Forests Don't Support Idle Goblins

Charles crouched down and carefully observed Rupert's behavior.

The large dog twitched its nose and slowly approached the entrails on the ground, then lowered its head to sniff them.

"Could there be something wrong with those internal organs that attracted Lupus's attention?" Charles unconsciously clenched his fist. If the prey was poisoned or something else happened, he would immediately have White Hair throw away today's prey.

Fortunately, after sniffing the smell and scratching around with its paws, Lupus didn't pay any more attention.

Ciel took the bone that the Starhound had put down and deliberately tossed it near the prey's entrails.

This time, Lupus remained very interested in the internal organs and lingered there for an even longer time.

"Does the Starhound want to eat animal organs?" Charles found it strange, but he knew that canines couldn't eat certain things, so he decided to ask Agatha first.

On the other side, White Hair cut the prepared meat into small pieces and threw them into a large pot to cook. At the same time, as Mary instructed, he added some wild vegetables to remove the fishy smell. Several female goblins rinsed the rice and put it in the other pots for preparation.

After the meat boils, Bai Mao skims off the foam, which is something Mary told her to do; she would never have done this before.

After cooking for a while, she checked the pot and, seeing that it was almost time, ladled out the broth and poured it into the pots of rice. The mother goblins then started a fire to heat the rice and stirred it.

Just keep pouring the soup over and stirring until the rice grains expand and the aroma of cooked rice fills the air.

Finally, White Hair took out the dried cheese that Mary had left behind yesterday, chopped it up, and put it into several pots, stirring it a few times.

She also added salt and spices to it, and that's how several pots of forest meat soup risotto were made.

This risotto with mushroom and tuber stew tasted alright to Charles. It was quite good considering the limited ingredients. "Once we buy more ingredients and seasonings, we'll have Mary come and teach us every few days to expand White Hair's repertoire."

He got up and went to get another bowl of rice from Bai Mao.

White Hair had her two pigtails tied up in the air with a red ribbon, which Mary had styled for her. She looked at the leader with sparkling eyes and a victorious smile on her face.

Charles nodded, smiling encouragingly, "It's delicious."

The white-haired man scooped up a large piece of meat with a "plop" and placed it in Ciel's wooden bowl, then raised his head.

Charles chuckled twice and walked to the side to continue eating.

Now, when the tribe eats, everyone lines up behind Sharl. Sharl gets his food first, and then they get theirs. This can be considered the first revised version of the goblin tribe rule.

Charles didn't put red bull mushrooms in his lunch today. On the one hand, his men had gradually gotten used to working all day, and on the other hand, winter was just around the corner, and red bull mushrooms were basically impossible to find in the wild. However, the situation with Bucktooth's cultivation was far from ideal.

Before going out hunting in the afternoon, Charles planned to check on the growth of the red bull. If it was still not doing well, he would consider buying something else to replace it.

"We should store up more sugar. It's cold in winter, so we can give the goblins more hot sugar water to drink, which will help them feel a little better. Sugar is also a kind of seasoning." Ciel chewed on his risotto and thought to himself, "We have quite a few subordinates, so we need to stock up on a lot of sugar."

Most of the sugar on the mainland now comes from the Sahara Islands. Xia Er has never been there, but he has heard that a plant called sugar giant taro is widely grown there. This plant is very large, like a pink bellflower that grows directly on the ground and is more than a meter in diameter. The islanders insert a tube at the bottom of the flower, and the nectar flows down the tube automatically.

This giant taro can bloom for 11 months a year, and with the abundant sunshine and rainfall in the Salo Islands, the giant taro can produce nectar almost year-round.

The islanders dried nectar to make sugar cakes for trade.

Charles wanted to stock up on more sugar cakes so that he could break off a few whenever he needed to make sugar syrup.

In his memory, he also knew that some nobles would play a game called "sweet cake smashing". They would have maids stand on stacks of sweet cakes, and then they would take turns smashing the sweet cakes. Whoever smashed the sweet cake and caused the maid to fall down would win.

Charles had never participated in such games. On the one hand, he was the next heir to Torch City, and many merchants from the archipelago would give the Baron’s mansion gifts in order to reduce taxes, and sugar cakes were one of them. On the other hand, some nobles would deliberately pile up the sugar cakes to show off their wealth, so that the effect of hitting them would be more shocking and more likely to cause injury or death to the maids.

"Very good, delicious." Charles placed the wooden bowl in front of the white-haired man and encouraged him with a smile.

Then, under the other person's happy gaze, he pulled the buck-toothed man into the fortress.

Two goblins strolled into the Red Bull breeding area, and Sharl spoke first: "Speak Goblin."

The buck-toothed man's face was contorted from the "X" on his mouth, and after a few seconds he finally said, "Red Bull isn't doing well."

Charles nodded, looking at the few cedar trees in front of him. There were only a few very thin mycelia on the cedar cultivation substrate, which could be more than twenty meters long. There were only a few lonely mushrooms the size of an adult's fingernail.

"It seems that artificial breeding is very difficult," Charles sighed.

This was his first forest production project. At first, he even dreamed of building a Red Bull mushroom cultivation farm to stably produce a large amount of Red Bull powder.

He knew that the market for everyday consumer goods like tea and coffee was enormous. If he could promote Red Bull to the whole continent, from the dwarves in the snowy mountains of the north to the islanders of the Salar Islands in the south, he would definitely make a fortune.

However, it now seems that the project is doomed to fail.

"Did we fail?" Bucktooth finally managed to utter after a long pause.

"It seems like it failed. There's nothing we can do about it. It's going to be very difficult for us to do it on our own." Charles patted the buck-toothed man's shoulder.

When Sharl first started having goblins cultivate mushrooms, he was just trying it out. Now it seems like a pipe dream, and he has to face the goblins' abilities head-on.

"This kind of work isn't originally something goblins do; it's more like the work of the druids of the Church of Earth and Life." Charles rubbed his face. "If we could get a druid to come and cast a few nature spells, maybe that would work. But then again, asking them would probably be no different from suicide."

He chuckled self-deprecatingly, then instructed the buck-toothed man, "Take another look. If these Red Bulls are all dead and the mycelium has withered, then let me know."

The man with the buck teeth nodded, indicating that he understood.

Then, as Charles prepared to leave the fortress, as he was going hunting with his men that afternoon, the buck-toothed man behind him finally started chanting "Your X," "The X in the Sky," and "The Charming X"—he was bursting with pent-up frustration.

"Leader." Manager Du's voice rang out behind Charles.

"Hmm, what's wrong?" Charles stopped in his tracks.

"Under your wise leadership, we have dug up the buried mound of earth," the one-eyed man said with a slight bow.

"Was it just dug up?" Charles immediately headed straight for the construction site with great interest.

One-Eyed, standing a step behind, said in a slightly solicitous tone, "It was dug out before we ate. You said before not to go in."

"Should we let Furu sweep over it?" Charles asked.

"I've scanned it." One-Eyed nodded, but then added, "Furu said the situation is a bit strange."

"Hmm, strange?" Charles stopped in his tracks.

"Yes, he could sense a powerful, evil mind, but that feeling disappeared after a short while." One-Eye immediately stopped and even quickly and discreetly retreated a step.

"Disappeared?" Charles frowned and hurried to the scene. This situation was somewhat unexpected. Could it be that the other party had blocked telepathy?

Before long, they arrived at the excavation site, which was another corner of a huge stone chamber filled with ancient runes, corresponding to the location of the previous "gateway chamber".

When Charles arrived at the entrance, he found that the mound of earth seemed to have been deliberately buried, because after digging it up, there was a downward passage built with stone bricks.

"Does that feeling still linger?" He looked up and asked the floating Furu.

"It appeared again just now, but it's gone now," Furu replied, gesturing with his famous tentacle. "It felt somewhat evil and ferocious, very dangerous."

"Should we cover it up first?" Sharmo stroked his chin thoughtfully. "Or should we go inside and take a look?"

"One-Eye, go and call Grass, Broken Tooth, Red Eye, and Miss Agatha." He decided to go down and take a look, but just in case, he would leave a few capable men to guard the door.

A few minutes later, Agatha and Cao Cao, carrying the red-eyed, broken-toothed creature, arrived one after the other.

Charles explained the situation to them through Furu's "chat group" and told them to keep watch at the door and to be careful if anything rushed out.

"There might be a Mind Flayer among them that even he couldn't handle, so you must be very careful," he earnestly advised.

"Are you really going down to check?" Agatha asked worriedly. She had just offered to go with Charles, but he refused.

"Don't worry, I'll be fine." Charles smiled and reassured his old classmate. He couldn't tell her that he was invincible, but he still held up the magic scroll in his hand for Agatha to see. "It's a regular scroll. The magic on it is 'oiling the soles of your feet'."

He originally planned to send Broken Tooth down to check, and if there was any danger, he would just tear up the scroll. But then he thought that if the enemy's senses were very sharp and they discovered Broken Tooth hiding, they might kill him instantly. After all, the Mind Flayer's Mind Blast had stunned Broken Tooth with one blow.

"Alright, I know I can't convince you; after all, this is your base." Agatha looked somewhat frustrated, then she said, "Salamanturu."

Lupus jumped out of the crack and almost crashed into Caocao.

"Let it go with you. If it's dangerous down there, run! Lupus can use Astral Jump, so don't worry about it." Agatha pulled the Astral Hound over.

"Okay." Charles nodded in agreement. What the other party meant was that if they were attacked, Lupus should take the lead while he quickly tore the scroll.

He called to Furu, patted Rupert on the neck, and entered the passage under Agatha's watchful eye.

The passage was several meters long and went straight down. Fortunately, glowing mushrooms grew everywhere in the passage, so that Xia Er could see the way.

The deeper you go, the louder the strange noises become, like the "whooshing" sound of flowing water.

"Could it be an underground river?" he muttered to himself.

Soon, the goblin, the astral hound, and Furu emerged from the passage, and Shire was surprised to find that they were in front of a natural underground cave.

The cave is six or seven meters high, and the cave ceiling and surrounding walls are covered with blue fluorescent mushrooms. In front of you is a stone platform covering several hundred square meters.

With the help of the fireflies, Ciel saw an underground river several meters wide flowing through the middle of the cave, its destination unknown.

"Can you feel anything?" he asked softly.

"Yes, it's very strong here." Furu flicked his tentacles, which had turned green.

Charles nodded, calming the somewhat agitated Rupus, and then scanned the entire platform.

The platform shows obvious signs of artificial construction, and there are no stalagmites hanging upside down on the top of the platform. However, the entire platform is somewhat dirty and messy, and you can see a lot of fish bones.

"Hmm?" He noticed a long, shriveled "pipe" in the corner of the platform.

Ciel crept closer, afraid of making a sound, and noticed that the translucent fur on Lupus's back was standing on end, and the astral hound was becoming restless.

"Shh." Charles made a shushing gesture, then walked to the "pipe".

"This seems to be... a snake's shed skin." He frowned as he stroked the leather-like object in front of him. "It's so long, more than ten meters."

"The snake skin is so long, then this giant snake must be nearly 20 meters long." He put down the snake skin and quietly retreated.

"This passage might have been sealed off by the Mind Flayer." Charles nervously surveyed the entire cave, wary of the surrounding sounds. He felt this must be the giant serpent's lair, and that it was probably foraging in the underground river, which was why Furu's senses were intermittent.

"The Mind Flayer couldn't defeat the giant serpent, or perhaps neither of them could do anything to it, so they sealed the passage with rubble and mud." He stared at the flowing underground river, his expression serious. "The Mind Flayer killed so many magical beasts and accumulated more than a dozen beast cores, yet they couldn't do anything to this giant serpent."

"Should we seal this place off first?" Charles pressed down on Lupus, calming the astral hound, while keeping a close eye on the underground river in the distance. "This underground river can sustain this giant serpent, which means there must be a lot of produce in it."

He had heard of "fish springs" in many places before and had seen videos of them. He was amazed by the sight of fish rushing out of the springs. Later, after reading the comments, he learned that many of these were caused by the rise of underground rivers, which led to the fish surging out.

So if you cast your nets to catch fish on this platform, you're sure to have a good harvest, and it's a stable source of fish.

"More importantly, this is where we get our water," Charles stroked Lupus's translucent fur. "Occupying this place means we won't have to fetch water from the stream anymore."

The tribe goes to the forest stream to fetch water every day, which requires several trips back and forth. This task is currently being handled by White Hair and the mother goblin. If they can take down the platform in front of them, they won't have to carry water so frequently anymore, which will be safer.

"Let's go back first," he whispered to Furu and Lupus. He decided to go back and make some plans with Agatha and the others.

Now that the passage has been opened and I have left my scent behind, the giant snake will definitely notice when it returns, so I need to deal with it as soon as possible.

"We need to find a way to kill it as soon as possible."