Chapter 22: Gossip

To the magic apprentices, using Wood Spirit Magic to cultivate crops is as absurd as using fine wine to raise pigs.

It’s a waste of resources and an insult to magic itself!

“Anyone got a problem with that?”

Yu Sheng’an cast his gaze over the chattering magic apprentices.

The apprentices exchanged glances, but in the end, no one dared to speak up, whether it was due to the Greenman Effect or just wisdom in knowing when to submit.

“Good!”

Yu Sheng’an nodded in satisfaction and snapped his fingers. A massive Phantom Scroll appeared, bearing a long string of numbered digits.

“I’ve created a group. This is the group number. Join it yourselves. If you’ve got any ideas or suggestions, send them to me privately. Write well, and you’ll get extra points and rewards.”

After speaking, Yu Sheng’an handled a few more trivial matters before finally dismissing the meeting.

Truth be told, when it came to crop cultivation, he wasn’t very knowledgeable.

However, as someone who had received nine years of mandatory education, he was familiar with concepts like ‘dominant genes,’ ‘recessive genes,’ ‘selective breeding,’ ‘mutation,’ and ‘mutagenesis.’

Don’t underestimate these concepts. Just having them in mind allowed him to be centuries, or even millennia, ahead of this world’s biology.

Biology in this world was too reliant on magic.

It mostly involved altering and distorting plants’ growth through magic.

Yu Sheng’an just couldn’t believe that, with these concepts in hand, the means to implement them, and nearly one percent of Kewell Empire’s Wood Spirit magicians under his command, he couldn’t whip something up.

At that point, even if crop yields increased by ten percent, when scaled across the entire Empire, that would be an enormous number.

This would fill more bellies, allow for larger populations, and free up more labor!

All of these factors would directly translate into his power!

In fact, during the past half month, as Internet Divine Magic spread throughout the Empire, he had been continuously gathering related data and checking soil conditions across the Empire, forming a rough plan in his mind.

However, before deciding to experiment, he still wanted to hear the opinions of professionals. After all, more perspectives bring more clarity!

After the meeting, Yu Sheng’an leisurely walked towards the rear of the grand hall.

Few knew that over the past half month, a subterranean space the size of a football field had been painstakingly expanded using Earth Magic beneath this ‘Magic Forest’ hall.

In the Empire’s capital, this was no simple task.

The difficulty lay not in expanding the basement but in the fact that the Empire’s underground spaces were monitored by the Magic Towers. Digging without approval and triggering the tower’s defensive countermeasures, getting crushed into a pulp, couldn’t be blamed on anyone but yourself.

He descended the spiral staircase down to the basement. As far as the eye could see, the vast underground space was entirely undecorated, developed into a square space with regular dimensions.

The walls, ceiling, and floor were all crystallized with Earth Magic, looking pristine and beautiful.

The ceiling was dotted with fixed Light Inch Magic, illuminating the entire space.

A glance confirmed that the basement was filled with countless glass boxes of various sizes, tightly packed together.

Intricate Magic Seals were etched on the inside of the boxes. These were Gravity Magic Seals, capable of simulating microgravity environments when activated.

This would be Yu Sheng’an’s main battleground for simulating a microgravity environment to induce crop mutations and select the most suitable crops.

“Power certainly makes things easier!”

Looking at this high-spec laboratory, Yu Sheng’an felt a surge of ambition!

Choosing to set up in the Kewell Empire had been a brilliantly wise decision!

…

“Has Lord Dundar lost his mind? He pulled all the Wood Spirit magic apprentices just to grow crops? This is… this is simply absurd!”

Mage Marchi, a member of the Willis Magic Plantation Union, angrily slammed the table.

Their plantations relied heavily on Wood Spirit Magic to maintain the magical plants they grew.

Although they had hired some mages skilled in Wood Spirit Magic, these people couldn’t sustain their massive plantations.

They used to have magic apprentices as temporary workers, sometimes even as free labor.

Now that those apprentices had been taken, a fifth of their plantations might as well be abandoned. How could they not be furious?

“Absurd? This is downright stupid! Forget about whether they’ll succeed or not. Even if they do, do you think those illiterate farmers can handle the planting?”

“Haha! Do they really think that just because Internet Divine Magic reaches the whole Empire, everyone will become magicians?”

A few plantation owners were full of anger and sarcasm.

“Who is this Ajeff fellow? How can he command such attention from Lord Dundar?”

“No idea. He seemed to appear out of nowhere. I observed him, and the magic fluctuations in his body were very weak. I think he’s either a mage or a magic apprentice. I’m leaning towards the former. Maybe Lord Dundar recruited him from another country!”

“No matter who he is, we can’t let him swallow up all the Wood Spirit magic apprentices. Everyone, why don’t we team up and confront Lord Dundar?”

“I was about to suggest the same thing!”

“This is exactly why we formed the Willis Magic Plantation Union!”

After a brief discussion, the group of plantation owners decided to pressure Archmage Dundar together.

At the same time, the name Ajeff was making waves throughout Felix because of this unprecedented large-scale collaborative magic experiment!

“Using such a massive operation just to cultivate some crops? A few magic apprentices should be more than enough!”

“Using magic to grow crops? How did he even think of that!”

“Why study anything else when you could study crops? How much money could that bring in?”

“Who is this Ajeff? Never heard of him.”

“I haven’t either. I checked the Empire’s Official Website for registered magicians, but I found nothing.”

“Rumor has it that Lord Dundar recruited him from abroad!”

“No wonder he’s given such special treatment. It’s all for show!”

“Nonsense! I heard he’s Lord Dundar’s… illegitimate son?”

“Ah—Really? Is that true?”

The power of rumor multiplied by the Internet Divine Magic led to a storm of gossip sweeping through Felix!

From magic instructors to magic apprentices, the flames of gossip burned hot!

Looking at the general consensus and attitudes, most people felt contempt and ridicule towards the idea.

Forget whether it was dignified to use magic for crop research. From a purely profit-oriented perspective, it just wasn’t worth it!

There were basically two types of magic plants cultivated with Wood Spirit Magic.

The first type involved forcibly altering and amplifying a plant’s certain traits with Wood Spirit Magic to achieve specific goals.

That method required manual intervention, and even if it was only needed during the seed stage with no further intervention, the costs were beyond what a farmer could afford.

The second type directly bred new varieties.

That was practically entering the realm of the gods. Who could achieve that?

Even if they did, it’d be an entirely new type of plant. Farmers would only need to buy it once, after which they could save seeds and never have to buy again. Considering the research costs, was it worthwhile?

It wasn’t!

What? Sell it at high prices?

Do those commoners have that kind of money?

Honestly, this is something that anyone with a basic knowledge of magic should understand. Wouldn’t Lord Dundar know this?

So if he knew, why would he still approve this experiment?

And even pull all the Wood Spirit magic apprentices in Felix to participate?

No one could figure it out, but that didn’t stop people from speculating.

For a time, countless versions of Ajeff’s identity story spread.

From a mysterious foreign magician to an illegitimate child of an Archmage to a member of the royal family, everyone’s imagination and ability to spread rumors were fully activated through the Internet Divine Magic.

Amidst the swirling rumors, Dorothy nervously knocked on the door of the Magic Forest.