Chapter 13: The Princess Starts Farming

While Syks was busy formulating her plans in the cathedral, Violet was farming in a wasteland outside the village.

Of course, she wasn’t using a hoe, but Nastasia’s tentacles.

Under the midday sun, the Evil God on Violet’s head was a size larger, making her look like she was wearing an octopus-shaped hat for shade.

And this hat was currently spreading tentacles in all directions, wantonly digging up the surrounding wasteland.

Dirt flew everywhere, along with uprooted weeds.

The scene looked less like reclaiming wasteland and more like a naughty child playing in the dirt.

“Heave-ho~ Is this okay, my kin?”

Hearing this, Violet took a step forward and crouched down, feeling the texture of the soil with her fingers.

“Dig a little deeper. Mmm, just like that…”

The evil-god-brand tentacle excavator plunged into the ground, easily breaking up the compacted soil.

Looking at the nascent field before her, Violet patted the dust from her hands and nodded in satisfaction.

“My kin, why are we playing with mud?”

“To do an experiment.” Violet explained patiently: “Have you noticed? The village’s food supply is running low.”

“No.”

Nastasia brazenly shook her tentacles.

Her attention was focused on her kin.

As for other things, they were not important to Her.

“Salna Village, as a trading village, doesn’t have much cultivated land. Most of the villagers buy their food from traveling merchants.

After the monster attack, what everyone lost wasn’t just their houses, but also the food they had stored for the winter.”

Violet recalled the scene she had seen earlier.

Although Old Qien didn’t say anything, nor did he express this need to her, she could still hear the difficulties in the villagers’ conversations.

Houses could be rebuilt, and bedding could be woven, but food couldn’t be grown quickly.

It was already late autumn, and the weather was turning cold.

If Salna Village was left to fend for itself, who knows how many people would freeze to death this winter.

Those were Nastasia’s pre-selected followers, the foundation of Violet’s plan.

“Here, help me crush this.”

A magic core appeared before Nastasia’s eyes.

It was one Violet had picked up from the goblin fragments during the monster attack.

The hard magic core was no match for the tentacles.

Nastasia just gave it a gentle squeeze, and the light red magic core crumbled into a pile of dust.

Violet quickly sprinkled the magic core powder on the ground.

The powder dissolved instantly upon contact with the field, as if coating the earth with a layer of luminous film.

In her past life, players had discovered that magic cores could be used not only for alchemy and staff-making, but also for farming.

The effect was similar to the bone meal in a certain game, which could accelerate crop growth.

Magic cores of different levels and attributes had different effects.

For example, herbs grown with a wind-attribute magic core, when used to synthesize potions, could give the potion an agility-boosting effect.

Watching Violet’s actions, Nastasia weakly hooked her wrist with a tentacle.

“My kin, are you trying to use magic cores to grow crops?

But… food grown with magic cores shouldn’t be edible for humans, right?”

Violet was suddenly stunned.

“Because the elements in the magic core are mixed and chaotic. If eaten rashly, one might be contaminated.”

As if remembering something, Nastasia suddenly wrapped her tentacles around Violet’s hand, her voice urgent:

“My kin, let’s not eat this, okay? I can go hunting and bring you lots and lots of prey!”

Violet gently patted the Evil God’s tentacle, signaling Her to let go.

She looked like a cat watching its owner eat snail noodles: shocked, helpless, and disapproving.

“First, tell me clearly, what does ‘contamination’ mean?”

“It means that the violent and chaotic elements in the magic core cannot be absorbed and assimilated. They will accumulate in the body like toxins, forming a magic disease.”

As if worried that Violet didn’t know how terrible magic disease was, Nastasia hurriedly said:

“If those villagers eat it, their internal organs would probably melt, and they would die by self-immolation. Even you, my kin, if you eat too much, you will die!”

Violet was shocked.

She hadn’t expected the consequences of using magic cores to grow crops to be so severe.

The reason players didn’t get a magic disease debuff was probably because they could reset their body status by reviving.

“Then is there a way to solve this contamination?”

“Hmm… I should… be able to?”

Nastasia’s voice was filled with deep self-doubt.

“If I can’t do it, you can’t blame me, my kin!”

With that, She extended her tentacles and plunged them directly into the ground.

A touch of black light, like a drop of ink in water, slowly contaminated the entire luminous film.

As time passed, the originally light red luminous film eventually turned black.

The land covered by the black film now slowly emanated a distorted and chaotic magic power, even warping the air.

Violet: “…”

Why did she feel that the crops were even more inedible now?!

“Ehehe… My kin, it seems I messed up.”

Nastasia sheepishly retracted her tentacles, not daring to look Violet directly in the eye.

She had thought she could use her authority to make the chaotic elements in the magic core cancel each other out.

“It’s okay, you did your best. Take back this magic power first. The aura is kind of scary.”

Since it had come to this, Violet sighed helplessly and soothed the somewhat dejected Evil God.

Seeing that her kin had no intention of blaming her, Nastasia’s heart relaxed.

The tentacles stuck in the ground, like straws, began to suck the magic power covering the field back into her body.

But She was surprised to find that only one-third of the magic power was recovered.

“My kin, be careful!”

As the black film shattered and disappeared, the previously unchanged field suddenly erupted in chaos!

The earth tore apart, and the muffled sound of soil being squeezed now sounded like thunder.

The commotion, like an eight-magnitude earthquake, quickly attracted the attention of Old Qien and the other villagers, who rushed over with their weapons.

And then, they saw a small, bulging hill.

Beside the hill, Violet sat on the ground, covered in dirt.

Shock at this moment overshadowed the pain from the fall.

She stared blankly at the bulging hill, unable to understand what had just happened.

“Sister Elynne!”

Tia was the quickest to react.

She trotted over to Violet’s side and helped her up.

Old Qien quickly walked to the side of the hill and kicked it.

The touch was solid; it was clearly a solid mass.

He turned to look at Violet, his voice filled with curiosity and confusion.

“Apostle, what exactly is…?”

“The… food I planted?”

Violet’s answer was full of uncertainty.

She had no fewer questions in her heart than Old Qien.

“Food?”

The corner of Old Qien’s mouth twitched.

He looked at the bare hill, which didn’t even have a single weed, but still chose to believe Violet’s words.

So he tentatively reached out and scraped away the top layer of soil.

Under a finger-thick layer of soil on the hill, there were densely packed, giant barley stalks growing upside down.

“This… this is?”

Seeing this, the jaws of everyone present dropped to the ground.

They had seen barley before, but they had never seen barley that was over two meters tall, growing upside down, and was as colorful as if it had eaten rainbow candy…