Chapter 31 Experimenting and new skill

Getting to fifty again was my next goal, and I was already very close to it because of the legendary strawberry I made. I had less than ten levels to go now. Perfecting a method for gaining experience was impossible, but I could always do more. Creating another field on the opposite side of the village was something I could work on in the last few hours of the day.

The more difficult the process, the better the payoff when it came to experience. Upgrading all of my plants to magnified versions would increase the experience I gained tremendously. My goal was to start out small, before expanding to a similarly sized farm on the opposite end. Another way to increase my experience was having my wives help less.

I looked up the most difficult plants to grow before planting them in the new field I created. Once again, it wasn’t for money, but for levels. I prepared to take care of the fussy plants by planting cauliflower, celery, eggplant, several different kinds of lettuce, sweet potato, and artichoke. Learning other extremely difficult methods for growing, like hydroponics, was next on the list. There was also a method for using cuttings to grow new plants.

It didn’t make sense for most plants, but creating dwarf trees that would grow less fruit but closer to the ground and more often was something that was totally possible. The last thing I wanted to try doing was to turn a weed into a vegetable people would eat. My idea was to selectively breed dandelions in several directions to try and get the most out of the plant, like our ancestors did to make all the other vegetables.

At some point, people just stopped doing things like this. It didn’t make sense to me. Imagine if people kept up the practice and turned every weed into several useful vegetables to consume, not only eliminating the unhelpful weed in the process. I would start to grow dandelions while only selecting the plants that grow in the direction I preferred.

Softer, more delicious flower buds were one way I was planning to take them, while also focusing on turning the roots or leaves of the plant into a better-tasting tea. The final thing I wanted to do was to grow as many flower varieties as I possibly could. Spreading them all around the village, around the edge of the forest, so that I could walk along the border just to keep an eye out for monsters and help myself relax after a hard day's work, sounded great. It would also make the village more beautiful in the process.

I got to work on those things, and before I noticed it, a month had passed. It was rapidly approaching winter, and I’d love to hit fifty and select another skill before winter came. My wives had agreed to let me handle the bulk of the work while they adventured or did guard work. I didn’t want them to go adventuring… But there was nothing I could do to stop them.

Their leveling would make them bearing children safer than if they just stayed home doing nothing. It was counterintuitive that way. The stronger they were, the higher their stats, the easier the birth would be. That was why I was rushing to level fifty again, to give them another little stat boost before the children were born.

All the new things I was doing right now kind of made me look like a mental case. I had the big field to take care of near my house, but I started another field on the opposite end of the village. Not only that, but I was cutting tree branches off trees that hadn’t yielded any fruits left before planting them in the ground(or at least that’s what it looked like to non-farmers). I started growing dandelions, which were known to be a weed before plucking yellow strands off the heads of them, before muttering to myself if they were too bitter and plucking them, otherwise leaving them be if they were sweet enough. Finally, I spread a bunch of flowers around the village and spent an hour at the end of the day walking the outskirts of the village watering them.

It did pay off, though. Even after a single crop yield of dandelions, I could tell they were sweeter on average compared to normal dandelions after plucking all the super bitter ones. I was going to pluck the dandelions with smaller flowers this time, then alternate between picking them based on taste and size until they were edible.

This wasn’t going to be a fast process, it was going to take years to see a distinctive change. I could only be thinking they’re sweeter, that’s how little difference one selective breeding made. All of my changes could be completely placebo. All the changes rapidly sped up my leveling speed as I finally reached fifty again.

STD Immunity- Gain immunity to sexually transmitted diseases.

Child rearing- Children brought up on your farm have their statistic adjustment set 10% higher, gain job experience 10% faster, and have their resource regeneration increased by 10%.

Comfort zone- Increases health, mana, and stamina regeneration by 100% while on the farm.

Elemental affinity- Choose an element. Earth, Water, Wind, Fire, Lightning.

Jack of Jack of Jacks- Increases bonus by another 10%

Sexual healing- Regenerate 25% of health, mana, and stamina from having sex.

Don’t think about it- The lower a person’s intellect the higher your charm up to a 100% bonus.

Inheritance- Your children are more likely to inherit a bonus skill or proficiency from you.

Monocrop- Increases the rarity of a single crop by 100% while decreasing rarity by 25% for everything else.

Polycrop- Increases the benefits of planting multiple crops on a single field, 10% per symbiotic crop.

Magical field- Increases the odds of developing a magified crop. Pouring your mana into the field to increase the chances even further.

Magical specialization- Choose a specialization. Offense, Defense, Healing, Support.

Specialized Jack- Pick a tool, skill, and job to double the proficiency bonus the jack skills provide

Well rounded- Gives a permanent .25 bonus to all stats.

Parental bond- Once your children reach adulthood, they gain 5% of your and the mother’s stats.

Elite golem- Gain knowledge on how to create an elite golem. This golem has 500% of the stats of a normal golem. (Can only create a single elite golem)

Bodyguards- Declare a golem as you or any of your family's bodyguards. That golem will get a 100% boost to stats while protecting that person.

Mini planter golems- Gain knowledge on how to create mini planter golems. Passive golems that will allow you to more easily transport plants.

Baby boom- You and your wife gain a .1 bonus to all stats for every child you have.

I had already decided on well-rounded, so that’s what I selected. I hadn’t gained access to any new skills, but I knew I would once I grew trees from cuttings or made a new vegetable. I might even get one from taking care of so many flowers eventually. Almost no one grew flowers professionally, so why would farmers when they could grow more crops? So it might give me a forgotten skill if I kept at it. Right now, there are no changes.

I sighed a happy, contented sigh as I prepared for bed. I was happy I made it before winter, now I could worry less about it while working on other things. The next thing to worry about was preparing for Tems to give birth.