So it turned out that Kalo was kind of a strange red-coloured cross between a banana and a potato. Jack wasn't sure exactly what to expect when he placed the first seed on the ground. He was going to grow it in his hand, but Turrel insisted he not be holding it.

  His little chat with Austra had meant the rest of the crew had finished their preparation. Other than the few water frequency users and the people on watch, the others gathered to watch. Jack felt a little pressure, he had never been a big fan of public speaking or being the centre of attention.

  Swallowing that apprehension, he reached forward and touched his index finger to the almond-sized seed and channelled his [Growth] ability.

  He was happy for Turrel's advice. What he thought would be a small potato or at the worst a small vine turned out to be a medium-sized tree. Well, as much a tree as a banana plant was a tree, it even looked the same.

  The colours were different, the stem was purple with hints of an almost neon green. The leaves were the same as well, but striped and mixed with lines of red. The fruit or vegetable, Jack wasn't sure which, but the edible bit grew on top of the plant.

  He thought it looked like a blood-red pumpkin sitting on top, but once it had finished growing, one of the staff members stepped forward. They reached up into the centre of it and pulled back, like a rib it pulled away and Jack saw dozens of the same smaller fruit vegetable.

  One of the crew that he remembered from the kitchen stepped up as well and the two of them quickly went about collecting everything from the plant. It took both of them two trips to collect all of the kalo, Jack assumed if that wasn't all they needed then one more would be plenty.

  “Do we need another one or is that all?” he asked as the kitchen hand walked past.

  The man laughed in his face as he paused, looking at the plant behind him.

  “Oh no. Having Lord Montarg with us means our nutrition requirements are much higher than you would expect. He burns through a lot of energy when he is in the field. I would guess about ten more? I’ll let you know when we have enough weight-wise.” The man laughed as he walked off and dumped his pile of kalo on a table next to the parked Turtle.

  Jack sighed, normally he would have been happy to practise and use his skills. Really, he was growing a full-sized plant in the space of a few seconds. It was a plant that had edible food on it. But something about it being a chore made it … well, a chore.

  Wanting to rush through the process if he needed to do another then, he moved past the first plant and took out two more seeds. He placed them what he felt was a fair distance apart, about half a metre. He reached out to the first seed in front of him, pulling on the mana that had been slowly building and circulating through his body.

  He might have been in a bit of a rush and thinking about the next seed when he activated his growth ability. Turrel had made sure to remind him to limit the mana he used on the first activation, which Jack completely forgot for the second activation.

  He was not at all ready for a plant at least three times larger than the last to erupt forth from the tiny seed in front of him. He was knocked backwards as it grew and, while the first tree was about two metres tall, this one passed that mark and kept going another two metres before the weight of the kalo and its own leaves sent it tilting forward to crash on the ground before him.

  If everyone in the crew had not been paying attention before, they were now. Jack scrambled backwards as everyone turned towards him. The kalo had somehow maintained its shape while it rolled away from the toppled tree and rolled into his lap.

  Jack, feeling the eyes on him, awkwardly held out a thumbs up.

  “I am fine, sorry just a little … eager.” He stood up and tried to lift the medicine ball-sized space food in front of him.

  The kitchen hand from earlier approached and stopped him.

  “Probably best to take them one by one, they are very dense. Something this size might be a little hard to lift,” he said as he leveraged a segment free from the ball.

  With both arms and bent knees, he hoisted the kalo over his shoulder and with a grunt walked off towards the table. Jack was about to help when Turrel appeared.

  “Yes… I know. I need to pay more attention, sorry. My mind was elsewhere,” Jack said before he could get the lecture that he assumed was coming. Turrel laughed instead.

  “Honestly that was probably good for team building, everyone is a little hesitant around you, Jack. This at least makes you look more approachable. Also a good way for people to ask about your amplification without it seeming strange. I don't think I have seen a kalo plant that big before.” Turrel smiled as he patted Jack on the shoulder.

  Jack sighed as other members of the crew came over and joked as they helped pick apart the massive kalo plant. He waited for the man he had talked to earlier to make his way back and stopped him to talk.

  “Hey, I am sorry if we have talked before but I am terrible with names,” Jack said.

  “I’m Jackson, should be easy to remember hopefully,” the man replied, laughing. Jack held his hand out to Jackson, waiting for a handshake. He looked at the outstretched hand strangely for a second and then clasped hands with Jack.

  “Nice to properly meet you, Jackson. I should be able to remember that one hopefully. Umm look sorry about that, I'll be careful with the next few. How many more do you think I need to do now?” Jack asked.

  “Well maybe two more that size or four normal? And don’t worry about it, no harm done. I think we want the plant to be standing though, otherwise the scent won't spread as well. Anyway, good luck,” Jackson said as he went back to work.

  Jack stared at the plant on the ground. He hadn't noticed any scent yet but he had to trust the supposed experts on this. Why the scent mattered? Another question for Turrel.

  This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.

  Three much more controlled casts of growth later and Jackson told him that would be enough. The man patted him on the shoulder as he walked off and Jack felt strangely comforted by the motion. He hadn't noticed the other members of the expedition distancing themselves from him, but he had been in his head a lot.

  Now he was aware, he did feel as if people were smiling at him a little more. Granted that might have been them laughing at his mistake a moment ago but a smile was a smile. He met up with Turrel and asked about the scent that Jackson had mentioned.

  “Ahh yes, I am not sure if it is superstition or not but people believe that the plant can deter riftspawn. No scientific proof as far as I am aware, possibly in a certain rift some riftspawn might find the scent off-putting and avoid it? It is one of those things that can't hurt and makes people feel safer,” Turrel explained.

  Jack nodded. That made sense. He would still knock on wood every time he made a stupid statement that would jinx himself. It made no sense but better to be safe than sorry, he thought. He pulled out the chunk of wood Turrel had given him from inside his coat and asked Turrel how much he needed.

  “Well you are going to need to work that out yourself, let's start small. Fuel for cooking and to save on fire mana for heating the turtle. More than the first plant and less than the second?” Turrel said with a smile as he took a few very quick steps backward.

  “Funny,” Jack said as he set the piece of wood on the ground in front of him. His prismatic upgrade had affected more than just his vision and while the effect was much smaller, it still impacted how much control he had over his own pathways.

  He had been playing with it a little while he had been charging gems, but his focus had been much more on the external aspects than it had on the internal. While his inattention had probably been the main cause of the giant kalo tree, his control was definitely a factor as well.

  Everything was more sensitive, he had gotten used to how mana flowed through his system but now it was different. If he tried to guide it the way he did before, instead of a smooth flow of water, it was like a torrent flooding his pathways.

  The amount of mana hadn't increased but how quickly he could move or even halt the flow was so much more. He was adapting slowly but had the spark of an idea the last time he activated the growth ability. He wanted to see how that first connection point worked in more detail, that first moment when the mana left his body and with purpose connected to the plant.

  He slowly reached forward and, with an intense and deliberate action, pulled a tiny thread of mana away from his circulating vortex. Moving it as delicately and slowly as possible, he leaned in. Watching intensely at the moment his finger touched the piece of wood, he focused on the thought of growth and pictured a small branch growing out of the side of the chunk of wood.

  The mana flowed down his pathway and, there at the tip of his finger, the path it was moving changed. Before it left his body completely but after the ability was activated, it moved rapidly, but Jack caught sight of a large arcing swirl and a snaking motion as it left his body.

  As the mana transferred into the wood, in his enhanced vision it looked as if a tiny firework was set off. Like cracks racing through a piece of glass, they zig-zagged and forked away from his touch point. Never did their paths cross, they simply spread out into every pore and fibre of the wood.

  For a split second, he saw what he had been hoping to see. It was only a moment, but he had seen a thread of mana connecting the pathway in his finger to the mana surging through the piece of wood.

  A pimple-like bulge pushed through the bark on the piece of wood, filled with mana, and a small branch burst forth. Jack laughed as he reached forward and snapped the small branch off the larger piece. Picking the larger piece up, he handed it back to Turrel and stabbed his twig into the damp soil beneath him.

  “Good work on the control there, Jack, but we might need a little more than that,” Turrel joked as he took the chunk handed to him.

  “I am trying something here, you know, learning and showing independence. Anyway, give me a second.” Jack leaned back in and activated his focus, zeroing in on the flow of mana inside his own body. The world around him quietened and the colour faded slightly as he felt every inch of his own mana pathways.

  Jack had partially zoned in because he wanted to act while he could remember what he saw in detail. The other part was because he had a feeling what he was about to try might be a little silly.

  Not knowing how much something would grow when you started to guess how much mana to use was frustrating him. Sure, he could try something small and then adjust, but then he would have to adjust the shape again and it seemed inefficient.

  He saw there was a moment where he was connected while the ability was pushing mana into the wood. Surely he could maintain that connection somehow? If he had enough control, he could slowly trickle mana into the thing he was growing and adjust as needed. It was simple, right?

  He practised first, trying to pull a small amount of mana away from the swirling mass inside him. He held it in the palm of his hand. Then he tried to hold that steady while he peeled another small thread away, he had tried this before but had never been able to hold two separate threads at once.

  It moved slowly and, with the combination of his improved sensitivity and focus, he could hold both threads simultaneously. Moving them at the same time was almost impossible, if he moved one the other stopped. If he tried to move both by force of will, they slipped out of his control and raced away.

  He wasn't sure how long he sat there for, but he felt a tap on his shoulder and turned to see Turrel staring at him.

  “Sorry, sorry, I’m ready now,” Jack said, snapping his mind back into focus.

  He was pretty sure he could do it, if he kept both of them close to the tip of his finger then he should have enough time.

  He leaned in and touched his index finger to the stick in the ground. He slowly moved one of the threads forward and pictured a thick tree trunk.

  The skill activated and the mana was pulled through the tip of his finger and into the stick.

  No longer needing to hold the first thread, he quickly tried to merge the second into the first.

  Mana arced through the stick and roots shot down and into the ground as it started to slowly grow.

  The two threads almost seemed to repel each other as they neared each other, he struggled to pull them together as the mana was consumed.

  Struggling, he clamped down with his mind and forced the two streams of mana to join.

  They connected and he immediately felt a draw through on his pathway. He smiled, it was working.

  The stick grew, from a small sapling to a tiny tree in the blink of an eye.

  The bigger tree needed more mana to grow. The pull on his pathway increased.

  Jack felt a rising panic as he tried to slow the flow of mana with all of his mental strength.

  He failed. The now Jack-sized tree kept growing and as it did, the pull on his vortex increased.

  His vortex adjusted shape to keep up with the demand, the tree's rapid growth continued as Jack struggled against the flow of mana.

  He was panicked, he couldn't shut off the connection, it was too powerful for him. He racked his mind for a way to stop it.

  He had to get the mana out of his system somehow. He activated his purge ability and tried to expel everything inside his body all at once.

  A puff of green filled his vision as the pull on his pathways immediately stopped, Jack collapsed backwards.

  As the green faded from his vision, he stared up into the sky above him. Looming high above him was a now massive tree, its enormous leafy canopy stretched out above him and blocked out the sky entirely.

  Jack laughed to himself as the adrenaline faded from his body, it wasn't perfect but technically it did work. A little tweaking and he was sure he could get it right.