Foreign Land Reclamation By a Vegetable-growing Skeleton

Now that their relationship with Ange had turned out this way, the Elf Clan bore all responsibility. They had even bitten the hand that feeds, in a manner of speaking.

Initially, when they saw the God of Life losing all its leaves, they panicked and got angry. But now, two months later, the facts had proven that Lord Nage did not lie.

The Tree of Life had indeed not died. Beneath the surface, the branch was tenderly green, its condition unprecedentedly good. Even those diseased branches were showing signs of improvement; the grey spots on their bark were fading, even disappearing.

Lord Ange truly was healing the God of Life.

And yet now, the Elf Clan not only terrified the God of Life’s savior and made him flee, but also killed the new crop they cultivated. When the God of Life awakens, just how angry will he be?

If it were an ordinary crop, it wouldn’t have mattered. They could just compensate, even tenfold. With the elves’ wealth and bravado, they wouldn’t really care about money.

But the problem was, they could not compensate for this. The Saline Demon Rice, a high-yielding crop grown unprecedentedly in salty soil. If it died, it would not only be a loss for Ange but also for all living species.

Although there were no accurate statistics, at least 20% of the plane’s arable land was alkalinized. That meant if all were to be cultivated, the total arable land of this plane would increase by at least 20%.

The entire plane, an increase of 20%, could sustain hundreds of millions more people. This was a seriously scary number.

And that was just the alkalinized land. It didn’t even take into account the marshes and shallow waters along the coastlines. If they were to be utilized as well, it would undoubtedly be a divine artifact that could change the entire continent’s situation.

Now, this divine artifact was soon to be killed off by her.

Aside from everything else, the guilt of being a druid who killed off a new species was enough to make her cry.

Gailard’s expression also turned heavy. He’d heard Kael’danil repeatedly emphasize the importance of the Saline Demon Rice. If it really died, even compensating with her life would be useless.

“What do we do now?” Gailard asked.

“Find Lord Ange and apologize to him.”

…

The Elf Clan started searching the world for Ange. Meanwhile, the Ange they were looking for was squatting on a stone platform, watching humans process rice. And he realized that humans had plenty of ways to hull grains.

Of course, there were the traditional pestle and mortars, but there were also things like rolling mills where you put rice between two flat stones and then pressed and slid the upper stone by force.

There were also rollers, hammers, and such. Even if each method was inefficient, there weren’t any shortage of hands. After some commotion, they had a pile of hulled rice.

Everyone put the rice into a bucket and started to watch Ange eagerly. They no longer found the skeleton horrifying but rather warm and a bit handsome. After all, who wouldn’t look handsome when they pull out a bucket of water and rice in a time of thirst and hunger?

Alas, there was no pot. Cooking the rice became another challenge.

Ange, however, didn’t find it difficult. He poured water into a wooden barrel, covering the rice by a palm’s height, and then mobilized the Fire Element. In no time, the water in the wooden barrel started to boil.

Nagris came over and said, “Be careful. Don’t set the barrel on fire.”

After summoning Brand and the other two, Ange had also conveniently ‘summoned’ the rest.

Everyone thought it was summoning, including Brand himself. They didn’t think Ange was reaching through space to pull them out from another dimension, which was a completely different challenge.

Seeing this combination of people with varying identities, dragons, horses, humans, cats, and even a saint, Brand had already become familiar and didn’t even feel like asking about them. If any villager had doubts, he would immediately go warn them, so everybody got used to this group.

Of course, Ange wouldn’t burn the barrel. He controlled all the Fire Element within the bucket’s range, which only contained water and rice. Once activated, the heat was rapidly transferred into the water. As long as the water didn’t dry up, the wooden barrel wouldn’t catch fire.

The heat caused the water to boil, heating the rice. Soon, the rice in the barrel turned into gruel, bubbling deliciously.

All the people could not help but gather around, hungrily eyeing the barrel full of gruel, and swallowing their saliva.

“It’s so thick! If you put the spoon in, it won’t sink. It’s too thick! I’ve never had such thick gruel at the festival of Holy Light. Can we eat it yet?”

“Yeah, yeah. Who gets to eat such thick gruel? Only the nobles in Holy Wall City can afford such gruel. If it was up to me, I wouldn’t dare to use so much rice.”

Some women’s eyes were gleaming as they exchanged whispers. In this barren plane, many people had never seen food steamed with pure grain. Whether porridge, rice, or bread, everything was mixed with a lot that could fill the stomach.

Such as wild vegetables, tree bark, moss, mushrooms, and even white mud. They made one meal’s worth of grain stretch to two or three meals. Nobody cared about the taste anymore, as long as they could fill their stomachs.

If they didn’t mix everything together, they would finish the grain but couldn’t finish the rest.

The bucket of gruel that Ange cooked was something they didn’t dare to cook even during the grandest festival.

The only time they could eat such food was during the Holy Light Festival. The grand cathedral in Holy Wall City would issue free Holy Bread from the monks, priests, and saints. It was the best food that most people could eat in their entire life.