Chapter 268: The power of maturity, the Frost Milk Fairy who has completed her training!

The scorching sun hangs in the clear blue sky, and the bright sunshine shines on the green grass, like a net woven with golden thread.

The breeze gently blew across the grass, bringing with it the unique fresh scent of green grass. The monarch snake, with its three-meter-long body, curled up leisurely, surrounded by fruit-eating insects and tropical dragons that had left their neonatal stage after half a month.

There is basically no change in the appearance of the fruitworm. At most, the pattern on the shell of the apple is different due to the change of the host apple.

The tropical dragon has changed a lot. Its body, which was originally only about one meter tall, has grown to about one and a half meters with sufficient nutrition intake, and is getting closer and closer to the average size of its tribe members.

After half a month of taking care of the child, Serpentine completely resonated with the hardship that Moltres felt when taking care of Grunt.

Newborn Pokémon are always full of insecurity, and they need the presence of their trusted "mother/father" at all times to feel at ease. Due to this, Monarch Snake had to temporarily return to its own room, which it had hardly ever lived in, to take care of the baby alone.

After all, Luo Mu has been busy teaching students recently, and night is an important sleep time. It is impossible for Serpentar to let Gnawer and Dragonite, two new Pokémon that do not know how to control their emotions, influence Luo Mu.

After taking care of the baby for half a month, the monarch snake has learned a lot about the personalities of fruit worms and tropical dragons.

The fruitworm is a bit timid. When a group of blue jays flying over the sky are on guard, the fruitworm will be scared and shrink into the apple.

Even if the Monarch Snake called Sanmao to show it that it was harmless and non-hostile, the fruitworm's natural fear of bird Pokémon still existed.

This made the monarch snake doubt the truthfulness of what Luo Mu said about the fruit-eating worm having the attributes of grass and dragon.

Why does the tropical dragon around him have the word "dragon" in its name, but its attributes are grass and flying? The monarch snake is very confused.

The personality of Tropical Dragon is a bit like that of Growlithe, full of curiosity, very courageous, and very lively. Recently, it has begun to practice flying skills. Monarch Snake has no way to teach it in this regard, so it can only ask Dragonite to take time out every day to come and teach it.

They had just finished lunch, and now was the quietest time of the day for them. Newborn Pokémon spent a long period of sleep during the day, and Serpentine vaguely remembered that it seemed to have that period as well.

Footsteps were heard behind him. The Monarch Snake, which had closed its eyes while absorbing sunlight energy and thinking, opened its eyes. It was obvious that the road paving workers had gone to rest at this time, and the only one who could walk around the farm besides the Pokémon was Luo Mu.

Luo Mu seemed to have noticed that the fruit-gnawing worm and the tropical dragon were sleeping, so he slowed down his pace. When he noticed that the monarch snake was looking up at him, Luo Mu whispered, "I'll take the fruit-gnawing worm to the orchard to test its abilities."

The monarch snake's eyes fell on the small bottle of Moo Moo milk mixed with three bees honey that Luo Mu was carrying. It nodded slightly, indicating Luo Mu to take the fruitworm away.

Half a month later, it had roughly figured out the preferences of fruit worms and tropical dragons.

The fruit worm loves sweet taste, and three-bee honey is its favorite, but it cannot eat honey alone. At the suggestion of the housekeeper Zhihuixing, they chose to mix the three-bee honey into Moo Moo milk to make honey milk.

As long as there is honey and milk, and Luo Mu often comes to take care of the fruit borers, the timid fruit borers will not be afraid even if they leave them.

After taking the fruitworm from the monarch snake, Luo Mu held the palm-sized apple and walked towards the orchard to look at the fruitworm sleeping soundly on his palm. Luo Mu rubbed the apple skin with his fingers, then pressed hard a few times and came to the conclusion -

Well, very hard.

With his current strength, an ordinary apple would have been pressed into a dent, but the apple where the fruit worm lived did not feel that way at all.

Luo Mu remembered that this seemed to be to protect the fragile body. The fruitworm used the body fluids it secreted to strengthen the hardness of the apple skin, which made the fruitworm's defense racial value eight times that of Happiny.

Just outrageous.

The worm that was chewing the fruit halfway through the journey seemed to wake up once because it sensed a slight bump. It was startled for a moment, but quickly calmed down after realizing that it was Luo Mu carrying it. It poked its two eyes out of the apple and looked around curiously, as if it was wondering where Luo Mu was going to take it.

It was because the Pokémon with the small eyes of the Fruitworm had too many emotional fluctuations. Even if the expression was not blocked by the apple, Luo Mu could guess what the Fruitworm was thinking.

Luo Mu weighed the fruitworm on his palm and said with a smile, "You've almost finished eating the apple flesh again? I'll take you to pick an apple you like and try your special features. The monarch snake should have taught you how to trigger the special features, right?"

"Chirp~"

The eyes of a fruit worm that looked like apple stems curved, which was its unique way of nodding.

Fruitworms have three characteristics: "maturity", "gluttony" and a hidden characteristic "bulletproof".

After Luo Mu's testing, the fruit-gnawing worm showed no signs of the "glutton" and "bulletproof" characteristics, which means that its characteristics are very likely the "mature" characteristics that Luo Mu wants most.

At present, he has not heard of the existence of the two items that can change the characteristics, characteristic capsules and characteristic plasters. In a sense, the characteristics of Pokémon are innate and cannot be changed.

The effect of the ripening characteristic in the game is to ripen the fruit, doubling its effect.

Does this mean that fruit-gnawing insects have the power to ripen fruit, or even enhance its effects or nutritional value?
Luo Mu felt that this was worth a try.

When we arrived at the orchard, in addition to the initial batch of fruit trees, the newly planted fruit trees had already produced unripe fruits. It looked like they still had some time to mature, but they were just the right size for testing the ability of fruit-eating insects.

But before that, Luo Mu first brought the fruit-eating worm to the small apple orchard next to the fruit tree that he had specially purchased and transplanted, and let it choose an apple it liked to move.

There are not many apple trees, only about a dozen. Considering that the fruit trees would aggressively snatch the nutrients from ordinary apple trees, Luo Mu specially separated the apple orchard and the fruit orchard by a distance.

As soon as it arrived at the apple orchard, the fruit borer excitedly jumped off Luo Mu's palm. No one knew how it did it, but it quickly controlled the apple shell and climbed up the apple tree, carefully selecting the apples it liked.

Luo Mu picked an apple, wiped it with the corner of his clothes and took a bite. It was crisp in the mouth and the sweet juice burst in his mouth as he chewed.

This is a high-quality apple tree that he specially selected and transplanted. The price of one tree is higher than the fruit trees he bought.

However, looking at the happy expressions of the fruitworms eating the fruit, Luo Mu felt that the money he spent was well worth it.

After comparing for a long time, the fruit worm finally picked out a large, fleshy, juicy apple. It trembled its body and drilled into it to complete the move.

Luo Mu returned to the orchard with a lot of fruit-eating insects in his arms, and happened to run into the Frog King who was here to water the orchard as usual.

"New~"

The Mosquito-Repellent Frog King stopped summoning rain clouds, his eyes fell on the fruit-eating insects in Luo Mu's arms, he tilted his head and looked at them curiously.

Luo Mu pointed to a fruit tree with unripe green fruits and said, "Let's test the power of the fruit-eating insect's characteristics, just like your rainfall."

"New~"

The Frog King showed an expression of sudden enlightenment, clapped his hands and moved his body to the side, as if to let Luo Mu and the others do the work first. "Then I will respectfully obey your command."

Luo Mu smiled, moved a ladder used for picking fruits from under a fruit tree, leaned it against the trunk of a pomelo tree, and climbed up with the fruit worms.

The fruit-gnawing worm also knew what it needed to do. It found a pomelo fruit that still had a hint of greenness, and followed the method taught by the monarch snake to actively trigger its characteristics when the conditions were met, and it used all its strength on the pomelo fruit!

“Chirp! Chirp! Chirp—”

Perhaps the fruit worm couldn't see clearly with its eyes closed, but from the perspectives of Luo Mu and the Frog King, it seemed as if points of light like fireflies were emerging from the fruit worm's body, turning into light bands and merging into the pomelo fruit.

Then, something magical happened.

The pomelo fruit changed at a speed visible to the naked eye, quickly entering the mature stage from the green fruit stage, and grew into a plump pomelo fruit exuding a faint fruity aroma!
Luo Mu and the Mosquito-Repellent Frog King both opened their mouths slightly with shock on their faces because of this magical scene.

Fruitworms really do have the power to ripen fruit!
So what is the effect after ripening?
Before exploring this issue, Luo Mu first opened his arms to catch the fruitworm that was unable to stand firmly on the tree branch due to its weak body and was being pulled to the ground by gravity due to the imbalance of its body's center of gravity.

After all, he wasn't a person with super powers, so Luo Mu could only hold the fruit worm tightly in his arms, thinking about the current height, and thinking that he would at least break a bone today.

As countless small bubbles gathered together, a huge bubble acted as a buffer and caught Luo Mu, bouncing him onto the grass not far away. Apart from a slight pain in his butt, he was miraculously not injured.

"Chirp."

Luo Mu glanced at the fruitworm in his arms that was making weak sounds. Fortunately, it was fine, otherwise the monarch snake would definitely be sad.

Afterwards, Luo Mu turned his head to look at the Frog King who was looking at him with concern. He knew that it was the Frog King who saved him by using the bubble beam to create a big bubble. He smiled and said, "Thank you, Frog King."

"New~"

Seeing that Luo Mu was in good condition, the Mosquito-Repellent Frog King shook his head. This was what it should do. Then, the Mosquito-Repellent Frog King cast a worried look at the fruitworm.

How is it?

"It's okay to chew the fruitworm, but it seems a little weak now."

Luo Mu held the fruit worm in his arms and fell into deep thought.

The fruitworm seems to be still very weak now, so it has exhausted its strength and fallen into a weak state just by ripening one pomelo fruit. It seems that the plan to strengthen the fruit trees in the entire orchard still needs to wait for the fruitworm to grow.

Luo Mu stood up, entrusted the fruit worm to the Queen Mosquito Frog, stepped onto the ladder again, and picked the pomelo fruit that was ripened by the fruit worm. For comparison, he also specially picked another pomelo fruit that had not been ripened by the fruit worm from the ripe fruit tree on the other side.

The pomelo fruit contains a weak but gentle healing energy. Pokémon and humans will feel a noticeable sense of physical recovery when eating the pomelo fruit.

Luo Mu first broke the unripe pomelo fruit into three pieces, handed the largest piece to the mosquito-repellent frog king, kept the medium-sized one for himself, and fed the small one to the fruit-eating bugs.

It's not that he is partial, it's just that fruit worms don't eat much, so they can't eat large pieces of food.

As the pomelo fruit entered his stomach, in addition to its texture and taste that was similar to that of a pear, a warm current rose from his lower abdomen and automatically flowed through his limbs and bones. The pain in Luo Mu's buttocks, which was originally a little painful, was relieved a lot.

Afterwards, Luo Mu followed the same method and separated the ripe pomelo fruits eaten by fruit worms and swallowed them.

This time the warm current was much stronger, and the feeling of physical recovery and pain relief was much stronger than the previous pomelo fruit.

Even the taste is better than the previous pomelo.

To give an example, it is like the difference between ordinary delicious fruits and premium fruits that are carefully grown, cultivated, selected and finally put on the table.

Luo Mu and the surprised Mosquito-Repellent Frog King looked at each other, this time they really found a treasure!

The ripening properties can indeed be applied to tree fruits. Luo Mu seemed to see a brand new road to wealth opening up before him!

After eating the pomelo fruit, the weakness caused by the fruit worm was alleviated a lot. Facing the eyes of Luo Mu and the Mosquito Frog King that looked at them as if they were treasures, it tilted its head hidden in the apple and made a puzzled sound.

"Tweet?"

After Luo Mu returned to the small villa with the fruit worms, the Mosquito Repellent Frog King puffed up his throat and made a very penetrating call to the sky.

“Newlu——!!!”

Dark clouds gathered and rain fell.

The heavy rain made the soil in the orchard extremely wet, while the Mosquito-Repellent Frog King stared blankly at the sky, constantly reviewing whether there was anything imperfect about this rainfall.

Thinking of the words Luo Mu left before he left, the Frog King showed a determined look. After a while, it will be fighting as Swampert's doubles partner.

We must work harder!
It’s decided. After finishing the work, I will go find Dragonite and Haxorus for special training!
When Luo Mu returned to the small villa, he was stopped outside the kitchen by Frost Milk Fairy. She was holding him and chewing fruit worms with a silly look on her face. Luo Mu's expression was also silly.

"You said you completed your training?"

"Maeve!"

Frost Fairy nodded slightly, pushed Luo Mu's calf and forced him to sit at the dining table and wait. Just watch its performance and that's it.

After a moment, Frost Milk Fairy, with a happy face, brought a beautifully decorated cake and placed it in front of Luo Mu.

The cake brought out by Frosty Milk Fairy was wrapped in a layer of chocolate shell, which reminded Luo Mu of the cake he shared with Kornie in the Carlos area. It seemed that this cake was made specially to imitate the taste of that time.

But as Frosty Milk Fairy cut the cake, Luo Mu showed a surprised expression: "This is really a bold innovation."

Under the chocolate shell is a cream with a unique creamy and salty flavor.

　There is another 4000-word update, probably at midnight.

　　
　
(End of this chapter)