To be frank, she was already satisfied as long as she could grow things inside.

After all, if the aliens succeeded, then a lot of the places they passed over would lose vitality. It would be difficult to regain the soil’s plant-bearing capabilities once the aliens take over an area.

But now, the growth rate could even be enhanced!?

After a long study session of the space, she realized that not only were the plants’ growth enhanced inside the space, but they could be enhanced even further.

It was the same vague strings she saw when manipulating the space to create a stasis space, though rather than increased preservation effects, the space nourished the plants themselves, ensuring their growth.

Further, it seemed like no matter what kind of plant it was, or what its usual preferred climate was, it could grow well within the space. This was still subject to testing, but she felt like the space’s energy could automatically target the plant’s needs very accurately.

She could also direct more energy, so it grew even faster. It was not free, of course, and it consumed the same energy that maintained the stasis space.

This meant that adding more plants, or causing them to grow faster than they were now, would consume more energy.

For now, the current number of plants and the current size of the stasis space was stable. From her estimate, even if she kept the space as it was now, the space and its features would remain unchanged for decades.

But...she was a bit greedy, and she wanted to have more space and more space with functions. She also wanted it to last for a long, long time.

To do that, she needed a lot of money! Specifically, a lot of gold and gems, as well as anything that could cause positive changes in her space, whatever they may be.

For now, before heading back to the Inn, she drove to the nearest big box home or garden store in the neighborhood.

She bought more seeds. Gardening enthusiast shops had different varieties of seeds from those farm wholesalers. To some degree, the selection was also better.

Other than these, she purchased a few sets of shovels, spades, rakes, hand tools, bags of potting soil, elongated planters, as well as fertilizers. She saw they also had vertical farming tools (though just the basic ones), so she bought a lot of these too.

She placed the things in her truck, and then under its cover, placed the items in her space. She closed her eyes and organized the space again, clearing out an entire side for the plants, pushing away whatever bags she had placed and food haphazardly in that section.

She set up the trough planters as well as the vertical farm apparatus along the walls and in three layers from there.

She hurriedly planted some of the seeds she got, biased towards certain fruits that had short cycles, like strawberries. Strawberries were also an everbearing plant and could fruit a few times a year.

They could fruit repeatedly over a season, which meant planting a few bushes of these could sate her need for sweet fruits.

She also decided to plant other everbearing plants that required very small space, such as dwarf citrus like calamansi, and other fruits like passionfruit and kumquat.

She did not limit herself to everbearing plants. As long as they didn’t need too much space and had decent productivity, she could give them a try. For example, grapes, kiwi fruit, and melon (her recent favorite).

She also planted some varieties of cabbages, carrots, tomatoes, potatoes, and so on.

She also searched on Doogle that even rice and wheat could survive in vertical farming, so she decided to try those out as well. Who knows, someday maybe she’d try that fish-farm combo thing.

The space she could allocate was not big, and it wasn’t like her current vertical farming technology could maximize the space’s height. As it was now, the tallest component she had was less than 2 meters.

This meant that the 3 meters or so above them was wasted. She needed to think more about how to fill those up better. Should she customize shelf spacing that left 2 or 3 meters clear on the ground floor?

Anyway, looking at the lovely pots and troughs squeezed into a small sector of her space filled her heart with a mix of glee and confidence.

If she did this right, then her food life during the apocalypse would be quite rich!

...

When she got back to her room, Naia took a bath and relaxed for a bit before checking her plants again. This was a bit obsessive now, checking the plant every so often as if afraid to miss anything.

She was getting addicted to watching them grow. She remembered the other maid had once installed a farming game on her phone and would even wake up in the middle of the night to maximize her harvest. This felt very similar.

Smiling, she went to the study table included in her inn and took out her notebook and checklist. She had taken down a lot of the basics, while there were still a lot missing.

Her space didn’t have much open space left, but she still had a lot of vertical shelves opened. Looking at the things she still had to buy, she was starting to question if it would fit.

The next shopping spree would probably be in a City. Some varieties and technologies simply were not available in a town. Besides, Cities were considered a hodgepodge of surrounding regions. If there was something she wanted to buy, or if she feared she would forget something, buying things in a City wouldn’t be too bad, just that they might be a bit on the expensive side.

The closest City here was Amber City...which was also where Nadia had lived in sorrow for more than a decade. This was where her mother’s company and villa (though taken by the seed donor) was located.

Instead of feeling angry and bitter, however, Naia felt rather interested instead.

She wondered how the investigation was going.