CHAPTER 137 - THE COUNTDOWN TO A BLASTASTIC PARTY BEGINS NOW!

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That night, I once again dreamed of my dragon child. The tropical jungle we lived in was a paradise where we frolicked in crystal-clear streams and animals brought me fruits, nuts, and spirit herbs to eat. My little dragon boy liked to dive into the ponds and turn into his dragon form underwater to fill his belly with brightly-scaled fish.

I woke up with a profound sense of peace and well-being.

That morning, it rained. It was a proper, full-on downpour, not the misty drizzle we were used to here in the arid grasslands.

“Lovely, just lovely,” I said as I enjoyed the cooling effect of the rain.

Courtyard houses were perfectly designed to enjoy this type of weather since all of the buildings were connected by beautifully decorated roofed pathways, which meant none of us needed to get wet.

“We don't need to refill the [Dendrological Cultivation Chambers] or the pots.” Lari was a little [Lazy] and enjoyed it when there was less work.

The pots were a local irrigation substitute for the [Dendrological Cultivation Chambers]. Made of unglazed clay, they were porous and were buried in the ground, filled with water, and covered with a lid. When the surrounding soil was dry, water was pulled out of the pores of the pot. However, when the soil was wet, the water stayed inside the clay pot. One only needed to refill the water via a small hole every week or thereabouts, depending on the rainfall. The pots were a local irrigation technique and it worked extremely well.

I poured myself another cup of lychee and strawberry juice sweetened with honey. It was tart and refreshing. “Let’s wait inside until the rain stops. Then we’ll plant more trees and fodder plants.”

The rhythmic sound of the water falling on the roof and courtyard tiles was soothing, especially when I thought about how every little droplet was revitalizing the land around us. We spent a lazy morning discussing our plans for the orgy of destruction I was organizing for tomorrow night while I chopped up some fruit from my inventory for the kitchen staff to use later at the party. Our supplies of rice, meat, and vegetables were always plentiful, but the mushrooms, fruits, and other foraged items became perilously low sometimes. Also, everyone loved the tea so much that I was still using the [Tea Machine] instead of moving on to the [Textile Loom].

The rain stopped at midmorning, and we went out to plant seeds and check on our plants and animals. The [Lizardwing Eggs] were undamaged and so were most of the plants, except for a few whose [Dendrological Cultivation Chambers] had tilted a little to the side. We fixed those and returned to the house in good spirits to prepare for the upcoming decadent destruction party.

As a special treat for the kids and staff, I set up two restaurants in the garden for them to use as a snack room. I showed them items from the Cash Shop and they chose the ones they liked. I personally would have chosen the [American Diner], but the kids preferred the [Big Ears Bites], an elephant-themed kid’s restaurant, while the staff picked the [Bloom Bistro], a cozy little garden restaurant with orchids cascading from the walls.

Though they were called restaurants in the Cash Shop, they weren’t real ones. They had no kitchens, for one thing. Rather, they were just garden decorations that had tables and chairs and had two or three walls like a fake movie set. I put up a [Fluff & Stuff Boutique] which was a fake plush toy storefront for my own amusement.

Cutie loved the orchid restaurant, and I had to restrain her several times when the staff ran away because she bounced toward them. In the end, I placed another restaurant just for her to play in. This made the garden really crowded, but it was worth it to see her bouncing up repeatedly to try to touch each and every single orchid flower with her slime strand.

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Since we were leaving soon, I asked the clan members to give us an aerial tour of Blossom Valley and Skyfang Hill on one of the ox carts.

“Let’s stay low and move really, really slow. Extremely slow. Like a snail!” I said to the driver.

The flying carriage was enchanted with a type of stabilization magic that made its flight smooth. The ox cart had the same enchantment, but since it was an open cart, we would be buffeted by the desert winds as well as the wind of our passage.

“Yes, my lady,” said the driver.

He was as good as his word. My stomach only lurched a little, and the flight was only as scary as a Ferris wheel would have been.

Below us, the land spread out in a patchwork of green and brown. Skyfang Hill was a bright emerald spot in the landscape that was still mostly brown, but I was delighted to see the visual evidence of our efforts. Large strips, squares, and rectangles of Blossom Valley were now green. It wasn’t just us though, the native flora had also claimed a few spots. I believed they were the wetter parts of the land where rainwater tended to accumulate.

“This was all dry and brown last year when we first came here!” said Mo.

“Seeing is believing. Look at that!” I pointed at a spot where the rain had filled a small depression in the ground. “That’ll be a great place to plant some seeds.”

The driver obligingly landed the cart there, and I drank some [Kola-Kola Soda] to refill my energy bar a little and planted some [Wild Seed Mix] near the water.

“How do you feel?” I asked my apprentices. “Did the tour inspire you?”

Lari nodded. “Yes. It’s wonderful, but when we were in the air, I couldn't help noticing how much more work we need to do.”

“One day this entire valley will be all green!” Mo waved her hand at the land around us.

I hooked arms with them and led them back to the cart. “This will be our paradise! It will take a long time, but, eventually, this will be full of fruit trees, farm animals, and valuable crops.”

We flew back to the house in high spirits and spent the rest of the day relaxing and decorating our [Training Armor]. Of course, we could have smithed ourselves sets of bronze armor, but it was a party and the kids said they liked the look of the [Training Armor] better. The staff had some white paint which they used around the house for miscellaneous items, and different colored dyes for cloth. We mixed the dyes with the paint, with little success, and a lot of failures, but we still managed to make the armor look festive.

“Party armor ready!” I held up a leg piece that was painted pink, purple, and yellow. “Let’s go outside and pile up some logs for the bonfire tomorrow.”

Lari rubbed his hands together. “I can hardly wait to destroy everything tomorrow!”

Even Mo’s eyes were sparkling with excitement. “Let’s compete to see which one of us can make the loudest noise!”

I chuckled. There was no way they could make a louder explosion than me.

***

The next morning we woke up early and rushed through our chores before walking to the designated area in the middle of nowhere that the clan members deemed was far enough from our house and their camp to not disturb anything. There I set up three large tents and rolled up their sides. They were for cooking, dining, and partying.

Items that I placed outside would disappear after I or my farmhands stopped interacting with them, but that took hours, so it should be fine to leave them while we rested inside the house during the hottest part of the day.

I left the cooking tent empty since the kitchen staff would take care of it later. I placed plenty of electric fans, tables, chairs, rugs, and colorful decorations, though I refrained from adding the lights just yet since they would make the place hotter. The kids helped me with the selections and arranged the items for me.

Near noontime, I stepped out of the tent and verified that my surprise was on its way.

“Guys, look up at the northern sky. I have a present for you,” I said to Lari and Mo.

CHAPTER 137.5

An excerpt from the journal of Shuye Skullcrusher, Guardian of the Ancient Hill Forest:

If I’d known this was going to happen, I would never have auctioned off those two pairs of Vanishing Fowl.

The highest bidder was a respectable scholar who specialized in rare spirit birds. He was vetted by my staff beforehand, and we had every reason to think that he was simply going to breed the chickens to study their unique characteristics.

I didn’t learn until too late that the Raccoon clan had bought the Vanishing Fowl from the scholar using the simple method of offering him a ton of money and the opportunity to study them in the wild. They plan to breed them with the native population of junglefowl in their territory.

The Raccoon clan already owns the junglefowl from Emberstone Farm.

It doesn’t take a genius to know that this is a very bad idea, but it’s not my territory, so it’s not my problem.