Ark Journey

"Xue Zhi, thank you very much."

Seeing this, Xue Zhi quickly helped him up.

"Don't do that."

After some pleasantries, the two began chatting on the edge of the field.

Benson took out an old-looking pipe, poured a small amount of tobacco into it and started smoking.

In the dim smoke, his old voice was like the land here, lifeless, but

"Xue Zhi, even though my son is gone, he left me a granddaughter. She has been with me for many years and has been hungry and full, and has often been tortured by mineral sickness.

When your mercenary group came here before, I was able to exchange some medicine to reduce Tina's pain. Now that you have taken root here, it is a great thing for those of us who have little ability. "

Xue Zhi listened quietly at the side until Benson finished speaking, then he slowly said:

"It's going to be alright, old man."

"Yeah, it will be fine. You should go back and rest early. I saw the girl who was with you before came to see you several times."

"Ah."

After separating from Benson, Xue Zhi returned to the tent. Some people had recently gone to learn how to make bricks, so it probably wouldn't take long before they could live in a real house.

[I will go there tomorrow and put down all the clay in my bag]

W, who was roasting potatoes by the fire, put down his work and walked over when he saw Xue Zhi: "Are you back?"

Holding her slender waist, Xue Zhi lowered her head and kissed her: "Well, today is over for now. It's a good start."

Sitting by the fire, W leaned in Xue Zhi's arms and talked about today's exploration and discoveries. With nothing to do, she wandered around like most mercenaries today.

It was very cool to stay next to Xue Zhi on a hot day. W liked to do this usually. After Theresa's death, she regarded Xue Zhi as one of her few supports.

"Although the area around this village is relatively barren, there are unexpectedly many animals. This may be because the villagers have no hunting ability. Today alone, we saw at least three pack animals and several tumor beasts, as well as some horned jumping beasts moving around."

Xue Zhi cut the baked potatoes, added cheese, and baked them for a while until they were delicious. Then she turned over the steak that he had just put on the grill.

"Great news. I guess you didn't kill them and eat their meat?"

W reached out and took the drone's operating terminal from the side, swiped a few times and showed the recorded items to Xue Zhi.

"No, we have no shortage of food at the moment so we ignored them and just recorded the location where we saw them."

Glancing at the map, the marked location was a little far from the village, but it was not a problem for Xue Zhi.

"That's great. I'll catch them and raise them in the village in a couple of days. These animals are also a good source of labor and meat."

Hearing the word "meat", W stuck out her pink tongue and licked her lips. She had been waiting for Xue Zhi for so long that she felt a little hungry.

After dinner, the two studied chemistry in the tent for a while. Now that they had nothing to do, Xue Zhi began to teach W from the beginning.

Cultivating someone who understands chemistry is also very beneficial to the development of the settlement.

I can't say anything else, but Xue Zhi is absolutely confident in chemistry. She once ranked first in the joint entrance examination of the four famous universities in the city, and her strengthened brain is enough to explain all the knowledge of junior high and high school.

After the class, the two rolled together again. They were both young people, both teachers and friends, and they shared the same aspirations. They would have in-depth exchanges every night. The feeling of the perfect combination of spirit and flesh was fascinating.

What's more, one of them is a succubus and the other is on the verge of being inhuman, both mentally and physically.

While Xue Zhi and W were happy, Hedley was in distress.

Xue Zhi didn't want to take care of administrative matters at all, so this burden fell entirely on Hedley. Although it was not necessary at the moment, after reading a lot of your excellent selected works, Hedley had learned the good habit of looking three steps ahead before taking one step.

"Let's set up a framework first. We will have the Agriculture Department, the Mining Department, the Medical Department, the Security Department, the Intelligence Department... We can also organize the few people in the group who sell things to open a few small shops. The planning map given by Xue Zhi also includes a commercial street. Now that we have money, we can pay salaries. Then we can set up a tax or a public institution to guarantee the income of the town government..."

While Hedley was writing furiously, Inès quietly changed the power source of the slightly dim Originium lamp on the table.

Chapter 67: Planting trees and W's little gift

The sun rose and the moon set. Early the next morning, the mercenaries who had nothing to do went to help in the fields as Hedley requested. It was not a difficult task anyway and they could learn it after watching a few more times.

Xue Zhi went to the outskirts of the village and planned to start planting trees.

The various saplings in the system panel were sold at very low prices, and a set could be purchased for 10 points. Based on the planting principles of mixed forests, he exchanged for quite a large variety of saplings, and even bought some plants suitable for growing in subtropical areas from the real world.

At the border with the natural forest, Xue Zhi, with various saplings and fertilizers floating around her body, was holding a common tree atlas that she had just exchanged and judging the tree composition of the natural forest in front of her.

"Hey, I'm lucky. It turns out to be an oak forest dominated by oak trees."

After spending some time judging other tree species, he determined what the composition of an artificial forest should be to most closely resemble a natural forest.

Putting away the book, Xue Zhi began to output magic power. Pits appeared on the ground in front of her, and the fertilizer bag floating beside her opened automatically. A ball of fertilizer fell into the pit and was stirred by an invisible big hand, mixing evenly with the soil. Then a sapling flew in and landed. The disappeared soil emerged and covered the sapling. The sapling was lifted up, and the remaining soil was filled and enough water was poured on it. In this way, a sapling was planted.

And such a scene was happening around Xue Zhi at the same time.

A drone floats in the air, helping to record the planting density and location. The information it provides will be verified with the various planting data calculated by Xue Zhi to ensure that good intentions do not lead to bad results and cause the formation of a green desert.

Wherever Xue Zhi, who has transformed into a highly efficient planting machine, goes, green spreads.

Planting a variety of saplings and seeds of shrubs is only the first step. After the trees grow well and form shade, he will plant some lower plants to enrich the local ecosystem.

On this side near the village, Xue Zhi thought for a moment, and he kept a certain distance from the natural forest that had just been planted, and planted a patch of rubber seedlings here. The latitude of Kazdel was high enough for these trees to survive, and it was also close to the newly dug canal, so there was enough water for irrigation.

Once the rubber is mature, you can sell it to make money. If that doesn’t work, sell the raw materials first, and then learn the technology to make rubber.

After finishing this, Xue Zhi continued walking along the boundaries of the town he had drawn, leaving a large piece of land for future expansion and then continuing to plant.

The people working in the fields were shocked when they saw Xue Zhi's figure. After all, anyone would be surprised to see someone with more than a dozen or hundreds of saplings and huge bags of fertilizer floating behind him. However, after recognizing him, they still greeted him from a distance.

Xue Zhi, who was very perceptive, also waved in response.

Walking to the other side of the village, Xue Zhi planted some bamboos. This is a good thing. It grows fast and can be used as medicine, grow bamboo shoots, and made into bamboo products to sell.

Around the afternoon, the entire artificial forest surrounding the town was completed. After finishing this, Xue Zhi went to the brick kiln in the village. There, several mercenaries who were interested in this were learning how to make bricks. He found a place to store some of the clay dug from the canal according to the arrangement of the kiln owner.

During this time, W came to see him at noon and brought him lunch, which was mushroom soup made by Ines. Although he was not hungry, Xue Zhi was still very happy.

He went to help in the fields until night. When Xue Zhi returned to the tent, he did not see W, so he went to find Hedley again.

Under the shade of a tree, Hedley, who was still writing furiously, stopped what he was doing and planned to take a break when he saw Xue Zhi coming.

"W, go outside to help. Some mercenaries found an open-pit coal mine not far away. They plan to ask W to see if they can use blasting to open up a wider area for easier collection."

Throwing a can of iced coffee to Hedley, Xue Zhi showed a surprised expression after hearing that the coal mine was discovered.

All I can say is that God helps those who save themselves.

"Coal mine? We are lucky. This will provide income for the town. But it is OK to dig up the coal on the surface. We need to be more careful when digging deep."

Hedley let out a sigh after finishing half a can of coffee.

"Yeah, do you know anything about this?"

"I don't understand, but I have reference books."

As she spoke, Xue Zhi took out several books that coal miners needed to study, including both German and Chinese versions.

"Besides, I'm free now. Let's wait for those people to come back and form a mining team. I'll give them a surprise attack after everything is ready. If you have time, you can also take a look. It's not a bad thing to learn more."

"no problem."

Taking the book, Hedley pulled out a few photos from the table and spread them on the table.

"A natural disaster occurred at Hill 415. Although the affected area was not large, it still killed a unit of the Military Commission. Do you have any clues?"

"I don't know. It probably has nothing to do with me."

Xue Zhi, who was also drinking coffee, slowly fiddled with the photos brought back by the intelligence personnel. Although the distance was far, based on the remaining 415 high ground as a scale, she could still judge how high the huge source stone crystals that were spread out like a hedgehog were.

[Damn, I should have guided him for a little longer. What a waste of points... Wait, I can go over and dig for Originium! ]

Xue Zhi, who was a little worried about his point reserves, suddenly brightened up his eyes and decided to go after midnight.

Before leaving, Xue Zhi threw out another diamond box, which contained various pickaxes and shovels, all of which were enchanted equipment dropped by elite monsters.

"Take these, you'll need tools when you go mining."

"Okay, you like synthetic jade and pure source stone, right? I'll give you any extra of these things immediately."

"Thank you very much."

Hedley was already numb to the various things Xue Zhi could come up with, the only thing he could do was to get more Originium products for Xue Zhi.

When he walked back, Hedley, who had just finished his coffee, began to work at his desk again. Suddenly, he looked up at the coffee can he had just put down and wrote the words "garbage recycling" on the paper.

"This should be handled by the Municipal Affairs Department. Some garbage can be very valuable if used properly."

Having been used to hard times, he would not give up any available resources.

In the evening, W came back and brought a gift to Xue Zhi, a piece of solid coal that had just been dug out, with an extremely regular shape and shiny black color.

W, who was packing his clothes and preparing to take a shower, asked confidently:

"Well, this is what I picked out after searching for a long time."

As a science and engineering guy, Xue Zhi likes this stuff.

"very good."

In order to preserve it well, Xue Zhi replaced it with a piece of glass, heated it slightly and waited for it to soften before it began to change its shape. Finally, she created a glass box that could perfectly hold the coal.

"Perfect."

Chapter 68: Digging for Originium and Progress in These Days

Looking at the sealed lump of coal, Xue Zhi suddenly had another idea. W often went out without makeup and wore no jewelry. Maybe he could knead one out of her hands and give it to her.

He did as he said, took out a small piece of gold from the warehouse, controlled it to float in the air with his telekinesis, and then began to heat it.

As the temperature rises, the gold begins to soften gradually and then turns into a floating liquid.

Looking at the completely liquid gold, Xue Zhi fiddled with it for a few times but found that it was not easy to operate, so she could only lower the temperature to allow the gold to harden slightly.

The mental power continued to work, and finally the piece of gold was transformed into the shape of a pair of earrings. However, Xue Zhi was not satisfied with the style of this thing, and after many unsuccessful attempts, she had to put it away.

The Terrans have their own aesthetic sense for all kinds of jewelry, but Xue Zhi doesn't know much about this. He wanted to make a piece of jewelry for W but found that he couldn't make it well, so he had to give up temporarily. When he goes to the Scar Mall again, he will buy a book on the subject and read it before trying again.

At night, Xue Zhi spent quite a bit of time with W after she had just taken a shower. After she fell asleep, she quietly put on her clothes and flew towards Hill 415.

He did not fly higher. This planet was protected by star pods and there were unidentified threats outside the universe. It would be unwise to go up now.

High in the sky, Xue Zhi, who was flying with telekinesis for the first time, easily accelerated to the critical speed of sound and flew quickly. The distance that originally took them almost two days to walk was now reached in a moment.

I didn't see any people along the way, not even a mining team or anything like that.

Soon, Xue Zhi lowered his altitude and speed after seeing those thick Originium crystals.

A layer of air was trapped around his body. Although he was not afraid of being infected by mineral sickness, inhaling the tiny particles would definitely make him uncomfortable.

Landing in front of the largest crystal, Xue Zhi, who had been nearby for a few days, felt that the surroundings were eerily quiet. The chirping of insects in the woods had also disappeared, and the original 415 Highland was in a mess. Many of the shells left here seemed to have been detonated, and charred marks could be seen everywhere.

However, all this had no effect on him. He held the iridium drill in his left hand and the mining laser gun in his right hand, digging directly at the huge source stone in front of him.

The dark green Originium crystal cluster shattered into tiny pieces of Originium fragments. Invisible and deadly Originium radiation spread out, but it had no effect on Xue Zhi.

Recharge the Originium fragments and the points you can get will be displayed.

【+27】

"Why is there so little energy in these Originiums? Never mind, if we dig more, we can always win by quantity."

Perhaps this natural disaster was induced, resulting in poor development, but Xue Zhi did not continue to dwell on it, he just continued digging.

The subtle vibrations caused by these destructions were also noticed by some distorted things.

Xue Zhi, who was digging happily, stopped. Some strange things suddenly appeared in his mental perception, making him alert.

"What the hell? The soil is standing up?"

The moving things felt no different to him than the earth, and the chaotic energy field around them was exactly the same as the air around them.

However, those creatures moved very slowly, and Xue Zhi, impatient to wait and wanting to get rid of them quickly, simply dug all the way over.

After getting closer, Xue Zhi saw their true appearance. They were a group of zombies whose heads had grown to twice their original size and were filled with Originium and biological tissues.

Xue Zhi allowed them to get closer with the intention of observing them, but she soon regretted it.

"It's a little disgusting."

He found it hard to accept these ugly and twisted things, especially after he discovered that those things that replaced the heads seemed to have their own independent consciousness.

Several ice cones rose up, but the chaotic energy environment made it more difficult to use magic. However, after Xue Zhi strengthened her control, she was able to resolve all the distorted objects.