With abundant water resources, even the desert could be put to good use.
The first priority was agriculture. There were plenty of drought-resistant plants in Teyvat's deserts—crops such as cactus, which pack beasts often fed on, and sand-wither grass.
The former was no different from the cacti found on Earth, while the latter was a kind of grass whose color closely matched that of the desert itself.
Both were favorites of pack beasts.
If they cultivated these plants and raised some pack beasts alongside them, it would be perfect.
Pack beasts were large, gentle animals that lived in the desert. However, because resources in the desert were scarce, very few people chose to domesticate them.
Even though hardened roads now existed in the desert, it was impossible to pave every single place. The demand for pack beasts would never be small.
This was an industry with a guaranteed market.
And once large animals like pack beasts could be raised, cattle and sheep that also fed on grass could be raised as well. With this combination of measures, it would be more than enough to make every person in Aaru Village prosperous.
And it would be sustainable.
With such an industry in place, it would be more than sufficient for Aaru Village. After all, the village wasn't large, nor was its population.
Managing more than that would be difficult.
Hearing Nolan's proposal, Candace—whose affection toward him was already quite high—thought it over carefully and realized that it was indeed feasible.
In fact, Candace had considered developing agriculture and animal husbandry before, but she had abandoned the idea without much thought, simply because there hadn't been enough water to support it.
But now, with a continuous supply of water, it could finally be developed smoothly!
Seeing Candace clearly tempted by the idea, Nolan promised that he could help open up pastureland and go into the desert to capture some pack beasts.
Although she didn't really want to trouble Nolan, she couldn't resist his enthusiasm. In the end, she agreed—and once again developed more favorable feelings toward him:
[Candace Has Developed Good Feelings Towards You, Obtained 660 Affection Points. Current Affection Level: Lv.6 (260/600)]
Since it was already late in the day, and matters such as choosing a location for the pasture and discussing other details still needed to be settled, there was no rush. They could prepare everything tomorrow.
At dusk, Nolan escorted Dunyazard and Dehya back to Sumeru City.
After that, he accompanied Faruzan back to the Akademiya, first going to her laboratory to release the "Semi-Intransient Matrix of Overseer Network."
Nolan then invited her to the Wonderland Space for dinner that evening, saying he would also introduce her to the other girls.
The thought of being taken to meet his other wives when she hadn't even agreed to become his girlfriend yet made Faruzan feel embarrassed.
But she had no choice—Nolan clung to her, refusing to let go if she didn't agree, and even shamelessly touching her here and there. In the end, she could only give in.
Nolan was delighted and said he would come to pick her up later.
Right after that, Nolan returned to the Sanctuary of Surasthana. He first brought Nahida into the Wonderland Space and helped prepare a new room for her.
In this way, Nahida officially moved into the Wonderland Space as well.
Around dinnertime, Nolan brought Faruzan back again and introduced her to everyone.
Faruzan hadn't expected that even several female gods and some of Mondstadt's and Liyue's ruling figures were all Nolan's lovers.
During dinner, everyone discussed the construction of an ultra-large academy.
Since Faruzan was involved, and the use of the "Wind of the Unthinkable" required her participation, her opinions were also sought during the discussion.
Several nations jointly building an academy and gathering the finest scholars was clearly a good thing, and Faruzan was quite supportive of it.
They talked late into the night, and through collective brainstorming, they more or less finalized the detailed planning for this massive academy.
After all, those participating in the discussion were Teyvat's top scholars, top rulers, and top gods—finalizing an initial plan wasn't difficult.
All that remained afterward was to fine-tune some details, and construction could officially begin.
Coincidentally, the infrastructure projects in various nations were nearly complete, so the idle Geo-element users could be reassigned to participate in the construction.
These Geo-element users were people who used elemental power through elemental storage devices, not Vision bearers.
Vision bearers, by comparison, were relatively few.
After settling the academy's matters, Nolan found an excuse to tell Faruzan that since it was already so late, she might as well stay the night here.
Naturally, she refused at first. A lady's sense of propriety made it impossible for her to so easily agree to live together with a man.
But once they were in the Wonderland Space, Nolan had no intention of missing this opportunity. He pulled her into his arms and repeated his old trick.
This time, he directly kissed her, his hands slipping into Faruzan's short dress, which exposed her snow-white underarms.
Her eyes widened slightly as her jade-white cheeks flushed crimson, and her entire body softened.
Moments later, Nolan felt the girl in his arms shift from slight resistance born of unfamiliarity to faint, active cooperation.
Nolan smiled knowingly, held her close, and teleported to the changing room of the second-floor hot spring bathhouse, continuing to kiss her as he undressed her.
As the short dress slid down, her snow-white skin was revealed from top to bottom.
Her delicate neck, graceful back, slender waist, rounded hips, and long, soft, pale legs—everything was perfectly proportioned and breathtakingly beautiful.
Nolan pressed Faruzan's back against the wall, hooked his wrist behind the knee of her left leg, and gently lifted it.
With his right hand, he lightly pulled aside the teal triangular shorts that wrapped her hips, sliding them a little toward her right thigh.
That night, Faruzan slept in Nolan's room. He cultivated with her all night, successfully raising her to level eighty.
The next morning, Nolan didn't continue to linger with Faruzan.
Mainly because she had classes that day—if their cultivation went too far and affected her lessons, it would be troublesome.
However, the two of them agreed to go shopping in Sumeru City at noon to buy bedding and other furniture. Faruzan would also be moving into the Wonderland Space.
After breakfast, Nolan escorted Faruzan back to the Akademiya, then headed to Dunyazard's home.
Today was the day they would begin helping Aaru Village build its pasture and capture pack beasts.
As Candace's close friend, Dehya also wanted to lend a hand. Dunyazard, who had grown up in Sumeru City and rarely gone out, wanted to see the desert for herself as well.
Nolan naturally had no objections. He took the two of them with him and continued on to Aaru Village.
At this time, Candace had already arrived early and was waiting for them at the House of the Guardian.
She had spent the entire night thinking things through and barely slept at all, finalizing the location of the pasture and all the other concrete details.
The most important task was to ask the villagers whether they were willing to manage the pasture.
If no one was willing, then even if the pasture were built and cattle, sheep, and pack beasts were brought in, having no one to manage them would be a real problem.
Fortunately, there were no surprises—once asked, nearly every villager was willing.
After all, who wouldn't want to become well-off? And developing agriculture and animal husbandry was precisely the path for Aaru Village to grow wealthy.
Seeing the villagers' strong enthusiasm, Candace returned home, had dinner, and then spent the night working out a detailed management plan.
First, to avoid issues such as uneven distribution and disputes, she directly designated the pasture as an asset owned by the entire village. Anyone who wanted to work there would be assigned a position based on their strengths and would receive a monthly salary.
This way, there would be no problems with unfair distribution.
After deducting the pasture's operating costs, all remaining profits would be managed by Candace herself as public village assets, to be used for developing the village so that everyone could benefit.
After thinking it over repeatedly, this plan really was the best option—it minimized the chances of conflict among the villagers to the greatest extent.
How much salary one earned depended purely on individual ability, so naturally no one would have any complaints.
Seeing that Candace had thought everything through so thoroughly, Nolan had no better suggestions. He simply used harmonizing energy to strengthen her a little.
The faint dark circles caused by staying up all night disappeared, and he once again gained Candace's favor:
[Candace Has Developed Good Feelings Towards You, Obtained 640 Affection Points. Current Affection Level: Lv.7 (300/700)]
Level seven with another three hundred points—she had already caught up to Dehya. As expected, focusing on targeted affection-building really was incredibly fast.
After that, the group headed to the site Candace had selected for building the pasture.
It wasn't far from Aaru Village, only a few hundred meters outside the village. If it were any farther, it would be inconvenient for the villagers to go home.
Although the land outside the village wasn't entirely sand, it was mostly arid, cracked soil. Growing anything there was essentially impossible.
Even with water, it wouldn't be possible to improve it in a short time.
The solution they came up with was to dig up soil from the rainforest, lay down a thick layer of it here, and then keep it watered so it wouldn't dry out.
Sand-wither grass could grow very densely, and its leaves were relatively large. According to scholarly calculations, one mu of this grass could feed about five pack beasts.
As for cattle and sheep, one mu could support around ten to twenty head, making it excellent pasture grass.
For Aaru Village as a whole, they would need at least several dozen pack beasts and five to six hundred head of cattle and sheep to truly lift the village out of poverty.
That meant laying down about a hundred mu of soil would be enough. Adding a bit of extra margin, around two hundred mu should suffice.
They could start with a smaller-scale trial, and once it proved viable, expanding it later would be fine.
The entire morning was spent with Nolan hauling soil from the rainforest and filling it into the desert area. By the time two hundred mu were finished, it was already noon.
At this stage, Candace and Dehya couldn't really help much. Watching Nolan work so hard, they both developed a bit more goodwill toward him:
[Dehya Has Developed Good Feelings Towards You, Obtained 630 Affection Points. Current Affection Level: Lv.8 (600/800)]
[Candace Has Developed Good Feelings Towards You, Obtained 660 Affection Points. Current Affection Level: Lv.8 (260/800)]
Both of their affection levels had reached level eight.
At noon, everyone ate lunch in Aaru Village. During the break, Nolan returned to Sumeru City and moved together with Faruzan into the Wonderland Space.
After that, he went back to Aaru Village to continue the afternoon's work.
With the ground prepared in the morning, the afternoon task was to set up several small teleportation arrays to continuously water the land, preventing it from cracking.
Otherwise, after just a few days under the sun, it would dry out and turn back into something no different from the original ground, making all the effort meaningless.
Once that step was completed, the next task was to head into the desert to find sand-wither grass and transplant it.
This time, everyone worked together. Before the sun set, they had gathered enough sand-wither grass to cover the full two hundred mu and transplanted it all.
Of course, more than ninety-five percent of it had been found by Nolan. After all, he could release his mental power over a vast area and cover nearly the entire desert.
Dehya and Candace couldn't do anything on that scale, so their grass-searching speed was naturally much slower.
When night fell, seeing the enormous outcome they had achieved that day, Candace and Dehya once again developed a bit more goodwill toward Nolan:
[Dehya Has Developed Good Feelings Towards You, Obtained 620 Affection Points. Current Affection Level: Lv.9 (420/900)]
[Candace Has Developed Good Feelings Towards You, Obtained 640 Affection Points. Current Affection Level: Lv.9 (100/900)]
Thus, both of their affection levels reached level nine.
That night, after returning to the Wonderland Space, Nolan continued cultivating with the girls. The next day, he returned to Aaru Village again to complete the final task.
That task was to capture some wild pack beasts.
They had transplanted a large amount of sand-wither grass from the wild. As a result, some pack beasts were now short on food, so capturing them and raising them here was perfect.
Capturing around fifty of them would be enough.
Candace planned to let the villagers manage these pack beasts first, allowing them to accumulate some experience before moving on to raising cattle and sheep. The pasture itself had just been completed as well.
The transplanted pasture grass also needed time to settle and grow properly. For now, maintaining fifty pack beasts was sufficient.
Moreover, unlike pack beasts, cattle and sheep weren't native to the desert in such numbers. They would need to be purchased from the city or from professional ranchers.
Candace didn't plan to ask Nolan for help with that either. She intended to slowly develop things using the Mora earned from the pack beasts first.
After all, she couldn't have Nolan take care of everything.
With that, the pasture was essentially complete. Watching dozens of pack beasts stroll leisurely across the pasture, grazing on the grass—
Candace and Dehya both knew that Aaru Village had officially gained its very first industry. An improvement in everyone's standard of living was only a matter of time.
As they thought about this, they once again developed some goodwill toward the greatest contributor of all—Nolan.
Among them, Dehya's affection level toward Nolan directly reached max, while Candace reached level nine with over seven hundred additional affection points.
With just one more gain in Candace's affection, hers would be maxed out as well.
Just as Nolan was thinking about how to gain her affection, the information for Dehya's max-affection skill popped up.
[Through sincere feelings and unyielding effort, you have become deeply intertwined with a fate that once had no connection to you. From this moment on, the maiden's constellation star shall shine together with yours. Ability acquired: Lion King's Will.]
It looked like a willpower-related ability. Nolan opened the detailed description of Dehya's affection skill:
[Lion King's Will: Greatly increases the user's willpower. A resolute will is unaffected by any mental, consciousness-based, or suggestive effects. When challenging opponents of a higher level than the user, the following additional effects are gained: immunity to control abilities at or below the tier of "the combined level of both parties." Of the damage dealt to the target, a portion equal to 0.1 multiplied by the percentage of the "combined level of both parties" will become "true damage" that ignores all defenses and shields.]
(End of Chapter)
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