A Guide to Farming in a Mobile City
Chapter 23: The Staples—Rice, Oil, Salt, Sauce, Vinegar, Tea—of a Mobile City

Until he returned to the Tomorrow, Li Ye still hadn’t quite returned to reality.

“Don’t brood over it, Lord, you should get back to work,” Lin Wu teased.

“Sigh, I know,” Li Ye sighed.

“I finally got to immerse myself in the atmosphere once, don’t interrupt it so abruptly—it’s a rare moment...”

He then gave a simple recap of what he’d gained from this trip to the Rotting Lands.

A Level-1 cannon – Frost Cannon.

A Level-1 city accessory: Spore Armor blueprint.

A Level-1 fruit-tree seed – Sunshine Apple.

A Level-1 rocket launcher blueprint.

The Level-1 light armor on the production workshop was basic, with low defense, while creating Spore Armor required 600 units of iron ore—double the cost.

But correspondingly, the Spore Armor’s defense was much stronger.

From the blueprint’s appearance, Spore Armor looked like a mushroom cap, pale yellow in color.

Its accompanying effect was “absorbs 15 % of bullet and shell impact,” reducing the chance of armor damage.

The Level-1 fruit-tree seed was even better than the ordinary apple tree.

A regular apple tree takes 3–6 years from planting to fruiting, while a Sunshine Apple tree takes just one month.

After that, it can be harvested every two weeks.

Li Ye had gotten 30 seeds in that bag, and he planned to plant them in the upper-level garden, since it gets the most sunlight.

Besides that, he also had to arrange personnel to tend to the apple trees.

Finally—and most pleasantly surprising—

[Item Name: Individual Rocket Launcher “Gale”]

[Item Level: Level 1]

[Effect: 1. +10 % damage to structures and vehicles 2. +100 m range]

[Crafting requirements: 80 units of Level‑1 iron ore]

A Level-1 rocket launcher’s power was second only to a Level-1 cannon—a true killer weapon in a mobile city.

Its attached effects were also excellent—not just useful for assaults, but also against mobile cities.

The extra 100 m range was the icing on the cake.

The only drawback was that crafting one “Gale” rocket launcher consumed a hefty 80 units of iron ore—far more costly than the Peregrine Falcon Assault Rifle!

And each rocket it needed consumed 10 units of iron ore and 2 units of gunpowder.

Li Ye couldn’t help but feel a headache coming on.

This Level-1 rocket launcher was truly excellent—but how could ordinary households afford to use it?

Just crafting a few plus making ammo would easily burn through hundreds of iron ore.

“Looks like I’ll have to find a way to get more iron ore.”

Third, from the spoils dropped by the Antfolk over these three days:

More than 6,300 crystal coins, 235 units of iron ore, 158 units of coal, 432 units of cloth.

Daggers, machetes, crossbows—35 ordinary-grade weapons—and 5 ordinary blueprints.

Among them, one Elite Antfolk had also dropped a bag of Level-1 crop seeds.

[Item Name: Yunmeng Cotton Seed]¹

[Item Level: Level 1]

[Effect: 1. Grows in two weeks when planted 2. +3 % yield]

When Li Ye picked up that pack of Level-1 crop seeds, he still found it hard to believe.

“This is really good stuff!”

He knew how useful cotton could be!

It was a natural fiber crop, which could be made into gauze cloth—used for clothing, towels, bedding, and other daily necessities.

Or it could be made into canvas, ropes, gauze bandages, and so on.

Provided, of course, that you could obtain the design blueprints for those items.

More importantly... cotton seeds could also be pressed for oil, and the cottonseed cake leftover after pressing could be used as feed or fertilizer.

Although it was slightly inferior to lard or canola oil, having it was still better than nothing.

Considering that cotton required sufficient sunlight and water to grow, Li Ye decided to plant the cotton seeds along with the apple tree seeds in the upper-level area.

Besides the cotton seeds, the most valuable item among these spoils was probably that ordinary cola blueprint.

After taking stock of the spoils, Li Ye began making arrangements.

First, he needed to repair the Tomorrow.

Naturally, this job was handed over to the mechanic Lin Wu.

Over the past days of combat, the Tomorrow had become battered and bruised.

Its hull and armored treads were riddled with Antfolk arrows and bullet holes—yes, some Antfolk were armed with guns.

The Tomorrow had even taken shelling from the Antfolk.

Lin Wu laid out his requirements.

This time, he needed Li Ye to assign him 10 people and give him 2,000 crystal coins to purchase repair parts from the market.

Li Ye nodded in agreement without hesitation.

“How long will it take to finish the repairs?”

“Cleaning the tire treads, disassembling and replacing the damaged outer hull parts, plus regular obstacle clearing...”

Lin Wu stroked his chin and pondered for a while before answering.

“Probably about a week.”

Li Ye thought for a moment and then shook his head.

“No, that’s way too long,” he said.

“Try to get it done within three days. We need to depart as soon as possible.”

It wasn’t that Li Ye was overly impatient.

That Epic Intelligence had mentioned the Wasteland Zone would be destroyed in three months.

In that kind of situation, spending a whole week just on repairs was far too luxurious.

Li Ye immediately assigned personnel to Lin Wu.

In truth, the battles of the past few days had been quite intense.

The personnel of the Tomorrow had been working in three shifts, constantly seeking out Antfolk and attacking their strongholds.

By the end of it, everyone was physically and mentally exhausted, with half the people injured—three of them seriously.

Upon returning to Roland Fortress, the first thing Li Ye did was rush to the market to purchase medical supplies and bandages.

In the wastelands, medical supplies were far more expensive than one might imagine.

Li Ye spent over 1,500 crystal coins in just a few trips.

He assigned one person to care for the injured, and handed over the remaining personnel to Lin Wu for redeployment.

Even Helmsman Tang Fang and Combat Captain Old Zhou were assigned to him.

While the Tomorrow was busy with its repairs, Li Ye slowly walked toward the market, planning to open a shop and make some money.

Originally, he had over 6,000 crystal coins on hand.

But after spending more than 1,500 on medicine, and another 2,000 for Lin Wu’s repair budget, half of it was already gone.

The remaining funds were far from enough to restock supplies.

As he passed by the market bulletin board, he noticed that everything had gone up in price.

Freshwater had increased from 3 crystal coins to 5, and iron ore had risen from 5 to 8 crystal coins.

Resources like coal and fuel had also seen modest price hikes.

He quickly figured out the reason.

The Intelligence had mentioned that Roland Fortress’s mining area was nearly depleted, and the nearby freshwater lake was almost dry.

Looking around at the Roland Fortress before him, he couldn’t help but gently shake his head.

No one had expected this fortress, standing proud in the wasteland, to be far from united—it was full of internal strife.

Li Ye had originally planned to sell some freshwater to supplement his household budget.

After all, the Tomorrow still had over 2,300 units of freshwater in storage.

But after making a round of the market, he realized that ordinary merchants were not allowed to sell it.

Only the Roland Fortress authorities could sell freshwater.

A little digging revealed that the ownership of the lake belonged to Roland Fortress.

Li Ye wasn’t particularly surprised.

After all, operating a fortress of over 2,000 people required an enormous amount of money.

Paying the combat personnel who guarded the fortress, hiring people to keep the fortress running, investing in care for the elderly and children with no support, producing cannons, firearms, bullets, shells to defend the fortress—

Each item on this list cost money.

Monopolizing freshwater sales was a pretty good source of revenue.

The residents of Roland Fortress had no objections either, and even actively supported the measure.

After all, Roland Fortress provided them with a safe living environment, and access to vegetables, grains, fruits—

That was already quite impressive in the wastelands.

Though he couldn’t sell freshwater, Li Ye could sell cola.

Items like Blueheart Potato Seeds, Peregrine Falcon Assault Rifles, Gale Rocket Launchers, and Level-1 off-road vehicles could all be sold too.

At the Roland Fortress market, if you were a freelancer like a bounty hunter or lone wolf, and only sold a few things, there were no requirements.

But if you wanted to sell a large quantity of goods, you needed to apply for a storefront at the market.

Also, regardless of whether you were a freelancer or shop owner, you had to pay a 10% tax.

Which was fair—Roland Fortress provided a safe environment for material transactions.

Setting up a shop required a 2,000 crystal coin deposit, and a minimum three-month rental period at 500 crystal coins per month.

Just as Li Ye was hesitating, Lin Xia, who was leading a patrol of the market, happened to walk by.

After understanding the situation, she arranged for Li Ye to take the best-located shop in the market, and waived his deposit and rent.

“Thanks, you really saved me this time,” Li Ye sincerely expressed his gratitude.

Lin Xia gently waved and gave a faint smile.

“No problem.”

After preparing the shop, Li Ye returned to the Tomorrow and used the Production Workshop to produce 100 bottles of cola.

He drove the cola to the shop and launched his main line of business.

Cola, 8 crystal coins per bottle.

Peregrine Falcon Assault Rifle, 500 crystal coins per unit, or 60 iron ore for custom crafting.

Gale Rocket Launcher, 700 crystal coins per unit, or 100 iron ore for custom crafting.

Blueheart Potato Seeds, 500 crystal coins per pack.

Level-1 off-road vehicle, 2,000 crystal coins per vehicle.

After finishing up all this work, he unintentionally glanced toward the distant Tomorrow and saw that everyone was hard at work on the repairs.

As he looked on, Li Ye suddenly had a thought.

“How about I let Old Zhou watch the shop, and go experience some repair work myself?”