Chapter 115: Natural Builders (1)
Shroom A froze in shock, certain that its life was all over... and just as it had found a reason to live.
However, as it closed its eyes, waiting for its demise, it felt a strange warmth cover its body.
"I've healed any injuries that you may have sustained," the Lighted One said to it, before announcing to the rest, "If you've been injured line up in front of me and I'll heal you."
***
~Pagan's already playing the role of bad cop, so I might as well use it to my advantage,~ Lucius thought to himself after making the announcement.
Ever since he had figured out he could reduce the intensity of spells, he began applying it to everything. This included solar cleanse as well.
The spell he was currently using was nothing more than a light show, in actual fact, very little solar energy went into it, and hence it didn't do much more than cover the patient's body in light.
"Oi, are you okay?" Lucius asked, his train of thought being disturbed as he noticed that the shroom he had just healed was still staring at him.
"If there's nothing wrong with you do you mind moving aside, there are others who require healing," he said after the shroom failed to reply, slightly shoving it to the side. He could feel it falter to his touch, he figured that perhaps it was just that much tired.
In a few minutes, a line of shrooms had formed in front of him, and he had begun healing them. Though from his solar pulses, he could tell that none of them were actually injured which made him wonder why exactly they all seemed so bent on having the spell performed on them.
~Perhaps they want to test the power for themselves?~ he thought as he watched the shrooms chatter to each other in excitement.
"So about my session," Asclepius whispered once Lucius had finished healing the last shroom.
"Ahh, yes. It's nearly dark. Call Pagan to come take watch," Lucius replied.
Once Pagan came back, the atmosphere visibly changed, the shrooms were tenser than they had been before. And the few of them that had even begun talking to each other went silent once again.
"I'll be back in a few minutes," Lucius said, before going back towards the camp with Asclepius.
"Okay, since this is your first time, you probably won't last more than five minutes. The burning sensation is normal, just bare with it," he explained as the two of them sat in front of the main cottage.
Asclepius nodded her head in understanding, before touching Lucius's body.
[⚠ Target lacks certain requirements.]
[Continue Shared Photosynthesis at 50% efficiency?]
~Yes.~
[Absorbing 381 Helios per second.]
Just like Lucius had predicted, the session lasted for a little over five minutes. Though it was not like he could go past that even if he wanted to as his mind was still recuperating from today's earlier session.
As he carried the unconscious Asclepius into the cottage, he opened up his system shop to check his current helios balance.
~3.7 helios, huh? That's about 37,000 Evo points~ he thought, before purchasing 10,000 Evo points and allocating them to the milestone quest.
┏━━━━━━༻❁༺━━━━━━┓
─────⋅☾ Daily Quests ☽⋅─────•
[Complete]
<Kill> 300 exp
< Eat> 300 exp
<Absorb catalyst> 200 exp
─────⋅☾ Milestone ☽⋅─────•
<Buy 978,680 Evo points> 600exp [Unlock ??? in item shop]
┗━━━━━━༻❁༺━━━━━━┛
~Just 97 more days,~ he thought to himself with a sigh. ~Perhaps now that the leaflings are all evolving, I can start scouring the forest for high-quality meat,~ he thought to himself. He really needed to find something that gave him higher efficiency increases, or it would take forever to get anything done.
***
By the time the two groups of shrooms had brought back the required materials, it was already dark.
Lucius led the 8 groups towards sections of the forest around to the main camp, allocating spaces for each of the eight groups. Which formed a sort of octagon around the camp.
Though it seemed a bit harsh to be using them as buffers to protect the main camp, he hardly knew them. And if they could be used as fodder shields to protect his children, he was going to do it without any remorse.
~But still, these are a lot of mushrooms,~ he thought to himself, watching as each shroom carried at least 3 mushrooms the same size as them on their backs.
~I wonder what a shroom's base stats are,~ he thought to himself, realizing that these mushrooms must be heavy for them.
"Okay, you guys can start building this group's housing," he ordered, stopping at what he was calling the first pillar of the 8 camps.
The chieftains got together, concentrating on the mushrooms that the shrooms had placed on the ground. The area was right beside a tree and hidden behind a thicket of shrubs, so it was quite out of sight. Though a large mushroom tower would probably attract attention anyway.
After a few moments of silence, the mushrooms began morphing, turning into a sort of past before fusing into one giant blob. The chieftains then began moving their arms in sync with slow practiced motions, and the paste began raising into the air.
However the whole process was very slow, in fact, it took a good 30 minutes before the general structure of the mushroom tower was even recognizable. And once it was, the chieftains stopped there, breathing heavily as if they had just run a marathon.
"Why did you stop?" Lucius asked. Even though he wasn't sure how the structure ought to look once it was finished, it was clear that it was nowhere close to completion.
"Morphing vegetation is tiring. We apologize for the delay, however, if we continue at this rate, it might compromise the strength of the completed structure," one of the chieftains explained.
"Lighted One, allow me to dispose of these... things," Pagan said in an annoyed tone, before moving towards them with his crux out.
"Pagan, unless I order so, you are to leave every single one of them untouched. They are under my protection, remember," Lucius said, to which the shrooms sighed in relief.
"Forgive me Lighted One," Pagan replied, however, he still stared at the chieftains as if they were a nuisance.
"Go check up on the other camps. I told them not to wander, go make sure they're listening," he said after.
"I will take my leave, Lighted One," Pagan said, genuflecting before leaving Lucius's presence.