Chapter 32 - Planting Seeds
Zhao went upstairs to the study, followed by everyone else. The study was where Green had prepared some books. Although there weren't a lot of books, there was no shortage of pen and paper.
Seeing the pen, Zhao's eyes widened in surpise. It was an amazing thing made from animal bones, with the tip made out of metal, like some sort of combination between ancient and modern. However, the paper was nothing to boast about. Zhao had imagined that the paper would be white, but it was actually yellow. It looked like kraft paper, which Zhao remembered seeing when he was small.
From Adam's memories, although there were moments of sensual pleasures, there was little to do about writing on paper, which showed what kind of character Adam was.
Zhao picked up the pen and started drawing simple shapes on the paper. After he finished, he gave it to Ann.
Ann looked at the drawing and said, "Master, I can build this. Although it isn't exactly the same, I've already built something similar."
This assured Zhao. "Well, do a good job." He then turned to Meg. "Meg, you will arrange for forty men to follow Ann into the mountain. The remaining men should go gather some weeds, while the women learn how to weave weeds from Daisy. Hopefully, they would be able to make enough mats to hang on the windows of their houses. And if the slaves feel too cold from sleeping on the ground, you can take the corn stalks and lay them on the ground for the slaves to sleep on. We have too little supplies on hand, including beds. If they slept on the floor they might fall sick, so layering some corn stalks should make do as a bed."
Zhao then tried to think if there was anything else he forgot to mention. "Also, if any of the slaves show you their skills, you must tell me about it."
After the meeting was over, Zhao and everyone else came out from the study. They walked into the living room where they encountered Meirin, who told them that breakfast was ready. At the table, Zhao told Meirin of what he arranged for today. Meirin had no objections. She believed that what Zhao did would make life better.
After breakfast, Meg immediately did what Zhao said. She gathered the women to make weed mats, while also getting some men to follow Ann to find stones that were suitable enough to make the disc for the mill stone.
Seeing everyone working hard at the castle, Zhao and Meirin went to the underground lake and traveled to the valley. This time it was just the two of them. Although there wasn't any danger, Meirin thought it was easier with one less person.
They soon arrived at the valley.
Although Zhao had improved the land here yesterday, nothing much had changed because he could only improve one mu of land per day.
After he finished today's land improvement, Meirin said, "Master, tomorrow we should get the slaves to plow the soil here so we could plant something."
Zhao shook his head. He wanted to use this piece of land to do a test. He didn't forget the first time he got a prompt from the small shovel, telling him that it could be taken outside the space. He wanted to see if he took it out, would it still be under his control. If it was, he would be able to plow the earth everyday.
Seeing Zhao shaking his head, Meirin knew that he was going to do something himself.
With a thought, a small shovel immediately flew out of the space. Non-stop, it started plowing and then sowing. He then thought of the corn seeds, and the seeds also flew out of the space as well, falling into the spots in the ground that have been sowed. Zhao felt assured after the seeds had been buried.
But then he found a problem. He discovered that the shovel and seeds couldn't leave the range of the farm land. Also, he couldn't do anything too complicated with them. For example, the shovel could only be used for plowing and not anything else, and the seeds could only go into the ground and not anywhere else. He had also wanted to see if the water could do anything else besides improving the soil, but nothing happened.
Zhao felt discontent. If he could have changed what the water does with his mind, then perhaps he could have used it as an offensive weapon. Unfortunately, he could only water the soil.
Although Zhao wasn't satisfied, Meirin was very shocked. She had no idea that Zhao could use such a method for farming. He was like a god.
After more than two hours, ten acres of land were planted. The small shovel then immediately flew back into the space. Even though it was only ten acres of land, Zhao felt very satisfied with today's work.
He then wondered about something and turned to Meirin. "Grandma Meirin, can you use your spells to pour water on this place?"
Meirin, after recovering from her shock, nodded her head, then she walked beside the pool. Whispering an incantation, a mass of water vapor rose up out of the pool and then gathered in the air. Finally, a light rain fell.
Zhao was again astounded by magic, feeling that it was really amazing to be able to create artificial rain.
In fact, what Zhao didn't know was that not all mages could do this. Like Meirin, only a senior mage could do it. This was supplementary magic, not aggressive. Offensive magic was a lot simpler.
Under Meirin's control, once the soil became wet, she immediately stopped her spell.
Zhao looked at the farm land with a sense of accomplisment, then he turned to Meirin. "Grandma Meirin, unlike inside the space, the crops won't mature so quickly, so this is all we can do. We should go back. This is the most I could do to improve the farm land in one day."
Meirin nodded, then followed him into the cave.
As they traveled over the water, Zhao hoped that one day they would be able to ride over it with a boat. But they didn't have many things that could be used as boat building materials, so all he could do was hope.
The two had just come out of the cave on the other side of the lake when they heard the sound of chanting. Zhao and Meirin went to investigate and found the slaves trying to lift a stone out of the mines.
Zhao quickly went over. He first looked at the stone, but of course he couldn't tell if the stone was good or bad. He just wanted to see if the stone was big enough.
The stone was about five meters high with a diameter of about three to five meters. Seeing it, obviously the weight wasn't light. They had a lot of rope tied around the stone to try to carry it out of the mine.
Zhao quickly said. "Put down the stone. I'll bring it back to the castle. You all go continue exploring the mines to look for more stones."
The slaves looked puzzled. They knew how heavy the stone was. How could he carry it by himself? It didn't help that Zhao hadn't explained that he was going to use the space.
Although they didn't understand, they did not dare to go against him, so they immediately put the stone on the ground and took off the rope.
Once the rope was off, Zhao waved his hand and the stone was placed in his spatial barn.
The slaves were stunned from seeing this miraculous ability. Although there were items in the Continent that could do this, those things were generally only owned by great nobles. Even small nobles couldn't afford it. The slaves had only heard about it and have never actually seen anyone use it.
They thought that Zhao had used magic, so all of them were very excited in their hearts. "So our owner was a powerful mage," was what they all thought.
Zhao did not stay. Followed by Meirin, he walked towards the castle. On the way, they saw several male slaves in the mountain cutting weeds. Zhao didn't help them transport the weeds. Since they were very loose and light, those slaves should be able to bring the weeds back on their own.
Finally, they returned to the castle. In the castle square, they found a lot of women sitting down, weaving weed mats with Meg and Daisy.
Translator Notes: This chapter was edited from an MTL. Please leave a comment if you've spotted anything that looks wrong.