Legendary Traveler: By Earning Progress Points I will Become Supreme!

One rowdy game of chase, the floof later, and a loud THUMP, Aoni returned to the small room housing his Flume only to find that Nyria had cleaned up the mess and replanted the bush sapling into a small box.

{'Brother, where's sister?'} Seeing Aoni return alone, the birb asked cautiously; after all, it had gotten pretty noisy outside the room, and then there was a loud thump sound, so she was quite worried that something had happened.

"Glacia is fine; the little goober wasn't paying attention and face-planted into the wall. She's got a nice bump and is a little dizzy, but she'll live," Aoni snorted, feeling a bit regretful as He replayed the last couple of minutes in his head.

After shouting her meep sound, Glacia bolted around the room like a caged mouse, slamming into furniture and moving so quickly that apart from continuing to chase her, Aoni was actually unable to "Catch" the furry missile.

That was a task better suited for Nyria in wide-open spaces, because she could simply drop down like a falcon and scoop her sister up. However, in an enclosed space, Aoni had basically zero chance.

"Cheeeee," hearing the story and finding it to be quite probable, Nyria simply sighed and hopped back onto the chair to watch her Lord continue his summoning.

She knew better than to say something stupid like Glacia had because all it would do is rile up Aoni and earn them "Noogies," which were the opposite of a head pat.

Mind you, it didn't hurt, but it definitely wasn't as pleasant as getting affection the usual way.

"gaooooo~, Gaooooo~."

And, of course, she could hear the bellyaching coming from the other room, so she knew that Glacia was perfectly fine.

"Sigh, Glacia, I told you not to run in the house; I CONSTANTLY tell you this, and yet we always end up with you running into something because you aren't paying attention to where you are going."

{'ebbery ting sbwinning'} Entering the Flume room in a drunken stupor, the floof, sporting a comically large bump on her head, flopped down on the ground beside where Nyria was positioned and looked around the room with a dizzy expression.

Seeing her current state, Aoni pinched the brim of his nose, pulled out some more Chimera jerky, and waved a piece in front of the floof's face.

"Wakey wakey little food gremlinnn,"

"OM NOM!"

"HEY!" Before Aoni could even react to draw his hand away, all the way up to his wrist was suddenly in Glacia's mouth as she absentmindedly tried to eat it.

"Goowow oma wowa mo." Without using her teeth to chew, Glacia nom'd on Aoni's hand like a baby with a pacifier until she suddenly froze and looked up at her Lord with clear eyes.

"You have three seconds to spit my hand out, or I'm booping your nose,"

"Goawow,"

"Three,"

PTOOI

"Blehhh, Glacia slobberrr," wiping his hand on his pants and tossing the soggy jerky strips onto a plate, Aoni put it down on the ground and tried to put what just happened out of his mind.

{'Foooods!'} Meanwhile, the floof couldn't care less because hey, she still got jerky in the end, even if it was a bit wet; having drooled all over it, she made short work of the snack and rolled over with her belly facing the sky.

'I swear, she only has a single brain cell, and it's dedicated to eating, whatever; I have more important things to deal with other than her antics." Picking up the hastily boxed potted plant, Aoni added points to its durability first, giving it a G- Rank, before adding points to provide it with a Null-Star.

Unfortunately, simply adding a single star and upgrading something from Gradeless status didn't appear to be enough to enable the plant's evolution.

So for a few cycles, Aoni went back and forth between adding points to the plant's durability, then rank, until he achieved his goal of triggering an Evolution.

1: Artic Berry Shrub

Durability: F- (►)

Grade: ★ (►)

Effect: Fruit Bearing

If before the plant looked like a useless light blue weed, now it appeared more like an adult plant, with several limbs filled with leaves in varying shades of blue.

From a little over 2 inches tall, the newly evolved Shrub stood at a little over a foot tall, and its plumage spread out another foot in width; however, the most impressive part of this little plant was the new effect: fruit bearing.

"Nyria, have you seen any of these before?" Carrying the Shrub over to his Birb and allowing her to examine it carefully, Aoni knew that if anyone could figure out what kind of fruits it bore, it would be her.

{'Mmm, yeah, yeah, this is the one that I get the purble burrys,'} Easily recognizing the plant, Nyria reached into her chest-mounted pack and gently plucked out a few coin-sized plump purple berries before dropping them into Aoni's hand.

"Oh? NICE, these things may not give a lot of sustenance, but theyre one of the key flavor ingredients I use in version 4 of the nutrition bars. Good work, Nyria." Giving her a head pat and flicking one of the berries toward Glacia, who was eying it greedily, Aoni stored the Shrub in his inventory, picked up another Node, and then froze.

'Hey, question: if I crush 10 nodes at once, it will trigger a multi-summon, right?' Coming up with a sudden idea on the spot, Aoni asked his Attribute Notice.

| … |

| With some restrictions, correct |

'And what kind of restrictions are we talking about here, lower drop rates, trash items, gimmie some details.' Picking up some more Nodes and spinning them around his palm like marbles, Aoni questioned further.

| Unlike natural multi-summons, which allow unfettered access to executing their purpose, Multi-Summoning through the use of Node Stones has a limited number of tries within a certain timeframe. |

| 1-Star Flume: 1 Multi-Summon a year, limit 20 nodes of specified type in a singular activation |

| 2-Star Flume: 2 Multi-Summons a Year, 40 Nodes of specified type in a singular activation |

| 3-Star Flume: 3 Multi-Summons a Year, 60 Nodes of specified type in a singular activation |

"Yeah, yeah, I get the pattern anyway; since my Flume is 2-Stars, I can currently do 2, 40 node Multi-Summons in one sitting, so with two multi's, I can dump off 80 of my nodes." Looking down at the stones covering the camping table, Aoni's brain began churning.