Chapter 71: Chapter 70 – A Kit

Jason murmurs, “interesting”, before he tests all the other parts of the plant. Even going as far as to put his hands on both sides of the pot and try the roots. It all works out with the roots feedback being the oddest. They smelled of being content with a slight color of dryness.  Besides that the leaves made up for the rest of the burst he got for the whole plant. The glowing leaves matched the cherry blossom, those no longer glowing was winter winds, and any part way dimmed had a collection of odd sensations.

Satisfied with the results Jason tests the rest of the plants. The Herb without berries felt similar to the first except without the winter winds. Those with five berries had an odd aftertaste to the ripeness. Sort of like the expectation of a watermelon. His best guess is that the berries aren’t fully ripe yet but close enough that it is hard to tell with his current control of the ability. The final plant with 32 berries challenged him the most. When Jason tested the whole plant, there wasn’t anyone stand out sensation except the desert like leaves. Further tests end up with each berry having a different feel. The only constant was berries close to each other were less ripe. With these results Jason gathered his thoughts and planned future tests.

“Okay first is I should water them more. Not by much but I want that slight dryness out of the roots. Second is I should not bother with growing another plant with massive amounts of berries. Well, I guess if I need to bait something again or some such, but less berries of a higher quality will do me better. Though if I grow bigger plants, then I can test growing more berries. Anyway, the third thing is I don’t know if five berries to a plant is the right amount. My current five berry Herbs weren’t able to finish growing the berries. However they also need more water. All I can do at this point is test some four and five berry plants next time. Though one more important question has not been answered yet. What happens to the plants once I pick the berries? The leaves that got sucked dry by a berry had a dead feeling to them. It is quite possible that the moment I remove the berries everything else just curls up dead. For now though I need to be able to cultivate and they seem to be holding on. When I reach town, there will be enough time to figure it out and an actual bed to sleep in. Now what is this System notification I have been ignoring.”

Jason looks up at the blue screen that popped up right after he finished checking the plants.

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Stat Unlocked

Control

• Having proven yourself adept at controlling your body, mind, and soul you have unlocked the Normal Stat ‘Control’. While Control is a Normal Stat, you may not add points to it except through natural gains.
• Being under level 10 you may not yet gain this Stat so all benefits and gains will be held until then.

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“Huh, not unexpected but still. To bad there isn’t anything special for unlocking stats before level ten. Then again, probably another thing to prevent those from powerful families getting too far ahead. Still, I find control of energy being under soul a weird choice. I guess with mind being taken by skill control left them with little else. At least I won’t have to worry about picking this up later. The Stat itself doesn’t do much but a lot of interesting things are gated by Control. Most useful for me is I will be able to mentally control the minimap at level ten. Not that I blame them for locking those type of things behind an otherwise useless Stat. Apparently early testers of this tech would occasionally have fatal problems. Unexpected results to everyone involved at the time since they had ‘mind’ controlled stuff for a while with those funky sensor caps. They had missed the simplest thing. With the VR tech it becomes a two-way street and the feedback was causing problems. In the end Control is a placeholder for how much feedback you can take. Makes enough sense and it prevents just anyone from creating a massive army of personally controlled minions.”

Satisfied with his results Jason settles down to cultivate for the night. This works just fine for a certain Jackalope. Not only has Jason traveled less than yesterday but by stopping early gave it a chance to gather some of the further burrows that it totally didn’t miss yesterday. Now with Jason cultivating the Jackalope once again starts work. Back and forth to gather all the local adolescent rabbits.

Of course nobody’s perfect. After the last few nights of hard work the Jackalope had gotten sloppy as evidenced by having missed places last night. Lazy by nature the Jackalope hadn’t been all that careful gathering those burrows today and an unexpected addition came along for the ride. Now the fairies had seen this and they found it just hilarious. Though the Jackalope won’t find it funny later on when they get punished.

Without notice a small rabbit makes its way to the front. The youngest there the adolescent rabbits pushed her to the back. Now though she was at the front without a clue of what to do. For you see she isn’t an adolescent. Rather that lazy Jackalope accidentally snagged a few kits while gathering the others. She however was the first to the front. Now kits aren’t able to turn into fledgeling, nubbed, or spiky rabbit. After all those stages come after being an adolescent rabbit. Being so young the kit wasn’t able to understand what the Jackalope wanted let alone know to stay away from Jason. With the adolescents shoving her from behind the confused kit hops forward. The adolescents all glare at her for breaking the rules and getting too close but she doesn’t notice this. Now away from the others her full attention is on the Energy Herbs right in front of her. A few hops and she reaches the Herb with the most berries. After a few nibbles the plant is now down three berries and the kit is full from such an energy-packed snack.

She turns back to leave but none of the adolescents will let her through. At this point they just want her to stay in the circle to take the blame for breaking the rules. Not understanding and with nothing else to do the little kit hops around the area a bit more. Then all that is left to explore is the strange creature in the very center. Without a care in the world the little kit hops right into Jason’s lap. Jason of course is quite shocked by this turn of events. Not sensing any hostilities he only stops cultivating for a moment to see what it going on. When he notices it is only a baby rabbit in his lap he continues on with cultivating. The kit is quite happy with this arrangement as well. Jason’s lap is a warm spot to rest during a cold night. Soon she falls asleep.