Chapter 363: I Actually Wasn't the Last Team

With Lei Ting's final roar, several thick bolts of lightning shot from its body, striking the four corners of the venue and bursting into dazzling electric sparks; at the same time, the giant simulation formation was activated.

No wonder they had Lei Ting host and control the venue — with these bolts, if it weren't for its control, if one happened to strike the stands, that would be quite a show.

The lightning bolts were not just for crowd control, but also the means to activate the giant simulation formation. The entire field lit up, layer upon layer of illusions appeared, and as the formation brightened, Lei Ting vanished, exiting the stage without a sound.

But its voice still echoed through the venue: "Honored guests, some of you are old friends of the Spring Breeze Cup Grain Seed Competition, but many are new friends, so as is customary, let me explain the rules of the Grain Seed Competition."

"What is now displayed before you are the teams that have passed strict selection to enter the Grain Seed Competition. Through the data recorded by the recording equipment, we can recreate the entire process from planting to harvest within the simulation formation."

"Now appearing are the Southern Hedgehog Folk team. They are a brand-new team from the southern swamps, and their crop is swamp rice — a special variety of rice that can grow in relatively harsh environments, one harvest per year, yielding four hundred and fifty jin per mu."

The effect presented by the large-scale simulation formation was closer to the dwarves' War God Chessboard. Everyone looked toward the center of the field, where a proportionally accurate swamp environment was displayed — even wind, rain, sunrise, and sunset were replicated exactly, only accelerated by several hundred times.

The audience could, in a short time, experience at least half a month of the crop's growth — watching it go from nothing to something, sprouting, growing, flowering, bearing fruit — without having to endure the bitter hardships of wind, sun, and labor themselves, making the joy of harvest feel all the richer and stronger.

Some people can watch others husk corn for half a day, let alone a scene with such intense visual impact.

Throughout the entire process, Lei Ting's voice sounded from time to time, expertly explaining changes that laypeople couldn't understand — for instance, heading and grain-filling, that the recent change was caused by top-dressing, and what changes frost would bring about.

Without a professional to provide commentary, some of the changes would leave people completely baffled.

Finally, the crops in the simulation formation bore abundant fruit, and at the same time, a pillar of light rose upward, with the words "four hundred and fifty jin" appearing at its peak.

Now everyone understood — this was the yield bar chart.

"A bit low, isn't it? Only four hundred and fifty jin, and they made it to the elimination round?" A murmur of whispered discussion rose from the contestants' area.

"Didn't you hear the introduction? Being able to adapt to the harsh swamp environment, four hundred and fifty jin is plenty. In swamp land, the best you could grow is grass."

"Also, did you notice the dates? July to October — four months of growing time. With the southern climate, a four-month crop should be able to grow two seasons, so there should still be room for yield improvement. Two seasons a year, nine hundred jin — that's not bad."

"If you can think of it, others can too. There must be some limitation."

In a corner of the contestants' area, several old-farmer-looking people sat restlessly, listening to their peers' comments, beads of sweat pouring down.

Damn it, this one looks like an old farmer, that one too — almost every contestant here looks like a rough-handed, rough-footed old farmer, sun-blackened, with pretty much the same bearing. There's nothing more to write about them.

Seeing Ange's group was almost the most unusual.

Seeing Ange walked up to those contestants and took out a bag of magic crystals: "Buy. Grain seed."

The contestants, who had been sitting restlessly, looked up, somewhat at a loss as they stared at Seeing Ange — what did that mean?

The contestants' gazes fell to the bag in Seeing Ange's hand. After clearly seeing what was inside, their breathing quickened uncontrollably.

There were roughly a hundred magic crystals in the bag.

Don't be fooled by Meishencheng casually moving tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of magic crystals in and out — in reality, magic crystals are extremely valuable.

A hundred magic crystals are equivalent to a thousand gold coins. At normal grain prices, that could buy a hundred tons of grain.

This year there's a famine, so grain prices are abnormal. Two years ago, silver coins were used to sell a hundred tons of grain to Bingcheng at a price of one magic crystal per ton.

The world's population isn't dense, and a small estate outside the city costs only about two hundred magic crystals. Enough magic crystals to buy half a small estate were now laid out before the contestants.

Don't be fooled by them being contestants — from the clothes and jewelry on their bodies, you could tell they weren't well-off. What money would farming peasants have? The ones with money are the landlords.

Moreover, their village was in the southern swamps, with little arable land. If they hadn't bred swamp rice, the village would barely be able to feed itself.

Their coming to compete was also at the invitation of the Stars, with travel, food, and lodging all paid for by the Stars Academy. In their entire lives, they had never seen so many magic crystals, and they were instantly stunned.

Seeing Ange also didn't know how much to pay for grain seed. Seeing them stunned, he pulled his hand back.

The contestants' gazes were all hooked by the magic crystals, and their eyes flashed with confusion, loss, regret, and frustration.

A hundred magic crystals could buy the village so much cloth, so many medicines, so many needles, thread, and hoes and farming tools. The children in the village wouldn't have to run around bare-bottomed, not even noticing when leeches sucked onto their little dicks.

And yet those magic crystals had drifted away right before their eyes...

Seeing Ange flipped his withdrawn hand, and another bag appeared in it — two bags of magic crystals. He held them out and repeated: "Buy. Grain seed."

The contestants were stunned again, but they now understood what Seeing Ange meant — he wanted to use two bags of magic crystals to buy their swamp rice grain seed.

Swamp rice wasn't anything rare; villages and tribes throughout the southern swamp regions all grew it. It was just that their village's yield happened to be a bit higher.

But they had thought their yield was high, only to discover after arriving at the Grain Seed Competition that this yield was nothing — the highest yield in the previous session had already broken a thousand jin.

If they could trade a not-very-rare grain seed with unremarkable yield for two hundred magic crystals, that deal was too good to pass up.

The eldest contestant at the head of the group took a deep breath, about to agree, when Seeing Ange pulled his hand back again.

That one 'pull-back' nearly yanked the hearts right out of the contestants, who instinctively leaned forward, feeling an impulse to pounce on him.

Seeing Ange flipped his hand, and a third bag appeared: "Buy. Grain seed."

The oldest contestant couldn't sit still any longer. He stood up and pressed down on Seeing Ange's hand: "Sell."

As he spoke, he pulled a grain bag from his bosom, containing roughly one jin of swamp rice seed grain.

The old-farmer contestants figured out what Seeing Ange was doing — Seeing Ange was bidding, and because they had hesitated twice, the price had risen twice.

In that instant, a thought flashed through the old farmer's mind: if I hesitate once more, will it go up another hundred?

Though he thought this, the old farmer didn't dare do it. He couldn't gamble — what if Seeing Ange's withdrawn hand never came back out? Then they wouldn't even be able to sell at the current price.

One bag of magic crystals had already exceeded his psychological price; three bags had simply smashed him senseless. He didn't dare be greedy, and he didn't dare gamble.

Lord Nai Ge Li Si flew over, caught between laughter and tears, and gave Seeing Ange a reproachful glare. Seeing Ange's movements were too fast — before it could react, three bags of magic crystals had already been handed over. Who does business like this? This spendthrift skeleton.

But the deal was already done, and it couldn't object, so it could only say: "If you want to buy anything else, tell me, I'll do the haggling. You don't know how to do business — you're losing out badly."

Seeing Ange tilted his head and said: "Silver coins."

Lord Nai Ge Li Si thought for a moment before understanding what Seeing Ange meant, and nearly spat out a mouthful of blood. Bringing up silver coins at this point clearly meant: doing business, silver coins work — you don't.

"Even if I'm bad, I'm still better than you!" Lord Nai Ge Li Si roared angrily. Damn it, this damned skeleton had even learned to make snide, passive-aggressive remarks at people.

While it was cursing here, the contestants who had received the money were excitedly whispering among themselves. One of the youngest contestants said excitedly to the old farmer: "Village chief, village chief, so much money! Can you buy me a pair of shoes?"

"Heh heh, of course, of course. This money is enough to buy a pair of shoes for everyone in the village. Once the competition is over, we'll go buy them."

Lord Nai Ge Li Si also overheard their conversation and, slightly stunned, glanced down at their feet — the contestants were actually all wearing straw sandals.

Lord Nai Ge Li Si's heart trembled slightly. It had just been complaining that Seeing Ange was spending money recklessly, but now it couldn't quite bring itself to complain — were they really this poor?

Farmers who had bred a high-yield crop of four hundred and fifty jin, so poor they didn't even have shoes to wear?

That doesn't make sense. Landlords and nobles who don't do any productive work get carried around by people wherever they go, yet hardworking farmers don't even have shoes to wear?

This isn't right. Shouldn't the farmer live in a grand estate and ride a luxurious carriage? The grain seeds they cultivate and the grain they grow are clearly worth a lot of money.

Look at Seeing Ange — just from grain alone, he's already sold over ten million magic crystals this year, and who knows how much in intangible gains besides.

Lord Nai Ge suddenly didn't feel Seeing Ange was squandering money anymore. The time, effort, and knowledge the farmer put into the grain seeds — could that really not be worth a mere few hundred magic crystals?

The Grain Seed Competition continued. The second team began.

"The team now presenting is the Chubby Planting Team. They grow wheat, with a per-mu yield of 530 jin. The Chubby Planting Team comes from…"

"Next up is the Kobold Team. They grow rice, with a per-mu yield of 560 jin. The Kobold Team is a team made up of humans, with no blood relation to kobolds. They come from the grasslands…"

"Following right after is the Eat-Till-You-Burst Team. They grow wheat, with a per-mu yield of 612 jin. The Eat-Till-You-Burst Team comes from Steel Bone Territory. Their greatest wish is to eat till they burst — and this is the wish of all of us. May everyone be able to eat their fill and burst with food…"

As team after team presented, the audience figured out the order of appearance — it was clearly arranged by grain yield, from lowest to highest. This also meant that the later a team appeared, the higher their grain yield would be.

Everyone's anticipation was pulled to the absolute max.

When he came across rare grain seeds, Seeing Ange would buy them, but most of them were wheat and rice — nothing that could match the seeds in Seeing Ange's hands. There weren't many worth his attention.

This disappointed everyone. When Seeing Ange bought the swamp rice, many people in the contestants' area had seen it and thought they'd hit a big spender, hoping to make a nice profit. They never expected Seeing Ange to look down on wheat and rice — when these were clearly higher-yielding crops.

"Isn't this discrimination? He was willing to spend three bags of magic crystals on swamp rice, but our grain seeds yield far more than swamp rice, and he didn't even ask? Is he looking down on us?"

"Right! My rice yield has broken past 610 jin per mu, and he didn't even glance at it. So infuriating."

"If he's not buying, then don't buy any at all. What's the point of only buying swamp rice? It's not fair."

"Ahem, this is the contestants' area. Everyone sitting here is a participating team. So far it seems none of them have presented their team yet. Could it be that they also grow rice and wheat, with yields even higher than ours?"

"Uh…"

"Uh…"

One clear-headed person said a single line, and the noisy bunch instantly shut their mouths.

Right — what if those people also grew rice and wheat, and hadn't appeared yet precisely because their yields were higher than theirs? Why would he buy their grain seeds?

As the later teams came on, the per-mu grain yield suddenly jumped by a large margin from 820 jin: "Next up is the Elf Sapling Team. They grow elf rice — an improved variety of rice — with a per-mu yield of 1,220 jin…"

"Wow!" Whether in the audience stands or the contestants' area, a wave of uproar broke out. Elves? Elves actually came to participate in the Grain Seed Competition?

What are elves? Spirits of nature, darlings of the natural world, children of the plane. They need not farm to live without worry of food and clothing. When they begin to farm, even deserts can turn into fertile fields.

Among the druid lineage, elves make up the largest number. Elf druids are so famous that people often feel druids are elves — mention druids, and everyone thinks of elves.

This situation only began to change when Chunfeng Da De the druid appeared. After lending his name to the Grain Seed Competition, Chunfeng Da De became even more widely renowned.

But no one would look down on elves for this, nor think they couldn't cultivate good grain seeds. Most people would simply think elves disdained to come participate.

No one expected that the proud elves would silently and suddenly appear at the Grain Seed Competition, and right away present grain seeds with a per-mu yield as high as 1,220 jin.

At the previous Grain Seed Competition, the highest per-mu grain seed record was just over a thousand jin, a record set by Master Dubinchi.

The elves had instantly pushed that record up by over two hundred jin. If Master Dubinchi didn't have higher-yielding grain seeds, it would mean that for the next two years, the crown of the Grain Seed Competition would sit on the elves' heads.

No one knew the order of presentation, nor who all was participating, so the situation instantly became delicate.

Dubinchi hadn't appeared yet — was it because he didn't participate in this year's Grain Seed Competition? Or because his grain seed yield was even higher than the elves', and it just hadn't been his turn yet?

The answer was soon revealed. After the elves finished presenting, Lei Ting's voice rang out: "Next up is Master Dubinchi's team. They grow Dubinchi High-Yield Rice, with a per-mu yield of 1,400 jin!"

A wave of uproar and cheers rose from the venue. The uproar was shock at the figure of 1,400 jin.

In just two short years, Master Dubinchi had raised his own cultivated thousand-jin grain seed by nearly another 400 jin in yield — a full two-thirds increase. Truly worthy of being the champion of the Grain Seed Competition, the first person in history to break past a per-mu yield of a thousand jin.

The cheers, of course, were pride that humanity had triumphed over the elves. The elves had made their move and pushed the record up by 200 jin — but so what? Humanity had created a new record.

Everyone watched the simulated illusion excitedly, afraid of missing any wonderful moments.

But in the Southern Hedgehog-Person Team, the young farmer who had wanted to buy shoes suddenly thought of something and quietly said to the village chief: "Village chief, village chief — the person who bought our grain hasn't appeared yet. Could they still be coming later?"

The village chief shook his head at once: "Impossible! Being later would mean their grain seeds yield more than Master Dubinchi's — at least over 1,400 jin per mu. How could that be? Although I'm very grateful he was willing to pay a high price for our grain seeds, yielding more than Master Dubinchi's — that's not very likely."

Not far away in the VIP area, Dubinchi and his students simultaneously wiped cold sweat from their brows. Thank goodness they had used a few extra tricks, or else they would have definitely lost this time.

Even if they didn't lose to the person who set the record with the academy's simulation formation, they would have lost to these elves who had suddenly popped up. So baffling — what business did the elves have joining in the fun out of nowhere?

Thinking this, Dubinchi cast his gaze toward the private box beside him, where a buxom elf beauty was leaning against the railing, gazing absently toward the contestants' area.

Participating contestants would be arranged in the contestants' area, but if one had money, one could also buy a private box and sit in the VIP area. Dubinchi and the elf had both paid their own way.

Dubinchi guessed: "Could it be that she's unwilling to accept her loss and is looking for the person who defeated her?"

"She might think I'm in the contestants' area, since she keeps looking that way. Should I go strike up a conversation? Tell her that the one who defeated the elves is me, and then go into a room for an in-depth discussion of breeding techniques? But I hear elves are very pure — they probably wouldn't casually 'discuss' things or 'breed' with just anyone."

Just as Dubinchi's imagination ran wild, Lei Ting's voice rang out once again: "Next, please welcome the Salted Fish Team! What they grow is…"

Hearing this, Dubinchi's mind exploded: "I'm actually not the last team?"

PS: Today is the last day of the year. Posting early — wishing everyone a Happy New Year, may all bad luck vanish, and good fortune come in the new year.