“You weren’t gone for long. I’m guessing it was more of a casual chat?” Tavia commented as he entered the house.
“I’m not so sure about casual.” Cal hesitated about expanding, fighting his urge to keep everything to himself. Tavia asked him to share more with her. “Do you know if there are any rumors about the Elder Council feuding with the guildmaster? I feel like they called me to test if I could be swayed.”
“You met with the Elder Council?” Tavia was wide-eyed. “How did it go from meeting that guy’s grandfather to this?”
“Turns out that it was an ambush.”
Tavia frowned before shaking her head. “I never heard of them being at odds, but I also spent little time in the Central Sanctum.”
Cal nodded, replaying what happened for the umpteenth time. It didn’t help. “Do you need me to watch Seris?”
Tavia shook her head. “I can take care of it. Go do your farm stuff. You’ll need to watch her when I travel, anyway.”
“Farm stuff,” Cal repeated, narrowing his eyes at the teasing smirk on her face. He rolled his eyes and left the house again.
It was time to harvest half an acre of Sunfire Grains.
He was so practiced in the act that he didn’t have to think much about it. Instead, he planned out the area to lay out the crops in the sun.
That sounded like a casual task, but Cal could see that his yield had gotten even better—close to ninety percentage.
He had told Drex to bring enough carts for twenty thousand Sunfire Grains, but that had been a purposeful overestimation so he would have ample room for error. He didn’t think he would come close to exceeding that number.
I need to plan out a dedicated area to dry out the harvested crops.
Cal decided to do that the first thing tomorrow, but for now, he would lay them right outside his farm’s boundaries.
Nibbles had been lured by the scent of the crops from her tunnel-making in the new part of the farm—something he was excited to use as soon as it was available. She voluntarily took on the job of guarding the harvest crops from the drooling wolves eying them.
The harvested Sunfire Grains quickly spread to cover the same area as their planting, making the tiny Nibbles insufficient as a deterrent. Cal still didn’t pay them any attention since he knew what was coming next.
A low, rumbling growl erupted from near the pond. The wolf pack leader was as lazy as ever, but that simple warning was enough for the wolves to bend their heads and whimper as they backed away.
Cal continued the harvest and didn’t stop until he finished an hour later. It wasn’t long ago that this would have pushed his body to the limit of his physical capabilities, but he barely felt challenged.
He mentally kept count of the Sunfire Grains he harvested, and it came out to just under twenty thousand, with half of that in the red grain variant.
“This was a good one,” Cal muttered. He heard Nibbles squeak in agreement as she admired the harvest beside him. “How soon will you be ready to connect the tunnels?”
Nibbles tilted her head before making three lines on the ground.
Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.
Cal planned to plant more seeds today, but he wasn’t sure if the water supply could handle the connection of the tunnels under the new part of the farm.
I’ll have to delay planting for at least three days.
“Keep up the good work, Nibbles,” Cal said, smiling when she stood straighter before digging back under ground.
He went to the pond and took a seat next to the pack leader. “We’re going to spend a lot of time together for the next few days.”
The pack leader opened one eye before closing it without a reaction. It was an expected behavior.
Cal raised his hand and cast [Rainfall].
Stormy clouds quickly formed over the pond before it poured rain. He remembered that recently, his mana reserves would have been depleted, and the spell would have only produced a light drizzle.
The month since Cal returned had been highly productive. However, that same productivity made Tavia feel like she was severely lacking compared to him.
She had mentioned that she would catch up, but he knew better than to believe that. He had only got to this point by literal divine intervention, and the chances of Tavia experiencing the same were slim to none.
However, Cal could give her a push.
He had been experimenting with the tethers that connected the inhabitants of the farm to the pond, using the wolves as unknowing test subjects. It didn’t harm them and could only be a benefit if it succeeded, so he didn’t feel any reservations about using them.
Cal learned he had to choose between what he wanted to use the pond for. It automatically tethered with the inhabitants of the farm with the spare energy it possessed. He could redirect that flow anyway he wanted without reducing the supply to the crops, but that wasn’t enough for what Tavia needed.
Cal had a guess about how it would affect the crops—one he was almost certain of.
The crop yields were unlikely to change much, since abilities account for that. Specifically, [Green Thumb] and the ability of the Advanced Plow, [Residue Reclamation].
Those two stacked to give him a fifteen percent increased yield.
Cal suspected that the pond’s water gave him a massively increased production of the red grain variants.
If that was the case, and he really hoped it was, he was more than happy to redirect as much of the pond’s attention as needed onto Tavia.
He would make the first large redirect today, and then slowly increasing it in the following days to make sure there were no unintended side effects. There were no crops planted at the moment, so it was a perfect time for a large-scale experimentation.
The rain stopped as his mana reserve emptied, returning the pond’s surface to a calm state.
Cal didn’t move and waited patiently for his reserve to refill. It gave him time to study the golem standing motionless on the other side of the pond. It reminded him of the smaller versions staffing Miren’s building—something he still couldn’t understand.
“What should I do with you?” Cal asked, not expecting an answer from the golem. He was hesitant to use it since there were always some downsides that he didn’t foresee. He wasn’t sure if that was because of his lack of foresight—which could also mean a lack of intelligence, something he was reluctant to consider—but the mishaps were enough to make him wary.
A low growl came from beside him. Cal turned to see the pack leader standing, staring at him intently. “You have an idea?”
The answer was another growl. This needed a translator.
“Nibbles!” A few seconds later, Nibbles dug out of the ground and looked less than pleased. Cal imagined feeling the same if someone interrupted his work. “What’s he saying?”
Nibbles listened to the growls, nodding her head, though she looked furious at the end. That didn’t stop her from angrily performing charades to transmit the pack leader’s words.
Cal hid a smile at her anger and observed. As always, Nibbles was an excellent translator. “The pack leader wants to borrow the golem to ward off some beasts?”
Nibbles nodded, still clearly unhappy.
“Why are you angry about that?” Cal asked. Nibbles pointed at herself, and them at the pack leader. “You want to go with them?”
Nibbles nodded again. She was waiting for his agreement, but he had concerns that needed to be cleared up. “No one can control the golem. I don’t see how I can lend it out.”
Nibbles pointed at herself imperiously.
“… You can control it?” Cal didn’t believe Nibbles when she confirmed. “Golem, listen to any order that Nibbles gives you.” He then dared Nibbles to prove it.
Nibbles zoomed to stand on the golem’s shoulder before squeaking loudly. The golem moved, avoiding the farm altogether by moving out of its bounds, and stood outside the border. Nibbles waited for the pack leader to reach them before wandering off.
Cal couldn’t believe what he was seeing. It was like a strange start of a story. The tiny Nibbles, a ferocious wolf, and a hilariously massive golem setting off on an adventure.
“Well, at least the golem is doing something,” Cal said to himself. He couldn’t dismiss how Nibbles controlled the golem so easily, and he had plans to put that to use soon.
By the time the motley crew disappeared from Cal’s sight, his mana reserves had completely refilled. He closed his eyes and reached out to the pond with mana tendrils and located the tether that connected Tavia to it.
Cal redirected the energy into Tavia’s tether. It was a slow process that took nearly an hour just to double the quantity, and he intended to increase it by ten times the amount. He monitored Tavia’s condition through a mana tendril to make sure nothing went wrong.
He settled in, knowing it would take the rest of the day.