Survival of the Nation: My luck was a tiny bit worse.

Ou Yun had also thought of this. Since they had already decided to farm, didn't the forbidden area imply that the monster's corpse could be used for farming?

Since we're already here!

Ou Yun then asked, "Could we use part of the land to grow fast-growing crops and the other part to grow high-yield crops?"

"This involves specific planning."

Hassan picked up a twig from the ground and, by the light of the campfire, drew a simple diagram on the ground.

"This fertile land of yours is at the bottom and edge of the large pit. The bottom of the pit is low-lying, making it easy for water to accumulate, which is suitable for planting things that require more water."

"The area around the pit is high and has good drainage, making it suitable for growing drought-resistant plants."

"My suggestion is to plant short-growing-season plants, such as wild vegetables and root vegetables, at the bottom of the pit; and long-growing-season plants, such as grains, at the edge of the pit."

He paused, then added, "Of course, this is just a theoretical plan. What you actually plant will depend on what seeds you can find..."

"..."

The three people fell silent.

Yes, seeds.

Where the hell am I supposed to find this?!

Now even Ou Yun is starting to realize that farming is much more difficult than hunting.

however.

Leng Ruolan suddenly spoke up: "The seeds aren't that hard to get."

"Um?"

"Do you remember, some of the wild fruits that the lynxes brought us before had seeds?"

Leng Ruolan pondered for a moment and said.

"Also, don't our Pakistani brothers often gather wild fruits? The seeds from those wild fruits should be usable as seeds. And some of those wild vegetables have already produced seeds."

Hassan agreed, "You can grow seeds from wild plants, but you need to be selective. Wild plants aren't necessarily suitable for cultivation; you have to try it first."

Ou Yun slapped his thigh. "That makes things simpler. We'll figure out the seed problem. As for tools? Can we make our own hoes and such?"

"It can be done, but it requires iron."

"iron?"

"Yes, metal. Hoes and sickles made of stone will do, but they're too inefficient. It would be best to find iron ore and smelt it into iron."

He spoke lightly, but Hassan subconsciously frowned—the tools were probably the most difficult part.

After all, historically, the obvious difference between humans and animals might just be the use of tools... haha.

But Ou Yun and Chen Hao exchanged a glance.

Yes—they both thought of the Abyss Furnace, which they hadn't yet fully understood.

"Big brother..."

Chen Hao adjusted his glasses. "Shouldn't we take a look at the blueprints for that Abyss Forge?"

Ou Yun said, "That's right. Since we're going to farm, let's do both farming and smelting at the same time."

Leng Ruolan had also thought of this, but she also thought of something else: "Does anyone know where the iron ore is?"

"..."

The atmosphere was about to drop to freezing point once again.

Hassan suddenly laughed.

"We do have a lead on that. A while ago, when we were patrolling the mountains near our camp, we discovered an open-pit iron ore vein. But that area... is a bit troublesome."

"What's wrong?"

"A group of mutated pangolins live on that mountain."

Hassan let out a long sigh.

"I already said it's a mutation, so you can probably guess what's going on, right?"

"Those pangolins were several times larger than ordinary ones, and their scales were incredibly hard."

"Although they don't attack people unprovoked, they are very sensitive to anything that gets close to the ore vein. We had planned to mine there, but we didn't dare to do anything after seeing them."

Upon hearing this, Ou Yun jumped to his feet. "They even have iron ore?!"

Leng Ruolan was also excited, "It really is a forbidden area! There's nothing we can't imagine, only things it can't do!"

Chen Hao slapped his thigh and exclaimed, "Great! With the iron ore, we're in luck!"

— No one cares about the mutated pangolin.

Viewers in the Dragon Kingdom's live stream witnessed the entire event and joined in the吐槽 (tu cao, meaning to criticize or complain):

"AAA Forbidden Zone Sourcing King Boss Ou: Sourcing Plan Complete!"

"Forbidden Zone: Hey! You guys are here to buy more goods again!"

"Forbidden Zone: Mr. Ou, a new batch of iron ore recently arrived. When would be a convenient time for you to come and collect it?"

Pangolin: Don't come any closer!

*

The next morning, Hassan and Chen Hao had an in-depth exchange on the basics of farming.

"The land preparation process begins with deep tilling, which involves bringing up the soil from the bottom to allow the fertilizer to mix thoroughly with the soil..."

Chen Hao squatted on the ground, quickly taking notes in his notebook with a pen, and also drew a diagram next to it.

Leng Ruolan watched from the side and muttered, "Look how serious Brother Chen is, he's more focused than I was in my military theory class back in the day."

Ou Yun glanced at it and suddenly chuckled, "Oh my, they've even included hair transplantation in it."

"...That's vegetation."

"oh."

Nanbei was lying by the campfire, swishing its tail as it watched the two-legged creatures bustling around. Its ears twitched, as if it were plotting something mischievous.

The mung bean was quite busy—it was chasing a butterfly that had flown in from who-knows-where all over the camp.

He didn't catch the butterfly, but he did run into the wall twice.

Leng Ruolan scooped it up and gave it a good scrubbing. "It can't even run properly, how is it going to patrol the mountain by itself in the future?"

Green Bean meowed, seemingly unwilling to accept defeat, but ultimately succumbed to Cold Team's clutches.

*

Chen Hao spent an entire day carefully examining the large pit.

He first used a wooden stick to make simple measurement marks, dividing the bottom and sides of the pit into four areas according to the soil type.

Vegetables are grown in the lowest-lying areas at the bottom of the pit.

The area with the most sunlight and good drainage is suitable for growing grains.

For areas with less sunlight and drier soil—to be determined.

However, these are all theoretical plans; whether they will actually succeed depends on the situation after the plants are planted.

And their biggest problem right now is that they don't have enough seeds.

Ou Yun and Leng Ruolan did a good job of selecting from the offerings.

All the seeds collected fit into a small cloth bag.

It contained a few scattered seeds of varying sizes, some were the pits of wild fruits, and some were the seeds of wild vegetables. The largest was no bigger than a little fingernail.

"That's all there is; the area that can be planted is less than one-tenth of that in Zone 1."

Ou Yun looked at the few pitiful seeds, then at the large, planned plot of land.

"..."

What else is there to say?

"Alright, let's get the iron ore first and build the furnace, then go find the seeds."

Ou Yun paused, then added, "Since we're going to find pangolins, let's also see what else we can bring back from there. Food, supplies, crops—we need it all!"

Leng Ruolan laughed, "This isn't just a casual thing, it's robbery."

"How can something happening in a forbidden area be called looting? This is called resource integration."

"really."

"really."

*

The departure date is set for two days from now.

For the next two days, Chen Hao stayed at the camp to continue collecting seeds.

Ou Yun and Leng Ruolan were in charge of the preparations, mainly confirming the weapons, equipment and supplies.

The energy cannon they pulled from the golden supply crate last time was completely destroyed in the battle against the Abyss Bone Demon, but fortunately they still have a few rocket launchers that are usable.

Ou Yun looked puzzled. "How come there are still a few left? I thought they were all blown to pieces."

Leng Ruolan thought to herself, "If you don't know, how would I know? There are too many of these things; there might be some that have leaked."

However, just as he was about to leave, Ou Yun still took a golden thing with him.

Leng Ruolan teased him and asked him what it was.

Europe is absolutely certain it will come in handy.

Leng Ruolan decided not to ask any further, lest she be used as a flag to spread rumors.