Unorthodox Farming 3: New Chapter 13 (Patreon)

Chapter 13

Farentine had a test for everything. She also claimed she could only accurately assess actions which were related to attributes above 100. Below that, you were still within the range of human norms. Above, you entered a territory that did not occur naturally. This unnatural state meant your attributes accurately reflected your natural capabilities, so anything you did beyond them came down to natural talent or personal experience.

When I asked her why we were bothering with her tests if that were true, she admitted that sort of accuracy was only necessary when those with decades of experience were trying to make a slight improvement. It wasn’t relevant to what she was assessing me for. It was just a personal peeve of hers. She liked having accurate data.

Wind rushed through my hair as I raced around the adventurer’s track, dodging magical obstacles Farentine summoned in front of my path with spells. My heart pounded in my chest, blood rushing in my ears, but each breath came fast and easy. My endurance was so high that my body didn’t consider this a serious challenge. It wasn’t effortless. But I could do it all day.

My mind saw the situation differently.

Placing your feet in the right way to miss objects while moving at more than one hundred miles an hour is difficult when you don’t have the strength necessary for your joints to handle the impact of quickly changing directions. If you don’t act flawlessly, you end up cartwheeling at high speeds. Past experience from running down the sun serpent tower too fast had taught me that this wouldn’t kill me, but I’d break enough bones that I wouldn’t be interested in repeating the experience.

Farentine was aware of the risks but was either too drunk or confident to care. She knew exactly how tough champions were and was willing to put that knowledge to the test to get the information she wanted. Most of her tests hadn’t ended without a broken bone or laceration.

I doubted this one would be any different.

If I had known what was waiting for me, I would have taken longer to eat breakfast, instead of agreeing to follow Farentine to the adventurer’s academy the moment she was finished. The academy was the closest location with the facilities she needed to test me. It was built like a military barracks but wasn’t anywhere near as strict. Adventurers between the ages of thirteen and twenty had sat around most of the day, laughing as they watched my assessment, and cheering if I did something particularly impressive.

Running was something they found impressive.

A narrow barrier appeared directly in my path. I had a fraction of a second to adjust my footfall to shift my trajectory. It wasn’t a lot of time, but the barrier wasn’t hard enough to cut me in two, so it was much safer than running through my barns.

The barrier went by in a blur as another appeared where my front foot was going to land. I pushed a little harder with my back foot, barely missing it.

Farentine was upping the difficulty again.

The crowd cheered.

I dodged, dipped, ducked, dived, and dodged again, weaving through escalating obstacles without slowing my pace. Farentine hadn’t told me how poorly my other assessments had gone, but she also hadn’t stopped drinking, so her facial expressions were rather telling.

This was my only chance to score well.

I wanted to give it my all.

Failing every test was embarrassing.

For no reason I could understand, Farentine ended the assessment fifteen minutes later. I hadn’t hit any of her obstacles, and I could still run a little faster if she needed me to. It didn’t make sense.

As I slowed my pace, Farentine landed beside me. She’d been flying above me the entire time with an almost lazy attitude toward how fast we were moving. Farentine turned and waved at the crowd, giving off cougar vibes, as she sipped her drink.

She liked to tease the young adventurers, but when they couldn’t overhear, she referred to them as babies. She’d called me the same thing on several occasions, when I flirted back just a little too much.

It had taken me most of the morning to realise her flirting wasn’t flirting. She just enjoyed banter as much as she claimed. I was so used to women being taken in my good looks that it hadn’t occurred to me she would flirt with me simply because she found it fun.

It was…refreshing.

As my breath slowed, I glanced at the horizon. The sun was beginning to set, and the heat of the day was cooling off. Night wouldn’t be an issue with my Darkvision ability, but it did make me wonder how many more tests she had for me.

Farentine continued to sip her drink, watching how quickly I recovered out of the corner of her eye.

Within only a few handfuls of seconds, my breathing returned to my regular four breaths per minute rate. “What’s next?”

Farentine stopped waving to the crowd and looked over. “You need a bath and dinner. You burned off what little fat you have left today, and your body is starving. After that, we go to the Wizard’s Academy to test your magical aptitude. We should be able to finish everything by dawn for our appointment at the temple.”

Getting out of my sweaty clothes sounded wonderful, but dinner felt like an afterthought. One of the side effects of my champion’s mark was not feeling hungry unless there was food in front of me. My stamina never dropped below its maximum, so my body wouldn’t tell me if I needed to eat.

I wiped the sweat from my forehead with my sleeve. “You can test my magical aptitude?”

Farentine nodded. “Our champion’s mark gives us the ability to manipulate mana as easily as those with the wizard class. The downside is that we don’t have the class assistance. Without a strong natural talent for magic, it’s almost impossible to do anything with that mana until we take the class.”

“Why bother testing then?”

“It will show me your future potential. Hopefully, you do better on those tests than you did on these.”

I winced. “How bad did I do?”

“We’ll talk about it over dinner.”

***

Farentine kept a townhouse near the dungeon. It was only a few minutes’ walk from the restaurant where we had breakfast, and every room was filled with scholar books. Even the one she kept the bathtub in. Her bookcases were stacked floor to ceiling, chock-full of information on classes. Most of them were class-locked, so only scholars could read them, but Farentine had an entire room that wasn’t. After my bath, she let me read them while we waited for dinner to arrive.

I was fifty pages into a detailed analysis of the effects of constitution when Farentine walked into the room and placed a large bowl of beef noodles beside me. I didn’t notice. I was too engrossed in what I was reading. I’d never read such a comprehensive explanation of what constitution was and how it operated.

I knew that constitution extended life and that it made you heal faster, but nothing I’d ever read talked about it in anything beyond the most general terms. This book explained the changes it caused to your body, along with its interactions with other attributes. I’d had no idea that healing faster accelerated ageing, or that frequent injuries when you had a high constitution shortened your lifespan.

The book suggested that the body didn’t get stronger as your constitution rose. It got better at holding itself together. This was why strength eventually played a bigger role in longevity as you aged. The strength attribute strengthened the body, making it easier for your constitution to keep you together, helping you live longer.

Constitution clearly helped more than it harmed, but it still harmed you.

The author had no understanding of cells, so the book wasn’t something I’d consider scientifically backed, but there was enough information and observations for me to believe the claims were credible.

I was halfway through the book when Farentine finally pulled it from my hands. The book disappeared so quickly that I didn’t have a chance to hold on.

Annoyance flashed across my face as I looked up to see her giving me an amused smile. The smell of beef noodles on the table beside me caught my attention, and I realised I was starving. Hunger replaced annoyance.

Farentine raised an eyebrow. “Your stomach has growled six times since I placed your dinner on the table beside you, but you haven’t noticed once, have you?”

I gave an embarrassed chuckle because she was right. “The world sort of disappears when I’m reading something interesting.”

Farentine held up the book and raised an eyebrow. “Most farmers wouldn’t consider a detailed analysis of constitution interesting.”

“I’m not really a farmer.”

“Our conversations have made that abundantly clear.” Farentine walked over to the other armchair and sat, placing the book on the table beside her. She folded one leg over the other and gave me a thoughtful look. “What do you want from life, Arnold?”

I didn’t expect the question, and my stomach growled again. “Is this part of my assessment?”

Farentine paused for a moment before nodding.

I told her the truth. “I don’t know.”

“You don’t know?”

“I had plans. Those plans didn’t work out. I made new plans that I didn’t really like. And then I was reincarnated here and lost everyone and everything I cared about. So, I don’t know.”

“What was your original plan? The one you liked.”

 “It won’t make sense to you.”

“You mean it’s not a short answer.”

I nodded. “It requires a lot of explanation. My world was very different to yours.”

“We’re in no hurry. You can eat your dinner and start explaining.”

The sauce was rich, and the beef was extremely fatty. It coated my tongue as I slurped down the noodles. After my day, the bowl emptied quickly. When my bowl was almost finished, Farentine left the room and came back with another. She’d planned ahead and knew me better than I knew myself. When she handed me the eighth and final serving, I only got three-quarters of the way through the bowl before feeling satisfied.

That level of accuracy was unexpected.

I set aside the last few mouthfuls and began telling Farentine about my life as a semi-pro gamer. Explaining my old dream of being able to pay my bills, doing the thing I loved with the friends I cared about. She was a good listener, so I told her everything, including that since coming here, a friend had pointed out to me that I was more interested in working with my friends than in actually achieving my dream of paying my bills by playing video games.

Admitting, I’d never really understood my motivations.

Farentine nodded at the correct times as she listened in silence, asking the occasional question for clarity. Then I got into the technicalities of my role on our team, and her interest became more enthusiastic. She listened for hours while I talked about how I analysed characters and skill interactions, getting me to draw the game maps as accurately as possible, so she could understand exactly why specific interactions mattered.

What had started as an explanation of what I once wanted from life turned into me nerding out in the most embarrassing way possible. I loved every second of it. Farentine didn’t have a passing interest in what I was talking about, but an actual one, and she seemed to find the subject as fascinating as I did. Laughing with me as I recounted past blunders and successes.

Neither of us noticed how much time had passed until birds began chirping outside the window.

Farentine turned towards the sound and gave the fading darkness a guilty look before throwing her head back and laughing. It was the sound of someone who knew they were doing something they shouldn’t and didn’t care. It also lacked the intoxicated enthusiasm on the night before, sounding more genuine. She was having fun.

“I might have gotten a little carried away with my explanation,” I said when her laughter died off.

Farentine waved away my apology. “Who cares. I haven’t had this much fun in years.”

I knew she’d enjoyed our conversation, but I hadn’t realised she enjoyed it that much. “You need to get out more.”

“I get out plenty. What I don’t get enough of are conversations with people who find the minutia of how a system works as interesting as I do.”

I chuckled. “That’s understandable. Most people aren’t as interesting as we are.”

Farentine smiled back. “Arnold, do you know what we’ve been talking about all night?”

The way she framed the question suggested that I didn’t. “I thought we were talking about my gaming history.”

“We were. But indirectly, you were describing exactly what I’m doing for you through your assessment. Our world and your video games are structured with clearly defined limitations and rules, with the interactions between those rules being limited only by our imagination.”

When she described it like that, it did sound like her job, and my role on our team was similar.

“And you find that interesting?”

“I find it fascinating. And you do too. Otherwise, you wouldn’t have lost track of time for an entire night. Do you want a job?”

“What?”

Where was this coming from?

“Do you want a job?” She repeated.

“Why are you offering me a job?”

“Because you’ll never qualify to enter a champion raid dungeon. Your test scores yesterday proved that.”

“What does this have to do with offering me a job?”

“My free time is minimal. That means this is the first and likely last conversation we will ever have of this nature. However, as a champion, you have the prerequisites to become a scholar with a champion speciality. This would allow me to open up my schedule to train you to do what I can. So do you want a job?”

My eyebrows rose. “You have a strange way of making friends.”

Farentine gave a small laugh. “I have enough friends. I’m certainly not desperate enough to give out jobs to make more. What I don’t have is a protégé. Someone who has the right interests and skillset to do what I do.”

Her job offer was serious.

“Would I have to take the scholar class?”

“No. You can take it as a subclass when you become an adventurer. The threshold restrictions for the useful boons make it almost impossible to reach level 100.”

“I’ll think about it.”

I wouldn’t have to think for too long. I had far too much on my plate to work for her.

Farentine sensed my hesitancy, leaned forward, and grinned mischievously. “If you accept my offer, you’ll have unrestricted access to every class’s information,” she said in sing-song voice. “Only a handful of scholars at the Academy of Law have that sort of access. You’ll even have access to information that isn’t privately available.”

God, that was tempting. She knew exactly what to say to perk my interest. “You have access to everything?”

Farentine grinned wolfishly. “Having a champion’s mark offers you a special scholar promotion at level 10. The promotion gives us access to every specialisation’s information.”

 Ranic had told me he couldn’t read any scholar book that specifically dealt with a class that wasn’t related to the farmer class through a skill. Before I discovered that farmers could gain the trapsmith skill, he hadn’t been able to read their books.

“What’s stopping me from just taking the promotion?”

“You’re welcome to, but there are books that are restricted even for specialised scholars. But I have copies. Copies you could read.”

I was years away from being able to do that, but I still found her offer tempting. “I’ll think about it.”

Farentine grin grew. “Judging by the backpack you’ve been carrying around all day, you haven’t found a place to stay while you’re in the city. Once your assessment is over, I’ll be leaving the Capitol. How about you stay here and do a little light reading while I’m gone? Unless you’re leaving too?”

“No. I’m here for a while.”

“Then it’s settled. You’ll look after my townhouse, read my books, and earn my restaurant a lot of money. Then cave to my demands and become my apprentice.”

“I haven’t said yes.”

Farentine scoffed. “Arnold, I’m offering you a job where all you have to do is read books and talk about system mechanics. Your enthusiasm over our conversation last night tells me that you’re going to accept the day after I leave you alone with my library.”

She was probably right.

“Don’t pout.”

Her comment made me laugh, and I noticed more of the darkness was fading. We had an appointment at the temple at dawn, but we still hadn’t discussed the results of my assessment.

“You mentioned that I’ll never qualify for champion raid dungeons.”

Farentine nodded.

"What about my champion ability?"

"Your champion ability has a thirty-day cooldown. Even if it works the way I think it does, you’ll only be able to use it infrequently.”

“What if it works better than you think?”

“Then I reserve the right to change my opinion, but an ability like that normally only makes you incredibly dangerous when there is a single powerful monster. Champion raid dungeons are filled with thousands of strong monsters. It’s the wrong weapon for the job.”

“Define strong.”

“Anything monster that requires a party of six level 100 adventurers to confront.”

“How strong is a party like that?”

“Weaker than Torvac. You need two of those parties to equal him.”

I knew Torvac was strong. I didn’t realise he was that strong. “How powerful is my ability?”

“I told you yesterday. It’s the most powerful single-target ability I’ve ever seen and by a large margin.”

 “So, I’ll never qualify to fight strong monsters, but I’m already qualified to fight powerful ones.”

Farentine shook her head. “You’ll eventually be able to fight strong monsters on your own without your new ability. Having a champion mark makes that possible. However, being able to fight a few strong monsters alone won’t qualify you for any battlefield where there are thousands of them.”

“And you can tell that from your tests.”

Farentine nodded. “The tests I put you through yesterday were designed to assess a young adventurer’s potential. Your low attributes didn’t allow for standard champion testing. However, the results of those tests showed you were below average in all but two categories: situation awareness and reaction times. They were both exceptional.”

“Won’t my other categories improve over time?”

“They will, which is part of the reason why you will eventually be able to fight strong monsters. However, hard work won’t make up for your lack of natural talent. You aren’t suited to physical combat.”

“I was taught hard work trumps talent.”

“It often does, but if you have two hard-working people and one of them is talented, it’s the talented one who goes further.”

“You’re certain?”

Farentine nodded. “Most champions started out as adventurers. Almost none of them gained their mark until after earning their second class. And for every adventurer that reaches level 100, hundreds die along the way. This acts as a natural barrier, weeding out those who lack talent. I’ve seen enough records to know that adventurers who reach level 100 always tested above average or better in every category during their youth. Your exceptional reaction time and situational awareness will take you far, but not far enough to stop you from being a liability if I’m fighting beside you.”

“How strong can I become?”

“Stronger than Torvac, but not as strong as Misk, unless you also possess an exceptional magical aptitude.”

The chirping outside the window grew louder, and my stomach rumbled, reminding me that there were a few mouthfuls in the noodle bowl beside me.

Farentine rose to her feet. “Let’s discuss this over breakfast. We need to be at the temple soon, so I can find out what classes you qualify for. And then we have to apologise to the Wizard Academy for taking their facilities during the day instead of at night, like I promised.”

“We?”

“You’re right. You should be the one apologising for distracting me.”

I laughed as I pushed myself out of the chair.

***

The sun serpent temple Farentine took me to after breakfast was small, but far more lavish than the one in Blackwood. The stonework was impeccable, and there were significantly more gold ornaments depicting the sun serpent than I’d seen in other temples. The tapestries were also more elaborate. It was like someone was trying to make up for its size with wealth.

An elderly cleric stood beside a glowing altar as we entered, muttering an incantation to empower a ritual that would give him access to system information not available through my interface. His robes were impeccably kept, like the rest of the temple, leading me to think he was the reason the place was so nice.

It had been a while since I'd been in a temple, and I was far less ignorant than in the past, so the ridiculousness of the imagery I saw stuck out. It was so over-the-top and rife with inconsistencies that it made my brain itch.

Farentine had been throwing out facts about classes and the system since we left her townhouse, hoping to entice me into accepting her job offer, and my mind was already going a mile a minute. My brain was already searching for connections, so I began picking apart everything around me.

I stopped in the doorway, taking in everything I saw, and weighed it against everything I knew. Talking about game mechanics and bending rules all night, and our discussions this morning helped the details I knew merge together.

The sun serpent claimed it wasn't a god, yet there was a class that seemed devoted to it as if it were. This class built temples covered in its image, but those who worked there didn't worship it. They didn't pray for it. They respected the god-like being, but they didn't deify it.

The contradictions made my brain itch more with each passing second.

The absurdity didn't just feel wrong. It felt forced. Like someone was jamming puzzle pieces together and claiming that they fit. Why would the system go to so much trouble to create a class with a religion that everyone didn't believe in, yet have it still provide tangible benefits?

I mean, every species shared the same religion, but the others didn't believe in it any more than humans did.

Farentine tapped me on the shoulder as connections clicked into place. “I promise you, champions keep any banked experience that is converted to cleric experience by this ritual.”

That was 1% of the skill and class experience I’d gained above level 100, which was a sore spot for me. However, it had nothing to do with why I’d stopped in the doorway.

“The longer he holds this ritual, the more expensive it is, Arnold. I’m working to a budget.”

Her words faded into the background as my mind went into overdrive. I needed to test my theory.

"The creators of the system considered other species to be lower forms of life than themselves. They designed the system in a way that forced lower species to worship them as gods, but since we don't know who the creators were, the system lets us deify the sun serpent so it can function as intended. This means the system was always supposed to have multiple species with multiple ways to serve the creators of the system."

A wave of light enveloped me as a notification appeared.

Well done, you have successfully deduced the hierarchical nature of the system, showing a greater comprehension of system hierarchy lore than any being in this world’s history, opening up a new field of lore and earning you a new rank of understanding in this field. You can now boast that you can understand system hierarchy lore as well as any Novice.

Congratulations, you have discovered the new field of System Hierarchy Lore. Unlocking this field has earned you another level for your Sage title:

Sage

Level: 2

Effect: People find you 100% more interesting when speaking about lore.

Farentine blinked away tears as light exploded from me. It was far from being my greatest discovery, so compared to the others, it wasn't particularly bright. However, she was staring right at me when I made the discovery.

A wave of happiness rushed through me as I resolved some of the inconsistencies sitting before me. The system had made this world so ridiculous that I was happy anytime I could force it to make sense. As my body continued to glow and a smile strained my cheeks, my mind went to Farentine’s job offer.

The truth hit home.

Turning down Farentine’s job offer wasn’t something I wanted to do. If all I had to do was read books and talk about the system with her, walking away from her offer would be like giving up on playing Dungeons and Dragons. I’d be taking the fun out of life.

If she’d made this offer to me right after being reincarnated, I would have accepted in a second. I would have happily spent my days reading books, preparing for our next nerdy conversation. I never would have thought about progressing my class, so I could get another.

This sort of thing was something I loved in my old life. It had crossed into this one out of necessity. It wasn’t something I set out to do. But I was good at it. It came naturally. Hell, I couldn’t even walk into a temple without wondering how everything fit together.

Damn it.

I was already too busy.

But I wanted to be happy.

I sighed and took a step towards the altar.

Farentine caught my shoulder, still blinking away tears from the light. "What did you just discover?"

The cleric remained unfazed by the bright light, continuing his ritual like nothing had happened.

I flashed her a grin through the pillar of light. "I discovered a new field of lore. It happens from time to time."

Farentine squinted at me through the light. "When you say from time to time. How frequently?"

"A few times a year. I imagine it will become more frequent now that I'm studying the system properly.”

Farentine frowned.

“Is that a problem?"

Farentine nodded. "It means that you can provide other valuable services to Radian. This could mean we can’t risk calling on you when your ability is needed to protect a town or city. It also means I have to pay you more now that you’ve agreed to work for me."

“I didn’t agree to work for you.”

“You just said you’re studying the system properly.”

“I’ve been studying the system independently. I wasn’t referring to our conversations. And why does it sound like the second part bothers you more?”

Farentine gave up on trying to look at me through the light. “Do you have any idea how large a salary the system requires someone to pay a champion to employ them?”

“I’m clueless.”

“It’s based on your accomplishments, and you just opened up a new field of lore like it was nothing.”

I chuckled. “Are you second-guessing your job offer?”

Farentine grinned. “Certainly not. But I’ll have to figure out if I can bill it to the king as a training expense.”

"I’d get that approval quick. I'm about to make so many discoveries. Like so many. You wouldn't believe how many discoveries I'm about to make. I'm going to revolutionise everything."

Farentine chuckled with me and playfully shoved me towards the altar. "Sure, you are. Let's get this over with, so we can test your magical aptitude."