Ant Lord in the Star Realm-Chapter 448 - 428: Farming Ant (Additional Release, Subscription Requested)

Chapter 448: Chapter 428: Farming Ant (Additional Release, Subscription Requested)

Late winter season, Molan Mountain.

The mutated Ink Orchid transplanted last year has bloomed.

This year’s batch of 30,000 new seedlings has begun transplanting, with more than twenty days of ongoing busy work.

...

Early spring of the new year,

Dragon Cypress sends Snakebark Maple, White Rice, White Willow, and Black Cory to the Purple Tung Insect Nation.

Black Cory is rather timid, so arrangements are made for it to learn combat skills and war command from the Linnan Divine Tree.

White Rice helps by digging a second large fish-breeding reservoir at the borders of the Purple Tung Insect Nation.

Snakebark Maple and White Willow help guard the White Poplar Divine Seed.

This year, Dragon Cypress and Ink Orchid stay in command at Xianglan Mountain, busy with affairs at both Molan Mountain and Southern Sour Jujube Mountain.

Tending to the Round Leaf Keg Vine Divine Seed.

Transplanting, replanting, and managing Black Peach Tree seedlings.

And they can also help care for White Willow’s Life Seed plants.

...

Time flies,

Mid-Autumn.

The first batch of mutated Ink Orchid seeds ripen, are harvested, dried, and sent back to Xianglan Mountain for Azure.

...

Late winter.

Azure begins sowing the mutated Ink Orchid seeds, searching out of tens of thousands of seeds for those that undergo a second mutation and are able to successfully root, sprout, and grow into seedlings.

Meanwhile, the fifty thousand mutated Ink Orchid seedlings propagated through bud cultivation have reached initial maturity, and Dragon Cypress is busy transporting them to Molan Mountain.

Fragrant Cypress leads the ant colony and is in charge of the planting work.

All in all, there really are a hundred thousand plants, filling every suitable spot on Molan Mountain.

By increasing the numbers, they aim for that tiny chance.

...

Half a month later, 𝓯𝙧𝓮𝓮𝒘𝓮𝙗𝙣𝒐𝒗𝒆𝓵.𝓬𝓸𝒎

The seed cultivation test of the first batch of mutated Ink Orchid seedlings is complete.

Regrettably, all plants develop deformed roots or leaf buds and perish during the bud stage.

Ink Orchid seeds are tiny by nature, making seed propagation extremely difficult.

One or two years will never be enough.

This is a task that requires extreme care and patience.

...

Spring of the new year.

After much thought and consideration, Dragon Cypress arranges for Azure to use the bud cultivation technique to raise another ten thousand Black Peach seedlings.

Black Cory and White Willow stay once more in the Purple Tung Insect Nation for combat training.

Dragon Cypress personally leads the team to clear out parts of the orchards in White Lotus Lake, Southern Sour Jujube Mountain, and Cold Orchid Mountain to free up enough land plots.

Black Peach cultivation is significantly expanded.

At the same time, they hope to use differing climates and soil conditions to trigger further mutations in the Black Peach seedlings.

...

Time passes in a flash,

Mid-Autumn.

The second batch of mutated Ink Orchid seeds is harvested.

Dried and handed over to Azure.

...

Late winter,

Azure organizes the worker ants to sow this year’s batch of mutated Ink Orchid seeds.

Half a month later, the seed cultivation trial concludes.

Regretfully, once again, all perish at the young sprout stage.

It’s not a big issue,

Since they’ve resolved to cultivate an Ink Orchid Divine-Given Seed, they might as well go all out.

The cultivation scale is further expanded.

Azure continues using the bud cultivation technique to raise another hundred thousand mutated Ink Orchid seedlings, extending the growing area to White Lotus Lake, Southern Sour Jujube Mountain, and Cold Orchid Mountain.

If, in the end, an outstanding new mutant variety that is stable and can reproduce by seed, enough to trigger a Natural Godsend, never appears, Dragon Cypress will keep adding more each year until reaching the upper limit of four hundred thousand plants.

...

Another spring arrives.

Molan Mountain—the first batch of transplanted Black Peach Trees blossoms and successfully bears fruit.

From this year on, things have gotten busier.

The insect worker assignments are adjusted slightly.

Ink Orchid goes to Purple Tung Insect Nation to guard the White Poplar Divine Seed.

Black Cory and White Willow, finished with advanced training, return to Black Lotus Lake and manage both Black Lotus Lake and Southern Sour Jujube Mountain.

Dragon Cypress is left alone in charge of Molan Mountain and Cold Orchid Mountain.

...

End of summer,

Molan Mountain, the first batch of Black Peach fruits ripen.

Just as Azure described, compared to the Dark Peach, the fruits are larger, even bigger than the Black Emperor Peach, with juicier, sweeter flesh, not inferior at all to Black Emperor Peach.

The fruits are also a deeper black—"Black Peach" lives up to the name.

Dragon Cypress commands the ant colony to harvest, gather the seeds, dry them, and send them back to Xianglan Mountain for Azure.

Seed cultivation of Black Peach is undertaken by Azure and Fragrant Cypress together.

...

Early autumn,

The Soul-Setting Fruit of the Quandong Divine Tree matures and is harvested this year.

Dragon Cypress, counting the days, hurries over for a quick look, then rushes back to Molan Mountain.

The third batch of mutated Ink Orchid seeds ripen.

This year’s seeds number over ten million—harvesting and drying is a huge job, and sowing and management are even more of a hassle.

For this, Dragon Cypress has spent the past three years specially training two thousand small and miniature worker ants, specifically for sowing Ink Orchid seeds.

The seeds are divided into three batches,

Azure and Fragrant Cypress manage the bulk of the sowing in the Xianglan Mountain nursery.

Black Cory, having set up a nursery at Black Lotus Lake, is in charge of sowing a portion of the seeds.

Dragon Cypress also opens a nursery at Molan Mountain, overseeing part of the sowing work.

...

Sowing in early winter,

Half a month later, Dragon Cypress’s side reports back—the result is as usual; all the sprouted seeds die at the seedling phase.

Dragon Cypress hurries over to check on Black Lotus Lake...

Even before entering the Land of Origin Force, White Willow whirls up, thrilled, circling around the Dominating Throne in excitement.

"Dragon Cypress! Dragon Cypress! Good news!"

Dragon Cypress jumps, asking, "Did some Ink Orchid seeds survive?"

"No—"

White Willow flashes, landing nimbly atop the throne’s backrest, explaining: "Weren’t a bunch of Thousand Mountains Wild Peas sown under the orchard forest? Now that spring’s almost here, Black Cory went to tidy up the orchards in advance. I was bored, so I tagged along for a stroll, and then, unexpectedly, found a Divine-Given Seed!"

White Willow repeats, "A Divine-Given Seed of Thousand Mountains Wild Pea!"

Dragon Cypress: "..."

Dragon Cypress falls silent for a long while.

Toiling madly over grass orchids, yet no result.

But a randomly sown weed has actually...

Well, that’s not so bad either.

If there’s no mutation, a Divine-Given Thousand Mountains Wild Pea should grant an Earth Elemental Affinity boost—that’s more valuable than a general earth system ability enhancement.

It’s also a herbaceous plant, and its yield and quality are on par with Ink Orchid.

At the Mountain Lord Level, it can bring in over ten thousand Source Stones of yearly income, far better than an ordinary Life Seed.

Dragon Cypress: "White Willow, you found it?"

White Willow: "Yes."

Dragon Cypress: "Then you go ahead and cultivate it as your own God-Given Life Seed. Whatever it produces, you and Black Cory split the profits fifty-fifty."

White Willow: "!!!"

That’s exactly what White Willow wanted to ask.

According to their original agreement, White Willow provides land, Dragon Cypress provides working ant colonies and high-quality plant seedlings, and Black Cory is in charge of orchard clearing and management. For joint operations, any Divine-Given Seeds produced belong to Dragon Cypress, with profits split between Dragon Cypress, Black Cory, and White Willow in equal thirds.

Black Lotus Lake is White Willow’s territory, so any Divine-Given Seeds produced by the lake or wild lands belong to White Willow.

So the question is: how to handle the wild peas?

Since Dragon Cypress has spoken—

"Alright!"

"Then I’ll evolve to age period 4 this year!"

White Willow responds joyfully.

White Willow has always been poor.

It’s been twelve years since the campaign against the Termite Kingdom, and it’s only evolved twice; it’s about to be overtaken by Black Cory.

For Mountain Lord Level evolution, the resource requirement increases massively with each age period.

If not for the life-extending White Poplar Fruit, White Willow wouldn’t even have hopes for Lord-Level advancement.

Dragon Cypress: "Okay."

Dragon Cypress: "White Willow, eat well. I’ll lend you ten thousand Source Stones worth of Divine-Given Origin Force Food—pay me back when you get rich."

Can I really get rich too? White Willow hesitates for a moment, then happily replies, "Thank you, Dragon Cypress Ant King!"

Dragon Cypress asks, "What about the Ink Orchid seeds Black Cory sowed? Any result?"

White Willow: "...All dead."

——Oh well.

——Just as expected.

Dragon Cypress: "I’ll send Black Cory to Southern Sour Jujube Mountain."

...

Dragon Cypress returns to Xianglan Mountain to inquire.

The result is the same: none of the mutated Ink Orchid seeds sown by Azure and Fragrant Cypress survived past the young seedling stage.

So, another hundred thousand plants will be added this year, bringing the total number of mutated Ink Orchid seedlings up to four hundred thousand.

...

Early spring, sowing last year’s Black Peach seeds.

Half a month later, there are results.

There are three scenarios:

First, the seeds do not germinate.

Second, the seeds germinate but die in the seedling stage.

Third, the sprouted seeds develop into curled, deformed seedlings.

It seems the situation is a bit better than that of the mutated Ink Orchid.

Azure selects the less severely deformed seedlings, harvests their leaf buds, and attempts to use bud cultivation to nurture seedlings to see if anything changes...

Soon, there’s a result: the seedlings from bud cultivation are deformed as well.

All these years, Fragrant Cypress has been continuously trying crossbreeding, grafting, and other methods—failures, nothing but failures so far.

It seems the only path is finding qualified seedlings from among the seeds.

Dragon Cypress clenches its heart and resolves to dig out all the apricot trees from the orchards at Cold Orchid Mountain and Southern Sour Jujube Mountain, expanding Black Peach cultivation again.