Chapter 68 - 67: Gathering Some Cow Dung Along the Way

With the price settled, Sev didn’t hesitate anymore; she cleanly opened the trading platform and placed her order. Skinny directly marked the order with "Complimentary 1 Liter." With this confirmed, neither side could arbitrarily back out; otherwise, the platform would intervene and forcibly deduct the funds. After finalizing this new transaction, Skinny unloaded four bottles of fresh milk from his electric wheelchair and prepared to take his leave.

Sev spoke up again. "Mr. Forrester, how many mutant cows are you raising?"

"Just one. I really can’t afford to keep any more! To tell you the truth, mutant cows eat a massive amount, and the sales volume is highly unstable.

"The surplus milk can only be made into cheese curds, which have a bit of a musty smell. Most people in The Gilded Ward don’t like eating them, so I can only sell them as dry rations to mercenaries going out on missions.

"Sigh! If you calculate it, there really isn’t much profit to be made.

"But I have both the elderly and the young to support at home. I don’t dare venture into the wilderness either; if something were to happen to me, they wouldn’t be able to survive," Skinny said, taking the opportunity to play the sympathy card.

"I heard that dried cow dung can be used as firewood. Could you give me some?" Sev asked.

Although Skinny played up his hardships, he wasn’t genuinely destitute. He had a house in The Gilded Ward and could be considered quite comfortably off. Cow dung was truly worthless to him, and he had no patience to dry it out himself. He usually just left it for the neighborhood cleaners to handle as they saw fit. As far as he knew, after the cleaners collected the dung, they would store it until winter. During the coldest months, they would sell it cheaply to Scavengers in The Slums who didn’t have enough firewood reserves for heating.

Since this big client wanted to take such a minor advantage, he naturally wouldn’t be stingy about it. "Miss Steele, since you want it, I’ll deliver some to you every three days from now on," Skinny said generously.

"Really? Thank you so much!" Sev thanked him sincerely.

She didn’t want the cow dung to burn as firewood. She wanted to make her own manure to provide nutrients for the plants they would grow in the future. In the original owner’s memories, the civilizational progress of Planet Veridia had reached the stage of replacing manure with chemical fertilizers centuries ago. The very concept of manure as a fertilizer had long vanished from people’s minds. Even after the nuclear war had plunged them into the Wasteland Era, no one ever thought of using manure. This was because the only people currently engaged in agriculture were a few Wood Ability Users and the old experts at the Agricultural Research Institute.

But chemical fertilizers were bound to be incredibly expensive in this era. Now that she had access to free organic fertilizer, she would be a fool not to use it! Now she had the wooden planter boxes, the soil, and the manure. All that was missing were the seeds. Where could she find seeds? Naturally, she would have to go out scavenging again; the forest was sure to have everything she needed!

Once she patched up all the holes in the walls today and got some proper rest, she would head out scavenging again tomorrow!

Patching the holes would require physical exertion, so Sev decided to fill her stomach first.

Seeing the milk bottles their mother was holding, Rusty and Firestone immediately ran over to help. When Rose saw the milk, she thought of the delicious egg custard and fresh cheese her mother made, and her mouth watered unconsciously. However, she quickly remembered that her mother needed Coco Holden to make both of those delicacies.

So what was she waiting for? She had to hurry up and stimulate their growth!

Sev took out the remaining two mutant bird eggs, wiped clean the S Level Alloy dagger Doctor Jenkins had given her, and thrust it fiercely into the eggshell. With a crisp CRACK, the eggshell split into two, the break perfectly smooth and even. The expected scene of egg yolk spilling everywhere didn’t happen; instead, a thin layer of ice had formed over it.

"Wow! This dagger is incredible!" Sev marveled.

Suddenly, an idea popped into her head. With the dagger’s inherent Ice Attribute, it could totally be used to make icy drinks in the summer! Unfortunately, this treasure belonged to Doctor Jenkins and had to be returned as soon as possible. During her time on Azure, Sev had seen plenty of wealthy and powerful people in movies and TV shows. She only ever admired other people’s treasures but never coveted them.

After letting out a sigh, she poured all four bottles of milk into the egg liquid and began to stir vigorously. As she stirred, she missed Rick Kaye’s Ability. That Thunder Blade was seriously too convenient!

After stirring for about five minutes, Sev suddenly caught a whiff of a familiar fruity aroma. Turning around, she saw the little girl holding two bright, yellow lemon fruits in the palms of her hands. Sev’s first reaction was to check her complexion, only to see the child’s plump face looking pink and healthy, showing no signs of weakness from overdrawing her Ability.

"Rose, didn’t you feel uncomfortable stimulating the lemon fruits this time?" she asked with concern.

"Mom, I only grew ten of them this time, so I don’t feel uncomfortable," the little girl said, holding up her ten soft, pale fingers and wiggling them at her.

"You can actually... control the number of fruits now?" Sev asked in shock.

"Mhm! I talked it over with Coco Holden. I told it I didn’t have that much green light, so I asked it to produce fewer fruits.

"It agreed and said that producing half the fruits would only require half the green light," Rose explained.

"Hmph! Curly is still mad at me.

"It said I shouldn’t have given Coco Holden so much green light, claiming that it didn’t even use all the green light on the fruits and secretly hoarded some for itself.

"But I’m not mad. If it wants to hoard some, let it hoard some; as long as it gives me fruits, that’s enough," she added.

Sev was so thrilled she could hardly keep from jumping for joy. With her daughter’s skill level, what kind of seeds couldn’t they cultivate?

After adding the fresh lemon fruit juice, she mixed in the newly purchased powdered sugar. This time, she was going to make sweet egg custard. Compared to savory flavors, she much preferred sweet ones. Of course, she couldn’t add too much powdered sugar, or the taste would become cloying. Besides, powdered sugar was incredibly expensive here, so she couldn’t bear to use too much.

Growing up with her grandfather in the countryside, Sev hadn’t lived a particularly hard life, but she had still developed a good habit of frugality. At the same time, she possessed the open-minded generosity of a hunter; when it was time to spend, she absolutely wouldn’t hesitate.

The egg custard was soon ready. Sev sent Rusty to deliver a bowl to Hayden Hanson and casually sent a message to Doctor Jenkins.

Hayden ended up having Rusty bring back his share of the ant eggs. His excuse was that his cooking tasted terrible, so he asked Sev to help roast them when she had time, promising to come over and eat them then. It sounded like they were sharing, but Sev had a family of five, while Hayden was just one person. It was essentially a disguised way of giving his ingredients to Sev.

Since they were now neighbors and comrades who could fight side by side, Sev didn’t want to nitpick too much over it. At worst, she could just give him something he needed in the future to return the favor, ensuring a mutual give-and-take.

Doctor Jenkins found the house number Sev had given him and directly swiped his card to enter the courtyard. The moment he stepped into the yard, a sweet and fragrant aroma hit him. He couldn’t help but sniff the air.

"Mm! There’s sugar, milk, and eggs... Hmph! This woman really knows how to enjoy life."

He pushed the door open without any hesitation and saw the mother and her four children gathered around the round table, eating with great relish. Rose was still holding Silvy in her arms. As she scooped up egg custard with a spoon to feed herself, she didn’t forget to feed Silvy a spoonful as well. One person and one bamboo rat pup sharing the same set of tableware actually looked surprisingly harmonious.