Chapter 104 - Farmville

"I can't believe you locked yourself here… Right under the hill." Kotone says she, Red and Fumio step inside Red's cave.

Fumio meanwhile, accepts it as simply one of Red's oddities.

"But boss. This cave does not seem natural." He observes.

"It's not. It's a product of my own strength training." Red explains to the two.

"Strength training?" "How?" Kotone and Fumio ask respectively.

"Without using any tools, and using just my limbs, I carved this place out. Took me a month actually." Red explains.

The two students are shocked. They cannot even imagine reproducing such feat.

"S-so… that's why you gave your room to Kotone without hesitation." Fumio gets over his surprise.

"Yes." Red confirms as he leads his students to the furthermost wall of the cave.

Kotone and Fumio thought they already had their dose of surprise and shock of the day, but their jaws drop as a huge ring of yellow light appear in front of them.

<>

Sometime later, "1 to 24 time ratio… This is …" Kotone still cannot believe it as she looks at her watch that is lying on the ground.

She just left Red and Fumio inside the independent dimension of the treasure fragment that is the wood chip, and stepped back in after a short while.

"You really spent just a minute outside?" Fumio asks in anticipation.

"I did. Counted to sixty." Kotone nods.

"Whoah… I mean… We are really inside that wood chip? How is this possible, boss?" Fumio asks Red.

"Someday. When you learn enough to understand, I'll explain." Red says to the two.

"How difficult could it be…" Kotone grumbles.

"It's like explaining how to solve a mathematical conjecture to someone who does not even know how to do one plus one." Red says.

"What?" Kotone does not understand.

"That proves boss' point." Fumio understands what Red is saying.

"What I can tell you two, is that the wood chip, is just a small fragment of a larger treasure made by someone who had just reached godhood. Or maybe a newborn god birthed by the vo- the universe." Red says.

"G-god?" "A what?" His students are confused.

"Uhuh. Probably the same one who gave life to this planet. The same one who made the demons, the angels." Red explains further.

"Are you serious?" Kotone frowns.

"…" Fumio meanwhile knows that Red is not the type to joke around about things of this matter.

"…" Red on the other hand, realizes that he just overshared.

"So… God is real?" Kotone asks.

"I've spoken too much." Red chuckles.

"Boss… This… Why do I get the feeling that …? Never mind." Fumio cannot find the words to express his suspicion that Red knows something that is much bigger than the world.

"So, if God is real, where is he? Or she? Why did they let The Great harvest happen? Why did he make angels and demons in the first place?" He asks instead.

"I don't know. Like I said, it's all theories for now." Red drops the matter.

"Now… You two kids, can use this place. Even though there is no spiritual energy here, you can still do weight training, strength training until you run out of spiritual energy to fuel your resistance seals, or even sleep. Then you go back into the real world to refill your elixir seas, or cultivate." He tells them.

"The only problem is… We grow older faster." Fumio realizes the side effect immediately.

"It's worth it to me." Kotone has no problem with the side effect, her reaction getting a look from Fumio.

After pondering for a few seconds, Fumio raises a question.

"Boss… How long do you think before I can make a True Elixir Sea?"

"Without the assistance of this place and with your talent? Never if you're lazy. A few decades if you're diligent and focused. A decade or two if you can withstand the uhh… grueling pain of a training method I have in mind." Red shrugs.

"Grueling how?" Kotone asks.

"With the time mojo or this place, and if I can endure the training you're talking about, Kichirou san, then wouldn't that mean that it will only take me ONE real-world year or less to… You know."

"The training you're doing is nothing. By 'grueling', I mean much more intense work-outs, bathing in Xoz'gekal's flames, drinking poisons to stimulate your organs, herbal baths that are much more potent than you're used to, and many more." At each thing that Red lists, the more intimidated Kotone and Fumio get.

Seeing that the two are actually pondering the option he has given, Red nods in approval. He will not be disappointed at the two if they choose to refuse the alchemic assistance that he can provide. But he would rather have them accept his offer because he severely overstated the time the two will take to make their True Elixir Seas in comparison to their potentials.

"You two can think it over. In the meantime, you can have a go at this place." He concludes his offer for now.

<>

"Hu-hu-hu-hu-hu…"

"Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-…"

Kotone and Fumio are doing their own strength and weight trainings.

It has been a few treasure dimension hours since the place was introduced to them by Red, and they have set up their own training camps fifty or so meters apart. It is as if they are in their own tiny worlds.

To help them take their minds off the pain of their training and focus a bit better, the two are listening to either music and spoken literature which Red himself composed and wrote, using spiritual energy seal-enhanced earphones which Red himself designed.

Their focus however cannot continue as, *GGGRRRRR* they hear a strange rumbling reverberating from the distance, tainting the sound coming from their earphones.

They look at the direction of the rumbling and they see Red's tiny distant figure, standing a few meters above the ground using spiritual energy platforms as footholds, pouring stones of all sizes and shapes to the ground, forming a huge pile of them.

After covering around two basketball court size's worth of ground, they see Red leave through the portal.

The two then exchange looks for a moment before going back to what they were doing.

While they are interested at what Red is doing, the high and the rhythm of their workout overwhelms that interest. 

A few hours later, Fumio and Kotone are now sitting together, having a break, enjoying bottles of milkshakes.

"How much do you have left?" Fumio asks.

"Half. You?"

"Same."

"What are you listening to?"

"Classic American rock and roll. You?"

"Radio drama…"

The two's small talk is interrupted by Red entering the treasure dimension once again. The two watch in interest as they Red ascend again, stand a few meters off the ground, and pour clay soil beside the pile of rocks and at the same volume.

"Okay. I have to see this." Kotone says as she starts to make her way to Red to take a closer look.

Fumio gets interested too and follows behind her.

"Boss!" Fumio calls out as he and Kotone are close enough to Red.

"What are you doing?" He asks.

"Just go back to your nests, children. You'll see it when I'm finished." Red tells him and Kotone.

The two simply shrug and they go back to their own camps to resume their training, having had enough of rest.

For the next few hours, they see Red bring in more soil, more rocks, and even river sand, until a third of the dimension's grounds are covered with all sorts of these materials.

At some point, the two stop training, feeling their spiritual energies running low. Just in time for Red to return from the real world once again. 

The two then decide to watch Red again.

They see Red levitate, break apart, and cut rocks using his thick, solid, and very stable spiritual energy. After cutting the rocks to different small shapes, they see him attach, and assemble the rocks into bigger shapes, and finally assembles those bigger shapes to what looks like a small complicated structure. Before the two can figure out what the structure is for, Red buries it with the orange clay soil, only leaving small parts of it, which look like tubes, sticking out from everywhere.

"Pipes?" Fumio cannot help but compare.

No answer from Red, or support from Kotone however is received, so he simply proceeds to watch as Red compresses the poured clay soil with a cylindrical shaped stone that Red carved. After that the two young cultivators see Red pour loads of black colored soil evenly, making a layer on top of the clay soil.

"So, a farm?" Fumio comments.

"Precisely." Red overhears the comment and nods in approval.

"But why the rocks?" Fumio asks.

"Irrigation.", is Red's one word explanation.

Fumio, remembering the elongated shapes, slaps his head. It could not be more obvious.

"Irrigation…" Kotone is almost speechless that the scene that awed her was simply for making a pipe system.

"Making an irrigation system this quick and easy is impressive, Kotone." Fumio comments.

Kotone is not impressed with the irrigation system however, but something else.

"*haaaa…*" She does a drawn-out sigh looking at Red's fingers.

"What are you looking at?" Fumio asks.

"Kichirou-san's storage rings. He's got one in each finger… And each can carry THIS MUCH! He only used five so far." Kotone expresses her envy.

"What are you going to use it for though? Steal a mountain of gold?" Fumio scoffs.

"N-no…" Kotone says meekly.

Fumio however spots something strange with Kotone's expression.

"Wait… Don't tell me you used your ring for stealing…" Fumio looks at her weirdly.

"I…" Kotone is taken aback.

"You did, didn't you? Shoplifting?…" Fumio almost gasps in disbelief.

"I just tried it once!" Kotone argues.

"…" Fumio is still giving her a look.

"Honest! I just tried it with a bottle of water, that's all!" Kotone insists.

"Leave her alone, Fumio. She's telling the truth." Red says as he finishes leveling the black soil.

"But you're right. Your rings can be dangerous on the hands of people with less than savory characters."

"And you just gave it to us, boss?" Fumio cannot believe such oversight.

"What? I gave those rings to you two because I trusted that you wouldn't use them for something as low as petty theft."  Red shrugs.

With that, Red proceeds to reshaping and reassembling the rocks and makes them into a shape of a small building's size hollow structure and attaches it to edge of the dimension before filling it up with water.

Just like that, he is done making a small water dam.

He then connects that water dam to the irrigation system he made, and with the power of gravity, water starts flowing, and the pipes sticking out of the soil, starts sprinkling water gently to the surface of the black soil.

As the water wets the land, Red also sprinkles seeds on it.

"Uhhh… boss. The sun?" Fumio asks.

"What about it?" Red asks.

"don't they need sunlight?" Fumio asks.

."Nah… Spiritual energy is enough for the ones I'm planting." Red explains.

"What are you planting?" Kotone asks.

"Coffee, tea, cocoa trees. The tastiest species. By the time Tez and Rizretheen are done setting up my coffee shop business, there'll be plenty to serve."

"Will they be as good as your magic teas?" Fumio asks.

"No. But they will be the best the general public will ever have." Red pledges.

Fumio and Kotone can already imagine Red's not yet existing coffee shops, being filled with customers.

"Goodness. If you can compete with Tomoyuki Clan's coffee shop chain… That's money right there! Billions, boss! Even if you convert the revenue to US Dollars, it's still billions!" Fumio is excited for Red.

"Well… That's for the future, and more corporate battles to be fought by Tez. But I have a jackpot product that will immediately earn me even more money than the arena." Red smirks as he joins them.

"What is it?" Kotone asks in great interest. She has heard from Fumio of Red's earnings whenever he fought.

"It's this." Red pulls out a lush green leaf with nine serrated leaflets spreading out beautifully from the  center.

"T-that…" "W-whoah…" his two students' recoil from the leaf.

"Yes… The beautiful Lady Mary Jane."

"But that's illegal!" Kotone protests.

"To who?" Red scoffs.

"R-right… You can sell them to those who don't care about civilian law." Fumio nods.

"That too, but I'll just sell these abroad.." Red says as he sniffs the leaf.