AU where Naofumi gets the BioPlant shield and its related shields and starts thinking about that long-dead alchemist and their miracle seed. How he was able to make a better miracle seed within eighteen hours of learning about the problem. Sure, it’s because of the shields he unlocked, but they’re his shields. His to use however he sees fit.
And maybe he sees fit to try his hand at some plant alchemy and mad science of his own.
—
He runs his fingers along the edge of his small shield and ponders.
They’re currently traveling to nowhere in particular, weighed down by extra carriages packed to the brim with miracle fruits and potatoes. By Naofumi’s estimates, it’ll feed Filo for a week. Maybe two.
Raphtalia is in the back of the head carriage, reading up on light magic from a grimoire the witch gave them. She’s read it from cover to cover twice over, but even if she finds magic more intuitive than he does she still needs to work at it. And with her motion sickness being a thing of the past (usually), she’s able to read as they travel.
Which leaves him holding Filo’s reins with a lot of time to think. Normally he’d be thinking about what accessories he can make with what he has, if they’re going to need to stop and forage for stuff to compound with, or even that it’s odd being bored with how wild his life’s gotten.
Today he’s not thinking about any of that. He’s thinking about his new shields. He’d unlocked several back in that famine town and their abilities are useful. Intermediate compounding recipes 2, plant appraisal, and plant reform.
Plant reform. Every time he turns it around in his head he can’t help but think about the implications.
His first instinct on getting the BioPlant Shield was to use it on the BioPlant Seeds he picked up. Because that felt like a good thing to try it on, even if he needed the Mandragora Shield’s plant appraisal skill to really know what he was doing.
But the skill isn’t called BioPlant Seed reform. It’s called plant reform. And the mere thought of being able to control the stats of other plants has entertained him for hours already.
It’d keep Filo from eating them destitute, for one thing. He’s come to care deeply for her but with her appetite she might as well be living on a diet of monster meat and silver coins. If he could get her to eat only miracle food that he can make by dropping a seed into the dirt and covering it up, he’d save hundreds of silver.
And he’d be able to make hundreds of silver too. They wouldn’t need three whole carriages to transport all the produce they could sell, he’d be able to create it on-demand. It’d always be fresh and in-stock.
Why stop at produce, actually? He spends hours a day foraging for stuff to compound with. Being able to grow stuff like aelo in a crate of dirt in the back of the carriage whenever he needs it? Or even just miracle plants that have the same properties and react the same way with other ingredients? Game-changing.
He changes his shield to the BioPlant Shield and looks at its stats again. Its defense isn’t anything impressive on its own, not when compared to his Chimera Viper Shield, but its equip bonus has so much potential.
And having a hook as a skill isn’t too bad either. He doesn’t use the one on his Chimera Viper Shield that often, though, and this one doesn’t seem to come with poison. He’ll have to test it out to see if it’s worth his time.
He takes a hold of the fruit he was going to have for lunch and opens its reform menu. Even when it’s not just the seed, he can edit its stats it seems.
It’s as he reads through the stats again that he thinks about the plant monsters that the alchemist’s version could make. Their attacks couldn’t pierce his defense at all, not with Gurihosato Shield’s equip bonus reducing the damage he takes from plants and his already high defense.
They were wild, uncontrolled, and didn’t have much intelligence. But even still, the lesser plant monsters spawned by the original BioPlant were able to coordinate with each other. Their attacks were varied and could be great against hordes of enemies.
And now he’s thinking about how difficult it’d be to train a plant monster. Giving it too much intelligence would be a disaster, obviously, but not giving it enough would mean it wouldn’t be able to learn or understand him.
Hm. He could always experiment. If he keeps their immunity low then it’d be easy to kill any failures off with herbicides and the boost his shield gives them when he uses them would make quick work of them. It already has.
Four to intelligence, five to mutation, and seven to growth? Somewhat smart but not clever enough to try anything underhanded, enough room to mutate into something more than just a plant, and something that will grow quickly but not too big to handle.
Would it be better to have his experiments grow slowly, though? If he raised them from seedlings would that make it easier to teach even the less intelligent ones their place? Having higher plant appraisal doesn’t mean he actually knows what these values will look like until he tries them, even if he does have a better understanding of what each stat means.
What happens if he drops the stats of an already grown plant monster? Would that be a faster way to deal with them than just dumping herbicide on them?
He could always start off with his more profitable ideas and work his way up to instant armies of loyal plant monsters. His failures will be less destructive and will still teach him things while his successes will make them more income.
He tosses the fruit and activates his shield’s hook. Vines shoot out from his Shield and wrap snugly around the fruit, keeping it still even as Filo pulls the carriage quickly over bumps on the road. With a thought, the fruit gets reeled in and he looks closely at it. Either the vines have a very tight grip or the miracle fruits bruise easily. He’ll have to check with a fresh fruit.
“Here, Filo, have a snack.” He takes hold of the bruised fruit in one hand and tosses it forward.
Filo snaps it up without breaking stride. “So yummy! Thanks, master.”
Yeah, he’ll work on making more edible miracle fruit variants first.
