Foreign Land Reclamation By a Vegetable-growing Skeleton
Chapter 1617 - 1178: That’s How I Solved It at the Time…

Chapter 1617: Chapter 1178: That’s How I Solved It at the Time...

Anthony put on his pinhole glasses and carefully observed. Sure enough, he saw radiant halos occasionally forming on Little Angel’s Light Wings. Although pinhole imaging glasses couldn’t directly detect Origin Power, they could observe the radiant glow triggered by Origin Power, confirming its existence.

Just like the shadow of an object, obviously there was Origin Power triggering this radiant glow. These radiant glows appeared so abruptly, as though Origin Power was condensing directly on Little Angel’s Light Wings.

Just as Anthony tried to take a clearer look, Ange floated behind Little Angel and gave her a tap on the head with his finger, saying, "Ow!"

Little Angel held her head and responded in confusion, "Ow!"

"Why are you hitting me?!" Negris translated.

"Ow?"

"What are you up to?" Negris translated.

"Ow!"

"The sun is warm." Negris translated.

"Ow?" She touched her head.

"Sunbathing? Fine, patting your head." Negris translated.

After several rounds of ’Ow’s, everyone finally understood what was happening: Little Angel was sunbathing. Since being in the Void, she had started feeling the warmth of sunlight. Initially, everyone thought it was normal and ignored her – sunlight is warm and bright after all, but too much sunlight in a Light Disaster could kill.

Unexpectedly, after basking in the sun for half a day, Little Angel had figured out how to collect the ’warmth’ from the sunshine, unintentionally causing quite a stir.

Of course, the "stir" was only in Ange’s opinion. For him, even a child getting soaked by rain was a big deal; others didn’t even notice anything.

Little Angel, who had been inexplicably thumped, was angry and flew over to punch Negris, then went back to continue collecting ’warmth.’

Covering his bruised eye socket, Negris shouted baffledly, "Why are you punching me? Punch him instead!"

A short commotion broke out, and then everyone dispersed. Ange returned to the fields, observed the crops, and reached a conclusion: "Forty percent reduction."

"Forty percent reduction? That much? Can the World Tree recover it?" Negris asked in astonishment.

Ange shook his head. "World Tree, exert effort, reduce forty percent. No effort, total failure. Life Force insufficient."

"Exerting effort results in a forty percent reduction; no effort results in total crop failure? Life Force is insufficient?" Negris translated.

Ange nodded in confirmation.

"Can’t we upgrade it? Transform the World Tree into the Void Tree?" Negris asked.

Ange instinctively covered the Little Sapling on his head, shaking his head.

"Oh come on, I’m not referring to the Little Sapling! Can’t you select one of the World Trees from below to upgrade? Why are you shielding the Little Sapling? Could it be that the Void Tree’s tasks still need the Tree of Ten Thousand Realms to handle them?" Negris asked suspiciously.

Although they were talking about upgrading a World Tree, Ange’s reflexive action of protecting the Little Sapling implied that such a thing might be harmful. He couldn’t bear to overwork the Little Sapling.

Negris wouldn’t want the Little Sapling to be exhausted either, but besides the Little Sapling, could no other World Tree take on this critical task?

Ange shook his head. "Too young."

Compared to the ten-thousand-year lifespan of a World Tree, all the ones currently within the Divine Light Alliance, including the one in the Friel Empire, had only been planted for less than five years. Still in their sapling stage, they hadn’t even developed consciousness, how could they evolve into Void Trees?

After much debate, no better solutions emerged. Anthony finally said, "Looks like we’ll have to prepare for the worst. If we can’t solve the Light Disaster, at least eighty percent of the Divine Light Alliance’s population will die."

"What? Eighty percent? Isn’t it just a forty percent reduction in yield? Why would eighty percent die?" Negris exclaimed in shock.

Anthony shook his head. "That calculation doesn’t work. A five percent reduction in food supply doesn’t mean only five percent of the population will starve to death. Everyone will scramble for the remaining ninety-five percent."

"But amidst panic, no one will only take enough for themselves. Instead, they’ll seize every resource they can possibly get. If the deficit reaches forty percent, the majority of people will get caught in this frenzied contest. It won’t stop until enough people die."

"In the process, societal order collapses. Secondary disasters become even deadlier than the food shortage itself. Before the food completely runs out, most people will already be dead. No one will farm anymore, and the food gap will be even bigger next year. Starving people will first eat the Minotaurs, then the Dwarves, Goblins, and Elves..."

Hearing Anthony’s grim explanation, everyone could vividly imagine the horrifying scenario and shivered in fear.

"So what do we do? You’ve dealt with situations like this before. What’s the plan now?" Negris asked, less panicked since they had experienced similar crises before, and Anthony had always managed to resolve them.

Anthony gave a bitter smile. "I don’t have any experience dealing with this kind of situation. Back in the Eastern Diocese, we didn’t even face a real food shortage. It was mainly landlords and nobles hoarding stockpiles. We raided their homes, and the food supply was sufficient. Even in the Western District, the hard deficit was less than five percent. A forty percent reduction now is far beyond anything past experiences can solve."

"What? Then what do we do?" Negris realized the gravity of the situation, realizing that the scale of food scarcity in the Master Plane couldn’t even compare to this crisis.

"What can we do? If worse comes to worst, we could preemptively transform a portion of the population into Undead, lessening the demand and letting Undead handle maintaining order," Anthony suggested.

"This proposal sounds just like Feilin! Killing them ourselves instead of letting them starve? The rate of successful Undead transformations is so low, what good would it do to mass-produce unintelligent Skeleton Zombies?" Negris retorted angrily.

Back during the food shortage in the Lich Underground City, Feilin decided on a similar plan. It sounded simple but was cruel in execution—actively killing part of the population. But who would be sacrificed? The elderly? Children? Men? Women? Elves? Dwarves, Goblins, Minotaurs?

The natural transformation rate into intelligent Undead was extremely low, so most of those sacrificed would likely just become Skeleton Zombies. What’s the point in that?

"What about during the Western District crisis? The five percent shortage—how did you handle it?" Negris asked.

Anthony awkwardly scratched his nose, hesitating for a while before admitting, "Back then, I solved it by saying, ’Lord, Help Me...’"

"Pfft, you useless Death God’s Staff! What good are you!" Negris laughed in frustration, yelling in his ear.

Just then, Ange tilted his head slightly, as though listening to something. After a moment, he tore open a space and pulled Lisa over.

"Hello, everyone," Lisa greeted. "I don’t know why the Lord dragged me over here. I was just about to report that the algae in the Sea of Omniscience has been growing like crazy for some reason, producing an enormous amount of algae rice we can’t keep up with harvesting. A lot of it has gotten wet and started rotting. You’d better come up with a solution."

Everyone’s spirits lifted. Anthony asked, "Crazy growth? When did this start?"

"It started yesterday, right after the sun got brighter," Lisa replied.