"Don't do it, then." Tesla slapped Tulland's hand as he moved the clippers towards a branch. "If you don't know why you are pruning, don't prune."
"You told me to take away the branches I didn't want! You said to feel it." Tulland held up the clippers close to the Tesla's face and shook them. "I was feeling it. Like you said. Why can't I cut this?"
"If you were feeling things correctly, you'd know why. Now take a walk. Come back when you aren't so dang whiny about things."
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Tulland dropped the clippers and walked off without another word. It had been this way for a while now. Kelsa was an infuriating teacher. Most of their classes progressed not on pre-set tracks but with sudden alterations from Kelsa, and all of Kelsa's personal input appeared to have been related to loving plants. Not just liking them. Not just appreciating them. Absolutely loving them with every fiber of her being. Continue your journey with Freewebnovel
She didn't even differentiate between one plant and the next in her all-encompassing love for the damn things. She loved shrubs as much as she loved trees, and liked both as much as she liked mosses and flowers. Tulland, who had never really interacted with any plant in way that wasn't strictly utilitarian, was annoyed with this at first. These days, he was enraged. There was simply no way to get the woman to tell him what to do without wading through an hour's worth of discussion of fern feelings.
For her part, the woman was patient but clearly exhausted with Tulland's inability to take the inner lives of plants seriously. He wanted to help her out, but it was impossible for him to understand the will and emotions of plants the way she did. This had all been a few hours into the process, but after two weeks trapped in her garden, he was beginning to go a bit mad.
Could we be trapped here forever? If I don't understand whatever she's teaching, will I be stuck?
Of course not. In fact, you must be understanding at least some of what she's teaching, or you would have been kicked out by now. You are growing, just in some way you can't see.
It's still incredibly frustrating.
So is dying. I'd advise you to choose the lesser of two evils here.
You know the worst part? She won't stop taking my Chimera Sleeve. Every day she takes it and just stares at it while she talks. Sometimes for hours. Won't tell me why. Just says she thinks it's the only very special plant in my whole collection. She doesn't come out and say the others are trash, but I think she thinks that way.
You know she doesn't.
Only because she couldn't hate any plant. But if she could, she'd hate mine.
Tulland went on whining for a few minutes until he was partially cooled off, then walked a bit more until he started to get bored of it. That had turned out to be the trick of getting back to work in earnest. There wasn't anything else to do, and his brain simply couldn't tolerate the boredom of yet another calming stroll anymore. Slapping his cheeks, Tulland turned back towards his teacher and got ready for another two hours of bickering.
When he got back, Kelsa was sitting still for once, ignoring her plants as she faced away from him staring at the sky.
"I'm not trying to be frustrating, you know," Kelsa said. "It's just that I've only ever interacted with plants in one way. My way. It was always the right way, up until now."
"Are you sure? There must have been other approaches," Tulland said.
"Of course there were. And they were all wrong. I continued to grow where every other farmer stalled, until I had changed the composition of life on an entire planet. I knew my way was absolutely right for decades before I passed. Except now, it's wrong and I've never been more frustrated."
"I'm not sure it's wrong, exactly. I just can't learn it."
"If you can't learn it, then it's wrong. Wrong for you, at least. You have the stats and the skills to understand this if it was something you could learn. I am coming to believe that we've been wasting time pushing you towards my exact understanding of things."
"Then what do we do?" Tulland felt a growing dread that The Infinite would take her admission of failure as a reason to take him from this place, not having gained anything. "What makes sense to try next?"
"I'm thinking of that now. Or I was trying too, before someone became very noisy." Kelsa's shoulders sagged. "You know, it used to be that I'd spend months with a plant before understanding it, back when I was even younger than you. When the description would finally gain the befriended quality, it would be worth all that time. I suppose I've gotten impatient as I aged."
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"Befriended?" Tulland tilted his head. "I don't know what that means."
"Oh, you must. When you've finally tamed enough to do real work with a plant, it gains the befriended tag near its name in the description."
"Ah. Yeah, that. Mine's a little different." Tulland decided not to tell her what his plants used to say next to their names once he had them good and under control. "Not quite as nice."
Kelsa's head whipped around. "Tell me what it said, Tulland. Now."
Tulland shifted his weight foot to foot, uncomfortable with the line of questioning. There was no way to dodge answering though.
"Subjugated," Tulland spit out the word as quickly as he could. "That's what it would say when I finally grew a plant in a way that brought it under my control."
Kelsa's face ran through disgust, offense, anger, and frustration before finally settling on bothered, annoyed, and regret.
"Of course it did. Because plants are things to you," Kelsa said flatly.
"Sorry."
"No, I'm sorry, Tulland. It was obvious a week ago that you didn't interact with plants in the same way, and seventy levels in, there's no chance your class would either. Especially if you think about plants as subjugated. We'll have to take a completely different tack, now."
Kelsa led him over to a bush. "See this bush? It's wild. I went on a walk and found it yesterday while you were sleeping. What do you want it to be?"
"I told you, I don't know. I can't hear what the plant is saying when it grows like that."
"No, you fool. That's the mistake we were making before. You can't hear it, and you shouldn't try. What do you, Tulland Lowstreet, want it to be? Forget respect and love. What would make it the most useful for you?"
It was a bush. There was no getting around how little use Tulland had for a normal, weapon-less bush in his life. In normal circumstances, he'd never grow one. That left him thinking about how he'd grow one if it was his only chance. The first thing he would need it to be was fast-growing, reaching high towards the sun to grab as much energy as possible. After that, he'd just need it to not take up much room, or to need much energy.
After a week of modifying plants in an attempt to match a botanical tune Tulland just couldn't hear, this was easy. The clippers flashed out, trimming away everything that wasn't useful to that one vision. He was left with a stalk bearing a conical set of branches, widening as it reached upwards to catch more sun while leaving plenty of room to have things planted around the base.
When it was done, it was nothing like Kelsa's work. It was not perfect or pretty. He was reasonably sure she hated ever part of his modifications. And still, in that moment, something finally clicked.
Vicious Pruning has been absorbed by Farmer's Intuition. All functions of the skill have been strengthened to match the higher level of the consuming skill, and will be integrated into Farmer's Intuition as a new form of mental guidance.
Vicious Pruning allows you an intuitive sense of what parts of plants can be removed without compromising its ability to fulfill your needs. Plants pruned in this manner will take damage, temporarily lowering their contribution to your overall farm value. They will also grow faster, and often gain an eventual value higher than they could have otherwise had before modification.
Plants modified to emphasize certain traits may or may not interact with Botanical Engineer in unusual ways.
"What is it, Tulland? I can tell something happened," Kelsa asked.
"It's a new skill. A pretty good one, from the looks of it. It synergizes with everything else I do. I think if we just push a little further, it might…"
"We won't have time." Kelsa almost leapt towards Tulland. "You have to listen to me. It's about your…"
You have brought a single underdeveloped facet of your class up to an acceptable level through expert training. You will exit the zone momentarily.
Tulland waved the notification out of the way. Something was wrong. Kelsa's face was screwed up in pain.
"Can't threaten an old woman who's already dead, you know," Kelsa spat. Tulland wasn't sure who she was talking to, but it wasn't him. She turned back to face him a moment later, spitting out each word with difficulty as she pressed forward. "Tulland. Focus. On. The. Chi…"
Tulland felt a sudden sensation of being blown to pieces, then reassembled in a new place and moving at a much higher velocity. He would have tumbled for a while if Necia hadn't caught him.
"Whoa, there, buddy." Necia set Tulland down on the moist ground of the thicket. "What happened? The arch doesn't work?"
"What are you talking about?"
"You stepped in and then got blown back. Is the arch broken?"
"No. I've been gone for… hell. Weeks. Gardening with an old woman."
"An old woman gardener?" Necia barked out a laugh. "You must have terrified her."
"You have it the wrong way around. She was… I don't know what she was. Something besides a normal old woman, for sure. At the end there, I'm pretty sure she was picking a fight with The Infinite."
Necia nodded approvingly.
"I've known some old ladies like that. I used to want to be one," Necia said longingly.
"What changed?" Tulland asked, half afraid of imagining a Kelsa-style Necia.
"I probably won't get to be an old lady." Necia shrugged in resignation. "Anyway, did you get anything good?"
"I'm not sure. I think I'll have to try it out on the farm to be sure." Tulland rubbed his head. "Was I really only gone for a second?"
"If that. I don't think I even saw you disappear."
"That's good news in a way. Come on." Tulland started walking out of the thicket. "We should hurry."
"That eager to get back to your farm? Fine. Let's go."
"No, Necia. Our date, remember? I was worried about missing it. Now I don't have to. Plus, you know," Tulland gave Necia a quick squeeze, "I haven't seen you for weeks."