"Whew. It's finally done!" 

After a month of campaigning, all 10 million plants have been planted. Ryan had personally planted 10 trees himself and just threw the work to the paid workers for the rest. 

"It's really easy if you have money." He wondered if he needed to make a youtube video about it.

The effort to plant the trees will take a long time for it to produce actual results. For a fast paced society, people don't care about the trees that will take a long time to grow. Instead, they will focus only on the short term profits that will grow their business. 

"Time to check out the reward,” Ryan said excitedly. 

He submitted the completion of his quest to the system and waited for the reward to arrive. Shortly afterward, he received the formula for tree growth serum that was promised.

"I thought it'll come as paper, but it's directly inputted into my brain."

Today wasn’t the day for the trading session so he couldn’t ask QueenElf about the reward. 

Taking a piece of paper and a pen, he took some time to decipher the formula. Then, he inputted the formula on ALBUS for analysis and created a simulation of the tree cells being administered with the serum.  

It wasn't that hard to achieve the results hypothetically, but many of the manufacturing machines to produce the serum have to be made specially. 

"Hmm, I think I can make it without the system’s help. I guess I'm going to sleep in the lab again… " Sleeping in his lab wasn’t a rare occasion even though his room was only a few meters away. 

He spent two days making the equipment from scratch. With the AI’s help, he got all the materials he needed from the company’s warehouse. 

 "It's a little big, I need to assemble it elsewhere,” he said as he watched the mess inside his house. 

"If I want to apply the formula, I need to find out if it's harmful to the environment, how it affects crops, the genetic component of the plant, the cycle time, the soil. Uncontrollable growth could become worrying," he mumbled as he jotted down his concerns.  

Long experiments needed to be done for his research. And to do that, he needs a helper.

*Ring* He took out his phone and video called someone.

"Hey, are you free?”

“Sure. what's up?” Gwen answered the call after she finished fixing her appearance quickly as Ryan called early in the morning. 

“I have some experiments that need some help. Will you?”

“What kind of experiments?”

He explained the perimeters of the experiments while she listened attentively. Her capabilities in research are higher than him even with the system (for now) and among the best in the world.

He thought he was lucky if he could convince her to help – without knowing that she already decided to come after his first sentence. 

After a while, she arrived at his home for the first time. She was, however, surprised to see the mess inside the house. 

"Why did you ask me to come here? Why don't you use the company lab?" she asked curiously. 

"This is something that I'm keeping for myself for now. I thought we could do it privately here…" 

" If you want to do the experiment, we need some greenhouses, a plot of land, plant seeds and others. We can't do it at your house, you know that right?" Gwen said teasingly when she read the parameters of the experiment. 

"Well… we can do that. But we need to keep the research project classified. I don't want any trouble for it."

If the serum works, he will attract the attention of every government in the world. 

"That's an exaggeration,” she didn't believe him and looked at him weirdly. Ryan has a wry smile on his face after she teased him.

However, he trusted his instinct more about this matter.

It wasn't the level of some technological advantages anymore. He could actually solve world hunger, which in turn will cause food prices to drop. He was afraid that people who's benefits were touched would retaliate or make trouble for him in the future.

She understood his thinking and the implications, but she just thought he has trust issues – which was accurate. 

"Then why did you show it to me? Did you think I'm not a threat?"

"No, it's because I trust you". 

A little stunned, her heart skipped a beat by his response.  She became glad to be part of the research. It showed that he meant it when he said he trusted her. 

‘But that guy is really pessimistic, he actually created a scenario that will destroy him…’ she thought secretly. 

Ryan didn’t involve the company in the experiment. He kept it all on his personal server. He only told Hiddle and his father about it, in which he received their full support. 

Ryan and Gwen relocated to a warehouse in the vicinity of New York to conduct experiments. He made some modifications and built a greenhouse there after checking the soil quality. 

Thursday came and the trading session began. He asked Queenelf about the serum the moment the marketplace opened. 

QueenElf: Figure it out on your own~ (don'tcare.gif) 

Hydra:....

Hydra: Is there an option to punch someone in the trading site? I can pay for it. 

Ryan and Gwen spent 3 months together in a greenhouse where they did the experiment daily.

After recording the data, they decided that the serum was stable, environmentally friendly, and shortened the time for crops and produce to ripen by ⅔. 

"If a crop needs 3 months to mature originally. After applying the serum, it needs only a month before it is ready for harvest.”

“The quality of the crop didn't drop, instead it came in a higher quality than usual. Fruits are more delicious, wheat is more refined,and rice becomes more supple," Gwen muttered excitedly as she tabulated the data. 

Ryan also makes a variant serum for trees. ‘It took a few weeks and additional knowledge in botany, and biotechnology to get this done.’

The variant could shorten the growth time of trees in a year to one month. The effect of the serum will become ineffective by then. He didn’t realize that he managed to bring the serum to its original state that even QueenElf didn’t know about.

"If we want continuous rapid growth, the serum needs to be reapplied," He muttered as he studied the various trees in front of him.

"You know, if you came out with the serum first before planting all those trees, it'll be a forest by now," Gwen teased.

Ryan only scratched his head in embarrassment. He couldn't say that the serum is a quest reward, right? 

"Well what's done is done, I don't regret it. Now it's time to deal with the aftermath. Are you prepared for it?" he asked. 

He held her hand and looked her directly in the eyes.

 "Well I don't do much, but I will stay by your side, if what you fear comes." she replied. 

He inched closer to her and kissed her on the lip, in which she threw her arm on his neck.

 "Yeah, I have a girlfriend now." 

3 months in close proximity caused him to forcefully realize his feelings for her and he asked her out after an internal struggle. 

Gwen's response at that time was quite curious. "You're so late, I thought I have to do it myself!" 

This was how it happened. In the greenhouse.

"Never did I think something like this was possible?" Ryan said with shock.

"What is?" Gwen was busy with the data, but she still responded to him as his voice showed urgency. She turned to look at him who was actually staring at her. 

"There's a lot of flowers here, but why are you the most stunning one?"

Gwen got goosebumps. "Are you drunk? What do you want to do?"

His face became red with embarrassment. "I want to build up the atmosphere before asking you out, but even I am cringing after I said that…"

"Do it again! Like a normal person this time!"

Thursday comes, Ryan voiced out his supposed predicament in the chat group. 

Vampire Kid: Why should you care? You're doing a good thing. 

RetiredMechanic: Just blow up the enemy when it happens. 

Queenelf: If you're a king this wouldn't happen.

TheDoctor: Sell some to me, kid. My world needs those serums.

Queenelf: @TheDoctor, why haven't you told me that before? I could have helped you! 

The doctor: Sorry, I never thought about it before. After all, my world's population was still small. But now I realize that we have a manpower shortage. The serum will help. It'll also help if @HydraIsABitch can supply it in a stable quantity for now. Before I figured out the instrument needed, and how mass produced it, I need to depend on you kid. 

QueenElf: (sighs) If you say so. My world has magic so we don't need the serum. It's been sitting in my vault for a long time collecting dust after I found it in some ruins. So I can't give you the ready-made stuff. 

Thus, Ryan got his first popular item across the dimension. The popularity of the serum, especially in a post-apocalyptic world, is very high. He acquired new clients every session that bought the serums in bulk. 

“HAHAHA, the money keeps pouring in,” He said. Although the price of the serum was cheap, it still brought him some profits after he managed to find ways to mass produce it.

Suddenly, a curious chat popped in that attracted his attention.

GreenWitch : Hey, can I exchange seeds, or anything else for the serum? My world is almost destroyed so I couldn't trade you much. 

Hydra: What happened to your world? 

GreenWitch : We are fighting against demons. Many human lands are devastated by miasma. We have only a little arable land. 

GreenWitch: I have made some genetic improvement on crops here using magic . You can get more produce on a single tree. Wheats was optimized to grow more ears, producing twice of the normal quantity. 

Hydra: And that didn’t help?

GreenWitch: Many efforts have been made but it is still not enough. If I can shorten the crops' time, then… Many people can be saved. 

Hydra: If it's very important, I can sell you the formula instead of you buying it every time. It is better for you to produce it yourself. 

She needed to sign a promise that said she won’t sell the completed serum to the trading site in case a formula was sold. However, Ryan didn’t care much about the matter. 

If the formula can help others, he doesn't mind if someone else produces it. After all, the marketplace is too big and he couldn’t help all the worlds by himself.

Greenwich: My world technology has been destroyed by the demons, we are now living like it's the middle ages. I can't do it by myself. 

After thinking for a while, Ryan decided to accept her offer.  

Hydra: Okay, I can do that for you. If you have some unique magic, you can trade it with me. Or sells some magic scrolls. Item exchange is better than using currency. At least I can give you a cheaper price for it. 

Greenwich: How can I do that? Can you teach me? 

Hydra: Just buy some book on magic scroll making. You can get a lot of knowledge here to help you. 

Greenwitch: Thank you very much. Are you also a transmigrator?

He realized something after chatting for a while. ‘So that’s why she seemed lost. Is she a newbie?’

Hydra: Are you new here? 

Greenwich: Yes. I just climbed up the authority last week. You’re the first person I chatted with. 

Ryan explained some stuff slowly, like how Mythic explained to him when he leveled up. He guided her in the system’s features and helped her solidify her foundation in trading. 

Speaking of Mythic, he already climbed up the tier 3 authority. Ryan could buy the optimization fluid if it's listed, but he couldn’t speak to Mythic now.

Tier 1 could only speak to Tier 2, Tier 2 could speak to Tier 3 and so on. 

TheDoctor, Queenelf, VampireKid, RetiredMechanic, Mephisto and others were Tier 2, so they could speak to Mythic. Apparently Mythic roots for him to climb up quickly. "I miss him." 

Ryan chatted a lot with the newbie.  Apparently she was born a witch. During a full moon her power may go berserk that she could die. Magic speaks out to her like breathing. So she never learned any knowledge prior to it. 

After Ryan's suggestions, she searched the marketplace to improve her situation. He bought many of her seeds to give her some funds. "She couldn't even use gold to trade. Poor kid." 

He didn't trust people of his world. But he trusted the people on the system unconditionally. 

He didn't realise it that he's been discriminating against his own world.

He recommended her to the group chat. He doesn't have the authority so he asked QueenElf to do it, in which she agreed happily. 

Ryan took out some seed from his inventory. 

"It looked normal enough, but it's modified drastically… " He was in awe with the might of natural magic and was even more excited for the prospect of using magic himself. 

He began the second round of experiments in the greenhouse using the new seeds. "Before that, let's announce the serum first."

…

"Son, your ideas keep surprising me." Tim said. 

Ryan came to his father and shared the result of his experiments.  He's telling Tim about his concern for the serum, and looking for advice to handle the matter. 

"It'll be hard if we do this on our own. Not because we can't, but we are very new in the plantation area. We need support from the government for it." 

Tim saw the look of worry on his son's face after he said that. 

"There isn't any big trouble like you worry about, but we didn't have enough manpower for it". 

He saw that his son was still worrying, so he came out with a different approach. 

"We don't have to do it on our own if you're so worried," Tim said with a sly smile while his son was confused. He explained his scheme slowly. 

"It'll be hard to do this on our own, but we could partner up with some people to make sure that the serum will go through and reach all the countries in the world. We need… Stark and Osborn's help. "

A little surprised, Ryan agreed when he heard the plan. He doesn't care much about the profit, he could share it if needed to. 

Stark may focus on the military, and Osborn may focus on biotechnology, but they have related industries in agriculture.

" With this, they can help cover us if the thing I fear happens!" 

Two days later, his father told him some news. Stark Industry and Osborn Industry agreed to the partnerships.

 He was a bit surprised at decisiveness, but considering the impact the serum would make, he knows only an idiot will reject it. However, the decisions that the giant corporations made were highly because of him, but he will never know it. 

 "They will come tomorrow to discuss the details." Tim notified him via a text message.

Stark's and Osborne's representative comes to the company to iron out the details. Ryan walked into Tim’s office as his father invited him in. 

Unexpectedly, both Norman Osborn and Tony Stark were there.

"Wait a minute dad! WHY DID YOU WANT ME HERE AGAIN?"