Chapter 199 A New Ability from the Sea of Corruption (Happy Lunar New Year's Eve!)
Valley of the Wind.
In early July, the sunlight penetrated the valley through the wide opening on the east side, piercing through the thin mist and falling on the vast brown land.
Just as Nausicaä led her fleet on a multi-day journey through various countries, the Valley of the Wind was also quietly undergoing changes.
More than a month has passed since the three teams set off. The caravan members who went to the Joint Gathering have long since returned from the Mining Town, bringing back data and equipment on Liquid Field technology, as well as tons of nutrient solution.
In addition, the thick orders for the Blessed Crops, which had to be bound with thread, kept the head steward Mito, who was in charge of material statistics, and the agricultural elder Beruto extremely busy, making dozens of trips between the warehouse and the newly built Liquid Field factory every day.
The caravan members recounted their experiences in the Mining Town in the tavern, including how Princess Nausicaä single-handedly captured the Dorok Guardian's warship.
At first, the villagers didn't believe it, thinking that these merchants, who were always fond of exaggerating, were just bragging again.
But what happened next was unbelievable even to the caravan members themselves.
After the war ended and the Erdtree Alliance was established, ships from Pejite arrived here and landed at the shipyard in the eastern part of the Valley of the Wind.
When the hatch opened, the villagers responsible for unloading the cargo were stunned by the sight of the supplies piled up inside.
Bundles of metal ingots, barrels of fuel, boxes of building materials, rare crop seeds, machine tool parts, agricultural machinery, mining equipment, and so on, were unloaded in heaps and moved into the newly expanded warehouse.
These things, which the people of the Valley of the Wind had only ever seen on trade lists and never dared to dream of owning, were naturally seized from the captured rebels.
It's important to know that Gore had once united the two great powers of Pejite and Pejite, and merchants from almost every industry had raised their banners in rebellion.
After being captured, those men, in order to save their lives, had no choice but to confess all their private treasuries accumulated over many years. A villager stood at the edge of the mooring area, looking at the mountain of goods, and suddenly remembered a question they had discussed when they seized the spoils of war from the bandits last time—
Whom did Her Highness steal this time? Surely it wasn't Pejite she took down?
The elders who remained in the valley stood in front of the temporary warehouse, their smiles never fading.
"These building materials and equipment are enough to increase the yield of the Blessed Crops fivefold, and we won't have to worry about the land drying up!" Beruto flipped through the list, his finger tapping across the pages.
Gol stared at the machine tools, his eyes gleaming. "With these, we can finally build our own spaceships!"
Under the orders of several elders of the Valley of the Wind, the Valley of the Wind seemed to have been put on fast-forward, and the changes in half a month were greater than those in the past hundred years.
Build new housing to house the population, create new factories to process the machine tools and metals, establish new laboratories to study the Golden Order, and further expand the scale of the Liquid Field.
The Valley of the Wind is thriving.
Just like before, Mu En left everything to his subordinates to handle.
To reiterate, if he does everything himself, what's the point of having believers?
As for Mu En himself?
He has more important things to deal with.
West of the Valley of the Wind, in the Golden Forest.
The Erdtree, over seventy meters tall, stands majestically above the forest. Its thick trunk requires several thousand people to encircle it, and the light surrounding the tree transforms the entire valley into a golden ocean.
Compared to his clone in the Castle in the Sky world, Mu En's main body's growth rate can only be described as snail's pace.
The main reason is that this body, which looks like a tree, is actually made of a special material that is neither gold nor jade. Not only does it require a huge amount of Golden Rune to improve even a little bit, but its growth rate is also extremely slow.
This also caused Mu En's plan to learn from his "predecessors," extend his roots to the entire world, and bring the whole planet under his control to fail.
At the current rate of progress, it would take at least several thousand years to achieve that, and he couldn't wait that long.
But now, things have changed a little.
At the foot of the Erdtree, the surface of its thick trunk suddenly shimmered with flowing golden light.
The light gradually coalesced into fine threads, climbing, extending, and branching along the bark's texture like living things, extending downwards from the base of the trunk, spreading to the soil surface along with the exposed roots, and slowly spreading out like slime mold.
Mu En's consciousness focused on these golden threads, and doubt arose in his heart.
"What exactly is this, mycelium?"
This is the ability that the Will of the Sea of Corruption helped him activate earlier. It is formed from a large amount of Golden Rune and resembles both plants and animals, possessing "biological tentacles" with weak mobility.
That's right, this is a genuine biological organism, not a mindless energy condensation like the Crucible Beast.
These threads have their own cellular structure and can even survive independently for a period of time without energy supply.
Although Mu En could precisely control every movement of these things, he still couldn't figure out what the purpose of these threads was.
Used for attack?
He tried it, and these threads were as fragile as real mycelium, breaking with the slightest pull, even more resilient than ordinary blades of grass.
Used for defense?
That won't work either; they have almost no strength. Only by spending a huge amount of Rune and weaving countless threads into a rope can they achieve any strength.
Used for perception?
It is more sensitive than ordinary tree roots in this respect, but there is no qualitative breakthrough.
Mycelium—mycelium—could it be—!
Mu En suddenly had a flash of inspiration.
He manipulated a golden thread to detach from his body, burrow into the soil, and extend into the distance.
The silk thread wound its way through the soil, around rocks, through tree roots, and avoided the insects that roamed underground. It continued forward, emerging from the edge of the woodland, passing vast fields being cultivated by walking tractors, past the expanding Windmill Castle, and past the temporary warehouses built by the valley dwellers—finally, it arrived at an unprecedented location: the seashore.
That was well beyond the area covered by Mu En's roots.
In the past, all of Mu En's Incantations and abilities had to be exercised within the realm of roots; only through Divine Descent by the Blessed could this limitation of distance be broken.
Those blessed warriors are like his eyes and arms, reaching for him distant places that his true self cannot reach.
There is no other way.
But now, that golden thread is still closely connected to him.
He could clearly sense everything around the gold thread: the temperature of the sand and soil, the moisture content, and the vibrations from the footsteps of nearby porters.
He could even mobilize the Golden Rune energy belonging to his own body, transmitting it along that invisible link, causing the golden thread to glow slightly.
Mu En was shocked.
The significance of this discovery far exceeded his expectations.
These golden threads completely broke the limitations of his physical range of movement. Wherever these threads could reach, his perception, his energy, and his will could reach!
Countless ways to use the gold thread flashed through his mind in an instant.
It can be used to explore unknown areas and search for forgotten ancient ruins.
It can be used to create temporary communication nodes, allowing the Blessing Link to cover a wider area.
It can be used to infiltrate dangerous areas and obtain enemy intelligence in advance.
It can be used to -
Mu En's thoughts lingered on the most practical ability, which was also the one he most urgently wanted to achieve.
Create clones!