by N. Heller
"Are there enough water droplets for all of us to germinate?" Someone finally broke the silence with this question disregarding the fact that they were deep underground and no one knew if Harry could even hear them.
But, Harry heard the question.
"Don't worry. There is definitely enough water droplets," Harry immediately answered much to everyone's surprise. "You just have to look for the water droplets and distinguish them correctly."
"Finding the droplets make sense, but distinguish them?"
"Ugh. Blame it on the chemical plants. They polluted the water sources nearby," Harry gave a reason which was definitely part of the pocket dimension's background story. "Even though I water my produce with the water from the well in my backyard, I can't prevent polluted water from contaminating the soil in my farm. They look no different from the water from my well so you must be very careful when you collect those water droplets. If you absorb a drop of contaminated water, it will reduce your vitality by quite a bit. It would be equivalent to a person not eating for a month. If you absorb a pure water droplet, your vitality won't change. You will only grow stronger after germinating."
In other words, even though they were posthumans, there was a limit to the number of contaminated water droplets that one could absorb. As a pure water droplet did not replenish any vitality, a person would die if they absorbed an excessive number of contaminated water droplets even after collecting 40 droplets of pure water and fulfilling the germination requirement.
"How should we differentiate the water droplets?" Someone in the group asked.
"Sorry, I'm unable to differentiate the droplets even though I'm a farmer. When I discover that my seeds have been poisoned, it is usually too late." Unfortunately, Harry did not provide the answer to the most crucial question. "But, don't worry. If you have your numbered tag, I will dig you out even if you die…"
"That's useless!" Lin Sanjiu grumbled inwardly. Number 45 suddenly asked another question. "How do we collect the water droplets? What are the water droplets like?"
"Each water droplet is very large. It is the size of a fist. It is crystal clear and you can carry it around, exchange them and also collect them. It is just like a pen or a piece of paper," Harry said truthfully. "Collecting the water droplets from the chamber is just the first step. After you have verified that all the water droplets you have are not from the contaminated water source, you have to absorb them. After all, a seed needs water to germinate. There is no time limit for you to absorb the water you need. You can absorb each droplet immediately after you find it or you can collect 40 droplets and absorb them all at one go. Another thing you have to note is that you can't absorb the water droplets this chamber. You have to return to the main hall you came in from."
"That rule is a little strange…" Lin Sanjiu crooked her head as she pondered about his words. She suddenly realized that someone was standing close to her. Gong Daoyi lowered his head slightly and whispered in her ears, "For example."
"For example? For example what? What is he trying to hint at?" A sudden thought crossed her mind. Lin Sanjiu wanted to ask another question. She turned and realized that she wasn't facing Gong Daoyi. She was staring at Number 44's fair face.
"You're standing too close to me," Lin Sanjiu said coldly as she frowned, "Move back."
"Gosh, you're really… You don't even give anyone a chance to get close to you," Number 44 rattled on. However, the moment he noticed the look she was giving him, he raised his hands up and retreated two steps backward.
"Do all of you understand the rules?" Harry probably couldn't sense that the atmosphere in the subterranean chamber was suddenly getting weird. "I will start watering on the count of 10. 10, 9, 8 —" he announced joyfully.
Before he even reached 8, everyone reacted and rushed for the cubicle in front of them.
Chapter 422 - The Seeds Must Be Well-watered During The Seed Stage 2
Lin Sanjiu had never seen such a 'water droplet' before.
If she held it in her palm, the clear crystal had a shiny, watery sheen even in the dark just like a normal water droplet, as if it was just a larger version. However, when she threw the water droplet on the ground, it bounced with a 'boing' a few times before rolling away. Extraordinarily, her hand would still be completely dry.
"Huh?"
Lin Sanjiu heard astonished voices from the other cubicles nearby. "Huh?" Apparently, the others did not expect that the water droplets would display these properties. When she heard the others discussing the situation outside, Lin Sanjiu had an idea. The water droplet became a card in her hand.
"I can still convert this into a card, luckily—" Lin Sanjiu couldn't help letting out a sigh. Before she could feel relief, she noticed the description on the card.
[Harry's Farmer Pocket Dimension Water Droplet 1]
Description: This is the first water droplet Lin Sanjiu found. If a person absorbs this in Harry's Farm Pocket Dimension, it will help it their germination process. On the other hand, it could reduce his/her vitality if it is a contaminated droplet. Well, is this water droplet clean or contaminated? How would a card know these things?
Lin Sanjiu, please take this seriously and make the judgment yourself. Stop trying to find shortcuts using your cards.
"What sort of description is this? " Lin Sanjiu thought to herself angrily when she finished reading the card. In the end, converting the water droplet into a card only made it easier for her to carry it around and gave her no additional advantages. Thus, it was meaningless!
Since the description on her card could not help her, her priority now was to find a way to distinguish between the pure and contaminated water droplets.
There were two water droplets in the cubicle she had crawled into. Based on outer appearances, they were completely identical.
"Has everyone found a water droplet?"
Lin Sanjiu heard a muffled voice from a cubicle above her. Sound did not travel well in this chamber due to its unique infrastructure. On top of that, Lin Sanjiu wasn't really familiar with the other 'seeds' so she couldn't tell who actually spoke, "How many droplets did all of you find?"
"I found one droplet in the first cubicle and another two droplets in the second cubicles." Unexpectedly, someone answered honestly. This was followed by a few other answers. After thinking about it for a moment, Lin Sanjiu realized that it wasn't anything shocking.
Firstly, Harry had already assured them that there were enough pure water droplets for all eight people to germinate. It was absolutely unnecessary for them to keep their guard up against each other. Secondly, even if someone had a droplet, it was useless unless they found a way to differentiate between a pure and contaminated water droplet.
"Everyone found some? In that case, did anyone notice any differences?" the first voice asked hesitantly.
This time, there were only a few 'no's.
According to Harry, all they had to do to absorb the droplet was to grasp the droplet with both hands and shout, "Absorb". After they heard his instructions, no one questioned him further about it. Everyone only started to have doubts when they saw that the droplets were more like rubber balls.
"Excuse me—" the other female spoke. She seemed to be diagonally behind Lin Sanjiu, "Can any of you make a precise measurement of the weight of the droplets? Don't you think that the contaminated water droplets are probably heavier due to the contaminants?"
The people in this pocket dimension were either posthumans from this world or other worlds. They definitely owned a few secret Special Items, but none of them had anything which could be used as a weighing machine, let alone any professional laboratory equipment which could measure liquid to that precision.
Even though everyone quickly expressed that they couldn't measure the differences, Lin Sanjiu couldn't resist trying. She placed a droplet on her hand and tried to sense any differences despite being well aware that she would not discover anything.
When she looked up, she realized that she wasn't the only o
ne.
After everyone tested out a few methods, a person finally let out a resounding sigh.
"How about this: can we shine a light through these water droplets?" Number 47 suddenly suggested despite being a man of few words, "A water droplet with more impurities would probably have poorer clarity."
His suggestion sounded more feasible than weighing the water droplets. Light immediately shot out from various cubicles. Talking to each other in their cubicles, all of them agreed to meet at the spot where they heard Harry's explanation. As Number 43 and Number 44 had the brightest light source, so they were chosen to conduct the experiment.
To ensure that the results were accurate, they gave each water droplet a serial number and tested the water droplets in dyads. Much to everyone's disappointment, no matter howthey tested the dyads, the amount of light which penetrated through each droplet was the same.
Since this method did not work, there were suggestions like sticking a piece of pH test paper in the water droplet, test-tasting the water droplets, filtering the water droplet, etc. Even though it was obvious, no one really thought about it, but finally, someone even suggested to boil the water droplets to check for any residues. Unfortunately, all the suggestions could not work because of the unique rubber-ball like surface of the water droplet.
After over a dozen suggestions were rebuffed by reality, the chamber became silent.
"Erm… can we leave?" Noticing the impasse at such a crucial juncture, Number 44 asked suddenly, looking around. "If we can leave, I can search for precision measuring instructions on everyone's behalf."
Number 43 was toying with his bandana, he seemed to do this whenever he was troubled. When he heard this, he sneered, "That's a good idea, why don't you ask Harry?"
Number 44 seemed totally oblivious to Number 43's sarcasm. He shouted his question aloud, and Harry answered him. Just as expected, the answer lowered their spirits. "Out? Do you think I am crazy? I spent so much effort planting each seed. Do you think I'll dig you out? You guys better spent more time figuring out how to germinate."
Everyone became silent.
"Why don't we think of other tests…" Number 45 quickly encouraged after she noticed that everyone's downcast expression. Before she could finish her sentence, Lin Sanjiu shook her head, "No. I don't think we can measure the water droplets' purity using any scientific analysis."
Her words instantly caught everyone's attention. "How do you know?" one of them asked.
"I don't have any proof. I came to this conjecture based on my instinct," Lin Sanjiu ignored the sudden disappointment on a few of the people' faces. She continued, "Thinking through things, I feel that my conjecture make logical sense. Look. If someone in our 'batch' happens to have an equipment which could identify the chemical composite of the water droplet, wouldn't this stage would be pointless? It would also be unfair for the batch of seeds that do not have those equipment."
"Yes. Since this is a pocket dimension which explicitly states that it would help posthumans, it would definitely take into account the different people entering."
At that moment, Lin Sanjiu suddenly noticed something. It was a gaze or a microexpression. Somehow, it felt a little off. It felt like something which should not exist here...
"Pocket dimensions do not work the same way as reality. Maybe, these water droplets are not even chemically different. The different effects might just be designed by this pocket dimension."
As the people around her started discussing again, Lin Sanjiu was oblivious. She was trying to figure out what she had seen with her full focus. Just when a thought flashed in a mind, it escaped her because Number 44 suddenly shouted.
"Harry! Can we differentiate the water droplets through scientific analysis?" he raised his head and shouted with an annoyingly loud voice.
"Sorry, I don't know," Harry replied as expected.
"Stop asking. He definitely wouldn't help us with this crucial problem. Otherwise, the situation would be pointless," Number 42 was probably agitated, so he stopped Number 44 who seemed keen to ask more question. As he was the oldest in the group, he spoke with some authority. Number 44 listened to him and stop asking.
"What should we do now?"
Number 42 was stumped. After some time, he sighed, "We haven't even finished exploring this chamber. Perhaps, it too early to think about that problem. Do you have all your water droplets? Why don't we collect more water droplets? When we have enough, we can discuss the problem again. But, everyone, do try to look at your surroundings when you searching for the water droplets. There might be some clues lying around."
"Is tactical hallucination possible? " Lin Sanjiu thought to herself as she looked past "Fang Dan".
Number 46 and 48 were standing together. They seemed to be whispering to each other. As everyone already put away their light sources, it was too dark for Lin Sanjiu to see their faces clearly. She could only tell that they were about the same build.
"I guess they are really a couple," Lin Sanjiu quickly averted her gaze when Number 46 looked up. She didn't want them to think that she was peeping. "It is good to have someone to discuss things with."
"Unfortunately, my grand prize isn't allowed down here. With his intelligence, he would definitely think of a way to differentiate the water droplets." Lin Sanjiu thought to herself as she picked a water droplet from the floor.
When she changed the water droplet into a card, the item name was just as she expected [Harry's Farmer Pocket Dimension Water Droplet 3]. The description was almost the same. She had to think of another idea, it seemed.
After she collected another six water droplets uneventfully, she heard a sudden "Huh?" echoing in the chamber just as she was about to enter the cubicle at the edge of the room. She didn't know who made that sound.
"What's wrong?" 42 immediately asked.
"Something's amiss…" that muffled voice sounded very far from her so it was hard for Lin Sanjiu to hear him. "I'm sure not if this is a discovery… Hey everybody, what is the maximum number of water droplets you found in a single cubicle?"
Lin Sanjiu paused and thought for a moment. She found only a maximum of two droplets in a few cubicles, some cubicles were even empty. After she heard other replies, she realized that most of them had the same experience. Only one or two of them found a maximum of three droplets.
"There is a real issue here! We have searched through more than half the cubicles and we split the work…" he spoke a little anxiously and suddenly spoke louder because of that. "Just think. There are eight of us here. We need 320 pure water droplets in total for all of us to germinate. There are only 100 cubicles here. Even if each of us found 3 droplets in each cubicle, there are only 300 droplets in total. That number is inclusive of the contaminated water droplets, but there clearly isn't enough water droplets for all of us!'
This was actually quite obvious but all of them overlooked that issue. Once Number 42 pointed that out, some of them grew anxious.
"Harry! Harry!" they yelled out.
"Why do you need me again?"
"Didn't you say that there were enough water droplets for all eight of us to germinate? But, there clearly isn't enough!"
Unlike his previous answers, Harry was quiet for a few seconds before he replied slowly, "No. You are wrong. There are enough water droplets for everyone. There are eight people. That is a total of 320 water droplets."
All of them froze for a second.
"But… there aren't enough water droplets!"
"I have already given you the hints you need," Harry said mildly. "You shouldn't expect me to spoon-feed the answer to you, right? You are the seeds, not me."
When Number 42's calm voice rang out in the room, it undeniably soothed the situation a little. "Everyone, listen to me. I have an idea."
"What?"
"Harry wouldn't lie to us. That goes without saying. This means that there must be 320 water droplets… I was thinking… Maybe, there might be a crevice or secret passage between these cubicles and
a large number of water droplets may be hidden there."
" That makes sense… After all, the design of the cubicles is a little strange..." Lin Sanjiu thought.
"But, I've already entered many cubicles. Should we start from the beginning?" Number 44 shouted.
"No… We shouldn't search the cubicles we have entered. If we don't organize ourselves and search chaotically, we could miss a spot." Number 42 muttered to himself before answering so he spoke a little too slowly. Hearing his unhurried voice, Lin Sanjiu felt even more impatient. He continued, "I think we need to work together in this stage to get all the water droplets we need. This must be Harry's intention."
Lin Sanjiu was just about to ask him how they should cooperate when she looked up and saw a hand sticking out from the edge of a cubicle. Then, she saw a leg. Number 46 was coming out from the cubicle he was in.
"Oh, hello," Lin Sanjiu greeted and tried to look as natural as possible. "I've already taken the water droplets nearby. You should try another spot."
Lin Sanjiu could see Number 46's glossy hair in darkness. As he nodded, there was a fleeting sheen on his hair. He left without saying a word.
Then, Number 42's plan caught her attention.
Chapter 423 - The Seeds Must Be Well-watered During The Seed Stage 3
"This is my plan. We should put all the water droplets we found in the main hall. After we have confirmed that there are no water droplets in the cubicles, we should come back here and split the cubicles into eight zones. Everyone should take a zone and search systematically. Doing this will ensure that we will not miss any possible spots because we can search more thoroughly in this manner."
Once Number 42's voice disappeared from the room, no one in the chamber spoke.
"What's wrong? Why aren't you people speaking?" Number 42 seemed puzzled.