Will the kemonomimi encounter Alien Ranch Story?

No matter how many insectoids with claws there are, they're not scary. But if they start developing industry, manufacturing alloy armor, and using a massive unpaid labor force to expand their scale, like the insectoids Xia Lin is familiar with, and send you a "Sea Legion Fleet," that's when things get really interesting.

Clearly, the technological advancements of Argo are no match for the exceptionally intelligent and interconnected Haisi. The only solution is to control the technological level of those who come into contact with Haisi, ensuring that they remain slightly ahead of them and guiding them in the wrong direction.

Now, what Gretia is most worried about is that some place, when facing a crisis, might use a powerful weapon and ruin the entire plan to guide the development of the Sea Heirs.

If you were to map out the hunters' path, they would be moving in a spiral pattern towards the northwest of Ursus.

Although Goredia occasionally manages to navigate successfully, most of the time they end up going in the opposite direction.

Argonauts are divided into two types of consuls: technical consuls and scientific consuls. The former are mainly responsible for specific technical aspects and, while not completely ignorant of theory, only have a superficial understanding of it.

The latter is responsible for scientific research and theoretical engineering.

Frankly, it's not wrong for Argo to look down on the inefficient societies and backward administrations of land-based countries, which he sees as barbaric. Argo, who was governed by skilled workers and scientists, certainly had the right to look down on those countries that were still in imperial or feudal systems.

Goredia is the Technology Administrator. She knows how to use technologies such as star navigation, but she only has a slight understanding of the underlying principles.

The hunters hadn't gone far when they encountered a mobile town, which was clearly no longer able to provide them with any supplies. Hundreds of dinosaurs had surrounded it, and the Ursus people who had been hiding on the platform had fought back with bows, stones, and farm tools, but in the end, they had become food for the dinosaurs and a source of new companions.

"These Terrorfish are acting strangely. Go, take them down!" Graceia immediately noticed that the Terrorfish were behaving strangely after preying on the Ursus people. Some of them had begun to absorb Originium particles and turned into an egg-shaped structure. Whenever attacked, they would spray poison gas in the direction of the attack.

Clearly, they have begun to evolve after being attacked from a distance, or more accurately, they are still in the early stages of evolution. The dinosaurs are adjusting their structure and using the materials of their environment to try to resist and fight back against the ranged attacks.

But soon they will move to the next stage, which is to turn the tables and use this attack against themselves.

For example, the hound-like dinosaur grew hand-like appendages on its back, raised the crossbow on the ground, and was learning how to fire a bowstring from the Ursus.

Hunters swept across the battlefield like a whirlwind. A silver-haired hunter with big twin ponytails danced around the poisonous mist sprayed by the egg-shaped terror fish, smashed it with a backhand sword, and lightly touched the ground with her toes, avoiding the explosion of the terror fish in the flying snow dust.

The arrows fired by the Devilfish using a crossbow were easily shot down by the Ghost Shark. Having sacrificed its melee appendages, the Devilfish could only bite with its teeth, and then a small, white foot stepped on its mouth. With a forceful stomp from the Ghost Shark, its entire head turned into a pool of radioactive blood.

After realizing that the hunter's blades and martial arts were far more threatening than Ursus's crossbow bolts and stones, the dinosaurs began to make appropriate adjustments.

While they were still changing forms, like an amorphous mass of slime, Goredia's spear pierced their core, lifting these terror fish like bird eggs on bamboo skewers, and using the power of her waist and legs, spinning them half a turn before smashing them into the distance.

"They're really tough to deal with, but thankfully these guys haven't evolved to a certain level yet."

Ghost Shark kicked the carcasses of the Terrorfish on the ground, watching them decompose and merge into the earth amidst the snowflakes. "Come to think of it, there are some advantages to being on land. At least these Terrorfish won't grow back."

The soil absorbs the organic matter from their degradation, while weeds and terrestrial microorganisms, especially Cladosporium, revel in this nutrient-rich broth.

Compared to the sea, where this thick soup will eventually gather somewhere and be absorbed by other dinosaurs as food or as raw materials to become new monsters, the monsters that die on land will only provide the earth with an excellent and productive biological organic fertilizer.

“Let’s keep going, there may be more monsters ahead…” Goredia didn’t have time to think about the problem of star navigation.

If too many sea creatures land on land and are attacked or attacked by these land creatures, and they learn to use ranged weapons, it will be troublesome.

What's even more troublesome than them learning to attack remotely is that they've started to evolve in the direction of technological development, and have begun to build industry like the land dwellers. That's when the Argonauts will have a headache.

Near the farm, in the infected person's private plot, the potatoes and corn that were planted earlier have sprouted tender shoots, their lush green appearance particularly endearing.

Especially in this desolate and monotonous snowfield, the tender green buds sprouting from the earth and thin snow are instantly endearing.

The patriot sat on the edge of the field, tossing a pebble in his hand, while a wooden frame beside him was filled with stones of all sizes that he had picked up from the stream.

"Whoosh!" The stone flew out of his hand and accurately hit a snow rat that was peeking around the field. This had been his main job and training method lately.

Not only can it help local infected people prevent these small animals from stealing their food, but it can also effectively speed up the process of getting used to their body functions. Patriot doesn't know what technology or transplanted things the farmer used on him.

He felt that his strength and stamina were twice as good as before, and his recovery speed from injuries was very fast. The only problem was that his Originium Arts seemed to be malfunctioning and he could not use them, and his Sarkaz sorcery had also stopped responding.

However, instead, a strange ability would appear and cause trouble whenever he tried to use Originium Arts. After causing trouble several times, Patriot could only assume that this was a necessary price to pay, especially since he had rarely used Originium Arts in the first place.

He felt that the treatment was a great success, considering the cost was minimal. He didn't lose any limbs or become bedridden; the only problem was that Originium Arts were affected and he couldn't use witchcraft.

"Crunch... crunch—" The Patriot knew who it was without turning around, from the soft sound of footsteps on the snow. He was familiar with the footsteps of everyone in the settlement, a sensitivity that was almost unimaginable before.

"Little Yelena, how was the hunt?"

"We only caught some snow rats and rabbits. Those squirrels were awful..." The white rabbit was carrying a string of snow rabbits and had a string of snow rat pelts hanging on its backpack. In the distance, the Yeti team was unloading a bear from the trailer of a tractor. The hunters had discovered the unfortunate creature's hibernation burrow.

"But someone else caught a bear." "Then the frostbitten person is in luck." Bear fat is a good thing for treating frostbite and burns, and Patriot is quite familiar with it.

"No way, who gets frostbite these days, except for drunks?" Yelena wrinkled her little nose and made a face. "Last time, a drunk even tried to hug me."

"So you smashed his head?" Patriot squeezed the two stones in his hands, making a cracking sound, like an ordinary Sarkaz old man sitting on the edge of a field enjoying the cool air (Wendigo counts as Sarkaz).

“No, Aunt Karina and a group of people beat him up and then hung him at the gate to sober up,” Yelena laughed. “However, the tavern hasn’t been serving much spirits since then. The village chief said he wanted to save enough potatoes for the winter, and we’ll talk about brewing later.”

"I'm back!" Yelena jumped onto the workshop garage and climbed the stairs to the living area. She had to announce her return like this.

Otherwise, Xia Lin, who is busy in the seed area and tool workshop, might not know that she has returned, and then she might only cook for one person and lock the door at night, which would be quite awkward.

Today it was Yelena's turn to cook. Although she did most of the cooking, even if the two of them had made a schedule, Xia Lin was obviously too busy to remember it.

If she didn't want the two of them to end up starving and eating fast food together, it would be more reliable for her to take the initiative to go to the kitchen and do chores when she saw that this guy hadn't even prepared rice.

After placing the skinned snow rats and snow rabbits on the animal meat processing station and selecting "smoking," the conveyor belt automatically carries them into the internal processing space. Yelena only needs to check if there is enough salt or other seasonings, and the automated equipment will process them into standard smoked rabbit and snow rat meat.

"Phew, finally done." Xia Lin walked into the living area, plopped down at the dining table, took out a bottle of water from the box below and poured it into his mouth. "I built a pigsty in the space below the workshop and put about 20 piglets in. If it weren't for the wild boar meat sent over from over there before, I would have almost forgotten about raising pigs."

In a fully enclosed environment with feed, pigs can be ready for market in about 5-6 months. As for the issue of feed-fed pigs not tasting good—

Brother, if you eat chicken and game for a whole year, you'll think pork must be the most delicious meat in the world.

"Yes, the village is also raising the wild boar piglets they caught earlier, so it seems that no one will lack meat to eat from now on."

"That's true," Xia Lin nodded. Let alone someone from the interstellar era, even a modern person wouldn't find it strange to be able to consume meat every day or every few days.

However, eating meat is not actually a cheap activity. In the case of the Ursus snowfield, only in the autumn when there is a lot of prey can wealthy families in towns with hunters afford to eat some cheap venison and the like.

The meal consisted of rice, a vegetable stew with lots of sugar, and pan-fried chicken cutlets—a standard home-style meal.

The vegetable stew, which contained not only potatoes and cabbage, also included tomato slices, lettuce, cucumber, and an egg. It had a slightly strange sweet and sour taste, but it wasn't unpleasant.

Like most residents of Ursus, Yelena likes to use a lot of sugar, salt, and oil when cooking, which made Xia Lin have to remind her that eating like that would easily make her fat, so she toned it down a bit.

However, she did look much fuller than before, when she was skin and bones, and as she grew older, she gradually exuded the figure and charm that only a young girl has.

"However, raising pigs consumes a lot of feed and organic matter..."

Previously, organic matter was obtained entirely from logging and the decomposition and recycling of trees and branches, which caused significant damage to the decomposition and recycling ponds. Now, alternative solutions must be considered, especially since most of the nearby trees have already been cut down.

"The current feed capacity can meet the needs of cattle and horses. The sheep I cloned before didn't even have feed available until the alfalfa was grown. Fortunately, those things grow quite fast, but pigs can't..."

Pigs are omnivores, and if they rely solely on green fodder and pigweed, they will grow extremely slowly. Therefore, they need protein feeds such as soybean meal to accelerate their growth. In addition, pig farming is a technical job.

They need to be fed high-calcium feed first to promote skeletal growth, then high-calorie fattening feed to grow their body size, and finally, when they are close to slaughter, they are fed high-protein feed or even concentrated feed or fattening agents to fatten them up.

Not to mention the large amount of antibiotics and disease prevention work required during the breeding process. Once an epidemic occurs, mass deaths will occur. Even for Xia Lin, it is a very complicated task.

"Should we ask someone else to help with the collection?"

"No need, once the berries I planted grow, and the soybeans and peas over there are ready for fodder, there won't be any problem."

Soybean meal left after oil extraction can be used to feed pigs and cattle. In addition, the fish fry in the fishpond have grown to about the length of an index finger and can be harvested in a few months. At that time, a large amount of fish oil and fish bone protein and other additives can be added to the feed.

For omnivores like pigs, eating meat is no problem at all. If it weren't for the fact that there were girls in the family, Xia Lin would be considering welding up a breeding pod for earthworms and maggots right now. Insect protein is the king of feed! It can feed chickens, ducks, fish, cattle, horses, pigs, and sheep; the only difference is the quantity.

"By the way, Yelena, do you know any towns nearby?" Xia Lin still had a lot of fresh fruits and vegetables, and a considerable amount of chicken. He planned to sell a batch of them to pay the farm's security guards and workers, and also see if he could buy some ores and metal products.

The tiny iron ore deposit I discovered is almost depleted, and exploring for ore veins is an extremely time-consuming and technical task. I simply can't leave now, so the right thing to do is to order directly from the Chamber of Commerce or commercial organizations.

"I heard from others that there's a town called Meiquan nearby, where people spend the winter." "Okay, then let's bring some stuff over there tomorrow and take a look. I'm currently short of metal materials."

Chapter Forty-Eight: Xia Xiaoer Enters the City

Chapter 48

Terra's advanced, almost unscientific, materials and large-vehicle technology meant that Xia Lin didn't need to disguise his multi-functional agricultural vehicle at all; compared to some mobile platforms, it could even be considered relatively small.

He didn't prepare much for the transaction; he was just scouting and gathering intelligence to see if he could reach an agreement with a large agricultural commodity company. Given the farm's output, retail was a time-consuming, laborious, and thankless task.

The truck was loaded with a large quantity of vegetables, such as cabbage, which they were already tired of eating, along with some tomatoes and onions, and a dozen or so boxes of packaged chicken—these were the samples.

To solve the problem of food and drink in Meiquan Town, as well as the problem of buying local specialties, he took out all the silver coins that he hadn't thrown into the recycling pool last time. By comparing them with the silver coins in the hands of the Shield Guards, he found that not every batch contained rare metals such as palladium.

In fact, besides silver and copper, the other alloys contain all sorts of strange impurities, which shows that the local people's metallurgical skills are really not very good, and they can't even guarantee the purity of the metals used for minting coins.

However, on the other hand, Xia Lin discovered that the D32 steel and carbon materials used to build the mobile town platform were both of considerable strength.

In particular, the carbon materials used have almost reached the material requirements for rail elevators; it's just a mystery how they made them.

So, another reason for this trip is to see if there's anything special among the local people's specialty minerals and crude metal materials used to make these things, besides Originium.

After all, for the Shield Guardians, using equipment made from these materials to smash people's heads is a good skill. But if you ask how they are processed and synthesized, you'll have a headache.

“Everything’s packed…” Yelena jumped into the passenger seat and casually placed the rifle in her hand to one side. Carrying a gun when going out is practically a basic rule of life here. Xia Lin also placed his assault rifle on the other side and put a total of seven or eight ammunition boxes and a charging stand for batteries under the back seat.

"Fasten your seatbelt." Xia Lin helped the white rabbit fasten its seatbelt. This big guy wasn't some slow mobile platform; even with the obstacle remover on, it could go very fast in the wild.

"Ready to go, you take the navigation." The giant vehicle, as tall as a two-story building, started moving forward, its four large heavy-duty tracks directly crushing the frozen ground. It circled halfway around the open space outside the farm and headed towards the direction of Meiquan Town, which the white rabbit had pointed out.

Springstown is a large mobile city located on the shore of a hot spring in northern Ursus. It is called a city because it has a proper mobile city board.

Although it is the smallest of the villages, rather than a typical collection of mobile homes and mobile shops.

The reason they can afford these mobile modules is because of the hot spring. The locals around the hot spring grow a lot of cash crops and herbs, and they have accumulated enough money to order the mobile city modules by selling these products.

Meiquan Town has a population of about 17,000 to 18,000. Including the floating population, it will not exceed 30,000. Now it is winter, and most of them are scattered around the core urban area, forming satellite settlements or urban-rural fringe areas.

Crude elevators and suspension bridges connect these tiny settlements to the core city area, giving it a fin-de-siècle feel.

Xia Lin's arrival of "Bull" did not attract the attention or vigilance of the locals. The guide standing at the edge raised his sign and light tube to indicate that Xia Lin should continue to walk along the passage made of wooden planks and metal sheets. He even saw a checkpoint at the end of the passage.

It looks like some kind of tollbooth, except that behind the tollbooth is a large elevator that can transport vehicles passing through the checkpoint to the docking port in the core urban area behind it.

The entire core city area is roughly equivalent to two aircraft carriers sailing on land. It is about 500 meters long, 40-50 meters high, and much wider than an aircraft carrier, about 200 meters wide. From the side, it is divided into multiple decks.

The lower decks are completely enclosed. At about 20 meters up, there is a recessed deck area that looks like a plaza. Surrounding it are layers of deck buildings that resemble shopping malls and a dense array of elevators, which is clearly the docking bay.

There are two such docking bays in the core city area. One is obviously aimed at individual businesses or small caravans, and the other is an industrial-grade large docking bay used to connect with other mobile cities. It even has lifting equipment such as gantry cranes, and some containers are piled up on the platform.

Further up to the top deck, judging from the bright lights and the people moving around, it was probably the production and living area. Of course, the top deck was still the wealthy area, where you could see buildings standing like an island. Xia Lin even saw a broadcasting tower that he couldn't tell if it was for communications or something else.

Following the guide's instructions, the vehicle stopped in the parking waiting area on the side of the checkpoint. Two Ursus men carrying machetes and axes climbed onto the side of the cockpit by grabbing the metal pipes on the side and knocked on the glass.

"Are there any infected people? Roll up your pants, sleeves, and necks."

The inspector eyed the two men warily. Although their clothes and appearance didn't seem like those of people who had escaped from the mines, no one could say for sure whether they were infected.

Oripathy is related to Originium particles carried in the blood. The crystals tend to appear first in the extremities, such as the limbs, and sometimes near the neck.

Clearly, neither Xia Lin nor Yelena had any Originium crystals on their hands, feet, or neck. After the examination, the inspector's attitude softened, and he began to chat with Xia Lin and Yelena, asking, "Did you come to Spring Town to trade or to escape the winter?"

“I’ve brought some agricultural products and meat with me to trade. They’re homegrown and I have a surplus, so I’m here to sell them and then buy some other things.”