Corn and the World Tree
Corn and the World Tree
The beginning of healing.
To take that first shovel-full, I need to check the resources I have first.
"Status window. This corn right now, it's special corn, right?"
I scanned the three kernels of corn resting in my hand.
'It looks like plain old corn, though.'
Their size was similar to typical corn kernels.
'I can feel an aura around them, though.'
They weren't shriveled up; the kernels were plump and solid, and their color went beyond bright yellow, glowing with a golden light that was deeply impressive.
Yeah.
A golden light.
This light definitely actually exists.
Whether it was a special light visible only to me or a hallucination shown by the status window, these were clearly not ordinary corn seeds—they were packed with golden vitality.
Mana.
[ SYSTEM: Entity Analysis Complete ]
[ Name: ]
Mana Corn (C.V.8 Custom)
[ Grade: ]
Legendary (Growth-type)
[ Status: ]
Miraculous germination and Leader mana synchronization complete.
[ Main Characteristics Report ]
Uses your mana as nourishment to completely block out heat from the ground surface.
To this corn, the desert is no longer hell, but merely a warm 'greenhouse'.
A single top-grade corn (★★★★★) contains the recommended daily caloric intake for an adult male.
The quality of corn produced in the current environment is the lowest grade (★), which is estimated to provide as much caloric value per ear as a single bowl of rice.
-
Do not treat them as individual plant entities.
They will become one massive organism connected by mana.
Simply by injecting mana at the center of the oasis, in the distant future, you will be able to simultaneously control corn hundreds of kilometers away.
[ System Suggestion: ]
This is not mere food.
It is a 'living terraforming device' that purifies the atmosphere of a dying planet and anchors mana.
Leader-nim, you have now obtained the ultimate hardware to rewrite this planet's source code.
That was pretty long.
The status window must have had a lot to say, spewing out text endlessly.
Hm.
Three-line summary.
Can grow in the desert.
How? With magic!
Plant in one place and expand.
"Okay. This isn't just at the level of GMO corn."
Setting aside the talk of a colony network for a moment, consuming one corn ear provides roughly a day's worth of calories?
If I brought this back to 21st-century Earth, food would no longer be a problem for humanity.
Of course, that's speaking optimistically. If I carelessly showed something like this off, wouldn't the big plantation farm operators come looking for me with shotguns?
In terms of the corn's value.
And also in terms of the difficulty of corn farming.
'It definitely isn't normal corn.'
Corn farming isn't easy.
Not that any farming is easy, but farming isn't something you can solve with a few button clicks like in a video game.
-Nephew. No matter how smart you are, farming is a matter of the body before the mind.
Every time we ate together, my uncle held nothing back when giving me advice about farming.
-You laid down plastic mulch today, right? Back in my day, people did all of that by hand. Didn't it feel like your very life force was being drained while doing it?
Farming is a painful process that slowly wears down the physical body.
To get a single bowl of rice, human bones and joints had to be ground down countless times.
-Living with a bent back every day isn't easy. Even if you grit your teeth and endure while working, once the work is done, your back hurts like it's going to break and your knee joints start creaking. Elder Jang-ssi over there doesn't walk around resting his hands on his waist for no reason.
That's how hard farming is.
If there was one fortunate thing, it was that there was no need to list out every single hardship.
'Magic is invincible, and mana is god.'
Aside from my elven body having strong specs that allow me to survive even in an 80-degree desert, this special power flowing through my body—mana—neatly solves physically difficult tasks.
Isn't this oasis right here right now a miracle created by mana?
The desert over there, where no spring water existed before, has filled up with water to the point where it could be called a perfect oasis before I even realized it.
The surrounding temperature is slowly dropping.
While I was thinking about the days of backaches over golden corn seeds, the sun and the water were engaged in a heated battle over whether to dry out or soak the land.
The already dried and shriveled sand field was trying to aid desertification by accepting water through its body, but as if it had been waiting for this exact moment, the groundwater turned the wet sand into a muddy bed to support a reservoir, causing water to pool over it.
At this rate, the victory goes to the water vein endlessly gushing from underground.
'The temperature is dropping starting from around the oasis.'
I can feel it on my skin, and the status window hasn't said anything special.
If the water vein had been cut off or if there was danger, it would have notified me right away.
So now there's only one thing to do.
To plant corn using these seeds and water.
"Alright. What do I do now? Slowly, step by step."
Beep-beep.
Had it been waiting?
The status window immediately gleamed and appeared before me.
[ SYSTEM: Leader-exclusive Farming Guide ]
Stage 1: Mana Perforation and Groundwater Irrigation
[ Overview: ]
Utilize underground water veins to lay the foundation for crop growth.
[ System Analysis: ]
While a modern Korean farmer would spend tens of millions of won in equipment and several days to drill for groundwater, Leader-nim solved it with just 3 minutes of mana release.
[ Execution: ]
Periodically transmit mana waves centered on the base sapling. Maintain underground water pressure at 150m depth to fix surface soil humidity at 65%.
"...Base sapling?"
My gaze naturally turned toward the sapling.
Even amid the spray of water surging up and crashing down from the sky, the sapling did not collapse, nor was it submerged in the oasis.
Instead, like a tree standing by the oasis, it was clearly asserting its domain over the soil where it took root.
As if declaring that it wasn't an aquatic plant, but a tree that lived rooted in the dirt.
'I think I see something.'
Should I call it an aura?
Perhaps because it absorbed enough water to form an oasis after having relied on a mere drop of a stream, a triumphant momentum radiated outward, seemingly forming a distinct domain.
A dome that didn't actually exist, but was clearly visible to my eyes.
It was mana.
This little fellow is exuding mana.
Along with oxygen, it was definitely exuding mana.
Its domain was smaller than a kimchi crock, but I could see it expanding its range outward bit by bit.
"Phew."
Is the air becoming clearer with every breath I exhale not just because the surrounding temperature dropped?
A tree that exudes mana, huh.
'The sapling itself wasn't the status window's main goal.'
The reason I came here was because I found a water vein.
In other words, even for the status window, this guy wasn't necessarily a target that had to be found.
Yet it emits oxygen even more strongly than before, and I can even feel mana inside it?
'It's a bonus.'
This guy gained its survival thanks to me.
Now I can do whatever I want with it and use it however I like.
Whether I make it a pet tree, or register it as coordinates for a main hub.
Or use it as an antenna to emit mana waves around here like the status window said.
"Alright. I shall bestow a name upon thee."
I knelt on one knee facing the sapling, held my hand vertically, and moved it as if dubbing a knight.
"You are—"
Wilson? Groot? Maokai? Tree of Life, or Ancient of War?
-The World Tree is just a big tree!
Should I name it without any special fancy name, just 'Big Tree' in hopes that it becomes one later?
"...Let's go with World Tree."
My uncle said so.
If a person sets their mind on something, shouldn't they aim for the top?
Even if things don't pan out, you have to study targeting Seoul National University to build enough skill to get into any university in Seoul, and you have to aim to be like the Korean Oh Danhwi in the Major League to dominate the KBO, right?
Therefore, World Tree it is.
Even if this guy turns out lower than Mana Corn later, let alone a World Tree, or even if a bigger tree appears somewhere else.
"What's the big deal? I'll just make it become the World Tree."
Wishing for it to become the grandest tree, I shall slowly raise it starting from a sapling.
[ SYSTEM: Target Designation and Name Lock ]
[ Target: ]
Base Center Mana Node (Current Altitude: 15cm)
[ Confirmed Name: ]
< World Tree >
[ Status: ]
The system forcefully accepts Leader-nim's naming authority and permanently fixes it to the corresponding name.
From this point onward, the entity will be displayed as 'World Tree' in all status windows and logs.
[ System Suggestion: ]
To be honest, I think the name Leader-nim was thinking of as your top candidate just a moment ago was also quite fine.
Regarding the name 'Chunsik' that Leader-nim considered, I marveled at Leader-nim's wonderful naming sense.
If I may be so bold as to suggest, declaring [From now on, your name is Chunsik] to establish this world's base—
I swiped the status window away with my hand.