Chapter 98 Delicious Mushrooms: An Unexpected Delight
Haven't the flower fairies ever seen mushrooms before? That shouldn't be the case.
Shu Xin landed on the ground, bent down, and picked up a piece of mushroom cap. This piece of mushroom was only half of the cap, yet it was already the size of her palm. Because it had been broken off by a sharp wooden shovel, the tender white cross-section was emitting the rich aroma unique to mushrooms, smelling very fresh and delicious!
Wait, this mushroom should be edible, right? Its round, plump, and clean appearance doesn't seem like a poisonous mushroom. After all, the poisonous mushrooms in Shu Xin's memory are all very colorful. However, Shu Xin wasn't sure. She decided to ask the Tree of Life later—since there was such a large "search engine" in front of her, providing answers that were not only highly accurate but also illustrated with pictures and even video demonstrations, she definitely had to make good use of it!
After inquiring, Shu Xin learned that the mushroom was dug up by a flower fairy slave named Lili Lian.
The flower fairy with long, light pink hair and blue-purple eyes looked timid. She lowered her eyes, not daring to meet the flower fairy's gaze, but spoke very fluently: "Flower Fairy, I only realized something was wrong after I stuck the wooden shovel in. I quickly went to find the official in charge. If there are a lot of these things underground, will it affect our digging of the irrigation canal?"
That will definitely have an impact, but if this kind of mushroom is edible, then it would be a completely unexpected bonus!
Furthermore, Shu Xin had a great idea about an underground dwelling—
She looked at the plump mushrooms buried in the soil, then at the tiny flower fairies flying in the air. Almost immediately, images of various cartoonish, fairytale-style mushroom houses flashed through her mind. Could there be a house more suitable for flower fairies to live in than a mushroom house? No!
These mushrooms grow underground, which perfectly meets Shuxin's needs! If they were edible, that would be even more perfect. Imagine the flower fairies waking up in the morning, simply shoveling a piece off the wall and putting it in a pot to make mushroom soup!
Although this meant that all her previous ideas about the underground dwelling would have to be abandoned, Shu Xin was still very happy. She announced a halt to construction, gave the flower fairies a half-day off, and headed straight for the Tree of Life.
This time, the Tree of Life also played a silent video directly into Shu Xin's mind:
The little river elf, with her small stature and childlike face, was clearly a cub. She was holding a large basket high above her head and running happily across the sandy ground. The bright sunlight and her bright smile were dazzling. However, the next second, she tripped and fell to the ground, her left foot stepping on her right foot. The various fruits in the basket spilled all over the ground.
The little riverside sprite got up from the ground. She didn't cry or get angry, nor did she pick up the fruit that was rolling everywhere. Instead, she started digging in the sand with a curious look on her face. She dug and dug, and soon dug out a round and plump white mushroom. The mushroom cap was bigger than her little head!
The next scene showed a yellow sandy area, and the river elves were still squatting on the ground digging. But this time, there were not only baby river elves, but also many adult river elves. They chatted and laughed as they dug up one plump white mushroom after another from the ground, filling all the baskets to the brim.
After showing the relevant images, the Tree of Life dropped two leaves. Shu Xin reached out and took them, sensing that they were two recipes. However, she could only vaguely make out the names of the recipes: one was Delicious Mushroom Bread Soup, and the other was Delicious Mushroom Thick Soup. To understand the specific recipes, she would need to crush the leaves. Clearly, these were recipes given to her by the Tree of Life in advance.
Shu Xin couldn't help but look down at the mushroom cap she was holding in her other hand. She hadn't expected that this was a kind of mushroom specially cultivated by the River Fairy!
Considering that the recipes given by the Tree of Life never add any descriptive words, but instead refer to the ingredients directly by their names, and both of these recipes contain the word "delicious," could it be that the name of this mushroom is "Delicious Mushroom"?
...I imagine the delicious mushrooms must be very tasty.
Then she can start making arrangements for her mushroom house. These mushrooms are obviously non-toxic and edible, and they can grow even larger. Some of the delicious mushrooms shown in the picture are even bigger than the head of an adult river elf!
Shu Xin was in a very good mood and handed the recipe and half a mushroom to the cook, Mei Meilin.
Then Shu Xin cast a shrinking spell on herself, transforming herself into the size of a flower fairy slave, and flew towards the temporarily halted irrigation canal.
Landing where she found the delicious mushroom, Shu Xin examined its size and thought that, given the size of a flower fairy slave, such a large mushroom could easily be turned into a high-rise villa! However, if it were a common flower fairy, even taller and larger mushrooms would be needed to build a mushroom house. Although it couldn't be turned into a high-rise villa, it should be no problem to build a two-story villa.
Flying into the already dug irrigation ditch, Shu Xin landed at the flattened bottom of the ditch. Looking around, she thought that if white clay were not afraid of water, she could use it to coat the inner wall of the ditch. Unfortunately, white clay would become soft when watered, so she could only try to compact the soil as she was doing now.
Drawing her advanced magic wand, Shu Xin calmed her mind and released a detection spell. She tried her best to limit the casting range to the underground rather than the surface. The difficulty wasn't great, but as the detection spell slowly spread underground, Shu Xin could feel that the magic power consumption was much greater than when casting on the ground.
The scene revealed within the detection magic's field of vision confirmed Shu Xin's conjecture—
Sure enough, a large patch of delicious mushrooms grows underground in this land of sin!
While watching the scenes displayed by the Tree of Life, Shu Xin noticed that whether it was the place where the river elf cub first discovered the delicious mushrooms, or the place where the river elves gathered to pick mushrooms later, there was endless yellow sand. It seemed that the delicious mushrooms grew in the sand. And the Land of Sin, coincidentally, was a yellow sandy area!
Through the vision of the detection magic, each delicious mushroom looked like a softly lit little light bulb, scattered high and low in the soil, like bright stars inlaid in the night sky, resembling a beautiful sea of stars.
What stirred Shu Xin's mixed feelings was that the light emitted by the mushrooms was even brighter than that of the flower fairy slaves...
Shu Xin could see that the delicious mushrooms underground varied in size, the smallest being less than the size of her finger and the largest only about twice the size of her fist. It seemed that the delicious mushroom that Lilylian had cut in half with a wooden shovel was the largest of all the mushrooms. As a result, it was dug out by the flower fairy because it was the largest and closest to the ground.
In the distant past, the Land of Sin was likely a place where river elves cultivated delicious mushrooms. However, the entire river elf race was nearly wiped out, and without dedicated care, the mushroom production would inevitably decline. When the hierarchical Kingdom of Ganar was established, this once mushroom-rich land was directly used as a place of exile for criminals.
As magic became increasingly scarce, the delicious mushrooms naturally could no longer sprout and grow. When Shu Xin first arrived in the Land of Sin, even the Tree of Life couldn't grow a single leaf. Under such circumstances, the delicious mushrooms would probably have all died out.
These mushrooms were most likely recently grown. As the concentration of magic slowly increased, the spores or mycelia that still had a trace of vitality underground stubbornly awakened and regained their vitality.
Even if they didn't find any delicious mushrooms while digging the irrigation ditch, Shu Xin thought that as the magical environment of the Land of Sin continued to improve, these ever-growing delicious mushrooms would eventually be discovered by the flower fairies.
The delicious mushrooms can regrow, but the riverside sprites, so vividly remembered by the Tree of Life, will never return.
That evening, Shuxin enjoyed delicious mushroom bread soup and delicious mushroom soup for dinner.
The cook, Meimeilin, cooked all the large mushrooms that Shuxin had brought her into the pot. Although they looked big, they only made two bowls of soup. The cooked mushroom soup was then placed in front of Shuxin. As the only flower fairy in the Land of Sin, Shuxin's appetite was arguably the largest in the entire Land of Sin. In addition, the detection magic she used today had consumed a lot of magic power. After drinking the two small bowls of mushroom soup, Shuxin ate two large pieces of acorn bread and drank a cup of acorn wine before she was full.
These delicious mushrooms truly live up to their name; they are absolutely delicious!
Both bowls of thick and smooth mushroom soup were incredibly flavorful and rich. What's even more amazing is that despite their intensely rich and heavy taste, they weren't cloying at all. Instead, they were refreshingly light. The magic they contained was even more abundant than that of acorns. After finishing both bowls of mushroom soup in one go, Shu Xin had only one thought—no wonder they are delicious mushrooms!
The digging of the canal continued as usual. Shuxin instructed Nuonuoli that if any more flower fairies dug up delicious mushrooms, they should be sent directly to the kitchen as an extra meal for everyone.
Shu Xin herself took some time to dig up two of the largest and most delicious mushrooms available and began to study how to transform them into a mushroom house.
Later, Shu Xin curiously asked the two subordinates why the flower fairies hadn't recognized the Delicious Mushroom. It turned out that the flower fairies had tried eating mushrooms before, but the number of poisonous mushrooms far exceeded the number of non-poisonous ones. Many flower fairies had died from accidentally eating poisonous mushrooms, so they kept their distance from mushrooms. In addition, flower fairies are very small and like to live in sunny and well-ventilated places, which is the complete opposite of mushrooms, which prefer shade and moisture. Among the mushrooms they had come into contact with, they had never encountered such a large variety as the Delicious Mushroom. So it was understandable that they couldn't recognize it at first glance.
During the research on the Mushroom House, since a lot of magical methods were needed, Shu Xin also thought of how to help the flower fairies avoid strong winds when they traveled—using a teleportation array was much better than digging tunnels! This is a magical world!
Under Shu Xin's vigorous waving of her staff, magical light shone and then faded, faded and then shone again. Although the Mushroom House had not yet been renovated, the flower fairies could directly reach their workplace through the teleportation array, which was another unexpected surprise!
When the canal was completed and water began to flow, Kokona visited the land of sin once again.
-----------------------
The author notes: The prototype and name of the delicious mushroom are actually based on the "Chinese Delicious Mushroom"! Hahahaha, this mushroom really is called that!
Oh right, Kaven is getting into a slightly bigger storyline, and I've already planned it out! Thank you to all the little angels who voted for me or watered my plants between 2024-08-20 23:55:46 and 2024-08-21 23:53:34!
Thank you to the little angels who watered the nutrient solution: Baby Eats 20 bottles; Jin Dalu Effect and Lingluo Chenxiang 10 bottles; aabbcdde 1 bottle;
Thank you so much for your support! I will continue to work hard!
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com