Chapter 88: Opening the Ranch
Two days later at noon, Lan Mo was still in the cafeteria getting her meal when her mind started beeping incessantly. What was going on?
She hastily grabbed two dishes and hurried back to her dorm. As soon as she entered the space, she saw silkworm beds densely covered with colorful cocoons, looking absolutely beautiful.
Beep beep beep
Friendly reminder: There are currently six types of Heavenly Silkworm Cocoons, each weighing 150 catties. The selling price is 20,000 Gold Coins per catty. The host must sell 90% of the Heavenly Silkworms. Please click to confirm the sale.
Sell 90%? Wasn’t this forcing her to sell? What if she only sold half…
Beep beep beep
Danger warning: The host’s thoughts are very dangerous. If the rules are not followed, the first penalty will be clearing the Space Warehouse.
What nonsense! Was this damn Heavenly Dao right beside her, watching her every move? How did it even know what she was thinking?
If she didn’t do as it said, her Warehouse would be cleared. Good thing she hadn’t randomly clicked on the display screen earlier.
She had harvested a total of 900 catties of cocoons, but she could only keep 90 catties. Wasn’t this too unfair? At most, 90 catties of cocoons would yield 4 to 5 catties of silk, just enough for one autumn quilt.
And wasn’t she raising Heavenly Silkworms? Only 20,000 Gold Coins per catty? This damn Heavenly Dao was deliberately bullying honest people.
Forget it. To avoid having her Warehouse cleared, Lan Mo still chose to sell 90% of the Heavenly Silkworm Cocoons. For a mortal to think of defying the heavens was nothing but wishful thinking.
As soon as she sold 90% of the Heavenly Silkworm Cocoons, the Experience Bar started scrolling rapidly. The farm instantly jumped from level 19 to level 22 before stopping.
Good heavens! She had been toiling day in and day out, and the Experience Points crawled slower than a turtle. But selling some Heavenly Silkworms made the Experience Points shoot up like crazy.
Great! Today, she could finally unlock the Ranch.
Unlocking the Ranch required 20 million Gold Coins. Previously, the Gold Coins Card Slot in the space showed around 9 million Gold Coins. Now, selling the cocoons had added another 16 million Gold Coins. So why wait?
Excited, Lan Mo clicked to unlock the Ranch. Whoosh—the Card Slot now showed only a little over 5 million Gold Coins.
To the right of the farm, a cloud of mist suddenly rose, stretching endlessly into a vast expanse of white. Was this the Ranch being unlocked?
Ten minutes later, the mist dissipated, and a Wooden Fence Chicken Coop appeared out of thin air on the empty land.
Lan Mo teleported to the front of the chicken coop and found three little hens pecking at the grass on the ground.
Since she was soul-bound to the space, she could now teleport anywhere just by thinking about it.
Lan Mo quickly returned to the Small Wooden House, thinking the chicken coop was too shabby. Should she upgrade it once? After all, she was now at level 22.
But upgrading the Shed once actually cost over a million Gold Coins—more expensive than tilling the land! This was outrageous!
Gritting her teeth, Lan Mo decided to spend one million Gold Coins to upgrade the chicken coop once. This way, she could raise six hens and not have to worry about eggs every day.
She had forgotten to cultivate new land when the farm reached level 18. Now that the farm had reached level 22, she could cultivate two new plots of land. Since there were still Gold Coins in the Card Slot, she might as well do it all at once.
Tilling one plot of land cost 300,000 Gold Coins, and the other cost 500,000 Gold Coins. Just like that, another 1.8 million Gold Coins were gone.
Let’s see what treasure the big shot would randomly gift her this time?
Lan Mo excitedly double-clicked the screen…
Just this?
How could it be Clivia seeds? This era hadn’t even started speculating on Clivia yet!
Sigh… better store them in the Warehouse for now.
Mani mani hong!
Surely the second plot of land would have something valuable, right?
“Woof! Woof woof!”
A puppy?
The space was asking her to start raising dogs now. Could this little puppy be here to help guard the farm?
But what should she use to raise it?
Beep beep beep
Friendly reminder: Doghouse, dog food—welcome to browse and purchase!
Alright, fine. It’s just spending Gold Coins, right? She has them! At worst, if she runs out of Gold Coins, she’ll just earn more.
Lan Mo spent ten thousand Gold Coins to choose a solid wood doghouse for the little mutt, then spent another thirty thousand Gold Coins to stock up on a pile of dog food.
As for bones that dogs love to chew—sorry, but buying meat requires ration tickets now, so where would she find bones for it to gnaw on? If it wants bones, it’ll have to wait until she raises a few pigs first.
After settling the little mutt into its new home, Lan Mo quickly started feeding the six little hens with the Spirit Rice Bran she had stored earlier.
She thought, hens that eat Spirit Rice Bran must lay eggs that are very nutritious, right?
The farm now had a total of nine acres of land. After reaching level twenty-two, she could plant things like cherries and kiwis. So she decided to plant three acres of kiwis and four acres of cherries.
After finishing planting, Lan Mo suddenly remembered that she had already unlocked the Ranch. Could she now visit her friends’ ranches?
La la la, there’s meat to eat now.
Lan Mo opened the Ranch interface and began scrolling to see which friend’s avatar had a little paw icon lit up in front of it.
First, she’d visit “Uncle Not Oily’s” Ranch to see what good stuff he had. Off to a lucky start—she managed to steal three Persian cat kittens at once.
Next, she went to “Idol Is Not Bean’s” Ranch and snagged six bundles of wool, six eggs, and three buckets of fresh milk.
Who cares how many Gold Coins they’re worth? Stealing other people’s stuff just feels great.
Then she went to “Farmer Has Some Land’s” Ranch and also stole six eggs, six bundles of wool, and three little rabbits.
After stealing all these ordinary things from mortal friends, Lan Mo decided to visit her friends from the Cultivation World.
But she discovered that none of them had unlocked the Ranch. Why was that?
She needed to ask “Little Useless in the Cultivation World” what was going on.
[Miss, are you there?]
…
After waiting ten minutes without a reply, she gave up. She’d just ask “Grand Elder of Xuantian Sect” instead.
[Uncle, doesn’t your space have a Ranch?]
[What’s a Ranch?]
Oh, right. The low-grade spirit meat they usually eat comes from Spirit Beast Mountain. Cultivators are lucky to have a planting space—where would they have something like a Ranch?
[Sorry, Uncle. What I meant to ask was, does your space have a Spirit Beast Mountain?]
[Poor thing, my space doesn’t even have a Spirit Spring, let alone a Spirit Beast Mountain. How do you, a mortal, know about Spirit Beast Mountain? Do you want to tame Spirit Beasts, or do you want to eat spirit meat? Do you want me to send you a few low-grade Spirit Beasts?]
[I was just asking casually, Uncle. It’s nothing. Thank you.] Her space had no Spiritual Energy—even if he gave her Spirit Beasts, she wouldn’t be able to keep them alive!
[If you want to try the taste of low-grade spirit meat, I can send you a few Seven-Colored Brocade Chickens to try.]
After all, these things don’t have much Spiritual Energy anyway. Catching them is as easy as lifting a hand.
[Thank you, Uncle. You must be busy—sorry to bother you!]
“Grand Elder of Xuantian Sect” quickly sent Lan Mo ten Seven-Colored Brocade Chickens.
The necks of those beautiful brocade chickens had all been snapped. Probably the Grand Elder was afraid that a mortal like her, who couldn’t even tie up a chicken, might be attacked by the Seven-Colored Brocade Chickens? No matter how low-grade they are, Spirit Beasts are still Spirit Beasts…
Lan Mo immediately sent him ten durians in return, letting him also taste the deliciousness of mortal world fruits.
Now she understood: her farm could connect to the Myriad Realms, but her ranch could only connect to the Mortal World.
Heavenly Dao Father simply hadn’t opened ranching for spirit beasts to those cultivators. If cultivators needed to raise spirit beasts or eat spirit beast meat, they had to go capture them themselves on Spirit Beast Mountain.