Chapter 26 – Navigate the System

🙞❤︎🙜

“What’s wrong?” I asked her, but all she did was cry. The poor girl was hysterical.

“Teacher, she can’t read…” said the older girl. She and the boy looked extremely worried.

“That’s all?” I was relieved. “It’s not a problem. Calm yourself and simply think ‘text to speech’ and the System will read the options out loud to you.”

It took several minutes for the girl to stop crying and compose herself enough to understand the System message and accept my offer to make her my apprentice.

“There’s no need to panic. All three of you are to become spirit farmers, not scholars, so it doesn’t matter if you can read or not,” I said. “Now you should be able to see that you have a magical resource that you can call upon when you need to. I call this the ‘System.’ Tell me what the System is showing you.”

I could see their stats, but I wanted to know what they could access. I started with the older girl, who beamed from ear to ear as she reported what she could see on the System screen.

[Apprentice Name: Kharli

Farming Skills:

Farming Level 1, Fishing Level 1, Woodcutting Level 1, Cooking Level 1, Herblaw Level 1, Foraging Level 1, Hunting Level 1]

To my surprise, the Crafting skill tab was also visible to her. Apprentices could only do farming tasks on Adventure Incarnate, so this was unexpected.

The boys’ stats were the same.

[Apprentice Name: Lari

Farming Skills:

Farming Level 1, Fishing Level 1, Woodcutting Level 1, Cooking Level 1, Herblaw Level 1, Foraging Level 1, Hunting Level 1]

The younger girl’s stats, on the other hand, were slightly unusual in that she had a level 2 skill.

[Apprentice Name: Mo

Farming Skills:

Farming Level 1, Fishing Level 1, Woodcutting Level 1, Cooking Level 2, Herblaw Level 1, Foraging Level 1, Hunting Level 1]

“She used to help out in the kitchen,” said Kharli.

I made a mental note to instruct Kharli to let Mo speak for herself in the future, but I let it go this time.

“How do you feel about this?” I asked them. “If you’re not comfortable doing things this way, I can send you off with a bit of money, and you can find a different teacher.”

“Teacher, are you kidding?!” said Lari. “This has to be the best apprenticeship in the entire world! We’re all gonna be rich and famous! There’s no one else who would offer to teach a peasant orphan magical skills like this.”

Come to think of it, Shuye and Fengying had offered to find scions of noble families to serve as my apprentices, but I simply didn’t think that a noble would be a good fit for my humble and quiet lifestyle. I mean, it’s true that Prince Baiyu had picked up a broom and started sweeping my garden path, but I’m pretty sure that that was unusual behavior. I bet the regular nobles in this world wouldn’t be caught dead doing manual labor.

Besides, Adventure Incarnate players always adopted orphans from Anwei, hence I thought that would be the best method for me.

The two girls said the same thing, though Mo whispered her words so softly that I could barely hear them.

“Before you agree, you should know that the bloodline inheritance is mine. I have granted you a portion of it, but you won’t be able to pass this on to your children.” They didn’t seem fazed by this, so I continued, “While you are my apprentices, I will provide everything you need, such as food, clothing, shelter, and training.”

They all nodded their agreement.

“You all start off as level 1 in farming. When you reach level 25, you will be considered a farmer in your own right, and when you reach level 50, you will be acknowledged as a master farmer. At that point, you can start your own farm.”

Lari cleared his throat and asked, “My own farm? Will I still be able to use your bloodline inheritance if I leave your service?”

“That’s exactly what I want to discuss with you. The bloodline inheritance is something that I granted, so I can remove it as I wish.” To demonstrate this fact, I went to the System’s [Apprentices] tab and removed all three of their names. The three of them reacted with alarm but calmed down when I put them back on the list. “If you leave, you will no longer be my apprentice, and I will have to take back the bloodline inheritance skills.”

“Please consider me your lifelong apprentice, teacher,” said Lari.

“My only wish is for you to be my teacher forever,” said Kharli.

“Me, too,” said Mo softly.

“When you reach level 25, we can split the harvest 70-30 in my favor, and when you become master farmers, we’ll raise your share to 50 percent,” I said.

“Thank you, teacher,” said the three.

“Good. If you’re satisfied, then I’ll continue with the introduction to the System,” I said. I made a show of pulling out chairs and a large table from seemingly nowhere. “Let’s sit down and make ourselves comfortable.”

“Teacher, where did this come from?” asked Kharli. She and the others gingerly poked the chairs as though they were afraid the items were made of mist. Upon verifying that, yes, the chairs were just chairs, the three of them cautiously sat down.

“These are all items from the System,” I said. “I have something called an ‘inventory’ I can use to store items. Check yours.”

As expected, theirs were all empty. They only had twelve inventory spaces, too.

Now came one of the most important things I had to verify. I took out some seeds and asked the apprentices to touch them. Though Shuye and the others had been unable to do so, it might be different for my apprentices since in the game, players could give farm resources to their farm hands.

“What are these?” asked Lari. He picked up one of the seeds and moved it closer to his eyes. “It seems to be giving off light.”

“They’re obviously seeds, you dummy! What kind of farmer are you going to make when you don’t even know what a seed is?” said Kharli.

“These are seeds you will be using soon,” I said.

This was great! Of course, I did have the potato seeds that were unbound, but now that I knew that the three of them could use my items, that meant I didn’t have to worry about running out of seeds or other supplies.

“The most important thing for you to learn right now is how to navigate the System. You may leave now, and I want you to go to your rooms and spend the entire day looking at all the skills and skill descriptions. One of the maids will bring you your meals,” I said. “I’ll meet you tomorrow at the front gate at dawn.”

The three of them got up and bowed to me before running back to the house, high-fiving each other and chattering excitedly about all the skills they saw in the System.

Lari, Kharli and Mo, my own Three Stooges, looked like they were easy enough to handle, and I was looking forward to teaching them how to farm.

Let’s hope everything works out.

LinMeili

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