Laura sat in her carriage, carefully examining the Magic Peach Core she held. She wasn’t aware of where it came from. This thing just looked like a round ball of iron with a dot at the top.

Nier also carefully looked at the small ball. To be honest, even though she knew that Zhao Hai wouldn’t deceive them, Nier wasn’t able to believe that there’d be something like this on the continent.

After some time, Laura put away the Magic Peach Core. She took a breath, smiled, and looked at Nier. “What’s wrong? Is it that surprising?”

Nier nodded her head and said, “Yes, I really didn’t think that there would be such a thing. Young Lady, in the end, what do you think is Mister’s ident.i.ty? How can he just hand out ancient magic products?”

Laura smiled. “I really don’t know Mister’s origin and I’ve never heard of anyone like Mister on the continent. A person like Mister should’ve been famous throughout the continent. Except, there’s never been any news of such a person. Isn’t that too strange?”

Nier frowned and asked, “What do you mean, Young Lady?”

Laura shook her head and said, “I don’t know how to say this, but Mister’s body has too many things we don’t know about. I don’t want to find out what they are now, because that would be disrespectful to Mister. Anyways, Mister is our ally now. As long as we handle matters well, the commodities Mister produces will be sold by our Higanbana firm throughout the Purcell Duchy. That should be enough.”

With that, Nier couldn’t help but smile. She turned to Laura and said, “Young Lady, now that our store has branches open throughout the whole Purcell Duchy, would our clan still look for trouble against us?”

Nier was Laura’s maidservant. Consequently, when the young lady marries, she would be part of the dowry. That’s why Nier was so concerned about Laura’s future. Of course, there would be an exception. That is, if Nier were to marry before Laura, then Nier wouldn’t need to be a part of the dowry.

However, Nier’s situation was a little rare. She hadn’t been sold by a master and was actually a servant born within the clan. For a young lady from an aristocratic clan, having a maidservant would be an a.s.surance. They could also make this maid her helper. As such, how could they easily give her up?

Laura looked at Nier and smiled. “My silly Nier, you think things are that simple? Our present status might be better, but in the eyes of those people in the clan, we’re still nothing. What I can say is that we have more bargaining chips to negotiate with them. Adding to the fact that we have a very good relations.h.i.+p with the Purcell clan, even if they want to move against us, they would need a reason to shake our station.”

Nier felt relieved and said, “That’s good. Young lady, why don’t you consider Mister Zhao Hai since Mister has such good skills. He’s also good natured with a good heart, so I think in the future, he will certainly be good towards the Young Lady.”

Laura looked at Nier with a smile. She teased, “You little girl, are you fancying Mister? So you think that I should marry him?”

Nier blushed. “It isn’t like that. I won’t speak irresponsibly.”

Laura chuckled and told Nier, “Little girl, things really aren’t so simple. The strength of Mister is too big, and he has too many good things in his hands. Yet, we still aren’t allowed to see his true colors. This means that Mister is one with very powerful enemies. If they are against such a powerful strength, then I fear that Mister’s enemies will also not be that easy. If I really married Mister, I fear that we will face a more dangerous situation than what we’re currently experiencing.”

Nier stared for a moment. Then she smiled and looked at Laura. “So the Young Lady wants to marry Mister Zhao Hai? Hee hee, the Young Lady always said that she has never thought of it. Deceiving people?”

Laura looked blankly at Nier, but didn’t reply. She didn’t really know why, but she really had thought about it. This might probably be because Nier had talked about such things too much lately. That’s why she had such thoughts.

* * * * *

Zhao Hai didn’t have time to think about Laura and he hadn’t thought about what she might be thinking. To tell the truth, presently, he was a little anxious. He estimated that by now, Buffy had entered the Carrion Swamp for over a month already. Yet, till now, he hadn’t come out.

In addition, there was the issue of eating and drinking. Thus, Zhao Hai wasn’t really clear on how Buffy would live inside the swamp. Remember that all the plants there were poisonous. He was curious as to how Buffy survived this month. Was he able to eat or drink? He hadn’t heard anything about a Rank Nine that could survive without eating. Ah...

Although Zhao Hai had now begun to improve the land in the vicinity of Fort Iron Mountain, he didn’t dare to go too far. He only managed under 700,000 square meters1, which was still a lot. Remember that there weren’t many people in the fort, thus, there was a lot of land that they couldn’t manage.

Fortunately, Zhao Hai had raised a lot of scaled wildebeests which the slaves used to help them when they were busy planting some common vegetables. Thus, they weren’t that tired.

Zhao Hai hadn’t changed the scaled wildebeests into zombies. Although it might appear that zombies were a lot more useful, Zhao Hai wasn’t a genuine black magician, so he still preferred living things.

When Laura left Stony Mountain, Zhao Hai immediately took the several bags of magic seeds and placed them in the s.p.a.ce. Green naturally followed him as he also wanted to know if, this time around, the s.p.a.ce would be able to level up.

As soon as they entered the s.p.a.ce, they heard a beep from the s.p.a.ce and a tone that said:

[Discovered plant seeds.

Recording seeds.

Vegetable seeds - variant type. Seed evaluation is: Level 15 plant.

Extracting seeds, digitizing seeds.

Seeds can now be bought from the ‘Spatial Shop’.]2

[Discovered plant seeds.

Recording seeds.

Vegetable seed - variant type. Seed evaluation is: Level 15 plant.

Extracting seeds, digitizing seeds

Seeds can now be bought from the ‘Spatial Shop’.]

......

…

…

After five consecutive prompts, a little while later the s.p.a.ce beeped and prompted in another tone:

[Because of the discovery of new plants, s.p.a.ce has reached the upgrade requirements and has upgraded to Level 11.

New land that can now be reclaimed is: Ten mu. Requirements: 3000 Gold Coins.

The level and gold coin requirements have been met, do you wish to reclaim this land immediately?]

Zhao Hai had been waiting for this level up, and he also wasn’t short on money. This time around, the land that could be reclaimed was around ten mu. Thus, he didn’t hesitate and said, “Immediately reclaim.”

A white light flashed and ten mu of land appeared in the s.p.a.ce.

Green looked at the ten mu of land and didn’t know what to say. These ten mu of land weren’t a small quant.i.ty.

Zhao Hai hadn’t expected that after pa.s.sing Level 10, he could reclaim ten mu of land. This was a big surprise.3

Zhao Hai saw the mu of land and turned to Green, saying, “Grandpa Green, I want to plant magic vegetables on these new mu of land. What do you think?”

Green recovered after hearing Zhao Hai. He looked at the new mu of land, then at the vegetable seeds in Zhao Hai’s grip. Green nodded and said, “Alright. For these kinds of magic vegetables, after producing them we can take a part and add them to our food supply. Then we can save some until we have a large enough amount before letting Miss Laura help us sell them off so we can get some income from it. Also, I really didn’t expect that this upgrade would give us ten mu of land. It seems that we must further upgrade the s.p.a.ce as soon as possible. ”

Zhao Hai nodded, then he commanded the s.p.a.ce using his mind. Automatically, the lands were farmed and planted with these five vegetables. He planted each type over two mu. Before long, they were all planted.

After planting these ten mu of land, Zhao Hai took out the Virtuous Phantasm colored eggs that were still inside the box and went to the ranch. The ranch now raised blue-eyed rabbits and several windseeking horses4 in the s.p.a.ce.

Zhao Hai had purposely kept these horses in the s.p.a.ce. When they were travelling, they used the undead to hurry along. However, if they were going to Casa City, then they could only sit on the undead until they got to the entrance of the city. Afterward, they would have to walk inside, which wasn’t convenient.

Also, for the scaled wildebeests, although they’d been improved, they were still too slow. In order to have a convenient means to travel within the city, Zhao Hai had raised these horses.

Although the speed of Alien5 was faster than the windseeking horses and could pull a lot more than them, Zhao Hai still decided to use the horses because if Alien pulled, then it would cause too much noise which would likely raise up a storm.

Moreover, Zhao Hai honestly envied the design of Laura’s carriage. Before, he could only look at it. Now, however, he was wealthy and could make a carriage just like Laura’s. Even if it wasn’t the same, there mustn’t be too much of a difference.

After Zhao Hai and Green entered the ranch and brought the box with the Virtuous Phantasm colored eggs, the s.p.a.ce beeped and intoned:

[Discovered new animals.

Biochemical battle beast - Can absorb pure energy to survive. Can a.s.sist humans in battle and help them exceed their shortcomings. Can only absorb pure energy and cannot be upgraded. To improve these deficiencies, the biochemical beast can properly absorb any form of a skill in order to upgrade.

Extracting animals, digitizing animals.

Animals can now be bought from the ‘Spatial Shop’.]

Immediately after, another beep sounded and a tone prompted:

[Because of the discovery of new animals, ranch has upgraded to Level Three. It can now domesticate a hundred more animals.]

Then, there were no more voices.

Zhao Hai was very happy. He immediately took the five eggs to the hatching area of the ranch. Soon, the eggs cracked one after another. Then a fluffy little thing broke out.

As Zhao Hai saw these things, he was stunned for a moment. This was because he found out that these five little things looked like five little chickens. These were five different colored chicks.

Zhao Hai looked blankly at the five chicks. He murmured, “How could it be chickens? Did someone catch a chick in order for it to become a Chicken Virtuous Phantasm?”

As Zhao Hai said that, Green couldn’t help but laugh. He said to Zhao Hai, “Master, these are not chickens, but Eagle cla.s.s Virtuous Phantasms. They are a lot fiercer than chickens. Although they aren’t as good as Magic Beasts, they can still transform into armors and weapons. Furthermore, they can also fly. Since they can interlink with their master, they can be used as an airborne scout.

“I hadn’t really thought that Laura’s gift this time around would be Eagle Virtuous Phantasms. These Eagle Virtuous Phantasms are really rare.”

Notes:

- This chapter was MTL'ed. Please leave a comment for constructive criticisms and advice.

- Please support the author if you love this novel.

- Please check out the Editor's footnotes, thanks.

1 Remember, I’m converting all outside s.p.a.ce measurements to metric system. Only the inside of the s.p.a.ce will still use mu. Anyways, 700,000 square meters is over 1000 mu.↩

2 I’ve taken to putting the prompts in square brackets to make sure they are noticeable. Also organized them so they look more pleasing to the eye and easier to read and note the details↩

3 If people don’t remember, the s.p.a.ce had only increased by an mu each time he leveled up. Now the quant.i.ty per level is boosted by 10 times.↩

4 追風馬 - Zhuī fēng mǎ. Lit. Chase Wind Horses. I switched it around to Windseeking Horses.↩

5 異形 - Yìxíng. Basically means Different Form or alien. Also, 異形 are the characters used for the movie Alien. Thus, stayed with the name.↩