The Chronicles of Emberstone Farm
Author: Lin Meili
Date: 2024-12-02T11:27:15.933000+00:00

Chapter 1 – Transported into the world of Adventure Incarnate

I have become the Child of Fate, Hero of Ages, Healer of Worlds, Deathless Seeker, and Harbinger of the Dawn.

It happened in a flash. One moment I was clicking on the login button for Adventure Incarnate, my favorite Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game, when I was blinded by a flash of light. The next thing I knew, I had been transported into the world of the game.

That was several weeks ago. Of course, I was shocked and confused at first, and I went through several cycles of denial and acceptance before I settled down enough to figure out what I should do next: find a safe place to stay.

My current quest, given to me by the Adventure Incarnate game System, was simple.

[Beginner Quest: Build a House]

I’d already finished two beginner quests, [Tutorial] and [Farmer Certificate]. Now that I had received a land grant from the local government, all I had to do was to clear a space in this forest to build my new home.

Today my goal was to cut down a few trees. I was in an old growth forest filled with towering cedar, hinoki cypress, larch, oak, and maple trees along with some fruit trees like wild cherry, plum, and peach. However, to the System, everything was just a “tree,” so I just picked an oak tree at random. Using the hatchet tool from my System toolbox, I swung at its trunk.

“Timber!” I yelled.

The tree shook and leaves rained down on me. Around half of the tree’s crown had mysteriously disappeared. One more swing and all that was left was the trunk.

The next one should do it.

“For real this time. Timber!” I yelled again. There was no one around, but yelling like a cartoon character made me feel more excited about my first woodcutting session. This was actually the first time that I was using a game skill.

I swung at the tree trunk with my hatchet and, sure enough, after I hit it with a resounding thwack, all that was left of it was a tree stump. Then I hit the stump with my ax one last time, making it disappear completely.

“It’s like magic!” I said.

Checking my inventory, I noticed that two slots now had wooden logs and tree branches in them. Just like in the game, cutting down trees gave me several pieces of wood.

I cut down three more trees nearby.

“Why do I feel tired?” I said out loud to nobody in particular.

With a bit of mental effort, I willed the game menu to appear. Thankfully, I didn’t have to physically press any of the buttons on the System screen that only I could see. As my eyes moved over the screen, it was as though the game system could read my mind as it switched to the right tab just when I wanted it to.

On the settings tab, I turned the guide mode on. A glowing yellow grid superimposed itself on the ground. To set down a farm, I needed to clear a 4 x 4 area. That was my priority because I was tired of doing my “business” in the bushes. I wanted a flush toilet and a proper bed to sleep on.

“One more to go,” I said to encourage myself.

I could hardly lift my arms anymore, but I forced myself to swing my ax until the last tree was cleared.

“Yes! I’m a woodcutting goddess!” I dropped the ax and danced a jig.

“You are?” said someone from behind me.

“Aaaaaaaaaaaah! Bear! Bear!” I’d been so sure that I was totally alone here deep in the forest that I was unable to stop myself from screaming when someone unexpectedly appeared behind me. A dark, hairy figure loomed over me. Though I was a beat too late, I plucked the pink plushie dangling from my waist and flung it at the newcomer, shouting, “Kill!”

“I’m not a bear. I’m from the White Tiger Clan,” said the figure. He’d caught the plushie.

I backed away a step, and the person took a step forward, into the light. It was definitely a person, but he was huge and bear-like, with a thickly muscled figure, brown beard, and long shaggy hair. His legs were like tree trunks, and his arms were brown and brawny, but underneath his bushy eyebrows, his eyes were lively and intelligent.

“No, I wasn’t calling you a bear. That’s my bear,” I said, pointing at the teddy bear in his hand.

Floating above the newcomer’s head were the words [Farm Guide], and a transparent box had popped up in my field of vision with the words [Unable to Attack Farm Guide].

It’s a good thing that the System had stopped me from attacking this person. The Farm Guide was a very important NPC in the game who helped the player with events, farm upgrades, weather reports, and so forth.

“Oh, I see,” he said.

He handed the plushie back to me, and I put it back on my belt via the hook on its back. My character was a puppeteer, and this little stuffed toy was the beginner puppet. It looked harmless, but I could use it to cast basic magic like Fireball. Thank goodness I hadn’t actually attacked. The last thing I wanted was to offend my Farm Guide. In fact, players should give their guides a gift every time they meet, so I had prepared one in advance. I handed him a purple crocus I’d picked up earlier. “Sorry about that! I was just surprised. I haven’t seen another person here all day.”

“No problem,” he said as he accepted the flower and put it on his belt. Like me, he was wearing pants and a long-sleeved robe with an overlapping Y-shaped collar, like a character from an ancient Chinese martial arts movie. Now that I looked at him closely, I saw that he had slightly pointed ears, which meant that he wasn’t human. I hadn’t noticed because his hair mostly covered the sides of his head. Most of the people on this continent were humans, but the feudal lords and ruling family were all God Beasts who were descendants of the offspring of humans and gods. They were called God Beasts in the game because they looked human, but could shapeshift into a giant beast form. They called themselves Yaozhen in their language.

“Welcome to Emberstone Farm. I’m Violet, a new settler from Mai-i island,” I said.

Emberstone Farm was the name that was automatically generated by the System when I was assigned this spot in the forest.

“I know. I’m Shuye, the person in charge of this area. Welcome to the Ancient Hills Forest,” he said.

“Thank you.” I wanted to be hospitable, so I took out a plate of cookies from my inventory. The people of this world were quite used to magic, and many people had a small magical space that they could use to store items. I'd spent the last of my money on buying the cookies in town.

“No, thank you. We of the White Tiger clan don’t eat human food,” he said. “Do you need anything? I see that you’ve set up a tent. I could show you a cave nearby that’s safer.”

“A cave? Yes, I’d like to see it,” I said.

Not that I planned to use it, since the house that I could build using the System was undoubtedly much better than a cave. Nonetheless, it would be nice to know a place where I could seek shelter if I was caught outside in bad weather.

Without further ado, I put the cookies and hatchet back in my inventory and followed his lead. We spent an hour hiking through the woods while we chatted. He gave me a few tips about how to survive in the wilderness and asked me about my life back “home.” Of course, he was asking about my background in this world.

I didn’t tell him my real life story. The truth was that back on Earth my parents had died a year ago, a few days before I turned eighteen. I was studying up for my college entrance exams when I decided to play Adventure Incarnate, a moderately popular and very strange Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game. It started off as a social farming simulation before being bought up by a Chinese video game company.

The new owners had an RPG that they had been developing, and some smart guy had the bright idea of taking advantage of the existing player base by merging the two games together, forming a new MMORPG. The result was a uniquely weird hodgepodge of farming, crafting, and combat content set in a fantasy medieval-Europe-meets-magitech-Asia world.

The moment I joined my guild chat, one of my online friends messaged me about “something cool” that he wanted to show me.

GodIAm or GIA, as I called him, was one of the first friends that I had made in the game. He was notorious for being a nolifer, hacker, and bug abuser. Half a dozen of his characters had been banned because of this.

Nonetheless, he was a very smart and witty guy that I enjoyed chatting with. He told me he had found a way to spawn infinite items, though it was only visible in the character's own inventory. He showed me a few screenshots, but those were easily faked, so he offered to let me log into the character. That was when I was transported into the game.

What I told Shuye was the player character’s backstory. I gave him the old song and dance about how I was an orphan who had been found washed ashore after a shipwreck at Mai-i island. I was just a baby then, and no one came forward to claim me, so I grew up in an orphanage with no knowledge of who my parents were.

Shuye was sympathetic to my plight.

“It must’ve been hard for you,” he said.

“That’s all in the past. I’m looking forward to my future here,” I said.

That was the truth. At first, it had been difficult for me to accept that there was no log-out button I could use to return to Earth. However, I eventually accepted the fact that I was stuck here, and that I had to make the most of what I had, which was a lot.

My dear friend GIA had really done it! I’d only half-believed him when he’d shown me the screenshots of his inventory that had billions of valuable items in it. Now I could see for myself that he was telling the truth. My inventory was full of everything that a player could need, and each bank slot had the maximum number of items: 2,147,483,647.

I’m no programmer, so I didn’t quite understand why 2,147,483,647 was a significant number. I believe it had something to do with 32-bit code or integers, or something like that.

The point was that I had 2,147,483,647 mythril bars, 2,147,483,647 rainbow trout, 2,147,483,647 Phoenix feathers, 2,147,483,647 green dragon leathers, 2,147,483,647 buckets of living soil, and so forth.

I had all of the important farm items, crafting materials, armor, weapons, accessories, and cash shop cosmetics in Adventure Incarnate in my inventory.

With an inventory that was full of legendary items, I was surely destined for greatness in this world.

Of course, nothing in life could really be that easy. There was just one small problem with me using the items.

Chapter 2 – There’s just one small problem with my cheat

The items themselves were fine, but…

I’m a freakin’ level 1 noob. I can’t use the good stuff!

Yet.

I’ll have to level up if I want to use or equip the better items. At the moment, the only things I could utilize were the newbie level 1 items, cosmetic packs, and holiday joke items.

The reason why this character is level one was because GIA said he would get caught by the Adventure Incarnate admins if he used anything. The items were purely for bragging rights. That’s why I was really nervous the first time I took out some gold from the System inventory. Fortunately, the skies remained clear, and I wasn’t struck down by divine lightning for my temerity in using duped gold.

So it seems I was okay for now. Also, I should really stop thinking of myself as “this character” since “this character” was now “me.”

“This is it,” said Shuye, interrupting my thoughts. He showed me the cave, which was quite large and reasonably comfortable-looking. Someone had carved an alcove on one wall, and there was a stone bed that only needed a bit of cleaning before it could be used.

“A human wanted to settle here and lived here temporarily for a few weeks before giving up and joining a farm up north,” said Shuye. “I hope you’re here to stay.”

“I am. This cave looks almost cozy.”

“Do you want to camp here?” asked Shuye.

“I prefer the site you saw me in. It’s closer to water,” I said.

“Good point.”

On our way back to my campsite, Shuye showed me a few points of interest, like some good fishing spots and animal paths. It was late afternoon by the time we got back.

“Goodbye. I’ll drop by now and then to see if you need anything,” said Shuye.

“Goodbye and thank you,” I said.

I was exhausted!

After he left, I sat down on a tree stump and drank some water while I opened the System menu and browsed through my house options.

My farming level was 1, so the only homes I could use were the starter farmhouses.

The world of Adventure Incarnate was large and multicultural. The original game was vaguely medieval fantasy Europe, but there had been several expansions since then. The continent I was in was based on the Chinese legend of the Four Auspicious Beasts - the Azure Dragon of the East, the Vermilion Bird of the South, the White Tiger of the West, and the Black Tortoise of the North. There was a fifth, central area, but that game expansion hadn’t been released in Adventure Incarnate yet.

I was in the White Tiger’s territory. The people here had Asian-sounding names, and the food, clothing, language, and architecture were Chinese-inspired.

So my choice was between the Western-looking log cabin or cottage versus the traditional Chinese courtyard house. Each one had its pros and cons. The log cabin was very low-key since it looked like something that could be assembled on site. The cottage was very pretty, and it was the smallest of the three. The courtyard house, on the other hand, needed double the space of the cottage since it featured a central courtyard surrounded by four buildings. It definitely didn’t look like something I could’ve made with my own hands.

I’d only cleared a small space today, so I had no choice but to build a log cabin or a cottage. Since the log cabin was bigger, it was my best choice for today.

I mentally chose the starter cabin, then clicked on the build button.

A glowing magic circle filled with runes and mystical symbols appeared on the ground. Moments later, the house appeared, looking as though it had always been there. The house was built of logs that were notched at the ends and laid one upon another, with the spaces between them filled with moss and dirt.

[Congratulations! You have completed the Beginner Quest: Build a House]

The reward was a furniture pack, which I quickly applied to the cabin by clicking on the “use furniture pack” option.

[Furniture pack used.]

Now the cottage should have all the basic furnishings.

Crossing the fingers of my left hand, I used my right hand to open the door. The inside was just one big room with a wooden floor partially covered with colorful patterned rugs. There was one small window opposite the door, and a stone fireplace to my right. On the left were empty shelves, and there were only two pieces of furniture in the room, a bed and a rocking chair.

Oh no! There was no toilet.

I threw myself down on the very comfortable bed. I wanted to cry. Curse those game developers who never think about basic human needs! I suppose they thought it wouldn’t be cute to have a toilet in the cabin.

I opened the System menu again to check the house settings and turned on all the privacy and security options because the last thing I wanted was for people to barge into my place or snoop around.

While I was looking through the house tab, I noticed that there were several outbuildings that I could build, but when I selected the outhouse, I got an error saying “no space.” I guess I needed to cut down a few more trees if I wanted to build a few more things.

My energy bar should refresh itself after a nap. I put the puppet down on the bedside table, took a sandwich out of my inventory, then ate it while lazily doodling various plans for the farm in my notebook.

The most important thing was the proper placement of the various buildings I planned to use. I decided to clear a path from my new home to the nearby river.

In the future, I plan to use the river for faster transportation because this place was quite isolated, and I’d had to trek through dense virgin forest to get to my chosen spot. My building skill was tied to my transportation items, as well as the usual houses, barns, sheds, greenhouses, and so forth. I could only use the lowest level canoe right now. However, I’d walked here because I wasn’t confident about using it, since the one time I’d tried a paddleboat back on Earth, I’d only spun around in circles instead of getting where I wanted to go. Feet were a lot more reliable.

The real kicker was that I had a lot, and I do mean a lot, of transportation items that I was too low level to use.

How exciting to think that perhaps sometime soon, I would be able to use a flying sword! Forget about higher-level boats, the real thrill was using flying tools.

Nonetheless, the river would definitely be crucial for transporting crops and other items, even if I wasn’t comfortable using it to travel.

Once I was done eating, I put down my pencil and lay down for a good, long nap. The bed was tiny, but not uncomfortable.

A vague thought flickered through the back of my mind, telling me that I’d forgotten something important, but when I looked around, I saw that everything seemed fine.

If I couldn’t remember it, then it probably wasn’t worth worrying about.

Right?

But the moment I woke up, I remembered the important thing that I’d forgotten.

Wasn’t it always that way? I only remembered what I had forgotten after it was already too late. I picked up my puppet, who I’d named Bob, from the bedside table. Then I walked outside and threw it up on the roof, activating its “guard mode.” I should’ve done that before I went to sleep. Now it would have a good view of my surroundings, and it would alert me if anything dangerous came too near the cabin.

It was already late afternoon, so I only had about an hour and a half of daylight left. Whistling merrily, I cut down a few more trees so I could clear more ground for planting later on.

According to the System calendar, it was planting season. I had two weeks to prepare the place and plant crops. After that, based on the game mechanics that I was familiar with, I wouldn’t be able to plant during the growing season, which lasted for two months. Harvest season lasted for two weeks. All in all, it was a very tidy calendar where spring, summer, autumn, and winter each lasted three months.

Therefore, I was going to be really busy clearing land for me to plow. I expected that I would only be able to plant a few crops this spring.

“Oh, yes!” I said after I finished clearing enough land for me to place an outhouse.

I chanted a mantra as I nervously approached what I hoped was the long-awaited flush toilet. “Don’t be scary. Don’t be scary. Please don’t be scary. Please…”

The moment I opened the door of the outhouse, I was greeted with the worst possible outcome.

“Nooooooooooo!”

I fell to my knees in despair. It was a composting toilet.

Chapter 3 – I did not cut down any demonic trees!

The next morning, after dreaming of a dragon's egg, I awoke to the sunlight streaming through the curtains. The sounds of the forest - the chirping of birds, the rustling of leaves, the buzzing of insects, and the gentle murmur of water from the nearby river - accompanied me. The air was filled with the fresh, intoxicating smell of spring. I leapt to my feet, walking to the window to take a deep breath, smiling inwardly as I felt the joy of having a place of my own, a place that had become my home.

Outside, the forest floor was covered with a sea of green moss and dead leaves that crunched under my feet. Delicate wildflowers peeked out from between the trees and bushes, their colorful petals contrasting harmoniously with the brown and green hues of the forest. The sun was still low on the horizon, bathing the forest in a golden glow and enveloping everything in a magical golden light. The air was fresh and invigorating, stimulating all my senses. I felt like I was in a fairy tale, and it was hard to believe that this place was really mine.

After a long, restful night of sleep, I decided that the toilet situation wasn’t really that bad.

I mean, humans lived for hundreds of thousands of years without flush toilets, right? I would survive. At least, it was better than doing it in the bushes. Every time I did that, I was worried that one of the plants I couldn’t recognize was this world’s version of poison ivy. So after just one night, I reconciled myself to the thought of using the outhouse.

Nonetheless, I put “make a much bigger house” at the top of my list. To level up my building skill, I needed to level up farming, since that was the basic requirement needed to unlock all the farming-related skills. Once I had leveled up to at least ten, I would be able to build a ranch house, a much bigger dwelling that most likely had better facilities.

The usual progression for houses was: Cottage > Ranch > Mansion > Palace > Castle > Fortress. There were various options for each level, like the current choice of log cabin, cottage, or courtyard house. Regarding the courtyard house option, the progression was modular: one courtyard house > two courtyards > three courtyards > four courtyards > five courtyards, and so forth.

The log cabin proved to be comfortable enough, but the accommodations were rather basic. The bed was cozy, and I could cook food in the cauldron that was hanging over the fire in the fireplace, but I wouldn’t be truly at ease until I had all the modern conveniences in my house — a flush toilet, hot and cold running water, refrigerator, air conditioner, heater, and a modern kitchen.

With this in mind, I spent the next nine days cutting down as many trees as I could. I also dug a well because a nearby source of water was absolutely essential for farms. I thought that I would be able to place a pump well, but it was the more primitive rope and bucket type. Hauling up buckets of water for my use was definitely my least favorite activity of the day.

Five days before the end of the planting season, I decided I needed to start tilling the soil.

The pathetic level 1 hoe could only till one grid square big enough to plant three seeds. All I had to do was use a little bit of force to strike the ground in front of me with the hoe, and the System would do the rest. Though it seemed easy, every time I did it I felt myself growing weaker until, at last, the energy bar in the System menu was almost empty.

Farming using the system used up my energy. This mysterious “energy” was something almost every culture on Earth had a name for like “chi,” “qi”, “mana,” “orenda,” and so forth, but in Adventure Incarnate it was just called energy. When a player leveled up, they naturally got more energy to use.

As I tilled the soil, energy flowed from my body down to the soil, so it was quite tiring. Using my sleeve, I wiped the sweat away from my forehead. I had only managed to till twelve squares, meaning I would only be able to plant thirty-six seeds. Browsing the inventory for plant seeds only told me what I already knew. The best spring crops that I could plant right now were: cucumber, tomatoes, carrots, onions, and potatoes. All of them took roughly two months to grow before they were ready for harvest.

The reason why they were so weird was because they weren’t the usual cucumber, tomatoes, carrots, onions, and potatoes from Earth that I was familiar with. These crops were all “spiritual plants.” In other words, they were special, magical crops.

I had already decided to plant potatoes.

[Potato:

Typically planted in the spring, potatoes grow best in areas with full sunlight and moist but well-drained soil. The potato plant is a herbaceous perennial with small, white flowers, and it grows to around two feet height. A single potato plant produces two to five tubers, the edible part of the plant.

Potatoes are easy to grow even for beginners.]

The System offered a basic description of each crop, and the one about the potatoes sounded good to me. I figured they were the best crop to plant right now because they were easy to cook, and they could be used in a variety of recipes.

When I took out the seeds, I noticed that they were quite peculiar. They had a strange luster to them like that of a pearl. Besides, weren’t potatoes usually cultivated using seed potatoes that have buds? I guessed that the seeds from the game weren’t the usual ones.

With my energy running dangerously low, I hurriedly planted the potato seeds. I poured the potato seeds in a seed dispenser, and when I placed it near the tilled soil, three seeds flew out from the tip and embedded themselves in the soil. Once again, I felt the strange sensation of energy flowing outwards from my body.

The next time I moved my arm towards the ground, I tried to mentally stop the energy from leaving me. Nothing happened. The seeds did not fly out. I was somewhat reassured to know that the mysterious energy I was using was under my control. Whistling happily, I continued to plant more potato seeds until I ran out of space.

Sprinklers were beyond my level, so I manually watered the plants using a watering can, refilling it at the well twice before I was finished.

It was only after I examined my newly-planted potato crops that I realized I had skipped an important step.

[This farming patch contains a potato seed. It has been watered. The soil has not been fertilized.]

Oh no! It’s true that using fertilizer was optional, but I had plenty in my inventory, so I should’ve done it.

“I was in too much of a rush…” I had gotten into the habit of talking to myself because I was all alone. “I’ll remember that tomorrow.”

On the other hand, it wasn’t all that bad. Though it was unintentional, the fact that I had twelve plots that hadn’t been fertilized meant that I could compare the growth of fertilized versus unfertilized crops. I could just think of this as the control group.

Cheered up by the thought of the upside of my forgetfulness, I went back inside the house to prepare my lunch.

The log cabin didn’t have a dedicated kitchen. The only place that I could cook was the fireplace, which had a shelf of pots, pans, and other kitchen utensils above it. I hung a cauldron on the hook above the fire and filled it with water. A simple vegetable stew was my goal for today.

I sat down on the cabin’s only chair and took out a kitchen knife, cutting board, and two pieces each of turnips, parsnips, leeks, onions, and cabbage which I placed on the only table in the house. The vegetables were perfectly formed and blemish-free. I believe this was because these were also “spirit plants” which meant that they were much better than normal vegetables. In fact, whenever I cut one into bite sized pieces, they released a soft, gentle glow. Was it a sign of spiritual energy being released?

Back on Earth, my parents had taught me how to cook basic stuff like rice, fried eggs, mashed potatoes, mac & cheese, and prepare sandwiches and salads. Here, however, my cooking skills went for naught as I was only level 1, and it seemed as though I burned everything I cooked.

Once the water in the cauldron was boiling, I added the vegetables. I was supposed to add oats in later, but, alas, I once again burned the stew. One would think that it was difficult to burn stew, however, burning food was almost all I did because of my low cooking level.

Glumly, I once again put the burnt food, along with the cauldron, in my inventory with the other failures. Thank goodness, I already had cooked food in my inventory. Otherwise, I might have starved to death.

GIA had only bothered to dupe valuable items, which meant the food that I could eat was either food ingredients like raw vegetables and fruits or the most expensive food item in the game, the Five-Star Luxury Bento. The bento was a three-layered one filled with three dozen different types of food, only some of which I could identify. There were sweet rolled omelets, vegetable tempura, pickled lotus root, onigiri, red bean mochi, rice balls, and many other delicious foods. The problem was that I had been eating this for weeks, so I was already bored with it. Not to mention, it was vegetarian.

I want meat! Lots and lots of juicy meat!

My mouth watered at the thought of steaks and hamburgers, but my puny cooking level meant that it was impossible for me to cook those, even though I had plenty of raw meat.

I mentally put “fix the food situation” as my number two priority after building a better house.

Chapter 4 – I have a bloodline inheritance

I settled into a routine during the rest of the planting season, waking up at dawn, tilling the soil, adding fertilizers, planting potato seeds, and watering the plants.

The day after planting season had ended according to the System calendar, I attempted to till the soil and plant more seeds, but a System message told me that I was trying to do something impossible.

[You cannot plant seeds during the growing season.]

When I tried to physically place a seed in a small hole that I had made in the soil, the seeds turned black. The next day, I saw that the seeds had crumbled into dust.

I guess I couldn’t force a seed to grow without the help of the System.

Despite that setback, I was pretty satisfied with my progress because my industriousness had been rewarded with a few farming levels.

[Farming: Level 5]

I was cutting down some trees and wondering where I should fish when a notification screen popped up in front of me.

[Attention! Farm Guide approaching.]

I hurriedly went back to the house and retrieved Bob from the roof by ordering it to return to me. Then I went inside, so I could clean myself up a little. The log cabin didn’t have a shower, so I had to bathe in the river, with Bob standing guard over me. Right now, all I could do was use a basin, a jug of water, and a towel to wash up a little. I also changed into a new set of blue robes. There wasn’t really time for me to wash my hair, so I hoped I didn’t smell too sweaty.

By the time I went out the door, my bear-like Farm Guide, Shuye, was waiting for me just outside.

“Good morning,” he said. Once again, he was wearing a simple brown robe and trousers. His hair was as shaggy as ever, and he looked even more like a grizzly than I remembered.

“Good morning,” I said as I handed him a crocus.

He accepted the gift and placed it on his belt, which made him look almost unbearably cute. A bear with a flower on his belt was talking to me!

“Looks like you’ve been busy,” he said, nodding at the neat row of potato seedlings that had just begun to sprout.

“Yes,” I said. “Though I wasn’t able to plant a lot.”

“Let me take a look,” he said. Shuye walked over to the crops and knelt on the ground to inspect them more closely. “These spirit plants look quite special. Where did you get the seeds?”

I’d had a lot of time to think about what story to tell him, and I thought that I had come up with a perfect explanation that had the advantage of also being true.

“Well, you see, it’s like this,” I said. “I’m an orphan.”

This wasn’t a lie, because this was precisely my story on Earth. I’d lived a privileged life as the daughter of a French-Swiss father and Singaporean mother who traveled all over the globe working freelance. My mother was a painter, while my father was a photographer. Right before I turned eighteen, they died in a car accident, leaving me an orphan. The only person who could take me in was a distant relative on my mother’s side. Fortunately, my parents had left me with a bit of money, enough for me to live on and pay for my college tuition.

I continued telling my story to Shuye. “The moment that I came of age, I moved out of the orphanage and got a job as a waitress.”

“It sounds like you’ve had it rough,” said Shuye.

“Oh, it’s not as bad as it sounds. The staff at the orphanage treated me well.” Now came the part that was a lie. “It was only around a month ago when I discovered that I had inherited something from my parents. I have a bloodline inheritance.”

“A bloodline inheritance?” asked Shuye. “That’s fairly common among my kind, but I heard that it’s one in a million for humans.”

“Oh? I thought it was also rare for divine beasts.”

“Not at all.” Shuye scratched his head. “I myself have a bloodline inheritance.”

I looked him up and down. “Really? What is it?”

“Miss, do you realize that the expression on your face is saying ‘this guy doesn’t look anything special’. Don’t you think that’s kind of rude?” The expression on his face was stern. Given his size and bulk, it was almost terrifying.

“I’m sorry…” His attitude had been so friendly and warm that I had taken for granted that he wouldn’t be easily offended. However, I knew that on this continent, his kind were the rulers of the land. Humans were merely their subjects. Everyone said they ruled justly, but that didn’t mean that I could treat him as though we were equals like I would on Earth.

“I was kidding.” Shuye shook his head and his stern expression melted into one of rueful self-deprecation. “I know I don’t look like much, but I do have a bloodline inheritance. I have a special sense for animals. That’s why I’m perfect for this job.”

His job? Oh, right, though he was my Farm Guide, that wasn’t his actual job title. He was actually one of the guardians of the forest. I said, “No, I apologize. That was quite rude of me. I expect I don’t look like much either.”

“Forget about it,” he said magnanimously. “So tell me about your skill and how you got the seeds.”

“Um, it’s like this, I got the skill of raising spirit plants, and my bloodline inheritance is the ability to use my ancestors’ treasures that they left behind for their descendants. I have a space that only I can access that’s filled with precious items,” I said. “Like the seeds.”

I took out a bunch of mixed wildflower seeds from my inventory and poured it on my palm, raising it towards Shuye so he could examine them.

Shuye’s eyes widened.

“These are extremely valuable!” he said. When he tried to take one of the seeds from my palm, his paw, I mean his hand, abruptly stopped a few inches above the seeds. “A force is stopping me from touching them.”

Yes, I knew that would happen because all of the items from the inventory had the status [Bound]. GIA had informed me most of the items that his item duplication cheat produced were almost all like that. In other words, only I could use these items. There were a few exceptions, and GIA had explained the reason behind it, but I had forgotten the details. The bottom line was that I couldn’t sell or give away most of the items. The exceptions were joke items.

“I know. I can use these items because of my bloodline inheritance, but it’s impossible for other people to use them. My house was also built using my ancestor’s skills, and no one can enter it without my permission.” I waved a hand at the house.

“Then, does that mean the crops can only be used by you?” he asked.

“I don’t think so. Try touching the potato sprouts,” I said.

He knelt down once again and touched the crops. “Ah, it seems you’re right.”

“Pretty cool, huh?” I said.

For the first time, Shuye smiled. His teeth were very large and white. I couldn’t decide whether he was more terrifying when he smiled or not. He said, “This is excellent. What are you planning to do with the produce?”

“I was going to ask you about that. I picked the spot near the river because I thought it would be easier to transport the crops via boat,” I said.

“No need. The White Tiger Clan will buy all of your harvest,” he said. “We can also take care of transportation.”

“Oh, but I have no idea how much to sell this for. I was planning to go to the city to find a merchant,” I said.

The place that I lived in right now was called the Westerlands, a territory in the Western region of the Beast Continent, also known poetically as the Sunset Lands. There were a couple of cities in this area, but when someone said “the City” with no qualifiers, then they were definitely talking about Anwei, the largest and wealthiest city in the Westerlands.

We spent the next few minutes talking about the details. Shuye assured me that I would receive a fair price for my produce, and I agreed to sell this year’s harvest to the clan since I didn’t really need the money anyway.

Before he left, he told me that he would come back in two days’ time with a written agreement from his boss, our feudal lord, Prince Baiyu from the White Tiger Clan.

“Okay, thank you very much!” I said.

We said our goodbyes, and I went back to cutting trees to clear more land for planting during the summer season.

Fishing would have to wait until tomorrow.

Chapter 4.5

An excerpt from the journal of Shuye Skullcrusher, Guardian of the Ancient Hill Forest:

I have sent a letter reporting the presence of a suspicious immigrant to my superiors, but it is currently the hunting season, so I do not expect a reply soon.

To enumerate all the strangeness regarding that individual would take an entire book, but the main points are:

1. Humans do not normally go to the frontier to farm alone, especially young women.

2. Her aura is that of an ordinary person, not a cultivator, which is suspicious in and of itself because she clearly isn’t.

3. According to her own explanation, the log cabin was in her possession, demonstrating that she has an enormous soul space, which only the most powerful and oldest members of the clans could possibly possess.

4. The seeds that she has been using are cursed. I verified this myself when I examined them and sensed an ominous force that prevented me from touching them.

5. It is only when one is nearby that the spiritual plants’ aura can be perceived. If one is more than two feet away from the spirit plants, no qi fluctuations can be felt.

6. The well that she dug contains spirit water that she uses to water the plants.

7. Magical puppets are extremely expensive, yet she has an advanced model.

8. The crocus flowers she gave me radiates a calming scent stronger than the strongest tranquilizers I know of.

9. Her house is invisible unless it’s pointed out to the person by someone who knows where it is. Three of my subordinates tried and failed to find it until I led them to the farm myself.

Given the stealthy nature of her activities, it's possible that she is a spy or an assassin sent by the radical factions in the Central Continent. However, my gut tells me that she means no harm. More likely, she is a refugee from the wars among the Azure Dragon clans in the east.

The investigators I sent to Mai-i island will return in a few weeks.

Chapter 5 – Fishing day! It’s not really cheating if it’s a single player game

The next day dawned bright and clear, with blue skies and fluffy white clouds framed by the dark green leaves of the trees. The sun shone through the forest canopy, speckling the ground with patches of golden light. I took a deep breath and enjoyed the fresh scent of the loamy earth and lush vegetation.

I whistled as I watered the potato plants. They had grown to about two to three inches tall, and I was quite pleased to note that they seemed healthy. I even fancied that I could see a gentle glow surrounding them, giving them a slight mystical feeling.

Once I was done watering the plants, I set off to my chosen fishing spot. Since I lived near a river, there were plenty of places where I could try my luck catching fish, but, according to my Farm Guide, certain spots were better than others. The nearest one was only ten minutes away, but I wanted to go to a more peaceful and shaded area.

After around half an hour of walking, I found myself in a clearing that featured a pond with crystal clear water that reflected the greenery and sky above. Dragonflies and damselflies flitted around the edges of the pond, while fish swam lazily in the water. This was a vernal pond, a small, seasonal body of water that was at its peak during the spring after the snow melted. The rest of the year, it would be dried out. Since now was the only time I could fish in it, I wanted to make the most of this time. The best thing about this pond was that the killifish that lived in it were especially easy to capture.

I skimmed the description of killifish, but there wasn’t anything in particular that stood out to me.

[Killifish (Fishing Level 1):

A small, freshwater fish often found in ephemeral waters. They are able to survive in these conditions by burying their eggs in the mud at the bottom of vernal pools.]

The important thing was that my fishing level was good enough to catch them.

[Fishing: Level 1]

The pond was in the middle of the clearing, surrounded by trees. I picked a comfortable-looking spot at the edge of the water that had a large rock that I could sit on when I was tired.

Taking out a fishing rod from the System inventory, I momentarily lamented the fact that I could only use the beginner items. The primitive fishing rod I had was nothing more than a long, flexible bamboo rod that had a string tied to the end. It didn’t even have a reel.

[Bamboo Pole:

A bamboo fishing rod perfect for the fisherman who wants to feel closer to nature. The bamboo gives the rod a natural feel, while the line is made of high-quality material to provide durability and strength.]

I placed a piece of shrimp on the steel hook as bait, then cast it towards the pool.

During my travels with my parents, I had done a bit of fishing, including times when I used this type of “stick and string” fishing rod. Once a fish was on the hook, all I had to do was steadily lift the fishing rod straight up. In theory, it was quite simple, but actually catching a fish was often quite challenging.

I waited with bated breath for a nibble. After a few minutes, a notification screen popped up.

[Hit!]

Now came one of the worst parts of Adventure Incarnate! I really hated the fishing mini-game.

A little fish icon appeared on the screen in front of me and started moving up and down. I tried to match its movements with my bamboo pole, but failed, and the fish got away.

How annoying! I had hoped that, since this was now real life, I wouldn’t have to play the mini-game. Was it really too much to ask that I could fish normally?

I sat down on the rock and pondered my choices. The truth was, I didn’t really need to level fishing at all. I wanted to do it, because fishing was one of my favorite activities in the game, but it was only good for gathering fish. But the fact that I already had billions of fish in my inventory meant that the fishing skill was superfluous.

The only reason that I had loved fishing in the game was because I used a popular mod, the “Easy Fishing Hack.”

Suddenly, I realized that there was no way that my friend GIA would have played without using a lot of mods. Could there be a way for me to find these mods and activate them? I spent half an hour looking at the System menu, but I couldn’t find anything.

Gritting my teeth in determination, I cast my line again. Again and again, I played that stupid mini-game, only to fail every time. Rhythm games were my weakness. I couldn’t explain it, but for some reason I had a terrible sense of rhythm, and my reflexes had always been particularly slow. That was probably why I played a relaxing game like Adventure Incarnate instead of something more exciting, like an FPS or MOBA.

I had already given up when a notification screen popped up.

[Activate the Easy Fishing Hack?]

Heck, yes! Mentally choosing the [Accept] button, I was greeted with a very welcome System message.

[Easy Fishing Hack Activated]

In your face, mini-game! Killifish, here I come.

I cast my line towards the center of the pool once again, but this time when the notification screen popped up, there was no mini-game. All I had to do was steadily lift the bamboo fishing pole up a few feet out of the water. Then it was considered a success, and the fish was automatically added to my inventory.

“Yes! Yes! Yes!” I did a little dance to celebrate.

Somehow, although one killifish was hardly important, the fact that I was able to successfully fish after hours of frustration was extremely satisfying.

Farming was very nice, and I enjoyed it a lot, but there was something about the thrill of getting a fish every few minutes that was much more stimulating.

I spent a pleasant day fishing as much as I could until the sky began to turn dark. The thirty-eight fish that I caught gave me a few fishing levels.

[Fishing: Level 4]

Of course, the first ten levels of every skill were incredibly easy to get. The difficulty increased as the levels increased, so I probably won’t be able to level three times in a day next time.

With a light heart, I made my way back to my home, already planning my schedule. From now on, my day would consist of watering and caring for the plants, clearing land, and fishing until I reached level ten.

My current stats were still quite low, so I had no plans of training my combat skills just yet.

[Player Name: Violet

Farming Skills:

Farming Level 5, Fishing Level 4, Woodcutting Level 5, Cooking Level 1, Herblaw (locked), Foraging (locked), Hunting (locked), Mining (locked)]

Regarding my woodcutting level, I had enough experience for level 12, but all of the farming -related skills were capped by the player’s farming level. When harvest season came along, I would get a bunch of farming experience, and my woodcutting skill would level up at the same time as my farming level.

As for the non-farming related skills such as crafting, magic, and combat, I would think about them once I had fulfilled my basic needs for comfortable shelter and delicious food.

The beginning stage of the game was peaceful, so I wouldn’t have to worry about the demons and bosses until much later.

Chapter 6 – Magical Girl transformation sequence

The next day, I woke up after a dream of a baby dragon just as dawn broke and immediately went to check on my precious potato plants. They were growing well, and I quickly watered them while checking each individual plant for weeds, bugs, or diseases. Everything seemed fine, so I went back to the cabin to have my breakfast afterwards.

After lunch, I was going to do some woodcutting, and maybe some fishing, too. But first, it was time to have some fun.

Though I couldn’t do anything about my food and house situation, at least I could improve my clothing. Right now, I was wearing the crude and cheap-looking beginner clothes. It consisted of a brown robe and brown pants made of coarse cloth. My shoes were cloth ones with thin soles that didn’t keep out the cold or wet. Fortunately, I wasn’t suffering too much because I had a lot of them, so I just threw the used ones in my inventory and got fresh ones every day.

Time to level up my look!

Adventure Incarnate was monetized with a monthly subscription for premium membership as well as a shop that sold items for real life money. In the past, everyone could use these Cash Shop items, but a few years ago a level requirement was introduced. Gossip among the players claimed that this was caused by myriad complaints by parents who said that their children had just downloaded the game and immediately spent hundreds of dollars on it. Thus, Cash Shop items could only be used by players with a combined skill level of 15 and above.

Now that I had reached the proper level, I could use these items. GIA had lots of things, and I scrolled merrily through my inventory, looking for something good to use.

First things first. One of the most fun things to do, of course, was to customize the character’s physical appearance. I went to the Cash Shop menu and activated a [Makeup Wizard] pack.

These packs were basically loot boxes with random items inside. For the next few minutes, I continued opening packs until I had around a hundred different pieces. Character modification was pretty nice in Adventure Incarnate. One could modify even the smallest things, such as eye size, eye shape, eye makeup, eyelashes, and other facial features down to the last millimeter.

However, I didn’t really want to change my face. I was afraid that if I modified it too much, I wouldn’t be able to recognize myself in the mirror. Thus, I only did a few minor adjustments: making my eyelashes thicker and longer, my lips pinker, and my skin flawless. The latter really made a big impact since it banished all my pimples and skin blemishes. Using the Cash Shop mirror that was floating in front of me, I turned my head from side to side, admiring how much better I looked.

Though changing my face was a no no, the same did not apply to my hair. After all, what was life without a bit of excitement?

I cycled through the many hairstyles available, from short platinum blonde locks to knee-length curly red hair. There were even outré styles like a pink mohawk, rainbow hedgehog, and spiked spider braids. Eventually, I settled on a classic “beach waves” hairstyle that went down to the middle of my back. I was going to settle on a shorter hair length, but when I tried out the first one, I noticed that when I used a cash shop item on my hair, it became magically easy to manage, unlike my normally wayward hair.

Having chosen the style, I had a difficult time picking the right color because I was really tempted by the many pastel shades available. My hair was naturally dark brown with lighter brown highlights since I was half Singaporean Chinese and half French-Swiss. Alas, in the end, I found that cotton candy pink and baby blue hair didn’t suit my complexion, so I had to settle on brown hair and blonde highlights.

Now that I was done with the physical enhancements, I looked for some better clothes and accessories. Although the Cash Shop sold individual items, cosmetic packs were a lot more popular. I grabbed a lot of boxes and started opening them one by one until I had a hundred.

[Medieval Princess] pack? It wasn’t practical, but what woman didn’t want to at least try out becoming a princess?

When I clicked on the [Wear] button, I thought the clothes would just magically appear on my body, but I was wrong.

Very, very wrong.

I should’ve realized that Adventure Incarnate was never that simple.

First, a shower of silver sparks fell down from a point two feet above my head. Second, the sparks turned to a curtain of light that circled me from the ground up to my head. Third, I was lifted a few inches off the ground while my current clothing slowly dissolved to nothing. Fourth, a swirl of light enveloped me while I was floating. Fifth, the light turned into medieval princess clothes.

Oh my gosh! It was a magical girl transformation sequence!

I never thought that I could experience a magical girl transformation in real life.

Was I happy about it? I wasn’t sure. The transformation wasn’t painful or anything.

Was I sure that I would never do this in public? Absolutely.

The Princess costume was pretty nice. The crimson and black gown was made of some heavy fabric, probably velvet and silk, and embroidered with intricate and ornate flower and leaf designs in gold and silver. The long sleeves went down to the floor, and the full skirt was more comfortable than I would’ve thought. Was it magic? The dress felt a lot lighter than it looked.

The silk slippers that went with it fit me perfectly, and my inner child was inordinately delighted by the upside down ice cream cone headdress that had a veil flowing down from it.

I spent a good five minutes twirling in front of the System’s full-length mirror.

Who’s a pretty princess?

Unfortunately, I didn’t think I would be attending any costume balls in the near future, so I undressed and folded the dress up, storing it in a chest under my bed.

In rapid succession, I tried out a few more costume packs. The maid, catgirl, and clown sets were really fun to wear, but a farmer needed more comfortable and practical clothes for everyday work, as well as a few good robes for special occasions. I tried them on, then put them away in the chest, giggling every time I went through the magical girl transformation sequence.

Time to get serious.

Browsing through all the options, I selected a few that looked like I could actually use them.

The first one that looked promising was the [Chic Waitress] costume. Specifically, the black pants looked very nice, and they wouldn’t be out of place on the farm. Sure enough, the waitress pack’s trousers looked great. Through experimentation, I found out that I was able to use the [Wear] button as much as I wanted. Were twelve pairs of trousers enough?

Then I got a few more good items from the [Gothic Witch] (black skirt), [Easter Bunny] (a plain white top), and [Playful Santa] (black boots) costumes.

Then I moved on to the ones that were sure to be much more appropriate in the Westerlands - the traditional Chinese clothing sets.

The [Springtime Delight] set was quite showy, but it was very similar to the clothing that I had seen the rich ladies wearing when I first arrived in this world. Consisting of a floor length green silk dress with long white sleeves, it included a thicker dark green cloth wrapped around the chest with a white ribbon strung through it. A translucent green scarf completed the look. All of that was usable if I wanted to dress nicely.

The [Enchanting Empress] set, on the other hand, featured a magnificent red silk robe lavishly embroidered with gold silk thread as well as a spectacular two-foot high golden headdress and dazzling gold ruby earrings. Of course, the whole thing would be inappropriate to wear, but I hoped I could find individual pieces that I could use. Alas, only the underwear was usable.

Now that I had the hang of it, I quickly tried out several items and got a lot of good stuff from the [Moonlight Jade], [Flower Dream], [Butterfly Beauty], [Mountain Mist], and [Peach Blossom] packs.

The [Noble Scholar] set was practically perfect. The robe’s sleeves were slightly shorter and the skirt narrower compared to the other traditional Chinese fashion packs, and the whole thing gave off an air of elegant simplicity and refinement. Made of fine cotton and embroidered with a bamboo design, its only accessory was a jade pendant hanging from the belt. When I wore it, I felt very dignified and calm.

Thus, I was able to get better work clothes and a few luxurious outfits in case I needed to go to the city.

I went through the cosmetic items one more time, and I was about to call it a day when I spotted a ridiculous-looking red beret that I wanted to try because it looked exactly like what I thought the character from Prince’s song “Raspberry Beret” would wear.

I mentally selected the [Parisian Barista] costume pack and was very surprised when I equipped the full set. Not only was I wearing the red beret, brown slacks, striped T-shirt, and white gloves, I was also holding a coffee cup in my left hand and a coffee maker in my right hand.

Incredible! I looked at the illustration of the cosmetic item again, and I noticed that the character was making coffee. Fortunately, I had coffee beans in my inventory. I made myself a cup of coffee, half expecting it to burn because of my low cooking level, but it turned out perfectly. That was probably because the coffee maker I was using was a cash shop item.

So did this mean that anything that the cash shop illustration showed would also be equipped? Obviously, the background stuff like the café hadn’t materialized, but the stuff that the illustrated character had been holding had.

As I browsed the cash shop inventory again, I paid attention to whatever activity was being shown.

The Greek Librarian was holding a magical scroll, but I was disappointed when I equipped it. The scroll materialized, but it only had some random scribbles on it.

On a whim, I went outside and tried out the [Sexy Stewardess] set. After all, it wasn’t likely that anyone would see me doing something as embarrassing as magically changing my clothes out in the open. Anyway, the curtain of light covered everything, so it’s not like they would have seen anything. As expected, I wasn’t able to get a free airplane.

Too bad.

I went back inside the house and tried out various items. The [Tea Ceremony] pack, which I had somehow overlooked earlier, turned out great. In addition to the exquisite pink kimono and classic Japanese wig, it came with a complete tea set.

Actually, I was someone who preferred coffee over tea, but a hot beverage was always welcome.

I truly hit the jackpot when I found the [Romantic Valentine] set. The illustration showed a woman dressed in a 1950s style circle dress holding a bouquet and a large box of chocolates.

When the box of chocolates materialized in my hands, I fell on it like a starving dog. I didn’t stop eating until I had polished off all fifty pieces.

Afterwards, I lay down on my bed, exhausted.

Wow.

If only there had been a sausage maker costume, or something similar, I might’ve been able to enjoy eating meat.

How was I to know that my craving for meat would lead to a dangerous complication?

Chapter 7 – Foraging in the woods for delicious treats

The best feeling in the world was waking up before dawn in a comfortable bed. There’s something magical about the peace and quiet of the early morning hours that I loved, and it was the perfect time to reflect on the day ahead. I always felt like I could conquer anything when I started my day with a good night’s sleep. Not only that, but I even had a pleasant dream of a pet dragon.

Outside, the first light of dawn was slowly creeping over the horizon, casting a gentle pink and orange glow over the sky and forest. The air was cool and fresh, and the fresh, springtime smell of the trees and earth was intoxicating.

This was all a far cry from the urban landscape of Singapore that used to greet me when I woke up. Less than a month ago, I was stressing out over exams and feeling hopeless about my future prospects as an orphan with very little money left. Not to mention, I had a very spotty academic record due to changing schools pretty often because I traveled all over the world with my parents.

This world, on the other hand, offered me boundless opportunities and a relaxing life in the countryside.

I don’t know exactly when it happened, but I had pretty much decided that I wouldn’t bother to look for a way to return to Earth.

“Isn’t life grand?” I said out loud to myself as I tended to my crops.

I checked each potato plant, making sure that they were all healthy and strong. Then I pulled up a few weeds that had sprung up overnight before I watered the plants.

Upon checking the calendar, I noticed it was now halfway through the growing season. The potato plants were knee-high now, with lots of fresh green leaves and thick brown stalks. The faint glow around them was a silvery color that seemed very mystical to me.

Although weeding and watering the plants only gave a little farming experience, two weeks’ worth of effort had resulted in a few more levels.

[Player Name: Violet

Farming Skills:

Farming Level 8, Fishing Level 8, Woodcutting Level 8, Cooking Level 1, Herblaw (locked), Foraging (locked), Hunting (locked), Mining (locked)]

I had done enough fishing and woodcutting to max out those two skills that were capped by my farming level. My next step would be to either start doing some quests or unlock my foraging skill and other skills. Neither one filled me with anticipation.

Even in the game, I always hated quests. The rewards were mostly useless, and the quests were mostly combat-related or simple “fetch X item for me.”

As for foraging, it was really fun when I was playing Adventure Incarnate, but in real life it involved a lot of tramping about in the woods. Things that would’ve taken only a few seconds or minutes in the game would take me hours in real life, all for a few measly flowers, berries, eggs, etc. It just wasn’t worth it when I already had all the items I needed.

Quests? Or foraging?

Eventually, of course, I would have to do both since they were required to progress some skills. Foraging, in particular, was vital to unlock the herblaw skill. In the game, making potions required a lot of unusual items that one could only find in the wild. Of course, because of my crazy inventory, I wouldn’t actually need to scour the forest for herblaw ingredients, but foraging was still needed to unlock the skill.

After much deliberation, I decided that going foraging would be preferable. All I would have to do was to visit some likely spots in the forest where wild berries, herbs, and mushrooms could be found. In the game, of course, I knew all the places that were good for finding food and herbs, but I was doubtful whether it would be that easy in real life. For one thing, in the game moving from one clearing to another only took a few clicks of the mouse, but here it would take a considerable amount of walking until I got level 20 farming, which was when mounts could be used.

Still, what is life without adventure and exploration?

I put on some good brown leather boots and sturdy cotton pants and shirt that were suitable for tramping around in the woods. There was no need for a basket, since I could just place everything in my inventory. The System tool belt had a variety of knives and scissors that I could use.

Yesterday it had rained in the late afternoon, so it was likely that there would be a few mushrooms that had sprouted overnight. I picked a direction at random and started walking, keeping my eyes peeled for berry bushes and fallen logs. It didn’t take long before I found some small brown mushrooms at the base of an oak tree.

[Spring Porcini Mushrooms:

A large, fleshy mushroom prized for its earthy flavor and meaty texture.]

Hmmm? That was strange. Surely porcini mushrooms grew in Europe? I mean, I wasn’t on Earth, but the place I was in was more Asian than European. Then again, this was a spirit mushroom. Maybe those simply grew wherever they wanted to grow?

If I didn’t have the System guiding me, I would never have tried to go foraging for mushrooms, since there were quite a few poisonous ones that were hard to identify.

Using the System, I plucked half a dozen of the porcinis and went on my way, making sure not to take all of them. Over-foraging a spot could result in these wild mushrooms disappearing for years. Though on Earth mushrooms could be plucked with impunity since most of the mushroom's main body was underground, the foraging system was different in Adventure Incarnate. Perhaps taking too many reduced the atmospheric qi nearby?

Glancing at the System status screen, I saw I had gotten a tiny amount of foraging experience. Wow, this was going to take a while to level.

I walked on, feeling quite cheerful at the thought of finding some good things to eat, when I chanced upon a honeyberry bush.

Jackpot!

[Honeyberries:

A small, round berry with a golden skin. The flesh is sweet, with a delicate flavor that is a cross between honey and citrus. The berries are often used in desserts and baking, or can be eaten on their own as a sweet snack.]

There was a large bush with green and blue leaves the height of my waist that had around two dozen tiny berries growing on it. This time, I didn’t bother to place the berries in my inventory.

I carefully selected the biggest, juiciest-looking berry from the bush, making sure to avoid the ones that looked withered or moldy, and put it in my mouth. The honeyberry was still warm from the sun, and its sweetness exploded on my tongue when I bit into it. I closed my eyes to savor the flavor. It was like a burst of sweet sunshine. The delicious taste of the berry was even better than I had expected, and I quickly picked more of them until I had my fill of the delicious berries, loving every moment.

This was the life I’d dreamed of when I was playing the game!

I couldn’t believe that I had finished off all the berries that looked good enough to eat. I was quite full and debating whether I should head home since I had already achieved my goal of unlocking my Herblaw skill by successfully foraging in the forest when I heard a rustling sound on my right side. The System map showed a red dot, meaning an enemy was nearby. I quickly took out my teddy bear, who I had named Mr. Bear, from my pocket and threw him in the direction of the noise.

Mr. Bear grew to two feet high and assumed an extremely cute attack position as I drew an iron shield and sword from my inventory. During my frequent fishing trips, I had seen a few red dots, probably dangerous wildlife, on my map, but never one that was this close.

In a few moments, the enemy revealed itself. It was a Horned Rabbit.

[Horned Rabbit:

An aggressive monster commonly found in the forests of the Westerlands, easily recognizable by their large horns and floppy ears. Horned rabbits are fast and agile, making them hard to catch. Their diet consists of leaves, grass, and other vegetation.]

Now that the enemy had revealed itself, a transparent heads-up display or HUD superimposed itself over my field of vision.

I could see Mr. Bear’s stats on the right side.

[Mr. Bear

Level 1

HP: 10/10]

The enemy’s stats were visible on the left side.

[Horned Rabbit

Level 2

HP: 15/15]

At the bottom of the HUD was Mr. Bear’s action bar.

[Skills:

Punch

Kick

Fireball]

Since my magical puppet was the mage type, I immediately sent him a mental order to attack with a fireball.

The Horned Rabbit was no slouch either. It rushed towards me, but was stopped by a fireball in the face. Screeching horribly, it ran off.

I waited for a few tense seconds to see if there were any more threats, but there were no more red dots on the map.

“You did great, Mr. Bear,” I said to my teddy bear. I picked him up, and the magical puppet automatically shrank to fit in my hand. “Good job.”

I put him back in my pocket.

My heart was pounding wildly in the aftermath of my victory. While I had been fighting, there had been no time to think, but now that it was over, I felt a bit shaken. I’d never been in a fight on Earth.

“What to do?” Though I was unscathed, I was nervous about walking further now that I knew that there were Horned Rabbits in this area of the woods. Discretion being the better part of valor, I decided to head back home.

Foraging was harder than I thought!

Chapter 8 – Logic or Desire?

The sun was shining brightly through the leaves of the trees, and the forest floor was covered in a blanket of soft, green moss and fallen leaves. The air was fresh, and it was a great day to start my archery practice.

The encounter with the Horned Rabbit had made me realize I should definitely practice a few combat skills. For close combat, newbies normally use a sword and shield. However, I decided it would be good to train archery as well, since attacking from a distance was safer than melee combat.

In the small clearing in front of my house, I set up a few hay bales from my inventory as my targets. A simple Wooden Shortbow was my weapon, and I had some iron-tipped arrows for ammunition.

As with most games, Adventure Incarnate had level requirements. At level 1 Archery, this was all I could wield.

The moment I lifted my bow, the combat screen appeared, and I could see the available basic skills in my Action Bar.

[Archery Skills:

Piercing Shot

Rapid Fire

Escape]

I had already checked out my current abilities, but this was going to be my first time to actually use them.

[Piercing Shot:

Imbue the arrow with your energy, allowing it to pierce through enemies. The shot is incredibly powerful and can often take down multiple foes with a single arrow.

Cooldown: 5 seconds]

The cooldown was quite long, but I could fire regular arrows without using an ability anyway. I will just have to rotate between regular archery, Piercing Shot, and Rapid Fire.

[Rapid Fire:

Fire a rapid succession of five arrows. This ability is great for taking down multiple targets quickly, or for taking down a single target with a lot of arrows.

Cooldown: 5 seconds]

The Escape ability sounded especially convenient, though I hoped I would never have to use it.

[Escape:

Enter a state of heightened awareness and move ten feet in any direction. Time seems to slow, and the player has increased movement speed and agility, allowing the player to dash away from enemies or hazards.

Cooldown: 30 seconds]

Obviously, my combat stats were pathetic since I had done no training at all, but it’s not like I would need to use a lot of force with the low-level wildlife in the forest. I would have to level up my strength, attack, and defense stats later on when I would have to fight more dangerous foes.

I mentally chose Piercing Shot, and my arms automatically lifted my bow, notched the arrow, and pulled the bowstring back in the proper posture. It’s a good thing that the System was guiding my body because I had absolutely no idea what I was doing. I took a deep breath and let it out slowly as I aimed at the center of the hay bale. I released the arrow and watched as it sank into the hay about 3 inches from the ground.

Then I stepped back and assessed my shot. Not bad, but not great either, since that hadn’t been where I was aiming. I’ll have to do better next time.

Once the cooldown period finished, I took another shot, and then another, enjoying the sight of the arrows sinking into the hay bale. I’d set up small targets at different distances, and I moved between them, enjoying the challenge of hitting each one.

As I shot the targets every five seconds, I could feel the tension melting away from my body. It was like I entered an unfamiliar state when I was shooting, and everything else just faded away. For a few moments, I was completely focused on the shot, and nothing else mattered.

For now, I focused on Piercing Shot since I wanted to master this most basic archery skill before moving on to Rapid Fire. During the cooldown period, I noticed my arrows had less force and were much less accurate. However, I couldn’t even feel any energy being used whenever I used Piercing Shot. Perhaps it was because the skill was weak?

To test out my hypothesis, I chose the Escape skill and my body quickly dashed 10 feet to my right as though I was sliding on ice. It felt as though I was using the wind to blow myself sideways in a controlled manner.

I felt…

Nothing.

[Violet

Level 1

HP: 100/100]

I glanced at my stats, but they didn’t reveal much.

“Mana points” or MP wasn’t a thing in Adventure Incarnate because players used stored magic inside spell stones, and archery skills didn’t use mana points, unlike in other games. Instead, “Energy” was used. Was energy the same thing as MP?

I had never questioned this while I was playing the game, since it made sense in that context. Farming had to be limited because, otherwise, one could finish all the farming activities in one day. On the other hand, it would be ridiculously frustrating to limit combat similarly.

Well, perhaps one day I would understand it. I banished these thoughts from my mind and continued training. After about one hour, my arms started aching. I switched my drawing hand from my right hand to my left to see if it would help, but I was already tiring, and my accuracy became even worse. Now I was only hitting the edges of the hay bales.

I called it quits after two hours. My arms felt like they were made of lead, and my shoulders ached from the effort of drawing the bowstring. Every muscle in my body felt like it had been worked to the point of exhaustion, and I could barely stand. All I wanted was to lie down and rest.

Wait…

Come to think of it, this was the way I felt when I ran out of energy while farming. “Energy” must mean stamina!

I wasn’t sure if I was right, but it made sense to me.

***

Even though I spent all of yesterday afternoon practicing my archery, I didn’t level up. In Adventure Incarnate, Archery leveled up only through actual combat, but I still thought that regular training was helpful because it made me feel more confident in my skills.

Today I decided to practice with my sword and shield. After finishing my morning chores on the farm, I set up two training dummies from my inventory and started hacking away with a wooden practice sword. I wasn’t sure whether I should use a two-handed sword or a sword and shield. However, all the sword skills were the same whether you use a one-handed or two-handed sword. I figured I could train with the shield later, but it was more important to practice my sword moves.

I started off by doing a few stretches before swinging my wooden sword a few times to get the feel of it before using any of the available sword abilities.

[Sword Skills:

Thrust

Slash

Blade Flurry]

The basic Thrust and Slash moves were quite easy to understand.

[Thrust:

Lunge forward with the energy-infused sword, dealing damage to an enemy. This ability can break through enemy shields or armor, dealing a large amount of damage.

Cooldown: 5 seconds]

Thrust used the point of the sword, I knew that much from video games.

[Slash:

Swing an energy-infused sword in a powerful arc, dealing damage to an enemy. This ability has a small chance to knock back or stun the target.

Cooldown: 5 seconds]

The slash ability used the edge of the sword.

When I mentally chose a particular skill, my body automatically moved in the appropriate manner. Wooden practice sword in hand, I stepped in front of a training dummy and raised my weapon high above my head before bringing it down in a powerful arc. Then I step back a pace before lunging forward with the sword.

I spent a few minutes practicing each move. I lunged and slashed at the wooden dummies like a pro, but after only about ten moves, my arms were already starting to ache. No doubt I was using muscles that I didn’t normally use.

Since I was quickly tiring, I decided to try Blade Flurry at least once.

[Blade Flurry:

Slash the enemy with a flurry of quick and powerful strikes. This ability is often used as a finishing move, as it can deal a large amount of damage in a short period of time.

Cooldown: 30 seconds]

I dashed forward at great speed and struck a training dummy with great force using two diagonal slashes, then a horizontal slash, before finally finishing off with a rather flashy vertical slash.

Whoa! So that was a Blade Flurry.

With this, I was pretty confident that I could handle a Horned Rabbit. I don’t think I’ll even need a shield.

I put away my wooden training sword and took out an iron sword. It was heavier than the practice sword and much more tiring to use.

Once again, I gripped my sword tightly, feeling the weight of it in my hand. Taking a deep breath, I raised the sword above my head, then slashed it down in a wide arc. I felt the satisfying whoosh of the blade cutting through the air, and the resistance as it hit the target. I smiled in satisfaction when I saw the deep cut I’d made in the wood.

After a few minutes, I stepped back and took a break, letting my arms and shoulders rest. I took a few deep breaths and shook out my arms, then got back to work. I continued to slash the sword back and forth, feeling the muscles in my arms and shoulders burning with the effort.

This was a lot more difficult compared to archery.

While the strength of a ranged attack was dependent on the player’s Archery level, melee combat was different. There were two stats I had to level up for it: Strength and Attack. Strength, as the name implies, was simply the power behind a melee weapon’s strike while Attack was the weapon’s accuracy.

[Violet

Level 1

HP: 100/100

Str: 1/99

Att: 1/99

Arc: 1/99

Mag: 1/99]

I wasn’t sure whether I should focus on range or melee combat. My current puppet could do magic, but I would be able to get better ones later on that could do range and melee.

Actually, what I really wanted to do was to level up my magic stat first. I mean, what red-blooded human being from Earth wouldn’t want to learn magic? However, it didn’t really make sense for my current situation since Mr. Bear was a magician-type puppet. What if I encountered an enemy that was magic resistant?

Should I follow my desire or be logical about it?

Chapter 9 – [New Quest Available]

What the heck, why not do it? There was absolutely nothing logical at all about my transmigrating into the world of Adventure Incarnate, so why use logic now? I decided to follow my heart and learn how to cast spells. Of course, I would still practice with the bow and sword occasionally, but my heart was set on magic.

Magic was a very special skill in the game because it was used for everything, not just fighting. There was farming magic, elemental magic, crafting magic, alchemy magic, star magic, puppet magic, etc.

The next day, I woke up at the crack of dawn and put on my farming clothes after washing my face and brushing my teeth. It was yet another beautiful spring dawn in the woods. I hummed merrily as I watered the crops, noting that the potato plants were growing nicely. After making sure that each plant had enough water, I pulled out a few weeds. Nowadays, this only took a fraction of my energy since my stamina had grown a lot from the time that I first started farming.

Then I went back to the cottage to prepare breakfast. As I ground the coffee beans in a hand grinder, I mentally blessed the cash shop for providing me with a coffeemaker. The barista costume set was really useful! Mornings were so much more pleasant now that I had the means to brew my own coffee.

Unfortunately, my cooking level was still a disastrous level one, so all I could do was take out a loaf of bread and cheese from my inventory and eat them separately. I found that if I tried to make a grilled cheese sandwich, I ended up with burnt bread and cheese instead, so I was forced to eat only cooking ingredients without combining them into something better. I finished off my meal with an apple from my inventory.

With plenty of energy to spare, I went to the northern part of my farm and cut as many trees as I could until I was too tired to continue. I reckoned I had cleared more than enough land for the summer planting.

By noon, I was exhausted and had another simple meal of carrots, avocado, cucumber, and a rice ball from the Five-Star Luxury Bento. This was hardly ideal, but I had gotten used to eating to live and not living to eat.

However, I swore to myself that one day I would hire a magic chef to cook the most exquisite and delicious dishes for me.

After lunch, it was time to start training my magic. Though there were other ways to train it, I felt it would be good to level up herblaw first.

[Herblaw:

The study and usage of herbs in potion-making.]

A new player would normally have to farm or buy herbs, but I had billions of them in my inventory, so I didn’t have to do that. All I had to do now was clean and identify the herbs, then mix them together with some other ingredients in my inventory to make potions.

The most basic potions restored health, cured status ailments, and temporarily boosted stats.

Before I could do anything, the first step was to clean a bunch of “unidentified herbs.” I took one hundred of those from my inventory and piled them up on the table that I had set up outside my house. I picked the most comfortable armchair from the cash shop and set it in front of the table. The last step was to grab a bunch of spell stones and place them beside the herbs.

In the world of Adventure Incarnate, there were different magic systems. The player, however, could only use spell stones to cast magic. As I understand it, the non-player characters, or NPCs, used something called “cultivation,” which meant using the qi or spiritual energy that was present in all living things.

Once I had taken out the spell stones, the System’s magic tab was activated. I clicked on the spell book icon to see that the “Clean Herb” spell was available.

I wasn’t sure what would happen exactly. In the game, the player’s avatar had an animation for every spell. Hoping for the best, but expecting the worst, I said, “Here goes nothing. Clean!”

The moment I willed a spell to activate, my hands started moving on their own. My left hand picked up an herb, while my right hand glowed a bright red. I could feel some sort of energy pouring from a spell stone into my hand. The energy then started flowing from my right hand to my left, where the herb was.

I watched with fascination as the herb was lifted until it floated between my hands, where it started rotating inside a ball of red energy.

It only took a few seconds for the spell to clean the herb and identify it as a “Fencress Herb.”

“Well, that was okay…” I said to no one in particular. “So this is magic.”

What had I been expecting? Fireworks? My first magic spell went off without a hitch, which was good, but it was rather unexciting. Perhaps I should’ve started off with combat spells?

… No, that was probably a bad idea. I only had one life, after all.

One of the spell stones had crumbled into crystal dust, depleted by my use of it. I put the dust in my inventory and continued casting the spell until I had finished identifying the pile of herbs in front of me. Through experimentation, I found that I was in control of my hand movements and the spell. I could stop casting whenever I wanted to, even if it was in the middle of the [Clean Herb] spell.

When I was done, I got up and stretched. Unlike doing farming chores, I didn’t feel tired after casting spells. That was probably because I used energy from the spell stones instead of my own energy.

Wasn’t this an extremely overpowered type of magic? As long as I didn’t run out of stones, I could cast as many spells as I wanted!

I rubbed my hands together with glee. Could the same be true of combat magic? I couldn’t wait to find out.

Though I was badly tempted to just go out and start testing combat magic with Mr. Bear, I got more herbs and continued to clean them. It was mildly entertaining to make them spin between my hands.

The reason I refrained from combat magic was that the failure rate of combat spells was quite high unless the player had ten magic levels over the required level.

For example, a simple Fireball was a level one spell. However, at level one magic, it would fail nine out of ten times. At level two, it would fail eight out of ten times. And so forth. It was only at level eleven that one could be certain that it would almost never fail.

Almost.

All spells had the chance to misfire or fail to activate until the player reached the maximum magic level, which was ninety-nine. Therefore, it was better to level up magic before using it in combat.

By the end of the day, I had a few hundred herbs that were ready to use. As I was sorting them into piles, I got a pop-up message from the System.

[New Quest Available: Rescue Prince Baiyu]

Oh, I remember this! There was definitely a newbie quest to rescue a prince in the game.

Wow, to think that I would be able to rescue a real life prince!

I hope he’s handsome.

Chapter 10 – The art of potion making

Of course, as a seasoned, veteran gamer, I was quite used to the idea of rescuing damsels in distress. I didn’t quite remember what exactly this new quest involved, but I wasn’t particularly worried. Adventure Incarnate was primarily a farming game, with a bit of combat action, but I doubted very much that there would be any real danger for me. Quests in the game were mostly fetch quests. I probably just needed to bring him a loaf of bread or something like that.

Smiling at the thought of giving a prince a burnt loaf of bread, I clicked on the [Accept] button.

[Prince Baiyu needs your help. Prepare a Blight Magic potion.

Requirements: Five Blight Magic potions]

Blight Magic potion? I checked the Herblaw tab, but that potion wasn’t listed on it.

Hmmm, it must be one of those special potions that were only used for quests. The description of it was quite worrisome.

[Blight Magic Potion:

The potion saps away at a cultivator’s innate qi, leaving them feeling weak and exhausted.]

Qi was basically a word for life energy. I couldn’t imagine what use this prince could have for a Blight Magic potion, but none of the God Beast clans around here were evil, so it should be fine.

Right?

I was a little worried, but decided to trust the System, since it hasn’t let me down before.

As for Prince Baiyu in particular, Shuye had mentioned him before. He was the son of the Lady of the West, the ruler of the Westerlands.

Using the recipe provided by the System, I took some [Demon Leaf] and [Red Recluse Spider Eggs] and tried to combine them in a vial of water using the [Create Potion] spell, but the spell failed to activate.

[You do not have the required Herblaw level.]

“Life is pain!” I said, though I knew I was being overdramatic.

I checked the quest text again and saw that the recipe for the potion required level 2 Herblaw. Seeing as I was only level one, not having made even a single potion yet, this meant that I would have to spend a few days on Herblaw.

To be honest, I had been a bit bored, but this new quest was getting me fired up. I grabbed a hundred bunches of [Kussea Grass] and [Dream Root] and tried to cast the [Create Potion] spell again.

[Kussea Grass:

A mythical healing grass that’s incredibly difficult to find in the wild. Famous for its sweet smell and jewel-like stalks, the legendary Kussea Grass is said to be able to bring people back from the dead.]

I really doubted that this grass could bring people back from the dead, but I had to admit it looked really mystical. The herb was a deep green and each blade of grass shone with a delicate luster as though it was covered in pearl powder.

[Dream Root:

A dark brown root that is often ground to a powder. The powder may then be ingested to give people vivid dreams that are said to be prophetic in nature. It can also be used in potions to induce sleep.]

For this particular recipe, I only had to cast the [Create Potion] spell to combine these two ingredients in a vial of water. The more advanced recipes called for greater quantities of ingredients, and a flask of water instead of a vial.

“Let’s do it…” I mentally selected the spell in the System menu.

A glowing ball of pink light appeared between my hands and a vial of water, and the two ingredients flew up into it. First, the water inside the vial started glowing, then the grass flew into the glass container where it slowly dissolved, turning the water light green. That means that the essence of the herb had been extracted. Next, the [Dream Root] was reduced to powder by the force of the spell. Finally, the powder was added to the vial. After around three seconds, the ingredients had combined, and I had a finished [Dewy Glow Potion].

[Dewy Glow Potion:

This Dewy Glow potion is formulated with natural ingredients to help improve your skin’s appearance.

To use, simply apply a few drops of the potion to your face and body after cleansing. Gently massage it into your skin until it’s fully absorbed. You can use this potion morning and night for best results.]

The finished [Dewy Glow Potion] came in a tiny glass vial. The potion itself was violet in the shade, and I could see that it had fuchsia particles suspended in it when I held it up to the light. Since this was my first ever potion, I put it on a silver display stand and placed it on my windowsill where it sparkled prettily.

On the one hand, this was a rather silly potion to make in Adventure Incarnate, since it wasn’t like the player’s avatars had pimples. On the other hand, this was an extremely useful item in real life.

What woman wouldn’t want a magical item that would improve their complexion?

Definitely not me!

I happily spent the rest of the day and the entire evening making as many [Dewy Glow Potions] as I could. I decided that this was really one of the best things about my life in this world. Herblaw was fun! Making useful items for myself, and possibly other people in the future, was a rather satisfying way to spend the time.

I reckoned that back on earth I would’ve been stuck in some dead-end retail job since I had no degree, experience, or connections. This was so much better.

⁂⁂⁂

Three days later, I was ready with a whole chest full of [Blight Magic Potions]. I put on the [Scholar’s Robe] and made sure that my black hair was looking great. I'd changed it back to my natural color after I got bored with the brown hair color. In a fit of vanity, I used the cash shop to intensify the violet of my eyes.

My mother had named me Violet because she explained that I had violet eyes, just like Elizabeth Taylor. The truth was that my eyes were a sort of light gray that simply picked up whatever color I wore, so if I wore a blue dress, my eyes would look bluish-gray, and if I wore something purple, my eyes would look gray-violet.

I wanted to look good because, after all, I was going to meet a prince. Of course, with my luck, he was bound to be a hundred years old and had eight consorts and dozens of children.

Still, it never hurt to look good when one was meeting one’s boss for the first time. Prince Baiyu was the feudal lord of this region, according to Shuye, which meant that my taxes went into his coffers. I was hoping that I would get a better tax rate if I helped him during this quest.

I turned on the [Quest Guide Mode] and followed the glowing yellow arrows that appeared on the ground. After twenty minutes of hiking in the woods, I deeply regretted my choice of garments and changed into sensible pants and a plain cotton robe. Vanity could wait until I was nearer to the quest area.

Though I wasn’t expecting any trouble, I equipped myself with a baldric and sword and set Mr. Bear on [Alert Mode]. He walked beside me and should be able to identify enemies quicker than I would.

It took over two hours for me to finally get to the place where the quest was supposed to start. The cave opening was half covered by vines, and I wouldn’t even have noticed it if there hadn’t been a glowing yellow arrow pointing right at it. Mr. Bear didn’t detect anything dangerous, so I went behind a tree and changed into the [Scholar’s Robe]. Then I went to the cave entrance, pushed aside the vines, and entered.

The inside of the cave was surprisingly cozy. There was a tall platform with an enormous bed on the far side that was covered in furs. At the foot of the bed was a large brazier where a magical blue fire had been lit, providing warmth and light.

I cautiously approached the bed. Lying on it, half covered in white furs, was the most beautiful man I had ever seen in my life.

Chapter 11 – Daring Rescue

Jackpot! This had to be Prince Baiyu.

The moment I laid eyes on his face, I was entranced. I had never known that someone could be this beautiful.

He had long, fluffy white hair and very pale skin. His eyes were closed, so I couldn’t see their color, but I would bet money that they were blue. In the middle of his forehead was a purple lotus flower mark. I watched quite a few historical dramas, therefore I was quite familiar with the Chinese forehead makeup called “huadian,” but this looked like a natural marking or birthmark rather than something that was painted on.

Prince Baiyu, if that was who he was, had a perfectly symmetrical face that looked as though it had been sculpted by the gods. It was a cold kind of beauty, and I guessed that when he was awake, he was the elegant and aloof type of cultivator.

Like Shuye, he looked human except for his pointed ears.

I checked the Quest Guide to see what I should do.

[The Prince is suffering from a Qi Overload. Apply the Blight Magic Potion to his body.]

What? I was supposed to apply it to his body? Wouldn’t it be sufficient to pour it down his throat?

[Qi Overload:

A serious condition in which a person's body is overloaded with qi. The excessive amount of energy damages the meridians and results in personality changes. The person becomes easily agitated and may lash out at the smallest provocation. If left untreated, the person will often fall unconscious.

Unless their qi is drained, it will continue to build until it reaches a critical level, at which point they will likely fall into a coma until they die. There have also been cases where people spontaneously combusted from qi overload.

The condition is mostly found in young clan members and is incurable, except for those with only mild cases of qi overload, who can sometimes grow out of it when they reach maturity. Otherwise, it can be managed by daily monitoring, certain qi draining techniques, and using up the excess qi through vigorous physical exercises and qi skills.]

I climbed up onto the bed beside him. It was quite huge, so there was plenty of space for me. Thick pelts of various animals were draped across the mattress and pillows, giving it a decadent feel, but this was strange since it wasn’t a very cold day. The furs were soft to the touch, and my fingers automatically started stroking them before I remembered I had a quest to do.

“Excuse me,” I said as I tried to pry open his mouth, which remained stubbornly closed. I peeled back his lips to reveal his teeth and debated whether I should try pouring the potion on his closed mouth. I mean, some of it was bound to be absorbed by his gums, right?

I couldn’t help but notice that his incisors were quite sharp and pronounced, though they weren’t quite big enough to look like vampire fangs.

Twisting the cork from the vial, I put on my Herblaw gloves and poured the pink liquid over his teeth, but it just dribbled down the corners of his mouth. I winced when I saw that the potion was leaving a horrible stain on his white pillow.

Even though I didn’t like it, it really seemed like I would have to apply the potion on his body, just as the System told me to. I poured the liquid on his neck and spread it with my gloved fingers.

[The Prince is suffering from a Qi Overload. Apply the Blight Magic Potion to his body.

Completion: 5/100]

His neck was only worth 5%? Oh no! I had a terrible feeling about this.

I poured a bit over his cheeks and forehead, making sure to avoid his eyes, but this only gave me another 2%.

Thankfully, the potion didn’t stain his skin. It seemed to disappear when I applied it, so I tried applying it on his neck again, but the quest completion percentage did not increase.

Since there was no helping it, I peeled the furs away from his prone body and saw that he was wearing an exquisite white robe decorated with peach blossom embroidery. I rolled up his sleeves, revealing nicely muscled arms. I tried not to gawk at his biceps. Applying the Blight Magic Potion to his hands and arms only boosted the percentage up to 35%.

The next step was obvious, but I really didn’t feel good about it.

This world wasn’t like Earth. The people who lived here were quite conservative, so I wasn’t sure if Prince Baiyu would be unhappy about what I was going to do.

“Ahem. Please don’t worry, I am an expert. I’m here to heal you,” I said. I knew that the patient was unconscious, but it made me feel better to say something, since I was about to undress an unconscious man.

The prince’s belt was tied in front with a complicated knot. I had such a difficult time with it that I was almost tempted to just cut it off, but that wouldn’t do, since his clothes looked extremely expensive. I could tell from the appearance and feel that it was made of the highest quality silk. After what seemed like an eternity, I finally managed to remove his belt. I quickly peeled open his robe, revealing an expanse of fair skin and a perfect six-pack. His pectoral muscles were also superb.

“Nice abs,” I said before I could stop myself. Fortunately, there was no one else around, or they might think I was some sort of pervert.

I prepared more potions and worked as quickly as I could to spread it over his exposed skin, while crossing my fingers that I wouldn’t have to remove his pants as well.

“I want you to know that I’m only doing this to cure your condition,” I said to the sleeping prince.

After spreading it all over his upper body, I was dismayed to see that it still wasn’t enough.

[The Prince is suffering from a Qi Overload. Apply the Blight Magic Potion to his body.

Completion: 75/100]

Are you kidding me?!

Throughout all of this, the prince remained unconscious and unresponsive, with not even a twitch of his eyelids or a change in his breathing to show a change in his condition.

Nonetheless, I really, really didn’t want to take off his pants.

My eyes were still virgin!

The prince was basically wearing this world’s equivalent of pajamas. When I had taken off his robe, he hadn’t been wearing anything under it, and it stood to reason that the same was true of his pants.

There was still 25% left. Wasn’t there any other way?

I racked my brain for answers, but couldn’t think of a solution until my feet started cramping because of my awkward position crouched over the patient’s body.

Feet? That was the answer! I scooted to the other end of the bed and applied the liquid to his feet. When that proved inadequate, I rolled up his pant legs and did the same to his calves.

[The Prince is suffering from a Qi Overload. Apply the Blight Magic Potion to his body.

Completion: 100/100]

“Yes! I did it!” I jumped down from the bed and did a little victory dance.

[Rescue Prince Baiyu: Quest Complete

Reward: A Royal Favor from Prince Baiyu]

A royal favor? I wasn’t sure what that was, and Adventure Incarnate sometimes had some really lame quest rewards, but I was just happy that I had finished this task.

I put Prince Baiyu’s clothes back on and piled the furs back over his body. Of course, the potion horribly stained his robe, pants, sheets, and pillows, but it’s not like I could take them, launder them, and put them back again.

“I’m sorry about ruining your clothes,” I whispered to the prince. I jerked back and almost screamed when his eyelids twitched. That was the first time he showed any reaction. The potion must be working its magic.

Perhaps it would’ve been better if I stayed and waited for him to regain consciousness, but I totally chickened out. I wrote a brief note saying, “These can help with Qi Overload,” and placed it on top of a chest full of Blight Magic Potion that I left beside the bed.

Then I made a quick getaway with Mr. Bear.

Chapter 12 – I know it was you

It was only after I had already left the cave that I remembered I had forgotten to sign the note with my name.

“Nevermind, Mr. Bear, let’s not go back,” I said to my companion. Something about the prince made me nervous.

Now that I had finished the quest, I felt a lot more relaxed, so I took some time to get some foraging done on the way home. At this time of the year, there were plenty of ripe berries, mushrooms, and fruit that I could get from the forest.

In fact, the woods weren’t just full of edible plants; they were also full of edible animals. I should really get started on the hunting skill, which would allow me to set traps for wild animals, but it was a fact that I had never gone hunting on Earth, and I was a little queasy about killing cute critters.

Besides, my cooking level just wasn’t high enough to cook meat yet.

As I was climbing a tree to pick some luscious-looking cherries, Mr. Bear alerted me to the presence of a person nearby. I hastily descended and smoothed my clothing, but no one appeared. Whoever it was must’ve moved away.

I was exhausted by the time I got home, and treated myself to a long, hot bath. The cottage only had a sink, so I had to put the tables and chairs in my inventory to make space for a claw foot bathtub that was a cash shop item. Fortunately, I didn’t have to fill it with water from the sink. I just had to press a button on the side of the tub to fill it up with hot water.

Then I sank down into the water and let all of my troubles melt away. I emerged from my ablutions feeling refreshed and clean.

It wasn’t dinner time yet, so I put the bathtub in my inventory and put the table and chairs back.

Time for more Herblaw!

I really liked the skill. The way that the herbs and other ingredients came together using the spell was quite fascinating, and it made my cabin smell nice. The fact that it was making both my Herblaw and Magic levels rise was another factor in my enjoyment of potion making.

The hours seemed to fly by, and I didn’t even notice that I had skipped my evening meal until my stomach started rumbling. Herblaw was just too fun.

I ate some bread and cheese and called it a night.

⁂⁂⁂

Yesterday’s quest had gone off so nicely that I wished I could get another one that was just as easy, but, alas, the System didn’t have any new quests available. As usual, I woke up early and did all my morning chores just as the sun rose over the horizon. The potato plants were growing so well that Shuye had asked me three days before when I would harvest them.

I was hauling a bucket full of water from the well when my Farm Guide appeared.

“Good morning! You’re here early,” I said to Shuye as I put the bucket down and handed him a crocus flower. Today he was dressed in rather better clothes than he normally wore, a dark brown silk robe and black silk pants. His boots were made of soft brown leather. He even had a black ribbon tying back his shaggy, long hair on the nape of his neck. “Hey, you’re dressed nice. What’s the occasion?”

“Good morning. I thought I should warn you to expect a visitor,” he said.

“Visitor? I thought you said I wouldn’t need to see the tax man since you filed my taxes for me,” I said. Immigrant farmers like me were exempt from taxes for three years, but we still had to fill out some paperwork to get the exemption.

Shuye crossed his arms over his chest and gave me a look. “Isn’t there something you want to tell me?”

I had no idea what he was talking about. “No. What do you mean?”

He threw his hands up in exasperation. “About Prince Baiyu, for example?”

“Huh? What about him?” I decided to play it dumb until I knew what he was talking about. Not that I had done anything wrong, but this conversation sounded like some sort of trap.

He took a few steps away and sat down on a tree stump. I followed and took two chairs from my inventory, waving for him to use the larger one. When we were both seated, he shook his head and said, “I know it was you. I’m going off to make my report, and you should get ready for someone to visit you to investigate.”

Why did this sound like something bad? I would’ve thought the Prince would be happy that someone had cured his condition, but Shuye was acting as though I was some sort of criminal who was hiding from the law.

“Investigate what?” I asked.

Shuye sighed in exasperation. “The Prince said that he’s looking for a little human girl.”

“Why do you think it’s me? There are a lot of human girls in the world,” I said.

“He met her yesterday, and you’re the only one nearby,” he said.

“Did he say why he was looking for a girl?” I said.

“No,” he said, but his tone of voice implied that it wasn’t anything good.

“Well, why are you acting weird about it? Maybe he just wants to reward me for my efforts,” I said.

I wasn’t worried because the System still showed a favorable quest status.

[Rescue Prince Baiyu: Quest Complete

Reward: A Royal Favor from Prince Baiyu]

“He didn’t seem that happy about it,” said Shuye. “But if you think there’s nothing to worry about, then you’re probably right. Are you sure you’re fine?”

“Yes, it should be fine. Is that all? Excuse me, I have to finish my chores. When do you think someone will visit?” I said.

“He is only an hour away,” said Shuye. “Expect a visit within two hours.”

We said our goodbyes, and I continued watering and weeding the plants. Then I had a snack of some fruit and nuts before I washed up and changed into the nicer clothes. I picked the [Moonlight Jade] cash shop costume set, which consisted of a light green silk dress with a high collar and long sleeves adorned with intricate moon-and-clouds embroidery. I took off the elaborate pearl and silver headdress since it was way too over-the-top for everyday wear, but I kept the beaded silk shoes and white jade waist ornament.

Not wanting to waste time while I waited, I did a little more Herblaw training, but after about an hour or so, I realized I didn’t have any place to receive guests. Shuye, of course, seemed happy enough to just sit on a tree stump or a rock, but whoever might be coming to investigate might not be as easy-going.

“Ahhh!” I spent a few seconds wondering what I should do. In the end, I wasn’t comfortable meeting someone inside the cottage since it was quite small, and my bed was right beside the chairs.

Mentally rummaging through the Cash Shop items, I found a plain white pop-up canopy I could use. I went outside and put down some paving on the right side of the cottage, then placed the canopy over it. Paving over cleared ground was a basic landscaping ability in Adventure Incarnate, along with digging wells, placing fences, leveling ground, and so forth. I had plenty of stone tiles I could use, so I picked the elegant white limestone ones.

Shuye had told me that members of the White Tiger clan didn’t eat human food, so I wouldn’t need to prepare tea or snacks. That was a good thing, because I didn’t have any I could share, since all of my items were bound for my personal use.

I had only just placed two comfortable armchairs and a small table underneath the canopy when Mr. Bear alerted me that a person was nearby.

Now that someone was actually here, I suddenly felt a little panicked. I hadn’t spoken to anyone other than Shuye in weeks. I went back inside, and when I heard the knocking, I took a deep breath and opened the door.

My mouth fell open when I saw that Prince Baiyu himself had come.

Chapter 13 – Time for the quest reward!

He was even more gorgeous when he was awake, and I couldn’t stop myself from devouring him with my eyes. He was so tall that I only reached up to his shoulder, and his long, white hair was in a high ponytail.

The Prince was wearing an intricately designed white and blue robe made of a richly patterned fabric. He was wearing white pants underneath the robe, and gold and jade ornaments hung from his belt.

But it was his face that really caught my attention. Now that he wasn’t unconscious, I could see that his eyes really were blue. His skin was still pale, but he no longer looked ill. I could hardly believe how beautiful his face was. His skin was smooth and unblemished, his jawline was perfectly sculpted, and his lips were full and sensual. His blue eyes were fringed with long, thick lashes…

Wait, why was he looking away, refusing to meet my eyes? Was he blushing???

Yes, his cheeks were definitely red!

I put a hand over my mouth to stifle a laugh.

“Are you done staring at me?” he asked, eyes still averted. His voice did not disappoint, either. It was deep and resonant, and as scrumptious as melted chocolate to the ears. I could listen to him talk all day.

“No, I would like more time,” I said honestly.

Prince Baiyu turned his head to look down on me, and our eyes met for the first time. “Are you going to invite me in?”

I looked over my shoulder at the room behind me. “You expect me to invite you into my bedroom? But we just met!”

He turned an even brighter red. “No, I, I just meant, you-”

I took mercy on him and interrupted his stammering explanation. “I’m kidding. Let’s go there.”

I just gestured to the right side of my cottage, and he obediently retreated a few steps to allow me to close the door and lead him to the place that I had prepared. I offered him water from a pitcher when we sat down, but he refused.

“Oh, where are my manners? I forgot to introduce myself. My name is Violet,” I said. I raised an eyebrow at him expectantly.

“I’m Baiyu,” he said.

“So…” I let my words trail off, but he didn’t take the bait. “What brings you here?”

He reached into a sleeve and took out a Blight Magic Potion. “What is this?”

“It helps with qi overload. You’re welcome, by the way,” I said. Seeing the prince’s attitude, I was no longer nervous. What a cutie! The way he blushed and stammered when I teased him a little was totally adorable.

"How did you know that it would help me?"

"I'm sure Shuye has told you that I have a bloodline inheritance skill." I drank some water and continued my explanation. "Yesterday, I was foraging in the forest when I passed by near the cave and decided to check it out. I'm only a novice alchemist, but I could see that you were suffering from a qi overload. There was no one else around, so I decided to help you out by using one of my potions, since I was worried about what would happen to you if you were left untreated."

My story should be plausible. Most of it was true, anyway, except for the fact that the System had told me what to do, instead of everything happening by coincidence.

We were both silent for a few minutes.

Eventually, he turned to look at me and said, “What does ‘nice abs’ mean?”

“Huh?” I didn’t get what he was asking. Was there another meaning for “nice abs” other than the obvious?

“You know, I was conscious the entire time. I heard you say ‘nice abs’ after you tore off my clothes,” he said.

“You were conscious? Why didn’t you say anything?” I asked. This time, when he repeated the words, I realized that I had said “nice abs” in English. It must’ve sounded like gibberish to him.

“I was conscious, and I could hear everything you said. And I felt everything, too, but I couldn’t move or speak,” he said.

That must’ve been nightmarish for him. “I see.”

My tight-lipped ways seemed to have annoyed him. “Just tell me what you meant by that.”

“I was complimenting you on your abdominal muscles,” I said.

Prince Baiyu seemed taken aback for a moment, then he smiled. His teeth were very white, and the expression on his face became extremely smug. “Then you liked what you saw.”

He glanced at me sideways from beneath his long eyelashes. My goodness! What a flirtatious look.

“Very much so,” I said. There was no use denying it.

“Miss Violet, I hope you realize you can’t just climb into a man’s bed, tear his clothes off, touch him all over, and then run away,” he said.

I burst out laughing. “Please don’t make me sound like some sort of pervert! I was just treating your illness.”

I must’ve left quite an impression on him.

“Nonetheless, I hope you intend to take responsibility for what you’ve done,” he said, a pink blush staining his high cheekbones.

What was he, some sort of Victorian maiden whose modesty had been outraged by a scoundrel?

“I didn’t actually touch you,” I said, smiling mischievously. “There was no skin to skin contact because I wore gloves.”

“It still counts.”

“I didn’t touch you in the area below the waist and above the knees, so you’re fine!”

I laughed at his expression.

He leaned towards me and whispered, “But you were thinking of touching me there?”

This flirting was getting out of hand. I drew away from him slightly, and he took the hint and leaned back in his chair.

“No! Please don’t accuse a pure and innocent young lady of such a thing. I merely took pity on a poor unfortunate soul who was suffering from a dangerous illness,” I said.

“This poor unfortunate soul would like to thank you for your help,” he said.

The quest text changed from [Rescue Prince Baiyu: Quest Complete. Reward: A Royal Favor from Prince Baiyu] to [Choose Reward].

[1. Gold]

[ 2. Farm Upgrade]

Nice!

Mentally choosing the [2. Farm Upgrade] button, I said, “I wouldn’t mind a reward.”

I heard a faint clicking sound and saw that my farming skills were now all unlocked.

[Player Name: Violet

Farming Skills:

Farming Level 8, Fishing Level 8, Woodcutting Level 8, Cooking Level 1, Herblaw Level 3, Foraging Level 2, Hunting Level 1, Mining Level 1]

“Is there anything you need?” Prince Baiyu asked.

My heart leapt when I saw the options available in the System.

[1. More Land]

[ 2. Hire Staff]

Yes! This was amazing! Normally, a player couldn’t hire more staff until they reached level 30 farming, which would be around the second year of in-game time. I hurriedly chose [ 2. Hire Staff], and said out loud, “I would like to hire some people to help around the farm.”

“That’s all? That’s too easy,” he said, frowning. The lotus flower marking on his forehead wrinkled in a very cute way when his brows drew together.

“No, no, I really need help with hiring people,” I said. “No one wants to work here in the middle of the forest where no one else lives.”

“I suppose this farm is very isolated. Why did you choose this spot?”

“I like the privacy, but it’s three hours away from the nearest town, so I think it would be hard for me to get really good staff,” I said. “That’s why I’d like your help. With your recommendation, I’m sure I’ll be able to hire top-notch people.”

“Very well. I will send one of my people to arrange it. You can tell him your requirements,” he said.

“Can’t I just tell Shuye what I want? I’m not used to having other people here,” I said.

He agreed, and we spent a few more minutes making small talk before he left.

***

The next day, Shuye visited me, and I asked him to find “the best chef who’s willing to work here. I don’t care about anything else but how good their cooking is.”

Shuye said it would take the Prince’s people a few days to find a suitable candidate. That was fine with me since I had to prepare more living places on the farm.

“You know, you could ask for more than just a chef. Don’t you need more people here?” asked Shuye.

Now that was an idea.

“Well, I would like some help…” Adventure Incarnate had an apprentice system where the player could go to the orphanage and choose orphans to work on their farm. These apprentices could then be ordered to do some of the more tedious daily chores. The downside of this, of course, was that the player wouldn’t receive the farming experience they would have if they had done the chores themselves.

As for the me right now, this was my real life, not a game, so it would be good to have some help around the place in order for me to expand the farm sooner.

“I’ll let them know,” said Shuye.

“Do you think the staff would prefer a cottage or a courtyard house?” I asked Shuye.

The bear-like Farm Guide looked askance at my modest dwelling. “The courtyard house.”

“I thought so.” I finished my morning chores as I chatted with Shuye, who seemed pretty certain I could get a pretty talented chef.

How exciting to think that I would at last be able to keep fresh, cooked food. Meat! That was the thing that I missed the most.

Though Shuye hadn’t said much, I felt quite certain that I should make the staff living quarters a lot more impressive than the cottage.

Fortunately, my completing the quest had unlocked the first three levels of the house requirements. I looked at the available options on the System menu.

[Cottage]

[Ranch]

[Mansion]

The palace, castle, and fortress were all unavailable for now. They would only be unlocked when my farming level rose.

There was another set of options for traditional houses.

[One Courtyard House]

[Two Courtyard House]

[Three Courtyard House]

For myself, personally, I wanted to make a ranch-style house. A mansion was definitely out of the question, since it would be needlessly ostentatious and vulgar for a humble farmer like me.

Hmm.

Should I make the biggest courtyard house I could for the staff?

It seemed to me that making a house with three open courtyards was a bit of an overkill. I would only be allowed to hire three apprentices, so it’s not like I needed a lot of rooms for them and the chef.

[Traditional Courtyard House:

Also called a siheyuan. This type of house is rectangular and built around a central courtyard that is open to the sky. In order for the house to receive maximum sunlight throughout the year, it is positioned on a north-south axis. The main gate is typically placed in the southeastern corner. The northern building is considered the main house where the head of the family lives. The junior members of the family live in the eastern and western buildings.]

When I tried to tentatively place a three courtyard house, I saw it was much too big for the amount of space that I had cleared.

On the other hand, when I placed a one courtyard house, it only had three bedrooms. I suppose I could ask the apprentices to sleep in the same bedroom, but that was less than ideal. I spent the rest of the day cutting down more trees to clear enough land for a two courtyard house.

Chapter 14 - The Flower and Jade Pavilion

“What do you think?” I asked Shuye when he arrived for a visit two days later.

“How did you manage this?” He stared at the new house in shock, his eyes almost bulging out of their sockets.

“I told you, it’s my bloodline inheritance.” Why was he so surprised? He hadn’t questioned me much when the cottage went up overnight.

“Please don’t give me a look as though this is something that’s perfectly normal,” said Shuye. He shook his head and tentatively approached the large wooden gates intricately carved with fierce dragons and leaping carp. I’d personally chosen the design myself.

[The Dragon Gate Wooden Carving:

Carved by a master, the design depicts carp swimming upstream against the river's current and leaping over a waterfall into the legendary Dragon Gate. Those brave and strong enough to make the jump are transformed. The next panel shows that the successful fish have become mighty Dragons. The artwork serves as a metaphor for uplifting oneself through hard work and perseverance.]

Ever since I had come to this world, I had been dreaming of a dragon, so I thought that this was appropriate.

“Welcome to the Flower and Jade Pavilion!” I said as I flung the gate open.

Beyond the gate was a curtain wall that was placed there for privacy. Shuye once again shook his head at me.

“What is this?” He asked, pointing at the bas-relief on the wall. Violet flowers had been cut on the stone so that they stood out slightly against the flat surface.

“It’s a decoration. What’s wrong? Do you think the gem dust is too much?” Perhaps I’d gone overboard by coloring the flowers with ground amethyst and the leaves with jade dust.

Shuye sighed. “You might as well do what you want, since no one would believe it anyway.”

“I’m beginning to think this might have been a bad idea…” I said. “Should I put down another cottage instead?”

“There’s no point in that when everyone will be shocked anyway,” he said.

“Shocked?”

“Violet, you do realize that most people can’t create a house overnight, right?” he said.

“But I told you, I don’t create things. I just use the stuff that my ancestors left for me,” I said.

“It doesn’t matter. The fact that you could get the house ready in two days would unsettle anyone.”

“Should I worry?” I couldn’t quite understand what he was saying. I mean, okay, so it was definitely unusual for someone to build a house the way that I did, but Shuye seemed relatively calm about it.

“Not now, since you have Prince Baiyu as your patron. No one will question you because you’re under his protection,” he said.

Great. That must be why the System had given me that quest.

“Then I won’t worry about it!” I said.

“Do you ever?” Shuye followed me to the outer courtyard, past the empty southern rooms that were normally reserved for servants. I planned to use them for storage.

The courtyard was just a simple open space paved with white stone tiles. The eastern side was reserved for the apprentices’ bedrooms, while on the western side was a large commercial kitchen and workrooms.

The bedrooms and workrooms were currently empty, but the kitchen was already full of the best appliances that I could get from the cash shop including ovens, stoves, a dishwasher, sink, garbage disposal, fridge, and freezer. On a shelf were the usual pots, pans, utensils, as well as salt and pepper.

Furniture and items for the house, although bound to me, could be used by other people, since they were intended for both the owner of the house and guests, but I had to set permissions for each item individually, either [Everyone], [Restricted], or [Private].

[Everyone] meant that anyone could use that item while [Restricted] allowed me to manually set who could use the item. [Private] meant only I could use it. However, the fact that they were bound to me meant I couldn’t sell or give away any of the items. They had to stay inside the house.

“These are all very strange looking,” said Shuye as he peered inside the kitchen that was full of gleaming white appliances.

“These are magic devices!” I explained the function of each item, but Shuye only kept on shaking his head, so much so that I was afraid he was going to get dizzy.

“I see you’ve gone all out,” was all he said when I finished speaking.

Then I showed him the reception room on the northern side of the courtyard. This was a formal space reserved for greeting guests and important meetings. On the opposite side of the door was a wooden couch backed by an elegant folding screen with eight painted panels depicting the Eight Immortals. Hardwood armchairs and tables were placed off to the sides, along with delicate side tables, and the walls were decorated with calligraphy scrolls.

“You see, I can also restrain myself,” I said as I gestured at the dignified and sophisticated interior of the meeting hall.

“Ah.” Shuye only made a noncommittal sound as we walked through the hallway to the inner courtyard.

I flung my arms wide open and said, “And this is why the house is called ‘Flower and Jade Pavilion!’ Isn’t it amazing?”

At the center of the inner courtyard was an enormous tree with a trunk and branches made of green jade. The leaves were carved white jade, and the flowers were made of amethysts and gold.

Shuye’s reaction was disappointingly lukewarm. “It’s nice.”

“Nice?! Really?”

“No.” He shook his head and the expression on his face spoke volumes. “It’s a bad idea to place a priceless treasure in your courtyard.”

“You don’t like it? I knew it, it’s too much…” I hugged the tree and kissed its trunk while mentally saying my goodbyes. When I had first seen this item in the Cash Shop, I hadn’t been able to resist, even though I knew it was outrageously lavish and incredibly out of place inside the house. This was the sort of declaration that one might find in a royal palace, not on a farm. “Fine, I’ll remove it.”

“That would be for the best,” said Shuye.

After I sent the Jade Treasure Tree back to the Cash Shop, I showed him the rooms in the inner courtyard that were reserved for the senior members of the family that were living in the house.

“This is where I plan to house the chef and his family. Maybe the butler or housekeeper, too, if I can get one of those later,” I said.

There were three buildings on the north, east, and west sides which could be divided into several rooms. They were currently empty since I didn’t know how many people would be living here.

“What about you?” Shuye asked.

“Oh, I’ll live in my cottage as usual,” I said. “I love my privacy and I don’t want to live with a bunch of other people.”

“That’s fine, but you should definitely reserve the main house for yourself. Even if you don’t plan to sleep there, it’s important that you maintain the hierarchy inside the house,” he said.

“That seems like a waste of space, but I get what you mean. I guess it wouldn’t hurt to have an extra bedroom here for me. I’d love more storage space for my personal items,” I said.

I placed some armchairs in the inner courtyard for us to sit on, and he gave me some advice about how I should organize the staff and my apprentices. With the caliber of chef that I wanted to hire, it was unlikely that he or she would arrive alone, according to Shuye, which meant that I needed to provide living quarters for his assistants and family.

“Should I furnish their rooms?”

“The chef and his family will undoubtedly bring their furniture and personal belongings, but the orphans will have nothing.”

“That makes sense.”

We chatted a little and Shuye tried to persuade me to change my dragon gate design to that of a white tiger. I promised him I’d think about it before ushering him out of the house, purposely neglecting to show him the building in the back courtyard.

I didn’t want him to see my extremely decadent secret.

Chapter 15 – Food is a priority

The back courtyard was normally home to a two-story building in a courtyard traditional house, but mine was somewhat different. That was where I had hidden my secret.

I put a hot spring bath at the back of the house.

Of course, I was definitely going to upgrade from a cottage to a ranch house, but even if I put a bathtub in my house, a hot spring facility was a bigger upgrade.

Though my bathing facility was tiny, it had all the best features of a Japanese onsen: a hidden entrance with a door that had a secure lock, a dressing room with alcoves on the walls where one could store personal items, a shower room for cleansing, and, finally, a pool of hot water fed by a magical hot spring for soaking.

The decorations were minimal since I had chosen plain white walls and floors, along with a few pretty ceiling murals of abstract swirls and flowers. This was meant to be a cozy place for me to rest after a long day of manual labor on the farm, not a design showcase.

I’d been in it yesterday, luxuriating in the feeling of all my cares melting away amidst the hot water. The hot springs in Adventure Incarnate were all extremely expensive add-ons that provided a very nice energy bonus for players, and using it made me feel refreshed and invigorated.

***

Once I had finished the courtyard house, it was time for me to upgrade my own place.

[Ranch-Style House:

A one-story house with a simple design, perfect for a laid-back lifestyle. The interior is open and airy, with large windows and comfortable furniture. The front porch is a great place to hang out.]

That sounded good to me.

Shuye had emphasized that I needed to take charge of the main rooms of the courtyard house. Traditionally, that type of house was inhabited by one big extended family, and the head of the household occupied the northern rooms. I personally didn’t intend to stay in it because I liked my privacy, and I didn’t want to live cheek by jowl with a bunch of people I wasn’t related to.

With this in mind, I spent the next two days packing up my stuff that was in the cottage and temporarily moving it to the main residence. Then I selected a space that was some distance from the courtyard house by cutting a path through the trees to a small clearing where I set down the new ranch house.

Right out of the box, it was pretty nice. I was especially happy that I wouldn’t have to use an outhouse anymore.

Yes! It had a real flush toilet!

I did a little dance right there and then as I repeatedly flushed the toilet just to watch it happen, marveling at this most convenient of modern inventions.

The living room was just the standard type, with a cream-colored sofa and an armchair. The kitchen was small but had all the usual appliances, such as a stove, fridge, and oven, but my characteristic as a disastrous cook meant that the kitchen would be mostly unused. I was very pleased to see that the bedroom was much larger than the one in the cottage, and that I had plenty of storage space for my clothes and shoes.

One thing that I did add to the ranch was a bigger front porch with a small table and a rocking chair where I could relax when the weather was good.

All of this kept me quite busy, and time flew by until Shuye arrived with the chef and his wife.

“Nice to meet you!” I said to the middle-aged man and woman who had arrived for an interview, and possibly a contract signing, if we both thought it would work out.

They had arrived in an ox-drawn cart with Shuye walking beside it.

The chef’s name was Deming, meaning “brilliant virtue,” and he was a middle-aged man, probably in his early fifties. He was of average height and build, with salt-and-pepper hair that was thinning on top, and watery brown eyes. He was wearing a plain dark blue robe and a pair of well-worn boots. As was common in this part of the world, he was clean-shaven but had long hair.

Though Deming was the one applying for the job, his wife, Fengying, whose name meant “phoenix beauty,” was the one who did all the talking. Fengying had obviously been a great beauty in her youth. Though she was around fifty years old or thereabouts, she was still a strikingly lovely woman. Her hair was still black as night, and her eyes were a warm dark brown.

The two of them bowed from the waist.

“It is an honor to meet a great lady such as yourself,” said Fengying.

“Oh no, I’m just a humble farmer. Please call me Violet,” I said.

“Thank you. That’s very gracious of you,” she said.

“Good morning, Shuye.” I didn’t forget to hand over another crocus flower to my helpful Farm Guide.

“Good morning.” After we exchanged greetings, Shuye wandered off to inspect the potato plants. He was always interested in their growth.

I turned to the couple and said, “Let me show you the kitchen and living quarters.”

As we walked to the main house, Fengying gave me a short rundown of Deming’s background as a chef. He had been working as the head chef of the Duke of Xishan’s household for the last ten years.

“May I ask why you left the Duke’s employ?” Since I was a newcomer to this world, I wasn’t familiar with the noble families in the Westerlands, but being the head chef of a Duke had to be quite a prestigious job.

“Internal family politics.” That was all Fengying would say, but she did mention that she had an excellent reference from someone whose name I didn’t recognize but was undoubtedly someone quite prominent from the way she said it. The fact that Prince Baiyu’s staff had chosen Deming meant he was probably a good choice, so I wasn’t too worried about it.

“Okay, so here is the main gate.” As I ushered them into the new building, I was quite pleased with their reaction.

“How beautiful. What an elegant courtyard! These rooms are so spacious, don’t you think so, dear?” Fengying kept up a running commentary as we moved from room to room. Deming had yet to open his mouth.

I saved the best for last. After showing them the rooms that would be their quarters if they accepted the job, I showed them the kitchen.

“If you work here, this will be your workplace,” I said as I opened the door to the room full of gleaming modern appliances.

Fengying and Deming’s jaws dropped when I showed off each item’s functions. There was a bit of a snaggle when the piece of bread I tried to toast turned into a coal brick, but that was a minor snafu compared to the sheer magnificence of the commercial kitchen.

“So, what do you think?” I asked.

The two of them locked eyes together for a few seconds. Deming made an infinitesimally tiny nod of his head, and Fengying said, “We’ll take the job.”

“Both of you?” I asked.

“Yes, I can work as the head housekeeper,” she said.

Shuye had already warned me that I shouldn’t expect the chef to work alone, so I would have to hire a complete staff for my “household” even if it only consisted of one person, me. I suppose that a person of Deming’s caliber did not expect to do his own cleaning, for example, so it was necessary to hire more people. Fengying and I came to an agreement that she would hire some locals to work in the house.

“There’s just one more thing. I expect to welcome three apprentices into my household,” I said. “I would like you to supervise their daily lives. I mean stuff like making sure their rooms are clean, that they eat their meals on time, and so forth.”

“Yes, that is quite within my capabilities,” she said.

“All right, before we finish, can you please take a look at this?” I took a ripe cherry from my inventory and handed it to Deming. The fruit was something that I had foraged, so it was not one of the items from my inventory that were bound to me. “Can you cook with spiritual ingredients?”

The moment that the fruit touched his hand, Deming went through a startling transformation. The formerly quiet and unassuming man turned into a demon. He straightened up, and the expression on his face became fierce. Even his watery eyes turned cold. He gently squeezed the fruit and sniffed it before saying, “This Is a low grade Spiritual Black Cherry. If you had more, I could make a cherry pie that you could serve to the greatest cultivators in the land, no, the world.”

Fengying noticed my surprise, and said, “He’s only like this when it involves his work. He is a very passionate chef.”

Demon Chef! His eyes had turned black, like a bottomless abyss, and I seemed to see flashes of red in them. Deming was exactly like Adventure Incarnate’s Demon Chef! That was the most expensive, top-of-the-line chef that players could hire.

I’ve hit the jackpot! According to the in-game description, the Demon Chef’s cuisine was extremely scrumptious.

We went back outside to where Shuye was waiting for us. He assured me that the Prince’s staff would take care of all the details for me. All I needed to do now was wait a few days while they got everything in order for their move to my house.

“I look forward to it,” I said. I gave Fengying a few [Dewy Glow Potions] as a present, then went back to the house. Things were really looking up!

There was only one minor problem. I didn’t have enough food for the Demon Chef to cook.

Chapter 16 – Stalker?

In the past few weeks, I had leveled up my foraging skill and gotten quite a few wild vegetables, mushrooms, berries, fruits, and nuts. However, that was hardly enough food since I would have to provide for myself, three apprentices, the chef, the housekeeper, and five or six maids and assistants.

The only bright spot in all of this was that I had a lot of fish since I went fishing every few days. When it came to fish, at least, I was quite confident that I had enough for everyone.

What could I do? Of course, if push came to shove, I could always ask Shuye to buy food for me, but that would be the last resort for me since I disliked buying things on credit.

I racked my brains for solutions, and came up with an unfortunate conclusion: I would have to give up my pretty little [Ranch House] in order to build a mill.

Nooooo!!!

This was the worst.

Adventure Incarnate, of course, had limitations on the number of buildings a farmer could have based on their farming level.

Watering and weeding only gave a tiny amount of experience, so I hadn't leveled up farming

[Player Name: Violet

Farming Skills:

Farming Level 8, Fishing Level 8, Woodcutting Level 8, Cooking Level 1, Herblaw Level 3, Foraging Level 3, Hunting Level 1, Mining Level 1]

In fact, I was only able to unlock the houses because of the reward from the rescue quest. Normally, I would only be able to build a cottage based on my level.

“There’s no helping it,” I said to myself as I once again packed up all my stuff and put it in the main house.

This was the rational choice, but I was sad because I had really set my heart on having my own place. Nevertheless, since I had to choose between food and my own house, it was really no contest at all.

I would choose delicious food every single time!

After all, the courtyard house was pretty nice. I would just have to get used to living with a bunch of people until I leveled up farming and could build another structure.

I spent a lot of time making my new set of rooms comfortable. The northernmost room of the courtyard house was a large, open-plan space, which suited me just fine. Initially, I put the living room furniture from the [Ranch House] in it, but they looked quite out of place and ruined the vibe, so I got Chinese-style chairs and tables instead. However, the one place where I didn't compromise was the bedroom. I put a folding screen between the designated area for the bedroom and living room, and placed the most comfortable bed in the corner farthest away from the door. The bed was Western-style, with a tufted leather headboard and firm mattress. The bedsheets I used were, of course, the most luxurious high thread count cotton sheets from the Cash Shop.

Though, overall, I was satisfied with the room, there was one thing that bothered me. It didn't have a good view. Unlike the [Ranch House] that had a porch where I could hang out while viewing the lovely landscape of the surrounding forest, the courtyard house was built with a totally different philosophy in mind. It was like a mini fortress whose thick and high walls provided the inhabitants with protection from the outside world. Thus, my room, like all the other rooms, only had windows facing the inner courtyard.

Since that was the case, I made sure to prettify the courtyard by adding plenty of decorative greenery from the Cash Shop, mostly treasure plants and colorful carnations.

Preparations complete, I put the [Ranch House] back in the System and placed a [Rice Mill] in its place.

[Rice Mill:

A rice mill is a food processing facility where rice is cleaned, hulled, milled, and polished, creating white rice from paddy rice.]

The mill was a circular building that contained a large, scary-looking steel machine with many moving parts. I peered into the middle part and saw a lot of gears and metal teeth. At one end was a ladder that led to a large container labeled “Place Rice Here.” On its side was a big red button saying “Start/Stop.”

That looked easy enough to operate.

I climbed the ladder and poured three sacks of rice from my inventory into the machine until the container was full. The rice from my inventory couldn’t be used by other people because it was bound to me, but I hoped that processing it would remove the “bound” status from it.

I pressed the start button and waited. And waited. In the game, this would only have taken a few seconds, but the machine made noises, and the gears turned, but no polished rice came out of the other end of it where there was an outlet and a container waiting to receive the finished product.

Since the machine looked like it was working, I went outside to do some woodcutting instead of staring at it. Throughout the rest of the day, I checked the mill to see if it had finished processing the rice, but it only continued to make metallic thrumming noises.

It wasn’t until the next day that it finished milling the three sacks of rice that I had placed inside. That was rather slow, but I was still happy because the resulting product was indeed unbound. With this, I wouldn’t have to worry that we would starve since rice was a staple food in these parts.

The rice and the fish should be good enough as long as I was able to teach the apprentices how to forage.

If only I had meat, then I would be ecstatic.

I confided my worries to Shuye the next time that he visited, but he seemed unsympathetic.

“Why don’t you just go hunting like you said you would?” he asked me.

“Well…” I wasn’t sure how to explain that I was used to just buying meat in a grocery store. Killing animals to get their meat was a bit of a headache for me, since I wasn’t used to it. Though all I had to do was set a few traps, I felt uneasy at the thought of collecting dead animals.

“You could just buy meat,” he said.

“Never mind, it’s not important,” I said.

I thought that was the end of it, but I was wrong.

The next day, when I stepped out of the gate, I let out a small scream when I saw that there was the corpse of a demon on my doorstep.

The demon lying on the ground was a gruesome sight. Its fur was matted with blood, and its eyes were wide open, staring lifelessly into the distance. Not to mention, its mouth was open in a silent scream, revealing sharp teeth stained with blood, and its claws were outstretched, as if it was reaching for something.

Upon closer inspection, I saw that someone had placed a small piece of paper on the ground beside it, weighed down with a rock. In an elegant script, someone had written, “This is edible.” The note was unsigned.

Edible? This fearsome-looking thing?

I use the System’s Inspect function on it.

[Cow Demon:

A large, horned creature with red eyes and sharp teeth. It is covered in thick, black fur and has a long tail and sharp fangs and teeth.

Its meat is considered quite tasty.]

Well, it all checked out, therefore I put the corpse in my inventory for the Demon Chef to use later. With the size of that thing, it should be enough for us to eat for a long time.

But that wasn’t the end of it. Every few days after that, I woke up to find yet another edible demon corpse in front of the main house’s gate.

On the twelfth day, I left the body there for Shuye to find.

“What? These bodies have been appearing these last twelve days? Why haven’t you said anything?” he asked me.

“Oh, don’t worry. I think he’s just shy,” I said.

Shuye was puzzled. “Who? What are you talking about?”

“You’ll find out,” I said. When Shuye had looked over the demon and confirmed that it was safe to eat, I stored it in my inventory with the others. “I hope he makes an appearance soon.”

Despite the fact that putting dead animals in someone’s front yard was stalker-like behavior, I wasn’t alarmed.

“Who?” Shuye was totally clueless. My bear-like Farm Guide scratched his shaggy head.

“Did you tell anyone that I wanted some meat to eat?” I asked.

“Yes, I told the Prince’s people that you would probably need to buy some meat,” he said.

“I see.”

“You mean…” His eyes widened, and his mouth fell open. Shuye finally understood.

I giggled.

Chapter 17 – Seven gods inhabit each grain of rice

Deming and Fengying moved in the next day. They brought a lot of their own furniture and personal belongings in five ox carts, along with five servants. I’d wondered how carts had managed to traverse the forest, but now that I saw them arrive, I realized they were using flying carts.

Wow, this really was a fantasy world!

They settled in quite nicely, and I placed some items I had foraged into the kitchen fridge and the sacks of newly milled rice into the storage shelves. Deming was quite pleased with the quality of the ingredients.

No one turned a hair when I took out some items from my inventory.

“Lord Shuye told us about your bloodline inheritance,” was all Fengying said. The others just nodded and went about their own work.

I had waited for them for such a long time that I was very excited about my first meal cooked by my own personal chef. When I peered into the kitchen where Deming was working with his two assistants, I was shocked speechless to see that he was chopping away at the vegetables at an incredible speed. A burning red aura was visible around his body, and his eyes fairly glowed as he worked. He seemed as though a different person when he was working.

He was truly a Demon Chef.

Shivers ran down my spine when Deming looked up from his work and met my eyes.

Fengying ran up behind me and gently turned my body away from the kitchen, saying, “It’s best to leave him alone. He doesn’t like people watching when he’s cooking.”

“Yes, I think you’re right.” I went back to my rooms to wait for the food like a good little girl, resolving to leave my chef alone when he was at his work.

I sat down at the dining room table, eagerly anticipating my breakfast. It was three hours after I normally ate my first meal, but I knew that the wait would be worth it. In a few minutes, a maid arrived with a bowl of fish congee, and my stomach grumbled in anticipation. The smell was incredibly mouthwatering. The first spoonful that I ate blew me away with how fresh and succulent the fish was and the texture of the perfectly soft and fluffy rice. It was like a savory taste exploded in my mouth. I finished every last drop of the congee, then sat back in my chair with a satisfied smile on my face.

I couldn’t wait for lunch!

After I finished eating, Yinuo, the maid that Fengying had assigned to my quarters, offered to help me dress and do my hair, but I refused her since I had the Cash Shop. I had gotten used to living alone and using the System for everything, even simple tasks like doing my hair up in elaborate braids or simpler styles like a ponytail or chignon.

This was exactly what I was afraid of. When my parents were alive, we had moved around a lot, and I knew that these traditional family-style accommodations were the type that didn’t provide for much privacy.

I missed my [Ranch House], even though I’d only had it for a brief time.

The moment that I had milled enough rice, I was going to demolish the building and rebuild my house.

Once I had finished dressing in my regular work clothes, I tied my hair into low ponytails, and went outside to tend to the potato plants. I was quite surprised to see that they had flowered. I didn’t even know that there was such a thing as potato flowers. Examining the blooms gave me insight into them.

[Potato Flowers:

Small and white with purple spots, the flowers grow in clusters. Once pollinated, they develop into potato fruits, which are inedible but an excellent source of seeds.]

Oho! I focused on the part that said they were “an excellent source of seeds.” All the seeds that I had from the inventory were bound to me, but if I got seeds from the plants, no doubt I could sell them or give them to other people to use.

Of course, I didn’t need the System to tell me that the flowers needed to be pollinated. I quickly took a beehive from my inventory and set it near the plants. Now I could get honey, too.

Farming was the best!

Every single day was a day when I progressed in my skills. Most of the things I did were quite simple, and the progress was incremental, but all the little things really added up. I could hardly wait for the harvest, when I would get tons of farming experience and make my levels skyrocket.

When I was done tending to the plants, I went to the mill to process the three sacks of rice I was limited to milling every day. Deming and Fengying had been quite impressed that I had my own mill, and I didn’t have the heart to tell them I was going to remove that facility in favor of having my own place to live in.

Taking three empty cotton sacks from my inventory, I used the system to put the milled white rice in them and left it there for Deming or one of his assistants to collect later. They seemed really fascinated by the gleaming steel machine and the rumbling sounds it produced throughout the day. They had spent quite a lot of time earlier just watching the rice falling into the container after it had been polished by the machine.

Back on Earth, I knew that there were thousands of different varieties of rice, but my inventory only had one type of rice seeds. I suppose it’s possible that there was only one kind of spirit rice in this world, or maybe Adventure Incarnate simply used the best kind. The rice I got from the mill was a pure white color, with a slight luster and delicate, starchy fragrance.

[White Pearl Rice:

The Fox goddess taught humans the art of cultivating rice. Seven gods are said to inhabit each grain of rice, so wasting this precious food is a sin.]

If the fish congee that the Demon Chef had cooked earlier was any indication, there was no chance of me, or anyone else, wasting any rice since it was insanely delicious. I could easily get addicted to the taste of it.

It was still quite early in the day by the time I finished, so I had plenty of time to do either fishing, foraging, woodcutting, herblaw, or practice archery.

What should I do? As I was pondering my next move, a distinctive smell assaulted my nostrils.

Meat! It was the smell of meat cooking!

Chapter 17.5

An excerpt from the journal of Shuye Skullcrusher, Guardian of the Ancient Hill Forest:

The investigators I sent to Mai-i island have returned and reported that Miss Violet’s background checks out. Not only are all of her immigration papers in order, they also questioned dozens of people who remember her as a perfectly ordinary young orphan girl.

So that particular line of inquiry was not very useful. I had to explain to Prince Baiyu’s staff why I had spent such a large amount of money on the investigation, but they stopped questioning me after the prince met her himself. I have no idea what exactly happened, but she obviously left quite an impression on him.

Furthermore, I’ve changed my mind about the possibility of her being a spy or assassin. A few days ago, I would’ve said that it was impossible because common sense was as alien to her as flying was to a fish…

Except that her favorite wood carving is that of a fish learning to fly.

As her potato plants have grown taller, the atmospheric qi on the farm has become exceedingly intense, so much so that it has been spilling out into the forest. The effect on the plant and animal life has been dramatic, with many ordinary species evolving into spiritual varieties. People will definitely notice it soon, but I’m not worried since the prince has taken her under his protection.

My subordinates are all convinced that she is either the child of immortals, or an immortal herself. I have no idea what she is, apart from the fact that she’s definitely not normal.

Chapter 18 – Crafting is cool, right? Nothing could possibly go wrong!

Forget about leveling up my skills. It was time for me to eat meat! I rushed back to the house and saw that the staff were cutting up and cooking the demon pig I had entrusted to them. They had set up tables, wood fires, and large woks in the outer courtyard.

I smiled a little at the sight. It was just like back on Earth, where Asian people who had perfectly good indoor kitchens still preferred to cook outdoors most of the time. My dad, who also preferred outdoor cooking, explained to me that it just felt better to cook outside.

“Oh my gosh, it smells so delicious,” I said to Fengying. “This ‘demon pig’ looks just like a regular pig, but with red skin. Does it taste the same?”

“It does, but unlike pig or wild boar, the meat is very good for your health,” she said.

Being in a fantasy world was really the best. To think that I could pig out on pork belly as much as I wanted without risking my health!

“Because it’s a ‘demon’ animal?” I asked.

“Yes, these demons from the southern land are powerful, and their flesh is infused with qi.”

Fengying further explained to me that they had taken the lard from the pig and rendered it down to produce cooking oil, which Deming’s assistant, Haoran, was using right now to fry the pork belly. Once he was finished, the pork pieces would then be put inside a large jar and covered with the oil to preserve them for later eating.

Seeing that I was already drooling, Haoran got a plate and offered me a piece of fried pork belly and a small saucer of soy sauce.

The fried pork belly looked so good that I didn’t even bother to find a chair to sit down before I started eating. Having eaten only vegetarian dishes for such a long time, I couldn’t wait to try it. I dipped a slice into the soy sauce and took a bite. The juicy, meaty flavor was incredible, and I couldn’t get enough of the crunchy skin. I was in pork belly heaven.

“This is perfect,” I said. “Another?”

Haoran silently handed me another piece. I offered it to Fengying, but she said that she had already eaten.

The next piece was even better than the first one. I had to turn away from them because I was afraid that I was making a weird face while I was eating.

“I look forward to my next meal,” I said to Fengying.

Deming was inside the kitchen working on something, but I didn’t have the courage to check on the Demon Chef.

The smell of the cooking food decided my task for me. There was no way I was going to go out to fish, forage, or cut wood.

Herblaw it was, then.

I went to the east side of the courtyard that I had reserved for my future apprentices’ bedrooms and set up my herblaw working space there. All I needed was one big table and a comfortable chair. I piled up the herbs, vials of water, and assorted ingredients on one side and started casting the “Clean Herb” spell. Once I had finished cleaning all the herbs, I cast the Create Potion spell.

Herblaw was quite slow to level, but I didn’t mind because I was making a lot of useful items. The Blight Magic potions will be given to Prince Baiyu while the Dewy Glow potions were for my personal use. They were definitely helping me achieve flawless rosy skin despite the fact that I was out in the sun for most of the day.

The excess potions could be sold or given away.

I worked without a break until noon, when lunch was ready. The smell of the cooking food had been making my stomach rumble throughout the morning.

I put all the herblaw items back in my inventory to clear the table for all the dishes Fengying herself served to me. They all had fancy-sounding names like “Butterflies Among the Peonies” or “Powdered Gold and Minced Jade.”

No matter what they were called, they were all mouthwatering. I started off with the demon chicken soup with wild spring onions, carrots, and mushrooms, followed by pork belly with leeks that was served with a light soy sauce. There was also a plate of braised minced pork, stir-fried vegetables and, of course, plain steamed rice. Dessert was simply sliced fruit drizzled with a sweet honey syrup.

I ate and ate and ate until I was full. I could get used to this!

***

I woke up after a refreshing dream of taking care of a cute little dragon. The sun was slowly rising above the horizon, casting a beautiful orange and pink light across in the sky. Outside at the farm, the potato flowers were in bloom and the honeybees were buzzing around collecting nectar. The air was fresh and clean, and the smell of the forest was intoxicating. Sunlight was filtering through the trees, dappling the ground. It was a perfect spring morning.

The staff had settled in very nicely, and now that I had tasted the Demon Chef’s cooking, I could no longer imagine living without proper food.

Now that my situation had improved so much, I was excited to take the next step in expanding my farm: hiring farmhands a.k.a. apprentices.

I told Shuye that he could go ahead and tell the Prince’s people to start the process of hiring apprentices from the orphanage.

Meanwhile, I had to make money since I was now responsible for my household’s daily needs and their salaries. My plan to demolish the mill and put up my ranch house was on hold for now while I prepared some gold.

Deming, Fengying, and the others had gathered outside to watch me since I had informed them I was replacing the mill with another building.

A bright green magic circle appeared on the ground below the mill, and it flashed twice. On the first flash, the mill disappeared and on the second flash, a new building appeared.

“Did you really have to do that?” asked Fengying. They all seemed disappointed that we wouldn’t be getting three sacks of spirit rice every day.

“Yes. We have enough rice anyway, right? It’s not like we’re going to starve,” I said.

“I’m sure you know best,” said Fengying.

On their first day, Deming and Fengying had worn rather elaborate silk robes, but as the days passed, their clothing had become plainer and plainer until today, Fengying was wearing a simple cotton robe with long, loose sleeves and a long skirt belted at the waist.

I felt a little sorry for them since they were probably more used to the much wealthier Duke’s household rather than my humble farm. This job must be a big downgrade for them.

“Don’t worry about it,” I said. This time, I made sure to set the building to the [Private] setting, with no visitors allowed. “I’ll see you later at lunch.”

They took the hint and went back to the house while I entered the new building. I reckoned that the easiest way to make a lot of money in the shortest amount of time was to smelt the ores in my inventory, so I had built a smelting facility.

Inside, there was one huge smelter.

[Smelter:

A machine used to melt down metal ore to extract the valuable metals from within. It consists of a large chamber with a furnace at one end and a series of pipes and filters at the other. The furnace is used to heat the metal ore to a high temperature, while the pipes and filters extract the metals from the ore. The extracted metals are then collected in a crucible, where they are poured into molds.]

I loaded up the smelter with as much gold ore as I could, then I filled the furnace with wood for burning. When it was full, I pressed the big red [Start/Stop] button.

The smelter heated up until it was too hot to touch, and in about half an hour, it started producing gold ingots. The process was a lot faster than the mill, which was a good thing because Blacksmithing was a huge part of Adventure Incarnate. I would be in trouble if the smelter could only produce three bars every twenty-four hours.

I spent the rest of the day inside and made an immense pile of gold. With this, my money problems were over.

Or so I thought.

Chapter 19 – Do you think I’m some sort of super-powerful witch?

“Are you absolutely insane? You must be out of your mind,” said Shuye two days later when I showed him the gold. He buried his shaggy head in his large hands as though in despair.

“What?” I said.

I had modified the building’s settings to allow Shuye to enter, and he spent the next fifteen minutes gesticulating wildly and almost frothing at the mouth as he raved at me.

“This-this-” He indicated the ingots that were piled high and glittering and shining in the light. “Do you even realize-”

Shuye was so agitated that he couldn’t even finish his own sentences. I patiently waited for him to calm down.

“Okay, okay, I get it. You think it’s a bad idea to sell this gold,” I said.

Though I had only fed the smelter with regular ores, the resulting product seemed to be something special. I don’t know why that happened because the bars the smelter made from [Gold Ores] in Adventure Incarnate were just [Gold Bars].

[Exquisite Gold Ingot:

An exquisite ingot of gold. Incredibly pure and possessing great power, it is a valuable crafting ingredient.]

Shuye buried his head in his hands again. “Please tell me that you haven’t shown this to anyone else.”

“I haven’t shown this to anyone else,” I said obediently.

My words were exactly what he wanted to hear, so he finally calmed down. “Good. If you need money, then put the mill back and sell rice. Everyone knows that you’re a spiritual farmer, so selling rice will be something that people expect.”

“I just thought that it would be easier to get money by selling gold,” I said. “Wouldn’t this sell for a lot?”

“It would, but the problem is that people would think that you have a treasure hoard here on your farm. The Westerlands are generally quite safe, but you shouldn’t tempt fate,” he said.

I had to admit that that made a lot of sense. “Okay, I’ll do as you say.”

“Good.” Shuye seemed to deflate, and his shoulders sagged as though he was being weighed down by the weight of his worries.

“But…” I said.

Shuye raised a hand as though to stop me from saying anything more. I closed my mouth and decided to talk about it later, since it seemed that he had reached his limit for the day.

“I’ll just put this away then,” I said as I put the gold into my inventory. Then I walked him out of the building and let him watch as I demolished it and put the mill in its place. “Better?”

“I’m relieved that you at least know how to listen when someone teaches you common sense,” he said.

I decided not to tell him yet that I had no intention of quitting blacksmithing. I was definitely going to be a great weaponsmith in the future, no matter how dangerous it was.

Daring to live exactly as I please is my goal!

***

The first dead demon had turned up on my doorstep two weeks ago, but it was only today, at dusk, that the person responsible showed up.

I had just showered and changed into nicer clothes for dinner when Fengying excitedly informed me I had an important visitor. A few minutes later, Yinuo, the maid, showed Prince Baiyu into my living room.

I wondered why Fengying had shown him into my quarters instead of the formal reception room.

I bowed as I greeted him at the door to my room.

“Good evening, Your Highness,” I said.

“Good evening. There’s no need to bow or call me ‘Your Highness,’” he said.

Prince Baiyu was wearing a gorgeous set of robes in white and orchid violet, ornately embroidered with a peach blossom design. His long white hair was loose, and he looked absolutely stunning.

“What should I call you then?” I ushered him into the room, and we sat on horseshoe-back armchairs made of fragrant rosewood.

“Call me Baiyu,” he said.

“Then you should call me Violet,” I said. “Are you blushing?”

He wasn’t, but I felt like teasing him a bit.

Prince Baiyu touched his cheek with his hand as though to check if his face was red. “It’s just that people don’t need to use formal language unless it’s a formal occasion.”

“Oh? Do people generally call you ‘Baiyu’ then?”

“No…”

“How many people call you by your name?” I asked.

“My parents and you,” he said. Now he really did blush.

“I’m honored.” I smirked at him.

“There’s no need for excessive formality when you’ve already climbed into my bed and taken my clothes off. Our relationship is intimate enough to call each other by name,” he said.

“Hey, stop saying it like that. What if someone heard you?” I wouldn’t put it past the gossipy maids to be standing outside the room trying to listen in on our conversation.

“It’s true. You even touched my birthmark,” he said, pointing to the purple lotus mark on his forehead.

“…” I looked away and pretended I couldn’t hear what he was saying.

“When are you going to take responsibility for what you’ve done?” he asked me with a mischievous smile.

“I told you, that doesn’t count because I was just healing you. What were you doing in the cave all alone when you were sick, anyway?” I said to change the subject.

“Hmm.”

“Tell me. Don’t I deserve to know?”

“I’m sure you’ve already guessed that I suffer from qi overload,” he said. “People from the White Tiger clan’s ruling family are born with an enormous amount of qi. Sometimes, it can be too much for the body to handle.”

“I see. But that doesn’t explain why you were alone.”

He looked away from me and sighed. “It’s a delicate matter.”

“You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to.” That was fine, since it was none of my business, anyway. “Have you used up all the potions that I gave you? Do you need more?”

I figured that was probably why he was here.

“I still have a few left.”

“Here, let me replenish your supply.” I went to the dining table in the next room and took out a large chest with a hundred potions in it.

“Thank you, but I hope I won’t need this many.” Despite his words, Prince Baiyu waved his hand, and the potions flew and disappeared into his sleeve.

“Wow, I thought you would call one of your servants to take the potions. You must have a really large soul space.” Powerful members of the God Beast clans and human cultivators had a mysterious “space” similar to a System inventory that they could use to store items, but, as far as I knew, it was mostly used to store weapons and armor, and it wasn’t particularly large. The size of the space depended on the person’s cultivation level.

“Yes, I have more than enough qi that I can use,” he said.

I went back to my seat and said, “Why do you think you won’t need this many when you already used up most of the potions that I gave you?”

He smiled down at me. His teeth were very white and his incisors were quite prominent. “Did you like my presents?”

“I loved them. They were quite delicious.” Just as I thought, he had been the one sending me the demon corpses. The whole thing reminded me of the way that cats would bring their kills to their humans. “Thank you.”

“Every year during the spring, the clans go to the southern lands to kill demons. That’s where I’ve been these past few weeks, but the hunting season is over now,” he said.

“Oh, I see.”

“So I won’t be needing these potions.”

I didn’t quite follow what he was saying, and if he really thought he wouldn’t need the potions, why did he even take them?

He seemed to notice that I was confused, so he explained, “We don’t eat human food because there was a famine three hundred years ago, and the clans decided to fast until it was over. That was when we found out that we don’t need to eat human food, and that eating demon beasts is beneficial to our cultivation.”

“Wait…” Eating demon beasts boosted cultivation? I gave him a horrified look. “Are you saying that you’ve been eating demon beasts all this time? Even though you suffer from qi overload? That has to be making your condition worse!”

Prince Baiyu rubbed the space between his eyebrows. “The hunting season is a time when everyone from the clans work together.”

“In other words, people were watching, so you had to do it?”

He leaned back in the chair and said, “My family would lose a lot of face if I didn’t partake of the kills.”

I rolled my eyes, but I knew that in this world, heck, probably even back on Earth, “losing face” was a serious concern for people in positions of power. I personally wouldn’t be bothered about it, but I’m not a ruler.

“Losing face is better than dying!” I said.

“I’m thankful for your help, but I wouldn’t have died. At most, I would’ve been in a coma for a few more days,” he said.

“Oh yes? You were totally helpless and unconscious in that cave. Anyone could have gotten in and done anything to you!”

“No, I wasn’t unconscious. I may have been unable to move my body, but I could still use my aura. I had an extremely strong shield over the entrance of the cave.” Prince Baiyu gave me a sidelong look. “How were you able to get in, anyway?”

“There was no shield. I walked in with no problem,” I said. “I’m pretty sure I would’ve noticed if you’d done something to the place.”

“Normally, people wouldn’t be able to touch me without my permission either,” said Prince Baiyu.

I chuckled. “I was definitely able to touch you, though. Are you saying you gave me permission for that?”

“No, I’m saying you ignored all my defenses. How did you do that?” he said.

“Are you serious? Do you think I’m some sort of super-powerful witch or something?” I smiled at the thought. “More likely, you were delirious and thought you’d set up your defenses, when really there was nothing there.”

He shrugged.

“Your condition is really serious…” I said.

“It should go away when I’m older,” he said.

Now that I was face-to-face with Prince Baiyu, I seemed to remember that there were a few joke items that were given away in Adventure Incarnate that might help him. I made an excuse about being thirsty and got a glass of water from the other room while I browsed through my inventory. By the time I finished drinking, I found it.

“Would you like a glass of water, too?” I asked the Prince.

“No, thank you,” he said.

I sat down on the seat beside him again and slowly put on some gloves. “I have something for you.”

Chapter 20 – A strangely powerful joke item

I took the item out from my inventory and placed it on the small side table between us.

[Rubber Chicken:

This rubber chicken toy is no ordinary chicken! It’s a super fun, interactive toy that will keep you entertained for hours on end. This chicken has a movable head and wings and makes realistic chicken sounds when you squeeze it. It’s also durable and easy to clean, making it the perfect toy for both indoor and outdoor play.

Magic -1 (every three seconds)]

It was a joke magic wand weapon that players could equip for play fighting. Instead of giving a bonus to magic, it drained magic instead. Although magic wasn’t exactly the same as qi, I thought it was worth a try.

Prince Baiyu didn’t know what to make of it. “Is this a joke? How would this thing help me?”

“This item might seem strange, but it is a powerful artifact. Simply touching it will drain your qi. Probably…”

“Probably?”

He gave me a dubious look. And who could blame him? The rubber chicken looked quite cheap and nothing like you would expect from an artifact.

Come to think of it, did they even use rubber in this world? I hadn’t seen anything made of rubber since I had transmigrated here.

“It’s fine, just put your hand on it,” I urged him.

He sighed a few times and looked really reluctant, but he touched it with one hand in the end.

“How do you feel?” I asked.

“I feel silly,” he said. Prince Baiyu gave the dopey-looking toy a disgusted look.

“Lift it and shake it a bit,” I said.

I howled with laughter when Prince Baiyu started at the rubber chicken’s Bwak Bwak Bwaaak sound effect. He shook it again, fascinated by the way the rubber chicken’s googly eyes moved.

“Just give it a little time, and you might start feeling better. This item drains qi.” Probably. I didn’t say the last thought out loud.

“If it takes time to work, then it’s not as useful as your potions,” he said.

“Not at all. This item can be compressed.” I took the rubber chicken from him and squeezed it down until it was the size of my palm. “Look, you could place this in a pocket, and touch it if you start feeling that you’re going to suffer a qi overload.”

I gave him the item back, and it fit neatly into his fist. We waited a few more minutes until Prince Baiyu frowned and said, “I think it’s working. I feel refreshed, as though my body is lighter.”

“Great! I think it probably works, but you should really consult one of your own doctors,” I said.

He made a noncommittal sound. If he was hiding his condition from other people, then that was probably why he went to me instead of a doctor.

“Um, don’t hold it for a long time. It might drain your qi completely.” Since qi was said to be a person’s life force, draining it would normally be a terrible thing. “Let it go the moment that you feel weakened.”

“I will.”

“You can use gloves like I do if you need to touch it but don’t want to trigger its effect,” I said.

“This is incredible. The item looks strange, but it’s powerful,” he said. “I can’t possibly accept it without giving you something in return. Is there anything you need?”

I thought about it for a bit. Truthfully, I already had everything, but I might need his help in the future since the world was large, and there were probably many dangers in it. Just because I was far from the conflict right at this moment didn’t mean that my life would be forever peaceful.

“Can I ask you for a favor some other time if there’s something I need?” I asked him.

“Certainly.”

Great! Now I had another royal favor in the bank.

Prince Baiyu seemed a lot more lively after the rubber chicken did its work. Once he declared he felt that it had done all it could, we went for a quick tour around the farm. There wasn’t much to see, but, like everyone else, he seemed fascinated by the milling machine.

Before he left, he said that we would meet again soon, but I figured those were just words. His condition wasn’t so urgent now that the spring hunting season was over, and I’d given him both potions and an item that helped with his qi overload. Hence, he obviously wouldn’t need to see me again.

… But I was wrong yet again.

The next day, I was drawing water from the well to water my plants, when I saw a tall, handsome, wealthy prince approaching. He wasn’t walking towards me like a normal person would. Instead, he was flying over the trees and slowly descended until he was right in front of me.

“Good morning,” he said.

“Good morning,” I said.

I was feeling quite grumpy because I was wearing my old work clothes that were somewhat tattered at the ends, while he was a sight for sore eyes with his long, fluffy white hair and classically beautiful facial features. Once again, he was wearing yet another gorgeous ensemble made of intricately embroidered silk.

“Can I help you with that?” he said as I filled my watering can from the bucket filled with well water.

“No, thank you. Sorry, can you wait a bit? This will only take a few minutes,” I said.

Prince Baiyu watched as I held my watering can over the plants at the end of a row. Whereas normal farmers would water the plants one by one, the System allowed me to water half of a row. I tilted the watering can, and a glittering liquid flew out from the spout to cover a large area. I repeated this action until the entire field was watered.

“Okay, I’m all done,” I said.

The Prince crouched down to look more closely at the potato plants.

“Interesting.” That was all he said.

“Welcome to my humble farm. How can I help you today? Has your condition stabilized?”

“I feel fine. I just came to check if you need help with anything.”

Though it wasn’t his fault that he looked absolutely amazing while I was sweating and disheveled from working on the farm, I still felt a little piqued. Therefore, when a mischievous thought crossed my mind, I acted on it immediately.

“Well, if you’re really willing to help, why don’t you use this?” I took the broom that I had borrowed from the maids out of my inventory and handed it to him. “You can sweep the leaves from the path around the house.”

I pointed to the walkway I had paved with stone tiles.

“It would be my pleasure.” To my surprise, he seemed willing to do it. He took the broom from my hand and started walking towards the path, then without further ado, he started sweeping.

Um, what? I might be a newcomer to this world, but even I knew that princes didn’t go around working as a sweeper for farmers.

“You can put the leaves inside this,” I said as I handed him two empty rice sacks from my inventory.

“Thank you,” he said.

He put the sacks down near his feet, then started untying his belt.

What on earth was he doing?

Chapter 21 – A naughty, devilish rogue

I watched in disbelief as Prince Baiyu took off his robe and put it in his soul space, leaving him naked from the waist up. Today, his hair was up in a high ponytail, so I had a good view of his elegant neck, wide shoulders, muscled arms, powerful pecs, and sexy abs.

He smirked at my reaction and said, “I don’t want to soil my robe.”

That made sense because his robe was extremely expensive-looking. I thought that this world was a lot more conservative than Earth, but I must’ve been wrong since he nonchalantly started working as though it was perfectly normal.

I went back to the plants and started weeding while watching Prince Baiyu.

“Even his back is sexy,” I muttered to myself as I watched the interplay of muscles on his upper body.

He was definitely aware that I was watching him because he frequently looked over his shoulder as though to check if I was still there looking at him. The expression on his face was quite smug.

I lingered over my tasks until he finished clearing the path.

“I’m finished,” said Prince Baiyu. He handed the broom back, along with two sacks that were full of fallen leaves.

“Thank you,” I said.

I put the sacks in my inventory and stood there like an idiot for several minutes, just staring at him while holding the broom.

He coughed and said, “Aren’t you going to invite me in?”

“In?” My brain seemed to have short-circuited. I couldn’t stop staring at him.

“Inside the house?”

“You want me to show you inside the house while you’re half naked?” I tore my eyes away from his body and looked up into his eyes. “You’ll give my staff a heart attack.”

“You want me to put my robe back on? Are you sure you don’t want me to take off my pants instead?” He smirked at me.

“What, here outside?”

“Then you want me to go inside and take my pants off…?” He was laughing at me now.

I covered my face with my hands. “Please put your clothes back on.”

When I had first seen him, I had thought that he was the cold and aloof type, but he was really a naughty, devilish rogue.

Shaking my head, I waited until he was decently clothed before showing him into the house.

“By the way, I’ve been meaning to ask you why your house is decorated with dragons,” he said, frowning at my gate.

“I like it that way,” I said.

“People in the Westerlands normally use tigers as a motif, or one of the other clan gods like the fox, wolf, bear, or lion,” he said.

“I like dragons,” I said.

“Why?”

“Why not?”

“...”

“Don’t take it personally. It’s just that I have had a lot of dreams about dragons,” I said.

“I wish you would dream about a white tiger instead, specifically, me,” he said.

Oh, what a flirtatious man he was!

“No, I haven’t dreamed about you,” I said.

“But you’ve dreamed about a dragon?”

“Yes, it was quite funny.”

“Why don’t you tell me about it?”

The dream was quite vivid, and I had a good time describing it to him. In the first dream, I found myself in a lush, tropical forest where I wandered for a long time without finding anything to eat. Just as I was about to collapse from hunger, I saw an enormous egg rolling down a hill.

“It was this big!” I used my arms to indicate an egg half my size. “I was like, ‘hooray! food!’ and rolled the egg into a nearby hot spring to cook. Have you ever eaten onsen tamago?”

I accidentally used the Earth word for it.

“What is that?” asked Prince Baiyu.

“It’s an egg cooked in a hot spring. Anyway, just as I was looking forward to my meal, the egg started glowing red and vibrating. Can you guess what happened next?”

“It hatched?”

“That’s right! A baby dragon hatched out of the egg, and I was extremely disappointed that I still had nothing to eat. It was very cute though, and it came waddling up to me and cooing over me like I was its mother.”

“That doesn’t sound like a pleasant dream at all.” Prince Baiyu made a sound of disgust.

We walked inside the house after I opened the gate as I continued the story. “I guess the baby dragon imprinted on me because it kept following me wherever I went. I thought I was going to starve to death, but various animals and birds brought me nuts and berries to eat.”

“You poor thing. You should stop dreaming about a dragon and start dreaming about me. I’m sure that will be a lot more pleasant.”

“The baby dragon in my dreams is cute! Those dreams are really nice…”

Prince Baiyu made a rather inelegant snorting sound.

We had reached the outer courtyard, so I stopped talking because Fengying was there. She hurriedly went to greet the prince, bowing low from the waist. The next few minutes were spent on the necessary courtesies.

“I’m sorry. There’s not much I can do to entertain you. I am but a humble farmer,” I said as I showed the Prince to the reception room. He didn’t eat human food, which meant that I couldn’t even offer him tea and snacks.

“You’re far too modest,” he said. “And you don’t need to entertain me. If you like, I can play the qin for you.”

“You play the qin?” The qin was a seven-stringed zither. I had watched YouTube videos of people playing it, but it seemed a rather old-fashioned hobby, but this place was rather similar to ancient China back on Earth. Perhaps the White Tiger clan warriors were expected to be adept in the four arts of the Chinese scholar? I wouldn’t be surprised if Prince Baiyu had mastered the qin, calligraphy, painting and the strategy board game weiqi, also called Go.

If I hadn’t seen his muscles for myself, I might’ve thought that he was a scholar rather than a warrior because of his austere-looking features.

“I have some minor talent in it,” said Prince Baiyu, by which I knew he meant he was a genius qin player.

I asked one of the maids to get a suitable table and chair, and the Prince regaled us with an impromptu qin recital.

His hands moved gracefully over the zither’s seven strings, and the sounds that came from the instrument were sublime. Every movement he made was so fluid that he looked like an angel with his long white hair and beautiful face. The music was so peaceful and calming that I felt like I was in a trance, completely mesmerized by his playing. When he finished playing, the maids, assistants, Fengying, and I clapped loudly.

“An excellent performance,” I said.

“You’re too kind,” he said as he put away his instrument.

By the time he finished playing, it was lunchtime. Seeing as it would’ve been awkward for me to eat while he didn’t, Prince Baiyu tactfully said his goodbyes while promising to come back tomorrow.

Didn’t he have anything better to do? If he kept on like this, I might start thinking that he had fallen madly in love with me.

Chapter 22 – The implications were rather dystopian

Prince Baiyu had definitely fallen madly in love, or at least had a small crush on me.

Every day, he went to see me and offered to sweep the path for me. He always took off his top and enjoyed it when I drooled over him.

Fengying and the maids started teasing me mercilessly about it. Shuye, on the other hand, was worried because I made the mistake of jokingly complaining about having a half-naked Prince Baiyu hanging around my farm.

“If you don’t want him around, all you have to do is tell me,” said Shuye.

“Are you saying you can make him go away?” I said.

“Of course. The biggest taboo among the clans is to harm a human. You know the story?” he asked.

“That the Southernlands were destroyed hundreds of years ago because the ruling family killed a human, right? I heard that a huge lightning bolt destroyed the royal palace,” I said.

“Yes, and a horde of demons invaded.”

“I always wondered why the other clans haven’t cleared the Southernlands of demons.”

“Have you heard of the concept of ‘territory’ among the clans? It’s uncomfortable for us to travel to someone else’s territory, so we only go to the Southernlands when we have to, and only for a short time,” he said. “That’s where Prince Baiyu was these past few weeks. We send a large hunting party to the border to thin the herd of demons and prevent them from crossing over to our lands.”

“But since you can’t go to the Southernlands, does that mean demons can still invade?”

“That’s why many of our warriors are at the border,” he said.

“But not Prince Baiyu? What about you?”

Shuye smiled. “Do I look like a warrior to you?”

I raised a hand to my mouth to hide my smile. In fact, Shuye was a large, scary, bearlike person, but he had a gentle soul.

“Do the demons ever come this far?” I asked.

“You don’t have to worry about it.”

“I’m not exactly worried. Even if they did, the clan would evacuate us using flying vehicles, right?”

“Of course.” Shuye grinned down at me. “But demons can fly. Did you know that?”

“I think I’ll add some more defenses around the farm.”

“I was just joking. Flying demons are actually rare, and you’re in no danger here.”

“Good! I want a relaxing life on the farm.”

As we continued to chat about this and that, I took the opportunity to ask him about Prince Baiyu’s reputation in the clan.

“He’s young, so people don’t know what to make of him yet, but the fact that his conformation is perfect is a source of pride for the Lady of the West,” said Shuye.

“Conformation?” I vaguely knew that the word meant the shape or structure of an animal, because my mother used to watch dog shows, but I had never heard it applied to people.

Shuye shrugged. “Our mythology states that the gods chose their consorts based on whichever humans had the most perfect form, and since then, our standards of beauty have been based on our beast forms. Perfect conformation means a person has inherited a greater share of divine power than most.”

“But… Aren’t people born with their shapes? I mean, people can cultivate or eat demon beasts for more power, but there’s no way to change your body structure,” I said. The implications were rather dystopian, in my opinion. If conformation, aka physical beauty, was really that important, then it meant that a person’s role was fixed at birth since they didn’t have plastic surgery in this world.

“Conformation only matters if you’re part of the ruling family. The rest of us don’t care, but their power is based on the concept that our gods picked them to lead us, so each offspring is inspected at birth to check if they are fit to rule,” said Shuye.

Ah, I got it now. This must be the reason that Prince Baiyu was in that cave alone. He must’ve been hiding his condition from everyone else. “I’m almost afraid to ask, but what happens to flawed babies?”

Shuye scratched his head and avoided meeting my eyes. “Nothing, they just aren’t chosen as a potential heir.”

At least they weren’t killed, or anything like that, though it sounded to me like the parents would lose a lot of face, and the child would be discriminated against.

This topic was making both of us uncomfortable, so we moved on to farming. Shuye gave me next week’s weather forecast, and I showed him the potato plants. The bees had done their work, and small fruits were growing nicely. In a few days, I would be able to gather seeds, and a few days after that, I would be able to harvest the potatoes themselves.

“I’d like to hire the apprentices the day after the harvest,” I said.

“I’ll bring a flying cart to bring the harvest to market,” said Shuye.

We went over some details and parted right before lunchtime. Shuye always left before mealtimes since it was always awkward when he had to turn down my invitation to join me. These days, he dropped by more often, but spent less time talking. Mostly, he would just check the plants and asked me if I needed anything before leaving to patrol his territory.

***

When I played Adventure Incarnate, apprentices were something that players used after they got bored by the daily routine. One could hire three apprentices to take care of whichever monotonous tasks they didn’t want to do anymore. Of course, this meant that the players wouldn’t be getting the experience that they would have gotten if they had worked on the farm themselves.

In my case, I thought it would be best to hire more people to expand the farm. This was the real world, not a video game, and the tasks that would only take a few clicks on a computer mouse took hours in the real world.

One of the things that I was worried about was whether apprentices could use the items I had.

I mean, I had already tested it with Shuye who was unable to even touch the items that were bound for my use. However, apprentices might be considered “me” by the System, since apprentices could use the players’ farm machines that other players were not allowed to use.

For example, when I tried to ask one of the maids to press the [Start/Stop] button on the side of the milling machine, she was unable to do it, yet using farm machines was one of the most common tasks that were entrusted to apprentices.

Therefore, it stood to reason that apprentices should be able to use my things. In case they couldn’t, it would be good for me to prepare items for them.

Now that the potato plants had fruited, it was time to harvest the inedible fruits and extract the seeds.

This close to harvest time, the potato plants had grown waist high, with dark green leaves and thick brown stalks. The faint silver glow around them was stronger now. The fruit looked like small green cherry tomatoes. They looked really nice, and I was tempted to eat them, but Deming cautioned everyone that they were poisonous.

After I had finished watering and weeding the plants, I harvested the fruits, carefully twisting the potato plant stems until the small, green fruits that contained the seeds fell into my waiting hand. I carried the harvest over to the nearby table, where I set them down and pried them open gently. Inside the fruits were small, black seeds I would set aside for my apprentices. I took a small spoon and extracted the seeds from the fruits, being careful not to damage them. By the time I was finished, I had hundreds of them, which should be enough for three apprentices to use for a few seasons in case they couldn’t use the seeds I had in my inventory.

Chapter 23 – Year 1 Spring Harvest

Harvest day! Also known as Happy Day!

Today was the day that everything that I had done in the past three months became worth it.

Tilling, planting, watering, and weeding all gave experience, but only small amounts. Harvesting was the only real way to level up farming because it gave much more experience compared to the other skills.

Fengying, Deming, and the other staff clapped as I walked to the potato plants.

“You guys, stop mocking me. You’re not expecting fireworks, are you? I’m just gonna pull up these plants,” I said.

They were going to be badly disappointed because farming skills were never flashy.

I inspected the crop one last time and confirmed that it was ready.

A few days after the potato plants fruited, the foliage withered, with the leaves turning yellow and the stalks drooping. That meant that the tubers should be big enough to harvest now.

I put on my gardening gloves and walked to the end of a row. I started by loosening the soil around the potato plants with my spading fork. Then I carefully dug under the plants with a spade to lift the potatoes out of the ground. The potatoes went into a waiting wheelbarrow while the plants went into my inventory. I could use the leaves, roots, and stalks to make compost later.

The freshly harvested potatoes were the size of my fist and a beautiful golden brown color. They smelled earthly and fresh. I had been wondering if the tubers would also glow, but I saw nothing of the sort. Maybe they were just ordinary potatoes?

I brushed off the dirt from one and used a pocketknife to cut into it. The flesh inside was white and firm. Deming approached, and I handed it to him. He scratched the skin, sniffed it, and licked the inside. We all waited for his judgment with bated breath.

Finally, he put the potato down and said, “Alabaster Spirit Potato, low grade.”

Everyone except for me cheered. I didn’t think an ordinary crop was worth celebrating. Of course, I already knew that these were low-grade because I was still a newbie, and players could only harvest mid-grade crops after at least five growing seasons.

Deming didn’t explain what an Alabaster Spirit Potato was, but everyone seemed satisfied, so I said a few words of appreciation to the Demon Chef and continued harvesting potatoes until I had filled one wheelbarrow. The staff then took the harvest inside to wash off the dirt and pack it into sacks after it had dried. Shuye would be arriving at noon the next day to bring them to market.

Harvesting was hard work, but it was worth it because I got a ton of experience. Regarding the patch of crops that I had forgotten to use fertilizer on, I didn't see much of a difference since all of my produce was low grade. There were slightly fewer potatoes harvested, but not by much. I was able to fill four more wheelbarrows with potatoes, and at the end of it, I had leveled up quite a bit.

[Player Name: Violet

Farming Skills:

Farming Level 12, Fishing Level 8, Woodcutting Level 12, Cooking Level 1, Herblaw Level 3, Foraging Level 3, Hunting Level 1, Mining Level 1]

I had leveled up so much in such a short amount of time that I felt a little giddy. Since I had been doing a lot of woodcutting to clear more land for planting, I had a lot of experience in that skill. Fishing was still a fun hobby for me, but I hadn’t been fishing as much lately, so that was lagging behind a little.

When the field was empty, I wiped the sweat off my brow with a clean handkerchief and drank some water. Then I used the System’s special cover crop seed packet.

[Wild Seed Mix:

A mixture of seeds, mainly wildflowers, grasses, and legumes that are used as cover crops. These plants protect the soil from erosion, improve soil structure, and add nutrients to it. The flowers also attract pollinators, and the grass is good for pasturing animals.]

Normally, one couldn’t plant during the harvest season, but cover crops were an exception. They didn’t give any farming experience and were a hands-off type of farming. I didn't even need to water them. All I had to do was to sow the seeds and allow them to grow on their own for a few seasons to protect and nourish the soil. The flowers would also serve as food for my bees.

I ripped the [Wild Seed Mix] packet open and poured the contents into my hand. Then I simply flung the seeds out into the field. The seeds shot out from my hand and embedded themselves in the soil. I did that a few more times until the entire empty field was planted with wild seeds.

When I was finished, Fengying came to me and said, “Deming is asking how much we can keep for ourselves?”

“Ah, er, I actually promised Shuye the entire harvest,” I said.

Fengying cleared her throat and said, “It’s customary for farmers to keep some of their harvests for their personal use.”

That sounded plausible, but it was a fact that I had already made an agreement with Shuye, so I was forced to disappoint Deming and Fengying. I hoped this wouldn’t come back to bite me later on.

The thought of an unhappy Demon Chef was absolutely terrifying to me.

I was able to escape from the uncomfortable conversation by pleading fatigue and retreating to my rooms for a good rest before going to the hot spring facility at the back of the house for a nice soak and some privacy. After I finished bathing, I took care of Mr. Bear first before going back to the main house.

The reward for reaching the level 10 farming milestone was a puppet upgrade that increased the puppet’s overall abilities.

“Here you go, Mr. Bear,” I said as I took the ruby heart from the System’s rewards tab and stuck it on the plushie’s chest. “Now you’re stronger!”

[Puppet Name: Mr. Bear

A magical plushie unlike any other. This cute and cuddly bear is made of a special type of plush cloth and magical stuffing that gives it special powers. When its owner is in danger, this bear will come to life.

Though Mr. Bear is a wizard type, this puppet is also equipped with hidden metal claws and teeth.

Type: Magic

Base spell: Fireball

Upgrades: 1/99]

Though the upgrade undoubtedly made my puppet stronger, I wasn’t sure how to compare it to this world’s existing dangers.

Was Mr. Bear strong enough to deal with a demon chicken, for example? How about a demon pig? I wasn’t expecting to find dragons or anything like that, but I should at least be able to fight off the wildlife with my puppet.

That shouldn’t be too much to ask, right? I pondered these things as I dried and combed my hair. I was in the hot spring’s waiting room that now doubled as a salon since I had placed some cash shop items here for beautifying one’s hair and skin. There was even a funny dome-shaped thing that went over my head and changed my hairstyle for me whenever I wanted, which was great, because otherwise I would have to spend maybe an hour or more having my hair styled by a maid. Apparently, going outside my room with wet, unstyled hair was considered a social faux pas.

To my surprise, I was met by Fengying’s beaming face when I exited the onsen.

“Shuye is here, and he agreed we should keep some potatoes for ourselves,” she said.

“Okay, if you say so,” I said. I hoped she hadn’t twisted his arm or something. The three sacks of rice that I produced daily were enough to keep me solvent, so I wasn’t worried about money anymore.

“Deming knows quite a few good potato dishes,” she said. “I’m sure you’ll like them.”

It seemed to me that it wasn’t worth arguing about the potatoes anymore. If she and the Demon Chef were happy, then so was I.

“Happy chef, happy eating,” was an excellent motto to live by.

***

The System calendar showed the harvest time lasted for two weeks. That was barely enough time for high-level farmers to harvest all their fields, but it was overkill for a newbie farmer like me. Since I now had some free time, I decided it was best if I could go to the nearest city on the flying cart that Shuye was going to use to bring the harvest to market.

But when Shuye arrived with the flying vehicle the next day, it turned out that I wouldn’t be using it.

Chapter 24 – Choosing apprentices

“You want to carry me,” I said.

“Yes,” said Prince Baiyu.

Today he looked even more splendid than usual. The sleeves of his robe were longer and wider than normal, and the hem went down to the ground. His clothes were made of deep blue silk adorned with intricate white and gold embroidery depicting the Four Gods. In addition, he was wearing a small white jade crown held in place over his topknot by a hairpin. Ornaments made of jade and silk tassels hung from his belt.

I felt really underdressed for the situation since I was wearing a simple white Scholar’s Robe from the cash shop.

“In your arms,” I clarified. “While you’re flying high above the treetops.”

“It would be more comfortable than the cart,” said Prince Baiyu

The two of us glanced at the oxcart that Shuye was going to drive. The Farm Guide’s colossal form and the sacks of potatoes filled most of the space, which meant that it would be a tight squeeze for me.

“Go on, the Prince is right,” said Shuye, who was standing near the oxen. He was also dressed quite nicely in a set of brown silk robes and pants painted with a leaf pattern.

Prince Baiyu moved a little closer and bent down to whisper in my ear. “If you like, I can take my robe off for you.”

What the heck?! He wasn’t aiming to join this world’s version of the Mile High Club, was he?

I ran to hide behind Shuye’s bulky form. “No!”

The Prince smirked at me and folded his arms across his chest. “You know you want to.”

He kept on teasing me like that for a few more minutes while Shuye shook his head and pretended not to listen. I eventually gave in because I was curious to know what flying in the air with a Prince would be like.

Shuye’s flying cart was slower than Prince Baiyu, so we would arrive in the city earlier. We agreed I should go straight to the orphanage and finish my business there without waiting for Shuye. He said he knew what to do, and didn’t need me to supervise. That was good enough for me since, anyway, I knew nothing about selling potatoes.

My face turned red when Prince Baiyu scooped me up in his arms. He slowly ascended in the air until we were above the forest’s canopy. This took around ten minutes, and the gradual rise in elevation wasn’t scary at all. Prince Baiyu felt quite solid, and I clung to his neck as we flew north in the direction of Anwei City, the largest human city in the Westerlands and the center of commerce.

“Are you comfortable?” asked Prince Baiyu.

“Yes,” I said. His body was quite warm, and we were traveling slowly. Below us was the forest, while above us was the blue sky dotted with fluffy white clouds. I had expected to be a little scared of flying, but I felt fine. I was even enjoying myself.

“Then I’ll increase our speed. Let me know if it becomes uncomfortable for you,” said Prince Baiyu.

Logically speaking, the faster we flew, the more uncomfortable the wind should be, but I only felt a gentle breeze as he increased his speed. “How come the wind isn’t getting stronger?”

“I’m using my aura to protect us, of course,” he said. “You wouldn’t be able to bear it otherwise.”

“Oh.” It was quite comfortable, so I relaxed and enjoyed the view. After about an hour, the forest gave way to cultivated fields and tiny villages. We were so high that the people below us looked like ants.

A few hours later, Prince Baiyu gradually slowed down and descended. Flying up in Prince Baiyu’s arms wasn’t that scary, but flying down was. My brain knew that we were going for a safe landing, but my body thought that I was falling. I involuntarily closed my eyes and buried my head in his chest.

“Are you uncomfortable?” asked Prince Baiyu.

“A little slower, please,” I said.

The Prince obligingly slowed down until we were descending at a snail’s pace and I could hardly feel that we were moving. My stomach settled down, and I heaved a sigh of relief when we finally landed.

“Let’s take a moment to prepare ourselves,” he said.

We were in an empty field, and it was only then that I realized that there were people flying behind us. Three men and two women came down around ten feet away from us.

“Are they your staff?” I asked Prince Baiyu since they seemed to be looking at him for instructions.

“Yes, I never go out without a few attendants,” he said. He made some sort of signal with a hand, and one of them flew off. “Let’s give him a bit of time to report our visit to the City Lord.”

“Um, I won’t have to meet him, right?” I said. Was Prince Baiyu all dressed up because he was going to meet with a noble?

“It’s fine. We’ll go in and finish your business, then leave. Informing the City Lord is just a courtesy,” he said. “Pardon me, my lady, I have to arm myself.”

Prince Baiyu took out a sword from his soul space and belted it on his waist.

Since we were getting ready, I took the opportunity to fetch a comb from my inventory. The wind hadn’t been particularly strong, but my hair could be neater.

Once we both finished getting ready, Prince Baiyu took me in his arms again and we flew onward until we arrived at Anwei, the capital of the Westerlands.

Fengying had told me what to expect.

The city was surrounded by a high wall made of white stone etched with protective runes. There were four enormous gates at each cardinal point that were reserved for certain functions. The south and east gates were open to the public, and that was what most people used. The north gate was for the human nobles, while the west gate was for the members of the God Beast clans.

I don’t know why I was surprised. I should’ve already realized that I was living in a feudal society, and that, from now on, I would have to get used to the caste system here. The God Beast clans, of course, were the ultimate rulers of the Westerlands, but Anwei was a human city, so it had human rulers, too.

As for me, I was but a mere peasant.

Prince Baiyu landed at the West gate and was greeted by the guard captain who waved us in with no fuss. An ornate gold and black carriage was waiting for us, and it seemed that the driver already knew where to go, since the carriage had started off without the prince giving him instructions. Prince Baiyu’s attendants traveled behind us in an identical carriage.

As we traveled through the city streets, I saw that the main streets were paved with hewn stones and that they were wide enough to accommodate four carts side-by-side with two orderly lines going in each direction. It looked like commoners used the inner lanes while the outer lanes were reserved for nobles because all the vehicles in our lane looked very expensive.

The city smelled of horse manure and wood smoke, and the air was full of sounds: the rattling of the cart wheels, the neighing of the horses, the mooing of the oxen, and above it all, the sounds of people talking and shouting.

The place was bustling, especially the main streets, which were full of humans jostling around the sidewalks while going about their daily business. The buildings on the sides of the central thoroughfare were made of stone and packed close together. However, when I peered into the smaller side streets, I could see that most of the buildings were made of wood.

The architecture was mostly the same, and what I expected an ancient Chinese city to look like. There were the usual gabled roofs made of glazed tiles with the corners curved outwards and upwards and pillars painted a bright vermilion.

The typical store architecture in Anwei reminded me of the colorful shophouses in Singapore. They were long and narrow terraced two-story buildings that opened out onto the street at the ground floor. The front part was the shop where business was conducted, while the rear house served as the shop owner’s dwelling. Though I couldn’t see very far inside of the shops, I guessed that they probably had a courtyard in the middle to separate the shop from the house, since courtyards were considered essential to daily life here.

One big difference between the streets here and in Singapore was that Anwei’s thoroughfares were not too clean. I saw a few street sweepers trying to tidy up the public spaces, but there was dirt and litter almost everywhere.

All of the people around me were dressed in colorful robes. Just as I had been told, fashion was extremely important to the city folk, so almost all the prosperous-looking people were dressed in robes that were similarly cut. It seems that this year, sleeves were extremely wide, almost two feet at the wrist, and extended past the fingertips.

Fengying had told me that the city was divided into two parts: the northern part, which was home to the human nobility, and the southern part, which was home to the poor and working-class humans. The clans had their own small district.

The northern part was full of grand homes and palaces where the wealthy lived and worked, while the southern part was where most of the ordinary business of the city was done.

The noises, the smells, and the sights combined made me feel uneasy. Deep in the forest where I lived, it was easy enough to live a simple and quiet life without worrying about my transmigration, but now everything looked different, and I was faced with the undeniable fact that I was in a completely different world from Earth.

I unhooked Mr. Bear from my belt and made him big enough for me to hug. “Mr. Bear, I think we’re not in Kansas anymore.”

Prince Baiyu must have noticed my unease. “What do you think of the city?”

“I’m just a little uncomfortable because I’m not used to being around so many people. I don’t know what to say because it’s the first big city in the Westerlands that I’ve seen,” I said. “Is the orphanage far from here?”

“It would be faster if I flew you there. Would you like to-”

“Absolutely not!” I cut him off immediately. There was no way I was going to go flying with him inside the city. I could just imagine everyone looking up at us and pointing at the two weirdos.

“I fly here all the time,” he said.

Did he? I didn’t see anyone else flying inside the city, but I guess the Prince was an exception to the rules.

“We’re not in a rush, so let’s take our time,” I said.

“Very well, but please stop putting your head outside of the window. If there’s any place that catches your fancy, we can stop to look at it,” he said.

“No, I’d rather finish my business and go back home early. Deming is making ‘Wind, Snow, and Cloud Soup’ for dinner,” I said.

The dish was made of demon chicken with tender bamboo shoots and snow fungus. I’d never had it before, and it sounded delicious.

It took around an hour before we arrived at a small nondescript building. Inside, we were quickly ushered behind a screen where we could look over a large hall where dozens of young people, from toddlers to teenagers, were waiting for us. There was a yearly employment fair where people could hire orphans, but the Prince had been able to make a special arrangement for me.

A middle-aged lady in severe black robes introduced herself to us as the matron.

“You may choose your apprentices here,” she said.

The System helpfully offered me insight into all of the available orphans. When I focused on anyone of them, I saw a list of their three most important characteristics which included positive qualities like kind, generous, helpful, loyal, diligent, creative, outgoing, and so forth, as well as negative qualities such as arrogant, lazy, jealous, rude, dishonest, manipulative, bossy, etc.

Most of those qualities could be ignored, but there was one that I absolutely insisted on.

Chapter 25 – Three farmhands acquired!

[Loyal]

That was the one quality my apprentice absolutely had to have. I didn’t care if he or she was lazy, rude, arrogant, bossy, and so forth. As long as they were loyal, I could tolerate most other faults, except for dishonesty.

I spent a few minutes confirming which of the orphans had the [Loyal] attribute. There were five, but only three of them looked old enough since I wasn’t about to adopt a toddler. I told the matron which ones I wanted, and one of Prince Baiyu’s attendants said that she would take care of it. Shuye would take the three chosen ones with him on his cart when he traveled to the farm the next day after selling the potatoes. I didn’t want to go out from behind the screen to choose, since I felt slightly guilty at not being able to help all the children. I did leave a generous donation, of course.

“I’m so glad we finished early,” I said to Prince Baiyu as we walked out of the orphanage.

He helped me into the carriage, and we spent the ride back to the West gate in a more relaxed mood. He pointed out some of the city’s landmarks to me, and I tried to seem interested while inwardly vowing to avoid returning unless I had urgent business in the city.

Once we had exited Anwei, Prince Baiyu took me in his arms again, and we flew back. This time, I was able to see that we were indeed being followed by his five attendants. I don’t think he was being deceitful by never mentioning them. I suppose that since he is a prince, he found it natural that he always had people around him, but I was a bit spooked by the thought that every time he had visited me, they had been there, too, just out of sight.

It wasn’t that strange, was it? I mean, even back on Earth, the wealthy and powerful often had bodyguards or even a full entourage of staff with them wherever they went. How many times had I browsed the Internet and seen paparazzi pictures of this or that power couple who were accompanied by nannies, personal assistants, bodyguards, and hangers-on?

Prince Baiyu had been so easy-going in this manner that I had somehow thought of him as just another friend, but today’s incident had taught me that F. Scott Fitzgerald was right. The rich really are different from you and me.

***

That night, I had another dragon dream, and the next day, Shuye arrived with a logbook detailing the merchants he dealt with and how much each of them had paid for a kilo of potatoes.

“There was a big commotion when I arrived in the central market with the goods,” said Shuye. He seemed extremely pleased and proud of himself, as he should, because the total amount he showed us made Fengying’s eyes almost pop out of their sockets.

I had asked my housekeeper to join us because I had absolutely no idea what a good price for my harvest would be.

“Why? Are my potatoes better than the other spirit farmers’ produce?” I thought that was extremely unlikely since I was just a newbie and the potatoes were just low grade ones.

Shuye guffawed. “You-you-you’re just too much!”

“What?” I was baffled by his reaction. Deming had evaluated the potatoes himself, and there was no way that the Demon Chef could be wrong about food.

Fengying smiled at me benevolently and said, “Miss, you do know that you’re the only source of spirit food, right?”

“What?” I said again.

… Come to think of it, in Adventure Incarnate there had been thousands of players and, therefore, thousands of spirit farmers, but this was not the game.

Shuye was laughing so hard that he had to wipe away tears. I patiently waited until he had finished before saying, “Is that true? Am I the only spirit farmer in this area?”

“Yes. I thought you knew,” said Shuye. He shook his head as though he couldn’t believe how ignorant I was.

It’s not my fault that I was born in a different world and didn’t know how things worked in this one.

“There must’ve been a bidding war,” said Fengying.

“Next time I might use an auction house instead of selling it myself,” said Shuye. “I just thought it would be best to give the merchants a good taste of the products first. I was able to sell the rice to the White Tiger clan because everyone is familiar with spirit rice, but no one knew what to make of the potatoes.”

“What? People don’t know about potatoes?” I would’ve thought that potatoes were pretty common in this world.

“The previous spirit farmers have always grown rice, wheat, or herbs. The Lady will buy all the rice that you produce, but I don’t think she’s realized yet that the potatoes are just as good,” he said.

“But the human merchants liked it?”

“They didn’t know what to make of it either, but I set up a cauldron and boiled some. After I sold a few people one eighth of a potato for a gold piece, the word spread, and all the big merchants came running to buy my wares,” he said. “They’ll definitely want more in the future.”

“How clever of you! Well, I guess I am rich now?” I gave Shuye and Fengying a questioning look.

“You’ll definitely never need to worry about money as long as you keep on farming,” said Shuye.

“Great! And how are my new apprentices?” I said.

Shuye smiled. “The boy is a mouthy one, but the girls seem sweet.”

“Is everything ready?” I asked Fengying.

“Yes, and they’re already waiting at the meeting hall,” she said.

“Would you like to join us and witness the ceremony?” I asked Shuye.

“I’d love to,” he said.

When we arrived at the main hall, I saw the three teenagers standing at attention in the middle of the room in front of a small table that had a tea set on it. Deming and the other staff were standing behind them.

I sat down on the wooden couch in pride of place at the far side of the room, and Shuye took his seat next to me on a hardwood chair. He would be serving as the chief witness to this ceremony. Unlike Earth's formal education system, the people of this world learned a craft or profession through on-the-job training or apprenticeship. Apprenticeship normally started at age 12 and lasted for two to seven years. In essense, it was an exchange of labor for training and mentorship as well as room and board. Today's ritual marked the start of their apprenticeship period.

The three orphans each took a porcelain teacup from the table and walked forward until they were right in front of me. Then they knelt down and offered me the cups.

“This apprentice greets master,” they chorused.

I took each cup and drank a sip from it, placing it on a side table when I was finished. The three apprentices then bowed down until their foreheads touched the floor.

“Rise,” I said.

They stood up and bowed yet again, this time from the waist.

Shuye and the others clapped and congratulated me on acquiring three new apprentices.

“Thank you, thank you,” I said to them. When the applause had died down, I continued, “I’ll just take these three outside and show them the ropes.”

I gestured for the three teenagers to accompany me outside. The ceremony was nice, but now it was time for me to use the System to truly make them my apprentices.

The three of them were silent as we walked out of the house and into the forest. I wanted some privacy before I revealed the secret of the System to them.

The boy was of average height and was a little stout, with short, lackluster brown hair and brown eyes. His eyes were small, and his nose was slightly too large for his face.

As for the girls, they looked alike enough that they could be mistaken for sisters, though I knew from the records that the matron had sent that they were not related to each other.

They were both of average height and build. The two of them had shoulder-length brown hair that was straight and unremarkable. Their eyes were both brown and their faces were fairly plain.

I guess you could say that all three of them looked like typical Adventure Incarnate NPCs.

More importantly, their attributes were pretty good. The boy was [Loyal], [Ambitious] and [Lazy], which was okay since [Lazy] didn’t mean that he wouldn’t do a lot of work. It just meant that he would do less work than the average apprentice.

The two girls were both [Loyal], but one of them was [Diligent] and [Shy] while the other one was [Helpful] and [Bossy].

“What are your names?” I already knew, of course, but it was traditional for people to receive new courtesy names when they went under a mentor’s tutelage.

“Please give us new names,” they chorused.

I had thought long and hard about what names I would give my precious apprentices and I had come up with the perfect ones: Larry, Curly, and Moe!

One of my favorite Chinese idioms was 三個臭皮匠，勝過一個諸葛亮 which literally translates to "Three mediocre talents are enough to overcome Zhuge Liang," meaning even ordinary people can equal a genius if they work together. The "three mediocre talents" in this idiom can also translate to "The Three Stooges."

Though they wouldn't know what their names referred to, it was enough that I knew that these names encapsulated my expectation that these three ordinary orphans will one day equal a king.

“Very well,” I said solemnly. “From now on you will be called Lari, Kharli, and Mo. You’ve been told that I have a bloodline inheritance?”

All three of them nodded.

I said, “I have a way of letting you share in my skills. Now I will grant you a portion of my inheritance.”

I walked in front of the boy and a screen popped up in front of me when I chose the [Apprentices] tab.

[Do you want to make this orphan your apprentice?]

I mentally chose the [Yes] button.

The results were dramatic. The boy jumped back and lost his balance, falling on his ass on the ground.

“The, the, that-” He tried to say something, but most of it was incoherent.

“Don’t panic. Focus on the screen in front of you and think of choosing the ‘Accept’ option,” I said.

After a few seconds, the boy’s expression changed to a look of wonder. “I did it. I can see something in front of me-”

“That’s good, but don’t do anything. I’ll finish with the others first.” I moved to the older girl and did the same thing. She was able to accept the System’s offer with no problems, but when it came to the second girl, I hit a snag.

When I tried to make her my apprentice, she fell down on her knees and started crying.

Chapter 26 – Navigate the System

“What’s wrong?” I asked her, but all she did was cry. The poor girl was hysterical.

“Teacher, she can’t read…” said the older girl. She and the boy looked extremely worried.

“That’s all?” I was relieved. “It’s not a problem. Calm yourself and simply think ‘text to speech’ and the System will read the options out loud to you.”

It took several minutes for the girl to stop crying and compose herself enough to understand the System message and accept my offer to make her my apprentice.

“There’s no need to panic. All three of you are to become spirit farmers, not scholars, so it doesn’t matter if you can read or not,” I said. “Now you should be able to see that you have a magical resource that you can call upon when you need to. I call this the ‘System.’ Tell me what the System is showing you.”

I could see their stats, but I wanted to know what they could access. I started with the older girl, who beamed from ear to ear as she reported what she could see on the System screen.

[Apprentice Name: Kharli

Farming Skills:

Farming Level 1, Fishing Level 1, Woodcutting Level 1, Cooking Level 1, Herblaw Level 1, Foraging Level 1, Hunting Level 1]

To my surprise, the Crafting skill tab was also visible to her. Apprentices could only do farming tasks on Adventure Incarnate, so this was unexpected.

The boy's stats were the same.

[Apprentice Name: Lari

Farming Skills:

Farming Level 1, Fishing Level 1, Woodcutting Level 1, Cooking Level 1, Herblaw Level 1, Foraging Level 1, Hunting Level 1]

The younger girl’s stats, on the other hand, were slightly unusual in that she had a level 2 skill.

[Apprentice Name: Mo

Farming Skills:

Farming Level 1, Fishing Level 1, Woodcutting Level 1, Cooking Level 2, Herblaw Level 1, Foraging Level 1, Hunting Level 1]

“She used to help out in the kitchen,” said Kharli.

I made a mental note to instruct Kharli to let Mo speak for herself in the future, but I let it go this time.

“How do you feel about this?” I asked them. “If you’re not comfortable doing things this way, I can send you off with a bit of money, and you can find a different teacher.”

“Teacher, are you kidding?!” said Lari. “This has to be the best apprenticeship in the entire world! We’re all gonna be rich and famous! There’s no one else who would offer to teach a peasant orphan magical skills like this.”

Come to think of it, Shuye and Fengying had offered to find scions of noble families to serve as my apprentices, but I simply didn’t think that any nobles would be a good fit for my humble and quiet lifestyle. I mean, it’s true that Prince Baiyu had picked up a broom and started sweeping my garden path, but I’m pretty sure that that was unusual behavior. I bet the regular nobles in this world wouldn’t be caught dead doing manual labor.

Besides, Adventure Incarnate players always adopted orphans from Anwei, hence I thought that would be the best method for me.

The two girls said the same thing, though Mo whispered her words so softly that I could barely hear them.

“Before you agree, you should know that the bloodline inheritance is mine. I have granted you a portion of it, but you won’t be able to pass this on to your children.” They didn’t seem fazed by this, so I continued, “While you are my apprentices, I will provide everything you need, such as food, clothing, shelter, and training.”

They all nodded their agreement.

“You all start off as level 1 in farming. When you reach level 25, you will be considered a farmer in your own right, and when you reach level 50, you will be acknowledged as a master farmer. At that point, you can start your own farm. When you reach level 25, we can split the harvest 70-30 in my favor, and when you become master farmers, we’ll raise your share to 50 percent,” I said.

“Thank you, teacher,” said the three.

“Good. If you’re satisfied, then I’ll continue with the introduction to the System,” I said. I made a show of pulling out chairs and a large table from seemingly nowhere. “Let’s sit down and make ourselves comfortable.”

“Teacher, where did this come from?” asked Kharli. She and the others gingerly poked the chairs as though they were afraid the items were made of mist. Upon verifying that, yes, the chairs were just chairs, the three of them cautiously sat down.

“These are all items from the System,” I said. “I have something called an ‘inventory’ I can use to store items. Check yours.”

As expected, theirs were all empty. They only had twelve inventory spaces, too.

Now came one of the most important things I had to verify. I took out some seeds and asked the apprentices to touch them. Though Shuye and the others had been unable to do so, it might be different for my apprentices since in the game, players could give farm resources to their farm hands.

“What are these?” asked Lari. He picked up one of the seeds and moved it closer to his eyes. “It seems to be giving off light.”

“They’re obviously seeds, you dummy! What kind of farmer are you going to make when you don’t even know what a seed is?” said Kharli.

“These are seeds you will be using soon,” I said.

This was great! Of course, I did have the potato seeds that were unbound, but now that I knew that the three of them could use my items, that meant I didn’t have to worry about running out of seeds or other supplies.

“The most important thing for you to learn right now is how to navigate the System. You may leave now, and I want you to go to your rooms and spend the entire day looking at all the skills and skill descriptions. One of the maids will bring you your meals,” I said. “I’ll meet you tomorrow at the front gate at dawn.”

The three of them got up and bowed to me before running back to the house, high-fiving each other and chattering excitedly about all the skills they saw in the System.

Lari, Kharli and Mo, my own Three Stooges, looked like they were easy enough to handle, and I was looking forward to teaching them how to farm.

Let’s hope everything works out.

Chapter 27 – The most famous noble clan

They say there ain’t no rest for the wicked. The same is true for farmers, at least during the preparation phase.

Planting time came immediately after the allotted time for harvesting. There was no break in between. Fortunately, I didn’t lose any planting days when I went to Anwei because harvest time lasted for two weeks, and I had only needed one day to harvest my potatoes.

According to the System calendar, there were twelve days left of the harvest period. After that, my apprentices and I would have two weeks to plant crops.

In the meantime, what we had to do was to clear more land for the four of us to use. I consulted the three youngsters as to whether they each wanted separate fields, but we agreed to take care of all the crops together.

“Look at this map,” I said to them. They all gathered around me and looked at my roughly drawn sketch. “I placed the house on high ground, and this field here is closest, but I think that we should use the other parts of the forest instead of just expanding this field.”

“Teacher, do you mean to say you want fields that are farther away? Wouldn’t it be more convenient to just make this field bigger?” asked Lari.

I guessed that since he had the [Lazy] attribute he was the type who liked to look for the most convenient method. I patiently explained my reasoning to him, saying, “Different crops grow better in different conditions. It’s worthwhile to have more than one site.”

Pointing to different parts of the map, I said, “We will be using the existing field I cleared and making a new one farther away. In the future, I plan to have orchards and a kitchen garden near the house.”

Kharli nodded in understanding. “Because the house should be a quiet place? The maids already warned us we shouldn’t be rowdy.”

“Yes, it’s because I want the house to be a place of calm. Though in the future, I want to have my own small house that’s separate from the main house,” I said.

Then I pointed to the part of the farm allotment that was farthest from the residence. “This part is reserved for the farm animals. I want them there because I don’t want to be smelling horse manure when I’m eating my meals.”

“We’re going to raise animals? That’s great! I heard farmers make more money from raising pigs than from selling crops,” said Lari.

“Yes, but for now, we need to focus on raising your farming levels. Our current task is to expand this field. When it’s big enough, we will create another field in a different part of the forest,” I said. “It’s time to start. Now focus your mind and summon the System. Can you see it now?”

I waited a few minutes until they all said they could see the System screen.

“Do you see the little square that looks like a brown belt? That’s your toolbelt. Focus on it and think of an ax for woodcutting,” I said. “It should appear in your hand.”

“Ow!” Kharli was so startled when an ax really did appear in her hand that she dropped it and the handle hit her toe. She hopped around for a few minutes, holding her foot.

“… Are you okay?” I asked.

“I’m fine,” said Kharli. She picked up the ax, and we waited until the other two also had their tools.

“What metal is this made of, teacher?” asked Lari, who was examining the ax with great curiosity.

“I have no idea. It’s probably an alloy of some sort,” I said.

“What’s an alloy?” Lari asked.

“It’s a mixture of different metals,” I said. “Now watch me. All you have to do is swing the ax and hit a tree three times.”

My three apprentices were amazed when the top of the tree disappeared after I hit the trunk with my ax.

“It’s magic!” said Lari. His eyes were as wide as saucers.

“It’s amazing!” said Kharli. Her mouth had fallen open.

“…” Mo didn’t say anything, but her expression was also one of shock.

I continued hitting the tree twice more until only a stump was left. Then I hit the tree stump once to clear the land. “It’s that easy. Why don’t you three give it a try? Who wants to go first?”

To my surprise, Mo was the one who stepped forward. Perhaps she thought she had something to prove because of yesterday’s debacle. The other two apprentices cheered when Mo cut down her first tree.

“Well done,” I said. “Next.”

The other two were also able to cut down trees without incident.

“That’s perfect,” I said. “Congratulations on cutting down your first tree. I will be doing the same thing in the next eleven days, because we have to clear as much land as we can before the planting season.”

They continued with their work, but I was disappointed when each of them could only cut a total of three trees. When their energy ran out, they became too tired to even lift their axes. Lari and Mo even collapsed on the ground, panting. Kharli was not much better, but she was at least able to sit up.

“Teacher, I think we already used up all our energy,” said Lari.

I eyed their prone forms. “I can see that. Just rest there for a while. Every day that you work on the farm, your energy should increase slightly. Make sure that you sleep early and eat well.”

One couldn’t expect too much from three teenaged orphans who were probably undernourished. They should improve after a while. I continued woodcutting until my energy ran out, then we went back to the house for another of the Demon Chef’s excellent lunches.

That was the first meal I had with my apprentices, and when we finished, I called Fengying over.

“My apprentices need some lessons in table manners,” I said to her. “Can you do it, or do we need to hire a tutor?”

“Miss, don’t worry about it. I can teach them,” she said. “Chopsticks or northern style?”

“Both, of course,” I said.

“Northern style” meant using a knife and fork. We had used chopsticks at lunch, but given how horrible their table manners were, I was pretty sure that they didn’t know how to use a knife and fork either. I almost couldn’t eat my lunch because of how they, especially Lari, ate with their mouths open. Also, they ate way too fast, as though they were afraid the food was going to disappear if they didn’t shovel it into their mouths fast enough. That was undoubtedly because they had grown up in an orphanage, but I thought it was time for them to learn some manners.

“Aw, teacher, do we really have to? We’re just farmers,” said Lari. The fat little guy looked mutinous.

“If you don’t want to learn, you don’t have to, but you can’t eat at my table without learning proper table manners,” I said.

Kharli elbowed him hard in the ribs, muttering under her breath, “Shut up, you idiot. Do you want to be sent back to the orphanage?”

“An apprenticeship is a time when you learn not just work skills, but also the social graces,” I said. “Besides, a farmer with a prosperous farm is a respectable type of person. One day you could be dining with wealthy merchants, or even nobles, so it would be good for you to learn table manners.”

“Nobles?” Lari looked interested at this notion.

“Why not?” I asked. “Fengying, did the last spirit farmer dine with nobles?”

“Not only did he dine with nobles, he was a noble himself because the Lady granted him the title of Duke,” said Fengying.

“Really? He lived a few hundred years ago, you said. What happened to him?” I asked.

“He lived to be over two hundred years old, and his descendants are the most famous noble clan in Xishan today,” she said.

“There, you see? I’m not just asking you to do manual labor on my farm, I’m preparing you for a glorious future.” I gave my three new apprentices a big smile. “Now be good and be sure to learn properly from Fengying.”

I meant it, too. Now that I knew that I was the only spirit farmer in the Westerlands, I had no doubt that my Three Stooges could very well become important people in the future.

That’s why it was important to raise them well.

Chapter 28 – Rice to the Challenge: A New Quest

I had not been idle these last few months. Though I did still get tired after half a morning’s work, I had managed to clear a decent-sized field near the house. I let my apprentices cut down a few trees there in the next two days, but after that we walked to the middle of my farming allotment to clear a new field for us to use.

“This is the place that I’ve chosen because it’s near the river, but not so near that it will flood during the rainy season. The place near the house will be for the stuff that I want to eat, while this field will be cleared for a cash crop,” I said.

“Great!” said Lari. It figured that he was the type who was excited about earning money since he had the [Ambitious] characteristic.

“What crop?” asked Kharli.

“I’m thinking… Sugarcane. We can make sugar on the farm, and I know that it’s a luxury item the nobles would love to buy,” I said.

The single beehive I had placed on the farm had produced two jars of honey thus far, which was nice, but I also wanted to have sugar for cooking.

“That sounds great,” said Lari. The others nodded.

[Sugarcane:

A giant grass with long, narrow leaves, green stems, and small, white flowers. The plant’s stalk is full of a sweet juice that can be extracted and refined to produce sugar.]

Now that the plan was clear, we continued woodcutting. The kids could only cut three trees, but I could cut twelve. This time, my apprentices got tired, but they didn’t collapse on the ground anymore. That was a good thing because they could immediately walk themselves back to the house where an early lunch was waiting for us.

Since I knew that the hot spring facility from the Cash Shop helped replenish energy, I built a new, smaller one for them in an empty room, because I didn’t want to share mine. It was the only place in the house where I had complete privacy, so I wanted to keep it to myself.

When I showed them the place, they were in awe of all the “magical” items and facilities. My three apprentices were especially fascinated by the soap and shampoo that never ran out, but it turned out that they couldn’t be taken out of the house. The same was true of all the other items from the System that I had used to furnish the residence. People inside could use them or even move them to various areas, but only inside the four walls of the courtyard house.

After yet another excellent meal from the Demon Chef, we all took a bath and had a long nap. Food, rest, and a good, long soak in the hot spring did wonders for our stamina, and by late afternoon we had recovered some energy, hence we went back to the field and cleared a little more land.

It might not be the most exciting lifestyle, but I found it really satisfying to gradually transform this wild forest into an agricultural showcase.

Lately, ever since my apprentices had arrived, I had been daydreaming a lot about what the farm would look like in the future: cultivated fields as far as the eye could see, vast orchards, dozens of processing machines, lovely gardens, a picture-perfect ranch house, and plenty of livestock.

One day, I promised myself, I would have all that and more.

***

However, when I told Shuye of my plan to manufacture sugar, he raised a lot of objections.

“Please don’t do that. I can’t force you, but I really think it would be a bad idea because the clans are expecting to receive three sacks of rice every day,” said Shuye.

We were in the main hall where we always met now that I had a proper place to receive guests.

“Why? You guys don’t even eat human food!” I said.

To make sugar, I would have to remove the rice mill, since my low farming level meant that I could only have two buildings on the farm, my house and one other building. The plan was to grow sugarcane, then use a machine from the System to process it into sugar. Of course, I could sell the sugarcane itself, but that would be less than ideal since finished products sold for a lot more than raw materials.

“Adults from the clans don’t eat human food, but it’s a different story for our children,” said Shuye. “I didn’t tell you because I didn’t want to put too much pressure on you, but, unfortunately, the demand has far exceeded the supply, and I fear what would happen if it was cut off.”

“Oh?” In fact, wasn’t it a good thing that the clans wanted my rice that much?

Shuye got up from the chair and started pacing back and forth. “I went straight to the Lady when I had thirty sacks of rice. You see, I didn’t want to put her in a dilemma where she didn’t have enough to distribute among the clans. She had quite a difficult time with people trying to ask for a bigger rice allotment for various reasons.”

“Gosh, somehow I never would’ve thought that people from the God Beast clans would be quarreling over a bit of rice…” I said.

“Ha! If one of our oldest and most respected scholars hadn’t gone on record to say that one small rice ball every three days was all that our children could absorb properly, I fear what would happen if the parents thought their kids would benefit if they had more,” said Shuye. “I never in my life would’ve thought that I would be grateful that our fertility has been declining recently. As it is, we have barely enough to feed all the young ones.”

“Absorb?” Did their juveniles have undeveloped digestive systems?

“The rice is great because it contains very gentle qi, but there is still a limit to how much their young bodies can take in.”

Oh, so he was talking about qi. I remember that Fengying had said something about the qi in our food before, but I hadn’t paid any attention to it. After all, unlike the people of this world who had powers, I was not a cultivator. I had the System which meant that qi was irrelevant to me.

“Okay, I understand. It’s not a bad thing that the clans want my rice that badly. I can plant something else… by the way, what did they say about the potatoes?”

“Everyone agreed to overlook it because the harvest isn’t big enough to share with all the children,” said Shuye.

“Does this mean that I should plant rice?”

“No, we already have enough,” said Shuye. “Any more than what we have currently might pose a problem since people might start hoarding it.”

“Wow.” I was speechless. To think that the problem was that bad!

Shuye shook his head and sat down. “I hate to ask you to change your plans, but it’s been crazy. I’ve even heard a rumor that one of the children of the ruling family of the Deer Clan refused to eat anything but your spirit rice.”

“What happened?”

“Well…” Shuye lowered his voice even though it was only the two of us inside the room. “Allegedly, his clan members felt so sorry for him that all the other parents ‘voluntarily’ contributed a spoonful of rice each. The Lady had to put her foot down and return the rice to the others. She even wanted to ban that parent from future rice distributions, but the others persuaded her that it would be unfair to the child.”

“That’s crazy!”

“You’re not a parent, so you don’t know, but people will do anything if they think it will give their child an advantage,” said Shuye.

“Wait, what about you? Do you have kids?”

“I’ve been married for a long time, but we still haven’t had kids,” said Shuye. “We’re trying.”

He had barely finished speaking when the System pinged me with a [New Quest] notification.

[Curing Infertility:

Help the God Beast Clans with their fertility problem. Find five Dusk Dandelions.]

Chapter 29 – A-Maize-ing Adventures

Since the conversation had naturally turned in that direction, I probed Shuye for more information about it, and he told me he had been married for three decades, but still didn’t have any children.

“It’s a common problem. For the past few generations, the clans’ birth rate has declined significantly,” said Shuye. “Fortunately, there have been no wars or calamities that might have made our overall population too low to govern the Westerlands.”

“What do your doctors say?” I asked.

“This and that.” Shuye shrugged. “If we knew what caused it, we wouldn’t have the problem.”

I couldn’t tell Shuye how I knew, but I made a simple suggestion. “Did the problems start when the clans started refraining from eating ‘human’ food?”

“You’re not the first one to suggest that, and there might be some truth to it. You know, the traditional method of solving an infertility problem is for the couple to go on a retreat where they consume a certain diet which is different for each clan.”

“You’ve tried it?” I asked.

“It didn’t work for us, but it does work for certain couples. The Lady and her consort, for example, had Prince Baiyu when they tried that method. It’s a pity that it only worked for them once,” said Shuye.

“I see.”

The conversation moved on to other topics, and I didn’t mention that I might be able to help Shuye. The System’s solution required a lot of time.

[Curing Infertility:

Help the God Beast Clans with their fertility problem. Find five Dusk Dandelions.]

I knew where to find Dusk Dandelions, but I didn’t have time to do that right now because I needed to prepare for planting season. The quest didn’t have a deadline. Therefore, I decided to put it off until after I had planted the summer crops.

***

Since Shuye had warned me not to cease production of milled rice, I had to change my plans of planting sugarcane. The talk with him made me reconsider because it really seemed like people wanted ordinary food crops more than a luxury item. If people wanted to eat spiritual crops so much, it would be better to offer them something healthier and more hearty than sugar.

“I think I’ll use the nearest field to plant a good variety of crops for our household’s use. Also, instead of sugarcane, I’m thinking of planting either corn or wheat,” I said.

“Why not rice?” asked Lari.

We were eating fried potato chips in the outer courtyard during our afternoon break. I’d specifically requested this snack from the Demon Chef because I’d rarely been allowed to eat something this greasy by my mother, may she rest in peace.

Homemade potato chips were one of my top guilty pleasures, and I hadn’t been able to enjoy them ever since I was transmigrated into this world.

I picked up a hot potato chip, fresh out of the Demon Chef’s fryer, and dipped it into the ketchup from my inventory. The salty, savory, slightly greasy taste was like nothing else in this world, and I kept eating until my plate was clean, forgetting to answer my apprentice’s question.

“This is amazing,” said Kharli.

All of us nodded in agreement, and I asked for another plate. I think these potato chips might be addictive. Kharli, Mo, and I smiled at each other when Lari asked for a third plate of potato chips. We all liked the snack, but Lari really took it to another level. It was only after I had finished off all my potato chips that I remembered what we were talking about.

“Rice isn’t particularly easy to grow, and you guys are only level 1,” I said.

[Rice:

A grass from the Poaceae family, which includes other grasses such as millet, wheat, maize, and barley. They are typically grown in wet, flooded fields, known as paddy fields, that are kept under water by using a system of canals and dikes.]

I suppose I could flood the second field, but that would mean that I could only grow rice in it. Three out of four of us were level 1 farmers, which meant that it was possible for some crops to fail. Players’ crops almost never failed, but apprentices’ did if their level was low. The usual strategy to avoid that was to plant at least three different crops.

“Wheat sounds nice,” said Kharli. “I’m sure there will be a lot of demand for it.”

“Yes, I think so, too,” I said.

[Wheat:

A cereal plant with a lot of different species, such as durum wheat, emmer wheat, spelt wheat, and common wheat. The plant has a deep root system that helps it to withstand drought and soil erosion. It is a relatively easy crop to grow, and it is tolerant of a wide range of climates and soil types.]

“Is corn more expensive than wheat?” asked Lari.

[Corn:

A plant in the grass family Poaceae that is also called maize. Corn is an easy plant to grow, and does not require much care.]

“Not usually, but spirit crops are different from normal corn and wheat. We don’t know what the prices will be until we bring them to market,” I said. “It depends on the quality of our harvest.”

There were nods all around. I had previously impressed upon them the importance of “quality” rather than quantity. Three sacks of low-quality potatoes would definitely sell for much less than half a sack of good quality potatoes. As for high or excellent quality ones, they were so rarely seen that no one knew what they would sell for.

“Are you done eating?” I asked Lari.

After he finished his plate, we all went to the second field to cut more trees to clear more land. We were all tired from this morning’s work, but the day after tomorrow was the first day of planting season, and we were eager to have as much farming space as possible.

***

The next day, I woke up bright and early at dawn after a delightful dream of playing with my baby dragon. The dreams were really nice, and I noticed that my dream dragon was growing up rapidly, which actually made me a little sad because the tiny, newly hatched version was my favorite.

Since planting season started tomorrow, I had given the kids the day off, instructing them to eat and rest so that their energy gauge could refill to the max level. I reckoned we had cleared enough land, and that it would be a waste of time to cut more trees, since my apprentices’ limited abilities meant they wouldn’t be able to till and sow as much as I could.

While the Three Stooges were resting, I planned to spend the day getting my first kills, because I was bored with spending all that time woodcutting.

When I first started practicing archery, I had promised myself that I would train at least three times a week. I mostly kept that promise, but was getting too monotonous. Hence, I’d asked my Farm Guide to accompany me to the Horned Rabbits’ Valley.

Chapter 29.5

An excerpt from the journal of Shuye Skullcrusher, Guardian of the Ancient Hill Forest:

What a waste! I saw Violet’s new apprentices summoning items from their soul space and using the bloodline inheritance she granted them, and I could only shake my head at the folly of it all. I told her I could very easily find apprentices from noble families and famous cultivation clans, but she insisted on taking in some orphans with no money, connections, or talent instead.

Today, she told me the real reason why she refused my offer.

“I don’t think noble children would like living in my humble farm,” is what she said.

That doesn’t make sense. She provides spiritual rice, vegetables, and fruit as well as demon meat at every single meal. Since the orphans came to her with nothing, she also bought them the finest silk clothing from Anwei. The apprentices live in a house full of magical items. She even provided them with a hot spring full of spirit water that boosts cultivation greatly.

What sort of place did she live in before she came here that she thinks this lifestyle is a modest one?

Chapter 30 – Hare Today, Gone Tomorrow

“Nice outfit,” said Shuye.

I was wearing the newbie archer gear from Adventure Incarnate which consisted of leather gloves, boots, cowl, vambraces, chaps, and vest. Summer started tomorrow, therefore the days were getting hot and muggy. I thought that the leather would be too much, but some sort of System magic made them comfortable enough to wear. I didn’t even creak when I moved.

The complete set gave a small bonus to archery and boosted my BR.

[Battle Rating:

A number that represents that character’s overall power and fighting ability, which is determined by a variety of factors, such as the character’s stats, equipment, puppet, bonuses, and abilities. The higher the BR, the stronger the character is.]

Back when I played Adventure Incarnate, my character was maxed out in combat and I had a battle rating of over 50,000. BR was used for both players and monsters, which allowed people to easily check if they were outmatched or not.

My current BR was pretty pathetic.

[Violet

Level 1

HP: 100/100

BR: 26]

“Thank you,” I said.

Shuye was wearing his usual brown robe. He rubbed his hand in anticipation and said, “Where are we going?”

“Uh, let’s just take a walk. I’m sure we’ll find something,” I said. It was annoying, but I couldn’t exactly say, “Even though I’ve never been there, I know exactly where the Horned Rabbits live.”

The sun shone through the trees, creating a patchwork of light and shadow on the forest floor. During spring, the ground was covered in a moist and thick layer of leaves and moss. Mushrooms and ferns grew everywhere, and wildflowers bloomed prettily in the sunnier areas of the forest.

We weren’t in a rush, so we walked at a moderate pace, the better to enjoy another beautiful day.

Using the System map, I walked us in a northeasterly direction, with me stopping once in a while to gather wild mushrooms , berries, and herbs. After three hours, we reached a low cliff jutting over a small valley.

Shuye and I looked down at the dozen or so Horned Rabbits that were hopping around below us.

[Horned Rabbit:

A unique creature found in the old-growth forests of the world. They look like regular rabbits except for the large, curved horns which protrude from their head. Horned rabbits are fast and agile, making them hard to catch. Their diet consists of leaves, grass, and other vegetation.]

Shuye’s hand shook as he pointed at the monsters. “What are those?”

“Horned Rabbits. They’re very common, aren’t they? I see them around a lot when I’m out foraging,” I said. I couldn’t understand why he was acting so shocked. His eyes were almost bulging out of their sockets, and his mouth was open. “They’re not that aggressive, but I wouldn’t want to fight more than one because they’re quite fast.”

I checked the nearest one.

[Horned Rabbit:

Type: Melee

Element: None

BR: 28]

Not only were they fast, they even had a higher Battle Rating than me.

“They look like a really troublesome foe,” I said.

“This can’t be right.” Shuye still seemed rattled. “I know every inch of these woods, but I’ve never seen these…”

He pointed down at the cute little white rabbits. They looked exactly like cute white rabbits, except for the fact that they had one to three horns.

“Do you think the number of horns indicates how strong they are?” I asked Shuye. “I’d like you to stay here beside me and just observe for now. We’re far enough from them I don’t think I’ll be in any danger, but it’s always good to be careful. You’ll protect me, right?”

“Of course!” Shuye looked somewhat insulted.

“Okay, I’ll limber up a little before starting,” I said.

The long walk here had tired my legs a little, but my upper body was feeling a little stiff, so I did a few stretches before taking out a wooden bow and a quiver of arrows from my inventory.

The Combat Screen appeared, showing the Battle Rating of each individual Horned Rabbit. The Action Bar showed the abilities that I could use.

[Archery Skills:

Piercing Shot

Rapid Fire

Escape]

My thrice weekly archery training sessions hadn’t leveled up my combat, but I was now much more confident in using my skills.

I slowly drew my bow and took careful aim at the monsters below me. Then I released the arrow, which soared through the air and sank into a Horned Rabbit’s small body. It let out a small cry of pain before falling to the ground, dead. I felt somewhat queasy at killing a living thing with my arrows for the first time.

Below us, the rabbits seemed unconcerned. Weren’t they disturbed by the smell of blood? I would’ve expected most of them to flee the first time that one of their members was killed.

“Good shot,” said Shuye.

I had only used a “regular” shot, meaning I hadn’t used one of the System abilities. How amazing to think that I was actually able to take down a Horned Rabbit using just my own archery skill! However, I did also want to check how effective Piercing Shot and Rapid Fire were.

“Okay, here goes nothing,” I said as I activated Piercing Shot.

[Piercing Shot:

Imbue the arrow with energy, allowing it to pierce through enemies. The shot is incredibly powerful and can often take down multiple foes with a single arrow.

Cooldown: 5 seconds]

Although the description said I was imbuing the arrow with energy, I felt nothing as I lined up my shot and let the arrow fly, nor did the arrow magically glow. It wasn’t like a game where every skill was accompanied by a flashy animation.

Nonetheless, Piercing Shot was still impressive from a combat viewpoint because even I, a newbie, could clearly see that it was a lot more powerful than my previous shot. The arrow flew so fast that I could barely see its path, and it quickly found its mark. The Horned Rabbit was dead instantly.

Shuye gave me a look of respect. “Is this really your first time?”

“My first time hunting a real, live target,” I said. “I’ve practiced a lot though.”

“Well done,” he said.

I think perhaps the first two might have been a fluke, because I missed the mark the next three times.

Rapid Fire, in particular, was a disaster.

[Rapid Fire:

Fire a rapid succession of five arrows. This ability is great for taking down multiple targets quickly or for taking down a single target with a lot of arrows.

Cooldown: 5 seconds]

The skill made me shoot faster, but the accuracy was lower, which made me decide to use Piercing Shot instead. While I didn’t get the same notifications that I did in the game, I did notice that certain shots killed a rabbit instantly, while others did not. Those must’ve been Critical Hits.

Archery was very tiring. After using around twenty arrows, my arms were already getting tired although I had only killed twelve monsters.

“I’m taking a break,” I said to Shuye.

“Then do you want me to retrieve your kills for you?” asked Shuye.

“You’re going down there? I’m not sure that’s a good idea. I don’t need the meat, and I don’t know if they will attack you if you walk right in the middle of their home,” I said.

“They’re just rabbits!” said Shuye.

“You can fly down there?” I asked.

As expected, Shuye nodded his head.

“I can, but don’t judge everyone based on Prince Baiyu’s abilities. There aren’t many in all the Westerlands who can fly like that,” said Shuye. “That’s why I use the flying cart.”

“Then are you going to walk down there?” I pointed at the valley below us.

“I can’t fly as well as the prince, but this much is nothing,” he said.

He didn’t bother to discuss it further with me and just leapt down the cliff. I let out a little scream of surprise. However, I shouldn’t have been worried because he was perfectly fine. In the middle of his fall, Shuye’s form blurred as though it was underwater, and his body shifted into his beast form.

Even though Shuye was from the White Tiger clan, he had explained to me that most of his fellow clan members had somewhat unorthodox beast forms. Only the ruling family had the ideal traditional conformation. Thus, I wasn’t surprised to see that Shuye turned into a light orange tiger with white stripes.

“Be careful!” I called down at him.

Shuye let out a growl, and the Horned Rabbits scattered. He took a carcass in his mouth and jumped back up to where I was. He placed the remains of the monster in front of me, then went back down a few more times to retrieve the others.

“Thank you,” I said when he had finished retrieving all my kills.

The tiger form blurred and Shuye appeared in his human form in front of me.

“You’re not scared?” he asked me.

I put a hand over my mouth to hide my smile. “No, in fact, I was extremely scared that when you shape shifted back to your human form, you might not have clothes on!”

Shuye guffawed. “Hey, little girl, I’m not Prince Baiyu.”

“What do you mean by that?! Is Prince Baiyu naked when he turns human?” I gave him a disbelieving look.

“No, not normally, but he might do it if it’s you,” said Shuye.

“Ah…” I was somewhat relieved because I didn’t like the thought that Prince Baiyu was always running around naked after he shifted. “Never mind that. I’m having my lunch.”

I put away my weapon and took out a packed lunch from my inventory. The Demon Chef had prepared rice balls, pickled vegetables, boiled egg, and chicken meatballs for me. I sat down on some soft grass and ate the delicious meal while chatting about this and that with Shuye.

He absolutely insisted that Horned Rabbits were not common in these woods. I think he had some plan to wipe them out.

“Why do you have to kill all of them? They aren’t demons, are they? I think having some spirit beasts is good for the forest,” I said in between bites.

“I don’t like them,” said Shuye.

“Maybe you could just monitor them first?”

“Maybe.”

Well, he was the Farm Guide, not me, hence it was his decision to make.

By the time I finished eating, a few of the rabbits had returned. I picked the targets that were bigger and slower than the others, and succeeded in killing a few more. My stamina wasn’t that good, so I had to stop after my arms started to ache.

A few more kills under my belt, I leveled up my Archery to 3.

[Violet

Level 1

HP: 100/100

Strength: 1/99

Attack: 1/99

Archery: 3/99

Magic: 1/99]

I had a long way to go, but it was a good start. Leveling up twice in a day only happened when you were extremely low level since the game was designed to be easy to play but hard to max. Newbie players could expect rapid advancement that gradually slowed down until leveling up became a rare occasion worth celebrating.

My BR increased a little, yet my HP was unchanged. It would also take more than that to increase my overall combat level.

[Violet

Level 1

HP: 100/100

BR: 32]

“I’m done for today,” I said to Shuye.

“When shall I accompany you again?” he asked.

“I’ll be too busy in the next two weeks.”

Tomorrow was a very important day, the first day of planting season, and I needed to focus on it to the exclusion of everything else.

Chapter 31 – Year 1 Summer: Planting Vegetables for Peas of Mind

Everyone in the house, including me, was all fired up for the first day of planting season. I woke up an hour before dawn and the kitchen was already bustling. I took a shower and put on my oldest farming clothes before joining the others for a hot breakfast.

“Can we watch?” asked Fengying.

“Sure, why not? Just keep your distance, please,” I said.

My apprentices all appeared nervous. Lari coped by eating even more than he normally did, while Kharli kept on fussing over Mo, who seemed the calmest of the three, though she hadn’t spoken a word at all.

We waited until dawn broke and walked to the second, farther field where I had decided we should start tilling.

“Don’t worry, it’s as easy as woodcutting. Go to the toolbelt and get out the hoe,” I said. “Don’t do anything yet. Watch what I do.”

I walked to a corner of the field and faced north. When I swung my hoe down, it automatically tilled five square tiles. A “tile” in the game translated to a square space that was around three steps wide. That is to say, three of my steps. It’s not like I had a measuring tape here, so I didn’t know the exact measurement.

Fengying, Deming, and the other staff were watching from the far side of the field. I wondered if they were disappointed that nothing much was happening. I don’t know why they wanted to watch, since farming wasn’t exactly a spectator sport.

I tilled the land five more times until my energy bar was half empty.

“It’s that easy,” I said to my apprentices. “You don’t have to do anything but swing the hoe. Who wants to go first?”

To my surprise, Mo stepped forward. Still waters run deep, I suppose.

Since she was always quiet and unassuming, it was easy for people to underestimate her, yet Mo showed real promise. Of the three of them, she was the most hard-working and patient.

Unlike me, Mo could only till one square at a time, but she had no difficulty doing it.

“Great,” I said when she stopped. She had managed to till a total of ten squares. “How is your energy?”

“It’s almost fully drained,” she said.

Her voice was still almost too soft to hear, however, her tone was even and fairly confident. No longer was she stuttering or looking down at her feet when she spoke. I mentally patted myself on the back when I saw how greatly her attitude had improved.

“All right, next!” I said.

Kharli and Lari each managed to till ten squares.

“Good job, everyone,” I said. “Now watch closely as I show you the full procedure for planting crops.”

I took out a sack of organic fertilizer. The top of it was already open, and when I waved it over a row of tilled soil, the contents flew out and settled on the nearest five squares. Next, I got a handful of wheat seeds, put them in a seed dispenser. When I held the seeder over the tilled soil, fifteen seeds flew out from the tip and embedded themselves in the soil, three per square. Lastly, I got my watering can and watered the five tiles.

“Any questions?” I asked. My three apprentices shook their heads. “We’re all out of energy, so let’s go back to the house to rest.”

“I wish I could do more,” said Lari.

“Can we go back later?” asked Kharli.

“No. Draining your energy completely might make you collapse, and you would lose a day or two of work,” I said. “Be patient.”

“I want to plant a lot of crops so I can harvest a ton of wheat!” said Lari. “When will I level up farming?”

“Tomorrow, probably,” I said.

The others saw that we had finished working and joined us. Fengying congratulated all of us in turn and we walked back to the house in good spirits.

Farming might not be the type of activity that made one’s pulse pound with excitement. Nevertheless, there was something extremely satisfying about it. I looked back at the field with a sense of contentment, knowing that little by little, I was improving my farming skills. I wouldn’t have been able to do even half of that a few months ago.

So it went for the next week. The four of us worked hard in the morning and rested well until the next day, when we started over again. By the seventh day, we had finished planting the wheat and corn crops.

“We’ve finished planting our main crops and tilled this field, which means that it’s now time to learn a basic technique,” I said. “Today I will teach you about companion planting.”

Lari, Kharli, and Mo’s heads jerked upwards, their eyes focusing on a point slightly above their heads. I knew that was because they had received the same quest that I had gotten yesterday. The ability to give farm hands the same quest that you had existed in Adventure Incarnate, and it was a great way to level them up faster.

“Teacher, teacher, there’s something happening with the System,” said Lari.

“I know. Read it out loud to me,” I said.

[Quest: Perfect Partners

Plant eight tiles with companion plants.]

Lari obediently read the quest text out loud.

“Now click on the quest text,” I said.

The three orphans looked at each other.

“What’s wrong?” I asked.

“Teacher, what do you mean by ‘click?’” asked Kharli.

I smiled. Sometimes I forgot that this was a totally different world. Of course, they didn’t have computers here, therefore “clicking” was an alien idea to them. “Just focus on it and think ‘more information.’”

“I see!” said Lari.

[Companion Planting

The practice of growing plants with complementary traits next to each other in order to improve their growth and health.

There are many combinations of plants that can be used for companion planting, and the best way to find out which plants work well together is to experiment. Some plants that are known to be good companions include beans and corn, tomatoes and basil, and cabbage and onions.]

“Normally, we can only plant one type of seed on one square, but if two or more crops are compatible, you can plant them together,” I said. “Shall we try?”

[Companion Planting: Basil and Tomatoes

Basil releases a chemical called eugenol which helps to keep pests away from tomatoes while tomatoes release a chemical called lycopene which helps to keep basil leaves from turning brown. Planted together, they benefit each other.]

“Do you know what ‘basil’ is?” Kharli asked Mo, who shook her head.

“You’ll see when it grows,” I said.

I handed them the seeds and watched as they planted four squares each. Then I gave them cabbage and onion seeds.

[Companion Planting: Cabbage and Onions

The powerful scent of onions repels pests that cabbage is susceptible to, like cabbage root flies, whiteflies, aphids, and slugs.]

Once they had finished planting four more squares, they all completed their first quest.

[Perfect Partners: Quest Complete

Reward: Farming Exp]

There were screams, hugs, and clapping all around as the kids leveled up their farming level.

“Congratulations, everyone, on level 3,” I said. “Now I will show you a tried and tested method for growing corn, beans, and squash. Read the section on ‘The Three Sisters.’”

[Companion Planting: The Three Sisters

A Native American method of planting corn, beans, and squash together in the same mound. The corn grows tall and provides a support for the beans to climb. The squash spreads along the ground, providing ground cover and preventing weeds from growing.This method of planting results in a bountiful harvest of all three crops.]

When they asked me what “Native American” meant, I simply told them it was “a System term” that I couldn’t explain.

“Does this give more experience, teacher?” asked Mo.

It was good that she was now asking questions and not just staying quiet and hiding behind Kharli.

“Most of the farming experience that we will get is based on the number of crops that we harvest, so we can’t tell right now whether we will get more experience. We’ll know in two months’ time,” I said. “Using one or two techniques helps, but a good harvest depends on many factors, such as the quality of the soil, the weather, pests, and so forth.”

The three of them nodded their heads because they’d heard this before.

“All right, I’ll do this,” I said.

Since I had the same quest, I fertilized eight tiles before planting the seeds, but, alas, the farming experience that I got as a reward was not enough to level up my farming skill.

[Player Name: Violet

Farming Skills:

Farming Level 12, Fishing Level 8, Woodcutting Level 12, Cooking Level 1, Herblaw Level 3, Foraging Level 3, Hunting Level 1, Mining Level 1]

Today we had been able to plant a lot of seeds, therefore I had no doubt that we would all reap a bountiful harvest, not just of crops, but also of farming experience.

“How is your energy?” I asked the others.

“Gone,” said Lari.

The others nodded their heads in agreement. Though they could only till one tile at a time, fertilizing and planting seeds took less energy, so they were able to finish the quest today.

I’m pretty sure that a normal farmer would only choose three to five crops to grow, but I was now living in another world where I was the only one who could plant spirit crops.

In the past week after the harvest, I had found out that there was an enormous gap in taste between the Alabaster Spirit Potatoes I had grown and the regular potatoes that Shuye’s suppliers bought us from the market. Regular potatoes tasted fine, especially since they were cooked by the Demon Chef, yet the difference was still like that of heaven and earth. Now that I had tasted the fried potato chips made with Alabaster Spirit Potatoes, I found it hard to enjoy the regular ones.

Therefore, my goal was to improve my diet by growing a lot of different seeds.

The Three Stooges agreed with me, so we cheerfully planted garlic, parsnip, turnip, daikon, potato, sweet potato, carrot, bell peppers, radish, tomato, eggplant, cucumber, bok choy, spinach, bitter melon, jicama, ginger, leeks, cauliflower, pineapple, melon, taro root, ube, chili peppers, and sui choy, which is known as Napa cabbage on Earth.

This took the entire six days that we had left.

I knew that back on Earth, many of these plants wouldn’t have been grown from seed, but the System used seeds almost exclusively, and it all worked out somehow.

I didn’t bother to grow the vegetables that I didn’t like, such as the slimy ones like okra and mountain yam. To be honest, I would’ve skipped growing the chilis because I was afraid of what the Demon Chef would do with them. However, Deming requested them specifically, which meant that I had no choice but to grow some for the household. Fengying promised me that her husband could easily cook less spicy dishes for me. I really hoped that was the case.

“Incredible! Look at all this,” I said as I waved my hand at the newly planted field.

“I wish I had more energy to plant more potatoes,” said Lari. “Then I could eat fried potatoes every day!”

“Teacher already told you it’s not healthy to eat the same food every day,” said Kharli.

“I like that there are a lot of different vegetables,” said Mo.

I noticed that the three of them often took turns speaking, which was very nice of them as I am sure that more boisterous children would’ve just talked over Mo.

“I do love fried potatoes… But my favorite is baked potato topped with sour cream or bacon and cheese,” I said.

We walked back to the main house talking about our favorite foods. I think I’ve turned my apprentices into foodies!

Chapter 32 – A Berry Good Foraging Lesson

My apprentices were intrigued when they saw water shooting out from the end of my watering can and raining down on five squares at a time.

“I want to do that, too!” said Lari.

“Amazing!” said Kharli.

“It’s too early to be amazed,” I said. “Now take out a watering can from your System toolbelt and water the plants yourselves.”

The three of them positioned themselves at the head of a row of crops and did as I instructed. They could only water one tile at a time, and they had to refill their watering cans at the well every 5 tiles.

It wasn’t until we had gone to the second field that I realized that I had forgotten something important.

“Argh! There’s no water source here!” I said.

“It’s no problem, teacher,” said Kharli. “We can get water from the well near the house.”

“I don’t want us to waste time walking back and forth between the two fields,” I said.

My watering can could hold more water than one would expect given its small size. I suppose it had some sort of storage magic spell inside of it. The apprentices’ watering can, on the other hands, had a much lower capacity. Thus, I should dig another well.

“I’ll just look around for a good place,” I said to them.

Calling up the System map, I saw that there were a few suitable spots, with the nearest one right at the edge of the field. Perfect!

I walked on over to the correct place, and the System started digging the well for me. A glowing magic circle appeared on the ground, and there was a loud grrrakka kkakkakkak akk sound like a jackhammer.

Lari, Kharli, and Mo came running to see what the System was doing.

“It’s magic!” said Lari.

They all stared at the magic circle with wide eyes. Kharli even dared to touch it, even with the other two yelling at her to stop.

“Don’t do it, you’ll die!” said Lari.

“Nooo!” Mo moaned softly, but I noticed she didn’t actually try to pull Kharli away.

I let them play around. After all, I really doubted that the System would harm them. After seeing that Kharli was unharmed, the other two started poking and prodding the magic circle.

“It’s a magic circle just like they describe in children’s stories,” said Mo.

“Are you saying our teacher is a witch?” asked Lari.

“Shhh,” said Kharli.

I shook my head and continued watering the crops until I was out of water. Then I took the kids with me back to the well near the house and had them pull up dozens of buckets of water. Fortunately, this activity didn’t use up energy in the same way that watering the crops did.

Once again, I was reminded that the “energy” that we needed for farming tasks was totally different from what one ordinarily meant by “energy.”

After confirming that we could replenish the watering cans using the buckets of water, I put the buckets in my inventory and we went back to the second field to finish watering the crops. It was a clever solution, if I do say so myself.

By midmorning, we finished our chores and returned to the house to rest before lunch. My apprentices still had a bit of energy left, therefore I decided to introduce them to a new skill: Foraging. I told Lari, Kharli, and Mo to rest, but they begged me to let them show the magic to the others.

Fengying, Deming, and the others were intrigued by the kids’ tale of a magical well that I was building and asked for permission to look at it, too.

“Sure, but don’t do anything excessive. Please don’t jump inside the hole,” I said. “I’m not responsible if you do something stupid and die, okay?”

“I’ll make sure to supervise them properly,” said Fengying.

“Fine,” I said. I didn’t want to be too strict with them, and we were here on an isolated farm in the middle of the woods, where there wasn’t much entertainment to be found. “You can spend another hour outside. Make sure you return before lunch to rest.”

“Yes! Come on, it’s amazing!” Lari grabbed Yinuo’s hand and ran off with her.

Kharli and Mo rolled their eyes and followed at a more sedate pace with the staff.

***

Two hours after lunch and a bath in the hot spring, we had recovered some of our energy. I didn’t want to waste it, which meant that we had a choice of several activities we could do in the afternoon: Farming, Fishing, Woodcutting, Cooking, Foraging, and Hunting.

Farming was obviously the most important, but it also used up the most energy, and we wouldn’t be able to do much with the amount we had left. Of the other five skills, I reckoned that foraging was the best use of our time. We still had a lot of meat and fish, but we were running out of vegetables and fruit.

To be more precise, we were running out of spirit vegetables and fruit.

Before I had hired the Demon Chef and the others, I had mainly subsisted on food items from my inventory, but now I had to ask Shuye to augment our supplies with food from the nearest village, Wuxi.

Of course, all Shuye could buy was regular ingredients. If I wanted spirit fruit and vegetables, I would have to forage for them.

“We just have to walk around?” asked Kharli.

“Yes, and there will be a yellow arrow on your System map when we’re near a spot where wild spiritual plants grow,” I said.

The sun shone through the trees, dappling the ground with light and shadow. Above us, birds flitted from branch to branch, their bright plumage a pleasing contrast to the dark leaves. The air was thick with the scent of the trees and the earth, the smell of summer.

It was a great day for foraging, but I was wary of more Horned Rabbits, so I kept Mr. Bear on [Guard Mode] to scan our surroundings while we explored the northern part of the forest. My three apprentices had been delighted when I first introduced them to Mr. Bear. The use of puppets and magical tools was known in this world, though they were uncommon in the Westerlands, hence they readily accepted the fact that I had an animated plushie as a guardian and didn’t ask any inconvenient questions.

“I can’t believe spiritual plants grow in the wild like this,” said Lari. “Why don’t people know about this?”

“What makes you think they don’t know about it?” I asked.

“Because if they did, this forest would be full of people foraging! Just one spiritual fruit sells for more than a farmer makes in a year,” said Lari.

I didn’t know about that. There hadn’t been a spirit farmer in decades, which meant that there wasn’t really a set price for spirit fruit.

“That is strange,” said Kharli.

“What matters is that we can fill our bellies with good food if we can forage a lot today,” I said.

We walked on for more than an hour before we found something.

[Wood Ear Mushrooms:

An edible mushroom with a ruffled, wavy body that gives it its name. It typically grows on dead or dying trees. Nutritious and filling, the wood ear mushroom has a sweet, smokey, and earthy flavor.]

“Just place your hand over the items, and think ‘forage.’ The System will automatically place the items in your inventory,” I said. “It’s very convenient, isn’t it?”

I reached out towards the patch of wood ear mushrooms growing on a fallen tree, and half of them disappeared into my inventory.

“My turn?” asked Lari.

“No. Only one person can forage one spot,” I said. “Try it, if you want.”

The three of them tried to forage the mushrooms, but failed.

“Teacher, the System says ‘No mushrooms left,’ but I can clearly see there are more here,” said Lari. “Why don’t I just pick some myself?”

Without waiting for permission, he reached out and plucked off a mushroom.

“Nooooo!” I cried. “You can’t do that!”

Lari looked baffled. “Why not?”

I sighed. “We should forage in an ethical manner. Whenever we forage using the System, we always leave some plants behind. Never, ever, take every single plant. You know that these are all precious and rare species, right?”

I waited until all of them nodded before continuing.

“What do you think would happen if we took all of these plants from everywhere in the forest?” I asked.

The three of them looked at each other, and it was Mo who finally answered. “Then there won’t be any left?”

“Yes. For example, many plants have edible leaves, but if we take all the leaves from a plant, it will be difficult for it to survive. Always leave some items behind so that there will always be more for us to forage later. Don’t be greedy,” I said.

Lari looked abashed and dropped the mushroom he had picked.

“Look at the mushroom patch. Notice that the System didn’t take the biggest ones. It’s good to always leave the best specimens alone so that these wild plants will grow better and better. You must now think of yourself as not just a farmer, but also a caretaker of sorts of the forest.”

I must say that was quite a passionate speech that I just gave, but this was something that needed to be said.

“I understand, teacher,” said Mo. “Thank you for teaching us your philosophy.”

The three of them bowed deeply to me.

Wow! There was no “Teaching” skill in the game. Nevertheless, I thought I had gained a level.

Chapter 33 - Lettuce feast together!

Last night, I dreamed of my baby dragon, who was basically a little blue lizard with wings, turning into a human toddler. What?! Weird.

Habit made me wake up promptly at dawn, even though I didn’t need to. I kicked the covers off and stretched my arms over my head. Ah, my bed was really the best! I’d chosen the biggest, most luxurious one from the Cash Shop, and it was absolutely perfect. The mattress was hard but springy, and the beddings were made of the best quality cotton.

The only fly in the ointment was that the bed was almost too hot to sleep in now that we were in the summer season. The others had told me it would get hotter, much hotter, soon.

Should I turn on the climate control yet? I had refrained from using any of the house’s advanced settings because I didn’t want to spook the normies, but sooner or later I would probably use it.

Hmmm. Not today. It wasn’t that hot yet.

I snoozed for a few minutes more before getting up and going to the bathroom sink to wash my face and brush my teeth. Fengying had been horrified when she saw I had a toilet and shower inside my suite. Toilets were considered dirty in this world, and having one inside your room was considered beyond the pale. Though I mostly took her advice about the house, I stood firm about this one.

There’s no way I’m going to use an outdoor toilet again if I can help it!

Once I finished my daily routine, I went to my tiny dining room that I had furnished with comfortable chairs upholstered with lushly embroidered silk brocade and a small carved rosewood table.

I was still yawning when Yinuo, one of the maids, arrived with my breakfast.

“Miss Violet, Madam Fengying asked me to remind you that Prince Baiyu will be visiting today,” she said.

“Okay.” I was way too sleepy to say anything more.

I only woke up after I had finished eating my hearty breakfast of tea, soy milk, crullers, and shaobing, a layered flatbread stuffed with spiced pork. The Demon Chef’s meals really had a way of perking me up.

Today was the fifth day of the summer growing season, and I had instructed my apprentices to water the fields by themselves. Lari and Kharli were coming along nicely, and Mo had surprised all of us by leveling up farming. She must have some hidden characteristic that made her gain more experience faster. Now she was level 4 while the others were level 3. Without me to help them, they would undoubtedly deplete all of their energy, therefore I gave them the rest of the day off.

As for me, I had the entire day off.

The only thing on my schedule was a morning full of self-care and the afternoon visit by Prince Baiyu. I had lost count of the days he had spent sweeping the path around the house, but he’d stopped visiting right after he flew me back from Anwei. I figured he’d lost interest in me, though he had sent word through Shuye that he wouldn’t be able to see me for a while because he was busy with his work. Apparently, it was time for him to go over his clan’s yearly budget with the elders.

Now, finally, he had sent a message that he had some free time and wanted to see me this afternoon.

Fengying popped by to visit me while I was selecting the clothes I was going to wear today.

“Miss Violet, are you sure Prince Baiyu will be joining you for dinner?” she asked me, not for the first time.

I understood her skepticism. Eating human food was taboo for the clans because of an incident hundreds of years ago when there was a famine, and the God Beasts nobly gave their share of food to their human subjects, thereby discovering that they could survive by eating demons. That emergency measure had turned into a tradition, and, according to Shuye, it was a matter of pride among adult clan members that they were strong enough to live by hunting and eating demons.

Prince Baiyu had sent a message that he was arriving before dusk and staying until midnight. Consequently, he would be here during the evening meal. It’s not like I could tell him to go away while we were eating and come back when we were finished. We were in the middle of a forest, not a city, so there was nowhere for him to go.

“He won’t be eating anything; he’ll just sit with us,” I said.

“Why?” she asked.

I laughed evilly. “Haven’t you been complaining that Lari refuses to learn proper table manners? When the kids finish their chores, tell them they will be joining us.”

“But Lari isn’t ready! He’ll disgrace himself!”

Fengying didn’t have to say it, but we both understood that that would also reflect badly on me as his teacher.

“He’s smart, and I have faith that he’ll master it today,” I said. Basic table manners weren’t that hard to learn, therefore I wasn’t too worried. “By the way, make sure he knows he can’t pretend to be sick and skip dinner. Perhaps you can emphasize to him that it’s a good thing for him to meet the son of the Ruler of the Westerlands.”

Lari was both [Ambitious] and [Lazy], which required proper handling. The girls, on the other hand, had easily mastered their dining etiquette, according to Fengying. I didn’t believe for a second that Lari was stupider than them, which meant that he had just been slacking off.

Fengying just shook her head at me and left.

I browsed through all of my clothes, then decided to get new ones from the Cash Shop. If I remember correctly, there should be quite a few summer-themed items. I turned on the [Privacy] option for my room using the System, then grabbed a few Costume Packs.

Thank goodness people couldn’t see inside my rooms because each time I opened a pack, I had to go through the same magical girl transformation sequence.

The [Dazzling Summer], [Summer’s Delight], [A Breath of Summer], [Fairytale Fantasia], and [Cool Dusk] packs all yielded usable items. I was particularly taken by a white and purple robe embroidered with peonies and a cute cream-colored eyelet blouse with a ruffled collar.

By the time I finished shopping for new clothes, it was only midmorning. My days had been so full of farming and foraging that I’d barely had time for myself. Thus, my next move was to have a good, long soak in the hot spring.

I sank into the warm, welcoming water after I had scrubbed my body with honeysuckle-scented soap and a washcloth, and let my worries melt away. I remembered to add a Dewy Glow potion into the bathing pool. That was my secret to having flawless skin, despite the fact that I spent most of my days outdoors.

A gentle chime sounded when I had been in the bath for twenty minutes. Being in the hot water too long overstimulated the body, so the timer was there to alert people when they should leave. Small holes opened up at the bottom of the pool and the water drained away. Then I took a cold shower and moved on to the salon where a Cash Shop machine shampooed, conditioned, and styled my hair into soft, beachy waves.

Primping only took half an hour, and I emerged from the hot spring ready to face my apprentices’ complaints.

Sure enough, the moment that I stepped into the outer courtyard, the Three Stooges fairly blistered my ears with their loud complaints, high-pitched whining, and ill-tempered grumbling.

I took a few minutes out of my busy schedule to reassure them that Prince Baiyu would be dining with us and, yes, everything would turn out fine since I was sure that they would be able to conduct themselves properly after a final lesson from Fengying.

As a result of the kids panicking horribly, Fengying advised me to eat in my quarters, which I was happy to do. Lunch was yet another sublime meal. The Demon Chef had surpassed himself with the mouthwatering char siu rice with wild vegetables. I don’t know what marinade Deming had used, but the tender slices of pork were sweet, savory, and smoky from the grill.

I rested for a while after lunch, then went to the fields outside to check if the crops were doing well. Everything was fine, so I went back to the house for an afternoon nap.

When I woke up, Fengying absolutely insisted that I change into my best clothes. According to her, the best one was the [Springtime Delight] set. She and Yinuo, one of the maids, exclaimed over the floor length green silk dress with long white sleeves as though they had never seen a prettier dress before, even though they were unable to touch the Cash Shop item.

By the time Prince Baiyu arrived, I was already waiting in the main hall along with my three apprentices.

We exchanged greetings and bows, and I formally introduced Lari, Kharli, and Mo to the Prince.

The Three Stooges all looked pale and sick with fear, so I thought I would have some fun with them.

Chapter 34 – Swept Up in the Moment

“You seem frightened, my dear apprentices, as you should be! Your lives have been easy and sheltered until now. Today you have met the bane of all hard-working men and women, the vulture that swoops down to prey on every person who has ever earned an honest living, the one who is a plague on all honest folk who earn money through their blood, sweat, and tears, the dreaded… tax man!” I said, gesturing at Prince Baiyu.

The person who I had just given an awesome introduction to shook his head. “Thank you, but I don’t like the vulture comparison. I prefer to be described as ‘a tiger who is about to pounce,’ please.”

“Oh, my bad. I meant the tiger that pounces on every person who has ever earned an honest living!”

Fengying shook her head at our shenanigans and ushered the kids out. I tried to lead Prince Baiyu to a chair, but he said, “I’d rather go outside. I’ve been worried about whether or not someone has been sweeping the path.”

What? He wanted to play at being a sweeper again?

“Are you sure? I thought you might be tired because I heard you’ve been working hard,” I said.

“I don’t want to sit down because I’ve only been sitting down in meetings all this time,” said Prince Baiyu.

“I see.”

We walked out, trailed by Fengying and the maids who stood behind me as I took out a chair from my inventory and set it down under a tree, the better to watch as Prince Baiyu took off his robe again, leaving his upper body bare, and started sweeping the path around the house clean of leaves and dirt.

We were all used to it by now, but that didn’t make it any less thrilling.

“Hey, stop staring at him,” I said. “This display is for me.”

Fengying and the girls just ignored me as they continued to ogle Prince Baiyu’s amazing physique.

“Have you noticed that he lingers on the parts of the path that’s nearest to the lady?” whispered Yinuo to Fengying. “And he finishes sweeping the parts of the path that are out of sight really quickly.”

“Silly girl,” said Fengying. “Don’t you know the Prince is a wind element type? He could blow the leaves away in a second if he wanted.”

“But then I wouldn’t be able to see this sight,” I said. “Now go away. You’ve looked enough.”

This time, they allowed me to shoo them away. I placed a chair beside mine for Prince Baiyu to use later and I continued to enjoy the view.

When he had finally had enough of sweeping, he placed the sacks full of leaves near the gate and asked me to walk with him. I chose a winding path through the forest that was shaded by trees. Though it was late afternoon, the day was still hot, enlivened only by a warm breeze.

“You really don’t want to sit down, huh?” I said.

“You have no idea,” he said. “This is the worst season for me. There are so many budget meetings with old people who treat me like I’m still a child, and never listen to me or notice me unless something’s wrong. Then it’s ‘our young lord should do this’ and ‘our young lord should do that’ to make me do all the dirty work.”

“Like what?”

“Like raising taxes on certain territories or enforcing penalties,” he said.

“Poor you,” I said. “But it’s not really as bad as demon hunting season, right? I mean, at least you don’t suffer from qi overload during the budget meetings.”

“Thanks to you, I haven’t gotten qi overload again,” he said.

“I’m glad my potions worked,” I said.

“They did, but it was more than that. I burned qi by flying over here every few days to leave my kills at your doorstep,” said Prince Baiyu.

“That was you? I assumed you had sent one of your retainers to deliver the meat,” I said.

“No, I did it all myself,” he said.

“Smart! You must’ve used up a lot of qi. How far away is the Southern border from my farm?”

“Five hours’ worth of flying,” he said.

“Feel free to continue using me as an excuse to avoid qi overload. Didn’t people think it was weird that you had to deliver meat to a farmer?”

“Hasn’t anyone told you?”

“Told me what?” I asked.

Prince Baiyu gave me a sidelong look from under his long eyelashes. He didn’t answer my question, and we walked on in silence for a few minutes more until he asked me a question about the farm. I talked about the farm, and he complained about his work for another hour until it was time for us to return for dinner.

“What’s this then?” I asked when we got back to the house and I saw that the staff had worked miracles in our absence. Two tables had been set up with formal table settings with white tablecloths, pristine white plates, gleaming silverware, and sparkling stemware. The napkins had been folded into precise shapes and there were two intricate floral centerpieces.

“This way, please,” said Fengying as she guided us to the farther table that had two seats but only one table setting on it.

Lari, Kharli, and Mo were already seated at the other table, dressed in their finest robes and with miserable expressions on their faces, as though they were about to witness their own execution.

I leaned closer to Fengying and said, “They look terrified. Should I dismiss them?”

I was starting to feel a little bad for forcing them to dine with Prince Baiyu and I. Maybe they really weren’t ready. The people in the Western lands normally ate with chopsticks, but this time Deming had prepared a Central-style feast, which meant that they had to use unfamiliar utensils like a knife and fork.

Fengying barely gave them a glance and just said, “It’s fine.”

Yinuo immediately served the first course when I sat down.

“Central cuisine?” asked Prince Baiyu. “Do you prefer that?”

“I like everything as long as it’s delicious!” I said.

Back on Earth, I had traveled to dozens of different countries with my parents, who were both badly affected by wanderlust. That meant that my palate was quite developed compared to other people my age. In this world, the central continent was the continent ruled by humans. They were much more technologically advanced compared to the Westerlands. They were in the midst of an Industrial Revolution while the clans were still stuck in feudal economies.

As a consequence of the Central continent’s scientific development, Central cuisine was considered more modern compared to the other regions’ cuisines. Deming was quite proficient in it, and I guess he wanted to show off in front of the Prince.

Dinner went well except for one minor incident where Lari dropped a piece of fruit on his lap and tried to hide his mistake by flicking it away, only for it to land on Mo’s arm, who promptly threw it back at him. Prince Baiyu and I pretended not to notice their youthful hijinks.

“You’re not going to take anything, not even water?” I asked Prince Baiyu.

“It’s customary,” he said.

“But you drink water?” I had read many fantasy stories where cultivators didn’t need to eat or drink after they had achieved a certain cultivation level, but I had never expected to see this in action in real life.

Prince Baiyu nodded. “Yes, but not like humans. I can go for days without eating or drinking anything.”

“Huh, you gorge yourself during hunting season and don’t eat a lot otherwise?” I asked.

“There’s more than one hunting season, yes,” he said.

We kept our conversation on neutral topics such as food and the weather until we finished the meal. Then Prince Baiyu requested another walk.

“Unless you’re too tired, of course,” he said.

“Not at all. In fact, why don’t you accompany me on a longer walk?” I said. “There’s a certain night-blooming flower that I would like to find.”

I checked the text of my current quest again.

[Curing Infertility:

Help the God Beast Clans with their fertility problem. Find five Dusk Dandelions.]

“I would love to accompany you wherever you want to go,” he said.

“Thank you,” I said. “I’ll be just a moment. I need to change my clothes.”

Chapter 35 – Chive never been more excited for a quest

A few minutes later, I met Prince Baiyu at the gate, and we set off to find the Mysterious Glade. I really should’ve tried to unlock it earlier. Just like in Adventure Online, the place wasn’t shown on the System map, but I remembered it was north of the Horned Rabbits’ Valley.

“I can probably find it by myself,” I said. “But it would be easier if you flew us up over the forest canopy.”

“Especially since it’s nighttime,” said Prince Baiyu. “Surely it’s too dangerous for a human to go exploring when it’s this dark outside?”

“I have Mr. Bear!” I said. “He has glowing laser eyes, and he can grow big enough for me to ride.”

“He can?” Prince Baiyu gave the small puppet that was hanging on my belt a dubious look.

“… He’ll be able to once I upgrade him,” I said.

“So he can’t,” said Prince Baiyu.

“Yeah,” I said.

“What is the ‘lay-sir’ that you mentioned?”

I must’ve used the English acronym. This was my chance! I couldn’t believe I had finally found an opportunity to show off my knowledge of trivia.

“Laser means light amplification by the stimulated emission of radiation,” I said.

Prince Baiyu couldn’t tell if I was joking or not. He bent his head down and peered into my face, his eyebrows knitted into a frown. “What is that?”

“Just a coherent beam of light,” I said, batting my eyelashes up at him. “Also, may I just say that you look especially dashing today?”

Today he looked even more resplendent than normal in a gorgeous set of lavender and plum robes, with this long white hair braided and tied in a low ponytail.

“You’re trying to distract me by appealing to my vanity,” he said.

“And it’s working!”

We smiled at each other, and Prince Baiyu even laughed a little.

“Fine, you win,” he said.

“I enjoy winning,” I said.

Prince Baiyu was the flirtatious kind, and the only way I knew how to deal with that was to give as good as I got. After a few more minutes of light banter, I pulled out a map and showed him the approximate location of the place I was looking for, north of the Horned Rabbits Valley.

“Shuye brought me to the place where he said you and he found some strange creatures called Horned Rabbits, but we didn’t see anything out of the ordinary,” said Prince Baiyu. “It should be easy enough for me to fly north of there.”

“Great.” It was only after he had already taken me into his arms and flown away with me that I realized I was now alone in the woods with a man who wasn’t family. I suppose it was a measure of my trust in the Prince that I hadn’t even given it a second thought.

“Are you comfortable?” asked Prince Baiyu.

I nodded. The moon was almost full, and it cast a pale light over the forest below us as we soared through the air. Prince Baiyu’s aura shielded me from most of the cool night air rushing past us. The Prince slowly increased his speed until the forest below us became nothing but a blur. In a few minutes, we were hovering above the Horned Rabbits’ Valley.

“Wow, that was fast,” I said.

“I can go faster than that if I need to,” said Prince Baiyu. “Shall I fly slowly to the north?”

“Please.”

The Mysterious Glade was directly north of the Valley in the game. However, places that were one or two clicks away in the map in Adventure Online could be an hour away in real life, so it was with some relief that I spied a treefall gap.

“I think that might be the place,” I said to Prince Baiyu as I pointed at an area below us where a large tree had fallen, leaving an opening in the forest canopy.

“I’ll take us down there,” he said.

As usual, descending was much scarier than flying up had been, since it made me feel like I was falling, but Prince Baiyu kept his speed low in order to reduce my discomfort.

“Thank you,” I said when we landed.

I put a hand on my chest and tried to calm my racing heart. This was the second time I’d flown, and the landing was less frightening than the first one, but it would take a lot more for me to get used to it.

“Just give me a moment,” I said.

I squatted down and touched the ground with both my hands to settle down. It took my eyes a while to adjust to the light conditions here. Moonlight streamed through the gap in the trees, making the leaves look like they were glowing.

“You want to walk from here?” asked Prince Baiyu.

“Which way is north?” I asked.

I went in the direction that Prince Baiyu pointed and crouched down to peer at the hedgerow that someone had planted all around the treefall gap. Using my hands, I tried to push the shrubs apart to make an opening for me to crawl through. This was the most annoying part of going to the glade because the entrance was different each time the player visited. I used to post on the forums about how I had to spend a good twenty minutes clicking every single pixel on the screen just to find the right place.

When the Prince saw what I was doing, he started poking around, too. I was about to take a break when he said, “There’s a place here that I can’t touch.”

“Show me,” I said.

He reached into a bush and I saw that something seemed to be stopping his hand, but when I put my hands inside, I was able to push apart the middle part of the hedgerow.

“Yes, I think this is what I was looking for,” I said.

The fact that he was unable to touch it didn’t surprise me at all, since this was a special, secret place in Adventure Incarnate that was made especially for the players. The natives of this world probably weren’t allowed to enter the Mysterious Glade by themselves.

I put both of his hands in mine, and we made an opening for us to crawl through. It was a tight fit, and we had to go down on all fours, with the stems and branches getting caught in our hair and clothing. By the time we had forced our way through, there were leaves in our hair and I had a large tear on my right sleeve.

“Welcome to the Mysterious Glade,” I said.

The System pop-up gave me a refresher on the lore of this place. I read the information out loud to Prince Baiyu.

[The Mysterious Glade:

A hidden place blessed by the forest spirits. Protected by a powerful magic, it has remained undiscovered for countless eons.

It is a place of healing and peace, where problems and worries fade away. Legend states that if you sit quietly in the glade, the answers to your deepest questions will come to you, but do not stay for too long, or you might never emerge from the Mysterious Glade.]

“How did you know about this place?” asked Prince Baiyu.

“It’s a story passed down from person to person. Now I’ve passed it down to you,” I said.

That was the truth because I hadn’t found this place on my own originally. The good people of the Internet back on Earth had revealed this Easter egg to me.

“Thank you for bringing me here,” said Prince Baiyu. Wonder was written on his face as he looked around at the peaceful scenery.

We were in a small clearing. It was nighttime, so the grass was a dark green, but I suspected it was emerald green during the day. A scholar tree dominated the center of the glade, and a small stream flowed through the western side. The only thing that broke the silence was the birdsong, the sound of the stream, and the soft rustle of the leaves in the gentle breeze. The air was thick with the scent of night-blooming jasmine.

“I need to look around for some wild mushrooms and flowers,” I said.

“The scent of this place is intoxicating…” Prince Baiyu walked beside me, his head slowly turning from left to right like a pendulum as he tried to take in everything at once.

It didn’t take long for me to find what I was looking for.

Beside a patch of wild chives were flowers with bright yellow petals that seemed to glow with an otherworldly light.

[Dusk Dandelion:

A rare flower that can cure infertility. Place the blossom in a silver vase and leave it in a room where moonlight can shine down on it. After three nights, the flower will wilt and the petals will fall off. The man or woman who wishes to sire or conceive offspring must then eat those petals.

The other parts of the plant are not edible.]

There were exactly five flowers.

[Curing Infertility:

Help the God Beast Clans with their fertility problem. Find five Dusk Dandelions.]

What should I do?

Chapter 36 – A Scent-sational Quest for a Rare Blossom

I sat down on the ground in front of the patch of flowers.

“What’s wrong?” asked Prince Baiyu as he crouched down beside me.

“I need five of these,” I said.

“There are five here,” said Prince Baiyu. “Why do you look worried?”

“I don’t want to pluck all of them,” I said. “Whenever I forage for wild plants, I always leave at least half of them alone, because if you take everything, they might not grow back. If you over-forage, the wild plant population numbers will start to decrease until, eventually, it could become completely depleted.”

“I see. That’s a good philosophy,” said Prince Baiyu.

“This means I’ll have to return this time again next month,” I said.

“I can take you back here again,” he said.

“Thank you. I'd be very grateful for your help,” I said.

Having the prince accompany me next time would guarantee my safety and give him another chance to visit this secret location, since I doubted he would be able to enter without my presence. Adventure Incarnate players were said to be "blessed by the nature spirits" which explained how they were able to grow spiritual plants.

Though it was a pity that I wouldn’t be able to finish the quest today, I decided that I shouldn't complain since I was able to take two flowers.

[Curing Infertility:

Help the God Beast Clans with their fertility problem. Find five Dusk Dandelions.

Progress: 2/5]

The quest had no time limit, which meant that it wasn't that urgent. I suppose, since Shuye had told me that the clan's fertility problems reached back several generations, that a few weeks' delay wouldn't be a big deal. Given the fact that completing this quest would solve a major problem, I was sure that the reward would be pretty good. It would be great if I could get a good reputation as a valuable ally of the clans before the upcoming demon boss war.

However, there was one thing that bothered me. I couldn't remember this quest from Adventure Incarnate. That was a little weird.

Though I was a little confused about that, I decided to set that aside for another time when I saw that Mysterious Glade had another useful item that I could forage.

[Magical Sleeping Fairy Mushroom:

A small, white mushroom with a red cap. When eaten, it causes the eater to fall asleep for a short period of time.

The mushroom gets its name from the fact that it is often found near fairy rings. It is said that the mushrooms are left behind by the fairies after they have had their fill of dancing and merriment.

The Magical Sleeping Fairy Mushroom is said to have magical properties. If you place the mushroom under your pillow, you will have sweet dreams. If you give the mushroom to someone you love, they will fall asleep and dream of you.]

“Are you going to eat those?” Prince Baiyu pointed at the mushrooms.

“Nope. These are ingredients for a potion,” I said. “Most of the things that you find here are medicinal plants.”

When I had finished looking all around the small clearing, peering at every bush and flower patch that looked promising, I made my way to the small stream that was about three feet wide, lined with rocks and small pebbles. In the moonlight, the water glistened like silver, and its banks were lined with green moss, giant ferns, and rushes, dotted here and there with colorful wild flowers like pink water avens and daisies.

“You don’t mind if I do a little bit of night fishing, do you?” I asked the Prince.

“There are fish here?” He gave the stream a dubious look.

“There’s only one way to find out!” I said.

In the last few weeks, I had been focused on farming, which meant that fishing had taken a back seat. It was still level 9 while my Farming and Woodcutting levels were already 12.

[Player Name: Violet

Farming Skills:

Farming Level 12, Fishing Level 9, Woodcutting Level 12, Cooking Level 1, Herblaw Level 3, Foraging Level 3, Hunting Level 1, Mining Level 1]

Taking a pair of hip waders from my inventory, I put them on before wading into the water. Thankfully, the water still held some of the day's heat.

“Why don’t I give it a try?” said Prince Baiyu.

“You brought a fishing rod?” I asked.

“I can fish using my hands,” he said.

“I’d love to see that, but please let me try first,” I said, because I feared that I wouldn’t be able to catch any if he went into the stream and disturbed the fish since there was only one fishing spot indicated in the System map.

I cast my line out and waited patiently for a bite. After a few minutes, I was able to reel in a small rainbow trout. It was just a regular rainbow trout, which was disappointing because I had been hoping to catch one of the special fish that could only be found in the Mysterious Glade.

[Rainbow Trout:

A species of fish found in cold-water rivers and streams that gets its name from the beautiful colors that appear on its body when the sun hits it just right. Its scales glisten with red, orange, yellow, blue, and purple hues, and its eyes are like tiny black pearls.

Rainbow trout are not only beautiful, but also delicious, with firm flesh and a subtly sweet, sea-scented flavor.]

“What happened to the fish you caught?” asked the Prince.

“Oh, I have a very large dimensional storage space,” I said. “You have one, too, right?”

He nodded. His dimensional storage space must be enormous since he had a lot of qi, but mine was even more outrageous. I really doubted that anyone in this world had an inventory as big as mine.

I fished for two hours, then let Prince Baiyu try his luck. Furthermore, I was curious to see if he would be able to catch anything, since he hadn’t even been able to enter the Mysterious Glade without my help. He took off his robe and shoes, rolled up his pants legs, and waded into the water. While he watched the water carefully, looking for any movement, I sat down on the mossy bank and watched him fishing. It was a bit much, frankly. I mean, here was a tall, handsome, wealthy Prince who was alone with me on a moonlit night. This was something that you could only enjoy in a fantasy world.

“Why are you looking at me like that?” Prince Baiyu turned to look at me.

“Has anyone ever told you that you look beautiful under the moonlight?” I asked.

“Only you.”

We smiled at each other. I wished I had some popcorn to munch on as I feasted my eyes on Prince Baiyu covered in glistening drops of water as he brought a rainbow trout out of the water, holding it by the tail. The fish disappeared, stored in his inventory, and he continued fishing for another hour.

“Are you sure you want to stop? You can continue fishing if you like,” I said.

“You were yawning,” he said.

It was true. “Farmers go to sleep early because they wake up at dawn.”

“I’ll take you home,” he said. “I hope I can see you again at the same time next week. I’m just so busy with my work that I’m worried I won’t be able to make it.”

“Hopefully, you’ll be able to visit me again soon. If you want, we can try to get here earlier. I’ll tell Deming to make a picnic basket for me. Then we’ll have plenty of time for both of us to fish.”

“I would like that.”

The flight back home was uneventful, then we said our goodbyes at the gate under the watchful eyes of Fengying.

What a great day! I had fun and I made progress with my current quest.

Chapter 37 – Hunting Up a Hole Lot of Trouble in a Trap-ical Paradise

I woke up at dawn, yawning and stretching my arms over my head as I took a deep breath of the cool morning air. I slowly sat up, rubbing my eyes with my hands. Although it was still dark, the sound of birdsong from outside told me that the birds were already up and that it was time for me to start a new day at the farm. I washed my face, brushed my teeth, and put on a set of plain robes before heading outside to the outer courtyard where the day’s first meal was waiting for me.

Deming was quite a frugal chef, and I was pleased to see that breakfast consisted of fried rice that was made using yesterday’s leftover rice, vegetables, and chicken. I also ate a small bowl of vegetable dumpling soup and for dessert there was plenty of fresh fruit.

As usual, we set aside the seeds for possible later use and the kitchen showed me the seeds they had saved for me yesterday, but, alas, the System seemed very picky and would only accept a tiny fraction of the seeds we got from the fruit, vegetables, and berries we foraged.

This wasn’t really a problem for me since I had over two billion of each type of seed in my inventory, but I had been thinking of selling these for other people to use. I had already asked if Shuye could find a buyer for my seeds, and he had told me that growing spiritual plants was difficult, but not impossible. The failure rate was high. Nonetheless, there should be people who were willing to give it a try. I got the distinct impression that the seeds would be treated as rare treasures. My Farm Guide would be selling the seeds along with the summer harvest.

After I finished eating, I headed outside with my apprentices in tow, only to be met with a curious sight. Everyone was standing around the beehive, and Haoran, one of Deming’s assistants, was kneeling in front of it and touching his forehead to the ground repeatedly.

“What’s going on?” I asked Fengying.

“He says there’s a god inside of it,” said Fengying.

“What?!” yelled Lari, his eyes wide with shock.

“When we went outside to get the usual three sacks of rice from the machine, he saw bees coming out of their hive carrying a glass jar full of honey,” said Fengying.

Uh-oh. The bees had done the same thing twice before when I was alone on the farm. This was exactly the way that it worked in Adventure Incarnate, so I hadn’t thought anything of it, but obviously this was not normal in this world.

“These are very special honeybees,” was all I said before I fled to the second field with Lari, Kharli, and Mo. Let Fengying take care of it. Supervising the staff is what I paid her for, after all.

The four of us tacitly agreed not to discuss the bees. The kids had their own little bit of the System, hence they were quite used to strange, magical phenomena.

One week after they had been planted, the corn and wheat had sprouted and grown fresh, tender green seedlings. Each of them seemed to glow with an inner light. We watered the crops and pulled up a few errant weeds. By the time we finished and walked back to the field near the house, the staff were no longer at the beehive. Fengying must’ve done her work and herded them back to work.

At the vegetable field, the plants seem to have grown more compared to the corn and wheat. I think it might’ve been because the soil there was better.

“What’s next for today, teacher?” asked Kharli.

“I wanted to ask you guys about that. How much energy do you have left?”

“About half.” The others echoed her.

“Mmm. Okay, that means we can train your other skills. Fishing, cooking, foraging, or hunting, what would you prefer to do?” I asked them.

“Hunting!” said Lari immediately.

I gave the others an inquiring look, but they just shrugged.

“All right, if that’s what you want. We’ll run out of meat sooner or later. It would be good to add to our stock,” I said.

Lari let out a whoop. “Hunting! I’m gonna be a hunter!”

I wondered if a hunter had a higher status than a farmer in this world. We went back to the house to get the packed lunches I had asked Deming to prepare, then headed north to the forest.

“Let’s go get us some delicious meat,” I said.

When I activated the System map, I checked it for the nearest hunting spot, which turned out to be the one for Weenusk Diggers. I vaguely remembered that they were some sort of magical groundhogs.

[Weenusk Digger:

A burrowing rodent. The Weenusk Digger has reddish brown fur and short but powerful legs. It is not aggressive and will escape predators by tunneling through the ground at a rapid pace.

Their meat is dark and gamey, with a strong flavor similar to venison.]

It took us an hour and a half to get to the Digger hunting grounds, which was nothing more than a small, unremarkable clearing covered in green grass and colorful wildflowers. I would never have known that there were diggers living here if the System’s map hadn’t revealed it.

“Can you see any holes in the ground?” I asked my apprentices.

They scattered in different directions, carefully searching the ground for suspicious openings.

“There’s one here!” said Lari.

“Okay, okay, don’t shout. You don’t want to scare away the animals.” I gestured for them to join me. “This place is where the diggers live. If you’re lucky, you’ll be able to see their burrows. Now, we as hunters will set traps here. Check your System tool belt. There should be some wooden traps and bait there. Get three of each.”

We all took out the aforementioned items.

I had done plenty of hunting in Adventure Incarnate, therefore I knew what to do, though I’d never done it in real life. Fortunately, the traps seemed easy to use. I demonstrated how to put the bait inside and how to set up the trap, which looked something like a mousetrap cage, but bigger.

“Look, open the cage door like this and put the bait here.” I showed them how to do it, then I used a long twig to reach inside the cage to touch the bait. The cage door slammed shut and there was a loud crackling sound as powerful jolts of electricity danced inside the cage.

My apprentices seemed delighted by the magical trap’s display of power, while I felt somewhat ambiguous about it. On the one hand, I loved to eat meat, but on the other hand, I had always bought meat at the supermarket. The thought of collecting the corpses of dead animals made me shudder, but I didn’t want to be a hypocrite, so I would have to bear it.

I directed them to place traps a suitable distance from one another, and I put mine in the middle of the hunting grounds.

“That’s it for now,” I said. “We’ll come back at the end of the day to check if the traps caught anything.”

“We’re not going to wait here?” asked Lari.

“That would be a waste of time. We’re going foraging,” I said.

Lari groaned.

“I like foraging,” said Mo.

“Me, too,” I said. “Shall we go our own way or walk together?”

We decided to go in different directions. Only one person could forage each spot, which meant that separating was the most efficient way to do it.

“Look at the System clock to check the time. We’ll meet back here at five p.m. See you later,” I said. “Remember to eat your lunch when you get hungry.”

“Yes, teacher,” they chorused in agreement.

Mr. Bear was my only companion during the day as I roamed around the forest looking for edible plants and useful herblaw ingredients. I found quite a lot of loquats, lychees, and papayas as well as elf leaf, fireroot, and bittergrass.

I must have already foraged a lot of the mushrooms because I couldn’t gather more from the spots that I saw. That was the problem with visiting the same places in the forest. Tomorrow, if we decided to hunt diggers again, we would have to do something else instead of foraging.

When we met up again at the end of the day, we found that one of my traps had been sprung. I felt terribly queasy when I saw the glassy-eyed digger inside mine, so I placed it in my inventory as quickly as I could. It was a lot bigger than I thought it would be, with a length of over two hand spans from nose to tail, and it had thick, glossy fur.

Three of Lari’s traps had been successful, while Kharli was able to retrieve one Digger. Mo’s traps had all failed.

“Tough luck,” I said to Mo. “Shall we try again tomorrow?”

She nodded, and the others also indicated their agreement.

“We can set the traps overnight, and come back for them tomorrow,” I said.

“All right! More meat!” Lari immediately took out three more traps from his inventory and ran over to a corner of the clearing.

He must think that that spot was the best one for hunting.

We all set up our traps as best as we could. I reckoned that one digger had enough meat for one person’s meal, which meant that we would have to hunt more in order for us to provide enough for the entire household. Of course, it was our first time to hunt, and we would undoubtedly be able to hunt bigger, better game later on.

Before we left, I asked them to show me what they had foraged.

As the System owner and their teacher, I could view and use my apprentices’ inventories, but I preferred to let them show me what they had gotten. Kharli had a haul that was as big as mine, while Lari only had a handful of berries to show for his efforts. Mo’s foraged items, on the other hand, were twice as many as mine.

“How did you get so many?” asked Lari.

“I don’t know. They were just there,” said Mo.

“Good job, everyone. Let’s go back home,” I said.

Chapter 38 – Angling for Adventures

Two days later, Shuye informed me that the rice situation had been resolved and that the Lady wanted me to plant more rice.

We were seated in the main hall, and I had already given him the crocus flower he liked so much. Shuye was wearing his usual brown clothes, and I was still in my work clothes since the two of us tended to be much more casual with each other compared to my meetings with Prince Baiyu.

“What happened to the chaos you said would ensue if I tried to sell more rice?” I asked.

“Prince Baiyu told you that it’s the time when the clans discuss the yearly budget, right? The Lady met with all the clan heads and everyone agreed that the White Tiger clan would buy up the supply and be in charge of distributing it,” said Shuye.

“For a very good price, I hope,” I said.

“Of course,” said Shuye. “And I’ve also been instructed to provide you with anything you might need.”

“Planting season is over, but I can clear a field and plant rice this autumn,” I said.

“Wonderful! I look forward to that,” said Shuye.

“By the way, before I forget, there’s something that I’ve been meaning to ask you. Is there supposed to be some meaning behind Prince Baiyu leaving his kills at my doorstep? He seemed to think I should already know,” I said.

Shuye rolled his eyes. “You have to know what it means. It’s perfectly obvious.”

“…” I wasn’t sure what to think.

“Fine. If you want me to say it out loud, a male leaving his kills on a female’s doorstep means he’s courting her.”

“...”

“But you already knew that.” Shuye gave me a penetrating look.

“I guess I can’t say that I was unaware,” I said. “I mean, he hasn’t exactly been subtle.”

Shuye laughed heartily. “If he was subtle, you would probably ignore him.”

“Eh.” I shrugged my shoulders, then a terrible thought struck me. “Wait a minute, wouldn’t everyone in his hunting party have noticed? Does everyone know about this?”

“Of course everyone knows! You didn’t think it was a secret, did you? Nothing that a member of the ruling family does can be hidden.”

Oh, no! “Isn’t he his mother’s heir? People can’t be happy about this.”

No matter how much the clans respected the humans that they protected, they had to be troubled when one of their most prominent members courted a member of the weaker species.

“Don’t worry about it. Prince Baiyu is the Lady’s only child, which makes him a prince, but the White Tiger clan is always ruled by a female.”

“Then who is the heir?”

“… Prince Baiyu.”

“What?”

“Only theoretically! The Lady named him her heir, and he rules when she’s away, but no one really expects him to become the next head of the family. He’s only the heir until the Lady gives birth to a female.”

“What happens if she doesn’t?”

“She will. The Lady is young, and she will probably have more children. If, the gods forfend, she doesn’t, then the clans will probably elect the new ruler.”

“What would happen to Prince Baiyu then?”

“He could either marry the new Lady or her daughter-heir, or give up his position.”

“I see.”

“None of that matters. You’re a human, so these things aren’t for you to worry about.” Shuye hesitated then continued, “You know, it’s absolutely forbidden for us to harm humans. That doesn’t just mean physical harm. Insulting a human by insinuating that they aren’t good enough for Prince Baiyu would be a sin, too.”

I gave him a disbelieving look.

“It’s true,” Shuye insisted. “You know the story of the five continents. The gods reformed the world when their offspring warred on humans, and the Southerlands were laid waste by a divine punishment when the clans there sinned by attacking the humans. It’s our greatest taboo.”

“Okay,” I said.

He was talking about their religion.

The story goes that during the Dawn Age, the gods became curious about humans and even mated with them, which resulted in stronger and more intelligent divine-human offspring. All went well for thousands of years, with generations of enlightened demigods ruling humankind, until it all went downhill when the original semi-divine rulers’ progeny began fighting for power amongst themselves.

The gods intervened by reforming the continent into five territories. The Northern, Southern, Western, and Eastern lands were given over to the clans, while the central area was reserved for humans. Peace was maintained by a spell or geas that weakened members of the God Beast Clans whenever they were out of their territory. Thus, for example, if members of the White Tiger clan left the Westerlands, they would feel more and more uncomfortable until they were forced to return to their homes.

Now Shuye was claiming that even insulting or discriminating against humans was considered a sin.

“Anyway, the clans are mostly human,” said Shuye.

I gave him a disbelieving look. “No way.”

“Yes. Think about it. When was the last time that a god came down to mate with one of us? Millions of years ago!” he said. “How many times has one of us had children with humans? Countless times! We have only a fraction of a fraction of a fraction of a drop of god’s blood in us. The rest is all human.”

“That sounds logical.” I was very surprised at Shuye’s reasoning. It made sense, but I wouldn’t have thought that the clans considered themselves mostly human.

“Plenty of clan members marry humans, don’t worry.”

“I’m not thinking of marriage!”

“Sure. Sure.” Shuye covered his mouth with his hand to hide his smile.

“Okay, enough about that,” I said.

“Fine.” Shuye leaned back and smiled at me. “Is there anything you want?”

“As a matter of fact, I was wondering if you could come over with your flying cart and take us to the lake. I’d like to go fishing there with my apprentices, but it’s too far for us to walk,” I said.

“Which lake?” asked Shuye.

“The Lake of Clear Ripples,” I said. “It’s east of here.”

“I’ve never heard of that lake,” said Shuye.

“Hmm.” I took out a pencil and a piece of paper from my inventory and tried to draw a map. I pointed out the approximate location of the lake to Shuye using the drawing. “It’s right there.”

“This map is a bit weird. I can’t make out what this is and I’ve never heard of any of these places. Which way is north?” Shuye seemed confused by the replica System map.

“Uh, nevermind, can you just bring the cart tomorrow? I can tell you where to go,” I said.

“Sure, when do you want me to arrive?” he asked

I called Fengying over and we talked about the details of the trip. My idea was to just bring a picnic basket, but Fengying said she wanted to go to the lake with Deming, too. We hashed out the details with Shuye, who said he would be available the next day.

***

Vacation time!

Okay, it wasn’t really a vacation; it was a fishing trip, but it was exciting.

I hurried through my morning routine and was out of the gate even before dawn. I was already halfway through watering the vegetable field when my sleepy apprentices arrived to help me out. We finished in record time, and I sat down to eat some porridge while we waited for Shuye to arrive.

“Don’t burn down the house while we’re gone,” said Fengying to the staff.

“Tongs,” said the Demon Chef to his assistants, who were packing up the supplies that he would need to cook lunch for us. One of them handed him a pair of tongs.

“Are there any special fish in the lake?” asked Lari.

“Maybe,” I said. I honestly couldn’t remember. There were a lot of different varieties of fish in Adventure Incarnate, and most of them were fictional or legendary ones, so it was hard for me to recall all the different species that one could catch. “But I’m sure that there are a lot of different fish there.”

That part I remembered clearly. Many of the rivers only had a few species living in them, but the Lake of Clear Ripples was home to a wonderful variety of fish populations.

“Look! There he is!” Kharli pointed up at the sky where a small black dot was flying towards us.

“He’s just in time,” I said as I put down my bowl of porridge.

“Good morning,” said Shuye when he arrived on his flying oxcart. The oxen were actually some sort of talisman or spell creature, and the whole thing was the product of a skilled magical artisan. My puppet, Mr. Bear, was the same kind of creature, but much more advanced.

“Good morning,” I said as I handed him another crocus flower, which he placed on his belt as usual.

Shuye didn’t bother to alight from his vehicle and motioned for us to get in right away. The others made their greetings, then they all piled into the cart while I climbed up beside the driver’s seat where Shuye was.

“I hope you know where we’re going, because I don’t,’’ said Shuye.

“Don’t worry. I know exactly where to go,” I said.

Using the System map, I directed Shuye to the lake. It would’ve taken us at least three hours to walk there, but flying there in a straight line only took twenty minutes or thereabouts.

“See? I don’t know how you could’ve missed this enormous lake!” I said.

“But, but, but…” Shuye spluttered indignantly. “There isn’t supposed to be a lake here!”

“Then how do you explain that?” I pointed at the large body of water below us. “Maybe you don’t know the forest as much as you think you do.”

Shuye just shook his head and sighed. “If you say so.”

“Um, can you land like really, really, really slowly?” Flying was fun, but I hated landings.

“How slow? You mean slower than a snail? I’ll try,” he said.

“Yes, please,” I said.

“Don’t worry, it’s very safe,” said Shuye.

I tried not to look down as we descended and my stomach dropped. “Oh, I really don’t like this part.”

Unclipping Mr. Bear from my belt, I made him grow until he was big enough to cuddle. I squeezed him tight and closed my eyes while I tried to stay calm.

“Here we are,” said Shuye.

Moments later, I felt the jolt of our landing.

“We survived, Mr. Bear,” I said to my puppet.

“Trust me. I’ve never had a cart crash at landing,” said Shuye to me.

Fengying, Deming, and the others had already alighted. Shuye helped me down because I was still feeling a little shaky.

“Thanks,” I said.

I looked around at the lake that was so large that I couldn’t see the other side. The shore was lined with trees, and there were mountains in the distance. I took a deep breath and enjoyed the fresh, clean smell of water and grass.

The surface of the lake was a clear blue ruffled by a slight breeze, making it ripple in a lovely way. I suppose that was why it was called the Lake of Clear Ripples. I was glad that the waves weren’t too high.

The kids were extremely excited and were running around here and there, screaming their heads off as though they were school children on the first day of vacation. I let them be and went with the adults to find a good place to set up Deming’s workplace.

The plan was for me and my apprentices to fish in the lake while Deming would cook our catch for lunch. I thought every place looked the same, so I let the Demon Chef choose where he wanted to stay.

I left him, Shuye, and Fengying at a shaded spot near the lake shoreline and called my apprentices over.

“Nice place, huh? I’m glad you like it,” I said.

“I’ve only read about this type of place in storybooks,” said Kharli.

“Really?” I asked.

“We’ve never been outside of Anwei,” said Lari.

“Most people never leave the place they were born in,” said Kharli. “I can’t believe I’m here.”

Mo nodded. The two girls hooked their arms together and jumped up and down.

“I’m so happy!” said Kharli.

I let them play around for a few more minutes before saying, “Alright, this day is going to be great fun. Open your System map. You will see that there are certain places on the shoreline that have yellow dots on them. Those are the places where we can fish. Let’s try out a few of them.”

We walked over to the nearest spot. Of course, we were well-prepared with wide-brimmed hats, fishing bibs, and hip waders.

“Wouldn’t it be better if we were on a boat?” asked Lari.

“Yes, but Shuye didn’t even know that there’s a lake here, so I couldn’t ask him to prepare a boat for us,” I said. “Anyway, shore fishing is good enough. You’ll see.”

By this time, my apprentices had learned enough about the System to know how to get their fishing rods and bait by themselves. I instructed them to put their catch in buckets and give the fish to Deming for cooking. Then I left them alone to find whichever fishing spot suited them best.

Chapter 39 – Lake It Easy

I put a jaunty sailor's hat on Mr. Bear then walked along the shoreline until I came across a likely fishing spot, then waded a little way into the water before casting my line. It would’ve been nicer if there was a dock that I could put a chair on and relax while I fished. After a few minutes, I got a bite and reeled in a Steelhead.

[Steelhead:

A freshwater fish with a distinctive band of color along its sides.

The Steelhead, a type of rainbow trout, is a popular fish for cooking because of its delicate flavor and flaky texture. When cooked, the flesh of the rainbow trout is pinkish-white with a slightly oily consistency and a delicate, yet distinct flavor.]

I normally preferred red meat over every other form of protein, but the Demon Chef was sure to make something extraordinary from our freshly caught fish. He had prepared an array of specialty knives, dozens of different ingredients, three folding tables, an open fire, charcoal grill, and who knew what else for today’s lunch. He was really going all out and I was already salivating at the thought of all the tasty dishes I would be eating today.

I cast the line again and caught another Steelhead, a bigger one this time. The next one was a Ripple Lake Trout.

[Ripple Lake Trout:

A freshwater fish that can only be found in the Lake of Clear Ripples. It can grow to over four feet and over forty pounds in weight. The fish is dark green, with a white belly and dark spots on its body. It is a predator that feeds on smaller fish, crustaceans, and insects.]

Oh! This must be one of those special fish that could only be caught in certain locations. There didn’t seem to be any particular benefit to this Ripple Lake Trout, however. There were a lot of such items that were ordinary, yet prized by completionists purely because they wanted to tick a checkbox on their list.

After catching a few more Steelheads and Ripple Lake Trout, I moved on to a different spot where I was able to get a few Salmon and Bass. I kept moving around, looking for a comfortable spot that had good fishing and a bit of shade.

I was so caught up in fishing that I didn’t even realize that it was almost noon until Fengying called me over. I put the fish into two buckets of water and walked over to where Deming was hard at work.

“Here, I got some big ones!” I said as I placed the buckets at the Demon Chef’s feet.

Deming just grunted at me and examined my offering. His pupils were dilated and his expression was so fierce that I backed away quickly and fled.

“Excuse me, I’ll just freshen up a little,” I said.

I moved far enough that I wouldn’t be able to smell the smoke from the cooking fires and set up a tent from my inventory, rolling up the sides so I would have a good view of the lake and forest. Then I realized I needed privacy to change my clothes, so I had to roll the sides back down.

Five minutes later, I was in comfortable cotton clothes and lounging on a beach chair under the tent while munching on some snacks that Fengying had packed for us. The dried fruit and nuts had been bought from the nearest town market since we hadn’t been able to forage enough to make snacks. They weren’t as good as the Demon Chef’s cooking, but they weren’t bad.

Moments later, my apprentices, seeing that I had quit fishing, handed their catch to Deming and joined me in my tent. I obligingly took out three more chairs for them and an extra one for Fengying if she wanted to join us. I told them to change into their spare clothes, and I rolled down the sides of the tent once again while they took turns tidying themselves up and putting on their new summer robes.

The day was starting to get really hot, and I decided to amaze my companions by producing an electric fan from thin air. No one was impressed though because they already knew I could produce a lot of interesting things using my bloodline inheritance.

“I wish we had one of these at home,” said Lari as he poked a finger at the electric fan.

“Don’t touch the blades,” I said.

“This has blades?!” Lari tried to put his finger nearer the spinning fan blades.

I sighed and turned it off so they could see how it worked.

“These things that spin are called blades? They aren’t sharp,” said Mo.

“Of course. It would be too dangerous if they were sharp,” I said. “I’m not going to put one inside the house if you guys are going to be playing with it. You might hurt yourselves.”

“Maybe don’t put one in Lari’s room,” said Kharli.

“What? That’s unfair!” said Lari.

I let the kids bicker. Judging from the activity at the Demon Chef’s work area, lunch should be ready soon.

Sure enough, after a few minutes, Fengying called us over. There were no chairs, so we ate standing up or sitting down on the grass. Deming had prepared a feast for us that was spread over two large folding tables. There was a variety of fish that he had grilled, pan fried, and stewed, all of it over an open fire in the wilderness. He had also brought plenty of fresh vegetables that we had foraged yesterday, so we even had a lot of side dishes.

“Impressive work,” I said to Fengying and Deming.

Fengying beamed while Deming just nodded.

Afterward, I was stuffed full and felt like resting a bit.

“When did Shuye say he’s coming back?” I asked the others.

“Two hours after lunch,” said Fengying.

Shuye had spent the entire morning exploring the lake, but he had disappeared right around noon because it was kind of an unspoken expectation or courtesy that he wouldn’t be around when we were eating since it was rather awkward when he had to refuse all our offers of food.

“I’m going to rest for a bit, then I’m going to forage around here. You guys can either go back fishing or go foraging with me,” I said.

“I’m going fishing! Teacher, did you see that I caught a lot of fish?” asked Lari.

“I didn’t get a lot…” Mo looked downcast.

“It’s fine. Some people are just better at some skills and worse at others,” I said. “Watch this.”

Taking out a loaf of bread, a stick of butter, and a table knife from my inventory, I cut a slice of bread and tried to spread the butter on it. The result…

“How could that even happen?!”

“Teacher, are you cursed?”

“There was no fire! How did it burn?”

“May I?” Without waiting for my answer, Fengying took the piece of burnt bread and examined it closely. The others crowded around her except for Deming, who showed no interest in my disastrous cooking attempt.

“Amazing.” Mo stared at the piece of coal-like bread.

“I think this is actually a rare talent.” Lari was openly laughing.

“Maybe teacher’s hands were too hot?” said Mo.

Kharli burst out laughing. “Hot enough to burn?”

“Too hot with the ‘energy’ that we use,” said Mo.

“Ahem.” I coughed to get their attention and said, “The point is, you don’t have to be good at every single skill. Okay? So relax. I’m going back to the tent to rest for a bit.”

“May I keep this piece?” asked Lari.

“What for?” I asked.

“I can keep it as an heirloom to show to my future children and grandchildren. They can pass it down to their own children,” said Lari.

“Haha.” I took it from him and placed it in my inventory with the other “burnt food.” I had 308 of them by now.

Mo and I went to the tent to rest while Lari and Kharli went fishing.

When Shuye returned, he offered to accompany us while we went foraging.

“Did you find anything interesting?” I asked Shuye as we circled the lake’s shoreline looking for anything medicinal or edible.

“The lake itself is the most interesting thing,” he said.

“There!” Mo pointed at some plants, then scampered off to pick some watercress. She really had a good eye for foraging.

The lake was so large that we couldn’t walk around it, though we spent the entire afternoon exploring its banks.

“We should leave soon,” said Shuye after a few hours. “I can fly at night, but I don’t know if you would be comfortable with that.”

“Yes, I’ll tell everyone to pack up,” I said.

I guess my mini vacation was over now.

Chapter 40 – I think people might be turned off by the puns in the title, so I’ll stop that now

Over the next two weeks, I found out my apprentices’ strengths and weaknesses when we went fishing, hunting, and foraging. We didn’t bother to do any cooking or herblaw because I had the Demon Chef, and I didn’t particularly need potions, hence I focused on those three core skills for now.

Lari was good at hunting and fishing, but he was terrible at foraging and his energy ran out faster than the others when it came to doing chores at the farm.

Mo, on the other hand, was good at foraging and taking care of the crops at the farm, but she was terrible at hunting and fishing.

Kharli was an all-arounder who was average when it came to all the skills.

They were all pretty much the same when it came to woodcutting.

The crops were growing well, and I discovered that having so many spiritual plants in one place had an invigorating effect.

“Teacher, what are you doing?” asked Kharli as she peered down at me with concern written on her face.

“I am communing with nature.” I was lying down in the middle of the fields.

“Leave her alone,” whispered Mo. “Maybe she’s just tired. We’ve all been working hard, and she’s older than us.”

Did Mo perhaps think I was one of those cultivators who looked young but was really a thousand years old?

They went away, and I just lay there, resting and contemplating the thought that I, once an ordinary high school graduate from Earth, was now a farmer who grew magical fantasy plants.

I turned my head to look at the spirit corn. Its thick yellow stalks were now knee-high and its long, green leaves were slightly serrated and had a glossy texture. The glowing aura around them was still faint.

I moved my head to the other side to look at the spirit wheat. It looked just like green grass, except that the leaves appeared to be dusted with some kind of glittering jade powder.

The kids didn’t seem to feel the same thing that I did when I lay down on the ground beside the crops. It was like there was some sort of warm energy coming up from the earth and seeping into my body. I closed my eyes, the better to feel that strange sensation. If this field was a person, I would say that I was feeling its pulse, but it was more like a slow-moving ocean tide. Faint, gentle waves of energy were moving back and forth from the land to the corn and wheat crops.

After about an hour, I felt as though the energy of the earth was making my body too hot, so I stood up and walked back to the house.

What a curious phenomenon!

Could this be that I was feeling the same “energy” that my apprentices and I used up when the System was active?

Before I got to the gate, Mr. Bear alerted me that Shuye was approaching. I entered the house and informed Fengying to prepare for his visit, then I tidied myself up a little.

Ever since my Farm Guide told me that the clans were looking forward to the rice harvest next season, he had been visiting me every single day. I met him at the main hall and handed him the usual crocus flower as a gift.

“Good morning. What brings you to my humble home? Good news, I hope,” I said.

“Good morning.” He handed me a folded piece of paper with a wax seal and said, “I intercepted a messenger from Prince Baiyu since I thought you might be alarmed if a stranger visited the farm.”

“How thoughtful! Thank you.” The seal was in the shape of a tiger head, and the letter was addressed to “Miss Violet.” I took it from him and opened it. Prince Baiyu had written that he was tied up in meetings and wouldn’t be able to meet me tomorrow for his scheduled weekly visit.

“I believe the prince is expecting an answer,” said Shuye. “I can bring it to his messenger.”

“Yes, I’ll write a reply,” I said. “Would you excuse me for a moment? I’m going to my room.”

“Please, take your time. I’m in no hurry,” he said.

I hurriedly used the Cash Shop’s calligraphy set to write a quick note saying, “I look forward to your next visit.” Then I went back to the main hall.

“Shuye, I’d like to send this to Prince Baiyu with a branch of apple blossoms,” I said. “Will you walk with me? There’s a blooming apple tree not far from here.”

He agreed, and we set off on a walk in the direction where I had marked that there was a lovely tree covered in fragrant white and pink flowers. Then, using the secateurs from the System, I cut a small branch and handed it to Shuye along with the letter.

“I’m sure Prince Baiyu will be happy to receive this,” said Shuye.

It wasn’t a big deal, though I was rather disappointed that I wouldn’t be seeing the Prince tomorrow.

***

As the summer season continued, the heat intensified until I was sweating from the moment I woke up at dawn until midnight. It was time to turn on the house’s climate control.

“This little dial here can make the rooms inside the house hotter or cooler,” I said to Fengying, as I showed her the hidden control box in my chambers. “I’m going to set it to cool.”

When I turned the dial, Fengying looked around in alarm, as though expecting something to explode. We waited a few minutes for something to happen, but all I noticed was that there was cool air coming from small holes in the corners of my room.

“It’s quite safe,” I said.

“If you say so, Miss Violet,” said Fengying. She didn’t look convinced at all.

Well, I counted it as a win anyway, since she didn’t voice any concerns out loud.

“Please tell the others about it,” I said.

“Yes, ma’am,” she said.

On Earth, I would have expected each room to have separate air conditioning controls, but only I could change the house’s advanced settings. I hoped they would enjoy it.

It didn’t take long before Fengying came back with a request from Deming to turn off the cold.

“Why?” I asked.

“He just doesn’t like it,” said Fengying.

“I think you should give it a chance. Why don’t we compromise? Let’s keep it on for a week. If he still doesn’t like it, I’ll turn it off.”

“I’ll tell him,” she said.

She came back a few minutes later and told me that Deming was willing to accept my suggestion.

“Great!” I said.

Now that that was fixed, I met with my apprentices. We had already finished watering and weeding the crops, so I instructed them to set the usual traps in the hunting grounds then go foraging or fishing, whichever one they preferred. Deming would provide them with an excellent packed lunch. That was our usual daily routine.

As for me, I had reserved this day for archery practice and herblaw.

I used to train my combat skills three times a week, then it went down to two times a week when the staff moved in, and I became busy with my apprentices. Now I was down to just once a week, and I hadn’t gone back to the Horned Rabbits’ Valley because I’d been too busy. Besides, combat seemed less useful to me than farming skills.

I set up three targets and started shooting. My accuracy had improved, but it was still difficult for me to hit the bullseye. One hour into my practice session, Mr. Bear alerted me that Prince Baiyu was nearby.

This wasn’t one of our scheduled days for his visits, so I wasn’t prepared

Ugh, this was the worst! I immediately ran to the house, not wanting to meet him while I was all gross and sweaty. I’d bet money that he would appear cool and dashing, as always. The summer heat didn’t affect clan members the same way as humans. Shuye said their bodies emitted an aura that protected them from danger, as well as temperature changes.

Thankfully, I made it inside the house before Prince Baiyu arrived.

A quick shower, a visit to the salon room, a change of clothes, and I was ready to receive my visitor.

I expected Prince Baiyu to be waiting for me at the main hall, but he pounced on me as soon as I left my quarters. He wasn’t supposed to be in the inner courtyard.

“Oh, my dear lady,” he said as he knelt down in front of me and took both of my hands in his. “I’m so happy.”

He was beaming as he kissed my hands repeatedly. Today he was wearing a truly magnificent set of blue and silver silk robes, looking as though he was attending an emperor’s court instead of gracing my humble farm with his presence. Half of his long white hair fell loose down his back, while one half of it was braided and tied in a low ponytail. He looked amazing, as usual.

“Um, I’m glad you’re happy,” I said. “What exactly are you happy about?”

He stood up and took out a familiar piece of paper from his sleeve. “This!”

Chapter 41 – Brew-tiful Potions are Fun (The Puns are Back!)

What? I didn’t remember writing anything but a polite courtesy in that letter.

“I’m so happy,” he said again.

“I only wrote that I wanted to see you again,” I said.

“Yes!” Prince Baiyu smiled down at me. “I’m so glad you’ve accepted my suit.”

His suit? As in, his courtship of me?

“Er…” I didn’t know what to say.

“You’ve made me the happiest person in the world,” he said.

He swept me up in his arms and buried his face in my neck. I was really glad that I’d taken the time to shower because I would’ve hated to be hugged while I was sweaty. I tentatively hugged him back. His arm muscles were really firm, and I felt a little breathless and lightheaded when he squeezed me a little.

“I’ve liked you ever since the first time I saw you,” he whispered into my ear, making me shiver as his warm breath tickled my skin.

“When was that?”

“In the cave.”

I tried to pull away. “You didn’t even see me then because you couldn’t open your eyes.”

“No, I was able to open my eyes just as you were leaving.”

“So you only saw my back?”

“Even your back view is lovely.”

“You’re too much!” I said.

“I’m so happy.”

“That’s nice,” I said when he finally let me go. “What is this about?”

“This!” He waved the letter at me.

“What about it?” I asked.

He bent down and leaned closer to me, searching my face for something.

“I have the proof right here,” he said as he waved a piece of paper at me again. “You can’t deny it.”

Suddenly, I noticed we had an audience. The staff and my apprentices were all gawking at us from the entrance to the inner courtyard.

“Let’s go to the main hall,” I said as I grabbed Prince Baiyu’s hand and dragged him there.

Thankfully, Fengying came to my rescue by serving me tea. The casual, everyday ritual served to ground me, and even Prince Baiyu calmed down a bit. He patiently waited as I munched on some dried fruit and drank a cup of tea.

“The days have been hot, haven’t they?” I said. “Have you noticed that the house is cool? I’ve been using climate control on it.”

“Yes, yes, very clever.” He kept staring at my face.

I gave up pretending that nothing had happened. “I don’t remember accepting your suit in that letter.”

“You wrote that you wanted to see me,” he said. “That means that I’m welcome in your house, and that you accept my courtship.”

“I’m pretty sure I’ve invited you inside the house before,” I said.

“Yes, you invited me after I already arrived,” he said. “You also gave me permission after I asked if I could visit. You never told me before that you wanted me to visit.”

Ah, so that was the difference. I suppose he had been the one who kept on pursuing me while I simply waited for him to call on me. “I see.”

“I have written proof. You can’t run away this time,” he said.

It was hard to look into his eyes because they were almost incandescent with happiness. “I have a farm. There’s no way I would ever run away from it.”

“And you said you don’t want to.” Prince Baiyu took my hand and kissed it again. “You said so.”

“I don’t know why you like me so much anyway,” I said.

“Maybe you should look in the mirror more,” he said. “You’re so beautiful and talented and responsible, and I really like you.”

“Ah…” I’m pretty sure that my face was red as a tomato.

How had I suddenly acquired a boyfriend who was a handsome, sweet-talking prince?!

***

After the excitement of yesterday’s visit from Prince Baiyu, I decided to take it easy the next day. I did my share of watering and weeding the crops, then retreated to my chambers to work on my herblaw.

The early levels of the skill only featured useless potions. Players were expected to wait until they had a higher level before they could produce the really good stuff. In the future, I will be able to brew a lot of potions with exciting effects such as boosting magic, crafting, strength, speed, critical hits, and so forth.

Right now though, all I could make was the Blight Magic and Dewy Glow potions.

[Player Name: Violet

Farming Skills:

Farming Level 12, Fishing Level 8, Woodcutting Level 12, Cooking Level 1, Herblaw Level 3, Foraging Level 3, Hunting Level 1, Mining Level 1]

In short, it was simply time for me to grind until I reached level 10, at which point I could make an Antipoison potion.

Not that the Antipoison potion was much use since there weren’t any venomous monsters here. However, it would be good to have a supply of them in case I ran into spiders or snakes or something like that since there was no emergency hospital room here in the middle of the forest.

[Antipoison Potion:

A potion that nullifies any poison in the drinker’s system and provides a temporary immunity to all poisons for one minute.

It’s a bright green color and smells faintly of mint.]

For now, I will continue to make Blight Magic potions for Prince Baiyu. I turned on the [Privacy] option in my rooms and put two piles of herblaw ingredients and spell stones on my worktable. Fortunately, I had plenty of [Kingfisher Moss] and [Sorrow Bloom] in my inventory.

[Kingfisher Moss:

A rare and magical ingredient that can be used to make potions. Named for the brightly plumed kingfisher bird because of its iridescent blue-green color, this moss grows in areas near waterfalls. It has a strong, earthy smell and a slightly fuzzy texture.]

[Sorrow Bloom:

A beautiful flower that only grows in dark, swampy places or in cemeteries. It’s black with red streaks running through it and has an intoxicating smell.]

Again and again, I cast the Create Potion spell. I never grew bored of the sight of the potion ingredients flying into the vial of water that was suspended inside a glowing ball of pink light between my hands. The way the moss and flower turned into a potion was a really fascinating sight.

Magic was just too exciting!

With my newfound sensitivity for the energy in the crop fields, I tried to sense what type of magic was inside the spell stones.

[Spell Stone:

A beautiful, hand-crafted spell stone that has been infused with powerful magic specifically for use in spell-casting. Made of natural, clear crystal, it has been polished to a shine. It is thumb-sized and smooth to the touch.]

Every time I cast a spell, one of the crystals glowed white for a while before its light dimmed and crumbled into dust. I tried to sense the magic in the crystals at the moment they turned dark, but they felt exactly the same to me. As far as I could tell, they were just rocks.

However, I did find out that when I closed my eyes, I could still cast the spell, and some sixth sense told me when a potion was brewed and the spell was finished.

I tried many ways of sensing magic by placing the spell stones in my hands, on my forehead, on my navel, and so forth, while I was casting Create Potion, but nothing seemed to work.

I gave up after a while and just focused on creating as many potions as fast as I could.

Fengying knocked on my door at noon, and I took a break to eat lunch.

After the midday meal, I spent the entire afternoon making potions until I leveled up. I was really having fun, so I impulsively decided to keep on working on my herblaw as much as I could.

Herblaw was my life now.

Chapter 41.5

An excerpt from the journal of Shuye Skullcrusher, Guardian of the Ancient Hill Forest:

There's no such thing as a Horned Rabbit.

At least, I could've sworn there was no such a thing. I consulted the elders who have lived in the forest since their childhood, and none of them had ever seen or heard of a rabbit with horns. I even hired scholars to comb through their books to see if there was any mention of that kind of spirit animal. They came up with nothing.

If I hadn't seen it with my own two eyes, I would never have believed there was a Horned Rabbits' Valley.

But...

The Horned Rabbits were one thing. It's disturbing to think that they had been here all this time without anyone knowing, yet the forest is vast, and a few dozen rabbits aren't a big deal. I do have a bloodline inheritance that lets me sense nearby living beings, but it's not infallible. Perhaps the rabbits, being prey animals, possess a natural stealth skill.

So it's possible that the Horned Rabbits, being small in number, simply avoided being detected until now.

But the lake…

There's absolutely no way that all of us could have missed something that large.

Chapter 42 – Sow much fun in a pun-derful world of farming!

In the next two weeks, I did my morning chores and brewed potions the rest of the time. Not only did I increase herblaw to level 10, I also gained a few magic levels.

[Violet

Level 1

HP: 100/100

MP: 35/35

Strength: 1/99

Attack: 1/99

Archery: 3/99

Magic: 3/99]

At this rate, it would take a year or more for me to get to a reasonably high level of magic. Then again, I was only using a very basic spell. Perhaps things would go faster for me if I tried combat magic, but I didn’t really feel like hunting monsters.

Now that I was level 10 herblaw, I could make the Antipoison potion. All I needed were Black Spider Eggs, Dragon’s Seal, and spell stones, which I had in plenty.

[Black Spider Eggs:

An incredibly rare potion ingredient. The eggs are a deep black color and pulsate with a strange, otherworldly energy.

The eggs must be collected at night, when the black spider is most active, and stored in a jar full of strong wine.]

The eggs were a pain to get in Adventure Incarnate because they could only be found in the Shadow Cave that was full of venomous spiders. New players who weren’t yet able to make Antipoison potions had to either buy them from other players or dash in and out of the cave as fast as they could, hoping and praying that they could dodge all the spiders inside.

Dragon’s Seal, on the other hand, was relatively easy to get.

[Dragon’s Seal:

A beautiful silver-green plant. The Dragon’s Seal has long, slender leaves that resemble a dragon’s tail and small white flowers. It can be found in sandy soil and is sometimes planted near places of ill omen to ward against misfortune.]

All of that, of course, was irrelevant to me because I had all the ingredients I would ever need in my inventory.

I was just about to make my first Antipoison when Fengying knocked on the door and informed me I had a visitor.

Oh no! I had been so caught up in leveling up that I had forgotten I had an appointment with Shuye. I had gone with Prince Baiyu to the Mysterious Glade several times, but the flowers that I needed were quite rare, so I wasn’t able to gather them every time. Yesterday, I had finally found the fifth Dusk Dandelion.

[Curing Infertility:

Help the God Beast Clans with their fertility problem. Find five Dusk Dandelions.

Progress: 5/5]

“Fengying, can you please ask him to wait in the main hall? I need to get ready,” I said.

“Yes, Miss Violet,” said Fengying.

She left, and I hurriedly fixed my hair and put on some nicer clothes. I hadn’t noticed until Fengying came to see me, but it was already getting dark outside. Had I remembered to tell Deming I might be late for dinner? I thought I did.

Ah, my head was too full of herblaw these days! I could barely remember what I had done earlier this morning.

I was all smiles as I entered the reception room where Shuye was already waiting for me. He looked the same as always. Instead of giving him the usual crocus flower, I handed him five Dusk Dandelions.

“What’s this?” he asked as he peered at the silver petaled flower with the purple core.

“This is a part of the folk medicine I learned about,” I said. It wasn’t a lie because I had learned it from the System, and wasn’t all herbal medicine folk medicine?

“Why are you giving it to me? What’s it for?”

“It’s a fertility booster.”

“Oh.” He frowned at the flowers. “I’ve never heard of this.”

“Well, I’m not sure it will work. I think it’s worth a try. After all, what do you have to lose?”

He pursed his lips. “Clan members are immune to most poisons, so it probably isn’t that dangerous. Do I give this to my wife?”

“Yes.” I read the information from the system out loud. “Place it in a silver vase and leave it in a room where the moonlight can shine on it. After three nights, the flower should wilt, and the petals will fall off. Give the petals to your wife to eat. If it works, then she will conceive a child within the month.”

“That would be wonderful.”

“You don’t look happy.” I would’ve thought he’d be ecstatic, but he looked troubled.

“It’s just that we’ve tried everything, and she gets really depressed when we fail.”

“Hmm. Have you tried any other methods?”

I mean, the fact that the System had given me this quest meant that the flowers would almost certainly work.

“We’ve both tried everything. I guess we can try once more.”

“Great! I look forward to good news in a month.”

Since he seemed quite dubious about the flowers, I changed the subject and we talked about the weather and what was happening in the forest. According to Shuye, this summer was particularly hot and dry compared to most years, and a few of the smaller ponds had already dried up.

“So it’s not always this hot? The weather has been so tiring lately that I’ve been longing to go to the beach,” I said.

“If you want to go to the beach, then you should. What’s stopping you?”

“I don’t mean for a picnic, I mean going on a few days’ vacation. That would mean leaving the farm for too long.”

“That’s what your apprentices are for, right?”

He had a point. I leaned back in my chair and was silent for a few minutes as I thought about it. Could I trust those three with the farm for three days? How about a week? I pulled on the silk rope beside my chair that rang a bell outside. A few minutes later, Fengying appeared, and I asked her if she thought my three apprentices were ready to take care of the farm by themselves.

“I’m thinking of going on a vacation for a few days. Of course, you and my chef will be coming with me.” I couldn’t live without Deming’s cooking, and he wouldn’t want to leave without his wife.

Fengying assured me that the kids would be fine without us, and that her husband would love to go to the beach to cook for me.

“There’s a great place south of here that has a sheltered cove that’s good for swimming. The beach has fine white sand, and I think you’ll like it. You’ll have to set up a tent though since there aren’t any inns there. Would you prefer a less deserted place? I know a good number of places where humans go on vacation, too,” said Shuye.

“I think a hidden cove is great! Um, would I be allowed to place a temporary shelter there?”

“That shouldn’t be a problem.”

“Okay, but I will need a letter permitting me to build a house there. I’ll remove it when I leave,” I said. Tents were okay, I guess. However, I would love to be able to use a nice resort house. The Cash Shop had a lot of holiday-themed items that would be great for the vacation.

My Farm Guide promised to return with the letter I needed. Adventure Incarnate players were not allowed to place structures wherever they wanted, which is why I needed to get the Farmer Certificate before I could build a farm. I wasn’t certain about it, but I thought that if I had an official letter giving me permission to build on the beach, I should be able to do so.

Shuye, Fengying, and I went over the details until it was time for dinner.

***

Vacation time!

Based on what Shuye told me about the place, I realized he was talking about Emerald Cove. He gave me a permit for building temporary structures there, and I decided to bring one of my apprentices with me. From a young age, my mother had impressed on me the necessity of always having someone with me when I went swimming. It wasn’t safe otherwise. Since it turned out that Mo knew how to swim, I brought her along.

“Why so glum?” I asked Mo.

“The farming experience…”

I laughed. “You have a higher farming level than those two. It’s good to give them a chance to catch up.”

We were riding Shuye’s flying cart to the hidden cove with Deming and Fengying.

“But I like being higher level!” said Mo.

Gone were the days when Mo could barely speak above a whisper and was always looking down at the ground. Now she spoke confidently and could look people in the eyes. I mentally patted myself on the back for being such a great teacher that my student had improved so much.

“The Emerald Cove is home to a rare species of edible seagrass. Have you heard of sea vegetables? You should be thankful for this rare opportunity to forage in a marine environment,” I said.

Mo’s eyes turned as big as saucers. “I can forage in the sea?”

Foraging was her one great love, like herblaw was to me.

“Of course. Remember, though, don’t go out alone. We have to watch out for each other when we go swimming or exploring the sea. I heard that drowning is a really nasty way to go,” I said.

“Yes, teacher,” she said.

“And we can probably catch some seafood,” I said.

We had only been fishing in the river and the freshwater lake and ponds, so we hadn’t gotten any saltwater fish, shellfish, or crustaceans.

Mo didn’t say anything. We both knew that she wasn’t very good at fishing.

Chapter 43 – Basking in the Beauty of Cove-ted Waters

When we flew to the beach, I was reminded of the time that I had gone on a helicopter tour of Hawaii with my parents. The two of them had spent the entire time hugging, giggling, and whispering sweet nothings to each other. I had been a child at the time, and I had cringed at their shameless public displays of affection. Now I would give anything for them to be with me right now, embarrassing me with their lovey-dovey interactions.

I shook off those melancholy thoughts and tried to enjoy the trip.

The hidden cove was tucked away in a small inlet surrounded by a tall cliff, and the area around the cove was filled with lush vegetation. From above, it looked like a peaceful place with white sand and crystal clear waters that glistened in the sun.

When Shuye landed the flying cart, I felt my stomach lurch, but I was immediately soothed when I took off my shoes and felt how good the powdery white sand felt beneath my bare feet. Waves gently lapped against the shore, and the air was warm and filled with the sound of seagulls and the occasional splash of a fish.

“The sand is so soft! It feels great,” I said to Shuye. “Thank you very much for showing me this place.”

“I knew you would like it.” Shuye smiled down at me. “Look up there. Does that place seem like a good place for the house?”

I put my shoes back on, and we climbed halfway up a winding path to a flat area well above the high water mark. There was a small shed there that contained firewood and tinderboxes.

“This is where people normally camp.” Shuye gave me an expectant look.

He wasn’t the only one. Deming, Fengying, and Mo also had the same expression on their faces. I remembered the time that I had the System dig a well. Everyone had been excited by the “magic.”

“This is fine. Can everyone please stand there?” I pointed to a spot below the camping area.

Mentally calling up the System menu, I navigated to the Cash Shop and searched until I found the [Sunset Radiance Resort], selecting the “elegant” option. In Adventure Incarnate, this building was purely decorative. When a player bought it, all they got was a short animation where they were given three random costume sets of resort wear. However, I was betting that it would be different here since this was real life. I crossed my fingers and mentally clicked on the [Build] button.

A glowing magic circle made of runes and mystical symbols appeared on the ground.

Yes! It was working.

Moments later, the building appeared. The [Sunset Radiance Resort] was a large, two-story building with a wraparound porch, several balconies, and plenty of windows that allowed natural light to fill the interior. The exterior was painted a light blue with white trim, and it had a bright red door, giving it a cheerful, inviting appearance.

We all went inside, excited to see what this large building had to offer. The spacious living area had comfortable-looking sofas, armchairs, a grand piano, and a wall of bookshelves. I eagerly checked out the books, but they were all decorative and the pages were blank. An inviting fireplace was the centerpiece of the room, with a marble mantle that was decorated with tiny crystal and wood sculptures.

The kitchen was top of the line, with stainless steel appliances and plenty of cabinet space. It was stocked with all the necessary cooking and dining essentials, as well as a collection of fine china and crystal glasses. The center island was stacked with a dozen food crates full of basic cooking ingredients like rice, flour, pasta, noodles, olive oil, salt, sugar, pepper, and so forth. Deming only said one word when he saw it: “Acceptable.”

Upstairs, eight identical bedrooms featured luxurious king-sized beds with crisp white linens and plush pillows. The attached bathrooms were equipped with large soaking tubs, separate showers, and double vanities.

The others oohed and aahed over the place except for Shuye, who simply shook his head silently at me.

“This is surprisingly restrained, for you,” said Shuye.

I remembered his reaction when I had shown him the [Jade Treasure Tree]. This resort must seem pretty ordinary compared to that.

“I’m glad you like it,” I said.

Once we finished touring the place, Shuye said his goodbyes and left.

I chose a corner bedroom and flopped down on the bed. “I’ll take this one, and you guys should go settle in. Please let me know when dinner is ready.”

The others went off to unpack. I, of course, had my inventory space, so I didn’t need to do that. I took off my shoes and lay on top of the covers, enjoying the feeling of having absolutely nothing to do for the rest of the day except have fun.

Mmm. I could really get used to this! Would it be too decadent of me to just lie on this bed and do nothing for the rest of the day? It was roughly three hours before sunset. The only problem was that the central air conditioning felt like it was set to “Arctic freeze,” so I got up and dialed it down a little. Then I changed into my pajamas, placed Mr. Bear on the nightstand, and had a long nap.

After a pleasant dream of playing with a cute dragon, I awoke to the sound of seagulls outside my window. I got out of bed and opened the curtains, revealing a gorgeous view of the sun setting down over the horizon, casting a brilliant orange and pink light across the sea and sky.

Now would be a great time for a walk on the beach, so I put on my most comfortable clothes and headed out. When I reached the beach, I saw that Mo was there picking up seaweed and seashells. We waved to each other, and I went off in the other direction, since I wasn’t in the mood for company right now. The sea breeze was delightful, but my long hair was getting tangled, so I tied it up in a ponytail. As I walked on the fine white sand of the beach, I took in the smell of the sea, feeling relaxed and refreshed. The sky turned a dark blue as the sun slowly descended.

When it turned dark enough that it was difficult for me to see Mo’s figure on the other side of the beach, I decided that it was time to return to the resort.

“Did you find anything good?” I said to my apprentice when we met each other on the way back.

She showed me her haul. It was all junk, but she seemed excited about foraging on the beach for the first time. “Look, I found a lot of pretty seashells, and I think some of these seaweeds are edible!”

“Tomorrow we can go fishing. I’ll show you how to do it,” I said.

“Yes, teacher.” Mo didn’t seem too eager about it. She never did like fishing.

Dinner was, as usual, absolutely scrumptious. Afterward, I decided to do a little herblaw. To me, that was the most enjoyable and relaxing skill to train. I turned off the air conditioning and opened the windows in my bedroom to let in the sea breeze. The smell of the herbs and sea combined was so delightful that I seriously considered abandoning my farm and moving to the beach.

Alas, I could never really do it because the forest lands in Adventure Incarnate were always the most fertile, and I wouldn’t want to give that up.

Three hours of making potions tired me out, so I went to bed immediately after taking a shower. As I turned off the lights, I thought about my plans for tomorrow. It was sure to be another fun day. Big net fishing was like going to the casino because one’s results depended almost entirely on luck.

***

They do say that, “When in Rome, do as the Romans do.”

It’s a good proverb, but it can be annoying at times, like right now. Swimming in the ocean was a little dangerous in this world where there were no lifeguards. Therefore, I had decided to go on a beach vacation with a few members of my household.

I regretted that a little because Fengying was adamant that I shouldn’t wear any of my swimsuits because they were considered extremely immodest in this world. Instead, I had to wear a sack-like garment that went down to mid-calf and had sleeves up to my elbow.

“The sun is so hot and bright,” said Mo.

It was midmorning. We were both barefoot and had on wide-brimmed hats. Mine was a straw hat that had dried flowers, ribbons, and Mr. Bear decorating it.

“We made a mistake. It was cooler earlier. We should’ve gone fishing and then had breakfast,” I said. “You woke up too late.”

“The bed was so comfortable that I slept late,” she said.

“Hmm. It does seem a bit too hot. Why don’t we go fishing in the late afternoon instead?”

“What should we do now?”

“Let’s go back. I have an idea.”

I led her up the path to the resort, but didn’t stop when we reached the building. We went higher up, to the top of the cliff.

“Look at that view,” I said as I waved down at the sea below us. “Isn’t this a great spot for swimming? We can wear our swimsuits.”

Mo looked at me as though I had lost my mind. “Swim? On land? And those ‘swimsuits’ are too revealing.”

“Hahaha! I will not be denied! Swimming is a must when you’re on vacation, and I won’t swim in a sack.” I rubbed my hands gleefully.

I had a plan, and it was a good one.

Chapter 44 – Seas the Day

My inventory was full of cash shop items, and yesterday I had found out that items like the [Sunset Radiance Resort] could be built on this world.

“You don’t have to wear the swimsuits if you don’t want to, but I will,” I said to Mo.

She jumped back in surprise when a magic circle appeared in front of us when I selected the [Sunset Radiance Resort] in the Cash Shop again and mentally clicked on the [Build] button. This time, I chose the “extravagant” option for the resort.

In the game, the simple, elegant, and extravagant options gave the player different costumes, and the animation that played each time showed a different building. The simple one was a small, cute seaside cottage. The elegant one was the one that I had built yesterday. The extravagant resort was a rather vulgar and showy five-story hotel that looked like it was made for the nouveau riche. However, it suited my purpose for today because it had a large infinity pool.

I burst out laughing when the System finished building the resort. “My gosh! It looks so…”

The hotel was enormous, easily ten times the size of the elegant resort we were staying in. The exterior was bright pink, with gold paint that was practically blinding in the bright sunlight. I gawked at the entrance, which was flanked with tall marble columns, gold-plated statues, and a grand fountain in the middle.

It’s a good thing Shuye wasn’t here to see it.

The outdoor areas featured an enormous pool with multiple water slides, a Jacuzzi, and multiple cascading mini waterfalls. There were also cabanas and day beds, as well as a beach volleyball court. The outdoor pool area was filled with palm trees, tiki huts, and an abundance of colorful umbrellas.

“Are we staying there?” Mo’s mouth had fallen open, and she was staring at the building with an awed look on her face. “It’s so fancy.”

I chuckled as I led her inside the lobby. Its walls were adorned with expensive artwork and gaudy golden silk upholstery, and the floors were made of inlaid marble. The furniture was ornate, with plush velvet and gilded legs, and dozens of crystal chandeliers crowded the ceiling.

We had barely started exploring when Deming and Fengying turned up at the door. They asked me if I wanted us to move to this new place, but I explained I was just testing out what I could build. To my surprise, Mo, Deming, and Fengying seemed to approve of the decor.

“No way! I prefer the other resort,” I said when they asked me for the fifth time if I wanted to use this place instead, but I had to admit defeat when Deming caught sight of the kitchen’s huge walk-in freezers that were full of food and cooking ingredients.

Of course, just like my house in the farm, the items inside couldn’t be taken out of the building, but when Deming promised me that he would be able to cook the best meal ever if he got access to the kitchen, my stomach overruled my brain, and I agreed to stay in this garish place.

I took Fengying aside and told her I would be using the rooftop pool with Mo, so they should keep out of that area.

“Of course. I’m not even sure I’ll be able to get my husband out of the kitchen. He might stay there and not sleep for the entire time we’re here,” said Fengying.

“If he’s happy, then my stomach’s happy!” I said as I made my way upstairs with Mo.

There were no elevators. I noticed that the building was remarkably low tech, which was more in keeping with the technology level of this world.

“Yes! It’s wonderful!” I said when we opened the doors to the rooftop. “This is where we can swim.”

The tranquil waters of the infinity pool glistened in the afternoon sun. It was a sight to behold - the pool stretched out before us, seemingly endless as it blended into the horizon. One side of the pool curved inwards, giving the illusion of an infinite expanse of water. The pool itself was deep blue, with water so clear that you could see the bottom. The tiled edge also contained several bubblers, which gave the illusion of bubbles rising from the depths of the pool.

Loungers were scattered around the pool, and there were a few round tables with umbrellas surrounded by chairs on the far side of the roof area.

I took off my sunhat and sack-like garment. Underneath, I was wearing a blue one-piece swimsuit.

“Whee!” I waded into the pool, shivering when my feet touched the cool water.

“We’re going to swim here?” Mo looked doubtful.

“What’s the problem?”

“It’s too shallow.”

“The pool is deeper on the other end,” I said. “But I didn’t literally mean that we should swim. I’m just going to relax. Think of this as just a really big bathtub.”

“Oh.”

I guess the concept of swimming pools wasn’t something she was familiar with. “Nevermind. Just sit on the edge if you want to and relax.”

I’d had the foresight to ask the Demon Chef to prepare a pitcher of drinks for us, so I took it out of my inventory and asked Mo to place it on one of the tables for later.

Then I let her be and swam to the side of the pool facing the beach. I folded my arms on the edge of the pool and rested my head there while I let my whole body go limp. The cool water buoyed me up and the feel of the sea breeze on my face was a pleasure I couldn’t get enough of. I read somewhere that the negative ions found in the air near the beach increase a person’s level of serotonin, which boosts one’s mood. I personally think it was a combination of the vitamin D from the sunshine, the fresh food from the sea, and the feeling of freedom because of being away from home and work, as well as the negative ions that made people happier when they were on vacation.

Once I’d had enough of gazing blankly at the horizon, I floated on my back, letting the water calm me and take away any stress. Should I swim a few laps? No, I decided, that was way too much effort. I spent the rest of the morning just playing around in the pool, occasionally emerging to grab a drink, until it was time for lunch.

Deming had promised me the best meal ever if he was allowed to use the hotel kitchen, and it did not disappoint.

The meal started with a creamy, smooth onion soup that had a hint of sweetness. I was very impressed with the next dish, baked mussels. My palate was then cleansed with a refreshing sorbet. Then came a plate of duck confit, which was cooked to perfection and served with delicious mashed potatoes and glazed carrots. For the main course, I was served a succulent, juicy steak with a medley of fresh, seasonal vegetables. The next dish was a light salad with a lemon dressing. Of course, after that was a wonderful cheese platter. Dessert was a delicious crème brûlée.

French cuisine?! The Demon Chef even knew how to cook these “exotic” dishes? There was, of course, no such place as France in this world, but Central cuisine was similar to French cuisine. Here, the Central continent was far more technologically advanced. Therefore, their cuisine was quite fashionable these days.

“That was truly the best meal I had in the Westerlands,” I said to Fengying.

“He said the dinner will be even better,” she replied.

“Then I look forward to it!” I turned to my apprentice and said, “Wake me up when it’s three hours to sunset. We’ll go fishing then.”

I had eaten so much that I practically fell into a food coma, so I retired to the hotel’s smallest, least gaudy room for a nap. I woke up hours later, ready for action. The sun was still burning hot, but we couldn’t wait any longer for it to become cooler because I didn’t want to go fishing in the dark. Dressed in the sack and wearing a sun hat with Mr. Bear attached to it, I led my apprentice to the edge of the water. An area of the water was sparkling in the sun, which showed that it was a fishing spot. However, the strange thing was that I couldn’t see any fish there.

Well, it was still worth a try.

“Go to the System toolbelt and click on the little icon that looks like a fish. Then take out the big net. Got it?” I took out the item and carefully waded into the shallow water. “For now, just watch what I do.”

I flung the net out into the sea, keeping hold of one corner. Then I waited five heartbeats until a glowing golden exclamation mark appeared over the net. As I pulled the net back towards me, I felt a resistance, as though it was full of something or the other. When I had reeled it in close enough, the items I had caught appeared in my inventory and a System notification box popped up in front of me.

[Mackerel (2), Cod (1), Bass (2), Casket (1), Old Leather Boots (1), Oyster (10), Lobster (5), Rusty Key (2)]

“What a catch!” I said.

How on earth had that happened? There definitely weren’t any fish or other items in the water that I could see. Was the net some sort of portal device? The System was as mysterious as ever.

“What did you get, teacher?” asked Mo. She couldn’t see what I had gotten because it all went directly to my inventory.

“A bit of fish, some shellfish, and miscellaneous interesting items. Why don’t you try it?” I suggested.

She stepped forward and flung her net out. A few moments later, it was already full, and she reeled it in.

“Eh? I got a lot of stuff!” she exclaimed in surprise.

The poor girl was so bad at fishing that she was shocked she got a good haul… except she didn’t seem to realize that it was all junk.

[Old Leather Boots (2), Rusty Key (1), Seaweed (2), Shell (3), Seaweed (8), Sea Glass (2)]

“Good work! Stay here and I’ll find my own fishing spot. I won’t be far,” I said.

I walked a little away from her until I saw another patch of sparkling water. We spent around an hour fishing until we ran out of energy. Big net fishing allowed players to catch more fish, so it was faster and more efficient than using a fishing rod that could only catch one fish at a time, but net fishing used up more energy per cast. The downside of it was that one often caught useless junk until their fishing level was high.

When we were done, we each got two buckets from our inventory and filled them with saltwater and some of our catch for the Demon Chef to cook later. Then we put them in our inventories so we wouldn’t need to carry them as we walked back to the top of the cliff where the hotel was located.

“I didn’t get a lot of fish, but I got a lot of these.” Mo held up a handful of sea glass up to the sun, fascinated by the way they caught the light.

“You can keep those in your room to remind you of your first beach vacation. Ask Fengying to put it on a small wooden tray for display,” I said. “Nice fishing here, huh? I wish we could do this more often, but I don’t want to be away from the farm for too long. I’m already worried about how they’re getting along without me.”

Me and my big mouth! No sooner had I said that when we spotted Shuye on his flying cart approaching at great speed.

“You’re needed at the farm,” said my Farm Guide when he landed beside us on the beach. “Some of your crops were destroyed.”

Chapter 45 – Current Events Lead to a High Voltage Adventure

They say there ain’t no rest for the wicked. I say, there’s ain’t no rest for the farmer! When Shuye arrived with the bad news, we had no choice but to cut the vacation short, pack up, and leave immediately. My bear-like Farm Guide looked extremely worried as he flew us back, and I had to ask him to slow down several times.

“Oh, I don’t feel so good,” I said as I leaned against Fengying after we landed. “I think I left my stomach somewhere up in the sky.”

“I’m sorry, was I flying too fast?” asked Shuye.

“It’s fine… I just need a minute.” I waited until I felt better, then said, “All right, show me.”

They led me to the second field where the corn was already waist high.

“This morning when we went to water the plants, we saw that,” said Kharli.

“That” was lightning that was dancing across a small patch of land, illuminating the area with a bright white light. It crackled and flashed menacingly, but as we walked towards it, it started to dim until, by the time we reached it, the lightning had disappeared.

“Interesting,” I said.

The entire household had turned out to watch this development, and everyone seemed relieved when the lightning died down by itself.

“There’s nothing more to see here, why don’t we all go back to the house for lunch? I’m sure we're all hungry,” I said.

They obediently turned around and walked back to the house while I took a moment to inspect the damage. Thankfully, only a small portion of the corn crop had burned down. I knelt down and touched the part of the ground where lightning had struck. The plants had been reduced to ashes, and the soil was wet and slightly warm. I got out a spade and dug around until I found what I was looking for.

[Lightning Fang:

A jagged, glassy rock formed after a lightning strike. It was created when intense heat from a lightning bolt melted the silica in soil or sand and then cooled rapidly.

Can be added to an arrowhead for an additional effect. One use.]

It wasn’t much, but it would serve as a consolation prize for losing part of the harvest.

A Lightning Fang wasn’t very useful in Adventure Incarnate, so I didn’t have any in my inventory because GodIAm hadn’t bothered with it. All the item did was to add an electric shock effect to an arrow, which gave it a small chance of stunning the enemy.

“What’s that?” asked Shuye.

I explained the Lightning Fang’s use to him, and he asked me to demonstrate it for him, which I promised to do when I had free time.

“Your apprentices told me that there was a thunderstorm last night. I’m not surprised that lightning struck some of the crops, but I don’t understand why the lightning behaved that way,” he said.

“Yes, that was weird, wasn’t it?” I couldn’t explain it to him. In Adventure Incarnate, there were several harmless visual bugs, and the one where lightning didn’t disappear immediately after striking a farm was pretty common. That was probably what happened here. “Well, at least it didn’t burn down more of the crops.”

This was all my fault. I had forgotten that summer was the season of thunderstorms, and I hadn’t put any lightning rods down. I’ll place them around the farm later today.

Seeing that everything was now fine, Shuye said his goodbyes as I went back for lunch. He always made himself scarce whenever it was meal time, since that was considered courteous behavior here for cultivators and clan members who abstained from eating human food.

“I’ll see you tomorrow,” he said.

“I look forward to it.”

***

The next day, Shuye appeared after I finished my morning chores, and I agreed to show him how the Lightning Fang worked.

“Um, it’s sort of weird,” I said.

“Everything about you is like that,” he said. He was wearing his usual brown pants and robe, and his hair was as shaggy as ever.

“Let’s walk a little bit away from the farm.”

“Is this going to be dangerous?”

“Nah.”

“Are you sure?”

“I’ll just shoot a tree or something,” I said. “How is your wife? Has she eaten the petals from the five Dusk Dandelions yet?”

“She has. No results yet.”

“I hope it works.”

“I almost forgot!” Shuye got a cloth sachet from his pocket and handed it to me. “Dusk Dandelions seeds.”

The seeds looked like tiny grains of black rice, and they had a faint silver glow around them.

“Great! If the cure works, then I’ll use them when it’s planting season.” Though I couldn’t be 100% certain that the Dusk Dandelions would be effective, the fact that the System recommended them meant that there was a good chance it would work. I poured out half of the seeds and gave the sachet back to Shuye. “Why don’t you try planting some of these yourself?”

“You don’t mind if I take some of them?”

“It’s better for me if I’m not the sole source of Dusk Dandelions. In fact, we should probably distribute the seeds to your clan members when we have more,” I said.

“That’s very generous of you,” he said.

“Generous? Wait, are you assuming that I did this for free? No way! I’m expecting a big reward if your wife gets pregnant.” I laughed at his thunderstruck expression. “I’m just kidding.”

“I’ll owe you a favor if it works,” said Shuye.

“No, no, I was just kidding.”

He ignored my protests. When we reached a small clearing, I said that it was far enough.

Taking out the Lightning Fang and a regular arrow from my inventory, I rubbed the lightning-infused stone on the arrowhead. Electricity arched and the stone crumbled to dust. I held up the arrow for Shuye to see.

“Now some of the lightning’s power has been transferred to this arrow. I’ll just shoot that tree, okay?” I pointed at a nearby oak tree that was a good distance from the other trees.

“Be careful.”

Without further ado, I notched an arrow and struck the target in the middle of the trunk.

BOOM!

I was unprepared for the explosion that caused a shockwave that shook the ground and the loud boom that reverberated through the area. The tree was thrown into the air, its leaves and branches flying everywhere. The trunk was split into many pieces by the force of the blast.

Shuye stepped in front of me, a near-invisible shield snapping in place around both of us, protecting us from the bits of wood flying in all directions. I didn’t know he could do that. It was a bit late, but I activated Mr. Bear’s [Defense Mode].

“Are you hurt?” asked Shuye when it was all over.

The destruction was complete. What was once a green and vibrant tree was now nothing more than a pile of wood chips. The ground around the tree was covered in splinters, torn bits of leaves, and other debris. Even the roots were destroyed, leaving nothing more than a gaping hole in the ground.

“I’m fine. Um, that wasn’t supposed to happen. Lightning arrows aren’t supposed to be that powerful.” I looked around me in awe at the devastation.

Shuye shook his head and gave me a look of disappointment. “Divine lightning is the most powerful force on earth. I thought you knew.”

“Huh? Wouldn’t earth-type cultivators easily counter lightning?” That was the rule in the game.

My Farm Guide sighed. “They can’t do that. No one can avoid divine lightning.”

His use of the word “divine” clued me in. I was thinking of “lightning” as simply a form of electricity, but in this world where the clans believed in manifest gods, a heavenly thunderbolt was more than just the movement of charged particles. It was something divine.

That was good to know. In the future, when I had the time to train crafting, I would test making lightning-type items since I now knew that they were especially useful. Or did that only apply to items that were made naturally by lightning during a thunderstorm? I sensed that there was a lot of experimenting with different kinds of elemental magic in my future.

“My bad. I didn’t realize it would be that strong.” I did my best to give him an apologetic look while internally jubilant at my discovery. “If I’d known, I wouldn’t have wasted my Lightning Fang on a tree.”

“Please be more careful next time.”

“I definitely will.” Next time, I would have Mr. Bear at the ready.

“I think the people from your household are coming to see what the commotion was about,” said Shuye as we both heard the sound of people approaching.

This was going to be difficult to explain.

Chapter 46 – Basil-cally, I’m a Real Sage When It Comes to Potions

Having earned the label “That Silly Girl Who Played with Lightning,” I kept my head down and stayed on the farm for the next few days. The crops were growing well, and it was time to deploy a certain technique that would increase the quality of the corn harvest.

“Today I will teach you an awesome technique!” I said to my apprentices. We were at the vegetable field where we had planted a few squares using the Three Sisters method.

[Companion Planting: The Three Sisters

The Iroquois and Cherokee tribes used this method of planting corn, beans, and squash together in the same mound. The corn grows tall and provides a support for the beans to climb. The squash spreads along the ground, providing ground cover and preventing weeds from growing. This method of planting results in a bountiful harvest of all three crops.]

I moved closer to one of the mounds. The corn had grown tall and strong, towering above its companions. The beans that were climbing up the stalks of the corn were vibrantly green, and the squash, sprawling across the ground, had thick, wide leaves. All three plants had flourished, and I could see that there was a slight haziness to the surrounding air, which I believed was a sign that they were rich in spiritual energy or qi.

“First of all, observe these plants. We were just at the cornfield. What is the difference between the corn here and the corn in the other field?” I asked them.

The three of them stepped closer to the plants and circled the mounds, looking closely at the corn and the other plants. Lari scratched his head, and they huddled together for a few minutes before coming back to me and giving me their answer.

“The corn seems to be taller compared to the corn in the other field,” said Kharli.

“Correct. What else?”

“The leaves are a little greener,” said Kharli.

“What can you conclude, then?”

“That the Three Sisters method works?” She sounded uncertain. “There doesn’t seem to be a lot of difference.”

Hmm. Could it be that the haze I saw around the plants wasn’t visible to other people? Interesting.

“Even a slight difference at this point in the growing season can make a big difference when it’s harvest time. We’ll know then whether the Three Sisters method is better. Also, I think the three of you have forgotten or haven’t noticed that there are almost no weeds here compared to the other field. We haven’t planted a lot of crops this season, but in the future we might find that it’s very useful to have crops that are low maintenance.”

Mo crouched down to look at the ground. “It’s true! We haven’t weeded today yet, but the ground is clear.”

The other two went to the other mounds to check, and confirmed that it was true of the other plantings, too.

I decided to move on to the main lesson for today. “One thing you have to keep in mind, though, is that if you use this method, you should hand pollinate the corn. If you grow a lot of corn together, the crop will pollinate itself whenever the wind blows, but if you only have a few of them, then they will need some help with pollination.”

The three of them looked at each other, then Kharli said, “Teacher, what is pollination?”

Now it was my turn to scratch my head. I shouldn’t have assumed that they already knew what pollination was since they grew up in an orphanage and didn’t go to school like I did.

“Okay, I’ll explain. This part here on the top of the corn plant is called the tassel. It’s full of something we call pollen. When the wind blows, it shakes the plants and the pollen naturally falls down to the corn silks. That is what we call pollination, and this process has to happen for the corn kernels to develop. Do you understand so far?”

They nodded.

“All right. Since there aren’t many corn plants here, it’s best to hand pollinate them. I’ll show you how it’s done.”

Taking a pair of scissors from my System toolbelt, I snipped off a tassel, then gently brushed it back and forth over the silks, ensuring that all the strands were fully coated.

“That’s it! It’s easy, right?” I said. “Let’s do it.”

We spent the better part of an hour carefully tending to the corn plants. Dusting the silks with pollen was pretty fun and relaxing. If only I hadn’t transmigrated into such a conservative culture, I would’ve made a few jokes about plant reproduction, but, alas, that would be considered in bad taste here.

“Shouldn’t we do this with the corn plants in the other field?” asked Lari. “What if they don’t pollinate themselves properly?”

“If you feel like it, you can hand pollinate some of the corn there. Make a note of which ones you helped, and we can compare the harvest between the naturally pollinated and hand pollinated plants,” I said. Lari was normally the lazy one, but he could be roused to action whenever he thought he could get something out of it. It seemed that he was afraid that we would get an inferior harvest if we didn’t hand pollinate all the plants.

“Thank you for teaching us,” said Kharli.

The others echoed her words, and they went off to the other field to practice their technique a little more.

As for me, I went to my room to do more herblaw.

It was hotter than ever this summer, and my room, with its central air conditioning, was like an oasis in the middle of a desert. I asked Fengying for a pitcher of apple juice with ice cubes from the refrigerator and a handful of nuts to snack on. Once she had delivered the items, I started making potions.

[Player Name: Violet

Farming Skills:

Farming Level 12, Fishing Level 8, Woodcutting Level 12, Cooking Level 1, Herblaw Level 10, Foraging Level 3, Hunting Level 1, Mining Level 1]

My herblaw was coming along nicely. Of course, it wasn’t a fast skill to train, but that was true of everything related to farming. I placed the spell stones and herbs on my worktable and used the Clean Herb spell. Then I swiftly combined the ingredients in a vial using the Create Potion spell. Again and again, I cast the spell as fast as I could, and delighted in the act of creation. Blight Magic, Dewy Glow, and Antipoison potions weren’t exactly the most useful items I could make right now, but it was necessary to gain more experience and level up my herblaw to be able to create better potions.

Though it wasn’t exactly a heart pounding adventure, it was still much better than what I would have been doing back on Earth, which was probably studying for college entrance exams, and stressing over money.

Here I had my own place, plenty of money, scrumptious food to eat every day, and magic.

Magic was even harder to train than Herblaw. I wasn’t particularly worried about it though since magic was used in pretty much all the crafting skills and should level up naturally as soon as I started working on my non-farming skills.

As I made potions, I hummed a little tune under my breath.

A pinch of this root, a drop of that berry
Mixed with a thunderclap, and a songbird’s melody
A tiny pinch of salt, and a spark from a lightning bolt
Will give the brew an extra special jolt.

That was the song from Adventure Incarnate’s trailer that featured herblaw.

I was making potions the way I normally did when the vials I was working on started glowing all the colors of the rainbow and a System message popped up.

[You have made a Perfect Potion.]

Whoohoo! It was about time that I did. Though Perfect Potions only gave a twenty percent boost to their regular effects, they gave double experience. The more a player trained a particular skill or crafted a particular item, the more they “mastered” it. In herblaw, that meant that players would produce Perfect Potions now and then, with the frequency increasing as their mastery increased.

Cheered by the thought that I was going to get more experience than usual, I continued to train herblaw for the rest of the week without stopping except for sleep, meals, the usual daily farm chores, and a few breaks here and there whenever Prince Baiyu came for a visit.

Chapter 47 – Dandelions are Pollen-ty of Fun

“She’s pregnant,” were the first words out of Shuye’s mouth. He didn’t even bother to say hello or good morning.

“Congratulations,” I said.

[Curing Infertility: Quest Complete

Reward: A Noble Title]

What?! I tried to look for a [Reject] button, but there was none. I didn’t want a noble title! In theory, raising one’s social status was beneficial in this world, however, it probably came with responsibilities.

“I’ve reported the use of Dusk Dandelions in curing my wife’s condition. You can expect confirmation within the next few days, and I’m sure the Lady will reward you generously,” said Shuye.

“There’s no need for a reward. After all, I barely did anything,” I said.

It was like talking to a wall. My Farm Guide completely ignored my protests.

“My wife planted the seeds, and the dandelion seedlings will be given to our best farmers,” said Shuye. “I didn’t tell them that you have some, too, because I know you prefer your privacy.”

“Thanks,” I said weakly.

Maybe it wouldn’t be that bad. I asked Shuye what the reward would be, but he said he didn’t know.

“What are you worried about? Our doctors are smart; they won't blame you if the flowers can’t cure everyone,” said Shuye. He was grinning from ear to ear, obviously overjoyed that his wife’s infertility had been cured.

“Uh, is there any chance of maybe hinting to the Lady that I would like a little more land?” I thought it was worth a try, but I wasn’t expecting to immediately get a new System message.

[Curing Infertility: Quest Complete

Reward: A Noble Title and More Land]

Wow! I wouldn’t mind getting a noble title if it came with more land to farm.

“I can certainly pass the message on,” Shuye assured me. “Farmers aren’t normally granted a bigger piece of land this fast, but you deserve it.”

Yes! If I had more land, I might be able to build more. I thought longingly of the Ranch House that I had been forced to replace with the rice mill.

“Thank you. Are you hoping for a boy or a girl?”

“Either one is fine. I just want a healthy child,” said Shuye. “How have you been? I wasn’t able to visit this past week because I was reporting what happened.”

“Let’s walk around, and I’ll show you the new beehives. You remember how I wanted to grow sugarcane? Honey will be a nice substitute for sugar.”

We spent a few more minutes walking around the farm until he left, and I went back to the house for more herblaw training.

***

The Lady and the clan doctors really moved fast. Five days later, I received an official document doubling the size of the land grant I had received from the local government. In addition, I was given the rank of Baroness, with all the accompanying rights and responsibilities. Shuye helpfully explained that since my barony consisted of my farm and part of the surrounding virgin forest, I didn’t really need to do anything special. The only difference the title made was that my tax rate was lower now.

“How much lower?” I asked.

“The old taxes were set at ten percent. Your new tax rate is eight percent.”

“Awesome!”

He didn’t need to tell me that my social status was now higher than all the commoners. Living as I did in the middle of the forest, it didn’t matter much.

Since my farm had now doubled in size, the System, in its infinite wisdom, opened up a third building slot. That meant that I could now add a third building in addition to the courtyard house and rice mill that I already had.

The moment Shuye left, I went to the place that I had earmarked as the spot where I would build my future residence. It was some distance from the courtyard house, and it was on higher ground.

Before I set down the house, I built twelve-foot high stone walls all around the perimeter for maximum privacy. The gate I chose was a sturdy steel one with a solid construction and a dragon design.

Then I went to the System’s Build menu and chose the house that I wanted.

[Ranch-style House:

A one-storey house that’s perfect for an easy-going lifestyle, with a simple design known for its easy maintenance, rectangular shape, and low-pitched roofline. The interior is typically very open and airy, with the front door typically opening directly into the living room.]

The one I picked was a medium-sized structure with white siding and a red roof. The front porch was covered with a wooden awning, and the windows were framed by dark green shutters that I thought provided a pleasant contrast to the white walls.

A large magic circle appeared on the ground. It flashed brighter three times until I had to close my eyes because of the brightness. When I opened my eyes, the house had appeared. I quickly added the default furniture packs, choosing a white and green color scheme, to the rooms before entering.

The interior was simple and cozy. Inside, the living room had a wooden floor and a brick fireplace, while the tiny kitchen had a modern stove, fridge, and oven. The dining area was so small that it could be called a breakfast nook, since it only had one round table and two wooden chairs. Since it wasn’t very large, the house only had one bedroom, but it was quite large and had a king-sized bed, vanity table with a matching stool, and plenty of built-in closets. The bathroom had a clawfoot tub and a pedestal sink, and, most importantly, there was a flush toilet.

There was one thing that was missing, though. I added a cozy window seat to the large picture window at the back of the house, where I could curl up with Mr. Bear when I wanted to relax.

It was heaven.

I hadn’t realized until now how much I had wanted my very own place. The people at the courtyard house were nice, but we lived right next to each other, and being the head of the household in this old-fashioned place meant that I had to uphold certain standards.

I mean, we lived quite close to each other and there was so little privacy that I was afraid to fart in my own room in case someone heard me! What’s more, Fengying’s gimlet eyes missed nothing, and I couldn’t walk around in old clothes or slouch on my seat without fearing her disapproval. I hadn’t realized until now that being on my best behavior all the time had been extremely stressful.

Now, away from everyone else’s watching eyes, I could do whatever I wanted, so long as I stayed inside the house. I set the walls to maximum privacy and put on a T-shirt and jean shorts from the Cash Shop because it was tiring to always have to dress in this world’s idea of proper clothing. Then I went outside and threw Mr. Bear up to the roof and set him on [Guard Mode].

The ranch house’s furnishings were basic, but comfortable, which was exactly what I wanted. However, the land surrounding it was covered in grass and tree stumps. I cleared the ground and browsed through the Cash Shop for garden items.

What kind of garden did I want?

The gardens attached to the player houses used decorative plants, trees, and other items from the Cash Shop. I cycled through the options in the System tab, but there were so many that I felt rather overwhelmed. Using the [Filter], I checked all the most expensive items.

The one that caught my eye was the [Rose Garden]. Unfortunately, when I tried to place it in the open area in front of the house, I found that the proportions were off. It could only fit into the small space by squeezing all the elements together in a strange way. The winding paths became cobweb-like, and the stately statues turned into knee-high lawn ornaments. I guess that was because the garden was meant to be for players who had already built a palace.

Well, I wasn’t about to let this problem defeat me. I couldn’t use the [Rose Garden], but could still manually recreate it on a smaller scale.

Using the garden as my inspiration, I put down irregular white limestone blocks to create stepping-stone paths, then put down a base layer of green grass in the front yard. No garden was complete without a few trees, so I added a maple and magnolia tree, one on each side of the house. As for the roses, I put down dozens of red, white, pink, peach, and blue rose bushes. For that extra oomph factor, I covered the walls surrounding the house in climbing roses of every color.

It was… A bit much.

I decided to replace the climbing roses with green ivy. It looked much better that way. Lastly, I browsed through the patio furniture and chose a white wooden gazebo and a pretty little garden swing.

Now it was perfect.

Lifting my T-shirt, I scratched my stomach and laughed when I realized what I’d done. This was exactly the type of uncouth behavior that would have made the people in the main house raise their eyebrows disapprovingly.

Now that I had my own house, life was going to be so much more comfortable.

Chapter 48 – Time to Turnip the Beet and Start Harvesting

Everyone wanted to take a look at my new house, but I very firmly said no because it was my own special place where other people were not allowed to enter. I suppose that eventually I would satisfy their curiosity, but in the meantime, I took all my meals and met with my apprentices at the courtyard house and spent the rest of my free time at the ranch house.

The summer heat had abated somewhat, and it felt like the cooler autumn months were already on their way. I turned off the air conditioning and simply opened the windows to enjoy the fresh air. Right now, it wasn’t that cold, but I would definitely add a fireplace before winter. I looked forward to spending quiet nights alone, sprawled out on a plush rug with Mr. Bear in front of a roaring fireplace.

My new Rose Garden turned out to be self-maintaining, since the plants stayed in their peak condition even when I didn’t water or weed them. That must be because of the power of the Cash Shop. The only drawback was that the scent of the flowers tended to be a little overwhelming. Either they were a special variety bred to make perfume, or they were spirit plants, too. I reduced the number of rose bushes before I found out that I could collect rose hips. When Deming confirmed that they were edible, I simply moved the plants away from my window. Tonight we would be having rose hip soup for dessert.

The house, somewhat regrettably, didn’t have a self-cleaning function except for the toilet and shower room, but that was fine as long as I didn’t make a mess. I sent my laundry to the main house and did all my own cleaning.

In the next two weeks, I spent my time doing the usual stuff: farming, woodcutting, foraging, fishing, hunting, and a bit of combat practice, along with lots of herblaw training.

The days flew by, and tomorrow was the first day of the summer harvest season. I walked around the fields to inspect the fruits of my labor one last time.

The wheat plants were about three feet tall and now, right before harvest time, their golden heads were heavy with grain. They were giving off a very gentle yellow glow. The air was filled with the sweet, earthy scent of the ripe wheat, and I could hardly wait to wield my scythe.

As for the corn plants, they were now taller than me. Their vibrant green color was almost painful to look at because they were covered in a bright green glow. The corn silks were brown and dried out, a sign that the plants were ready to be harvested. It was a pity that lightning had destroyed part of the cornfield because Deming was already planning a wonderful post-harvest feast, and I would’ve loved it if we had more sweetcorn to use.

The vegetable field was an even more satisfying sight. It was a riot of colors, a bright patchwork of vivid yellows, reds, greens, and earth tones. There was corn, squash, beans, basil, garlic, parsnip, turnip, daikon, potato, sweet potato, carrot, bell peppers, radish, tomato, eggplant, cucumber, bok choy, spinach, bitter melon, jicama, ginger, leeks, cauliflower, pineapple, melon, taro root, ube, chili peppers, and sui choy, all ready for us to harvest tomorrow.

All the crops looked picture-perfect, as though they had been taken out of a food magazine photograph. Just yesterday, I had taken a regular carrot from the kitchen and held it up beside the carrot that I was growing and saw that the difference was astonishing. The spirit carrot was perfectly formed and vibrantly orange. The regular carrot looked deformed and washed out when they were placed side-by-side.

Though it wasn’t harvest time yet, I was greatly tempted to bite into both carrots to check the difference in taste. Fortunately, I still had enough self-control not to do so.

My mouth watered at the thought of eating freshly plucked vegetables with the meat we had hunted yesterday. Based on our usual food consumption, the upcoming harvest should be enough to last us until the end of autumn.

The only fly in the ointment was that we wouldn’t be able to use the wheat right away, since we didn’t have the facilities for it. The rice mill was only good for processing rice, so we would have to send Shuye with the wheat to have it milled by an acquaintance of Deming’s. Naturally, the Demon Chef knew a lot of people who were in the food business.

Inspection done, I went to the main house to check on my apprentices and eat dinner. My energy bar always filled up completely when I woke up after a good night’s sleep, but it was different for them. If they completely exhausted their energy the day before, it did not refill completely the next day, so I told them to rest for now in order for them to be ready for the harvest.

“Teacher, will we level up our farming tomorrow?” asked Mo.

The three of them were restless and twitchy with nerves.

“She already told us that harvesting gives the most experience! We’re definitely going to level up,” said Lari.

“Eat your vegetables, and go to bed early tonight,” I said. “Harvest season lasts for two weeks, so we have plenty of time, but we also have a lot of crops. Make sure you rest properly.”

“I hope I can sleep tonight. I’m so excited!” said Kharli.

Everyone’s eyes were sparkling, and even Deming had a spring in his step today.

Though we had discussed what we were going to do many times before, the kids were excited and kept on asking me the same questions.

I wondered if I should stop thinking of them as “the kids.” It’s not like I was much older than them, and they were fourteen, which meant that they were teenagers. However, the master-disciple or teacher-apprentice relationship was considered similar to that of a parent and child, so they treated me like a much older woman.

“We’ll harvest the vegetables first, since Deming is waiting for that. Then we’ll do the wheat field, and we’ll save the corn for last,” I said. “Shuye will be watching, and he will transport the crops for us.”

My Farm Guide, as usual, would be responsible for taking all of my products to the market because I didn’t want to bother with it myself. It’s not like I needed the gold, and the planting season followed immediately after harvest season.

“How much do you expect to get for the wheat and corn?” asked Lari.

Trust my [Ambitious] apprentice to be the only one who asked about money.

“Quite a lot!” I said.

The three of them put their heads together and whispered into each other’s ears. I pretended not to hear them.

“Do you think she knows?” Kharli gave me a dubious look.

“She definitely doesn’t.” Mo shook her head.

“I think she comes from a rich family. She doesn’t seem to care about money.” That was Lari.

I let their words wash over me as I ate my dessert, grass jelly in sugar syrup, a very refreshing dish for the hot summer. When we finished eating, I said, “Alright, soak in the hot spring for as long as you can, then go to your rooms and rest. The sooner you go to sleep, the sooner you’ll wake up.”

We said our goodnights, and I went to the ranch house to do some herblaw before retiring for the night.

I woke up before dawn and made my way to the main house for a hearty breakfast, dressed in the farmer's clothes from the System menu, which consisted of coarse brown homespun pants, a crude cotton top, and conical hat. I regretted my choice of attire the moment I stepped into the outer courtyard.

Nooooo! I mentally screamed.

Chapter 49 – Year 1 Summer Harvest

How could this happen?

Prince Baiyu had always sent word before he visited, and he seldom appeared during mealtimes, so I was shocked to see him sitting with my apprentices at the breakfast table. He got up to greet me when I entered the courtyard, but I quickly turned around and fled. I wanted to go back to my bedroom to change into better clothes.

Alas, he didn’t seem to understand what I was doing and chased after me.

“Miss Violet!” he said as he caught up to me in front of the gate. The prince was, of course, dressed in magnificent green and white robes.

“Excuse me, I have to go back to my room to change.” I couldn’t believe I had been caught dressed so sloppily by my boss and self-described suitor, Prince Baiyu.

“Why? You look great,” he said.

No, you look great. I look like I just got out of bed and put on my oldest clothes.

“I guess it’s fine,” I said. It was too late to change since he had already seen me.

Ugh.

Wait a minute, why did I care so much about something so trivial? In the past, I hadn’t much cared about what I was wearing. Could it be that I was now growing up and becoming more girly?

We walked back to the breakfast table, where my apprentices were impatiently waiting for me to sit down, so we could start eating. Deming had cooked crullers and porridge for us as I had requested yesterday because I wanted to start the day with a light meal. I had only taken a few bites when Shuye appeared.

“I checked out the crops. Looks like the harvest will be quite bountiful,” said Shuye.

“Yes, indeed. Today is the day that all our hard work will pay off!” Now that I had gotten over the awkwardness of being seen in less-than-flattering clothes by Prince Baiyu, I was excited at the thought of what lay ahead.

The four of us ate our food as quickly as we could, and it was the first time that I didn’t even notice what the Demon Chef’s food tasted like. Lari, Kharli, and Mo were reacting differently to their first harvest. Lari was full of energy and looked like he was about to explode. Kharli, on the other hand, was fairly calm except that she was speaking faster than normal. Mo was pale and looked like she was about to faint or vomit.

Everyone was quiet as we walked to the vegetable field. Shuye, Prince Baiyu, Deming, Fengying, the kitchen assistants, and the maids stood by the side of the crops and watched as I walked over to the mound where we had planted the corn, beans, and squash following the Three Sisters technique.

“It’s quite easy. Watch what I do.” Yesterday, I told them to activate the [Automatic Harvest] option on the Farming menu. I had done my first harvest manually, but we had a lot more crops this time, and the kids’ energy did not refill as quickly as mine, so I thought it would be best if we finished as quickly as we could since that would give them more time to rest.

I put my gardening gloves on and grabbed an ear of corn. Giving it a sharp downward twist, I broke it off from the plant. I tried to play it cool, but even I was surprised when the rest of the corn, beans, and squash disappeared from the mound, having been placed directly into my inventory by the System. One-tenth of my energy bar was depleted.

My three apprentices exchanged baffled glances, unsure of how to react. Lari scratched his head, trying to make sense of what he had just seen, while Kharli just shrugged. Mo’s eyes widened, and she looked intrigued but confused.

Taking out three baskets from the System farming supplies, I put the newly harvested corn, beans, and squash in them. Then I went down the line of crops to harvest the rest of the vegetables. Some of them, like the potatoes, needed to be dug up from the ground, but others just needed to be plucked from the plant, like the eggplants, tomatoes, and chili peppers.

“That’s it. Looks easy, right?” I said when my energy was almost completely drained. “Your turn!”

I handed the basket that had the tomatoes in it to Kharli because I figured that she was the most reliable of the three. She coolly walked to the nearest tomato plant and harvested it successfully. Her fellow apprentices clapped.

“Yay!”

“How much exp did you get?” asked Lari.

“Only a little exp, but I’m getting it for each tomato. I think I’m going to level up soon.” Sure enough, a few minutes later, Kharli jumped up and down screaming, “Level five!”

I allowed her and the others a minute of freaking out before I said, “Don’t scream. Save your energy because you’ll level up several times this harvest season. Lari, you try it.”

“I’m gonna harvest all of them!” said Lari as he grabbed the basket of potatoes and went straight to his favorite crop. Despite the manic look on his face, he took his time loosening up the soil around the potato plants with a spading fork from the System before digging under the plants and lifting the potatoes from under the ground. It didn’t take long before he, too, jumped up and screamed, “I’m level five!”

The other two congratulated him, and Mo couldn’t bear waiting any longer. She took the basket of sweet potatoes and followed suit. Unlike the other two, she was already level six, so it took her longer to jump up and scream, “I’m level seven!”

“Congratulations, everyone,” I said. To my surprise, the three of them stopped yelling and threw their arms around me.

This seemed to be the cue that our audience was waiting for. Prince Baiyu, Shuye, Deming, Fengying, and the others approached and congratulated me and my apprentices.

“Um. We’re not done yet. Why don’t we save the congratulations for later?” I suggested.

I extricated myself from the awkward situation, and Larry, Kharli, and Mo calmed down enough to continue working.

The [Automatic Harvesting] mode was a success, and we finished using up all of our energy in an hour. I gave the baskets of vegetables to Deming, with a request for fried potato chips, and instructed my apprentices to soak in the hot springs before going to their rooms for a nap. I wanted their energy to refill completely by tomorrow.

“See you at lunch!” I said to the others after with congratulations and hugs.

Prince Baiyu walked me back to my ranch house.

“When will I be allowed inside?” he asked.

“Who knows?”

He sighed. “You’re not hiding a harem there, are you?”

“Why are you asking? Are you interested in joining?” I had gotten used to this type of conversation ever since we met, and the flirting had only intensified after I sent him that letter. It was kind of nice. Furthermore, I appreciated the fact that he visited me every few days despite his busy schedule.

“If I were, would you accept me?” He looked down at me with a smirk on his face.

“Only if you know how to cook, clean the house, do the laundry, wash the dishes, and take out the trash.”

“That’s what maids do. As a harem member, all I would have to do is attend to nighttime duties.”

“You’re too much!” I raised both my hands in surrender. He always won this type of game because he always went too far. “Enough, please.”

“All right, I suppose that’s it for today. I’ll see you tomorrow.” He took my hand gently in his and brought it to his lips, pressing a soft kiss against my knuckles.

I felt a warm flush spread across my cheeks as I looked up at him, surprised by the gesture. His expression was tender, and for a moment, I was speechless. The longer I stood there, silent and frozen, the wider his smile grew.

He kissed my hand again and said, “I hope you’ll invite me inside soon.”

Then he turned and walked away while I stood there staring at his back.

Oh, I think I might be in trouble.

Chapter 50 – The Results of the Summer Harvest

Chapter 50 - From Ho-Hum to Hoe-Down Farming Levels

🙞❤︎🙜

The next day, after dreaming of playing with a dragon child, I woke up to the sun streaming through my bedroom window. The morning air was cool and lightly scented by the roses outside. I hadn't needed to turn on the air conditioning that night.

Summer was almost over.

I washed my face, then made myself a cup of coffee. The others preferred tea, so I often had mine in my house. When the coffee was ready, I sat down on a comfortable armchair, enjoying a few moments of silence and solitude. After finishing the drink, I took a quick shower and changed into work clothes, but this time I chose much better ones compared to the crude farmer’s outfit I had worn yesterday. Using items from the Cash Shop, I assembled a reasonably fetching ensemble consisting of sturdy, practical black cotton pants, a navy blue shirt, and a wide-brimmed straw hat.

Shuye and Prince Baiyu were nowhere to be seen. I guess they didn’t plan to watch us every single day. The System allowed players exactly two weeks to harvest their crops, followed by another two weeks to plant new ones.

Today, we finished harvesting in an hour, then rested for a few hours before meeting up at the outer courtyard for lunch. When I arrived at the main house, I found that Deming had spread out one of each vegetable on a large table.

Everyone was already there, so he started identifying each crop when I sat down. He pointed at each item and said its name.

“Alabaster Spirit Potato, Hundred Treasure Spirit Corn, Mystic Summer Squash, Celestial Spirit Spinach, Ardent Aromatic Garlic, Pure Fragrance Ginger, Purple Amaranthine Eggplant, Crimson Fire Chili Peppers, Refreshing Honeydew Melon, Starry Sweet Potato, Mystic Moonshine Carrots, Spellbinding Onions, Miraculous Taro Root, Jade-Skinned Cucumber, Rainbow Bell Peppers, Radiant Ivory Jicama, Floating Lace Cauliflower, Phantasmal Beans, Beguiling Spirit Basil, Golden-Gilded Parsnip, Flaming Fire Radish, Ruby Blood Tomato, Luminous Sunbeam Daikon, Brightroot Turnip, Vibrant Verdant Bok Choy, Immortal Bitter Melon, Summer Meadow Leeks, Summer Nectar Pineapple, Sunburst Sui Choy, and Radiant Purple Moon Ube.”

Wow! I couldn’t believe these humble vegetables had such fancy names. Everyone was raising their hands to clap when the Demon Chef added, “All low grade.”

“Low-grade! How can these be low-grade?” Lari grabbed an eggplant and shook it in Deming’s direction. “Look at this perfect shape, this deep purple color! It even glows in the dark.”

I kicked him under the table and said, “Thank you for the evaluation. I look forward to all the delicious dishes you'll be cooking with these.”

The Demon Chef nodded coolly to me, and his assistants gathered vegetables. They all trooped to the kitchen, and when they were out of sight I scolded my wayward apprentice.

“Are you totally insane? Don’t you know that you should never piss off a chef, much less this particular chef? My goodness!” I put a hand on my chest at the thought of Deming taking offense at Lari’s attitude.

“What are you afraid of?” asked Lari.

I shook my head. “I’m teaching you common sense. Don’t ever quarrel with someone who prepares your food. I’m sure if you think about it a little more, you'll figure out why.”

“Teacher, are all of our vegetables really low-grade?” asked Kharli. “They look really, really wonderful to me.”

“Yes, but you’re not a professional chef. Besides, you know this is just the farm’s second harvest. We still have a long way to go,” I said.

“When will we have high grade crops?” asked Lari.

I was about to answer when Mo spoke up first.

“How can you complain about that? You’re so ungrateful. Don’t you remember that just a few months ago we were at the orphanage and no one wanted to hire us or take us in as apprentices?” Mo’s expression was fierce, and this was quite a long speech from her.

“Now, now, children. We had a nice harvest today, but we still have a long way to go before we can produce high grade spirit crops. It’s normal for a person to take years before they reach the peak of their profession. Let’s not quarrel. I don’t want to get indigestion,” I said, nodding in the direction of the kitchen door where the first of the Demon Chef’s assistants was emerging with a large platter. When he placed it on the table, I saw that it was a dish of roast demon pork and bean curd with assorted vegetables. “Eat up to replenish your energy.”

We had brought in the harvest yesterday, and we would eat the fruit of our labor today at lunch.

Was there anything better than eating a meal made of demonic meat and freshly-picked spiritual vegetables that one had grown on their own farm?

After a long, leisurely lunch, I returned to my ranch house and changed into more comfortable clothes: a plain white T-shirt, cut-off jean shorts, and flip-flops. Of course, I ended up doing herblaw as usual, but I got bored after a while and went out the back door to browse the Cash Shop again for something interesting to place in my backyard.

The front of the house had the rose garden, gazebo, and swing. Behind the house, however, was just a small expanse of grass and clover. My first thought had been to place a tiny swimming pool or hot tub, but summer was basically over, and I didn’t think I would use those items during the autumn. The space was too small for a maze, and it wasn’t cold enough for a fire pit yet.

A Summer Party Package caught my eye. The picture showed a small group of people gathered around a barbecue full of steaks and corn. Maybe if I placed that in my house, I would get a grill full of meat?!

Alas, I did get an awesome-looking grill and a nice set of tables and chairs, but no steaks.

I kept on browsing the shop, and my eyes started to glaze over after the first hundred or so items. Adventure Incarnate released dozens of new Cash Shop items every Sunday, and the game had been running for years, so there were tons of things that I had never paid much attention to.

In the end, I opted for a boring but practical idea. Herblaw was my current passion, so it would be nice to have an outdoor space where I could train it. I simply put down a traditional white pole tent and placed a large work table and comfortable chair under it. Of course, it would still be cozier to work on my skills inside my comfortable house, but I wouldn't mind a change of scenery now and then. I spruced up the backyard with some pretty shrubs and potted plants, then sat down on the chair and continued training herblaw.

The next ten days followed the same routine. I harvested my crops in the morning and trained herblaw the rest of the day. By the time we finished, we had all leveled up quite a bit.

[Player Name: Violet

Farming Skills:

Farming Level 15, Fishing Level 9, Woodcutting Level 15, Cooking Level 1, Herblaw Level 13, Foraging Level 4, Hunting Level 3, Mining Level 1]

At level 15 farming I would normally unlock the third building slot, but not this time because the previous quest had already unlocked it.

As for my apprentices, they were over the moon at their progress.

[Apprentice Name: Kharli

Farming Skills:

Farming Level 10, Fishing Level 3, Woodcutting Level 8, Cooking Level 2, Herblaw Level 1, Foraging Level 3, Hunting Level 2]

Kharli and Lari both reached the level 10 farming milestone. Unlike me, this didn’t unlock any special abilities, but they seemed happy anyway.

[Apprentice Name: Lari

Farming Skills:

Farming Level 10, Fishing Level 6, Woodcutting Level 8, Cooking Level 1, Herblaw Level 1, Foraging Level 1, Hunting Level 5]

Mo did even better than them. It seems that she had a particular gift for farming because she got more exp compared to her fellow apprentices.

[Apprentice Name: Mo

Farming Skills:

Farming Level 11, Fishing Level 1, Woodcutting Level 8, Cooking Level 2, Herblaw Level 1, Foraging Level 6, Hunting Level 1]

There were still two days left of the harvest season, so I decided that we should celebrate by going to the city to shop.

Chapter 51 – Epic Quest!

Chapter 51 – A Sand-sational Quest!

🙞❤︎🙜

The next day, I changed my mind and decided to stay home when I remembered how strange I had felt when I last visited the place. Seeing a large city with thousands of people had made me anxious because, for the first time, I had to come to terms with the fact that I was in a totally different world. Here in the forest, my environment looked pretty much the same as any forest on Earth, except for the occasional Horned Rabbit. The city though…

Maybe I was turning into a homebody? Well, that was fine since I never considered myself the adventurous type anyway.

I told my disciples and the staff to go to the city with Shuye, who provided them with a bag of gold coins that they could use to shop for clothes, food, and whatever items they wanted to buy for their rooms.

Fengying promised to order warm winter clothes for everyone, excluding me, of course, since I had an extensive wardrobe courtesy of the System.

The sun was just beginning to rise over the horizon when they left. I made my way to the vegetable field and smiled at the chili pepper plants that had hundreds of tiny, red peppers. Using the [Automatic Harvest] option would allow me to finish today’s task quickly, but I wanted to take my time to savor the pleasure of seeing the fruits of my labor.

Today was yet another fine day. The air was filled with the gentle rustling of leaves as a cool breeze swept through the forest, bringing with it the sweet scent of wildflowers. The warm rays of the sun filtered through the tree branches, casting a warm glow over the forest floor. The sounds of nature were a harmonious symphony, with birds chirping their melodies, leaves rustling in the breeze, and the soothing babble of the nearby stream. The trees stood tall, their branches reaching up towards the sky, their leaves a riot of color as they prepared for the changing seasons. I decided that this was much better than the city.

Since I was all alone today, I set Mr. Bear on [Guard Mode].

The Crimson Fire Chili Peppers plants were shoulder-high, and laden with dozens of bright red-orange peppers, with a few green and black ones sprinkled here and there. I counted more than a hundred in all. We’d saved this one for last because the Demon Chef said that they were best harvested after they had dried a little bit in the sun.

I hung a basket from my neck and used both hands to gently pluck off each pepper and drop them into the basket. There was no rush, so I examined a few of the more interesting ones. Most of them were only an inch long, but a few were rounded and small like peas. Though I was scared of the hotter chilies, I dared to open one up and lick the inside.

Big mistake!

My tongue felt like it was on fire, and the heat quickly spread to my entire mouth. My eyes watered, and my nose started running. I got a glass of water from my inventory and drank it to soothe the burn, but it was no use. The water only seemed to intensify the heat, and I could feel sweat breaking out on my forehead and upper lip. After a few moments of panic, I realized that I should eat a rice ball from the Five-Star Luxury Bento. That seemed to help a little bit.

Finally, after what felt like an eternity, the heat started to dissipate, and I was able to catch my breath. My tongue was still on fire, but at least the worst of the heat had passed. As I sat there, panting and sweating, I couldn't help but wonder what possessed me to eat that crazy-hot chili pepper in the first place. It was a lesson that I would never forget - always be careful when it comes to spicy foods!

Around one-fifth of the peppers were green, which meant that they were only mildly spicy, but I decided not to try any of them since I’d already had my fill of risky undertakings for the day. The black ones were Demonfire Peppers, which were unthinkable for anyone to eat unless they wanted to experience the feeling of the top of their head being blown open by a spicy explosion.

It took about two hours for me to leisurely harvest over a hundred peppers, including a long coffee and snack break. Once all of the fruits were picked, I started plucking the tender young leaves at the top of the plants. Chili leaves were edible and had a fresh, crisp, and gentle peppery taste. Gathering the leaves made my mouth water in anticipation as I looked forward to how the Demon Chef’s cuisine would reach new heights now that we had many more spiritual vegetables harvested.

I whistled and hummed while I worked. The kids had tried to teach me a couple of the more popular work songs, but I was just way too self-conscious to sing in public. When I finished the harvest, I went through the three fields and sowed them with the [Wild Seed Mix] that would serve as a cover crop.

According to the System, soil must never be left uncovered, since that would result in the topmost layer of dirt being washed or blown away by precipitation and wind. Planting this mixture of wildflowers, grasses, and legumes would prevent the topsoil from deteriorating and even add more nutrients to it.

By midmorning, I finished everything and returned to my Ranch house in a good mood.

By this time, my home was already fully furnished with all of my favorite items from the Cash Shop. The walls were paneled with gleaming wood and adorned with fine calligraphy scrolls and colorful still-life paintings. The floors were made of gleaming hardwood, and I had placed a few cute rugs here and there. A large bed with a firm mattress was covered in luxurious beddings, and a small but fully equipped kitchen area was tucked away in the back of the room.

I put on a T-shirt and shorts, no bra, of course, and walked on bare feet to my front lawn. The rose garden was really impressive, but I had removed it in favor of a simpler design with plenty of soft grass, two oak trees, and a few flowerbeds. I spread a picnic blanket below an oak tree and laid down on it.

Once I realized that the complete privacy settings that I had used on the house made it impossible for anyone else to see it, I removed the high walls surrounding my property since they were unnecessary. Now I had a great view of the forest and the rest of the farm.

The others said that not only did they not see the house, but they also couldn’t even pinpoint its location. They could only tell that it was there when they saw me going in and out of it. The strangeness of this was the only thing that made Fengying stop pestering me about hiring another maid to take care of the house.

To be honest, I had always been a sloppy housecleaner, but here it was easy since the player-owned houses had a self-cleaning function, and I could just place any mess that I had made in my inventory and then put it in the System trash bin.

I had absolutely no idea where the items I put in the trash went. However, I did experiment a little with it when we went hunting. It turns out that I couldn’t put any living thing in my inventory unless it was a farm animal.

The thought of farm animals made me think of the next step in my farming journey. Playing Adventure Incarnate had made me realize that farming wasn’t particularly profitable. Raising animals and crafting made a lot more money. After one year of farming, I could do a lot more, including non-farming activities.

But did I really want to?

Nope. I liked farming the most!

The next step for me should be to farm more, not less.

Should I travel to the south and initiate the epic quest I had unlocked when I got level 15 farming?

“Hmm.”

Adventure Incarnate players loved the [Greening the Desert] quest, but now that this was my life, I had a few reservations about it.

Hundreds of thousands of years ago (the game wasn’t clear about that), the Southerlands were rendered uninhabitable when a meteor fell on the capital of the Vermillion Bird clan. The impact created a huge crater and killed everyone nearby. Furthermore, the rock that came from outer space was filled with alien lifeforms or “demons” as they were called here.

All the clans banded together to repel the invasion, and the Westerlands, the region where I was living now, successfully drove out the demons from the region they ruled, but not before the southernmost part of their territory was devastated.

[Greening the Desert] was a bit of a misnomer, since the area was only semi-arid, not a true sand desert. Still, reclaiming the area for forestry and agriculture was a task of titanic proportions. It’s not like this was still a game where I could fix everything by clicking my mouse around.

Furthermore, there was the human factor to think of. Wouldn’t people think I was crazy for trying to do something that the clans had failed at? Would they even allow me to attempt it? If I did succeed, would I still be able to enjoy a quiet and peaceful lifestyle?

And yet…

I really wanted to do it!

The forest farm would always be my home, but [Greening the Desert] would give me an enormous space where I could do almost anything that I wanted. Besides, it was a worthy task that would benefit a lot of people, and it seemed almost selfish if I didn’t do what I could to reclaim the clan’s land. This achievement would also mark me as an extremely valuable person, which would be very useful in case we ever had to deal with the demons and the boss like in the game.

Decision made, I went back to the house to write down all the things I should do to prepare for my first epic quest.

Chapter 52 – Autumn Season Planting

Chapter 52 - I'm not lion, this rice is the mane event of this season

🙞❤︎🙜

Just before midnight, my disciples and the staff returned with their loot. Fengying and Deming had bought a lot of new knives and porcelain, while the assistant cooks and maids had purchased clothes, accessories, and shoes. Lari, Kharli, and Mo brought back an eccentric mix of practical items like clothes, cosmetics, jewelry, books, and so forth, along with silly bric-a-brac like feathers and wax flowers in a box, painted eggshells, and talismans that didn’t really do anything. I instructed them to go to bed and spend the next day resting, because the day after tomorrow was the first day of the planting season, and I wanted them to refill their energy bars completely.

Two days later, a newly cleared field lay before us, a blank canvas waiting to be transformed by the magic of seeds and the System.

“This is your second planting season, so you already know what to do. This time we will be planting rice. I’m sure you’ve noticed that our way of farming is different from other people’s. Rice cultivation normally involves planting seedlings, but we will be planting seeds instead,” I said. “Do you remember the first thing that we have to do?”

Kharli said, “We have to plow the field.”

“Correct. Since we all know what to do, let’s start.”

We took out our hoes from the System toolbelt and used it to strike the ground. I could now plow eight squares at a time, while my apprentices could manage three. Out of all the farming activities, plowing the fields was the most energy-intensive. It didn’t take long before the three of them were all exhausted. Mo misjudged her energy level and collapsed.

“Well, that’s it for her today, tomorrow, and probably the day after, too.” I shook my head and sighed. “Lari, run to the house and tell them to bring a plank of wood or something you guys can use to carry her back to her room.”

“Oh no, will it really take her three days to recover?” asked Kharli. She smoothed Mo’s hair back from her forehead.

“We’ll see.”

I had more energy than them, so I continued using my hoe. By the time I finished, one-fifth of the field was ready for planting. I got an open sack of organic fertilizer from my inventory and waved it over the area of tilled soil. The contents flew out of the sack and automatically covered the nearest eight squares. Then I got some rice seeds and put them in a seed dispenser. I simply held the seeder above the fertilized soil and twenty-four seeds flew out from the tip, three per square, and embedded themselves in the soil. I was almost out of energy when I got out my watering can and watered the squares.

“That’s it, I’m almost completely out of energy. How about you?” I asked Kharli.

“I have this much left.” She held her thumb and forefinger a millimeter apart.

“Then let’s rest.”

She sat down on the ground in a lotus position, while I laid down on my back, using my conical farmer’s hat to cover my face to protect it from the sun. A few minutes later, Lari appeared with Haoran, one of the Demon Chef’s assistants. They hadn’t been able to find a spare plank of wood long enough to carry Mo on, so they had brought a bedsheet instead. They folded it in half lengthwise and placed the girl on it, then carried her back to the house, while Kharli followed behind them.

“Kharli, put her in her room and stay with her until she regains consciousness. You know the drill. When she wakes up, you guys should eat a good meal, then spend some time in the hot spring to recover your energy. Go to sleep early tonight, and let’s continue with the planting tomorrow,” I said.

“Yes, teacher,” said Lari and Kharli.

“And don’t collapse like Mo did!”

“She’s going to be really upset when she wakes up and realizes she missed all the fun,” said Lari.

“Not to mention all that exp,” added Kharli.

“Right, so you should all be more careful.” I took a handkerchief from my pocket and wiped my face and neck. “I’m so sweaty. I think I’ll go shower.”

We spent the rest of the day recovering our energy, and continued to till the soil, fertilize it, and plant seeds for the next few days until we had finished planting the first field.

Four days later, I surveyed the fruits of our labor with satisfaction. The seeds had sprouted, and the System now instructed me to flood the field.

“All right, everyone, we’ll go to the second place near the river to plant more rice, but when we're done there, we’ll have to go back here to start flooding this field,” I said.

“Teacher, can’t we just flood it now?” asked Lari.

“No, because we need to control the flow of the water so that it doesn’t wash the rice seedlings away. It will take at least a couple of hours, probably the rest of the day, to finish flooding this area.” I wouldn't have known this information myself if the System hadn’t given me detailed instructions on how to grow rice. “Let’s go to the second field.”

The other location was closer to the river than this one. The soil there was darker and moister, and I thought it would be good to try different locations to check if a particular one was better for growing rice.

When we finished our work on the second field, we went back to the first one, and I used the System’s irrigation tool to dig a shallow channel from the nearest branch of the river to the rice paddy, complete with an irrigation gate that allowed me to control the flow of water.

“I guess we’ll have to stay here and monitor the process. Someone go to the house and tell them that we’ll be eating here.”

Mo volunteered. Ever since she had collapsed on the first day of planting season and missed two days of work, she had been quite eager to prove that she was useful. She went off to tell Fengying the news while the rest of us sat down under a nearby tree. I had set the water to very slowly trickle out into the field, and we anxiously watched to make sure that the newly-planted rice seedlings weren’t disturbed.

“Wait a minute! Teacher, doesn’t this mean that we won’t need to water the plants? We won’t get any exp?” asked Kharli.

“I was wondering when you guys would figure that out. This is exactly why I didn’t plant rice before.”

“Eh, it’s fine, isn’t it? Rice is much more valuable than corn or wheat,” said Lari.

“I suppose so…” Kharli didn’t sound convinced.

“Remember that the Lady of the West requested it,” I said. “By the way, I forgot to tell you that for the second field, I’m thinking of planting red and black rice.”

“Black rice?! Who would eat that?” Lari screwed up his face in disgust.

“It’s not common here?”

“I’ve never seen it.” Lari’s tone of voice indicated that he was glad that he had never encountered black rice before.

“Oh.” I should ask the Demon Chef about it. If anyone was familiar with exotic rice varieties, it would be Deming. “What about red rice?”

Lari and Kharli looked at each other, then they shrugged.

“People prefer fluffy white rice, the whiter, the better,” said Kharli.

“Okay, I’ll think about it,” I said, but I secretly decided then and there that I would definitely plant different rice varieties.

[Black Rice:

A type of heirloom rice that is considered to be a nutrient-rich superfood. Also known as forbidden rice or purple rice, it is high in antioxidants, fiber, and minerals, and is considered to be a healthier alternative to white rice.]

I had eaten black rice before on Earth and loved it. Red rice, in my opinion, was also far superior to white rice.

[Red Rice:

A type of rice that is similar to brown rice but has a reddish-purple color due to the presence of antioxidants called anthocyanins. It is a whole grain and is considered to be a nutrient-rich superfood.]

… Though I do understand the allure of fluffy white rice.

I noticed that the System's item descriptions for crops were written as though the plants were the same as those on Earth. They never said anything about qi or energy. If I hadn't remembered it from the game, I wouldn't have known that black rice restored more energy than white rice. I spread a picnic blanket on the ground and lay down to rest while I pondered the pros and cons of trying to make my disciples eat what they considered weird and disgusting rice.

When Mo returned, I told them about [Greening the Desert].

“Since two out of three of our fields won’t need watering, we’ll have more time to spend on other things,” I said. “I have a brand-new project in mind.”

They listened attentively as I explained.

“What’s the reward?” Predictably, Lari was the first to react and make his chief concern known.

“A huge space where we can build what we want, with some limitations, of course,” I said. “This project will take a lifetime or maybe many lifetimes to complete, but if we start now, we should have plenty of room for three more farms, one for each of you.”

“Then I'm in.” Lari’s eyes sparkled at the thought of having his very own farm.

“Are we all agreed?” I looked around, and the two girls nodded their heads.

Kharli and Mo didn’t look too excited about it, and soon they changed the subject to a topic that was dear to their hearts: the upcoming Mid-Autumn Festival. As someone who was half Chinese, I knew all about it. On Earth it was also known as the Moon Festival or Mooncake Festival, a wonderful time when towns and cities were decorated with colorful lanterns and everyone ate delicious pastries.

It seemed that the festival was similar here, except that they had one special night when the city or town square hosted harvest and food-related contests that were also a feature in Adventure Incarnate. I had, with Deming’s help, already set aside the best of the summer harvest to show off during the festival, and possibly win a unique prize.

I was daydreaming about all the food I would be able to eat that night when my thoughts were interrupted by Mo.

“Teacher, I think the water is rising too fast now.”

“You’re right!” I jumped up and quickly walked to the irrigation canal’s gate and lowered it to decrease the flow of water. When I had adjusted it to my liking, I walked all around the paddy field to check the seedlings. Everything was fine, and the rest of the day passed without incident.

Chapter 53 – Making plans for the winter farming season

Chapter 53 - Desert Farming Corn-versation Leaves Farmer High and Dry

🙞❤︎🙜

Planting season finished uneventfully, and all four of us leveled up our farming once.

[Player Name: Violet

Farming Skills:

Farming Level 16, Fishing Level 9, Woodcutting Level 15, Cooking Level 1, Herblaw Level 13, Foraging Level 4, Hunting Level 3, Mining Level 1]

[Apprentice Name: Kharli

Farming Skills:

Farming Level 11, Fishing Level 3, Woodcutting Level 8, Cooking Level 2, Herblaw Level 1, Foraging Level 3, Hunting Level 2]

[Apprentice Name: Lari

Farming Skills:

Farming Level 11, Fishing Level 6, Woodcutting Level 8, Cooking Level 1, Herblaw Level 1, Foraging Level 1, Hunting Level 5]

[Apprentice Name: Mo

Farming Skills:

Farming Level 12, Fishing Level 1, Woodcutting Level 8, Cooking Level 2, Herblaw Level 1, Foraging Level 6, Hunting Level 1]

During the planting season, I was able to use the hoe five times a day, tilling eight squares each time, for a total of forty squares per day. My apprentices could till three times a day, five squares per swing of the hoe, for a total of fifteen squares per day. All in all, we managed an astonishing eighty-five squares per day. Of course, we had to save almost half of our energy for fertilizing the soil and planting seeds, but, roughly speaking, the farm’s total cultivated area was now almost 400 squares!

Not bad!

Two fields were dedicated to rice farming, while I insisted on having a separate one for the vegetables that we would eat during the winter and spring. This time we were growing carrots, turnips, beets, onions, rutabagas, parsnips, sweet potatoes, potatoes, ube, kale, spinach, lettuces, Swiss chard, arugula, radicchio, parsley, cilantro, rosemary, sage, thyme, oregano, Brussels sprouts, cauliflowers, broccoli, green beans, peas, edamame, snow peas, pumpkins, squash, ginger, horseradishes, cucumbers, eggplants, zucchini, celeries, bell peppers, and tomatoes. We also continued with the Three Sisters method of companion planting in which corn, beans, and squash were grown together.

Despite the kids’ objections, I also used half of the second paddy to plant black and red rice varieties. Deming assured me that he was familiar with exotic varieties and that he was perfectly capable of cooking them.

The day after the end of the planting season, we watered the vegetables and checked the water level of the rice paddies. Then I informed my apprentices of my plans for the upcoming winter season after we finished eating lunch.

“This is the last growing season for the year. I’m sure you already know that there are not many winter crops.” I looked around at the others, who all nodded. Fengying had cleared the dishes and the four of us were seated around the dining table.

“What will we be doing during the winter if there’s no farming?” asked Kharli, her voice filled with uncertainty.

“We can still plant a few crops, but we should make winter plans now. Shuye suggested that I move my household south where it’s warmer,” I said. “The White Tiger clan has a few guest houses that we could use.”

“But who would look after the farm?” asked Mo, brow furrowing.

“Shuye would be making his usual patrols, and there wouldn’t be anything to watch since there won’t be any crops in winter,” I said.

“Does that mean we would be on vacation?” Lari smiled.

“No, I don’t want to! I want to level up!” Mo’s face contorted into a grimace of disapproval.

“I also hope to work hard even during the winter,” said Kharli.

“Very well. During the winter there’s not much fishing, foraging, or hunting. We can still train woodcutting, and I want you three to continue your education. I’ve already asked Fengying to find etiquette, history, and literature tutors for you,” I paused because Mo groaned in dismay and Lari slumped against his chair. “What is it?”

Mo just covered her face with her hands and refused to speak.

Lari sighed and said, “I hate studying!”

“Teacher, you remember that Mo can’t read?” Kharli tried to be tactful, but I could tell from her expression that she thought I had forgotten.

“I haven’t forgotten that. Did you forget that Mo can use the System to read?”

“But none of us like it.” The ends of Lari’s mouth turned down into an exaggerated pout, his bottom lip jutting out.

Ugh, were the kids going through a difficult phase? All three of them had sullen expressions on their faces. I guess they acted mature most of the time, but it was at times like these that they really showed they were just fourteen years old.

“Are you guys sure? It’s my responsibility as your teacher to educate you properly.”

“Teacher, I think people will expect you to teach us to farm, not learn from books,” said Lari.

He did have a point.

“Very well then. So all three of you want to farm instead of studying books?”

The three of them murmured their agreement. Lari beamed with delight as he realized he had won the argument.

“All right.”

Since all four of us wanted to farm this winter, then I should definitely start the [Greening the Desert] quest.

***

The next time Shuye appeared, I informed him of my desire to reclaim the blasted lands.

“During the winter I will only be able to grow spirit grass and flowers here, so I’d like to explore the southern desert. I assume the clans have tried to turn the desert back into forests and agricultural lands?”

We walked side-by-side as we inspected the fields. The vegetable plants had sprouted, and the rice seedlings looked healthy. Around us, the leaves on the forest’s trees were still green, but there was a distinct chill in the air, signaling the start of autumn.

“You can try if you like. The clans have never stopped anyone who wanted to restore our southern territory to its former glory. It’s just that none of them have succeeded.” Shuye's voice lacked any optimism, and the expression on his face lacked his usual good cheer.

“I think I can do it.”

“Don’t get your hopes up.”

“What’s the matter?”

Shuye's brows knitted together in a deep frown. “Countless people have tried, but every tree that we planted died in a matter of days. I have to warn you that everyone thinks that the place is cursed. The gods are still angry.”

“Well, the curse has nothing to do with me,” I pointed out. “I’m a human.”

“Humans have tried…”

“But not me.”

Shuye’s lips pursed. “I’m not going to stop you if you want to try.”

“Are you sure I can get permission? I’d like a formal letter granting me a piece of land that I can experiment on,” I said.

“I’m sure. Is there any particular piece of land that you prefer?”

“Hmm, let’s look at a map.”

That was easier than I expected. I thought that I would have to persuade my Farm Guide, but it turned out that the clans freely gave permission to anyone who wanted to farm in the desert. We walked back to the house and, with Shuye’s help, I chose a likely spot for my reforestation project.

[Epic Quest: Greening the Desert

Turn the cursed desert into fertile land.

1. Improve watershed by using water harvesting methods by digging contour swales.

2. Improve watershed by using water harvesting methods by digging a lake reservoir.

3. Plant the berms with one hundred fruit trees and one hundred berry bushes.

4. When the lake is full, plant a riparian buffer of one hundred trees.

5. Plant one hundred fertilizer trees. Use a cultivation box.

6. Graze spirit animals. Sow wild grass and flowers on the grazed land.

7. Plant one hundred fruit trees. Use a cultivation box.

8. Plant one hundred nut trees. Use a cultivation box.

9. Plant one hundred trees. Use a cultivation box.

10. Create windbreaks to protect the crops.

11. Plant one hundred perennial crops.

12. Create a food forest made of a diverse array of one hundred fruit trees, one hundred shrubs, one hundred vines, one hundred grasses or herbs, and one hundred root crops.

Progress: 0/12]

Shuye’s lack of enthusiasm only made me more determined to succeed. The first step, as outlined by the quest text, was to gather water for agricultural use, but pretty much everything else revolved around planting trees.

Therefore, for me to finish the quest, I should start by preparing all the trees I would need in the future.

Sadly, this meant that I would have to say goodbye to my beloved Ranch House very soon.

Chapter 54 – Leveling up is always fun

Chapter 54 - Carrot on with hard work and dedication.

🙞❤︎🙜

That night I dreamed of a baby dragon that turned into a human child and woke refreshed. I opened my eyes and squinted at the morning sunlight streaming in through the window. Throwing off the blankets, I got up and stretched my arms while yawning. Then I walked over to my tiny but cute washroom to start the day right. Minutes later, after having finished my morning routine, I went to the main house to eat breakfast. Ignoring the bowl of congee, I helped myself to the plate full of steamed baozi, small fluffy buns filled with pork, mushrooms and cabbage. I washed it down with biluochun tea, a delicate and tender green tea with a strong fragrance.

My apprentices were the ones tasked with taking care of the fields today, so I headed back to my house after the meal and made potions until it was time for lunch. After the midday meal, I continued to train herblaw like a madwoman because it was close to a milestone level.

Finally, festive fireworks special effects bloomed all around me as a System message appeared.

[Congratulations, you just advanced a Herblaw level!]

[Your Herblaw level is now 15.]

Whohoo! At last! In Adventure Incarnate, players didn’t get new skills every single time they leveled up. One had to reach either a multiple of ten or five to unlock a new part of the game. At level 15 herblaw I could make a [Strength Potion] that gave a +5 bonus to a player's strength stat, which was pretty decent at my level.

The ingredients that I needed to make the potion were [Mountain Flamewort] and [Harpy’s Claw].

[Mountain Flamewort:

A type of plant that can be found growing on the slopes of mountains. The plant has long, slender leaves that are covered in small red flowers that resemble flames. When the fresh, tender leaves are picked, they can be used as a potion ingredient that temporarily boosts strength. It is also a key ingredient in many fire-based potions.]

I quickly got a hundred of them from my inventory and used the Clean Herb spell. What a pity that I could only clean them one at a time! Training magic would be much faster if I could clean them all at once.

When I was finished with the Mountain Flamewort, I took out a mortar and pestle from the System toolbelt, and started vigorously grinding the claws into powder.

[Harpy’s Claw:

A deep red and black claw taken from a harpy. It has an unmistakable earthy smell and a distinctive texture that is both smooth and slightly oily. Before it can be used, the claw must be ground into a fine powder. The spiritual energy contained in the claw enhances a potion's efficacy.]

When I was finished with my preparations, I got out one hundred spell stones and vials and combined the two herblaw ingredients using the Create Potion spell.

The exp I got from making Strength Potions was double that of the Dewy Glow Potion, but the experience I needed was also higher, which meant that it wouldn’t be easier to level up. Still, I thought that my stats were pretty decent.

[Player Name: Violet

Farming Skills:

Farming Level 16, Fishing Level 9, Woodcutting Level 16, Cooking Level 1, Herblaw Level 15, Foraging Level 4, Hunting Level 3, Mining Level 1]

The [Strength Potions] that I made should probably prove useful, and in Adventure Incarnate, low level players used them by the hundreds when they were training melee combat. Of course, later on, this newbie item would be outclassed by mid and high level potions, but I could always give them as part of my contribution to the upcoming Demon Boss war if I wasn't going to use them.

When the sky outside started turning dark, I knew it was almost time for dinner, so I put the ingredients, spell stones, and potions away. When I stood up, my muscles protested and my butt ached from spending the entire day seated in front of my herblaw work table.

I should really get more exercise. Perhaps I should go fishing tomorrow? Our larders were full, but fishing was fun and relaxing, so I decided to do it anyway.

***

Was fishing the best outdoor activity ever? It’s not like I’ve done everything in the world, so I couldn’t say for sure, but it was definitely up there on the list of the top outdoor recreational activities along with the Japanese concept of “forest bathing.”

I settled back on the foldable fishing chair and took a breather while keeping one hand on my fishing rod. Whenever I captured three to five fish, there was a lull where I didn’t get any bites. If this was still the game, I would say that the fish were respawning, but now that this was real life, I didn’t know exactly what was happening. Regardless of the cause, I had plenty of time to sit back and simply enjoy the sights, sounds, and smells of the river and forest.

The river cut through the dense forest like a shimmering ribbon, the sun glinting off its surface. I was sitting on a chair that I had placed in a bend of the river underneath a tall maple tree. The river was full of life. Apart from the fish, there were also ducks, turtles, otters, frogs, snails, dragonflies, and other such creatures. I relished the calm and peaceful sound of the rushing water and the feeling that I was all alone in a peaceful wonderland.

As usual, I caught a lot of fish with fancy-sounding names and descriptions, but, as far as I knew, they were just exotic-looking species that weren’t particularly useful, like the Midnight Nightmare Sardine and Radiant Sunburst Paddlefish.

[Midnight Nightmare Sardine:

A rare and elusive creature rarely seen by human eyes that moves gracefully through the water like a ghost. Its dark scales glow with a mysterious and powerful energy, and its eyes are like two black diamonds.]

[Radiant Sunburst Paddlefish:

A magical creature whose body is a shimmering golden color, with rainbow hues reflecting off its scales. It has a long, paddle-shaped tail, which it uses to propel itself through the water. When it swims, its tail creates a brilliant splash of light and color.]

They looked nice, and I had asked Shuye if I should sell them since they seemed quite exotic. I thought collectors might be interested in them. Unfortunately, he cautioned me that if I sold my catch, rare item hunters might descend on our peaceful forest in droves to look for more of these valuable fish. Obviously, that would be less than ideal for my apprentices and I, not because I was wary of more fishermen coming. As far as I could tell, there were plenty of fish. Rather, I was worried about foraging because each spot was limited. The more people there were, the less we would be able to forage.

Oh well, it’s not like I needed the money. The most important thing about these so-called “rare” spirit fish was that they could be sold for a lot of money, but if that wasn’t in the cards, then so be it.

I stayed in the same spot until noon, when I took a break to eat my packed lunch. Then I moved to a spot that was nearer the farm when the time between my successful catches became too long. Though one could fish as long as they wanted at the same spot in the game, this didn’t seem to be true here. I found that after a few hours at the same place, I started getting fewer and fewer fish.

By midafternoon, I was a bit bored and planned to return home when I noticed that I was very close to leveling up, so I stayed for a little while longer. Sure enough, after half an hour, a System message popped up.

[Congratulations, you just advanced a Fishing level!]

[Your Fishing level is now 10.]

I smiled at the fireworks and put everything into my inventory. Today had been a good day, and it was time for me to go home and rest.

Chapter 55 - The Cursed Lands

Chapter 55 - People say they wouldn't touch the cursed land with a ten-foot broomstick, but it's a real hex-citing place to be

🙞❤︎🙜

I had expected Shuye to return with the letter giving me permission to farm the southern territory, but it was Prince Baiyu who delivered it to me.

Now that he was a regular visitor, everyone in the farm was already used to the sight of the Prince of the Westerlands dropping by for a chat. The maids were no longer flustered when they saw him, though Fengying always greeted him with a curtsy, despite the fact that he said such formalities were unnecessary. She ushered him into the main hall where I was waiting, having been informed beforehand that he was arriving today two hours after noon.

I was wearing a simple autumn-themed robe with a maple leaf design, but I had taken pains to do my hair up nicely in a pretty waterfall braid.

We exchanged greetings and sat down on rosewood chairs while Fengying served me tea. Prince Baiyu, of course, refused a serving. After the usual small talk, he got straight to the point.

“Here’s the letter you were asking for.” He handed me a simple unsealed white envelope. “Shuye asked me to dissuade you from your plan, but I’m not inclined to do so.”

“Oh? You think I’ll succeed?”

“You have a great talent for farming.” This time, he was wearing one of his more sober robes, a plain dark blue with a small tiger design in the middle of his back. Unlike his usual flirtatious tone, he was speaking quite solemnly.

“Thank you for believing in me.”

“But the place you chose is no good. It’s too near the border.”

“Eh?”

“The clans have guards nearby, but it’s still best not to go near the Southerlands.”

“Is it dangerous?” I knew that the southern part of the continent, which used to be ruled by the Vermilion Bird clan, was now infested by demons, but as far as I knew, the Westerlands were safe.

“Not if you’re a good distance from the border. I will assign guards for your household, too.”

“Guards? Is that really necessary?” I wondered if I would have to build a bigger house.

“Don’t worry, the letter gives you permission to establish a farm wherever you wish inside the blasted lands. I’ll choose a place far away from the dangerous areas.”

I made a sound of relief. “Great. I’d like to find a place that’s sheltered. Is there a valley that’s surrounded by hills or mountains there?”

“I’m afraid I’m not too familiar with the area. Shall I find an expert for you?”

“Yes, please.”

“I’ll send word to you when a suitable place is found.”

Fengying arrived with some snacks, and I got busy eating fried potato chips while reading the letter. There were three pages all in all, but I gathered that I was being given the right to claim as much land as I wanted as long as I was able to grow either trees, ground cover, or crops in that area. There would be zero taxes for fifty years, and I could even claim a tax rebate on my forest farm for the expenses I incurred setting up a new holding in the southern territory.

“Wow, this seems like a sweet deal!” I said.

“You think so? Don’t get your hopes up too much. I myself planted a tree near the border, but it died almost immediately. That land is cursed.”

“Bah!” I barely stopped myself from rolling my eyes.

“I’ll have to rotate the guards, since no one is able to bear staying in that place for more than a few days at a time.”

This was news to me. To think that the so-called “curse” was strong enough to affect the warriors of the White Tiger clan this way!

I gave him a questioning look, and Prince Baiyu looked away, sighing.

“This is a touchy subject for us, and it’s not easy to explain to a human,” he said.

I waited patiently when he stopped speaking and started fidgeting with the edge of his sleeve. Eventually, after what seemed to be a bit of an internal struggle, he continued with his explanation.

“You know that the Vermilion Bird clan abused the humans under their care and provoked the gods’ wrath. A flaming rock descended from the heavens and…” He made a short, abrupt gesture with his right hand, as though he couldn’t put into words how most of the inhabitants of the Southernlands had died, and a quarter of the continent became home to an invading demon horde.

“I know.” To be honest, this was ancient history, and I wasn’t too worried about it since I knew that the current situation was stable.

“What humans don’t quite understand is that we can still feel it.”

“Now you lost me. Feel what?”

“The gods’ anger.”

He couldn’t be serious! I stared at him in disbelief, my mouth agape.

“It’s true,” he said. “Have you heard of ‘zidan’?”

“I think so. ‘Zidan’ is the clan’s word for territory, right? Like, your mother is the Lady of the West because her zidan encompasses the entirety of the Westerlands.”

“Zidan is much more than that. There is no word for it in any human language because only the clans can sense zidan.” He paused for a moment, as though he was trying to put his thoughts into words. “It’s commonly translated as ‘territory,’ but it also means ‘innate power’ and ‘inherent character,’ both for people and land. In ancient times, it meant the blessing of the gods and was synonymous with benevolent rule and a fertile land.”

“Um.” This conversation was becoming a lot more philosophical than I had expected. I just wanted to plant some trees, but now we were deep into a discussion of the differences between humans and the god clans.

Prince Baiyu could see that I was confused. “The point is, when we go to the southern territory, we feel extremely uncomfortable because it’s not part of our zidan. When we say ‘this is my zidan,’ we mean that it’s the place that we belong. Humans can’t sense this spiritual power, but we can. We feel that it’s cursed because the zidan feels wrong.”

“All right, though I can’t say I really understand it, I get that it’s uncomfortable for you to stay there,” I said. Then a thought struck me. “Wait a minute, why does it feel wrong for you when it was the Vermilion Bird clan that was punished?”

“That’s the part that’s touchy.” He frowned. “The fact that we can feel the curse means that the gods are angry with us, too, probably because our ancestors didn’t do enough to help the humans back then.”

“I see.” I didn’t dare to ask him what happened to the humans. They must have all died when the “flaming rock,” either a meteor or a comet, struck. Poor guys. “But that shouldn’t be a problem for me, right?”

“Yes, humans don’t feel it.”

I shrugged. “Eh, I’m sure it’ll be fine.”

For the first time since he arrived, Prince Baiyu smiled. “I admire your confidence.”

“Ha! You betcha I’ll get good results!” I had no doubts whatsoever that I would succeed.

“That would be wonderful.” Prince Baiyu flashed me a warm and genuine smile that lit up his entire face.

“And I love that I won’t have to pay taxes for the next few years,” I said. “Taxes are the worst.”

We spent the better part of an hour discussing the details before going for a walk.

Outside, the air was crisp and cool. The leaves on the trees were just starting to change color, the oranges and yellows of autumn slowly replacing the lush greens of summer. A light breeze caused the leaves to dance and rustle, wafting the smell of damp earth and wildflowers towards us.

“I’ve got so much to do. I’d like to start soon, so that everything is in place before winter,” I said.

“All we’ve talked about all day is your project. Aren’t you going to invite me inside your house?” asked Prince Baiyu.

“Never! You’d better give up, I’m not letting anyone inside,” I said. The Ranch House was still off limits to everyone.

He flashed me a mischievous grin. "But I'm not just anyone. I'm your special someone."

We were back to our usual flirtatious banter.

Chapter 56 – Making a huge sacrifice for the greater good

Chapter 56 - Greenhouses Are Plantastic, but Having to Destroy My House Is a Pane in the Glass

🙞❤︎🙜

When I informed my household of my plan to reclaim the desert, everyone was against it, but I ignored all of their protests. Anyway, I managed to get the Demon Chef’s promise that he would cook for me whenever I moved south, which was the most important thing to me. I could do all the landscaping and planting myself, but I couldn’t live without good food anymore.

“Do we really have to?” whined Lari.

“Yes,” I said.

We had just finished watering the vegetables and were on our way to my house.

“But that place is cursed!” Lari just wouldn’t give up. He had been complaining nonstop since breakfast when I told them of my plans.

Kharli and Mo were too smart to actually say anything, however, they nodded in agreement each time Lari said something.

“You guys can stay here if you like.” I was tired of their negativity.

The three of them exchanged glances.

“Teacher, we’ll go with you,” said Kharli.

“That’s settled then. Don’t even worry about some sort of curse, I’m sure it’s nothing,” I said.

I sighed sadly when we reached my house. It was time to say goodbye to my beloved refuge. Calling up the System menu, I navigated to the [Build] tab and selected the [Destroy Building] option.

The others screamed shrilly when dust covered my house and an ominous rumbling sound came from the ground. In seconds, my [Ranch House] was reduced to fine particles that were blown away by a mysterious wind.

“Don’t panic, I’m just replacing it with a building that we will need,” I said.

“But, Teacher, you loved that house!” said Kharli. She looked dismayed.

“I hope you all appreciate the sacrifice that I’m making.”

A glowing magic circle appeared on the ground and the space above it became hazy with a luminous mist. When it cleared, a [Sugar Mill] appeared in its place. From the outside, it looked like nothing more than a nondescript wooden building, however, when we entered we saw that there was a huge industrial-looking machine inside. On one end was a large circular vat labeled “Sugarcane” and a red button that had “Start/Stop” written on it, while on the other end was a box labeled “Sugar.” The center part was enclosed in glass in such a way that one could see the insides of the machine that was full of steel rollers, robot arms, more vats, a centrifuge, and a conveyor belt.

My three apprentices were speechless with awe.

“This is a machine that makes sugar from sugarcane,” I said. “You may remember that I wanted to grow sugarcane last season.”

“Teacher, you wanted sugar so much that you exchanged your house for this?” asked Kharli.

“Of course not. I’m going to build a greenhouse. This is just a temporary thing because I want a few sacks of sugar.”

“Is this because I foraged a lot of wild berries and you want to make jam, but we don’t have enough sugar?” asked Mo.

I made finger guns and mimed shooting her as an acknowledgment that she had hit the target. Unfortunately, the three of them weren’t familiar with firearms so they didn’t know how to react.

“Yes, exactly! Topnotch jam can only be made with spiritual ingredients,” I said.

“Teacher, why are you always motivated by food?” asked Lari.

“What else is there?” I asked.

“Money! Beauties! Power…” he said.

“Teacher already has money and a beauty,” said Kharli. “By the way, when are you going to announce your engagement?”

I totally ignored her question and walked to the end of the machine where I placed sugarcane from the System inventory until the vat was full. Then I pressed the button to start up the machine.

The four of us watched in fascination as whirling blades shredded sugarcane stalks. Then the large metal rollers pressed the juice out of the shreds. The juice was collected in a large container which was subject to a series of mysterious processes where it was boiled, cooled, concentrated, purified, and crystalized. It took around six hours before it was finished, and Lari went to the main house to get some snacks and tea for us while we waited. Fengying, Deming, and the other staff also dropped by to watch. Finally, pure white sugar poured out of the machine into the steel box on the other end.

I gestured to the Demon Chef to go ahead and check it first. He dipped a spoon into the box of white powder and tasted some of it.

“Jade Dust Sugar, low grade,” was his verdict.

We all crowded around the box and sampled the final product. Some of the others had never seen sugar before.

“It’s like honey, but sweeter,” said Mo.

“No, honey is better,” said Kharli. “This is bland and has no depth.”

“I heard this is really expensive stuff,” said Lari.

Using a spoon from my inventory, I scooped up a small amount. This was definitely not the sugar that I was familiar with. It smelled the same as it would have on earth, yet sparkled like diamonds and felt strangely heavy.

Gosh, I hope it tastes the same!

I tentatively poured a little bit of it in my mouth and was relieved when it proved to be as sweet as I remembered.

“The crystals are quite fine,” said Fengying. “I assume this is for making the jam that you requested?”

I nodded. “I hope Deming can make some really nice strawberry jam.”

“I’m sure he can,” said Fengying.

Yes! I was extremely fond of strawberry jam. I figured I’d keep the machine running for three days before building the greenhouse.

***

Three days later, my sadness at the loss of my [Ranch House] was mitigated by my delight in the new greenhouse.

The large, airy greenhouse was made of large, thick glass panels that allowed the sunlight to penetrate inside. There were separate spaces inside for the seedling trays, plant pots, gardening supplies, and a wide open space in the middle where top grade garden soil was ready for planting.

What’s more, I had set up a very nice tea corner for us to use where I had set up a small, round table and comfortable overstuffed armchairs. It didn't look like much right now, but it would surely be extremely cozy when the greenhouse was full of plants.

“Teacher, this is for the winter? A greenhouse is for growing plants even when it’s cold outside, right?” asked Kharli.

“Do you like it?” I asked.

“We like anything that gives us farming exp,” said Mo.

Lari was busy inspecting all of the gardening supplies. There were shovels, rakes, trowels, pruning shears, wheelbarrows, hoses, sprinklers, sprayers, garden hoses, clippers, gloves, tarp, soil, mulch, compost, fertilizers, weed killers, plant food, etc. When he saw that we were talking, Lari joined us.

“Then you’ll love this because it gives exp, though not a lot of it,” I said.

“I know what this is for. We're going to plant trees,” said Lari.

“Obviously!” said Kharli.

“We can’t turn the desert into a forest like Teacher wants us to unless we have lots and lots of trees to plant,” said Mo.

“I’m glad we all know what to do. Take this and follow me.” I took out the packets of seeds that I had prepared beforehand and gave them to my apprentices. Walking over to the nearest seedling tray, I poked a hole around half an inch deep and placed a seed in it. Then I sprinkled a little soil over it. This action depleted some of my energy. “Now you guys try it.”

The three of them followed suit, and we continued planting more seeds until only one third of our energy was left.

“The last step is simply to water it. We’ll have to do that every day, of course,” I said. “These are all fertilizer tree seeds.”

Lari took out a seed from his pocket and gave it a dubious look. “Teacher, this is a type of tree that we can use as fertilizer?”

The System gave a succinct explanation of fertilizer trees, also known as nitrogen-fixing trees, however, the concept of “nitrogen” wasn’t well known in this era, so I thought it would be good to give them a simpler explanation.

“Are you thinking of taking the leaves and using it as fertilizer?” I asked.

The three of them nodded.

“No, that’s not how it works. The seeds I gave you aren’t just one type of tree, but half a dozen trees that are good to grow in land where the soil has degraded. Their roots can bring up nutrients from deep in the earth up to the surface where other plants can use it.” It was a bit of a long speech, but I had prepared the explanation a few days ago, so I knew what to say. “They can also extract valuable elements from the air, which will improve the quality of the land and make it more fertile.”

“I have a feeling these trees won’t make us any money,” said Lari.

“On the contrary, these trees are known as fertilizer trees because they boost agricultural productivity,” I said. “If the soil isn’t that good, planting one of these nearby will make the harvest much better compared to not having a fertilizer tree.”

“The soil must be really bad in the cursed lands,” said Mo. “They say that nothing grows there.”

“The maids told me that there are ghosts wandering around there even during the day,” said Kharli.

“I’ve heard that if you spend the night in the cursed lands, you’ll have bad luck for a whole year,” said Lari.

“I’ve heard that if you keep on talking about silly superstitions, your teacher will send you to bed without dinner,” I said.

The three of them groaned, but that did shut them up nicely because today was the day that Deming and his assistants had prepared a harvest feast for us.

When we finished planting all the seeds, we went back to the house to wash up and change into better clothes. The feast was just for all the people in the house, so it was quite informal, but everyone dressed up anyway.

Deming and Haoran, one of his assistants, stayed in the kitchen to put the finishing touches on the dishes, while the rest of us waited at the outer courtyard where two large, round tables had been placed.

The feast consisted of eight vegetarian dishes made of the crops that we had just harvested. I expected Lari to complain about the lack of meat, but, to my surprise, he was just as excited about it as the girls.

We all oohed and aahed whenever a new dish was served. They all came in large serving platters and had been painstakingly arranged to look their best. The first one was a dish called “Eight Immortals Crossing the Sea” which consisted of colorful vegetables served with eight different dipping sauces.

Using my chopsticks, I picked up a carrot slice and dipped it in a spicy sauce that reminded me of ranch dressing. The sweetness and crunchiness of the vegetable combined with the creamy, tangy, and spicy taste of the sauce was absolutely scrumptious.

Then a parade of steamed, baked, stir-fried, and raw vegetable dishes followed, each one more elaborate than the last. I was particularly fond of the sweet potato spiced cookies that capped the feast.

It was all amazing, and we agreed that there was something really special about eating food that one had grown.

… But I really missed eating meat!

I would have to ask Deming not to make the next feast a vegetarian one.

Chapter 56.5

An excerpt from the journal of Shuye Skullcrusher, Guardian of the Ancient Hill Forest:

Could the cursed lands be her real goal? What does she want to do there? That ominous place has a bad reputation among humans. We've had to gently dissuade various unorthodox human cultivator clans who wanted to build schools there. When the gods' punishment devastated the land, the qi in that place became tainted with the lingering resentment of the tens of thousands of people who died there.

If she's really able to build a farm there, it could only be by appeasing the souls of the restless dead, or...

By possessing a divine power able to lift the age-old curse that has befallen that desolate land.

Chapter 57 – Fertilizer Trees 🌳🌳🌳

Chapter 57 - Tree-mendous Effort Underway to Make the World Greener

🙞❤︎🙜

We waited three days for the seeds in the greenhouse to sprout. Then we placed the seedlings in plant pots. It took the seedlings five days to grow into sprouts big enough to replant into the soil in the middle of the greenhouse. Then they needed ten days to become saplings that were ready to be planted outside the greenhouse. Of course, we planted new seeds every day and took care of them.

For trees, the progression went from seed to sprout to seedling to sapling to young tree to mature tree. Though the seedlings and sprouts grew faster in the greenhouse, saplings did not, and so it was better to plant them outside.

Once we had the hang of how much energy we used planting seeds, placing the sprouts in plant pots, replanting seedlings into the greenhouse's ground when they grew big enough, and watering everything in the greenhouse, I estimated that we would be able to produce ten to fifteen trees a day if we used up all our energy.

However, we wouldn’t plant or replant the trees in the greenhouse during the harvest and planting seasons because we would need to save our energy for the crops. Also, we needed to do some hunting, foraging, and fishing to provide for our daily food needs.

Therefore, I expect we would be able to prepare only around three hundred fertilizer trees during the autumn.

“Why are there so many different trees? Shouldn’t we grow the best one only?” asked Mo.

I got the impression that if she played video games, she was the type of player who would definitely min-max.

“That’s a good point. I’m glad you asked that question.” I smiled. “Wow, did I sound like a wise teacher just then?”

No one said anything.

Awkward!

“Ahem. Anyway, moving on… No. It's a very bad idea to plant just one type of tree because if a pest or disease came along, it would devastate the entire area if there was only one type of tree in it.” I waved a hand at the Shadow Locust, Dreamweaver Mimosa, Elderwood, Rosebud, Autumn Starfruit, Onyx Coffee Tree, Golden Chainwood, Arcane Acacia, Midnight Mesquite, Autumnal Ambrosia, Skythorn, and Dragon's Eye trees. “This way we can guard against that.”

“But is there a tree that’s the best one?” asked Lari.

“I suppose the best one would be whichever tree can thrive in the place where we plant it. We’ll find out when we grow all of these varieties,” I said.

“I bet it will be the Elderwood. Look at these dark branches and white leaves. Don’t they look really awesome?” Lari caressed an Elderwood sapling.

“The System says these are called ‘Golden Chainwood,’ but this looks like a regular sprout.” Kharli lifted a seedling tray and peered at the tender green seedlings growing there. “I hope it really grows up to be golden.”

Mo didn’t say anything, but she knelt down in front of the pots where the Rosebud sprouts were.

“I just want all of them to grow nicely, so we can plant a lot of trees in the wasteland. My dream is to create a forest there,” I said.

“It’s just too bad that the farming exp they give is so low,” said Lari. “And why aren’t you getting paid for this, Teacher?”

“I told you before, I’m getting paid in tax credits.” My apprentices were quite young and hadn’t quite grasped how income and taxes worked yet, so it was hard for them to understand the concept of being paid in something they couldn’t hold in their hands. “Besides, we're all getting a lot more land to farm.”

“If all you want is more land to farm, I’m sure Prince Baiyu would give you more forest land,” said Kharli.

“Oh ye of little faith. You’ll see, it’ll be great!”

And it would. Players always got a lovely paradisiacal land at the end of the [Greening the Desert] quest.

***

Three weeks later, the greenhouse was already full, and I had to place the biggest saplings in my inventory to make way for new ones.

The crops were growing well, especially the Three Sisters plot where we had planted corn, squash, and beans. I had added a Fourth Sister, sunflowers, to attract pollinators.

The lettuces, arugula, radicchio, spinach, kale, Swiss chard, cilantro, parsley, rosemary, oregano, sage, thyme, onions, potatoes, sweet potatoes, ube, parsnips, carrots, turnips, rutabagas, celeries, bell peppers, tomatoes, cucumbers, eggplants, zucchini, ginger, horseradish, squash, pumpkins, green beans, peas, edamame, snow peas, cauliflowers, and broccoli made a lovely sight indeed. I knelt down and touched their leaves and admired the faint but unmistakable glow around them.

Once I was done inspecting the rice fields, I returned to the main house.

Today, I had decided that I was going to procure a key ingredient that was essential to my enjoyment of the upcoming Mid-Autumn Festival. I was really looking forward to the mooncakes, one of my favorite pastries, and I wanted to make sure I would be able to eat them soon.

“Can you list the ingredients Deming will need for the mooncakes?” I asked Fengying.

She told me that the ingredients for mooncake dough were: flour, honey, and corn oil. We had plenty of those. The lotus seed filling was made with honey, corn oil, and, of course, lotus seeds.

“We have everything we need except for the lotus seeds,” Fengying confirmed.

“What about the salted egg yolks?” I asked.

She gave me a confused look. “What salted egg yolks?”

“Isn’t that also an ingredient?”

“Not that I’ve ever heard. Do you want it added?”

Did I? Actually, my dad and I always gave the salted egg yolks to my mom. Remembering my recently departed parents made me feel sad when I thought about why I didn’t need the egg yolks this year. I didn’t have anyone to give it to.

“Never mind,” I said. “I’ll go to the Lotus Pond later today to gather seeds.”

After lunch, I put on my sturdiest clothes and headed out alone. These days, the kids had discovered what they like to do best, and we often went our separate ways. Mo was out foraging; Lari was hunting; Kharli was fishing.

It was rather fun to go hiking by myself. Since my apprentices weren’t coming along, I was free to act however I wanted, without the pressure of having to be the older, more mature person.

I whistled as I walked, enjoying the crunching of the leaves beneath my sensible black boots. The Lotus Pond was more than an hour away, but I didn’t mind since I managed to forage quite a few berries, mushrooms, nuts, and fruits along the way. Ever since my Foraging level had risen, I was finding more and more good things to eat whenever I went out to the forest.

Munching on delicious berries, and throwing away the seeds, hoping that they would take root and grow more food for me later, I arrived at the Lotus Pond. It was quite a popular place for taking screenshots in Adventure Incarnate, but this was my first time visiting it since I transmigrated into this world, and I was a bit disappointed in the reality.

The pond was a shallow, muddy one, unlike the pretty, sparkling waters of the pond in the game. However, that did make sense. I knew that lotus flowers were a metaphor for enlightenment because of their ability to blossom beautifully unsullied by the muck they grew from, thus it was perfectly logical that the pond was a muddy one. The lotus symbolism was really quite delightful in theory, yet now that I was faced with the prospect of wading into cold sludge, I was less than delighted.

Well, there was no helping it. If I wanted that sweet lotus paste filling for the mooncakes, I had to harvest the seedpods.

I stayed at the edge at first, gently twisting off the seedpods that the System had marked as the ones I should harvest, until I ran out of suitable plants. Then I had to go knee-deep into the water to gather more. When I had filled six baskets, I decided that I might as well harvest a few leaves and roots as well. The System didn’t help when it came to the leaves, so I just picked the ones that looked good to me. I would ask Deming to cook lotus-wrapped sticky rice later.

The lotus roots, technically rhizomes, were much harder to get. I put on full-length rubber gloves and got out a knife. The System helpfully indicated the places where it was best to dig for roots, and I had to reach into the mire to unearth the rhizomes and cut them free of the plants.

Ugh. Of course, a lot of the mud and dirty water splashed onto my clothes, though I was careful not to get too much of it on my face. I deeply regretted not pinning up my hair.

One hour later, I was done. I had gathered an additional three baskets of lotus roots and five baskets of lotus leaves. I was a mess from the neck down, so I discarded the gloves, took out a bucket of clean well water from my inventory, and cleaned myself up as best as I could. The autumn air was quite chilly, and I shivered a little as I toweled myself dry. It was quite a relief when I changed into a new set of clothes.

The last thing I did before leaving was to collect the biggest and most perfect lotus flowers. Most of them were pink, with a few white ones scattered here and there. Right at the center of the pond, I spotted the ultra-rare purple lotus. I would’ve liked to pluck it and give it to Prince Baiyu since it matched the birthmark on his forehead. However, since there was only one, I decided to leave it alone in the hopes that the flower would pollinate and create more seeds that would grow into more purple lotus plants later.

I was already on my way back home when I realized that I should probably have put Mr. Bear on the alert before changing. Oh well, it was probably fine.

Chapter 58 - Mid-Autumn Festival Contest

Chapter 58 - Our veggies are a-peeling to the eye and the palate!

🙞❤︎🙜

Three days later, I started making preparations for the Emberstone Farm stall display.

“No, no, no! Don’t add more rice. It has to be as varied as we can make it, and the display has to be beautiful and colorful,” I said. “We probably won’t be able to get the grand prize, but I want a medal at least.”

“How could we not get the grand prize?” asked Kharli. “You’re the only spirit farmer in the entire Westerlands!”

“Tsk, tsk, my little apprentice, do you not remember that our chef said that all our produce is only low-grade? That’s why we need to get more points on presentation,” I said, even though that wasn’t the real reason why we wouldn’t win. “Make it more beautiful! The flowers are already good, but do we have any prettier vines and leaves?”

“We need to put the rice at the center of the stall. That’s what people will be interested in,” said Lari.

“Good suggestion.” I removed the eggplants from their position and replaced it with the rice. “Yes, I think that works.”

“Teacher, I think you’re worried for nothing. We’ll definitely win,” said Mo.

“We’ll see. Remember, one of us must be at the stall at all times,” I said. “But you should also enjoy the festival while you’re there.”

“Will we get any pocket money to spend?” asked Lari.

“We’ll see,” I repeated. I was just teasing him though. Of course, I already got a pouch of coins from Shuye to distribute among my household. “Where should we place the chilis?”

The wooden stall had been created by Deming’s assistants using the logs from the trees we had cut. We had put square baskets full of vegetables in the middle part, and the top was decorated with flowers in porcelain vases while vines had been wound around the legs of the stall.

It took quite a while before I was satisfied with the arrangement of the crops and decorative items. Shuye arrived just as we were finishing up.

“Ah, you’re here! You’re just in time,” I said as I handed him a crocus flower as a gift. “What do you think?”

“What is this supposed to be? Are you getting ready to sell your crops yourself?” asked Shuye.

“No, it’s for the Mid-Autumn Festival Contest in Hongzhen,” I said.

“Hongzhen? Where is that?” he asked.

“You know, the closest town north of here,” I said.

“You told me that you were going to the closest town, which is Ganzi,” said Shuye.

“Anyway, it’s the town that I’m going to,” I said. Hongzhen was the venue for the festival in Adventure Incarnate and had the best prizes, too. “Perhaps it’s called something different locally.”

Or maybe the information I got from playing the game was slightly wrong. There could be towns closer than Hongzhen since I suspected that the System’s [World Map] only showed the parts that were significant in Adventure Incarnate.

“You’ll just have to give me directions,” said Shuye. “What time should I bring the carriage?”

“How about two hours before sunset? The festival starts at nine in the evening, but I don’t want to fly at night.” I turned to my apprentices and said, “We're done, go and rest up for tomorrow.”

They went back to the house obediently while I stayed with my Farm Guide.

“You’re bringing them along?” asked Shuye.

“Oh, I’m sorry, did I forget to tell you? I thought I said I was bringing everyone,” I said.

“I’ll have to make two trips then,” he said.

“Thank you very much! Are you sure you want to drive us there yourself? Don’t you have any apprentices?”

“No, it’s fine. I want to attend the festival myself,” he said.

“I’m hoping that they’ll have a lot of food stalls!”

We chatted a little, and I kidded him about losing weight ever since his wife became pregnant while I stored the carefully designed festival stall in my inventory.

***

“Nooooo, do I really have to?” I whined.

“Yes, you really have to,” said Fengying.

“What’s wrong with my [Scholar’s Robe]?”

“You’re a baroness now and you need to dress the part.”

I’d forgotten that I was no longer a peasant. Sighing, I changed into the [Auspicious Clouds] set that consisted of a white robe embroidered with golden clouds and a red-orange pleated skirt tied with a white sash. Due to the chilly autumn weather, I opted to retain the long, loose outer robe that I normally discarded. However, I removed all of the jewelry except for the dangling gold earrings with tiny white jade beads. Good quality white jade was considered more valuable than the other colors.

I twirled in place, enjoying the way the skirt billowed around me. It was comfortable enough, and thank goodness that it wasn’t the fashion in this world to wear floor-length garments, so the hem of the skirt was above my ankles.

When I walked out into the outer courtyard, I was glad that I had dressed up. Everyone else was in their best clothes, which they had bought on their shopping trip to the city after the summer harvest. Fengying and Deming were in matching pale green silk robes with an elegant maple leaf design, while the assistants and maids were in colorful cotton robes. They were all carrying either padded jackets, wool cloaks, or fur-lined coats since we expected it would be cooler at night.

My three apprentices, on the other hand, looked even fancier.

“You’ve really gone all out!” I said to the three of them. “Stand still and let me get a look at all of you.”

“Lady Violet, I hope you like what we’ve done,” said Fengying, gesturing at the two girls.

Mo and Kharli were dressed in near-identical pink robes and skirts, with white belts decorated with gold and carnelian waist ornaments. Their hair had been gathered at the top of their head in a complicated twisted bun, and both were wearing pretty gold flower hairpins as well as pink silk roses in their hair.

“I love the hair and clothes, but… Cosmetics, really? Aren’t the girls too young for that?” I said.

“They're a little young, but this is a special occasion,” said Fengying.

She had a point.

“Okay, I’ll let it pass this time.” I took two small silk pouches from my sleeve and handed one to each of them. “Here’s some pocket money. Don’t spend it all in one place.”

“Ahem.” Lari coughed loudly to attract my attention and held up his hand, palm up. “Teacher, what about mine?”

Fengying and I exchanged a glance full of meaning.

Should I let him get away with it? I asked her silently using a lift of the eyebrows.

I’ve washed my hands of it, she communicated with a slight shrug of her shoulders.

Beside him, the two girls were covering their mouths with their hands and giggling.

“I’m afraid to give you more gold, seeing as you’re covered in it,” I said, gesturing at his golden cap, hairpin, necklace, belt, waist ornaments, and rings. “Where did you even get all that?”

Lari was dressed in bright orange silk robes and pants painted with golden characters for prosperity and long life. My eyes hurt just looking at it.

“The Lane of Exquisite Craftsmanship,” said Lari.

“It's a street full of artisans who specialize in creating the most convincing fakes you'll ever see,” said Fengying. “From fake gold coins to silver plates, they can imitate anything perfectly.”

“I didn't know there was such a place in the city. The authorities allow it?” I asked her.

“They don’t try to pass their wares off as the real thing. If you're in need of a convincing duplicate or just appreciate the mastery of forgery, it's the place to go to,” said Fengying.

“Ahem.” Lari coughed again.

He was still holding his hand up, and I didn’t feel like giving him a lecture, so I just placed the silk pouch in his hand.

“All right, I’ll give you your pocket money, but you have to promise me that you won’t buy fakes this time.”

“Yes, Teacher,” said Lari.

This morning at dawn, we had finished watering and tending to the plants before using the hot spring facilities. Now it was midmorning, and Shuye was waiting for us at the carriage. Since there were a lot of us, we would have to make two trips. I and my three apprentices would go first to show Shuye the way to Hongzhen. Then Shuye would go back for the others.

“Good morning. We’ve got nice weather for flying today,” said Shuye. His hair was still shaggy, but he had made some effort to dress up a little because his robe and pants were of good quality brown cotton today.

“Good morning,” I said.

Shuye and the others also exchanged bows and greetings before we got on our way. My apprentices marveled at the luxurious interior of the carriage and fought each other over who was going to sit beside me on the side near the driver.

“Stop fighting. Kharli, come sit beside me since you’re the eldest,” I said.

On the other side of the wall between us, Shuye slid open a small window and spoke through it. “I’ll head due north. Let me know how I should alter the flight path.”

I had drawn a map and showed him our destination, but it seemed that the drawing was too simplified for him, and he couldn’t quite understand which one of the many towns I wanted to go to since there were a lot of them.

“Thank you, I will.”

We kept the window open and I gave him a few directions while we flew. The carriage was really something. The flight was extremely smooth, and I didn’t feel scared at all. Less than an hour later, we landed in front of the Hongzhen town’s gate. We got off and said our goodbyes to Shuye who immediately flew off to fetch the others.

“No, don’t run.” I grabbed Lari by the back of his robe. Sometimes I forgot how young my apprentices were. “We’re going to stay together until we finish getting rooms at the inn and registering for the contest.”

The town was rectangular in shape, with sturdy, hard-packed earth and stone walls. Today, because of the Mid-Autumn Festival, the wooden gates had all been flung wide open and the guards simply let everyone enter while keeping an eye on the crowd.

Well, it wasn’t so much a crowd as it was just a few dozen groups of people entering together. They were probably groups of families who had come from the surrounding villages.

Unlike the city, this town was much smaller and less intimidating. The walls were only seven feet tall by my estimation, and when we entered we saw that the houses were small and mostly made of wood with sloping roofs covered in brown tiles. This must be a very peaceful town because I noticed that all of the houses had opened their front doors, and I could see people going in and out frequently, no doubt because the Mid-Autumn Festival was a time for families to visit each other.

There were just two main streets, paved with stone and lined with scholar trees, leading to the town square, so we passed by many colorfully-dressed groups of people. I asked one of them where the town inn was and, after following their directions, my apprentices and I found a charming little place near the town square.

It was a traditional wooden structure with a sloping roof covered in red tiles. The wooden door was prettily carved with an intricate tree and flower design, and the front of the inn was gaily decorated with colorful red and white lanterns.

We stepped inside to see that the outer courtyard and rooms were used as a restaurant which was currently full of noisy revelers. The innkeeper, a respectable-looking middle-aged woman, led us to the inner courtyard after I informed her that I was looking to rent three rooms, one for myself, one for my apprentices, and one for the staff.

The others had told me that we didn’t need rooms at the Inn since we weren’t staying overnight, but I wanted a place where we could store our belongings, especially all the things that we would be buying in town. Also, the rooms could serve as a nice resting place. These days I was very much a creature of habit who went to bed by nine o’clock. Therefore, I planned to take an afternoon nap in order to stay awake for the night festivities.

The rooms we were shown were sparsely furnished with only a bed, a small table, and a chair, but they were spotlessly clean and inviting.

“Thank you very much. These rooms will do.” I said after inspecting them. “The rest of my household should arrive within the hour. My housekeeper’s name is Fengying.”

“Yes, Lady Violet. Please let me know if you need anything,” said the innkeeper before she left.

“Teacher, you forgot to haggle over the price!” said Lari.

“Uh, you’re right.” What a rookie mistake! “Here are your keys. Don’t lose them. Now let’s go to the town square and register for the contest.”

We locked the doors and headed to the center of town where we greeted the Mayor, an apple-cheeked man with a bushy beard, and announced our intention to join the Harvest Showcase competition. He gave us a small wooden tablet with the number eight carved on it after we paid the entry fee.

The town square was already full of stalls, but the northwestern corner had been reserved for the agricultural displays. We quickly made our way to our designated spot, and there was a small commotion from gossipy townspeople when I took out our stall.

“A newcomer! Where is she from? Do you guys know her?”

“Nice flowers.”

“The vegetables are a little small. Did you see the giant turnip at Farmer Di’s stall?”

“It’s colorful.”

“Which farm is she from?”

I expected them to come forward and ask me about the stall, but they kept their distance, so I ignored them while I repeated the instructions that I had already given my apprentices earlier today.

“All right. Fengying and the others should be here soon. When they arrive, make sure that there are always two people at the stall at all times. You can do whatever you want when you’re not on stall duty.”

“Yes, Teacher,” they chorused.

“Buy your own lunch. We’ll meet for dinner at sunset at the inn. See you later!” I left them to watch the stall because now it was time for me to enjoy the best part of the Mid-Autumn Festival: shopping and eating street food.

Oh my gosh! Was that a tornado fries stall?

Chapter 59 - Fortune-telling Device

Chapter 59 - Please romaine calm, this is a contest, not a kale-ing field

🙞❤︎🙜

It was! It really was a tornado fries stall! I bought a stick for a few coins and went around the town plaza looking at everything that was on display while I waited for Fengying and the others to arrive.

The local townspeople, traveling merchants, and craftsmen from the surrounding villages had set up stalls selling everything from everyday household items like needles, thread, cutlery, kitchenware, etc. to more exotic stuff like glass beads, lace, silver buttons, finely worked leather saddles, furs, sugar, tobacco, and so forth.

I gorged myself on the food stalls that sold grilled pork skewers, meat buns, and dumplings. When I was full, I polished off the meal with two sticks of tanghulu, a traditional snack of candied hawthorns. Luckily, I had finished everything and had wiped my face to hide the evidence when my housekeeper finally appeared.

“Oh, how was the trip?” I asked Fengying.

Her husband was with her, and he was looking around the town square, his eyes lingering on the knife and food stalls.

“It was fine. The inn seems clean, and I left Yinuo there to watch our rooms,” she said.

“Is that really necessary? I thought the staff had the day off,” I said.

“I’ve already arranged a proper division of labor and hours for them, don’t worry.”

“Okay, let’s have fun! I’ll meet you back at the inn at sunset.”

“Please take care of yourself, my lady. Don’t go with anyone or into any alleys. In fact, why don’t I get one of the maids to accompany you?”

“I’ll be fine! I’m only here to visit the stores around the town square. I promise I won’t go anywhere else,” I said.

I really didn’t want someone accompanying me while I went out to have fun.

“Where are you going?”

“There, there, and there.” I pointed at the bookstore, temple, and clothing shop. “By the way, where’s Shuye?”

“He said he was going to look around.”

“Maybe I’ll run into him.”

We parted ways, and I saw that Deming headed straight to the knife stall.

As for me, I had important business to do.

The bookstore was a small two-story wooden building whose façade was currently hung with numerous red lanterns for the festival. Inside was a wizened old man wearing gray and white robes that had seen better days. I bowed to him politely, and he showed me around. All four walls of the shop were filled with floor-to-ceiling shelves crammed with scrolls and books. I even went up the rather rickety wooden stairs to the second floor, where the older merchandise was stored.

Though I wasn’t much of a reader, I could still tell which items were the most expensive ones. I picked a good selection of classic poetry, natural history, and literature books and arranged for them to be sent to our rooms at the inn. I paid with silver coins that Shuye had provided for my use.

“May I interest you in some newer, and very… interesting publications?” said the proprietor as I was about to leave. He pointed at the table in the middle of the shop that was piled high with copies of a book titled “Secrets of the Ruler’s Court.”

“What is that?”

“It was written by a human who visited the Vermilion Bird Ruler’s court-in-exile.”

“That does sound interesting!” I quickly made my way over to the table and leafed through the book.

Though the shopkeeper’s description had made me think that it was a travelogue of sorts, it was actually more like an ancient celebrity magazine, full of scurrilous gossip and spicy illustrations. I was particularly taken by the painting of a beautiful young man wearing the traditional garb of the Vermilion Bird clan: a kilt and broad gold collar. Shirtless, of course. I admired the way that the artist had lovingly detailed Prince Guanbin’s muscles.

“That particular illustrated edition has proved to be popular among my younger clientele,” said the bookstore’s owner. “There are only three copies left.”

“I’ll take three!”

Sensing an easy mark, the old man pointed out another dozen “interesting” books, all of which I purchased.

Today was really going to eat into the household accounts.

When I was finished buying books, I went to the clothing shop, where I found my Farm Guide arguing with the owner.

“But why can’t I buy two?” asked Shuye.

“Town edict,” said a young woman with bright orange hair wearing bright blue robes. Her hair was done up in a towering beehive, with numerous flower hair pins stuck here and there.

“What kind of edict doesn’t allow people to buy from a store?” asked Shuye.

“We have limited stock, and people come from all over to buy clothes today. I don’t want to run out,” she said.

Since it seemed like the young woman was at the end of her tether, I pulled Shuye aside and asked him what he was doing.

“I just want to buy a few clothes for myself and my wife,” he said.

He seemed so desperate to buy from the store that I wondered if he had quarreled with his spouse. Maybe he really needed to bring back a gift?

“Just buy one of each item for yourself, and if there are a few that you don’t like, send it to a seamstress to have it cut down for your wife,” I said.

“Why didn’t I think of that?” Shuye scratched his head. “But they wouldn’t need to be cut down, they would need material added.”

What? Was his wife a giantess? Then I realized that it must be because she was currently pregnant.

“Let’s just buy a few oversized items,” I said.

Since the young woman seemed exasperated by Shuye’s presence, I quickly made a few purchases and left Shuye to his shopping.

My last stop for the day was the temple, a triple-gabled round stone building with white walls and blue roof tiles. The priestess, who was a teenage girl, showed me around the place when I mentioned that I wanted to make a donation. Inside, there were twelve vermilion pillars carved and painted with mythological scenes, representing each month of the year. In the middle of the temple was a circular altar where the priests made sacrifices every New Year.

I made all the appropriate admiring noises, then handed her a mother-of-pearl box containing a gold bar. Once the girl saw the size of my donation, she quickly called over a more senior priestess, who brought me to a side room.

“Would you like to try your luck with our fortune-telling device?” she asked me.

Did I ever! This was exactly the reason why I came.

“Yes, I’d love to!”

The fortune-telling device was a circular cage-like metal device containing a lot of wooden balls inside. It totally looked like a bingo cage. I turned it a few times and a ball dropped out. The priestess took the ball and cracked it open, revealing a tiny wooden charm.

“How lucky! You got the earth charm, which is perfect for a farmer,” she said as she handed it to me.

I hid my disappointment and thanked her politely. The charm could be attached to a weapon to give it an extra effect.

[Earth Charm:

A small wooden charm with the Earth symbol carved on it.

+1% Elemental Earth Damage]

Ever since I tested the [Lightning Fang], I had wanted a [Lightning Charm], but it seemed that I would have to try again next year. Of course, the [Earth Charm] wasn't a bad thing, and I was still glad that I had donated to the temple.

With that, all of my business was done, and I returned to the inn for my afternoon nap, making a mental note to remember to tell the kids not to show any discontentment on their faces when we lost the contest. Nobody likes a sore loser.

Chapter 60 - Contest Winners

Chapter 60 - Don't beet yourself up over the result

🙞❤︎🙜

During the day, people visited their families and friends for merrymaking, but once the sun set, everybody headed out to the town square to reserve a prime seat for the show. Thankfully, Shuye had volunteered to do that for us since he wasn’t going to join us for dinner.

The rest of us gathered at the inn’s inner courtyard and ordered a lavish meal. There were nine dishes all in all, not counting rice - one fish, one chicken, one pork, one shrimp, one rabbit, one quail, and three vegetable dishes. The restaurant’s chef had really gone all out and served us dishes that use a variety of techniques including steaming, boiling, deep frying, stir-frying, grilling, and braising.

“It’s pretty good,” I said.

“Not as good as our chef’s,” said Lari.

“Well, of course!” I was quite relieved to see that my apprentice had learned their table manners.

Fengying, ever the stickler for propriety, had booked two tables for us. One for me and my apprentices, and another for the rest of the household. It seemed that they wouldn’t feel comfortable eating with their boss, and I understood that.

Once we had finished eating all the dishes, Fengying distributed the mooncakes.

“This is more like it,” said Lari.

“Don’t talk when your mouth is full,” said Mo.

“Hush, don’t quarrel in public, people are looking at you!” said Kharli.

The mooncakes were excellent, as expected of the Demon Chef. The soft, crumbly floury exterior of the pastry contrasted very nicely with the sweet lotus paste filling. The flavor was rich and sweet, but not cloying. When I first cut a slice of it, I expected to eat a quarter, since it was quite filling and I’d already eaten a lot, but I ended up finishing the entire thing.

“All right, it looks like everyone’s finished. Let’s go!”

We all got our capes and jackets since it could be quite chilly during the evening. However, there were going to be a lot of people there, and I suspected that it would be reasonably warm.

Shuye was easy to find despite the crowd because he was standing right beside the Mayor. A large temporary stage had been built in front of the temple, and it seemed that the priests were almost finished setting it up when we gathered around Shuye.

“They’re starting off with a shadow puppet show for the children,” Shuye informed me. “Then there’s a lion dance with fireworks. They’ll announce the winners of the contests after that.”

Apart from the produce display contest, they also had cooking, dance, and beauty contests during the day of the Mid-Autumn Festival.

“Sounds fun.”

This world didn’t have TV or radio, much less the Internet, and entertainment opportunities were hard to come by, which meant that everyone in the town square was quite excited, including me.

Half an hour after we arrived, the priestesses started banging on the drums and everyone quieted down as the shadow puppets started moving behind a semi-transparent white curtain.

A voice boomed out, “The Wise Lioness.”

The story was told with music and lyrics as well as shadows. Of course, being an alien to this world, the story it told was quite new to me, but evidently not to the rest of the audience who whooped and cheered every time something happened. The lioness of the title recovered her nine lost cubs from fire, earthquake, tsunami, and tornado while teaching them lessons about obedience and kindness. My three apprentices cheered along with the rest of the crowd, and it looked like they were really having the time of their lives.

Next came the traditional Lion Dance. The white lion, representing the wisdom of old age, had the symbol for “ruler” on its forehead. Its steps were stately and majestic, seeming to stomp down on the ground with great power. The black lion, representing the liveliness of youth, jumped and pranced around energetically, while the red lion, representing the heroic courage of middle age, had an iron horn in the middle of his forehead that it used to slash and stab at imaginary targets.

Dozens and dozens of different kinds of fireworks exploded as the Lion Dance came to its end, then the Mayor went up to the stage to give a short speech. I started to feel sleepy as the contest winners were announced to much fanfare, and each one gave a speech. Then it was time to reveal the Farming Contest winners.

“Remember, be cool,” I told my apprentices yet again. “Don’t say anything bad, either.”

“… And in ninth place, Emberstone Farm!” said the mayor.

Even though I had warned them, Lari, Kharli, and Mo’s mouths still fell open in shock. At least they didn’t say anything as I went up the stage and accepted my reward, a bit of cash and a small wooden acorn trophy.

[Ninth Place Trophy (Mid-Autumn Farming Contest)

A wooden trophy in the shape of an acorn.

+0.1% Farming Exp]

Everyone was so shocked and disappointed that I decided we should leave the town square immediately and as quietly as we could. At the inn, Lari burst out into a passionate rant the moment we closed the door to our rooms.

“Ninth place! That’s impossible! They must be blind. We had the best produce by far. How could we lose? It’s not fair. We should complain to the Mayor! Who the heck are the judges? They should be made to explain their decision!” He went on and on as the maids packed up all the items we had bought in town.

I waited until he ran out of breath before explaining what happened. “I expected it. This is a small town, and everyone knows each other. They’re not about to award the big prizes to an outsider, no matter how good. The important thing is that we got this.”

I held out the trophy and they passed it around.

“Teacher, what does [+0.1% Farming Exp] mean?” asked Kharli.

“It means that we get bonus experience now! Isn’t it great?” I took back the trophy and polished it with my sleeve before storing it safely in my inventory. “Every time we get exp, we’ll receive a little extra because of this trophy.”

“How much extra?” asked Mo.

“One thousandth,” I said.

“What? Isn’t that too small for all the effort that we did?” Lari looked even more disappointed now.

“No. There is a minimum of 0.25 exp.” Of course, when we did activities that gave a lot of experience, like harvesting crops, one measly point of exp was nothing, but it was a significant addition to our everyday chores that only gave tiny amounts of exp, like watering and weeding plants.

My three apprentices huddled together and started whispering amongst themselves.

“She seems happy.” That was Kharli.

“You know she’s easily pleased.” That was Mo.

“I don’t understand what all this is about.” That was Lari.

I sat down on the inn room’s chair and waited for the maids to finish packing.

“Maybe she just really likes exp? I mean, exp is nice,” said Mo.

“Eh, I don’t think this extra exp will help much, but it won’t hurt either,” said Kharli.

I let them talk because I understood how disappointed they must be. Adventure Incarnate’s developers were a little bit playful when it came to events. Things almost never turned out the way you expected them to. I thought of the time when some players used an exploit to kill all of the Farming Contest participants, hoping that they would be able to carry off the first prize, the [Cheerful Cow Trophy], but they still only got fifth place in the contest. We joked in the forums that the judges had given the awards posthumously and placed the trophies on the contestants’ graves though, of course, the townspeople simply respawned when the developers restarted the server.

“Don’t fret, didn’t we all have fun?” I asked them when they quieted down a little.

Lari, Kharli, and Mo all nodded.

“Then it’s all good!” I yawned. It was after midnight, and I was really sleepy. “Let’s start walking to the gate where the carriage is. I can’t wait to go home and rest.”

***

The next day, my apprentices found out the joy of getting extra exp.

“I’m getting twice as much exp!” said Mo.

“You liar! It’s only half,” said Lari.

“Are you two stupid? It’s only one-third!” said Kharli.

I made a mental note to ask Fengying to teach them about fractions, decimals, and percentage points. We were actually getting 25% more exp when we watered the plants.

“Now do you know why I wasn’t in favor of planting rice?” I almost said “this early in the game” but caught myself in time. “Since the rice paddy is flooded, we’re actually losing out on watering exp.”

Since we were already in the middle of autumn, the crops were halfway to harvest time. The vegetable field was full of lush greenery, and the two rice fields were full of two-feet tall rice plants.

However, there was one small problem. The rice we were growing was rather weird. They sucked up so much water that we had to constantly adjust the irrigation canal’s gate to keep the paddies at the right water level. Furthermore, the plants were not the green ones I expected. Instead, they were striped blue and pink with golden edges. I had to admit it looked really mystical, but I wasn’t sure what was going on. Would I be able to harvest regular white rice at all, or would I end up with some exotic rice variety?

Well, it was no use worrying about it now. I’d find out at harvest time.

The trees in the greenhouse were also doing quite nicely, and I was impatient to get started on my new farming project.

“What’s taking so long?” I asked my Farm Guide the next day when he visited me. “I got permission to farm ages ago.”

“It’s not as simple as you might think. I told you about ‘territory.’ Did you ever stop to wonder whose territory you would be farming on?” he said.

“Wow, I hadn’t considered that. Isn’t it enough that I have the prince’s permission?”

“You actually received the Lady of the West’s permission, not the prince’s. And no, it’s not enough. We had to send some people to look for a place that meets your requirements since the place you initially chose is disputed land. Now that we’ve found some sites, we have to get permission from the clans who claim that territory.”

“But no one lives there! Wasn’t it abandoned a long time ago?”

“People consider that land cursed, but you don’t know how tenacious people are about their old territories. Those who lost their homes during the demon invasion still talk about reclaiming the land.”

“Ah…” All this stuff wasn’t in Adventure Incarnate. Real life was so much messier than the game.

“Anyway, just be patient.”

“Okay, but if you could hurry them up a little, I would be grateful. I’d like to get started before winter, otherwise, I’ll have to delay until the start of spring.”

“I’ll see what I can do.”

Chapter 60.5

An excerpt from the journal of Shuye Skullcrusher, Guardian of the Ancient Hill Forest:

I think I know where she’s from now.

Hongzhen Town has the same stealth aura around it as Emberstone Farm. Once Baroness Violet showed me the place, I experimented with giving people directions and maps to locate it. No one was able to find it until I personally brought them there.

The town is even better protected than the farm because the people I showed it to were then unable to return once they left the town walls. I believe the only reason I was able to remember it was because Baroness Violet showed it to me herself. My passing on the knowledge of its existence doesn’t seem to work as well.

Hongzhen town itself seems unremarkable except for the stealth aura. Its inhabitants are well aware that people from outside can’t enter their town and forget them once they are out of sight.

The Mayor assured me that the Lion God’s protection, which is what they call it, doesn’t extend to criminals or scammers. According to him, such unsavory characters are immediately thrown out of town by divine will. I perused the neighboring towns’ records and found that there were a few dozen nameless persons of unknown origin who were thrown in jail or otherwise punished for various crimes in the past century, so the Mayor’s words seem to be true.

I sent a report to the Prince, but every time we discuss it, he forgets what I said moments later.

Perhaps Baroness Violet’s unknown parents were from Hongzhen or a similar place.

Chapter 61 - Permaculture in the cursed lands

Chapter 61 - Planning Succulent Success through Desert Cacti-vation

🙞❤︎🙜

The days passed quickly and the crops started flowering. There were lots more plants this time, so I added a second beehive. Once again, we manually pollinated the corn that we had planted using the Three Sisters (plus one) method. Maybe I should call it the Four Sisters method now that I had added the sunflowers which were good for attracting pollinators.

As for the rice plants, they were now over two feet high and had small white flowers. Fortunately, the crop was self-pollinating, so we didn’t have to do anything.

“I hope we get regular white rice instead of something weird,” said Lari.

“The flowers are so tiny and cute!” said Mo.

“Stop it! Nooo, don’t pluck them. Don’t you know those are what will grow into rice? Leave them alone,” said Kharli.

Yep, she was the [Bossy] one of the bunch, all right.

We were inspecting the rice paddy for weeds when Shuye arrived with the news that I had been waiting for.

“Oh my gosh! That’s really cutting it close. I think we barely have enough time to get started…” I said.

“You said you would be there for seven days? Are you sure you have enough time before the harvest?” Shuye glanced at the rice. Like Lari, he had also expressed his concern about the rice plants producing a weird, mutant variety, but I had assured him that all would be fine.

Probably.

“We'll just have to work efficiently.” I waved my hand at my apprentices, indicating that they should finish the chores as usual, while I walked to the main house with my Farm Guide.

I had been planning this project for a long time, and I had told everyone about it, so now all I had to do was inform Fengying that we were leaving tomorrow.

“The prince will accompany you tomorrow, but he’ll have to return to the clan the next day because he’s very busy with the Fall Hunt,” said Shuye.

“What about you?”

“My wife is in a delicate condition, as you know, and I’m reluctant to leave her alone even for one day.”

“Of course, how thoughtless of me!”

“Remember what I told you about the cursed land. Here, take this medicine.” Shuye handed me a porcelain jar. “Promise me that you’ll apply this to any wound that you get. Even the slightest scratch can fester when you’re staying in that place.”

“Thank you.” I half expected to receive a new Herblaw recipe when I opened the lid and smelled it, but no such thing happened.

[The Bear Clan’s Ointment

An effective wound medicine that prevents and treats infections. Made with a blend of wild herbs and aloe vera.]

“Promise me.”

“I promise, okay!” Sometimes he was really like a mommy bear, but I already had Mr. Bear to take care of me.

“You know, there was quite a lot of discussion about your project.”

“Oh? I hope it was mostly positive.”

“Well, there were a lot of doomsayers, as you would expect-”

“Ha! My own household isn’t too thrilled about it. I can just imagine what other people have been saying.”

“Ah, but there’s a small group of people who have been trying to reclaim the lands. They were quite excited when the prince made his proposal.”

“That’s great.” We arrived at the house and I informed Fengying of the news. She ushered us into the formal reception room, then bustled away to start the preparations.

Lari had been chosen by lot to stay behind on the farm along with one of Deming’s assistants. The rest of us would travel to the desert and stay there for seven days while Lari took care of the farm.

We sat down and continued our conversation.

“Since Prince Baiyu is in charge of the project, it was decided that you will be granted the rights to develop the Blossom Valley at the foot of Skyfang Hill,” said Shuye.

One of the maids arrived with a tray of tea and rose candy. To be honest, I was not fond of rose-flavored food, but this was made from petals I had harvested myself from my Rose Garden, which made it special. There was just something better about eating food that was made using ingredients I had personally harvested.

“Which clan claims that area?” I asked as I munched on the candy. At least it made my breath smell nice.

“The White Tiger clan, of course. This one is a branch family, relatives of the prince’s father.”

I pouted a little because I had the impression that the White Tiger clan was probably going to take the credit when I started [Greening the Desert].

We exchanged a few more words, then Shuye left. He was a very busy man these days, what with his work and taking care of his pregnant wife. If I remember correctly, the player’s Farm Guide only visited a few times during the epic quest, which sounded about right.

I went back to my room and started packing.

***

The next day, I woke up at dawn as usual after dreaming of playing with a dragon child. I stumbled out of bed and blessed the System for giving the courtyard house heated floors and hot water. After showering as quickly as I could, I used the Cash Shop [Lady’s Salon], a vanity table with a large mirror that I could use to fix my hairstyle. Today I piled my hair on top of my head in a neat bun. Then I dressed in many layers to prepare myself for the day.

The first layer was normal Western underwear, followed by Asian-style “innerwear” which consisted of pants and a plain wraparound top with a Y-shaped collar, both made of fine, thin cotton. The next layer was a pleated red silk skirt, white silk robe with a Y-shaped collar, and a wide belt embroidered with an autumn leaf pattern. This was plenty warm enough for indoors, but I also had a padded jacket and fur cape I could throw over my outfit as needed. Prince Baiyu had gifted me the cape which was made of the fur of the Flamecoat Lynx.

Once I had finished dressing, I went to the dining room to check what the others were doing. Everyone seemed to be in good spirits as we ate our breakfast. The staff were bustling around doing some last-minute stuff, and the luggage was already placed near the gate, ready to be loaded onto the ox carts.

Outside, Prince Baiyu and his staff were waiting for us.

“Good morning,” I said.

“Good morning,” said Prince Baiyu. Today he was wearing what I thought of as his “working clothes,” a matching set of dark blue pants and robe with a simple cut, decorated only with one small White Tiger emblem in the middle of the back of the robe.

He and the others exchanged greetings and bows, then he introduced his staff to us. Apparently, we would be accompanied by half a dozen people who will serve as observers, advisors, and bodyguards during our time in the desert. However, because of the discomfort they felt due to the “curse,” they would only be able to stay for two to three days before they were replaced by another group.

“You’re going to love my new flying vehicle,” he said.

“We're not using a cart?”

“The cart is good for transporting crops, but I got a fine new carriage for you using the money from the Dusk Dandelion seeds.”

“Have people been able to grow the seeds properly?”

“Yes.” Prince Baiyu smiled proudly at me when we walked through a strand of trees to the clearing where the carriage was waiting for us.

“Wow!”

The carriage was made of dark polished wood with gold-painted carvings. Two gleaming silver horses, obviously mechanical automata, stood motionless in front of it.

I gaped wordlessly at it for a few minutes before saying, “This must have cost a lot.”

“You can afford it, Baroness.”

“Niiiiice,” I said.

The Prince thoughtfully helped me climb up the carriage, then the girls.

“Ready?” he asked after he closed the carriage door and settled down beside me.

“Uh, go slow, okay? I just ate breakfast.”

“It’s fine, I’ll turn on the security settings and close all the windows. You won’t even feel a thing, I promise.”

“Are you sure?” My stomach already felt queasy even though we were still on the ground.

“I tested it myself.”

“All right, if you’re sure.”

I sat back and tried to relax as the prince fiddled with the controls, and the glass of the carriage windows darkened until I couldn’t see anything outside. All I felt was a slight jolt as we became airborne, then nothing.

“This flight is so smooth, it’s like we’re not even moving!” I said.

“I knew you would like it.”

“This is awesome.”

“I’m sorry I wasn’t able to accompany you during the Mid-Autumn Festival,” said Prince Baiyu once he saw that I had relaxed. “That’s a very busy time for us.”

“What did you do?” I asked.

“The festivities lasted for a whole week, and I had to visit all of my relatives with my parents. On the last day, we held a big reception for all of the clan elders and their families.”

“Do you enjoy socializing?”

He shot a look at my two apprentices and didn’t answer, but his expression spoke volumes.

“Girls, why are you two so quiet? Come on, say something!” I giggled a little when they gave me horrified looks. Mo was no longer quite as shy as she used to be, but they really seemed intimidated by the prince and had barely spoken to him except to exchange greetings earlier.

Kharli mumbled something about hoping it would be a good trip. I took mercy on them by stopping my teasing and turning my attention back to the prince.

“What about the Fall Hunt? I heard you’re quite busy nowadays,” I said.

“I am.” He grimaced. “I’ll only be able to stay until sunset, then I have to return to the hunt.”

“That’s fine. It’s not like we’re doing anything exciting.”

“What are you talking about? I’m very interested in your project. What will you be doing today?”

“Oh, do you want the full lecture?” Of course, I had already given my Three Stooges the full details of what we would be doing.

“Yes, I do.”

“Okay, you asked for it!” I took my hands out of my mittens and got out a notebook from my System inventory. “Before we can even do anything, first we need this.”

I opened the notebook and showed him the page that contained the words “Blue Gold.”

Prince Baiyu frowned. “What language is that?”

Oops. I only realized now that I had written it in English. My apprentices must have used the System to read it.

“Nevermind. What I mean to say is that before we can do anything, we need to gather blue gold.”

“Blue gold?”

“Water! When it comes to farming, the most precious resource is water. Did you know that you can grow plants without soil? But you can’t grow anything without water.”

“I see. How are you going to get more blue gold?”

“Good question. We’re going to build contour swales.”

[Contour Swales:

Shallow ditches, often planted with grasses and native vegetation, that follow the contours of the land in order to divert or slow rainwater and surface runoff. They reduce erosion and allow water to slowly, passively drain into the soil.]

I showed him the drawing that I had made. “You see, when it rains, the water flows down the slope like this.”

Turning to the next page of the notebook, I showed him the drawing of the swale and berm. “What I am going to do, I mean what we are going to do, is to dig shallow trenches along the curvature of the lands on Skyfang Hill. Those are called ‘swales’ and will serve to collect rainwater.”

“I think I get it. It’s like the rice terraces in Hanzhong,” said Prince Baiyu.

“I’m not familiar with Hanzhong, but yes, that is correct. The principle is similar.” Pointing to parts of the drawing, I continued my explanation. “The water from the swale will slowly be absorbed by the soil, which is what it needs since the land is arid. The berm, which is a low earthen wall placed below the swale, will be planted with native wild grasses and shrubs with deep root systems that will hold the soil in place. Eventually, as the seasons pass, the groundwater will be replenished and the land will thrive”

Then I turned to the last page that I had drawn and concluded the lecture. “We will also plant trees, lots and lots of trees! They will help in water retention and even help improve the microclimate in Blossom Valley.”

I waited for applause, but my apprentices had fallen asleep. Kharli was even drooling.

“An excellent plan. I look forward to your results.” At least Prince Baiyu had the grace to pretend to be impressed.

Hmph, just you wait! I’ll knock your socks off when we get there!

Special - The Chronicles of Teddy Bear Farm Part 1

The Chronicles of Teddy Bear Farm

🙞❤︎🙜

I woke up in stages. First, I moved my limbs a little. I seemed to be lying down on a soft, fluffy surface. Second, I heard the soft sound of someone breathing, obviously myself. That was strange because I was pretty sure that I had died earlier. Third, I opened my eyes and saw a white ceiling with gold crown molding.

“He’s awake,” said a familiar voice.

I turned my head a little and saw that it was The Dragon Who Emerges From the Waters of Renewal to Reign Supreme Over All She Beholds, aka Emer.

“No, not you. I want my mom,” I said. I threw off the covers and swung my legs to the side of the bed. I was in a lavish bedroom decorated with plenty of gold and silver. The floor was made of gold coins, and the walls were marble with golden moldings, while the furniture was gilded wood hung with cloth of gold. “Where is she?”

“I thought you were his mom,” said someone I didn’t know. He was a tall, handsome young man with long green hair and green eyes.

“Yes, this is my youngest son, The Blazing Inferno of Righteous Justice, Unyielding and Unstoppable,” she said. “We call him Blaze.”

“My name is Eggy,” I said. That was what my mother called me.

“You ungrateful child!” said Emer. She was wearing her ceremonial gold armor studded with rubies. Like me, she had long blue-green hair and eyes. “I take the trouble to greet you in the afterlife, and instead of being grateful you look for that human?”

“Is this hell?” It couldn’t be heaven because she wasn’t here. “You might have given birth to me, but Violet Is my mother.”

“It’s been almost three hundred years. Don’t tell me you’re still looking for her?”

“Of course. You should have never taken me away from her.”

“You’re my child! I’m not the one who pushed you out of the nest when you were an egg.”

No, it was my siblings. They had all hatched before me and found me an eyesore, so they had tried to get rid of me. Thankfully, a human girl named Violet had found me. The worst day of my life was when Emer swooped down on me and carried me off. Since then I have been looking for Violet. “Where is she?”

“Well, she’s not here!” Emer threw her hands up and stomped off. The unknown man, who I guessed was her latest lover, followed behind her.

Good riddance.

I exited the room and found myself in a white space with a ball of black smoke with glowing eyes staring at me maliciously.

Was this really hell?

“Welcome to the afterlife,” said the ball of smoke. “Are you ready for the next stage of your existence?”

I suddenly regretted chasing Emer away. Even though I blamed her for my separation from my mother, she seemed to be well-disposed towards me. I should have asked her what was going on first, but I was really anxious to meet mom again. “What next stage?”

“Allow me to show you.”

A black square appeared in front of us and showed a scene of nighttime on a farm. Half a dozen monsters appeared and trampled the crops then broke into the farmhouse. When they got to the bedroom, I saw a familiar figure peacefully sleeping there. I reached out a hand to try to stop the monsters, but my fingers passed right through the black square. “Stop them!”

The scene that was playing out froze. The monsters’ claws were almost touching her.

“I take it you don’t want this to happen,” said the ball of smoke. “Do you want to protect her?”

“Yes!”

“Then do you agree to reincarnate as her protector?”

“Yes!” I would like nothing better. Maybe this wasn’t hell if I was given the option to protect her.

“Done.”

There was no transition. In the blink of an eye, the white room and its strange inhabitant disappeared, and I heard a voice saying, “By unlocking this door with the key of imagination, you transcend into a realm beyond the physical world - a place where the senses are amplified, and the mind is limitless. A world of ethereal shadows and corporeal substance, where reality and ideas merge into one. You have crossed the threshold into Emberstone Farm, a mystical and magical realm where your deepest desires and wildest dreams await.”

Then I found myself in a wooden room. From the sound of the splashing waves, I deduced that I was on a boat. When I tried to look around, I experienced a moment of panic when I couldn’t move. My limbs felt strangely light yet I couldn’t control them.

“Mr. Bear, I think you’re getting dusty,” said a voice that I had been waiting to hear for almost three hundred years.

I tried to speak, but I couldn’t.

The next thing I knew, she came into view. Long brown hair, violet eyes, and a pretty face... she was just as I remembered.

It was mom!

She picked me up. This reminded me of the time when I was a baby. It was only when she brought me to a table with a basin of water on it that I saw my reflection in the water.

A plush toy??? I’ve been reincarnated as a bear doll? Couldn’t I at least be an Azure Dragon doll? Why a bear, of all things?

What had I done to deserve this?!

… Thinking back on my life and all the territory battles I had participated in, I had to admit that I hadn’t exactly been the nicest person around.

Mom used a piece of cotton cloth and rubbed it all over me to clean the dust off. “There! All clean now.”

Oh well, if I was with her, then it wasn’t too bad.

We spent the next few days on the boat. I was quite relieved to see that mother was healthy and didn’t seem to be in any danger, though she seemed rather depressed and would cry into my fur every night.

As for me, my emotions were rather muted. I should feel a lot more distressed at the fact that I was unable to move or talk, but I didn’t really feel anything much. Was it because I didn’t have a proper body? I tried to do mathematical calculations in my head and remember historical facts. All of my attempts succeeded, which told me that my mental functions were all intact. So it was just my physical and emotional functions that were lacking.

So maybe this wasn’t hell where bad people were punished before they were reincarnated as worms or insects, but it definitely wasn’t heaven where the good were rewarded before they were reincarnated as either higher-level beings. Perhaps I was in some sort of limbo?

The real question was how was I supposed to protect my mother like this?

***

I woke up with a start.

How long had I been hibernating?

Mom liked to put me in [Guard Mode] a lot, which I loved because it gave me heightened senses and a sense of purpose. Protecting her was my number one priority, and [Guard Mode] was the perfect way to do it.

When she applied to build a farm in the Westerlands, I was extremely alarmed. Unfortunately, I had no way to communicate with her and could only watch as she traveled to the Ancient Hill Forest to build a farmhouse… which looked exactly like the house that the ball of black smoke with glowing eyes had shown me.

That night, when she fell asleep I stayed awake and saw a large black square appear in front of me. A very strange scene played out on it.

[Visit ESRBC.org for rating information.]

The words were in some strange language, but somehow I could read them even though I didn’t understand what it was saying.

[NoCap Games Presents]

[Noob Invaders vs. Teddy’s Farm]

A moving picture composed of thousands of tiny colored squares showed an army of monsters fighting an army of magical plants.

[A Huge Wave of Noobs is Approaching!]

Suddenly, the monsters tripled in number and overwhelmed the plant defenders. Then a large Teddy Bear appeared.

[Boss: Teddy Bear

Toughness: Max

Speed: Max]

That was me? Of course, I liked that I had maximum toughness and speed, yet the scene of mom’s farm being swarmed by these “noobs” alarmed me greatly.

The bear doll inside the black square started casting fireballs and blasting the monsters away. When the monsters had all been disposed of, the scene turned white and a new message appeared.

[Your Noob Monster Horde]

A pink cat/mouse/monkey thing appeared. It walked slowly towards the farmhouse without making any obvious attacks. Instead, it just shuffled forward while being bombarded by projectiles from the plants.

[ConcernedApe

Toughness: Low

Speed: Low

Cost: Low]

Then an image of a pimply teenage human male with saliva spraying from his wide-open mouth and a strange device on his head appeared. This one also walked slowly though it seemed to be bigger than the previous “noob.”

[Headset Screamer

Toughness: Medium

Speed: Low

Cost: Low]

Next, the image changed to that of a pudgy, sweaty guy with a device in its hands. It was slamming on the device's buttons with reckless abandon. This "Noob" moved the same way as the other two, but faster.

[Button-masher

Toughness: Low

Speed: Medium

Cost: Medium]

I gnashed my teeth when the next one appeared, a frazzled-looking individual with a broken device in one hand and a crazed expression on its face. It threw the device which exploded, killing nine plants in one go. Thankfully, it died after throwing the “controller,” but it was clearly more dangerous than the other noobs.

[Controller Thrower

Toughness: Low

Speed: Low

Cost: High]

Next came the image of a lazy human lying on a couch or chair, with a controller in one hand and a bag of food in the other. This one didn’t seem like much of a threat at first, but the bits of food that dropped from its hand damaged the defender plants on its left side.

[Couch Potato

Toughness: Medium

Speed: Low

Cost: Medium]

Puzzlingly, the next noob shown was a pair of humans. One of them was a regular Button-masher while the other was a male human with a condescending smirk and crossed arms, who peered over the shoulder of the other noob. From the words spilling from its mouth, I gathered it was dispensing unsolicited advice and criticism.

[Backseat Gamer

Toughness: High

Speed: Low

Cost: High]

Oh no!

The parade of the strange “noobs” continued until my head spun from the weirdness of it all. When it was over, a few more boxes of text appeared.

[Metaphors be with you!]

[Noob Invaders vs. Teddy’s Farm]

[©2023 NoCap Games, Inc. All Rights Reserved.]

Then came a blare of trumpets and an annoyingly screechy voice said, “The battle of the Noob Invaders vs. Teddy’s Farm begins!”

To be continued

Special - The Chronicles of Teddy Bear Farm Part 2

In the blink of an eye, I found myself transformed into my original form: the Azure Dragon.

Yes! I wriggled my body ecstatically, enjoying how I could now move. I flew over to my mom’s sleeping form and rubbed my head against her arm, but she didn’t wake up.

Did I want her to wake up? As far as I knew, she wasn’t very good at fighting.

After some thought, I decided that it would be better for her to be awake and alert. However, no matter what I tried, she wouldn’t wake up.

Just as I had resigned myself to not being able to speak with my mother, a blue square appeared in front of me and a countdown began.

[Game Start: 30 seconds]

Then another, bigger blue square appeared with a set of instructions.

[Prepare yourself for the Noob Invasion! Choose which plants you want to summon.]

Stylized images of two strange flora appeared inside the blue square.

[Earthroot

A plant that roots itself deep into the earth, drawing the qi from the dragon vein beneath the farm.]

I flew outside through a window, closing it behind me, into the darkness of the night. Mom’s house did not have a fence, much less a wall, which meant that it was completely defenseless against the invaders. Therefore, I decided to use these grants to defend the farm.

On the upper right corner of the blue square was a green bar that was labeled “energy.” When I chose the Earthroot, the green bar was cut in half, which I understood to mean that I needed energy to summon a plant. I put the Earthroot down in front of the house. In moments, a brown woody shrub grew to knee height and the energy indicator started slowly refilling.

When I tried to choose a Starflower, I couldn’t summon it.

[Starflower

Shoots stars at one enemy, slowing it down and doing minor damage.]

Since the only other choice was the Earthroot, I placed another one and anxiously waited for the countdown to end.

[Game Start: 02 seconds]

[Game Start: 01 seconds]

[Game Start: 00 seconds]

[Game Starts Now! Make it through the night to win!]

Suddenly, a black square appeared in the sky showing a young, male human with a device on his head. His voice boomed like thunder across the sky, saying nonsense words.

“Hey, what's up everyone? It's Ctrl Alt Eliite here and today we're diving into NoCap Games' latest zany release, Noob Invaders vs. Teddy's Farm. I'm playing as the noob invader, so get ready for plenty of laughs. This game is currently in beta, so we'll be providing some valuable feedback to the developers as we go along. Let's do this!”

There was another loud blaring of trumpets, and the first of the “Noobs” showed up. When I tried to charge it, I suddenly found myself back inside the house in my teddy bear form, but this time I could move. I rushed outside through the door, carefully locking it behind me, and saw that the Earthroots had gathered enough energy for me to place a Starflower.

The flower, which looked like something from a kid's drawing, grew to about man's height in a second and started spewing out yellow puffballs that were vaguely star-shaped. When the puffballs hit the noob, it staggered and bits of it fell off until it collapsed and disappeared in a puff of glittery particles. Although the Starflower had made short work of the first enemy, more of them kept on appearing. I kept on summoning more Earthroot and Starflower plants while keeping an eye on the stream of Noob Invaders.

After a while, I was able to summon a few more types of plants: Ironwood as a defensive type, and Frostbloom to freeze the enemy in their tracks.

[Frostbloom

Shoot a spray of water that turns to ice and freezes the target.]

Frostbloom was a white flower that was useful but quite fragile.

[Ironwood

Acts like a tough wall of wood that can withstand heavy Noob attacks.]

I placed the Earthroots and attack-type plants behind the Ironwood, a short tree with a wide trunk, to protect them.

The Noob Invaders continued to attack and I planted more Earthroots to keep up with their increasing numbers.

The strange person in the box in the sky kept on narrating everything he was doing, which was quite helpful because I knew what he was going to do before it happened.

“Alright guys, we're getting deeper into the game now, and I want to talk a bit about strategy. As a Noob Invader, it's crucial to have a plan. It’s true that you have to work fast, but you won’t win unless you find a weak point and strike at the right time. What I’m going to do now is to wait until I build up a large army then split it into two. The first one will draw all the fire and soften up Teddy’s defenses, then the second one will move in for the kill.”

Even though I knew what he was doing, I was still hard-pressed to summon enough plants to stave off the attacks. I was only saved when a new plant type appeared.

[Thornlash

A thorny plant that lashes out at Noobs with its vines.]

It was a mass of green vines with razor-sharp thorns. Though the new plant wasn’t very sturdy, it was quite cheap in terms of its energy needs, so I was able to surround the entire farm with Thornlashes, which was enough to turn the tide.

As I finished dealing with the second army, the sky began to turn lighter, heralding the dawn.

The person inside the black square floating above the farm knew as well as I did that the “game” was coming to a close. He excitedly announced “one last big bang!”

“Folks, you’re in for a treat because now it's time to unleash the ultimate Noob Sorceress invasion.” The strange human laughed like a braying donkey, loud and wheezing. “Trust me, this is gonna be epic. I've been saving up my summoning points for this. Let's show them who's boss!”

I hurriedly placed a few more Ironwoods, barely making it in time as a giant human female with wild red hair appeared and started chanting a spell.

"Lord of the memes that terrify,
Sword of cold and darkness, free yourself from the internet's bonds,
Become one with my power, one with my keyboard
And let us walk the path of hilarity together!
Power that can smash even the boredom of scrolling,
MAGNAMEME BLADE!"

Suddenly, dozens of red and black blades fell from the sky, decimating the farm's defenses. The giant sorceress disappeared in a haze of glitter, and another wave of Noobs appeared that almost managed to make it to the house. Fortunately, sunrise cut the Noob Invasion short.

The human’s face slowly faded from the black square, replaced by a lot of text.

[Noob Invaders vs. Teddy’s Farm]

[Game End]

[Player Stats:

89 Plants Killed

267 Summoning Points Used

1 Boss Summon]

[Score: 445]

[Grade: B-]

There was a soft chiming sound and I found myself back in my original place on mom’s bedside table.

Ah! It was over, and I had won.

***

The Noob Invaders only attacked once every ten days. Strange-looking, loud humans with devices on their heads kept appearing and summoning more Noob Invaders, but after a while, I became used to it and was able to work out the most efficient methods to defend the farm. I thought that everything was going to be fine until the day of the “public release” when, all of a sudden, something called “launch day” came and the Noobs became stronger and faster while my summoned plants remained the same.

The human in the black box in the sky said, “Here we go! We just broke through the farm’s defenses and now we have to fight the boss, Teddy himself!”

When the Noob army reached the last line of Earthroots and Ironwood, I stepped forward in my toy form and grew twice the height of mom’ farm. Roaring, I swatted the Noobs away like they were bugs even as I continued to place more plants. When I had some energy, I cast Flame Burst.

[Flame Burst

A skill that releases bursts of flames in all directions, damaging any enemies within range.]

But it was all in vain. There were just too many Noobs. In minutes, they had me surrounded and my fluffy body fell apart until it exploded in a shower of glitter.

I felt no pain since it was an artificial body. When my teddy bear form disintegrated, I found myself back in my Azure Dragon form, but only as an insubstantial spirit who wasn’t able to touch or affect anything.

“Nooooooooo!” I screamed when the Noobs broke through the farm door and entered. When I tried to hit them with my tail, my body passed through theirs. I passed through the mob to my mother's side.

The first one had reached her bed and was bending over her with its dirty hands outstretched when she stirred.

“Mmm? What?” She yawned and opened her eyes just as the Noob touched her shoulder. “What’s happening?’
The moment she opened her eyes, the world around us changed. The Noobs and plants disappeared.

“Oh, it’s you, Eggy? Wow, this is the first time I dreamed of you being with me in the farm!” she said.

She sat up, and I flew to her, crying tears of relief. I wanted to say, “Mom, you’re here, I found you! Thank all the gods that you’re safe. I’m so happy you’re here, and I want to stay with you forever,” but all that came out was “Cheep! Cheep cheep cheep.”

Alas, my child dragon form had undeveloped vocal cords.

“Why are you crying? There, there,” she said.

Mom rubbed the scales on my chin and I closed my eyes in bliss. “Cheep, cheep, cheep.”

I turned into my human form to talk to her. “Mom!”

“Eggy!” She embraced me.

I buried my head on her shoulder and my tears wet her nightgown. She was soft and warm and oh so comforting. I felt like I was finally home.

The things I wanted to say came out as childish babble as I sobbed in her arms. “Mom you stay. No go.”

“Shh, shh, everything’s fine. I’m here,” she said.

She lay down again, this time on her side, and I stayed in her embrace for a long time, savoring our closeness. Eventually, she pulled herself back and peered into my face.

“Where Mom go? Me look for you,” I said, remembering the decades I had spent scouring the entire Easterlands for her. Before I died, I’d combed every inch of the forest we had lived in but found no trace of her.

“Mmm? Go? I was always here,” she said, stroking my hair, only for her fingers to get stuck in the wild mess on top of my head. “Ugh, why is your hair so dirty and tangled? That’s it, time for a bath!”

My tiny mother staggered when she got up, still carrying me in her arms, so I pulled on her hand, meaning, “Put me down, please.”

“Oh my baby Eggy is so big now!” she said as she lowered me to the floor.

She took me by the hand and led me to her bathing chamber where we undressed before she used a magic device to spray water on me.

“Wah! Cold, want hot!” I said.

“Ah.” She tested the water with her hand and then shook her head. “It’s already hot! Fine, I’ll make it hotter. I forgot dragons love intense heat.”

Of course, if I was in my adult form I could talk properly and bathe myself, but it was sort of nice to let her take care of me. She used something called “shampoo” on my hair before rinsing it off with hot water. Then she used a sweet-smelling soap to scrub my body clean.

As the water washed away the suds, I experienced a strange sensation. Something insubstantial yet real was being swept away. The sins I had committed in my life flashed through my mind - sins born of pride, greed, envy, and wrath. Everything from the time I had snuck away and eaten crimson fruits without permission from the orchard owner when I was twelve years old, to the time I joined a decade-long territory war just because I wanted a few more acres of land, popped into my head before being replaced by a feeling of loss and acceptance.

“There! All clean!” She smiled down at me in delight and rubbed her nose on mine.

“Tank yoo, mom,” I said.

“Hahah, let’s go and play!” she said.

We put on some light robes and went outside. It was a lovely spring day at the farm. The air was cool and pleasant, and the sun shone brightly in a blue sky dotted by fluffy white clouds. The grass was a vibrant green, and the light breeze brought the sweet smell of honeysuckle to my nose. The wheat and corn crops were knee-high.

I spent a perfect day with my mom playing tag, hide and seek, and hopscotch. When mom got tired, she spread out a picnic blanket and fed me the most delicious apples I had eaten in my entire life, followed by a tall glass of pure water that tasted like the nectar of the gods.

Lying with my head on her lap, I tried to tell her how much I had missed her. “Mom gone, me no like.”

“Aw, what a cutie. Here, give me a kiss.”

She bent down and I stood up to kiss her cheek. “Pwease be mom neks lif.”

“Next life?” She seemed to find my request funny. “But I’m already your mom now.”

“Pwease!”

“Aw, okay,” she said. “But you have to promise to be a good little boy.”

Yes! I was going to be reborn as her child again. “Pwomis.”

I flung my arms around her as the world around us dissolved into a bright white light.

It was time.

We looked up and saw that above us was a misty portal through which I could see green hills covered in white flowers. Emer, my older siblings, and all my deceased friends were there waiting for me.

“Ah, are you going to leave now?” asked my mom.

I nodded and turned back into my dragon form. Then I started shrinking and instinctively curled up as a white shell started forming around my body.

“Ah, you’re turning back into an egg,” said mom. She smiled and poked my cheek. “Eggy egg.”

“Bye,” I said.

I was ready. My body, shell and all, rose towards the portal.

“See you later,” she said.

Please be happy until we meet again. I closed my eyes and fell into a deep sleep.

End of Special Episode

Chapter 62 - Building a base of operations in the desert

Chapter 62 - A wand-erful display of power

🙞❤︎🙜

We traveled so smoothly through the skies that, to my surprise, I didn’t feel a thing at all before I felt another slight jolt when we landed at our destination.

“We’ve arrived,” said Prince Baiyu.

I swung the door open.

“We’re already here? No way! I hardly even felt a thing,” I said.

He laughed as he helped me down from the flying vehicle. “What did I tell you? This carriage is worth every penny.”

“It is, it really is! I love it,” I said. “Thank you very much for buying it for me. Let’s use this whenever I have to go somewhere.”

“It’s rented, but the monthly terms are reasonable,” he said.

“I like it. Whatever you’re paying, I’m more than willing to cover it.”

“We seem to have arrived earlier than expected,” he said, looking up at the position of the sun in the sky.

I and my apprentices, of course, had the System to tell us the exact time. However, other people didn't always have a clock with them. Therefore, it was quite common for time to be quite flexible and inexact. I was told that we would be arriving at the site “by midmorning,” but that could be anytime from 8 AM to 10 AM.

The ox carts could technically match the carriage’s speed, but it was much less comfortable, so they would be going slower and were expected to arrive “by noon,” which was a rather vague term meaning sometime around noon rather than exactly noon.

We stepped down from the flying vehicle into a vast, flat land covered in dry-looking brown grass that was barely a foot tall. A few places here and there were completely bare of any vegetation, revealing patches of cracked, parched ground. So this was Blossom Valley.

In the distance, a hill rose from the flat ground like a hump on the back of a giant beast. Jagged and pointed rock formations jutted out from the hill’s peak, giving the appearance of sharp teeth reaching toward the sky, which is why it was called Skyfang Hill.

“Do you feel anything?” I asked Mo and Kharli.

“I feel hot.” Kharli took off her jacket.

Mo just shrugged.

So…

None of us felt anything, therefore we probably wouldn’t be affected by the “curse” that was said to be so uncomfortable that people couldn’t stay in this place for long.

“Could you please ask your people to find me a good place that’s upwind and maybe slightly elevated? I’ll place the house there,” I said to Prince Baiyu.

The sun was beating down on our heads quite fiercely, so I placed a large open tent for us to shelter under while we waited. It didn’t take long for them to find a suitable location for us. I asked Prince Baiyu to request that his staff keep quiet about what I was going to do, and he assured me that they were his most trusted and discreet clan members.

“Okay, don’t panic whatever happens!” I said to the others.

I called up the System menu and selected the [Two Courtyard House] option. Since I had plenty of space, I built the largest one possible.

A magic circle filled with glowing mystical symbols appeared on the ground, and a few moments later, the house appeared. It had twelve-foot high stone walls and a magnificent [Stardust Silverwood Door].

[Stardust Silverwood Door

A door made of white wood that shines softly as though it's covered in stardust.]

There was a chorus of gasps behind me, and I turned around to see that everyone, including Prince Baiyu, was staring at the house in open-mouthed shock. Of course, the girls had seen me summon a few small buildings before, but nothing on the scale of this enormous courtyard house.

I smiled to myself. That was just the beginning.

Working according to the plan that I had thought of weeks ago, I doubled the size of the house by adding an [Elegant Chinese Garden] from the Cash Shop to the eastern side.

[Elegant Chinese Garden

The character for garden contains four symbols that must all be present to capture the essence of a classic Chinese garden: the majesty of mountains or the ruggedness of rocks, the tranquility of water, the beauty of buildings, and the life of plants.]

The most important thing about this was that it contained a large man-made pond and an artificial river that had a very pretty little moon bridge whose curved shape created a moon-shaped reflection in the water.

I reckoned that it was almost noon time, so I had to work fast. Navigating to the [Favorites] folder in the cash shop, I used the space around the house to place one of each of the items I had chosen earlier: [Crystal Cascade], [Moonlit Mirror Pond], [Starlight Stream], [Twilight Tide Pool], [Enchanted Fountain], [Velvet Veil Rain Curtain], [Nirvana Lotus Pond], and [Celestial Spray Dancing Fountain].

When I was finished, the perimeter of the house was crowded with all the different water features that I had added.

Mo and Kharli closed their mouths and finally remembered my instructions. They went over to check each of the Cash Shop items that I had placed.

Prince Baiyu cleared his throat and gave me a questioning look. “What is all this?”

“Well, our main problem is that we don’t have any water here, so I thought that adding this would help. The girls are checking if any of this water is seeping into the land,” I said.

The prince’s staff quickly got over their surprise and joined my apprentices in inspecting the items that I had placed.

“I see.” He walked over to the nearest water feature, the [Velvet Veil Rain Curtain], and I followed.

We put our hands under the thin sheet of water that was falling into a small plunge pool.

“What do you think?” I asked him.

“I can already feel the difference in the air. It’s cooler and moister.”

“Yes, but the bottom of this pool is tiled, which means that the water won’t be absorbed by the ground.”

“That’s true.”

I noticed that today he was acting much more formal and reserved. That was probably because the others from the White Tiger clan were watching.

“Let’s go inside the house and check out the garden while the others are looking at the water features outside the house,” I said.

We went to the [Elegant Chinese Garden] first. I was slightly disappointed but not surprised when Prince Baiyu examined the pond and artificial river and told me that they were lined with compacted clay that was almost completely impermeable. There should be a little bit of water seepage, but not very much.

“Well, at least the garden is very pretty,” I said. “Let’s go inside. I need to furnish the interior before the others arrive.”

“All right.”

I didn’t have much time to thoughtfully choose each item individually, hence I could only use the various [Furniture Packs] for the living rooms, bedrooms, and kitchen. We were only staying for a week, anyway.

“Now it’s time for some serious business!” I rubbed my hands with glee and gave the prince a smug look. “It’s gonna be amazing!”

He raised an eyebrow and smiled. “I look forward to whatever it is you’re going to show me.”

We headed outside, and I collected my two apprentices who informed me that only the [Nirvana Lotus Pond] was naturally dug into the ground without any cement, tile, stone, or compacted clay liners. I quickly removed all the other water features and surrounded the courtyard house with as many lotus ponds as I could.

Then we climbed into a flying oxcart and flew halfway up Skyfang Hill.

I activated the Cash Shop’s landscaping tools. Of course, in Adventure Incarnate, one could manually dig the contour swales. It was tedious, but it wasn't like it took forever. Players only had to click here and there with the manual landscaping tool to dig where it was needed. However, players could also open their wallets and use the Cash Shop’s [Empyrean Earth Transformer] that would automatically build the swales with one click.

“Time to boogie!” I raised my arms for dramatic effect and activated [Empyrean Earth Transformer].

It was glorious. The clouds parted, and the sky lit up with golden pillars of light that shone down on the hill, followed by the appearance of a gigantic magic circle that covered the entire hill. Glowing arcane symbols spun around inside a whirlpool of clouds and rained down on the ground.

The clan member who was driving the cart made a loud exclamation, and the flying vehicle dropped a few inches in the air before he got it under control again.

I screamed a little and clutched the side of the cart.

“My apologies, my prince,” said the driver. His voice sounded a little squeaky from shock.

“Control yourself,” said Prince Baiyu.

“Yes, sir,” said the unfortunate driver.

Were his hands trembling?

“Is he okay?” I whispered to Prince Baiyu.

“He’ll be fine,” said Prince Baiyu.

Since it seemed that our driver was becoming a little nervous, I quickly added as many [Construct-O-Matic Turbochargers] as I could. Terraforming the hill would have taken a few days in the game, but the construction time could be shortened by using this Cash Shop item.

When I was finished, I was chagrined to see that it was going to take longer in real life than in the game.

[Empyrean Earth Transformer

Time Left: 05 Days 23 Hours 59 Minutes]

It’s not that I was in that big of a rush, it’s just that the magic circle and the pillars of light would remain in the sky until the tool was finished.

“I’m done. Let’s go back to the house,” I said.

“Teacher, what about that?” Kharli pointed at the hill.

“I’m building the contour swales using that. It should be finished in six days,” I said.

Mo and Kharli exchanged dubious looks.

“Won’t people be alarmed when they see that thing in the sky?” asked Mo.

“That’s why we have this.” I patted Prince Baiyu on the shoulder.

He smiled down at me and said, “Yes, ‘this’ is a very useful person indeed.”

“Sweet! I like a man who’s useful,” I said.

“I’ll take care of any problem that arises,” he promised.

I must say, the [Rescue Prince Baiyu] quest was the best one the System had given me so far.

Chapter 63 - Dendrological Cultivation Chamber

Chapter 63 - Unbe-leaf-ably Sap-erior Tree Cultivation

🙞❤︎🙜

Obviously, the magic circle in the sky attracted a lot of attention, so I had to spend the rest of the day hiding inside the house while the prince and his staff took care of all the visitors who arrived asking about it. They managed to intercept all of the curious clan members who came flying to check what was happening before they arrived at Blossom Valley. Prince Baiyu had to delay his return to the Fall Hunt, but his people agreed that it was for the best.

“I’ll have to stay here for the entire seven days because no one else has the authority to ask important clan members not to enter the Valley,” said Prince Baiyu.

We were walking around the garden since there wasn’t much else to do inside the house.

“I’m sorry it’s been so inconvenient for you,” I said.

“Not at all. I think what you’re doing here is immensely important. You know, my father’s family lost their ancestral land when this place became cursed. Believe me, everyone will be pleased if you manage to reclaim Blossom Valley.”

“Then I’ll rely on your protection.”

“The people who were here will spread the word that you are not to be disturbed, so you should be able to go outside by tomorrow.”

“Thank goodness for that! I want to get started on the rest of the things I plan to do,” I said.

***

Late into the afternoon of the next day, when I was finally given the all clear by the prince, I walked to the other side of the valley with my apprentices, Prince Baiyu, and a few observers from the White Tiger clan.

Mo and Kharli were so glad to be finally out of the house that they started running instead of walking. The two girls spread their arms and raced each other while screaming, “Wheee!” and “Yaaay!” with their long hair streaming behind them. They didn’t seem to care that the hot sun was beating down on us or that the grass they were running on was dry and brittle.

“What are they so happy about?” asked Prince Baiyu.

“Well, you know they grew up in an orphanage in the city. Since then they’ve been staying in the forest with me. I think this is the first time they’ve seen such a wide open space,” I said.

“The entire cursed land is just one big open space.”

“Yes, I noticed there aren’t many trees.” And the very few that I saw were only waist high and scraggly.

“They’re kicking up a lot of dust.” He handed me a handkerchief and motioned that I should use it to cover my mouth and nose.

“Aw, it’s okay. They’ll get tired soon enough.”

I was wrong though. The two girls had so much pent up energy from staying inside for so long that they actually did run all the way to the other side of the valley. Once we got there, they put their hands on their knees and panted heavily.

“Tsk tsk, I hope you haven’t tired yourselves too much. How’s your energy?” I asked them.

“Still full,” said Kharli.

Mo was too out of breath to say anything, but she nodded her head.

“All right. There’s not much to do here. I’m just placing the [Lizardwing Eggs] in a pen,” I said to them.

“In a pen? Not an incubator?” asked Prince Baiyu.

I shrugged. Putting the eggs in an incubator was the logical thing to do, but putting them in the pen was the way things worked in Adventure Incarnate.

“Okay, here goes nothing!” I navigated to the [Animal Husbandry] System tab and chose a [Small Pen] which I placed on the ground in front of me. Then I put the [Lizardwing Eggs] inside it. “That’s it. We’re done here.”

I started walking back to the house, but no one followed me.

“Why are all the eggs different if they are all Lizardwing eggs?” asked Kharli.

“No, the real question is ‘what are Lizardwings?’ in the first place,” said Mo.

“I feel an ominous qi coming from those cursed eggs,” said one of Prince Baiyu’s men.

“What kind of demons do you think will hatch from them?” Another of Prince Baiyu’s men put his hand on his sword hilt.

“Perhaps a flying demonspawn,” said the first guy.

Why was everyone always so dramatic?!

I turned back and explained, “Those aren’t cursed demon eggs. They’re [Lizardwing Eggs], and spirit beasts that look like a cross between a chicken and a lizard will hatch from them.”

The others, including the prince, gave me disbelieving looks.

“Am I the only one who can feel an unnatural, malevolent aura coming from the eggs?” asked the first of Prince Baiyu’s men who had spoken.

“No, I feel it, too,” said one of the other clan members.

“It’s just your imagination. These are just regular spirit beast eggs,” I said.

“Why are we hatching those beasts, teacher?” asked Kharli.

“Well, they’re called [Lizardwings], but actually their nickname is…” I moved closer towards my two apprentices and whispered it in their ears. “Poop Machines!”

“Ew!” the two girls chorused.

They recoiled in disgust from me, but I laughed diabolically and said, “My dear, dear apprentices. Now is the time for you to prove your worth! I’ve actually never seen a Lizardwing, but they say that all they do is poop, and the stench of their droppings is unbearable. I’ll be counting on you to take care of them.”

I laughed again at the look on their faces.

“And you are raising these stinky creatures for…?” Prince Baiyu raised an eyebrow. It made the purple lotus birthmark in the middle of his forehead wrinkle adorably.

“Spirit beast manure is a powerful soil enricher. Look around you.” I waved a hand at the sparse brown grass that covered most of the valley. “The soil here is of poor quality, and this will help.”

“Ah.” He didn’t look convinced.

“You’ll see.”

In Adventure Incarnate, the player spread the manure around here to make the grass grow green and lush, and, after a while, thousands of wildflowers started blooming, as befits a place called Blossom Valley.

One of the observers coughed and said to me, “But, Baroness, aren’t you leaving in seven days? What will happen to the animals then?”

“Hmm. I was going to ask if I could hire a few people to take care of them,” I said.

“That can be arranged,” said Prince Baiyu.

“I was thinking that the clan could take care of the spirit beasts. Later, I can sell breeding pairs,” I said.

“If the… product… proves to be effective, then I’m sure my father’s relatives will agree.”

“Just make sure not to keep them too near any human habitation or you might end up with a rebellion on your hands.” I giggled at the thought. “Let’s go back to the house.”

“What’s next?” asked Prince Baiyu.

“I’m going to plant some trees,” I said.

It was time to introduce the White Tiger clan to the [Dendrological Cultivation Chamber].

I thought the girls had already had their fill of running around, but I was wrong. They raced each other back to the house while the rest of us followed at a more sedate pace. When we arrived, I smiled at the sight of my two young apprentices lying on the ground and gasping like landed fish.

“You shouldn’t overdo it,” I said.

We walked over to the side of the house where I had placed a few chairs under a small canopy that shielded us from the sun. While we waited for my apprentices to recover, Fengying and two maids offered us water for washing. The housekeeper poured a pitcher of water into a basin while I washed my face and hands then toweled off with the clean, white cotton cloth that she provided. The others followed suit though they preferred to serve themselves.

Should I not have accepted Fengying’s help?

No, I decided. She would not have offered if it was not appropriate.

When everyone was ready, I took out a [Dendrological Cultivation Chamber] from my inventory.

I patted the white box and explained its use. “This is what we will use to plant trees. It’s made of cardboard, which is heavy duty paper, and has a hole in the middle that runs from the top to the bottom where the sapling will grow. It’s hollow.”

Carefully unscrewing the top part, I showed them the empty space inside. “As you might’ve guessed, this will be filled with water.”

“Is it a new type of watering device?” asked Prince Baiyu.

Of course, I had already explained everything to my apprentices, so this lecture was for the sake of the White Tiger clan members.

“Correct.” I turned the box over to show them that there was a wick underneath it. “Water from inside the box will slowly drip down through this little wick.”

“It seems clever.” Prince Baiyu seemed mildly interested.

“This isn’t a miracle solution or anything. The box will act like an umbrella by protecting the soil around the tree sapling from the hot sun, and the water inside of it will keep the soil moist.”

The others nodded and Prince Baiyu said, “And you won’t need to water it every day.”

“Yes. The water inside should last for around two weeks, and possibly for much longer. I’m told that it does rain here, and when it does, there’s a hole on the lid where rainwater will fall down and replenish the water inside the box.”

The others politely made some encouraging remarks. However, I could tell that they weren’t really impressed.

That was fine. I didn’t even know if it would really work. Explanation done, my apprentices and I got started digging holes and planting trees.

If I had been disappointed by the reception that the [Dendrological Cultivation Chamber] got, their reaction to the tree planting itself would have more than made up for it.

“Are those all spirit trees?”

“They must be! The air is thick with the powerful qi they’re giving off.”

“That one looks like the Crimson Monarch Tree from the legends!”

“How can one person have so many rare spirit treasures?”

That last comment made me a bit nervous, but I had to focus on the task at hand. We took out shovels from the System toolbelt and used them to dig holes in the ground. Thankfully, with just a little bit of force, the tools provided by the System quickly did the job. We dug holes two feet deep and a foot wide. My apprentices and I watered the soil then placed a large sapling and [Dendrological Cultivation Chamber] in each hole before covering it back up with soil, leaving three inches of the box above the ground. The last thing we did was to fill the box’s chamber with water and add a 2-inch layer of mulch around the planting area. The mulch probably wasn’t needed because we were using the box, but it wouldn’t hurt.

Since this was our first time planting trees, I wasn’t sure how many we could place before our energy ran out. I was able to plant six fertilizer trees while my apprentices were able to plant three each, for a total of fifteen for all of us. Mo pouted a little when we placed the wooden signs with the names of the trees next to the new plantings. She never liked it when we did anything that involved writing or reading.

Not bad. We now had Shadow Locust, Dreamweaver Mimosa, Elderwood, Rosebud, Autumn Starfruit, Onyx Coffee Tree, Golden Chainwood, Arcane Acacia, Midnight Mesquite, Autumnal Ambrosia, Skythorn, and Dragon's Eye trees planted a small distance from the house.

“You’re done?” asked Prince Baiyu.

“Yes. We’ve planted twelve different species of trees that I think will be beneficial in renewing the land.”

“You’ve worked hard.”

“Let’s go back to the house. I’d like to rest,” I said.

“I’ll escort you. Do you mind if I go back to the other side of the valley to watch the eggs for a while?”

Was he still worried about that? I giggled. “Suit yourself.”

I hoped he wouldn’t be too shocked when the eggs finally hatched.

Chapter 64 - The [Lizardwings] produce a valuable resource

Chapter 64 - Lizardwing's number two hobby is making natural fertilizer

🙞❤︎🙜

Two days later, we had just finished the day’s tree planting session when one of the prince’s men came running towards us, his eyes wild.

“They’ve hatched!” he said.

Prince Baiyu looked alarmed and asked, “What happened? Is there a problem?”

I joined them, and the man gave me a glance whose meaning I couldn’t quite decipher.

“None…” The man coughed and looked down at his feet. “Except for the smell.”

“How bad could it be?” Prince Baiyu’s attitude was dismissive.

“Girls, let’s go see the Lizardwings!” I waved them over and they obediently joined us. “I’ll teach you how to take care of the animals.”

“I’ll go with you,” said Prince Baiyu.

“So it begins!” I said.

[Greening the Desert] in the game had been quite satisfying, but that was nothing compared to the excitement I felt in real life.

“We’ve used spirit animal manure before,” said Prince Baiyu.

“Oh? And it worked, right?”

He shrugged. “The trees that we plant will grow for a few days, but they die quickly. Using the manure extended their lifespan by a few weeks, that’s all.”

“So it does work! Why didn’t you guys just keep the animals here for a continuous supply of manure?”

“Animals and spirit animals tend to grow sick in these lands.”

“They do? Why do you seem a bit depressed? I thought you believed that I could do this.”

He took my hand in his hand and squeezed it. “I think you have a better chance than anyone else that I know.”

“We’ll see.”

We walked outside together.

Once again, Kharli and Mo raced each other to the far side of the valley. This time, however, they stopped short of the finish line and ran back to me.

“Teacher! Teacher! What’s that smell?!” Mo pinched her nostrils closed with the two fingers of her right hand and grimaced horribly.

Kharli sneezed and then hurriedly pinched her nostrils shut, too.

“That’s the smell of success.” Taking out a veil from my inventory, I wetted it with water from a pitcher I got from my inventory then tied it on the lower half of my face. Then I put the pitcher back in the System storage space. “Breathe through your mouth. You should get used to the smell soon.”

I turned to see how Prince Baiyu was doing and was surprised to see that he didn’t seem to be affected.

“You’re okay?” I asked him.

“I’ve turned off my sense of smell.” He looked slightly abashed.

“How convenient.”

We were still quite a distance from the pen, but the smell of manure was incredibly strong. The closer we got to the Lizardwing’s habitat, the worse it became. When we got there, I saw that the other men must’ve fled from the stink.

“Why does it smell so bad when they just hatched?” I asked no one in particular.

“Is it going to get worse later?” Kharli asked in horror. “What if we die from the cursed miasma?”

“Don’t exaggerate. It’s not that bad.” I gave her a mischievous grin from under the veil. “You’d better toughen up. The two of you will have to shovel that manure and spread it around to nourish the soil.”

Kharli fell to her knees and covered her forehead with her left hand. The right one was still pinching her nostrils closed. “What kind of sin did I commit in my previous life to deserve this?”

“You were probably a monkey and threw your shit at a monk!” said Mo.

“If I was a monkey, then you were a skunk!”

“If I was a skunk, then you were a stink bug!”

“If I was a stink bug, then you were a… a… a…toilet!”

“Toilets aren’t alive, ha! I won!” Mo made the mistake of raising both her arms to celebrate her victory and accidentally drew a breath through her nose. “Ahhhh!”

I let the kids have fun. Soon the stench grew stronger and we arrived at the pen.

The Lizardwings were supposed to be chicken-like, but I thought they looked more like fierce but tiny dinosaurs. Their scales were bright orange, and they had small, useless feathered wings. The Lizardwings’ heads were small and rounded, with pointed brown beaks and beady little black eyes. Despite the fact that they had hatched less than an hour ago, the ground under the pen was already covered in their droppings.

I stepped forward until I was within touching distance of a Lizardwing.

“I’ll put one of them in my inventory.” One of the spirit beasts disappeared when I mentally ordered the System to put it in my [Animal Storage] inventory tab. “Now try to do the same.”

My two apprentices reluctantly approached and did as I ordered, though Kharli muttered under her breath about “animals stinking up my inventory.”

“Very good. Now examine your inventory and check its traits.” The one that I had was a female with the rare [Robust] trait.

“Mine is male, no traits,” reported Mo.

“Male, no traits,” said Kharli.

I double-checked all the animals and was happy to find that we had three breeding pairs. When they reached maturity, if the droppings proved useful, I could sell these Lizardwing pairs to the clans that wanted to renew their ancestral lands. Then I would hatch more of them. There were still 2,147,483,641 eggs in my inventory, after all.

When we finished inspecting them, I destroyed the pen and rebuilt it on a spot twelve feet away because I wanted to demonstrate its features to my disciples, and the old one was already covered in manure.

“The animals need two things: water and animal feed. The water is supplied by this automatic bell drinker. You just need to fill the container.” I took a bucket of water from my inventory and poured it into the water tank. “Got it?”

The two of them nodded, and I stepped aside to let them fill the tank. Then I showed them how the bell drinker worked. It was shaped like a bell with a shallow pool of water all around the bottom lip. When I used a handkerchief to sop up the water, the device automatically refilled the bottom of the drinker with water. This was a very nice upgrade from the usual watering trough that beginner farmers could place on their farms.

“As for the animal feed, put all the extra leaves, stems, roots, and so forth that we got from the harvest and place it inside this box. When it’s full, press the red button.”

Whenever we harvested our crops, we always put the inedible parts into our inventories because they were good for feeding animals. I supervised the kids as they placed the corn plants, minus the corncobs, into a big metal box. Then I closed the lid and let Kharli press the button. The device immediately started making grinding and crunching sounds. After a few minutes, the automatic feeder started spewing out squares of [Animal Feed] onto a small metal plate.

“It will automatically release enough food for all the animals every day. Both the water and the [Animal Feed] will only last for seven days. Now put the Lizardwings back into the pen,” I said.

Even though this was their first time working with live animals, my apprentices were already adept at using the inventory, so they were able to put the Lizardwings inside the pen without any problems.

“And that’s it for today’s lesson.” I adjusted my veil and quickly walked away when the spirit beasts started farting loudly.

The girls took off running. That was when I decided that discretion was the better part of valor and booked it. Prince Baiyu took the hint and ran beside me. I was sprinting away at my top speed when I looked back and saw that the Lizardwings, aka Poop Machines, were projectile pooping inside their pen.

I really hoped that their manure was worth it.

Chapter 65 - Desert Agriculture

Chapter 65 - Sanding you a ton of tax papers to sift through

🙞❤︎🙜

The next day, the System finally finished its work on Skyfang Hill. I heard the chiming notification sound and rushed out of the house just in time to see the magic circle glowing a bright red before disappearing.

“Yes! It’s done!” I said to the others.

We had gotten up at dawn to plant more trees and tend to the animals, thus we were playing around in the [Lotus Pond] and gathering the few seedpods that we could find. I suppose the Adventure Incarnate artists had thought that it was prettier to have flowers rather than seedpods, which meant that there weren’t many available. We did get quite a lot of leaves, however. It was a pity that the pond was far too large for my forest farm.

“Let’s go!” Kharli didn’t wait for my permission and started running right away.

“Wheeee!” Mo wasn’t far behind her.

I waited for Prince Baiyu and his staff to join me before following the girls at a more sedate pace.

“What are you going to do now?” asked the prince.

“At the hill? We’ll have to plant more trees,” I said.

“Do you have enough time for that?”

“We only have one more day here, but we’ll do what we can.”

When we arrived at the foot of the hill, we saw that the hill was now covered in low mounds that ran in a line that rippled and curved, following the contours of the land. Those were the berms. I headed to the nearest one and ran my hand on the raised soil, which was packed hard and covered in green grass. The entire hill was now covered in emerald green grass, except for the shallow trenches lined with rocks at the bottom of the mounds. The trenches were the contour swales.

“How did the grass turn green so fast?!” asked one of the prince’s staff.

“It was the high-level formation, of course!” said another.

“Do you think these ‘swales’ will work?”

“Who knows? The theory is sound…”

Before I had used a Cash Shop item on it, Skyfang Hill had been covered in brown, brittle grass. Now it was blanketed in emerald green grass. The entire place had been obscured by the magic circle while it was being landscaped, so we hadn’t been able to see what was happening. The System must have fixed the grass along with building the swales.

“Everything seems to have gone well,” I said to the prince, while ignoring the others' questions and speculation. “We’ll plant trees tomorrow before we leave.”

Prince Baiyu was looking at the hill with an inscrutable expression on his face. “This…”

I patted his arm. “Don’t fret. Either it will work or it won’t, but I’m pretty confident in my plan.”

He hesitated before replying. “It’s just that you’ve done a lot of work…”

I waited for him to continue, but he looked away from me into the distance.

“And?” I prompted him.

“You know, Shuye was not in favor of this project. We’ve all been here and spent seasons trying to break the curse,” said Prince Baiyu in such a soft voice that I could hardly hear him. “I myself have planted hundreds of trees, but they all died after a few days. I just don’t want you to be too disappointed in case…”

“Aw, you worry too much!” With the System on my side, I was definitely going to succeed. I decided to tease him a little to lighten the mood. “Hmm, but if I do fail, can I count on you to cheer me up?”

He turned to face me and patted me on the head. “You can cry on my shoulder if you ever need to. And hugs are always available.”

Out of the corner of my eye I could see that the girls were inching nearer while, in contrast, the prince’s men were rapidly moving out of earshot. I gave my apprentices a warning look, then took Prince Baiyu’s hand and silently urged him to walk farther up the hill with me.

“Thank you. I hope I won’t need to cry soon,” I said. “Let’s look around.”

“Please, just don’t get your hopes up too much.”

“Eh, you’ll still give me the tax discount even if I fail, right?”

“Of course.”

“Can I claim my expenses, too?”

“Didn’t you read the contract?”

“What?”

“Your expenses will be deducted from the tax you owe.”

“Ah…”

Despite the warning look I had given the girls, they had continued to inch closer and closer to us until they were within earshot, and they looked terribly disappointed when we started talking about taxes and expenses.

“Is everything ready for your departure tomorrow?” asked Prince Baiyu.

“Not yet. I have to make arrangements for the Poop Machines, I mean the Lizardwings.”

“I think I’ll be unavailable tomorrow.”

“Oh, don’t be such a wuss! You can just turn off your sense of smell again.”

“Even if I can’t smell it, I can still see what’s happening.”

I had to admit that the sight of the Lizardwings projectile pooping was extremely off-putting. “It is kinda…”

Our eyes met and we both burst out laughing.

“You should have seen your face when you were running away from them. It’s like you were being chased by a ghost,” said the prince.

“What about you? I’ve never seen anyone jump so high and so fast the way you did yesterday when you thought you were too close and one of them was going to poop on you!”

That did it. When we started talking about the poop machines, the girls stopped following us. I waited until they were out of sight before turning to the prince and giving him a big smile.

“You could’ve just asked them to leave,” he said.

“That would just arouse their curiosity.”

I linked arms with him, and we walked around the hill inspecting the System’s work.

“Look, there’s space here for a small house.” I pointed at a patch of level ground.

“But you already have a bigger house.”

“Yes, but this is such a scenic spot.” I wave my arm at the valley below us. “Imagine what it will look like when it’s all green and full of flowers.”

“That would be wonderful. I’d love to stay in that house if you built it there.”

“Sure, why not? I’ll only charge you one gold piece a night.”

“One gold piece is too much. How about one kiss?”

“Ha! How would one kiss from you count as payment? If anyone was paying anyone for a kiss, you should be the one paying me!”

“I’ll do it! How much?”

“All the money in the world.”

“Ah. How about a kiss for a kiss?”

“I kind of like the sound of that…”

He took me in his arms, and I was glad that no one could overhear us or see what we did next.

Chapter 66 - Planning a Food Forest

Chapter 66 - It's grape to be a-peach-ciated

🙞❤︎🙜

The next day was the seventh day when we were due to return to the farm. The girls and I woke up at dawn and planted twelve trees on the lowest berm. Then we went to the [Lizardwing's] place and I built a six-foot high circular fence a hundred feet away from the pen. That should be big enough for them to live in until they become adults.

Since this land was hot and barren, I also placed three artificial trees that the [Lizardwings] could shelter under and dug a small pond for them that should fill with water when it rained.

Then we refilled the water and animal feed tanks and left the door of the pen open so that the animals could range freely over the fenced area.

The stench was still unbearable, so all three of us had stuffed pieces of cloth in our nostrils. Prince Baiyu was conspicuously absent.

“Those demon birds will be pooping over this entire place,” said Kharli.

“That’s the idea. Their droppings will nourish the soil,” I said.

“When will we know if it’s working?” asked Kharli.

“Probably a few weeks.” I adjusted the piece of cloth in my right nostril since it was in danger of falling out.

“I think it’ll work,” said Mo. “I bet this stink means that the manure is very powerful.”

“I don’t know about powerful, but it should work. The clansmen said they would keep an eye on the [Lizardwings]. One of you will just have to return every week to replenish the water and food for the animals,” I said.

“But it’s harvest season soon! Then it’s planting season,” said Kharli.

I shrugged. “If you use the carriage at full speed, you should be able to return to the farm by midnight if you leave early in the morning.”

“Oh.” Kharli looked convinced.

Mo didn’t say anything, but she didn’t look too displeased by the notion.

“The three of you will take turns so that none of you get too tired.”

“Yes, teacher,” they chorused.

“Let’s go back to the house and change our clothes,” I said.

“I feel sorry for the maids who have to clean the stench off,” said Kharli.

“The stink gets in my hair, too!” said Mo.

We walked out of the [Lizardwing] area as fast as we could, all of us eager to escape the powerful aroma. When we arrived at the house, we took off our boots which were coated with droppings and left them outside the gate. Though it wasn't the best, aesthetically speaking, I had decided that I would follow the “function over form” principle, and had placed the showers and dressing rooms right in front of the main entrance. It took us a while to scrub ourselves until we were clean. When we finished, I led them up Skyfang Hill.

“Some of the trenches have rocks at the bottom,” Kharli observed.

“They’re probably there to keep the soil in place and slow the water down,” I said.

The three of us were dressed in plain, sensible cotton pants and robes. However, we had failed to consider the impact of the extremely stinky droppings that coated our footwear, so the two of them had run out of proper boots and shoes. Now they were wearing house slippers while I, of course, still had plenty of Cash Shop items to use.

The emerald-green grass of the hill was already starting to look a little dry. I hoped it would rain soon, otherwise, it might wilt and alarm the observers from the clans.

“The grass is so soft. I feel bad about stepping on it,” said Mo.

She was always fonder of wild plants compared to the other two.

“They’ll survive as long as it rains,” I said.

“Then I hope it rains soon,” said Mo.

We walked until we reached a good height, and I looked down and gestured at the valley below us. “So, what do you girls think about this?”

“I like it! I thought it would be a scary place full of ghosts, but I was wrong,” said Kharli.

“It’s so big and open! I love running around. It feels like I’m going to fly,” said Mo.

“When I told you about this project, I said that we could all build farms here, but I think I was wrong.” That was how it worked in the game, yet I now realize that it didn’t make sense. There were hundreds of thousands of Adventure Incarnate player accounts, which meant that the world was quite crowded with spirit farmers. Here, on the other hand, I was the only one. It didn’t make sense for me and my apprentices to build farms here when we could have our pick of any places we wanted. “When the three of you become master farmers, you can pick where you want to settle down. I think we should do something else here instead.”

The two of them exchanged glances. Mo nodded at Kharli which meant that they had talked about this before and that she wanted Kharli to be the one to speak.

“This place is nice,” said Kharli diplomatically. “But it’s rather far from… well, everywhere.”

“You’re right,” I said.

“So, if that’s okay, we wouldn’t want to build our homes here.”

“I understand.”

“But we’ll help you with the project!”

“Good, good.”

“We want to help you with the project,” added Mo.

“Yes, I think it’s great. Teacher, did you see the way that the clan observers looked at us?” asked Kharli.

“What do you mean?” I hadn’t noticed anything in particular.

“Teacher is probably used to that,” said Mo.

“Used to what?” I asked.

“They looked at us with respect,” said Kharli.

“Nobody ever looks at us with respect,” said Mo. “Except for the people on the farm, of course.”

“What do you mean?” I asked.

Kharli shrugged and Mo spread her hands, palms up.

“When Madam Fengying took us to the best clothing shop in Anwei, the owner tried to sell her secondhand clothes,” said Mo.

“She said that it would be a waste to buy good clothes for orphans like us when all we would be doing was shoveling shit,” said Kharli.

“And now we really will be shoveling shit!” said Mo.

I burst into laughter. “I was just gonna say that!”

The two of them smiled.

“It’s okay, I don’t mind,” said Kharli. “My point is that now that we’re helping people, we’ll be respected.”

“The clans really want to fix the cursed lands, and if we can do that for them, we’ll be heroes!” said Mo.

“I see. It’s good that you’re both interested in this project. Even if it does involve taking care of stinky animals.” I put my arms around their shoulders and we hugged. “In the future, we’ll go to the second-best clothing shop in Anwei and spend a ton of money. That will send a message to all the shop owners that you’re not to be underestimated.”

“But you hate going to the city,” said Mo.

“Well, I’ll probably just send you with Fengying again, actually,” I said.

“No need, Madam Fengying already did that last time,” said Kharli.

I could tell from the way that they smiled that it had been very satisfying for them. “Good for you!”

“What are your plans now, teacher?” asked Kharli.

“I feel it would be more appropriate to turn this place into a food forest,” I said.

“What is that? A forest that gives a lot of food?” asked Kharli.

“Exactly! For now, we need to focus on growing more fertilizer trees, but in the future, we can plant the stuff that we like to eat. We’ll grow fruit trees, nut trees, berry bushes, wild vegetables, mushrooms, herbs, edible flowers, and stuff like that.”

“And it’s called a food forest because it’s mostly trees?” asked Kharli.

“Yes, and also because the structure mimics that of a forest. Native and wild plants will grow together naturally, and it will be low-maintenance, unlike the farm where we have to water and weed the crops every day.”

“I like the idea of growing a forest,” said Mo.

“They’re calling us.” Kharli jumped up and waved back at the housekeeper who was at the foot of the hill.

“They must’ve finished packing. Let’s go home,” I said.

Chapter 67 - New Quest: Investigate the Emberstone

Chapter 67 - Players always have rockin' luck

🙞❤︎🙜

I set up a proper schedule for my apprentices to take turns taking care of the [Lizardwings]. I thought they would complain, but I was quite pleased to know that they were very eager to help.

It was only a few days until the autumn harvest season and everything was going great when I got a pop-up message from the System.

[Investigate the Emberstone]

Oh! The farm was called “Emberstone Farm” because that was what the System suggested, and I couldn’t think of a good name for it. I was quite surprised to learn that there was an actual Emberstone somewhere around here.

I was in the middle of watering the vegetables, and it didn’t seem like the quest was urgent, therefore I finished my current task first before turning on the [Guide Mode].

Bright yellow dots appeared on the ground and disappeared into the forest. I checked the System Map and saw that the quest location was some distance away.

“I’m going for a walk in the forest, and I won’t be back for lunch,” I said to my apprentices.

They waved goodbye as I followed the yellow dots. It’s a good thing I was wearing my most comfortable boots today, since it looked like I was going to do a lot of walking.

[Investigate the Emberstone:

Deep in the forest is a mysterious stone. Explore the surrounding area and uncover its secrets.]

The quest text didn’t give me much information, nor did it reveal what the reward would be.

I strolled through the woods at a moderate pace, red and orange leaves crunching beneath my feet. The days were starting to become cooler, which meant that I had to find thicker robes from the Cash Shop or layer the thinner robes on top of each other. Soon I would have to turn on the house’s central heating.

As I walked, the forest canopy above me became thicker and thicker and the sunlight that dappled the ground became fainter and fainter until it became difficult for me to see what was in front of me. The ever-present rustling of the leaves, the chirping of the birds, the humming of the insects, and other sounds of the forest grew softer and softer until I was enveloped in an eerie silence.

“Ah…” This was starting to get scary. Time to run away!

I turned back and followed the yellow dots out of the forest.

Since Adventure Incarnate started off as a farming game, the developers were careful to not tick off their players by surprising them with combat content in quests. Humans in this setting were quite fragile and could easily die if they had to fight something when they were unarmored and unprepared. I mean, quests sometimes involved combat, but players were warned in advance when they needed to gear up.

Nevertheless, this was no longer a game, which meant that I should be even more careful than I would be in Adventure Incarnate. I liked to think that I was a smart person, and it seemed to me that it would be idiotic to walk into that scary place by myself.

I’ll wait for either Shuye or Prince Baiyu to visit and ask them to accompany me while I investigated the secret behind the Emberstone.

***

Two days later, I followed the yellow dot road with Shuye.

My bear-like Farm Guide loomed behind me as he shadowed my steps, a comforting presence amidst the eeriness of the shadowy and silent glade. Even the crunching of the leaves beneath our feet seemed muffled and distant.

“It’s right ahead,” I said. I could see a large, glowing yellow arrow pointing at a spot a few meters ahead.

Shuye put his large, heavy hand on my shoulder and walked ahead of me a few steps. His head moved from left to right as he scanned the clearing for danger, then he nodded at me, indicating that it was safe for me to continue walking.

I cleared my throat. “There’s probably nothing here. Why don’t you turn back?”

Now that we were actually here, I had second thoughts about bringing Shuye with me. After all, the quest was probably safe for me, however, I had no idea if the same was true of Shuye. What if something happened to him? I would never be able to forgive myself.

“I’ll turn back if you will.” Shuye gave me an inquiring look.

I scratched my head and dithered a bit before finally deciding to continue. The chances were low that this was actually dangerous, despite the creepiness of the place. “Eh, we’re here, so we might as well look.”

“Are you really not going to tell me how you know that there’s something here?” asked Shuye.

“I just have a feeling…”

Shuye just shook his head, but didn’t pry any further.

We walked on until I saw the target, a large, moss-and-vine-covered rock in the middle of the glade. I took a pair of scissors from my inventory and carefully cut away the vines, revealing a large white stone. When I used a handkerchief to wipe away some of the moss, we saw that the surface was glossy and smooth, like white glass.

“Were you looking for this rock?” asked Shuye.

“You know how my farm is called ‘Emberstone Farm?’ I think this could be the Emberstone,” I said.

“This? It’s white. Surely, if this was named, it would be called something like ‘Pearl Stone’ or something similar.” Shuye patted the exposed part of the white stone.

Suddenly, there was a loud cracking sound. I felt something grab me by the waist, and in the blink of an eye, I found myself flying through the air.

“Kyaa!” I screamed in shock.

“Sorry,” said Shuye. “I reacted instinctively.”

We were hovering ten feet above the ground, with Shuye holding me by the waist while I clung to his arm.

“What happened?” I looked down and saw that the rock had split right in the middle, revealing a bright red interior. “Did you just crack it open?”

“No, it wasn’t me. I just patted it lightly.”

“Why don’t you put me down? It doesn’t look dangerous.”

“I’ll put you down at the edge of the clearing. Don’t approach until I give you the go-ahead,” said Shuye.

I nodded, and he slowly descended until our feet touched the ground. I waited patiently as he cautiously circled the stone, checking for anything dangerous or unusual. Once he was satisfied that nothing further was going to happen, he waved his hand, and I approached.

“You see, it is an Emberstone. The inside is red as fire,” I said.

“I wonder what caused it to crack.”

“There was probably just normal weathering,” I said. “Let’s look around a little, okay?”

“Don’t move out of my sight.”

“Of course.”

[Investigate the Emberstone:

Deep in the forest is a mysterious stone. Explore the surrounding area and uncover its secrets. (Done)

Check the Emberstone glade for clues.]

I kept my eyes open for anything that looked like a clue. I found a lot of miscellaneous items on the forest floor, like a broken arrow, shards of a clay pot, animal bones, shells, iron nails, and a small piece of leather. Shuye was the one who found the clue.

“Here’s something,” he said, pointing at a massive stone tablet that he had unearthed from a pile of leaves.

“Oooh! How exciting!” I scampered over and knelt on the ground to read the words engraved on it. “Be warned: the monster lies dormant, sealed within the Emberstone. Let not the stone be broken, lest the world be cast into darkness.”

I looked up and saw that Shuye had turned pale.

“Don’t worry, I’m sure it’s just a prank, or something like that,” I said.

Once again, I regretted that I had been too cowardly to do the quest on my own. Poor Shuye.

“A prank?” He gave me a hopeful look.

“Hmm, the bottom part of the tablet seems to have been broken off. Let’s try to look for it,” I said.

“Yes, we should.”

After a few minutes of searching, we found the rest of the tablet nearby. It contained the name of the person who had written the message: Hoshi XXIV.

“I recognize that name,” said Shuye. “It’s the name of the head priest of the Temple of the Fox Clan.”

“Then we know who to ask about this rock.”

It was only midmorning, so we decided that we had enough time to go to the temple before sunset. We walked back to the house, and Shuye flew away to fetch his flying cart because I wouldn’t feel comfortable flying all the way to the temple in his arms.

[Investigate the Emberstone:

Deep in the forest is a mysterious stone. Explore the surrounding area and uncover its secrets. (Done)

Check the Emberstone glade for clues. (Done)

Go to the Temple of the Fox Clan and ask them about the stone. Bring five slices of double-fried tofu as an offering.]

I retreated to my room in the inner courtyard of the main house and shook my head at the Adventure Incarnate developers’ greed. The words "double-fried tofu” in the quest text were colored blue and underlined. When I clicked on the name of the food, I found a recipe and an item that I could buy in the Cash Shop.

It was a sad day when Adventure Incarnate was taken over by a group of investors who monetized every aspect of the game. The original developers would never have given players a Cash Shop shortcut like this.

Nonetheless, given the fact that I had never grown soybeans, it was lucky for me that I could just buy the required items. I recognized the “double-fried tofu” as the Japanese abura-age, which was allegedly the favorite food of the legendary foxes creatures called kitsune. I made sure to buy a whole bunch of the food in case I needed more. Adventure Incarnate developers were legendary for their greed, and since the item was available in the Cash Shop, I was sure that they would try to maximize their profit by making it so that players could use more than one set of five pieces.

Since we were going to visit the Fox clan’s temple, I changed into a nicer set of robes when I got back to the house, and asked Fengying to serve an early lunch. Shuye arrived just as I was finishing my dessert, peaches in a honey sauce.

***

Traveling using my nice new carriage was much better than when we used the flying ox cart. It only took a few minutes before we found ourselves in a clearing in the forest in front of a steep stone staircase that had been carved on the side of a tree-covered hill. At the top of the staircase was a freestanding white stone wall with a circular opening, like the moon gates that I often saw in Chinese gardens. That must be the entrance to the temple.

Taking a deep breath, I inhaled fresh air redolent with the scents of the forest, a heady mix of decaying leaves, damp earth, and wood smoke. The latter made me wonder if we were near any human habitation. I opened the System map and saw that we were south of the farm. The hill was labeled “Fox Hill” and slightly below it on the map was “Fox Clan Village.”

“The temple is at the top of those stairs,” said Shuye.

“So the Fox clan live up there?” I asked.

“No, they have a village on the other side of the hill, but that is private land. We can’t go there unless we have an invitation or business with the clan,” said Shuye.

“That’s too bad. I would’ve liked to see how they live.”

“I’ve told you before, we’re mostly human. The Fox Clan village looks just like a human village,” said Shuye.

Somehow, I doubted that. In the game, all the clans had very colorful and prosperous-looking headquarters.

We walked over to the staircase, and I sighed as I looked down at my dainty silk shoes and mint-green robes. If I’d known I was going to be climbing mountains, I wouldn’t have changed into prettier clothing.

Shuye scratched his head. “Do you want me to carry you up?”

“I can do it, it’s just that the steps look a bit slippery, and my shoes aren’t good for that. Can you look the other way while I change into something more suitable?”

“Of course.”

As a person from modern-day Earth, I personally thought it was a bit ridiculous that it was considered rude and immodest to show your bare feet in public here, but I didn’t want to cause a scandal. I walked to the nearest tree and hid behind it while Shuye turned his back to me. No doubt I would have to speak to some higher ups in the temple, therefore I took the time to pick a pair of boots that were practical, but looked cute enough to go with my robes.

“All right, let’s do this,” I said when I was done. “At least there’s a railing.”

There must be at least three hundred steps that led up to the Temple of the Fox. The staircase was as slippery as I feared, and I kept one hand on the railing as we ascended. Climbing the stairs really took a lot out of me, but I knew from past experience that it was climbing down that was scarier. My parents had often taken me to out-of-the-way temples and scenic mountain ruins similar to this, and I felt rather melancholy when I remembered our little family trips.

I was lost in daydreams as I navigated the steps, so I was caught by surprise by an unexpected encounter.

Chapter 68 - Side Quest Activated!

Chapter 68 - That was paws-itively cute!

🙞❤︎🙜

“Kyaa~” I screamed a little and nearly overbalanced when something nudged my foot. Thank goodness I was holding the railing, or I might have slipped.

Oh! It was only a little fox with a sleek red coat, bushy tail, and lively brown eyes. I laughed a little, and knelt down to stroke its head. The fox must be a tame one, since a wild animal wouldn’t have approached a human the way that it did. Was it a temple pet?

“What is it?” Shuye frowned down at me.

I was about to answer when a blue System screen popped up in front of me.

[Side Quest: Feed the Temple Foxes

Give double-fried tofu to a fox five times. 0/5

Reward: Cooking Exp]

I wasn’t too excited about the side quest because they were typically optional content that gave minimal rewards. Only completionists bothered with them.

“I’m fine. I was just surprised.” Taking out five pieces of abura-age from my inventory, I placed them on the ground near the fox.

“Surprised? What happened?” Shuye looked around as though searching for something. “Why are you putting food on the ground?”

The fox sniffed the food a few times and licked one experimentally before gobbling up all five pieces. Then it walked away, tail held high and waving from side to side hypnotically.

“It was for the fox,” I said.

“What fox?” he asked.

“That one, there.” I pointed at the fox, whose light, smooth gait made it seem as though it was gliding soundlessly through the underbrush. No wonder I hadn’t heard it coming.

“What are you talking about?” Shuye seemed extremely confused.

Wait, could it be that he couldn’t see the fox even though it was right there in front of him?

“You really didn’t see a fox?” I asked. “What happened to the food I put on the ground?”

“All I saw was you kneeling down and putting food down, then putting it back in your inventory.”

Oh, I see. Since he saw the food disappearing, he must have assumed that I had put it back in my interspatial storage. Clan members and cultivators all had their own inventory space that they could use to store items, though none of those were as big as mine. As far as I knew, the more advanced a person’s cultivation was, the bigger their soul space was. Something small like the tofu pieces would be easy-peasy for most cultivators.

“Don’t worry about it, okay? It’s just a little ritual that I’m doing,” I said.

Shuye just shook his head, and we continued walking up the stairs in silence. A hundred or so steps later, I paused for a rest, and another little fox showed itself. I waited until it was close, then put down the food on some leaves. The fox eyed us warily as it crept closer and sniffed my offering. It seemed to find the food acceptable enough, and gobbled the pieces up quickly.

[Side Quest: Feed the Temple Foxes

Give double-fried tofu to a fox five times. 2/5

Reward: Cooking Exp]

Shuye observed my suspicious activities closely, but he didn’t say anything. Half an hour later, I was starting to sweat, and my knees felt weak.

“Wow, it’s a good thing that I’m in excellent shape. It’s no wonder that there’s no one else here, since there are so many steps. I’m getting a fantastic workout,” I said.

“You look tired. Are you sure you don’t want me to carry you?” asked Shuye.

“I can do it! Uh, just let me rest for a bit.” I sat down on a large rock on the side of the steps and wiped the sweat from my brow with a cotton handkerchief. After a few minutes, I felt ready to continue. “It’s getting a little hot here. I think I’ll use a parasol.”

Putting my words into action immediately, I took out a pretty pastel pink and green sunshade from my Cash Shop inventory and continued walking up the stairs. Two more foxes approached me, so I made progress with the side quest.

My Farm Guide frowned every time I stopped to feed the wildlife, but made no other reaction. I guess he was already used to my strange ways.

We were almost at the top when the fifth fox appeared, followed by a sixth.

“Well, aren’t you a pretty thing!” Even though I only needed to feed five of them, I had plenty of food, hence was quite willing to take care of the extra fox.

“Stop! Don’t touch her,” said Shuye, stepping between me and the animals.

“Okay.” I moved back and set the food down farther away from them.

“Were you setting that down as bait?” Shuye gave me a disapproving look. “You really shouldn’t do that.”

“Um.” I looked down at my feet sheepishly. Of course, I knew that it was a bad idea to feed wild animals, and I wouldn’t have done it if it wasn’t for the System quest. Shuye was probably concerned because of his status as a guardian of the forest.

We both watched quietly as one of the foxes sniffed my offering before gobbling it down. The other fox, a cute pup with surprisingly immaculate fur, simply watched the other one with bright, curious eyes.

Suddenly, I realized that something was amiss.

“You can see the foxes?” I asked Shuye.

He gave me a strange look. “There’s only one.”

“Can you point to it?” I asked him.

He pointed at the pup.

“Ooooh!” No wonder there was an extra mouth to feed. That one must not be part of the quest. However, I forgot all about it when a System message appeared along with the usual festive fireworks four times.

[Sidequest Complete! Reward: Cooking Exp.]

[Congratulations, you just advanced a Cooking level!]

[Congratulations, you just advanced a Cooking level!]

[Congratulations, you just advanced a Cooking level!]

[Congratulations, you just advanced a Cooking level!]

[Your Cooking level is now 5.]

Yes! I was so happy that I wanted to jump for joy, but it would look weird to Shuye, so I refrained. Although cooking wasn’t too useful now that I had the Demon Chef, a level was a level, and this exp had been particularly easy to get.

“Pardon me, I think I’ll sit down and rest a little bit,” I said to my Farm Guide.

He nodded, and I spread a tablecloth on the ground, then sat cross-legged on it. I wasn’t tired; I just wanted to check the System’s Cooking tab to see if there was anything interesting there. All I found was that I could now cook [Bread] and [Sugar Cookies]. I vaguely recalled that there were a lot of cooking-related quests in Adventure Incarnate, yet I couldn’t find any.

The little fox pup that wasn’t part of the quest watched the other fox walking away and followed it into the forest.

“I’ll be right back,” said Shuye, frowning. To my surprise, he went off after the two foxes.

What was up with him?

I stayed put since I wasn’t interested in the animals. As I was pondering whether there was something wrong with my cooking skills, Shuye and the fox pup returned. The little one finally started eating the double-fried tofu.

Shuye walked over to me and knelt down to whisper in my ear, “That’s a member of the Fox Clan.”

Oh? That was surprising. I whispered, “You said clan members look almost exactly like human.”

“This is a child. They sometimes have difficulty with their shape. I wonder where her parents are. She shouldn’t be out here alone.”

That explained why Shuye was worried about the fox. “We’d better watch over her.”

He gave me a look as though to say, “Thanks, Captain Obvious.”

Hmm, now that I thought about, the child Fox clan member seemed to have seen the other fox. How come she could see it while Shuye couldn’t?

This whole day was full of mysterious happenings. I just hoped that nothing bad was going to happen to us because of the Curse of the Emberstone.

Chapter 69 - Since 69 is the sexiest number, here are some fox girls (they have tails)

Chapter 69 - Ears looking at you, kit!

🙞❤︎🙜

I got up and put the tablecloth back into my inventory while we silently waited for the fox child to finish eating. She was an adorable creature with red fur, bright eyes, dainty little paws, and a fluffy tail. When she was done, she ran up the hill, with Shuye and me hot on her heels. She was quite fast, and I had quite a bit of trouble keeping up with her. Ten minutes later, I was panting heavily and slightly bent over because of the stitch on my side while I gaped at the majestic sight of the Fox clan’s temple. Thankfully, the fox had stopped right beyond the moon gate.

As a result of my staying in the Ancient Hill Forest most of the time, I hadn’t really experienced seeing many of the exotic and beautiful places featured in Adventure Incarnate. Therefore, I was overjoyed at finally viewing truly incredible scenery.

The temple had sculpted eaves featuring foxes and trees. The steeply pitched gable roof was covered in densely packed golden shingles, and the facade was made of red bricks. A large wooden door carved with gamboling foxes stood open, revealing a courtyard that was open to the sun. In the center was a small pond surrounded by huge stone lanterns, azaleas, and plum trees.

“How beautiful!” I exclaimed.

Beside me, there was a soft “puff” sound, and when I turned to look, the pup had turned into a cute child dressed in a set of white robes with an autumn leaf design. Her silk shoes and the bottom of her robes were muddy, and she had reddish-brown hair, brown eyes, fox ears, and a fox tail.

“Hey! You're her, aren’t you?” asked the fox-eared child.

“Oh my gosh! You’re so cute! Can I touch your ears?” I asked.

Alas, before I could make a move, Shuye interposed his body between us and said, “Lady, where are your guardians?”

What a killjoy!

The girl ignored him and addressed me again. “I know who you are. You’re going to marry that ugly!”

“What? Me? No, I think you have confused me with someone else. I’m not here to get married.”

“You’re Baroness Violet.” She sprang towards me and clutched my skirt. “Please marry that big ugly!”

“Eh???” I turned to Shuye. “Does she mean you?”

“Are you saying I’m ugly?” Shuye’s lips twitched.

“Nooooo!” I turned to the little girl and said, “We’re not here to get married.”

“I don’t mean him. I mean that ugly!” She screwed her face up horribly and infused the word “ugly” with extreme loathing. “You know the one I mean.”

She was so cute, but I still had no idea what she was talking about. Instead of answering her, I took advantage of the opportunity to touch her ears.

Mmm. The fur was fluffy, and the flesh was flexible and soft to the touch.

“Yaaah!” The little girl sprang away from me, her bushy tail standing straight up. She covered her ears with her hands and gave me a shocked look.

“Oh, oops.” I placed my hands behind my back and tried to look innocent. “Did I accidentally do something?”

There was a soft “poof” sound, and the girl’s fox ears and tail disappeared. She stared at me wide-eyed, and said, “It’s true what they say about humans!”

“What do they say about humans?” I asked.

“They’re really lew-”

Shuye coughed meaningfully, and the girl shut her mouth in the middle of a word.

The three of us looked at each other, speechless, but we were saved from an awkward situation when a voice rang out.

“Shi-shi! Where are you? You’re going to be in so much trouble when I find you!”

It didn’t take long until the person speaking came into view. She was a tall, gorgeous woman with bright red hair, green eyes, and a voluptuous figure. Her full green skirt went down to her ankles, and her small waist was emphasized by a wide red sash. This was the first time that I saw someone wearing a robe with a low neckline. The front of her green robe had a deep open V that showed off her considerable assets.

The little girl ran to her, saying, “Look! It’s her! I told her to marry that stupid ugly.”

She picked the girl up and walked towards us calmly. “Hello, you must be Shuye and Baroness Violet. I’m Meihui, and this is Lady Hoshi, the titular head of the Fox clan.”

That little fox girl was the clan head? Maybe I shouldn’t have tweaked her ears.

We exchanged the usual greetings and bows, while Lady Hoshi continued to insist that I should definitely marry “that ugly.”

“If you marry that stupid ugly, I’ll let you touch my tail,” she said.

Shuye and Meihui burst out laughing.

“No way! I’m way too young to get married,” I said.

“How old are you?” Lady Hoshi asked.

“I’m nineteen.”

“What?! You’re just a baby.” The little girl pouted. “Aw, that’s too bad…”

“Ahem.” Meihui cleared her throat and got down to business. “About the Emberstone. We got your message, and we’ve prepared the cleansing ritual. Please follow me.”

Still carrying the clan head, she turned towards the temple and led us inside.

As we walked behind her, I turned to my Farm Guide and asked him what the girl was talking about. “Why does she want me to get married so badly?”

He bent down and whispered, “I told you that Prince Baiyu can’t be the heir to the Lady of the Westerlands because he’s male. As the strongest female of her generation, Lady Hoshi is our ruler’s heir presumptive.”

“What does that have to do with me getting married?”

“A very small but vocal minority wants Lady Hoshi to marry Prince Baiyu and join the White Tiger clan that way.”

“Oh.”

“Lady Hoshi and most of her fellow Fox clan members don’t want her to leave her birth clan.”

“Poor thing. A child like her shouldn’t have to worry about something like that.”

We entered the temple doors and walked quickly through the lovely courtyard and into a side building where two temple attendants, a male and a female, were waiting for us. I hardly knew where to look because they were both exposing a lot of their chests. It seemed that Fox clan members were the sexy type.

If this was still Adventure Incarnate, I would’ve decried the developers’ need to always include fanservice in the game art.

“According to our records, the evil spirit that was sealed inside the Emberstone was exorcised by one of our priests three generations ago, so you shouldn’t be in much danger,” said Meihui.

“That was my ancestor. He defeated that bad spirit,” said Lady Hoshi.

“Nonetheless, it’s best to be cautious. Some evil residue might still be lingering on the Emberstone, therefore the two of you should be cleansed.” Meihui instructed the attendants to take us to the baths.

The System’s quest information updated itself.

[Investigate the Emberstone:

Deep in the forest is a mysterious stone. Explore the surrounding area and uncover its secrets. (Done)

Check the Emberstone glade for clues. (Done)

Go to the Temple of the Fox Clan and ask them about the stone. Bring five slices of double-fried tofu as an offering. (Done)

Circle the Sacred Tree of Life nine times.]

Shuye went to a building on the south side of the courtyard, while I followed my attendant to the western building. Before we parted, he whispered that he would take care of the offering, which was great because I had no idea what or how much I should donate to the temple.

I was hoping that the ritual would involve a hot spring bath, but it was just a normal wooden bathtub. The female attendant who led me to the place was joined by two others who instructed me to remove my clothes behind the screen and wrapped a thin cloth around my body for modesty. Then they took me to the main bathing chamber, where they poured ice-cold water over my head before they helped me climb into the tub full of steaming hot water.

The priestesses waved wooden wands over me and chanted something in an ancient language that translated as various iterations of “Evil begone!” After a few minutes, they finished their chant and lit sweet-smelling incense in censers, which they swung over me until the entire room was full of white smoke.

That seemed to be the end of it for now. They allowed me to get out of the bath and I toweled off behind the screen. They handed me a thin white robe to wear.

“Um, what do I wear under this?” I asked.

“This is underwear,” they said.

So I put it on and emerged from behind the screen. Three more attendants arrived bearing eight more white robes. By the time I finished putting all of them on, I could hardly walk from the weight of all the cloth.

“Now all you have to do is walk nine times around the Sacred Tree of Life,” they told me.

I looked down at my bare feet.

“Don’t worry, we sweep the ground every day. You won’t be injured.”

The oldest of them led me by the hand to a garden path. At the end of it, I found myself in a circular clearing with a gigantic golden oak tree in the middle of it. Lady Hoshi was waiting beside it wearing a many-layered set of white robes. The attendant silently led me to her and gave my hand to the clan head. Then the little fox girl and I walked hand-in-hand around the tree.

The Sacred Tree of Life had a gold and white trunk and pale green leaves that were shot with gold. Whenever the wind swept through the leaves, it made a slightly metallic rustling sound that was pleasant to the ears. I fancied I could see a faint golden glow all around the clearing that emanated from the tree.

The second time we circled it, I felt a strange sensation as though cobwebs were brushing across my stomach. I felt more than a little queasy when I saw black smoke emanating from the center of my body and being drawn into the Sacred Tree. By the fifth lap, I was feeling lightheaded, but I could clearly see that the amount of black smoke was decreasing, and it disappeared altogether by the eighth lap. I heaved a sigh of relief when we finished circling the tree nine times.

This quest was turning out to be longer than I thought. I hoped the reward was worth it.

[Investigate the Emberstone:

Deep in the forest is a mysterious stone. Explore the surrounding area and uncover its secrets. (Done)

Check the Emberstone glade for clues. (Done)

Go to the Temple of the Fox Clan and ask them about the stone. Bring five slices of double-fried tofu as an offering. (Done)

Circle the Sacred Tree of Life nine times. (Done)

Ask Prince Baiyu the true reason why the Emberstone was lost.]

Lady Hoshi silently instructed me to sit on a bench, and she went back to her spot beside the tree. Shuye arrived a few minutes later, also wearing many layers of white robes, and went through the same ritual as I did. However, the quantity of black smoke that came from his body was much greater compared to what I had experienced.

The sight made me feel queasy. During my daily life, I stayed on the farm or the forest and lived a quiet, simple life. The fact that the Sacred Tree was needed to purify Shuye and me was terrifying because it showed that there were forces beyond my comprehension that had somehow affected us without me even noticing. The System hadn’t even given me a quest to ritually cleanse myself. I shuddered at the thought that all of that dirty black stuff had been inside my body and mentally vowed to stay away from quests unless it was absolutely necessary.

It just wasn’t worth it to meddle with things that I didn’t understand. A quiet life on the farm was what I wanted.

When Shuye and Lady Hoshi finished circling the tree, three attendants appeared and ushered us to an elegant reception room. My Farm Guide discreetly handed a large bag of gold to one of them, and I was offered some tea and snacks, which I gratefully accepted.

Lady Hoshi smiled mischievously at me. “You owe me a favor now, right? That means you have to marry that ugly.”

I ignored her words and asked her something that had been bothering me. “Is the tree going to be okay? That was a lot of black smoke. I assume that black stuff was the ‘residue.’”

“You saw it? Yes, that was the residue of the evil spirit. The tree will need some time to recover, but it’s strong. Something like that wouldn’t be able to hurt it,” said Lady Hoshi.

I noticed that when it came to official Temple matters, she acted much more adult, like her solemn manner during the ritual.

“What black smoke?” asked Shuye.

“She’s talking about the evil emanation from the Emberstone,” said Lady Hoshi.

The two of them then went into a technical discussion of spirits, evil emanations, residue, and so forth. They used a lot of archaic words, but I got the gist of it. The Fox Temple would take responsibility for the Emberstone and send their people to move the artifact to a safer location where it would be resealed and purified.

They discussed the details while I drank tea and ate osmanthus cake, a steamed rice cake made with osmanthus flower syrup and sugar. It wasn’t as good as the Demon Chef’s cooking, but it was quite an elegant tea snack.

After Shuye and the clan head finished discussing the details, we said our goodbyes and walked outside the temple where the little fox girl tugged at my skirt and whispered, “They told me that humans are adults at age nineteen, so you can marry that ugly!”

“Children should mind their own business,” I said.

I patted her on the head, and she ran back to her attendants.

“Cute kid,” I commented to Shuye. Waving goodbye to her, I turned to leave with my Farm Guide. “Let’s go back home.”

I was exhausted and wasn’t looking forward to going down all those steps.

However, that proved to be unnecessary because a familiar figure was waiting for us at the top of the stairs.

Chapter 70 - The true reason why the Emberstone was lost

Chapter 70 - The end of a step-stational journey

🙞❤︎🙜

Prince Baiyu was dressed in plain blue robes so dark it appeared black, and his hair was bound in a low ponytail. Normally, when he visited my house, he dressed in gorgeously embroidered clothes, but right now he looked all business.

“Oh, hello! Do you have business at the temple?” I asked the Prince.

He waited until I was close and hugged me tight. “I heard about the Emberstone. Were you hurt? Did it scare you?”

“I was a little scared, but I’m not hurt.” In the past few weeks, I had gotten used to the hugs, and this time, I managed to hug him back.

Mmm, muscles. He smelled nice, too.

“Thank the gods.” He breathed the words softly in my ear, tickling me unbearably so that I had to pull away.

Shuye cleared his throat meaningfully and greeted his boss. “Prince Baiyu.”

“Shuye. I got your report. You did a good job. Not many people would have known about the Emberstone and thought of bringing her to the Temple of the Fox Clan,” said Prince Baiyu. “What did the head priestess say?”

“They’re getting ready to reseal it right now. The elders are checking their records for the proper ritual incantations and formations.”

“When will they start?” asked Prince Baiyu.

I took the Prince by the hand, and we started walking down the steps.

“The preparations will take a while, and they’ll send word when they’re ready to go to the site. I’ll lead them there myself. Judging from what they told me, they’ll start two or three days from now, and will finish in a week, give or take a day or two,” said Shuye.

“My staff will assist you. Let them know if anything unusual happens,” said the prince.

“The Fox clan told me they’ll handle everything,” said Shuye.

“How much did you give as the offering for the cleansing ritual?” I asked.

“Don’t worry, I’ll take care of it,” said Prince Baiyu. “This is what taxes are for.”

“Taxes! I almost wish I was still a child, so I wouldn’t have to worry about taxes,” I said.

“Please, not another rant about it,” said Prince Baiyu. “That was funny the first three times you did it, but not anymore.”

“What?!” I let go of his hand and placed it on my chest in an over-dramatic motion. “We’ve already reached the stage where you’re tired of my jokes? Ah, then we're close to breaking up.”

“I take it back. Go ahead and rant,” said Prince Baiyu.

Without saying a word, Shuye, with his usual tact, started walking back up the stairs to put some distance between him and us in order to give us a modicum of privacy.

“I will!” Even though I said that, I suddenly didn’t feel like joking around anymore. I put a hand on the rails and started walking down the steps.

Prince Baiyu put a hand on the small of my back coaxingly. “What’s wrong? I was just kidding, say what you want to say.”

“Sorry, I’m just tired and cranky.” Walking down the steps was much worse than climbing up. The backs of my thighs ached, and I was sure I was going to be sore tomorrow.

“Are you okay?” He frowned.

“Ugh, I hate all these steps!”

“Is that all? Let me fly you down.” Without waiting for my response, he scooped me up in his arms and launched himself down the hill.

I grabbed onto his robe and squealed a little. “Slowly!”

“I know. I’ll go slower than a snail.”

He was as good as his word, and my stomach settled down. I peered over his shoulder and saw that Shuye was running down the stairs at an incredible speed. He was definitely going to reach the bottom before we did.

“I’ve assigned more guards to patrol the perimeter of your farm. You won’t see them, but they’ll be there,” said Prince Baiyu.

“How come I never see your guards?” I knew that even now they were somewhere around, but try as I might, I couldn’t spot anyone.

“It’s traditional for them to be trained in stealth skills. They also have enhanced senses, so they don’t need to be close to monitor people,” he said.

“Oh.” That was a bit creepy.

“You probably won’t have any problems with the Emberstone, but you and your household should stay inside the farm just in case.”

“Please be honest with me. Is there really no danger? And what’s the real story behind the stone?”

“Well, it’s been centuries and there hasn’t been a problem with it. I doubt it will start acting up now. The legend says that there’s a fox spirit inside it,” said Prince Baiyu.

“A fox spirit? Not a devil?”

“According to our histories, this land was once teeming with nature spirits who were the offspring of gods. The one inside the stone was a mischievous fox who loved to play pranks on people. Most of it was just harmless or minor irritations, like stealing household items or souring milk, things of that sort.”

“So why was it sealed?”

“Even minor mischief can harm people. The story goes that the fox greased the steps to the temple, and a human died because of it.”

“The steps to the temple? Are you talking about those steps?” I pointed below us at the staircase that was carved on the side of the hill.

“Yes. That one.”

“That’s horrible!” I shuddered at the thought of slipping down those hundreds of stone steps and breaking my neck at the foot of the hill.

Prince Baiyu’s arms tightened around me. “He probably didn’t mean to kill anyone. However, he was unrepentant, so the head priest of the Fox clan was forced to seal him inside a sacred stone.”

“That’s actually very sad.”

“I wouldn’t feel too bad about it. One of the previous head priests said he had a dream when he did the yearly sealing ritual that showed him that the fox had finally seen the error of its ways and ascended.”

“I think the temple people said something about that.”

“Apparently, the evil aura around the stone started to decline around that time until, eventually, there was so little that they decided it was no longer dangerous.”

“Okay, but I find it weird that they lost track of the stone.” The quest information screen told me to ask about it, so I did.

[Investigate the Emberstone:

Deep in the forest is a mysterious stone. Explore the surrounding area and uncover its secrets. (Done)

Check the Emberstone glade for clues. (Done)

Go to the Temple of the Fox Clan and ask them about the stone. Bring five slices of double-fried tofu as an offering. (Done)

Circle the Sacred Tree of Life nine times. (Done)

Ask Prince Baiyu the true reason why the Emberstone was lost.]

“They didn’t tell you?” The corners of his mouth curved up in a not-smile. “A few decades ago, someone stole it.”

“What?”

“There was a… Let’s just call it ‘tension’ between the Fox and White Tiger clans at that time.”

“Are you saying someone was planning to use it as a weapon?”

“No doubt it was just one of the more idiotic and hotheaded young ones of the Fox clan.”

“Ah.” I didn’t know what to say.

“Whoever took it never used it. That’s why I think it’s not dangerous.”

“Is there still tension between your clans?”

“Not at all.”

“Good.” I rested my head against his shoulder and relaxed. A few minutes later we reached the bottom of the stairs, and we went inside the carriage.

“You’ll be back before dinnertime,” Shuye assured me.

“That would be great. Thank you very much,” I said.

The trip lasted less than an hour, and Prince Baiyu and I spent the time chatting about this and that. He waited until we arrived at the farm before dropping a bomb.

“By the way, my assistant asked your housekeeper to prepare a guest room for me. Do you mind if I stay with you for the next few days?”

“What? Why?” I asked.

“I have to be here just in case something happens.”

“That’s hardly necessary, is it? I thought that was what the guards were for.”

“I couldn’t possibly leave when you could be in danger.”

“But you just said it wasn’t dangerous!”

“It’s probably not dangerous. The chance of something happening is infinitesimal, but I’d still like to stay nearby.”

“…” Was it dangerous or not? I was getting confused.

He sensed my unease and explained, “In all probability, nothing will happen. However, if something did happen, you’re too far away from me, and I wouldn’t be able to sleep at night unless I was nearby.”

“Well, okay. I hope nothing happens.” The quest wasn't finished yet, so it would be good to have the prince nearby in case I needed him again. As we walked to the courtyard, I checked the System’s quest tab to see if there were any dangerous developments in the Emberstone storyline and found nothing there. All that was left was to send the Emberstone back where it belonged.

[Investigate the Emberstone:

Deep in the forest is a mysterious stone. Explore the surrounding area and uncover its secrets. (Done)

Check the Emberstone glade for clues. (Done)

Go to the Temple of the Fox Clan and ask them about the stone. Bring five slices of double-fried tofu as an offering. (Done)

Circle the Sacred Tree of Life nine times. (Done)

Ask Prince Baiyu the true reason why the Emberstone was lost. (Done)

Send the Emberstone back to the Temple of the Fox Clan.]

That was a good sign, right?

Chapter 71 - Choosing a Quest Reward

Chapter 71 - Blown Away by Air-larious Antics

🙞❤︎🙜

Contrary to my fears, nothing bad happened. In fact, the others at the farm treated Prince Baiyu’s presence as something of a lark.

Fengying warned me several times not to let him into my rooms, no matter what pretext he used. “Mark my words, he’ll try everything.”

“Why? He’s been in my rooms before.” He'd even stayed overnight several times.

“He’s never lived here.”

“As a guest! He’s here as a guest. He’s not moving in permanently.”

“He’ll definitely try to move into your rooms.”

I thought she was joking, but the next day I was making potions inside my room when a gust of wind blew a fine silk handkerchief on the floor beside me. Just as I was about to pick it up, Prince Baiyu appeared at my window.

“That’s mine,” he said. “Can I come in?”

Today he was dressed in the simplest clothing that I had ever seen him wear, dark blue cotton pants and a short robe that only went down to his knees.

“Sure.” I picked up the handkerchief and gestured for him to enter.

He had barely taken two steps inside when I heard shouting from the courtyard.

“Stop!” Fengying appeared moments later, her cheeks flushed from running at full speed into my room.

“What is it?” I asked her, concerned that something had gone wrong. We were all on high alert because of the Emberstone.

“Your Highness, this is hardly appropriate behavior!” she said to the Prince.

“She gave me permission to enter.” Prince Baiyu smiled. He gave me an arch look.

Fengying walked over to my table and bent over to whisper in my ear. “My lady, I thought I told you not to let him inside your room.”

“This flew into my room, and I was just giving it back to him.” I held up the handkerchief for proof.

“The prince’s element is wind,” she said.

Was she implying…?

I looked at Prince Baiyu’s expression. He looked like the cat who had got the cream.

“Really, what’s the big deal?” I asked them.

“May I stay?” he asked.

“No!” said Fengying. Once again, she bent down to whisper in my ear. “It’s not appropriate.”

“I’m sorry, it’s my fault for neglecting my guest. I’ll accompany you for a walk,” I said as tactfully as I could.

I must’ve done the right thing because Fengying nodded in approval. Putting all the Herblaw things away, I waved them both out of the door, then changed into sturdier boots.

Due to the current situation with the Emberstone, we were all supposed to stay inside the farm, so we could only walk to the rice fields and back. This time of the year, the trees surrounding us were a riot of brown, red, and orange colors. The air was crisp and cool, and the fallen leaves crunched under our feet.

“The vegetables are growing well,” I said.

“It looks like you’ll have another good harvest,” said the prince. Unlike Shuye, he was never too interested in my plants and simply said a few polite words about them now and then.

“Yes, especially since I remembered to put the [Lightning Rods] this time,” I said.

“That’s what these metal poles are for?”

“Yes. Sometimes there are lightning storms that damage the crops, so I put these up on every field.”

I got up and we continued walking. At the nearest rice paddy, we stopped again, and I saw that everything was fine. The water level was at the appropriate height, which was no surprise since we checked it every few hours during the day. We walked to the farthest rice field which was also doing fine.

“It must be satisfying to grow your own food,” he said.

“The clans don’t grow food, right? Since you guys don’t eat,” I said.

“Not at all. A lot of my fellow clan members have married humans, so we have quite a few farmers, though we buy a lot of food from the city,” he said.

“How many humans do you have in your clan?”

“Over a hundred.”

“That’s a lot more than I thought!”

We took our time walking back and chatted about food, humans, and cultivation for a while. When we got back to the house, I asked him to stop playing his tricks.

“Tricks? What tricks?” He raised his eyebrows and smiled at me.

“Just stop it, okay? You’ll give my housekeeper a heart attack,” I said. “I don’t know why you’re so desperate to stay in my room anyway.”

“Oh, I’m sure you know why.” He smirked at me.

I shook my head and gave up. He was obviously enjoying this too much. “Fine, but I’m keeping my doors and windows closed from now on.”

“That’s unfair! You’re supposed to give me a chance.”

“You’ll live.”

***

The next few days followed the same pattern. Prince Baiyu tried a whole host of underhanded strategies to get into my room, from pretending to be lost, to just outright “accidentally” tripping over his own feet and crashing through my door.

I gathered from the others’ reactions that this was considered all in good fun, so I tolerated it and replaced the door with a new, thicker one made of hardwood.

Since the kids and I were all stuck on the farm, we couldn’t go fishing, foraging, or hunting, and they were getting antsy, so I asked the prince to provide them with bows and arrows.

Unfortunately, as simple farmhands, they did not have the same combat abilities that I did. They could farm and craft, but their System menu did not include combat.

“Hey, I’m pretty good at this!” said Kharli. “Look, I hit the target ten out of ten times.”

She pointed at the wooden archery target painted with concentric circles of white and red that we had nailed to a tree.

“Watch me, I’m going to hit ten out of ten and get closer to the bull’s eye,” boasted Lari.

Alas for him, he only managed to hit the target five out of ten times, but that was still better than Mo whose arrows all went awry.

“Nevermind,” I said as I patted her shoulder. “It’s only the first day, and you’ll all get better the more you practice.”

“So we can go hunting using this instead of traps?” asked Kharli.

“Yes, I like the Horned Rabbits,” I said. “They taste nice. But this doesn’t use the Hunting skill so you won’t get exp.”

“Wouldn’t traps be more efficient?” asked Lari.

“Hmm. It depends on whether or not you're a good archer, I guess,” I said.

“I bet I could get a lot of rabbits with this,” said Kharli, holding her bow aloft.

“You probably could,” I said. “We’ll go when the Emberstone is returned to the temple.”

“Rabbit stew!” said Lari.

“Practice until your arms feel tired, but don’t exhaust yourselves,” I said. “You’ve already been shown the correct stance. Don’t fall into any bad habits, okay?”

They nodded and we continued training. I was using a [Training Dummy] from the Cash Shop, and Mr. Bear was right there with me casting [Fireball]. I wanted to test how fast and efficient my puppet was.

I always thought of Mr. Bear as a “he” instead of an “it” for some reason.

My archery was really coming along, and I could now shoot ten arrows a minute with reasonable accuracy. I could always hit the big red circle on the stomach of the [Training Dummy], but I sometimes failed to strike the smaller one on its head.

Mr. Bear, on the other hand, was slower than me, with a rate of fire of eight spells per minute, but he was always 100% accurate. We trained for an hour, and he never missed. However, ten minutes in, he ran out of [Spell Stones] and I had to add more to his inventory which could only hold a maximum of fifty stones.

“That is one deadly stuffed toy!” said Kharli when we finished our training.

“Mr. Bear is the best!” I turned off his [Exhibition Mode] and picked him up.

As we were back to the house, a System notification popped up.

[Investigate the Emberstone: Quest Complete

Reward: Exp]

I checked the quest information tab and saw that the temple must’ve finished its work.

[Investigate the Emberstone:

Deep in the forest is a mysterious stone. Explore the surrounding area and uncover its secrets. (Done)

Check the Emberstone glade for clues. (Done)

Go to the Temple of the Fox Clan and ask them about the stone. Bring five slices of double-fried tofu as an offering. (Done)

Circle the Sacred Tree of Life nine times. (Done)

Ask Prince Baiyu the true reason why the Emberstone was lost. (Done)

Send the Emberstone back to the Temple of the Fox Clan. (Done)]

Now for the reward! I clicked on the button and was presented with two choices.

[Choose Reward]

[1. Farming Exp]

[ 2. Astrology Book]

Oh, I remember this one! Inwardly chucking at the sly antics of the Adventure Incarnate developers, I picked [1. Farming Exp]. I was quite saddened when my farming didn’t level up.

Then came the expected message.

[Congratulations! You have received a coupon for a beginner Astrology Book.]

Astrology was a new skill that the developers had created last year, and it had been so unpopular that they resorted to giving people free starter books to get players to try it out. I was one of the many who didn’t like Astrology.

As my good friend GodIAm said, “I play to get away from school and studying. The last thing I want to do is read books in the game!”

… Come to think of it, all of the books that I got from the Cash Shop were all blank. Was that significant? I was never a big reader back on Earth, but I had to admit it was curious whether or not the Astrology Book would be blank, too.

Maybe I should go to Wukan.

Wukan was a town released during last year’s expansion that heavily featured Astrology. I decided to visit it in order to use my coupon, but only after the autumn harvest.

Chapter 72 - Year 1 Fall Harvest

Chapter 72 - Grape-ful for a Gourd-geous Harvest

🙞❤︎🙜

I woke up the next day after dreaming of taking care of a dragon child. In my dream, I was struggling to find enough food for us. As I lay in bed, still half-asleep, I felt relieved knowing that harvest day was just around the corner since I wanted to feed him more vegetables. It was only after I had gotten up and splashed some water on my face that I realized I didn’t actually have a dragon child to feed.

Harvest time was always a joyous time, and the autumn harvest was particularly important because there were no edible winter crops. Therefore, whatever we harvested in the fall had to provide for our needs for a full six months, the three months of winter and the three months of spring.

Harvest day was tomorrow, and we were all inspecting the nearest paddy. The rice stalks were around three feet high, and the panicles were heavy with golden seeds. I breathed in deeply. The air was filled with the sweet fragrance of ripe rice, and the rustling of leaves as they brushed against each other. We had drained the paddies yesterday, and everything was ready for tomorrow.

Since the harvest season lasted for two weeks, farmers should pick and choose which crops were ready and should be gathered first, and which ones would benefit from a few more days in the field. Some of the vegetables were already at peak ripeness and would be harvested first. We planned to leave the red and black rice for last since that would give them more time to dry out, which was apparently good for them.

Deming had already inspected the vegetable plants and told me that there were not enough. We had plenty of rice and fish, so it’s not like we would starve, but the kids and I would have to do a lot of foraging to make up for the vegetable shortfall.

Meat technically wouldn’t be a problem because I could always buy more demon meat from the White Tiger clan, and Prince Baiyu gifted a lot to me. The Demon Chef and his assistants had also been busy making smoked, salted, dried, cured, and lard-sealed fish and meat for later use. Still, I liked a full larder, so my apprentices and I would step up our hunting when spring arrived.

The good news was that Deming had inspected the weird-looking rice plants now that the grains were ready and assured me that they would produce Miracle Pearl Rice. At least the clans wouldn’t be disappointed.

“Teacher, why do you keep sighing?” asked Kharli.

“Deming said we won’t have enough food,” I said.

“But there’s obviously an easy way to fix that,” said Lari.

“What? How?” I gave him a suspicious look. My [Lazy] apprentice was prone to finding “solutions” that involved nothing more than ignoring a problem.

“We’ll have enough vegetables if we reserve them for the four of us. I’ll even cut my own share in half if I have to,” he said.

“Haha. You’re not getting out of eating your vegetables,” I said.

If it was up to him, he would eat only rice, fish, and meat every day.

“But it’s true. We have more than enough for the four of us,” he said.

“Yes…” That was indeed true, but feeding my staff spiritual food was part of their perks. I’m pretty sure it was a big part of how I was able to attract a top talent like the Demon Chef.

“Teacher, there’s no need to worry, I can forage a lot!” said Mo.

“Normally you can, but not in winter. Hmmm. I guess we’ll have to stop growing the trees and fill the greenhouse with vegetables instead,” I said.

“We do have over three hundred trees, anyway,” said Kharli.

“I’m sure it will all work out,” said Lari. “Why are you so worried, teacher? We have enough for five months, and when spring comes, we’ll be able to forage.”

“No, it’s nothing important. I’m just mad at myself for making a mistake about how much we planted last time.”

Kharli nodded. “We probably should have planted more vegetables instead of rice.”

“Kharli, you have the notes about the summer season, right? Make sure you also write down how much we harvest of each vegetable crop. I want to plant the most productive seeds in the greenhouse,” I said.

“Teacher, I didn’t take notes, but I memorized it,” said Mo.

She started reciting the harvest figures until Lari cut her off by saying, “Stop showing off and just get to the point.”

“Potatoes, sweet potatoes, tomatoes, corn, beans, and chili peppers gave the most exp,” she said, pouting.

“That’s good to know. Let’s decide what we’ll plant after the autumn harvest season is finished,” I said. “Pay attention to which crops give the most food.”

After we finished inspecting the crops, Kharli and Lari went back to the house to rest, while Mo and I went our separate ways to forage. Kharli and Lari had done all of the weeding and watering today in order to allow Mo to keep most of her energy. We did it that way because she was so good at foraging that she would probably be able to gather twice as much as the other two combined. I did caution her to only use half of her energy because she needed to be at peak condition tomorrow.

We walked a little way into the forest together, then parted company. Unfortunately, we had already foraged two days ago, so it was likely that all of the nearby foraging spots were depleted. I had to go deeper into the forest than I normally did. I put Mr. Bear on [Guard Mode] and walked for the rest of the morning, only stopping to eat the packed lunch that Fengying had handed to me before I left.

I sat on the root of a towering oak tree as I ate the lo mai gai, sticky rice with demon chicken, black mushrooms, and wild scallions cooked in lotus leaves. The Demon Chef had really outdone himself this time. It was so good that I licked the lotus leaves clean when I finished eating the rice.

The crisp autumn air stung my cheeks, and the damp leaves underneath my feet squished and crunched loudly as I walked. It had rained yesterday, which made the ground muddy, but it was good for the mushrooms, which I found growing in abundance. I found a scattering of chanterelles, porcini, and morels at different spots, and I was very pleased when I found a patch of ripe elderberries. The berries grew in bunches, so I simply used the scissors from the System toolbelt to cut the stems instead of trying to pick off each berry individually.

By that time, it was already midafternoon, so I walked back home using a different path and was lucky enough to find a small patch of blueberry bushes. I plucked the few that were ripe.

When I came across a stream, I took out a few of the berries and washed them in the crystal clear, icy water. The taste of the blueberries was tart, with only a slight sweetness. Wild berries tended to be less sweet than the cultivated varieties. I was about to eat an elderberry when a System pop-up appeared.

[Elderberries should be cooked before eating.]

What? Does this mean that they’re toxic if eaten raw? I hadn’t known that. It’s a good thing that the System warned me before I ate them.

Putting the berries back in my inventory, I walked back home, shivering at the thought that I had almost poisoned myself because of carelessness.

***

The next day, the entire household got up one hour before dawn, and we all ate a quick, hot breakfast before heading out to the vegetable plants.

“Yes! Can I please go first?” asked Mo. Her cheeks were red, and her eyes were shining with excitement.

“Of course not! Don’t be silly. Teacher always goes first,” said Kharli.

“Thank you, thank you. I will go first, and I will harvest the potatoes, as is traditional,” I said.

Carefully putting on my gardening gloves, I walked over to where the potatoes were waiting. I used a spading fork to loosen the soil around the plants, then dug underneath them to lift the potatoes from the soil.

Deming held out his hand, and I placed a potato on it.

I think we were all expecting him to say “Alabaster Spirit Potato, low grade” again, so everyone was shocked when he made his assessment.

“Spirit Potato, unknown inedible variety. Low grade,” he said.

“Unknown!”

“What does he mean by ‘unknown’?”

“It’s a totally new variety.”

“It’s not even edible.”

“It looks the same as a regular potato.”

“This farm doesn’t grow regular potatoes. You mean the Alabaster Spirit Potato.”

The assistants and maids were still busy gossiping about it when I handed the Demon Chef another potato.

This time he gave the expected assessment. “Alabaster Spirit Potato, low grade.”

“Phew!”

“Thank goodness!”

“I was worried about nothing. It was probably just that one potato that’s weird.”

My apprentices crowded close to me to poke at the “unknown” potato. It was a very weird potato indeed.

[Thunderbolt Tuber:

A special potato infused with the spirit of lightning.

Type: Ammo]

Chapter 73 - 2,147,483,647 [Thunderbolt Tubers]

Chapter 73 - Spud-tacular or Tater-ific?

🙞❤︎🙜

Oh, it was just a [Thunderbolt Tuber]. Those were added in a minor update to celebrate Adventure Incarnate’s fifth anniversary. Or maybe it was the sixth. Anyway, a free [Potato Cannon] was added to the Cash Shop for everyone to enjoy. I used to go to the Chitinous Caverns with GodIAm to kill Cavecrawlers with the cannon. Nostalgia hit me hard when I thought about those days when I was a young and avid player of an MMORPG that was at its peak popularity.

I checked my inventory and, sure enough, I had 2,147,483,647 [Thunderbolt Tubers]. The [Potato Cannon] was pretty effective when a player needed to kill a lot of mobs, but the downside of using it was that it only gave half the regular combat experience. It was still useful if you only wanted the drops though.

The kids were fascinated by the strange potato.

“What’s this, Teacher?” asked Kharli.

“Don’t worry about it,” I said.

When I put the item in the inventory, instead of having a stack of 2,147,483,648, I got one stack of 2,147,483,647 and one stack with only one tuber. It was a peculiarity of the game that 2,147,483,647 was the maximum number of items that one could have in one inventory slot.

“Can I eat it?” asked Lari even though I had already put it away.

“No! Don’t eat strange stuff,” I said. “Everyone, start harvesting. Remember not to use up all your energy or you’ll collapse.”

“Yes!” Mo scampered off to the other side of the field and started harvesting the sweet potatoes.

“Those are mine!” said Kharli as she tried to run ahead of her fellow apprentice.

They were fighting over the sweet potatoes because they gave more exp compared to the other vegetables.

Lari didn’t bother competing with them over the sweet potatoes and headed straight to the Three Sisters mounds where he immediately started harvesting the corn, beans, and squash.

I continued to harvest the potatoes until I was almost out of energy, putting the potatoes in wheelbarrows when I was done because they were going to be taken to the house for cleaning when I was done. I also stored the plant’s inedible parts in my inventory for later use.

The trophy added a tiny amount of exp which was hardly noticeable when harvesting. I noted that my apprentices were so used to it by now that they didn’t even comment about the boost.

[Ninth Place Trophy (Mid-Autumn Farming Contest)

A wooden trophy in the shape of an acorn.

+0.1% Farming Exp]

Mentally giving the Mid-Autumn game event two thumbs up, I tried to calculate how much bonus experience I was getting. It wasn’t a lot, but the cumulative effect was very welcome, and all I had to do to get a trophy was to create a nice stall display and make nice with the townspeople.

It was totally worth it, in my opinion. Perhaps next year I’ll get an even better trophy.

I finished harvesting the potatoes before mid-morning.

“Lady, get some rest,” said Fengying as she handed me a piece of cloth I could use to wipe my sweat with. “We’ll take care of the vegetables.”

“Great!” I motioned to my apprentices who obediently showed me their harvest. Then I handed the baskets of vegetables to be judged by our resident expert.

“Starry Sweet Potato, low grade,” was the verdict from Deming. Despite the fact that his tone of voice was monotone, his eyes gleamed. It was nice to see that the Demon Chef was as excited to cook the fresh vegetables as I was to eat them. The rest of the crops had appropriately awesome-sounding names. “Hundred Treasure Spirit Corn, low grade. Mystic Summer Squash, low grade. Phantasmal Beans, low grade.”

When he finished the evaluation, Deming and his assistants took the produce away to work his miracles on them. My mouth watered at the thought of the upcoming harvest feast.

“Aw, everything is low-grade again!” said Lari.

I ignored his whining and asked them, “How’s your energy?”

“Almost gone,” said Kharli.

Lari held up his thumb and index finger a few millimeters apart to indicate the amount that was left in his energy bar. “This much.”

“I have a little bit left!” said Mo. “Can I harvest more?”

“It’s best that you rest,” I said. “Remember what happened last time.”

During the summer harvest, she had collapsed and missed a few days’ worth of exp.

“Yes, Teacher,” said Mo.

“We’re done for the day,” I said to Fengying.

My household and I trooped back to the main house, content with the day’s harvest.

***

The rest of the vegetable field was harvested in five days. Since the next season was winter, the cover crop I used this time wasn’t the [Wild Seed Mix] but the [Winter Seed Mix] that contained special frost-resistant wildflowers, grasses, and legumes that would protect the soil from erosion and add nutrients to it. Due to the simplified graphics of the game, the winter cover crops were exactly the same as the regular ones, except palette-changed to icy blue and white colors.

Now that we were finished with the vegetables, it was time to tackle the rice paddies.

“Deming says that the black and red rice crops are ready to be harvested. Let’s go!” I set off with my three apprentices, Fengying and Deming, the kitchen assistants, and the maids behind me, like a mother duck with her ducklings.

The red rice was waist-high and had bright green leaves and stems that were slightly bent down due to the weight of the seeds. I took out a sickle from the toolbelt and slashed at the nearest plant which immediately disappeared into my System inventory, the rice seeds already separated from the rest of the plant.

Though I had manually harvested the potatoes and some of the other vegetables earlier, the rice was a different matter. Harvesting it manually meant that I would have to use the sickle to cut off the plants which would then have to be threshed in the traditional manner, by beating the rice plants against something hard like a table or bench.

Or I could just automatically harvest it using the System.

Actually, I think rice was bundled after harvesting and left in the fields to dry for a while before threshing, but I didn’t want to do all that since it took too much physical effort, and I wanted to save my energy. Therefore, we used the automatic harvesting mode.

I gave the kids the signal, and they dashed off to the other side of the field and settled into their positions, widely spaced apart in order to avoid hitting each other with the sickles. Then they started swinging away. It didn’t take long until Mo dropped her sickle and started jumping around like a demented rabbit.

“Fireworks! I leveled up!” she screamed.

“Congratulations,” I said.

“Congratulations,” said everyone.

After thirty seconds, the fireworks died down, and we continued harvesting. The plants smelled like fresh hay but with a little more sweetness and earthiness mixed in. We worked until our energy ran out, which didn’t take long at all since we were in automatic mode.

“All right, show me what you’ve got,” I said to my apprentices.

They obediently took out the rice in their inventory, and we merged the half-filled sacks until we had a total of five.

Deming walked over and scooped up a handful of the grains. “Tiger’s Blood Rice, low grade.”

“What a name!” said Kharli. “It’s not poisonous or anything, is it?”

“Does it ooze blood when you bite into it?” asked Lari.

Mo didn’t say anything and just knelt in front of an open sack, sniffing and inspecting the grains.

I had to admit that it did look a little weird to people who were not familiar with red rice. The grains had an uneven coloration that ranged from light pink to dark reddish-brown, and in their unmilled form, they looked quite rough.

“But it’s almost medium grade,” added Deming.

“That’s great!” I said. “And red rice is healthier than white rice.”

“What does it taste like?” asked Lari.

“A little nuttier and sweeter than white rice, I think,” I said. “The texture is a little tougher and chewier, too.”

“Aw, that’s no good. I like my rice fluffy.” Lari remained unconvinced of the superiority of red rice over white rice.

“Kids always prefer the softer rice,” said Fengying.

I think she was trying to console me.

“Nevermind. We’re done here. I’ll just bring this to the mill,” I said.

The white rice would be sold to the clans, who would do their own milling, but we were keeping the black and red rice for ourselves. I really didn’t trust outside millers to properly process the exotic varieties, so I was going to mill those myself.

When we got to the mill, I climbed the ladder and poured the rice into the container while the kids played rock-paper-scissors to determine which one of them would press the big red Start/Stop button.

“Yes! I’m the winner!” said Kharli.

“I never win,” said Lari.

“You’re very unlucky,” said Mo.

I finished filling the container and climbed down the ladder. Everyone, even Fengying and Deming, crowded around the middle part of the machine and watched in fascination as it made loud grinding noises as the gears started turning.

The weird thing was that even though the machine’s parts started moving, none of the rice could be seen inside. I thought it was quite possible that the machine was just a fake, and the System was the one that did all the work.

“Kids, let’s go back to the house and soak in the hot springs to recover some energy.”

***

The next day, I personally harvested the black rice since it seemed like I was the only one who really wanted it. When I showed it to Deming, he said that it was “Purple Orchid Rice, low grade.”

That was extremely strange because the rice was definitely black. I shouldn’t have doubted him, however, since after I sent the rice to the mill, the result was a dark purple rice.

Once all of the exotic varieties had been harvested, it was time for the main event, the white rice. My apprentices were quite excited by this and set to it with a will.

“The exp, give me the exp,” chanted Mo as she swung her scythe.

“I think we’re harvesting more compared to the red rice,” said Lari.

It was true. These plants were definitely giving us more seeds, and hence more exp compared to the red and black rice.

“I’m close, I’m so close! One more! That’s it!” Kharli was so excited that she flung her scythe away when fireworks erupted all around her. Thankfully, it didn’t hit anyone. “I leveled up!”

As a good and responsible teacher, I allowed her to jump and dance around to celebrate until the fireworks died down. Then I scolded her. “Safety first. Don’t ever throw a sharp object like that ever again.”

“Sorry,” she said.

“Okay. Continue.”

In the end, we managed to harvest a total of seven sacks of white rice until we all ran out of energy.

We still had a week left, and, based on the amount of work we had done today, we would need all of it. I was even worried that we would run out of time before we finished harvesting everything.

Chapter 74 - Special Rice Varieties

Chapter 74 - A rice-spectable harvest

🙞❤︎🙜

We made it, but just barely. On the last day of the fall harvest season, all three of my apprentices collapsed as a result of using up every bit of their energy. However, we were able to bring in all of the crops.

The kids' levels had risen quite nicely.

[Apprentice Name: Kharli

Farming Skills:

Farming Level 14, Fishing Level 6, Woodcutting Level 11, Cooking Level 2, Herblaw Level 1, Foraging Level 6, Hunting Level 5]

[Apprentice Name: Lari

Farming Skills:

Farming Level 14, Fishing Level 10, Woodcutting Level 10, Cooking Level 1, Herblaw Level 1, Foraging Level 4, Hunting Level 8]

[Apprentice Name: Mo

Farming Skills:

Farming Level 14, Fishing Level 4, Woodcutting Level 11, Cooking Level 2, Herblaw Level 1, Foraging Level 10, Hunting Level 4]

My own levels were nothing to brag about. Yet.

[Player Name: Violet

Farming Skills:

Farming Level 19, Fishing Level 12, Woodcutting Level 19, Cooking Level 5, Herblaw Level 15, Foraging Level 6, Hunting Level 3, Mining Level 1]

I had done a little bit of everything this autumn, except for hunting and mining. My foraging level was really lagging behind even though I liked the skill. The problem was that Mo, Kharli, and I had to venture further out every time we foraged since we had exhausted the resources near the farm.

Woodcutting, as usual, was easy for me to do since I was living in the middle of a primeval forest. Fishing would’ve been harder, but I had the cheat, so I leveled it up pretty quickly compared to the other skills.

I whistled as I walked around the empty fields that had been sown with the [Winter Seed Mix]. The cover crops that had been planted during the summer and fall were full-grown by now, though they were already turning brown, and the flowers were wilted. The winter cover crops would grow for a few weeks until the first frost. All of them would die off by the end of winter and nourish the soil. I had high hopes that this would improve the soil enough that we would be able to produce medium grade crops soon.

When I was done inspecting the farm, I returned to the house and saw that everyone was busy preparing the feast.

“How are the kids?” I asked Fengying.

“They’re sleeping in their rooms,” she said.

“Is the rice ready for pickup?” Shuye would be arriving this afternoon to collect the rice that I was selling to the clans.

We now had three different kinds of rice, and the white one was the only one they were interested in.

[White Pearl Rice:

The Fox goddess taught humans the art of cultivating rice. Seven gods are said to inhabit each grain of rice, so wasting this precious food is a sin.]

The new red rice looked great, but the others simply weren’t interested in it.

[Tiger’s Blood Rice:

Short-grained red rice. According to a local legend, one day a tiger lord found wild spirit rice growing near his home and informed the human villagers about it so that they could enjoy this bounty. Over many generations, humans cultivated and consumed the spirit rice until the crop was stricken with disease. They went to their lord to get his advice. When he saw that the rice was dying, he watered the paddy with a few drops of his blood, which cured the disease. Since then the rice turned red.]

As for the black rice, when it was milled, it turned out to be a dark purple rather than a true black.

[Purple Orchid Rice:

A magnificent and exotic variety of rice known for its floral aroma. Beloved by the Fox goddess, it is used in many rituals.]

The moment I retrieved the sacks of rice from the mill, I expected a quest to pop out from the System, but no such thing happened. That was just as well since planting season came right after the harvest season, and we were all going to be very busy preparing the farm for the upcoming winter.

But first, the Harvest Feast!

I went to my room for a nap, then had a bath in the hot spring before fixing my hair and changing into a lovely new set of clothes from the Cash Shop. The [Winter Dream] set, made of spider silk, was made of five layers of clothes: underwear, innerwear (pants and robe), skirt and robe, vest, and a loose filmy coat to drape over it all. This all wouldn’t have been necessary if the others hadn’t protested when I tried to turn on the climate control for the entire house. They said they felt stifled when the wind wasn’t allowed to enter the courtyard. I had to admit they had a point, so we only heated the rooms, not the rest of the house.

When I was ready, I made my way to the banquet hall.

Everyone was really used to eating together in the outer courtyard, but I had been able to persuade them that a big feast like this one would be better in a more formal setting. Therefore, I had placed banquet tables and chairs in the main hall. The advantage of this was that the place was heated, so we wouldn’t have to eat wearing padded jackets or thick coats.

There I found that Shuye was waiting for me. I handed him the crocus flower as usual, which he put on his belt.

“Congratulations on another successful harvest,” he said.

We bowed politely to each other.

“Thank you. How have you been? How’s your wife?” I asked him.

“She’s doing very well! I have to tell you that I won’t be able to supervise you much when you’re in the desert. I have to stay near my wife because of her condition.”

“Of course! I never expected you to keep an eye on us there.”

“Let me know if you need anything.”

“Hmmm. I expect we’ll be bored if we stay there all the time. Any suggestions?”

“There’s not much to do during the winter.” He scratched his head as he thought about it. “Do you want to go to the beach again?”

“I probably will. Is the letter still valid?” I meant the letter he had given me before that gave me permission to build temporary structures at the Emerald Cove.

“It’s still valid.”

“Wonderful…”

“It will be cold there, but I think you’ll enjoy yourself.”

“I’m already shivering when I think about it! By the way, I have a little bit of a special rice here. Can you send some to the Fox clan’s temple? Anonymously, of course.”

“Of course.”

We made a little more small talk until the feast was ready, then he left to bring the sacks of newly harvested rice to the White Tiger clan’s warehouse.

“Good evening, Teacher,” said my apprentices when they arrived.

They looked pale and tired, with dark circles under their eyes.

“My lady, the feast is ready,” said Fengying.

She ushered us into the hall where we sat down and enjoyed the fruits of our labor.

First, we were served hot tea and a dish of cold cuts. It was a traditional starter, but never my favorite, especially now that the weather was cold. Next came a wonderful soup called One Hundred Birds Paying Homage to the Phoenix. It came in a big porcelain bowl, and when Fengying lifted the lid, I saw that it was a whole chicken surrounded by chicken-shaped dumplings in a clear broth.

Banquets were slow affairs, with dishes being served sometimes an hour apart. My three apprentices were beyond tired when we started but regained their spirit when we started eating. The table became lively with their chatter.

“Madame Fengying said that the banquet is rice-themed,” said Lari. Ever since he arrived at the farm, he had been a big eater and was always the first to learn about what food we were having next, though nowadays I noticed that he ate a lot less than he did before.

“The next dish will be the mushrooms I foraged,” said Mo.

“After that will be fish and rice,” said Kharli.

The three of them had definitely become foodies.

As dish after dish of delicious food was served, we became lively and a little sleepy. However, we all sat up to attention when Deming himself came out of the kitchen to place a small, steaming hot clay pot in front of me.

“Claypot Chicken Rice,” he said.

“Oh, I love claypot rice!” I said.

It was, as the name implied, chicken, rice, mushrooms, and vegetables cooked together in a clay pot.

I eagerly dug in and started eating. The moment I put a spoonful in my mouth, I was in rapture at the complex flavors and textures of the dish.

“If you weren’t already married, I’d ask you to marry me!” I said to the Demon Chef.

Everyone, even Fengying and Deming, laughed.

“That’s exactly what the Duchess said.” Fengying’s eyes twinkled. “That’s why we had to leave the Duke’s service.”

“A certain prince might cry if he heard you,” said Deming. That was the longest sentence that I had ever heard him say.

His assistants started going around and distributing the claypot rice to the others, and he went back to the kitchen to prepare the rest of the food.

“I think I must have saved the world in my last life to be able to eat this kind of food,” said Kharli.

My other two apprentices nodded.

“Maybe I was a great general, and now I’m being rewarded for my meritorious deeds in my past life,” said Lari.

“I probably was so pitiful in my last life that the gods took pity on me and made me lucky in this life,” said Mo.

By the time we finished the next two dishes, it was almost midnight, but there was one last thing served, sweet red bean soup made with beans, red rice, and sugar.

“Ah! Blood soup!” said Lari. I thought he was going to reject it, but he lifted it and tipped it into his mouth. He finished the small bowl in seconds and said, “Delicious.”

The two girls sniffed their food suspiciously while I ate. Lari asked for two more bowls.

Eventually, Mo dipped a spoon in it and then licked the spoon. “It doesn’t taste like blood at all!”

Reassured, Kharli tried it out, too. “Sweet.”

I laughed a little at their antics and continued eating.

At the end of the banquet, Deming came out of the kitchen, and we applauded his efforts.

However, it did not escape my notice that he hadn’t cooked the black rice.

Was there a problem with it? I decided to ask him tomorrow since it was already late, and he had been working hard since dawn.

Chapter 75 - Start of the Winter Season

Chapter 75 - Pickles are a big dill

🙞❤︎🙜

Once the harvest was done, I gave my apprentices a few days off so they could rest, since they had collapsed from exhaustion on the last day. Then I sent them off to the city for the last shopping trip of the year with Fengying and Deming along with some junior members of the household staff. Even though we were moving south for the winter, Fengying still thought it best that she buy proper winter clothing for everyone.

Everyone except for me, that is. I had plenty of warm clothes from the Cash Shop.

The Demon Chef also wanted to buy a few things for the kitchen and some miscellaneous ingredients that the farm didn’t have like tofu, wine, eggs, etc. When I asked him about the black rice, he said it had been taken to the temple. I was rather taken aback since it seemed that there had been a miscommunication since I hadn’t meant for Shuye to take all of the black rice there. However, Deming clarified that he had been the one who sent the rice to be blessed by the Temple. Legend had it that the rice was not fit for human consumption until it was blessed by the Fox goddess. We’d get it back.

That was fine with me.

I stayed at home to rest, too. Although I hadn’t collapsed like the others, I still felt rather tired.

When they returned, laden with dozens and dozens of packages, the kitchen staff started their own project. I was aware that in Korea, back on Earth, kimchi making was a big thing in local communities during the colder months. Pao chai, or Chinese pickles, were also popular in Sichuan. I didn’t realize that it was also a tradition in this world.

It totally made sense, of course. Most people weren’t cultivators, so they didn’t have a soul space like I did, which meant that they needed old-school preservation methods to store vegetables during the peak season to have food available during the winter months. Besides, even if we didn’t technically need this type of food, Deming said that the taste of fermented pickled vegetables was very different from that of fresh ones. I also knew that fermented food had “good bacteria” in it.

Everyone helped out in preparing the vegetables which were washed, cut, and dried before being packed in special jars and immersed in salt brine. The pickle jars had a wide shoulder and narrow mouth. It also had a channel or moat around the opening that was filled with water and then covered by a bowl-shaped lid. The water served to seal the vegetables inside.

In addition, they were making ham.

“Ham? I love ham!” I said.

“This won’t be ready until next year,” said Fengying.

“I can’t wait until next year!” I said.

Chuckling, I took a bite out of the apple I was eating and got out of her hair.

It was almost the end of the planting season, and we had already sowed the winter cover crop everywhere there was bare soil. I gestured to my apprentices to follow me, and we walked to the farthest field, the one that had been the rice paddy during the autumn season. Now it was empty except for the seeds we had planted.

“They’ll grow for a few weeks then die at the first frost and break down into nutrients that will improve the soil,” I said.

“Then we’re going to use this field during the spring planting?” asked Kharli.

“No. We’ll use the other parts of the farm that we cleared,” I said. “Examine the soil.”

We knelt down and looked at the condition of the field.

“Why does the soil seem dry?” asked Mo.

“It looks the same to me,” said Lari.

“No, I think it is drier than the soil in the other parts of the farm,” said Kharli.

I got up and said, “Well, maybe we can’t see the difference with our eyes, but when we grow crops, they take nutrients from the soil which have to be replenished. The cover crops will help with that, and also we won’t sow the same fields every season. We’ll let them rest and recover.”

“Teacher, can we pick the edible flowers that grew from the [Wild Seed Mix]?” asked Mo.

“Mmm.” I wasn’t sure about that. Players couldn’t interact with the cover crops in Adventure Incarnate. Would it be okay to eat the edible wildflowers?

“But the soil needs the flowers, right?” asked Kharli. “They’re supposed to nourish the soil, not us.”

“It probably wouldn’t hurt to pick them, though I’d rather leave them alone,” I said.

We moved on to check the cover crops that I had planted in the spring. They were now waist-high and the flowers were just starting to wilt. In contrast to the grass in the forest that had turned brown, the plants grown from the [Wild Seed Mix] were still bright green. I suppose that was because they were spiritual plants. Though the System only identified them as cover crops, I had asked the others about it, and we had been able to identify some of them such as vetch, mustard, clover, pea, sunflowers, rapeseed, and star lilies. My favorite purple flower, the violet, also grew there.

“Everything looks okay. Tomorrow we’ll pack everything up and the day after that, we’ll go south.”

***

For me, of course, packing was dead easy. All I had to do was think about it, and my items went into my inventory. The rest of my household dashed around here and there, putting things in boxes and crates to be loaded onto the carts that were waiting right outside the gate.

I offered to put everything in my inventory, but Fengying politely refused. I’m not sure whether it was because she didn’t want to bother me, or whether she just preferred to have everything on hand where she could see it.

“This is so exciting! We’re moving south for the winter, just like the birds,” I said. “Is everybody ready? Okay. Let’s go.”

Since it was a lot more comfortable than the ox cart, I had offered Fengying and Deming the use of the carriage, and she had accepted with the condition that I leave first.

This morning at dawn I had demolished the mill and greenhouse. The main house would automatically disappear after seven days unless I returned to it. Player-owned houses had to be periodically occupied, or else the game would remove them to make space for new players. The System information about the house confirmed that this was also true in this world.

The driver that Prince Baiyu had provided helped us load our personal belongings into the carriage, then my apprentices and I hopped inside.

The four of us were dressed in old work clothes and secondhand boots. The problem of the [Lizardwing] poop that coated our footwear had been on my mind, so I had asked Fengying to buy a few more pairs of boots for all of us. That way, we would have plenty that we could use while the maids were cleaning the dirty ones.

“You didn’t see it last time, did you? The house Teacher built there was three times bigger than the house we have here,” said Kharli.

“That’s because there’s more space there,” I said.

“It’s nothing but space,” said Lari.

“I like it,” said Mo.

“How were the animals the last time you saw them?” I asked Kharli.

She was the last one who had been assigned to look after them.

“Stinky! Extremely stinky!” said Kharli.

“And healthy, I assume?”

She nodded.

“How was the grass?”

“Much healthier.”

“Mmm.” I had forgotten to ask her this earlier since I had been busy with the harvest. I’m sure she would’ve told me without asking if there had been any problem.

“The trees looked the same, and the people there said that the swales were working.”

“Good, though I think that might’ve been your imagination. It’s only been a few weeks, and I doubt there’s much difference.”

“Well, there was just a very slight improvement…”

“I hope so. Just remember that this is a long-term project. Don’t expect results right away.”

We talked a little more about the project then rested until we arrived at our destination where I found an unexpected surprise waiting for me.

“Prairie Elk? Really?” I exclaimed.

The System popup confirmed it for me.

[Side Quest: Hunt Prairie Elk

Prairie Elk: 0/3

Reward: Hunting Exp]

Chapter 76 - Huge House Upgrade

Chapter 76 - Elk-coming the Migrating Herd of Spirit Beasts

🙞❤︎🙜

I wasn’t sure if this was a good thing or not. On the one hand, migrating elk passing through Blossom Valley would leave a lot of droppings, which was good for the soil. On the other hand, they would definitely eat the grass, which was bad for the soil.

Wait a minute, do elk even migrate?

This was weird…

It’s true that there was grass, but this was hardly prime grazing ground for the [Prairie Elk]. Was there water here for them to drink?

I had so many questions, and the five members of the White Tiger clan who were waiting for us at the site answered them all for me after the carriage driver said his goodbyes and flew off in a rush since he had to make another trip for Fengying and Deming.

“We have no idea where they came from. They just appeared from nowhere,” said the shortest one who seemed to be their leader or at least their spokesman.

I remembered a little about the elk from the game. “Aren’t they from Wolf Mountain? Did something happen to their normal habitat?”

“Which Wolf Mountain? Little Wolf Mountain? Stone Wolf Hill? Wolf Peak?”

“I have absolutely no idea.” It was just called “Wolf Mountain” in the game.

“In any case, they are not aggressive. Don’t get too close to them, though.”

“That would be wise. What are you planning to do?”

“These are extremely valuable spirit animals. We’ve sent word to the clan head.”

Oh, right. I hadn’t realized that these were spirit animals. “I would like to hunt a few of them. We need the meat.”

“How many?”

“Just three.”

“That shouldn’t be a problem. I’ll get three of them for you.”

“Thank you, but I would like to hunt them myself. I have a trap that I would like to test,” I said.

The five of them then huddled together and whispered stuff that I couldn’t hear. At the end of their discussion, the leader turned to me and said, “That should be fine.”

“Thank you. I’ll prepare the house now, and set the traps later.”

“Please let us know if you need anything. We’re here to help you.”

We bowed to each other courteously, then I went to the designated spot with my apprentices. As we walked there, the clan members pointed out the improvements that they had done to the place. The question of how the elk could find water was answered when I saw that they had dug a shallow pond that was currently full of water.

“There’s water in it right now, because it rained yesterday, but I fear it’s not enough for the animals,” said one of the White Tiger clan members.

“It’s okay, I can help with that!”

When we reached the right place, I simply used the System menu to build the largest [Two Courtyard House] option available, adding the [Elegant Chinese Garden] to the west side. The clan members were thunderstruck when they saw a magic circle appear on the ground. Moments later, the house appeared, but I wasn’t done yet. All around the perimeter of the house, I added as many [Nirvana Lotus Ponds] as I could.

“Wow! The house is so big!” Lari tried to run to the house, but I grabbed him by the back of his robe.

“Wait, I’m not finished,” I said.

Next, I added the furniture packs for the various rooms inside the house. This took quite a while, and I let my apprentices wander around while I was working on it. There were a lot more rooms compared to the house at the farm, and I took the time to carefully and thoughtfully add the furniture.

Since we were going to be working with extremely smelly animals, I once again put a shower room right outside the main gate. I also added some guest bedrooms for the clan members who would be staying with us. Most importantly, I added four workshop rooms around the inner courtyard, one for each of us.

By the time I was done, I noticed that the [Prairie Elk] had been attracted by the smell of the water and were already at the [Nirvana Lotus Ponds]. Good.

“Lari, I want to place a [Pit Trap]. Where do you think I should put it?” I asked him because he had the highest Hunting level among the four of us.

“Hmm.” He looked around thoughtfully and pointed at a place near the ponds.

“Okay. Thank you.”

The [Pit Trap] was simply a big hole that was dug in the ground for the [Prairie Elk] to fall into. I selected it from the Hunting toolbelt and placed it in the spot Lari had chosen. Then I left it alone. Animals would not go near a trap when there was a human there.

“Teacher! Can I place a [Pit Trap], too?” asked Lari.

“No, not this time. I need the exp.” I had only asked permission to hunt three of the elk, and I wasn’t sure if my apprentice’s success would count as far as the quest was concerned. “Let’s go take a look at the [Lizardwings].”

The three of them held their noses and groaned.

I turned to the leader of the clan observers and asked him, “Would the clan like to buy the [Lizardwings]?”

“You’re selling them? I thought you needed them to improve the soil,” he said.

“I have more eggs,” I said.

Though everything had gone well so far, I thought it would be good to sell some animals, since it seemed inadvisable for me to be the only owner of [Lizardwings]. If more people raised them, my desert base wouldn’t be unique or especially noteworthy. This was the same philosophy behind my sharing information about the tree boxes and swales.

“We would love to buy them,” he said.

“Um, can you build cages for transporting the animals?”

“We’ll take care of it.”

“Great!”

I went off with my apprentices who started running like crazy. By the time I arrived at the [Lizardwing] pen, they had already replenished the water and animal feed.

“The grass does look a little bit greener,” I said.

The ground was half-covered in excrement and somewhat torn up by the animals’ claws, but I thought the grass looked healthier and not as brown as it used to be.

“Look how big they are now!” said Kharli.

When I had left them, the animals had been so small they could have fit in the palm of my hand. Now, weeks later, they had doubled in size.

“Teacher, how much will they sell for?” asked Lari.

“I’m sure Shuye will negotiate a good price for them,” I said.

The three of them exchanged looks, and Lari rolled his eyes.

“We’re done here, so let’s head to the hill.” It had rained yesterday, and I wanted to see what had happened to the swales.

“Yes, Teacher,” they chorused before they started running to Skyfang Hill.

When we got there, I saw that the swales still had a bit of water in them. I stepped into one to clean off some of the stinky poop on my boots and the others followed suit.

“The ground here seems less dry,” said Mo.

“Of course it’s less dry, they said it just rained yesterday,” said Kharli.

“I thought it didn’t rain here, that’s why it’s a desert,” said Lari.

“It rains, just not a lot,” said Kharli.

“Everything seems to be fine. Did you see any signs of the soil being loosened by the rain and washed out?” I asked them.

“It seems fine!” said Lari.

“Let’s look around. Go up the hill a little in different directions. Meet me at the house in an hour.”

I walked straight up, and the others scattered.

The swale and berm method worked best when there were trees, too. I looked around for the best place to plant trees. Obviously, we would be planting trees all over the hill, but I thought it would be best to start with the top and then work our way down. My inspection of the earthworks took more than an hour, but at the end of it, I was satisfied that the swales had been built well and were working effectively.

The kids were waiting for me at the house and told me that everything looked good to them, too.

“Okay, just one last thing before we rest. Let’s take a look at our trees!” This was my favorite part of the project. The swales were just muddy puddles, and the [Lizardwings] were a menace to my olfactory organs, but the trees were a pure delight.

I beamed with joy as the observers from the White Tiger clan complimented me on the healthy condition of the trees. The [Dendrological Cultivation Chambers] were full of water because of the rain, and the saplings were green and healthy despite the barren condition of the land around them.

“Just imagine these trees filling the entire hill and valley,” I said to everyone.

“Teacher, how long will it take for the trees to grow as tall as me?” asked Lari.

“Years. Probably at least two years,” I said.

“That’s not as long as I thought it would take. I thought it would be like ten years,” said Lari.

Trees in Adventure Incarnate grew to adult size in one year and started producing fruit in their second year. I wasn’t quite sure that that would be true in this world though.

“It could be longer…” I said.

We were talking about the trees and the project in general when one of the clan members noticed that the carriage was approaching, so we walked to the landing area to meet with the rest of our household.

Just when I was about to greet my housekeeper and Demon Chef, I got a notification from the System.

[Side Quest: Hunt Prairie Elk

Prairie Elk: 1/3

Reward: Hunting Exp]

Yes!

Chapter 77 - Magic Crafting

Chapter 77 - A busy craft-ernoon

🙞❤︎🙜

There was no time limit for the quest, but the [Prairie Elk] wouldn’t stay in Blossom Valley forever, which meant that I had a limited time to hunt them. I hurriedly greeted Fengying and Deming, then rushed off to check the [Pit Trap].

Fortunately, all I had to do was walk near the trap in order to collect the body of the elk. I didn’t have to go down into the pit to lift it. I was more than a little uneasy when I saw the animal’s body, but Hunting in this world was a must if I wanted to feed my household. Though it would be difficult for me, I had to get over my squeamishness about killing animals for food.

I deactivated the trap, which filled in the hole automatically, then asked Lari where I should place the next trap. After I finished setting up the [Pit Trap] in another place, I invited the observers to go to the house with me where I could show them the guest bedrooms.

They took a quick look around the outer courtyard and the rooms I showed them, but they were much more interested in the [Dendrological Cultivation Chamber]. I took one out from my inventory and showed them all the features. The youngest of the observers took down notes and even made a drawing of it.

The rest of my household arrived an hour later in the ox carts, and the others got busy unpacking.

“Now kids, let me show you your new rooms.” I led them into the inner courtyard. “In the farm, you have rooms in the outer courtyard. It’s different here. Whenever we stay here during the winter, you’ll spend most of your time in the inner courtyard with me.”

They exchanged confused glances, and Kharli asked me, “Teacher, why are we staying here?”

The traditional courtyard house was built with a certain hierarchy in mind. The outer courtyard was used for most people, while the inner courtyard was the sole province of the owner and closest family. Therefore, on the farm, I was the sole occupant of the inner courtyard.

“That’s because we will need maximum privacy. I have set the house’s settings to only allow the four of us here.” I gestured at the courtyard and rooms.

Mo leaned closer to Kharli and whispered, “Oh, I have a bad feeling about this. Why do we need so much privacy?”

Kharli whispered back, “I think she’s planning something outrageous.”

“Ahem. The reason is simple. Winter is the time for crafting.” I walked over to the nearest workshop room and flung open the door. “Behold!”

“What are we looking at?” Mo asked Kharli.

“A table, bench, and a lot of shelves?” said Kharli.

“An anvil! Are we going to make weapons?” asked Lari.

I nodded. “And armor.”

“Woo-hoo!” Lari was excited and ran inside the room, picking up stuff and putting them down again when it didn’t seem valuable.

“Of course, we're mainly here to plant trees. We’ll do that every morning, and when we’re done, we’ll work on our crafting levels.” I sat down on the workbench and patted the space beside me.

The two girls sat down, while Lari continued to search the room for anything that looked expensive.

“Okay. Let’s try this. Try to pick this up.” I got a [Bronze Bar] from my inventory and put it on the table.

“I can’t touch it!”

“Let me try.”

“Is this gold?”

As expected, they were unable to take the item because it was bound to me. “This is a [Bronze Bar]. I’ll show you how to use it.”

I went to the anvil with the bar of metal and got a hammer from the System toolbelt. Then I placed the metal bar on the anvil and started randomly hammering it. The first time I hit the metal bar, the Smithing menu appeared, even though only one choice was available. I mentally picked [Arrowheads], and immediately felt a force guiding my arm. The first five strikes were pretty much random and all they did was to heat the metal. The next ten hammer blows, however, were much more purposeful, and I let the System guide my movements. After the fifteenth strike, the metal glimmered and then changed into five [Bronze Arrowheads].

Wiping the sweat from my forehead with my sleeve, I scooped up the items and held them towards my apprentices. “Touch these.”

“Wow! Are these magic? What are they?” Lari’s eyes were as large as saucers.

The three of them took one arrowhead each.

“Ah, so you can touch these. Okay, then let’s do some Fletching.” I sat down on a stool and gestured for the kids to sit on the workbench. “Go to your toolbelt and take out a knife. It should be under [Fletching].”

I waited until they had done as I instructed. “Now, take a [Log] out from your inventory. Watch what I do first.”

The three of them watched in awe as I started whittling away at the piece of wood that was what we got when we did Woodcutting. The moment my knife touched the wood, the Fletching menu appeared, and I chose [Arrow Shafts]. I shaved off bits of wood until, finally, the [Log] glimmered then turned into five long, slender, and straight pieces of wood. Then I took back the five [Bronze Arrowheads] and [Arrow Shafts] and attached them to each other, forming [Incomplete Arrows]. The last step was for me to take five [Feathers] and attach them to form [Bronze Arrows].

My disciples watched me do the whole thing in complete silence, their eyes shining. When I held aloft the finished product, they applauded enthusiastically.

“Incredible!”

“Amazing! Teacher is a magic artisan!”

“What amazing magic!”

I stood up and bowed. “Thank you, thank you! Now you guys try it. When the Fletching menu appears, choose [Arrow Shafts].”

“Aaaah! We’re going to be magic artisans!” shrieked Kharli.

Mo let out a series of high-pitched incoherent screams.

I plugged my ears with my fingers and patted myself on the back on my foresight because I had set the room’s privacy mode to absolute, meaning no light or sound or anything else could be seen from outside. I didn’t want the rest of the house to know what we were doing.

Lari just stood there with his mouth open. After a while, he closed his mouth with a loud snap, then sat on the bench and started fletching. When the other two saw what he was doing, they stopped screaming and started crafting.

While they were hard at work, I gave them a few pointers about crafting. “Fletching is a skill that works in tandem with Smithing and Woodcutting. Unfortunately, you guys aren’t able to use the metal bars that I have right now. We’ll have to work together on different tasks. I’ll smith while you fletch.”

It took them longer than me to produce five [Arrow Shafts]. When we put the items side-by-side, they looked identical.

“I did it…” Mo whispered. She seemed half-joyous, half-disbelieving.

Kharli hugged her. “Isn’t it wonderful?”

“Teacher, thank you!” said Mo.

The two girls hugged me with tears in their eyes while Lari sheepishly approached and patted us on the back once or twice. He was never one for hugs.

“Aw, c’mon stop blubbering! You're wasting daylight,” said Lari.

I gave the girls a few more moments to savor their success, then told the three of them to continue fletching while I smithed us more parts. They were more than willing to do so.

For the next hour, the workshop was filled with the sounds of whittling wood and the hammering of metal until we had to take a break for lunch.

Of course, I didn’t tell them that we were making arrows to prepare for the upcoming Demon Boss War. According to the System’s Event tab, the Boss hadn’t spawned yet, so there was nothing for me to report to the authorities at the moment, and I probably shouldn't worry my apprentices about a possible future that might never come to pass.

The fact that it was showing on the System information though, meant that it was most likely going to happen. Therefore, I should prepare supplies whenever I could. I wasn’t too worried since this was a no-fail event. Even if I did nothing, the clans would undoubtedly take care of it.

Players generally played a very minor part in the war, and it was simply regarded as a good way to get rid of low-level items in bulk. I personally had no plans to take part in the actual fighting.

My life was too precious to risk!

We spent a pleasant day crafting and went to bed exhausted from all the excitement. However, a few minutes after midnight, I was awakened by the System’s notification sound.

Chapter 78 - Nourishing the barren land

Chapter 78 - A hunter's snare-vival in the wilderness

🙞❤︎🙜

[Side Quest: Hunt Prairie Elk

Prairie Elk: 2/3

Reward: Hunting Exp]

I yawned as I got up from my comfortable bed. Though I could have just ignored the notification if this was still the game, I felt that I should take care of the elk as soon as possible. In Adventure Incarnate, meat never spoiled. Nevertheless, I thought it was best to collect the body right away and store it in my inventory.

Come to think of it, the items inside my inventory were always kept fresh. Did it have a time stop feature?

Since it was the middle of the night, I put on the first robe I could find and went out to collect my catch. The nights in the desert were not too dark, unlike the forest where the sky was covered by tall trees. It was the night of a full moon, and there was plenty of light. I paused at the gate for a few minutes to let my eyes adjust to the relative darkness of the outdoors.

Though the desert was hot during the day, at night it was quite cold, and I regretted putting on a thin robe. The air was still, and the sky was cloudless, revealing countless twinkling stars that looked almost close enough to touch. I made a mental note to put a telescope in the garden for everyone to enjoy.

Using the System map, I selected the location of the trap and then chose [Guide Mode]. Yellow dots then appeared on the ground in front of me, indicating the path to the target.

Just as I started walking, I heard someone coughing behind me.

“Kyaa~!” I was so surprised that I tripped over a rock when I turned around to see who it was.

Thankfully, someone caught me in his arms before I fell to the ground.

The voice of an unknown person sounded in my ear. “My lady, be careful.”

For a moment there, the others’ tales of bloodthirsty ghosts that roamed the cursed lands had scared me stiff. This person, however, was warm and definitely real though his face was in shadow, so I couldn’t see it. Phew!

“Sorry, my eyes haven’t adjusted to the darkness yet.” I righted myself and pulled away from his helpful grip.

“May I ask what you’re doing outside this late at night?” he asked.

“Just wanted to check out my [Pit Trap].”

“Ah, yes. An elk just got caught in it. I wonder how the Baroness found out about it?”

“Women’s intuition.” I waited a bit more until I could see my surroundings better then I walked in the direction of the trap. “I’ll get going then.”

“The night is dark. Please allow me to escort you.”

“Sure, why not? Um, who are you again?” There were half a dozen White Tiger clan members around, and I hadn’t talked with all of them enough for me to identify everyone just by their voice.

“I’m one of the observers. I just arrived-”

Argh, I tripped again!

“Thank you for catching me again. Maybe I should get a lamp. I thought it was bright enough to see, but it seems I was wrong,” I said.

“That would be wise.”

“Okay, give me a moment.” I took out a handheld paper lantern from my inventory, the cute one that had a rabbit drawn on it. The light it gave off wasn’t much, but it was enough to allow me to see the ground in front of me. The man who was escorting me was quite tall, so I had to lift it to see his face.

My jaw dropped when I saw that he was the most handsome man I had ever seen, with piercing icy blue eyes, short white hair, a strong jawline, and full lips. He had a tall, lean build with broad shoulders.

Prince Baiyu’s beauty was the cold, aloof type while this man exuded a mature, sensual appeal, but they looked quite similar.

“Close your mouth. The night is full of flying insects,” he said, smirking a little at my reaction.

“Pardon my discourtesy, but who are you? You weren’t here earlier.”

“I was on my way back home from the Fall Hunt when I decided to drop by to see how things were going here.”

“Um, why do you look like Prince Baiyu?”

“He’s my son.”

“...” Was it too late to greet him politely? Should I bow? Well, courtesy never hurt anyone. I bowed. “Greetings, Lord Yulin.”

This wasn’t the way I would have preferred to meet my boyfriend’s father.

Well, it could be worse. At least he wasn’t a ghost.

“Greetings, Baroness. I really like what you’ve done here.” He cupped his hands and bowed to me then waved an arm in front of us as though to say “Let’s continue walking.”

“Thank you. I’m glad you visited and saw the trees.” Holding the lantern in front of me, I slowly followed his lead, carefully watching the ground for obstacles. I really didn’t want to trip again. “What will be done with the elk herd?”

“For now, we’ll let the herd do what it wants,” he said. “The clans whose territory the herd is passing through will have to cooperate and share resources.”

He didn’t have to tell me that spirit animals like the elk were valuable for their meat, bones, blood, and so forth. I just hoped that the clans were wise enough not to kill too many of the herd.

I noticed that he was taking a meandering path to the trap. The yellow dot road showed the most direct way to the target location, and he was leading me away from it. Perhaps he was avoiding the sleeping herd?

“The elk have eaten quite a lot of the grass,” he said.

“It should grow back. I think their droppings will be good for the land.”

“Tell me, haven’t you wondered why there is grass here even though people say that this place is cursed and nothing grows in it?”

“Yes. In fact, I thought it was strange that people keep insisting that this is a desert where nothing grows, when it’s actually a grassland.”

“The grass is a result of our hard work.”

“Your clan mates seem to be passionate environmentalists.”

“Ah, ‘environmentalist’ is a good word. Did you coin it?”

“No, I must’ve heard it somewhere.”

“It’s true that nothing grows here naturally…”

“Then why is there grass here?”

“Because we’ve nourished the land with our blood.”

“Huh? How?”

“I meant that literally. Every inch of these grasslands is soaked in our blood.”

I stopped dead in my tracks and turned to look at him. “Literally? Are you serious?”

“Quite serious. I’ve offered up my blood to restore these lands every year since I became an adult. So has every adult in the clan.”

“But these lands are vast!” I felt a little queasy when I thought about how much blood must have been shed to grow the scant, brown, brittle grass here.

“We mix our blood with water and sprinkle it on the soil to grow the grass.”

“You’re really dedicated to this…”

“This is a secret, but I told you so that you would understand how important this is to us.”

“...” I didn’t know what to say to that, and we fell silent until I finally caught sight of the trap. “There it is!”

“It’s dark. Be careful.” He must have been worried that I would fall in because he took my hand and tucked it under his arm.

“Okay, I just need to get nearer to collect my catch.” A few minutes later, I put the elk in my inventory and dismantled the trap. “Hmm. Where should I place the trap next?”

I was only thinking out loud, but Lord Yulin offered his help.

“I’ll show you a good place,” he said.

“Thank you, I would be grateful if you did.”

We walked a little way east of the [Nirvana Lotus Ponds] and I set the trap in the place that he indicated.

“That’s it, I’m done for-”

My words were cut off when someone grabbed me by the waist, turned me around, and threw a cloak over my shoulders.

“Kyaa~!” I screamed in surprise for the second time that night.

“What are you wearing?” Prince Baiyu whispered in my ear.

What? I was wearing a robe, the same as always. I tried to pull away, but he wouldn’t let go of my waist. “Hey, what is this?”

Behind us, Lord Yulin coughed.

“Father, I’ll escort her back to the house,” said Prince Baiyu. He didn’t wait for permission before lifting me in his arms and running off.

“What’s going on? What is this about?” I asked him.

When we reached the main gate, he put me down and said, “Nothing. I’m just escorting you back to your room.”

“Um, okay. I’m going back to sleep.” I yawned as I entered the house and turned on the lights in the courtyard. “When did you arrive?”

To my surprise, he entered with me. It seemed he was planning to escort me all the way to my door.

“Around two hours ago. I was patrolling and didn’t see you leave the house,” he said.

“Patrolling?”

“Demons don’t venture this far, but everyone is taking turns to stand watch anyway.”

“Mmm.” I yawned again.

“I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“Yes, good night.”

We reached my room, and he said, “Good night.”

He kissed me on the forehead then left.

I was incredibly sleepy and was about to fall into bed right away when I got another System notification.

[Side Quest: Hunt Prairie Elk

Prairie Elk: 3/3

Reward: Hunting Exp]

This was followed by a series of pop-up boxes and fireworks.

[Sidequest Complete! Reward: Hunting Exp.]

[Congratulations, you just advanced a Hunting level!]

[Congratulations, you just advanced a Hunting level!]

[Congratulations, you just advanced a Hunting level!]

[Your Hunting level is now 6.]

Yes! It was quite late, and it would be inconsiderate of me to make too much noise, so I silently pumped my fists in the air.

[Prairie Elk] was considered “big game,” which meant that it gave more XP compared to the small animals that we had been trapping. Therefore, the elk sidequest also gave more exp.

Now that I had leveled up three times in a row, I suddenly felt wide awake. My brain started working again and I wondered what Prince Baiyu had been babbling about.

I went to my dressing room to look at myself in the full-length mirror. When I caught sight of my reflection, I wished I’d gone straight to bed without checking my appearance.

This was the worst!

Chapter 79 - A cursed bloodline

Chapter 79 - Water you talking about? What about my clothes?

🙞❤︎🙜

I had an absolutely epic case of bedhead! Aaaaaahhhhh!

My hair was a wild mess that resembled a bird’s nest, except not as tidy.

I flopped face down on the bed and lamented the fact that my boyfriend and his father had seen me look like this. However, it was already after midnight, and I was tired, so I soon fell asleep.

The next day, I woke up bright and early and found Prince Baiyu waiting for me at the breakfast table that had been set up in the outer courtyard. We exchanged greetings, and he told me about his recent expedition in the demon-riddled Southerlands with the members of the various clans during the annual Fall Hunt.

“This is the first time I participated as an adult, and it was as bad as I feared. Everyone had heard of my problem with my qi overloading, and thirty-eight people came up to me asking me about it. I counted.”

I tried to look as sympathetic as I could while I drank my morning coffee and took big bites out of a veggie bun. “That must have been tough.”

“Ha! Yes, but now that it’s over, I realized that I was an idiot to hide out in the cave just because I was afraid of people knowing that I wasn’t the perfect prince.”

“What did they say? What did you say?”

He pouted. “What didn’t they say?!”

“You poor thing.”

“I’m very sad. Give me a kiss to cheer me up.”

I gave him a scandalized look and gestured at the other table. I normally ate with my apprentices, but today Fengying had set up another table for them on the opposite side of the courtyard from us, in order to give us some privacy. Since the prince had been at the hunt, we had only seen each other a few times in the past month when he had dropped off his kills at my doorstep.

“Please behave yourself,” I said.

He sighed. Today he was looking mighty fine as usual in gorgeous royal blue silk robes richly embroidered in red and silver thread. “I had an absolutely terrible time.”

I patted him on the head. “Is qi overload really that bad?”

“People were smirking at me, but that’s nothing compared to what my father had to endure.”

“Your father? Why? What happened?”

“Well, a lot of people never liked the fact that he married my mother…” He fell silent when one of the maids came over with a platter of fried rice and sausages. When she left, he lowered his voice and said, “He actually got into a fistfight.”

“Gosh.” Lord Yulin hadn’t looked like a troublemaker last night, but then again, one could never tell from appearances.

Prince Baiyu rolled his eyes. Now that we had become close, he no longer bothered with his “I’m a cool and aloof nobleman” pose. “That person was asking for it! He actually said right to my face that it was too bad that I had a cursed bloodline. My father punched him in the face and broke his teeth.”

“Cursed bloodline?” This was the first that I had heard of that.

“Ah. Sometimes I forget that you’re not one of us and that you don’t know about these things.” He leaned back on his seat and rubbed his temples. “Do you have time to hear about a long story?”

“Actually, no. I have to plant the trees first. How long are you staying?” Though I really, really wanted to hear the story, I had to prioritize my tasks for today.

“I have to leave this afternoon.”

“Then why don’t you tell me about it after I finish my morning chores?”

“Yes, that would be best, especially since it’s not a very pleasant thing to talk about. I wouldn’t want you to lose your appetite.”

“Mmm.” I made a sound of agreement and continued eating. Fengying came over with a plate of sliced fruit for dessert and informed me that the elk herd was on the move. I hurriedly ate some of the fruit and then left with my apprentices and the prince.

Outside, I saw that the elk were looking healthy and quite lively as they headed off to wherever they were going. We went over to the [Pit Trap] where I retrieved the dead elk’s body.

Since everything looked fine, I went to the chosen site near the top of Skyfang Hill. As we climbed, I bent down several times to touch the grass. When the System had built the contour swales, it had covered the hill with bright green grass. Though it was not as vibrant and fresh as it used to be, the vibrant greenery still made for a striking contrast against the rest of the area which was covered in sparse brown foliage.

“I’m glad the grass survived,” I said.

“The soil seems moister, too,” said Kharli.

The other two nodded.

“Look at those spots.” Lari pointed at the base of the hill where there were some bald spots. “The elk grazed there.”

Huh. Why didn’t they go higher up the hill?

Prince Baiyu seemed to sense my confusion and said, “We were afraid that the elk would eat all of the grass and leave the hill bald again, so we drove them away.”

“Ah.”

I made a mental note to make sure to prepare a good, large grazing ground for the herd.

Once we reached the higher swales, we planted more fertilizer trees using the [Dendrological Cultivation Chambers]. This time, because I had leveled up my farming, I was able to plant seven trees. My apprentices had enough energy to plant three each. Therefore, the maximum that we could plant every day was sixteen, but only if we didn’t use up our energy doing other things.

“Now let’s check on the [Lizardwings],” I said.

“I’ll go tell the others. They’ve already prepared the cages,” said Prince Baiyu. “They’ll meet you at the pen.”

With that, he flew off. Mo and Kharli immediately started screeching and running.

“Wait! Don’t run!” I yelled after them. “You’ll break your neck running down the hill. Wait until you’re at the bottom before you start racing each other.”

“Aw!” Kharli stopped dead in her tracks.

Mo couldn’t stop in time and tripped over a rock. “Whee!”

Kharli and Lari ran after her as she rolled down the hill, still screaming with glee until she fell into one of the swales, which currently resembled a grassy ditch.

“You guys!” I hurried down to scold them. “Be more careful. You could’ve broken your neck!”

They all promised me they wouldn’t roll down anymore, and we walked at a more reasonable pace. At the foot of the hill, I gave them permission to run, and all three of them set off. I noticed that Kharli was noticeably faster than the other two.

A few minutes later, Prince Baiyu returned to accompany me on my walk to the [Lizardwing] habitat.

“Wow, it’s so hot. I thought I would be snuggled up in my bedroom with a roaring fireplace this winter, but it looks like I’ll be eating iced desserts while sweltering under the hot sun,” I said.

“If it gets too hot, you could always return to your farm, right? Winter isn’t too cold there,” said Prince Baiyu.

I yawned. “Maybe.”

“Are you sleepy? Maybe you should take a nap.”

“I will. I only got a few hours of sleep because I was up after midnight. Wait, don’t change the subject. I thought you were going to tell me about your father.”

“Was I? By the way, he likes you. He gave me this since he said I needed to dress better when I’m going courting.” He held up his arms, showing off the long, wide sleeves of his robe that were embroidered with an intricate abstract design.

“Very fancy.”

“He said this was what he was wearing the first time he met my mother and they fell madly in love. What do you think? Does this make you feel madly in love?”

“Hmm.” I debated whether I should tell him I preferred it when he wasn’t wearing a robe…

“No?” He looked extremely disappointed.

What the heck, I should just go for it. “I don’t know. Why don’t you try taking it off?”

He blushed and looked around. “Not today. My father’s somewhere around.”

“Too bad.” I gave him a mischievous smile and pinched his waist. “I haven’t seen those abs in a while.”

“I could sweep the inner courtyard.”

“Oooooh!”

“But not today.”

“Aw. Speaking of clothes, what exactly did you not like about my clothes last night? You know, when you covered me with a cloak.”

He blushed and stammered, “Y-You we-were…”

“Yes?”

After a lot of nervous fiddling with his sleeve, he blurted out, “You weren’t wearing anything under your clothes!”

I laughed. “Oh, I hate to break it to you, but all people are naked under their clothes.”

“I mean, you weren’t wearing another robe under it.”

“That’s what you were worried about? I was concerned about nothing then.”

“It’s improper,” he insisted.

The people in this world were so uptight about propriety. I suppose he considered it improper because I wasn’t wearing at least three layers of clothing. “Okay. I understand.”

“What am I going to do about you…?”

I grinned at him. “I’m sure you can think of something!”

The two of us burst into laughter.

When we finished laughing, I remembered he was supposed to tell me a long story. “Wait, weren’t you going to tell me about your mother and father?”

“I changed my mind. I don’t want to tell you because it’s stupid. You’ll probably think I’m whining.”

“It’s fine. I know you want to tell me.” I knew that he probably didn’t have a lot of people that he could voice his complaints to because of his rank.

“Well…”

“Go on.”

“You haven’t really asked me much about why I was alone in the cave when I was sick. The truth is, it all goes back to my parents' situation. You see, practically from birth my mother was said to be the future leader of the Westerlands.”

“From birth? Really?”

“It was because of her conformation. You know about conformation?”

I nodded. “You mean her physical characteristics are close to the ideal for the White Tiger clan.”

“Yes, and by the time she was an adult, she was unanimously chosen by the clan leaders as the next Lady of the West.” He sounded really proud. “You see, she’s the strongest by far of her generation. She’s the only one whose zidan could encompass the entire Westerlands.”

He smiled down at me and oh so casually took my hand in his.

I nodded to indicate that I understood. “Zidan” was their word for power and territory, and a strong zidan was the prime qualification needed to become a ruler.

“When she declared that she was going to marry my father, there was a big commotion. Pretty much all of the clans were against it, except for my father’s clan.”

“Why?”

Prince Baiyu gestured at the grassland all around us. “Because of this! Five generations ago, a disaster happened, and many clans lost their ancestral lands. Now they are considered fallen clans.”

“Do you mean that they lost their zidan?”

“What? No!” His face paled. “You must never suggest that about anyone. Losing zidan is like…”

I hastily corrected myself. “I mean, they lost their territory?”

“Yes, they lost their original territory, and a lot of prestige, but don’t say that they lost their zidan, that’s just…” Once again, his voice trailed off.

It seemed that the concept was so terrible he didn’t want to speak about it.

“Sorry, I misspoke,” I said.

“That’s okay. Anyway, because of this,” he said, gesturing around us once again. “Father’s clan is considered… weakened, but they were able to claim territory farther north once things settled down.”

“Ah.” I squeezed his hand encouragingly. His palm was calloused from wielding a sword, and his skin was warm.

“I am not sure that humans know this about us. We tend to be rather superstitious, and the fact that these lands are cursed means that almost everyone also considers the masters of this territory as cursed.”

“So that’s why someone said that you're descended from a cursed bloodline? And your father punched him?”

He laughed. “That was so satisfying!”

“At least you had some fun,” I said.

“I did, actually. I know I complained a lot about the people who were needling me about my qi overload problems, but it wasn’t all bad. A lot of my cousins told me they felt relieved that I’m not perfect after all.”

“I think you’re great.”

“Thank you. I feel a lot more relaxed now that I don’t have to keep up that flawless façade.”

“Good for you!” I leaned closer to him and tried to give him a peck on the cheek. Unfortunately, he was too tall so I couldn’t reach his cheek until he bent down. I missed the mark and kissed him on the chin instead.

Suddenly, I heard someone behind me coughing. I turned around and saw that it was Lord Yulin.

Oops.

Chapter 80 - It looks like a demon egg…

Chapter 80 - A sand-tastic day in the desert

🙞❤︎🙜

Today Lord Yulin was wearing gorgeous crimson robes, and, in the light of day, I could see his face more clearly. He was definitely better looking than I thought, and more mature and muscular compared to his son.

Even though I was sure that my face had turned as red as a tomato, I played it cool and exchanged greetings with Prince Baiyu’s father.

Once we finished courtesies, Lord Yulin took his son aside and they spoke for a few minutes before the Prince returned to me and said, “He’s leaving now.”

“Oh.” What a pity.

Prince Baiyu handed me a large jar. “I almost forgot, he told me to give this to you. Make sure everyone in your household spreads this on any wound they get, no matter how small.”

[Tiger’s Ten Thousand Golden Herb Balm:

An extremely effective topical medication that prevents infection. Made using ten precious spirit herbs, the formula for making it is a highly-guarded secret of the White Tiger clan.]

“Thank you,” I said.

We watched as Lord Yulin took the skies and flew off like Superman.

“Wow,” I said.

“What’s with that reaction?”

“When you grow up, will you look like your father?”

“I’m already grown up! And I’ll definitely be better looking,” said Prince Baiyu.

“Has anyone ever told you that you look cute when you pout?”

“Only you.”

Just as I was going to continue our banter, the direction of the wind changed and we both pinched our nostrils shut. I took out a veil from my inventory and tied it behind my head. Then I stuffed my nose with wads of cotton cloth soaked in water and a little perfume.

Prince Baiyu looked pained. I suppose he felt it was beneath his dignity to follow my example. “I’ll go and inspect the trees.”

“Why can’t you just turn off your sense of smell again?”

“The elders warned us not to do that. Apparently, if you do it a lot it might cause side effects,” he said.

“Okay, I guess I don’t blame you, and you shouldn’t soil your fancy robes with [Lizardwing]... wastes,” I said.

He made a face at me and then flew off.

When I got closer to the pen, I saw that three clan members were waiting for me in addition to my apprentices. They handed me six cages which I put in my inventory.

“I hope it's working. How is the grass?” I asked them.

To my surprise, all three of them beamed.

“Everything stinks, but it’s been very effective.”

“It’s nothing short of miraculous!”

“We could hardly believe our eyes when we saw it.”

I opened the gate to the walled-off area and was extremely pleased with what I saw inside. The short, stubby brown grass that used to cover the [Lizardwing] habitat had turned a bright green and had grown knee-high.

“This is great,” said Mo.

Kharli bent down and touched the grass. “It looks quite healthy.”

“Teacher, how are you going to catch the [Lizardwings]?” asked Lari.

“When you get close to one, you can just put it in your inventory. Try it,” I said.

My three apprentices scattered in order to catch the spirit animals. I walked over to the closest [Lizardwing]. It now had the [Young] status and was one handspan tall. Looking around, I noted that the animal’s scales were now a darker orange, and their wings were feathered blue. They still looked a lot like dinosaurs.

I put the closest one in my inventory and waited for the others. When my apprentices had collected all of the animals, I moved a little away from the clan members and gave them instructions on what to do. “Here. Take these cages and put them in your inventory. Now, look at the space where the cages are. Think the command [Use] then wait for the pop-up that says [Use With…]. When you see it, select the [Lizardwing].”

Kharli managed to do it on her first try while Lari accidentally used the cage with a log, which made him panic when he got the message [Error: Item use failed - the selected item cannot be used with the target item]. Mo claimed she couldn’t call up the [Use] command at first.

I waited patiently until all three of them successfully managed to put the animals inside the cages. Most items could only be used outside the inventory, so they had never done this before.

We returned to the gate where the clan members were waiting and handed them the six [Lizardwings]. “These are [Young] animals. They should reach the [Adult] life stage in around a month, and breeding should occur right after that.”

“Thank you very much!”

“Thank you, this will really be helpful.”

“Thank you. May I take a look at the eggs?”

The request took me by surprise. “The eggs? Okay, but you can’t buy them. I can only use them because of my bloodline inheritance. Other people can’t touch them.”

When I showed them a [Lizardwing] egg, they reacted with shock and not a little apprehension.

“What an incredible cursed aura!”

“It looks like a demon egg…”

“At least it doesn’t stink.”

None of them attempted to touch it.

“It’s only ‘cursed’ for people who aren’t authorized to use it.” As proof, I handed the egg to Lari.

“This is heavier than normal eggs. Can I crack it open?” asked Lari.

“No! This is extremely valuable.” Kharli took the egg from him.

“But is it edible?” he asked.

“You want to eat it?!” Mo gave him a shocked look. “But they stink! I bet the egg will stink if you crack it open.”

The eldest of the clan members coughed. “Young master, it’s better not to eat spirit eggs. The qi inside them is quite fierce and could harm humans like yourself.”

“Oh.” A grin spread across Lari's face, and he bounced on the balls of his feet as he reveled in the thrill of being called “young master.”

“Yes, I don’t think these are edible,” I said. “Let’s go. I think I’ll make a bigger habitat for them.”

The clan members said their goodbyes, and we parted.

“Shall we select a place that’s farther away?” I asked them.

“Nearer is better,” said Lari. “I don’t want to walk a lot every day.”

“If they're too near, we’ll smell them from the house.” Kharli's face twisted in disgust and her nose wrinkled at the thought.

“Maybe we should choose a place that has more grass,” said Mo.

“Hmmm.” I consulted the System map and found the place that was at the very edge of the land that I was allowed to use. “Okay, I’ve decided. Follow me.”

My apprentices kept up a lively chatter while we walked. When we were now far enough from the [Lizardwings] old habitat that the smell was no longer noticeable. I took off the veil and the wads of cotton in my nose. A few minutes later, Prince Baiyu dropped down from the sky and casually fell into step beside me.

“Hello, nice to see you again,” I said.

“It’s always a pleasure to see you,” said Prince Baiyu.

“We’re going off to the new [Lizardwing] pen,” I said.

“And I must once again bid you a good day and goodbye.” He stepped to one side and flew off again.

“I’m placing the eggs, which have no smell!” I shouted up at him.

He stopped in mid-air and then flew back down to land beside me. “Hello again.”

“Hi.”

The kids stared in open-mouthed shock at us. I guess they weren’t used to seeing the prince’s humorous side.

He pretended not to notice the others’ reaction and said, “What’s your plan?”

“I sold the [Lizardwings] to the clan, and now I’m going to place the eggs in a new place and wait for them to hatch.”

“Where?”

I pointed at the horizon in the direction I had chosen. “There.”

“Isn’t that too far from the house? You'll have to spend an hour just walking there every day,” he said.

“Do I? We can just put enough food for seven days in the pen. I was thinking we could ask the observers to keep an eye on the animals. They can just call us if anything seems wrong,” I said.

“I see.” He looked down at me then back at the horizon. “It seems to me that you’ll get really tired today. Why don’t I carry you there?”

“Thank you, but no. I don’t really like flying that much.”

“That’s not a problem, is it? I can walk.”

I burst out laughing. “What? You’re gonna walk there, carrying me in your arms?”

“Why not?” He bent down and whispered in my ear, “Wouldn’t we both enjoy that?”

“Shhh!” I gave my apprentices a nervous look.

They were obviously listening closely to the two of us.

Prince Baiyu sighed. “Very well. I’ll behave.”

“Thank you.” I changed the subject to something that all of us would be interested in. “Anyway, did I tell you that I plan to go on vacation a few times this winter?”

“Oh?”

“I’d like to go to the Lake of Clear Ripples and Emerald Cove for a few days each. I’ve also got some business in the towns of Hongzhen and Wukan.”

“Where? I know the Emerald Cove, but not the other places.”

“I’ll show you a map later.” I turned to my apprentices and said, “Do you guys want to go on vacation?”

“Yes.”

“Yes.”

“No, I want exp. Teacher, can I stay here when you guys go on vacation?” That was Mo.

“Unfair! We should take turns!” said Lari.

I let them quarrel while I told the prince the dates of my planned trips.

“Winter is a slow season for us. I won’t be that busy, and I’ll try to match my schedule with yours,” he said.

“Great!”

We talked about the details while we walked. He was right. The place that I had chosen was quite far, and I had second thoughts when my legs began to feel tired before we even got there. “I think this is probably far enough…”

“Why don’t we walk back a little?” he said.

“That might be for the best.” I turned around and we walked back the way we had come. When we reached a suitable distance that wasn’t too far from the house, I placed a small pen on a piece of level ground then placed six eggs inside. Then I built a six-foot high circular fence a hundred and fifty feet away from the pen since I figured that they might like a bigger space to wander in this time.

“Those are just as demonic as I remember,” said Prince Baiyu. He eyed the eggs warily.

“Relax, they don’t bite.”

I supervised as the kids filled the water and feed tanks.

“Teacher, how long will it take them to hatch?” asked Kharli.

“They should hatch two days from now,” I said. “We’re done here. Let’s go back and rest.”

“Oh good, I’m so tired!” said Lari.

I didn’t say anything but, unfortunately for him, he was doomed to do even more work today.

He wasn’t the only one who was in for a surprise. When we got to the house, I was greeted with an unexpected sight.

“What’s this?” I said when we entered the outer courtyard.

A large round table had been taken from the dining room and placed in the middle of the open space, and it was now piled high with wooden boxes lacquered in red and gold.

Chapter 81 - Smithing and Fletching time

Chapter 81 - Time flies, but the sky's the minute when you're alone with your beloved

🙞❤︎🙜

“The children of the clan have sent these presents,” said Fengying.

“I know what these are!” said Prince Baiyu. His features relaxed and a smile crept across his face. “Open one.”

I picked up a box at random and opened the lid. Inside were half a dozen small wooden discs with the head of a tiger crudely carved on them. “What’s this about?”

“These are lucky charms carved by the children of the White Tiger clan. You’re meant to bury them somewhere in the Valley.”

“Oh, I see. Is there any specific place where I should bury them?”

“Anywhere is fine. They’re just sending you their good wishes in the hope that the curse will be lifted from these lands.” A gentle warmth had replaced the usual aloof and serious expression on his face. “I must have buried hundreds of these when I was a child.”

“Lady Violet, I’ll take care of these,” said Fengying.

“Yes, thank you.” I opened a few more boxes and saw that they were all the same. “This is nice. So the children know that I’m working on making this valley fertile again?”

Prince Baiyu smiled. “Everyone knows.”

“Eh.” Well, it’s not like it was a secret, yet I thought it was strange that even the children were excited about my project.

“Lady, perhaps you should retire to your rooms to change your clothes,” said Fengying.

I had been so surprised that I had forgotten that I was still… fragrant from my visit to the [Lizardwing] pen. My housekeeper was too well-bred to say “go and take a bath, you smell terrible!” but I got the hint and so did my apprentices.

After a long, hot shower, a change of clothes, and a Cash Shop salon session that gave me a new, cute twintails hairstyle, I returned to the courtyard for lunch. Once again, a separate table was set up for me and the prince while Lari, Kharli, and Mo ate at the opposite corner. I noticed with approval that the three of them had now fully mastered their table manners. I knew they could do it.

The prince and I chatted about this and that while I ate a wonderful array of summer dishes. Though it was winter in the rest of the Westerlands, the Demon Chef had decided that it would be best if we ate food that was appropriate for the hot climate that we were living in. There were cold noodles, cucumber salad, stir-fried vegetables, stewed chicken with potatoes, and red rice. Dessert was bao bing, shaved ice sweetened with honey and topped with sliced fruit, tapioca pearls, and grass jelly.

“Oh my gosh, I’m so full!” I said as I leaned back in my chair. “I’m done.”

“Are you going to your room?” asked Prince Baiyu.

“Yes.”

“May I join you?”

My lips twitched. He was always trying to get into my room. “You know what, you’re leaving later today, so why don’t we spend more time together?”

“I’d love that.”

Seeing that the kids had also finished their lunch, I called them over and said, “Time for more Fletching!”

“Fletching?” Prince Baiyu gave me a puzzled look. “I didn’t know you knew how to fletch.”

“Prepare to be amazed!” I chuckled as I herded my apprentices to the inner courtyard and then into the workshop. I had to adjust the settings to allow Prince Baiyu to enter since I had made that part of the house inaccessible to everyone but me and the three kids.

“I thought we were going to your bedroom…” he whispered in my ear.

“Shh.” I took out a chair from my inventory and instructed him to sit while we worked. I turned to the kids and asked them, “Are you ready? Tell me if you’re too tired to work today.”

“I’m tired, but I want to level up!” said Lari.

Mo's eyes sparkled with excitement as she said, “I would never say no to exp.”

Kharli simply sat down on the workbench and started whittling away at a wooden log. The others followed her example and got started, too. Meanwhile, I went to the anvil l and started making [Bronze Arrowheads].

“Tomorrow, let’s use the arrows we make to practice our archery,” I said.

“Teacher, did you forget that you promised to bring us to practice our archery for real on the Horned Rabbits?” asked Kharli.

“I didn’t forget. I said I would bring you guys there when you were all good enough.” Though I didn’t say anything more, they understood.

Kharli was now pretty good, probably better than me. Lari was adequate though his accuracy dropped precipitously when he got bored of training. I reckoned that wouldn’t be a problem when we were actually killing rabbits.

The problem was Mo. She was absolutely terrible at archery!

All five of us were silent as we fletched.

Prince Baiyu leaned forward, his eyes widening when he saw how the metal bar I was hammering glowed then transformed into five [Bronze Arrowheads]. A look of wonder crossed his face. “You’re a magic artisan, too!”

“I’m a woman of many talents.” I smirked at him. “By the way, I don’t need to tell you to keep this secret, right?”

“Of course. I know that.”

“I did it!” Lari held aloft five [Arrow Shafts].

“Congratulations,” I said.

Moments later, Kharli and Mo finished making their [Arrow Shafts].

“This is so exciting,” said Kharli.

“...” Mo didn’t say anything because she was already busy working on another log.

“It looks like I’m falling behind.” Although I was faster at crafting, since there were three of them and only one of me, they were producing fifteen [Arrow Shafts] for every ten [Bronze Arrowheads] that I made.

“This is amazing.” Prince Baiyu marveled as I showed off how I could make arrows by attaching [Feathers] and [Bronze Arrowheads] to the [Arrow Shafts]. “May I examine one?”

“Sure. Here you go.” I handed him a [Bronze Arrow].

He turned it over and examined it closely while we waited expectantly for his reaction. He tested the point of the arrow with his finger and bent the shaft. After a while, he cleared his throat and said, “Bronze is a little too soft to use for an arrow, isn’t it?”

My apprentices looked terribly disappointed.

“We’ve only just started fletching. These are just practice arrows for beginners,” I said.

He noticed the kids’ chagrin and said, “I understand. Beginners are taught to use a wooden sword before they use the real thing.”

“Yes, I’m using the same principle here. We'll move on to better materials when we’ve mastered making these [Bronze Arrowheads] first,” I said.

“Teacher, does that mean you have better materials that we can use?” asked Lari.

“I’ll show them to you when you’re ready.” My statement made their eyes sparkle.

“Yes! I want to make golden arrows!” said Lari.

“Less talking, more fletching,” said Kharli, her [Bossy] trait in full show.

Mo had never stopped fletching while we talked.

“Yes, let’s continue,” I said.

We worked for around two hours before taking a break. I asked the three of them to get some drinks and snacks from the kitchen.

“I worked so hard all day. Do you think we’ll have grilled meat tonight?” asked Lari.

“I don’t think so. I saw them bringing in some ham,” said Kharli.

“Teacher, can I stay here and fletch some more?” Mo hadn’t gotten up from the workbench.

Kharli dragged her away, saying in a stage whisper, “Can’t you see the two of them want to be alone? Read the room!”

Prince Baiyu and I waited until they had left the inner courtyard before bursting into laughter.

“Alone at last.” His lips were still twitching with laughter when he leaned toward me in an exaggeratedly seductive manner.

“Oh my!” I put the back of my hand on my forehead and pretended to swoon. “Whatever will we do?”

“I can think of something.”

Our eyes met and we started laughing again. “They’re only going to fetch some snacks. It will take like five minutes.”

“A lot could happen in five minutes…”

“Not that much.”

“Do you want to show me what I could do in five minutes?”

“No thanks, I think I’ll continue Smithing.” I chuckled at his look of mock disappointment. “Five minutes, really?”

He sighed. “I actually have to leave soon.”

“How soon?”

“Right after you finish eating. I have to be home before dark.”

We talked about his work for the winter. Apparently, winter for the White Tiger clan involved a lot of sword and qi training. He had reached the age of majority only last year, which meant that his education was still incomplete. I gathered that he was in the stage of his training akin to college on Earth, in that he had finished his basic general studies and was now receiving specialized training in air elemental combat.

“It looks like you’ll be busy,” I said.

“Not that busy compared to hunting season,” he said.

“I’ll try to arrange my vacation days around your schedule,” I promised.

“At the very least, I’d like to accompany you to Wukan,” he said.

“Oh, and there’s just one more thing. Do you remember that you still owe me one favor?”

“Yes. Do you want something?”

I leaned forward and placed my hands on his arms, staring deeply into his eyes. “I do. Promise me that you’ll never wear red in public.”

“What?! Why?”

“What do you mean, why? It’s obviously because of your father.” I smirked at him.

“...” He pouted.

“Please promise me. I don’t want other people to see you when you’re wearing red. It’s too much!”

He chuckled. “Feeling possessive? I like that.”

“You can wear red when it’s just the two of us,” I said.

“Agreed!”

And he showed me what he could do in five minutes.

Chapter 82 - Ancient Watering System

Chapter 82 - There's great pot-ential in low tech solutions

🙞❤︎🙜

After Prince Baiyu left, we continued fletching until it was time for dinner, then we went to bed early since we would be up at dawn the next day.

When I woke up, it was still dark outside, which was the best time to plant since the hot desert sun was still tolerable. We quickly planted as many trees as we could using the [Dendrological Cultivation Chambers].

Then we went to the old [Lizardwing] habitat where we planted some seeds from the [Wild Seed Mix].

“The [Lizardwings] have scratched and pecked at a lot of the grass, so there are a few bald spots. We don’t need to till the land here before sowing a few seeds.” I demonstrate that by using the System to sow a few bare patches of ground. The seeds drilled themselves an inch into the soil. “In our farm, we don’t water the cover crops, but I think we should water these for at least a few days since it doesn’t rain as much here.”

“Teacher, are you sure these won’t die?” asked Lari.

“… Not everything we do will be successful, but I think we should still try,” I said.

“I hope they don’t die,” said Mo.

“The wild seeds are the strongest ones. Why don’t we use the [Dendrological Cultivation Chambers] on these?” asked Kharli.

“That’s a good question! I want to test if our crops will work here if they are planted normally. Once we’re done here, I’ll show you a new, alternative method to using the [Dendrological Cultivation Chambers],” I said.

We continued planting before checking on the [Lizardwing] eggs, which looked the same as they did yesterday.

“All right, let’s go back to the house. I was told that the items that I ordered have been delivered,” I said.

I walked back while the kids ran. When I arrived, I saw that outside the gate, the pots were neatly lined up, ready for us to use. My apprentices were scratching their heads and poking at them.

“But these are just regular clay pots!” Kharli picked one up and turned it upside down to see if there was anything unusual at the bottom of the pot.

“The cheap ones, too,” said Lari.

“Maybe this wasn’t what our Teacher was talking about,” said Mo.

“No, this is exactly what I was talking about,” I said. “Grab a pot and follow me.”

I led them to the eastern side of the house. There I took out a [Spade] from the System toolbelt and then used it to dig a hole in which I placed the terra-cotta pot. The top of the clay vessel protruded above the soil and I filled it with water before placing the lid on it.

“I think you guys can figure out what this is, right?” I said.

“There are holes on the lid for the rain to refill the water. It’s like the [Dendrological Cultivation Chamber]!” said Kharli.

“But it doesn’t have a wick at the bottom,” said Mo.

“How does it work?” asked Lari.

“The pot itself is not watertight. Water will seep through the sides and the bottom into the soil,” I said. “This was actually not my idea. One of the clan’s scholars told me of a method similar to my use of the [Dendrological Cultivation Chambers].”

“Hmm.” Mo gave the pot a somewhat dubious look. “I think the System’s method is better.”

“Maybe. We won’t know until we try.” She had a point. I was pretty sure that the System used magic of some sort to make the plants grow, which is why I wanted to try more mundane methods. After all, if the desert was going to be reclaimed, the clan needed non-magical methods that they could use. “Anyway, I’m told that the terra-cotta pots are quite efficient. When the soil is dry, it will draw water from the pots, but when the soil is moist, such as after a rain, the water will remain inside the pot.”

“Teacher, that makes no sense. If this method works, why haven’t they used it?” asked Kharli.

“Because of the curse,” said Lari.

“Oh.” Kharli looked pensive.

“I hope it works,” said Mo.

“I hope so, too. Let’s try using half of the pots with our wild seeds, and half of the pots with the seeds that I got from the clan,” I said.

This project would undoubtedly have the greatest chance of success if we used native plants and hardy, drought-resistant plants, so we used regular seeds from the clan like Milkweed, Coneflowers, Prairie Smoke, Asters, Bergamot, Bindweed, Reaumuria, Potaninia, Nitraria, and Wild Onions, along with the ones from the [Wild Seed Mix].

By noontime, we were all tired and went back to the house for a shower, lunch, and a change of clothes before returning to finish planting all of the seeds. At the end of the day, we were all tired but happy at the progress that we had made.

We spent two more days on it until we finished the first phase of the project.

“I can’t believe we worked so hard and got zero exp,” said Mo.

“Yes, but if we succeed, we’ll be heroes!” said Kharli.

“Everyone will call me Master Lari, the Cursebreaker,” said Lari.

Mo rolled her eyes at him. “Please ignore him, Teacher. He’s been unbearably smug ever since someone called him ‘Young Master’ that one time.”

Since we were done with the project and our daily chores, I sent the kids to do some fletching while I tweaked the house settings.

I activated climate control on the house, sealing it off from the surrounding dry, hot, and dusty land. The others who lived in the house normally preferred that I only use the heater and air conditioner, instead of turning on full climate control since it blocked the fresh air outside the house from the courtyards. However, now we were not in the forest, but in the rather inhospitable cursed lands. Therefore, we all agreed that I should make the inside of the house more comfortable. I set the humidity level to forty percent and the temperature to 68 degrees Fahrenheit.

Next, I overhauled the walled garden.

Though Fengying appreciated the [Elegant Chinese Garden], I thought it would be good to add some fun elements to what was essentially our backyard. The Cash Shop had a lot of decorations that would be usable for us. I chose the tree house, waterslide, play tent, and swing sets and set up plenty of archery targets to encourage my apprentices to train more.

Then I went to talk to the housekeeper.

My daily schedule was extremely full. I was too busy with the prince and the new clay pot project earlier to take care of the details of the household that needed my attention, so I spent two hours going over our supplies, budget, and miscellaneous matters. In addition, Fengying handed me a copy of the clan members’ observation notebook. They had taken meticulous care to write down the daily weather conditions, especially the rainfall, and the notebook had a complete daily log of the height and condition of each tree that we had planted last time. When I was done perusing that, Fengying pressed me to hire additional staff since our current accommodations were double the size of the old one. I gave her permission to hire a few more.

While we were talking about how many maids were needed to keep the house and grounds tidy, I realized that once we had gotten used to all this space, I would probably have to expand the farmhouse when we got back to the forest.

Lastly, we hashed out the details of all the trips I would be making this winter.

“Deming is looking forward to using that big kitchen in the hotel you built in the Emerald Cove,” she said.

“Oh yeah, we had to leave in a hurry last time, right?” I remembered that we hadn’t really been able to spend much time there. “There’s actually another hotel I could build…”

After we finished the discussion, I joined my apprentices and spent the rest of the day Smithing.

Disaster struck three days later when Lari, Kharli, and Mo woke up with their arms so sore that they could hardly lift a glass to drink water.

“Why didn’t you tell me that you were too tired? Ah… Never mind, it’s my fault for not noticing you were overworking yourselves,” I said.

“I just wanted more exp…” said Mo.

“Me, too.”

“And me.”

The three of them looked so woebegone that I couldn’t bring myself to scold them. “All right, let’s just take it easy for a few days.”

With that, our schedule of doing Fletching four hours twice a day was reduced to one hour twice a day. In the meantime, we had plenty of free time which we used to practice archery, and I also got a few games from the Cash Shop for us to play, like a giant connect four, tower blocks, and ring toss.

When I called the kids over to play, they ignored everything in favor of the connect four game. After I explained the rules to them, they played for hours, ignoring everything except lunchtime.

“You suck! I’m the winner!” crowed Lari when he won three games in a row against Kharli.

“Argh, why do you keep winning?” she complained.

“Let me try,” said Mo.

“I’m going to beat you too,” said Lari.

By lunchtime, they had cajoled me to produce three more connect four games for the others to use, and even the clan members started playing it. I suppose there wasn’t much to do in this place, so the game was taking my household by storm.

The clan members tended to become a little bit rowdy whenever they played.

“What is taking you so long? Play a piece already!” said a young male with brown hair and yellow eyes.

“Stop rushing me,” said his opponent, a smaller male with the same coloring.

“If you don’t play a piece, I’ll do it for you.”

“Do you see this fist?”

“Yes. That’s why they call you tiny.”

I covered my mouth to hide my smile when the two young members of the White Tiger clan started wrestling in the outer courtyard. The bigger one eventually pinned the smaller one to the ground with an armlock, and the oldest of the clan members, who was standing next to me watching the commotion, shook his head and said, “I apologize. This is what happens when there are no females around.”

“I’m female.”

“I meant older females from the clan,” he corrected himself.

“Come to think of it, why are there no females here?”

“There’s a superstition that pregnant females will miscarry if they stay here too long.”

“What about those who aren’t pregnant?”

“… Some people believe the curse could cause them to become infertile.”

I didn’t comment since it was none of my business, but that seemed like bullshit to me. If there really was a curse of infertility here, then surely it would affect both males and females.

We watched as the two males who had been fighting made up and started playing connect four again.

“It’s alright. It’s nice to see everyone being energetic,” I said.

The presence of the clan members, who tended to arrive in the morning and leave on that same day, had made the house quite lively. For some reason, I had always thought that there were only a few people in the White Tiger clan. The last few days have proven me wrong since Fengying had shown me a list of all the people who were coming to observe. There were hundreds of names!

“Boys, come, finish your game. We have to leave before dark,” said the elder to his young charges.

“Yes, sir,” they chorused.

The smaller one took his revenge by winning the connect four game, then they all left after saying their goodbyes to us.

“You’re doing a wonderful thing here, and we're grateful to you,” said the elder.

“Yes, thank you for what you’re doing here,” said the one who had won the wrestling match.

The younger one simply bowed deeply to me and my apprentices.

When they had left, Lari said, “They all just come and go without doing anything.”

“Because they’re only here as observers. I don’t want them to do anything anyway. Would you like that Elder to give the orders here?” I said.

“No way!” he said.

“They’re just learning our methods. I heard half a dozen people started their own projects in different areas of the desert,” I said.

“They should at least pay us some gold…” said Lari.

“Do you need me to give you another lecture about tax credits?” I asked him.

“Shut up! You don’t want to get her started,” said Kharli to Lari.

I smiled. “When you’re an adult you’ll understand how important financial literacy is.”

The three of them groaned.

I was about to launch another lecture about money and accounting when a System popup appeared.

[Emergency Quest: Find the Lost Lizardwings

Lizardwings Found: 0/6

Countdown: 01 hour 59 minutes]

Nooooo! I thought it was strange that the eggs had hatched after three days, but I never would’ve thought that it was because of this quest.

Emergency quests were the worst. They took a lot of time, and the reward was probably not worth it. Most of this type of quest involved farm animals who were lost, sick, or injured, and the reward was simply a healthy animal and maybe a little Farming exp.

Of course, in the game, a player could simply ignore the quest and allow it to lapse, which killed the animal. The vast majority of the game’s livestock wasn’t worth much, after all. However, though ignoring the quest was fine in Adventure Incarnate since only pixels were involved, I felt it would be immoral to do that in real life.

“Wait. Something just happened. The [Lizardwings] need rescuing,” I said to my apprentices.

“Teacher, how do you know that?” asked Lari.

“I just know,” I said.

Kharli looked up at the sky. “Oh no. We’d better hurry because it’s getting dark.”

Ugh. I had a very bad feeling about this.

Chapter 83 - What was lost must be found

Chapter 83 - Without my map, I'd be direction-lost

🙞❤︎🙜

When we arrived at the [Lizardwing] pen, I saw that someone had left the gate a tiny bit open, which must have allowed the animals out of the walled area.

“Who did this? I think one of those clan boys forgot to close the gate,” said Lari.

I checked inside, and, sure enough, there were no [Lizardwings] to be seen.

“Okay, never mind who it was who forgot to close the gate. The important thing is that we have to find the [Lizardwings]. Let’s check for clues,” I said.

We went back outside the walls, and it was immediately clear that we should be able to find the animals by following the trail of their droppings.

“We could just follow the stink,” said Kharli.

“There’s no time to waste. Let’s go.” Without waiting for their answer, I set off to follow the clearest trail, gesturing for the kids to follow me.

“Shouldn’t we separate?” asked Kharli.

“She clearly doesn’t trust Lari not to get lost if he goes off on his own,” said Mo.

“What about you? You would probably roll all the way home,” said Lari.

“Hush, you two, we have serious stuff to do,” said Kharli.

“Guys, keep your eyes peeled, they could be nearby,” I said.

The kids chattered about this and that while I scanned the surroundings. After a few minutes of following the stinky droppings, I spotted a [Lizardwing] about ten meters ahead of us. I broke into a run, but the kids were faster. Kharli reached it first and put it in her inventory.

[Emergency Quest: Find the Lost Lizardwings

Lizardwings Found: 1/6

Countdown: 01 hour 31 minutes]

“Spread out a little and check the area for droppings. Don’t go too far,” I said.

It was already getting dark, and it was hard to spot the evidence that the [Lizardwings] left behind. Instead, I followed my nose.

“Here!” said Lari.

We went to where Lari was standing and saw that he had found a trail. We followed it and soon captured the second [Lizardwing].

[Emergency Quest: Find the Lost Lizardwings

Lizardwings Found: 2/6

Countdown: 01 hour 16 minutes]

“Good job, everyone!” I said. “Look around for the rest.”

Once again, it was Lari who found the trail.

“Well done. You’re good with animals,” I said.

“More like he has an affinity for stinky things,” Mo whispered to Kharli.

“Now, now, Mo. Don’t bully your fellow apprentice,” I said.

“Yes, Teacher. Sorry, Teacher,” said Mo.

Those three were always quarreling, and I mostly let them be since I figured it was just youthful hijinks, but we had a quest to finish right now, and I didn’t want them to be distracted by unnecessary things.

“Less talking, more looking,” I suggested.

We spent more than an hour finding the next two.

[Emergency Quest: Find the Lost Lizardwings

Lizardwings Found: 4/6

Countdown: 00 hour 09 minutes]

Just as I was at my wit's end, two black dots appeared in the sky. Moments later, two members of the White Tiger clan landed in front of us.

“We saw two of those… creatures nearby. Would you like us to show you where?” asked the elder of the two.

“Yes, please,” I said. “Do you mind if we run?”

With their help, we managed to find the [Lizardwings] on time. A series of System notification boxes popped up.

[Emergency Quest: Find the Lost Lizardwings

Lizardwings Found: 6/6

Countdown: 00 hour 01 minute]

[Emergency Quest Complete!]

[Choose Reward]

[1. Farming Exp]

[ 2. Astrology Book]

Oh, another one of those! Obviously, I picked [1. Farming Exp], and, as expected, my farming didn’t level up.

Once again, I got a bonus reward

[Congratulations! You have received a coupon for a beginner Astrology Book.]

The System was always generous with giving those coupons, which was nice though they weren’t really worth much since beginner [Astrology Books] were quite cheap.

We thanked our saviors, the clan members, and they went on their way. I suppose they were patrolling the place like the prince had done a few days ago. We often saw them flying around, but they seldom made contact with us.

“Thank goodness the people from the clan saw them,” said Mo.

“Yes, that was a lucky break,” I said.

“Huh, how do you know they weren’t the ones who let the [Lizardwings] out in the first place?” asked Lari.

“You’re too suspicious,” said Mo.

“Did you notice that they were covered in scratches?” asked Lari.

“They said they were trying to return the animals to the pen,” I said.

“Maybe.” Lari didn’t look convinced. “Even though they stink, these are valuable animals. Maybe we should set a guard over them.”

“No, we don’t need to do that. I’ll just adjust the settings.” I honestly didn’t think that the clan members had done anything wrong, but it wouldn’t hurt to add a few safeguards. It would be a pain if the [Lizardwings] escaped again. “But it’s dark now, and I think we should return to the house. Keep the [Lizardwings] in your inventories. I’ll fix the pen tomorrow.”

One of the reasons why I had sold the previous batch of [Lizardwings] was exactly because I didn’t want to be the sole owner of these valuable assets. The more people had them, the better, as far as I was concerned.

Besides, I was definitely selling them for a good price!

***

The next day, when we went to the [Lizardwing] habitat to return them to their rightful place, I changed the walls into transparent glass ones so that the observers could see inside, then adjusted the security settings. Now only I and my three apprentices could enter the walled-in area.

However, since we were leaving tomorrow, we would put them back in our inventory tonight.

“You know what this means, right?” I said to the kids. “After our vacation, we’ll have to take turns checking on them in the morning and evening.”

The three of them groaned. We had been relying on the clan members to keep an eye on the animals.

“No complaining. We have plenty of free time, anyway,” I said.

“Are we really going to the beach in winter?” asked Mo. She never really liked fishing, therefore she was less than enthusiastic about our upcoming vacation.

“Yes, and we need to go tomorrow since it might be too cold if we wait too long,” I said.

“Why are you complaining? Didn’t you say Teacher built a really awesome hotel there?” Kharli elbowed Mo. “Cheer up.”

“I hope the fishing is good,” said Lari.

All four of us were going this time, and Deming was excited at the thought of using the hotel’s industrial kitchen.

“I’m sure it will be fun!” I said.

Mo sidled up to me and whispered, “What about the swimming clothes?”

“Don’t worry about it.” I was definitely going to wear a proper swimsuit even if the people of this world disapproved. “Let’s go back to the house. It's almost dinner time.”

Back at the house, Fengying served us snacks after we showered and changed our stinky clothes. She informed me that Deming wanted to bring all of his assistants with us tomorrow.

“I told my husband of your… generous plan to give us a two-week vacation,” she said.

Had she been about to say “harebrained plan” or something like that? “He agreed, right?”

Fengying pursed her lips. “Yes, he plans to cook nonstop at the hotel so that he can make enough food for you and your apprentices.”

“Do you mean for two weeks that you’ll be gone? I appreciate it, but he doesn’t have to do that. We’ll survive,” I said.

The housekeeper and I had worked out a schedule that gave every member of the household a two-week vacation. We would be slightly short-staffed, but I felt that it was important that people could take a yearly break. On Earth, there were various cultures with different holiday traditions, like families holding a reunion dinner on New Year’s Eve. I wanted the maids and kitchen assistants to be able to visit their families, too.

“It’s hardly a challenge for him,” said Fengying. “Please don’t worry about it. You can store it and keep it fresh?”

“Yes, I can keep the food fresh,” I said. It would be great to have the Demon Chef’s food in stock whenever I needed it. “Thank you very much!”

“There’s no need to thank me. It’s our duty to take care of your needs,” said Fengying.

She bustled away, and I went to my room to check the System menu for exciting things that I could do at the beach.

Chapter 83.5

An excerpt from the journal of Shuye Skullcrusher, Guardian of the Ancient Hill Forest:

A year ago, if someone had told me that the clans would come to blows over rice, I would’ve thought they were crazy. I don’t think Baroness Violet realized the chaos that she unleashed when she gave me a portion of her harvest to donate to the Fox Temple or when Deming asked me to “take the rice to the temple to be blessed.”

There was an agreement in place that the White Tiger Clan would buy all of the rice from the farm and distribute it to the clans, but it did not account for donations.

The Fox clan, predictably, claimed the entire harvest of Purple Orchid Rice for themselves, on the basis that it was a special variety that was only supposed to be used in rituals for the Fox Goddess. However, I came to the meeting with them equipped with evidence from history records that Purple Orchid Rice used to be fairly common and was eaten by commoners and nobles alike.

When my wife told me to set a guard over the rice that we were storing until the clans reached a consensus regarding the correct course of action, I thought she was overreacting, but two days later a large group of warriors from the Fox clan arrived to confiscate it. They did not give up without a fight.

Has the whole world gone crazy?

Chapter 84 - Emerald Cove Vacation Part II

Chapter 84 - Es-grape to the Emerald Cove

🙞❤︎🙜

Less than twenty-four hours later, we were on our way to the Emerald Cove.

“Please stop opening the windows,” I said to Lari.

“Teacher, I just want to see outside,” he said.

“When you open the window, it negates the carriage’s stability settings,” I said as the entire vehicle rattled and the wind rushed in.

Kharli slapped his hand away from the window and closed it. “Don’t be a pain.”

“If you want to see outside, you can go ride in the cart with the others next time,” I said. Fengying, Deming, and the kitchen staff were following behind us in two flying ox carts.

“I’d like that,” said Lari.

Kids!

I guess a cart was more exciting, but the girls and I definitely preferred the carriage’s smooth and easy flight. For one thing, it didn’t mess up our hair.

Today I was dressed in a lovely deep violet set of robes with gold and silver embroidery. My hair had been piled on top of my head in a loose bun decorated with a Hibiscus flower. The maids had even offered to do my makeup, all because I was meeting with the prince today.

My apprentices were also dressed in their holiday best, elegantly embroidered silk robes and fine leather boots.

All of us had brought gloves, hooded capes, and warm vests since the weather had turned quite chilly.

“I think we’re about to land!” Kharli was extremely excited, probably because Mo had told her a lot about the amazing time we had at the hotel.

“I think you’re right. Traveling in the carriage is almost too good. I can barely feel anything,” I said.

Around fifteen minutes later, we felt a jolt as the carriage landed. The moment I opened the door, I was met with a strong gust of cold wind from the sea.

Kharli took a deep breath and smiled. “That’s what they call the scent of the ocean, right?”

We emerged from the carriage to step onto fine white sand. Behind this was a cliff covered with lush vegetation, while in front of us was the beach and a wide expanse of crystal clear waters. Like Kharli, I took deep breaths to enjoy the fresh air. Life at the grasslands was satisfying because we were doing something important, but it was so hot and dusty that it was a trial when we had to work outdoors.

“Now, this is the life!” I said. “Let’s walk up the cliff a little, I want to place the hotel before they arrive.”

The others obediently got their luggage from the carriage, with some help from the driver, and we all climbed up a winding path that led to a flat area where I immediately placed the [Sunset Radiance Resort], choosing the “simple” option.

In Adventure Incarnate, these Cash Shop resorts were simply items that one could buy to receive a special beach outfit. The animation when opening a simple [Sunset Radiance Resort] loot box showed a small, seaside cottage.

What appeared in front of me after the magic circle on the ground flash then disappeared was a picturesque wooden bungalow with white walls and red roof.

“That’s it? It’s a lot smaller than you said,” said Lari.

“Hush, this is just the first of many. Wait here.” I entered the tiny house and quickly checked if there was anything inside the bedroom closet, which I thought was the most logical place where I could get the beach outfit. Sure enough, I found a simple white cotton eyelet sundress there. I put it in my inventory and exited the house.

“Teacher, can we go in now?” asked Lari.

“No, this one is just a house. There’s nothing to see in there,” I said. “Just wait. I’ll tell you when I’m done.”

I choose the [Demolish] option in the [Build] tab then built the [Paradise Palms Resort] in the same place. This one had the look of a budget hotel, with a boxy rectangular shape, light-colored stucco walls, and a flat, low-pitched asphalt roof. I went inside and retrieved a rather risque-looking Rio Carnival costume. What this has to do with the beach, I had no idea.

In quick succession, I built the [Seaside Haven Resort], [Sandy Bay Resort], [Beachcomber's Hideaway], [Mermaid Hotel], and [Coastal Escape Cottage]. None of them appealed to me much. Thankfully, I hit the jackpot when I built the [Starlight Beach Resort].

It was a magnificent single story building that looked more like a wealthy family’s vacation home rather than a resort that was open to the public. The building’s exterior reminded me of Italian architecture with its use of marble and the symmetrical lines, clean shapes, and intricate detailing. Made of white stone, it had a terracotta-tiled roof interspersed with chimneys. It was a very stylish place that looked like it was the type that old money people frequented.

I turned to my disciples and asked them, “What do you think?”

“It’s okay,” said Kharli.

The other two shrugged though they didn’t look enthused.

“Let’s decide after we look at the interior, okay?” I said.

“Yes, I would also like to get out of the cold,” said Lari.

The grand arched doorway led into a stunning atrium that had a vaulted ceiling, marble columns, and intricate stucco work. The interior of the villa was lavishly furnished with the sort of timeless elegance and sophistication that only the best and most expensive resorts had. If it had been on earth, I figured that it was the kind of resort where one chair was worth thousands of dollars.

“I like it a lot!” I said. “Why don’t you guys look around while I check the bedrooms?”

Without waiting for their reply, I headed straight to the back of the building where I found eight bedrooms, all of them tastefully decorated. The main bedroom’s closet held a single white dress. And what a dress it was! It looked like something a Hollywood star from the 1950s would wear. The neckline was high and demure, and it had a fitted bodice and flowing skirt that had layers of fabric falling in soft, rippling folds. I locked the door and tried it on immediately.

Woohoo! I looked like Marilyn Monroe, except younger!

I twirled in front of the full length mirror in the dressing room, admiring the way the white dress floated around my body. Of course, it was far too daring for the people of this world. They would probably think it was a nightgown. I took it off and changed back into my old clothes, wondering if I would ever find an occasion to wear it.

I went back to the atrium where my three apprentices were waiting for me. “Do you like this one?”

The three of them exchanged glances. Kharli said, “Any place you choose would be fine, Teacher.”

“Okay, let’s try again,” I said.

We exited the resort, and I tried out a few more Cash Shop items until I found a place that all of us liked.

The [Majestic Oceanfront Sanctuary] was a large, three-story hotel with a cerulean façade accented with rich gold and bronze details. Inside, it had a grand lobby with marble floors, stunning gold and crystal chandeliers, floor-to-ceiling windows, and a roaring fireplace.

However, none of that was worth looking at compared to my absolutely thrilling discovery. I don’t know why it was there since the [Majestic Oceanfront Sanctuary] looked too high class for it, but it was there nonetheless.

“Yes!” I screamed out loud like an excited little girl and hugged the vending machine that I found in the corridor door leading to the bedrooms. “Guys, come quick! I found something!”

“What is it?” Lari peered at the inside of the machine. “What are those things inside?”

“Chips. Popcorn. Pretzels. Candy bars. Cookies. Instant noodles. Oh my gosh, it has sodas!” Ever since I had transmigrated into this world, I hadn’t been able to eat much junk food, and now that I saw the vending machine, I developed a real craving for it.

When I touched the coin slot, a System pop-up appeared asking if I wanted to buy vending machine coins. I selected the maximum amount.

“Okay, kids. Let me show you how to use this. Take a coin and put it inside this slot.” I demonstrated how to do it. “Then you’ll just have to press the button that’s under the item that you want to get. It will fall down to the bottom of the machine here.”

I put my hand inside the slot at the bottom of the machine and retrieved the bottle of soda that had an old-fashioned cork instead of a metal cap.

[Grimoire Grape

Grape-flavored soda.]

“Ah, it’s not cold. I’ll drink it later with some ice. Now you guys try.” I put the soda in my inventory.

“Me first,” said Lari. He fumbled with the coin slot for a bit before he got the hang of it, then he spent so much time deciding what to choose that Kharli got impatient and pressed the button for him.

“Stop pretending like you’re not going to choose the gold one!” She said as she chose the chocolate candy bar that was wrapped in white and gold paper.

Back on Earth, it would have been wrapped in foil and plastic, but here everything was wrapped in paper except for the soda bottles.

“Open it,” I said.

“Maybe I should keep it and sell it…” said Lari.

“Open it,” I said again.

This time, he tore the paper open and bit into the chocolate bar. “Delicious!”

“Madam Fengying said not to talk with your mouth full,” said Kharli.

“I’m next!” said Mo. She chose the largest item, the popcorn, and was very satisfied with the crunchy, salty snack when she poured a handful of it in her mouth. “So good.”

Kharli chose a soda bottle.

[Mermaid Mist

Soda with a citrus flavor and a hint of seawater.]

“Let’s go to the kitchen and find some ice after we empty this machine,” I suggested.

“We’re going to get all of the items?” asked Lari.

“Of course,” I said. “We’ll each take one of each type, then I’ll keep the rest.”

“Can I press all the buttons, please?” asked Mo.

“I want to put in all the coins,” said Lari.

“And I’ll take the items from the device!” said Kharli.

I gave them all of the coins, and left to check if the others had arrived yet. When I opened the door to the outside, I saw Prince Baiyu approaching from the air. In a few moments, he landed in front of me and embraced me.

“I’m sorry, I’m so sorry!” he said into my ear.

Chapter 85 - The Black Tortoise Clan

Chapter 85 - Fishing by Trawl and Error

🙞❤︎🙜

I pulled away from him and said, “What’s wrong?”

“I can’t stay. I have to leave.” He smoothed a stray strand of hair from my forehead.

“What? I thought you said you could stay for a few days. What happened?”

“There’s an emergency gathering, and…” He hugged me again. “I have to get treated for my qi overload.”

“Meetings again? Well, it’s good that your qi overload problem will be treated.” I hugged him back. Though I was disappointed, I wasn’t so selfish that I would tell him to stay with me instead of getting medical treatment.

“You don’t understand. The cure for my condition involves staying in my beast form for a long time. I’ll be staying in the Wildwood with my parents for two months.”

“What? Then that means we won’t be able to see each other for that long?”

“Yes.”

“When do you have to leave?”

“Right now.” He bent down and touched his forehead to mine. “I wish I could stay.”

“Me, too.”

Somewhere behind me, I heard someone cough.

“My prince, we have to go,” said a voice.

Prince Baiyu reluctantly let me go. “I’m sorry. I have to go. I only stopped on the way to the meeting because I wanted to tell you in person.”

“Goodbye, then. Get well soon,” I said.

He took my hand and kissed it then left.

This was the problem with having a wealthy, responsible, and highly ranked boyfriend. He was always busy with important matters.

***

The rest of my household arrived a little later. We went to the top of the cliff and I placed the [Sunset Radiance Resort] there again. Deming and his assistants immediately rushed off to check the kitchen. Fengying gave me one long look then turned to my apprentices.

“What’s wrong?” Fengying whispered to Kharli.

I could totally hear them.

“She’s extremely depressed because Prince Baiyu had to go to some meetings, and then he’s going on a trip with his parents,” said Kharli.

“What a pity,” said Fengying.

“Come, children, it’s almost noon. It’s time for us to go fishing!” I said. “Let’s change into our work clothes and meet at the beach.”

Since it was quite cold outside, using the old fishing method wouldn’t work. This time, we were going out on the fishing boat that we had hired for the day. Just a few moments ago, the boat had come into sight, which meant that it was time for us to go fishing.

A few minutes later, we arrived at the beach where a tall, statuesque brunette was waiting for us. She had gray eyes and pointed ears.

“There you are! Hello, I’m Ruolin of the Sea Otter clan,” she said.

I introduced myself and my apprentices. “Nice to meet you. I’m Violet and these are Lari, Kharli, and Mo.”

“Are you ready? Where’s your equipment?” she asked.

“We’re ready,” I said. “The equipment is in my soul space.”

“Then I’ll take you to the boat. Pardon me.” Ruolin scooped me up in her arms and flew off.

“Kyaa~” I screamed a little bit and clutched her shoulders, but it was over very quickly since the boat wasn’t far from the beach.

She put me down and I grabbed the railing for balance.

“Alrighty, I’ll go and get the others now.” And with that, she flew off.

I put one hand on my roiling stomach. Though I was more comfortable on land, I was no stranger to boats, having gone on many boating vacations with my parents back on Earth.

Looking around me, I saw that the wooden vessel was exactly as Shuye had described. Owned by a wealthy human merchant, it was medium-sized for a fishing and leisure boat and had a sleek hull and narrow bow that should allow it to gracefully glide through the water.

The pilothouse at the center of the boat had large windows that had been closed due to the cold weather. When Ruolin finished bringing my three apprentices aboard, she ushered us inside the pilothouse, which was well-appointed, with comfortable seating, and introduced us to the captain, a middle-aged human with a bushy beard and twinkling brown eyes.

“I’m under very strict orders to take care of you and make sure that you don’t freeze to death,” said Ruolin. “The pilothouse is heated, so when you’re feeling too cold, come inside and warm up.”

She pointed at the small galley area with a charcoal stove that provided a welcome warmth.

“Yes, thank you,” I said. “But I think it will be fine. The weather is cold, but not really freezing.”

“True, but take it easy.” Ruolin reached under the seats and pulled out a wooden chest. Inside were oil-treated cloth raincoats that she distributed to us. “Put these on. They're waterproof.”

We all thanked her, and I debated whether I should pull out something better from the Cash Shop, but I decided that the old-timey coats had their own charm.

“Teacher, are we going to use the net?” asked Mo.

“Yes, let’s go to the stern and I’ll show you.” I led them to the back of the boat, called the stern, and said, “Okay, we can only do this one at the time. I’ll go first. Go to the [Fishing] tab and choose [Other]. There should be an option for [Trawl Fishing]. That’s what you will choose when it’s your turn. For now, just watch me.”

When I chose [Trawl Fishing], a magic circle appeared below us, underneath the surface of the water. It glowed brightly for a few seconds before disappearing, leaving behind the trawl, a large conical net with a wide mouth that was closed at one end. The net was attached to the boat by two long wires.

A small blue screen appeared in front of me with the words [Stop Fishing] written on it.

“I can’t see!” complained Lari.

“There’s a net, what’s there to see?” asked Mo.

“Are there any sea monsters or spirit fish?” Kharli leaned over the water and was almost thrown overboard when the boat was rocked by a particularly strong wave.

“Let’s go further out to sea at a moderate pace,” I said to Ruolin.

She left to inform the pilot, and we watched as the net was dragged behind the boat. However, it was too far down for us to see whether it was capturing any sea creatures or not.

“That’s it? It seems easy,” said Mo.

“Yes, but your energy will be drained really fast,” I said. “It’s not like using a fishing rod.”

When my energy bar was almost empty, I hauled in the net using the System’s [Stop Fishing] button.

“Nice!” I said.

[6 Lobster] [1 Sea Turtle] [8 Tuna] [2 Manta Ray] [8 Swordfish] [3 Old Boots] [5 Sea Glass] [3 Caskets] [7 Seaweed] [2 Driftwood]

All the items inside the net were automatically placed inside my inventory. I took out the [Sea Turtle] and threw it back into the water.

“Goodbye, Mr. Turtle,” I said. “Stay safe!”

My three apprentices exchanged glances.

“Teacher, why did you release the turtle?” asked Kharli.

“I don’t know. I just like turtles,” I said. One of my classmates in grade school had a pet turtle, and ever since I made the acquaintance of Shelly, a diamondback terrapin, I’ve never been able to eat turtles. “So, who’s next?”

The question was, of course, rhetorical. Lari silently stepped forward and I moved to the side in order to give him the center spot at the stern. The same magic circle appeared beneath the waves, and disappeared after flashing white a few times. Once again, the conical net materialized behind and below us.

“Ah, my energy is draining so fast!” said Lari.

Ruolin coughed lightly and said, “Baroness, you're finished? Why don’t you go inside and warm up? I can watch over the others.”

“Thank you, but this won’t take long.” I had been able to fish for around an hour, but the kids had less energy than me, so I reckoned they would be done in around half an hour.

“Very well,” said Ruolin. She disappeared into the pilothouse and returned with a large bucket full of red rocks that radiated heat.

We all moved closer to the bucket and I crouched down to warm my hands over it.

“What’s this?” asked Mo.

“These are fire rocks from Ka’u volcano. I used my qi to heat them up,” said Ruolin.

The four of us thanked her for the heated rocks, and the kids and I sat down on the deck to relax. The sea wind was quite bracing, and I took out a scarf from my inventory and wrapped it around my neck and the lower half of my face.

Ruolin and I chatted a bit while Lari fished.

“I should get some fire rocks for my house,” I said. “Are they very rare?”

“They’re rare and expensive, but I’m sure you can afford it. Shall I send some to your house?”

“Please do. I’ll inform my housekeeper.”

“Fire rocks were a good find, but did you hear about the latest discovery in the Ka’u region?” asked Ruolin.

“No, what was it?”

“An ancient teleportation stone!”

“No way, aren’t those dangerous?” Adventure Incarnate had a teleportation network that could be accessed by people level 50 Farming and higher, but teleporting in a game was different from doing it in real life.

I mean, was it like a Star Trek teleport where people were dematerialized before being rematerialized in a different location? That sounded painful!

Ruolin seemed to agree with me. “Yes, it’s extremely dangerous. There’s a team of magic formation masters working on it, last I heard. I definitely wouldn’t want to be one of them.”

“Gosh.” I shuddered at the thought of being one of the first to test a teleportation stone.

Our conversation was cut short when Lari hauled in his net. He had caught plenty of fish despite the fact that he had only been able to finish half as long as I had.

[8 Lobster] [1 Sea Turtle] [9 Tuna] [3 Manta Ray] [8 Swordfish] [1 Old Boots] [3 Sea Glass] [2 Caskets] [5 Seaweed] [2 Driftwood]

“Well done!” I said.

By this time, however, we were all feeling too cold, so we went inside to warm up and keep a hot meal since it was close to lunchtime. The captain expertly cleaned, fileted, and diced the tuna we had just caught and marinated it in freshly squeezed lime juice. When he added sliced onions, chili peppers, salt, pepper, and oil, I realized that he was making a ceviche.

I wasn’t too fond of raw fish though and refused a serving, opting to eat the fish stew and rice instead.

The captain and his deckhand were quiet folk. I tried to ask them about life on the sea, but they responded in monosyllables, so I limited myself to complimenting them on the food and the cleanliness of the boat. Ruolin, on the other hand, proved to be quite a chatterbox.

“Is it true that you're living together with the prince?” she asked me.

“No, that’s not true,” I said.

“But they say he rushes home to you after every hunt,” she said.

“We’re…” I was going to say “dating,” but that wasn’t quite true. “It’s complicated.”

Mo and Kharli giggled while Lari just rolled his eyes.

I ate as fast as I could and then rushed the kids back outside. Kharli fished next and had a pretty decent catch.

[3 Lobster] [1 Sea Turtle] [5 Tuna] [1 Manta Ray] [3 Swordfish] [2 Old Boots] [6 Sea Glass] [5 Caskets] [3 Seaweed] [3 Driftwood]

Mo, on the other hand, didn’t do as well.

[1 Lobster] [0 Sea Turtle] [1 Tuna] [0 Manta Ray] [2 Swordfish] [10 Old Boots] [9 Sea Glass] [2 Caskets] [6 Seaweed] [5 Driftwood]

“Well, that’s it, we’re all out of energy,” I said. “Let’s go back to the hotel.”

“I didn’t know there was a hotel at the Emerald Cove,” said Ruolin.

“There is now. Would you like to join us?” I asked her.

“No, thank you, Baroness. We have a schedule to keep,” she said.

I gave the crew five of the tuna since I wanted them to have something good to eat on their way back home. The stuff that we caught was superior to ordinary fish, after all.

“That was fun, wasn’t it?” I asked my apprentices.

“Yes, but it didn’t give a lot of exp,” said Mo.

“I think the cost of hiring the ship was more than the cost of the fish we caught,” said Lari.

He wasn't wrong.

“Should we release the turtles we caught?” asked Kharli.

“Please do,” I said.

“Is that out of respect to the Black Tortoise clan? Because I don’t think they would care, ” said Ruolin.

“No, I just really like turtles,” I said.

Little did I know that today would give me a reputation for having a great deal of respect, or even reverence towards the Black Tortoise clan which would prove to be quite useful later.

Chapter 86 - Leveling up Cooking

Chapter 86 - Insert Pun Here

🙞❤︎🙜

We returned to the [Sunset Radiance Resort] in good spirits, and I handed over some of our catch to the Demon Chef and his assistants. Fengying told me that tonight we would be enjoying a steak and seafood dinner.

My apprentices were highly amused when I built and rebuilt the [Majestic Oceanfront Sanctuary] five more times just so we could have more vending machine items.

“I can’t help it if I love soda!” I said. “I’m going to my room to rest, you guys are free to do whatever you want today. See you at dinner.”

They went off to the [Sunset Radiance Resort] while I stayed at the [Majestic Oceanfront Sanctuary]. The privacy was very welcome, and I had fun playing around in the heated indoor swimming pool. It was quite large and was tiled in light-veined blue marble. Since I was alone and away from disapproving eyes, I could wear my swimsuit in peace and relax while drinking a grape soda.

After my swim, I went to a bedroom and took a nap. When I woke up, I put on a set of cornflower-blue robes and joined the rest of my household at the elegant cocktail lounge of the [Sunset Radiance Resort] where one of Deming’s assistants was serving snacks and non-alcoholic drinks.

“Mmm, this is good,” I said as I bit into a canapé. It was pate on a cracker and it tasted heavenly.

“Teacher, try the hot chocolate,” said Kharli. She handed me a mug.

“Oh, so you know about chocolate?” I asked.

“We know about it now! The chef says the hotel has a lot of great ingredients,” said Kharli.

“This is the best thing ever!” said Mo. “You can keep the sodas, I’ll have this instead.”

Lari was too busy stuffing his face to speak, but he nodded vigorously in agreement.

“Tomorrow, you can take the day off. Do whatever you want,” I said.

“There’s a forest nearby. I’m going foraging,” said Mo.

“Okay, just don’t be disappointed if there’s not a lot of stuff since it’s winter,” I said.

“Lari and I will go with her,” said Kharli. “She shouldn’t go off alone.”

“Okay,” I said. “I’ll stay in the other hotel.”

“Too bad the prince couldn’t come,” said Mo.

“Hey, stop it, you’ll make her cry,” said Kharli.

“I’m not going to cry,” I said.

“Yeah, why would Teacher cry over some man? I bet she could have a whole harem full of men if she wanted,” said Lari.

“Ew, you’re the only one who wants a harem.” Mo wrinkled her nose in disgust.

Lari smirked at her. “When I become a full-fledged farmer, all the girls will be lining up to be my concubine.”

“What? Can ordinary people have harems and concubines?” That was news to me.

“They can’t,” said Kharli.

“I’ll surely obtain a noble title. How does Duke Lari sound?” He struck a “noble” pose with his hand behind his back and his nose in the air.

“Teacher is a Baroness, you think you’ll get a higher title than her?!” Kharli gave him a disapproving look.

Mo covered her mouth with a hand and giggled. “No, Duke is a lower rank because Teacher will be a princess when she marries Prince Baiyu!”

“Enough, you guys are still kids, stop talking about marriage and harems. It’s weird,” I said. “Try these truffle cheese canapés, they’re great.”

“What is a ‘truffle’?” asked Mo.

“It’s a type of mushroom. You might find one when you forage,” I said.

“They’re cooking everything because Madam Fengying told us they tried to put the food ingredients in a crate to bring them home last time, but they disappeared when they passed through the hotel door,” said Kharli.

“I tried to take one of the silver statues, but I couldn’t put it in my inventory,” said Lari. “When I took it outside, it disappeared from my hand and reappeared in its original place.”

“Scary!” said Mo.

“But we can put the vending machine items in our inventory,” said Kharli.

“I think it's because we bought those,” said Mo. “The spirit of this hotel let us take it.”

“Wait, so they can’t take the food outside?” I frowned. “Hand me a canapé.”

I was able to put it in my inventory.

“We can put it in our inventory and take it outside when the ingredients are cooked,” said Kharli. “It’s like the bar of metal you showed us, Teacher. We can touch the things you made from it, but not the bar itself.”

“I think you need to be authorized by the spirit to do that.” said Lari. “I tried breaking a chair to make arrow shafts out of it, but the chair disappeared when it broke. Then it reappeared, and it was whole again.”

“No! How could you?!” said Mo. She tried to kick him with her foot, but he dodged. “Don’t do stuff like that, do you want us all to get cursed?”

Kharli sighed and put her body between the two. “Stop fighting.”

Kharli was like the middle child who was always trying to make peace while the other two bickered.

Lari’s experiment was interesting. I’d never even thought of trying to take any of the hotel’s items since I had plenty of stuff, but it was good to know that the items had a self-repairing function. Come to think of it, the stuff in the courtyard house never broke or malfunctioned. Was that because they fixed themselves whenever something went wrong?

The talk then turned more general, though they still teased me about the prince now and then, until it was time for us to go to the dining room. Fengying beamed proudly when we gasped audibly in awe at the silver utensils, crystal glasses, and gold plates. Instead of flowers, a ruby and emerald flower sculpture had been placed at the center of the table that was covered in a snow-white tablecloth.

“Wonderful, you’ve outdone yourself,” I said to my housekeeper.

“Thank you. Please sit, dinner will be served shortly,” she said.

The first dish was oysters grilled with garlic butter and topped with grated cheese. Oysters were not my favorite food, but they were fairly good. Next up was bacon-wrapped shrimp, which all four of us couldn’t get enough of. This was followed by chicken spring rolls served with a peanut sauce that was absolutely delightful. Then we had an artichoke soup with black truffle that was just sublime.

Then came the pièce de résistance: filet mignon with red wine sauce. It was served with mashed potatoes and asparagus. My three apprentices’ chatter subsided as they all fell silent to focus on the food. The next fifteen minutes were full of noises of admiration punctured by occasional exclamations like “mmm, it’s so good” or “I’m in heaven.”

Dessert was a chocolate lava cake that Lari devoured in three bites. The girls and I ate more daintily but with no less intensity.

When we were done eating, we gazed at each other like people who had just experienced a divine vision together. I even felt the urge to kneel down and pray to whichever god had made this meal possible.

“That was the best meal I’ve ever had in my entire life,” I said to Fengying when she and the chef’s assistants came to clear the table.

“I’ll give your compliments to the chef,” she said.

Nothing could top that dinner, so we all went to our bedrooms and retired for the night

***

The next day, perhaps inspired by the fabulous meal I had last night, I felt the urge to try out my new cooking level. The Emberstone quest had rewarded me with exp, so I was now level 5 in Cooking.

Deming was at the [Sunset Radiance Resort], which meant that I could use the industrial kitchen at the [Majestic Oceanfront Sanctuary]. It was huge and had two double ovens, which meant I could bake four items at a time.

The easiest thing I could make at my Cooking level was [Bread]. I took out a [Jug of Water] and [Flour] from my inventory and mixed them together in a [Bowl]. A blue screen appeared with several choices of what I could make: [Bread Dough], [Pizza Dough], and [Pastry Dough].

Of course, I knew that bread was normally not made of just flour and water. At the very least, salt should be added and things like butter, milk, eggs, sugar, etc. were commonly used in recipes. However, the System’s [Bread] used just two ingredients.

I picked [Bread] on the blue screen and poured the [Flour] into the bowl as instructed by the System text. Then I slowly poured the water from the jug into the bowl. To my surprise, the moment the first drop of liquid touched the [Flour], it started seething and didn’t stop until I finished pouring all the water on it. By the time I was done, the [Bread Dough] had been formed. I quickly put it on a baking tray and popped it into the oven using the temperature setting given by the System.

That was easy!

Whistling as I worked, I quickly made three more [Bread Doughs] and put them in the ovens to bake. While I waited for the loaves of bread to finish cooking, I amused myself by rereading the "Secrets of the Ruler’s Court." According to the book’s anonymous author, the Vermilion Bird Ruler’s court-in-exile was populated by a colorful host of characters whose political and love affairs were full of epic drama. There were marriages, divorces, cheating, bribery scandals, duels, brawls, and tons of litigation among the exiles.

After thirty minutes, I heard the chiming sound of the System’s notification.

[The bread has finished cooking.]

I opened the oven door, but my excitement was short-lived, since all I got for my efforts was a lump of coal-like burnt bread. The other three ovens yielded the same thing.

Nonetheless, I didn’t let this discourage me. I baked and baked and baked for five hours until it was noon, and I had to take a break for lunch. Unfortunately, all I got was a bunch of burnt food.

“Ugh, why does this happen?” I complained to my apprentices at lunch.

Kharli looked at the other two, who nodded at her. “Well, we didn’t want to say anything before, but we think you might have been cursed.”

Chapter 87 - Cursed Skill

Chapter 87 - Toast-sitively Awesome at Cooking Bread

🙞❤︎🙜

“Cursed? How? Why? And who would curse me?” I was confused by Kharli’s words.

“I don’t know, Teacher, have you stepped on any bread?” asked Kharli.

I took a sip of my lemon-lime soda. I was getting kind of addicted to the fizzy drinks already. “Stepped on bread? No, not that I remember. Why?”

“Because that could get you cursed by the kitchen gods,” said Mo.

“If you step on bread, you have to say ‘sorry’ nine times,” said Lari.

“No, I don’t think that’s it. Besides, I already had a cleansing ritual done at the Fox temple,” I said.

“The curse wouldn’t be by the Fox god, though. Maybe you accidentally dropped some food and didn’t pray for forgiveness from the kitchen gods? Have you ever thrown food away?” Kharli really seemed to think that I was cursed.

“Hmm.” In fact, I don’t believe that I had ever wasted food in this world, but back on Earth, it was pretty common to throw away leftovers, especially if it was just a bite or two.

“Teacher, why don’t you just try praying to the kitchen gods? They put up an altar in the kitchen,” said Kharli.

“Well, okay, I guess it wouldn’t hurt.”

I was skeptical about it, since anything that went wrong was considered a “curse” by the people of this world. For example, when a wound got infected, they called it a “cursed wound.” The world I was living in now seemed to be a very superstitious one indeed.

After lunch, I asked Fengying for help and she showed me the altar. She directed me to pray for the kitchen gods’ blessing and forgiveness for any offenses I might have made. When I finished doing that, I rushed over to the [Majestic Oceanfront Sanctuary] to check if the so-called curse had been removed.

I was just about to start baking when I heard a cough. To my surprise, Deming and his three assistants were at the door of the kitchen.

“Oh, hello. Do you need this kitchen, too? The supplies are that way.” I pointed at the doors to the larder and walk-in refrigerator.

Fengying appeared from behind them and said, “They’re here to watch.”

“Ah.” They were here to watch me make a fool of myself? I sighed. I guess that was fine. Maybe they could even help! “Okay.”

They walked over to the kitchen island and silently observed me pour water from a jug and into a bowl of [Flour]. The assistants made exclamations of surprise when they saw how the [Flour] and water combined themselves without any intervention from me. I did the same thing to seven more bowls that I had previously prepared. Then I popped four [Bread Doughs] into the two double ovens and said, “That’s it. Now I just wait.”

Deming nodded and turned to his assistants. Pointing to the bag of [Flour] I had left on the counter, he said, “Cursed flour, no grade.”

No grade? But all of my cooking ingredients were legendary grade! Of course, I already knew that the items from my inventory were all bound to me and, therefore, appeared “cursed” to other people, but surely the Demon Chef should be able to tell that they were the highest grade possible.

Seeing my shocked expression, Fengying explained it to me. “Cursed items are ‘no grade’ until they are uncursed.”

“Oh.” I guess that explained it.

While we waited for the [Bread] to finish baking, the Demon Chef and his assistants checked the refrigerator and larder to see if there was anything they wanted. Deming ordered them to take the best of the beef, pork, and seafood to the other resort.

The System notified me that the [Bread] was ready. Unfortunately, I could tell from the smell that at least one of them had burned. I opened the oven doors one by one, pouting at the lumps of coal-like items.

I failed again, but I didn’t let that stop me. I made four more [Bread Doughs] and tried again. This time, I didn’t bother to hang around waiting for it to finish baking. Instead, I put on a coat and went outside for a walk. I asked the chef and his assistants to not interfere and let me check the bread myself when I got back.

Though it was a cold winter day, the sun was shining, and the sea air was fresh and inviting. The sound of the waves crashing against the shore was almost hypnotic. As I headed towards the beach, I saw that my apprentices were waist-deep in the water.

I ran towards them and yelled, “Get out of there at once! It’s too cold,” as soon as I was within shouting distance.

“Teacher, look! We’re fishing!” Kharli yelled back.

When I was close enough, I saw that they were using nets, as Mo and I had done on our previous visit to the Emerald Cove. “Everyone, get out of the water! You’ll catch your death.”

The three of them emerged from the frigid waters, water dripping from their cotton robes and hair. They immediately started shivering and I was greatly alarmed to see that their lips had turned bluish. The cold winter wind made their teeth chatter, which made me worry that they would get sick from walking up the slope to the hotel while dripping wet.

I threw some blankets over them before hurrying them up the slope to where there was a bit of flat land big enough for me to place a large hot springs facility with separate male and female bathing areas.

“Quickly, go inside, take your clothes off, and heat your body up!” I said.

It would be a huge problem if they got a cold right now since the “curse” of the desert lands supposedly made illnesses much worse than normal. I’d have to stop working on [Greening the Desert] to bring them back to the forest to recuperate.

“Teacher, it’s not my fault. They made me do it,” said Mo.

“Hey, that’s because you boasted night and day about learning a secret ocean fishing technique,” said Kharli.

I rolled my eyes at that. Kids!

After a few minutes, their teeth stopped chattering, and I heaved a sigh of relief.

“How do you feel?” I asked them.

“Eh, we’re used to being cold,” said Kharli.

“Yeah, it was this cold when I was on laundry duty at the orphanage during the winter,” said Mo.

“Let me know right away if you feel sick,” I said.

I made them stay in the hot spring for half an hour. Thankfully, they all seemed fine.

“Whew, you guys scared me.” Suddenly, I remembered something. “Oh no, I forgot I was baking bread! Ahhh!”

I ran all the way to the kitchen, fearing the worst. When my three apprentices arrived, they exclaimed at the smell of burning bread.

“Ah, poor Teacher,” said Lari.

“It’s a curse,” said Kharli.

“Aw, that’s too bad,” said Mo.

Glumly, I opened the first oven door and retrieved the black burnt bread. The other two ovens yielded the same, but when I saw what was in the fourth oven, I could hardly believe my eyes.

“It’s… it’s not burned!” I took out the loaf tin, with the bread inside, and showed it to them. “Look.”

“Wow, you did it, Teacher!” said Lari.

“Congratulations,” said Kharli.

“May we try some?” asked Mo.

“Uh, I think it needs to cool first,” I said.

Deming and his assistants, who were silently watching, all nodded their heads in unison. To my surprise, they seemed to have settled down in this kitchen and had taken over all but one aisle to prep food. Pots and pans were bubbling away on the stoves with various types of stews, soups, sauces, and frying food. They got back to work while I sat on tall stools with my apprentices and discussed our future vacation plans while waiting for the bread to cool enough for us to eat.

The bread, still inside the tin, looked perfect. I poked it a little and it was satisfyingly springy.

“I hope it tastes good,” I said.

“I’m sure it will,” said Lari. “It smells nice.”

“Hmph, don’t try to distract me. You’re in for a huge scolding when I tell Fengying what you all did,” I said.

Deming, ever solicitous when it came to food, sent over one of his assistants to serve us a nice snack of hot tea and biscuits.

“Teacher, why don’t we show our catch to the chef?” suggested Kharli.

“Good idea!” I said.

The three of them put their offerings in buckets and showed them to Deming, who chose the ones he wanted and then gave the buckets back. By this time, of course, he was quite familiar with how our inventories worked and knew that we would be able to keep food fresher than the best refrigerator.

When they were done, they sat back down, and I said, “I think maybe we should cancel the trip to the Lake of Clear Ripples. I didn’t realize it would be this cold. We won’t be able to fish much.”

Kharli leaned over to Mo and whispered in a voice loud enough for all of us to hear, “You know, she wanted to camp outside in a flimsy tent, so she could have an excuse to share body heat with the Prince.”

Mo giggled and blushed charmingly. “Shh, we’re not supposed to know about that.”

“Hey! Don’t gossip about your own teacher,” I said to Kharli. “And for your information, I would’ve placed a heater inside the tent.”

Lari stopped devouring the biscuits long enough to say, “Why use a heater when you have the Prince?”

“Hush, stop it. Anyway, are we all agreed? We’ll cancel the lake trip,” I said.

They nodded.

“I guess I’ll just go to Hongzhen and Wukan then,” I said.

We were talking about the details when Fengying arrived with a letter from the Fox clan.

Chapter 88 - Cooking Success?

Chapter 88 - Too A-dough-rable

🙞❤︎🙜

“It’s an invitation to the ritual blessing of the Purple Orchid Rice. They’re going to offer it to the Fox goddess,” said Fengying.

“Not all of it, right?” I had only donated one-tenth of it to the Fox clan because I wanted to eat that rice.

“Yes, my lady. The ritual will be held two days from now,” said Fengying.

“Isn’t it a bit rude to only tell us about it now?”

“Your attendance is not mandatory, and the messenger said that it’s only a minor ritual, very informal,” said Fengying.

“Teacher, I want to go!” Lari burst out.

“I just bet you do,” said Kharli.

What was that?

In answer to my inquiring look, Kharli explained, “We once saw some members of the Fox clan when we were on an errand in the city. Lari was practically drooling.”

“Oh my,” I said. “That’s kind of understandable, but don’t actually drool, okay? Play it cool.”

“Then we can go?” Lari’s eyes were practically sparkling with eagerness.

“Yes.” Why not? It sounded like it would be interesting.

“My lady, the messenger is waiting to see you. He asked for some time to refresh himself so I showed him to a suite,” said Fengying.

“Oh, I have to dress up a little,” I said.

“Not at all, I’m sure what you’re wearing is fine since it’s only a messenger,” said Fengying.

“Great. Then please let me know when the messenger is ready.” I wondered what he had to say.

“Teacher, I think the [Bread] is cool enough now,” said Kharli.

She was right. Deming and the others casually walked over to where we were and watched as I cut slices from the loaf. I offered the first one to Deming.

He took a bite and slowly chewed it while we all waited with bated breath for his evaluation. I lost heart when I saw the expression on his face change. For a moment there, I thought he might spit it out. Thankfully, he swallowed it.

“Edible,” was the only thing he said before going back to work prepping more food with his assistants.

“It can’t be that bad,” said Lari as he reached for a slice.

“No, wait,” I said.

Taking out some butter and Deming’s homemade blueberry jam from my inventory, I spread them both on five slices. I offered them to Fengying on the others before biting down on one myself.

Mmm, it was pretty good! The [Bread] tasted like ordinary supermarket bread back on Earth. These days, we had all gotten used to Deming’s heavenly food, so it suffered by comparison, but the taste really wasn’t bad.

“It’s nice,” said Lari.

“I like it,” said Kharli.

“I'm glad the curse is gone,” said Mo.

“Me, too. It’s a relief to know I can cook now,” I said. “But I think I’ll still focus more on Herblaw and crafting.”

Fengying ate the jam bread and then left to check on the messenger. Despite her words, I felt a little nervous and went to a bedroom to change into a better outfit and brush my windblown hair. The kids did the same. A few minutes later, Fengying ushered a tall, broad-shouldered member of the Fox clan into the reception room of the hotel's grandest suite.

“Lady Hoshi, the titular head of the Fox clan, sends her greetings to Baroness Violet,” said the red-haired man. He had bright green eyes and was dressed in black silk robes with the Fox clan’s emblem embroidered on the sleeves.

I and my three apprentices exchanged bows and greetings with the handsome messenger.

“I understand you have a message from Lady Hoshi? Something that’s not in the invitation letter?” I asked.

He hesitated. “Ah, well, you know Lady Hoshi is quite young… this is a personal message from her, not a message from the head of the Fox clan.”

From the look on his face, I could tell that it was something outrageous. “Is it about marriage?”

“You expected it?!” He looked quite shocked.

“Hahaha, it’s okay, just tell me the message, please,” I said.

“Ah, she insisted that I tell you her exact words which were, ‘Why haven’t you married that ugly? If you’re not marrying him, then you should marry me.’ Lady Hoshi told me to ask for a reply.” The messenger looked at me expectantly.

“A marriage proposal!” I said. “How thrilling!”

“And your reply, Baroness?”

“I’m afraid I must refuse since Lady Hoshi isn’t of age.”

“I shall convey your words to her.”

Then, to my surprise, Fengying gave him an ornate carved wooden box decorated with mother-of-pearl as a gift to the head of the Fox clan. After spouting a few more courtesies, the messenger left.

“What was in the box?” I asked Fengying.

“A Dewy Glow potion. The Fox clan is very fond of cosmetics and beauty treatments.”

“I see. Here’s a few more in case you need it later.” I took out a box full of [Dewy Glow Potions], but she waved it away.

“My lady, did you forget that you put a large box of them in the hot spring at home? I don’t need more,” said Fengying.

“Oh, right, I forgot about that.” I had placed the potions there for convenience since we found out that they were great when added to the bath water. “By the way, you like the potion?”

“It’s very effective,” said Fengying. “All my friends back in the city told me that I look ten years younger.”

“Wow.” I hadn’t noticed it myself, but now that I looked more closely at her, I thought her skin was a lot dewier and smoother than before, especially around the eyes.

“Teacher, why did you refuse the marriage proposal?” asked Lari.

“Because she already has the Prince!” said Kharli.

“She could have at least thought about it,” said Lari.

“No, no, that’s impossible. She’s far too young, you see. By the time she’s an adult, I’ll be fifty years old.” Besides, she was probably just joking.

“Oh, because of the difference in lifespans? That’s too bad,” said Lari.

“I’m not one hundred percent sure, but I believe that’s how it works.” I looked to Fenying for confirmation.

“Yes, clan members generally live for around three hundred years. Humans have a maximum lifespan of only one hundred years or thereabouts,” said Fengying.

“Um, wouldn’t the difference in lifespans make marriage between them impossible?” I asked.

“Noooo,” said Kharli.

“It’s fine,” said Fengying. “Though clan members live longer, they mature slower, so the lifespans are compatible enough.”

“How so?” I was confused.

“You see, clan members take at least a hundred years to be considered adults. They are at their prime for one hundred years after that then start to decline in their last one hundred years.”

“Hmmm.” So Prince Baiyu was over a hundred years old? Gosh.

“If a clan member marries a human and all goes well, they will be together for the bulk of their adult life.”

“Eh, but they would be alone in their old age?” That didn’t sound good at all.

Fengying shrugged. “It’s not that different from a marriage between humans. After all, plenty of humans die before they reach old age.”

“Hmm.” That was something to think about.

“I heard humans who marry into the White Tiger clan live longer and stay young until they die!” said Lari. “I want to marry a girl from the White Tiger clan.”

“Is that true?” I asked Fengying. “Wait, what about human cultivators? Don’t they live longer than one hundred years?”

“I think that’s just a myth or something very rare. As for cultivators…” She shrugged. “They might. They live apart from us regular humans, so we don’t know much about them.”

“Teacher, will we live longer because of your bloodline inheritance?” asked Mo.

“I have no idea,” I said.

We discussed it a little bit more, but I truly had no idea what effect the System would have on our lifespans. Players were pretty much immortal in Adventure Incarnate, and the farm hands in the game didn’t die, but I didn’t really think that the three of us were that much different from humans.

The three kids wanted to go off and do a little foraging, but I told them to stay inside the hotel where it was warm since I was still afraid they might have caught a cold earlier. I showed them how to use the old-fashioned pinball machine and air hockey table in the hotel’s lounge area, and we spent the rest of the day playing.

The rest of our vacation passed pleasantly, and we left two days later to go to the forest temple where the Fox clan’s ritual was to be held.

We alighted from the carriage to find two white-clad priestesses welcoming us to the temple grounds.

“This way, please. Follow the signs.” They showed us the entrance to the forest path. “There are fox statues along the way. Please cleanse your hands and bow to each.”

The two of them walked us over to a waist-high stone statue of a fox and showed us how to dip the tips of our fingers in the water bowl in front of it and bow our heads to it as a sign of respect. I was glad that we didn’t have to kowtow since we were all dressed in fine silk robes. I was wearing a purple set while Kharli and Mo had chosen blue robes. Lari, despite our protests, insisted on wearing gold robes again. Since it was quite cold, we had on fur-lined boots and fur coats.

“Thank you,” I said to the priestesses.

We all bowed to them and went on our way.

This time of the year, the trees had lost their leaves and their bare branches swayed gently in the wind.

I fancied that the four of us made a nice sight as we walked together. The kids had grown taller since they left the orphanage and the two girls’ figures were developing nicely. Lari, on the other hand, had become a little thinner compared to when I first saw him.

We chatted merrily about this and that, and I even teased Lari a little about how his eyes had almost popped out of their sockets when he saw that the priestesses were wearing short skirts that ended slightly below their knees.

“Hahaha, wait until you see Lady Hoshi’s attendant,” I said.

“Don’t faint, okay?” said Mo.

“I’m not gonna faint!” Lari, who was walking in front of us, turned around to respond to our teasing and tripped on something. “Ahh! My golden cloak!”

Lari frantically brushed the dust from his cloak.

“How clumsy! Now your hair’s a mess,” said Kharli as she helped him tidy his clothes.

“Be careful and don’t trip over your own feet,” said Mo.

“I didn’t! There’s something here, look.” Lari bent down and brushed some dead leaves away, revealing a stone surface.

“What is that?” Kharli used her foot to clear a bit more of the surface.

“Oh, is this part of the path paved?” I walked over to take a look at it. The moment my right foot touched the stone, a bright blue magic circle appeared. Realizing what was happening, I whirled and pushed Kharli and Lari out of the circle. When I tried to jump off the teleportation stone, I found that my foot was stuck to it.

“Teacher, what’s happening?”

“What is it?”

“Are you okay?”

The three of them reached for me and tried to pull me out, but it was no use. The magic circle’s glow intensified until I had to close my eyes. When I opened them, I found myself in a place that I knew well.

I was in one of the worst places I could have been teleported to, the demon-infested Southerlands. Though I wanted to scream in frustration, I kept my mouth shut since the last thing I wanted was to draw the demons’ attention to myself. I detached Mr. Bear from my hairpin and activated his [Guard Mode].

Chapter 89 - Fighting demons in the badlands

Chapter 89 - Demon Rat-termination

🙞❤︎🙜

The first thing I did was to try to teleport back to the Fox temple. Unfortunately, no matter how many times I ordered it mentally to [Activate] or [Teleport], the teleportation stone remained inert. I even said the words out loud, to no effect.

Why had I been teleported here? I had no idea how or why it had happened. Had someone from the Fox clan set me up? But no, the stone in the path had been covered in leaves and dirt. It didn’t look like it had been placed there recently. Perhaps it was simply an old, forgotten relic that I had accidentally triggered by stepping on it?

“Mr. Bear, why am I so unlucky?” I said to my only companion.

I gave up on the teleportation stone and looked around me. I was in a large clearing in the middle of a tropical jungle. Here, unlike the desert in the Westerlands, the leaves of the towering trees were a vivid green. Even from where I was standing, I could see that the rainforest floor was thick with vegetation. Vines, shrubs, and ferns grew in wild profusion beneath the broad-leafed tropical trees. The air was humid, and though I had only just teleported in, my head already felt hot from the heat of the sun. The sky was a clear blue with a few fluffy white clouds scattered here and there.

Turning on the System’s minimap, I confirmed my fears. I was right smack in the middle of the badlands. I knew this place well from when I used to play Adventure Incarnate since it was the location of the main teleportation stone. This was an area that high-level players used to train combat due to the large number of demons nearby.

Thank goodness the kids hadn’t been teleported with me. They would’ve been demon food for sure.

Come to think of it, why had the teleportation stone been in the Fox clan’s temple grounds? The ones in the game had been located in important areas.

Well, that was something to investigate later. Right now, what was important was my immediate safety. I turned on the expanded map to plan my next move. After some thinking, I came to the conclusion that I had three options.

One, I could simply stay here at the stone to wait for someone to teleport in. My apprentices would no doubt tell the Fox clan what had happened, and it was possible that someone from the Fox clan knew how the stone worked. However, there was no guarantee that help was coming since the teleportation stone looked like it was inactive and ancient. In addition, I couldn’t wait for long since I couldn’t build a proper shelter here in a place where demons were known to frequent.

Two, I could act like a total chad and fight my way back to the Westerlands. That would be the pro player move. I reckoned this was what GodIam would do if he was the one stuck here.

Three, I could find a safe place, build a shelter there, and level up until I was strong enough to make my way back to civilization.

“It’s just you and me, Mr. Bear,” I said to my faithful puppet.

I decided to give Plan One a chance. I pitched a tent and changed into my most comfortable summer pants and robe since it was quite hot and humid here in the Southerlands. Tying my hair back in a ponytail and then twisting the hair up into a bun, I made myself ready for combat. If I had to stay here longer, I would definitely have to cut my hair. When I was done, I put away the tent since it would block my view of the surroundings.

It wouldn’t be good to be unprepared for an attack, so I put on leather armor over my clothes. The leather vest went over my chest and back, and I pulled the leather chaps over my cotton pants. This newbie ranger gear offered a bit of protection.

Recently, I had been quite busy with the farm and quests, so I hadn’t had the chance to level up my combat skills.

[Violet

Level 1

HP: 100/100

MP: 35/35

Strength: 1/99

Attack: 1/99

Archery: 3/99

Magic: 3/99]

However, I had practiced on training dummies quite a lot. Taking out a simple [Wooden Shortbow] and [Iron Arrows] from my inventory, I shot a few trees to test my aim.

[Archery Skills:

Piercing Shot

Rapid Fire

Escape]

My skills would be of great help. [Piercing Shot] was still the easiest skill for me to use.

[Piercing Shot:

Imbue the arrow with your energy, allowing it to pierce through enemies. The shot is incredibly powerful, and can often take down multiple foes with a single arrow.

Cooldown: 5 seconds]

However, now that I was in the demon’s land, I should probably practice [Rapid Fire] more since it was almost certain that I would be attacked by more than one enemy at a time.

[Rapid Fire:

Fire a rapid succession of five arrows. This ability is great for taking down multiple targets quickly, or for taking down a single target with a lot of arrows.

Cooldown: 5 seconds]

I had never used [Escape] in combat before, but it could prove to be quite useful indeed.

[Escape:

Enter a state of heightened awareness and move ten feet in any direction. Time seems to slow, and the player has increased movement speed and agility, allowing the player to quickly move away from enemies or hazards.

Cooldown: 30 seconds]

I spread a picnic blanket on the ground and sat down to rest and drink some water while I waited for someone, anyone, to appear.

A few minutes later, Mr. Bear alerted me with a popup that a [Dire Rat] was approaching.

[Dire Rat:

Monstrous giant rodents with sharp claws and fangs. Their muscular bodies are covered in thick, wiry gray or brown fur. They are agile and quick, well able to dodge most slow attacks but have relatively low defense.]

Oh, shit, why did it have to be a [Dire Rat]? The game art depicted them as big, ugly, dirty red-eyed demons. Fortunately, their Battle Rating was low.

[Battle Rating:

A number that represents that character's overall power and fighting ability. The higher the BR, the stronger the character is. The BR is determined by a variety of factors, such as the character's stats, equipment, puppet, bonuses, and abilities.]

When it came into sight, bursting from behind a tall banyan tree, the Combat Screen appeared, showing the [Dire Rat’s] and my BR along with the Action Bar that I could use to trigger my skills.

[Dire Rat:

Type: Melee
Element: None

BR: 31]

[Violet

Level 1

HP: 100/100

BR: 26]

With practiced ease, I notched an arrow and raised my bow, taking careful aim before shooting at my target using [Piercing Shot]. Mr. Bear was a magic-type puppet so I had him cast [Fireball] on the [Dire Rat]. After getting hit by the magic spell, the rat’s HP bar went down by a quarter, and it stopped in its tracks for a few seconds as though trying to decide whether to flee or not.

My arrow hit it with a loud thunk, sinking into its side. The red HP bar above the rodent was cut in half. Mr. Bear’s next [Fireball] hit it right on the face and then I hit it with another arrow using a normal attack as fast as I could. Without the power of a skill behind it, my arrow only did half as much damage as before. The demon’s eyes glowed red and it ran towards us again. The [Dire Rat] was only three meters away when I managed to hit it with a third arrow, killing it.

In the game, when demons were killed, they left behind a few gold coins and various body parts or loot such as [Dire Rat Fang] or [Dire Rat Fur]. The reality was much less kind since the demon left behind its corpse. I sent my puppet to collect its body because I didn’t want to go near the dirty thing. Who knew what kind of diseases it carried?

Mr. Bear only had two inventory slots as well as a coin pouch, so I transferred the remains from my puppet’s inventory to mine.

I grimaced when I noticed that there was some blood left on the ground where it had died. I hoped that wouldn’t attract more demons.

The adrenaline from the fight made me feel shaky and nervous. I paced the clearing for a long time, on the lookout for more enemies.

When nothing happened after almost an hour, I got a large patio umbrella chair from my inventory and sat down to relax a bit. I was hydrating myself by sipping from a [Bowl of Water] when the next [Dire Rat] appeared. Mr. Bear and I made short work of it as well as the other three that attacked later.

It was almost noon when a pair of demon rats appeared. My heart beat faster as I sprang from the chair. Could we handle two of them at once?

This time, I took a chance on using [Rapid Fire]. Alas, only two of the five arrows I shot hit their mark. They were almost upon us when I hurriedly switched combat styles from Archery to Melee.

At my level, I could only wear [Iron Plate Armor] that covered my body from head to toe, but even this low-level equipment offered more protection than the leather archery gear. Though I had never cut anything with my [Iron Sword] but a training dummy, I had no time to worry about that when the nearest [Dire Rat] came within striking distance.

[Sword Skills:

Thrust

Slash

Blade Flurry]

This was no time for half-measures. Before I knew it, I had activated my strongest melee skill.

[Blade Flurry:

Slash the enemy with a flurry of quick and powerful strikes. This ability is often used as a finishing move, as it can deal a large amount of damage in a short period of time.

Cooldown: 30 seconds]

Dashing forward, I slashed diagonally at the enemy. My blade flashed blue and cut the side of the rat’s neck. Another diagonal slash cut its face, followed by a horizontal slash that nearly decapitated it. The last stroke of my [Blade Flurry] was a vertical slash that finished it off, cutting it in half completely.

Wow! Those training sessions were finally paying off!

All this took only a few seconds, and by the time I was finished, the other demon, whose HP bar had been slightly reduced by Mr. Bear’s spells, was upon me.

I stepped back a pace to get some distance between us before I swung my sword down in a mighty slash.

[Slash:

Swing an energy-infused sword in a powerful arc, dealing damage to an enemy. This ability has a small chance to knock back or stun the target.

Cooldown: 5 seconds]

Mr. Bear half-blinded it with a [Fireball] to the eyes, making its HP bar go down by a third. Then I lunged forward to pierce it with my weapon.

[Thrust:

Lunge forward with the mana-infused sword, dealing damage to an enemy. This ability can break through enemy shields or armor, dealing a large amount of damage.

Cooldown: 5 seconds]

The [Thrust] reduced its HP to less than half, but the [Dire Rat] struck at me with its claws, making a deep gash on the side of my armor. I sprang back out of the way as Mr. Bear hit it with another spell. The demon had enough and turned to flee.

By this time I was breathing hard and feeling a little nauseous, but I managed one more [Slash] that hit it squarely on its side. Its HP bar was emptied and it fell at my feet, a horrible mass of stinking fur, thick red blood, and fetid entrails.

I staggered away from it and puked my guts out.

“Ugh, this is the worst,” I said to Mr. Bear as I peeled off my armor and examined the jagged cut on my side. Thankfully, it wasn’t very deep. However, wounds made by animal claws were bound to become infected unless I cleaned them.

Taking out three buckets of water from my inventory, I washed the cut as best as I could then poured an [Antipoison Potion] over it. Then I spread the [Tiger’s Ten Thousand Golden Herb Balm] on the wound.

I looked at the System’s clock and saw that it wasn’t even noon yet.

This was definitely not good. Right then and there, I decided to flee and find a safer place.

Chapter 90 - I never forget to use my item cheat

Chapter 90 - Spelunking Rocks!

🙞❤︎🙜

In case someone teleported in to rescue me, I used a chisel from my System toolbelt to carve a simple message on the stone: Violet West Mines.

Player items disappeared after a while if they were placed anywhere that wasn’t their farm. Therefore, I took out three of the robes that I had bought from Hongzhen town and cut them into strips. Then I used the ink and brush from the Scholar costume set to write the same message on the cloth.

There was no time to lose. Nighttime would no doubt bring even more demons to this area, since they were nocturnal.

I put Mr. Bear in [Travel Mode]. My puppet enlarged until he was three times as tall as I was. Mentally directing him to kneel, I climbed on his shoulders. We looked totally ridiculous, like a parent carrying his child on his shoulders, which is why I had never used this method of traveling before, but right now I didn’t care. Using both hands to hold on to Mr. Bear’s head, I was able to keep my balance when he stood up and levitated two feet off the ground. I kept the System minimap active as he flew us west of the teleportation stone.

The Mines were officially called the Chitinous Caverns, but everybody called it “The Mines” since it was where all the players went to level up their Mining skill. The other mines were more accessible and the Island Mine was way more profitable, yet when someone said “the mine” without any adjective, everyone knew that they were talking about the Chitinous Caverns.

Thankfully, the mine was very near to my current location.

I took a circuitous way, avoiding all the enemies that showed up as red dots on the minimap. Once, we were caught between a [Dire Rat] and a [Demon Spider]. I immediately used my [Escape] skill to move towards the [Dire Rat], which was a lot less dangerous compared to the spider. Three arrows and two [Fireballs] were all it took to take down the rodent, and we gave the [Demon Spider] a wide berth after that.

Along the way, I tied the strips of cloth to the branches of the trees that we passed by. The ink would probably wash out soon, but the cloth itself should serve as a good enough marker of where I was going, though I had no idea if anyone would be looking for me in this place.

Three hours later, I gave a whoop as our destination came into sight. Though all I could see with the naked eye was the side of a mountain covered in vines, the System map labeled it as the Chitinous Caverns.

Mr. Bear knelt down, and I hopped off to find the entrance. A little to the right of me, I saw a few vines fluttering as though they were being blown outwards by a wind from the inside of the mountain. Sure enough, when I used my machete to cut away some vines, I found the entrance to the tunnels there.

Yes! I wouldn’t have to stay outside during the night when all the most dangerous demons roamed the Southerlands.

I cut away a lot more vines and then used a larger chisel to carve “Violet is inside” beside the cave entrance. To make it stand out more, I splashed it with red ink. I also tied a dozen strips of cloth to the nearest trees.

By the time I was finished, it was already late afternoon.

“Don’t worry, Mr. Bear, I have a plan, and it’s a good one.” Saying it out loud, even just to my puppet, made me feel better.

Adventure Incarnate players normally descended through all ninety-nine mine levels very cautiously, but there were a few things that made the journey easier. Navigating to the System’s Crafting tab, I made a [Staircase] using ninety-nine pieces of [Stone]. Then I made eight more, since there was a safe space every ten levels.

My plan was to use [Staircases] all the way down to the lower levels of the Mines where I could level up in safety.

I equipped a [Halo Ring]. Wearing [Iron Plate Armor] and with my [Iron Sword] in hand, I slowly and cautiously made my way into the tunnel with Mr. Bear beside me.

The ring cast a gentle yellow sphere of light, illuminating my surroundings. The ground was strewn with rocks and the walls were jagged and rough. Taking a deep breath, I found that the air was heavy and damp, smelling of earth and mold. I expected it to be quiet, but I could hear the chittering of insects from further inside the tunnel.

When I tried to use a [Staircase] from my inventory, a ladder icon with a red X on it appeared on the ground. The X meant that it wasn’t usable here. I guessed that I needed to go further inside. However, my way was soon blocked by a large gray boulder.

Wow, it was time for me to experience mining for the first time in this world!

Since I was only level 1, it took me six swings of my pickax to reduce the boulder to nothing. One piece of [Stone] was automatically added to my inventory.

Once again, I tested the ground to see if it was now ready for the [Staircase]. To my surprise, it was!

A solid stone staircase opened up in front of me with a loud grinding noise. I quickly dashed down it and placed another [Staircase] as soon as I hit the bottom. I repeated that seven more times until I finally reached level 10 of the mine.

Yes! I did a little dance when I found myself in a large chamber, with its walls and floors covered in rough stone tiles. At the northeast corner was a ladder leading to the level above me, while a ladder in the southwest corner led to the level below. There was even a large golden treasure chest right in the middle of the room, just like in the game.

I was about to open the chest, when a scary thought struck me. What was an unopened treasure chest doing here? Wasn’t this quite suspicious? Could it be a [Mimic]?

Discretion was the better part of valor, so I sent Mr. Bear to check it out first. When he was able to push the top open, I approached and saw that there was a large amethyst inside the chest. The gem was as big as my fist, and its many facets reflected the light cast by my [Halo Ring]. Of course, given my eye color and name, I was particularly fond of amethysts, so I put it in with the rest. Now I had one stack of 2,147,483,647 amethysts and a single amethyst in another inventory slot.

This was exactly why I hadn’t bothered to do any Mining. There was nothing here that I needed that I didn’t already have.

I pushed the treasure chest to a corner of the room and set up a large tent. This was supposed to be a safe level, but I put Mr. Bear in [Guard Mode] anyway.

As I ate my dinner, courtesy of the Demon Chef who had prepared two weeks’ worth of food for the four of us while he was on vacation, I planned my next move.

The monsters inside the mine became stronger the lower the level. The enemies in levels 1 to 9 were probably weaker than the [Dire Rats] I had fought.

It was the common wisdom in Adventure incarnate to stay on a certain level until one was able to kill enemies with one blow/arrow/spell. Though I really wanted to level up fast, I shouldn’t be impatient. I resolved to stay on level 11 until I leveled up enough that I could kill a monster in one blow.

Chapter 90.5 - Search for the missing farmer

An excerpt from the journal of Shuye Skullcrusher, Guardian of the Ancient Hill Forest:

Just when the Purple Orchid Rice contretemps was smoothed over, I received word from the Fox Clan that Baroness Violet had disappeared.

The investigation was turned over to the appropriate authorities and word was immediately sent out to all the clans to search for our missing farmer. I personally combed every inch of the Ancient Hill Forest, but found nothing. Since it was an emergency, I ignored the taboo about going to the Cursed Lands in order to take custody of Baroness Violet’s household.

A few days later, the experts who had been researching the ancient teleportation stone at Ka’u turned over their findings about the artifact found at the Fox Clan’s territory. Their report stated that the artifact was of unknown origin, and they could not figure out how it worked. It is currently inactive. They couldn’t even guarantee that it was a teleportation artifact.

Based on the testimonies of Baroness Violet’s apprentices, only she was affected, and all they saw was her disappearance. She might have been teleported, or…

Vaporized.

A few clan elders have even started arguing about what to do with the assets she left behind.

I hope that we can find out what happened before Prince Baiyu returns from his retreat. There was some debate about whether or not someone should be sent to the Wildwood to inform the Lady about what happened, but the elders deemed the matter to be less important than Prince Baiyu’s health. Besides, given the absence of any clues regarding Baroness Violet’s fate, there was truly no point in disturbing him, as there was nothing he could do.

I personally believe that Baroness Violet is alive based on the fact that her apprentices are still able to use the part of her bloodline inheritance that she had shared with them.

Chapter 91 - Mining at the Chitinous Caverns

Chapter 91 - The Un-beetle-able Violet

🙞❤︎🙜

I woke up feeling surprisingly refreshed, even though I had slept on a sleeping bag that offered scant protection from the cold, hard tiles that made up the floor of this level.

My wound had healed overnight and didn’t even leave a scar. That was a welcome development, but it was also exceedingly strange. When had I gotten an enhanced healing skill? Was it because a player’s health bar always refilled the next day?

I banished these thoughts from my head and concentrated on my current predicament.

Since I would be spending a lot of time here, I decided to spruce up the place a bit. I hung fairy lights all over the walls and put tiki torches in the corners. The lights definitely made the place look a lot more cheerful. Unfortunately, the room was too small for me to place an actual house, so I just added a colorful tent to serve as my bedroom. Then, seeing as I was in the Southerlands, I added a red terracotta statue of the Vermilion Bird.

Perhaps it will bring me luck.

Normally, one could only place decorations and such around one’s farm, but the safe levels in the mines were special since they had been built by the Vermilion Bird clan as a public shelter, which meant that I, and anyone else who came here, had permission to make myself at home.

I would do just fine here. I was even able to place an outhouse.

The only thing weighing on my mind right now was the state of my household. Though I tried not to dwell on it, I was a little worried about my apprentices. They must be frantic by now. However, I knew that Shuye would take care of them while I was away. In addition, Fengying and Deming were on vacation, but they would undoubtedly return to take charge of my household while I was gone. My housekeeper and I had recently gone over the books, therefore, I knew that we had plenty of money.

Farm hands were meant to stay on the farm to tend to the crops and livestock, and I was sure that they would do a good job. Right now, it was wintertime, so all they had to do was to feed and water the [Lizardwings] and keep an eye on the newly planted trees.

They would probably be perfectly fine without me. Right?

After a simple breakfast of hot tea and buttered toast, I added [Spell Stones] to Mr. Bear’s inventory for him to use when casting [Fireball] and then I went down the ladder to level 11.

Though Archery was my highest level combat skill, I felt that it would be the most difficult one to use in close quarters. Thus, I wore my [Iron Plate Armor] and had my [Iron Sword] placed in the first slot of my inventory in case I needed to fight.

The upper levels of the mine were very ordinary and had weak monsters, mostly bugs. As the player descended, the levels became more and more magical, and the environment flashier. Of course, the enemies also became stronger.

The tunnel I was in looked like a very ordinary mine with earth and rock walls and an uneven floor. The place was quiet except for the distant sound of buzzing insects and the slow dripping of water. Unlike most other games, the underground levels in Adventure Incarnate were often unlit, and one had to carry or equip a light source. Though this was fine in the game, walking through complete darkness with only the weak light cast by my [Halo Ring] in real life was definitely nerve-wracking.

At first, I put Mr. Bear in front of me, then changed my mind and walked in front of him. It would be better to have someone guarding my back.

I had only walked ten steps before my way was blocked by a huge boulder. The Adventure Incarnate graphics depicted the rocks as merely ankle height. However, the fact that the player character couldn’t just step over them indicated that this was just artistic license. I suppose I could climb over it, since it was only around six feet tall and there was a bit of space above it that I could use, but that seemed more dangerous than just using my pickaxe on it.

Once again, it took me six swings to reduce the rock to rubble. I paid close attention to my energy bar, and, thankfully, it seemed that each swing only consumed a miniscule amount of energy. For my troubles, two pieces of [Stone] were added to my inventory.

I kept my eyes peeled for enemy movement, but there was nothing as I walked further into the tunnel and mined three more rocks. Though I’d barely done anything, I felt more relaxed as nothing attacked me from the shadows. I suppose there were fewer bugs here in the upper levels. It wasn’t until I was 30 feet from the ladder that I encountered my first monster.

[Rock Beetle:

An insect with a hard shell that deflects attacks.]

Good! I was very close to leveling up.

The beetle was the size of a dog, around knee-high, and had a glossy black exoskeleton. Its six legs looked thin and weak, but its mouthparts had large, scary-looking mandibles. When it came flying up to my face, I quickly used [Slash] followed by [Thrust]. Mr. Bear, as reliable as ever, hit it with his [Fireball]. Our three attacks were enough to kill it, and I was overjoyed when I leveled up my attack skill.

[Congratulations, you just advanced an Attack level!]

[Your Attack level is now 2.]

When in melee combat, a player could choose either an Attack or Strength setting. Attack increased the player’s melee accuracy, while Strength increased damage dealt. I was using the Attack setting since I wanted to get level 10 Attack as soon as possible in order to wield better weapons than the [Iron Sword].

I looked at my stats and sighed. I still had a long way to go.

[Violet

Level 1

HP: 100/100

MP: 35/35

Strength: 1/99

Attack: 2/99

Archery: 3/99

Magic: 3/99]

I mined a few more rocks before I came across another [Rock Beetle]. Once more, I only needed to use [Slash] and [Thrust] to kill it.

“Well, that was easy!” I said to myself and Mr. Bear.

The first few levels of the mines were for newbies, which is why there were only easy mobs in them. I continued mining and killed three more [Rock Beetles] quite easily and without so much as a scratch. Everything was going so smoothly that I became careless. The tunnel came to a bend, and I was sent flying when the seemingly ordinary rock that I was mining turned out to be a monster.

“Ow!” I exclaimed when I landed on my butt. It hurt a lot, but there was no time to moan about it, since the enemy was almost upon me.

[Rock Mimic:

A cave dweller with a strong camouflage skill. It blends with its environment and appears to be an ordinary rock when at rest. Not aggressive unless it is attacked.]

Mr. Bear moved in front of me and puffed up until he was big enough to protect me from the mimic, which looked like a big rock with pink, slimy tentacles under it.

I scrambled to my feet and used [Slash], but its hard, rock-like body deflected my attack, and I did no damage.

Ugh!

The [Rock Mimic] drew back a little then charged at me, hitting my iron-clad legs with a loud clanging sound. I [Thrust] downwards with my weapon, but the tip of my sword just slid off its body. To my surprise, even Mr. Bear’s [Fireball] bounced off it.

So the rock part of its body was near invulnerable. What about its tentacles, then?

I crouched down and swung at its tentacles. My [Iron Sword] cut through its soft limbs like a hot knife through butter. Two more swings, which covered my blade with green blood, and it fell down the ground, dead.

“Oh my, that was intense,” I said to Mr. Bear.

My puppet deflated to his normal size.

I stood up slowly, armor creaking, and placed a hand on the wall for balance as I panted heavily. My heart was pounding like crazy. I gave myself a few minutes to calm down before going back to mine.

The next time I found a rock, I examined it closely to check if it was a mimic. It looked normal, and I heaved a sigh of relief when I was able to mine it with no problem. I continued to mine and kill more [Rock Beetles] until noon, when I scaled the ladder up to level 10 to have lunch.

Chapter 92 - GodIAm would be so proud of me if he knew!

Chapter 92 - Hive-five and Exo-plode with Laughter at the Catboy (It's in the author notes)

🙞❤︎🙜

Every time a player went up and down a ladder in the mines in Adventure Incarnate, the levels were reset, and new rocks emerged to block their path again. I believe this was explained in-game by some non-player characters claiming that the place was haunted, or something.

Therefore, when I went back up after eating my lunch, I wasn’t surprised to see that the tunnel that I had cleared was now full of rocks again. This was hardly a bad thing, since it meant that it was easier for me to level up. I set to my task with a will, crushing every single rock that I saw until I received a welcome notification message from the System.

[Congratulations, you just advanced a Mining level!]

[Your Mining level is now 2.]

That was great. Now it only took five swings of my pickaxe to mine a rock.

Mr. Bear and I killed a few more [Rock Beetles], and I was once again startled when a rock turned out to be another mimic. It seemed their camouflage skill was so good that there really was no way of distinguishing them from a regular rock. This time, I was knocked off my feet, and I killed it quickly by slashing at its tentacles.

At the end of the day, I was exhausted, but I still hadn’t leveled up my Attack.

“Ugh, time for a bath, Mr. Bear. We’re both dirty!” I had only been alone for a day, and I was already wondering if I could somehow program my puppet to say a few lines of dialogue.

Would it be good to have Mr. Bear say a few encouraging sentences like, “You’re doing great!” or “You’re the best!” sometimes?

Back at level 10, I put away the tent to clear some space and placed a shower for me and Mr. Bear to use. I was so sweaty and dusty from mining and fighting all day that it was a relief to stay under the spray of hot water and use soap and shampoo to cleanse myself and my puppet. When I was done, I used a hairdryer on my hair and Mr. Bear.

“I’m happy I have a nice plushie to cuddle with and protect me,” I whispered into Mr. Bear’s pink ear.

I barely had enough energy to eat dinner before collapsing into a sleeping bag and falling into a deep, dreamless sleep.

***

The next three days followed the same routine. I went down to level 11 to mine and fight mobs. I got two more mining levels and one more attack level.

[Player Name: Violet

Farming Skills:

Farming Level 19, Fishing Level 12, Woodcutting Level 19, Cooking Level 5, Herblaw Level 15, Foraging Level 6, Hunting Level 3, Mining Level 4]

Now I was able to clear a rock in three swings. As for the [Rock Beetles] and [Rock Mimics], by the end of the third day, I was able to kill them with one [Slash], meaning it was now time for me to go deeper into the mines.

[Violet

Level 1

HP: 100/100

MP: 35/35

Strength: 1/99

Attack: 3/99

Archery: 3/99

Magic: 3/99]

I packed up all my stuff and made nine [Staircases]. It was actually pretty fun to place them on the ground, run down the steps, then place another right away until I reached level 20.

This time, the safe spot was larger and lit with magical glowing rocks. Unfortunately, the light they cast was a creepy green color, giving the place an eerie atmosphere and making me look sickly the one time I dared to look at myself in a mirror.

Still, the extra space was nice indeed. I had room for the tent, outhouse, and shower, so I wouldn’t have to keep removing the tent to make space for the other facilities I needed.

I lost no time in exploring level 21. This deep into the mines, the magical nature of the place was starting to assert itself. The rough earthen walls were now dotted with glowing crystals and luminescent moss. The crystals had no use that I knew of, but I made sure to harvest a lot of the moss since it could be used for Herblaw. I had plenty of it, but, as usual, it was bound for my use. Besides, collecting moss gave me Foraging exp.

At this level, the monsters were tougher. I squealed in shock when the first [Cave Bug] attacked me.

[Cave Bug:

A species of venomous bug native to the Chitinous Caverns.]

The bug looked like a cockroach on top but had legs like a millipede. It flew up and tried to bite my arm but couldn’t penetrate my armor.

“Get away! Ahhh!”

I bashed it against the wall of the tunnel until it died.

[You have been poisoned.]

What? Even though it didn’t touch my skin? Maybe it had a poison breath or something. Grumbling to myself, I drank an [Antipoison Potion] and continued mining.

The next time a [Cave Bug] came buzzing by, I was quick enough to [Slash] at it with my sword. Sadly, this did not kill it, and this time it flew straight at my face. I managed to jump aside and block it with my arm. Swearing, I tried to pry it off my limb with my other hand, to no avail, so I had to hit my arm against the wall again.

I killed it, of course, but smashing my arm like that made it hurt.

“Maybe we should return to level 10?” I said to Mr. Bear. This level seemed annoying, not to mention painful, to explore. I turned back and walked towards the ladder down to level 20. “The bugs here are too clingy. I don’t like it.”

That was when it happened. I was halfway up the ladder when another [Cave Bug] appeared. I flinched, expecting it to latch onto me again. Instead, it crashed onto something invisible and was repelled back with a sudden jolt, as though it had hit a wall. It made two more attempts to attack me but was stopped by a barrier.

Oh my gosh! The ladder was a safe space? In Adventure Incarnate, when players clicked on a ladder there was no climbing animation. The screen just changed to the player at the top of the ladder on the higher level if they went up and vice versa if they went down.

I climbed down the ladder and slashed at the bug three times until it died.

What? So when I was at the bottom of a ladder, I couldn’t be attacked, but I could attack the monsters? This was an exploit! This was massive! I didn’t need to use my sword, I could stay at the ladder and shoot arrows or spells at the enemy while they were helpless to attack me.

My mind raced at the possibilities. How could I use this to my advantage in the most efficient way?

In order to level up my combat skills as fast as possible, I needed two things: lots of enemies attacking me at once, and a way to kill them faster. A good Area of Effect or AOE spell would be great to use, for example. Alas, my magic level was too low for that to be effective. The “lots of enemies” part wasn’t a problem since I knew many levels where there were tons of mobs.

What would GodIAm do if he found an exploit like this? Thinking of my old friend jogged a memory of us fighting together in the mines. There had been an update and we wanted to check out the new [Cavecrawlers] and their drops. The thing was, everyone had the same idea so the place was crowded.

I laughed like a cartoon villain when I remembered the chaos that ensued when GodIAm decided to annoy the other players by killing everything before they had a chance to. Yes… his solution would work for me now.

“Oh, Mr. Bear, we’re going to have so much fun!”

No more being bullied by insects trying to bite my arm or face off. It was time for my revenge and the massacre of the bugs.

Smiling, I headed up the ladder to gather my things. I could hardly wait to set my devious plan in motion. GodIAm would be so proud of me if he knew!

Chapter 93 & 93.5 - Descending to level 50

Chapter 93 - Soda-lightful I Coke-n't Contain My Excitement

🙞❤︎🙜

I went back to level 20, put all my stuff in my inventory, and made 29 [Staircases]. Since I wanted to descend as quickly as possible, I put Mr. Bear in [Travel Mode] and piggybacked a ride all the way to level 50. Using the puppet’s levitation power, we flew down at lightning speed noiselessly, which minimized the possibility of attracting mobs.

As we descended, the normal-looking earthen walls and floors gradually turned light orange, dark orange, then pink, with each color change denoting a difference in the power levels of the tunnels. The Chitinous Caverns were a magical place that became more unusual the lower one descended.

Mr. Bear and I stopped at level 50 where the walls, floors, and ceiling were made of pink marble tiles shot with silver and gold veins. Here and there, the marble tiles had fallen off, revealing bright pink soil. The overall effect was a bit much.

“I feel like I’m inside a womb or something,” I said to Mr. Bear.

Compared to the safe space at level 20, this one was five times larger. It was basically the size of three basketball courts, but one-third of the space was taken up by a pool lined with jagged pink rocks.

“Yes!”

I don’t know why, but I was a little afraid the spring wouldn’t be here. Taking an empty [Bowl], I dipped it in the spring and then examined the spring water. It was filled with tiny bubbles. I drank some of the cool naturally carbonated water to refresh myself, then got to work.

First, I needed to gather lots of soda water.

I went to my inventory, mentally clicked on the [Use] command on empty [Glass Bottles], then used the bottles with the spring. Ten bottles appeared at the edge of the spring, and I gasped in surprise as water shot out of the pool and into the bottles. When the bottles were full, I put them back in my inventory and used ten [Corks] on the filled bottles. The ten bottles of uncorked soda water then disappeared, and ten bottles sealed with corks appeared.

I repeated this several times before moving on to the next step.

Next, I needed [Kola Flavoring].

Though this item was now discontinued in Adventure Incarnate, it came as no surprise to me when I saw that I had it in my inventory. There were lots of discontinued items in Adventure Incarnate. That is to say, the developers often made one-off items that were made for special events, holidays, and so forth. GodIAm liked to collect rare items, especially discontinued ones, even if they were no longer useful, like the [Packet of Kola Flavoring].

Inside the packet were the soda flavoring ingredients: kola nut powder, brown sugar, orange zest, orange juice, lemon zest, lemon juice, lime zest, lime juice, ground ginger, ground cinnamon, ground nutmeg, and vanilla essence.

The space on level 50 was a bit cramped, but I somehow managed to build the smallest log cabin in it. Filling a cauldron with water, I hung it over the fireplace to boil, adding in all of the ingredients except for the zest and juices. As I waited for the water to boil, I thought about the people I had left behind.

Were my apprentices all right? How worried were Fengying, Deming, and the rest of my staff? Shuye and Prince Baiyu were probably busy trying to look for me. By now, they must be investigating the teleportation stone.

Thankfully, the water started boiling just as I started feeling sorry for myself for being stuck in a dangerous place all alone. I stirred the water and moved it away from the direct heat to let it simmer for a while. It smelled like rich burnt caramel. Once twenty minutes had passed, I took the cauldron from the fire and placed a large cutting board under it before setting it down on the log cabin’s only table. I needed to let it cool before adding the zest and juices.

In the meantime, I went back to the spring to gather more soda water to make [Kola-Kola Soda].

The soda wasn’t just a refreshing drink, it was a very useful item that functioned like an energy potion. Drinking a bottle of kola replenished one-fourth of a player’s energy bar, with a limit of one use per day. A player could drink more than one per day, but it only refilled one’s energy the first time.

Unfortunately, a few days after it was released, the [Kola-Kola Soda] was removed from the game. The update notes cited “balancing issues” while the rumor in the player forums was that the developers had gotten a cease-and-desist notice from a large multinational company because the name of the item, as well as the bottle and logo design, was too close to a famous brand of cola in real life.

A week later, GodIAm told me that the real reason was because he had found an infinite energy bug using the new item and informed the game’s developers about it. He refused to reveal the exact details to me, which was a pity because now I would really love to know it.

“Infinite energy sounds nice, doesn’t it, Mr. Bear,” I said out loud to my only companion.

The update made the soda water spring "inactive" by turning off its [Use] option. The sodas we had in our inventory were also replaced with [Commemorative Gold Bars] which looked and functioned exactly like regular [Gold Bars]. Of course, due to their relative rarity, [Commemorative Gold Bars] were worth one hundred times more than their regular counterparts. Even today, years later, I still winced when I remembered how I had accidentally smelted my rare [Commemorative Gold Bars] instead of the regular bars since the two variants looked exactly alike.

There was a life lesson to be learned there. Once “use item” had been clicked, it was impossible to cancel an activity that was underway. I tried it with the bottles. After clicking on “use bottles with spring,” I tried to cancel the action, but I could not.

A few hours later, I judged that the incomplete mixture had cooled enough and added the fruit zest and juices. Then I put the cauldron in my inventory and used it with an empty cask with a tap.

Lastly, I used the cask of [Kola Flavoring] with the [Bottles of Soda Water]. In the game, the bottles simply disappeared from the inventory and were replaced with [Kola-Kola Soda]. Here, the cask and bottles appeared on the floor of my log cabin. The corks popped out of the bottles and hovered above them as liquid flavoring flew from the tap into the bottles. The water glowed for a second and then the corks went back into the bottles, and I had my [Kola-Kola Soda].

Though my energy bar was still mostly full, I was too excited to wait and drank a bottle immediately. My energy bar was completely refilled.

“Wow, it tastes exactly like a Coke!” I said out loud.

I continued making more sodas. Though I was in a hurry to level up combat and go home, this was just too good of an opportunity to pass up. Who knew when or even if I would ever be able to return to this spring to make more energy potions?

Even so, I decided to limit myself to today and all of tomorrow to make more sodas. After that, I was going to focus on combat.

I made as many as I could, taking a break for lunch, and brewing up another cauldron of flavoring before going to bed. After the nights I had spent sleeping in tents, the log cabin was a very welcome upgrade. The bed, though small, was reasonably comfortable.

The next day, I spent all my time making more sodas, and at the end of it, I had 800. That should be enough since my apprentices and I only needed to use them during planting and harvest season, when our energy needs were higher.

That night, I could hardly sleep for excitement. Tomorrow was the day I was going to pwn those bugs!

Chapter 93.5

An excerpt from the journal of Shuye Skullcrusher, Guardian of the Ancient Hill Forest:

Finally, a stroke of luck! A pair of sweethearts from the Wolf Clan, who were in the Southerlands to hunt demons together in order to save up for their upcoming wedding, found traces of our missing human and followed the clues to a cave where they found the message “Violet is inside” carved on a surface.

My wife’s pregnancy isn’t too advanced yet, so she moved in with one of her sisters and allowed me to join the rescue party.

That part of the Southerlands only has weak demons, so I assured her I would be back very soon.

Chapter 94 - Insect Massacre

Chapter 94 - I Bow-lieve This is a Bow-nified but Minor Bug Exploit

🙞❤︎🙜

The next day, I put on a comfortable cotton bodysuit over my underwear and donned my trusty [Iron Plate Armor]. My long hair was becoming a problem, so I used the Cash Shop to change into a shorter, more practical hairstyle. Then I went down the ladder to level 51 as quietly as I could.

“Wow,” I breathed when I saw my new training ground.

It was a huge cavern that was so large I could barely see the other side, where there were dozens of entrances to more caves and tunnels in the rock. Whereas the level above had been carved out and tiled by people, this one looked entirely natural. Bioluminescent lichen and mushrooms gave off an eerie glow that bathed the scene in a soft, gentle light. The floor was uneven, but mostly clear except for a few rocks here and there that I could mine.

Players normally ran as quickly as they could to the other side whenever they reached this level because of the [Cavecrawlers]. I could see a few of them right now.

[Cavecrawler:

An insect species native to level 51 of the Chitinous Caverns. Their long bodies are covered in segmented white chitin and they move fast on their 30 legs. They are fragile but dangerous because they attack in a swarm. The older ones can spit a weak acid from their mouths.]

Dang it, even though they were just insects, they were much stronger than me!

[Cavecrawler:

Type: Melee
Element: None

BR: 79]

My Battle Rating has hardly risen since it was primarily calculated using equips, and I hadn’t changed mine.

[Violet

Level 1

HP: 100/100

BR: 28]

I was still level 1 because a player’s combat level was identical to the player’s highest combat stat. However, that was only after one had at least level 5 in either Strength, Attack, Archery, or Magic. Below that, a player remained level 1, which was all to my benefit since combat experience was partially dependent on one’s combat level. The lower your level was, the more experience you got from attacking enemies with higher BR.

[Violet

Level 1

HP: 100/100

MP: 35/35

Strength: 1/99

Attack: 3/99

Archery: 3/99

Magic: 3/99]

It would practically be suicide for me to engage in melee combat with a bunch of [Cavecrawlers], but I had another plan in mind. One time, when GodIAm and I wanted to get the drops from the monsters on this level, we deployed our [Potato Cannons]. This place had been filled with players, but our cannon strategy drove most of them away since the barrage of explosive [Thunderbolt Tubers] not only attracted all the bugs, but also the complaints of the other players who were disgusted by our profligate ways.

Though [Thunderbolt Tubers] did indeed cost a lot, it wasn’t like they cost that much more compared to high-level players’ topnotch arrows. Rather, the speed in which the [Potato Cannon] shot out the ammo, coupled with how it “wasted” exp since the cannon only gave half of the regular combat experience, made it nothing more than a toy for rich players to amuse themselves. Or, in that one memorable occasion, a way of driving other players away from a spot.

I smiled when I remembered how a particularly upset player had posted in the player forums about “hackers bullying users who play politely and don’t abuse others.” That had ignited a flame war which had GodIAm gleefully reveling in his infamy.

Those were fun times!

I cautiously walked five steps away from the ladder, moving as slowly and quietly as I could to place the [Potato Cannon]. The insects here were attracted by noise, and I didn’t want to be attacked by a swarm. Then I loaded the weapon with 10,000 [Thunderbolt Tubers] from my inventory. This should last for about three hours since the cannon had a rate of fire of one tuber per second.

[Potato Cannon:

Happy Adventure Incarnate Anniversary!

This magical autocannon can rotate 360°. Guaranteed to never hit a human.]

A small blue rectangle appeared on my combat screen with controls for the cannon, but I quickly dashed back to the ladder’s safe space before examining it. The [Potato Cannon] controls were quite simple. The screen showed me its current state and the number of ammo it held, and there were buttons labeled Start/Stop, Load, and Retrieve. It also had one inventory space filled with disposable earplugs

Heart pounding with barely suppressed glee, I mentally clicked on the Start/Stop button.

The first [Thunderbolt Tuber] hit a [Cavecrawler] and exploded with a loud booming sound. One second later, while the sound of that first shot hadn’t yet died down, the cannon rotated ten degrees clockwise and fired again. Monsters crawled out from every single cave entrance on the far side of the cavern and swarmed the cannon.

I was overjoyed when I saw that the cannon had its own magical protection The insects beat against an invisible force field to no effect.

The sound was becoming deafening, so I belatedly put on the noise-canceling earplugs that came with the cannon.

A few seconds later, three [Cavecrawlers] died messily, leaving behind insect [Chitin], [Venomous Sacs], and various body parts. Green blood spattered the rocks and earth nearby.

[Congratulations, you just advanced an Archery level!]

[Your Archery level is now 4.]

Whohoo! I couldn’t believe how easy it was! The cannon was a great idea. I watched in open-mouth fascination as more and more [Thunderbolt Tubers] exploded. The insects were swarming the place, which meant that each explosion hit at least six of them at a time.

“It’s an insect massacre!” I couldn’t keep quiet any longer and pumped my fists in the air.

The words had barely left my mouth when I got another System popup.

[Congratulations, you just advanced an Archery level!]

[Your Archery level is now 5.]

This was almost too easy. I loved it!

“Yeeeees! Kill it! Give me exp, baby!” My shouts attracted a small group of [Cavecrawlers] who tried to attack me but were stopped by an invisible barrier.

From my safe spot, I struck them with my [Iron Sword]. I was so much lower level compared to them that I hacked away at one [Cavecrawler] for what seemed like an eternity before it died, even with Mr. Bear helping me out with his [Fireball] attacks.

While I was busy fighting, I leveled up again.

[Congratulations, you just advanced an Archery level!]

[Your Archery level is now 6.]

Of course, the cannon only gave Archery exp. If I wanted to level up my melee skills, I would have to kill the insects myself.

I devoted my efforts to swinging my sword at the bugs that were swarming the ladder area.

The first time an insect spat venom at me, I sprang back in alarm, hitting my head on the ladder behind me.

“Ow!” I took my helmet off and rubbed the back of my aching head. That was gonna leave a lump for sure.

Thank goodness that the mysterious protective enchantment stopped the venom as well. It hit the invisible field and then slid down to the ground, bubbling rather nastily.

“Gosh.” I definitely hadn’t expected the “weak acid” to look so scary.

The pain in my head was mitigated by yet another popup.

[Congratulations, you just advanced an Archery level!]

[Your Archery level is now 7.]

I waited until I felt a little better before attacking the monsters again. This time, I tried to swing more thoughtfully, targeting different spots on their bodies to see if they had any particular weaknesses. The [Cavecrawlers] seemed to have weak underbellies, or whatever the part that wasn’t covered by their chitin was called. I rather suspected it was actually the part where they expelled waste.

A few minutes later, I killed my third insect with [Blade Flurry], and I finally got the System message that I was waiting for.

[Congratulations, you just advanced an Attack level!]

[Your Attack level is now 4.]

“Oh, Mr. Bear, this is like taking candy from a baby! They’ve got no chance against me.” I laughed out loud in sheer joy for a little while before attacking the bugs again.

We had only been here for half an hour, but the ground was thick with the remains of dozens of bugs. I gathered up the [Chitin], [Venomous Sacs], and [Cavecrawler Parts] into my inventory. Though I didn’t need them, I thought it would be best to keep the place as clean as I could. Who knew what would happen if I left them in the cave to rot? I mean, they would nourish the soil, most probably, but I didn’t want unknown bacteria to breed unchecked in a place where I planned to spend a lot of time.

An hour later, my arms began to ache. On Earth, I had never been much of an athlete, but here I had done a lot of manual labor and training with melee dummies, so I had greater stamina than before. Even so, I had my limits.

It should be fine to take a break. I took off my armor and placed a small, comfortable armchair from my System inventory on the space directly in front of the ladder, making sure that it was within the protected zone. I sat down and drank some water while I rested. Of course, the cannon continued to provide me with exp while I relaxed.

[Congratulations, you just advanced an Archery level!]

[Your Archery level is now 8.]

This almost felt like I was cheating.

I smiled at the thought. Was this how it felt for my old friend GodIAm whenever he found a bug in the game and “tested” it?

Of course, GodIAm always reported these bugs and only abused, I mean, “tested” them on a different account from his main, but many suspected that he secretly profited from them.

Was using a safe spot to attack monsters considered bug abuse? This was no longer a game, of course, so there were no such rules here, but I think this would be considered an exploit in Adventure Incarnate.

“Dear Mr. Bear, I think this means I can be called a bug abuser, in more ways than one!”

Chapter 95 - Battle Rating Upgrade

Chapter 95 - Why did the Violet use a ladder? To escalate the situation!

🙞❤︎🙜

At noon I got a meat bun and orange juice from my inventory and ate it while wondering what my apprentices were doing. Were they also eating lunch right now? Fengying, as my housekeeper, was in charge while I was away, so Lari, Kharli, and Mo were being looked after by someone trustworthy.

The problem was the courtyard house, rice mill, and greenhouse. The player-owned houses in Adventure Incarnate disappeared if one didn’t log in every seven days. In this world, the rule was that I had to be in my house at least once every seven days. Now that I was stuck here in the Mines, it was inevitable that my household would be left homeless.

I had plenty of money. Some of it was in the form of coins that were stored in the house, while the bulk of it was with the White Tiger clan which sort of functioned as a bank.

So it’s not like my apprentices and staff wouldn’t have options. Most likely, they would have to go to a town or city to live while they waited for me to return.

I wondered about Prince Baiyu, too. He was on a healing retreat in the wilderness and would only be back after two months. Surely, the clan members wouldn’t bother him with news of my accidental teleportation, right? I mean, he needed to treat his qi overload problem.

Hmmm.

Well, there was nothing I could do but get stronger in order to return to my rightful place. The most important thing was to raise my combat levels until I could defeat the boss on level 99. Hopefully, the portal on level 100 was functioning. I could use that to return to the Westerlands. Alternatively, if the portal proved to be inactive or too scary to use, I could simply leave the mines and travel back on foot. I shuddered at the thought of having to fight probably hundreds of demons along the way.

Once I was done eating and fretting over my situation, I got up from my comfy chair and drank a Strength potion. I fought [Cavecrawlers] until I was too tired to wield my sword anymore while I continued to reload the cannon. By the end of the day, I had leveled up quite a bit.

[Violet

Level 15

HP: 1,500/1,500

MP: 35/35

Strength: 1/99

Attack: 5/99

Archery: 15/99

Magic: 3/99]

My overall combat level was now 15, which was the same as my highest combat skill, Archery. In a way, this was somewhat disadvantageous for me since having a higher combat level meant that I got less exp. "Combat Level" doesn't mean much since the important stat was the Battle Rating. A combat level 20 player with the best equips could beat a level 30 who's not wearing any armor or wielding any weapons. Though it was confusing for newer players, I always felt that made sense. After all, Adventure Incarnate was very much a crafting and farming game, so one could expect that combat equipment mattered more than base stats.

Right now, my Battle Rating when I put on the level 10 tier of Archery equips, it was a lot higher than before.

[Violet

Level 15

HP: 1,500/1,500

BR: 52]

However, my melee BR was still almost the same.

[Violet

Level 15

HP: 1,500/1,500

BR: 30]

I retrieved the cannon and went up the ladder.

“That was a good day’s work,” I said to Mr. Bear.

After eating dinner, I used the Hot Spring and then flopped down on my bed in the log cabin. I was asleep within seconds.

That night, I dreamed of a dragon child whose human form sprouted wings. In the dream, I was quite alarmed when he climbed a tall tree. My pleas for him to “get down!” were ignored and he jumped down, pumping his wings as though he expected those tiny appendages to really support the weight of his human body. I woke up when I caught him in my arms and was bowled over by his weight, hitting my head painfully on the ground.

“Ouch!” Half-awake, I gingerly probed the back of my head. Yup, there was a big lump there.

Strange how the cut on my side from the [Dire Rat] had healed completely by the day, but the injury to my head still hurt me today. Was it because I was the one who had stupidly hit my own head on a ladder? Maybe.

I resolved to be more careful this time.

Breakfast was a hearty meal of roast demon pork, stir-fried mushroom, and rice. Deming’s cooking was really awesome. The pork skin was delightfully crisp and the meat was tender and juicy. The mushrooms were sweet and spicy in just the perfect way to complement the savory meat dish and the fluffy white rice.

My body felt incredibly sore because of all the fighting I had done yesterday. Before going down to train, I did some exercises to warm up my tired muscles. I jogged around level 50 a few times then used a lighter practice sword to swing at the air. Once I felt ready, I climbed down the ladder and placed the cannon.

I repeated my actions of the previous day, but this time, I decided to take a long break at noon to use the Hot Spring facility and even take a short nap. By dinnertime, I felt tired but not exhausted like I did yesterday.

And so it went. I followed the same routine until the eighth day when I noticed something significant.

“Noooooo!” I yelled dramatically. “Why, System, why?”

It was fine for me to shout since there was no one to hear me anyway.

The [Potato Cannon] had proved to be so efficient at leveling up my Archery that I was now combat level 25 and the [Cavecrawlers] gave only half the exp they did compared to the time I first started killing them.

“Argh!”

This was all because of player-vs-player combat. Though only a few players liked to duel, the rest of us who only liked to kill monsters were also affected. In the old days, combat level was calculated based on one’s total stats, but once dueling and other PvP events were added to the game, that changed. Combat level had to be linked to the player’s highest combat skill level, otherwise people would make characters with uneven stats, like keeping their Strength, Attack, and Archery level 1, to take advantage of having a hugely high Magic skill compared to their combat level.

I sniggered a little when I remembered the time when GodIAm had made a PvP character named NachoAverageMage with 99 magic and everything else at level 1. With a combat level of just 30, he used to dominate the duel arena for the level 30s and below until other people figured it out, too.

“Alas, Mr. Bear, nowadays one must adjust one’s strategies to keep up with the changing times.”

After some thought, I decided to concentrate purely on melee for now. Sullenly, I retrieved my cannon.

By this time, I was fairly proficient at slaughtering bugs. It only took five to six attacks for me to dispatch one. Once I was able to kill a [Cavecrawler] with one swing of my blade, it would be time for me to move on. I could hardly wait! I was getting bored of doing the same thing day after day after day.

Soon, I found out that not using the cannon at all was less than ideal since fewer insects came out of the tunnels, so I put the cannon back and simply used the Start/Stop button to control it. I let it fire until I had enough bugs around, then stopped it until I had killed them all.

One day later, using this method, I finally reached a milestone in my melee combat skill.

[Congratulations, you just advanced an Attack level!]

[Your Attack level is now 10.]

This meant that I could now use [Steel Plate Armor].

[Violet

Level 25

HP: 2,500/2,500

BR: 45]

Yes! This was still lower than the [Cavecrawler’s] BR, but it was a big improvement for me. I could also use different weapons now. Though the sword was the classic Adventure Incarnate weapon, there were a few others that I should probably try out. At my level I could use the [Steel Sword], [Steel Battleaxe], [Steel Spear], and [Steel Club].

When I tested them out, I found that the spear was simply too long for me to use in the cramped safe space I was forced to use. The club was effective but rather heavy, which made me more tired compared to using the sword. On the other hand, the battle axe was great to use.

[Steel Battle Axe:

A two-handed war axe made of fine steel that never rusts or dulls. Though slow, it is powerful.]

I think it was because I had spent a lot of time on Woodcutting that it felt natural and easy to chop at things.

[Battle Axe Skills:

Slash

Chop

Frenzy]

The first two attacks listed were your normal attacks, but Frenzy was something special indeed.

[Frenzy:

Unleash a whirlwind of destruction by swinging the battle axe in wide, powerful arcs that will send your enemies reeling.

Cooldown: 35 seconds]

What it did was knock back multiple enemies, a useful skill if you were surrounded. The strikes were much more powerful compared to using the sword, but they were slightly slower.

I decided to alternate between the sword and battle axe for now.

Three days later, I woke up early and stared at the ceiling of my log cabin. I felt a bone-deep weariness that no amount of soaking in the Hot Spring could alleviate. Simply put, I was bored.

Bored out of my freaking mind!

All I did was fight all day, every day. There was no one to talk to, and I couldn’t even go for a walk. I wasn’t prone to claustrophobia, but the fact that I was stuck here underground, with no sunlight or fresh air was very depressing.

“Could it be that I’m a terrible transmigrator?” I asked my trusty plush toy. Mr. Bear, as always, remained silent.

In fiction, the main characters who got thrown into another world often trained for weeks, months, years, or even decades alone. How did they do it?

“I have to do something or I’ll go crazy!”

Time for a mental health day.

Herblaw always made me feel happy, so I decided to spend the day making potions even though I had plenty of Strength potions. That night, I started a level 50 beautification project. I wanted to place lots of potted plants, but I knew they would die under these conditions, which would make me feel sad. Therefore, I contented myself with placing pretty paintings, sculptures, and decorations around the place.

This cheered me up so much that I began to spend my noontime break amusing myself instead of napping. I made more Kola Kola sodas and did more Herblaw. I carved a few amusing messages on the cave walls and then found out that by moving closer to the walls, I could virtually project the System screen on the pink marble tiles. Since I had nothing better to do because there were no internet, radio, television, or movies in this world, I decided to paint a portion of the wall.

Using a projection of a Cash Shop painting that was similar to Edvard Munch’s artwork The Scream as a guide, I used a painting set from the Cash Shop to create a large mural. Since this was something I did to keep my mood positive, I created my own version by adding random stuff to the wavy lines of the artwork. There was no rhyme or reason to the things I added in paint that was only slightly darker or lighter than the surrounding lines, creating a universe of secret, hidden figures. There were bears, sheep, dragons, kittens, stars, flowers, spiderwebs, eyes, tentacles, books, hats, cheese, dolls, etc.

This lifted my spirits so much that I found myself smiling and whistling happily as I killed bugs with my axe and sword for the next two weeks. Truly, art was inspirational and a balm for the weary soul.

[Congratulations, you just advanced an Attack level!]

[Your Attack level is now 20.]

“Whohoo!” I opened a bottle of soda and toasted Mr. Bear to celebrate.

At level 20, I could now use [Lunarite Plate Armor] and [Lunarite] weapons. Lunarite was basically steel mixed with enchanted silver.

I equipped a [Lunarite Battle Axe]. The weight of it felt right in my hands. Feet apart, I lifted my weapon and then swung it down with great force on a [Cavecrawler]. The weapon cut right through the monster as though it was made of paper. I looked down at the bisected insect at my feet and knew that it was now time to move on.

“Level 90 here I come!”

Chapter 96 - Going deeper into The Mines

Chapter 96 - These cave drawings might be morel than meets the eye

🙞❤︎🙜

Before I left level 50, I looked around me one last time at the place that had been my home for almost a month.

I had put back all the items in my inventory, leaving the walls and floor bare again. The spring looked the same as ever, but the rest of the place had been transformed by my artistic endeavors.

One wall was painted over and the other three were almost totally covered by messages I had scratched on them. I laughed softly and traced the one I had carved the deepest. It read, “At night, you can hear the whispers if you listen closely.”

For the last time, I prepared all of the [Staircases] that I would need on my journey all the way down to level 90. The trip was uneventful, and I saw that most of the levels were now a lot more artificial-looking compared to the upper levels which were mostly natural tunnels and caves.

At the lower levels, the walls, floors, and ceilings were covered in tiles. The color scheme of each level changed from pale pink to blue which then faded to white. Some of the levels were quite cramped, with low ceilings, which made me feel quite glad that I was skipping the exploration part of this adventure. There were a few large caverns here and there that looked quite interesting, but I did not stop until I reached my goal.

Level 90 looked quite impressive.

I sighed when I saw a beam of light streaming in from a large sun tunnel that had been carved into the rock by the builders of the Mine. Below it was a patch of bright yellow flowers.

Carefully avoiding the flowers, I placed a large, low table directly underneath the opening. Then I laid down on the table, enjoying the feeling of the sun’s heat on my skin. A welcome warmth spread through my body, as though the sun was trying to embrace me and offer me solace in the midst of this bleak setting. I felt like a flower that had been deprived of sunlight these past few weeks and was now blooming in delight after being transplanted into a more salubrious environment.

“Vitamin D is really the best!” I said to Mr. Bear as I placed him beside me to soak up some sunlight, too.

It felt so good that I decided to take off my clothes in order to bathe my entire body in the sun’s healing rays. I don’t know how long I lay there, turning on my stomach every so often until I was satisfied. I even ate my lunch right there.

Eventually, of course, I had to get up, remove the table, and prepare my new dwelling place. Level 90 was a natural underground cathedral, with towering stalactites, stalagmites, columns, and other cave formations, including hundreds of softly glowing flower-like white crystals. Most importantly, there were two cave entrances, one each on the eastern and western sides.

I entered the eastern cave right away and clapped my hands with joy when I found myself in one of the most marvelous places in the game, the Mushroom Cave.

“Ooooh, this is so wonderful!”

More of the glowing white flower-like crystals adorned the ceiling, giving off enough light for me to see that the farthest side of the cave was populated with various types of mushrooms. There were small, transparent white mushrooms with ghostly frills, bright red mushrooms with white spots, pale blue mushrooms, green mushrooms, black mushrooms, gold needle mushrooms, soup mushrooms, and coral spirit mushrooms, along with other species that I could not identify at first. It looked quite empty and magical, like a fairy cave.

Mushrooms in Adventure Incarnate were foraged items that could be used as food ingredients or animal feed. Once upon a time, they had been Herblaw ingredients that produced special status effects like Haste, Clarity, Regeneration, Bravery, and Stone Skin. Unfortunately, their introduction to the game had made Player versus Player combat too unbalanced, so that aspect of the mushrooms’ effects had been removed. Nowadays, cooking and eating these high-level cave mushrooms simply gives a small boost to a person’s stats.

I quickly harvested as many as I could, delighting in the descriptions that claimed that they were particularly nutritious and tasty. They were basically the truffles of this world, in that they were extremely rare gourmet ingredients that made everything taste better.

For example, the [Gold Needle Mushrooms] were described as “A mushroom whose taste is so intense that it feels like it’s casting a spell on your taste buds.”

All of the other types had similar descriptions, and I was really looking forward to what the Demon Chef would make of these rare delicacies.

Once I was done harvesting, I set up a dozen mushroom-growing shelves that I filled with boxes of mushroom substrate that I watered. These would be colonized by the native mushroom species in the cave in the coming days, giving me more delicious food ingredients to take home with me.

I was already in great spirits when I exited the eastern cave, and I felt even happier when I entered the western cave.

“Amazing…”

While the eastern cave was a riot of colors, this one was the exact opposite. Here, all the surfaces were covered with pure white tiles, and large glowing pearls had been placed on marble pedestals around the perimeter. According to the game lore, this was a place of healing that was enchanted so that no “impurities” or “unhealthy vapors” could enter. I was pretty sure that it was a magical clean room, a sterile environment that was enchanted against bacteria, viruses, fungi, etc.

Due to its special properties, this was the only place in the game where one could build a mini hydroponic farm. When players were higher-level, they could grow [Spirit Herbs] here, but since I was still a newbie, I could only grow regular crops.

The [Hydroponic Kit] consisted of a large plastic rectangular box with a grow light, twelve pods, twelve grow sponges, and a bottle of [Plant Food]. The room could only fit twenty-eight of them. I put the little sponges inside the pods, filled the boxes with water, added three drops of [Plant Food], then put three seeds inside each pod. I picked colorful plants that would look and smell nice in this gloomy place: strawberries, tomatoes, chili peppers, mint, rosemary, and carnation. Finally, I turned on the grow light.

This would give me farming exp, which was nice, and I rather missed being in the presence of green plants.

I was feeling quite euphoric when I went back to the central cavern. This was a lot better than level 50!

Near the sunbeam was a large open space that was paved with white marble tiles. There was a large golden altar at one end of the open space, which indicated that this was probably where the ancient clans had held their religious gatherings.

The entire Mine was a natural cave system that had been turned into a mine because of the valuable ores that were found inside it. Later on, when people discovered that a god was living on the lowest level, they had built places of worship inside. Of course, nowadays there was no longer any deity here, but it was said that the god had left its pet behind.

In other words, there was a Boss that I would have to defeat on level 99 before I could activate the portal that would, hopefully, bring me home or at least nearer home. Level 50 combat was recommended for that, and a player needed at least one good ranged skill, either Archery or Magic, as well as a decent melee level.

Adventure Incarnate was the type of game where the players never died. Whenever they were defeated, the screen would just go black, and they would wake up somewhere safe with a friendly NPC admonishing them to be careful next time.

But right now…

I found it difficult to believe that someone would just pop up to rescue me just in time when I was about to die.

This was now real life, and I had no intention of confronting the Boss until I was sure that I would win.

Therefore, I could be here for quite some time. With this in mind, I placed a Ranch House in the open space along with a Hot Spring facility and spent a bit of time decorating the cave walls with fairy lights. I was whistling to myself and wondering what else I should put on the cave walls when, suddenly, I remembered how I had carved and painted on the walls on level 50.

In my mind, I pictured how I had left the place covered in artificial claw marks, disturbing messages, and creepy paintings. What on earth had possessed me to scrawl weird stuff on the walls like a crazy person?

“I think I might have had a nervous breakdown, Mr. Bear.”

Well, the Mines were rather stressful. I couldn’t be blamed if I became somewhat eccentric during my stay. I resolved to train a bit less and relax a bit more. After all, it wouldn’t do anyone any good if I managed to escape from this place but lost my mind in the process.

Ugh. Had I really scratched out a message saying “You've always been here” on the ceiling?

It’s a good thing that no one would ever see the evidence of my meltdown.

Chapter 96.5 - Rescue Team

Chapter 96.5 - Water you waiting for? Come, don't mist this cash flow opportunity!

🙞❤︎🙜

An excerpt from the journal of Shuye Skullcrusher, Guardian of the Ancient Hill Forest:

It was easy at first. Sure, the place was maze-like and our group of five rescuers from the White Tiger Clan had to pulverize some rocks to find the way down, but all of the demons were small and weak. We got to the tenth underground level without much problem. There we found plenty of traces that indicated that someone, probably Baroness Violet, had been camping in that location.

None of us could figure out why she hadn’t just stayed there. Perhaps, even though the level seemed free of demons, something spooked her?

Our troubles started when the person we sent back to the surface to get more supplies for us did not return after two days. We sent another one to check on him, but that person didn’t return either. Therefore, the remaining three members of the rescue team all went back up to check on what had happened.

That was when we discovered that the underground complex was cursed. Every time we went up a level, the ladder we used to go down disappeared, and we had to search for another one, which was very time-consuming.

With some experimentation, we discovered that the ladders wouldn’t disappear as long as we left one person on that level. The backup team offered to join us underground, but I judged that would be too reckless. Instead, we called on more volunteers. We asked the younger warriors to form pairs and left two people behind on each level who could pass down supplies and information to the people on the level below.

This way, we cautiously made our way down to the twentieth level, where we once again found traces of another campsite.

Unfortunately, that marked the end of the easy levels.

The demons on the next levels used poison and ranged attacks, which were much harder to deal with since they swarmed our team. Our progress slowed to a crawl.

Soon, a few of the men had to leave since they had clan or family responsibilities to take care of. By the time we reached the thirty-fifth floor, we only had enough people to leave one person behind on each level.

I had to send word to my wife that I might not make it back until after winter’s end.

Violet, where are you?

Chapter 97 - Amazing exp per hour rate

Chapter 97 - A battastic training axercise

🙞❤︎🙜

That night, I went to sleep early and dreamed of a dragon child. The birds in the jungle seemed to have noticed my distress over the food shortage and kept on flying over and dropping seeds, nuts, and even fruit for us to eat. I felt like a Disney princess! In my dream, I napped under a tree with the child in my arms and woke up when he turned back into his dragon form and started licking my face.

I woke up for real and automatically wiped my face with my sleeve, but, of course, I didn’t actually have any dragon saliva on me since that was something that happened in my dream. Still, I somehow felt less lonely after spending the night with my imaginary friend.

The first thing I did after eating breakfast was check the hydroponic farm. The seeds that I had put in their pods had already sprouted. I checked the grow lights which were on automatic mode, and everything seemed to be working properly. The tanks didn’t need more [Plant Food] yet either.

As I wandered through the Western cave, checking on all the sprouts, I felt my mind clearing. It was as though cobwebs were being cleaned off the corners of my brain. Was it because this cave was supposed to be enchanted to “remove impurities”? Perhaps it was the enchantment in this place that had healed me of my minor mental breakdown. Or maybe it was just the placebo effect. Whatever it was, I felt a lot better today.

I felt even better when I went to the mushroom cave. Overnight, more mushrooms had sprouted, and I harvested tons of useful species that could be used in recipes that would boost stats. Potions mostly boosted combat while food boosted skills. In addition, there were some unique mushrooms that weren’t in my inventory. That was probably because my friend GodIAm hadn’t considered them useful since they didn’t raise any stats.

[Candy Milk-Cap:

Characterized by their sweet scent reminiscent of maple syrup or burnt caramel, this mushroom can be used to impart a sweet flavor and aroma to food. When cut, it exudes a milky liquid.]

Amazing! It actually did smell like candy.

[Meat Mushroom:

It looks like a mushroom, but it tastes like meat.]

The description of the [Meat Mushroom] made me smile. My mother had gone through a vegan phase and had extensively used mushrooms as a meat replacement. She would’ve loved this.

[Naughty Mushroom:

When dried and ground into a powder, this can be mixed into hot water and drunk to increase men’s stamina during XXX. Slightly increases fertility.]

I giggled a little when I read the description of the [Naughty Mushroom]. The part about fertility would no doubt make this popular among the clans.

Before I left, I checked the substrate to see if they were still moist. Everything seemed to be in order. I was a little bit disappointed that there were no changes to the mushroom-growing shelves yet.

I lingered at the entrance, looking back at the fairy-like place illuminated by glowing flower crystals and colorful mushrooms, ranging from bright reds and oranges to deep purples and blues. At times like these, I really wished that I had a camera.

Next, I did my warming-up exercises by jogging all around the cavern and doing some stretches. Then I checked my equipment. I had three slots that I could use to quickly switch from one combat style to another. I put on the [Lunarite Plate Armor] and the [Noise Canceling Headphones] under my helmet and descended the ladder down to the ninety-first level.

My stats were a bit too low for this level, but I should be able to cope.

[Violet

Level 32

HP: 3,200/3,200

MP: 35/35

Strength: 1/99

Attack: 20/99

Archery: 32/99

Magic: 3/99]

Since I had upgraded my equipment, my melee Battle Ranking was much higher now.

[Violet

Level 32

HP: 3,200/3,200

BR: 125]

However, this was less than ideal since the monsters on this level were strong. Looking around me, I saw that I was in a spacious tunnel filled with around two dozen rocks that I could mine. No monsters were inside, so I took out my pickaxe and started mining after placing Mr. Bear on top of my head.

It didn’t take long before I heard the whomp-whomp sound of leathery wings.

Wait, I was wearing the [Noise Canceling Headphones]! How was I able to hear that?

I didn’t have time to think about it because the enemy came into sight a second later.

[Bat:

A flying monster that uses sonic attacks.]

Mr. Bear immediately hit it with a [Fireball] and I hastily switched to my archery equipment which consisted of [Hardened Leather Armor] vest, pants, and gloves. My weapon was a [Silverwood Longbow] that used [Luminite Arrows] which were made of [Silverwood Arrow Shafts] and [Luminite Arrowheads]. Luminite was simply steel alloyed with enchanted gold.

The bat’s mouth was open, and it was undoubtedly using its scream to deal damage, but my headphones took care of that.

[Bat:

Type: Ranged
Element: None

BR: 157]

Though its Battle Ranking was higher than mine, my equipment made its ranged attacks useless, so the advantage was all mine. With practiced ease, I drew my bow and shot it from across a distance of thirty feet, hitting it in the middle of its torso. I must have hit it in a vital part, like its heart or lungs, because it staggered in the air and then dropped to the ground, weakly twitching and flapping its wings for a few seconds before dying.

I waited for a few moments to see if there were any other monsters, but when none appeared, I went back to mining. At this level of the Mine, I got quite a few gemstones and geodes along with the usual [Rocks]. I didn’t need any as I already had plenty, but obviously, I could sell these or give them to my apprentices to use in their crafting.

A few more [Bats] came to trouble me and were quickly dispatched. Sadly, the [Bat Wings] they dropped were useless except as organic matter that I could make into compost or fertilizer.

By noon time I could tell that, despite my fears of my stats being too low, this level was no challenge for me. Therefore, when I mined a rock and discovered the ladder down to level 92, I immediately used it.

And so it went for the next few days. I explored the lower levels and found that I met my match on level 96.

“Oh, Mr. Bear, I think we might be in trouble!”

I stayed in the safe space directly below the ladder and placed a hand on my chest, my heart beating wildly, as I gazed out into the open space that was full of [Arachneans].

Thank goodness I didn’t suffer from arachnophobia, or I would probably run away screaming.

[Arachnean:

A giant spider species native to the Chitinous Caverns. Their Venomous Rain attack deals poison damage over time.]

I quickly drank an Antipoison Potion, and set up the [Potato Cannon] as quickly as I could. Since I didn’t want to run out to the middle of the cavern and be sprayed with poison, I put the cannon on the square directly in front of the ladder.

[Arachnean:

Type: Magic
Element: None

BR: 183]

The first [Lightning Tuber] hit a spider's head, doing a little damage. While the cannon had done great damage to the [Cavecrawlers], the [Arachneans] were higher-level, therefore, the ammo was much less effective here. The cannon shot echoed in the Mine and the giant spiders, which were bright red and six feet tall, came rushing over to destroy the threat. I took the opportunity to shoot them with my arrows while they were attacking the cannon.

The monsters that I attacked were too smart to ignore my attacks and tried to use Venomous Rain on me, only to be stopped by the barrier that encircled the space directly in front of the ladder.

Since they were now quite close, I donned my melee armor and started bashing away at them with my [Lunarite Battle Axe], using [Slash], [Chop], and [Frenzy] as often as I could. The [Arachneans] were tough, but not tough enough to escape from my axe, Mr. Bear’s Fireball, and the [Potato Canon’s] explosive potatoes.

I was quite pleasantly surprised to know that I was getting quite a large amount of exp. Barely an hour later, I leveled up.

[Congratulations, you just advanced an Attack level!]

[Your Attack level is now 21.]

Invigorated by the amazing exp per hour rate, I continued to hack and slash at them until noon, when I paused for my usual lunch break. Then I resumed my attacks.

“I’m getting so much exp!” I said to Mr. Bear. “It seems that I’m going to escape from this place earlier than I thought.”

By the end of the day, I actually got two more Attack levels and one Archery level, and I was almost tempted to put a chair at the bottom of the ladder and sleep there in order to not waste time going up and down the five levels I had to travel to reach this training spot.

“No, much as I would like to, I think it would be best to have a good night's sleep.” Speaking out loud to my puppet wasn’t a sign of another mental breakdown. I mean, I’ve had that habit ever since I transmigrated into this world.

Whistling a happy tune, I retrieved my cannon and went back up to level 90. The Mines were enchanted in such a way that the ladders disappeared once a person used them to go up a level. Every time I went down, I had to either mine until a new ladder appeared or use a [Staircase]. The [Staircase] also disappeared when I used it to go up, but not when I went down a level.

Though I was getting a lot more exp than I expected, it still took me ten more days until I leveled up enough to be able to tackle the Boss.

Chapter 98 - Boss Fight at the bottom of the Chitinous Caverns

Chapter 98 - Boss-itively awesome glitch!

🙞❤︎🙜

Boss Monsters weren’t hard to defeat in Adventure Incarnate. As long as a player had the appropriate Battle Ranking and knew what to do, then it was a piece of cake in the game.

The problem was that this was not a game. Getting some hitpoints taken off was no big deal In Adventure Incarnate, but it would mean an injury for me. I really didn’t fancy having my arm broken, for example.

The Boss this time was a magic type. Legend has it that the ancient people of this land discovered an underground network of caves and tunnels that had a god living at the lowest level. The humans built temples and altars to the god, which were later abandoned after the god disappeared.

However, the unnamed god had left behind a pet which players had to defeat in order to access the bottom of the Mines.

“Here goes nothing,” I said to myself.

I looked around one last time at level 90 to check if I had forgotten anything. The Ranch House and all decorations had been removed and I had harvested today’s mushrooms. The vegetables from the hydroponic farm weren’t ready to be plucked yet, but I had checked the nutrient levels and put the grow lights on automatic mode.

“Let’s do this!” I said to Mr. Bear as I climbed on his shoulders. I quickly placed [Staircases] down until I reached the 98th floor.

Since I wanted to take advantage of the ladder space’s protection, I couldn’t use a [Staircase] to create my own way down. Instead, I used my [Pickaxe] to clear the way until I found a ladder while I fought [Insectoids].

[Insectoids:

A strange insect-like creature that seems to be made of blue crystal.]

By this time, my combat training had paid off enough that I could easily kill the monsters on this level with one blow from my sword.

[Violet

Level 41

HP: 4,100/4,100

MP: 35/35

Strength: 30/99

Attack: 31/99

Archery: 41/99

Magic: 3/99]

Now that I was higher level, I discarded my [Lunarite] equipment and upgraded to [Aurite] melee equipment. [Aurite] was a metal alloy made of steel and enchanted gold. Some older items were called [Luminite], but it was basically the same thing. My archery had also leveled up, and I could now wear [Studded Leather Armor] and wield a [Goldenwood Longbow] with [Orichalcite Arrows]. [Orichalcite] was Adventure Incarnate’s name for steel mixed with enchanted platinum.

With my new equips, my Battle Ranking was now a whooping 292 for melee and 388 for archery.

“Aha!” I said when I finally found the ladder. “Let’s go, Mr. Bear.”

I threw my puppet down first and then descended.

Level 99 turned out to be a large natural cave with earthen walls and floors. The space near the ladder was an open space around twenty feet in circumference that was illuminated by the sickly bluish glow of luminous moss and mushrooms. At the far end of the cave was the Boss though I couldn’t see it right now since it was in darkness.

Walking on tiptoes in order to make as little sound as possible, I moved forward a few feet and placed a [Potato Cannon]. They were not normally usable on this level, but I thought it was worth a try.

I mentally chanted, “Please work, please work, please work.”

Somehow, my mental commands must have short-circuited something because I was able to place not just one, but three cannons.

I covered my mouth to stop myself from screaming.

Oh my gosh! There was supposed to be a limit of only one cannon per person. How did this happen?

I was not one to look a gift horse in the mouth.

Placing as many cannons on the floor as I could, which turned out to be fifteen, I made Mr. Bear expand until he was six feet tall and crouched behind him as I loaded the cannons up with the maximum number of [Thunderbolt Tubers] possible.

I finished just in time. A few seconds later, I heard the Boss’s voice.

“Chu~” When its mouth opened to make a cute sound, its skin glowed with a warm yellow light and, for the first time, I was able to see it clearly.

The [Winged Golden Slime Queen] was triple my height, and its jelly-like body was amber in color. Its blue eyes were droopy, and it had no teeth that I could see. As a god’s pet, it was the cute kind, with white feathered wings on each side and a tiny golden crown perched rakishly on its head.

At the top of its round body was a strand of slime that was similar to an anime character’s ahoge. That was what would alert me about the Boss’ next move. The [Winged Golden Slime Queen] looked around and seemed alarmed when it spotted me amid the cannons. The slime strand formed the shape of a question mark.

“Chu~” The Boss’s voice echoed in the cavern.

I relaxed a little when I saw that it wasn’t going to attack me, just like in the game. I would have to make the first move. Without turning my back to the Boss, I retreated until I was just below the ladder. Then I drank a [Strength Potion], put on the noise-canceling earmuffs, and mentally clicked on the [Start/Stop] button for the [Potato Cannons].

The combat screen showed me that the first round of cannon fire took off only a tiny fraction of the Boss Slime’s HP bar.

“Chu!” This time the Boss sounded angry. The slime strand formed the shape of an arrow pointing at me. It opened its mouth and coughed up a ball of golden light that flew in my direction.

I once again crouched down behind Mr. Bear. Would the ladder safe space work here, too? The normal rules did not apply to Boss Fights.

Alas, the ladder was not a safe space since the spell hit Mr. Bear, blasting a concave hole in his stomach. Thankfully, it did not pass completely through my puppet, so I was unharmed.

I would have to dodge the next one.

The cannons continued to whittle down the slime’s health. The Boss’ next spell came fast, and I dove to the left and rolled to avoid it. The ball of light hit the wall behind me, leaving a small crater in its wake.

The next few minutes were quite touch and go as I jumped around and rolled on the ground to avoid its attacks. I regretted not laying down a layer of mattresses to protect my fragile flesh as I acquired a dozen scratches and bruises.

Nevertheless, the outcome was a foregone conclusion since I had the power of fifteen [Potato Cannons] behind me.

When the Boss’s HP bar had only a sliver of red left in it, I hid behind Mr. Bear for cover as I shot an [Orichalcite Arrow] at it.

[You have defeated the Winged Golden Slime Queen.]

When my arrow hit the slime, it shrank until it was only a foot in diameter, then fell down on the ground. Its slime strand formed the shape of three letter z’s, indicating that it was out cold.

[Congratulations, you just advanced an Archery level!]

[Your Archery level is now 42.]

Yes! I retrieved the cannons and cautiously approached the sleeping slime.

Where was the item? I scanned the area near its body until I found a small, golden key. Then I went back to the ladder and knelt down. There should be a metal door here somewhere. In the game, it only appeared after one got the key.

My heart sank when no door appeared.

“This is the worst!” I said to no one in particular.

Dejected, I sat down on the lowest rung of the ladder to rest for a bit before going back up.

That was when a trapdoor was triggered, and I tumbled backward along with the ladder into a hole that appeared on the ground.

Chapter 99 - Caught in a trap

Chapter 99 - Trap-tacularly caught in a pit-iful situation

🙞❤︎🙜

I barely had enough time to scream before I fell on something soft and bouncy. Above me, I saw that I had fallen through a trap door that hinged down with the ladder attached to it. This wasn’t in the game!

Looking around me, I saw that I was in a room with gray stone walls. I was lying on a mound of brown goo approximately twelve feet above the earthen floor. Twenty feet above me was a stone ceiling with the trapdoor that was slowly closing itself. Brown goo was steadily dripping down from dozens of small holes in one corner of the ceiling. There was only one usable exit that I could see, a round hole in the ceiling with a ladder leading up to it.

When I tried to get up, my feet and hands sank into the soft surface that I was lying on.

“What the-” The more I struggled, the more I sank into the brown gooey substance. It wasn’t sandy, which meant that it wasn’t quicksand, but it seemed to behave the same way. When I stopped moving, the rate at which I sank slowed down drastically.

My mind raced as I tried to think of a solution.

I stopped struggling and frantically searched the Cash Shop for an item that could help me.

[Diving Helmet:

Going on an exciting adventure under the sea? Use this item to enable you to breathe underwater.]

The [Diving Helmet] was a novelty item that was given away as a prize in a summer event. I remembered that for a few weeks after that, everyone in Adventure Incarnate went around with a fishbowl-looking helmet on their head.

“Please work, please work, please work!” I equipped the item, desperately hoping it would function as genuine diving gear rather than merely a cosmetic fashion accessory.

A wave of relief washed over me when I saw the System popup.

[Oxygen Level: 10/10]

There was even a [Buy More Oxygen] button that I could use if I ran out. This function definitely wasn’t in the game since the long-promised underwater expansion was never released, but I was not one to look a gift horse in the mouth.

I reckoned that I would be fine as long as I could breathe, so I let myself sink down to the bottom of the goo. Thank goodness it didn’t smell bad. In fact, it smelled rather pleasant, like cola with a slight rose scent.

When my feet finally touched the earthen floor, I walked as fast as I could to the exit. The jelly-like substance slowed down my limbs, and I could hardly see where I was going, but I eventually managed to find the ladder. Climbing up was an ordeal because the gelatinous material and fishbowl helmet weighed me down. The moment my shoulders cleared the goo, I took the helmet off and stored it in my inventory. With my burden lightened, I climbed faster and went through the hole in the ceiling into a short corridor lined with gray stone tiles.

I put a hand on my chest and heaved a sigh of relief. Then I realized that I was not completely free of the brown goo.

“Oh my gosh, I’m covered in slime!”

For one mad moment, I felt the urge to place an outdoor shower in the corridor to cleanse myself. I had already selected the item in the Cash Shop when I came to my senses. This was most likely not a safe spot, and it would be crazy to take a shower here. I would just have to bear with the slimey feeling on my skin for now.

At the other end of this underground passage was a plain wooden door. The small golden key I got from the Boss fit the lock perfectly.

I was almost blinded by a bright light when I opened the door and my ears were assailed by a loud chorus of “Chu, chu, chu!!”

All of the weeks that I had spent underground in the dim light must have affected my eyes, which watered and stung. I could hear the door swinging shut behind me as I equipped sunglasses to look around.

The gigantic cavern I was in was so large that I couldn’t see the other side. Hundreds of yellow, blue, green, red, and black slimes were bouncing around the open space in the middle while all around the earthen walls, colorful glowing flowers bloomed in riotous profusion. The slimes were smaller versions of the boss, with large, cute eyes of different colors and small mouths. To my right was a white stone platform half covered in pretty white crystals and boulders painted with vibrant psychedelic flower designs.

I thought that the sounds they were making were because of me, but I was wrong. Only three small slime monsters noticed me. The rest went about their own business, bouncing here and there, eating the flowers by swallowing them whole, and playfully rubbing against each other.

I could almost see a cutesy flower banner overlaying the cavern saying, “Slime Wonderland Event!” the way it appeared in the game.

My skin crawled when I saw a few slimes going to a certain portion of the cavern where they excreted a brown substance.

… The same brown substance that I was currently covered in!

“Chu!” One of the small slimes that had noticed me bounced up to my eye level. The slime strand on the top of its head was in the shape of a heart.

Ah! So this was my reward for the Boss fight. I petted its forehead and a System pop-up appeared.

[Tame Pet?]

[Yes] [No]

Of course, I clicked on the [Yes] button!

The yellow slime’s eyes widened and it let out an extremely loud “Chu!” sound before bouncing its way into my arms.

“Hmm, what should I call you?” Chu? Slimey? Bouncer? I couldn’t think of a good nickname for my pet, so I clicked on the dice icon to roll a random name for her.

[Squishkins]

[Accept] [Reject]

Rejected! I kept on rolling names, but I simply couldn’t get a good one.

“I’ll just call you Cutie for now,” I said. The name could be changed later.

With my pet slime monster in my arms, I went over to the flowers and foraged some seeds.

[Sunfire Buttercup Blossom:

A pretty yellow flower.]

Wow, this must be from that time when Adventure Incarnate’s developers had become lazy about writing the flavor text for items. Nonetheless, I checked the other seeds in case they had any special properties.

[Luminous Marigold:

It glows in the dark.]

Ah. Well, these were probably the slime’s favorite flowers, which I should use to feed my pet.

[Mythic Goldenrod:

A bright, golden-yellow flower.]

Rolling my eyes dramatically at the game writers’ slothful ways, I went around the cavern collecting seeds and looking for treasure. I found a few random fossils of no particular importance, as well as an uncut [Diamond].

It didn’t take me long to find the secret door, since I remembered that it was on the right side of the platform. I pushed a large red boulder to one side, exposing a steel square beneath it, which I proceeded to stomp on until a portion of the wall slid open with an earsplitting grinding sound. Behind it was a dark tunnel.

I took out a flashlight from my inventory and put Mr. Bear in front of me. Still holding my pet in one arm, I cautiously entered, jumping a little when the door closed behind me. I needn’t have worried, however, as the passageway was short and led me to the portal.

“Yes! Finally, we can go home!”

I ran straight to the stone arch that was covered in glowing blue runes. On its right side was a pedestal that had a white marble tablet mounted on it. Though I couldn’t read the text on the tablet, that didn’t matter because the System provided me with its own control panel. Most of the portal locations were gray and dark, meaning they were inactive. I mentally clicked on the only available location.

Once I had made my choice, the empty space in the middle of the portal started glowing with a white light which slowly faded and formed into a set of large doors made up of countless runes. The doors opened with an excruciating slowness that made me want to scream. Finally, I saw my chosen location behind the doors.

I made Mr. Bear shrink until he was small enough for me to attach to my belt then stepped through the portal.

Chapter 99.5

An excerpt from the journal of Shuye Skullcrusher, Guardian of the Ancient Hill Forest:

The manpower problem was solved when we reached a level that contained a subterranean spring with immensely valuable qi water as well as historically significant paintings and markings on the wall in some unknown language. These discoveries ignited a fire in the hearts of the clan merchants, and we were inundated with volunteers. The elders set up a guard on the surface to inspect and collect taxes on any artifacts found while hundreds of treasure hunters descended to join us. Ostensibly, everyone was here to find the missing human, but where altruism had failed, greed succeeded in building a rescue team of the proper size.

I sent word to my wife that I might actually make it back home before winter's end.

Some scholars also joined us to study why this underground maze had been built. When they realized that, beyond a certain depth, none of us suffered any side effects from being away from our territory for too long, half a dozen of them made plans to set up a field station on the level where we had found the cave paintings.

According to the archaeologists, the unknown artist had used paint made from rare pigments and resin from a now-extinct tree. That was what made them look as though they had been painted yesterday.

I had a feeling that the pictographs and rock art were much newer than they thought, but I kept my mouth shut since I didn’t have any proof.

Chapter 100 & 100.5 - The other side of the portal

Chapter 100 - Qi-rfully yin-joying a reunion

🙞❤︎🙜

I walked through the portal into the Mysterious Glade. The first thing that hit me was the fresh, cold wind on my face which felt amazing to me after weeks of being stuck underground. I removed the sunglasses and took a deep breath, enjoying the scent of the forest and damp earth. I tilted my head up to luxuriate in the weak but welcome winter sunlight. My skin tingled. Every sunbeam and a stray gust of wind seemed to breathe new life into my weary body.

My new pet bounced down from my arms and started exploring, but I paid it no mind as I stood there caught up in the delightful feeling of finally escaping from the demon-infested southern wilderness.

“I did it!” I raised my hands to the sky and started to do a little jig when I realized that I was dripping brown goo on the ground. “Ahhh, I’m filthy!”

Since the Mysterious Glade wasn’t part of my farm, I couldn’t place a shower or bathroom here. I contented myself with placing the largest tent that I could in order to protect myself from the cold wind. Then I stripped my gooey clothes and shoes off. Using soap, buckets of water, and a washcloth, I cleaned myself as best as I could. My hair was an absolute disaster, tangled and sticky with the brown substance, so I used the Cash Shop to make myself bald. After vigorously scrubbing my scalp until it was free of slime, I gave myself a cute and simple ponytail hairstyle.

When I was done cleaning, I donned the elegant [Winter Brocade Set] and circled the Mysterious Glade to check for any interesting stuff that I could forage, but all I got were a few [Winterberries].

[Winterberry:

White berries that grow during the cold season. Their citrusy mint taste makes them a perfect addition to salads and fruit juices.]

I washed a berry in the stream, which reminded me of the time when I had gone fishing here with Prince Baiyu. As I popped a berry into my mouth, I wondered where he was. The berry was slightly sweet and had a strong fresh, minty taste. Maybe I could extract the juice and make it into a mouthwash.

“Chu!” My pet Cutie came bouncing back to me and I took her in my arms again as I crawled into the opening in the hedgerow that led out of the glade. I hid my new slime pet in the System’s [Pet] tab for now since I wasn’t sure how people would react to it.

I lit a few fireworks and, sure enough, a clan member came to check what the commotion was about.

“Hey! It’s me, I’m Violet,” I said as I waved at two clan members. I didn’t know these particular ones, but they were probably on the lookout for me after I disappeared.

“Baroness! Are you hurt? Do you need a healer?” A tall, gangly youth wearing bright green robes approached me.

“No, I’m fine. Do you know what happened to my household?” I asked.

The other clan member spoke up. He was older and looked similar enough to the other one that they were probably siblings or cousins. He said, “Your household is in Anwei. Everyone is fine.”

“I’m Bo and this is my brother Ming,” said the younger one. “Lord Shuye went to the Southerlands to look for you.”

“He did? Then someone needs to send word to him that I’m back,” I said.

The brothers exchanged a look. Ming cleared his throat and said tentatively, “Baroness, perhaps you need a little time to calm down? Your battle aura is quite fierce.”

“My what?”

“We understand that you’ve probably been through something dangerous quite recently. You might not be aware of it, but the qi surrounding your body is extremely ferocious right now,” said Ming.

“It is?” As far as I knew, there was nothing called a “battle aura” in Adventure Incarnate. What could it mean? “Okay, please give me a moment to calm down.”

Two of them bowed to me, and I bowed back.

“I’ll go and inform the clan of your return. Bo will stay here and help you with whatever you need,” said Ming.

“Thank you,” I said.

Then I walked a little away from them and hid behind a large tree. The fact that I didn’t have to say System commands out loud was great. Nor did I have to physically touch the menu buttons. Nonetheless, I was worried that my expression looked weird when I mentally interacted with the System, so I thought it would be good to put a little distance between us.

Though I didn’t know what sort of “fierce qi” my body was giving off, that was probably because I leveled up my combat skills. There were settings that I could tweak which might help. I browsed all the privacy options in the System and turned on a few. [Hide Stats] should do it. This was a setting that I never used in the game since, as a high-level player, I had nothing to hide. It was mostly newbies who hid their stats in the game.

A few minutes later, I walked back to where Bo was patiently waiting for me and asked him if my aura was okay now. When he confirmed that my aura was calm now, I asked him to help me get back to my farm.

***

Right before sunset, I arrived at the desert after spending the rest of the day explaining to various clan members what had happened to me, as well as a long trip on the flying carriage. The subordinates Shuye had left behind sent a messenger to the mines right away to let the rescue team know that I had returned. Then they arranged everything for my trip back to my desert home. I could’ve stayed in the forest, but I wanted to check on my [Greening the Desert] project.

It seems that seven days after I teleported, the house in the desert disappeared. That was when my household moved to Anwei to wait for my return.

Shuye’s staff had arranged for them to join me soon. Everyone also assured me that the White Tiger clan had taken care of the [Lizardwings] and trees during my absence. My apprentices had made weekly trips, too.

Once my flying carriage landed at the foot of Skyfang Mountain, I was greeted with the expected System screen.

[Desert Farm Deactivated Due to Inactivity.

Pay 1,000 Gold to Restore?]

[Yes] [No]

I mentally clicked on the [Yes] and the [Confirm 1,000 Gold Payment] buttons.

The clan members who had escorted me gasped in surprise when a huge magic circle appeared on the ground. It glowed brightly for a few seconds, then the courtyard house, greenhouse, mill, and decorations appeared in the same place they had been before.

“Uh, do you guys mind if I go right in and nap? I’m tired,” I said, yawning. In the distance, I could see several people flying towards us. No doubt they were the clan members who had been looking after and patrolling the area.

“Please do whatever you wish, and call us if you need anything,” said their leader Naru, a tall, red-haired man with bright green eyes and a cleft chin. “We’ll be right outside the house.”

Suddenly, I realized that I had committed a huge faux pas. “Uh, sorry, I meant, um, please come inside for some tea.”

“No, no need. You must be exhausted, Lady Violet,” he said.

“I couldn’t leave you outside in this heat, please come in.”

After a few more polite protests, they agreed to enter, and I quickly led them to a side room and offered them fresh, hot tea from the Cash Shop which they refused. They did accept glasses of plain soda water from the spring in the Mines though. We made a little bit of small talk about the weather and tree planting project, enough to satisfy the dictates of politeness, before they left to return to their homes in the Ancient Hill Forest.

I was just about to close the house’s main gate when I saw a small black dot in the sky rapidly growing bigger. A few minutes later I saw that it was a large flying carriage with an elaborately carved exterior painted gold and red. I placed an overstuffed armchair in front of the gate and sat down to wait for it to arrive. The moment its wheels touched the ground, the doors were flying open and three people jumped out of it. My apprentices came running towards me. They looked fine, more than fine actually. Perhaps because they had been living in a city, they were dressed in fine silk robes and wore elegant hairstyles decorated with gold and jade hairpins.

“Teacher!”

“You’re back!”

“Where did you go?”

Their screams of joy and questions melded together in such a way that I got confused as to who was asking what, but it didn’t matter. Mo and Kharli fell into my outstretched arms and we hugged each other tightly. Lari stood a little bit away from us, wiping tears from his eyes until Kharli grabbed him and added him to our group hug. I didn’t cry, but I felt my eyes get a little moist.

“It feels good to be back home,” I said.

“They kept on asking us if you were dead!” said Mo.

“We knew you were alive,” said Lari.

“I’m definitely alive. I would know if I was dead,” I said.

My little joke made Kharli cry. “Teacher, are you okay? What happened?”

“It’s a long story. I’ll tell you after dinner,” I said.

I don’t know how long we stood with our arms around each other. Fengying, Deming, and the other staff filed past us without saying a word. I wondered how they had all fit into the carriage. They must’ve been squished together like sardines in a can.

When I finally pulled away, my apprentices’ faces were stained with tears and, in Lari’s case, snot. I offered them handkerchiefs and said, “Here, wipe your faces, and let’s go inside. I’m tired.”

“Teacher, the house disappeared! Some people said you might be dead,” said Mo. She looked thinner than before and she had dark eye bags.

“Yeah, you know how if you place stuff, like a bucket or a spade, somewhere, it disappears after a while?” I said.

They all nodded.

“It’s like that for the house. If I don’t live in it, it will disappear. I told you that before,” I said.

“See, I told you!” said Kharli to the others. “I remembered Teacher said that, but you two forgot.”

“How are the [Lizardwings]?” I asked.

“They’re fine! The walls and pen disappeared, so the clan members took them away for a few days until they finished building a wooden pen,” said Kharli. Out of the three of them, she seemed to have recovered her spirits the fastest.

In contrast, Lari was still sniffing and wiping his eyes.

“We went to live in Anwei and flew back every three days because there’s not a lot of water here,” said Kharli. “We brought tons of water for the [Lizardwings], trees, and clan members.”

“The clan members were impressed that we had such a large soul space,” said Mo. “Lari showed off by bringing them one hundred buckets of water.”

I laughed. “Really? One hundred?”

We chatted about random things that had happened, and I felt a lot better when we entered the house. The familiar surroundings and the beaming faces of my apprentices seemed to loosen a knot in my heart. It was great to be home.

Chapter 100.5

An excerpt from the journal of Shuye Skullcrusher, Guardian of the Ancient Hill Forest:

When I received the investigative report from the clan elders, I wrote a summary of it to send to Baroness Violet later. The teleportation stone was found to be inactive, and nothing they tried could activate it. Therefore, it was more or less proven that the whole thing was simply an accident though no one could explain why or how it happened.

The scholars who have been studying an ancient teleportation stone in the Ka’u region were also investigated, but a link between their experiments and the artifact at the Fox clan’s temple could not be proven.

It seems that the Fox clan was forced to take full responsibility for the incident since it happened at their temple grounds. They were ordered to pay 0.1% of the Fox clan's income last year as restitution. Most of that would be paid to Baroness Violet directly, but the rescue team’s expenses would be deducted from it first.

I was at the fifty-six level talking to a representative of the Fox clan about whether they wanted to pay in gold pieces, labor, goods, or a combination of all three when we got word that Baroness Violet had returned to the Ancient Hill Forest.

We cut the conversation short, and I immediately organized the rescue team’s retreat. My wife was going to be quite happy that I was returning two months before she was due to give birth to our child.

Chapter 101 - The universe's divine revolutions

Chapter 101 - Sirius-ly calm and peaceful interlude in the puniverse

🙞❤︎🙜

When I first teleported out of the Chitinous Caverns, I felt fine, but the next day I slept for twelve hours straight because of the accumulated fatigue of fighting monsters every day. The adrenaline wore off and I spent the next three days just sleeping, eating, and resting.

I wrote an abbreviated report about what had happened to me and sent it to Shuye. My Farm Guide sent back word that he was glad I was fine, and that was that.

Life returned to normal.

With one tiny addition, of course.

“Look, this is my new pet, isn’t she cute?” I held out the yellow slime for my apprentices to inspect. “She’s going to be very useful!”

Lari, Kharli, and Mo exchanged puzzled glances.

“Here, pet her on the head,” I said.

None of them made a move.

“Teacher, is this some sort of joke?” asked Kharli.

The three of them were frowning.

“Hey, she’s not a demon. I know she’s unusual but actually, you know the god of the mines had a slime pet, and this is the pet’s offspring. So it’s fine!” I was quite disappointed by their reaction.

“Chu?” The slime strand on the top of Cutie’s head formed into a question mark.

I pulled her back and cuddled her in my arms. “Never mind, I’ll take care of her myself. Come.”

Waving an arm as an indication that they should follow me, I made my way to the northern side of the courtyard house. There I chose a place ten feet away from the house’s wall and built a [Slime House] on it.

Pet houses were not included in the building limit since they were considered part of the house. The [Slime House] was a pretty little cottage that looked like a wooden doll’s house painted in pastel pink, mint green, sunshine yellow, and baby blue colors. Above the door was a wooden signboard that had the words “Slime House” carved on it in curly letters. However, since it was written in English, the people here wouldn’t be able to read it.

The ceiling was eight feet high and the structure was square with around eight foot long walls on all sides, with an earthen floor half covered in colorful flowers. The east and west walls were lined with shelves that contained pots while the northern wall contained a pet slime bed and play area with perches at five different heights. The door was at the south wall which also contained a treasure chest where pet toys and accessories could be kept.

“Chu! Chu, chu chu!” My pet was quite excited and bounced around her new house, her slime strand in the form of a lightning bolt.

“Slimes eat flowers, so let’s plant these flower seeds in the pots,” I said.

“Yay! More Exp!” said Mo. She was the first to take the seeds from my hand and start planting.

The other two exchanged glances. Kharli shrugged.

“Exp is exp,” said Kharli.

The two of them followed suit and it didn’t take long for us to finish. I showed them the square metal grill on the northeast corner of the floor.

“This is where Cutie will…do her business. The ‘product’ will be collected in a slime tank which we can use as fertilizer later,” I said.

I had been disgusted by the mountain of brown goo in the mines, but now I regretted not collecting some of it to use later.

Lari mumbled something under his breath that I didn’t quite catch.

What was up with them? I thought they would like the slime, but they were acting weird. I guess coming back with a weird pet was too much for them to handle.

“Okay, I’ll leave my pet here. Let’s go plant some trees!” I was sure they would get used to Cutie in time.

***

Tonight I decided to sleep under the stars. During my underground adventure, I had very carefully not thought about the fact that I was stuck under tons of rock, but now that I was above ground, I appreciated open spaces a lot more than I did before.

The girls didn’t want me to sleep outside alone, so they would be staying a short distance away from me to give me some peace and quiet.

I set up a large tent with a plush outdoor carpet and two big beds for them before I went off to make my own campsite. Unlike my apprentices, I didn’t want a tent. I wanted to sleep out in the open, so I set down a bivouac sack or bivy sack, stuffed a sleeping bag in it, and sat cross-legged down on it.

It was ten o’clock at night, and it was cold here in the grasslands. I put on a jacket and enjoyed the vastness of the land and the open sky. The moon, full and radiant, cast a mystical glow over the landscape, and as I inhaled the crisp night air, I rejoiced in my hard-won freedom and the austere beauty all around me. The brown and green grasses that covered the land were gently ruffled by the night breezes and the insects buzzed continuously.

Above me, a starry canopy of stars blazed like multicolored diamonds scattered across black velvet. I was casually stargazing when a System popup disturbed my quiet musing.

[Study the stars?]

[Yes] [No]

What was this? Oh yeah, I forgot about Astrology!

I mentally clicked on the [No] button because I was here to sleep, not get Astrology exp. At least, that was what I told myself. My gamer side, on the other hand, wouldn’t let me rest until I tried it out. A few minutes after I rejected the System prompt, I called up the Astrology screen again and clicked on [Yes].

A telescope materialized in front of my divvy bag and, with a sigh of exasperation at myself, I got up and used it to study the night sky.

The System gave me a Star Map as a guide to where to point the telescope at. I picked the Celestial Cowherd since it was a beginner constellation, and spent the next hour trying to find it.

It was kind of fun to look through the telescope at the stars. When I finally found the star I was looking for, I received a small amount of exp.

Through the telescope, I stared at the white star that shone brighter than its neighbors. Legend said that the stars were gods, and this one was supposed to be the heavenly immortal who was in charge of the divine cattle.

Were the stars just flaming chunks of rocks or gods?

I moved on to the next target, the Weaver Girl Constellation, which was on the other side of the sky. Its main star was the northern pole star while the Cowherd’s main star was the southern pole star.

The Cowherd and Weaver Girl were star-crossed lovers who only met once a year on the seventh day of the seventh month when the magpie god made a bridge spanning the sky for them to meet.

I got a bit more exp when I found the star and was pleasantly surprised to find that it was enough for me to level up.

[Congratulations, you just advanced an Astrology level!]

[Your Astrology level is now 2.]

Wow, who knew that stargazing gave Astrology exp in this world? In the game, one had to buy and read books to level it up. The skill was basically created as a money sink.

Every day that players played Adventure Incarnate, they got more and more in-game gold which made the existing currency decrease in value. After all, high-level farmers were able to make tens of thousands of gold every week through selling their products to non-player characters or NPCs.

Therefore, in order to give those high-level players a way to spend their money and reduce the amount of coins in the game, the developers made the Astrology skill. Players had to buy Astrology books for ridiculous amounts of gold to level it up.

The most annoying thing about it was that Astrology gave exp and stat bonuses that stacked, but only after spending 10 million gold. To level it up to 99, one had to spend 200 million coins. I remembered that a few of the wealthy elite actually welcomed the new skill as a way of using up their billions of gold and possibly reducing inflation in the game.

Obviously, everyone else hated the skill yet couldn’t resist the lure of getting +20% more exp and stat bonuses.

I put the telescope away and snuggled into my sleeping bag, chuckling at the diabolical nature of the Adventure Incarnate devs. Those guys were pros at trolling their own players with annoying but irresistible new content. I fell into a deep, peaceful sleep, dreaming of frolicking in a jungle with a cute blue dragon.

Chapter 102 - New Year Festivities

Chapter 102 - [Lizardwings], not poultrygeists

🙞❤︎🙜

“All you have to do is place the [Spirit Grass] on the tilled square, and it will take care of itself. No need to water it, and it will spread to nearby areas,” I said after demonstrating how to plant the grass.

[Spirit Grass:

A fast-growing and hardy grass that provides a great food source for grazing animals. ]

“When will we harvest it?” asked Kharli.

“Never. This isn’t for us to gather. We’re planting this for the [Prairie Elk],” I said.

“Then we won’t get a lot of exp?” Mo looked disappointed.

“Does this mean the [Prairie Elk] will return?” asked Lari.

“They will probably return. Anyway, this [Spirit Grass] has a small amount of qi in it, so it’s good for spirit animals,” I said. “This is actually the most basic of the pasture seeds that we can use, but the others require rich, fertile soil. Anyway, this isn’t too important right now. We need to focus more on planting trees.”

The four of us planted more of the grass before we checked on the [Lizardwings]. They were now adults, and their current habitat was now covered in lush, green grass, so I contacted one of the clan members and sold the animals. Then I placed six [Lizardwing] eggs in a brand-new pen.

After that, we made our rounds.

The [Wild Seed Mix] that I had planted before my disappearance had grown well, better than I expected, in fact. The patch of ground that had been covered in dry, brown grass was now vibrant, blooming flowers and wild grasses.

The trees were also doing great, and the experiment with the clay pots was likewise successful.

I should be happy, but I was very, very worried about tonight.

“Remember, after dinner, you guys have to stay with me for the entire night, and no falling asleep!” I said for the dozenth time today.

“Yes, Teacher,” they said in unison.

“Promise me!” I said.

“What’s the big deal?” asked Lari.

“You don’t want to know.” I bit my finger.

Kharli gave me a worried look. “I would like to know if there’s any danger.”

“No, there’s no danger,” I said.

“Then why do we have to stay up all night?” asked Mo.

“Are you sure you want to know?” I asked them.

“Yes!” said Mo.

“Because I’m scared of the New Year's Ghost!” I shuddered. This was the downside of having a magical “bloodline inheritance.” Thus far, I and my apprentices had enjoyed the benefits of having a powerful System that helped us with farming and other tasks, but not everything in Adventure Incarnate was so convenient. The ghost was one of them.

Every year’s end, the New Year’s Ghost appeared in the player’s dream and evaluated their performance. Unfortunately, it was almost impossible to get a good evaluation in the first year, and I really didn’t want to be visited by the scary spirit of the player’s dead grandpa who scolded the player about being inept.

Also, a ghost? Really? I did not want to meet one, ever.

“Is this a superstition in your hometown, Teacher?” asked Kharli.

Lari folded his arms across his chest. “I don’t believe in ghosts.”

“Don’t worry, Teacher, we’ll protect you,” said Mo.

Lari rolled his eyes. “From a ghost? How do we even do that?”

“By keeping me awake all night, I told you!” I said.

“That’s easy. We can definitely do that,” said Kharli.

They showered me with reassurances as we walked to the house. I was hopeful that if I didn’t go to sleep then I wouldn’t have to meet the ghost, but I was so nervous that I was in a daze all throughout lunch until Fengying mentioned something important.

“The Prince has sent word that he will be joining the New Year’s Eve Remembrance gathering,” said Fengying as the maids cleared away the dishes.

“Wait, what gathering?” I was confused. “We’re having a party?”

“No, my lady. As I told you a few days ago, twelve White Tiger clan families will be arriving tonight at their regular site a few miles away to celebrate New Year,” said Fengying.

“Oh yeah.” I vaguely remembered her saying something about that.

“Prince Baiyu sent word that he will be there, too, and that we should all join them right before dawn. He’ll send some carriages.” Fengying looked me up and down disapprovingly. “One of the new maids is well-versed in makeup and hairstyles.”

I took a mirror from my inventory and examined myself. My messy updo would have been perfectly fine on Earth but looked sloppy here. “No, it’s fine I can do my own hair. Why don’t you send her to take care of the girls?”

Kharli and Mo nodded enthusiastically while Lari looked bored.

“May I go and visit the clan members? They should be preparing for tonight’s gathering,” said Lari.

“Hmm, how many will be coming? Should we prepare some refreshments? Maybe I should dig a well nearby so they have fresh water,” I said.

“That won’t be needed. I was informed that they will be bringing everything that they need. They asked us to not disturb them from midnight until the carriage is sent,” said Fengying.

Ah, it must be some sort of private family gathering rather than a big party where everyone was invited.

We spent the rest of the day bathing and getting ready for the New Year’s banquet. I wore a rather flashy red and gold ensemble with a large golden flower headdress that made tinkling sounds whenever I moved. Apparently, the sound of gold on gold was considered very lucky during New Year’s Eve, so I let Lari and the girls wear as much gold jewelry as they wanted. During my absence, the kids had bought better accessories in Anwei City, so we all looked quite fine indeed.

Well, except for Lari who must’ve been conned by a quick-talking merchant because he was covered in golden necklaces and bangles that all had a bat design. Why bats? Because bats were supposed to hide a lot of treasures in their caves.

Wow. All he needed was a bat cowl and he would look ready to fight crime in Gotham City.

These days, of course, I was used to sleeping early and waking up before dawn. Therefore I had a terrible time staying awake. I drank five cups of coffee and the kids played board games with me until my eyes started to feel heavy. Then they took some pots and pans from the kitchen and banged on them while we staggered around in a weird dance.

It was kinda fun but extremely tiring. I was very relieved when the carriages finally arrived.

“It’s close to dawn already? Ha, soon I will be able to rest,” I said. “Just a sec, I need to tidy myself up.”

I went to my bedroom and used the Cash Shop to tidy up my hair. Then I washed my face at the sink. When I sat down on my bed to wipe the water off my face and neck with a towel, I was overcome by extreme lethargy.

I yawned and closed my eyes just for a second.

...When I opened my eyes again, I was in a familiar jungle. All around me, bright green tropical plants grew in riotous profusion. I took a deep breath and smelled damp earth, decaying leaves, wild orchids, and frangipani, among other, less recognizable scents. There was a path in front of me, and I instinctively knew that there was something at the end of it that I needed to see.

Myriad insects buzzed; bird calls filled the air, and leaves were rustled by a hot breeze. This place was always noisy with the sounds of life. As I was walking, a brightly-plumed bird flew towards me, carrying a ripe mango in its beak which it dropped into my waiting hands. I took a knife from my inventory and ate the honey-sweet fruit, its juices running down my chin. I stopped by a stream to wash off and smiled at the small, quick, silver-scaled fish that came to nibble at my fingers.

I continued walking until I reached a small clearing. The jungle canopy let in one large sunbeam that illuminated the most beautiful woman in the world, her husband, and the dragon she was holding in her arms. I froze.

My little dragon jumped out of my mother's arms and ran towards me, but I was too shocked to pick him up.

"Hello, dear," said my mother.

That did it. I ran towards my parents, tears streaming from my eyes. "Mom! Dad! Where have you been?"

"Dead," said my father. He picked up my dragon and all four of us hugged.

"At least you're together," I said. "Are you in heaven? Are you guys going to reincarnate?"

"So many questions," said my mom. She looked just like me but with brown eyes and a hundred times more beautiful. My dad was handsome enough, I guess, but the two of us had nothing on her. My mom was on a totally different level compared to the rest of us ordinary folk.

"What's happening?" I asked.

"We came to say Happy New Year, dear. You've done okay this past year, but you need to do better next year," she said.

"Wait, what?" That line was similar to what the New Year's Ghost said in Adventure Incarnate. Was my mom the ghost now?

"I give you a C minus grade this time. Keep on improving your farm," she continued.

"What?" Oh no, she was just saying stuff from the game now.

"Wakupcher," she said.

"Huh?"

"Wakupcher."

Chapter 103 - End Book 1

Chapter 103 - Time to turnip the soil on another year!

🙞❤︎🙜

Something grabbed me by the shoulder and my eyes flew open.

"Wake up, Teacher!" said Kharli.

"Ah, we didn't think you would fall asleep so fast," said Mo.

"..." I remembered I dreamed about my parents. I think my mom became the New Year's Ghost and evaluated my performance, but I was already forgetting the details of the dream. Was my dragon there? I think my dad hugged me? Still, a dream about my mom was better than a dream with that bearded old grandpa ghost in Adventure Incarnate. "I'm fine. Let's go."

A few minutes later, we piled onto the carriages. Since it was my first time seeing Prince Baiyu after a two-month absence, I wanted to show him my new pet. However, given my apprentices’ reaction to it, I figured that the White Tiger clan probably wouldn’t want to see a “demon” at their big celebration.

"New Year's Eve is a very important night for clan members, but you mustn't ask them about it," said Fengying.

"Why not?" asked Lari.

"They live three times longer than humans, but their memory can... become slightly unreliable when they are old," said Fengying. She and her husband were squeezed into a carriage with me and my apprentices while the rest of my household were in the other vehicles. We were all dressed to the nines and wearing tinkling gold accessories, even the males. "They are trained to write a diary from the time they were children, and on New Year's Eve, they have a special recollection session where they discuss what happened to their family the previous year, good and bad. It's all written down in a secret code, but don't ask about it since it's a very private thing."

"Oh, I should start writing a diary, too," I said.

The clan's campsite wasn't that far, and we arrived by the time I finished speaking.

Prince Baiyu was waiting for us at the edge of the encampment and courteously helped me alight from the carriage. I saw that the White Tiger families had camped in clusters of large tents or elaborately carved and painted wooden wagons.

"Happy New Year," I said.

"Happy New Year." Prince Baiyu placed my hand on his arm and walked me towards the large open space full of people. The others followed behind us.

The clan members had placed blankets on the ground and were sitting together in small, convivial groups with lots of food and drink piled beside them.

I was quite surprised to see that there were plenty of females, elderly people, and children. What happened to the superstition that the cursed land was bad for them?

On the other side of the gathering was a small wooden platform ten feet off the ground that was only big enough for two to three people to stand on. A clan member was standing on it and talking into a small crystal that projected his voice to three larger crystals that were scattered around the area in front of the stage. He was naming families one by one and welcoming them to the year-end meeting.

"Did it work? Has your qi overload problem been cured?" I asked.

"Mostly. I'll still need to be careful, but my life is not endangered anymore," he said. “How are you? They should have told me you were missing. I would’ve joined the rescue team.”

“Nah, it all worked out in the end, and I rescued myself, didn’t I? It’s nice that we both took care of our own problems.” Then I thought about it a little and added, “Though I wouldn’t have minded being rescued. By the way, you look great.”

Prince Baiyu smiled down at me. "I missed you."

A female clan member who was standing nearby giggled and pointed at us. She said, loud enough for us to hear, "Look at those two, aren't they sweet?"

Oh my gosh! My face felt hot when everyone turned to look at us, whispering behind their hands.

"Ignore them," said Prince Baiyu.

"Let's just, uh, talk later," I said.

Prince Baiyu sighed.

After that, we walked in companionable silence to the front of the crowd, near the stage. Prince Baiyu's father was there with a bunch of people. He waved at us, and we joined them on the picnic blankets they had spread out on the grassy ground. I was wearing rather elaborate robes and had a tough time arranging my skirt so that I could sit on the ground comfortably.

We exchanged polite greetings and I was introduced to Prince Baiyu's paternal family. They were all of a kind: tall, good-looking, white-haired beauties with blue eyes. I had some difficulty remembering their names since they all looked so similar. I was about to embarrass myself by asking them to repeat their names when I was interrupted by the start of the show.

The person on the stage yelled, "Happy New Year!" and, all around us, fireworks were set off. People lit some sort of paper tubes, and fireworks flew out of them, up into the sky. We all clapped and cheered in appreciation.

By the time the fireworks died down, the first rays of dawn were appearing on the eastern horizon.

"And now, for the moment we've all been waiting for! Here are some words from Elder Yao."

A female clan member with a deeply wrinkled face and a slight stoop was flown up to the stage by two younger people.

"Today is a blessed day!" said Elder Yao. "We have seen with our own eyes that flowers are blooming in the cursed land, in fulfillment of the ancient prophecy."

The people around us yelled their agreement.

"Yes!"

"We saw!"

"Flowers, flowers, flowers!"

Elder Yao waited for the crowd to quiet down before speaking again. "Let us recall the words of the prophecy."

Every clan member, including Prince Baiyu, started chanting the same words.

"Cursed shall be you, your children, your children's children, your children's children's children, and all your descendants. Yet this will not endure forever. Water the land with your blood and wait."

Then, to my surprise, Prince Baiyu suddenly pulled me to my feet and flew me up to the stage.

"Ah, what? Er," I said as Prince Baiyu deposited me beside the elder and flew back down off the stage.

"We're all grateful to you for your efforts thus far," said Elder Yao to me. "Here are your rewards."

Below us, five people brought five large chests and opened them, revealing that they were full of gold bars.

"We offer you this gold. Do you accept?" asked Elder Yao.

I didn't need money, so I said, "Uh, no, please use the gold to plant more trees in the desert."

The five people left, taking the chests of gold with them. They were replaced by a squad of twelve soldiers dressed in steel armor. In front of them marches a standard-bearer carrying a tall wooden pole topped by a silver tiger.

"We offer you the might of our warriors. Do you accept?" asked Elder Yao.

I had even less use for an army, of course, so I refused it, too. "No, thanks."

The soldiers marched away, and a solitary figure dressed in red and gold robes and wearing a massive golden tiger headdress approached the stage and unrolled a large scroll.

"We offer you this deed to this land and all of our lands. Do you accept?" said Elder Yao.

"Most definitely not! I only want my farm," I said.

The Elder lifted her arms and the crowd below us fell silent. You could've heard a pin drop. After a long, dramatic pause, Elder Yao said, "And the rest of the prophecy states..."

Every clan member joined her in saying the next words.

"One will come who is not tempted by wealth, glory, and honor. A savior who will lift the curse by making flowers bloom in the desert. Hail, the Healer of Worlds!"

"Hail, the Bringer of Life!"

"Hail, the Child of Fate!"

"Hail, Harbinger of the Dawn!"

I was a little bit surprised that this event happened today since it should have been triggered by the completion of the [Greening the Desert] quest, but I guessed that it was probably because my efforts had been much more successful than the people of this world had expected.

Everyone made one last wordless cheer and then looked at me as though expecting some sort of speech. Thankfully I was saved by a young child, who looked no older than six years old if she was human, pointing at the eastern sky where the sun was almost completely above the horizon and yelling, "Look, it's the New Year!"

"Happy New Year!" yelled hundreds of voices.

Below us, I could see my household all beaming at me and yelling "Happy New Year!"

Prince Baiyu flew up to the stage and carried me back down to where my apprentices were waiting for us.

"Happy New Year!" we all said to each other.

[Congratulations, you have received the title: Child of Fate

Effect: The White Tiger clan is your ally and may help you complete quests.]

I was about to say “Happy New Year” to Prince Baiyu when he took me in his arms. He lowered his head very slowly, giving me time to get used to it. Our eyes met and I put my arms around his neck.

Out of the corner of my eye, I could see another couple kissing. Was this a New Year tradition?

I closed my eyes in anticipation, excitement coursing through my veins.

Yes! This was the perfect way to end the year.

Time seemed to slow as our lips drew closer. Then…

Our noses bumped!

My eyes flew open and we both drew back, startled. Behind us, I heard a noise and when I turned around, I saw Prince Baiyu’s father Lord Yulin and the other members of his family unsuccessfully trying to stifle their laughter.

“Unbelievable. How can someone from our family not know how to kiss properly?” said a middle-aged clan member.

“Hey, my son is still young,” protested Lord Yulin.

“Don’t laugh, you guys are terrible!” A female elder with white hair scolded them.

What? Now that I saw that everyone was watching us, I felt self-conscious and pulled away a little from Prince Baiyu.

“Girl, you just need to teach him how,” said the female elder.

He already knew how! It was just an accident. I pouted a little then I turned back to my boyfriend. We exchanged mischievous smiles. Reaching up with both my hands, I tilted his head to the side a bit.

When our lips finally met it really was the perfect way to end the year.

END BOOK ONE

TO BE CONTINUED IN BOOK TWO

Chapter 104 - Start Book 2

Chapter 104 - Prosperous Boss-terous Start

🙞❤︎🙜

[System Announcement: World Boss Event

Prepare for the coming of the Demon Monarch

Countdown: 300 Days]

How annoying!

I was woken up from my dream of playing with a dragon child by the loud blaring of the System’s emergency announcement. Yawning, I stretched my arms over my head and sat up. Then I read the System text before closing the popup screen.

Wasn’t the event a bit early? I should have had the entire year to prepare for it. Well, it’s not like it was a big deal.

Last year, I, a normal human from planet Earth, transmigrated to the world of Adventure Incarnate, a farming/cultivation-themed massively multiplayer online role-playing game. I still have no idea how that happened. All I know is that this world is quite similar to the world of Adventure Incarnate and I could use the game’s System.

Because I’m a “player,” people call me the Healer of Worlds, Bringer of Life, Child of Fate, and Harbinger of the Dawn. I’m the prophesied savior who lifted the ancient curse that blighted the White Tiger clan’s once-fertile lands.

Though I wouldn’t go around calling myself “Supreme Protector of the Five Continents” or anything like that, I was nonetheless fairly confident that I could handle myself in a Boss fight. After all, I’d leveled up a bit since I came to this world, and my inventory was full of legendary items.

The upcoming battle against the Demon Monarch, despite the awesome name, was nothing more than a simple World Event in Adventure Incarnate in which all of the players came together to one-sidedly beat up the Boss.

Seeing as I had 2,147,483,647 each of almost every useful item in the game, I should be fine, right?

I threw back the covers and got up from my bed. My brain was still sluggish because I hadn’t had my breakfast and coffee yet.

Yawning again, I padded across my bedroom to my small kitchen, enjoying the feeling of the plush carpet under my bare feet. I had decorated my house in a rustic country style, with warm earth tones and royal blue accents. The best part of the house was the large wooden bed covered with crisp white cotton bedding and a colorful quilt. The headboard was carved with an intricate dragon design, and the mattress was supremely comfortable.

My house wasn’t very big, but it had everything I needed: a cozy sitting area with a cushy armchair and small table, a tiny kitchen with a bit of counter space, and a dining area with a small farmhouse-style table. Not to mention, I had a lovely modern flush toilet and bath. Luckily, the System’s Cash Shop had everything I needed.

Three days ago when we were in the desert, we celebrated the New Year with a big party that lasted for such a long time that we needed another day just to recover. Yesterday, we had flown back to the Ancient Hill Forest, and I had rebuilt the [Courtyard House], [Ranch House], and [Mill]. The other members of my household were currently at the [Courtyard House] while I stayed at the [Ranch House]. I liked having my own place, even if it was smaller than the [Courtyard House] since I felt more at ease living alone.

Using a coffee maker from the Cash Shop, I brewed myself a cup, added lots of milk and sugar, and then thought about the World Boss.

First of all, I only knew the info from the game, which may or may not be accurate since this was the real world.

Secondly, the event was easy in Adventure Incarnate because there were always thousands of players attacking the Boss at any given time. However, I was the only “player” here.

Thirdly, the Boss was the Demon Monarch, who was something of a glass cannon in the game. He had a healing skill, very high HP, low defense, and slow but powerful attacks.

Fourthly, there was no permadeath in the game. That was not true of this world.

Lastly, the best way to win was definitely through zerging. This was normally achieved by the game devs giving the players a nice reward for joining the fight to encourage everyone to attend the event. Would this be a good strategy to use now?

By the time I finished my coffee, I thought of a few ways to ensure victory in the coming event. I checked the System’s Event Calendar to verify the important dates to confirm that I had plenty of time and that it wasn’t the right moment for me to make a move.

Yet.

Things were bound to get intense in a few months, but for now, I had to focus on my current task, the spring planting.

Humming merrily, I showered and dressed in practical brown and black boots, trousers, and a short robe before going out. My destination was the [Courtyard House] which looked exactly like a traditional Chinese dwelling, with rectangular buildings arranged around two central courtyards. The sloping roof was adorned with vibrant ceramic tiles, and the imposing height of the surrounding walls was meant to give the residents a sense of security and seclusion. The house was divided into two parts, the outer courtyard where my apprentices and staff lived and worked, and the inner courtyard which was the space reserved for the house owner, i.e. me.

Everything was arranged in perfect geometrical symmetry, from the orderly way the red stone tiles lined the courtyard floor, to the flower baskets that hung in neat rows on the western and eastern roof eaves. With the help of my housekeeper, Fengying, I had furnished the house with simple and comfortable traditional furniture, most of it made of Fragrant Rosewood.

When I walked inside, the heavenly scent of freshly cooked food made me smile. I saw that breakfast had already been set up in the outer courtyard.

"Good morning," I said to my apprentices who greeted me in return.

Lari, Kharli, and Mo were likewise dressed in working clothes and looked bright-eyed and bushy-tailed.

Lari filled my water glass. Kharli served me the hot, sweet tea that I liked for breakfast while Mo filled my bowl with rice. They knew me well enough by now to guess which dishes I preferred, and they used their chopsticks to place choice pieces of ham and mushrooms in my bowl.

We were mostly silent while we ate. The ham was tender and had a complex flavor that thrilled my taste buds. The stir-fried dish was made using the mushrooms I had foraged myself from the underground cave system in the Southerlands. I’d specifically requested that the Demon Chef make this for me today since I was in the mood for eating something I had gotten after a lot of hard work. It was absolutely divine. Dessert was sweet red bean soup, one of my favorites.

When I finished eating, I sat back and sighed. “Are we all done? Let’s go.”

As we walked to the field that I had designated for today’s activity, I gave them the rice seeds and fertilizer that they would be using later.

"Teacher, how much of the [Purple Orchid Rice] will we plant this time?" asked Kharli. The oldest of the three, she had grown by two inches in the last year and was filling out quite nicely. When I had hired the girls from the orphanage last year, they had been quite thin and short for their age. Like the others, she had brown hair and brown eyes, but with roses blooming in her cheeks and a healthy glow around her, she was becoming quite pretty.

"I hope it's not a lot. I still don't like black rice," said Lari. The boy was starting to look more mature now. The fat was starting to melt into muscles, and he'd also grown around two inches, but he was still shorter than the other two.

"It's not really for us to eat," I said. "I made a mistake last time and caused a diplomatic incident. When we planted the rice varieties, I didn't know that the Fox Clan regarded the [Purple Orchid Rice] as a sacred crop for their goddess. But it's all sorted out. I just talked to Prince Baiyu. This time, I'll send them the unmilled rice which they can use as seeds."

"It's not your fault, Teacher!" said Mo. She hadn't changed much in the past year. She grew a little taller and was now normal weight, but the biggest change was her attitude. Though she was still a bit shy with strangers, she no longer looked down on the ground when she spoke to people.

"Of course, it's not my fault! Ha!" I rolled my eyes. "Anyway, I offered to sell fifty percent of the [Purple Orchid Rice] harvest to the Fox Clan at a premium price. That way, they can plant their own crops, too, and not bother us about it after this spring."

The desert quest had shown me that the clans were able to grow spirit plants and raise spirit animals, though not as well as I could. Most of the spirit animals and plants had died off during the demon invasion generations ago, but it was different now that I was here. The important part was that I had made an effort to help the Fox clan with the sacred rice and wouldn't be blamed if they failed.

“They’re not still claiming that all of the rice belongs to them, right?” asked Lari.

I smiled. “I believe that the incident with the teleportation stone put a lot of pressure on them, so they were forced to compromise.”

“It’s not a bad thing though, is it? This puts them in our debt,” said Kharli.

I nodded, and the three of them looked delighted. When we got to the field, we moved to our designated piece of land and got to work.

I took out the hoe from the System toolbelt and, with one downward swing, tilled nine tiles in the shape of a square. Each tile was around three feet square. I continued tilling the soil, keeping a close eye on my energy bar. When it was three-quarters empty, I took out a sack of fertilizer from my inventory. I only had to wave the sack towards the tilled ground, and the contents flew out to cover nine tiles at a time.

With that, I was ready to plant the seeds. Of course, most farmers did not plant rice seeds. They planted seedlings. The System, however, always used seeds for crops instead of seedlings, cuttings, or grafts. I filled my seed dispenser with rice seeds and then held it over the tilled soil. The seeds flew out of the tool and embedded themselves in the ground in neat rows. When I had used up all the seeds for the day, I took out my watering can and watered the tiles.

It didn’t take long before I completed my task, but Lari, Kharli, and Mo were already waiting for me. They had less energy, so they always finished before I did.

“Oh, that was great! I always enjoy planting time,” I said to them as we started walking back to the main house.

Lari put a hand on his left shoulder and rotated it. “Am I the only one whose arms feel tired?”

“I feel fine,” said Kharli.

“My arms do feel a bit sore,” said Mo.

“It’s normal to feel tired after using up all your energy. I feel like tilling the soil is hard work,” I said.

“I’m gonna soak longer in the hot spring this time,” said Lari.

“Me, too!” Mo turned around to face us. Now she was walking backwards. “Teacher, are you going to join us?”

Yesterday I had used the bathtub in my Ranch House instead of the Hot Spring facility in the Courtyard House. Unfortunately, the bathtub did not have the same energy restoration feature as the spring.

“I’ll join you girls this time,” I said.

I made a detour to check on my pet before going back to the house.

“Who’s a good little slime baby?” I cooed as I lifted my slime pet up in the air and hugged her.

Cutie, as I had named her, was a golden angel slime. I’d built a cute little [Slime House] for her, but her water bowl needed to be refilled every day. I emptied it and filled it with fresh water. Golden Slimes ate flowers and I inspected the flowerpots to see if she had eaten any. Everything seemed to be in order, so I just petted her for a few minutes before saying goodbye.

For some reason, my three apprentices always had weird looks on their faces whenever they saw my pet, but no matter how many times I asked them what was wrong, they always said that everything was fine.

Was it because Cutie was technically a “demon”?

This time, I decided to try to make them see that she was quite tame. Still holding her in my arms, I gestured towards Lari, who was always the best at dealing with animals, and said, “Come here and say hello to her.”

Lari shot Kharli a pleading look, as though asking her to intervene, but she just shrugged. Dragging his feet, and with a look of horrible reluctance on his face, Lari came closer and mumbled a nervous, “Hello.”

“There’s nothing to be afraid of.” I took his hand and moved it close enough for Cutie to touch.

The slime strand on top of Cutie’s head formed the shape of a question mark. “Chu!”

“This is Lari. He’ll take care of you when I’m away,” I said to my pet.

“Chuuuuu,” said the slime.

I waited to see if Cutie would try to touch him, but she didn’t so I put her down after a while and we left her in the [Slime House].

“You’ll see, there’s really nothing to be afraid of,” I said to my apprentices.

It was only three days later when I found out why the three of them were acting that way, and boy did I feel silly when I realized it was all my fault!

Chapter 105 - Year 2 Spring Planting

Chapter 105 - It was mint to be

🙞❤︎🙜

The next day, I had my coffee out on my porch. It was the first week of spring, and it was cold, but I enjoyed spending the first hour after dawn looking out into the Ancient Hill Forest.

In this part of the Westerlands, there was moderate rainfall all year round, and the winter was mild. I wasn’t exactly sure what type of forest this would be categorized as if it was on Earth, but the trees were mostly fir, pine, oak, elm, ash, beech, birch, maple, and poplar, along with plenty of fruit trees.

Taking a deep breath, I smelled an intoxicating mix of floral notes from blooming wildflowers, the earthy undertones of ferns and moss, the refreshing coolness of a nearby stream in the forest, and the faint smell of smoke from the kitchen fire in the main house.

I could hear a symphony of chirping crickets and buzzing insects, as well as the rustling of leaves and the swaying of tree branches, which all combine to create a very soothing symphony.

There really was no place better than home.

After finishing my coffee, I went to the main house for breakfast then stopped at the [Slime House] to play with my pet and change her water bowl before going to the rice field to plant more seeds. My three apprentices and I watered yesterday’s crops before we did our tilling, fertilizing, seeding, and watering while I kept an eye on my xp and stats.

Last winter season, we had planted a lot of trees and grass, but they didn’t give a lot of exp, so I hadn’t leveled up Farming, though I was now close to a milestone level.

[Player Name: Violet
Farming Skills:
Farming Level 19, Fishing Level 12, Woodcutting Level 19, Cooking Level 5, Herblaw Level 15, Foraging Level 6, Hunting Level 6, Mining Level 4]

My apprentices were doing well for non-players who got less xp compared to me.

[Apprentice Name: Kharli
Farming Skills:
Farming Level 14 →15, Fishing Level 6, Woodcutting Level 11, Cooking Level 2, Herblaw Level 1, Foraging Level 6 →7, Hunting Level 5]

[Apprentice Name: Lari
Farming Skills:
Farming Level 14 →15, Fishing Level 10, Woodcutting Level 10, Cooking Level 1, Herblaw Level 1, Foraging Level 4, Hunting Level 8 →9]

[Apprentice Name: Mo
Farming Skills:
Farming Level 14 →15, Fishing Level 4, Woodcutting Level 11, Cooking Level 2, Herblaw Level 1, Foraging Level 10 →11, Hunting Level 4]

“Yes! We finally finished planting the [Purple Orchid Rice],” I said.

“We’re planting the white rice tomorrow?” Kharli looked happy about that.

The kids always liked the fluffy white rice, while I liked all kinds of rice.

“We’ll plant a bit of red rice for me, then the white rice,” I said.

I had an ongoing contract with the White Tiger clan to supply them with three sacks of white rice every day. The supply had been cut off when I disappeared due to the teleportation accident, but they didn’t hold it against me. Nonetheless, I was going to plant more white rice this year in order to keep up with the demand and have some stored just in case I had to take a break or something.

“Then we plant the vegetables? What if we don’t finish everything on time?” asked Mo.

I reached out with one hand and tried to smooth out the frown from her forehead with my thumb. “Then we’ll have to eat more rice and meat!”

“I like that,” said Lari. “Meat is better than vegetables.”

Mo rolled her eyes at him. “Are you a farmer or a hunter?”

“I’m both,” said Lari, miming hoeing the soil and then throwing a spear. “I’m Lari the Great, hunter-farmer of Emberstone Farm!”

I gave him a thumbs up. “That’s cool. I don’t think any of us should stay at the farm all the time. It’s good to have other skills.”

Adventure Incarnate was primarily a farming simulation, but it was fun to level up all the skills.

“Yes, but farming is the best. I love planting crops! The only thing I like better is harvesting,” said Mo. “I can’t believe how easy it seems now.”

“Remember the first time we used our skills? I was so terrified I would fail,” said Kharli. She and Mo hooked their arms together.

“My knees were knocking together,” said Lari.

“And I started crying that time because I thought I was going to be sent back to the orphanage…” said Mo.

“I cried, too, when you cried,” said Lari.

“You did? I don’t remember that,” said Kharli.

“No more crying, okay?” I said. “I’m glad you’ve all gotten used to our work.”

“Our work is seriously the best. Teacher, did I tell you that no one back at the orphanage could recognize me?” Lari smirked. “They all said stuff like, “Who is this young man?’ or ‘What brings you here, young master?’ when they saw me.”

“Really?” I looked up and down. “But you’re still the same, mostly.”

“Teacher, I’m a lot taller and handsomer now,” said Lari.

“You’re a lot more boastful now, you mean,” said Mo. She and Kharli giggled.

We stopped at last autumn’s rice field. A few months ago, we had used the [Wild Seed Mix] as a cover crop. This spring, after the plants had died out during the winter freeze, a few hardy seeds were already sprouting.

“Let’s take a look at what’s happening here,” I said.

I knelt down and examined the tender green sprouts and seedlings. We hadn’t needed to sow the [Wild Seed Mix] again because of the soil’s “seed bank.” Living soil contains a good variety of seeds in it which can remain viable for years or decades. I learned this from Adventure Incarnate.

“It looks like the wild spirit plants from last year dropped quite a lot of seeds which have now sprouted,” I said.

“So we don’t need to plant more this year?” asked Kharli.

“Looks like it,” I said.

“But, Teacher, aren’t we going to use this field this year?” asked Lari.

“Let’s go to the classroom and I’ll explain everything,” I said.

Though I planned to live in the Ranch House, I put a spare bedroom in the Courtyard House’s inner courtyard to have more storage space for my stuff, along with several work and leisure rooms that we could use.

We’d only been back a few days, so this was their first time seeing the classroom.

The Cash Shop had different styles of classrooms, ancient and modern. I had chosen the modern one, of course.

The walls were painted with vivid primary colors and decorated with posters of cartoon versions of the White Tiger, Azure Dragon, Black Turtle, and Vermillion Bird. At the northern wall was a large whiteboard with a teacher’s desk beside it.

I gestured at the three wooden student chairs with desks, and the three of them sat down, not without some grumbling from Mo, when she saw that I had placed writing sets on Lari and Kharli’s desks. Mo was dyslexic and had gotten a lot of grief about it when she was in the orphanage.

“We have some time before lunch, so we will have a planning session,” I said. “Last year, this was Emberstone Farm.”

I drew a large square in the middle of the whiteboard and three wiggly lines below it representing the river.

“This year, my talents were recognized by the White Tiger clan, and I was granted more land. The farm has now doubled in size.” I drew a bigger square with the first square in the middle of it and with the wiggly lines bisecting the lower third of the big square. “As you can see, part of the river now runs through the farm.”

“Does that mean you own that part of the river?” asked Mo.

“No, people can’t own a river, but we are allowed to use it for irrigation and I can build a bridge across it,” I said. “However, for now, we will leave it and the southern part of the farm alone. Check your System map and turn on the wind mapping. You will see that the prevailing wind is from the northwest part of the farm to the southeast.”

I waited until the three of them nodded before drawing an X mark on the upper left corner of the big square. “In the future, I will move the house here so that it will be upwind. That’s important because this year I plan to raise poultry and livestock.”

Lari cheered. “I was wondering when we were going to raise animals.”

Mo looked less than pleased. “It won’t be [Lizardwings], right?”

Lari burst out laughing. “Of course not! I’ll bet you my shoes that Teacher definitely won’t raise stinky [Lizardwings] on the farm.”

My lips twitched. “Correct. We won’t be raising [Lizardwings].”

I moved to the right side of the whiteboard and started listing animals: chickens, geese, ducks, quail, rabbits, goats, sheep, pigs, horses, and cattle. “These are, as you may have guessed, all spirit animals, rather than the mundane type of animals that you would normally see on a farm.”

“I knew it. The animals that we’re going to raise are going to be weird ones,” Kharli whispered to Lari and Mo, who both laughed.

“They might be a little weird,” I conceded. “Before we can raise animals, we need to prepare a space for them.”

I drew another X, this time near the middle of the right side of the big square.

“After we finish the planting season, we’ll have to do a lot of woodcutting to clear this area of the farm. Then we have to plant [Spirit Grass] and wait for it to grow before we hatch the eggs,” I said. “We’ll start off with the easiest animal, chickens.”

“Are we going to eat the chickens, or raise them for the eggs?” asked Lari.

“I’m thinking of selling the chicks to other people who will raise them for us. Later we can raise some for the eggs,” I said.

“I wonder what spirit animal eggs taste like…” Lari leaned back on his chair and crossed his arms. “I’m really looking forward to that.”

“And now for the most important part of today’s lecture! Now that it’s our second year of farming, we have unlocked a new type of crop to farm.” I erased the drawing that I had made and then wrote the title of my next topic: Immortal Herbs.

Chapter 106 - Immortal Herbs

Chapter 106 - Slime-ly Dill-lighted to Meet Your Pet

🙞❤︎🙜

My apprentices’ eyes grew wide.

“Immortal Herbs!” said Kharli. “You mean like the herbs that cultivators use for making Immortal Pills?”

In this world, "cultivators" didn't refer to farmers who cultivated crops, but rather to people who practice various forms of martial or mystical arts to become stronger and extend their lifespan.

“Exactly.” I smiled proudly at the three of them. “So far, we’ve only grown food, but now that we are in our second year, the System has unlocked Immortal Herbs.”

Lari and Kharli hurriedly opened their notebooks and started taking down notes when I wrote the names of some herbs on the whiteboard - [Immortal Essence Lingzhi], [Golden Elixir Ginseng], [Five-flavor Spirit Fruit], [Thousand Leaves Void Vine], [Awakening Clarity Dew Lily], [Insightful Invocation Peony], [Ruby Whisper Spirit Blossom], and [Treasure Jade Plant].

“Of course, as you can imagine, it won’t be easy.” Underneath the list, I wrote down the word “Permaculture,” and underlined it. “Our regular crops die out at the end of the harvest season. These Immortal Herbs, on the other hand, live for years or even decades, and we can harvest them several times a year.”

“Teacher, does this mean that they aren’t actually immortal?” asked Lari.

“Correct.” I was talking a lot more than I normally did, and my mouth was feeling dry, so I took a sip from a glass of water that I got from my inventory. “They aren’t literally immortal, but before a mature plant dies off, it propagates itself. I mean, it leaves behind its offspring. When we plant our garden of Immortal Herbs, we won’t need to replant it unless we want different herbs.”

The three of them exchanged puzzled looks.

“But doesn’t that mean we’ll get less exp?” Mo looked less than pleased at that.

“Yes,” I said.

“But I am very interested in Immortal Herbs,” said Lari. “It might give less exp, but they’re much more valuable than vegetables or rice, right?”

“Yes, they are. This second year of our farming expansion, we will still focus on planting and harvesting the usual plants because it gives the most exp,” I said. “However, during the time when the crops are growing and we have a lot of free time, we can focus on other things.”

“Oh.” Mo nodded her head. “That makes sense.”

“As I said before, apart from planting Immortal Herbs, we can also raise animals. We have enough space now, though we need to clear the land first,” I said.

My farm was in the middle of the Ancient Hill Forest, which was in the southern part of the Westerlands. We always had to cut down a lot of trees in order to have more space to use.

I erased the list of words and drew a large square once again. In the upper right corner, I drew a house, and then a few squiggly lines for the river. At the center, I drew a circle and labeled it “Immortal Herbs.” Then I drew another circle on the right side above the river and labeled it “Farm Animals.”

“Well, it looks like we're going to be busy!” said Kharli. She and Lari copied my drawing in their notebooks.

I chuckled. “I’m not finished yet.”

Smiling, I covered the perimeter of the square with lots of dots.

“What are those?” asked Mo.

“Trees, of course! We didn’t plant them before because I was expecting to expand the farm, and I want them to surround the house and the farm.” With that, I put down my marker since the lecture was now finished. “That’s the plan. I’ll give you more detailed instructions about the requirements for planting the Immortal Herbs later. Any questions?”

Mo coughed and Lari scratched his head while giving Kharli a meaningful look. Kharli sighed and said, “Teacher, we don’t have any questions, but we did ask Lord Shuye to visit this afternoon.”

“Huh? What for?” These days, Shuye, my Farm Guide, had a pregnant wife to look after, so he had been sending letters through a messenger instead of meeting me himself.

My three apprentices looked everywhere but at me.

“What is it?” I asked.

“Er, um, you see…” Kharli seemed unable to reply properly.

“Just spit it out,” I said.

“We asked him to talk to you about your demon pet!” Mo burst out, then covered her mouth with both her hands.

“Ah, what she means is that, um, we… Maybe Lord Shuye should talk to you about it…?” said Kharli.

“You told on me?” If I was still on Earth, I would probably say something like “Snitches get stitches” or “Nobody likes a squealer,” but I refrained because I didn’t want them to get the idea that I was doing something wrong. I had already told Shuye about my pet.

“Lord Shuye said that he would explain everything,” said Kharli.

I shook my head and said, “If you have some concerns about my having a demon as a pet, you should have just told me instead of Shuye.”

“Well…” Kharli looked guilty.

“Never mind, it’s fine.” I sighed. “Let’s go and see if lunch is ready.”

***

After lunch, Shuye appeared.

My Farm Guide was a big, shaggy-haired person who had a bearish look about him, but he was a member of the White Tiger clan, not the Bear clan.

We exchanged the customary greetings, and I inquired about the health of his wife. She was thriving and in good spirits, according to Shuye. I thanked him profusely for joining the search party that had gone looking for me when I went missing, and I gave him the gifts that my housekeeper had prepared, a few dozen bolts of fine silk and cotton.

Once the pleasantries were finished, he got straight to the point. “I heard you have a new pet. Can I see it?”

“For sure! She’s really cute, and I think you’ll like her.” I led the way to the [Slime House].

Thankfully, based on his blasé attitude, it seemed that he wasn’t overly concerned about my keeping a demon on the farm.

When we got there, I opened the door with a flourish and said, “Here you go! A cute pet living in a cute house.”

Shuye’s eyes swept the interior of the [Slime House]. “I see the problem. Your pet must have a very advanced stealth skill. I can’t see it.”

“What do you mean you can’t see it? It’s right there.” I pointed at my pet who was bouncing around excitedly.

“I mean exactly what I say. I can’t hear or see anything that looks like a pet,” said Shuye.

“What?! But that’s impossible. My apprentices can see it.”

“No, they can’t. That’s why they asked me to talk to you,” said Shuye.

I held up a hand to ask him to stop. “Wait, how can that be? They acted like they could see it, and they never said anything to me.”

“They didn’t say anything to you, because you were acting… strange. They thought that your recent adventure might have been more stressful than the healers realized.”

I was speechless.

Shuye continued to explain. “They’re just kids, and they weren’t sure what to do, so they sent word to me that you were playing with something that they couldn’t see.”

In other words, they thought I was crazy?

“But you believe me? There really is a pet inside the house,” I said.

“I’m sure there is. Why don’t you try to see if you can turn off its stealth skill?” Shuye suggested.

“Okay, give me a bit of time. I’ll have to figure this out.” I got two chairs from my inventory and put them down near the entrance of my pet’s house. “Can you please not look at me while I’m thinking?”

I wasn’t sure what sort of expression I made when I was interacting with the System, and I didn’t want Shuye to think that I was actually insane.

“Certainly.” Shuye turned the chair away from me and sat down.

The Adventure Incarnate User Interface was extremely cluttered. There were dozens of main tabs that had tabs on their own. I checked the pet tab and everything under it, but I couldn’t find anything regarding stealth, invisibility, or camouflage.

I was almost at my wits when I remembered that GodIAm was very strict when it came to game optimization. Had he done something to the visual settings? I checked the various add-ons he had installed, but came up with nothing. Then I checked the display settings.

Oh my gosh! There it was.

I hadn’t even known that there was a toggle for “Hide Followers.” The moment I turned it off, Shuye sprang up from his chair and stared wide-eyed at my pet.

“That’s a demon!” he said.

“Nooooooooo,” I said, placing my body between him and the door. “Let me explain. You went to the mines, right? You know that the bottom levels are sacred spaces that were dedicated to the god of the place?”

“This is the first that I’ve heard of it,” said Shuye.

“You can take my word for it. The god of that place had a golden slime as a pet, and this is one of its descendants,” I said. “I know that technically people regard it as a demon, but really it’s a sacred beast.”

Shuye said nothing more and simply continued to observe my pet. I went inside the [Slime House] and picked Cutie up to show that she was quite tame.

“Okay?” I gave Shuye an anxious look.

He nodded. “All right, I trust you.”

Phew!

Chapter 107 - A very important visitor

Chapter 107- A Tail of an Un-fox-gettable Visit

🙞❤︎🙜

The next day, we woke up before dawn to start our work planting more crops. Spring had just begun, and the first wildflowers were starting to blossom. The air was pleasantly cool, filled with the scent of damp earth and the organic fertilizer that we used. With the pet situation resolved, we were all in a fine mood.

“I don’t know what’s worse, Teacher hallucinating, or her having an invisible demon pet,” said Lari.

“Are you kidding? Obviously, it would have been better if Teacher was just joking around,” said Kharli.

“The worst would be if she was…” Mo made circular gestures with her index finger on the right side of her head to indicate someone going bonkers.

“No, the way it happened was really nothing much. We could have just easily gone along with her hallucinations,” said Lari. “Even if she went crazy, it would be fine.”

I let the kids chatter as much as they liked while we tilled the soil. All we had to do was hit the ground lightly with our hoe, and the System used our energy to loosen and turn over the soil, making it ready for planting.

“Teacher, half my energy bar is gone,” said Lari.

My other two apprentices said the same thing, so I gave them the assorted vegetable seeds that we had decided to plant. Yesterday, we had finished planting the rice. This season, it was mostly white rice and [Purple Orchid Rice], with a little bit of red rice. The white and purple rice was for us to sell, while the vegetables were for our house pantry. Fengying had hired more staff which meant that we had to plant more vegetables this time.

“Potatoes?” I asked Lari.

“Potatoes!” Lari held his hand out and I poured the seeds into it. Potatoes were one of our favorite crops since they were easy to grow, yielded a lot of food relative to the space they took, and tasted great when they were cooked.

“I’d like to plant the [Three Sisters] again,” said Kharli.

[Companion Planting: The Three Sisters

The Three Sisters is a Native American method of planting corn, beans, and squash together in the same mound. The corn grows tall and provides support for the beans to climb. The squash spreads along the ground, providing ground cover and preventing weeds from growing. This method of planting results in a bountiful harvest of all three crops.]

“Good choice,” I said as I handed her the corn, bean, and squash seeds.

“Sweet potatoes, tomatoes, carrots, and spinach, please,” said Mo. Those were the vegetables that she particularly liked that gave good exp.

Before planting the seeds, we fertilized the soil. We were only using the basic organic fertilizer, which only gave us a small chance of yielding bigger or more crops.

I planted a good assortment of vegetables from the list that the Demon Chef had requested. Of course, there were the basic ones like garlic, onions, ginger, bell peppers, chilies, and peppercorns, but he also requested a few greens that I had not planted last year such as gai choy (Chinese mustard greens), gai lan (Chinese broccoli), and chrysanthemum.

I hummed a little as I used the hand-held seeder to plant the seeds. I wanted to plant these vegetables because they gave good exp relative to my farming level and because there was something very satisfying about growing, harvesting, and cooking your own food. Not to mention, I was the only one who could use the items in my inventory, excluding the simple farming items my apprentices could access. If I wanted my chef to cook spirit vegetables that were superior to mundane vegetables, I had to grow them myself.

Or did I? I had an idea that might work.

It didn’t take long at all until we finished today’s planting.

“That’s it. Let’s go back to the house and soak in the hot spring to replenish our energy. Then I’ll see you at lunch,” I said. “Don’t forget that we have an important visitor coming.”

“How could I forget? Lari hasn’t stopped talking about it for days,” said Kharli.

Mo just rolled her eyes.

“Dress nicely and be on your best behavior,” I said.

I had received a request from the head of the Fox clan, Lady Hoshi, to tour the farm. She wanted to bless the Purple Orchid Rice and dedicate it to the Fox Goddess. Of course, I had no objection to her doing the ritual if it got the rest of her clan off my back, but I was quite surprised to learn that she would join us for lunch. That was highly unusual behavior. Long ago, there had been a widespread famine and the clan members stopped eating “human food” though there was an exception made for the children, sick, and elderly. Nowadays, they only ate demon meat from the Southerlands. It was a point of pride for clan members that they were never seen eating human food in public.

“Teacher, can you please tell Lari not to wear his fake gold accessories?” said Kharli. “I’m afraid he’ll rust if it rains.”

“It’s not made of iron; it won’t rust,” Lari protested.

“I’ll present you to her, but, otherwise, you guys are to remain quiet and walk behind me as etiquette dictates. Only talk if she talks to you first. Don’t worry too much though.” I gave them a short, last-minute lecture about manners, which they took in good humor.

Kharli gave me a sidelong look. “Teacher, you’re not worried, right?”

“Nooooo. I’m not.” I had placed Cutie back in my pet inventory and demolished the [Slime House], which meant that there wasn’t anything for me to worry about. Probably.

Back at the house, we bathed and got dressed in simple but elegant silk robes for the occasion. Not long before noon, the delegation from the Fox clan appeared.

At least, I expected it to be a delegation, but when I went to the front gate to greet them, only Lady Hoshi and her attendant Meihui were there.

“Hello! Hello! I’m here! What is this cursed house?” asked Lady Hoshi.

The little girl looked just as I had seen her last - cute and lively, with bright brown eyes, and reddish-brown hair. Sadly, however, she didn’t have fox ears and tails in her complete human form.

Meihui, on the other hand, was a revelation. A tall, voluptuous woman with red hair and green eyes, today she was a vision of a perfect aristocratic lady. She was wearing an elaborate black and gold silk gown, and her towering coiffure was pierced with at least half a dozen golden hairpins. Waist accessories made of jade pendants and gold disks, designed to keep the skirt of one’s clothes pressed down, hung from her belt and made a pleasant tinkling sound whenever she moved.

“Welcome to my humble home. It isn’t cursed. It’s a property that was handed down through my bloodline inheritance.” Since it was an informal occasion, I simply clasped my hands and bowed slightly from the waist. Then I introduced my three apprentices to Lady Hoshi.

After the greetings, the irrepressible girl grabbed her attendant Meihui by the hand and pointed up at the wooden sign above the front gate. “What’s that? What’s that? What’s that?”

What was she so excited about? “It’s a wooden sign.”

She rolled her eyes at my cluelessness and said, “I know it’s a sign! Why can’t I read it? What is that language?”

Oh. “Er, it’s, um, something that came with the house. It says ‘Flower and Jade Pavilion,’ that’s all.”

“Ew!” Lady Hoshi cringed and then turned to Meihui and, covering her mouth with one hand, whispered loudly, “Does this mean she’s already living together with that ugly?”

Of course, I knew she was talking about Prince Baiyu. Some of her clan elders were agitating for Lady Hoshi to marry him because he was the sole heir of the ruler of the Westerlands. Lady Hoshi strongly opposed the match and always referred to the Prince as “that ugly.”

“They’re not,” said Meihui. She raised an eyebrow and gave me a look as though to silently ask, “Are you?”

“This has been the name of this house since it was built, before I met Prince Baiyu.” My lips twitched. Their reactions were understandable since the Prince’s name meant “white jade.”

“I’m not sure if I want to go inside a cursed house,” said Lady Hoshi. “Are you a witch?”

“A witch? Me?” This was the first time that I even knew that there was such a concept in this world.

“I heard witches live in the deep dark woods in a cursed house and brew poisonous potions in their cauldrons,” said Lady Hoshi.

… Wow, that did sound like me!

I mean, my Herblaw level wasn’t high enough for me to use a cauldron yet, but her description was right on point.

I burst out laughing. “That’s exactly what I am! Are you scared? It’s okay, you can go back home if you like.”

“Well, it depends! Are you a good witch or a bad witch?” Lady Hoshi didn’t seem scared at all. Rather, she looked excited about meeting a witch.

“You’ll just have to find out, won’t you?” And with that, I led her and Meihui inside.

At least I tried to.

Chapter 108 - Poetic Interlude

Chapter 108 - The witch's hex-traordinary banquet

🙞❤︎🙜

The main house was surrounded on all four sides by tall stone walls, and the main gate was at the southeastern corner. Directly behind the main gate was a spirit wall. According to folklore, evil spirits couldn’t turn around corners, so they would be blocked by the solid stone block spirit wall which was carved with dragons.

I thought everything was in order, but I hadn’t thought about an unimportant factor.

“Why don’t you have a proper menkan?” Lady Hoshi gave the door a horrified look.

“What do you mean?” The menkan, or threshold, looked fine to me.

“Something like this won’t protect the house.” Lady Hoshi held her hand around six inches above the current doorsill. “It’s way too low! It should be at least this tall.”

Was she talking about the jiangshi or hopping zombie of folklore? The menkan was supposed to be built high enough for them to be unable to hop over. I wouldn’t have thought that they had that type of belief in this world. I made a soft noncommittal sound since I wasn’t the superstitious type who cared about that.

The little girl gave me a look and then reached into her sleeve. Taking out a strip of yellow paper, she held out her hand to Meihui who handed her a brush dipped in vermillion ink. She wrote a few characters in cursive script. I jumped back in alarm when a loud crackling sound and yellow sparks appeared when she flung the talisman up to the lintel of the door.

“I did it! I blessed the cursed house!” Lady Hoshi flung her arms up in victory and did a little dance. She was almost unbearably cute, and I wish I still had my smartphone so I could record it.

“Can I touch it?” I pointed at the talisman. When Meihui nodded, I poked the piece of paper with a finger and stealthily tried to use the System’s [Examine] command, but nothing happened. Mostly, only Adventure Incarnate items could be examined in order to view their descriptions. “Wait a minute, it doesn’t seem to be attached to the door.”

The piece of paper was floating a fraction of an inch in front of the top of the door.

“What?!” Lady Hoshi stopped dancing and looked more closely at her talisman. “Oh no, did it fail?”

“It activated,” said Meihui.

“That’s true. I guess it did work,” said Lady Hoshi though she looked a little uncertain about it.

“I’m sure it did. That was very impressive,” I said.

“Our little clan leader is very gifted,” said Meihui. She patted her little girl on the head. “You did a great job.

Lady Hoshi giggled and shot me a victorious look. “Now your house is properly protected!”

“Wonderful. Thank you very much. Shall we enter?” I gestured towards the doorway. We passed through it into the outer courtyard where the household staff lived and then through the second gate, also called the flower-hung gate, into the inner courtyard.

“Why is your house full of dragon decorations?” asked Lady Hoshi.

“I just like it that way,” I said.

“Your house is much bigger and nicer than I thought it would be,” said Lady Hoshi.

The type of house and the number of buildings that one could build on their farm in Adventure Incarnate was limited by their farming levels. I could only build a Two-Courtyard House at the moment. At higher levels, I could build Three, Four, Five, and Even Six-Courtyard Houses.

During our stay in the southern desert, we had gotten used to living in a much bigger place, and I didn’t want to downgrade, so I had rebuilt the main house to twice the size that it had been last year and added a large garden on the eastern side.

“Thank you,” I said.

There had been a bit of a debate over where we should host our guests. My apprentices favored the inner courtyard, and Fengying suggested the main hall, but I wanted it to be held in the garden for a more casual experience.

Unlike the main house, which was composed of straight angles and perfect geometric symmetry, the garden was the opposite. A long, winding path offered half a dozen pretty views of the flowers, decorative bushes, weeping willows, and a small but very picturesque pond.

I wasn’t a particular fan of scholar's rocks, but an Asian garden was incomplete without them, so I placed three towering rocks strategically around the pond along with some bamboo. People liked the way that the limestone rocks had been sculpted into interesting asymmetrical curves. My household had dubbed the smallest one “Flying Fish Leaping over the Waves” while the two bigger ones were a set called “Lion Playing with an Auspicious Cloud.”

Of course, I added plenty of rose bushes since I was particularly fond of that flower that reminded me of my mother.

“How elegant!” said Lady Hoshi. She hopped over to a nearby rosebush and smelled the flowers. She reached for the nearest blossom, then drew her hand back with a yelp. “Ow!”

[Hearts Garden Rose:

A deep burgundy red rose with ruffled petals and a heart-shaped center. Beware of its sharp thorns. Not poisonous.]

“Let me see.” Meihui examined her finger. “It’s fine, just be careful next time.”

“I should’ve known better than to touch flowers that were grown by a witch!” said Lady Hoshi.

“Hey, now, they’re just regular thorns. Let’s not exaggerate, okay?” I took a pair of scissors from my inventory and cut off the rose that she wanted, making sure to remove the thorns as well. “Here, a present for you.”

All of the System items in my house were bound to the house unless I modified them in some way. For example, the wooden tables couldn’t normally be taken out of the house unless I cut them up. Then the wooden planks could be used by other people. The rose bushes functioned the same way.

“Thank you,” said Lady Hoshi. “I’ve never seen a flower like this.”

I cut another one for Meihui and we continued walking towards the center of the garden where lunch had been set up with pretty white tables and chairs, lace tablecloth, elegant silverware, crystal glasses, and fine white porcelain.

The food was served Central Region-Style. The four God Clans of the Western, Eastern, Southern, and Northern regions had their own culture and cuisine, while the Central continent which was ruled over by humans was considered the most advanced. I heard that Central was currently undergoing a mini industrial revolution while the Westerlands was still stuck in the feudal agricultural era.

Thus, the Demon Chef who ruled over my kitchen decided to show off by preparing Central cuisine. He wasn’t an actual demon, but he was called that for some reason. Today he and his assistants had cooked a dozen dishes, all of them small servings, beautifully and ornately decorated on a large plate, that featured seasonal flavors. Right now that meant lots of fresh spring vegetables like bean sprouts, amaranth leaves, red toon shoots, kai lan, malantou, bamboo shoots, three-leaf clover, and so forth, which have mostly been foraged from the forest.

“I hope you like the food,” I said.

As was usual while in this hierarchal society, Lady Hoshi, Meihui, and I dined at a separate table from the rest of my household. Lari, Kharli, and Mo were waited on by the new maids and serving men that Fengying had hired while Fengying herself supervised the service at my table with our older, more senior staff. I noticed with approval that my three apprentices had all mastered their table manners, which was a nice change from all the whining I had to endure last year when they claimed that this type of etiquette was unnecessary for them to learn.

“Everything looks wonderful!” said Lady Hoshi as she admired the artfully arranged wild mushrooms, confit leek, and grilled demon pig belly.

Every time a new dish was brought out, Meihui tasted it before handing it over to Lady Hoshi. This was not to check for poison, but rather to investigate whether the qi it contained was gentle enough for a child to eat since everything that we served was, of course, full of spiritual energy.

They were all praises for the quality of the food and the picturesque setting. All in all, I would say it was quite successful. Afterward, I led them to the paddy where the [Purple Orchid Rice] was growing.

Lady Hoshi's eyes widened in horror. “I can’t believe it! The Fox Goddess’ rice is cursed, too!”

Though I couldn’t feel it myself, there was apparently some sort of force field that prevented outsiders from touching my crops. Shuye described it as an “aura of ominous qi.”

“The plants that grow on my farm are all protected by my bloodline inheritance,” I said.

“Your ancestors must be quite formidable,” said Meihui.

“Hmm. As you can see, this means that the rice is safe here,” I said.

“The qi in the air all around your farm is quite intense,” said Meihui.

“That’s how I’m able to grow spiritual plants,” I said.

Meihui and Lady Hoshi exchanged a glance of mutual understanding.

“It’s exactly like the Legend of the Witch of the Woods,” said Lady Hoshi.

“Well…” I shrugged.

The two of them simply shook their heads and then started on the blessing ceremony which consisted of them circling the field waving a small incense burner full of sweet-smelling tree resins and herbs which they held between their hands.

Before they left, they gave me a few bolts of fine silk as a gift, and I handed them a box of [Dewy Glow Potions].

Then Meihui took out a blank scroll and wrote a short poem on it in beautiful calligraphy. From the way the others reacted, this was obviously her showing me great honor, and that they were extremely impressed by her action.

Autumn's fiery red,

A fox dances through the woods,

Leaves rustle with secrets.

“Wonderful! Thank you very much for the poem,” I said.

Not to be outdone, I took out a silk fan and wrote something of my own. I had prepared a poem in advance since Fengying had told me that this was a tradition among the Fox clan. On Earth, I was considered pretty good at calligraphy myself, though it was not a very popular art form for people my age. Here, however, calligraphy was a basic skill, therefore I was considered just competent.

Nonetheless, I thought I did pretty well.

Underneath moon's glow,

Night whispers, a lullaby,

Blossoms unfurling,

Leaping birds in azure sky,

Overcoming shadows,

Cascading dreams take flight,

Keys to new worlds unlock.

Meihui picked up the fan and read the poem. She frowned and, suddenly, her eyes started glowing red. “What is the meaning of this? These characters you wrote…”

I didn’t know what she was talking about, but I took a step back as her entire body stiffened, and the temperature around her dropped.

Chapter 109 - Breaking through to the next cultivation level

Chapter 109 - Cultivation insight farm-ulae

🙞❤︎🙜

Lady Hoshi covered her mouth with her hands, wide-eyed with shock. Two cute fox ears popped up on top of her head, and a fluffy tail appeared behind her. Her control of her human form tended to falter when she was excited. “She… She’s gained an insight, and she’s breaking through to the next cultivation level!”

I took her by the hand and drew her away from her attendant. “Maybe we should give her some space? This is a good thing, right?”

“This is a very good thing! She’s been stuck in the middle stage of Foundation Establishment for ages,” said Lady Hoshi.

Of course, I knew that almost all the members of the god clans, and a few lucky humans, were cultivators, though half of them were quite low-level. In this world, “cultivation” was what they called the process of growing more powerful by cultivating or growing qi.

The cultivator levels or ranks were, from lowest to highest, Qi Refining, Foundation Establishment, Core Formation, and Nascent Soul. In ancient times, people had ascended to higher levels, but these days the highest ranks were Nascent Soul cultivators.

That was the case only for other people. I myself had a different way of leveling up using my System.

Meihui seemed to regain her consciousness for a few seconds. She gestured towards Lady Hoshi, motioning her to move farther away. We obliged, then Meihui sat down on the ground in a lotus position and closed her eyes. She was clearly meditating.

Moments later, I heard a commotion as some sort of fast-moving blur streaked toward us, and when it came to a stop beside Fengying, I saw that it was her husband Deming.

“I’m fine, dear,” said Fengying.

Deming looked her up and down, then nodded. He didn’t say a word and simply stood beside her silently.

“Oh, that’s him, isn’t it?” Lady Hoshi whispered to me while pointing at Deming.

“Yes? That’s my chef, Deming,” I said.

Now that it seemed that we weren’t in any actual danger, my apprentices and the members of my household staff, who had been quiet thus far, started chattering.

“An insight! Is it because of the poem that Teacher wrote?” Kharli asked the others excitedly.

“I saw her practicing writing that yesterday, and I didn’t notice anything unusual,” said Mo.

“That’s because you’re not a cultivator,” said Lari.

Lady Hoshi, meanwhile, seemed quite interested in Deming. “Is it true what they say about him?”

“That he’s a demon in the kitchen? Yes, it’s totally true. I hardly dare even step inside when he’s working there,” I said.

The little fox girl rolled her eyes. “No! I mean, the part about him being extremely handsome!”

“What?” I whipped my head around to check out the object of Lady Hoshi’s curiosity. No matter how I looked, he seemed just like an ordinary gray-haired old man.

“You don’t know? You really don’t know? I can’t believe it,” said Lady Hoshi. “Everybody knows that it’s true.”

“What? How come?”

She giggled and gestured for me to bend down for her to whisper in my ear. “He fled from his old job because the lady of the house fell in love with him. Ever since then, he’s disguised himself as an old man.”

“No way. Wait, what about Fengying, his wife?”

“She’s not a cultivator, so that’s what she looks like,” said Lady Hoshi. “Actually, she looks ten years younger than before. That’s because of your [Dewy Glow Potion], she says.”

Huh? I hadn’t noticed it before, but now that she pointed it out, Fengying definitely looked younger than before.

“That, and the fact that she eats spiritual food every day,” added Lady Hoshi. “Do you think that there’s a chance that your chef will show us his real form?”

I straightened up and glanced again at Deming. “I’m definitely not going to ask for you. You can ask him if you like.”

Lady Hoshi pouted.

I expected Meihui’s meditation to take at least an hour, maybe even half of a day, but after a mere fifteen minutes, she opened her eyes. Lady Hoshi hopped over to her and gave her a hug.

“How did it go?” asked Lady Hoshi.

“I’m about to break through to the late stage of Foundation Establishment,” she said. The expression on her face was one of amazement. Meihui was always good-looking, and now she was almost blindingly beautiful because she practically seemed to be glowing with delight.

“Yay!” Lady Hoshi hugged her tighter.

Meihui got up and bowed deeply to me. “Thank you very much. You’ve given me a great treasure. Could you please sign this?”

She held out the fan to me and I signed the other side of it with a flourish.

“You’re welcome,” I said.

We exchanged a few more pleasantries and goodbyes, and they left.

“Phew! That was exhausting,” I said to my apprentices. “It’s nice to have visitors now and then, but I still prefer the quiet life.”

“They were nice,” said Kharli.

The others nodded.

Fengying approached me and said, “Deming would like a copy, too.”

“Of the poem? You guys know it’s just a regular one. You saw me practicing my calligraphy,” I said.

Fengying shrugged.

“Well, okay.” I wrote the same poem down on another scroll, signed it with my name, and gave it to her. “Meihui was probably very close to a breakthrough and it was just a coincidence that it happened here. They told me that the qi here is quite intense. It had nothing to do with the poem.”

“May I have a copy, too?” asked Lari.

… And that was why I spent an hour making two dozen copies of the poem. Everyone seemed convinced that it was going to be extremely valuable in the future, so I made a lot of extras in case I needed to give someone a gift later on.

***

Once the excitement of the Fox clan’s visit had died down, I went right back to work.

Last winter, I explored the Mines, also called the Chitinous Caverns, in the Southerlands where I had managed to unlock both the [Mushroom Cave] and [Mini Hydroponic Farm].

I went back to my [Ranch House] and changed into shorts and a T-shirt before using the [Portal Door] that I had affixed to the northern side of my living room wall. The portal had appeared as a buildable option, with a limit of one per house, when I rebuilt the farm. Of course, at the moment the only place that I could go to was the Mines, but it was a very convenient item indeed. I simply stepped through the door and emerged at the lowest level of the Mines.

Though I probably didn’t need to do it, I still put my puppet, Mr. Bear, on [Guard Mode]. Mr. Bear was looking particularly spiffy today since I had recently washed and dried his plush toy body and tied a new black ribbon on his neck. The contrast between the black ribbon and pink plush fabric was really cute.

Since I had “conquered” the Boss, it no longer gave me any trouble. I didn’t see it around much. With my puppet guardian by my side, I took the elevator up to level 90.

The use of the hidden elevator was another reward that I got for reaching the lowest level.

Whistling happily, I went to the [Mini Hydroponic Farm] first. This deep underground, level 90 should’ve been a gloomy, scary place, but this specific area was an ancient temple of healing. Pure white tiles covered the walls and floor, and giant luminous pearls as big as my head were mounted on marble pedestals all around the perimeter of the cave.

I checked the [Hydroponic Kit] I had set up. The nutrient level, temperature, and plants were doing okay, and I didn’t need to do anything yet. In fact, this place wasn’t particularly valuable, since my farming level was still low. I was simply growing ordinary crops like strawberries, tomatoes, chili peppers, mint, rosemary, and carnation flowers in it.

Next, I went to the [Mushroom Cave]. In contrast to the other rooms, this one really was dark, damp, and gloomy, but I didn’t care. It was filled with mushrooms of every shape, size, and color, many of which glowed like something from a fairy tale. I had set up mushroom growing shelves in this cave, and I was quite excited to see that there were plenty of mushrooms ready to be harvested today.

There were so many different varieties of mushrooms here that it was dizzying. All of them were rare gourmet ingredients, though they were only low-grade. Deming loved them since they were like truffles in this world, a food ingredient that gave dishes an earthy and refined taste.

[Celestiaspore:

A button cap mushroom whose light blue cap seems dusted by sparkling silver. Has a delicate, ethereal flavor and aroma.]

The [Mini Hydroponic Farm] gave Farming exp while the [Mushroom Cave] gave Foraging exp. It wasn’t a lot, but I was able to get the exp with very little effort. One could think of it as the player’s reward for beating the Boss. I should be able to harvest mushrooms every three to four days, while the stuff I was growing on the hydroponic farm should be ready in half the time it took on the farm.

“What a haul!” I said to my puppet as I held up a basket full of yummy mushrooms. Somehow, being here again made me revert to my habit of talking to Mr. Bear.

I returned home in great spirits and had a lively dinner with my apprentices who were making fun of me by repeatedly reciting the poem I had written, complete with dramatic gestures and ridiculous expressions on their faces.

“Underneath moon's glow,” intoned Kharli in a sepulchral tone while crossing her eyes.

Mo pushed Kharli’s shoulder down and “whispered” loudly in her ear, “Night whispers, a lullaby.”

“Blossoms unfurling.” Lari crouched down and then got up fast, spreading his arms and twirling like a ballerina.

“Leaping birds in azure sky,” they chorused as they hopped around like demented rabbits.

My lips twitched. The maids lost it and started laughing like crazy at their antics.

“Overcoming shadows, Cascading dreams take flight, Keys to new worlds unlock,” they said, while being in horrible sync and making a series of poses like martial artists, except they kept comedically bumping into each other and falling down.

“Great, you guys are ready for the circus!” I said, laughing until my stomach hurt.

There's never a dull moment at Emberstone Farm!

Chapter 109.5 - The ancient principles of the flow of cosmic qi

An excerpt from the journal of Shuye Skullcrusher, Guardian of the Ancient Hill Forest:

I have a healthy respect for geomancy. A lot of the principles they follow make good sense. For example, my house is oriented on a north-south axis, with a hill to the north and flowing water to the south, exactly as prescribed by the ancient principles of the flow of cosmic qi currents.

But I was tempted to tear up the report I received from Lady Meihui of the Fox Clan. I understand that she’s from a famous family of diviners and geomancy experts, but “Ancient Profound Five Elements Soaring Divine Formation”? “Empyrean Dragon Gate Secret Primordial Decree Pattern”? “Evil Repelling Mystical Essence Convergence Resonance Matrix”? “Sacred Infinite Spiritual Gathering Array”? “Nine Palaces Millennium Convergence Cipher”?

I could hardly make sense of the thirty pages of gobbledygook. Thank goodness Lady Meihui at least wrote a summary of her findings at the end of the report.

Apparently, the lines and proportions of Baroness Violet’s house are in perfect harmony, echoing some esoteric heavenly mystery, and there are myriad hidden dragon patterns all over its walls which serve to gather qi.

Could Baroness Violet be the descendant of one of the Azure Dragon’s royal families?

Chapter 110 - Experimental Crop

Chapter 110 - Crop-perating in an ex-pear-iment

🙞❤︎🙜

The cloudless sky was the color of the Microsoft Windows’ Blue Screen of Death. I hoped it wasn’t a portent of things to come.

I got up off my bed and yawned, stretching my arms above my head before walking to the large picture window that I had set on the northern side of my bedroom.

The main house was the traditional kind that was like a fortress. The inhabitants of that type of house looked inwards and enjoyed the security provided by the four walls enclosing them.

The [Ranch House] where I lived, on the other hand, was designed with a different philosophy in mind. The indoor and outdoor areas blended together as seamlessly as I could make them.

Last year, I had painstakingly decorated my backyard, but this year I removed all the walls around my [Ranch House] and simply enjoyed the view instead of making my own garden. Perhaps my long underground adventure had given me a taste for open skies and unmanicured wilderness.

Taking a cup of piping hot coffee from my inventory, I sipped it while enjoying the view of the Ancient Hill Forest right outside my house. The ecology of this world was different from that of Earth, and I was hardly an expert on forests, so I couldn’t classify what type of forest I was in except that it had moderate rainfall during all the seasons except for winter.

Actually, did oak, beech, maple, and the scholar tree even grow in the same type of forest on Earth? I had a vague idea that they definitely didn’t, but the trees here were not exactly the same as they were on Earth. Things here grew partly through the power of qi, and strange life forms could be found in unexpected places.

I looked out at the stand of beech trees near my house, and I thought that the tall, straight trunks were quite graceful and beautiful. According to Shuye, they were a special variety that had been planted here by his ancestors for their forked branches which were used for divination ceremonies. Oak trees were considered the king of the forest, while the beech tree was the queen. I could see why. Their delicate green canopies in early springtime looked like fine lace.

I enjoyed the view for a few more minutes before taking a shower, putting my work clothes on, and heading out for breakfast at the main house.

“Good morning, Teacher,” said Lari.

“Good morning,” I said. “Where are the others?”

“They went on ahead to start planting, and left me behind here to let you know that they had started,” he said. “Teacher, may I go now?”

I looked up. It was nearly midmorning already because I had slept late today. “Sure, go ahead.”

The kids all knew what to do anyway. I ate a leisurely breakfast before joining my apprentices at the field east of the house and north of the river.

“Did you guys finish watering the plants?” I asked them.

“Yes, Teacher,” they chorused.

“All right. What do you think about the soil in this field?” This was the very first place where I had started farming. Back then, I planted potatoes here.

“It seems the same as the others,” said Kharli.

“I can’t see any difference,” said Lari.

“Yes, cultivators can sense qi, but normal humans like us cannot. Shuye reassures me, however, that the energy here is quite good, better than the other parts of the farm,” I said.

“I wish I could sense it,” said Kharli.

“So do I! But it’s fine. The reason why this soil is the best is because I planted cover crops thrice here. Once after the spring harvest, then the summer harvest, and, finally, the autumn harvest,” I said.

“And cover crops make the soil quality better,” said Mo.

“Yes, theoretically we should be able to grow the more difficult crops here because I prepared for it,” I said. “The [Wild Seed Mix] I used is meant to make the nutrients the soil easier for plants to use.”

[Wild Seed Mix:

Contains a mixture of seeds, mainly wildflowers, grasses, and legumes that are used as cover crops, which are plants grown to cover the soil surface to protect it from erosion, improve soil structure and add nutrients to the soil.]

My apprentices nodded to show that they understood.

“I’m excited. Let’s do it!” I said.

Then we got to work plowing the soil, spreading fertilizer on it, planting tea seeds, and then watering them.

[Tea Plant Seeds:

The tea plant (Camellia sinensis) contains spiritual energy that potentially offers health benefits and may boost cultivation slightly.]

Spiritual tea was a rare and prized substance in this world. Growing it was difficult, but I really wanted to do it.

“Teacher, will the tea give us more exp?” asked Mo.

“Yes, but not by that much,” I said.

In truth, the choice of tea was more of a cultural thing rather than to raise our farming levels. Socially, tea farming was on a higher level compared to rice farming. It would be nice for me to be able to grow my own tea that I could serve to guests. Furthermore, I knew for a fact that cultivators prized it above all else, except for Cultivation Pills.

“Madam Fengying is already predicting that all the human cultivator clans will be going wild for our tea,” said Kharli.

“Let’s not get ahead of ourselves,” I said. “Besides, harvesting is only one part of tea production. It has to be dried and stuff.”

I wasn’t quite certain about the details, but one didn’t just pluck tea leaves and call it a day. There were many steps to producing various types of tea. Fortunately, I should be able to build a [Tea Machine] soon.

“I’m sure the chef knows how to do it,” said Lari.

“For sure,” I said. “Still, my plan is for us to just use the first harvest for ourselves. I’ll only sell after we produce at least medium-grade tea. I don’t want us to be known as anything less than the best tea producers in the world.”

“Aren’t we the only ones who grow spiritual tea?” asked Kharli.

“Not quite.” When I first transmigrated into this world, I was told that I was the only spiritual farmer here. That was true, since no one was actively planting spiritual crops. However, there were some human families and clans that had spiritual plants, trees, and animals that they had inherited from their ancestors. The Fox clan was one example. They had a spiritual tree that they used for purification rituals. “I heard there are some clans that are secretly hiding their precious tea plants from outsiders.”

“That’s just a rumor though, Teacher. No one has seen publicly available spiritual tea in generations,” said Lari.

“Maybe. One more thing that I have to add is that the best tea is generally grown in the mountains where it’s wet and there’s a mist that covers the plants every morning,” I said. “Here we will have to cover the plants right before harvest so that the leaves don't get too dried out in the sunlight.”

“Cover them? With magic?” Kharli looked confused.

“No, I mean like with a cloth.” I pointed at some nearby trees. “We’ll hang them from there and there.”

“Oh, I thought it was some sort of System magic,” said Kharli.

“Sorry, no. Just a mundane cloth is enough. Are we all done? Energy bar empty?” I asked. When they nodded, we returned to the rice fields where I inspected the seedlings. “These are big enough. Let’s flood the fields.”

We carefully opened the irrigation gates to allow the water to slowly trickle into the rice fields. We spent the rest of the day keeping a close eye on the process. It wouldn't do to wash away our crops through our inattention.

“Are we going to plant more tea tomorrow?” asked Kharli.

“It’s the last day of planting season,” said Mo.

“Why? Do you guys have something else that you want to plant?” I asked.

“We were just thinking about the crocus flowers that you gift to Lord Shuye,” said Kharli.

I could tell by the way that the other two were looking closely at her that this was something they had all decided to say. Kharli was their leader in many things, especially when it came time for them to speak up as a group.

“What about it?” I asked.

“Why don’t we grow a field of those? One of the most expensive spices in the world is made from the crocus,” said Kharli. “That’s what Haoran said.”

Haoran? Oh yes, he was one of Deming’s assistants, the one who worshiped bees.

“Uh…” I didn’t know what they were talking about.

“Saffron!” said Lari. “They call it red gold!”

“Well, do as you like,” I said. “I’ll plant more tea.”

If Haoran said the crocus flower I had was the same one that produced saffron, then no doubt he was correct. Saffron wasn’t in Adventure Incarnate, however, so I was reluctant to try it and potentially lose one whole day’s planting time. The crocus flower was normally planted as food for the bees on the farm and sold or given away as a gift to the Farm Guide. There was no in-game mechanic where one harvested saffron from the flower.

Still, I decided that it would be best to give the kids my permission because I was curious to know if they could successfully produce something that was not in the System.

Wouldn’t that be awesome?

Chapter 111 - Not a very good fruit ninja

Chapter 111 - Triple 1's! Cheers to the 'unattached' - may your spirits stay 'unmatched'!

🙞❤︎🙜

The next day, everything went without a hitch. I planted more tea while the kids planted crocus flowers. At this point, normally we would go back to the main house for a lavish feast to mark the end of the planting season. However we'd just had a feast with the head of the Fox clan, and I thought that it would be ridiculous to have two in the same week.

That’s why I decided to let the kids go on a shopping trip to Anwei instead. They deserved it after working hard last year. Before they left. I asked them an important question. “Tell me, do you feel that anything has changed? Do you have more energy? Something like that.”

The three of them exchanged looks. Lari scratched his head and said, “I noticed that even when my energy bar is almost empty, I don’t feel exhausted anymore.”

“That’s true. I haven’t felt like I’m about to collapse,” said Mo, who was the one who often had problems regulating her energy.

“Is it because we leveled up?” asked Kharli.

“No, it’s because of the mushrooms that I gave the chef to use,” I said. “They’re supposed to boost our stats slightly, but I haven’t seen any indication of it in the System.”

When the cave mushrooms had been added to the team, they had added status effects like Clarity, Regeneration, Bravery, Stone Skin, Haste, etc. but that had been removed later because it made combat too unbalanced. Nonetheless, the mushrooms should still give a small boost to a player's stats.

“We ate magic mushrooms?” Kharli’s eyes widened.

I nodded.

“Can we have more tomorrow?” asked Lari.

“Why not? I’m afraid that by telling you about it now, your imagination might run away with you and we won’t be able to know for sure if the mushrooms work,” I said. The placebo effect could be quite powerful. “I notice that I have a little bit more energy, but really not a lot. It could just be that I had a good night's sleep.

“I haven’t really noticed anything,” said Kharli.

“Never mind, it’s fine. Maybe the mushrooms I had were just too low-level,” I said. “Go and have fun in the city. Remember, don’t go over your budget.”

Fengying and I had already discussed the amount of money that they could use, and what they could use it on, which was primarily new clothing.

“Yes, Teacher.” They bowed and then left, chatting merrily about all the things that they wanted to buy in the city. Kharli wanted some new skirts. Mo wanted more trousers. Lari wanted nicer jackets.

As for me, I planned to spend my afternoon using my inventory to replenish our pantry. Most of the items in my inventory were bound to me and, therefore, couldn’t be used by other people unless I processed them first. I believe the reason behind this was that, for example, the [Strawberries] in my inventory were different from [Sliced Strawberries]. All I had to do was use my knife on the fruits and I could then give the sliced fruits to the Demon Chef for him to use however he saw fit.

I had been unable to do this before until my “cooking curse” was resolved by a quest. Due to my low cooking level, I still sometimes failed in slicing fruits, but it was worth a try.

“It’s just you and me, Yinuo,” I said to the head maid. We were in the large industrial kitchen that I had set up in the inner courtyard. Unlike the other rooms which were exquisitely decorated, this part of the house was purely functional. Three huge refrigerators dominated the southern side, while the western side gleamed with stainless steel cooking ranges and ovens. The northern side was full of shelves containing every sort of kitchen supplies one might need, such as pots, pans, knives, mixing bowls, whisks, measuring cups, etc. “Are you sure you’re okay with staying here instead of going on the shopping trip with the others?”

“Yes, Baroness. I’m saving my money for my dowry,” she said.

“Oh, who’s the lucky man?” I asked.

“I haven’t found one yet,” she said.

Yinuo was a tall, bony woman of around thirty. She had long black hair down to her knees and large brown eyes. I thought she was rather pretty.

“Okay, let’s get to work. I’ll slice the fruits, and you will put them in these containers.” I gestured at the porcelain bowls, small glass jars, and large clay pots piled up beside my workspace. There was plenty of counter space on the island in the middle of the kitchen where I had decided to work.

She nodded. Without further ado, I took out a dozen [Strawberries] from my inventory and a knife from my System toolbelt. Yinuo was used to how my apprentices and I seemingly pulled out items from nowhere. Clan members and cultivators in this world had a “soul space” where they could use the stored items, so this wasn’t something too unusual.

The System guided my hands in cutting the fresh strawberries into quarters.

“Oops.” Instead of turning the [Strawberries] into [Sliced Strawberries], they somehow turned into [Burnt Strawberries]. “I don’t understand how these could have gotten burned.”

“The chef said that cursed ingredients are hard to cook,” said Yinuo.

I sighed. “These aren’t cursed. Can you try touching them?”

I pushed a [Strawberry] towards her. She reached out her hand towards the fruit then withdrew it.

“There seems to be a force that is preventing me from touching it,” she said.

“It figures,” I said. That was the effect of the item’s bound status. The natives of this world perceived it as a “cursed item.” I tried three times more and produced three bunches of [Burnt Strawberries] which my maid placed into a trash can. Thankfully, I was able to make some [Sliced Strawberries] on my fifth try. “That’s more like it!”

Yinuo clapped.

Was she mocking me? I examined her expression. Maybe?

“One down, fifty more to go!” I said.

Slicing fruits was an extremely monotonous activity, and my maid was with me not just to help with organizing the fruit, but also to keep me company and entertain me.

“Shall I begin reading this book out loud?” She held up a copy of “Secrets of the Ruler’s Court, Volume VII, Illustrated Edition.”

I giggled. “Why not?”

Yinuo started reading it out loud to me. “Courtly love among the nobles of the Vermillion Bird clan is a highly mannered and elegant affair full of poetry, drama, and public displays of extravagance. The twenty-fifth king, known for his thousands of lovers, once said ‘A day without courtship is to be avoided at all costs.’ Chivalric romances are not complete without at least a dozen stories of destined lovers, amorous adventures, and humorous erotic entanglements.”

“Erotic? Wait, how spicy is this book?” I asked.

“It’s actually rather dry. This volume is about historical romances,” she said.

“Okay, continue.”

The first story was about the legend of the Peony Maiden and the Prince of Eagles.

Yinuo read the story to me as I continued slicing more [Strawberries].

“When the world was young, the Prince of Eagles was soaring through the sky in search of adventure when a flash of color caught his eye. At the edge of a cliff, was the most beautiful flower in the world, the Crimson Pearl Peony. Awestruck by its magnificent color, gracefully furled petals, and ravishing scent, he fell madly in love at first sight.”

“Oh my,” I said as I failed my cooking task yet again.

Yinuo dutifully slid the [Burnt Strawberries] off the counter and into the trash can before continuing the story. “The Prince of Eagles, eager to prove his devotion, flew East of the Evening Star and West of the Dawn to collect fresh morning dew from the Parasol Tree to water the flower every day for ten thousand years.”

“Ten thousand years?” I raised an eyebrow while I continued making more [Burnt Strawberries] and [Sliced Strawberries].

Yinuo shrugged. “These stories always say ‘ten thousand years,’ but I think it just means a long time.”

“I see.”

“Millennia passed while the Prince waited patiently for his beloved to respond to his affection, but she remained silent. At last, the Prince’s long lifespan came to an end and he died.”

“What? He died? What kind of love story is this?”

“There’s more!” Yinuo turned the page and continued reading. “Even in death, the Prince of Eagles’ great love didn’t falter. Blood from his heart continued to water the flower, turning the soil around the peony red. Finally, the Crimson Pearl Peony was moved. Transforming herself into a lovely young human maiden, she gathered up the Prince’s bones and heart and sought to return him to Grandmother Eagle’s home East of the Evening Star and West of the Dawn. She walked so far that she wore out ten thousand iron shoes.”

I made a sound of appreciation.

“In those days, the world was still young, and Grandmother Eagle could be found chasing the sun dogs or at home roosting on the Parasol Tree. The Peony Maiden showed Grandmother Eagle the bones and asked for her help.” Yinuo showed me the beautifully illustrated page where the Peony Maiden, clad in gorgeous blood-red robes, knelt in front of a giant tree. “Grandmother Eagle said, ‘His blood flows because his heart still beats for love of you. If you wish for him to return, all you need to do is to bury his heart in the place he loves the most.’ The Peony Maiden understood and immediately ate the heart.”

“Ah! Cannibalism?! This story is hardcore!” I said.

“Her belly swelled and nine moons later she gave birth to a boy as fair as the sun and as gentle as the moon. And they lived happily ever after.”

“That was a very weird story.” I was going to ask her to read the next one when I heard the chiming of the doorbell.

“My lady, I’ll go see who that is,” said Yinuo. She left and returned with a small box and an official-looking scroll in her hands. “A messenger from the Fox clan asked me to give this to you.”

The velvet-lined wooden box contained a seed and the message on the scroll read, “Hey, Witch, I found this Crimson Pearl Peony seed in a treasure room. Why don’t you try growing it?”

It was unsigned, but obviously it was from Lady Hoshi.

The System pinged me with a popup notification.

[New Quest Available: Curing Infertility Part 2]

Yinuo, who was standing beside me reading the scroll, too, looked incredulously at me and said, “Baroness, this is related to the story I was just reading!”

“Yeah.” I nodded absentmindedly and picked up the seed.

[Crimson Pearl Peony Seed:

A legendary seed that has been passed on for generations since time immemorial. The long-extinct Crimson Pearl Peony was said to be the main ingredient of the Paramount Serendipitous Celestial Pill, the ultimate fertility drug.]

Whoa, that sounded pretty awesome. I mentally clicked on the [Accept Quest] button.

[Curing Infertility Part 2:

Plant the Crimson Pearl Peony seed.
Requirements: Black Soil, Spirit Water, and Mysterious Goo.

Reward: Farming Exp]

The soda water I got from the Mines was the same thing as [Spirit Water]. I would have to create [Black Soil] on the farm and unlock the [Mysterious Goo] by using the recipe when I unlocked the ingredients.

“D-don’t you think that’s strange?” asked Yinuo. Her eyes darted around the kitchen as though looking for something. “I read the legend of the Peony Maiden and this seed appeared… Was someone listening?”

“Who? There’s no one but us here.” That didn’t make sense. Even if someone had heard, they would’ve had to report it to Lady Hoshi and return with the seed while running at the speed of light.

Yinuo bit her lip and then pointed up at the ceiling.

I automatically looked up, but, of course, there was nothing there.

Yinuo gave me an agonized look.

“Someone…” She pointed up again then clasped her hands as though in prayer.

“Oh, you mean, um, I don’t think so. I’m sure it’s just a weird coincidence,” I said. Come to think of it, in the game things always happened this way, didn’t they? I mean, the player would talk to an NPC about a certain legend or rumor and then receive a related quest right after that. It wasn’t until now that I realized how bizarre that would be in real life.

Yinuo did not look convinced. “If you say so, my lady.”

“Maybe we should put the book away and just chat about something,” I suggested as I sat down to cut more [Strawberries]. I’d barely managed to fill one bowl.

Yinuo shot one more scared look at the ceiling before standing beside me at the kitchen counter once again. “Yes, that might be for the best.”

“Hey, at least we were only talking about a love story. Just think what might have happened if you had read the story about…” I took the book and leafed through it. “The Black Beast of Drakmorth.”

Yinuo took the book from me, turned the pages to chapter nine, and showed it to me. “How about I read the story about the most handsome man in the world?”

“Who is that?”

“Prince Arjun of the Vermillion Bird clan. They say he’s so gorgeous that red flowers spring up wherever he walks.”

“Wow! But I already have someone…”

“I don’t.” Yinuo looked up and said, “If someone’s listening, please I would like to see a man so stunningly beautiful that the birds in the sky fall down when they catch sight of him.”

Seconds later, the doorbell chimed again.

Chapter 112 - 'Fun' mushrooms

Chapter 112 - This lil mushroom dude looks like a fungi to be around!

🙞❤︎🙜

Yinuo and I practically ran to the front door, but it was only my household staff who had returned early from their shopping trip.

“Welcome back, everyone!” I smirked at Yinuo, who had a difficult time hiding her disappointment that it wasn’t the most beautiful man in the world waiting for us at our doorstep.

After greeting everyone, I went back to the kitchen to slice more [Strawberries] until dinner time. The more fruit that I cut, the better I got at it until I eventually stopped producing burnt food. Phew! That was a relief. Once I had enough of the [Strawberries], I moved on to [Apples], which were harder to process because I had to remove the cores. I filled a few of the smaller containers before taking a break for dinner and then continuing until bedtime.

***

The next day, I woke up before dawn. I took my time showering, dressing, and drinking a cup of coffee before using the portal to the Mines to collect the day’s harvest from the hydroponic and mushroom caves.

Seeing that the mushroom substrates that I had placed now had spores growing on them, I examined each one to see if there was anything useful I could take with me.

Jackpot!

[Naughty Mushroom:

When dried and ground into a powder, this can be mixed into hot water and drunk to increase men’s stamina during XXX. Slightly increases fertility.]

Giggling to myself, I removed that part of the substrate and stored it in my inventory. The clans had a problem with dwindling fertility, so they were sure to love this particular mushroom.

When I returned to my [Ranch House], I saw that it was raining. Spring rain tended to be quite light, but was still cold, which would make it unpleasant to be outdoors today. Nonetheless, I need to work on the farm, so I put on a raincoat and waterproof boots, and collected an umbrella before heading to the main house.

“Teacher, we won’t get exp from watering the crops today,” said Mo after the usual greetings at the breakfast table.

“I know. I planned for us to clear the land for the animals, but if the rain doesn't stop soon, we can just clear more land around the house instead. We’ll need more space in the future when we expand the house.” I helped myself to the piping hot tea, fluffy white rice, fried salmon, and stir-fried mushrooms. Dessert was a sweet egg custard bun.

“We’re getting a bigger house?” asked Lari.

“Definitely!” I said. "We can't do it just yet, but maybe next year we can upgrade the house and get a wine cellar."

“Wine? But I heard the chef is already planning to make some apple wine,” said Lari.

“I’ve never actually had apple wine,” I said. “I wonder what it tastes like.”

I was intrigued by this new bit of information. What kind of wine would the Demon Chef make with the apples I sliced yesterday? Would it be some sort of really precious spirit wine? Or maybe a really strong liquor?

“I bet Teacher’s wine cellar will be better. The chef will just be making regular wine, but we'll be using the System,” said Kharli.

“Right, but that is for the future. For now, let’s concentrate on Woodcutting,” I said.

When Fengying came to check if breakfast was satisfactory and ask if we wanted something, I gave her the mushroom-growing substrate that contained [Naughty Mushroom] spores.

“Shuye sends one of his staff to visit us every day, right? Please give this to them,” I said. “It has spores that will grow mushrooms that will be useful to the clan.”

“May I look at it?” asked Mo. Out of my three apprentices, she was the one who was best at foraging and was, therefore, the most familiar with wild mushrooms.

“I’ll do you one better. Here is what the mushroom will look like when it’s grown.” I took out half a dozen [Naughty Mushrooms] from my inventory.

Lari quickly covered the girls’ eyes. “Don’t look! Teacher! How could you?!”

I burst out laughing. “What? It’s just a mushroom.”

“It looks like a...” said Lari.

Fengying coughed and took the items. “I’ll take care of it.”

Mo pushed Lari’s hand away and peered at the mushroom. “What is it? It’s just a mushroom?”

Kharli also moved Lari’s hand away from her eyes. Her eyes widened when she saw them. “Those look exactly like-”

“Don’t say it!” Lari rolled his eyes. “Just don’t.”

“Look like what? What are you guys talking about?” asked Mo, with a confused look on her face.

“Never mind. It’s nothing.” I nodded to my housekeeper, who left with the items. Then I changed the subject. “Is everyone finished eating? Let’s go and do a bit of Fletching while we wait for the rain to subside.”

“Yes! I love Fletching,” said Kharli.

Mo still looked confused. She sidled to Kharli and whispered, “What was that about the mushroom?’

“Shh. I’ll tell you later when we’re alone,” said Kharli, darting a nervous glance at me and Lari.

We finished off the last bits of our breakfast and then moved to the inner courtyard. Ever since my sojourn at the Mines, I realized that certain things were different from the game. In Adventure Incarnate, one could only place a single furnace inside the house, but through experimentation I found out that eight was my current maximum.

When I was first transmigrated into this world, I didn’t really worry much about leveling up or creating more wealth since I had billions of useful items. I simply “played the game” normally.

However, my experience with the [Potato Cannons] opened my eyes to the System’s potential. Sure, leveling up in the normal way was fun, but using item cheats was even more enjoyable! Today I planned to make full use of the maximum number of furnaces.

“All right, we’ll start this year’s Fletching the right way. Last year, I let all of you familiarize yourselves with how to make arrows. How do you feel about Fletching?” I asked them as we walked into the workroom.

Our designated workspace was dominated by a large, sturdy wooden table that had benches on both sides. One wall was covered by shelves filled with various tools while the inner wall had a window that opened up into the courtyard.

“I love it! I can’t believe I’m a magic artisan!” said Lari.

My other two apprentices nodded vigorously to show their agreement.

“Good. Now we have to discuss the division of labor,” I said. “Of course, you all know that a higher crafting level is better than a lower one.”

They all nodded.

“Therefore, logically we shouldn’t all do all the tasks equally. Rather than having three people who are level 15 in Fletching and Smithing, it would be better to have one person who is level 30,” I said. “So I want you guys to pick which one of you will specialize in Smithing. The other two will work on their Fletching.”

“I like to work with wood, so I would like to do Fletching,” said Mo.

“I want to do Smithing,” said Lari. “But we’re not able to use the metal bars. How can we train it?”

“Teacher, I’m the fastest at Fletching,” said Kharli.

“Okay, so Mo and Kharli will fletch while Lari will smith. I will also do smithing. I have a lot of ores that I can smelt into metal bars that Lari can use,” I said. “Come to the other room and I’ll show you how it’s done.”

We walked over to the northern room which was totally bare except for a large metal furnace.

“It’s quite simple to use.” I pointed at the left side of the furnace which was open. “I’ll put the ores inside through this opening.”

I took out twelve [Tin Ores] and twelve [Copper Ores] and put them inside the furnace.

Then I pointed at the space below the opening. “Now, you guys open this small door and fill the empty area behind it with wood.”

I waited until they finished loading the furnace with wood before pressing the red [Start/Stop] button. Lari, Kharli, and Mo jumped back in surprise when the furnace roared to life, with bright red flames leaping from the wooden logs. In seconds, the air inside the room became hotter, and we could see the ores melting inside the furnace. After a few minutes, molten metal poured down from one side of the furnace into the waiting molds.

“It’s so fast!” said Lari.

“Yes, it melted fast, but won’t it be too hot for us to use?” asked Kharli.

Mo hovered over the molds where the molten metal was rapidly hardening into bars. “No, it’s magic. Look, they’re already cooling down.”

“The System is so convenient,” I said. “When it’s ready, you can just take out the metal bars and use them to smith [Bronze Arrowheads].”

From start to finish, it took around ten minutes for the furnace to produce twelve [Bronze Bars].

Or so I thought.

“Teacher, these aren’t bronze!” said Kharli.

“Oops. I think we can still use these…” I said. “Probably.”

Chapter 113 - Smithing is a fun activity when using awesome materials

Chapter 113 - Forging ahead and copper-mitted to having a blast!

🙞❤︎🙜

They looked like bronze bars, but the System information told a different story.

[Draconic Rune-etched Bronze Bars:

Imbued with intricate runic engravings and infused with the essence of powerful dragons, these bars possess an otherworldly aura.]

“You know how the System always has a lot of awesome-sounding items? I’m sure these bars are like that,” I said.

“Teacher, what do you mean?” Kharli, who was looking down at the bronze bars that were etched with glowing runic script, frowned.

“I mean, like, you know how a lot of our System stuff has fancy-sounding names, but they aren’t particularly useful or rare. Like the [Radiant Sunburst Paddlefish] and [Midnight Nightmare Sardine]. They look pretty, that’s it,” I said.

“But rare spirit fish could be sold for hundreds of gold pieces!” said Lari.

“Yes, you’re right. I suppose these fancy metal bars could be sold for a lot of money, but when we use the System these will function exactly the same as regular [Bronze Bars],” I said.

“Then can I try smithing it?” asked Lari.

“Okay, let’s go back to the workshop. I’ll put an anvil there,” I said.

My apprentices collected the [Draconic Rune-etched Bronze Bars] from the furnace and followed me to the anvil.

I smithed a set of [Bronze Arrowheads] while giving them instructions on what to do. “All you need to do is put a bar of metal on the anvil and use a hammer from your System toolbelt on it. Then a System menu will appear. Mentally choose the [Arrowheads] options and the System will guide your movements. Don’t fight it. Just loosen your arm muscles and let it do what it needs to do.”

They watched unblinking and with their mouths half open as I expertly smithed the regular [Bronze Bar] I took from my inventory. It took fifteen blows of the hammer until the metal bar shimmered and turned into five [Bronze Arrowheads].

“It’s magic!” said Lari. “I’m going to be a legendary magic blacksmith!”

“That’s not fair! Can I please try, too?” asked Mo.

“Me, too,” said Kharli.

“Okay.” It seemed that even though we had already discussed that it would be better if only one person leveled up Smithing, they simply couldn’t bear to not do it. I could understand that. Though it wasn’t the most efficient way to train, it should be fine for all of them to train smithing for now since any skill below level 20 was easy to level up. We’ll have to discuss it again after level 20. I stood outside and watched as they each smithed [Bronze Arrowheads].

“Why didn’t I smith them into Dragon Arrows or something like that?” Lari gave the [Bronze Arrowheads] a disappointed look.

“It’s probably because you’re too low-level,” said Kharli.

“We’re all level 1,” said Mo. “I don’t think people can make magic arrows at level 1.”

“Yes, that’s what I was talking about! Armor, weapons, and other types of equipment can be Common, Uncommon, Rare, Heroic, Epic, Legendary, or Mythical. We’re just starting out, so we can only make the most common and ordinary stuff,” I said.

“Will we ever be able to make Mythical items?” asked Mo.

“I’m not sure. Only the highest level artisans can make those,” I said.

“It would probably take a lifetime to master smithing,” said Kharli.

“All right, you’ve all tried it out. Let’s go back to the furnaces since we’re gonna need a lot of metal bars for you to work on,” I said.

We spent the rest of the morning going from furnace to furnace, loading them with wood and ores in order to produce more [Draconic Rune-etched Bronze Bars]. Since we had eight of them, we didn't need to wait for the ores to melt. Instead, we loaded one furnace and then went to the next one, repeating the process until all eight were loaded. Then we went back to the first, retrieved the metal bars, and loaded it up again.

At noon, Fengying informed us that lunch was ready, and we took a break.

“Over five hundred bronze bars!” I said. “I think this is enough for now. Let me know when you finish smithing these.”

Lari and the others nodded.

“Then let’s have lunch,” I said.

The Demon Chef must’ve been experimenting because the main dish this time was something called a “bitter sausage” that was made of pork and bitter herbs. It was supposedly good for your health, but it was an acquired taste. I ate a bit of it then loaded my plate with wild herb salad, braised demon chicken with cowpea, and salt-and-pepper pork. The dessert was a simple dish of sliced apples in light syrup.

After we finished eating, I said, “Looks like it’s not raining anymore. Let’s go.”

Outside, the fallen leaves squelched underneath our feet. There was a distinct chill in the air, and the smell of wet earth and the forest combined with the chill in the air, made every breath quite bracing. We walked over to the side of the house and started clearing a path to the eastern part of the farm.

“Woodcutting is so easy and fun. I can’t believe we can cut down trees like this,” said Kharli.

“If we get higher level Woodcutting, will we be able to do this faster?” asked Mo.

“I’m not sure. I know that it will make our energy consumption less, but I don’t know about it being faster,” I said.

All we had to do was to use a hatchet from the System toolbelt to hit a tree. The two first blows on the trunk took off half of the tree’s crown. The next two took care of its trunk and roots. Every hit resulted in us obtaining a [Log] and [Tree Branch] that we could use to fletch.

I whistled cheerfully as we worked. The fresh air and moderate amount of exercise I was getting was giving me a natural high.

“Cutting down a huge tree with only a few swings of this axe makes me feel like I’m a powerful cultivator,” said Lari.

“I wonder if we’re comparable to cultivators,” said Kharli. “I heard that not all of them are actually that strong.”

“But we can’t use our Woodcutting skills on anything but trees. Imagine if we could use this hatchet on demons…” said Lari.

“Did you guys forget about archery? Have you been training it at all?” I shot them an enquiring look.

“I’ve been training it,” said Kharli.

“She’s gotten really good at it,” said Mo.

I understood this to mean that only Kharli had been practicing her archery. Mo didn’t have any talent in it, and Lari had the [Lazy] attribute which meant that he wasn’t the type to train on his own time.

“We should go and hunt some [Horned Rabbits] when the weather is good,” I said. That would give them some motivation since the rabbit meat was quite tasty.

“I’d love that,” said Kharli.

We discussed the details while we continued cutting down trees. My apprentices’ energy bars emptied faster than mine, so I instructed them to fletch the wooden logs that they had gotten today.

Fletching was quite simple. They simply used a knife on a [Log] and chose the [Arrow Shaft] option in the System menu. Then [Feathers] and [Bronze Arrowheads] were attached to the [Arrow Shaft] to make [Bronze Arrows].

“Okay, that’s it. I’m out of energy. Let’s visit my pet before we go back to the house. I have something to show you guys,” I said.

I spent some time playing with Cutie while the others watched. They were still nervous about the “demon” even though I had repeatedly assured them that my golden slime pet was quite tame. Afterwards, I took them to a clearing on the eastern side of the house where I took out a special item from my inventory.

“What do you think this is?” I asked them.

They peered at the two wooden boxes piled on top of each other. Each one was a foot square and they were mounted on four wooden legs so that they were a foot above the ground.

“Can I open it?” asked Lari.

“Go ahead,” I said.

Lari carefully removed the lid of the topmost box. It was empty.

“Take it off and open the next box,” I said.

He put the lid back then removed the top box and placed it on the ground before opening the lid of the lower box.

“Nooooo!” Mo screamed shrilly and backed away from the box, a look of utter horror on her face. “Not that! Anything but that!”

Chapter 114 - I changed my mind, we won’t be raising chickens on the farm🐣🐥🐤

Chapter 114 - Those with arachno-fear-bia are safe.

🙞❤︎🙜

“What?!” I knew the creatures inside of the box were a little icky, but Mo’s reaction was too much. “It’s cool, these are a special spirit variety. They don’t have teeth or bite or anything. No attack capabilities at all, I promise.”

I paused to eye Mo who was still cowering behind Kharli. “Well, actually if you handle them too roughly they will exude a foul-smelling liquid. I think it’s a defense mechanism. The liquid is disgusting but it won’t hurt you.”

My three apprentices remained silent.

“These are an important resource for farmers. We’re gonna need this for the Immortal Herbs. What’s the matter?” I asked

Kharli scratched her head and then said, “It’s not that she thinks they’re dangerous. Mo just really hates worms.”

“Huh? That’s a strange thing to dislike. What happened?” I asked.

“Don’t tell her!” Mo shrieked.

I frowned a little. “Well, okay. I won’t force you to tell me. I’ll excuse you from this particular task, but you’ll miss out on all of the xp.”

“Does this give a lot of xp?” Lari bent down and peered at wriggly worms inside the box.

“Not a lot, but every little bit counts.” I patted Mo’s shoulder. “Are you sure you don’t want to tell me? I mean, if you can’t trust your teacher, then who can you trust?”

“It’s not even a big deal,” said Lari.

“You should tell her,” said Kharli.

Mo fidgeted with her sleeves for a few minutes while I patiently waited for her reply.

“Think of the xp!” said Lari.

“Ah! Okay, you tell her then,” said Mo. “But no laughing!”

Kharli’s lips were already twitching. “Of course, we would never make fun of your fear of worms.”

Lari and Kharli exchanged glances then burst into peals of laughter.

“You guys are terrible friends.” Mo folded her arms across her chest and pouted, but we could all tell that she wasn’t really upset.

After the laughter died down, Lari explained it to me. “Teacher, you know how the orphanage is funded by the clans? So our food is okay, but not really that good except for special occasions. Sometimes, rich merchants or nobles will donate food to celebrate the birth of a new heir or a wedding.”

“That’s nice of them,” I said.

“Yes, we always loved it when they threw a celebration party. That was the only time that we got to eat meat. A few years ago the Anwei Cooper’s Guild arranged a feast for us to commemorate their 100th Founding Day, and they served Four Joy Meatballs,” said Lari.

“They tasted great, and the donation was so generous that we all ate as much as we wanted,” said Kharli. “Mo ignored all of the other dishes and ate one whole plate of the meatballs.”

Where was the story going? I couldn’t figure out what it had to do with earthworms.

“I had three plates of it, too.” Lari smiled at the memory. “They were just so good that all sorts of stories were made up about them. Someone spread the word that the meatballs were made of worms instead of pork.”

“Unlikely. Worm meat would cost way more than pork, especially minced pork which doesn’t use the best parts of the animal most of the time,” I said.

“So we're going to raise these worms for their meat?” Kharli gave the [Red Wrigglers] a dubious look.

[Red Wriggler:

A type of spirit earthworm that is a dull red color and around 2 to 4 inches in length. Its segmented body is moist and slimy. The Red Wriggle is commonly used for vermicomposting, which is the process of using earthworms to decompose organic waste into nutrient-rich compost. Their castings are rich in nutrients and beneficial microorganisms, making them a valuable resource for enriching the soil and promoting plant growth.]

I shook my head. “No. Continue the story, what happened?”

“Most people didn’t believe it, but it was a running joke for a long time. I mean, we rarely got to eat meat, and it was a big event for us,” said Kharli. “But one of the others took it way too far.”

“That was Muchen,” said Lari. “He was always playing pranks on the younger kids.”

“Yes, this time he sneaked into the girl’s room while we were napping and put an earthworm in Mo’s mouth,” said Kharli.

“A dirty earthworm! Oh, it still makes me mad when I think about it,” said Mo.

“He picked Mo because she snores a lot and sleeps with her mouth open,” said Lari.

“What do you mean she snores a lot? You snore louder than everyone in the entire orphanage combined,” said Kharli.

“The point is, Muchen put an earthworm in Mo’s open mouth while she was sleeping. She woke up and spat it out… half of it anyway,” said Kharli.

“I did not! I spat out the whole thing,” said Mo.

“I saw you close your teeth on half of it and spit out the other half,” said Kharli.

“Everyone called her ‘Worm Eater’ for a few months,” said Lari.

I gave my apprentice a sympathetic look, then patted her on the shoulder again. “It’s okay, it’s all in the past and no one cares about childish nicknames like that. Are you saying you don’t want to take care of these worms?”

“I really hate worms,” said Mo.

“What did it taste like?” I asked.

“I said I didn’t eat it!” said Mo.

“But it was in your mouth, right? You must have tasted it,” I said.

“It was really slimy and gross. I think it tasted like soil,” said Mo.

“Hahaha, slimy and gross? I’m pretty sure worms could be cooked in a delicious way. Do you want me to ask the chef?” Mo’s expression was so funny that I couldn’t help but tease her a bit.

“No! I don’t want to eat or take care of worms.” Mo pouted.

“Aw, don’t be such a baby. Think of the xp,” said Lari.

“...” Mo looked unconvinced.

“No problem, Lari and Kharli can take care of them,” I said. “Have you examined the box yet? If not, do it now.”

[Worm Bin:

Status: Healthy
Vermicompost: 0/3]

I put the lid back on and then put the upper box over the lower box before taking out some table scraps from my inventory to show my apprentices. “These worms eat all sorts of food scraps like rinds, seeds, cores, stems, and so forth, as well as most other types of organic matter like dead plants.”

Taking out a table and knife, I put the food waste on it and then chopped it into smaller pieces. “We just have to cut these up like this. When they’re small enough, activate the System’s [Use] command.”

I gave them each half a handful and said, “Now, use [Trash] with [Worm Bin].”

After a moment, Kharli said, "That was easy.”

I waited until all three of them had finished. Despite her protests, Mo obediently did as I instructed. “Yes, that’s it. These are spirit animals, so they don’t need a lot of looking after. However, take note that you can't just put any old thing inside the [Worm Bin]. Don’t ever put any citrus or acidic stuff inside, and no meat or grease. Also, try not to remove the lid or disturb the worms too much. They like quiet and darkness.”

“Teacher, what is this [Vermicompost]?” asked Kharli. “You said we’re going to need this for the Immortal Herbs?”

“[Vermicompost] is the product of this [Worm Bin]. It’s basically the worm’s excrement and decayed organic matter along with the worm’s bedding materials. By the way, when we gather the [Vermicompost], I’ll have to add more [Worm Bedding] which is made of shredded brown cardboard. The System has plenty of it,” I said.

“Poop again? Why is it always poop?” Mo poked a corner of the box and gave it a disgusted look. “I bet it will be smelly.”

“All this time that we’ve been farming, we’ve used the fertilizer from the System, but for Immortal Herbs, that won’t be enough. We’ll have to use [Mysterious Goo] which is made by combining [Vermicompost] and Cutie’s [Goo],” I said.

I wanted to make [Mysterious Goo] for my quest.

[Curing Infertility Part 2:

Plant the Crimson Pearl Peony seed.
Requirements: Black Soil, Spirit Water, and Mysterious Goo.

Reward: Farming Exp]

“Then I hope we get a lot of [Mysterious Goo] soon,” said Kharli.

“Lucky for us, we don’t actually need a lot. I already have plenty of it.” In fact, I had 2,147,483,647 [Mysterious Goo] in my inventory courtesy of GodIam.

Lari looked puzzled. “Why do we need to make it if you already have a lot of it, Teacher?”

“My ancestors, the ones responsible for my bloodline inheritance, have provided me with plenty of materials, but a lot of them need to be ‘unlocked’ first,” I said.

“Unlocked?” asked Kharli.

“We’ve only used the most basic materials from the System. The more advanced ones need to be unlocked first. Think of it as a treasure chest. We need a key to open it, and for a lot of them, the key to unlocking the chest is to complete a task such as crafting an item.” Since we were finished with the [Worm Bin], I started walking back to the house. It was time for an afternoon snack, and I had asked the Demon Chef to prepare dim sum and tea for us.

“Your ancestors sound like they were strict,” said Mo.

“Then all we need to do is to make a few [Mysterious Goo] then you can use the ones from the System?” asked Lari.

“Yes. It’s easy, isn’t it? We can use the ones from my inventory on the farm, and the ones we produce from the [Worm Bin] can be sold to others,” I said.

When we came within sight of the house's front gate, we spotted one of the maids waiting there. She quietly slipped inside when she saw us, no doubt to inform the kitchen staff that we were on our way.

“It’s funny that the first type of animal that we are raising on the farm are those worms. I thought we were going to raise chickens first,” said Lari.

“We won’t be raising animals on the farm,” I said.

“No animals? Why not? I was really looking forward to it,” said Lari.

Chapter 115 - The Rise of the Feathered Fiends

Chapter 115 - Why did the chicken go to the seance? To talk to the other side.

🙞❤︎🙜

“Wait a moment. I’m tired. Let’s eat first, then discuss it later,” I said.

In the outer courtyard, the Demon Chef was waiting for us with a truly magnificent spread. Our mouths fell open when we saw a large round table full of colorful and delicate dim sum dishes, including steamed dumplings, pan-fried dumplings, spring rolls, pork buns, sweet custard buns, water chestnut cake, eggs tarts, sesame balls, and a few other items I couldn’t identify. The only thing missing was the more hearty fare like meatballs and spareribs.

I chose a light chrysanthemum tea and started eating. “Oh my gosh, I bet emperors don’t eat this well.”

Lari, Kharli, and Mo didn’t say anything because they were busy stuffing their faces.

There were three tricolor dumplings I couldn’t identify. The green, white, and red ones turned out to be stuffed with some sort of sweet bean, while the yellow, blue, and white ones were savory chicken dim sums. The orange, violet, and white ones were my least favorite since they were filled with minced carp and vegetables.

Though the spring rolls were the best I had ever eaten, with a crunchy skin and scrumptious meat filling, I stopped myself from eating too much because I knew for a fact that dinner tonight was going to be steak. Prince Baiyu’s men had delivered a whole demon cow to the house last month. The meat was now fully aged and it would undoubtedly be a meal to remember.

Half an hour later, the four of us leaned back on our chairs, happily full and feeling happy with the world at large.

“Teacher, what was that about us not raising animals on the farm?” asked Lari.

“You might think that it’s weird, but I honestly can’t bring myself to raise animals for their meat,” I said.

It’s true that I'm a meat lover, but I was used to buying meat at the supermarket, not slaughtering animals myself.

“But we’re farmers.” Lari folded his arms across his chest.

“It’s okay. I spoke to our chef, and he told me that he knew a farmer who raises the best pigs in the Westerlands,” I said. As expected of a Demon Chef, he always knew where to get the best ingredients. “He suggested that I sell a few piglets to that farmer, and it got me thinking about the [Lizardwings].”

Mo wrinkled her nose at the mention of the smelly animals. “What do the [Lizardwings] have to do with pigs? The pigs won’t be as smelly as the [Lizardwings]... Will they?”

Kharli laughed at that. “Nothing could possibly be as smelly as the [Lizardwings]!”

“No, no, no. You’ve got the wrong idea. It’s not about being smelly at all. My point is that I was able to sell the young [Lizardwings] to the clan members and most of them survived." The items from my inventory were all bound to me, which meant that I couldn’t give them away or sell them to other people. However, items that I grew or crafted could be sold. For example, I couldn’t sell [Lizardwing Eggs], but if I hatched them on the farm, I could sell the [Lizardwings] babies or adults.

“But why would we sell animals instead of raising them ourselves?” asked Lari.

“You know that we have a limit on how many animals we can have on the farm, right?” I waited until the three of them nodded before continuing. “It’s all about mathematics. At my current farming level, we can have a maximum of six animals on the farm. The smaller animals like the chickens take around two months to grow before they can be slaughtered for their meat. How many chickens would we be able to raise in a year?”

Lari, Kharli, and Mo exchanged looks full of alarm. They hated it when I asked them to do calculations like this. The orphanage had given them a proper basic education, but like most peasants in this era, they had difficulty counting stuff after they ran out of fingers.

They furrowed their brows, scratched their heads, and argued about it for some time before coming up with the wrong answer.

I burst out laughing. “One hundred? How did you even come up with that number?”

“It’s a lot, that’s what matters!” said Kharli with a cheeky grin.

“And how much tax would you owe?” When they just shuffled their feet and refused to look at me, I said, “Alright, that’s enough of that. I know you guys said you didn’t want a tutor, but you need one. I asked Fengying to get one for you. The tutor will arrive in the summer.”

All of us glanced at Mo, who sighed but didn’t object to it. She had some sort of reading disability, either dyslexia or some related learning disorder. Thankfully, she could use the System to read things out loud for her, but she'd had a bad experience with formal education in the orphanage.

“Don’t worry about it,” I said. “We’ll make sure to hire a good tutor who can deal fairly with everyone.”

“I’m not worried. I’d pity the person who tried to bully me nowadays,” said Mo, raising a fist.

The rest of us chuckled at her reply.

“Good! Anyway, on the topic of raising animals, if we raised chickens ourselves, we would be able to raise around thirty-six in a year, but if we sold the chicks right after they hatched, around every five to six days, we could have three hundred sixty-five to four hundred thirty-eight a year,” I said.

“That’s a lot,” said Lari.

I had the distinct impression that they couldn’t really grasp the numbers I was talking about.

“The point is that we will be able to produce a lot more if we outsource the task of raising the animals,” I said. “I’m thinking of signing a contract with the White Tiger clan and the chef’s friends. I’ll supply the animals while they do the work of taking care of them. Deming already agreed that I should ask for half of all profits and produce in return.”

“But, Teacher, no one else has spirit grass and forage like we do,” said Lari.

I nodded. “That’s a good point. We’ll just have to accept that the quality of the meat and produce won’t be as good as it would have been if we had raised them here on the farm ourselves. It’s worth it considering how much more meat and animal produce we’ll get.”

Lari seemed to accept this while Kharli and Mo frowned a bit.

“We were going to wait until the spirit grass grew more before hatching the eggs. Does this mean we won’t wait anymore?” asked Lari.

“I think we should still wait a few more days. The original plan was to have at least half of the area covered in spirit grass, but now that we’re only going to have piglets and chicks, we won’t need that much grass,” I said.

“I’m sure you’re right, Teacher,” said Lari. “Can I see the eggs, please?”

“Oh, I forgot I haven’t shown them to you. Here you go,” I said.

Taking out a few [Chicken Eggs] from my inventory, I handed them one each.

“Teacher, why is the System’s item information a bit weird?” Lari rubbed his thumb over the pale blue spots on an egg.

[Chicken Egg:

A wonderful item full of hopes and dreams! What kind of chicken will hatch from this egg?]

“Why are they all different? This one is black!” Kharli gave her egg a distrustful look.

“Mine is just pure white!” said Mo.

“...Is there a gold egg?” asked Lari.

I laughed and poured dozens of [Chicken Eggs] into three baskets for them to marvel at. Each one was a different size and color, and many of the shells had markings like stripes, spots, and stars. We talked about the eggs a little bit more before going to our bedrooms for a nap before dinner.

Of course, in Adventure Incarnate, the chickens were shown with the same old in-game sprite, just with their colors swapped. How was I to know that things would be different in this world?

The rise of the Feathered Fiends three years later shouldn’t be blamed on me!

Chapter 116  - A seed is full of potential

Chapter 116 - A hot spring that looks very a-peeling

🙞❤︎🙜

The next day, we had an early breakfast, and I exited my [Courtyard House] as the last golden rays of dawn were lighting up the eastern sky. Just like when I first got out of The Chitinous Caverns and returned to the forest, I reveled in the fresh, sweet air that smelled of smoke, pine, earth, water, and wildflowers. Sunlight, filtered through the lattice of leaves and branches of the tree canopy, cast a warm glow on the forest floor where insects and tiny animals scurried here and there. I heard the croaking of frogs and the melody of bird calls mingling with the buzzing of a nearby bee.

Today we decided to work individually on separate fields. Though I was glad to be back home with my apprentices, I didn’t always want them peering over my shoulder at what I was doing. Making my way to the farthest field that was planted with red rice, I inspected the seedlings.

It had rained last night, which meant that we wouldn't need to water the plants, but we still needed to check them for weeds and disease.

I knelt on the ground and gently touched the tender green leaves of a seedling. Though my favorite time of the season was when the crops were ready to harvest, the time when the seeds sprouted was also very special. Seeing the new growth after the cold, barren winter made me think of new beginnings.

Wasn’t that just like me?

Back on earth, I had a very unsatisfying life after my parents died. Now, things were so much better after I started a new life in this world.

Smiling, I plucked out a few stray weeds. The crops were growing well, and I was in a great mood.

When I finished inspecting the field, I went to the [Slime House] to get my pet. The day was far too nice to spend indoors, so I got a packed lunch from the kitchen and walked to the forest. My sensible walking boots were made of buttery soft leather, and I enjoyed the feel of my feet sinking into the soft carpet of leaves covering the forest floor.

This was Cutie’s first time outside of the farm, and she was very excited about it. She bounced along beside me noisily and I almost fancied I could see a “boing boing boing!” sound effect overhead. As she bounced, she kept making delighted “Chu” sounds and using the slime strand on top of her head to touch random things like large rocks, grass, tree trunks, and especially wildflowers. She must have spent her entire life in the Chitinous Caverns, so everything here was new to her.

Once I was well out of sight of the house, I made Mr. Bear grow larger and then climbed up to sit on his shoulders. Then I put Cutie on his head. This was my puppet’s [Travel Mode]. He levitated two feet off the ground and flew off to the destination I chose using the System map. This way of traveling looked weird, but I was past caring. Everyone already thought I was a weirdo and a witch, so I didn’t really need to take care of my image anymore.

I’d told my apprentices that I was going foraging, but the truth was I was just going to reacquaint myself with the forest’s interesting spots.

My first stop was the vernal pond. For most of the year, the pond was just a hole in the ground, with maybe a little bit of water at the bottom, but during the spring, right after the snow melted, it filled up with water. I smiled nostalgically as I remembered how this had been the place where I had caught my first fish.

I never would have thought that a pond that was dry for most of the year would be teeming with life in the spring, but this one was full of tiny shrimp, crustaceans, tadpoles, and the like. Mr. Bear shrunk until my feet touched the ground, and Cutie hopped down from my puppet’s head. I sat down on a large rock at the edge of the water and took out my fishing rod. This was the only place in the game where one could catch [Killifish].

[Killifish:

The killifish is a small, freshwater fish that is found in many parts of the world. The name killifish comes from the fact that they are often found in small, stagnant pools of water that are about to dry up, and they are able to survive in these conditions by burying themselves in the mud at the bottom of the pool.]

Fishing was a very relaxing activity. When a player started, they normally caught a dozen fish before there was a short lull. This was explained as the time it took for the fish to respawn in the game. Thanks to the [Easy Fishing Hack], all I had to do was slowly and steadily lift the fishing rod above the water when I got the fishing notification pop-up. The fish was automatically stored in my inventory.

During the quiet times, I watched the leaves from the trees gently floating down to land softly on the water's surface and the dragonflies darting gracefully here and there, their iridescent wings shimmering in the sunlight.

After an hour, I put my fishing rod back in my inventory. It was time to move on, but before leaving I circled the pond to check if there was anything I could forage. To my surprise, it was actually my pet who found something interesting.

Cutie bounced over to an insignificant-looking plant with small yellow flowers. The slime strand on top of its head then formed itself into the shape of a spade and started digging around the plant’s roots. I knelt and checked the plant’s information.

[Sunshine Glue-Flower:

One of the very first flowers to bloom in spring, the Sunshine Glue-Flower plant has small yellow flowers that ooze a white glue-like fluid that contains its pollen. When the stem is wet it becomes sticky.]

When my pet finished digging the plant up, she used her slime strand to offer it up to me. I obligingly took out a plant pot from my inventory and placed the [Sunshine Glue-Flower] in it. Golden Angel Slimes ate flowers, so I guessed she wanted me to bring this back to her house for her to eat later. She dug up half a dozen more plants before she was satisfied.

“Hmm, it makes sense that a slime likes sticky plants,” I said.

With that, we continued exploring. Seated on Mr. Bear’s shoulders, I had a nicely elevated view of the forest, and our speed was much faster than I could have managed on foot. Even stopping every few minutes to gather berries, nuts, mushrooms, herbs, and spring vegetables, we made such good time that by noon we were already at a northern part of the Ancient Hill Forest that I had never been to.

The sun was already high in the sky, and I was hungry. Checking the System map, I chose the nearby Ripplewood Creek as a destination since it sounded like a good place to settle down to eat my lunch.

As we near the creek, a yellow dot appeared at a certain spot in the System map.

“Wow, I discovered a new spot!” I said.

[Golden Harvest Banana Grove:

Wild banana trees are growing haphazardly in this corner of the forest. The tropical microclimate here is caused by a magical hot spring.]

When we got there, I got down from my puppet and marveled at the sight of a mini jungle. The tall, slender trees with yellow trunks and vibrantly green leaves were hung with large clusters made up of dozens of golden bananas growing in tiers, at the bottom of which grew the banana flowers, which were also edible. I mean, the banana plant was called a tree, but I knew from my biology lessons in school that they were actually gigantic herbaceous plants. The “trunk” wasn’t made of wood. It was a giant stem!

[Banana:

Rich in vitamins, antioxidants, and fiber, the banana grows year-round in tropical climates. The golden peel hides soft, creamy flesh that is sweet without being cloying. Finely chopped banana peels can be placed at the base of a plant to repel aphids.]

“Incredible! This is like my own mini banana plantation…” I walked among the plants, marveling at the lush landscape. Under the shade of the banana plants grew edible [Vegetable Fern] and [Ginger] that I gathered with a smile though the big prize for today was definitely the bananas themselves. I quickly used the System to harvest the bananas. There were so many ripe fruits that I could’ve filled a truck with them, and I leveled up my Foraging.

[Player Name: Violet

Farming Skills:

Farming Level 19, Fishing Level 12, Woodcutting Level 19, Cooking Level 5, Herblaw Level 15, Foraging Level 6→7, Hunting Level 3, Mining Level 4]

I made my way to the center of the grove, with Cutie bouncing beside me until I found a small pool of water that warmed the air around it. This must be the source of the energy of the grove. I dipped my hand in the water to test the temperature. Cutie imitated me using her slime strand.

“Hot!” I blew on my fingers to cool them.

Beside me, Cutie turned bright red and made a “Chuuuu” sound like air escaping from the spout of a water kettle. Her slime strand formed the shape of a flame and she keeled over, her eyes rolling back as if suffering from a heat stroke.

Oh no! I got a bucket of water from the System inventory and poured it over her. When that didn’t work I used a small bucket of ice.

“Chu.” This time, my pet sounded tired rather than in distress. I picked her up and found a reasonably soft patch of grass to spread my picnic blanket on. She bounced down from my arms and lay on the blanket quietly, with her eyes closed. I waited a few moments to make sure she was fine before I started eating.

My packed lunch today was vinegared rice with pickled ginger, red braised pork, sauteed spring vegetables, and fresh sliced strawberries in honey.

There was so much food that I really should have eaten only half of it, but I couldn’t resist the Demon Chef’s delicious cooking. By the time I finished, I felt almost uncomfortably full and sleepy. I took out a [Mosquito Net] from my inventory and set it up above the picnic blanket.

Time for a nap.

***

An hour later, I was awoken by the sound of someone laughing. I bolted upright and then scooted backward in alarm when I saw the source of the noise. The [Mosquito Net] fell and I got tangled up in it. As I was flailing around with the netting, Cutie woke up and screamed a high-pitched “Chu! Chu!” at the intruder and looked like she was ready to attack. I grabbed her and retreated, dragging the [Mosquito Net] with us. My heart was pounding wildly in alarm as I mentally called up the System menu, navigated to the Equipment tab, and put on my [Lunarite Plate Armor] for protection.

Mr. Bear was on [Guard Mode] but stood inert. Nor had he warned me that an enemy was approaching. Why? How was this creature not a threat?!

Chapter 117 - They hatched! 🐣🐥🐤

Chapter 117 - An egg-ceptionally good day for yolking around at the farm

❤︎❤︎❤︎

The golden-furred monkey that was almost as big as I was peered up at me curiously. I held my breath and waited for its next move. Though not all breeds of monkey were aggressive, I was in its territory, and I could be in trouble if it did decide to attack. I knew from nature documentaries back on Earth that monkeys were quite strong for their size, and a full-grown one could rip a human's face off.

We stared at each other for a few minutes.

Should I walk away?

Just as I was about to make a move, the monkey turned its back on me and scampered off. I waited until it was out of sight before putting the picnic things back in my inventory and using Mr. Bear to fly away as fast as I could. We didn’t stop until we reached home.

It was with great regret that I decided that I would never bathe in the hot spring in the [Golden Harvest Banana Grove]. I might die of a heart attack if one of those monkeys dropped by to join me!

Come to think of it, I didn’t get to see the monkey’s name or stats. There was no System information about it. So maybe it really wasn’t a threat?

Perhaps mundane wild animals were not included in the System. That seemed like quite a large flaw to me, but there was precedent for it in the game. Adventure Incarnate had quite a lot of animals that were seen in the background such as pets like cats, dogs, rabbits, etc. that the NPCs had in their homes or towns. Those were definitely not attackable by players.

Would my combat skills even activate if the other party was not an enemy in the game?

Well, I knew that I could use my armor, at least. Therefore, logically speaking, I should also be able to use my axe. I decided not to worry about it for now.

***

My apprentices and I spent the next few days tending to the crops and cutting down trees to clear a big enough space for the animals.

“Is everyone out of energy?” I asked. When they all answered in the affirmative, I handed them one bottle of [Kola-Kola Soda] each. “Drink this. Let me know if it replenishes your energy.”

We were in the middle of the clearing that we had just made.

They uncorked the bottles and Kharli sniffed hers suspiciously while Lari and Mo drank theirs right away. Kharli made a face before drinking it. I took out a bottle and drank it with relish.

I waited until they had all finished their bottles before asking, “How was it?”

“It tastes like medicine,” said Kharli.

“I like it,” said Lari.

“My energy bar is still the same except for a tiny amount that was refilled,” said Mo.

“It refilled your energy bar?” I asked them.

They all nodded.

“Great,” I said.

“Teacher, does this mean you have more energy now?” asked Lari.

“Yes, but only a little bit.” My energy bar had only refilled around 10%. Initially, it was more, but I had developed a tolerance for it the way that people who drank caffeinated drinks developed a tolerance for caffeine, making it less effective. Nonetheless, it was more than what the kids got, which made sense because the System was mostly focused on giving the player, not the farm hands, bonuses and interesting items.

The girls both looked excited.

“Then you can work on the farm all day long?” asked Mo.

“No, no. You misunderstood. I can only drink one bottle a day,” I said.

“What happens if you drink more than one?” asked Lari.

“Nothing bad, just I don’t get any additional energy,” I said. “Wait a bit, I’ll cut a few more trees.”

When I was finished, I leaned against the beech tree that we had singled out as the central spot for the animal pen. It would provide shade and shelter for the animals.

“Tomorrow, we’ll sow this clearing with [Spirit Grass] and [Wild Seed Mix]. We’re just going to sell the animals, so this much is enough, but if we were going to raise them ourselves, we would need a bigger area,” I said.

“How big should it be?” asked Mo.

“The smaller animals like the chickens don’t need as much space as the big ones like the cows. They will need at least three to ten tiles of open space per animal,” I said. A “tile” was a unit of measurement in Adventure Incarnate that was a square with a width of around three feet. “But that is the absolute minimum. In my opinion, it’s cruel to put animals in a space that’s too small for them.”

“That seems like a lot of space to me,” said Kharli.

“Hmm. If we were not selling the chickens, what I would do is raise them here for one year, and then move them to a different place. Then I would use this area to plant crops,” I said.

“Why is that, Teacher?” asked Lari.

“I know why! It’s because of the chicken… product. That fertilizes the soil,” said Mo.

We all laughed. By this time, we were all used to the concept of animal manure being good for the farm and knew exactly what she was talking about.

“All right, I’ll do it now.” I mentally navigated the System’s [Animal Husbandry] tab and selected [Small Pen] which I placed on the ground in the spot we had chosen.

“May I take a look at the eggs again?” asked Lari.

I already anticipated that they would want to choose the eggs, so I handed them a basket full of the requested items.

[Chicken Egg:

A wonderful item full of hopes and dreams! What kind of chicken will hatch from this egg?]

“I like the shiny ones!” said Lari.

“Still hoping for a golden chicken that lays golden eggs?” Mo poked the white egg with yellow spots that Lari had chosen.

“Yes.” Lari handed me the egg.

Kharli picked a pure white one, while Mo handed me a blue and green striped one. I randomly grabbed three more and then placed them all inside the [Small Pen] along with some water and [Animal Feed]. In real life, the eggs should’ve been put in an incubator, but this was how it worked in Adventure Incarnate.

“That’s it. They should hatch in three days,” I said.

***

Three days later, we set up chairs and a canopy beside the pen to watch the chickens hatch. All of the staff had taken the day off, and we were munching on snacks and drinking while we waited.

“Look! There! That one’s hatching.” Mo jumped up from her seat in excitement and ran to the side of the pen.

Lari and Kharli ran beside her and the rest of the staff followed suit while I remained seated. I doubted that there would be much to see. There wasn’t much to the hatching process. A few cracks in the egg appeared, then a small hole which slowly became bigger and bigger until a chick emerged from it.

“Amazing! It's our first chicken,” said Lari.

“It’s so cute!” Kharli made cooing noises at the chick.

In the next thirty minutes, all six eggs hatched.

“Can I touch them?” asked Lari.

“They’re still newly hatched chicks. We probably shouldn’t touch them,” said Fengying. Beside her, the Demon Chef nodded.

Fengying let the maids and kitchen staff watch for a few more minutes before saying, “Let’s get back to work.”

I had the impression that they had been expecting something more spectacular even though I had told them that it was just a few chickens. My housekeeper, chef, and the rest of the staff left while I stayed to examine the animals’ information using the System. All but one of them were the same.

[Chicken:

A rare breed of spirit hen that lays high-quality eggs. Its feathers can be used to make arrows. Mostly gentle.]

The sixth one was a surprise.

“Teacher, this one isn’t a chicken!” said Lari.

“Yes, it seems like it.” The System information was quite clear about that.

[Red Junglefowl:

This is not your ordinary chicken. In fact, it’s not a chicken at all. The Red Junglefowl is the wild ancestor of all domesticated chicken breeds. The males are larger than the females and have more colorful feathers.]

Unlike the other chicks that were just balls of white or yellow fluff, the [Red Junglefowl] was covered in red fluff and a few tiny red feathers on its wings.

When I was living in Singapore, one of my classmates lived in a housing estate that had lots of wild chickens living behind it. We used to joke about catching and eating them, but the red junglefowl was a protected species. Also, those non-chickens never crossed the road. They flew over it.

However, I was pretty sure the junglefowl chicks in Singapore were brown, not red. This [Red Junglefowl] must be a special spirit animal. I even fancied that I saw a hint of intelligence in its beady black eyes.

“This one is male, right?” I asked.

Lari nodded. “The fluff is bright red, so I think it is.”

“But we don’t want these to breed since the chickens might become wild,” said Kharli.

Mo wrinkled her nose. “It’s the only male.”

“The only male of this batch of eggs. I’m sure we’ll get more,” I said. “We’ll give these five days before putting them in the inventory. Deming said that five-day-old chicks should be big enough to sell.”

That’s what I said, but I should’ve known better. I should never have sold the [Red Junglefowl].

Chapter 118 - Rice-Fish Culture System

Chapter 118 - Holy Carp! That's Rice on the Money!

❤︎❤︎❤︎

Since I had decided to sell livestock, there wasn’t an urgent need to expand the clearing that I had designated for the animals, so the next day we went to the site that I had earmarked for the Immortal Herbs.

As we cut down the trees to make space for the herbs, I told my apprentices about the requirements.

“We can’t just plant the seeds without preparing the soil first. The seeds wouldn’t grow,” I said. “We'll need to use the [Mysterious Goo] and green manure on the soil before we can get started.”

“Green manure?” Mo gave me an inquiring look.

Today we were all dressed in our simple work clothes: unadorned black or brown pants and robes made of plain cotton. The one thing that set us apart from peasant farmers was our fine custom-made leather boots made of the softest doeskin available.

As far as I was concerned, life was too short to wear lousy shoes.

“It’s not really manure. People just call it that because it serves the same purpose as animal manure. What we will do is to plant some fast-growing crops that will enrich the soil. Before it becomes fully mature, we’ll plow it back into the soil,” I said.

“I think I understand. The spiritual plants will go into the soil and enrich it with their energy,” said Kharli.

“And nutrients. We’ll have to do that several times until the soil becomes [Black Soil],” I said.

“Oh, let me guess! [Black Soil] is black because it’s very rich in energy. Did I get it right, Teacher?” Mo looked pleased with herself.

“Yes, that’s right. The soil will turn black when it has a large amount of decomposed organic matter. This would normally take a long time, but we have the System to help us,” I said.

“So all we have to do is to plant some crops and take care of the worms and your demon pet? That doesn’t sound so hard,” said Lari.

“It’s not hard at all. We just have to be patient,” I said.

“How long do you think it will take before we can start planting Immortal Herbs, Teacher?” asked Mo.

“Hmm. I have no idea. The first thing we’ll do is to plant [Buckwheat] We normally can't plant seeds outside of the planting season but since the System gave me a quest to create [Black Soil], it's allowed for now, but we can't harvest these. They will have to be plowed back into the soil.” I gave them some [Buckwheat] to examine.

[Buckwheat:

A fast-growing herbaceous plant with heart-shaped leaves and delicate white or pink flowers that bloom in clusters. The roots of the buckwheat plant grow deep into the ground and break up compacted soil, improving soil structure. The plant’s nutrient-rich grain has a hearty, nutty flavor and can be ground into flour.]

“Bear in mind that we won’t be harvesting this, okay?” The three of them nodded, and I continued my explanation. “We’ll also plant [Spirit Grass], [Wild Seed Mix] and [Soybeans].”

I let them examine some [Soybeans] from my inventory.

[Soybean:

An important legume plant that produces protein-rich beans that is used to make a wide variety of products such as oil, soy sauce, tofu, soy milk, tempeh, miso, etc. Soybean plants also help improve soil productivity by enriching the soil with nitrogen.]

“We have soybeans? Why don’t we grow some in summer and give it to the chef? I’d love some soy sauce made from spirit soybeans,” said Lari.

“Nah, I’m waiting for my level 20 Farming. I’ll unlock some new machines, and then I’ll make soybean products myself,” I said.

“I feel a little discouraged that Teacher doesn’t need the harvest anymore, now that she can cook,” said Mo.

“Cheer up. I never actually needed to farm…” That was a fact. From day one, I’d had tons of useful items in my inventory. I patted Mo on the shoulder. “I want to farm.”

“Me, too!” said Mo.

“I love farming,” said Kharli. “And Lari loves the money we make from farming.”

We all laughed, even Lari.

“You girls love money, too,” said Lari. “You spend as much time shopping as I do.”

“We don’t love gold as much as you do. I bet you would sleep in a pile of gold coins if you could.” Kharli gestured vigorously with her woodcutting ax which almost flew out of her grasp, but she got hold of it in time with her other hand. She gave Lari a sheepish look. “Oops.”

“That’s it, this discussion is over. Let’s focus on woodcutting now.” That was my fault. I shouldn’t have had such a long conversation that took our attention away from our task.

“Yes, Teacher,” my apprentices chorused.

In the next five days, we cut down as many trees as we could after watering and weeding the crops. Once we had a decent-sized open field, we planted [Spirit Grass] and [Wild Seed Mix] in alternating rows. Then we spent five more days cutting down more trees and planting [Buckwheat] and [Soybeans].

The next day, the chickens were sold. The next batch of animals that hatched included a special chicken breed.

[Black-Boned Silkie:

A striking breed of chicken known for its fluffy plumage that is silky soft to the touch. Silkies are docile and have a strong maternal instinct which makes them a great choice for taking care of their own as well as other breeds’ eggs and chicks. Though its egg-laying ability is not as good as most other chickens, its black meat and bones are considered gourmet ingredients with curative properties.]

“This seems quite valuable,” I said.

Fengying, who had come with the rest of the staff to watch the hatching, nodded. “My lady, you should keep this in your storage for now. You should sell this to whoever manages to raise the best chickens.”

“Good idea.” Based on what I had been told about spirit animals, they were quite difficult to raise. It would be a waste to give this [Black-Boned Silkie] to someone who might not have the ability to take care of it properly.

“Lord Shuye sent word this morning that the [Red Junglefowl] was auctioned off to the Raccoon Clan,” said Fengying. “They have a wild population of junglefowl in their territory in a place called Emerald Hill. Of course, the [Red Junglefowl] will be kept in a special enclosure and fed with the [Animal Feed] you’re providing until it grows to maturity before being introduced to the flock.”

“Nice. I hope our little chick has a great life,” I said.

***

One week later, the rice seedlings had grown tall enough that it was time for the next step.

“Now for something fun! It’s time for us to start our Rice-fish Culture System.” I was excited because I was close to a Farming level and the quest reward would probably make me level up.

[Two-In-One:

Develop a Rice-fish Culture System on your farm.

Reward: Farming Exp]

I read the quest information out loud for my apprentices.

[Rice-fish Culture System:

The water in a rice paddy can be used for more than just growing rice. Farmers can also stock it with fish in order to secure an easy source of protein. Furthermore, the fish will improve soil quality by softening the soil and providing nutrients via their excrement. It is also good for pest management since fish eat insects, snails, fungus, weeds, etc.]

When I finished reading the System’s explanation out loud, I showed them the [Rice Carp] and [Cleaner Shrimp].

[Rice Carp:

A special fast-growing variety of carp that has been bred to grow in the shallow water of rice paddies. It eats aquatic insects, insect larvae, algae, weeds, and snails. One fish can eat up to 1,000 snails a day. Growing these fish alongside rice will increase crop yields and quality.]

[Cleaner Shrimp:

A tiny freshwater red shrimp that glows in the dark. These hardworking scavenger shrimp are very useful because they eat algae and detritus, as well as ectoparasites from fish.]

“Isn’t that amazing?” I beamed at my apprentices.

“Amazing,” echoed Mo.

“Teacher, we know about a similar system,” said Kharli.

“Oh? What is it?” I asked.

“You know that the White Tiger clan’s primary source of wealth is silk production?” asked Kharli.

I nodded. Prince Baiyu told me about that. The reason why he was always wearing fine silk robes was because it was a good advertisement for the clan’s products. They raised silkworms and had a whole silk industry including weavers, dyers, embroideries, tailors, and so forth.

The most prized type of silk was Ironblood Silk, made from the cocoons of the Ironblood Silkworm, which had a strong defensive power akin to that of the finest enchanted steel. I asked Prince Baiyu why it was called Ironblood instead of Steelblood, but he just shrugged and said it was just what it was called.

“Farmers grow mulberry trees and have fish ponds on their farm. They feed the mulberry leaves to the silkworms and the silkworm pupae and excrement to the fish.” Kharli smiled at my startled expression.

“Wow, that's very interesting. Yes, we’ll be doing something similar. Wait a moment while I prepare the paddies for the fish.”

Lari, Kharli, and Mo watched intently as I used the System’s building tools to build [Fish Refuges] around the paddies.

[Fish Refuge:

A deeper area in the Rice-fish Culture System that serves as a refuge for the fish in case the water level drops. It can take the form of trenches, ponds, or pits, but trenches are preferred since they also provide the fish with passageways for feeding in the rice field.]

Glowing golden lines and magical runes appeared on the ground. I adjusted the lines to fit the area better. The water in the paddies was currently elbow deep, and the System guided me to dig trenches to twice that depth. The glowing lines and runes disappeared in a flash of light and the loud percussive sound of a jackhammer, leaving behind empty trenches dug on the ground.

“Done. Now we have to open the irrigation water gates to flood the trenches.” I theatrically wiped my forehead with a crisp white handkerchief even though I hadn’t sweated at all since the System did all the work for me.

“Me! I’ll do it.” Mo eagerly volunteered for the task and ran off without even waiting for my permission.

“She’s quite lively today.” I raised an eyebrow at my other apprentices.

Kharli smiled. “She drank that coffee drink you like so much, Teacher. It makes her restless.”

“She doesn’t even like the taste of coffee,” said Lari. “She only drinks it because she wants to imitate you, Teacher.”

I was a bit flattered by that. “You never know, she might develop a taste for it.”

“Tea is more refined,” muttered Lari beneath his breath.

I waited until Mo came back before setting up chairs, a canopy, and a small table beside the rice paddies. We had to watch over the process of filling the trenches to make sure that the water flowed slowly enough that it didn’t wash away the crops.

Before we sat down to eat some snacks, I took out baskets of fingerling [Rice Carp] and [Cleaner Shrimp] and half-submerged them in the water of the paddies.

“The baskets are watertight at the bottom, but the top part will let in a little water. I’ll put this in to gradually balance the water temperature inside and outside the basket. That way, the fish will get acclimated. When the basket is full, it will sink and the fish will swim out by themselves,” I said.

“The System is so clever,” said Kharli.

Lari was walking around the trenches with a frown on his face. When he finished his inspection, he joined us at the table and said, “Teacher, I’m afraid that the water will overflow if it rains. Shouldn’t we raise the ground around the trenches and put some drainage holes?”

“We had a pond in the orphanage that always overflowed whenever it rained,” said Mo. “But the staff were too lazy to fix it.”

“...I hadn’t even thought of that. Okay, I’ll do that.” I used the build tools on manual mode to modify the trenches as Lari had suggested, adding some drainage pipes for good measure.

We spent an hour playing Connect Four and chatting about this and that while munching on the Demon Chef’s excellent pastries and drinking tea or coffee.

When the water level reached the desired height, I added the [Fish Feed Box] to each rice paddy that would automatically release [Fish Feed] as needed. The fingerlings probably wouldn’t need it, but as the fish grew, the [Fish Feed] could supplement their diet and make them grow bigger and fatter for the fish harvest.

The moment the last fish swam out of the last basket, I received the System notification that I had been waiting for.

[Two-In-One: Quest Complete

Reward: Farming Exp]

The System’s fireworks exploded around me.

[Congratulations you just advanced a Farming level!]

[Your Farming level is now 20.]

Chapter 119 - Level 20 Farming Milestone and Rewards

Chapter 119- Serenely Steeped, Remarkably Relaxing and Positively Brew-tiful

❤︎❤︎❤︎

“Yes! Level 20!” I jumped up from my chair and pumped a fist into the air. “This is great! You guys stay here and watch the water, okay? Close the water gate when you’re done. I have to go do some System stuff.”

My apprentices congratulated me and I left for my [Ranch House] where I checked all the new things I unlocked by reaching the level 20 Farming milestone.

The first thing I did was to take out the puppet upgrades that I got as a reward.

“Mr. Bear, here's a treat for you,” I said as I took the three ruby hearts from the System’s reward tab. My puppet already had a ruby heart on its chest, and when I placed the three new ones on it, the heart sucked them in and grew slightly lighter in color. “You’re much stronger now!”

[Puppet Name: Mr. Bear

A magical plushie unlike any other. This cute and cuddly bear is made of a special type of plush cloth and magical stuffing that gives it special powers. When its owner is in danger, this bear will come to life.

Though Mr. Bear is a wizard type, this puppet is also equipped with hidden metal claws and teeth.

Type: Magic

Base spell: Fireball

Upgrades: 4/99]

In addition to the puppet upgrades, I also got a few other goodies.

Players could normally unlock the first three levels of house upgrade at level 20 Farming, but I had completed a quest previously that gave me access to them. I was hoping that I would unlock the fourth one, the [Palace], but no such thing happened.

The System menu still showed the same types of houses that were available for me to build, which were the European styles of [Cottage], [Ranch House], and [Mansion], as well as the traditional [One Courtyard House], [Two Courtyard House], and [Three Courtyard House].

Hmm, maybe it was time to add a third courtyard? I hadn’t seen a need for it last year, but my household was bigger now and more people might visit me. It would be useful to have a separate place to entertain guests.

That was all very well and nice, but the most important thing was that the limit for the number of buildings I could place on the farm had increased by one. Now I could add a [Greenhouse] in addition to the [Ranch House], [Two Courtyard House], and [Mill].

I also unlocked a boat upgrade.

And last, but certainly not least, my limit for animals increased from six to eight.

The increase in my building limit was the most significant reward.

Technically speaking, I didn’t actually need to have two houses. No pro player would have two houses on their farm because it was a waste of resources. However, for me, it was very important to have a place that was solely mine, where I could have privacy.

The [Rice Mill] was important because I had a contract with the White Tiger clan to supply them with the three sacks of rice it produced every day.

What should I make for the fourth building? The [Greenhouse] was truly a no-brainer, but it was the standard operating procedure for players to constantly build, destroy, and rebuild every few days because of the limitation on the total number of buildings. For example, when one wanted to make [Flour], they would build a [Mill] until they had enough made. Then they would destroy the building to make way for whichever processing machine they needed next.

During the endgame, the most valuable building was the [Winery]. That was a building where fruit was put in [Casks] and turned into wine which could then be sold as is or aged for 60 to 90 days. Aged wine sold for a very high price, but the [Winery] was not an option for me at this time because it could not be built, destroyed, and rebuilt like the others. Destroying it ejected the wine from the casks, interrupting the aging process so that one had to start from day one again.

Of course, I knew the list of buildings by heart, but I browsed the System’s building type anyway to refresh my memory and maybe get some ideas about what I should do next.

I had previously built a [Smelter] which was great as a set-and-forget way to automatically smelt ores, but I could do it faster with multiple furnaces, albeit I had to smelt ores manually with furnaces.

Another [Mill] was a good idea. I could use it to make more [Rice] or [Flour].

Last year, I had built a [Sugar Mill], and we still had plenty of sugar left, not to mention the honey we got from the beehives.

The [Creamery] was also a good idea. It made butter, cream, and cheese, which didn’t feature in the local cuisine much, but they would work as premium luxury products.

I wasn’t sure, but I reckoned the [Mayonnaise Factory] that made [Mayonnaise] from eggs wouldn’t be too useful since I hadn’t seen mayonnaise in my entire year spent in this world.

The [Oil Press] and [Sausage Maker] should generally be okay, though I wasn’t excited about it. We had plenty of lard and sausages that the Demon Chef had made from the spirit animals that we hunted and the demon animals that Prince Baiyu sent.

Another thing I wanted to build was the [Soy Machine] that made soy milk, tofu, soy sauce, miso, and tempeh.

I wasn’t in a rush, so I took my time to think about it and browsed more of the System buildings. There were quite a lot of them, including some novelty ones like the [Chocolate Factory] and [Candy Paradise]. My best bet was probably the [Textile Loom] and [Tea Machine] followed by the [Creamery], [Soy Machine], and another [Mill].

When I was done with all the production buildings, I would build the [Greenhouse].

Once I made up my mind, went back to see my apprentices and brought them with me to an open spot beside the [Rice Mill].

“Watch me. I’m going to do something exciting,” I said.

“Teacher, shouldn’t we tell the others first?” asked Mo.

“You think so? I didn’t think about that,” I said. “Okay, go to the house and tell them I’m building something new.”

These days I was much more comfortable using the System in front of other people.

Mo ran off and I waited until everyone had arrived before choosing the [Tea Machine] in the System’s building tab. A large glowing magic circle appeared on the ground. It pulsed with a bright light three times then my chosen building appeared.

The [Tea Machine] was a one-story wooden building with a vaguely Japanese-looking design, with sliding screens that looked like shoji that were made of bamboo and thin, translucent white silk on the front wall. The cambered roof was sharply inclined and covered in gray clay tiles. Lari whistled loudly when we entered and he saw that the interior walls were covered in gold paint. The coffered ceiling was gilded and decorated with luminous golden pearls as big as my fist.

“It’s so fancy!” said Mo.

Lari didn’t say anything because he was busy trying to use a small pocket knife to scrape off the gold from the walls.

“Stop that! It’s obviously just gold paint, not real gold,” said Kharli.

I ignored them in favor of examining the huge industrial steel machine in the middle of the building. At one end was a small leather bag with a large opening labeled “Input.” On the other end was a metal chute labeled “Output” and there was a wooden container under it. In the middle of the machine was a red button with white text on it that read “Start/Stop.” Below the red button were smaller ones labeled “Black Tea,” “Green Tea,” “Yellow Tea,” “Oolong Tea,” "Jasmine Tea," and “White Tea.”

The central part of the machine was made of glass, and we peered into it to see what was inside. I saw a conveyor belt, rollers, fans, mesh screens, cutters, and other parts that I couldn’t identify.

“Okay, why don’t I mix some [Black Tea] for us first?” I wasn’t really asking for anyone’s opinion, so I immediately climbed up the ladder and filled the “Input” container with [Tea Leaves] from my inventory. Then I went to the “Start/Stop” button and pressed it.

Our ears were assaulted by a loud grinding noise as the machine started up. The [Tea Leaves] gently fluttered down into a conveyor belt and then disappeared into the bowels of the machine. I waited to see if anything would happen, but nothing did. Machines generally took almost the entire day to finish processing raw materials.

“Hey, guys, I’m not going to stay here and watch. Please send someone to collect the tea at the end of the day.” I pointed at the container at the other end of the machine. “It will be deposited there.”

“Spirit tea! They say it can greatly boost cultivation,” said Lari.

“It won’t have any effect on us since we're not cultivators,” I said. “Whoever wants to stay here can do so. I have stuff to do, so I’ll return to my house.”

I gestured to my three apprentices and we left the building.

“We’ve done very well so far. I remember that last year I promised to bring the three of you to hunt [Horned Rabbits]. Let’s go tomorrow,” I said.

“They're so tasty,” said Lari.

“Thank you, Teacher! I’ve been looking forward to that. I’ll show you my archery skills,” said Kharli.

“She’s been practicing a lot,” said Mo, who looked less than enthused. Of the three of them, her archery skills were the worst by far.

“Great. I think we’ll have a lot of fun,” I said.

Alas, it was not to be. The next day, when I woke up, I was shocked by the sight of a sea of blood.

“What?! How could this happen?”

Chapter 120 - A sea of blood

Chapter 120 - Rice as rain and barn to be wild

❤︎❤︎❤︎

I had a visitor whose name was Aunt Flo. She hadn’t visited me the whole time I was in this world, so I had, perhaps naively, thought she didn’t exist for me here. I threw off the blanket and ran to the shower to wash off the blood. Most people would’ve washed the sheets, too, but I simply put the entire bed, sheets included, into my inventory and then dragged the item into the System trash bin. Then I placed a brand new bed in its place.

Adventure Incarnate was not the sort of game that included feminine hygiene products for that special time of the month, so I had to improvise my own by cutting up a cotton nightgown into strips and roughly sewing them together to make some pads.

Thankfully, Yinuo was waiting right outside my house with my breakfast, and when I told her my problem, she promptly offered to help.

“My lady, I’ll tell your apprentices that you’re indisposed. Don’t worry about a thing! I’ll bring some supplies over to your house,” said Yinuo.

“I’ll go and load the [Tea Machine] with more [Tea Leaves],” I said.

“The [Black Tea] was already collected earlier. The chef said it’s low-grade,” said Yinuo.

“Okay. I’ll make [Green Tea] this time,” I said.

I loaded the [Tea Machine] as quickly as I could and pressed the [Green Tea] button. I personally preferred coffee to tea, but I did have a fondness for jasmine tea.

Yinuo was fast. By the time I returned to the house, she was already waiting at the gate for me with a dozen ancient “moon pads,” as they were called here. They were bulky things made of linen cloth rags and stuffed with spongey, highly absorbent moss. She also gave me a belt that was used to hold them in place and a belly wrap that was meant to keep my stomach and back warm.

I gave the items a dubious look. “Er… these are reusable?”

Yinuo frowned. “No, I mean the belt and wrap are, and I guess you could reuse the cloth, but the moss has to be discarded, of course.”

“...Yes, of course!” I tried to look knowledgeable, but I must have failed because she offered to show me how to use the items.

Ever since I built the [Ranch House], I hadn’t let anyone else inside because I valued my privacy. However, I reckoned that I did need to learn the ins and outs of this world’s common sense, so I invited Yinuo inside. I would’ve liked it better if Prince Baiyu was my first visitor.

“Common peasants and the like use rougher stuff, and they do reuse those items. My lady, as a wealthy noblewoman, you don’t need to do that. Just use as many of these as you need then discard them,” said Yinuo.

“That seems a little wasteful,” I said.

“It’s how things are done in noble households,” she said.

She showed me how to put the belt and pad on, but when I tried to walk, it felt somewhat uncomfortable.

“It’s a little too bulky, isn’t it?” I asked.

“I can sew smaller ones for you, but…. They might leak,” said Yinuo. "May I suggest that you wear pants and a thick skirt over it, just in case?”

“Oh yeah, that’s a good idea,” I said. “I mean making smaller ones and me wearing more layers.”

“How do you feel, my lady? Do you have a headache or cramps?” asked my maid.

“Yes to both.”

“I asked Madam Fengying to brew the herbal tisane for women’s moon time troubles. It should be ready by now.”

“Okay, I’ll be watering the crops,” I said.

Yinui fake coughed gently into her hand. “Is that wise? A woman’s qi is unbalanced during these times. Perhaps my lady should refrain from tending to spiritual crops.”

I waved a hand dismissively. “Oh, that’s just for regular people. My bloodline inheritance balances my energy for me.”

“If you say so, ma’am. I’ll return with the tisane,” said Yinuo.

There was still a slight chill in the air this early in the spring season, which meant that I didn’t look ridiculous wearing a thick pair of pants and skirt. I wondered what I should do in the summer.

I finished eating a hearty breakfast of demon pig bacon, wild quail eggs, toast, and strawberry jam before going out to the fields.

The first thing I did was to check the rice paddies and carp. The water level was fine and didn’t need adjustment. When Yinuo returned, I drank the herbal drink she gave me. It tasted like grass and earth.

“Eugh!” I made a face.

“Have a honey candy.” Yinuo handed me a sticky piece of candy made of peanuts and honey.

“That’s much better.”

“The tisane will take around an hour or two to take effect. I’ll return at noon for your next drink. The effect would have worn off by that time.”

I really hoped the tisane would be effective. “Thank you.”

Yinuo left, and I went to water the other crops along with my apprentices. This activity only consumed one-fifth of my energy, so we used the rest of it by cutting down trees near the main house since I wanted to expand it.

“Bad news, kids. I don’t want to go hunting today since my stomach hurts,” I said. “I’ve taken some medicine, but I expect it will last a few more days.”

“Teacher, you’re sick? Did you eat something bad you foraged?” asked Lari.

“No, it’s not that,” I said.

Kharli and Mo grabbed Lari by the shoulder and hustled him a few steps away from me. What followed was a hushed discussion. I could hear a few words here and there like “shut up,” “that time,” “tactful,” and “moon.”

They walked back to me, Lari scratching his head.

“Do I need to explain the ‘facts of life’ to you kids?” After all, it was my duty as their guardian to educate them.

“Teacher, we already know about it,” said Kharli.

“Are you sure? Do you have any questions?” I asked them.

Kharli and Mo exchanged looks while Lari bent his head and looked down at his boots as though they were the most fascinating thing in the world right now.

“Teacher, wouldn’t it make more sense for us to ask Madam Fengying? Since you’re almost the same age as us. This is your first time, right?” Kharli smirked at me.

“Well, yes, that does make sense.” I had to admit my housekeeper knew a lot more about it since I was a newcomer to this world. “Okay, since we won’t be going hunting, what do you want to do?”

“I’d like to go foraging,” said Mo.

“Smithing!” was Lari’s answer.

“Wait, I want to change my answer to smithing!” said Mo.

“Why? Just go foraging, it’s what you love to do,” said Lari.

“Because you’re planning to use up all the [Draconic Rune-etched Bronze Bars],” said Kharli.

“Everyone already agreed I was going to raise Smithing while you two do Fletching.” Lari pouted and looked to me for confirmation.

This was a real problem. For efficiency’s sake, we should really divide the labor such that each person specializes in something different instead of all three of them raising all their crafting skills at the same time.

On the other hand, my apprentices weren’t NPCs in a game. They had their own preferences, and it would be hard for me to force them to give up Smithing since they really liked it.

“It would be better if only one of you did Smithing, but I’ll allow everyone to work on it until you reach level 10. We should know by that time which one of you three has the most skill in Smithing.” I thought that was a good compromise. “You know what this means, right? I’ll have to smelt three times more than I was planning to this week.”

“Thank you, Teacher!” Mo was overjoyed and impulsively flung her arms around me. “You’re the best.”

“No problem. I’ll trust you all to Smith by yourselves. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ll be resting in my house.” The cramps weren’t that bad, but they weren’t fun either.

I gave each of them one-third of the [Draconic Rune-etched Bronze Bars] and left.

Back at my [Ranch House], I realized I could make a hot water bottle by filling a [Rubber Chicken] with water and wrapping it in cloth to avoid triggering its effect.

[Rubber Chicken:

This rubber chicken toy is no ordinary chicken! It's a super fun, interactive toy that will keep you entertained for hours on end. This chicken has a movable head and wings, and makes realistic chicken sounds when you squeeze it. It's also durable and easy to clean, making it the perfect toy for both indoor and outdoor play.

Magic -1 (every three seconds)]

Why did a [Rubber Chicken] have a valve for water anyway? I puzzled over this until I realized that it wasn’t for water, it was for inflating it with air.

Mystery solved, I sprawled on a window seat and put my improvised water bottle on my stomach. The heat really helped with the pain. I spent the rest of the morning reading storybooks and finishing off the box of chocolate that came with the Cash Shop’s [Romantic Valentine] costume set.

At lunchtime, Yinuo knocked on my gate carrying a large, multilayered lunchbox, a pot of hot soup, and more of the tisane. I had to tell her that the herbal brew wasn’t working, and she said to try another cup first. If that didn’t work by dinnertime, she would ask Fengying to make a different, stronger tisane.

“My lady, the guard that Lord Shuye sent to accompany you and your apprentices to the Horned Rabbits’ Valley has offered to supervise the hunt,” said Yinuo.

“Hmm, that’s a good idea. I know the kids were looking forward to it.” The Horned Rabbits weren’t that dangerous, especially compared to a warrior of the White Tiger clan. “Tell them they can go.”

Yinuo went off to give the kids the good news while I ate mushroom soup, sweetcorn rice, roast pork belly, stir-fried garlic sprouts, and more of the honey candy as dessert.

After a bit of rest after lunch, I went back to work. Since I still had a lot of energy left, I decided to clear some of the trees on the west side of the main house since I wanted to expand it to a [Three Courtyard House].

I had just finished Woodcutting and was on my way back to my house when, to my surprise, my three apprentices returned with their White Tiger clansman guard.

“Teacher! We had to run away!” said Lari.

“They were so savage. I can’t believe Teacher hunted those monsters,” said Mo with a wide-eyed expression of awe on her face.

“No, I think we went to the wrong place somehow. Those weren’t [Horned Rabbits],” said Kharli.

The clan member, who was a tall woman with long auburn hair and piercing gray eyes, silently handed me a leather bag. My mouth fell open in shock when I opened it and saw what was inside.

“This is amazing! Let’s go and hunt some more of them,” I said. “We should get at least one for each of us.”

One was definitely not enough since it was a rare item that gave a Hunting skill boost.

Chapter 121 - Proof of your skill as a Hunter 🐇🐇🐇

Chapter 121 - Ewe are o-fish-ally fin-tastic

❤︎❤︎❤︎

“Unbelievable! Are you seeing what I’m seeing?” I asked my apprentices as I held up the trophy they showed me.

[Jackalope Antlers:

Proof of your skill as a Hunter. Can be displayed in your house.

+1 Hunting]

“Yes.” Lari smiled. “We all got one.”

The three of them then took out one set of antlers each from their inventory.

“Oh my gosh. How did you get these?” I examined each of the antlers in turn. They were of different sizes and shades of brown and red, but they all had the +1 Hunting bonus.

“Teacher, we went to the [Horned Rabbits’ Valley] on the map, but they had all evolved to [Armored Jackalopes]. The rabbits weren’t small and cute like you said, and their horns became antlers. They had some weird bony armor over their vitals,” said Lari. “Our arrows couldn’t pierce their armor, so the Commander killed one for each of us.”

“Thank you very much,” I said to the clan member who had been introduced to us as the Commander of the Ancient Hill Forest’s Tiger Spirit Division. “Uh, I hope you kept some for yourself?”

That was the deal. We got an escort from the clan to protect us from any unforeseen dangers, and they got to hunt the spirit beasts with us. They kept half of whatever game they killed.

“Yes, I did. I’ll hand over your share of the meat and parts to the staff,” said the Commander.

“Oh, right, let’s go inside. Would you like to wash up and have some tea?” I wondered if jackalope meat would taste more like rabbit or venison since they had deer-like antlers.

We walked into the main house where I asked Fengying to take over the hostess duties since I was still feeling slightly unwell from my “moon time.” I made my excuses and hustled my apprentices to our quarters. We went to Kharli’s room first.

“We just need to display the trophies in our rooms. Kharli, put it back in your inventory then right-click [Use] on it. Pick a space on a wall and [Use] it there,” I said.

She quickly got the hang of it though she wasn’t satisfied with the placement until she tried out all four walls. In the end, she chose the space above her door.

“It looks very fierce,” said Kharli. “I don’t want people to see it when they enter.”

I looked up at the antlers and then at Kharli’s bedroom whose wooden walls were painted mint green and furnished with delicate wooden furniture. Her bed was covered with a colorful patchwork quilt. “It does look out of place, but the Hunting bonus is worth it!”

“Can I remove it when I’m not hunting?” asked Kharli.

I nodded. “Yeah, I guess so. I’m just afraid you’ll forget to put it back when you need it.”

Lari, Mo, and I then went to our bedrooms and placed the [Jackalope Antlers] above our doors.

“Were you scared when you saw the [Armored Jackalopes]?” I asked them.

“Naw, they were down in the valley and couldn’t reach us since we stood in the high place the System showed us,” said Lari.

“Teacher, Kharli’s arrows hit every single time!” said Mo. “I hit a few, too.”

“No, no, I missed a few, and all my arrows glanced off the armor anyway,” said Kharli.

“Hey, I hit almost as many times as Kharli did,” said Lari.

Mo rolled her eyes while Kharli hid a smile behind her hand.

“Hmm, since you guys can’t handle those spirit animals, we should avoid that area of the forest for now,” I said. “I didn’t train you guys up only for you to become the jackalopes’ dinner.”

“The Commander said she’ll send some of her people there to thin the colony,” said Lari.

“Okay. I’ll have to ask her to map their territory. That place is north of the farm, right? Let’s avoid that place until the Commander says it's okay,” I said.

“She said that if they’re too dangerous, they’ll kill half of the jackalopes and relocate them to a more remote area where they won’t bother people,” said Kharli.

“I’ll be happy if they do! Teacher, they had really scary eyes that glowed red. And their feet thumped like this.” Mo lifted her right knee and stomped on the ground repeatedly, making a loud thumping sound.

“Huh? Why would they be thumping their feet?” I asked.

“Maybe to scare off rival animals? Like the way gorillas do.” Lari beat his chest and roared the way he imagined a gorilla would.

“Don’t yell, we have a guest,” I said. “So now they have antlers like a deer. Do they also look like deer?”

“No, they’re just big brown rabbits,” said Kharli.

“Big, mean, scary rabbits,” said Mo. “They really put up a fight against the Commander. She said their antlers are hard like steel.”

“They might not be mean, you know. We’re the ones who invaded their territory and started killing them,” said Lari.

“That’s true,” I said. “Animals can’t be blamed for defending themselves from hunters. Anyway, go and have dinner with the Commander. Be nice, okay? I’ll stay in my [Ranch House.]”

Mo and Kharli made shooing motions with their hands and Lari took the hint. They waited until he left before speaking.

“Teacher, we’ll bring you a hot water bottle after dinner,” said Kharli.

“Thanks, that’s a good idea,” I said.

“It helps with the cramps. I heard the tea isn’t working?” asked Mo.

I sighed. “It helps a little with the headache, but not with the cramps.”

“Don’t let your stomach get cold, Teacher. That makes it worse,” said Mo.

They spent a few more minutes commiserating with me before we parted ways.

***

On the fourth day, I woke up to the welcome feeling of the absence of cramps. I thanked my lucky stars that my period was over and felt glum about having to suffer it every month.

I had no idea why I hadn't had my period last year. Perhaps my body was still adjusting to this new setting? I knew that stress could make women skip a month or two, but surely one entire year was excessive? Then again, I had no idea what was going on with this body. On the one hand, it looked like my original body from Earth. On the other hand, I had modified my looks via the Cash Shop several times. I only changed my eye color, hair, skin, nails, and other such superficial things, but the mere fact that I could magically change my body meant that it was different from before. Filing that thought under the mental folder labeled "mysterious things that aren't urgent," I watered the plants with my apprentices.

Since I had been stuck on the farm for many days now, I was feeling a little antsy. It was time to go and check out the new [Boat] that had been unlocked when I leveled Farming up to 20.

“Let’s go!” I said to Lari, Kharli, and Mo as Fengying handed us our packed lunch.

Today we were dressed in colorful spring robes and pants. My robes were patterned with a green bamboo design, but my apprentices’ clothes were much more lively. Mo had chosen a butterfly design while Kharli’s robes featured birds perched on branches covered in peach blossoms. Lari’s robes were covered in cheerful golden yellow honeybees surrounded by honeycombs and flowers.

We made our way to the river while chatting about this and that. When I first arrived here, the river was south of my farm, but now that I had been granted more land, it now ran through the middle of Emberstone Farm.

Sunlight danced through the branches of the trees above us that had sprouted fresh green spring leaves. The whole forest was painted in a warm golden hue by the morning sun and the air was scented with the fragrance of wildflowers, wet earth, and decaying leaves.

“What a wonderful day for an outing,” I said to no one in particular.

When we arrived at the banks of the river whose crystal-clear waters glittered like diamonds, the Commander and two of her men joined us. The Commander looked quite dashing with her sword slung across her back. Like her men, she was in plain black pants and robes. The two of them were tall, muscular men though the younger had sharp, ferret-like features and the older one had a very square jaw and broad forehead. The younger clan member bore a staff while the older one had a sword like the Commander. All three of them looked ready for action.

We exchanged bows and courteous greetings.

“Okay, I’ll summon the boat,” I said to my waiting audience.

The [Boat] the player unlocked was a simple one-person wooden canoe that could bring the player to any place on the river and its tributaries. However, the Cash Shop had tons of riverboats. In the game, they functioned exactly the same way that the basic canoe did, except that they looked a lot more flashy. There were colorful dragon boats, silver swan paddle boats, fantastical monster ships, ornate Venetian gondolas, modern catamarans, stately Mississippi paddle-wheelers, and so forth. Though the [Boat] in the game was for only one person, I thought that the bigger Cash Shop items should allow more than one passenger.

In keeping with the setting, I chose the [Chinese Traditional Ship].

[Chinese Traditional Ship:

A pleasure boat that has a single mast and crimson sails. Its shallow keel ensures smooth passage through shallow waters. Passengers can relax on opulently cushioned benches, and enjoy unobstructed views of the scenic surroundings.]

The Commander and her men gasped when a large magic circle covered in glowing runes appeared on top of the water. It flashed with a bright white light thrice then disappeared, replaced by the [Chinese Traditional Ship].

The Commander’s men were shocked.

“A flying ship!” said the younger one who had sharp, ferret-like features.

“What a strong and sinister qi! Where did this ship come from?” asked the older one.

“Incredible. It’s like something from the Central Continent.”

“They have flying ships now?”

“Yeah, but they cost more than a palace.”

“What do you think?” I smiled proudly at them.

“Teacher, it’s too big for the river!” said Kharli.

“Um… it should be fine since it's floating above the water.” I walked closer to examine my new mode of transportation.

The river was rather narrow here, only around ten feet wide whereas the ship was around 36 feet wide and 100 feet long. Rather than settling down in the water, the [Chinese Traditional Ship] floated six feet above it. Fortunately, there was a gangplank with rails that we could use to board the ship.

“Shall we?” I said as I gestured to the gangplank.

“Teacher, can we bring the others along?” asked Mo. “Or at least let them see the boat, I think they’ll want to see it.”

I thought about it. “They can come, but they have to be quick. If they can get ready in half an hour, they can join us. Otherwise, we’ll have to leave them behind. There will be other trips, anyway.”

“I’ll go tell them!” Lari whooped and then ran back to the house, Kharli and Mo trailing behind him.

I smiled indulgently at their high spirits then realized I hadn’t asked the Commander if that was okay with her. “Commander, do you think I can bring a few more people along?”

I knew her name was Chuzeche, but I had difficulty pronouncing it since it was very close to the Mandarin word for taxi and I kept accidentally mispronouncing it, so I called her “Commander” instead.

She shrugged. “It depends on how many of them want to come.”

That made sense.

I cleared my throat and gave her men a meaningful look. “We don’t have to tell other people about my boat, do we?”

“A blanket cannot hide the light of the moon. My men certainly won’t gossip, but we’ll pass through several families’ territories.”

“Oh.” I guess there was no helping it since I was planning to use the boat a few more times this month.

“This river is a public waterway that’s considered neutral territory. Just don’t fly your ship over land, and you should be fine,” she said.

Fengying, Deming, and the other household staff arrived and exclaimed over the sleek and elegant design of the ship. I didn’t have the heart to insist on my timetable and allowed them to tour it.

The deck benches were lined with plush embroidered cushions. The Commander and her men settled down on them while the rest of us examined the cabins. There were five of them. Rich golden wood paneling and paintings of seascapes adorned the walls. The beds and chairs were small but well-made. The others were shocked to see that the cabins all had modern flush toilets and showers with hot and cold water. After around an hour, my household staff had their fill of gawking at the ship and left.

As the owner and captain of the ship, I had prepared my lines ahead of time. I mentally clicked on the System’s map to choose our destination and said, “All hands, prepare to set sail! Cast off the lines and secure for departure. To new horizons, my crew! Let the adventure begin.”

Chapter 122 - Hunting wild animals🐐🐐🐐

Chapter 122 - Merely an odor-inary hunting adventure

❤︎❤︎❤︎

Of course, my “crew” didn’t actually need to do anything after I clicked on the System map. The gangplank automatically retracted and a strong wind came out of nowhere to fill the ship’s crimson sails. The [Chinese Traditional Ship] flew so fast that the surroundings became a blur. It only took three minutes and fifty seconds for us to reach our destination, part of the river nearest the [Lunar Forest].

This was my first time going to that place, so I turned on the map’s [Guide Mode]. Bright yellow arrows, visible only to me, appeared on the ground. I followed them and the other six followed behind me, my apprentices chatting about mundane things while the clan members scanned the vicinity, constantly on the alert.

Soon, the normal trees gave way to white-trunked [Lunar Trees] that had broad silver and green leaves. The yellow arrows faded away and I received the usual System notification.

[You have arrived at your destination.]

“Oh, I almost forgot! Guys, come here and see if you can put this on.” I handed each of my apprentices a full set of [Training Armor] that included a helmet, breastplate, gauntlets, and platelegs. I should have given it to them when we were on the boat, but the trip had been so fast that I had forgotten.

Last year, Shuye had told me there were no dangerous animals in the Ancient Hill Forest, so I hadn’t bothered with any protective gear, but now that I knew that animals had mutated into more dangerous forms, I thought it would be good to give them the armor.

Thankfully, the System allowed my farm hands to use them, maybe because they were training gear. They definitely couldn’t use the [Steel Armor]. We’d tried. They knew enough to use the System’s equip tab instead of manually putting all the items on.

The Commander and her men looked surprised but made no comment when the armor disappeared and then materialized on their bodies.

“What kind of armor is this, Teacher?” It’s so light!” Kharli rotated her elbow, marveling at the smoothness of the movement despite the heavy-looking steel plate covering her arm.

“It weighs almost nothing, too!” Mo jumped up and down then did a cartwheel.

“Thank you very much, Teacher. Can I keep this armor?” asked Lari.

“Of course, it’s yours. Make sure you put it on when you go hunting,” I said.

As for me, I put on my [Studded Leather Armor] and slung a quiver of [Orichalcite Arrows] on my back. [Orichalcite] was Adventure Incarnate’s name for steel mixed with enchanted platinum. With my [Goldenwood Longbow] in my hand, I asked the others, “Ready?”

I waited until they nodded before politely bowing and gesturing for the Commander and her men to precede us. They spread out and walked in front of us to scout the [Lunar Forest] while we followed behind them.

It wasn't long until we saw them.

[Lunar Goats:

These goats have luminous, silver fur that glows in the moonlight, and their milk is rumored to have mystical properties. When threatened, they can phase partially into the ethereal plane, becoming momentarily insubstantial and allowing them to pass through obstacles or evade danger.]

I put a finger to my lips and retreated a few feet away until the [Lunar Goats] were out of sight. The others followed me.

The Commander frowned and held a whispered consultation with her men. I didn’t catch most of it, but I did hear a few phrases like “never seen anything like it,” “it’s just like he said,” and “extremely valuable.” The words “impossible” and “crazy” also seemed to be repeated a lot.

When they finished their discussion, I asked them if everything was alright.

“It’s just that these goats are very unusual,” said the Commander.

They looked ordinary to me. I mean, apart from looking cleaner than most wild animals, they looked exactly like goats. “How so?”

“There shouldn’t be a herd of spiritual animals here, and even if there was, wild herds normally only have one or two animals that have spirituality, unlike this one where all of them are brimming with powerful qi,” she said.

“Oh. Is it okay if we set up traps for them?” I asked.

She frowned. “I can’t sense anyone’s zidan over this place which means it shouldn’t be anyone’s territory, but that is very strange. These spirit animals are valuable.”

“Aw, does that mean we can’t hunt here?” We’d come so far just to try to level up our Hunting skill on the [Lunar Goats]!

“...It’s probably fine.” The Commander held a whispered conversation with her men, and one of them trotted off. “He’ll inform the nearest village.”

“Yes!” I huddled up with my apprentices and whispered instructions to them. “Go to your Hunting tab and get one [Steel Cage] and [Lunar Lure Lantern].”

[Lunar Lure Lanterns:

Magical Lanterns fitted with a special light source that emits a calming, moon-like glow. Place these inside a [Steel Cage] to trap a [Lunar Goat].

One use item.]

“Done? Okay, now right-click on the [Lunar Lure Lantern] and [Use] it on the [Steel Cage]. Lari, find us the best spots to place the traps.” I was only level 6 Hunting since I hadn’t trained it much while Lari was level 9 and had a real knack for it.

“Yes, Teacher,” said Lari. He looked around and shook his head. “Not here, it’s too close.”

Lari looked around thoughtfully and then led us away from the herd. Somehow he found a small watering hole and pointed out some good places for us to place the traps. He seemed quite proud of being trusted with this task and gave the clan members several sideways glances as though to check if they were impressed.

I hid a smile and said, “Good work. Thank you, Lari.”

He puffed his chest out with pride. “It was nothing.”

The [Steel Cages] turned out to be quite large, with the top two feet higher than my head and the walls were ten feet long. One side had a door that could be swung open, which we did. It should close by itself when the cage was full. The lantern shone with a soft white light but otherwise, it seemed unremarkable. We placed them twenty feet apart from each other.

“Okay, now let’s go to the next place I want to show you,” I said.

Turning on the map’s [Guide Mode], I once again followed the arrows. This time it took us over an hour to find the [Dewdrop Dell].

“How pretty,” said Mo.

A brook meandered through the dell, a tiny natural depression in the landscape that was surrounded by small slopes on the eastern and southern sides. The grass was a soft green, dotted here and there with colorful wildflowers and moss-covered rocks. The trees here were mostly oaks.

“I see them!” said Lari. He pointed at a brown animal.

It was too far away for me to see the details, but the System gave us plenty of information about the animal.

[Crystal-Eyed Skunk:

These skunks have eyes that emit a mesmerizing light, which they use both for communication and to hypnotize their prey, which are mainly mice, voles, and small snakes. Beware of the skunk’s Spray attack.]

Most importantly, I could see their Battle Rating or BR.

[Crystal-Eyed Skunk:

Type: Ranged
Element: None

BR: 129]

In other games, the combat level was the most important thing, but in Adventure Incarnate, that was just the base stat. The BR took into account the equipment, bonuses, passive skills, potion boosts, and so forth to give a number to signify the threat level of a particular person or enemy.

With my items equipped, my Battle Ranking was 403 for archery.

I set an arrow on my bow and was about to loose it when the Commander made a sound of protest.

“My lady, why don’t you let us take care of them?” she said. “There’s no need for you or your apprentices to lift a finger.’

I raised an eyebrow. “Did you bring a bow? These are skunks. I’m sure none of us want to be sprayed…”

“Why do you want to hunt them? Skunk meat is technically edible, but no one would eat it unless they had to,” said the Commander. “Why don’t we leave them alone? I’m sure we can find better game animals for you.”

“I just want to kill these.” Unfortunately, I couldn’t tell her the real reason which was that only System animals gave exp. “I know, why don’t the two of you stand in front of me to intercept any that I don’t manage to kill? You can protect me from the ones that try to rush me.”

“Very well. These don’t seem dangerous,” said the Commander.

I put one foot in front of the other, perpendicular to the target, and instinctively assumed the proper archery stance with my head level and my knees slightly bent.

The combat screen came to life in front of me, overlaying itself over my field of vision.

[Archery Skills:

Piercing Shot

Rapid Fire

Escape]

This time, I only needed to use [Piercing Shot].

[Piercing Shot:

Imbue the arrow with your energy, allowing it to pierce through enemies. The shot is incredibly powerful, and can often take down multiple foes with a single arrow.

Cooldown: 5 seconds]

I drew the bowstring and released the energy-imbued arrow which streaked towards the target almost faster than my eyes could see. It sank into the head of the [Crystal-Eyed Skunk] Lari had spotted.

“Beautiful shot!” said Lari.

Kharli and Mo clapped while the Commander gave me an approving nod.

The noise of the attack must have alerted the other skunks who emerged from a hollow tree and from under a nearby rock pile.

“Would you like to try?” I asked my apprentices. They had been training their archery for months.

Lari and Mo pushed Kharli forward.

“Teacher, Kharli can do it,” said Mo with a cheeky grin.

“I’ll try,” said Kharli.

The System considered the three of them as farmhands, therefore, their System menu didn’t have a combat tab. Unlike me, they couldn’t use combat skills like [Piercing Arrow]. Nonetheless, they could equip the bow and arrows that we fletched ourselves.

Kharli had a look of extreme concentration on her face as she loosed an arrow which hit a skunk on its side. I was on standby and was able to hit the same skunk on the head, finishing it off. We then took turns shooting more arrows, killing five more, until the skunks fled.

“Let’s not chase them, okay?” I said.

Everyone nodded or voiced their agreement.

“Now, you two gather the kills.” I pointed at Lari and Mo.

“Have fun with the dirty, stinky skunks!” said Kharli.

“I’ll do the killing next time, and you can pick up the kills,” said Lari.

“You can hardly hit your target half the time,” said Mo.

“Says the one who can’t hit the target more than once in five times,” said Lari.

The Commander went with them to get the skunk bodies while the other clan member stayed with me and Kharli.

Lari and Mo had just walked to the center of the [Dewdrop Dell] when the Commander suddenly pushed them behind her.

“Run back to the others!” she said in a no-nonsense tone, drawing her sword and striding forward.

Chapters 123 and 123.5 - Monster battle

Chapter 123 - Flying ship: This season's musk-have item

🙞❤︎🙜

Lari and Mo didn't need to be told twice. They turned and ran to me. A second later, we found out why the Commander had ordered them to flee. A [Giant Crystal-Eyed Skunk] three times larger than the normal ones, appeared from the underbrush.

[Giant Crystal-Eyed Skunk:

The Matriarch of the tribe. Beware of her powerful Miasma Whirlwind attack.]

“Maybe we should flee!” I said, but it was too late. As I was shouting, the Commander sprang towards the skunk and cleaved it in two with her blade.

Unfortunately, the skunk’s specialized scent glands activated in death.

Even from a distance, my eyes watered as I was assaulted by the foul smell of its Miasma Whirlwind. I could only imagine how the Commander felt.

We all ran away as fast as we could and didn’t stop running until we reached the river where the [Chinese Traditional Ship] was.

The Commander immediately flung her outer robe off and started washing herself in the river.

“Hey, did anyone bring soap?” I asked the others.

Kharli obligingly handed it to the Commander who thanked her politely and used it to scrub herself free of the skunk’s scent.

“It’s not gonna work. She needs to immerse herself in an herbal bath. Or at least wash with vinegar and water,” said Lari.

“Gosh,” I said. “I think I have something that might help.”

Something that was called “Miasma Whirlwind” was probably poisonous, which meant that my [Antipoison Potion] should probably work on it. I took a small [Striped Circus Tent] from the Cash Shop and placed it near the river’s edge. The Commander was quite tall, so I took the time to look for the biggest claw-footed bathtub in the Cash Shop that had an autofill with hot water function. Once the steaming hot water filled the tub, I poured in five potions just in case one was not enough before inviting the Commander over to cleanse herself of the nasty skunk smell.

“I’ve set up an herbal bath inside, please make use of it,” I said to her.

“Thank you,” she said, her nose twitching in a cute way

“Why are there so many stinky animals?” Mo asked me.

“Did you ever think that maybe to the animals, we are the ones who smell wrong?” I smiled at her and tweaked her nose.

“Yeah, maybe you’re the stinky one,” said Lari.

“No, you are!” said Mo.

“Shut up, I hear people coming.” Kharli pointed at the spot in the forest surrounding the river.

The splashing sounds from inside the tent became louder for a few minutes until the Commander emerged. I winced when I saw that her hair was still wet. I forgot to provide towels!

“Sorry! Here you go,” I said as I handed her a large, fluffy pink piece of drying cloth.

“Thank you. Let’s go and greet them,” she said as she vigorously rubbed her hair dry.

We walked to the side of the ship nearest the spot in the forest where the noise was coming from. Three people emerged from the forest, one of them was the clan member who had set off earlier to inform the nearest village that we were hunting the [Lunar Goats]. The others turned out to be representatives of the nearest village who were of the Deer Clan.

We exchanged bows and courtesies. The Deer Clan people, who were dressed in simple cotton pants and robes, seemed very high-strung, their movements quick and jerky. Their eyes kept darting to the [Chinese Traditional Ship], but when I invited them to a tour of my ship, they recoiled, wide-eyed. Not only did they refuse, they even took a step back and kept on walking backward until they were out of sight while mumbling excuses about having chores to do back at the village.

“Er, what was that? I’m not that scary, am I?” I asked the others.

“It’s not you, Baroness, it’s the flying ship. They’ve never seen anything like it,” said the Commander.

“They’re just simple country folk,” said Lari.

I gave him a disapproving look. “We’re simple country folk, too.”

My apprentice seemed to realize that his words had sounded condescending. “That’s not what I meant, Teacher!”

“Okay, but please mind your words next time.” I turned to the Commander and said, “Ready? Shall we go back to the [Lunar Goats]? I assume the villagers didn't object.”

The Commander nodded and we set off for the [Lunar Forest].

When we caught sight of the [Steel Cages], I saw that they were all full except for Mo’s. Mo’s cage had one goat in it while the rest of ours had five goats crowded inside licking the [Lunar Lure Lanterns].

“Wow, we got so many of them!” I mentally clicked on the [Steel Cages] and received a large amount of exp.

[Congratulations, you just advanced a Hunting level!]

[Your Hunting level is now 7.]

Lari frowned. “Teacher, I think we got too many. The herd is too small for us to take ten goats.”

He was probably right. “You think so? How many should we take?”

“Just one,” he said.

“No, we need at least two since we have to share half of our kills with the clan,” I said, nodding in the direction of our White Tiger Clan escort.

“We can butcher a goat and take half of the meat,” said the Commander.

“Right, let’s do that then,” I said.

“But wouldn’t it make more sense to capture a breeding pair?” asked Lari.

“These spirit animals are wild. I’m not sure they can be tamed or relocated that easily,” I said.

“Yes, and I wouldn’t recommend that you try it yourselves. I’m sure the surrounding villages will be looking for someone with a taming skill,” said the Commander

“It’s okay for hunters to hunt for meat,” I said. “Unless you plan to become a vegetarian?”

Lari shook his head. “I was just thinking of how to make the most of this discovery.”

“We can raise domesticated goats on our farm though! We don’t need the [Lunar Goats],” I said.

“And I bet our goats will be nicer,” said Mo.

“Or maybe stinkier,” said Kharli.

“No way, they won't be stinky!” I said. “Go and get your exp.”

My apprentices went to their hunting spots, and Kharli advanced to level 6 Hunting, too. Lari said he was close to a level. We removed the lanterns and opened the gates of the cages, but the goats seemed dazed, and it took a while before they all walked out.

Now that the main task of the day was finished, we leisurely walked back to the river, with my apprentices chatting about this and that and asking the clan members about good fishing and hunting spots nearby.

“Let’s stay near the river and fish for the rest of the day,” I suggested.

“May I forage on the riverbanks? I’m not good at fishing,” said Mo.

“Sure,” I said.

“I’ll escort you,” said the Commander to Mo.

Since I had been granted a piece of land to farm in the Ancient Hill Forest, we had permission to hunt, fish, and forage there, but it was a different story when it came to other territories. Half of our kills or gathered items were given to our escorts as payment for their services, and also for them to use as payment for any fees we incurred by using other clan’s resources.

The ground here was rather soft, covered in moss and fallen leaves. I took off my sturdy boots and replaced them with soft slippers, the better to feel the springiness of the forest floor under my feet.

I whistled as I walked, enjoying the clean, crisp air and the sight of butterflies flitting from flower to flower, their wings displaying colorful patterns. I saw squirrels darting from branch to branch, bushy tails trailing behind them cutely. When we broke free of the forest, we were greeted by an azure sky dotted by fluffy white clouds and the soothing sound of water rushing over the pebbly riverbed.

We ate our lunch and then spent a perfect afternoon fishing and foraging.

Chapter 123.5

An excerpt from the journal of Shuye Skullcrusher, Guardian of the Ancient Hill Forest:

The whole of the Westerlands is gossiping about the appearance of a “cursed flying ship from the underworld,” and Prince Baiyu will have to visit dozens of villages himself to assure them that Baroness Violet’s new toy is harmless.

It’s going to be a busy few weeks, since my men will have to investigate dozens of reports of new monsters and strange plants springing up along the river where the ship traveled. They’ll have to do it without me since my child will be born soon.

Chapter 124 - Sensational Slime Shindig

Chapter 124 - The slime's favorite ooze-ic

🙞❤︎🙜

The next day I woke up bright and early. I’d told my household that I was taking a break today, but there was no time to waste, so I rushed through my morning rituals and grabbed Cutie from the [Slime House] before stepping through the portal to the mines.

Today was harvest day for both the [Mushroom Cave] and [Mini Hydroponic Farm]. I used the System to gather the ripe fruit, herbs, and flowers that I was growing hydroponically. Though I got a decent amount of Farming exp, I didn’t level up. The same was true of the Foraging exp I got from the cave, but I wasn’t about to complain since these two locations didn’t require much upkeep on my part.

The real reason I was excited was the [Sunshine Glue-Flower]. I’d gathered a few of them from the forest and placed them in plant pots at the [Slime House]. Cutie liked them so much that it gave me an idea I wanted to try today.

“Shall we visit your family?” I said to my pet.

Cutie bounced up and down sluggishly. She always liked the outdoors much better than the mines. I guess that was why she went with me and left her home.

I led her to the secret elevator and pressed the button for the slime level.

Though these slimes were called monsters or demons, according to game lore, their ancestors were the treasured pets of the god of the mines. The god had left millennia ago, but these creatures still lived a carefree life in the bowels of the Chitinous Caverns with no predators to bother them.

The elevator door opened into a huge cavern whose earthen walls were covered in glowing flowers blooming in riotous profusion. The flowers were the slimes’ primary food source. In the middle was an open space where hundreds of bright yellow, blue, green, red, orange, violet, white, black, and multicolored slimes bounced around. At the far end was a white stone platform decorated with white crystals and boulders painted with psychedelic flower patterns. In the game, this place was used for the “Slime Wonderland Event.”

My eyes, which had become accustomed to the elegant, refined, and subdued colors of the [Courtyard House], were delighted by the bold design and vivid colors of the place.

“Wow, it’s so lively,” I said to my pet.

The last time I had been here, I had been in too much of a hurry to go home to try to get the slime event’s reward.

I strolled straight to the center of the platform and took out the potted [Sunshine Glue-Flower]. Then I went to the jukebox that was on one side and turned it on by feeding [Spell Stones] to it. A bouncy dance version of the Adventure Incarnate theme song blasted out of hidden speakers all over the cavern. Spotlights and disco balls descended from the cavern’s ceiling, making myriad spots of light dance all over the place.

“Chu! Chu! Chu!” The slimes exclaimed in delight and started bouncing in time with the song. The slime strands on top of their heads shaped themselves into hearts or lightning bolts.

A few of them came over to check us out. Cutie rubbed her body on theirs, so I guessed they were probably her family and friends. She lifted the flower pot and offered it to them.

The slimes probed the flower with their slime strands and made pleased “Chu!” sounds.

“Do you guys want more?” I smiled down at them and took out two more [Sunshine Glue-Flowers].

“Chu!” My sluggish pet perked up and she and her friends started dancing around the flower pots until the song came to an end. The disco balls and spotlight retracted back into the ceiling.

[The slimes are pleased by your offering.]

[Congratulations, you have received the title: Slime Friend

Effect: You can use the Slime Cavern facilities.]

Facilities? In the game, the player received a slime tiara or hairpin that boosted the slime pet’s stats. I turned on the System’s minimap which showed the newly opened secret features of the slime cavern.

“Oh my gosh!” I said when I pressed on the hidden panel that made a door slide open to reveal an amazing discovery. “This wasn’t in the game.”

I stepped into a large open space filled with large, medium, and small swimming pools lined with colorful porcelain tiles. At first, I thought it was simply a bathing area for the slimes, but as I walked deeper into the cave, my mouth fell open in awe. There were play areas with water toys, slides, fountains, water jets, waterfall curtains, and even a lazy river. It was a slime water park!

Only a few dozen slimes were playing in the pools and water features. I circled the entire place, looking for more hidden panels, and hit the jackpot once again when I spotted a lever. When I pushed it up, a section of the cave wall opened up into a bland brown and gray corridor. At the end of it were two rooms, both with metal plumbings. Was this a maintenance area?

Two spots were marked on the System minimap, and I was quite pleased to find that I could collect ten buckets of [Goo] and ten bottles of soda water to make more [Kola-Kola Soda].

When I tried to take more than ten of each, I got a popup message from the System.

[A mysterious force prevents you from taking more. You may only collect from this place once a week.]

That was fine. [Goo] and soda water weren’t particularly valuable anyway. It was nice to know where I could get more, but I had plenty in my inventory.

I retraced my steps and decided to have fun with Cutie at the water park. Perhaps the place had a special effect when a player used it?

Even though there was no one around except for me and the slimes, I still put up a tent and used it to change into my bathing suit before cautiously dipping a toe into one of the smaller pools that none of the slimes were currently using.

“Ahh~” The water in it was cold as ice! No wonder none of the slimes were using it.

Cutie poked at my foot with her slime strand to get my attention, then bounced off to a bigger pool that had lukewarm water in it. I sat on the underwater bench to relax. Cutie pressed a red tile at one corner which made bubbles rise and dance around me, turning the water into a frothy, effervescent wonderland. It was pure magic, and I couldn't help but laugh in delight as the bubbles tickled my skin. I stayed in that pool for a while before trying out the pools, which had interesting features like hydrotherapy jets. My favorite was the tiled bed where I could lay down while multiple nozzles above me released streams of warm water that massaged my whole body.

Cutie, on the other hand, was a big fan of the slides and lazy river where she played with her friends.

We stayed there until noon time. The water park was nice, but not nearly nice enough for me to miss one of the Demon Chef’s meals.

“Let’s do this again next week,” I said to Cutie right before we stepped into the portal back to the [Ranch House].

It would have been nice to bring some people with me, but the rest of my household disapproved of my slime pet.

Maybe next time I could bring a certain Prince with me.

Chapter 125 - Farming with [Mysterious Goo]

Chapter 125 - Worm-brace the present and goo with the flow

🙞❤︎🙜

I returned to the [Ranch House] in good spirits. My day got even better when my apprentices excitedly swarmed me the moment I showed my face at the main house and told me the news.

“The worm box is full!” said Kharli.

“We can harvest it now, but we waited for you, Teacher,” said Lari.

Mo simply took me by the hand and tugged me outside to where the [Worm Bin] was.

[Worm Bin:

Status: Healthy
Vermicompost: 3/3]

“Awesome, I’ll get the [Vermicompost] right now.” Putting my words into action at once, I mentally clicked on the [Worm Bin] and selected the [Yes] option when the popup asked me if I wanted to harvest it. I showed the others the three brown paper packages with the [Vermicompost] inside.

[Vermicompost:

Also called Nature’s gold. It’s a mixture of decomposed organic matter and the waste products of earthworms. Boosts plant growth.]

“Nature's gold? I like it,” said Lari.

Kharli took the package from my hand and opened it, revealing a dark, almost black crumbly soil-like substance. “It’s still moist and it smells very earthy. I thought it would stink more.”

“That’s worm poop. Don’t touch it,” said Mo, who was keeping her distance from the [Worm Bin] due to her phobia.

“Okay, here’s where the magic happens.” I put the open package of [Vermicompost] on the ground and added [Goo] to it. The [Goo] was quickly absorbed by the [Vermicompost] which glowed bright green for a second and then was dissolved.

We all looked down at the resulting [Mysterious Goo] that was a bright, fluorescent green.

[Mysterious Goo:

An extraordinary blend of slime excreta and worm-made compost, this potent fertilizer fuels flora with a potent cocktail of nutrients. Can only be applied to soil once a year. Do not touch with your bare hands.]

Mo gave it a suspicious look. “Teacher, it dissolved the soil? I knew that slime [Goo] was dangerous!”

“Shhh, the slime is right here.” Lari pointed to Cutie. “She heard you.”

Kharli grabbed Mo and the two of them slowly retreated without turning their backs on my slime pet. Meanwhile, Cutie bounced over to the open brown paper package and used her slime strand to probe the contents.

“Chu~” Cutie lost interest after a few seconds and bounced away in the direction of her home, the [Slime House].

“This is great. Now that I’ve made [Mysterious Goo], I’ve unlocked the ones in my inventory. It’s too late for the spring planting, but this will definitely boost our summer harvest,” I said.

I also had two of the three things I needed for my quest.

[Curing Infertility Part 2:

Plant the Crimson Pearl Peony seed.
Requirements: Black Soil, Spirit Water, and Mysterious Goo.

Reward: Farming Exp]

Once I had [Black Soil], I could finish the quest and hopefully get enough exp for another Farming level.

***

The next day, when I opened the gate of my [Ranch House], I was engulfed in a warm embrace.

“I hate this!” said Prince Baiyu into my ear. “I wish I could just elope with you and leave everything else behind.”

“Mmm.” My brain had short-circuited so all I could do was make a soft sound of pleasure as I hugged him back. I barely stopped myself in time from saying “Oh yes, muscles!” out loud. The brush of his fingers against my back sent ripples of warmth that spread through my body, and I could feel the steady rise and fall of his breath, a calming cadence that slowly synchronized with my own. We stayed like that for a few minutes until we heard the sound of people giggling.

I reluctantly pulled away from Prince Baiyu’s embrace and gave my three apprentices a warning look. “Good morning.”

Smirking, the three of them bowed to us, and we exchanged polite greetings.

“Please go to the house and let Fengying know that we have a visitor. Prince Baiyu, would you like a tour of the fields?” I looked up and winked at him.

“I would love a tour,” he said.

The prince was dressed in a set of white and blue silk robes and pants embroidered with a wave motif. His long white hair was tied in a high ponytail held in place by a silver crown with a hairpin, both items decorated with iridescent blue kingfisher feathers. Tiny silver and pearl pendants hung down from the hairpin and made pleasing tinkling sounds whenever he moved his head. His bangs partially covered the purple lotus in the middle of his forehead.

I was glad to see that his blue eyes were bright and his skin had a rosy glow since I was always a little worried about his health because of his qi overload problem. Thankfully, it had been mostly cured last winter.

Though I was hungry, breakfast could wait. I wanted to spend at least a few minutes alone with Prince Baiyu. Also, this delaying tactic would give my household staff time to prepare to receive royalty. Even though the prince didn’t insist on the formalities, I was sure that Fengying would appreciate the advance warning so that she could tidy up and set a more impressive table. The staff would probably put on finer clothes, too.

The vegetable garden was a fine sight, with lots of spiritual plants that were now a vivid green with a slight glow around them.

“Impressive, as usual,” said Prince Baiyu.

“You know about the fish?” I asked.

“Yes, I remember it from your letters.”

“Tada! Here it is.” I led him to the nearest rice paddy and proudly waved an arm at the Rice-Fish integrated cultivation method I had going on.

The rice plants were not the same as regular ones. Rather, they were striped blue and pink with golden edges. They were still small at the moment, but they still looked very mystical. The [Cleaner Shrimp] were too small to be visible from above, but we could see a few of the [Rice Carp] which were small but had brown and gray scales that flashed gold when the sunlight hit them at the right angle. I couldn’t quite see it from where I stood, but I knew that the fish should have whisker-like barbels protruding from both sides of its mouth.

“This is quite extraordinary.” The prince knelt at the edge of the paddy, heedless of his fine robes, and bent down to peer into the muddy water. “The mulberry farms we grow for our silkworms also have fishponds with carp, but this is the first time that I’ve seen demonic carp.”

“What?! Demonic? Nooooo, these are just regular spirit carp, right?” I knelt beside him, trying to see what he was talking about, but no matter what I did, I simply couldn’t figure out what made these fish “demonic.”

Prince Baiyu stood, pulling me up, too. “Sometimes I forget that you can’t see qi. These carp have quite strong demonic qi.”

“What does that mean? How come some animals are called demonic, anyway?” I’d always wondered about that. For example, the demon pigs from the Southerlands looked exactly the same as the regular pigs the Demon Chef bought from the Anwei market.

He smiled and bent down to brush some dirt away from my trousers. “Don’t worry, it’s not bad.”

We spent a few moments shaking the dirt from our clothes.

I frowned down at the rice paddy. “It’s not? Wait, that’s not true, is it? I’m pretty sure demonic animals are bad.”

“Perhaps you’re not aware of the different forms of qi?” When I nodded, Prince Baiyu explained what he meant. “Classifying the different types of qi isn’t easy. According to philosophers, there are thousands of forms that it can take. However, the common folk simplify it into two basic types: spiritual and demonic. Your rice paddy contains spiritual plants and demonic fish.”

“I don’t get it. If the fish are bad demonic ones, should I remove them from the water?”

“The two types of qi can work together. They are opposing forces that can spur each other’s development.”

I still didn’t get what he meant.

Seeing as I was still confused, he continued his explanation. “Think of it this way. The plants have a gentle qi while the fish have an aggressive qi. The fish stimulate the plants while the plants calm the fish down. It’s beneficial for both of them. I’ve rarely seen such a good blend of qi.”

“Oh, that does sound good!”

“Yes, a lot of people who work with qi like to pair opposing forces such as creation and destruction, birth and death, growth and decay, and so forth. For example, they say that the legendary fountain that contained the Water of Life was surrounded by the True Celestial Flame.”

I giggled. “This is just a rice paddy, not a mythical land of enchantment.”

We turned away from the field and started walking to the main house.

Prince Baiyu took my hand in his and said, “To me, this is a paradise because you’re here.”

“Ha! I suppose that’s why I haven’t seen you for such a long time?” I pouted. “Don’t you think it’s rude to kiss a girl on New Year’s Eve then disappear for weeks at a time?”

“I’m sorry! I had to catch up on my work because I was away during winter fixing my qi overload problem.”

“How have you been? No more overloading?”

“Yes, the therapy seems to have worked. I haven’t had any problems, but I still have to be careful.”

“Do you need more potions? Here, take this.” I tried to hand him a [Rubber Chicken].

[Resilient Rubber Chicken:

This rubber chicken toy is no ordinary chicken! It’s a super fun, interactive toy that will keep you entertained for hours on end. This chicken has a movable head and wings and makes realistic chicken sounds when you squeeze it. It’s also durable and easy to clean, making it the perfect toy for both indoor and outdoor play.

Magic -1 (every three seconds)]

“No, thanks.” He gave the toy a baleful look.

It was a joke item that players could equip in Adventure Incarnate to play fight each other. Its effect of draining qi was helpful with Prince Baiyu’s qi overload, but it looked extremely goofy. I squeezed it, activating the bwak bwak bwaaak sound effect.

Unfortunately, the joke was on me as I forgot to put on gloves before handling it.

“Oops,” I said as I swayed a little, dizzy from the rubber toy’s magic-draining quality.

“Drop it!” Prince Baiyu grabbed me by the waist.

I put the item back into my inventory.

“My bad, I didn’t think it would work so quickly.” The item description said it only drained 1 Magic level every three seconds, and I’d only held it for a very short time. “I’m fine.”

“You look pale,” said Prince Baiyu. He lifted me into his arms and ran to the house before I could reply.

We were met at the gate by my maid, Yinuo, who made a huge fuss over me even though I said I was all alright. I was carried to my bedroom in the inner courtyard and told to lie down. I was vigorously refusing to drink a foul-smelling herbal concoction that Yinuo offered me when one of the prince’s guards came to inform him that it was time for them to leave.

“Already? It hasn’t even been an hour,” I said.

Prince Baiyu sighed. “I have a morning meeting with my parents and some of the clan elders. I only stopped by to see your face.’

“Aw! I know you’re busy, but when will you have time to visit me again?”

“In a few days, the Spring Hunt will start. I should have a bit of free time after that.”

“How much time?”

“Not a lot,” he admitted. “I haven’t finished my training, and I have to catch up on a lot of paperwork.”

In addition to helping his mother, the ruler of the Westerlands, he also had his own territory to govern, and he hadn’t finished his education. Prince Baiyu was roughly the same age as I, and if I were to compare it to human terms on Earth, he was basically in college, in that he had finished basic education and was now being given more advanced training.

I sighed. “Why don’t you move in here after the Spring Hunt?”

Yinuo dropped the cup of herbal medicine.

The bodyguard stepped backwards so fast that he stumbled over his feet and fell in a heap on the floor.

Prince Baiyu turned red as a tomato and stammered out a few incoherent words. “You-You- I…”

Chapter 126 - Demonic Fish 🐟🎣🐠

Chapter 126 - A truly un-corn-vincing display of reluctance

🙞❤︎🙜

I burst out laughing. Oh my gosh, I knew he would react that way, but his blushing, embarrassed expression was too cute! I couldn’t resist the urge to tease him mercilessly. “Why is your face red? I meant as a guest. I’ll build a separate courtyard for you so you can have your own residence.”

Yinuo giggled. I handed her a piece of cloth from my inventory to clean up the spill.

The bodyguard got up, bowed, and retreated to the door, which he left open.

“But I, I, I, how can I…” Prince Baiyu was still stammering over his response. We all waited until he calmed down, which took quite a while. Eventually, he managed to blurt out a complete sentence. “You want me to move into your farm?”

“I want us to spend more time together. You visiting me every few weeks isn’t working out for me. We’ll never get to know each other properly that way,” I said.

“Well…I…” Prince Baiyu was still dithering over his answer.

I smirked. “You can bring a chaperone to stay with you if needed.”

He turned his face away and mumbled something I couldn’t make out.

Luckily for Prince Baiyu, he was saved by the appearance of Fengying who came over to check if there was a problem.

“My lady, what happened?” asked Fengying.

“I accidentally touched a cursed item that drained my… energy. I’m fine.” It was actually my magic level that was drained, but I didn’t feel like talking about the difference between qi and magic level.

“Ah, I have just the thing for that,” said Fengying. She gave Yinuo instructions about fetching a box from the storeroom.

Prince Baiyu’s face was still red and he fidgeted uneasily whenever someone glanced his way.

I took pity on him and said, “Dear Prince, why don’t you leave now? Don’t you have an appointment?”

“I can’t possibly leave you when you’re unwell.” His brows knitted together in a tight, furrowed line and the corners of his mouth turned down. The tone of his voice told me that he felt insulted at the suggestion.

“Suit yourself.” I allowed Yinuo to fuss over me while Fengying left to get medicine. “I’m fine, really!”

When Fengying returned, she held a wooden box. Inside it, nestled in the red silk, was a small brown pill about half an inch in diameter. “This qi pill should help.”

“Hey, that kinda looks valuable. I don’t think I need it,” I said.

Though the System didn’t recognize this item, the fact that it was kept in an expensive-looking wooden box meant that it was most likely not a run-of-the-mill pill.

“My lady, this is barely worth half of one of your beauty potions. Please take it,” she said.

Beauty potion? Oh, she must mean the [Dewy Glow Potion].

“Okay.” I got a glass of water from my inventory and took the pill. I was expecting to swallow it with the water, but the moment I put it in my mouth, it immediately dissolved into a thin liquid and smoothly went down my throat, leaving behind a cool, minty feeling and a weird aftertaste of dirt and pepper. A warm feeling spread from my stomach to the rest of my body. My fingers and toes tingled.

“Good. The color has returned to your face,” said Prince Baiyu in a relieved tone. “Please don’t play with that cursed item again.”

“Mmmm.” I threw back the blankets and sat up in bed. “I suddenly feel great, like I could run all day long.”

Prince Baiyu gave me a long-suffering look. “Will you please promise me you won’t handle that cursed item again?”

“I promise,” I said and then got up from the bed. Walking over to where Yinuo was, I hooked my arm with hers and said in a softer voice that I knew the prince could still hear, “I think he’s playing coy, but I’m not worried. I know he’s going to say yes. Did you see his expression?”

Fengying cleared her throat loudly and ushered us all out of my room. I had the distinct impression that it was considered unseemly for me to have a gentleman in my bedroom. Yinuo and I giggled.

“I, I, can’t, I mean, uh…” Prince Baiyu was back to stuttering.

I patted his shoulder and said, “You can send me your reply later.”

“I will…” He took my hand in his and kissed it.

“No worries. If you really can’t move in then I’ll just get a cat,” I said.

“What? No! Not a cat!” Prince Baiyu looked horrified. “Please don’t get a cat.”

“Why not? Cats are nice and they hunt mice.” I hadn’t actually seen any rats or mice around, but that was beside the point. A cat or dog pet was a must on a farm.

“Anything but a cat.”

“Why?”

“Because people will make fun of me.”

“Eh? Make fun how?”

Prince Baiyu bit his lip. He looked adorable. “You know… people will ask if it's our baby.”

Yinuo’s eyes and mine met and we both burst out laughing.

“That’s so random and silly! Why would that even happen?” I couldn’t believe he was worried about it.

Prince Baiyu looked down on the ground and sighed. “I have this uncle whose friend is married to a human, and when we visited their house, they had a cat in a basket.”

“Oh, lemme guess, and you made fun of him by asking if that was his baby, huh?” I pinched his waist. “Now you’re afraid people will tease you like that, too. Isn’t that your fault?”

“Not a cat, please?” Prince Baiyu’s eyes locked onto mine, wide and beseeching, like a hopeful kitten seeking a treat.

I couldn’t resist that look. “Alright.”

With that settled, we said our goodbyes and he left.

***

As expected, two days later Prince Baiyu sent a letter accepting my invitation for him to spend the rest of the spring season at my farm. The kids and I got busy tending to the crops and cutting down trees to clear space for the third courtyard.

“Do these fish look demonic to you?” I asked my apprentices. We were at the eastern rice paddy.

“No,” said Kharli.

“No,” said Mo.

“No!” said Lari. “These look like very good spirit fish. Look at how shiny they are.”

The others nodded.

"Okay, examine all the plants properly and make sure everything is as it should be," I said.

The rice paddy smelled of damp earth, and the plants were growing well. The insects were out in force today, especially the damselflies and dragonflies that flitted gracefully here and there with their gem-colored iridescent wings. I carefully examined the paddy to see if there were any pests, but there were only the usual harmless bugs. Below the surface, the fish swam merrily, and no matter how much I looked at them, I couldn't see anything out of place about the fish.

Later that day, I asked Fengying about it. “Has Deming looked at the [Rice Carp] recently?”

“Yes, he has high hopes that they will go very well with the rice and vegetables growing on the farm,” said Fengying. She was serving my morning snack, corn baba, also called baogu baba, a steamed cake made of ground corn. It was soft and chewy, with a fresh, sweet taste, and a nice golden color.

“This is delicious,” I said as I bit into the corn cake. “So the carp look okay? Do they look… demonic?”

Fengying nodded and poured some corn juice for me. “Yes. Deming says that, based on the demonic qi they are giving off, they will grow fast.”

“The carp are not bad then?”

“They’ll be excellent food ingredients.”

“Great.” Whew! If Deming wasn’t worried about the demonic fish, then neither was I. He was the expert, after all. “Please let me know when the carriage arrives.”

I was making two quick trips today, one to Wukan to buy as many astrology books as I could, and one to Hongzhen to spend money in town and increase my favorability with the townspeople.

Chapter 127 & 127.5 - An uncontroversial chapter in which the MC does something silly

Chapter 127 - I have it on good au-thority that there will be no pun-alties

🙞❤︎🙜

Since I was going shopping, I put on my favorite [Noble Scholar] set that made me look refined and elegant without being overdressed. It was made of fine cotton, not silk, and was embroidered with a green bamboo design. The white jade pendant that hung from its belt was in the shape of two dragons chasing each other and had green tassels. Comfortable flat ballet shoes completed the outfit.

The flying carriage arrived right on time, three hours before noon. I was hoping to finish everything I needed to do today before dinnertime.

Wukan town was an hour away, and I spent the time inside the carriage going over my plans. I’d asked Yinuo and my apprentices if they wanted to go with me. They were willing to accompany me to Wukan, but, for some strange reason, when I said I was going to Hongzhen, too, they all looked at me blankly and then said they didn’t want to go.

My apprentices must still be upset that we lost the Mid-Autumn Festival contest. I admit it was unfair that the Hongzhen judges favored their own people over outsiders, but that was exactly why I told them we should visit the town and befriend the locals.

Adventure Incarnate had a hidden mechanic where the contest judges would rate the player’s entry not only based on the stall’s contents, but also based on the player’s favorability rating. Favorability could be easily increased by buying clothes from the silk shop and books from the bookstore as well as donating money to the temple.

Before that though, I would stop by Wukan to use the two Astrology starter book coupons I got and buy as many books as I could. The most unpopular skill ever introduced in Adventure Incarnate, Astrology, was learned by reading books, which almost every player, including myself and GodIAm, considered deeply, tragically lame.

To be fair, the skill was created in order to curb the game’s rampant inflation problem. Every day, more and more gold coins were added to the game via farming, mining, crafting, etc. which caused the value of the players’ existing gold to plummet.

That’s why the Astrology skill was created. It functioned as a money sink to remove gold from the game, by making players buy expensive books from an NPC. Just getting a few basic Astrology levels cost ten million gold and leveling it up to 99 meant spending two hundred million gold.

Truly, the Adventure Incarnate developers were sadistic imps!

I was still mentally fuming over the perfidy of people who took the easy way out instead of creating a proper skill when the flying carriage arrived at Wukan.

A female White Tiger clan member helped me down from the vehicle and I looked around with interest. This was the first time for me to visit the town. The carriage had landed on top of a small hill and I could see that behind us was the hilltop observatory that was my goal.

Crafted from brown local stone, the tower stood tall, perhaps around 40 feet, and was crowned with a blue dome-shaped roof made of some shiny metal. A heavy wooden door, carved with mystical symbols, was at the base of the tower.

Below us was the town, which was rather small and consisted of only a few dozen wooden houses clustered together. All around the town were paddy fields dotted here and there with small farmhouses.

“How pretty,” I said to my escort.

“We sent word ahead of time, so the family is expecting you,” said the clan member as she gestured towards the tower.

Sure enough, a few seconds later the door opened and three old men wearing blue and gold robes embroidered with star symbols appeared. They were senior members of the astrologer clan. We exchanged greetings, and we all went inside.

The tower’s interior was a little musty though brightly lit by smoking torches. The lowest level was a large reception room, but we took the central spiral staircase all the way to the top where they proudly showed me their telescope.

“Incredible!” I was sincere in my praise.

The ancient telescope was a marvel of craftsmanship. The brass frame, adorned with silver inlay with an intricate abstract design, had been lovingly polished so that it shone brightly in the dimness of the main chamber. The lenses, I was told, were magical ones that never cracked or needed to be cleaned. I made more sounds of admiration when they showed me how the roof could be retracted to allow them to use the telescope to view the heavens.

Once the tour was done, they led me to an office where we got down to business.

“I have these coupons for starter books,” I said as I gave them the System items.

“Oh, excellent! My nephew gave a few of these away during the winter festival five years ago. I'm glad to see that people kept them,” said the oldest one who seemed to be in charge. He took the coupons and handed them to one of the others who went off, presumably to fetch the books.

The office was a small stone chamber with one tiny window near the ceiling that let in a good amount of light. Flickering oil lamps provided more light. The wooden desk and chairs seemed old, their carvings worn smooth, but they were sturdy and made of good-quality rosewood.

“I’d like to buy more books.” I read the list of the required books from the System’s Astrology tab.

[Celestial Insights: Navigating Your Destiny Through the Stars]

[Astrology and the Human Psyche: Understanding Your Inner Universe]

[The Zodiac Code: Decoding Your Cosmic Blueprint]

[Planetary Patterns: Discovering Your Life's Cosmic Design]

[Stars and Serendipity: A Guide to Astrological Timing]

[The Astrologer's Handbook: Mastering the Art of Celestial Interpretation]

[Cosmic Connections: Exploring Relationships Through Astrology]

[Astrological Almanac: Your Guide to the Celestial Cycles]

[Mapping Your Destiny: Astrological Insights for Personal Growth]

[The Astrology of Wellness: Nurturing Body and Soul with the Stars]

The astrologer frowned. “We have all of those, but they're quite valuable.”

“It’s okay, I brought a lot of money with me,” I said. “How much?”

“I can give you a ten percent discount since you’re buying ten.” He picked up an abacus from his desk and started calculating the price while muttering figures under his breath. “Eight million plus three million twenty thousand… thirty million… minus the discount… taxes…”

It took him quite a while and when he finished, he put the abacus down with a sigh.

“One hundred million coins. I’m sorry but the last two books that you listed are extremely valuable. Without those, I could give you the other eight for only two million,” he said.

“Okay, let’s go outside then,” I said.

“I understand,” said the senior astrologer.

We all got up and went outside. They handed me my free books.

“Thanks. Here’s the payment then,” I said.

The office was just too small for me to withdraw one hundred million gold coins from my stack, so we had to go outside for me to take them out. I waved a hand and the coins appeared on the ground at the foot of the hill. One hundred million coins was quite a lot, so it made a small hill of its own.

“Holy stars!” said the senior astrologer. His eyes nearly fell out of their sockets.

“G-gold,” said the youngest one. He fell to his knees and reached a trembling hand towards the glistening heap of gold coins below us.

The other astrologer’s mouth fell open and he put a hand on his chest as though he was about to have a heart attack.

Even I was taken aback by the size of the stack of coins. I thought it would fill an area around the size of an Olympic swimming pool, but this was more than quadruple that.

I coughed and said, “I assume this is fine? Can I have the books now, please?”

The White Tiger clan member, who had been silent until now, suddenly spoke up, “My lady, when they said one hundred million coins, I believe they meant copper coins.”

“Whaaaat?” I was shocked. “But I don’t have one hundred million copper coins!”

This was a disaster!

Wait, no it wasn’t! Wasn’t this an insane discount compared to the expected price of buying all the books for level 99 Astrology?

“I’m sure they’ll accept gold coins. One gold coin can be exchanged for four hundred copper coins,” said the clan member.

My mind reeled at the thought of paying four hundred times less money than I thought I would need. How amazing! I used the System calculator and then turned to the senior astrologer. “Is that acceptable? One hundred million copper coins is equivalent to… two hundred fifty thousand gold coins, right?”

He nodded. It seemed he was in shock and unable to speak just yet.

I put the coins back in my inventory and said, “Do you have a chest or something I could put the coins in?”

They led me back inside where I placed the coins on their kitchen table.

“Thank you. It was great doing business with you!” I said once they handed me the ten books I needed.

We said our goodbyes and left the tower.

“Pardon me, my lady,” said my escort after helping me board the flying carriage. “Something’s come up, and I’ll need to stay here. The driver will bring you back to your farm.”

“What? But I was going to Hongzhen,” I said.

“I’m sorry,” she said.

“Aw, it’s okay. The trip isn’t urgent anyway, I was just gonna go shopping,” I said. “I’ll go back home then. Is something wrong? Are you going to be alright?”

“I'll be fine, thank you for asking. Have a safe trip,” she said.

I wondered what had happened. She didn't seem to want to talk about it, so I dropped the subject and just left.

It was only after I had already returned to the farm that I realized that I had made a huge mistake.

Chapter 127.5

An excerpt from the journal of Shuye Skullcrusher, Guardian of the Ancient Hill Forest:

When Violet informed me that she wanted to buy books from the astrologer clan, I sent her off with a driver and guard.

Who knew that she would conjure up a literal mountain of gold coins?

Thankfully, the guard I assigned to her had the presence of mind to send an emergency signal immediately, before there was a riot. The local branch of the clan swiftly arrived to keep watch and protect the tower and its residents. The two hundred thousand gold coins Violet left behind were spirited away by two dozen warriors who safely deposited them in the nearest clan bank.

Many people from Wukan town saw the gold, and word somehow spread that there was a hidden magical treasure trove under the hill. Hundreds of people formed gangs and started digging for gold.

I’ve sent people to try to persuade them that the mountain of gold was just an optical illusion caused by a rare solar phenomenon.

And next time, I'll send a higher-ranking guard with Violet, someone senior enough to advise her and speak up when she's about to do something outrageous. Hopefully, someone who is able to protect her not just from danger, but also from her own lack of common sense.

Could Violet come from a place where there are mountains of gold lying around?

Chapter 128 - Insane leveling speed

Chapter 128 - No need to star-ess about reading more books!

🙞❤︎🙜

I forgot to haggle!

What a noob mistake!

I shuddered to think what my mother would say if she knew. Mentally apologizing to all of my Chinese ancestors back on Earth for my lack of street smarts, I swore to myself that I wouldn’t make the same mistake the next time I made a big purchase. Dang it, two hundred fifty thousand gold coins was the price of a house in Anwei, right? And I missed my chance to haggle the price down because I was too eager to get the books.

My staff were surprised to see me back so early, but it wasn’t a problem for the Demon Chef to prepare lunch for one more person. I collected a tray at the main house and took Cutie with me before retiring to my [Ranch House] for the rest of the day.

The front garden was now full of assorted colorful flowers from the Cash Shop, mainly peonies, tulips, and primroses. I left Cutie there to play among the blossoms that she loved with Mr. Bear in [Guard Mode] watching over her while I went inside my house to change into a T-shirt and cutoff jeans. Since I knew that I would be reading for quite some time, I had prepared a cozy window nook with a comfortable cushioned bench and pretty throw pillows.

Yawning a little even though I hadn’t even started studying Astrology yet, I curled up on the window seat and cracked open the first book. Soft, golden sunlight streamed through the window bathing me in warmth.

“Oh no,” I said out loud when I leafed through the pages of [Celestial Insights: Navigating Your Destiny Through the Stars] and saw that it was full of star maps and complex mathematical formulas. “Astrology is the worst!”

Math, in Adventure Incarnate? This was exactly why people hated Astrology. Of course, in the game all that happened was that the player’s avatar was frozen in one place with a book in its hands, but this was real life and I had to read it for real. I wished that this was more like the cheesy comics I read where the main character only had to smash the book on his head to learn the techniques written on it.

What was the title of that comic? As I tried to remember which story had that scene, I absently rested my forehead on the top part of the book.

I could hardly believe it when a System popup appeared.

[Would you like to learn these Astrology concepts?]

[Yes] [No]

Was this for real? Reflexively clicking on the [Yes] button, I had a split second of regret when I suddenly remembered that in the comic, the main character’s mind was overwhelmed by a flood of information. I winced as I expected a torrent of foreign ideas to invade my brain, but nothing of the sort happened. Instead, the System’s fireworks exploded around me and nine popups appeared with the same message: [Congratulations, you just advanced an Astrology level!].

I could hardly believe the final System message.

[Your Astrology level is now 10.]

[Bonus: +2% Farming exp and +1% all other skill exp]

Was this for real?

I mean, I was happy that I leveled up, but I still knew nothing about Astrology. This seemed almost too good to be true. Randomly opening a few pages of [Celestial Insights: Navigating Your Destiny Through the Stars], I verified that I still couldn’t make heads or tails of the technical terms, drawings, maps, and formulas it showed.

[Celestial Insights: Navigating Your Destiny Through the Stars:

Unlock the secrets of the cosmos with Celestial Insights. Discover how the stars hold the key to understanding your destiny. Filled with ancient occult wisdom and esoteric equations, this book could change your life.]

My mind was definitely not filled with “Celestial Insights.”

The fact that I leveled up without actually understanding or even reading the book didn’t seem like a bad thing, but I was a little worried. I made some tea and nibbled on a biscuit to calm myself. After a few minutes of contemplation, I concluded that the skill’s weirdness was probably because it was meant to be just a money sink. Maybe the System only cared that I had used my gold to buy the books.

I finished my cup of tea and bonked myself on the head with the other nine books, smiling at all the [Congratulations, you just advanced an Astrology level!] messages. When I got the final popup, I whooped for joy and did a little dance.

“Twenty percent! Mighty twenty! Tremendous twenty!” I yelled.

[Your Astrology level is now 99.]

[Bonus: +20% all skills exp]

I also received ten upgrades for Mr. Bear as a special one-time bonus for getting my first max level skill. I put my robes back on and ran outside, grabbing Mr. Bear and excitedly shoving the ten ruby hearts from the System’s reward tab into its chest. The red heart at the center of the plushie’s torso sucked in the ruby hearts and grew lighter in color.

[Puppet Name: Mr. Bear

A magical plushie unlike any other. This cute and cuddly bear is made of a special type of plush cloth and magical stuffing that gives it special powers. When its owner is in danger, this bear will come to life.

Though Mr. Bear is a wizard type, this puppet is also equipped with hidden metal claws and teeth.

Type: Magic

Base spell: Fireball

Upgrades: 4→14/99]

Was it my imagination or did Mr. Bear somehow look cuter now? I fancied that his little black button eyes were shinier and his smile was a little wider. I kissed him on his little nose, and we did a little dance together with me holding him up in the air.

“Twenty percent! Can you believe it, Mr. Bear?”

I couldn’t get over it. How awesome was this? What a huge bonus! Giggling, I went to my front porch and sat down on my rocking chair where I relaxed and browsed the Cash Shop for some festive items. After all, I just got my first max skill and this called for a celebration. I took out lots of fireworks and decorated my porch with colorful balloons, bunting, and a festive banner with “Congratulations” written on it. I lit the fireworks and drank [Kola-Kola Soda] to replenish my energy bar.

Then I went outside to cut down some trees, giggling and mentally chanting “Twenty! Yes, twenty!” whenever I got some Woodcutting exp.

I spent the next few days in a euphoric haze, amazed at how much extra exp I was getting every time I watered the plants or cut down trees.

“Why does Teacher keep smiling creepily?” Lari asked Mo as we were all watering the plants five days later. “She’s been like that for days now!”

“It’s obvious, isn’t it? She’s happy Prince Baiyu is moving in soon,” said Mo.

Mo and Kharli playfully elbowed each other, wordlessly daring one another to say something more.

“Soon it will be loooooovey-doooooovey time at the farm,” said Kharli in a singsong tone of voice.

“Ew!” Lari moved away from us, to the other side of the field.

With a twinkle in her eye, Mo turned to me and said, “Will there be a banquet when Concubine Bai joins your family, Teacher?”

I recoiled in mock horror and pretended to slap her cheek. She cooperated by whipping her head around as though she had been struck and falling to her knees dramatically.

“How dare you! Don’t call my honey bunny Concubine Bai!” I said, arms akimbo.

“Forgive me, Teacher!” said Mo.

Mo cowered and Kharli bent over her protectively. Lari just rolled his eyes at our little play.

“You’re forgiven. Get up and finish watering the plants,” I said.

Kharli helped Mo get up and said, “I can’t believe Teacher is so bold. Making a prince of the ruling White Tiger clan move into her side chamber…”

The two girls sighed.

“Hey now, I forbid you guys from referring to the Prince as Concubine Bai. As I have said at least a dozen times before, he will be moving here with some family members.” It went without saying that those family members would serve as his guards and chaperones. “He actually visits various families a lot, so this is just routine.”

That was true. Prince Baiyu often spent a weekend or two at the homes of various clans as his job as his mother’s only heir required him to meet with many people as her representative, and many clan villages were in far-flung places.

The kids continued to tease me about my romance with Prince Baiyu while I vigorously denied that we were moving in together “that way” until Yinuo came by with some news.

Yinuo ran over to me and said, “My lady! My lady! Prince Baiyu has sent his dowry over.”

Mo screamed, “I knew it! They’re getting married!”

Chapter 129 - Crafting more ranged weapons and ammo

Chapter 129 - Arrow-mazing crafting bow-nanza

🙞❤︎🙜

Yinuo was just joking, of course. It wasn’t Prince Baiyu’s dowry. It was just three flying ox carts loaded up with his and his staff’s luggage as well as some furniture.

Shaking my head at the way my apprentices and staff were all making fun of me, I made my way to the front of the main house where the prince’s people were waiting. We all greeted each other, and then I left them in Fengying’s capable hands.

The third courtyard was ready for Prince Baiyu. He had sent a letter accepting my invitation last week, and his butler had visited us to make the necessary arrangements. Since Prince Baiyu was making this place his new headquarters, he needed a full staff of secretaries, guards, maids, etc. Therefore, I made his courtyard the size of two of mine. The original outer and main courtyards were in the eastern part of the house while the third courtyard was in the west, with the garden in the middle.

“See? It’s just some normal furniture,” I said to my apprentices.

“But isn’t furniture part of one’s dowry?” Mo’s eyes were still sparkling.

I shook my head and warned them to mind their manners since we had people from the White Tiger clan supervising the placement of the prince’s household effects.

They were mostly stuff for a training hall like floor mats, weapon racks, wooden training weapons, and so forth. He must have thought my house was unlikely to have those. Most of the rooms in the third courtyard such as the bedrooms, front hall, staff rooms, kitchen, and side halls had already been furnished with the best items from the Cash Shop.

“Let’s go to the inner courtyard. I’ll smelt more bars for you guys to use,” I said.

“Yay! I love Smithing!” said Mo.

“I’ll stick to Fletching since I’m the best at it,” said Kharli.

“When will I be able to smith swords, Teacher?” asked Lari.

“We’re only at the level of using [Bronze Bars]. I think we should wait until we can use at least [Steel Bars],” I said.

“Yes, Teacher.” Lari looked down at his feet and then scratched his head bashfully. “...Can I please practice making a dagger? Even if it's just bronze.”

“So you’re getting bored of making [Arrowheads]? Okay, you can try making other stuff along with the [Arrowheads],” I said. A small compromise seemed called for since I didn’t want the kids to burn out grinding the same thing every day.

Lari couldn't contain his joy and shouted “Yes!” loud enough to startle the nearby clan members who recoiled a little at the sudden noise.

“Hush, don’t be noisy inside the house. And also, Teacher, that goes for all of us?” asked Kharli.

“Yes,” I said. “I’ll think of what else you guys can make.”

We went inside the workrooms and I smelted more bars for them while they Smithed and Fletched. My Smithing level was level 14 now, and with the +20 percent bonus from Astrology, I should get level 20 in a few days, depending on how much time I spend on it.

I looked over the options for Smithing and Fletching.

Fletching was pretty much limited to making ranged weapons and ammo. The items we were making now were meant to be donated to the cause of the upcoming World Event where all the clans and human cultivators fought the Demon Monarch. One’s rewards depended on how much they contributed to the war effort, thus I was preparing a ton of arrows in advance. I reckoned the best rangers of this world probably had their own magic heirloom weapons based on what I knew of the setting, but more ammo was definitely always welcome. The [Bronze Arrows] we were making weren’t that useful, but once we all leveled up we would make [Iron Arrows] and then [Steel Arrows], which were good enough to donate.

The other things one could make by combining Smithing with Fletching were stuff like crossbow bolts, javelins, throwing axes, darts, and cannonballs.

After smelting more bars, I stood in front of an anvil and demonstrated how to make the other items. Using a smithing hammer from my toolbelt, I banged it on a [Bronze Bar] from my inventory. When the System menu popped up, I mentally chose the [Spearhead] option and relaxed my arm, letting the System guide my movements. Eight hammer blows later, the metal bar shimmered and turned into a [Bronze Spearhead].

“Now, you see we have a [Spearhead], but not the spear itself. Take out a wooden log from your inventory and use a Fletching knife on it. Choose the [Javelin] option,” I said.

The three of them took out regular logs from their inventory and then exchanged confused glances.

“Teacher, these are too short to make into javelins,” said Kharli, holding aloft a log that was only two feet long.

“Just do it,” I suggested.

“I guess we can make really short javelins,” said Kharli in a doubtful tone of voice, giving her wooden log a dubious glance.

I covered my mouth with a hand to conceal my smile and simply waited while they Fletched. Sure enough, after they had shaved off the bark and some slivers of wood, the logs shimmered and stretched out until they were seven feet long. I took a [Wooden Shaft] from Kharli and used the System menu to attach the [Bronze Spearhead] to it, forming a [Bronze Javelin].

“Can I try throwing it?” asked Lari.

“Later,” I said. “For now, let’s practice making a few different types of ranged items. How about we make throwing axes, darts, and crossbow bolts? Let’s aim to get level 20 before Prince Baiyu arrives. We can show him all these different items and he can tell us which ones will be more in demand.”

“I’ll be level 20 first,” said Lari. “I’m the fastest.”

“No way, I have way more stamina than you,” said Kharli.

Mo looked downcast. I knew she was slower than Lari and had less stamina than Kharli, so I pulled her aside and gave her some advice. “I know it’s boring, but if you focus on making just one item, you might be able to get level 20 first.”

I’d told the other two the same thing, but Lari got bored easily and Kharli liked both Smithing and Fletching.

“I’ll do it! I’ll make [Arrow Shafts] all day long,” said Mo.

I patted her on the shoulder and then waved at the others. “Work hard, everyone! I’m off to my house to do Herblaw. Make sure you take a snack break before lunch.”

“Yes, Teacher,” they chorused.

***

Back at the [Ranch House], I started training Herblaw right away.

[Player Name: Violet

Farming Skills:

Farming Level 20, Fishing Level 12, Woodcutting Level 20, Cooking Level 5, Herblaw Level 15, Foraging Level 7, Hunting Level 7, Mining Level 4]

Last year, I had planned to level up my Herblaw skill during winter, but that unfortunate accident with a teleportation stone put paid to my skill training strategy. This spring, I had prioritized Woodcutting because I needed to clear more land and Smithing because I needed contribution points.

Enough was enough!

My apprentices weren’t the only ones who were bored with doing the same thing every day. I also wanted a break, so I decided to work on my favorite skill.

It was time to make more [Strength Potions]!

Two ingredients were needed, [Mountain Flamewort] and [Harpy’s Claw]. I sat down on a comfortable overstuffed armchair and took out one hundred [Mountain Flameworts] from my inventory, putting them in a neat pile on my worktable.

[Mountain Flamewort:

A type of plant that can be found growing on the slopes of mountains. The plant has long, slender leaves that are covered in small red flowers that resemble flames. When the fresh, tender leaves are picked, they can be used as a potion ingredient that temporarily boosts strength. It is also a key ingredient in many fire-based potions.]

In order to cast spells, players, who were canonically magicless non-cultivators in the game, needed [Spell Stones].

[Spell Stone:

A beautiful, hand-crafted spell stone that has been infused with powerful magic specifically for use in spell-casting. Made of natural, clear crystal, it has been polished to a shine. It is thumb-sized and smooth to the touch.]

I took out one hundred [Spell Stones] and cast the [Clean Herb] spell using the System’s menu.

Cleaning the herbs wasn’t strictly required, and many players skipped it when making low-level potions, but I liked casting the spell.

The moment I activated the [Clean Herb] spell, the System guided my hand to hover over the pile of herbs. A leaf levitated itself to just below my hand, and it was enveloped in a green ball of light. The leaf sparkled with gold specks, then the ball of light dimmed until it went out and the leaf fluttered gently down to the table’s surface. A [Spell Stone] flashed with a white light that quickly extinguished itself and the crystal stone crumbled into dust.

I found myself smiling again, and not just because I was getting twenty percent more exp than before. No, the whole process was just very magical. I missed this!

Cleaning all one hundred herbs didn’t take too long since each spell only took a few seconds. When I finished cleaning the [Mountain Flamewort], it was time for the [Harpy’s Claw]. I made a pile of one hundred of them on the table then took out a mortar and pestle from the System toolbelt.

[Harpy’s Claw:

A deep red and black claw taken from a harpy. It has an unmistakable earthy smell and a distinctive texture that is both smooth and slightly oily. Before it can be used, the claw must be ground into a fine powder. The spiritual energy contained in the claw enhances a potion's efficacy.]

Grinding them into powder would normally be quite a tedious process, but I had help from the System. All I had to do was press the pestle down for two seconds or so and the job was finished. I didn’t even need a [Spell Stone].

Just like the [Clean Herb] spell, this part was optional since just using [Create Potion] by itself was enough, but doing this extra step increased mastery and gave the player a better chance of getting a [Perfect Potion].

Once the claw was reduced to a fine powder, it was time to make the potion. Lining up vials of water on the table, I mentally selected the [Create Potion] spell in the System menu. I smiled in delight as a glowing ball of soft pink light appeared between my raised hands. A vial of water and the two ingredients flew up into the light.

“Wow,” I breathed softly. I never got bored of casting this spell.

The water inside the vial glowed white and then the leaf flew into it. The magic dissolved the leaf into the water, turning it a bright green. Then the powder floated up and poured itself into the vial, turning the liquid inside a dark yellow. Approximately three seconds later, the ingredients fully melded together, yielding one [Strength Potion].

I spent the entire day making potions, resting, eating, and playing a game of hide-and-seek with Cutie and Mr. Bear.

The next day, I went to Hongzhen and found out something important about my origins.

Chapter 130 - The highest level mind control skill: Cognitive Modification

Chapter 130 - Chai-sing a tea-rific origin story

🙞❤︎🙜

The last time I went out, I was supposed to go to Hongzhen, but my bodyguard had to attend to some emergency, so I went straight home.

I asked my apprentices if they wanted to go shopping with me, promising them some new silk robes from the clothing store in Hongzhen town, but, weirdly enough, they all refused with blank expressions on their faces.

Perhaps they were still mad that we only got ninth place in the Mid-Autumn Farming Contest? I tried to explain that I was going to spend some money in town to raise my favorability with the locals, but they still weren’t interested.

Thus, I went off alone on the flying carriage which had recently been upgraded to include a small window that I could look out from and a device that functioned like an intercom that I could use to communicate with the driver. As usual, Shuye sent a bodyguard-companion along with the driver.

“Okay, now please turn to the west and the town should be right there,” I said through the intercom. The driver said he was unfamiliar with the town’s location, which wasn’t a problem since I had the System map. I looked down to see paddy fields and scattered farms turning into clusters of houses then to small villages, and, finally, we flew past a small walled town. “Excuse me, you flew past it. Can you turn back and land the carriage please?”

“I don’t see it, Lady Violet,” said the driver.

“You can land a little bit east of here,” I said.

After a bit of wrangling, we managed to successfully bring the vehicle down in reasonably close proximity to the town. Once I alighted from the carriage, however, I was very surprised when my designated companion said she wasn’t going with me.

“I’ll stay here,” she said.

“Okay.” I tried to give her and the driver a packed lunch and a bottle of water, but they refused the items. “I’ll be back after lunch!”

Shrugging at the strangeness of a bodyguard who wanted to stay with the carriage, I walked to the town gates which were wide open. There weren’t even any guards.

Hongzhen was nestled between rolling hills to the north and south, with open farmland east of it and a river to the west. Within the confines of its walls, the wooden houses stood shoulder to shoulder, most of them single-storey. Though they were architecturally alike, with gracefully curved tiled roofs with upswept eaves, each house bore a unique touch of character and individuality such as colorful door carvings, distinctive planters, or colorful lanterns.

The narrow streets winding through the town were paved with well-trodden cobblestones, worn smooth by the countless footsteps of residents and visitors alike. I made my way north to the town square via the main street that was lined with scholar trees.

The last time I had been here, the town square had been full of stalls since it was a festival. Today, it was full of people strolling around or bustling about their business. The only stalls set up were selling tea, with a dozen chairs in front of them where customers sipped tea, played board games, or chatted with each other.

My first stop was the bookstore, a small two-storey building filled with floor-to-ceiling shelves stocked with scrolls and books. The wizened old man in charge of the place seemed pleased to see me and recommended some popular fiction and gossip books. I handed over a third of the cash I had and went my merry way.

My second target for the day was the clothing shop. The proprietor was a young lady with bright orange hair done up in a towering beehive decorated with flower hairpins whose tassels swayed as she moved. Her shop had a lot of ready-to-wear clothes, which I thought was quite surprising since I thought ancient people mostly bought cloth that they made into robes themselves. I bought three of the most expensive sets, which made the owner’s smile widen.

Lastly, I walked over to the temple, which was a triple-gabled pagoda with walls and blue roof tiles. The only person there was a bored teenager in wrinkled and dusty priestess robes. I left a small pouch of silver coins as an offering.

Mission accomplished! This should be enough for the spring season. I’d return during summer for another round of spreading money around.

I was almost at the gate when the Mayor, an apple-cheeked man with a bushy beard, along with the book and clothes shop owners, approached me.

“Ah, Baroness Violet! We’ve been waiting for you,” said the Mayor. “Please come and have tea with us.”

A glowing yellow question mark appeared on top of his head, and a System Message popped up.

[New Quest Available: Discover Your Origins

Have tea with the Mayor

Reward: Farming Exp]

What? My origins? Was it information about how I came to this world from Earth? I mentally clicked on the [Accept Quest].

“Tea? I’d love to,” I said.

The three of them led me back to the town square where we sat down at a small round table. The tea stall waiter took our orders and returned with a fresh pot of jasmine tea and two plates of bite-sized dumplings, buns, and spring rolls. We spent the next few minutes simply drinking tea and eating the dim sum while exchanging polite small talk about the weather and tea. Once the pot of tea was finished, the Mayor cleared his throat and exchanged meaningful glances with the other two.

“Lady Violet, I’m sure you’re wondering what this is about. Let me ask you a question. Have you noticed anything strange about this town?” asked the Mayor.

“No, not really,” I said. “I’m new to the Westerlands in general and as for Hongzhen, well, it seems like a nice place…”

The Mayor smiled. “You came here via flying carriage. Did your driver have any difficulty finding the town?”

“Yes, actually! That was strange, now that I think about it,” I said.

“Our town is protected by an extremely powerful ancient blessing. We call it the Lion God’s protection,” said the Mayor. “People from the outside can’t find this town or any of its inhabitants.”

“Eh? But I found it,” I said. “And also last Mid-Autumn Festival I brought my household here.”

“Which means that you must be one of us!” The Mayor beamed at me.

“Wha… what…” My brain stuttered to a stop.

“You were able to bring people here because your family is from here. Haven’t you noticed that other people don’t seem to know what you’re talking about when you mention Hongzhen?”

That was true, everyone had a blank expression on their faces whenever I said I was going to Hongzhen. “What does that mean? They visited here. Do they not remember that?”

“With a bit of effort, you can bring others with you here, but they will forget what happened a few days later,” said the Mayor, stroking his beard.

“Wait… when I tried to talk to them about the contest, they remembered we lost.”

“Yes, if you remind them of the town, they will recall some memories, but they will immediately forget again after a few minutes.”

Amazing! That was basically a very strong mind spell, right? I was curious about the reason for it. “That’s, um, quite a strong effect. May I ask how Hongzhen got this blessing?”

“Thousands of years ago the local warlords raised taxes so much that the common people were starving. That is when our priestess prayed to the Lion God, and the blessing was the result. Now we don’t have to pay taxes to the local authorities.”

“Whoa!” Did Shuye know about this?

“The town council has decided to invite you to live among us. The blessing extends to the nearby farms and villages. We could give you some land to farm, and you wouldn’t need to pay taxes to the White Tiger clan anymore.”

“Thanks, but I already have a farm,” I said.

The Mayor smiled again. “We understand that you’re an orphan from the island of Ma-i?”

I nodded. That was the player character’s background in Adventure Incarnate, and when I had transmigrated to this world, I had identity papers that said the same thing.

“Twenty years ago, one of the Chen family’s sons ran away from home. We believe you might be his offspring.”

The clothes shop owner shook her head and gave the Mayor a warning look. “That part is pure speculation.”

The Mayor frowned. “The timing is right.”

“She doesn’t look like him at all. I knew him well,” said the bookshop owner.

They continued to bicker for a bit longer, but I had a hard time paying attention because I was distracted by a System message.

[Discover Your Origins: Quest Complete

Reward: Farming Exp]

I only got a very small amount of exp, but I was mentally staggered by the implications of my quest being completed. Did this mean that the Mayor’s speculation was correct and that the Chen family’s son was my parent in this world?

“It’s too bad that his parents are dead, and he had no siblings,” said the Mayor. “They say blood will recognize blood. They might have been able to shed some light on this matter.”

“Did he never return to the town?” I asked.

“He sent word to a house we own in Oak Ridge. It’s the place we use to send and receive letters and packages. He said he had run away to be a sailor and would return in five years, but three years later we got the news that the ship he was on sank.”

“So there’s no actual evidence that I’m his daughter.” It sounded pretty dubious to me.

The three of them exchanged rueful looks.

“Yes, but whether he is your father or not, we accept that you are one of us because you were able to find the town twice and even bring other people with you,” said the Mayor.

“I’m very confused by this,” I said.

“I understand. Lady Violet, you might not want to accept our invitation to live here, but if you ever need a refuge, we will welcome you with open arms,” said the Mayor. “The Lion God’s protection is powerful, and if you stay with us, no one will ever be able to find you.”

We chatted a little more about the town and its unique characteristics. The Mayor ordered another pot of tea and three more plates of dim sum.

I was very amused to find out that, in fact, the people in Hongzhen did pay taxes. The town council needed the money to pay for essential services and infrastructure maintenance, ensuring that the streets were well-paved, the public spaces were well-maintained, and so forth. They just didn’t pay taxes to the White Tiger clan.

“How does trade work when people can’t remember you when you leave?” I asked the clothes shop owner. I knew she probably didn’t make the cloth herself.

“With cash. Everything outside of town has to be paid for right away with cash, or else I can’t get any supplies,” she said.

I laughed. “If you make an order for later, will they forget it?”

She sighed. “Yes.”

“It’s the same for me,” said the bookstore owner. “I can only buy whatever the book merchants in other towns have in stock.”

“That’s fascinating, but I think maybe I have a different kind of blessing,” I said. “People definitely remember me even when I’m out of their sight.”

“We believe that’s because you haven’t lived in town yet. There have been people who left and whose blessing weakened when they were away from town for too long but returned to full strength when they returned to Hongzhen,” said the Mayor.

Did this mean if I stayed in Hongzhen for a long time, everyone outside of town would forget about me? This thought was so alarming that I quickly finished my tea and said my goodbyes. The moment I was out of sight of the town square, I practically ran out of town like a bat out of hell.

Chapter 131 - It's being attacked by pests and needs treatment

Chapter 131 - Turf-rific Ant-venture

🙞❤︎🙜

After that terrifying encounter at Hongzhen, I stayed home for a few days to recover my equilibrium. On the one hand, my purported parentage didn’t impact my day-to-day life, but, on the other hand, it was pretty scary to find out that there was a global mind-control spell that made everyone forget about a whole town and its people. It gave me the shivers whenever I thought about it. It felt as if I had uncovered a secret room in a house everyone thought they knew, like finding a hidden nook that had escaped the notice of all its previous occupants.

Creepy! Maybe I’ll just stay at the farm and forget about the Mid-Autumn Festival Contest.

…Though it should be safe, right? Nothing bad happened last year, and it would be nice to get another trophy and an additional exp bonus.

I put those thoughts in the back of my mind for the meantime and continued taking care of the crops. It was now mid-season, and most of the plants were growing very well, except for the spinach plants.

“Look, the System says it's being attacked by pests and needs treatment!” said Kharli, pointing at the patch of young spinach plants.

At this stage of its growth, the plants were less than a handspan tall and had vibrant green leaves. The stems were also green blended with a pretty pink color at the edges.

“Wait a sec, let me check it.” I knelt and peered at the plant. “I see them.”

There were lots of beetle-looking insects crawling around the stems and undersides of the spinach leaves.

“I think I can catch them!” said Mo.

The three of them got busy catching the beetles and crushing them in their hands, but I knew we needed a more robust solution. I went to the System’s Farming tab and browsed until I found the item I needed.

“Guys, let’s fix this. Take this and sprinkle it on the earth around the plants. Cover your mouth and nose with a cloth, and make sure you don’t breathe it in. This should kill the pests in a few days.” I handed them the metal [Energized Diatomaceous Earth Powder Duster].

[Energized Diatomaceous Earth Powder Duster:

Press the button on the side to release a fine dusting of Energized Diatomaceous Earth. Diatomaceous Earth is a natural powder made from fossilized diatoms. It works on plant pests by dehydrating and disrupting their exoskeletons, leading to their desiccation and death.]

I had no idea what this item was. Diatoms? Diatomaceous? It sounded like gobbledygook to me, but it should work.

“Me! I want to use it, please!” said Kharli.

“Let me try it, too,” said Mo.

“Okay, okay, you guys can take turns. Remember to be careful,” I said.

I took a few steps away from the plants and covered my mouth and nose with a face veil from the Cash Shop while they sprayed the powder. To our disappointment, the beetles didn’t die out at once. The kids wanted to continue manually removing the insects, but I wouldn’t allow it since the patch had been sprayed with the natural pesticide.

“But, Teacher, this powder should be safe,” said Kharli. “It’s from the System, after all.”

“Yes, it’s safe to use on the crops, but that doesn't mean you should get it all over you. Let’s just wait for the pesticide to do its work,” I said. “Everyone, go and inspect the other plants to see if they’re okay.”

“Teacher, should we spray this on all the other plants, too?” asked Mo, gesturing at the [Energized Diatomaceous Earth Powder Duster] Kharli was still holding.

“No, that’s excessive. A lot of bugs don’t do any harm and could even be beneficial. We don’t wanna kill all of them,” I said. “This powder could kill the pollinators we need, you know.”

“Oh.” Mo looked longingly at the powder duster. “I guess so.”

“Hmm? Did you get a lot of exp or something?” I gave her a suspicious look.

Kharli laughed and handed me the device. “Not a lot, but exp is exp.”

I shook my head at their greed for exp. “If you guys want more exp, how about moving to the desert farm with me? I’m thinking of staying there for a few weeks.”

“Yes! Planting trees gives a lot more exp!” said Mo.

“But someone needs to stay here to take care of the plants,” I said. We all knew that the person who stayed at the farm would get all the exp for watering and tending the crops, which was a lot, but still less than what we would get planting trees all day at the desert farm. “Who did I leave behind last time?”

***

Three days later, we waved goodbye to Mo and boarded the flying carriage.

“Now, now, don’t be upset. You’ll all get the same exp.” I hugged her. We were going to spend fifteen days on the southern desert farm, with Lari, Kharli, and Mo taking turns so that they each spent five days at the main farm and ten days in the desert.

“Yes, Teacher,” said Mo.

“Watch out for pests,” said Kharli.

“Don’t eat too much and get a stomachache,” said Lari.

“I’m not you! I wouldn’t do that,” said Mo.

“Teacher, maybe you should bring Mo with you. I can stay behind,” said Kharli. “I’m not sure she’s ready to stay at the farm by herself.”

“I know what to do. I can do it.” Mo pouted. “Shoo!”

“She can do it. I’ve added more protections over the farm while we’re gone.” Meaning, I had turned on more of the privacy settings using the System. “Goodbye. Keep an eye on your energy and don’t exhaust yourself.”

“Goodbye! Stay well!” said Kharli.

“See you in five days,” said Lari.

The three of them hugged and we left. Fengying, Deming, and half of the household staff were going with us using the flying ox carts that I rented whenever I needed them. Cutie was in the System's pet tab, while Mr. Bear had been shrunk and attached to my headband as a cute yet dangerous decoration.

The trip took a few hours because I was a little scared of flying and asked the driver to use a moderate speed. My apprentices had all made some quick trips to the desert farm to check on the [Lizardwings] and replenish their water and food every seven days. They reported that at the top speed, they could go there and back in under three hours, but it was a wild, thrilling ride that made the carriage shake like it was going to fall to pieces at any second. Since I wasn’t in a rush, I decided on a more sedate pace and smoother ride.

We were on our way to the “desert” which was a total misnomer because it wasn’t a sandy desert but rather a semi-arid grassland.

According to the Adventure Incarnate lore, a cataclysmic disaster in the form of a giant meteor fell in the capital city of the Vermillion Bird clan, wiping out all its inhabitants. That was also the origin of the so-called “demons” who were actually alien lifeforms that now infested the Southerlands.

The Westerlands were also affected, and the southern part of their territory became a cursed land where almost nothing could grow. The grass only grew as long as it was literally watered by the blood of the clan members who hoped to reclaim their former home.

Last year, I started on the epic quest [Greening the Desert], which somehow has broken the curse. Plants can grow there now, and various families whose ancestors used to live in that area have begun their own desert reclamation projects.

“Teacher, look down!” said Lari, gesturing for me to move closer to the window.

“What is it?” I wasn’t exactly afraid of heights, but the thin glass that covered the windows on either side of the carriage seemed rather fragile, so I sat in the middle of the seat, as far away from the windows as I could.

Kharli looked out at what Lari was pointing at and gasped. “That’s amazing!”

“Hmm? Okay, please move aside and let me look.” I peered down at the scenery below. “What the heck! When did that happen?”

Below us, instead of the cracked dry land covered in brittle brown grass that I was expecting to see, was an undulating sea of grass varying in shades from deep green to pale olive that moved with the wind. Clusters of wildflowers interrupted the endless green carpet.

Lari and Kharli exchanged looks.

“Didn’t someone tell you, Teacher? They did it with blood. Lots and lots of blood,” said Kharli.

Chapter 132 - A perfectly ordinary farm in the middle of the desert

Chapter 132 - Beak-utiful desert animals

🙞❤︎🙜

I put a hand on my stomach, feeling queasy at the thought.

“I’m glad we don’t have to water our plants with blood,” said Lari.

Kharli snorted dismissively. “Clan members are way stronger than humans. Donating blood doesn’t hurt them at all, I’m sure.”

Actually, according to modern science back on Earth, donating blood has health benefits for humans, such as reducing the risk of heart attacks. I knew that because my dad regularly donated blood to the Red Cross. This thought steadied my stomach and I sat back on my seat with a sigh.

“They must be really desperate or something,” I said, knowing that blood and qi were closely linked to each other in this world. “Is something going on?”

“We should ask the clan members when we land. I know all their names,” said Lari.

My apprentices were quite familiar with the people looking after the farm since they took turns traveling to the desert every seven days to plant trees and replenish the animals’ water and feed.

As we continued flying south, the sea of green gradually faded in color until it became the sparse, unhealthy-looking grass that we were familiar with from last year.

“They have been trying to reclaim the desert starting from the parts nearest the forest,” said Lari.

I nodded. “Yes, that makes perfect sense.”

“Shouldn’t we be doing the same, Teacher?” asked Lari.

“No, we already started our desert farm, so I’ll see it to the end,” I said.

Lari was right. If the desert farm was nearer, we could visit it more often. However, I liked having a more isolated place to farm where I wouldn’t have to worry about neighbors or borders.

“I like our farm,” said Kharli.

“Me, too. Wake me when we’re near.” I detached Mr. Bear from my headband and made him big enough to sleep on. Placing him beside me on the carriage bench, I straightened the pink bow around his neck and said, “Let’s sleep, Mr. Bear.”

I put my feet up on the other side of the bench. Laying my head on Mr. Bear’s lap, I closed my eyes and rested, trying to ignore the way the carriage rattled whenever its magical stabilizer was overwhelmed by an unexpectedly strong gust of wind. Sleep was impossible, but I was able to relax a bit.

Some time later, Kharli said, “Teacher, look! We’re almost at the farm.”

Yawning, I got up and looked down at the scenery. In the middle of the sea of brown was a tiny green oasis where a hill covered in green grass and trees rose above the surrounding land that had a few small but vibrantly alive patches of verdant flora.

Soon the carriage began its descent, and I felt my stomach lurch. I leaned back and hugged Mr. Bear for comfort until we touched ground. One would expect something as non-aerodynamic as a flying carriage to land with a thump and maybe bounce a bit, but no such thing happened. The vehicle’s various enchantments made it land as gently as a butterfly on a flower.

The carriage was faster than the ox carts, so we arrived first at Blossom Valley which was at the foot of Skyfang Hill. I opened the carriage door and we alighted. It felt like entering an oven because of the heat. I put a hand on my forehead to shade my eyes and looked up at the cloudless blue sky.

Lari unbuttoned his collar. “It’s so hot!”

Kharli and I couldn’t say anything in reply because we both started coughing. The air was epically dry and dusty, which was a shock after the cool, wet air of the Ancient Hill Forest area. It took us a while to adjust.

When I finally stopped coughing, I leaned against Kharli’s shoulder and said, “Look at that.”

I pointed at the horizon. The land in front of us seemed to go on forever until the earth met the sky.

“What is it?” asked Kharli.

“This is why I don’t want to farm near the forest. I like this view! No, I love it! It’s like I can feel my soul expanding when I’m here,” I said.

Kharli nodded solemnly. “I feel it, too.”

I turned to look at Lari. “What do you think?”

“Teacher, I think we should prepare the house for the others,” he said.

“There’s no romance in your soul!” said Kharli.

“Okay, I’ll build the house.” I navigated to the System’s [Build] tab and chose the [Three Courtyard House] option. An enormous magic circle appeared on the ground in front of us and flashed with a bright white light three times before it was replaced by the house.

The driver, a white-bearded man who was a member of the White Tiger clan, looked stunned, his eyes widening and jaw slightly dropping in surprise.

“It’s so big!” said Kharli.

“Wait, I’m not finished yet,” I said as they moved to enter the house. “Watch closely as I show you a spectacular sight!”

This time, I selected the [Custom Garden] that I had designed using Cash Shop items. The base item I used was the [Elegant Chinese Garden], but I had extensively modified it with lots of water-and-flower-themed items.

A magic circle three times the size of the first one appeared around the [Three Courtyard House]. The building and magic circle both flashed white then disappeared and were replaced by a new, much bigger structure.

The original house was now divided into three separate courtyard houses within a walled compound that was my customized garden.

[Elegant Chinese Garden

The character for garden contains four symbols that must all be present to capture the essence of a classic Chinese garden: the majesty of mountains or the ruggedness of rocks, the tranquility of water, the beauty of buildings, and the life of plants.]

The outer courtyard house was placed at the southeast corner of the garden. It was the largest of the three houses since it was meant to house the staff. The reception room, elegantly furnished with carved lacquer tables and chairs made of fragrant rosewood, was elegant and grand enough to please Fengying. Since this part of the compound was where visitors and messengers would enter, I used the [Stardust Silverwood Door] as the main gate.

[Stardust Silverwood Door

A door made of white wood that shines softly as though it's covered in stardust.]

In the middle of the garden was the second courtyard house where my apprentices would stay. Apart from the main hall, which eclipses the reception room in both scale and opulence, the middle house was much less decorative and more functional in design since this was where we had our workrooms. No frilly curtains, plush carpets, or cute bric-a-brac could be found there. Instead, it had plenty of sturdy hardwood worktables, benches, chests, and shelves for our equipment and crafted items.

The third courtyard house was in the northwest corner, and that was where I would live. I’d designed it to be charming and inviting, with smaller, cozier rooms and furniture that was chosen for comfort, such as stuffed armchairs and cushy sofas.

Smiling, I turned to my apprentices and said, “What do you think?”

Lari and Kharli both screamed wordlessly in approval and ran to the main gate, only to be stopped short by my words.

“Wait. We need to check on the [Lizardwings] first,” I said.

“I forgot about them,” said Kharli.

“May I place the eggs, Teacher?” asked Lari.

“Sure, you can both place half,” I said. “Let's go.”

The [Lizardwings] were a type of desert animal that we were raising here because their manure was incredibly helpful in increasing soil fertility. Alas, their manure was also incredibly stinky.

I looked up at the sky to check if the ox carts were close, but there was no sign of them yet. We made our way to the southern part of the valley to a walled enclosure. We were still a mile away when the stench hit us hard, and I gagged even though we had all covered our noses and mouths with wet cloths and even pinched our nostrils shut with wooden clothespins.

“Remember, when we get there, we put the [Lizardwings] in the cages, and walk out of there as fast as we can. And no talking!” I said. “I don’t wanna inhale any more of this stinky air than is strictly necessary.”

“Teacher, why don't you and Kharli stay here while I get the animals?” said Lari.

“How gallant! Thank you, but no. It wouldn’t be fair to make you do all the undesirable jobs,” I said.

We entered the [Lizardwing] habitat, and I was pleased to note that the spirit animals had done their work. Or, rather, their manure had. The ground in this place was wetter and the grass was green.

The [Lizardwings] looked like small dinosaurs with bright orange scales and feathered but useless wings. Their vaguely chicken-like heads were small and rounded, with brown beaks and beady little black eyes.

Thankfully, we didn’t need to touch the animals. We only had to walk near them in order to store them in our inventories. Once they were safely stored in the System, we only had to click [Use] on some bamboo cages and the animals to place them inside the cages, ready for selling to the clans.

I removed the walls of the enclosure and the [Lizardwing’s] pen. Then we half-ran and half-walked away to the south until we could no longer smell the manure. I removed the veil and clothespin from my face. “Aw heck! That was worse than I remember.”

“I think I’m getting used to it,” said Lari.

“Teacher, is it really worth it?” asked Kharli.

“Look at that.” I pointed at the patch of green grass where the enclosure used to be. “Look how green it is compared to the rest of the land around it. And the [Lizardwings] were only there for two weeks. The stench will fade away soon enough, but the effects on the soil will remain.”

“If they’re so good, why don’t we use them on the other farm?” asked Lari.

Kharli gave him a look of sheer horror. “Is your nose okay? You must be crazy!”

“We can use them here since the land I was given is huge. The farm is much smaller, so the stink would be inescapable,” I said.

Lari looked unconvinced.

“Fengying and Deming would probably quit,” I said.

“We can’t do that then!” said Lari. He loved Deming’s cooking as much as I did, or maybe even more.

Our conversation was interrupted by the appearance of two clan members who came running up to us from the house.

“Lady Violet, welcome back!” said the taller of the two. He was a handsome man with long gray hair and hazel eyes. I could tell from the way he spoke first that he was the senior clan member.

He and the other clan member, who was a young man with brown hair and eyes, bowed to us. We all exchanged polite greetings and bows, which took quite some time since there were six of us and everyone had to have their say.

When we were done with the courtesies, I said, “We have the [Lizardwings]. Should we give them to you now?”

“Yes, my lady. The clans are all excited about reclaiming these lands, and they will pay good money for the animals,” said the senior clan member.

“So what’s been happening while I was away?” I asked.

“The Lady of the Westerlands has been busy giving permits to all the newcomers who want to settle new lands in the desert. The families who have been taking care of this region have first claim, of course,” he said.

“Of course,” I echoed his words and smiled. Most clans had left this place when it was cursed, but a few, such as Prince Baiyu’s paternal family, continuously tried to revitalize the land since it was where their ancestors had lived. Now that the curse was no more, they were due for a reward.

“This is a great opportunity for everyone who has the manpower and money to expand,” he said.

“Wonderful,” I said.

We handed over the bamboo cages with the [Lizardwings] inside, and the clan members left to make arrangements for the sale of the animals. Then we walked a bit farther until we reached a good spot for the new animal pen.

“This is far enough from the house, and the wind is blowing in the opposite direction,” I said.

Using the System’s [Build] function, I raised ten-foot high stone walls to enclose an area that was 100 feet across. The [Small Pen] from the [Animal Husbandry] tab went in the middle, and we filled the pen’s automatic feeder with animal feed, and the automatic bell drinker with water.

“May I choose the eggs, please?” asked Lari.

“Sure, you guys can pick the ones you want. Three each.” I took out a basket of [Lizardwing Eggs].

“I want the pretty ones!” Kharli put three pastel-colored and speckled eggs inside the pen.

“These look strong.” Lari did the same to three brown and black eggs.

“As for me, I want to try these out!” I showed my apprentices the four eggs I had picked beforehand. “Go on, examine them.”

[Perfectly Ordinary Prairie Chickens Eggs:

The Prairie Chickens that will hatch from these eggs will be perfectly ordinary and unremarkable.]

Chapter 132.5

🙞❤︎🙜

An excerpt from the journal of Shuye Skullcrusher, Guardian of the Ancient Hill Forest:

It’s finally happened. My child, my precious daughter, was born yesterday.

The clan gave me three whole days to celebrate in peace before sending word that there was a troubling new situation.

The Emberstone Farm seems to have disappeared.

No one, not even those who had been there many times, such as my messengers, could find it. Of course, we already knew that it was impossible for people to find it unless someone who already knew where it was showed it to them. Now, however, even those who had previously been allowed to visit it, could no longer do so.

Including me.

I hated to leave my newborn child and wife even for a moment, but my people were quietly panicking, so I had to check the situation with my own eyes. No matter how much I tried, I simply couldn’t find the farm anymore.

Logically, the zidan in that area should be chaotic since the clan had lost some land, but none of us felt any change at all. I ordered a dozen people to patrol the area where we thought the farm should be, and three days later, Haoran, one of the farm’s staff, was spotted foraging for mushrooms. Three of my people watched over him and called for a clan messenger who Yinuo knew. The messenger asked Haoran to accompany him to Emberstone Farm, and he was able to follow the human into the farm where he gave Fengying the letter I sent asking Baroness Violet to allow me and five of my hand-picked subordinates access to the farm.

Mo, the apprentice farmer, informed the messenger that Baroness Violet had “increased the security” of the farm since most of the others were away.

Thankfully, my wife wasn’t mad that I was working during her lying-in period. She found the whole thing hilarious and teased me about losing a part of my territory to a little human girl.

Our family, friends, and neighbors, who dropped by to bring food and gifts, help with the chores, and meet the new member of our family, often joined in the teasing. I was told I was getting soft and losing my grip on my right to rule the Ancient Hill Forest.

What they didn’t know, or pretended not to know, was that this type of stealth shield was something that the Azure Dragon clans customarily used to fend off an enemy attack.

Was there something dangerous nearby? I doubled the patrols just in case.

Chapter 133 - [Perfectly Ordinary Prairie Chickens]

Chapter 133 - Don't worry the chickens will be real tweet-hearts

🙞❤︎🙜

Kharli bent down to look at the items more closely. “What’s strange about these eggs?”

With a perfectly straight face, I said, “Nothing. These are perfectly ordinary eggs.”

“They are definitely going to hatch some extremely unusual chickens,” said Lari.

I laughed. “You’ll find out in a few days.”

“Teacher, you said the [Lizardwings] are the best animals for the desert, so why are you hatching these incredibly abnormal eggs?” asked Kharli.

“These are very normal eggs.” I pointed to the southeast and started walking to the spot I had chosen which was upwind of the [Lizardwings] habitat. “Well, you see, I’ve also been thinking that maybe the [Lizardwings’] smell is too much. The System info says they are the best, but we might as well test it out. The prairie chickens are the second-best animals for [Greening the Desert].”

“Yes! No more stinky animals!” Kharli pumped a fist in the air triumphantly.

“Don’t celebrate too soon. We’ll only use the prairie chickens if they do well enough,” I said.

“Teacher, what do you mean by ‘well enough’?” asked Lari.

“Sometimes the difference between the best and second-best isn’t a lot. I’ll place these eggs in another pen, and we’ll check the condition of the land after two weeks. If they’re similar, then we can replace the [Lizardwings] with the chickens,” I said.

“If the new, super strange chickens don’t do well, what will you do with them?” asked Lari.

“Just sell them as usual. Why do you ask?”

Lari smirked. “I don’t think people will like unbelievably unusual chickens…”

I smirked back at him. They knew me well. “I told you, they’re perfectly ordinary!”

When we reached the right spot, I built the walled enclosure and put the eggs in a pen with plenty of stored animal feed and water.

“Okay, you guys still have almost all your energy, right?” I waited until they both nodded before continuing. “Last year we planted fertilizer trees. They are the best for enriching the soil. However, now that I unlocked the [Mysterious Goo], we have another option: fast-growing desert trees.”

“Do they also enrich the soil?” asked Kharli.

I nodded. “Yes, all trees pretty much do, but they aren’t as good as the fertilizer trees.”

“But they’re fast,” said Lari.

“Yes. These will grow to maturity in only one year, compared to two years for the fertilizer trees, The thing is, these need the nutrients and energy from the [Mysterious Goo].” I showed them the tree seeds. “These trees grow fast, have many leaves, and even regrow fast.”

[Desert Ralga:

A tree known for its hardy resilience in arid environments. With distinctive blue-green foliage, the tree typically stands at a moderate height, featuring a spreading crown that provides ample shade in the harsh desert landscape.]

The others were mostly the same, except for the [Plains Grazia].

[Plains Grazia:

A tree with deep roots and lush green leaves that serve as a reliable source of fodder. Despite the arid conditions, the tree thrives, and its leaves emit a subtle, sweet fragrance carried by the winds.]

“We’ll also plant some plants for fodder.” I showed them the [Dryland Pigeon Pea], [Desert Comfrey], [Sweet Potato Vines], [Birdsfoot Trefoil], and [Nomad Sage]. Though they were all different, they all had three things in common: they were drought resistant, could be used for feeding animals, and grew fast.

Kharli took a seed and examined it closely. “This one seems similar to our fertilizer trees.”

[Dryland Pigeon Pea:

A hardy, perennial legume known for its resilience and fast growth. With slender green stems and pinnate leaves, this drought-tolerant plant produces clusters of pale yellow flowers that give way to elongated pods containing edible protein-rich seeds that can be eaten by both humans and animals. Its deep roots enrich the soil by capturing and converting essential nutrients from the air, boosting the overall fertility of the soil.]

“Exactly.” We arrived at our destination, and I took out my hoe from the System toolbelt. “Let’s get to planting then!”

I let the kids pick their own spots, and we worked mostly in silence. We plowed the ground, spread [Mysterious Goo] on it, watered it, and then used the [Dendrological Cultivation Chambers] to plant the seeds.

The [Dendrological Cultivation Chamber], despite its fancy name, was simply a cardboard box filled with water with a wick at the bottom. It was designed so that water would slowly transfer to the soil via the wick. Of course, the box had a hole in the middle where the seed was planted in the soil. It also had small holes on the concave lid which allowed rainwater to replenish the water inside the box.

I was tired and sweating a lot by the time we finished. “Ah, it’s so hot. I think I’m going to overheat. Let’s rest in the shade for a bit.”

Wiping the sweat from my forehead with a handkerchief, I browsed the Cash Shop for a large lounge tent and took out the chairs that I had earmarked previously as something I wanted to try.

[Thermoclinique Recliner:

A reclining chair that is the epitome of sophisticated comfort. Its plush upholstery is made of temperature-regulating foam and the recliner functionality allows users to easily adjust the chair to their preferred position, whether it's a gentle recline for reading or a fully extended position for napping.]

We went inside and I added a small table and filled it with [Kola-Kola Soda] bottles, a pitcher of water, an ice bucket, glasses, and a plate of fried plantains Fengying had given me beforehand as a snack. Lastly, I placed a large cooling fan that sprayed a fine mist of water along with the air.

Kharli stood directly in front of the fan and moaned in pleasure while Lari and I sat down and started eating and drinking the stuff on the table.

“Resting in comfort after a hard day’s work is the best.” I leaned back on the chair and reclined, putting my feet up for added comfort.

After luxuriating in the cool mist for some time, Kharli joined us at the table. To my surprise, she pulled out a plate of roast pork buns. “I asked Madam Fengying to make a snack for us.”

“Nooooo, I don’t want to fill my stomach up too much. Lunch should be good. I saw the kitchen prepping roast duck yesterday. I love that crispy skin!” The dish was similar to Peking duck on Earth, which was roasted duck with a caramelized crunchy exterior. Slices of the skin and meat were served on thin pancakes with a heavenly sauce and sliced scallions.

“Am I the only one who likes the more meaty roast duck? Crispy skin is nice, but I want more of the meat,” said Lari.

He and Kharli got to discussing their favorite duck dishes while I listened in amused silence. I really had turned my apprentices into foodies!

“Oh, wait, I almost forgot Cutie,” I said, interrupting their spirited debate on the merits of braised vs roast duck. “I think I’ll take her out now, but we need to keep an eye on her because I’m not sure if she’ll be okay in this heat.”

My slime pet’s natural habitat was an underground cavern where the temperature was always the same. They did have hot water baths though, so she could probably tolerate the heat, but that was wet heat. How would she fare in the hot, dry air here?

The moment I took her out of the System storage, Cutie started bouncing around with a boing-boing sound like a demented rabbit high on caffeine. Perhaps the prolonged stay inside the System made her bored? Using the slime strand on top of her head, she lifted a side of the tent and then let out the loudest “Chu!” sound I had ever heard from her.

“Wait! Come back!” I yelled as she bounced outside.

“Chu! Chu! Chu!” came the sound of my pet. She was bouncing away really fast.

“Teacher, I’ll go after her.” Lari ran towards the “Chu” sounds.

“Be careful!” I hastily put away the tent and the items inside and then followed behind them with Kharli. It didn’t take long since my pet ran out of steam pretty quickly. “Oh, you little troublemaker!”

I picked Cutie up to hug her but immediately put her down again because she was really hot!

“Teacher, I think your demon is smaller,” said Lari.

“What?” I examined Cutie anxiously.

“She shrank!” said Kharli.

“Oh dear, oh dear…” She did look smaller. Was it dehydration? I got a bucket of water from my inventory and poured it over her. Then I put the tent back over us and placed a few more buckets of water for my pet along with some potted flowers.

Cutie immersed herself in a bucket, and when she emerged, she was her normal size and temperature.

Wait… was she larger?

“Now she grew.” Lari looked amused at my fussing.

“She must be adapting herself to the environment,” I said. “Her body is mostly water, I think.”

We waited a few minutes to see if Cutie needed more water, and when she just bounced around the tent, I decided it was fine.

“The ox carts must be close. Let’s go back to the house.” I put the things back once again and we set off for the house in good spirits with Cutie bouncing along beside us.

Suddenly, my pet sprouted a new appendage.

“What is that?” Kharli stopped dead in her tracks and pointed at Cutie.

“The demon is evolving!” Lari took several steps back, away from my pet.

Chapter 134 - Continuation of the Epic Quest [Greening the Desert]

Chapter 134 - A dessert quest is no snackrifice

🙞❤︎🙜

“Oh, my little Cutie is so clever!” I cooed at her.

A large umbrella-like slime appendage had sprouted on top of her head beside her slime strand. “Chu!”

We walked back to the house in companionable silence, with my two apprentices trailing behind me and my pet. When we got there, I placed as many [Nirvana Lotus Ponds] around the perimeter of the walls as I could in hopes that the water from the ponds would seep down to replenish the groundwater. Evaporation from the ponds also cooled the air around the house by a few degrees. A few picturesque crescent-shaped bridges and stepping stones placed strategically among the ponds made them look more charming and romantic.

I kinda wished I had a camera and could post a picture of me on Instagram. If my mother and father were still alive, we would make a pretty picture posing on a bridge over a lotus pond.

Sighing at the thought, I led everyone to Skyfang Hill to check on the trees.

"The grass here is so green. Teacher, I think this might be a tree seedling that we didn’t plant." Lari pointed at a delicate, slender shoot emerging from the soil at his feet.

“Whoa! I think you’re right. It’s a good sign that the native plant life is taking root here.” Looking around, I saw plenty of new growth such as native prairie grasses, bushes, and wildflowers. “The contour swales have done their work!”

“Who knew that digging trenches would work this well?” Kharli bent down to pluck a white flower and twirled it around her fingers.

The System was the one who suggested using contour swales, strategically designed earth channels that follow the natural contours of the landscape, for the hill. The shallow trenches captured and directed rainwater, which greatly helped with absorbing and retaining precious water in the soil. The same principle of slowing water runoff and reducing soil erosion, as I understood it, was used for terraced crops like rice, tea, grapes, etc. in hilly areas around the world.

“I bet we won’t need to add water to the [Dendrological Cultivation Chambers]. The clan members told me that rainfall this year has been double last year’s,” said Lari.

“Yes, but double a tiny amount is still a tiny amount,” I said.

The hill was low but wide. It only took an hour to walk to the top, but we had to go around it, checking every tree to see if they were alright. We were currently working on number ten of the epic quest [Greening the Desert].

[Epic Quest: Greening the Desert

Turn the cursed desert into fertile land.

1. Improve watershed by using water harvesting methods by digging contour swales. - done

2. Improve watershed by using water harvesting methods by digging a lake reservoir.

3. Plant the berms with one hundred fruit trees and one hundred berry bushes.

4. When the lake is full, plant a riparian buffer of one hundred trees.

5. Plant one hundred fertilizer trees. Use a cultivation box. - done

6. Graze spirit animals. Sow wild grass and flowers on the grazed land.

7. Plant one hundred fruit trees. Use a cultivation box.

8. Plant one hundred nut trees. Use a cultivation box.

9. Plant one hundred trees. Use a cultivation box.

10. Create windbreaks to protect the crops.

11. Plant one hundred perennial crops.

12. Create a food forest made of a diverse array of one hundred fruit trees, one hundred shrubs, one hundred vines, one hundred grasses or herbs, and one hundred root crops.

Progress: 2/12]

Just a few months ago, I used the [Empyrean Earth Transformer] to dig the swales and we planted fertilizer trees. I’m not sure how or when the “curse” on the land was lifted. It seemed to have happened automatically. Perhaps it was silently triggered when the one-hundredth tree was planted? I was in the demon lands at the time due to a teleportation accident, so I wasn’t there when it happened.

“The trees look great, and Lari’s right. The water boxes are all full,” I said.

“It must have rained recently. The soil is still a little damp,” said Kharli.

“Teacher, this tree looks amazing!” Kharli was standing in front of a sapling that was higher than her waist. Its heart-shaped leaves were an iridescent green.

[Elderwood Tree:

An enigmatic tree with roots entwined in arcane mysteries whose leaves whisper wisdom to the wise.]

“I prefer the [Dragon's Eye Tree],” said Lari. He walked a bit higher and pointed at a tiny sapling that was only knee height with fire-red leaves and black and red branches like molten lava.

[Dragon’s Eye Tree:

A tree named after the eye-like burls that sometimes form on the trunk or branches. Though ominous in appearance, with red and black leaves, trunk, and branches, the Dragon’s Eye Tree is said to bring good luck to the area it is growing in by absorbing and purifying harmful energy.]

“They’re all like that. I think when the trees are grown this will be a very magical place,” said Kharli.

“Yes…. imagine walking under the shade of these trees in two years…” I looked up dreamily at the top of the hill, thinking of the paradisiacal forest farm I used to have in Adventure Incarnate. “It’ll be great!”

We continued inspecting all the trees until I was satisfied that there were no sickly ones.

“I think one hundred of these aren’t enough. Let’s plant more after we finish planting one hundred fast-growing desert trees.” I got ahold of Cutie and put her in a bucket of water. She was looking smaller again. “The lower slopes will be planted with fruit trees in the future, but I think the upper part of the hill needs more trees to make it more stable.”

“We should plant a peach forest! There are so many legendary tales set in peach forests.” Kharli was so excited that she moved closer to me without considering that Cutie was right beside me. She jumped a foot in the air and screamed when my pet bounced near her, almost touching her side.

I shook my head at her and said, “Relax, she’s very tame. A peach forest sounds nice. We can plant a cluster of peach trees on the side of the hill facing the house.”

A sound came from the north and we all turned to see that the ox carts were finally in sight.

“I hope lunch will be served soon. I’m hungry,” said Lari.

We made our way back down the house. Since I was getting tired of walking, I made Mr. Bear grow to human height and leaned on him for support. The staff were inside the outer courtyard house getting settled in by the time we got there. I let them be and told my apprentices to come with me to the northwest corner of the garden where my house was located. I made Mr. Bear shrink down to palm size and attached him to my belt.

We exited the outer courtyard and into the [Elegant Chinese Garden] which was like something straight out of a fairytale, with lush, meticulously landscaped greenery, meandering pathways, intricately designed moon doors, and a small lake spanned by a zig-zag bridge. We didn’t stop to admire the view, however, until we reached the spot I wanted to show them.

“Behold! I call it the Walkway of One Hundred Fountains.” I gestured at the walkway that was shaded by mature acacia trees from the Cash Shop. “Isn’t it magnificent!”

The three-tiered north wall featured more than one hundred spouts that were fed by three canals. The topmost canal had fountains that sprayed water in a fan shape while the lower ones were simple spouts or waterfall curtain fountains. The water from the fountains of the first canal spilled down into the second and then the third. Colorful bougainvillea and jasmine vines cascaded down the terraces. The whole thing was inspired by the fountains of Villa d'Este back on Earth.

“Wow, the water is cooling the air here a lot, isn’t it?” Kharli dipped her hand on the lowest water trough. “The water is so clear and clean, too.”

“Chu.” Cutie bounced up and balanced herself precariously on the rim of the trough. She cautiously dipped her slime strand in the water to test it first before jumping into it and bouncing around, splashing water everywhere.

“Teacher, may I climb up there?” Lari was peering up at the fountains at the top.

“Why? There’s nothing up there but water.” I shrugged. “But, okay, go ahead.”

He and Kharli climbed up and stood at the top of the wall, waving down at me. I waved back and they descended.

“I just wanted to see the view from up there. Everything looks amazing when you’re looking at it from a high place,” said Lari.

“I bet it's nice! I’m too tired to climb it though. Come, I’ll show you one last thing.” I led them to the end of the walkway where there was a long, seemingly unbroken, expanse of shoulder-high hedges.

Lari and Kharli clapped in admiration when I pressed on a certain spot in the wall and part of the hedge fell to the ground, revealing that it was only a very realistic painting.

I went inside and waved them in. The painting automatically sprang back into place a few seconds later. “Our secret spot!”

It was a small, cozy space meant for picnicking or meditating, with a soft carpet of grass underfoot, and a canopy of acacia trees overhead. It was empty except for the [Dragon Pearl Spring], a small fountain with a marble statue of a dragon with a flaming pearl in its claws.

“This is for…?” Kharli spun around, looking for something to do.

“A quiet spot where we can relax,” I said.

“Thank you for showing us this place, Teacher,” said Lari.

Cutie bounced around, poking her slime strand at everything. Lari and Kharli circled the place.

“Well, we can relax here later. Let’s get settled into our rooms for now,” I said.

They nodded.

I went to the third courtyard house while they went to the middle one. Equipping Mr. Bear with a cute pink paper parasol, I set him in [Guard Mode] at the gate of my house. Then I took a nap in my bedroom until Mr. Bear alerted me via a System notification that Yinuo, my maid, was knocking at the gate.

“It’s duck for lunch, right?” I was so hungry that I was tempted to run to the outer courtyard.

Yinuo nodded, and I tried to hurry her along by walking as fast as I could. When I arrived at the courtyard, I found that I was the last one there, and lunch was served immediately after I sat down.

Deming had outdone himself with a duck-themed meal. The whole roast duck was served in eight different ways. The sliced crispy skin was paired with thin wheat pancakes, a sweet, tangy sauce, and finely sliced green onions. Lari loved the duck meat that was glazed with plum sauce and served in warm, pillowy steamed buns. There was also duck soup, duck bone broth, and duck fried rice. The dish I liked the best was duck meat shredded and stir-fried with mushrooms, bamboo shoots, and water chestnuts. It was absolutely mouth-watering! I couldn’t get enough of the duck spring rolls, too.

“I don’t mind working hard all day if this is my reward,” said Lari.

Kharli and I murmured our agreement. We were too busy stuffing our faces to talk much.

Afterward, I think I fell into a food coma because I didn’t remember what happened the rest of the day. The next thing I knew, it was dinner time.

I thought that lunch was something special, but dinner showed me that there was an even higher level of gastronomic delight that I had yet to experience. The Demon Chef really pulled out all the stops. There were heavenly braised meats, exquisite soups made with rare herbs and bird’s nest, delicate dumplings filled with a medley of meat and vegetables, crispy fried fish, sea cucumber with shrimp roe, abalone with lettuce, and large platters of exquisitely crafted pastries and fresh fruit slices.

The high I got from eating such great food came crashing down with shocking abruptness by a horrifying announcement the next day when Fengying told me that Deming was leaving.

Chapter 135 - The Perfectly Ordinary Prairie Chickens Hatched!

Chapter 135 - Eggs-pecting an egg-cellent plot twist, but it's perfectly ordinary

🙞❤︎🙜

My mind was going, “Nooooo! I’ll die!” while Fengying explained that when cooking yesterday’s meals, Deming had experienced a minor insight and needed to go into isolation training to integrate his new knowledge into his cultivation path. This involved going to his secret hideout and meditating there for a few days.

Seeing my worried expression, Fengying reassured me with a few well-chosen words. “Deming will be back soon, and his cooking will be better than ever.”

“Alright, I understand. Thanks for letting me know.”

Fengying’s news explained why the food at lunch and dinner had been so amazing.

The kitchen would be fine since Deming’s three assistants were there to take care of our meals, but, obviously, the food wasn’t as good as it was when Deming was there.

I was not going to freak out over this!

At least, not publicly. Inwardly, I was a mess, but I had to keep my composure for the sake of my household.

“Well, we won’t starve,” I said to my apprentices when we set out after breakfast. The meal was great, perhaps on par with the best food I’d had on Earth, though it wasn’t up to the Demon Chef’s level.

The two clan members from yesterday showed us around. Today the cloudless sky was an unbroken expanse of blue, and the sunlight was particularly bright and glaring. We humans sweated buckets even under the shade of our parasols though the clan members seemed unaffected.

“Here’s a new tree sapling. It just showed up here one day. This little bush here will have tiny white flowers in summer. It’s called ‘Tiger’s Breath.’ Have you noticed that the spirit grass you planted is spreading? This is almost twice the size it was last year.” The older clan member kept up a running commentary as he led us to some points of interest.

“How are the clans’ reforestation efforts coming along?” I asked.

Both of the clan members smiled. “Almost every single family has pledged to plant trees. Everyone’s very enthusiastic about it, especially the families whose ancestors used to live here. We get first pick of the land, provided we plant trees in it.”

“Awesome!” I listened closely as he mentioned the names of the prominent families who were taking the lead. Apparently, there was one large-scale project that the Lady of the West was overseeing, which was meant to benefit the clans as a whole, and tons of smaller projects where specific families were claiming a territory and working to improve it.

Eventually, the conversation got around to the Spring Hunt in the demon-infested Southerlands.

“They say the demons are very lively this season,” said the senior clan member.

“I feel bad when we have to slaughter the babies, but we have to thin their numbers, you know,” said the younger one. “If we don’t, they’ll swarm the Westerlands.”

“Hey, don’t tell her that!” said the older one. “Lady Violet, would you like to know what Prince Baiyu is doing?”

I laughed. “He’s hunting? What else would he be doing?”

My apprentices elbowed each other and moved closer to listen to our conversation. How come all my apprentices were huge gossips?

The younger clan member raised a hand to cover his mouth to hide his smile, and the older one said, “He could be running away from all the cats that have been showing up in the hunting camps.”

My eyes met his and we both burst out laughing.

“Oh no!” I said, wiping away tears of laughter.

“People started coming up to him with white kittens and asking him if he lost his babies when the hunt started. Everyone thought they were being so clever with that joke, but everyone had the same idea, so it’s played out by now,” he said.

It seemed that jokes and pranking were time-honored traditions of the Spring Hunt, and people were eager to be crowned the king joker of the season. As my apprentices and I planted as many trees as we could, the two clan members regaled us with tales of elaborate pranks that had become legendary in the history of the Spring Hunt, such as the time when the Weasel clan created a massive shadow puppet show that scared their younger members witless and convinced them that their camp was infested with fictional Shadow Imps.

We laughed and shook our heads over the crazy shenanigans that bored youths concocted when they were away from their families.

While we were planting, Lari suggested we try something he had heard of from some story. “Teacher, why don’t we bury a fish under the tree seeds we plant?”

Kharli nodded her agreement. “I know about that! They bury fish under fruit trees before planting them to make the fruit tastier, right?”

“Sure, why not? We have plenty of fish. Let’s try it with half of the trees we plant today to see if it works.” I took out a knife and [Steelhead Trout] and was going to cut it into pieces when the two clan members made twin exclamations of surprise.

Kharli giggled.

“What is it?” I asked.

“Lady Violet, isn’t that fish too valuable to use as fertilizer?” The older one's eyes bulged in surprise. Along with his gaping mouth, it made him look like a startled fish.

“Oh, do you want it? I have lots.” I put the fish in a bucket and tried to hand it to him, but he backed away, raising his hands defensively. “Okay, let me know if you guys want some fresh fish. This one isn’t that rare.”

[Steelhead:

A freshwater fish with a distinctive band of color along its sides.

The Steelhead, a type of rainbow trout, is a popular fish for cooking because of its delicate flavor and flaky texture. When cooked, the flesh of the rainbow trout is pinkish-white with a slightly oily consistency and a delicate, yet distinct flavor.]

Lari and Kharli also took out some of the fish they had caught and we continued to chop them up. Then we dug twelve deep holes and put the fish into them, covering them with compost and soil. We debated whether we should water it before or after spreading the [Mysterious Goo], and settled on trying both. The last step was to water the soil before planting the tree seeds with the [Dendrological Cultivation Chambers].

These days I could plant a maximum of sixteen trees before my energy ran out compared to the eight that was my limit last year, but that was only if I spent all my energy on planting new trees. I often had to use energy to water or tend to the existing greenery, in addition to cultivating more spirit grass and other flora.

My apprentices could plant half as many as I could.

All in all, I figured we should be able to complete our goal of planting one hundred trees in fifteen days.

“I think burying the fish will help a lot.” Lari looked smug that he had thought of it first. He gave Kharli a triumphant look.

Kharli played it cool and refused to rise to the bait. “Good job. It’s nice to know you have more than gold on your mind.”

I put fish pieces and shoveled compost down over the deep hole I had just made. “I hope it works.”

When we finished planting, we checked on the eggs, which looked okay, and spent the rest of the morning exploring the land to see what changes it had undergone now that the curse was gone.

At noon, we returned to the house for lunch. It was a huge relief to get out from under the hot sun. Fengying met us at the gate with small towels soaked in cool water which we used to wipe our faces as we walked inside into the blessed shade and cool air of the house’s air-conditioned dining room.

“I love electric fans,” said Kharli and she sat down in front of one.

“Me, too.” I leaned back on my chair with the cool towel on my forehead. It dripped water down my face and hair, but I enjoyed the feeling nonetheless.

Lari wiped his hands and forearms with his wet towel. “I think I’ll stay indoors today.”

“Yeah, we finished today’s outdoor chores, so we can stay inside and craft.” I instructed the kids to get some rest and do some Fletching and Smithing this afternoon while I did Herblaw. While we were discussing the day’s activities, Fengying came with a letter from Shuye.

“Will there be a reply, my lady?” asked Fengying.

“Can I send a verbal reply instead of a letter?” Writing a letter here involved a lot of fuss with grinding ink, composing a letter with the proper greetings, using a seal, taking great care with the calligraphy, and so forth.

“Yes, of course.”

“Then please let Shuye know that I have done as he requested.” I navigated to the appropriate System tab and lowered the forest farm’s security settings to the usual level.

“I’ll let the messenger know.”

Fengying left, and I turned to the others and asked, “Do you know what we’re having for lunch?”

Deming’s assistants were doing their very best, and this time I was impressed by some of their more creative dishes like the Moonlit Silverfish Cascade, a platter of fish filets arranged in a cascading display, drizzled with a sweet and spicy sauce and adorned with delicate edible white flowers, and Tiger's Roar Spicy Sichuan Seafood Stew, a tongue-blisteringly spicy dish that made me feel like the top of my head had exploded. It was way too hot for me, but after they saw me sweating and drinking two glasses of milk, the kitchen staff made a new seafood hotpot dish that was a lot less spicy.

I had to rest after lunch, and Fengying worriedly sent me cups of ginger tea twice to help my stomach settle down. I felt like a spoiled baby, but was it really my fault that my stomach had become used to the Demon Chef’s food and had difficulty eating anything else? It was probably all psychological because I had eaten street and restaurant food before without any ill effects.

***

The next day, the [Lizardwings] and [Perfectly Ordinary Prairie Chickens] hatched. The [Lizardwings] were exactly as we expected. As for the chickens, I smiled when the kids found out what kind of animal they were.

“I knew it! I knew they were going to be crazy-looking!” Kharli stared wide-eyed at the chickens.

“They’re hard to even see.” Lari circled the pen, looking at the animals from all angles.

“I don’t know what you guys are fussing about. They’re just [Perfectly Ordinary Prairie Chickens], and they don’t smell bad like the [Lizardwings]!” I was quite pleased that the chickens smelled fine. That is to say, they smelled like chickens, not like stink monsters from hell like the [Lizardwings]. “We’ll have to wait and see if they can make their habitat healthy the way the [Lizardwings] can.”

[Perfectly Ordinary Prairie Chickens:

Prairie chickens are smaller and require less water than most breeds. They do not produce many eggs, typically having only one breeding season per year, and laying only ten to fifteen eggs per clutch. However, they are quite hardy and have an efficient metabolism that allows them to thrive on modest amounts of food.]

“Teacher, even if these strange chickens aren’t stinky, I think people will still prefer the [Lizardwings],” said Lari.

Kharli nodded in agreement.

“I think they look interesting!” I said.

Cutie seemed to agree with me since she was energetically bouncing near the pen with her eyes locked on the chickens, her slime strand forming the shape of an exclamation mark.

Kharli frowned. “But no one can see what they actually look like…”

The thing is, I knew because of Adventure Incarnate where they had the same 3D model as regular chicken, except they were semi-transparent. Here, in the real world, they were invisible except for a slight haziness in the air at the edges of their body. We could easily know where they were because of the System, but even without it, if one looked closely at the ground inside the pen, they could see the grass being disturbed by the animal’s movements.

“I’m sorry Teacher, but I don’t think the clan would want to buy an animal they can’t see,” said Lari.

“Yeah, what if you were doing laundry at the river when something invisible tries to peck your eyes out?!” Kharli said, covering her eyes and flailing dramatically at the air as though to ward something off to demonstrate her point.

“Oh dear. Well, let’s at least see if they help the environment here,” I said.

That was a real bummer though I personally thought the chickens were a really cool animal. Maybe I could sell them off to a collector who liked unusual pets?

I consulted the clan members who recommended that I sell them off to Shuye, so I sent off a letter, and was quite pleased when Shuye accepted my offer.

***

Three days later, Mo replaced Lari at the desert farm, and three days after that, Deming returned to great rejoicing. The others crowded around him.

I trembled all over and nearly fainted from the shock. “You… your face….you look…”

Chapter 136 - Milestone level up

Chapter 136 - Tweet-tely adorable and cutely charming

🙞❤︎🙜

Several people had told me before that Deming was a cultivator who used a special technique to hide his true face, but this was insane! He normally appeared to be a middle-aged man in his early fifties with graying black hair that was thinning on top and watery brown eyes, but now he looked radically different.

I couldn’t believe Fengying liked the cute and adorable type!

Who knew that the terrifying Demon Chef’s real face was that of a charming little cherub? His doe-like eyes, the color of warm honey, were framed by perfectly arched brows. His little nose was pert, with a slight upturn, that gave his face an endearing quality, and he had a pretty little rosebud mouth. To top it all off, he even had a mole on the corner of his left eye which drew attention to his eyes and made him look even more enchanting.

I put a hand on my chest and turned to Fengying. “Your husband-”

Fengying gave me an amused look. “You can see his true face?”

“Yes? Didn’t he turn off his technique?” I scanned the others’ faces and realized they hadn’t reacted, which meant that Fengying and I were the only ones who could see Deming’s true face. “How come I can see it?”

“I’ll take care of it.” Fengying took her husband by the hand and led him away.

When they came back to the outer courtyard, Deming had his old look back, and I breathed a sigh of relief.

Mo and Kharli were immensely curious about what Deming really looked like and bugged me endlessly for details until I gave in and told them that Deming looked really adorable, which they refused to believe. Mo, in particular, was completely convinced that Deming looked like a dreadfully villainous but strikingly handsome man.

“Maybe he also has a special skill that makes his face look different depending on the viewer’s preferences,” said Mo.

“You’re saying Teacher likes the cute type? What about the prince?” Kharli giggled.

I shook my head at their preoccupation with people’s looks and continued plowing the soil. Today we were going to plant our one hundredth tree. Tomorrow, Lari was going to replace Kharli, and I planned to spend the rest of our stay in the desert planting more fast-growing fodder plants and [Wild Seed Mix], plus hatching another batch of [Lizardwings].

It was hot, as always, but the sky was pleasingly overcast, and it looked like it was going to rain soon. The gray clouds cast shadows that drifted across the landscape, providing us with a fleeting but welcome respite from the sun. Since our trees were but mere saplings, our view was unobstructed and the prairie landscape extended endlessly in every direction, giving me a feeling of freedom and limitless possibilities.

When we finished our work, I impulsively decided to go for a run. I unclipped Mr. Bear from my belt and made him grow until he was big enough for me to sit on his shoulders, which I did.

I looked down at my apprentices from my perch and said, “I’m gonna run with Mr. Bear! Who’s with me?”

“Me!” Mo didn’t wait for my signal and just ran off immediately

Kharli followed right behind her, yelling, “Me, too!”

I freed my hair from its ponytail. Mr. Bear levitated a foot off the ground and started flying after the girls.

“Chuuuuuu!” Cutie was not one to be left behind and bounced along with us with her adorable little slime umbrella.

I raised my face to the sky and enjoyed the feel of the wind in my hair.

“Having my own desert farm is the best!” I said into Mr. Bear’s ear.

After the run, we all felt tired and spent an hour in the hot spring to replenish our energy. Then we had lunch and, after resting for a bit, went to the middle courtyard’s blacksmithing workshop.

Standing in front of the line of furnaces, I gave my apprentices a double thumbs up. “Level 20, here I come!”

They fed wooden logs to the bottom opening of the furnaces where the fire was while I placed the ores inside the waiting chambers above. The furnaces made the room too hot, so I turned up the air-conditioning and removed the outer wall, leaving it open to the elements on that side. Once the bars were ready, I used the System to automatically place them in my inventory.

“I’m close! I think the next one will do it.” I moved to the next furnace and harvested the bars.

The System’s confetti showered down on me. I’d changed the level-up display since I wanted to see if it was prettier.

[Congratulations, you just advanced a Smithing level!]

[Your Smithing level is now 20.]

Kharli and Mo clapped.

“Congratulations!”

“Congratulations!”

“Thank you. Thank you. Let’s cheer for my milestone level!” I gave them glasses of [Kola-Kola Soda] and taught them how to gently tap the glasses together and say “Cheers!”

We had a whole mini-celebration going with a cocktail table that I loaded up with plates full of pretty little pastries like osmanthus cake, rolled honey pancakes, and red tortoise cakes, a popular pastry in Singapore that was made of soft, sticky rice flour skin wrapped around a sweet mung bean filling.

“Shall we smelt some iron now?” I asked them when we finished eating and drinking.

“I wonder what sort of metal Teacher will make this time?” Kharli asked Mo.

“Something amazing, I bet!” said Mo.

At level 20 Smithing, I could now smelt iron bars. This time, after they filled the furnaces with wooden logs, I placed iron ores inside. I expected the furnaces to produce [Iron Bars], but what I got were [Dragonfire-Forged Iron Bars].

[Dragonfire-Forged Iron Bars:

Born in the heart of an ancient forge fueled by Dragonfire, these iron bars possess an eerie, flickering darkness. The bars seem to absorb and reflect ambient light, creating an illusion of dancing shadows.]

I was starting to notice a trend here. Was my System made by dragons?

There were tons of dragon-themed items in Adventure Incarnate, but I always thought that was just because dragons were a very popular fantasy creature, much more so than tigers, turtles, and birds. As a video game, it made sense that the Azure Dragon-themed content sold better than the Vermilion Bird, Black Tortoise, and White Tiger items. Therefore, the developers made more dragon stuff.

As far as I knew, the player character had no special connection to dragons. Also, the people of Hongzhen town claimed that I was one of their own, and their patron god was a lion.

Though I pondered the idea the whole afternoon as we smelted iron bars, I couldn’t make up my mind one way or another.

“We’ll stop now, since it’s getting dark.” I took out the last of the bars from the furnaces and extinguished the fires. “See you at dinner.”

“There was a delivery of fresh meat from the Spring Hunt today,” said Mo.

“Dinner is going to be grilled demon venison skewers,” said Kharli.

“Have we ever had that before?” Mo looked intrigued.

Food seemed to have become a big part of my apprentices’ interests. I guess growing up in an orphanage made them appreciate meat more since they rarely got to taste it before.

I left the two of them in the middle courtyard and went to my favorite place right now, the Walkway of One Hundred Fountains. Cutie jumped into the lowest water trough and started swimming up and down its length like a fat yellow swan. The top part of my pet glided gracefully and serenely atop the water while the bottom part that was submerged had grown two large paddles as pseudo-feet and churned the water frantically.

I amused myself with some idle thoughts about my pet.

Was Cutie a demon who had evolved?

The skill of forming new slime parts was definitely new. Perhaps she got the idea when she saw my apprentices and I putting up parasols, and she thought they were parts of our bodies that we extruded. After all, the parasols appeared in our hands like magic because we had gotten them from our inventories.

Did Cutie think that our clothes and shoes were parts of ourselves? Would she be shocked if she saw someone getting their hair cut?

I reckoned she probably didn’t understand that the portal in my room was special. To her, all doors lead somewhere else, and having a door opening into the Chitinous Caverns probably seemed normal.

Cutie got tired of swimming in the water trough and started jumping up and down the three levels of fountains.

Maybe I should teach her some tricks? I browsed the pet tab to see if there was anything there I could use. Sadly, I couldn’t find anything that could teach a pet new tricks, but I did find a pet trampoline. I called Cutie over and brought her back to her [Slime House], placing the trampoline outside for her to play with.

Her mouth opened wide and she let out a loud “Chu~” when she jumped into the bouncy item and soared into the air, fell down, and bounced up again and again.

I watched her for a few minutes, laughing at the way she stretched herself out when she was at the top of her trajectory, as though to make the moment last, then pulling herself back together when she was on the way down. The sound of the water was quite soothing, so I sat down on a bench and let my mind wander. It was nice to relax under the shade of the trees with nothing to do. Then I went to my [Ranch House] to do some more Herblaw before dinner.

***

Two days later, Lari replaced Kharli. Three days after that, we inspected the [Lizardwing] and [Perfectly Ordinary Prairie Chicken] pens. The result of my little experiment was clear to everyone.

“The [Lizardwings] might be smelly, but their pen is very green,” said Lari.

“I hate the smell, but the [Lizardwings] win,” said Kharli.

“The chicken pen was almost the same as it was before,” said Lari.

“You see! You guys always complain about the stink, but the [Lizardwings] are great. We’ll be able to green this desert with their help much faster than without them,” I said.

We had put the animals in cages, ready to sell to whoever wanted them, and made new habitats with eight [Lizardwing Eggs] inside.

“I never thought they weren’t useful. I just wished they weren’t so smelly.” Lari turned in the direction of the [Lizardwing] pen and instinctively pinched his nose shut even though we were too far to smell them.

I covered my nose with my hand. “Stop, there’s no stink here. You’re gonna trigger me, too!”

They both laughed at me.

“Hey, listen, tomorrow night will be our last here and I wanna do something.” I giggled a little.

“Oh no, Teacher has a crazy look in her eyes!” Kharli pretended to be shocked and ducked behind Lari.

I waved a hand in an “oh, it’s really nothing!” type of gesture. “This is what I want to do…”

I explained the concept to them in more detail.

“Destroying stuff?” Lari grinned. “I’ll do it!”

Mo was less enthusiastic. “It’s too bad Kharli won't be there. She’s the best at archery, and she would love the explosions!”

Chapter 888 - Mystical Dream Conjuration: Materializing objects

Christmas Special

That night, I dreamed of finding a cute little log cabin in the jungle and settling there with my dragon. He was now a lively toddler with a vocabulary of a few hundred words. In the way of dreams, the cabin had everything we needed and restocked itself with clothes, shoes, linens, and so forth. It also had electricity, modern plumbing, and a fully-equipped kitchen which wasn’t of much use to me since I burned everything I tried to cook.

Every morning, woodland animals left an offering of fruit, nuts, and herbs at my doorstep. Those were for me since Eggy only ate fish.

One morning we were doing our usual morning routine when something strange happened. I was lying in bed on my back with my knees up. Eggy was clinging to my calves and urging me on.

“Up, Mom, up!” Eggy squealed in delight when I lifted my feet up until he was parallel to the floor. He spread his arms out in the flying position. I was only able to hold him up for a few seconds. “More!”

I tickled his sides and made him laugh. Then I continued my weight exercise. He was small and light enough for the leg exercises to work, but heavy enough that I had to stop after eight lifts.

“No more, mom’s tired now.”

“Me, me, me!” Eggy hopped off me and stood beside the wooden bench that was his designated exercise “machine.”

I lay down on it, holding on to the sides, and Eggy lifted the whole bench with me on it with both his hands. “Good boy!”

He gently put the bench down and then lifted it a few more times. “Up, Mom!”

“Wow, my baby is so strong.” I got off the bench and lifted him up for a few kisses. I was going to suggest that we go for a bath in the nearby hot springs when a System message unexpectedly popped up. It was in an eye-watering flashing rainbow font.

[MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!]

Christmas? There was Christmas in the dragon jungle? That made no sense.

Eggy turned into his dragon form which was three handspans long and flew up to the pop-up screen, poking it with his claws curiously.

The message disappeared and reappeared two more times.

What was this about?

I was still scratching my head when Eggy suddenly screamed. “Mom, look!”

He was pointing at the window. I looked outside and saw an amazing sight. Dozens of [Christmas Crackers] had appeared outside. They were on the grass, bushes, vines, rocks, and even nestled among the branches of the trees.

I ran outside as fast as I could. “Eggy, get them! I want those crackers.”

Using my skirt as an impromptu basket, I gathered as many of them as I could. Eggy helpfully flew everywhere and dropped the crackers on my skirt. We got eighteen of them before they disappeared.

Eggy turned back to human form and looked up at me with his huge blue eyes. “Gone?”

“Don’t worry, baby, they’ll be back.”

Once I saw the [Christmas Crackers], I realized what was happening. It was the Adventure Incarnate Christmas event. The crackers should appear twice more today.

I went back inside and dumped the crackers on the dining table. “Here baby, let’s play!”

Moving our chairs to face each other, I put Eggy’s hand on one end of the cracker and told him to hold on. Taking the other side of the cracker, I pulled until it fell apart with a loud snapping sound, leaving us with half a cracker each.

“Merry Christmas!” I said.

“Kri mas?” Eggy gave me a quizzical look for a second before nudging the items that had fallen from the cracker. There were four paper items, one box, and one magician's wand.

I unrolled the blue paper party hat and put it on his head. Then I smiled and handed him the box with a big red button on it that had “Press Me” written on it.

Eggy nearly jumped out of his chair when the box expanded, turning into a [Christmas Coupon Machine]. It was made of plastic and was in the shape of a red and green box with a festive wreath motif. Eggy opened the box and peered inside, but it was empty. “Huh?’

“This is a magic box. Watch…” I put the coupon labeled “Food” inside the box and put the lid on before waving the magic wand over it. “Abracadabra!”

There was the sound of a firecracker going off, and when I opened the box, there was a [Christmas Pudding] inside in place of the paper coupon.

“Magic.” Eggy’s eyes became even bigger and sparklier than before. “Mom magic.”

He took another coupon and handed it to me, watching with great excitement when I did more “mom magic” for him.

Putting the pudding on the kitchen counter for later, I placed the “Drink” coupon inside the [Christmas Coupon Machine] and waved the wand again.

“Me, me, me!” said Eggy when I moved as if to open the lid of the box.

“Okay, you open it.”

There was a [Hot Chocolate] drink inside.

Eggy clapped.“Yay! Magic.”

I put the drink on the counter, too. “One more time?”

“More!”

The third coupon was the “Toy” one. When I took off the lid, I was enchanted by the sight of a cute wind-up tin snowman toy. I set aside the box and showed Eggy how to wind it up and watch it walk across the table.

“No.” Eggy wasn’t interested in it at all. “Want magic.”

I picked him up and twirled him around. “Oh no, I’ve created a monster who can’t be pacified unless I do more magic.”

“Yes, magic!” The boy unrepentantly asked for more.

I put him down and saluted him. “Sir, yes, sir.”

He saluted me back saucily and we sat down again to pull more crackers. The next time we did “magic” I had him do the magic himself by waving the magic wand and saying “Abracadabra” over the box. I also showed him that just putting the coupon inside the box did nothing without the wand and magic word.

Eggy magicked us up a ton of drinks, food, and toys. The drinks were mostly tea, coffee, chocolate, and fruit juices since wine and other alcoholic beverages were deemed inappropriate for Adventure Incarnate. The food was a lot more varied. We got roasted turkey, ham, beef Wellington, pigs in blankets, roast potatoes, mince pie, roasted chestnuts, Christmas pudding, a Yule log, and a gingerbread house.

The toys were super cute, but Eggy ignored the wind-up car, wooden building blocks, teddy bear, spinning top, marionette, dolls, tin soldiers, music box, jigsaw puzzle, coloring book, crayons, and kaleidoscope in favor of the magician’s wand, which he waved all over every single item in the house, waiting for some magic to happen.

As for me, I liked the steak and mince pies. I ate them while Eggy played with his new favorite toy. He was a little bundle of energy the whole day.

When the next System message appeared, he flew out of the house and roared. Dozens of birds and animals came out of the jungle picked up all of the Christmas crackers and dropped them at my doorstep.

“This is insane! There are like two hundred crackers,” I said after the birds and animals left.

“Moooooore magic.” Eggy grabbed my hand and waved his wand around.

“Gosh.”

We spent the whole day gathering the event drops, pulling crackers, and magically making Christmas food, drinks, and toys appear.

By bedtime, I was exhausted but happy.

I lifted him up and swung him around while singing the directions together so he would learn all the right words. “Up, down, left, right, and round and round!”

Then I put him on the bed and counted his toes, kissing each one as I said the words. “One little dragon, two little dragons, three little dragons…”

Eggy screamed in delight when I tickled his foot after I finished all ten. We counted his toes together, and then I lay down beside him and I pulled the blanket over us. “Merry Christmas!”

“Merry Christmas.”

I turned off the bedside lamp and we fell asleep.

Chapter 137 and 137.5 - Preparing for a decadent destruction party

Chapter 137 - The countdown to a blastastic party begins now!

🙞❤︎🙜

That night, I once again dreamed of my dragon child. The tropical jungle we lived in was a paradise where we frolicked in crystal-clear streams and animals brought me fruits, nuts, and spirit herbs to eat. My little dragon boy liked to dive into the ponds and turn into his dragon form underwater to fill his belly with brightly-scaled fish.

I woke up with a profound sense of peace and well-being.

That morning, it rained. It was a proper, full-on downpour, not the misty drizzle we were used to here in the arid grasslands.

“Lovely, just lovely,” I said as I enjoyed the cooling effect of the rain.

Courtyard houses were perfectly designed to enjoy this type of weather since all of the buildings were connected by beautifully decorated roofed pathways, which meant none of us needed to get wet.

“We don't need to refill the [Dendrological Cultivation Chambers] or the pots.” Lari was a little [Lazy] and enjoyed it when there was less work.

The pots were a local irrigation substitute for the [Dendrological Cultivation Chambers]. Made of unglazed clay, they were porous and were buried in the ground, filled with water, and covered with a lid. When the surrounding soil was dry, water was pulled out of the pores of the pot. However, when the soil was wet, the water stayed inside the clay pot. One only needed to refill the water via a small hole every week or thereabouts, depending on the rainfall. The pots were a local irrigation technique and it worked extremely well.

I poured myself another cup of lychee and strawberry juice sweetened with honey. It was tart and refreshing. “Let’s wait inside until the rain stops. Then we’ll plant more trees and fodder plants.”

The rhythmic sound of the water falling on the roof and courtyard tiles was soothing, especially when I thought about how every little droplet was revitalizing the land around us. We spent a lazy morning discussing our plans for the orgy of destruction I was organizing for tomorrow night while I chopped up some fruit from my inventory for the kitchen staff to use later at the party. Our supplies of rice, meat, and vegetables were always plentiful, but the mushrooms, fruits, and other foraged items became perilously low sometimes. Also, everyone loved the tea so much that I was still using the [Tea Machine] instead of moving on to the [Textile Loom].

The rain stopped at midmorning, and we went out to plant seeds and check on our plants and animals. The [Lizardwing Eggs] were undamaged and so were most of the plants, except for a few whose [Dendrological Cultivation Chambers] had tilted a little to the side. We fixed those and returned to the house in good spirits to prepare for the upcoming decadent destruction party.

As a special treat for the kids and staff, I set up two restaurants in the garden for them to use as a snack room. I showed them items from the Cash Shop and they chose the ones they liked. I personally would have chosen the [American Diner], but the kids preferred the [Big Ears Bites], an elephant-themed kid’s restaurant, while the staff picked the [Bloom Bistro], a cozy little garden restaurant with orchids cascading from the walls.

Though they were called restaurants in the Cash Shop, they weren’t real ones. They had no kitchens, for one thing. Rather, they were just garden decorations that had tables and chairs and had two or three walls like a fake movie set. I put up a [Fluff & Stuff Boutique] which was a fake plush toy storefront for my own amusement.

Cutie loved the orchid restaurant, and I had to restrain her several times when the staff ran away because she bounced toward them. In the end, I placed another restaurant just for her to play in. This made the garden really crowded, but it was worth it to see her bouncing up repeatedly to try to touch each and every single orchid flower with her slime strand.

Since we were leaving soon, I asked the clan members to give us an aerial tour of Blossom Valley and Skyfang Hill on one of the ox carts.

“Let’s stay low and move really, really slow. Extremely slow. Like a snail!” I said to the driver.

The flying carriage was enchanted with a type of stabilization magic that made its flight smooth. The ox cart had the same enchantment, but since it was an open cart, we would be buffeted by the desert winds as well as the wind of our passage.

“Yes, my lady,” said the driver.

He was as good as his word. My stomach only lurched a little, and the flight was only as scary as a Ferris wheel would have been.

Below us, the land spread out in a patchwork of green and brown. Skyfang Hill was a bright emerald spot in the landscape that was still mostly brown, but I was delighted to see the visual evidence of our efforts. Large strips, squares, and rectangles of Blossom Valley were now green. It wasn’t just us though, the native flora had also claimed a few spots. I believed they were the wetter parts of the land where rainwater tended to accumulate.

“This was all dry and brown last year when we first came here!” said Mo.

“Seeing is believing. Look at that!” I pointed at a spot where the rain had filled a small depression in the ground. “That’ll be a great place to plant some seeds.”

The driver obligingly landed the cart there, and I drank some [Kola-Kola Soda] to refill my energy bar a little and planted some [Wild Seed Mix] near the water.

“How do you feel?” I asked my apprentices. “Did the tour inspire you?”

Lari nodded. “Yes. It’s wonderful, but when we were in the air, I couldn't help noticing how much more work we need to do.”

“One day this entire valley will be all green!” Mo waved her hand at the land around us.

I hooked arms with them and led them back to the cart. “This will be our paradise! It will take a long time, but, eventually, this will be full of fruit trees, farm animals, and valuable crops.”

We flew back to the house in high spirits and spent the rest of the day relaxing and decorating our [Training Armor]. Of course, we could have smithed ourselves sets of bronze armor, but it was a party and the kids said they liked the look of the [Training Armor] better. The staff had some white paint which they used around the house for miscellaneous items, and different colored dyes for cloth. We mixed the dyes with the paint, with little success, and a lot of failures, but we still managed to make the armor look festive.

“Party armor ready!” I held up a leg piece that was painted pink, purple, and yellow. “Let’s go outside and pile up some logs for the bonfire tomorrow.”

Lari rubbed his hands together. “I can hardly wait to destroy everything tomorrow!”

Even Mo’s eyes were sparkling with excitement. “Let’s compete to see which one of us can make the loudest noise!”

I chuckled. There was no way they could make a louder explosion than me.

***

The next morning we woke up early and rushed through our chores before walking to the designated area in the middle of nowhere that the clan members deemed was far enough from our house and their camp to not disturb anything. There I set up three large tents and rolled up their sides. They were for cooking, dining, and partying.

Items that I placed outside would disappear after I or my farmhands stopped interacting with them, but that took hours, so it should be fine to leave them while we rested inside the house during the hottest part of the day.

I left the cooking tent empty since the kitchen staff would take care of it later. I placed plenty of electric fans, tables, chairs, rugs, and colorful decorations, though I refrained from adding the lights just yet since they would make the place hotter. The kids helped me with the selections and arranged the items for me.

Near noontime, I stepped out of the tent and verified that my surprise was on its way.

“Guys, look up at the northern sky. I have a present for you,” I said to Lari and Mo.

Chapter 137.5

An excerpt from the journal of Shuye Skullcrusher, Guardian of the Ancient Hill Forest:

If I’d known this was going to happen, I would never have auctioned off those two pairs of Vanishing Fowl.

The highest bidder was a respectable scholar who specialized in rare spirit birds. He was vetted by my staff beforehand, and we had every reason to think that he was simply going to breed the chickens to study their unique characteristics.

I didn’t learn until too late that the Raccoon clan had bought the Vanishing Fowl from the scholar using the simple method of offering him a ton of money and the opportunity to study them in the wild. They plan to breed them with the native population of junglefowl in their territory.

The Raccoon clan already owns the junglefowl from Emberstone Farm.

It doesn’t take a genius to know that this is a very bad idea, but it’s not my territory, so it’s not my problem.

Chapter 138 - Field testing my explosive power

Chapter 138 - insert explosion here: my pyrotechnic joke blew their minds, but the title burned out

🙞❤︎🙜

Mo and Lari looked up and saw the flying carriage headed towards the house.

Mo gasped and asked me, “Is it…?”

I nodded.

“Thank you, Teacher!” Mo ran off.

Lari and I walked instead of running since we knew it would take the carriage some time to arrive. We got there just as the vehicle landed.

“Kharli, you’re just in time to prep for the big party. I’m calling it the Explosion Extravaganza!” I said.

“This is great! I was worried you were going to miss it.” Mo gave Kharli a hug.

I gestured that we should all go inside the house. “No way, I need my best archer here to show off to the clan members.”

“Teacher, we need to decorate Kharli’s armor,” said Lari.

“Decorate?” asked Kharli.

“I’ll show you,” said Mo.

“Okay, I’ll prepare my own stuff, see you guys later.” I waved goodbye to the kids and went back to my courtyard.

***

“An explosion party?” The senior clan member gave me a look I couldn’t interpret.

The two clan members who were in guard rotation at Blossom Valley agreed to participate in tonight’s event as safety officers. I also wanted them to witness our firepower and analyze if the arrows we crafted were good enough for the clan to buy and use.

I cleared my throat and thrust the kids forward, presenting them to the clan members. “These three are my apprentices. We’ve been making some weapons and ammo. It’s time to test them out. Please let me know if you think the clan would be interested in buying our wares.”

This was all meant to prepare us for the upcoming World Boss Event, the hatching of the Demon Monarch from its egg. I needed to establish that our crafted items were useful.

“We can’t make buying decisions, but we can certainly send a report to the clan elders,” said the senior clan member.

The two guards were brothers, both tall, handsome fellows with high cheekbones and aquiline noses, giving them a look of proud severity. The only big difference between the two was that the older one had darker blue eyes.

We all made some small talk about the weather, and they joined us at the dining tent, although they politely refused to eat anything. They did have a few cups of ice water though, since proper hydration was very important in this hot climate.

The sun had gone down two hours ago. Here in the desert, with no trees to block out the view, the night sky was like a black velvet tapestry strewn with myriad glowing jewels. The silvery moon cast its light on the earth below, giving everything a romantic air. Or, at least, it would normally look that way. Tonight, I had installed plenty of lampposts and floodlights, so the whole place was lit up like a sports stadium when the home team was playing.

Deming and his assistants had prepped most of the food beforehand, but they were grilling some skewers at the cooking tent. The smell of it made my stomach growl. They kept the food coming, placing the cooked food on the buffet tables in the dining tent. We spent another hour eating and drinking before getting on to the main attraction of the party.

When everyone was done eating and the staff were putting away the dinner things, I got up to announce the start of the show. “Shall we get started then? Follow me to the weapons tent!”

Of course, it would have been too hot to party during the daytime, which is why I took pains to arrange a nighttime event. The air was pleasantly cool and dry.

The kids and I equipped our colorfully decorated [Training Armor]. Mine was red and purple. Lari had painted his yellow and red, while Mo had chosen blue, red, and green. Kharli’s was white with a few streaks of red and black. We looked like circus performers.

“Here, please try out our bows and arrows.” I distributed the regular [Wooden Longbows] and [Bronze Arrows] to the staff and the clan members. Then I waved a hand at the [Training Dummies] I had set up in front of the tent. “Shall we?”

Though these were System items, they were the lowest-level ones, so they weren’t very powerful. Bronze, even System bronze, was pretty soft, after all.

Still, the arrows made satisfying thwack thwack sounds as they hit the dummies and ricocheted off. The [Training Dummies] were impervious to damage, so I wouldn’t need to replace them after they were shot.

Archery was a basic skill in this world, and half the staff participated. Deming seemed particularly good at it.

We did a few rounds of archery, then I took out a very special arrow from my inventory. “Not bad, huh? But this hardly qualifies as an Explosion Extravaganza. Please stay here while I demonstrate.”

I walked forward to put some distance between my audience and the explosion I was about to unleash, the two clan members beside me.

However, before I could even string my bow, the older brother cleared his throat meaningfully. “Baroness, is this the first test? May I have the honor of the first explosion?”

Oh no, I really wanted to do it!

I reluctantly handed over the arrow. I suppose he felt it was safer if he tested it first. Since I had asked the clan members to attend the party to keep everyone safe, it would be churlish of me to refuse since they were only doing the task I’d asked them to do.

“Okay.” I explained how to use the item. “This is an explosive arrow. It won’t activate until you draw the bow and notch the arrow. It will cause an explosion when it strikes the target.”

Regular arrows could be enchanted using explosive talismans that could be bought from an NPC in Anwei. My careful questioning of Fengying had yielded the information that weapon stores did indeed sell talismans in this world, but they were extremely expensive and were under the White Tiger clan’s strict control. One couldn’t just waltz into a store and buy them, unlike in Adventure Incarnate.

Fortunately, I had 2,147,483,647 of them.

[Fury of the Fire Dragon Talisman:

A glowing piece of yellow paper inscribed with mystical runes in vermilion ink. This item contains within it the explosive might of a fire dragon's wrath. Consumable. Can only be used on ranged ammo.]

I simply clicked [Use] on the talismans in my inventory and then clicked on some [Bronze Arrows] to produce [Bronze Arrows +E]. This type of item combination gave no exp, but it was fast. The game graphics used the same image as the basic [Bronze Arrows], which meant that players had to carefully check the item’s name before using it.

“Lady Violet, please stand a little further away,” said the younger clan member.

We went back to the front of the tent where the others were and watched from there as the older brother strode forward, planted his feet apart, and let fly the first arrow.

Boom! Boom! Boom!

The arrow hit the farthest [Training Dummy] and exploded, bursting into a flash of red fire and white smoke with a loud booming sound that echoed across the desert. The arrow disintegrated completely. It was pretty impressive.

The audience clapped.

Kharli rushed towards me. “Me! Me! Can I please go next?”

“Let’s both try it.”

We both walked forward and waited until the two clan members were in place beside us before shooting at the [Training Dummy].

Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom!

We hit the dummies at almost the same time, and the sound of the twin explosions seemed to go on for a very long time.

I turned to the others. “Who else wants to give it a try?”

I was a little shocked when everyone cheered and half the household staff practically tripped over themselves to be the first to get the arrows.

“Hey, hey, no worries, I have plenty!” I chuckled as I handed out the arrows to my staff.

“Thank you, my lady! I can’t believe I can use enchanted arrows!” said Haoran, one of Deming’s assistants.

Yinuo, my maid, said, “Shooting arrows worth their weight in gold is such a thrill. This must be how rich people feel.”

The party was a great success!

Half of the staff shot arrow after arrow, while the rest lit a bonfire and sat around it on the picnic blankets I provided. They munched on snacks while they watched the show and joked around. Alcohol flowed freely among the watchers and, as the night wore on, they lost their inhibitions.

“I can make a bigger explosion!”

“How?”

“By farting!”

Everyone burst into laughter. Someone went back to the house and returned with some drums, a flute, and a pipa. I tried my hand at the drums, beating them in time to the explosions. Music, laughter, and jokes filled the air.

After midnight, when the archers were tiring, I banged on a large gong I got from the Cash Shop to get everyone’s attention. Then I stood on a chair and said, “And now for the climax of today’s party! Stand back, please!”

The ones who had been horsing around settled down, and everyone obediently walked back to the front of the tent.

I put the [Training Dummies] back in my inventory and then placed the tallest garden decoration that I could find, the [Scorching Spire], a wooden tower decorated by a red dragon coiling around its exterior, as far away from my position as I could.

Then I took out a cannon.

Chapter 139 - Time for a sweet harvest of explosions!

Chapter 139 - Steep-ly tea-lightful explosions

🙞❤︎🙜

“Lady Violet, you’re using explosive shot?” asked the older clan member.

“Yes.” I showed him the cannonball I was using which was made of two wooden hemispheres held together by bronze rings. Cannonballs were hollow and could be filled with explosive talismans. I had placed five in each one. “I’ll load this into the cannon now.”

“But surely this cursed cannon is extremely dangerous,” said the younger brother, who gave the weapon a look of consternation.

“Nah, it's safe if you know how and aren’t careless.” Of course, I had used the potato cannon before instead of this one, but the principle was the same.

[Potato Cannon:

Happy Adventure Incarnate Anniversary!

This magical autocannon can rotate 360°. Guaranteed to never hit a human.]

The cannon I was using tonight was a regular, non-rotating one since I was pretty sure the others would be scared of having cannonballs going off in all directions, even if they never got hit.

“Here I go.” The cannon was a System item that I could load with the explosive cannonballs using my inventory, but I made a show of loading it manually. All I had to do was place the ammo at the mouth of the cannon, and it automatically went inside. I aimed it at the tower, adjusting it as needed by getting feedback from the clan members regarding the angle.

Then I lit the fuse.

I expected the cannon to roar to life with a thunderous sound and the scent of gunpowder to fill the air, but no such thing happened. There was only a soft, almost gentle sound as the cannonball was launched.

The explosion that was produced by the cannonball hitting the wood of the [Scorching Spire] sent shockwaves of sound in all directions and caused an impressively large ball of flames to erupt at the spot of the collision. The intense heat transformed the structure into a towering inferno, with the dry wood of the tower swiftly consumed by the hungry flames. In minutes, the tower collapsed on itself with a loud crash. The crackling of burning wood and the scent of charred debris filled the air.

I looked behind me and saw that awe lit the faces of my apprentices and staff.

“Not bad, huh?” I said.

There was a belated cheer and a dozen people rushed towards me to congratulate me on my success.

“That was amazing!”

“Spectacular! Just one shot destroyed that whole tower.”

Another person chimed in, "The precision was incredible. It's as if that cannonball had a homing instinct for the weakest point in the tower."

“Teacher, that was incredible!” Mo’s eyes were shining.

My other two apprentices echoed her words.

Unfortunately, other people couldn't fire my cannon since it was bound to me.

I let everyone gawk at the destroyed tower for a few more minutes before I turned off all the lights and set off a ton of pretty fireworks from the Cash Shop. Afterward, I nodded to Fengying, who announced that the party was over for all the young people under the age of thirty. That meant me and the kids. The older people were staying until late to eat, drink, and enjoy themselves some more.

Since the tent and other items might disappear, I put them back in my inventory, including the destroyed tower, which I dragged into the System trash can for disposal.

My apprentices and I said our goodbyes, and when the clan members gallantly offered to escort us back to the house, I graciously accepted.

“What do you think? Would the clan want to buy the explosive arrows and cannonballs?” I asked them. “How does it measure up your skills?”

The night was dark, and we were some distance from the house. I hadn’t bothered to light this area, so I was happy enough to accept the older clan member’s arm when he offered it.

“My lady, it’s hard to tell. I could easily generate a force greater than the explosions, but that is only to be expected. We don’t normally use enchanted arrows or cannonballs when we fight,” said the older, more senior clan member. “I’m not an expert on these things.”

“Hey, did you forget? Every family has warehouses full of magic items!” said the younger clan member.

I covered my mouth with a hand to hide my smile when my escort sent his younger brother a quelling look.

“To answer your other question, Lady Violet, your arrows seem to be around middle grade. The cannonballs as well,” said the senior clan member.

“That’s great! I will send a letter to Shuye now that I’ve field-tested the items,” I said.

If these simple [Bronze Arrows +E] were middle-grade in this world, that meant that the better arrows we should be able to produce when the kids leveled up to 30 would probably be high-grade ones.

Tonight was the first step in showing people that I would be useful during the World Boss Event.

I went to bed in high spirits.

***

The next day, just as the sun rose and there was enough sunlight to see where we were going, we flew back to the forest farm. I was anxious to return in time to water the plants in the morning since I felt that leaving them until later in the day was not as good as watering them at sunrise. I didn’t want the crops to dry out. Thus, I asked the driver to go faster this time.

“This ride is too rough!” I said to my apprentices when the sides of the carriage rattled.

“Should I ask the driver to slow down?” asked Mo.

I yelped when the jolting of the carriage made my elbow hit the side of the carriage. “No, we’re in a rush.”

“Teacher, if you’re that worried about the crops, why don’t we land? You can rest with Mo while I fly to the farm at top speed,” said Kharli. “The carriage can return for you later.”

“No. It’s horrifying to fly like this but I can bear with it. Thanks for the offer,” I said.

We’d gone to bed a little after midnight and gotten up before sunrise. I was feeling tired from the lack of sleep, but the two girls looked lively. Lari was with the others who were using the flying ox carts. I made Mr. Bear bigger so that he formed a plush cushion between me and one side of the carriage. Cutie was safely stored in the System’s pet tab.

One hour of spine-jarring travel later, I collected a few bruises, and we arrived at the forest farm. I shrank Mr. Bear until he was small enough to hang from my belt.

“Home sweet home!” I jumped down from the vehicle and spread my arms, blissfully inhaling the wet, earthy, and green scent that I loved so much.

Mo and Kharli got down from the carriage after me.

I laughed when I saw that the soil under our feet was very wet. “We didn’t even need to rush home since it looks like it rained here this morning.”

All those bruises were for nothing! Thank goodness that my body here healed much faster than my old body on Earth.

Mo untied her hair from its updo and shook it loose. “It’s so nice to be back home.”

“No, don’t relax yet, Mo. We have to inspect the crops with Teacher,” said Kharli.

Kharli was being her [Bossy] self again, but I kinda liked it.

I checked the sky for the ox carts but saw no sign of them yet. “Should we wait for Lari?”

Kharli and Mo exchanged glances then shrugged.

“Okay, let’s start with the rice paddies,” I said.

Just as we started walking, the staff came out from the house to greet us. Haoran, one of Deming’s assistants, asked if we wanted to go inside for tea first, but I declined. Before we started our work, I got Cutie settled into her [Slime House] with plenty of flowers and fresh water.

I got my pet settled and then my apprentices and I started our inspection. The rice plants had grown quite fast and were almost waist-high now. Many of them had small white flowers already. The carp had likewise grown a lot and were around five to six inches long now. I dug the trenches deeper to give them more space.

[Fish Refuge:

A deeper area in the Rice-fish Culture System that serves as a refuge for the fish in case the water level drops. It can take the form of trenches, ponds, or pits, but trenches are preferred since they also provide the fish with passageways for feeding in the rice field.]

We were adjusting the water level when Haoran arrived with a bunch of rice balls and tea eggs, a boiled egg that was cracked slightly and re-boiled in a sauce made of tea and spices. Of course, he also brought tea with him. Everyone at the farm was crazy about tea ever since I built the [Tea Machine].

We sat down on picnic blankets and waited for the water to rise to the proper level while eating the snack and drinking tea. Lari arrived just in time to join us.

“These tea eggs are amazing! I can't wait until we have eggs from the spirit chickens. That should be something,” said Lari.

“I prefer duck eggs,” said Mo.

“Duck eggs are great. I also liked those quail eggs we had before,” said Kharli.

“Quail eggs aren’t bad but they’re too small.” Lari gestured with a hand that was holding a teacup and splashed some of the liquid on me. “Sorry, Teacher!”

“It’s fine.” The robes I was wearing were Cash Shop items so I could easily replace them. “Don’t worry about it.”

By the time we finished eating, the water was at the appropriate level, and so we moved on to the vegetable fields. We carefully inspected every single plant and the soil around them. Thankfully, no bugs were attacking the plants today. The crocuses were still small since they never really grew that high, but they were disease-free and healthy.

The field of tea plants was our last stop. A System pop-up told me what I needed to do.

“Guys, I told you before that we would hang cloth from the trees to cover the tea plants, but I’ve changed my mind.” The System now offered me a better choice, probably since I was higher level now. “Stand back.”

They obediently retreated a few paces while I mentally clicked on the System’s [Build] tab. Two seconds later, they were ooh-ing and aah-ing over the results.

I smiled proudly even though I hadn’t done anything myself. “Nice, isn’t it?”

“Teacher, why do the tea plants need this?” Mo pointed up at the canopy of reeds and straw above us that was held up by bamboo poles.

“I don’t know why, but when tea is grown under shade, the tea leaves develop a sweeter, richer, and more mellow taste.” At least, that was what the System claimed. “Let’s check if there are any bad bugs.”

Lari walked beside me and whispered, “Teacher, this structure seems a little flimsy, will it be okay?”

“Hmm.” I grabbed a bamboo pole and shook it gently. Though I used very little force, the whole canopy swayed alarmingly. “Oh dear, it does seem like it. Well, if it falls, I can just [Build] a new one.”

Lari used his foot to probe a pole’s stability. “I could ask the others to reinforce the bamboo framework.”

“Good idea!” I was very pleased that Lari was showing some initiative. “You can go to the house and let Fengying know.”

Lari left on his errand. The girls and I inspected the plants for problems, and I was relieved to see that everything was alright. Beneath the shade of the canopy, the air was perfumed by the tea leaves, giving it an invigorating and captivating quality. I felt refreshed and the fatigue from last night’s lack of sleep melted away.

The last thing we did before going to the house was to check on the animals. This time, at the Demon Chef’s request, I had placed pig eggs in the pen before I left for the desert. The staff had been amused by the idea of mammals hatching from eggs, but that was just how all the farm animals in Adventure Incarnate were born. The kids had reported that the piglets were normal-looking. The chef knew a farmer who raised the best pigs in the Westerlands and these piglets were going to be sold to him.

“What do you think we should hatch next, guys? More [Perfectly Ordinary Prairie Chickens]?” I laughed at Kharli and Mo’s reactions. “Just kidding.”

I let them choose three chicken eggs each while I picked two. We placed them inside the pen and parted ways. I went to collect Cutie before going to my [Ranch House] while they went to the courtyard house.

Once at my house, I took off my shoes and put on my most comfortable pair of slippers. My work was not yet done.

“Time for a sweet harvest!” I cackled merrily as I took Cutie in my arms and stepped through the portal into the Chitinous Caverns.

Chapter 140 - Growing a legendary flower

Chapter 140 - Stag-eringly awesome deer-stined quest

🙞❤︎🙜

Since I had been away for so long, I was sure to get a larger amount of exp than normal from the [Mushroom Cave] and [Mini Hydroponic Farm]

I let Cutie bounce around wherever she wanted while I collected the crops and mushrooms. I couldn’t help but exclaim over and over, “Oh, yes! Twenty!” every time I got exp. I was only halfway done when the System’s colorful confetti exploded around me.

[Congratulations, you just advanced a Farming level!]

[Your Farming level is now 21.]

“Yes!” I did a little jumping dance before harvesting the rest of the crops. The [Naughty Mushrooms] I collected reminded me that I had a quest I should finish before the spring harvest.

[Naughty Mushroom:

When dried and ground into a powder, this can be mixed into hot water and drunk to increase men’s stamina during XXX. Slightly increases fertility.]

I checked the [Quest] tab and saw that I had all the required items except for [Black Soil].

[Curing Infertility Part 2:

Plant the Crimson Pearl Peony seed.
Requirements: Black Soil, Spirit Water, and Mysterious Goo.

Reward: Farming Exp]

I was creating [Black Soil] on my farm, but that would take several seasons. Since I only needed a very small amount of soil for the quest, just enough to fill a plant pot, it should be fine to take some from an existing source.

The most convenient place I could think of was the Dancing Deer Summit. I’d encountered the Deer clan before when I alerted them to the presence of [Lunar Goats] near their village. They would probably be inclined to return the favor.

Once I finished harvesting the mushrooms, I returned to my house and dashed off a quick letter to the clan asking for permission to visit their territory to get some soil. I gave the letter to Fengying who would give it to Shuye’s messenger who would then pass it on to the Deer clan.

***

Three days later, I was pleasantly surprised to see that I wouldn’t need to make a trip to the mountain after all. The clan had sent me the item I needed.

“So this is [Black Soil].” Mo moved the open paper bag closer to her face and sniffed it. “It smells the same as regular soil.”

Lari poked the contents of the bag. “It really is black.”

“Teacher, I’ll pour it into the pot.” Kharli waited for my nod before filling a plant pot with the soil.

Next, it was my turn. “I’ll add the [Mysterious Goo].”

The others watched as I covered the top of the soil with the glowing goo. It was quickly absorbed.

Mo beamed when I handed her the seed. “I get to plant it!”

[Crimson Pearl Peony Seed:

A legendary seed that has been passed on for generations since time immemorial. The long-extinct Crimson Pearl Peony was said to be the main ingredient of the Paramount Serendipitous Celestial Pill, the ultimate fertility drug.]

All Mo had to do was to use a finger to make a hole up to the first knuckle and then place the seed in it.

Lastly, I gave Lari a glass of soda water from the Mines.

He held the glass up to the light and admired the liquid. “This bubbly water is [Spirit Water]? It looks very mystical.”

After he watered the seed, I got the expected System message.

[Curing Infertility Part 2: Quest Complete

Reward: Farming Exp]

To my surprise, I got quite a lot of exp, almost enough to push me over to level 22. I also got another quest.

[Forming the Paramount Serendipitous Celestial Pill:

Visit the Venerable Immortal Sage. Learn the secret of alchemy and form your first elixir.
Requirements: Crimson Pearl Peony seed, Harmony Whisper Moss, Revitalizing Essence Fern, Twilight Green Orchid, and Blooming Milkthistle.

Reward: Herblaw Exp and access to the Alchemy sub skill]

Of course, I immediately clicked on the [Accept Quest] button.

Now we’re talking! Herblaw was the art of making potions, but it had an Alchemy sub-skill. Players could use an alchemy cauldron to create immortal elixirs and upgrade items. As to why there were two such similar skills, it was because Adventure Incarnate was originally a social farming simulation game where Herblaw was a part of farming. When the game was sold to a Chinese video game company that had an RPG that they were developing, they decided to merge the two games together to take advantage of the existing player base. That’s why the in-game world was an interesting mix of fantasy medieval-Europe-meets-magitech-Asia.

In short, the devs had simply grafted Alchemy into the Herblaw skill. It worked quite nicely. Potions and pills were very similar, and many complained about the two skills being redundant, but I had always been of the opinion that when it came to money-making stuff, more items were always better.

The Alchemy cauldrons could also be used to enchant items, which was their main use.

I was jolted out of my reverie when Lari cleared his throat.

He lifted the plant pot and said, “Teacher, shouldn’t we put this under the sun?”

“Ah! Yes, we should.” I led them outside to the courtyard, and we debated where to place it.

“We can't put it there, someone will trip over it,” said Kharli when Mo wanted to put it in the center.

“Hang it from this central pillar?” Lari pointed at the spot he liked.

“Not enough sun,” said Mo.

“How about the roof?” asked Lari.

“That would be too hard to water,” said Mo.

In the end, we placed it in the sunniest corner of a plant stand along with some other pots.

“I hope a beautiful fairy girl appears when this flower blossoms,” said Mo.

“Me, too,” said Lari.

“I hope it's a male fairy,” said Kharli.

“That’s just a fairy tale. Don’t get too excited, everyone. These immortal plants normally take a very long time to grow,” I said. “It might flower by autumn.”

But I was wrong. Not even an hour later, my apprentices ran up to me as I was playing with Cutie at her [Slime House].

“Teacher, look!” In her excitement, Mo thrust the pot right up to my face. “It sprouted.’

“What? That was fast.” I was confused.

Mo lifted the pot high in the air and twirled it around like it was a child. “This must be the flower from the fairy tale. Teacher, can I please watch it? I want to see the fairy!”

Kharli tried to take the pot from her, but Mo refused to let go.

“Let me have a turn with it. I wanna be the first one the fairy sees when it’s born,” said Kharli.

I shook my head at their antics. “Put the plant back in the stand and stop fighting over it. You may both watch. Where’s Lari?”

“He’s at the tea field,” said Kharli.

The tea field, with its canopy that blocked out most of the sunlight, had quickly become our favorite outdoor resting and picnic spot.

I was sure that Lari would also like to watch the peony grow. “Don’t leave him out of this.”

“Yes, Teacher,” the two of them chorused.

It was only midmorning and I had some more chores to do. The sky overhead was a dull grayish blue with lots of dark clouds. I hoped the reinforced tea canopy was strong enough to withstand the upcoming storm. I went all around the farm placing lightning rods and put Cutie back in her house before going to check on the [Crimson Pearl Peony].

Lari, Kharli, and Mo were watching the post very closely when I arrived at the courtyard. They all jumped up and screamed, “It’s gonna bloom! It’s gonna bloom!”

“Let me see.” I went to the plant stand and saw that, amazingly, the peony was already three inches tall. “This is incredible. It’s only been like 2 hours.”

We all watched over the plant’s amazingly fast growth. By the third hour, it was six inches tall. By the fifth hour, it was a foot tall. By the sixth hour, it began to bud. Eight hours later, the bud blossomed into a flower with large, deep red petals with a pearly luster. Ten hours later, the flower began to wilt. Twelve hours later, the flower died and I gathered twelve seeds from the seedpods. At midnight the plant withered to ashes.

“No fairy?” Mo was extremely disappointed.

“No fairy.” I patted her on the head. “Do you want to plant another seed?”

“Yes!” Mo cheered up, probably because she wanted more exp.

“I wish we had more [Black Soil] so we could plant more seeds,” said Kharli.

“Maybe Teacher can ask the Deer clan for more?” Lari suggested.

“Nah, this is fine.” I didn’t want to look greedy by asking for more.

Lari spread the goo while Mo planted the seed and Kharli watered it.

“Let’s leave it here and go to bed. With luck it will have grown a lot by the time we wake up,” I said.

Before going to bed, I wrote a letter to Lady Hoshi informing her that I had successfully grown the Crimson Pearl Peony and another letter to Shuye asking for an escort to Cloud Terrace Peak where the Venerable Immortal Sage lives.

Chapter 141 - Testing Spirit Roots at the Soaring Crane Sect

Chapter 141 - Finding out if Violet is talon-ted in cultivation

🙞❤︎🙜

Five days later there was a big commotion in the house. My apprentices woke up three hours before dawn to finish watering, weeding, and tending the crops, and give the maids enough time to prepare them for the upcoming visit to the Venerable Immortal Sage’s Pavilion. Lari, Kharli, Mo, and I were scrubbed, perfumed, groomed, coiffed, and attired in splendid robes hung with numerous accessories of the finest jade.

I thought it was all a bit much. If it was up to me, I would’ve dressed them in plain cotton robes to denote humility and simplicity, but Fengying assured me that it would be a mistake to look too ordinary when visiting the Dawn Skyblade Sect. They were said to be a poor sect who were always looking for ways to make more money. Therefore, it would behoove us to look like people they would want to curry favor with.

“Can I wear boots? I mean, it’s a mountain, you know!” I showed Yinuo and Fengying a pair of deerskin leather ankle boots. They didn’t quite go with the [Butterfly Beauty] costume set from the Cash Shop, but I wanted to wear something practical.

“My lady, I’ll find something better.” Yinuo rummaged in a wooden chest until she found a pair of embroidered silk shoes. “These are new, and they’re very comfortable.”

I eyed the shoes askance. The problem with the footwear of this world was that they hadn’t figured out arch support. The soles were completely flat.

Still, they were really pretty.

I gave in and tried them out. “They do go well with my outfit.”

“Lady Violet, you won’t be walking much,” said Fengying.

“Hmm. True. Okay, I’m convinced!” I twirled in front of a full-length mirror from the Cash Shop.

It took the maid three hours to prepare Kharli, Mo, and me for the visit. Thankfully, we were allowed to eat and drink while the ladies styled our hair into elaborate updos with a sweet-smelling mixture of beeswax, camellia seed oil, and perfume. Lari was allowed to simply tie up his hair in a high ponytail on top of his head secured by a tiny crown-like hair accessory with a hair stick inserted into it. I opted for a single hairpin with dangling pearls and gold ornaments while the girls got more hairpins as well as silver combs inlaid with iridescent blue kingfisher feathers.

“I’m making a lot of sounds when I walk,” I said to the others.

We all did. The various hanging hair and belt ornaments we wore made tinkling sounds whenever we moved. Kharli wore lavender silk while both Mo and Lari were wearing blue silk robes.

“That’s the sound of wealth making itself heard,” said Lari.

Kharli nodded. “This is the sound the merchants listen for!”

“It also lets commoners know when they should move out of the way for the nobility,” said Mo.

“Ah.” They didn’t get what I was saying at all. The tinkling sound of jade and other precious gems striking each other was poetic shorthand for a literary masterpiece or a person of outstanding talent. Weren't poets always writing about exactly this type of melodic chiming when a beauty was walking by?

Shuye met us at the main hall.

“Congratulations!” I said after everyone had exchanged greetings with my Farm Guide. “When can I visit your baby?”

“Thank you.” Shuye smiled. He was wearing a beautiful silk brocade robe embroidered with storks, but his long hair hung freely and was as shaggy as ever. “I’m afraid you can’t visit just yet. Babies are very delicate. Traditionally, they are kept at home and only family and close friends can visit.”

“Aw, that’s too bad. Why don’t you tell me about her?” This question of mine unleashed a torrent of words from a doting father who told us all about how adorable and sweet the baby was with her soft little cheeks, perfectly formed fingers and toes, shining brown hair, cute button nose, and sparkling eyes. I nodded and made the appropriate sounds of agreement whenever he stopped for breath, enjoying how blissful and content Shuye seemed.

I gave him a few rolls of white cotton cloth that had already been cut into rectangles and hemmed for use as diapers as well as some swaddle blankets. He thanked me for the gifts and, since we were leaving for Cloud Terrace Peak, we left the items in the main hall to be delivered to his house by his messengers later.

We set off for the Three Great Fortunes Mountain range, with me, Kharli, and Mo in the flying carriage while Shuye and Lari opted for an ox cart. I would’ve thought Shuye would be more comfortable in the carriage, but, like Lari, he preferred the carts that were open to the air rather than the closed carriage. I guess the cart was better for sightseeing, and it was enchanted to shield its passengers from being buffeted by the wind, but I thought it was scary.

“Teacher, look, I think I see the three sacred lakes!” Kharli pushed the window curtain back and pointed at the glittering water below.

The Three Great Fortunes Mountain range was named after the three lakes whose waters were said to grant various blessings. They were the Easing Pain, Revealing Insights, and Granting Good Fortune Lakes.

“Lovely. I hope we can visit the [Heaven’s Eye Grotto].” That was a place where one could fish, but I mostly wanted to visit because it was a really pretty place in Adventure Incarnate.

“I have never heard of [Heaven’s Eye Grotto],” said Kharli.

Mo scrunched her face up in a very adorable way. “Teacher, it’s not in the System map.”

“That’s because it’s a secret, hidden place. No, don’t ask me for any details. I’ll tell you later if I spot it. By the way, for now, don’t mention it to anyone,” I said.

A few minutes later, we arrived at Cloud Terrace Peak where the Venerable Immortal Sage lived. I was hugely disappointed when I saw that the fabled Divine Elixir Pavilion was simply a group of small wooden houses. Sure, they had a great view of the surrounding granite peaks, but in Adventure Incarnate, the place was surrounded by sparkles and a glowing mist, giving it a wonderfully fantastic appearance.

“I thought the Sage’s house would look more… otherworldly,” I said to Shuye after he helped me down the carriage.

He gave me a strange look. “I always forget that you can’t see or sense qi. The Divine Elixir Pavilion has a strong immortal aura around it.”

“Wow.” I was impressed. For Shuye to say that the aura was strong must mean it was exceptionally powerful for a human cultivator’s abode. After all, in this world, humans were much weaker than clan members.

Shuye, as the highest-ranking person among us, led the way. I followed right behind him with my apprentices trailing in my wake. We made a very pretty procession if I do say so myself. I was surprised when the door to the nearest house opened and disgorged two old men with long white hair and snowy beards. They were both wearing the stereotypical white robes and loose-fitting pants that actors wore in ancient martial arts movies. Even though I couldn’t sense qi auras, I could tell from his bearing that the older man was the Venerable Immortal Sage himself.

We all cupped our hands and bowed deeply, even Shuye, and started the lengthy process of formal introductions and greetings. I almost had to wipe away a tear on seeing my three little apprentices behaving with grace and perfect manners.

Was this how a proud parent feels when they show off their kids?

The other elderly person was the Sage’s great-grandnephew, the current Sect Master of the Soaring Crane Sect. They welcomed us inside one of the inner pavilions which served as their main hall where we seated ourselves according to rank and had tea which was served by the Sect Master himself.

After the expected small talk in which I did my best to wax poetic about the gorgeous mountain scenery, I got down to business.

“Venerable Immortal Sage, I’ve brought some gifts for you.” I took out the first of the required quest items, the [Harmony Whisper Moss]. The System text said that I only needed one, but I’d bought eight from the Cash Shop since I figured more was better.

“That’s- By the gods, it’s Silken Veil Moss! Quick, get the jade boxes!” The Sage’s eyes widened and a look of great horror flashed across his face as he jumped up and grabbed the items from me.

We stayed seated and exchanged looks of confusion as the two old men rushed outside, doubtless to get the aforementioned jade boxes.

They returned shortly, without the items. The Sage sat down and gazed across the room at me with a broad smile and a twinkle in his eye. “Young lady, thank you for the moss, but such precious things must be stored in special jade boxes. They will quickly deteriorate if left out in the open too long. You kept them in your soul space?”

A soul space was, in immortal cultivation terms, a pocket dimension within the cultivator's consciousness, serving as an interspatial storage where weapons, treasures, and artifacts could be safely housed.

When I nodded, his voice softened and he assumed a benevolent yet condescending air. “Good. You’ve offered me quite a valuable ingredient. Is there anything I can do for you?”

Eh? So easily? I hadn’t even given him the rest of the stuff. “Venerable Immortal Sage, I’d like to offer you these items. I hope you can make the Paramount Serendipitous Celestial Pill for me.”

“Yes, I will.” The Sage smiled and stroked his beard.

“And also… Venerable Immortal Sage, I wonder if it would be possible for me to learn the basics of alchemy from you?” I asked.

The Sage stroked his beard and nodded to the Sect Master who got a small wooden chest from the side of the hall and placed it on the table beside me. He opened the lid to reveal the transparent crystal sphere inside it.

“Please put your hand on this Soul Essence Stone. It will show us whether or not you have a Spirit Root and assess your potential for cultivation,” said the Sage.

Incredible! This was exactly the way it was shown in Chinese fantasy TV shows, wasn’t it?

I placed my hand on the crystal.

Chapter 142 - Spirit Roots test results at the Soaring Crane Sect

Chapter 142 - Beak-on, negativity! Come, root-iful life

🙞❤︎🙜

As expected, it remained inert.

“It seems you do not have a Spirit Root,” said the Sage. “I can’t take you as my disciple.”

Adventure Incarnate lore was quite clear on the fact that the players’ special powers were different from the cultivation path that both humans and clan members used in this world. I would’ve been shocked if the Soul Essence Stone had been able to detect my skills.

Even if it had, I’m guessing it would have shown that I had the All-Attributes Spirit Root since I was able to cast all types of elemental spells, which would be considered trash, since the fewer attributes a person’s spirit root had, the better their cultivation potential was. Or the Soul Essence Stone could detect that I had a very strange spirit root, such as a Mutated Spirit Root that was unsuitable for cultivation.

I simply smiled and said, “Oh, I wouldn’t presume to ask for that, sir. I only ask to watch you while you work and learn from you this one time. I have a few more ingredients with me.”

However, when I moved my hand, the Sage jumped up.

“Stop!” he shouted.

The Sect Master approached me and, with a trembling voice, asked, “Young lady, how many of these items are you offering?”

“Twenty-five,” I said.

“Please wait here. I will return with the boxes.” The Sect Master left.

The Sage drew a white handkerchief from his pocket and wiped his forehead with it. “I’m too old for this…”

I leaned towards Shuye who was sitting beside me and whispered, “Did you know there was a special storage requirement for alchemy ingredients?”

“No. There are only two clan members who practice alchemy in the whole of the Westerlands,” said Shuye. He was doing his best to keep a poker face, but his lips kept twitching, so I could tell that he was amused.

The Sage overheard our exchange and sighed deeply. “It is indeed a dying art. I once had three genius disciples, but they all died before me. Now my lifespan is almost over, and there’s no one to take over the alchemy furnaces in my Divine Elixir Pavilion.”

Shuye cleared his throat and gave me a meaningful look before turning to the Sage and saying, “Venerable Immortal Sage, Baroness Violet has three apprentices who are able to share her bloodline inheritance. Would you like to test them, too?”

“I've heard of this bloodline inheritance. Yes, go ahead and try your luck with the crystal,” said the Sage.

Lari and Kharli looked like they were going to explode with excitement, but they kept silent and waited for my approval before moving. Mo acted blasé but I knew she must be eager to try it, too.

I gestured towards the crystal and watched as, one by one, they put their hands on it.

Of course, nothing happened.

Shuye looked thoughtful. My apprentices were too well-tutored in manners by Fengying to say anything, but their downturned mouths and slumped shoulders spoke volumes.

The Sage gave my apprentices a sympathetic look. “Don’t be discouraged, young ones. Only one out of a thousand people have Spirit Roots, and of those, only one in twenty have good potential.”

“Thank you for sharing your wisdom with us, sir,” I said.

Just then the Sect Master arrived, bringing the jade boxes which he set down on a side table. His hands were trembling.

The boxes were made of translucent white jade and were carved with mystic runes.

This time, I handled the items with more care, taking them out one by one and placing them in a jade box instead of pulling out bunches of them from my inventory.

The Sage watched closely as I worked. With each item that I took out, his smile grew bigger and bigger. “Yes, yes, these will do nicely. I will make the Paramount Serendipitous Celestial Pill for you, but that is too difficult for a beginner. I’ll show you how to make the most basic nourishing qi pill.”

I bowed as gracefully as I could. “Thank you!”

“I can only do this much. You may not call me your teacher and I cannot take you as a student since the sect’s laws forbid it. Mortals cannot be admitted into the sect.” He sighed and looked as though he wanted to pat me on the head. “It’s a great pity.”

Even if he had offered, I would have refused.

“I’m not suited for immortal cultivation, but I’m glad I can practice alchemy using my bloodline inheritance,” I said.

“Stay here, please,” the Sect Master instructed the others.

Shuye frowned and my apprentices looked disappointed though no one made any objections as I followed the two old men out of the main hall and into another simple house.

This one had clay brick walls and floor tiles. The interior was a single open space with cauldrons lining one wall. The cauldrons, made of sturdy bronze, varied greatly in size and design. The Sage waved his arm and one flew up and settled itself in the center of the room.

The cauldron was made of a bronze-colored metal and stood on three legs. The center of the lid was shaped in the form of a lotus bud. Intricately engraved lotus flowers adorned its aged surface that had a patina of great age and constant use.

The Sage sat down cross-legged in front of the cauldron and the Sect Master and I sat behind him on either side to watch. I didn’t need to be told not to talk since I knew the Sage needed to concentrate.

He started by putting a whole bunch of [Spell Stones] under the cauldron. There were at least fifty of them! He seemed to pull them out of thin air. Fascinating! This must be what it looks like to other people when I do Herblaw.

Then the Sage used the [Spell Stones] to light a magical blue fire under the vessel. The heat from the fire was intense and I had to use a handkerchief to blot the sweat from my face. I hoped I wasn’t going to stain my fancy robes. The Sect Master seemed to notice my discomfort and quickly whispered a few unintelligible words under his breath. When he finished, a faintly visible white mist enveloped us, cooling the air. I cupped my hands and bowed from the waist in my seated position, silently thanking him.

When the cauldron was white-hot, the Sage removed the lid and put herbs inside it. The [Twilight Green Orchid] was first, followed by the [Blooming Milkthistle]. I thought they would burn to ashes, but instead, they glowed green and white before becoming liquid. The last item he put inside was the [Crimson Pearl Peony Seed].

Moments later, the liquified herbs swirled together and became brown.

The Sage put the lid back on and the fire roared even higher and more intense for a few minutes before dying down.

The Sect Master sighed deeply, a slight smile making the lines on his face deepen. “Congratulations, Venerable Immortal Sage!”

It was finished?

Moments later, a thick, cloying medicinal scent filled the air.

The Sage got up and we all crowded around the cauldron. When he opened the lid, steam came out of it, and there were brown lumps at the bottom of the vessel. The Sage held his right hand up and the brown lumps flew up to it, suspended in the air a few inches above his palm.

“Three usable pills. Not bad.” The Sage stroked his beard. It seemed it was a habit of his.

The Sect Master produced a glass bottle from thin air. The pills flew into it and he capped it with a jade stopper. He bowed and offered it to me, “Young lady, here are the Paramount Serendipitous Celestial Pills.”

I bowed back and took it, storing it in my inventory for safekeeping. “Thank you very much!”

“Now I’ll show you how to make a beginner pill.” The Sage waved his hand at the wall of cauldrons, and one of them flew beside the one he had used. “Sit down.”

I obediently sat down in front of the other cauldron. It was a smaller version of the first, except it was much more plain, with only one big lotus flower etched on the lid. The System helpfully sent me a popup message when I sat down cross-legged in front of the cauldron.

[Start Tutorial?]

I mentally clicked on the [Yes] button and then used the System while copying the Sage’s actions.

[Place 10 Spell Stones under the cauldron.]

As I carefully piled the crystals, the Sage chuckled and said, “I hope you have enough money to buy more of those. You’ll be using a lot of them. This is why my Sect has a bad reputation for being full of money grubbers.”

“I’ve heard that alchemy is the type of crafting that costs a lot and needs rare ingredients,” I said.

“That’s the life of an alchemist,” said the Sage.

The next System message came as a huge relief.

[Activate the cauldron.]

I had been worried about how to generate the fire that the Sage lit, but it was easy as pie. All I had to do was to mentally examine the cauldron then click on the [Activate] button that the System provided and a small flame appeared under the vessel.

There must be a passive skill involved since the heat of the flames no longer bothered me once we started heating the cauldrons. Or maybe because the flames we both used were smaller.

“Take these.” The Sage handed me a small bunch of spirit grass and a piece of ginseng. “Put a little bit of water inside your cauldron. It helps beginners with blending the ingredients.”

[Pour one glass of Soda Water inside the vessel.]

I took the items and did as the System instructed.

The Sage nodded approvingly.

[When the water starts boiling, add the ginseng.]

“Put the ginseng in now.” The Sage put his piece of ginseng in his cauldron.

I carefully dropped the ginseng into the boiling water, trying not to make a splash. I noticed that the Sage himself was not using water. The ginseng and water in my pot glowed and the ginseng dissolved.

“Good, now add the grass,” said the Sage.

[When the ginseng dissolves, add the spirit grass.]

Behind us, the Sect Master made a sound of approval.

The grass I added made the water sparkle as it dissolved.

I was surprised to see that the ginseng in the sage’s cauldron had somehow dissolved into a green liquid. He added grass to his pot which dissolved and merged with the dissolved ginseng.

As for my cauldron, the water turned green, and the Sage handed me a silk sachet. I opened it and sniffed the contents, which was a white powder.

“It’s arrowroot pearl powder. Add the powder to the water little by little. It will thicken the mixture,” said the Sage. “You can also use rice powder if you like.”

[Add arrowroot pearl powder to the liquid.]

“Gosh.” This must be the penultimate stage of alchemy. I knew from watching Chinese fantasy TV shows that coalescing the pill was the final step. After adding the powder, I held my breath, waiting for the pills to form.

The contents of the sage’s cauldron seethed and he put the lid on. To my surprise, he turned to me and said, “You’re done.”

“I’m done?!” The liquid in my vessel had thickened until it had a jelly-like consistency, but it hadn’t formed into pills.

Was it a failure?

Chapters 143 and 143.5 - Alchemy Tutorial Result

Chapter 143 - Exploring a roe-mantic cave

🙞❤︎🙜

[Deactivate the cauldron.]

I mentally clicked on the [Deactivate] button which turned off the fire.

[Use two silver spoons to form the mixture into balls and wrap them with wild betel leaves.]

What the heck? Was I doing alchemy or cooking a dessert?

The Sect Master stepped forward and handed me two silver spoons. “Young lady, congratulations on making your first pill. Use this to form them into balls. Here are some leaves you can use to wrap them.”

I did as I was instructed. The finished product looked like white mochi balls.

[Forming the Paramount Serendipitous Celestial Pill: Quest Complete

Reward: Herblaw Exp and access to the Alchemy sub skill]

I was very close to an Herblaw level, so I had turned off the System confetti effect before we left the farm.

[Congratulations, you just advanced an Herblaw level!]

[Your Herblaw level is now 16.]

It was hard to keep a poker face while I inwardly rejoiced at the good amount of exp I got from the quest. I was nearly level 17 now.

“Well done. These pills are basic nourishing qi pills. It’s very gentle and popular among elderly mortals since it can temporarily soothe their aches and pains.” The Sage looked quite gratified by my success.

The Sage lifted the lid on his cauldron, revealing eight perfectly formed white pills. He put them inside another glass bottle which then disappeared into his inventory.

“Thank you very much!” I thanked both of them effusively as the sage put the cauldrons away.

“No, don’t thank me. This was the least I could do after you gave me the herbs I’ve been looking for.” The Sage led us outside and we walked to another small wooden building. Gesturing for me to stay outside, he entered and emerged a few minutes later with a neatly wrapped brown paper package. “Take these beginner alchemy books. The books themselves are nothing special. You could buy them at specialist bookshops, but these particular copies were annotated by my master.”

I could tell that the books were rare and valuable from the way he insisted that they were nothing special. “I’m greatly honored, Venerable Immortal Sage, but I can’t accept these. They’re far too valuable.”

“No, no, these are just common books. I insist you take them.”

“How could I? I’m unworthy of such treasures.”

“Don’t be so stubborn. Take them.”

“Is it really okay for me to take them?”

“You must.”

We did the whole rigmarole where I refused to accept it three times to show that I wasn’t greedy. This sort of thing was tiring, but it was the proper thing to do, and I guessed that the Sage was the traditional type of person. Eventually, I accepted and thanked him profusely.

Our business done, we walked back to the main hall.

The Sage seemed to be in a very good mood. “Tell me, young lady, why did you approach me instead of the two alchemists from the clans?”

I couldn’t tell him that he was the System’s choice. “I don't think the clans use the same alchemy method as humans, do they?”

“They do.”

“Oh.”

“In the future, if they need more Paramount Serendipitous Celestial Pills, the clan members can make them.”

“You don’t want to make more, Venerable Immortal Sage?”

“I will be unable to. My lifespan is at its end. The viridian unity moss and invigorating qi fern you gave me are the last two ingredients I need for my farewell party. With them, I can make the Sovereign Vitality Awakening Pill.”

“Um.” I didn’t know what to say, so I made a soft, noncommittal sound because I couldn’t tell if he meant what he said literally. For all I knew, the old man would have decades more of lifespan left. Who knew how cultivators counted time? I’d asked Fengying and she said that the Venerable Immortal Sage was at least three hundred years old, which was far beyond a normal cultivator’s lifespan. That was why he had outlived his three disciples. He seemed to be waiting for my reaction, so I said, “The Sovereign Vitality Awakening Pill?”

He chuckled. “Ah, the pill that will bring back my youth! It will be my masterpiece.”

“Wow, it's a youthening medicine?”

“A temporary one. I’ll make at least two, one for me, and one for my junior martial brother, that old-”

Here the Sect Master interrupted the Sage with a loud cough.

The Sage seemed a little abashed at being caught almost cussing in front of an outsider like me. He cleared his throat. “... That old rival of mine, is what I was about to say. It will be an event that people will talk about for centuries afterward!”

“Wow! I’m sure it will be amazing.” I had no idea what he was talking about though I was tickled pink at the mention of a junior martial brother. That should refer to someone who was a fellow disciple who studied under the same master. And they were rivals? I sensed that there was a long, dramatic story behind this rivalry.

I must've looked quite interested because the Sage misinterpreted my expression as curiosity about the event.

“I’m sorry, young lady, but you can’t attend. It’s only for me, my junior martial brother, and one witness. We’ll have to bring a poet with us.” The Sage chuckled. “One who can hold his liquor! The pill will bring back the vitality of youth, and we’ll compete in twelve contests of skill and stamina.”

“It sounds fun.” 'Not a bad way to spend your last days' was what I wanted to add, but I didn’t want to seem morbid.

The Sage counted it off with his fingers. “Wrestling, archery, horse riding, boat racing, running, swimming, chess, poetry, philosophical debate, painting, musical composition, and kite fighting.”

By the time he finished his recitation, we were near enough to see the main hall, so he stopped talking. Shuye and the kids saw us arriving and met us at the door. They seemed impatient to see what I had made during my first alchemy session.

“Teacher, this looks great! May I eat it?” Lari was the first to react when I showed them the mochi-looking “pills.”

“Sure, why not?” I gave my apprentices one each.

“It’s sweet,” said Mo.

“I like how it's soft and chewy,” said Kharli.

“The pill is very filling,” said Lari.

Even Shuye ate one when I offered it to him. I suppose alchemy items were not considered human food and were therefore not taboo for clan members to eat.

“Delicious,” said Shuye.

We thanked the Sage and Sect Master one last time and said our goodbyes.

At the flying carriage, I used a wooden twig I picked up to draw a crude map on the ground and instructed the driver to go to the spot I indicated. “That’s where the [Heaven’s Eye Grotto] is located.”

I really wanted to go cave fishing!

The drivers of the flying carriage and ox cart were very skilled, so it took them only half an hour to find the little valley between two peaks that I marked on the map. Once we were on the ground, the cave opening was easy enough to spot.

“How mysterious!” I said. “This place is called the [Heaven’s Eye Grotto]. According to the map from my bloodline inheritance, there should be a small subterranean lake inside where we can fish.”

The entrance of the cave was large and the ground was surprisingly even except for two large white rock formations. The top of the entrance had a large quantity of white mineral deposits. Were those stalactites? I wished I knew more about geology.

The side of the mountain where the cave was located was covered in a very interesting black moss and red lichen. Above us, two especially large circular clusters of red lichen stood out. The System didn’t identify the moss or lichen which meant that they weren't herblaw ingredients, so I left them alone.

This place must have been discovered by people before since there were some characters carved on the mountain wall written above it, but they were too old and worn for me to read.

The air smelled like sulfur. Was there a hot spring inside?

I was about to enter when Shuye pulled me back.

“Wait.” He gazed at the cave entrance with furrowed brows.

“Oh, right, I should send Mr. Bear inside first, right? It should be safe, but there’s no reason not to be careful.” I detached Mr. Bear from my belt and made him human-sized.

We watched outside as Mr. Bear entered the cave. After a few minutes, I shrugged and turned to Shuye. “My puppet hasn’t reported anything.”

Remembering a certain incident with a bunch of monkeys, I added, “But my puppet doesn’t recognize local wildlife as dangerous.”

“Are you sure you want to go inside?” Shuye sounded a little upset. “Perhaps we should send word to the clan that we found this place. They can send explorers inside first.”

“No way! This is my discovery! Besides, it looks safe. Can you hear anything from out here?”

“The only thing I hear is the sound of water.”

“No bats, huh? That’s great.”

I once again moved forward, but Shuye shook his head and gestured for me to step back.

He moved in front of me protectively. “Very well. I’ll go first.”

“Okay, thank you!” I wasn’t a daredevil.

Lari, Kharli, and Mo looked nervous, probably because of Shuye’s overcautious behavior. I just grinned and waved at them to let them know they should follow me.

Inside, the cave was quite dark, but it was not a problem because the Cash Shop had plenty of cute lanterns that I could use. I took out a portable dragon-shaped camping lantern with 360-degree illumination and lifted it high to one side to allow the light to help Shuye and the rest of us see where we were going. The light cast dancing, looming shadows along the walls of the cave.

“Watch your step,” I said to the others.

The ground was fairly even except for a few rocks scattered here and there that might trip up the unwary person because they were covered with black and red moss, and quite difficult to see.

Thankfully, it didn’t take long for us to find the underground lake, presumably the one called Heaven’s Eye.

“There it is!” I put the lantern down and moved forward to stand beside Shuye. “I thought there would be a big eye-shaped opening in the cave’s ceiling.”

“Be careful,” was all Shuye said. He seemed quite tense.

I held the lantern high and looked up, but the ceiling was so high that all I saw was darkness. Keeping Mr. Bear in [Guard Mode], I went around placing more lanterns.

“Teacher, are there truly fish here?” Lari knelt beside the lake’s edge and peered into the water.

I understood why he was dubious since the water was completely clear and there were no fish visible. “There should be fish there. Since they’re spiritual fish, perhaps they have a stealth skill.”

“Stealth fish?” Shuye gave me a disbelieving look.

I shrugged. “ Well, there’s only one way to find out.”

We spread out a little and my apprentices took out their fishing rods while Shuye paced back and forth, a look of unease on his face. The others cast their lines, and I approached Shuye first to ask him if he was okay.

“Do you not like caves? You can wait for us outside if you like.”

“No, I’ll stay here to guard you.”

“Okay.”

I went back to the lake and started fishing. It didn’t take long before I caught the first [Cavefish].

“See? There’s fish here. We just can’t see them,” I said.

“That’s a weird fish!” said Mo.

“It is, isn’t it?” I expected it to be pale and translucent, but instead, it had black scales streaked with molten red, as though it was a [Lava Fish], not a [Cavefish]. Its bulging eyes glowed crimson and its mouth was filled with sharp teeth like a shark. When I put it in a bucket of water, I saw that there were bioluminescent, ghostly tendrils extending from its body. “Let’s continue fishing.”

“I got one!” yelled Lari from the other side of the lake.

A few minutes later, Kharli got her fish, too. I waited until Mo got hers before putting away my fishing rod. The [Cavefish] could only be caught here in Adventure Incarnate, so I wanted to give it a try. If the place had been as pretty as I thought it would be, we would’ve stayed longer, but since it wasn’t very nice in the cave, I decided to leave. It’s not like the [Cavefish] was anything special, after all.

Shuye seemed extremely relieved when I announced that we were leaving.

Chapter 143.5

An excerpt from the journal of Shuye Skullcrusher, Guardian of the Ancient Hill Forest:

I did not enter the legendary Hellmouth. I did not see a cave entrance in the shape of a mouth with jagged teeth and two glaring red eyes above them. There is no such thing as a Hellmouth. Neither were my eyes assaulted by a verse written in the language of the underworld that I somehow understood. The verse written above the nonexistent cave did not warn intruders not to enter the land of eternal suffering. I did not see the Lake of Invisible Hellfish that serves as a passage to the Underworld.

I’ll have to get myself ritually cleansed by a priestess before I go home, and I’ll have to think of a good excuse to refuse if Baroness Violet asks me to sell the Hellfish for her.

Chapter 144 - Item alchemy upgrades

Chapter 144 - Witch-eresting alchemy books

🙞❤︎🙜

When we got home, the first thing I did was unpack the alchemy books.

“I hope this works. I hope this works! Please work. Please work.” I bonked myself on the head with a book.

Nothing happened.

I tried again.

Nothing happened again.

I tried the other books, but it was useless.

Although I was very disappointed, it made sense that it was only the Astrology books that worked that way. Astrology was a skill that was half-heartedly made as a money sink, and neither the players nor the devs ever took it seriously. Alchemy, on the other hand, was a very important skill. Therefore, it was only logical that one couldn’t level it up via a silly method like bonking oneself on the head with a skill book.

On the other hand, I was very pleased that the other Alchemy sub-skills had likewise been unlocked. Immortal Pills were nice and all, but weapon and armor upgrades were even better!

I went outside to the back garden of my [Ranch House] and set up the [Nine Dragon Jade Cauldron]. Then I put the [Spells Stones] under it the way that the Venerable Immortal Sage had shown me and activated the cauldron using the System. When the temperature was right, I took off the lid and threw in a [Firebird Feather].

[Firebird Feather:

A bright red feather from the mythical Firebird, known for its dazzling and radiant plumage. This exquisite plume, shimmering with an otherworldly intensity, is said to embody the essence of fire. Crafting with this feather can imbue items with the mythical creature's fiery spirit.]

This time, the feather flew out of the cauldron on its own after a few seconds, and I got a small amount of Magic and Herblaw exp. The enhanced item was now a [Firebird Feather +1 Air].

Air was good because it worked well with Fire, but +1 was the lowest possible enhancement. I tried it again with another feather. This time it became a [Firebird Feather +3 Water]. The next one I made was a [Firebird Feather +1 Earth]. Obviously, those two were no good since they were not very compatible with the fire element.

“I wish there was an item that boosts luck.”

Unlike other skills, this particular type of Alchemy was totally random. Creating the perfect +9 full set of weapons, armor, and accessories was a real pain in the neck, but players who didn’t have the patience to make their own could simply buy the items they needed from other players. After an outcry from the player base, the Adventure Incarnate developers modified the skills somewhat to improve gameplay by allowing players to load the cauldrons with items that would automatically alchemize them.

I took out one hundred feathers from my inventory and placed them in the cauldron’s inventory. Then I simply turned on the [Automatic Alchemy] function. All I would have to do now was to wait until they were all finished before collecting them.

As for the Immortal Pills, I believed that it would be best to wait until I had harvested my first Immortal Herbs before selling any since it would be extremely strange for me to suddenly start producing pills out of nothing.

Herblaw potions were what players used to boost their stats. The pills produced by Alchemy were meant for cultivators and were therefore useless to players. Despite the importance of such pills in a cultivation world, in the game world, they were simply another product created to sell to the NPCs. It was the same mechanic as the milk that was produced by farm animals and was made into cheese which sold for a higher price than milk. Likewise, herbs were grown on the farm and made into pills simply to make more money.

I knew it would be different in this world because the cultivators here were not NPCs but real people. There was sure to be a big commotion when the farm successfully grew Immortal Herbs. Shuye would have his work cut out for him, that was for sure!

***

The next day. I handed Fengying a bunch of mochi. “These are basic nourishing qi pills. Please distribute them among the staff.”

“Congratulations on learning alchemy, my lady.” My housekeeper was all smiles as she went about her way.

Now that I was literally using a cauldron, I wondered if there would be more legends of the Witch of the Forest in the future. The thought made me smile as I ate breakfast. After I finished eating, I put my chopsticks down and said, “Kids, it’s time! I think the [Spirit Grass], [Wild Seed Mix] and [Soybeans] are ready.”

“Yes, Teacher,” they said.

We all went outside and headed straight for the place where I was trying to create [Black Soil]. During the planting season, we had sown the field with plants that were not meant to be harvested but rather plowed back into the soil to nourish it. Today the field was a riot of colors where flowers, grasses, and foliage had grown without the need of any human intervention.

[Wild Seed Mix:

Contains a mixture of seeds, mainly wild flowers, grasses, and legumes that are used as cover crops, which are plants grown to cover the soil surface to protect it from erosion, improve soil structure, and add nutrients to the soil.]

“Teacher, do we have to plow these back into the soil? It seems like a waste of good crops,” said Lari.

I just smiled and shook my head at his reluctance. “It’s called ‘delayed gratification.’ When we incorporate these plants into the soil, it will decompose and release a lot of nutrients that the Immortal Herbs will need.”

Increasing soil organic matter would also improve the soil structure, but I didn’t want to go into lecture mode, so I simply circled the field, looking for pests or diseases that I would have to take care of first.

The plants were all surrounded by a faint glow which was strongest around the [Spirit Grass]. Seeing that there were no problems, I gestured to the others to start plowing.

“Yay! More exp!” Mo was in heaven. Watering, weeding, and tending to the plants only gave a minuscule amount of exp, whereas plowing gave a decent amount.

“I can hardly wait for the harvest,” said Kharli.

“Me, too!” said Lari.

When we were finished, the soil gave off an earth and green scent. When we used our hoes to plow, the System did the work of turning the soil and chopping the cover crops into small pieces that were incorporated into the soil.

Kharli took a handful of soil and inspected it. “I see what we did. The grass is like soil food, isn’t it?”

“Right. Now we just have to wait until all the green matter decomposes. Then we can plant more cover crops here until the soil turns into [Black Soil],” I said. “It’s not hard, is it? We just have to be patient and trust the process.”

“Teacher, how long will it take for the green stuff to decompose?” asked Lari.

“I’m not sure. In any case, there’s no rush. First, we have to focus on the upcoming harvest. Then we have to do the planting. We’ll get back to this field after that. Now let’s take care of the other crops.”

The vegetable patches were spectacular. Most of the vegetable plants had burst into flower and the bees were busily buzzing around them. A few early blooms had already been pollinated and were developing into fruits.

“The vegetable harvest will be so good this season,” said Lari.

The rice paddies with the carp looked very promising, too. Small, white flowers had appeared on the rice plants, and soon we would start slowly draining the paddy to make the carp move into the deeper waters of the fish refuge where they could be easily caught during the harvest.

“The chef said he would make a nice fish stew,” said Kharli.

The tea plants growing under the shade of the canopy were my favorite. Yinuo told me that one of the kitchen assistants had even seen Deming almost smile when he looked at them. Almost. The scent of the tea leaves was invigorating and the glow around the plants could be seen much clearer there because of the shade.

“When we start selling spiritual tea, everyone will want some,” said Mo.

“Ha! I bet they will.” This current batch of tea would be for our personal use, with the excess given as gifts to our suppliers and the people working with us to raise the animals. Only when the tea was mid-grade would we start selling to the public. I smirked, knowing that I wouldn’t have to deal with the desperate merchants. That would be Shuye’s task. “We’re done here. Let’s go. I’m gonna replace the [Tea Machine] today.”

“No, Teacher! Tea is the best.” Mo gave me a horrified look.

“We have enough tea already, and we’re going to get more during the harvest. Trust me, you’re gonna thank me later for making better soy sauce and tofu for the chef to use. The harvest banquet this time will be legendary!”

Lari, Kharli, and Mo all looked skeptical, but I paid them no mind as I walked to the place where the [Tea Machine] was and destroyed it. The [Soy Machine] building that I put in its place was a whimsical, cute thing that wouldn’t have looked out of place in a Barbie town or Hello Kitty amusement park. From the outside, it looked like a storybook cottage with a steep roof, dormer windows, and two whimsical turrets. Painted white and pink, it had a rounded door that I opened to reveal the interior that was also painted pink and white.

The [Soy Machine] itself was made of glass and metal painted white. I poured [Soybeans] from my inventory down into the waiting chute. There was only one large pink button labeled Start/Stop, which confused me because the machine was supposed to make soy milk, tofu, soy sauce, miso, and tempeh. I would have thought there would be separate buttons for each product.

Lari stepped forward. “Me, please can I press the button?”

“No, I want to do it!” said Kharli.

“People, no quarreling! Let’s play rock, paper, scissors for it.”

I squared off with Mo, whose rock lost to my paper. Then I played with Kharli who had won her match with Lari.

“I won!” Kharli gleefully rushed to the side of the machine and pressed the button.

A loud, grinding sound started up, and we waited a few minutes to see if anything unusual would happen. When nothing did, we left.

“We’ll return tomorrow morning to collect the products,” I said.

However, instead of the expected soy products, the machine produced something extraordinary instead.

Chapter 145 - [Soy Machine] and [Creamery] products

Chapter 145 - Life is soy much more exciting with spices

🙞❤︎🙜

[Dragonflame Glaze:

A soy-based sauce infused with mythical spices and the essence of dragon peppers, offering a fiery kick balanced by a sweet and savory undertone.]

“What the heck happened? I didn’t add any chili peppers or spices!” I poured a bit of the sauce into a spoon and tasted it. “Hot! Hot! Hot!”

I made the spoon vanish into my inventory and got a piece of bread that I ate in a vain attempt to put out the fire inside my mouth. It wasn’t until I finished drinking two glasses of milk that I felt better.

My apprentices, along with Deming and his assistants, were sampling the other goods. There was one crate each of soy milk, tofu, soy sauce, miso, and tempeh, which were packed in jars or wrapped in waxed paper or banana leaves. There were even several types of tofu: firm, medium-firm, soft, silken, and fried tofu. I was quite surprised to note that the [Soy Machine] also produced a dozen different types of soy sauce. Of course, I knew about light soy sauce and dark soy sauce, but there was stuff like double black soy sauce and white soy sauce that I was not familiar with.

The Demon Chef and his assistants tried everything.

“Not bad.”

“This ‘miso’ is good.”

“I could make better fried tofu using this firm tofu.”

“Try this soy milk, it's delicious.”

“This silken tofu will go well with the miso. Do we have seaweed?”

Deming seemed happy enough, even though he did assess everything as low-grade, which was because the quality of products was tied to the player’s Farming level. The Demon Chef was particularly interested in the [Dragonflame Glaze]. He glanced at me and raised two fingers, which Fengying told me meant that he wanted two more batches of food items from the [Soy Machine].

“Sure, that’s no problem,” I said.

Fengying then handed me a letter from Shuye.

“Observers?” I frowned. “But I won’t have time to babysit visitors during harvest season. Can I refuse?”

“It would be slightly rude,” said Fengying.

“Well, okay, as long as it’s just slightly rude. Please let Shuye’s messenger know that I would prefer not to have observers during harvest season. Shuye can come himself if he wants to.” I was about to leave when I remembered I wanted to ask Fengying something. “By the way, why can’t I visit Shuye to see the baby?”

“My lady, clan member’s babies develop at a far slower rate compared to humans. Shuye’s child will be considered a newborn for around a year or so.”

“Oh.” I knew that the Chinese had a cultural tradition of postpartum confinement for as long as 100 days. Women who had just given birth were supposed to stay indoors, preferably in bed, and given special nourishing food. Visitors were forbidden until a certain time, though I couldn’t remember how long, and newborns were not supposed to be taken outside, especially in crowded places where they could be exposed to too many germs. I guess the traditional confinement was longer in this world.

“You see, my lady, clan members are long-lived and have a different view of time compared to us humans.” Fengying patted me on the shoulder. “It’s something that those who live or work with them have to adjust to.”

That sounded ominous. “Just say what you want to say, no need to be roundabout. Is this about Prince Baiyu?”

Fengying smiled. “You said that he’s asked his parents for permission to live here on the farm. Don’t be too disheartened if it takes a few more months.”

“Months?! Are you serious?”

“That’s fast for clan members.”

I pouted a little, but I got her point. Prince Baiyu wrote to me in a letter that he would be arriving “soon,” which apparently didn’t mean the same as what I thought of as “soon.” The fact that I was feeling impatient and looking forward to it this much was eye-opening for me. I must like him a lot more than I thought I did. I handed the letter back to her and said, “Okay, I understand. It’s all over once he moves into the third courtyard anyway.”

Suddenly I heard excited squealing from behind us. I turned around and saw that Lari, Kharli, and Mo were staring at us.

Mo covered her blushing face and said, “Wha- what does she mean by ‘it’s all over’? What is she planning to do?!”

“What do you think? Obviously, she’ll make him unable to leave!” said Kharli.

Lari gave the other two a disgusted look when they embraced each other and started making high-pitched sounds of delight.

I ignored them and continued sampling the soy products with Fengying.

***

Two days later, I removed the [Soy Machine] and replaced it with the [Creamery]. In Adventure Incarnate, the [Creamery] was a giant cow building with a large wooden “Moo” speech bubble. Here it was a square wooden building painted white with black spots like a spotted cow. The giant figure of a friendly cartoon cow was placed on top of the roof, complete with the “Moo” sign. It was very cute!

Inside it was a huge metal vat connected to six separate but identical machines, one in each corner and the middle of the walls. Each machine had a control lever that could be pulled up and down, with each slot labeled with a different milk product: Butter, Cheese, Cream, Buttermilk, Yogurt, and Ice Cream.

I mentally clicked on the buckets of [Cow’s Milk] in my inventory and then [Used] it on the vat to fill it up. Then I let Lari set the levers on the machines to make one of each item and Mo pressed the Start/Stop button.

“Teacher, I don’t know what some of those things are,” said Lari.

“I know, but don’t worry, they’re all good. You’ll be able to taste them tomorrow when the machine is finished making all that stuff,” I said.

Most of these milk products were unfamiliar to them because Chinese cuisine didn’t use a lot of cream, butter, or cheese. Some parts of the Westerlands used ghee, which was clarified butter, but as for the rest, they didn’t use it much except for when a high-class restaurant or noble kitchen was making Central cuisine. Nonetheless, I wanted to build a creamery because I liked dairy products.

While I waited for the [Creamery] to finish one production cycle, I tried my hand at baking an apple pie.

“I know, I know! It’s not normally made that way, but this is how my bloodline inheritance makes it,” I said when my maid, Yinuo, protested at what I said I was going to do.

“...I’m just worried it will be tasteless with no spices,” said Yinuo.

“Me, too!”

We had finished watering and tending the crops earlier, and now I was free to train my Cooking skill while my apprentices were Hunting and Foraging in the forest.

Yinuo prepared everything I was going to need in the kitchen in the inner courtyard that was reserved for my use. The Demon Chef’s domain was the kitchen and storerooms in the outer courtyard. My maid placed a cutting board, knife, and bowl of water in one corner of the central kitchen island.

“Okay, here goes nothing.” I got a bunch of [Apples] from my inventory and let the System guide my hands in cutting them up with the knife. “Noooooo! How can I burn apples by cutting them?”

I stared mournfully at the burned apple that now looked like a lump of coal.

Yinuo was used to it and simply threw the evidence of my failure in a trashcan.

Eight more [Apples] were burnt before I managed to slice one properly. The System recipe called for just one [Apple] per pie, but I had to make at least a dozen uncooked pies since I would probably burn a few when I tried to bake them.

“At least cutting them is fast,” I said.

Yinuo put the [Apple Slices] in the bowl of water to prevent them from browning.

Eventually, we had enough slices to start the second part of the baking process. Yinuo put away the knife and cutting board before flouring the counter.

“My lady, are you sure you only need flour and water?” Yinuo looked worried. “I can get salt and whatever you need from the kitchen.”

“It’ll be fine. You’ll see,” I said.

Yinuo put two pots on one side of the counter which I filled with [Flour] and [Water] from my inventory. Using the System’s Cooking tab, I selected [Pastry Dough]. I tipped the pot of [Flour] onto the counter then poured the [Water] from the pot over it. I burst into laughter at the ridiculousness of what happened next. The two ingredients seethed and combined without me having to lift a finger. Then…

We smelled smoke and I got some [Burnt Pastry Dough].

Yinuo just shook her head while I lamented my disastrous Cooking skill.

“I just burned flour and water without even using a stove or oven!” I said.

“You can do it if you try again, my lady,” said Yinuo. Her lips were twitching.

Unless I was very much mistaken, Yinuo actually enjoyed it when I burned food.

It only took five more tries until the [Flour] and [Water] properly combined into a smooth and elastic ball of dough. I took out a [Pie Pan] from my inventory and pressed half of the slightly tacky dough onto it.

Or at least, I tried to.

“This can’t be real…” I was shocked when I burnt the dough. My fingers felt a little hot, and I immersed them in ice water for a few minutes before trying again. Again I got more burned dough.

Yinuo couldn’t bear it any longer. “My lady, perhaps I can help?”

“Hmmm.” I thought about it before answering. Other people couldn’t touch my inventory items until I processed them, so Yinuo couldn’t touch the [Apples] but she could touch the [Apple Slices]. The same was true of the [Pastry Dough]. “Okay, you can assemble the pies once we have enough items for twelve of them.”

Most of the Cooking exp came from the final step of baking the [Apple Pie], so it should be fine to have someone help with assembly. I kept on using the [Water] and [Flour] with each other until I had twelve more [Pastry Doughs] while Yinuo went to the Demon Chef’s kitchen to ask for pie pans since she couldn’t touch the ones I had.

She returned with the Demon Chef in tow along with the requested items.

I thought Deming would offer to help, but all he did was watch as I instructed Yinuo to press half of the [Pastry Dough] onto the pie pan then place the [Apple Slices] on top of the dough crust. Lastly, Yinuo deftly created a lattice crust for the pie using the other half of the dough. Taking strips of [Pastry Dough], she carefully wove them over the apple slices, creating an intricate pattern.

She did that twelve more times while Deming watched and I turned on my industrial-sized oven to preheat it. When Yinuo finished, Deming picked one up and examined it closely. He sniffed it a few times, then put it down and left.

Yinuo and I exchanged a glance.

I shrugged. “I guess he just wanted to see what we were doing. Time to bake these suckers.”

Waiting for the pies to bake was pleasant enough since I had a new gossip book we read and giggled over. According to the latest scuttlebutt, no fewer than eight noble gentlemen of the Magpie clan were fighting over the same lady. There were duels, elaborate courtship displays, and a series of grand gestures to win her favor. I noted that the hunting of ferocious animals and offering them to the lady figured prominently in the tales.

When I got the System message that the pies were cooked, I held my breath until I removed them from the oven and saw that, miraculously, only ten of the twelve were burned.

“Yes! I baked two!” I quickly stored the [Apple Pies] in my inventory for later and thanked Yinuo for her help. “Let’s eat these tomorrow.”

***

The next day, my fears that the [Creamery] would produce something weird like the [Soy Machine] were put to rest. Each machine produced a normal product. My apprentices and I let Deming and his assistants look over the [Butter], [Cheese], [Cream], [Buttermilk], [Yogurt], and [Ice Cream] first.

Except for the Demon Chef, they seemed puzzled by the items. I guess they weren’t as expert as Deming was in Central cuisine. The [Cheese] was a wheel of simple, soft, and creamy cheese like Brie without the rind, or maybe triple cream cheese. If I wanted a harder, more mature cheese, I would need to age it in a [Cask]. The [Creamery] also made regular vanilla-flavored [Ice cream] which could then be mixed with various ingredients to make whatever flavor the player wanted.

I waited until everyone was done sampling all the goods before snagging a jug of [Cream] and a tub of [Ice Cream].

“Hey, let’s go to my kitchen, Yinuo and I will prepare a special treat for you,” I said to my apprentices.

They followed me to my kitchen while discussing the strange new items from the [Creamery].

Lari had a slice of cheese and was eating it. “Teacher, this is very nice.”

“I like it,” said Kharli.

“It’s not too bad,” said Mo.

“The [Butter] is just cow milk fat, isn’t it? I remember Teacher used it to make [Toast],” said Mo.

“Yes, and we had [Ice Cream] before,” said Lari.

Once we arrived at the kitchen where the [Apple Pies] were already cooling on a rack, Yinuo got a whisk and a bowl into which I poured some of the cream. I also tried to make whipped cream with a mixer from the Cash Shop, but, as expected, I burnt it instead. While Yinuo was making whipped cream, I asked the kids to set the kitchen table with dessert plates and forks for everyone.

“No chopsticks?” asked Lari.

“No chopsticks.” I mentally laughed at the idea of eating pie with chopsticks.

Ten minutes later, Yinuo was done and we served the kids with two tiny slices of pie topped with vanilla ice cream and whipped cream.

“Et voila! Apple pie à la mode. That’s the one with the [Ice Cream].” I pointed at the slice of pie topped with ice cream. Since this recipe wasn't in the System, I could easily add the toppings without burning them. “The other one is topped with whipped cream. Tell me which one you prefer.”

Yinuo had been surprised at the smell of warm, cinnamon-spiced apples that came from the pie since she knew very well that I hadn't used any spices or seasoning, not even salt. I told her to just chalk it up to my witch magic.

My fork cut through the slice and I lifted a forkful of apple filling, golden crust, and ice cream to my mouth. Each bite offered a mix of textures and temperatures — the soft apple slices in a velvety sauce contrasted with the flaky crust, while the coldness of ice cream and warmth of the pie warred delightfully with each other. I especially enjoyed how the tartness of the apples melded with the buttery crust and the sweet ice cream.

It wasn’t nearly as good as something Deming would have made, but I was still proud of it.

“I love the one with the [Ice Cream]!” said Mo. “But the whipped cream is good, too.”

“I agree,” said Lari.

Yinuo nodded her agreement, too.

“I would like to have both toppings on my pie,” said Kharli.

“That’s a great idea,” I said. “Anyone want another serving?”

I had coffee with mine while Yinuo and the kids had [Soy Milk] with theirs. When we finished, we went back to the outer courtyard to find out what Deming had decided to make with the new products, but Haoran suddenly burst into our midst, wild-eyed.

“The bees! The bees!” he said.

Chapter 146 - There’s thousands of them

Chapter 146 - Let's all bee positive and make the world a sweeter place.

🙞❤︎🙜

I was tempted to go ham and yell, “No, not the bees!” like Nicolas Cage from The Wicker Man, but refrained.

When we went outside, I saw why he was alarmed.

“It’s like a living carpet of bees,” I said. “There’s thousands of them. Keep your distance.”

The vegetable field was covered in bees, their constant buzzing creating an eerie soundtrack to the normally tranquil scene. The ground itself seemed to undulate with the rhythmic movements of thousands of restless bees.

Of course, bees were pollinators, so this shouldn’t be bad. Half of the plants still had flowers while the other half had started fruiting a few days ago.

To my surprise, Lari seemed pleased by the sight.

“A bee swarm… I heard about these. Teacher, can I take care of it?” he asked.

I was confused. “What? How?”

“It’s in the [Hunting] tab,” he said.

It was? This wasn’t in Adventure Incarnate! I browsed the tab, and when I couldn’t find it, I used the search function.

“Wow, there really is a bee swarm resettlement activity.” I guess smoking bees to sedate them and then using a tool to vacuum them up and place them in a new bee house was similar to trapping animals, which was the main Hunting activity. “Okay, you can do it since you have the highest Hunting level.”

It was great to see Lari volunteering and taking the lead. All this time, I had thought of him as an indolent fellow because of the [Lazy] trait that the System showed me when I first saw them at the orphanage. However, today’s events showed that I should rethink that. Lari no longer seemed [Lazy], just as Mo was no longer as [Shy] as she used to be.

My apprentices were maturing at an incredible rate!

“Okay. We’ll help you put the suit on,” I said.

I got the beekeeping suit from the System toolbelt and he put it on while we helped with buttoning it up. On Earth, the sturdy white coveralls would probably have zippers and velcro, but here it was fastened with buttons in keeping with the low-tech setting.

He put on the helmet with the mesh veil and the gloves himself while I lit five sticks of [Bee Incense] before handing them to him.

“Put these near the bees. The smoke should make them calmer,” I said.

Lari went to the vegetable field and planted the incense around the plants while we waited at a distance.

“Should we help him, Teacher?” asked Mo.

“I think he can do it easily enough. Do you think he needs our help?” I asked.

“He’ll get all the Hunting exp,” said Mo.

Kharli suddenly looked excited. “Oh, do you think he’ll get exp per bee? We should take turns!”

“My dear, dear disciples, you should already know that exp is hard to get. I doubt he’ll get exp per bee. More likely the exp will be granted when he finishes putting the swarm in a new [Bee House],” I said. “Let’s ask him to signal us if he gets exp using the [Bee Vac].”

I waved an arm and Lari walked back to us after setting up the incense.

“Hey, don’t keep all the exp to yourself. If you get exp when you use the [Bee Vac], wave your arms, and we’ll go help,” said Kharli.

“I thought you girls were scared of bees,” said Lari. “Fine, but wear the suit now. I don’t want to wait too long.”

Kharli and Mo put on their beekeeping suits.

I handed Lari the [Bee Vac], which was simply a large wooden box with a handle on top and a flexible hose with a nozzle at the end. “To use this, just press this red Start/Stop button. Try it.”

Lari pressed the button and marveled at the way the air was sucked into the hose. “What a great item! The bees will have no chance against this.”

“Yes, and when all the bees are in the box, come back and we’ll put the bees in their new house,” I said.

We could see that the incense had done its work since the bees were now quite sluggish, as though they were half asleep.

“Yes, Teacher.” Lari saluted me and then went back to the vegetable plants where he turned on the tool and started vacuuming up the bees.

“He’s not waving, so he’s not getting any exp,” said Kharli.

“I knew it,” I said.

“This is a bother, but at least Lari will get his Hunting exp, and all the flowers got pollinated,” said Mo.

The girls took off their bee suits.

As I was looking around for a good place to put the new beehive, I realized that we were missing a person. “Wait, where’s Haoran?”

“He’s checking the other beehive to see if they also swarmed,” said Kharli.

“Looks like this is going to take a while. Let’s sit down.” I took out some chairs and a table from my inventory and we sat down. “We still have a lot to do after this.”

Lari returned with a full box of somnolent bees. Thankfully, transferring the bees to their new house was as simple as clicking [Use] on the [Bee Vac] and the [Bee House]. I wondered how exactly the System did that. Did it create a mini-portal for every bee to teleport them into their new habitat?

“Nice exp.” Lari grinned. “I got almost as much as I did from the [Lunar Goats].”

“I wanna do the next one,” said Mo.

“They’re all yours. I don’t like bees,” said Kharli.

I coughed loudly.

Mo looked abashed. “I mean the one after Teacher gets her turn.”

“Thanks for thinking about me.” I pinched Mo’s cheek. “Let’s go, we have a lot to do.”

Now that the bees had been handled, it was time to do our daily farm chores. Our first stop was the field where I was making [Black Soil].

I bent down and scooped up a handful of soil. “Wow, the plants decomposed fast.”

That must be System magic since I was sure that the plants we had plowed back into the soil would have taken at least a few weeks to decompose back on Earth.

My apprentices were very excited.

“The soil is a lot darker,” said Kharli. “We're making great progress.”

“Yes! It looks ready for planting,” said Mo.

“I thought we could only plant during planting season?” asked Lari.

“No, the rules are different for cover crops. We can plant them any time,” I said. “The soil was already plowed, so I’ll start by spreading the [Mysterious Goo] as fertilizer.”

We hadn’t made enough [Mysterious Goo], so I used the ones from my inventory that only I could use. Once I was done, we each planted [Spirit Grass], [Wild Seed Mix] and [Soybeans] seeds on one-fourth of the field and then watered the soil. The exp was pretty nice, especially with the twenty percent bonus I got from my 99 Astrology skill.

“Teacher is giggling to herself again,” said Kharli to the others.

“She’s just happy we're getting Farming exp,” said Lari.

“Maybe she’s thinking of the Prince,” said Mo.

Lari grimaced. “Ew.”

Kharli sidled over to Mo and playfully elbowed her on the side. “When we grow up, let's both get a tall, handsome, and rich man to giggle over.”

I turned a blind eye to their antics and continued working. When we finished, we walked over to the rice paddies.

Now that the rice was nearly ready to harvest, we had to drain the water and remove the carp. I opened the water gates and we settled down to watch over the process to make sure that the [Rice Carp] safely swam down to the [Fish Refuge].

[Fish Refuge:

A deeper area in the Rice-fish Culture System that serves as a refuge for the fish in case the water level drops. It can take the form of trenches, ponds, or pits, but trenches are preferred since they also provide the fish with passageways for feeding in the rice field.]

“As far as I know, using the nets to capture the fish won’t give any exp. Do you want to try using the fishing rods? We might get fishing exp, though I doubt it. It’s worth a try anyway,” I said.

Of course, they wanted to try it, but, as expected, even using the fishing rod didn’t give exp.

“It’s fine. What’s more important is that the rice plants look healthier this time. I hope we get more Farming exp,” I said.

“What a pity the [Cleaner Shrimp] are too small to eat,” said Lari.

“Teacher, look that poor fish is flopping around in the mud!” Kharli pointed to a carp that hadn’t swum fast enough and was stuck in the too-shallow water.

“Quick, Kharli, use a net to capture it before it damages the plants,” I said. “The rest of us will walk around the perimeter with our nets and look for others like that.”

Lari caught another fish that was also stuck, but that was it. All of the other carp managed to swim to the fish refuge where we scooped them up and put them in large wooden barrels filled with water that Shuye had provided. The clan wanted to buy the live fish from me for use in their own fish ponds.

Bending down repeatedly to haul up a heavy load of fish was quite tiring. Wiping my forehead with a cotton handkerchief that Yinuo had embroidered with a peony design, I said, “We’re done here. I’m gonna rest for a bit. Someone go back to the house and let them know the barrels are ready.”

Kharli, who was still full of energy, ran off to the house while I spread a picnic blanket and lay down to relax. Lari and Mo continued dipping their nets in the now muddy water to check if there were any left. There were none.

I got up when Kharli came back with three clan members who picked up the barrels as though they were light as air and carried them to the ox carts that the clan had prepared for transport. The clan members made quick work of loading the barrels and thanked us profusely for the fish which they called “legendary spirit fish” even though they were just regular spirit carp.

Of course, we kept some for ourselves. Deming picked the barrel that he wanted and promised us a wonderful treat for tonight’s dinner.

To be honest, I much preferred meat to fish, but I was tired and hungry enough to look forward to it.

That night, as the Demon Chef promised, we had a carp-themed meal.

Instead of courses being served separately, this time the staff set up a round table full of dishes where we sat around and served each other choice tidbits, as was the custom in family-style meals.

The hot and sour fish broth was amazingly tangy and refreshing. There was a steamed carp wrapped in lotus leaves made of tender carp meat mingled with fragrant chives, ginger, and a dash of soy sauce, but the others’ favorite dish was the crispy carp with a spicy glaze. I personally preferred the carp in ginger and sesame sauce. Deming waited until we were all finished eating before serving the dessert. Thankfully, it wasn't fish, but a wonderful ball of fried dough that turned out to have ice cream inside it.

“What a decadent meal!” I leaned back on my chair and put my hands on my stomach, fearing that I had overeaten. “Carp is delicious.”

“Do you think the clans will be successful in adding the carp to their fish ponds?” asked Kharli.

“I have no idea whatsoever. Fengying told me most of the animals we gave to other farmers to raise are mostly okay…” The pigs and junglefowl were healthy so far, but half of the chickens had died. The [Lizardwings] must be an exception since all of them were thriving in the desert. “The carp we sold are full-grown. They should be quite hardy.”

“Teacher, don’t you think it’s strange that some of your items can be easily grown by others but some frequently die off?” asked Kharli. “The clan members have grown a lot of [Dusk Dandelions], but the potato seeds we sold to them never sprouted.”

That was a bit of an exaggeration. The seeds from the fruits and vegetables we ate were sold on the open market, and Shuye told me that, based on the feedback from the buyers, only one in eighty seeds were viable. However, he also said that many families would probably keep it secret if they did manage to grow spirit crops for their own consumption, in order to avoid the additional taxes.

I shrugged. “Some plants and animals are just more delicate, I guess.”

The staff started clearing the table, and we said our goodnights.

***

I woke up with one thought in my mind. I lifted Mr. Bear and whispered into his ear, “Harvest time.”

Today was the first day of the two-week harvest period, and we were all excited. Everyone woke up before dawn, and by the time I arrived at the tea field, Lari, Kharli, and Mo were already there.

“Good morning, Teacher!” they all said.

The tea plants under the shade of the canopy stood in orderly rows, vibrant green leaves ready for the harvest. They were now waist-high, the branches densely packed with foliage. Hand-plucking the finest quality tea meant taking only the uppermost leaf bud and the next two leaves. The older, mature leaves were not good enough. Some of the highest quality teas even picked only the topmost new buds!

“Let’s harvest right before dawn,” I said to the others.

Chapter 147 - Year 2 Spring Harvest

Chapter 147 - Boun-tea-ful harvest

🙞❤︎🙜

They nodded, and Fengying handed us some fluffy white bread rolls and slices of cheese to eat. The soft, sweet cheese from the [Creamery] was a big hit in the household. By the time we finished eating, the sky had lightened and the first rays of the sun were peeking over the horizon.

“I’ll go first.” I tied a bandana around my head to keep my hair from my face and reached out to the plant at the head of a row. The System helpfully made the parts of the stem where I was supposed to pluck glow red to highlight the exact place where I should snap it off. A delicate pinch and a satisfying snap marked my first tea harvest. I dropped the twig onto the basket that Yinuo held out for me.

The household staff all clapped, and I nodded at my apprentices to start their harvest, too.

Carefully, I repeated the process, moving along the row without missing any plants. The exp was good, especially with the added Astrology bonus, and I loved how each snap of the stem released a subtle herbal fragrance. The basket gradually filled as the sun rose higher, painting the dawn sky with hues of soft pinks and oranges that cast a soft and gentle glow over the fields of tea, rice, and vegetables. Looking around, I saw that Kharli was already finished with her first row while the other two were almost done with theirs, too.

“How does it look?”

Yinuo gave the almost full basket to the Demon Chef, who stepped out from under the canopy to see better. He sniffed the leaves and examined them closely before giving his pronouncement. “Fresh green tea leaves, low grade.”

It was exactly as I expected. We would probably only be able to harvest middle-grade crops by next year. “Thank you.”

The reason why Deming just called the harvest “tea leaves” was because all the different varieties of tea were made from the same plant, and the only difference was in the post-processing and how the farmers plucked the plant. One could pluck only the bud, or the bud and two leaves, or the bud and three leaves, and so forth.

I was thinking of simply handing over the leaves to be processed in a tea-making town, but Deming strongly suggested that he supervise the other staff in processing the tea leaves. They would spread the leaves out to dry in the sun before being roasted, cooled, and then rolled.

Well, if my household wanted to go through all that trouble themselves, who was I to stop them?

The tea field wasn’t that large, so we only had to harvest two rows each. When I was done, I went over to where the others were seated on the grass and showed them my haul, which was two large baskets of leaves. It wasn’t a lot of tea since they would shrink after they were dried, but everyone happily lifted the baskets to their faces and smelled the invigorating scent of our first harvest.

“Heavenly.”

“I can’t believe it’s spirit tea.”

“The scent is making my head swim.”

“You’re getting drunk on the scent of tea.”

“Give it back, I want to smell it again.”

My apprentices finished harvesting, too, and we sent most of the staff off with Deming to process the leaves.

“I have a little bit of energy left. How about you guys?” I asked my apprentices.

All of them only had a tiny fraction of their energy bars remaining, so I gave them bottles of [Kola-Kola Soda] to drink.

The mushrooms from the Chitinous Caverns seemed to work by making our energy replenish faster, but I didn’t want to risk the kids collapsing from overwork, so I felt it was best to continue harvesting alone.

“I’m very close to a level! I wish I could harvest more today,” said Mo.

“We’re all close, I think,” said Kharli.

I stretched my back since it was a little stiff from bending down over the plants repeatedly. “I still have some energy left, so I’ll harvest the potatoes today.”

“Fresh potatoes! I hope we can have fried potato chips at lunch today,” said Lari.

We trooped to the potato patch. Unlike the tea plants, the potato plants looked like they were dying, with withered yellow foliage. This was the sign that the tubers were ready.

I took gardening gloves out from the System toolbox and put them on. “Are you guys watching? Maybe you should go and rest.”

Kharli spoke for all of them when she said, “Teacher, we’d love to watch because harvesting crops is fun!”

“Okay.” I knelt in front of the plants and used my spading fork to loosen the soil under them before lifting the potatoes from the ground. “Oh, we got big ones this time!”

The kids crowded around me as I brushed the clods of dirt from the tubers. This time, we didn’t need the Demon Chef to tell us that they were [Alabaster Spirit Potatoes], low grade. We could already identify the more common vegetables from experience.

“Teacher, are you close to a level?” asked Kharli.

“Yes, three more should do it.” I put the potatoes in a basket and continued harvesting more. After the third one, I got the expected System message.

[Congratulations, you just advanced a Farming level!]

[Your Farming level is now 22.]

The three of them showered me with praise and congratulations.

“Thank you, thank you! Settle down, I still have energy left.” I chuckled at their enthusiasm and waved them away to give me space to work. They retreated a few paces and I went on harvesting more potatoes until I had half a basket full of them. “That’s it. Ugh, I’m exhausted!”

“Teacher, drink some soda,” said Mo.

“I will.” I gulped it down like a woman dying from thirst. “That hit the spot! Let’s go to the main house to rest.”

***

The next day, we started on the vegetable harvest. The rice plants would be left for last to give them more time to mature.

“This is different from last year. I know which vegetables to harvest now!” said Mo.

“Me, too! I can tell which ones are at their peak. Like this one.” Kharli pointed at an eggplant.

“Yes, so since everyone knows which ones should be harvested today, I’ll let you work on your own. Let’s start.” I moved to the potato plants and the others scattered.

Somehow, digging in the dirt for food was a little more satisfying than plucking leaves. I’m not sure why.

It was definitely much better than buying vegetables in a grocery store back on Earth, that was for sure!

I smiled as I harvested the potatoes, thinking of how easy I had it on Earth. I could’ve bought whole sacks of potatoes for very cheap. Heck, I could fill an entire room with food by clicking on the items on a grocery store’s website and ordering a home delivery.

Humming as I worked, I harvested two sacks of [Alabaster Spirit Potatoes]. They were a humble crop, but I liked them.

Yinuo followed behind me. She was my maid, and a lady’s maid didn’t have to do this type of farm work, but she said she wanted to help me, and she seemed to enjoy it. I pulled up the potatoes, and she took them to the wheelbarrow.

I was handing a bunch of potatoes to Yinuo when I heard Mo scream and I saw the System’s fireworks display blooming around her.

Mo ran to me. “Teacher! I leveled up! Level 16!”

“Congratulations!” I embraced her and patted her on the back.

Lari and Kharli rushed over to us and joined the hug. Even Yinuo got in on the group hug action.

Kharli was the first to break off from the hug. “I’m gonna be next to level up.”

We all reluctantly separated.

I gave Mo one last pat on the back and said to Kharli, “You’re close?”

“I think I’ll level up today. I’ll go get more exp!” Kharli smiled and gave Mo another hug before walking back to where she had been harvesting cabbages earlier.

Lari also went back to work.

“Mo, shall we celebrate tomorrow? What do you want to eat?” I nodded to Yinuo to let her know it would be her task to tell the Demon Chef about it.

“It’s okay, I know they’re making cheese egg tarts with strawberries tonight. I don’t want anything else,” said Mo.

“Yeah, that sounds delicious, but I’ll ask them to make your favorite red braised pork belly tomorrow.”

“Thank you, Teacher!” Mo hugged me again before going back to her part of the vegetable field.

I continued digging up potatoes. The scent of the damp loam and the feel of my spading fork meeting the soil made me feel a connection to the earth. This was the place where I belonged.

The morning sun cast a pale light over the field. I looked up from my work and saw rows and rows of plants heavy with fruit and covered with vibrant green foliage. A few were still in flower, scenting the air with their sweet perfume.

“This is a nice day, isn’t it?” I said to Yinuo as I handed her the last of the potatoes.

“It’s wonderful.” She took the plants from me and loaded them onto the wheelbarrow.

After it was filled, the staff would take the wheelbarrow to the main house for cleaning and storage, setting aside the parts of the plant that were inedible. Those would be used to make [Animal Feed] later.

The System only harvested the most commonly used parts of the plants. For example, we harvested the fruit of the chili pepper plant using the System, but we could also manually pluck the chili pepper leaves which were delicious to eat. Likewise, the tomato, carrot, garlic, cucumber, pumpkin, etc. plants had edible leaves, too. Deming had told us in advance which parts of the plants were edible and should be set aside. For example, we were told not to try to eat the other parts of the potato except for the tuber itself since the rest of the plant was poisonous.

Of course, this made me wonder why all plants were suitable for making into feed when some of the parts were poisonous. The System probably detoxified them.

I went over to the bell peppers. We had planted a lot of them this time since most of us liked to eat them and we had more staff this year. The plants were three to four feet tall and had clusters of red, green, yellow, orange, and purple fruit that ranged from small ones that were around two inches in length to large ones bigger than my closed fist. I wondered why bell peppers were always the same size when I bought them in grocery stores on Earth. What happened to the ones that were too big or too small? I hoped they weren’t thrown away.

Yinuo came back with a basket, and I placed the bell peppers in it since they were a lot more delicate compared to the potatoes.

In the past, I kept a lot of the harvest in my inventory, but today all of these vegetables would be sent to the house. Now that my household was living in a [Three-Courtyard House], there was a lot more space for food storage. The larder even had a timestop function which meant that anything stored in it never went bad.

“Look at this lovely color.” I held up a red bell pepper for Yinuo to see. “It’s like an edible ruby.”

Yinuo took the fruit from my hand. “This is probably worth as much as red jade would be.”

“Nah, back when Shuye tried to sell my produce, no one was that interested until I sold rice.”

“That was before, when the merchants didn’t know about your farm.”

“Eh? People know about the farm now? I mean, people in general, not just the clan members I work with.”

Yinuo sighed and placed a hand on her forehead. “My lady, I can assure you that if you sold your vegetables, they would be in high demand.”

“Great! That’s good news.” I rubbed my hands in delight. “You’re not the only one who needs to earn money for a dowry.”

“I don’t think you’ll have any trouble with that.”

I laughed and continued harvesting the vegetables.

A few minutes later, Kharli yelled, “Level 16!”

We all rushed towards her and embraced her.

After we finished congratulating her, Kharli asked me, “Teacher, can I also have my favorite dish tomorrow?”

Thankfully, I remembered what her favorite dish was. “Twice-cooked pork?”

Kharli smiled mischievously. “No. I mean the Anwei Cooper’s Guild’s famous Four Joy Meatballs!”

Mo screamed wordlessly and playfully shoved Kharli. “You! You! You’re bad. You promised you wouldn’t make fun of me.”

Kharli shoved her back. “I’m just kidding. Of course, I meant twice-cooked pork.”

Lari shook his head at their antics. “But those meatballs are great.”

I laughed. “You wanna try making them with worms?”

“No worms! Stop it…” Mo stuck her lower lip out, pretending to be upset. “Teacher, they’re bullying me. I’m sad. Can I have two of my favorite dishes instead of one? I also like lotus seed ginseng pork rib soup.”

“How much pork are you guys planning to eat? Take care or you’ll get a stomachache!” I shook my head at their silliness. “We can’t have three pork dishes in one day. Fine, Yinuo, tell the chef to make all of our favorite dishes, but spread out over the week and with a good balance of ingredients.”

“Yes, my lady,” said Yinuo.

My apprentices went back to work, but I was very curious about their shared meatball experience, so I whispered to Yinuo, “I want to try those famous meatballs. Please ask Deming if he knows the recipe. You can secretly bring it to me at the [Ranch House] without the others knowing.”

She nodded and I went back to work. To my surprise, I got two quests.

[Congratulations, you have harvested 1000 items!]

[Bonus Quests Available:

1. Four Joy Meatball Mystery Challenge

2. Potato Field Mystery Challenge

Choose One]

Chapter 148 - Uncovering the secrets hidden beneath the lush potato plants

Chapter 148 - Rice and shine, it's time for the harvest!

🙞❤︎🙜

Just one? That was new. Normally, the quests in Adventure Incarnate weren't choice-locked. Sure, there were options during the quest which were multiple choice, like when the player had to choose between which factions to support, but for quests themselves to be multiple choice was strange.

What was the System up to?

Oh well, it was only a bonus quest. Those were easy to do and only gave a small amount of exp anyway. I read the quest descriptions before making my choice.

[Four Joy Meatball Mystery Challenge:

Harvest the vegetables needed for the Four Joy Meatballs: garlic, onion, carrot, and sweet potato.
Give them to the Demon Chef and request a Four Joy Meatball dish.
Find out what the secret ingredient is.

Reward: Farming Exp]

That seemed easy enough, but the other quest seemed more interesting.

[Potato Field Mystery Challenge:

Uncover the secrets hidden beneath the lush potato plants.
Dig under the potato field.

Reward: Farming Exp]

There was something hidden under the potato field?!

I clicked the [Accept] button right away.

Who cared about the meatballs when there was a mystery buried under my feet, waiting for me to uncover it?

Besides, we promised Mo we wouldn’t tease her about the worm meatballs.

Yellow glowing dots and arrows appeared on the ground behind me when I turned on the map quest guide. Since the mystery item was under it, I went to the spot the System indicated and harvested all the potatoes there until my energy ran out. Then I waved to my apprentices who had also finished their work for the day and said, “Guys, come over here!"

When they were at the correct spot, I pointed at our feet. “There! Right there is a mystery item. The System told me to dig there.”

“Is it a treasure?” Lari took out a shovel from his toolbelt and started enthusiastically digging. The System made the ground soft like tofu, so it was easy.

Mo and Kharli likewise started shoveling away.

“What else could it be?” Kharli “accidentally” covered the other two in dirt.

“It could be… your mom!” Mo swiftly retaliated by shoveling soil on Kharli, but the latter dodged it.

Kharli smiled triumphantly. “No, it's your mom.”

Wow, they had “your mom” jokes in this world, too?

We made quick work of the digging and I was the one who found it.

I motioned for them to move. “Wait. Stand back, my shovel hit something.”

This time I dug more carefully in order to not damage the item, which could be valuable.

However, I needn’t have worried because what I uncovered was a large, rectangular wooden chest. It was exactly the type of thing one would expect when one thought of a pirate treasure chest, with weathered, brass-bound edges and a heavy, rusted iron padlock securing its mysterious contents. The wood bore the scars of time and was decorated with intricate carvings of fish, dragons, and crabs. It was around two feet in width and six feet long.

“Help me dig it out, but do it slowly and don’t damage it,” I said.

“I bet it’s full of gold coins,” said Lari.

“Ha! I bet it’s full of [Black Soil],” said Mo.

“I bet it's full of worms,” said Kharli.

“At least it doesn’t look like a coffin,” I said.

The others stopped digging and looked down at the wooden chest.

Me and my big mouth! Did I just jinx it?

The kids whispered amongst themselves before turning to Yinuo as one with pleading expressions on their faces.

My maid got the hint. “My lady, it does appear to be the size of a coffin….”

“No, surely not!” It did look like a treasure chest, except somewhat larger and longer than I would have expected.

“Perhaps we could call a clan member, just in case?”

“Do you think that’s necessary?”

“Yes.”

I threw my hands up in surrender. “Fine, okay, call someone then.”

She left to get a clan member while we continued digging up the chest.

“That was a joke. I’m sure this isn’t a coffin,” I said to my apprentices. Adventure Incarnate was partially developed in China, which meant it was culturally taboo to show skulls or skeletons. “And next time, don’t cover each other in dirt. What will the clan member think?”

“Ah!” Mo shook her braid, trying to get the dirt off it.

The girls frantically brushed the dirt off each other’s clothes and used their handkerchiefs to clean their faces. Lari also made a desultory effort to clean himself.

A few minutes later, the clan member appeared. Lari beamed and walked over to greet him right away. They exchanged back slaps and jokes. I’d noticed before that one of Lari’s strengths was his ability to easily befriend people.

We all exchanged polite bows and the traditional courteous words of welcome.

“Baroness, I heard you found a dead body?” The clan member raised an eyebrow like Spock from Star Trek. He even kind of resembled the USS Enterprise’s first officer, with his pointy ears and sharp features.

“No, not a corpse. We discovered a secret buried treasure. It’s quite exciting.” I nodded at the chest.

“May I examine it?”

“Certainly.”

The clan member knelt in front of the item and sniffed it. “I don’t smell a dead body.”

“Wonderful. I’ll open it!”

“Allow me.” The clan member ripped off the padlock.

I tried to play it cool, but my hands trembled as I lifted the lid. “Eh? What’s this?”

The others crowded around me and peered at the contents of the treasure chest.

[Vineheart Fairy House:

The home of playful guardian fairies. Farmers who can build a harmonious relationship with these spiritual beings will enjoy increased yields and other benefits.

Status: Inactive]

Whoa! I knew this item!

The fairy house was a late-game item for max level players which they received as a reward for selling every crop to their Farm Guide. It was a tiny wooden item that looked like a dollhouse, complete with a pyramidal stand made of white marble veined with swirls of gold and azure and a glass dome to protect it. The dollhouse was in the shape of a tree with vines winding around it, so I guess I could call it a doll treehouse instead.

“Shall I lift it out of the chest, Lady Violet? The marble looks too heavy for you,” said the clan member.

“Yes, thank you.”

“Shall I carry it to the house?”

“I think it should be fine here.”

They got busy arranging the [Vineheart Fairy House] on level ground. I was going to see if the dollhouse’s roof was detachable when I got another quest notification.

[Fairy Summoning:

Activate the Vineheart Fairy House by preparing a proper environment for the forest spirits.

Plant eight Mini Parasol Trees - 0/8
Plant three Evening Primrose Plants - 0/3
Place nine Spell Stones - 0/9

Reward: Magic Exp]

Magic exp! Quests that give magic exp were few and I was amazed that the requirement for this one was simply to plant the trees, not to grow mature ones. I checked my combat stats.

[Violet

Level 42

HP: 4,200/4,200

MP: 35/35

Strength: 30/99

Attack: 31/99

Archery: 42/99

Magic: 3/99]

My magic level had been neglected in favor of Melee and Archery. I had been training it via Herblaw spells, but it was slow going, so it was a relief that I had a quest that might let me level it up faster. Since the [Vineheart Fairy House] was a high-level item, the quest reward should be substantial.

The [Mini Parasol Trees] were a special decorative quest item that one could get from the village on Peach Blossom Isle for five silver taels. Since I had a boat, it should be easy enough for me to sail there once the harvest and planting seasons were over. The evening primrose plants could be bought in Anwei. I mentally jotted down a reminder to myself to ask Fengying to order some when I was violently jolted out of my thoughts by the grating sound of glass scraping across a marble surface.

“Oh, my ears! Please stop rotating that.” Kharli moved Mo’s hands away from the glass dome.

“Sorry, I just wanted to see if that would activate it.”

“Excuse me, I’ve changed my mind. Would you mind moving it to the house? I think it will be in the way if we keep it here,” I said to the clan member.

We followed behind the clan member who easily carried the bulky marble stand. Mo insisted on carrying the glass dome while Kharli took charge of the dollhouse. Once we got to the house, Fengying offered us refreshments and sent off the clan member with our effusive thanks and a small cotton bag of tea. I anticipated his refusal given the clan's tradition of refraining from both human food and drink. However, it appeared that spirit tea was regarded as a special herb exempt from these precepts.

We placed the new item in the middle of the outer courtyard where all of the staff marveled at both the clear glass dome and dollhouse.

“It's very cute, isn’t it?” I said to my apprentices.

The one side of the [Vineheart Fairy House] could be swung open to allow a view of the interior. Everything was glued quite firmly in its place, and the furniture was exceedingly detailed.

“Look, the tiny little kitchen has a cupboard with tiny little wooden food items! They look so real,” said Mo.

“The bookshelf even has books in them. I can read the titles. They’re storybooks about fairies. ” Kharli tried to remove the books, but they were stuck inside the bookcase.

One of the maids chimed in, "Oh my, even though these chairs and tables are minuscule, I can see the details of the flower carvings. Who could have made this?”

“This wardrobe door opens and there are lots of fancy clothes inside,” said Lari.

“Is it magic?” asked Haoran.

“Should we make some dolls that will fit inside?” Yinuo wondered.

I let them play around for a while before reminding the kids to go and soak in the hot spring facility to restore their energy. “The dollhouse will still be here after you bathe and rest.”

“Yes, Teacher!” they chorused.

I asked Fengying to order the flowers for me and instructed the staff to cover the dollhouse with the glass dome when the household retired for the night. Then I let them be and returned to my [Ranch House] for the day.

During the next few days, we harvested the vegetables and my apprentices and I leveled up. My household eventually got bored of playing with the [Vineheart Fairy House], but not until I took out three different dollhouses from the Cash Shop. They particularly liked the colorful [Fantasy Dollhouse] which was four feet tall, with three levels, three child dolls, and five pet figurines of a dog, cat, sheep, rabbit, and turtle. Crucially, the dolls, furniture, and other items in the [Fantasy Dollhouse] could be removed and played with, unlike the ones in the [Vineheart Fairy House].

Nonetheless, no one forgot about the treasure we had dug up.

“Teacher, why does the item’s System info say ‘Status: Inactive’?” asked Kharli.

We had just finished harvesting the last of the vegetables and stood in the storage room which was packed full.

“It means I have to do something to activate it. When we’re done planting the summer crops, I’ll go to Peach Blossom Isle for the items I need. But first, let’s discuss the harvest,” I said. I waved an arm at the bounty before us. “The chef says we have more than enough food for the summer and autumn season. I’m thinking of planting only rice and tea next time.”

“No vegetables?” asked Mo.

“No vegetables. There’s no point in growing more than we need. I’d rather sell rice and tea which are more in demand.” I picked up an eggplant and admired its plumpness and deep purple, almost black color. It would remain fresh as long as it stayed inside the storage room. “What do you think?”

We all agreed that if the chef said we had enough, it meant we should focus on selling rice and tea.

“Okay, get some rest today and sleep early. Tomorrow, we will harvest the rice.”

We said our goodbyes, and I went to play with Cutie. In the middle of us playing fetch with a sand-filled ball, I felt the ground convulse beneath my feet, sending shockwaves through the earth.

Chapter 149 - The Aftermath of the Earthquake

Chapter 149 - I'm the heroine, not a grain-stander

🙞❤︎🙜

It was the earthquake event! This probably meant that the mountain pass was now open, and I could access Cypress Town, which was a magical place full of immortals…

Or, rather, their ghosts!

Shivering at the thought of seeing a bunch of ghosts in real life, I waited until the earthquake subsided before going back to playing with my slime pet.

“Good girl!" I petted Cutie on the top of her head. She was now proficient in forming appendages that she could use to pick up objects.

“Chu!” Cutie extruded another slime “arm” and used it to hold my hand and rub it against her head until she was satisfied. “Chuuuuu.”

Maybe I should bring Cutie with me when I visit the ghost town. Her cuteness might help me deal with the scary stuff.

“Lady Violet!”

I saw Yinuo running towards me with a worried look on her face.

“I’m here. I’m fine,” I said.

“My lady, I was worried you might have been frightened by the White Tiger’s rumblings.”

“Hmm? Oh, the earthquake. Yeah, it was a little alarming, but there’s no harm done. Was anything in the house broken?”

“Yes, but it was only a few pots with nothing important inside. We lost some flour and pickles.” Yinuo smiled mischievously. “The wine is all safe. That was the first thing the men checked!”

“And my apprentices?”

“All unhurt.”

“Great. How is your search for a husband, by the way?” I picked Cutie up and started walking back to her [Slime House].

“The first matchmaker I went to refused to take me on as a client because she said I was too old. I know I’m twenty-eight, that’s why I’m spending a lot of money on a matchmaker!” Yinuo’s voice rose in indignation. “The second and third ones’ fees were too much. The fourth agreed, but…”

“What?”

“She said I should give up on finding a handsome husband!”

“Excuse me?! Why would a matchmaker say that?” I gave her a horrified look.

“She told me that other qualities were more important.”

“Well, to be fair, I guess they are. Personality is very important.”

Yinuo rolled her eyes. “I told all the matchmakers I don’t need someone who has money since I’m working for you. All I want is a husband to work with me here.”

I gave her the thumbs up. “Yes, Fengying has been complaining that we need more staff. We could definitely use a footman or two.”

“So I stood firm on wanting a handsome man. He doesn’t have to be a world-class beauty.” Yinuo raised both her hands to the heavens in a pleading gesture towards fate or whoever might be listening. “Just someone decently attractive. I’ll be meeting two people after the planting season.”

“Oh?”

“But I can tell from what the matchmaker told me that they’re not good-looking. ‘They’re both nice people’ is what she said when I asked her what they looked like.”

“Oh come on, you never know, you might like them when you meet them.”

Yinuo sighed. “I hope so. This is taking a lot of time and money…”

I commiserated with her and tried not to act smug about my situation. It was nice to have a handsome boyfriend, even if we did have a long-distance relationship right now.

Once I got Cutie settled in her house, Yinuo and I went to the outer courtyard which was in chaos as everyone was running here and there checking on all the rooms to see if anything might fall if there was an aftershock. The things on the shelves and tables were all put down on the floor.

Not wanting to add to the hullabaloo, I left after making a plausible excuse. “It looks like Fengying has everything in control here. I’ll check my [Ranch House].”

I went to my house and tidied up as I thought about the pros and cons of going to the mountain pass. My place was mostly unscathed by the earthquake. A few things had broken when they fell off the kitchen shelves, but it was easy for me to drag and drop the items into the System trash can.

On the one hand, I was very fond of the cute jewelry the player got from Cypress town.

On the other hand, how scary were the ghosts likely to be?

I decided to focus on farming for now and go to the town when Prince Baiyu returned, which was likely to take some time, unfortunately. He had sent a letter to me saying that his mother had taken one of the Paramount Serendipitous Celestial Pills and was with child. This was a top-secret piece of information since it was very early in her pregnancy. He was unable to come and visit me since he feared upsetting her since folk beliefs said that emotional distress could cause a miscarriage.

He didn’t say so directly, but the fact that he wrote that his coming to live with me might cause emotional distress obviously meant the Lady of the West was not in favor of further progressing our relationship. Prince Baiyu did promise that he would at least visit “soon” though he didn’t name a specific date.

These thoughts made me feel a little depressed though he did say that his father, Lord Yulin, was on his side and had hired an expert marital tutor to instruct Prince Baiyu on how to become a good husband to a human.

I wanted to see him soon to tease him about the lessons. Was the tutoring structured like university classes back on Earth? I smiled at the thought of Prince Baiyu going to a lecture on “Love Languages 101” or “Financial Partnership Strategies”.

Thinking of Prince Baiyu’s letter reminded me that I should let Shuye know that the farm was okay after the earthquake, so I quickly wrote a short note to reassure him that everything was fine, then I spent the day resting and planning my next moves.

***

The following morning, I woke up bright and early and greeted the dawn with my apprentices at the westernmost rice paddy.

“Rice day is the best day!” I hugged everyone. “We’re gonna get so much exp.”

It was nearly summer but the air was still cool. In the rice paddy which had been drained of water, the mature plants stood tall, their slender stalks swaying gently in the breeze. Each plant bore an abundance of heavy, golden-hued grains, hanging in dense clusters, that promised our biggest rice harvest ever. I inhaled deeply, enjoying the scent of ripe rice. The rhythmic rustling of leaves brushing against one another was pleasant to the ear. I put a hand on my chest, overcome by a feeling of quiet contentment and belonging.

Mo took my other hand in hers, and in that moment I could see in her eyes that we were both filled with the same emotion. We shared a moment of silent communication before the household staff arrived.

“Good morning, my lady.”

“Good morning!” I greeted everyone. They were all here to watch the first rice harvest of the year and had brought food and drinks with them.

We ate toast with herbed butter and soft, sweet cheese, along with some demon pork sausages, washed down with either water or tea. I stood on the sidelines as Deming and his assistants walked around the perimeter of the field waving a bundle of flaming herbs while praying. The smoke from the burning leaves was supposed to spiritually purify the rice.

I thought it was weird that they were doing this now when they had ignored it before, but Fengying explained that they simply hadn’t known what ritual to perform seeing as my farm was different from others. Now that they had consulted some wise women, they appeared confident that these prayers would help.

I figured there was no harm in keeping the staff happy, so I permitted them to conduct the ritual.

They completed circling the field and bowed to us before going to the other rice field. We had three of them. The biggest one was for the white rice and two smaller ones for the purple and red rice varieties.

“Guys, shall we start?” I said to my apprentices.

“Yes! I love rice!” said Lari.

“Me, too,” said Kharli.

“I’ll go first!” Mo scampered off to the far side of the field.

The rest of us scattered. I also went to the other side since I didn’t want to work with the rest of the household watching my every move. Yinuo followed behind me though I’d told her earlier that I wouldn’t need her help since I would be using the System’s automatic harvest mode.

I bent down to touch the rice panicles. They were the only thing we needed, but the System would uproot the entire plant for me automatically. I mentally clicked on the empty sacks in my inventory and took out a sickle which I then swung at a rice plant. The nearest plants disappeared, and a sack of rice and a pile of crop residues appeared in two previously empty spaces in my inventory. The crop residues, meaning the rest of the rice plant excluding the rice grains, could be used for various purposes, but we used them in making [Animal Feed].

My energy bar was partially drained.

Manual harvesting was much more satisfying but also much more physically tiring. The vegetables were pretty okay to harvest by hand, but rice was a different matter. I didn't want my household staff to have to do all of the threshing, winnowing, drying, etc. when I could separate the grains from the plant myself quite easily.

Of course, before the rice grains could be eaten they had to be milled. This time, however, the clans had requested rice seedlings and unmilled seed rice for planting instead of milled rice for eating because they wanted to try growing their own spirit rice.

I continued swinging my sickle until I ran out of energy. The System did all the work and I didn’t feel tired at all though my energy bar indicated that I was running out of energy very quickly. After only a few minutes, I was out of energy.

“I’m done. Let’s go to the ox carts,” I said to Yinuo.

My apprentices waved at me and pointed in the direction of the house. It seems that none of us had leveled up today. We all started walking back to the house where we put the sacks of rice in the carts for the clan members to transport to Shuye’s warehouse.

As usual, the Demon Chef identified our crop as [Miracle Pearl Rice], low grade.

Lari opened a sack and took out a handful of the grains. The short-grained rice was a light brown color since they still had their husk, and were slightly rough to the touch. I picked up a single grain and peeled off the outer layer, revealing a smooth brown rice grain with a subtle pearlescent sheen. This was what white rice looked like before the brown rice bran was polished off the grain. I’d tried to convince my household staff to switch to brown rice, which had more nutrients and fiber compared to white rice which had the bran removed, but I was mostly unsuccessful. Everyone still liked fluffy white rice rather than the chewier brown or red rice.

“Teacher, no one leveled up today,” said Kharli.

“Don’t worry, you guys are close, right?” I smiled when they all nodded. “Me, too. I think tomorrow all of us will level up!”

Chapter 150 - Sailing on a [Viking Longship]

Chapter 150 - Turtley awesome journey

🙞❤︎🙜

That night, I dreamed of finding a log cabin with my dragon child. When I asked him if he wanted to go on a quest with me to the Cypress town, he was willing to go until I told him about the ghosts. He hated the idea of us going to a place full of dead people and made me promise I would stay away.

He couldn’t pronounce the word “ghosts,” so he kept on repeating, “No goes, no goes!”

I woke up with a strong feeling of contentment as if a weight had been lifted off my shoulders, grateful for the decision not to venture to the Cypress town. Who cared about the tiny amount of extra exp the quest would give me when I had a 20% bonus from Astrology?

“Say no to ghosts!” I said to Cutie as we ventured into the portal to the Mines. “Let’s enjoy life and forget doing the creepy quests.”

I knew that a lot of my friends from Adventure Incarnate would’ve made a different decision, especially GodIAm, but I was never a completionist. I only liked to play the fun parts of the game and never managed to complete all of the quests or obtain all the items.

The [Mini Hydroponic Farm] wasn’t ready for harvesting yet, so I had to content myself with picking mushrooms from the [Mushroom Cave] instead. Then I played with the slimes for a few minutes before returning to my house in high spirits.

This time, I didn’t bother to put Cutie back in the [Slime House]. The others were used to her presence by now, so I brought her with me to breakfast.

“Oh my gosh, is the chef going to break through to another level again?” I said as soon as I entered the outer courtyard and smelled the food.

The table was full of serving dishes and my mouth watered when Fengying pointed at each one and told me what they were. I sat down and ate chicken with bird’s nest and pine nuts, succulent roast duck with plum sauce, wild herb salad, spinach stir-fried with chicken, steamed rice with lotus roots, and fluffy buns filled with savory minced pumpkin and pork. Dessert was fresh plantains in sugar syrup.

It was extremely heavy for breakfast, but Fengying said one of her husband’s most promising assistants had had a burst of inspiration. It might have been harmful to his cultivation to stop him, which is why we had all these fancy dishes.

“I’ve never had chicken with bird’s nest and pine nuts. I like it!” I gave her the thumbs up, forgetting that it was a rude gesture here, then awkwardly hid my hands under the table when I remembered.

Fengying covered her mouth with a hand to hide her smile and bowed.

“Teacher, have some more of the buns, they’re great.” Lari offered me the last bun.

I waved it away. “No, thanks. I’m full.”

After we finished breakfast, I almost fell into a food coma, but I was able to resist the urge to lie down and rest. We harvested more of the white rice.

The next few days, we kept on harvesting the rice and leveled up once more.

[Player Name: Violet

Farming Skills:

Farming Level 22→24, Fishing Level 12, Woodcutting Level 20→22, Cooking Level 5→6, Herblaw Level 16→22, Foraging Level 7, Hunting Level 7, Mining Level 4]

My apprentices also leveled up Farming and Woodcutting, but not the other skills in the Farming tab since we had been hyper-focused on Smithing and Fletching arrows this entire spring season.

[Apprentice Name: Kharli

Farming Skills:

Farming Level 16→18, Fishing Level 6, Woodcutting Level 11→16, Cooking Level 2, Herblaw Level 1, Foraging Level 7, Hunting Level 5]

[Apprentice Name: Lari

Farming Skills:

Farming Level 16→18, Fishing Level 10, Woodcutting Level 10→16, Cooking Level 1, Herblaw Level 1, Foraging Level 4, Hunting Level 9]

[Apprentice Name: Mo

Farming Skills:

Farming Level 16→18, Fishing Level 4, Woodcutting Level 11→17, Cooking Level 2, Herblaw Level 1, Foraging Level 11, Hunting Level 4]

I looked down at a lone rice plant. “This is the last of it…”

“The rice looks heavy.” Kharli straightened the stalk that was bent under the weight of the rice and then let it droop down again. “Feel this. The rice is heavy like gold!”

“Is it?” Lari crouched down to check it. “You’re right.”

Mo and I also examined the plant. Kharli was exaggerating. Though the rice was heavier than normal, it definitely wasn’t the same weight as gold.

“Okay, I shall do the honors.” I took out my sickle and swung it at the plant, using the System’s automatic mode.

The others clapped.

I bowed deeply like an actor on stage making his curtain call. “Thank you! Thank you! The banquet will be delayed until after the end of the planting season, but I do have a special treat for everyone. Let’s go on a magical journey by boat!”

“Magical?”

“Teacher, where will we go?”

“Do we need to pack?”

I laughed at their enthusiastic reaction. “I just want to test the ship’s maximum speed. We’ll go out to sea and come back.”

“But we’ll go Fishing?” asked Lari.

“Of course!” I said. “Let’s go get a packed lunch.”

I had already sent word to Shuye's people that I was going on a little trip, but didn't need any guards this time. I simply had to tell them the exact route I was going to take until I went out to sea. They were treating my magical ships like airplanes, asking for a sailing plan just like pilots file flight plans.

“If we go on land, I want to go Foraging,” said Mo.

“Sorry, we probably won’t go Foraging on land,” I said.

Fengying met us at the main house and gave us food, drinks, and spare clothing. We changed into sturdier pants and robes, and I got Cutie from her house.

I picked her up and petted her. “Cutie, baby, we’re going on your first adventure!”

She had no idea what I was talking about but could probably tell from my tone of voice that I was excited. “Chu.”

“Onwards, my crew!” I pointed in the direction of the river that ran across the southern portion of the farm. There I took out a [Viking Longship] from the Cash Shop. “Fold your sleeves and trousers up, it’s time for an adventure.”

[Viking Longship:

A long and sleek wooden ship with a dragon design, it features a single mast that supports a square sail. Suitable for fast river and sea travel.]

Unlike the traditional Chinese ship I had used before, this one was built for speed, not comfort. It had no cabins or any other amenities. It was modeled after a Viking warship, with a red and black dragon-headed prow that looked quite fierce. Long, sweeping oars extend from the sides, with pairs of benches placed for the rowers.

Lari was the first to board. “It’s a rowboat? Teacher, do we have to row?”

I laughed. “No, the System will take care of it.”

Lari sat down on the middle bench. “The other ship was grander.”

“Move over to the other bench, we need to balance it out symmetrically. Two people per bench.” Thanking the System for my waterproof boots, I boarded, the boat swaying alarmingly as I spread my arms out and struggled to balance myself before gingerly sitting down.

The others sat down on the benches based on weight, with Lari and I diagonally positioned, and Kharli beside me. Mo was beside Lari. Cutie was in the middle. She only bounced a little, but each movement made the boat sway from side to side.

“Oh dear, I think I had better put Cutie back in her house. What do you think?” I asked the others.

“I’ll do it,” Lari volunteered.

“Really? Thank you!” I handed my pet to him, and he ran back to the house with Cutie in his arms.

While we waited for him to return, I took out the trade goods I had asked Fengying to prepare beforehand, and Kharli and Mo helped me securely arrange them on the boat.

“Freshly butchered pigs?” Kharli used the rope I gave her to lash them together.

Mo peered into a sack before carefully placing it behind her. “Teacher, why are we bringing three legs of ham? I thought we were fishing.”

“Yep, we’ll be fishing. This is bait for a big sea turtle.” Well, it was actually for the people with the turtle, but I wanted to surprise them. I couldn’t wait to see the expressions on their faces when they saw Peach Blossom Isle for the first time.

“Teacher, I thought you never ate turtles,” said Kharli. “You threw the ones we fished back into the sea.”

“Correct. I do not eat turtles, and neither should you.” The sun was shining quite brightly in a clear blue sky, so I put on big sunglasses and a wide-brimmed hat that I tied under my chin with a ribbon. I patted Mr. Bear who was attached to my belt with velcro.

We waited patiently until Lari returned alone and settled down on his spot on the boat.

“Put your hats on and roll your sleeves and pants back down. I don’t want anyone to get sunburned,” I said.

They did as I told them to, and I used the System map to choose our destination.

“Hang on to your hats. We’re off!” I mentally clicked on the [Start] button. “I’ll use the slowest speed setting and gradually turn it up.”

We had traveled by boat before, but this time the boat was much smaller and we were closer to the water. The [Viking Longship] moved swiftly and gracefully through the gentle currents of the river, carving a smooth path as it navigated the waterway. The oars stayed motionless.

“Oh, this is nice. I love the breeze.” I smiled at the way the wind lifted the hair from the back of my neck.

Gradually, the [Viking Longship] picked up speed, its prow cutting through the water with increased vigor as I turned up the settings. The lovely riverside scenery, with willow trees gracefully dipping their branches, white birch trees standing sentinel, stately sycamore trees, and other flora started to meld into a vibrant blur of colors.

“It’s fast!” Kharli looked a little green.

Was she seasick? The boat was moving up and down in a rather nauseating way. I turned the speed down to medium, and Kharli heaved a sigh of relief.

I waited fifteen minutes or so for us to get used to the boat’s motion before saying, “Let’s try going a little faster again, okay?”

The others nodded, and this time I took my time increasing the velocity.

“Look, is that the sea?” Kharli regained her normal cheerfulness and pointed at the wide blue expanse in front of us.

“Yes.” Mo took Kharli’s hand and squeezed it.

I slowed the boat down to let us enjoy the moment as we burst out of the river and into the sea. The transition was like stepping into a vast, sunlit embrace. The sea stretched endlessly in front of us, its sparkling surface gently undulating. The warm breeze set my heart aflame with the scent of salt and adventure. We drifted forward, the sail billowing above us. The sound of its flapping was loud yet oddly soothing.

Taking a deep breath, I closed my eyes in contentment. “This must be why sailors love the sea.”

“Teacher, may I?” asked Lari.

When I opened my eyes, I saw that he had a [Cast Net] in his hands. I nodded, and he stood and threw it in a circular motion on the right side of the boat while holding onto the handline. The small weights attached to the edge made the net sink down into the water.

“How did you know how to use that?” Mo frowned.

I could tell from her expression she was using the System’s text-to-speech function to read the Fishing tab.

“It’s a net, what else could you do with it?” Lari held on to the handline and peered into the water.

Though I couldn’t see it myself, I knew that the System had sent him a popup informing him that the net was full when he pulled on the line to bring the net up.

Seeing that the net was full, I saluted Lari. “Nice catch!”

The net and fish vanished into Lari’s inventory. “Thank you, Teacher. My energy is almost gone though…”

I smiled. “We harvested crops today, so there’s no helping that we haven’t got a lot of energy left. Today is just a trial anyway. Let’s continue sailing, okay?”

They all agreed, and we set off into the wide blue yonder. I could hardly believe my luck when we caught sight of Peach Blossom Isle less than half an hour later.

Kharli screamed and Mo jumped to her, nearly capsizing us with her swift and forceful movement. I hurriedly took Mo’s place on her side of the bench to keep the boat’s balance while the two girls embraced and stared fearfully at the sight in front of us.

Lari’s face was white as he pointed a trembling finger at the source of their alarm. “That-that-”

Chapter 151 - The Mythical Peach Blossom Isle

Chapter 151 - Peach and harmony go hand

🙞❤︎🙜

“Isn’t it cute? That’s where we’re headed!” I turned down the boat’s speed to the lowest setting and then allowed it to drift with the waves when we reached a spot a mile in front of the giant sea turtle. “No more screaming. We’ll wait here until someone from the island sails out to greet us.”

Lari gripped the side of the boat with white-knuckled hands and kept his voice down to a whisper. “It- it’s looking at us…”

[Archelon:

A giant sea turtle with a leathery carapace and large flippers. She bears a human village on her back. When half-submerged, the earth she carries on her shell looks like an island.]

Archelon tracked us with her beady, black eyes that resembled vast, dark oceans. The nearest foreflipper waved at us cheerily, and she even turned to face us when our boat drifted away.

I waved back. “Hey, she seems friendly. Use the System to examine her.”

Though in Adventure Incarnate, the mystical turtle was a cute cartoon animal, here she was very, very realistic-looking, and I could understand why the kids were scared. Her mouth could swallow ten ships whole. Her wrinkled, leathery skin, weathered by centuries of sea and underwater travel, was covered in barnacles and algae. As the turtle loomed before us, we could see that there were trees growing on her colossal shell.

Nothing happened for almost an hour, and the kids relaxed.

“I can see trees on her back,” said Mo.

“Don’t lean too far out, you’ll fall into the water,” said Kharli.

“Are we going to throw the meat into the water for her to eat?” asked Lari.

“Nope. It’s for the people who will be coming to get us. Remember to be polite and respectful.” I gave them packets of our spirit tea. “Use these if someone offers you a gift. Isn’t this exciting?”

“I’ve never heard of an island like this, but this is incredible.” Lari started pulling random things out of his inventory. “Teacher, are we allowed to trade for things?”

I eyed the assortment of trinket boxes, porcelain tea cups, silver spoons, and wooden carvings. “Sure, why not?”

Mo and Kharli also started retrieving handkerchiefs, fans, bead bracelets, and hair decorations from their inventory.

“Maybe they have some mythical items or herbs.” Mo suddenly looked excited.

Lari gave the turtle a thoughtful look before turning to me and saying, “Teacher, can I have some money now? You were going to give us some coins after the planting season, right?”

I laughed and gave them three silver coins each. “Fine, but you won’t get a shopping trip to Anwei later.”

They all accepted the coins and thanked me profusely. It took another half hour before we sighted a small canoe with three young men on it.

“Hello there! Are you here to visit Peach Blossom Isle?” asked the man in the middle when they were close enough for us to hear them.

The three men were in their mid-to-late twenties, and their hair and eyes were dark brown. We got quite an eyeful of golden brown skin because the only thing they were wearing were short wraparound skirts like a sarong.

“Yes, we are!” I waited while they rowed until they were alongside our boat and then pointed at my cargo. “I brought some meat as gifts.”

They were all smiles then and instructed us to follow after their boat. Archelon waved her flippers at us one last time as we sailed out of her sight. On her side was a small pebble beach shaded by palm trees. A small crowd of people were waiting for us there. Lari’s face turned red as a tomato when he saw that there were women in short skirts and scanty tops, too.

I smiled when I read the System information about the island.

[Peach Blossom Isle:

A mysterious island known as the place where the Assembly of Immortals took place, in which the 88 Sages and 888 Kings of the Dawn Age issued the Ascension Edict. Secluded from the world for over 10,000 years, the location of the fabled Peach Blossom Isle cannot be found on any map.]

Peach Blossom Isle, though it was carried on the back of the great turtle Archelon who liked to swim around, was easy for me to find since it was on the System map. As for the Assembly of Immortals, I wouldn’t have known about it from Adventure Incarnate, but due to buying fiction novels in this world, I had read about it before. That was a legendary gathering where the most powerful children of the gods decided to leave this mortal plane and ascend, which explained why there were no longer any powerful demigods around.

The men on the canoe got out and carried their vessel up the beach, and the crowd parted to let them put their canoe down among the trees. The kids and I rolled up our trousers once again and took off our shoes to disembark. A few people went forward to help us unload the hams and pigs. Then I put the boat away.

The people watching gasped when the [Viking Longship] disappeared. We were inundated with questions.

“Where are you from?”

“We’re from the Ancient Hill Forest.”

“How did the boat disappear? Are you a witch?”

“I have a bloodline inheritance.”

“How did you find us?”

“I just saw the island.”

“How long are you staying?”

“A few hours.”

The men who had unloaded our cargo came back and shooed away the onlookers.

“Let them through. Let them through! I’m taking them to the chief,” said a young man wearing a brightly patterned sarong. Like everyone else, he had a thin, wiry build and radiated good health from the top of his head down to his bare feet.

Along the beachfront were small wooden huts which seemed to be for the fishermen and canoe makers, since I saw fishing nets and half-finished canoes nearby. As we walked further away from the beach, I saw bigger houses with stone foundations, wooden walls, and roofs thatched with grass and leaves. The village was very neat, with straight paths cutting through tiny but well-maintained gardens filled with vibrant tropical flowers. Vivid tropical flowers like hibiscus, pretty anthuriums, and white jasmine predominated.

The weather was pleasingly hot, with a cool wind blowing from the sea. I took a deep breath of air and smiled at the people who were lining the path towards the biggest house in the center of the village. Everyone was beaming, and the kids ran here and there, chattering excitedly about the upcoming feast.

Inside the chief’s house, an old lady with a lined face and long, white hair greeted us. Her clothes were woven with an intricate pattern, and, unlike the others, she was wearing a full dress with a high neck, long sleeves, and a wide skirt that went down to her ankles. Perhaps the more clothing a person wore, the more distinguished they were.

Two middle-aged women sat on either side of her. They were dressed in similar clothes, but their sleeves were shorter and their skirts were not as full as the chief’s.

We sat down on wooden stools while young ladies arrived and served us peach-infused water in clay cups. Like the rest of the villagers, they were wearing short skirts and sleeveless crop tops. Three of them sat down on the wooden floor and used palm fans to cool the air around us.

Lari kept his eyes on the ground, unable to look at the young women who were scantily-clad compared to the people of the Westerlands.

We exchanged introductions, though I was told that the villagers’ names were not for outsiders to know. Therefore, we should just call people by their titles or nicknames. The chief, for example, was to be called “the chief” and her children were “the chief’s youngest” or “the chief’s second son.”

We drank the tea and I complimented the chief on the beauty of the island and the tidiness of her house before going straight to the point. “I hope the day finds you well and prosperous. I’ve come from the nearby Westerlands to trade with your people. We’ve brought you some meat as a gift, and we can pay for the local products with silver.”

The chief’s smile made her face crease and her eyes twinkle. “And I thought you were here in answer to my prayers.”

“Ma’am?”

“Can you help us with a small problem?”

Her words made a System notification pop up.

[Quest Available: Recover the Sacred Offering Bowl]

I quickly read the quest information and then clicked the [Accept] button. “Sure, I would be glad to help.”

[Recover the Sacred Offering Bowl:

Find the Sacred Offering Bowl that the chief’s youngest grandson dropped in the Enchanted River.

Sacred Offering Bowl: 0/1
???: 0/1
???: 0/1

Rewards:

1. Eight Mini Parasol Trees
2. ???]

The chief chuckled. “Wonderful! You must be the answer to my prayers. How good a swimmer are you?”

“I’m… okay at it.” I mean, I could swim fairly well, though I wasn’t world-class or anything.

“My naughty little grandson took the Sacred Offering Bowl from the temple and dropped it in the Enchanted River. We are forbidden to swim there, so we would be in your debt if you could get it back.”

That sounded easy enough. “I’ll do my best.”

The chief nodded at one of the young women who went out of the house and quickly returned with a large cloth sack.

“Don’t worry, I have something here that can help you.” The chief opened the sack and took out a familiar object.

No way! Why did the chief have a Cash Shop item?

Chapter 152 - Is this a scam quest?

Chapter 152 - For exp growth and peach-sperity

🙞❤︎🙜

The chief showed us the transparent bowl. “This is a magical item that we found washed up on our beach one day.”

[Diving Helmet:

Going on an exciting adventure under the sea? Use this item to enable you to breathe underwater.]

In Adventure Incarnate, the helmet was a novelty fashion item given away during a summer event. It had no actual use in the game, but in this world, I was able to use it to escape from a sticky situation in the Chitinous Caverns. I couldn’t believe that I would have to wear that fish bowl-looking thing on my head again.

The lady to the chief’s right showed us the [Diving Helmet’s] features. There was a button to tighten the neck ring to seal the helmet, and a small red doohickey at the top of the device replenished the air when it was fed with [Spell Stones], or spirit stones as they called it here.

I tried it on. “Does this make me look fat?”

Everyone laughed, especially the chief who burst into riotous laughter, slapping her thighs and doubling over in sheer amusement. I thought my joke was pretty lame, but it seemed this was a very appreciative audience, maybe they didn’t get out much.

The chief, her attendants, and dozens of villagers both young and old went to accompany me and my apprentices to the river. We made a colorful procession to the Enchanted River as Kharli and Mo walked beside me, giggling at the handsome village youths, while Lari, his face still red as a tomato, hid behind them. Along the way, we passed the famous Peach Blossom Forest. Hundreds of trees were covered in thousands of delicate pink and white blossoms that scented the air with an intoxicating fragrance.

One of the young men, who was introduced to us as the chief’s eldest grandson, acted as my tour guide. He was a foot taller than me and had long black hair down to his waist that was intricately braided and decorated with painted wooden and glass beads.

“It’s so lovely! I can’t believe I’m here.” I bent to pick up a fallen peach blossom and marveled at its perfect symmetry and exquisite color.

The chief’s grandson smiled, showing a flash of pearly white teeth. “The Great Turtle rarely allows strangers to approach her. Do you happen to have a mysterious ancestry?”

“I’m an orphan…”

“And you don’t know who your parents are?” He and the other villagers who were listening in to our conversation nodded their heads. “A lot of the youths who live here like to explore the world before returning, often with spouses or the families they formed outside the island. Could your parents…?”

The villagers looked at me up and down and voiced their opinions.

“No, she’s too pale.”

“Maybe one of her grandparents was from here.”

“We have a family that used to have blue eyes three generations ago.”

“She’s short.”

“Her hair is the right texture.”

“She’s one of ours because the Turtle waved to her.”

“Yes, she has to be.”

The chief’s grandson rolled his eyes and whispered to me, “Don’t mind them, they’re excited because we get very few visitors.”

“It’s okay,” I whispered back.

He stopped under a particularly tall peach tree that had a ladder leaning against its trunk. “Look at that branch up there. Do you see that perfectly circular hole in it? That was caused by the Monkey King’s staff. Do you know the story?”

“Uh, I know about the Monkey King and that he had a legendary sandalwood staff.”

“They say that he boasted that his staff could grow to such a length that it reached the heavens. When the others in the Assembly of Immortals asked him to prove it, the Monkey King planted his staff right here.” He pointed at a spot directly below the hole in the branch. “And his staff pierced the branch before it struck the vault of heaven.”

“Wow!”

“Why don’t you try putting your eye up against the hole? You might see something extraordinary.”

“I’d love to!”

Of course, the branch was too high for me to reach, so I climbed the ladder while he held it steady. I mentally patted myself on the back for wearing trousers instead of skirts today. Grabbing onto the branch to maintain stability, I put my eye up against the hole, but all I saw were more leaves and branches of the peach tree.

“Teacher, did you see anything?” asked Kharli.

“Nope. Just the tree. You guys try it.” I stepped aside and gestured for the others to take their turn.

Sadly, none of my apprentices saw anything out of the ordinary.

“What do people normally see?” I asked the chief’s grandson.

“Oh, children sometimes see random things, but adults never see anything much,” he said.

A cute little gap-toothed girl ran up to us and said, “I saw a fish!”

This started a clamor when the other kids started yelling about their visions. I couldn’t tell if they were joking or not.

“I saw an eye!”

“I saw a turtle!”

“My mother saw my father!”

“There were moons in the hole.”

“I smelled a fart.”

“Cuz you farted!”

“You’re the one who farted, you farty girl!”

“I’m gonna fart on you!”

Everyone burst out laughing at that.

The chief shook her head and scolded them. “Stop it, don’t fart in front of our visitors.”

“Yes, ma’am,” “She started it,” “Sorry,” they said before running away.

We put the ladder back in place and chatted a bit as we walked through the Peach Blossom Forest. I found out that their main trade products were peach wine, peach wood bows, and peach wood wands, which were used in various temple rituals.

“What about the Peaches of Immortality?” I asked.

He chuckled. “Sorry, they don’t grow here.”

By the time we reached the Enchanted River, my feet were beginning to hurt from all the walking. The Peach Blossom Isle was a lot bigger than it looked when we were on the boat. There was no way that all this land would fit on the back of the giant sea turtle that we saw. This place must be in some kind of pocket dimension.

I thought that the Peach Blossom Forest was as beautiful as a picture on a postcard, but when we got to the Enchanted River, I was even more amazed.

“This is incredibly beautiful!” I peered down at the crystal clear waters of the river.

“Be careful.” The chief’s grandson pulled me back from the railing. “Don’t bend down that far. You might fall off.”

I continued to make admiring noises as my eyes swept the expanse of the river. The water at the edges was a lovely aquamarine that shaded into deep sapphire in the middle. The colors were so vivid that they seemed unreal. If I had seen a photo of this, I would’ve thought it was color-enhanced. The water was so clear that I could see the entirety of the riverbed, even the deepest part, though it was hard to judge its depth.

“That’s weird. I feel dizzy looking down…” I gripped the wooden railing as I cautiously bent down and tried to look for the Sacred Offering Bowl. “Going into the water must be like swimming inside a jewel. Is the water sparkling?”

“The rocks on the river bed have some quartz and agate in them.”

“How deep is it?”

“The open area is only forty man-heights, but there is a subterranean cave system there. Before swimming in the river became taboo, some cave divers used the enchanted item to breathe underwater and explore the caverns and tunnels. They say the tunnels go down into unfathomable depths.”

“And it’s called the Enchanted River because…?” I smiled, anticipating yet another cute story about the Assembly of Immortals.

The chief’s grandson crossed his arms over his chest and sighed. “Fairies live in the river and love to abduct beautiful mortals. My great-great-grandfather went swimming one day and never came back. His body was never found.”

“I’m sorry to hear that.” Was the river more dangerous than it looked?

“There’s an old story about the youngest child of a chief who disappeared into the river in ancient times. He came back a hundred years later, looking the same as he looked when he disappeared, and wearing a pearl ring.”

“Where did he say he went? What happened?”

“He said a fairy princess fell in love with him and took him to her palace made of coral and jade where they got married and had seven children. He returned to bring his parents back to the underwater palace, but he fell in love with a beautiful maiden from the village, and decided to divorce his fairy wife.”

“Oh dear, I don’t think I like where this story is going.”

“You know how these old stories are. I think the ancients loved tragedies.”

I shook my hand and turned away from the river, leaning back against the railing. “Let me guess what happened next. He died, right?”

He nodded. “He somehow convinced the head priest to hold a ceremony where he waded into the river and declared that he was divorcing his wife. When he threw the ring back into the river, his hair turned white and he started aging rapidly.”

“Because he was gone for one hundred years?”

“His unending youth must have been a gift from his fairy wife, and when he divorced her she took it back, or maybe the ring was a magic item.”

I was about to comment that he kind of deserved it when three white-robed men appeared on the other side of the river and started ringing bells. A large school of golden-scaled fish then came into view from out of nowhere.

“The priests will be feeding the fish now,” said the chief’s grandson.

The men threw buckets of rice, minced fish, fish guts, and so forth into the water. I was very surprised to see that the fish took turns eating. First, the golden fish ate the food, then they disappeared and another school of fish, this time with silver scales, swam up near the surface to partake of the meal. The third group of fish had silvery-gray scales, and the last one had brownish-blue scales.

“What kind of fish are those?” I asked.

“They’re all different kinds of piranhas.”

“Pi-pi-piranhas?!” Was this quest a scam? No wonder the bodies of the drowned people never surfaced. The river was full of man-eating piranhas!

Chapter 153 - Swimming with the piranhas!

Chapter 153 - Dive-ine river treasures

🙞❤︎🙜

The chief’s grandson laughed. “They just got fed. They won’t bother you.”

That was easy for him to say; he wasn’t the one who would be swimming with the piranhas!

Correctly interpreting my expression as one of doubt, he smiled and gestured upstream. “It won’t be too hard, you’ll see. I’ll show you where the bowl is.”

We walked further up the river, still followed by the chief and a bunch of villagers. I saw what he meant. The stone bowl was in the middle of the river, caught between two large rocks. It was difficult to judge how deep the rocks were, but the water seemed fairly shallow there, perhaps ten feet.

“Do I even need the magic item to breathe underwater?” I wondered aloud.

He shrugged. “You don’t have to do it. It’s just that if one of our villagers was allowed to swim there to retrieve the sacred item, he would probably want to search for treasures, too.”

“I see. One moment, please.” I gestured to my apprentices to follow me and we walked away from the crowd to get some privacy to talk.

“Teacher, are you really going to swim in the river?” Mo looked extremely worried.

Lari shook his head. “I think I should do it.”

“Or me. I’m a good swimmer,” said Kharli.

They hadn’t known how to swim last year, but they had taken lessons from some clan members. I hadn’t gotten a chance to test their skills yet.

“I want to try using that magic item,” said Lari.

“Are you sure? What about the piranhas?” Mo still looked worried.

“The villagers said they hardly ever attack humans,” said Kharli.

“Wait.” I held up my hand. “Let me think about it.”

On the one hand, it didn’t look dangerous. Adventure Incarnate always gave the players a warning if a quest involved combat.

On the other hand, would getting bitten by a fish count as “combat”?

While I was dithering, Mo took the initiative to pull me aside, away from the other two, and whisper her concerns to me. “Teacher, please promise me you won’t wear that ‘swimsuit’ when you look for the bowl.”

“What?” I gave her a questioning look. I knew that people here considered the normal Earth swimsuit to be scandalous, but surely she didn’t expect me to go into the water fully clothed. “I can’t possibly wear my robes and pants to swim. It would be a safety hazard.”

“Then Lari should do it.”

“I have some swimsuits that give more coverage.”

I was about to show them to Mo when she frantically grabbed my wrists to stop me and then used a jerk of her head to summon Kharli to join our whispered conversation.

“Teacher, please don’t let the public see those shocking things!” Mo gave me a pleading look.

“Okay, okay.” I walked them further away from the crowd and hid behind some trees before showing them an assortment of swim trunks, skirts, rash guards, and tops. “See, these tops are long-sleeved and the skirts go down to my knees. I can wear the trunks under them. Anyway, the people here are wearing less!”

The two girls exchanged a look of long-suffering tolerance.

Kharli was more diplomatic than Mo. “Teacher, we understand what you mean, but the bowl seems easy to get. Why don’t we let Lari do it?”

I threw my hands up. “Fine, you win! I’ll wear my robes and pants.”

After all, it’s not like I wanted to go diving in waters teeming with piranhas!

“Alright,” I said. “Lari can do it. I’ll go into the water too, in case he needs help. And yes, I’ll wear my regular clothes.”

I rolled my eyes dramatically at their insistence that I maintain proper decorum at all times. On the other hand, did it matter? After all, as long as the quest was finished, it was fine if I wasn’t the one who dived into the water. If I recall correctly, the diving helmet was quite uncomfortable. So, if Lari wanted to do it himself, let him!

We walked back to where the others were and told them of our plans. The Chief's grandson helped Lari put on the magical helmet. I felt it was rather unfair when no one even blinked an eye when Lari took off his robes and rolled up his pants. I, of course, had to keep on all of my clothes. I took off my shoes and waded into the water at the shallow end of the river. There was no need to for me to equip my own diving helmet, since the sacred bowl happened to be nearby, and the water only went up to my waist. I watched as Lari, to the cheering of the crowd, walked into the river and dived right in. A few minutes later, he emerged with the requested item and more.

“Congratulations, you did it!” I said.

“Thank you, thank you!” said Lari.

The chief and her family were effusive in their thanks.

“Teacher, I also got these items,” Lari showed me a pearl ring and a piece of coral that had a small diamond-like faceted gem embedded in it.

I took them and smiled as the System’s quest information automatically updated itself. As expected, I only had to get the items, and it didn’t matter if Lari or I retrieved them.

[Recover the Sacred Offering Bowl:

Find the Sacred Offering Bowl that the chief’s youngest grandson dropped in the Enchanted River.

Sacred Offering Bowl: 1/1
Pearl Ring: 1/1
Coral Diamond: 1/1

Rewards:

1. Eight Mini Parasol Trees
2. ???]

“What are those?” I asked the chief.

The chief shrugged. “A lot of items have fallen into the river over the years. Sometimes, people throw in offerings to the fairies, especially when someone in their family is sick.”

“Oh, should we throw these back in?” I asked.

“Yes, I think you should,” she said.

I did as she suggested, and was quite pleased to see the System pop up.

[Recover the Sacred Offering Bowl: Quest Complete]

Now I only had to wait for the reward to be given. We walked back to the Chief's house, making my feet hurt even more.

While we were gone, some villagers had prepared the trade goods for us. The tree seedlings were given to me as a reward for finding the sacred offering bowl, along with a lovely little figurine carved out of sacred koa wood.

[Wooden Monkey King Figurine:

??????]

The item’s description was just a row of question marks, meaning I was too low-level to use the small wooden carving of a monkey with a fierce expression. He was wearing circlet on his head and standing on a cloud holding a mystic staff.

“What a great statue!” The kids and I made more admiring remarks before we moved on to examining the trade goods. I bought sacks of dried peaches, peach wine, bananas, mangoes, coconuts, and dried fish with a handful of silver. I explained that the fresh meat and ham were gifts.

“With your permission, ma’am, I’d like to visit again,” I said.

“All who are welcomed by the great turtle are our treasured guests,” she assured me. “Everyone here will treat you well and never harm you.”

“Are there any particular items that you would like me to bring next time?

“Since we’re close to land this time, we’ve sent some of our men to buy what we need from the Westerlands.”

“So there’s nothing in particular that you need?”

“Fresh meat is always welcome.”

That made sense. After all, I learned from the chief's son that they grew cassava, sweet potato, yam, taro, rice, and vegetables on the island, so they didn’t need more food, especially since the islanders were all skilled fishermen. However, since it was forbidden for them to raise large farm animals for meat due to the possible environmental effects it could have, the one thing they always wanted to buy was meat, specifically fresh red meat.

I could understand how they felt! Meat was life! Although fish was technically a type of meat, it didn’t satisfy my cravings the way that red meat did.

Before we parted, the people all pressed a variety of welcome gifts into my and my apprentice's hands. I received a lot of shell and wooden bead jewelry, flower bouquets, leis, and some coconut products, like coconut utensils, oil, vinegar, sugar, flower syrup, and so forth.

I summoned the ship once again, and we sailed back to the river, then up the river to the farm, waving our goodbyes to the turtle until it disappeared out of sight.

“What did you think about the village?” I asked my apprentices.

“I’d like to go fishing next time,” said Lari.

“They said I can’t go foraging because I'm an outsider,” said Mo.

“We should bring some more trade items next time,” said Kharli.

“Meat?” I asked.

“Milk, cheese, and tea,” suggested Kharli.

“Yes, I agree about the tea. They trade it a lot since they consider it a luxury item,” said Mo.

“I think we should all learn their fishing techniques. The men told me about spearfishing,” said Lari.

“Sounds like a plan!” I said. “I’ll tell our housekeeper to prepare more meat and other delicacies.”

I sped the ship up a little more, eager to return to the farm to complete the fairy quest. Fengying had sent someone to buy what I needed in Anwei this morning, so she should have the Evening Primrose Plants ready for me.

[Fairy Summoning:

Activate the Vineheart Fairy House by preparing a proper environment for the forest spirits.

Plant eight Mini Parasol Trees - 0/8
Plant three Evening Primrose Plants - 0/3
Place nine Spell Stones - 0/9

Reward: Magic Exp]

Chapter 154 - Farm Fairies🧚‍♀️🧚‍♂️🌺

Chapter 154 - Having a fairy exciting time

🙞❤︎🙜

Back at the farm, we washed up and changed into our work clothes. It was already evening when Fengying handed me the flowers I had requested.

I put the [Vineheart Fairy House] on its stand and set the whole thing down in the middle of an empty field. Then I planted the evening primrose and mini parasol trees in two neat rows behind the fairy house. The nine [Spell Stones] were buried in the soil around the stand.

[Fairy Summoning: Quest Complete]

The System notification was a welcome sight, as was the Magic exp I got as a reward.

[Congratulations, you just advanced a Magic level!]

[Congratulations, you just advanced a Magic level!]

[Congratulations, you just advanced a Magic level!]

[Congratulations, you just advanced a Magic level!]

[Congratulations, you just advanced a Magic level!]

[Congratulations, you just advanced a Magic level!]

[Congratulations, you just advanced a Magic level!]

[Congratulations, you just advanced a Magic level!]

[Your Magic level is now 11.]

I wanted to dance around in sheer joy when I got the system notifications. Eight whole levels! My Magic level was quite low, which meant that the quest reward of Magic exp made me level up a lot.

[Violet

Level 42

HP: 4,200/4,200

MP: 35/35

Strength: 30/99

Attack: 31/99

Archery: 42/99

Magic: 3→11/99]

Many spells in Adventure Incarnate were not easy to cast. Spells had a chance of failure unless the player was at least 10 levels higher than the requirement. Now that I was level 11, I could cast the most basic spells without fear of them failing, which was my requirement for me to use Magic in combat. After all, I only had one life and I didn’t want to die if a spell failed to cast while I was fighting. That would be a lame way to go!

I was lost in my thoughts, scrolling through my inventory for the equips I could use now that I leveled up magic, when Fengying cleared her throat loudly, making me start in surprise.

“Sorry, I was thinking of something.” I looked around and saw that my apprentices and staff were all giving me questioning looks. Even Cutie was looking up at me with her slime strand in the shape of a question mark. “Uh, stand back and stay calm. Remember not to scream or try to touch them if they come out, okay?”

I waited until they all nodded or said “Yes, my lady” before turning back to the item in front of us.

[Vineheart Fairy House:

The home of playful guardian fairies. Farmers who are able to build a harmonious relationship with these spiritual beings will enjoy increased yields and other benefits.

Status: Inactive]

Now, when I examined it, there was an [Activate] button. I removed the glass dome that was covering the wooden fairy treehouse and then mentally clicked the button.

Everyone gasped when the wooden dollhouse lit up with a soft golden glow. The side and roof of the house swung open, and three balls of light flew out of it, each one stopping in front of one of my apprentices.

The first ball of light coalesced into a shining figure. The male fairy who appeared did not have wings and was stout and sturdy, with long red hair and a bushy beard that was intricately braided. His dark eyes were keen and discerning, and he was wearing brown robes and a leather apron with lots of pockets full of various crafting tools like a chisel, hammer, carving knife, wooden saw, etc.

We barely had time to see the fairy before it dove into Kharli’s forehead, leaving behind a red mark shaped like a triple spiral.

Kharli touched her forehead. “What happened?”

I didn’t have time to reply because the ball of light in front of Mo flashed thrice and turned into a cute little yellow puff ball with a green leaf on its head. That one dove into Mo’s hand, leaving behind a leaf-shaped green mark on the back of her hand.

“Teacher, look!” Mo held up her hand for me and the others to see.

However, I didn’t have time to comment because the ball of light in front of Lari started pulsing. It dimmed slowly and we all held our breath, waiting for the fairy to appear.

“Eh?” Lari exclaimed when a little animal appeared.

It was the size of my palm and had four long legs like a deer, but the head had tusks like a wild boar, and its fur was striped white and black like a zebra. Was it a chimera? This fairy opened its mouth in a silent roar and then leaped into Lari’s left eye.

Lari reared back in shock and fell flat on his butt, one hand covering his eye.

“Wait, let me see.” I pried his hand away and looked into the affected eye. There was now a faint golden spot in his iris. “Okay, take a look.”

Taking out a mirror from my inventory, I held it up for Lari and Kharli to look at their new fairy marks.

Lari turned to the staff. “I have a fairy eye!”

While the others congratulated him, Kharli traced the mark on her forehead. “It’s pretty, right?”

Mo and I rushed to assure her that it was very attractive. We were so busy looking at and discussing Mo and Kharli’s marks that I almost missed it when the [Vineheart Fairy House] glowed again and two golden balls of light appeared.

“There’s more?!” But why? I only had three apprentices. As far as I knew, in Adventure Incarnate, only three fairies appeared, one for each farm hand.

One ball of light flew out of the house and turned into a little chibi girl wearing a French maid outfit. She was holding a broom in her right hand and had a pair of knuckledusters equipped in her left hand. Her long blonde hair was gathered into two ponytails on either side of her head, and her blue eyes were quite lovely.

The fairy looked around until her eyes met Fengying’s, and I felt honored to witness how a fairy fell in love at first sight with a human.

“Oh my…” I breathed.

When she flew out of the house in Fengying’s direction, her path was blocked by Deming.

The Demon Chef only said one word. “No.”

The fairy’s eyes narrowed, and she tried to fly over him, but Deming jumped up and his flying kick hit the fairy on the side of her head, driving her back several feet. She was no pushover though and what followed was an epic high-speed battle of Fairy vs Demon Chef. Of course, the fairy had the advantage because she could fly, but it wasn’t of much use since her goal was Fengying. Every time she came close to her target, the chef drove her away with powerful punches and kicks.

Lari whispered, “Teacher, didn’t you say we shouldn't offend the fairies?”

I covered my mouth with a hand and whispered, “Do you wanna be the one to tell Deming to stop?”

Lari shook his head and we continued to watch the battle in silence. The fairy was swinging her broom to good effect. When she got in a good punch with her knuckledusters on Deming’s side, Fengying reached the limit of her patience.

“Enough, you two,” she said.

Fengying rarely raised her voice, and we all instinctively recoiled at her fed-up tone of voice. Deming and the fairy lowered their hands reluctantly.

Husband and wife exchanged a few words, too low for the rest of us to hear, and he stepped back. The fairy raised her arms in a victory pose and then dove into Fengying’s body, leaving behind an abstract mark of two curved lines at the base of her throat. Deming immediately took out a handkerchief and tried to wipe it away as though it was dirt, but gave up when nothing happened.

"The mark should fade soon," said Fengying.

Deming nodded.

The battle had been so exciting that I had forgotten about the last ball of light that was still in the fairy house. Mo tugged on my sleeve and wordlessly pointed at it. “There’s one more left. I wonder who it will bless?”

A few minutes later, the ball of light flew down. To my surprise, it stopped right in front of Cutie.

“Chu?” Cutie poked it a few times with her slime strand.

The light coalesced into a familiar figure.

“Wow!” I said.

My staff were also bewildered by this strange turn of events.

“What is that?”

“Is that even a fairy?”

“Could it be a monster fairy?”

“Impossible.”

I could understand their confusion because what appeared out of the ball of light was a golden slime. It was a mini version of the Boss Monster I had fought in the Chitinous Cavern, the [Winged Golden Slime Queen]. Golden in color, it seemed to be made of squishy jelly and had white feathered wings on each side and a tiny slime strand on top of its body.

After poking it a few more times, Cutie seemed to decide it was a new type of food and opened her mouth wide to swallow it.

I was about to stop her when the slime fairy swelled to ten times its size and chomped down on Cutie, swallowing my pet whole.

“No!” I screamed, but it must have been an illusion because Cutie was unharmed. The fairy had disappeared, leaving behind two wing-shaped markings on Cutie’s sides. “Oh, she’s okay.”

I picked my pet up and examined her closely, but everything seemed normal. We were about to leave when the [Vineheart Fairy House] glowed brightly and rained down beams of light on everyone there except for me.

My staff all got fairy markings which were tiny golden marks on the skin. Most of them were on the hands or forehead.

I waited for a few more minutes but nothing happened, so I put the glass dome back and we left to eat our evening meal.

Lari kept blinking rapidly and looking around. “I’m the only one who got one in my eyes. I wonder if it means I’ll be able to see fairies now?”

“Check your System. I got a five percent exp bonus!” Mo's face lit up with pleasure. Her eyes sparkled and a wide smile played across her lips.

Kharli didn’t say anything, but her expression was radiating happiness and satisfaction.

“Sweet,” I said.

“Teacher, did you also get an exp bonus?” asked Mo.

“Not directly, but the item gives ‘increased yields’ when it’s active so we’ll all get more exp during harvest time.”

“I wonder what Madam Fengying and the rest got? They couldn’t have gotten an exp bonus,” said Lari.

Yinuo, who had been listening to us, said, “According to legends the fairy blessing gives a person ‘good fortune.’ I hope it gives me a charmed love life. I’m still looking for a handsome husband.”

“Good fortune? That sounds nice.” I joined arms with Mo and Kharli as we walked back to the house in the moonlit darkness. “Let’s eat and go to bed early. Tomorrow we have to harvest the crocus flowers and go back to Peach Blossom Isle.”

Chapter 155 - Party on the back of a Giant Turtle

Chapter 155 - I hope Archelon is a veg-aturtlian

🙞❤︎🙜

The next day, we were all in high spirits because of the fairy blessings that we received. My apprentices reported that they got a 2% Farming exp bonus plus a special 5% bonus for one extra skill. Mo’s bonus skill was Foraging, Lari’s was Hunting, and Kharli seemed to have hit the jackpot because she got bonuses on both Fletching and Smithing.

I got up before dawn and was out of the house just as the first rays of sunlight were peeking over the horizon. The first thing I did was to check on my pet to make sure she had everything she needed. Then I went over to the rice paddies and used the System’s [Build] tab to drain them of water. Today’s main task was to clear out the remnants of the harvest to prepare for the upcoming planting season in three days. I also removed the shade canopy over the tea field. When my apprentices arrived, we sowed the bare soil with the [Wild Seed Mix].

I gestured for them to move to the next field. “Now for the last one, our experimental crop!”

Last planting season, the kids had decided they wanted to produce saffron by planting [Crocus] flowers. Thus far, apart from the [Wild Seed Mix], all the seeds we had used were food crops. In Adventure Incarnate, the flowers like [Crocus], [Sunflower], [Poppy], etc. were purely for display. Yes, they could be sold for gold, but they weren’t used for Herblaw or Cooking, which was strange because some of the flowers, like [Dandelion], were edible.

Since the game was now real, there should be room for improvisation, so it should be okay to extract saffron from the [Crocuses].

The flower field was small but lovely. Each [Crocus] stood tall, with each slender stem supporting a single bloom. The smooth and velvety petals were a heartbreakingly vibrant purple, its petals forming a delicate cup shape that gently caught the early morning sunlight. The sweet scent of the flowers had attracted bees, butterflies, and one iridescent hummingbird that hovered over the flowers. I felt a little sorry about destroying all this beauty, but the plants would wilt after the harvest season anyway, even if I left them alone.

“They’re so pretty and fresh!” Mo put on her gardening gloves and used scissors to snip off a flower.

“I’m getting an incredible amount of bonus exp each time!” Kharli’s face flushed red and her eyes sparkled.

Lari and Mo both nudged her with their elbows while rolling their eyes and giving me sidelong glances.

I mentally chuckled at them trying to be considerate of my feelings since I hadn’t gotten a fairy blessing. They didn’t know I was getting a 20% bonus exp because of my level 99 Astrology.

We finished harvesting the crocus flowers and prepared a portion of a new field for the planting season by clearing it of all trees, rocks, and weeds. This took up almost all of our energy, but we did leave a little bit unused for the day’s trip to the Peach Blossom Isle. We drank some [Kola-Kola Soda] before going to the house for breakfast.

“Let’s store the flowers for now and take out the saffron threads later,” I said after we finished eating. The “threads” were the flower’s stigmas, and they were quite valuable. “The Turtle swims all around the world, and they say we might not get another chance to see it again in our lifetime. Is everyone ready?”

They nodded, and we set off for the main house where we got our packed lunch and snacks. Then we loaded the [Viking Longship] with more ham and freshly butchered meat that the Demon Chef prepared for us yesterday. There was also an expertly roasted whole ox and five suckling pigs, along with a dozen assorted chicken dishes. They were all wrapped in banana or lotus leaves and packed in wooden boxes.

“It smells amazing!” Lari bent down to sniff the food before tying it down to the benches.

I pretended to wipe some drool from my mouth. “I’m actually drooling, even though the chef gave us some choice cuts earlier.”

Of course, the staff we left behind had roasted a pig for us, too, and we ate some at breakfast.

Kharli stacked two small food boxes and tied them together before storing them under a bench. “Teacher, why did you tell the chef to put an apple in the pigs’ mouths?”

I smiled. “The apple makes it look more festive!”

We put everything on the ship even though it would’ve been easier to store the food in our inventory because I wanted to keep my System inventory low-key. Shuye had sent word that the local community was abuzz with the news of a trade delegation that had been sent by the chief of the Peach Blossom Islanders.

Even I knew that the island was impossible to find unless the Great Turtle allowed you to see it. Those who had ships ready to sail yesterday tried to follow the islanders back to their home, but no one was successful except for me and the kids. I expected that the shore today would be full of small watercraft, all looking to follow me to the legendary isle. Therefore, I wanted the public to see that my [Viking Longship] was loaded with boxes of stuff, as a normal farmer’s ship would be.

“Teacher, please put this on. Madam Fengying said we should all wear these.” Kharli took out four veiled hats from her inventory and handed them out to us.

Lari took one and shook out its semi-transparent folds of fine silk before placing the hat on his head. “How old-fashioned! Even grannies from the noble houses no longer wear these veils.”

“She said it’s to protect us from the sun.” Kharli frowned at her hat before putting it on and sitting down on a bench beside Mo.

“Okay, let’s go!” The sun was shining quite fiercely today, so I put wraparound sunglasses on under the veiled hat. Mentally activating the [Viking Longship], I set it on the lowest speed first before very gradually moving the speedometer up to a moderate setting.

I took a deep breath when we sailed out to sea. The air was hot and smelled of the sea, a wet, salty, and slightly fishy tang that invigorated my senses while the ship gently rocked to the rhythm of the waves and wind. The sound of water splashing against the hull and the creaking of the sail was quite soothing.

We’d hardly sailed more than ten minutes away from the mouth of the river when we spotted the first half dozen watercraft. The people on the boats started waving at us and shouting stuff we couldn’t hear. A few shot off signal flares, doubtless to alert the other boats that they had sighted us.

“Er, how do they know it’s us?” I wondered out loud.

“The [Viking Longship] has a distinctive silhouette.” Kharli frowned thoughtfully at the other ships. “Should we slow down to give the others a chance?”

It had only been a day, but the news of what my ship looked like must have spread near and far. I chuckled a bit at the thought of a gossip mill that was as fast as the internet. “Okay. We might as well help them out. Archelon will choose whoever she wants to meet. ”

Slowly, I turned the speedometer down but continued to sail in the direction that the System map indicated. Soon we were joined by a few dozen water vessels of every type and size.

“Look, Teacher, there’s Ruolin!” Mo flung her veil back and stood up to wave at a tall figure at the prow of a luxurious leisure boat that I recognized as the one we had used when we did [Trawl Fishing] at the Emerald Cove last year.

“I hope they can join us on the island,” said Kharli.

Mo sat down. “Yeah, they were nice.”

Alas, it was not to be. An hour later, we sailed through a slight distortion in the air like a heat haze, and the others disappeared from our sight as we found ourselves sailing near a giant sea turtle who was carrying an island on her back. Soon a canoe full of lively young people rowed out to greet us, and we followed them to the beach where the islanders helped us unload our cargo and carry it to the chief’s house.

“I’ve brought a feast! Let’s eat it together,” I said to them. “I’m afraid the food will spoil if we don’t eat it right away.”

They just smiled and pushed me and my apprentices to the door of the chief’s house, where we took our veiled hats off. Lari was once again red-faced and unable to lift his eyes from the ground because of all the scantily-clad women.

“Don’t worry, miss, we’ll take good care of the food,” said a lovely woman who seemed to be in her late twenties. She had long, shiny black hair cascading down to her waist, large brown eyes, and luscious cherry-red lips that were either entirely natural or the result of an amazing lip stain.

Looking around, I saw that the people around us were all dressed up in brightly colored sarongs and wearing bead jewelry or flowers. “Is it just me, or does everyone look more gorgeous than before?”

“The traders came back with a lot of fresh meat, and we’ve been cooking since last night! Today is a feast day,” she said.

The chief’s attendants greeted us with great good humor, their blindingly white teeth flashing and their wrinkles creasing as they seated us and gave us cool fruit juices served in clay cups.

“Oh, how could you be so modest yesterday! You should’ve told us that you’re a famous spirit farmer,” said a little old lady with long salt-and-pepper hair.

The other old ladies, all dressed in colorful sarongs, nodded their heads in agreement and surrounded us like a flock of chattering tropical birds.

“You look hot, why don’t you take those robes off and put on some sarongs?”

“We cooled the juice in the ice cave, but we’re saving the ice for the feast later.”

“Young lady, why don’t you join us? You and your apprentices can live here. I have a very handsome grandson you should meet.”

I simply smiled and enjoyed the fuss they made over us. Eventually, we finished the juice and the ladies decided we should prettify ourselves for the party tonight.

Chapter 156 - Underwater Adventure Time!🐢🌊🏝

Chapter 156 - Water you waiting for? Let's make a splash at the party!

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The chief’s attendants sent one lady-in-waiting for each of us and told them to help us prepare.

“You can call me Dawn. I’m the eldest child in my family’s generation and I was born at dawn,” said the tallest one, a real beauty with charming dimples that showed when she smiled, which she did frequently.

“Please call me Day,” said the shortest lady-in-waiting. She must come from a wealthy family because, unlike the others, her necklace was not made of flowers but of colored glass beads and baroque pearls.

“I’ve taken the nickname Dusk,” said the third lady, the one who had led me to the chief’s house, the one with the cherry-red lips.

Lari went off to the men’s baths while I, along with Kharli, Mo, and the ladies-in-waiting, were loaded onto ornate wooden sedan chairs hung with brightly-colored bark cloth. This was considered necessary for us since the men’s baths were near, but the special VIP-only baths were quite a distance from the chief’s house.

The sight of the tall-strapping young men bearing the sedan chair’s poles on their shoulders gave me pause, and I was about to protest, but Kharli and Mo climbed in before I could say anything.

Was this normal in this world? As a person from modern-day Earth, this felt a little inappropriate though I at least knew that there were no slaves here, so the men were presumably paid for this job.

“I could just walk…?” I tentatively suggested.

“You’re our honored guest!” said one of the men.

Shrugging, I got in, mentally vowing to tip the bearers generously. Silver and gold coins weren’t used much on Peach Blossom Isle, where bartering was the norm. Thankfully, I had planned ahead and had Fengying buy a few good gift items from Anwei.

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I leaned back against the back of the sedan chair and relaxed. The day was hot and humid. Once we left the village and into the forest, I drew back the curtains to view the scenery. At first glance, it looked like we were traversing a path through an overgrown tropical jungle, but when I used the System to identify the vegetation around us, I realized that this was a food forest containing fruit trees, lumber trees, food crops, medicinal plants, and quite a few interesting nitrogen-fixing trees and shrubs. This must be a jungle that the islanders planted and managed.

There were so many lovely plants that I hardly knew where to look.

[Pink Powderpuff:

A drought-tolerant shrub with striking pink fuzzy flowers and delicate, feathery foliage.]

I liked its cute pink pom-pom-like flowers and wondered if it was worth it to ask for seeds or cuttings since it seemed that it was pretty but not super useful. Likewise, I thought the flame tree looked majestic though perhaps not special enough to pay silver for. Adventure Incarnate had a lot of ornamental plants that completionist players collected, but I was always too lazy to do that.

[Phoenix Flame Tree:

A tree commonly grown for its shade and beautiful bright red flowers that bloom year-round.]

The plants that did seem useful were the ones I already had in my inventory, like the banana, coconut, and papaya trees.

I decided to stop thinking of work and just enjoy the ride as we ascended. I reckoned we were climbing up a small mountain or a steep hill. The jungle was fragrant with the scent of water, wild orchids, and the earthy aroma of damp foliage. It must have rained recently. Sunlight filtered through the dense tree canopy, casting long shadows across the tree-lined path we were traveling. Shafts of golden light illuminated patches of moss-covered rocks and vibrant bromeliads nestled in the crooks of trees. Exotic birds darted here and there, their iridescent feathers flashing like jewels.

About an hour later, we arrived at a stone marker where we all got down from our sedan chairs. I handed the bearers a dozen rolls of silk cloth as a tip, and the ladies instructed them to return in time to take us to the feast at sunset on Tranquility Bay.

We continued on foot until we reached a set of stone stairs and I finally saw the “VIP baths” that were our destination.

I took out a folding fan from my inventory and tried to use it to cool myself. “Wow, it’s a house? I thought we were just going to bathe in a natural pool.”

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The ladies ushered us in without further ado. The house was surrounded by a solid stone fence made of some white marble-like material that had a faint blue glow.

Dawn smiled when she saw me touching the wall. “Ah, you noticed? This place is a very special one where the shyer female demigods used to bathe before the Immortal Assembly. Legend says that the Verdant Sovereign with a Crown of Blooming Orchids and Vestments of Eternal Spring magicked up a hot spring and built the wall for privacy.”

“The house was built later,” added Dusk.

Inside, the house turned out to be a series of small buildings scattered on the side of the hill. The one we first entered was a simple cube with a thatch roof and walls made of latticework wood that were designed to let the cool air circulate. The western door had been slid open to allow us to take in the view. On the opposite side of the hill we were on was another hill with a magnificent waterfall. Below us was a curved three-layered infinity pool. Water cascaded down its sides into a stream that flowed further down the hill.

I whistled in admiration. “Wow, that is some bathing pool!”

“That's the soaking and relaxation pool. We need to go to the cleansing pool first,” said Dawn.

They led us down to a small pool on the lower part of the hill. All of the pools here were fed by one hot spring, so each area on the hill was reserved for a specific purpose. The highest point was used for drinking and cooking water. The middle part was for bathing, and the lowest part was for people to cleanse themselves and do laundry.

We scooped up buckets of hot water to wash ourselves and the ladies showed us how to make a natural cleanser using the bark of a vine called gugo. Rubbing the bark’s fibers together created a foam that we used as soap and shampoo. I contributed a few [Dewy Glow Potions] to add to the soap.

[Dewy Glow Potion:

This Dewy Glow potion is formulated with natural ingredients to help improve your skin’s appearance.

To use, simply apply a few drops of the potion to your face and body after cleansing. Gently massage it into your skin until it’s fully absorbed. You can use this potion morning and night for best results.]

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We finished quickly and donned sarongs to walk back up to the relaxing pool. I slowly waded into the biggest pool until I was submerged up to my chest.

“This pool is very soothing,” said Dusk. “The one your other apprentice went to is an invigorating one.”

I put my arms on the side of the pool overlooking the waterfall and laid my head down sideways on it. “That’s great, I like being soothed.”

Kharli and Mo were splashing around at the highest, hottest level of the pool with Dawn and Day while I was down on the coolest one with Dusk.

“We arranged private sessions because we heard that you mainlanders are quite shy. The best bathing pool is quite large, but it's out in the open for everyone to use,” she said.

I smiled at the thought of mixed open-air bathing in this world. My apprentices would faint in shock!

“The water feels great.” I took out several inflatables from my inventory and offered them to the others. Then I used an inflatable ring to dreamily float on my back, drifting away into blissful tranquility.

An hour later, near noon, more ladies arrived, bringing food packed in multilayered lunch boxes. I was going to get out of the pool, but they told me to stay put. The reason became clear when they arranged the dishes on top of a bed of leaves and flowers in a large floating basket and served the food to us in the pool.

I couldn’t believe how pretty it looked. “A floating meal! What a delightful way to eat! Thank you, this looks awesome.”

Mo was too overwhelmed to say anything, so Kharli spoke for both of them. “Thank you very much!”

The food was served on leaves and coconut shell cups. Instead of chopsticks, they used wooden spoons and forks. Knives were not provided, but the food was cut into small pieces, so we didn’t need any. There was rice cooked in coconut milk, ginger pork, fish stew, and an excellent spicy grilled chicken coated with a sauce made of garlic, ginger, chili, shrimp paste, and a dozen other herbs and spices whose names I didn’t recognize. Dessert was sliced fruits. I was famished and finished everything I was given, washed down with papaya juice and spring water.

“That hit the spot.” I rubbed my tummy. If I had been wearing a belt, I would’ve had to loosen it.

We rested for a while after lunch then emerged from the water and went inside the beauty pavilion where Dawn, Day, and Dusk proceeded to treat us to a bewildering array of traditional skin and hair treatments. Using natural ingredients like fragrant oils, herbs, and clays, they coated our skin with a clay mask. Next, they massaged us to “balance our qi” and applied a hair tonic and nourishing oils to our hair.

It was so good that I almost wanted to just stay in the pavilion and sleep, but I didn’t want to miss the feast.

Kharli, Mo, and I put on our summer robes and rode the sedan chairs back down the hill to Tranquility Bay, which was an expanse of azure waters that was open to the sea on one side and was cradled between lush green hillsides. The sun was about to set, but it was still light enough for me to see that a dozen large wooden tables full of food were spread out in the open.

I turned to Dusk to remark that I was still quite full from the earlier meal when I heard the loud ringing of a bell. The people who had been sitting on picnic blankets all jumped up and everyone exclaimed a variation of “She’s diving!” or “She’s going to dive!”

Dusk put an arm around my shoulders and said, “Brace yourself, the Great Turtle is about to dive underwater.”

Chapter 157 - Party on an island on the back of a turtle

“What? Won’t we get stuck on the island then?” There was no danger of drowning even if we went underwater, of course, but I and my apprentices wouldn’t be able to sail home.

“She’s only diving for a few minutes or hours,” said Dawn. “When she dives for real and swims underwater for longer than that, we always get plenty of warning.”

“Oh.” It seems the turtle was a very thoughtful guardian.

“Teacher, there’s Lari.” Kharli pointed at a group of young men, all dressed in sarongs and flower necklaces.

To my surprise, Lari was dressed like the locals. One could easily pick him out from among the others because he was white as snow while everyone else was tanned. He waved at us then walked over and handed us a spear each. “Teacher, these are the spears they use for fishing! I thought they were going to bring me out on a boat to spear fish, but they don’t fish outside much. The fishponds they tend are enough to feed everyone on the island. We just speared fish in a barrel.”

“I see. Looks like you had fun.” I guessed that what they did was this world’s version of shooting fish in a barrel.

He used a spear to mime the motion of spearing fish while Kharli, Mo, and I tucked the spears into our inventories for safekeeping.

“There! At the horizon!” said Dusk.

My mouth fell open when I saw the waterline at the horizon suddenly rise until, in moments, the entire sky was full of blue water. Everyone clapped or hooted.

I put a hand on my chest because my heart had almost leaped out of my body. “Amazing.”

Mo suddenly bent over and put her hands over her mouth, but it was in vain as she couldn’t stop herself from vomiting.

Kharli held her hair away from her face and I rubbed her back sympathetically. I did feel a sort of jolt in my stomach and perhaps a momentary sense of vertigo when the turtle dived, but Mo seemed to be more sensitive.

“Ugh. I’m… okay now.” Mo straightened herself slowly, her face pale. “I just felt a little queasy.”

“It’s better now, yes?” Dusk patted her on the shoulder. “It only feels like that the first few seconds of the dive.”

The ladies escorted us to a small, round table that had been set up under a large scholar tree. We sat down and a bevy of beauties, male and female, served us drinks. We refused all the alcoholic beverages and stuck to iced water and fruit juices. I was told they had a special cave behind a waterfall that produced ice all year round which had been enchanted by the Sage of the One Hundred and Eight Paths.

“The Sage was very fond of iced peach juice.” Day smiled as she poured more of her special tropical fruit punch. It had ice with slices of peaches in it.

“It’s so sweet and refreshing!” said Lari.

He had gotten over his previous shyness and was no longer blushing or looking at the ground.

“Miss, try these cookies, I made them myself.” A handsome young man handed me a small, leaf-wrapped package.

“Thank you.” I opened it and popped the cookies in my mouth. “Yummy!”

Dusk gently poked my side with her elbow. “This is my cousin Vasa. Isn’t he handsome?”

Vasa was around the same age as me and had long, silky black hair down to his waist. His eyes were a lovely shade of brown, and I had to admit he was quite a looker.

Prince Baiyu had way better abs and pecs though. I wondered how he would look dressed only in a knee-length sarong.

Mmmm.

Perhaps Dusk mistook my expression because she grinned and poked me with her elbow. “He’s single.”

“Er.” I wasn’t sure how to say it delicately, so I could only be blunt. “I have someone…”

“You do?” Dusk exchanged a look with her cousin who shook his head. “Too bad.”

“Teacher, shall I go get food for us?” Lari was looking at the food tables longingly.

All around us were islanders talking animatedly with each other. The children were being looked after by their parents, but the rest of the people were in large same-age groups, with the chief at the biggest table with the oldest people. The teenagers occasionally darted here and there to serve drinks and snacks to their elders.

“No, it looks like the main event hasn’t started yet,” I said.

“Are you feeling more relaxed now?” Day asked Mo. When my apprentice nodded, Day said, “I’ll show you something good!”

She and the other ladies got up and gestured for us to follow her. Vasa followed behind us.

“Where are we going?” I asked.

“You’ll see,” said Day.

“You’ll love it,” said Dawn.

Dusk just smiled mysteriously.

We walked away from the lights of the party area. Above us was blue water, softly lit by some magical device, no doubt. The air was cooler now that the hot sun was no longer shining down on the island. We walked for quite some time until we reached the edge of the bay where a wall of water extended up into the sky.

“We’re surrounded by a dome of water. The turtle’s protection also extends all around us. Like so.” Day walked into the water.

I stumbled back in shock, and Kharli and Mo screamed when Day’s body was sucked in with a loud squelch. Our alarm was short-lived, however, as her head and shoulders immediately reappeared, horizontally suspended around waist-high. She was facing downwards and seemed unharmed though the rest of her was still inside the wall of water.

“What the heck?!” I knelt and grabbed her shoulders. “Are you okay?”

Day laughed. “I’m swimming! It’s fun. You should try it.”

Vasa gently nudged me aside and put his hands on Day’s shoulders. He slowly pulled her out of the water, and I was amazed to see that she emerged from it dry, with not a drop of water on her body.

Day smoothed her hair back down. “The turtle puts our heads back out when we go into the water. Children love to play this game.”

“Try it,” said Dusk.

“I will!” said Lari.

Before I could stop him, he ran into the wall of water. In a thrice, his head appeared outside of the water, perfectly dry.

“What does it feel like?” Mo bent down and pinched his cheek.

“The water feels great.” Lari’s tone of voice was blissful and dreamy.

“Let’s draw a turtle on his face.” Kharli took a paintbrush out of her inventory.

Lari gave them both a smug look. “If you do that then I’ll draw a turtle on your face when you go swimming, too.”

Kharli hesitated. While she was dithering about whether to do it or not, Lari pulled half his torso and his arms out of the water and made freestyle swimming motions which looked weird since only part of his body was underwater.

“It looks fun! I’ll do it.” I hastily put on swimming shorts under my skirt and dove right into the water.

There was one moment of cold wetness as my body hit the water, and then it was as though a giant hand picked me up and set me down with my head out of the water.

“It’s… it’s a strange feeling.” I let my body float as I analyzed the experience. The water was clearly surrounding my body, and I was floating in it, yet somehow I was dry. The best I could figure was that there was a thin aura or force field around me. I kicked my legs and moved my arms in a breaststroke which made half my torso emerge from the water. I was swimming yet not swimming. “Weird. Weird but good!”

Kharli and Mo took that as permission and dove right in.

“Woohoo!” Mo yelled as she jumped into the water.

“Woohoo!” Kharli echoed her and shoved one arm in.

“Hey, why aren’t you going in?” asked Lari.

“I don’t feel like swimming. Also, someone needs to watch over you guys,” said Kharli.

“Oh no, we can’t have that,” said Day.

Kharli turned to her and said, “What do you me-”

Her words were cut off when Dusk shoved her in. It happened too fast for her to react, and moments later her head reappeared out of the water.

“This is fun!” I did a freestyle swimming motion. There was a bit of a splash when my arms emerged from the water, and my whole body moved back and forth by two feet when I tried to swim.

“Strange… I don’t think I like it.” Lari pulled his arms out of the water. He turned his head towards Vasa and said, “Can you please pull me out?”

Vasa got Lari out of the water.

“Teacher, I’ll go back to the party!” Lari waved goodbye and left when I nodded.

“I love this, I’ll be swimming here for a while, is that okay?” I asked the others.

“Enjoy yourself as much as you like,” said Day.

Vasa, Dawn, Day, and Dusk sat down on the ground to watch over us.

I tossed my head to see how my hair moved when it was half in the water. “I will! This is a new and unique experience.”

Kharli and Mo loved it, too.

“I’m swimming underwater on a legendary island on the back of a turtle!” said Mo.

“Look, I can do a somersault!” Kharli tucked her head down and then spun her body in a full circle before emerging with a triumphant smile.

Mo and I copied her and we all attempted several other acrobatic maneuvers like rolls and flips, not always successfully. They were quite impressed when I showed them how to do a dolphin kick. We got tired after about an hour, and after that, I spent a long time with my body fully relaxed and floating in the water. I almost fell asleep.

“This is super nice. Thank you,” I said when we had all had enough.

They helped us out of the water and we walked back to where the feast was being held.

Vasa smiled, showing pearly white teeth, and gallantly offered me his arm. Behind us, I could hear everyone else giggling, and I didn’t want to embarrass him by refusing, so we walked together with my hand in his arm.

“Look up,” he said.

I tilted my head up to gaze at the dome of luminous water.

“It’s not always visible, but we are always surrounded by the Turtle’s protection. Unlike the outside world, there is no war, famine, or plague here. I think you should come and live with us.” He turned back to speak to my apprentices saying, “All of you.”

Kharli and Mo simply looked at me, waiting for me to reply.

“This island is like a paradise. If this had been last year, when I was alone, I would’ve jumped at the chance to live here. But now…” I waved my hand out, a gesture that encompassed everything in the world. “I would never leave my farm.”

“Are you sure?”

“I’m sure.”

“Our people can leave and return, you know. My cousin returned last year. Do you know what he told me when I asked him why he came back after only a month outside?”

“Was it the lack of good, fresh fish for cheap?”

He laughed. “No. He said he was in this small hunting village and one of the hunters broke his leg. My cousin was shocked when no one in the village except for his wife tended to him.”

“What do you mean? Isn’t that normal?”

Vasa frowned down at me. “Here, if you break a leg, everyone helps. His wife would hardly need to lift a finger since everyone would help with cooking, cleaning, fetching water, and caring for the sick. That’s how it should be.”

Dawn said, “I heard about that. In the outside world, the only people who take care of each other are family and close friends, not the entire town.”

“Gosh.” This information was almost enough to give me second thoughts, but I really couldn’t leave my farm, my household, and my boyfriend.

We were mostly silent during the rest of the walk until another bell started tolling.

“She’s going back up!” said Dusk.

It was fast. One moment we were under a dome of water, a few seconds later, we felt a slight lurching movement and then there was nothing but sky above us. Another bell tolled.

“That’s the signal to prepare for another dive,” said Day.

Chapter 158 - Handsome husband

“Again? Is something happening?” I asked.

“No. I guess maybe she’s just giving you time to sail away,” said Day. “Are you sure you’re not staying?”

“Yes, I’m sure. We’d better hurry.”

We half-walked, half-ran to where the others were. Lari met up with us, and the islanders crowded around, handing us leaf-wrapped packages of food.

“Teacher, we have to leave before the Turtle dives again,” said Lari. His arms were full of cloth-wrapped bundles.

I gave the food to Kharli and Mo while I went over to the chief’s table to say our goodbyes. Before we left, I took out boxes of tea and fine silk as a parting gift.

“Goodbye! I had a wonderful time!” I said to the ladies. Dawn, Day, and Dusk kissed me on the cheek and we hugged. They tried to refuse, but I pressed bottles of [Dewy Glow Potion] into their hands, explaining that it was an herbal skin elixir.

Then we swiftly made our way to the beach where the items I had asked to buy were in crates, ready for me to put into my inventory. I paid the waiting islanders with sacks of spirit rice. When my business was done, I summoned the [Traditional Chinese Ship] since I felt that the [Viking Longship] was too difficult to use at night with poor visibility. From a distance, the ship looked like a sailing ship, but it was actually a flying ship that hovered six feet above the water. Hollers and cheers of amazement echoed from the islanders upon seeing our magnificent mode of transportation.

[Traditional Chinese Ship:

A pleasure boat that has a single mast and crimson sails. Its shallow keel ensures smooth passage through narrow waters. Passengers can relax on opulently cushioned benches, and enjoy unobstructed views of the scenic surroundings.]

We boarded using the gangplank and stood at the rails waving goodbye at the people on the beach until they were out of sight.

“What an incredible adventure!” Impulsively, I hugged my three apprentices. “Did you have fun?”

While we chatted about everything we experienced today, we went to the dining room and put down the gifts the islanders had given us.

Lari had spent most of the day touring the island with the other teenagers, and he told us all about what he had seen. “They have fishponds that are open to the sea except for a stone wall that lets the small fish in and keeps the big fish out. They have a lot of clever things like that. Their farms are small and they use fish scraps as fertilizer a lot. Teacher, we should do that more! Didn’t we plant a tree with fish under it once?”

“Yes, but it grew the same as the ones we planted with regular fertilizer,” said Kharli.

“The fertilizer from the System isn't ‘regular fertilizer.’ It’s clearly magic,” said Lari.

“Let’s eat while we talk.” I led them to the elegant formal dining room which was paneled with golden wood and had a large crystal chandelier hanging above the round table that was large enough for twelve people. I opened the port holes so we could enjoy the sea breeze and then sank into a plush seat in the ship’s dining room. “Hand me some of that roast pork! Did they give us any crunchy skin?”

Lari opened a food package and handed it to me.

The aroma hit me first and made my mouth water in anticipation. As I pierced the bronze, almost caramelized pork skin with my fork, it crackled enticingly. I took a bite and the crunchy skin shattered into delicious shards of flavor.

“That hit the spot!” I said.

We got busy opening all the packages and plating the food before eating it. I poured us glasses of ice and peach juice.

“Not as good as the chef’s,” said Lari.

“Still great though,” said Kharli.

Mo nodded.

“The ribs are to die for.” I cut some pieces of the roast pork ribs and put them on my apprentices’ plates along with some rice and vegetables.

“The men packed some of the prime cuts for us.” Lari took another rib and placed it on his plate. “They told me the ribs are nearest to the herb stuffing, so they absorb more flavor.”

I made a sound of pure contentment as I continued eating.

The girls told Lari about our spa day while he regaled us with tales of his adventures. He claimed that there was a shortage of eligible men on the island and that he had received a dozen marriage proposals.

“Everyone is related to everyone else, you know.” He drank some juice and smiled smugly as he opened one of the cloth-wrapped bundles and showed us an embroidered vest. “The women gave me a lot of presents. I could’ve had a harem if I had stayed.”

Kharli rolled her eyes. “So could I! Mo, too. And Teacher could probably have the biggest harem in the world!”

“No, not me. I don’t like harems.” I laughed and continued eating as they chatted.

“I loved the coconut and coconut water,” said Mo.

“The System has seeds for coconut trees, but they need to grow in good soil in a sunny place,” I said. “We can plant tropical fruit trees after we finish transforming the desert into a green land.”

Kharli placed the last pork rib on my plate. “The crates you got from the people at the beach were full of seeds and cuttings, right?”

“Yeah, but I plan to sell them to others. They’ll go for a good price since they’re from the mystical island. Hand me the rice platter, please.”

By the time we arrived at the farm, it was almost midnight, and we went straight to our bedrooms. Tomorrow was the last day of the harvest season and we had a lot to do.

***

The next day, I woke up from a dream of a baby dragon. The two of us were having fun when, in the way of dreams, I thought of turning into a rabbit. I used the System to do it, of course. The fact that I could suddenly use the System in my dreams felt natural. Using a holiday item, the Easter Bunny Token, my real body became invisible, and an illusionary form of a cute little white bunny with red eyes appeared in front of me. The rabbit form copied whatever I did. We played around like that, with me hopping around, and him flying in his dragon form for a few days. The animal transformation was fun, but not a useful thing to do since the spell was broken whenever anything touched either my invisible body or the rabbit illusion.

Yawning, because I had gotten home late last night, I tried using the Easter Bunny Token in real life, but I got bored of it pretty quickly. I guess that was the difference between reality and dreams. It was already midmorning by the time I left my house to eat breakfast.

“Teacher, I saved some crunchy pork skin for you!” Mo took out a plate of food from her inventory.

We were eating, or, rather, pigging out on the leftovers from the feast last night.

“Oh my goodness, this is almost too good.” I made a sound of pure bliss.

The savory meat, slathered with a sweet and vinegary gravy, and paired with fluffy white rice, was amazingly delicious. The crunchy pork skin, of course, was everyone’s favorite. We washed it all down with glasses of iced peach juice. The three plates of mixed vegetables and assorted side dishes were untouched until I reminded the kids that they needed to replenish their energy by eating more of the special mushrooms I had “Foraged.” None of them knew that I periodically went back to the Chitinous Caverns to gather supplies and harvest crops.

“By the way, I have bad news for you. The chef says that the [Kola-Kola Soda] is unhealthy.” I raised my hand in a “what can I do” gesture. “I know, I know! It’s very good for replenishing our energy, but I don’t want our health to suffer. From now on, we can only use it once a week.”

“No…” Mo looked horrified. “I was counting on using the soda to get more exp!”

The others nodded.

I shrugged. “You have the bonus exp from the Fairy Blessings.”

That pretty much brought the conversation to a close since they were still feeling guilty that they got a bonus that I didn’t.

“Anyway, we still have the mushrooms and the hot spring. Those are very good at restoring energy,” I said. “Now, eat your dessert, and let’s get going. I want to finish our work before noon.”

I would have said that the Demon Chef outdid himself with today’s dessert, peach cobbler with vanilla ice cream, but his desserts were always excellent so… he just did himself.

Each forkful enveloped my taste buds in the sweet embrace of juicy baked peaches and buttery pastry. The coldness of the ice cream contrasted with the warmth of the filling in the most pleasant way imaginable. We all had seconds.

“Let’s go,” I said when we finished eating.

Outside, the air was sweet with the scent of blossoming flowers and the earthy aroma of the freshly turned soil where we had planted the [Wild Seed Mix] a few days ago. As we walked through the fields to clear any random rocks and tree stumps that were in the way, a gentle breeze tousled my hair. We inspected the bees, worms, and chicken eggs. Everything was in order.

I led them to the field we were going to plant rice on and took out a [Hoe]. “Alright, it’s the last day of the harvest season. Let’s spend four-fifths of our energy plowing a field to prepare for tomorrow.”

“Yes, Teacher!” they said.

The kids and I scattered to the four corners of the field and started tilling.

Of course, seeds could only be planted during the planting season, but we could plow a field today. I made Mr. Bear as big as a real bear and had him hold a cute pink umbrella with a teddy bear design over me as I worked.

“This is fun! I never get tired of this!” I said to Mr. Bear.

All I had to do was lightly touch the ground with my [Hoe] and the ground was tilled. It was like magic. When my energy bar was half empty, I put my gardening gloves on and fertilized the soil with the [Mysterious Goo].

[Mysterious Goo:

An extraordinary blend of slime excreta and worm-made compost, this potent fertilizer fuels flora with a potent cocktail of nutrients. Can only be applied to soil once a year. Do not touch with your bare hands.]

We were done in no time.

“Alright, are your energy levels okay?” I waited until they nodded before discussing the next order of business. “Now we have to say goodbye to our beloved [Soy Machine]. It’s time to build another [Greenhouse].”

“Yes! More exp!” said Mo.

“We’re planting more tree seeds for the desert farm?” asked Kharli.

“Yes, we’ll spend all of summer and autumn preparing for our winter in the desert,” I said.

“I like the desert,” said Lari. “Teacher, I’d like to volunteer to do all the desert trips from now on.”

That surprised me. I knew Lari was the most social of my three apprentices and got along very well with the clan members at the southern farm, but he never asked for more work. “Huh? Why?”

Lari gave the other two a look. After a few seconds of fidgeting and avoiding my eyes, Mo elbowed Kharli.

Kharli rolled her eyes dramatically before she finally spoke up. “None of us except Lari likes traveling back and forth to the desert. Especially during the summer! It will be extremely hot, won’t it, Teacher?”

She did have a point, but still…

I frowned at the girls. “Don’t you think it’s unfair to dump all the hard work on Lari? Don’t worry, I will be reducing the number of trips anyway since the clan members can feed the [Lizardwings] and it seems the demand for more [Lizardwings] is waning.”

This year, I sold a lot of baby farm animals to other farms and found out that both humans and clan members could take care of them after they hatched. I had already modified the System’s privacy settings to allow the public to enter the [Lizardwing’s] habitat, so all I had to do was send them more [Animal Feed].

“I’m not surprised people don’t want to buy those stinky poop machines!” Lari laughed and made a big show of pinching his nostrils shut with his hand. “Whenever I think about them, I remember that terrible stench.”

Mo wrinkled her nose. “Stop, you’ll make me puke!”

Using the System's [Build] tab, I destroyed the [Soy Machine] and replaced it with a [Greenhouse]. We planted as many tree seeds as we could in the [Greenhouse] until we were almost out of energy. Then we walked back to the house to take care of one last task.

We went to the crafting room in the inner courtyard which was full of shelves stocked with every crafting tool imaginable and had a large wooden table in the middle.

“Here we go!” I covered the surface of the table with a fine white cotton cloth then placed four plates in front of our chairs before dumping the [Crocus] flowers in the middle. They made quite a pile of vibrant purple petals atop slender green stems, providing a cheerful contrast against the pristine tablecloth.

“They’re so pretty.” Mo picked up a single blossom and took a deep breath, enjoying its sweet, delicate scent. She yawned.

“All we have to do is to gently pull out the crimson stigmas from the flowers. Those are what are sold as saffron.” I carefully reached into the mound of flowers, and, one by one, I plucked the “threads” from the center of each blossom, placing them on the plate in front of me. Each flower only had three threads.

The others were silent as they concentrated on their work. Once the stigmas were dried, they would become spirit saffron, an extremely valuable spice that cost more than thrice its weight in gold.

When we were around halfway through the pile, Lari frowned at the plate in front of him. “Teacher, there are so few! Can this be sold?”

“Hmm.” I finished pulling out the threads from the flower I was holding before replying. “We’ll have to hand this over to the chef and see what he thinks.”

Mo moved her plate closer to her face and tried to smell the saffron. “It doesn’t seem that special.”

“It will be special when it’s cooked,” I said.

I examined a thread, but no System information appeared. We had successfully produced something new without using the System directly. We continued working, and when we were done, Lari groaned in dismay when he saw the pitiful quantity of saffron we had. There was barely enough to fill a teaspoon.

“This is impossible! There are too few to sell,” he said. “Even if it does cost more than gold by weight, it’s useless since this must weigh less than a teaspoonful of water.”

I carefully stored the spices and flowers in my inventory. “Saffron is rare, that’s why it’s expensive. Never mind the gold price, the important thing is that the chef will surely create a masterpiece for us with this!”

Kharli flicked Lari in the forehead. “Stop whining! Don’t you know this is an ingredient only the richest people use? We’ll be feasting like kings tomorrow.

“No, no, not tomorrow. This has to be dried first. We’ll have a feast right after the planting season is over. Go and soak in the hot spring and rest. We need to refill our energy bars.” I shooed the kids away and went to the kitchen to offer the saffron to the chef.

Then I went back to my [Ranch House] to relax, but Yinuo accosted me as I was about to step through the front door.

“My lady, I’d like to take a few weeks off,” she said.

“Have you told Fengying?” Though I had the final say on everything, Fengying was my housekeeper and was the one who was really in charge of day-to-day matters regarding the staff.

“Yes, she said I could go with your permission, my lady.”

“Sure. What is this about?”

“I’m getting married!” Yinuo grinned at me with a very smug expression on her face. “The matchmaker finally found me a handsome husband. Look!”

She handed me a portrait. It was painted with colored inks on canvas and was the size of my palm, showing a very handsome man with striking features. He had high, chiseled cheekbones and a strong, square jawline. His dark brown eyes were piercing and seemed to stare right through the viewer. Thick, dark brows arched over his eyes, and his hair was a tousled mane of black locks that fell to his shoulders. Though the portrait was small, the artist had captured the man's charisma and an air of confidence that commanded attention.

“Whaaaat…? Where did the matchmaker even find a person this handsome? Why is he still unmarried? Oooooh, you better watch out, this one looks like a heartbreaker!” I couldn't help but tease Yinuo mercilessly.

She still had a smug expression on her face. “He’s unmarried because his family is in debt. I will have to buy him from the family he’s indentured to, but it will be worth it if he’s as handsome as this picture.”

In this world, indenture was a type of contract labor in which a person worked for someone without pay in order to repay a loan. Local laws and customs were very strict about the proper treatment of indentured workers, so it wasn't too bad, but it was hardly an enviable position to be in.

"How much?" I asked.

"It's a secret," she said.

"Hmmm." Yinuo was older than me, but I felt it was my duty as her friend to lecture her a little bit about how good character was more important than good looks. “You won’t rush into this, right? A handsome face is one thing, but a good heart is more important.”

She just pooh-poohed my concerns and took the portrait back before leaving. “My lady, remember the wedding gifts…”

I only realized I should’ve asked for more details when she returned weeks later with a big surprise.

Chapter 159 - Summer Planting Year 2 - Stats

The next day, the entire household got up before dawn and waited in front of the main house for the sun to rise. Once the first rays of light showed above the horizon, Haoran and the other chef’s assistants started the blessing ritual. The whole thing was mercifully brief. They simply circled the farm while chanting prayers and burning sweet-smelling herbs and incense. Then we all gathered in front of the [Vineheart Fairy House] and everyone, except for me, took turns burning spirit offerings which took the form of paper money or small fabric items painted, sewn, glued, etc. to resemble luxury goods like miniature robes, silver taels, gold ingots, potion bottles, furniture, horses, and immortal pills.

When it was over, we trooped back to the house for a simple, light breakfast of oatmeal with honey and hot tea or coffee. The main morning meal would be eaten after we finished planting.

The kids and I went back to the field we had plowed yesterday and planted the [Rice Seeds]. After watering them, we still had a lot of energy left, so we continued to till, fertilize, plant, and water the rest of the field until our energy bars were almost empty.

The next two weeks followed the same pattern. We met at dawn and planted rice and tea seeds. On the last day of the spring planting season, we drank [Kola Kola Soda] to replenish a fraction of our energy bars and went to the fairies’ house to plant a few sunflowers, lavender, marigolds, and petunias.

“I think the fairies love flowers,” said Mo as she watered the seeds.

I chuckled a little at that. “What, even the gangster fairy?”

Mo shook her head. “Teacher, how could there be a gangster fairy?”

I pinched her cheek. “You’re only saying that because you forgot what happened. There was a brawler fairy. She even got into a fight with the Demon Chef.”

For some reason that I couldn’t figure out, everyone except me forgot all about the fairies’ appearance. The marks of the Fairy Blessings faded after a few days, and now they treated my story about what happened as a tall tale. They still remembered they had blessings, and my kids still kept their bonus exp, but their minds seemed to have created a different memory.

“No, the fairies were in the form of beautiful and gentle princess-like winged beings made of light,” said Mo. “There was no fighting.”

“There was just one fairy and she was a grandmother goddess with golden wings and a bright golden halo,” said Lari.

Kharli was having none of it. “Tsk, you’re both wrong. They were cute children with white, feathered wings wearing white robes. They smelled like honey and milk!”

“It’s weird that we all saw different things…” I put away my watering can and wiped my hands with a handkerchief. When the others finished watering, I said, “That’s not important though. It’s the last day. How are your stats?”

I had leveled up once.

[Player Name: Violet

Farming Skills:

Farming Level 24→25, Fishing Level 12, Woodcutting Level 22, Cooking Level 6, Herblaw Level 22, Foraging Level 7, Hunting Level 7, Mining Level 4]

My apprentices also leveled up Farming.

[Apprentice Name: Kharli

Farming Skills:

Farming Level 18→19, Fishing Level 6, Woodcutting Level 16, Cooking Level 2, Herblaw Level 1, Foraging Level 7, Hunting Level 5]

[Apprentice Name: Lari

Farming Skills:

Farming Level 18→19, Fishing Level 10, Woodcutting Level 16, Cooking Level 1, Herblaw Level 1, Foraging Level 4, Hunting Level 9]

[Apprentice Name: Mo

Farming Skills:

Farming Level 18→19, Fishing Level 4, Woodcutting Level 17, Cooking Level 2, Herblaw Level 1, Foraging Level 11, Hunting Level 4]

I took out a clipboard and ballpoint pen from my inventory and noted their levels down. “Things are shaping up nicely! Do you remember our agreement when I took you on as my apprentices?”

Lari and Kharli went to either side of me and tried to read what I was writing, but it was all in my “secret code” aka English.

“The profit sharing agreement?” Lari rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “That’s not until we reach level 25 Farming, right, Teacher?”

I nodded. “Right. At level 25 you’re considered a farmer in your own right, and we can split the harvest 70-30 in my favor. At level 50 you’ll be a master farmer, and we’ll raise your share to 50 percent.”

“Yes! I’ll be incredibly rich!” said Lari.

I gestured in the direction of the house, and we started walking. “Do note that when you graduate from your apprenticeship, you’ll be responsible for your expenses.”

Kharli and Mo exchanged alarmed glances while Lari continued beaming and counting off things on his fingers. We could barely hear him muttering stuff like, “my own carriage, gold robes, silver plates, a jeweled belt…”

“Teacher? What does that mean?” asked Kharli.

“It means you’ll have to keep your own account books, and you won’t get an allowance anymore. Your money will be your share of the farm’s profit.” I patted the girls on their backs and smiled at them benevolently. “Don’t worry, you’ll have more than enough!”

“A white horse, no, two white horses, or maybe a sedan chair…” With a dreamy look on his face, Lari continued enumerating the things he wanted to buy.

Once we got to the house, we went to the kitchen to get some food then I led them to the inner courtyard where I wanted to discuss our plans for the summer. The room I chose had a whiteboard on one side and a large glass table in the middle with four wooden chairs. My apprentices put down plain white cotton table mats and coasters while I arranged the food in Dresden porcelain plates that were edged in gold and painted with a lovely landscape scene of rolling hills, tranquil lakes, and red-billed cranes. The kids also placed the glasses and silverware in the proper location as dictated by this world’s table etiquette. I was gratified to note that they had fully mastered the art of “Central style” dining.

We ate a hearty meal of rice, sauteed mushrooms, red-braised pork, fish filets in black bean sauce, and abalone bean curd soup.

Lari ate with a good appetite like the rest of us, but midway through the meal, he seemed to be struck by a worrying thought. He frowned and asked me, “Teacher, when we graduate, will we have to pay for our meals?”

I smiled. “What do you think?”

Mo jostled his arm playfully. “You’ll be charged more than us because you eat twice as much as we do.”

Kharli laughed at Lari’s horrified expression. “I’m sure Teacher won’t charge us for the food.”

“I wouldn’t be too sure of that.” Laughing at their expressions, I waved my fork at the table and said, “Remember your etiquette. Let's finish eating before we talk about business.”

“She’s just joking,” said Mo.

“Hush, you. Pass me the mushroom dish,” I said.

By the time we finished eating, I was in a great mood. The kids cleared the table and I took out my clipboard.

“Time for a serious discussion.” I put the clipboard down on the table. “Household and farm expenses, such as the staff’s salaries, food and other supplies, transportation, and so forth are taken out of the money we get from selling the crops and other farm products. Profit means the money that is left over after expenses and taxes are deducted from our income. Do you follow so far?”

My three apprentices nodded. There were no jokes this time and they were listening attentively to every word.

“The household expenses aren't as much as you might think since a lot of things we use are items taken from my bloodline inheritance. You probably won’t graduate until next year, so we’ll discuss the details then. We’ll have to go over the account books together, but right now what you need to do is to prepare for it. You’ll need to learn the basics of keeping records and how to calculate expenses, taxes, salaries, and so forth.” They looked quite overwhelmed, but I continued speaking. “This summer, I’ve hired a special tutor that Prince Baiyu recommended. She'll teach you reading, writing, arithmetic, and, eventually, accounting. Questions?”

I waited, but no one said anything. “Okay, I currently pay for all your living expenses. When you graduate you can set up your household, in which case you wouldn’t have to pay for this household’s expenses.”

Lari looked alarmed. “Wouldn’t that mean that we wouldn’t be eating here? Would the chef cook for all our households?”

“I doubt it very much.” I laughed out loud at my apprentices’ looks of consternation. “Deming is training apprentices though. Let’s hope they’re ready by the time you guys need your own chef.”

I allowed them a moment of silence as they all thought about it. Finally, Mo spoke up. “Can I please just stay here even after I become a master farmer?”

“Yes, but would you really want to? It’s okay, you have a lot of time to think about it and make your plans.” I picked up my clipboard again and started ticking off the items on my list. “That’s for the future. For now, let’s talk about the summer season.”

I put a checkmark on the first item. “Rice fields. Check. We just need to wait for the seedlings to grow big enough before flooding them and adding the fish.”

“The fish we grew ourselves are especially delicious, I think,” said Kharli. “And the rice grew better.”

I went on to the other items on the list. “Tea field. Check. We will add the shade canopy later on when it’s needed. Bees?”

“They’re healthy and giving lots of honey,” said Lari.

“Okay. Bees and honey. Check. Worms?”

“They’ve been reproducing a lot. I think we need to add another box layer,” said Lari.

“Great. Worms, add another box. Check. What about the [Black Soil] project?”

“I think the soil has improved a little, but it can’t be compared to the soil samples we got,” said Mo.

“Hmmm, so it’s a little slow to develop. Let’s try [Cowpea] and [Alfalfa] after the [Wild Seed Mix].”

They nodded. Unlike me, who grew up on modern-day Earth and needed to write down a lot of things in case I forgot them, the kids were used to memorizing long lists. Paper was readily available from many sources, but it was too expensive for the children in the orphanage to use just to write down lists of things to do.

I wrote down the new plan. “[Black Soil]. Check.”

“Is [Cowpea] good for cows?” asked Kharli. “Are we hatching cow eggs?”

“Ah, that is the next item on the list. Farm animals. The chickens and pigs have been…” I tapped my lips with the pen while I searched for the right words. “Half successful. The ranchers and farmers who are raising the animals seem satisfied, but I’m concerned about the number of animals that died. It seems cruel…”

Lari simply shook his head while Kharli and Mo exchanged baffled looks.

“Teacher, it’s not more cruel than hunting animals, is it?” asked Lari.

He had a point.

“I don’t know, it seems to me like sending off newly hatched animals to die is a bit heartless. I’m thinking of stopping the selling of newborn animals after we’ve fulfilled the agreements we’ve made so far.”

“Teacher, how many animals died?” asked Kharli.

“Around half. It seems like a waste. Let’s raise them here until they’re at least a month old before sending them off.”

Mo frowned slightly and whispered something to Kharli before turning to me and saying, “But there will be a lot of noise and maybe a foul odor. What about when the prince moves in?”

“That’s what I wanted to talk to you about. Why don’t we clear a new area south of the river for the animals? That should be far enough. Check?” When they nodded their agreement, I ticked that item off my list. “Next, fruit tree planting. We’ll probably expand the house and farm to the east and south, so it should be okay to plant orchards on the north and west sides of the main house.”

“More exp!” Mo put her arm around Kharli and squeezed her excitedly. “Sweet fruits and sweet exp.”

“We’ll start by planting apple trees.” I handed them packets of apple seeds. “Check. We’ll also use the [Greenhouse] to prepare tree seedlings for the desert farm. Check.”

The kids examined the apple seeds, but there was nothing much to see. They were just regular seeds.

“Now, as for our crafting work, the White Tiger clan will buy our explosive arrows. We’ll continue to make them. Everyone okay with that?”

They nodded.

“Explosive arrows, check. Last item…. a new project!” I got up and went to the whiteboard. Using a marker, I drew a large square with a circle in the middle and four diamond shapes.

“Teacher, the lines are crooked. Do you want me to fix it?” Kharli giggled naughtily.

Rolling my eyes, I handed her the marker. I was expecting the cheeky girl to fail, but, alas, her shapes were perfect and symmetrical.

“Okay. This is our new project this summer, an [Herb Garden]. I’ll teach you how to make no-till raised beds, and we’ll plant the special herbs in them.” Without further ado, I handed them packets of [Herb Seeds].

[Herb Seeds:

A mystery assortment of herb seeds ranging from the familiar to the exotic. Each one will grow into a culinary, medicinal, aromatic, or ornamental herb. Can only be planted in an Herb Garden.]

Chapter 159.5 - Ridiculously Strenuous, Absurdly Relentless, and Insanely Demanding

An excerpt from the journal of Shuye Skullcrusher, Guardian of the Ancient Hill Forest:

This is a mess. I should be on vacation, tending to my newborn, but now I’m buried in a mountain of paperwork. The messengers who have to carry the sacks of scrolls to my house have joked about using a cart to carry all the messages. Every day my hands ache from writing hundreds of replies.

It all started when Baroness Violet gave me a small amount of spirit tea from her farm.

She apologized for the quality of the product and promised that she would be able to produce much better tea in a year or two.

The thing that kills me is that I believed her!

I’m not particularly fond of tea, so I gave most of it away. I should have known better. The people I gave it to either drank it or gave it away to someone else. Somehow, a small amount of tea found its way to the tea aficionados of the Wolf and Leopard clans.

Most of the tea drinkers said it was very ordinary spirit tea, but one person, a three-hundred-year-old member of the Wolf Clan who was born blind, fell into a coma when he drank it. Another, a respected scholar from the Leopard Clan, went into convulsions and then likewise fell unconscious. When they woke up around an hour later, they both claimed to have developed a new sense, as if they could now see the warmth emanating from living beings and objects, even in the darkest of nights. It was as though their eyes had become attuned to the unseen energies of the world, revealing secrets hidden from ordinary sight.

My wife says this could all be a scam. The Wolf and Leopard clans could be making these claims to drive up the price of the tea that was gifted to them by a friend of a friend.

I drank the tea myself, as did dozens of others, and nothing happened to us, but now the wolves and leopards are all convinced they need to drink the tea to check if they can also acquire this strange new ability. Word spread swiftly to the other clans and now everyone wants it. The doctors, herbalists, and alchemists have been especially insistent about asking for samples to study.

The rice and vegetables from Emberstone Farm are in my care, but everyone knows that I’m merely the middleman for those items and that the choice of who to sell it to is out of my hands. The tea, on the other hand, was a personal gift, so people think I can get more of it without going through the White Tiger Clan.

Lady Violet promised to send me one more package of tea. Until then, I might just run away with my wife and baby to a faraway land to escape the endless sea of scrolls that's threatening to bury me alive.

Chapter 160 - Planting a no-till [Herb Garden]

“These are, of course, ordinary spirit herb seeds. I mean, they won’t grow into Immortal Herbs that are used for making miraculous pills.” Opening a seed packet, I poured the contents on the table. The seeds were of various shapes and sizes, from normal-looking brown ones to large pearly glowing ones that smelled of mint.

In the game, these mostly grew into herbs that I knew like mint, basil, and chamomile, but there were also a few that were unknown on Earth like whispering thistle, sundew blossom, pearlstem grass, echoreed, strange vines, etc.

The funny thing was that the [Herb Garden] was old content, and when the herbs grew, they all looked the same since the developers just copy-pasted the same graphics. Only the color palette was changed to distinguish between the different types of plants. I was looking forward to seeing their real appearance outside of a computer monitor.

“Teacher, why are we only making an [Herb Garden] now?” asked Kharli.

The three of them were busily sorting the seeds, which wasn’t an easy job since a lot of them were quite similar to each other.

“This is the first time we have enough space. What do you think?” In fact, there were other garden and house features players could add. They weren’t always very useful or valuable, but they were fun. For example, one could add a small fishing pond, hydroponic greenhouse, rain garden, weather monitoring tower, petting zoo, astrology observation platform, perfumery, etc. Even in Adventure Incarnate, players had trouble finding enough space for all of them. “I also had to wait until we had enough energy to manage everything.”

“We do have a lot more energy now, and we don’t need much during the growing season since the rice paddies don’t need watering.” Mo stirred the pile of seeds in front of her. “Are these rare seeds?”

“I don’t know. We’ll have to plant them and find out!” I gave them a few more packets. “Isn’t this fun? Pick the seeds you like.”

I pointed at the design I had drawn on the whiteboard with Kharli’s help. “We can each take a square and plant the seeds we think are good. The middle circle will be planted with random seeds. Whoever has the best square will be crowned the king or queen of summer this year!”

For the first time, Lari looked interested. “Is there a prize, Teacher?”

“Yes, whoever ‘wins’ will be feasted with all of their favorite dishes, and I’ll give them this.” I showed them a circlet made of silk leaves and flowers. Fengying had bought this for me when I asked her to buy a prize that was suitably tasteful.

“May I?” Lari held out his hand.

“Sure.” I gave him the circlet.

He inspected the circlet closely. “The beads in the middle of the flowers?”

“Ivory beads.”

“The wire?”

“Silver-plated alloy only. It’s not that valuable since this is just a fun little contest.”

Kharli, Mo, and I laughed at his disappointed pouting.

“I like it,” said Kharli. “Give it to me, I wanna try it.”

Kharli and Mo took turns putting it on.

“It’s okay,” said Mo.

She handed it to Kharli.

“I’m a pretty princess!” Kharli put it on and then sat up straight, lifted her chin, and waved regally as though she was in a procession.

We talked a little more about minor matters then parted ways. I went to play with Cutie for a while before going to my house to train my Alchemy a little. The staff really liked the mochi, aka basic nourishing qi pills, I made. I also used the System’s wood chipper, shredder, and mulcher to prepare wood chips, shredded leaves, and green mulch for the [Herb Garden].

***

Summer had come, and I chose a bunch of lightweight cotton robes and thin trousers to wear. The kids liked to wear sleeveless tops, while I preferred the loose long-sleeved ones since they protected my skin from the sun.

It was pleasantly warm today. A gentle breeze rustled the leaves of the trees in the Ancient Hill Forest, carrying with it the sweet fragrance of wildflowers and the scent of the river to the south.

My apprentices and I inspected the tea and rice plants, weeding where needed, and watering the crops. The seeds had sprouted overnight, and in each field, the delicate green shoots reached tentatively toward the sunlight. A few already had tiny little leaves that were still furled.

Once we finished watering the crops, we gathered together east of the main house.

“I’m going to put up the walls of the [Herb Garden] first, okay?” I said to my three apprentices and my household staff, who had asked permission to watch. They just never got tired of the System’s magic. A glowing magic circle appeared on the ground in front of me. “Stand back, please.”

The people behind me sighed in wonder. Seconds later, the magic circle flashed twice and disappeared, leaving behind the [Herb Garden]. Everyone except for me clapped.

I bowed. “Thank you, thank you! Let’s go inside.”

I opened the ornate iron gates adorned with white and red climbing roses, their velvety petals brushing against my fingertips and releasing a sweet, lingering fragrance into the air. My staff all filed inside the garden, but there wasn’t much to see yet. Four stone walls encircled an area that was roughly 25 feet by 40 feet.

Yesterday, I had arranged the garden the way I had shown my apprentices. As visitors entered, their eyes were drawn to the raised beds meticulously arranged within. Four diamond-shaped plots flanked the garden's perimeter, their edges lined with weathered stone. At the garden's center lay a circular plot, also lined in stone, as well as a small marble fountain where water flowed from a playful fairy’s upraised wand. At her feet was a sleeping dragon made of blue ceramic mosaic tiles. Grass-lined pathways tiled with elegant white marble veined with blue and gray crisscrossed the garden, and at the far end was a small roofed area with a comfortable bench designed for relaxation. Ivy and climbing roses decorated the walls, here and there, adding splashes of color to the gray stone.

Deming and his assistants took a quick look around and then left. The rest milled around for a few minutes checking to see if there was anything interesting until Fengying told them to go back to their work.

“It looks lovely, my lady, and I’m sure it will look even better when the herbs start growing,” said Fengying. Today there was a little bounce in her step and her cheeks were rosy with health. Ever since she got the fairy’s blessing, she seemed to be aging backward.

“We’re sending the wedding gifts to Yinuo today, right?” My maid had sent word she was getting married as soon as possible, and I’d asked Fengying to arrange for some silver to be sent to her.

“Yes, and the staff all contributed money to buy a few sets of good quality bed linens,” she said.

“I can’t wait to meet her husband.” Yinuo had sent word that the matchmaker’s promise of a handsome husband had exceeded her expectations. “I heard he’s really, really handsome! Yinuo boasted that I could die of shock when I see who she married.”

Fengying didn’t quite roll her eyes, but I got the distinct impression she was exasperated. “That girl! I told her to beware of good-looking men. She shouldn’t have married in such a rush.”

“She was probably afraid someone else would snatch her gorgeous betrothed away from her if she didn’t work fast.”

Fengying shook her head and gave me some demon pork dumplings wrapped in banana leaves for a morning snack before leaving. I shared them with my apprentices before we started our work.

“Now for some fun! Did you all remember to bring your chosen seeds?”

They all took out the seed packets from their pockets or inventory.

“I’ll start. Watch what I do.” I went over to the Western plot of land and laid down a layer of cardboard on it. “This time, we won’t till the ground. Instead, we’ll add layers of materials over the soil to make a raised bed. First, we will cover the ground with this cardboard. This will suffocate the weeds and grass. Now I’ll wet it.”

I used the watering can from the System to thoroughly soak the cardboard.

“Next, we will add brown and green stuff in alternating layers. There should be twice as much brown stuff as green stuff. This is the brown stuff. It’s made of shredded old leaves, wood chips, twigs, straw, and corn stalks.” I took out buckets of the material I had prepared beforehand. “Help me pour it over the cardboard please.”

We dumped the stuff on the cardboard and I spread it around to make an even layer four inches deep. Then I took out buckets of compost and manure. “Add this. Be careful, don’t just throw it in willy-nilly or you’ll get it on your clothes.”

The smell was incredibly bad, but it had to be done. When we finished, I took out more buckets. “These are the green materials. I put green leaves, grass, vegetable scraps, and coffee grounds through a mulcher to make it.”

We quickly poured the green mulch over the compost and manure. I wiped my forehead. The summer heat was making itself felt though it wasn’t too uncomfortable yet since it was still early in the season.

“And so we’re one-third of the way done. We need to add two more sets of brown material, compost, manure, and green material layers.” I expected them to groan or complain about it, but they reacted stoically. “Then we need to do the four other areas.”

“Teacher, please put this hat on.” Kharli handed me a conical farmer’s hat made of rice straw.

I put it on and said, “Thanks, the sun was burning the top of my head.”

We were mostly silent as we worked. My back started aching when we were halfway through.

“Teacher, why don’t we just fill it all with soil?” asked Lari.

“That’s a good question. In the future, when you make your garden away from Emberstone Farm, you can do that.” I continued to pour buckets of compost. “However, the [Herb Garden] is a special place for using this technique. Notice that the stuff we are using is mostly made of waste materials that would otherwise be thrown away.”

“I see.” Lari’s eyebrows furrowed slightly.

He seemed skeptical, so I explained a little more. “Not every place has good soil. What about the desert? We could use this method there.”

Lari was silent as he thought about it. Eventually, his furrowed brows relaxed, and a faint smile tugged at the corners of his lips. “We could add some chopped fish parts, too.”

“Yes, we can experiment later on,” I said.

Mo straightened up and put a hand on her lower back. “My back hurts from bending down too much. This is more tiring than plowing a field, but my energy bar isn’t depleting.”

“I guess we’re using muscle power, not System energy,” said Kharli. “Teacher, why don’t you sit down and rest? We can finish the rest.”

She must have noticed I was slacking off a little. “Thanks, but four will work faster than three.”

By the time we finished, our clothes were soaked in sweat and covered in dirt. I looked up at the clear blue sky and smiled. Though I was worn out, it was a good kind of tired, the type where one had worked hard all day and accomplished something good. “Finally! We’re done here. Let’s wash up and have lunch.”

“But, Teacher, aren’t we going to plant the seeds before we leave?” asked Kharli.

I stretched my arms above my head and rotated my head from side to side before answering. This kind of work was tough on the back and neck. “I almost forgot to tell you. These layers will need to decompose before we can plant the [Herb Seeds]. Outside of this [Herb Garden], you would probably have to wait a few months, but our garden is special. It should be ready before the end of the day.”

Mo’s eyes sparkled. “System magic!”

“System magic,” echoed Kharli. She wrapped her arm around Mo’s and they walked off together.

Lari and I followed behind them.

“It’s past noon. Thank goodness we had those dumplings or I’d be starving,” said Lari.

I rolled my shoulders. They felt stiff. “I’ll clean myself up at my house. See you guys later.”

I picked up Cutie on the way and brought her into the [Ranch House] with me. As I showered, I wondered why my body ached. Surely a young, fit woman shouldn't be this tired after a bit of garden work?

After some thought, I decided that it was probably because I had pushed myself too hard in the past month. Two weeks of harvest and two weeks of planting in which I used up all but a sliver of my energy meant that my fatigue had accumulated. Therefore, I resolved to take the day off tomorrow.

Lunch was a delight. The freshly harvested vegetables were made into a salad drizzled with a roasted sesame sauce, and the Demon Chef had made an incredible beef bacon with the demon cow Prince Baiyu had sent over last week.

“Teacher, you look tired. Why don’t you rest before we return to the [Herb Garden]?” said Kharli.

“I look tired?” Was it really that obvious? “It’s fine, let’s finish up today and I’ll rest tomorrow.”

When we went back to the [Herb Garden], we saw that the raised beds looked the same as when we left earlier, so we settled down on the bench and chatted about this and that until I got a System popup.

[The Herb Garden is ready for planting.]

Chapter 161 - Special cultivation technique

The kids exclaimed in surprise when a bright green light flashed all around the sky above the garden three times.

“My energy bar is draining!” said Mo.

“Mine, too!” said Kharli.

“Same here,” said Lari.

“Uh-huh, stay calm.” Though I kept my voice even, I also felt a little concerned when my energy bar started to quickly deplete, worried that I might not have enough left to complete today’s task.

“It stopped?” Mo put a hand on her chest and looked relieved. “I still have a fifth of my energy left.”

“Good, good. What about the rest of you?” I asked the others.

They said they also had one-fifth of their energy bar left.

“We have no choice but to chug more soda,” I said. “This will be our last drink for this week, okay?”

They nodded their agreement, and I distributed bottles of [Kola-Kola Soda] and glasses full of ice.

“Cold soda is so good.” Lari frowned at his empty glass. “May I have another?”

Kharli elbowed him. “Teacher just said this bottle is the last one!”

“I love soda,” said Mo. “I wish we could drink it every day.”

“Noooooo. You guys are getting addicted!” I shook my head. “Maybe I should ban soda for the rest of the year.”

We bantered a bit more while I slowly sipped my drink, relishing the sweetness and savoring the effervescent bubbles that danced on my tongue. My energy recovered a little. “Okay, everyone go to your designated spot.”

The level of the layered materials in the raised beds was now much lower than before and it had turned into what looked like crumbly, moist loam with tons of organic stuff in it. We all grabbed a handful and examined it closely.

[Growing Medium:

Made of decomposed organic materials, this growing medium provides an excellent environment for plants. Its porous texture ensures excellent drainage while retaining enough moisture for optimal plant development. Ideal for containers, raised beds, or garden plots.]

I dropped the handful of [Growing Medium]. “Oh good, it doesn’t stink. Everyone, plant your seeds.”

Lari ran over to me. “Wait, Teacher, I have an idea.”

“What is it?”

“Since the [Herb Garden] makes this special [Growing Medium] for us, it must be great for plants. Why don’t we remove it and layer more stuff again? We can use the garden to make more every day.”

“What?” I was taken aback by his suggestion at first, but the more I thought about it, the more I realized that he had a point. “That’s… a genius idea. Give me a minute to think about it.”

I mentally weighed the pros and cons while Kharli and Mo congratulated Lari for coming up with an interesting new tactic.

“Alright, here’s what we’ll do. I believe that there is a good chance it won’t work, and none of us would want to miss out on growing what could potentially be valuable herbs.” I checked their expressions and saw that they agreed with me. “However, there is an extra area that we can use for the experiment. Let's plant the seeds in our allotted spaces and experiment on the fifth, circular space in the middle.”

“Yes! I want to plant my seeds and grow amazing medicinal herbs!” Mo went back to her place, the eastern side of the garden.

The rest of us did the same. Using the hand-held seeder from the System, I finished in no time at all. Watering the [Growing Medium] was likewise easy. The last step was to carefully place plant markers with labels to identify which seed I had planted.

“I hope I get something good,” I said.

There was a wiki that I could have checked if I were still on Earth, but here, alas, there was no such thing. Yesterday, when we sorted the seeds, we took one of each and put it in a packet that was given a random number which we wrote on the markers so that we would have a record of which seeds produced which herb.

“Teacher, please sit down and relax,” said Lari. “Since it was my idea, I’ll do the work.”

I waved his suggestion away as though it was a gnat. “No, no. Of course, I’ll help.”

We shoveled the [Growing Medium] into buckets which I stored in my inventory and then we once again layered materials in the central raised bed.

“This takes a lot more effort than what we normally do.” Mo was panting slightly from the exertion.

Kharli, on the other hand, seemed full of energy. She poured another bucket of green materials on top of the brown layer. “Do you think it will work?”

“Who knows?” Mo looked down at herself and frowned. “We’re all dirty again.”

“Yes, we’ll have to wash up one more time.” I flicked a bit of manure off my skirt. “Farming can be tough on clothes. I’m glad I don’t have to do the laundry myself.”

There were modern washer-dryer machines in the laundry room which were good enough to use on our work clothes. Fengying and the others liked them though constant use tended to damage the more delicate clothes. The more valuable clothes made of silk, lace, embroidered cloth, etc. all had to be hand-washed, which wasn't too hard since we had large sinks and plenty of hot and cold running water in the house. The weird thing was that a few of the maids said they missed doing the laundry in a river like they used to do in other places.

“Our new summer robes are nice,” said Lari. “I removed all the sleeves on mine. Madam Fengying said it was fine. Anyway, they can be sewn back on if I change my mind.”

“It’s not even that hot yet, but I might do that, too,” said Mo.

Kharli nodded. “I’m shortening my trousers by two inches, too.”

“What?!” I took out a string of pearls from my inventory and clutched them. “How shocking!”

The kids just rolled their eyes or shook their heads. None of them understood the pearl-clutching joke, but I thought it was funny.

“Done. Now we just need to wait for the [Herb Garden] to create the [Growing Medium].” I yawned, accidentally smearing dirt on my face when I used a hand to cover my mouth. “Ew, yuck. Kids, let’s clean ourselves up and meet back here later.”

Lari rubbed his hands together. “I hope it works.”

“Me, too, kid. Me, too.”

***

The next day, after we finished weeding and watering the crops, we returned to the [Herb Garden] to check on its progress.

“Uh-oh,” I said.

“Tsk tsk,” said Kharli.

Mo shook her head. “Ahhh…”

Lari's disappointment was all too easy to read in the downturn of his lips and the dimming of his usually bright gaze. “It didn’t work.”

The layers of materials hadn’t been changed into [Growing Medium].

I patted his back comfortingly. “It’s fine, let’s give it one more day. At least our herbs are growing nicely.”

We watered our herbs, marveling at the different colors and shapes of the stems and cotyledons.

“One of my seeds hasn’t germinated.” Mo frowned down worriedly at a spot in her garden plot that was bare [Growing Medium].

“It’s only been a day, give it time,” said Kharli.

“This is black!” Lari was kneeling on the ground and grinning at a particularly strange seedling. “Could it be one of those mythical demon plants?”

I laughed. “No way! I told you guys, these are mostly just ordinary herbs.”

“It’s so exciting to plant seeds without knowing what it will grow into!” said Mo.

“Yes, it’s like a funny little mystery. I can’t wait to find out what herbs I planted,” said Kharli.

I hummed a little as I inspected my plants and watered them. Unlike the regular fields on the farm, the seeds in the [Herb Garden] were planted very close together. Each of us had chosen 28 seeds, though some of them were the same ones, which made for a total of 100 types of seeds. I was glad that the seedlings didn’t look like the color-swapped graphics in Adventure Incarnate. It would be funny if the dandelions, lavender, rosemary, etc. all looked like a generic plant. The graphics in the game looked like something a child would draw—a plant with a single five-petaled flower and a few oval-shaped leaves growing on a green stem.

Mo was watering her plot when she suddenly froze and stared wide-eyed at a seedling. With a trembling finger, she pointed at something below her. “Everyone, look! There’s a ghost!”

Chapter 162 - The one where Mo said she saw a ghost

We all rushed towards her, and Lari was the first to see what she was pointing at. “A pure white fairy…”

Kharli peered down at it. “You scared me, I thought you meant a real ghost!”

“It looks like a beautiful spirit, doesn’t it? Imagine this fluttering around the plants at night.” With her head tilted, Mo's expression was one of thoughtful delight, her gaze sparkling with curiosity, and a gentle smile playing on her lips. She must’ve been teasing us with her dramatics earlier.

“Gosh.” I stood watching the insect for a while.

In the dappled sunlight of the garden, the white insect, a moth, if I wasn’t mistaken, drifted like a specter, its ghostly pallor stark against the dark brown of the [Growing Medium]. With each delicate flutter of its wings, it seemed to shimmer and scatter silver dust around it that cast an eerie glow as it moved through the air despite the brightness of day.

“I’ll go fetch Haoran, he’ll know what type of bug this is!” Kharli hastily shook off the dirt from her sleeves and then ran off to the house.

The rest of us continued watering while keeping an eye on the white moth.

When Haoran, one of Deming’s assistants, arrived, he seemed quite pleased that we were consulting him about the insect. He was a good-looking youth of around twenty years old, with a square face and a large nose.

After examining the insect, he bowed to me and said, “My lady, this is a moth. I’m sorry, I don’t know the exact name for it. They say there are over a million different types of insects.”

“Is it a spirit insect? Does it look harmful?” I asked him.

“No, it’s just a regular insect without any spirituality. Adult moths are not generally harmful to plants, but the caterpillars might eat leaves and such.”

“Should we leave this one alone?”

“Yes, my lady.”

“Okay. Thank you for your help.”

He bowed again. “It was my pleasure.”

Haoran left, and I said to the others, “Let’s finish up and take a break. The moth is harmless and very pretty, so we’ll allow it to stay in the garden.”

“I thought for sure it was a spirit insect. Look at how white it is. It even seems like it's glowing,” said Mo.

I smiled. “Well, a lot of regular animals are beautiful and strange. Things don’t have to be demons or spirit animals to be lovely.”

“Let’s call it ‘ghost moth’ since that’s what Mo called it,” said Lari.

Kharli shook her head and took out her watering can. “I’ll get back to work. I can’t believe Mo scared me like that.”

Lari stepped behind her and made eerie sounds. “I’m a ghost, the ghost of… lost socks! You’ll never find a matching pair again.”

Mo and I burst out laughing while Kharli rolled her eyes.

***

During the next few days, we took care of the crops and herbs during the morning and rested during the afternoons. I forbade outdoor activities and indoor crafting for the meantime since we were all exhausted and needed a long break.

Nonetheless, we still started our day before the sun rose.

From the window of my [Ranch House], I watched a new day dawn over the farm while I drank a cup of coffee. The sun cast its golden rays across the fields of rice and tea, its warm glow spreading over every blade of grass and leaf. It was as if the world itself was waking up and stretching its arms out wide.

I emerged from my cozy house in great spirits, taking deep breaths to fill my lungs with the fresh air that was full of the earthy scent of tilled soil and the herbal aroma of dewy morning grass. With a contented smile, I waved to my apprentices who were likewise making their way to tend to the crops.

The nearest rice field was a vast expanse of freshly turned earth. The soil was a rich, deep brown that was full of life, and the newly sprouted rice plants were emerging from the ground in long, straight rows. Drops of morning dew still clung to them, glistening like clear jewels. I knelt and placed a hand on the ground beside a plant, closing my eyes to try to feel the pulse of the energy that ran beneath the ground. Today, I didn’t feel anything, but that was okay. I normally sensed it when the plants were more mature.

Fengying said that I was most likely feeling the energy channels or “tiger veins” running beneath our land. This was quite amusing to me since there was a similar idea on Earth, but they were called “dragon veins.” Since I couldn’t sense anything outside the farm, this was probably related to the System.

Perhaps there was an ebb and flow of energy, and it was stronger during harvest season.

My apprentices knew what to do, so we each worked on our own, silently and methodically moving between the rows to tend to the young crops with practiced hands. Carefully watering each tender rice shoot and diligently plucking weeds, I inspected the emerald stalks for any worrying signs like discoloration, spots, or pests.

I paused for a moment to wipe the sweat from my forehead, enjoying the warm summer breeze playing across my face and lifting the hair from the back of my neck. I took out a wide-brimmed hat from my inventory and waved it at the others to let them know they should put on some headgear to protect themselves from the sun, too.

We finished tending to the rice and went on to the tea fields.

On Emberstone Farm, the fields were bordered by old trees which served as great windbreaks and were aesthetically pleasing because I didn’t want my land to be just open fields. Since it was now midmorning, I made sure to walk on the tree-lined paths to avoid the worst of the sun’s heat.

I stopped under a majestic oak tree to rest for a minute and drink some water. When I looked up, I saw that there was a nest made of dried grasses and leaves hanging from a tall branch. Iridescent orange and black feathers peeked out of the nest’s interior as a pair of orioles flitted about, tending to their soon-to-be hatchlings.

It seems we weren’t the only ones who were busy today.

There were two tea fields, so we separated into two groups to tend to them. Kharli and Mo went to the farther one, while Lari and I worked on the one nearer the house. Like the rice fields, the tea fields were full of tiny green shoots no thicker than a toothpick emerging from the soil.

“Lovely day, isn’t it?” I said to Lari as we started working.

“Hot, but not too bad,” he said.

The work was simple but satisfying, and when we were done, I waved to the others and left. This was our daily routine, and I didn’t need to tell them that I was going back to my house to freshen up and change my clothes. My boots were caked in mud and my robes were stained with sweat.

Now that the farm layout was more or less permanent, I had laid down a gravel path from my [Ranch House] house to the main house, but that lasted less than a day. Though the gravel looked more natural, I replaced the paving with proper tiles when I slipped and fell in the wet gravel, badly bruising my elbow and knee. The most expensive outdoor paving material in the Cash Shop, the [Galaxy Tiles], were not just pretty, with a lovely design of swirls of multicolored stars in a dark gray background, but they were also safer to walk on even when wet.

[Galaxy Tiles:

Colorful and elegant anti-slip outdoor tiles engineered to enhance safety and style in your outdoor spaces. Crafted with advanced grip technology, these tiles provide unparalleled traction, even in wet conditions, reducing the risk of slips and falls.]

I took Mr. Bear from my pocket and made him big enough to hold an umbrella over us. It would’ve been great to have my puppet use a cute parasol, but the only one big enough to cover both of us was a large, ungainly-looking patio umbrella. It was an unconventional yet effective solution. I removed my hat and made my way back to my house, my boots tracking mud over the pretty tiles. Once I entered the gate, I took off my dirty boots and sweaty socks, storing them in my inventory for cleaning later. Barefoot, I crossed the grass of my lawn and sighed gratefully as I entered my air-conditioned haven.

After a long, hot shower to rinse off the grime and sweat, I slipped into a pretty little cotton sundress with dainty spaghetti straps and a playful strawberry print. I fixed myself a tall glass of lemonade and ice cubes and slowly sipped it as I relaxed and put my feet up on my lounge chair. I picked up a history book about the Northern clans, but only read bits and pieces of it, spending most of the time daydreaming. At noon, I changed into a more demure dress and watered the plants in the [Herb Garden] with the others before going to the main house for lunch.

Since it was hot outside, we had the meal in the indoor dining room with the air conditioner on. The sour, spicy cold noodles were amazingly refreshing, and they went nicely with the hearty braised beef and vegetable side dishes. We still hadn’t gotten tired of the peaches from Peach Blossom Isle, so we all had crêpes with caramelized peaches.

I had just gotten up from the dining table when Fengying announced a visitor. “My lady, Scholar Wu is here with her staff.”

Chapter 163 - Celestial Harmony Martial Arts

Chapter 163 - Classes will be farm from boring

🙞❤︎🙜

Scholar Wu was the person Prince Baiyu had recommended. Fengying and I met her at the gate. I was expecting a nerdy type since she was a scholar, but she was a tall, powerful-looking clan member who reminded me of Shuye. Her figure was ample and a cascade of silvery blonde hair framed her square face. Her eyes were a deep, dark blue.

“Welcome to Emberstone Farm!” I cupped my hands and bowed deeply. “This is my housekeeper, Fengying.”

“It’s an honor to meet the famous Baroness Violet.” She returned the bow and introduced her staff to us.

With her was a lady’s maid, a butler, two housemaids, two footmen, and three other assorted staff members whose roles weren’t readily apparent. All of them were Prince Baiyu’s people. I mentally thanked my lucky stars that I had a housekeeper who would take care of all staff matters, including coordinating with the other household and seeing to their needs.

Fengying led the staff to the third courtyard while I brought Scholar Wu to the second courtyard where I had furnished a large, airy room with study tables and comfortable chairs along with a good assortment of scrolls, books, paper, inkstones, brushes, and so forth.

Tea had already been set up for us.

“These are my three apprentices, Lari, Kharli, and Mo. Children, this is your new tutor, Scholar Wu.”

The three of them cupped their hands and bowed from the waist, just as I had.

“Let’s sit down,” I said to the scholar.

My apprentices all kowtowed and said, “Thank you for agreeing to teach us, Scholar Wu.”

“It’s my pleasure,” said Scholar Wu.

With that, the ritual was finished, and we all had tea. I was extremely surprised to see that Scholar Wu ate and drank with us, since clan members normally refused to eat. Was this also part of the ritual?

We made small talk about the weather until Lari suddenly blurted out a startling question. “Scholar Wu, you’re from Wu village. Are you part of the Wu family? The one whose ancestor created the Celestial Harmony Arts.”

“I am.”

“Wow!” Kharli’s eyes sparkled. “Esteemed Scholar, could you teach us martial arts forms?”

Scholar Wu hid her smile with her cup. “Certainly.”

“Yes!” Kharli embraced Mo. “We’re going to be taught by a real martial artist.”

Hey, wait a minute, are you saying you’re not satisfied with my teaching?

I pouted a little, thinking of all the time I had spent teaching them archery using the beginner equipment from the System. “Great, but don’t slack off learning your letters and numbers, okay?”

“You can rest assured I’ll get them ready to manage their finances,” said Scholar Wu.

I pushed a plate of food nearer to her. “Have some more of these green bean cakes; they’re to die for.”

When we finished our tea, I took her to the third courtyard.

Gray tiled roofs with upturned eaves contrasted nicely with the white walls. In the center was a large space open to the sky with a pocket garden that featured a valuable Shanshui-style penjing. This was the sort of thing my mother liked, though I thought it was lame to make things smaller instead of bigger. Penjing was the precursor of the more well-known bonsai art of Japan. In this world, these miniature landscapes were called “pearl gardens” after a folktale about a cultivator who had shrunk a mountain range until it was small enough to fit inside a hollowed pearl.

As expected, Scholar Wu stopped in front of it and spent quite a long time admiring the intricate miniature landscape within the shallow tray. Small but interesting moss-covered scholar’s rocks formed the bulk of the penjing, with dwarf trees and shrubs precisely placed here and there. The whole composition mimicked a mountain range in compact form.

Scholar Wu was almost too overcome to say anything at first, but managed to contain her delight eventually to say, “This is one of the best I’ve ever seen, and I’ve been to the Garden of Seven-Colored Flowers in the Western Palace.”

I smiled proudly. “You like it? I would give it to you, but items from my bloodline inheritance are mostly impossible to take away from the farm.”

Scholar Wu smiled warmly, her eyes crinkling at the corners as her lips curved upwards. The hint of laugh lines around her mouth suggested a lifetime of smiles and joyous expressions.

"I wouldn't dream of taking this penjing. Which expert is tending it?" she asked, her gaze drifting back to admiringly study the intricately arranged miniature landscape.

“Well… it actually tends to itself, believe it or not.”

“I believe it. People say that your house is full of magical treasures. I feel extremely lucky to be able to stay here.”

I gave her a tour of the third courtyard, showing her all the common areas and then the guest rooms I had prepared for her. Before I left, she asked to have a private word with me, so I joined her in her room for a chat. I waited patiently while her maid prepared a plate of cookies and tea for us.

“Thank you, we’ll serve ourselves,” said Scholar Wu to her maid.

The maid bowed to us and left.

“Lady Violet, I need to discuss a somewhat delicate matter with you.” She took a sip of tea. “I know that you’re a foreigner, but you’ve had some contact with clan members, so you know that we typically refrain from eating.”

“Yes, I’m aware.” What was she getting at?

“There is, of course, a permanent exception for children and elderly.”

I nodded. “That makes sense.”

“What you perhaps don’t know is that there is a temporary exception for those who take care of children. This means parents, nannies, teachers, and anyone else who looks after minors.”

“Um, okay.”

Seeing my confusion, she elaborated. “Kids and even adult students learn by example. Eating with students helps train them in manners and socialization.”

“Oh! I get it.” Yeah, I remembered there were schools I had attended where mealtime was considered part of the curriculum where we were taught social skills and healthy eating habits. Due to my dad’s globe-trotting ways, I had gone to many schools in many countries.

“Also, it helps in forming a closer bond between the teacher and students.”

I tilted my head to show my agreement. “It sure does!”

“In addition… the taboo is not as all-encompassing as you might think.” She looked away and sighed. “I ask for your understanding if you see food being cooked and eaten by the clan members here. You see, not everyone has a strong enough inner qi to completely refrain from eating.”

My mouth fell open.

She continued explaining. “The butler will be telling your housekeeper about this. Many lower-ranked clan members do eat every day. We ask that you and your household turn a blind eye to it. Since the ability to fast for long periods is limited to the strong, it would be humiliating if someone pointed it out, especially publicly.”

Uncertainty tinged my voice as I asked, "Doesn't this mean I should have prepared supplies for the new staff?"

“No, don’t worry, we’re not helpless! We can arrange for our own food.” She chuckled. “Because of the taboo, this is the only time we can discuss it. From now on, please never make any sign that you know about the staff eating regular meals.”

“Okay,” I said, even as I made a mental note to tell Fengying to sneak food supplies into the third courtyard’s kitchen. Since talking about it was taboo, that meant they wouldn’t be able to reject it. A thought struck me. “Wait, what about the spirit rice? I thought only kids were eating it. Does this mean adults also want my rice?”

She pursed her lips. “You know that the original taboo was because there was a famine?”

“Yes.”

“Spirit rice is rare and there’s not enough for everyone. The taboo is precisely for such an occasion. Right now, only children and the sick or elderly are eating it.”

“So if I harvest enough, everyone will eat it…”

“I look forward to that time.”

We ate the cookies and drank the tea in silence for a few minutes. When we finished, I got up and bowed.

“One last thing.” Scholar Wu handed me a small package wrapped in decorative silk cloth. “This is from Prince Baiyu.”

Chapter 164 - Planting an apple orchard

Chapter 164 - Lari used to be addicted to bacon, but he's cured now

🙞❤︎🙜

I opened it immediately and found that it contained an elegant silver filigree hairpin hung with cascades of small sapphire and amethyst beads. “How lovely! Excuse me, I must go and write a thank you letter.”

Scholar Wu then reached into her sleeve and took out a letter that she gave to me. “From Prince Baiyu.”

“Thank you very much!”

“You’re welcome.”

I stood up and bowed politely. “Will you join us for dinner?”

“No, thank you. It’s customary for tutors to join their pupils during the meals, but today the evening can be skipped. We all need to rest at the end of the day.”

“See you tomorrow then.”

I left and hurried to my study in the second courtyard where I read the letter which was short and to the point. He was coming to see me next week. I dashed off a quick reply and gave it to Fengying while also informing her of Prince Baiyu’s upcoming visit. The letter had made me forget about the clan member’s food situation, but Fengying was on top of things and asked for my permission to send food to their kitchen.

"Of course, Deming knows all about it," she said, her lips curling into an enigmatic smile. There was a glint in her eye as if she was privy to some great secret or inside joke that she didn't intend to share. Her expression seemed to say there were layers to the situation. “The three staff the butler didn’t introduce properly are the chef and kitchen staff.”

“Oh! Wow, so they really are mostly human, just like Shuye always says.” My mention of my Farm Guide reminded me of an important matter. “By the way, you sent more tea to Shuye? What did Deming say about it?”

“He thinks it’s a scam. The tea is just regular spirit tea.”

“Aw… that’s too bad.” Deming was a cultivator and I trusted his identification skill over the rumors. It would have been nice if our tea actually gave people superpowers, but I guess it was not to be. “Shuye says people are going crazy over it. I guess it's because people are afraid they’re missing out on something good.”

This was very Singaporean of them! Back on Earth, my mom, who was from Singapore, was always decrying the "kiasu" mindset—that compulsive fear of missing out that drove people to hoard opportunities and resources out of anxious competitiveness rather than actual need.

Fengying and I clicked our tongues in unison then laughed when we realized what we had done.

***

The next day, we admitted defeat and removed the layers of materials from the central area of the [Herb Garden]. Clearly, they were never going to be turned into a proper [Growing Medium]. I replaced it with potted flowers for Cutie to enjoy. The [Growing Medium] that had originally been there was sent to Shuye to sell.

“It was worth a shot,” I said to the crestfallen Lari. “I like how you think out of the box and don’t just follow the normal System procedures.”

The way he thought of ways to circumvent the rules kind of reminded me of my old friend GodIAm.

After tending to the herbs, we went outside to take care of the crops and get started on the orchard planting.

"Teacher, what do you mean we won't fertilize the soil?" Lari asked, his brow furrowing into a puzzled frown. His eyes squinted slightly as he tried to make sense of what I had just said.

“In the past week, our energy bars have been slow to fill. I believe it’s because we’ve been working too hard and eating mushrooms and drinking cola to artificially replenish our energy. I think we shouldn’t do unnecessary stuff.”

We had just finished watering the crops. North of the main house, we cordoned off a portion of land by tying a rope around the trees at the perimeter of the place where we were going to plant the apple orchard.

It was a beautiful golden afternoon in the Ancient Hill Forest. The searing heat of the summer sun was filtered through the tree canopy and a mild breeze carried the scent of wildflowers and fresh earth. The sounds of the forest bathed us in sweet noise, the trilling of the birds, the buzzing of the insects, and the rustling of the leaves, combining in a sweet harmony.

Inside the area we had just cleared of all rocks and grass, I leaned against a beech tree and said, “I know, I know. You feel fine. Still, let’s not push ourselves by working too hard. My knowledge from my bloodline inheritance tells me that all we need to do is to plant the apple seeds and water them.”

I knew this from playing Adventure Incarnate. Trees were a hands-off type of thing.

“But we used fertilizer on the desert farm,” said Lari.

“Oh, right. You were there two days ago. Did you notice any difference with the trees we planted with fish parts?” I asked.

“The trees are doing great. I haven’t noticed any difference.” Lari looked a little discouraged.

“Don’t worry. Everything’s good as long as the plants and animals are healthy. I heard that sales of the [Lizardwings] have slowed down. Maybe we should bring them here to boost the soil’s quality.” I burst out laughing when I saw my apprentices’ appalled expressions. “I’m kidding.”

Kharli raised her eyes and hands to the heavens as though begging the gods to have mercy on us. “Teacher, please don’t even joke about bringing those stink machines here!”

I pinched her cheek. “Okay, okay, back to what we were talking about. We can plant five seeds with fertilizer and fish parts to check if it helps, but my gut feeling says it won’t.”

“Teacher, is it because the soil quality is better here compared to the desert?” Mo asked.

“Yes. Our trees are very special and strong. They grow much slower than the crops, but the tree seeds just need to be planted and left alone. It will grow to maturity after one year.” I stretched my arms above my head before taking out my hand-held seeder. “Let’s start. Remember to keep your energy bar above fifty percent.”

The way that the seeds shot out of the seeder and embedded themselves in the ground never failed to captivate me. Each time I planted a seed, some of my energy was used up, though I felt nothing. That was the insidious part of farming. I only felt tired when most of my energy bar was gone, and if it were to completely empty I would collapse.

After planting the seeds, we watered them. It was a real piece of cake and we didn’t even break a sweat.

“This time next year, we’ll be able to eat fruit from our own orchard,” I said to the others. “Before we go our separate ways to wash up, take a look at these pages.”

I handed them a book on fruit farming, with a red ribbon marking the pages I wanted them to read. The printing press had been invented some time ago, but that didn’t mean that information was freely available everywhere like on Earth. Here, guilds and clans were secretive about their crafts, and a book like this was only available to us because of Emberstone Farm’s good reputation.

We moved away from the orchard area and settled down on a picnic blanket under the shade of an oak tree while the kids read the relevant information. It took some time because they turned the pages over again and again, rereading the same words repeatedly.

“Do you want me to explain?” I finally asked.

Kharli put down the book with a relieved sigh, and Mo said, “Yes, please, Teacher. I was able to use the System to read it aloud, but I don’t understand it.”

Kharli held the book up and shook it. “This can’t be true. I’m sure all of the apple trees we plant will grow the best apples in the world.”

Lari nodded his head vigorously in agreement. He took the book and read some of it, probably using the System’s help. “In the cultivation of apple trees from their seeds, one must contemplate the phenomenon of heterozygosity, wherein the offspring manifest a plethora of diverse traits compared to their progenitors.”

Mo plugged her ears with her fingers. “Stop! I hate textbooks. I can’t understand a word of that.”

“Well, the text is a little bit technical, but the gist of it is that apple trees grown from seed can turn out quite different from their parent trees. That’s basically it.” I yawned. Somehow, all this academic-style talk made me feel bored. “You see, each seed is the child of two different trees so it contains a mix of traits from both parents. When those seeds grow into trees, their fruit will have different characteristics like taste, appearance, texture, etc.”

My apprentices exchanged confused looks.

“But the fruits will all be good?” asked Mo.

“Yes, I think so. There are many different types of apples, right? Some will turn out sweet, some tart, some crisp, some mealy, some will be red, some golden… it’s like a lottery.” I took back the book and stored it in my inventory. “Did you read the second part, the one about grafting?”

They nodded.

“Farmers can insert a piece of the tree they like into the rootstock of another tree. That will grow into the tree they like,” said Kharli.

I gave her a thumbs-up and a smile. “Exactly! When the trees are grown and produce fruit, we can cut off a few branches and sell those to others who want to grow fruit trees, too.”

“Teacher, doesn’t this mean some fruit trees will be better than others?” asked Lari.

“Maybe,” I said. “If a particular fruit variety becomes more popular than the others, we can grow more of it by grafting. There is no way of doing that using the System though. We can only grow from seed if we use the System.”

In fact, I wasn’t quite sure that the apple trees would be that different from each other since they all looked the same in Adventure Incarnate. Deming was the one who had sent me the book, expressing his concern through Fengying that I wasn’t aware of these facts about growing apple trees from seed. He also said that most wild trees that grew this way produced crabapples instead of the sweet red apples I had in my inventory.

I continued explaining this to my apprentices. “Or… this book could be all wrong since we’re using the System instead of ordinary methods.”

“I think the book is wrong,” said Mo instantly.

Kharli enthusiastically agreed with her. “Very wrong! We’ll definitely grow the most delicious red apples, just like the ones Teacher uses to make apple pie.”

“I think so, too,” said Lari.

“Only time will tell. I wouldn’t mind if we grew a good variety of different apples,” I said. “Okay, I think we’re done. Let’s meet again at lunch.”

Their first class will be held this afternoon. Prince Baiyu’s butler had delicately broached the subject of Scholar Wu’s additional fee for teaching the kids the basic martial arts form of the Wu family’s Celestial Harmony Arts, and I had agreed to hand over a rather enormous sum of money.

I had half-expected the System to give me a quest to learn martial arts, but since no such thing appeared, I thought I should observe the classes first before deciding if I wanted to try it out, too.

From what I could tell, the Celestial Harmony Arts was similar to Tai Chi on Earth. People used it to learn better balance, flexibility, posture, and a sense of calmness and inner harmony. In short, it was practiced for its health benefits and meditative aspects, not its combat effectiveness. Nobles particularly liked it, and being taught by a master from the Wu family was the ultimate sign that one was wealthy and well-connected.

We got up, and I put the picnic blanket away. Together we walked south.

“Scholar Wu will be eating with us, so mind your manners,” I said.

“Oh no, we’re having pork ribs for lunch. I like to munch on it,” said Lari.

Mo and Kharli laughed.

“No gnawing on the bones today for you,” said Mo.

“Poor Lari. He does love his pork ribs,” said Kharli.

“Maybe I could take a plate and eat it in my room later.” Lari frowned, his lips pursing slightly as he pondered his predicament.

I shook my head. “Nope. The whole purpose of eating lunch with your tutor is to learn to eat gracefully and converse in a refined manner.”

When the kids reacted with horror, I shrugged and said, “Relax, Scholar Wu seems easygoing. You’ll get used to it.”

We reached the front of the main house and we said our farewells as they went to their rooms and I walked on to my house.

“Your class will start right after lunch. Wear good clothes, but don’t put on any jewelry. It’s not a party. See you later,” were my parting words.

Chapter 165 - The Great Underground Slime Cavern

Chapter 165 - Violet's having the slime of her life in the Mines

🙞❤︎🙜

Lunch was superb. The Demon Chef and Fengying had pulled out all the stops for Scholar Wu’s first meal with us. The normally simple and elegant tableware we used every day had been replaced with gold-edged china, gold and silver utensils, and crystal glasses. The centerpiece was an extravagant arrangement of summer blooms—peonies, roses, lilies, hollyhocks, and morning glories.

“Everything looks wonderful,” said Scholar Wu when we sat down at the table.

“This is your welcome meal. Thank you for agreeing to tutor my apprentices,” I said.

The first dish was a refreshing starter, lotus leaves stuffed with rice, diced sausage, mushrooms, and lotus seeds, delicately flavored with rice wine and soy sauce.

Next was a cold cucumber soup. One spoonful immediately cooled and invigorated my senses with its wonderful blend of flavors. The gentle sweetness and crunchy flavor of the cucumbers were perfectly complemented by the yogurt, dill, and the slight tang of garlic.

The fish course was grilled red sea bream with lemon and herbs. To be honest, I never liked fish much, but it was pretty good.

I was shocked when the meat course was served.

Beef Wellington?!

That was one of my mother’s favorite dishes, though she only ate it once or twice a year since she said it was too high in calories. My memories were full of birthday dinners in which my mom always ordered it.

Fengying, who was supervising the lunch service, seemed to mistake my surprise for unfamiliarity with the dish, so she explained what it was to me. “My lady, it’s beef tenderloin wrapped in mushrooms, onions, and herbs that’s been baked in pastry.”

“Looks delicious.” However, I knew from experience how heavy this dish was. “I don’t think I can eat this much though. Could you give me a half serving instead?”

They took my plate away and returned it with a half slice of what was called “Secret Golden Treasure Beef” instead of Beef Wellington, since obviously there was no Britain or Duke of Wellington here.

“Thank you,” I said.

My mouth watered as I sliced a bit of the golden-brown pastry crust and beef tenderloin that was covered by a rich layer of finely chopped mushrooms, shallots, and herbs sautéed in butter. It was quite decadent.

As I chewed, the exquisite flavors made me feel a pang of bittersweet longing when I thought of how my mother would’ve loved it. The beef was amazingly tender, and the earthy mushroom duxelle elevated the dish with its rich flavor profile. The flaky pastry crust added wonderful textural contrast.

“This is almost too incredible,” said Mo.

“A dish fit for a princess,” said Scholar Wu with a twinkle in her eye as she gave me a sidelong glance.

“Save some room in your stomach for dessert,” I said to the others, pointedly ignoring Scholar Wu’s teasing.

“I can't stop eating,” said Kharli.

My apprentices had been nervous about eating with their tutor at first, but as the meal progressed, they relaxed, and now we were chatting freely.

After we finished with the main dish, three maids came up to our table with three dessert dishes. One was a peach chiffon cake, the top adorned with fresh peach slices fanned out in a radiant pattern. The second was a plate of roasted pears, and the third was a tub of honey ice cream with an accompanying set of sauces one could drizzle over it. There were raspberry, peach, and strawberry sauces.

Lari chose all three dessert dishes, while the rest of us picked one or two that we preferred. I was a little bloated from everything we ate, so I only had a tiny slice of cake and a small scoop of ice cream.

“Wow, I think you’re all too full to go to classes right after this, right?” I said to the others.

“I think a bit of rest after lunch would be appropriate. Let’s start at mid-afternoon,” said Scholar Wu.

“Thank you, ma’am!” said Lari. “Then I can have another serving…”

“Is your stomach okay?” Kharli gave him a concerned look. “Don't eat too much! You might get a stomachache.”

Lari hesitated. “Yeah, maybe you’re right.”

“For once, it's not Lari’s fault. The food is just too good,” said Mo. She was on her second serving of cake.

Lari turned to Fengying and said, “I’ll have just one more slice of cake, please.”

Scholar Wu smiled indulgently at the kids and patted her belly. “Ha! I’ve eaten a lot, too. Alright, let’s postpone our classes. We can start tomorrow.”

The kids cheered.

“Then I’ll have more roasted pears,” said Kharli.

I couldn’t believe it when my apprentices all had third servings of dessert. “Deming is just too good!”

***

Six hours later, when I was no longer too stuffed to move, I decided to pay a visit to my [Mini Hydroponic Farm] in the Chitinous Caverns. I changed into a comfortable pair of Slime-themed shorts and T-shirt from the Cash Shop and used the [Portal Door] to the mines.

With Mr. Bear walking beside me in [Guard Mode] and my slime pet Cutie in my arms, we made our way to the elevator and then rode it to level 90.

Previously, I had grown a variety of colorful flowers, vegetables, and fruits in the [Mini Hydroponic Farm], but that was a pain because they all had different growth rates. Now I had removed everything and planted [Strawberries]. I added more nutrients and adjusted the water level and grow lights.

The [Mushroom Cave] was right next to the [Mini Hydroponic Farm], so I went there to forage more mushrooms. Today I found a new item.

[Lion’s Mane Mushroom:

A rare and mystical fungi with ethereal powers. Its cascading tendrils resemble a mane fit for a mythical beast, inspiring awe and wonder to all who gaze upon it. Consuming this legendary mushroom bestows the eater with enhanced focus and mental clarity needed for casting magic spells.]

“Nice!” I said to no one in particular.

Reading between the lines of the item description, it seemed that this mushroom gave players a higher success rate of casting spells. Spells in Adventure Incarnate were finicky things that tended to fail unless the player’s magic level was at least 10 levels higher than the spell’s level requirement.

I was therefore in a great mood when we left level 90 and used the elevator to go to the slime level. We went straight to the huge cavern where the slimes liked to hang out. Its earthen walls were covered in colorful, glowing flowers. I was just going to pass through the cavern to go to the place where I collected [Goo] when Cutie unexpectedly left my side and bounced all the way to the white stone platform on the far end of the open area.

Cutie then jumped up to a boulder on the side of the stage and fiddled with something I couldn’t see. Her purpose became clear when a trap door opened and a lectern rose from beneath the stage.

I put a hand on Mr. Bear’s shoulder and said, “What’s this? Is she going to give a speech?”

“Chuuuuu! Chu. Chu.” Cutie’s voice reverberated throughout the cavern.

She had a microphone?

I had pumped in music through hidden speakers in the cavern before, so I knew they had a sound system, but I was nonplussed to find out that the lectern had a microphone, and that Cutie knew how to use it. She was smarter than I thought.

“Chu chu chu. Chuuu.” Her speech went on for a few more minutes. Only a few of the slimes seemed to be paying attention. However, that changed when Cutie suddenly grew a few appendages.

Slimes, of course, had what was called a “slime strand” on the top of their heads which they used to touch or hold things, but Cutie was the only one I knew who could grow additional slime tendrils.

The other slimes reacted in various ways. Some of them recoiled in disgust, while others bounced closer to Cutie to check what she was doing. Most of them seemed puzzled, their bodies swiveling from Cutie to the other slimes as though to say, “Did you see that? What is that?”

Cutie went on with her speech, and a few minutes later, the cavern erupted with sound. Slimes crowded around Cutie when she got off the lectern, and it seemed everyone was either excited, curious, or disapproving. I even saw one tiny slime, clearly a child, get reprimanded by an adult for daring to copy Cutie by growing two additional appendages.

As I was looking around in alarm, a System popup appeared.

[Change your pet’s name to “The Resplendent Architect of Evolution with Eyes of Gold and Luminous Aura”?]

What the heck?!

Was this a new name the other slimes had given Cutie, or had she renamed herself? I had no idea pets could change their name without input from the player.

This was yet another reminder that this was real life now, not a video game.

Shrugging, I mentally clicked on the [Yes] button though I would, of course, continue to call her Cutie. It was rather nice to have such an unusual pet.

While I had been messing around with the System, the disapproving slimes had gradually become more and more agitated. Their cries of “Chu,” it seemed to me, were becoming rather warlike.

I didn’t wait for things to come to a boil. I went to get Cutie and hustled her out of there at once. She made no protest, and many of the other slimes looked relieved.

As we walked to the elevator, I thought about the implications of Cutie’s little display. Would the slimes in the cavern learn to use limbs like Cutie did? Would they start using tools to build things and eventually form a slime civilization? Could it be that I had just witnessed the start of the Great Slimean Underground Empire?

“Cutie, can you transform into a human?” I asked her.

We hurried back to my [Ranch House] and used a large sheet of cardboard and colorful markers to draw a slime turning into a cute girl. I showed the drawing to her and said, “Look, Cutie, can you do this?”

I waited with bated breath for her reply.

Cutie used her slime strand to pick up a marker.

Chapter 166 - The best summer ever

Chapter 166 - Everyone knows marriage is a wife sentence

🙞❤︎🙜

“Yes?” I gave my pet slime an expectant look.

“Chu!”

With an air of concentration, Cutie scribbled on the cardboard the way she had seen me do it, but she didn’t produce anything coherent.

Nor did she transform.

Oh well, I guess it was fine that she didn’t turn into a cute human slime girl.

***

Over the next few days, the kids were on their best behavior as they did their farm chores in the mornings and had their classes in the afternoons. On the day Prince Baiyu was to visit the farm, I put on the hairpin he sent and a nice set of peach-colored robes. I waited for him in my reception room in the second courtyard while munching on some sweet bean cookies and drinking peach tea.

When I heard footsteps, I put the food down and checked for any crumbs before hurriedly opening the door to welcome him inside.

The moment I laid eyes on him, my breath caught in my throat. I hadn’t forgotten how handsome he was, but seeing him again after a long absence, I was struck speechless by his gorgeous features. As he approached, his confident stride and alluring smile sent butterflies fluttering in my stomach. He was wearing a magnificent set of blue and silver robes.

I waited until he was close before dramatically putting both my hands on my chest and exclaiming, “Be still, my heart!”

Then I placed a hand on my forehead and fake swooned. He caught me in his arms, just as I planned. The maids, kitchen staff, and my apprentices were all loitering in the courtyard, not-so-subtly spying on us, so we couldn’t do anything, but I enjoyed the feel of his arms around me.

“Hello, stranger,” I said. “Come into my room…”

He let me go, and we entered my suite, though I had to leave the door open for propriety's sake.

“My father sends his regards and wishes to make it known that he supports our relationship. He gave me these robes which he says he was wearing when my mother fell madly in love with him at first sight,” he said.

“Oh, I one hundred percent believe it.” I sat down.

Prince Baiyu remained standing and spread his arms out, long sleeves swaying. He turned in place, so I could get a good 360-degree view of him wearing the robes. “What do you think? Have you fallen madly in love with me yet?”

I smirked at him. “Perhaps if you took it off…”

We laughed together and he sat down.

“I can't. My father made me swear I won’t take off my robes to sweep your house’s path clean.” He sighed.

Last year, Prince Baiyu used to take off his robe and sweep the paths around the house wearing only his pants and boots. He told me that his parents had heard of this and scolded him for being immodest.

“That’s too bad.” I wordlessly offered him a teacup and a plate of cookies, which he refused, as usual. “How are your parents?”

“My mother’s condition has progressed to the point that the baby’s qi can be felt. The family has publicly announced her pregnancy, and I’ve been given permission to live and work nearby.”

“Great!”

Prince Baiyu cleared his throat. “I said ‘nearby.’ My parents don't want me living here.”

“I thought you said your father approved?” Of course, I did notice that he didn’t say anything about his mother.

“He said that moving to your guesthouse is premature. Don’t worry, I’ll be living in Shuye’s village.” He took my hand and kissed it. “We’ll see each other almost every day.”

“Yes!” I couldn’t help but jump up from my seat and hug him. “I missed you so much.”

From the open doorway, I could see the kids and staff giggling at us, but I didn’t care and continued embracing my boyfriend for as long as I wanted. Eventually, we both sat back down, and we chatted about what we had been doing in the past month. I finished my tea and gave him a tour of the farm, especially the [Herb Garden] which was new to him.

He bent down to inspect an herb plant. “You call these ordinary spirit herbs?”

“Yes, they’re used for cooking and stuff, not for making Immortal Pills.”

“The qi in your farm has greatly increased in intensity.”

“You say that every time.”

“It’s true every time.”

We didn’t talk about anything of much importance. I was simply content to walk by his side and listen to his voice. After a while, he took my hand in his and we walked together that way. His fingers and palm were pleasingly rough and calloused from wielding a sword. We ended up sitting on a picnic blanket under the shade of a majestic oak tree and chatting.

The gentle breeze rustled the leaves, creating a soothing melody, and the warm sunlight filtered through the branches, casting dappled patterns on the two of us. Birds chirped merrily in the distance, adding to the tranquil ambiance.

“I hope you don’t mind if I do use your guesthouse to store some of my things. During the day, I could use the study to do paperwork,” he said.

“Of course, I wouldn’t mind.”

“My butler will also stay there to support Scholar Wu and the other staff.” He paused and gave me a sidelong glance. “You know, Scholar Wu is living with you to keep an eye on things for my mother.”

I raised an eyebrow. “She’s here to chaperone you?”

Prince Baiyu threw his head back and guffawed. This was one of the very few times I saw him laugh so unrestrainedly. Eventually, he used a handkerchief to wipe the tears of laughter from his eyes and said, “I almost forgot to tell you. My mother wanted to send a few people to chaperone me, but my father said no.”

I mentally rolled my eyes a little at the thought of a grown man having a chaperone for real, but I guess the people in this world were much more old-fashioned compared to modern-day Earth. “Did he say why?”

“Yes.” He covered his mouth with a hand as though to physically hold back another bout of laughter before composing himself and saying, “He said to my mother… ‘You know quite well that chaperones are useless.’ Then they exchanged this look.”

He burst out laughing again, and I had to smile at his story. He and I had a lot in common. My parents were always saying stuff like that, too.

“Did he waggle his eyebrows like this?” I waggled my eyebrows while smirking suggestively.

Prince Baiyu couldn’t resist and took me in his arms. He kissed my forehead and said, “No, but he told me they wanted at least another half dozen kids.”

I pulled away a little and sat down right beside him. He put an arm around me and I leaned against him.

“My father told me to ask you if you like me the way I am.” His smile faded a little, and he looked up at the leafy canopy above us for a few seconds before looking back down into my eyes.

I pulled his head down and kissed the purple lotus birthmark in the middle of his forehead. “It’s a good thing I like you just the way you are.”

He kissed my forehead, too. “I won’t change much in the next hundred years. You should know that.”

“That’s perfect!” Was my lifespan the same as a human lifespan in this world, or did I have eternal, unchanging youth the way players did in Adventure Incarnate? I had no way of knowing. “...I don’t want to worry about what I’ll be like a hundred years from now. Besides, who knows, we could both die tomorrow.”

Look at my parents. They died young.

“No, don’t say that!” said Prince Baiyu.

He frowned, and I smoothed the lines on his forehead until he stopped.

“Let’s pinky promise that we’ll always have fun in the future!” I held up my hand, and we hooked our pinkie fingers together. “There! We promised. I’m just glad we’ll be spending more time together. Let the future take care of itself. I’m sure our future selves will handle it just fine.”

We laced our fingers together and talked until sunset. We parted with a kiss, and he said he would visit me again tomorrow afternoon.

“This will be the best summer ever,” he said.

***

The next day, right before noon, Yinuo arrived with her surprise. She’d had her wedding in her hometown, and she was back to stay at the farm with her groom.

Or so I thought.

“But you… that’s… no way.” I turned to Fengying, who was smiling, and asked her, “Did you know about this?”

Chapter 167 - The Blissful Newlywed Life

Chapter 167 - Lettuce commence the wedding feast celery-bration

🙞❤︎🙜

Adventure Incarnate wasn’t a harem game!

Yinuo smirked at me and introduced her husbands. “My lady, these are my husbands, Muchen and Yichen. Muchen is an artist while Yichen is a hunter. Thank you for allowing us all to stay here.”

“Welcome to Emberstone Farm,” I said. “Congratulations on your marriage.”

I did have a somewhat vague idea that polygamy was rare but allowed in this world, so I tried to play it cool.

Muchen and Yichen were identical twins dressed in the same way. They were indeed extremely handsome, with dark brown eyes and high cheekbones. Their long, glossy black hair fell to their waists, with half of it tied in black ribbons in low ponytails at the backs of their necks. I remembered that Yinuo said her husband was in debt and she had to buy him from the family he was indentured to. Now that I knew she married two husbands, I wondered how much she had spent. She had to be almost broke now.

Standing beside the twins was a cute girl of around five or six years old dressed in pink. The strong family resemblance let me know that she must be their sister.

Yinuo introduced her spouses to the others and then made as if to enter the main house’s gate, but I stopped her.

“Hey, why aren't you introducing this cute little girl?” I bent down and said to the girl, “Hello, I’m Violet.”

The little girl ran behind her brothers. I straightened up and smiled at her when she peered at me from behind them.

“My lady…” Yinuo and her husbands exchanged a confused look.

“Come inside, it’s too hot here.” I waved a hand as a signal, and we all went inside into the blessedly cool, temperature-controlled house.

Except for the little girl who stayed outside the gate looking up at something.

“Hey, come in, come in!” I said to her.

Yinuo, Muchen, and Yichen turned to look.

“She’s not coming in?” Muchen frowned.

“What’s her name?” I asked him.

“We call her Shufen,” said Muchen.

“Oh, all your names rhyme!” I took the little girl by the hand. “Let’s go. I think you’ll like the house.”

“That-” Yinuo seemed about to say something, but Yichen grabbed her hand and whispered something in her ear.

I helped the little girl step over the threshold. “You’re so cute. I can’t believe we have a cute-”

Suddenly, the girl’s body blurred and turned into a glowing golden mist that flew upward into the sky.

I screamed in shock.

“Thank you.” The voice reverberated in my head.

A System popup appeared.

Seriously?! A quest? Now?

Shouldn’t I have gotten the quest before the girl disappeared?

[The Mystery of the Twin’s Sister:

Find out Shufen’s true identity.

Reward: Farming Exp]

Dang, well, I was going to do that anyway, so I mentally clicked the [Accept] button.

“Did you hear that? She said ‘thank you’ to us!” said Muchen. He was looking around as though searching for the source of the voice.

“I heard it!” said Yichen.

They turned to Yinuo, who shrugged. “Sorry, I didn’t hear anything.”

The brothers then bowed to me as one.

“Thank you for helping my sister,” said Muchen.

“I believe she’s been laid to rest now,” said Yichen.

I still had no idea what happened. “Wha-what-why did she just disappear into thin air?”

“My lady, why don’t we go inside? You should sit down and have a drink of water,” said Yinuo.

I put a hand on my chest. My heart was beating fast like I was running a race. “Yes, you’re right. I need to calm down.”

We went to the outer courtyard where a lovely post-wedding banquet had been prepared.

“Uh, can you hold the banquet for a while? We have something to talk about,” I said to Fengying. “I’ll try to make it fast.”

Fengying nodded, and Yinuo, Muchen, Yichen, and I sat down in the main hall. I drank some water then said, “Okay, please sit down and explain.”

“I’ll explain as best as I can, Baroness, but we don’t know for sure what happened.” Muchen fiddled with a loose thread on his sleeve. “Could you please tell us what you saw?”

“I saw a little girl that looks like you guys. She was dressed in pink, and, after I helped her enter the house, she turned into a golden mist that flew up and disappeared.”

Yinuo reached out and took the brothers' hands in hers. I patiently kept silent while they wordlessly communicated.

“A year ago, our mother died. Her last wish was that we should take care of our sister Shufen. Of course, we promised. She was insistent and we wanted her to depart in peace,” said Muchen.

“Of course,” I said.

“Except we didn’t have a sister. We never have,” said Muchen.

The hairs on the back of my neck stood up, and I felt cold all over. I opened my mouth to speak several times but closed it again because I was too afraid to ask more.

Muchen said, “Since then we’ve been plagued with minor mishaps almost every day. They were mostly harmless things. For example, my brushes might be moved to a different location or there would be cold drafts on a hot summer day.”

“Nothing harmful?” I asked.

“Nothing harmful,” said Muchen. “Eventually, we consulted a shaman, and he advised us to marry.”

“Marry? Why?” Wasn't their problem a ghost? How would marriage exorcize a ghost?

“The shaman was right, marriage did solve your problems!” Yinuo was taking it in stride.

Was I the only one who was scared of ghosts?

“The shaman just said that was the solution. That is all we know,” said Muchen. “Our sister, he said, was simply a mischievous but harmless spirit who was attracted to our family.”

“Mother had the second sight, you forgot to tell her that,” said Yichen.

I was confused. “Gosh, so she’s not your actual sister?”

Muchen and Yichen exchanged a look and shrugged at the same time and in the same way.

“Maybe mother saw her and adopted her,” said Muchen. “That’s all we know. We’re sorry for inconveniencing you. Thank you for helping us.”

[The Mystery of the Twin’s Sister: Quest Complete

Reward: Farming Exp]

The Farming exp wasn’t much, but it had been easy to get. Checking my stats calmed me down, and I decided to just forget all about ghosts and enjoy the banquet.

“You’re welcome. Do you mind leaving me alone with Yinuo for a few minutes? I would like to talk to her.” I cleared my throat. “Girl talk, you know.”

“Yes, baroness,” said Muchen.

The brothers bowed to me and left.

I left my chair in the center of the hall and sat beside Yinuo. Today, she was dressed in festive red robes and looked unbearably smug.

I raised an eyebrow. “Twins? Really?”

She looked very satisfied with herself. “It’s double the fun.”

We both let out high-pitched screams of delight and hugged each other, looking extremely undignified.

“Women have greater endurance anyway, so two is just right for me!” she said.

“Oh my gosh! You! You!” I couldn’t articulate my thoughts.

Yinuo whispered in my ear. “Imagine if there were two Prince Baiyus.”

“No! My imagination is running away with me!” I covered my blushing cheeks with my hands. “Stop it… we have to go to the banquet. But you have to tell me all the details later.”

Giggling, we got up from our seats and joined the rest of my household in the courtyard.

Chapter 168 - Monkey Business

Chapter 168 - A-nutter hot summer

🙞❤︎🙜

Summer was the best season back on Earth since it was my school vacation time and my family and I always had the most awesome overseas trips.

On Emberstone Farm, summer was the season of scorching hot weather and I was a sweaty mess all day long.

“It’s not my imagination that it’s hotter this year, is it?” I said.

“Last year's summer was cooler,” said Prince Baiyu. “We’re calling these the dog days of summer since astrologers say that the dog star is on the rise, causing the fire element to be in the ascendant.”

We were in the reception room of the second courtyard.

The house’s temperature controls made it much cooler inside compared to the furnace-like heat of the outdoors. I had also added plenty of mist fans in the rooms which made things pleasantly cool, and the scholar tree in the middle of the courtyard that I had placed in honor of Scholar Wu gave plenty of shade.

Scholar Wu was currently holding classes in one of the rooms. The kids were all getting individualized tutoring and seemed happy enough, though I had heard them complaining about their homework several times.

Earlier, I had peered into the room and saw them all busy reading books or practicing their writing on cheap paper.

Prince Baiyu and I were waiting for them to finish so we could go out to Forage in the [Golden Harvest Banana Grove]. The last time I had visited it, I had been chased off by the monkeys and my own cowardice, but this time I had backup in the form of Prince Baiyu and his bodyguards.

Meanwhile, we made small talk about the weather and its effect on the crops.

“I can’t believe I had to place a canopy over the tea plants so early.” Shaking my head in disbelief, I took another sip of the iced lemonade with honey. “I’m afraid the tea won’t be of good quality this time either.”

Prince Baiyu smiled. “That’s just as well. Your tea is already in great demand. I fear the consequences if it becomes even more popular. Shuye has been threatening to run away to the mountains with his family.”

“What? People are still asking him for more tea?”

He nodded. “I’ve asked the clan to send more clerks. They’ll handle it.”

“The demand should die down soon since no one but those two people got any skills from drinking the tea.”

“I doubt it very much. The clan doctors have certified that they do have the skills they claim. Everyone will want to try it even though the odds are low.”

While we were talking, the kids finished today’s class and called out to us as they exited their classroom.

“Teacher, we’re ready to meet the monkeys!” said Lari.

Prince Baiyu and I joined them, and together we walked to the front gate where the flying carriages were waiting. Normally, we would just walk to the grove but Prince Baiyu arranged for more comfortable transportation because of the incredible heat.

It was a tight squeeze inside the carriage with me, my apprentices, Prince Baiyu, and Scholar Wu inside. The prince’s guards flew beside the carriage. There was a moment of hilarity when Prince Baiyu told me I could sit on his lap. I opted to sit on Scholar Wu’s lap instead for propriety's sake, and he spent the entire twenty-minute trip pouting. The trip would’ve been a lot faster, but I asked them to move as slow as a snail when taking off and landing since it was scary for me when the carriage flew too fast.

As usual, the clan members claimed there was no such place as the [Golden Harvest Banana Grove]. I reckoned the place was in stealth mode, so I had to help them out by guiding them there.

“There it is!” I pointed at the right spot below us.

The driver saluted me and started the descent.

“I see something,” said Scholar Wu. She sounded extremely surprised.

“You get used to new places popping up now and then when you travel with Violet,” said Prince Baiyu.

We alighted one by one and marveled at the mini jungle in front of us.

[Golden Harvest Banana Grove:

Wild banana trees are growing haphazardly in this corner of the forest. The tropical microclimate here is caused by a magical hot spring.]

The dense jungle was a verdant maze of towering tropical trees, their broad leaves casting dappled shadows on the damp earth below. It was quiet the last time I was here, but today the jungle was alive with the raucous chatter and acrobatic antics of the monkeys who were swinging from branch to branch or resting under the shade of the canopy, with mothers cradling their young in their arms.

“My lord, we’ll cast a shield over the group. Please, everyone, stay close to me.” The head of Prince Baiyu’s guard took out a crystal from his interspatial storage bag and activated it. A hemisphere of light surrounded us, and he demonstrated that he could move the shield by waving his pacing back and forth with the crystal in his hand.

The monkeys eyed us warily but did not approach. We circled the mini jungle and Foraged what we could. Mo, with her uncanny knack for finding more than the rest of us, was able to get [Yam], [Lemongrass], and [Taro] in addition to the [Bananas] that the rest of us Foraged. I remembered where the [Vegetable Fern] and [Ginger] grew and gathered that.

Of course, the bulk of our haul was bananas of every shape and size.

[Banana:

Rich in vitamins, antioxidants, and fiber, the banana grows year-round in tropical climates. The golden peel hides soft, creamy flesh that is sweet without being cloying. Finely chopped banana peels can be placed at the base of a plant to repel aphids.]

We finished quickly since the place wasn’t large, and ended up at the hot spring in the middle of the grove.

Prince Baiyu and Scholar Wu dipped their hands in the hot spring and pronounced it the perfect temperature for outdoor bathing.

“This is a wonderful find. The nearby villages will be pleased,” said Scholar Wu.

“I reported the location ages ago, but people are calling it the ‘disappearing jungle’ because they say it's really hard to locate,” I said.

Scholar Wu looked around thoughtfully. “These monkeys are rather high level for wild spirit animals. They probably instinctively set up barriers to defend their home.”

Prince Baiyu and the others nodded.

“That makes perfect sense,” I said. “Primates are known to be smart.”

Lari politely waited until the adults were finished talking before saying, “Teacher, may I fish here?”

“What? The water is way too hot, there can’t be fish here,” said Mo.

Lari gave me a pleading look and I nodded. I thought Mo was right, but there was no harm in trying.

Lari, Kharli, and I cast our lines while the rest just watched.

“I got one!” said Lari.

“That’s impossible!” Mo scoffed.

But she was wrong.

When Lari pulled up the item he had fished everyone burst into laughter.

“Oh my gosh!” I laughed so hard I could barely stay upright.

“Some poor girl must have lost that when she was bathing here,” said Mo. She was red-faced from laughing.

Kharli put a finger on her lips and pretended to shush Mo. “...Didn’t Teacher say she bathed here?”

Lari screamed wordlessly and dropped the bright red piece of clothing on the ground as though it had scalded him.

I picked it up. “It’s not mine!”

Scholar Wu took it from me and examined it. Her lips were still twitching when she said, “This piece of underwear seems to be from a lady of the Monkey clan. Look, there’s the character for monkey embroidered here.”

Now Lari seemed interested. “Maybe I should go and try to find the owner?”

We could all see that he was thinking, “I hope she’s pretty.”

He immediately regretted saying that because throughout the walk back to the carriage and the ride back to the farm, the girls teased him about being a monkey boy who was getting married to a monkey girl and having monkey babies.

***

The days grew hotter and hotter until I declared that there would be no work in the house during the day. The kitchen stoves and ovens were only used during the night and whatever housework had to be done was postponed until the sun set. The household slept during the day and worked at night, except for the farm chores, of course. We did those at dawn when the heat was still bearable.

The clan members proved to be quite hardy and hardly seemed to notice the heat. Scholar Wu explained that they were born with a greater ability to control their body’s temperature compared to humans.

Today, the rice had finally grown tall enough for us to flood the rice fields, turning them into proper rice paddies. Then we added the [Rice Carp] and [Cleaner Shrimp].

[Rice-fish Culture System:

The water in a rice paddy can be used for more than just growing rice. Farmers can also stock it with fish in order to secure an easy source of protein. Furthermore, the fish will improve soil quality by softening the soil and providing nutrients via their excrement. It is also good for pest management since fish eat insects, snails, fungus, weeds, etc.]

“Oh, thank goodness we’re done!” I shielded my eyes from the sun with a hand and looked up at the tree we were standing under. “The leaves look so wilted. Do you think we should start watering all the trees here, not just our crops?

Lari frowned. “Scholar Wu said it wasn’t necessary.”

“She said that a week ago. They might need it now.” Kharli plucked off a leaf from a low-hanging branch. “Look, the edges seem almost burnt.”

“Let’s go ask her,” suggested Mo.

“How are your classes going?” I asked them.

“It’s fun!” Mo looked surprised. “It’s not like the classes we had at the orphanage because Scholar Wu lets us learn on our own and she doesn’t mind if we’re slow.”

“Great. Okay, ask her about the trees, but rest and cool off for the rest of the day. If we need to, we can water the trees tomorrow.” I used a handkerchief to wipe the sweat off my face. “See you later!”

We parted ways, and back at the [Ranch House] I cooled off with a long shower and put on comfortable shorts and a T-shirt. Then I turned the air conditioning to full blast since I was going to start preparing for the [World Boss Event] again today.

Of course, I had already established an explosive arrow production line with my apprentices and enhanced a lot of [Firebird Feathers] using [Automatic Mode]. Now that I had enough of them to fill a room, it was time to take those [Firebird Feathers] and turn them into [War Fans].

[War Fan:

A magical weapon favored by the Vermillion Bird clan. Its base is made from lightweight wood, providing a sturdy structure for the magnificent Firebird Feathers. The fan greatly amplifies a mage's power in battle.]

Chapter 169 - Mercy Mode: There's an upcoming demon war, this is still a cozy farming fantasy

Chapter 169 - A Fan-tom Menace

🙞❤︎🙜

I removed most of the furniture in my living room and then placed a large worktable in the middle of the open space. Taking out the [Fan Skeleton], which was made of the fan sticks already bound together, I piled them on one side of the table and made another pile of [Firebird Feathers] on the other side.

Then I mentally clicked [Use] on the [Firebird Feathers] before clicking on the [Fan Skeleton].

The items then glowed a candy apple red and flew to the middle of the table where the [Firebird Feathers] started gluing themselves to the [Fan Skeleton].

“Yes!” I couldn’t help but cheer the process on.

In almost no time at all, the [War Fan] was complete.

Made of vivid red feathers and pale polished wood, the fan sparkled like the legendary object it was. It was hard to imagine that something this lovely could wreak havoc on the Vermillion Bird’s enemies.

I picked it up and practiced opening and closing it in the most elegant way possible. I even put on a red outfit to match it and pranced around the room, using the fan to gesture or flirtatiously cover half my face. The way that it sparkled with every movement was almost hypnotic, but I did eventually get tired of playing around with it and went back to work making more [War Fans].

The [Firebird Feathers] had been enhanced using [Automatic Alchemy] and though I didn’t use a cauldron while making the completed [War Fan], I still got Alchemy exp, and it was a lot! Since Alchemy was a sub-skill of Herblaw, this exp was reflected in the parent skill. I was definitely going to level up Herblaw soon.

Creating the items in the quantity I needed was an easy but long and tedious process. Every half an hour, I got up and stretched or walked around the room to soothe my stiff muscles.

Though [War Fans] are the Vermillion Bird clan’s iconic and best weapon, they were extremely easy for players to make because the World Boss Event was meant for everyone to enjoy, so even low-level players could make this key item.

As I continued crafting the weapons, I went over my memories of the event in Adventure Incarnate. Of course, I knew it wouldn’t be exactly the same in this world, but surely my knowledge would be useful nonetheless.

The game’s first cooperative event was a huge deal when it was first held. We were all excited to fight a boss together with everyone on the server, and the event did not disappoint. It was laggy, as expected, but the game developers had added a [Hide Players] button for those who had no patience with lag or had older computers or slow internet connections.

[Hide Players] reduced the graphical lag and let the players screenshot their big hits. The boss was low defense but extremely high HP, so it was basically just a big punching bag. Players considered it a great chance to try out various combinations of armor, weapons, accessories, buffs, and so forth.

I chuckled out loud when I remembered the incident that made GodIAm famous in the game.

Somehow, by testing various joke items that gave players stats, he found out that there was a special “Mercy Mode” or “Pity System” that was meant for low-level players. If a player did zero damage 99 times, the game heavily boosted the player’s 100th hit.

There was an outcry in the forums when GodIAm posted lots of screenshots of him hitting enormously high damage on the boss. Many claimed it was impossible to hit those numbers even with max stats and the best items in the game, and GodIAm admitted it was true.

I laughed again when I recalled how everyone had abused Mercy Mode when GodIAm revealed his method.

The devs were very good-natured about it and declined to nerf the damage players did. Instead, they gave the boss even more HP and an automatic self-healing skill.

I took out a pen and paper and jotted down everything I knew about the event, then continued making [War Fans] the whole day, with short breaks for lunch and dinner with Prince Baiyu.

That night, I stayed up late until I got the System popup that I was waiting for.

“Come on, sweet exp!” I was a little hyper from drinking coffee to keep myself awake past midnight.

[Congratulations, you just advanced an Herblaw level!]

[Your Herblaw level is now 23.]

“Yes!” I did a little victory dance with Mr. Bear.

[Player Name: Violet

Farming Skills:

Farming Level 25, Fishing Level 12, Woodcutting Level 22, Cooking Level 6, Herblaw Level 22→23, Foraging Level 7, Hunting Level 7, Mining Level 4]

I went to bed in a wonderful mood and woke up in an even better one. Flinging the bed sheets aside, I jumped up and blazed through my morning routine.

“Good morning!” I said to Prince Baiyu.

He had been waiting for me at the gate to my [Ranch House]. We met each other almost every day, either very early in the morning or in the evening after his work was done.

“Good morning,” he said.

He took my hand in his, and we walked in comfortable silence to the nearest rice paddy where he stayed by my side as I inspected the crops.

It was a warm summer day with the rice paddy glistening in the dappled sunlight, a sea of emerald green punctuated by the occasional ripple caused by a breeze. The rice and fish were growing well, and Prince Baiyu and I admired how they worked together harmoniously.

“You’ll have another bountiful harvest this season,” said Prince Baiyu.

“Looks like it,” I said.

We walked to the other rice paddies. Everything was in order.

Then we entered the shaded area under the protective canopy I had placed over the tea field. Here the air was deliciously scented by the tea plants.

I took a deep breath and savored the delicate, invigorating aroma. “Smell that. I never get tired of this.”

“Smell this?” Prince Baiyu leaned down and sniffed my neck. “Wonderful. I never get tired of it.”

“Oh, you!” I playfully swatted his head away. “Stop it! I’ve been sweating.”

Shaking my head at his teasing, I went back to work.

I made my way through the rows of plants, my eyes meticulously scanning each one for any signs of disease or pests. I knew that the System would probably be able to identify any problems for me, but I still manually checked each one, just in case there were things from this world that the System wasn’t equipped to deal with.

Crouching down, I peered intently at the stems and undersides of the leaves, searching for any discoloration or abnormalities such as the yellowing of the leaves or the tell-tale webbing of spider mites. The dappled sunlight filtering through the canopy cast intricate patterns on the ground, guiding my path as I diligently inspected each and every tea plant.

“Here, drink some water.” Prince Baiyu handed me a bamboo water flask.

“Thanks.” I took a drink and handed it back to him.

To my surprise, he took the lid off and lifted it to his lips, making sure to touch the exact spot I had drunk from.

An indirect kiss?!

What for, when we could just kiss directly?

Smiling, I stood up on tip-toes and put my hands on the back of his neck. We were just about to lock lips when I heard people squealing in excitement. The corners of Prince Baiyu’s lips twitched and we both burst out laughing.

“You guys ruined the mood!” I complained to my apprentices who were still some distance away and probably couldn’t hear me. I reluctantly disentangled myself from Prince Baiyu.

Kharli and Mo were embracing each other and still shrieking shrilly. Lari was looking away from us into the distance, pretending to be disinterested, but I had heard him cheering along with the other two.

I waved at them to join us, and they walked over and greeted us.

“Let’s get to work,” I said to them. “These plants aren’t going to water themselves.”

***

I continued to take care of the farm and make more weapons until the fateful day I was waiting for arrived.

[System Announcement: Advent of the Demon Monarch

Countdown: 10 days]

Chapter 170 - Quest: Witness an Era-defining Event

Chapter 170 - Air-rific High-Flying Adven-tour

🙞❤︎🙜

[Witness an Era-defining Event:

Go to Samsara's End Peak of the Great Western Mountain to observe the descent of the Demon Monarch.

Reward: Attack Exp]

The Attack skill was the “aiming” or “accuracy” stat that determined whether the player could hit something while the Strength skill determined how much damage the player dealt. Obviously, players were absolutely addicted to hitting big numbers and preferred to level Strength over Attack, but I wasn’t going to complain if the quest gave me exp just for watching something happen, even if it wasn’t my preferred stat.

In the game, this "descent of the Demon Monarch" event was a simple cutscene, and I thought it would be amazing to view it for real.

I quickly went to the main house and sent off letters to Shuye, Prince Baiyu, and the Commander inviting them to join me for a “viewing party recommended by my bloodline inheritance.” Then, after some thought, I also invited Lady Hoshi.

“You all should come with me!” I said to Fengying. “I mean the whole household. You wouldn’t want to miss this; it will be the show of the century, or maybe even the millennium!”

Fengying gave me a thoughtful look. “My lady, what will happen?”

“An earth-shattering event.” I gave her my best mysterious smile, but she just shook her head and left, presumably to inform the others.

Prince Baiyu arrived shortly, which was a surprise since he didn’t normally visit during the early afternoon since he had a lot of work to do.

“I need more details. What do you mean ‘bring your parents’? What should I tell them?” He sat down beside me on the loveseat I had placed in the reception room.

“Tell them my bloodline inheritance alerted me to an important event.” I used a finger to smooth out the frown lines on his forehead.

He took my hand and kissed it. “It’s not dangerous?”

“If it was dangerous, my bloodline inheritance would tell me to flee, not go and watch it.”

We held hands as we talked. He kept on asking me for additional details. I was tempted to tell him more, but I didn’t even know if the information I had from the game was accurate.

Finally, I got tired of going over the same thing over and over again.

“Just inform your parents of what I said. It’s up to them whether they want to go with us or not,” I said. “By the way, I’m bringing my whole household with me. Come, let’s pick which ship we’ll use.”

“Oh? You’re not using your regular flying ship?”

“That’s too small. I’ll be bringing all the staff, plus guests.”

We stopped at the outer courtyard where I asked Fengying to help me choose, too. She asked Deming to come with us, and when the others found out we were going to try out new ships, they asked to come, too.

“Sure, sure, let’s all go,” I said good-naturedly. There weren’t any easy entertainment options here like televisions, radio, or internet, so the natives of this world were always on the lookout for something new and exciting to experience.

The kids were extremely excited.

“Something bigger than the ship? But the ship is already huge!” said Kharli.

“Teacher, you said the Lady of the West could be coming with us? You should pick the most luxurious one,” said Lari.

“No, it should be the most comfortable one,” said Mo.

Though I knew the transportation options from Adventure Incarnate, apart from the few ships that featured in quests, players could only see the outside of the vehicles, so I didn’t know which one to use for the [Witness an Era-defining Event] quest.

Once we arrived at the wide spot on the river where we usually started our travels, I said, “Okay, let’s try this one.”

Without further ado, I took out the [Skywhale] from the Cash Shop.

“What is that?” Lari stared up at the enormous wooden gray whale floating three feet above the water.

“It’s a [Skywhale]. Shall we go inside and check it out?” I mentally clicked on the [Board] button and a door opened on the side of the wooden whale and a gangplank with rails was automatically deployed. “I’ll go first!”

Inside, the [Skywhale] was Roman-themed and the unfurnished rooms were small but plentiful, the walls decorated with Roman frescoes of mythological scenes and pastoral landscapes. Kharli covered Mo’s eyes when we saw a forest scene of scantily clad nymphs and fauns.

“It’s spacious enough,” said Fengying. “We could add furniture and cover the more… risque decorations with curtains and it would look decent.”

“Teacher, it’s big, but I don’t think a big gray blob would impress anyone,” said Lari.

“I’m not trying to impress anyone though.” I looked up at Prince Baiyu, wordlessly asking for his opinion.

He shrugged, but I could tell from his expression that he agreed with Lari.

Scholar Wu sidled closer to me and whispered, “Are you sure you don’t want to make a great first impression on Prince Baiyu’s parents?”

“What? You guys don’t like it?” I was astonished that they seemed to dislike the [Skywhale].

“Teacher, it’s a viewing party, and there aren’t many windows,” said Kharli.

“Good point.” A lot of the rooms were windowless and there was no side deck for us to use since the [Skywhale’s] only openings were the door on its side and the eyeholes that were covered in a glass-like transparent material. “Okay, that’s fine. I have others.”

We all exited the ship and I took out the [Auspicious Elephant].

This one was a lot smaller than the [Skywhale], but it was much more flashy. Inspired by the elephant from the Moulin Rouge movie, the wooden elephant was three stories tall and was covered in bright yellow LED lights, lacy gold accents, large white pearls, and scarlet crystals. A door opened in one of its legs and we went up the gangplank. There was a lovely staircase inside the leg which we ascended while admiring the wooden elephant's intricate woodwork.

“Now this is something!” said Lari.

Prince Baiyu used his sleeve to cover his mouth when he saw the interior of the [Auspicious Elephant]. The upholstered walls were covered in rich cream leather, crimson velvet, and cloth-of-gold. Rooms were divided by bead curtains and the main bedroom looked like a messy lady-of-the-night’s boudoir.

The bedroom's centerpiece was an imposing four-poster bed, its canopy dripping with heavy silk curtains in a deep crimson hue. The sheets lay in a rumpled mess, pillows scattered carelessly across the plush duvet. Against the far wall stood an antique vanity, its polished surface a chaotic display of crystal perfume bottles, compacts adorned with precious gems, and ornate silver-backed hair brushes.

Scholar Wu said, with a wink at me and Prince Baiyu, “This flying vehicle is rather romantic, isn’t it? More fit for a wedding trip than a group outing.”

I giggled. “Maybe…”

Prince Baiyu blushed. While he was always acting flirtatious towards me when we were alone, he tended to keep his mouth shut around Scholar Wu. I suspect she sent regular reports to Prince Baiyu’s parents about us.

I pretended not to see Lari pocketing a few of the gem-encrusted compacts. His efforts were doomed since items taken out of the house or ship always disappeared after a time.

Our tour was short since the place was smaller than I expected.

“Well, this one does have a good viewing platform,” I said when we climbed up to the gold howdah on top of the elephant. “But there are too few rooms.”

Mo seated herself on the howdah’s silk cushions. “It’s so comfortable here though. The view would be great.”

“I’m afraid it wouldn’t be so comfortable with everyone in here,” said Fengying.

“Yeah, this one’s a bust again. Let’s try something else,” I said.

We descended and I once again summoned a flying vessel, the [Floating Solarium].

There were gasps all around me when they saw the floating rock topped by a giant maple tree whose roots were enclosed by a crystal dome.

“I didn’t know it would be this big,” I said.

“I have a feeling this one will do nicely,” said Prince Baiyu.

“Me, too.”

The tree in the game was only regular tree-sized, small enough for the player’s head to almost touch its lowest branches, and the solarium bit was just a glass-walled room beside the tree. The ship that I summoned, on the other hand, had a gigantic tree on top of a large floating rock and the glass-walled structure was two stories tall.

Since the vehicle was so big, instead of a gangplank the [Floating Solarium] disgorged two escalators, one going down and another going up.

“Let’s gooooooo!” I grabbed Prince Baiyu and pulled him up beside me though I was careful not to pull him onto the escalator itself. Safety was important.

We held on to the rails as we ascended with the others right behind us. The escalator brought us to a foyer that featured a grand double staircase. We discovered that the glass dome of the [Floating Solarium] had two levels. The ground floor was full of bedrooms, each with its own tiny shower and lavatory, while the level above was a large, airy open space full of hanging pots of plants and vines. There was lots of natural light since the walls and dome ceiling were made of plate glass and cast iron, though the harshness of the sunlight was filtered by the leaves of the large red maple tree.

I made a soft sound of satisfaction as we wandered around the central area around the giant red maple.

The moment Deming laid eyes on the small open-plan kitchen, he and his assistants started rummaging through the kitchen shelves and storage areas, checking for supplies.

Several areas seemed to be designed for various activities. There were small and large dining tables with chairs, assorted seating areas, a children’s playground full of toys, a library nook, and a party or picnic spot with colorful blankets spread out on the floor with plenty of cushions to sit on. I checked the library’s shelves but, alas, as usual, they only had books with blank pages.

One part of the dome was slightly elevated and when we climbed up the steps, we found ourselves in a viewing platform protected by a huge expanse of seamless glass. Sofas and chairs were grouped together, facing the view.

“Magnificent!” said Lari.

“This is the one,” said Kharli.

“I liked the elephant a lot, but this is better,” said Mo.

“This one suits you best.” Prince Baiyu squeezed my hand slightly.

“We’ll use this one then,” I said.

The [Floating Solarium’s] decor was very simple and soothing, which would help in case the Demon Monarch was scarier than I expected.

Chapter 171 - Shuye's Transformation

Chapter 171 - A pilot-entially fun soar-prise

🙞❤︎🙜

Since the Demon Chef wanted to familiarize himself with the flying ship’s kitchen, we decided to spend the rest of the day on the [Floating Solarium]. Fengying made lists of what we would need since I was bringing the whole household along, plus some very important guests.

The kids went back downstairs to call dibs on the bedrooms they wanted while Prince Baiyu and I sat on the viewing platform.

“Do you think your parents will come with us?” I asked him.

“I sent them a letter strongly urging them to accept your invitation. I’m pretty sure at least my father will come, but my mother’s very busy and will have to cancel quite a few appointments.”

Prince Baiyu “casually” stretched an arm on the back of the sofa we were on and placed his hand on my shoulder. I snuggled closer, and we stayed there like that until Fengying arrived to announce that Shuye was here.

“So fast?” I’d only just sent the invitation to my Farm Guide. “Okay, I’ll meet him at the seating area in front of the kitchen.”

That was the slightly more formal area that could serve as a reception room.

Prince Baiyu and I reluctantly pulled ourselves apart and made our way to the lower level where Shuye was already waiting for us.

“Shuye! What happened to you?” I ran towards him and circled him while examining his new look. “Your hair! Your clothes! Your shoes! You’re wearing accessories!”

Shuye crossed his arms on his chest and shook his head at my theatrics. He and Prince Baiyu greeted each other politely, while I continued to marvel at how different Shuye looked. His long, shaggy, and slightly disreputable hair had been cut into a neat short layered style. Instead of the plain brown cotton robes and pants he always wore when he visited, this time he was wearing a deep blue outer robe made of rich silk, with an intricate abstract pattern embroidered on it. The wide sleeves and hem were bordered with silver, and his inner robes and pants were a lighter shade of blue and likewise made of silk. Jade ornaments hung from his belt, and even his boots were clearly made of expensive leather.

I gave Shuye a [Crocus] flower as a gift as was customary with Farm Guides in Adventure Incarnate. Then we sat down and the maids served us tea and snacks. Since Shuye and Prince Baiyu kept up their image by refusing the food and drink, I was the only one who ate and drank heartily while Shuye explained his makeover.

“When I was single, I used to wander in the forest alone, with only the animals for company. The blue sky above was my ceiling and the green grass was my bed. It was only when I got married that I settled down.” Shuye smiled. “My wife has never been the fussy type, so we were both satisfied with living a simple life in the village.”

“Did something happen to change that?” I asked.

“My child was born! A few weeks ago I looked around my house and thought ‘This isn’t good enough for her’ and since then I have been busy making sure that my daughter will have the best of everything. That includes my image in the community.”

“Wow. You look like a prosperous city merchant now,” I said. “Wait, did you do something to your face? You seem younger.”

Shuye scratched his head bashfully and looked away. “I’ve been using your beauty elixir.”

He must mean the [Dewy Glow Potion]. I smiled and said, “Good for you!”

“I’m also building a new, better house.” Shuye sighed in a melancholy yet satisfied way. “Now I know why people are ambitious. This is the first time that I’ve felt the hunger for more.”

This was fascinating. To think that Shuye had changed so much because he had become a father was eye-opening. “For your child?”

“And all my future children. My wife and I plan to have more kids.”

“How many?”

“We’re not sure. At least three, I think.”

Prince Baiyu said, “It would be good if we could replenish our numbers in a few generations. Many villages are in danger of dying because of our fertility problems.”

“Thanks to Lady Violet, our problems are solved,” said Shuye.

I chuckled. “Does this mean I’ll get a tax exemption?”

Prince Baiyu smirked at me. “No.”

I playfully tried to flick him on his forehead but he dodged.

Shuye patiently waited until we were done playing before saying, “I came to tell you in person that I can’t go with you to the Great Western Mountain.”

“Because of your newborn? Okay. What about the Commander?” I asked.

“If the Lady of the West is coming, she’ll bring her guards along and you won’t need the Commander,” said Shuye.

“It’s not that I need her. I just thought she might like to watch the event with us,” I said.

Shuye’s brow furrowed. “What event is that?”

“Well… it’s a secret.” I took a sip of tea.

Shuye gave Prince Baiyu a questioning look, but the latter shrugged to indicate that he didn’t know about it either. They both tried to get me to tell them more, but I resisted because I felt it would be unwise.

After that, Shuye left, and Fengying asked my permission to use some of our more precious supplies, such as the saffron, to use during the trip. She also gave me a list of things she needed to buy in Anwei in order to properly prepare for the royal visit. I winced a little at her estimated expenses but approved it. Apparently, we needed better clothes for the staff, incense for the bedrooms, a gong to summon people for meals, folding screens, carpets, and so forth.

Oh well, even if it costs a lot, it will be worth it for sure. I pitied Shuye for missing the upcoming epic game event.

***

During the next few days, we took care of the crops and animals while I secretly made more [War Fans]. The plants in the [Herb Garden] grew big enough for us to identify using the System.

“Yes! I’m the winner!” Lari raised a fist in a victory pose.

“No way, the Chef won’t make his judgment until the plants are fully grown. I could still win if your plants die.” Despite her words, Mo gave Lari’s garden plot an envious look.

Kharli gave her a sly grin and fake-whispered, “You’re not saying you’ll make his plants die, right?”

“Stop that,” said Lari. “Don’t be a sore loser.”

Scholar Wu and I let the kids banter while we inspected the herbs. Lari had five rare plants while Mo had three, and Kharli and I had only two each.

Most of the plants were simply spirit versions of ordinary kitchen or medicinal herbs like [Mint], [Basil], [Oregano], [Rosemary], [Thyme], [Dill], [Lavender], [Chamomile], [Ginger], etc. There were one hundred of them, and the System helpfully provided the details.

Yarrow, for example, was something I was unfamiliar with, but the item description made it clear how it could be used.

[Yarrow:

A healing herb that has been used for centuries to treat wounds by stopping bleeding, reducing inflammation, and speeding up healing.

To use yarrow for wound care, the leaves and flowers can be crushed and applied to cuts and scrapes, or made into a tea to wash the wound.]

Lari was crowing because he had lucked out by growing [Ginseng], the rarest and most expensive plant in the garden.

[Ginseng:

A valuable herb used to enhance physical and mental performance, reduce fatigue, and support overall well-being. It is believed to strengthen the immune system, improve cognitive function, and promote longevity.

The herb can be consumed as a tea or added to foods.]

“I think I can say the [Herb Garden] is a success,” I said to Scholar Wu as we strolled through the paths examining the plants.

“Yes, and it’s quite lovely, too. By the way, I think this is a good time for a writing project about the garden,” said Scholar Wu.

“To record the results? Yes, that would be very useful,” I said.

“And good practice for them. I’ll bring the materials,” she said.

Scholar Wu left and then returned shortly with a box containing inksticks, inkstones, and bamboo slips. The narrow strips of bamboo were around ten inches long and half an inch in width.

“Use as many strips as you need for each herb,” Scholar Wu instructed the kids. “Put the number on top and then write the name of the herb and the description.”

We retired to the shaded area on the northern side of the [Herb Garden] where I set up writing desks and chairs. Lari and Kharli went back and forth from their desks to the garden beds to write down the information while Mo and I checked each one for accuracy. Scholar Wu helped Lari and Kharli write the characters when they didn’t know the order of brush strokes, which happened a lot, and showed them how to correct their errors by using a small knife to scrape off the ink from the bamboo slips.

It took us two days to finish, and at the end of it, Scholar Wu used an awl to make holes in the bamboo slips and then bound them together with silk thread.

“Then I will fold the strips into ‘pages’ like so.” Scholar Wu demonstrated this by folding the long scroll into sections to create 'pages' of fifteen strips each.

“It’s a book! We made a book!” said Kharli.

Scholar Wu unfolded it again and said, “Here are two plain wooden boards. They will be the book covers. What shall we write as the title of the book?”

My three apprentices went into a huddle and discussed it among themselves. Finally, Kharli said, “Teacher, how about calling it ‘The Emberstone Farm Herb Guide’? It’s simple but good.”

“Sure, let’s call it that,” I said.

Kharli, who had the best handwriting of the three, wrote down the title on the front cover while Lari wrote on the back cover.

“Congratulations, you three have written your first book.” Scholar Wu wrote our names on the inner cover. “You all did a great job.”

Mo didn’t look as thrilled as the rest of us did. Though she didn't say anything, I knew she was fretting because she hadn’t written anything on the bamboo slips.

I went over to Mo and put an arm around her. “Hey, you’re not thinking that you didn’t write the book, are you? Dictation is a perfectly acceptable way of writing.”

Scholar Wu said, “Mo, do you remember the book by the Sage of the Xinmao Forest that we read?”

Mo nodded.

“The Sage was illiterate.” Scholar Wu smiled at our reactions. “The book of his teachings was written down by his disciples.”

I squeezed Mo’s shoulder. “See? The Sage is the author because what matters is that the thoughts were his.”

Mo didn’t look quite convinced, but she did seem to perk up a little. “I understand. Thank you, Teacher. Thank you, Scholar Wu.”

“You’re welcome.” I took the book and said, “I shall put this on display in the main hall. Let’s go!”

We had a lot of fun in the main house where everyone loved the first Emberstone book. The kids promised to make copies for the staff to read, and we spent a lovely afternoon reading the highlights of the book out loud to an appreciative audience.

Chapter 172 - Preparing for the Royal Visit

Chapter 172 - A fun adventure is hair!

🙞❤︎🙜

The next few days were quite busy for all of us. My apprentices and I took care of the farm while Fengying organized the upcoming trip, taking care of all the little details such as the new uniforms, packing cleaning supplies and other essentials, making a schedule for the staff to do all their duties, and even creating a seating plan in which the diners were arranged according to precedence. Deming mobilized his apprentices and sent word to his network of fellow chefs and suppliers to gather the rare ingredients he wanted to use, like bear paws, bird’s nests, abalone, fish maw, rare hams, and so forth.

I kept out of their way and prioritized taking care of the farm. The rice plants proved to be heat-resistant, which was a relief, but the tea plants were suffering from the excessively high temperatures this summer.

Yinuo, who was often seen with an extremely smug and self-satisfied expression on her face, helped me choose the clothing I should pack, though we did get Fengying's input. It was only an overnight trip, so I only had to choose two sets of traveling clothes that were the right mixture of elegance and simplicity.

Today, I decided to add a salon room to the main house to help people prepare for the royal visit because I felt bad that the girls didn’t have access to hairstylists and makeup artists since we lived in the middle of a forest.

I closed the door of a room that we were using as a spare guest bedroom and then used the System to change the room configuration. There was the sound of pots and pans banging, then when it was over I opened the door and we walked into the [Bambi Dream Salon].

The Adventure Incarnate developers hadn’t bought the license to use Barbie, but that didn’t stop them from making the [Bambi Dream Salon] an unsubtle homage to the iconic doll.

“This does not look like a salon.” Scholar Wu looked around the place in bewilderment.

I covered my mouth with a hand to smother a laugh. “The things from my bloodline inheritance tend to be a little… out of this world.”

The entire space was a whimsical explosion of pink, from the bubble-gum colored walls adorned with Bambi doll posters and large mirrors framed in rose quartz crystals, to the plush, cotton-candy seating areas. The chairs were molded into the shape of high-heeled shoes, complete with sparkly rhinestone accents. Overhead, chandeliers dripped with dangling crystals that cast a shimmery glow over the salon.

“It’s very whimsical.” Scholar Wu wandered around the room marveling at a large shelf full of Bambi dolls in various fashion styles such as pink goth, faerie princess, ballerina, superstar diva, biker gal, astronaut, etc. in glass cases.

“Teacher, may I be excused? I don’t want to change my hairstyle,” said Lari.

Kharli and Mo, of course, looked excited to try out everything. They were already seated on the chairs.

“Can I go first, Teacher?” asked Mo.

“I’d like to go next! Please give me long hair like a princess!” said Kharli.

“Yes, Lari, but are you sure? It should be fun. Girls, wait a sec and let me find the controls.” In the game, there was an interface.

Everyone helped me and we eventually found a plastic book that had pages and pages of hairstyles and hair colors that we could pick. The girls spent half an hour pouring over the book and, since there were so many hairstyles, I let them pick three that they could try today.

“Okay, Mo, sit on a chair and I’ll change your hair into [Cloud Tresses].”

Mo sat on the shoe-shaped chair and I used the numeric keypad on its side to enter the code written in the stylebook. Then I pressed the [Start] button.

There was a soft tinkling sound, like bells chiming, and a large plastic hood dropped down from the ceiling and onto Mo, covering the top, back, and sides of her head while leaving her face uncovered. The hood made a soft series of sounds like chiming bells again and then retracted back to the ceiling.

“Is that a wig?!” asked Kharli. “Your hair is so big!”

I handed Mo a mirror and she smiled at her new hairdo. Soft, wispy strands framed her face while most of it had been pinned up in a frothy, cloud-like updo.

“No, it’s my hair!” Mo laughed and tugged at a curly lock of hair on the side of her face.

“What did it feel like?” asked Scholar Wu.

“I didn’t feel anything,” said Mo.

“My turn, please!” said Kharli.

“Uh, Teacher, I’ll leave now…” Lari stopped short of rolling his eyes since Scholar Wu was with us, but I knew he was bored.

“Okay, you may go. Kharli, sit down and relax.” I inputted the code for [Peony Petals] and we were not disappointed when we saw the result.

“Wow, it’s so fancy! This would take all day to make,” said Kharli. Her hair had been fashioned into an intricate bun surrounded by looped coils resembling peony petals.

“Teacher, may I go and show it to my maid?” asked Kharli.

“Sure, you girls go and ask Madam Fengying if the maids can come and get their hair done, too,” I said. “The more, the merrier!”

After the girls left, I turned to Scholar Wu and wordlessly gestured at the chairs to ask her if she wanted to try it.

“No, thank you. I’m not the adventurous kind,” she said.

Minutes later, Kharli and Mo arrived with Fengying and the maids.

Fengying declined to try the device, but the maids all tested new styles. Most of them picked the more classic or fancy styles, such as elaborate braids, long and wavy hair, or regal updos. They all laughed when I used the salon to give myself a towering blue beehive à la Marge Simpson.

“You could hide a sword in there!” said Scholar Wu.

“Teacher, you won’t be able to go through the doors,” said Kharli.

“I can.” Strolling over to the door, I bent my back as though I was playing a game of limbo and walked through it with my new hairstyle intact. “See!”

Everyone clapped or hooted my performance, and we spent a pleasant day primping ourselves.

At first, the menfolk pretended we were being too frivolous, but they eventually tried it out, too. Yinuo’s twin husbands, Muchen and Yichen, got identical [Sword Prince] hairstyles which featured long topknots with two braids on either side of the head that were also gathered into the ponytail, while the others mostly picked short or spiky hairstyles.

I modeled a bunch of weird styles for Prince Baiyu, who was amused and slightly alarmed when the machine shaved my head bald and tattooed it with a flower and vine pattern. Eventually, I undid all the work the salon had done on my hair and continued using the same long brown hair I had chosen from the Cash Shop.

***

Two days before the trip, we had finished all of our preparations when my plans hit a snag.

“What do you mean we won’t be allowed to go to the mountain?” I asked Prince Baiyu.

Chapter 173 - The Goat Clan 🐐🐐🐐

Chapter 173 - A Goat-rageous rejection and disaster!

🙞❤︎🙜

The prince sighed and massaged his temples. “The Goat clan head who is the titular guardian of the Great Western Mountain range sent word that there will be an important ritual held there during the time you plan to visit, and they don’t want to be disturbed.”

Scholar Wu said, “The strange thing is that the flight plan you sent doesn’t even go near the Great Western Mountain range.”

“It doesn’t? Can I see it on a map?” I thought about it and realized it was probably the usual System shenanigans. The System map was not the same as the map of the world. “My bloodline inheritance is old, and place names change a lot. Maybe I don’t need to go to the Goat clan’s territory at all.”

“I have a map in the classroom,” said Scholar Wu.

We trooped over to the second courtyard. Scholar Wu had decorated the walls of the classroom with some lovely calligraphy scrolls and paintings depicting seascapes and mythological scenes as well as one large map.

She unrolled the flight plan map I had given her and compared it to the wall map.

“This location you marked is here.” She put a finger on the map on a spot. “The Great Western Mountain range is here, north of where you want to go.”

“Well, that’s okay then. It doesn’t matter if the Goat clan doesn’t want me in their territory since we’re going to a different site,” I said.

Prince Baiyu examined the world map and said, “But the area you want to fly to doesn’t have a mountain in it.”

I put a finger on my chin. “Maybe my ancestors named it the ‘Great Western Mountain’ ironically, the way people will call a giant tiger ‘Little Fang.’ Or something like that.”

Scholar Wu shook her head at my joke. “If you say so.”

“There shouldn't be a problem since the location you want isn’t claimed by any clan,” said Prince Baiyu.

After some more discussion, we left it at that and I asked them if they wanted to join me at my workroom while I cut some fruit and other food ingredients.

“Is it true you can burn food by cutting them?” asked Scholar Wu.

“You’ll see,” I said.

Yinuo was waiting for me. She had already covered the worktable with a clean white tablecloth, and there was an empty trashcan beside it. She recited the food ingredients Deming wanted me to send. “Oranges, pineapples, melons, mangoes, and he would like truffles if you have any.”

“Aye, aye ma’am!” I saluted her before sitting down on the bench.

Scholar Wu and Prince Baiyu remained standing to observe the process.

First, I took out a truffle grater and two plates. Second, I filled one plate with truffles. Third, I used the grater on a truffle. Fourth, the truffle turned into a charcoal-like burned truffle.

“Incredible. This is truly a rare talent,” said Scholar Wu.

I could almost imagine her pushing up her glasses, even though she didn’t wear any.

“I think it’s a form of qi overload,” said Prince Baiyu. He took the piece of burnt food and examined it. “Your qi control might be lacking.”

“Practice makes perfect,” I said. “I’ll try again.”

Though it was annoying that I burned eight out of ten truffles, I did eventually grate enough to give to Deming. Yinuo dumped the failures in the wastebasket before bringing the plate to the kitchen, and Scholar Wu tactfully made her exit, leaving me alone with Prince Baiyu.

“Alone at last,” he murmured as he sat down beside me.

He took my hand and kissed my knuckles before twining our fingers together.

“I’m glad,” I said.

“You look so beautiful today that I can hardly keep my eyes off you.”

“Look who’s talking. Tell me, how many hearts have you broken?”

“Zero.”

“Lies.”

“It’s true. People don’t like me much.”

“Don’t they say you have perfect conformation? Clan members must find you extremely attractive.”

“No. Perfect conformation is… Imagine a circle. One is a perfect circle; the other is not.”

I thought about it. “Surely people prefer the perfect circle?”

“That’s debatable. Perfection can be less attractive than something interestingly flawed,” he said with a wry smile. “A perfect circle is precise, symmetrical, predictable. But a shape that deviates ever so slightly from the ideal… I believe that is where true beauty lies.”

“Hey! Didn’t you say I’m beautiful to you? Then are you saying I’m flawed?” I smirked at his consternation. “Would you care to enumerate my no doubt numerous physical imperfections?”

He was speechless for a moment, but recovered quickly and said, “No! You didn’t let me finish my talk. I was going to say that perfection is boring except when it’s you.”

I chuckled and hugged him. “Thank you, but I’m fine with being flawed!”

We were still laughing over it when Yinuo returned.

“Back to work,” I said. “This is all preparation for the upcoming royal visit. I hope your parents like the food.”

“I’m sure they will,” said Prince Baiyu. “They’re not particularly picky.”

The Lady of the West was pregnant, which meant that she regularly ate food. Her husband was likewise exempt from the custom of refraining from enjoying meals since he had to provide for her, and he could hardly be expected to cook or serve food to her if he wasn’t allowed to eat.

Therefore, Deming and his assistants had to whip up several meals fit for royalty.

“We all want to make a good impression on them. Right, Yinuo?” I said to my maid.

“Yes, my lady,” she said.

Soon Fengying arrived with lists of more stuff we needed, along with a few bills.

Thus, we had a busy but pleasant day, and I totally forgot about the Goat clan’s refusal until the next day when the farm was rocked by another strong earthquake.

Not only did the earth violently convulse several times, but the sky lit up with an ominous red glow in the south. It must be the start of the descent of the Demon Monarch.

The entire household was alarmed by these events, and Shuye, Scholar Wu, and Prince Baiyu came to see me to discuss it.

I met them in the formal reception room.

“Tell me, Violet, when I told you that the Goat clan had refused your request, did you feel angry about it?” asked Scholar Wu.

“Angry? No,” I said. “Actually, I forgot all about it until you mentioned it just now.”

The three of them exchanged meaningful looks. Shuye and Scholar Wu seemed to be waiting for the prince to say something, but he remained silent.

Eventually, Shuye, who seemed somewhat uncomfortable, cleared his throat and said, “We ask because this morning the Goat clan’s territory was struck by heavenly lightning one hundred and eight times.”

That was terrible news, but I failed to see what that had to do with me. “What? Are they okay?”

“They’re… not fine. They’re physically unhurt, but their zidan was badly shaken,” said Shuye.

“Ouch,” I said. Though zidan was merely an abstract concept to humans like me, I knew that clan members valued it above everything else.

Scholar Wu raised her eyes and hands to the sky. “I pray they recover soon.”

Shuye solemnly nodded his agreement and continued explaining. “That’s not the only thing that happened. During the lightning storm, the Great Western Mountain was teleported south of its original location.”

“Excuse me? Teleported? A whole mountain range?” I could hardly believe my ears. This world had magic, but this sounded crazy.

Scholar Wu unrolled the flight plan I had given her and traced a line with a finger. “This is where the Great Western Mountain is located now.”

We could all see that my flight plan ended right in the middle of the mountain range’s new location.

I laughed nervously. “What a weird coincidence!”

Shuye raised an eyebrow. “Yes… a coincidence.”

Did the System do that?! It seemed a bit extreme. More likely, it was the Demon Monarch who was messing around with the local topography.

“Wait a minute, why did you ask me if I’m angry at the Goat clan? You can’t possibly think I had something to do with this?” I said to the three of them.

Prince Baiyu shrugged. His face was expressionless when he said, “I’m sure it's a coincidence, as you said. Since the Goat clan’s zidan was rendered ineffective by the upheaval, they don’t currently have the right to refuse visits. We can proceed as planned.”

I noticed that he was now speaking more formally. He must be in prince mode.

“Okay, but please let me be clear. I don’t know what happened, and I didn’t have anything to do with it,” I said.

Shuye sighed and shook his head. “Of course.”

I pouted. “What do people think happened?”

“No one knows,” said Scholar Wu. “But that hasn't stopped people from speculating.”

“What do they say?” I asked, intrigued.

“The rumor mill has been working overtime.” Scholar Wu counted off the rumors on the fingers of one hand. “The Goat clan is hiding an ancient secret teleportation weapon and it misfired. Or the magic circle they prepared for the ritual was struck by lightning and overloaded, causing more lightning and the teleportation. Or the local god is punishing them for some sin. Or the Azure Dragon clan did it.”

“That last rumor is silly,” said Prince Baiyu. “The Azure Dragon clan’s teleportation magic is blue, not red.”

“Gosh,” I said.

I hardly knew what to say as they discussed various outrageous theories.

But it definitely wasn’t my fault!

Chapter 174 - Witness an Era-defining Event: Quest Started

Chapter 174 - Mom-entous Dad-venture in the Sky

🙞❤︎🙜

The night before our trip, I dreamed of a blue dragon boy. We found a deep, shaded part of the river where he liked to immerse himself in his dragon form and wait for the fish to swim into his open mouth. He had several forms. His human form was much like a human toddler but with blue hair and pointed ears, and he had two distinct dragon forms. One was Chinese-style, a long, serpentine creature with intricate scales, flowing whiskers, and antler-like horns. The other was Western-looking, with a reptilian body, bat wings, and spiked tail. Both of those were normally very small and cute, but in my dream, after he finished eating fish he turned himself into his serpentine form and became so big that he could circle the whole world with his body.

I was busily trying to get him to bite his own tail like the World Serpent or Ouroboros when I woke up.

Dragon dreams the night before a trip? This had to mean it would be great fun!

I hummed happily as I rushed through my morning routine and then went outside to summon the [Floating Solarium]. The staff immediately started bringing my flying ship up to scratch by placing more decorative elements and polishing every surface until it shone. Fengying organized everything while I went to tend to the crops with my apprentices.

We would leave at noon and arrive at our destination in the evening. The Advent of the Demon Monarch should commence the next day, and I wanted us to be in place well before it happened. Once the event was over, which I thought would only last a few minutes at most, we could return to the farm.

Traditionally, momentous events happen during midnight or dawn, right?

So we should be home by afternoon on that same day, just in time to do the daily chores. Though morning was the best time to water the crops, the rice didn’t need it, and the tea plants would survive a delay of a few hours.

“Do you think the queen will be beautiful?” Lari asked Kharli.

“She’s the Lady of the West, not a queen,” said Kharli. “And yes, I bet she’s amazingly beautiful!”

“She could be scary,” said Mo.

We were on our way to the ship after finishing our farm chores and changing into light silk summer robes. Cutie bounced along beside us, and my puppet hung from my belt along with a white jade pendant. I had given Mr. Bear a cute little straw hat from the Cash Shop, making him look even more adorable than before.

“Kids, please be careful what you say when we board the ship. The Lady’s guards are already there,” I said.

“I heard the maids complaining that the advance guards were poking around everywhere. They even opened and checked all the chef’s ingredient bottles and containers,” said Lari.

Kharli nervously looked around and tried to shush him. “Lari, that’s exactly the sort of thing you shouldn’t say! Don’t complain about them.”

“Relax, they won’t eat you… but do be more discreet,” I said. “Watch your step, we’re going up.”

Inside the [Floating Solarium], I headed to the bridge where the controls were located and then checked and rechecked that the correct flight plan had been loaded onto the map. I sat down on the pilot’s seat and dismissed my apprentices. “Go ask Fengying if there’s anything you guys can help with.”

The next few minutes were spent changing the control bridge’s setup by adding bigger screen displays to the default configuration and changing its dark gray and white color scheme to a more friendly navy blue and silver one.

Since I was the only person who could manage the ship, I would have to stay on the bridge or nearby at all times. Therefore, I arranged some furniture for me to use like a small dining table and two chairs as well as a comfortable convertible sofa bed. Prince Baiyu arrived as I was adding colorful throw pillows.

Prince Baiyu was casually dressed in loose cotton robes and pants. He kissed my hand and said, “You’re looking very cheerful today. I guess the event really isn’t anything dangerous.”

“I can’t be sure what it is, but I think it will be something we’ll remember for years to come!” I smiled up at him, but I did feel a little guilty because it might be scary for the others. “I can’t wait until we’re soaring above the clouds.”

“Above the clouds?” Prince Baiyu’s smile faded a little. “The ship is going that high?”

“Yes! I’m not afraid of heights when I’m in a large vehicle.”

After all, I was used to flying on airplanes back on Earth. This should be a piece of cake for me.

I led the prince downstairs to show him the three bedrooms I had combined into one and configured into a suite of rooms for his parents.

“Very nice,” he said politely as we dodged the staff who were still setting up more decorations.

“Can you check if the shower is big enough, please? And I’d like to show you how to use it,” I said.

I thought that the Lady and her consort could probably figure out how to use the taps, faucets, and temperature controls, but it would be better to teach Prince Baiyu about them so he could help them if needed.

“This is the maximum? Clan members like it hotter,” he said.

I backed away from the water splashing from the shower. “Yes, that is as high as it goes. That’s nearly scalding temperature for humans.”

“My apologies.” He turned it off.

After that brief tour, we went back up to the upper level, where the kitchen staff were busy preparing our food. Deming was in full Demon Chef mode, with glowing red eyes and an expression of intense concentration on his face. Prince Baiyu thanked them for their efforts, while my mouth watered and my stomach growled from breathing in the delightful aromas.

Fengying and I took care of a few last-minute details until an hour before the estimated arrival time, when I excused myself and went to my designated room downstairs where I washed my face and did some primping until the guests’ arrival was announced.

Everyone from Emberstone Farm gathered in the foyer. Meanwhile, Prince Baiyu and some members of the royal guards waited at the foot of the escalators.

“I’m so nervous,” Mo whispered to Kharli.

“Me, too,” said Kharli.

Lari was hiding behind the two girls who were standing beside me, to my right. Fengying was on my left. We were on tenterhooks until the royal couple arrived.

Lord Yulin, whom I had met before, was a more muscular and mature version of Prince Baiyu. Today he was wearing simple dark blue robes and pants.

Lady Yuying, on the other hand, was exactly as her son had described her: a regal and imposing woman with an Amazonian figure and piercing blue eyes. Her long white hair was gathered in a high bun, and she was likewise wearing plain blue clothes with no ornaments. Though humans weren’t supposed to be able to sense it, I could see what they meant when they said she had an extremely strong zidan. She exuded an undeniable magnetism, such that in a room full of people, she would always be the one to draw the eye. She moved with a feline grace, her body language exuding a supreme self-assurance. Her posture was straight yet relaxed, positioned as if she belonged on a throne.

Since this was an informal meeting, we all bowed from the waist instead of kowtowing, and then Prince Baiyu introduced us one by one according to our rank. I, as the host, was first, followed by Scholar Wu, and then my three apprentices.

We didn’t shake hands since that wasn’t the custom here.

“What a splendid ship. Thank you for inviting us,” said Lady Yuying.

I was utterly overcome by the force of her presence and barely managed to say a few words. “It was my pleasure.”

Lord Yulin and I also exchanged greetings, and I noticed he seemed amused by my reaction.

When the introductions were over I said, “You must be tired after your journey. Please allow me to show you to your rooms.”

It was actually the royal guard who led the way, and we trailed after them.

Lady Yuying glanced down at me and smiled. She said, “This is an impressive ship. I see that your bloodline inheritance is quite powerful.”

“Yes, she seems to be a mortal without any cultivation,” said Lord Yulin. “But she has hidden depths.”

I laughed nervously. The Lady of the West’s attitude was surprisingly friendly, but I was still a little on edge. Her guards, who numbered a dozen in total, were all tall, fierce-looking clan members clad in leather and steel armor and armed with either swords or scary-looking clubs. Even her maids looked intimidating.

Fengying took over once we got to the guest suite. She was in her element as she ushered the Lady and her consort to the living room and then demonstrated the room’s various features to the maids such as the sink, shower, mini kitchen, and so forth.

It was a relief when we left them to their rest.

“I think my mother likes you,” said Prince Baiyu as we walked back to the control center.

“Really? How can you tell?” I asked.

“Her body language.”

“That’s nice. I couldn’t tell.” I sat down on the pilot’s chair. “Shall we?”

Prince Baiyu stepped beside my chair and nodded his head. “Let’s go. The Goat clan is anxiously waiting for my mother to arrive.”

My three apprentices crowded behind my chair, straining their necks to check what I was going to do.

They couldn’t see it, but the first thing I did was to go to the farm settings and turn on all of its privacy and security features since no one had been left behind to take care of the farm.

Then I went to the [Floating Solarium’s] System tab.

The physical control panel in front of me, with its plethora of dials, switches, levers, buttons, knobs, multicolored lights, and electronic chart displays, was merely for show. I flipped a couple of switches, pressed a few buttons, and adjusted a few knobs while I mentally clicked on the System’s [Start] button.

“And we’re off!” I swiveled my chair around and beamed at Prince Baiyu.

Yinuo was on hand with glasses of iced peach juice which she distributed among us. I lifted mine and said, “To a smooth flight and fair winds! May this ship's first voyage be the start of many memorable adventures.”

Chapter 175 - Witness an Era-defining Event: Quest Complete

Chapter 175 - Don't forget to add a pun here

🙞❤︎🙜

The others raised their glasses and cheered as we felt a slight jolt and the [Floating Solarium’s] maiden voyage started.

The ship steadily rose into the air until we were around eight miles above sea level, at which point I put her on the fastest speed setting. Those of us on the ship felt a slight vibration and a few lateral and vertical movements now and then, but it was no worse than flying on an airplane on Earth.

“Our estimated time of arrival is three hours and twenty-five minutes from now,” I said to Prince Baiyu.

Lari, Kharli, and Mo were at the viewing platform along with some of the maids. The kitchen staff were busy preparing our lunch, and the heavenly smells coming from their part of the ship made my mouth water.

The royal couple stayed in their rooms. Prince Baiyu confided that his mother was tired from the journey from the clan headquarters to my farm. Pregnant clan members were advised to keep their qi levels up for the sake of the child, so she needed to rest.

In half an hour, Deming sent his staff downstairs to the guest quarters with huge platters and tureens of food, enough for a small army. Lady Yuying, of course, was exempt from the ban on eating regular food since she was in the family way.

“Good grief, does your mom have an enormous appetite?” I asked Prince Baiyu.

He glanced at the nearest guards then leaned down to whisper in my ear. “It’s for everyone.”

“Oh.” I forgot that clan members liked to hide their food consumption. “Well, I guess it’s time for me to eat, too.”

I got up from the pilot’s chair and stretched before going over to the dining table where Prince Baiyu joined me.

“Shouldn’t you eat with your parents?” I asked him.

He shook his head. “I don’t need to eat.”

I covered my mouth with a hand and gave him a look of exaggerated shock. By this time, I could tell that his statement was pretty much a boast. Fluttering my lashes at him, I crooned, “You’re so strong…”

“Ha!” He smirked at me. “I could lift you over my head with one hand.”

“Really?”

“One finger, even.”

“No way! You’re too much!”

Yinuo arrived with a tray of food and we stopped talking, but Prince Baiyu took a cup and twirled it around on his forefinger as though to demonstrate what he could do with me.

I burst out laughing. “Hush, you! Behave…”

He settled down after Yinuo served the food. Everything was delicious, especially [Lion’s Mane Mushroom] stew and the Eight Treasure Dumplings made with [Purple Orchid Rice], abalone, shrimp, salted egg, caviar, roasted duck, pork belly, and scallops.

The glass wall of the dome showed us a pretty blue sky and white clouds streaming by. Though we were high above the ground, I didn’t feel scared at all since the ship was large and felt solid under my feet.

After I finished eating, I went to the edge of the wall and looked down. From this height, people looked as small as ants. I gazed down at the tapestry of forests, cultivated fields, and small villages stretched out below. The vibrant greens of deciduous trees blended with the deeper emerald hues of conifers, occasionally broken up by winding rivers that snaked across the landscape like silvery ribbons. The tiny houses and buildings that made up the scattered villages appeared like delicate toys from this lofty vantage point. Puffy white clouds drifted lazily across the sky, casting moving shadows on the land below.

Alas, I couldn’t stay to enjoy the view since I had to stay at the ship’s control center. Prince Baiyu stayed with me for a few more minutes before excusing himself to spend some time with his parents.

When we neared our destination, I sent Yinuo to tell the others that we would be landing soon.

The Great Western Mountain loomed in front of us, its rugged peaks and granite spires stretching out in every direction. The vast wilderness of the mountain range was covered in dense forests, with small mountain villages scattered here and there. Shimmering alpine lakes winked up at me from deep crevices carved by ancient glaciers.

In the distance, a massive rock face loomed, and I saw that our designated landing zone was a relatively flat shelf with sparse vegetation surrounded by soaring pinnacles.

The ship slowed gradually and we descended as daintily as a butterfly on a flower, not even disturbing the dust on the ground as we landed. I went to the main door with my apprentices and when I opened them, the escalators deployed automatically.

“We’re here!” I said.

“It’s cold!” said Mo.

Kharli and Lari nodded their agreement.

“I think we should get our jackets and cloaks before going down,” I said.

We went to our rooms and got what we needed. On the way back, Lord Yulin hailed us. I noticed that Prince Baiyu’s father was now dressed much more formally, in blue and gold silk robes.

“Lady Violet, we’re going down the mountain to meet with the Goat clan. They’re anxious to see if my wife’s zidan can fix theirs,” he said.

“I hope she can help. Was lunch to your liking?” I asked.

“It was splendid!”

We made a bit of small talk until we got to the doors, and I saw that the other clan members, including Prince Baiyu, were already waiting below at the foot of the escalators for Lord Yulin.

“Don’t wait up for us. We might have to spend the night in the Goat clan’s village,” said Lord Yulin. “I’ll send word about our plans once we find out what we need to do.”

“Good luck!” I said.

My apprentices and I bowed to him, and he went flying down without using the escalators.

Lari, Kharli, Mo, and I made our way down in a more sedate manner. Before we got to the bottom, the clan members went flying away to the east, presumably to where the Goat clan village was.

“Teacher, there’s nothing here,” said Kharli.

The landing area was only big enough for the ship, and we couldn’t fly like the clan members, so we couldn’t explore the mountain.

I shrugged. “I know. The event hasn’t started yet.”

“What is the ‘event’ about?” asked Mo.

Putting a finger on my lips, I gave them all a mysterious smile, which only made them roll their eyes. We circled the area but found nothing interesting.

“Let’s go back up and play Connect Four,” said Lari.

Nothing much happened the rest of the day. We simply passed the time playing Connect Four and chatting inside the [Floating Solarium] while the kitchen staff kept us well provided with drinks and snacks. The open area upstairs became quite lively because everyone let their hair down in the absence of our distinguished guests. The staff brought out musical instruments and had an impromptu concert.

The sunlight streaming through the glass dome cast a soft, almost ethereal light on us. Deliciously cool and fresh mountain air wafted through the windows that I had left open, and the hanging plants and vines swayed lazily in the gentle breeze.

Also, the view outside was spectacular.

Lord Yulin sent word that they had nearly settled the Goat clan’s problem and would be back in time for dinner. I guessed that the Demon Chef’s food was much better than the food in the village.

I told the others to nap since the System countdown was showing that the event would happen at midnight, and asked Deming to prepare a late supper instead of dinner. Now that we had landed, I no longer needed to stay at the control bridge, so I went to my bedroom downstairs and settled in for some shut-eye since I wanted to be fresh and energetic for the Descent of the Demon Monarch.

By the time I woke up, it was two hours before midnight. I put on a set of casual robes and a jacket.

“Hey, are you guys ready for the event?” I asked my apprentices.

“Yes! I hope it’s fun,” said Kharli.

“Teacher, shall I fill a plate for you?” asked Mo.

“No, thanks. I’ll get my own food.”

The staff had set up three large tables full of food, and we took what we wanted ourselves, buffet style. There were soups, stews, noodles, rice, dim sum, stir-fried vegetables, roasted meats, hams, and so forth in chafing dishes. I was filling a plate when our guests returned.

“My dear, you look lovely,” said Prince Baiyu as he kissed my forehead and then sat down beside me at the dining table.

“How was the Goat clan?” I asked.

“My mother managed to soothe their zidan, but it will take time to stabilize. We’ll have to stay here for a few more days.”

“I hope everything works out for them,” I said.

Prince Baiyu gave me a searching look. Unlike Shuye and Scholar Wu, he hadn’t tried to interrogate me about my possible involvement in the Goat clan’s troubles, but that didn’t stop him from looking worriedly at me from time to time when we talked about it.

I continued eating, and, after Deming and his assistants finished sending food to the guest quarters, Prince Baiyu left to join his parents downstairs. Kharli, Mo, and I chatted while savoring our chosen desserts. Mine was sweet osmanthus soup with red beans while the girls had fried dumplings stuffed with sweet beans. Lari was off hobnobbing with the royal guards.

After the meal, I went up to the elevated viewing deck and sat down on the space that the staff had reserved for me and my apprentices. I was at the front, on the lowest level, while our guests had seats on the upper levels behind us.

As midnight neared, everyone finished whatever they were doing and sat down, ready to spectate.

I really hoped that the System was right. Otherwise, I would be left with egg on my face if nothing happened.

The royal couple, with Prince Baiyu in tow, sat down together on the topmost chairs with their retinue. I waved to them, and Prince Baiyu waved back. Scholar Wu, on the other hand, sat with us.

“Here, try these,” I said as I handed out binoculars to everyone. “It might not be near enough for us to see without help.”

Scholar Wu and I showed the kids how to use the binoculars.

“Something’s happening,” murmured someone from above us.

“How exciting!” I got popcorn from the Cash Shop and started munching on it while the others ate watermelon seeds and peanuts.

At first, I couldn’t see anything, but when I used the binoculars I could make out that the sky south of us gradually became lighter and lighter, until I could see dark clouds roiling around a certain spot. Jagged forks of lightning danced across the heavens, doubtless accompanied by the sound of thunder, though we were too far away to hear it.

I regretted that there was no sound system on the ship. I would’ve liked to play something suitably dramatic like O Fortuna or Beethoven’s Symphony No. 5.

Nine pillars of light appeared in the sky. I held my breath as a massive black object became visible in the turbulent clouds, descending slowly toward the earth. As it drew closer, I could see that it had sickly red streaks crisscrossing its surface like throbbing veins.

“It’s here!” I shrieked excitedly.

My eyes were glued to the spectacular event unfolding in front of me, and I hardly dared to blink as the demon egg, larger than the greatest mountain, made its slow descent.

Some of the staff screamed as the ground began to tremble. Brilliant arcs of crimson lightning snaked forth, both from the clouds above and the surface of the egg itself, casting an eerily flickering red glow. Soon the sheer size of the egg made the use of binoculars unnecessary.

The hairs on the back of my neck stood on end as tendrils of black smoke billowed outwards when the egg broke through the cloud layer. I paid no attention to the murmuring around me as I waited with bated breath for the climax of the event.

[Witness an Era-defining Event:

Go to Samsara's End Peak of the Great Western Mountain to observe the Descent of the Demon Monarch.

Reward: Attack Exp]

When the demon egg touched the ground, the concussive force of the landing triggered a towering cyclone of red fire that surrounded it. The pillars of light in the sky grew brighter and pulsed like a heartbeat. The shockwave reached us seconds later, making the ship shake violently.

I clapped my hands in excitement. “Wow! What an amazing sight!”

The whole thing was very satisfying, especially when I leveled up.

[Witness an Era-defining Event: Quest Complete]

[Congratulations, you just advanced an Attack level!]

[Congratulations, you just advanced an Attack level!]

[Your Attack level is now 33.]

The exp wasn’t much, but I wasn’t one to complain when I got it quite easily.

[Violet

Level 42

HP: 4,200/4,200

MP: 35/35

Strength: 30/99

Attack: 31→33/99

Archery: 42/99

Magic: 11/99]

I thought the event was over, but just as I got the quest reward, dazzling bursts of heavenly pyrotechnics began erupting in the skies to the south of us. Coruscating auroras of emerald, violet, and gold danced and swirled amidst flashes of lighting and multicolored arcing plasma. Coronas of blinding incandescence blossomed outward, only to be swiftly devoured by encroaching swathes of absolute blackness punctuated by rivers of vermilion light.

The heavenly light show went on for a few more minutes before dying down, leaving the midnight sky as black and impenetrable as it was before the event. I leaned back on my chair and put a hand on my chest, overcome by the sheer awesomeness of the event. Viewing it in real life was a lot better than just watching a cutscene on my computer!

“We’re all going to die!” someone to my left shrieked.

As I turned towards the speaker in confusion, someone else burst into tears, which set off a chain reaction of crying, screaming, and even fainting.

I stood up and tried to calm them down. “Good grief! Why are you all freaking out? Don’t worry, it’s nothing too dangerous, I promise.”

Kharli tugged on my sleeve, and when I looked down at my apprentices, I saw that Kharli was holding on to Mo whose head was buried on Kharli’s shoulder. Lari was white-faced but otherwise appeared composed.

“Teacher, are we going to die?” asked Kharli in a trembling voice.

“No! Ha, that big demon’s just a big wussy. I'm going to fight it myself,” I said. Raising my voice, I said to the crowd, “It’s just an egg that hasn’t even hatched. It’s not dangerous.”

My words didn’t seem to reassure them, and I was at my wits end when Deming and Fengying stood up. Fengying said, “That’s enough. Come, we need to clear the supper dishes before we leave.”

I think “before we leave” was the key phrase since it triggered the staff’s need to flee, so that they realized they needed to wipe away their tears and go back to work.

Since Fengying was taking care of the staff, I did my best to calm my apprentices. “Guys, relax. I promise this is nothing much.”

Lari gave me a disbelieving look and said, “Teacher, there's a giant demon egg!”

I waved my hand dismissively. “The clan members, with a little help from me, can easily deal with that.”

Looking up, at the higher seats, I lifted my hand to beckon Prince Baiyu, but that was when I realized that I had been so busy dealing with my staff that I hadn’t noticed that all of the clan members were nowhere to be found.

Chapter 176 - Testing the Farm’s Boundary Shield

Chapter 176 - Hay, we're homeward bound after a flare-velous fireworks spectacle

🙞❤︎🙜

“Where did they go?” I asked the others.

“They flew off right away when the heavens opened up. Teacher, you didn’t see it because you were watching the skies,” said Lari.

“The clan members must have gone to check it out.” I should’ve realized they would need to see it close up. “I’m sure they’ll send word to us soon.”

Kharli and Mo, who had been trembling while hugging each other earlier, exchanged a look whose meaning I couldn’t decipher and then disentangled themselves.

“You're not worried about the prince?” asked Kharli.

“It’s just an egg. What can it even do?” I shook my head at their hysterics. “Please pull yourself together. Look at Deming and Fengying.”

“Is he cooking?” Mo looked shocked that the Demon Chef was treating this as a normal day.

“Baking bread for tomorrow, I think,” I said.

That did it. The color returned to their faces and they looked greatly relieved.

“It’s not that bad…” Mo glanced at the demon egg and then looked away quickly.

“At least it doesn’t have fangs,” said Kharli.

“How do you know? Maybe we just can’t see the fangs from here,” said Lari, but we could all tell his heart wasn’t in it. He cheered up even more when Yinuo came by with a tray of snacks.

We were munching on sesame balls when Scholar Wu returned with one royal guard.

“Lady Violet, I would like to speak to you in private,” she said, without even bothering with a greeting, which was strange since she was normally a stickler for proper etiquette.

“Let’s go to my suite downstairs,” I said.

The guard and my apprentices followed us to my small drawing room where Scholar Wu waited until we all sat down before saying, “Please tell me everything you know about this ‘event’ as you call it. I know you didn’t want to talk about it before, but the Lady needs more information.”

“Where are they? What’s going on? Should we wait for them before leaving?” The rice plants would be fine, but the tea plants should be watered every day, so I didn’t want to delay our trip back.

“We all instinctively flew towards the… disturbance in the sky.” Scholar Wu paused and gave me a searching look. “You must have expected that?”

“Er, I thought you all would just watch from the ship, but now that you mention it, I do feel that was a natural reaction.”

Yinuo arrived with the tea, but Scholar Wu waved her off a bit impatiently when my maid tried to serve her first.

“Nothing for me. I will be leaving as soon as we finish since the Lady is expecting my report,” said Scholar Wu.

“You’re leaving again?” I asked.

“Yes. One of the guards will stay with the ship to make sure everyone is alright. You may leave as soon as the dawn breaks,” she said.

I had tried to explain earlier that the ship had a safe automatic navigation function, but the clan members were adamant that we not fly in the darkness. Nodding my head, I assented to her plan and said, “Okay, now about what I know about the event, please make sure that you include in your report that I don’t actually ‘know’ anything. This is all information from my bloodline inheritance which I trust, but I can’t promise it will be one hundred percent accurate.”

“My lady, whatever happens, you won't be blamed for it, and we'll try to verify your information before acting on it.”

Taking out my notes, I explained the event to her as best as I could.

“The egg will be absorbing ambient energy until it's time for it to hatch, which should be sometime in summer next year. The demon will be quite large, obviously, but not particularly dangerous. The only thing we need to watch out for are its special attacks,” I said.

Scholar Wu frowned. “What do you mean by ‘we’? Lady Violet, you’re not planning to join the demon extermination, are you?”

I held a hand up.

“Hear me out first. My bloodline inheritance should allow me to see the demon’s life force, which is important for knowing when it will use its deadly skill.” The concept of hit points or HP was way too hard for me to explain, but “life force” was a good enough alternative. “The monster will cast special magical attacks when it’s at 75, 50, and 25 percent of its life force. You need me to be there to know when it's imminent.”

Scholar Wu softly expelled air through her mouth in a not-quite sigh while the others, especially Mo, looked alarmed.

To be precise, the boss would also heal itself completely after casting Area-of-Effect spells, though only three times.

The first time, when it was at 75 percent HP, it would use its [Dark Nova] to attack and heal to 100 percent HP.

The second time, when it was at 50 percent HP, it would use [Fury Vortex] and heal to 75 percent HP.

The third time, when it was at 25 percent HP, it would use its strongest spell, [Meteor Storm], and heal to 50 percent HP.

After that, it should be easy-peasy for everyone since it would be out of spells.

Continuing my explanation as best as I could, I said, “The special attacks will cover a wide area and have to be dodged since they could be deadly.”

“You know what the attacks will be like?”

“Possibly a shadowy explosion, a tornado of energy, and a rain of meteors.”

My explanation finished, I took a glass of chamomile tea from Yinuo and sipped it as Scholar Wu peppered me with questions, most of which I couldn’t answer since they were about the cause of the event, and I had no idea why it happened.

There was probably a lore explanation in Adventure Incarnate, but I couldn’t remember it, and I didn’t have access to the game wiki anymore.

“One last thing,” I said when Scholar Wu said she was leaving to make her report. “I think you should emphasize that I don’t think the demon is intelligent. I mean, it might have a certain animal cunning, but I doubt it's much smarter than, say, a squirrel or a pigeon.”

“Squirrels are not dumb, as a matter of fact, not compared to similar animals,” said Scholar Wu.

“Okay, but what I mean is, the demon will probably just be on the same level as a giant hamster, not like a giant super-powered human or clan member.”

“I hope you’re right.” She got up and bowed to us. “I’ll see you back at the farm soon. Have a safe trip back.”

“See you soon.” I got up, too, and returned her bow.

After she left, I told the kids to go to sleep since we were leaving at dawn and reassured them once again that everything was going to be alright.

“If the System says it won’t hatch until next year, then I can sleep soundly tonight!” Lari looked quite relieved.

Kharli and Mo nodded.

“Teacher, we’ll share a room,” said Kharli.

“Brush your teeth before you go to bed,” I said to them as I walked them to the door.

Yinuo bustled about laying out my nightgown on my bed and checking to make sure I had everything I needed for the night before leaving.

I fell asleep moments after my head hit my pillow and woke up a few hours later feeling refreshed. The trip back was uneventful. The kids and staff kept on nervously glancing over their shoulders at the southern sky where the demon egg loomed but otherwise acted normal.

“Yes! Thank all the gods we’re back!” Lari ran off to the tea field.

“Hey, don’t get ahead of Teacher!” Despite her words, Mo ran off, too.

Kharli and I laughed and followed them at a sedate walking pace.

“Slow down, the crops aren’t going anywhere,” I called out to them.

“Teacher, Teacher, look!” Mo yelled. She was jumping up and down and waving to us, urging us to walk faster.

“What the heck?!” I said in shock when I was close enough to see what she was excited about. “What happened while we were away?”

The tea plants, which had been drooping and had brown-edged leaves because of the heat, were visibly rejuvenated, standing tall and proud, with vibrant green leaves. Even their scent was richer and more intense.

“Maybe we should go away more often if this is the result,” said Lari.

“Gosh.” I shook my head, bewildered but happy. “Let’s water them and hope we get a good harvest this summer.”

After watering and tending the tea plants, we inspected the rice paddies where we found that both the crops and fish were growing well. We were walking to the main house when we stumbled upon a sight that piqued our curiosity.

Deming and his three assistants were repeatedly pacing back and forth a few paces, with Fengying watching them. They all had expressions of extreme concentration on their faces, as though they were doing something momentous. Occasionally, they looked south and frowned.

“I can tell they’re up to something!” I said to the others.

“I’ll go ask them,” said Lari, who suited his actions to his words.

He returned with Fengying.

“My lady, they’re testing the farm’s boundary shield,” she said.

“Shield?” We had a shield? This was the first I had heard of it.

“Not being a cultivator, I can’t sense it myself, but Deming says the whole farm is covered by very strong qi.”

“Oh.” I thought they were talking about a force field-style shield, but it was just the same old thing about qi being very intense inside the farm.

Suddenly, I remembered that when we left, I had turned on all of the farm’s security and privacy settings. Now that we were back, that wasn’t necessary, therefore I turned most of them back off. I explained what I had done to Fengying who went over to the Demon Chef to inform him about it.

The kids were uninterested.

“We’ve always had a shield, haven’t we?” said Kharli.

“Yeah, a lot of the clan members I spoke to said they had a lot of trouble finding the farm,” said Lari.

Mo just yawned.

Unlike them, I knew something was up, and so we waited for Fengying to return with more information.

“They said that the demon egg in the south is giving off an extremely powerful demonic qi, but they can’t feel it inside the farm,” said Fengying.

“Wow, so our farm’s qi is shielding us from the demonic qi? That’s a good thing, right?” I asked.

“It’s a very good thing,” she said. “Also, Deming says the farm’s qi has increased by at least fivefold since we left.”

“What? Why?”

Fengying glanced southward. “To balance out the qi from outside.”

“Wait a minute, is that why the tea plants are revived? If so, this is wonderful!” I clasped my hands together in delight and beamed at everyone.

I knew the event was a good thing!

Fengying simply nodded.

I turned to my apprentices and said, “You see, guys? There’s nothing to worry about, our farm even got stronger.”

“Maybe we’ll get a better harvest,” said Kharli.

“I think we will,” I said.

And I was right.

Chapter 177 - Harvesting the Seed Capsules

Chapter 177 - What did the banana say to the doctor? I'm not peeling well.

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“You see? The crops are all flourishing!” I waved a hand at the nearby tea field and the rice paddies in the distance.

I was with Fengying and the kids, showing Shuye all the changes to the farm.

Right after the Descent of the Demon Monarch event, we received advice from Prince Baiyu to stay put inside the farm since the demonic qi was everywhere except for the farm and might cause the forest animals to act up.

The staff was jumpy during the first few days, but when they saw Deming and his assistants experimenting with cooking inside and outside the farm’s “shield,” they felt reassured that everything was fine.

Meanwhile, the kids and I enjoyed the increase in qi that made the crops grow faster than ever before.

Today, the summer heat was enough to fry our brains if we walked outside without sun protection, so I had Mr. Bear walk behind me with a large patio umbrella while the others were using parasols.

Shuye had already finished viewing the apple orchard and the animal pen.

“The tea plants are growing an inch each day?” asked Shuye.

I missed the old shaggy-haired, slightly disreputable-looking Farm Guide, but I had to admit that Shuye looked quite spiffy in crisp white robes and soft deerskin boots. The [Crocus] flower I gifted him was tucked into his twisted leather belt studded with agate stones set in silver.

“Yes, we’ve been measuring it!” I stopped walking when we reached the tea field and waited for Shuye’s verdict.

Once we were under the shade canopy, umbrellas were redundant, so we put ours aside while my Farm Guide closely inspected the rows of plants, sometimes kneeling and sniffing them, sometimes poking at the soil they were growing in.

“They still seem a little dried out, but the qi in the plants is impressive,” said Shuye.

“Yeah, it’s too bad they dried out! If it wasn’t for the unreasonably hot weather, we could’ve had at least medium-quality tea.” I sighed, but there was really no helping it. “Guys, come. Let’s take the seed capsules off.”

I reached out to the nearest plant and used gardening scissors to harvest the “fruit” of the plant. It was originally green, but now it had turned brown and split open, revealing the seeds. The System only harvested the tea leaves at the end of the season, so when we manually snipped off the seed capsules, we got zero exp.

Lari, Kharli, and Mo followed my example, and in a few minutes, we filled a basket with the product that Shuye had come to receive directly from our hands as soon as possible.

Fengying took the basket and poured the seed capsules into a drawstring cloth bag which Shuye took.

“I thought the furor over the tea had died down,” I said to Shuye. “Why did it reignite?”

“Because people are desperate to get stronger.” Shuye turned his head to the south. “Because of that.”

There was so much doom and gloom in his voice that I hastily changed the topic of conversation to his child. Shuye happily told me all about how adorable his baby was, with her cute dimples and tiny, perfect fingers until we reached the area where we were growing rice and carp.

“We’ll harvest it in five days,” I said.

We silently circled the field once to allow Shuye to see how lush the plants were and how large the fish had grown. The way the plant’s stalks were bowed under the weight of the rice grains was quite pleasing to my eyes. The plants looked normal, but the changes in the fish were new.

Covering my smile with one hand, I said, “Isn’t it fascinating? The carp’s eyes turned red three days ago.”

Shuye shrugged. “They look fine to me. As long as they’re edible, the red eyes shouldn’t be a problem.”

“Yes, Deming said they were fine.” I was a little disappointed that Shuye wasn’t surprised by the newly demonic-looking carp with red eyes and glowing crimson scales. “Let’s go back to the main house so you can take a look at the [Herb Garden].”

Along the way, Shuye stopped to inspect the new clay ovens and stone grills that the kitchen staff had built on both sides of the farm border.

“They’re cooking outside the farm?” Shuye asked Fengying.

“Deming says they’re experimenting with the different types of atmospheric qi,” said Fengying.

For the first time today, Shuye looked surprised. “What was the result?”

“The experiments are ongoing, but the current results are interesting,” said Fengying. “Water boils at a lower temperature outside the farm. Depending on the type of wood used, a few burn faster inside the farm. Sugar caramelizes faster outside. The meat of the animals slaughtered inside tends to retain more qi. Rice spoils faster outside, but not fish or meat. The differences are most pronounced during noon and midnight.”

“I wish I had time to experiment, too,” said Shuye.

“Are you very busy?” I asked him.

“Extremely.”

We chatted a bit more about Deming’s findings as we walked to the [Herb Garden], but there wasn’t much more to it. I, for one, couldn’t even tell the difference between the dishes cooked inside and outside the farm.

“Here it is! The herbs are growing normally, as far as I can tell,” I said. “Deming and his assistants say that the qi is thicker here, but it hasn’t affected the garden much.”

The [Herb Garden] was filled with a diverse array of foot-high plants neatly planted in symmetrical raised beds. I showed Shuye around, which took very little time since there were only four small areas to check.

“When will these be ready for harvest?” asked Shuye.

“Different times. The first ones should be ready right before the autumn harvest,” I said.

The maids were waiting for us with basins of water and towels at the northern shaded area of the garden. Fengying supervised the staff as they took our outer robes off and helped us wash our hands and splash water on our faces to cool off before we sat down on the comfortable sofas and chairs. The staff had drinks and snacks ready for us, too, of course.

“I’m glad to see that there have been no adverse effects on the farm,” said Shuye.

The kids sat at a table apart from us. Fengying supervised them as they read the books that Scholar Wu had sent over for them to study while she was away.

“Yes, it’s been great. Have some cookies.” I pushed a plate over to him.

This time, since the ban on eating had been lifted for all clan members because of the current emergency, Shuye did not refuse. We nibbled on cookies and ate some fruit slices while we talked.

“I came for a visit to let you know what we’ll be doing at the Ancient Hill Forest,” he said. “The Lady of the West has declared a state of emergency, and all able-bodied clan members are expected to contribute to the demon extermination campaign. This means everyone. For example, the construction crew has stopped working on my new house. I’m training them to fight.”

Forced conscription? This was alarming news. “But you have a newborn! Surely, you’re exempt?”

“I could be, but my men need me. I’ll be in command of the local team.”

I frowned. Though I didn’t think the demon boss was particularly dangerous, this was alarming news. I hadn’t realized my Farm Guide would be involved. “Will you be okay? What about your family?”

“I thought you would be worried.” Shuye smiled and sipped his tea. The porcelain teacup looked exceedingly dainty when held in his massive hand. “Every clan member receives basic martial arts training. I’m simply taking my men south to train them on how to fight together more effectively.”

In perfect unison, we both looked south where there was a darkness in the sky along the horizon.

Seeing my anxious look, Shuye shrugged and said, “We'll be fine. You know that Scholar Wu is an academic, right? But she knows her family’s martial arts. Most people are like that.”

“Okay…” I knew Prince Baiyu was a good fighter, therefore, it was logical that he would be fighting in the demon extermination, but to think that even construction crews would be drafted! This campaign was going to be larger than I expected. In Adventure Incarnate, only a dozen or so of the elite clan members appeared during the boss fight.

“It’s not just fighters. Everyone will have to contribute. The farmers, smiths, potters, weavers, herbalists, and so forth will be working to provide the army with the supplies they need,” said Shuye.

“What?! The army? How many people are going?”

Shuye laughed at my reaction. “Everyone! No one who’s anyone would miss this chance.”

“Why not?”

“You know zidan is mostly inborn?” Shuye waited for my nod before continuing his explanation. “For the Lady of the West and the clan rulers and elders, zidan is the virtue of a ruler and territorial instinct. We’re bound to the land we live in because of zidan.”

I listened carefully as Shuye spoke. “I get it. Humans can’t sense zidan but when I met the Lady, I felt… something.”

“Yes, humans can feel it like a strong force of personality and charisma. Well, for those who don’t lead, zidan is also prestige. Those who are viewed favorably by the other clan members can slowly increase their zidan throughout their life by working hard and strengthening their local community and clan.”

“That makes sense,” I said. “So are you saying this demon extermination mission is a good way to increase your prestige or zidan?”

“Exactly. That’s also why I can’t stay at home. Zidan can also decrease, you know.”

“Oh no.”

Shuye made a dismissive gesture with his hand. “This is a good opportunity for many, like how your farm is thriving under the onslaught of demonic qi.”

“It is? And, by the way, how has the demonic qi affected the forest?”

“Qi has become turbulent, but stronger. It’s very good for cultivation. A few of the animals have become aggressive, that’s all.”

“Then can I and my apprentices go out to forage again?”

“Yes, I’ll send a few guards to you soon.”

“Well, we won’t go out until after the autumn planting season.” I turned on a mist fan since It was getting hot because it was getting closer to noon.

“Anyway, as I was saying, No one likes that there’s a demon egg in the south, but now that it’s here, I’m not wasting my time lamenting the situation,” said Shuye. “I’m hoping that my zidan will be strengthened if I work hard.”

“I’m sure it will be.”

“The Lady’s composure and level-headed plans have made people admire her even more than before, and her zidan has reached unprecedented levels.”

“Good for her.”

“So don’t worry about it,” said Shuye. “You remember how the Goat clan’s zidan was in disarray? It’s fixed now, and they’re even claiming that their mountain territories were teleported because their god wanted them closer to the south to make it easier for them to participate in the demon-killing campaign.”

“Wow.”

Since it was almost time for the noon meal, I invited Shuye to join us, but he refused, saying that he was too busy and needed to return to his village. He called Fengying over and we discussed a few mundane matters like who would be coming over to collect the crops and when. The regular guards and messengers were going south, and the regular villagers, mostly the elderly and teenagers, were doing double duty as errand boys to make up for the lack of manpower.

Before he left though, Shuye gave my apprentices a mischievous grin and said, loud enough for them and the staff to hear, “Are you and Prince Baiyu planning to take advantage of the reward for pregnant women?”

Chapter 178 - Year 2 Summer Harvest

Chapter 178 - Expecting Hilarious Deliveries

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“Shuye! Please don’t joke about something like that!” I turned to the others and made sure they heard my next words loud and clear, “I’m not pregnant and I’m not planning to get pregnant any time soon.”

The maids just smiled and Kharli covered her mouth with one hand before turning to whisper something in Mo’s ear that made her blush. Lari rolled his eyes and pointedly ignored us as he continued to read his textbook. Fengying didn’t even react and just excused herself to return to the main house to oversee the maids' other chores.

Shaking my head at Shuye’s uncharacteristic joke, I escorted him to the edge of the farm while I peppered him with questions about the whole “reward” thing.

“The Lady announced an emergency status for all clans, which means we are in battle mode, and it’s traditional for all communities to raise funds for a special mass wedding grant before battle to encourage all the young clan members to reproduce,” he said.

“I get it. You guys are doing that to avoid a population decline in case of losses, right?” I took a drink of water from my inventory as we walked. Though Mr. Bear was shielding me from the sun, I was still sweating a lot.

“Yes, and young people are naturally more fertile.” Shuye smiled down at me, showing two rows of even white teeth. “I wasn’t entirely joking. If you want to reproduce with the Prince, now’s the perfect time. Courting and marriage timelines are accelerated during times of war.”

“Oh, stop it, you!”

“The Lady only has one heir, which means a wedding would be quite welcome at this time. The sooner, the better, if you ask me.”

“Nooooo! I don’t want to rush into anything. Marriage can wait until we’re good and ready!”

He teased me about it for a few more minutes until I broached a more serious topic.

“Shuye, am I taking this issue too lightly? You seem worried…”

“Well… how sure are you that this isn’t too dangerous?”

“Very sure. Everything that has happened so far is something my bloodline inheritance foresaw. I guess… maybe around 98% sure.” Though I still had no idea what made the System tick, I was certain that it was extremely powerful, and, after all, it had never been wrong about anything yet.

“That’s very good to hear.” Shuye took a deep breath and when he let it out, his shoulders relaxed and he smiled again. “No, don’t suddenly start worrying about it. Keep your spirits up, and your household will function better.”

“How worried are you?”

“I’ll be leading my men into battle, which is why it’s good for me to worry. I certainly wouldn’t want the Lady to be happy-go-lucky about all our fates.”

“Good point.”

“You’re different. You have nothing to worry about since your farm is quite far from the front lines. Even if there was a disaster, you have your flying ship.”

“It wouldn’t come to that. So you don’t think I’m being insensitive?”

Shuye dismissed the comment with a wave of his hand and a sharp exhalation of disdain. “No. I like your confidence in us. It would be worse for everyone if the humans started panicking.”

“Okay!”

We said our goodbyes, and I went back to the main house to ask Fengying about the clan’s “marriage fund.” I found her supervising the laundry.

At first, she had insisted on handwashing the more delicate fabrics we used, but after seeing that the [Automatic Washing Machine] never damaged our clothes or linens, Fengying fully embraced modern laundry methods. We talked as the maids got the garments from the [Drying Machine] and neatly folded them.

“The news about the mass wedding scheme has been making the rounds,” said Fengying. “Matchmakers have been asking about Lady Kharli and Lady Mo.”

“No way! They’re both too young,” I said.

“Yes. I refused them all on your behalf.”

“I’m surprised Shuye was joking about it.”

“It’s probably a sign that he’s feeling much more comfortable with you these days.” Fengying stopped a maid who was folding a robe’s long, wide sleeves and showed her how to do it right. When she was finished, she turned back to me and said, “Or… perhaps he really does want you to commit to your relationship with the Prince.”

I went over to the table and picked up a pair of trousers which I started folding by copying what the maids were doing under Fengying’s watchful eye.

“Good grief! Getting pregnant for fear of the upcoming battle is definitely not for me,” I said.

Fengying didn’t say anything, but I could tell she agreed with me.

“How exactly would it work?” I asked her.

“Lord Shuye’s villages have nine youngsters who will be participating. Matchmakers are looking for young human men and women from good families, preferably with more than one daughter or son who can marry into a clan because each clan member will marry three or more humans.”

“What? Why so many?” I lowered my voice a little, and I could almost see the maids straining to hear our conversation. “Are they expecting to lose that many people in the demon extermination?”

Shuye had seemed cheerful enough, but maybe the rest of the clan members were worried.

Fengying shrugged. “Who knows? The humans don’t care; everyone in Anwei is very excited about it, and I heard the bribes to the matchmakers have been sky-high.”

I shook my head at the thought of me or my apprentices taking part in this community-approved harem-forming activity. “I’m not joining this scheme because I prefer to take my time and let things develop naturally.”

“I think you should.” Fengying smiled. “A sweet courtship should be slowly savored.”

I spent the rest of the day gossiping with the staff about the who’s who of Anwei who had thrown their caps in the ring. Fengying left to take care of other matters while Yinuo joined us. The ironing boards and sewing baskets were taken out, and the clothes were mended or ironed as we chatted.

According to the maids, only a few of the young clan members looking to marry were of high rank. The rest were tradesmen who wanted husbands or wives who were not just comely but also had useful skills.

“You see, my lady, I was right to snap up my twins,” said Yinuo. “If I had waited, they would’ve been earmarked for some clan member since they’re both so handsome.”

“There she goes again! All you do all day is boast about your husbands,” complained a maid. She was one of the younger, prettier staff members who had been using my [Dewy Glow Potions] every day. Her previously pimply complexion had turned smooth and flawless, which made her sought after among the other young people in her village. She and Yinuo had a rivalry going on about who had the handsomer beau. Obviously, Yinuo was winning.

“You’re jealous? I can send you to the same matchmaker I used,” said Yinuo.

We all laughed at that.

***

The next day, we fished out the carp and drained the rice paddies to prepare for the harvest. Most of the fish were collected in barrels of water which some clan members carried away in flying carts, but not without Deming picking the best fish for us first.

On harvest day, we were at the tea field at sunrise. The morning air was hot but fresh, filled with the earthy scent of dew-kissed grass and the intoxicating fragrance of the tea plants. Birds chirped melodiously from the trees, their songs mingling with the buzzing of insects and the sound of the wind on the leaves of the trees in the forest surrounding us.

“Harvest day is the best day, isn’t it?” I said to the kids.

“It’s my favorite time!” said Kharli.

“I love the exp,” said Lari.

Mo nodded.

The staff, led by Deming, circled the fields with a thurible filled with rare incense to bless the upcoming harvest as the sun’s warm golden rays cast a soft glow across the landscape. As we waited for them to finish their ritual, I lay down on the ground between the rows of plants and closed my eyes. Breathing in slowly through my nose and breathing out through my mouth in the meditative manner that Scholar Wu had taught me, I tried to empty my mind and concentrate on the ground below me.

There was a soft, gentle, and rhythmic movement under my body. Was it the pulse of energy beneath the earth or just my imagination? Was I just feeling the throbbing of the blood in my body? I didn’t know what it was exactly, but I liked to think that there was a mystical dragon vein under the farm through which energy flowed as the river water flowed into the sea.

When Deming and the others finished the harvest ceremony, I stood up, and the kids and I took our places on different rows of tea plants. We plucked off the topmost bud and the two leaves below it manually, dropping our harvest into small baskets. We could have used the System to do it, but this was more fun, and it would allow us to sell the tea for a higher price since it was handpicked. Tea connoisseurs were fussy about details like that.

Our energy bars were emptied in an hour; therefore, we stopped before we collapsed from exhaustion.

“I didn’t level up today.” The corners of Mo’s mouth were turned down a little, and her brow was furrowed. “I hope I level up soon.”

“You will.” I lifted a tea leaf to my nose and inhaled deeply, savoring the herbal aroma. “This is wonderful.”

“The tea seems as good as the spring tea,” said Lari. “I was afraid it would be worse because of the heat.”

“The chef thinks the quality improved because of the increase in qi,” said Kharli. “Teacher, did you know that the kitchen staff are meditating just outside of the farm?”

“Huh? I see them outside a lot, but I didn’t know they were meditating.”

“They say that the qi outside is more turbulent, which is good for cultivation,” said Kharli.

“I feel that if I could sense qi, I would prefer the calm qi inside the farm,” I said.

“Quiet qi must be nice,” said Mo. “I bet that’s what helped our crops.”

I looked the tea field over and said, “I think we’ll only need to spend one more day harvesting here. Let’s go eat and rest to recover our energy.”

We handed our baskets of tea leaves to the staff for further processing and then trooped back to the main house for a hot breakfast since we had only eaten rice balls earlier.

Deming supervised the staff as they spread the leaves out to dry in the sun. Later, they would be roasted, cooled, and then rolled. Since the kitchen staff were busy, we had a simple but delicious meal of fish congee, steamed pork dumplings, century eggs, and stir-fried mushrooms from the Chitinous Caverns.

“Eat more mushrooms; they help replenish energy,” I said to the others.

“And they’re delicious,” said Lari.

“The eggs are great, too. Did you know they aren’t actually a hundred years old?” said Kharli.

“I’m sure the eggs would hatch if they were buried for a hundred years,” said Mo.

“Only if they were spirit eggs,” said Kharli.

“Teacher, can we make century eggs out of the System [Eggs]?” asked Lari.

“Maybe? But they seem hard to make, and I’m sure I’d burn most of them,” I said.

“Can we please not make scary black eggs when everyone is being troubled by that?” Kharli gestured southwards.

“Oh? If you don’t like black eggs, give me yours.” Lari pretended to snatch the century egg plate, but Kharli playfully swatted his hand away.

We passed the rest of the meal in pleasant banter and the kids retired to their rooms afterward while I spent the morning playing with Cutie in the Mines. The slimes’ bathing pools in the Chitinous Caverns were a great way for me to kick back and unwind. When I emerged from the pools and portaled back to my house, I found a pleasant surprise waiting for me at my front door.

I hastily sprayed on some cologne and rushed outside to meet my boyfriend. “Sweetheart!”

Our embrace was warm and lingering, two lovers reunited after being apart. His strong arms enveloped me as I melted into his comforting smell and familiar touch. At that moment, all was right in the world. The stresses of the day melted away as we held each other close, content just to be together again.

Alas, we eventually had to part. We murmured sweet nothings to each other as we walked to my [Ranch House]. Once we were inside, he pulled out a red and gold box from his interspatial storage and wordlessly presented it to me. I opened it to find that it contained a complete set of red robes, red shoes, red veils, and a red and gold headdress.

“Thank you!” I put my hands on his shoulders and went on tiptoe to kiss his cheek.

The past few days had made a mark on him. Prince Baiyu looked gorgeous, as always, but there were dark eye bags under his blue eyes and when I touched them, his shoulders seemed thinner.

Prince Baiyu returned the favor with a lingering kiss on my hand. Then he unfolded a sleeve of the red outer garment and showed me the character for “double happiness” embroidered on it. “My parents have given us permission to marry. This is their wedding gift.”

I knew that his father supported his courtship of me, but this was the first time he said that his mother also approved. “Is it because of the upcoming battle?”

He nodded. “Shall we set our wedding date for next week?”

“Next week?” Why was he in a rush? His attitude was less romantic than I was used to, but that was understandable because he was under a lot of strain. I smiled mischievously. “What do you think?”

Chapter 179 - Enchanting Wedding Gift

Chapter 179 - Groom for Improvement

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I gave him an innocent smile. “Uh-huh.”

Prince Baiyu planted a kiss on my forehead and sighed in an overly dramatic manner. “You know… I was told that a lot of women would jump at the chance to marry me next week.”

I drew away from him. “Are you saying you got a lot of offers? You’re not planning to form a harem next week, are you?”

“Of course not!”

Our eyes met and we both burst into laughter.

“My poor, poor prince.” I put a hand on his shoulder and pressed down to let him know I wanted him to bend towards me, and then I patted his head when he obliged. “Is everyone telling you to get married right away?”

I led him inside the house where we sat side by side on the couch in the living room. Since the taboo had been lifted, I offered him some tea and a plate of dumplings.

In between sips and bites, he regaled me with tales of his most recent trips with his parents. Since the last time I had seen them, they had gone to all the major clans to calm them down and discuss their plans.

“My mother’s been pushing herself too hard. Father and I were only able to force her to take a break after she felt dizzy when we were flying to the Wolf clan’s headquarters.” He made a sound of pure exasperation. “We’re taking three days off.”

“Just three days? Is that even enough time to recover?”

Prince Baiyu shrugged. “Clan members have greater stamina than humans… but you’re right. A pregnant lady shouldn’t overwork herself.”

“Will I see you tomorrow?”

“Yes, and the day after.”

I took out three more plates of food from my inventory. “Eat more and recover your strength. Try this apple pie, I baked it myself.”

This time, we stopped talking about serious matters and just enjoyed each other’s company by feeding each other sweet morsels of apple pie and pastries.

***

The next day, Prince Baiyu met me at my door with a smile and a kiss on the cheek, which put me in a great mood for the rest of the day.

At sunrise on the farm, the morning dew on the grass sparkled like diamonds, and I noticed that the breeze was cooler today than yesterday. Perhaps Yinuo was correct when she said that we were due for a break from the summer sun’s oppressive heat. From my house I could see the fields of crops. The rice fields were a sea of golden-brown stalks, heavy with grain and rustling gently in the morning breeze, which made a nice contrast with the vibrant green color of the tea fields.

Prince Baiyu was impressed by the beauty of the farm and complimented me on the thriving crops. We were chatting merrily when we reached the tea field, where my apprentices were already waiting for us.

“Good morning!” I greeted the kids.

I was met with a chorus of “Good mornings!”

Lari, Kharli, and Mo were dressed in simple cotton trousers and the usual cross-collar top. The girls, possibly because their maids knew that Prince Baiyu would be with us today, were wearing modest, long-sleeved tops, but Lari had cut off his sleeves and was bare-armed.

We quickly got to work plucking tea leaves, and it wasn’t long before Lari threw his arms up and yelled, “Level up!” and did a victory run around the tea field.

The rest of us clapped and congratulated him.

There weren’t that many tea plants, so we finished the harvest before running out of energy.

“Shall we continue by harvesting the rice? Do you guys have enough energy?” I asked.

“Yes, Teacher,” said Mo.

The others nodded.

“I’m very close to a level,” said Kharli.

The tea had to be picked by hand to get the best price, but there was no such requirement for the rice. Thus, we used the System instead of harvesting it manually.

Taking out a sickle from my System tool belt, I mentally clicked on the empty sacks in my inventory, and when I swung the sickle at a rice plant, the System did the work for me. Half a dozen plants disappeared from the field while a sack of rice and a pile of crop residues simultaneously appeared in my inventory. The crop residue could be used in making [Animal Feed] later, while the sacks of rice would be sold as seed rice for the farmers who wanted to try growing their own spirit crop.

Once I started harvesting, the others followed suit.

It took no time at all for both Kharli and Mo to level up one after the other.

“Congratulations, you two!” I hugged them both.

“This is all thanks to you, Teacher.” Mo beamed and hugged me and Kharli back.

“Thank you for always taking care of us.” Kharli’s voice was giddy with delight.

“Aw, get it in here, too!” I pulled Lari into the group embrace.

We were all smiling from ear to ear.

“Harvest time is the best time!” I said. “Let’s continue.”

We harvested a few more sacks of rice until we ran out of energy.

“Teacher, we’re going to put flowers in front of the [Vineheart Fairy House] as offerings,” said Kharli. “We want to thank them for the bonus exp.”

“Good idea,” I said. “Gather the flowers from inside the farm though. They say the qi outside the farm is still in disarray.”

“The animals really have been acting strangely. Last night, I was taking a walk when I saw a deer with glowing yellow eyes,” said Lari.

“No way!” I said. “Did it attack or anything?”

“It was just eating some grass,” said Lari.

“That’s just normal. Some animals have eyes that seem to glow in the dark,” said Prince Baiyu. “Deer are one of them.”

“In any case, yes, you guys can go offer flowers to the fairies as long as you stay inside the farm,” I said.

My apprentices scampered off on their errand, and I felt grateful because I knew that was just an excuse they made to give Prince Baiyu and me some much-needed privacy.

“Do you want to stay indoors or outdoors?” I asked Prince Baiyu.

“I’d like a day outdoors where I just sit and do nothing. I’ve spent all the time since I was on your ship either madly dashing here and there to put out fires or indoors all day listening to elders drone on and on.” Prince Baiyu imitated an elder by loudly humming in a sonorous tone.

“Oh, you poor thing!”

“People don’t know how tiring it is to just sit in one place for hours at a time while doing nothing until it’s happened to them. I’m not even allowed to talk because I’m too young, you know.”

“Well, at least the monotonous elder talk must be better than excited yapping.” I tried to imitate a chatterbox by flapping my hands and making rapid, high-pitched, nonsensical sounds.

He laughed, and we hooked our arms together as I guided him to the [Herb Garden] where we spent a pleasant day talking about this and that. We went to the main house for dinner, and he only left after midnight.

I was yawning when I retired to my [Ranch House] to work on my gift to the prince. Since his parents had sent me such a magnificent present, I needed to return the favor as best as I could. The only valuable things that I had were crops, which I had a contract to sell to the White Tiger clan, and gold coins, which would be crass to give. Most of the other really good items in my inventory were untradeable, except for the [War Fans] which were meant for a different purpose.

Of course, if my crafting skills were higher, I could theoretically smith some good armor and weapons, but all I could make at the moment were simple steel items, which would be pretty lame. I wanted to give the Lady of the West something that would wow her and show everyone that I was a proper match for a prince.

The only thing I could think of that was good enough were [Diamonds]. Not the plain ones, of course. Those wouldn’t do at all. What I needed were enchanted gems.

Clearing my living room of its furniture, I placed the [Nine Dragon Jade Cauldron] in the middle of the now empty space and put [Spell Stones] in the cauldron’s inventory to power the [Automatic Alchemy] function before loading it up with as many [Diamonds] as it could hold.

I went to bed with the cauldron quietly humming away in my living room, and when I woke up, I put three perfect [Diamonds +9 Air] in a fancy jewelry box. The [Nine Dragon Jade Cauldron] had produced more than three, but I thought it would be ridiculously over-the-top to gift all of them.

The day was a repeat of yesterday, except for the fact that Prince Baiyu and I had to say our goodbyes at midnight. I walked him over to the gate, and Prince Baiyu put his arm around my waist and kissed the top of my head. “I’ll miss you so much.”

“I’ll miss you more,” I said.

“No, I’ll miss you more.”

We continued in the same vein for a while, until the prince’s royal guard coughed, and I knew he had to leave. Reluctantly, we broke apart, and I handed him the jewelry box.

“Here, a gift for your parents,” I said.

“May I open it?” he asked.

“Sure, go ahead.”

The [Diamonds +9 Air] in their red velvet-lined box sparkled brilliantly under the soft light of the moon. Prince Baiyu gave me a quizzical look. “Gems?”

“Diamonds. Sorry, I can’t sew or embroider very well.” Fengying had told me that the traditional gift for the groom’s family was embroidered shoes and a bronze mirror, symbolizing togetherness and harmony. I could have had the staff buy them from Anwei, but I thought that something I crafted was more meaningful.

“No, no, I wasn’t complaining. I meant… where are these from?” Prince Baiyu picked up a jewel and held it up to the light of the nearest wall light.

When the royal guard moved closer to get a look at it, too, Prince Baiyu gave him a forbidding look and put the gem back in the box, which then disappeared into the prince’s interspatial storage.

“I used my Alchemy skills from my bloodline inheritance to enhance those gems,” I said.

This would’ve been an amazing thing back on Earth, but here Alchemy wasn’t too uncommon at all.

“Thank you, I’m sure my parents will love them.”

He took my hands in his one last time and kissed me before flying away, leaving me forlorn.

Maybe I should’ve taken him up on his offer of a wedding next week.

Chapter 179.5 - The Diamond Monopoly

An excerpt from the journal of Shuye Skullcrusher, Guardian of the Ancient Hill Forest:

When Prince Baiyu knocked on my door an hour past midnight, full of apologies for disturbing my infant daughter’s rest by visiting at such a late hour, and holding a wooden box that radiated an overwhelming qi, I knew immediately that Violet had done something outrageous again.

I’m no alchemist or gemologist, but even I could tell that the so-called “diamonds” Violet had enhanced were not regular enchanted gems. My wife suggested they could be the Sacred Enlightenment Spirit Crystals from the legend of the Millennium Queen, the ones that had been created to capture the light of the First Star.

Prince Baiyu showed us how the qi from his heirloom treasure sword paled in comparison to the gems. According to him, the gemstone’s qi aura was stronger than that of the fabled Celestial Tempest Sword, which was the crown jewel of the Westerlands’ ruling family’s Eight Sacred Treasures.

Thankfully, most clan members weren’t strong enough to wield power of this magnitude, but still… everyone would want one.

He had come in the middle of the night to warn us to strengthen the guard around the Ancient Hill Forest in preparation for the hordes of requests and visitors that would undoubtedly arrive once word spread about the crystals.

I was both overjoyed and worried.

On the one hand, if Violet could make enchanted gems of this caliber, then the demon egg might truly be no threat to us. On the other hand, knowing how greedy people were, clearly this would create great unrest.

Prince Baiyu relieved me of my other duties in the meantime, saying that he would send a seasoned warrior to oversee my villages’ defenses and training, and wished me luck in dealing with the aftermath of Violet’s revelation that she was the best alchemist since the Dawn Age.

At least I got another raise.

***

Three days after Prince Baiyu visited me, the Lady of West and her consort appeared in public wearing diamond crowns that shimmered with an otherworldly brilliance and staggeringly powerful qi aura.

The Lady declared that there would be a lottery every month that every clan member who didn’t have a gem yet could join.

Theoretically, this should have made it unnecessary for people to bother me about it, but clan members, especially the older ones, were famous for being stubborn.

Delegations from the Guild of Artificers, Smiths' Guild, Enchanters' Guild, Jewelers' Guild, and Alchemists' Guild came to confirm that I wasn’t selling more gems outside of the auction and to complain that they were being forced into the poorhouse by the release of the new gems.

I calmed them down as best as I could by promising that there was a limited supply of gems and that business would surely pick up once the auctions started. They would probably have even more customers than before since Violet was only selling loose gems that would need to be set into weapons, armor, or accessories.

Thanks to Prince Baiyu’s early warning, I was prepared, and, with the help of quite a number of royal guards, my people were able to turn away most of the gawkers and ordinary petitioners. The more high-ranking nobles, who were convinced they were too important to wait for the auction, needed a more delicate touch, so I was kept busy placating them.

I should’ve asked for a bigger raise.

Chapter 180 - Year 2 Autumn Planting Season

Chapter 180 - Blooming Marvelous

🙞❤︎🙜

“Let’s do this!” I pumped a fist in the air to hype up the last day of the harvest season, and the maids cheered and clapped politely.

“Exp!” yelled Kharli.

“Exp day!” echoed Mo more softly.

“Level up day for me!” Lari pumped a fist, too.

It was a lovely morning with a fresh breeze from the forest that was noticeably cooler than the day before, reminding us that autumn was right around the corner.

There were only a few rice plants left, therefore, despite Lari’s confident words, he didn’t level up.

“Don’t be disappointed. You’ll level up soon,” I said to Lari.

Since we still had some energy left, we plowed a field for tomorrow, the start of the two-week planting season.

“Okay, time to rest and recover our energy,” I said.

We put away our farming tools. Yinuo and the other maids handed us soft, fluffy towels to wipe our sweat off, and we were about to walk back to the main house when I finally got the System pop-up that I had been waiting for.

[Quest Available: Create an Insectary Garden]

I quickly clicked on the [Accept] button and raised a hand to stop the others from walking off.

[Create an Insectary Garden:

Using the Insectary Seed Mix, plant an insect-friendly sanctuary to encourage beneficial bugs that will help control pest populations.

Reward: Farming Exp]

Yes! More exp for me! This quest was only available during the player’s second year when the farm had expanded enough that there was plenty of space for the garden.

“Guys, wait up! We have a new quest.” I read the System text out loud for them, including the description of the [Insectary Garden].

[Insectary Garden:

A special garden that attracts pollinators and beneficial predator bugs that eat aphids, thrips, white flies, and other pests. Tough native plants that have flowers bloom for a long time and are full of readily available nectar are the foundation of this valuable part of the farm that boosts yields and improves the quality of crops. Using the Insectary Seed Mix will ensure that flowers will be in bloom all year round.

More than one Insectary Garden can be planted on the farm.]

“We can’t plant it now since it’s not the planting season yet, so let’s go have breakfast while we think of where to put it.” I gestured for everyone to start walking.

Fengying met us at the gate of the main house where she was supervising the tea and rice handover. The clan members in charge of the crop loaded the sacks of rice and tea into their ox carts, merrily congratulating us on another good harvest, and noting that many clan farmers had successfully used the rice we sold them in the spring to grow their own spirit rice crop. We added the sacks in our inventory to the pile and went on our way.

After a scrumptious meal of fried eggs, honey ham, spiced sausages, grilled tomato, sauteed mushrooms, baked sweet potatoes, salad, and steaming hot buns fresh from the oven, we settled down into the workroom with a map of the farm and a plate of fruit slices.

Kharli frowned as she held the map up. “How about the exact middle of the farm?”

“I think we should put it beside the [Vineheart Fairy House]. The fairies will love it!” said Mo.

“Great idea! Who knows, they might be so pleased they give us more blessings.” Lari rubbed his hands together and grinned at the prospect of even more bonus exp.

Kharli put the map down and the three of them bent their heads over it while pondering the perfect location for the garden.

I handed over the [Insectary Seed Mix] and two more seed packets. “We will primarily use this, but we can also plant other flower seeds. How about adding [Sunflowers] and [Fairy Rose]?”

“I love [Fairy Rose]!” said Mo.

Lari rolled his eyes. “You’ve never even seen one.”

“Hey, are you saying we shouldn’t use it even though it’s called [Fairy Rose]?” asked Kharli.

“I wasn’t saying that,” said Lari.

I let the kids bicker for a few more minutes while I opened another [Insectary Seed Mix] to reveal a dozen packets inside. “Guys, check these out and sketch a garden plan.”

Unlike the mystery seeds for the [Herb Garden], these were all properly labeled with the names of the plants. Smiling, I pushed the [Goldenrod] packet to Lari.

“Teacher, are you giving me this because I like gold?” asked Lari.

“Are you saying you don’t like gold anymore?” I asked in turn.

“No, I love it!” he said.

We all had a good laugh.

[Goldenrod:

A flowering plant that, with its bright yellow blossoms, is a magnet for pollinators. Blooming in late summer to early fall, its large clusters of tiny flowers provide a good source of nectar for bees, butterflies, and other beneficial insects.

Perennial. Self-Seeding.]

“If you click on the words ‘perennial’ and ‘self-seeding’, you’ll get the System definition of it,” I said. “The garden won’t be too much trouble since ‘perennial’ means the plants will live for several years and they drop seeds that can grow on their own.”

My apprentices were silent for a few minutes as they read all the descriptions and definitions.

Kharli held up a red packet of seeds. “That [Goldenrod] seems nice, but this is the real prize.”

She read the System information out loud for us.

[Treasure Lily:

A stunning plant whose inflorescence is made of hundreds of tiny pink flowers with exposed nectar-producing glands that attract many beneficial insects. According to legend, the Treasure Lily was a gift from a benevolent forest spirit, who blessed it with the power to attract wealth and good fortune.

Perennial. Self-Seeding.]

“That’s nice, very nice.” I held up a seed packet for them to see. “But I think this could be my favorite. Check out this [Sugarbell].”

[Sugarbell:

A plant whose orange bell-shaped flowers emit a sweet, candy-like fragrance. The bees that feast on its nectar will produce honey with a rich, caramel-like floral flavor.

Perennial. Self-Seeding.]

“Wow, I can hardly wait.” Kharli took three large notebooks from the workroom shelves and said, “Let’s plan the garden.”

My apprentices' long exposure to my use of Earth slang had rubbed off on them, and they now used "wow" and "okay" a lot.

With my help, they drew a plan for a tiny garden with winding paths and an apple tree in the middle that would be great for picnics. We also went over the diagram for tomorrow’s work that we had previously made.

“Teacher, can we go out and pick a good place for the garden?” asked Kharli.

“One near the fairies,” added Mo.

“Sure, go ahead. I’ll see you at lunch.” I wasn’t going with them since I had my own plans.

Back at my [Ranch House], I withdrew the finished [Diamonds] from the [Nine Dragon Jade Cauldron]. Now that Shuye had asked me to make more enchanted gems for the clans, the cauldron was running on [Automatic Alchemy] mode night and day, half the time with [Firebird Feathers] and the other half with [Diamonds].

Of course, I knew that the clans would like more enchanted gems, but I hadn’t expected them to order one max enchanted [Diamond] for each noble family. I mean, I could do it, and I did want to help equip everyone for the demon extermination event. However, it hurt my player’s sense of efficiency when Shuye said they only wanted the best gems for now.

Just like how Adventure Incarnate had level requirements for equipment, in this world the most advanced items also needed a high level of skill and cultivation to use, which is why I offered to sell the lower-level gems first to help out the ones who needed it most. Not everyone was an elite warrior, after all!

This idea was decisively rejected by both Shuye and Prince Baiyu since they both claimed that nobles would be too embarrassed to be seen at the auction buying the inferior [Diamonds]. It would also be helpful to the Lady of the Westerlands because she needed the nobles’ support in the demon war. The auction of "legendary class items" would keep them happy, not to mention distracted by a sparkly new thing that they could show off.

Thankfully, this state of affairs was only temporary. Prince Baiyu expected that once the aristocratic clan members had a max-leveled gem to keep in their family vault as a treasure, they would be more open to buying the lesser ones for everyday use, and the other clan members would follow their lead.

Well, if they wanted to empty their wallets and give me lots of money to buy my [Diamonds] as collectibles, who was I to protest?

***

The next day, I unexpectedly received another quest.

Had it been triggered by my doing so much Alchemy?

[Quest Available: Grove of the Harvest Goddess]

Chapter 181 - The Gangs of Anwei

Chapter 181 - Sprout-standing Performance at Planting Season

🙞❤︎🙜

I hastily accepted the quest but put it out of my mind for now since I wanted to focus on the all-important planting season. The grove could wait.

We finished plowing a small field and fertilized it with [Mysterious Goo].

“Vegetables are fun,” said Kharli. “I know rice and tea are important, but I prefer growing vegetables.”

“Rice is great but boring,” said Lari.

Mo and Kharli unrolled the scroll we had made that had the companion planting diagram on it.

“The [Cucumbers] and [Nasturtiums] are mine!” said Kharli.

The System said that [Nasturtiums] should repel cucumber beetles, which would obviously be good for the [Cucumbers] if they were planted close to each other.

I nodded. “Do it.”

Meanwhile, I got started planting the [Corn], [Beans], and [Squash] together in a mound in the Three Sisters method. Lari took care of the [Carrots] and [Onions] that each repelled pests that bothered the other plant, while Kharli planted [Eggplant] and [Marigold] together. According to the System, [Marigolds] help surrounding plants by releasing allelopathic chemicals that inhibit weed growth and attract pollinators. This sounded plausible, but also perilously close to gobbledygook to me. I longed to access the internet to check the facts, but, alas, this world was probably one thousand years behind Earth’s technology. I guess one could simply think of it as “spirit plants doing magic things.”

I got into position and smiled as seeds shot out of my hand-held seeder and buried themselves two inches into the ground. This part looked easy, but it consumed a lot of energy, so I kept a close eye on my energy bar. When it was four-fifths empty, I watered the seeds.

“That was almost too much,” I said to Yinuo.

“Do you feel dizzy? Lean on me, my lady.”

“I’m gonna sit down.” Taking out a folding chair from my inventory, I almost collapsed into it. “I regret doing too much today.”

Though I didn’t think I was going to faint, I decided that this was an emergency and drank a bottle of [Kola Kola Soda] despite the fact that the kids and I had collectively decided we needed to wean ourselves off it.

After resting for a time, I went to the main house to soak in the [Hot Spring] which gave me enough energy that I felt a lot livelier. Since the kids were a little worried about me, I invited them to spend the day with me in my [Ranch House] where we tested the different styles of [Zero Gravity Chairs] and chatted.

[Zero Gravity Chair:

Designed to evenly distribute weight and reduce pressure points, this chair offers a supportive and relaxing place to unwind.]

“I feel weird since it’s so tilted.” Mo frowned and wiggled her bare toes. The default position put her feet up so that they were above her head.

I wiggled my toes, too. “Press the buttons on the sides to adjust the chair's recline. I kinda like it though!”

We tried out the buttons and eventually settled on more normal positions. Yinuo arrived with lunch, and we ate out on the patio. The weather was cooler today and there was a refreshing breeze. As we were enjoying the meal, Fengying came by with a letter from Scholar Wu.

The kid’s tutor wrote that I could tell the others the news, so I read bits of the letter out loud. “Guys, listen to this. ‘The demonic qi from the egg has been dispersing into the atmosphere at a steady rate, and they expect it to be at a level that the egg can be approached by summer next year.’ Wow, I was right!”

Kharli frowned. “Is that good news?”

“The egg isn’t increasing its qi. That has to be good news?” Lari frowned into his soup.

“Yes, I think it's good. I mean, as good as one can expect.” I shrugged and continued spooning the fish congee made with the [Miracle Pearl Rice] and [Carp] we harvested into my mouth. “And also she writes that we should continue making the [Bronze Arrows +E].”

“I’m close to leveling up and making [Iron Arrowheads],” said Lari.

“Then we can make [Iron Arrows] that Teacher can make into explosive arrows,” said Kharli.

“Are they really going to pay less for them?” asked Mo.

“Yeah, because all the weapon makers are manufacturing and selling them in bulk now and the clans expect a discount.” I shrugged. “It’s just a small decrease. Don’t worry about it.”

The plan was for us to focus on farming since we were the only spirit farmers in the whole Westerlands while there were plenty of crafters who could make weapons, armor, and supplies, but, of course, the kids could craft [Bronze Arrows] during their spare time.

Fengying and the others left, and my apprentices asked to see how I made the [Diamonds]. I let them come inside with me to the living room and showed them how I used the cauldron to make the enchanted gems.

“It’s so magical!” Mo’s eyes were opened wide.

“May I?” Lari leaned forward, his forehead wrinkled in curiosity and his hand hovering over a [Diamond] that I had placed on the table in front of us.

Kharli was silently circling the [Nine Dragon Jade Cauldron] and running her fingers along its blue-green surface carved with majestic dragons.

“Sure.”

I handed Kharli a few [Diamonds] which she showed to the others. They oohed and aahed over the sparkly gems, claiming they could sense how mystical they were.

“Remember, you guys can’t use this. Fengying said it’s way too dangerous to wear something so valuable,” I said.

“I wouldn’t dream of it,” said Lari. “People have been killed over less in Anwei, I’m sure. They say criminal gangs use a strong acid to dissolve bodies.”

Kharli and Mo shuddered.

“The Bone Melting Powder? Do you think that’s true?” asked Kharli.

“Do you remember the silversmith who went missing? His body was never found!” said Mo.

“I thought they said he was a drunk who ran away because he went bankrupt and owed people a lot of money,” said Kharli.

Mo and Lari exchanged a conspiratorial look.

“You don’t know the story? A few days after he went missing, the city guards found a suspicious spot in an alley…” Lari lowered his voice. “It smelled like strong acid and there were… residues of human bones and flesh.”

I stopped listening because, to my surprise, I got a quest.

[Quest Available: The Gangs of Anwei]

Reading the quest text made my stomach drop.

[The Gangs of Anwei:

Join the Black Arm Gang to learn the secret recipe for Bone Melting Powder.

Reward: Herblaw Exp and a Thieving Book]

That’s a no from me!

I quickly clicked on the [Reject] button, shivering at the thought of actually meeting up with criminals in real life, especially the ones who like to dissolve people’s bodies with Bone Melting Powder.

Adventure Incarnate added this quest as a way of introducing the upcoming Thieving skill, which was supposed to allow players to pickpocket NPCs, break into bank vaults, loot treasure chests, and so forth. However, after a few months, the skill was canceled because the beta test server showed that there were a lot of bugs, including a game-breaking item duplication exploit. The [Thieving Book] became rare and valuable for a time until the developers introduced a new NPC that sold it for a mere one gold coin.

My mind raced as I tried to remember everything I knew about the Black Arm Gang.

Lari, Kharli, and Mo, seeing that I was preoccupied, left after lunch, and I quickly wrote down the information I recalled. The [Thieving Book’s] popularity made the NPC seller’s location quite memorable, so that particular detail should prove useful. I wrote a letter to Prince Baiyu to let him know that I had some new, perhaps important, insight from my bloodline inheritance.

Three days later, I got a message from the prince saying that the Anwei guards would look into it.

Three days after that, Shuye sent word that the gang’s headquarters had been discovered and over fifty gang members had been arrested.

Despite my refusal of the System quest, I found myself rewarded for my efforts with a special prize. Just as I had requested, I got the item I wanted from the Black Arm Gang raid.

Chapter 182 - Thieving Quest

Chapter 182 - It's a pun-demolition now that I've exhausted my pun supply.

🙞❤︎🙜

...Wait a minute! Isn't it strange that some random ex-gang member was selling this thing to every player in Adventure Incarnate? Well, I guess in this world he only had this one copy, which makes a lot more sense.

Unwrapping the cloth-covered package, I grinned when I saw a mysterious leather-bound book with a combination lock on it. This was the book that was sold by the NPC in Anwei, and, fortunately, I remembered the secret code. I rubbed my hands together and chortled as I turned the dials on the lock to read 31415, which was the first five digits of pi. Once unlocked, the mysterious book turned into a [Thieving Book].

[Thieving Book:

A book from the Black Arm Gang’s hideout that contains the locations of their hidden treasure caches and vaults, with instructions on how to unlock them, and a collection of their recipes.]

“Yes!” I picked Cutie and Mr. Bear up and twirled them both around. “I hit the jackpot!”

The “treasures” were gold coins and gems which I didn’t want to bother finding, so I copied the maps on a few pages of paper and gave them to Fengying to send to Shuye, who would pass them on to the Anwei guards. The information about the treasure locations would be credited to an “anonymous informant” since I was keeping my involvement a secret.

The recipes in the book were much more interesting. In addition to the [Bone Melting Powder], which could be added to certain pills and potions to make them more dangerous, there were harmless cooking recipes for [Jellied Eel], [Black Pudding], and [Stargazy Pie].

But the real treasure was the book’s leather binding. Using a sharp crafting knife, I cut into its spine to reveal a small piece of folded paper that had been inserted into the space between the cloth and leather book cover. Written on it was the recipe for the [Five Elements Pill].

There was a loud pinging sound and I got a notification saying that I had learned the recipe which now appeared as an item on my Alchemy menu.

[Five Elements Pill:

Crafted from potent herbs, it harmonizes with the wielder's aura to strengthen its elemental defenses against earth, fire, water, wood, and metal magical attacks.

Duration: 15 minutes]

Acquiring the pill recipe unlocked the item in my inventory.

I picked my puppet up and hugged him in excitement. “Mr. Bear, isn’t this great? This will be very useful!”

Not wanting to waste more time to test it, I immediately sat down at my work table and piled up the ingredients and empty vials. This particular recipe didn’t need a cauldron.

When I mentally selected the System menu item, my hands were guided by the System to move in front of my shoulders, and the water from the vial rose just above them. One by one, the [Jadeheart Vine Leaf], [Earthstone Root], [Silvershield Fern], and [Moonshadow Algae] floated into the water and disintegrated. After the four herbs had mixed together into a thick liquid, the [Blazing Fireblossom] gracefully glided into the liquid. The flower merged with the herbal concoction and a flame appeared that dried it out until I was left with eight small pills. The pills, each one irregularly shaped and no bigger than a grain of rice, then neatly flew into the vial.

“Herblaw is the greatest!” I lifted the vial to my nose to sniff it, but the strong medicinal fragrance made me sneeze.

I made a few dozen more and then went to the main house to add a few pills to the letter I had asked Fengying to send.

***

The next few days passed in a whirlwind of plowing, fertilizing, sowing, and watering fields.

On the last day of the planting season, I looked over the vegetable, rice, and tea fields with satisfaction.

Dawn’s first light was shining on the farm, making the dew on the leaves of the trees and plants sparkle prettily. The air was cool and crisp, carrying the scent of damp earth and the faint aroma of wildflowers from the forest and woodsmoke from the kitchen fires. The bees were busily buzzing around, and I could hear the distant melody of a songbird. The air was crisp and cool, invigorating yet comforting, as I met with my apprentices at the chosen location.

“Good morning, Teacher!” they chorused as I walked over to them with Cutie and Mr. Bear in tow. This time, the sun’s rays were gentle, so there was no need for an umbrella. Our working clothes were back to the regular long-sleeved ones since it was cooler now.

“Good morning! Did you remember to bring the garden plan?” I asked them.

“Yes, Teacher.” Kharli took out the plan from her inventory.

Using small wooden sticks and string, we delineated the boundaries of the garden beds and paths before plowing the appropriate spaces and adding the [Mysterious Goo] as fertilizer. The first thing we did was to plant the [Apple Tree] in the middle. Then we planted the seeds in the manner that we had worked out earlier, arranging the plants in such a way that each side of the paths would always have a few flowers in bloom every season.

[Create an Insectary Garden: Quest Complete

Reward: Farming Exp]

[Congratulations, you just advanced a Farming level!]

[Your Farming level is now 27.]

The exp was just enough to push me over the edge to level 27, a welcome development indeed!

The others congratulated me, and, since we still had a bit of energy left, we planted a few more [Fairy Rose] plants near the [Vineheart Fairy House].

“That’s it for the planting season then,” I said. “How are your levels?”

We read our stats out loud and Kharli volunteered to write them down in our farm diary. I had leveled up my Farming once during the summer harvest and once today after getting the quest reward.

[Player Name: Violet

Farming Skills:

Farming Level 25→27, Fishing Level 12, Woodcutting Level 22→23, Cooking Level 6→7, Herblaw Level 23, Foraging Level 7, Hunting Level 7, Mining Level 4]

We’d spent most of the summer indoors doing crafting or studying books, so there wasn’t much change in our Foraging, Hunting, and Fishing, something we planned to rectify this autumn season as soon as the forest’s qi became more stable.

My apprentices had leveled up Farming and Woodcutting, too.

[Apprentice Name: Kharli
Farming Skills:
Farming Level 19→21, Fishing Level 6, Woodcutting Level 16→17, Cooking Level 2, Herblaw Level 1, Foraging Level 7, Hunting Level 5]

[Apprentice Name: Lari
Farming Skills:
Farming Level 19→21, Fishing Level 10, Woodcutting Level 16→17, Cooking Level 1, Herblaw Level 1, Foraging Level 4, Hunting Level 9]

[Apprentice Name: Mo
Farming Skills:
Farming Level 19→21, Fishing Level 4, Woodcutting Level 17→18, Cooking Level 2, Herblaw Level 1, Foraging Level 11, Hunting Level 4]

“Wonderful, we all got levels!” I gave the kids two thumbs up. “Let’s go to the house and you kids can get your allowance from Fengying.”

“Teacher, why don’t you go shopping with us tomorrow?” Mo turned around to face me and started walking backward.

“Nah, I need my rest.”

I covered my mouth to hide my smile when Lari snuck up behind Mo to try to trip her, but Mo knew he was trying to do something and nimbly hopped sideways and continued walking backward.

“But, Teacher, you always want to hear about the latest gossip. You should come with us and chat with all the ladies at the shops,” said Kharli.

“And Teacher could try the new chicken noodle bowl at the Golden Pagoda Restaurant,” said Lari, who had given up trying to trip Mo and was now competing with her to see which one of them could walk backward faster.

Kharli rolled her eyes at them and asked me if I wanted them to buy anything for me. I suggested that they buy some nice snacks and sweets for the whole staff, and gave her a small gold coin to spend.

“Guys, slow down! You don’t want to fall and hurt yourself today. I know the chef has something spectacular planned for tonight’s summer harvest feast,” I said to Lari and Mo.

Lari stopped walking backwards at once and Mo followed suit.

“Let’s relax now. I’ll go back to my house and I’ll see you guys at dinner,” I said.

We parted ways, and when we met at dinner, we were all eagerly anticipating the lavish banquet food that the kitchen staff had been preparing for us in the last three days.

First up were three appetizers. I started with the Caramelized Onion and Apple Bites. The crisp bread slice provided a satisfying crunch as I bit into the sweet and savory topping. The onions, deeply caramelized, offered a rich sweetness that went well with the tartness of the apple slices and the drizzle of balsamic glaze added the perfect tang to it. Then I ate the Stuffed Mushrooms, made from a species of button mushrooms that had white caps striped with blue. They had been stuffed full of a heavenly mixture of butter, breadcrumbs, cheese, parsley, and thyme. The Apple and Walnut Salad was refreshingly crunchy and bright-tasting though Lari and Kharli, two voracious meat-eaters, turned up their noses at it and only ate a few of the mushrooms.

The next dish served was a Pepper Spice Soup made of chicken, onions, pepper, curry, ginger, and over a dozen other vegetables and spices.

I lifted the spoon to my lips, inhaling the aromatic steam before tasting it. The tender chicken melted in my mouth, while the curry and ginger provided a warm, spicy undercurrent. Each spoonful unveiled new layers of taste: the sweetness of the onions, the tanginess of the tomato, the creaminess of the coconut milk, and the spiciness of the curry.

Next on the menu were the two main dishes. The first was Roast Beef with Vegetables. The second was Poached Carp Stuffed with Herbs and Smelt.

I cut through the tender carp with my fork, revealing a fragrant interior stuffed with lemon, thyme, oregano, and parsley along with dried smelt, a small silvery fish. The delicate fish melted on my tongue, its mild flavor complemented by the aromatic herbs and the salty smelt stuffing. The flavor combination was strange and novel. Perhaps it was an acquired taste?

I preferred the Roast Beef which was both familiar and more hearty. Slices of roast beef were artfully arranged on a platter with a medley of vegetables: roasted carrots, green beans, and potatoes. Brussels sprouts added a charred, nutty flavor, while mashed parsnips provided a creamy texture. Each bite of the tender beef, combined with the varied textures and flavors of the vegetables, created a satisfying meal.

By this time, I was almost full, but I did save some space in my stomach for the dessert, an amazing Eight-layer Trifle. It came in a large crystal bowl with whipped cream on top sprinkled with chocolate dust. The layers of sponge biscuits, sweet custard, fresh fruit slices, and sweet cheese looked very pretty.

A smiling Yinuo scooped up a good portion for me and I dove right into it with my dessert spoon. It was a simple sweet treat that hit all the right spots with its sweetness, freshness, and balance of different textures. The peach slices that had been soaked in wine were particularly good.

We all had second servings of the dessert.

***

Before I went to bed, I reread the quest text. I had put off thinking about it until after the planting season, which meant that I should deal with it now.

[Grove of the Harvest Goddess:

Acquire a Miracle Flower from the Dawn Skyblade Sect.
Find and restore the Sacred Grove of the Harvest Goddess.
Requirements: 2 Jades, 2 Pearls, and 2 Peridots.

Reward: Alchemy Cauldron, Farming Exp]

Chapter 182.5 - The Chronicles of Emberstone Farm

An excerpt from the journal of Shuye Skullcrusher, Guardian of the Ancient Hill Forest:

Wasn’t it enough that Baroness Violet gave Prince Baiyu a set of “diamonds” more valuable than the ruling family’s greatest treasures?

My staff were all alarmed when I received a package from Emberstone Farm that radiated an intense qi. Violet wrote in the accompanying message that she wanted to sell more of the pills which should be useful in the upcoming demon extermination.

I sent my staff away and opened the package to reveal a vial of luminous pills that were irregularly round like baroque pearls and shimmering with a kaleidoscope of colors—red, blue, yellow, black, and white. Their surfaces swirled with intricate patterns, each hue blending into the next.

Clearly, these pills were another rare treasure.

I went to see the Dawn Skyblade Sect’s Venerable Immortal Sage who identified it as the Supreme Celestial Dragon Shield Aura Pill, a legendary pill second only in its protective properties to the Black Tortoise's Immortal Blessing Pill. He promised to keep the pills’ existence to himself for three days to allow me time to send a message to the Lady of the West.

How many times does Violet plan to upend the economy?

Chapter 183 - Slime Pet body modification

Chapter 183 - Does this quest seem like a reel phony?

🙞❤︎🙜

I awoke refreshed after dreaming about hiking in a mountain forest with a cute little dragon child. We had lots of fun, and he taught me how to use a leaf whistle to call down the birds from the sky.

My morning coffee always tasted better after one of my dragon dreams, and this morning was especially nice since the kitchen staff were experimenting with adding powdered mushrooms to the brew. It made coffee a little muddier in taste, but it added a certain zest to it that was hard to describe. I think it somehow enhanced the effects of the caffeine.

Outside the [Ranch House], tender green shoots were emerging from the freshly turned soil, unfurling tiny green leaves. The air was cool and sweet. According to Fengying, her husband had theorized that the weather had been extremely hot during the summer because the continent’s qi was affected by the descent of the demon egg, and now that the qi imbalance had abated, the weather had returned to normal.

My eyes wandered over the rows of sprouting seedlings, looking for any problem spots such as weeds or pests, but everything looked great. I waited a few minutes for the kids to arrive before we watered the plants. I took charge of the tea field, while the others divided the work of the rice and vegetable fields.

I made my way to the field, watering can in hand and Mr. Bear by my side. The morning dew still clung to the grass, dampening the sides of my simple cotton shoes and Mr. Bear’s feet as we walked.

The air filled with the earthy scent of wet soil as I carefully watered the tea seedlings. This quiet, simple daily ritual was very soothing, and as I worked, I found myself humming tunelessly. When I finished watering the last row, I stepped back and surveyed my work.

All done!

The plants glistened with droplets from the recent watering, each leaf reflecting the soft morning light. The soil, damp and rich, felt cool to the touch. I wiped my brow with a handkerchief and felt a quiet pride in the sight of the tidy rows of crops in the fields.

I put the watering can back in my System inventory and went off to visit Cutie, secure in the knowledge that Lari, Kharli, and Mo knew what to do and didn’t need me to watch over their shoulders.

Cutie was outside her house in the small plot of land I had designated as her playground. Cutie was using her slime tentacles to bounce here and there like a demented eight-legged spider-slime. Though it was rather uncute, I did appreciate that my pet was somehow leveling herself up in terms of body modification. Her control over her appendages was very fine, and I often saw her carefully plucking leaves and flower petals off the plants one by one.

“Cutie, let’s go walk around the farm!” I gathered her into my arms, and we set off with Mr. Bear trailing behind us.

Soon we would be able to leave the farm to Fish, Hunt, and Forage, but today Cutie and I simply strolled south. I put her down so we could both have some exercise, and I was amused to discover that Cutie could now move on two tentacle “legs” like a human. “Sweetie, are you copying me? Aw, who’s a clever girl?”

Soon enough, she got tired of walking like me and started bouncing around like normal. As we ventured south, the path wound around the fields we had cleared which were planted with the [Wild Seed Mix]. The edges of the fields were full of mature trees that we hadn’t chopped down in order to provide a windbreak and for the aesthetic value.

In this part of the farm, the fields were picture-perfect, full of wild green grasses and colorful wildflowers that swayed gracefully in the breeze. We walked under the shade of the trees, leaves crunching wetly underneath my boots and Cutie making a squishy-sounding “boing boing” sound until we reached the riverbank, where crystal-clear waters flowed gently over smooth stones. I sat down on a large rock and, taking out a fishing rod from the System tool belt, placed the bait on the steel hook then cast it towards the spot in the water that was sparkling.

[Easy Fishing Hack Activated]

This spot was the nearest and most convenient location for Fishing, but only beginner fish that were pretty cheap could be found here. However, now that it was the fall season of the second year, there was a common but seasonal item I wanted to catch.

[Whisperfin:

A small and agile fish with fins that emit a faint, soothing hum when they swim. Fishermen believe their presence brings calm to the waters.]

A System notification screen popped up after a few minutes, indicating that a fish had taken the bait.

[Hit!]

Normally, a little mini-game would appear right about now. It involved a fish icon bobbing up and down whose movements I had to match with the movements of my fishing rod, but with the [Easy Fishing Hack], all I had to do was steadily lift my rod above the water and the fish I had caught automatically appeared in my inventory.

Surrounded by the peaceful ambiance of rustling leaves and the occasional splash of a leaping fish, I spent a lovely morning Fishing along the tranquil riverbank.

***

I missed my boyfriend a lot in the next few days, but I was comforted by the return of Scholar Wu, who arrived with two flying ox carts full of gifts from Prince Baiyu and his parents.

One cart was full of demon kills that Deming and his assistants quickly took charge of. They dragged the animal carcasses away to process them by butchering and portioning them for cooking or later use. Most of the meat would be refrigerated or frozen while other parts would be salted, dried, smoked, cured, pickled, and so forth.

The second ox cart held various treasures and household items of symbolic significance, such as a tea set, signifying a wish for longevity and happiness, and kitchenware that signified abundance and prosperity, as well as being practical and beautiful.

The maids and my apprentices, like a flock of magpies drawn to shiny things, crowded over the chests of silk cloth, jade jewelry, and gold trinkets.

Yinuo pulled out a length of cloth from a box and showed it to us. “Look at this bolt of silk brocade! This shade of red is perfect for a bride.”

Lari held up a pair of gold bracelets set with pearls. “I bet these are worth more than a three-story house in Anwei.”

Kharli poked a set of earrings. “White jade…”

“Prince Baiyu’s name means white jade!” Mo elbowed Kharli who giggled and elbowed her back.

“It has a note saying that it’s from him. The prince is sending her a symbol of his love.” Kharli sighed.

I let them talk while Fengying and I checked the list of things sent, comparing it to the contents of the boxes, and making sure every item was undamaged by the journey. When we were done doing inventory, I sent Yinuo to store the items in my bedroom in the main house.

Scholar Wu, Fengying, and I discussed our schedule for the next few weeks.

The Wu family had assigned Scholar Wu some tasks that she needed to complete before winter, but she should have plenty of time to teach the kids. She also wanted to join us during our Foraging and Hunting trips.

Regarding the [Grove of the Harvest Goddess] quest, I needed Fengying’s help to organize it.

“Wonderful,” I said as I noted down the dates we agreed on. “Please buy what we’ll need in Anwei.”

“My lady, is this going to be the same as last time?” asked Fengying.

“Last time? What do you mean?” I tilted my head and gave her a quizzical look.

“When the household flew south to witness the descent of the demon.”

“Oh…” I looked away and laughed awkwardly. “No, no, this is just the restoration of a derelict temple. There’s nothing dangerous or weird about it, I promise.”

Ever the professional, Fengying simply nodded, her face expressionless.

Scholar Wu, on the other hand, raised an eyebrow so high it nearly disappeared into her hairline.

“It’s true!” I shook my head and gave Fengying a letter. “All I need is the [Miracle Flower] from the Dawn Skyblade Sect.”

“I’ve heard of that flower. They’re not too hard to grow,” said Scholar Wu. “The sect should have a few they can sell to you.”

She turned out to be right. Three days later, the Venerable Immortal Sage sent the flower, and I sent the payment, a few gold coins, via the White Tiger clan’s bank.

We were all set for another simple and fun adventure!

But first, I needed to use the [Curious Cloth Contraption] to make more gifts since Prince Baiyu’s family had sent me a lot of good things.

Chapter 184 - Wondrously Whimsical Workshop

Chapter 184 - Jest in time: Beware, don't clown around in there!

🙞❤︎🙜

My original plan had been to use the [Curious Cloth Contraption] that I could use to turn raw [Fiber], an item that randomly appeared when cutting grass, into [Cloth], but Fengying nixed the idea since the White Tiger clan derived most of its wealth from silk. I didn’t want to rock the boat.

Also, when I raised the question of giving presents in return, Scholar Wu told me not to give more since the [Diamonds] had been more than enough, and adding to it would just burden Prince Baiyu’s family.

However, when we were talking about it, I jokingly mentioned the [Wondrously Whimsical Workshop], and my apprentices begged me to let them see it.

How bored were they?!

I did as they asked and temporarily replaced a [Rice Mill] with the requested building. Everyone in my household recoiled when they saw the monstrosity I had unleashed.

[Wondrously Whimsical Workshop:

Come one, come all! Enter a mysterious world in which your unwanted items are turned into treasures!]

The workshop building looked like a circus funhouse and the front was designed to look like a clown’s face, with large, colorful swirling patterns for its eyes, a bulbous red nose, and an open mouth ringed with yellowish square teeth as the door.

Lifting the striped red and white cloth covering the entrance, I took a peek inside and then smirked at my apprentices, gesturing for them to go inside first.

Kharli was the first to enter.

“How cute!” Kharli exclaimed.

That triggered the crowd to all rush inside, and they saw a very normal-looking large square room with wooden walls. In the middle was an enormous wooden table with a glass dome on it that covered half a dozen colorful, elaborate contraptions with tons of small moving parts. I racked my brain for a long time before I remembered the correct term for them. They were Rube Goldberg devices.

The normality of the room decor was unexpected. Of course, in the game the player just clicked on the buildings and didn’t physically enter, so I thought the interior would also be circus-themed. Instead, the space inside was colorful but restrained and tasteful compared to the tawdry exterior.

When a player clicked on the building in the game, a circus-themed interface popped up where one could load items and choose from one to eight levers to pull up, down, or sideways. Pushing the [Start] button would then make the player’s items disappear and a new one take its place.

It was inevitable that people tried all sorts of lever combinations until it was proven that the outcome was random.

The [Wondrously Whimsical Workshop] was theoretically a recycling machine that turned trash items into sellable ones. For example, [Burnt Food] could be loaded into it and turned into one of the hundreds of items the workshop made. In reality, the building was so overused that when one tried to sell its products, either in the player auction house or to the NPC stores, one was rewarded with exactly zero coins.

In this world, it could only be used as a source of entertainment since I doubted people would actually want to buy stuff like [Bottle of Sand], [Bag of Seashells], [Paper Coin], [Grey Stone], [Ant Eaten Bread], [Empty Capsule], and so forth, though there were a few rare items that might be pretty enough to keep such as the plushies, key rings, and figurines.

“Okay, here’s how it works. Put some items from my bloodline inheritance here.” I went to the part of the table that had the leaf-and-flower-themed Rube Goldberg device and dropped [Burnt Strawberries] into the chute below it. “Kids, help the others by putting the junk inside. This building takes the junk and turns it into… you’ll see.”

I grinned at the others, not hiding my glee at what was to come.

“Now pull the lever any way you want.” Demonstrating that the levers beneath the table could move, I placed them in the Up, Up, Down, Down, Left, Right, Left, and Right positions. “When you’re satisfied, press this big red button.”

Everyone waited with bated breath.

A marble dropped into a tiny wooden bucket that fell on its side, triggering a spring. The spring's force rotated wooden gears, which turned a wheel. The wheel tugged on a string attached to a lever, which tipped over a cup of water. The water poured into a funnel, filling a small weight. As the weight grew heavier, it pulled down a pulley, releasing a ball. The ball rolled down a track, hitting a series of dominoes. The last domino nudged a tiny wooden car, which rolled forward and bumped into a lever. The lever swung upward and struck a bell, ringing it loudly.

A few of the others screamed and jumped back in shock when a clown doll popped out of a concealed opening beneath the table. The sound of hysterical laughter came from above, no doubt from hidden speakers.

Laughing merrily, I took the gift box the doll had in its hand. The clown popped back into its hidden compartment, and I said to Kharli, “Feeling lucky? This is the prize.”

I handed her the brightly wrapped box.

Unlike children from Earth, the people here valued paper, so they didn’t tear the wrapping. We all waited patiently as Kharli painstakingly removed the box’s paper covering that was printed with colorful clowns.

Kharli’s brow furrowed as she turned the item over and over in her hands. “It’s a… [Piece of String]?”

I burst out laughing. “Sorry, better luck next time. Half the time, the machine’s ‘prizes’ are junk items.”

Kharli pursed her lips, but Mo and Lari turned to me with sparkling eyes and expectant expressions.

“Here’s the stuff. Help the others and don’t quarrel, okay?” Putting down a dozen buckets of burnt food for the kids to use, I circled the table to check what was on offer. The device I had set off was painted with flowers and leaves, while the others had interesting dragon, rocket ship, octopus, pirate, dinosaur, robot, unicorn, and clown themes.

Grabbing a bucket, Lari put a piece of [Burnt Dough] in the chute below the dragon-themed device. “I’m next!”

What followed was a time of flashing lights, ringing bells, clown laughter, and the groans of disappointed players, punctuated by cheers from time to time when the prize turned out to be something good.

“I got a tiger toy!” The lucky Haoran held up the plushie for everyone to see.

“I want one! Why do I keep getting junk?!” lamented Yinuo.

Fengying let them play with the machines for the rest of the morning, until she made the staff leave to prepare lunch, promising that they could return after the meal to play some more until dinner. The kids and staff got so addicted that they returned to playing the junk game after the evening and after the kids left, the adults made a party of it, bringing chairs, tables, food, drink, and musical instruments to mockingly accompany the clown’s ever-present and annoying cackling. This was helped by the discovery that the machines could be operated by adding back the junk items it disgorged, which I think was a bug, but it was harmless, so I ignored it.

Deming got hooked on the game, obsessively playing the pirate-themed part of the table for hours at a time, his eyes red and glowing with gambling fever. Yinuo told me that Fengying had to drag him away from the table at dawn.

The same pattern of behavior continued for the rest of the week. I was supposed to put the [Rice Mill] back the next day, but it took six whole days for them to finally get bored of it.

An unexpected and unwelcome result of my unadvisedly letting people use the [Wondrously Whimsical Workshop] was the sudden proliferation of clown-themed items in the house.

Lari even suggested that we ask Muchen to paint a clown on our front door!

***

“My lady, are you sure there won’t be a demon there this time?” Scholar Wu peered worriedly at the map I was holding.

“I’m sure! It’s just a forest shrine I want to clean up.” I turned to the flying carriage’s driver and pointed at what I thought was the proper location on the map. “It should be somewhere around here. Please look for a landing place nearby.”

The temple was roughly twenty minutes away by flying carriage if my guess was correct.

“Yes, my lady. I’ll show it to the others.” The driver took the map and went off to consult the drivers of the flying ox carts that we would also be using.

Scholar Wu, Fengying, Deming, and half of the staff were coming with the kids and me to help with the temple restoration. The Commander of the Ancient Hill Forest’s Tiger Spirit Division was also coming with us, along with a few guards. We made quite a sizable party, and I used my inventory to bring along as much food, supplies, and cleaning tools as Fengying thought we would need.

“Let’s go!” My step was light as I walked to the carriage with Scholar Wu and my apprentices. “We’re gonna have to work hard today.”

“Are you sure there’s nothing dangerous there?” asked Scholar Wu again.

I entered the vehicle and settled down on the plush seats. “I really think it will just be a simple cleaning-up errand. The Harvest Goddess’ temple should be a nice and peaceful place.”

And so we set off on our next fun adventure.

Chapter 185 - Quest: Grove of the Harvest Goddess

Chapter 185 - Grove-y Times with the Harvest Goddess Quest

🙞❤︎🙜

With the Commander and her men flying ahead of us, we traveled to the site, a densely wooded area of the Ancient Hill Forest, without incident. We alighted from the flying carriage, and I walked a little away from it to check the map’s [Guide Mode]. Glowing yellow dots appeared on the ground, visible only to me.

Raising an arm to indicate the direction that the System showed me, I said, “It’s that way.”

We started walking, with the Commander and the guards taking point. Along the way, I managed to Forage some [Acorns], [Wild Raspberries], and some lovely [Autumn Berries], the red silver-dotted fruit of the [Autumn Olive] tree.

“I see it!” one of the guards yelled back at us. He was standing in the middle of an oak grove, in front of a large mound of brown leaves which he had brushed aside to reveal white marble.

“That must be it!” Waving at the helpful guard, I strode forward knowing that it was the right place because the line of yellow dots ended at the mound.

[Grove of the Harvest Goddess:

Acquire a Miracle Flower from the Dawn Skyblade Sect.
Find and restore the Sacred Grove of the Harvest Goddess.
Requirements: 2 Jades, 2 Pearls, and 2 Peridots.

Reward: Alchemy Cauldron, Farming Exp]

I already had the flower, so all I needed to do was to clean up the Goddess’ open-air temple and make it ready to receive offerings.

We cleared the wet leaves, rotting twigs, and other forest debris from the altar, which turned out to be a small pedestal made of white marble shot through with pink and gold strands of color. I quickly took out the tools and cleaning materials that Fengying had asked me to bring, along with dozens of buckets of water from my inventory. Further work with a rake around the base of the plinth uncovered a patch of ground that had been covered by a low wooden platform, whose boards were now too rotten to repair.

Fengying and the others discussed how they should restore the place while the kids and I explored the area looking for the Sacred Grove’s six pillars. Though I had done this quest in Adventure Incarnate a long time ago, I still remembered some details since it was a very scenic spot close to the farm.

Mo’s talent for Foraging came in handy as she found tons of mushrooms and [Acorns], but the real find was a rare [Harvest Bloom]. Though it had no practical purpose, it was delightful to look at and was a collectible.

[Harvest Bloom:

An exquisite little flower that grows only in the shade of the oldest sacred groves, and only when the moon is full. Its petals shimmer in hues of gold, amber, and deep crimson, the colors of ripened grains and autumn harvests.]

“Well done!” I took the proffered flower and inhaled its scent before giving it back to her. “This is a sacred flower. Let’s plant it in our [Insectary Garden] at home.”

“Teacher, may I Forage later when we’re done?” Mo looked around at what the others were doing. “If we finish early.”

“Sure, why not?” Seeing that Fengying and Deming were supervising the other staff’s cleaning-up efforts, I picked up the pace and stopped looking around for mushrooms, concentrating on finding the pillars instead. My efforts were rewarded shortly when I stumbled across a fallen pillar made of the same marble as the pedestal. “Step back, please.”

Scholar Wu, who had been silently observing us since we found the grove, raised a hand and said, “One moment, my lady.”

She bent down to brush leaves and dirt from the marble and examined it closely before allowing us to approach. “It appears to be an ordinary standing stone.”

“Okay.” I thought it was a pillar based on its graphics in the game, but it must be a standing stone in this world since that was what Scholar Wu called it. Using the System’s [Build] tool, I raised the stone and placed it upright. The others, who were quite used to me moving things around, barely reacted. “What a large standing stone!”

The stone was carved like a Greek or maybe Roman pillar. I didn’t know the difference between them, but it was pretty much like what I would have expected a pillar in the Parthenon to look like. It was around ten feet tall and too wide for me to circle with both arms. At around waist height was a small groove in which I tried to place the gems I had in my inventory. It rejected the [Peridot] and [Jade] but the [Pearl] slid in and locked into place.

I dusted off my hands with a clean handkerchief. “Okay, that’s one. We need to find the other five.”

Perhaps because we now knew what the standing stones looked like, finding the other ones was a piece of cake. In just under an hour, I was able to find all six, place them upright, and insert the gems without any problems.

Our job finished, we went back to the tree in the middle of the grove where the staff was cleaning the pedestal and sanctuary area where, according to Scholar Wu, worshippers would kneel down and offer gifts to the goddess.

“The wooden planks are too rotted to use,” Fengying reported. “We’re clearing the ground and placing a thick carpet on it. The altar and statue are being washed and polished. The work should be done in around one hour.”

I could see for myself that the staff were all busy. When I offered to help, Fengying waved me along and told me they had more than enough people working on it.

Shrugging, I turned to my apprentices and Scholar Wu. “Let’s go Foraging then.”

I waved to the Commander and her guards, who were standing watch over the grove, and told her what I wanted to do.

The Commander cut quite a gallant figure today in her black clothes and leather armor, with two swords slung on her left side. She had cut her long auburn hair short, and the new style suited her angular face very well, reminding me of a younger, more muscular Tilda Swinton.

“This part of the forest should be safe enough. I’ll go with you and leave the guards here,” she said.

We set off in the opposite direction from which we arrived. Leaves crunched underfoot, and the air was bracingly cool and fresh. Our voices were merry as we chatted while keeping a lookout for anything edible.

Autumn was a great season for Foraging and we managed to collect a few ripe [Blackberries] which we ate as we walked. A copse of [Persimmon Trees] provided us with plenty of Foraging exp. Like harvesting crops, Foraging could be done either manually or by using the System. Since we were rushed for time, we simply mentally clicked on the tree and Foraged that way, with the fruit automatically appearing in our inventories.

“There are so many [Persimmons]! Each tree must have at least a hundred!” Mo gazed up at a tree with adoring eyes. “I can’t wait until our orchards can be harvested.”

“We’ll level up fast.” Kharli nudged Mo’s shoulder with hers. “Come one, let’s continue or Lari will get all the exp.”

“No one is getting all the exp.” I smiled indulgently. “Two trees for each of us, no cheating!”

Lari gave the girls a reproachful look. “Hey, you don’t mean me, right? I never cheat! You’re just mad that I always win at Connect Four.”

The [Persimmon] harvest was the highlight of our walk. After that, we walked back to the grove and found that the staff had indeed finished their work. The marble pedestal was spotless and the statue of the goddess, which Scholar Wu told us was made of sardonyx, was glossy and looked brand new.

The statue of the Harvest Goddess was deceptively simple and plain, made of stone and without any additional accessories like gold or gems. The sardonyx’s natural banding of red, brown, and white lent it a sense of depth and texture to the figure, enhancing the details of her draped robes. The statue’s face was masterfully crafted in a minimalist way to suggest a slight smile and serene expression.

I knelt on the carpet set in front of the pedestal and dug a small hole in the ground in front of it. Then I watered the dirt and planted the [Miracle Flower] there.

[Grove of the Harvest Goddess: Quest Complete

Reward: Alchemy Cauldron, Farming Exp]

[Congratulations you just advanced a Farming level!]

[Your Farming level is now 28.]

A new [Dragon’s Pearl Cauldron of Unrivaled Mastery] appeared in an empty spot in my inventory. I was itching to examine it, but as I stood up, the six standing stones began to glow softly with a pink light which then slowly shot up, merging in the spot in the sky right above the Harvest Goddess’ statue.

The process was slow, and clearly not dangerous though the Commander and her men put their hands on their swords, adopting attitudes of alert readiness, their eyes scanning the surroundings for any unexpected threats.

In contrast, Scholar Wu made several exclamations of delight and wrote down a few notes on a clay tablet. The others, including my three apprentices, enjoyed the light show.

“We should offer something,” said Kharli.

Fengying, ever the thoughtful and efficient housekeeper, was way ahead of her. “My lady, we brought rice balls for everyone. Rice products are what people most often offer to agricultural deities.”

Leaning back on a tree for some rest, I nodded. “Thanks, I think that would be good to use.”

As the light from the pillars slowly intensified and then just as slowly died down, the others knelt in front of the pedestal and left rice balls on the ground in front of it. We waited a few minutes after the light disappeared, and then left when nothing else happened.

“Could you please tell Shuye what happened?” I said to the Commander as we walked back to the flying carriage.

“Certainly. I’ll send a report,” she said.

Turning my head to look behind me at Scholar Wu, I said, “You see? There’s no demon or anything bad here.”

Scholar Wu chuckled.

“And it was fun, wasn’t it?” I added.

“Yes, it was.”

Scholar Wu walked forward to my side, and the Commander made way for her.

“I think I’ll stay here. I’d like to monitor the qi levels at the grove,” said Scholar Wu.

I gave her an astonished look. “What? By yourself?”

She chuckled again. “I’d like the Commander to leave one of the guards here.”

We both looked at the Commander, who nodded her agreement.

Scholar Wu and the Commander went over the details, and when they were done, I asked them if there was anything strange about the qi levels in the grove.

“Not at all. The qi level is very normal. That’s why I want to monitor it,” said Scholar Wu.

“Huh? Well, suit yourself.” Shrugging, I browsed my inventory and pulled out some items that would help her camp out in the forest tonight. Most of my items had the [Bound] status and could only be used by me, but I did have a few things she could use, like spare clothes and a blanket. However, she refused since she said that her maid could bring her what she needed from her rooms at the farm. “Okay, take care of yourself.”

We parted ways, and when we got back to the farm, the ever-capable Fengying took charge of making sure that Scholar Wu’s maid had everything she needed. Thus, I was free to return to my [Ranch House] to check out my quest reward, the [Dragon’s Pearl Cauldron of Unrivaled Mastery].

“Oh my gosh!” I put a hand on my chest and sank down onto my couch after I checked the cauldron twice to make sure I wasn’t imagining things. “This is crazy!”

Chapter 186 - A breakthrough in alchemy

Chapter 186 - Elixir-ating Alchemy Progress

🙞❤︎🙜

At first, I thought my new cauldron was faster than the old one, but I was wrong. The [Dragon’s Pearl Cauldron of Unrivaled Mastery] upgraded items at the same speed as the [Nine Dragon Jade Cauldron], but it could handle three items at a time, effectively tripling the output of [Automatic Alchemy].

With the new cauldron, I also unlocked the compounding function, which was a way to combine two or more pills or potions into one, thereby making them stronger or last longer.

For example, five [Dewy Glow Potions] could be compounded to make one [Ageless Beauty Essence], with a corresponding difference in their text description, and, presumably, a stronger effect on the skin.

[Dewy Glow Potion:

This Dewy Glow potion is formulated with natural ingredients to help improve your skin’s appearance.

To use, simply apply a few drops of the potion to your face and body after cleansing. Gently massage it into your skin until it’s fully absorbed. You can use this potion morning and night for best results.]

While the original potion simply improved the skin, the upgraded one allegedly makes the skin look younger.

[Ageless Beauty Essence:

This potion is formulated with natural ingredients to restore your skin's youthful vitality.

To use, simply apply a few drops of the potion to your face and body after cleansing. Gently massage it into your skin until it’s fully absorbed. For best results, use this potion morning and night.]

However, combining five [Five Elements Pills] simply turned them into a [Supreme Five Elements Pill], with the only difference being the duration of the effect and a slight boost in its defensive capabilities. The basic pill lasted for fifteen minutes, while the compounded one was good for one hour.

[Supreme Five Elements Pill:

Crafted from potent herbs, it harmonizes with the wielder's aura to strengthen elemental defenses against earth, fire, water, wood, and metal magical attacks.

Duration: 60 minutes]

In the game, using this item resulted in a minimum of a 20% damage reduction and up to a maximum of 90%, depending on the player's and enemy's levels, which was 10% higher than the basic [Five Elements Pill].

...But I would really hate to get even 10% damaged in the real world!

Remembering my fight with the demon rats last year, I shuddered.

I definitely needed to take advantage of my prior knowledge of the fabled [Diamond Shield] and its power. My mind raced as I thought of a plan to get my hands on the shield. While I was thinking it over, I cleared more space in my living room and set down the cauldron in the center.

That night, I loaded the cauldron up with the maximum number of [Five Elements Pills] it could hold and turned it on. When I woke up, I had a few handfuls of [Supreme Five Elements Pills] which I sent off as a gift to Prince Baiyu. Then I Ioaded the [Dragon’s Pearl Cauldron of Unrivaled Mastery] with [Strength Potions] to make [Mega Strength Potions], and with [Antipoison Potions] to make [Fortified Antipoison]. Both were slightly more potent and doubled in duration, which was a little disappointing because using five potions should've logically resulted in a product that was five times as powerful. I also compounded [Dewy Glow Potions] and gave the resulting [Ageless Beauty Essence] to Fengying for testing.

***

Over the next few weeks, Scholar Wu visited the Grove of the Harvest Goddess every day to check the qi levels. For some reason, she seemed shocked that whenever she measured the qi in the grove, it was always normal.

The rice plants grew tall enough for us to flood the rice field and release fingerling [Rice Carp] and [Cleaner Shrimp] into the paddy’s water. Due to the increased qi levels on the farm, the tea plants grew fast and developed a strong fragrance that boded well for this season’s harvest. The vegetables seemed to be thriving, too.

As the leaves on the trees in the forest turned brown and red, we harvested some of the plants in the [Herb Garden].

“The prize is yours. Congratulations!” I crowned Lari with a circlet made of silk leaves and flowers. “You can tell Fengying what you want to eat for your winner’s banquet next week.”

“Thank you.” Lari cheekily bowed to me and the others.

Kharli and Mo clapped as Lari cleared his throat and started a winning speech in a mock-serious tone.

“Thank you, thank you.” Lari strutted about with his chest puffed out and his chin up. “I couldn’t have done this without the help of [Kola Kola Soda] and [Tea]. Thanks to the sun for shining down on me and the moon for lighting up my nights and the-”

Kharli cut his speech short. “Oh shut up and harvest the [Rosemary] already! We have homework to do!”

“And I’m going out to Forage today,” said Mo.

The qi levels in the forest had finally stabilized enough that the animals had stopped behaving weirdly. Lari, Kharli, Mo, and I, like wild animals just released from their cages, were absolutely raring to go outside the farm to Forage, Fish, and Hunt.

“Yes, let’s start,” I said.

Not all of the plants in the [Herb Garden] were ready for harvest yet. The [Ginseng] in particular, though it was an extremely valuable item, wouldn’t be ready for another year, maybe two. Most of the plants were perennials that could be harvested more than once, like the [Mint], [Thyme], and [Sage], but a few like the [Ginseng], [Sweetroot], and [Scarlet Yam] had to be dug up and replanted.

The work was easy and pleasant enough, with the autumn sun shining down on us and a cool breeze lifting the hair away from my face.

We finished plucking leaves, digging up roots, and cutting off stems laden with flowers, fruit, and seeds in less than an hour since the [Herb Garden] wasn’t that large.

Stretching my aching back by bending backward at the waist, I sighed and put down my basket full of herbs. “Let’s hand these over to Fengying, shall we? She’ll know what to do with them.”

I had the vague idea that the herbs needed to be dried or otherwise processed before storing them in our shared medicine cabinet.

“Yes, teacher, I’ll give these to her before leaving.” Mo grabbed all our baskets and ran off.

The girl was really in a rush!

“She’s so eager.” Shaking my head, I turned to Lari and Kharli. “Shall we have a snack before we leave?”

“I would like to go now, please.” Lari looked at the gate of the [Herb Garden] longingly and was off like a shot the moment I nodded my agreement.

Kharli waved goodbye to him before saying to me, “This has to be the first time Lari said no to food!”

“Well, I can’t blame him. Yichen and the other hunters must already be waiting for him at the meeting place.”

We walked to the rear of the garden where a small open-air dining area and lounge had been set up under the shade of a tall, decorative [Jade Rain Tree] I had bought from the Cash Shop. Kharli sat down on a wooden chair while I chose to sit on the sofa beside it.

“Tea or coffee?” I asked.

“Tea, please,” said Kharli.

I put the tea kettle and other tea things on the coffee table for her to brew her own beverage while I poured myself a cup of hot coffee from a thermos that I had filled this morning from my coffee machine.

“So Lari will go Hunting with the others and Mo will be Foraging with her maid, while you will go Fishing with Scholar Wu?” I raised a cup and took a sip.

Delicious.

“I’m the last she went with! I can’t believe Scholar Wu went Foraging with Mo and Hunting with Lari before me.”

Kharli pouted a bit but cheered up when I offered her a plate of honey cookies from my inventory.

I chuckled at her fake outrage. “Isn’t that because she already observed us Fishing in the river on the farm? Anyway, I heard you’ve been doing very well with your studies.”

“We all have. Mo’s really smart, too, and Lari would do much, much better if he wasn’t so lazy.” Kharli suddenly slapped her mouth shut with a hand and gave me a horrified look, shocked at her own words. “Teacher... Please forget I said that.”

I waved a hand dismissively. “Yes, yes, it’s forgotten.”

“I didn’t mean to say that.” She hastily stuffed her mouth with food to cover her embarrassment.

The kids, of course, joked a lot about each others’ shortcomings, but they would normally never speak ill of one another for real.

“Remember when you guys used to groan and complain about me hiring a tutor?” I smiled into my cup. “Now you all love your classes.”

“We thought it would be like the classes in the orphanage.”

“One-on-one personalized tutoring is much better.”

“Yes, now I know why nobles are always boasting about being learned. Academics are much easier for them than commoners!”

“Of course. Rich people have the best tutors. Here, try these oatmeal cookies.”

There wasn’t much serious talk after that. We spent a few more minutes finishing off the cookies before leaving on our separate errands.

“See you at dinner!” I said to Kharli.

“See you at dinner, Teacher!”

Now that the kids and Scholar Wu were gone, I had an important experiment to do at the Chitinous Caverns. I went to get Cutie and set off for the Mines.

“Time to use this thing!” I said to Mr. Bear as we stepped into the portal and arrived at our destination.

Activating my puppet’s [Guard Mode], I equipped my full set of [Aurite] melee armor which consisted of plate legs, plate body, helm, and gauntlets.

[Aurite] was a fictional alloy from Adventure Incarnate made of steel and enchanted gold. A few older items were called [Luminite], but they were essentially the same thing. The only difference was that in the game, the newer items had updated graphics while the old ones lacked detail. In this world, it was the same, the [Luminite Armor] had slightly worse stats and their design was bulky, unlike [Aurite] items which were sleek and had fancy gold engravings.

Sprinkling [Bone Melting Powder] on my [Aurite] sword using the System’s [Use] command should temporarily give it a [Poison] effect. I was unsure of the strength and duration of the [Poison], so I wanted to test it out on some mobs.

Chapter 187 - Combat Training using the [Bone Melting Powder]

Chapter 187 - Mine-blowing combat arc

🙞❤︎🙜

Though I really wanted to relax and have fun by leveling up my Foraging, Fishing, and Hunting like the kids were doing today, I needed to prepare myself for the World Boss Event by leveling up my combat stats.

[Violet

Level 42

HP: 4,200/4,200

MP: 35/35

Strength: 30/99

Attack: 33/99

Archery: 42/99

Magic: 11/99]

I was basically still newbie-level!

My Battle Rating, sometimes also called Battle Ranking, or BR for short, was abysmal. It was literally on the same level as an insect.

[Violet

Level 42

HP: 4,200/4,200

BR: 202]

Taking the elevator up to level 95, I quickly drank a [Strength Potion] and ran to the ladder, which was a safe zone.

[Insectoids:

A strange insect-like creature that seems to be made of blue crystal.]

This floor was full of [Insectoids] that had leveled up since last year when I had gotten lost here. I suspect that the cause was the coming of the Demon Monarch which has raised the qi level nearby.

[Insectoids:

Type: Melee
Element: None

BR: 296]

With Mr. Bear in [Attack Mode] beside me, I placed a [Potato Cannon] down in front of us and loaded it with explosive potatoes. The noise it made when I set it off made all the spiders come running to me.

While the cannon gave me Archery exp and Mr. Bear cast [Fireball] and gave me Magic exp, the combat screen showed me the Melee skills I could use, and I swung my blade with practiced ease though I wouldn’t call it mastery just yet.

[Sword Skills:

Thrust

Slash

Blade Flurry]

In time, I should be able to learn more advanced skills, but this was good enough for now. What I needed wasn’t more skills, but, rather, to master the basic skills and increase my speed and stamina.

[Slash:

Swing an energy-infused sword in a powerful arc, dealing damage to an enemy. This ability has a small chance to knock back or stun the target.

Cooldown: 5 seconds]

The System guided my movements and I tried to put my weight behind it as I planted my feet apart and swung my sword down on an [Insectoid] with as much force as I could. Though it looked like it was made of crystal, its body felt like flesh as my sword cut off one of its front legs.

Mr. Bear, seeing that this particular mob was my target, didn’t need a command for me to tell him to hit it with a [Fireball].

The ladder area was quite a good cheat since the shield around it blocked the monster’s attack.

[Mandible Smash:

The insectoid delivers a quick snap with its mandibles, dealing significant damage in a rapid attack.]

The monster struck, but it was bounced back by an invisible force field.

In the game, the player’s avatar wasn't shown going up or down ladders. Instead, when a player clicked on a ladder, they simply reappeared on the level below or above it, depending on whether they selected the up or down button.

In real life, the Chitinous Cavern used to be a mine before it was infested by aggressive monsters. The shield around the ladders must have been put there by the Mines’ original owners to protect the workers. I theorized that they had tried to clear the caverns, but had obviously failed. Nonetheless, they left behind these few safe, shielded areas that I was now taking advantage of.

Wasting no time, I lunged forward, piercing the monster with the tip of my sword.

[Thrust:

Lunge forward with the mana-infused sword, dealing damage to an enemy. This ability can break through enemy shields or armor, dealing a large amount of damage.

Cooldown: 5 seconds]

The [Insectoid’s] HP bar was half empty, and I finished it off with my strongest sword skill.

[Blade Flurry:

Slash the enemy with a flurry of quick and powerful strikes. This ability is often used as a finishing move, as it can deal a large amount of damage in a short period of time.

Cooldown: 30 seconds]

Slashing diagonally at the enemy, my blade flashed with blue light as it cut deeply into the [Insectoid’s] side. The second diagonal slash hit the other side, and the last stroke, a vertical slash, finished it off, almost bisecting it.

My heart was pounding from the adrenaline as another monster rushed towards me and I dealt with it the same way. The [Potato Cannon] continued to fire, killing off the weaker ones before they reached me, and giving me a good amount of Archery exp in the process. However, since Mr. Bear wasn’t that high-level, the Magic exp from his spells was negligible.

When I had fought these monsters before, they didn’t have any skills, but now some of them could use [Mandible Smash] and, shockingly, [Metamorphosis].

[Metamorphosis:

The monster transforms into a more powerful form temporarily, increasing its speed and strength.]

“What?! How come these trash mobs have a sick skill like that?” I said to Mr. Bear. “It’s so unfair when monsters have cooler skills than players!”

After killing a few more [Insectoids], I switched to a regular sword that didn’t have [Bone Melting Powder] on it.

“Ah! There’s no difference!” I complained out loud to no one in particular.

The mobs here were simply too low-level for me to really check the [Poison] effect since I killed them too fast. Therefore, the next time an [Insectoid] came up to me, I used the poisoned sword on it a few times without using a skill. The mob did get the [Poison] status after I hit it three times with my sword, but it bled out and died before the [Poison] had any real effect.

Since the [Bone Melting Powder] didn’t seem to be helping me, and I couldn’t test on stronger monsters because I wasn’t feeling suicidal, I decided to put it out of my mind. It was better to concentrate on training Melee.

Half an hour later, my arms were getting tired, so I took a break and drank some water while I rested on a folding chair. It was quite funny to see the [Insectoids’] futile efforts to attack me through the barrier.

“Let’s work hard,” I said to Mr. Bear when I felt ready to continue.

I killed monsters there until noon when I took another break to eat my lunch before continuing my training until I was too tired to continue. When it was time for me to leave, I took out [Staircases] from my inventory and set them down on the ground in front of me.

[Staircase:

A one-use item that instantly creates a way down a floor of the Chitinous Mines.]

I had unthinkingly used these items a lot last year since I was in a pinch, but these days, I thought it was pretty weird to have an item that makes temporary staircases when placed on solid ground. I’d tried to use a [Staircase] outside of the Mines, but the System wouldn’t let me put them down anywhere else.

Sighing at the thought of what could have been, I put Mr. Bear in [Guard Mode] and climbed up to sit on his shoulders so that he could run down the staircases down to the lowest level where the portal back to my [Ranch House] was located. I was pretty sure that [Staircases] were also a safe spot, but I lived by the motto that discretion was the better part of valor, so I took no chances and had my puppet run as fast as he could. We weren’t attacked.

Once we were on the bottom floor, I relaxed and went to harvest the [Mushroom Cave] and [Mini Hydroponic Farm] before returning to my home.

The next day, I switched to an [Aurite Battle Axe] and wreaked havoc on the [Insectoids]. Somehow, possibly because I used an axe to Woodcut a lot, this was the weapon that I was most comfortable with. The chopping movements just felt more natural to me. Unfortunately, though the axe was great, and I still trained it to master its skills, it was slower than the sword, which meant I got less exp, so I didn’t use it as my primary training weapon.

[Aurite Battle Axe:

This two-handed war axe was crafted from Aurite, a legendary metal known for its near-indestructibility and exceptional sharpness. A slow but remarkably powerful weapon.]

My axe skills were basic, but effective.

[Battle Axe Skills:

Slash

Chop

Frenzy]

The [Slash] and [Chop] skills were the usual energy-infused strikes, but [Frenzy] was a lot more powerful and could hit more than one enemy, though it was exhausting to use.

[Frenzy:

Unleash a whirlwind of destruction by swinging the battle axe in wide, powerful arcs that will send your enemies reeling.

Cooldown: 35 seconds]

In fact, the heavy axe was overall more tiring to train with compared to the sword.

“Mr. Bear, you never get tired, but I do.” Sinking into a chair, I ignored the [Insectoids] around me and took off my helmet to wipe my sweaty face with a handkerchief.

Was it time for me to leave?

Yes, I decided. These monsters were low-level, yet I shouldn’t be careless by staying until I was too tired to fight them properly.

“It’s cool, Mr. Bear. We’ll come back tomorrow and kill more of them!”

I put my helmet back on and killed off the remaining monsters before putting down the [Staircases] and making my way back home.

Chapter 188 - Combat training in the Mines

Chapter 188 - Quest-ionable tactics

🙞❤︎🙜

This became my daily routine for the rest of the autumn season. Of course, I was keeping the existence of my portal to the Mines a secret, so as far as my apprentice and household staff were concerned, I was holed up in my house crafting items like [Diamonds], [Five Elements Pills], and [Antipoison Potions].

A welcome side effect of all the physical training I did was that as my Strength and Attack levels increased, so did my stamina. Day by day, the time I could spend training became longer and longer until I could fight for half a day, albeit with long breaks to rest.

Six weeks later, I leveled up so much that I could now equip the next tier of armor and weapons.

[Violet

Level 50

HP: 5,000/5,000

MP: 40/40

Strength: 30→50/99

Attack: 33→48/99

Archery: 42→46/99

Magic: 11→12/99]

This time, with my [Sylvanite] equipment, my Battle Rating rose enough that I was no longer as weak as an insect.

[Violet

Level 50

HP: 5,000/5,000

BR: 352]

Battle Rating was the official measure of a player’s combat effectiveness that included all weapons, armor, buffs, and combat stats, but this time I had trained so much that I didn’t need the System to tell me that I had grown a lot more powerful. Compared to the first time I fought the [Insectoids] this year, nowadays I only had to swing my sword once to cut the monsters in half as easily as a hot knife through butter, due in no small part to my new [Sylvanite Sword].

[Sylvanite] was a mythical alloy made from steel and enchanted platinum. I have no idea why the resulting metal was a very pretty shade of leaf green, but I liked it. GodIAm and I agreed that though it wasn’t high-level, the green [Sylvanite] armor was the best-looking non-Cash Shop equipment in the game along with the special [Voidforged] black armor that only the champions of the Black Tortoise clan could wear.

Level 50 was a milestone level that unlocked better, stronger Melee skills.

[Sword Skills:

Thrust - Piercing Lunge

Slash - Cross Slash

Blade Flurry - Whirling Blades]

With a big smile on my face and a spring in my step, I went off to fight [Insectoids] again.

“Hello, insects! The exterminator is here!”

With a loud, joyous laugh, I turned on my [Potato Cannon] and loaded it with ammo. The monsters came running to me, and this time I no longer needed to hide in the ladder’s safe zone. Stepping forward to meet the first [Insectoids’] attack with the side of my sword, I cleaved a monster in half with one [Slash]. The next one fell to a mighty [Piercing Lunge].

[Piercing Lunge:

Execute a swift, forward thrust with an energy-charged sword, piercing through the target and dealing significant damage. This ability has a chance to ignore the enemy's defense, maximizing the damage dealt.

Cooldown: 8 seconds]

It was a simple skill in theory, but in practice, I had to extend my arm and body further forward compared to using [Thrust], which was a very tricky thing to do. I definitely needed more practice.

Next up, I did a [Cross Slash] which messily cut an insect into four pieces.

[Cross Slash:

Unleash a powerful cross-shaped strike with your energy-infused sword, dealing damage to an enemy. This ability has a chance to deal additional critical damage and slow the target's movement speed.

Cooldown: 7 seconds]

The new [Cross Slash] skill was even harder to execute well since it relied on more speed and brute strength than [Slash].

It was a good thing I was over-leveled for this area since it gave me a good opportunity to practice my moves. I waited for three [Insectoids] to approach before hitting them with my ultimate sword attack, [Whirling Blades].

[Whirling Blades:

Unleash a rapid series of strikes with your energy-charged sword, hitting multiple enemies in quick succession. This ability increases the number of strikes and boosts the user's attack speed for a short duration, enhancing overall combat effectiveness.

Cooldown: 10 seconds]

I focused and launched into Whirling Blades, my blade cutting through the air and slicing across an [Insectoid's] head. The second swing back drove my sword deep into a monster’s chest. That was when I hit a snag. My weapon got stuck, so I had to spend a few seconds getting it free, which canceled the skill.

“Oh dear,” I said to Mr. Bear as I fell back to the ladder's safe area.

I rolled my shoulders and tried again.

This time, I managed to land the first strike properly, slicing across an enemy's front legs. The second swing was better, catching another foe off guard and driving the blade into its side. I stumbled slightly as I pivoted for the third blow, awkwardly hacking through an [Insectoid’s] side. My fourth strike swept low, successfully cutting another monster’s legs. As my confidence grew, the fifth and sixth diagonal slashes were more controlled and effective. By the seventh blow, I was slightly speeding up and the eighth strike was the finisher, a strong horizontal slash that knocked back three [Insectoids] at once.

A few [Thrusts] and [Slashes] took care of all the enemies, and I was alone with only Mr. Bear and my [Potato Cannon] for company. The mobs in Adventure Incarnate always respawned endlessly, but in this world, nothing was endless and my constant battles with the [Insectoids] had depleted their numbers. Fewer of them were attacking me these days which meant that my exp rate had plummeted drastically.

It was time for a break to let the monster population recover.

“Guess I’ll go do something else,” I said to Mr. Bear as we walked back down to the elevator.

***

I spent the next few days at home resting, doing the daily farming chores, and planting trees for the farm orchard.

“Lovely day, isn’t it?” I greeted my apprentices.

“Cold,” said Lari.

“But nice. I like the cold better than the heat,” said Kharli.

“This isn’t that cold,” said Mo.

We were all in our autumn work clothes made of sturdy, thick cotton, and today we were testing new wooden shoes, kind of like clogs, that might be good for keeping our feet dry in wet weather.

“Shall we?” I gestured at the open field in front of us that we had recently cleared of all trees, grass, and large rocks.

They nodded, and I distributed the [Orange Tree Seeds] to everyone. We had finished planting groves of [Apple], [Peach], [Cherry], [Pear], [Apricot], and [Pomegranate]. The exp was pretty good! After today, we would plant [Mango], [Banana], [Lychee], [Lemon], and [Dragonfruit] to complete the process.

I knew that, logically speaking, all these trees shouldn't be growing on the same farm since they needed different climate and soil conditions. However, the System allowed it, so they must be either versatile variants, or, since they were spirit trees, they used qi to grow. Now was the perfect time to plant them since the qi levels on the farm were unusually high.

“Great! Let’s do this!” I stretched my arms above my head and bent my torso sideways a few times before I started since I was a little stiff from my training in the Mines.

Planting tree seeds was fun though energy-intensive since we had to dig a hole, add the [Mysterious Goo] and fish parts, plant the seeds, and water them. Still, it really was a lovely day.

The sunlight this morning was warm and golden, filtered through a sparse canopy of fiery crimson and burnt umber leaves. Most trees had lost all their leaves this late in the season and their bare branches glistened with morning dew, some caught in delicate spider webs. Each crunch underfoot released a wave of the earthy wet scent of fallen leaves. The wooden shoes were uncomfortably rigid, and leather boots would’ve probably been better for today since there wasn’t a lot of mud to worry about.

I straightened from planting the last seed and looked around me as I watered it.

Around me were the newly planted fruit trees north of the house, in what we had designated as the orchard area. There were separate groves of each kind of fruit tree, delineated by ropes we had tied to wooden stakes and stretched out over the borders of the plantings.

Of course, we did also keep some strands of mature trees in between the groves in order to protect them against storms.

The smallest trees in the orchard were mere seedlings while the tallest were already up to my waist.

Next year, in spring, we would add living walkways of low-growing or creeping grasses to improve the soil and prettify the place. I also hoped it would be better to walk on than mud. If not, then I might replace them with tiles. Flowers would also be planted both for their aesthetic appeal and to attract pollinators. The year after that, when the trees were fully grown, we could even maximize the usage of the orchard space by growing vegetables in between the trees.

“Teacher, that one is done.” Kharli pointed at the ground beneath my feet, which was wet.

My watering can was still tilted down though water wasn’t coming out anymore. “Oh, thanks for telling me. I was lost in thought. Let’s check the [Insectary Garden].”

Theoretically, the garden didn’t need tending as it was full of hardy, perennial flower species that were left alone to grow by themselves in Adventure Incarnate. They didn’t even need to be watered. However, Scholar Wu suggested that we occasionally remove the smaller, stunted plants to make more space for the ones that were growing well. By removing the weak ones, we would give the stronger plants better access to sunlight, water, and nutrients from the soil.

Though it wasn’t a System-mandated chore, I figured it made sense.

Mo sighed in contentment when we reached the [Insectary Garden]. “This is going to be soooo gorgeous when it's in full bloom.”

I nodded. “I’m thinking of moving the fairy’s house here when it starts to flower.”

Over two months, most of the flower beds had grown lush, with plants around one to three feet tall. A few, however, were slow growers that were only four to seven inches tall. Those were the ones that we inspected to see if there were any scraggly ones we should remove.

“Hmmm.” I put a finger on my chin as I peered down at the [Treasure Lilies].

“Let’s pull up the tiny ones that barely sprouted.” Kharli pointed at the ones that were less than three inches tall.

“I guess we should.” I knelt down and watched as my apprentices carefully uprooted the unwanted plants and put them in plant pots. If they did grow big enough, I could place them around Cutie’s house for her to enjoy, but their present state made that unlikely. There were always a few seeds that didn’t grow properly.

They gave me the pots and I made them vanish into my inventory.

I stretched my torso by bending sideways, forward, and back before saying, “Let’s go to the house where I’ve prepared a special and very secret event for you guys!”

My apprentices were highly excited by my words, of course, but I refused to answer their questions until we got to our workroom in the second courtyard, not forgetting to change into clean clothes first, of course. There, we sat down around our worktable and I filled its surface with [Caskets].

[Casket:

A small, ornamental wooden box used for storing jewelry, precious items, or valuables. It must be opened with an unlocking spell.]

I took out the most flamboyant magic wand from the Cash Shop. “It’s time for us to open these chests and find some treasure!”

Chapter 189 - Opening the Treasure Chests

Chapter 189 - Coin-vincingly full of sweet, sweet treasures!

🙞❤︎🙜

“Teacher, we’re opening treasure chests?” Kharli’s eyes sparkled with excitement.

Mo clasped her hands in front of her as though in prayer and Lari leaned forward, his eyes scanning the myserious chests.

I smiled at their enthusiasm. “Exactly! These are the chests that we got from Fishing last year. I can now cast the spell that will open them.”

I waved the wand over the chests to demonstrate its magic. Intangible trails of sparkly gold dust followed its every movement. The wand wasn’t the biggest or most ornate one, being made of carved oak covered with intricate gold filigree and topped with a heart-shaped amethyst crystal, its deep purple hue shimmering with an inner light. It was definitely the most theatrical one!

Lari’s forehead creased in a frown. “But which ones are the ones I Fished?”

“They’re all mixed together,” I said. “You can each pick one [Casket] at a time and I’ll open it for you.”

“First!” Kharli grabbed one and presented it to me with a smile.

“No, I should go first!” Lari grabbed one, too, and held it out to me.

“Play rock-paper-scissors. Winner goes first, then the two losers can play again to get the second and third rankings.” I waited until they finished playing before I added, “But first, refreshments and snacks.”

Kharli, who had won first place, jumped up from her chair. “I’ll get a tray of dim sum from the kitchen. Lari, you set the table. Mo, you make the tea!”

We went to the small side table where the kids prepared our morning snacks. I had coffee while they had tea. The chef sent us three steaming baskets filled with translucent dumplings with juicy shrimp filling, open-faced pork buns, and crispy spring rolls filled with savory vegetables. Lunch was not too far off, so I only had a few bites. The others, however, managed to polish off all three baskets.

I wiped my mouth with a white handkerchief and we all returned to the worktable where Kharli, carefully picked a [Casket] and put it down in front of me.

“This one, please!” she said.

Just like how Herblaw used [Spell Stones] and gave magic exp, albeit only a small amount, unlocking [Caskets] with a spell was an expensive endeavor. Most players didn't bother with it at all, but I was close to leveling up, so I wanted to show off to the kids a little.

[Enchanter’s Golden Key:

A simple spell for unlocking treasure chests, doors, and forbidden books.]

I hadn’t done this earlier in public since spells had a chance to misfire unless the player’s Magic level was ten points higher than the spell’s base requirement. Now that I was level 12 Magic, I could cast it without fear.

The wand was already charged with the energy from one hundred [Spell Stones]. All I had to do was to cast the [Enchanter’s Golden Key] using the System’s menu.

My hand made a series of movements, drawing a small pentacle in gold dust in the air above the [Casket]. The symbol flashed brightly twice, and then the dust fell onto the wooden chest, which silently opened, revealing a piece of jewelry.

[Gold Ring:

A plain thin band of polished gold.]

“It’s so pretty!” Kharli put it on right away. She was in ecstasy at her newfound treasure. “I love it!”

“Lucky! By the way, some of the [Caskets] may contain junk items or nothing,” I said.

“Me next!” Lari was very excited and pushed his chosen one towards me.

“Okay, let’s open it. Abracadabra!” The spell didn’t need any magic word to activate it, but saying “Abracadabra” was fun.

This time, the chest contained a miniature statue].

[Decorative Dragon Figurine:

A tarnished silver dragon figurine with sharp fangs and claws bared in a fierce battle pose.]

Lari sighed in contentment as he reached into the wooden chest and took out his prize. “A treasure for me! Fishing is the best!”

“Teacher, here’s mine.” Mo looked nervous as she placed her chosen treasure chest in front of me. “I hope I get something.”

Once again, I waved my wand and opened the [Casket] to reveal a square of folded fabric.

[Premium Silk Handkerchief with Gold Detailing:

A luxurious handkerchief, crafted from high-quality silk, embroidered with gold and silver thread in an elegant gilded vine design.]

“I got something! I’m so glad it wasn’t empty… I’m always unlucky…” Mo pressed the handkerchief to her chest and sighed in pure contentment.

“Bah, what do you mean ‘unlucky’? I’m sure that’s not true.” I gave Mo a hug before picking a chest at random. “Okay, now it’s my turn.”

So far, Lari has gotten the most valuable item, but I easily surpassed that when I opened mine and got one of the three rarest items one could get from a [Casket].

[Crimson Codex:

A forbidden magical tome sealed with a spell. Bound in crimson dragonhide, this grimoire radiates an unsettling aura.]

The description was a lie since it looked like a tiny, ordinary-looking notebook bound in ripped red leather. I stored it in my inventory for safekeeping. “This will do quite nicely. Guys, if you get books, they’re mine, okay? You can keep the other treasures.”

“Yes, Teacher,” said Kharli.

The others nodded. I guess they were more interested in gold and treasures rather than books.

Kharli pointed at the door. “Someone’s outside.”

“Huh?” I frowned. Now that she mentioned it, I did hear some faint sounds from behind the door, as though some people were there having a whispered argument. “Why haven’t they knocked? Open it.”

I hastily cleared the table by putting all the [Caskets] back in my inventory.

Outside were Fengying and Deming with his three assistants.

“My lady, they say they felt a surge of strange qi from this room.” Fengying’s disapproving glance at her husband clearly showed that she didn’t think they should be disturbing us.

Deming looked away from her, to the side, pretending that it had nothing to do with him. His assistants squirmed under Fengying’s scathing look.

“We, uh, were opening some sealed chests.” I figured it was better to just come clean instead of being too mysterious since I didn’t want any wild rumors to get around.

My words made Deming’s head whip back and he and his wife's eyes met in some sort of silent communication. The assistants' eyes brightened and after a few seconds, Fengying’s expression relaxed into one of resigned tolerance.

“My lady, may we watch?” asked Fengying.

“Give me a sec.” I retreated back into the workroom and closed the door.

The wand I had used was too flashy to show to the staff. I quickly browsed the Cash Shop until I found the plainest one that looked like a conductor’s baton. It had no special effects. I charged it with [Spell Stones] and then put one [Casket] on the table before opening the door to allow them inside.

“I’ll show you guys the spell this one time, but please keep this a secret from people outside the house, okay?” I said.

They all nodded and watched closely as I cast the spell to open the [Casket]. The onlookers all clapped or exclaimed in amazement when I lifted a polished gemstone to the light.

[Star Ruby:

A red gemstone with a faint, six-pointed star nestled within its depths.]

“Nice, isn’t it?” I handed the gem to the kids so they could examine it closely, then gestured for them to pass it around.

Deming and Fengying silently inspected it, but Deming’s assistants were a lot more vocal about their amazement.

“I've never seen anything like it,” one assistant breathed, his voice filled with awe. “The qi in this gem is amazingly intense but still gentle.”

“It's a natural qi gemstone,” another exclaimed, his eyes wide with wonder. “There's actually a star captured in the stone.”

“The color is extraordinary,” a third chimed in. “Dark red like a pigeon's blood. This is the most valuable color for a ruby.”

As they passed the gem among themselves, their murmured exclamations filled the room: “Look at the way the light of the star glitters when you move it!“ “It's almost as if it's alive.“ “I've never felt such a powerful energy from a gemstone.“

Fengying let them talk for a while before decisively taking the gem away from them and saying, “Yes, it’s lovely. Now let’s get back to our work and let the lady and her apprentices continue theirs.”

“Oh, it’s no bother,” I said just to be polite as I took back the jewel.

They were, in fact, keeping me from leveling up!

With the minimum of fuss, Fengying herded her wayward husband and his kitchen staff outside. I let out a sigh of relief.

“Shall we continue?” I said.

We sat back down and I opened chests until I got the expected message.

[Congratulations, you just advanced a Magic level!]

[Your Magic level is now 13.]

The System fireworks exploded around me and the others congratulated me on my latest achievement.

“Magic is so cool!” said Mo.

“We have the best teacher in the world!” said Lari.

“And the prettiest!” said Kharli.

“Thank you, thank you.” I laughed good-naturedly and hugged the kids. “Let’s open more treasure chests. This is my leveling-up gift for you guys.”

We happily spent the rest of the morning in the same way. Of the rest of the [Caskets], we got plenty of copper, silver, and gold nuggets as well as a few cheap semi-precious gems and more figurines, handkerchiefs, rings, bracelets, and hairpins. The kids were disappointed that we got many duds - chests that had nothing in them or only contained worthless items like cracked marbles, dirty chicken feathers, bent needles, and tarnished buttons.

The kids didn’t know, because I didn’t tell them, that my “magic wand” was activated by energizing it with [Spell Stones] which they called spirit stones in this world. I let them enjoy their little prizes though, obviously, using one extremely expensive [Spell Stone] to get one silk handkerchief or gold ring was hardly a fair exchange. The books and the ruby were the most valuable things we got.

Right before we left to eat lunch, we gathered the treasure in four piles in front of each of us and traded the ones we didn’t like with the ones we wanted.

Lari traded the female jewelry he got for coins. Mo got all the handkerchiefs in exchange for her two silver rings, and Kharli was content to trade her single topaz gem for a cute butterfly hairpin.

As for me, I gave away my pile to the others since I still had 2,147,483,647 [Caskets] in my inventory left after we finished opening the ones we had Fished.

After lunch, the kids studied while I opened more chests and managed to collect all three books from the [Caskets]. The [Crimson Codex], [Black Codex], and [Azure Codex] each had one part of the recipe that I needed to unlock the blueprint for the Black Tortoise clan’s signature weapon.

Chapter 190 - The [Thunderbolt Wave] spell

Chapter 190 - An agrarian, a grainarian!

🙞❤︎🙜

Or, rather, weapons.

[Diamond Scepter and Thunderbolt Bell:

Unbreakable as a diamond, irresistible as a thunderbolt! The Diamond Scepter allows the user to cast a shield, while the chiming of the Thunderbolt Bell emits a wave of power that cleanses demonic energies.

Casts Diamond Shield and Thunderbolt Wave.

Comes as a set. Usable only by the Black Tortoise Clan.]

Mentally clicking on the spell names brought up the relevant information about them.

[Diamond Shield:

Can only be cast by high-level Black Tortoise clan members by using the Diamond Scepter. Blocks all physical and magical damage for ten minutes.]

There was no mention of cooldown or range, but the graphics and animation from the game showed the shield covering the Black Tortoise caster and the clan members standing on the giant tortoise’s shell.

[Thunderbolt Wave:

Can only be cast by high-level Black Tortoise clan members by using the Thunderbolt Bell. Debuffs demonic entities for one hour.]

This one was like a sonic boom that could be only heard by demons and lowered the demon enemies’ physical and magical defense stats. Again, no range was given but it should be usable for the demon boss fight.

The two spells were pretty overpowered, which was just one of the many reasons why I was confident that the clans would easily handle the Demon Monarch when it hatched out of its egg. My plan was for me to hunker down behind a Diamond Shield while abusing the pity mechanic.

Of course, in Adventure Incarnate, players couldn’t do that since it would take all the fun out of the world event. In the game, we had to play as frontline fighters and zerg rush the demon boss, but this was real life. I was pretty sure I could bribe the clan members with the [Diamond Scepter and Thunderbolt Bell] and allow me to join them in combat despite the fact that I was weaker than most of the warriors who would be there.

With the blueprint unlocked, I was able to take the raw materials from the existing stock in my inventory and create a few dozen sets of [Diamond Scepters and Thunderbolt Bells] by melting [Draconic Rune-etched Bronze Bars] and pouring them into the proper mold, both of which I had plenty of courtesy of GodIAm’s duplication cheat. Strangely, although it was called a “Diamond Scepter,” the weapon had no diamonds in it. I guess it was metaphorically diamond-like instead of literally a scepter with diamonds in it.

I sent a letter to Prince Baiyu asking him to come for a visit soon since I had some important news to share with him.

***

A day before the autumn harvest season, I surveyed the fields with great satisfaction. The rice paddies had been drained and the fish sent to Shuye, and the crops looked the best they had ever been.

“We’re in for a wonderful harvest, with plenty of exp for all!” I said to the others. We had ended our daily farm chores at the tea field. “It’s too bad the chef said the tea is still low grade. I was hoping for a better grade of tea this time.”

Scholar Wu smiled and shook her head at me. “Don’t be disappointed. The grading for spirit tea is different from the normal ranking. Your ‘low grade’ spirit tea is still better than the best in the world right now.”

“Teacher, may I go? I’m sewing winter clothes with the maids.” Mo looked longingly at the main house.

I nodded my permission, and she was off like a shot, eager to spend the rest of the day warm and comfy indoors while drinking tea, eating snacks, and gossiping with the maids.

Lari raised a hand silently and again I nodded to tell him he could go. Scholar Wu accompanied him since they were going to a nearby clan to socialize. Lari, along with the girls, had received quite a few marriage proposals, but, unlike Kharli and Mo, he liked the attention a lot. Scholar Wu said it was okay to visit some clans, so I let him go since she offered to chaperone him.

Meanwhile, I went for a walk with Kharli. We were supposed to be Foraging, but most of the spots near the farm had already been picked clean of wild berries, mushrooms, herbs, etc., so that was just an excuse for us to get out of the house and enjoy the lovely autumn day together.

“Is Lari seriously thinking of accepting a marriage proposal?” I asked Kharli.

“He did, but Madam Fengying told him that a high-level spirit farmer with his own farm should be able to have a better chance of getting a noble title,” said Kharli.

We exchanged a look of understanding.

“And, anyway, you guys are too young,” I said.

Kharli covered her mouth with a hand and giggled. “Teacher, that’s easy for you to say! You’re matched with the most eligible bachelor in the Westerlands!”

I bumped her shoulder with mine. “I am indeed!”

We were all bundled up in pants, long-sleeved robes, thick vests, and warm cloaks. Our feet were snug in new leather boots that had been enchanted to stay warm and dry. Mine were a gift from the Venerable Immortal Sage, and when the staff saw how good they were, I ordered one for all the people in my household who did outdoor work. They were expensive but worth it.

Cutie bounced beside me while Mr. Bear walked behind us in [Guard Mode].

A crisp breeze carried the earthy scent of fallen foliage and ripe berries. Squirrels scurried about, gathering acorns, and a family of deer cautiously emerged from the underbrush, their soft steps barely disturbing the carpet of fallen leaves. Distant bird calls resounded in the air while a gentle breeze rustled the autumn foliage that was a blaze of reds, browns, and ambers.

“Strange, but I feel like time has passed so quickly. I can’t believe that spring and summer are already over and autumn is just about to end.” I plucked off a few blue harebell flowers, also called fairy bells or witches’ thimbles, and added them to my basket. They were not System items, so I didn’t get any exp, but they were very pretty, and Cutie seemed to like them.

Kharli pointed at mushrooms growing on tree branches above our heads. “Could those be edible?”

I turned to look at them and then I shook my head though they did seem to be regular wood ear mushrooms. “No idea! Let’s not pick random stuff we’re not sure about.”

Kharli turned away from the tree. “We have enough mushrooms anyway.”

“They seem old and this place is pretty close to the path, so the others would’ve seen them. The fact that they haven’t been harvested probably means they aren’t edible.”

“Yes, Teacher.”

“Oh well, even if we don’t find anything to Forage, we can decorate our rooms with flowers.”

Kharli and I walked mostly in silence punctuated here and there with a few words about the weather and wildlife. Despite the lateness of the season, I did manage to Forage a few mushrooms that must have sprouted overnight.

We returned to the house an hour before sunset where I was met with a nice surprise.

“Well, hello there handsome stranger!” I walked into my boyfriend’s arms and kissed his cheek.

“My dear, it’s so good to see you again.” He squeezed me tight and planted a kiss on the top of my head.

Looking around, I saw that my three apprentices as well as a good number of the household staff and Prince Baiyu’s royal guards were watching us. I took him by hand and said, “Let’s go to my house.”

“I’d love to.” Prince Baiyu made a gesture with one hand to signal his guards, some of whom followed us at a discreet distance while the rest stayed put.

Inside my [Ranch House], I poured us some tea and we munched on baked sweet potato slices as we chatted. Prince Baiyu told me what he had been doing these past weeks, which was honestly a bit of a yawn since it was all politics and economics, but important for me to know as a human landowner with the rank of baroness. My own recounting of what we had done was equally boring.

After we got caught up, I told him I was thinking of going to the Northern continent.

“What do you think of the Black Tortoise clan?” I asked as I took a sip of jasmine tea sweetened with honey.

Prince Baiyu’s even white teeth flashed in a quick smile. “They are a very noble and intelligent people. Did you know that when the clans go to battle against an enemy, we look to the Black Tortoise clan to lead us?”

“No, I didn’t know that. It’s not the White Tiger Clan who leads? Why is that?”

“All of the clans have different roles in battle. The Azure Dragon clan are frontline melee fighters. They are physically strong and have great defense and healing powers.”

“How is their attack strength?”

“They mostly do physical attacks which are around as strong as the White Tiger clan.” He smiled again. “But we’re much, much faster. We function as scouts and have mid-range attacks. On the battlefield, we are the quickest and most nimble fighters, so we normally aim to target the enemy’s weak spots.”

“Hmm wait, so if you and the dragons are the same strength, but you’re faster, doesn’t that mean the White Tiger clan is much better?”

“Not really. The dragons have a very strong defense, you see. We do not.”

“What?!” I put a hand on my chest and pretended to swoon. “Are you guys fragile?”

Prince Baiyu laughed. “No, think of it like this - a dragon isn’t fast enough to catch a tiger to hit it, but the tiger can’t win either since the dragon will just shrug off attacks.”

“Whoa…classic stalemate then?”

“Pretty much, provided that they are of equal strength and skill. This is theoretical since we’re not allowed to fight each other. Our clans are at peace.”

“Yes, of course. This is fascinating. Please continue.”

“In large-scale battles, we also keep an eye on the whole picture and come to the aid of whoever is in trouble.”

“Okay, so the dragons are the frontline fighters, and the tigers are the midrange ones. I’m guessing the Black Tortoise clan members are the rearguard?”

“Correct. The Black Tortoise clan stays at the rear and casts spells from there. They’re good at shielding and weakening spells.”

“Not strengthening spells?”

“Sadly, no.”

The [Strength Potion] I made gave +5 to my Strength stat, but when Prince Baiyu tried it out, he said there was no effect on him. “I see.”

“The tortoises are not slow, by the way. They’re faster than humans. Perhaps they’re slower than the other clans, but not by much, and they are very deep thinkers. They live in the cold mountains in the north and spend their nights stargazing and philosophizing.”

“You seem to admire them a lot.”

Prince Baiyu leaned back on his chair and sighed in a contented sort of way. “I do like them a lot. They’re a very solid and dependable people, unlike the dragons and us, who are mercurial and temperamental. It’s like solid rock versus restless water and unpredictable wind.”

“Mmm.” I ate a few more sweet potato slices as I pondered this. The Azure Dragon clan was water-aligned while the White Tiger clan was air-aspected. The Black Tortoise clan, on the other hand, was of the earth. Then, as I was thinking of the classical elements, I realized that Prince Baiyu had missed out on one. “What about the Vermillion Bird clan?”

He made a face. “A disgusting clan. Let’s not talk about them.”

I gave him an innocent look. “I’m just trying to understand how the clans function on the battlefield. Their aspect is fire, so I’m guessing they must be powerful.”

Prince Baiyu snorted most inelegantly. “Powerful? One tiger could kill eight birds, maybe more!”

“No way, that has to be an exaggeration!” My eyes widened when I saw that he was smiling in a very smug, self-satisfied manner.

“It’s true. They basically have no defense to speak of. We’re so fast they wouldn’t even see us coming before they died.” His smile grew even wider.

“Wow, you really don’t like them.”

“They have no zidan,” he said, as though that explained it all, and maybe it did to him. “It’s only because the Black Tortoise clan took pity on them that they weren’t all killed.”

To the clans, zidan was an extra sense they had which let them measure a clan member’s virtue, honor, and reliability. To have no zidan was basically the same as being a completely worthless clan member in their eyes.

“Well, I have to tell you, I have news regarding them.” I showed him a set of [Thunderbolt Scepter and Bell] and then told him my plans.

He protested quite vigorously, especially when I showed him the [War Fans], but in the end, I managed to persuade him that I knew what I was doing.

“Thank you, my love, I appreciate your support,” I said.

When he agreed to help me, I navigated to the Quest tab and activated the one I wanted.

[Finding the Fertile Fields Enchanted Enclave:

Craft a Thunderbolt Scepter and Bell and get it appraised.
Sell it to the Black Tortoise clan.
Ask the Duke of the North for permission to explore the Snowcrest Mountains.
Locate the fabled lost secret garden of the Black Tortoise clan.
Plant 12 different Frost Flowers in the garden.

Reward: Farming Exp]

We sat down on a sofa side by side and held hands as we hashed out more detailed plans.

Chapter 191.1 - The real villain appears! 💥💥💥

Chapter 191 - Claim of Thrones

🙞❤︎🙜

The next day was harvest day, and I woke up bright and early after a sweet dream of teaching my dragon child how to play Cat’s Cradle, but we kept tangling up our fingers on the string.

This time, since it was cold outside, I set up a large glamping tent for us to stay in while we waited for the chef and his assistants to finish circling the fields with incense burners while chanting prayers in the usual harvest ritual.

Though the tent wasn’t exactly snug since the entrance was rolled up to allow us to view the ritual, I had set up a few space heaters to ward off the worst of the upcoming winter’s chill. More importantly, the tent was on a wooden platform, so our feet stayed warm and dry.

Since Prince Baiyu was eating breakfast with us, the staff had prepared a nice little buffet with hot soups, steamed eggs, stir-fried meat and vegetable dishes, fresh fruit, and, of course, rice. I thought it would be okay to have one large table for us to eat together, but Fengying said the others wouldn’t feel comfortable dining with the prince, so instead we had several smaller round tables, with me eating with Prince Baiyu and Scholar Wu while the others seated themselves freely.

We ate heartily while chatting about this and that. Soon enough, the ritual was completed and the kids and I set off to harvest the rice.

“Each plant has an enormous number of grains! I can’t wait to see how much exp I’ll get!” Mo rubbed her hands together as we walked to the rice field that we had planted first and was thus the first to be harvested.

The plants stood in orderly rows, each one lush and with stems bent under the heavy weight of countless ripened grains. The once-green leaves had turned a golden hue, indicating their readiness for the harvest. As a gentle breeze swept through the field, the plants swayed in unison, creating a lovely rippling effect across the landscape.

“Let’s get those levels!” I said.

The kids went to their places and I took out a sickle. After mentally selecting a stack of empty sacks in my inventory, I waved the sickle at the plants which then disappeared as if by magic. Simultaneously, a sack of rice and a pile of crop residues were automatically added to my inventory. The sack of rice would be sent to the clan later while the crop residues were the remains of the rest of the rice plant, which I could later use to make mulch, compost, or animal feed.

Each swing of the sickle drained my energy bar, and I stopped when it was nearly depleted, which only took a few minutes.

Job done, I waited until the others were finished and we returned to the tent together. There, Demon Chef and his assistants were making a special harvest day treat for all of us: fresh crepes with chocolate, fruit, nuts, whipped cream, and honey.

“By the way, beware of eating dairy products from outside,” said Scholar Wu as we ate our crepes.

I got a strawberry and cream crepe while most of the others opted for peach crepes, except for Lari who got a pure chocolate one.

“Because milk spoils easily?” Kharli frowned. “Other places don’t have refrigerators like Teacher’s house, but rich people have ice boxes.”

“No, that’s not what I meant. You see, children can easily digest milk. Adults cannot. The three of you came of age this year which means you might not know.” Scholar Wu smiled mischievously. “Drinking regular milk as an adult causes…”

She bent to the side and whispered into Kharli’s ear.

“No!” Kharli’s eyes widened and she quickly whispered something into Mo’s ears.

“What is it? Tell me!” Lari turned to Mo, but after Mo whispered in his ear, he drew back and made a face. “A stomach ache is bad enough, but diar-”

“Don’t say it out loud! People are eating!” Mo rolled her eyes. “Mind your manners, can’t you see there’s a royal here?”

Prince Baiyu, meanwhile, was looking up at the tent’s ceiling, while eating his peach crepe pretending not to hear.

“Our milk is special since it’s probably from spirit animals,” I said to the kids. “No need to worry about digestive problems.”

“It’s true,” said Prince Baiyu. He gestured with a fork. “I wouldn’t dare eat this outside of Emberstone Farm. Cream and milk are just for children in the clans.”

Shaking my head at the inelegance of the conversation, I got up to request another crepe. They were just too good!

Alas, when breakfast was over, Prince Baiyu had to leave. I walked him to the edge of the farm where we said our goodbyes. This time, my household and the royal guards had the decency to give us a little bit of privacy.

“I’ll be back in twelve days. I’m missing you already,” said Prince Baiyu.

“Take care of yourself.” I threw my arms around his neck and we kissed.

When we drew apart, he brushed a stray lock of hair from the side of my face. “Twelve days will feel like an eternity.”

Unable to speak, I nodded, squeezing his hand one last time before letting go.

With one last lingering look he took the skies, the royal guards following behind him.

The kids approached me after they saw him leave and cheered me up by keeping me company until lunchtime when I went back to my [Ranch House] for a nap to replenish my energy.

During the next few days, we harvested the rice and then moved on to the vegetable fields before hand-picking the tea. Prince Baiyu came by for another visit and left after a few hours, but not without bringing some good news with him. His parents had not only given permission for him to accompany me for the [Finding the Fertile Fields Enchanted Enclave] quest, but they were also coming with us.

In addition, the Lady of the West and her consort sent us the supplies we would need for a winter trip to the frozen mountains of the northern continent. These included quilted jackets, woolen socks, gloves, hats, scarves, warm boots, and quite a number of white fur-lined garments which Fengying identified as made of rare and expensive demon ermine.

Two days before the end of the harvest season, we finished bringing in all the rice, tea, and vegetables, which gave us some time to rest before the winter season started.

After finishing today’s work, I was sending the kids off to Anwei with their allowance along with the staff so they could spend their money on whatever they wanted.

But first, we would use up our energy by planting [Rice] in the [Greenhouse]. Now that I had cleared more land, the space around the [Greenhouse] was much prettier because I had put down some lovely stepping stones to make a winding path around it that also went to the main house. Decorative rose bushes and camellia trees lined the path, and there was a charming white lattice arbor with sweet peas climbing over it, all from the Cash Shop, so they were always in full bloom. We all trooped inside and went to the shelves full of seedlings.

The interior of the [Greenhouse] was alive with plant life and sunlight that filtered through its glass panels. At the center was an area full of top-grade garden soil in which tree saplings for the desert farm were growing, while on the sides of the building were separate areas for seedling trays and plant pots, all of which were full of rice plants. In one corner was a delightful tea nook with a round table and comfortable, overstuffed armchairs, though our current favorite spot for snacks was the [Herb Garden].

“I think I’ll miss the desert,” said Kharli, apropos of nothing.

I could tell from her frown that she had been thinking about this a lot. Unfortunately, I was convinced that there were more important things I had to do.

Due to the looming demon extermination event, I had decided to spend the winter this year drumming up more support from the Black Tortoise and Vermillion Bird clans instead of planting more trees in the desert. In her last visit, Kharli had picked up the last of the [Lizardwings] and sold them to the clans.

“The trees and plants in the desert can survive on their own now that the rainfall has increased,” I said. “We need to focus on defeating the demon.”

My apprentices all visibly shuddered.

Chapter 191.2 - The real villain appears! 🔪🥧🍒

Chapter 191 (Part 2/2) - Claim of Thrones

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“Teacher, you said it was going to be easy to defeat,” said Lari.

“Yes, but that doesn’t mean we can just ignore it. I think it will be easy enough to kill if we have the right people there,” I said. “That’s why I’ll be in the North this winter.”

Kharli still looked a little unhappy but nodded. It was hard to argue with my logic. After all, would there even be a desert project if the clans fail to kill the demon?

I handed them the plant pots and we got busy planting the seed rice in them.

“Done? Okay, let’s water them and put them on the shelves,” I said.

Kharli held up a grain of rice and said, “Scholar Wu said rice is a symbol of prosperity because this one grain can grow hundreds of more grains, and each of those grains can also grow hundreds.”

“That’s true for all seeds though.” Lari pursed his lip. “If I plant one apple seed, it will grow into a tree that will have dozens of apples that will each have a dozen seeds. And those can grow into more trees which will also have a dozen seeds.”

“Apples only have like 5 seeds per fruit,” said Mo.

“Yes, but Lari is correct, the principle is the same. I think rice is a symbol of prosperity because it's the preferred staple food in this region.” I handed them more pots. “How’s your energy? Can you plant a few more?”

They each took as many pots as they needed, and I observed that Mo could plant one more seed compared to the others. A player’s maximum energy was dictated by the player’s Farming level, but in real life, it was also greatly affected by a person’s physical condition. Mo must have gone to bed earlier than the others last night.

Once we were done, I gave my apprentices small cloth purses full of silver coins, and they left to have fun in the city.

I was a bit bored alone at the farm, therefore, I went to get my pet and decided to amuse myself by removing my [Ranch House] and replacing it with a winter-themed Cash Shop house theme.

[Snowballer’s Paradise:

Welcome to Snowballer's Paradise, the ultimate winter retreat! This whimsical abode boasts cozy interiors and enchanting ice sculptures. The snow here is impeccably soft and perfect for crafting the finest snowballs and building the most delightful snowmen. Enjoy thrilling snowball fights and then warm up by the roaring fireplace with a mug of hot cocoa.]

The house itself was very pretty, designed like a rustic log cabin, but the “logs” were made of a material that looked like white ice threaded with blue lines. Icicles hung from the steeply pitched white roof adorned with snowflake patterns, and a blanket of freshly fallen snow covered the ground around the house, even though the snow hadn’t fallen yet.

A path edged with softly glowing lanterns led up to the door, winding through a garden of frosted evergreens and whimsical snow sculptures.

“Chu!” Cutie bounced around an angel ice sculpture and licked the curves of its gown.

“No! Stop, your tongue will get stuck!” I picked her up and went inside the house, which had rooms decorated with a winter wonderland aesthetic, from the icicle chandeliers to the snowflake curtains. The soft carpets and cozy sofa draped in thick, warm blankets were particularly nice.

I removed some of the furniture to make a large open space for my pet to use and added some pet toys, like the bouncy [Boing Ball] that was her favorite, and the [Magnetic Marble Run], a toy with marbles moving on magnetic rails. “Cutie, you can play here.”

There was plenty of time for me to kill, so I added a bunch of winter flowers in every color imaginable from the Cash Shop and placed them around the porch, which made a pleasing contrast to all the white design elements.

Then I went to the winter-themed kitchen, which had cabinets painted white with intricate silver snowflake decals scattered across its surface. The backsplash was a frosty ice-blue color, and there were white poinsettias in a pot on the windowsill. It was a bit too much! I replaced the icy white marble-topped island with a wooden table and added a few cozy touches to warm up the space. The deep blue knitted runner draped over the table and the large, lush fern in a woven basket in one corner of the kitchen made it more inviting. I also hung a few copper pots and pans on a vintage-style rack above the island for a nice, homey effect.

Then I went to the other rooms and likewise added my personal touch to the decorations.

When the place was sufficiently relaxing enough for me to use, I took out the [Dragon’s Pearl Cauldron of Unrivaled Mastery] and made more [Ageless Beauty Essence]. Fengying had tested the potion for me and pronounced it perfect, and much better than the [Dewy Glow Potion].

I sat down cross-legged on the floor in front of the cauldron, while eating chocolate truffles made by the Demon Chef, as the [Automatic Alchemy] did its work. The [Ageless Beauty Essence] should sell for a pretty penny, and I could also give some of them away as gifts or use them as trade goods since it should be less problematic than giving away [Tea] like last time. I put a dozen of them in a small box and when the staff returned from their shopping expedition, I asked Fengying to send the potions to Shuye as a sample and received a reply from my Farm Guide okaying their use as an official Emberstone Farm product.

Since Yinuo’s husband was an artist, I hired him to help me make a nice logo and luxurious packaging for the potion. I was pleased that the staff liked the decorative changes I had made, and I gave the members of my household lots of bottles of [Ageless Beauty Essence]. With our luxurious winter clothes and flawless skin due to the liberal application of the beauty potion, we were sure to make a splash in society when we visited the frozen North.

Everything was going swimmingly until I got the official Notice of Tax Due from the authorities.

“The tax is how much?!” I yelled in despair when Fengying read the official document to me.

Chapter 192 - Preparing the [Herb Garden] for the Winter Frost

Chapter 192 - Time waits for snowone

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I sank down in my chair in despair. “Fifty-five percent? But why?”

Fengying explained that the clans had increased the tax rate this year to raise funding for the demon extermination campaign. There were exceptions for commoners and poor people, of course. I was a wealthy noble, therefore, I was taxed at the highest rate.

Unfortunately, the moment I unrolled the scroll, the System’s stats tab updated itself with the new, higher tax. It’s not that I was hurting for money; it’s that the year-end evaluation was coming up and one of the factors it assessed was the farm’s finances. With a tax rate this high, the total profit from selling crops would be lower than I wanted. I could get a C grade, maybe even a D.

Other people might think I was doing very well, but the New Year’s Ghost was a different matter. His standards were extremely high.

Last year, I had tried to stay up all night to avoid the game event where the player fell asleep and was berated by the ghost for not living up to his expectations. I was forced to fall asleep by the System so that I could receive the yearly evaluation, but I couldn’t remember the dream I had.

Ghosts are too scary!

“There’s no helping it, I guess.” Shaking my head at my plight, I asked Fengying to ask Yinuo to bring me a slice of honey cake from the kitchen. That should cheer me up.

Maybe it would help if I was able to harvest a really good crop this winter.

***

On the first day of the winter planting season, I pulled down the hood of my fur-lined cloak over my head and then, on second thought, removed the entire cloak altogether. It wasn’t really needed. My thick robes and pants, along with my padded jacket, should be enough to keep me warm this winter morning while I work.

Looking around me as I descended from my front porch, I yawned as I took stock of the seasonal changes in the quiet landscape. Just a few days ago, the fields were teeming with lush plant life as we harvested the crops. Now the fields were brown and bare, and mist rose from the ground, blurring the edges of things, giving the farm a tranquil, almost ethereal quality.

Beyond the farm was the forest whose once vibrantly red, gold, and brown canopy was now a skeletal framework, the trees’ bare branches stark against the pale winter sky. The occasional evergreen tree or shrub provided deep green accents to the view, and moss-covered logs lay scattered about, their damp surfaces glistening in the weak sunlight that filtered through the canopy.

I met the kids along the way and we walked over to the center of the farm which we had earmarked for the future planting of Immortal Herbs. The prerequisite for that was [Black Soil].

I knelt and poked a finger into the soil. “It’s still not black.”

“Teacher, it’s much darker than before.” Kharli knelt beside me and used a trowel to dig a small hole in the soil. “It looks fertile.”

Lari and Mo made sounds of agreement.

“Based on the color, it could take another year before we can plant Immortal Herbs.” I took out my hoe. “Let’s get to plowing then.”

The day after the harvest season ended, whatever System crops were still on the ground showed up as generic brown leaves in the farm tiles, presumably to indicate that the plants had died and wilted. Here in the real world, the plants turned into brown crumbly matter which we plowed into the soil to enrich it.

Once we finished plowing, I gave the kids buckets of [Mysterious Goo] which we spread over the land before planting the [Winter Seed Mix].

[Winter Seed Mix:

A mixture of seeds, mainly frost-loving wildflowers, grasses, and legumes, that are used as winter cover crops. These plants protect the soil from erosion, improve soil structure, and add nutrients to it. The flowers also attract pollinators, and the grass is good for pasturing animals.]

Adventure Incarnate’s graphics showed the [Winter Seed Mix] plants as a palette-swapped icy white and blue version of the colorful [Wild Seed Mix] plants, which should look quite pretty. I looked forward to seeing the farm turn into a winter wonderland of frost flowers and snow grass.

The best thing about the cover crops was that they were totally hands-off. We didn’t need to water or weed them since they would grow on their own without any help from us.

I ripped the seed packet open and poured its contents into my hand. Then I flung the seeds towards the waiting field. It was quite amusing to see the seeds shoot out from my hand and helpfully embed themselves into the soil. I used up a few more packets until the entire area was planted before using my watering can on them.

“This winter is going to be epic.” I gave the kids two thumbs up when they finished their work and joined me at my part of the field.

My apprentices exchanged worried looks. They held a whispered conversation and Kharli, as usual, was tasked to convey their thoughts to me. “Teacher, is it going to be epic like when we went to see the demon egg?”

“No, not at all! I told you, we’re going off to find a long-lost sanctuary in the North.” One by one, I pinched their rosy cheeks. “I’m excited! Imagine exploring the frozen North and farming in a lovely valley full of ancient treasures.”

Kharli looked at the other two and shrugged as if to say, “I asked; she answered.”

I hooked arms with Kharli, and the four of us started walking to the vegetable field.

“The legends say if you drink the water there, you get ten extra years of life! And if we find the islands we can eat fresh seafood every day.” I smiled at the thought. Deming and his staff were already making plans for a plethora of scrumptious dishes.

We had some energy left, so we went to the vegetable field to plant more of the [Winter Seed Mix].

“Let’s check the [Herb Garden],” I said.

“Teacher, we went there first. Half of the plants wilted, but the rest look fine,” said Mo. Today she looked very cute in a set of red robes and with a big red bow on the top of her head. She reminded me of a Christmas present.

“The wilted plants should return in spring. They’re self-seeding, after all.” I felt a little cold, so I picked up the pace.

When we arrived at the walled garden, Lari immediately went to his favorite plant. “I hope the winter snow won’t kill my [Ginseng].”

I bent down and peered at it. The plant looked normal. “It looks good to me. Let us cover the more delicate plants with mulch.”

The generic mulch from the System was made of a mixture of [Compost], sawdust, and shredded leaves. We spread it over the soil of the raised beds and then called the staff to help us cover everything over with frost cloth.

The cloth was not from the System, but, rather, a material that gardeners and workers used in this world to protect plants from temperature extremes by helping the area retain the heat from the soil. It was a white and gauzy woven material that sunlight and rain could penetrate, but just heavy enough to keep the soil warm. Made from spider silk, it was a gift from Lady Hoshi of the Fox clan. I’d sent her a lot of [Ageless Beauty Essence] in return.

I was eager to see if it would help with the [Herb Garden] in the winter even though covering the plants with cloth wasn’t a function of the System.

Fengying arrived with the staff and they built bamboo arches over the raised beds of plants which they then covered with the spider silk material.

“I wish we had more cloth,” said Mo. “I’d like to cover the [Insectary Garden], too.”

“Teacher, we could buy just regular garden cloth,” said Kharli.

“It won’t be as good as the spider silk, but it should work,” said Lari.

“Oh, good idea!” I went over to Fengying to ask her to buy the necessary supplies.

When the staff were done with their work, we all went to the main house for lunch.

In the next few days, we planted all of the fields with cover crops and covered over the [Insectary Garden] with more garden cloth. We also organized everything we would need for the trip to the Northern lands. The staff prepared the supplies and when Prince Baiyu sent word of how many people were coming with us, I summoned the [Solarium] and Fengying and I went over the room configuration.

Prince Baiyu, his parents, and the royal guards needed to have bedrooms on the ground floor, where the kids and I would also be staying. The staff could also stay there, but it would be a tight squeeze, so my housekeeper supervised the maids in setting up folding screens on the upper floor to make them into temporary staff quarters. I suggested putting proper beds there, but Fengying nixed the idea and had bedrolls put in.

Thus, the large open space on that level would function like a traditional Japanese house with futons set up during the night and put away during the day. The folding screens would also be unfolded for privacy when people were asleep and then closed and put away when they woke up. I added more toilets and shower rooms on that floor, too.

The days passed pleasantly as we sowed our winter seeds, and most people were excited about visiting the North for the first time, except for Fengying and Deming who had been there many times.

Scholar Wu gave us some books to read about the northerners’ culture.

I found out that the southern parts of the continent had a cold but relatively milder climate with a short growing season. Their main crops were barley and winter wheat, though they also grew other grains like millet and vegetables like carrots, turnips, cabbage, kale, etc. Further north, where fruit and vegetables were scarce, people relied on the sea for their food needs. All kinds of fish were eaten, and Deming told us that ingredients that were rare in the Westerlands, like seal, walrus and whale meat were commonly on the menu there.

Finally, we finished planting, and I woke up bright and early during the day of our departure. Outside, the day had just dawned a soft pinkish light and the morning mist bathed everything in a soft glow which made my chest feel tight.

“Home is so beautiful,” I said to Mr. Bear, who was wearing a limited-series premium [Winter Herald] outfit from the Cash Shop. He looked like a Santa Claus Bear with his red suit and fake white beard.

My first stop was to fetch Cutie from her house. Then I went to the main gate of the courtyard house where the others were waiting for me.

“Wow, you all look great!” I said.

Since it wasn’t bitterly cold yet, there was no need for furs. Instead, we were all wearing layered, heavy silk robes in deep jewel tones, sturdy leather boots, and thick cloaks. Lari was in yellow with black embroidery, while Kharli was in crimson and Mo in deep blue. We were exchanging morning greetings when a royal messenger appeared and quickly handed me a note before flying off again.

“Oh my.” After reading the contents of the note, I showed it to Fengying and smoothed my collar as I thought of what we could do to make more room. “Kharli, I think you might have to share your room with Mo. Or maybe I’ll move in with you. We need another set of quest quarters for an unexpected royal guest.”

“Teacher, may I?” Kharli gestured to the note I was holding.

“Sure.” I handed it to her.

My apprentices crowded around it and their eyes went wide when they read the message.

“The Silver-eyed Prince is coming?!” Mo clasped her hands together in excitement.

“They call him the Earthshaker!” said Lari.

“No, it’s Earthbreaker!” said Kharli.

Should I change the cover on RoyalRoad?

I've been hardly working working hard this entire time! What do you think about these two covers? Should I change the current cover? Which one do you prefer?

First one, cover illustration is a stock art from Depositphotos plus graphics and design made with Kittl.

Second one, a typography style cover made with Kittl using Kittl graphics/art.

Why are the covers different sizes? IDK, I'm an amateur.

Note: Other than being a customer/user, I have no relationship with Kittl and Depositphotos.

Chapter 193 - Moving North for the Winter

Chapter 193 - Hoping for an ice time on my winter vacation

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The three of them turned to Scholar Wu, who was wearing a set of simple and elegant white and black scholar robes trimmed with maroon. “Prince Muyang, Duke of the North, had many monikers. You may address him as ‘sir’ or ‘Lord Muyang’ in conversation.”

Scholar Wu gave us a quick crash course in etiquette for foreign royalty. After some discussion, it was agreed that I would take over Kharli’s rooms while she bunked with Mo because the girls would feel more comfortable staying together than having one of them move in with me.

When all was ready, I used the System’s [Build] tab to remove all of the buildings on the farm, and we waited inside the [Solarium] for the guests to arrive. I settled myself and the kids down on a cream-colored couch in the reception area tastefully decorated with a few of our best jade vases, calligraphy scrolls, and tapestries.

Scholar Wu’s gift, a traditional Chinese ink wash painting of the Heavenly Terrace Mountain Range, took pride of place in the center of the western wall of the [Solarium]. On Earth it would have been called a “shan shui” painting, meaning a traditional ink-wash landscape painting. It wasn’t meant to be a photographic or realistic painting, but rather it depicted mountains and water in a poetic and philosophical manner. It was very profound and sophisticated, and not something I would’ve chosen myself since I tended to like the more colorful and vibrant style of room decorations. However, the painting was sure to impress the guests, which was important since I needed their help.

I was nervously nibbling on an apricot when they finally arrived. The whole household went out to greet them at the entrance of the flying ship.

“I heard he’s single,” one of the maids whispered from behind me.

“Don’t look into his eyes; they say any woman who meets his eyes will fall madly in love with him,” said Yinuo.

Fengying shushed them, and I covered my mouth with a hand to hide my smile. The next ten minutes were spent bowing and exchanging polite greetings with the Lady of the West, Lord Yulin, Prince Baiyu, and Prince Muyang.

The Northern prince was a clan member of average height and ordinary looks, except for his silver-gray eyes. To the Black Tortoise clans, who were classically black-haired and black-eyed, this was a terrible flaw for a member of the ruling family, but his mother, the king’s consort, declared that it was a mark of beauty. Thus, he was nicknamed the Silver-eyed, and he customarily dressed in crisp white and icy blues to further emphasize his unique eye color, all of which contrasted nicely with his warm brown skin tone.

His six bodyguards had hair, eyes, and skin of various brown shades, from the lightest caramel to the deepest mahogany. They were all short and stocky compared to the clan members that I was familiar with. Their clothes were similar to what we were wearing, except that they featured more colorful abstract patterns and were lined or edged with leather, presumably made from seal or reindeer skins, which were the traditional materials used for the cold-weather garments in the frozen north.

Once the greetings were finished, I led them to my quarters. My reception room, furnished with minimalist wooden furniture and a few glass vases filled with colorful pansies, felt crowded with all the royal guests and the guards filling it. The others must have felt the same way since they dismissed everyone else, leaving us alone with just me, Lady Yuying, Lord Yulin, Prince Baiyu, and Prince Muyang. The three members of the Westerlands’ royal family seated themselves on my couch while Prince Muyang and I sat on the chairs on either side of them.

I turned towards the tea set that was on a side table. “Would you care for some tea?”

Lord Yulin shook his head and I put it away.

“I’m very eager to see the items.” Prince Muyang leaned forward, resting his elbows on his thighs. “Do you really have the Starforged Scepter and Celestial Bell?”

“Here you go!” The northern prince seemed to be a straightforward type of person, so without further ado, I took out the [Diamond Scepter and Thunderbolt Bell] from my inventory and placed it on the coffee table in front of us.

Prince Muyang snatched the items up and examined them closely, his face shining with awe. “I’ve never seen such incredible weapons!”

The rest of us patiently waited while the prince, his eyes shining with a fierce intensity, kept muttering things like, “What is it made of?” and “Could it be the twelfth evocation?” while turning the items over and over in his hands. At one point he conjured a magical ball of light in one hand and used that to examine the inside of the bell. Then he took out a magnifying glass to pore over every inch of the items.

At that point, I once again turned to the side table and served tea and cookies to everyone except Prince Muyang who shook his head without looking away from the artifacts when I asked if he wanted some refreshments.

I drank my tea and nibbled on the cookies while we all maintained a respectful silence because it looked like the northern prince was caught up in a fervor. After all, it’s not every day that a person was handed mythical treasures!

Eventually, Prince Muyang sighed in ecstasy and pressed the [Diamond Scepter and Thunderbolt Bell]. “They’re genuine. I’d stake my life on it.”

“Wonderful! Please test which of your clan members can use it, and I will make more for them, on the condition that they join the demon extermination mission, of course.” I beamed at him and handed him the silk-lined wooden case that Fengying had bought for me.

He reverently placed the items in the case which then vanished into his interspatial storage. “And the payment?”

Lord Yulin and the prince did a bit of haggling before settling on a price equivalent to one year’s output from the iron mines in Prince Muyang’s territory, to be paid in installments over twenty years. Gold was not mentioned at all, rather, the payment would be in iron, copper, and tin ores, along with gems like garnet, jasper, malachite, etc. Though the most valuable product of the northern mines was spirit stones, there was no mention of them since they would be needed to fuel the clan members’ skills when they fought with us against the demon boss.

“We always meant to help out, but the sudden reappearance of the legendary weapons will embolden more people to join the fight.” Prince Muyang smiled, showing even white teeth. “This is a sign from the heavens that our endeavor is blessed.”

Lord Yulin put down his teacup and said, “I say this calls for a celebration. How about something stronger?”

The northern prince chuckled. “I thought you’d never ask! Ladies, would you excuse us? Baiyu, come with us. I’ve brought a few bottles of the red wine from the east that you like.”

Lady Yuying nodded her permission, and the three men left together. The Lady of the West, of course, couldn’t drink alcohol because she was pregnant. Expressionless, she glanced sideways at me and said, “Baiyu told me of your plans. If you can do as you say, I’ll feel more confident that we can kill the demon that emerges from the egg.”

Though her face showed no emotions, her tone of voice was neutral enough that I figured she was skeptical but not dismissive of my rescue scheme.

“I hope it will go well.” I offered her a plate of chocolate chip cookies. “Would you care for more of these, ma’am?”

“Yes, thank you. I have some questions about what you plan to do about the Vermillion Bird clan.”

I had explained it all to Prince Baiyu, but I guessed that she wanted to hear it straight from the source, so I walked her through what I wanted to do.

In the end, she shook her head and said, “That seems rather far-fetched, but my son has convinced me to try it. You’ll have our full support.”

Wow! I would’ve been satisfied if she said she wouldn’t stop me. “Full support” was more than I expected.

“Thank you very much! I just need the clans’ protection,” I said.

We spent a few more minutes discussing the details until it was time for me to go upstairs to start our journey. The last time I flew the [Solarium], I used its full speed. This time, I got permission from the authorities to go even faster using the [Speed Boost] from the Cash Shop. I went over the map with Scholar Wu and, based on the distance that the ship would cover in the time that the [Speed Boost] indicated it would take, It was likely that our passage would result in a sonic boom. A few clan members had speed skills, so they were familiar with the idea of faster-than-sound travel. Therefore, it was easy enough to ask Prince Baiyu to spread the word about it to ensure that the people under our flight path wouldn’t be scared by the noise.

The upper level had been cleared of most of the hanging plants, decorations, and furniture since it was where the staff would sleep at night. The winter sunlight, filtered through the [Solarium’s] glass dome roof, softly illuminated the open space that was dominated by the giant central tree. I rather liked it this way. The numerous plants had given it a lush greenhouse look, but now that they were gone, the upper floor was bright and airy. The open kitchen was on one side with a large dining area and a few light benches were scattered here and there.

The Lady and I went up to the viewing platform. Since this time we weren’t here to spectate anything, I didn’t need to maximize the space for everyone to stay in, so I was free to place the control panel here where I had the best view.

I set the destination and used the ship’s speakers to make an announcement. “Please sit down, we are about to depart for the northern continent.”

My apprentices came running to the viewing platform but stopped short when they saw I was with Lady Yuying.

“Here, come sit beside me.” I gestured to the empty seats on my other side.

Fengying arrived with Yinuo and some of the other maids, but not Deming. I suppose he was busy in the kitchen. I waited for Scholar Wu, Prince Baiyu, Prince Muyang, and Lord Yulin to show up before I pressed the big red [Start] button in the System menu. The control panel’s buttons, lever, and dials were just dummy ones. As the ship rose slowly from the ground, I did not forget to set the farm’s privacy and security settings to the maximum while we were gone.

When the [Solarium] was eight miles above sea level, a height that no sane clan member would use for flying, I applied the [Speed Boost].

“Okay, we’re off! It will take us half an hour,” I said out loud to the others.

“That’s incredibly fast,” said Prince Muyang. “How many spirit stones will this use up?”

“Not that many! I mean, it’s a lot but my expenses will be covered by the sale of the [Diamond Scepter and Thunderbolt Bell].” That was a lie since the ship didn’t use fuel at all, it used the [Speed Boost] which was bought using Cash Shop credits. I frowned at the view outside. “Hey, does it look like we’re going fast?”

“It does not,” said Prince Baiyu. “If anything, we seem to be going slower than last time.”

“Oh my.” I mentally checked the System menu again which still showed an estimated time of arrival less than thirty minutes from now. “Maybe it’s just waiting for us to be further away from the farm before going all out.”

“You talk as though this ship is alive.” Prince Muyang looked up at the tree. “Is it-”

His words were cut off by a loud booming sound.

The clan members moved towards the glass as one and peered outside, highly excited, but there was nothing to see at all.

I got up from the pilot’s chair and peered over the control panel screens at the blue sky and white clouds outside. “Wait, we’re still not going faster!”

The clan members were having a whispered conference, most of them with frowns on their faces.

Scholar Wu turned away from the others and walked back to talk to me. “Lady Violet, we didn’t speed up to faster-than-sound. We cut through space, and now the Black Tortoise clan members don’t know where we are. They say there’s no place like this in the northern continent.”

Chapter 194 - it’s highly addictive!

Chapter 194

🙞❤︎🙜

What? That made no sense!

I mentally checked the System map to confirm that we were on the flight path I had chosen and that we hadn’t suddenly jumped forward on it. Then I looked around to check everybody’s expressions. The kids looked bored, the staff were bustling about doing their work without even glancing at us, and the clan members had intrigued or alarmed expressions.

“Lady Violet?” Scholar Wu gave me a concerned look.

I shrugged. “Everything seems fine on my end.”

To allay her concerns at least a little, I fiddled with some dials on the dummy control panel and pointed to the map display that showed our location.

In the middle of our conversation, Scholar Wu’s eyes widened. “We just did it again! We teleported!”

Tapping the screen, I said, “Look at the map, the ship’s icon didn’t jump forward. Also, I didn’t feel anything.”

Scholar Wu simply shook her head and excused herself. When she rejoined the others at the glass wall, she pointed to my control panel, and a few of them walked over to silently stand behind me while the rest continued to look out at the blue sky and wispy white clouds.

A few days ago, I added a few external magical cameras from the Cash Shop. I had overlooked this item the last time I used the [Solarium] because there was no need for it in Adventure Incarnate since the game showed the ship flying on the map screen without really showing the actual journey. I suppose it would’ve been annoying to have a cutscene every time the player traveled.

I used the lowest ship camera to look at the scene below us and noticed that we were flying over uninhabited land, which was no surprise. The North was vast, easily twice the size of the Westerlands, but the land was sparsely inhabited, except the southern part of the continent which had warmer weather.

“We’re halfway there,” I announced over the ship’s speakers. “Please finish what you’re doing and head over to the viewing area.”

I didn’t want the others to miss their first sight of the mystical land that was our destination.

Prince Baiyu extricated himself from the other clan members and went to stand beside me. “The first teleport sent us to an unknown place. Now we keep teleporting over long distances.”

He seemed unconcerned, but that was his normal expression when other people were around. As a member of the ruling family, he was always taught to keep his emotions under control, in public at least.

However, I could tell he was slightly worried.

“I didn’t even feel a thing. Anyway, since the place we’re going to isn’t on any of the Black Tortoise clan’s maps, obviously it will be unknown territory!” I chuckled a little. “That’s why they gave me permission to search for it.”

Prince Baiyu's forehead creased a little in a small frown. “I came to tell you that the zidan here feels… strange.”

Uh-oh. That sounded ominous.

I put a hand on my chest and gave him an inquiring look.

“No, it’s not bad,” he hastened to say. “It feels…”

He paused as he searched for the words to explain it to me. Zidan was always difficult to understand since it was a sixth sense that only clan members had. Humans had no frame of reference for it.

Prince Baiyu said, “You know, when I’m in the Westerlands, zidan is welcoming. I feel like I’m home where I belong. When I’m in the North, it’s like being away from home. I know humans feel homesickness, right?”

He waited for me to nod before continuing his explanation.

“It’s probably a similar feeling. It grows stronger the longer and farther away I am from my home territory,” he said. “Right now, I should be feeling that, but I don’t.”

I was, as usual, confused by his explanation of zidan. “You don’t? Isn’t that a good thing?”

“This is the North. I should be feeling like I’m very far from home. Instead, I feel… like I’m at sea, far away from home but traveling towards it.”

Interesting.

We sat in silence while we both mulled over the implications of that until the map showed that we were very near our destination. The ship icon was less than an inch from the X on the map.

“Hold that thought, we’re almost there!” I turned on the speakers and announced, “Look to the north, the island should be coming into view.”

Sure enough, less than a minute later, there were exclamations of surprise from the clan members. They could see farther than a human could, so they caught sight of it first. I poked Prince Baiyu’s side with a finger. “Go, go! Check it out.”

“I’ll be right back.” He kissed me on the cheek and left to join the others.

I stayed at the control panel since I could see the view from the cameras, and we were too far for me to see any details even using the zoom function since we were flying as high as airplanes did on Earth. The chatter from the clan members rose and I was able to make out a few words like “island,” “Black Tortoise,” “apotheosis,” “legend,” etc.

Suddenly, the oldest of the clan members fell to his knees and started sobbing. That triggered something and a few of the Black Tortoise and White Tiger clan members also got down on their knees, all of them either crying or praying.

Kharli rose from her chair and made her way to me. She didn’t look worried at all. In fact, the sides of her mouth kept twitching as though she was trying to stop herself from smiling. “Teacher, what happened?”

I gestured at the clan members. “We’ve arrived at the mythical isle; clearly they like it.”

The ship arrived at the destination, and I mentally sent the [Solarium] to drift further north to the other side of the island.

Time for a break! I wanted to see the land with my own eyes instead of through the camera, so my apprentices and I joined the others at the glass wall. Looking down, I could see a landmass that, according to the System, was probably the size of Britain back on Earth.

I stood beside Prince Baiyu and we held hands as I peered at the landscape below us. “Wow, it’s lovely.”

The island unfurled like a living tapestry of beaches, forests, lakes, and rivers. Unlike a natural island that had an irregular coastline, this one was in the precise shape of a turtle outlined in black sand beaches with a snake, whose body was a long, winding river, coiled on its back. I could only see the whole of it with the camera, but I could make out the partial outline of the turtle’s lower half from where I stood.

Prince Muyang, who had been silently staring at the scenery below, abruptly turned to me and bowed deeply from the waist, his hand cupped in front of him. “Lady Violet, thank you for leading us to the Blessed Isles.”

I bowed back. “You’re very welcome!”

He said nothing more and turned back to the view. The clan members who were crying and praying gradually quieted. I noticed that Prince Baiyu’s parents were also holding hands while watching the scenery whiz by at high speed.

From this high up, I could see that the southern part was dominated by green forests and golden fields with rivers, like veins of silver, running throughout the land. As we moved north, I saw the middle and upper part of the island which made up the Black Tortoise’s “shell” was dominated by a rugged mountain range whose snow-capped peaks no doubt held many secret caves and tunnels. That was where I could train a bit of mining. On the northwest part were two large inland lakes that were the “eyes,” which should be a great place for fishing.

Our landing area, however, was on the largest of the three northern islands.

[Tranquil Tide Treasure Isles:

These three tiny islands are lush paradises, brimming with vibrant vegetation and pristine beaches.

One-time limited event: Players may create a small farm for one season with permission from the Black Tortoise clan.]

Chapter 195 - A flying beast?

Chapter 195

🙞❤︎🙜

“There it is!” I said when the [Tranquil Tide Treasure Isles] appeared below us. They were just three small dots in the azure water, but I was excited at the thought of unlocking this region’s special crops. I raised my voice and told the others, “I’ll prepare for landing.”

Back at the control panel, I sat down and pushed some buttons while mentally using the System to set the [Solarium’s] speed to gradually decrease. The menu showed that it would take 22 minutes, so I asked Yinuo to let the clan members know, but Lari volunteered to do it.

Kharli and Mo stood beside me as the ship smoothly descended.

“Teacher, the islands are smaller than I thought they would be.” Kharli bent forward to peer at the map display. “Aren’t they larger on the map?”

“Yeah, I thought they would be bigger.” I took out a parasol from my inventory and shrugged my jacket off, wishing that I had worn thinner clothing. The weather on the island was sunny, which was strange since we should be quite far north of the farm.

“It looks like we won't be able to plant much,” said Mo.

There was a slight jolt as we landed on the biggest island.

“We’re here!” I gave my two girls parasols, and we all made our way to the ship’s entrance, which was already open.

The clan members flew down while my apprentices and I, followed by my household staff, used the escalators. The biggest island was only 60 acres while the two were half that size. A long sandbar linked the smallest two islands to each other.

“The sky and sea are so blue.” I smiled up at Prince Baiyu. “What would you call that shade?”

“Cerulean.” He took the sunshade from me and opened it, holding it above both our heads to shield ourselves from the bright sunlight.

The beach was a pristine stretch of fine black sand which contrasted sharply with the deep turquoise color of the sea. Palm trees, their fronds swaying languidly, lined the beach. From above, we had seen that the island was totally covered in dense vegetation except for a small hill area near this beach which I could use to plant crops. The place was so tiny that I didn’t want to chop down the trees for more farm area in case it damaged the island’s fragile ecosystem.

I took a deep breath of the bracing sea air.

“This beach is so picturesque!” This thought gave me an idea, and I waved at Muchen, my maid’s handsome young husband who was a painter. “Baiyu, let’s commission a few paintings.”

With Fengying’’s help, I negotiated a fee for Muchen to paint the scenery for us. Yinuo was delighted at the prospect and fiercely haggled on her husband’s behalf, but this only stimulated Fengying’s competitive spirit.

I reeled back in an overly dramatic way when Yinuo named her price. “That’s highway robbery!”

Yinuo merely raised an eyebrow. “No, my lady, highway robbery is when a group of bandits take all your belongings by force. You wound me deeply with your low offer.”

Fengying shook her head and hauled her off to the side where they held a whispered conversation punctuated by waving hands. Even from afar, I could tell that Yinuo was being bested by Fengying.

Meanwhile, Prince Baiyu’s parents were in deep discussion with Prince Muyang while the other Black Tortoise clan members were all kissing the ground, crying, and praying. Prince Baiyu and I leisurely strolled towards the palm trees where I set up a picnic blanket that we sat on. The kids and the staff either followed our lead and rested or took their shoes off and played in the water.

“So how’s your zidan now?” I asked Prince Baiyu.

“It’s hard to describe. Now that I’m here, I feel like I’m home, but it’s not my own home…” He smiled and put an arm around me. “Maybe it’s like when I’m at my grandparent’s house. I know I’m very welcome there though it’s not my personal territory.”

“A welcoming feeling, but also a feeling that you’ll eventually have to leave? That makes sense. This is a great vacation spot, but not a place for us to settle down.” I leaned on him and we silently cuddled like that while we waited for the clan members to finish making plans.

After a few minutes, Scholar Wu came to tell us that Prince Muyang wanted to speak to me. All of us crowded around the prince at the landing area to find out what they planned to do, but first, the Black Tortoise clan members all bowed deeply to me and formally thanked me for my efforts.

“Lady Violet, you will forever be known as the explorer who discovered the hidden location of the Blessed Isles that our people have spent centuries searching for.” Prince Muyang took a jade amulet off his belt sash and offered it to me. “With this, I grant you all the privileges of a Benefactor of the clans.”

I solemnly accepted the token and bowed back. As we had previously discussed, this item also symbolized the clan's permission for me to use the islands while we were here. Everyone clapped, and the prince told us that he and his men would be leaving immediately to explore the main island. They would be gone for at least three days to make a preliminary survey of the newly discovered land.

We bid them farewell, and Fengying arranged for them to take tents, blankets, food, and so forth from the ship before they left.

Since they were in a rush to leave, Scholar Wu explained the details to me.

“There are a lot of legends about the Blessed Isles, and there could be a lot of treasure here.” Scholar Wu, capable as always, started off with the most important piece of information. “According to tales passed down by the elders, this is where the Black Tortoise gathered all her children and ascended.”

I actually already knew that from the books that Scholar Wu had given us before we left. “Yes, I get it. Are they salivating at the thought that the demigods probably left behind some good stuff?”

“My lady, ‘salivating’ is a somewhat inelegant term to use… but, yes.” Her eyes twinkled. “Is there any chance that your bloodline inheritance has information about the White Tiger’s Enlightenment Temple?”

She was referring to the mountaintop temple where the White Tiger ascended with her progeny.

Prince Baiyu laughed. “If she did, she would’ve led us there first, right?”

He kissed the top of my head.

“Hey, behave yourself, I think your parents are watching!” I looked around, but Lady Yuying and Lord Yulin were nowhere to be seen. They must have gone to the ship with Prince Muyang. “Sorry, I don’t know about the temple.”

“Your housekeeper also wanted me to tell you that lunch will be served on the ship shortly,” said Scholar Wu.

“Oh, we better get going then. I want to change into better clothes for planting the crops today.” I looked around for my apprentices and then waved them over.

“Right now? Shouldn’t you eat first?” asked Prince Baiyu.

“It might be too hot later on,” I said.

The kids joined us and we went back up to the [Solarium] where we changed into plain cotton robes and pants. Prince Baiyu and Scholar Wu walked with us to the small bald spot on the hill. The sun beat down on our heads with great ferocity, and I was sweating like a pig by the time we got there.

“This area is very small. We’ll get very little exp,” said Mo.

I surveyed the nondescript open field which was covered in some type of soft, creeping grass. “It’s small but the regional crops we can grow on this special patch of land will be ready to harvest in five days.”

“Five days?! Amazing!” Kharli grinned and took out her hoe.

“Yes, let’s start. I want to plant everything before noon, otherwise this won’t count as day one.” I began plowing the land while Prince Baiyu and Scholar Wu watched.

Tilling the soil took only a few minutes since the space was tiny. At the end of the task, we had only thirty-six square tiles that we could use.

“Nine for each of us,” said Kharli while Mo and Lari were still counting out the number of tiles in their hands.

“Correct.” Scholar Wu patted Kharli’s shoulder, proud that her pupil could do mental math so fast.

We then added [Mysterious Goo] to the soil and I gave them nine seeds of each type of crop.

“These will grow at an accelerated rate on this island, and when we get back home, we can plant them on Emberstone Farm though they will grow at the usual rate there.” I poured the seeds into their waiting hands.

“[Dragonfire Pepper]? The chef will love this,” said Lari.

The aptly named Demon Chef was very fond of spicy ingredients, but he was very professional and always made less mouth-burning versions of the dishes that I liked. I asked Lari to read the description of the seeds out loud for the prince’s and scholar’s sake.

[Dragonfire Pepper:

Blazing red and impossibly hot, this pepper is rumored to bestow courage and strength upon those who can endure its fiery heat.]

“Don’t take the given texts too seriously,” I said to Scholar Wu. “Practically all of my bloodline inheritance items have bombastic item descriptions.”

Scholar Wu made a noncommittal sound that signified neither agreement nor disagreement. Prince Baiyu just smiled.

Next was [Mermaid’s Kiss Cacao]. Using the System’s text-to-speech function, Mo recited the description out loud.

[Mermaid's Kiss Cacao:

A delicate pink plant whose beans have a sweet, floral taste. The ancient immortals used to brew a sweet Vitality Nectar whose main ingredient was the Mermaid’s Kiss Cacao.]

“Do you know anything about Vitality Nectar?” I asked Scholar Wu, who shook her head. “Okay, now the last one.”

It was Kharli’s turn to recite next.

[Ocean’s Heart Coffee:

A coffee plant that produces deep blue coffee beans with a salty tang, providing a surge of energy and enhancing mental clarity.]

The description made me remember my school days back on Earth. “Kids, let me tell you a secret. When you have an exam, you can drink coffee with chocolate and lots of honey to energize your mind.”

“I would like some if it can keep me awake and alert during patrols,” said Prince Baiyu.

He and the other clan members were often called on to do patrol duty at the site of the demon boss’ egg since it was important to monitor the qi in that area.

I shook my head. “Noooo, it’s highly addictive! You can only have the super sweet honey chocolate coffee when it’s really important, like if there’s a big event.”

“Too bad,” he said. Then the naughty prince leaned down and whispered into my ear, “But you’ll still give me something sweet, right?”

I blushed and playfully swatted him away without answering. “Please just stand aside for now. We’re almost done.”

My apprentices and I planted the seeds and watered the tiles. Just as we finished our work, a large shadow passed over us.

Shading my eyes with one hand, I looked up and saw an enormous flying beast.

Chapter 196 - Holy cow, it's a sacred beast!

Chapter 196

🙞❤︎🙜

One thought flashed through my brain: I wish my dad was here to see his favorite saying come true.

My mouth fell open. “Oh my gosh, it’s true! Pigs really can fly!”

“Is anyone else there? Do you see the celestial pig herder?” Mo was almost jumping up and down in excitement.

Kharli pointed at the southern part of the sky. “It’s a group of smaller pigs.”

“The big one must be their mom.” Lari shaded his eyes with a hand and scanned the skies. “I wonder if Hunting them is allowed?”

Scholar Wu shook her head. “Though zidan is neutral here, the North is the Black Tortoise clan’s territory, and they probably wouldn’t allow us to hunt the sacred herd.”

I had never heard of a sacred herd of flying pigs, and, judging by the kids’ surprised expressions, neither had they. “They’re sacred?”

Prince Baiyu put a hand on my shoulder. “I forgot that you can’t sense their qi. Even from here, I can sense their divine power.”

I almost wanted to roll my eyes, but it would be rude. “Divine power? From pigs?”

The corners of the prince’s lips twitched up in a fleeting smile. “I also find it strange. This whole adventure has been full of bizarre things. Mid-air teleportation without a magic circle. The Blessed Isles. Now… flying pigs with divine energy. They could be the descendants of a god’s pet.”

This reminded me of the Angel Slime that was supposed to be a descent of the god of the Mines’s pet.

Scholar Wu and Prince Baiyu were surprised but not shocked, so I guessed that gods having pets that they left behind after they ascended was not unheard of.

There was a chorus of loud oinking from above, and we watched with open-mouthed disbelief as the smaller pigs dive-bombed the beach and made off with a seagull. They flew away to the north, doubtless to find a safe location before feasting on the sea bird.

Where did they live? Did flying pigs have nests?

Scholar Wu pulled out a notebook from a pocket in her sleeve and started writing on it. “They’re carnivorous. Fascinating. My lady, do you mind if I commission your painter, too? If he’s good at zoological illustrations.”

“He’s my maid’s husband, but he’s not an employee, so he’s free to take whatever commissions he wants,” I said.

I was disappointed that I didn’t get a quest related to the pigs. Perhaps they were simply part of the background wildlife here and not something that we could Hunt. Birds could normally be trapped in nets or snares, but were flying pigs birds or mammals?

Since we were done planting, we went back to the [Solarium] for lunch. Deming and his assistants had prepared a hearty five-course meal of lobster bisque, fern salad, chicken steak with mashed potatoes, peach sorbet, and chocolate cake. Though the clan members ate downstairs in the privacy of their suites, Lord Yulin approached Fengying after the meal and was effusive in his praise of the chef’s skill.

Prince Muyang and his men had already left to explore the main island.

We packed up our stuff in the [Solarium] after the meal and I went back outside to the beach where I placed the [Crystal Waters Resort] for us to live in.

[Crystal Waters Resort:

The ultimate in over-water villas! Perched above crystal-clear turquoise waters, each luxurious villa is a masterpiece of design, blending modern comforts with traditional island aesthetics to create a truly elegant retreat. Featuring private decks that offer direct ocean access, the latest modern amenities, glass floors, sun decks, and infinity pools, all of the floating sanctuaries have expansive windows that offer unparalleled views of the surrounding marine paradise.]

When I went on vacation last year, I was able to choose from different hotels and resorts, but this was a special place, and the [Crystal Waters Resort] was the only option since it was the one that had the biggest fishing platform.

An enormous magic circle appeared over the water and flashed with bright green, blue, and yellow lights for three heartbeats before disappearing. Ten large villas, connected by a winding wooden boardwalk, as well as a large, circular platform at the other end farthest from the beach appeared in its place.

Unlike an over-water resort on Earth, this one magically floated over the water instead of being supported by wooden or concrete pilings driven into the seabed. This was undoubtedly to avoid damaging the environment, since this was a sacred place.

The clan members kept their expressions impassive, but my apprentices and household clapped and cheered when they saw the resort appear. They were quite used to seeing this sort of stuff, but I was nonetheless taken aback when Lari, with the exuberance of youth, yelled, “I’ll be the first to Fish!” and ran off. This triggered a race between me and my apprentices. Kharli, being the fastest, won.

“Winner!” Kharli did a victory pose by raising both her arms above her head with fingers touching forming a diamond shape, which was supposed to symbolize either wealth or mastery.

Lari refused to admit defeat. “Never mind, even if you got here first, the real victor is the one who gets the first fish!”

I watched in amusement as the kids cast their lines out towards the sea, wondering if they would figure out how to do it here. After a few minutes of seeing them catch nothing, I went back to the other end of the boardwalk to see to my guests.

Fengying and I helped usher the Lady of the West’s household into one of the biggest villas. The other one was for Prince Muyang and his staff when they returned. I showed them how to use the modern facilities, such as the dials for the temperature controls and the privacy toggles for the rooms and outdoor areas. When the privacy switch was flipped, people outside could neither see nor hear the occupants, which was convenient since it would allow me to use the pool in my villa, the third-largest one, without worrying what others might think. Entry to each place could either be open to all or controlled by the use of three keycards specific to each villa.

We all got settled, and I went to the fishing platform with Prince Baiyu.

“Catch anything?” I asked my clueless apprentices.

They all shook their heads, and I approached Mo and turned her body around until she faced away from the open sea.

“That’s because you guys were Fishing in the wrong place!” I gestured at the water inside the circular platform. “This is where you will find the fish, but you need to look for a special spot in the water. Look closely for the sign.”

The three of them spread out and scanned the area, which was only around fifty feet across.

“Your apprentices seem quite eager,” said Prince Baiyu.

I put a beach chair down for him to relax on. “Yes, because I told them that this is the only place where we can Fish [Chameleon Sea Bass].”

“What is that?” he asked.

“It’s just a simple collectible fish that has a stealth skill. It’s almost invisible in the water.” I put on a wide-brimmed hat and sunglasses. “Do you see the spot?”

“I do not.” He frowned.

“Perhaps it’s only visible to people who share my bloodline inheritance,” I said.

“Teacher, It’s there!” Mo pointed at a small spot in the water that was sparkling with a soft silver light.

“Yes, you found it!” I took out my fishing rod and cast my line.

A few minutes later, we all caught some fish, but only Lari managed to get the real prize.

[Chameleon Sea Bass:

A master of disguise, this is a saltwater fish that effortlessly blends into its surroundings with its adaptive coloration. Found in coastal waters, the fish's firm, white flesh is celebrated for its mild, buttery taste and subtle sweetness, ideal for a variety of gourmet dishes.]

I got a [Mahi-Mahi] while both Mo and Kharli got [King Mackerel].

“Guys, look. The spot isn’t sparkling anymore,” I said. “We won’t be able to Fish there. Watch out for the next one!”

We kept on Fishing while I chatted with Prince Baiyu, and I called it a day when I caught a [Chameleon Sea Bass]. I was far from a completionist player, but since we were here, I wanted to acquire as many of the region’s special items as I could.

“Kids, I’m going to my villa!” I called out to them.

They waved goodbye at me while barely looking up from their Fishing.

“Alone at last,” I whispered to my boyfriend as we walked side-by-side to my rooms. “Here, you can use this later.”

I slipped a keycard into his hand.

He kissed the top of my head. “Thank you, I will.”

Chapter 197 - Harvesting the Strange Fruit

Chapter 197

🙞❤︎🙜

The next day, I was less busy so I gave myself more time to enjoy the scenery. The sky was an endless expanse of cerulean blue as I stepped down from the boardwalk and onto the powdery black sand of the beach. I inhaled deeply, the salty sea air filling my lungs and invigorating my senses. The crystal-clear turquoise water stretched as far as the eye could see, occasionally broken by the graceful leaps of playful dolphins in the distance. The island’s palm trees swayed gently in the breeze, their fronds rustling softly overhead.

Prince Baiyu was having breakfast with his parents, so I walked up the narrow dirt path to the farming site alone, to the rhythmic sound of waves lapping at the shore and the cries of the seabirds. I was halfway there when the kids and Scholar Wu appeared and I waited for them to join me before continuing my walk.

We were all wearing our lightest summer clothing because of the tropical heat. Lari, Kharli, and Scholar Wu had chosen sleeveless cotton tunics and pants, while Mo and I were in breezy long skirts and high-necked, wide-sleeved tops. My skirt wasn’t the most practical outfit for farming, but it was cooler than pants and the sleeves protected my skin from the intense sunlight. I had on a big floppy straw hat and Scholar Wu was bareheaded, as were the kids.

When we arrived at the right place, we were shocked to see that the crops had grown over a foot tall during the night. However, so had the weeds!

Scholar Wu took out a measuring rope and took notes on the plants’ unusual growth rate. “You say these will be ready to harvest in five days?”

“Four days,” I corrected her. “Yesterday was day one.”

“Coffee plants grow up to fifty feet,” she said. “Any idea how tall these will be by that time?”

“Fifty feet?! No way, surely it won’t be that tall.” I put on my gardening gloves and started weeding.

“This is fascinating.” Scholar Wu wandered off to take measurements of the other plants.

“Teacher, why don’t you rest? We can tend to the plants,” said Mo when she saw that I was frowning.

“It’s fine! I can do it. I just hate that these weeds are so tough!” I said as I tugged on the deep-rooted plants.

The weeds were really difficult to remove, but with all of us working hard, we managed to finish the chores in an hour. I noted that the weeds and the crops were the only ones exhibiting unusual growth rates since the other plants around the farming patch seemed normal.

“That was harder than I expected, but everything seems to be good,” I said. “Has anyone noticed any plant that looks out of the ordinary compared to the others here?”

Since they were three different plants, I expected them to look different, but weirdly enough, they all looked the same, with brownish-gray main stems, silvery branches, and dark green heart-shaped leaves. I could only tell which was which by using the System information.

“Look, this plant grew one inch from the time we arrived.” Kharli pointed at a [Mermaid's Kiss Cacao] plant. “It’s the same as the others, but it’s growing faster.”

Lari dusted his hands off. “I wonder how tall they will be tomorrow.”

“Their growth is highly accelerated. It must be because this was a god’s island. Do you think this is the god’s own garden plot?” I asked the others.

“I think it’s because this land was fertilized by the flying pigs,” said Kharli.

Lari looked up at the clear sky and made a face. “Do you mean we have to watch out for huge droppings?”

Mo and I laughed.

“Yes, if you hear oinking from above, run away!” said Kharli.

We all looked up. Thankfully, the skies were clear of divine flying beasts.

My lips twitched. Based on the flying pigs we saw earlier, it was entirely possible that this place was right under their usual flight path when they hunted seabirds. “You know what? Kharli’s probably right! I think we should stop talking about that though, since I want to go back to the central villa for some snacks.”

That very same afternoon, the pigs flew above the beach and deposited some of their digestive byproducts very near the farming patch. Thankfully, the droppings were very magical and disappeared into the earth mere minutes after they landed, in the same manner that the [Mysterious Goo] did when we used it.

That night, before we went to sleep, Scholar Wu measured the plants again and discovered that they were already four feet tall.

The next day, the crops grew seven feet tall and grew white flower buds. The day after that, flower buds opened and the white blossoms released a soft, sweet scent like jasmine. The day after that, the fourth day, we woke up to find that the flowers had fallen and fruits were already starting to develop. Scholar Wu frequently measured the crops and took copious notes as well as cuttings which she asked us to store in our inventories so that they would be preserved.

On the fifth day, everyone gathered to watch us harvest the fruits which all looked identical despite the System identifying them as [Dragonfire Pepper], [Mermaid’s Kiss Cacao], and [Ocean’s Heart Coffee].

I had the honor of picking the first fruit from our crop. Reaching up on tiptoes, I plucked a big, juicy-looking fruit from one of the [Ocean’s Heart Coffee] plant’s lower branches.

“Thank you. Thank you.” I bowed to the royal couple and to the others.

The teardrop-shaped fruit was the size of two of my fists and had a hard pink outer skin. When Prince Baiyu broke it open for me, we found that their insides were full of transparent globes of pulp that contained the coffee beans that I was looking for.

The kids each plucked a fruit from a different plant and we found that the identical fruits contained either cacao beans, coffee beans, or bright red peppers inside them.

“Strange, very strange,” said Scholar Wu.

Actually, in terms of weirdness, I thought this was pretty tame compared to the fact that we had discovered a huge island in the shape of the Black Tortoise. I smiled and said, “It’s fun! Maybe the god of these islands liked it this way? It’s like a lottery; you don’t know what you’ll get when you cut open a fruit.”

“I’ll have to study the plants more, but my hypothesis is that these three are hybrids,” said the scholar.

“Yes, that does seem reasonable,” I said.

Fully harvesting a plant using the System made it wilt within the day, so we took a lot of cuttings before that. They should sell for a good price, and I was sure that the people in the Northern and Western lands would greatly enjoy these newly rediscovered foods.

Fengying had informed me that Deming thought that the [Dragonfire Pepper], [Mermaid’s Kiss Cacao], and [Ocean’s Heart Coffee] were the ingredients for the mythical Ahoma, a mythical spicy elixir or brew that the Black Tortoise and his follower gods loved. I was really looking forward to the spicy mocha drink the Demon Chef planned to make for us. We handed over the ingredients to the chef, who once again proclaimed that they were all low-grade and that it would take him three weeks to process the chocolate and coffee beans.

“These seem high-grade to me.” Scholar Wu held up a [Dragonfire Pepper] to the light.

Kharli sighed. “Our chef has extremely high standards.”

Lari and Mo nodded their agreement.

I held up half of a broken fruit to Prince Baiyu, who closely examined and sniffed the item before handing it over to his parents who politely pretended to be interested in it, too.

Grinning, I moved closer to my boyfriend and whispered, “Wow, your parents look so happy. Their faces are glowing. It must be all those early nights and late mornings in bed.”

He elbowed me on my side and I elbowed him in return before I went back to harvesting the rest of the crops. Since the farming patch was small, I only got a small amount of exp, but because we could plant and harvest every five days, the total amount of experience we would get this winter season should be a lot more than what we would have if we had stayed in the desert like last year.

“We got a lot more fruit than I expected,” I said to the prince.

In Adventure Incarnate, fruit trees only gave twenty-eight fruit each, but each of the special trees here yielded forty to fifty-five.

Kharli approached me with a halved fruit in her hand. “Teacher, can we try eating the fruit? The chef says it's edible.”

“Sure, why not?” I took out a wooden spoon from my inventory and scooped up some of the flesh. The beans and pepper inside the fruits had System uses, but the outer fruit itself was normally discarded. It was nice to know it was edible. “I’ll go first!”

The fruit’s soft and juicy flesh was absolutely delightful, with a sweetness balanced by a slightly acidic tang that reminded me of papaya and mango. It was as if the best qualities of both fruits had been combined into one perfect bite.

“It’s amazing! Try this!” I scooped up another spoonful and fed it to Prince Baiyu.

He made a face. “It’s very sweet.”

The White Tiger clan were descended from carnivores, so one could expect them to greatly prefer meaty or savory dishes, but this wasn’t a universal preference. Scholar Wu, for example, had a sweet tooth.

Lari, Kharli, and Mo tried the fruit next.

“The prince is right. It’s too sweet” said Lari.

“Oh? Give me that fruit then.” Mo tried to take Lari’s fruit, but he refused to relinquish it.

“Stop it, don’t fight. We have plenty of fruit.” I laughed good-naturedly. “Fengying, let’s offer our guests a taste if they want to try it later. For now, let’s toast!”

I took out a table and put the bottles of wine and pitchers of iced tea that we had prepared beforehand, along with crystal goblets. The kids helped me pour the drinks which Yinuo and the other maids distributed to our guests and the staff. I waited until everyone had their drink in hand before saying, “Lady Yuying, would you like to propose a toast?”

The Lady of the West lifted her glass of iced tea and said, “May we always be grateful for the blessings of the land and the bounty it provides.”

“Cheers!” I lifted my glass in salute and drank the sweet tea.

The kids and I were receiving everyone’s congratulations when a group of flying clan members were spotted in the northern sky. It was Prince Muyang and his men, back from exploring the mainland.

“Time for the next phase of your plan,” said Prince Baiyu as he looked up at the sky in the direction of the clan members.

“Yes.” I checked the System Quest tab. “Let’s talk to the prince and suggest that we find the Snowcrest Mountains tomorrow, after my apprentices and I finish planting.”

[Finding the Fertile Fields Enchanted Enclave:

Craft a Thunderbolt Scepter and Bell and get it appraised. - done
Sell it to the Black Tortoise clan. - done
Ask the Duke of the North for permission to explore the Snowcrest Mountains. - done
Locate the fabled lost secret garden of the Black Tortoise clan.
Plant 12 different Frost Flowers in the garden.

Reward: Farming Exp]

Chapter 198 - The Sacred Cattle

Chapter 198

🙞❤︎🙜

“Can you really find the mountain sanctuary?” Prince Muyang frowned as he gazed at the [Solarium] control station’s display screens. “The location isn’t shown on your maps.”

We were on our way to the main island on my flying ship. Since our destination was the Black Tortoise clan’s legendary secret garden that had been lost for centuries, Prince Muyang requested that we restrict the expedition members to only the necessary personnel. Thus, all the White Tiger clan members were left behind, along with the rest of the household staff, but I did bring my three apprentices with me. Prince Muyang, of course, brought all of his staff.

“I know the area where it should be. I’ll be relying on your clan members’ keen eyesight to find the cave opening,” I said.

The Snowcrest Mountains were in the northern part of the island and from the air they looked like the ridges on the Black Tortoise’s shell. Though the ship’s screens didn’t show the place we needed to go to, the System map had a big yellow X on it that marked the spot.

Lari, Kharli, and Mo, who were seated beside me at the control station craned their necks to gawk at the view outside of vast jungles and snow-capped mountains. They were so intimidated by the foreign prince’s proximity that they kept completely silent.

“Very well, please let me know when we’re near and we’ll scan the area,” said Prince Muyang.

“How was your exploration trip, sir?” I asked him.

“Call me Muyang. It was quite gratifying to see that the land is teeming with life. We found the herds of sacred cattle, too.”

“Sacred cattle?”

“They say the Black Tortoise’s favorite daughter had a beloved pet cow which had many descendants.”

Wow, so they were literal sacred cows? And there are also flying pigs. What's next? A unicorn circus?

The thought made me smile, and I was lost in thought about what I would see in the secret garden when I heard a beeping sound from the System.

“Oh, we’re here!” The [Solarium] automatically stopped when we reached the end of the flight path I had set her on. “Let’s look for it.”

All of us went to the glass walls on the side overlooking the mountain, and we tried to search for the cave entrance. When we couldn’t see anything out of the ordinary, I set the [Solarium] to descend at its slowest speed to allow us to check the lower areas of the mountain.

Surprisingly, given that clan members had better eyesight, it was Lari who found it first.

“There! I see it!” Lari pointed. “The cave entrance is right there!”

“Yes, Teacher, do you see that? There’s a path,” said Kharli.

“I see it!” Mo was almost jumping up and down with excitement.

Prince Muyang’s eyebrows were knitted together in a frown. “Where? I don’t see anything.”

“I’ll land the ship and we can walk up to the cave using the path we saw,” I said.

“What path?”

“Uh, these secret areas tend to be in stealth mode, you should be able to see it when we get there,” I said.

“Baiyu told me of this, but it's very strange to experience it in person,” he said.

I laughed. “It’ll be fun, Your Highness!”

“Muyang.”

“It’ll be fun, Muyang!” I turned to my apprentices and said, “Ready? It seems we’ll have to lead the clan members to the cave.”

“Yes, Teacher,” Kharli answered for all of them.

Once the ship landed on the nearest flat land on the slopes, we disembarked and made our way on foot to the hiking trail we had seen from the air.

Shading my eyes from the sun’s rays, I looked up at the side of the mountain. “It’s an hour’s hike, I think.”

Prince Muyang, with his royal guards and companions, walked behind us as we made our way through the jungle. The sun beat down on us mercilessly and I was glad of the DIY sunscreen I had made using the [Ageless Beauty Essence] potion and pearl powder.

Fengying had gotten the idea of the sunscreen from one of the maids who had returned from a shopping trip in Anwei with a tiny vial of powder which the merchant she bought from claimed was made of crushed pearls from Mai-i. Since I had [Golden Pearls] in my inventory, I crushed a few using a mortar and pestle and compared them to the vial’s contents. Happily, we concluded that the merchant hadn’t been lying. Fengying then suggested that we try combining the pearl powder with the potion, which I had to do manually since it was not a System recipe.

The result was a watery white cream. Subsequent testing proved that the cream provided protection from the elements and was an effective treatment for sunburn, though it did nothing for insect bites and other skin irritations.

“Guys, did you remember to use your sunscreen?” I asked my apprentices.

“I forgot!” Mo hurriedly applied it to her face, neck, forearms, and hands.

“Good. And it’s hot, so stay hydrated,” I said.

In addition to the heat, the jungle was also quite humid, which added to my discomfort despite the loveliness of the trail we were using. After five minutes, my face was sticky with sweat.

The mountainside was covered in towering trees and thick undergrowth. Some trees boasted broad leaves the size of small boats, while others had aerial roots that formed twisting, living curtains.

Vibrant green ferns unfurled their fronds in the dappled sunlight that filtered through the leaves above. Colorful orchids clung to tree trunks, their delicate petals a stark contrast to the rough bark. The ground was a mosaic of fallen leaves, moss-covered logs, and the ever-present roots that snaked across the trail.

Thank goodness there was a path because it would’ve been quite hard for us to navigate the jungle otherwise.

Kharli walked beside me and said, “We must be the first humans to walk on the island since the demigods ascended.”

“There must be lots of treasure hidden away here!” Lari grinned mischievously at the clan members.

We all knew that Prince Muyang considered this place the ruling Black Tortoise clan’s private property. All the members of our expedition had sworn to keep the island’s location a secret until the prince and his family announced its rediscovery to the world.

The trail we had been following was a narrow one, possibly an animal trail. At the end of it was the cave mouth.

“Do you see it now?” I asked Prince Muyang.

“I do not.”

The kids and I exchanged baffled glances. I shrugged and we walked to the cave single file, with me in the lead.

“Wait!” Prince Muyang held up a hand just as we were about to enter. “I sense something.”

My apprentices and I froze in place and waited patiently as the prince and his attendants stroked their beards and felt the air around us with their hands as though trying to touch the air.

“There seems to be a formation in place. Please go inside and then come back out for us,” said Prince Muyang, his silver eyes alight with excitement and the corners of his lips turned up in a slight smile. It was a very attractive expression, and I could well believe the rumors that he was a real heartbreaker.

The cave was very ordinary, simply a natural-looking hollow side of the mountain, with rough, uneven walls that bore the marks of centuries of erosion. The entrance was narrow, just wide enough for two people to squeeze through, and inside, away from the hot sun, the air was cooler and drier. Scattered pebbles and small stones littered the floor, and a few patches of lichen clung to the walls.

We went back out and told the clan members what we had found. According to them, from their point of view, we disappeared into the side of the mountain.

“I know what to do! Hold my hand, I’ll lead you inside,” I said to the prince.

He shook his head. “No, we can’t.”

“Why not?” This was the method I used to bring Prince Baiyu inside the [Mysterious Grove] when he was unable to enter by himself.

“Because someone will get jealous.” Prince Muyang laughed at my expression.

“Teacher, let me do it,” said Lari.

I doubted very much that Prince Baiyu would be jealous of such a thing, but I said, “Okay.”

Lari took the clan members inside the cave one by one. Once they entered, we found that they were able to come and go as they pleased, but they were still puzzled over one thing.

“Lady Violet, this mysterious cave does radiate a strong divine energy, but where is the secret garden?” asked Prince Muyang.

Pointing at a nondescript spot on the cave floor, I smiled and said, “This heavenly Black Tortoise’s hidden garden has more than one layer of secrecy. Can you unlock the entrance from there?”

Before we left, when I told Prince Baiyu about this quest, he advised me to let the clan members try the puzzles first. They would be more pleased if they could accomplish this themselves than to have us walk them through it right away.

“A puzzle? Very well, we’ll try to discover how to open the entrance.”

While the clan members poked and prodded the floor and walls of the cave, not confining themselves to just the spot I indicated, I placed a small table inside the cave and took out basins of water that we used to refresh ourselves. We were drinking iced lemon tea and fanning ourselves when Prince Muyang finally admitted defeat.

“We can’t seem to find the secret,” he said.

“Alright, it’s time for us to get to work, kids!” Taking a shovel from the System toolbelt, I walked over to the center of the cave and started digging.

My apprentices mimicked my actions.

Thankfully, the System’s tool cut through the hard-packed earth as easily as a hot knife through butter. We dug six feet deep before we found the trap door made of black metal etched with glowing red stars and silver crescent moon symbols.

“Would you like to do the honors?” I asked the prince.

“Thank you, I’d like to go first, too.” He effortlessly opened the heavy metal door, revealing a set of stone steps leading down. “This looks very promising. Please wait for us up here.”

The clan members went down the stairs together, leaving one of the guards behind with us. Due to the steep incline of the steps, I couldn’t see where they ended, but there was a light coming from below, so I guessed it was an open space. It didn’t take them long to reach the bottom.

“We found it! The garden is here!” Prince Muyang shouted up to us.

I was just about to yell down to ask if we should follow when we heard screaming from the people below.

“Stop it!”

“It’s a monster!”

“Get it off me!”

What?! But the garden wasn't supposed to be dangerous!

Chapter 199 - Snowcrest Mountain's Hidden Garden

Chapter 199

🙞❤︎🙜

“Do you need help?” yelled the guard who was staying with us.

“No! Stay there with the lady!” shouted a guard from the area beneath us.

Below us, the commotion continued, but the clan member’s tone of voice gradually became less alarmed.

“Don’t hurt it!”

“Try to push it away.”

“It’s not trying to eat you; it wants to lick your face.”

“Ugh, its breath stinks!”

“I think it's the Ten Thousand Scaled Nine-Headed Divine Immortal Serpent King!”

“What? The Ten Thousand Scaled Nine-Headed Divine Immortal Serpent King?”

“But it doesn’t have nine heads.”

“Look at it. It must be a descendant of the immortal beast.”

After a few more minutes, we got the go-ahead to descend. At the bottom of the stairs, we found the clan members chilling with a three-headed hydra.

“Oh, what a cutie!” I patted its soft, scaly heads which made all three heads hiss in a pleased manner.

The hydra, which was a three-headed snake, was around seven feet long. Standing on four stubby legs, it was roughly four feet tall, with soft brown scales that shaded to black at its feet and pinkish on its head. Its brown eyes were large and round, which gave it a very innocent appearance.

“Yes, this is a sacred mythical beast,” said Prince Muyang. “My lady, please stay here while we explore the rest of the valley.”

“Sure, no problem!” I said.

The prince left one guard behind while the rest scattered in all directions. My apprentices carefully approached the hydra and started petting it. I looked around while scratching the hydra’s necks.

To my surprise, the valley seemed quite ordinary. The trees, plants, and even the insects looked exactly the same as the ones in the tropical jungle outside. A small waterfall was in the west and a stream burbled merrily beneath it. Except for the hydra, nothing looked unusual.

[Finding the Fertile Fields Enchanted Enclave:

Craft a Thunderbolt Scepter and Bell and get it appraised. - done
Sell it to the Black Tortoise clan. - done
Ask the Duke of the North for permission to explore the Snowcrest Mountains. - done
Locate the fabled lost secret garden of the Black Tortoise clan. - done
Plant 12 different Frost Flowers in the garden.

Reward: Farming Exp]

One of the hydra heads started licking Lari’s face, which made him try to get away, but it pursued him while the rest of us watched in amusement.

“It’s a pity we’re not allowed to Fish or Forage here,” said Kharli.

“This is holy ground for them. It’s enough that we can Farm and Fish on the islands,” I said.

Mo eventually rescued Lari by giving the hydra a tiger plush toy from the [Wondrous Whimsical Wonder Workshop] to chew on. This started a fight with the three heads, who all wanted the toy, so we had to give them more. I contributed a rabbit toy, while Kharli gave them a reindeer one.

Kharli gave the sacred beast a thoughtful look. “I wonder what the hydra eats.”

“Snakes eat mice and small animals, I think.” Since it seemed we were going to have to wait for a long time, I took out some chairs and a small table. “Let’s have a snack. It’s almost lunchtime and I’m hungry.”

We settled ourselves comfortably and had tea and cookies. When the clan members didn’t return at noon, we ate the sandwiches that the staff had packed for us. It was mid-afternoon by the time the clan members returned. They looked like they were in great spirits, with big smiles on their faces and their eyes sparkling with joy.

“Lady Violet, I can take you to the place with the flowers you wanted to go to,” said Prince Muyang.

“Did you find anything interesting?” I asked.

“There is a small herd of sacred beasts, which is a great blessing for my clan. Legend says that the Serpent King only appears during the reign of a heroic ruler.”

“Where do they live? What do they eat?”

“There is a glen downstream.” The prince gestured at the stream north of us. “After we finish dealing with the troubles in the Southernlands, I’ll bring scholars here to study how they live and what they eat. I also want to collect their discarded skin. They could be used for many things…”

“They shed their skins like snakes?”

“I saw a few snakeskins! Let’s go to the place you’re looking for while we talk.” Prince Muyang led the way, and we chatted while we walked, with the clan members surrounding us to keep watch on the environment, even though nothing really seemed dangerous.

The three-headed hydra followed beside us playing with my apprentices by tossing the soft toys back and forth between the three heads and my three farmhands.

Soon we arrived at a small clearing which had black and green marble altar at its center that had a lovely statue of the Black Tortoise on it. The altar and statue had both been covered in moss and dirt when they discovered it, but the clan members had cleaned it up as best as they could. Dozens of pretty lily-like white flowers were blooming around the altar.

“These should be the flowers that you described, Lady Violet,” said the Prince.

[Frost Flower:

A sacred flower indigenous to the Snowcrest Mountains that blooms all year round. Its scent is described as reminiscent of freshly fallen snow, hence its name. Planting one of its seeds is said to grant a person a year of good luck. Honey made from its nectar has strong wound-healing properties.]

I rubbed my hands together in delight. The HP-recovery food and medicine recipes were almost within my grasp! “Yes, this is it! Kids, look around for seeds.”

The clan members stood guard over us as we searched the ground for seeds. Once we gathered enough, I went up to each clan member and gave them one. “Plant one for good luck.”

Since this was not a farm, we didn’t need to plow the land. Instead, we simply poked holes in the ground with a stick and placed the seeds inside and then covered them with soil before watering them. When twelve seeds were planted, I got the expected System message.

[Finding the Fertile Fields Enchanted Enclave: Quest Complete

Reward: Farming Exp]

[Congratulations, you just advanced a Farming level!]

[Your Farming level is now 29.]

Awesome! I was very close to level 30, too.

Wiping the dirt off my hands with a handkerchief, I looked around and noted the location of the waterfall. It was cliche, but the Adventure Incarnate developers were the traditional type who always loved to hide something behind every cascade of falling water. I vaguely remembered some sort of minor quest in this area.

“Is there a legend of a hidden treasure here?” I asked the clan members.

“There are tons,” said the youngest, a dashing-looking man with thick eyebrows and an aquiline nose. “I can’t wait to explore every nook and cranny.”

“I have a feeling there could be something behind that waterfall.” I pointed at it. “Can we take a look?”

Prince Muyang looked up at the sky. “It’s noon. Do you want to eat your midday meal first?”

“We already had a snack,” I said. “I’d like to check it out first.”

“It would be faster if we flew you there.”

I put a hand on my chest and sighed, knowing he was right.

Flying was the worst!

The prince picked me up and flew off. I kept my eyes tightly shut while we flew to the waterfall, trying to take deep breaths and stay calm. Thankfully, it wasn’t far.

While we were still in the air, the clan members stopped and floated near enough to the water that I could feel the moist spray on my face. Prince Muyang ordered one of his men to scout ahead, and when he returned with news that there was indeed a space behind the waterfall that had a door carved into the side of the mountain, they flew us there.

We got awfully wet, of course, and I took out a lot of fluffy towels which we used to dry off. The door, made of plain black wood, opened easily, and I let the clan members go inside first before the kids and I entered.

The System notification chime sounded as soon as I went through the door.

[Quest Available: The War Scroll]

I read the System’s description before accepting the quest.

[The War Scroll:

Open the nine doors by solving all the puzzles. Discover the ancient War Scroll.

Reward: Farming Exp and ???]

Chapter 200 - Level 30 Farming Milestone

Chapter 200

🙞❤︎🙜

The reward that the System display showed as three question marks was some sort of mystery item, probably junk since this wasn’t a major quest. Only the big events or main quest lines had mystery rewards that were worth keeping.

Having accepted the quest, I checked my surroundings and found myself in a large chamber with an earthen ceiling and floor, with walls made of the same plain black wood as the door. At the far side was another door identical to the first one. The area was lit by what looked like light bulbs to me, but the people of this world would probably call them glowing pearls or something like that.

The clan members quickly went through the other door, and we followed after them when they said it was safe. The room behind the door was enormous, easily fifty feet across, with thirty-foot high ceilings, and it was a maze of corridors made out of wood.

Prince Muyang conferred with the other clan members before turning to me and asking, “Shall I fly everyone to the other side?”

I shook my head. “I think we’re supposed to solve the maze. Why don’t we give it a try?”

Though I wasn’t opposed to cheating, why borrow trouble when the maze probably wasn’t that hard to traverse?

“Uh, who is good at mazes?” I asked everyone.

One of the clan members raised his hand. It only took half an hour to get to the door on the other side.

The next room was empty except for a square-shaped puzzle on the wooden wall made up of nine squares, each with nine squares inside them. Some of the smaller squares had tiles with numbers written on them in white paint, and on either side of the big square were numbered tiles hung on metal hooks driven into the walls.

Clearly, I was supposed to put the numbered tiles on the empty squares.

Prince Muyang frowned. “What is this?”

“Excuse me, I must commit Sudoku! Give me a few minutes, please. I have to solve this puzzle.” I stood in front of the puzzle and took out a pencil and paper from my inventory to draft the answer.

Finding the solution took a while since I was no Sudoku expert, but I eventually figured it out.

The prince gave me a questioning look. “How do you know what to do?”

“Isn’t this a common puzzle?” Suddenly I realized what the problem was. The numbers were from Earth! This world, naturally, used different characters for their number system. “Uh, well, it’s just a mathematical formula I have to solve.”

I explained the rules of Sudoku to them and wrote down the numbers for them in their language.

“Then these are just magic squares, but written in your bloodline inheritance’s language?” Prince Muyang raised an eyebrow. “Could your bloodline be related to the Black Tortoise?”

I shrugged. “It’s a mystery to me.”

The door automatically slid open when I finished placing the last tile. The other puzzles in the other rooms were equally easy to solve. There was a memory game, jigsaw puzzle, crossword puzzle, spot the difference, and connect the dots, but the one that gave me the most trouble was the hidden object game. No matter how I tried, I simply couldn’t find the cloverleaf in the extremely intricately detailed carving of a fantasy forest. Kharli was the one who found it for me.

“Good work!” I gave her a hug. “I’ll give you an extra scoop of ice cream for dessert tonight!”

“But I always get an extra scoop! How about a whole bowl of ice cream this big, Teacher?” Kharli cupped her hands together to show the size of the bowl she wanted.

“No can do, kid. You’ll get a stomach ache like last time. Let’s go. Something tells me the next room is the last puzzle we have to solve.”

Prince Muyang and the other clan members reacted to that piece of information in different ways.

“What is that ‘something’?” murmured the prince.

“None of us can read these strange writings.”

“The qi here is quiet but intense. I’ll be glad to see the end of these rooms.”

“The maze is one thing, but these ‘puzzles’...”

“I think they’re very interesting! The jigsaw puzzle was fun.”

“But why aren’t they in our language?”

I scratched my head and said, “Hey, isn’t the Black Tortoise supposed to have a weird sense of humor? This seems like a very playful place.”

“No, I heard the gods have no sense of humor. That’s something only humans have,” said the prince.

After that brief discussion, Prince Muyang, who had never complained or expressed frustration at not understanding the puzzles, ordered his guards to go ahead to the next room.

I gasped in horror when I saw the last puzzle. “No, no, no! This is impossible. Let’s just give up. There’s probably nothing good in the prize room anyway.”

The prince looked down at the floor which was full of colored tiles. “What’s wrong?”

“I hate sliding puzzles, and it’s way too big! Look, there are like hundreds of tiles. We could be here for days.”

“I think ‘days’ is an exaggeration. I’m sure we can finish in a few hours.”

“Do you know the saying ‘Pride goeth before a fall’?”

“We can do it.”

“Okay.” Since he was determined to complete the puzzle, I gave in.

We all circled the floor tiles and tried to figure out what the drawing on the tiles was supposed to be, but it was too jumbled up. Prince Muyang suggested sliding a few tiles around, but our big break came after the one-hour mark when the System took pity on us and a notification popped up.

[Buy a hint for 30 gold coins?]

I never clicked on the [Yes] button so fast in my life!

The System was stingy and only gave a partial drawing of the upper right corner of the illustration, but it was enough to give us a good head start. Once we finished that bit, the System offered another hint for more gold, and I kept on buying until we finally finished the puzzle four hours later.

I leaned on the wall and put a hand on my forehead as though I was an actress on stage who was about to faint. “That was way too hard for me!”

Lari flashed a smile. “Teacher, this should mean the prize will be really good. No one would put so many obstacles if the treasure isn’t spectacular.”

“I doubt it.” I almost had to bite my tongue to stop myself from saying that the best treasures were always guarded by boss monsters. That would’ve raised a flag.

The most senior guard went inside what I expected to be the prize room first. There were no screams, so the rest of us followed behind him right away.

The treasure room was vast and circular, its earthen walls bare except for patches of moss. Pillars of white stone, set with globes of glowing glass, were set here and there along the perimeter, brightly illuminating the massive oak chest dominating the center of the room, its iron-bound lid closed tight. Ornate runic carvings adorned its surface and it rested on a low black stone platform. Scattered loosely around the chest were three golden objects: a goblet, a ring, and a small statuette. The air inside was stale and carried a faint, earthy scent. Other than the chest and the few treasures, the room was empty.

We fell into a reverent silence.

“This probably isn’t dangerous, but please stay behind us,” said Prince Muyang’s chief bodyguard.

The kids and I obediently stood behind the clan members as one of the more junior guards undid the iron clasps and opened the chest. He smiled and took out a scroll case from the inside of the chest. It was made of dark wood and brown leather.

We all crowded around him and I used the System to check the item’s info.

[War Scroll:

An ancient scroll containing the original text of the Divine Strategist’s sermons to his disciples on the art of warfare and logistics.]

With this, I got a tiny bit of exp, which was enough to push me over the edge to my Farming milestone level.

[The War Scroll: Quest Complete

Reward: Farming Exp and Mustard Seed]

[Congratulations you just advanced a Farming level!]

[Your Farming level is now 30.]

Yes!

I was so excited by leveling up that I barely paid attention to the others when they took all the treasures. They would all be sent to Prince Muyang’s father, the ruler of the northern clans, and the scroll case was put back in the chest for now, since they feared the contents might be too delicate for us to touch, much less unroll and read.

We quickly went back outside where my flying ship was and returned to the islands. I went directly to my villa where I secluded myself in order to check on all the new goodies I received for reaching my level 30 Farming milestone.

There were lots of rewards: more energy, house unlocks, five puppet upgrade gems, an extra building slot, and the limit for farm animals was increased from eight to ten.

The five ruby hearts went into the gem on my puppet’s chest.

[Puppet Name: Mr. Bear

A magical plushie unlike any other. This cute and cuddly bear is made of a special type of plush cloth and magical stuffing that gives it special powers. When its owner is in danger, this bear will come to life.

Though Mr. Bear is a wizard type, this puppet is also equipped with hidden metal claws and teeth.

Type: Magic

Base spell: Fireball

Upgrades: 14→19/99]

While treating myself to a slice of osmanthus cake and a [Kola-Kola Soda] to celebrate my level up, I browsed the [Build] tab and saw that the [Palace] and [Four Courtyard House] were both unlocked.

Maybe I would build a [Palace] when it was time for my wedding, but at the moment, I felt that using that much land for a house was too much. The added building slot would be filled by another [Rice Mill] since it was needed for the war effort.

When I finished checking all the new goodies, I went to visit Prince Baiyu and we spent the rest of the night together.

The next day, I visited Prince Baiyu’s parents at their villa.

The royal couple were enjoying a honeymoon of sorts and kept to themselves. According to Scholar Wu, clan members’ babies were considered “newborns” for a longer time than human babies and needed a lot of care and attention because clan members grew and aged at a slower rate. Thus, the time when a female was pregnant was considered a very special time since the parents would probably not have much time alone together for a few years. That was why Lady Yuying and her husband spent all their time at their villa and even ate their meals separately.

Everyone thought it was hilarious when they had to ask Fengying to replace some of the furniture they broke. I tactfully changed the more fragile wooden furniture with sturdy metal ones.

Whenever they did emerge, the two of them looked bright-eyed and rosy-cheeked, and today was no exception. They sat side by side on a loveseat while Baiyu served us tea, looking quite pleased with themselves. We exchanged the ritual greetings and made some small talk before Lady Yuying got to the main point.

“We’ve decided to hand over Baiyu’s inheritance. We’ll be too busy to handle it after the baby is born,” said Lady Yuying.

“There are some gold and household items, but most of them are in the form of properties such as agricultural lands, undeveloped forests, houses and shops in towns and cities, and so forth,” said Lord Yulin. “There are a lot of taxes and documents that need to be filed when we transfer the deeds to Baiyu.”

Prince Baiyu’s eyes gleamed. “I’m sure I can handle it.”

My head started spinning when they talked about all the details of the contracts and legal papers that would be needed, but the important part was that this conversation signaled that they were getting ready for the time when their son married out of their family.

We parted with lots of smiles and mutual good wishes. Prince Baiyu was on cloud nine now that we got a concrete sign of approval from his parents, and we had a party that night to celebrate. Deming whipped up a scrumptious feast of fresh fish and seafood dishes served with the produce from the farm. After the kids went to bed, Prince Muyang contributed his alcohol stash and the staff spent a boozy night of stargazing and singing around a bonfire at the beach. Prince Baiyu hustled me off to my villa when our drunk guests dared each other to go skinny dipping.

***

The days of vacationing at the beach and planting strange fruit trees passed in a sweet haze of romance. It wasn’t until the winter season was almost over and we were packing for our return to the Emberstone Farm that I remembered to check the [Mustard Seed].

[Mustard Seed:

Plant this at the appropriate time on your farm to unlock a pocket dimension.]

What???

Chapter 201 - Planting the [Mustard Seed]

I caught my breath and my heart pounded wildly in my chest.

A pocket dimension?

That was a proposed Adventure Incarnate expansion that went into beta testing but was never released!

Years ago, the developers made a “farm within a farm” which was supposed to be a much more “high fantasy” land where farmers made an army of earth golems to work on the land for them. There, one could also cast magic spells with the help of… I couldn’t remember if they were called fairies or spirits, but they were summoned creatures. It even included a training portal!

The idea had been scrapped due to the player community’s vocal disapproval of the bright, cartoony graphics which they hated because they thought they looked too childish.

How come I had access to this piece of scrapped content?

Thinking of all the possibilities made me feel giddy, and I had to calm myself down a little before I mentally clicked on the “appropriate time” part of the item description. According to the System text, I needed to use the Astrology skill to find an auspicious date, hour, and minute for planting the seed. I took note of all the details and went outside that night to check.

“I hope it’s not years from now,” I said to Prince Baiyu.

“There might be more than one auspicious day,” he said. “Astrology normally works like that.”

We were stargazing at the fishing platform, as far away from the lights of the villa as we could be. The sea breeze was warm and the night sky was cloudy, which made it harder to use my telescope since we had to wait for the section of the sky I was charting to clear.

Thankfully, this type of Astrology was easy enough. All I had to do was to use the [Telescope] to find the stars indicated in the [Star Map] and note down their coordinates which I then entered into the [Cosmic Fortune Finder Machine’s] numerical keyboard.

[Cosmic Fortune Finder Machine:

A mystical machine used to find both auspicious and calamitous dates for important events. Type in a question and the machine will output a star map. Find the coordinates of the stars on the map and input them into the machine to reveal the answer you desire.]

If you had asked me back on Earth, I’d have said that Astrology was all mumbo-jumbo, but it seemed to be a legitimate skill in this world.

I typed in the question "When is the best time to plant the Mustard Seed?" and pressed the enter button. Then I collected the [Star Map] from the output chute.

The telescope was a digital one with a control panel. I fed the [Star Map] into a slot and the telescope rotated until it was facing the right area of the sky, but I did have to maually adjust the angle. I peered into the telescope's eye piece and kept adjusting it up and down until the System pinged me that I found the right star. Prince Baiyu wrote down the numbers for me. We continued working like this until I located all the stars I needed.

“Okay, here goes nothing…” I punched the last set of numbers on the Cosmic Fortune Finder Machine] which spit out a card with the information I wanted. “Wow, I’m so lucky! The next auspicious date is thirty minutes after midnight on New Year’s Day.”

“I’m happy for you. So you’re done with astrology tonight?”

“Yes.” I put the equipment away.

"Can you ask this machine any question?"

"What? No, not really. I can only ask the questions that my bloodline inheritance asks."

"Pity, but never mind that." Prince Baiyu took my hand in his. “Shall we go to your villa or mine?”

I turned to face him, my heart quickening at his proximity. Placing my hands on his shoulders, I felt the warmth of his body through the silk of his robes. I went on tiptoe, my lips brushing against his ear as I whispered, “Oh my, what a saucy question. You're becoming really bold.”

He blushed and stammered, “Well, y-you, I-”

I put a finger on his lips to silence him. “No, no, don’t explain. Let’s go to your villa.”

He took me in his arms and bent down until our foreheads touched. His breath was warm on my face as he said, “Now who’s the saucy one?”

This time I stopped him talking by covering his lips with mine.

***

Two days after that we harvested the last of the fruits and I removed the [Crystal Waters Resort], leaving the islands as pristine as we had found them. Since Prince Muyang and his people were staying here, we said our goodbyes and I gifted them with a large box of Emberstone Farm [Tea]. The rest of us got on the [Solarium] and flew off. I stopped to drop off Prince Baiyu, his parents, and Scholar Wu at Anwei City before returning to my house. New Year’s Day was tomorrow, and it was a major holiday for clan members. Due to their long lifespan, clan members could forget even important memories if they weren’t revisited every now and then. Therefore, at the end of each year, they came together as a family to talk and record the significant events in their lives and that of their community in the past few years.

Though I was sad that we couldn’t be together, I didn’t whine because, after all, we had spent the entire winter season in each other’s company.

Travel via the [Solarium] was fast, so we arrived at Emberstone Farm in under an hour.

“It’s a cliche, but there’s truly no place like home!” I flung my arms around my apprentices. “I can’t wait for tomorrow.”

“I’m glad to be back,” said Kharli. “The islands were nice, but it was so hot.”

Mo nodded her agreement. “I’ve been looking forward to the spring planting season all week long.”

“Teacher, do you think the [Ginseng] is ready yet?” asked Lari.

I shook my head. “I doubt it grew much in winter. Do you want to go and check it now?”

“No, Teacher. I don’t want to miss the magic!”

“Alright.”

Everyone loved it whenever I made the buildings appear out of thin air, so I waited until the staff finished disembarking with all of our luggage before going to the System’s [Build] tab and summoning the [Three-Courtyard House], [Greenhouse], [Ranch House], and the two [Rice Mills]. They all clapped.

“We’re back!” Kharli ran off to the main house with the other two trailing behind her.

The staff followed behind them at a more sedate pace while I stopped to inspect the fields before heading to my house.

The air was cold but not freezing on the last day of winter. I pulled my thin cotton jacket closed, shivering. The plants from the [Winter Seed Mix] we’d planted at the start of the season had grown shoulder-high. They were brown and dry-looking. By midnight, they would have fully wilted and by morning the kids and I would plow them into the soil where they would further decompose into nutrients that the crops could use in the future. I knelt and picked up a few fallen leaves which I crumbled in my hands. They released a pleasantly earthy, damp scent.

After my walk, I went to the [Herb Garden] which was in quite a messy state since we’d left it alone for so long. My apprentices and I got busy tending to the plots and sweeping the paths clear. We finished at lunchtime and went to the main house where the staff were all busy preparing for the feast tonight.

“Don’t eat a lot now, reserve your stomach space for the New Year’s Eve party!” I said.

“Except for Lari, he has plenty of space,” said Kharli.

Lari just smirked and continued shoveling rice and meat into his mouth.

“Today I’m gonna soak in the hot spring for an hour at least,” said Mo. “My bathroom in the [Crystal Waters Resort] was good, but nothing beats the hot spring at home.”

“Are we going to dress up for tonight?” asked Kharli.

I yawned and said, “A nap is my first priority. I’ll put a bit of effort into dressing up later, but you don’t have to if you don’t want to.”

“Teacher, I think we should wear matching clothes next year. I remembered that too late this year,” said Mo.

“Oh yeah, that’s a thing, isn’t it?” Back in Singapore, families liked to wear new matching clothes for the Chinese New Year. My parents and I always wore red. The thought made me feel a little melancholic, so I finished eating as quickly as I could and left.

At the [Ranch House] I slept until late afternoon and put on a comfortable but elegant set of red robes with tiny white snowflakes painted on them. A simple green jade hairpin in an abstract wavy shape completed the look. With a spring in my step, I went to the courtyard house where Fengying and the others had set up the main hall with festive decorations made of pinecones, pine needles, bamboo cuttings, and plum blossoms. Pine, bamboo, and plum were called the Three Friends of Winter because they were evergreen plants that thrive even in the coldest season.

“My lady, please sit here.” Fengying directed me to the seat of honor at the center of the hall.

The maids then brought in a wooden chest containing the traditional New Year’s gift of lucky money. Last year, I didn't know enough about local customs to arrange this, but this year, Scholar Wu’s books had educated me on what a good employer should do for her staff.

Everyone lined up and I handed each of them a string of one hundred copper coins strung with red thread. The coins were round, with a square hole in the middle, and weren’t worth much, but since they were given as a gift on New Year's they were said to be lucky. Tonight we would wear them on our necks while we feasted and put them under our pillows before we slept.

I exchanged pleasantries and good wishes with everyone.

“Happy New Year!”

“May this year be filled with peace and harmony.”

“Wishing you a year filled with joy and happiness.”

When I handed out the last of the coins, Fengying, as the oldest person around, gave me my share.

“Thank you,” I said. “Let’s eat and drink our fill to welcome the New Year!”

As I requested beforehand, we all dined together at one long table in the outer courtyard, so it was very festive. The house’s climate control was turned on, so it wasn’t too cold, and there were lots of pretty fairy lights and winter-themed decor. Above us, the sky was a glorious blaze of stars and a gibbous moon.

For this New Year dinner, the chef and his assistants had prepared a whole steamed fish, crispy pork belly with pickled vegetables, roast duck, double-boiled ginseng with pork ribs, and vegetables in abalone sauce. Since the celebration was for everyone, the maids served all the dishes and drinks in one go instead of having separate courses. In the middle of the table, they put a large Eight Treasure Auspicious Bowl full of nuts, seeds, and fruits whose names were homophones for nice things. For example, this world’s word for “apple” sounded similar to the word for “peace.”

I sampled every dish and drank sweet peach juice. The steamed fish’s delicate flesh seemed to melt on my tongue and the roast duck, with its crisp, caramelized skin and juicy meat was incredibly flavorful and delightfully textured. In my opinion, the pork belly was the star of the show. I loved the taste of the succulent meat and the way the crackling skin sounded when I bit into it. By the time I got to the vegetables, I was stuffed and only had a few bites of it before finishing off my meal with the double-boiled ginseng soup which was perfect for fortifying me against the cold winter wind outside.

“Another excellent feast!” I said to my apprentices.

Mo and Kharli were to my right, while Lari was to my left.

“I can’t eat too much or I won’t be able to go out later,” said Mo.

“Don’t stuff yourself silly,” said Kharli. “Planting the [Mustard Seed] seems very important.”

I wasn’t sure if farm hands were allowed in the pocket dimension, but I’d told the kids about it because I didn’t want them to worry if I suddenly disappeared from the farm tonight.

“The System probably has a huge surprise for us,” said Lari.

Mo placed a choice morsel of fish on my plate. “Teacher, you should eat more since you’re getting married soon.”

I pinched her waist. “You’re the one who needs to eat more. You need to build some of that good fat!”

Mo leaned towards me and whispered, “Teacher, did you notice Yinuo is getting plump? Could she be….?”

“She is a newlywed,” said Kharli.

“Hush, you. We don’t know anything yet,” I said.

Could it be that this time next year we would have a baby on the farm?

We finished eating well before midnight, of course. The staff put the leftover food away. It was traditional to leave a lot of food uneaten until the next day since having a surplus was a symbol of plenty. Tables were pushed to the side and Fengying, Deming, and the older staff started drinking in earnest. The younger ones like me and the kids took out a few musical instruments. Lari, ever outgoing, regaled us with a short tune on his flute that he had been practicing. Yinuo and the maids taught us some folk songs, but mostly we chatted and enjoyed the break from work.

As the night wore on, I felt sleepy and retired to my bedroom in the main house, with the kids keeping watch over me. They were given strict instructions to wake me up ten minutes after midnight.

“Teacher, will you really meet the New Year’s ghost in your sleep?” Mo tucked her string of coins under my pillow. “Maybe this will help.”

“Good thinking. I’ll put mine, too.” I took the necklace of coins from my neck and shoved it under my pillow for good luck.

The others did the same with their coins and I washed my face, put on my pajamas, and went to bed. No sooner did I lie down that I fell into a deep sleep and dreamed of my little dragon boy. He was wearing a red onesie with the character for good fortune embroidered on gold thread on its front and "Happy New Year" on the back. I couldn't help but kiss his cute face dozens of times.

When I woke up from my dream of a dragon child, I was in my bed, but I realized it was a false awakening because the dream continued with me receiving the evaluation that the player received at the end of every year in Adventure Incarnate.

However, instead of seeing an actual ghost, a bearded old man with blue eyes and hair, what I saw was something very different. There was no personal visit from a scary apparition. Rather, what I saw was a scrolling screen filled with text, presumably written by the ghost.

[My dear girl, we haven’t seen each other in such a long time! Though my body may have vanished from this world, my heart and spirit will always be with you. You’ve been here two years now, and you haven’t made much progress, but that’s okay. I’m happy as long as you’re enjoying yourself.]

Then there was a short pause before another screen popped up with the actual evaluation.

[You haven’t accomplished much. Couldn’t you have tried harder to improve the farm?

Maybe I should have given the farm to someone else.

It’s a pity, but there’s nothing I can do. The future of Emberstone Farm is in your hands now.]

Lastly, the “screen” in my dream showed my current stats. The only interesting thing was that there were some hidden values that couldn’t normally be seen in the System.

[Grade: D]

[Fighter Reputation: 5/99]

[Magical Reputation: 55/99]

[Social Reputation: 92/99]

It made sense that my fighter reputation was low because people hardly ever saw me fight, and my social reputation must be high because I helped fix the desert. However, what had made my magical reputation rise this much?

The System, it seemed, couldn’t handle GodIAm’s shenanigans with the inventory, which made the Achievements part of the screen flicker crazily. One moment the “Crops Shipped” showed 2,147,483,647 but the next it became -2,147,483,647. The same thing happened with the other stats.

I had assumed that GodIAm had simply duplicated the items, but based on what the System screen showed, he had actually changed the player’s data so that it showed that the items had been bought, gathered, crafted, harvested, fished, etc.

“Teacher, wake up!”

“Teacher, it’s time!”

“Time to wake up, Teacher!”

I woke up to the sound of my apprentices' voices. “Oh, that was such a weird, weird dream.”

Kharli and Mo helped me put on thick robes over my pajamas and we went outside for the most important thing we had to do today.

Now that it was past midnight, it was the first day of the spring planting season. The actual crops could wait until after dawn tomorrow, but the [Mustard Seed] had to be planted now.

Lari plowed one tile of land a few steps away from the main house’s door and Kharli spread the [Mysterious Goo] over the plowed soil. I waited until it was exactly thirty minutes after midnight to plant the [Mustard Seed], then Mo watered it.

I shivered a little in the cold night air. “Is anything happening?”

Mo frowned down at the patch of land we were all staring at. “I think it’s wiggling!”

“What?” Heedless of the fine set of red silk robes he was wearing, Lari knelt and put his head closer to the ground to peer at the seed more closely. “It’s already sprouted!”

“Oh my gosh, it’s so exciting!” I held the girls’ hands and squeezed them. “Lari, step back a little and give it room.”

He obeyed and we watched as the tiny seed grew into a seedling that rapidly shot upward. The plant grew with frenzied urgency, trunk thickening and branches multiplying before our disbelieving eyes. Branches unfurled and leaves sprouted at an astonishing pace. In mere moments, an enormous mustard tree towered above us, its yellow flowers already beginning to bloom.

There was only one thing wrong with it.

I blinked rapidly three times and rubbed my eyes. Was I seeing things wrong because of lack of sleep? I’d only napped a few minutes and it was after midnight right now, way past my usual bedtime.

Lari, Kharli, and Mo were bewildered.

“...Teacher, why does it look like that?” asked Kharli.

Chapter 202 - Book 2 End! (No break before Book 3!)

Chapter 202

🙞❤︎🙜

“Well, um, you know, it’s a mysterious door…Technically, it is a tree, right?” I circled it, but the other side was the same. “Check out the System info.”

[Mustard Tree Pocket Dimension:

A tree grown from a special mustard seed. The tiniest thing can grow into a mighty force of nature. Enter the door into space and time for a whole new adventure!]

We had expected a real plant to grow from the seeds, but what we got was a two-dimensional drawing of a tree with a wooden door on its trunk. It was flat like a piece of paper and the drawing was not realistic at all. It looked like a child's crayon drawing.

Furthermore, I knew that mustard seeds didn’t actually grow into stereotypical trees with woody trunks because the mustard plant was actually a shrub.

But hey, in a magical world, there are no rules!

“This looks strange but interesting,” said Kharli. She gingerly poked the paper-like substance with a finger. “It’s real!”

“Gimme a sec.” I mentally right-clicked on the item which brought up its settings and I made it three times bigger. Now the door was big enough to allow all of us together to walk through.

The others jumped back in alarm.

I gently stroked the material of the tree with my fingertips. It looked like paper but felt like plastic. “Let me try opening the door.”

The door swung open without a sound, and the three of us sighed in unison when we saw what was inside the door. It was a vast, open land, perfect for farming. Unlike Emberstone Farm where it was midnight, the sun was shining high in the sky in the pocket dimension. In the distance, hills stretched out under a clear blue sky. The ground was covered in many different kinds of grasses and wildflowers, but a few bare patches showed rich, dark soil. A river wound through the valley on the left side of the portal, and small groves of trees were scattered here and there. A gentle breeze carried a clean, earthy scent to us.

We stepped through and my field of view was immediately covered in so many System popups that only the first nine could even be read.

[Quest Available: Awaken the Spirits of the Land]

[Quest Available: Clear the Cursed Thicket]

[Quest Available: Totem of the Seasons]

[Quest Available: Rekindling the Emberstone]

[Quest Available: The Great Aviary Initiative]

[Quest Available: Let Food Be Thy Medicine, and Medicine Thy Food]

[Quest Available: Legends of the Living Earth]

[Quest Available: Paradise Earth Primordial Origin Dream Soul Path]

I closed all the popups and scrolled through the list of newly available quests. There were dozens, but they were all easy ones, except for [Paradise Earth Primordial Origin Dream Soul Path].

Mo tugged on my sleeve, concern etched on her face. “Teacher, why is your expression so weird?”

I blinked twice and stopped reading all the quest descriptions. “Gosh, I forgot you guys don’t get quests. Kharli, maybe you should take out your notebook and write this down.”

She did as I asked. Brushes and ink were the usual writing tools in this world, but I had, of course, given them blank notebooks and pencils. Kharli wrote everything down as I read the System text aloud, which took a while. I had to stop when I got to the part where the System gave instructions about the golems.

“The golems cost how much?!” Lari sounded outraged, his eyes wide and his mouth hanging open in disbelief.

“This is making my head spin,” said Mo.

“Teacher, can we take a break? My hand is cramping,” said Kharli.

I laughed good-naturedly. “Sure. There’s actually no rush, and I think we should go to bed soon. Tomorrow is the first day of the spring planting season.”

The three of them nodded.

“But, let’s spend a little time exploring! It’s not every day that we discover a new mystical land to farm.” I gestured at the distant hills covered in dense forests. “Don’t try going that far. It’s late and we’re all too tired. Stay close for now, and we’ll meet back here in half an hour.”

All of us went our separate ways, Lari and Kharli to the river, while Mo and I walked to the nearest open field. Tall grasses brushed against my legs, and bees buzzed among the poppies, buttercups, daisies, star lilies, and other flowers whose names I didn’t know. The ground was quite level, and when I examined the soil, I was elated to find that it was [Black Soil].

This was huge progress!

[Black Soil] was a prerequisite for planting Immortal Herbs. I’d tried to make it on the farm, but in the back of my mind, I was always worried about how the clan would react when they saw I was growing priceless, legendary crops. Planting them here would eliminate that problem, since non-farmers wouldn’t be able to enter this space without my permission. I wouldn’t have to ask Shuye for more guards around the farm.

However, apart from the soil, there were no other special features I could see since all of the dimension's functions had to be unlocked by doing the quests the System listed. I met up with Mo, and we collected some of the prettier blooms to make ourselves bouquets of wildflowers that I tied with a white ribbon.

At the door, we met up with the other two and gave them flowers.

“This is such a lovely place,” said Mo.

“Did you guys find anything interesting?” I asked Lari and Kharli.

“Yes! Teacher, the river is full of wonderful spots for Fishing,” said Kharli.

“I think I saw a place where I can place bird traps on the other side of the river, but it was too far to check,” said Lari.

“We can explore more later. Today, we need to prioritize the exp we will get from the planting season,” I said.

“Yes, Teacher. But after the planting at dawn, we’ll go back here and start working on the new quests?” said Kharli.

“Naturally!” I said. “Let’s have a toast for the New Year and today’s discovery of a new farm! I shall name it… Grand View Garden.”

I had racked my brain the whole day thinking of a properly majestic but not too pretentious name for the new farm subspace. In the end, all I could think of was the name of the garden in the classic Chinese novel Dream of the Red Chamber.

Lari, Kharli, and Mo clapped politely, and I distributed glasses of lemonade.

“Looks like we’ve got our work cut out for us!” I lifted my glass. “A toast to working hard and playing hard!”

Kharli lifted hers and offered her toast. “To the magic of life!”

Lari gave us a mischievous smile. “To mastering the art of looking busy while doing absolutely nothing!”

We all laughed.

Mo whispered something in Kharli’s ear before turning to me and lifting her glass in my direction. “To love and romance!”

I playfully nudged her with my shoulder. “I’ll drink to that!”

They clinked their glasses with mine the way I had taught them, and we all drank our lemonade.

After that, we exited the pocket dimension and I closed the tree’s door behind us, making sure that all the security settings were set to the maximum.

I was in a great mood as I walked towards my [Ranch House] where I got a welcome surprise in the form of a certain prince.

“You said you had to spend the day with your parents!” I hugged him.

“The day is over and midnight has come and gone.” He kissed the top of my head. “Shall we spend the rest of the night together?”

“Do you even need to ask?”

Our eyes locked and my hands found their way to his face, gently guiding him closer to mine. The moment our mouths connected, I realized this was the ideal way to bid farewell to the old year and welcome the new.

THE CHRONICLES OF EMBERSTONE FARM BOOK 2
THE END
THE STORY CONTINUES IN BOOK 3

Emberstone Book 3 - What has gone before

Previously on Emberstone Farm…

It all started with Adventure Incarnate. Originally a simple multiplayer farming game, it was bought by a Chinese video game company who turned it into a full-fledged MMORPG with Eastern-flavored fantasy martial arts on top of the original core farming mechanics.

Violet, a veteran player, was chatting with her old friend in the game, GodIAm, when he offered to let her log into his hacked Adventure Incarnate character. GodIAm claimed to have duplicated every useful or valuable item in the game.

The moment she logged into the game on GodIAm’s character, she was transported into the world of Adventure Incarnate that had somehow become real.

Fortunately, she had 2,147,483,647 of every item she could ever need. However, many items could only be used by a player of the appropriate level and she started off as level 1 in all skills. The items she produced herself were tradeable, but the ones GodIAm had duplicated were not.

Armed with a mysterious System, Violet set out to build her farm in the western continent ruled by the White Tiger clan.

The world of Adventure Incarnate was large and multicultural. The original game was vaguely medieval fantasy Europe, but there had been several expansions since then. The continent Violet was transmigrated to was based on the Chinese legend of the Four Auspicious Beasts - the Azure Dragon of the East, the Vermilion Bird of the South, the White Tiger of the West, and the Black Tortoise of the North. There was a fifth, central area, but that game expansion hadn’t been released in Adventure Incarnate yet.

The people in the White Tiger clan’s territory had Asian-sounding names, and the food, clothing, language, and architecture were Chinese-inspired.

She recruited several people to help her out: three farm hands named Lari, Kharli, and Mo, who share her access to the System. She also hired staff to run her household. Fengying, her housekeeper, is married to Deming, a celebrated maestro in the kitchen who is also called the Demon Chef because of his fiery passion for the culinary arts.

Her life is simple and satisfying, and she enjoys her recurrent dreams of a cute blue dragon who calls her "Mom."

Violet regards the local warlord, Shuye, as her Farm Guide, the friendly local leader who helps the farmer in Adventure Incarnate with settling in and selling her crops and other items.

Throughout the two years she has been farming, Shuye has been shocked by the many strange things that happen around her and Emberstone Farm.

Her odd but extremely powerful abilities are greatly valued by the White Tiger clan, and the farm’s products are highly sought after, especially the pill she made that cured the clan member's fertility problem.

She saved Prince Baiyu, the only child of the ruler of the Westerlands, from a chronic illness, and they are currently dating.

She has a second farm in the southern part of the continent, which is partly desert. There, she and her three apprentices practice regenerative farming. A secret portal in her living room connects her to the Chitinous Caverns, also called the Mines.

An upcoming World Event is the battle with the Demon Boss.

Chapter 203 - Year 3: The first day of Spring

A transparent rectangle hovered in the air in front of me, displaying a System notification.

[Quest Available: Paradise Earth Primordial Origin Dream Soul Path]

Below that message were buttons labeled [Accept] and [Reject].

Instead of choosing a button, I mentally clicked on the quest name which brought up the quest information screen.

[Paradise Earth Primordial Origin Dream Soul Path:

An epic quest that will answer all your questions about the meaning behind your life in Adventure Incarnate.

Build a three-story Bell Tower and ring the bells 108 times every morning and night for 108 days.

Time Remaining: 108 days]

Though I couldn’t remember the specifics, 108 was a special number in numerology that represented spiritual enlightenment or something similar.

The requirements seemed easy enough to do, but it was classified as an epic quest since it took so long to finish, and building the tower cost a whopping 108 million gold coins. Though the description of the reward was unclear to me, the fact that completing the quest cost a prodigious amount of time and money meant that I should receive an equally epic prize at the end of it.

I accepted the quest, switched off the System display, and turned my attention to the breakfast table. It was an hour after dawn on the first day of the spring planting season, and I had been browsing the available quests while waiting for my apprentices to join me.

My household staff bustled around me in the outer courtyard of the house, a square open space surrounded on all four sides by low buildings in the Chinese style. Two trees, one a pine, and the other a plum, were on the west and east sides. My housekeeper, Fengying, had bought a few plants in large pots that were considered lucky, with names like jade fern, money plant, peace lily, heartleaf, and so forth. They added a nice splash of color and vibrancy to the courtyard.

“Have they woken up yet?” I asked my maid, Yinuo.

“No, my lady. Should I send their maids to their rooms?” she asked.

“Give them another hour and tell the others they can start the ritual whenever they want. In the meantime, I think I’ll take a walk around the farm.”

Before going outside, I tied my hair up in a high ponytail and changed into more practical cotton pants and a short robe. Sturdy black work boots completed the outfit. Yinuo offered to accompany me, but I turned her down since I wanted to enjoy the peaceful quiet of a solitary walk.

Outside, I paused for a moment to take in the beauty of the clear blue sky and the forest that surrounded the farm. In the nearby field, I could see smoke from the incense burners my most senior household staff were using as they held the yearly ritual to thank the gods for the end of winter and the start of spring.

It wasn't necessary for me to join them since I was an outsider to this land, but I still bowed in their direction to show my respect.

Then, with my puppet, Mr. Bear, in my pocket, I headed straight to my pet golden slime’s house. Cutie was already awake and excited to see me. She bounced around as I refilled her water bowl and added more flowerpots to her food supply.

I picked her up and squeezed her, enjoying the feel of her elastic skin. Then I shook her gently, making her wobble like a bowl full of jelly. “Who’s a little cutie slime? You are, yes you!”

“Chuuuuu!” said Cutie. The slime tendril on top of her head formed a heart shape.

“Let’s go for walkies!” I put her down and she bounced beside me as I made my way north of the main house where we had planted an orchard last year.

The morning air was pleasantly cool, and the weak sunlight streamed through the branches and newly sprouted leaves of the trees, gilding everything in a soft golden light and making lacy patterns on the ground.

Each type of fruit tree was grouped together. Right now, the smallest fruit trees were only knee-high while the fastest-growing ones were well past my waist. They weren’t much to look at yet, but I looked forward to when they would be in full bloom next year.

In the middle of the orchard space was the [Insectary Garden], full of lovely spring flowers and buzzing with insects.

[Insectary Garden:

A special garden that attracts pollinators and beneficial predator bugs that eat aphids, thrips, white flies, and other pests. Tough native plants that have flowers bloom for a long time and are full of readily available nectar are the foundation of this valuable part of the farm that boosts yields and improves the quality of crops. Using the Insectary Seed Mix will ensure that flowers will be in bloom all year round.

More than one Insectary Garden can be planted on the farm.]

It was a delightful sight, and I was on my knees inhaling the sweet scent of the flowers when I finally heard my apprentices’ footsteps. I straightened up and waved at them. “Good morning, you sleepyheads!”

Lari, Kharli, and Mo, all wearing simple cotton work clothes and looking slightly the worse for wear because of staying up until the early morning after the New Year’s party yesterday, waved back at me.

We exchanged greetings and while we were chatting, Cutie got bored, so I let her bounce off southward. The people on the farm were used to my pet monster by now and would leave her alone or play with her if they felt like it.

Kharli sighed and said, “Teacher, my energy bar didn’t fill up all the way!”

“Me, too,” said Lari.

Mo nodded. “Mine is really low today, too.”

“It can’t be helped. Let’s take it easy today.” I gestured at the surrounding orchard. “We can start with planting creeping grasses on the pathways.”

Lari looked around and scratched his head. “Maybe we could drink some [Kola-Kola Soda] to replenish our energy?”

I thought it over for a while before saying, “The chef says the soda is unhealthy if we drink too much of it. I can give you a bottle if you really want it, but I think it would be better to let your energy bar refill itself naturally.”

Lari discussed it with the others and the three of them collectively decided to have some soda.

When they were done drinking, I handed them packets of [Evergreen Walkway Seed Mix].

[Fragrant Evergreen Walkway Seed Mix:

A mixture of seeds that include chamomile, creeping thyme, and resilient, low-growing grasses that give a small boost to soil health. Once planted, it thrives effortlessly, drawing from the earth's energies to sustain itself even with minimal rainfall and no fertilizers. It’s perfect for creating green paths that are delightful to walk on. With every step, a sweet fragrance will fill the air around you. These seeds will grow into plants that will suppress weeds by outgrowing them and will also help keep the soil from washing away.]

“I think planting grass will be much better than paving the paths with stone tiles,” I said. “And it will look prettier for sure!”

Mo yawned. Her eyes were a bit puffy and had dark circles underneath them. She said, “[Chamomile] flowers are edible, too.”

“So is [Thyme]! The other grasses could also be useful,” said Kharli. In contrast to the other two, she looked quite chipper today, her eyes sparkling with enthusiasm and a wide smile lighting up her face.

“That sounds good.” Lari opened a seed packet and inspected the contents. Of my three apprentices, he looked the worst, which was only to be expected since I knew he had stayed up all night partying with the staff instead of getting a few hours’ sleep like the girls.

Everyone already knew what to do, so we scattered and each did one small section of the orchard area. Since it was our first time, and I wasn’t exactly sure if the benefits of the green walkways exceeded the amount of energy we were going to use on it, this season we were only going to sow a few of the shorter paths with the seed mix.

Using the hoe from the System toolbelt, I tilled three tiles with one downward swing. The paths were winding, and the System only worked in straight lines, squares, or rectangles. Therefore, I had to till a few squares at a time.

I had lost count of how many times I had done this, but I never got tired of how the soil magically turned itself over with one swing of my hoe.

Though the seed mix’s item description said that fertilizer wasn’t needed, I still used [Mysterious Goo] on the ground to enrich it with more nutrients.

Then I filled my seed dispenser with the seeds. All I had to do was wave it over the area and the seeds flew out of the tool and embedded themselves in the soil.

The last step was to take out a watering can and water the seeds.

Each activity depleted my energy bar, which was half empty by the time I finished. When I worked, I didn’t feel tired until my energy was almost fully depleted, which was nice.

I hummed to myself as I cordoned off the newly planted walkway with ropes that I tied to the nearest trees. It wouldn’t do for people to trample all over my hard work!

Having finished the first task of the day, the kids and I went to a field near the river south of the main house.

“[Potato] time!” I said as I distributed the seeds.

[Rice] was our main crop, but we would also plant a few other hardy vegetables like [Potatoes] that would store and travel well. They would be needed to supply the armies that were gathering to deal with the Demon Boss.

I checked the event timer.

[System Announcement: World Boss Event

Prepare for the coming of the Demon Monarch.

Countdown: 146 Days]

I put the event out of my mind and concentrated on planting [Potatoes].

There was plenty of time to tackle that little problem.

Chapter 204 - Spend 12 Dragon Scales to buy a [Tapper]?

We each took a corner of the field and sowed as many seeds as we could. Since I was much higher level than my apprentices, I was able to plant a larger area. We kept part of the field free so that we had room to walk and tend to the crop.

I used my hoe, fertilizer sacks, seed dispenser, and watering can to good effect as usual. This was my third year on the farm, and my hands moved with practiced ease.

Once we finished, I wiped nonexistent sweat from my brow and said, “Done! Let’s all go back to our rooms to rest. I need a few more hours of sleep.”

Kharli and Mo giggled.

“Someone didn’t let someone rest last night,” said Mo in a singsong tone.

Kharli fluttered her eyelashes in a comically flirtatious way. “They must have been too busy to sleep.”

Lari just rolled his eyes and pretended he didn’t hear anything.

I pinched the girls’ cheeks lightly. “Oh, you!”

“Teacher, when is the prince coming back to visit you?” asked Kharli.

“No idea, but he’ll send word soon.”

Prince Baiyu and I were now going steady. One might even call it an unofficial engagement though that seemed to me an oxymoron. Due to the current state of war that the Westerlands were in because of the descent of the Demon Monarch, most celebrations were put on hold. The money that would have been spent on elaborate weddings, anniversary parties, reunions, etc. was supposed to be donated to the upcoming demon extermination campaign. This meant that we didn’t have any big announcement, but his parents had privately indicated their approval, so we were in the process of getting to know each other better in preparation for a life together.

During wartime, clan members, who normally took a slow approach to relationships, preferred a much faster pace, but I still wanted to take my time and enjoy the sweetness of a slow romance.

“May I have another soda, please?” asked Lari.

“No, you guys already had one today! Just sleep…” As I was talking I realized that the [Kola-Kola Soda] was caffeinated. Would they even be able to sleep right now? “Or soak for a bit in the hot spring before resting.”

“Teacher, can you give me a few more [Ageless Beauty Essence]? I ran out,” said Kharli

“How can you run out? What are you doing with it?” I asked her.

[Ageless Beauty Essence:

This potion is formulated with natural ingredients to restore your skin's youthful vitality.

To use, simply apply a few drops of the potion to your face and body after cleansing. Gently massage it into your skin until it’s fully absorbed. For best results, use this potion morning and night.]

“I pour a vial of it into my bath.” Kharli held up her arm for me to inspect. “Look, my whole body has soft skin like a baby now.”

“What? I’ve only been using a few drops like the instructions say!” I said.

“One of the maids gave me the idea,” said Kharli. “She’s too lazy to massage it into her skin, so she puts a few drops into a dipper of water and pours that over herself. I thought soaking in it would be better.”

“Okay, I’ll give it a try.” I handed her more vials.

Come to think of it, this was a great idea if it worked for me since I was also too lazy to use the beauty potion every day.

The vials vanished into Kharli’s inventory. “Teacher, what about the pocket dimension we unlocked? I thought we were going to go back there after we finished?”

“I’m too tired…” I yawned again. “Tomorrow should be soon enough.”

We walked back to the house while chatting about this and that.

***

The next day, we planted another field with assorted root vegetables - [Carrots], [Sweet], [Potatoes], [Beets], [Parsnips], [Turnips], and [Cassava]. It was pleasant work and our energy bars were now back to normal.

“Ready for some adventure?” I asked my apprentices when we finished planting the seeds. “Shall we go to the tree?”

“Yes!” Mo was the first to reply with an enthusiastic exclamation.

“I’ve been waiting for it. Last night, I could hardly sleep because of the excitement,” said Kharli.

“Race you!” With that, Lari ran off.

The girls ran after him, but I took my time walking to the tree’s location. They wouldn’t be able to enter without me anyway, since I had locked the door in the System settings.

“So who won the race?” I asked when I got there.

We stood in front of the so-called "tree." It looked like a paper cutout of a child’s crayon drawing of a tree with a wooden door on its trunk.

[Mustard Tree Pocket Dimension:

A tree grown from a special mustard seed. The tiniest thing can grow into a mighty force of nature. Enter the door into space and time for a whole new adventure!]

Kharli raised her hand. “I did.”

“Do you want to go first?” I put a hand on the door’s handle and pushed it open. Though it looked like paper, it felt like plastic to the touch.

“Yes!” Kharli stepped through right away.

Lari, Mo, and I followed behind her.

We found ourselves in a vast land of open fields covered in wildflowers and green grass, with the occasional stand of trees scattered here and there. The blue sky above us was dotted with fluffy white clouds, and in the distance were green hills. To my left was a winding river.

“Wow.” After saying that one word, I fell into a reverent silence.

This was going to be awesome!

The pocket dimension I had mysteriously acquired was huge, and as I browsed the System tabs related to this space, I saw more and more outrageous functions that would be available to me once I completed a couple of quests, starting with the introductory one, [Awaken the Spirits of the Land].

[Awaken the Spirits of the Land:

Find the five bells, mallet, and frame. Ring the bells to awaken the Spirits of the Land.

Reward: ???]

That sounded easy enough!

We wouldn’t even have to fight any monsters or spend a lot of money.

The kids wandered off to check the nearest open field. Mo daringly plucked some flowers while Lari and Kharli poked at the soil to check its condition. I joined them, and we explored the nearby area, examining the plant life, insects, and soil more closely. Everything seemed normal but of the highest quality.

Kharli reached up and pulled a tree branch down closer to her eye level. “Teacher, please take a look at this tree. The leaves have no brown spots or any flaws. It’s like something from a dream…”

We all went over to check.

“No, look!” Mo pointed at a spot. “The two sides of this leaf are uneven.”

Lari nodded, his expression solemn. “You’re right, but it’s very slight.”

I made a sound of agreement. “Okay, let’s look around a little more, but we should return to the house at least an hour before lunchtime and rest. We have plenty of time to plan our future farm in this place. You know what they say, ‘haste makes waste!’ and I want to map this place out before we start.”

“The area right in front of the door should be kept clear,” said Kharli. “That way, we get a good view of everything, and we’ll be able to see the crops’ condition at a glance.”

“We should keep an eye out for a good place to put the house,” I said. “The planting season comes first, and then we should take care of the [Greenhouse] and [Herb Garden] before we take care of the quests here.”

“I never imagined I would be impatient for the planting to finish!” Mo smiled, her expression softening as a soft flush of excitement colored her skin.

“No way!” I shook my head. “Except for the harvest, this is the best time to get Farming experience.”

“Mo isn’t close to leveling up. That’s why she’s not excited,” said Kharli. “Mo, Lari, let’s go offer some flowers to the [Vineheart Fairy House] later. Maybe the fairies will give us another bonus.”

“I’m going to pick more flowers!” Mo scampered off in the direction of a patch of white starflowers.

“Meet up at the door one hour before lunch!” I said to her departing back.

“Yes, Teacher!” she yelled back in acknowledgment.

We each went our separate ways. I headed north to a small grove of birch trees that I thought looked interesting. I was shocked when I examined a tree and got a System popup asking if I wanted to insert a [Tapper].

[Would you like to use a Tapper on this tree to receive Mystic Tree Sap?]

Of course, I clicked on the [Yes] button and mentally sighed in disappointment when I got another popup.

[Spend 12 Dragon Scales to buy Tapper?]

Who even had [Dragon Scales] in this day and age?! They were replaced with credits years ago!

Chapter 205 - Oh no, not that! Anything but that!

However, when I tried clicking on the [Yes] button, I triggered yet another popup.

[Error. Not enough Dragon Scales. Spend 100 credits to buy a Loot Box?]

Wow, if this was still real life and this was the game, I would be majorly annoyed.

The [Mustard Tree Pocket Dimension] was an expansion that was beta-tested, but never officially released in Adventure Incarnate after it was negatively received by the players. The [Loot Boxes], in particular, were a sore point.

But wait… weren’t [Loot Boxes] bought with [Dragon Scales]? This made no sense!

I tapped my feet as I thought.

On the one hand, I had never used [Tappers] in this world because all they did was give cheap items which wasn’t very useful. These trees should give [White Birch Water] which I didn’t even have in my inventory since GodIAm didn’t deem them necessary for playing the game.

On the other hand, this was a special area full of unreleased content, and it was quite possible that [Tappers] gave something different here.

It was worth a try!

My mind made up, I bought 10 [Loot Boxes] and opened them. I got 67 [Dragon Scales] and a bunch of cosmetic skins, emotes, victory poses, name cards, and icons. This was enough for five [Tappers] which the System helpfully drilled into the trees for me. Using the [Examine] option on them only yielded the information that the [Tappers] were empty, with no indication of how long it would take for them to fill.

I was amusing myself by testing the cosmetic items from the [Loot Boxes] when Kharli came running up to me with an expression of wide-eyed wonder on her face.

“A fairy! Teacher, you’re being blessed by a fairy!” She tugged on my sleeve and pointed above my head where a little fairy with green-colored hair, butterfly wings, and a crystal wand was sprinkling silver fairy dust on my head.

The [Fairy Icon] in the game was just a little graphic beside the player’s name, but here it was an actual fairy who hovered over me. I lifted my hands, palms up as though receiving a blessing. “I think this is a good omen.”

Then I deactivated the icon since it was way too flashy.

“Oh, she left.” Kharli let go of my sleeve, but she was still looking above my head. “She was so pretty!”

“That wasn’t a real fairy. It was an illusory magic from the System. Like a decoration.” I suddenly had an amusing idea. “Do you want one, too? I have another one I can give you.”

The icons were low value and could be gifted to others, unlike most other Cash Shop items. I clicked on the [Gift] setting and typed in her name because I knew she would say yes.

“Th-th-that-” Kharli stuttered, her eyes bulging and almost falling out of her face.

I burst out laughing at her funny expression. “Hey, why are you so shocked? Just click on [Accept] then equip it.”

“But the System said it’s a Mythical grade item!” Kharli looked like she was about to faint.

I put a hand on her back just in case. “That’s just because it’s extremely rare, but it doesn’t really matter. It’s just an illusion that doesn’t do anything, so just accept it.”

After a moment of thought, I added, “And don’t expect too much. You’ll just get something funny floating over your head, that’s all.”

Both of us grinned when we saw the result when Kharli activated the icon. A huge slice of strawberry cake, spun above her head throwing off pink sparkles.

“It’s so cute!” Kharli reached up and tried to touch it, but, of course, her hand passed right through the cake slice. “I can’t wait to show the others!”

I smiled indulgently and let her marvel over the icon before inviting her to walk with me.

“Let’s go over there.” I gestured to the river.

We left the grove of trees and walked through an open field. The grass there went up to our shoulders, and it was a bit tough to see where we were going.

“You know, I think the ground here is sloping towards the river,” I said. “We should check how water flows through the land before we plant.”

“It doesn’t look like it will rain soon,” said Kharli.

Tilting my head up, I scanned the skies. “You’re right. No rush though!”

The riverside was dotted with smooth, large stones, with a Fishing spot we could use in the future. The river's gentle, clear stream meandered through, lined with tall reeds and cattails.

The other side was full of willow trees. Occasionally, a willow branch would sway low enough to brush against the river, creating ripples that spread outward before vanishing. The ground beneath the trees was carpeted with fallen leaves and twigs, and birds fluttered between the branches, chirping merrily.

Kharli sighed. “Everything here is so beautiful and unspoiled.”

“I think we could be the first humans who have ever set foot in this land. Have you seen anything man-made at all?” I asked.

“I haven’t.” Kharli absentmindedly took out her fishing rod then smiled and put it back in her inventory. “I almost started Fishing!”

“Check the time. We’re going to be late for lunch. Let’s walk back to the meeting place.”

As expected, the other two freaked out when they saw Kharli’s icon.

“Why do you have a magic item? What does it do? Where did you get it?” The rapid-fire questions came from Lari who kept on trying to touch the cake icon. “Why is it food? Do you have others?”

Mo was just making incoherent sounds of both appreciation and awe as she tried to catch the pink sparkles.

“This is nothing,” said Kharli. “Teacher has one, too, and it’s a fairy!”

Mo made a noise like a scalded cat, and Lari’s head swiveled toward me so fast I was afraid he was going to do an Exorcist-style head spin. I activated the [Fairy Icon] and was almost deafened by their screams, but they quieted down when I gifted them their own icons. Lari’s was three gold coins that tumbled around each other making a ka-ching noise like a cash register and Mo’s was a Rubik's cube that continuously solved and unsolved itself.

“A magic cube!” Mo was beside herself with joy.

“I’m gonna be rich!” Lari jumped up and down and imitated the ka-ching noises.

Did he know what the cash register sound meant? Probably not, but he seemed to love the “mysterious noise” anyway.

I was going to instruct them on how to activate and deactivate the icons, but they were all very good at using the System and figured it out themselves. Lari wanted to show it off to the household staff, but the rest of us convinced him to show the icons to either Shuye or Scholar Wu before revealing them to the others, which was great because when we went back to the house, Shuye was there waiting for us at the main hall with Fengying and the maids serving him tea and snacks.

My Farm Guide was as big and burly as ever, but he no longer looked much like a bear. He gave off the air of a noble warrior instead of looking like the shaggy-haired denizen of the woods dressed in leather and rough brown cotton I had met when I first came to the Ancient Hill Forest. His hair was short and neat and his silk robes elegant. In the past, he used to wear trousers and the usual knee-length top worn by commoners which overlapped in the front and was tied on the right side. Nowadays he had swapped that attire with a long robe that reached his ankles, with long, flowing wide sleeves, richly decorated with intricate embroidery.

“Happy New Year!” I said. “How have you been? How is your family?”

He got up from his chair and we bowed to each other. All of us, including my three apprentices, exchanged greetings and New Year gifts. We gave Shuye lucky coins, bolts of cloth, and packets of tea and he said that the kitchen staff were already dismantling the wild game and demon monsters he had hunted for us. In addition, he handed over Scholar Wu’s gifts of paintings, writing tools, and books.

“Oh, how lovely and thoughtful!” I suddenly felt a little bad. Weren’t my gifts too common and bland? Thinking quickly, I handed him a large box of [Ageless Beauty Essence]. “Here’s my new product. I think it will be a big hit.”

The kids waited impatiently as Shuye and I made small talk. Finally, I took pity on them and asked the staff to leave so that Lari, Kharli, and Mo could show Shuye their new icons.

Shuye laughed heartily when he saw the illusory items over my apprentices’ heads. “Cake, coins, and a cube? What will you think of next?”

“Do you think it’s okay to show them to other people?” I asked.

“It’s a little strange, and they may get a lot of unwanted attention if they go to Anwei wearing those illusions, but it shouldn’t cause any problems if you wear them on the farm.” Though Shuye knew they weren’t real, he still couldn’t resist trying to touch the icons. “They aren’t giving off much of a qi aura, so they should be safe.”

“Great!” I nodded to my apprentices, who took the hint and took their leave.

After they left, Fengying returned with fresh tea. She did a double take when she saw the kids, but swiftly recovered her composure.

“I’m glad to see you in good spirits,” said Shuye to me. “I was afraid you would be depressed because the prince had to leave for the training camps.”

“Well, it is tough, but I’m not the sort of woman to pine away because of something like that!” I took a sip of the tea. Coffee was my preferred beverage, but tea was what was traditionally served to guests. “How is the war effort going?”

“That’s what I came here to talk about. I’ll be leaving for the camps myself in a month, but we’ve arranged it so that you won’t be left here alone. Scholar Wu will stay with you here while I’m gone.”

“Gosh! Please take care of yourself, and don’t worry about us. We’ll be fine.”

“I’m sure you will.” Shuye leaned back on his chair. “I should also tell you that a few of the sites you discovered that we couldn’t find without your help have now become accessible.”

“Which places?”

“The Lunar Forest where you hunted goats, the Heaven’s Eye Grotto where you caught the cave fish, and Golden Harvest Banana Grove with all the monkeys and banana plants.” Shuye paused and frowned. “But not the lake.”

My lips twitched. “You guys still can’t find an enormous lake in the middle of your territory?”

“Yes, it’s very strange.” Shuye seemed to contemplate this idea for a few minutes before saying, “But what’s stranger is that these hidden locations suddenly became exposed. Do you know why?”

I frowned and thought it over while nibbling on a sugar biscuit. “Maybe it’s because of the higher level of atmospheric qi?”

“Perhaps. Has anything changed with your bloodline inheritance or the farm?”

“Nothing.”

He raised an eyebrow.

“Oh, right! I almost forgot because the stuff with the icons distracted me too much. Yes, I need to show you something.”

“I can hear your stomach rumbling. Why don’t you show me what you’ve been doing to the farm after you eat?”

“Yes, come eat with us. The chef’s special today is spring vegetables.” I turned to Fengying and asked her. “Did they catch anything today?”

Deming’s assistants often went out to hunt or fish, which were both integral parts of their training to be master chefs.

“They caught plenty of trout this morning, and it will be served at lunch.”

Shuye and I exchanged looks of anticipation.

I rose and gestured for Shuye to follow me. “Yes, I think we can do the farm tour after lunch.”

This time, Fengying set up lunch for us in the dining room which was a small but elegant room with large windows, a round table with mother-of-pearl inlay, rosewood chairs, and silk wall hangings depicting serene mountains. In honor of our guest, the chef had prepared a greater variety of dishes than normal and Fengying had set the table with fine china, crystal glassware, and silver utensils.

Shuye was a large person, with a large appetite to match, and the maids quickly filled the space in front of him with a mountain of rice and huge platters and tureens of pan-seared trout, red-braised pork, spicy vinegar chicken, steamed eggs, hot and sour lemon duck, all cooked with fresh spring vegetables. Dessert was a sweet snow fungus soup with lotus seeds.

The meal was a great way for Lari to learn from Shuye’s example. My Farm Guide ate a massive amount of food but did so in a neat and efficient way while following the rules of proper table manners.

I loved all the dishes, but the vinegar chicken was a revelation. The vinegar and chili pepper were the first things I tasted, followed by ginger and spring onions. I think there was also a hint of sesame oil in there. The flavor was light yet complex, and I finished off a large portion of it myself before I even tried the other dishes out.

At the end of the meal, I declined a serving of dessert and had a few slices of apple instead.

“I envy you for being able to eat like this every day,” said Shuye. He leaned back on his chair, contentment written across his face.

“That was absolutely delightful,” I said.

“The pork was amazing,” said Lari.

“I liked the trout better,” said Mo.

“The steamed egg is so simple, but it’s so soft, silky, and delicious,” said Kharli.

“I think we need to rest for a bit before going out. My stomach needs time to digest the food.” I nodded to the maids who cleared the table and poured tea for us. “Shuye, can you tell us news about the clans?”

It was time for a good gossip session!

Shuye smiled and shook his head at me. “There have been tons of new developments since we last met. Have I told you about the Goat clan?”

“The one whose mountain got teleported?”

“Yes, them. They’ve gotten eighteen challenges for their territory, but everything is on hold until after we defeat the demon.”

“Are they likely to win or lose?”

“It depends on their performance in the war. They shouldn’t lose as long as they make a good showing.”

“Have some of this.” I pushed a plate of honey candy towards Mo who was eying it longingly but too shy to speak up and ask someone to pass it to her.

There was a short pause in our conversation as we nibbled on sweets and drank more tea.

“So the preparations are going well?” I asked Shuye.

“It’s been much better than I expected. Even the Venerable Immortal Sage and the master of the Dawn Skyblade Sect will be joining us with their elite disciples,” he said.

The rest of his news was similar. Everyone who was anyone was busy training, raising funds, manufacturing weapons or supplies, etc. After about an hour of Shuye bringing me up to speed, we finished our tea and went outside where I proudly showed him my newest accomplishment, the [Mustard Tree Pocket Dimension].

“It’s a paper drawing? I can’t feel any qi from it.” Shuye looked at me quizzically. “What is this?”

I covered my mouth with a hand to hide my smile. “Try to open the door.”

The kids and I had tested it, and I was the only one who could open it, so we were all shocked when it swung open for Shuye.

“What is that?!” I exclaimed when I saw what was beyond the door.

Table of Contents

Chapter 1 – Transported into the world of Adventure Incarnate

Chapter 2 – There’s just one small problem with my cheat

Chapter 3 – I did not cut down any demonic trees!

Chapter 4 – I have a bloodline inheritance

Chapter 5 – Fishing day! It’s not really cheating if it’s a single player game

Chapter 6 – Magical Girl transformation sequence

Chapter 7 – Foraging in the woods for delicious treats

Chapter 8 – Logic or Desire?
Chapter 9 – [New Quest Available]
Chapter 10 – The art of potion making
Chapter 11 – Daring Rescue
Chapter 12 – I know it was you
Chapter 13 – Time for the quest reward!
Chapter 14 - The Flower and Jade Pavilion
Chapter 15 – Food is a priority
Chapter 16 – Stalker?

Chapter 17 – Seven gods inhabit each grain of rice

Chapter 18 – Crafting is cool, right? Nothing could possibly go wrong!

Chapter 19 – Do you think I’m some sort of super-powerful witch?

Chapter 20 – A strangely powerful joke item

Chapter 21 – A naughty, devilish rogue

Chapter 22 – The implications were rather dystopian

Chapter 23 – Year 1 Spring Harvest
Chapter 24 – Choosing apprentices
Chapter 25 – Three farmhands acquired!
Chapter 26 – Navigate the System
Chapter 27 – The most famous noble clan

Chapter 28 – Rice to the Challenge: A New Quest

Chapter 29 – A-Maize-ing Adventures

Chapter 30 – Hare Today, Gone Tomorrow

Chapter 31 – Year 1 Summer: Planting Vegetables for Peas of Mind

Chapter 32 – A Berry Good Foraging Lesson
Chapter 33 - Lettuce feast together!
Chapter 34 – Swept Up in the Moment

Chapter 35 – Chive never been more excited for a quest

Chapter 36 – A Scent-sational Quest for a Rare Blossom

Chapter 37 – Hunting Up a Hole Lot of Trouble in a Trap-ical Paradise

Chapter 38 – Angling for Adventures

Chapter 39 – Lake It Easy

Chapter 40 – I think people might be turned off by the puns in the title, so I’ll stop that now

Chapter 41 – Brew-tiful Potions are Fun (The Puns are Back!)

Chapter 42 – Sow much fun in a pun-derful world of farming!

Chapter 43 – Basking in the Beauty of Cove-ted Waters

Chapter 44 – Seas the Day

Chapter 45 – Current Events Lead to a High Voltage Adventure

Chapter 46 – Basil-cally, I’m a Real Sage When It Comes to Potions

Chapter 47 – Dandelions are Pollen-ty of Fun

Chapter 48 – Time to Turnip the Beet and Start Harvesting

Chapter 49 – Year 1 Summer Harvest

Chapter 50 – The Results of the Summer Harvest

Chapter 51 – Epic Quest!

Chapter 52 – Autumn Season Planting

Chapter 53 – Making plans for the winter farming season

Chapter 54 – Leveling up is always fun

Chapter 55 - The Cursed Lands

Chapter 56 – Making a huge sacrifice for the greater good

Chapter 57 – Fertilizer Trees 🌳🌳🌳
Chapter 58 - Mid-Autumn Festival Contest
Chapter 59 - Fortune-telling Device
Chapter 60 - Contest Winners
Chapter 61 - Permaculture in the cursed lands

Special - The Chronicles of Teddy Bear Farm Part 1

Special - The Chronicles of Teddy Bear Farm Part 2

Chapter 62 - Building a base of operations in the desert

Chapter 63 - Dendrological Cultivation Chamber

Chapter 64 - The [Lizardwings] produce a valuable resource

Chapter 65 - Desert Agriculture

Chapter 66 - Planning a Food Forest

Chapter 67 - New Quest: Investigate the Emberstone

Chapter 68 - Side Quest Activated!

Chapter 69 - Since 69 is the sexiest number, here are some fox girls (they have tails)

Chapter 70 - The true reason why the Emberstone was lost

Chapter 71 - Choosing a Quest Reward

Chapter 72 - Year 1 Fall Harvest

Chapter 73 - 2,147,483,647 [Thunderbolt Tubers]

Chapter 74 - Special Rice Varieties
Chapter 75 - Start of the Winter Season
Chapter 76 - Huge House Upgrade
Chapter 77 - Magic Crafting
Chapter 78 - Nourishing the barren land
Chapter 79 - A cursed bloodline
Chapter 80 - It looks like a demon egg…
Chapter 81 - Smithing and Fletching time
Chapter 82 - Ancient Watering System
Chapter 83 - What was lost must be found
Chapter 84 - Emerald Cove Vacation Part II
Chapter 85 - The Black Tortoise Clan
Chapter 86 - Leveling up Cooking
Chapter 87 - Cursed Skill
Chapter 88 - Cooking Success?
Chapter 89 - Fighting demons in the badlands

Chapter 90 - I never forget to use my item cheat

Chapter 90.5 - Search for the missing farmer

Chapter 91 - Mining at the Chitinous Caverns

Chapter 92 - GodIAm would be so proud of me if he knew!

Chapter 93 & 93.5 - Descending to level 50
Chapter 94 - Insect Massacre
Chapter 95 - Battle Rating Upgrade
Chapter 96 - Going deeper into The Mines
Chapter 96.5 - Rescue Team
Chapter 97 - Amazing exp per hour rate

Chapter 98 - Boss Fight at the bottom of the Chitinous Caverns

Chapter 99 - Caught in a trap

Chapter 99.5

Chapter 100 & 100.5 - The other side of the portal

Chapter 101 - The universe's divine revolutions

Chapter 102 - New Year Festivities
Chapter 103 - End Book 1
Chapter 104 - Start Book 2
Chapter 105 - Year 2 Spring Planting
Chapter 106 - Immortal Herbs
Chapter 107 - A very important visitor
Chapter 108 - Poetic Interlude

Chapter 109 - Breaking through to the next cultivation level

Chapter 109.5 - The ancient principles of the flow of cosmic qi

Chapter 110 - Experimental Crop
Chapter 111 - Not a very good fruit ninja
Chapter 112 - 'Fun' mushrooms

Chapter 113 - Smithing is a fun activity when using awesome materials

Chapter 114 - I changed my mind, we won’t be raising chickens on the farm🐣🐥🐤

Chapter 115 - The Rise of the Feathered Fiends

Chapter 116  - A seed is full of potential
Chapter 117 - They hatched! 🐣🐥🐤
Chapter 118 - Rice-Fish Culture System

Chapter 119 - Level 20 Farming Milestone and Rewards

Chapter 120 - A sea of blood

Chapter 121 - Proof of your skill as a Hunter 🐇🐇🐇

Chapter 122 - Hunting wild animals🐐🐐🐐
Chapters 123 and 123.5 - Monster battle
Chapter 124 - Sensational Slime Shindig
Chapter 125 - Farming with [Mysterious Goo]
Chapter 126 - Demonic Fish 🐟🎣🐠

Chapter 127 & 127.5 - An uncontroversial chapter in which the MC does something silly

Chapter 128 - Insane leveling speed

Chapter 129 - Crafting more ranged weapons and ammo

Chapter 130 - The highest level mind control skill: Cognitive Modification

Chapter 131 - It's being attacked by pests and needs treatment

Chapter 132 - A perfectly ordinary farm in the middle of the desert

Chapter 132.5

Chapter 133 - [Perfectly Ordinary Prairie Chickens]

Chapter 134 - Continuation of the Epic Quest [Greening the Desert]

Chapter 135 - The Perfectly Ordinary Prairie Chickens Hatched!

Chapter 136 - Milestone level up

Chapter 888 - Mystical Dream Conjuration: Materializing objects

Chapter 137 and 137.5 - Preparing for a decadent destruction party

Chapter 138 - Field testing my explosive power

Chapter 139 - Time for a sweet harvest of explosions!

Chapter 140 - Growing a legendary flower

Chapter 141 - Testing Spirit Roots at the Soaring Crane Sect

Chapter 142 - Spirit Roots test results at the Soaring Crane Sect

Chapters 143 and 143.5 - Alchemy Tutorial Result

Chapter 144 - Item alchemy upgrades

Chapter 145 - [Soy Machine] and [Creamery] products

Chapter 146 - There’s thousands of them

Chapter 147 - Year 2 Spring Harvest

Chapter 148 - Uncovering the secrets hidden beneath the lush potato plants

Chapter 149 - The Aftermath of the Earthquake
Chapter 150 - Sailing on a [Viking Longship]
Chapter 151 - The Mythical Peach Blossom Isle
Chapter 152 - Is this a scam quest?
Chapter 153 - Swimming with the piranhas!
Chapter 154 - Farm Fairies🧚‍♀️🧚‍♂️🌺

Chapter 155 - Party on the back of a Giant Turtle

Chapter 156 - Underwater Adventure Time!🐢🌊🏝

Chapter 157 - Party on an island on the back of a turtle

Chapter 158 - Handsome husband

Chapter 159 - Summer Planting Year 2 - Stats

Chapter 159.5 - Ridiculously Strenuous, Absurdly Relentless, and Insanely Demanding

Chapter 160 - Planting a no-till [Herb Garden]

Chapter 161 - Special cultivation technique

Chapter 162 - The one where Mo said she saw a ghost

Chapter 163 - Celestial Harmony Martial Arts

Chapter 164 - Planting an apple orchard

Chapter 165 - The Great Underground Slime Cavern

Chapter 166 - The best summer ever
Chapter 167 - The Blissful Newlywed Life
Chapter 168 - Monkey Business

Chapter 169 - Mercy Mode: There's an upcoming demon war, this is still a cozy farming fantasy

Chapter 170 - Quest: Witness an Era-defining Event

Chapter 171 - Shuye's Transformation
Chapter 172 - Preparing for the Royal Visit
Chapter 173 - The Goat Clan 🐐🐐🐐

Chapter 174 - Witness an Era-defining Event: Quest Started

Chapter 175 - Witness an Era-defining Event: Quest Complete

Chapter 176 - Testing the Farm’s Boundary Shield

Chapter 177 - Harvesting the Seed Capsules
Chapter 178 - Year 2 Summer Harvest
Chapter 179 - Enchanting Wedding Gift
Chapter 179.5 - The Diamond Monopoly
Chapter 180 - Year 2 Autumn Planting Season
Chapter 181 - The Gangs of Anwei
Chapter 182 - Thieving Quest

Chapter 182.5 - The Chronicles of Emberstone Farm

Chapter 183 - Slime Pet body modification

Chapter 184 - Wondrously Whimsical Workshop

Chapter 185 - Quest: Grove of the Harvest Goddess

Chapter 186 - A breakthrough in alchemy

Chapter 187 - Combat Training using the [Bone Melting Powder]

Chapter 188 - Combat training in the Mines
Chapter 189 - Opening the Treasure Chests
Chapter 190 - The [Thunderbolt Wave] spell
Chapter 191.1 - The real villain appears! 💥💥💥
Chapter 191.2 - The real villain appears! 🔪🥧🍒

Chapter 192 - Preparing the [Herb Garden] for the Winter Frost

Should I change the cover on RoyalRoad?

Chapter 193 - Moving North for the Winter

Chapter 194 - it’s highly addictive!

Chapter 195 - A flying beast?

Chapter 196 - Holy cow, it's a sacred beast!

Chapter 197 - Harvesting the Strange Fruit

Chapter 198 - The Sacred Cattle

Chapter 199 - Snowcrest Mountain's Hidden Garden

Chapter 200 - Level 30 Farming Milestone

Chapter 201 - Planting the [Mustard Seed]

Chapter 202 - Book 2 End! (No break before Book 3!)

Emberstone Book 3 - What has gone before

Chapter 203 - Year 3: The first day of Spring

Chapter 204 - Spend 12 Dragon Scales to buy a [Tapper]?

Chapter 205 - Oh no, not that! Anything but that!