Chapter 29: Chronicles of Farming

Outside the simple door and walls of the exchange post, a long line of merfolk was neatly arranged.
It stretched from the entrance all the way to the altar, then made a sharp turn and wound back to the exchange post.

Sykes saw a player with a pink tail excitedly get in line at the very back.
She looked with envy at the exchange post sign, which was close yet would take a long time to reach in the queue.
Then she raised her fist to cheer herself on—

“Let’s go! I must buy the farming tools!”

There were many players like her.
In the ten or so seconds that Sykes was dazed, several more fish had lined up behind the female player.

Visibly, the long dragon of a line of merfolk turned towards the altar again.

“Scott?” Old Li called out, pulling Sykes’s consciousness back.

“I’m here.”

“Huahua said he wants to plant these as soon as possible. Since we can’t continue exploring and doing quests today anyway, do you want to go together?”

Sykes saw Old Li holding a handful of seeds.
Although his face didn’t show it, the swing of his tail was clearly much more cheerful.

“I still have some things to do, you guys go ahead.”
After making up an excuse to leave, the merman returned to his tower.

It was too difficult for a fish to suppress his own strength and mix in with the players.
Especially the last part of babysitting, it simply made Sykes not want to deal with cubs ever again in his life.

He let out a long sigh of relief, sat down in his chair, and knocked on the little butler in his mind.

“Ella.”

In the long queue in front of the exchange post, an apple-faced merman had also joined.

“Hey! Shennong!” Someone greeted her with a smile.
“Are you also here to queue up to buy seeds?”

“It’s you? Contemporary Foodie, right? Thank you so much for before. I’ll definitely follow your cloud site account when I get out!”

The players in front, behind, left, and right of her all greeted her very friendly, thanking her for her help during the Famine Crisis.

The foodie girl waved her hand and said embarrassedly, “It’s nothing. The feeling of being hungry is too terrible. I’m also very happy to be able to help everyone.”

“Yes, I’m here to buy seeds this time.”

A simple and honest-looking male player next to her turned his head in surprise.
“So we’re queuing up to buy seeds?”

The player in front of him was even more surprised.
“You don’t know what you’re buying, so why are you queuing?”

The simple and honest player scratched his head with a ‘hahaha’.
“I’m used to joining in on the fun. When I see people queuing, I just follow along. It’s just queuing anyway, I won’t lose anything.”

“Pfft,” the foodie couldn’t help but laugh out loud.
“That’s actually very reasonable.”

At this time, the player who had first greeted her said mysteriously, “Of course you won’t lose anything. Don’t you guys know? It’s said that the exchange post releasing seeds has a hidden meaning.”

“What hidden meaning?”

“Think about it, the exchange post is selling seeds, isn’t that encouraging you to farm? And what does farming equal?” He was beaming with delight.
“If you farm, you have vegetables. If you have vegetables, you can cook!”

“Doesn’t this mean that a life-skill profession is about to be released?” A female player who had been listening intently couldn’t help but chime in.
“The first one to come out might be a farmer? And then the second one is a chef?”

“Then I’m doomed, I’m a kitchen killer!” someone lamented.

The foodie didn’t speak, listening attentively to the others’ analysis.

‘Farming, cooking…’

Her eyes were even rounder than her face.
Right now, her eyes were shining, and she looked like a child full of anticipation.

‘That would be great!’

Over here, the merman was also listening to Ella talk about the new skills.

[Master mentioned before that the time players can currently endure is too short. This requires players to increase their magic power level, fundamentally reinforcing the energy membrane, or supplementing energy with external forces to extend the duration of the energy membrane later on.]

The business at Ella’s side was so good it was explosive, which made her voice much cheerier than usual.

[Referring to the history of the country where the game was released, players from the Flower-Planting Nation are mostly keen on two things: farming and eating. So it’s a good opportunity to introduce a cooking system, using dishes to supplement their life energy.]

Sykes was lost in thought.
“Well done, Ella. Cooking and potion-making follow a similar line of thought. Combining herbs and herbs can produce miraculous effects. When players cook, they might also be able to make dishes that supplement energy.”

[Master, cooking and potion-making are not…]

Sykes was mentally calculating what kind of reference recipes he could provide to the players.
He rummaged through the pharmaceutical knowledge in his mind, delighted to be able to pass this on to more people.

“Hmm?”

Ella sensed her master’s irrepressible little bit of happiness and chose to close her mouth.

[It’s nothing, Master. This line of thought is great.]

Ella looked at the excited player in front of her who was emptying their reputation points and taking away several large bags of seeds.

“Many people have bought this,” the red-haired, red-eyed little sprite, out of this sense of guilt, rarely reminded the next player, who happened to be the foodie girl.

“No, thank you,” the foodie smiled, took out a few plants, and gave them to Ella, asking for her help.

“Ge Ge roots and squeak grass, these two are available. The exchange post shook its head for the others.”

“Then please give me one of each of the other vegetable seeds,” the foodie changed her request.
“The kind that can be planted together without conflict.”

In the end, she left with a pile of bottles and jars filled with seeds, with a few emerald green vines hanging on her shoulder.

The foodie lived up to her name.
When she entered the game and saw the extremely realistic game environment, her first reaction was not how fun it would be, but whether the things here would have a taste.
Were they delicious?

It could be said that she embodied this ID to the extreme.

Of course, she was definitely not a combat-loving player, so she had never gone out to do exploration quests at all.
Her magic power was still at full value.

‘But I heard there are many strange plants outside. I can go have a look when I have the chance,’ the foodie thought.

She first tried digging a pit in the open space in front of her house, wanting to plant those few vines, but immediately received a system prompt—

[The current land does not belong to the player. Destruction and private use of land are prohibited. Please move to the back garden for planting. A second violation will result in a deduction of 10,000 reputation points.]

‘The back of the house?’

The foodie went around her house and only then discovered that there was actually a small garden behind it, about ten square meters in size.
It had been planned neatly by the previous owner, but now it was overgrown with seaweed, looking as if it had been abandoned.

A girl’s mind is after all more delicate.
The foodie keenly noticed something was wrong.

A backyard that had obviously been carefully tended to but was still abandoned, and the dilapidated appearance of the house before it was renovated—what on earth had happened here?
Why had she not seen any of the original inhabitants here after being in the game for so long?

Did they move away, or…

The girl pursed her lips, squatted down, and placed one hand on the ground, her magic power pouring out.

Ultra-rare skill [Nature Magic—Earth Affinity]!

The soil under her hand rolled and surged, wave after wave rolling forward, forming one deep pit after another according to her thoughts.

Ge Ge roots, squeak grass, special vegetable seeds from the shop, and a few twisted vines that could bear delicious purple fruits.

The foodie planted them one by one.
When she had arranged all the seeds and looked back, the land that had been slightly desolate before was now full of life.

In stark contrast to the foodie’s side was the piece of land in front of Old Li’s house.

The corner of Sykes’s mouth twitched as he looked into the magic mirror.
The members of the 123 team, with undisguised excitement on their faces, were waving their hoes and digging one pit after another of varying sizes and depths on the ground.

“So this is farming? It feels so simple!” Hua Yibing said with a loud laugh.

Then the hoe in his hand smashed down fiercely, and even a small pit that had been dug before was smashed in along with it, combining into an even larger depression.

“Ah, a mistake… but it’s okay, I’ll just put more seeds here!”
Saying that, he shook the bottle in his hand.

With one shake, more than half of the seeds stored in the bottle were gone.

Hua Yibing pondered, “It seems to be a bit too much again? Yan Er’mao!” He turned his head to call his roommate.

“You’ve read so many books. See what should be done now.”

Yan Shuangwen, who was mentioned, glanced over calmly and said with a very certain tone, “Just take some out, isn’t that it?”

Huahua’s right hand clenched into a fist and hammered his left palm, looking as if he had a sudden realization.
“Oh, right!”

Seeing that the matter was resolved (?), Yan Shuangwen chopped up the few broken pieces of wood in his hand and carefully stuck them at the edge of the field to serve as small dividing lines.

Sykes recognized that the broken pieces of wood he had casually dismembered were the cultivation wood for red mushrooms.

Old Li was relatively the most reliable one.
He was planting vine-type plants by the wall.
It seemed he had experience in caring for plants, as he knew to first insert a pole for the vines to climb on.

But—

Old Li planted a gem vine on the left, but on the right, he planted a big-mouthed vine.
In the time it took for him to turn around, the big-mouthed vine had already eaten more than half of its neighbor.

When Old Li came back after getting his tools, he found that there was only one vine left on the ground.
The only remaining seedling had its mouth slightly open, as if it had burped.

He scratched the back of his head in confusion.
“Strange, did I forget to plant here just now?”

Unable to figure it out, he planted another one.

This time it was also a big-mouthed vine.

And then, Sykes saw two vines baring their teeth and fighting behind Old Li’s back.

The merman: “…”

“Can they really grow anything like this?” Sykes asked with difficulty.

Ella was silent for a moment.
[Probably not.]

There was nothing Sykes could do either.
Weren’t the people of this country supposed to be good at farming?

Looking at them like this, it was already the greatest success that they didn’t starve themselves to death.

His own warehouse didn’t have much food reserves.
Where could he get some?

Just as the merman was hugging his tail in distress, lost in thought, suddenly, his magic mirror switched to another scene without reason.

The person on it greeted him cheerfully, “Yo! Sykes, my old friend, long time no see!”

Sykes’s pair of brilliant golden eyes lit up.

Food, isn’t this it?