Breakfast was as monotonous as ever—rice porridge and meat—but everyone still ate with great enthusiasm.
Ren Yuanyang was the only one frowning as he ate. He was still drinking the crocodile blood porridge, and it reeked of blood!
Now that they had plenty of diesel, Xin Wan’s refrigerator was back up and running. All the leftover crocodile meat and blood were frozen solid.
"Boss, should we start clearing away the banyan’s aerial roots?" Lu Jiamei asked, sipping her porridge as she gazed at the roots dangling from the branches outside.
Ren Yuanyang nodded. "Definitely. We should clear them out now while they’ve just sprouted and are easy to manage. It’ll save us a lot of trouble later."
The group quickly finished breakfast, and each grabbed a combat knife to start clearing away the unwanted aerial roots.
These combat knives had all been taken from the Lvzhi Country soldiers.
"Clear all the aerial roots within five meters of the main trunk. Beyond that, leave one every two meters, but keep all the outermost ones!" Ren Yuanyang instructed, signaling for everyone to get to work.
The four of them set to work, quickly chopping off all the unnecessary aerial roots.
Ren Yuanyang had Qin Haonan use the speedboat to move the shipping container until it was directly facing the banyan’s main trunk, five meters away.
His plan was to use the container as a passageway into the heart of the Banyan Forest.
The aerial roots that hadn’t been trimmed had already reached the water, rapidly sprouting vast root systems.
Standing near the main trunk and looking out, the aerial roots formed a natural fence. The gaps were still quite large for now, but once the roots grew into independent plants and thickened, those gaps would naturally shrink.
"Boss, if we can just cover this inner area with Duckweed, it’ll be perfect!" Lu Jiamei said excitedly, looking at their budding Peach Blossom Spring.
"You bet we will!" Ren Yuanyang replied with a smile, then started using his system to enhance the Round Duckweed in his hand.
’Before, I had to hold back when I was enhancing things, worried that the people on the big ship would discover my powers and capture me. But now, I can finally let loose!’
Of course, the limit of nine enhancements was still in place, but that wasn’t much of a restriction for Ren Yuanyang.
’I need to enhance the Round Duckweed’s reproduction rate, buoyancy, size... everything.’
While using the Round Duckweed to cover the water’s surface, Ren Yuanyang suddenly realized that the larger the plants were, the bigger the gaps between them became. He would need to keep some smaller Round Duckweed to fill in these gaps.
Enhancing the Round Duckweed seemed incredibly easy for Ren Yuanyang now. In just one hour, he had completely covered the five-meter radius of water around the banyan tree.
The gaps between the surrounding aerial roots were still quite large, so to prevent the Round Duckweed from drifting away, Ren Yuanyang used the creeping stems of bitter grass to anchor it all in place, winding them around the banyan’s roots.
Once that was done, Ren Yuanyang stepped onto the newly formed surface to test it.
It swayed slightly, affected by the wind and waves outside.
’It should be better once the Banyan Forest is fully formed,’ Ren Yuanyang thought. Then he called Lu Jiamei over, and they dismantled all the panels that had been used to camouflage the container.
These panels could be assembled to build a house and various pieces of furniture.
Now that they had a permanent base, it was time to put the panels to good use.
Soon, a house covering less than fifty square meters and standing nearly four meters tall was erected!
All the furniture from inside the container was moved into the house.
Seeing that he finally had a proper home, Ren Yuanyang nodded in satisfaction. The next step was to enhance the plant seeds he’d gotten in the trade with Wang Jun.
He would prioritize enhancing their growth cycles. That was the only way to produce enough grain, as well as fruits and vegetables, in a short amount of time.
Just then, Ren Yuanyang suddenly realized something was off.
The plants he enhanced generally followed a simple rule: one enhancement doubled the effect. For example, enhancing yield once would double the output.
But that wasn’t the case for the Duckweed at all!
If the effect had only doubled, a single enhancement to its buoyancy would never have allowed it to support ten kilograms per square centimeter.
Ren Yuanyang immediately asked the system about it.
[The first target in a category receives a hundredfold enhancement bonus. This was true for the Round Duckweed, and it is also true for the chicken.]
It dawned on Ren Yuanyang. The Round Duckweed was his first plant enhancement target, and the chick was his first animal enhancement target.
"Does that mean the chick I enhanced will be fully grown in less than two days?" Ren Yuanyang asked in astonishment.
A normal pullet takes about six months to mature enough to lay eggs, which is around 180 days.
Since the chick was his first animal enhancement target, it received a hundredfold bonus, shortening its growth cycle to just 1.8 days.
The chick had sprouted feathers overnight, a direct result of this drastically shortened growth cycle.
"You should’ve told me earlier! I would’ve used my first animal enhancement on a piglet!" Ren Yuanyang couldn’t help but grumble.
But the system only responded with silence.
Ren Yuanyang hadn’t had a choice for his first plant target; if he hadn’t chosen the Duckweed, he would have drowned. But for the animal target, he’d had a choice and had already used up the opportunity.
However, he quickly made his peace with it.
’Besides, who knows how long it would’ve taken for my Mental Energy to become strong enough to enhance a piglet? It was better to enhance the chick when I had the chance. That’s how we’ll improve our quality of life and our competitive edge now!’
"Is this the system’s version of a starter pack?" Ren Yuanyang muttered to himself, then went back to enhancing the seeds.
After finishing the enhancements, Ren Yuanyang immediately selected a few plots around the banyan tree and sowed the seeds for the crops, fruits, and vegetables they would need.
"If any aerial roots grow down into these plots, clear them away too," Ren Yuanyang reminded the others.
Lu Jiamei and the other two nodded in unison.
After lunch, Ren Yuanyang gave a few instructions to Lu Jiamei and the others, then immediately enhanced the little cockerel.
’When you have an advantage, you have to make the most of it!’
After successfully enhancing the cockerel, Ren Yuanyang once again fell into a deep sleep.
He had warned Lu Jiamei and the others beforehand, so the three of them weren’t too worried. Instead, they waited patiently for him to wake up.
Ren Yuanyang slept for another eight hours, not waking up until almost nine o’clock that night.
Ren Yuanyang rubbed his forehead and sat up.
"Boss, are you awake?" Lu Jiamei’s voice called from outside.
"Yeah," Ren Yuanyang answered.
"Should I bring your dinner in?" Lu Jiamei asked.
"Okay, come on in."
Lu Jiamei walked in carrying his dinner, and the familiar, gamy smell of blood filled the air.
Ren Yuanyang felt a sense of resignation. To increase his Mental Energy, he just had to keep stomaching this bloody taste.
"How are things outside?" Ren Yuanyang asked casually as he ate.
"The wind has picked up a bit, but our banyan’s aerial roots are already getting thicker. I’m sure they’ll grow into new trees before we know it!" Lu Jiamei replied excitedly.

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