Infinite Farmer

Necia turned out to be pretty good company, as company went. She was very fast at digging up soil, especially with Tulland's new overpowered shovel. Once a day or so had passed without the giants wrecking their garden, Tulland gained a level on his Primal Growth, the soil thrived beyond even what he thought it would, and he stared at a couple of very healthy, very wide Ironbranch trees.

"So is today the day?" Necia asked. "It seems like your farm is pretty much as good as you can get it."

"Yes, if only because this moss looks just about done. A couple more Primal Growths should do it, if my intuition is right."

"Do what? You still haven't told me why the moss is important."

"That's because it's a surprise. Just drink your juice and give me a minute."

Necia pouted but did what he asked. Eventually, the moss did turn, a big mass of it morphing into a hard, beautiful crystal all at once. Tulland figured it had to be more than the Farmer's Tool needed, and he was right. The tool took all the crystal it could, then reduced the rest of what he had offered to dust. He summoned the pitchfork back into being, gratified to see the tines now gleamed with a new jeweled deadliness that he frankly just loved. It was a real weapon. It even felt like a real weapon in his hands, and almost like he knew how to use it. Giving it a thrust, he found it jutted out with a steady stability he just hadn't had before.

"Oooh. Pretty. That is a good surprise," Necia said as she watched Tulland smile at his strike.

"Actually, not the surprise. But yes, it's great." Tulland ran back to one of his trees, where a carefully hollowed out section of branch held just a little more moss, carefully shaped by the hole in the wood. Taking his knife, he carefully prided it out, and then just as carefully tied it in a bit of Wolfwood fur he had dried, cut into cords, and twisted together to make some rough string. "Here. For you."

Necia took the string doubtfully, eyed the rock, then swung it a few times like a flail.

Shoot. She thinks it's a weapon.

"No, no. I mean… hold on." Tulland grabbed the cord and stepped to the side, reaching the cord around Necia's neck. She was short enough at the moment that this wasn't hard. "It just needs a bit of a tie, and then… there. It looks good."

Necia's mouth dropped open as she raised her hand to the little amber jewel, looked closely at it glinting in the sun, and then looked back to Tulland. Her cheeks reddened.

"Are you sure you haven't done this whole dating thing before, Tulland?"

"No." Tulland smiled nervously. "Why?"

"Because." Necia stepped closer and slipped her arms under his. "You aren't half-bad at it."

The day's schedule went by the wayside for a little bit after that. When they finally went out giant-hunting, hours had passed.

—

"I've got him, Tulland! Let's see if this works!" Necia yelled.

According to Necia, the giants didn't have much in the way of weaknesses. They were big and strong, probably strong enough to turn Tulland into jelly with one good hit. But the lack of weaknesses had some upside in the fact that there really wasn't a bad place to hit them. You just had to swing enough times while tanking enough damage to not die.

Necia could do that by herself, she just didn't like to. She claimed it was as not-fun as a hunting activity could be. She also, without a moment's hesitation, stated that trying to do the same thing would be suicide for Tulland. He had opted out of that outcome for something better. He had been building landmines.

"Just keep coming. Keep ahead, too! I need a second to activate them once you are through," Tulland yelled back.

Necia nodded and ran as fast as she could, which was still not all that fast. It was just enough to keep ahead of a giant as it swept its long ape-arms down at her from the sky. Luckily, the lead held up as she passed one of Tulland's auxiliary briar gardens, the ones he had built entirely for the purpose of acting as a kind of botanical landmine.

Thank the gods these things are nearsighted. No way this would work otherwise. But it had worked, twice now. Necia would kite a giant, sometimes for miles. And Tulland would spring a distracting wad of briars around their foot, which they would then stop to take care of. Between those briars and Tulland and Necia working to cut off the other foot, the giants went down pretty quickly, their overall health sapped by the general assault on their feet.

This time he was trying something even worse, a mean-spirited trick he didn't think would work until the giant's foot came down on a sharpened Ironbranch Sapling that was still growing in the ground and it punched through the entire extremity like a nail. And the giant wasn't just distracted by it. As the Lunger Briars ripped out of the ground and further injured its foot, it fell over, allowing Tulland and Necia free rein to go after its back. It took a minute to kill that one, tops.

"That's a cap on the Earth giants for me."

"That quick?" Necia started carving into the giant's calves, storing a big chunk of meat in her pack before letting the rest of the bag fill up with blood. "That's only three of them."

"That's how it is for my class. Not all of my strength is supposed to come from fighting. I think. Something like that, anyway."

"That's stupid. But yes, good, I'm glad. Now let's get back to your main farm before this stuff ruins my bag. I already have to leave it in the water for hours before it stops smelling."

The Earth Giants, it had turned out, were excellent fertilizer. Tulland had been harvesting all the blood and flesh he could from them to soak his farm. While the briars had very clearly appreciated it, they were already about as good as he could get them without figuring out some new evolution. The trees were the real winners here, and he was glad to be the proud owner of a briar patch almost completely walled in by different kinds of trees, including the useless conifers from the last level. On top of that, he had every moss he had found, every shrub he knew of, and a handful of new grasses and beach plants from this world.

It was, compared to his original farm, a botanical garden. And it was showing in every one of his farming skills.

Every skill had grown here. His Farmer's Intuition was getting better just from looking at the soil, and had gained another level just from having to think about how to best arrange and care for so many plants. His combat skills were both more powerful now, courtesy of unleashing them on helpless, distracted giants. Even his regeneration was better due to the fact that the giants weren't entirely helpless, and sometimes managed flailing kicks that sent Tulland flying and broke his bones in a way that made him very glad Necia was there to cover for his inept ways.

Primal Growth had been leveling like there was no tomorrow. But the real winner here, the absolute glory of his leveling, was Broadcast. Because with this most recent level, he had something that was beyond the value of mere leveling.

Being able to effect more plants at once was always nice, and a better power ratio was even nicer. But a day or so ago now, Tulland had started planting new, powerfully enriched seeds in hunks of giant flesh and soil soaked in giant's blood around his farm, and he had done it in anticipation of the length increase. Fifteen square meters was a big increase, and he was glad that The Infinite was keeping its promise on nice, round numbers.

Now, the power of the increased farm size hit his plants all at once. He could feel the briars in his hands and dimensional storage get bigger, meaner, and more lively. It was a beautiful, beautiful day.

"You are smiling pretty good for a guy soaked in giant blood. Good class thing?" Necia asked.

"A very good class thing. A bigger farm, basically. It makes most of the things I do better," Tulland said.

"Amazing, Tulland. I'm glad for you." Necia grabbed his bloody, gross hand with hers as they walked along. "But I'm more excited to get into the river if I'm being honest. I'll meet you back at camp?"

"Of course."

Tulland and Necia were getting much closer, but in a slow, fun way that still left the necessity for separate river bathing spots very much in place. He went to his, slowly soaking the blood out of his clothes and off his body before scrubbing his hair with the sandy mud that lined the river banks. Without soap, it was the best he could do.

Luckily, Necia couldn't do much more than that either. Between gross monster blood and inadequate bathing facilities, the two of them weren't pretty sights. He was pretty sure he couldn't get away with this level of gross back in a town.

Back at the farm, Tulland looked over his new plot happily. He had about the same mixture in the new outer area as he had in the inner one, including newly planted trees that were, if anything, thriving a bit better than he had expected they would.

Actually that's better than they should in any case. What's up with you, little Ironbranch tree?

The trees were shorter than he would have expected at this age, but much, much thicker and more squat. He had to physically touch the bark of the tree before The Infinite had mercy on him and let him know what was going on.

That was a straight, across the board upgrade to one of his plants, and he had an experimental garden full of these things, just waiting to be harvested and messed with. With Necia still taking her time bathing, Tulland took his ultra-sharp hoe and went to work cutting a few of them out of the ground.

"Do my eyes deceive me? Are those stools, Tulland?" Necia was trying to sound sarcastic and playful, but failed miserably. She had a look Tulland recognized all too well, the chair-hunger of the person who had spent the last several weeks sitting in dirt or on rocks. "Actual stools, like ones people use?"

"For now, of course. Nothing less for my girlfriend." Tulland slipped with his knife and cut his finger a bit. "Damn. That hurt."

"Working on something?" Necia sat down on her tree stump, looking unbelievably satisfied.

"Yeah. One of the trees evolved, and I think I'm going to be able to get some armor out of them." Tulland used a rock to hammer Necia's knife a bit further into the trunk he was working on. "Assuming I can get them apart, anyway."

"Well, you have time. A few more days, at least. And then I have to move on. But you could. I don't know. Catch up. Show me in the safe zone."

"I could." Tulland put down his plant and started getting one of Necia's bigger, nicer pots warming on his heating machine on the top of one of the tree trunks. "For now, let's just eat some dinner and rest. I'm bushed."