Aethelgard: The Survival Game (Chloe) novel Chapter 26

Chapter 26 Soil Contamination

Chapter 26 Soil Contamination

Chloe took out the Flora Whisperer’s Cap. The moment she put it on, the Carrot Seed looked completely different from before.

Around the seed, text boxes sprouted into view: [Delight, Happiness. Minor Fertilizer Deficiency.

[Germination Progress: 86%. Germination Probability: 95% ]

With the Flora Whisperer’s Cap aiding her senses, Chloe saw things she’d never seen before.

Across this stretch of land, so choked with corruption and riddled with filthy black blemishes, a faint and fragile point of green light had spread like a thin veil over the soil.

The tiny glowing speck sat atop the black-spotted earth, thriving, radiating a sense of vigorous life.

The sight stirred something in Chloe. A quiet joy, small but infectious. ‘Life, she thought, the word surfacing unbidden in her mind.

What stunned her even more was what the cap revealed about the Arcane Soil Purifier. Before, it had been just an inert machine. Now, through the cap’s vision, it was a living process.

Inside the apparatus, the prismatic, chaotic liquid she’d fed it had split into countless fine streams, surging continuously into the surrounding earth.

At the same time, the black corruption spots in the soil were being drawn into the purifier’s core, collecting inside a dark, built-in storage compartment.

To her naked eye, the dirt around the purifier was visibly becoming cleaner.

Even more remarkably, while wearing the Flora Whisperer’s Cap, she could now see the Contamination Value and Fertility Rate of each individual one-by-one plot of soil.

She checked the plot where the Carrot Seed lay.

Notification: [Contamination Value: 78%. Moisture: 101% (Excessive). Fertility Rate: 16% (Depleting).]

‘Figures,’ she thought. ‘The initial soil the system gave me is clearly poor-quality earth.”

Growing up in the countryside, Chloe had followed her grandmother into the fields and knew what healthy soil looked like. Soil had to be nurtured. The land she had now was scarred and wounded through and through. Every fiber of her being wanted to smooth away its trauma and corruption.

She’d already accumulated quite a collection of seeds, and her urge to plant was suddenly overwhelming. She wanted to work this soil. She wanted to tend this land and nurse it back to health, as much as she possibly could.

Her grandmother had taught her well. “To grow good plants, you loved the land.

first needed good

Chloe remembered it well and

It was only then that she remembered an item she’d completely forgotten: the Compost Bin.

It was just a common piece of equipment. She’d been delighted when she’d first pulled it, but her supply of Cubic Yard Soil Plots had been so laughably small at the time that the bin had slipped her mind entirely.

conion item and came with no elaborate

She retrieved it now and set it down beside the purifier. The Compost Bin was description. Only when she tried to use it did the system prompt appear.

Notice: [The Compost Bin can decompose rotting matter, degradable bones, filth, and other back into fertilizer.]

She tested it by tossing in the ragged, torn burlap cloth she’d been using as a rag. decomposable.

such items, recycling them

The system indicated it was

Once she’d put it inside, the bin showed a very user-friendly notification: Fertilizer production time: 48 hours.

‘The game has its perks, she reckoned. ‘Back in the real world, farming was never this convenient. There’s still so much I don’t know about this game.’

Chloe realized. Her thoughts turned to the book she’d acquired: the Arcane Botany Compendium. The plants in this game were clearly worlds apart from the ones she knew.

She took off the Flora Whisperer’s Cap and went back inside her cabin.

She wasn’t going to fish any more today. Her Low-Grade Fever had never fully healed, and after spending the morning holding a rod in the rain, her status had worsened to Moderate Fever. She had to rest.

She’d stay in the cabin this afternoon, read the Arcane Botany Compendium if her condition allowed, rest well, and make no

Chapter 26 Soil Contamination

further plans until she’d recovered.

She also had to be more vigilant against that fishing rod. It fully deserved its Mid High Risk rating. Reward and risk walked hand in hand. In her current state, she wasn’t touching it again.

Back inside the wooden cabin, the rabbit meat had roasted to a mouthwatering fragrance

A swell of gratitude rose in her chest. In the middle of this absurd survival game, she at least had a bed and a cabin that kept out the wind and rain.

The only thing giving her a headache was the Arcane Forge. It needed an Arcane Workbench blueprint, too.

*****

FearlessReaper was fuming. The Slime Slayer player still hadn’t contacted him. Worse, he remained blocked. He was incandescent with rage.

He’d been willing to trade such a fine item, and this alone should have been an honor for that player. He’d never expected Chloe to refuse to play along.

FearlessReaper had made up his mind. For every day this player kept him blocked, he would later charge her an extra day worth of special resources as a penalty.

He sneered inwardly. ‘Let’s see if she dares to disrespect me like that then. Is this any attitude to have in a trade?

The rain had made everything especially miserable for him. He hadn’t found any rainproof building blueprints. What he did have was a drying rack, a structure he’d been using to cure meat and extend its preservation time.

The downpour had utterly ruined his plans. On top of that, after upgrading his territory and finishing that drying rack, he was completely drained of resources.

Nothing was left but his weapon. Right now, he needed Premium materials more desperately than ever.

Never had he expected that when he upgraded his territory, all the existing buildings upgraded with it, and that the upgrade demanded extra materials. And that everything required after the upgrade was Premium.

In a single stroke, Fearless Reaper had found his resources catastrophically depleted. Every blueprint he owned had been traded away for scraps.

VERIFYCAPTCHA_LABELVerify