Chapter 242: Compression And Plants

I looked at the rock in my palm that was the size of a large apple while standing in the middle of the forest outside the tower.

Before this, it was about the size of two apples... So I guess I could compress them to half their original size with Maylene’s power.

Not terrible but also not completely useful either.

I mean... Maylene could quite probably shrink an entire tank into the size of a small toy model and put it in her pocket if she wanted to. She could be carrying around an entire warehouse full of supplies in just one of her pockets with space to spare if she wanted to.

But right now I can only reduce their size by half.

Oh, I also realised that Maylene’s power wasn’t just shrinking objects as she could also enlarge them as well, though the enlargement seemed to be much more difficult to achieve than the shrinking.

It’s like trying to suck in more air into your lungs after already taking a deep breath kind of feeling.

I only managed to enlarge the rock by a tiny bit of its original size before I could no longer hold it and it just snapped back to its original size.

I guess I’ll just have to take what I can right now... Since I’m pretty sure it would grow stronger in time anyway.

Besides... It’s not like I can’t just carry the full sized thing around anyway... Despite the fact that it might be a little inconvenient.

I returned the rock’s size back to normal and tossed it aside, right when I realised that there was someone hiding behind a tree and peeking around it at where I tossed the rock.

I caught sight of their face before they could fully hide themselves behind the tree at least.

"Liliac?" I called out to her.

She slowly peeked back out again, "M... Mortal... God?"

"What are you doing?"

"Umm... I... I saw Mortal God here so... I came over... To see what you’re doing..."

I gestured at the rock, "Ah, I recently made Maylene my Guardian you see... So I thought I might as well test out her powers. I figured that testing it out here would be safer than testing it inside the tower."

"Ah... I see... Umm... If I’m correct... Her ability involves making things smaller, right?"

I nodded, "That’s right. Look."

I went over to pick up the rock again and concentrated on it, watching as it wobbled for a moment before it shrank to half its original size as compared to before.

Liliac’s eyes seemed to sparkle at the sight as she stepped out from behind the tree to come over to me, her eyes full of wonder.

"That’s... Amazing..."

"Mmm... Mine’s not really that impressive though. Like all the abilities I gained, it’s not at the full extent of what you guys can do. Maylene could shrink this rock down to the size of a grain of sand if she wanted to and this is my maximum."

On that note, I originally thought Siti’s power and Liliac’s were basically the same with Siti’s power being a superior version of Liliac’s.

But it seems like they weren’t exactly the same since Siti’s goddess presided over harvest and life so basically it only extended to ’living’ and ’living plants’.

On the other hand, Liliac’s powers extend to dead plants as well, which is why she’s able to make clothing out of twigs and sticks and then still make them move and grow despite them being technically ’dead’.

So technically, in a way... Liliac’s ability is actually superior to Siti’s.

Well... Obviously Siti’s powers do allow plants to grow stamina and libido enhancing apples while Liliac’s ability doesn’t so... That’s one of the main differences I suppose...

Don’t ask me how it works, I’m just a guy who got their powers and didn’t get an instruction manual on them.

She stepped closer to me, her hands reaching out to hold mine as she beheld the rock that was still resting on my palm while shaking her head.

"For you to be able to do this is already something that is impressive, Divine One... No one else in existence can claim to be able to do what you can do. That is something to be proud of, you should not sell yourself short."

I stared at her, feeling a little surprised by how forward she was acting considering how she would usually act under normal circumstances.

That was when I realised that she hadn’t yet registered what she was doing and was really just genuinely fascinated by the power I showed her.

Funny because I was fully prepared to do the same thing as the last time where I just try and treat her like a small animal to not startle her.

I smiled at her, "I’m not really sure what it can be used for though. This basically allows me to shrink objects to half their size."

She was still holding my hand and looking at the rock with a rather intense gaze, "There’s so many possibilities, Mortal God. You could move gardens and fields with this... Especially since you also have my power as well. Here."

She pulled back her hand to pull out a single seed which she placed on top of the rock.

"Please make the rock big again."

I did as she asked and the rock expanded back to its original size without affecting the seed.

At first, I thought she wanted to grow a normal sized plant on the small rock and then have me expand the rock to make the plant bigger but... The ability would have only returned the rock back to its original size without affecting the plant since they will be treated as two different objects when expanding a shrunken object back to its original size.

I decided not to say anything and just watch as she moved her hand over it, prompting the seed to sprout and its roots to actually sink deep into the rock, cracking the stone like it was made of paper.

The seed sprouted out a stem before a bud appeared at the end before it stopped, which confused me because I thought for sure she was going to make the bud bloom into a flower.

She held my hands gently while still looking at the plant that had somehow grown itself into the rock, its roots anchored firmly in the stone and making the rock a part of it.

"There... Now make it smaller, Divine One."

Still confused, I did as she asked and shrunk both the plant and the rock to half their original size.

She then carefully took my hands and slowly guided me down to the forest floor where she waved her hand to cause the soil to roll open, leaving a perfect spot for me to place the rock inside the small hole that she had created.

She then opened up my palm, allowing the rock to drop into the hole with a soft thud before the soil converged around it, though it seemed like it did not wrap itself fully around it to make space for its original size so it could expand itself later.

I watched as the dark skinned Alv closed her fingers around my wrists and slowly guided me up and away from it, moving further than what I thought necessary if I were to return the rock and plant back to its original size.

Once we were a good distance away, with Liliac still holding my hand and looking completely unaware that she was doing that while looking at the plant, she nodded at me.

"Umm... If you could change them back now?"

I concentrated on the rock and commanded the plant and rock to return back to their original size.

Well... Since they weren’t that big to begin with, their expansion wasn’t that impressive as well since they just expanded slightly and that was it.

At least... That was what happened for the first few seconds before the plant suddenly grew explosively and the bud expanded into a giant flower that was no less bigger in size as the trees around it.

I felt Liliac clutch her hands around mine tighter as she let out a gasp at the sight of the flower, though it wasn’t a gasp of surprise but more of a gasp of happiness like something she planned to happen actually happened.

"Look, Divine One! The Ametila Rock Flower only blooms when the rock it is bonded to experiences a big change and the size would grow according to that change! To see one bloom like that is already a miracle and there has never been one that has bloomed this big before!"

I blinked at her, "Can’t you just make one grow with your powers?"

"Oh, of course Divine One. But to manipulate the plant directly to force it to grow is different than this! We do not change with the plant’s physiology and instead we..."

She trails off as she finally looked down to see that our hands were still joined.

There was a moment of silence before she let out a ’Kyuuuu’ sound and fainted, her body almost falling to the floor if I hadn’t caught her before she did.

Hmm... She’s really weak to these kinds of stimulation huh? That’s cute~

Maybe I can even tease her with this in the future.

No, no... The cute sounds she make as she faints has nothing to do with why I want to tease her of course~

So... What do I do with this flower?