I grabbed Cutie and retreated even though the Boss Slime was not aggressive. We watched from afar as the [Supreme Winged Golden Slime Queen] bounced to where the workshop was. Unless I was very much mistaken, she was giving them orders. The mystery of where the slimes had gotten tools was solved when the slime monarch spat out a bunch of saws, hammers, axes, etc.
“Cutie, I think she evolved,” I whispered to my pet.
“Chu.”
According to the game’s lore, the slime queen was the god of the Mine’s pet. Triple my height, with a bright yellow jelly-like body and large blue eyes, she had white feathered wings on her sides and a tiny golden crown set at a jaunty angle atop her body. Like her smaller counterparts, she had a slime strand on her head which was now in the form of a jagged lightning bolt, presumably because she was feeling energetic.
The two of us had fought before, and I had only won by spamming her with the [Potato Canon].
I was fascinated to see that she had three little golden slimes following her like mini-mes. These three bounced to the other slimes and seemed to be giving them directions, since they were talking and demonstrating the use of the tools.
“Cutie, she has three apprentices just like me!”
Not to mention, she had a lot of items in her interspatial storage. Was it possible that she had 2,147,483,647 of every item just like I did?
The slime queen paid no attention to us whatsoever, and when she left with her three followers, Cutie bounced out of my arms and claimed one of the tools she had left, an ax.
“Chu!” Cutie went to a nearby tree and started cutting it down. It was very hard work, but she looked like she was enjoying herself as she repeatedly hit the tree trunk with a lot of force, biting deeply into the tree and sending wood chips flying everywhere.
I kept my distance. “I can’t believe my little slime friend is so strong.”
Slimes had no visible muscles to speak of, as far as I could tell, so I didn’t really have a good idea of what they could do. My pet, however, was definitely in a league of her own compared to the other slimes. It took her a fraction of the time the others used to cut a tree down.
I wandered around the area for about an hour, checking all the construction work, and discovered that they had another three flower fields, a small stream that they were using for water and bathing, and a rudimentary palisade made of rough-hewn logs that they had just started on.
Why were the slimes moving out of their comfortable habitat in the Mines? Could it be that these were the ones who had embraced Cutie’s discovery of tentacles? Was the slime society now split into two, and these were the exiles?
It was a pity that I couldn’t understand the slime language.
I picked Cutie up and retraced our steps. We were back in time for dinner at the desert farm.
That night, I dreamed of a dragon toddler, and I entertained him with tales of the holy slimes blessed by the god of the Mines who lived in splendid isolation and held great dance parties.
***
We woke up at the crack of dawn to start planting around the lakes and ponds.
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Before we left the house, I wrote a short note to Prince Baiyu explaining that I wanted to claim the mountain where the Mines were, as well as the land around it. Fengying lit a signal firework and a clan messenger arrived and took the note.
Then I walked to the lake with my apprentices and handed them a bunch of different seeds. “Now that the System construction is finished, it’s time to do the next step of the quest, which says to ‘plant a riparian buffer of one hundred trees.’ Turn on the [Guide Mode]. The System will indicate where to plant each seed.”
Kharli put the seeds in a cotton pouch and stirred them with a finger. “Teacher, the System told you we need to plant trees? But these are all sorts of seeds.”
“And what is a ‘riparian buffer’ anyway?” asked Lari.
“Click on the text in the System information box,” I said. “It means a forested area between a river, stream, lake, etc. and developed land.”
“But this land isn’t developed. It’s just wild grass and flowers,” said Mo.
“I understand that the buffer will look nice and stabilize the lake’s shorelines, but what does it mean by filtering pollutants? What pollutants? ” asked Kharli.
Mo laughed. “I bet it’s the [Lizardwings’] manure!”
I pinched my nose shut with my fingers and pretended to swoon from a bad smell.
“Stop! Don’t talk about it! It makes me feel like I can smell it from here…” Lari shuddered and rubbed his arms.
“Well, based on the quest, I think the System mainly wants the trees, so we’ll prioritize those, but the shrubs, grass, and flowers are probably important, too,” I said. “We should walk around first to see the places marked by the [Guide Mode].”
We walked clockwise around the lake. The vast sky directly above us was a deep midnight blue color, but in the east, the sun was rising. The lake’s surface rippled with the spring breeze, but the land around it was too bare for my liking, circled only by hardy desert grass and a few scattered wildflowers. That must be why the quest required us to plant more seeds around it. I tried to imagine what it would look like two years from now when the edge of the lake was full of mature trees.
Once we circled the lake, we got a good idea of what the System wanted. Trees were to be planted close together, with lots of shrubs, ferns, grasses, and flowers between them. The seeds seemed normal enough, except for one that was for a plant called [Dragon Jade Currant].
[Dragon Jade Currant:
Once believed to grow only in the wake of dragon migrations, the Dragon Jade Currant plant is as beautiful as it is temperamental. It prefers cool, shaded soil and grows best beside ponds or rice paddies. Ancient farmers believed planting it near their homes would invite gentle rains and protect against drought. Some say the plant hums during rainfall, echoing the lullabies of dragon spirits.]
In Western folklore, dragons were associated with fire, but in Asian mythology, dragons, also called "loong," embodied the essence of water.
Lari, ever curious, tested the sides and fringes of the lake by poking the soil there with a stick and pouring buckets of water on it.
“What are you doing?” I asked him.
“I was checking if the lake is stable. The System must be magically reinforcing the soil, since it doesn’t crumble even if I disturb it,” he said.
Mo borrowed the stick and tried to drill a hole in the side of the lake. “There is a shield on it or something.”
Kharli tried it and failed, too. “It’s good that the soil is strong here.”
“Yes, especially since we won’t be here to fix it if anything happens,” I said. “Shall we start planting?”
They nodded and we silently got to work. During our first year, the three of us combined could only sow a dozen or so trees every day. Now that we had all leveled up our Farming, we could plant two hundred seeds today.
Sowing seeds using [Dendrological Cultivation Chambers] was monotonous work. The sun warmed my back through my cotton robe, making my skin feel hot and sweaty. Strands of hair that had escaped my braid tickled my cheeks as I bent down, again and again, to place the boxes in the holes I dug and half cover them with soil. My trouser’s knees darkened with dirt, and dark crescents appeared under my fingernails. When I was done with my work, I straightened, arching my back, and gazed across the lake to the house where my maid, Yinuo, was waving a handkerchief at me.
I waved back at her and then turned to my apprentices and said, “Yinuo seems to have a message for me.”
“Teacher, I’ll go get it!” Like a gazelle unleashed, Mo sprinted away, her steps light and graceful.
When she returned, she panted heavily and wordlessly handed me a letter.
“Oh my, it seems we’ll have royal visitors three days from now. We need to prepare our clothes and accessories!” I said with a smile.
“Visitors? Is it Prince Baiyu and his parents?” asked Kharli.
“Nope. Prince Baiyu, Prince Muyang, and Prince Vikarna. Finish your work first. We can discuss the preparations at lunch.”
Author's Note:
- The slime queen just ignored Violet, who beat her up in book 1.
- Cutie was the one who taught them to make tentacles, but they learned to use tools and build things themselves.
- Advanced chapters on my Patreon!
- Thank you very much for reading.
- Please let me know if there are any errors.