Lord of the Myriad Worlds

Chapter 38: Wheat Harvest

It took Li Wei the entire morning to chop down six trees. He returned to camp for lunch at noon, then spent the afternoon trimming branches and dragging the logs back. During this time, he even had spare moments to hunt two pheasants or rabbits.

That's right—as his archery skills continued to improve, his hunting list had expanded once again.

On lucky occasions, he could even hit a running wild rabbit.

Of course, that only happened once. Wild rabbits ran too fast, and the tall, dense wild grass significantly hampered his performance.

Pheasants were much more foolish and slow-moving.

Several days passed like this. Mixi's woven straw sandals were delivered, and Li Wei successfully gathered enough wood for the house expansion while also accumulating two units of game. Now his monthly main tasks only involved harvesting the wheat fields and reinforcing the camp's perimeter wall.

The former still needed about eight to ten more days—the wheat was still somewhat green and not fully mature yet.

As for the latter, it required chopping down at least fifty small trees. Fortunately, some thicker, straighter branches could also be used to reinforce the perimeter wall, so there weren't particularly strict requirements for this task.

In any case, he should be able to complete the monthly main tasks within the month.

The only somewhat uncontrollable risk was strong winds and heavy rainstorms that could devastate the nearly mature wheat fields. However, that seemed unlikely during this season. Moreover, based on the past three months, although this region had ample rainfall, it definitely didn't have coastal climate characteristics.The more troublesome but temporarily manageable risk was the disturbance to the wheat fields by birds and beasts.

Li Wei had already made twenty-four various scarecrows in one go and placed them throughout the wheat fields to scare away birds trying to steal food. Occasionally, he would also ambush around the wheat fields. When stubborn birds tried to fly down, he would shoot an arrow, scattering them in panic, though hitting them was quite difficult.

Then there were various small animals. As the wheat grew closer to maturity, they seemed to instinctively know this grain would taste good—flocks of pheasants, wild rabbits, and all sorts of oddly shaped little creatures.

Of course, most were blocked by the stone walls and fences. Combined with Li Wei occasionally playing the sneaky player role by hiding and sniping, the situation remained manageable.

Most of the time, he chopped trees during the day and lit bonfires around the wheat fields at night, patrolling until late before finally falling into deep sleep.

This was manageable for short periods, but over time, it severely depleted his stamina.

Fortunately, Fila had promised mushroom meat soup once daily this month. This seemingly ordinary one-star dish was actually quite remarkable—it could quickly eliminate fatigue, restore stamina, and prevent Li Wei's physical condition from dropping to the critical point.

Yes, there really was a critical point.

That was the baseline maintained by first-level health awakening.

The most immediate example was Penny. She traveled back and forth daily between the camp and the iron deposit, carrying back one hundred jin of iron ore each time—exactly one unit of pure heavy labor. In just half a month, she had brought back fifteen units of iron ore and already looked exhausted like a little old woman.

Without the daily mushroom meat soup, she probably would have been too exhausted to get up.

"The fences around the farmland still aren't tall enough. If only we had a sturdier stone wall."

Sometimes, while looking at the heavy wheat ears in the fields, Li Wei felt both joy and worry. Small animals could be blocked by fences, but what if wild boar herds appeared? That would truly be a devastating disaster.

"So the current perimeter wall is actually inadequate—it can't adapt to the family's future development."

"We must find a way to upgrade it to a stone wall. But that would require finding a suitable quarry. I'm afraid we'd still need Penny the Craftsman to explore this, since it's profession-related. However, according to the rules, the fields I plant also have chances to yield higher quality grains."

"So cooperation is still necessary. Even with two professions, one person can't cover everything."

"Still, given the current situation, achieving genuine cooperation would be difficult. Without being the Family Head, discussing cooperation is meaningless. It has to be the Family Head, but that involves interests and compromises, entirely depending on the Family Head's capabilities."

"So this is basically a Family Head simulator, right?"

Li Wei grumbled to himself.

——

In the blink of an eye, another ten days passed. Fortunately, it hadn't rained—the skies were high with thin clouds, and the autumn weather was clear and refreshing. The wheat in both fields had basically matured, largely undamaged by birds or beasts.

Li Wei had sharpened his sickle in advance. He got up at dawn to begin harvesting, first selecting the most mature, plumpest wheat ears to cut for next year's seeds. He gathered two full bags, roughly sixty jin, enough to plant three mu of land.

The moment he carried these two bags of wheat ears back to camp, everyone—including the newcomer Leon—received a message.

[Professional Farmer**'s wheat fields have harvested six units of one-star quality wheat seeds. He additionally gained 6 Family Contribution points. Friendly reminder: Using such seeds for planting will result in more robust wheat sprouts and higher yields per mu. If used for food preparation, there's a high probability of creating one-star quality food.]

[Friendly reminder: Although wheat fields are donated to the family, when the Farmer profession cultivates them, only the basic harvest belongs to the family. Additional gains are like overtime work and will earn extra Family Contribution points. Similarly, the Chef profession is responsible for the family's daily meals—having enough to eat and drink is the basic requirement, but preparing one-star dishes will earn additional Family Contribution points. The Craftsman and Tailor professions work the same way; even when using family-owned materials, creating one-star quality equipment will receive additional rewards.]

Huh, this was really good news. Li Wei's Farmer profession finally showed some promising future.

But this wasn't the time to delay. After setting down the wheat ears, he practically jogged out of camp to begin formal harvesting. He only returned midway to grab a quick meal, then immediately continued harvesting without rest. This was crucial business—every minute earlier the harvest was completed meant one more minute of security.

Fortunately, with less than one and a half mu of wheat fields, Li Wei finished harvesting everything by around 4 PM. He bundled them into sheaves for easier transport and drying.

If it didn't rain continuously, about ten-plus days would be sufficient for drying, after which threshing could begin to harvest the wheat grains.

Afterward, he made rough calculations. Although there was no chemical fertilizer and the seeds weren't exceptional, with the boost from the Two-Star Farmer Card plus the extremely fertile black soil in this area, the harvest turned out quite good—approximately four hundred jin per mu. The two wheat fields, minus seed requirements, should yield at least six hundred jin of wheat.

This was hope for surviving winter.

By evening, even Fila, Mixi, Penny, and Leon couldn't resist coming to check. Grains were always important strategic resources, regardless of the era.

"With grain in hand, hearts are calm. George, this achievement belongs to you."

Fila praised with a beaming smile, as this was also highly beneficial for her. With more abundant food supplies and greater variety, she as the Chef had more room to showcase her skills, create better food, earn more experience points, and gain more Family Contribution points.

She particularly coveted those six units of one-star wheat. Once in her hands, creating new one-star quality food would be effortless.

Maybe even two-star!

This was far better than one-star mushrooms, which were hard to gather with unstable yields.

Unfortunately, these couldn't be touched!

They were seeds!

Everyone else also wore smiles. While they wanted to develop their own professions, not going hungry was the prerequisite.

Worth mentioning, over the past twenty days, Leon had been following Fila fishing and gathering, clearly having obtained a one-star Fisherman Card. But what his first profession was had never had an opportunity to be revealed.

During these days, everyone had basically maintained silence, with Leon being particularly inconspicuous.

However, as time passed, once Leon upgraded to a two-star Fisherman, he might catch one-star quality fish and shrimp, which would also benefit Chef Fila.

In fact, only today did Li Wei fully understand Fila's initial intentions—truly shrewd and calculating.

But once Leon figured out the rule logic, he'd likely break free from her control.