Chapter 5: The First Taste part 2

Seeing that harvesting was the source of his development and progress, Foin had no choice but to accept the fact that he was truly a farmer. Even if he enjoyed acting as one as he liked planting and tending to plants, still, deep down, he was hurt.

He removed the empty plant and threw it next to the large pile of grass. He decided that in the worst-case scenario, he could use that as fuel for fire if he ran out of sticks or grass.

"Alright... Let's expand a bit more..."

He mumbled as he started digging a hole using only his hand. He dug two different rows. He wanted to test if he could use a single seed to grow something or if he needed to drop in more seeds. Since he had greatly increased the number of seeds he had, and there were still many to harvest, he had nothing to worry about. He planted five using only a single seed and five using the rest of his seeds. Every time he buried the seed, a new panel popped up, giving him Experience Point and Point.

Once he was done with the planting, he proceeded to harvest the rest of his plants. All in all, he had 31 extra papers, which, for the time being, he put on the ground; as for the useless empty plants, just like before, he threw them over to the pile of grass.

Then he proceeded over to the potatoes. Using his hand, he quickly dug around them and slowly extracted the yields. He had never harvested potatoes before and didn't even know how much he would get, but he was slightly saddened as under the first one, he found only four, while under the second one, he found six. Each was roughly around the size of his fist.

Just as it happened for the previous plat, for every piece of potato he had picked up, he gained one Experience Point and one Point.

"I thought they would give a bit more..."

However, he didn't hesitate for long, as he had decided that planting six potatoes would be the best course of action. So, just after he put the four he wanted to keep next to the pile of peppers, he started digging and plating the potatoes, further increasing his Experience Points and Points. It was at that moment that he realised that planting only gave him the Experience Points, unlike harvesting, as the number next to potatoes didn't increase after planting them. They remained at 10 out of 100

He felt as if the Experience points for the different plants were more like an indicator to show how much he had harvested. But as he looked at the now bush-size flower, he wondered. Since the plant has only flowers, maybe he needs to harvest its flowers to gain Experience Points.

Foin looked at the larger plant as soon as he was finished planting and covering the potatoes with dirt. His hand was covered with mud, all the way up to his elbow.

"Hah...farming feels better than I expected.. especially if the plant's growth is this fast."

With a content smile, Foin looked at the large flower.

"Maybe... Maybe I could tear off smaller branches and use them as fuel as well... Seeing how girthy its main parts are..."

He slowly made his way back to his pile of grass and looked at the sticks he had collected the day before. He wanted to make some sort of support so that he could stand up straight without the need to worry about straining his injured leg, but the sticks were all small, and he had nothing that he could use to med two or three together.

Suddenly, he had a strange feeling wash over him. A feeling of calmness. And suddenly, he felt as if the pain emanating from his wounds had been alleviated to some point. He even gently touched his wounded leg.

"What is this?"

His wound did not change one bit; it was as if he was under the influence of some sort of painkiller. He quickly shook his head, and then, with one determined movement, he pushed himself up. He stood up, but only on one leg. Soon, he slowly lowered his injured leg; at first, only his toes touched the ground, and he gradually applied more of his weight. He could feel that due to the strain, the pain intensified, but it was just bearable.

"Could it be the effect of the peppers I ate?"

He questioned and looked back down at the product he had harvested.

"If this is the case... could the potato have something similar effect as well? Well, tomorrow I will find out I have decided!"

He stumbled over to the bush, which was about as tall as his stomach. He gently grabbed one of the flowers and tore it off. Just as he had expected, a panel popped up.

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

He just wanted to test whether it would act as harvesting, and he was delighted to find out that his assumption was right. He took a deep breath in from the sweet scent of his harvested flower and then sat back down. He put the fragile little flower down, dug a tiny hole for it, and then planted it.

Since even the potato and the peper could grow from such a bad state into real plants, he believed that maybe even a new bush would grow from that single flower due to the accelerated growth he had experienced.

"Alright, let's get back to collecting more sticks!"

Foin mumbled to himself and then pushed himself back up. He slowly stumbled towards the forest to collect more sticks and pieces of stone. The rest of his third day was spent gathering more resources.

He noticed that the effect which alleviated his pain wore off after about an hour or so, so his progress was once again slowed down; still, he made great progress. He almost tripled his storage of sticks and found a few extra larger rocks as well.