Chapter 4 - 4 Chapter 4 Efficiency Tripled_1 (2/2)

Qin Niu was secretly relieved that he hadn’t acted rashly.

This area had already formed a delicate ecological chain balance, and breaking it could bring disaster for the female termite.

Given its excellent performance, from now on, visiting it once or twice a day should suffice.

Being a hands-off shopkeeper is actually better.

What I’m most looking forward to now is waiting for it to lay eggs and hatch the first batch of worker ants, at which point its food supply will be secured.

The ant queen is unable to forage on her own and can only rely on the worker ants to feed her.

When descending the mountain, Qin Niu noticed an area where straw was collapsed and in disarray, upon closer inspection, he discovered that there were patches of blood that had coagulated and turned black.

It seems that a fight took place here last night, and a medium-sized wild beast was killed.

Before gaining strength, it’s wiser to spend less time in the mountains after dark.

Back in the village, he carried his hoe to his own thin stretch of land, ready for a hard day’s labor.

Compared to families with no land, he considered himself fortunate.

Landless poor either rent land to farm as tenants or work as servants in wealthier households.

This acreage consisted of bad land; it was all stones underneath, impossible to clear away.

Because the soil layer is so thin it doesn’t retain nutrients or moisture well and is prone to compacting, such bad land is commonly referred to as thin land.

Planting maize, a good plot of land can yield over two thousand pounds.

This poor land can yield at most five or six hundred pounds, and it requires much more labor.

The poorer the land, the more work there is.

Fertilizing and watering must be frequent, and as the crops hardly grow, weeds begin to thrive. Just weeding becomes a very troublesome issue.

Then, every now and then the soil must be loosened because it is prone to forming hard clods.

Looking at the fields covered with weeds, he felt a headache coming on.

Weeding and soil-turning would be particularly arduous tasks.

Without a cow at home, things would be much easier if he had one.

Ordinary poor families simply cannot afford to have cows; only landlords do. They are considered costly livestock. Even the cheapest ones cost upward of five taels of silver, and a better, adult water buffalo costs seven to eight taels of silver each.

He swung his arms and dug forcefully with the hoe.

Labor Point +0.01, Weeding Proficiency +0.01, Soil Loosening Proficiency +0.01.

This single hoeing unexpectedly earned him three kinds of attribute points.

Full-turn loosening of the soil is a task that requires a lot of physical strength, rarely completed by manual labor.

It’s typically done using cattle.

At the rate he was going, it would take at least a month to finish turning this acre of land and shape it into ridges.

This would certainly delay the planting of the maize.

Considering that labor points could rapidly enhance his planting skills, he tried adding 9.99 labor points to his weeding skill.

Weeding Proficiency 10/100.

Now looking at the weeds covering the field, he could see they had become much more manageable.

This is Bermuda grass, with deep roots but no branches, tenacious vitality, and drought resistance. This is foxtail grass, which grows quickly and will mature and spread throughout the field soon after setting seed, making it impossible to eradicate…

The improvement in weeding skills only enhances the efficiency of weeding but is of no help to soil turning.

He wanted to try and raise his soil loosening skill to proficient as well.

However, he didn’t have enough labor points.

Only 9.64 left.

Luckily, he wasn’t far off, so he started working vigorously, sweating profusely.

Soon after, a small patch of soil was turned over.

Labor points, as well as proficiency in both weeding and soil loosening skills, had increased significantly.

He tried to bring his soil loosening skill to proficient.

This time, he succeeded.

Soil Loosening Proficiency 10/100.

After the successful upgrade, he discovered with surprise that the improvement in his soil loosening skills not only made him adept at many labor-saving digging techniques but also significantly aided in loosening the soil around crops, reducing the damage to their root systems and allowing for a more precise understanding of the required depth.

This would greatly benefit the growth of the crops.

Trying to turn the soil again, he found it was much easier than before.

Still, the task of completely turning this acre of land remained incredibly daunting.

…

Having worked tirelessly until evening, he had managed to dig out three ridges of land.

Because his soil loosening skill had been upgraded to proficient, the efficiency had significantly increased.

In the past, a full day’s work would at most turn over one ridge, but now he had done three times that amount. And it seemed that he had expended less energy, as he still felt some strength left.

If it had been earlier, he would have already been exhausted.

This also meant that after tripling the efficiency of his digging, a task that would have taken a month could now be completed in just ten days.

He instinctively checked his attributes.

Qin Niu

Cultivation: Mortal Onefold 17/100, Low-rank Farmer 51/100, Low-rank Insect Master 3/100

Lifespan: 51 years

Cultivation Technique: None

Skills: Planting class, Planting Proficiency 10/100, Soil Loosening Proficiency 36.2/100, Fertilizing Novice 0/10, Watering Novice 0/10, Weeding Proficiency 36.2/100

Insect control class, Insect Trace Identification Novice 0/10.

Talents: None

Divine Skills: None

Labor Points: 26.2

The proficiencies for soil loosening and weeding had increased to 36.2.

He had accumulated another twenty or so labor points.

The harvest was quite good.

The farmer’s level experience value hadn’t changed at all, which suggests that turning the soil does not increase the farmer’s level experience.

Glancing at the sky, he decided to start sowing the first batch of seeds.

Planting in batches reduces the intensity of labor.

Otherwise, sowing and harvesting an acre of land all in one day would be impossible for one person.

Spacing the seeds properly, he planted each kernel of maize into the freshly turned soil.

Planting Proficiency +0.01, Planting Experience +0.01.

It turns out that the farmer’s level experience requires the actual planting of crops to increase.

A proficient level of planting technique is quite commendable, the placement of the maize and the depth at which they are buried in the soil layer all have their significance.