[Congratulations! You have successfully used your professional skill. Farmer profession experience +1.]
[Successful use of a professional skill. Reward: one sickle. Can be used for harvesting when crops mature.]
Two consecutive messages from the Star Source sounded in Shen Xingyan's ears, but he seemed not to hear them at all, frozen in a state of stupor.
"What… what is this? Since when did my professional skill become so powerful? Does a 10% increase in growth speed have such a dramatic effect?" Shen Xingyan looked on in amazement, these questions involuntarily surfacing in his mind, momentarily paralyzing his thoughts.
After a while, Shen Xingyan came to his senses and hurriedly opened his stats panel to check what was really going on with his professional skill.
The skill's description clearly stated:
Professional Skill: 1. Consuming a certain amount of Primal Energy points increases the growth progress of crops in a specified area by 10%. The larger the area, the greater the energy consumption. Interval: 10 hours, skill cooldown: 24 hours.
Carefully examining the skill description, Shen Xingyan easily noticed the differences from what he remembered!
He was so astonished that he couldn't close his mouth: how did "growth speed" in his previous skill turn into "growth progress"? And why did "duration: 10 hours" change to "interval: 10 hours"?
"What does all this mean?" Shen Xingyan thought he had found the cause, but this discovery only confused him more!
The change from "growth speed" to "growth progress," though only a single word, carried an entirely different meaning.
For wheat with a current 10-day growth cycle, a 10% increase in growth speed with a daily 10-hour effect duration would mean one hour of accelerated growth per day. Over 10 days, this would amount to just 10 hours, which wasn't even half a day.
But a 10% increase in growth progress was a different matter entirely. Each successful use of the skill for wheat was equivalent to one day of accelerated growth.
Such an improvement, compared to the previous effect, which didn't even provide a full day, was undoubtedly a fundamental difference. This alone was incredible luck for Shen Xingyan after awakening the Farmer profession.
But even more amazing was that the word "duration" in the skill description had been replaced by "interval"!
Given that the skill's cooldown was 24 hours, the 10-hour interval between uses had no meaning for him right now.
It was obvious that the duration limit of the skill had been removed, which led to such an impressive result!
Did this mean he could use his professional skill every day, increasing growth progress by 10%? Didn't this mean that in the future, even the highest-level crops would take him a maximum of ten days to mature?
Realizing this, Shen Xingyan was so excited that his lips trembled.
Right now, because his professional level was still one, he could only grow Level 1 seeds, and the skill's full potential hadn't been fully unlocked yet.
But when his professional level rose and he could grow higher-level seeds, the effect would be completely different.
After all, high-level crops don't ripen in just ten or twenty days, like wheat. Their growth can take from several months to several years.
That's when this professional skill would truly show its worth. Imagine: a crop that you have painstakingly cultivated for a year and a half, Shen Xingyan would be able to grow in just ten days.
Such a situation would drive anyone crazy.
Shen Xingyan stared at the skill description with a glazed look, his thoughts carried many years into the future.
What would it be like when he could grow any crop, whose value would be comparable to the daily earnings of a current combat specialist?
As he fantasized, his gaze became more and more animated, his eyes lit up like small suns, even causing the little skeleton to turn its head toward him.
Not daring to continue these thoughts, Shen Xingyan took a deep breath, as if exhaling all the accumulated sorrow and trying to force himself to calm down.
"Complacency is a man's greatest vice!" Shen Xingyan kept repeating this phrase to himself.
After all, no matter how strong he became in the future, that was a matter for the future, and for now, it was better to act modestly. The change in his professional skill needed to be kept a strict secret.
Otherwise, in this world where power is everything, he didn't know what fate awaited him.
Many years of life experience had taught Shen Xingyan that human nature is too unpredictable. You shouldn't test it lightly—as soon as you decide to do so, you are doomed to a crushing defeat.
Calming down, Shen Xingyan still couldn't understand why his skill had undergone such a mutation. What was the real reason?
No matter how much he analyzed it, he couldn't find an answer and, in the end, decided to chalk it up to his luck and the goodwill of the Star Source world!
Pushing those thoughts aside, Shen Xingyan remembered the two previous messages from the Star Source and quickly checked his stats:
Name: Prairie Fire Spark (Shen Xingyan)
Number: 9527
Profession: Farmer
Professional Skill: 1. Consuming a certain amount of Primal Energy points increases the growth progress of crops in a specified area by 10%. The larger the area, the greater the energy consumption. Interval: 10 hours, skill cooldown: 24 hours.
Level: 1
Experience: 2/100
Strength: 10 points
Agility: 10 points
Constitution: 10 points
Spirit: 10 points
Health: 100/100 points
Primal Energy: 13/18 points
Stamina: 10/10 points
Physical Attack: 10 points
Magical Attack: 10 points
Defense: 10 points
Speed: 10 points
Talent: Summon Skeleton—summons a skeleton monster with all stats equal to 1 for combat (cooldown: 24 hours)
Money: 0 gold, 0 silver, 10 copper
Seeing the newly appeared level and experience bar, Shen Xingyan wasn't surprised—he knew this was a feature of the Star Source world, where one could level up their profession by accumulating experience and thereby improving their stats.
He now had 2 experience points: 1 initial point and 1 gained from using his skill.
Although the experience gain was small, it marked the beginning of his path to leveling up.
He then checked the sickle in his inventory:
Item: Sickle
Properties: Attack +1
No level requirements, no durability limits. An essential tool for farmers.
Seeing that the sickle also had no durability limits, Shen Xingyan felt even more pleased.
After he realized the immense future potential of his profession, Shen Xingyan's personality became much more optimistic. Now, everything around him seemed wonderful.
Looking at the sprouted wheat and the weeds that had appeared due to the powerful effect of his skill, Shen Xingyan happily began weeding with the little skeleton.
While pulling weeds, he hummed an unknown tune, and anyone who saw him would think that this farmer was in a great mood. He was nothing like the other rookie farmers with their gloomy faces, as if the world owed them something.
Shen Xingyan was, without a doubt, the first in history to reach the weeding stage on the very first day of planting. However, he couldn't tell anyone about such an achievement; only he could know about it. Truly, "How lonely it is to be invincible, how lonely!"