Chapter 128

Chapter 128

After Lorant made up his mind to contact Archbishop Frank, the arrangements for the cotton tree project were swiftly completed.

Previously, he had been somewhat hesitant, mainly due to the consideration of whether it was worth owing the Church a favor over such a matter.

However, Jeremy's appearance gave Lorant a firm resolve.

Meanwhile, Lancelot had already prepared the location for the first cotton tree farm within his territory, at the edge of a large forest.

Currently, that area consists of multiple interconnected plant cultivation zones, but Lancelot plans to clear out all the low-level plant and beast cultivation zones with poor returns and allocate the land to the cotton trees.

The seed yield of a single cotton tree is truly astonishing, and given its massive size, sufficient space must be left between each tree for growth. Even if they only plan to plant the existing seeds, a considerable amount of space is required.

Moreover, as the first cotton tree farm, Lorant has high hopes for this place, and the current thousand or so seeds are far from satisfying his appetite.

This requires the farm to have an extraordinary amount of space.

Only someone like Lancelot, who owns his own territory, could casually provide such a vast area in such a short time.

Of course, considering the extremely slow growth cycle of these plants and the absence of the Church in both the Kamkao region and Earl Cavendish's territory, more 'seedlings' need to be planted in areas closer to priests to facilitate faster growth and produce more seeds with their assistance.

Jeremy spent several days at the Animal Pet Shop, finally figuring out how to maximize the benefits of divine magic when dealing with cotton trees.

He determined an optimal threshold.

A priest can influence up to eleven cotton trees simultaneously when distributing their divine power evenly, achieving about twenty percent better results compared to nurturing a single tree alone under the same conditions.

In other words, the most efficient allocation is for a priest to focus on eleven cotton trees, thereby optimizing the use of divine power.

With this data, he actively persuaded Frank to requisition a piece of idle land owned by the Church, and through cooperation with Lorant, planted a total of 3,222 cotton tree seeds there.

During this period, over three hundred priests from the Mauplan Church, led by Archbishop Frank, poured their divine power into this forest every day.

Even so, it will still take more than a month to see the trees bear fruit.

After all, these priests are not powerful mages like Jacqueline, capable of using their vast magical power to forcibly accelerate the growth of cotton trees.

Archbishop Frank took this opportunity to urge Lorant several times to address the lecture issue, but Lorant kept putting him off.

It's not that he was deliberately delaying; rather, the Animal Pet Shop had new matters requiring his attention.

The "Devouring Frog" pet eggs had begun to hatch.

Lorant had mastered the breeding path of the Devouring Frog long ago, even before the Dream Weaver and Phantom Spider.

However, it wasn't until he encountered the Beast Tower that he brought back the final necessary beast to complete the breeding process.

Ultimately, he successfully bred a Lesser Beast, the "Spring-Legged Giant Rat," to produce "Devouring Frog" pet eggs.

These days are precisely when Lorant expects them to hatch.

In the beast warehouse, the "Spring-Legged Giant Rat" is securely bound to the breeding pad with spider silk by Baby, though it struggles furiously, its eyes locked on Lorant, trying to break free and tear his throat.

Lorant, now accustomed to dealing with these beasts, calmly turned his back to the loudly roaring Lesser Beast and focused on concocting his potion.

This potion is specifically prepared for the "Devouring Frog" pet eggs.

What sets these pet eggs apart is that they develop to full maturity inside the mother, and once they leave the mother, they begin to hatch within hours.

They are one of the shortest hatching times among the pets Lorant has seen after leaving the mother.

However, the breeding process is not yet complete at this stage.

The potion Lorant is currently preparing is the final step in the breeding process.

Only by immersing the pet eggs in the potion within ten minutes of leaving the mother can these pets hatch successfully.

Otherwise, they will die.

Fortunately, the development of the Animal Pet Shop has made all the tools quite mature.

Lorant had prepared large bathtubs for the pets to 'soak' in well in advance.

Through magical instruments, Lorant could see that the pet eggs inside the "Spring-Legged Giant Rat" were not very large.

Each egg was roughly the size of a ping-pong ball, which is why this Lesser Beast, whose belly showed no significant change, could give birth to over thirty pet eggs at once.

Not long after the potion was ready, the "Spring-Legged Giant Rat" began to deliver, and small, white, round pet eggs appeared on the hatching pad.

Baby, the little Phantom Spider, carefully lifted each egg with spider silk and gently immersed them in the potion pool.

Lorant wore a monocle on his right eye, one of his collected magical items, which enables him to activate the array inscribed on it with mana from a crystal to achieve a see-through effect.

Similar to a high-definition X-ray, it clearly shows the internal structure of the Lesser Beast, making for a rather stimulating image.

However, Lorant has become accustomed to seeing the world through this lens.

Even with the strange blue and white visual effect, he can quickly identify what he sees.

Once the last pet egg was expelled, Lorant turned to carefully examine the pet eggs in the potion pool while directing the floating octopus waiting nearby to clean up.

"Kongyi, return the Spring-Legged Giant Rat to its cage," Lorant said to the curious floating octopus hovering beside his shoulder, looking at the pool of pet eggs. "Remember to administer the special nutritional potion and check its condition, comparing it with those that haven't given birth."

"Make sure to record everything and tell Baby."

Kongyi nodded seriously, its large jelly-like head causing ripples in the air.

It looked so soft that one would want to touch it.

Lorant followed his instincts and reached out to gently rub the octopus's head, which felt like a soft cushion, then gave it a light push: "Go on, before it recovers. If it wakes up, I'm not sure you can beat this thing."

Although it was a secondary anomaly, the Spring-legged Giant Rat could be considered a third-level anomaly in terms of both size and attack power.

The Airborne Octopus, however, was still in its juvenile stage, and if they were to fight, it might not stand a chance against the large rat.

Kongyi drifted away with Lorant’s push while using one of its tentacles to give him an 'OK' sign behind its body.

This was one of the gestures Lorant had taught them, making it easier to communicate with him.

Watching the Airborne Octopus slowly drag the weakened secondary anomaly away, Lorant still felt uneasy and instructed Baby: "Baby, keep an eye on Kongyi. Don't let it get hurt."

Baby nodded its body.

It was so small, with no clear distinction between its body and head, just a round, white blob. Every time it tried to nod, its whole body would shake, looking very cute.

Lorant couldn’t help but laugh at the little one’s appearance and reached out to mess up Baby’s soft fur completely.

The mischievous owner only turned his attention back to the pool when the little one, pouting, moved to a spot he couldn’t reach to smooth its fur.

This batch of Devouring Frog pet eggs wasn’t numerous, totaling only thirty-two.

As a C-grade pet, its breeding numbers were embarrassingly low.

Compare that to the other two C-grade pets, the Windbreaker Horse and the Dream Weaver, both of which could produce large litters.

Moreover, Lorant hadn’t obtained any new “Swamp Sludge” since, and only this one Spring-legged Giant Rat had successfully bred.

So the number seemed even more pitifully small.

If he were to sell them like the Windbreaker Horses or Dream Weavers, this quantity would be far too few.

Not even enough to fill a tooth gap.

The thirty-two pet eggs were quite punctual; within about two hours, they all hatched from their shells.

The young Devouring Frogs looked like tiny frog-like pets.

Each newborn was small, about the length of Lorant’s finger, with a green, cartoonish appearance that matched the frogs in his memory.

Yes, cartoon frogs.

Something was off; although these little ones looked no different from ordinary frogs, they seemed to have a cartoon filter, making them look peculiar.

Even though there were only thirty-two, they were extremely difficult to control in the water. To make them eat their eggshells, Lorant struggled, reaching deep into the pool, almost submerging half his body.

Finally, after much effort, he managed to get each little one to sit on its eggshell and slowly nibble at it with their nearly toothless mouths. Just as he was about to breathe a sigh of relief, he noticed one eggshell floating alone on the surface without a Devouring Frog.

This meant that one Devouring Frog was missing.