Shawn woke up especially early.
When he appeared on the grassland, a black and yellow wolfdog came up to him.
The wolfdog, Doudou, trotted on all fours, but it looked like it was hopping, which made it seem a bit more well-behaved.
Shawn raised his hand and rubbed Doudou's chin hard a few times with the hand covered by an 'Attacker's Glove'.
"You woke up quite early."
Doudou barked once, and a low growl echoed across the grassland as if in response.
Doudou's body trembled slightly; Shawn knew this wasn't due to the cold from the low morning temperature or heavy frost.
Bending down to pat Doudou's back, Shawn said,
"Don't worry, they won't hurt you."
After speaking, Shawn looked up, and 300 Zealots appeared before his eyes.
They had woken up even earlier than Shawn, yet they looked at him with spirited expressions, not saying a word.
When such a large number of people stood uniformly on the grassland without making any sound, it added an eerie quality.
Shawn looked at them, and they, too, intently stared back at Shawn.
As Shawn waved his hand, the Prison gates opened.
Behind Shawn, to his left and right, followed the Zealots Bray and Mr. Smart, and behind them were the remaining 298 Zealots.
This trip was not to cause trouble for other Camps; after settling on the farm's location with Hershel yesterday, Shawn planned to strike while the iron was hot and start today.
Calling the Zealots was mainly to clear overgrown weeds, cut down trees, remove stumps, and also to clear any Walkers wandering nearby.
After assigning tasks to the Zealots, Bray was put in charge of commanding them.
Shawn, meanwhile, carried a pickaxe and ventured deep into the woods.
Building a farmland block requires four types of materials.
These are: wood, rotten flesh, nitrate powder, and clay.
The variety of required materials isn't small, but in reality, these materials are all very easy to obtain.
Wood, of course, goes without saying; with the 'Motherlode' skill bonus, Shawn could casually chop down a tree, even a smaller one, and obtain over 100 units.
Rotten flesh could be obtained by hunting Walkers; almost every Walker had this stuff on them.
nitrate powder was an old friend; Shawn had dug tens of thousands of units of it when he mass-produced 'pipe bombs' before.
With the existence indicated on the map, nitrate ore could be easily found.
Shawn was initially a bit stumped by the last material, clay.
After all, this resource had never been excavated before, and looking at the map, he couldn't find any icon indicating clay.
However, when Shawn dug nitrate ore one meter underground, he discovered clay.
Moreover, clay was not as rare as other materials; Shawn could get hundreds of units just by incidentally striking it with two pickaxe swings while digging nitrate ore, making it even easier to obtain.
"So, clay is widely distributed under the surface soil and rock; I just need to dig one meter to find a large amount of it."
Shawn's face lit up with joy, and he dug a large pit directly beneath the nitrate ore.
By the time Shawn performed a wall-kick and jump, leaping back to the surface, his backpack already contained 30,000 units of clay.
"I'll stock up a bit more this time, so I don't have to waste time and effort digging when I need it later."
Looking at his pickaxe, Shawn slowly walked back to the river.
Creak, creak—
The sound of tree trunks creaking reached his ears, and the ground in front of Shawn was covered by a dark shadow.
Then, in just 2 or 3 seconds, the large tree fell, kicking up a cloud of dust.
"My Lord, this is the last of it; this area has been mostly cleared."
"To improve visibility around, we even specifically expanded it by another 20 meters."
Bray's eyes lit up when he saw Shawn; he leaned close to Shawn and lowered his head, speaking reverently.
"Hmm, you've all worked hard."
"But remember, next time, if there are others present, you must address me by my official title."
Bray paused, then immediately understood.
"Yes, Warden."
"Very good."
Shawn was quite satisfied.
Bray was a capable fellow, quick to react, and his abilities were beyond question.
From the very beginning, even before Shawn took down The Cult, Bray had been helping Shawn manage matters related to the Zealots.
Following the direction of Bray's finger, Shawn looked out.
Within a distance of two hundred meters to the left and right, all the scattered large trees had been cut down.
The overgrown grass within the area was uprooted, and Walkers were killed before they could even get close; the Zealots, in pairs, dragged the Walkers' remains and piled them up, to be burned later.
A straight road was cleared in the central part corresponding to the farm, directly connecting to the hundred-meter concrete area on the side of the Prison.
The road was about 10 meters wide, which was Shawn's suggestion.
Since they were going to build it anyway, they might as well make it grander; a 10-meter wide road was based on urban expressways, capable of accommodating at least two large trucks simultaneously.
Leaving a safe distance also allowed people to discover anomalies on both sides of the road earlier.
Once the Zealots had cleared the overgrown grass, Shawn also took out the wooden fences he had made from those trees.
He handed the wooden fences to Bray, instructing him to take 200 people to arrange them along the road.
Shawn, meanwhile, stayed inside the farm with the remaining people.
After briefly measuring the farm's area, Shawn said,
"Dig a 1m x 1m square pit every 50cm, just make sure the pits are neatly aligned with each other."
The Zealots all agreed and began digging.
At the same time, Shawn opened the system's crafting interface, pulled the crafting quantity to 100, and then clicked the confirm crafting button.
Thanks to the 'Crafting Mod', these 'farmland blocks' were crafted within 2 minutes.
Following the trajectory of the pits dug by the Zealots, Shawn placed the 'farmland blocks' one by one.
When the 'farmland blocks' were placed into the 1m x 1m pits, there were slight gaps on all four sides, which could be perfectly filled by adding some sand and soil.
The 20cm wooden outer frame was just a few centimeters higher than the ground.
100 farmland blocks neatly arranged and buried in the soil looked somewhat like 'mass cultivation'.
The farm's perimeter was also initially surrounded by wooden fences, but with a slight difference: Shawn also specifically added three half-human-height walls using 'concrete blocks'.
After completing these tasks, Shawn came to a farmland block and tried to plant a seed.
When one seed was planted, the tiny seed and the large farmland block formed a stark contrast, and Shawn always felt something was off.
He immediately took out more seeds from his backpack and buried them in the soil again.
He waited for a while, then continued.
It wasn't until the fourth seed touched the soil that a system prompt finally appeared.
"[Current farmland block fertility can support a maximum of 4 seeds planted simultaneously]"
The meaning was simple: planting more would not only prevent them from bearing fruit but might also affect the growth of the seeds previously planted.
"I can plant 4 seeds simultaneously... so 100 farmland blocks mean 400 seeds."
"If calculated based on the longest seed maturation time of 5 days, that's about 6 harvests a month."
"That's 72 harvests a year, plus the supplies brought back from the supermarket for transition; these are already completely sufficient for the Prison's current consumption."
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