“Come on, watch me.
First turn the soil with the plow blade, then put the seeds in.
“Thirty centimeters between rows, twenty centimeters between each corn plant.
Fertilize every ten days.
Got it?” Outside Constantinople, in the newly designated agricultural zone, Ning Hai and Ping Hai were teaching the Manjuus how to farm.
The two sisters bent over, one hand holding seeds and the other tools, demonstrating while they explained.
Any passerby who saw the scene without context would have shouted, “I must still be asleep…
someone’s teaching chickens to farm?!” A crowd of Manjuus stood around them, staring up with cute, blank faces.
“…” “Did you understand?” After one full demonstration Ning Hai asked the chicks.
“Jii!” The Manjuus nodded.
“Your turn.” Ning Hai handed a handful of seeds to one of them.
The Manjuu pretended to think for a few seconds, then swallowed every last seed in one gulp.
Clang…
“Jii!” Ning Hai flicked it on the forehead.
“I didn’t tell you to eat them!!!
Watch me and learn how to plant!!!” She pulled a small dried fish from her pocket.
“Plant the seeds, get fish.
Steal the seeds, get hit.
Understand?” “Jii?” After a few more taps the Manjuus roughly grasped the cause-and-effect relationship.
Eat the seeds and you got an iron fist.
Put the seeds in the ground and you received a dried fish.
Their intelligence was not high, but the instinct to seek benefit and avoid harm pushed them to start digging with their claws and even to use tools for plowing.
“Is this Pavlov’s dog?
Classical conditioning?!” The watching shipgirls were impressed without fully understanding.
The sisters’ teaching method seemed surprisingly advanced.
Back at the Port no one had ever imagined these silly, adorable little yellow chicks could actually farm.
“Hmm…” Ping Hai watched Ning Hai training the Manjuus like dogs and folded her arms in thought.
“Hand cultivation is still too slow.
Why don’t we ask Akashi to build some farm machinery and just let the Manjuus drive it?” She pictured an endless plain where little yellow chicks drove tractors harvesting crops.
The future aesthetic of the Port would become… unique.
… Meanwhile, while Ning Hai and Ping Hai were busy with the Manjuus, Adam opened the overview interface for the first time in a while to check the settlement’s progress.
[Civilization Overview] [Civilization Type: Technological Civilization] [Technological Level: Pre-Space Age] [Members: 331] [Species: Humans, Shipgirls] [Territory: 5,220 square kilometers] Less than two months after being dropped here and he had already sprinted into the pre-space age…
or perhaps the magic age.
Azur Lane technology was difficult to classify strictly as “science.” Starting naked hadn’t been so bad after all, as long as you had good neighbors.
The three-hundred-plus members were basically himself plus the shipgirls and Bulins; the Manjuus were counted as pets and excluded from the tally.
The five-thousand-plus square kilometers of territory covered the newly built naval base and the surrounding waters.
Construction of the land city had not yet begun, otherwise the area would have been larger.
The fastest progress, of course, was in technology.
With support from the Azur Lane world they had skipped the Bronze Age, Steam Age, Electrical Age, and more, landing directly in the pre-space age.
One final step remained before true space-age status.
Whether even more advanced civilizations existed beyond that was still unknown.
“Hmm?” He suddenly noticed a new codex function under the Species tab.
“There’s a species codex?” Curious, Adam opened the entry for “Shipgirls.” [Azur Lane Shipgirls] Born from Wisdom Cubes, a species existing between artificial intelligence and magical life-forms.
Adapted to the ocean, skilled in naval warfare, mostly of Lawful Good alignment, and capable of effectively utilizing various technological equipment.
“Interesting.” The codex was essentially a set of hints that made it easy to understand the traits of other species.
Shipgirls preferred the sea; most of their combat power came from their own rigging, so equipping more advanced weapons improved their strength.
They belonged to the technological side of life.
Lawful Good was easy to understand as well…
shipgirls were generally straightforward.
Even the more difficult personalities among the Sakura Empire and Iron Blood, such as Akagi, Taihou, or Roon, were simply a bit problematic rather than truly evil.
“There are other creatures?” Adam saw that many more codex entries remained grayed out, still uncollected.
“Elves, Heroic Spirits, Valkyries, Herrschers, magical girls, catgirls, dragon girls, Kivotos supers…” “You’ve got quite a few species in this codex!” [Collect a sufficient number of species to unlock special rewards.] [Host is advised to develop the civilization, expand the empire’s territory, and enrich species diversity~] The system’s light, cheerful voice sounded.
“…” “Is this Wife Pokémon?” … “Wait.” Looking at the statistics panel, Adam suddenly remembered something.
The initial mission.
Recruit twenty people and establish a civilization.
He already had a settlement and people.
There were several hundred residents here at the very least.
Even excluding the Bulins and Manjuus, the pioneer fleet alone numbered thirty shipgirls.
Why hadn’t the mission been completed?
If shipgirls didn’t count, the mission would be impossible.
“Hello?
Is the settlement buggy?” He asked at once.
[Confirmed.] A mechanical voice answered.
[Mission Objective 1: Recruit 20 companions in the settlement …
Completed.] [Mission Objective 2: Establish a civilization …
Incomplete.] “What does that mean?” Adam looked puzzled.
[Your current settlement lacks distinctiveness compared with other civilizations.] [Host is requested to upgrade the colony into a formal civilization.]