Chapter 172 - Into the Swamp

Nowadays, the trading cooperation between Zhao Hai and Laura had been very stable. The addition of ten mu of farmable land in the Space had allowed Zhao Hai to plant all kinds of magic vegetables, not allowing any of the land to idle.

These new kinds of magic vegetables were assessed by the Space as level 15, so the time for them to mature was a bit longer, around a day or so. Moreover, these crops had a three harvest season rotation, which made it so that Zhao Hai wouldn't need to attend to them too much.

These five types of crops were magic vegetables, but Zhao Hai thought that they looked like the vegetables from Earth. The tubers looked like potatoes, the sweet peppers looked like green peppers, the red turnips looked like carrots, the olives looked like tomatoes, and the green lettuce looked like celtuce1.

Although they looked similar, their taste was a lot better than the vegetables from Earth. This might be due to the magic elements within, but Zhao Hai didn't feel anything.

Zhao Hai's ranch also wasn't idle. The hundred vacancies that had been added after the upgrade were used to raise more Eagle Virtuous Phantasms. With this many, it would soon be comparable to an air force in numbers. Zhao Hai believed that after another upgrade, the Eagle Virtuous Phantasms would probably be able to carry people, allowing them to form a proper air force.

Five days after they exterminated him, Buffy finally finished the map. Although the map was simple, for Zhao Hai and everybody else, this was very useful.

Buffy had explored the place several times already. However, he hadn't flown in a straight line towards Flower City. Instead, he'd gone all around the Carrion Swamp for a while before arriving at Flower City.

Zhao Hai asked Buffy if he deliberately did this, but was surprised when he heard Buffy's reply. He said that he hadn't intended to do so, but just wanted to go to the other end of the Carrion Swamp to see what was there. However, upon entering the swamp, he was completely surrounded by the smog, which made him feel disoriented. Although he felt as if he were moving in a straight path, in the end he had just been flying around in circles.

Even rushing out of the swamp was hard as Buffy had gone the wrong way a lot of the time. Only at the end had he finally found the way out.

With this thought, Zhao Hai couldn't help but think of Drunk. Although Drunk wasn't that deep into the Carrion Swamp, he still feared that going back wouldn't be easy. Seemingly, the Carrion Swamp wasn't simple.

After Buffy finished drawing the map, Zhao Hai didn't immediately move, but instead went to Casa City and bought a section of magic beast hide. This magic beast hide had been processed into leather. It was around two meters long and a meter wide. After tidying it up a little, they took Buffy's drawing and carefully copied it onto the piece of leather, expanding out from the small portion.

Due to the agreement between the Aksu Empire2 and Buda clan, the Carrion Swamp was considered a part of the Buda clan's territory. If you really measured the entirety of the Carrion Swamp and dictated it as a part of the Buda clan's land, then they would have a territory larger than the entirety of the Aksu Empire.

It was known by everyone on the continent that the territory of the Buda clan was basically useless, even though it was very large. Consider the Carrion Swamp, which no one dared to enter, and then add in the Black Waste, and it just shows that the piece of the territory the Buda clan occupied was just a desert in reality.

Zhao Hai, however, didn't think of it like that. If they could really solve the threat of the Carrion Swamp, then not only would that threat be solved, but all of the problems within the Black Waste would also be solved.

Solving the threat of the Carrion Swamp would make it so that no magic beasts or undead would come out from there and make trouble through the Black Waste. Also, Zhao Hai had placed a lot of undead and magic beasts of his own around the periphery of the Black Waste to seal it up. This made it so that the average person wouldn't dare enter there and cause a greater ruckus. Even if they wanted to make a lot of noise and flip the skies, no one would know.

This was the result Zhao Hai wanted as he would be changing the Carrion Swamp and Black Waste into an independent kingdom. When the day comes that they finally had enough strength, then even if their situation were to be known to all, no one would dare move against them.

It was for this reason that Zhao Hai had thought of placing the map onto the piece of leather and increase the scope of it. It was so that he could have a very good look at the entirety of his territory.

Zhao Hai and Green used up several days in order to complete this map. After completing the map, they were now ready to go explore the Carrion Swamp. Furthermore, they now had more than one thousand Eagle Virtuous Phantasms. Such a quantity wasn't small. Although a human couldn't ride atop an Eagle Virtuous Phantasm, these birds obeyed any command given by Zhao Hai. So long as Zhao Hai ordered them, their overall battle prowess would be very high.

In fact, they hadn't prepared much before heading into the Carrion Swamp since they only needed to select a few to go. They wouldn't take the slaves, thus they didn't have to worry about food and water, as well as the toxin. What this meant was that they didn't have any worries at all

The preparations that Zhao Hai did was actually for the cooperation between Laura and them. Since they had the Space, transactions with Laura wouldn't be a problem. However, they were now going inside the Carrion Swamp. If there really were a problem that they could not run from, then they had to make the necessary arrangements. Else it would become very troublesome.

The business cooperation between them had grown further as they traded bamboo rice, radishes, fruit oil, and blue-eyed rabbits with Laura, all of which made Zhao Hai really busy.

Fortunately, with the help of the Space, everything moved according to his plans. However, handing everything over to Laura was an issue.

In the end, Zhao Hai used the same arrangements he'd used from when they had done transactions with the Purcell clan. The method was that Zhao Hai would place the products at the foot of the mountain while Laura picked them up from there.

It could now be considered very quiet around Stony Mountain, especially after the Purcell clan transferred back their slaves to the Ica plains to level the land as well as plant some crops. Although they couldn't collect much food, some of it would still end up as edible. Thus, they could avoid any significant shortages.

The Purcell clan had been able to restore peace in the end. In fact, although the food crisis was a serious disaster, the most important losses were the ones that had happened inside the clan. Although the Purcell clan had a great heritage, their losses this time, which hadn't been made known to the public, wasn't any natural calamity that randomly happened. Rather, it was a man-made calamity. It wasn't something that Zhao Hai's pest crisis had instigated, but problems caused by the merchants.

If these merchants hadn't disturbed the market, then everyone in the Purcell Duchy would have had an easier time dealing with the food crisis. There wouldn't be any food price fluctuations, nor would any rumors have been spread. The Purcell Duchy might have only lost some money. If they weren't under such heavy pressure, then they might not have been in the mood to look for trouble against the Buda clan.

However, this matter wasn't without its advantages. Since Evan now held the highest authority in the Purcell clan, it could be considered a good thing, especially for Zhao Hai. On the other hand, this wasn't good for the merchants who hadn't acted honorably during the crisis and had even caused the Purcell clan to heighten their vigilance towards them. This was especially true in the case of the food commodities, along with the basic commodities. More importantly, wanting to cooperate with the Purcell clan in the future would be impossible.

The tranquility that the Purcell clan was having had both advantages and disadvantages for Zhao Hai. On one hand, he would benefit from the ease in which he conducted business inside the Purcell Duchy. On the other hand, with the stability of the Purcell clan, they might come and examine the situation inside the Black Waste.

Zhao Hai wasn't too worried about that matter. If someone really did come to the Black Waste, there would be no fear of them being able to hide from the undead in the area. This allowed Zhao Hai to easily prepare ahead of time.

Zhao Hai had actually told Laura that he would be going somewhere far, but the truth was that most of the time, he was usually either at Fort Iron Mountain or at Stony Mountain. He would just make the Eagle Virtuous Phantasm carry the Ghost Cane over the swamp. When they stopped to rest, he could go out of the Space and check around for some particular plants. For the rest of the time, Zhao Hai didn't stay too long in the Carrion Swamp.

Finally, ten days after Buffy had gone out and been extinguished by Zhao Hai, everything was ready. Zhao Hai released five Eagle Virtuous Phantasms which then flew towards the Carrion Swamp.

However, he hadn't thought that just after the eagles entered the swamp, the Space would prompt and in a tone, say:

[Biochemical beasts exposed to toxic substances.

Mutating genes.

Assimilated toxicity.

Enhancing genes.

Added toxicity to attack.]

This made Zhao Hai shocked. Green was puzzled as well and asked, "Master, the Space had already strengthened the Eagle Virtuous Phantasms before. Just like the undead, their attacks should have already been toxified, right? "

Zhao Hai thought about it for a while, then shook his head afterwards. "It seems they weren't. The Space didn't do what it usually does to the undead, and it also hasn't strengthened the magic beasts. We should pay attention to this matter in the future."

Green nodded his head and said, "Yes, if the Space can strengthen magic beasts just like the undead, then their battle efficiency will unceasingly increase. When that time comes, we can relax."

Zhao Hai smiled. "The magical abilities the Space currently displays is beyond my imagination. Who knows what will happen in the future. Anyway, the level of the ranch is still too low. Perhaps once we level it up, we will have more pleasant surprises to see."

Green nodded, looking pleased. "Yes, ah, the farm alone has already given us a lot of surprises. I'm really anticipating what other surprises the ranch will show us."

Zhao Hai also had expectations. Although he had a very good understanding of the farms and ranches in computer games, the present situation of the farm made him understand that he didn't actually know much. Only after leveling the Space would it enable him to see a summary of the abilities it had. However, although he saw these summaries, they were written quite vaguely. Thus, this made Zhao Hai surprised at the beginning when the Space improved the crops.

Zhao Hai and Green stared at the screen inside the Space. They themselves hadn't truly entered the Carrion Swamp as they were still observing what kind of environment the swamp had.

Zhao Hai was unexpectedly surprised. They had all thought that the visibility inside the Carrion Swamp would be very low. However, contrary to what they understood, the visibility inside the smog wasn't low and was even somewhat equal to the visibility outside. They had a visibility of over two hundred meters. Although it wasn't as clear as that of a sunny day, it was still better than what they had imagined it to be.

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 窝苣 - Wō jù. Celtuce. This took forever to research. It's a variety of lettuce in China that is mostly used for its stems instead of the leaves. Other names include: stem lettuce, celery lettuce, asparagus lettuce, or Chinese lettuce. The Chinese names could be 莴笋 - Wōsǔn, or 窝苣 - Wōjù. What makes it complicated is that Wōjù can also be used for all general lettuce. Anyways, the other lettuce, 绿苣, is Lǜ jù, which is basically Green Lettuce.↩

2 阿克苏帝国 - Ākèsū dìguó. Aksu Empire. ↩