Ball of Nothing

Chapter 451 Rain In The Deser

The elder of the village looked at Zero with resignation. After eating their delicious vegetable stew, he had to keep his word. While these adventurers may act kind, he was not a fool to believe it entirely. Every adventurer had a cruel side. They didn’t want to get on that bad side.

"The gnomes who travelled west passed by some of our kind," he admitted. "However, they did not meet kind ones. We cacti-folk are split between those who eat cultivated plants for supplement and those who eat others for supplement. The gnomes who travelled west a good sixty years ago met the other kind of cacti-folk. While I do not know details, we heard that some gnomes managed to escape and they travelled further west towards the sea."

Zero shared a look with Truen. If what the cacti-folk elder said was true, these gnomes should still be around somewhere. For gnomes, sixty years isn’t a very long time. Like dwarves, they live for at least two hundred years.

"How can we know if a gnome is near?"

At this, the cacti-folk elder grinned. "The ground! The ground! Sinkholes always appear when gnomes try to build their underground houses because they do not like to grow plants above. With no roots to hold the ground, the sands will shift and sometimes the structure collapses inwards from the weight of shifting sand dunes. Sinkholes happen whenever gnomes try to move something below. You can see it easily, it is huge! Sometimes sinkholes are full of oil or liquid, sometimes with sludge that they dispose of."

He then added in a lower voice. "Also, if no desert monsters attack you in that area when you travel for days, you are in gnome territory. They have a very good defence system, no chance for monsters who go near. If you approach them, don’t try to dig into the city. The machines have no eyes."

Zero thanked the cacti-elder and to prove his sincerity for their help, he told Truen to help them install a water pump.

When the cacti-elder heard that they were going to install a water pump, the old man started to shake and his spiny leaves started falling much to Zero’s horror.

"Ohh... Ohhh! Young one, is the water pump the divine machine that sucks water from underground to the surface without roots?"

Slowly, Zero nodded and the elder collapsed to the ground.

"Elder!" the younger cacti-folk quickly came to assist him but the elder pushed them all away. Afraid that they might have offended the primitive villagers with the introduction of technology, Zero was about to retract his gift when the elder cried till he was half dried up.

"Thank heavens, our saviour has arrived! The days of cruel water fetching rituals are over!"

Not really understanding what a ’water pump’ was, the other villagers simply bowed into round cacti balls to show Zero and his group their thanks.

Happy that the water pump was going to be a very loved product, Zero nodded and told Truen to coordinate the instalment process.

"Alright, please don’t cry yourself dry. I still have more questions to ask, village elder. For my next question, I will give you a special vegetable... no, it’s not actually a vegetable because it doesn’t have seeds when grown. I will give you a special plant that is the secret ingredient behind that tasty vegetable stew. How does it sound? If you can tell me anything about the desert poppy, I will give you a mushroom."

Zero planned this out earlier with Truen. After the water pump, they were going to introduce mushroom cultivation. As these cacti-folks were not meat eaters or cannibals, their food lacked flavour. For normal vegetarian cuisine, Zero learnt from Nirvana’s kitchen that they used a lot of mushrooms to increase the tastiness of the food.

Seeing how the village enjoyed the stew earlier, Zero knew this was a very tempting offer.

Disbelieving of their great fortune, the village elder bowed and nodded. "I will answer to the best of my ability. However, this is knowledge I know from the great shaman and nature spirits. I have never personally done this before, although cacti-folk are related to dryads, our magical powers are very weak. We’re not able to bring down rain, only store water in our bodies to grow plants at a faster rate."

Zero nodded. "It’s alright, tell me what you know. We will test that out for ourselves before we leave the village to see if it is true. You said someone has to bring down rain?"

In a more serious mood with a sigh, the cacti elder nodded. "Desert poppy can cure many illnesses but it is also very deadly for non-dryad related folks. Alone, the flower causes addiction and promotes the seven sins in man. When consumed, the poison in a desert poppy will spread and make a person a flowerbed where the flower starts growing its young inside of the body until it can no longer function. The final stage of growth is when the desert poppy tears through flesh to sprout with its flowers. The flower, when connected to its roots, will command others nearby to become their flowerbeds. It’s a very dangerous flower to look for. Before I tell you anything further, may I know who tasked you to look for such a world-class disaster flower? Even among dryads, we made an oath to never let anyone else get their hands on this flower. For many generations, the information has been hidden away and only passed from parent to child. The humans and other races only think that the desert flower grows underground now."

Now that the village elder explained the story, Zero was beginning to connect the dots. The reason why they couldn’t find the desert poppy was because they had been searching for it in the wrong places all along. Now that he thought about it, the desert poppy was a flower. Unless it thrived on mana, it wouldn’t be found underground.

"A spriggan asked us to find it for him. We came from Rocket Mountain with two tasks. The first task is to locate gnome technicians for S-class dwarven hero Dorgon to fix his broken art tool made by gnomes. The second was to find a desert poppy’s seeds for the Spriggan who is missing this last ingredient for his spell to locate his tree that had suddenly gone missing."

Surprised, the village elder looked at his villagers and spoke to them in a dialect. Obediently, the villagers dispersed and the elder invited Zero into his small shelter.

"I sent everyone away, please tell me more. We know spriggans but there are very few now. Most of them are legends. How genuine is this spriggan? Desert poppies are very dangerous, you might be tricked! Desert poppy seeds make a person a flowerbed, I cannot tell you where desert poppies are if you cannot prove to me he is a real spriggan. Spriggans only guard magic trees. Only one magic tree lives now but it is in the Great Altear Forest. The war has burned everything else. Altear killed the spriggan guarding their tree. No more spriggans should be alive."

Surprised at that small information, Zero noted that down for a discussion with Truen tonight.

"The spriggan’s name is Axel. He lost his tree at Rocket Mountain when he was getting to it. The tree he guards should be the Tree of Life that was on Endow Hill but disappeared into another dimension. The spriggan wishes to locate the tree now, do you know him?"

The cacti elder nodded. "Tree of life... the tree with a curse of an immortal witch."

Surprised, Zero nodded. "Yes, that’s the one! You know Lovina?"

The cacti elder raised his brow. "Is that what she calls herself now? Also, young elf, why do you know so much? You do not come from Altear because you are a wood elf, why do you know so much about fae and dryad matters?"

Zero grinned. "Do you know a dryad called Cleo? She lives in Half Moon Village on Endow Hill."

The cacti elder thought about it for a very long time. "That place is no place for elf or human. Only Mystic Meadow creatures can live there. Strong dryads like Cleo can live there, weak dryads go crazy after a while. Dragon magic is strong, bad idea to go there."

With a smirk, Zero pointed to himself. "I’m the new village leader of Half Moon Village. I know both Cleo and Lovina. Recently they have been very busy so I cannot contact them but Half Moon Village is not a very dangerous place now. There is a human mother who gave birth to a half-vampire child there. Sage God Hua Tuo lived there too for a long time. Many beast folks and half-bloods are there."

The village elder laughed. "No wonder... no wonder! You must be the chosen one, we sense the touch of Tanya and Gaia on you. Your body resembles us dryads but you are elf. Your friend also resembles elf but he is wood spirit, is he not? And the other beast folk, the lizard one, is too powerful to be lizard. If you all come from Half Moon Village, I can tell you everything."

Zero was glad that he didn’t have to explain further to get the information he wanted.

"Please, tell me."

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