"It’s nothing, it’s nothing." The Witch Demon Elder chuckled, his face beaming with a smile, yet he still tried to act like "I just did something insignificant."
Waving his hand, the Witch Demon Elder said, "Actually, it’s not much. While you were out, I got bored and tinkered a bit, and ended up with this thing. Besides doing some odd jobs, like digging holes or moving things, it has no real use. Sometimes it makes mistakes while working, so don’t overestimate it."
As the Witch Demon Elder spoke, a skull in the distance over-exerted itself and flung the shovel into the air. The skull grabbed at the air and continued digging several more times before realizing, slowly turning its head to scan, locked on the shovel’s position, and walked heavily over to pick it up and returned to the edge of the pit to continue digging.
Richard watched, unable to suppress a laugh in his mind, but didn’t underestimate it, and spoke aloud to the Witch Demon Elder, "Maybe this skull’s work is indeed rough and prone to error, but its internal structure is still quite precise. Especially the design of the swivel mechanism and the weight balance, in my view, employs considerable mathematical knowledge— Mr. Ah Fu, I previously underestimated you, your knowledge surpasses what I imagined."
"Haha, it’s nothing." The Witch Demon Elder nonchalantly replied, "Speaking of which, I’m planning to add another arm to this skull, install it at the chest, so it can do things more conveniently."
"Three arms? Nice idea." Richard said, paused, then added, "However, with an extra arm, the weights need to be re-balanced to prevent impacting the center of gravity, correspondingly changing the back structure. In this situation, it seems necessary to add 10 kilograms to 20 kilograms of weight to the back, which, well, translates to roughly 18 pounds to 36 pounds of weight. The specific value and position need precise calculation to determine."
"Naturally, I’ve considered this." The Witch Demon Elder said, "The values have long been calculated. Once I rest, I’ll go adjust... gah!"
Midway through talking, the Witch Demon Elder suddenly stopped abruptly, his expression changing to something peculiar.
Richard looked beside him in confusion, and saw Pandora approaching, left hand holding a half-bald Golden Yellow Dog resembling Bobbobovic, right hand clutching a piece of paper.
"What’s this?" Richard slightly frowned, looking at Pandora and asked, "A problem you can’t solve?"
"No." Pandora shook her head, looked at Witch Demon Elder Ah Fu, walked directly over, and tossed the paper to the Witch Demon Elder, speaking up, "Hey, old man, I took time to solve what you asked me to calculate ahead of schedule. The value is 13.65 kilograms, which equals 30.0930988 pounds. Uh, remember, you can’t get that precise, so just keep 30 pounds in mind.
Alright, I finished the task for you, and as promised, your dog continues to follow me for the next few days. By the way, previously I calculated all those things for steering and weight balance. You promised your dog would follow me for fifteen days, counting this time as five days, a total of twenty days. It’s only been ten days, so there’s another ten days. I’ll return the dog to you after ten days. I’m off."
After speaking, Pandora swiftly turned and led the Golden Yellow Dog away.
The Golden Yellow Dog looked at the Witch Demon Elder, showing an expression of reluctance as if saying, "You’re just going to leave me to someone else ?"
The Witch Demon Elder’s face was full of embarrassment, avoiding eye contact with the Golden Yellow Dog, turned his head to look at the empty air beside him, the atmosphere became a bit strange.
After quite a while, when Pandora walked away, the Witch Demon Elder looked up at Richard and seriously asked, "Well... if I say the iron pipes inside the skull bones were made personally by me and have nothing to do with that little girl, would you believe me?"
"You guess." Richard stared at the Witch Demon Elder, calmly replied.
"I..." The Witch Demon Elder’s eyes widened, almost spitting out blood.
"Forget it, believe what you want then..." The Witch Demon Elder listlessly waved his hand, his face showing some defeat, lying back onto the recliner, "You better hurry to plant the tree over there, I’m not dealing with the rest."
"Then, you take a rest. But I don’t need your pit, better have the skull fill it back up." Richard glanced at the Witch Demon Elder and said.
Just lying down, the Witch Demon Elder quickly sat up, looking at Richard, surprised, and said, "Huh, why don’t you need my pit? Was it dug poorly, too shallow? No problem, I can have the skull dig a deeper one."
"No, it’s not a depth issue, but I can’t trust putting the Tree Heart in the soil at all." Richard looked at the Tree Heart held in his hand and said, "After all, it’s a Longevity Exotic Species, although I won’t go to extremes like the Truth Society to eliminate it at all costs, I won’t underestimate it either. New ɴᴏᴠᴇʟ ᴄhapters are published on 𝘯𝘰𝘷𝘦𝘭⚑𝓯𝓲𝓻𝓮⚑𝕟𝕖𝕥
Actually planting it in the soil would give it a layer of protection, a layer of disguise, the part above the ground can be seen, but the underground part is hard to. I don’t want the space’s entire underground controlled unknowingly—the consequences are endless. So, there must be restrictions, using other methods to resurrect and grow it for easy supervision."
"What method is that?" The Witch Demon Elder asked.
"Hydroponics." Richard quietly said, not explaining further, holding the Tree Heart, he entered a room beside them.
The Witch Demon Elder watched Richard’s back, took a breath, showed a contemplating expression, tilted his head thinking for a long time without understanding what "hydroponics" is.
"Hydro... ponics? Without soil?" The Witch Demon Elder pursed his lips, "Could it be the ancient technique of Elf planting? Impossible, back in my days, Elves were legends, nothing was left, but now, something left instead?"
"No way, absolutely no way." The Witch Demon Elder shook his head, with some curiosity, got up and followed Richard into the room.
Inside, the room had obviously been modified by Richard in advance, unrelated things cleared out, leaving only a stone platform.
A glass pool with carvings was placed on the stone platform, its length over three meters, width a meter, but depth was only a few centimeters, several glass columns stood at the center of the pool, their purpose unknown.
The pool held a colorless, transparent liquid, the Witch Demon Elder instinctively felt it was not water, but its exact nature was unclear. Additionally, he noticed liquid intake and discharge tubes at both ends of the pool, allowing slow flow of the liquid, unaware of their function.
At this time, Richard supported a light gray board with both hands, gently placed it in the pool.
The board was about one square meter, seemingly very light, floated once it was placed in the pool.
In the center of the board was a recess, into which Richard placed the Tree Heart. Then he slightly adjusted the board, fixing it to the glass column in the center of the pool, and nodded slightly.
The Witch Demon Elder frowned deeply watching, looked at Richard and asked, "That’s it? This is what you call hydro... ponics?"
"Can this work? Without soil, how can it succeed?"
"Just watch and see, won’t you?" Richard quietly said, without further explanation.
"Okay." The Witch Demon Elder, suppressing his impatience, looked at the Tree Heart on the board, his eyelids twitched, and saw many fine milky white roots emerging from one end of the Tree Heart, gently swaying in the air.