Chapter 729 (2/2)

The dirt in the impression was slowly accumulating, although Randidly knew that the plants he grew here wouldn’t be able to be too tall. Optimistically, Randidly could gather enough debris in the surrounding area to reach a depth of one foot of soil. Any more than that would require him to break off more small rocks to shatter or gather ones from elsewhere.

Neither was particularly possible at the moment.

So plants at that size would have to do.

With great care, Randidly condensed almost a dozen fruits and squeezed them out above the soil. Even though it got rid of another one of his seeds, Randidly waited almost four days for his Mana to fill entirely up, and then blue all of his Mana to expand one of the seeds as much as possible.

Ultimately, all of his Mana could only create a sapling about as thick as a thigh and about 10 meters tall. But that was more than enough to create quite a lot of ash that Randidly then laboriously mixed with the rest of his soil.

Although he couldn’t be sure that it helped, sometimes during his image training sessions Randidly focused on empowering the soil. He remembered, a couple of years ago, how during the cycle of rot and ash there were small motes of emerald power that slowly emerged in his soil.

With the growing power of an implacable will, Randidly forced that energy into the soil. From this ground, the tallest and broadest tree would grow…

Abruptly, Randidly grinned in the darkness. Of course, this was impossible. He had seeds for grain. What would grow was… a wheat variant or something? Randidly wasn’t too sure of the details.

After great thought, Randidly ultimately resolved himself to spending another two seeds to create ladles to bring water up onto the platform. Most of it was splashed into the soil, but Randidly managed to get some into a nearby impression. Eventually, it would evaporate, but it would give him some more water he could push onto the soil in the meantime.

Randidly considered his small field with a doting smile. In the end, he decided not to add his blood to the mixture. There were a few reasons, but the main one was because his blood had destructive properties. The whole point of this exercise was to create something without his influence. The impetus here would be on the seeds to grow in the natural ways.

Right now, Randidly was infected with an overwhelming image of destruction. In a small way, even if it had no real effect on the image, Randidly had the strange feeling that it meant a lot that he was embarking on this path to grow something the old-fashioned way.

After his experiments, Randidly had seven seeds remaining. With great care, Randidly buried five of them in the ground he had created. Over the course of five hours, he brought a handful of water from his little aquifer and poured it on each.

Immediately afterward, Randidly checked the time. It had been sixteen days since he had entered into this prison. His smile was sharp. The nebulous deadline was drawing closer, but he had no way of verifying when that would be. On the other hand, plants generally grew very quickly in this new world, but it was hard to know whether the suppressions of the room also worked on plants.

They seemed to target Mana and Stamina directly, and as far as Randidly knew plants weren’t governed by that, but if they were…

Either way, for now, he would do his best to grow the plants for the next 5 or 6 days. Beyond that, Randidly was worried about the timing of the jailers return and so would need to begin work on the anti-suppression array, regardless of what happened with the plants.

So Randidly closed his eyes and imagined the sun. With all his will, he projected the warm energy of the sun out above him. During this time, Randidly would focus his attention entirely on his images. Although there were other ways to spend his time, none were as important as ensuring that he could get out of here.

Although none of Randidly’s images particularly related to the sun, his time in his Soulskill reminded Randidly how much interdependence and influence there was between his inner world. As such, Randidly drew powerfully on Sam and Alana to find bright and crisp images of the sun.

However, with Randidly’s high stats, it was easy to divide his focus. While Randidly projected that image outward, inwardly he went through his own images.

The consuming chill.

The devouring heat.

The relentless grasp of the Spear Phantom.

In the darkness, Randidly slowly painted with his imaginations. And slowly but surely, those strokes against the world’s canvas stayed longer and longer, becoming clearer and clearer. Without even consciously thinking about it, Randidly felt him walking steadily towards a solid foundation as a Pontiff.