Divine Beast Creator-Chapter 2194 - 2195: Visiting Grotto-Rock Village

Standing on the corridor and looking at that piece of farmland for a while, Feng Yuan and the others lost interest in that place. Initially, Feng Yuan was excited about seeing the Magma Babies, but it turned out he was thinking too much.

Those Magma Babies were nowhere to be found at the moment, and at least for now, they hadn’t caught a glimpse of them.

The third floor was not a storage room, but instead of being used for living, the rooms here were for recreation and entertainment. This wasn’t surprising, considering this floor was relatively dim in this row. Residential areas were generally on the top two floors, especially the top floor, where the lighting was better, and living there didn’t feel oppressive.

As for putting leisure and entertainment venues in such a place, it actually relates to the structure of Grotto-Rock Village itself. Despite having many paths, the whole village didn’t have a plaza designed. Many buildings were clustered together, so on regular days, the villagers looking to chat would have to gather in a public room.

Otherwise, they would have to go outside the village to gather. As for the plantation inside the cave?

That was better left alone, as the area behind the main gate was the domain of the Beastmasters, and the villagers usually had no reason to enter that area. During the Dynasty Era, ordinary people’s awe of Beastmasters still had lingering influences even in modern times.

Of course, the main reason was that with the development of the era, they didn’t need small plazas as much. For training Divine Beasts, naturally, one had to go outside the village, and for casual chats?

Grotto-Rock Village was unlike most other villages. With its Fire Spirit Mushrooms and the entrance to the Magma Channel, if they didn’t train their fire-type beasts, it would be quite a waste, wouldn’t it?

So the proportion of formal Beastmasters in Grotto-Rock Village was significantly higher than in most villages. With the time spent chatting, they might as well train their beasts more.

Also, that’s why there weren’t many locals around when Feng Yuan and his group arrived. Actually, what’s not mentioned in the travel guide is that with the development of Grotto-Rock Village, the village they were in was gradually becoming just a place to stay overnight.

As for the areas where they worked and lived during the day, those were on the other side of the mountain, where there was a large open space for their Divine Beasts to unleash their ultimate moves freely.

If it wasn’t for the location of Grotto-Rock Village being so closely tied to those resources, they might have already started planning to move the village.

Currently, they stayed in the old village partly out of habit and partly because they still needed to take shifts looking after the Fire Spirit Mushroom farm.

As the crucial fertilizer needed for the Fire Spirit Mushroom farm, magma ash, was provided by Magma Babies, that large Fire Spirit Mushroom farmland actually belonged to the whole Grotto-Rock Village. It wasn’t contracted out to individuals because doing so would cause enormous trouble in distributing the magma ash later.

Of course, the fact that the Fire Spirit Mushroom farm was a public asset of Grotto-Rock Village didn’t affect their enthusiasm for work, since a portion of the produce would be directly distributed to everyone who participated in the labor.

However, due to the large scale and the lack of meticulous care, the Fire Spirit Mushrooms produced by the farm were relatively lower in quality.

The truly high-quality Fire Spirit Mushrooms mostly came from the planting rooms on the first floor of the village, where the land was distributed to individuals, and each family would meticulously care for their mushrooms if needed. Moreover, the room itself was not large, just a small plot of land which not only received meticulous care but also had various advantages in the use of fertilizers.

Because these were personal planting fields, fertilizers and other supplies were not centrally allocated by Grotto-Rock Village, and each household had unique techniques passed down for cultivating Fire Spirit Mushrooms. This led to differences in the details of mushrooms produced by each family.

Of course, they didn’t use all top-quality Fire Spirit Mushrooms themselves since these were also considered rare treasures for fire-element Beastmasters.

Although there were limitations regarding long-term use, the only issue for those Beastmasters was whether they could buy it, not whether they could afford it.

Just looking at how Qi Chen and Dou Yanlan had much looser budgets after a semester, it becomes clear it wasn’t too much of a problem for those capable Beastmasters.

After all, Fire Spirit Mushrooms could only be considered a type of special produce close to a spiritual medicine, with a price ceiling that wasn’t very high. Feng Yuan found it troublesome; otherwise, he could prepare some for the Fluffy Fire Wolfhound.

Whether it would accept them was another matter. Though these could enhance abilities, they were a type of fungi after all, making a dog chew mushrooms every day seemed...

Anyway, Feng Yuan did ask the Fluffy Fire Wolfhound about this, and it bluntly refused the suggestion. Making it chew mushrooms every day was something it couldn’t tolerate.

Besides, the Fluffy Fire Wolfhound believed Feng Yuan surely had other plans and didn’t need it to chew on Fire Spirit Mushrooms every day.

Despite not following Feng Yuan for a long time, the Fluffy Fire Wolfhound had already figured out Feng Yuan’s habits and capabilities. Feng Yuan indeed had many plans for nurturing, just that he hadn’t mentioned them to the Fluffy Fire Wolfhound on ordinary days.

Since the daily diet of the Fluffy Fire Wolfhound and Xiao Ji was mostly handled in the dormitory, either by Feng Yuan himself or by Kong Qing and Big Cat handling it, adding special ingredients to their meals was an easy task for Feng Yuan, who was very familiar with the Spirit Beasts’ preferences.

Therefore, Fire Spirit Mushrooms to Feng Yuan were just a special delicious ingredient, not something that would lead to many mushrooms in Fluffy Fire Wolfhound’s meals.

"Is the top also open?"

After visiting the fourth-floor room, Feng Yuan looked at the stairs in surprise. The floors below were not residential rooms, though some rooms on the fourth floor were for living. The fourth-floor room open to the public was a dining and washing room.

Without going upstairs, Feng Yuan could guess that the top floor must be residential. However, Feng Yuan was surprised that these residential rooms were also open to the public.

Qi Chen glanced at the travel guide and said,

"The exhibition rooms near the main road are reclaimed by Grotto-Rock Village and arranged uniformly, so each building is entirely open."

The architecture in Grotto-Rock Village, though appearing as multiple households in a row, could actually be seen as several houses side by side closely. Feng Yuan and the others were visiting the one facing the street, which, although having five rooms, was considered a single household within Grotto-Rock Village.

To facilitate tourist visits, Grotto-Rock Village reclaimed the homes touching the main road on both sides, compensating the original homeowners, and converted these rooms to be open for tours.

Nearby rooms had signs hung in the corridor reminding tourists to stop.

Even if someone forced their way through, it wouldn’t matter, as long as they didn’t disturb the residents, and others might not even say anything.

In general, though, tourists wouldn’t usually do such an impolite thing.

After visiting the final room, Feng Yuan looked back at the farm behind the main gate. Due to the height difference, the twinkling flames seemed much smaller, and Feng Yuan also noticed the building near the gate.

Unlike the tallest five-story wooden buildings in Grotto-Rock Village, there was a wooden building no taller than two stories near the gate. Based on its exposed style, Feng Yuan guessed it might be an inn.

Considering the entrance to the Magma Channel was behind this, having an inn here didn’t seem particularly strange to Feng Yuan.

He stood in the corridor for a while, and seeing no changes, Feng Yuan and Qi Chen returned to the ground, intending to check the other rows to see if any room had something special, and also planned to visit the wooden building’s Fire Spirit Mushroom planting room.

Although Feng Yuan wasn’t too interested in Fire Spirit Mushrooms, he was somewhat intrigued by these specialties that could be used as ingredients since they represented the possibility of making interesting dishes.

Feng Yuan’s plan was to discreetly collect some spores while others weren’t watching.

As for whether they could be successfully cultivated?

Feng Yuan honestly wasn’t worried. Just kidding, with Agunas and the others, if not, he could rope in other Divine Beasts to help. How could small Fire Spirit Mushrooms pose any challenge to him?

Agunas and the others were unaware of Feng Yuan’s thoughts. Otherwise, Agunas might ask Drudgeon to help buy some Fire Spirit Mushrooms from Cha Mu Town instead of trying to grow them?

Being a plant born of special rules, it wasn’t that there was no solution to the cultivation issue, but it was just too troublesome.