Chapter 152: Tuber Family

Unsurprisingly, the quad-elemental Genesis fairy stumbled upon a new find on her way back. Taking the scenic path wasn't in vain as she tugged at a leafy plant wedged between rocks. Whatever plant this was, it had to be useful because she found a goat munching away at it.

Sure, that goat might be a little too odd-looking with three eyes, but it was a mountain goat. Evolution made creatures tougher than they had to be, and this plant should not be poisonous if goats ate it. Everyone knew that goats were like mountain hogs. They ate anything edible, including the excretion of other animals if there wasn't anything around. While they were considered herbivores, they occasionally ate meat if they had to. Cannibalism was their middle name when times got tough.

"Come on!" she struggled. 

Despite all the magic powers she had, the fairy was still a tiny creature with only enough physical strength to wrestle a mosquito. Pulling out this strange edible plant was proving to be a task harder than finding the corn Rino wanted.

In the end, the little fairy gave up and thought of a plan to use the goat she chased off earlier to pull it for her. Fortunately, she had a little bit of magic and a lot of wits to make up for her lack of physical strength. Once she dug the plant out and put it in the toad skin bag her master enchanted, it would be an easy trip back. She could only imagine her master's surprise if she managed to stuff the dumb goat into her bag too. Oh, maybe they would need two goats. Curly horned goats were males, so she had to find a female goat to kidnap.

The trap was set, and honestly, the goat could only blame itself for falling into such an obvious trap. No half-eaten plant would be laced with so much salt, but she knew for a fact that goats were a fan of salt rocks from how they slobber their tongue all over salt rocks they find around low enough for a goat to lick. On that trail of thought, would the milk they produce taste salty too?

Getting into position quickly as soon as she saw the shadow of an unsuspecting goat just as the sun started to rise. The three-eyed creature sniffed at the salt-laced plant before approaching it with bared teeth.

The moment the goat bit on the leafy plant, the fairy hiding behind the rocks used nature magic to inspire rapid plant growth and tangled the goat into the plant. The newly grown leaves and branches curled around the startled goat on the fairy's command, and the simple beast struggled, pulling the plant along with it.

Everything went according to plan, and the fairy smirked. However, the more the plant grew in leaves, she failed to consider how massive it would grow downwards too until rocks started cracking and roots started bursting from beneath.

The monstrosity of this new plant reminded the fairy of the potato plants in Town Zera that they were trying to grow. Instead of growing spuds, this new type of tuber plant was easier to foster in the rocky mountain terrain, and the fairy did not understand why the growth explosion happened. Was it the salt or the soil?

Either way, they now had a few things to test out that might help the farming fairy in charge understand the ground situation a little better. The quad-elemental fairy watched as the goat pulled up a whole row of purple potatoes and blinked. It was a strange tuber root, but she wasn't complaining. It looked more edible.

With the help of paralysing poison darts, the fairy shot the struggling goat with a dose and waited for the panicked creature to flop onto the ground tangled in plant vines and tuber. 

Painstakingly, the tubers and plant vines were stuffed into her toad skin bag inch by inch. Thankfully, Rino had enough sense to create the dimensional bags as big as a wagon so that the fairies could go on a collecting spree if they came across anything good. He had no idea how big the new plants were, but in case something turned out to be as big as the hemp tree, the fairies could still find a way to bring it back to town.

Stuffing a paralysed goat into her dimensional space wasn't easy, but the fairy had to be quick. She did not know if goats could survive long enough in the dimensional space. She did not know if air existed in her toad skin bag. However, she did not want to spend too much time finding a female goat and risk losing this male goat.

Without delay, the quad-elemental fairy flew back at top speed, startling everyone when she arrived, emptying her bag's contents onto the ground right in front of the magic tree.

Rino was busy examining the breeding grass patch when he heard the commotion. Intrigued, the lich walked over to check on the ambitious fairy and realised that he was looking at a creature he wanted to find from the very beginning.

"Is that a goat?"

The quad-elemental fairy was still catching her breath and could not reply. However, she nodded and took a look at her find. The goat was still paralysed, but thankfully, he was breathing.

Excited, Rino took the goat and created an earth magic animal pen. Griffith just arrived at Spudville. It should take about half a day for Aiden to arrive. He had no other means of building an animal pen without the help of gnomes. He had more important things to attend to at the moment.

The quad-elemental fairy looked at Rino marvelling over the potato tubers and smiled. The scenic route was worth it.

Rino couldn't believe what he was seeing. Apart from the goat and the wild corn, this tuber fruit reminded him of sweet potatoes from the east back in his old world. It wasn't common on the grounds of the empire because these plants needed a warmer climate to prosper. On the other hand, ground beans needed colder soil to sprout. Could this be the reason why potatoes were growing poorly here, even with magic?

The discovery got him thinking as he cut a few larger purple spuds from the roots to try replanting them. Given the same amount of magic nourishments in the same soil conditions, if these purple potatoes grew better, Rino would order the remaining potatoes to be dug up and sent back to Spudville on the next trip on the sky palanquin. There was no point in trying to grow fish on dry land.

Ground beans were only one type of tuber fruit. In his previous world, there were many types of edible roots that grew underground. Rino did not think the same would be so in this world. In fact, the purple root was something he never saw before. In his previous world, the root from the eastern regions was bluish, and the fleshy insides were orange. He wondered if the fleshy insides of these purple potatoes were orange as well.

Enlisting the help of the quad-elemental fairy and the farming fairy, Rino prepared a small testing plot away from the main farm and planted a small cut of both potatoes. Then, he told the fairies to pour a similar amount of nature magic for both test plots to observe the growth of plants. The soil was not treated with special fertiliser, so it was a fair experiment.

Unsurprisingly, the purple potato started to grow first and even after fifteen minutes, the regular potato from Spudville did not show any signs of growing. This was something RIno already knew about the spud, but he still had to record observations for the fairness of an experiment.

"We should add salt," the quad-elemental fairy said. "There is a lot of salt on the mountains, and I saw this plant growing in between rock gaps. There are goats in the area too, and they love to lick on salt rocks. I caught the goat by lacing the plant with lots of salt."

The new information was interesting, and Rino did as the quad-elemental fairy suggested. The next experimental plot was quickly prepared with a new batch of spuds. The purple potato grew faster this time and confirmed the quad-elemental fairy's theory of salt acting as fertiliser for the purple tubers. On the other hand, the regular brown spuds remained unresponsive. 

The decision was clear now. There was no point in growing regular spuds here when their purple cousins did so much better. Different strokes are used for different folks, and obviously, spuds should remain in Spudville.

"Dig up all these regular spuds before the sky palanquin arrives. We're sending them back to where they belong. On the other hand, try to start a new plot for these purple potatoes. Get someone to turn these purple spuds into animal feed to see if there is any way for us to use it."

At the back of Rino's mind, he wondered if the gods would count purple potatoes as potatoes too. The idea of a double harvest did not sound bad.