Joys and Worries

That said, according to Zhou Ye's plan, the most important task over the next two days was—farming.

According to the farming calendar here, it was best to plant some crops within the next few days. Once autumn harvest came, he could promptly sow another round of winter wheat, ensuring the farmland was used efficiently.

So, after a busy morning, Zhou Ye had been turning the soil, digging out grass roots, making furrows, and digging drainage ditches... As for digging an irrigation channel from the stream? The workload was simply too great, so he set that aside for now.

Unfortunately, all he had were a hoe and a shovel. There was no way to deeply plow the soil, so the tilling was far from ideal. It would be best if he had an iron plow? Well! Better yet, a plow ox too? Mm-hmm!

Under such conditions, deep and meticulous cultivation was truly impossible. It would certainly affect the harvest, but as long as there was a harvest at all, that was enough.

At noon, Zhou Ye selected the largest fish. He chopped off its head and tail, then braised the middle section with pickled vegetables and bean paste, making a dish of fish braised in sauce.

That evening, he used the remaining fish head and tail to make soup, adding plenty of lettuce and carrots...

But the remaining fish gave him a headache. In summer, it was difficult to dry them into dried fish. Building a smokehouse was not the most urgent need at the moment, either.

In the end, he could only salt all the fish into salted fish, using more than two jin of salt in one go.

That made Zhou Ye's heart ache. He only had a little over twenty jin of salt with him! Yet he had used up a tenth of it in one stroke?

Thus, the air-force veteran's plan died halfway through. Hunting would have to be put aside for now.

Fortunately, after two days of labor, all two mu of land had been reclaimed and planted.

One and a half mu were planted with soybeans, three fen with peas, one fen with black beans, and the remaining more than one fen with various vegetables.

As for why he had distributed them this way, although black beans had somewhat higher yields, they simply were not as tasty as peas, were they?

And during these two days of training, both Basic Thrusting and Basic Throwing had reached the beginner level, earning him 2 free attribute points.

Through further experimentation, Zhou Ye finally triggered—Basic Movement (Unrated): Not Started (0/10)

Thinking of that round shield, after a bout of blind fumbling, he somehow triggered—Basic Shield Strike (Unrated): Not Started (0/10)

So he picked up that nail-headed hammer and swung it around. As expected, he triggered—Basic Hammering (Unrated): Not Started (0/10)

However, the experience for these skills rose even more slowly. Basic Movement only gained 5 points per day. Basic Shield Strike gained a mere 3 points.

The most infuriating one was Basic Hammering. Because his strength was too low, he worked himself to death training for an entire day, only to gain 2 points in the end?

Forget it! At least he had managed to unlock basic martial skills. As long as they could be triggered, that was already pretty good.

During the next trip to Old Camp, he used a shoulder pole to carry away a full fifty-jin sack of rice and several baskets of fresh vegetables. They should still count as fresh... right? He also took three bundles of straw rope.

After returning to Little Camp, Zhou Ye spent another two consecutive days building, finally completing the fence walls—a full ring of wooden stakes...

Seeing the results of his construction, Zhou Ye threw back his head and laughed in satisfaction. With this wall, he finally felt a little safer. Surviving in this wilderness would no longer be quite so dangerous. And he could "return to the earth"; the tent he lived in was moved down from the bamboo raft...

The first phase of the mission had come to an end.

Over the following ten days, Zhou Ye temporarily stopped everything else. He made five round trips to Old Camp, transporting over all the food, along with various odds and ends.

The more complete supplies included four sacks of rice (fifty jin each; this would not be stated again), two sacks of flour, more than one sack of soybeans, and two sacks of potatoes. Potatoes could be eaten as food. There were several dozen jin each of peas and black beans. Finally, there were three sacks of wheat kernels. There were also various miscellaneous items.

Since the wheat kernels had not been ground into flour, they could only be used as winter wheat seeds. If he simply cooked them into wheat rice? The stuff was hard to swallow and not particularly tasty. But with no other choice, it could still fill his stomach.

However, only half a strip of salted meat and four salted fish remained for meat.

Then there were three water jars and five wooden buckets. That was everything from Old Camp as well.

After filling one water jar with stream water, he added plant ash. When surviving in the wild, if all else failed, plant ash could at least provide a little cleansing effect.

After letting the plant ash settle for a day, he poured the clear water on top into another water jar, then added several pieces of charcoal to absorb impurities. For this, Zhou Ye had also brought back a small sack of charcoal.

After another day of absorption, he poured the clear water inside into the final water jar. That way, it could be used without worry. Drinking water would also be boiled before consumption.

With that, the staple food problem had been solved, and even the water supply was guaranteed to the greatest extent possible.

There were also all the shoes from Old Camp, including the two pairs of leather boots left behind by the soldiers, three pairs of cloth shoes he had dug out, and sixty-two pairs of old and new straw sandals.

And sure enough, due to all the walking, his previous pair of leather boots had worn out quickly, while two pairs of straw sandals had already been worn through.

Lastly were the three tents remaining at Old Camp. With so many things, he needed somewhere to store them.

As for his training progress... there were both joys and worries!

Zhou Ye first trained Basic Movement to the beginner level, receiving 1 free attribute point without surprise.

But after training Basic Shield Strike to the beginner level, the panel issued a warning—Attention: Martial skills of the same tier can grant beginner rewards for a maximum of five skills. Free attribute points will no longer be rewarded afterward. However, this will not affect subsequent training!

Zhou Ye nearly fainted from anger. How could there no longer be beginner rewards?

Furious and unwilling to give up, Zhou Ye gritted his teeth and trained Basic Hammering to the beginner level. But he was disappointed in the end; there truly was no reward.

It seemed the panel would not leave such a massive loophole. There was absolutely no way to farm points without limit. At most, there could be five martial skills of the same tier!

Since that was the case, he now had 4 free attribute points. He would keep 1 in reserve, add 1 to Strength, and put the other 2 into Agility as before.

His weakness in Strength was too severe. After adding a point, he could at least carry more things.

As for Agility, the strong had to grow ever stronger. He needed to magnify its advantage even further. His Agility was now +5, already fifty percent faster than the average person. That counted as very fast, right?

[Zhou Ye (Ordinary Person): 14]

Bone Structure: -3

Comprehension: +3

[Basic Data]

Health: (80/80)

Strength: -2

Agility: +5

Constitution: -2

Spirit: +4

Charm: -2

[Techniques]

[Martial Skills]

Basic Chopping (Unrated): Beginner (19/50)

Basic Archery (Unrated): Beginner (0/50)

Basic Thrusting (Unrated): Beginner (0/50)

Basic Throwing (Unrated): Beginner (1/50)

Basic Movement (Unrated): Beginner (1/50)

Basic Shield Strike (Unrated): Beginner (0/50)

Basic Hammering (Unrated): Beginner (0/50)

Free Attribute Points: 1