Chapter 14 - The Farm in Irttat
Chapter 14: The Nightingale's Past 10
Lucita's experimental space collapsed after breakfast on the second day.
Compared to the last cufflink space, this time, despite doubling the capacity, it had actually maintained for about half a day longer.
Beyond being pleased, Lucita also had some doubts.
According to her understanding from books, bloodline-inherited innate abilities didn't seem to have any way to be actively cultivated. They could only passively improve in mental strength and talent level as knowledge and experience grew.
For example, among mental-type talents, a young merfolk might only be able to perform basic mental suggestions through a medium, but an adult merfolk could instantly control a weaker person's mind. After entering old age, the talent level wouldn't change—they would still maintain the ability to instantly control—but due to the decline in mental strength, their mental control power or the targets they could control would obviously weaken.
Comparing the quality of the two spaces she had constructed, it was clear that in just one day's time, her mental strength had nearly doubled.
This couldn't possibly be caused by ordinary natural growth.
To be safe, she planned to experiment a few more times.
After the space collapsed, the internal spatial structure of the pebble became chaotic and complex, making it difficult to expand space within it again. Fortunately, there were plenty of stones by the water.
She casually picked up another one and constructed a new square space. This time the maximum capacity didn't increase much from the last time, ultimately stabilizing at just over one liter.
The ability to create space could be practiced slowly. Lucita wasn't in a hurry.
As the temperature gradually rose, the small animals in the forest also gradually began to become active. Rabbits appeared in the grass, deer shadows frequently passed through the forest, and squirrels climbed up and down, beginning to hoard food again. Of course, there were also black bears craving honey and wild boars foraging for food, threatening the hunters' safety.
Lucita took out a longbow from Grandma Sandy's toolbox. This was a yew wood longbow that required considerable pulling strength to draw fully. Of course, the hybrid townspeople benefited from the robust physiques of the long-lived races, so drawing such a bow fully was relatively easy.
Raising livestock required initial capital, fishing relied too much on luck, so recently she had set her sights on hunting.
Actually, for the townspeople, the income from each season's planting was enough to live a prosperous life without needing to hunt for a living. This was because the seeds here had been cultivated over generations by elf hybrids using their life talents, achieving nearly double the yield of ordinary seeds.
Of course, with the cheat code of life talent available, these plants could originally increase production infinitely. But the problem was that the soil’s fertility requirements rose proportionally. Overexploitation would be no different from draining a pond to catch fish.
After trials over the past hundred years, double the yield could exactly achieve a relative balance between maintaining soil fertility and increasing production.
Under such excellent planting conditions, the grain and vegetables Lucita planted would originally be sufficient for living.
But it would still be a long time before they matured, and her savings had already run out.
Irttat was nestled in the mountains, and this small town's worth of people monopolized an entire silver mine. Moreover, this was a self-sufficient agricultural, pastoral, fishing, and hunting town. The winds of industry on the continent had not yet blown here, so the silver mine's production capacity was almost no different from ordinary grain and cloth.
Silver, which was a precious metal outside, had depreciated to an absurd degree in Irttat.
Lucita had brought a bag of silver coins, enough to live comfortably for years outside, but here they had nearly run out in less than half a month.
Fortunately, resources here were abundant. As long as one was willing to work, there would be no starvation.
Mavis was happy to teach her hunting and even gave her a hunting knife. The two brought Sophia along and spent these days heading deep into the forest. Sometimes when it got too late to return, they would stay in the hunter's cabin Mavis had built in the forest.
During the past three seasons of spring, summer, and autumn, Mavis had spent more time in the hunter's cabin than in town. On one hand, after her great misfortune, she wasn't too willing to communicate with people. On the other hand, her hunting took her far, so staying in the hunter's cabin was more convenient. She often went three or four days without returning to town. Usually, she would only return to town when game was plentiful, selling it while fresh, then exchanging for vegetables, milk, and the like.
In winter, when animals hibernated, she would return to town and live off stored grain and cured meat.
Because Sophia had some problems this spring, Mavis had stayed in town the whole time, so the hunter's cabin hadn't been tended to yet. As soon as they entered, there was dust almost everywhere.
They used the rags hanging on the wall to clean the place once, then used Mavis's small cart for transporting game to bring over two sets of bedding to lay beside the bed, creating three beds.
The forest in spring didn't have very good lighting. The cabin felt damp and cold. Mavis gathered the dry firewood left from last year, piled it into the stove and lit it. The flames crackled and burned, illuminating the faces of the three sitting around it.
Last year's sturgeon-eye lamps had been neglected for a winter without maintenance. Their energy was already exhausted, their surfaces full of cracks, unable to emit light anymore. The three hadn't considered this when entering the mountains, so now they could only rely on firelight for illumination.
On the first day, they caught four rabbits and one deer.
The three roasted two rabbits together.
The rosemary jar was empty. Only a pitiful pinch of black pepper remained, which the three cherished and mixed with coarse salt to rub on the rabbit meat surface before roasting over the stove fire.
The flames flickered.
After working hard for half the day, even monotonous roasted meat fragrance was enticing enough, even having a unique flavor.
The freshwater source was nearby. They filled their water bags and brought them back, boiling the water in kettles to drink as a substitute for soup.
On the second day, to improve the flavor of the roasted meat, they decided to steal some honey from a nearby beehive, only to run into a black bear that was already stealing honey.
Thief confronted thief.
On their side, one novice, one minor. Mavis naturally stood at the front.
Actually, as a native at the top of the forest food chain, Sophia possessed formidable attack methods and shouldn't fear black bears. But now, with her “oil lamp” running dry, she couldn't use her methods. She was like a toothless old tiger, only to be slaughtered at will.
Lucita knew she had no experience and didn't dare act rashly, fearing she would be a hindrance.
She scrutinized the black bear carefully. When she saw its eyes, a thought suddenly flashed through her mind.
She stared into its eyes.
The black bear's mental world was a complete chaos. It only vaguely knew it was currently in a tense state. She even had trouble distinguishing whether it was its tension or her own tension.
"They are so powerful, I am so weak... They are so frightening..."
Wave after wave of mental suggestions were sent in. The black bear collapsed to the ground with almost no resistance, left only trembling.
Mavis looked at Lucita in surprise, then understood. She shot three arrows in succession, all hitting the bear's head.
The black bear rolled several times, howled miserably for a while, then stopped moving.
Sophia, craving honey, continued to steal half a jar to bring back.
Mavis took out her hunting knife and while skinning the bear on the spot, taught Lucita the techniques of bear skinning as instruction.
Complete bear hide could make winter coats or blankets, both very warm. Bear meat didn't taste good, and since everyone had enough to eat, no one had any interest in bear meat.
Whether it was because the black bear had low intelligence or its mental world was too weak, Lucita felt this mental invasion had been completed very quickly and smoothly.
Over the next few days, she tried to use the same method on deer and rabbits, but they ran too fast, so she had no choice but to give up.
Mavis also taught her to recognize some magic herbs.
The town had few people and low demand for medicines, so even though people often gathered them, the magic herbs growing in the forest were always very dense and lush.
When Mavis first told her that the dark red little flower growing under the tree was a type of magic herb called Red Line Star, she looked at the colorful light points scattered on the flower and wondered in her heart if it was a coincidence.
The second time, the third time—all magic herbs had those light points vaguely attached to them. Only then did Lucita vaguely confirm it.
Those colorful light points should be magic power.
Given that magic herbs and human magical power came from the same source, the same colorful light points she often saw in the air were probably also magic power.
So the question arose: what about the promise that hybrids, like pureblooded long-lived races, naturally couldn't study magic?
Many mysteries were trapped in Lucita's heart. She couldn't find answers in the library books, and even when she indirectly asked Javena and Irene through the message feather box, it remained unsolved.
And now, these questions seemed to be multiplying.
She temporarily placed her hopes on the high priestess who was about to arrive. Regardless of whether she harbored good intentions, she was a sage who had lived over three hundred years, with far more experience than the town's residents. She was the person most likely to resolve her doubts.
Over three or four days, Lucita hunted a total of five rabbits, and she had eaten the share of two. Compared to Mavis's one deer and eleven rabbits, it could be said to be a meager harvest.
Selling in town, at two silver coins per pound of meat, with each rabbit weighing about five or six pounds, three rabbits would bring in nearly forty silver coins, enough for food expenses for the next three or four days.
Of course, Mavis's income was much more. Although deer meat was priced at half, one deer weighed over a hundred pounds, and adding the rabbits, a total income of nearly two hundred silver coins meant she wouldn't have to worry about food for half a month.
But she still continued entering the mountains.
Sufficient food was just the most basic need. Clothing, shelter, transportation, everything required exchanging silver coins for others' labor.
Irttat's grain production was very high, and forest resources were abundant. There was almost always endless grain to eat and inexhaustible cotton and timber to use. People worked more for needs like a new lamp or a new piece of clothing.
The flowers planted throughout the town, the forever clean and lovely houses, the colorful clothes, and various novel snacks, their existence were all driven by such desires.
Of course, for oddballs like Mavis who cared little for such things, she worked hard simply because of her character.
Lucita watered the vegetable garden at home once. The ground had already sprouted obvious green seedlings, neatly arranged in rows, quite adorable.
The end of January quietly arrived.
Lucita's spatial ability—no, indeed all her manifesting talents—were growing at an abnormal rate.
The space she created was already five liters in size and could be maintained for a full three days. It could basically be used as a small, short-term frost box.
She had indirectly asked Irene. This level of spatial ability was very common among pureblooded young dragons, but for townspeople, they might not be able to achieve this level even in old age. Precisely because of this, residents basically used frost boxes for preservation and specially made message feather boxes for communication, rather than using spatial abilities.
Lucita didn't know whether to be happy or worried.
Soon after, she received notice from Sophia that the elven visitors would arrive in Irttat at the beginning of February.
Lucita seemed to see hope and, with a light heart, went into the mountains with Mavis for a second time to make a living before the elves arrived.
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