Foreign Land Reclamation By a Vegetable-growing Skeleton

The World Tree, indeed. As a son of Thunder and a cherished child of the forest, the Unicorn knew what a treat it would be to consume one. Being the first unicorn in history to eat a World Tree was an exciting thought, and it could even rename itself – ‘Lightning, the Devourer of World Trees’.

“Are you crazy!” Negris jumped up, aiming a kick at its knee. “This is a sacred object of the Elf Clan, the God of Elves. All the elves were nurtured and reproduced under its protection. You dare to eat its sapling? The Elf clan would go mad, they would annihilate your unicorn….”

Before he could finish, Ange plucked a sprout and casually fed it to Lightning.

Lightning cast a side glance at Negris, stuck out its long tongue, leisurely coiled the sapling into its mouth, chewing boldly with a provocative expression plastered on its face.

Enraged, Negris flew up and took a swipe at it with his tail, which was nimbly dodged by Lightning’s agile head movements, continuing to act defiantly.

However, Lightning’s smugness didn’t last long. Suddenly, its face furrowed as if someone had shoved an entire ton of lemons into its mouth – it was on the verge of tears.

“Quick, spit it out, is it poisonous?” Negris anxiously asked. Though upset, he did not want Lightning to be poisoned to death.

Instead of spitting it out, Lightning swallowed the sapling whole, tongue lolled out and panting, “Good… huff… great… such powerful life force… huff…”

“Life force? You can even taste life force? What flavor is it?” Negris seemed surprised.

Lightning threw him an exasperated side eye. “I am a unicorn. I can even taste the flavor of lightning; it’s somewhat sour and tingling.”

Afterwards, Lightning pranced around Ange, nuzzling his body, pleadingly saying, “Lord Ange, Boss, give me some food. I don’t want to waste this life force.

Ange, out of curiosity, tilted his head and conjured a heap of grains and beetroot.

Lightning dove in, chewing enthusiastically.

Ange scrutinized Lightning, noticing changes. How should it be put? Its life force seemed far more ebullient. As it ate, the life force was slowly strengthening.

Such weird changes made Ange curious, and he reached out to pluck a World Tree bud, only to be caught and embraced by a wary Negris. “Wake up, you’re not a living being. You can’t eat it.”

After some persuasion, Ange abandoned his idea of having everyone munching a few World Tree sprouts.

“Why not cultivate it? It’s only a sapling now; it can only be called a World Tree when it grows big,” Negris suggested.

“Can it be eaten?” Ange tilted his head in curiosity.

Negris felt stressed, “Of course it can be eaten. Its fruits are delicious, but why do you concern whether it can be eaten? You don’t eat anything.”

Ange tilted his head, seeming somewhat puzzled. If the plants couldn’t be eaten, what was the point in planting them?

“Uh, there’re a lot of economic crops, like cotton, hemp, lacquer, oil, and bamboo. They have great economic value. Clothes are made from cotton and hemp, oil can be extracted from soybeans, lacquer trees produce lacquer, as for bamboo, it’s a great accelerator of civilization.”

After Negris’ explanation, the once clueless Farming Skeleton understood for the first time that many things are planted not for consumption.

Ange nodded in understanding: “Plant edible ones.”

Negris almost had a breakdown, realizing his explanation had fallen on deaf ears.

Since the World Tree can be eaten, Ange decided to further cultivate it. He had already mastered the technique of germinating the World Tree, and planned to germinate the residual seeds as well.

Before that, he needed to determine the optimal growing environment for the World Tree. The germinated saplings hadn’t consumed much nutrition from the soil, indicating fertility wasn’t crucial for their growth.

Ange started the transplantation. He unearthed a germinated sapling and placed it in the Resting Wind outside the valley to ensure it was watered thoroughly. He then accelerated the sapling’s growth using his Halo and carefully shipped it back to plant. A circle of dirt was piled around it, ensuring that only the top of the sprout was exposed to the Resting Wind, not the roots.

He planted saplings in all types of soil mixed with different fertilizers, including in some barren volcanic sediments.

The last three saplings were respectively inserted into a pot of essential fluid, ordinary water, and purified holy water.

The next day, the sprouts which remained in their original germination location, those on the volcanic sediments, and those in the liquid had died. The rest, planted in soils with different fertilizers, were wilted but survived, although the one transplanted into the vegetable field seemed relatively unchanged.

The most curious thing was, the one outside the valley hadn’t died from exposure to the Resting Wind but was just wilting.

After checking all the transplants, Negris was baffled, “What does this mean? Why did the sprouts from the original germination location die? It was supposed to facilitate the germination, not kill the saplings. What’s the theory behind this?”

Ange said, “Halo worked for germination. Without it, they die.”

You mean, the germination was successful because of the Halo, and without it, the environment didn’t support the World Tree’s growth?” Negris asked for clarification.

Once confirmed that was exactly what Ange meant, Negris suggested, “Then you should continue using the Halo; nurture it into a full-grown tree directly.” “No more Soul Flame.” Ange replied.

Before, the Soul Flame was not used up, but now there’s not enough Soul Flame, the Instant Death Halo demands a lot of it.

Even Negris was at a loss now. There were only so many people in the Resting Abyss, and even if he wanted to develop more followers, there was no place for that. Otherwise, with a few hundred million followers, would there still be not enough Soul Flame?

Eh, that’s not right, there was still a group of people who hadn’t been converted into followers. Negris turned his head, looking towards the valley. An old man there was peeking around, cautious, not willing to leave, and not daring to approach and disturb.

These former slaves of demons, weren’t all of them without faith?

“Kid, come here.” Negris called over the human old man, and asked him to gather all the humans in the valley.

After dragging their feet, it took almost an hour for everyone to slowly gather.

Everyone looked at Negris with a shrinking fear, tinged with a bit of curiosity. Not to mention these former slaves, many people have never seen a Bronze Dragon, let alone a premature one that’s no bigger than a dragon’s egg.

Negris confidently flew up to the humans carrying a bag of grain, ripped open the bag revealing the grain inside, and shouted loudly: “Do you believe in the Undying?

As soon as Negris finished shouting, he expected a surge of Soul Flame. At that time, when Ange threw down a bag of grain in front of the Minotaur lady, that lady was crying and shouting that she wanted to worship the Undying.

But the reaction of the humans was beyond Negris’s expectation. They whispered among themselves, then successively bowed their heads towards Negris, then turned around to leave, like they didn’t resemble those planning to follow Undying at all.

Not long after they left, the humans each carried a grain pouch back to Negris and placed it at his feet, then bowed their heads again.

It took Negris quite a while to understand what was happening, as he roared unwillingly: “I’m asking you if you believe in the Undying! Once Undying, you will get to eat plentifully, I’m not asking you to pay a grain tax!!!!”

The slaves were used to giving up eight out of ten of what they harvested. After the demons died, no one collected the grain anymore. When Negris took out the grain bag and asked them if they believed in Undying, of course, they would misunderstand. They thought he wanted to collect grain tax, so they quickly went home to fetch the extra grain.

Having been slaves for so many generations, who has ever seen anyone give them grain? Anyway, no matter what you say, they would not believe.

Negris was somewhat enraged. Ange had used this method before too, why was it so effective when he did it?

“Ah, ah, ah!!” Suddenly there was a commotion in the crowd, and they all turned towards the canyon, rushing over there.

In the sloping field of the canyon, Ange left a footprint. The plots of land quickly cultivated into beet fields bloomed with a rich green, just like a miracle.

As a farming skeleton, his main occupation was farming. Growing the World Tree saplings was a side job. The nearby slopes had long been sown with beet seeds by Ange. Under the Instant Death Halo, the seeds quickly sprouted and grew leaves, completing the entire growth process under everyone’s gaze.

These former slaves had never seen anything this magical. They knelt down in awe, screaming in shock. In their eyes, all they could see was a fervent and incredulous expression.

Ange was startled by the commotion. When he turned his head to look, he got a huge shock. The Soul Flame was surging towards him in massive amounts, even more dramatically than it had in the Underground New City. Ange didn’t dare to receive it and directed it all into the Boundary-crossing Hand.

Looking at the endless Soul Flame flowing into his left hand, and at the devout praying humans in the distance, Ange tilted his head and decided to pull out the mature beets from the ground and toss them to them.

An equal exchange, they gave so much Soul Flame, then he would give all the beets to them. Ange thought.

“This…this was given to us by his lordship? What’s this?” Looking at the endless beets being tossed over, people widened their eyes, muttering in disbelief.

The former slaves, who couldn’t eat their fill even with the food they had, have probably never seen a vegetable like beets. They hurriedly picked them up, not knowing what to do.

Some children couldn’t resist the aroma of the leaves and took a bite. Then they scrunched up their little faces. The taste of raw leaves wasn’t something human taste buds could handle.

Someone bravely bit into the root and the juice filled their mouth and immediately exploded with a shock wave of deliciousness: “It’s so good! How is it possible for something to taste this good? It’s so delicious!!”

The Pioneer’s praises enticed their partners, and with everyone seeing Ange wasn’t getting mad, they all gathered the courage to bite into the beets held in their hands. The sweet taste instantly conquered everyone’s taste buds, stimulating the secretion of dopamine, producing a strong euphoria and happiness.

Many people started crying as they ate.

“Thank you, my lord, for the food.” Their gratitude and admiration came partially from the food and largely from the ‘gift.’ In their long slave lives, no one had ever generously given them anything.

Then there was another surge of Soul Flame.

Ange scratched his head whilst in great hesitation: does he want to pull out the World Tree saplings and toss them over to them too, otherwise it’s not an ‘equal’ exchange anymore.

“What are you doing? Didn’t you say you’re out of Soul Flame? Why are you using Soul Flame to grow vegetables again?” Negris flew over with a huffy face and said.

Ange pointed to the World Tree saplings on the ground: “They do not consume nutrients, the plants grow, and they grow.”

Negris looked at the World Tree saplings in confusion, shocked to see that saplings which had originally only sprouted had now surprisingly grown taller and sprouted two little leaves.

“The plant grows then they grow? Is this the reason you did this? No wonder where the World Tree grows, there are dense forests. Kvada, if the elves were worried about other plants robbing nutrients from the World Tree and cleared away nearby plants before planting, wouldn’t that mean they would never get the chance to grow a World Tree?” Negris thought in shock.

Ange tilted his head, then said another sentence that scared Negris: “They are not afraid of the Resting Wind, they can be planted outside.”

PS: Two updates with three chapters each. I was writing while releasing, there are no stored chapters, pure hard work..