The Fiery Era: Starting from Longxugou

After inspecting the planting area, Zhao Shi'an saw that most of the plants were edible, while some were already old, such as the cucumbers, which had turned from green to yellow and could be directly harvested for seeds.

Today is April 1st, Thursday. From last Tuesday night to noon today, nearly ten days have passed. At ten times the spatial flow rate, about 97 and a half days have passed in the space.

Last week, I took some vegetable seeds from home. Apart from sweet potatoes, potatoes, and sesame seeds, which have a longer growth cycle, I was able to save seeds for mung beans, bok choy, radishes, cucumbers, pumpkins, and zucchini.

I bought the black ribbed watermelon seeds on Sunday. They were planted less than four days ago, and the vines have only recently started to flower and are currently in the pollination stage.

Seeing this, Zhao Shi'an directly created a small wind to complete the pollination.

Seeing that pollination was completed so quickly, Zhao Shi'an was very proud. He picked up the washed melon and took a bite, and juice splashed everywhere.

"It's alright. Although the older varieties aren't as sweet as modern melons, they're fresh and juicy!"

Zhao Shi'an muttered a few words and was about to head to the planting area for space breeding.

He suddenly realized that the taste was exactly the same as the melon taste in the original owner's memory.

"That's not right! With such an amazing space, how come the melons grown there don't taste much different? Doesn't it even have any space-related benefits?"

After comparing the melons with those in the original owner's memory, Zhao Shi'an thought he had made a mistake. He took two more bites and savored them carefully, only to find that they were still the same. He complained a few times, but not believing it, he picked a few more melons, washed them in the river, and tasted them. After tasting them, he found that they all tasted the same!

"Hey! I don't believe it."

Zhao Shi'an muttered to himself, and with a thought, he floated to the spring water breeding area. After landing, he used his mind to pick a few melons, washed them, and tasted them.

Perhaps it was a psychological effect, but he found that melons grown with spring water tasted slightly better than those grown directly from seeds, though the difference was not significant.

If he hadn't known that the crop seeds in this area were all bred with spring water and planted, he wouldn't have been able to tell the difference when eating them.

Thinking of this, Zhao Shi'an immediately mixed the melon he had just eaten with the melons cultivated with spring water. Without using his mind, he randomly picked up a few melons and tasted them, only to find that there was no obvious difference.

Zhao Shi'an was very disappointed with this result.

Having just experienced the grand spectacle of "flying through the air and summoning wind and rain," and comparing it to the taste of the melon, it's clear that without the spatial enhancement, this so-called spatial spring water isn't as powerful as imagined.

How can we even cultivate this?

He had originally thought that since drinking the spring water in the space could strengthen the body and improve health over a long period of time, it should be invincible for cultivating crops. However, when faced with the reality and the huge gap between reality and expectations, he found it hard to accept for a while.

He had read many novels, including quite a few with a spatial dimension. When he learned that he also had a spatial dimension, especially when he found out that his spatial dimension covered tens of thousands of acres, he was overjoyed. Without exaggeration, his spatial dimension could easily surpass that of most novel protagonists.

Upon entering this space today, he discovered that he could actually "summon wind and rain," comparable to a god, and he once thought he was the protagonist.

Unexpectedly, the crops I grew were so ordinary, just like the ones grown in his family's vegetable garden.

Faced with such a huge gap, even Zhao Shi'an, a time traveler, was somewhat overwhelmed.

Looking at the various space-bred crops growing vigorously, he picked a few tender cucumbers and tomatoes, tasted them, and the result was the same!

Disheartened by the result, he plopped down on the ground and stared blankly at the thriving fruits and vegetables in front of him.

"Perhaps it's not that it has no effect, but rather that the effect isn't strong enough for people to perceive?"

Having recovered from the huge shock, Zhao Shi'an muttered something to himself, and then his eyes lit up.

The more I think about it, the more likely it seems.

After all, breeding work is extremely time-consuming, requiring researchers to study it day after day for several years or even more than a decade, and there is no guarantee of success.

He had only just finished planting his first batch of crops, yet he wanted to rival the fruits of others' years of hard work; no matter how you looked at it, that seemed far too greedy.

His earlier loss of composure was more like the result of seeing the "magic" he had been given, which raised his expectations for the first generation of space crops and the first generation of spring water-bred crops. This led to his breaking down when he discovered that the taste had not improved significantly.

In a sense, this is not necessarily a bad thing. At least during difficult times, he can openly take out the things in the space to eat.

As for breeding, with ten times the space flow rate, what more could you ask for?

From a scientific point of view, if a variety can be tasted with a noticeable difference in texture, its quality needs to be improved by at least 10% for the difference to be perceptible.

In this way, although the first batch of crops he planted in the space and the crops bred with the space spring water tasted almost the same, considering the margin of error, the quality of the melons planted directly might only have improved by 2% and the quality of the melons bred in the space might have improved by 5%. However, since the improvement was less than 10%, it would be too arbitrary to conclude that there was no effect if the difference could not be tasted.

These subtle differences can only be detected using specialized instruments.

Thinking of this result, Zhao Shi'an's eyes grew brighter and brighter. According to this analysis, what he had done was not in vain, but because the cultivation time was too short, the human body could not perceive this change.

The experimental comparison he had just witnessed reminded him of the words his teacher often used to encourage his students.

The original quote is: "If you improve a little bit every day, even if it's just 1%, and you work hard for a year, it will be 1.01 raised to the power of 365, which is 37.78, nearly 38 times that of the first day."

Conversely, if we regress a little bit each day, it becomes 0.99 raised to the power of 365, eventually leaving only 0.0255.

This principle can also be applied to breeding. Although it may not reach the exaggerated level of 38 times, as long as there is progress in each breeding, there will be obvious changes in just a few generations.

Thinking of all this, Zhao Shi'an was immediately filled with confidence.

He has ten times the spatial flow rate, so one day's work is equivalent to ten days' work for others.

Taking the black ribbed watermelon he is currently growing as an example, the watermelon's growth cycle is about 100 days, and the entire cycle until it needs to be saved for seeds takes about 120 days.

With the help of the space, he can complete a round of seed collection within 12 days. The harvested seeds cannot be planted directly; they need to be washed and dried before they can be planted.

Two generations can be easily bred in a month. Based on the theory of 1% improvement per day, a 10% quality improvement can be achieved in just 10 generations, and the bred generation can be completed in half a year. This time is not slow.

Of course, this is just theory. The actual improvement in breeding is much higher than this. If each breeding only improves by 1%, the breeding cycle will not be the same for several years or even decades. It would be possible to increase it by at least several times, but this is obviously inconsistent with reality.

This will significantly shorten the time required to cultivate higher quality, sweeter black-veined watermelons.

Thinking of all this, Zhao Shi'an was filled with confidence once again!

Looking at the thousands of acres of fertile land in the space, he believed that as long as he did serious research, he would definitely be able to cultivate crops with various excellent traits such as disease resistance, lodging resistance, drought resistance, and salt and alkali resistance. The dream of enjoying the cool shade under the rice plants might not be impossible to realize soon!