All the Dust that Falls

Chapter 268: A Discerning Eye

The rest of Bee's meeting in the salon went more to plan than the first half. Her aunt kept drinking a shocking amount but never really seemed affected by it. Bee eventually questioned her after what must have been her tenth drink, and she said he had something to do with her merchant class. After that, Bee became even more wary of the strength of these drinks. Instead, she got the waiter to bring her some water and real orange juice.

As she cut into pancakes topped with sugary syrup, they talked about the family business. "How do you continue going about it?"

Bee found she cared a little bit about their family's finances and was interested in what her aunt had to say. But she still didn't really like business. That's why it didn't bother her that her aunt offered, very apologetically, to take over the business relationships Bee had paved the way for. She had already gotten what she wanted out of them: cover in the city, a place to stay, and several wagoneers' contracts that would allow her to set up impromptu roadblocks.

As part of their plans, she had formulated a path for the army that wound from the front gate all the way to the castle. Once that beachhead was established, she could then get the wagons to move, but she wouldn't need any sort of business contacts for that. The city would fall quickly, especially if they lost contact with their leadership. The cultists were going to be an amazing help as well. Although her aunt didn't need to know about that part.

So Bee was finally, blessedly freed up from all her responsibilities as the acting heiress to her family business. And she couldn't be happier. Beatrix asked her to keep her eye open for any crazy deals like the one she had gotten on the manor, so she promised she would. But she didn't have high hopes.

Eventually, she made it back to the manor as her aunt went to a business meeting. After a very, very long meal that left her stuffed, Bee wondered if she would have to be rolled down the street to get home. Once she arrived, though, she found that Void had returned and busied itself in the back doing… something. It seemed as though it was staring at the apple trees. Bee joined her master for a little bit just to talk, as she hadn't touched base with Void for a while. She was very busy, and Void was somehow always gone.

"What are you working on?" Bee asked.

---

I had spent only a couple hours studying the apple trees when Beatrice came and found me. I greeted her with an enthusiastic beep, then projected an explanation.

"I'm just looking at the fruits. I think that changing their internal structures might make them better."

She looked at me with confusion but still nodded. "Really? How so?"

I shared my initial findings with her. Fruit with more internal structure appeared to be crispier in most cases but also maintained its important nutrients. It could also improve resistance to damage from bruising or squeezing. However, a lot of the benefits of eating the fruit, such as the energy and sugars within them, might be lost. For fruit, of course, increasing the regularity of the structure would allow the fruits to grow bigger and healthier than ever before.

But also, there was something else. There were other variables that I could experiment with. If I just tweaked it slightly, the fruit changed in unexpected ways. Ways that were entirely different from the effects of bringing it into my dustbin...

I stopped scrolling my text as I noticed that Beatrice's eyes had glazed over, and she wasn't exactly following what I was saying. Well, that was ok. I supposed I had rambled for a bit, so I summarized my findings. I might be able to make fruit do more than just give you nutrients and energy for the day. She seemed to accept that as she nodded and returned to just sitting in the grass with me as I studied the apples.

I pulled one of them into my storage and examined it in there, too, watching as the energies from my limitless dustbin slowly seeped into it. The absorption of the energy made the apple begin to glow. It started in the first layer of skin. There, it did nothing more than add a faint luminosity effect, from what I could tell. At least, that's what my sensors told me, but the apple continued to change the longer I had it in.

Once the skin was glowing, the magic and energies started to seep in further, and the cells of the apple began to mutate. It grew and changed, and all the little organelles inside its cells began to work faster and with more vigor. Before long, entirely new structures formed. Ones that I had no name for. Structures that seemed to be made of the same physics-defying energy in my dustbin. After analyzing them, they appeared to have properties similar to the energy I gained from that overflow experience. Only, it was slightly different. It was almost as though the magic was colored somewhat. Perhaps they would have some sort of effect when consumed.

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Now, of course, I could just hold the apples in my storage indefinitely, but they kept getting more and more magically amped up. After about 20 to 30 minutes of being in my storage, I would not trust even someone as powerful as Beatrice to consume them without exploding from the amount of magical energy shoved into them. Maybe Archibald could have taken it, but even then, it would probably be dangerous.

So what if I could get the apples to do something similar while they were still growing? I didn't think I needed the void to impart the magic. But what if I could control the apple and get it to generate a slight pull, pulling some of the ambient magic from around the surrounding areas into it and causing a predictable effect? Maybe we could use it to intentionally give myself and my people additional boosts from eating the more reasonably energized fruit?

I never noticed when Beatrice left, as it took me days of continuous study before I had any sort of real understanding of how to get the fruit to pull in ambient energy. It wasn't exactly something I'd ever tried before, and I didn't know where to start with something like this. However, with an entire library's worth of knowledge in my databases and firsthand experience with Beatrice's magic, I had a bit more to work with than I'd initially feared.

It turned out that I couldn't get the fruit to make those changes itself. Instead, I had to get the tree to start from the roots. And with how the roots were already pulling energy from the soil, and the leaves were pulling energy from the sun, it took a little bit of tweaking. I started by pulling in apple leaves and bits of roots into my storage to watch the effects, but I noticed with very, very, very precise applications of my laser and a few bits of magical re-infused dirt, I could alter them. Soon, the roots drew in not just water and nutrients but a little bit of magic as well. It was going very slowly, and the apples wouldn't be ready any time soon. But. I was pretty sure that my idea would work.

I never did get back to the market to study its governing dynamics. The fruit took up all my time. The only time I wasn't studying the fruit in the backyard was when I was cleaning the city at night. I never did give up on that, but mostly because the apples tended to go dormant during the dark. Without sunlight to stimulate their growth, I had nothing better to do. Besides, the market was closed at night anyway.

***

Sometime late in the second week, I finished cleaning the city. At least I finished the first pass. Every street was, at one point, spotless. Every wall was free of moss. Every paving stone was level, besides the ones in the palace. I didn't want to go back there yet. Besides, that area was relatively well kept from what I'd seen, and I didn't feel like it needed that much improvement. By the time I finished covering the whole city, I checked back to where I started and realized, yep, it was dirty again. Thankfully, it was not as dirty as I found it, but it was still dirty.

I just beeped determinedly. I knew that would be the case. It was one of the laws of the universe. Cleaning was never done. There was no way to suspend the world in a perfect state. And even if we could, that would be a horrible idea. Cleaning was to pick up after the humans. And humans made messes. It was in their nature. It was a hard thing for me to accept, but it was true. In fact, a lot of other things seemed to share that inclination, but that didn't mean we couldn't strive to do a bit better every day.

One thing I noticed over the week was a change in the white-robed cult's preaching. They seemed to change their tone slightly. Instead of yelling about how cleanliness necessitated the removal of people, Zeal's priests took a slight turn in style. They started yelling about how the streets being clean meant their god had come, that the end times were near, and all those mess makers in causes of disorder must repent and throw themselves on their swords to beg for the mercy of the clean one.

It was still a whole lot of nonsense to me. But they didn't seem to be harming anyone. At least, I hadn't noticed them harming anyone. Beatrice talked with their leader several more times, and from what I could tell, they had reached some sort of understanding. It would hopefully benefit all of us in cooperation.

One morning, as I returned from my nightly routine, Beatrice came to me in the garden. "The army should be showing up today or tomorrow. I'm not sure when exactly, and I can prepare for them either day, but it'd be better if I knew more accurately when they'll arrive. It might help to know before the guards do."

Of course, she had to get a lot of things in place before the city could know. Even then, the army needed to know to get here as quickly as possible once they were spotted. Otherwise, the city might have time to tamper with any measures Beatrice set up.

"I will go," I messaged. My human had a point. The army could definitely use an update on things around here, anyway.

Beatrice gave me a bow. "Thank you for performing such a menial task, my master. I know it is beneath you, but I'm very grateful. Otherwise, I wasn't sure how I would be able to contact them."

I just waved my appreciation as I zipped up and out of the city, zooming off to go find the awaiting army.contemporary romance

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