Magic circle, activate! Orcs are the children of Xia, and the rest…

"Lan! The supply team from the mountains has arrived. This time, the orc leading the team is the Cotton Guardian." A Pallas's cat orc hopped into the planting area and headed straight for Jiang Yunlan.

Jiang Yunlan, who was squatting by the edge of the farmland, stood up and casually brushed the dirt off her palms. "I understand. Did they go to the Central Building?"

"The Cotton Guardians have already gone. The remaining supply team members are taking the supplies to the warehouse, and it will take them a while longer," said the Pallas's rabbit beastman who knew the information.

Jiang Yunlan nodded, turned to the orc in charge of the farmland and said, "The nutrients in the field are insufficient. Remember to supplement with the No. 3 crop-specific nutrient solution. Autumn vegetables grow quickly, so you should check the field conditions at least every twenty days. You are a new orc, so it's normal that you can't distinguish the causes of their diseases. You'll understand after learning from the seniors."

The orc in charge of the farmland felt ashamed and patted her chest, saying that she would go to learn from her seniors every day from now on, striving to ensure a bumper harvest of autumn vegetables by the end of the fruit season.

Jiang Yunlan believed her, left a word of encouragement, and turned to find Bai Su, who was talking to Agni and the others, and said, "022, Agni, Bai Su, we should go."

Three birds responded from five steps away. 022 carried Agni back to her left shoulder and sat down. Bai Su slowly lifted his foot and walked towards her, following behind her.

Nowadays, Bai Su has replaced the iron rings with ironwood of equal weight. Ironwood, like the iron rings, restricts movement and is a newly discovered item in the Xia tribe. However, ironwood is a type of plant, and Jiang Yunlan, possessing the power of wood, can freely control its growth, allowing it to adhere to Bai Su's limbs and reduce abrasions on Bai Su's wrists and ankles.

Kurotsuchi really liked the ironwood, which had the weight and hardness of black iron, so he stuffed the ironwood seeds into his shirt pocket, intending to use them as a defensive measure.

Because ironwood is more heat-resistant than ordinary plants and is not easily burned to ashes, it was later used in every prison guarded by orcs with the power of wood as a restraining instrument and as a wooden cage to prevent prisoners from escaping.

At this time, Jiang Yunlan had not yet discovered the fire-resistant properties of ironwood; she only knew that its hardness was suitable for making shields.

She hoped that the ironwood brought by the new orcs would grow in Xia's other habitats. Therefore, before heading to the central building, she went to the base of the ironwood tree she had cultivated and picked some ironwood seeds.

Holding the oval-shaped seeds from the small ironwood tree, she ran briskly to see the cotton.

It's now fruit season, and the grassland supply team arrived at Senhu at the end of the hot season, more than ten days faster than the mountain supply team. They arrived faster than the mountain supply team, and naturally returned faster as well, bringing Senhu's specialties back to the grassland early.

"Ironwood seeds?" Cotton took the item Jiang Yunlan handed him, lowered his head slowly, and said, "We met the grassland supply team at the Field Highway Inn, and they showed me these plant seeds."

"Field Highway Inn. The inn where Shui Luo is? It seems they've already returned to the grasslands." Jiang Yunlan guessed that they must be rushing back at full speed, and couldn't help but laugh.

Are they rushing back to farm because they worry that the grassland habitat won't have enough new food for Senhu after the fruit season?

Cotton calculated the time and nodded seriously, "Yes."

Upon hearing this, Jiang Yunlan laughed so hard her shoulders shook.

He looked at Lan, who was suddenly laughing even more happily than before, blinked, and took out the letter that Mo Rong had given him. "Lan, this describes the situation of the observation team. The observation team was discovered once by the Wood Force Beastmen of Apocalypse before they saw the giant beast. There weren't many casualties among the Beastmen, and Hati has already led a team to reinforce them."

"The contents of the letter are intelligence that Hati wrote to Morong after he met up with the observation team." As he spoke, he reached into the bag on his back and took out a three-leaf plant that looked like a flower.

Jiang Yunlan quickly scanned the information Hati had sent back, and to her surprise, when she looked up, a flower that looked like some kind of plant appeared before her. She subconsciously took the three-leaf flower that Cotton handed her, and asked blankly, "What is this? Why did you suddenly think of giving me this item?"

"It was Hati and his group who found it; it's the wood elf's dwelling. They took the three-leaf flower with them and hid it in a cave in the wasteland behind the mountains," Cotton said slowly, continuing to rummage through the items.

His backpack was filled with many items given to Lan by everyone, mostly new things that had appeared in the habitat. Lan would learn about what was happening in the habitat, so he had a very important task: to introduce Lan to the new things that had appeared in the mountains.

As Jiang Yunlan listened to his introduction, she put the three-leaf flower into her shirt pocket, and the image of Freya's hole inadvertently flashed through her mind.

I first met Freya in a cave on the mountaintop. Do the Apocalypse Beastmen really like to hide the homes of lost elves in hard-to-find places? How strange.

Jiang Yunlan couldn't understand the thoughts of the Apocalypse Beastmen. Suppressing her confusion, she listened to the recent situation in the mountains, letting her thoughts wander freely.

However, her thoughts had only wandered for a few seconds when she remembered something more important. She snapped back to reality and asked in a serious voice, "How are Ershui (Yuan Bingsheng) and Yanganguo?"

The defenses of both the grasslands and the mountains were quite good; even after Ershui (Yuanbingsheng) went to the mountains, not a single spy successfully sent out Xia's message. The intelligence Tianqi received was false information sent out by the orcs of the grasslands after capturing Tianqi's spy, using a messenger bird.

The orcs, including Bai Su and Yan Wuyan, who were sent by Tianqi to the Forest Lake habitat, received false information. They were completely unaware of Agni and his group's existence and thought that Xia only had one ice elf and one wood elf, thus falling into the trap.

"Mo Rong said it's progressing well. Er Shui revealed his identity to Yan Gang Guo, told him his real name, and asked Yan Gang Guo to deliver messages while he was out on patrol. He said he had seen what Yan Gang Guo needed to deliver and he agreed to let Yan Gang Guo deliver the message." Mian Hua opened a small compartment in her backpack, took out a small piece of paper with the copied message, and handed it to Lan.

Jiang Yunlan took the note and almost laughed as she read its contents. It simply told Tianqi that the Xia tribe had fire and wind spirits, without even specifying how many spirits were in the Xia tribe.

"It seems this Ershui is a bit hesitant to linger in front of the elves. No wonder I don't remember her. She must be afraid of being recognized by the elves." She lit a fire in her palm and burned the note, the last sentence reappearing in her vision. "Many of Xia's elves are not suitable for a direct assault."

Sending this message was definitely worthwhile. She thought to herself, lifting her eyelids to look towards the entrance of the council chamber.

Bai Su sat by the door, happily sculpting new clay beasts. Lan used her wind power to create a skill that blocked out all sounds around him, so he couldn't hear anything and could only focus on the clay in his hands.

“The leopard beastman Yan Wuyan who attacked me last time already knows about the existence of fire spirits in Xia. The message that Yan Ganguo sent out didn’t actually reveal much about the tribe. Ershui, Yuanbingsheng,” Jiang Yunlan recalled the names at the end of the note and slowly began to speak, “Yuanbingsheng reminded his people not to launch a strong attack on the Xia tribe, because the Tianqi tribe might take other actions.”

Bai Su had told her before that he and his companions had guided some of the orc clans that had migrated to Senhu due to the beast tide. Yan Wuyan, who was in charge of them, said that this way they could take the opportunity to blend in with the suffering orcs without being noticed by the Xia orcs.

The leader told her that because she was easy to read, he judged that she knew about the beast tide and the suffering orc clans, and would definitely come to Forest Lake. Then they could test her strength.

"The leader of Apocalypse, Far Winter, is very clever. He was able to figure out my personality through rumors. He'll probably send orcs to assassinate me again. But he might also send orcs to assassinate Maple Sugar and Mo Rong." Jiang Yunlan casually dropped this bombshell and turned to get paper and pen.

She didn't notice that the cotton plant standing still had turned to stone, and the entire orc was in a state of detachment from its body.

She drew a formation and said to Mianhua, who was quite frightened behind her, "When you go back, remember to give the formation I gave you to Mo Rong. This spell formation is something that 022 and the others have studied for many days and spent a lot of effort to develop."

"It can disable the spells used by the Apocalypse Orcs to conceal their natural powers. Having the Guardians draw this array on the ground at all the entrances to the habitat will effectively prevent the Apocalypse Orcs with natural powers from sneaking into the habitat." Jiang Yunlan was overjoyed at the thought of the Apocalypse Orcs being captured on the spot if they came to Xia's habitat.

She drew three sheets of paper and handed multiple arrays to Cotton. This way, she wouldn't have to worry about a single sheet being damaged and the array becoming untraceable. Worried that the messenger bird might intercept the array, she personally handed the one for the grassland supply team leader, entrusting him to take it back.

Cotton blankly accepted the array given to her by Lan. First, she tried to memorize what the array looked like, and then she hid the three drawings in different places, showing the same caution as Lan.

Making sure he hadn't overlooked anything, he looked at Lan again, his worry almost tangible, "Is Lan going to stay at Mori Lake?"

“I’m worried. Senhu has only just recovered. Since I’m already here, I’ll definitely wait until Senhu stabilizes before leaving. Besides, I’m not some weak orc without any weapons. If they want to assassinate me, let them come. I just haven’t had a chance to vent the anger I’ve been holding onto towards them,” Jiang Yunlan said coldly.

He rarely saw Lan's cold expression, and his body trembled involuntarily. After several seconds, he asked in a daze, "Did the Apocalypse Tribe do something again?"

"I was just a little angry because I heard about the bad things they did in the past." Jiang Yunlan saw Mianhua's reaction, and this time her voice was much softer, and her expression became more vivid. She was no longer as frightening to the orcs as before.

She didn't tell Cotton what she had heard from Bai Su. But Cotton knew that anything that could make her angry must be something very, very bad.

Cotton frowned and stood there pondering for a long time. What could he do to help Lan?

He remained silent for quite some time, long enough that Jiang Yunlan suspected he was still worried about her safety and was about to speak up to reassure him. Then she heard his voice.

"Lan, after I send the formation back to the mountains, please allow me to lead a team to find the other spirits. I'm not very powerful, and even with the power Freya gave me, I'm not as strong as the other guardians, so let me go find the spirits," Cotton said.

He wasn't powerful; his only strength was his ability to sense the intensity of fluctuations in natural elements. But he was hardworking, persistent, and persevering. Even after countless failures, he would still bring the remaining elves of the continent back to Xia.

Jiang Yunlan was taken aback, not understanding why his thoughts had jumped to the matter of finding elves. "Why did you suddenly want to find elves?"

“I’m not strong enough to defeat the orcs of Apocalypse. But powerful elves can help you, like Sylph who came to Forest Lake. She has the absolute strength to defeat the orcs of Apocalypse.”

This was the best way he could think of to help Lan.