Foreign Land Reclamation By a Vegetable-growing Skeleton

Just now, Alice came, harboring a resolution to die, these seaweeds are the staple food for dozens of people in her tribe. If stolen or consumed, they would all starve to death.

This kind of thing has happened many times. The Zaotian that once covered the entire seabed now is left with only dozens of clumps. It was said that there were thousands or tens of thousands of people in her tribe before she was born. But now, only a few dozen individuals are left, with her being the only remaining warrior.

She used to be full of fighting spirit, believing that she would definitely protect the Zaotian. But now it seems that at most she can just drive away the fish that steal food. If she encounters Sky People, she doesn’t even have the ability to fight back.

What she didn’t know was that not all Sky People are so abnormal.

As for the notion of compensation, the underwater world would have none of it. The more common occurrence would be to be caught and eaten. Creatures like the snake-fish aquabeasts, who cultivated large sea monsters, would prey on members of their tribe who were caught alone.

She froze; while Ange asked again, “What do you want?”

Gathering her courage, Alice responded, “You’ve taken our tribe’s entire food supply. You need to compensate us with food.”

Ange reached into his bag and pulled out a bag of grain, handing it to Alice and asking, “How many people are in your tribe?”

As soon as the dry grain bag came out, it began to take in water and bubbles started to emerge. Alice, filled with doubts, poked a small hole in the bag and plump grains of grain started floating up.

Alice’s eyes bulged. She quickly covered the small hole, unable to believe what she saw. “All these… for us?”

Ange nodded.

A struggle appeared on Alice’s face. After a moment, she gritted her teeth, “Come with me.”

She turned and swam into the distance. After swimming a certain distance, Alice was worried that the Sky Person might not keep up. She looked back, only to see Ange leisurely following behind her, leaving a trail of bubbles without showing any signs of fatigue.

Turns out Sky People can swim? And breathe underwater? Alice assumed that the bubbles following Ange were due to respiration.

Seeing that Ange could catch up, Alice quickly picked up speed. In not too long, she swam out of Zaotian and came to a barren rocky seabed, which looked like a giant rock, exposed at the ocean bottom, full of holes like a huge porous volcanic rock.

Alice swam into one of the holes.

Ange followed her in, swam through a narrow passage, and suddenly, his head emerged from the water.

This was an enclosed space that no water could flow into due to the presence of air, much like a bottle immersed upside down in water.

Unable to wait, Alice quickly opened the grain sack, scooped up the soaked grains, and took a big bite.

“Ah… It’s not even cooked…” Negris began to say something but his voice faded as he spoke. He realized that cooking wasn’t possible under the sea, and even if he told her, she would still have to eat it raw.

Luckily, Alice had good teeth. After chewing slowly for a while, her eyes began to shine brighter. She finally swallowed the grain whole, including the husk and germ, exclaiming excitedly, “It’s real food! I can taste the energy.”

It wasn’t the taste of energy, but the taste of starch and ‘sugar’. Of course, starch is high in calories, and high calories represent energy, so she wasn’t exactly wrong.

“You’re really compensating us with food?” Alice’s eyes sparkled with excitement. Food was much more valuable than the seaweed she grew. In her tribe, it could even save lives.

Why was this so? Because rice has high energy.

The seabed is dark, lacking in photosynthesis. Very little starch is found in seaweed; it mostly consists of water, plant fibers, and protein. It’s excellent for weight loss.

If Aunt Minotaur ate seaweed every day, her fat rings would definitely disappear rapidly.

But there’s a problem. The seabed is cold, water is dense, and swimming burns a lot of energy. High-calorie starchy food, along with protein and plant fibers, is greatly needed to survive hunger.

Among her tribe, being chubby is considered beautiful. Alice’s slender figure in her tribe would be seen as ugly. It’s not that she doesn’t want to gain weight, it’s just that there are no high-calorie foods to eat; she’s starved thin.

The highest calorie thing in the sea is the subdermal fat of marine life. Her tribe used to hunt some marine creatures for food, and there were quite a few chubby people then.

But now, as their numbers dwindled, they could only grow some seaweed at the bottom of the sea for sustenance.

Of course, she would not understand the reasons behind this. These were conclusions Negris deduced later on.

The main point was the severe lack of sugar in Sea People. That’s why they would light up at the sight of rice grains.

In a long-term lack of sugar, many low-blood sugar diseases would develop. For instance, many of her tribe members have hypoglycemia, easily fainting with too much activity.

Regularly adding high-sugar foods could alleviate the symptoms, so that’s why she said it could save lives.

Ange nodded, found a dry spot in the cave, and continuously transferred grain. Then he asked, “How many of you are there?”

“Si…sixty-four.” Alice stared in awe at Ange’s ‘creation out of nothing’ ability, her reverence increasing a few notches: Sky People could materialize food out of thin air…

This misunderstanding continued for quite a while until Alice had earned enough money to buy her first Space Artifact.

After compensating with enough food, Ange returned to the underwater zaotian, requisitioning a portion of it.

Alice had no objections and didn’t dare to raise any. After all, there were only around sixty members left in the tribe. Growing a few dozen seaweeds was enough for their consumption. Anything more would be impossible to manage and would be eaten by small fish.

One by one, Ange planted the seaweed in the zaotian. Then he stomped on the ground, and the seaweed grew rapidly and sprouted roots due to the Instant Death Halo.

Once the roots had grown, Ange removed his footprint, stopping the Instant Death Halo. The growth was too rapid. The nutrients of the seaweed clearly couldn’t keep up.

After some thought, Ange made some mud in the farm, mixed it with diluted Insect Ash Liquid, formed it into balls, and then fired them. They soon turned into stone balls, similar to pottery.

He dug another pit, filled it with pottery balls instead of crushed stones, and planted seaweed in it.

The roots of the seaweed intertwined around the pottery balls and then penetrated into the mud, growing wildly under the Instant Death Halo.

The original zaotian had seaweeds growing up to forty meters in length, but the one planted by Ange rapidly grew to over one hundred meters.

The larger the volume, the greater the influence of the water flow. After it grew over one hundred meters, a strong undercurrent blew, and the seaweed was uprooted and washed away.

“You need a heavy object to press down the seaweed,” Negris pointed out.

Ange nodded. However, the seabed was plain. Where could he find something heavy? Looking around, Ange’s eyes fell on the giant statue.

“Don’t, don’t do that. That’s the Statue of the Goddess of Redemption, not a tool for planting things,” Negris tried to persuade him.

Unfortunately, his persuasion was in vain. Ange made a pile of pottery balls at the base of the statue. This time, in addition to adding Insect Ash Liquid, he also added things like bird dung, Dragon Soil, and plant ash in an attempt to balance the nutrients.

Then he strung ropes between the legs of the statue, making a climbing net. The seaweed clung to the net, the rope tied to the statue’s legs, dispersing the impact of the water flow.

The only downside was that it looked a bit indecent.

“Kvada, if the people of the Church of Light see you disrespecting their goddess like this, they will surely launch a holy war against you,” Negris scolded irritably.

Ange tilted his head in confusion, clearly unable to understand why borrowing a statue to press seaweed was considered disrespectful. After all, no one said it was disrespectful when he used the Ring of Balance to weigh things.

Having piled up a large pottery ball several meters in diameter, Ange only planted one seaweed because he found that seaweed floats in the water without any weight. As long as it can withstand the water flow, it can grow infinitely thick and long.

The larger a single seaweed grows, the more efficiently it can utilize nutrients. Planting more would be a waste.

Just like that, a seaweed mass was cultivated by Ange. It grew longer and thicker, advancing all the way to the surface of the sea.

The seabed here was only about five hundred meters deep. If the seaweed could grow to five hundred meters, it could indeed reach the surface.

While he was busy, large bubbles started rising from the large coral rock in the distance.

When Ange swam over to check, he saw Alice and her tribespeople hiding a few dozen meters away from the rock.

“What is… happening?” Ange swam over and asked.

Alice’s tribespeople were startled. They were all hiding covertly, but Ange spotted them in one glance. If Ange were an enemy, they wouldn’t stand a chance.

On the other hand, Alice knew about Ange’s power and wasn’t too bothered. She directly answered: “The ocean is breathing. Every night, it exhales air, and a strong wind blows from inside the rock. We have come out to take shelter until the wind stops.”

Does this happen every night? What’s the principle behind that? Thermal expansion and contraction? Fascinating.

Negris marveled at this wonderful physical phenomenon but didn’t think much more about it. However, he soon noticed Ange staring at the bubbling rock, seemingly deep in thought.

Negris couldn’t help but look a few times more and racked his brain, finally coming to a conclusion: the bubbling rock probably couldn’t be used for planting, right?

“What are you thinking? Can this reef be used to plant something?” Negris asked tentatively.

Due to Ange’s peculiar methods, he wasn’t too confident. Even if he believed it was improbable, he had to ask Ange first to avoid embarrassment later.

Ange shook his head and said, “Here, at night, wind blows.”

“Oh? Night, wind blows.” Negris looked up at the dark surroundings, uncomprehending. At the lightless bottom of the sea, it was impossible to distinguish whether it was night.

“Night, wind blows,” Ange repeated.

“I know, night, wind blows. Then what?”