MAR 15 Sunday.

I slowly let out a breath as I focused on the life magic around me. Right now I'm lying on a patch of grass in the park training my ability to sense life magic on a larger scale than before.

In the past, I mostly focused on small details and plants. Right now I'm focusing more on tracking the larger amounts of life magic around me to sense other beings while mostly ignoring plants. I decided to do this in the park as from an outside perspective it just looks like I'm meditating or taking a nap, and it has a good variety of life magic sources to train with.

It's been a little less than a week since I got home and thankfully nothing much has happened. I caught up with my friends and gave them each a small souvenir I bought for them. They are small wooden carvings I saw in the markets that I thought they would like.

A puzzle piece for Blaz, a pie for Maple, and a daisy for Daisy. That last one was more of a joke than anything, but I couldn't help myself. Beyond the gifts I got some news the day after I returned, Daisy found a replacement for Ruby and I'm going back to my normal work again.

It's a little boring but the job became less interesting to me after I fully learned Griffin, plus this means I can move on to other things. I also got back to training with Stone, who after hearing that I took it easy while on vacation decided to run me right into the ground, and then some.

I also got a response letter from Celestia inviting me to our next meeting, which is later today. It will be nice to talk to her for the first time in a few weeks. The last thing worth mentioning is the fact that I saw a bit counter being used at a bank when I went to get some bits a few days ago.

That should make many ponies trust the new invention a decent amount as a bank wouldn't use something optional that could cost them bits especially if it could get them in legal trouble if it doesn't work correctly. I expect the bit counter to start popping up more and more over time if things go well.

I breathe out deeply in preparation to try something I haven't done before. I've practiced space sensing enough to do it without using all my concentration for a while now so I'm wondering if I can use both life magic sensing and space magic sensing at the same time.

Doing this will be a step back in some ways as it will take a lot more of my concentration to do this, but it will also push my limits and that should help me improve faster. I stay as still as possible and have everything around me fade away as I start meditating on the magic around me.

I start with life magic and feel the grass and trees, the ponies walking down a nearby path, and a flock of birds flying above me. I then try to add space on top and overlap them while trying my best to blend them together in a way that gives me the most information.

But a problem started happening, the different magics overlapped too much in many areas and sent me the same information twice. This adds unnecessary overlapping information for little gain, so I start filtering out all duplicate information. It's a slow process of identifying different sources and choosing to focus more on them or ignore them.

I also have to choose which magic I want to send me information on a specific thing. Then I have to commit all this to memory so I don't have to filter it all out again. This will need a lot of work to become second nature to me but if I can succeed then I'd be able to add two new senses to myself.

I continue this process until my magic is nearly dry, I stop and open my eyes to look around me. The grass has grown a little from my efforts but isn't noticeable unless you're really looking. I'll probably just focus on each type of magic individual for now until I can use them constantly without needing to meditate, then mix both together as it's not really worth it right now.

I check the time with a quickly drawn out Temporis spell. Seeing that my meeting will be relatively soon I stand up and stretch before walking out of the park and to my apartment building. I get my saddlebags and Entropy melds into my shadow, and I leave to walk to the palace.

Like always I show them my invite and they take me through the palace. Unlike other times we don't go into the room we normally meet in but instead I'm led to the gardens, it seems we are having a nice meeting outside today. I look around as we walk through the rows of hedges.

The last time I was here I was worrying over my first meeting with Celestia and didn't take the time to truly appreciate how beautiful it is. The winding hedges have many areas filled with different flower patches and trees with colorful leaves, it's a lovely place to visit.

I follow the guard into a part of the path with Celestia inspecting a flower. I walk up to her and bow, "It's nice to see you again Celestia, have you been doing well?" I ask while walking over to her and standing a few feet away.

She looks back with a smile. "I've been doing well, although I've had a lot of work because of a certain pony and their inventions. How was your vacation?"

We start walking through the gardens as we continue talking. "It went well, I saw many things and even learned how to swim. And that washing salt out of my coat and mane is something I may need to make a spell to help with."

She nods with an amount of mock seriousness. "I know that feeling well. I'm glad you had fun and took your time to relax, but knowing you, you probably spent a lot of that time learning or training something."

I pretend to look offended at her words. "I'll have you know I know how to have fun, it's not my fault I consider both of those things to be fun," I say while hamming up my words a little.

That gets a small laugh out of her. :She has a nice laugh: My mind stops at that thought. Well, those thoughts are going into a corner of my mind to be ignored. "Well, I see you're in a good mood." We reach a clearing that is higher up and overlooks most of the gardens.

We both sit at a table set up in the grass. I stare out at the gardens while Celestia casts a warming spell on a teapot, as I look around I notice we are alone with no guards in sight. But I don't need my eyes to know that on the other side of the hedge around us, several guards stand watch.

"We should meet out here more often, this place is amazing." She nods and moves a teacup filled with red tea over to me.

"I'd like that too. I'm happy you enjoyed your vacation, you seemed like you needed a break. Anything interesting to talk about?"

I think about anything that wouldn't reveal my involvement in what happened, although I'm not sure even she knows about what happened. "Well like I said I spent some time learning how to swim and spent even more time at the beach doing just that."

"I also spent a lot of time at the city library, they had many Griffin medical texts that were interesting, and a few other books that caught my interest." I started talking about the various things that caught my interest while I was in New Trotten.

When I'm finished with my storytelling I remember something and take out some pages from my saddlebag before passing them over to Celestia. The pages are an update on my progress with the B.L.P spell. While she's reading through it I spend some time setting up my chess board, she sees me setting up the pieces and smiles at me.

When she's done reading I ask something else, "Do you know any good ways to train magical sensing?" This launches us into a conversation about different methods and what might work for me. While we talk we also play chess, and I really shouldn't challenge her to this, but I think I improved while playing against Phelix so I might stand a better chance now. The rest of our meeting proves just how wrong I am and just how far I still have to go.

When our meeting is done we say our goodbyes and I'm led back outside before walking back home. When I arrive home I take my things off and move into my workroom to start work immediately. I've been so busy catching up with everything that I haven't had the chance to work with the new plants I got.

I take a few pots full of dirt and place them on my desk before grabbing seeds, the Salty Seaweed can't be grown by me right now so I focus on the Spine Leaf. I read up on this plant while at the New Trotten city library so I know a few things about it.

The Spine Leaf's appearance and natural environment. It has leaves that are similar to a daisy, a splay of deep green leaves coming from a central stock. And the stock ends in a flower that has a blueish-white color that looks similar to a poppy without the bulb. The main thing to notice about its appearance is the needles on the edge of its leaves.

Unlike other plants that have thorns or small spikes on a leaf, the Spine Leaf has thick leaves that grow full needles that are similar to a cactus. They are only a quarter inch long but are very sharp and surprisingly durable for their size, I think they also have something that helps them stay inside as the needles are said to be hard and painful to remove.

The environment this plant is native to is the grassy plains that stretch across several parts of Equestria. The plant evolved to grow in nutrient-poor grassland soil and live through bushfires while developing its needles to stop herbivores from eating it.

It's been used as a natural source of sewing needles for a long time but became less useful as metal needles became common and they are better in every way.

I take two seeds and plant them each in a pot before growing them into full plants, but as I'm doing this I notice something odd happening. I grew the first few Spine Leaf in less-than-ideal conditions and with little starting material and because of that I never noticed that it was a very fast-growing plant.

The life magic it takes is about average but after some testing, I find that the Spine Leaf can grow very fast, the only other plant that comes close is the Gripping Vine. This effect isn't something documented in any book I read, but it offers me an interesting opportunity.

After some observation, I find that the Spine Leaf is very efficient at absorbing and using life magic to grow. This lets me grow a generation of the Spine Leaf very fast, and that's without me learning the Spine Leaf's magical flows. So I decompose everything and start over by growing a single Spine Leaf to start memorizing its magical flows.

The plant is smaller than most and doesn't have any magical effects so it's relatively easy to get a basic understanding of the plant's magical flows. I decided to test how fast I could grow the Spine Leaf now and plant another seed, and push life magic into it while watching it grow at an amazing rate.

I start selectively breeding the Spine Leaf to grow tougher needles, every generation I pick off a needle and snap it to see which is toughest. I'm able to get through a lot of generations quickly but the magic cost is still the same which just led to me running out of magic faster.

I'm not sure what I'll use the needles for but having them around could prove useful for a few ideas. In between breeding plants, I take breaks to regenerate my magic and work on a few other things, specifically, I'm working on the runes I found on the frost dagger I bought.

I've been able to find one of the two unknown runes but I haven't found anything about the second one. Maybe I should have asked Celestia? Well if this rune gives me too much trouble I'll ask next time we meet. I stop looking through runes and walk back into my workroom to breed even more plants.

Author's Note

I have a little writers block and several things happening IRL right now, so you'll probably see me post every other day more often then I am right now. Sorry in advance.

Thanks for reading. :}