Foreign Land Reclamation By a Vegetable-growing Skeleton

“It’s been over a thousand years, and you still remember me,” Negris said.

Upon confirming that it was really the God of Knowledge, the Great Sage was even more shocked, so excited that his form started to waver: “God of Knowledge, you… you… you’ve lost weight! What are you doing here? Could the Resting Camp have…?”

Negris knew what he wanted to ask, but he shook his head, fabricating a reason, “I don’t know about the state of the Resting Camp either, Piero rescued me.”

If not forced to, Negris would rather not reveal his identity to these old-timers of the Undead Empire. He could accept Ange taking control of the godhood and becoming the Undead God, but could the Great Sage accept it? Could Harvey accept it?

What if they don’t accept? What if they demand Ange to hand over the Resting Camp?

The old-timers of the Undead Empire have a strong reverence for the Undead King that could not be erased. Could they accept seeing the Undead Godhood falling into the hands of a farming skeleton?

Negris doesn’t know. To avoid complications, he didn’t want to identify himself, especially since they couldn’t return to the Resting Camp anyway.

But now he was forced to reveal his identity, so he had to fabricate a reason and coordinate the story with Anthony later.

“Is it really you? How did you get here? What happened to you? My God, you’re so thin, how long has it been since you’ve eaten something?” The Great Sage flew over excitedly, feeling around on Negris’ body.

“Stop touching, stop it, go away, go away, go away!!!” Negris rolled and kicked the Great Sage away.

The Shadow Guards, who had never seen the Great Sage in such a state, changed their look, withdrew their weapons and quietly retreated to the side.

Dobinki and the others were also left aside. The Great Sage and Negris huddled together, whispering about something. From time to time, they exploded with curses such as ‘Bada’, ‘Old Undead’, and ‘Embryo Dragon’.

After about ten minutes, they seemed to have come to an agreement. The two parted ways, and Negris returned to Ange’s side, whispering:

“Ange, the Great Sage offers two straw men in exchange for half of your farmland, with the relay tower as the dividing line, the east belongs to them, the west to us, and the Staff of Heaven goes to the winner of the contest. Do you agree?”

Straw man? Ange touched the straw man hat on his back and nodded enthusiastically.

If there was anything in the farm closest to him, it would undoubtedly be the straw man. However, after the soul of the Undead disappeared, the straw man quickly lost its magic power, and it was no longer able to transform, eventually decaying and crumbling, leaving only a hat.

Ange hated others setting his field on fire and grabbing his land, but fair trade was fine, he could always plow more land. The straw men were more valuable than any land.

Negris breathed a sigh of relief. It was his idea to suggest the Great Sage bring out the straw men. Because he had thought about it, only something related to farming could affect the farming skeleton.

“Are you confident about this? These men claim to be high-yield crop cultivators of the Spring Breeze Cup Grain Planting Competition. They can cultivate a thousand pounds of grain per mu, can you win them? The Staff of Heaven cannot fall into the hands of others,” Negris asked.

If Ange wasn’t confident, then he could only refuse the competition and negotiate a ‘friend deal’ with the Great Sage to privately acquire the staff. In the worst case scenario, he could get Anthony to make a duplicate for the druids.

Ange nodded his head.

Then there was no problem. Negris flew back to relay the response, and on their end, the Great Sage had also talked it over with Dobinki. Dobinki didn’t agree initially. The fertile land was precious to the druids, how could they let others have half of it?

But when they heard that the other party wanted to compete with them in crop cultivation and see whose crops are more productive, all the druids including Dobinki laughed. Their faces expressed an amused ‘these kids are adorable,” and they immediately agreed.

Negris left and returned, bringing back two straw men, straw dolls in human-form, wearing two straw hats. Both the straw dolls and the straw hats were much more exquisite than what Ange had seen before.

A boundary line was drawn with the relay tower at the center, and Ange and the others retreated to the west of the line.

After they had retreated, the druids, excluding Dobinki, came to the boundary, sowed seeds, and then cast their spells.

With the rhythm of magic, the seeds on the ground grew rapidly, creating wildly growing thorny vines. Guided by the druids, they formed a wall enclosing the land to the east, which belonged to them.

Lightning was summoned over. Big Cat, Little Angel, Little Zombie, Ange, and Bronze Dragon all lined up and crouched on its back, peeking curiously into the thorny vines.

Negris murmured in surprise, “Grows faster than your Instant Death Halo? Are real druids this powerful?”

“No, it’s the seeds,” Ange responded.

…

After everyone dispersed, and when the druids might have fallen asleep, a shadow quietly approached the thorny wall. With a touch of a finger, a bud rapidly grew, bloomed, and bore fruit. The shadow gathered a heap of seeds.

It then circumnavigated to another part of the wall and repeated the process, obtaining seeds from different plants.

The next day when the druids woke up and saw the holes revealed by the prematurely wilted flowering fruits on the vine wall, they were utterly bewildered.

…

Before Eternal Night passed, Ange’s competition with the druids couldn’t begin, but Ange didn’t mind one bit. He had discovered something else – these druids were a treasure trove, carrying countless treasures on them.

The thorny vines they brought out on the first day were a fast-growing plant. Under the druid’s urging, it could grow into a wall in one day.

Then, on the second day, they planted a tree. It was low and stout, with a rapid growth rate, and it could bear fruit within the day. The fruits were the size of a human head.

They picked off those fruits and roasted them over the fire. After cooking, a grain-like aroma wafted out from the fruits. They contained a yellow, flour-like substance, and after roasting, they could be formed into a ball and eaten directly.

“Oh my God, that’s starch, these fruits could serve as staple food,” Negris exclaimed astoundedly, sticking his head out of the window on the top floor of the relay tower.

Ange and others followed suit, craning their heads out the window and watching curiously.

Dobinki the Druid probably regretted setting the boundary at the relay tower. The vine wall was almost useless because the tower was higher, and every move they made was under scrutiny.

Furthermore, this audience had really thick skin, or rather, no shame – when told not to spy, they simply ‘openly’ watched instead.

Hurriedly finishing their meal, the druids ran to another corner, sowed some more fast-growing seeds, and quickly conjured up a wooden house to hide inside when doing anything.

When they all hid inside the wooden house, a shadow quietly approached the vine wall, peered through a crack, aimed carefully, and suddenly reached out. The hand disappeared before its body and reappeared beside the starch fruit tree several meters away, and plucked a fruit before disappearing.

The shadow retracted its hand, which now held a fruit, and quickly made its way back to the relay tower.

Once back in the tower, Negris couldn’t help but exclaim, “Using the Boundary-crossing Hand to steal, you really are…”

During dinner time, seeing one less fruit on the tree, a druid exploded, “Who the hell is stealing our stuff! Have you never seen a breadfruit before? If you haven’t eaten it, just say it! I can spare you one. You thief, clumsy, shameless, no..sh*…”

Lightning ran over excitedly: “Who’s cursing? Who’s cursing? Great, watch me.”

Taking a deep breath, Lightning stood on this side of the vine wall and started swearing,

“#$… &… *.. *… (&… ^… *… @… %.. …”

In the face of Lightning’s impassioned cursing, the druids hastily retreated.

Unable to retaliate or out-curse them, and constantly being taken advantage of, the druids felt like they were going bald.

Just as Ange had acquired six special seeds from these druids, dawn approached.