Two tasks were completed simultaneously, followed immediately by the automatic acceptance of two new ones.
An indescribable sense of excitement washed over Julianna Garland.
Blinking, she looked at the reward section.
The system prompted: “Reward issued.
Please search inside the Earth Star Cabin.” Only then did Julianna toss her hoe aside and turn to enter the cabin.
The moment she pushed the door open, she noticed a cabinet next to the kitchen slightly ajar, revealing a maroon wooden box inside.
This box was not something left behind by Ms.
Samantha—she had thoroughly checked when she cleaned the cabin earlier—nor did it belong to Julianna herself.
These had to be the seeds rewarded by the system upon task completion.
Delighted, Julianna hurried over to the cabinet and quickly took out the wooden box.
Its surface was hand-carved, exuding a rustic and natural texture, coated only with a layer of clear varnish to preserve its original style.
The box featured a latch with a dull, dark hue; judging by its sound and texture, it seemed to be made of brass.
This thing had been around for a long time—it definitely wasn’t a product of this era.
Unable to wait, she flipped the lid open.
Inside sat two burlap sacks, one on the left and one on the right.
She lifted one of them; it was heavy, and the faint, rustling sound of seeds sliding against each other echoed from within.
Julianna opened the sack, and sure enough, it was filled with golden rice grains.
The system prompted: “You have discovered rice seeds.
This is an improved rice variety.
With the enhancement of advanced technology, it will bear heavy fruits in a very short time.
Such rice is soft, fragrant, and highly chewy; you will never tire of its taste.
Note: Irrigating the farmland with the system’s specially gifted spring water will increase the quality and yield of the rice.”
Julianna’s eyes lit up as she tightly gripped the sack of seeds.
Immediately after, she lifted the other sack.
The system prompted once again: “You have discovered wheat seeds.”
Receiving two batches of seeds in a row made Julianna incredibly excited, dissipating most of the exhaustion from a hard day’s labor.
However, the sky had already turned dark.
With the lights on inside the house, she stood in front of the kitchen sink and looked out through the specially made glass window.
Dense swarms of mosquitoes and bugs, drawn by the light, threw themselves against the windowpane.
The mere sight of them made her mosquito bites, now stinging with sweat, flare up with an unbearable, piercing itch.
Just as she couldn’t help but scratch, the Earth Recovery System prompted again: “The early bird gets the worm! The source of this chapter is g.com.
A hardworking farmer enjoys the fruits of victory early.
Task 3: Dig up 60 square meters of land and plant wheat.
Note: Upon completion of the task, you will receive one chance to open a seed lucky bag.”
The consecutive release of these three tasks sparked a greedy desire in Julianna’s heart.
Among the three tasks, planting rice was the easiest—the land had already been dug, and the sowing could be finished tomorrow.
Task 2, however, required a further upgrade to her digging skill.
Moreover, Task 2 and Task 3 were somewhat connected; both involved digging, but Task 3 had an added sowing requirement.
Julianna glanced at the digging skill experience bar in front of her, which read: 0.
After completing today’s task, she hadn’t dug a single extra stroke.
At this moment, she had no idea how much experience was needed to upgrade from a Digging Adept to a Digging Master.
However, judging by the growth of experience from her previous two digging sessions, the requirement for this upgrade wouldn’t be low.
She hesitated for a moment before finally placing the two sacks of seeds back into the wooden box.
“Forget it, forget it.
I can’t dig anymore today.”
Even though she had acquired the seeds, she couldn’t rush things.
Moreover, the task of sowing wheat was no ordinary feat.
It would be better to get a good night’s rest and recharge her energy so she could continue digging tomorrow morning.
Having made up her mind, she grabbed something to eat.
After freshening up and before lying down in bed, Julianna hesitated for a moment, wondering if she should log onto the Interstellar Net to take a look.
But this thought didn’t last for more than two seconds before she abandoned it entirely.
“No one will look for me anyway,” Julianna muttered to herself.
The original owner of this body was inherently introverted, and after being reborn into her, Julianna felt even more out of place in this world.
The internet, which everyone on Novus couldn’t live without, instilled an unfamiliar sense of dread in her.
In contrast, digging and sowing—things related to Earth—evoked a bizarre sense of familiarity and intimacy.
“Time to sleep!” As soon as the words left her mouth, she used the controller on her wrist to turn off the lights in the room.
The next morning, when Julianna woke up early, she found that despite being overly exhausted the day before, her promotion from a Digging Novice to a Digging Adept had paid off.
Her arms were only slightly sore, and the blisters on her palms had transformed into fine calluses, acting as a suit of armor that protected her hands from injury whenever she gripped the hoe.
After getting ready, she walked out of the cabin and immediately spotted the land she had dug up yesterday.
The results of her labor over the past two days were quite gratifying.
The full 60 square meters of arable land stood in stark contrast to the surrounding weed-infested wasteland.
However, with her upgraded digging skill, she could instantly spot the flaws in her previous digging efforts.
Merely from a surface glance, the soil she dug yesterday was much neater than the days prior, with evenly spaced hoe strikes and uniform force applied.
In contrast, the land she had dug earlier was a mess.
Some grass roots were still buried in the soil, and large clumps of mud had hardened into hardpan, failing to loosen up when turned over.
Looking at it today, she found it somewhat an eyesore.
“Don’t overcomplicate things!” Julianna warned herself.
She took out the system-rewarded rice seeds from her bag, grabbed a handful, and clenched them in her palm.
“Since the system considers my digging successful, this soil is good enough to yield a good harvest.”
With that said, she began scattering the seeds from the pit at the very edge.
As the seeds fell into the dirt pits, Julianna recalled scenes from her childhood, watching the elders in her family farm.
She didn’t rush to level the soil.
Instead, she simply kept walking forward along the plot.
Only after planting the entire 60 square meters did she carefully store the remaining seeds.
Then, she turned around, picked up her hoe, and began burying each pit one by one.
The moment the soil covered the seeds, an experience notification popped up before her eyes again: “Sowing Proficiency +1.”
“Sowing Proficiency +1.”
A continuous stream of notifications flashed through her mind.
Julianna’s eyes lit up; sowing actually provided proficiency bonuses as well!
She looked at the pits she had dug yesterday, deciding to grind experience on those poorly dug spots first.
After completing ten pits, a system prompt chimed in her mind as expected: “Sowing Proficiency has left the Novice stage.
Your sowing efficiency is slightly higher now.
While you haven’t reached the point where a single glance at the soil tells you exactly what to plant, you roughly know how to sow seeds in a way that saves time and effort.”
Julianna was overjoyed.
True enough, when she continued to rake the soil with her hoe to bury the seeds, her efficiency had noticeably improved.
After busying herself for the better part of the day, Julianna finally managed to completely bury all the seeds.
When her hoe filled in the very last pit, her sowing experience had already reached the level of a Sowing Adept, with an excess of 488 experience points.
It was an unexpected, yet deeply welcome, surprise.