Imperial Crown.

Chapter 192: Fruit Ripe, Bees Come

According to normal growth efficiency, the pecan peaches would have to wait until next year to mature, but under the combing of the Eye of Truth, the first batch of fruits have been produced ahead of schedule.

Although there are high walls, you can still smell the charming sweet fragrance dozens of meters outside the wall.

Pushing open the door and walking into the yard, Raven narrowed his eyes slightly.

The regular pecans are as short as potted plants, but the ones here have grown into small trees that are as tall as a person's shoulders. The branches are so full of fruits that they almost bend the branches.

Due to the infusion of the two elements of life and blood, the colors of the fruits of the green peach are also distinct, half is green like jade, and the other half is deep red like blood, both emitting their own luster.

"Baron, I'm here!" Bucky walked into the yard, closed the door, and placed a box of various tools on the ground.

Magic plants have their own unique needs from planting to harvesting.

Take the green peach as an example. To harvest regular fruits, you must use a wooden sickle, but for the dark black fruits, you must use a metal sickle. Moreover, the technique must be delicate and you must not break the skin, otherwise the medicinal properties will be greatly reduced.

For the first collection, Raven had to let Buggy, an experienced alchemist, demonstrate. After all, no matter how good the book is, reading it a hundred times is not as good as practicing it once.

Then Bucky, who had just stood up, froze.

He was like a gold digger who had been chasing gold all his life. If the green peach tree he found last time was a gold nugget, which made him think that he would never see it again in his lifetime, then this time it was like diving into a gold vault!

“So many!?” Bucky’s hands were shaking.

"Can you handle this on your own?" Raven asked.

Raven originally wanted to ask if he needed help, but Buggy understood it as a way of taking advantage of him, so he nodded repeatedly: "Yes, yes!"

As he said this, he rushed forward like a bull seeing a red cloth.

"Be careful, don't break it." Raven warned.

This sentence calmed Buggy down a bit. He took a deep breath, placed his fingers on the fruit, and wielded the small wooden sickle. The palm-sized green fruit rolled into his palm, which made him stunned: "What is...?"

Raven was a little surprised: "What happened?"

"Strange, strange..." Bucky frowned and held the pecan in front of Raven. "Normally, when the pecan is ripe, it should be as soft as syrup, but you see, it's so hard now!"

Hearing this, Raven poked him.

If a ripe pecan peach feels like a baby's face, this one feels like hard bamboo.

But through the eyes of truth, we can see that this fruit is rich in life elements and there is nothing wrong with it!
“Could that be the case?” Bucky smacked his lips. “My Lord Baron, I have a guess, but I need to peel it open to verify it. I wonder if you…”

Although pecans are common, not many can grow to this quality. If they really want to be sold, they must be worth at least five gold coins, so Buggy carefully sought Raven's opinion.

Raven understood his concerns and said, "Then peel it open and see. There is nothing special about the fruit."

After hearing this, Buggy finally felt relieved. He first wiped off the fluff on it with his fingers, and then gently drew a human shape with a wooden knife.

When the peel is peeled off, the texture of the flesh is like that of kiwi fruit, and there is gum-like juice flowing out from the edge and fixed next to the opening.

Bucky's eyes lit up, and he suddenly pulled out a sharp dagger from his waist and cut a wound on his wrist without saying a word.

Without waiting for Raven to ask, Buggy put the pecan to his lips and squeezed it gently. The juice and peach flesh were sucked into his mouth: "Mmm... It's delicious!"

Then he raised his wrist and said, "Baron, look!"

Raven's pupils shrank slightly because the scar on Bucky's wrist was shrinking at a speed visible to the naked eye!
This fruit actually has such an obvious effect in healing injuries!

Baki exclaimed: "My Lord Baron, you have a talent blessed by the gods in growing magic plants! I have only seen this quality of pecans in books. They also have a name - pecan treasure!"

"Beacon?" Raven raised his eyebrows, thinking that the name was not very serious.

"Yes, it's the pecan!" Buggy's eyes were filled with passion. "Normally, the pecan needs to be used with other magic plants to refine healing potions. But at this level, it would be a waste to use it to refine healing potions!"

"Now, its real value is that it can be used to refine the 'Primary Recovery Potion'!"

The primary recovery potion, although only a first-level potion, has an amazing effect - it can treat limb defects to a limited extent, such as a missing ear or two missing teeth.

As for broken fingers, blind eyes and the like, there is nothing we can do.

Buggy looked at Raven and suddenly bowed: "My Lord Baron, I have a request that may not be appropriate."

This action surprised Raven: "What request?"

"I hope you can sell me all of these peaches!" Buggy gritted his teeth and said, "I'm willing to pay eight gold coins for each fruit!"

In this era, oral problems are very common. Older nobles generally have poor teeth, and this is even more so for wealthy businessmen.

The primary recovery potion can help people have a good set of teeth - Bucky is well aware of the suffering caused by toothache. He is over 70 years old and has only a few good teeth.

It doesn’t hurt or cause any illness, but when it hurts it can be fatal!

If this kind of medicine can be developed and produced stably, Buggy will definitely become a guest of honor for many nobles and wealthy businessmen!
Raven did not agree immediately.

In fact, he already had his own plan on how to deal with this batch of green peaches.

The first batch has three different uses.

Part of it will be sent to the Wallace Hotel to see if new dishes can be developed.

Part of it was transported to the monster breeding farm and fed to Capybara to see if it would have any additional effect on the growth of monsters.

He planned to use the last part to make therapeutic potions to initially recover some of the costs.

In fact, these are not his ultimate purpose of growing pecans, but there is no other way. The new factory has not been built yet, and pecans themselves are not durable in storage. When the factory is built and put into production, Raven will use pecans to shock the entire Nord Province!
And Bucky's proposal can be said to have given Raven a way to immediately recover his costs.

Seeing that Raven didn't respond for a long time, Buggy slowly raised the price: "Eight gold coins won't work, then nine gold coins... or ten gold coins?"

"It can't be any higher, Baron!"

Lei Wen came back to his senses and said with a smile, "Don't worry, I didn't say no, but these one hundred green peaches have two hundred and seventy or eighty fruits. Can you really eat them all?"

Bucky nodded immediately: “Yes!”

"Okay, I'll give you ten gold coins each for this batch." Raven shook his finger, "But I want 50% of the profit from the primary recovery potion you make later!"

"This..." After hearing this, Buggy thought about it again and again, gritted his teeth and said, "Just listen to Baron Raven!"

As he spoke, Bucky's heart was bleeding. He had to hand over two thousand seven hundred or two thousand eight hundred gold coins in one breath. This was all the wealth he had accumulated after working in Mon'en City for decades!
In order to make this money, he tried everything, including adding water to medicine, selling expired medicine, and purchasing stolen goods at low prices, but now all of it has been squeezed out of him by Raven.

My liver hurts!
But when he thought of the bright future of refining a primary recovery potion, Bucky immediately plucked up his spirits and began to harvest the lush green peaches.

A total of 281 fruits were harvested and placed in a wooden box, neatly arranged and looking great!

Then there were the one hundred black pecan peaches. Bucky didn't plan to buy them, but that didn't stop him from being responsible for picking them.

As for the function of these black fruits, Raven prepared to deal with them according to the three steps mentioned above.

Buggy is already in his seventies. Although he is an alchemist and has taken some potions that can enhance his physical fitness, after working hard for half a day, his movements are still a little stiff and his efficiency is starting to slow down.

Just then, a buzzing sound was heard. Buggy looked up and saw a swarm of black insects flying towards him. Buggy was so scared that he quickly retreated.

Then, insects as big as fists were crawling on the green peaches!

The huge compound eyes are metallic in color, and the two tentacles on the top of the head are like reeds. Under the locust-like chestnut face, there is a mantis-like triangular mouthpart, and more than a dozen tentacles stick out, which is disgusting and terrifying.

Its chest is orange-yellow, its back is covered with fine hairs, its three pairs of long limbs are hooked on the branches, its waist is too slender, and it has a huge green abdominal sac behind it. It looks like a wasp, and the stinger on its tail is thick, short and sharp, as if it were made of steel!
At this moment, this strange insect was lying on the green peach plant, greedily eating the purple-black fruits, and ignoring the green fruits that had been picked on the ground.

"Locust-headed bee!"

"It's actually a locust-headed bee!!"

These two sentences came out of Bucky and Raven's mouth almost at the same time, but their attitudes were completely different.

There was fear in Buggy's words, but Raven had an unexpected smile on his face.

The magic potion that can awaken a person to become a magician has an important ingredient, which is the honey of the second-level monster locust-headed bee.

Locust-headed bees are almost impossible to raise, so their honey is also very expensive. One ounce, or thirty milliliters, costs more than three hundred and forty gold coins, with an average price of about eleven gold coins per milliliter!
Unexpectedly, I was attracted by the ripe pecan peaches!
Raven waved his hand slowly, signaling Buggy not to move - locust wasps are not carnivorous insects and have no interest in human flesh and blood, but if they are disturbed from collecting honey and eating, they will attack to the death!
Buggy, who was deeply versed in alchemy, was obviously very familiar with the habits of this insect and silently counted the number of these monsters.

One, two, three...

He didn't dare to move too much, but just from what he saw so far, there were nearly a hundred of them!

For the locust-headed bees, which are second-level magical beasts, this is a large swarm of bees. This also means that there must be magical plants nearby that allow them to collect nectar stably, in order for them to grow to such a size!

Raven was very patient. Losing some pecans was nothing, as they would grow again anyway. But if he missed the locust-headed bee, he would never find it again easily!
As time passed, the sun rose to the middle of the sky and then gradually set. Five or six hours passed. The stomachs of this group of locust-headed wasps were so full of food that their originally green stomachs turned black. Then they began to fly shakily and flew away towards the northwest.

That's the direction of Bloody Heights!

When the group of locust-headed wasps flew farther away, Raven whistled. With a whoosh, Little White flapped its wings and landed in the yard. Raven got on Little White's back and said, "Bucky, help me collect the rest. By the way, inform old Gordon. I'll be out for a few days!"

Before Buggy could agree, Raven had already ridden on Xiaobai and flew high into the sky!

In the blink of an eye, five days passed and Raven arrived at the Bloody Highlands.

In fact, if they really just wanted to reach the Bloody Highlands, with Xiaobai's speed, they would be there in a day at least. However, the flight path of the locust-headed bees is not a straight line. They will always fly to a place, stay for a while, and then take off again.

This is not a waste of time. There are wild magic plants growing wherever the locust-headed bees stay. If it weren't for them leading the way, perhaps no one would discover the traces of these magic plants for a hundred years.

Raven also made a fortune by following the locust-headed bee and obtained seeds of two first-level magic plants and one second-level magic plant. In addition, he also stopped at several oases to replenish some supplies.

One day, Raven was chasing a locust-headed bee and had just passed a hill when he felt something was wrong.

The sound of horse hooves sounded like thunder!

Not far away, a group of horse thieves were coming in droves, roaring like a colony of ants, scaring the locusts and wasps into flying in panic.

Right in the middle of this group of horse thieves, several of them suddenly felt a burning desire and drew their longbows, aiming at Raven!
Raven's heart tightened and he pulled the reins suddenly. Xiaobai understood what he meant and suddenly jumped up!

But...it's too late!
Purple, green and red, three sharp arrows wrapped in the three colors of fighting spirit streaked through the sky like rising fireworks.

Raven drew out his staff, tapped his fingers lightly, and uttered a syllable. A light flashed on the dragon locust wood staff, and a wind curtain woven with a violent storm wrapped around Xiaobai!

This is the second-level magic that Raven had stored in his staff in advance, the Storm Shield!

Xiaobai flapped his wings and dodged the feather arrows wrapped in purple and red fighting spirit. The green fighting spirit feather arrows flew over, but were suddenly blown away by the green wind curtain woven by the storm!

As long as we rise another hundred meters, we will be able to completely escape the shooting range of these horse bandits!
However, at this moment, the group of horse thieves split apart, and a crossbow cart appeared in Raven's sight!
Almost instantly, the crossbow adjusted its angle and locked onto Xiaobai. A horse thief grinned and knocked down the crossbow's expansion mechanism!

The giant crossbow as thick as a human arm broke through the atmosphere, tore through the defense, and slammed into Xiaobai's chest!

The next moment, the sound of breaking air came.

Blood splattered, feathers broke, and Xiaobai's figure fell from the sky.

……

(End of this chapter)