Synexus had reached the new level in the middle of the vegetable store. Luckily, the shopkeeper had been in the back gathering the seeds for him. With only 50 different kinds of vegetables, it would only be eight silver guins for all of them. The shopkeeper was nice and didn’t question his motives. None of them had a unique look, so they wouldn’t be edited into bamboo, but he figured this would give him more for his library and more food for Kumo to choose from.

  Once the shopkeeper came back with the seeds, Synexus thanked her and left the store. He decided he would go find a spot to sit to rest and handle his stat points. There was a sunny area with a couple of benches, so he found an empty one and sat down. It was a busy area, and he got lost in watching all the different people walking by.

  There were couples out on walks, groups of women all talking and laughing as they walked by, a few guys talking about some sport that Synexus didn’t know of, and people walking animals. It was pleasant and he appreciated how happy they all looked. Some looked class chosen, but others looked under twenty. You could tell the difference since stat points did make a huge difference. With that thought, he remembered why he had sat down in the first place.

  Since he had thirty stat points he decided to put five in each stat. Strength was a little lower than the rest, but he didn’t use it as much as the others plus the random stat point from his amulet this morning had been given to strength yet again. This put all of his stats at 20 except for strength and perception. Those were at 17 and 21 respectively. These numbers were the base stats, not including his bonus from the achievement. They were all getting an additional two from that. He felt good about how his stats were growing and knew it would only feel better.

  Now that he had his stats out of the way, he focused on putting more of the seeds into his Gene Library. A little more of a break from Gene Editing would be welcome since he was at it nearly forty minutes earlier. He was breezing through the edits to only change the color of the bamboo.

  He was digesting the information from each new plant quickly, but he still had to take a break to fend off mental exhaustion every thirty new entries or so. This didn’t have to be a long break, however, he really did enjoy watching the people go about their lives. It was so different than his life has ever been. The stories these people had would be alien to him. Even so, he wanted to hear them.

  After absorbing another forty-six new entries into his library, he got his much-anticipated level in Gene Library.

  Gene Library has leveled up!

  Gene Library has reached level 10!

  Gene Library has now evolved into Genome Library.

  Genome Library: You may now store the complete genome of plants and animals. Understanding the genome better will result in a more complete entry into your library.

  Synexus was caught by surprise. His skill had evolved. He didn’t even realize that was a possibility. Was it only this skill that would do that? Would his others evolve at level 10? Now he had to find out, but first he had to finish his bamboo commission.

  He needed to edit another 62 bamboo seeds. Ecclo wasn’t expecting 100 new variants, however, Synexus was hoping it would really motivate him to sell them. Plus, it was good experience for his Gene Editing even though he inherently knew that doing simple edits like this wouldn’t get him as much as doing more complicated changes.

  The bench was comfortable, and he could multitask now while editing the genes of simple plants. Another two hours passed and he completed his hundredth bamboo variant. That last one took a few tries because he added the attractive aura to it, and it was already a little harder being the one that changed colors with temperature. A lot of genes had gone into that property.

  Now that he was done with the editing, he had to use Accelerated Growth on all 100 seeds to show off their colors to Ecclo. He poured his mana into seeds after seed only growing them a little before stopping. Ecclo probably had a growth skill of his own since he was a bamboo farmer class.

  It took 73 of the seeds before he got the notification he was waiting for.

  Accelerated Growth has leveled up!

  Accelerated Growth is now level 10!

  Accelerated Growth has now evolved into Extreme Growth.

  Extreme Growth: Your mana is now more efficient at interacting with the genes within plants and animals. Grow plants much faster, using less mana. Use your mana to stimulate the genes of animals.

  Synexus couldn’t have had a bigger smile on his face. His skills do evolve at level 10, and he now had an idea of where his class was heading. He could now collect the genomes for animals as well as plants. With Extreme Growth he could grow plants more efficiently and stimulate the genes of animals, which he wasn’t entirely sure what that meant. Could he help them heal? Or maybe he could make them grow bigger like his plants. Perhaps there were even more things he could do with it. There would be many experiments with the skill.

  He couldn’t wait to get Body Transmutation and Gene Editing up to level 10 as well, but first he had his task to finish. With only 27 more variants to grow he tested out his new mana efficiency. Before it was taking him two mana for every bamboo plant to get about a foot tall. Now it wasn’t even taking him a full mana for one plant. That was an incredible boon to his skills, and it was much faster now. He could grow one within seconds. He finished growing all his bamboo variants within ten minutes.

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  Ecclo was standing at the counter of his staring at the plipio bamboo when Synexus walked back in. The little bell chime had brought him out of his thoughts, and he went over to the door. To his surprise it was his new friend. He wasn’t expecting him for another few hours at least. This probably meant bad news.

  Synexus walked in to find Ecclo frowning at him. “What’s wrong?”

  “You tell me. You’re back so quickly. Could you not make any variants?”

  “Oh, I know I said the end of the day, but I finished early. I made you 100 new variants of bamboo!”

  “100?! How?! You were only gone a few hours. Can I see them?”

  “Of course! Let me get them out of my bag.” He started taking them out one by one and sitting them on the counter. With every new one that came out, Ecclo’s jaw dropped further.

  “There is no way you created all of these in only a few hours. These are incredible hybrids. I see you got a lot of inspiration from the flower shop. I’ve always loved the Firelight Rose, and the Void Sunflower is a favorite of my mothers. Synexus these are beautiful.”

  “Thank you, do you think they will sell? If not, I’m sure I can find some other ideas.”

  “These will sell. I mean I’m not sure I will be able to grow them fast enough to keep them in stock. It will take most of my mana to grow these ones to full size before I start propagating.”

  Synexus looked at him in confusion. He figured a bamboo farmer class would have an efficient growing ability. Without saying anything, he poured his mana into all 100 plants, and they grew quickly. He stopped with they got to the height of the door. “I can help with that.”

  “Wow you are quite the druid. I have a growing ability, but it’s more focused on little growth at a time. Alright, let’s get these out back and we can propagate them. I have the ability to create seeds of the plants I touch, however, I think most people will want to buy these full grown.”

  “Sure, lets get to it. One thing first though. I’m a Progress Druid. It’s quite different from a regular druid as you can see.”

  Ecclo nodded in confusion, and they went out back. There was a massive space for them to work with, so they got to it. By the time Synexus had run out of mana using his newly improved Extreme Growth they had grown nearly 20 of each of the new variants not counting the originals. Growing the bamboo from propagation was much easier than doing it from seed. All of this only took them an hour and a half.

  After another hour of resting, he was able to grow about 80 more of each variant with the mana he had recovered. It seemed to be recovering much faster now that his intelligence was over 20.

  Synexus left the shop in the late afternoon after making plans with Ecclo to come back in a few days to help grow the inventory back up and to collect his part of the profit. He had to get back to the inn to meet up with Kumo. Tomorrow they were going clothing shopping and he wanted to tell her that they may have more guins coming their way.

  The sun was setting, and the sky was a beautiful burnt orange over the ocean. The ships were silhouettes against the sky. People were still out walking along the pathway by the beach a little further down from the docks. Synexus could sit there and look at that setting for the rest of his life and be happy, but he didn’t want to keep Kumo waiting.

  She was sitting at the same table from this morning and eating her dinner. Synexus grabbed a plate and joined her. It was some mashed vegetable and baked poultry. The taste wasn’t bad, however, he liked the bacon this morning better. They acknowledged each other and then ate in silence for a minute before speaking.

  “Were you able to find a fishing pole and a dimension bag?”

  “I found a nice fishing pole for a decent price that should be reliable for the entirety of our voyage. I did find a dimension bag that I loved, but it was too pricey. They wanted 10 gold guins for it. How about you? Did you get some fruit trees?”

  “I bought a seed of every fruit tree species they had which ended up being 108 seeds. I also was able to get a seed for every vegetable plant this other store was selling which was about 50 different kinds. You will be set for food. None of the shops I visited had dimension bags, but I did get a job!”

  “A job? You know we are leaving in five days, right? Also, why did you buy all of those seeds. That seems like a lot. Wait…did you spend all your money?”

  “No! I still have my gold guins and 30 silver guins. I wanted the seeds, so I can work on my library while on the sea anyways.” He paused to eat more of the food and then continued, “But no, this shopkeeper named Ecclo liked my plipio bamboo, so he commissioned me to create more variants of bamboo for him to sell. In exchange, I got one seed of every species he had, and I get 50% of the profits from any of the variants he sells. I made 100 and then grew 100 of each of them for him. My mana is drained.”

  “Okay, I was going to say something about you spending 70 silver guins in one day, but it sounds like we could actually make a profit from this bamboo thing. I saw a lot of bamboo bracelets, necklaces, fishing poles, and furniture while walking around today. When do you go back to collect?”

  “I’m going back in two days to collect the first profits and grow more for him. Then I will go the day before we leave again. It’s great practice for my skills too. I leveled up my Gene Library today and it evolved into Genome Library, so now I can collect the genes of animals as well. Then my Accelerated Growth skill evolved to Extreme Growth and my mana is more efficient now. I didn’t even know skills evolved.”

  “I wasn’t sure if your skills would or not. Some do, but others just stay what they are and get more efficient or powerful. I’m not sure mine will evolve. We will see soon. I went out and fought a couple things today for my Ullashtt item, so I should be close. I did get to level seven today though.”

  “Same here! I was so excited about the skill evolution that I almost forgot.”

  “Wait, so now that you can log the genes of animal, can you add my genes to your library?”

  “You know, I didn’t even think about that, let me try.” He reached out his sensors and pressed them against her arm. He got information about her like normal, but nothing for his skill. “Nope it must differentiate between animals and humans. That’s good though. I’m not sure I would be comfortable with human genes floating around in my skill.”

  “Well, I’m sure that’s not the only progress we will make while in the city. It sounds like you have plenty to do with your skills and I found that they encourage class chosen to go out and kill monsters that get too close to the city. It doesn’t pay, but it helps with my bracers and skills, so I’ll probably do that in the afternoons.” She finished her food and pushed the plate away before continuing. “Tomorrow morning, we will go clothes shopping and then I’ll go out with the hunting party. You can come if you want. Sounds like they are always looking for more.”

  “That’s okay, I think I want to try to do some research tomorrow. I’m going to look up the Ullashtt and I would like to check the class library for anything on my class. Be careful out there though.”

  “I will. It’s with a bunch of experienced class chosen, so you don’t have to worry. I’ll see you bright and early. Goodnight, Synexus.”

  He said goodnight and she went upstairs to her room. Today had been such a good day, and he knew the perfect way to end it.

  Five minutes later he was sitting on his balcony looking out at the ocean. It was so dark now, but still beautiful. Four more days and he would be sailing across that vast realm. His arm was giving off the subtle firelight of the rose he found today. Once it wore off, he would go to bed for another exciting day in Gale tomorrow.