Lucius could sense the orb floating above his head, small as it was, sucking in all the light around him. He couldn't explain it if asked to, but he could almost feel the light around him bending and twisting as it was being absorbed, breaking every law Lucius knew about light.
[Absorbing 269 Helio- recalibrating...]
[Aborbing 268 Helios pe- recalibrating...]
[Absrobing 267 Helios...] the notifications came one after the other, nearly disrupting Lucius's concentration. If not for the fact that Pagan was still keeping a hold on the orb, the whole process would probably have been stopped already.
Though Lucius was curious as to why the amount of helios he was absorbing was slowly decreasing, he didn't have the mental capacity to keep photosynthesis going while thinking about all that, so he decided to leave it for after he was satisfied.
[Absorbing 200 Helios per second.] After only 2 minutes, Lucius felt Alpha's leaf fall away from him, leaving only Pagan to his right.
Photosynthesis continued for another 20 minutes, and even then Pagan had not separated his link from Lucius, in fact, it felt as if Pagan's hold on the orb had grown even stronger than before.
Another 20 minutes and the mental strain from keeping the process going was unbearable, he felt as if he were drowning, and he needed to stop to take a breath.
"So I can only hold out for around 45 minutes, huh," Lucius whispered, falling to his back in exhaustion. He had absorbed around 600 000 helios, half of which he used to purchase Evo points.
"I should've absorbed water before we began this," he whispered haggardly, remembering that water could act as a catalyzing agent.
"Perhaps I should absorb some before allocating the rest of my helios into growth," he continued, before trying to stand up.
~Huh?~ he thought in shock, finally seeing that all the leaflings were in a state of slumber. Even Pagan, who had endured longer than the others, was out cold. At first, he was worried that he had killed them all, but after checking their bodies, there was still a rhythmic pulse emanating from each and every one of them.
~Ahh that's good. Though I wonder what's making that pulse. A heart?~ he thought to himself, quickly dismissing the thought.
~They probably have a completely different anatomy from what I know. If the laws of light are different here, then it wouldn't be a surprise if living things didn't work the same way either,~ he decided, before stumbling his way towards the river.
~Catalyst absorption,~ he thought, willing the limb at his lower back to slither its way towards the water. A rejuvenating sensation washed over him as the cool liquid entered his body before he heard the familiar sound of his system notifications.
[Water absorbed.]
[Growth efficiency increased by 2.5%]
[Photosynthesis efficiency increased by 2.5%]
[Quest complete.]
[+20 exp]
"Ahh the quests," he whispered to himself before allocating the remaining helios into growth.
[Quest complete.]
[+100exp]
He did a quick inspection of his body, and though there were no considerable changes to his height or depth, he could feel that his density had increased as gravity seemed to weigh down more heavily on him.
~Hmm, maybe there's a height cap?~ he wondered as he jumped up and down to get a better grasp of his new mass. As he was still exploring the density change in his body he noticed a faint glow emanating from above.
~It's still active?~ he thought to himself, looking up at the pinhead-sized orb floating above his head. ~I wonder why it stays even after I've finished,~ he questioned, trying to see whether there were any additional things he could do with it.
~Perhaps something in my player stats will show while its active?~
┏━━━━━━༻❁༺━━━━━━┓
─────⋅☾ Player Details ☽⋅─────•
[Lucius Elwood ]
[Level 3: 120/300]
[Leaf Being lvl.4- {10/400}]
[Sunlight's blessing] +5 to all stats
[Solar Crux active] - {87/100}
─────⋅☾ Stats ☽⋅─────•
[Agility: 1(6)]
[Strength: 58(63)]
[Stamina: 47(52)]
┗━━━━━━༻❁༺━━━━━━┛
~There it is again, 𝘤𝘳𝘶𝘹. Is that what the orb is called?~ he though to himself as he scanned over his stats.
~And why is there a meter?~ He pondered over this for only a minute before the crux descended back into his body, and with it the extra details on his player stats.
After deciding that he would have an extra session with Pagan later today to find out more about it, he returned to the camp.
"They aren't awake yet?" he whispered to himself, still a bit worried. After waiting for around 30 minutes, he decided that he had better get to work on some of the structures while they were asleep. Though he couldn't just leave them lying around, so he began dragging them all to the center of the camp, far away from the edges of the mound.
~The reeds surrounding the camp should be good enough to keep them out of sight. But I should probably divide the group into two to avoid everyone being unconscious at the same time,~ he decided as he walked towards the forest.
~Anyway, making a watchtower too far out was a bad idea. I'll make a few watch towers a bit closer to the camp... and maybe build a wall around the perimeter,~ he thought to himself as he searched for pieces of wood to use as pillars.
~Though I should probably wait for the others to evolve before building the wall. Those 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘨𝘴 might find a half-built wall a little suspicious,~ he deduced, deciding that it was better to build it all at once to prevent them from hindering progress.
After three hours of searching and heavy lifting, Lucius had dragged seven branches back towards the camp. Afterward, he immediately began marking out the areas where he would place the watchtowers. These were mostly behind shrubs and trees, allowing an unhindered view of the surroundings while at the same time still providing some decent cover.
~Perfect,~ he sighed, marking out the last area. He planned to build four watchtowers, placing them equally around the camp as if to form a sort of circle.
He still had a lot to secure before construction could commence; 9 more pillars, at least 30 blades of grass to weave into ropes, and a few more twigs to use for support. But though his mind was willing, his body screamed at him to take a proper rest. He had accumulated 31 points into strength and another 23 into stamina, that's to say it was quite strenuous work.