Chapter 398: A very weird Shopping List

At the moment Joshua found himself standing outside of the garden dungeon, back in the forest alongside Lilly. He wished he hadn't jinxed himself with his last thought after his little conversation with his mother because now he was stuck with a paper filled with a list of items that he was being sent out to get. Lilly was going to come along since she was going to be needed for some of the things they were being tasked to deal with, but for the most part Joshua knew that he was being tasked with handling everything while the two doctors explored the garden.

At first things seemed to be going normal as his mother, Grace and even Lilly examined the different portions of the garden dungeon, but only after a few minutes they seemed to figure out a few things that they would need so they could get the most out of the dungeon. They looked through the system and figured out how it would work for the most part. They could use the system to place barriers in between different sections of the garden that would keep the climates of the different sections separate. They could have the areas sectioned off by the acre if they wanted to, but at the moment they didn't have anything that specifically needed its own spot to grow efficiently. They were all sure that would change in the future based off of the things Ysildea had hinted at to Joshua.

They were able to look through the system and see the wide variety of climates that the barriers could generate for what was inside of it. They could even create rain fairly effortlessly by using the water from the nearby lakes like a natural sprinkler system that would eventually drain right back into the lakes creating a simple cycle. The system also showed the locations with the different levels of multiplier effect on any plants placed there. Joshua was surprised to find out that any plants grown near the lakes would also have a little bit of a boost when it came to growth rate. Instead of the three times growth rate that all of the areas gave outside of the sphere the lake areas gave a four times growth rate. Not a huge difference, but they'd keep that in mind when it came to growing medicines or other necessary plants at a faster pace and in a larger amount.

The big glaring issue that Joshua's mother figured out right away was the fact that there were no animals within the garden. There weren't even any insects around to help pollinate the plants when they planted them. The aura in the garden could technically grow plants on its own, but with no animals to keep the place balanced they could run into a lot of issues in the future. So the first and main thing to do that was on the list that Joshua had gotten from his mother was to go with Lilly and tame some beast that would do well in a calm environment.

Lilly had tamed several beast from all of the places they had visited in the past, but most of them were on the aggressive side and were predators that would need to hunt or be constantly fed meat. None of those types of animals would do well in the peaceful garden if they wanted to keep things under control. Instead Joshua had a few beast in mind that they had come across in all of their past explorations that would do well in the garden. In fact at the moment he had narrowed it down to three different groups of beast that he planned to go after.

The first group of animals that Joshua planned to go for was the lowest level group. He planned to go after the colonies of bees near the ant hill. Since they were low level and came in large groups it would be much easier for Lilly to tame some with her other beast either trapping them or scaring them into submission with the level difference. He'd have to make sure to find an area where groups of lower level explorers wouldn't get involved, but it shouldn't be all that troublesome. In the past Lilly didn't want to tame many of them since they didn't have any special abilities, but now they actually had a reason to train some. The bees' ability to pollinate the plants in the garden were going to help move things along nicely in the early stages of setting up the different sets of plants.

The second group of beast that Joshua planned to go after were the horses in the prairie area. Of course they had several of them back in the stables at James Town, but he didn't want to just bring the horses from there into the garden. They needed those horses to give members of the guild an easy way to get around the areas inside of all of the territories they had claimed. Teleporting was great and all, but it isn't quite the same as being able to ride around on fast horses and scoping the different territories out. Taming some of these horses for the garden would not only be good since they would have plenty of grass to eat in the grassland areas inside of the garden, but they'd also be useful for moving around the garden quickly while inspecting the different areas of plants.

The last group of beast that Joshua planned to go after was in the canyon area. Although most of the beast in that area were aggressive and definitely wouldn't fit in a garden environment, there was one group that would do well in the space. The ram creatures would do amazingly in the garden since they could trim down all of the weeds that start to grow in the space and they don't need a lot of food to sustain themselves. They wouldn't be detrimental like rabbits would be if they were introduced to the garden.

With everything set up Joshua and Lilly teleported to the ant hill before walking in the direction of where the colonies of bees were located the last time they came through the area. Along the way they noticed several groups of people around the ant hill still using the place as a location to train. Even though the area had already been cleared by Joshua in the past it was still a popular place for newer explorers to go to for training since the ants inside were fairly simple even if they came in large numbers. There were more than enough explorers around to handle any tides of ants that came rushing out of the ant hill. With no beast like Cinder around in the area it was a fairly safe training space in comparison to the unknown locations or dungeons that hadn't been cleared yet.

Joshua and Lilly simply smiled and walked past these people as they headed into the nearby forest to find the colonies of bees. Since Joshua and Lilly weren't hiding their levels and information they weren't surprised that they were gaining so much attention in such a location. Everyone was looking at them wide eyed as they past buy. "You think we should have hid our information Joshua?" Lilly asked with her usual carefree smile. "I think were garnering more and more attention the longer we're here."

"It shouldn't be too bad of a thing. After all it will keep other people away from us, especially those who are up to no good." Joshua said before he took notice of the fact that looks of surprise and aww weren't the only ones they were getting. There were also some looks of fear on some explorers that didn't seem to be the nice sort. In the past the Raider's Guild had used the area for nefarious reasons so it didn't come as any surprise to Joshua that there were some groups around still using the confusion caused by the large amounts of beast in the area to take advantage of others.

"Well I would agree with you if it weren't for the fact a lot of them look kind of starry-eyed." Lilly said as she looked at some of the people starting to follow after them before turning back towards Joshua. "You might have forgotten the other side of the spectrum when it comes to being popular."

That's when Joshua noticed the looks Lilly was talking about and realized himself and a lot of the members in his guild were a lot more popular now after the large town subjugation and the battle arena. He even saw a few people taking out pens and paper from their storage space as if they were going too asked for autographs. In that moment Joshua knew he had to get out of there. With thousands of explorers in the area it could take hours for them to deal with such a big crowd of fans if they got caught.

Joshua knew he had to get out of there fast. "Lilly bring out a companion that can carry you at a fast speed through this forest." He said before letting his aura flare out and put up an invisible wall of pressure between them and the approaching explorers. That gave Lilly enough time to bring out one of the dogs that she kept in her personal soul realm. It was a large German Shepard breed and was the size of a horse. Lilly easily got on its back before dashing off with Joshua running alongside them as they escaped the mad crowd.

The moment the two got far enough away they both hid their observable information so they wouldn't be caught up in the same situation again. Joshua wrapped his scarf up around the lower part of his face while putting away his scale blade. His sword was way too recognizable at this point since he was probably the only one around to use such a weapon. He didn't need it in such a low leveled area anyways. He just pulled out a short sword from his inventory along with a gun just in case they came across anything dangerous. Lilly also pulled up the hood on her head to hide her appearance a bit, but it would be obvious who she was the moment she summoned any of her pets. After all sweeping through the battle arena in the way that she did was hard for people to forget.

Once they had gotten away from all of the commotion it didn't take very long for them to start finding the colonies of bees. Since they were deeper in the forest the colonies they came across were higher leveled and had several bees at once surrounding a queen bee. They weren't aggressive unless you attacked their nest from afar or came to close, but if they wanted Lilly to be able to tame them she would have to get close enough. So Joshua walked forward getting the attention of the colony. Several bees came out aggressively trying to scare him off, but the moment Joshua let out his aura pressure every single bee froze up from fear. They hovered down to the ground and shook in fright.

At the moment Joshua was giving off the same oppressive aura that boss class monster would give off. With the forty level difference between him and the bees they weren't able to put up any response to his pressure. With that taken care of Lilly rushed over and started looking for the queen bee. She tamed it first making it much easier to tame the other ones. "Well that's one colony down." Lilly said with a smile as all of the bees disappeared into her soul realm.

"How many do we need to tame?" Joshua asked as he allowed the pressure to settle down.

"Well a colony this size can probably take care of one section of plants so I'd say at least twenty more just to be safe." Lilly said as she skipped forward with the large dog walking next to her. Joshua just sighed knowing that it would be a long day.