Chapter 302: Return

As the snowfield land on both sides outside the ice wall of Phoenix was gradually cleared and the Northwest Barley No. 1 seeds were sown, the day for the Enduring Zhenbing Tribe to be self-sufficient was getting closer and closer.

The progress of reclamation was actually not particularly optimistic at the beginning.

Because reclaiming wasteland and planting cultivated land are two completely different concepts.

The normal process of reclaiming wasteland involves burning the wasteland, plowing the land, accumulating fertilizer, leveling the land, digging ditches, and so on.

However, snowfield agriculture is relatively special.

First of all, most of the snowfield land is flat, with no need to clear gravel or shrubs, and there is no such thing as burning the wasteland; the bulk of the work is clearing snow and then plowing the soil.

Additionally, the characteristic of Northwest Barley No. 1 absorbing ice elements means that planting it requires no fertilizer and no need to dig ditches.

This saved a lot of effort.

But at the same time, the backwardness of the Enduring Zhenbing Tribe's farming techniques is also rare.

Even worse, as a non-traditional farming nation, the number of farm tools in the Enduring Zhenbing Tribe is far from enough for the current work—if it weren't for a piece of volcanic land that gave the Enduring Zhenbing Tribe a certain agricultural foundation, there might not even be a single farm tool.

Therefore, they could only reclaim the farm while urgently crafting farm tools.

Another way is to rely on magic for help—although the magic awakened by the Iceborn bloodline itself does not include 【Earth Shaping】, this is, after all, just a cantrip, requiring no magic potions, and the construction of the magic model is relatively simple.

So after Gao De wrote out the 【Earth Shaping】 magic formula and distributed it to the Iceborn mages in the tribe, they relied on their mage rank of at least the first circle to learn a cantrip downwards, which actually didn't take much time.

Soon, 【Earth Shaping】 became the standard magic for the Iceborn mages of the Enduring Zhenbing Tribe.

Even if it was just a cantrip, in terms of the efficiency of reclaiming land, in Gao De's view, it was on par with the large-scale machinery of his previous life.

This is the charm of supernatural power.

The expected 300,000 mu of land for the Jin Hui Farm, under normal circumstances, with the backward conditions of the Enduring Zhenbing Tribe, even if 20,000 laborers were dispatched, it would take at least twenty years to fully reclaim it.

But with the blessing of magic and the special nature of snowfield agriculture, the first batch of 10,000 mu of farmland was reclaimed in just over a month.

And as everyone became proficient in their work, the speed of reclamation was still accelerating.

And the field closest to Phoenix, surrounded by the ice wall, was the breeding field for the Northwest Barley No. 1.

During this time, Flora and Su Naifa spent almost all their spare time in the breeding field.

Gao De looked out into the distance from the window of his "office," and with the terrifying long-distance vision ability of the Mandara Demon Eye, he could vaguely see the Northwest Barley No. 1 growing wildly in the breeding field surrounded by the ice wall.

For example, the clusters of golden barley he saw in the field now, which were enough to dazzle one's eyes, were actually green ears of wheat in the morning.

The reason for such an exaggerated change in a single day was naturally due to "Natural Art."

Relying on the magical ability of Natural Art, Northwest Barley No. 1 was accumulating seeds rapidly at a rate of one harvest per day, then two.

These were definitely not things Su Naifa could do alone.

Thinking of this, Gao De had already picked up the parchment on his desk and started reading.

On the parchment were the "tree planting" applications submitted by the Iceborn mages in the tribe during this time.

Two months had passed since he and Su Naifa decided to fully promote the 'Qingmu Changsheng Jing' in the Enduring Zhenbing Tribe.

The progress was so smooth that it exceeded Gao De's imagination.

There was no need to promote the benefits of the 'Qingmu Changsheng Jing' too much.

Just the fact that the "Natural Art" of the 'Qingmu Changsheng Jing' could help reclaim the Jin Hui Farm was enough for the Iceborn mages of the Enduring Zhenbing Tribe to ignore everything else and practice this cultivation method without hesitation.

And in Gao De's expectation, given the importance of holy objects to the 'Qingmu Changsheng Jing', most Iceborn mages should have been "waiting for the price," carefully selecting, and slowly deliberating to screen for suitable holy objects.

The result, however, was that in order to obtain the ability of "Natural Art" as soon as possible, many Iceborn mages didn't care about so-called "prospects" at all, only wanting to form a contract with a holy object as soon as possible to help the tribe reclaim fields and plant food.

It was just that the problem Gao De faced when choosing the 'Qingmu Changsheng Jing' also existed for the Iceborn mages: even the lowest-rank magic plants needed to grow on spiritual land, because magic power was a necessary condition for their growth.

Moreover, spiritual land was often just the most basic condition, and different magic plants would have different additional requirements for soil characteristics.

High-rank magic plants generally found it difficult to agree to a mage's contract request, so it was most realistic to cultivate them from a seed.

But magic plant seedlings were extremely delicate; once placed in the wild, they were easily attacked by accidents or harsh environments, and taking care of them personally every day was extremely energy-consuming. For most people, this was clearly an impractical task.

Of course, since Gao De chose to promote the 'Qingmu Changsheng Jing', he must have prepared a solution for these difficulties—the land transformed by Yujia Te Xila was precisely spiritual land suitable for the growth of magic plants.

As long as they planted their contract holy objects around Yujia Te Xila, Elder Gaien could lead the Tree Guard Team to guard the holy objects while guarding the Holy Tree.

This saved manpower and utilized resources efficiently.

However, Gao De put forward two requirements:

First, if one wanted to plant a contract holy object around Yujia Te Xila, the type of holy object selected must be a tree seed.

Because only tree seeds could provide growth benefits to Yujia Te Xila.

Currently, the land transformed by Yujia Te Xila was still limited, and resources had to be maximized.

Once there was surplus land in the future, Gao De would allow everyone to enter regardless of the type of magic plant they chose.

Second, the contract holy object must be a seed that had not yet sprouted or a newborn seedling, not a mature magic plant transplant.

Because Yujia Te Xila had just been planted not long ago, even after one catalysis, it was only in the form of a small sapling, and its ability was still very weak.

The land it had transformed now possessed weak magic power, but it was still a distance away from becoming spiritual land, and it was not enough to allow magic plants to grow healthily.

And magic tree seeds or seedlings did not have such high requirements for magic power in the soil, so the land currently transformed by Yujia Te Xila was barely enough.

Of course, as it grew, the demand for magic power by these magic trees would certainly become higher and higher.

But don't forget, Yujia Te Xila was also growing.

And the growth speed was faster than other magic trees; after all, the characteristic of Yujia Te Xila was that the more magic trees around it, the faster the growth speed.

By that time, Yujia Te Xila should have long since transformed the land into spiritual land.

This is called growing together.

Another thing was that magic plant cultivation was also a profound discipline.

The knowledge-poor Enduring Zhenbing Tribe did not have much exposure to this discipline.

This should have been a major difficulty in promoting the 'Qingmu Changsheng Jing', but Gao De had Flora! A natural tree-planting body.

For all tree seeds, as long as they passed through Flora's hands, she could derive the corresponding most suitable cultivation method.

What Zhongting Continent, what Equilibrium Temple... the orthodoxy of the 'Qingmu Changsheng Jing' was in the northern realm! If it weren't for the fact that finding magic tree seeds was not an easy task, requiring time and a bit of luck, more than half of the Iceborn mages in the Enduring Zhenbing Tribe would have already selected a holy object to form a contract by now.

But even with so many conditions, the number of mages in the Enduring Zhenbing Tribe who had already selected a holy object to form a contract was still a large number.

It was a large number that the land area currently transformed by Yujia Te Xila could not satisfy by far.

Therefore, to "plant trees" in Jianwan, one had to go through the application process first.

For this reason, Gao De specially set up a "Forestry Office" in the Agricultural Force, specially responsible for "tree planting" matters—the head was of course Flora, but two more people were specially assigned to her to be responsible for collecting and screening the "tree planting" applications submitted by the tribesmen.

"Including this batch of seven, there are now thirty-one Iceborn mages who meet the conditions waiting in line." Gao De went through the "tree planting" applications and got a number.

Even with such harsh conditions, it was still in a state of short supply.

He couldn't help but let out a long sigh; what a happy trouble.

Then he calculated in his heart:

"Twelve first-rank magic trees, six second-rank magic trees..."

These were the "magic trees" newly planted around Yujia Te Xila in the past two months, all of which were holy objects contracted by the Iceborn mages in the tribe.

In order to maximize resource utilization, the tree planting applications he approved were all different types of tree seeds, and they were all magic tree seeds with relatively universal requirements for soil environment.

The growth benefits that magic plants could provide to Yujia Te Xila were far greater than ordinary trees.

So these eighteen magic tree seeds, once they successfully took root and sprouted, would provide growth benefits equivalent to hundreds of ordinary tree seeds.

It was just that magic plants contained more complex life force and magic energy, which was not something that could be easily catalyzed by "Natural Art," and the mana required increased tenfold or dozens of times.

【In the error-free version!】

Even with Su Naifa's help, of the eighteen tree seeds planted so far, only eleven had sprouted.

But the sprouting of these eleven magic tree seedlings was enough to cause earth-shaking changes in Yujia Te Xila.

In just two months, its height had surged from over three feet to over nine feet.

The increase in height was secondary; the more obvious changes were in the root system and the trunk.

The trunk became thick and sturdy, the mysterious and complex runes on it became clearer and more visible, containing vigorous power, and the number of new leaves reached over two hundred, with five-colored brilliance lingering, like a dream.

The root system expanded further, deep into the ground, and the tree roots exposed to the ground were also more vigorous and powerful.

"It won't be long before Yujia Te Xila advances to the next stage, about one or two weeks."

This was the information Yujia Te Xila itself conveyed.

And once it entered the next stage, Yujia Te Xila would awaken a part of its own innate abilities.

Gao De had been looking forward to this for a long time.

"My King, Catherine is back and is waiting outside for a summons."

Just as Gao De was immersed in the reverie of the great cause of "afforestation," Grant, the Deputy Minister of the Agricultural Force, who had been busy lately, suddenly arrived and brought Gao De an unexpected piece of news.

"Finally back," Gao De's eyes lit up, and he said, "Let her in."

A moment later, Grant brought Catherine in and did not retreat—Catherine was, after all, a high-circle mage and not a Enduring Zhenbing tribesman; Grant naturally would not let Catherine be alone in a room with Gao De.

"My lord, I have not failed your mission; I have successfully completed the task you entrusted to me." As soon as she entered the office, Catherine bowed with her hand on her chest, her voice carrying just the right amount of respect.

Her expression carried a bit of fatigue and the dust of travel; clearly, she had not had an easy time during this period.

It had been nearly three months since Catherine led her team to leave Phoenix and head to the snowfield to hunt down the criminals.

In these three months, she hadn't dared to rest or slack off for a moment—the hunt was a matter where the longer it dragged on, the higher the work intensity, so it had to be resolved quickly.

Three months of high-intensity hunting, even for Catherine, a veteran hunter, was exhausting.

Fortunately, the result was good.

"Among the Snowfield Guardians, we have tracked down the whereabouts of all the necromancers who followed the Saint Arbiter Lei Sen to practice forbidden necromancy and then fled."

"Four of them resisted fiercely after discovering us, so we had no choice but to kill them. The remaining necromancers were captured by us and have now been brought back, waiting for your disposal."

Gao De had long had a plan for dealing with this group of people.

"It just so happens that there is a shortage of manpower for the Jin Hui Farm reclamation. After applying the Forbidden Ice Needles, hand them all over to Deputy Minister Grant to be used as coolies."

"Thank you, my King!" Hearing Gao De's arrangement, Grant couldn't be happier.

The reclamation of the Jin Hui Farm could be said to be short of people everywhere.

After arranging the destination of these necromancers, Gao De looked at Catherine. "I promised you back then that if you completed the hunting mission, I would restore everyone's freedom..."

He paused, and under Catherine's slightly nervous gaze, he nodded. "My word naturally holds true. From now on, you are free."

Catherine's face immediately showed uncontrollable joy, feeling that all the fatigue of these days was worth it.

"However..." But before she could be happy for long, Gao De spoke again.

Just hearing the first two words, Catherine's heart tightened.

"You must have noticed when you returned that Phoenix is currently under major construction..."

Catherine subconsciously nodded upon hearing this, and remembered what she had seen and heard before entering the city.

When she left, the snowfield on both sides outside the city gate was still a wasteland of accumulated snow.

In just three months, it had actually turned into farmland, and there were even barley plants growing in it.

And further away, there were tens of thousands of Enduring Zhenbing tribesmen busy clearing snow, plowing soil, and leveling land.

When she first saw this scene, Catherine thought she had been hit by an illusion-type spell or was dreaming.

Even now, she hadn't figured this out.

Gao De continued:

"Phoenix is currently very short of people, especially capable people."

"So, I would like to invite you to stay in Phoenix and work for me. Of course, you can also refuse." The words Gao De finally said were far beyond Catherine's expectations.

"You mean, invite us to work for you?" Catherine asked in disbelief.

"Yes," Gao De nodded. "Is there a problem?"

"With the power of the Enduring Zhenbing Tribe, you didn't have to be so polite to me." Catherine still found it hard to understand.

Now it was they who were in a weaker position; Gao De needed them to do things, and they couldn't and wouldn't dare to refuse.

"I don't need people with ulterior motives." Gao De gave his own explanation.

In fact, having traveled here, he wasn't very fond of the word "work for"—the word was too feudal.

But he knew that sometimes blindly emphasizing equality and freedom was meaningless.

Oranges in the south are different from those in the north.

In such a world, going against one's class is a very stupid thing.

What he should do is to plant the most bountiful fruits possible under the soil conditions of this world.

(End of chapter) ===== CHAPTER 303 =====