"Behold! I have created life!" Reber announced once they'd arrived at the backyard. He was motioning towards a tiny plot of land, roughly a meter square, that looked to have been converted into a garden. Growing from the recently tilled dirt was a small plant.
"Congratulations, I guess?" Mike replied, at first a bit confused why the tree man seemed so excited, but then the realization hit. "Wait a moment...did you get this to grow while the portal was closed?"
Reber nodded proudly. "Hell yeah I did. I was playing around with some of my Druid skills and discovered that my ability to manipulate plants has been dramatically improved since my transformation. I can now do things I never thought possible while I was still human. This little beauty is a tomato I managed to cultivate from a seed scavenged from the cold storage room."
"How did you get around the problem of the soil and the lack of sunlight?"
Planting his hands firmly on his wooden hips, he announced. "Haha! I didn't!"
Sera was rubbing her forehead as if this whole process was giving her a headache. The rest of the group waited patiently until he explained himself.
After a few moments when it was clear that no one was going to ask him for more details, Reber shrugged and then continued. "Well, I picked up a title and an inherent skill that dramatically improved the efficiency and power of my magic when it involved plants. Anyway, one of the things I discovered I can do is substitute mana for their basic needs. I can artificially keep a plant alive, even in hostile conditions, so long as I keep supplying it with energy."
"Interesting. What else?" Tal asked, obviously curious about the applications of such an ability.
"Haven't gotten too far in my experiments, since I had to spend some time preparing my amazing water, after all. Are you sure you don't want some?" He asked, indicating the glass by his chair. "It's pretty good...no? Alright. Anyway, besides keeping plants alive unnaturally, I can also speed up their growth with mana, and get them to move."
"Really?" Mike asked. "Could you show us."
Reber gave a big grin. "Sure thing. You ready?"
He cracked his wooden knuckles, which didn't really accomplish anything, and then began to mutter a chant in a strange language. Mike had some trouble making the words out, but the parts he did hear were translated by his Communication Magic as, "Grow, grow, grow, you plant. Get very bi-ig. Merrily, merrily, merrily, I could use a drink."
[...That can't be a real chant.]
Despite the odd spell, the small tomato plant began to shiver and, at an almost imperceptible rate, grew a few centimeters. After it had gone from barely being little more than a sprout to being slightly more than a sprout, Reber lowered his arms and looked back at the rest of them proudly.
Trying to keep his face neutral, Mike commented. "That's pretty cool, I guess. Can you make them grow more than that?"
The tree man nodded. "Sure...although not right now. I'm plum lum out of mana at the moment, I'm afraid. That little trick took nearly half a day's worth out of me."
"...Really?"
"Yep. I don't think I mentioned it, but the efficiency on the base spell is ridiculously low. It's meant to be used over a long period of time to gradually increase the growth speed of plants. Of course, I modified it a bit, but the basic effects aren't that impressive."
"So, what use does it have?" Sera asked, obviously trying to prod the conversation in the direction of a conclusion.
"You mean besides getting a slightly faster harvest? Not much. Still, it will give me something to while away the hours between your visits."
[Note to self, try to keep the portal open as often as possible.]
"Well, in any case, that doesn't really change what our goal is today." Mike broke in before the Oracle got angry at Reber's flippant attitude. "It's good to know that there are a few other options when it comes to growing plants, but we should concentrate on making the natural way possible first, before worrying about anything else."
With that in mind, William, Tal, and Sera set about moving the fertilizer to the cabin while Mike and Reber headed into the control room to try and figure out how to make this thing work. Lily, in her typical fashion, had wandered in the experimental room and was poking through the remnants of Fatima's research with keen interest. Although it worried him a bit to leave her to her own devices, he figured that she couldn't do too much harm in the short period of time she was alone. Or at least he hoped so.
"Try not to touch anything, Lily." He admonished her while heading into the control room. "We don't know what most of this stuff does yet.��
She nodded as if she'd heard him, but then promptly began picking things up and examining them.
[Well, whatever. I don't think there is anything too crazy down here. I mean, what's the worst she could do with a bunch of plants…and some specialized alchemical tools of mysterious purposes...and hybrid technological marvels...On second thought-]
"Actually, Lily, do you think you can give me a hand with this? I believe I could use your expertise."
For a moment he feared he was too late, but surprisingly, she put down the vial of greenish sludge she'd been examining closely and moved to join them, giving him a blank and unreadable look in the process.
[I can't tell if she's actually listening to me in this instance, or is just curious about the control room.]
Deciding that it was better to not think too deeply on Lily's actions, he led them inside and faced the unusual pillar once more. The three of them stared at it in silence for a few moments, before Reber spoke up, "Yep, still have no idea what any of this means."
"Is it safe to touch, do you think?" Mike asked. He could tell that a large amount of mana was being circulated through the structure, but was having a hard time determining exactly how it was doing so.
"Not sure...let's find out." The tree man replied while walking over and slapping the side of the pillar with one hand.
Mike tensed at the unexpected action, but when nothing happened after a few seconds, he relaxed.
"Seems safe." Reber commented dryly while slapping the pillar a few more times.
"Stop that."
Running a finger over a few of the runes, Mike noticed that there was a slight response in the ambient mana flow. With a little experimentation, he was able to determine that certain runes, whose original purpose was unclear initially, functioned as some kind of interface that could influence the way power was circulated through the pillar.
"These look like some kind of control panel," He explained while indicating the areas in question. "Based on what I can figure, I think I can manipulate the demi-realm to some extent by interacting with them."
Reber shrugged. "Sounds about right, but I haven't got the faintest idea on what to do with that information. Try pushing some buttons at random and see if it does anything."
"Are you nuts? That could endanger everyone here. What if I accidentally turned off the air, or converted the ground into lava or something?"
"Here." Lily broke in, pointing at one of the interface sections in particular. "This controls lighting."
"Really? How do you know?"
"Layout." She replied dryly, and then indicated the complex scrollwork that surrounded the figures she was looking at. "The runes here are involved in manipulating the Light Element. Based on their alignment, I figure that it's meant to create one of several preset illusory backdrops. However, disabling some of these settings will probably free up enough energy to allow the demi-realm to mimic natural sunlight. If you deactivate these three runes, and then activate this one, it should work."
Mike stared at her for a few moments like she'd grown a second head. [Where in the hell did that come from?]
After several seconds of silence, she glanced up at him. "Anything else?"
"Huh?"
"Was there anything else you needed to do with this thing?"
He shook his head to clear his thoughts. "No...no, that should do it for now. I might have some more questions later."
"Alright. I'll go back to what I was doing now." She announced calmly before standing up and walking back into the experimental hall.
Mike watched her go, feeling like he was seeing a new side of her. One that it never occurred to him to look for.
"Gotta admit it, buddy, you have an interesting taste in women." Reber muttered quietly once they were alone.
"..." He shot the tree man a dirty look.
"Don't get me wrong, they seem like a fun bunch, and I can tell they are all pretty skilled. It's just that they have somewhat eccentric personalities…"
"I feel like you might be misunderstanding something. Also, I don't think you have any room to speak when it comes to eccentricities." He shot back acidly.
The tree man nodded sagely. "Keeping it on the down-low. Wise. Let me just say that I recognize game when I see it, so I'll give props where props are due. It's definitely something I couldn't have managed myself, even before the whole plantification thing. Between you and me, I wouldn't have the guts to even try it in the first place." He paused to give Mike a thumbs up. "So, very impressive."
"Listen. That's not at all what I-"
A muffled explosion from the next room prevented him from saying anything else. Rubbing his temples and applying a bit of Healing Magic to ward off the oncoming headache, he walked to the door to deal with the situation.
Lily had somehow managed to combine the desiccated remains of a glowing mushroom and the oily extract of a commonly found weed to produce something that burned like phosphorus on contact with air. Fortunately, Mike's command of Fire Magic was sufficient to prevent any undue damage to the rest of the cabin.
After a few minutes to clean up the charred remains, he activated the control pillar following Lily's instructions (while keeping her under strict observation to prevent any further accidents), and then headed outside to observe the results.
Strangely, the disabled features seemed to be solely those responsible for creating the illusions inside the area of the demi-realm itself, while leaving the background applied to its edges in place. The result was slightly disorienting.
A stretch of blank, grayish dirt stretched for hundreds of meters in every direction around the cabin, which was placed on the only real terrain feature inside the area, a small hill. This space ended at a shear wall that took on the usual appearance of an idyllic forest, save that it had a slightly artificial semblance to it in light of its surroundings. If that wasn't enough, a glowing, door-shaped portal was embedded into one side of that wall, roughly where the waterfall used to be.
"Much work." Tal commented while examining the soil. Even to his untrained eye, Mike could tell that the dirt was in poor shape.
[I might be able to do something with some combination of Healing and Earth Magic, if it comes to it, but I should probably let the experts figure out a solution.] He thought before turning his attention to the next task.
While the others were still looking around at the changed landscape, he channeled his mana and began constructing what would be his workshop.