Farming Begins—Please Vote!

"Where have you been? Why have you been coming home so late lately? You're always making me worry. Don't take after that deadbeat father of yours, running around with the wrong crowd. You could die somewhere, and no one would even know where..."

When he returned home, his mother's nagging echoed in his ears once more.

Pous listened obediently while desperately shoveling down the dry bean mash.

After eating every last grain, he took out more than a dozen Copper coins and placed them on the table. "Mom, this is what I earned today. I'm full. I'm going to sleep."

With that, he hurried into the shabby side room.

Once inside, he pressed himself against the door and watched his mother clear away the bowls and spoons. Only after confirming she was not coming over did he sit with his back against the door and begin chanting softly.

"Great existence from Azure Star, You are the Overlord of language and writing. You are the founder of the Internet. Under Your protection, I shall connect with all living things through the Internet!"

As the chant ended, he felt as though his soul had connected to some great existence.

The God of the Internet answered his prayer, and a Phantom Scroll slowly unfurled before him.

The shimmering light made his pupils contract, yet he could not stop himself from widening his eyes, as though he wished to take in the entire Internet.

Even though Pous had prepared himself mentally, his hands still trembled with excitement, his muscles tensed, and his breathing quickened.

Of course, compared with the first time, this was already much better.

No one knew how shocked he had been when he had boldly chanted the prayer in the basement and summoned the Internet.

It had been like a bolt of lightning striking from the crown of his head to his tailbone, leaving his whole body numb!

One had to know that Raymond selling basic Magic knowledge had already moved a group of desperately poor youths to tears of gratitude!

How much more so for publicly available, free Magic knowledge?

He realized that his future, which had seemed almost hopeless, would begin changing from this day onward!

This was also one of the fundamental reasons he had been so eager to become a believer of the God of the Internet in the basement. Unfortunately...

Pous recalled the mysterious existence who had enslaved a Devil.

He had said:

"God loves all people, and my lord is merciful. So long as you spread my lord's radiance, you are my lord's believer!"

After saying that, the young man had left.

Yet those words had utterly shaken Pous's soul!

In the Empire's propaganda, it never denied the power of the gods. Yet in all its descriptions of them, it openly and subtly told everyone that gods were nothing more than swindlers who used power to deceive believers into offering up worship, wealth, and even their souls.

So why should humanity curry favor with gods and beg them for power?

Humans could cultivate Magic on their own!

That would be power that truly belonged to them. If they cultivated to the realm of Saint Archmage—the Magic God—they could even possess power comparable to that of gods!

But today, Pous's resolve wavered. He felt that the God of the Internet was what a true god should be.

He wanted nothing—no offerings, no believers, no wealth, no souls—yet he bestowed the most precious treasure in the world—knowledge—upon everyone.

A seed of faith was silently planted in Pous's heart.

Perhaps life would wear it away;

Perhaps it would take root and sprout;

Perhaps it would even burn, becoming a spark capable of setting the prairie ablaze.

That night, Pous barely slept at all. He spent the entire night browsing the Internet!

Even though he had been born in Willis City, what he saw on the Internet dazzled his eyes and broadened his horizons beyond measure!

There, he saw that behind the glamorous appearances of mercenaries lay sleeping in the open and uncertainty between life and death;

He saw lofty nobles worrying over magical beasts and bandits in their territories, though some also oppressed the common people;

He saw mysterious and powerful mages arguing through thousands of replies over abstruse knowledge he could not understand at all;

He also saw countless people from the bottom rung of society, just like himself, making posts in search of a way out.

The pitch-black room gradually brightened.

Pous, who had not slept all night, felt neither drowsy nor the massive Soul Power drain the Internet claimed would come from logging in with the prayer.

He swiftly shut down the Internet and pushed open the door.

The sky was still gray and dim, yet he felt that the world had become especially beautiful!

He grabbed a wooden bucket and dashed out of the house. At the settlement well, he first drew up a bucket of water and gulped it down until he was full. Then he filled bucket after bucket, topping off the water jar at home. After calling out to his mother, he rushed back outside.

He had already decided what he would do today.

First, he would tell his best friends about the Internet and spread his lord's radiance.

Second, he had learned from the Internet that an old residential area in the West District had been bought by a High Lord, who intended to build a manor there. They were urgently hiring laborers, and supposedly paid twenty Copper coins a day!

He decided to give it a try.

While eating an exquisite breakfast, Yu Sheng'an saw through the Contract Godhead that the boy who wanted to become his believer had skipped breakfast and was now sweating profusely as he carried bricks and rubble at a construction site. He was momentarily stunned.

As the first little fan he had gained in this world, Yu Sheng'an had honestly observed Pous for a long time the previous night.

When he saw Pous's excited expression while reading basic Magic knowledge, Yu Sheng'an could not help but smile knowingly.

When he saw Pous quickly become familiar with the Internet, skillfully use search techniques, and look for work, Yu Sheng'an was delighted from the bottom of his heart. He had even taken the initiative to expend Source Essence to support Pous's browsing.

Otherwise, with Pous's Soul Power, he would have felt exhausted after two or three hours at most. If he forced himself to continue browsing, the Internet would have disconnected him anyway.

It was obvious that Pous's family was poor, but Yu Sheng'an had not expected them to be so poor that they could not even afford breakfast.

Yu Sheng'an looked out through the glass window. Pedestrians hurried along the street, most of them looking wan and malnourished.

Of course, burly mercenaries carrying exaggerated weapons occasionally thundered past atop unicorns.

"It's truly hard to imagine that beneath a Magic Capital with power comparable to gods, the commoners cannot even fill their stomachs!"

Yu Sheng'an could not help saying.

Honestly, having come from Blue Star, he had long considered eating one's fill a matter of course.

Yet after arriving in this world, he discovered that eating one's fill was truly no easy matter.

"Your Excellency is merciful! Food has always been a chronic concern of the Empire. Not only is there little land and many people, but cultivating Magic also requires vast resources, so fertile land naturally has to be prioritized for planting magical plants. Of course, we do our best to ensure good harvests. For instance, the mages stationed in every city are assigned annual rainmaking tasks to ensure that crops thrive."

Dendall, who sat across from Yu Sheng'an sharing breakfast with him, replied politely.

—Earlier that morning, Dendall had come looking for Yu Sheng'an and invited him to breakfast.

Yu Sheng'an snorted. "That is no excuse. Without fertile land, you can use Directed Breeding to cultivate crops with high yields and resistance to drought, salinity, and alkaline soil."

Dendall fell silent for a moment before saying, "Using Magic to cultivate special crops requires unimaginable effort. Without sufficient profit, no wood-element mage would be willing to invest that much time and pay such a price."

Yu Sheng'an did not ask why the Empire did not allocate special funds to support it.

At the end of the day, the Kevil Empire still lacked strong central authority, so society was naturally driven primarily by profit!

Furthermore, in this society where absolute violence was controlled by the mage class, the role of the lower classes was probably no more than maintaining the mages' daily supplies.

Of course, the occasional influx of fresh blood could also ensure the vitality of the mage class.

Thus, commoners' lives were naturally as cheap as grass!

At that thought, Yu Sheng'an felt a trace of discomfort and displeasure!

Everyone pursued profit. If even one Great Mage lowered his gaze a little, perhaps the lives of commoners would be completely different.

This place ultimately lacked the spirit of the scholar-gentry.

Yu Sheng'an's eyes flickered as he suddenly said, "Your Excellency, how about this? Assign me some of Felix's wood-element mages. I will not take up too many of your resources; Magic Apprentices will do. I will cultivate crops myself! Naturally, I will pay a hiring fee. What do you think?"

Dendall was stunned.

Weren't we supposed to be discussing the spread of the Internet Divine Art? How had the conversation turned to crops?