World Bloom

Summary

The titular 'World Bloom', is an eclipse-aspected flora, identifible by its bizarre iridiscent color and umbrella-like root structure. Often described as 'chalice' shaped, its notable size impressively rivals that of wolves. The thin central-stalk supports a tightly closed, overly large bulb, itself adorned in thorny protusions that are made of light-distorting darkness. Strands of mana leak out of the closed folds of the bulb, each one a distilled, purified form of the many different types of mana, flowing out like misty waterfalls.   One of the most unfathomably rare things to find upon Veltrona, and a type of 'flower' barely understood at all. The World Bloom is a flower most often found in areas of overwhelming darkness that is typical of a heavy eclipse presence, such as gloomweeper gardens. They're very solitary, and have no obvious forms of pollination or propagation anyone can discern.   Initially called 'mana flowers' due to their overwhelming abundance of mana, they were fabelled things to find and garnered a legendary reputation. If found, most harvested the bulb immediately, as it contained a truly ridiculous quantity of mana. However, as people started figuring out how to process such a rare thing, they uncovered increasingly bizarre properties about it.   For one, the World Bloom's 'sap' is a colorless, mildly tart-tasting liquid that can dissolve one's relationship to time. In effect, this means those who consume it become physically disassociated from time itself, up until the presumably fatal point of complete 'separation'. Those who reach this point are effectively frozen, becoming statue-like and utterly unresponsive to everything. Even if cut or blown apart, no blood leaks out, and chunks of the body just go where they please like hunks of rock.   No one knows if the afflicted are actually dead, or simply stuck in some kind of state. It is, however, virtually non-reversible once complete freezing occurs. This effect was put to notorious use in the world of cultivation, particularly Nerzin, where it was used to assassinate high-ranking, incredibly powerful cultivators. Unlike virtually all other kinds of 'poisons', the sap of a World Bloom ignored every known form of defense a person could possess.   It has, however, become reasonably easy to be rid of if one catches it in time. The poisoning effect can be expunged by cycling one's mana throughout their body aggressively, preventing the sap from 'settling in'. The principle issue is noticing the sap's effects in the first place, otherwise the mana cycling itself is not difficult to do. The only notable 'give away' of a poisoning attempt is one's perception of time slowing down. An effect that very conveniently masks itself under being drunk from alcohol.   While the sap's effects are noteworthy enough, the World Bloom's mystique only grows from there. The everflowing mana from its bulb, so long as it remains rooted, are nigh-limitless and attractively rich to harvest. However, as the flower itself comes closer to blooming, reality begins warping. Space-time and physical constitution start to distort, and a 'bubble' begins surrounding its occupied space. This bubble expands more and more as the World Bloom reaches maturity, rearranging existence around itself with complete impunity.   The destructive side-effect of this process makes it profoundly dangerous to approach. It isn't unlike throwing one's self into a raging tempest being torn to shreds down to the thiniest atomic structure possible. Those who can endure this effect, however, behold something truly spectacular: a new Heavenly Realm, taking shape in the opening cradle of the blooming bulb. It is essentially a flower that births an entire new pocket dimension, somehow.   Once fully bloomed, there's a period of tranquil peace as the new Heavenly Realm and Veltrona reach equilibrium. At this point, the border of a new world has been made, and so all sorts of things may cross over into the fertile grounds. After some time, be it many years, decades, or centuries, the bulb detaches, and the Heavenly Realm begins to phase out of contemporary existence. Most suspect that the new realm is ejected out from Veltrona itself, to go free among the others that exist in their unknowable ways.   Explorers of these new Heavenly Realms do report one consistent thing that exists in all of them: another World Bloom beginning to grow again. This new bloom never fully matures when the old one is still present, and no one has ever returned from a detachment to report what happens. Speculatively, it appears that the World Bloom is a temporally recursive plant that, in the making a new Heavenly Realm, replicates itself in the process.   A plethora of unanswered questions remain about the World Bloom, if it even should be called a 'flower' in the first place. Paramount among them is whether or not it is a type of divinity that may have been created by a Goddess. If it was, most feel it would be reasonable to understand as a work of the divine.   If it wasn't, and instead 'naturally evolved', then a disturbing question is left to be asked:   What kind of animal necessitates stopping time itself as a form of defense?