Lords of the Heavens

Chapter 126 Short-term and Long-term Returns

After lunch, Li Wei took a nap, not long, just half an hour. With the white bread baked by Fila, he was able to fully restore his stamina. The stamina of a first-level awakened being is truly amazing.

When he woke up, the room was empty; everyone had gone to work.

These veteran players all have pretty impressive stats. In the open space in the yard, Fila was drying wheat ears under the scorching sun. If they could speed up the process, they could thresh the wheat earlier and store it in the warehouse.

Eddie Blake set off early this morning.

Sophie, Penny, and Old John went to the iron mine. They wouldn't be back for lunch, so Fila needed to prepare white bread for them in the morning and bring some dry rations according to their rations.

Lyon went to quarry stone, while Clyde rushed off to continue building the blast furnace after lunch. Everyone seemed like a little whirlwind, wishing they could sprout wings.

One person can definitely do the work of two people.

Provoked by Li Wei, they all acted like stray dogs suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder!

Of course, despite his feelings, Li Wei still insists that health is the most important thing. He believes in coordinating and orderly mobilizing physical strength, ensuring adequate sleep, avoiding drinking unboiled water, ensuring adequate food intake and balanced nutrition, combining work and rest, maintaining an open mind, not competing or fighting, and naturally maintaining health through a balance of activity and rest.

Haha, he was diagnosed with cancer once, and now he's been haunted by it for the rest of his life.

In the afternoon, the harvesting is not done by cutting the wheat ears, but by harvesting the wheat stalks together, and then taking an appropriate amount and bundling them into small bundles.

After drying for seven or eight days, or even more than ten days, Fila will transport it back herself to thresh and grind it into flour.

In short, the speed was very fast; Li Wei's scythe was already leaving afterimages as he swung it.

He successfully completed the harvest at 5 p.m., before the sun had even set.

I estimated that the average wheat yield was about 800 jin (400 kg), so the total yield of these two mu (0.26 acres) of winter wheat was as high as 1500 jin (750 catties).

All I can say is that the Samsung Farmer Card is awesome, and the fertile land is even more awesome.

When the harvest was finished, he discovered that his farmer's fate stability had increased from 8 to 11, a great achievement indeed.

"Ok?"

At that moment, Li Wei suddenly had an idea. He squatted down and grabbed a handful of soil. Without needing any instruments to measure it, he could clearly feel that the fertility of the soil in these two winter wheat fields had dropped by at least one level.

This is a wounded place.

Of course, it's not too exaggerated. If we continue to plant wheat, the yield per mu can still reach 500 jin, but the yield of first-grade wheat is only about 30 to 50 jin per mu.

In the eyes of ordinary farmers, this is definitely a prime piece of land.

"So crop rotation is indeed necessary. These two plots of land will have to be left fallow for a year and then cultivated again next spring to replenish the soil fertility."

Li Wei naturally came to this conclusion.

And he was very fortunate, because if he hadn't been the head of the household this month, things would have been troublesome.

He can directly decide which plot of land to rotate, but if it were someone else, you couldn't just leave a perfectly good plot of land fallow, no matter what you say. You might say the soil is damaged, but so be it. There are so many empty plots, you can reclaim them. If there are no empty plots left, you can cut down trees and clear land. You can always reclaim new farmland.

Stop your babbling and complaining! Who's the head of the household? Can't you tell the difference between the kings and queens?
If this goes wrong, it could become grounds for his impeachment.

However, only Samsung Farmers themselves know that the stability of a farmer's destiny requires high-quality, high-level farming to increase.

Conversely, the stability of a farmer's destiny also determines the quantity of higher quality grains they can produce.

That kind of brutal, predatory, and exploitative planting, which drains the soil of its fertility in one go, and then moves on to the next piece of land to continue the same process—logging, clearing land, burning, planting, round after round—may indeed increase short-term yields, but this is absolutely not in line with the cultivation of a farmer's destiny.

Treating the land well and practicing crop rotation and intensive farming are principles that farmers must follow.

This even seems to subtly align with the Alliance of Lords of the Heavens' ideal of peaceful and orderly plunder.

As evening fell, Li Wei carried the bundled wheat sheaves to the city wall and lined them up to dry. Then he took a shovel and began digging vigorously. The soil's fertility depends on turning the soil, fertilizing, and being exposed to the sun.

These are all prerequisites.

After dinner, Li Wei dug for another hour before returning to rest. He didn't need to guard the wheat field today.

However, this does not mean he can get a good night's sleep.

Because he did not make arrangements for patrol and night watch personnel at the family meeting at the end of the month.

It wasn't that he overlooked or forgot; he genuinely couldn't spare the manpower.

He must, through everyone's efforts, finalize and implement the family's work plan for the next few months within this month, so as to be fully prepared for a possible enemy attack.

Yes, Li Wei had this premonition, especially since Peter's move might alert the enemy, potentially revealing their presence to Kahe City and angering the Snow Mountain Witch!
So, with everyone else doing their best, he was the only one left to patrol. Fortunately, he was at level one physical strength awakening, with a long stamina bar. Coupled with two meals of white bread and two meals of mushroom and meat soup a day, as well as his consistently good health, he could withstand even short-term overexertion.

After a nap of about an hour, Li Wei woke up naturally, quietly changed into his leather armor and boots, slung his quiver over his shoulder, took his bow and spear, and went out on patrol.

The other family members were completely indifferent to this; no one wanted to go out on patrol. They were hoping something would happen so they could launch an impeachment.

However, it can only be said that family camps have evolved to the point where they are no longer the small, vulnerable families they once were.

The wall built by Thomas was three meters high and the moat was two meters deep, making it nearly five meters high in total. It was not something that an ordinary person could easily climb over.

In addition, huge and heavy log gates have been installed at the city gates, which will minimize the risk of being attacked.

Once a situation is discovered, Li Wei doesn't need to fight alone. He only needs to sound the alarm, and the family will naturally enter a state of combat readiness. Everyone must be mobilized, and those who don't will be punished. In any case, it has nothing to do with him, the head of the family.

Even if a family member dies in battle, it is not the head of the household's fault, unless he insists on going out of the city to fight in the field.

However, if Li Wei failed to provide an early warning, then it must be his fault.

That night, Li Wei was in high spirits and never let his guard down. He did not raise a torch or light a campfire. Instead, he took advantage of the darkness, the stealth properties of his two-star leather armor, the spatial feedback from his 11 points of agility, and the high perception from his hunter card to keep a firm grip on the situation of the entire camp.

But nothing really happened.

Before dawn the next day, Fila had already prepared breakfast. After Sophie, Penny, and old John finished eating, they quickly set off, followed by Clyde and Leon, who also went out to work.

Li Wei returned to his room at this time, ate his breakfast slowly, and then fell into a deep sleep. Around ten o'clock in the morning, he woke up naturally, feeling refreshed and full of energy.

Today's task is to reclaim land and sow seeds as quickly as possible. We need to race against time, otherwise the hot weather will be detrimental to seed germination.

After equipping the Bear Hunter title and raising his strength to 15 points, Li Wei roared and got to work. In half a day, he was able to sow two acres of land. That was no joke. With his 15 points of strength and 200 stamina, he certainly couldn't compare to a proper ox or horse, nor could he compare to a strong mule, but he was definitely better than a little donkey.

Three days later, the remaining two acres of wasteland were reclaimed, and the grass roots were cleared and the soil leveled. Sowing began on the fourth day. Because it had rained recently, irrigation was not needed.

On the evening of the fifth day of this month, Li Wei reclaimed another half acre of wasteland and planted castor beans and cotton. As for his own private land, he had finished sowing it in the previous month when he had some free time.

It is worth mentioning that wheat that is already family property cannot be sold to individuals.

It must be private property from beginning to end.

This is also why Li Wei left himself ten catties of wheat seeds in Kah City.

This busy period included harvesting, clearing land, and sowing. His farming experience successfully reached 650 points. However, for the time being, he only had one one-star chef card, one one-star fisherman card, and one one-star tailor card. He was not in a hurry to merge them and planned to wait and see.

Next, it's time to unlock the two-star Lumberjack card.

The next morning at ten o'clock, Li Wei took his tools and went directly to the east bank of the stream. About two miles from the bank, he chose a spot where he would build a charcoal kiln. He first dug a pit, leveled the land, and built a road for wheelbarrows, including a simple wooden bridge across the stream.

Then he pushed a wheelbarrow back and forth between the camp and the charcoal kiln, carrying bricks.

In the previous version, Penny also tried to fire refractory bricks, but she never succeeded, so she left behind a lot of failed bricks. These are definitely not suitable for building a steel furnace, but they are perfect for building a charcoal kiln.

We also have to thank our friends from the previous version. Li Wei can now build his own charcoal kiln and has mastered the skills of charcoal burning.

There's not much to say about this process; just do it, that's all.

Working tirelessly day and night, they galloped like an old ox!

Li Wei even reduced his daily sleep time to three hours in the morning and one hour in the evening, spending the rest of his time either patrolling at night or on the road to logging and charcoal burning.

He knew very well that time was of the essence!
Time flies, and more than twenty days have passed. There is only one day left until the end of this month.

During this time, the family camp remained relatively stable. Eddie Pete did not return, and everyone else was busy with their own duties and kept to their posts.

Li Wei was so busy he was like a wild man. During this time, he felled three large trees of one-star quality and obtained twelve standard one-star logs.

This is an extra bonus. It's worth mentioning that the one-star quality trees felled during the main quest still belong to the family property, but they will contribute extra points, five points per tree, which is neither too much nor too little.

In addition, he felled twenty-two oak trees and produced a total of two hundred units of charcoal, perfectly supplying the iron and steelmaking needs of the steelmaking furnace.

He has now successfully gained 500 lumbering experience points, bringing his total experience to 750 points, more than enough to upgrade to a two-star lumberjack card.

Finally, he also gained 200 points of basic smelting experience from burning charcoal.

I wonder what kind of class card I can get if I collect 500 points?

(End of this chapter)