—Luneil—

Luneil felt a thrill of triumph. It had worked.

All around him everything, except a single new shoot of grass, was dead.

The ground had been denuded, only a pockmarked brown wasteland remained. He was buzzing with new mana and Lifeforce. But that was not the source of his excitement.

He had created something new. Something actually useful, unlike a certain Sylph who kept on shouting random inanities.

The young shoot wobbled in the breeze like a baby animal finding its legs for the first time. It was a young shoot, barely protruding from the surface.

Placing the seed below ground had taken a minimal amount of Lifeforce and mana. Accelerating its growth by adding Lifeforce had taken more, but would not be necessary in the future. He had the newly germinated seedling's pattern now, and creating a new shoot above ground took the same amount of energy as creating a seed and adding the energy later. The main difference was between more mature grass and this young shoot.

There was a not insignificant gap in mana and Lifeforce between them. If he allowed the sun to provide the energy, he could reap the gains provided later. Literally farming mana and Lifeforce.

He examined the power his body stored, feeling its fluctuating dimensions within him. Half of it should be enough.

The barren earth was suddenly coated in a fresh layer of green. Perfect.

They would be ready in about two weeks and then he could absorb them.

It was another thing he had discovered. Since he had created them, their mana and Lifeforce was technically his. He could remove all of it at any time he wanted, letting the plants dissolve away. No need to destroy the dirt around their roots anymore.

He had tried reverse aging a blade of grass by removing mana and Lifeforce in small amounts but it resulted in catastrophic failure as the plant became more and more unhealthy. He supposed it made sense in a way. He could help something develop, but he couldn't make it age, either forwards or backwards. It might look like a six day old shoot, but in reality it was brand new.

Zeph slalomed between the new shoots, happily yelling, "Green!"

Luneil watched her with indulgent annoyance, she was so cute sometimes. He absentmindedly fed her a small parcel of Lifeforce. Ever since his crystal had healed, he was able to exercise greater control, and that extended to funneling energy into a hyperactive Sylph, mid-flight.

Halfway through the process, he realized what he was doing, but didn't stop. It was his energy, he could do what he wanted with it.

He might tear his facets out from time to time at the sheer stupidity of the small creature, but in truth he loved her like a daughter. Anyway, he still felt bad about leaving her on her own for two weeks straight. He had been delighted when she had first spoken. The company and conversation she provided, however limited, filled something inside of him that yearned for companionship. He was not alone.

He loved her deeply, she was perfect, like all of his creations.

Luneil focused his attention on a random grass seedling and began pumping Lifeforce into it, this was something he had wanted to test out.

What would happen if he added more Lifeforce than necessary to something he had created? Not in small to moderate amounts like he had done with Zeph, but in amounts that could be excessive compared to a simple organism like a new shoot of grass.

He regulated the amount of Lifeforce leaving him, adding in a bit of mana to help smooth out the plant's adjustment. Its aura swelled, glowing brighter and brighter, becoming tinged with gold as it practically overflowed with power.

The grass developed drastically, gaining weeks of growth in seconds. Even the significant increase in size did little to dilute the extraordinary brilliance of its overcharged aura, which waxed brighter and brighter as he added more energy to it.

The grass lost all definition before it suddenly sharpened into focus, literally sharpened, a wicked serrated edge forming along each side. Its hue changed to a deeper bluish green with yellow spots circling its base and extending halfway to its tip.

Interesting... So what would happen if he added even more?

Nothing. The aura brightened, once again bleeding a bright blue-gold along the edges, before returning to a normal wispy turquoise.

Luneil quelled his feelings of disappointment. Things like this happened, it was part of life. Not everything went as expected.

It wasn't like he didn't have other interesting things to look at.

Like dirt. Or rocks.

Zeph shrieked, sharp and shrill.

What is it? I'm coming.

She had ventured too close to his experiment while he wasn't concentrating. The long grass was prehensile! It had coiled around her with all of its sharp length, wrapping her fluctuating form in an tightening bundle like a razor sharp constrictor.

Luneil barely withheld himself from obliterating the murderous grass. He needed to test something out.

Would his modified grass respond to his commands like Zeph had? It probably had the same level of intelligence...

He directed a thought at the offending plant.

Stop, right now. Let her go.

The whiplike grass almost seemed to direct a baleful glare in his direction, but obeyed his orders, all the same.

It slowly loosened, releasing a shaken Sylph. Zeph trembled in place, almost seeming to vibrate. She seemed on the edge of tears.

Don't touch her again...

Luneil was not satisfied. Not in the slightest. A killing calm blossomed in his center.

Actually, no... Kill yourself... Slowly...

The grass hesitated, then, almost glacially, it stabbed into the earth. Its pointed tip pierced the soil with deadly slowness, targeting its own root system with unerring precision.

Luneil was quietly amused. He hadn't meant for it to take his words literally, but the grass was doing just that. Killing itself slowly, very slowly indeed.

It took an hour for the grass to sever its connection to the earth. Luneil savored every second of its death, until it finally dissolved back into the mana from which it had been made.

Luneil choked, taking stock of how much Lifeforce he had used to upgrade his grass. He had used almost fifty times more than he had regained from its death.

Hesitant, he tried to recreate the grass again, using its pattern this time, rather than trying to add mana to a weaker version of it.

The bloodthirsty grass sprang into being, requiring only slightly more mana and Lifeforce to produce than normal fully matured grass.

He sighed in relief. He wouldn't have been able to make a whole field of them if they had cost so much. It obviously required Lifeforce to trigger a change in the grass, but once it had changed he could copy the altered grass' pattern and replicate it relatively cheaply from then on.

First things first...

On no condition will you ever touch Zeph.

He imprinted the thought firmly on the newly created plant. What else did he want it to do?

You will gather mana and Lifeforce for me. Kill anything that has not been created by me.

Perfect. Not only would his basic grass naturally accumulate mana and Lifeforce as it grew, his new species of grass would kill anything that entered his territory gaining him power and new patterns of creatures.

On the subject of new things, Luneil realized he hadn't given his new type grass a name. Everything needed a name, how else could he understand the world if he didn't even know what to call it.

Razorcoil. Luneil nodded, the name fit well.

He planted several clusters of Razorcoil within his influence, disguising their somewhat distinctive coloration by adding tufts of normal long grass around them.

Then, Luneil settled down and waited, watching Zeph staring at unmodified blades of grass out of the corner of her vision, careful avoiding the large tufts. The three moons slowly rose above the horizon, one by one.

There was something moving. He was certain of it. Its form was camouflaged by the darkness helped hide it, but he could practically taste its succulent aura.

He wasn't hungry, but he supposed he would make an exception, especially for something so deliciously novel.

The creature crept closer, avoiding the range of the stalks Razorcoil by mere inches. For a moment it was illuminated in a patch of moonlight. A carapace glistened darkly over its entire body and it sported a pair of oversized mandibles, poised to slam shut in an instant.

The beetle plodded forwards, escaping death multiple times. Eventually its luck ran out.

A questing stalk of Razorcoil struck, looping around the unfortunate beetle's leg and pulling it into the range of yet more of the modified grass.

They each seized a struggling leg, their serrated sides biting deep into the waving chitin-covered limbs but otherwise unable to cut straight through.

Soon the beetle was pinned between multiple tufts of grass, several stalks attached to each of its legs. Slowly the Razorcoil began living up to its name, forming tight loops around the beetle's weakly struggling legs and wrapping its mandible tight. Whenever the loops shifted and tightened, the edges sawed from side to side, cutting deeper and deeper.

The coils constricted around the beetle, binding it even tighter while pulling on it from every direction. The insect squirmed furiously, making a valiant effort to free itself from impending doom, trying to rip the Razorcoil from the earth as it shifted its weight from one side to the other.

But it was not to be, the Razorcoil's root system anchored it into the ground while the unfortunate beetle was hoisted into the air by the growing tension, its legs splayed wide and immobilized.

The beetle was exhausted and it had given up fighting, now relying on its hardened shell to save it from dismemberment. Its chitinous exoskeleton was tough, Luneil could see the Razorcoil straining, but it was nothing compared to the sheer persistence of the plant world. Grass could pierce the frozen ground in its quest for sunlight and crack stone with nothing but its roots as it searched for water. All it took was time. The Razorcoil had plenty.

Luneil, on the other hand, was getting bored. He wanted its pattern and its life. He tried planting more Razorcoil to finish the beetle off, however, some property of the beetle's aura rebuffed his efforts. He could still move mana with relative ease, but moving Lifeforce anywhere in the vicinity of the beetle was like pushing paper through molasses. The energy broke apart, losing all its coherence whenever it neared the struggling insect, flowing back to Luneil as if it had been pushed.

Something about this insect was more than a simple plant, he checked its aura more closely, but in the darkness it was difficult. It felt stronger, he tried stealing mana from its aura, expecting to be stopped dead in his tracks by some invisible force, once again.

Mana poured into him. And the beetle still wasn't dead. Which meant that the large amount of mana he had just received originated solely from the beetle's surface aura.

There was so much.

The beetle's armor screeched and, exhausted as it was, the insect resumed its futile spasming. Luneil was practically glowing with excitement, the beetle was obviously on its last legs—

A liquid pop filled the air and one of its legs detached, slowly leaking mana and a greenish liquid. Another pop came immediately after as the Razorcoil that had been wrapped around the detached leg now helped pull another limb off.

Okay... now it was on its last legs, Luneil corrected. Four to be exact. Pop.

Pop, pop, pop. The final limbs came off in quick succession, letting the dying beetle fall to the ground, only its mandibles still snared in Razorcoil.

Luneil waited for the legs to vanish, but nothing happened. He should have their energy by now. Was something stopping them from dissolving into mana and Lifeforce?

Ahhh... That must be it. There was something stopping the beetle's Lifeforce from leaving its body, just as there was something stopping Luneil's Lifeforce from entering the area around the insect. Probably something to do with it still being alive.

Damn. He would just have to wait for the creature to die.

Its death was followed by one solid burst of energy and knowledge, almost drowning him in its intensity. The beetle's pattern was identical to how it was when it was still intact, without any detached limbs. Luneil was pleased by that. Anyway, there was an easy method of pulling off its legs if he really wanted to.

The actual volume of power he had acquired from it seemed wrong though, it was almost like he had absorbed too much energy. Not that he was complaining, mind you. But the energy he had received from the beetle was enough to make at least ten of them. He hadn't noticed it with the grass, through inattention or otherwise, but in the beetle the difference was so large it was hard not to.

Was it something about how its body dissolved when it died?

Maybe its biomass was also converted into power when it died? That way, he gained its mana capacity as well as the energy of the matter that composed it.

It made sense, although Luneil was annoyed about being unable to convert matter to mana when destroying inanimate objects like dirt.

But it also made Luneil wonder. Did that mean that all of his plants and creations, even the small pillar that held him above the crater, were constructs made of mana and Lifeforce?

If one of his creations left his area of influence would it disintegrate? How could he test it out?

Much to his shame, his gaze immediately fell upon Zeph, who was silently spinning in place, making herself dizzy and wobbling through the air. He silently reprimanded himself for even thinking such a thing.

He created a Razorcoil at the very boundary of his domain, with its roots lifted fully out of the earth.

Drag yourself forward, away from me.

The plant buried its tip in the soil outside of his domain. Nothing bad happened, although its entire body might have to cross his boundary in order for it to degrade.

The Razorcoil began to twist and writhe, dragging its body outside. Inch by inch it continued forwards until it fully left his influence. It was alive and healthy... well... as healthy as a plant could be without a buried root system. That is to say, dying.

Luneil was pleased that his experiment had been successful, it would have been a pain trying to figure out how to allow his creatures to survive outside if they were at constant risk of disintegration.

Now... how to get it back.

Come back.

No response, the Razorcoil just lay there spasming as it wilted. He tried again.

Come back, please.

Still nothing, damn.

Oh well. Such is the price of knowledge.

At least he had tested it with something expendable before he tried it with something more difficult to replace.

On the subject of testing...

The Razorcoil had died a short while ago. Outside of his influence, the spark of Lifeforce had whizzed off somewhere unseen and only a small amount of mana actually diffused back towards him.

He had found the exact information he had set out to discover, but he was still finding it difficult to be happy about losing one of his creations. It was only a small loss in power, but it still hurt. He had invested something far more than mana and Lifeforce into it.

He focused on his newest project, namely trying to induce the changes in plants that he actually wanted, rather than letting the changes occur at random, not that the Razorcoil wasn't a pleasant surprise.

He had plans and desperately needed a way to implement them.

So he was instead focusing on his fifth blade of grass, trying to get it to grow in a spiral pattern. Not because spiral grass was useful or anything, but simply as a proof of concept before trying to modify something as energy intensive as a beetle.

He had achieved a recent breakthrough by 'brushing' the edges of the grass with Lifeforce in such a way that it would lengthen along that side, causing it to curve in the opposite direction.

It was an important discovery, if he could determine the location and direction of growth and change, he would have the opportunity to select certain features of a creature he would like to adapt, rather than using the scattershot approach of pumping it full of energy and wishing for the best. Also, he didn't have the Lifeforce to waste on such a broad-brush approach.

He spent a few more hours trying to perfect the process before he decided that he had optimized it sufficiently to risk practicing on beetles.

The first beetle died horribly. He had tried to make its carapace thicker, and it had expanded as Luneil had hoped, the issue was that it expanded on both sides, blocking the flow of a vital greenish fluid within a vital organ along its back, an hollow organ which seemed to help disperse the fluid around its body.

It wasn't a complete failure, it was just a matter of adjusting where he placed the Lifeforce. The next time, he permeated the outer carapace with energy, allowing a small amount to diffuse into the tissue below, hopefully to help with expansion of the area to counteract the thickening of the carapace. After that he saturated the entirety of the organ within its back with Lifeforce, isolating the power solely to the fluid. He watched carefully as it was dispersed around the body. Finally, after five tense minutes it had mixed to a level he was satisfied with. The Lifeforce spread out once he stopped isolating it and the beetle began to visibly enlarge, expanding again and again. While this was happening, he manually pushed the diffusing Lifeforce away from certain organs that seemed less important.

It was a resounding success. At least until the beetle stopped moving as much after several hours. It wasn't dead, just conserving its energy.

Luneil didn't want an inactive beetle, so he absorbed it, comparing its pattern to the smaller one. He puzzled over it for a long time before he finally noticed the issue. In both species there was a series of holes along its body which it could breathe through. Except in the larger one they had not widened, even though the rest of its body had expanded to almost six inches in length and it now had a set of mandibles almost two inches long.

The fact that the holes had not expanded meant that the beetle was slowly suffocating as it was unable to get enough air. Through some miracle of its biology, the beetle had been able to withstand oxygen deprivation extremely well, but that didn't change the fact that it was slowly dying. Luneil made the required the changes to its multiple airways and was immediately satisfied with the result.

The previously lethargic beetle perked up immediately and began scurrying around with reckless abandon, without a care for the Razorcoil that had killed it in its previous incarnation.

The beetle still had a tiny brain and a small digestive system, but that was irrelevant since it was made out of and sustained by mana and Lifeforce.

What was important was that his new method had only taken a relatively small amount of Lifeforce to modify it significantly compared to if he had simply flooded it with power and prayed for the best. Luneil was pleased. It wasn't perfect, the method could really come back to hurt him if he misunderstood something about a creature's biology. It was a high risk, high reward method, but the dangers were diminished with correct knowledge and accurate deductions. It was a case of the application of knowledge being superior to the application of power.

All his new creation needed now was a name. He decided on calling it a Blackshell Harvester, and absorbed it for its improved pattern, before replicating it. He promptly set it to work.

Go out and bring back new plants and seeds for me. If something attacks you, run back here.

Luneil was getting worried, dawn had come hours ago, but his Harvester hadn't returned yet. He had hoped that a larger variety of plants would attract greater insect diversity to his influence, garnering a rapid increase in both power and knowledge.

The absence of his Harvester made such a thing difficult. He would have to keep his next Harvester close to him in the future, even if it hampered his development.

He didn't have enough Lifeforce for another one and was now forced to wait two weeks for his grass to grow. It was frustrating, but he only had himself to blame.

The Harvester hadn't been properly tested for long term survival.

Damn thing probably fell down a hole and snapped its legs, Luneil mused bitterly.

He should have made something with wings. Like those birds that always seemed to come within a stone's throw of his territory, but never close enough to actually be in any danger.

He doubted that his Razorcoil could even kill them. The size difference between a bird and a small beetle was just too large.

A Harvester might be able to do the job, at least it would have been if he had one.

And he didn't have the pattern of those worms that the birds seemed to like. He was still lamenting the unfortunate escape of that damn worm. Never in his wildest imaginings did he imagine that the weak and slimy creature would actually be useful in acquiring mana.

The next time he found one, he wouldn't let it escape. He had a few new dirty tricks up his sleeve.

A thought struck him. He didn't need a worm. He just needed something that looked like one.

Absorbing the grass within a small area, he created a young Razorcoil that looked as if it had just sprouted and covered it in a small coating of mud to make it look as if it had just emerged from the ground.

Now all he needed was a Harv—

Damn. He had forgotten about that. He didn't have enough Lifeforce for it.

Although...

He absorbed all of the plants within his influence, except for the Razorcoil, letting their energies rush into him.

So close, but still not enough. He only needed a little more. Only a tiny bit more Lifeforce.

The birds were so close. They might not come by this way for days.

He had to grow stronger, if not he would always be a pitifully weak crystal, unable to kill a single measly worm.

But he had no more to give and no more to take.

Zeph buzzed past him, gleefully shouting his name. Luneil smiled, she was completely oblivious to all of the world's hardships. He envied her for her happy simplicity.

Her babbling calmed him. Maybe waiting wasn't a bad thing. The Harvester might come back any second.

He could do it the simple way. Grow incrementally. Start off small. Moving slowly from weak to str—

NO!

If he was content to settle for a little less each time hardship reared its bloody head, he would soon be left with nothing. It might take months, or even years. But he could still feel the danger of that slippery slope into stagnation.

But maybe it would be okay. He had Zeph after all.

He smiled to himself.

Zeph, my darling, come here.

It wasn't really a command, but she came anyway, her form was shifting through multiple shapes composed of bubbles. Luneil guessed that meant she was happy... or full of air.

Zeph? There's nothing wrong with letting go of power, right?

Her bubbles scrunched up into the approximation of a frown. She shook her head, "No."

Can you help me?

Zeph whirled around him. "Family! Love!"

Thank you, my dear. You always know how to ease a father’s troubled heart.

Luneil burned with frustration, with regret. He knew it was all too good. Nothing good ever lasts forever. This was what letting go felt like.

I love you so much.

"Love! Love! Lo—"

Her mana and Lifeforce poured into him as she disintegrated.

Self loathing burned within him. He had what he needed. He had done what was necessary.

He created a new Harvester, giving it a single command.

Be still.

Luneil used his mana to heap dead grass on top of it, lacking the Lifeforce to create a single living shoot.

He felt hollow, as if his soul had been sucked out to produce that final Harvester, in a way it had. He still had a glut of mana, but all his Lifeforce was gone.

So was she.

In the middle of a barren circle of earth, a small mud covered blade of Razorcoil began to wriggle.

Zeph... I'm so sorry.