CHAPTER 502: THE LAND OF THE DEAD

The smell of the air feels like something was burning not too far from where Elaina is standing. Fallen trees that have already begun to deteriorate over time, alongside rocks that are quite prominent in the area. There are no signs of scavenger birds around, nor does she see any monsters in the area. It is what one should call the "Dead Zone" due to how nothing will survive there for the long term. Even if there is one, they are either a creature that doesn’t eat or drink, or they are something that thrives in a Dead Zone.

Elaina crouches and grabs a handful of dirt, and although it wasn’t bad texture-wise, the soil itself is black, like it was contaminated by something, and it isn’t going to sustain any plant life using that same soil.

"They are not kidding, this place is in very bad shape. I can grow something using sand, but this soil is just not going to work at all. This is even worse than acidic soil," Elaina shook her head.

"[Looks like the Creator God wanted you to do his challenge and cleanse this place and turn it back to its regular form before it became like this. Are you going to accept the challenge?]"

"What choice do I have? Whatever is hidden behind the page of the Creator God’s page must be something worth it for it to be locked behind hard challenges. And I plan to unlock all of the lock pages. I can’t just leave the Creator God’s page locked behind while I unlocked everything else, yeah?"

"[But you haven’t even progressed much on unlocking the other pages yourself...]" The God of Farming is confused.

"Shush, I can handle them just fine. But right now, I don’t think I will be able to do what the Creator God is trying to ask me to do. So first, I shall take a sample of soil here and experiment on it and see what I can do and whether we can still use it as it is, or if there is an alternative way for it to return to normal."

She turned to the doorway that floats in the open place and asked the God of Farming. "Does this door remain here even when I go back to my farm?"

"Yes. Until you remove the designated point or deactivate it, the door will remain open."

Elaina nodded and returned to the farm. She then went to the mini garden where she plants the medicinal herbs separately from other crops and grabs a vacant pot. She also took the garden shovel and returned to the Land of the Dead. She then started filling the pot with the Land of the Dead’s soil before returning to the farm. With the instructions of the God of Farming, she deactivated the doorway to the Land of the Dead and returned with the pot of soil from the Land of the Dead.

The first thing she did was to consult both the Grand Sage, Julia, and Yona about the soil’s quality and its current state. Considering they have extensive knowledge in curses, magic, and many other related stuff to it, she wanted to see whether the soil on the Land of the Dead is suffering from various things, causing it to lose functionality.

Gathering at the Grand Sage’s tower, the three gathered over the pot of soil and are examining it. The Grand Sage did the honors of scanning it for various things and seeing what was wrong with it. A few minutes after scanning the soil, the Grand Sage winced and stopped what he was doing immediately. Yona and Julia quickly grab the Grand Sage to help him before he staggers.

"What happened?" Elaina frowned. She is worried about the Grand Sage and the soil in the pot.

"I wasn’t expecting to see that on the soil. Wow, this soil is nothing like the usual samples of soil I have examined before. Tell me, Miss Elaina, what soil is this, and where did you get this?" the Grand Sage asked as he was catching for his breath.

"Well, this is a sample soil I got from the Land of the Dead. I was hoping to know what is currently plaguing the soil of that place and why is it that it is currently not capable of growing anything."

When they heard the origin of the soil, Julia was surprised, while Yona remained neutral.

"Land of the Dead, that was the so-called "Dead Zone" situated near Baraza Kingdom and Dragon Maw’s Plateau, right?" Yona asked for confirmation.

"Yes. But I am surprised Sister got a sample of soil from that place, considering it was multiple kingdoms away from the Darcero Kingdom, and considering that no one dares to come close to that place without any reason, there is no way this soil was sold, as no one would dare buy soil from that place. So how did Sister get this in the first place?" Julia turned to look at Elaina, who was scratching her cheek.

"Must be something about her unusual stuff, perhaps something from the God of Farming or something?" Yona said, seemingly not caring about what she said.

"You still have a way to talk to the God of Farming, Sis? I see, that makes sense. Perhaps the reason you got this soil is for you to try and convert the quality of this soil into something that can be used to grow things, yes?" Julia immediately perked up after learning about this.

"That’s the basic gist of it," Elaina smiled wryly. "So what happened and why did you almost stagger, Grand Sage?" Elaina asked.

"Ha, I was not expecting things to escalate quite this much after just examining the soil. I think I have an idea of why that soil is now having trouble being able to grow anything," the Grand Sage said as he thanked both Yona and Julia before standing up on his own.

"Is it a curse like I suspected? Something that even purifying magic can’t remove?" Elaina asked.

"Quite close, Elaina. But also, no. Although I can’t really qualify it as a curse, there is something that is currently causing this place to remain unable to grow anything, and the soil’s quality continues to deteriorate to this day, which is something only curses are capable of doing. Which is why I don’t have a way to say."

"What do you mean? I don’t understand." Elaina shook her head in confusion.

"As you have seen earlier, I tried to scan the composition of the soil. At first, I thought the soil was nothing weird. However, upon careful examination, the soil has a remnant energy of various things that are currently happening on it. First, I detected the curse of the dead dragon. Although there are no dragons here in the mainland due to how they have built their own kingdom, back in the day, dragons were all over the place and were part of the soldiers at one time. Considering they are a strong species and can shapeshift from human to their dragon form, they are considered a force to be reckoned with. But what happens to dragons when they die?"

"I heard they pollute the surroundings, causing either the destruction of the ecosystem around their dead bodies or the turning of it into a toxic fallout location," Elaina answered.

"You are right, Elaina. This is why fellow dragons decided to take the corpses of their fallen brethren and undergo some kind of ritual exclusive to the dragons, and stop the destructive properties of their corpses. These put a halt to many lands that have dragon corpses turn into dangerous wastelands due to the corpses of dragons. However, it seems that there is one dragon that the dragons have failed to retrieve, and it seems that this certain dragon is currently causing the curse of the Land of the Dead. However, that’s not all, which is why I am reluctant to say it was all the curse’s fault that the soil became like this. Considering that no one from other kingdoms who tried to purify the land ever knew about this, there is a chance that the corpse is currently underneath the soil of that wasteland. Perhaps a cave or something that would allow the dragon to lie its body there until its death," the Grand Sage scratches his head and sighs.

"There is one more thing that is worse than the rotting corpse?" Julia frowned.

"Indeed, my disciple. Remember when I said before about the elves and their fixation on germinating the World Tree and making sure to grow another one? It seems that there is another instance of that here on this land. The soil itself carries the power of that tree."

"But aren’t the World Tree sacred and considered to be holy to the elves? That doesn’t sound right, that it would cause problems to the soil?" Yona frowned. She has read the articles about the World Tree, which is why she knew about it.

"Indeed, if that World Tree is alive, that is."

"What?" the three looked at the Grand Sage in surprise.

"Indeed. I don’t know if my story is what happened, but I can guess that after the dragon died, a sapling of the World Tree grew near the dying dragon. As soon as the dragon died and started causing destruction of the surroundings, everything around the sprouted world tree became corrupted, and soon enough, the same World Tree sapling began to rot and die, which resulted in the added injury of the soil. This causes the curse of the dragon spread, while the rot of the world tree causes the tree to rapidly decline and die, which results to the problem happening on the Land of the Dead."