Chapter 143 - 141: It’s Hard to Build a Greenhouse!

Sev Steele took inventory of her harvest for the day. Although survival supplies were scarce—only a few mutated carrots and wild vegetables—a Second Tier Wood Element Crystal Core was an incredibly rare find.

She brought it to Rick Kaye with a hint of showing off. "Mr. Quinn, how many points do you think this is worth?"

"A Wood Element Crystal Core with bloodlines? And it’s Second Tier. How did you get this?" Rick Kaye asked in surprise.

"I took out its owner with pure skill and grabbed it, of course.

"You have no idea. Rusty and I barely escaped with our lives for this thing. The whole process was absolutely thrilling!" Sev Steele gave a vivid and dramatic account of their brave battle against the Bloodthorn Vine.

"You two were incredibly lucky! Do you know that once you’re caught in a Bloodthorn Vine’s Entanglement, even a Second Tier Ability User could be sucked dry?

"If your Rusty didn’t have a Gold Ability that just so happens to counter a Mutated plant’s Wood attribute, he wouldn’t have stood a chance of breaking free from the Bloodthorn Vine’s Entanglements.

"And you were even luckier to have an S Level Dagger on you, along with that newly acquired Pocket Crossbow.

"If you hadn’t decisively attacked its main root system, joining forces as mother and son to injure its roots and dig out its Crystal Core, it would have controlled the surrounding branches. It would have relentlessly besieged you until you were completely exhausted and crushed to death by its Entanglements."

Rick Kaye couldn’t help but sweat for the mother and son as he analyzed the fight!

A First Tier rookie who had just awakened an Ability, plus an ordinary person with no hunting experience, managed to retreat unscathed from a Bloodthorn Vine’s ambush and even killed it in return. They were truly blessed by The Master of luck.

However, what Rick Kaye didn’t know was that although Sev Steele was young, she was a highly experienced veteran hunter.

"But the risk you took was well worth it.

"A Wood Element Crystal Core with bloodlines might seem impure, but those bloodlines are actually condensed from the high-quality essence blood of a Mutant Beast, nourished by its Crystal Core and absorbed by the Bloodthorn Vine.

"Absorbing this kind of blood-lined Crystal Core carries a high probability of inheriting that Mutant Beast’s Ability attribute and awakening a second Ability.

"If it happens to share the same attribute as the absorber, it can enhance their own Ability’s strength or even allow them to directly inherit a certain Skill from that Mutant Beast."

As Rick Kaye spoke, he couldn’t help but feel happy for his young apprentice.

A treasure like this was nearly impossible to buy even with money, yet Sev Steele, her adoptive mother, had acquired it by pure chance.

Although his young apprentice was innocent and kind-hearted, her luck was remarkably good. As long as she was well protected, her future achievements would undoubtedly be extraordinary.

Sev Steele almost jumped for joy upon hearing Rick Kaye’s explanation. "It’s that powerful? Then I definitely need to keep it safe and let my Rose absorb it later."

She had been worrying that her little girl was too innocent and that her Wood Ability lacked offensive power. If Rose could awaken a second attribute or inherit a Skill, she would gain an extra layer of self-preservation.

"Oh, right, I wanted to ask you to take a look at this too." Sev Steele brought over the eucalyptus branch covered in "toxic tumors" to show him. "Your scanner said this kind of bug can be used to make poison. Do you know its price?"

Rick Kaye’s expression changed the moment he saw the tumors. "You didn’t touch what’s inside, did you?"

"No, my Rusty..." Sev Steele described the situation from earlier.

Rick Kaye’s expression relaxed after hearing this. "My cousin and I were both born in a mining camp.

"Before we were six, we lived in that mining area. While my parents, uncle, and aunt went down the shaft every day to dig for ore, my cousin and I would forage for wild vegetables in the nearby woods.

"One day, we spotted a bird’s nest in a tree, and my cousin climbed up to grab the eggs.

"But the mother bird returned halfway through and chased after him, pecking at him. In his panic, he jumped to an adjacent tree.

"That was when he saw a branch covered in colorful, bulging tumors. Out of curiosity, he snapped one off.

"The larva inside sprayed venom directly into his eyes, blinding him instantly.

"He lost his footing, fell from the tree, and broke his neck on the spot."

Afterward, his uncle rushed over from the mine upon hearing the news. He chopped off the branch and smashed all the tumors to a pulp with a hammer.

Unfortunately, it was too late. His cousin had died a premature death, but Rick Kaye firmly etched the image of those colorful, bulging branches into his memory.

Not long after that, a massive mining disaster occurred. His uncle, aunt, and parents all perished in the accident. He became an orphan and had to endure countless hardships just to grow up.

So, in a way, his cousin’s early death might have actually been a stroke of luck.

Hearing of his past trauma, Sev Steele felt a lingering fear of the toxic bugs. She hesitated for three seconds between finding a place to bury the bugs or selling them for money, but decisively chose the latter.

Unfortunately, Rick Kaye didn’t know the price of these bugs, so she still had to seek out Doctor Jenkins for an appraisal.

After sending the message, Doctor Jenkins replied quite quickly, stating that this item wasn’t on District Nine’s acquisition list.

That meant she would have to find a Pharmacist who specialized in making poison and negotiate a price with them herself.

Finding the whole ordeal troublesome, Sev Steele simply peeled off a piece of bark, placed it on top of the woodshed, and had Rusty slice open all the "toxic tumors" to lay them out to dry on the bark. She decided to grind them into powder once they were dry and wait for an opportunity to sell them.

Taking inventory of the entire day’s harvest, she realized that aside from five carrots and a few wild vegetables, there was absolutely nothing else to eat.

Thinking back to the mountain of firewood and wild vegetables Silas Lynn had delivered the day before yesterday, she couldn’t help but sigh. An Ability user was truly formidable!

His single day’s harvest was more than what she could painstakingly gather in a whole week!

Rose clearly sensed her mother’s displeasure. She ran over, grabbed her hand, and said, "Mom, I used my Ability to grow the wild vegetables Mr. Angel gave us a bit larger. You won’t have to go out into the wild to harvest vegetables anymore, and our family won’t be short on food."

"Silly girl, you’re celebrating too early. Winter is approaching soon, and by then, all the vegetables planted in the yard will freeze to death," Sev Steele said with a bitter smile.

"Huh? Can’t we build a house for them too? As long as they live inside a house, won’t they survive the cold?" Rose asked.

Sev Steele was instantly enlightened by her words!

If they could build a greenhouse and combine it with Rose’s Wood Ability, they might actually be able to eat fresh vegetables in the winter.

But building a greenhouse was no easy task.

After the nuclear war, almost all chemical plants had been destroyed. Oil wells had been left unattended; either the extraction facilities fell into disrepair and became useless, or they blew out directly, causing severe crude oil leaks that would catch fire from occasional lightning strikes and burn entirely to the ground.

The chemical industry had suffered a devastating blow. The only chemical plants that existed now had been built with Herculean effort after the war.

As a result, the prices of plastic and glass products had skyrocketed, and special thermostatic materials were even more expensive. For instance, the few sets of clothes she had bought for herself and the children had cost her nearly 110,000 points.

Building a vegetable greenhouse would likely cost hundreds of thousands, if not over a million points.

However, she now had a Gold Ability User in the family. She could buy some scrap metal and have him process it into the greenhouse frame.

The four walls of the greenhouse could be built using metal layers combined with adobe. That left only the roof, which required the purchase of translucent and insulating materials.

She wondered if The Wasteland had polycarbonate panels like the ones on Azure—translucent, thermally insulating, lightweight, and impact-resistant?

Naturally, the original owner of her body had no memory of such things. She had seen something similar at Painter Sawyer House before, but she had been so focused on looking at the Flora and plants in the yard that she hadn’t paid much attention to what material the translucent canopy was made of.

With this in mind, she immediately sent a message to Artie Sawyer to ask.

After sending the message, she waited for about half an hour before receiving a reply.

"Sorry about that. I was underground just now, and the signal was temporarily blocked. I just got your message.

"The roof of my greenhouse is made of thermostatic resin, which my Silas Lynn bought at the Fourth Security Zone’s black market.

"This kind of material isn’t always available; it depends on luck. Next time we pass by there, we’ll definitely keep an eye out for you."

Sev Steele felt so discouraged by this message that she instantly dropped the idea.

As expected, a vegetable greenhouse wasn’t that easy to build. Otherwise, the Scavengers in District Nine definitely wouldn’t be willing to risk their lives venturing outside anymore.