Zhao Hai took a slow breath and steadied himself. He picked up the insect staff.
"Pest Deployer — Grade 1 — Releases crop-damaging insects — Uses: 50 per day — Can be removed from the space."
"Weed Deployer — Grade 1 — Releases invasive weeds to compete with crops — Uses: 50 per day — Can be removed from the space."
He grinned. These two items were going to be very, very useful for dealing with certain people.
Nothing was left inside the cottage. He walked out toward the storehouse — the grass seeds the system had given him had to be somewhere.
The storehouse was a small thatched structure with an ordinary wooden door. He touched it.
"Storehouse — Grade 1 — Stores items — No limit on type or quantity — Items preserved at the moment of storage — Can be accessed from outside the space — Current contents: Pasture Grass Seeds, 6 bags."
He thought of the seeds — and six small cloth bags appeared before him, each labeled Pasture Grass Seeds.
He stared, then broke into a wide grin. He had assumed the storehouse would require some complicated process to operate. Just thinking about what he wanted was all it took.
He pushed at the storehouse door for good measure. It wouldn't budge. Apparently it was purely decorative.
He smiled, turned back to the cottage, and settled onto the grass bed to sort through what he had.
Ten acres of farmland. A spring that never ran dry. A shovel, bucket, harvest basket, pesticides, herbicides, pest deployer, and weed deployer — all removable from the space. And most importantly: the storehouse. With it, he effectively had unlimited spatial storage.
From Adam's memories, he knew that storage equipment in this world existed but was rare — the exclusive property of nobility. The largest dimensional storage items held only a few hundred cubic meters, and were considered priceless artifacts. His storehouse had no such limit. And unlike this world's storage tools, it could hold living things.
On top of all that: six bags of pasture seeds, five hundred gold coins — currently unusable outside the space, but spendable in the shop. That was enough.
He already understood the progression. Farm the land, level up, unlock the ranch, expand further.
But first — the ten acres in front of him needed planting.
He thought of the seed bags and grimaced. He had grown up in a city. He had never planted a single thing in his life. He genuinely did not know how farming worked.
He thought briefly about putting the grass seeds away — useless for now, useful later once the ranch was unlocked. He browsed the Shop for something edible or sellable, and scanned the available crops. At level one, only four were unlocked: pasture grass, radishes, carrots, and cabbage.
He did the math. Radish seeds cost 150 gold coins per bag, covered ten acres, and produced roughly 80,000 jin of radishes, sellable back to the system for 500 gold coins.
By this world's purchasing power, 500 gold coins was the equivalent of roughly 50,000 yuan — meaning 1 gold coin was worth about 100 yuan.
Carrots and cabbage offered slightly higher returns. But Zhao Hai chose radishes, and not for the money.
Back when he had actually played the farming game, he had once carefully calculated which crop generated the most experience across its full cycle — tilling, planting, and harvesting. The answer had surprised him: the humble radish outperformed everything else. Right now, leveling up was the priority. More levels meant more land, more crops, more options. And total gold coin income wasn't much different anyway. Radishes were the right call.
He purchased one bag, thought it into his hand, and touched it.
"Radish Seeds — 1 bag — Plantable — Can be removed from space — Coverage: 10 acres."
He exhaled with relief. One bag for all ten acres. He had exactly enough.
He stepped out of the cottage, bag in hand — and stared at the field.
The seeds were bought. But how did he actually plant them?
He stood there for a moment. Then an idea struck him.
Everything in this space seemed to move according to his will. The storehouse had opened with a thought. The tools had responded when he touched them. The whole place operated like a real game. If that was true—
Plant radishes.
The seed bag flew from his hand. The shovel drove itself into the earth, carving a neat hole. A seed dropped in. The bucket tipped, watering the spot. The shovel returned, filling the hole. Then it moved to the next position — hole, seed, water, fill — over and over, precise and unhurried, like a team of invisible workers who knew their jobs perfectly. Not a single movement wasted.
Zhao Hai threw his head back and laughed until his sides hurt.
He was the god of this space. Whatever he willed, it did.
While the field finished planting itself, he slipped back out of the space and checked his room. The light through the window had barely changed. No one had come in. Either time in the space moved faster than outside — or he simply hadn't been gone long at all.
Either way, he had a world-altering cheat. And a thought settled quietly in his chest: At minimum, I'm going to live well. A comfortable little lord out here in the wasteland. That's enough.
He was honest with himself — he wasn't an especially ambitious person. The ideas about restoring House Buda, taking revenge on the great noble houses — those had been hot-blooded impulses. When he actually thought about the power those families wielded, a chill ran through him. House Buda itself had been crushed without anyone breaking a sweat. What was one Zhao Hai against that?