It was possible for Kink to help Titan produce his line of Cannabis to the tone of several generations a day but picking the proper parents for the next generation to stabilize the strain took most of the time. As a result, Kink spent the majority of his time sitting.
He was interested in the progress of the cultivation but at the same time, it truly didn't matter. With each crop that was being disposed of rather than nurtured into another line, hundreds of kilograms of plant material was already available. In truth, Kink had a stockpile of Cannabis and with each generation, the leftovers were added to it.
The harvested plants were treated like every other herb, they were boxed up or processed in one way or another. Keeping the plants inside the storage ring afterwards also ensured that they would remain fresh and vibrant until used.
"Alright, I need these to get about waist high again. If I give you the signal to stop, it's because I found a male." Titan flushed around the floor and hovered near the ceiling.
Kink started to feed his energy into the soil and the seeds germinated to nearly 100%, when they got higher than his knees, Titan had him stop.
There were six males hidden among the seeds he had planted.
"Well, I've got my seed selection method down at 94%!" Titan put males into their own separate storage ring and flew back up.
Kink shook his head. "I still don't get how you know which ones are males and females."
"Cannabis plants have two types of flowers. One of the types are these little yellow flowers that come out in pairs, usually they look like a set of balls, or bananas. Either way, the sex organ of the plant has come out. Females look like.. well. They look like rose with little feelers that come out." Titan tried not to be dirty with his conversation but Kink halfway understood.
"So buds are flowers?" Kink asked.
"Yes." Titan gave him the signal and the plants were grown to about a meter around. "Time to pollinate."
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Like that, three months went by without so much as a hint from the Poisoner and the Cookies, which had made such a splash on the Market, had been spread throughout the Kingdom as Emergency Medicines. Even the Zao Sect had made a request for a few thousand.
Kink was satisfied with the level of business from the Cannabis but the time he had been spending developing the strain had taken a lot of his attention. He had a business to run, as well as the seat on the Council of Puerto De Paulo.
Honey was usually off in the Garden Dimension to cook, her absence from the daily routines within Kinky Tower had helped ease the transition into the partnership. Whenever Honey was around, things had a tendency to go tits up.
Honey had come out of pocket dimension for a break, Vella and Lisetya had even considered bringing Canna along but it was a girls day out.
As soon as she made it to the Lobby, the clerks were cautious. Honey would charm them without even noticing.
They all had sunglasses on in an instant.
"This came for you." A communication tablet was passed to Honey.
"OH! I wonder who it's from?" Feeding energy into it, Honey saw the message flash into her mind.
She stopped moving.
"What is it?" Vella hadn't seen Honey look like that, not ever.
"Babies." Honey passed the tablet to Vella.
Vella read it's contents and paused in the same way. Listless. "Babies." the word came out her mouth and she snapped out of it. "Babies!"
She flashed out of the room and ran to the Cannabis Cultivation Floor. Vella held onto Titan and shook him wildly. "Babies!"
Titan pushed her off and paused. 'What has gotten into her?!' "What is this all about? Babies? Who? You?" He felt her stomach, there was nothing.
"No. Not me silly, although..." Her mind wandered for a moment but Titan snapped his fingers and brought her back to reality. "Not me.. The stoners! They had a baby in the group, Babies actually." She passed the Communication Tablet over.
Titan read it. "Seven?"
"Yes, there are seven babies but the rest of the details are sort of left out." Vella too felt some confusion over the contents but it didn't matter, their race, the stoners, were starting to flourish. "This means that one day, our race will return to the limelight!"
"Race..Pfft." Kink overheard what Vella had to say, he had been found by Honey and Lisetya after Vella had stormed upstairs.
"Hey. For a while, it was only Titan and Me." Vella was defensive, she stopped herself.
"Race has it's benefits but I refuse to believe that Race actually matters." Kink gave his opinion and pet Honey on the bottom before leaving.
She turned to backhand him but he vanished before the hit struck. "Dammit. I'll get you for that." Honey ran downstairs after him but Kink was leaving afterimages.
Vella laughed at them both then turned back to Titan, "I want to go check on the girls but it's a long journey. Do you think it will be okay if I go?"
"My strain is nearly complete, I could go with you but you sound like you want to go by yourself." Titan didn't want to intrude or pressure her to bring him along, in fact, it was easier to stay and work.
"No. I wouldn't mind going alone. I could take Honey but if I take along a dimensional key, she can come visit me when I get there." Vella's true reasoning for asking had finally come up.
"Ahh.. For that you'll have to ask Kink. He's the one with the Keys." Titan grabbed onto Vella and pulled her closely. "No matter what, I think you should go and have fun. We have have a bit of fun before you leave too." He wrapped his hands around her lower back and pulled her in tigher.
"Ooh." Vella stood on her toes and kissed Titan. She took off his hat, tossed it aside and pushed him down.
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When Morning came, Vella cleaned herself up and took off from Kinky Tower. Kink had been kind enough to let her leave with the card, as long as she agreed to destroy it rather than let it fall into the hands of others.
Honey and Lisetya were a bit bummed out that Vella had slipped off right after they had agreed to go out but with just the two of them present, there were a lot less things that could go wrong on any given day.
The girls were like a tide, sometimes, they'd bring the surf back to shore.
A little bit away from the City, Vella spotted a Silver Brolga, alone and flying along the coast. It was a long way to the Lonestar City. Brolga were Sea Beasts, they could stop in the water. She plunged down from the sky while it was fishing and crashed on it's back, throwing it into the water.
"Haha!" Vella cheered herself as she clung onto it and the Brolga struggled back out of the water.
It fought back and turned it's head to snap at her but she punched the metallic bird in the face.
'Clang' The Brolga took off into the Air and tried turning over to throw Vella from it's back.
It flew higher and faster, spinning as fast as it could on it's way down.
Vella woohooed and clung on with her wings tucked. She had the Brolga by its short and curlies, it bucked and flopped against the waves trying to throw her and escape.
The Brolga struggled, in the end, it was forced to surrender. Vella kept punching it in the back of the head. 'Scree' In a fit of submission, the Brolga yelped and returned to the air.
Vella leaned to the west and directed the Brolga toward the stretching sea.
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Titan sighed, Honey was a handful without Vella but together, they always seemed to find themselves in strange situations. It was good that the Girls at the Casino would get a chance to catch up with them. More than half a year had passed since they had left.
He was out of the building and it had actually been several weeks since he had gone outside. Stretching his wings would do him some good, so he set out into the City. The Guards instructed him to land, the buildings were closer together than in rural areas and scaring the residents was no acceptable. Having stopped his leisurely flight, he landed in the square with everyone else and made his way into the depository.
It was hard to see exactly what the City had as far as resources were concerned, Kink had made things complicated when he had first arrived and new measures had been taken to secure the building. Their latest course of action had been to station guards along the path into the City, after the crushing embarrassment that Kink had exposed, herbs and medicines had been harder to find and people started to find themselves robbed.
Kink's interference in the matter had not gone unnoticed and eventually, it had even gotten him a seat on the Council. Though, he didn't want the position, he still took it.
Inside the lobby, Titan flipped through the pages of items for sale. Honey's new friend needed some clothes and it had been a while since he went searching for books.
He bought all that he found however the subject matters were fairly dense. The books either got ultra technical about a singular subject or were so vague that they bordered on either research or speculation. Titan went from book to book searching the writs but he didn't know what he was looking for. He wanted something new but finding that thing, the thing he didn't know he wanted, was proving to be a problem.