Laura sat in her carriage, carefully examining the Magic Peach Core she held. She wasnât aware of where it came from. This thing just looked like a round ball of iron with a dot at the top.
Nier also carefully looked at the small ball. To be honest, even though she knew that Zhao Hai wouldnât deceive them, Nier wasnât able to believe that thereâd be something like this on the continent.
After some time, Laura put away the Magic Peach Core. She took a breath, smiled, and looked at Nier. âWhatâs wrong? Is it that surprising?â
Nier nodded her head and said, âYes, I really didnât think that there would be such a thing. Young Lady, in the end, what do you think is Misterâs identity? How can he just hand out ancient magic products?â
Laura smiled. âI really donât know Misterâs origin and Iâve never heard of anyone like Mister on the continent. A person like Mister shouldâve been famous throughout the continent. Except, thereâs never been any news of such a person. Isnât that too strange?â
Nier frowned and asked, âWhat do you mean, Young Lady?â
Laura shook her head and said, âI donât know how to say this, but Misterâs body has too many things we donât know about. I donât want to find out what they are now, because that would be disrespectful to Mister. Anyways, Mister is our ally now. As long as we handle matters well, the commodities Mister produces will be sold by our Higanbana firm throughout the Purcell Duchy. That should be enough.â
With that, Nier couldnât help but smile. She turned to Laura and said, âYoung Lady, now that our store has branches open throughout the whole Purcell Duchy, would our clan still look for trouble against us?â
Nier was Lauraâs maidservant. Consequently, when the young lady marries, she would be part of the dowry. Thatâs why Nier was so concerned about Lauraâs future. Of course, there would be an exception. That is, if Nier were to marry before Laura, then Nier wouldnât need to be a part of the dowry.
However, Nierâs situation was a little rare. She hadnât been sold by a master and was actually a servant born within the clan. For a young lady from an aristocratic clan, having a maidservant would be an assurance. They could also make this maid her helper. As such, how could they easily give her up?
Laura looked at Nier and smiled. âMy silly Nier, you think things are that simple? Our present status might be better, but in the eyes of those people in the clan, weâre still nothing. What I can say is that we have more bargaining chips to negotiate with them. Adding to the fact that we have a very good relationship with the Purcell clan, even if they want to move against us, they would need a reason to shake our station.â
Nier felt relieved and said, âThatâs good. Young lady, why donât you consider Mister Zhao Hai since Mister has such good skills. Heâs also good natured with a good heart, so I think in the future, he will certainly be good towards the Young Lady.â
Laura looked at Nier with a smile. She teased, âYou little girl, are you fancying Mister? So you think that I should marry him?â
Nier blushed. âIt isnât like that. I wonât speak irresponsibly.â
Laura chuckled and told Nier, âLittle girl, things really arenât so simple. The strength of Mister is too big, and he has too many good things in his hands. Yet, we still arenât allowed to see his true colors. This means that Mister is one with very powerful enemies. If they are against such a powerful strength, then I fear that Misterâs enemies will also not be that easy. If I really married Mister, I fear that we will face a more dangerous situation than what weâre currently experiencing.â
Nier stared for a moment. Then she smiled and looked at Laura. âSo the Young Lady wants to marry Mister Zhao Hai? Hee hee, the Young Lady always said that she has never thought of it. Deceiving people?â
Laura looked blankly at Nier, but didnât reply. She didnât really know why, but she really had thought about it. This might probably be because Nier had talked about such things too much lately. Thatâs why she had such thoughts.
* * * * *
Zhao Hai didnât have time to think about Laura and he hadnât thought about what she might be thinking. To tell the truth, presently, he was a little anxious. He estimated that by now, Buffy had entered the Carrion Swamp for over a month already. Yet, till now, he hadnât come out.
In addition, there was the issue of eating and drinking. Thus, Zhao Hai wasnât really clear on how Buffy would live inside the swamp. Remember that all the plants there were poisonous. He was curious as to how Buffy survived this month. Was he able to eat or drink? He hadnât heard anything about a Rank Nine that could survive without eating. Ah...
Although Zhao Hai had now begun to improve the land in the vicinity of Fort Iron Mountain, he didnât dare to go too far. He only managed under 700,000 square meters1, which was still a lot. Remember that there werenât many people in the fort, thus, there was a lot of land that they couldnât manage.
Fortunately, Zhao Hai had raised a lot of scaled wildebeests which the slaves used to help them when they were busy planting some common vegetables. Thus, they werenât that tired.
Zhao Hai hadnât changed the scaled wildebeests into zombies. Although it might appear that zombies were a lot more useful, Zhao Hai wasnât a genuine black magician, so he still preferred living things.
When Laura left Stony Mountain, Zhao Hai immediately took the several bags of magic seeds and placed them in the Space. Green naturally followed him as he also wanted to know if, this time around, the Space would be able to level up.
As soon as they entered the Space, they heard a beep from the Space and a tone that said:
Seeds can now be bought from the âSpatial Shopâ.]
......
âŠ
âŠ
After five consecutive prompts, a little while later the space beeped and prompted in another tone:
[Because of the discovery of new plants, Space has reached the upgrade requirements and has upgraded to Level 11.
New land that can now be reclaimed is: Ten mu. Requirements: 3000 Gold Coins.
The level and gold coin requirements have been met, do you wish to reclaim this land immediately?]
Zhao Hai had been waiting for this level up, and he also wasnât short on money. This time around, the land that could be reclaimed was around ten mu. Thus, he didnât hesitate and said, âImmediately reclaim.â
A white light flashed and ten mu of land appeared in the Space.
Green looked at the ten mu of land and didnât know what to say. These ten mu of land werenât a small quantity.
Zhao Hai hadnât expected that after passing Level 10, he could reclaim ten mu of land. This was a big surprise.3
Zhao Hai saw the mu of land and turned to Green, saying, âGrandpa Green, I want to plant magic vegetables on these new mu of land. What do you think?â
Green recovered after hearing Zhao Hai. He looked at the new mu of land, then at the vegetable seeds in Zhao Haiâs grip. Green nodded and said, âAlright. For these kinds of magic vegetables, after producing them we can take a part and add them to our food supply. Then we can save some until we have a large enough amount before letting Miss Laura help us sell them off so we can get some income from it. Also, I really didnât expect that this upgrade would give us ten mu of land. It seems that we must further upgrade the Space as soon as possible. â
Zhao Hai nodded, then he commanded the Space using his mind. Automatically, the lands were farmed and planted with these five vegetables. He planted each type over two mu. Before long, they were all planted.
After planting these ten mu of land, Zhao Hai took out the Virtuous Phantasm colored eggs that were still inside the box and went to the ranch. The ranch now raised blue-eyed rabbits and several windseeking horses4 in the Space.
Zhao Hai had purposely kept these horses in the Space. When they were travelling, they used the undead to hurry along. However, if they were going to Casa City, then they could only sit on the undead until they got to the entrance of the city. Afterward, they would have to walk inside, which wasnât convenient.
Also, for the scaled wildebeests, although theyâd been improved, they were still too slow. In order to have a convenient means to travel within the city, Zhao Hai had raised these horses.
Although the speed of Alien5 was faster than the windseeking horses and could pull a lot more than them, Zhao Hai still decided to use the horses because if Alien pulled, then it would cause too much noise which would likely raise up a storm.
Moreover, Zhao Hai honestly envied the design of Lauraâs carriage. Before, he could only look at it. Now, however, he was wealthy and could make a carriage just like Lauraâs. Even if it wasnât the same, there mustnât be too much of a difference.
After Zhao Hai and Green entered the ranch and brought the box with the Virtuous Phantasm colored eggs, the Space beeped and intoned:
[Discovered new animals.
Biochemical battle beast - Can absorb pure energy to survive. Can assist humans in battle and help them exceed their shortcomings. Can only absorb pure energy and cannot be upgraded. To improve these deficiencies, the biochemical beast can properly absorb any form of a skill in order to upgrade.
Extracting animals, digitizing animals.
Animals can now be bought from the âSpatial Shopâ.]
Immediately after, another beep sounded and a tone prompted:
[Because of the discovery of new animals, ranch has upgraded to Level Three. It can now domesticate a hundred more animals.]
Then, there were no more voices.
Zhao Hai was very happy. He immediately took the five eggs to the hatching area of the ranch. Soon, the eggs cracked one after another. Then a fluffy little thing broke out.
As Zhao Hai saw these things, he was stunned for a moment. This was because he found out that these five little things looked like five little chickens. These were five different colored chicks.
Zhao Hai looked blankly at the five chicks. He murmured, âHow could it be chickens? Did someone catch a chick in order for it to become a Chicken Virtuous Phantasm?â
As Zhao Hai said that, Green couldnât help but laugh. He said to Zhao Hai, âMaster, these are not chickens, but Eagle class Virtuous Phantasms. They are a lot fiercer than chickens. Although they arenât as good as Magic Beasts, they can still transform into armors and weapons. Furthermore, they can also fly. Since they can interlink with their master, they can be used as an airborne scout.
âI hadnât really thought that Lauraâs gift this time around would be Eagle Virtuous Phantasms. These Eagle Virtuous Phantasms are really rare.â
Notes:
- This chapter was MTL'ed. Please leave a comment for constructive criticisms and advice.
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- Please check out the Editor's footnotes, thanks.