When Sane returned from bathing, he immediately headed straight to the Priest’s tent.

He knew for sure that Kaelen was there looking for edible things. Although they had already taught the Crimson tribe how to make yellow tuber starch strands, because their Obsidian tribe had discovered it first, the wild tubers had basically been dug clean. The remaining amount was too small, not enough to feed the over one thousand people of the Crimson tribe through a winter.

Their tribe’s yellow grains were also not abundant, usually reserved only for pregnant Sub-Beasts and sick cubs.

When Sane walked in, Kaelen was trying to use hand gestures to explain to Collins the importance of the thing in front of the two of them. He spoke up to translate:

"He says that this thing can fill the stomach, and is just as good as yellow grains and yellow tuber flour."

Only then did Collins breathe a sigh of relief. Even though he had tried his best to learn, he truly could not understand Kaelen’s hand gestures; fortunately, Sane had arrived to bail Collins out. Collins picked up the object with many green sprouts on the table and asked curiously:

"Really? How do you eat this? Do you eat these green things?"

Kaelen waved his hand, deciding to demonstrate directly. Having just absorbed a wood-element stone, the Magical Energy in his body was overflowing; he could even accelerate this whole corn cob into a mature plant right away.

That was right, the thing the beastman group had brought back was exactly a corn cob, a corn cob that had sprouted into seedlings about the length of a finger.

"Let’s find an empty plot of land, Kaelen will use Divine Energy to plant them." Sane looked at Kaelen’s hand gestures and voiced the request on Kaelen’s behalf. Collins then brought his disciple along with a close group of guards, leading them to a spacious empty plot of land a fair distance away from the tribe’s living area. He ordered the guards to keep strict watch, leaving only the disciple behind.

Kaelen told Sane to poke a few holes in the ground, while he carefully removed each corn sprout from the kernels. This corn cob was not particularly densely packed with kernels, only yielding a little over twenty good sprouts, and Kaelen did not take the stunted ones. Although stunted sprouts could produce cobs, they wouldn’t yield many kernels; accelerating their growth would only waste more of his special ability.

After planting the corn sprouts down, with each sprout spaced two handspans apart, Kaelen stood in front of the row of corn plants, bringing the tips of his index fingers and thumbs together to form a diamond shape, and placed them in front of his chest. This hand seal was quite similar to the Shikigami summoning of Toad in the Ten Shadows Technique, the only difference being that the tips of the middle fingers were not pressed together.

Even though there was no wind, Kaelen’s hair lifted on its own. A stream of green light carrying white specks of light flew out from between his hands, circled once in the air, and accurately flew into each corn plant.

Previously, Collins and his disciple had seen Kaelen use Divine Energy to manipulate vines, but this was the first time they saw him use Divine Energy to accelerate their growth.

The corn plants, which were initially only slightly larger than grass, instantly swayed their bodies and gradually stretched taller after being bathed in Divine Energy. When the plants grew as tall as a person’s head, they began to sprout strange flowers at the top. The eyes of Collins and his disciple stared intently at the flowers, both thinking that the fruits would grow from there.

But no, the plants continued to grow taller without bearing any fruit; instead, small buds grew out from the leaf axils. As the plants gradually grew taller, the small buds grew hair and turned into large buds, yet they still couldn’t see the plant’s fruits anywhere.

Kaelen retracted his special ability and opened his eyes.

"It’s done," Sane translated.

"Huh? It’s done? Oh, is it that we dig them up, and then eat the tubers underground like the yellow tubers?" The Priest’s disciple gaped, then clapped his hands together, voicing his speculation.

Kaelen rested one hand on his hip, raised the other hand, extended one finger, and wagged it.

"He says it is not," Sane translated again.

*As if we needed you to say that!* The master and disciple both rolled their eyes inwardly.

Kaelen was not someone who liked to tease others; he immediately stepped forward, broke off a corn cob from the middle of the stalk, brought it in front of the three people, and pointed at it.

"You mean, eat this?" Collins said in a not very confident tone. Kaelen smiled and used his fingernails to peel off the outer green husks. Plump, round yellow kernels gradually appeared before the three people’s eyes. Kaelen completely peeled off the husks, carefully removed the corn silk, and pointed at it.

"We eat this," Sane said, then took the corn cob from Kaelen’s hand and brought it to his nose to sniff. Feeling only that it smelled very fragrant, he was about to open his mouth to take a bite, but was stopped by Kaelen.

Eating raw corn could easily cause intoxication, especially this unhybridized corn variety.

[You can’t eat it right away, wait for me a moment.]

He returned, selected a few large cobs to break off, and after breaking them off from more than twenty corn plants, the edible corn had piled into a small mound. He had previously watched a video introducing the corn planting process of mortals in his past life. For each corn plant, they only kept one to two cobs in the middle, while the cobs up high and near the base would be removed while still young so that the corn quality would be better.

However, these corn plants were accelerated by Kaelen’s special ability, so every cob was exactly the same; he only broke off the middle cobs, leaving the rest to mature naturally. Mature corn kernels could be ground into cornmeal, used to cook porridge or make cakes, making for a quite filling meal.

He also didn’t keep them for seeds, because he knew that plants whose growth was accelerated by special abilities could not be used for seeds. Earlier, he had secretly asked Sane; Sane said that there were still quite a lot of these things over there, and just having them go pick everything back tomorrow would do.

Kaelen taught them to peel the corn husks, specifically instructing them to keep the corn silk. Corn silk was a natural herb whose main effects were being a diuretic, cooling the liver, and supporting the treatment of urinary tract infections, kidney stones, and bladder stones. Corn silk water contained many vitamins and minerals that helped stabilize blood pressure, lower blood sugar, stop bleeding, and clear body heat. Furthermore, corn silk water was also very easy to drink; he guaranteed that the Sub-Beasts would like it very much.

After peeling the corn, tossing the pile of husks to one side to dry, each of them hugged four or five corn cobs and a pile of corn silk, heading back. Collins instructed the guarding beastmen:

"You all guard this place, don’t let the tribesmen get close, and don’t let wild beasts eat them."

"Yes, Lord Priest!"

After returning to Collins’s tent, Kaelen began to show off his skills. Actually, there wasn’t anything that could be called showing off skills; it was just boiling one-third, roasting one-third, and grinding the remaining one-third to make milk, using the residue to cook porridge.

For the part to roast, he skewered sharp sticks through the porous cores of the corn cobs, placed them over the glowing charcoal stove, and turned them slowly. For the part to boil, he put them into a large bone pot, washed clean a small pinch of corn silk, rolled it up and added it in, then poured water just enough to cover the surface of the corn cobs. He assigned this job of roasting and boiling corn to Sane, while he pulled Collins and his disciple along to make corn milk.

Kaelen felt lucky because he had previously taught the Crimson tribe people how to make stone mills, and now it was just right to have one to use. First, they used bone knives to separate the corn kernels, then put them into the stone mill and ground them with water. The Crimson tribe’s place still couldn’t produce cloth, but there were tightly woven grass mats, which were just enough to filter the corn residue. After filtering out the liquid, they added a little clean water and put it into a bone pot to boil. Kaelen took the task of boiling the milk, Collins observed, and the job of taking the corn residue to cook porridge with yellow grains (sticky millet) was assigned to Asher.

Ah, forgot to introduce: Asher was exactly the Priest’s disciple, a Sub-Beast of the White Rabbit clan. It seemed that the priests really liked taking disciples belonging to the Rabbit clan, because their innate talent in compounding herbs was very high.

After bustling about for a while, the first corn dishes on the Beastman continent were born. Collins and Asher were endlessly excited, while Sane was already so used to his Sub-Beast making many "first" things that he was very calm.

Different from the faint fragrance mixed with a raw scent when uncooked, cooked corn smelled extremely fragrant; furthermore, the smells of roasted corn and boiled corn were fragrant in different ways.

Collins and Asher had just followed Kaelen to make milk, knowing that the edible part was the kernels of the golden fruit. But right now this fruit was very hot; they were a bit at a loss on what to do.

Not letting them wait long, Kaelen used a sharp stick, pierced it into the base of the corn core, and lifted it out of the pot. He handed each person a cob, and also skewered a cob for himself to eat. Blowing a few times on the spot he intended to bite, Kaelen opened his mouth and took a deep bite into the yellow kernels.

The familiar rich, sweet, and chewy flavor filled his mouth; he was so happy that his eyes crinkled up.

The other three people followed suit, all left stunned by this sweet flavor. Collins chewed very slowly, savoring the flavor of this golden fruit.

Not sharply sweet like berries or the honey of Sharp-Needle beasts (which was the name for bees in this world), the sweetness of the golden fruit was very light, yet impossible to ignore. Chewing a few times, it felt slightly sticky like yellow grain porridge, but softer.

After eating the boiled corn, they ate the roasted corn. Roasted corn was harder, and its taste was also slightly sweeter than boiled corn. Collins and Asher eating one boiled corn cob and a roasted corn cob already felt a bit full. The master and disciple ate another small half-bowl of corn porridge along with a cup of corn milk, getting so full that they even burped. They couldn’t even manage to drink the boiled corn silk water.

Kaelen’s couple ate a bit more, twice as much as the master and disciple, but couldn’t continue eating either.

As for the remainder, Collins told Asher to divide them into small pieces and bring them to share with the Sub-Beast group and little Sub-Beasts in the tribe. Everyone really liked this novel food.

Collins also saved a half-cob of golden fruit for Barton, teaching him how to eat it. Waiting for him to finish eating and speak his thoughts in front of the tribesmen, Collins then followed up, saying:

"Asher and I felt full after eating two of these fruits, and even a warrior beastman like Sane could only eat four. Yet a golden fruit plant has up to four to five fruits per plant.

Kaelen says that if we plant these golden fruit plants down now, we will be able to harvest their fruits before spring, and there will be no need to worry about food scarcity at the end of winter anymore.

From tomorrow onward, everyone will take turns going to the high ground on the right side of the tribe to reclaim the land. Barton, tomorrow you lead everyone to the place where you found the fruit with green sprouts that you all brought back today, and try to find as many as possible. Remember to be careful not to break their sprouts. Additionally, you can look for some strange plants, whether growing on trees or buried in the ground; as long as they are not poisonous, bring them all back, who knows, you might find something edible."

The Crimson tribe was already united, and now they became even more cohesive, together letting out a resounding cheer of acknowledgment. This echoing cheer resonated throughout the mountains and forests, startling the migrating group of the Obsidian tribe...