The field was dying.
Cracks ran through the paddies like old scars. The wind pushed dust along the dikes and into Tian Yuan's mouth until even his spit tasted like clay. From the hut behind him came a thin cough, stubborn as a weed. He glanced back once, tightened the rag around his waist and set his hoe again.
"One more row," he told himself. "One more row, and Mother can rest."
The sun was sliding behind the hills when his hoe struck something that wasn't rock. It pinged soft, like a spoon against a ceramic bowl and a faint green light slipped up through the mud.
Tian Yuan crouched. Buried in the hardpan, the thing pulsed like a heartbeat. Not jade. Not metal. A seed, only a thumb's nail long, warm as if it had been sitting in sunlight instead of darkness.
He hesitated. Strange things never favored poor people. Strange things got poor people killed or robbed.
Another cough fluttered from the hut. He tucked the seed into his palm and, without giving himself time to think, poked a hole beside the cracked rice stalks and pressed it into the soil.
His water jar stood on the dike, their last jar, carrying the last bowl he'd kept back from his mother for the evening. It wasn't enough to revive a field. It was barely enough to wet a sick woman's lips.
He lifted it anyway.
"Grow," he whispered, and poured.
As the first drops soaked the dirt, the air shifted. The heat sagged away, replaced by a breath of cool that smelled like cut grass after rain. A circle of pale light opened around his hands. Words not spoken, not heard, but known—rang through his skull like the clear strike of a bell.
[Spirit Farm System has successfully bound to Host.]
[Host: Tian Yuan.]
[Status: Mortal.]
[Profession: Farmer.]
[Initializing Field… 1 mu detected. Soil Grade: F (withered). Moisture: critically low.]
[Tutorial Quest: Save the Seed.]
[Plow → Plant → Water → Guard for one night.]
[Reward: Life Dew (1), Sprout Qi +1, Harvest Points +10.]
Tian Yuan dropped the jar. It hit the mud with a dull thud and rolled toward the paddy. The light did not blink out. It hung around his hands like dawn refusing to get on with the day.
"I'm not dreaming," he said. The words didn't shake. For the first time in months, they were steady as a furrow line.
Another line of text slid through the air, cool against his eyes.
[Beginner Skills granted: Soil Sense 1, Growth Surge 1.]
Awareness unfurled under his feet. He could feel the field the way a man feels his own body: the thirst of the cracked paddies, the thinness of the loam, the stubbornness of old roots. It was like putting his hand on Mother's forehead and knowing—without herbs, without a healer—how much fever she had.
"Fine," he murmured, swallowing. "Let's work."
He set the blade of the hoe and pulled, more gently this time, teasing the crust without cutting the tiny life he'd just buried. Soil loosened, greedily sucking what little water there was. He pressed his palm flat over the spot, closed his eyes, and willed.
The new knowledge wasn't a technique you shouted or a stance you struck. It was a season in his bones.
"Grow."
Warmth spilled from his palm. A small green spear pricked the surface, trembled, and pushed higher. Two baby leaves unfurled, slick with light as if dew had decided to be born inside the plant instead of on it. The glow spread in thin threads along the nearby rice stalks. He felt it touch him too—sliding under his skin, soaking into the aches in his shoulders, running like a cool river through the dust in his lungs.
[Growth Surge 1 activated.]
[Seed vitality stabilized. Seedling status: healthy.]
The circle of light condensed into a single drop that hung in the air like a bead of glass. It was green at the center and clear at the edges, and it smelled faintly of fresh-cut stems.
[Reward issued: Life Dew (1).]
[Use: dissolve in water; restores vitality; extends life for a day; soothes internal heat.]
The hut coughed again.
Tian Yuan caught the droplet in both hands. It was weightless as mist, yet he could feel it, cool against his skin. He ran for the hut, ducked under the hanging reed mat, and knelt by the low pallet.
His mother lay like stalks after harvest: bent, light, ready to blow away. Her lips were cracked. A bowl sat by the bed with the kind of water that only pretended to be clean.
"Ma," he whispered. "Drink for me."
He dissolved the dew into the bowl. It was like dropping a sun into a well. The surface took on a faint green shimmer. He lifted her head with one arm and tipped the rim to her mouth. She drank greedily for three sips, stubbornly for two more, then sighed and let her head relax against his sleeve. Color crept back into her lips, not much, but enough for him to see.
The knot in his chest loosened until he could breathe.
System words fluttered again, gentle as falling chaff.
[Life signs stabilized. Prognosis: improved rest, reduced fever.]
He swallowed hard. "Thank you," he told the empty air. He didn't know who he was thanking. He only knew that for the first time since his father died and drought took the rest, he had something he could fight with.
He set the bowl down and smoothed the loose hair from his mother's forehead. "Rest. I'll be back."
Outside, dusk had poured blue into the paddies. Fireflies woke along the dikes like sparks in straw. The seedling glowed a little by itself now, steady as a heart.
Tian Yuan touched the soil near it and let Soil Sense spread again. The field answered with a thousand small complaints. He had always known where to dig and when to wait—years of guessing with his hands but now the earth spoke plain.
"You're thirsty," he said. "Me too."
The water jar lay on its side, empty. He could make it to the stream and back before true dark, but leaving the seed now scraped at him like a dull knife. The quest hovered where he could see it every time he blinked.
[Tutorial Quest: Save the Seed.]
[Guard for one night.]
[Penalty for failure: Seed withers; system enters hibernation.]
He looked at the mountains. The stream would still be there in the morning. This glow might not.
So he stayed. He rebuilt the small dike with his hands, pinched the wet mud tight to make a pocket of moisture around the seedling, and cut a curtain of reed to keep night wind from scouring it. The world settled. Crickets sang. Somewhere deeper in the fields, a wild boar snorted and went rooting for frogs.
New text drifted into view, faintly amused as if a kindly elder were checking his work.
[Field Condition stabilized in a 3-zhang radius.]
[Temporary buff: Microclimate—calm.]
He snorted, half a laugh. "Now you want to talk about weather with me? We've been arguing for years."
He sat cross-legged on the dike with the seedling at his knee and his hoe across his lap. He would have liked to close his eyes, but the thought of waking to a chewed stem bared his teeth. Instead, he studied the luminous menu that winked open when he thought the word "System."
It wasn't complicated. The best tools never were.
[Spirit Farm System]
Field: 1 mu
Soil Grade: F (withered)
Moisture: Low
Seeds: 1 (bound)
Tools: —
Skills: Soil Sense I, Growth Surge I
Currency: Harvest Points (HP): 0
Next Upgrade: Soil grade to E (100 HP) or Field expansion to 2 mu (150 HP)
Quests: Tutorial—Save the Seed (in progress)
He tapped a word with his mind and another window slid across.
[Explanation—Harvest Points: Earned from healthy growth, healed land, pests repelled, perfect harvests.]
[Conversion: harvest → strength. HP can improve soil, unlock tools, or be refined for cultivation.]
A shiver that wasn't cold rippled through him. Cultivation, the word everyone else used like a wall with guards. He'd seen disciples ride clouds over the county road while his mother coughed in a ditch because the well was dry. He'd watched officials feed their horses grain that would have kept a family through winter.
If harvest could become strength, if healed land could become realm advancement…
He looked at his hands. Callused. Cracked. Honest.
"Then I'll plow a path," he said.
Something moved along the far ridge of the paddies. The boar again, maybe. Tian Yuan tightened his grip on the hoe and breathed the way farmers breathe, slow like a season. Soil Sense tickled his soles. A heavy body pressed the bank, sank it a finger's width, then backed off. Not hungry enough to break his dike tonight.
He looked up at the sky. Stars had come out in bright little seeds of their own. The faint circle behind his head—he could feel it now, like warmth without heat—throbbed once and steadied.
He let his mind drift around the edges of the system, testing where it gave and where it held. There were buttons he couldn't press yet—Tools, Arrays, Beasts—greyed out like sealed jars. There was a Market tab that showed nothing but empty shelves and a note: [Produce required to unlock.]
"Fair," he said. "You want me to earn it."
[Affirmative,] the system answered, and for the first time the word didn't feel like light. It felt like a voice, small and patient.
"Do you have a name?"
[Designation: Spirit Farm System. Protocol: Harvest Dao.]
"Then, Spirit," Tian Yuan said softly, "we'll keep each other honest."
He watched the seedling breathe in the night. Growth Surge had gone quiet, but even without it the little plant was working, pulling whatever it could from soil and air. It reminded him of his mother when he was young, cutting their porridge with water and telling him it tasted better thin in summer.
A different thought slid past like a fish: taxes. Steward Gao would come next week with his ledger and his cudgel and the same smile he used when dogs licked his hand. The paddies had failed across the valley. Everyone would come up short. People like Gao only called it famine when nobles missed a meal.
Tian Yuan touched the baby leaves. "Not this time," he said.
The seedling did not answer. It didn't have to.
Near midnight, a fog crept in from the stream, soft as wool. It beaded on his eyebrows and the reed curtain and on the green spear by his knee. The drop on the leaf tip swelled, tilted under its own weight, and fell into the soil.
[Moisture +2%.]
[Host state: drowsy. Suggestion: Micro-nap protocol—Soil Sense auto-alert on disturbance.]
He snorted again. "You think like a farmer too."
He let his eyes close in slits and leaned his shoulder against the dike. The earth was cool. The glow from the seedling painted his hands the sick color of jade at night, and then it wasn't sick at all, just green.
The alert came the way thunder comes when you're half asleep: first in the bones.
[Disturbance detected.]
He was moving before his eyes were fully open. A shadow humped over the far dike, bristles catching moonlight. The boar larger than he'd hoped, hungrier than he'd feared—snorted at the curtain and shoved.
Tian Yuan didn't think. He didn't know any martial arts to think with. He knew lines and water.
He jammed the hoe into the mud to wedge the dike, ripped the reed curtain loose, and flung it like a net into the animal's face. The boar squealed, surprised rather than hurt, and backed into the paddies with a splash.
Growth Surge pulsed under his skin in answer to his fear, not strong enough to stop a beast, but strong enough to make reeds grip and mud thicken.
"Go root somewhere else," he said through his teeth, and pushed.
The water in the paddy bulged, not much, just enough to slap the boar's legs and make the footing worse. It flailed, half falling, decided this patch of field wasn't worth the trouble, and crashed off along the ridge, grumbling.
He stood in the silence it left, chest heaving, mud up to his calves, and began to laugh under his breath because if he didn't laugh he would cry and wake his mother.
[Minor threat repelled.]
[HP +2.]
"Two points," he said, wiping his cheek with the back of his wrist. "We'll get there."
Dawn seeped into the east like tea into hot water. Birds woke in the willows by the stream. The first proper light of day touched the seedling and made it shine. Where he'd poured the last of their water the ground remained dark and damp.
The system chimed, soft and satisfied.
[Tutorial Quest complete: Save the Seed.]
[Rewards issued: Sprout Qi +1, Harvest Points +10.]
[Host advancement: Body Tempering I (Sprout).]
Strength didn't crash into him. It didn't tear or burn. It settled, a simple understanding in the wrists and elbows and spine: this is where pressure goes, this is where it gives. He rolled his shoulders and the ache eased the way a field eases after the first rain.
A new window peeled open.
[Daily Tasks unlocked.]
[Weed three rows (HP +2)Repair one dike (HP +1)Water management: maintain Microclimate (HP +1)Optional: Share produce with one person in need (Hidden bonus)]
Another: [Tools tab unlocked—Beginner Gourd available (cost: 15 HP). Function: condense spirit dew.]
He squinted at the seedling, at the hut, at the empty jar. Fifteen points wasn't far. He could make it today if he worked like three men and the sky didn't spit in his eye. With a gourd that gathered dew, he wouldn't have to choose between drinking and growing.
He looked at his hands again and smiled. The lines on his palms were full of mud. They'd always be full of mud.
"Every harvest needs patience," Tian Yuan said, standing. "But some weeds need immediate pulling."
He set the hoe on his shoulder, took a last look at the glowing green spear, and walked toward the hut. His mother would wake to water that tasted like life and a son who finally had more than hope.
Behind him, unseen, the air above the seedling rippled. A faint silhouette of a tree trunk, branches, a promise flickered and rooted itself in the light.
The field, for the first time in a year, smelled like tomorrow.