Volume 16 Tower of Babel Chapter 961 The Value of Soil
"The 'new home' prepared for us..." Ivan squatted down, scooped up a handful of soft and fertile soil, and sighed in a low voice, "To be honest, until now, I still have a very strong sense of unreality."
"Who isn't? I used to think that if there were Alphas still alive on this planet, a war between them and us humans would be inevitable, so I always regarded them as enemies... But I never thought that the Alphas were actually humans from another time and space." Layton said, "The exploration team found several deep wells filled with this soil in the first block. According to estimates, the total reserve is about four million cubic meters. If we dig them all out, spread them on the ground, and plant food, we can feed the 30,000 people on Yaguna Kotor, even if this number increases ten or twenty times."
"Soil... Is this the original soil of the earth?" Ivan murmured as he rubbed the rough particles with his fingertips.
As humans born in the new era, they have never really come into contact with the soil from the earth. Although there are many soil farms on the Ark that are specifically used to produce "high-end crops", in fact, the "soil" used in these farms is just an artificially prepared solid culture medium. Except for the different appearance and slight differences in nutrients and various added elements, it is essentially no different from the liquid culture medium of hydroponic farms.
To put it nicely, this is called high-end customization, which highlights taste and style and reflects the consumer's wealth and taste level; to put it bluntly, it is a tax on IQ.
Ke Lan once suspected that it was the Japanese who came up with the idea of preserving these soil farms. After all, in the old era, they were the best at doing this kind of thing - any old craftsman could be called a "craftsman", "master", or even a title like "immortal". With the blessing of this cultural atmosphere, Japanese food has become a sharp knife for consumerism to cut leeks... A bowl of ordinary white rice, with a random story, and the presence of an "XX immortal" who has been immersed in this for decades, and a limited label, can be sold for several times or even dozens of times the price... Money is simply too easy to make.
After the God Hunting Group became famous and everyone started to have money, the Hounds once bought a bag of rice that was claimed to be produced by the "top soil farm". However, after comparing it with ordinary rice produced by hydroponic farms, everyone found that there was no difference between the two.
Only after knowing that the bowl of rice in front of them comes from a soil-grown farm, will the subject, driven by psychological effects, feel that the rice seems to be whiter, more fragrant... and has a softer and more glutinous texture.
As for the real earth soil…it can almost be regarded as the top luxury item on the Ark. The price of this thing is more expensive than diamonds of the same weight. The largest jewelry brand on the Ark once launched a series of luxury jewelry with the theme of "homeland". The main body of these jewelry is an artificial gem with a cavity inside. In this cavity, a few milligrams of "earth soil" are poured…Although Ke Lan had no money at that time, the jewelry company posted this gimmicky product advertisement in every conspicuous place on the Internet, so that even people like him who don't care about jewelry and luxury goods know that the pendant with 0.25 grams of earth soil was finally auctioned at a sky-high price of 470 million credit points.
If only someone could afford to grow food using real earth soil...
After the Ark landed on Alpha, some people had the idea of cowing the surface soil of Alpha - but from an agricultural perspective, the quality of the soil on the surface of Alpha is extremely poor. Whether it is the pH value, the content of various beneficial or harmful elements, or the degree of radiation, the soil here is not suitable for growing food crops.
There are only two ways to grow crops on Alpha: one is to improve the genes of Earth's crops to adapt them to Alpha's harsh soil and climate environment; the other is to build a closed greenhouse, then filter and purify Alpha's soil, and adjust it to a level suitable for crops through various means.
Researchers at the Agricultural Branch of the former institute have been working hard, but have not achieved any results. As for the latter, the "soil suitable for planting" produced in this way is actually no different from artificially synthesized solid culture medium. On the contrary, the cost of purifying one cubic meter of Alpha soil is enough to synthesize hundreds of cubic meters of solid culture medium.
The technology of hydroponic farms is already very mature, and there has been no large-scale food crisis on the Ark since landing on Alpha Star... Under the influence of multiple factors, the "Alpha Star Reclamation Plan", which originally had a very high priority, was continuously postponed until it was completely forgotten.
Of course, in that era, some scholars took a different approach and set their sights on the native crops of Alpha... These plants had evolved over tens of thousands of years and had become very suitable for the environment of Alpha, eliminating the complicated steps of genetically modifying Earth's crops... But after countless experiments, they regretfully discovered that there were very few crops on Alpha that were edible for humans, and most of them had a very slow growth cycle and a pitifully low yield, making them not suitable as the main food at all.
The only thing that comes close to the selection criteria is the "gray potato", the staple food of the exiles in the wilderness. This crop only takes two to three months from planting to harvesting, and is similar to potatoes on Earth. Its tubers also contain a lot of starch, which can provide enough calories for the eaters - but the problem lies in the neurotoxins that are difficult to remove no matter how they are processed, as well as the heavy metal elements and radiation pollution that are enriched in the potatoes due to the planting environment.
The main reason for the high incidence of radiation sickness among the exiles, in addition to their frequent entry into high-radiation areas, is the long-term consumption of gray potatoes.
"Alpha Planet is not suitable for agricultural development at all." This was a truth once unanimously recognized by the academic community.
But Ivan and Layton both knew that this planet was not once called Alpha... It had the same name , called "Earth".
"It doesn't look like a synthetic solid culture medium." Layton said to Ivan, "Either the technology of the Alpha civilization is advanced enough to create soil that is indistinguishable from the real thing, or this is the natural soil that was preserved before the Earth was polluted. To be honest, I prefer the latter."
Ivan picked up a small piece of gravel, put it to his nose and sniffed it hard. He closed his eyes and looked relaxed, as if he smelled a very pleasant odor.
"To be honest, when we first discovered this soil, Ye Yan had a bad idea." Layton recalled with a smile, "He said that this soil is so real that it can be mistaken for the real thing on Earth. We just need to block all information about the first block from the outside world, and then secretly take some soil to the Ark, and we can make a lot of money."
"Did he really say that?" Ivan was stunned. "But even if some wealthy people who are not well-informed are deceived, over time, the amount of 'Earth soil' 'circulating' in the circle will become more and more, and someone will definitely notice the problem... Even if this soil is exactly the same as the Earth soil, the reason why the Earth soil can be sold at a sky-high price is because of its rarity. Now that this rarity attribute has disappeared..."
"The price of the earth's soil will plummet, and its status as a 'luxury product' will disappear, but what does this have to do with us? The money is already in our pockets, and the cost we pay is almost negligible." A voice continued Ivan's words. The two turned around and saw that Ye Yan, wearing a overalls, was standing not far away. In his hands, he was holding a bunch of farm tools that looked full of technological content.
"Did you really take the soil here to the Ark and sell it?" Ivan's mouth twitched unnaturally. Although this matter was harmless, for some reason, his heart was filled with the desire to complain.
It's a pity that he really didn't know where to start complaining... and he almost got internal injuries from holding it in.
"Not much. In three months, I sold 140 grams of soil a total of twelve times." Ye Yan reached out and pulled a piece of hardened soil from the hoe. "That's about the amount. I successfully recovered a huge amount of money... By the time those people realized what was going on, I had already cancelled the company that was registered with a 'fake identity' by a professional, and all traces were wiped out. No one could trace it back to me... Even if they found some clues and knew that the soil was related to Yaguna Kotor, they didn't have enough evidence to prosecute. After all, even if they identified it a hundred times or a thousand times, the composition and texture of the soil were no different from the only remaining earth soil on the Ark."
"My goodness, how come I didn't know about this?" Layton exclaimed, "I feel like I missed out on 100 million... no, a lot of hundreds of millions!"
"Ms. Soma and Uncle Hound both know that the Soma Group and the God Hunting Group will share part of the profits from the sale of soil. It's just that Uncle Hound said that you have a big mouth and will leak the matter, so he asked me to hide it from you." Ye Yan answered honestly.
"Damn it, that bastard Lao Gou made a fortune behind my back... Even if he gave me just a small fraction of this money, it would be enough for me to upgrade my equipment a dozen times." Layton said depressedly.
"Isn't your cyborg body the latest model? And it's all top-of-the-line. How else do you want to iterate?" Ivan asked puzzled.
"You don't understand this, do you? The so-called 'latest model' and 'top configuration' are only relative to mass-produced products. As for the road to customization, it is endless. As long as the resources are in place, you can keep upgrading."
"I see. It's a never-ending, bottomless pit of money, right?" Ivan nodded. "Then can you beat Ke Lan? Oh... let's not talk about Ke Lan, he's too abnormal. Let me pick an opponent with weaknesses for you - let me ask you, after your cyborg body is transformed to the greatest extent, can you beat Asano Akira?"
"Of course I can't... beat him." Layton was stunned. "How can Asano Akira be considered weak? He is also a 'monster'. With human technology, it is impossible to defeat him under the same conditions. Unless you let me build a battleship main gun-class plasma cannon and blast him in the face, even if the cyborg prosthesis is modified to the extreme and even with the technology of the Alpha civilization, it will probably be chopped up like melons and vegetables in front of his knife."
"If you are still worried about that money, I can tell you that it has disappeared from this world." Ye Yan said, "When we were identified as rebels, all of our personal accounts were frozen... No, they were cancelled, and those numbers that symbolized wealth were all reset to zero."
Ye Yan's tone was always calm, and his face showed no emotion at all. He seemed like a different person compared to when Leighton and the others first met him.
"Well, let's not talk about this anymore. Let's change the subject." Leighton waved his hand. "Speaking of which, Mukach's affairs should have been discussed almost completely by now, right?"
