Chapter 30: Planting.
Alfred was about to say something to Aponi, but before he could, someone intruded and sat down between them. Alfred was annoyed when he saw it was Gunnar.
“Why are you here?”
“Why? am I not allowed to be here?” Gunnar replied with contempt.
Aponi was surprised when someone just suddenly sat down between her and Alfred.
“Oh, Gunnar you are here, are you enjoying the celebration?”
“Yes, I ate a lot of meat just a while ago, how about you?” Gunnar replied with a smile
“I am enjoying it too.”
Alfred was irritated, that was his best chance to tell Aponi his feeling. Yet, Gunnar suddenly destroyed everything. Alfred sighed and just chose to forget it, he was sure that he would have another chance in the future.
The night went on, and all the tribesmen enjoy themselves all night, thankfully the feast ended without any incident. The next day Alfred woke up pretty late. Last night, he was too absorbed in Berus’ story, he didn’t know Berus was a good storyteller. Therefore, he slept pretty late.
Alfred noticed that Leo was sleeping peacefully beside him, he slowly got up to not disturbed Leo’s sleep. Afterward, he walked out of his tent to check if he was the only one who woke up late. Alfred saw a lot of people already doing their chores, he was embarrassed when he saw this, he felt that he was so lazy.
Alfred was about to enter his tent again when he noticed a group of people walking out of the tribe, what was odd was in this group, he saw Vir, Dara, and Shaman Catori.
“That was an odd combination where are they going?” Alfred muttered to himself.
Alfred stopped one tribesman who was walking in front of him.
“Do you know where is that group going?”
“I heard the new member will do something, but I am not sure what it is.”
“I see, thank you.”
Alfred has some idea of what might they do outside, he was sure that Dara would teach them the secret method of planting. Alfred was also curious about this. Thus, he followed them even though he was having a hard time walking.
Inside the forest near the edge of the Guardian Tree vicinity, was a group of people discussing something.
“Why are we here? I thought you are going to show us the secret method of your previous tribe?” Shaman Catori asked
“Yes, that is why we are here, we need to clear the tree in this area. This is where we are going to plant.” Dara replied.
Shaman Catori furrowed her eyebrows.
“Why do we need to do that here? There is a large plot near in our tribe, this is just a waste of our time.”
“This is the first step in our secret method, we need to grow our plant out of the Guardian Tree vicinity, because if we grow our plant near it. The Guardian Tree will just absorb everything and our plant will wither and die.
That is why there is always a large open area around the Guardian Tree. Because the Guardian Tree will absorb every Life Energy in the ground, thus, killing every living plant in its surrounding
Shaman Catori was excited about this new knowledge.
“If the Guardian Tree is absorbing the Life Energy, why do we still feel the Life Energy in the tribe?
“As I said, the Guardian Tree only absorbs the Life Energy in the ground, not in its surrounding. Therefore, the Life Energy in the tribe is not affected. On the other hand, the plants relied on absorbing the Life Energy in the ground to survive. Hence, they were affected.
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“I understand now, then what is the next step in the secret method?”
“We need to clear the trees, rocks, and grasses in this area first.”
All the tribesmen started cutting the trees. Only those who reached 3rd Stage Energy Coating was cutting the trees, since only by coating their tools with Life Energy would they be able to cut the trees. Shaman Catori was the only one standing watching the tribesmen cutting the tree with a stone ax, while she was observing them, she heard the sound behind her.
Shaman Catori turned around to check what it was, then she saw Alfred catching his breath while supporting his body on the tree.
“Why are you here young Alfred?”
“I – am a – also interested” Alfred replied while panting.
“I see, I know you are like me hunger for knowledge, but you are too early nothing is going on here yet. They are just clearing this area to use it as a field to grow plants later.”
“Why here? There is a large plot near the tribe?”
Shaman Catori was amused by the exact same question they both had, then she explained the reason.
“Now that I think about it a massive tree like a Guardian Tree will need a lot of nutrients to survive, it is not surprising that the plants around it died.” Alfred said while touching his chin.
“Nutrients? What is that?”
“Nutrient is a substance that provides nourishment essential for growth and the maintenance of life. Just think of it like Energy. like plants, humans also need nutrients to survive, the only difference is we get our nutrients by eating.”
“That is interesting thank you for this new knowledge.”
“No problem”
Alfred already thought of something if Shaman Catori asked how did he know about this kind of knowledge. However, far from his expectation Shaman Catori stayed silent and just observed the people cutting the trees.
“Uhm… are you not going to ask me how did I know that?”
Shaman Catori looked at Alfred with puzzlement.
“Why would I ask something pointless? It does not matter to me where you learn it, what matter is you share this knowledge with me.”
Alfred nodded with understanding, he felt that he grasped a little bit of Shaman Catori’s personality. After a long time, the tribesmen cutting the tree finally cleared a small plot that could grow a few plants.
“This is enough for now, let us proceed to the second step. The second step is we need to find soil abundant with Life Energy.” Dara said.
Shaman Catori became excited again when she heard the second step.
“Why do we need to find soil with abundant Life Energy, can we just plant it with this dirt here?”
“We can, but dirt is often rocky, silty, and void of Life Energy that healthy plants need. If you add water to a handful of plain dirt, it will not compact well, if at all. Because of these qualities, dirt does not make a good planting medium.” Dara explained
“I see, so where can we find this soil with abundant Life Energy?”
“Well, we do not know where, usually, we just look around the forest using Energy Eye hoping to find it.”
Alfred had an idea when he heard the conversation.
“I think I know where to find that kind of soil.”
All the people instantly shifted their attention to Alfred when they heard him.
“That is good news we do not need to waste a lot of time to find it then.” Dara happily said.
“Oh, young Alfred where is it hurry and tell us.” Shaman Catori eagerly asked.
“You know that Elder Ahote and I invented the pots using some kind of soil, right? Well, the soil we used has that kind of trait you are talking about, I think we can use it to plant.”
Shaman Catori was a little surprised.
“You mean the clay soil you have been using to make pots?”
Alfred nodded.
“I did not know that clay soil will have a lot of usage.”
After Shaman Catori found out about the clay soil, she immediately ordered some tribesmen to grab some clay soil back to the tribe and bring it here. Vir together with a few tribesmen hastily went back to the tribe to fulfill the order.
Soon After, they came back with a pile of clay soil. Dara examined the clay soil, she was satisfied with the quantity of the Life Energy within it. Dara told the people to dig the dirt, then replaced it with clay soil.
It only took a small amount of time for them to replace the dirt with clay soil. After they are done Dara ordered one of her old tribesmen to bring the basket full of unknown things to her. Shaman Catori was already curious about what was inside the basket from the first time she saw it.
However, she chose not to ask about it, but now that she saw it again, she couldn’t help herself.
“What are the things inside the basket?”
“This is vegetables that we salvaged when the blood tribe attacked.”
“What are you going to do with that?”
“This is the third step, we are going to bury these vegetables in the clay soil.”
“why do we need to bury that vegetable?”
“Because these vegetables will sprout a plant after a few days.”
“What? These vegetables are going to sprout a plant? That is very interesting.”
Shaman Catori stared at the different kinds of vegetables inside the basket with interest. Dara started planting the vegetables in the clay soil after explaining to Shaman Catori the 3rd step of the secret method. After a few seconds, they planted all the vegetables in the clay soil.
“The last step is very simple we just need to water them every day.” Dara said.
“Do we also need some kind of water abundant with Life Energy?”
“Well, if you know where to find that kind of water, then it is definitely better than just ordinary water. However, we had never seen that kind of water before.”
When Alfred heard the conversation an idea suddenly came to his mind again.
‘Water with a lot of Energy? The water created by the rune is pure Life Energy, what if I used that water to water these plants? What will happen?”