Chapter 92 - Raising Fire Fish
Zhao noticed something about the ditch in the manor's yard. It wasn't the hot spring water that caught his attention, but the small fire fish.
He hadn't paid attention to these fishes before because he had been busy recently and the number of fish was too small to care about. However, when he inadvertently moved the image on the screen, he saw one of the fire fishes jump out of the hot water, which attracted his attention.
This made him remember what Green told him about the fish. Not only were they delicious, but also very expensive.
Back then, Zhao wasn't at level ten, and so he hadn't established his spatial ranch yet. That was why he didn't take any special notice of these fish. But with his ranch now opened, he could now raise animals. Even though his ranch didn't have a fish pond, he still had a hot spring in his space that could support these small fire fish.
Although he didn't know yet if these fire fish could be raised in his spatial hot spring, it didn't hurt to try. If it worked, they would have another source of income, but if it didn't, then their only loss would be losing a few small fishes.
With this thought, Zhao appeared in the yard of the manor. He walked quickly to the ditch and stood on the edge. The fire fish were just leisurely swimming around. Zhao smiled, then he reached into the ditch. Suddenly, a spatial hole opened. Hot spring water, along with some fish, fell into the space.
The moment the fire fish entered the space, the voice came and said: [Discovery of aquatic organisms. Needs special water quality requirements. Contains edible, delicate meat. Disadvantage is its small size. Improving fish. Analyzing data of fish. You can now purchase these fish in the shop. Needs fifteen hours to reach maturity. Each fish can only reproduce eight times. Each reproduction cycle will produce thirty baby fishes every eight hours. Fish requires feed every four hours. Hot spring in the farm will become their special habitat. You can now use your ranch tools]
At that moment, Zhao felt like jumping for joy, but before he did, the voice came again:
[Connection to ranch tools successful. Net tool can capture target organisms. Ranch is required to reach level ten before the net can be fully effective outside the space. If the net is currently used outside the space, it will only have a ten percent probability of capture]
[Fly swatter tool has a one hit kill ability. Ranch is required to reach level ten before the fly swatter can be fully effective outside the space. If the fly swatter is currently used outside the space, it will only have a ten percent probability of a one hit kill. Attack range can not exceed the monitoring range]
[Command function is set. This feature allows for all creatures inside the space to obey the command of the host]
[Feed conversion function is set. Host can now designate which crops will turn into feed]
After the voice finished speaking, Zhao stepped back into the space. However, he didn't see any fish swimming around in the hot springs.
He decided to open the barn, and sure enough, there was a new image of a fire fish. It said that he only had five small fire fish. Zhao immediately put the fire fish into the hot springs. Although the temperature of the water was high, it seemed to have little impact. In fact, the fish seemed to be swimming around cheerfully.
Going back to the barn, Zhao took a look to see what he could convert into feed. There were some radish leaves. Because he had been harvesting a lot of radishes, he ended up with so many radish leaves. They had been useless until now.
Zhao directly converted the radish leaves into animal feed and delivered them to the hot springs. He really wanted to see what the feed would look like.
The radish leaves turned into something red. Zhao couldn't help but feel surprised as he slowly walked to the hot springs. Swaying in the water were some beautiful, fiery red plants.
The fire fish swam around constantly, but occasionally they would eat one of these plants. Seeing this, Zhao understood that these plants were the feed.
Zhao had just finished when Meirin and Meg came out from the villa. They went up to him, but before they said anything, they saw that something was different with the hot springs.
Before, there was no life, but now there were fishes and plants. Such a change caused the two to look puzzled. Meirin was curious, so she asked, "Master, what's going on?"
Zhao gave a slight chuckle. "Nothing. I just bought a few small fire fish from the manor. And these red plants are the feed for these fish."
When she heard what Zhao said, Meirin couldn't help but feel surprised. She turned around and looked at the hot springs again, but this time she was overjoyed. "This is great! You can raise fire fish here. This will become another source of income."
"Ah, yes, but that's not the best part. I forgot to tell you that these small fire fish will grow into big fish in fifteen hours. Then they will reproduce and make thirty baby fishes, once every eight hours. They can do this eight times."
Meirin was amazed at this. Everyone in the Continent knew that fire fish were very difficult to raise. Even if there was a hot spring, it wasn't easy to raise these fish in large quantities. It was precisely because of this that fire fish were very rare.
They weren't just difficult to support because they only grow in hot springs, it was also because they were very picky about their food. There were many things that they didn't eat or would make them sick. That was why there weren't that many fire fish being raised.
One of the reasons these fish were able to survive in the manor was because there were very few people around, but the most important reason was because of the trees. Although the fire fish were very picky, the roots of this tree was one of things they eat. Since the trees were large, their hairy roots were long enough to reach into the ditch, becoming food for the fish. However, during the winters, a lot of the fish would still die, either because of the cold or because the trees didn't provide enough nutrients. Only a few fish had managed to survive.
Because of the difficulty of raising fire fish, not many merchants were able to sell this fish even though they were worth a lot of money. A single fire fish had a minimum price of two gold coins. Not many people could afford this price. And even if you could afford them, any fire fish will go directly to royalty or nobility.
If oil fruits and bamboo rice were one of the favorite foods of commoners, then fire fish were one of the favorite foods of the aristocracy. So no matter how much fire fish you had, you didn't have to worry about no one buying it.
Zhao didn't quite know this, but Meirin knew. Fire fish would make them money faster than selling radishes or oil from the oil fruits.
It was because she understood this that Meirin was so happy that the fire fish could be raised inside the space. She had only heard of a few places on the Continent that could raise fire fish, and they were able to make a fortune. The previous owner of the manor probably tried to make his own fortune off of these small fire fish, but then gave up when he couldn't raise enough.
Looking at these fire fish in the hot springs, Meirin felt happy. "This is really great! As long as we raise these fire fish, we won't have to worry about money."
Translator Notes: "Net" was actually translated as "Capture Tool", but I decided to change it to "Net". I hope it actually is a net when he uses this tool in the future.
Translator Notes #2: In earlier chapters, whenever Zhao levels up, I translated it as Zhao leveling up, but it was actually the farm leveling up. It turns out that the farm and the ranch has separate levels. From now on, whenever a level up occurs, I will translate it as the farm leveling up or the ranch leveling up.
Translator Notes #3: This chapter was MTLed by Trung and edited by theno1fan. Please leave a comment if you've spotted anything that looks wrong.