"Talent Market?" Lu Yunqi looked at the various talents in the market with surprise and muttered to himself, "I thought it would be some kind of golden finger or system mall market. Why is the first one a Talent Market? What's the use of a Talent Market?"
At that moment, the System Sprite jumped out: "To answer your question, Master, the Talent Market is exactly what it sounds like. You can use your System Points to exchange for corresponding talents in the Talent Market. They come in various types. Right now, you have thirty System Points, which can be exchanged for one Tier 1 Talent. Tier 1 Talents are strength-type—they can work as ordinary farmers, ordinary bricklayers, ordinary laborers, or ordinary guards. They have physical strength and possess basic planting and repair skills, but no specialized skills."
Lu Yunqi understood and his eyes lit up. "You mean I don't have to farm myself—I can just hire NPCs, right?"
Xiao Jiu replied: "Yes, Master, but NPCs aren't free either. You need to pay them wages every month. The system will recycle the crops you grow, and the System Coins you earn from selling them can be used to pay the NPCs' wages. Whatever remains can be sold off as living supplies for yourself."
Lu Yunqi scoffed: "How much money could that be? My Lu family's private treasury is richer than the imperial treasury! …Well, you did remind me though—I need to find a way to move my family's private treasury here. But there's no rush. Let me develop this place a bit first!"
Everything here was wasteland. Even if he moved the private treasury over, he couldn't just leave it on the ground, could he?
Xiao Jiu added: "NPCs are absolutely loyal to their master and will never do anything to betray you. As long as you pay their wages on a fixed monthly basis, they will serve you diligently. However, if you default on their wages, your Credit Value will decrease, and the NPCs will refuse to serve you. Therefore, it's best to use your first labor income to pay the NPCs' wages."
Lu Yunqi understood and asked: "Then what should I plant first to earn labor income within a month?"
Xiao Jiu replied: "The system has already unlocked the Seed Market for you, Host. You can go to the Seed Market to look for crop seeds that can turn a profit within a month, and plant them today. By the end of the month, you should receive some planting income. NPC wages can be delayed for at most three to five days, so I hope the Host will strategize according to the rules."
Lu Yunqi quickly opened the Seed Market and indeed saw many types of seeds listed. He sorted them by growth cycle and found that five crops had growth cycles within a month.
They were:
First: Sprout vegetables (bean sprouts, radish sprouts, garlic sprouts, etc.). Among these, bean sprouts or radish sprouts could be harvested within ten days, while garlic sprouts took about twenty days.
The advantage was that they didn't require large fields—a single plastic greenhouse would suffice. Low investment, quick returns, and a short payback period.
Second: Fast greens (lettuce, bok choy, and other quick-growing leafy vegetables). The average harvest cycle was thirty to forty days, with stable buyback prices. One mu of land could yield over ten thousand yuan per month.
Third: Chives. Conventional planting took thirty to forty-five days, with stable prices and the ability to harvest multiple times.
Fourth: Mushrooms (shiitake, oyster mushrooms, wood ear fungus). The cycle was about forty days, but required making mushroom logs.
Fifth: A new type of loofah (apple loofah). The harvest cycle was fifty days, but it could be continuously harvested for three months.
Clearly, his best options right now were the first three, especially the first one—the short return cycle meant he could start making money in just ten to twenty days.
He checked the wage rates for various NPCs and found that strength-type NPCs cost three thousand yuan per month. The buyback value per mu of chives was about six thousand yuan, while fast greens yielded six thousand to ten thousand yuan per mu.
Without hesitation, he decided to plant fast greens. The system's buyback prices for bok choy and lettuce were similar, but butter lettuce was more expensive—eight thousand to twelve thousand yuan. He decisively chose butter lettuce.
The system's prompt sounded: "May I ask how many butter lettuce seeds the Host would like to purchase? A. One mu; B. Half a mu."
Lu Yunqi thought for a moment—half a mu it was. He'd plant sprout vegetables on the remaining half mu. So he chose B.
Soon, half a mu's worth of butter lettuce seeds appeared in his hands. He poured the seeds directly into the Sowing Drone's compartment.
The system's next task chimed in: "Step four of reclaiming one mu of wasteland: sow the seeds onto the tilled land."
Lu Yunqi checked the drone and directly pressed the sowing remote button on the system. The drone evenly scattered the seeds across the field.
However, the system didn't send a task completion notification. That was when he remembered he'd only bought half a mu's worth of seeds.
What about the remaining half mu of land?
To avoid having half his land yield nothing, Lu Yunqi went back to the Seed Market and purchased garlic seeds for a quarter mu and radish sprout seeds for another quarter mu.
The Luoca seedling seeds could be directly sown using drones, but the garlic seeds could not—they required manual planting, one by one.
Lu Yunqi didn't want to plant them himself. After all, this was the Idle Ger Planting System, so he had to hire NPCs.
Since he now had thirty System Points, he waved his hand generously and directly hired a physical-type NPC.
The NPC wore modern work clothes, was slightly plump, and had an unremarkable face, but his features looked quite kind and approachable. He stepped forward, respectfully bowed to Lu Yunqi, and said, "Greetings, Master. I am your employee number one, Zhang Wei. You can assign me any work. My salary is three thousand yuan a month, working eight hours a day. Please be sure to pay me on time."
With that, Zhang Wei's labor contract was automatically generated in the system.
Lu Yunqi raised an eyebrow and asked, "Zhang Wei, right? Do you know how to grow garlic sprouts?"
Zhang Wei nodded. "Ordinary planting is a basic skill. You need not worry about that, Master."
Lu Yunqi nodded. "Plant garlic on this two-and-a-half-fen plot of land, but… you'll need to plant it in this shape."
With that, he drew a circle on the open ground, pointed ahead, and said, "At a hand-span's distance, draw another circle, and plant the garlic seeds in these circular patterns."
Although Zhang Wei didn't understand why he wanted this, he still did as instructed. Lu Yunqi watched him plant with proper technique and, satisfied, exited through the Anywhere Door and returned to his room.
As soon as he was back in his room, Lu Yunqi sketched a blueprint, then opened the door and called for Liubao.
Liubao was practically like Cao Cao—he came running the moment he was called. "Young Master, what are your orders?"
Lu Yunqi handed the blueprint to Liubao. "Here. Buy a dozen or so large vats according to this blueprint and put them in my room. I have a use for them."
"A… use? Master, what do you need large vats for?"
Lu Yunqi clicked his tongue and gave Liubao a kick on the rear. "Why ask so many questions? Whatever I tell you to do, just do it!"
Liubao chuckled and replied, "Alright, Liubao is on it!"
Soon, Liubao purchased over a dozen large vats, stacked them together, and carried them into Lu Yunqi's room. Fortunately, his room was spacious enough; otherwise, those dozen-plus vats would have filled the entire space.
Lu Yunqi looked at the vats with satisfaction and nodded. "Alright, you're dismissed. I'm going to rest. Don't disturb me unless it's important."
Liubao let out an "oh" and retreated with a bewildered expression.
After closing the door, he muttered to himself, "What's gotten into the Young Master these past couple of days? I wonder what he's so busy with."
But when it came to the master's affairs, servants like them certainly couldn't ask too many questions—they could only follow orders.
Lu Yunqi, meanwhile, laboriously moved all the vats into the Wanping Wasteland. When he brought them in, he noticed that Zhang Wei had already completely finished planting the garlic, arranged in neat, even circles.
He liked employees who worked efficiently like this. He praised, "Not bad, not bad! Well done!"
Zhang Wei dusted off his clothes and asked, "You flatter me, Master. Do you have any other orders?"
Lu Yunqi said, "Yes, yes, yes. See these vats? Cover all the garlic with them. I want to grow garlic sprouts, so the garlic shoots that grow can't be exposed to light."
The system had said to use a greenhouse, but he only had half a mu of land—there was no way to build a greenhouse. So he had to use the large vats to cover them instead.
Zhang Wei nodded. "Very well, Master. Leave it to me."
The strength-type NPC was indeed very strong. He placed the vats one by one over the garlic, and the whole process took only about ten minutes.
Lu Yunqi finally understood the true essence of the Idle Ger Planting System—it was indeed idle. With NPCs, all he had to do was give commands.
Zhang Wei glanced at the reclaimed wasteland and said, "Master, if you have no other orders, while the mower is still available, I could also clear the weeds around the area for you. Do you think that's necessary?"
Lu Yunqi nodded. "That's absolutely necessary! Thanks for the hard work, Brother Zhang!"
Zhang Wei said, "No trouble at all. It's all part of my duty."
With that, Zhang Wei pushed the mower off to cut the grass, while Lu Yunqi opened the system interface. The fourth step of the task to reclaim one mu of wasteland was finally complete, and the task reward was an Irrigation Drone.
Excellent. He didn't even need to be told what the next task was—it had to be watering the one mu of planted land.
As he expected, the next task arrived right on schedule. Indeed, it was to water the land.
He operated the drone on the system interface and evenly irrigated the farmland he had reclaimed with water from the Jade River.
After watering, the system notification sounded again: "Congratulations, Host. You have completed the initial planting task. You have earned sixty System Points, received one Tier 1 Construction Blueprint, and unlocked Technical NPC talent."
Lu Yunqi raised an eyebrow and looked thoughtfully at the blueprint in his hand. It was a simple wooden cabin for the field, built with wood and mortise-and-tenon joints.
The system gave him a construction blueprint—could it be that it wanted him to build a wooden cabin by the river?
He opened the Talent Market and took a look. The technical talents were all Level 2 NPCs, including architects, pastry chefs, seamstresses, cooks, carpenters, masons, and so on…
If he wanted to turn a building blueprint into an actual house, he would need three NPCs—a carpenter, a mason, and an architect—which wasn't realistic at the moment.
There was no helping it; for now, he could only clear wasteland and earn more money first.
Unexpectedly, the system's next task wasn't related to construction at all—it actually required hiring an NPC to work for him!
What a coincidence!
He could already answer that question himself!