[Cozy Fantasy] [Farming LitRPG] The Chronicles of Emberstone Farm

Chapter 105 - It was mint to be

🙞❤︎🙜

The next day, I had my coffee out on my porch. It was the first week of spring, and it was cold, but I enjoyed spending the first hour after dawn looking out into the Ancient Hill Forest.

In this part of the Westerlands, there was moderate rainfall all year round, and the winter was mild. I wasn’t exactly sure what type of forest this would be categorized as if it was on Earth, but the trees were mostly fir, pine, oak, elm, ash, beech, birch, maple, and poplar, along with plenty of fruit trees.

Taking a deep breath, I smelled an intoxicating mix of floral notes from blooming wildflowers, the earthy undertones of ferns and moss, the refreshing coolness of a nearby stream in the forest, and the faint smell of smoke from the kitchen fire in the main house.

I could hear a symphony of chirping crickets and buzzing insects, as well as the rustling of leaves and the swaying of tree branches, which all combine to create a very soothing symphony.

There really was no place better than home.

After finishing my coffee, I went to the main house for breakfast then stopped at the [Slime House] to play with my pet and change her water bowl before going to the rice field to plant more seeds. My three apprentices and I watered yesterday’s crops before we did our tilling, fertilizing, seeding, and watering while I kept an eye on my xp and stats.

Last winter season, we had planted a lot of trees and grass, but they didn’t give a lot of exp, so I hadn’t leveled up Farming, though I was now close to a milestone level.

[Player Name: Violet
Farming Skills:
Farming Level 19, Fishing Level 12, Woodcutting Level 19, Cooking Level 5, Herblaw Level 15, Foraging Level 6, Hunting Level 3, Mining Level 4]

My apprentices were doing well for non-players who got less xp compared to me.

[Apprentice Name: Kharli
Farming Skills:
Farming Level 14 →15, Fishing Level 6, Woodcutting Level 11, Cooking Level 2, Herblaw Level 1, Foraging Level 6 →7, Hunting Level 5]

[Apprentice Name: Lari
Farming Skills:
Farming Level 14 →15, Fishing Level 10, Woodcutting Level 10, Cooking Level 1, Herblaw Level 1, Foraging Level 4, Hunting Level 8 →9]

[Apprentice Name: Mo
Farming Skills:
Farming Level 14 →15, Fishing Level 4, Woodcutting Level 11, Cooking Level 2, Herblaw Level 1, Foraging Level 10 →11, Hunting Level 4]

“Yes! We finally finished planting the [Purple Orchid Rice],” I said.

“We’re planting the white rice tomorrow?” Kharli looked happy about that.

The kids always liked the fluffy white rice, while I liked all kinds of rice.

“We’ll plant a bit of red rice for me, then the white rice,” I said.

I had an ongoing contract with the White Tiger clan to supply them with three sacks of white rice every day. The supply had been cut off when I disappeared due to the teleportation accident, but they didn’t hold it against me. Nonetheless, I was going to plant more white rice this year in order to keep up with the demand and have some stored just in case I had to take a break or something.

“Then we plant the vegetables? What if we don’t finish everything on time?” asked Mo.

I reached out with one hand and tried to smooth out the frown from her forehead with my thumb. “Then we’ll have to eat more rice and meat!”

“I like that,” said Lari. “Meat is better than vegetables.”

Mo rolled her eyes at him. “Are you a farmer or a hunter?”

“I’m both,” said Lari, miming hoeing the soil and then throwing a spear. “I’m Lari the Great, hunter-farmer of Emberstone Farm!”

I gave him a thumbs up. “That’s cool. I don’t think any of us should stay at the farm all the time. It’s good to have other skills.”

Adventure Incarnate was primarily a farming simulation, but it was fun to level up all the skills.

“Yes, but farming is the best. I love planting crops! The only thing I like better is harvesting,” said Mo. “I can’t believe how easy it seems now.”

“Remember the first time we used our skills? I was so terrified I would fail,” said Kharli. She and Mo hooked their arms together.

“My knees were knocking together,” said Lari.

“And I started crying that time because I thought I was going to be sent back to the orphanage…” said Mo.

“I cried, too, when you cried,” said Lari.

“You did? I don’t remember that,” said Kharli.

“No more crying, okay?” I said. “I’m glad you’ve all gotten used to our work.”

“Our work is seriously the best. Teacher, did I tell you that no one back at the orphanage could recognize me?” Lari smirked. “They all said stuff like, “Who is this young man?’ or ‘What brings you here, young master?’ when they saw me.”

“Really?” I looked up and down. “But you’re still the same, mostly.”

“Teacher, I’m a lot taller and handsomer now,” said Lari.

“You’re a lot more boastful now, you mean,” said Mo. She and Kharli giggled.

We stopped at last autumn’s rice field. A few months ago, we had used the [Wild Seed Mix] as a cover crop. This spring, after the plants had died out during the winter freeze, a few hardy seeds were already sprouting.

“Let’s take a look at what’s happening here,” I said.

I knelt down and examined the tender green sprouts and seedlings. We hadn’t needed to sow the [Wild Seed Mix] again because of the soil’s “seed bank.” Living soil contains a good variety of seeds in it which can remain viable for years or decades. I learned this from Adventure Incarnate.

“It looks like the wild spirit plants from last year dropped quite a lot of seeds which have now sprouted,” I said.

“So we don’t need to plant more this year?” asked Kharli.

“Looks like it,” I said.

“But, Teacher, aren’t we going to use this field this year?” asked Lari.

“Let’s go to the classroom and I’ll explain everything,” I said.

Though I planned to live in the Ranch House, I put a spare bedroom in the Courtyard House’s inner courtyard to have more storage space for my stuff, along with several work and leisure rooms that we could use.

We’d only been back a few days, so this was their first time seeing the classroom.

The Cash Shop had different styles of classrooms, ancient and modern. I had chosen the modern one, of course.

The walls were painted with vivid primary colors and decorated with posters of cartoon versions of the White Tiger, Azure Dragon, Black Turtle, and Vermillion Bird. At the northern wall was a large whiteboard with a teacher’s desk beside it.

I gestured at the three wooden student chairs with desks, and the three of them sat down, not without some grumbling from Mo, when she saw that I had placed writing sets on Lari and Kharli’s desks. Mo was dyslexic and had gotten a lot of grief about it when she was in the orphanage.

“We have some time before lunch, so we will have a planning session,” I said. “Last year, this was Emberstone Farm.”

I drew a large square in the middle of the whiteboard and three wiggly lines below it representing the river.

“This year, my talents were recognized by the White Tiger clan, and I was granted more land. The farm has now doubled in size.” I drew a bigger square with the first square in the middle of it and with the wiggly lines bisecting the lower third of the big square. “As you can see, part of the river now runs through the farm.”

“Does that mean you own that part of the river?” asked Mo.

“No, people can’t own a river, but we are allowed to use it for irrigation and I can build a bridge across it,” I said. “However, for now, we will leave it and the southern part of the farm alone. Check your System map and turn on the wind mapping. You will see that the prevailing wind is from the northwest part of the form to the southeast.”

I waited until the three of them nodded before drawing an X mark on the upper left corner of the big square. “In the future, I will move the house here so that it will be upwind. That’s important because this year I plan to raise poultry and livestock.”

Lari cheered. “I was wondering when we were going to raise animals.”

Mo looked less than pleased. “It won’t be [Lizardwings], right?”

Lari burst out laughing. “Of course not! I’ll bet you my shoes that Teacher definitely won’t raise stinky [Lizardwings] on the farm.”

My lips twitched. “Correct. We won’t be raising [Lizardwings].”

I moved to the right side of the whiteboard and started listing animals: chickens, geese, ducks, quail, rabbits, goats, sheep, pigs, horses, and cattle. “These are, as you may have guessed, all spirit animals, rather than the mundane type of animals that you would normally see on a farm.”

“I knew it. The animals that we’re going to raise are going to be weird ones,” Kharli whispered to Lari and Mo, who both laughed.

“They might be a little weird,” I conceded. “Before we can raise animals, we need to prepare a space for them.”

I drew another X, this time near the middle of the right side of the big square.

“After we finish the planting season, we’ll have to do a lot of woodcutting to clear this area of the farm. Then we have to plant [Spirit Grass] and wait for it to grow before we hatch the eggs,” I said. “We’ll start off with the easiest animal, chickens.”

“Are we going to eat the chickens, or raise them for the eggs?” asked Lari.

“I’m thinking of selling the chicks to other people who will raise them for us. Later we can raise some for the eggs,” I said.

“I wonder what spirit animal eggs taste like…” Lari leaned back on his chair and crossed his arms. “I’m really looking forward to that.”

“And now for the most important part of today’s lecture! Now that it’s our second year of farming, we have unlocked a new type of crop to farm.” I erased the drawing that I had made and then wrote the title of my next topic: Immortal Herbs.