Chapter 16: Multi-Layer Moss Planting

Facing Kraig's suspicion, Filin first went to the temple, obtained Seeing Ange's consent, then brought all the management personnel to Seeing Ange's glowing moss fields.

"So that's how it is—using different substrates, the gravel also acting as drainage channels to carry away excess water. My god, such a simple method, and it lets two things with different humidity requirements grow in the same field. That's amazing." Kraig prostrated himself, utterly convinced.

"Lord Filin, the owner of this field possesses planting techniques far beyond ours. May I ask—is he a druid? Could he come help us manage and improve our fields?"

"In your dreams." Filin said with a satisfied smile and a curse: "You can't even stay here long. Look quickly, record the details, then leave at once. This area has been designated a restricted zone by me—even I can't enter without permission."

He truly knew nothing about the techniques; whenever he ran into professional questions, Kraig would corner him until he was speechless. Now he'd finally turned the tables—look, you Kraig aren't better than everyone at every technique either.

Everyone who heard this got a jolt—the underground city actually had a restricted zone even City Lord Filin couldn't enter at will?

At this moment, a soldier ran over and reported to Eske: "Sir, a plague has broken out in the upper city district. Over a dozen people have diarrhea and vomiting, and someone discovered a corpse in the water pool."

Upon hearing "upper city district," Eske's expression Immediately Cautioned, and he asked: "Has it been isolated and sealed? Where is the corpse?"

The upper city district is the wealthy area, that is, the topmost region of the slope just inside the underground city. Water flows downhill—the higher the terrain, the cleaner the water.

In this dark, damp underground city where daylight never reaches, drainage facilities are incomplete; human and animal waste along with all kinds of household sewage flow freely. The further down you go, the worse the sanitary conditions, and the more often plagues occur.

The underground city already had a mature contingency plan: isolate and seal off, then send mages to treat. Basically, the epidemic could be controlled within a short time.

But what worried Eske was that this epidemic occurred in the upper city district, which had the best sanitary conditions. Household sewage would inevitably flow down to the lower city district along the terrain. Only a dozen or so cases had been discovered so far, but who knew how many were latent.

A group of people came in a rush to the place in the upper city district where the corpse was found. A rotting corpse lay sprawled on the ground. Lina took one look and turned her face away in disgust.

Filin examined it carefully and said in surprise: "Time of death should only be two days—how has it rotted this badly? No soul residue either. Something's off."

Hearing Filin's words, Lina forced down her disgust and turned back, looked for a moment, then said: "My lord, can you open up his abdominal cavity?"

After the abdominal cavity was opened, everyone's face changed drastically: "Demon Nodes? It's those bastards from Demon Valley."

The appearance of Demon Valley and the plague put the entire underground city on edge. All living beings were quarantined at home; no one was allowed to leave their residence. Only undead could move about freely.

This was far more effective than how ordinary human societies dealt with plagues—after all, undead couldn't be infected, so they could keep society running.

Seeing Ange noticed the temple had gone quiet. Everyone was quarantined at home, no believers came, and the Undead Temple returned to its usual deathly stillness.

The Bai Yin Skeleton was sweeping the floor as always; the temple grounds were kept spotlessly clean by it, without a speck of dust.

The only change was that ever since Seeing Ange condensed his Soul Heart, whenever the Bai Yin Skeleton encountered Seeing Ange, it would stop its work, stand straight holding its broom, and lower its head obediently.

Ordinary skeletons and zombies would flee when encountering a fellow undead with a stronger soul; only those with inscribed rules would behave this way.

Seeing Ange tried to communicate with it, but could only get very simple responses, like "clean," "quiet," and the like. By all reason, a Bai Yin Skeleton already possessed a certain intelligence and shouldn't be impossible to communicate with—but that was exactly the case.

With no one coming, Seeing Ange didn't mind. He actually preferred this quiet situation. The area around the temple had undergone some tremendous changes recently—everything had been planted densely with glowing moss by Seeing Ange.

Originally he had wanted to plant within the temple grounds, but whatever he planted would be cleaned up by the Bai Yin Skeleton—not a single one would survive the night.

Because of the good care and just-right environment, the glowing moss grew splendidly, more and more of it, and soon it filled all the space around the temple.

After the lockdown, Seeing Ange had more time to tend the glowing moss. Unfortunately, there was very little soil near the temple; what little there was only accumulated floating dust, with complex composition and little nutrition, so he couldn't plant grain at intervals like in a field.

But, who cares—if glowing moss could be grown, then just grow glowing moss. After all, the minotaur family even ate moss; glowing moss counts as a kind of food too, right?

Glowing moss needs no soil and no sunlight. Seeing Ange simply brought stone slabs, set them up layer by layer, and planted between two layers.

The underground city was short on everything except stone slabs—some areas even had shale geology; a light chisel and out came a neat stone slab.

He built racks of seven or eight layers, planted glowing moss between each layer. They would glow on their own, able to grow without light, as long as the humidity was kept right.

On these stone slabs, Seeing Ange planted specially selected specimens—the thickest, fastest-growing, largest plants.

Selection and breeding of seeds was the most basic skill of planting. If he didn't even understand this, Seeing Ange couldn't have farmed for a thousand years; the seeds would have long since degenerated.

Just as Seeing Ange was quietly planting moss, a burst of hurried footsteps came from afar. In front was a boy in his teens, clutching a little girl of four or five in his arms, running barefoot, his soles bleeding profusely from stepping on some sharp stone—who knew which.

But the boy seemed not to feel the pain, sprinting with all his might toward the temple. Behind him, four or five skeleton soldiers wielding sharp weapons were in close pursuit, about to catch up and cut the boy down at any moment—their orders were to kill any living beings running about.

The temple was in sight. A gleam of hope flashed in the boy's eyes, and he murmured: "Please save my sister, undying god."

With his words, a wisp of soul flame—at least a dozen times thicker than an ordinary person's—shot toward the distant altar.

But faith alone cannot transcend the limits of matter. Just as they were about to rush into the temple grounds, the skeleton soldiers caught up, and a blade hacked toward the boy's back.

Seeing Ange was drawn to attention by that thick soul flame. Seeing the boy about to be struck, he instinctively cried out: "Ao!"

He didn't know why he had to cry "Ao"—probably the little zombie that was always going "ao ao ao" had influenced him. He just wanted to stop the skeleton soldiers' actions.

The sound transmitted outward through soul waves, freezing the skeleton soldiers who were about to strike, and they looked toward Seeing Ange in terror.

A king who had condensed a Soul Heart and was about to transform into a Gold Skeleton, roaring—this was enough to scare these low-level skeletons apart.

There was a figure that moved no slower than the sound, charging out with an "ao ao" cry, slamming into the frozen skeleton soldiers and sending them flying, crashing heavily to the ground and shattering apart on impact.