After having checked his status, Argul made himself ready for a long night of waiting, or for him, a rather not-so-long night as he could cheat and perceive the time differently. It had already been multiple days, but he didn’t notice because he somehow kept missing the change between day and night. 

Throughout the night, he got surprised to watch the amount of water around the few hovering seeds grow until they started to descend. The drops of water grew larger than he had imagined them to grow, and he really wondered if one day there would just be too much water. But then, the moongrass could change itself, so that likely wasn’t going to happen.

Argul got a bad idea. “You know there is normal rain, and there is my rain. Guess I have to declare my seeds as wet zones!”

Alyra gave herself a facepalm. “I hate you, mom….”

Hah! She even knew what he meant. The girl had to be worse in the head than him… Actually, considering that she knew everything Argul knew, Alyra definitely was at least as weird as him.

At the end of the night, a new seed pod exploded, and two hours into daylight, you could see the first leaves of the new grass batches coming out of the ground. The grass was spreading relatively fast, likely because of his growth boost.

His changed perception was like watching a sped-up version of the world, like a video he could watch at 5 times the speed, which was a good thing because it didn’t look like Argul needed sleep, and he would hate to wait for 10 hours to see something. 

He still knew what was happening without even seeing it, but he was used to being able to see, and just knowing some of the stuff was still weird to him.

A bit before noon, Argul prepared himself for his next plant. He had to create 4 more plants for this floor, so Algur made a plan. 

As he was still testing how his ribm worked, he wanted to try creating a tree and at least one flower. His grass already had stupidly overpowered abilities, so something more standard, like a bush, would be excellent. For the last plant, he would just ask Alyra. If he already had a daughter, he might as well do some things together with her.

Argul started with the design for his flower. Last time he had only wanted grass and everything else he had left to chance, so it made sense to test how precisely he could make some things. The flowers should be able to coexist with his moongrass, and he wanted them to have large blossoms that opened around the height of the seed pots. 

He initiated the ribm process, excited about what nonsense he would create this time.

Argul worked much faster this time as he more or less knew what he had to do and waited for the flowers to grow. The system was also helping him and improved the rate at which he was able to apply any improvements to his skills.

The resulting flowers had a silver not stalk – it was wooden, you see – that opened up into a large sky blue blossom with a red shaded pistil. On the bottom side of the bloom, the petals were covered by large silver leaves. Every flower had only one blossom, and besides the leaves under the petals, they had only two other leaves.

All in all, 7 flowers had grown, two large and five smaller ones that didn’t have enough space to grow underneath the taller flowers. After the two large flowers finished developing, they each shot out 2 large seeds that began to descend at roughly the same angle in random directions. 

Argul was fascinated by his new creation. They were the biggest nonsense from a scientific viewpoint, but they worked, lived, and managed to be despite this. It was beautiful in a weird way.

He noticed that silver seemed to be this moon’s green. The not stalk - let’s call it trunk instead - the trunk of the flower just looked odd and out of place. One thing was sure, though, you couldn’t accidentally step on Argul’s flowers.

Alyra’s avatar slid into his view. It had waist-long hair now. “I don’t want to interrupt your thoughts, but I can’t decide if the flowers are beautiful or just weird.”

Argul nodded knowingly, not that Alyra could see it. “I know what you mean. The trunks just tick me off somehow, but I still like it.”

She hopped onto one of the flowers. “Yeah, and the pistils just scream, ‘Take me.’”

Argul was fascinated by how 3-dimensional Alyra could make the screens appear.

They were both silent for a while.

A problem dawned on him as he thought about his flower. He had still created something with an earth flower in mind, so his flower would need a method to move its pollen, and the floor wasn’t big enough for any significant air currents to form. A solution was required. “Hey Aly, if you could choose a bird, bee, bumblebee, or some kind of fly thing?”

The avatar cocked its head. “Bumblebees, they are cute. Why do you ask?”

Argul looked at the blossoms. “Well, we need something to carry the pollen, don’t we?”

A lightbulb appeared beside the avatar. “Oh yeah, they won’t grow new seeds until they are fertilized.”

Argul smiled to himself. “You will have your bumblebees in one hour!”

This made Alyra jump in excitement. “Thanks, Mom!”

If only she knew… 

Alyra would definitely not get her bumblebees. No, she would get Argul’s bumblebees.

That she called him mom was still a tad bit irritating, but then it wasn’t that much of a problem.

Before Argul started with his bumblebees, he still needed to name his flowers and chose Larna. After naming them, he identified one of the larger ones.

Larna

A small type of plant. 

This flower grows in moongrass grassland in regions with low gravity. They have a, well, small trunk to support the pressure created by the large seeds and to store water in. The petals on the bottom side of their blossoms are framed by large silver leaves. 

These leaves curl around moongrass seeds to catch them and take the conjured water for the flower. Afterward, they push the moongrass seed away and slightly toward the ground so that the seed still has a chance to survive. 

The Larna flower leaves a sweet scent in the air.

Larna and moongrass had quite an interesting relationship with each other. Argul wouldn’t call it symbiotic, as the Larna reduced the survival chances of the grass seed. The Larna was more like that friend who always had to borrow stuff from you.

With the naming done, he started working on the bumblebees. They were more interesting than his flowers, in his opinion. Flowers didn’t move all that much and weren’t quite as entertaining due to that.

Average-sized bumblebees were a bit small for Larna, but luckily nobody had said Argul had to create normal bumblebees, so he planned to make them about fist-sized. 

He knew Alyra wanted them to be cute, so he made them look like something boys would enjoy watching. 

Like the good parent he was, he gave them something that looked like full plate chitin armor and colored it black with white stripes on the top side of the armor. Not zebra-like, more bumblebee natural. 

Argul waited until his mana pool was full again and called Alyra. “Aly, it’s bumblebee time.”

Her avatar simply phased into existence. “I’m watching!”

Then 5 bumblebees kind of grew from one spot. 

They were small initially, and you wouldn’t notice the heavy chitin armor unless you knew it was there. That is until they grew to their full size, which took about 3 minutes. 

5 fist-sized, heavily armored bumblebees took off to the air with a mighty and deep ‘sssmmm.’

They looked like they were going to war. 

Alyra stayed silent for a minute, and then her avatar threw its arms in the air. “You know they are supposed to be cute and fluffy!”

She was right. They were typically supposed to look cute and fluffy. “Maybe your bumblebees are cute and fluffy, but these are mine, so what did you expect?”

Alayra was a bit at a loss here. “They just don’t look like some badass dark knight that is about to attack you normally! Though they do make a nice and comforting sound while flying.”

He nodded in satisfaction. “See, there is always something positive.”

The avatar waved him off. “Yeah, yeah.” Then she became excited again. “Can I at least name them?”

Argul smiled to himself. “Of course, go for it!”

A rocket launcher appeared in the hands of the avatar. “Let’s call them Negator bumblebees, or Negator for short. If you want to know why, just identify them.”

And so Argul did while wondering what the rocket launcher was about.

Negator Bumblebee

A small-sized animal. This insect lives in low-gravity regions and consumes the nectar of flowers and other blossoms. Negator Bumblebees have strong and heavy chitin armor that is black with silver stripes on the top side of the armor. Not a lot in their level range can harm them, and even for higher leveled predators, it often takes more work to bring down a Negator than it is worth. 

Negators are primarily friendly and tend to run away on any signs of aggression. That is until you come near their favorite flowers, then you are in for a heavy beating, and not just by one of the fellows. Every Negator that sees you near a favorite flower will attack you until you leave their territory. 

Favorite flowers of Negators tend to grow up to 100% larger than others of their kind, and Negators build burrows near them to live in. 

He mentally winked at Alyra. “Aren’t they quite the handful?”

Question marks appeared around the head of the avatar. “Heh? I don’t get— Ohhh, because they are fist-sized. That one was a new kind of bad mom.”

Argul sighed. “There has to be something I am good at and see, joking is not part of that category.”

Alyra just shook her head and turned away from him.

They both calmed down and watched the Negators do Negator things. 

Just imagine heavily armored bumblebees in low gravity. It’s like the difference between driving a boat down a slow and calm river and going whitewater rafting. Everything just loses the edge that higher gravity has.

 Before planning some kind of tree, Argul decided to check his quests.

Quest completed! 

• Don’t eat that! (1)

• You created an animal. Animals you created won’t have to eat for three days after their creation. STR +2

New quest: 

• Don’t eat that! (2)

• Requirements: Don't eat that! (1)

• Create 5 animals!

And his core moved again, but the feeling was slowly getting better, so it didn’t put him completely next to himself.

He needed clarification on his quest reward. “How does not eating for three days work?”

Alyra nodded sagely. “It’s like they get a buff that lasts three days and feeds them with the surrounding mana.”

Argul thought about this for a second. “So it’s like using ribm inside their stomach to produce food for three days.”

The avatar shrugged. “That’s not exactly right, but it works as a comparison.” 

It was good that Argul didn’t have to worry about food for a bit. It would have been sad if his predator had just killed off all his prey to survive. 

He also should create the other plants as fast as possible. They will still need some time to reproduce and grow, especially the trees.

As for trees, Argul wanted to create something oak-like. 

They would grow a storage space for water underneath their trunk and surround it with roots to seal it. Because of the low gravity, the branches could extend a lot more, and the leaves should be larger.

Argul liked making things larger. 

Just enlarging something from Earth was enough, and bam, everyone would be like, whoa, look at that massive 5-meter spider and get my damn flamethrower. 

Poor little spider made no friends that day…

Back to the tree, it would have particular lower branches where it grows blossoms that become a round fruit upon fertilization. 

Last but not least, he wanted to make the thing as a whole larger. Then he would need to wait again.

Argul had to wait about 75 minutes to regenerate his mana back to 100. 

There were batches of silver coming out of the barren land here and there now that the grass had had some time to grow, and one of the Negators had started to build a burrow.

When Argul began the ribm process, he tried to do something different. 

Wanting more than one tree, he focused on the air and intended to create the seeds and not the whole tree. When he was done, a dozen elongated flat seeds started to grow in the air and drifted in random directions while growing. They began to sink to the ground, and small trees sprouted from them. The trees grew until they were about 1,5 meters tall before they stopped.

It looked like Argul could choose between a few mature plants or more plants that won’t grow to full maturity immediately. 

Of course, the trees had silver leaves that were already as long as a grown man’s forearm and nearly black trunks. 

He was the most excited to see what kind of fruit they would grow, but well, he would have to wait for that. 

Argul identified the tree before he named it.

Plant

This is a large Plant. This tree grows in low-gravity moongrass grasslands. They surround their main branches with conjured soil to grow moongrass on them and ensure water supply. Upon maturity, they grow special lower branches for their blossoms and later fruits.

The fruits contain a lot of sugar to make them an attractive food source, but they still cause most creatures diarrhea to ensure the seeds don’t get digested and are flushed out.

Argul had so many questions. Usually, trees would make their seeds so hard that they won’t get digested, but no, his trees had to cause diarrhea. 

He dubbed them diarrhea trees for their crimes so that they were branded for eternity.

Argul had no idea that his tree would become somewhat popular because of the effects of the fruit in the distant future. However, it did not stop him from ignoring the tree and concentrating on creating some kind of bush.

Argul wanted to create a bush that looked like a perfect bush and would name it Bush. 

In 100 years, children would then see pictures of precisely this bush in their biology books titled ‘The bush,’ and it’s going to be the hit of their day. 

Argul thought of them as around a meter tall and with the branches spread in a way that made it look somewhat like a sphere. 

The bush would bloom white at least once a month, and everyone would be happy, especially the Negators.

Argul repeated the same process as with the trees, just a bit higher to spread the bushes more out. 

He got around 30 spherical bushes around his portal area, and they really were just bushes, not that interesting. How dare they become what he wanted them to be without anything special?

Just to make sure he identified one after they stopped growing.

Bush

A mid-size plant. This is a bush and does nothing else than being a bush and blooming at least once a month. You really found nothing remarkable. Just go on with your day.

The description was somewhat of a critic. It could have just listed what the bush does. Now, the bush just looked sad to Argul.

For the last plant, he wanted another flower, but it was Alyra’s plant, so she had to decide what it would be. “Aly, do you have an idea for a flower to grow?”

Her avatar appeared again, and this time it also had a face, in manga style… She looked at him disapprovingly. “You know, I really don’t understand why you don’t take some of the plants that grew on Earth. I mean, they will change because of the surroundings anyways. Tulips would be nice, though.”

She was right, and Argul had no idea why he didn’t, so he had to improvise an excuse. “I know that I make it really hard for myself right now, but trying to come up with something new sounds more fun. Also, I already have to use the ideas of trees, grass, and flowers as a basis just to have something to work with. Tulips it is then, but like the tree and the Larna, they will bloom all year.”

Alyra shook her head again. “The tree has a name, and you were the one to name it, mom… Still, if you can’t come up with something new, you could just use some earth plant as a basis instead of getting frustrated by racking your crystal too much.”

Argul smiled. “Sure thing!”

She deflated a bit and sighed. “Thanks, mom.”

Argul changed his view to one of the newer batches of silver and started to create the flowers. 

He managed to get 6 tulips, and like everything else, they were, of course, weird. 

They had a silver stalk and leaves, but to quote Argul, “Why in all that is holy are the blossoms light green!”. 

Alyra promptly named them Alien tulips, and that was that. 

Afterward, Argul was left to check his status.

Quest completed! 

• It grows! (2)
• You have created 5 plants! What a nice silver place you have. WIS +2

New Quest: 

• It grows! (3)
• Requirements: It grows! (2) | Floor 3
• Create 25 plants!