The shattered fragments of the jade-green card dissolved entirely into a heavy, luminous cascade of emerald energy.
The light rained down relentlessly across the fifteen-hectare basin, sinking deep into the dry earth.Instantly, a profound, magical transformation of the soil took place right before their eyes.
The dead, pale grey dirt began to churn and shift as if it were alive. The brittle, fractured topsoil rapidly darkened, absorbing the mystical energy until it transformed into an incredibly rich, pitch-black, nutrient-dense loam.
The deep, dusty cracks that had marred the landscape for decades sealed shut seamlessly. The air within the basin grew thick with the clean, vibrant fragrance of damp earth, fresh grass, and rain.
"Wow! Wow! Young Master, look! Look at the ground!" Lily was practically jumping up and down in her oversized, baggy maid uniform, her little mouth wide open as she stared at the glowing field.
Her big blue eyes were filled with pure excitement as she muttered, "Wow... this is too beautiful! This is like a dream!"
Gideon and Harlan watched with wide, unblinking eyes as the land, which just moments ago was a useless, dry wasteland, completely rebuilt itself. With their decades of harsh farming experience, they immediately recognized the flawless, premium quality of the black loam.
This was soil that surpassed even the royal gardens of the Solaria Kingdom. They were completely stunned speechless.Both men took shaking, unsteady steps forward, sinking onto their hands and knees in the fresh earth.
They scooped up a handful of the rich, moist black dirt, feeling its heavy texture and cool dampness filtering through their calloused fingers. They looked at each other, their faces twisted in immense, overwhelming shock. They couldn’t believe this was the same territory that had starved them for a year.
"Wow, wow, Young Master! How did you do it? What was that green thing you threw?" Lily turned around, running back to Raymond and looking up at him with big, eager, excited eyes.
Harlan and Gideon stood up quickly from the black soil, turning their gaze entirely toward Raymond as well. All three of them were completely burning with curiosity, desperate to know what kind of miraculous power their lord had just used to turn a dead basin into the richest farmland in the region.
Raymond maintained a perfectly calm, serene expression, though his mind was operating at full capacity. He needed a bulletproof narrative to explain the system’s existence without revealing his true identity.
A smooth, gentle smile appeared on his face. "Yesterday evening, after I had drowned myself in sorrows and alcohol, reflecting on the absolute misery of our people... my spirit was suddenly visited by a divine presence. It was the Goddess of Life herself."
Harlan and Gideon gasped, their bodies instantly freezing in place.
"The Goddess looked upon my regret and told me that she had a sacred mission for me," Raymond continued, weaving a perfect, highly detailed lie on the spot without a single stutter. "She told me that House Althoff had suffered enough, and that I was chosen to lead this barony out of the dirt. She granted me a divine vision, showing me the prosperity we would build together. And that green artifact I just deployed? That was a sacred relic given to me directly from her divine palm to cleanse the corruption from our soil."
Harlan and Gideon stood entirely rooted to the ground, looking at Raymond with a mixture of profound confusion and deep, paralyzing shock.
Even Lily was having an exceptionally hard time believing what her master was saying. After all, the concept of a degenerate, deadbeat alcoholic suddenly becoming a chosen holy figure of a major deity was utterly absurd and completely hard to believe.
Seeing their hesitant, disbelieving reactions, Raymond didn’t panic in the slightest. As a veteran corporate worker and a webnovel fan, he knew that anybody standing in their shoes right now would find it incredibly difficult to believe whatever unverified bullshit he was spinning.
Words were cheap; he needed a visual catalyst to solidify the fraud.
Raymond let out a soft, low cough, clearing his throat. He took a slow step forward, spread his arms wide open toward the sky, and put on the most pious, devoted expression his facial muscles could manage.
He closed his eyes and began to loudly recite a detailed, fictional prayer to the deity.
"O supreme Mother of the Soil, Goddess of Life, keeper of the eternal bloom," Raymond chanted, his voice echoing with deep, dramatic resonance across the basin. "Your chosen servant has cleansed the earth as commanded. I beg of you now, manifest the sacred provisions you promised to your starving children! Let your abundance descend upon the Althoff Barony!"
The moment the final word left his mouth, Raymond mentally accessed his system inventory and selected the Tier II Variant Seeds.
Flash!
The ground directly in front of his boots flashed with an intense, blinding white light. As the light faded, dozens of massive, woven burlap sacks, each one the size of a fully grown man, suddenly materialized out of thin air, stacked neatly on top of the black loam.
Harlan, Gideon, and Lily’s jaws went completely wide open. They stared at the miraculous scene in front of their eyes, their rational minds entirely shattering.
They couldn’t believe what they were seeing at all. The sudden, spontaneous manifestation of physical matter was an act of pure creation. Harlan and Gideon were so profoundly shocked that their weak legs buckled, and both men dropped straight down to the ground, landing heavily on their butts.
"Wh... What... Thi..." Gideon stammered, completely unable to form a coherent sentence, his voice cracking as his face turned pale from sheer religious awe.
Raymond smiled softly when he saw their absolute terror. He walked over to the stack of massive sacks, unhitched the thick twine from the nearest one, and pulled the burlap open. He reached his hand inside and scooped out a large handful of the contents, revealing them to the group. They were massive, perfectly formed, shimmering crop seeds.
"Well, look," Raymond grinned at them, his tone light. "These are optimized agricultural seeds that can be planted right away. Grains, vegetables, corn, and wheat, all of them given to me directly by the hand of the Goddess of Life. Now... do you believe my words?"
Immediately, without a single second of hesitation, Gideon, Harlan, and even little Lily threw themselves forward onto their knees. They slammed their foreheads into the fresh black dirt and began to pray fervently, weeping and praising the name of the Goddess of Life at the top of their lungs.
Raymond’s face twitched violently when he saw this display. He awkwardly scratched the back of his head, completely unsure of how to react. He obviously couldn’t tell them that the entire performance was a total fake, and that he had just used the dramatic prayer as a convenient cover to disguise the system’s inventory drop.
But at the very least, his strategy had worked flawlessly; he had successfully shifted all the credit to the Goddess of Life.
"Please, real Goddess, don’t take this to heart," Raymond thought, a cold sweat breaking out across his back.
He knew that real gods existed in this fantasy universe. The mere fact that he had transmigrated into a new body already proved that higher, supernatural dimensions were real.
According to the original Raymond’s memories, there were massive, politically powerful churches dedicated to various deities across the Solaria Kingdom. The Goddess of Life was indeed a major deity, and her believers consisted mostly of borderland farmers, herbalists, and nature-based races.
And he had just lied to a bunch of her literal subjects using her holy name.
"Well, it can’t be helped," Raymond reasoned, trying to calm his nerves. "The people of this world are deeply religious. Seeing a miracle attributed to a god is far more acceptable to them than explaining a digital LitRPG system interface. And besides, this system is basically a god anyway, considering how it casually hands out these badass, logic-defying rewards."
He glanced over at the three Silver Rank knights standing coldly at the edge of the field, their dark armor gleaming in the morning sun.
Just then, a sudden flash of thought flickered through Raymond’s mind. His eyes went wide as a realization struck him.
"Wait a minute... if the system can manifest legendary knights and terraform land, what if the system itself is a tool created by one of those higher entities? What if I am being watched right now?"
His physical body shook slightly from a sudden surge of paranoia. He quickly shook his head, forcing the terrifying thought out of his mind. "Let’s not think about that... at least for now. I need to focus on surviving the winter first."
He looked back down at the three people who were still weeping and praying in the dirt. He cleared his throat, adopting his pious, elegant lord expression once more.
"Stand up, my subjects. The Goddess has officially accepted your devotion. She commands you to rise."
Lily stood up immediately, wiping her tear-stained cheeks, and ran straight to Raymond’s side.
She clutched his silk sleeve tightly with her small hands, looking up at him with absolute, unadulterated admiration glowing in her big blue eyes. "Wow... Young Master! I never expected you to secretly become an ordained Divine Emissary for the Goddess of Life! You are amazing!"
Raymond’s lips twitched even harder, and he felt a cold sweat breaking out on his forehead. "Lily, please stop thinking about such dangerous bullshit... don’t put a target on my head by attaching divine titles to me."
His outward face remained perfectly calm and serene, though internally he was crying tears of pure anxiety. Yet, seeing the little maid’s eyes completely full of genuine admiration did fill his ego with a strange sense of joy and pride.
"Looks like I’ve taken a heavy stone and dropped it straight onto my own leg," he thought bitterly.
In this medieval world, blasphemy and falsely claiming a divine mandate were crimes traditionally punishable by being burned at the stake.
He had just deceived his subjects using a goddess’s name.
Right at that chaotic moment, a sharp chime rang out, and a clear blue system notification popped up directly in front of his eyes.
[ Ding! ]