again. It would take quite a while to get through all of it. “Thank your mentor for lending this book to me, please. This means a lot.”

“Oh, of course!” she promised before her eyes widened a little. “And, before I forget, I convinced my mom to let you visit and eat for free today. I’m taking a rest day, so I’m just helping in the kitchen. If you want to come by, you’re free to do so.”

“Really? You’re letting me eat free?” Aleksi questioned, getting a laugh out of the woman. “I think we both remember what happened last time your mother made that promise.”

“You were the one who abused it, you giant glutton,” Grace fired back to which the man could only raise his hands in surrender. “But, yes, just come by for lunch or dinner. Lunch would be best, though. We’ve been packed full at night recently.”

Taking heed to her warnings, the two promised to visit for lunch. It was possible for them both to come for once as well since Aleksi was also taking a day’s break from the smithy today. Even giants needed to relax their bodies every once in a while.

“How have the new pills worked?” Elijah remembered to ask as they ventured out into the kitchen and seared meats for breakfast along with boiling some water for tea. “Any side effects?”

“Nothing at all for once,” Aleksi replied, sounding rather happy about that fact. The weaker version of the medicine he’d been getting the past many years had been enough to hold him stable, along with letting him do some rather intensive work, but his heart still had a habit of nearly skipping a beat when pressed enough or he got injured. It didn’t mean much when it happened once every full moon, but the frequency of the bouts of pain had increased. “Feeling like I’m forty again.”

That was the height of compliments for his work, the giant’s forty being the same as other people in their twenties. That man’s physical prime had just lasted a little longer than everybody else could hope for.

However… they’d talked about it before, but something that kept him in this state for longer periods meant that they could perhaps consider the usage of elixir again. Elijah wouldn’t force it on the giant, but Aleksi was the one who’d suggested it to begin with. And, well, if he was willing to use it to bring them to a greater depth in the Dungeon, he wouldn’t complain.

“I smell food,” came a tired voice from upstairs. “Everything safe down there?”

“Doors are closed and locked,” Elijah confirmed, his words barely leaving his mouth before Jack was down the stairs and inside the kitchen to inspect whatever was being cooked. Sasha followed not long after, wearing a different outfit than the one she’d had the day before. “I see you found the storage room.”

“Clothes were sweaty,” Sasha offered as she went through the cabinet and fished out some of the dried fruits she’d taken from before. After a moment, she also got some for Jack who swiftly thanked her for the gift. “When are you leaving today?”

So you heard that from upstairs? Good ears.

“In an hour or two,” Elijah answered. “We’ll return with enough food to last us a few days if Grace’s mother is still as generous as last time.”

They’d needed to throw out the last few portions after the previous visits. How that woman had expected them to go through a town hall’s worth of meat in less than four days was beyond him.

“I hope that means an hour or two of you helping me figure out just what I’m doing wrong,” Jack joined in as they sat at the table. No further context needed to be given than that, seeing how many curses Elijah had been able to hear the night before. While Sasha had been able to replicate her previous experience with stopping kinetic energy, absorbing and sending it out on command in a limited fashion, Jack had been unable to consistently turn the pollen into the explosive powder. He’d done it a dozen times already, but those were usually followed by a dozen minutes of failure and frustration. “There’s something I’m missing, and it’s pissing me off.”

“What you’re missing is an ‘off’ button,” Sasha added, much to the other’s grievance. “You would do us both a favor if you slept instead of muttering endlessly in circles.”

“I invite you to try and sleep while having the answer to a question right on the tip of your tongue.”

“You talk as if that would be hard.”

Elijah idly wondered if he was like this in his younger days.