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.”

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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!