Greetings, Mister Principal

Chapter 159: Greenhouse

Morale Support: Scherzo

Patreon: /ScherzoTranslations

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Early next morning, in the greenhouse on the western outskirts of the school, several students were yawning and some stood lazily.

Reiner was dressed in very ordinary coarse cloth clothes and boots, suitable for field work. Claire stood behind Reiner holding a stack of clothes.

Three students were present. Dana, of course, didn’t need to be mentioned. Fina also stayed at the school after taking the magic test. When the new semester arrived, she would officially become an assistant teacher at the Luna Nova Magical Academy.

The third was Charlotte. She originally planned to go home for the summer vacation but decided to stay at school. She could continue drawing the mage cards and also conduct experiments using the school’s facilities.

Reiner didn’t call other teachers. Professor Susan Michelle, who taught necromancy, could have been of help, but she went home to visit her family and was currently not at school. Reiner also didn’t want to disturb the other teachers.

“I didn’t expect these peas to grow like this. It seems the greenhouse is quite effective.”

Reiner looked at the fields where he had sown seeds yesterday, and now tender green shoots had sprouted. According to the manual, Reiner adjusted the environment here to the most suitable type for pea growth, increasing growth rate by about fifteen times.

The ordinary pea’s growth cycle is about sixty to ninety days. In this greenhouse, it only takes a week to harvest mature peas.

By carefully planning the growth cycle, Reiner could harvest four to five batches of mature peas in these twenty days.

“But why peas?”

Dana asked. To be honest, she didn’t like eating peas and had little interest in growing them. She only came here because of Reiner’s invitation.

Earlier, Reiner had explained to these students about blood mages and Elymia’s situation. For them, Elymia’s situation was unimaginable, but that didn’t stop them from standing up for their fellow student.

“First of all, peas have many distinct characteristics.”

Reiner spoke, spreading out information about peas on the nearby table.

“Tall stems and short stems, white flowers and red flowers, smooth or wrinkled peas – these are all very obvious and easily distinguishable characteristics. Moreover, due to the planting needs in different regions, peas with these characteristics have been selected and are readily available.”

The information depicted various forms of pea plants, clearly distinguishable. For these students, they only knew that peas were a type of vegetable, but they didn’t realize there were so many differences.

“The second point is that peas themselves are a special plant. Unlike other plants that rely on pollinators like bees and butterflies or the wind for pollination during their flowering stage, peas are different. Peas are a self-pollinating plant.”

Simply put, self-pollination is the pollination of the pistils and stamen of the same pea plant. Peas complete the pollination process before flowering, and afterward, they are not influenced by other pollen. Therefore, each pea plant can ensure that it is the result of the combination of its own pollen.

“Hey, isn’t this somewhat similar to pure-blooded wizards?”

After listening to Reiner’s explanation, Charlotte suddenly realized.

Pure-blooded wizards strictly intermarry to ensure the purity of their bloodline, which is somewhat similar to peas.

“Although the principles may be somewhat different, this perspective is quite novel.”

Reiner praised Charlotte, unknowingly causing the other two girls to feel a bit disappointed. He didn’t notice this and then concluded.

“These characteristics of peas allow us to control the source of their offspring and facilitate experiments.”

Through various means, peas can be crossbred to observe their external characteristics, thereby deducing the process of inheritance of bloodline factors.

Reiner assigned two plots of land to each student for them to observe the pea’s growth process and record specific features.

This was the first time these girls had worked in the fields. Although they didn’t wield hoes, they learned many things they were unclear about or had misunderstood in the past.

For example, Dana had always thought peas grew individually between the leaves until today, when she discovered the existence of pea pods.

After an afternoon of observation, several people left the greenhouse. The first batch of peas only required manual pollination for some, so it didn’t require much effort. They just needed to come and check the growth regularly.

During these days, Reiner was not idle. He first looked through some information about pure-blooded mages, searching for any signs of similar phenomena among others, but found nothing.

Pure-blooded mages were originally a secretive and exclusive lineage. They were confident in their heritage and would not allow outsiders to study it. Moreover, their approach to bloodline development was somewhat unique. Even if a similar situation arose, they would likely dismiss it as a private matter or for other reasons.

Next, Reiner examined the research on magical creatures by the Necromancy department. Regardless of agriculture or animal husbandry, the requirements for purebred strains were high. The pea seeds this time were a kind of unique, a byproduct of experimentation. Reiner tried to find experiences of mages in breeding magical creatures with specific traits.

However, Reiner quickly discovered that due to the limited application of modern magical theories in Necromancy, mages used methods similar to breeding pea seeds, constant cross breeding and selective breeding. There was almost no research on the theory.

Finally, Reiner carefully reviewed the Albione family’s genealogy for the past three hundred years, subdivided and statistically analyzed their appearance characteristics, creating a table for future reference.

Four days later, the first batch of peas matured. Reiner and the students returned to the greenhouse to check the growth conditions.

“Field number one, 100% tall stem plants. Field number two, 100% short stem plants…”

Claire conducted statistics based on their observations. At this moment, Dana felt puzzled.

“Huh, strange. Are fields number ten and eleven both planted with tall stem peas?”

She looked at the tall stem pea seedlings in the fields and asked Claire.

“No, these two fields have undergone cross breeding. Field number ten used tall stem pea stamen to pollinate short stem pea pistil, and field number eleven is the reverse, short stem pea stamen pollinating tall stem pea pistil.”

Reiner explained out loud, and the experimental phenomenon before him matched his memory, making him show a faint smile.