Chapter 44 - Level Up
[Discovery of vegetable seed. Level identification: Negative. No merit. Do not extract]
[Discovery of vegetable seed. Level identification: Negative. No merit. Do not extract]
[Discovery of vegetable seed. Level identification: Negative. No merit. Do not extract]
..................
[Discovery of field seed. Level identification: Zero. Similar to spatial hay seeds. Do not extract. Retaining seed]
[Discovery of fruit seed. Level identification: Four. Extracting seed. Extraction complete. Seed has been digitized into the space. Seed can now be purchased from the shop]
The moment Zhao took out the seeds, a bunch of tones rang out. Except for the alfalfa seeds and fruit seeds, the other seeds disappeared. "This space is really overbearing," he said. "If it doesn't have a high enough level, it would be taken out of sight. Fortunately, the rest were good enough."
Everyone else didn't understand what the series of tones meant, nor did they know what identification or extraction was. All they saw was that half of the seeds had disappeared.
Once Zhao finished, the voice echoed again: [Spatial farm level has risen to five. You will be rewarded with a bag of eggplant seeds, which can fill two acres] [Cultivating new land requires you to be at level five and one thousand one hundred gold coins. You have reached the requirement. Do you wish to cultivate two acres of land?]
When Zhao heard the voice, he couldn't help but feel relieved. He finally confirmed that the best way to level up his spatial farm was to take things into the space, otherwise his level up speed would have been too slow. He immediately said, "Cultivate the land."
The moment he spoke those words, a white light flashed next to the corn field, and then two new acres of fertile land appeared.
Understanding that the space would continue to add fertile land, Zhao wondered about the other places, like the background land of the game. He wondered if he would be able to some day grow things in the background. Ah, that would be nice.
The voice echoed: [Your level is not high enough. Cultivating background land requires you to be at level thirty]
Zhao froze for a moment. Would he really be able to use the background land if he reached that level? If he could, then that would be great.
Meirin went to Zhao's side. "Master, now that you've cultivated some new land, what are you going to plant?"
Zhao looked at the two acres of land, as well as his original mu of farm land where he had just finished harvesting the radishes. "Grandma Meirin, I'm going to plant corn on those two acres of land. As for the rest, how about I plant some fruit seeds? What do you think?"
Meirin hesitated to answer while looking at the mu of land. She knew that was where he grew the magic radishes, so she was surprised when he said that he wasn't planning on continuing to plant radishes there.
Zhao saw Meirin's hesitation, and smiled. "Right now I already have two hundred forty thousand catty of radishes. Even if they are good sellers, if I sell too much, it might decline the price of radishes. But the oil from that fruit isn't the same. That oil is a necessity to everyone in the Continent. Even if I sell a million catty of it, it won't cause too much of an impact on the market."
After hearing what Zhao said, Meirin agreed. "Okay, Master. Go ahead and plant a fruit orchard."
Zhao nodded. "Plant one mu of fruit seeds."
The moment his voice faded, the small shovel and bucket immediately went to work until the seeds were safely in the ground. Zhao made a calculation and it seemed like he would only be able to plant three hundred trees.
Once the fruit seeds were planted, Zhao put the rest of the seeds back into the spatial barn. As of now, he wasn't going to plant any more corn seeds just yet. He decided to wait until after the corn had matured. That way, he would be able to plant the corn seeds in all four acres at the same time, and then harvest them together.
Everyone was stunned silly from Zhao's performance. Such a big space was listening to Zhao's every word. It was like a miracle.
The crowd stared at him in worship, and even Meirin had the same look in her eyes. Everything that happened in the space was too amazing. Not to mention the slaves, even Meirin had never heard of something like this. They were amazed that such a thing existed in this world.
Seeing everyone's eyes on him, Zhao felt a bit embarrassed. Although he was now the lord of the Buda clan, in his past life, he was an otaku, so by nature he felt shy with everyone watching him.
Zhao quickly said, "Grandma Meirin, I'm going back to the hut to check the situation outside." He went into the hut and shut the door.
Looking at Zhao's departing back, Meirin and Meg couldn't help but laugh. They understood that he was feeling shy. This surprised them because they knew the Adam from before, and Adam was not a shy person. But Adam and Zhao were completely different. Previously, Zhao had little contact with people, so he was very shy. Seeing him act like that was very funny to Meirin and Meg.
When Zhao entered the hut, he took a few breaths to calm himself, then he cursed the two. He then opened the screen and looked at the castle, trying to find any spirit beasts. He could do this while lying in bed.
Operating the space was really too easy. There were a lot of things he didn't know how to do, whether it was plowing or just farming in general, but he just needed to think it, and the space would help him. Although this was quite convenient, it still made him feel very bored.
From outside the hut, he could hear Meirin teaching the slaves how to read. The sound calmed his heart. He felt like he was in the poem, Lou Shi Ming, about how a noble was living in a shabby home. Zhao suddenly felt like reading so he pulled a miscellaneous book from the barn.
It took two hours before the corn matured. Zhao went outside to harvest the corn, then he planted some corn seeds in the four acres of land. After he was finished, he returned to his hut and continued to read.
Zhao knew that, unlike the other crops, the oil fruits wouldn't grow as fast. After all, in the outside world, it would need two years to fully mature. Now that the seed has been digitized, he estimated that it should take around three to four days.
Sure enough, in the next two days, although the corn had already matured, the fruit seeds had just started sprouting.
In these two days time, Zhao had been paying attention to the situation in the castle. By now he hasn't seen a shadow of an undead spirit beast, but he still didn't let Meirin got out to explore yet. He was afraid that the spirit beasts were still around, just beyond his range. If they were to find Meirin, although she might not necessarily be in danger, there was still a risk.
Still, they couldn't stay in this space forever. After all, the castle was their home. They had to leave sooner or later.
These days, Zhao found that the slaves weren't in a good mood. Although they have been learning to read and write, they haven't been working. All they do was eat and improve their literacy skills. They weren't accustomed to doing no work at all, and for some reason this made them feel sorry for Zhao.
Everyday they would eat fragrant rice with soup as a meal, which for the slaves seemed like paradise. Although this made them grateful to Zhao, it also made them feel like they were doing something wrong to him.
But Zhao didn't notice this. He has been doing nothing but reading. It was Meirin who was teaching them. Only after the two days had passed did Zhao finally realize that the slaves mood seemed very low.
Meirin didn't know why, so she had no choice but to let Daisy ask them because they were more open with her.
Over the evening meal, Daisy asked them what was wrong. When she told Meirin, and when Zhao heard about it, he was dumbfounded.
Translator Notes: I tried to understand why the slaves were in a bad mood, but I probably fudged it up. Maybe it'll be explained in the next chapter.
Translator Notes #2: I think that the background land is the backdrop of the game. You can see it, but you can't actually go there yet.
Translator Notes #3: This chapter was edited from an MTL. Please leave a comment if you've spotted anything that looks wrong.