After Waking Up I Inherited the Earth [Interstellar] – CH16

Chapter 16

The Next Day

“Why is there a system shop?”

While browsing the codex, Xie Xingchen stared in surprise at the newly added tab on the far right. His head was full of question marks.

When did this shop appear? Why didn’t he remember seeing it at all?

With those doubts, he tapped it open.

“?” “?” “?”

Xie Xingchen: ?

The system had opened a shop for him… filled entirely with question marks?

Uh… this…

This Little Demon System really was a genius—in the weirdest way!

No wonder he hadn’t received any notification. Turns out it didn’t dare notify him!

Refusing to admit this was the “perk” of reaching LV1, Xie Xingchen played dumb and decided to ask the system for rewards again.

He poked the system as if he knew nothing, put on a friendly smile, and coaxed gently:

“Little Demon, yesterday I leveled up to level one. Usually in games, leveling up comes with rewards, so… where’s my reward?”

[System: Ding-dong. Player level detected: LV1. System shop has been automatically generated.]

Xie Xingchen’s smile cracked.

Once again, he felt his system wasn’t an intelligent system at all—it was an idiot system.

That stiff, by-the-book response sounded like a template answer pulled straight out of a program’s “search results”!

Xie Xingchen still wouldn’t give up. He wanted to squeeze something more out of the system.

But after replying with only a few lines, the system “played dead” and went offline. Every further question was answered with:

[Please explore on your own.]

Xie Xingchen: …

So systems could go offline too. Who knew?

Since the cold, aloof system didn’t want to be bothered, Xie Xingchen could only open the shop’s [Help] button and carefully read what the system shop actually did.

In the end, he discovered the system shop was basically a massive general store—selling everything under the sun, and the categories were bizarre. But to buy anything, you needed a certain level and turnover.

Yes—the turnover you’re thinking of.

Should he praise the system for being rigorous? After choosing the game route, everything had to follow the “business” route.

The main quest—lighting up the codex—was tied to sales volume, and now even shopping in the store required turnover.

With no turnover, he didn’t even have the right to see whatever items the shop rolled. Forget beginner packs and all that.

Xie Xingchen: I have never seen such shameless game design!

Most games at least start you off with a bowl or a knife. He started with nothing—no, worse, he started by losing money—and now the system gave him a shop where he couldn’t even browse the products!

Are you even human?!

Cursing under his breath, he closed the system shop. He had originally planned to go exploring again today, but he changed his mind.

Today, he would start reclaiming land.

Yesterday he’d collected a lot of things, but aside from scallion/ginger/garlic, roses, lavender, the rest were more or less unqualified.

For that result, Xie Xingchen had been mentally prepared. He was a bit emotional, but he knew this was normal—actually, it was already much better than many other planets.

Right now, he had: a few pieces of scallion/ginger/garlic; a little over twenty rose seeds; countless osmanthus branches (he’d have to go harvest them himself); a small bundle of lavender; and a whole field of rapeseed flowers (naturally growing).

The “business route” wasn’t easy when you relied on fixed products. But… if he wanted access to the system shop, easy or not, he had to grind.

He had a strong feeling the system shop items would help him hugely with completing tasks. So if he wanted the qualifications to buy from the shop, he had to start preparing products (planting) from today.

He found a barren hillside near a water source not far from the starship, and officially began his land-reclamation journey.

Reclaiming land was hard. Even with machines, success still took real effort.

Prosperity drove a small reclamation machine, repeatedly plowing back and forth—turning the soil, deep tilling, and crushing clods.

In fact, the tiller didn’t need a robot or a person; it could run automatically. But Xie Xingchen needed one mu of land for breeding, and that patch needed finer cultivation. That was why Prosperity was operating it manually.

After Prosperity finished preparing the land, Xie Xingchen poured his prepared mixture of medicine and water—according to the ratio—into the sprinkler.

This medicine was expensive: a small bottle cost tens of thousands of star-coins and was used to boost soil vitality.

Xie Xingchen had brought only ten bottles—leftovers from the original owner’s cultivation stock.

Once the breeding plot was ready, he handed the heavy reclamation work to Get-Rich and Long-Life. He himself had to return to the ship to start seedlings.

A small reclamation machine could clear about ten mu a day. That didn’t sound like much, but in practice it was plenty.

After all, with the tiny amount of “seed material” he had, he probably couldn’t even fill half a mu, let alone ten.

Rapeseed flowers weren’t in the codex quest list. Selling them didn’t increase turnover. And that field—occupied by rabbits—wasn’t in danger of going extinct. So in the early stage, Xie Xingchen decided to focus all his effort on osmanthus, roses, and lavender.

Large-scale planting was best done by sowing. But he had no seeds, and he couldn’t buy seeds from the star-net marketplace either.

Because every planet had its unique plants, Earth’s plants were no exception. Many of them were one-of-a-kind and simply weren’t sold elsewhere. So he could only propagate them little by little on his own.

He placed the rose seeds into 40°C warm water, soaking and stirring them. After a few minutes, once the water temperature normalized, he dripped in a few drops of nutrient solution.

Yes—the same high-grade nutrient solution he drank.

This nutrient solution contained no dark matter and included what the human body needed, so it could also work as plant nutrient solution.

It was just extremely expensive, which was why almost no one used it for large-scale cultivation. For mass planting, people used cheaper plant-specific nutrient solutions.

As for small-scale planting of precious plants? Planters would have nutrient companies custom-make specialized solutions.

So even though everyone knew premium nutrient solution could be used on plants, very few people actually did it.

Xie Xingchen didn’t want to either. But he only had this much material left. He had a little plant nutrient solution, too, but it wasn’t as effective as the premium one. Custom solutions required time. In the end, he could only compromise and use his own “rations.”

Rose seeds needed to soak at room temperature for 4–6 hours. After setting the basin aside, Xie Xingchen began cutting lavender cuttings.

Lavender wasn’t hard to propagate via cuttings. Usually you cut them into 8–10 cm lengths, trim the bottom at a 45-degree angle, keep only about 6–8 leaves at the top, and remove all leaves below.

Carefully, he trimmed the small bundle of lavender—and to his surprise, he ended up with more than fifty cuttings.

He placed the prepared cuttings into growth solution to soak up green matter. After ten minutes, they’d be ready for planting.

Each plant required different soil, climate, and moisture conditions. But considering all three plants were found nearby, Xie Xingchen reasonably suspected their growth traits had changed—so he didn’t strictly follow old methods.

Of course, the biggest reason was…

He didn’t know how to plant them.

To be honest, he was just a poor, good-looking male college student!

He wasn’t a flower farmer, and he hadn’t studied agronomy. How was he supposed to know proper planting techniques?

The original owner’s school taught planting skills, sure—but they couldn’t possibly teach “how to plant whatever Earth has,” so Xie Xingchen could only mash together what he knew and experiment.

For example, the cutting method he was using now was something he’d learned from a college roommate who grew sunflowers—combined with knowledge the original owner had learned in academy classes.

As for whether this “East-meets-West” hybrid method would work?

Xie Xingchen could only say: he had no idea. It all depended on whether these plants were stubborn enough to survive.

—

Carrying the lavender cuttings out, he found Long-Life had already installed an ultra-small protective shield over that one mu plot.

Xie Xingchen had instructed this before leaving—mainly to prevent natural disasters and small animals from ruining his precious seedlings.

The shield covered about one mu. If he shrank it to half a mu, he could save half the energy. Without hesitation, Xie Xingchen chose the smallest range.

He formed raised beds, inserted the lavender cuttings—about one-third of their length into the soil—then watered carefully. The water couldn’t wet the stems and leaves, or the plants could rot.

When everything was done, he poured mental power into the plot. Soon, the lavender cuttings, which had looked slightly wilted, regained fresh vitality.

After finishing the lavender, Xie Xingchen rushed to the forest with Get-Rich and Long-Life.

This time, their target was clear: the giant osmanthus tree.

Cuttings needed fresh branches—so Xie Xingchen had come to “restock.”

Deep in the forest, the osmanthus tree was enormous, with plenty of suitable branches for cuttings.

Xie Xingchen climbed up and started harvesting.

He carefully chose branches with several full buds, cut them into 10–15 cm pieces, removed all the leaves except a few at the tip, and placed them into a bucket of growth solution.

The tree was so massive that even after taking a whole bucket of branches, Xie Xingchen couldn’t see any noticeable change.

A bucket held roughly a hundred cuttings. Once it was full, he climbed down and returned to the plot.

The lavender cuttings were stretching comfortably, looking like they’d survive. Xie Xingchen nodded in satisfaction, then carefully took out the osmanthus cuttings and started planting them to the left of the lavender.

Two hours later, the osmanthus cuttings were planted. He sent another wave of mental power through them, and only after seeing them regain vitality did he leave the plot.

He hurried back to the ship, excitement high. He took out the soaked rose seeds and sowed them in the plot to the right of the lavender.

After sowing, he checked the sun, watered once with water mixed with premium nutrient solution, sprayed a bit of “soil-boost” water mixed with the vitality medicine, then hesitated—before continuously pouring mental power into the rose plot.

He watched the rose seeds break through the soil, slowly take root and sprout, and finally grow new leaves.

Only then did Xie Xingchen stop—his face deathly pale.

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