Felix wiped the sweat off of his forehead. He plucked the last apples off of the tree, and climbed down off of the ladder. The sun was going down, the entire world had an orange hue. It was still hot outside, since it was the beginning of summer.
He walked through the orchard back to his house. It smelled like a mixture of earth, apples, and moisture, since it was a little bit muddy in places. There was a decent number of trees, but not a staggering amount. Enough that by the time you reached the end, his house would look the same size as only one segment of his finger.
He entered his house. Dark and lonely like usual. Just how he liked it. He set the last basket of apples on the table, and grabbed his bucket. He walked outside, and went to his well behind the house. He lowered the bucket into the well, filled it with water, and pulled it back up with the rope. He used the water to fill his tub, which he had set outside. Calling it a tub might be a bit much, since it was essentially just a wooden box, but that was the only thing he used it for. It was a bit splintered and weathered, and the water treatment was faded in places, so it was starting to rot a bit, but he didn't really care.
He stripped his clothes and hopped in the tub. He had to get ready for the night watch. His dad was the night watchman, but since he had gone off to fight the demon lord way on the other side of the Azula mountain range, the duty fell on Felix, his son, instead. Felix was only 17, but he had good vision, he was actually decently strong from working in the orchard all the time, and to be honest, nothing ever happened anyway, since this was a remote village. The surrounding landscape was basically only plains, and there was one nearby river, the Azula, and that was it. So, even wildlife was sparse, consisting mostly of prairie dogs, foxes, and the occasional lost sheep or cow that had escaped from a ranch. It was basically impossible for there to be bandits, since where would they even hide? You could see clearly for at least 30 miles or more in all directions from the watchtower. The night watchman job was mostly to keep an eye out for fires more than anything else. So, even a 17 year old like Felix could do it.
The only reason the village of Gurnkey even existed in the first place was to provide a midway point between the capital city of Aurum and the south-eastern military chokepoint stronghold of Fort Cumin. So, the only people who would pass through would be military personnel once every couple of months during personnel swaps, rare land-based goods transports (most supplies reached the Fort via water, it had a river on it's eastern side that connected to the ocean), or messengers. Nobody else had any reason to head in their direction, the south-east of the kingdom had nothing but barren plains and mountains.
Felix scrubbed himself off with some soap he had made from lye and sheep's fat. The water in his tub turned murky. He relaxed and stewed in it, enjoying a bit of rest before he headed off to his post. After lazing around for a few minutes, he hopped out, and opened the sluice on the tub, draining it. He headed back inside, and put on his clothes. Just some basic hempen pants and a cotton shirt, both beige. He put on his socks and boots. He put on his night watchman's vest. He checked himself in the mirror.
To say the truth, his face was subpar. He just didn't have the right bone structure, his made him look a tad childish. His hair was brown. Hazel-green eyes. There was nothing noteworthy about him compared to anyone else in Gurnkey. He was physically fit from working outside all the time. He had a naïve and honest look to him on his face.
He looked out the window and saw the first torches being lit for the night. Time to go. He grabbed one of the apples for himself and walked northwest along the river towards the village. After about 20 minutes of walking, he arrived at the village gate, and shut and bolted it behind him after he entered, closing the gates for the night. He climbed the nearby stairs onto the walls, and greeted the afternoon watchman. His name was Joel, and he was nice enough, but they didn't have much in common besides being watchmen, so they had long ago burned through their small talk topics. Joel stated that his watch was completely uneventful and left to head home.
There was a bell on the watchtower. Felix rang it three times to signal the end of the day, and that everyone had 20 minutes to return to their homes. Since this was an underdeveloped feudal era, anyone who was seen outside after dark would be considered a brigand and a ne'er-do-well. He watched as the last of the bar patrons hugged each other and headed home. Lights started going out one after another as everyone turned in for the night. Slowly, the last sounds of human activity faded away over a few minutes, until only the sounds of cicadas chirping remained.
The moon was bright overhead. It was a mostly full waxing crescent. More than enough to see for 20 or 25 miles in any direction. The plains were mostly barren to the north of the village, with a couple of ranches for sheep and cattle. On the south side, there was his orchard, which he could see end to end from the watchtower. On the east side of the village was a bee farm. The honey from the bees was used to make mead inside of the village. The Azula river was to the west side of the village, it had been irrigated with rice paddies on the opposite side of the river. Rice was the staple grain of the village, and it was also used to make sake.
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.
This world didn't seem to have a strong grass or a grain that could be used to plant the plains, or, more likely rice was simply discovered first and since rice existed, no one had bothered to try planting something similar to wheat. When Felix turned 18, he would cultivate wheat type plants. He was sure it would give him an interesting monopoly. He could plant rye or wheat and create all sorts of unique products and dishes like beer or pasta, or honestly even just ordinary wheat bread, and would be renown as a culinary genius. The money he obtained from that would be very useful towards his plans.
His 18th birthday was a week away. It was the most important day of your life in this world. Once you turned 18, your inner potential would be unlocked, and you would be able to sense the mana in the world around you. He had been keeping a low profile for a long time.
He was actually a normal inhabitant of this world for the first 10 years of his life, when suddenly, his memories from his past life awakened in his mind. Naturally, his old persona completely eliminated his 10 year old persona. How could the mind of a 10-year-old compete with the mind of a 30-year-old?
He wasn't actually sure whether his memories had been present in his body since the moment it was born, or whether his soul had crossed into this world and taken over this body, cruelly ending the original Felix's life. But he didn't feel any particular guilt about this, since he had no choice in the matter once he had awoken. It was a case of take over or be eliminated, since a body could only have one owner after all.
So, since he had awoken, he knew what the best course of action was - keep a low profile, train yourself slowly, and use your unique advantages of being a transmigrator to become rich and powerful.
Glory? Fame? Forget about it!
He had no plans to do anything suspicious or over-the-top. This was a world of magic, and if he caught the eyes of the authorities, and they investigated his soul, he would be in for a world of trouble. Naturally, this was unlikely to happen if he did something like planting wheat and popularizing a few wheat dishes - this wouldn't be suspicious since he worked on an orchard anyway, he was basically a farm boy. But if he did something like popping out of nowhere as an illiterate farm boy and he revolutionized the economy of the kingdom by introducing the concept of insurance to split the risk of high value trade ventures?
Hehe.
Soul-searching was a frowned upon dark magic, but any lord worth his salt would have access to it secretly. And the local baron would definitely soul search him if he did something like that. In fact, if he didn't, the king would definitely harangue him in private once he caught wind of the matter for not doing so! So it was best to do something that would give him a big advantage, but was incredibly realistic and appropriate to his status and position like planting wheat. He was lucky actually, he had found some suitable reed-type plants in the river at a small delta section nearby his orchard. It was like heaven itself had set up this perfect plan for him.
He ate his apple. It was juicy, but realistically, he felt like the apples in this world weren't very sweet, in fact they were slightly bitter. But he had grown to like them over time. Still, maybe while he was becoming a wheat magnate he could selectively breed sweeter apples. The thought of wheat and apples made him long for apple pie from Earth.
He chucked the apple core off of the tower. He watched it for a few minutes, illuminated by the moonlight in the plains outside the city. He realized how truly uneventful and boring the region was when there was nothing better to do as a night watchman than stare at an apple core. He did not resent this though, since safe and boring was far better than being in a dangerous area where he could be eliminated before he had time to grow.
His thoughts drifted to his father. His father was a low-grade fire mage with a wind subclass who was a spearman in the military. He could cloak his spear tip in fire, and when he thrusted, he could use his wind abilities to create a mid-ranged fire thrust. Not everyone in this world could use magic, but if your parents could, you were much more likely to be able to use it yourself. In all, about half of people could use magic to some extent, but about 90% of magic users would be "peasant-grade" mages - meaning that they could only be realistically used to help in everyday life as a peasant. Something like being able to start a bonfire with fire magic, or filling a cup of water with water magic. Being a low-grade mage like his father was already rare, where his magic was strong enough to be used by the military. If he was particularly distinguished in his service, there was a small chance he could even become a Knight with a small amount of territory and with his title being a hereditary title - but Felix wasn't going to bank on it.
The fact that his father was a mage made him extremely confident he would have at least low-grade magic himself, which was perfect since if his magical abilities were too high, the local baron would feel threatened and investigate him, but if they were too low, he would be doomed to being a peasant with no power or control over his own life like about 95% of the people living in the village. Being low-grade was just perfect for his circumstances. He could work with it