The inside territory of the ents was extremely hard to infiltrate. This was the unanimous conclusion of all the demon souls who had been lurking in Thousand Trees King City.
There were all kinds of strange plants, and the guard vines were scattered everywhere, even in remote corners.
It would be safe to sneak in for a day or two, but the vines would have extracted and observed strange behavior patterns after an extended period. Capturing an infiltrator could be decided in seconds by the person in charge.
The demon clan had nearly 800 spies caught overnight in the earlier stages because of this mistake and suffered heavy losses.
However, as time passed, the demon souls learned to adapt and learned the various skills needed to disguise themselves in the ents’ territory.
Su Mo, who had transformed into a thorn ent, was a perfect example. He utilized the most effective technique, a domineering walking stance, but at the same time, it had a relatively higher cost.
“Get lost, you despicable coward! Get out of my way!”
Sy Mo stretched out his branch and pretended that he wanted to attack. He watched the ents opposite him flee and maintained a fierce expression, but he was extremely amused in his heart.
The terrifying aura of the thorn ent allowed him to not be disturbed or questioned by any small flies, at least for a short period.
By the time the ents realized something was wrong with him, he would already be in the basin, so there was no need to worry about exposing himself.
“Just because he had better luck than everyone else doesn’t mean he can go about bullying…”
“Shh! Lower your voice! You don’t want him to remember you, or you might have to pay a huge price just to settle the conflict with him.”
“Why doesn’t the captain control him? The thorn ents are just allowed to show off their strength and suppress the others every day!”
“How would they be controlled? Would you replace them on the battlefield if they were controlled? The thorn ents are the only forces in our territory that stand a chance against the outside forces. Without them…”
“Stop spewing nonsense! Give me the thorns, and I could fight too!”
Su Mo walked casually along the main road as he listened to the whispering voices surrounding him.
His figure turned slightly, and he entered the first store that he had his eyes on previously.
The Dream Plant Workshop.
The signboard had a slight fairytale vibe to it.
It was one of the best plant shops in Thousand Trees King City, boasting an abundant supply of goods and their various “special services” that lived up to their name, the dream plants!
“Oh? It’s rare for you Mr…”
As soon as Su Mo entered the shop, a little Level 2 ent hurriedly greeted him.
The server looked at the thickness of Su Mo’s tree canopy, determined his strength and level, then quickly matched the service attitude through his companion plant.
The Dream Plant Workshop was not afraid of the thorn ents causing trouble, but the ordinary employees did not want to make this prestigious ent in front of them mad since it would mean a lot of trouble for them if they were to take revenge.
“Iron Thorn!”
Hearing Su Mo’s deep and solemn response, the little man hurriedly shouted inside.
“Level 5 thorn ent, Lord Iron Thorn needs a private room. Hurry up and make arrangements!”
The most successful shop in Thousand Tree King City could not keep up with the development in Freedom City.
However, Freedom City was far behind this place in terms of service.
The ents were unable to use templates, and their strength came from hardships or luck. The concept of respecting the powerful was strongly ingrained in the culture of the ents.
There was a grand welcoming to a small room that was about 15 square meters.
A Level 3 ent waited patiently inside the room for Su Mo.
“Lord Iron Thorn, I’m Shu Fu, and I’ll be at your service today.
“Are you interested in buying ordinary plants or dream plants?”
Shu Fu quickly greeted Su Mo with a broad smile as soon as he sat down.
At the same time, he handed Su Mo a wooden board that listed the services they provided.
Understanding the complicated process, Su Mo gently picked up a branch and unfamiliarly leaned against it.
Suddenly, a strange memory flooded through the branch into his mind.
Dream Plant Workshop did not sell ordinary plants.
The so-called ordinary plants were mature plants that had better properties than those on the market and could be immediately transplanted immediately after the purchase.
The so-called dream plants were those that were cultivated to the pre-germination stage. After activation, these plants could be germinated and grow rapidly.
It was sold in a pre-germination stage because no one was able to predict what form it would take after germination. Whether it was a successful or failed mutation, or whether it mutated into a good or bad property.
Therefore, those who bought it were technically opening a blind box.
Some people were unlucky and obtained some useless mutations, like a massage vine mutated from a guard vine, which was a considerable loss.
Meanwhile, some people were lucky enough to obtain mutated plants with great potential.
For example, the water storage vines mutated into dark cloud vines. It was a jackpot that allowed them to enter the class of the powerful.
“Tomorrow’s powerful ent will definitely be you if you’re willing to take the bet?”
“Haha! According to our past examples, this statement is valid! We can give you a basic plant for free to try your luck if Lord Iron Thorn wants to!”
Seeing the look of interest on Su Mo’s face, Shu Fu still wore a smiley face and pushed forward another two wooden boards.
“This is the price list of the ordinary plants in our workshop. We promise that the plants sold can be returned and exchanged if there are any growth problems within ten days. Additionally, we also provide a paid door-to-door transplant service. You would only have to provide us with an address and the time of delivery. Our plant master will personally come to your door to take care of the transplanting and even give your garden a makeover!
“The other one is the price list of our dream plants. I believe that after reading it, Lord Iron Thorn will think that it’s overpriced, but we also provide a recycling service on the basis of the price. You can cultivate the plant on the spot, and if it’s a high-quality plant, you can bring it home without any additional charges. If you’re dissatisfied with the plant, we will recycle it for a minimum of 30% of the purchased price up to a maximum of 80% of the price, so you won’t have to worry about anything.”
Su Mo laughed after hearing the obvious tempting advertisement in his words.
‘I suppose the changes brought about by the “invasion” of the humans to the ents really were more than the harvest of mutant plants but a full cultural invasion.’
The Dream-Maker Plant Workshop was indeed able to depend on the bombardment of modern humans’ “crude” sales advertising, which was almost equivalent to deception, to grow bigger and bigger.
This was not something that could be done by ordinary ents.
Forget the basic products like the ordinary plants, a gambling plant was like gambling stones. Selling these products was nothing less than directly promoting to the city which contained thousands of ents that, “The transformation of the ordinary people, you can take one step into the skies!”
“That’s enough. You can keep the ordinary plants. I came here for the dream plants!”
Buying mature plants would be the optimal solution, but a difficult problem needed to be overcome.
Transportation!
Unlike the ents who could change their sizes freely, the height of a mature land flower was at least four meters, and the diameter of the rafflesia was over two meters.
After buying such things, it would be challenging to leave Thousand Trees King City without problems.
This was also the biggest reason why there had been few mature plants in Freedom City for so long.
Su Mo waved his branches and pushed the other wooden board away. He picked up the board that contained the price of dream plants and began to go through it seriously.
As expected, most of the plants in the botanical garden were sold here, and the only difference was the price.
The ones that were not sold were either extremely aggressive companion plants that had strong combat power even without mutations or plants with short growth cycles. They were regulated plants with stable economic benefits.
“Give me three land flowers, two rafflesias, five guard vines, and two healing vines.
“Also, I want two of these blood-enriching leaves.
“Two sunflowers, two cleansing leaves…”
Su Mo was overjoyed when he saw the plants that he remembered and immediately began to place a lot of orders.
The initially sluggish Shu Fu immediately reacted and started to hastily record the orders on another wooden board.
After a long time, seeing that Su Mo was still placing orders, he hesitated and said, “Lord Iron Thorn, you’ve…already placed an order for a hundred and seventy plants. Anything more… you should check the price first!”
“Huh? A hundred and seventy?”
Su Mo took the “bill” handed over by Shu Fu with a frown on his face.
‘Well, this is a big problem!’
Although these plants were of the lowest grade with the lowest probability of mutation, which would likely produce the useless plants, they were not in any sense cheap.
A single land flower seed cost half a month’s worth of an ordinary ent’s food, which was 300 dark red rice leaves (the lowest grade).
Three of the plants would cost 900 rice leaves, which was an ordinary ent’s salary for three or five months.
The price of the rafflesia flower was even more outrageous. A single plant cost 500 dark red rice leaves, and 3 plants added up to a whopping 1,500 rice leaves.
The total cost of the 170 plants added up to 67,000 dark red rice leaves.
Su Mo could pay the bill with only six green rice leaves if the basin had already successfully harvested them.
In the current situation, relying on the rice leaves provided by Zhu Chuan, Su Mo had to filter out the useless plants first.
“Lord Iron Thorn, let me confirm your order again. You’ve ordered a total of 39 plants, which are… and the prices are… coming to a total of 12,600 dark red rice leaves.
“Would you like to take more off the order?”
Su Mo shook his head.
“No, you can bring me the plants. I want to take them with me now. Is this enough rice leaves?”
He opened up the grille on his chest that stored rice leaves, took out the rice leaves he had prepared in the basin, and handed them over.
These were rice leaves from six or seven ents, including the private assets of the elder Zhu Chuan.
There was enough food in the basin, and there was no need to eat rice leaves to satisfy the villagers’ hunger for the time being. Su Mo was worried that he would not have enough, so he brought almost all the rice leaves in stock.
Two-thirds of the rice leaves were counted and collected.
“This is enough! I’ll arrange the plants for Lord Iron Thorn right now!” Shu Fu said as he passed the remaining rice leaves back with excitement.
The order cost more than 10,000 rice leaves and was considered a large order in the Dream Plant Workshop.
Those who had served Su Mo throughout the whole process were entitled to receive a considerable commission.
Therefore, in less than two minutes, the private room door was pushed open, and the ent in charge of delivery hurriedly rushed in.
“This is a seed storage flower to make it easier for you to carry. It’s a free gift for spending over 10,000 rice leaves in one order. You can plant it in a suitable place, and the seeds stored inside will be spat out from it.
“We can inspect the seeds on the spot if you’re worried before…”
“That won’t be necessary.” Su Mo interrupted the delivery ent.
He took the palm-sized storage flower and obtained the ownership rights.
Su Mo used the system to analyze the plant quickly and was able to determine the number of items inside, as well as check if the other party had secretly hidden any spying technology.
Fortunately, whether the camouflage played a huge role or because the order was so massive, the Dream Plant Workshop had not done anything, and the number of seeds inside perfectly matched his order.
He skillfully threw the storage flower into the grid in his chest for temporary storage.
With the ents’ flattery and respectful send-off, Su Mo took a big step and successfully completed the first mission of the plan.
‘Great, I didn’t take too long. It’s only been eleven minutes. There’s still enough time for the next mission!’
After completing the most important task of the trip, Su Mo was relieved and his footsteps became lighter.
Outwardly, he did not forget to maintain his previous disguise. He was like a king who walked fearlessly through the city.
Soon, within his limited time…
Su Mo managed to spend all the remaining rice leaves for some portable cultivation tools and a few auxiliary fertilizers for plant growth in some other small shops.
17 minutes had passed.
Relying on his strong memory, Su Mo analyzed the closest route and rushed all the way to the remote street, where he had left for 19 minutes.
He quickly switched forms and gently climbed across the wall, then rushed toward the small room that functioned as the toilet.
Su Mo glanced at his watch and saw that 19 minutes and 55 seconds had passed, which was an appropriate amount of time!
“You’re finally done relieving yourself?”
Hearing the sound, Zhu Xia, who Sun Di and the others pestered, turned around. He subconsciously laughed happily after seeing that the sound was Su Mo leaving the toilet.
“I’m sorry for the trouble, Elder Zhu Xia! I’ve already cleaned up the place and made sure I didn’t pollute your garden room!”
“Ha! That’s great!”
Zhu Xia raised his eyebrows and laughed continuously after hearing that his small room was not “polluted”.
“By the way, Elder Zhu Xia. It’s already getting late, so we won’t go shopping on this trip. We’ll come back next time to appreciate the royal city!
“You should understand that since it’s going to be winter, many creatures are restless around this time. It’d be troublesome if we were to run into an accident and delay our journey back!”
Su Mo pointed in the directions of the Demon clan and the Light Empire, and Zhu Xia quickly understood the meaning behind his words.
Zhu Xia nodded. “Yes, the winter is close. We should be more careful. Your concerns are understandable. Let’s head back to the city gate. I’m sure Zhu Chuan, that old thing, can’t wait to see you guys!”
The 21st century was an era of information warfare.
This was perfectly applicable to the doomsday wasteland.
Everything was a trap but not a trap at the same time.
Zhu Xia seemed to be utterly unaware that Su Mo, who was in the small room, had climbed out and made a massive purchase. He relaxedly led everyone back the way they came and returned to the city gate.
“Haha! Sorry for the trouble again, Elder Zhu Xia. We should have a good drink tonight!”
“Sure, sure! You can send the honorable guests back first!”
Zhu Xia’s attitude was completely different from when they first arrived and took a 180-degree turn after realizing the importance of Su Mo and the others.
Seeing the items Zhu Chuan had prepared for them, he stepped forward and shared a few more words to send them off with apparent uneasiness.
“Elder Zhu Xia, take care! Next time we visit the royal city, I hope I’ll be able to see your tall and might figure again!
Sun Di jumped on the back of the enlarged Zhu Chuan and complimented Zhu Xia for a long time, seemingly reluctant to leave.
His eyes were filled with sincerity and the sadness of parting with a friend.
Zhu Xia stepped forward and waved his hands enthusiastically after seeing the sincerity.
“It’s a promise!”
“Promise!”
Zhu Chuan, who was waiting, frowned and felt robbed of his limelight when the two exchanged promises. He quickly took a step forward and began to leave.
Seeing this, the two ents had no choice but to quickly follow in his footsteps toward the direction of the basin.
In just a few minutes, the Thousand Trees King City, which was like a giant beast crawling on the ground, turned into a shadow and disappeared from sight.
Today was an ordinary day for the majority of the ents.
It was the exact same day as the previous day.
No one was aware of what Su Mo’s departure would bring upon them.
Only Su Mo knew that the next time he returned to this territory, it would be overwhelmed with the great…
Revival!
