A Bountiful Harvest

The summer winds had yet to reach the Great Wilderness, but the rice paddies below the mountain had already turned golden.

A large stone dropped into the spirit pool, sending splashes dancing and broad ripples spreading across the water.

This was their prearranged method of contact.

Feng Xu was refining a Dharma treasure. Though he heard the water, he did not understand the signal. Only after finishing the treasure in his hands did he take out the Heaven-Hanging Ruler and return to the surface.

Three days had passed since Feng Sui sent the signal.

Feng Xu walked to the warehouse entrance and saw Feng Sui waiting outside.

"It has only been a short while. Why did you call me up so soon?"

Feng Xu could not sense the passage of time below, so it naturally felt quick to him. He had only recently recovered from his internal injuries and refined a single Dharma treasure before receiving word that he should emerge from seclusion.

"The rice below the mountain has ripened. Everyone is waiting for you to come out and harvest it."

Feng Xu followed Feng Sui to the edge of the ridge. Looking at the golden rice fields below, he could not help but sigh.

At this rate, who knew how many crops they could grow in a year? In any case, they definitely would not be able to eat it all.

The surplus food could be used for trade or brewed into alcohol.

But with no decomposers in the Primordial World, it probably could not ferment naturally. They could only refine it with mana.

That would greatly increase the cost of alcohol, making it unsuitable for widespread use.

Feng Xu was not much of a drinker, so he did not care about that.

"Wait a moment. Let me make some preparations first."

Harvesting rice was also exhausting labor, but it was nothing much to the tribespeople.

After harvesting came threshing. Rubbing it by hand or flinging it around directly was far too inefficient, so he planned to make a threshing machine.

With the current level of craftsmanship, making a threshing machine would be far too troublesome. Feng Xu intended to refine one with mana.

He had not known much about such things in his previous life.

But with the Quasi-Sage Peak's understanding of the Dao, analyzing it was easy.

Feng Xu found some wood and iron blanks, then refined them with mana into a foot-operated threshing machine.

He could have made something more advanced with a little more effort, but there was no need.

This traditional threshing machine had a relatively simple structure. Once the tribespeople had used it long enough, they would be able to imitate it themselves.

If the Human Race wanted to develop for the long term, it ultimately needed the ability to think independently and solve problems. It could not rely solely on one powerful person.

Labor was the best way to discover and solve problems.

Feng Xu made twenty threshing machines and stored them all in his snakeskin sack.

Several dozen people took sickles and followed Feng Xu down the mountain to harvest.

Feng Xu first taught them how to harvest. He divided the more than two hundred mu of land into twenty sections, assigning each section a threshing machine and several workers.

Whenever a threshing machine was full, Feng Xu stored it away in his snakeskin sack.

Perhaps because the cultivation had been more meticulous, the yield here was clearly higher than that of Jiang Ze's tribe.

The rice seedlings were spaced much farther apart than in his previous life, yet the entire paddy was still packed densely together.

"When is this ever going to end?"

Feng Xu sounded as though he were complaining, but his heart was full of joy.

With such a high yield, one crop would probably be enough to feed the entire tribe for a year, with plenty left over.

If they planted a few more crops and reclaimed some more land...

They would never be able to finish eating it. Never.

Although the primitive Human Race possessed formidable physiques, harvesting the rice still took ten days.

The total yield exceeded two million jin of grain, averaging ten thousand jin per mu. Even Feng Xu's snakeskin sack could not hold it all, forcing him to make more than a dozen trips back and forth.

The Heavenly Net and Earthly Web could not store tiny things like rice grains.

Though Feng Xu was busy, he enjoyed every moment of it.

If his previous life had possessed yields like this, rice would probably have been cheaper than water.

No, that was not quite right. If his previous life had such high yields, more resources should have been invested elsewhere.

Rice prices would fall, but not by too much.

Seeing how fast the rice grew, Feng Xu had originally planned to make the tribespeople work a little harder and plant once each in spring, summer, and autumn—three crops a year.

Now, however, it seemed unnecessary for the time being. Two crops a year would be enough.

After the harvest was finished, all the rice straw was burned directly in the fields.

"With this much grain produced, we should at least give the land some fertilizer."

Freshly planted land was best left to rest for a while. Even if the soil in this world was unimaginably fertile, he did not want to exploit it excessively.

One group began reclaiming new land, while another started drying the grain.

They spread tanned boar hides across the ground to dry the rice, assigning people to guard it in shifts during the day. At the first sign of rain, they would immediately call everyone to bring it inside.

Feng Xu inspected the granary again and reminded the tribespeople of several precautions.

Afterward, he invented a rice huller and a winnowing machine, completing the rice husking process.

He also made stone mills while he was at it.

The whole set earned him a reward of one hundred thousand Merit, and each time one of those tools was used to process one thousand jin of grain, he could gain one Merit Point.

In other words, if one thousand jin of rice was processed into white rice, he could gain two points of Merit. If it was processed into flour, he could gain three points of Merit.

The earlier threshing machine had awarded fifty thousand Merit as well, and threshing one thousand jin of rice would earn one point of Merit.

These were all major Merit-generating projects. Feng Xu nearly turned into a heartless capitalist again and had the tribespeople plant three crops of rice a year.

No, wait. If they rested the land for a few months after planting one crop before planting another, would that not still count as two crops a year?!

Feng Xu grinned wickedly as he repented for his sins, though he had no intention of changing his mind.

"Keep trading the surplus food. The surrounding tribes all depend on the Wind-Fire Tribe to survive. Isn't that a great Merit in itself?"

Thinking that way, Feng Xu felt that his image had become lofty once more. Though he was not the one doing the work, the extra grain was not his either.

Other than the Merit gained from processing food, he received no other benefit.

The new houses were nearly finished, so Iron Mountain led his people back with large quantities of food and pottery.

With more time available this year, the ironware production plan was also revised.

Feng Xu handed the following matters to Feng Sui and continued his secluded artifact refinement.

Once the people of the Red Iron Tribe left, the entire tribe suddenly quieted down.

The women nurtured their pregnancies, while the elders watched over the rice fields and warehouses.

The children, along with Feng Sui and several other warriors, became the busiest group in the tribe.

They chopped firewood during the day and learned to read at night.

When the summer harvest arrived, they rose early and worked late, with little free time.

Seeing how hard the children worked, Feng Yuqi returned to the tribe after dinner and fell asleep as soon as she lay down, so she stopped forcing them to learn characters.

In truth, she was quite tired herself.

For these people, carrying heavy objects and doing strenuous work was fine. But constantly bending over to do grueling labor was still something they were unaccustomed to.

As the autumn harvest approached, Feng Xu returned from outside with five or six hundred people following behind him.

This time, he had traveled very far, passing through more than fifty tribes. The dangers he encountered along the way were beyond words.

Fortunately, he returned safely.

On their first day at the Wind-Fire Tribe, those five or six hundred people ate a fragrant meal of rice.

The next day, they were hauled off to harvest rice.

The women in the tribe began giving birth one after another, and all the experienced elders went to help deliver the babies.

The tribespeople were physically strong, and every newborn was delivered safely.

With the tribe's population suddenly growing, the smile never left Feng Sui's face. He treated everyone with courtesy.

By the time Feng Xu emerged from seclusion, the autumn harvest had just finished.

During this seclusion, he refined quite a few Dharma artifacts, including several Dharma treasures.

Twenty sets of leather armor, twelve sets of bone armor, ten spears, and ten bone shields.

These were all Standard-Issue Superior Houtian Dharma Artifacts, to be distributed among the loyal core members of the tribe.

In addition, there were three mounted crossbows. These were Lower-Grade Houtian Dharma Treasures with considerable power.

Feng Xu took out the supplies from his snakeskin sack to inspect them and discovered two familiar items.

"Radishes? Cabbage! Where did these come from?"