The morning sun climbed higher into the sky as I stood on a small rise overlooking the land that was given to me for this project. The land stretched out in gentle waves, framed by distant forested hills and a serene river wound its way further into the distance. The air was crisp, carrying the smell of morning dew. I took a deep breath, feeling a mixture of excitement and nervousness.

I crouch into a slav squat as I move my hand and rub the soil between my fingers. It had a coarse texture, with small stones scattered throughout. The earth was pale, lacking in the deep brown color I was used to when dealing with gardens. Thankfully it still held the property to grow plants, as I was even shown some of the grains that they promised were grown from this land, which I quickly requested to take these grains for myself since these seeds were already proven to grow in this soil. It wasn’t the time to experiment.

A handful of workers had gathered nearby, waiting for my direction. I counted their numbers, fifteen men and five women. I was at first surprised that women were allowed to work such a physically laborious job, but Cai Lin explained, "Why would we disallow women from farming? It would simply be impractical; they have a natural talent with plants after all."

Looking in hindsight, I should've expected such thinking. After all, it wasn’t long since they probably have advanced from hunter gatherers to a farming city. As gatherers, they would know the most about plants and were able to work with them better than the men that were used to nothing but hunting.

As I looked back at the workers and noticed their looks, they were filled with curiosity and nervousness, as they were no doubt informed of my identity. All twenty people looked sturdy and weathered from years of labor, ready to start at a moment's notice.

I approach them with a confident stride, projecting an aura of surety. “Good morning everyone,” I began. “As you all know, we’ll be using more advanced farming techniques, so that our plot here may feed even more people. I look forward to working with all of you.”

I was thinking of making some kind of speech, but since I had no skills in that department, I didn’t want to take any chances, and flop my speech miserably. Some of the farmers looked disappointed, perhaps thinking a Sage would make a grand speech, or perhaps they thought I would wave my hands and most of the work would be done. Unfortunately it would be a long and tedious process.

“First thing we will have to do is create the tools to till the land. Those tools will be used to turn over the first and loosen weeds and stones, while someone will follow behind and collect both of them. We will take turns tilling, as it is a very laborious job.”

Under my instruction, the farmers began to craft simple tools. Once I described the purpose of the tool, they were able to start making a tool for that purpose with ease. It seems it wasn’t incompetence that made them not have a hoe, but due to them having no need in one before.

“Once the tools are ready, we’ll start with the first section of the plot,” I instructed. “We’ll divide the land into smaller sections so that we can rotate tasks more effectively.”

The workers nodded even though hesitation was visible on their face. I was essentially asking them to dig up dirt for no particular reason. Realizing that even though they weren’t complaining, leaving them to their thoughts without an explanation might seem like a sick form of punishment to them.

“As I see some hesitation and resignation on some of your faces, let me explain to you the process of why we are doing this.” Some of them looked up in panic and I quickly comforted them. “I am not going to berate you for not having unconditional loyalty to me, even of my status. Instead I want to teach. You see, the purpose of tilling the soil is to introduce air, the thing we breathe, into the soil. You could quite literally say that you are breathing life into the soil.”

Some of the farmers' eyes widened at such a mystical description of the event. “We then follow from behind, collecting the plants and stones. The plants would eat what the grains are eating, and drink what the grains are drinking, leaving them with less. While stones get in the way of the roots of the grains. Doing all this ensures that the grains can breathe, eat, and drink with little to hinder it besides the weather.”

This time the workers nodded with some enthusiasm that was missing earlier. Of course I didn’t pacify them all, but they now knew that I at least thought I knew what I was doing, and that the results would speak for themselves when the time came. Once they were done making their tools and I was done marking out the plots, they got to work, in a single file line. The first farmer would go through digging up and tilling the soil with their stone hoes, while two others followed behind, separately collecting the weeds and the stones.

While they were working on that, I got five of the other workers and tasked them with going to the forest and chopping up the wood and the foliage. There was one problem, trees are heavy. I could simply deforest a small area and light those trees on fire, but that risks a wildfire. I would have to go the more time consuming and back breaking route, splitting the trees further down and moving them to a safer location to set them on fire.

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As we worked I took the opportunity to start a conversation with the workers. “So how is it living in this city?” I inwardly cringe at my dry attempt at a conversation starter, but thankfully the farmer did not even notice.

“Living here? It is both a blessing and a hardship, like anywhere else, I suppose,” he began, “Our living is based on the land and its blessings, that’s why the goddess is so important. Without her blessing, the lands would have surely shriveled up and produced nothing.”

I nodded, listening while we pulled on the logs with some rope. “Does she play a big part in your daily life here?”

The farmer looked at me with a light glare and I realized I might have screwed up. “Yes, absolutely.” He continues, “The goddess watches over the crops and the rains. When things go well it is her blessing, and when they don’t we must offer her more sacrifices to earn them back.”

“What can I call you?”

“You can call me Lei.”

“Lei, if I can ask you what the best reason to stay here is? Besides your wife and children?” I carefully prodded Lei. I wanted to know why they stayed here. It seemed like a lot of work to stay in one spot, and the winters were no doubt, much worse, even in this rainforest climate.

He looked at me, almost reminiscing. “I would say it is the goddess's elixir.”

“The goddess’s elixir?” I echo.

“Yes, every harvest we sacrifice a portion of our crops to her, and in return, she bestows us with her elixir for community events and winter. It helps soothe the soul and forget all the mortal toils.”

That was interesting. I wonder what the liquid was? Was it just beer? The biggest crop in this city was grain, so I wouldn’t be surprised if they found out how to brew it by accident. My curiosity lingered as we continued to work.

Once we got a big enough pile far enough away. We started the bonfire. The evening had crept up on us, and the flames leapt high into the dark sky, casting a warm, orange light. The smell of the freshly cut logs wafted through the air. Seeing the bonfire, others crept up towards the fire, which I held no qualms for.

I saw somebody haul a drum over to the fire and start making a beat, the others joining with either sticks or by humming. It was an enthralling experience, being in the middle of it while the people of the city sang and played.

I got up from my position, sitting a little further away from the crowd, enjoying it from a distance, where Cai Lin joined me. “Is something the matter?”

I sat there, not responding right away. Just enjoying the beats and the melody. It held a lot of similarity to the tribal songs I used to hear over tv. “No, I’m just enjoying this from a distance.”

We sat together in silence as we both thought of our own thing. When I finally got comfortable at the village to start acting more naturally, I was stripped away from there due to circumstances, and now I was here, role playing as a Sage harder than ever. I wonder if I’ll ever be able to retire that title and simply blend in with the crowd.

* * *

Morning came about and we started gathering the ashes in bags and hauling them back to our plots that were already tilled. With our limited manpower we couldn’t get a lot of ash, but hopefully it will be enough over the course of a few weeks.

We poured the ashes and retilled them into the soil. Now we needed to water the land and that’s when I noticed that I didn’t think of the water situation. We’d need to walk an hour both ways to bring jars of water, and we had a lot of land to water. For now I had no choice but to send farmers to bring water by the jugs to the land as we started the seeding process.

I spent an afternoon planning out an irrigation channel, making sure to start the channel uphill so that we don't have to do anything fancy to make the water flow. I outlined the path with some stones that we had plenty of, to ensure that there weren’t any sudden elevations that would make it impossible. Once I’ve accounted for everything, I grabbed a few farmers from the planting side, handed them the hoes we used for tilling and told them what we were doing.

“It isn’t sustainable to keep on carrying water to the farm, we need to make a creek flow near the farm so we can refill right next to our crops instead of walking two li’s.” Using the same analogy of bending nature, like I did with breathing life into soil, I continued, “We need to bend this river to our own purpose, we will dig it a new path.”

Although they weren’t enthused about getting dirty, they were still enthused by the idea of bending nature to a man's design. I ensured they started from the bottom, as to not make them work in the water or through mud. Dust and stones were kicked into the air as the tools pounded through the dirt. By the next day, I realized how long it would take and decided that I would assign half the farmers on this project, or else it would take me months. Months which I did not have.

One week in, we were only halfway done, and we were seeing the initial sprouts pop out of the dirt. Many of the farmers paused to pray to the goddess in gratitude, while I just sat down and enjoyed the small success that we’ve had. That day I took a walk through the plants we have planted so far to ensure that I didn’t notice anything wrong with them. Most of them seemed totally fine and healthy.

It took us one more week to finish the channel, and we all gathered around the top of the channel, the only place we haven’t touched since the start. We all ceremonially stood in a circle, as Lei picked up the hoe. “And with this, we have bent nature to our will.”

He struck the dirt and the water started to immediately trickle down the channel.