Chapter 381: A Gamble with Seeds: The Path to High-Evolution Spinach

Seeds with two generations of stability can only continue to be planted after those two generations if the 1% of exceptional seeds within the batch include viable candidates for further cultivation and improvement.

If such seeds exist, the optimized line can go on; but if not, you’ll need to purchase another batch of somewhat stable seeds.

This is why low seed stability is a major obstacle to expanding crop cultivation in the wake of Blue Star’s great evolution. Over the years, the nation has been pouring resources, manpower and funding into researching how to improve the stability of evolution-enhanced crop seeds.

When lords can buy seeds with two or even three generations of stability at low prices, it’s thanks to years of research, careful breeding and selection by expert teams.

Within Xia Qing’s territory, there’s a naturally stable and highly evolved variety: the High-Evolution Green Lantern Spinach—an extremely rare evolutionary crop.

Her competition comes from the Blazing Fire Squad, who also have high-evolution Green Lantern Spinach grown with pure spring water.

To accurately price her own seeds, Xia Qing needed to figure out just how stable Blazing Fire Squad’s spinach seeds really were.

The Fire Phoenix has tried several times to recruit Yang Jin into the Blazing Fire Squad, even dangling their high-evolution spinach as bait.

So Yang Jin is quite familiar with their seed stability. “Blazing Fire Squad’s spinach seeds come from the Huiyi Research Institute. For the past five years, Fire Mountain has been using isolation chambers free from Devastation Element and irrigating with plenty of pure spring water to refine and improve the spinach. Their first-generation seeds now contain about 2‰ Devastation Element and roughly 9‰ Evolution Element. Under normal growing conditions, the Devastation Element stability lasts four to five generations, while the Evolution Element stability holds for two generations.”

Xia Qing asked, “When you say two generations of Evolution Element stability, does that mean that after two plantings, the Evolution Element drops below 5‰?”

When the Evolution Element in a plant falls below 5‰, it’s no longer considered high-evolution—even if the Devastation Element remains under 5‰, it can only be used to make regular nutrient solutions.

Yang Jin nodded.

Blazing Fire Squad’s Green Lantern Spinach seeds maintaining Devastation Element stability for four to five generations is normal. Two generations of Evolution Element stability is already considered excellent.

Xia Qing continued, “So their spinach seeds could already be promoted for large-scale planting. Are they holding back just to keep Premium Nutrient Shake prices high?”

Yang Jin nodded again. “Two thousand credits per bottle sounds steep, but it’s not outrageous. Selling Premium Nutrient Shake is Blazing Fire Squad’s main income source. If they increase spinach production and drive down shake prices, it’d hurt them a lot.”

Seeing Xia Qing so interested, Yang Jin added some market context about why the bases’ research institute and Planting Center don’t produce or promote high-evolution spinach seeds. “Each base’s pure spring water and Yi Stone are precious resources. The Research Institute, Planting Center, Breeding Center and even hospitals all fight to secure them. Once they saw Blazing Fire Squad had cornered the high-evolution spinach project, the others stopped trying to compete.”

Xia Qing understood and moved on. “After I harvested my first batch of spinach seeds in May, I traded 400 seeds to Third Brother. A few days ago, he told me my spinach has five generations of Devastation Element stability and four generations of Evolution Element stability.”

Yang Jin nearly jumped out of his seat, still holding the tray. “Four generations?!”

“That’s right. In open-field growing with no Yi Stones or pure spring water—so long as the soil and nutrients meet the basic standard—each generation only loses 0.1‰-0.2‰ of Evolution Element and rises by just 1‰-1.5‰ in Devastation Element. Within three generations, 80% of spinach surviving to seed still counts as high-evolution Green Lantern quality.”

Seeing Yang Jin’s shock, Xia Qing felt a surge of pride and confidence. “I’m not really surprised Third Brother figured this out. The spinach patch I grew in the Vegetable Greenhouse, with no Yi Stones or spring water, degraded way less than other Green Lantern vegetables.”

Then Xia Qing smiled and asked, “So when you offered to buy my spinach seeds at 100 credits per seed, did you already think they’d last two generations with stable Evolution Element?”

Yang Jin nodded.

Xia Qing pressed on. “Then what do you think my seeds are worth per seed now?”

“As far as I know, your spinach seeds have the highest stability of any in the country. If you sell them in small quantities, even 500 credits a seed wouldn’t be unreasonable.”

That’s twenty-five times the price of ordinary Green Lantern seeds.

Yang Jin now felt the weight of the spinach seeds in his tray. After sitting back down, he asked, “So Third Brother gave you his results days ago. You’re still willing to sell me seeds at 100 credits apiece—have you already figured out how you want to use these seeds? Did Third Brother say anything else?”

“Third Brother only told me about the seed quality. No requests, no suggestions.” Xia Qing answered Yang Jin’s question, then switched topics: “You’ve got quite a pile of seeds there, right? Over twenty thousand by now?”

Yang Jin gave the exact number. “You owe me 6,721 seeds, plus 2,250 seeds for the Cordyceps Venture shares, 800 seeds for 400 jin of Green Lantern Rice, 1,000 seeds for swapping 10 kilograms of new nanotech cloaking material, 1,000 rounds of ammo… and with all the other goods and brokerage fees, the total comes to… seeds.”

“From the entire spinach terrace, I’ll harvest twenty-eight thousand Green Lantern Spinach seeds.” Xia Qing went on, “I’ve got a plan—not only will you turn a massive profit by next May, but we can also cut off Blazing Fire Squad’s money stream. Are you interested?”

Yang Jin had mostly guessed what Xia Qing wanted to do, but he didn’t say it out loud. Instead, he gestured for her to keep talking.

Xia Qing crouched down, scooping up a handful of dirt and gently rubbing it between her fingers—a gesture of pure love for the land. “The spinach growing here are first-generation seeds. If we use Yi Stones, the quality won’t drop at all.”

“If we plant all the seeds from this harvest across the terrace, and irrigate with Yi Stones and fresh spring water, barring any catastrophic disaster—and even after accounting for a 1% outlier rate—we’ll net at least 1.2 million first-generation seeds. If we auction all of them off at Shengyu Auction House, how many credits do you think each would fetch?”

Lan Jiu’s Shengyu Auction House is currently the most reputable and discreet in Huaguo. Xia Qing figured the safest way to spread her spinach seeds was through their network.

Yang Jin’s eyes lit up. “Selling that many seeds at Shengyu will bring a lot of attention. If you trust me, let me handle them—I guarantee I can get you at least 30 credits per seed from bases nationwide. Only if every base gets the seeds can we truly promote these nationwide.”

Yang Jin explained, “Even if I sold them at 200 credits per seed, I could easily clear out all your spinach seeds—making more than 200 million in one go. But a higher price makes for riskier channels, more exposure, and then your spring water will come to light. Azure Dragon Squad won’t just become everyone’s target—they’ll be Blazing Fire Squad’s enemy number one. For both of us, it’s just not worth it.”

Selling 1.2 million seeds for 30 credits each already far exceeded Xia Qing’s original expectations. “Thirty credits apiece works for me.”

“If we do this, by next summer, high-evolution Green Lantern Spinach will be growing everywhere. By the year after that, every windowsill in every Safe Zone in Huaguo could have a pot of high-evolution spinach. By then, it won’t be rare anymore, and Premium Nutrient Shake prices will collapse. Your future spinach seeds and stalks may not be worth much at all.”

“Are you willing to give that all up?”

Yang Jin grinned. “If you partner up with me and don’t promote the seeds, and instead run things the Blazing Fire Squad way, you could make far more credits.”