Farmer or Cultivator? Why not both?-Chapter 39: The brilliant apple

As he sat, he streamed energy into apple, and his eyes could make out how his mana set into the apple’s mana changing its appearance, its hue. It felt like Ren was connected to the apple as energy flowed from him. The stone and the twig had not felt this way as they bore no mana of their own, and they weren’t living objects.

The mana about the apple at first was a warm orange, and then, with the advent of Ren’s blue aura, it changed to a bright purple, but as Ren streamed further, and as time pased, the aura took a flashy blood red hue.

"Very interesting. A dense mana is needed to fixed itself unto the object of imbuement, I have to have my mana be dense as possible."

He took a bite of the apple. The taste was more or less the same only slightly stronger, and Ren noticed that the aura reduced as he took a chomp of the apple. A total of nineteen minutes was how long he took with flooding the apple with his mana but of course, he did not know that, he felt that he had been very brief with imbuing his mana. He glanced at the apples above, and then to the eaten apple on his hand, to a normal eye, aside the eaten part there was no difference, but to a trained eye like his, there was a strong difference.

He left the apple on the ground, abd backed away from it. He was expecting it to behave like the twig and stone but hus expectation was dashed, as the mana about the apple did not dissappear nor did it changed. There was no slight dim indicating disconnect from mana source, no, the fiery brilliant aura retained itself.

Ren stood with his arms by his waist, watching the apple intently as if he was waiting for a worm to sprout out of it. He soon got bored of watching and moved on to trying his luck with the twig and the rock. The apple had proved that he had gotten a hang of imbuing mana into things, he only needed to level up the skill. He tried again with the rock, and once again, he failed. He tried with the twig and he got the same result as he had gotten previously. He clicked his tongue, and took a glance at the apple. A few more minutes had passed, and the aura bout the apple was not a deep crimson red as it was but now a bright pink, almost like some of its hue haad been washed away.

Clearly, the apple was losing the mana it contained. He was beginning to feel drained already with how much mana he had lost, but luckily he had learnt convergence, and he could easily replenish the lost energy.

Since experimenting with the non living matter yielded no fruit, he chose to continue to imbue thr vegetables he had, and the grapes, and they too like the apple held on to the mana they were provided with.

Ren then had an idea, a light bulb over one’s head moment.

"What would happen if I feed my cows these fruits and veggies?" They had been feeding on grasses which like the apples had mana in them, albeit much smaller, now what would happen to them if they had a large meal extremely much in mana, so much that they had ever had before? Ren welcomed the thought.

He imbued as much crops as he was fine with losing which were a whole bunch and he pumped them full with mana, and packed this specially made ambrosia to his cows and pigs. At first they fed on it enthusiastically as they did with all that was given to them, especially the pigs but quickly, they stopped eating and deserted the produce. It wasn’t like he had packed a ton of crops for them to feed on, it was only a moderate amount and he was confident that they would finish it, but they could not finish it, they seemed full.

"They are full already." Ren uttered, he understood now, he had connected two and two together. There was a reason why he took just a bite of the apple, and he felt that he could no longer proceed. Mana fense food filled the tummy much more than the lighter ones, the cows and pigs simply could not eat any more.

He spent the rest of the evening practicing for combat scenarios, the encounter with Alanna showed that he was far from special, there were others like him, others with perhaps an even more interesting class, and greater experience. He dared not be lax. He trained to exhaustion, and it was time he crashed in for the day. He took a look into the cows pen, and that of the pig and the fruits and vegetables were still laying on the bare soil, the pigs own covered already by mud. Aside the fullness, they did not show any change, any difference.

He looked at the rooster he had gotten around the same time he had gotten Neg. It was accompanying the hen he had gotten alongside it, and trailing them were little chicks. He thought nothing of them, unlike his other animals, they had relative freedom in that they could leave the compound and they often did.

Although he could replenish his internal mana with convergence, he could not replenish his stamina, and he soon got tired, besides, one could only train for so long. The mana aura around the apople had hardly changed, it was still a bright pink hue, and the aura still cling stubbornly on the apple.

Ren resigned with training that evening, moving into his home to make a meal of fried potatoes and vegetables, and he washed it all down with a bottle of milk.

It was not Ren’s intention to have his birds feed on the apple he left outside, he had not considered their reaction to the mana infused fruits and vegetables, the thought never drifted across his mind.

However, his rooster found its way to it as Ren prepared to sleep. The bright color pulled it, like how a light bulb attracted moths to itself. The rooster dug its beak in taking a little chomp, but unlike the others, it didn’t stop with just a bite, it continued.

Through the night, this one rooster fed on the apple until it finished it entirely, the mana in the apple settling in on this simple creature.

Across the night, mana-induced evolution took place. Sentience was granted to one that it was least expected to possess.