Thursday, April 21, 2016

Bringing the Farm... - Chap 89


Chapter 89 - Minor Matters

These seedlings represented hope. Although they weren't growing well, they still showed a tenacious spirit since the layer of toxic soil didn't stop them from surviving.

Zhao bent down and gently stroked one of the seedlings. It really looked like it lacked nutrition. To be honest, even if it were to grow up, it would be impossible for it to produce much food.

Zhao slowly stood up, then turned around to face Meirin. "Grandma Meirin, I'm surprised that these seedlings are growing, but I think they need some water. Maybe it would help them grow a little better."

Meirin nodded and moved to Zhao's side, but before she could do anything, Zhao stuck out his ghost staff and showed, "Water!"

He knew that the ghost staff could use all the features of the space, so he wanted to try to use it to release water. Sure enough, the voice came: 

[Portable cane has detected contaminated land. Do you wish to improve it?]

Zhao said yes, which prompted the voice to say: 

[Please select the number for improvement]

A projected screen suddenly appeared in front of him showing rows of numbers, with units between ten to one hundred. Zhao was stunned. He didn't think that he would be able to improve so much land. According to these figures, he could improve up to one hundred acres, instead of the original ten acres that he was limited to. It seems like the level up had given him more benefits than he realized.

Zhao immediately chose the largest number, one hundred acres. Once he finished, a surge of water rushed out of the cane and started flying into the sky. It looked like rain was going to fall on to the land. The moment the land turned wet, it started to change color.

Meirin also noticed this. She was surprised because the area of modified land seemed a bit too large, greatly exceeding the ten acres of land Zhao said he could improve per day. Puzzled, she decided to ask Zhao. "Master, why is there so much water?"

Zhao turned to Meirin and smiled. "When the space leveled up, the area of land improvement has also increased. Now I can improve up to one hundred acres of land per day."

Meirin's face brightened. Looking at the one hundred acres of land, she said, "This is great! Now it will only take ten days to change all this land. Although it's a little late in the season, we should still be able to grow all kinds of stuff."

Zhao nodded his head. Improving one hundred acres of land per day would allow them to make full use of this valley. He thought about what they could do with one thousand acres of fertile land. He still wanted to grow corn because then he wouldn't have to worry about running out of feed for the ranch. If he tried to raise one thousand animals, then they would eat a lot per day.

Right now Zhao was just planting corn because once the weather got cooler, he was afraid that he wouldn't be able to grow any more corn out here until next year. Of course, when he couldn't grow corn, he could try planting some bamboo rice, which had a very high yield. Slowly, the rice would become their main source of food.

With the food that Green had originally bought and the food that Zhao had grown, they would have enough to feed the Buda clan for ten years. It was precisely because of this that Zhao didn't worry about food. But that didn't mean he shouldn't grow some more. Once the food was placed in the space, it doesn't appear to rot, so it didn't hurt to try to store as much food as possible.

After all, once they finished the deal with Laura's help, they might eventually buy some more slaves. More people would naturally eat more. Eventually, the amount of food that they had that could feed one hundred people for ten years might not last as long, so he's going to plant some more food.

Not using this thousand acres of land would be too wasteful. If he planted some bamboo rice here, they would never have to worry about a food shortage.

Once the land changed for the better, Zhao held up his staff, ready to plant some seeds. The staff had the power of the shovel, so he was able to dig up the rest of the land, which was about seventy acres. Like magic, the land was opened up without any effort, then the corn seeds were planted.

This staff really could use all the features of the spatial farm.

It was then that Zhao suddenly remembered something. He had the farm tools, just like in the game, but where were his ranch tools? What was that about? Did he not reach some sort of requirement, so the tools were canceled? Zhao wanted to go into the space and look. Things were finished here so he decided to forget the valley for now and go back to the castle.

Meirin naturally didn't know what Zhao was thinking, but when he said that he was returning to the castle, she didn't stop him. She wanted to go back herself.

As they traveled over the water, Zhao thought about giving some more wood from the oil fruit trees to Daisy and Ann in order to make a boat. He couldn't just tell Meirin to help him over the lake everyday.

Previously, he wanted a weed boat because they didn't have any wood, but now that they had some, they could begin to slowly learn how to build wooden boats. Anyway, it wasn't like there were waves in the underground lake, so at least a raft would be sufficient.

They returned to the castle. By now the slaves had already settled in. It was time for Zhao and Meirin, along with Meg, to go back to Stony Mountain.

But before they left, Zhao gave some alfalfa seeds to the slaves and told them to plant some on the mountain. When you harvest alfalfas, not only could these crops be used as feed for the animals, they would also help fertilize the mountain.

After explaining this to the slaves, Zhao went to meet Drunk and the other black mages. Two of them, Punch and Rash, will be staying here with a hundred undead to guard the castle, while Drunk and the other three will be going into the carrion swamp to catch some spirit beasts.

The carrion swamp was a place where people would never go, but Drunk and the black mages were undead, so they were able to fit right in.

But before they went, Zhao properly gave them instructions to mainly stay in the outer perimeter of the swamp and to not go too deep. If anything goes wrong, immediately come out.

Zhao didn't want any losses to occur. Even though Drunk and the rest were undead, they were still Zhao's summons and a very large part of his fighting force, so he didn't want to lose them to the carrion swamp.

But although they were Zhao's summons, the undead black mages were highly intelligent and they had gone through many battles in the Continent over the years. Except for going against the Xinya clan and Zhao, they had never lost. So it could be said that their combat experience was considerably higher than Zhao's. However, they didn't say anything as they seriously listened to his words. Zhao was their master. No matter what, they had to listen to him.

Once he was done talking, Zhao released some undead that they could ride, which was very convenient. In addition to those were some humanoid undead that would protect them. Originally, they weren’t that powerful, but after the space made them stronger, they could now act as guards.


Translator Notes: What would you guys rather have? 18 acres of land that could grow crops quickly or 1,000 acres of land that grows crops slowly.

Translator Notes #2: This chapter was MTLed by Trung and edited by theno1fan. Please leave a comment if you've spotted anything that looks wrong.



32 comments:

  1. It only takes mere hours to grow crops and doing so in the space is pretty much Worry Free. If he only makes 18 acres per day, he'd definitely be able to get more than a thousand acres within a season.

    On the other hand, it's very impressive to see people work on a thousand acre land. While I do feel slaves would be wasteful, it's not that burdensome or heavy for a few hundred slaves to relaxingly take care of land... It's not like Zhou is in heavy need of cash and uses Capitalism to abuse human rights. They're his slaves yet they probably live the easiest lives.

    So, I'd want both. However, this is mainly because the first is for personal while the second is for a large force of relatively useless people.

    If I only had a standing army and I was the weak commander, I'd keep the 18 acres. With that, he'd be able to travel anywhere and accommodate their rations easily.

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    1. well i get the picture that this story is written from a pro chinese communism standpoint, before they mention somthing about "the protection of the red flag" or the fact they say that "china is one of the safest countries in the world" which is untrue

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  2. MOREEEEEEEE


    thanks for the chapter

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  3. After 89 chapter and they don't sell the radishes yet

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  4. Depends in how quick we're talking, if it's at the space's lvl, then i'd think most would go for the 18 acres

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  5. Thanks for he chapter.
    What would you guys rather have? 18 acres of land that could grow crops quickly or 1,000 acres of land that grows crops slowly.
    That depends do they come out about equal in the same amount of time and amount?
    If they are I choose the quick option.
    But if I was Zhao I'd use the space to plant specialize, rare, or even plants that takes a long time to mature.And have regular stuff outside.
    On a side note I would put Zhao Black mages equally around the black waste. Then have them spread their black mist to keep people away. I would also add a few thousand undead in the mist too. Then I would convert the black waste into a vibrant new land.

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  6. Quickly, as you can survive off it easier. The food is useless in a few months if I starve to death next week.

    If I already had a source of livelihood then I'd pick the large area for making money.

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  7. I'd stick with the space. Lot less chances for things to go wrong if they grow quickly.

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  8. Which one that produces more food in a year? But shouldn't his priority be protecting himself from his enemies. Why is he tolerating spies near his Stony Mountain? Maybe assign his undead to exterminate them, or even better, capture them and move them into his special space to convert them into HIS spies.

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    1. The quick produces more food, if they mean the space. His priority is protecting himself from his enemies, but the spies aren't from the old nobles, but from small/large clans, that just want to know what he does there. Also at most 1 or 2 of them had something to do with the guys that wanted to poison them, so no real enemies there, unless those ~2 guys. He is tolerating them, because as said, no enemies and he can't just go aroung killing people, because he has to be low profile. Still, no killing and no capture, also because the space wouldn't convert them. It just suggest a positive feeling about Zhao for living things, while dead/undead beings will be reprogrammed, since they work like robots. And although you could say that humans also should fit into that cathegory, they still would be way more complicated than undead, or maybe it has to do with moral or spiritual complications. Like an undead only has brain and memories, but no soul and a soul would intervene in the process of reprograming. There you go. All questions answered.

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  9. thank you for the chapter !

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  10. thank you for the chapter !

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  11. Thanks for the chapter!

    I'd go for both, since they can cater for different factors. Sustainability-wise, relying on the space is fine, commerce-wise, having some regularly growing resource would go far in supplying the needed volume. He can still sell the high-grade stuff from the space if he needs some quick cash.

    Also, in the future when they develop the Black Waste, the regular foodstuffs will serve as cover for his space's super-food, or he can use the space like a R&D centre for foodstuffs.

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  12. if the faster space allows a crop to mature at least 56 times faster than the slower space then the 18 acres is more profitable.

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  13. Meatbun delivery~
    Thank you for the chapter ( ●w●)

    Where's grandpa?

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  14. if its as easy as zhous space where they grow over night then i will take the 18 acres. then you could grow your own food plus profit in future days. a 1000 acres takes a lot of effort to maintain and depends too much on weather/ environmental factors.

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  15. Thanks for the chapter and for your continuing hard work

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  16. fast 18acre, i can definitely use it for some experiments.
    further more, everyday fresh from the farm? thats a way better deal than 4~6month old vegetables.

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  17. I'm getting the feeling that this new Corn growing on a semy wasteland will be used as a lvl up of the Corn plant inside the space... since they grew resistant of the semi toxic land and thus more stronger than the original.

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  18. Thanks for doing this chapter!

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  19. Rather have the 18 acres quick grow then 1000 slow with quick growth you don't have to worry about bugs/weeds/weather/disease as much as slow grow, plus 1000 acres ain't going to help me when starving. Even if they both are in a portable space where you don't have to worry about anything other then time, still would go 18 since slow growing things like trees yield much higher from seed if you need something like wood or bamboo.

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  20. He can clearly move telelort point.. Why not temporarily place the third one there?

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  21. If you're only going by production output, 18 acres. Corn naturally can be harvested at 2-3 months. If you take 2.5 months as the average vs 14 hours, 18 acres of magically high yield farm land is worth ~2300 acres of normal yield farmland.

    Moreover, the spatial farm has added benefits compared to the Black Wastes. It doesn't get trashed every so often, has no issues with pests and disease, hidden from the world which means no problems with war, spies, etc.

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