During this period, Bai Qiu was busy making advanced ecological greenhouses while also recruiting manpower and searching for soil resources.
Although he had more than 300 portions of dense soil and quite a bit of E-grade soil, supplying over a dozen mu of farmland was still far from enough—it was like a drop in the bucket.
Fortunately, none of this was difficult for him.
First, he leveraged his reputation to recruit 90 life-type players to help with the farm work.
As the saying goes, seven people are needed to cultivate one mu of land.
By that ratio, over a hundred people should have been recruited.
However, as players leveled up, their attributes naturally improved.
Even with just five people working per mu, most of the time they were still idle.
The conditions Bai Qiu offered weren’t low: 80 Sanctum Coins per day.
That meant a daily expense of 7,200 coins, and a monthly expenditure of hundreds of thousands of coins.
That was only about the value of a single C-grade piece of equipment, but for players who preferred a stable lifestyle, it was already a very decent job—at the very least, it covered all living expenses.
It could even be treated as a part-time job.
After all, farming is usually only busy during planting and harvesting; the rest of the time is fairly relaxed.
As for soil, he also used his reputation to purchase high-quality soil from other players, ranging from E-grade to C-grade.
However, C-grade soil was quite rare—he only managed to collect 50 portions.
Of course, the biggest expense was still buying soil.
Bai Qiu had indeed underestimated how much soil the greenhouses required.
According to Professor Lin, soil for growing vegetables needs to be 20–30 centimeters thick, while fruit crops require even more.
As a result, just purchasing soil across the entire zone nearly drove Bai Qiu to bankruptcy.
Fortunately, he made a trip to Zone 2243, where he mass-produced mental power potions and had Ning Xingxue raise the price to 90,000 per set based on market demand.
Since mental power potions had no competition at this stage and were always in short supply, they were still snapped up instantly even after the price increase.
Thus, Bai Qiu kept buying soil while producing potions.
After that, he still had to craft advanced ecological greenhouses and C-grade crop growth-accelerating fertilizer.
He planned to leave the C-grade Wind Spirit Hoverboard for last, because he was simply too busy—working all 24 hours of the day.
Fortunately, the system handled the crafting of these tools.
Bai Qiu only needed to prepare materials and run around.
With his current physical condition and mental strength, he didn’t feel fatigued.
Just like that, two days passed…
Early one morning, Bai Qiu entered the advanced ecological greenhouse and discovered that all the crops had already sprouted and were growing…
Moreover, their growth was unbelievably fast!
The fastest ones had already reached knee height, and even flower buds had started to appear.
Even describing it as “shooting up like bamboo after rain” seemed insufficient.
It appeared that as long as the soil nutrients were sufficient, these special plants, under suitable conditions, could grow at speeds far beyond ordinary plants.
Professor Lin, however, said this was nothing unusual, as they had already conducted experiments in Zone 2201.
They found that for graded plants, under optimal conditions, the growth rate could reach up to 37 times the normal rate!
For example, the Magic Tomato at his feet had a growth cycle twelve times faster than usual—it only took six days to go from sprouting to bearing fruit.
“Is it really that fast?” Bai Qiu was a bit stunned.
Looking at everyone already up and busy, he slightly frowned—why did it feel like they were all extremely occupied?
“There’s something even faster. Look over there—those low-growing Vitality Strawberries have a recorded maximum growth speed of 35 times the normal rate!” Professor Lin said confidently.
However, the patch he pointed at hadn’t even produced buds yet, let alone fruit.
Given that strawberries typically have a 180-day growth cycle, at 35 times speed they should mature in just over five days—less than six.
Yet their growth progress was clearly far behind that of the Magic Tomatoes.
“But it doesn’t look like they’re growing that fast. At least not as fast as the Magic Tomatoes,” Bai Qiu voiced his confusion.
He was completely inexperienced when it came to agriculture.
He might possess all-around talent, but no matter how gifted he was, he couldn’t be omniscient.
Facing Professor Lin, who had spent most of his life researching crops, he naturally remained humble.
“That’s correct. When soil, nutrients, and everything else are perfectly up to standard, the remaining factor that can influence growth speed is temperature!” Professor Lin explained fluently.
Bai Qiu’s humble attitude made him quite pleased.
After all, this young man was extraordinary—despite the huge gap in status and strength, he could still calm himself and sincerely seek guidance.
His character was impeccable.
“Vitality Strawberries require an extremely humid environment, but their optimal growth temperature is between 35 and 45 degrees Celsius. To maximize growth speed and yield, they’re best planted in midsummer.”
Bai Qiu understood.
Although the greenhouse maintained a constant temperature, it wasn’t the optimal solution for plants with special requirements.
But if it came to raising or lowering the temperature, he might have a way…
He contacted Li Zhongjun and quickly purchased fire-element ore to increase temperature and ice-element ore to decrease it from the trading house.
When he took out a piece of fire-element ore, the surrounding temperature instantly rose by more than ten degrees—and it kept increasing!
This was only a raw ore with about 30% purity.
If the purity reached 100%, the heat it emitted could instantly push the surrounding temperature above 80°C!
So Bai Qiu only broke off a small, low-purity portion along with its impurities.
After some tinkering, he turned it into a lamp.
This was made using a blueprint he obtained from clearing the Tower of Heaven.
He had originally thought it would gather dust in storage forever, but unexpectedly, it became useful so soon.
Balanced Bright Lamp (D-grade)
Description: Durable materials, excellent light transmission and energy filtering capabilities, and it evenly emits energy and light in all directions with no blind spots.
With this item, Bai Qiu placed the fire-element ore inside.
After some adjustments, the Balanced Bright Lamp emitted a steady 40°C heat within a two-meter radius.
C-grade fire-element ore contained massive energy—if left to dissipate naturally, it would take at least two months.
When Professor Lin saw the Balanced Bright Lamp, he excitedly took it and was thrilled.
It wasn’t that the item was unique, but at this stage, it had the lowest cost!
With this, all plants could have their temperature precisely regulated.
It could even be used for controlled experiments to determine the optimal growth temperature for these plants.
It might even surpass previous research results!
With Bai Qiu around, the issue of temperature requirements for crop growth was perfectly solved.
Bai Qiu moved quickly, using the system to produce thousands of Balanced Bright Lamps.
Then, according to Professor Lin’s requirements, he added varying amounts of fire-element ore and ice-element ore to achieve temperature increases or decreases.
— The end of the Chapter–
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