Chapter 35

When Keith spent two weeks at the Ant Hill Rift, he pooled every gold coin monsters dropped into withdrawing the experience his Grimoire collected. But now that his goal wasn’t to level up, he was making so much gold no one else at his level could compare.

After all, unlike other adventurers, Keith relied on the Mana Reactor for Mana. That meant he didn’t need to spend his earnings on Mana arrays at home or purchasing Mana recovery equipment. This advantage allowed Keith to make 100,000 gold in a single day, a shocking number. That income was usually only seen by level 400+ adventurers.

Keith returned home by nightfall in a good mood. Not only did he make a killing, one of his watermelons successfully mutated, increasing its grade to Epic.

[Epic] Watermelon Seed

Growth time: 1 hour

Harvest quantity: 3 Watermelons, 1 Watermelon seed

Mutation chance: 0.01%

Failure chance: 0%

Having a way to increase an item’s grade consistently was excellent news. Keith immediately knew this feature was the key to success, so he decided to change his plans. Farming watermelons would be a waste of his farm’s potential. Plus, professional farmers had already saturated the market with watermelons and other foods at every grade.

Keith needed to raise his standards.

There were all sorts of herbs and trees in high demand with little supply. For example, icorelia was a key herb used in an extraordinary potion that permanently boosted the drinker’s ice resistance. Not only did icorelia need to be grown in an inhumanely cold environment, it also needed the blood of level 400+ ice element monsters. However, all Keith needed to do was plant it on his farm, and the Grimoire would do the rest.

That thought excited Keith so much he spent an entire day researching what to grow without doing anything else. After gaining some understanding of the market, he decided on his first target: bramblethorn.

Bramblethorn was an ingredient for a potion that permanently increased its consumer’s Health. Since everyone wanted more Health, it was always in high demand. Someone would purchase them whenever they appeared on the market, making them a safe investment.

Keith quickly opened up the auction house module on his magic tablet to surprisingly find not a single bramblethorn seed for sale. He was stumped. Keith didn’t have any connections with distributors, so how was he to get it? Apparently, he needed to rely on his Aunt again. Just as Keith was about to make the call, he remembered Adeiv Strande mentioning he was well connected.

Keith thought for a moment before deciding to call Adeiv first. He would rather rely on a connection he forged than to have his Aunt use her authority in the military to get what he needed.

“Hello, Mr. K,” Adeiv’s voice came from the tablet a few moments later.

Keith didn’t beat around the bush and said, “I was wondering if you could get me some bramblethorn seeds and potentially other seeds if I needed them.”

“I see,” Adeiv paused. Normally, he would’ve declined acting as a middleman if the profits weren’t high enough, but Adeiv was now Keith’s liaison with Umbra. Profits were no longer the main concern. “Sure, I can do that for you. How many do you need?”

“Um, about 25.”

“Got it. Give me a few minutes.” Adeiv promptly hung up after stating his intentions. Just like he promised, a few minutes later, Adeiv called back and said, “I have someone willing to sell them at 20,000 gold a seed. Although I don’t know the market, the person is trustworthy.”

“Oh…” Keith held back from shouting in surprise at the exorbitant price. 25 seeds were 500,000 gold? He didn’t expect them to be so expensive. Sighing, Keith said, “I need a few days before I can gather the funds.”

Adeiv took this chance to get closer to Keith. “How about this? You can give me your next two payments from our contract, and I’ll cover the cost for the seeds.”

“Really? Thank you!” Keith felt grateful.

“No problem.” Adeiv grabbed a pencil and paper. “Where should I forward the seeds?”

Keith hesitated for a moment before telling Adeiv his address. It wasn’t possible to have the items teleported to Keith’s warehouse because an array technician needed to manually add any new connections to the teleportation array. Anyway, Adeiv wasn’t a stranger anymore.

“It’ll arrive by tomorrow. Is that all?” Adeiv asked.

After Keith said, ‘I think so,’ Adeiv promptly hung up, surprisingly Keith a little. Shaking his head, Keith sent Adeiv a sentence saying thanks before calling it a day.

The next morning, soon after Keith finished working out, someone knocked on the front door. Being the closest, Ridger opened the door and found a deliveryman wearing some company’s uniform. “Hello, I have a package here for Mr. K.”

“Mr. K? Oh. One second, I’ll fetch him.” Ridger left and returned with Keith soon after.

When Keith heard the package had arrived, he quickly rushed over and greeted the delivery man, “Hi, I’m Mr. K.”

The deliveryman was surprised and wondered why someone Keith’s age would purchase such expensive seeds. He could only chalk it up to rich people doing rich people things. Clearing his throat, the deliveryman withdrew a small metal box no larger than a palm and handed it over.

“Thank you!” Keith excitedly took the container and shut the door when the delivery man turned to leave. Rushing back to his room, Keith opened the box and found a hand-written note on top of a bag containing 25 pointed seeds. The note read, ‘If you’re selling, I’ll buy any bramblethorn you grow at market price.’ Below the message was the contact information of a Mr. Ivory. How convenient.

Placing the note aside, Keith opened the bag and held a bramblethorn seed in his hand. The thing was no bigger than his fingernail. It was a wonder how something so small could be so expensive.

“Let’s see your stats.” Keith’s eyes gleamed as he stored the seeds in his Grimoire before transferring them to the farming minigame.

[Rare] Bramblethorn Seed

Growth time: 2 weeks

Harvest quantity: 1 Bramblethorn, 1 Bramblethorn seed

Mutation chance: 0%

Failure chance: 95%

Keith’s expression warped as if he had just stepped on poop. From the looks of it, he set his standards too high. Bramblethorn was so high level that it took two weeks to grow with only a 5% success rate. There wasn’t even a mutation chance.

Sighing, Keith figured he needed to raise the quality of his farm before planting the seeds. Otherwise, he’d just be throwing money away. What kind of minigame needed so much gold? Fine. Keith reluctantly accepted the situation. It was time to kill monsters again.

And so, over the following days, Keith’s schedule consisted of working out in the morning before hunting monsters all day. He invested all the gold he earned into raising the quality of his farm’s dirt, water, compost, and sunlight. Each increase in level lowered the bramblethorn seed’s growth time and failure rate, renewing Keith’s determination and creating a positive feedback loop.

Eventually, after two weeks of hard work, Keith finally found it acceptable to plant the seeds.

[Rare] Bramblethorn Seed

Growth time: 3 days

Harvest quantity: 2 Bramblethorn, 1 Bramblethorn seed

Mutation chance: 0.1%

Failure chance: 40%

Ideally, he wanted to bring the failure chance down a bit more, but the time to meet his Dad and Grandmother had arrived. Besides moving in with them, he had no idea what they had in mind for him.

To be honest, Keith was more than nervous. According to his Mom and Aunt, Yara was the de facto ruler of over a billion people and one of the most powerful figures in the world. The only consolation was that his Mom, Uncle Ridger, Uncle Doven, Annallee, and Elora would be coming with him.