Chapter 279: Dragon Fruit

This was the second farm boundary Ange had seen—similar in size, nearly identical in layout, giving him a sense of returning home; he had long been eager to plant something.

Seeing the minotaurs have ruined the farmland with sparse, malnourished crops, he felt deeply pained.

Years of cultivation had drained the soil's nutrients, causing compaction and degradation; crop yields would only keep declining.

The minotaur aunt gnawed on a beetroot, brimming with energy, and couldn't help complaining: "We have no choice—this place is sealed off, full of rocks, with nothing else around. Just surviving is already a miracle. Luckily, fish occasionally swim into our well; otherwise we'd have starved long ago."

Nagelis inspected the minotaurs' condition and couldn't help sympathizing: "Yes, the conditions are too harsh. Just surviving is already remarkable."

Not only did they survive, they maintained their population: originally over two hundred minotaurs, after a thousand years, over a hundred still remained—this was undoubtedly a miracle.

"Harsh? Pfft. If I hadn't scammed and tricked my way into getting them food and fertilizer, they'd have starved to death long ago," the Lord of Terror shouted, tightly bound by the Lifesaving Rope.

The Lord of Terror's shout made Nagelis suddenly remember something: "Oh right! When you collected your payment, besides soul crystals, you took ten sacks of grain—were those for them? Are you really that kind? Ten sacks of grain won't do much."

The Lord of Terror snapped back: "Do you think I wanted to? Have you ever seen a horde of minotaurs circling your monument, howling nonstop, taking turns, day after day? If you don't feed them, they won't shut up. This place is sealed and empty—their howling can be heard across the whole world. They even threatened to crap on my monument if I didn't give them grain."

No demon lord had ever endured such a humiliating fate: after the space's magma was drained, heat dissipated, stripping it of its ability to regenerate through the earth veins. It was forced to huddle inside the Monument of Abundance, powerless to stop the minotaurs if they truly decided to defecate on its monument.

Starving minotaurs could do anything—and with two hundred of them, it couldn't fight back. What could it do? Pay them grain for peace.

"Ten sacks aren't enough to do much, but I can't give too much—they'd get worse and demand I feed them entirely. Catch more fish, try growing things—it's enough to keep them from starving. So I give them ten sacks every so often: just enough to keep them alive, but not strong enough to cause trouble."

The Lord of Terror spoke coldly, revealing a profound understanding of minotaur nature—no wonder it was a master of soul manipulation.

"I originally planned to learn how to make insect ash so they could fertilize and grow their own food, freeing me—but I found raising insects consumed even more than raising minotaurs, so I gave up." The Lord of Terror sighed helplessly.

Nagelis suddenly understood: that's why it had teamed up with those pest controllers.

Regardless, this abandoned branch of the Divine Cattle race had been lucky to encounter Ange before going extinct. Raising a couple hundred more minotaurs meant zero burden for Ange.

Besides, the Divine Cattle's farming techniques were decent: in this sealed environment, after a thousand years, something still grew from the soil—that was already impressive.

Ange didn't plant immediately. Instead, he began tilling the soil, hauling back some solidified magma. The little angel seized the Earth Holy Hammer and smashed each piece into fragments, evenly scattering them across the ground.

He then moved the leftover fish bones the minotaurs had eaten, crushing them into powder. The bones were clearly deliberately preserved—likely for soil fertilization.

With no wood ash available, Ange sprinkled a bit of insect ash, then bird droppings. The little zombies swiftly tilled the soil, blending these fertilizers in precise proportions.

Farming is a vast and profound discipline. Intelligent life developed systems like Druids, the Goddess of Harvest, and the Divine Cattle race to master it.

How much fertilizer to apply, when to apply it, when to top-dress—all are sciences. Different crops demand different nutrients, requiring constant adjustments—all for faster, better, higher-yield food production.

Though the minotaurs were of the Divine Cattle race, trapped in this sealed place, they lacked resources and conditions to study deeply. Over time, ancestral knowledge faded, leaving them far behind the times.

They had originally watched with amusement, smirking—but once Ange began, they fell silent: This lord truly knows how to farm—more skillfully than even the Divine Cattle…

They understood tilling and burying fertilizer, but later, when Ange added supplemental lighting, foliar feeding, and top-dressing, they grew confused. When he stepped on the Instant Death Aura, they were utterly stunned.

In just eight hours, countless fiery red dragon fruits bloomed, fruited, ripened, and hung from fleshy vines, slowly radiating fire elemental fluctuations.

"Whoa, dragon fruits! You actually grew them?" Nagelis exclaimed in shock.

Dragon fruit, as the name suggests, is a fire-element plant: entirely crimson, flame-like in shape, egg-shaped—uninformed people mistook it for a dragon's egg, hence the name.

In truth, even fire-element red dragons lay calcium-white eggs; red eggs are either malformed or hybridized.

But dragonkind's denials meant nothing: few had ever seen a dragon egg. The name stuck—it was a plant saturated with potent fire elemental energy.

A fire mage who eats a small piece can replenish fire elements; devour one whole fruit, and their elemental affinity increases. Keep eating, and you'll become fire itself.

A mage consistently supplementing with elemental plants will advance their magic with twice the efficiency.

That's why powerful mages are built on wealth—common folk rarely practice magic. If you can't afford elemental plants, you can't even catch up to others' tails.

This was Ange's second elemental crop—previously, he'd grown spirit beans. But spirit beans only filled stomachs and required massive quantities; a few dozen were useless except for amusing cats.

Dragon fruits were different: a fire mage would gladly spend a third of their monthly salary to buy one dragon fruit each month.

Ange grew over two thousand mu of dragon fruits. As elemental crops, they required wide spacing, yielding only about sixty fruits per mu—but two thousand mu produced a total of 120, 00 fruits.

"You… this… monster…" Nagelis didn't know what to say. Dragon fruits, normally auctioned one by one, suddenly appeared before them in quantities of hundreds of thousands—besides shouting "monster," it had no words.

"Just growing dragon fruits alone could make us richer than the Church," Luna muttered.

The Lord of Terror wriggled from the Lifesaving Rope, popping its head out: "Too bad—the fire essence in the earth veins has been completely drained. You won't grow any fire-element crops here again."

"Huh? Is that true? Ange, growing dragon fruits consumes fire elements from the soil?" Nagelis asked.

Its farming knowledge needed updating; Ange had only grown two elemental crops, and Nagelis had no prior knowledge—its former followers weren't Druids, so it knew nothing about elemental crops.

"Not fire elements—fire essence," the Lord of Terror interrupted, complaining: "That's the essence that generates fire elements within the earth veins. Without it, this vein will never produce fire elements again. I can never return."

"Uh… no wonder Ange never grows dragon fruits. But what are you thinking? You still want to go back? Dream on. If you can't farm, the little zombies will eat you. Here, souls who can't farm get eaten." Nagelis threatened.

So terrifying—get eaten if you can't farm? The Lord of Terror trembled.

Ange rarely grew elemental crops because they consumed elemental resources—some things were non-renewable, gone once used.

But this space was different: its earth veins still held vast reserves of fire essence, yet the magma had been drained. The fire elements generated here couldn't be contained, failing even to empower the Lord of Terror's rebirth—so keeping them was pointless.

Better to use them to grow crops normally impossible here—maximize utility.

After harvesting this batch, Ange uprooted all plants, leaving only one.

Dragon fruits only produce seeds after full ripening. At harvest time, their fruit is sweetest and richest in elements—perfect for picking.

But the seeds inside aren't mature yet; plants grown from them are stunted and inferior. They must ripen fully, exhausting nutrients and elements, to yield the best seeds.

Some crops, however, develop mature seeds precisely when they're sweetest—so birds and beasts eat them and disperse the seeds farther.

After ripening the final dragon fruit, Ange walked to the farm's boundary marker.

The Lord of Terror, quiet for a while, spoke again: "See? All three hundred soul crystals I got from you were spent here. Used for a thousand years, nearly rotted away—thankfully, Du Luo's creation can repair itself through soul energy."

"You know Du Luo?" Nagelis asked, surprised.

"Of course! Who doesn't know Du Luo? I know the God of Knowledge and Solidbone Luo too."

Nagelis said: "No—you kept calling that purple-gold skeleton 'Purple-Gold Skeleton.' If you know Solidbone Luo, how could you not recognize that purple-gold skeleton?"

The Lord of Terror paused: "That purple-gold skeleton isn't Solidbone Luo."

Boom! Nagelis's soul nearly exploded. That purple-gold skeleton beside the Sovereign wasn't Solidbone Luo?! Then who was it? Could there be three purple-gold skeletons?

Harvey was upgraded only after the Sovereign vanished—meaning, during the Sovereign's time, besides Solidbone Luo, there was another Deathlord?

"Lama Lama! Come here!" Nagelis urgently called for Lama and the Night Watchers—they were souls who survived the Sovereign's era and must remember.

But none of them recalled a second Deathlord. The Sovereign had only ever had one Deathlord.

Nagelis's memories had been altered—but had everyone's? Impossible. The Sovereign had no time for such trivial meddling.

Besides, the existence of a second Deathlord wasn't something to hide. The only possibility: "You're mistaken."

"Mistaken?" Seeing all the Night Watchers unanimously deny the second purple-gold skeleton's existence, the Lord of Terror hesitated. Had it truly misseen?

At that moment, a powerful soul surge emanated from Ange's direction.

Everyone turned—Ange stood with both hands pressed against the boundary marker, his body engulfed in blazing soul flames, forming a human-shaped fire, his soul energy pouring ceaselessly into the marker.

Boom… boom… the farmland trembled gently, like a minor earthquake, sand and soil bouncing with the vibrations.

"What's happening? Ange, did you break it? Stop!" Nagelis cried out.

The farm boundary had stood for over a thousand years, long neglected. Such violent tremors—was it about to collapse?

Ange replied: "No. Testing a comparison."

Nagelis understood immediately: comparison meant at least two. Besides this one, there was another farm boundary in the Ancestral Palace.

Ange wouldn't risk testing the one in the Ancestral Palace—he used this one first to compare results. If it worked, he'd definitely modify the other.

Boom… boom…

As soul energy flowed continuously, the once-ruined boundary marker slowly repaired itself—not just restored to its original state, but became pristine, even growing slightly taller.

"Wait—is the farm expanding?" Nagelis suddenly noticed.

Everyone followed its gaze—yes, the farm's boundaries were visibly expanding.

Ange stopped inputting energy, circled the farm, and said: "Three thousand six hundred mu."

With his Scale Ring, his measurement was absolute: the farm had expanded by six hundred mu—twenty percent growth.

"Can the boundary expand? How large can it grow? If it's limitless, you won't need to search for farmland—this space alone will be enough!" Nagelis gasped.

Ange shook his head, about to speak—when suddenly, pop! Something ruptured. A howling wind surged in.

They looked up—the grand gate ahead had a fist-sized hole in its center, violent wind roaring through.

The minotaurs shouted: "Night's falling, wind's rising! Grab your clothes!" Then scattered in a rush.