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

Chapter 95 - Why did the Violet use a ladder? To escalate the situation!

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At noon I got a meat bun and orange juice from my inventory and ate it while wondering what my apprentices were doing. Were they also eating lunch right now? Fengying, as my housekeeper, was in charge while I was away, so Lari, Kharli, and Mo were being looked after by someone trustworthy.

The problem was the courtyard house, rice mill, and greenhouse. The player-owned houses in Adventure Incarnate disappeared if one didn’t log in every seven days. In this world, the rule was that I had to be in my house at least once every seven days. Now that I was stuck here in the Mines, it was inevitable that my household would be left homeless.

I had plenty of money. Some of it was in the form of coins that were stored in the house, while the bulk of it was with the White Tiger clan which sort of functioned as a bank.

So it’s not like my apprentices and staff wouldn’t have options. Most likely, they would have to go to a town or city to live while they waited for me to return.

I wondered about Prince Baiyu, too. He was on a healing retreat in the wilderness and would only be back after two months. Surely, the clan members wouldn’t bother him with news of my accidental teleportation, right? I mean, he needed to treat his qi overload problem.

Hmmm.

Well, there was nothing I could do but get stronger in order to return to my rightful place. The most important thing was to raise my combat levels until I could defeat the boss on level 99. Hopefully, the portal on level 100 was functioning. I could use that to return to the Westerlands. Alternatively, if the portal proved to be inactive or too scary to use, I could simply leave the mines and travel back on foot. I shuddered at the thought of having to fight probably hundreds of demons along the way.

Once I was done eating and fretting over my situation, I got up from my comfy chair and drank a Strength potion. I fought [Cavecrawlers] until I was too tired to wield my sword anymore while I continued to reload the cannon. By the end of the day, I had leveled up quite a bit.

[Violet

Level 15

HP: 1,500/1,500

MP: 35/35

Strength: 1/99

Attack: 5/99

Archery: 15/99

Magic: 3/99]

My overall combat level was now 15, which was the same as my highest combat skill, Archery. In a way, this was somewhat disadvantageous for me since having a higher combat level meant that I got less exp. "Combat Level" doesn't mean much since the important stat was the Battle Rating. A combat level 20 player with the best equips could beat a level 30 who's not wearing any armor or wielding any weapons. Though it was confusing for newer players, I always felt that made sense. After all, Adventure Incarnate was very much a crafting and farming game, so one could expect that combat equipment mattered more than base stats.

Right now, my Battle Rating when I put on the level 10 tier of Archery equips, it was a lot higher than before.

[Violet

Level 15

HP: 1,500/1,500

BR: 52]

However, my melee BR was still almost the same.

[Violet

Level 15

HP: 1,500/1,500

BR: 30]

I retrieved the cannon and went up the ladder.

“That was a good day’s work,” I said to Mr. Bear.

After eating dinner, I used the Hot Spring and then flopped down on my bed in the log cabin. I was asleep within seconds.

That night, I dreamed of a dragon child whose human form sprouted wings. In the dream, I was quite alarmed when he climbed a tall tree. My pleas for him to “get down!” were ignored and he jumped down, pumping his wings as though he expected those tiny appendages to really support the weight of his human body. I woke up when I caught him in my arms and was bowled over by his weight, hitting my head painfully on the ground.

“Ouch!” Half-awake, I gingerly probed the back of my head. Yup, there was a big lump there.

Strange how the cut on my side from the [Dire Rat] had healed completely by the day, but the injury to my head still hurt me today. Was it because I was the one who had stupidly hit my own head on a ladder? Maybe.

I resolved to be more careful this time.

Breakfast was a hearty meal of roast demon pork, stir-fried mushroom, and rice. Deming’s cooking was really awesome. The pork skin was delightfully crisp and the meat was tender and juicy. The mushrooms were sweet and spicy in just the perfect way to complement the savory meat dish and the fluffy white rice.

My body felt incredibly sore because of all the fighting I had done yesterday. Before going down to train, I did some exercises to warm up my tired muscles. I jogged around level 50 a few times then used a lighter practice sword to swing at the air. Once I felt ready, I climbed down the ladder and placed the cannon.

I repeated my actions of the previous day, but this time, I decided to take a long break at noon to use the Hot Spring facility and even take a short nap. By dinnertime, I felt tired but not exhausted like I did yesterday.

And so it went. I followed the same routine until the eighth day when I noticed something significant.

“Noooooo!” I yelled dramatically. “Why, System, why?”

It was fine for me to shout since there was no one to hear me anyway.

The [Potato Cannon] had proved to be so efficient at leveling up my Archery that I was now combat level 25 and the [Cavecrawlers] gave only half the exp they did compared to the time I first started killing them.

“Argh!”

This was all because of player-vs-player combat. Though only a few players liked to duel, the rest of us who only liked to kill monsters were also affected. In the old days, combat level was calculated based on one’s total stats, but once dueling and other PvP events were added to the game, that changed. Combat level had to be linked to the player’s highest combat skill level, otherwise people would make characters with uneven stats, like keeping their Strength, Attack, and Archery level 1, to take advantage of having a hugely high Magic skill compared to their combat level.

I sniggered a little when I remembered the time when GodIAm had made a PvP character named NachoAverageMage with 99 magic and everything else at level 1. With a combat level of just 30, he used to dominate the duel arena for the level 30s and below until other people figured it out, too.

“Alas, Mr. Bear, nowadays one must adjust one’s strategies to keep up with the changing times.”

After some thought, I decided to concentrate purely on melee for now. Sullenly, I retrieved my cannon.

By this time, I was fairly proficient at slaughtering bugs. It only took five to six attacks for me to dispatch one. Once I was able to kill a [Cavecrawler] with one swing of my blade, it would be time for me to move on. I could hardly wait! I was getting bored of doing the same thing day after day after day.

Soon, I found out that not using the cannon at all was less than ideal since fewer insects came out of the tunnels, so I put the cannon back and simply used the Start/Stop button to control it. I let it fire until I had enough bugs around, then stopped it until I had killed them all.

One day later, using this method, I finally reached a milestone in my melee combat skill.

[Congratulations, you just advanced an Attack level!]

[Your Attack level is now 10.]

This meant that I could now use [Steel Plate Armor].

[Violet

Level 25

HP: 100/100

BR: 45]

Yes! This was still lower than the [Cavecrawler’s] BR, but it was a big improvement for me. I could also use different weapons now. Though the sword was the classic Adventure Incarnate weapon, there were a few others that I should probably try out. At my level I could use the [Steel Sword], [Steel Battleaxe], [Steel Spear], and [Steel Club].

When I tested them out, I found that the spear was simply too long for me to use in the cramped safe space I was forced to use. The club was effective but rather heavy, which made me more tired compared to using the sword. On the other hand, the battle axe was great to use.

[Steel Battle Axe:

A two-handed war axe made of fine steel that never rusts or dulls. Though slow, it is powerful.]

I think it was because I had spent a lot of time on Woodcutting that it felt natural and easy to chop at things.

[Battle Axe Skills:

Slash

Chop

Frenzy]

The first two attacks listed were your normal attacks, but Frenzy was something special indeed.

[Frenzy:

Unleash a whirlwind of destruction by swinging the battle axe in wide, powerful arcs that will send your enemies reeling.

Cooldown: 35 seconds]

What it did was knock back multiple enemies, a useful skill if you were surrounded. The strikes were much more powerful compared to using the sword, but they were slightly slower.

I decided to alternate between the sword and battle axe for now.

Three days later, I woke up early and stared at the ceiling of my log cabin. I felt a bone-deep weariness that no amount of soaking in the Hot Spring could alleviate. Simply put, I was bored.

Bored out of my freaking mind!

All I did was fight all day, every day. There was no one to talk to, and I couldn’t even go for a walk. I wasn’t prone to claustrophobia, but the fact that I was stuck here underground, with no sunlight or fresh air was very depressing.

“Could it be that I’m a terrible transmigrator?” I asked my trusty plush toy. Mr. Bear, as always, remained silent.

In fiction, the main characters who got thrown into another world often trained for weeks, months, years, or even decades alone. How did they do it?

“I have to do something or I’ll go crazy!”

Time for a mental health day.

Herblaw always made me feel happy, so I decided to spend the day making potions even though I had plenty of Strength potions. That night, I started a level 50 beautification project. I wanted to place lots of potted plants, but I knew they would die under these conditions, which would make me feel sad. Therefore, I contented myself with placing pretty paintings, sculptures, and decorations around the place.

This cheered me up so much that I began to spend my noontime break amusing myself instead of napping. I made more Kola Kola sodas and did more Herblaw. I carved a few amusing messages on the cave walls and then found out that by moving closer to the walls, I could virtually project the System screen on the pink marble tiles. Since I had nothing better to do because there were no internet, radio, television, or movies in this world, I decided to paint a portion of the wall.

Using a projection of a Cash Shop painting that was similar to Edvard Munch’s artwork The Scream as a guide, I used a painting set from the Cash Shop to create a large mural. Since this was something I did to keep my mood positive, I created my own version by adding random stuff to the wavy lines of the artwork. There was no rhyme or reason to the things I added in paint that was only slightly darker or lighter than the surrounding lines, creating a universe of secret, hidden figures. There were bears, sheep, dragons, kittens, stars, flowers, spiderwebs, eyes, tentacles, books, hats, cheese, dolls, etc.

This lifted my spirits so much that I found myself smiling and whistling happily as I killed bugs with my axe and sword for the next two weeks. Truly, art was inspirational and a balm for the weary soul.

[Congratulations, you just advanced an Attack level!]

[Your Attack level is now 20.]

“Whohoo!” I opened a bottle of soda and toasted Mr. Bear to celebrate.

At level 20, I could now use [Lunarite Plate Armor] and [Lunarite] weapons. Lunarite was basically steel mixed with enchanted silver.

I equipped a [Lunarite Battle Axe]. The weight of it felt right in my hands. Feet apart, I lifted my weapon and then swung it down with great force on a [Cavecrawler]. The weapon cut right through the monster as though it was made of paper. I looked down at the bisected insect at my feet and knew that it was now time to move on.

“Level 90 here I come!”