Elder Cultivator

Of the various dangers in a forest, one thing that wouldn’t be at the top of people’s lists was fruit. There were of course some that contained toxins that might not be processed properly, but Anton wasn’t thinking about that aspect of things. He was thinking about blunt force trauma. Or in this case Anton was considering puncture dangers as a head sized fruit with spines doubling its size crashed into the ground in front of him.

To actually harm a cultivator like him it would require more than gravity, but Anton almost had the feeling the tree had tried to kill him. There had been a surge of natural energy within it before the fruit rapidly descended. Even if it had hit it didn’t have any accompanying energy bolstering its killing power, but still.

Anton carefully picked it up. He was aware that there were occasionally materials that could puncture defensive energy, and thus handling with care was appropriate. But the fruit itself, while far sharper than any fruit had any right to be, was merely that. Rather sharp.

There were clear marks in the ground in front of Anton where it had fallen, more than two fingers deep. Plenty to kill passing creatures. Was it some sort of defense mechanism, or a ploy to kill an animal to provide nutrients?

Anton’s observation of the tree revealed sturdier spines along its trunk. It was quite tall, easily over twenty meters. He slowly reached out to touch its trunk… and it reacted. Bark rippled, realigning spines towards his hand, along with a surge of natural energy that would be sufficient to puncture the defenses of most creatures. That certainly indicated some form of awareness, and it might even be necessary to protect itself against particularly voracious creatures.

Anton pulled his hand back and walked off. He didn’t need to make the tree waste more energy trying to protect itself. He did take the fruit, of course. It was his now.

His senses picked through the structure of the fruit. Beneath the spines, it had quite a bit of edible flesh in the central sphere. Along with significant quantities of natural energy, Anton sensed mostly familiar edible compounds. Nothing that seemed dangerous to him, at least.

He cut it open as he began to walk along, keeping in mind the particular tree that had dropped the fruit. If it was the right season for the fruit, he might be able to observe more of its behavior. He hoped to catch a similar situation that had happened to him, and it seemed to have at least a few dozen similarly ripe fruit.

Beneath the tough skin of the fruit were many smaller sacs. Anton ate one the size of a small berry. It was sweet and juicy, with notes of citrus. That was all he consumed at first, to see if his body would react negatively. It shouldn’t, but he was confident in purging any problematic compounds, and it would be much easier if he only had a very little.

The seeds were the shape of two cones joined at their base, effectively forming a single pointy package. Anton picked one out and studied it. The flesh of the fruit was strongly imbued with natural energy, but the seed was several times as potent. Eating it would be a problem if one was not careful, as the energy seemed to contribute to its solidity and the puncturing power. Carelessness would result in great pain inside the mouth.

After counting a dozen of the seeds, Anton considered eating one but the effort the plant put into making that not happen filled him with a sort of pity. Even if it had tried to kill him, he could help it out by looking for a decent place to plant them. Somewhere without too much competition, preferably, though it wasn’t as if there was anywhere without some form of life.

Klar had life in abundance. Much of it was struggling to be on top, while other bits were filling the gaps. Perhaps not so different from a standard ecosystem, but all the more visible for the novelty of its individual pieces.

When he picked the first location, Anton pushed a seed into the soil gently. He was trying to determine what depth would most make sense when the seed suddenly shot downward, propelled by some portion of the natural energy within it. It ended up buried about a half meter deep.

Intrigued by the event, Anton tossed the next seed onto the ground casually. For a moment nothing happened, then it twisted until the point was down before also shooting into the ground in two bursts.

Fascinating. For the third one, he used his own energy to place it in the ground. The seed reacted to his active energy by solidifying itself, but seemed to settle into a similar strata of the soil- making very slight adjustments.

Around that time, Anton was charged by a quadruped with a spined head- like someone put a porcupine onto the head of a boar. Personally Anton thought that a single horn or a pair was better than a whole forest of puncturing weapons, but he didn’t have time to discuss that with the creature. He looked around for markings that might indicate it was the creature’s territory as he leapt over it.

Whatever the creature was, it didn’t seem to have good braking abilities or eyesight. It crashed into a fallen trunk. Numerous spines were left behind as it pulled back. Anton expected that regenerating them would take some time, but whatever that cost the creature was the consequences of its own actions.

It didn’t pursue Anton, perhaps realizing it would be a fruitless endeavor. There were a few things Anton could guess were territorial signs, but he could only tie a few of them to that particular creature.

This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

Somewhere around that point, the original spined tree did something again. It launched one of its fruits far into the distance. A propulsive burst of natural energy launched it a full three kilometers away over the canopy, before the fruit itself exploded, sending the seeds in all directions. It seemed a rather destructive method of reproduction, but that might be beneficial. If it actually harmed surrounding plants, they would be less able to compete with the new trees.

Anton wondered if the angle meant anything. Clearly it was a different sort of action than throwing the fruit at him- his hadn’t exploded, for one thing. But if it was trying to kill him, why not make it explode? Perhaps to protect itself? Anton thought the tree felt sturdy enough, but maybe it still had compunctions about detonating anything directly near it.

-----

Once Anton was satisfied that the fruit wasn’t going to harm him, he finished eating the rest of it for lunch, sitting by a nice stream that was flowing into a pond. Water features were always relaxing. ȑ

It seemed that Klar hadn’t diverted too far from the standard formula for fish. Generally, long bodies with some sort of fins. Mobility was important, and without that it was unlikely any sorts of creatures would survive.

This particular stream only had smaller fishes, as it likely couldn’t support anything much longer. For the most part the fish acted as he expected. There were even some archer fish- shooting spurts of water to knock bugs into the water.

Of course, the planet couldn’t go long without producing something unique from Anton’s perspective. He saw one fish swimming back and forth, picking up speed before finally vaulting out of the water and onto the shore- right into a berry bush full of spines. The fish appeared unconcerned, however. Indeed, it must have been its destination as it wiggled through the bush, swallowing peach colored berries.

The fish seemed to be aided by some sort of mucousy coating on it, making the spines slide off of its scales. When it had its fill, it wiggled out of the bush and used its fins to push itself along the surface of the ground like paddles. Somewhat like a mudskipper, but on dry leaves and twigs. Quite a few of which were also sharp. The fish made it back into the water and Anton wouldn’t have guessed it just had an excursion on the surface if he didn’t know better.

As he stood up from his lunch perch to continue his hike, he noticed something happening on the pond. The algae was swirling and gathering together. Natural energy was infusing into it as it gathered together into clumps. Then it began forming a larger shape, the final version of which Anton could easily say he had not anticipated.

The algae pushed itself towards a shallower part of the pond, standing up- on two legs- and walking towards Anton. Saying it was humanoid was about as far as Anton could go, but it was missing the majority of features. The best it got was something like two arms, two legs, and the head and torso shapes- though the head flowed smoothly from the ‘shoulders’ instead of being atop a neck.

“Well, hello,” Anton said, waving.

The algae waved back, then settled into the same position Anton was standing in. He quickly learned that it mirrored his movements. If it was just to that point, Anton might have been able to convince himself it was simply some form of mimic, taking upon a new form to try to gain some advantage. However, it seemed like a rather excessive use of natural energy just for that.

As for where that energy came from… it was the algae. Unless there was something with truly phenomenal control skills, nothing else was connected to it. The algae was operating all on its own.

Anton slowly took a step closer, and his mirror did the same. With not much in the way of better ideas, Anton reached out his hand to attempt a handshake. Obviously the algae wouldn’t recognize the gesture. Anton hadn’t quite expected how pleasantly awkward that would make things.

As it mirrored him, what he would consider its left arm reached out. Conveniently, since it hadn’t formed a hand it had a more or less round protrusion. Because of that, Anton tilted his hand and gently grabbed the ‘wrist’, moving up and down gently. He kept his energy restrained during the process so as to not frighten his new acquaintance.

The algae seemed quite brave, and shortly after he touched it the thing reformed its arms into more accurate shapes with something like hands- or at least mitten shaped protrusions instead of simply tubes.

It stretched forward its right hand, aiming for Anton’s left wrist. Anton decided to let it, because letting a few odd social habits form was safer than causing confusion. Its ‘hand’ gently wrapped around Anton and moved up and down. It was wet and slimy, but none of it clung to Anton as it pulled away.

It would be difficult for Anton to call it anything but friendly. Furthermore, it was hard to deny it had some real understanding. Or that it had some sort of more complex cultivation, though Anton might not have been able to recognize that without seeing Maheg.

Both humans and animals had some form of dantian, semi-spiritual organs within which they contained their gathered energy. In some respects, Maheg could be considered to be entirely such a construct, though perhaps it was better to not push human constructs on things.

As for the algae, what Anton had taken for infused energy when he was sitting nearby watching the fish actually seemed to be an intentional arrangement of some sort. He didn’t fully understand how it worked, but it clearly did otherwise none of what was happening in front of him would be taking place.

There had been some small hope in Anton’s mind that he might discover new sapient life in this system because of the wide variety of odd things, but if he had been asked what it would be, Anton would have placed algae at the bottom of the list, just below many other plants and slightly above single celled organisms or bacteria.

Anton also now had to re-evaluate other things he had encountered in the context of cultivating- and thinking- plant life. There were more than a few things that had struck him as odd, in fact.