Chapter 51 - Aggro

Because the people of the Continent didn't place great importance in developing agriculture, sometimes there would be pests cutting their crop yields, leading to a lot of starvation.

However, Green also knew that the natural conditions of the Ark Continent were very good, such as with the rice tree. This tree was like a bamboo, growing more than ten meters, and would produce rice twice a year. Despite that, most of the Continent's people would still go hungry.

The rice that this tree produces is mostly eaten by slaves. This tree didn't have very high land requirements. There were many places on the Continent where it could be grown, so it wasn't easy to have a food shortage in the Continent.

But Green didn't buy the rice seeds to grow these trees.

Even though he was clear on the fact that the soil requirements weren't that high, it would be impossible to grow this tree on the mountain, because this tree has one important drawback. It was very sensitive to metal.

A test was done in which they put a hundred pound piece of iron in a rice field. The result was that within ten days, all the rice trees in that farm land died off.

It was precisely because of this that Green didn't buy any seeds for the rice tree. Even though the dwarves have pretty much mined all the iron ore, the soil on this mountain probably has higher levels of iron than other places. Growing rice was simply nonsense.

So Green chose to grow oil fruit trees instead. Their soil requirements were very low and the clan would be able to benefit from those trees for many years. Plus, they could be grown on the mountain.

But, like the rice trees, the oil fruit trees also had a fatal flaw. They were vulnerable to pests.

Compared to the rice trees, the oil fruits were really susceptible to pests. Although rice trees would on average experience a large-scale infestation every five years, the oil fruit trees would practically be affected by those pests every single year. But fortunately, they could grow almost everywhere, so they would be able to keep up the production of oil fruit.

However, this disadvantage was very deadly to the Buda clan. They needed a large amount of oil fruit trees as a major source of income. But if the trees were infested with pests, then they would be finished.

This was what Green was worried about, but now that Zhao showed him the pesticide, it felt like a heavy load had vanished from his heart.

Seeing Green so cheerful, Zhao said, "But I don't agree with the use of these two things. These two bottles are toxic. If we use them on the crops, there would be traces of toxins on them. Although it won't immediately poison the body, over many years of eating those crops, the toxins will accumulate, deteriorating your health."

Green paused for a moment, then frowned. "This is a problem. It seems that we won't be able to eat if we use that stuff."

Zhao shook his head, and decided to think about it for later. There were other problems he had to face. "Grandpa Green, let's go into my hut and see how many undead are on the screen, then find a way to catch them."

Green nodded. To be honest, Green felt that the screen was very convenient. You could see outside the space to know what the situation was. The only drawback was that the range was too small.

Several people in the hut looked at the screen. The number of green dots didn't seem to change, staying around a dozen. Zhao looked at the living room and saw that a green dot had appeared there.

Bringing up the living room view, Zhao spotted a rat skeleton spirit beast. Looking at it, he couldn't help but freeze. He then looked up at the small three-dimensional map on the top of the screen, and sure enough, the green dot from upstairs was gone. It seems like the rat skeleton from upstairs had gone down to the living room.

Zhao wondered what was so special about the living room.

Green was also tracking the rat skeleton on the screen. "It seems like it senses people. Strange as it may be, the undead's ability to smell living flesh is really amazing."

Hearing what Green said, Zhao understood. The smell of human flesh must have leaked out of the space hole, making the rat skeleton go into the living room.

Figuring this out, Zhao felt joy because he thought of a way to catch these undead. There was a gaming term for it: Aggro.

In his past life, Zhao didn't play much of these games, but he still understood them from reading web novels.

Zhao turned to Green. "Grandpa Green, if we just wait for the undead to come into the living room, we might not get a large amount since we'll only be catching them one at a time. Maybe we can send a person out to pull more of the undead. We'll gather a lot of them and lead them here."

Zhao knew that the undead were sensitive to the living.

"Yes, that's a good idea," Green said. "But Master, what if this causes even more undead spirit beasts to attack us? Don't you think that it's because of us being here that those undead are coming?"

Zhao thought for a moment, then his face changed. This was certainly something he was worried about, in the case that the undead felt their presence, they would over run the castle and make it even more unsafe.

Meirin shook her head. "I do not think that it's because of us. Do not forget, we have been here for almost a month. If we're the reason, then those undead should have come out from the carrion swamp the moment we came to the Black Waste."

Green and Zhao heard what Meirin said, and they couldn't help but feel relieved. But Green then frowned. "That's strange. I remember people saying that here in the Black Waste, an outbreak of undead occurs every ten or twenty years And the last time was just three or four years ago. If it isn't because of us, then why did this outbreak happen so soon? If the frequency of outbreaks is this fast, then we're in trouble."

"You can't really believe those rumors. No one really understands how the Black Waste works," was all Meirin could say.

Green nodded. "Yes, ah, I forgot that there's really nothing appealing in the Black Waste, so naturally no one actually comes here. Well, anyway we can always hide in the space if the plan doesn't work."

Green's attitude was a lot better than before. It wasn't like when he felt so desperate as if he had lost hope. In their struggle, he became very serious because it was hard to do what was best, which gave him a lot of pressure.

But now that he knew about Zhao's space, Green's attitude completely changed. He looked relaxed, because he believed that as long as Zhao had the space, the Buda clan would continue. Even if it wasn't restored to its former glory, it wouldn't be difficult to ensure the continuation of the Buda clan.

Hearing what Green said, Zhao couldn't help but chuckle. "Don't worry, Grandpa Green. If we could put some of the Continent's plants into the space, we can level up the space, which means we could make it larger. This will make it more helpful."

Green's eyes lit up. "Really? Master, is it true that the space can become bigger?"

Zhao nodded. "Of course. In fact, the space has already leveled up twice, giving us four acres. Grandma Meirin knows this since she was in the space during the second level up."

Translator Notes: "Aggro" could also be worded as "Pulling" or "Chain Pulling". But I used "Aggro" because I like it better. You could learn more by reading the "The King's Avatar" web novel over at GravityTales.

Translator Notes #2: This chapter was MTLed by Trung and edited by Kinokey. Please leave a comment if you've spotted anything that looks wrong.