Fairy Tale Survival with Ability Copying

Levi did not answer the question asked by the Sky Knight Rune.

He had his own ideas.

At this moment, the vicious scheme plotted by the Silverclaw Viscount, after a period of preparation, was finally put fully into motion.

In truth, during this period, the grain flowing out from Silverclaw Territory had already been steadily decreasing. It simply had not been completely cut off yet.

But since Levi had long known about the other party's poisonous scheme, while training the garrison troops, he had also instructed Yalina to purchase large quantities of grain through the market.

Although the Silverclaw Viscount noticed something and accelerated the pace of the blockade, over the course of seven days, Levi's side still managed to stockpile quite a bit of grain—mainly rye.

Without affecting the town residents, Yalina used the original castle staff's channels to purchase 4,800 pounds of rye.

It was not that they did not want to buy more grain.

There simply was no more available to buy.

Under normal prices, this batch of rye should have been worth around ten gold coins.

But because of the Silverclaw Viscount's interference, prices skyrocketed. In the end, Yalina spent thirty gold coins.

At this moment, the funds recorded under Levi's name still amounted to 2,150 gold coins and 430 silver coins.

Because many things—such as food and those military supplies—had all been created by Levi using [Synthesis] and did not consume money, the amount of funds on hand remained this high.

Otherwise, just that pile of military supplies alone would have cost several hundred gold coins at minimum.

Not to mention the expenses in other areas.

Only after arriving did Levi realize he had inherited an absolute mess.

But that was normal. If it had been a good piece of land, how could the Grand Duke of Silverbrook possibly have been willing to hand it over to him?

Back to the main issue.

Yalina had purchased 4,800 pounds of rye. It sounded like a considerable amount and could roughly produce 8,000 pounds of rye bread.

If sand or sawdust were mixed in, the weight could even be increased to 10,000 pounds.

That was standard practice in this era.

But Levi was not low enough to do something like that.

So calculations would still be based on 8,000 pounds of rye bread.

A single soldier required at least three to four pounds of black bread per day, assuming no other food intake.

And the number of garrison members Levi needed to feed was roughly two hundred.

In other words, Levi needed to provide 600 to 800 pounds of rye bread every day.

Those 8,000 pounds of bread were only enough to last about ten days.

Of course, under emergency rationing, stretching it to twenty days would not be a problem.

In addition, the inexhaustible Bread, Ham, and Wine possessed by the Sky Knight Rune could also provide fifty pounds of bread, twenty pounds of ham, and twenty liters of wine every day.

That amount sounded fairly substantial.

But in reality, a single soldier could drink several liters of alcohol a day.

For one or two people, or even a small group of three, it would naturally be impossible to finish.

But for a crowd, it was clearly far from enough.

Still, they could extend the amount of time Levi's grain reserves could support everyone—reaching thirty days, or even forty days—without taking Levi's Synthesis ability into account.

If Levi's Synthesis ability were included, then things became entirely different. Supporting them for another month or two would not be difficult at all, perhaps even longer.

But what was the cost?

Levi would have to consume all of his magic power on Synthesis.

That was obviously unacceptable.

He could support the food and drink needs of these two hundred people, but the entire town of Coldwind Keep had nearly three thousand residents. How could Levi possibly support all of them?

Although the town was by the sea and the fishermen could fish for food, surviving on fish alone was impossible. There was no fat, no carbohydrates.

Even fishermen could not endure that!

Levi was a lord. What he needed to consider was not merely the survival of the two hundred people inside the castle, but the lives of the several thousand people throughout the entire territory.

Perhaps even more than that, because the intelligence reports showed that the Silverclaw Viscount intended to drive several thousand refugees into his territory.

Therefore, he had to find a way out for the entire town of Coldwind Keep—after the Silverclaw Viscount sealed the territory and prohibited grain from entering.

If Hornreach could grow food crops, then the Silverclaw Viscount's blockade would not pose much of a threat.

But Hornreach lay close to the sea, and the land was almost entirely saline-alkali soil, fundamentally unsuitable for cultivation.

'I need to find a way to create a crop capable of surviving in saline-alkali soil. And its growth cycle must be short. Otherwise, Hornreach won't be able to hold out that long. If we refuse to compromise with the Silverclaw Viscount, then the only remaining path will be to attack him.'

That was what Levi was thinking.

Unless absolutely necessary, he did not want to do that.

After all, without considering Levi himself as a factor, Hornreach compared to Silverclaw Territory was as fragile as an egg.

Levi decided it would be better to find a way to solve the problem of Hornreach being unable to sustain itself with its own food production.

Ordinary people would definitely have no solution.

Even in the modern era, with technology so advanced, saline-alkali soil was still an extremely difficult problem to overcome.

But Levi possessed magic, along with Synthesis—a spell that was honestly rather overpowered.

The spell Synthesis could directly synthesize all kinds of substances, with the magic power consumed varying according to the complexity of the material.

There was also another way to use it: combining two things through Synthesis.

However, the results of that kind of Synthesis were impossible to predict. It might succeed, it might fail, it might produce something completely bizarre, or it might even yield a perfect result.

That was the method Levi intended to use.

But first, he needed to find a parent specimen to use for the Synthesis.

At that thought—Levi transformed into a nightingale and, with a flap of his wings, flew into the sky.

There was a place he needed to visit—Mist Swamp!

This place felt unusually restless and violent.

Levi could sense a kind of pressure coming from a higher lifeform.

Yet he could not determine exactly where it was coming from.

After returning to human form and casting Detection, all he could determine was that the oppressive presence originated from deep within the swamp.

And he was not the only one who felt it.

The creatures living within Mist Swamp felt it as well.

The farther inward one went, the stronger the pressure became.

As a result, many creatures that originally lived deep inside the swamp—such as kobold tribes, along with other beasts and monsters—had begun migrating toward the outer regions.

Right now, the changes were not especially obvious.

But once a certain threshold was crossed, the entire Mist Swamp might completely erupt, triggering a monster tide that would affect all the surrounding human settlements.

Levi's Hornreach would not be able to stay out of it either.

But that was a problem for the future.

Levi had not forgotten the purpose of this trip.

A faint blue glow flickered within his eyes as his gaze swept through Mist Swamp.

The thin fog could not obstruct his vision.

All kinds of information appeared before him.

While casting Wizard's Hand to form invisible giant hands that carried him in low-altitude flight through the swamp, he also maintained Detection to examine the plants growing within it.

The damp, rotting smell clung to Levi's nose like a soaking wet burial shroud.

This swamp, perpetually shrouded in mist, was far from silent. From time to time, the roars of unknown beasts echoed through the fog.

As he passed around a poisonous pool covered in glowing moss, his attention was suddenly drawn to a strange patch of vegetation.

It was a small cluster of plants growing atop a relatively dry mound of earth. Their stalks were purplish-red, the leaves triangular in shape, and at the top grew several not-yet-fully-ripened grayish-black grains.

Detection displayed their information—

Buckwheat!

Buckwheat was a crop resistant to poor soil conditions. It could grow in mildly saline-alkali land, and its growth cycle was short, requiring only two or three months before harvest.

It was clearly extremely suitable as the parent specimen Levi needed to create a new crop.

With a thought, without even approaching, Levi cast Gathering.

One intact Buckwheat Sprout after another was collected into Levi's hands.

Twenty plants in total.

Many of them had already produced seeds.

Enough!

Levi carefully stored away the Buckwheat Sprouts and prepared to leave.

Suddenly, a series of faint footsteps mixed with low murmurs carrying a fishy stench came from behind a nearby thicket.

Before the creature making the noise even emerged, Levi already knew what it was.

Kobolds!

Sure enough—

A group of kobolds pushed their way through the bushes.

These kobolds possessed humanoid bodies, though they stood only around 1.2 meters tall, roughly the size of children. Yet their muscles were sharply defined, especially around the shoulders and arms, which bulged with explosive strength. Their skin was gray-green or dark brown, and the outer sides of their backs and arms were covered with dense keratin scales. Their heads featured protruding snouts and sharp teeth like those of dogs, while their vertical pupils glowed muddy yellow or red, flashing with greed and cruelty in the dim mist.

They wore crude armor woven from beast hides and rough vines, while brandishing sharpened stone spears and wooden clubs in their hands.

They possessed intelligence and were not mere beasts.

Their sense of smell was exceptional. As their noses twitched, they discovered Levi's presence.

They had discovered food!

The kobolds instantly became excited, shrieking as they lunged toward Levi from all directions with astonishing speed.

Levi's gaze sharpened.

Several invisible Wizard's Hands appeared around him and swept outward.

The kobolds did not even have time to react before they were sent flying.

They were hurled more than ten meters away, and by the time they hit the ground, they were already more dead than alive.

Moments later, every last one of them was dead.

The surrounding swamp suddenly fell silent.

Levi chuckled softly before continuing his exploration through Mist Swamp.

He had already found the parent specimen, but he still needed more plants to fuse and synthesize with it.

…

Inside the castle.

Within the room reserved exclusively for the lord.

A large pile of plants was stacked before Levi, separated into two groups. One pile was small and consisted entirely of buckwheat sprouts. The other was much larger and more varied—plants Levi had gathered from Mist Swamp, the Black Forest, and along the journey here.

Buckwheat was the parent specimen Levi had chosen.

Compared to rye, this crop was more cold-resistant and required less from the soil. Even within the barren rocky crevices of Hornreach, it could still survive.

The problem was that its normal growth cycle took nearly three months.

That was far too slow to solve an immediate crisis.

So it needed to be modified.

And this was where Levi's Synthesis finally came into play.

He took a deep breath as a faint cyan magical glow slowly spread across his fingertips.

Unlike before, when he directly synthesized military supplies, this time the focus was on combining two different crops through synthesis in order to create entirely new crop varieties.

At Levi's current Synthesis level, he could only support the fusion of two items at once.

But that should be enough.

He placed the buckwheat parent specimen at the center of the stone table, then took out the Fast-Growing Wild Grass he had gathered from the swamp and used the power of Synthesis to merge them together.

As the pale cyan light appeared, the two plants melted together like water and fused into one.

A brand-new plant emerged.

Levi examined it with Detection and discovered that not only had the new plant failed to inherit the rapid growth traits of the Fast-Growing Wild Grass, it had even lowered the buckwheat's seed yield.

That obviously would not work.

Levi was not discouraged. He set the new plant aside, selected a piece of Lichen instead, and once again began a new round of Synthesis with the buckwheat.

Another new plant appeared.

This new plant had stalks rough as stone, covered in gray-green and orange lichen-like markings.

It required no soil and could grow directly on bare rock, cliffs, or even ruins. It possessed extreme drought and cold resistance.

But there was one problem—

Its growth speed was painfully slow.

Levi already considered buckwheat's three-month flowering and harvest cycle too slow.

Yet this new plant measured its maturity in years.

Levi himself could afford to wait.

The several thousand people within his territory could not.

This synthesis attempt was another failure.

Levi picked up another plant.

This time, he selected a type of Moss that grew relatively quickly and also possessed salt resistance…

The magical glow flared again and again before fading repeatedly.

The table gradually filled with failed specimens, while fine beads of sweat appeared across Levi's forehead—a sign of excessive magical exhaustion.

That was simply the nature of Synthesis.

It carried enormous uncertainty.

So Levi could only continue experimenting over and over again.

After countless failures, from daytime until dusk, Levi's magic power was nearly depleted. Even the glow at his fingertips had become weak and dim.

Clinging to his final shred of hope, he took out a salt-resistant, drought-resistant vine from the seaside and fused it with the buckwheat parent specimen.

The pale cyan magical light enveloped them both.

A mysterious power methodically fused the two together.

A new plant appeared.

Its overall form resembled a vine. Its roots and stems were thick and resilient, while its leaves were dark green streaked with pale silver veins.

Most importantly, instead of flowering or producing grain along the vine nodes and base, irregular flattened starch tubers gradually swelled outward. Their surfaces were wrapped in a thin pale-brown skin, dense and full-bodied in texture.

Levi cast Detection on it.

The moment he saw the information that appeared, he froze briefly before revealing a heartfelt smile.

"I did it! Hahahahaha—!"

According to the information displayed by Detection, this vine grew by creeping across the ground and possessed extremely powerful adhesion. It could spread along the surface, through cracks in stone, without occupying much space and without requiring any support structures.

Most importantly, it was completely resistant to saline-alkali environments.

Whether it was the coastal saline slopes of Hornreach, the barren poor soil of the inland Silverclaw Peninsula, or even mildly salinized tidal flats, it could firmly take root and survive.

It was highly adaptable and incredibly easy to cultivate.

The plant absorbed large amounts of salt from the soil and concentrated it within salt sacs inside its leaves. By crushing the leaves, saline water could be extracted and used directly.

Whether for supplementing livestock salt intake or preserving food through curing, it worked perfectly well.

And its growth cycle lasted only a single month.

From planting vine cuttings to the base swelling with starch-filled tubers, the entire process required only around thirty days.

Its maturation speed far surpassed both rye and ordinary buckwheat, while its yield was equally astonishing. A single square meter of vines could produce several pounds of dense starch tubers with extremely high starch content, fully capable of replacing grain as military rations.

Of course, it also possessed certain drawbacks.

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I will post some extra Chapters in Patreon, you can check it out. >> /TitoVillar

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