Apinsig
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Chapter 136 Homesteading in a fantasy world
🕑 Added 2023-01-02 19:20:07 +0000 UTC----
Thank you all for the kind words. While I am still sick I am starting to feel better so new chapters Yeeee. Depending on how I feel like today the chapters might be later than usual. Hopefully soon we can get back to a normal schedule.
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The days started to fly by. There were many meetings but during them, I learned an important lesson about this world. Politics were different then to what I knew perhaps there was a time that it was similar to earth but if so, it was back in the medieval world.
People listened perhaps too much to the person that was in charge. I found it hard to get pushback and new ideas when we wanted to accomplish something. This required a lot of effort on my part because not only did I have to educate everyone around me I almost needed to play chess against myself so there would be a healthy exchange of ideas.
Our estimates of how long we needed to teach our people what we know about the system were significantly off. We simply didn't expect how much they would share and learn from each other. This was extremely good news and truly showed how much everyone had been suppressed by the people that ruled them. This also helped cement our rulership as now we were seen as not only the people in charge but people that were willing to support and help everyone here.
During all of this, I didn’t forget my farm. The joy I saw on my animal’s faces when I was finally able to open the big barn doors and let them go outside was something that made everything worth it. I was most glad about Francis as he was the most confined by the winter.
He was even more excited when I explained to him that he was going to have to do a lot of work. There was a lot to do even more than I originally thought as there were lots of lands that needed to be worked on because nature had an entire year to reclaim cultivated land.
Two things that were completely different this year were that the chickens no longer required a fenced-off area as they now saw my farm as their home. There was also no need for a fenced-off area to protect them as I had wolves that needed things to do. They would require some more training but I can mostly leave them to do their own thing.
The first thing that Francis helped with was to start bringing every excess grain and potato to the village so we can plant them near there. This was something that I wasn’t directly involved in except for the first load and left it to a few of the villagers and my apprentices to complete.
When that was done and as the meetings started to taper off, I took the time to put together a group of people and went to survey the land so we would know where the best places to plant our crops were. It was interesting to hear the expertise of the farmers and I could see them all being quite impressed by what I had to tell them.
It was interesting how this world had solved a lot of the problems without actual science but with the resources, they had in hand. Things like soil fertility and its balance were either fixed with abilities and/or appropriate resources. They had yet to discover crop rotation as there was no need for that, but crop rotation would be a cheaper option especially when you didn't have access to specialized classes.
The problem around the village was that the fields didn’t have a proper drainage system nor the natural advantage as my land did. My fields were slanted and that helped remove excess water there was not enough land that had that advantage around here to do the same.
There were some drainage ditches, but they were poorly made and were not a part of a bigger system only meant for the small fields that every farm made themselves. I was surprised how little effort had been made to properly handle water in the fields. This led to an interesting problem that could be fixed by throwing masses of people into the problem but I kind of thought that Francis might help with this.
An idea of making something similar to a plough that would make drainage ditches came to mind and I really wanted to make something like that. There was a lot of need for smithing as a lot of new equipment needed to be made and even more old equipment needed repairing before we could start preparing the fields and planting crops. So, the village smithy was started up. This kind of forging had parts that were easy and some that were hard so everything could be made and repaired with the help of my apprentices and everyone else that wanted to try smithing.
It seems that like with everything else anything I did had multiple useful elements. Not only did we use the smithy to prepare everything it was also an opportunity for an important lesson for the community.
They now know a lot about the system and how it worked but they didn't understand how to use it properly. It was time for me to work and lecture at the same time so everyone who came by could learn. In the end, most people just listened to my lectures and did not worry about the forging.
I wanted to convey to them that while yes you could get the skills and abilities when picking certain classes, you could also get them through hard work but more importantly, you should find something that you are good at, something that clicks with you, not do something because of the achievement page while it can help doing something that you are truly good at without it is better. If you do that the achievement page can help you more than it could when you choose something that you aren’t suited for.
This type of talk would be a lot more difficult if I would be speaking to nobles who got their strength from the achievement page. Most of the people here were forced to be farmers by circumstance but they also had freedom to at least try things that they liked but they never had a true opportunity before now to actually see what would happen when they truly went where their heart guided them.
It didn't take long for people to start openly talking about when they got new skills and when those skills tiered up and what kind of ability choices they got. We noticed this soon and David quickly wanted everyone to report to him with every option they saw. Turns out one of David’s hobbies was documenting every possible ability to pick there was. This hobby of his might become extremely useful in the future when we start to dive further into what the homesteader class can provide.
I used this opportunity to show and reinforced what I knew to everyone else that intent was one of the most important parts whenever dealing with the achievement page. This kind of open communication acted like a snowball effect.
The unity of the village rose quickly, and our rule was cemented. Everyone trusted us now that they could see the effect our knowledge could give. It was hard to believe but there seemed to be no dissent, and all of this was achieved with only a few weeks of rule.
I found myself needing to hold back everyone’s excitement. At the start, everyone was still a bit mistrusting even though they still supported us but now this was flipped but I knew that it could also be quite bad if I let things go like this. There will always be setbacks and hardships and if everyone's good mood is ruined by something I will be the one that is blamed. Thankfully I had the perfect way to cool everything down, hard labour.
During all this excitement winter had finally given up and spring had come fast. While there will still be quite a while before we can plant there were lots of lands that needed to be worked on before that happened. The biggest problem was that we only had one decent work animal and a lot of the time people with a lot of levels needed to take that animal's place if we didn’t there was no way to finish everything before planting time.
When we finally achieved a good routine for farm work, we started to add more responsibilities to everyone as there were a lot of different jobs that needed to be done. Military training was also something that needed to be started on a large scale but that will need to wait until planting was done.
During this time while I did slow down my own training a lot, I started to push one skill hard. My beginner mind was level 32 but thanks to my training it was now 34 and close to levelling up. It was still weird that it did not tier up like the normal skills but if the best option was to keep it at beginner tier so I can get it to advance tier in one go then that is what I will do.
When I get this to level 35 it will mean another power-up for me. Hopefully this time I will get some useful abilities or skills when levelling up and not just stat points although getting more energy storage stat points will be awesome. That being said I do find it hard to use up all the energy I have in the tank with everyday training.
It will be a busy time, but I could see how the excitement and jubilation of the people was slowly being forged into determination and strength. I wished that I could give everyone the homesteader class but that would be something that will take years. But I have already started to look for potential people that would be the among first to receive this glass.
Comments
Red Mammouth
tftc : "this glass"-> this class.
Ryan Shelton
Glad to hear you are feeling better and thank you for the chapter
