The next day, my husband and I woke up bright and early for the first day of the summer harvest. Prince Baiyu led the staff’s customary harvest ritual, which they all seemed to enjoy. Lari, Kharli, and I waited for them to finish at the potato field. Since the [Potatoes] were planted first, they came to maturity. Therefore, today we would harvest it and the [Tea].
The summer heat was in full force, and my apprentices were sweating while I stayed cool thanks to the System shoes I was wearing. All of us had donned various styles of sun hats for protection. Mine was a simple, lightweight conical hat woven from rice-straw, while Kharli and Mo wore fancier ones made of palm leaves with a silver finial on top as decoration. Lari’s was the same as mine, except that his was painted blue and red.
“Harvest time is the best time,” I said to the others. “I’m thinking of adding some cool special effects today, what say you?”
Before I found out that my purpose in this world was to increase the global qi levels, I thought it might be best if I kept a relatively low profile. I mean, there was no hiding my bloodline inheritance, of course, but I only showed off a little bit. Now that it was no longer a concern, I thought it would be good to let loose once in a while.
“Yes! What kind of special effects?” Mo was the first to react, her eyes shining as she looked at me with anticipation. “Sparkles?”
I laughed and patted her shoulder. “Of course, sparkles! You know me so well.”
Kharli and Lari grinned at that.
“The System likes sparkling and glowing things,” Lari observed.
“It’s better than liking dark and shadowy things,” said Kharli.
Actually, there were dozens of pages of Gothic and Halloween items in the Cash Shop, but they didn’t know that since I never used those kinds. People would think we were cursed!
“Yes, gimme a sec, I’ll set it up,” I said. “Remember, no video or pictures of today.”
They nodded. We had previously agreed that the video thing was getting out of hand, and we were spending way too much time on it.
“This will be fun!” I said.
Looking around, I smiled because it was a lovely day to get lots and lots of exp and level up. The field was full of rows of plants that were ready for me to use my skill on, extending as far as the nearby tree line where the outskirts of the forest met the farm’s property line. The low-lying leaves of the potato plants grew in dense bunches, still a vivid green with no hint of browning at the edges despite the summer season. A breeze passed over them, creating a rustling sound. Insects buzzed along the ground and through the leaves, and the air was heavy with the scent of greenery and incense drifting from my household’s ritual procession.
Taking Mr. Bear from my pocket, I made him grow until he was shoulder height to me and put him in a cute country-style outfit with overalls and a cowboy hat.
I waited until Prince Baiyu arrived with the others before I started.
I went on tiptoes to kiss my husband on the cheek. “Sweetie, watch me, I’m going to blow your socks off.”
He smiled down at me. “What a colorful turn of phrase.”
Grinning, I waved an imaginary wand while triggering the cosmetic effect.“Aaaaand… presto!”
A gigantic glowing eight-trigram spell formation, complete with thousands of symbols written in talismanic script, appeared on the ground. The people around me jumped back and exclaimed in surprise.
“Magic!” said Yinuo. By this time, her waist had thickened by a handspan, and her morning sickness was finally subsiding.
“There are different symbols this time,” said Scholar Wu as she scribbled furiously on a scroll.
Deming drew Fengying a little away from the magic circle, though, based on his expression, he wasn’t too alarmed.
The spell formation flashed thrice before disappearing, and then a [Combine] materialized at one corner of the field..
[Combine:
A heavy-duty farming machine used to efficiently plow the soil, sow seeds, and harvest crops, dramatically speeding up your work. Just remember to keep its fuel tank topped off to ensure it keeps running smoothly.]
The Cash Shop had lots of cosmetics specifically for the harvest time, but I was a traditionalist. In my opinion, the oldies were the best.
Adventure Incarnate started off as a simple social farming game. It was only later that a Chinese company bought it and made it into a Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game or MMORPG. They were the ones who added the Eastern-flavored fantasy martial arts elements into it. Originally, the game used tractors and agricultural machinery instead of magic.
Reading on Amazon or a pirate site? This novel is from Royal Road. Support the author by reading it there.
Or, that was what I thought back when I used to play it. Now I understand that the game’s new content was influenced by this world.
Prince Baiyu looked taken aback. “A machine?”
“Yes,” I said. “Just watch!”
The [Combine] was built using a [Tractor] as the base and adding on various attachments. In the game, harvesting meant clicking on the tiles a lot, but if one built a machine, it was a one-click task.
The [Combine] in real life was miniature compared to the agricultural machines on Earth. It was only as large as a pickup truck, with a body that was a deep red, with a long, horizontal cutting bar at the front, its rotating reel like a giant paddlewheel. The engine housing was bulky and square, and the wheels were massive, with thick, black treads. A single seat for the driver was slightly elevated, and it was open on the front and both sides.
I left Prince Baiyu’s side with Mr. Bear, and we hopped onto the machine. The dashboard was minimal, and I knew the dials, levers, and buttons on it were fake because a System control box appeared in front of me when I entered the vehicle. There was a [Start/Stop] button and a fuel gauge that was currently full. I put Mr. Bear in the driver’s seat and stood beside him. To my surprise, my puppet automatically put his hands on the steering wheel.
“Everyone, stay back! This mechanical beast will harvest the crops for me,” I said to the others watching.
“Have fun, dear,” said Prince Baiyu.
“Thanks, I will,” I said.
I braced myself on the dashboard.
“Geronimo!” I yelled as I mentally pressed the System’s [Start] button.
The harvester worked automatically without me having to do anything. I simply stood there and watched with glee, looking down from my high perch as the magic was activated.
With a lurch, the machine began to move forward. The rumble of the engine vibrated through the floor and up my legs, a low, constant drone. Outside, the large wheels rolled over the uneven ground, causing a gentle rocking motion. At the front, the reel began to spin, and the horizontal bar moved up and down as it cut through the stalks. When the combine header touched a [Potato] plant, a weird animation was played in which the plants were ripped out of the soil and flew up into the air, where they were sucked into a black hole. This was accompanied by a whooshing sound and the vehicle rocking to either side. The [Potatoes] and crop residues then appeared in my inventory.
The vehicle moved slowly. Once the others got over their surprise, they ran towards me and walked beside the [Combine] as it worked.
“Teacher, can I try to get on it, too?” Lari shouted at me over the sound of the engine.
“Try it!” I said.
Unfortunately for my adventurous apprentice, there seemed to be some sort of force surrounding the [Combine] that made him unable to touch it.
“Sorry, looks like you’ll have to harvest it your way,” I yelled down at him.
I took out a folding chair from my inventory and sat down in a relaxed pose, even taking out a cup of tea, but that was a mistake since the vehicle’s jerky movements made me spill it over myself. The turns were especially rocky. Beside the [Combine], the others hooted and cheered our progress, amazed at how the machine magicked the plants out of the soil while I sat at my leisure. It didn’t take long before we finished harvesting half the field. I left the other half for Lari, Kharli, and Mo. The [Combine’s] fuel gauge was barely drained, and I leveled up quite nicely.
[Congratulations, you just advanced a Farming level!]
[Your Farming level is now 41.]
Suddenly, a thought struck me.
“Wait, let me try something!” I shouted at my apprentices from the [Combine’s] open cab.
I took out a short ladder and lowered it down to see if it would work as a bridge from the outside, where they were blocked by a force field, to the inside, where I was standing.
“Me! Let me go first!” Kharli climbed the ladder, but an invisible force stopped her when she was halfway up. “Oh no.”
“Well, we tried what we could,” I said to console her. “I’ll wait here for you guys to finish.”
Now that the vehicle was stationary, I leaned back and put my feet up on the dashboard while sipping on a cup of tea. Prince Baiyu floated up at me and shook his head at my humorous posturing.
“I see this is faster and easier for you to harvest the crops,” he said.
“Yes, but it costs [Fuel],” I said. “The usual way has no such cost.”
“And I assume you have plenty of [Fuel]?”
“You assume correctly. I have 2,147,483,647!”
We chatted a bit until the kids finished harvesting the rest of the [Potatoes]. Then I drove the [Combine] to the [Tea] field by mentally right-clicking its location on the System map. Mr. Bear was still in the driver’s seat, and I thought it was very cute how he was faking driving. Not only was he moving the steering wheel, he was even changing gears using the stick shift now and then. However, it was all for show since the vehicle was now moving while floating three feet above the ground.
I smelled the fresh, grassy aroma of the [Tea] from afar. When it came into view, I smiled at the rows of plants shaded by a canopy of woven reed mats stretched between wooden posts that cast a shadow over the whole field. This shade was meant to protect the delicate new leaves from the sun, giving the [Tea] a sweeter and richer taste.
“Hmmm, this is a problem, isn’t it?” I said to my husband. “The [Combine] will plow through the canopy.”
The wooden posts and mats should be reused, of course.
“I can help remove it.”
“Wait, let me try it just once to see what happens. Maybe the materials will be put in my inventory.”
Once again, using the System map, I carefully positioned my vehicle in one corner of the [Tea] field and hit [Start]. With the sound of grinding gears, the [Combine] harvested a single plant, and the corner of the canopy disappeared, making the whole structure shake. The [Tea] and crop residues appeared in my inventory along with one wooden pole and the reed mats. I hit the [Stop] button.
“Success!” I said to Prince Baiyu.
“Good for you. Have fun.” He flew back down to the ground.
I happily restarted the machine and sat back while it did all of the work for me.
Was I being lazy? No, I was being efficient.
Anyway, people wouldn’t expect a pregnant lady like me to do hard labor and sweat it out in the fields this summer season.
In less than five minutes, I was done. I put an arm around Mr. Bear, removed his cowboy hat, and kissed the top of his head. “Thanks, Mr. Bear. You’re the best!”
I shrank him down to palm size and put him back in my pocket before getting off the [Combine].
“People, I’m off for some much-needed rest.” I waved goodbye to the others and put the [Combine] away, back into the System storage. “See you tomorrow.”
I gave the harvested crops to Kharli. The kids knew what to do and no longer needed my close supervision. Prince Baiyu took me by the arm and we left.
“Oh my, we still have the rest of the day, whatever will we two newlyweds do with all this free time?” I smiled and winked at him suggestively.
“We could go over the property taxes.”
We both laughed.
“Or…” His voice trailed away, and he let go of my arm so that he could pick me up. “We could have some fun.”
“Yes! A thousand times, yes!”
He flew off with me, low to the ground, and we reached our courtyard in record time.
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Author's Note:
- Talismanic writing is fulu (符箓) which is used for making talismans, charms, amulets, etc. There are actually many types of script styles of Chinese languages. This one is specifically for talismanic magic. Apparently, talismans are also stamped with a special seal. I did way too much research on this. ??
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