Chapter 4: The First Taste

The second dawn came fast. Foin barely even closed his eyes, and it was already morning. In the morning, he woke up in a position he had long slept in. He was half sitting on the pile of grass, half lying. His head was covered by a bunch of tall grasses, and he had his mouth open; as a result, his mouth was quite dry. So, as soon as he opened his eyes, he brushed away the grass from his head and drank from the river.

"Phew.. So cold and so refreshing."

He mumbled and then turned around to look at his tiny garden with only a few plants. Just as he had anticipated and hopped, the papers and potatoes had grown. Well, he could see that the peppers were grown, but he just hoped that the same applied to the potatoes as well. The flower was not many times larger; it was much taller than the grass around it and grew thicker. From a simple flower, it turned into more like a bush. It was full of the same red and light blue flowers.

As Foin took a deep breath, he could feel a very sweet scent coming from the flower. He couldn't help but get closer to the flower when he was close enough; he grabbed the closest blossom on the plant. At that time, a brand new window popped up before his eyes. which moments later disappeared without any intervention.

"New species recognised, Élion!"

"What the... I have never heard a flower name like that! At least it has such a nice scent."

After having spent a few minutes enjoying the odour of the flower, he proceeded over to the other plants, especially the peppers, which were now fully matured. Just like before at the Élion flower, as soon as he was about to touch the grown pepper to harvest one, a new panel popped up before his eyes.

"New species recognised, Pepper!"

"Great... Nothing special, simply pepper?! Let me guess; the potato will be just simply potato?!"

Filled with curiosity, Foin leaned over to the potato, and just as he had assumed, the text pooped up.

"New species recognised, Potato!"

"So it seems I don't even need to touch the matured product; it is enough to touch any part of the plant..."

Since he had just woken up, and although he had drunk, Foin was quite hungry. He limited eating to once a day, and for some reason, it didn't affect him at all. Whenever he went to sleep, he wasn't hungry; however, in the morning, he was famished.

As he had counted, each plant of peper had yielded at least five larger, and the most benevolent produced eight larger peppers. He was extremely curious as to how they would taste, so he quickly tore off one.

"You have gained 1 Experience Point and 1 Point."

Another message appeared as he tore off the product. It made him think; he previously thought that the reason he was given this message the second day was for something else, like surviving, but it seems he had gained it for harvesting.

"Wait, if I gain Experience Points, shouldn't I have some kind of status window as well?"

As soon as I was responding to his question, a large window popped up. As much as he was excited about it, it was quite blank. He had 11 Experience points out of 100. This was displayed at the top of the panel. Underneath it was a smaller number, which showed his Points, which, just like the Experience points, was 11.

Going further down was another column of information: Strength, Endurance, Charisma, Agility, Luck. Next to them was the exact same number written: 1. Written in a much smaller case was another variable called Ability Points, from which he had zero.

Further down the panel was a section named Skills, which was empty; underneath it was another section titled Species. Under that section, he could find the three plants he had touched just recently. What surprised him the most was that each plant had its own bar, which looked like an Experience Point bar. Each had 0 out of 100 except for Peper, which was 1 out of 100

Upon seeing this large and strange yet empty panel, Foin took a deep breath and shook his head.

"What the hell? I thought I would be given some sort of system like the ones in games or novels I have read... I am basically an NPC based on stats alone! I don't even have skills... AM I A... A FARMER?!"

He shouted furiously, hitting his hand against the ground. He believed that the least he could get was some kind of headstart in a brand-new world. Something which he can utilise to survive. It took him a few minutes to finally calm down.

"Well... In my current state, I am unable to move around easily anyway...I have never had my leg broken, let alone shot... twice... so I don't know how long it would take to heal..."

He took another deep breath and looked at the freshly harvested pepper in his hand to saturate his hunger, and since he had no other idea what to do for the time being, he took a bite.

Much to his surprise, the taste was something he had never tasted. It was both sweet and slightly spicy. In a few bites, he devoured that product; however, he managed to collect all the seeds that were inside it.

"It was so great... I must expand my garden greatly..."

He mumbeld to himslef. The taste of his first harvested pepper was so great that he managed to momentarily forget why he was angry a few moments ago, despite the fact that the status window was still open before his eyes.

Clenching his right hand, which he had put the seeds into, he reached out for another pepper with his left hand and quickly ate it. In a matter of a few minutes, he ate all five of the products of the plant. With a loud and well-deserved burp, he ended his breakfast.

Every time he harvested a product, just like before, he got Experience Point and Point; as a result, now he only needed to harvest 85 to reach 100 Experience points and 95 more to see what would happen if his Papper reached 100.