Industrial Cthulhu, starting from the island lord

Chapter 386 Agricultural Cthulhu

This story begins with Ashnaghi's application for the program.

At that time, Ash wrote an application report, intending to study the breeding of polluted organisms.

Hughes didn't take it seriously, thinking that she was unhappy after the wolf died and was going to raise other pets.

As long as she doesn't capture a person or a banshee to raise, she can do whatever she wants. Besides, this is Ash's first research application, and Hughes approved it without even looking at it, just to encourage her.

So when Ash told him a few months later that the research had yielded results, and huge results at that, Hughes was completely stunned.

It turned out he was alarmed a little too soon.

Hughes arrived at Ash's place immediately, only to be pounced on by the large black wolf, which then licked his face.

Ash grabbed the coyote by the scruff of its neck, lifted it up, tossed it aside, and led Hughes inside.

"This...this wolf is still alive?"

"Ah."

"Didn't you not feed her for a month?"

"Wolves don't need to be fed."

Hughes scratched his head a little: "Ash, listen to me, all pets need to be fed, even that one."

He pointed at the black wolf, then suddenly felt something was wrong.

The wolf just pounced on him.

Hughes was not a superhuman, and the symbiotic contract did not give him any boost in strength or physique, but he was still an adult male human.

Wolves are not very large animals, and coyotes are among the smaller ones. Some leaner coyotes can even weigh about the same as a house cat.

To pounce on him so smoothly, with only playful strength, this wolf...
Hughes took a serious look at the coyote for the first time, and was immediately shocked.

It was about a meter tall, which wasn't tall for Hughes, let alone Ash, but in the world of wolves, it was an incredibly exaggerated height.

This height refers to its shoulder height when standing on the ground; in terms of length, it is well over two meters.

A wolf? Even a small tiger couldn't compare to this!

Hughes was utterly disgusted by the coyote circling around Ash and rubbing its tongue against Ash's tail.

He hadn't paid much attention until he looked closely and noticed that the wolf's fur was jet black, with a faint, smoky substance slowly rising from it. From a distance, he might have mistaken it for just having long fur.

The wolf's eyes also faintly emitted a ghostly green light, making it look cruel and eerie.

If it could stand up, and the background changed to night, Hughes would think he had encountered a werewolf.

Something's definitely wrong with this thing!

Ash picked up the coyote and tossed it aside, then disgustedly shook the drool off its tail, opened the front door, and led Hughes into the yard behind the house.

This is the building that Ash applied for and used to build.

The courtyard is quite large, with a pond in the middle and several fields on both sides, where crops are planted.

It's clear that Ash's planting skills aren't very good; the plants in the field are growing crookedly, but...
But its size is just too big!

Wheat as tall as Hughes, olive trees several stories high, and coconuts that reach Hughes's waist when placed on the ground.
"I... I remember you only applied for the program a few months ago, right?" Hughes's voice trembled slightly.

"Yes."

"Isn't it the off-season for planting wheat?"

"Yes." "Coconut trees and olive trees, these need to grow for several years before they bear fruit, right?"

"Yes."

"So how did you do that? Is it magic? Like Nini's fish-taming spell, where you control a school of fish to jump out in a flash? Are you actually a six-armed druid?"

Ash looked confused for a moment, then cleared her throat and said with a serious expression, "No, this is science."

Hughes: "."

"So how exactly did you manage to do that?"

Ash thought for a moment, then turned around and picked up the wolf again: "I discovered that the wolf doesn't need to be fed and it won't starve, but then I found out that it was actually stealing food."

"What did you steal to eat?"

"Fuel for steam engines."

Ash's house has a steam engine. As a banshee, she has received advanced training. There is an old-fashioned steam engine in her house that has been phased out. She will occasionally take it apart and put it back together, or try to talk to the steam engine and communicate with its machine spirit.

The Machine Soul is aloof and rarely responds to people. Like most people, Ash's attempts to communicate with it have never yielded any response.

One day when she got home, she discovered that the machine spirit had actually taken the initiative to communicate with her.

It was muttering and cursing, and it took Ash a while to understand that it was complaining that its fuel had been stolen.

The machine spirit was displeased.

The coyote was the one that stole the fuel.

As for what else could the fuel for a steam engine be? Of course, it was physical pollution.

Ash didn't believe it, but there was no record of the machine spirit lying. She thought for a moment, then used both hands to pry open the coyote's mouth and reached into its belly to rummage around.

Don't say it, there really is.

Later, Hughes told her that all pets need to be eaten, and she took it to heart and tried to extend that to plants.

She polluted the plants.

It's not that no one has thought of doing this; many flowers and plants have been damaged by pollution, and the result is always the same—death.

The plants turn black and carbonize, as if they have been exposed to concentrated sulfuric acid. The specific nature of the pollution remains a mystery. Although many experiments have been conducted, people's understanding of this extraordinary substance is still extremely limited.

Most people would give up after trying it a few times, but Ash is a bit stubborn. Just like she used to change the fish every day, she now changes the plants every day.

It's unclear whether her will caused reality to deviate, but in any case, she succeeded.

After countless crops died, Ash successfully figured out a process for using pollution.

"Coconut trees, given enough pollution for irrigation, can continuously produce coconuts. There are also olives; the oil extracted from these olives can burn a very strong flame. Wheat kernels are very hard and difficult to chew, but they can be fermented. Although the residue left after fermentation doesn't taste good, it's edible, and the alcohol is also very useful."

Ash explained everything one by one, and Hughes listened in a daze.

The importance of these plants is self-evident; as long as there is sufficient physical pollution, there will be no shortage of food.

Moreover, Ash even tasted these things herself, proving that although they were polluted and eroded crops, they were still edible.

Watering plants with pollutants.
After the Deep Sea War ended, the Stellar Furnace was indeed no longer lacking in pollution, but it was still quite difficult to remove the pollution from the furnace. People soon discovered that these plants could be planted directly on the long tentacles of the evil god, and their roots seemed to be able to penetrate the pollution serpents and absorb the pollution.

So when the prince disembarked, he was immediately struck by Castel's presence.

(End of this chapter)