Magic Farm 88

Chapter 88: Brother Qi Yu

On the way back, Qi Yu encountered a few more scattered flocks of swallows.

His principle was simple: if he could deal with them without losing time, he would take the points; if it meant a delay, he would speed up and move on.

So, by the time he returned to his territory, it was exactly 5:40 in the afternoon.

There were twenty minutes left before nightfall.

Standing within his territory, Qi Yu let out a breath of relief.

All around the territory, countless white orbs of light floated in the air. Qi Yu collected them all with a single click.

He opened the points leaderboard. At this moment, his score had reached 71,880.

Clearly, during his journey home, his people had continued to gather points, and he’d also picked up a few along the way, totaling over a thousand more.

Qi Yu went to check on the state of his territory.

All fourteen energy towers still had about half their energy remaining.

Each tower, when fully charged, could attack a hundred times. Earlier today, Qi Yu had used the territory module to replenish the towers with magic crystals twice.

He topped off the energy in all the towers, then went to check on the alchemy golems, which still had plenty of energy left.

He activated the Whisper of Nature magic to observe the state of the territory’s plants:

The golden apple saplings and Miststar flowers were as tranquil as ever.

The red maple grove and the emerald peach orchard, perhaps because they were resource points or simply mature trees, remained ever calm, their presence barely noticeable.

Windblade grass and the irritable tomatoes: excited.

Screaming lily-of-the-valley: exhausted.

Honeycrystal flowers and emerald bees were curled up together, sleeping.

The bright sunflowers’ inner thoughts were all anticipation for nightfall, so they could be the brightest ones in the territory.

Qi Yu mused that the irritable tomatoes and windblade grass were probably so excited because it was their first time participating in such a large-scale defense of the territory.

As for the screaming lily-of-the-valley, it was easy to guess why it was tired—after all, its throat had barely had a moment’s rest all day.

And then, the demon vine…

Qi Yu had actually noticed it as soon as he entered the territory.

Because it had grown.

After devouring so much of Qi Yu’s mana before without any visible change, today, after a full day of feasting on swallows, the vine—which had previously only covered a third of the fence—had now climbed to nearly half.

Moreover, its appearance had changed. Its leaves were now a more vibrant, tender green, and the little flowers it bloomed were pure white, trembling in the rain.

In short, it seemed to have evolved to look even more harmless.

Demon vine, status: excited, half-full, swallows are delicious.

Qi Yu thought: After a good meal, the child’s expressive ability seems to have improved.

Seven-colored flower, status: gloomy, angry. As always, in a bad mood twenty-four hours a day.

After inspecting the territory, night had fallen.

Qi Yu opened his backpack.

He took out one of the ancient trees he had just dug up.

What a huge tree!

Even in the Star Forest, it had looked enormous, but now, standing in his territory, it made everything else seem “miniature” by comparison.

Qi Yu had thought this mysterious ancient tree was already dead, and that he could simply dig a hole anywhere in the territory and bury it.

Who would have thought the survival panel would pop up a message:

[Current land is unsuitable for planting.]

Qi Yu: ?

Wasn’t it dead? Why was it still picky about where it was planted?

How strange.

Puzzled, Qi Yu nonetheless found a patch of basic farmland and, using earth magic, carefully planted the tree.

Almost as soon as the ancient tree was in the ground, the screaming lily-of-the-valley’s bell began to ring.

Standing under the ancient tree, Qi Yu spread out his spiritual sense and saw a vast wave of points surging toward the territory.

The buffet had arrived!

Just then, the communication orb rang.

After a long day of rushing about, Qi Yu was feeling a bit tired. He returned to his little building and answered the call.

Through the orb, Dan Xingyu heard some of the commotion in Qi Yu’s territory—the commotion mainly being the emotionally charged wails of the screaming lily-of-the-valley.

He paused mid-sentence. “Are you busy over there?”

Qi Yu sat down, relaxing fully into his chair.

He let out a long breath. “No, I just got back to the shelter. I’m leaving things to the energy towers tonight.”

He’d spent the entire day racking up points, hadn’t even had time for lunch.

With the energy towers on duty tonight, he had no intention of pushing himself any further.

Mainly, his mana had been nearly exhausted by all the point farming during the day.

The thrill of racking up points was gone; back in his warm little house, he didn’t even want to lift a finger.

Dan Xingyu didn’t ask any more questions, just sent over dinner.

The two of them ate quietly together.

After dinner, Qi Yu felt revived.

He opened the survival panel, watching his points tick steadily upward, and couldn’t help but laugh.

“What’s got you so happy?”

The communication orb was still on; Dan Xingyu had been listening to Qi Yu’s background noise the whole time, and the screaming lily-of-the-valley hadn’t stopped once.

Since he also used the plant for alerts, he knew well that the intensity of its cries was directly related to the number of mutant creatures attacking.

In other words, Qi Yu’s shelter was under near-constant assault by a significant number of mutants.

Qi Yu didn’t answer—he just sent over a screenshot.

Event points leaderboard, first place: I Love Survival Games, 73,773 points.

【GodIsFormless: ???】

“Whoa!” Dan Xingyu snapped to attention. “Did you wipe out the swallows’ nest?”

“If you want to put it that way, I suppose you could say that,” Qi Yu replied. “Not only did I raid their nest, I even brought it home with me.”

Dan Xingyu: ?

Qi Yu briefly explained how he’d found the black ancient forest, dug up six ancient trees, and planned to plant them in his territory.

“Swallows really love this tree,” Qi Yu said. “Ever since I planted it, the screaming hasn’t stopped.”

“…” A thousand words swirled in Dan Xingyu’s mind, but in the end, he only managed three: “You’re amazing!”

He sighed, “I was hoping I might have a chance to be the first to get the shelter blueprint this time, but it looks like you’re the true chosen one of Survival Games!”

“Actually, I really have to thank you, Dan Xingyu,” Qi Yu said sincerely. “If you hadn’t given me the Azure Sky Wings, I might not have gone so far and found the ancient forest.”

“Listen to yourself,” Dan Xingyu retorted. “Have you looked at your seventy thousand points?”

“Even if someone else had that forest right outside their door, could they kill seventy thousand points’ worth in a single day?”

“Qi Yu, that’s your own strength.”

Qi Yu thought about it and realized he was right.

Not everyone could cast area magic like he could. If he didn’t have magic and had to rely on weapons, he’d never have managed so many points in a day.

“You’re right,” Qi Yu nodded. “I’m not just lucky—I’m really strong.”

Dan Xingyu: “…”

He very deliberately let out a long sigh.

“What’s wrong?” Qi Yu asked.

Dan Xingyu: “I’m jealous, I’m frustrated, I’m not sleeping tonight. I’m going to battle the Earthfire Dragon until dawn!”

Qi Yu asked, “Need me to make you a few more energy towers?”

Dan Xingyu: “Hmph!”

Qi Yu assumed he didn’t want them, but then Dan Xingyu added, “I do. Thank you, Brother Qi Yu.”

Qi Yu: ?

“Didn’t you say you wouldn’t call me brother?”

Dan Xingyu: “You don’t get it. This is called not looking a gift horse in the mouth.”

“Oh.”

Qi Yu quickly crafted eight energy towers, filled them with level one magic crystals, and sent them to Dan Xingyu.

He added, “You’re welcome, little brother Dan Xingyu.”

Dan Xingyu: ???

The communication orb disconnected.

【GodIsFormless: You must be exhausted after a whole day of killing swallows, so I won’t bother you anymore. Get some rest, good night!】

Qi Yu stared at the hurried-looking message, thinking Dan Xingyu must really be eager to fight the Earthfire Dragon.

【ILoveSurvivalGames: Okay, good luck.】

.

The mysterious ancient tree was indeed highly attractive to swallows, but since he’d only planted one, their numbers weren’t overwhelming, and the territory’s defenses were more than enough.

The points continued to rise steadily, now reaching 74,500.

Meanwhile, second place on the leaderboard, ReachForTheMoonInSeptember, had just reached 25,000.

Third was MyFateIsMineNotHeaven’s, with 17,500.

Fourth was LiverKing, at 12,000.

It had now been twenty-four hours since the event started.

Just as Qi Yu had thought, unless you were as lucky as he was, or teamed up like the second-place siblings, it was nearly impossible for a solo player to reach 120,000 points and get the level three shelter blueprint.

He opened the chat page.

Qi Yu had discovered earlier that he could set message content himself. He’d told a few friends that if anything urgent came up, they could send an emergency message and he’d get a notification right away.

If it was just a normal message, there was no rush—he’d check it when he had time.

01 Survival Squad:

【ILoveSurvivalGames: .】

The familiar period to start things off.

【CivilEngineeringBro: Boss, done for the day? I see your points are still climbing steadily.】

But the group knew he had energy towers, and guessed that, unlike the daytime surge, the territory was now just clearing out monsters.

【ILoveSurvivalGames: Yeah, it’s fine now, not busy. But I’ll be busy later.】

【ILoveSurvivalGames: There’s a kind of black tree in the Star Forest that swallows love to use as a nest. If you can find one, you’ll probably find huge flocks of swallows.】

【CantBearToOpenMyEyes: So your crazy high score is because you found that?】

【ILoveSurvivalGames: Mm.】

【Serenity: Finding an opportunity is lucky, but seizing it is what matters.】

【CivilEngineeringBro: Right? We were saying earlier, even if Survival Games dropped seventy thousand swallows on me, I probably couldn’t kill them all.】

Dan Xingyu had said the same.

So, they were all praising him, in their own way.

【ILoveSurvivalGames: I know, I’m amazing.】

After leaving the group chat, Qi Yu saw several private messages.

All from friends, all about the same thing.

To sum up: the Hall of the Gods was having internal strife; core member ImVeryDominant had apparently scammed MyFateIsMineNotHeaven’s out of a huge amount of resources, then blocked him, and now the two were tearing into each other in the regional channel.

The key point: ImVeryDominant had revealed that MyFateIsMineNotHeaven’s harbored intense hatred for Qi Yu.

Several friends mentioned the same thing: MyFateIsMineNotHeaven’s apparently had an item that could remotely curse and attack players, and they all warned Qi Yu to be careful.

Qi Yu thought of that previous disaster.

He opened the regional channel.

The moment he entered, he saw ImVeryDominant speaking:

【ImVeryDominant: MyFateIsMineNotHeaven’s, your curse item—it’s already been used, hasn’t it?】