Chapter 224 - Resource Replacement, Seeds Obtained!
Chapter 224: Resource Replacement, Seeds Obtained!
Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation
Su Mo had always been a detail-oriented and focused individual. While his character archetype was not one of a typical genius, it allowed him to maximize his potential and make the most out of every opportunity that came his way.
At this moment, the Mind Ring had a multiplicative, rather than additive, effect on Su Mo, allowing him to enter a heightened state of concentration.
Even Su Mo was unaware of how much effort he was putting into the task, as his mind was solely focused on the work at hand.
Concentrating, he stared at the soil below and the shovel in his hand; and he immersed himself in the process.
The black soil land was still the black soil land.
Yet somehow the black soil land was not the same black soil land.
With each motion of his shovel, Su Mo could accurately distinguish the distribution of the layers of soil. He could feel where the points of resistance were and where more strength needed to be applied.
When mixing the psychic energy water with the wheat seeds, Su Mo could feel whether its shape was full or not, or whether there were any defects, as he touched every seed with the palm of his hands.
This special feeling was not related to his skill, but instead was something often spoken about by people on Earth…
A master craftsman’s spirit!
He focused on doing one thing at a time, performing each step meticulously and the extreme limits of his ability!
At this moment, the surrounding scenes between heaven and earth seemed to fade from Su Mo’s eyes. The noises Moore made from plowing the ground were completely isolated.
Except for the land and the seeds in front of him, there was no other thing that could draw Su Mo’s attention!
The Mind Ring that could regulate and adjust the brain’s concentration levels was not something that could be explained or achieved with the current levels of human technology.
The deeper his concentration became, the more terrifying the power of the Mind Ring seemed to Su Mo.
Oreo, who was lying on her stomach, also felt the change in Su Mo’s state. She stood up vigilantly and began to briskly patrol their surroundings.
Toss, close, cover, pat…
Su Mo kept repeating these mechanical actions and, soon, he had covered the 30-square-meters patch of land. When Su Mo’s hands finally stopped working, he suddenly snapped out of the heightened state of concentration.
“I didn’t know that focusing and concentrating could be so amazing. I ended up discovering some details that I usually don’t pay attention to!”
Reminiscing on the experience in his mind, and looking at the land that had been planted and leveled, Su Mo’s eyes glowed with a lingering sense of satisfaction.
He had only planted 30 square meters of land so, despite entering a heightened state of concentration, the consumption of energy was still within an acceptable range.
Sitting on the ground, he took out a bottle of psychic energy water and sipped it slowly. Feeling his burning brain slowly calm down, Su Mo smiled and took out a one-day coin from storage space again. He flicked it at the black soil below.
The coin dissolved and the land shone once more. When the time acceleration process was completed, the system scan revealed new information on the property panel.
[Black Soil Land – Crop Planting Field – Spring Wheat]
[Farmer: Su Mo]
[Planting area: 31.5㎡]
[Cultivation category: Early Spring No. 6]
[Crop grade: Excellent]
[Crop attributes: The yield rate of this crop has been greatly increased, while the taste of these crops has been slightly decreased. The shelf life of these crops has also been slightly increased.]
[Estimated crop yield: 1870 catties per mu (Not the final value. Affected by several man-made conditions and natural factors such as weather.)]
[Estimation of crop maturity duration]: 78.1 days (Not the final value. Affected by a series of factors such as land, fertilizer, weather, etc.)]
[Comment: How bold a person is or how large the land is… If you know, you know.]
“Damn… the yield rate of the excellent-quality high-yield spring wheat has reached 1870 catties per mu!”
Looking at the numbers stated on the panel, although Su Mo mentally prepared himself, he still ended up being surprised by the final outcome.
How could one describe the magnitude of achieving a yield rate that was almost 1900 catties per mu?
It was a full 40% higher than the previous good-quality crop!
Also, excellent-quality seeds received a 400 times bonus multiplier, meaning that it would only take four and a half hours for the wheat to progress from germination to harvest!
“My goodness, excellent-quality seeds are outrageous. I wonder what effects the rare and epic seeds will have!”
Licking his dry lips and looking at the black soil below, the huge boulder that had been pressing down on Su Mo’s heart was finally lifted.
As long as he could cultivate crops with similar yield rates, only two mu of spring wheat needed to be planted to meet the demand of the Candlelight Shelter’s first planting cycle.
When the second batch of seeds was sowed, they could conveniently use the first seeds harvested to make duplications!
“Since I can plant excellent-quality seeds, what I need to do now is to expand my output!”
Glancing at the black soil land again, Su Mo became more familiar with the scope and usage of the time currency and how it reduced the crop’s maturation process.
The object of the time currency was not a single crop, or a specific piece of land, but rather a whole object.
If one were to use Javascript as a metaphorical comparison, time currency was an object-oriented consumable.
Based on the rules of the time currency, the black soil land was a single-use resource card, so these five mu of farmland would actually be counted as a whole object.
On this “whole object”, no matter what Su Mo planted, the bonuses would be equally applied.
Therefore, to maximize the use of his resources, he had to plant all the five mu of land and save enough seeds for all the crops at once.
However, doing things this way would require him to buy enough seeds to sow the entire five mu of land, which would be very expensive.
Su Mo tapped to open his diary and began to review the exchangeable supplies he had left in the current shelter.
Initially, he had 240 catties of flour remaining.
In exchange for six catties of seeds just now, he had spent another 60 catties, and now his flour supply was down to 180 catties.
Two mu of land would require 40 catties of seeds, which equated to 400 catties of food in expenses. Including the other required seeds, he would need at least 800 catties of food as initial start-up capital to make full use of this magical black soil land.
“A gap of over six hundred catties… This is difficult!”
In the trading channel, Su Mo had realized that although his prices may have been a little inhumane, it was far better than the prices set by others. This was also the reason why everyone was excited when it came to trading with Su Mo on the World Channel.
However, the group of people who joined together to hype up the price of spring wheat seeds had not learned from Su Mo’s example at all.
They completely killed the chickens to get the eggs!
He would not squeeze all the food supplies from the hands of these refugees who were struggling to survive on the wasteland. This was his vow.
“I either have to use the psychic energy water to exchange for food, or try my luck at the lake to see if any carps survived the blizzard disaster.”
There were many valuable things in the Underground Shelter, from small household appliances with special attributes to the unique super legendary cards.
However, the only thing that he did not have was the basic material that everyone seemed to need most.
After some consideration, Su Mo decisively gave up on the idea of trading psychic energy water. After he returned to the shelter and brought out the fishing net, he drove Earth Tiger out.
After a few days of warmth in the wasteland, most of the snow had solidified into ice.
With the snow chains on, as long as he did not drive too fast, Earth Tiger would be able to make its way along the icy path.
It took about half an hour to travel twelve kilometers and, in the distance, a lake covered by a thick layer of ice appeared in his field of vision.
The nervous Su Mo opened the car door and stepped out.
The next second, Su Mo was thrilled to find the carps swimming about leisurely in the lake.
“Sure enough, the previous blizzard did not affect the carps that lived at the bottom of the lake. The matter regarding collecting food supply for trading is finally seeing some progress!”
Excluding the 240 carps he had caught previously, there were still at least 200 of them in the lake at this time.
Besides that, among the remaining carps, the smallest weighed about three catties, and the larger ones weighed as much as four to five catties. They could be used as the initial capital for the acquisition of seeds.
The thickness of the layer of ice was about two or three meters, but that did not pose a problem to Su Mo, whose physical fitness had now been strengthened in all aspects.
Su Mo took out an excellent-quality iron pickaxe and hacked “violently” along the edges of the layer of ice.
Every time the iron pickaxe produced a critical hit, a small piece of ice would crumble into powder. When a critical hit was especially forceful, the entire layer of ice would crumble, creating an open channel between the world above and the water below!
After breaking a layer of ice around five or six square meters along the lake, he looked down at the carps that were eager to see the surface again. Su Mo smiled and returned to Earth Tiger to retrieve the electric shock fishing net.
Fish frying!
It was the most annoying method for anglers, but it was also the most time-saving method in the Doomsday Wasteland.
The great flood would arrive soon, and Su Mo did not intend to let go of any of the carps that were still alive in the lake. After several rounds of fishing, all of them were caught and retrieved.
The total number was 254!
If he calculated the amount by weight, it was 827 catties!
“Great, these carps have made a valuable contribution to my seed acquisition efforts. Resource cards such as these would surely become a need for humankind in the future.”
After smashing all the fishes to death with the iron pickaxe, Su Mo did not wait any longer as he looked at the exaggerated prices of various seeds on the trading channel. He started buying up the seeds on the spot.
First, the wheat seeds were purchased. The high-yield Early Spring No. 6 breed was purchased, and 400 catties of fresh fish were exchanged with 40 catties of seeds.
Following that, he purchased the ordinary high-yield and disaster-resistant cabbage seeds at a price much cheaper than the wheat. The cabbage seeds required to plant a mu of land were only about 150g, which he obtained by exchanging 50 catties of fresh fish.
The amount of soybean seeds needed for a mu of land was about 7 catties. Because soybean seeds were hard to obtain and, due to their long shelf life, their price was even slightly higher than that of spring wheat. Su Mo spent 100 catties of fresh fish for the seeds!
When it came to carrots, one mu of land required about 300g of seeds. Because of its rich nutritional value, it was sought after by “wealthy” households. Su Mo had to spend another 70 catties of fresh fish to get enough for one mu of land.
So far, all the four crops used for planting had been purchased. A total of 620 catties of fresh fish was spent, with a remaining balance of 207 catties.
Looking at the remaining fish, Su Mo planned to leave behind 17 catties for his meals. He then spent all 190 catties to exchange for all kinds of strange seeds.
Among them were five or six kinds of fruit seeds, cotton seeds that were enough for 200 mu of land, and various other kinds of plant seeds.
Su Mo also bought some medicinal seeds that interested him, such as ginseng, crassulaceae, cynanchum paniculatum, xuejian herb, solanum nigrum, and so on.
Because they could not alleviate the urgent food supply needs of the wasteland’s population, these seeds did not cost him much.
After spending all his “money” satisfactorily, Su Mo looked at the pile of seeds that had appeared on the ground. He clapped his hands and drove away after storing them in Earth Tiger’s storage space.
“This group of inhumane “economists” is playing with the seed market by hyping up the prices. Since there is no supervision on the wasteland, I’ll take care of it!”
“They’re hindering my development plans for my shelter and getting in the way of my goal of returning to Earth. When the secret trading realm opens, I will show them how meaningless it is to hoard the seed supply, and what it means to crash the market!”
Looking at the slippery surface of the ice, Su Mo’s eyes flashed repeatedly.. His grip on the steering wheel tightened.