The weather in early spring is still cold, and the ice and snow on the ground have not completely melted. The cold wind that blows from time to time seems to have penetrating power. It can penetrate through thick clothes and penetrate into the body like a steel needle, making people shiver from time to time. .
But now it is the season for sowing golden vines. The farmers wrapped themselves as thickly as possible, then dug out the frozen soil with their hoes, and placed the golden vine seeds soaked in magic water one by one in the dug holes. . There is no need to cover it with soil, because the golden vine needs sunlight most to germinate, and everything else comes second.
If you live in a place with a relatively warm climate, even a child can do this job. But it's different in the northwest. The soil in early spring is slightly thawed. It's not as hard as stone like in winter, but it's still quite solid. People who are not strong enough often have to dig out a shallow hole several times to put the golden vine seeds into it. The farmers were so busy that they couldn't plant much in an hour.
Fortunately, in the entire growth process of golden vine, the most difficult part is sowing. It is a very powerful plant in itself, and its ability to adapt to the environment is extraordinary. After it is planted, it sprouts, and then as long as you remember to replenish it with magic energy every day, it will grow steadily without worrying at all.
Ordinary crops require soil plowing, fertilizing, watering, weeding, and catching insects, but these golden vines are basically not used. Its strong root system can penetrate deep into the frozen soil, absorbing enough nutrients and water. The sunlight can give it sufficient nutrients, and there are no weeds or pests that can survive in the Ash Forest. If it weren't for the fact that it still requires artificial replenishment of magic energy, we could even learn from the farmers in many places. After sowing the seeds, they don't care at all and just wait for the harvest in the fall.
However, Golden Vine also has huge drawbacks. The first is the low yield. The yield of this plant is really pitiful. One acre of field can only yield about 60 kilograms. The second is that the growth process requires a supply of magical energy, so ordinary people cannot grow it alone. Finally, the taste is very delicious. Worse, worse than coarse rye, it tastes gritty and slightly astringent. Except for some special dishes, only the real poor will use it as a staple food.
In fact, when merchants acquire golden vines, they can refine them through magic circles to obtain magic essence containing sunlight energy. As for the residue after refining, it can at least be used as animal feed. Pigs and cows are not picky eaters.
Sui Xiong looked at the busy farmers and shook his head secretly.
Golden vine is really not a suitable crop, even growing rye would be much better than it.
Rye is a common crop in cold areas. Although it requires more labor than golden vine, its yield and taste are much better than golden vine. If the farmer is careful, the land is fertile, and the climate is not bad, it is common for one acre of land to yield more than a hundred pounds. Grinding rye into flour can make the famous semolina cake; if mixed with a little white flour, it can also be made into bread. Not only poor families like to eat it, but even ordinary middle-class families can use it as a staple food.
It's just... If you want to grow rye, the soil quality requirements are much higher than those of golden vine. It’s not that the requirements for fertility are high, or that there is any difference in cold resistance. The main reason is that rye’s ability to resist negative energy pollution is much weaker than that of golden vine, and the growth cycle and golden vine do not completely overlap, so even if you want to mix It's impossible to plant it.
The entire northwest region, that is, the area around Rye Town in the south, has relatively low negative energy pollution in the soil, so rye can be grown.
It is precisely because of this that Rye Town has become the granary of the northwest region. Agriculture and commerce are developed, and it is prosperous enough to support an elite army.
Sui Xiong hopes that Huishi Town can develop, so it is natural to start with agriculture so that the people in this town can at least be self-sufficient in food. Even if not, it is not a bad thing to produce more food.
But producing more food means opening up more farmland, which means increasing the size of the purification circle.
The purification circle is a divine power circle that must rely on the god's belief system to operate. The population of Huishi Town determines the level of belief it can provide, and this level of belief determines the size and number of temples it can provide. If there is not enough temple support, the shrines placed in the center of the purification circle are nothing more than decorations.
This is a question of which came first, the chicken or the egg. For those pioneer villages, the church that controls the entire village can use coercive means to promote the deepening of faith. In other words, it can increase people's faith output rate. But that kind of society is not what Sui Xiong wants. He really doesn't think there is any progress in a society that doesn't even allow freedom of thought.
So he could only change his mind.
The initial idea is to dig out the ground and cultivate special mushrooms that can absorb negative energy. This method has been used in Mask of the Void Amusement Park and has proven to be effective and reliable. But there is another problem with this method - it is impossible for ordinary people to hollow out the ground and grow special mushrooms on a large scale. Even experienced adventurers cannot bear that kind of workload - you know, the concentration of negative energy underground is completely different from that on the ground!
Progress cannot come from the sky or be given by the gods. If progress is not achieved through people's own efforts, it will not have the value of widespread promotion, and it will not be possible to verify Sui Xiong's ideas.
So he considered another idea - the reason why the Ash Forest has such strong negative energy comes from the corpse of the ancient god buried deep underground. If he manages to remove the ancient god's corpse and cooperate with large-scale purification, he may be able to completely drive away the negative energy of the entire Ash Forest and turn it into an ordinary boreal forest.
This is an earth-shattering project, extremely difficult and will have a huge impact. The most important thing is that Sui Xiong still hasn't been able to find out the origin of the ancient god who died here, which makes him dare not take action rashly.
A god who continues to emit strong negative energy even after countless years after his death, polluting this vast forest, is simply unimaginably powerful. How dangerous would his corpse be? How many powerful gods would be jealous of taking it out? What to do with it after taking it out? These are big problems.
Sui Xiong has asked Weiye, who is good at dancing and dancing, to help him find out. Weiye is a great connoisseur of eating, drinking and having fun. He always appears in various celebrations and has a good relationship with any kind of god - except for gods such as pain and plague. Whether it's with the old-fashioned lawful ones, the ferocious and violent evil ones, or the chaotic ones with imaginative and strange ideas, he can get along with them. At least three-quarters of the gods in the Pantheon have dined and chatted with him, and he is truly a super player.
Although there is no progress yet, Sui Xiong believes that Weiye will be able to find out the origin of the ancient god who died under the Ashes Forest sooner or later.
When that time comes, he will call his friends to make big news!
But that day is still far away. It may take fifty years, a hundred years, or even longer. With his endless lifespan, he can wait slowly, but mortals can't wait that long.
So... we still have to think of other ways...
For more than half a month, Sui Xiong wandered around Huishi Town. He observed the lives of ordinary people to see what their shortcomings were, and racked his brains to figure out how to improve their living standards.
If he hadn't been hairless now, maybe he had lost a lot of hair in the past half month, giving his head a Mediterranean look.
His hard thinking finally paid off. One day, when he was hiding in the mine and watching the miners working hard, he finally got inspiration.
A few hours later, he found Felix and took out a blueprint.
"... What a big project!" Felix studied the design drawing carefully and praised it.
This is indeed a big project. Sui Xiong plans to dig four diagonal tunnels outside Huishi Town and plant special mushrooms in the tunnels. The temperature underground is high enough for special mushrooms to grow. As the mushrooms grow and multiply, the concentration of negative energy around them will decrease. At this time, you can dig a deeper tunnel nearby and plant special mushrooms in a deeper location. Harvesting the previous special mushrooms and refining the magic essence of negative energy... and repeating this cycle is equivalent to artificially creating a vein of negative energy essence outside Pyroxene Town.
Over time, when the underground mineral veins in this area have become deep enough, they can develop horizontally and arrange criss-cross special mushroom planting areas underground to form a huge "underground mining area."
From a technical perspective, this idea is not difficult, it just requires a lot of manpower. However, growing golden vines does not take up much manpower, and there are many skilled miners in Huishi Town itself, so it is said to be quite easy.
It's just that the investment in this "artificial vein" is relatively large, and it will take a long time from the start of construction to the beginning of harvesting. Without sufficient financial resources, there is no way to support this plan.
And even if the artificial mineral vein is successful, special mushrooms containing a large amount of negative energy can be harvested continuously. The harvesting process is still dangerous, and the special mushrooms obtained cannot be refined by ordinary people. This requires a very high level of magicians and sufficient magic manpower.
Fortunately... for Huishi Town, which is already building a magic school, these are not problems.
"This plan is very good. As long as there is sufficient magical manpower support, the entire Ash Forest can be transformed into a huge negative energy vein." Felix commented, "I think... Your Majesty, you have really found the way to make this black land." A way to bring life to a dead forest!”
Sui Xiong scratched his head with his tentacles and smiled happily.
Although the food problem has not been solved, with reliable financial resources, the revitalization of Huishi Town will definitely be able to get on the right track faster!