Chapter 79

As the petals of cherry blossoms danced in the wind, Misaki opened the old diary and read the words of the promise written there.

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The World Tree, being the child of thunder and the pet of the forest, the unicorn, of course, knew that if it could eat one, it would be the first unicorn in history to eat the World Tree. Just thinking about it made it feel powerful. It could then change its name to—World Tree Devourer Lightning.

"You're crazy!" Nagris jumped up and hit its knee: "This is the holy relic of the elves, the god of the elves. The entire elf race has grown and thrived under its protection, forming a vast and powerful elf empire. You actually dare to eat its sapling? The elves will go mad and destroy the unicorns..."

Before he could finish, Anger plucked a sprout and casually handed it to Lightning's mouth.

Lightning glared at Nagris, stuck out its long tongue, and slowly coiled the sprout into its mouth, deliberately chewing with exaggerated movements, a provocative look on its face.

Nagris was furious, flew up, and lashed out with its tail, but Lightning skillfully ducked its head and continued to raise its eyebrows provocatively.

However, Lightning's triumph didn't last long. Suddenly, its face crumpled as if someone had stuffed a ton of lemons into its mouth, and tears streamed down its face.

"Quick, quick, spit it out. Is it poisonous?" Nagris was worried. Although he was angry, he didn't want Lightning to be poisoned.

Lightning didn't spit it out but swallowed it whole, then panted with its tongue out: "So... phew... so... so powerful life force, phew..."

"Life force? You can taste life force? What does it taste like?" Nagris was surprised.

Lightning gave him a rare, skeptical glance: "I'm a unicorn, I can even taste the flavor of lightning. It's a bit sour and numbing."

After saying that, Lightning ran to Anger's side, did a 'little horse jump' around him, and said flatteringly: "Lord Anger, boss, give me something to eat. I don't want to waste this life force."

Anger tilted his head curiously and poured out a pile of grain and beets.

Lightning started munching away.

Anger carefully observed Lightning and noticed that it had indeed changed. How to describe it? The aura of life was much more vibrant, and as it ate, the aura grew stronger.

What a strange change. Anger also wanted to try, reaching out to pluck a World Tree sprout, but Nagris, who was on guard, hugged him: "You're not alive, wake up, you can't eat it."

After some persuasion, Anger finally gave up the idea of everyone eating a few sprouts.

"You might as well grow it. It's just a sprout now, but when it grows, it will be called the World Tree," Nagris said.

"Can it be eaten?" Anger tilted his head.

Nagris was exasperated: "Of course it can be eaten. Its fruit is delicious, but why do you care if it can be eaten? You don't eat anything."

Anger tilted his head, confused. If it can't be eaten, why plant it?

"Uh, there are many economic crops, like cotton, hemp, lacquer, oil, and bamboo. They have high economic value. For example, clothes need cotton and hemp for weaving, beans can be pressed for oil, trees like tung and palm can produce lacquer, and bamboo is an accelerator of civilization."

After Nagris's explanation, the former vegetable-growing skeleton learned for the first time that many things are planted not for eating.

Anger nodded to show he understood: "Plant food."

Nagris facepalmed, feeling his efforts were in vain.

Since the World Tree can be eaten, Anger decided to continue planting it. He had already mastered the technique of sprouting the World Tree and planned to sprout the remaining seeds.

However, before that, Anger needed to research the most suitable growing environment for the World Tree. The sprouted seedlings didn't consume much of the soil's nutrients, meaning that fertility was not the key to the World Tree's sprouting and growth.

Transplanting, Anger dug up the sprouted seedlings and moved one to a place outside the valley where the Resting Wind blew, watered it thoroughly, and used the halo to accelerate its growth for a while, then surrounded it with soil so the Resting Wind could blow over the sprout but not reach the roots.

All the soils mixed with different fertilizers had one seedling transplanted to them, including the volcanic ash where nothing grew.

The last three were planted in essence liquid, ordinary water, and purified holy water.

The next morning, the one left in the original sprouting area died, the one in the volcanic ash died, and the three in the liquids died. The others in different fertilized soils didn't die but were withered. Only the one transplanted to the vegetable patch showed no change.

The most miraculous was the one outside the valley, which wasn't killed by the Resting Wind but was just withered.

After checking all the transplanted seedlings, Nagris was baffled: "What does this mean? The sprouting area's seedling died? It can sprout there but can't grow? What's the logic?"

Anger said: "Halo, sprout, no halo, die."

"Are you saying the sprouting area can sprout because it's combined with the halo, and without the halo, it's not suitable for the World Tree to grow?" Nagris asked.

Confirming that Anger meant exactly that, Nagris said: "Then keep using the halo, directly grow it into a big tree."

"No soul flame left." Anger said.

Previously, the soul flame was abundant, but now it was insufficient, and the Rapid Death Halo consumed a lot of soul flame.

Nagris was at a loss. The Resting Abyss had so few people, and even if he wanted to develop believers, there was nowhere to do so. If he had a few hundred million believers, he wouldn't worry about the soul flame.

Wait, that's not right. There's still a group of people who haven't become believers. Nagris turned his head and looked into the valley, where an old man was peering around, cautiously staying but not daring to leave or approach.

These former slaves of demons had no faith.

"Kid, come here." Nagris called the old human over and had him gather all the humans in the valley.

It took almost an hour for everyone to gather, looking at Nagris with fear and a hint of curiosity. Not to mention these former slaves, many who had traveled far and wide might not have seen a bronze dragon, let alone a 'premature' bronze dragon smaller than a dragon egg.

Nagris confidently flew to the humans with a bag of grain, tore open the bag to show the grain inside, and shouted loudly: "You, believe in immortality!"

After Nagris finished speaking, he expected a surge of soul flame. When Anger threw a bag of grain in front of the minotaur, the minotaur had cried and shouted to believe in immortality.

But the humans' reaction was unexpected. They whispered among themselves, then bowed to Nagris and turned to leave, not looking like they wanted to believe in immortality.

Not long after leaving, they returned with grain bags, piled them at Nagris's feet, and bowed.

It took a while for Nagris to understand what was happening and roared in frustration: "I'm asking if you believe in immortality! Believing in immortality means having grain, not paying grain tax, aaaaah!!!"

Slaves were used to handing over 80% of their grain after harvest. After the demons died, no one collected the grain. When Nagris showed the grain bag and asked if they believed in immortality, they naturally misunderstood, thinking he wanted to collect grain tax, so they hurriedly brought their extra grain.

After so many generations of slavery, who had ever seen anyone give them grain? No matter what, they didn't believe it.

Nagris was a bit frustrated. Anger had clearly used this trick before, why did it work so well for him?

"Aa, aa! Aaaa!!" The crowd suddenly became agitated, all turning towards the valley and rushing over.

On the slope of the valley, Anger left a footprint, and the land quickly turned into a lush beet field, like a miracle.

As a vegetable-growing skeleton, growing vegetables was his main job, and cultivating World Tree seedlings was a side task. The nearby slope had already been sown with beet seeds by Anger. Under the Rapid Death Halo, the seeds quickly sprouted and grew leaves, completing the entire growth process under everyone's watchful eyes.

The slaves, who had never seen such a miraculous thing, knelt and bowed, their eyes filled with fervor and disbelief.

Anger was startled by the commotion, turned his head, and was shocked to see a surge of soul flame rushing towards him, even more intense than the last time in the underground city. Anger didn't dare to accept it and directed it all into the Hand of the World.

Seeing the endless soul flame flowing into his left hand and the devout humans bowing in the distance, Anger tilted his head and decided to pull out the mature beets from the ground and throw them to the humans.

Equivalent exchange, they offered so much soul flame, so he would give them the beets. Anger thought.

"These... these are the gifts from the Lord? What are these?" The people stared at the beets being thrown at them, their eyes wide with disbelief.

The former slaves, who couldn't even get enough food, had never seen beets before. They fumbled to catch them, unsure what to do.

A child couldn't resist the fragrance of the leaves and took a bite, then wrinkled their face. Human taste buds couldn't adapt to the taste of raw leaves.

Someone, emboldened, bit into the root, and the juice flooded their mouth, instantly causing a soul-shaking impact: "So delicious! There's such delicious food in the world!? So delicious!!"

The praise of the pioneer encouraged the others. Seeing that Anger wasn't angry, they all took a bite of the beets. The sweetness instantly conquered everyone's taste buds, stimulating dopamine secretion and producing a strong sense of pleasure and happiness.

Many people, while eating, sobbed and cried.

"Thank you, Lord, for the food." Gratitude and worship came partly from the food but mostly from the 'gift.' In their long history of slavery, no one had ever kindly given them anything.

Another surge of soul flame followed.

Anger scratched his head, hesitating whether to pull out the World Tree seedlings and throw them to the humans, otherwise, it wouldn't be 'equivalent.'

"What are you doing? You said you had no soul flame left. Why are you using soul flame to grow vegetables?" Nagris flew over, angry.

Anger pointed to the World Tree seedlings on the ground: "They don't consume nutrients. Plants grow, they grow."

Nagris looked at the World Tree seedlings in confusion and was shocked to see that the sprouts, which had just sprouted, had grown taller and sprouted two small leaves.

"Plants grow, they grow? You're testing this? No wonder the places with the World Tree are all dense forests. If the elves, fearing other plants would compete for nutrients with the World Tree, cleared the surrounding plants before planting, they would never have a chance to grow the World Tree," Nagris thought in shock.

Anger tilted his head and said another sentence that scared Nagris: "They're not afraid of the Resting Wind, they can be planted outside."

PS: Two updates, three chapters, writing and posting simultaneously, no backlog, honest and diligent.

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