Chapter 40

The joy Dora felt right now wan’t just happiness. What washed over her was the kind of relief that only comes after one has waited so long, so desperately, that the waiting itself had become a weight all its own.

She sorted everything by category and stored it all inside her stasis space.

Then she got to work selecting her best specimens. She picked out the plumpest peanut pods with the richest color and cracked them open with careful fingers, peeling the shells away while keeping each seed coat perfectly intact.

She chose potato tubers that were just the right size, with healthy, clearly visible bud eyes.

From the sweet potato vines, she cut the thickest sections, focusing on the growth nodes that looked most promising.

Using her consciousness, she cleared a new planting area on the open ground beside the essence spring. The new plot was three times as wide as the original.

She pressed the peanut seeds into the soil, buried the potato tubers at the proper depth, and stuck the sweet potato vine cuttings into the earth. Then she guided the essence of spring water in a steady flow across the entire plot.