Ling Shuying didn’t mind the cold.
She sat holding her fish soup and drank it until three in the morning, waiting for the glass to finish annealing and cooling before carefully extracting it and bringing it inside.
The glass was undeniably ugly.
Although it had a square shape, its surface was pitted and uneven, occasionally speckled with black chunks—likely ash that had fallen in during the process.
However, the quality of the beach sand was excellent.
Wherever it hadn’t been marred by ash, the glass was brilliantly translucent.
There was no sandpaper on the island, so Ling Shuying simply pressed the glass directly into the window frame.
It wasn’t until she finished installing it that she realized the room would no longer be ventilated with the window sealed.
She had completely forgotten about that detail.
Still, the glass wasn’t permanently fixed; she could just take it down whenever necessary.
She comforted herself with this thought.
Today, she wanted to start the project she had been eagerly anticipating.
She wanted to eat grains—crops grown by her own hands.
She planned to plant the very things she used to tinker with: algae crops.
Algae came in many varieties, broadly divided into aquatic and terrestrial types, with the vast majority being aquatic.
Though primarily aquatic, they were ubiquitous.
Certain variants could live in the soil and endure prolonged periods of water scarcity.
Others lived in snow, and a rare few could even thrive in hot springs.
Following the “Great Subsidence,” algae underwent numerous mutations, further enriching their ecological diversity.
Accompanying the scarcity of land resources and food shortages, many natural elements originally deemed inedible were brought to the dining table, and numerous new species were developed into dishes.
Among them, algae occupied a significant place.
The research institute where Ling Shuying worked was named the Giant Algae Research Institute.
As the name suggested, it focused on giant algae to provide instrumental biological assistance to human society.
For instance, they would extract certain giant algae genes for use in construction, or simply cultivate giant algae to serve directly as engineering materials.
However, this was merely Ling Shuying’s job, not her passion.
Her true passion lay in farming—or rather, farming the sea.
Algae could be artificially cultivated, and with the aid of gene-editing technology, Ling Shuying could even transform certain types into high-yield staple crops.
But those were laboratory achievements.
Right now, she could only rely on the natural ecosystem, starting from scratch and experimenting with cultivation bit by bit.
Ling Shuying decided to first attempt planting Basic Algae.
Basic Algae wasn’t a specific seaweed variety, but rather a foundational algae seedling used to cultivate other strains.
Only with Basic Algae could a richer variety of seaweed crops be developed, and this foundation could be produced through targeted methods of artificial intervention and mutation.
In other words, she could utilize the wild algae from the sea to breed crop algae. Find the original chapter at g.com.
The first step was to cultivate an algae bed.
She needed to foster a warm, comfortable little home for the algae seedlings to grow in peace.
This required three components: a petri dish, a substrate, and a seed source.
Before starting work, Ling Shuying downed a coconut.
GLUG GLUG GLUG.
It was sweet, refreshing, and entirely free, perfectly kicking off the day’s work.
Or rather, life—a self-sufficient and joyful life.
She snapped off two banana leaves for later use.
Carrying the leaves, Ling Shuying walked along the beach with her head down, searching for a suitable substitute for petri dishes.
The ideal container would be bowl-shaped to hold the substrate, and it needed to be abundant.
Strolling with half a purpose and half at leisure, Ling Shuying eventually found what she was looking for: wave-eroded oyster shells.
Ordinary seashells were too shallow, but these palm-sized oyster shells were just right.
She collected a massive heap, wrapped them up in a banana leaf bundle, and slung it over her back.
She walked all the way across the beach to the seaside where she had caught fish the day before.
What she needed to gather here was the substrate for cultivation.
Fostering these algae seedlings required two specific things: diatom powder and a polysaccharide gelling agent.
Ling Shuying carefully climbed onto a reef out in the water.
Using a broken piece of shell, she scraped at the wild diatoms that had dried on the rocks.
With just a gentle scrape, the diatoms crumbled down like fine powder.
This diatom powder was incredibly useful.
Not only did it provide an essential nutritional environment for the substrate, but it also acted as an insect repellent.
Furthermore, as a naturally produced substrate of the marine ecosystem, it possessed a natural affinity for cultivating algae seedlings.
As for the polysaccharide gelling agent…
Ling Shuying looked toward the flying fish in the distance.
She thought, “Sorry, but I’m too lazy to go looking for other fish elsewhere.
I’ll have to rely on you guys for the gelling agent!”
Replicating yesterday’s method, Ling Shuying fished out a wave-leaping flying fish.
Stunned by a stone, it began to flop around vigorously as soon as it landed ashore.
FLAP FLAP.
Ling Shuying gently pinched the fish’s body and used the shell fragment to scrape off the mucus seeping from its gills, mixing it with the diatom powder.
Since the gelling agent produced by a single fish was quite meager, Ling Shuying went around tossing stones to stun a whole batch of flying fish.
She scraped off their mucus one by one before tossing them back into the sea. New chapters come out on g.com first.
The school of fish wondered why they felt so dizzy today.
Seeing that she had collected just about enough, Ling Shuying finally picked up her banana leaf bundle and coconut shell pot, ready to head back.
Just as she was about to leave, she recalled that when she entered the water yesterday, she had vaguely noticed some brown algae growing in this area.
Creeping brown algae possessed strong Life Force and could regenerate from broken fragments.
It was a type of algae that could mutate into Basic Algae, making it perfect for use as seedlings.
She put down her bags and bundles, took off her shoes, and slowly sank to the seabed.
Descending just over two meters, a patch of creeping brown algae appeared before her eyes.
It was dark brownish in color.
Despite having “creeping” in its name, it actually drifted through the water with the ocean currents.
She wondered what the scholar who originally named this algae had been thinking.
They had an incredibly rapid growth rate, and severed limbs could even sprout new tendrils.
Therefore, Ling Shuying didn’t hold back when harvesting it.
She pulled out a small shell knife and, SWISH SWISH, sliced off four strips of algae into her hand before slowly floating back up.
Before resurfacing, Ling Shuying recalled the underwater city she had seen when she jumped into the sea, as well as the submarine world beside the Abyssal Vortex.
It was truly beautiful.
Unfortunately, she currently had neither evolutionary potions nor diving equipment, making it impossible to dive too deep.
Perhaps one day she could concoct another set of adaptive evolutionary agents, or…
maybe make a diving suit, or even a submarine?
Her thoughts wandering, she broke the surface with a SPLASH.
She shook her head, treaded water toward the shore, and headed home.
She would take it one day at a time; there was no need to think so far ahead.
Upon returning to her cozy little home, Ling Shuying dumped out the oyster shells.
They tumbled onto the ground with a CLATTER.
She didn’t bother washing them thoroughly; instead, she simply poured out the excess seawater from inside before beginning to portion out the substrate.
After all, the remaining microorganisms inside the oyster shells could better promote the growth of the algae seedlings.
They were also an indispensable and crucial link in the ecosystem.
She mixed the diatom powder and fish gill mucus in a specific ratio, spreading it as the seedling substrate within the oyster shells.
Following this, bit by bit, she tore the brown algae into rice-sized fragments and embedded them into the substrate.
With Qing Ling’s assistance, Ling Shuying found a spot with appropriate lighting.
She arranged the makeshift petri dishes facing south at a thirty-degree angle to capture the optimal amount of sunlight.
With the cultivation substrate fully prepared, the next step was simply to accept nature’s baptism and wait for the sprouting of Life.