Chapter 14: Farming
Early the next morning, Marco packed up all kinds of goods and set off for Bean Village with Chu Jiu and Reg.
Just as Marco’s carriage had driven out, Yaris, a merchant who was also in the market and preparing to leave, noticed their carriage.
Yaris’s mustache twitched, and he asked a nearby assistant, “Isn’t that Marco’s carriage? Shouldn’t he be staying in town today? Why is he leaving?”
Could Marco have found a new trade route?
The assistant replied, “Yesterday, people from Bean Village came to Marco to promote their specialty products. Marco seemed very interested, and today he’s probably going to pick up the goods.”
Yaris sneered, “Bean Village? Bean Village? Tch!”
“Marco must have lost his mind to do business with Bean Village.”
The assistant quickly said, “Yes, yes, you’re right, sir. The people in Bean Village are all poor, dealing with them is bad luck.”
Yaris nodded in agreement, laboriously climbing into the carriage, and said with a smile, “To get rich, you still have to go to Ancient Linburg!”
“I’ve put all my savings into this trip, I have to make a profit!”
The assistant nodded and bowed, “Of course! You’ll definitely make a fortune on this trip to Ancient Linburg, sir!”
Soon, Yaris’s carriage also set off, heading in the opposite direction from Chu Jiu’s.
*
On the road to Bean Village.
The carriage ran quickly. Only when monsters blocked the way would Marco rein in the two big horses, and Reg would shoot fire arrows to drive the monsters away.
Squeezed among a pile of rice, flour, oil, and salt, Chu Jiu saw an ability-user manipulating fire for the first time in reality and was almost stunned.
Watching the big spider being driven away by the fire, Chu Jiu sincerely praised, “Amazing!”
As soon as he finished speaking, he felt Little Can in his pocket move slightly, as if scratching him with its claws.
Chu Jiu didn’t pay attention, gently patted it with his hand, and continued to listen to Reg talk about ability-user-related matters.
Reg was a sincere person and didn’t hide anything. He directly told Chu Jiu that his fire arrow was actually a low-level ability-user ability, which could scare away low-level monsters. If it were a more dangerous place, this low-level ability would be useless, and they would have to rely on the high-level ability-users’ fireballs, ice spells, lightning spells, and the like.
Chu Jiu then realized that there were low-level and high-level ability-users.
According to Reg, he heard that a high-level ability-user’s lightning spell could directly scorch a group of monsters, which was almost like a miracle.
At this time, Marco interjected, “Unfortunately, many high-level ability-users have gone to Ancient Linburg now, and ordinary people can’t see them.”
Hearing Marco’s words, Reg’s expression changed slightly, and he replied helplessly, “Yeah.”
Chu Jiu couldn’t help but be curious, “Ancient Linburg? What kind of place is that?”
The spice shop owner had also mentioned this place name earlier, also with a mysterious expression.
Reg shrugged, “It’s not a good place anyway.”
Seeing Reg’s “don’t want to say more” expression, Marco chuckled and changed the subject.
*
Two hours later, the carriage arrived at Bean Village.
Aman, who had been looking out at the village entrance, vaguely saw the shadow of the carriage, and quickly climbed up a tree to confirm from a distance: it was a merchant! The merchant was bringing goods!
Aman slid down the tree and ran to find the village chief, “Grandpa! Grandpa! Brother Chu Jiu brought back the merchant! Brother Chu Jiu did it!”
The old village chief was surprised and delighted, and stood up with his crutches, “Really?! So fast?!”
He had thought that Chu Jiu would have to spend two or three days at least, haggling with the merchants for a long time, to persuade them to come and take a look.
He didn’t expect that Chu Jiu would return with the merchant and goods on the second day!
Overjoyed, the village chief quickly asked Aman to inform the other villagers: hurry, see if your tofu is ready!
Chu Jiu had told them before he left: since they were going to make tofu a specialty of Bean Village, it couldn’t be made by just one or two families. It was best to have more people making it, so that there would be a sufficient supply.
So, the villagers started soaking soybeans yesterday and learned to make tofu according to the recipe given by Chu Jiu.
When the merchant’s carriage actually drove into Bean Village, every household had displayed fresh tofu.
To be honest, Marco had been worried that the “tofu” might be scarce, with only a few pieces in total.
Now that he saw that almost half of the households in the village could bring out boxes of tender tofu, he felt relieved—
This business was worth doing!
Soon, he and the village chief agreed:
Marco would come to Bean Village every Friday to sell daily necessities and buy fresh tofu.
As for the price of the goods, Marco frankly stated that when he did business with other villages, he would charge 5% more than the market price. After all, there was the cost of transportation and the threat of monsters, so the selling price couldn’t be exactly the same as in town.
This price was much fairer than Yaris’s, and the village chief naturally agreed and signed the contract.
That morning, small tents were set up again in the small square of Bean Village.
The villagers not only exchanged for the much-needed oil, salt, and vinegar, but also found it much more cost-effective than directly exchanging soybeans for goods.
At the current exchange rate, 10 copper coins worth of soybeans could make tofu worth 150 copper coins! This price difference was more than enough for them to exchange for precious rice, flour, salt, and olive oil.
Another point: this merchant would come every Friday from now on, so they wouldn’t have to wait half a month.
After a morning of business, the faces of the village’s elderly and children were all smiles.
As for Chu Jiu, in addition to receiving a lot of thank-you gifts from the villagers, he also received a full 400 development points from their “tofu transactions.”
He now had a total of 1600 development points.
Counting the development points and looking at the spirit beast icon on the system panel, Chu Jiu hesitated for a second between “repairing the fence” and “cultivating the land,” and finally decided: farming!
*
Chu Jiu took Little Can and Roar-Roar Rabbit to the edge of the forest.
“Roar-Roar Rabbit” was the new name he gave to the little rabbit. When it heard the name, the little rabbit hopped a few times, its long ears shaking non-stop, and it let out a series of cheerful roars.
Following the system’s instructions, Chu Jiu clicked on the newly added Q version of the little rabbit’s head in the [Spirit Beast] column, and dragged the “farmland” facility blueprint into Roar-Roar Rabbit’s “work schedule.”
[Work assignment matches spirit beast 2’s skills and preferences.]
[Spirit beast 2’s work today: farming.]
[Please select the farmland area.]
[Note: Each new piece of farmland requires 500 development points, please plan carefully.]
The system displayed several virtual green grids in the current real scene, each grid representing “cultivable farmland.”
Chu Jiu chose a place based on his intuition.
Roar-Roar Rabbit jumped onto the corresponding grid and roared at the rows of trees, “Oh roar roar roar…!”
In an instant, as if a tornado had hit the forest, all the tall trees were uprooted, then stripped of their branches and neatly stacked aside.
Chu Jiu was stunned, thinking that the spirit beast was so powerful! It not only opened up a piece of land, but also created hundreds of thousands of pieces of wood!
Then, at a speed invisible to Chu Jiu’s naked eye, Roar-Roar Rabbit spun around the soil like a white furry top.
Was it… loosening the soil? Chu Jiu guessed.
After a moment, a 5-meter x 5-meter field appeared in front of Chu Jiu.
Before Chu Jiu could exclaim in surprise, the system played an unprecedented musical sound, plus a few lines of prompts:
[Congratulations to the host for successfully developing farmland!]
[Regional development has risen to 0.8%!]
[Host level increased, now level 4 pioneer]
[Host has learned the active skill “Treasure Hunter’s Target,” please use it flexibly]
Wow!
The development degree rose by 0.5% in one go, surpassing the total of these days! And he learned a new skill!
As expected, wasteland farming was the most effective—he didn’t waste 500 development points.
Chu Jiu felt much more comfortable.
The system prompts continued to pop up:
[The farmland has reached arable condition. Fertility: average.]
[Please provide seeds or seedlings to be planted.]
[Currently, only one type of plant can be sown per plot of land, please choose carefully.]
Roar-Roar Rabbit jumped in front of Chu Jiu and stretched out its front paws—”Roar roar roar, what are we planting today?”
Chu Jiu praised Roar-Roar Rabbit without reservation and handed it the cabbage seeds.
Roar-Roar Rabbit was very happy to receive the praise. It grinned its three-lobed mouth, wiggled its spherical little tail, and hopped to sow the seeds.
The seeds were buried in the soil, and the next step was to water them.
Roar-Roar Rabbit took a wooden bucket from Chu Jiu that was many times bigger than itself, put the bucket on its head, and ran to the river.
From a distance, you couldn’t see the little rabbit at the bottom of the bucket at all, it looked as if the bucket had grown legs and was hopping towards the river.
Chu Jiu exclaimed “wow” several times, marveling, “Spirit beasts are so capable!”
As soon as he finished speaking, Chu Jiu felt an itch in his chest—Little Can had probably scratched him again.
Chu Jiu was a little strange: What was wrong with Little Can? It had scratched him twice in one day?
He took the little guy out of his pocket and held it in his hands. Before he could ask, he noticed that its two round eyes had turned into two semicircles, looking completely unhappy.
Chu Jiu thought carefully and asked cautiously, “Are you angry? Is it because… I praised Roar-Roar Rabbit?”
Little Can turned its face away: “Meow.”—”No.”
Humph. This human first praised that mediocre fire technique, and then praised Roar-Roar Rabbit for being able to farm.
My moves are much more powerful than the fire technique!
Also, if I hadn’t beaten up Roar-Roar Rabbit, it wouldn’t have obediently come back with us to farm!
Also, if I hadn’t been thinking every day, “I wish we had a partner to farm with,” we wouldn’t have met Roar-Roar Rabbit!
Little Can had a thousand reasons to be dissatisfied.
But Little Can didn’t say anything.
Chu Jiu smiled and didn’t ask further, just said, “We’ll be able to grow fish in the ground later.”
“Put a fish in the ground, water it, and soon you’ll grow a fish tree, covered with delicious fish.”
Little Can immediately forgot its anger and opened its eyes wide in surprise: “Meow?! Meow meow?! Meow!”—”What? Are you crazy! You can’t grow fish like that!”
Chu Jiu suddenly realized: “Ah, so you can’t grow fish like that.”
“Then there’s no other way, I can only make you pan-fried fish steak later.”
Little Can originally didn’t want to pay attention to this silly human, but when it heard the words “pan-fried fish steak,” it couldn’t help but lick its paw and tilted its head, meowing, “Is it delicious?”
Chu Jiu suppressed a smile and said, “Delicious, very delicious.”
Since when did he learn to understand them?