The rest of the planting season passed in the same way. This was farm life the way I liked it: full of fulfilling work, delicious food, and exciting adventures in another dimension.
We planted a small field of tea, which was in high demand these days, and lots of rice that we were growing alongside [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.]
On the last day, I gave my apprentices and staff a nice little bonus for their hard work, but, to my surprise, they all said they weren’t going for their usual fun shopping trip to the nearest big city, Anwei.
“I’ll save my coins for later,” said Lari.
We were at the breakfast table eating barley dishes. One of Deming’s chef friends had sent over a few sacks of barley, the variety that was called adlay or Chinese barley on Earth, and so we were having barley water, barley soup, and fried barley rice with chicken and mushroom. The kitchen staff were also making beer with it.
“What?” I put a hand on his forehead to check his temperature. “Are you sick?”
“No, Teacher. I want to have more money to buy something better for next time,” he said.
“Me, too,” said Kharli. “Madam Fengying told me to look at my purchases last year and decide.”
“Yeah, we haven’t even touched those things since we bought them!” said Mo. “The trinkets we bought aren’t as good as the things Teacher provides.”
The money I gave them was enough to purchase things like fans, handkerchiefs, hairpins, etc.
“But you can still go and check out the new restaurants,” I said. “Maybe buy some candies and snacks.”
“Our food is much better!” said Lari.
I raised an eyebrow. “Okay… but what will you guys buy when you’ve saved up your money then?”
Kharli and Mo elbowed each other and grinned in a conspiratorial manner.
Lari put a finger on his lips and said, “It’s a secret!”
No matter how much I asked, they wouldn’t say anything.
“Fiiiiine, keep your secret then.” I waved my chopsticks in the air to indicate my lack of interest in the matter. “It’s the end of the season. Tell me your stats.”
During our first year, the kids had varying Farming levels due to small differences in their individual energy levels, but now that they were higher level, the experience needed was exponentially higher. Thus, that tiny bit of variance was no longer significant and their Farming levels were now the same.
[Apprentice Name: Kharli
Farming Skills:
Farming Level 25→26, Fishing Level 15, Woodcutting Level 22, Cooking Level 2, Herblaw Level 1, Foraging Level 12, Hunting Level 6]
[Apprentice Name: Lari
Farming Skills:
Farming Level 25→26, Fishing Level 17, Woodcutting Level 21, Cooking Level 1, Herblaw Level 1, Foraging Level 4, Hunting Level 12]
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[Apprentice Name: Mo
Farming Skills:
Farming Level 25, Fishing Level 4, Woodcutting Level 21, Cooking Level 2, Herblaw Level 1, Foraging Level 17, Hunting Level 4]
The kids had not yet unlocked the mining skill, so their stat sheets were not the same as mine.
[Player Name: Violet
Farming Skills:
Farming Level 30→31, Fishing Level 17, Woodcutting Level 26, Cooking Level 8, Herblaw Level 30→31, Foraging Level 11, Hunting Level 8, Mining Level 8]
Now that I had unlocked [Automatic Alchemy], which was a subset of the Herblaw skill, I had over-leveled. Farming skills had a level cap, which was the Farming level, so even if I could run [Automatic Alchemy] all day long, even when I was asleep, my Herblaw level could never be higher than my Farming level.
“Very nice!” I put down my chopsticks and had one last sip of the barley water. “Shall we go to the classroom and write it down in our book?”
The kids enthusiastically agreed, and I knew why. Scholar Wu was due to return today, and they wanted her to see them hard at work practicing their calligraphy when she arrived. We went to the study room inner courtyard, a large and airy place full of natural sunlight. Students in this world often sat on the floors and wrote on low tables, but I had chosen more comfortable chairs for them to use, and the shelves were full of books, scrolls, ink stones, ink sticks, brushes, paper, and bamboo slips.
There Lari and Kharli wrote down everything we had done this season on bamboo slips which they would later sew together to form a book of records. Mo had some form of dyslexia, so she used the System to read the characters aloud to her in her head. The others wrote while she and I did the error-checking.
We were in the middle of our task when Fengying arrived with Scholar Wu, a tall clan member with a wrestler’s build. She had long white hair and dark blue eyes, which was the classic coloring of the members of the White Tiger clan. Fengying led some maids inside who served tea while my apprentices and I exchanged greetings and small talk with Scholar Wu.
In this world, leaders were those who were born to rule. That was what people thought of when they were asked about the social hierarchy. However, there was another type of ranking based on a person’s occupation, and “warrior-scholars” were at the very top. The other three major occupations were, in descending order of prestige, farmers, artisans, and merchants.
It was a great honor for Emberstone Farm to have a scholar from the Wu family, who were renowned for their Celestial Harmony Arts, tutor my apprentices, and Scholar Wu’s treatment reflected that. The whole of the third courtyard where she stayed was filled to the brim with the most elegant and luxurious furnishings I could get from my System inventory, and we all treated her with the greatest respect.
“How were the training camps?” I asked her.
The corners of her lips turned up in a lovely smile. Her pearly white teeth were a tad too large for her mouth, and she had prominent incisors. “I can’t complain. It’s not too bad since we have plenty of support staff. We even get hot water every other day!”
“I’m glad you’re back.” I added honey to my tea and enjoyed the sweet and fresh taste. “We explored the dimension on foot, but we waited for you before activating all its features.”
“I can hardly wait to see it!”
After tea, we led her outside to the [Mustard Tree Pocket Dimension]. Scholar Wu wasted no time and set up a dozen special tools to examine the tree. She did explain what they did, which was mostly to measure the quality and quantity of qi in an artifact, but I couldn’t understand the terms she used like “qi flux resonance,” “vital essence saturation,” and “etheric potential.”
“This is fascinating,” she muttered to herself as she wrote down the measurements on bamboo slips. “Negative readings on the vortex dynamics? Normal field coherence…”
We stood back and let our expert work on it undisturbed.
In this world where there was no Wikipedia or Google, I valued Scholar Wu’s breadth of knowledge. We had all agreed to wait until she arrived because we wanted her to advise us on the best possible way to develop the farm dimension.
Scholar Wu was all smiles when she finished using her measuring tools. “Everything looks normal.”
“Okay, then we will go inside and finish the quest for opening the dimension to other people,” I said.
“And I’ll measure again after that’s done.”
I opened the door and we entered single file. Since we wanted Scholar Wu to see everything, we stayed a few steps away from the door while I completed the [The Dragon's Den Doorway] quest. The player was the only one who needed to do the ritual, but I did it with my apprentices so we could all have fun together. Lari took out a full-length standing mirror opposite the door. Kharli put a [Diamond] on the ground equidistant from the mirror and door.
Then we all recited the incantation in harmony, as we had practiced before.
A verdant path, a mystic way,
Unlocks its secrets, come what may
With every leaf, a hope I see
To journey forth, wild and free.
In unison, we bowed three times north, west, south, and, finally, east.
I shut the door and then opened it right away, but instead of seeing Emberstone Farm and Scholar Wu on the other side, we saw something completely different.
“What?” I took a step back. “I must have opened it the wrong way. Let me try again.”