Of course, before even planning this, I used my phone to confirm that the snow in Terra was safe and harmless aside from being cold. It was indeed mostly just frozen water, and since most of the empire's industrial technology was environmentally clean, it was even safer than most post-industrial worlds I've been to.
It was only light flurries, but the whole park around the portal had around three or four inches of snow coating the ground, so it must have been snowing a lot before we got there.
A trail had been shoveled leading from the entrance to the portal, already lightly covered with fresh snow.
The rest of the city beyond the fence was in a similar state. Some of the roads had been cleared, while others were covered in snow, with piles of it sporadically littering the city. Some sidewalks were cleared, others were covered in footprints, and yet others still remained untouched.
Although I'd considered taking Lilac to an actual park, that is one without a portal, since most of the area around the portal remained untouched and covered in snow, I decided that we could just play there instead.
It'd be less of a walk back home afterward.
Besides, nobody should question us.
Although it wasn't like I owned the park around the portal or anything, it was public property, and anyone who looked at me could just implicitly tell that I was the boss of the dungeon the portal went to.
'Not that I have any real authority over the dungeon...'
Well... aside from the authority that imperial law decided to grant me.
But it'd be better if I didn't have to rely on that.
***
Lilac wasn't sure what to make of the white world she'd followed Kid to.
She hadn't been to Terra as much, but even she recognized it as utterly transformed from the last time she'd been there.
At first, the cold was an unpleasant reminder of times she'd rather forget, but she was dressed warmly enough that she could still appreciate the strange transformation's natural beauty.
It was an unusual situation.
And then something even stranger happened.
The kind but usually stoic girl she considered her master... started to drag her along through this cold but magical world, teaching her all sorts of games she could play.
All things she could only do while it was in this transformed state.
"(Here, stick your tongue out and try to catch one.)"
"(Huh?)"
Confused, she did so, and Kid gently nudged her so one of the scattered snowflakes would fall right on her tongue, melting into a droplet of cool water from its warmth.
Of course, at first, she just went along because she didn't ever want to disappoint Kid. Naturally, she'd normally avoid disappointing her masters out of fear for the consequences that might follow if she ever did, though over time, the consequence she feared the most became being left behind.
But whether she was using her body to leave imprinted shapes in the snow, helping build a snowman, or even daring to have a snowball fight with Kid, she eventually found herself losing track of the time.
"(We should probably go back now. Your face is getting all red.)"
So when it was finally time to go back, she actually felt disappointment.
It wasn't much, but she was sure she must have shown it on her face somehow, so she quickly covered her face with her hands, trying to hide it from Kid.
Though she couldn't help but fear some sort of reprisal, when Kid's hand moved up toward her head, all it did was settle on top of it to muss up her hair a bit.
It was a deeply confusing outcome.
But unfortunately... she still had to go back.
***
While playing with Lilac, we had briefly returned to the Lost to get some branches to serve as the snowman's arms.
This made me curious.
From prior experiments, I knew that plants generally regenerated after any removed portions were sufficiently damaged.
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It didn't require total destruction. For example, burning lumber was enough to trigger the regeneration, despite the ashes that were left behind.
It also wasn't instantaneous.
'What happens if a branch is taken out of the Lost altogether?'
Before taking Lilac back home, I decided to go out with her to get something hot to drink.
The convenience store had a bunch, like a bitter stimulant called coffee, and a sweet drink called hot chocolate.
Children usually prefer sweet things, so I got two hot chocolates, one for her and one for myself.
I wanted to know firsthand what I was feeding her, after all.
It was too sweet for me, though I didn't hate it. Either way, it cost money and was probably full of calories, so I had no reason not to finish drinking it.
But Lilac seemed to like it.
We waited a bit in the convenience store after paying, before we started walking back. The cups were made of thick paper, but there was no reason not to take them back with us. If nothing else, I could throw them in the compost.
Though once we returned to the Lost, we had to take off all our winter clothes again.
If we tried hiking all the way home in them, we might pass out from a heat stroke along the way.
"Huh? You can just keep them," Suon said when I tried to return the coat and other stuff they got me. "Or do you want us to hold unto them for you? We could put them in the kiosk."
'Ah.'
"No, we'll... take them back."
I'd have to inventory everything and figure out how much it all costs, so I didn't let them hold unto it for me.
"Oh... are you sure? It's not a big deal. You can get a locker in the kiosk as a free guild perk, you know."
"Maybe next time."
"Ah..."
It was a bit annoying carrying it all back, but after a bit of clever knotwork, I transformed the various garments into a pair of bundles, one for Lilac to carry and one for myself.
Even if I'd had the foresight to bring a backpack, it was too bulky for that anyway, so really, it was a good thing I didn't.
***
Thanks to teaching Savi, I actually had a pretty good amount of money again.
I decided to spend it on chemistry equipment.
Of course, I couldn't afford lab quality stuff. Although she was paying me a decent income, especially when you calculated the hourly amount, I wasn't by any means wealthy.
But there were various chemistry sets for students.
They weren't as precise or comprehensive, but they were better than what I currently had. Ordering a couple kits, as well as a few specific items, I'd soon have a low cost lab of my own.
"Huh, you're ordering lab supplies? Here, let me help. I've done this countless times before."
And Savi, without asking, made sure I avoided scams in the process.
It took a few days for everything to arrive, after a walk to the portal and back to pick them up, I could finally do some interesting things.
After that, and with Lilac's and Savi's help, I did too many experiments to recount here.
The gist of all the tests I did to the Lost flora suggested that it resembled life. The ashes of burnt Lost wood seemed to be mostly carbon.
But they didn't seem to actually breath.
Of course, I couldn't directly measure oxygen or carbon dioxide, but I was able to bring some stuff over to Terra one day and perform the same experiments on leaves in a park.
It involved two air-tight jars, one with a leaf and the other without. My lungs produced carbon dioxide, so I just had to breathe into them.
There was a solution in each that changed color to match the acidity levels. It was a pretty subtle difference, but the Terran leaf gradually absorbed the acidity over time, suggesting that it replaced the carbon dioxide with oxygen.
It wasn't proof, of course, but it was a result supported by a body of science done by countless Terrans over thousands of years.
When I did the same thing with Lost leaves, nothing happened.
On the other hand, there were strips that could show ambient mana levels, and Terra had very low ambient mana, whereas the Lost had slightly more.
Putting the strip on something could give an idea of how much mana was inside it.
Of course, it wasn't perfect. It revealed how much mana was on the surface of the object, not how much it truly stored. Mana cores were designed to trap and contain mana, and so this test could even show them having below ambient levels of mana, which I confirmed first hand with a Red Forest core.
But it worked well enough with life forms that don't have mana cores.
Terran flora only had a bit more surface mana than their surroundings, but Lost flora had substantially more.
So what did this all mean?
I wasn't sure yet.
But it was interesting.
***
I was also now able to better study the progress of my composting efforts.
'Did they really just not try this approach?'
Once, a few years ago, I was told scientists had already tried and failed to cultivate the land in the Lost.
Then again, before I'd arrived, they hadn't even mapped out the forest, despite the Empire having the technology and logistics to map out every imperial road and building, even including private homes and remote farmlands.
Apparently, the low rate of Skill acquisition had put the Lost as a relatively low priority dungeon, even though it was a beginner dungeon. It was a place for people to go if they couldn't afford any better.
In that regard, it was odd that a top guild like the Azure Dragons was in charge of it.
So... they probably just hadn't exhausted every effort back when they'd tried...
But it was still awfully irresponsible to just write off the possibility altogether after a couple of initial trials.
'Of course, it's not as good as farming in Terra anyway, so maybe they had succeeded after all, and people misunderstood the results.'
I decided to ask Van about it.
'That was fast. Does he just wait for me to contact him?'
Anyway... what I learned over the course of a week or so was that the hybrid compost showed every indication of being viable in the long term.
It wasn't ideal for farming, since there wasn't a great variety of micro-bacterial life, but what could survive off of Lost flora and its ashes did so.
Essentially, it underperformed compared to Terran soil in every category. Mineral levels, rate of lost acidity, moisture content, temperature, and even simply looking at it under a microscope, the microbes looked less active, less varied, and less healthy.
However, it was performing.
The major risks were that a useful bacteria strain might die from lack of nutrients, forcing me to import more from Terra later on, or that they might evolve to become less useful or even detrimental in the future.
But if I cultivated things carefully, I could eventually become self sufficient.
I was able to confirm that much.