XaiJu
Epsilon Twilight

Epsilon Twilight

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Epsilon Twilight posts

Book 1 ending in RR and SH

Hi there,

As the title says, Cultivating Plants has finally ended in Royal Road and Scribble Hub. As I said before, I'll take a week off.

As for other news, I have changed the name of the book 2 from Cultivating Money to Nurturing Fortune as I was using the word Cultivating too much for my liking. 

I no longer will add tags to chapter post (for those who use it) and instead will add the chapter to the new Collections system Patreon just added. There you can check the wh...

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10. Culprit

“Where were we?” Rani said after sitting down on the throne. She had totally forgone the lazy laying position, instead opting out for a dignified straight sitting one. But one couldn’t deny both made her look like an emir.

Like a ruler.

As a few seconds happened without the sultanzade saying anything, Aloe opened her mouth with a mixture of doubt and fear.

“You were asking me if I knew why you summoned me, Pri-“ Aloe’s spine straightened out instantly as the emir...

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9. Princess

The figure sitting on the throne caused so many of Aloe’s brain cells to fry at the sight that the whiplash stunned her. Her eyes lingered across the room, trying to search for answers, but nothing in the surroundings helped her.

Two women, one at each side of the throne, stood with their sights tired as they held pieces of parchment. That was enough to confirm some of Aloe’s doubts. They are the scribes of the emir. She pondered, her mind still made a mess. But there s...

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8. Palace

“That’s right, let it all out,” Mirah whispered in Aloe’s ear as she patted her back and stroked her hair, the girl weeping lay defeated on her knees. “But try not to make a mess.” She added with a smile as she pushed a handkerchief to her. “Here.”

Aloe gladly took the piece of cloth and promptly whipped her never-ending stream of tears. It was only after blowing her nose that she noticed that the handkerchief was made out of fine silk.

“I didn’t tell you could...

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7. Cayora

Much to Mirah’s previous displeasure and wailing, she merrily rinsed Aloe’s hair. Aloe had told her that she didn’t need the help, that she felt better now, but the woman adamantly held her ground.

“I’m used to washing girl’s hair by now with Aya. Just lemme do it.” The woman justified herself as she cleaned Aloe’s scalp against her will.

Nonconsensual hair washing aside, Aloe greatly enjoyed their trip to the public baths. She didn’t notice how dirty and awful s...

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6. Instinct

The instant Aloe’s feet touched the bath – warm and vaguely white water displacing around her ankle – she felt as if all the devils of the world vanished.

“Ah~” Aloe moaned as her body was consumed by the scented waters of the bath. “This is glory...”

“You are so right~” Mirah accompanied her on the pleasure, the adult woman laying her back on the sides of the pool. “It has been a while since I had a bath like this.”

“How’s that?” Aloe asked turni...

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5. Shame

It took them more time than Aloe would have liked to arrive at the public baths, but unfortunately, her crotch didn’t precisely allow for movement. Forget sudden movements, the itch was so bad that it difficulted to even walk slowly.

“Do you need help with the steps?” Mirah pointed to the massive stairwell at the entrance of the bath with a nudge of her head.

“No, thank you.” Aloe dismissed her. “I’m bad, but not that bad.”

And then instantly regretted it as ...

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4. Summon

“Damn, that’s quite the character,” Jafar said from the other side of the room.

“Character? I’ll give you character!” Aloe growled, a vein popping in her temple. “I wish that the towel was scalding!”

“Woah, no need for such aggressiveness. It isn’t like I haven’t seen you naked before, little plant” The guard added.

“That was ages ago!” The girl refuted, her arm pressuring against her chest. “And I don’t want your perverted eyes over me!” View Post

3. Withstand

Tears kept pouring, Aloe couldn’t control herself, the pain had left her body totally numb. And even then, she kept feeling it. She wouldn’t even know she was still crying if it weren’t for the constant warm and wet touches hitting her hands.

“Oh, Aloe.” Mirah sang as she hugged her, a hum reminiscent of a lullaby coming from her mouth. “You just need to rest more. Your mind is clouded, your body is aching, and your heart is broken. Let me go fetch you another cup.”

...

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2. Pain

Pain awoke Aloe.

She tried to move but found herself restricted by a blanket. She tried to talk but found a knot in her throat. She just waited there dazed as the pain returned.

“Argh!” Aloe groaned as her insides burned, kicking away her sheets violently as she spasmed. “Why now?” Tears formed in the corners of her eyes. “Did it come early?”

The girl curled into a ball as her stomach itched like a salted wound and her nether regions became hotter.

“Ah!...

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1. Nurture

This is the start of the second book: Cultivating Money.

Also, double length chapter, enjoy!

_______
The sun shone fiercely golden on Asina, yet a more powerful star outshone it.

Aaliyah-al-Ydaz stood in the middle of the training grounds, hundreds surrounding her. Against such odds one would expect the sultanah to show some hesitation, – not fear, that was absolutely out of the question for someone of her caliber – some modicum doubt.

But it was the opposite. View Post

Oops

So the first chapter of book two didn't get published for some godforsaken reason, whilst in Ko-fi it did, and no one told me about it!

Sigh...

Double chapter today, I guess?

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Addendums

Addendums are optional, if spoiler heavy sections. Though I recommend reading the second one "Coinage".

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Evolution

Yet again I find myself indagating on the diverse power systems of the Existence. And they say the Records are an easy thing to maintain.

Anyways, the subject of today’s lecture is the vital arts. These multiple power systems of Khaffat (or at least that’s how the ydazi call the land, no name is never more correct than any other ta...

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Book One Ending

For those who have yet not read the last chapter, it marks the ending of the first book. Tomorrow I'll publish an addendum (which is a bit shorter than the average chapter but, oh well)  that concludes book one.

There will be no pause between book one and two, for you it will be just a change of name. But once the book ends in RR and SH I will take a one week rest. By then there should be ten published chapter of book two.

Book Two is going to be called: Cultivating Money! View Post

62. Home

At first, Fikali started going slowly, she needed to fully wake up to pick up the pace. Such slowness had allowed Aloe to deactivate her internal ‘strength’ infusion without any issues, but even then, she didn’t expect Fikali would go that fast. This was a marathon, after all. Speed didn’t make much difference, endurance did.

But apparently, Aloe had miscalculated.

And severely.

“Hoooooow?” Aloe shouted as she held for her dear life on the saddle’s reins. Fikal...

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61. Month

Days had run out.

In two days the month deadline she had set would be on her feet, and Aloe was already readying herself as she didn’t have much else to do. The irrigation system was set up for the potatoes, beans, medicinal plants, pistachios, and bananas.

The setup was quite chaotic as Aloe had partially redirected one of the two Flourishing Springs water to the bananas, as she couldn’t justify an entire plant for just two seeds, no matter how important or big those may grow...

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60. Success

The answer was no.

The glass was, in fact, not usable.

Aloe tried everything to make the Myriad work. Maybe approach a bit of fire and the glass would become soft or break a piece of glass and use it as a torchlight or something, but everything failed. The Myriad’s glass was normal if hyperreflective glass.

“Whyyyy?” Aloe groaned from side to side of the bed, the experiments had exhausted her mentally and physically. “It’s a useless plant! I only wanted something r...

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59. Myriad

A week left.

A month was the deadline that Aloe had imposed herself with. Born more out of physiological need rather than economic or time strains, she just now noticed how small of a margin she had given herself. One couldn’t do anything in a month, even less if that involved growing plants.

Truth be told, she was hoping to go to Sadina already. She wanted to have a proper bath for once and also buy new seeds to further her experiments into new uncharted territory.

The pr...

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58. Automatization

Results were hard to come by. Not because the task itself was difficult, but because it was painfully slow. The cannabis was going to take a lot of time to germinate, days at best, so having a comprehensive effect of the Flourishing Spring’s irrigation capabilities in her limited deadline was impossible as the plant would take at least a month to grow from her estimations based on the infusion cost.

The next day, Aloe began it by planting a few blades of Cure Grass around the Flourish...

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57. Reserves

Forty and a half banana trees. That was the vitality cost that Aloe would need to evolve and infuse all of the Flourishing Springs. When translating the cost into potatoes, the numbers became harder to grasp. Eyeballing it, we were talking about five hundred potatoes worth of infusion, half a thousand!

Those numbers were but approximations, of course.

Aloe had taken the cost of plants’ infusions out of a portion of her vitality deposit at the time, so there was already a non-neg...

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56. Irrigation

Aloe considered herself proficient in many tasks, not a lot, but enough. Mathematics, economics, writing, and... well, at least that was something. But waiting and patience weren’t in her skill set.

As soon as the five-minute mark clocked in, she became restless. Her eyes, hands, and feet wandered around. Standing still wasn’t an approach that worked for her, so she proceeded to water the plants in the greenhouse as she kept an eye on the Flourishing Spring.

“It may not even...

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55. Flower

A righteous tall flower graced Aloe’s sight.

Righteous, the word felt more than appropriate for the straight and blue plant. In just a few hours after she went to sleep – albeit more than normal as she went early to bed the night prior – the blue sprout had fully grown. She had once expected the Flourishing Spring to be a tree judging by the vitality it had needed to infuse it.

But no, the Flourishing Spring ended up being a gorgeously colossal flower.

Looking at its b...

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54. Drugs

Days and days of countless permutations went by. Aloe was far from being an apothecary, or anything, really. She tried every possible mixture of water and Aloe Veritas ink, but nothing worked out. Either it was too diluted, damaging the parchment with the water; or too concentrated, becoming a slog impossible to write with.

Desperation kicked up just only on the second day, prompting Aloe to try different ingredients to add to the ink. Whether it was aloe vera sap or milled Cure Grass, ...

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53. Budget

Progress was slow in the oasis, unlike time. That flew by at impossible speeds. Every time Aloe blinked a day seemed to pass by. Time was but a distorted mess. Much like her vision.

“Uoooh!” Aloe shouted having severe problems keeping herself upright. “This is too faaaast!”

She thrashed her arms around trying to regain equilibrium, but with every step she took she was but a step closer to falling down. Desert terrain was already treacherous with the sand for the ground and...

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52. Contagion

Yet another interlude, but please don't skip them if you want a cohesive reading. Alas, I can't control your actions.

_________

“What do you mean the plague has spread?” Hassan shouted, tapping his foot on the ground. The sheer force prompted him to squint his eyes.

He had taken his time to arrive in Sadina as his broken leg had taken a while to fix, even with Nurture. Aaliyah-al-Ydaz had applied something to her attack, a broken leg would be painful but easy to fix for ...

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51. Last

“Augh..” Aloe panted heavily as she fanned her shirt. It was too open for her liking, but she couldn’t care right now. That was her level of exhaustion.

She whipped the sweat out of her forehead, only to end with a soaked sleeve.

“Oh, wow. That’s a lot of sweat. I have gone assassin there.” She took a deep breath. “How about you, Fikali? How are you faring?”

Hrooooooo!” The dweller grunted with hatred as she frowned. “Huoooooo!”

...

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50. Strength

Aloe wielded the knife in her hand with uncertainty. Her inner vitality flow had changed, but she wasn’t sure if to make this.

“I need more tea before doing this.” Drugs, as it would seem, were the solution to all of Aloe’s problems.

After downing two cups of ter’nar tea, Aloe had shifted into a better state of mind. With better meaning that she had no presence of mind whatsoever. The lightheadedness provided by the magical tree’s leaves made Aloe handle the knife bett...

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49. Toughness

Aloe started by meditating. Though this time she didn’t get undressed. Introspection was a useful tool when dealing with vitality as it allowed her to detect it more clearly. Isolating her senses, especially sight, made it easier for her to follow the ebb and flow of her body.

“Hmm?” She groaned curiously as she took a closer look at the internal movement of the vitality.

It wasn’t static. It was in constant movement, just like blood. Is vitality blood? That was h...

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48. Sprout

Description: An evolved member of the Nigella Sativa species, a species known for its ability to survive with mana alone and sprout streams of water.

Many questions bloomed in Aloe’s mind, namely “Wait, how do the streams of water work? Are they pressurized or more river-like streams?” or “Does the water come from this ‘mana’?” Unfortunately, she had no way of checking such questions. She had to wait for the Flourishing Spring to grow for her to find any c...

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47. Flourishing

“Ugh...” A groan left Aloe’s mouth as she woke up. She guided her hand to her head, her thoughts ridden with confusion. “W-what happen-“

Her words were cut off as her stomach and throat decided to protest at the same time as they engaged in a culinary discussion. Or in less eloquent terms, Aloe puked all over the desk.

“Ughhhhh...” She lingered with her eyes looking to the ceiling, her back resting on the chair in exhaustion. “That didn’t taste like beans and pot...

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