Chapter 22

Its cap is like an umbrella, its entire body is pure white, the stem is about the length of a finger, and half as thick as a finger. What is this?

"It's a mushroom, mushrooms are growing in the soil. However, it’s damp and humid here, so it’s normal for mushrooms to grow. This should be a meat mushroom, with a thick texture, it tastes like meat. It’s in the juvenile stage now, it should grow more in a couple of days, up to the thickness of an arm."

Indeed, Negris, the God of Knowledge, is not to be underestimated. There are hundreds, if not thousands, of common mushrooms, and even more rare ones. Negris could identify the type of mushroom at a glance.

However, Ang only heard one word: "Edible?"

"Uh, it is edible, but who would eat a mushroom? It’s so tasteless and has little nutritional value," Negris said.

In the era of low productivity, few people ate mushrooms because they required a lot of oil and seasonings, otherwise, they would be very unpalatable. The underground city lacked even food, let alone oil. Boiling a minotaur aunt would probably yield dozens of pounds of beef tallow.

Therefore, only hunters and herders, who had a lot of animal fat, would stew some mushroom soup.

"Oh." If it’s tasteless and has little nutritional value, then there’s no point in growing it. Ang reached out to pluck the mushrooms, but a sudden exclamation came from behind: "Hey, are these holy mushrooms?"

Turning around, he saw Lisa standing behind him, wearing a light black gauze dress, looking surprised at the mushrooms.

The light black gauze dress clung to her body, outlining Lisa’s plump curves, making it hard to associate her with the emaciated lich from yesterday.

"What are holy mushrooms?" Ang asked.

"These are meat mushrooms grown with holy water. Essentially, they are meat mushrooms, but they have some magical effects, such as removing negative effects, toxins, plagues, curses, and diseases. As long as they are not too severe, they are effective," Lisa explained.

After finishing, she smiled and added, "The Church of Light grows a lot of these holy mushrooms, dries them, grinds them into powder, and distributes them to priests and holy women to perform miracles. When we cure a child’s food poisoning, it’s easy to gain the family’s gratitude and faith."

Ang didn’t understand what she meant, but Negris was already angrily shouting: "So that’s how it is? How shameless, how disgusting, this is cheating, this is cheating! No wonder the Church of Light spreads so smoothly, they are drugging people!"

However, Negris’s words only echoed in Ang’s soul, and Lisa couldn’t hear them. She continued, "My Lord, if we can grow a large number of these holy mushrooms and make them into medicine, they should be very popular. Then they will all eagerly hope to bask in Your glory."

A holy woman who cannot spread faith is of no value. The former holy woman of the Church of Light was eager to dedicate her strength to Ang, so she could gain her Lord’s favor and be granted more power.

"Can they be exchanged for food and seeds?" Ang asked. He had no interest in making others bask in his glory, but if they were edible and could be exchanged for food and seeds, growing more wouldn’t be a problem.

"Food? It’s possible, but food is a bulk commodity. The three cities here are all short of food. Even if they are willing to exchange, the amount will be limited. As for seeds, we have what they have, but the City of Ice has a small teleportation array connected to the human world, which can exchange some unique seeds or high-value goods from the human world," Lisa said.

"Teleportation array? World transfer station?" Ang tilted his head. He now knew that the world transfer station these people referred to was a teleportation array, the place where he was teleported to, which could directly connect to one of the arches of the Palace of Rest.

"No, no, no, it’s just a small teleportation array, very small, not even a person can be teleported, only valuable items like magic crystals and magic decorations," Lisa said, gesturing. According to her gestures, the small teleportation array was about 70-80 centimeters in diameter, indeed too small to teleport anything too large.

"Magic crystals? Humans have magic crystals?" If Ang had ears, they would be perked up now. He came to the underground city with Esk to get magic crystals. Magic crystals could activate the teleportation pillars, allowing him to return to the Palace of Rest.

Ang later asked Phyllin if there were any magic crystals, but unfortunately, the underground city didn’t have any. The few magic crystals Esk had were obtained from the City of Ice, and most had been used up, unable to activate the teleportation array again. They were used up shortly after returning.

"Yes, the City of Ice has a teleportation array that can exchange magic crystals with the human world. However, we don’t have much to offer, so the amount we can exchange is quite limited," Lisa said.

Ang pointed at the mushrooms and said, "Exchange for magic crystals."

Since he was going to use holy mushrooms to exchange for magic crystals, he needed a lot of them. Ang decided to convert all the stone planting racks to holy mushrooms. He had seen some mushrooms growing on rotten wood and knew how they propagated.

So, when the first batch of holy mushrooms matured and began to release spores, Ang used a pollination spell to transfer the spores to the soil, then evenly spread the soil on the ridges of the stone planting racks.

Two weeks later, Ang harvested fifty pounds of holy mushrooms.

Lisa was a bit dazed: "So many? I’ve never seen so many holy mushrooms together. How did you grow them? When I was in the Church, a parish could produce this much in a year, and that was already very good. You did it in just a few days?"

"Like this." Ang explained his planting method, and compared it with Lisa’s, he found several differences.

First, they didn’t collect spores. Second, they didn’t adjust the soil and humidity. Third, they didn’t have enough holy water to irrigate.

The Church of Light didn’t treat them as a crop but as a divine blessing.

If a piece of land grew holy mushrooms, they would fence it off, send priests to pray there, and pour holy water, letting them grow naturally. They didn’t use much holy water because the priests who purified the holy water were usually very busy.

This natural planting method naturally didn’t yield much.

How did Ang grow them? He collected the spores and set up a series of control groups with different light, water, humidity, and temperature conditions. He even set up controls for the number of times the holy water was purified, then selected the combination that grew the fastest and most.

In the end, he found that unsterilized, clean soil with a lot of organic matter, irrigated with holy water purified five times, grew the best.

What organic matter was best? Dried moss was the best. Fresh moss was prone to rot and was not good, it had to be dry.

"Is this enough? To exchange for..." Ang silently recalled that Esk used about a dozen blue crystals, so he needed at least forty crystals: "Forty crystals."

"Enough, enough, hehe. Fifty pounds of holy mushrooms, ground into powder, would yield at least ten pounds. According to the Church of Light’s price, one pound of holy mushroom powder can exchange for twenty magic crystals. Of course, the Church doesn’t lack magic crystals, and holy mushroom powder is not available on the market. I’ll take five pounds first, which should be enough to exchange for a hundred or so magic crystals. Taking too much would lower the price."

At this point, Lisa’s face showed a fierce determination: "Seeing my current state, that old hag in the City of Ice will probably kneel down and beg me to show Your power."