Chapter 279: Dragon Fruit

This was the second farm barrier Seeing Ange had ever seen, roughly the same size, with an almost identical layout, giving him a feeling of coming home; he had long been unable to hold back his urge to plant things.

Seeing the minotaurs ruin the farmland like this, the crops sparse and malnourished, he felt deeply uncomfortable.

Years of cultivation had drained the soil of nutrients, causing it to compact and degrade; crop yields would only keep dropping.

The minotaur auntie munched on a beet, brimming with energy, and couldn't help but pour out her grievances: "We had no choice. This place was sealed off to begin with, full of stones everywhere, nothing else around. Being able to survive is already something. Thanks to the occasional fish that swam over from the well, we would've starved to death long ago."

Lord Nai Ge Li Si inspected the minotaurs' situation and couldn't help but say sympathetically: "Indeed, the conditions are too harsh. For you all to have survived is no small feat."

Not only surviving, but maintaining their population—originally over two hundred minotaurs, and after a thousand years, over a hundred still remained. This was absolutely a miracle.

"Harsh my ass. If I hadn't been swindling and tricking people everywhere, scrounging food and fertilizer for them, they'd have starved to death long ago." The Lord of Terror, bound tightly by the Lifesaving Rope, shouted indignantly.

The Lord of Terror's shout suddenly reminded Lord Nai Ge Li Si of something: "Oh right, when you collected payment, besides soul crystals, you also took ten bags of grain. Could that grain have been for them? Are you that kind-hearted? What good are ten bags of grain?"

The Lord of Terror said irritably: "You think I wanted to? Have you ever seen a herd of cows surrounding your stele day after day, wailing and howling, taking turns to howl? If I don't feed them they won't shut up. This place is sealed off and empty—when they howl, the whole world can hear it. They even threatened me: no grain, and they'd poop on my stele."

Probably no Demon King in history had ever suffered such a miserable experience as the Lord of Terror. After the lava in the space was drained away, the entire space lost its heat, and it lost the ability to use the ley lines to resurrect. It could only huddle inside the Great Earth Stele. If the minotaurs really did poop on its stele, there was absolutely nothing it could do.

Minotaurs driven mad by hunger would do anything, and with two hundred of them, it couldn't beat them either now that it had lost its power. What could it do? It could only hand over grain to buy peace.

"Ten bags of grain isn't much, but I can't give too much—if I do, they'll only get worse, and eventually expect me to feed all of them. Catch more fish, try harder to grow things, and they won't starve. So I give them ten bags every so often—enough to keep them from starving, but not strong enough to cause trouble. That's enough."

The Lord of Terror said with a sinister tone, his words full of a thorough understanding of bovine nature—worthy of a demon who toys with souls.

"I originally planned to get the method for making worm ash, so they could fertilize and grow grain themselves, and I could be free. But I found raising worms cost more than raising cows, so I gave up." The Lord of Terror sighed helplessly.

Lord Nai Ge Li Si suddenly understood—no wonder it had gotten together with those Exorcists.

Regardless, this abandoned Divine Ox clan was lucky to have met Seeing Ange before they all died off. Raising one or two hundred extra minotaurs put no pressure on Seeing Ange at all.

Moreover, the Divine Ox clan's farming techniques were decent. In such a sealed environment, the fact that things could still grow in the soil after a thousand years was already remarkable.

Seeing Ange didn't plant anything right away. Instead, he began tilling the land. First, he carried back some solidified lava, and the little angel picked up the Holy Earth Hammer and smashed them one by one, scattering the pieces evenly across the ground.

He also brought over the fish bones the minotaurs had left behind and crushed them to powder. The fish bones had clearly been deliberately kept by the minotaurs, presumably to fertilize the soil.

There was no plant ash, so Seeing Ange sprinkled a bit of worm ash, then bird droppings, and the little zombie quickly tilled the soil, mixing these fertilizers in according to the proper ratios.

Farming is a vast and profound discipline. For this discipline, intelligent beings developed systems like Druids, the Goddess of Harvest, and the Divine Ox clan.

How much fertilizer to apply, when to fertilize, when to top-dress—all of it is knowledge. Different crops have different fertilizer needs and require corresponding adjustments. All of it is for producing more food, faster and better.

Although the minotaurs were the Divine Ox clan, trapped in such a sealed place, they naturally lacked the resources and conditions to study these arts. As time passed, the knowledge passed down by their ancestors gradually faded, and they had long fallen behind the times.

They had originally stood by watching the show with smiles, but once Seeing Ange began, they soon couldn't speak: This lord really knows how to farm—even more deftly than us Divine Ox…

Tilling and burying fertilizer they could still understand, but when it came to supplemental lighting, foliar feeding, top-dressing, and so on, they couldn't quite follow. And when the Instant-Death Aura stomped down, they were utterly dumbfounded.

In just eight short hours, fiery red dragon fruits, like flames, bloomed, bore fruit, and ripened, hanging from the succulent vines, slowly emanating waves of fire elemental energy.

"Hiss, dragon fruit! You actually grew it?" Lord Nai Ge Li Si said in shock.

Dragon fruit, as the name suggests, is a fire-element elemental plant. It is entirely fiery red, shaped like a flame, oval in form. Those who don't know better think it's a fire dragon's egg, hence the name dragon fruit.

In reality, even fire-element red dragons lay chalk-white eggs; a red egg would definitely be deformed or a hybrid.

But the dragons' denials were useless—those who had seen a fire dragon egg could be counted on one hand. The name stuck as people kept using it. It is an elemental plant possessing powerful fire elemental energy.

For a fire-element mage, eating a small piece replenishes fire elemental energy; eating a whole one boosts elemental affinity. Keep eating, and you can become fire element itself.

A mage who regularly supplements with various elemental plants will definitely cultivate magic with half the effort and double the results.

This is why powerful mages are all built on money—commoners find it very hard to practice magic. If they can't even afford elemental plants, they'll never even catch a glimpse of others' coattails when cultivating.

This was the second elemental crop Seeing Ange had grown. The other was Spirit Beans, but Spirit Beans only fill the stomach and require large quantities; a few dozen Spirit Beans have no value beyond teasing cats.

Dragon fruit is different—a fire-element mage would surely be willing to spend a third of his monthly salary to buy one dragon fruit every month.

Seeing Ange immediately grew over two thousand mu of dragon fruit. Because they are elemental crops requiring wide spacing, the yield per mu was only about sixty fruits, but over two thousand mu produced a full one hundred and twenty thousand fruits.

"You… this… freak…" Lord Nai Ge Li Si didn't know what to say. Dragon fruits normally auctioned off one by one on the market suddenly appeared before them in units of a hundred thousand. Apart from shouting 'freak,' it didn't know what to say.

"From now on, just growing dragon fruit alone would make us richer than… than the Church." Seraphim Luna muttered.

The Lord of Terror struggled within the Lifesaving Rope, poking out a head, and said: "Too bad, the fire essence in the ley lines has been drained dry too. From now on, no fire-element crops can be grown here."

"Hmm? Is that so? Seeing Ange, growing dragon fruit consumes the fire elements in the soil?" Lord Nai Ge Li Si asked.

Its farming knowledge needed updating from others. Seeing Ange had only just grown his second elemental crop, so naturally it had no knowledge in this area. Its former believers weren't Druids either, so naturally they didn't understand elemental crops.

"Not fire elements—fire essence." The Lord of Terror interrupted it, complaining: "That's the essence that generates fire elements in the ley lines. Without the essence, this ley line will never produce fire elements again, and I can never return."

"Uh, no wonder Seeing Ange never grows dragon fruit. But what are you thinking? You want to go back? Dream on. If you can't farm, the little zombie will eat you in a moment. In our place, any soul that can't farm gets eaten." Lord Nai Ge Li Si threatened.

How terrifying—get eaten for not knowing how to farm? The Lord of Terror trembled in fear.

Seeing Ange indeed rarely grew elemental crops, because elemental crops consume elemental resources, and some of those resources are non-renewable—once consumed, they're gone.

But this space was different. Its ley lines still held large amounts of residual fire essence, yet the lava had been drained away. Even if fire elements were generated here, they couldn't be contained—not even enough strength for the Lord of Terror to resurrect. Leaving it there would be a waste.

Better to use it than let it go to waste—might as well grow crops that normally couldn't be grown, putting everything to good use.

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

Dragon fruit also has the habit of only producing seeds after fully ripening. When ripe to the harvest stage, the fruit is sweetest and the elements most abundant—that's the best time to harvest.

But if the seeds inside haven't fully developed, the resulting plants will be short and small, with degraded quality. It must be allowed to fully ripen, so the nutrients and elements in the fruit are completely spent—only then are the best seeds obtained.

Of course, some crops are at their sweetest when the seeds are already fully developed, because they need to attract birds and beasts to eat them and spread their seeds farther.

After force-ripening the last dragon fruit, Seeing Ange walked to the boundary marker of the farm.

The Lord of Terror, quiet for a while, spoke up again: "See, the three hundred soul crystals I traded from you guys were all spent here. Used for over a thousand years, they're almost rotten. Luckily they're a creation of Duroken, able to repair themselves through soul energy."

"You know Duroken?" Lord Nai Ge Li Si exclaimed in surprise.

"Of course! Who doesn't know Duroken? I also know the God of Knowledge and Jian Gu Luo Ke." The Lord of Terror said.

Lord Nai Ge Li Si said: "That's not right. You kept saying Purple-Gold Skeleton, Purple-Gold Skeleton earlier. If you know Jian Gu Luo Ke, how could you not recognize that Purple-Gold Skeleton?"

The Lord of Terror was stunned for a moment, then said: "That Purple-Gold Skeleton isn't Jian Gu Luo Ke."

Boom! Lord Nai Ge Li Si's soul nearly exploded. The Purple-Gold Skeleton following the Monarch wasn't Jian Gu Luo Ke?! Then who was it? Could there be three Purple-Gold Skeletons?

Harvey only upgraded after the Monarch disappeared, meaning that back then, besides Jian Gu Luo Ke, there was another Mourning Skeleton following the Monarch?

"Lamo! Lamo! Come here quick." Lord Nai Ge Li Si hurriedly called for Lamo and the other Nightwatchers—they were all souls who had survived from the Monarch's era and would surely remember what happened back then.

Yet no one, no matter who, recalled a second Lord of Mourning; beneath the Wang Zuo, there was only one Lord of Mourning.

Lord Nai Ge Li Si's memories had been altered, but had everyone's memories been altered? Impossible, surely; the Wang Zuo would not have such idle leisure.

Moreover, the existence of a second Lord of Mourning was nothing that needed to be concealed. The only possibility was: "You remembered wrongly."

"Did I remember wrongly?" Seeing all the Night Watch unanimously deny the existence of a second purple-gold skeleton, the Lord of Terror hesitated as well; could it truly be that he had seen wrongly?

Just then, a powerful soul fluctuation came from the direction of Seeing Ange.

Everyone turned to look and saw Seeing Ange pressing both hands against the boundary marker, with soul flames burning fiercely upon his body, wrapping him like a man of fire, as abundant soul energy poured endlessly into the boundary marker.

Boom-Boom... Boom-Boom... The farmland's soil trembled lightly, as if a minor earthquake had occurred, with sand and earth bouncing amidst the tremors.

"What is happening? Seeing Ange, did you break it? Stop at once," Lord Nai Ge Li Si hurriedly said.

The farmland's barrier has stood for a thousand years, neglected and unrepaired; with such commotion, could it be about to break?

Seeing Ange replied, "No, compare and test."

Upon Seeing Ange's words, it understood at once: compare, compare; certainly two or more are needed to compare. Besides this one, there is another farmland barrier within the Palace of Rest.

This fellow Seeing Ange surely could not bear to use the one in the Palace of Rest for experimentation, so he used this one first to test, to compare the results; if it does not break, he will certainly act upon the one inside as well.

Boom-Boom... Boom-Boom...

As soul energy poured in endlessly, the originally dilapidated boundary marker slowly 'grew' whole again; not only did it restore to its original state, becoming brand new, but it also grew slightly taller.

"Eh, did the farmland expand?" Lord Nai Ge Li Si noticed something and suddenly said.

Everyone followed its gaze, looking into the distance, and indeed discovered that the farmland's scope was expanding.

Seeing Ange stopped the energy input, circled the farmland once, then said, "Three thousand six hundred mu."

He possessed the Ring of the Balance, so the calculated number was absolutely accurate; that is to say, through the infusion of energy, the farmland's scope had expanded by a full six hundred mu, an increase of twenty percent.

"The barrier can expand? What is the maximum it can expand to? If it can expand infinitely, does that not mean you need not seek arable land everywhere, for the space within alone is enough for you to plant?" Lord Nai Ge Li Si exclaimed in shock.

Seeing Ange shook his head, about to say something, when suddenly, pop! a sound arose, as if something had burst, followed by a howling wind.

Looking up, they saw that great gate in the distance; in its very center, a fist-sized hole had broken open, and fierce wind was violently pouring in.

The Minotaurs shouted in unison, "Night falls, the wind rises, quickly gather the clothes!" Then they scattered in a rush.