As Tulland hefted his pack full of fruits, he was glad that he had put points into strength. A couple days worth of applications of Quickgrow added to the already aggressive growth rate of the vines meant lots and lots of fruits, and he had some experimentation to do.

He brought the pack over to the new, much bigger area he had cleared in the briars. After dropping them on the ground for later, Tulland commanded his Farmer’s Tool to transform into a hoe and got to work loosening the soil.

What Tulland had in mind would require a lot of work, as judged in the conventional way. He would need yard after yard of tilled rows, all carved out of hard, clay-heavy soil. All of that work might amount to nothing, but Tulland was stubborn that way. Even if there was a tiny chance of success, he was willing to swing his hoe and shed his sweat.

Stats hurried the tilling along just fine, and the speed and power he moved with now was a bit intoxicating all by itself, in a way that made him want to work a bit faster and push a bit harder.

Within another hour, he had plenty of soil prepared, with each area he planned to plant marked with a cut to separate it from the others. The first section got one briar seed, all by itself. Tulland’s Enrich Seed skill was higher level than it had been at the beginning. Along with the extra magic power he had to dedicate to the process, he was eager to see what differences he could now make.

The next briar seed was planted in a bundle of the fruits themselves, de-seeded and pulped so that their nutrients would only benefit that single seed. Tulland’s thought was that even with magical power, conventional farming rules probably still applied here. The soil that the briars had been growing in was clearly enough to sustain them to some extent, but it was also flat-out the worst soil Tulland had ever seen. It was hard, angry stuff that was so devoid of nutrients that it looked bleached.

Just looking at it grosses me out, and I couldn’t say why.

“Hey, System?” Tulland said out loud as he eased the communication restrictions.

Yes?

“Does this class give me… I don’t know how to say it. Do I know more about farming now?”

More? Did you know a single thing before?

“No, but that’s hardly the tone you should be taking. I could turn off your communication channel again.”

Don’t. It would make this conversation a waste of both our times. The answer to your question is yes, to a very limited extent.

“How limited?”

You are now a farmer. The changes that a class makes are not just to a person’s capabilities. It is to what they are at a fundamental level.

Tulland tossed two seeds together in one growing area, and three in another. There was no shortage of ground to do experiments on, and he was going to try anything and everything he could.

“That doesn’t tell me anything.”

Think of a Paladin. In your storybooks, what are they like?

“Noble. Noble and brave. Self-sacrificing. They can’t all be like that, though.”

No?

“No. Because people just aren’t. Most people are selfish. I am.” Tulland shuddered a little as he remembered what his selfishness might eventually do to his home world. “And people get scared. Not every Paladin is going to be an exception and noble beyond normal.”

That’s where you are wrong. Think about it for a bit.

Tulland did, taking a few minutes to consider it as he duplicated every experiment he had set up so far, but this time adding a shovelful of water to each mound.

“You’re saying that they start out average.” Tulland dumped another shovelful of water. “That the class changes who they are.”

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Over time. Slowly. Each stat you apply while holding a Farmer class makes you more farmer, in some way. And a farmer understands soil and plants.

“Isn’t that… insidious? The class changing their minds?”

All experiences do. A beaten man learns fear. A triumphant man learns confidence. Why should having a class be any different?

Tulland could almost buy that. He decided to let it lie, for the moment, and focus on the matter at hand.

“How much should I trust it? The new knowledge, I mean.”

What is it telling you?

“That the soil here is bad.”

The System went quiet for a moment, enough that Tulland double-checked to see if the communication channel was still unrestricted.

That, at least, seems probable. Now, I would advise you to…

Tulland knew that tone. He had heard it a lot over the past few days. The System was about to forget itself and talk. It would go for hours if he let it. But it also, he had found, really hated it if he cut him off before he could finish those speeches.

He mentally flipped the switch without a second thought, wiped the sweat off his brow, and went towards the exit from the hedge. Unpiling the briars he used to block the way in, he uncovered his pile of animal corpses.

The Razored Lungers, it had turned out, were slightly stupid. After his first few kills that weren’t instantly absorbed by his vine traps, the blood had drawn in more of the beasts. Enough for them to actually attempt entering the briar patch, and meet the cultivated briars with all of their agony thorns. And when the monsters were weakened enough, Tulland had cut them away before beating them to death with his club. In the process, he noticed that unlike the living briars, the dead vines did nothing to absorb the corpses.

For the first time since entering the dungeon, Tulland had too many resources. The fruits and groundwater meant that he wasn’t desperate enough to eat the Lunger meat raw. And he didn’t want to gamble his life on starting a fire, even if he could figure out how to do that.

There was nothing productive to do with the corpses except to see if his plants would appreciate a little extra food. He had seen what it did to his already-growing vines, and they appeared to like it just fine. Now he would see what he could get out of the seeds if they had a different, richer growing environment from the start.

Tulland set up a number of experiments with the corpses, all of which involved more cutting and pulping of the animals than he liked. Some of the flesh was mixed with more soil, some with less, some with more water, some with less, and some with multiple seeds just in case he had added too many nutrients.

By the time he was done, Tulland had about twenty different planting zones, all running some configuration of farming or another.

Then it was time to enrich them. It took hours of pushing magic power out and recharging to get it done, but Tulland wasn’t in a hurry. He had food and water, and for now, he was safe. When he felt the need to sleep, he slept, and once he had finished enriching the seeds, he even tried to double up on the skill, only to find that an already-enriched seed wouldn’t engage with a second skill application.

After that, he started using Quickgrow, pushing out all of his power over the next few hours. Neither of the skills had leveled during the experimentation. That wasn’t surprising. Tulland was pretty sure they wouldn’t, unless one of his experiments actually worked and produced something new.

Even with Quickgrow active and the obscene speed with which the briars seemed to grow, the next phase wasn’t something that would happen in just a few minutes. Exhausted again, Tulland dropped to the ground to nap.

—

“The economy is more important than any of you understand,” Tulland’s tutor had said, walking them through the market. “Even for war. Tulland. Tell us how to make as many swords for an army as possible.”

“Lots of smiths would be my guess. Lots of fuel for the forges, and lots of ore to smelt into metal. That kind of thing.”

“And how would you feed them?”

“Grain?” Tulland scratched his head. “Do smiths eat special food?”

“No, just the same things you do. But imagine you are the leader of a border town. Where do you get the grain?” the tutor asked.

“Farmers. I buy it from them.”

“Using what?”

“Tax money.”

The old man nodded. “That’s correct, except I believe you might underestimate how much money forging takes. A good sword is a product of several workmen, each using expensive materials and a lot of space. That eats up your tax money, and you don’t have money for farmers anymore.”

“But it’s wartime,” one of the other boys objected. Tulland remembered the boy, but somehow couldn’t remember his name. He was a larger boy, built for heavy work if not actual fighting. He had always been bloody-minded, compared to the others. “Just force the farmers. Take the grain. Feed the blacksmiths. Spend the money on materials.”

“That might work, once. But just once. As soon as the farmers know their labor will be seized, what do you suppose happens?”

“They stop working,” Tulland said. That was easy enough to know. Nobody would work without pay.

“Then send armed men to make them work,” the boy said, finding yet another application for violence. It was a habit of his known to everyone in the class.

“Each of whom requires a sword,” the tutor said. “And time and pay of their own. And even the most frightening of guards can’t make someone work as hard as they will in their own interests, with their own pay on the line. Production can and will drop. It’s been observed in many places.”

“Then what?” Tulland was interested despite himself. “You said the economy fixes this?”

“No solution will net you unlimited swords. But a thriving town can make more armor and arms than a starving one. A city can make more than a town. If you focus on prosperity, the rest of it will come. And that is how you build a strong people. Swords are only part of the answer.”