Industrial Cthulhu: Starting as an Island Lord

This matter had to start from Ash’s research application that day.

At that time, Ash had written a proposal, planning to study the raising of polluted creatures.

Hughes did not take it seriously at all. He simply thought that after she had accidentally killed her wolf, she was upset and now wanted to cause trouble again by raising some other pet.

As long as she did not capture a person or a Banshee to raise, she could do whatever she liked. Moreover, this was Ash’s very first research application. Out of encouragement, Hughes had approved it without even reading it.

So, when months later Ash told him that she had achieved results—great results, no less—Hughes was utterly stunned.

As it turned out, his shock came a little too early.

Hughes immediately rushed to Ash’s residence, only to be knocked down by a huge black wolf, who happily washed his face with its tongue.

Ash grabbed the scruff of the coyote’s neck and casually tossed it aside, then led Hughes inside.

“This… this wolf is still alive?”

“Mm.”

“Didn’t you stop feeding it for a month?”

“Wolves don’t need feeding.”

Hughes scratched his head in confusion. “Ash, listen to me. All pets need feeding, even that one—”

He pointed at the black wolf, but then suddenly felt something was wrong.

This wolf had just knocked him over.

Hughes was not any kind of transcendent being, nor did the Symbiotic Contract give him any boost to strength or physique. But still, he was a fully grown adult male.

Wolves were not especially large animals, and coyotes were among the smaller types. Some scrawny ones even weighed as little as a housecat.

To knock him over so effortlessly, and just for play, this wolf—

For the first time, Hughes carefully sized up the coyote, and then he was utterly shocked.

It stood about a meter tall at the shoulder. That was not very tall for Hughes, much less for Ash, but for a wolf, this was incredibly exaggerated.

That was just its shoulder height. In terms of body length, it was already more than two meters.

A wolf? Even smaller tigers could not compare!

Watching the coyote circle around Ash with its tongue lolling, brushing against her tail, Hughes felt completely unsettled.

He had not paid much attention before, but now he realized that its fur was pitch-black, faint wisps of smoke-like vapor rising from it, which from a distance could be mistaken for long hair.

Its eyes glowed faintly with a ghostly green light, savage and strange.

If it were to stand upright, with the background of the night behind it, Hughes would have thought he had run into a werewolf.

This thing was definitely not normal!

Ash tossed the coyote aside again, shook the wolf drool off her tail with disgust, opened a door ahead, and led Hughes into the backyard.

This was the facility Ash had applied for funding to build.

The yard was quite large. In the middle lay a pond, while on either side were plots of farmland planted with crops.

It was clear Ash’s planting technique was not very good, as everything grew crooked and askew, but—

They were huge!

Wheat that stood almost as tall as Hughes, olive trees several stories high, coconuts growing up to his waist even when lying on the ground—

“I… I thought your project had only been going for a few months?” Hughes’ voice trembled.

“Yes.”

“And this isn’t the season for wheat, right?”

“Yes.”

“Coconut trees, olive trees—don’t those take years before they can bear fruit?”

“Yes.”

“Then how in the world did you pull this off? Magic? Like Nini’s fish-herding spell, where she can wave her hands and make the fish leap? Are you secretly a six-armed druid?”

Ash looked briefly confused, then cleared her throat and said with all seriousness: “No. This is science.”

Hughes: “...”

“So how exactly did you do it?”

Ash thought for a moment, then picked up the wolf again. “I discovered that wolves don’t starve even without feeding. Later, I found out it was stealing food.”

“Stealing what?”

“Steam Engine fuel.”

Ash’s home had a Steam Engine. As a Banshee, she had taken advanced courses, and at home she kept an outdated model, sometimes taking it apart or trying to chat with it, to communicate with its Machine Soul.

The Machine Soul was aloof, rarely responsive. Like most people, Ash had never gotten any reply from it.

Then one day, she came home to find that the Machine Soul had taken the initiative to contact her.

It was ranting and raving. After quite some effort, Ash finally understood—it was complaining that its fuel was being stolen.

The Machine Soul was displeased.

And the thief was none other than this coyote.

As for Steam Engine fuel, what else could it be but Entity Pollution?

Ash had not believed it at first. But there had never been a record of Machine Souls lying. She hesitated, pried open the coyote’s jaws with her hands, and reached into its belly to check.

Sure enough, she found it.

Later, when Hughes reminded her that all pets needed food, she became more mindful, and decided to try expanding this principle to plants.

She watered them with pollution.

It was not as though no one had ever tried this before. Even when pollution fell during Descents, plenty of plants had been hit. The result was always the same—death.

Plants turned black, carbonized, as if touched by concentrated sulfuric acid. The true nature of pollution was still a mystery. Though many experiments had been done, humanity’s understanding of this extraordinary substance remained very limited.

Ordinary people, after a few attempts, had long given up. But Ash was stubborn. Just as she had once replaced fish every day, now she began replacing plants every day.

Whether it was her will causing reality to shift, she could not tell. But in the end—she succeeded.

After countless dead crops, Ash managed to work out a procedure for using pollution.

“Coconut trees, if watered with enough pollution, can keep producing coconuts. Olive trees—these olives can be pressed into oil that burns with an especially fierce flame. Wheat produces grains that are so hard they cannot be chewed, but they can be fermented. The leftover mash is not tasty, but edible. And the alcohol is useful too…”

Ash introduced everything one by one, while Hughes was utterly dumbfounded.

The significance of these crops went without saying. As long as there was enough Entity Pollution, there would never be a shortage of food.

Ash had even personally taste-tested them, proving that although they were crops grown under pollution, they could still be eaten.

Watering crops with pollution—

After the Deep Sea War, pollution indeed was not lacking inside the Stellar Furnace. But extracting it from the furnace was troublesome. People soon discovered that crops could be grown directly on the long tendrils of the Heretical Gods. Their roots could pierce into the Polluted Serpents and draw pollution.

So, when the Prince disembarked, the very first sight of Castel left him utterly stunned.