Ice Age: I can control plant growth

Chapter 70 Mizhu and Wood Release, University Dormitory Technique! (First Order Request!)

"Everyone must be hungry after working for so long. Let's ask them to go back and eat first."

After laughing for a while, Li Mu shook his head slightly and continued to speak to Yu Shuaikang.

Yu Shuaikang called out to the people behind him, "Go home and have a good rest first."

After hearing Yu Shuaikang's words, the people who were still busy slowly put down their work, walked in groups of three or five, and chatted as they headed towards the crane.

After everyone else got back to the ground on the crane, Yu Shuaikang came to Li Mu, patted him on the shoulder and said,

"Let's go back too. I've already told Aunt Wang to use this giant potato to make a few dishes for us to try. Let's see if there are any other differences between this potato and ordinary potatoes besides its large size."

"Let's go. I also want to know what this giant potato tastes like."

Li Mu put his arm around Yu Shuaikang's shoulder and walked towards the elevator, just like they were going to the cafeteria together after school in high school.

After returning to the ground, Li Mu did not return to the City Lord's Mansion immediately, but placed his hands on the hanging tree, silently sensing its situation.

According to Yu Shuaikang, it had pulled the wooden box up and down dozens of times this afternoon, but it had been very stable and there had been no unexpected situations.

Slowly injecting source energy into the tree, Li Mu sensed its consciousness and then communicated with it using spiritual thoughts.

After some communication that ordinary people could not understand, Li Mu roughly understood its situation. What it meant was roughly:
Not tired at all, I could work all day long!

Despite this, Li Mu still poured all the remaining energy in his body into it.

You can't really treat people as mere tools. If you want the horse to run, you still have to feed it some grass!
After doing all this, Li Mu dragged his exhausted body into the cafeteria on the first floor.

At this time, Yu Shuaikang had already placed more than a dozen dishes on the dining table. When he saw Li Mu come in, he asked him to sit down quickly.

"This is spicy and sour potato shreds, this is mashed potatoes, this is potato stew with beef..."

Ah Sao introduced all the dozen dishes in one breath.

After hearing this, Li Mu exclaimed, "Wow! Every dish contains potatoes. It's a whole bean feast."

"An even bigger surprise is that I only used half a potato to make all these dozen dishes."

Asao looked at the dumbfounded Li Mu and continued.

"That's great. I guess people coming to the shelter will have to eat potatoes until they vomit from now on."

Li Mu could only shrug his shoulders upon hearing this. What else could he do? Time did not allow it. Otherwise, he would have to ripen some more wheat and rice.

"I'll ripen some more cabbage and other things later to give them a change of taste. Eat first and try these potatoes."

Li Mu first picked up the spicy and sour potato shreds in front of him and examined them. They were of moderate thickness and crystal clear color, as tempting as topaz.

Then, he slowly put the shredded potatoes into his mouth and took a bite. He immediately felt the chewy texture of the shredded potatoes, the moderate sour and spicy taste, and the wonderful taste.

"The quality of these potatoes is impeccable. Of course, Aunt Wang's cooking skills are even better."

"You can try it too."

After tasting it, Li Mu slowly said to Yu Shuaikang.

Upon hearing this, Yu Shuaikang also picked up a piece of food with chopsticks and started eating. He kept nodding as he chewed, obviously agreeing with Li Mu's evaluation.

Next, Li Mu tasted more than a dozen other dishes, all of which tasted very good. He couldn't help but sigh that potatoes are indeed a vegetable that can be paired with everything.

Although Aunt Wang’s cooking skills contributed to this, as the saying goes, “A good cook cannot cook without rice,” the quality of the potatoes is also very important.

After dinner, Li Mu came to the laboratory alone. He wanted to seize the time to practice, recover his energy as soon as possible, and then continue to excavate the second level of the dungeon.

Anyway, he doesn't need to sleep, so he can just practice instead. During this period of time, he will just be a tireless vegetative person and prepare everything as soon as possible. After all these are done, he can have a good rest.

Li Mu sat cross-legged, holding the trunk of the dragon blood tree in his hands, practicing breathing techniques to absorb the free energy between heaven and earth, while absorbing the energy converted by the dragon blood tree.

Time passed quickly, and five hours passed in the blink of an eye. The energy in Li Mu's body had been fully restored, and then he came to the entrance of the underground city tunnel. At this time, the tree man had closed his eyes and was sleeping.

The tree man does not need rest. When there is no task, it will transform its feet into tree roots again, digging deep into the soil, drawing nutrients and absorbing source energy, similar to how humans eat and sleep.

Li Mu tapped the tree man's body with his knuckles and injected another source of energy. He said gently, "Wake up, and send me down again."

The tree man slowly opened his eyes and conveyed a faint consciousness to Li Mu, "Go to the wooden box. I will take you down now."

The consciousness of a newborn tree man is still very weak, and it cannot convey consciousness coherently, but as time goes by, its intelligence will slowly increase, until it is no different from that of a human being.

Li Mu returned to the first floor of the underground city on the crane and went forward to check the potato harvest.

Half of the potatoes in an acre of land have been harvested. If we work hard for another day tomorrow, we should be able to finish harvesting them.

"After the harvest tomorrow, let Ah Sao weigh how many potatoes this acre of land has produced."

After checking the situation, Li Mu touched his chin and talked to himself.

Then continue through the second tunnel and arrive at the second floor of the dungeon.

During the day today, he had already dug out half of the planned space, but now there was no one to help him transport the soil, so he did not plan to continue digging the remaining half. Instead, he planned to plan this space well and dig a few more exits leading to the first floor.

The ground of this half of the space that was dug out is not flat enough and looks bumpy. The top floor is simply supported by a banyan tree and looks very simple.

So the first thing he did was to grow a sturdy hemlock tree, and then cut off the thickest section in the middle, which was about five meters long and three meters thick. After some simple trimming, it became something like the big barrel in front of a steamroller.

Then use vines to pull the large cylinder back and forth on the ground to make the soil firm and flat.

After the ground was cleared, he began to dig another exit.

However, this time it is not a circular tunnel with a diameter of six meters, but a rectangular cuboid with a side length of two meters.

First dig out this rectangular tunnel, then use vines to reinforce the tunnel frame, and then make a wooden ladder, and an exit is completed.

Li Mu built such an exit every twenty meters, for a total of three.

After completing these two tasks, two hours had passed. I looked at my watch and it was already two o'clock in the morning.

Li Mu wiped the tiny beads of sweat from his forehead and looked at his results with satisfaction. Although he had been working continuously for a long time, he did not feel tired. Instead, he had a sense of fulfillment and satisfaction.

Working hard for a better tomorrow and working just to survive are two completely different feelings.

Although it was late at night, Li Mu was not sleepy at all. After returning from the underground city, he went straight back to the laboratory and began to carefully select a plant suitable for use as a transportation pipeline.

After some careful consideration, his eyes finally stopped on the bamboo.

As we all know, pine, bamboo and plum are known as the "Three Friends of Winter", while plum, orchid, bamboo and chrysanthemum are known as the Four Gentlemen.

Bamboo has its place in both of these noble titles.

There are two main reasons why Li Mu chose bamboo as a transportation pipeline:
First of all, the inside of bamboo is hollow, and you only need to break through the bamboo knots to get a high-quality water pipe.

Secondly, there are many types of bamboo, including slender and short varieties such as arrow bamboo and Guanyin bamboo, as well as thick and tall varieties such as water bamboo, giant dragon bamboo, and nan bamboo.

In this way, as long as Li Mu makes simple modifications to these bamboos, different varieties of bamboo can be used in different places.

Small bamboos can be used to make water pipes in the room after being broken through, while thick bamboos can be used to build sewers in underground cities.

After thinking about it, Li Mu immediately found bamboo whips from dozens of bamboo species and started his experiment.

At eight o'clock in the morning, the dawn breaks.

Li Mu stood up from his chair and stretched slowly, instantly causing a crackling sound.

After a whole night of experiments, Li Mu finally produced more than a dozen types of bamboo that met his requirements.

These bamboos all have one thing in common: no knots.

Bamboo knots are evolved from bamboo in order to resist the external environment. With bamboo knots, the hollow bamboo will be tougher and able to withstand strong winds and rainstorms.

But Li Mu used bamboo as water pipes, so naturally he no longer needed bamboo knots.

During this transformation, Li Mu also discovered another use for bamboo.

Bamboo generally reproduces through bamboo rhizomes, but it also has fruits.

The fruit of bamboo is called "bamboo rice". There is an old saying: The phoenix will not roost except on the paulownia tree, will not drink except from the sweet spring, and will not eat except from the lotus.

The bamboo rice is used to practice the index finger.

Not all bamboos will produce bamboo rice. Even if they do, the time it takes for different species of bamboo to produce bamboo rice is different, and the shortest time is at least ten years.

Ordinary people may never see bamboo bloom and bear fruit in their entire lives, but Li Mu is different. He can change the growth trend of bamboo with his mind.

Last night, he had a sudden idea and combined nanmu bamboo and rice to create a special kind of bamboo that can grow rice in hollow nodes, and the yield is very considerable.

Li Mu called this kind of bamboo "rice bamboo" and the fruit it produced was called "nanmi".

According to his speculation, one rice bamboo can produce about 30 kilograms of nan rice, and the taste of nan rice is very good, with a faint bamboo fragrance, a bit like the bamboo tube rice he had eaten before.

The vitality of rice bamboo is also very tenacious. As long as it absorbs a small amount of source energy, it can survive in an extremely low temperature environment and successfully bear fruit. It is very suitable for planting in the Ice Age.

Of course, bamboo also has several disadvantages. The first is that it is too tall and requires an open space. The second is that it needs to absorb a lot of water and nutrients. The third is that the material is strong and it is not easy to cut down and harvest.

After enjoying breakfast, Li Mu returned to the underground city.

After arriving at the first floor, he found that Ah Sao was leading people to harvest the remaining giant potatoes.

He walked quickly forward, found Ah Sao, and told him to weigh the potatoes uniformly after harvesting them so that he could know the yield per acre.

After that, he went to the second floor and started digging.

Seven hours later, Li Mu finally dug out all the planned space.

This is a square with a side length of 120 meters, 20 meters longer than expected.

The reason why Li Mu added the extra 20 meters was because of the following three considerations:
First, a ten-centimeter-thick wooden wall should be added to separate the rooms, and there should also be a terrace more than one meter wide in the room to allow the guests to store things or cook their own meals.

Second, there should be a wide enough aisle in the middle of the rooms on both sides to facilitate people's travel, and a small stall or something can be set up in the middle.

Third, two public toilets should be built at both ends, one for men and one for women. Although the dormitory is mixed with men and women, the toilets should still be separated.

At this time, Li Mu's source energy was exhausted again, so he went back to the ground to eat, practice meditation, and restore his source energy.

When his source energy was fully restored, it was already ten o'clock in the evening.

The sky is covered with bright stars, and each star is shining with charming light, just like countless elves dancing in the night sky, full of endless poetry and mystery.

Li Mu stood at the window and leaned over to look at the entire Wanling City. Most of the tree houses in the city had gone dark, and it was obvious that many people had already started to rest.

Looking up again, I saw that the Baobab Tavern on the Sky Gardens was still brightly lit, and from time to time I could hear someone shouting something.

"It seems that no matter where you are, pubs are the representatives of nightlife!"

Li Mu sighed, then went downstairs to the second underground floor.

Tonight, he will complete the key part of this dormitory.

At this time, Li Mu was the only one on the second underground floor. Recalling his design, he excitedly pressed his hands on the ground and finally shouted out the slogan he had always wanted to shout:
"Wood Release, University Dormitory Technique!"

As these words echoed throughout the underground space, his hands began to glow with a rich green light.

In an instant, dozens of vines appeared from the air!

Some of these vines, as thick as forearms, crawled on the ground, while others kept winding in the air, and finally entangled with each other under Li Mu's control.

After all, this was Li Mu’s first time making something like this, so his speed was relatively slow. It took him three minutes to slowly form a peculiar structure with a bed on top and a table on the bottom.

After making such a combination bed, Li Mu sensed the source energy he consumed, which was about 0.2%.

This means that if Li Mu has sufficient energy, he can build at least 500 such combination beds at a time, and 2,000 combination beds can be completed in just two times.

Thinking of this, Li Mu continued to make combination beds. After making eight frames, he separated them with a wooden wall and continued to make them. As he made more and more, he became more and more familiar with this structure.

From the beginning, one flight every three minutes, it gradually became one flight every two minutes, and then one flight every one minute.
It only took him thirty seconds to make the 380th one!
He also felt that this was the limit of his production speed. Unless he made a breakthrough in strength, the shortest time would be thirty seconds per plane.

On the first day of the release, I updated 10,000 words, which is less than many authors and also relatively late. I am very sorry, but I will continue to work hard to increase the speed and release it earlier.

The chapters that I owe to you will be completed as soon as possible. Thank you for your support.

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(End of this chapter)