You were made to farm, and now you're the emperor of an empire?

Chapter 287 Same people but different fates

Night falls early in winter.

Roman had just stepped outside when he saw Gweil playing in the open space of the manor.

"Gerviel, come here."

The little witch was playing with her donkey on the grass. The donkey was hopping and skipping around, and she hopped and skipped over to it too.

Roman glanced at her face, then at the healthy, lively little donkey with its smooth fur, and asked, "Did you secretly give Ami another blessing?"

"No," Gweil said guiltily.

She was a bit willful, but Roman felt it was still within his tolerance.

One donkey is nothing.

Roman simply reminded him, "Your power is precious."

But it wouldn't hurt to give some to the little donkey, would it? Gweil thought to herself, the little donkey is only a few months old.

She recently blessed several baby cows, horses, pigs, sheep, and chickens.

Each cub was carefully selected by Roman.

Healthy, disease-free offspring with excellent physiques generally have strong heritability and are very suitable for breeding.

After Gavial's blessing, the cubs became healthier.

Every species has the potential for genetic mutations, which can either become benign or malignant.

Gweil knew that Roman had told her that her blessing could, to a certain extent, induce the genes of a species to mutate in a benign direction.

She couldn't understand, but that didn't matter.

Despite casting the spell, the rest is left to fate.

Success is achieved, failure is not.

This applies to plants, and it applies to other living things as well.

Roman, however, never allowed her to bless human babies.

A single breeding pig or sheep can reproduce hundreds or thousands of offspring, a capability that humans lack—and even if they did, they couldn't.

Furthermore, the energy required to bless animals is far greater than that required for plants.

Gavier could only look after the calves, foals, piglets, and lambs whenever she had a spare moment. To ensure the effectiveness of the spell, she had to recast it every month.

Did you go to bless the wheat seedlings today?

"Not yet." She lowered her head, tracing patterns on the ground with her right toe.

Roman couldn't see her expression, and said helplessly, "Then I'll go with you."

Gweil immediately looked up with a beaming smile and took his arm: "Then let's go."

She also greeted the two adult witches behind Roman with a smile.

Shasta gave a faint smile.

Margaret remained silent.

Roman felt that she was deliberately waiting there for him to question her.

It's not an illusion; it's been like this for a while now.

When he first started blessing the rice paddies, he wanted to personally verify Gweil's condition and the limits of her abilities, so he stayed with her.

He watched as Gevil blessed more than ten acres of land, and after confirming the general situation, he turned to attend to other matters.

After winter set in, he had some free time, so he was able to squeeze out some time, which was just the right opportunity to be caught.

This child is usually a bit clumsy, but sometimes he can be quite shrewd.

She couldn't participate in his work, so she let him participate in hers.

Very cunning.

……

Gweil's blessing was entirely beneficial.

It's impossible to let her rest.

At most, they won't exploit you as much.

The fifty acres of rice paddies were completed in a hurry, because the crucial growth period for rice is only so long. She drank the magic potion in the summer, and the rice had to be harvested in the autumn, so she didn't have much time left.

Winter is long now, but we can take our time getting here.

The four of them called Lysa out again. It happened to be a bright moonlit night.

The moonlight was cold and clear, and the wheat fields were covered in frost.

Gweil cast a spell on the experimental wheat field, and her task for the day was complete; she could go back—that was all she had to do to call Roman out.

The main blessing was to help the wheat adapt to the climate quickly and increase the tillering rate, as wheat yield is directly linked to tillering rate. Gweil continued casting her spell, leaving the rest to fate.

“Your Highness, you are truly remarkable. We never imagined that the power of a witch could be used in other ways.” Lysa said this for what seemed like the umpteenth time.

When she saw the yield per mu of rice in the experimental field during the autumn harvest, she was completely stunned.

The yield is nearly 300 jin per mu, which is incredibly high.

In this era, only those truly chosen lands can produce this kind of output; an acre of land is more than enough to support one person.

Most civilizations begin breeding at their inception.

Because the foundation of agricultural civilization is cultivating wild grass into food, but the breeding technology was not mature, so the time span was very long.

Farmers outside the city of Origin still haven't learned how to use mud and water to select good seeds.

Agricultural technology is quite backward; who knows the essence of breeding these days!

Roman scoffed, "You guys are narrow-minded, but I don't blame you."

Oh dear, here we go again.

Lysa was in a bind. She was trying to get on good terms with Roman because he was her master.

He was intelligent, enlightened, and energetic, and knew everything about farming, brewing, animal husbandry, construction, medicine, water conservancy, and most importantly, invention and creation. He was simply a prodigy.

No one knows where his knowledge came from.

This land is a dark forest overgrown with thorns and stretching endlessly. People crawl in the forest, struggling for a long time. The thorns grow and pierce their skin. They feel pain, but they cannot make a sound, because in their long suffering, they have long since become one with the thorny thorns.

Until someone suddenly appeared.

He radiated light, his eyes burning with flames. His figure illuminated a corner of the dark forest. He swung his lightsaber, cutting through thorns. When the creatures crawling on the ground looked up in surprise, they found that their pain had vanished.

They couldn't understand this phenomenon; the pain had plagued them for centuries. They never questioned it, and all they could do was blindly follow.

Wherever he went, they followed.

The path he walked on, where the dark, sprawling thorns quickly burned, turning into ashes and nutrients that fell into the soil, nourishing a wide and warm field.

That's good, that's certainly good.

Who wouldn't want someone like that to appear?
But Lysa felt he should have done better, such as curbing his temper, his arrogance, and his self-centeredness, always calling this idiot or that moron.

He was unlike any nobleman in any way: he wasn't keen on duels, didn't hold banquets, wasn't greedy for money or fond of drinking, and didn't hunt for entertainment. He was always busy, sometimes setting off early in the morning and returning very late, and sometimes disappearing for days at a time. It was fine when he disappeared, but it was not so good when he appeared.

He was arrogant and haughty, and in this respect, he was more aristocratic than any other nobleman. He was not likable at all, and one would think that even the Black Iron King would follow social etiquette in person.

She only said one sentence, and he said she was narrow-minded, and that he didn't blame them. So they were the ones who should be blamed? She was both shocked and innocent. Everyone went through this, and she did everything he asked her to do, so why was he scolding her?

Lysa chuckled dryly, "After all, none of us are as good as you."

"That's natural!"

She was speechless, desperately reciting the rules that nobles were supposed to follow: humility, tolerance, honor, compassion...

Couldn't this person uphold these noble virtues and show them a little respect? Lysa asked herself, this is a true descendant of the Fiends, has the virtues that the conquerors once proclaimed disappeared in the Duke's family after a hundred years?
"Roman, I'm cold." Gweil hunched her shoulders; the temperature was even lower at night than during the day.

Why don't you wear more clothes?

"I forgot," the little witch said shyly.

Roman wanted to slap her and tell her that even in the cold night wind, witches must maintain their strong and elegant demeanor. Shasta and Margaret were dressed even less warmly than she was, but their bearing was far more dignified. He thought this, but couldn't bring himself to do it. She was the mother of Origin City's food supply; who would be responsible if he damaged her?
He took off his cloak and draped it over Gweil's back. The fur cloak was so soft and smooth to the touch, light and warm.

Nobles commonly wore this kind of clothing.

It's a cloak when it's cold, and a cape when it's warm.

His cloak was a bit too big, covering her completely. "It's so warm," she said, her eyes almost squinting into crescents. "I'm going to tell Sanna."

"What should I say to her?" Roman asked.

“She’ll envy me,” Gweil chuckled, burying her face in her cloak.

"She's always envied you."

The child Roman mentioned is now freezing in the wild with the battle witches.

Sanna's expertise differs from Gweil's.

Can a civil engineer sunbathing on a construction site be compared to a programmer enjoying air conditioning in an office?

The former only needs to bury themselves in hard work, but the latter has many more things to consider.

Furthermore, Gavier had to drink a potion, transforming herself from a low-level witch into a mid-level witch, a far less stable path than Sanna's, which she had taken step by step.

In conclusion, Sanna wins, wins, wins!
Alas, witches of different fates, each with their own troubles.

Roman and Gweil walked and talked, the cool moonlight shining down, making the winter night seem less cold and dark.

Lysa looked at Geviel with a hint of envy. He treated Geviel so well, but not others. How could she earn his respect? She was late. Should she climb into his bed? Not only would that be beneath her noble manners, but more likely she'd be kicked off.

(End of this chapter)