NOVEL NEXT Chapter 38: The Great Red Giant
The group recovered four arrows but ended up going back to their camp as the tribe had tossed the bodies of the two attacker under a tree. After going back and taking a good look at their bodies, Lukas let out a sigh of relief.
"The one you killed is a cannibal but the one I got is most probably a part of a river tribe." he said to Nina before looking at the trio, "Do you have any idea on why a tribe might team up?"
Uke and Kiki shook their heads while Tama nodded.
"Most of the time, they could be those who were banished by their tribes and made an alliance to get food. In certain situations, the whole tribes come together and this only happens in two situations. One is when we have a common enemy and the second is when there's a Trade Gathering planned."
'Trade gathering….' Lukas thought and nodded, "Do you know when the next one is?"
The trio shook their heads simultaneously as Kiki said, "We haven't participated in it for more than five years… the elders must know about it. Every tribe get's a message through a bird one month prior to the gathering."
"Usually, who has those messages?"
"Warrior Rena or Hunter Balo if he shot the bird before it reached the tribe."
Rena was the Chief of the tribe even though she wasn't considered the strongest. This was mainly due to her instincts and her ability to keep her people safe. She was cautious but didn't go to the extremes.
'Rena or Balo…' he thought and nodded as he looked up at the gorgeous starry sky.
He then sent the trio back to sleep and let his sister rest too. As for himself, he couldn't do much as he wasn't feeling sleepy at the moment.
In just a few minutes, he was already bored out of his mind and began looking at his system screen.
'Hmm… Automatic Processing. System, can you tell me how Automatic Processing works? I know the basics but maybe there's more that I've missed.'
[Automatic Processing helps process any product. Once Divine Farm reaches Rank C, you will unlock Automatic Production which is a direct extension of Automatic Processing. With this new skill, you will be able to combine more than one ingredient to create a new product.]
'Does that mean I can make mayonnaise without a blender? With just eggs and oil?'
[Please specify the process of making it.]
Lukas explained how mayo was made and then the system gave him a positive response, making him nod his head gently.
'Finally, I won't have to worry about not having electronic appliances.'
Feeling better, he took out a skinned rabbit and got it on a flame before he moved to the periphery of his tribe. One by one, he scrutinised the trees and recalled the knowledge he had absorbed through the books.
'I don't remember much but… I do know the trees that are among the top when it comes to firewood and charcoal.'
Talking to himself internally, he continued walking around the tribe and only stopped once he was in front of a three meter wide tree. It was a tree named the Red Giant, an iconic tree of this island which could reach a height of fifty to a hundred meters based on it's location and time.
As for it's width, that could go from two to five meters. These trees were usually home to various birds, bugs, snakes, squirrels and even monkeys. Luckily for him, he didn't have to deal with any of these creatures as the tribesmen had already cleared them out.
The book he read before did not have any information on replanting the tree so he couldn't help but resort to his most reliable form of information.
'Hey system.' he said mentally as he placed his hand on the tree, 'How do I plant these? I want them in my farm.'
[You should be able to find small plant with extremely thin stalks around it. They usually grow into a tree once the main tree burns completely. The fastest ones will absorb the nutrients from the ashes, leaving about 1 to 4 trees by the end.]
'Ah okay. Will I be able to directly plant the thing in my farm without the need for the ashes?' he asked as he looked around and found tiny plants that barely had more than four leaves.
[Yes.]
"Cool." he muttered and sent five of these plants to his divine farm before checking it's info.
[Divine Farm - D Rank]
Mana Density: D
Crops Per Plot: 20 Plants/5 Trees
Creatures Per Plot: 20 Small / 10 large Creatures
Total Plots: 30
Empty Plots: 14
Compared to the previous upgrades, the plot enhancements mainly went towards the trees. He had also gotten an upgrade of 10 plots and was now left with 14 empty ones.
He saw that the time for the tree to grow to it's full size would just be six hours like every other plant and animal.
Even a tree that needed more than a decade to grow to it's full size, only needed six hours in his farm. He clicked on the Red Giant in his screen to see what it could give him.
[Red Giant Tree - D Rank]
Products gained include wood, leaves and sap. By consuming Mana and reducing the rank by one, you can process the wood into E+ Rank charcoal.
Complete Harvest: 3450 tonnes of wood, 100 tonnes of sap and 50,000 leaves.
'System… that is a lot of wood. How is the harvest this big for just one tree?'
[The trees will be 100 meters tall and 5 meters wide in diameter. The wood harvested will include all the branches along with the trunk. You can further process the wood into wood of lower moisture to use as firewood. Once Automatic Production is unlocked, you can convert the wood into charcoal and additional byproducts such as tar, methane and hydrogen.]
'That… is a little complicated but sounds really good.' he thought and nodded as he set the harvest settings to what he wanted.
Processed wood with 0% moisture content and the rest was the same. This brought down the total wood mass to 2200 tonnes.
Per Tree. And Lukas could grow five of them per plot, which meant 11000 tonnes of wood every six hours.