Astral Gods

Chapter 49: Double the Profits

With nothing much to do in the winter, after Zizhu advanced to the Mountain Lord level, she used her free time to use her earth-type abilities to cover the empty area above the insulated room, restarting its insulation effect, and the little warriors played inside.

However, winter isn't entirely uneventful. There's one thing that the young soldiers need to discuss: the mulberries pollinated by male mulberry flowers have ripened.

Two hills away from where the yew trees were planted, the camphor trees also planted their seed on a plain, mainly because the hills were occupied by older rhinoceros beetle warriors.

The purple camphor tree was only six or seven years old, and its life essence was also protected by the Purple Hemp Mountain Master using earth-based abilities to create a greenhouse.

Lord Zili and Lord Zizhu brought the three little ones to the greenhouse where the purple camphor and mulberry trees were planted. Lord Zima and Lord Zizhang were already waiting there.

Lord Purple Plum landed outside the insulated room, with Purple Pearl and the three little ones flying behind it and landing one after another.

Sensing the arrival of Lord Zili while inside the insulated room, Lord Zima immediately opened the door and let them in.

Lord Purple Plum went straight to the point as soon as he entered: "Are the mulberries on the tree ripe yet?"

"They are gradually ripening."

"That's fine." The male mulberry blooms between March and April, and then pollinates many species. As a result, the mulberries on these species do not begin to ripen until November.

It took nearly eight months, which is much slower than the normal production of mulberries.

It is foreseeable that the higher the quality of the mulberries, the longer it will take for them to ripen.

Lord Zili led the way, and everyone entered the insulated room one after another, then closed the door.

Upon seeing Lord Purple Plum arrive, Purple Camphor immediately flew to the tree, plucked a bunch of ripe mulberries, handed them to Lord Purple Plum, and then looked at it with shining eyes: "Lord Purple Plum, how many raw stones is this mulberry worth?"

The ripe mulberries were reddish-black. Lord Purple Plum picked one from the bunch and tasted it before saying, "The proportion of primal force in the mulberries hasn't changed much; it's still 1:1.9. It hasn't reached the divine-given stage, but it's much better than ordinary life seeds. It can be sold for 0.1 primal stones per mulberry."

Ordinary mulberries used to sell for only 0.02 raw stones each, so this is equivalent to a 5-fold increase in price.

Upon hearing Lord Purple Plum's words, the insects looked at the clusters of mulberries on the tree and were quite delighted. The mulberries were in clusters, with fifty berries in each cluster. Although 2 berries were a lot, it was only 400 clusters.

"0.1 Origin Stone per seed? Does that mean that just this one Life Seed yields 2000 Origin Stones?"

This is just the output of a mid-level warrior's territory, and it's not even produced at full capacity. If they were promoted to high-level warriors and produced 1000 strings of mulberries, with the quality improved a bit, the total price would probably increase three or four times, right?

At that time, the annual income of a single tree may reach more than 10000 ore stones. The flowers of the male mulberry tree can pollinate eight life seeds. Wouldn't that mean that at the advanced stage, the total output of pollinated life seeds can reach 8 ore stones?

The average annual output of mulberry seed in the territory of an ordinary high-level warrior is only about 800 raw stones, which is almost 12 times the original price of each seed.

Of course, this is just a hopeful idea; the specifics will depend on the actual situation.

However, its current value is already quite remarkable.

Zizhu asked, "Lord Zili, the three mulberry trees of Zizhang produced 6000 primal stones with their life seeds? What about the life seeds of Zirong and the others, and the divinely bestowed seeds of wild mulberry trees? How much has that increased your annual income?"

"If we don't count the output of the wild divine seeds, each of the 20 seedlings pollinated this time will produce 2000 Origin Stones, for a total of 4 Origin Stones. The pulp of the mulberry fruit also has 5% Origin Stone energy, which is worth about 2000 Origin Stones, for a total value of 4.2 Origin Stones."

This output is already quite substantial; most Mountain Lord-level Divine Gift Seeds don't even produce this much annually.

It could even be said that so many raw stones are enough for a high-level warrior to advance from the 9th age to the Mountain Lord level.

The Purple Hemp Mountain Master asked, "How should these profits be divided? Should they be equally distributed among all the little warriors who produced the fruits from the Life Seeds?"

Lord Zili thought for a moment and said, "Each of the six little warriors who produce mulberries from the Fate Seed will receive 5000 mulberries."

As for the remaining mulberries, let's pick them all while everyone's free in winter and have a mulberry party at the tribe's gathering. The junior and intermediate warriors should have plenty to try.

4 raw stones isn't a lot, but it's not a small amount either. It wouldn't even make a ripple in the entire tribe. Anyway, it's just an experiment to give the tribe's young warriors a taste of success.

After distributing the 30,000 raw stones of mulberry fruit to the young warriors, there were still more than 10,000 raw stones left, just enough for the tribe's many young warriors to eat.

Upon hearing Lord Zili's words, the purple camphor tree raised its horns and cheered, "Thank you, Lord Zili!"

The Tribe of the Two-Forked Rhinoceros Beetles is not very wealthy. When they reach the intermediate warrior stage, some of the early-planted Destiny Seeds have to start producing Force Food for their own evolution. With the help of their elders, they can advance to the advanced warrior stage before the age of ten.

5000 Primogems is no small amount for them; it's enough for them to evolve for several generations.

Lord Zima looked at the yew trees behind Lord Zili and asked, "Don't the yew trees get any raw stones and mulberries?"

Lord Purple Plum said calmly, "I will take care of providing it with the primal force food it needs for evolution, so don't worry."

"Okay." Upon hearing Lord Purple Plum's words, the other insects immediately had no objections.

Lord Purple Plum personally funded the purchase of various Force foods for the Purple Fir and its companions, which was far more than 5000 Primogems.

At this moment, the Purple Hemp Mountain Master remembered a question: "Now that the Purple Cedar has advanced to the intermediate level, will their male Mulberry Life Seeds still pollinate the Purple Camphor and other Life Seeds next year after they bloom?"

Lord Zili: "After the yew advances to the intermediate level, the quality of the male mulberry flowers pollinating the seed will definitely be higher, and it may even reach the divine gift level."

However, with higher quality, the pressure on intermediate-level warriors' life seeds to develop is also greater. Next year, we can try to separate some for pollination of advanced-level warriors' life seeds for experiments.

"That works too." The Purple Hemp Mountain Lord was very much looking forward to it, wondering how high the price of the mulberries produced by the advanced warriors' seed could be after being pollinated by the male flowers.

In the following period, Lord Zili dispatched Zerg warriors to invite the warriors from various mountain peaks, including those from various affiliated tribes, to Ziling to attend the mulberry festival.

Therefore, Zizhu, who had just been promoted, and Zimashanzhu worked together to build a huge insulated room for the young soldiers to move around freely.

Upon being suddenly told that there was free Force food, a group of young warriors were overjoyed and happily followed their elders to this place.

Lord Purple Plum arranged for the warriors to peel and dry the mulberries. All the pulp and some of the mulberries were given to the young warriors to eat. They then ate free Force food and played in the large insulated room until spring arrived.