Thoughts rose and fell in Lingyu's mind.
"Alright, those are things for the future, time to check my talents!" he refused to bow down to his fears while also keeping his expectations in check. For now, he would live his life in aspirations to achieve great things.
He walked to the side, away from the earthy path to the long rows of grapevines growing on metal wires.
The moment he approached the vine, he instantly felt something.
"This vine isn't watered enough. While there is rain, it's not enough to sustain this vine's needs at all."
Right as he started to observe, various thoughts sprung up in his mind, allowing him to guess and make conclusions based on what he saw and felt, "Because it's a hill, the water moves down. As the first row of the hill, it doesn't receive any water.
The rain must've fallen centrally from above the field instead of falling at the top, allowing the water to naturally flow downwards.
A whole row of grapevines was wasted because of that."
Lingyu counted the rows and saw that on his hill, there were two large fields, each five acres large. Both fields were together on the same hill. He was currently on the west field.
"Do I have a notebook somewhere?" He asked himself while checking his spatial bag. It was a small one barely 10 square metres large, but even so, it seemed exceptionally empty.
Only a few sets of clothes, a cultivation manual, a few bags of spirit rice and some other useless things were found.
"Ugh, working without a notebook, how do you keep everything in mind?" Lingyu shook his head. Even as a cultivator, having things in front of you makes everything easier to calculate.
He walked up the hill and saw a large hut at the end of the path.
It was rather large from a distance.
"Doesn't look too shabby," he commented while looking at it.
Creak
A sound could be heard when he opened the door.
"Gotta fix that. If I had a notebook, I could write it down." Another reason to get a notebook appeared in his mind, so he went in directly.
"Ugh, so small? It looks big from the outside but now it seems that it's only the size of a living room, yet it's supposed to be the whole space?"
There were shelves right at the entrance, blocking it slightly. Walking in, he saw that there was a bed at the left corner and a futon in the middle of the room. Facing the windows to the fields there was a desk.
"A bit dusty but it's fine."
Looking around, he first checked the shelves and then the drawers of the desk.
Indeed, there were a few empty notebooks and a small, short brush.
"Perfect!"
He took out two and wrote the titles of these notebooks – Daily Notes and Vineyard Notes.
In his daily notes he wrote down to repair the door.
Putting that into his bag, he walked out with the other to the field.
"The first row needs watering. Suspected reason: central watering leads to too little water at the top." He wrote down in his notebook.
"Hmm, if there is too little water at the top, then at the bottom, there should be too much, right? No wait, first inspect how many of these first few rows have this issue of too little water."
He did as he said and went from row to row.
A deep frown formed between his brows when he looked at the situation, "Is this real? Five rows, a total of five rows, each row is a hundred vines. Plus, this is only the west row, but the east rows have the same issue. A total of ten rows were damaged!"
With a look of panic, he quickly walked down. He barely avoided a small stone that might've made him slip.
Just as he arrived at the 25th row, he saw the issue –
"From this row on, the vines are getting way too much water! The first five are still fine and they produce less than average, but the last five barely produce anything!"
"The last ten rows gain too much water. Suspected reason: central watering leads to too much water at the bottom."
As he wrote the second note, he added below them, "Lost revenue about 1.000 vines at the top, 50% less revenue from the rows 26-30 and full loss of another 1.000 vines at the bottom. Current total loss: 2.500 vines out of 7.000 vines!"
A look of shock appeared on his face.
Just this loss accounted to nearly half! That was a major reason he had done so badly!
Looking into the distance, a frown appeared on his face, "Hmph, such a small thing and no one told me. That Manager Si clearly has designs on this field. And these neighbours, either they are unkind or dare not help me."
Instantly, he made up his mind that he wouldn't bother befriending anyone that was near his fields.
Looking at the other vines, he shook his head, "This is a major issue that has to be fixed right now. It can't wait any longer. Other issues can be inspected later."
With this in mind, he checked the spell that was used to water these plants –
"Small Rain Cloud Spell, a second-grade spell lowered to first-grade to allow lower cultivators to farm better!"
Thinking isn't enough, he wanted to try it out directly.
Walking up the field, he followed the method to cast this spell in his mind.
His hands moved quickly, gesturing various things, while he pronounced incantations in an ancient language.
Finally, he called the name of the spell – "Small Rain Cloud, Gather!"
Air gathered from all around and fog appeared.
"Small Rain Cloud, Condense!" he commanded and the fog condensed into a cloud.
"Small Rain Cloud, Rise!" another command and the cloud rose above the field.
"Small Rain Cloud, Rain!"
Instantly, drops of water rose fell from the sky onto the first row of the grapevines.
A few drops fell on Lingyu and he saw that this water was exceptionally clean and had a small aura.
"So this is low-grade Spirited Water, right? Not even at the level of Spiritual Water but only spirited, well, it does fit the needs of Spirited Plants."
One minute.
Three Minutes.
Five minutes.
After hitting ten minutes, Lingyu could no longer power the clouds. They dissipated rapidly, as if his effort to condense them was a joke.
"Wow." He took a moment to observe the magic he had just cast. This was truly magic!
Not some tricks, not some CGI, but real magic!
Looking at the wet vines, a smile formed on his face, but a more contemplative look appeared in his eyes.
"Watering at the top for ten minutes and my spiritual power was drained by over half. I can cover the first ten rows directly, and the flowing water can cover up to the twelfth row fully, even a bit of the next row.
Based on this, I will need around three clouds to water the whole vineyard. At the end, I even have to cut the time short, probably to eight minutes instead of ten.
But I have to recover my spiritual power. It takes three hours to fully fill it in this yard with a low-grade spiritual vein.
This means that if I start with full spiritual power, it will take me three hours to recover spiritual power and half an hour to use it.
The difference in their watering can't be too much apart, so instead, I should water one, then recover for one and a half hours, then water the second, recover for one and a half, and finally water the third.
In the end, I'll be fully exhausted and have to recover for a full three hours."
Lingyu suddenly realised… just watering these vines would cost him six hours daily!
Searching his memories, he realised something – "Previously, I spent not six hours but eight!
This was mostly because previously, he followed the principle of not spending his spiritual power below 50%. This meant that he would have several breaks between watering. Entering and leaving cultivation requires some time, and in between… he would also slack.
"Besides watering, there are still the two tasks of casting growth spells and killing insects. At the end, there is barely some time left to cultivate, and then you have to go to sleep and rest.
This menial disciple task… it's taking my whole time from sunrise to sunset and even to the peak of the night!"