"Spore? I feel like I've heard that word somewhere before. What did it mean again?"
Aquaman had been placed atop the tower. Leaning on his trident, he scratched his head.
He had heard the word before, but the burly man whose education had stopped at elementary school and whose specialty was "talking to fish" was once again revealing his shortcomings.
Deathstroke removed his mask. At this distance, they were safe for the time being, and Atlantis could still raise barriers with Hard Water for protection. It was also necessary to observe the spores' range and speed of spread here.
If things went badly, he would take Harley to Oblivion Bar to lie low first.
"You swim around in the sea all the time, so you've definitely seen gelidium, right? That kind of algae reproduces through spores. Recently, people have been cultivating gelidium spores in large quantities to obtain agar, which is used in everything from food additives to medical research."
Su Ming gave Arthur an example he was more likely to recognize. Red algae of that sort was widely distributed across Earth; Arthur had surely seen it.
Arthur grinned and squeezed the water from his big beard. "I think I get it. Wait, what's gelidium?"
"..." Deathstroke blinked, somewhat speechless. He had Strangle scoop up a piece of kelp from the seawater at Atlantis's edge and place it before Arthur. "Do you know what this is?"
"Seaweed." Arthur answered without hesitation.
Strangle scooped up some sea calamus from the seafloor and placed it before Arthur. Its slender emerald leaves were quite beautiful.
"What about this?" Deathstroke asked again.
Aquaman hugged his trident and widened his eyes. "Still seaweed."
Fine. Su Ming understood now. Arthur could identify every kind of fish, but he lumped all underwater plants together as seaweed.
That