Chapter 8 - I Didn’t Sign Up For This

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Germinate

Lvl: 1/30

Category: Race

Type: Active

Xera Consumption: Interchangeable

Buffs: None

Potato race unique skill. When activated, enables the user to produce potato ‘seeds’ out of themself. These seeds will then grow into new potatoes. Options available for germination.

Identical: 10 Xera Consumption per potato

Identical. The potato seed will grow into the exact same form as the ‘parent’ potato.

Each potato seed has a 1/100 chance of becoming sentient. Sentient potatoes can communicate with the ‘parent’ and inherits its parent’s {misc} skills. Sentient potatoes may/may not be granted a class depending on their type.

Each potato seed has a 1/500 chance of unlocking a new type. This type will then be added into your potato dex, which can be found in this skill window. Once a new potato type is unlocked, you will be able to constantly produce it.

Non sentient potatoes will retain the parent’s {Potato Battery} skill.

Currently, it takes 180 minutes (minimum) for an identical potato to be grown. Different environments may cause the seed to grow slower.

As skill level rises, growth speed, durability and chance for sentience will increase. Upon reaching the required level, this skill will evolve.

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The seed was a strange being. Ten minutes after I’d given birth to- or pooped out the seed, it slowly began to change on its own.

Firstly, cracks formed along the outer shell of the seed. Spindly roots crawled out and stretched around the body, forming a protective outer layer. Through the tiny holes I could see some sort of green mush like substance grow out of the seed. It came out from one singular point and, just under an hour later, the seed had been completely inside outed by the substance. The familiar knobbly skin signifying that it was indeed a potato rose out of the flesh like a worm crawling out of the ground.

By the way, that was not how a normal potato would have grown. Or was supposed to grow.

I gawked at the object in front of me. It was unevenly round, knobbled, and brown. It was a potato.

And it had come out of me.

Oh god, this was literally my child.

I cringed and sighed. I wanted to shake my fist at the heavens and scream out; God! Why have you forsaken meeeee!

What had my life come to?

Back when I was a baron…

The realisation that I was beginning to sound like an old man hit me hard. But still, I continued.

Back when I was a baron, the happiest moments of my life were idly strolling around my castle, proudly watching my servants work. They would bow as they saw me, before doubling their work speed when I was around. Those were my servants. Mine.

I treated them well. As long as they performed their tasks, I made sure they were all rewarded. Each of them had shared living spaces, and were paid a decent amount of gold. I found them tolerable. In fact, I would even go as far as to say that I liked most of them.

At least, enough to talk to them.

Sometimes.

But the main point was, I enjoyed watching them at work. I don’t know, ok. It was a weird feeling. It felt like I was complete. Like I… wasn’t alone.

‘Argh!’

What was I doing? I would’ve never admitted to something like that when I was a baron. I guessed in a way, becoming a potato had kind of been a good thing?

The negatives, however, far outweighed the positives.

‘Screw you, God!’

“Is this the result of your skill?” Kearan asked, fondling the baby potato in his hand. It hadn’t grown to full size yet.

‘Ahem.’ I turned my attention to him. ‘Yes. I can kind of produce-’ I stopped halfway when I realised how stupid that sounded. Desperately, I tried to reword my sentence. ‘I can… create… grow… potatoes?’ It came out a mess, but he didn’t seem to care.

He was more interested in the actual potato I had given birth to- grown. “This… It’s exactly the same as you.”

Ah, yes. On the plus side, Kearan didn’t refer to me as a female. To him, I was simply an ‘it’. Not much better, but, hey. Beggars can’t be choosers.

I wanted to roll my eyes. But suddenly, Kearan became interested.

“Wait. Is this alive? Like you?” He scoffed. “Seriously. What are you going to do with this skill? Create an army of potatoes?”

That… actually wasn’t a half bad idea. Of course I didn’t tell him that, though.

Speaking of which, the potato- you know what, I’m just going to call it an e-potato for now. I felt some sort of connection to it. Not lovey dovey or physical connection, but more of a spiritual one. It was easier than other objects to ‘feel’ with my telekinesis, and I had the feeling I would be able to tell it apart from other potatoes.

Definitely not sentient, though.

I couldn’t feel an ounce of life from the e-potato.

‘It’s not alive.’ I said.

“Oh.” Kearan didn’t seem disappointed or happy. Then, just as I was thinking I was done for the day, he turned toward me with an evil grin on his face. “Just stay right there. I’m not done with you yet.”

Dear me, what was he going to try now? Whatever it was, I didn’t like the sound of it.

He placed the e-potato beside me and disappeared into the background. I had yet to figure out how he did that. Or even what it was. To pass the time, I began brainstorming.

Was it teleportation? That would explain how he appeared everywhere without warning. But then again, if he had teleportation, couldn’t he have brought May and Riyan to the town? Or even rescue the people himself? It couldn’t be teleportation.

Invisibility, perhaps? Or probably some way to hide his scent- not that I could smell- and sound. The ability to mask one’s presence. Wow that sounded cool. I grumbled to myself. Why couldn’t I have had a cool skill like that instead of these trashy ones I had now?

“...cook something.” Kearan’s voice floated through the doorway, and he trudged into the bar with Edith by his side. They were having a conversation and it seemed like Kearan was explaining something to him.

“Alright.” Edith replied, striding purposefully towards the desk I lay on.

He looked me straight in the non-existent eyes and placed a burly hand atop of me, encasing me in darkness.

‘Wait! Wait! Kearan! Help me! What’s he doing?’ I began to shout in alarm.

“Uh, Edith?” Kearan asked hesitantly.

“Hm?” He took a deep breath and gripped my body firmly.

“Wrong one. It’s the other one.”

Slowly, the grip relaxed and I saw the light once again. I breathed a sigh of relief and silently thanked Kearan, my saviour.

Edith, now grasping the e-potato in his massive hands grunted, and a soft red glow appeared. The glow lit up his hands and a moment later, a loud popping noise sounded throughout the room. The smell of smoke followed and as he unclasped his hands, he revealed the black hull of the epotato. Its skin was charred to a crip and smoke wafted out from the centre as he broke it in two.

I shuddered.

If not for Kearan, that would’ve been me.

Edith sniffed the golden inside and made a face of delight, before taking a huge bite out of it.

‘Huh?’ I asked no one in particular.

‘Huhhhhhh? Did you just-’ I stared at him in shock, then turned to Kearan. ‘Did he just-’ My brain took a few seconds to process exactly what happened.

‘You just… ate my child?’

Edith nodded. “Oh, this potato? Yeah! It was pretty good…” His voice trailed off and his eyes glazed over, like he was looking at something far away in the distance.

“This isn’t a normal potato, is it?”

“What happened?” Kearan asked, gripping him by the shoulder. “You alright?” Cold eyes stared menacingly at me and he whispered; “If anything happens to him…”

What? How was this my fault? I didn’t ask him to eat my child. Not that I cared that much. It was my child, but then again, it really wasn’t. It wasn’t alive, first of all. The only thing I felt was the weak connection between us break. I couldn't ‘feel’ its presence anymore. Also, was that fire magic? Damn, I was jealous.

“No...” Edith said curiously. “I’m fine. It’s just… I got a fifty percent xera regeneration buff. For ten minutes. Was that supposed to happen?”

“Perhaps.” Kearan was no longer concerned with Edith. Instead, his gaze was fixated on me. “You can go now, Edith. Thanks for the help.”

Shrugging, Edith took another bite of the steaming e-potato and left the room.

“You. What was your name again?”

‘J-June.’ I answered hesitantly. Was this it? Was this the moment where he finally accepted me as his lord? The moment where he became my loyal subordinate and swore to protect me no matter the situation?

“How many can you make?”

‘Yes, of course you can be second only to me.’ I said proudly.

“What?”

Oh, shit. That didn’t sound like a pledge of loyalty.

‘Uh, sorry. That was for the wrong person?’ I tried.

“I’m the only person here…” Then he shook his head. “I asked you, how many of those potatoes can you make? It used up magical power, I’m assuming.”

Magical power? Did he just say I had-

‘Hey, Kearan.’ I said slowly. ‘What do you mean ‘magical power’? I’ve never had magic power. Ever.’

He frowned. “You don’t have xera? But that’s not right. You need xera to use skills-”

‘Xera?’ I practically shouted. ‘Magical power is xera?’

Kearan cocked his head sideways and raised an eyebrow. “Well, they’re practically the same thing… Now can we get back to the question? How many potatoes can you make?”

‘Oh.’ I didn’t know what to say, and decided to leave the magic power issue to another day. But still, magic power! I almost squealed with glee like a little girl.

I activated my status window and was surprised to see my xera resting at my max, which was a hundred. The gears turned in my head and I realised, since it had been a while after I used ‘Germinate’, the xera had already regenerated. Whether or not this was the normal xera regeneration rate, my passive skill ‘Potato Battery’ most likely had some influence.

Thankfully, I remembered that the skill window for ‘Germinate’ had mentioned xera cost before. ‘It costs ten xera to produce one potato seed of the ‘identical’ type, which is the one Edith just ate.’

“Ok, ok.” Kearan was obviously intrigued. “What’s your xera cap?”

‘If you mean my maximum, it’s a hundred.’ I sighed. These peasants with their strange terms.

“That means you’d be able to produce ten potato seeds before you run out of xera.”

Wow! At least he knew how to do simple arithmetic.

‘Right. I also have this skill called ‘Potato Battery’ which increases my xera regeneration rate. I’m already at maximum capacity.’

“Ok, ok. Do you have a specific time it takes for each potato to grow?” He asked, burning some numbers into the table with his finger. So he could do fire magic too.

‘Three hours.’ I replied, referring to my skill window which I’d brought out. “Three hours in the best environment. It can take longer, though.”

“Three hours…” He murmured, continuing to draw on the table.

A few seconds later, he dusted his hands and picked me up. I saw a glint of excitement in his eyes. “It’ll work, for now. When your skills level up, it’ll probably become much more efficient, though.”

‘What’ll work?’ If this was what I thought it was...

“The solution, of course. You’re the solution!” He was almost bouncing in joy.

‘The solution to what?’ I asked, exasperated.

“The solution to our food problem, of course! You’re coming with us on the rescue mission. Out into No Man’s Land. It’s filled with terrifying monsters and creatures, but with you by our side, we have one less thing to worry about. Food!” He paused to take a breath.

“In other words, you’ll be spewing potatoes out for us twenty-four seven. We’ll protect you with our lives, since you’re so valuable.”

I fizzed out a little bit. Not quite the pledge of loyalty I was hoping for, but at least I’d be protected and treasured.

And then I remembered the pain of producing one.

And I realised this deal didn’t sound so good after all.

‘Nooooooooooooo!’