Infinite Farmer

In his enclosure, Tulland was already working on his next project. He had spent the better part of a few hours the day before building the pit trap, but that was a necessary risk. It took time to dig a hole, and more time to plant a cultivated briar seed at the bottom, juice it with magic, cover the whole thing with enough briar thorns to look like semi-solid ground, and leave a single cultivated fruit as bait.

The investment was worth it. He had picked up two levels worth of experience just today, setting and resetting the trap with his excess of cultivated fruit and the briar branches. He had worried that the monster corpses left in the pit would warn the others off, until he had gone out to clean it out for the first time and found it clean except for an exceptionally vibrant, healthy looking briar.

"Even if I could, I won't ask any questions about what happened there," Tulland said to the briar. It might have been his imagination but the briar seemed to twitch at those words.

Now, Tulland was busy clipping off several feet of his briar tangle and wrapping it around the strongest branch he had been able to safely find in the forest. His best idea for a weapon so far was to make a briar-wrapped club and see how that did on the local wildlife.

"Hey System. You around?" Tulland asked after turning off the communication barrier.

You know I am. Where would I go?

"Good point. I have a question for you."

One I would answer for what reason?

"Because you have nothing better to do."

The System went quiet, but Tulland wasn't fooled. It had been lying to him for months, but some things were harder to fake. It could tolerate endless periods of nothing happening, but it was vulnerable to the kind of boredom where something demanded attention then didn't justify the need. It hated services from the Church, not just because they came from his enemies but because they droned on. It couldn't stand Tulland's sessions with his tutor either.

And most of all, it hated waiting for a response. It couldn't tolerate being ignored.

Tulland sat placidly, working thorns into the wood of the stick while trying to make his makeshift spiked club. He knew it was only a matter of time.

What is your question?

"I thought you didn't want to answer."

I am generous. Ask.

Tulland kept his face straight as he waited a moment, then let the System know what he had on his mind.

"The beasts here. Are they especially resistant to the attacks of people without a class? If a very strong man came here with a knife, but no class, would they be more difficult for him to kill than they should?"

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An interesting question.

"I thought so. Do you know the answer?"

I do. And it's yes, in some ways. It would matter who made…

The System went quiet.

"Keep going. I'm listening."

No. I've wasted my own time here. I'm done.

"Oh, come on. Don't be like that."

The System wouldn't speak again, no matter how Tulland asked or cajoled. But Tulland thought he might have an answer anyway. He was fairly sure that the unfinished thought the System decided not to share was that it would matter who made the knife. Tulland's farming tool was not powered by his own class, at least in its function as a weapon. And it wasn't made by someone with a class, despite being a System-built item.

But if a blacksmith with a smithing class made a knife, it would carry a might of its own. As a product of some system or another, it would be made to interact with other things created by and for the class and leveling system. A very strong man wielding one of those knives could kill one of these monsters. Tulland was almost sure of it.

Tulland didn't know how to work metal and didn't have any skills for making bows. But he did have plants grown by a true Farmer class, using system-granted skills. He wouldn't have believed there was any chance that things would work this way if he hadn't already had some confirmation, courtesy of several dead monsters who had failed to make it out of his pit trap.

And even if The Infinite doesn't think this monster-fertilized vine is different enough to give it a new description, it sure seems like it's gonna work at least a little bit better.

Before Tulland tried it out, he made sure he had contingencies. He set up his collapsible rope thorn trap again and dug a few pit traps that he covered in a way that was obvious to him but hopefully less so for the monsters. Once that was in place, he stepped out, stood at the entrance of his compound, and waited.

He didn't have to wait long. It was less than five minutes before one of the walking balls of territorial rage spotted him and made a beeline for what looked like easy prey.

But in many ways, Tulland wasn't as soft as he was when he had first arrived in this forest.

As the Lunger got close, Tulland held his swing as long as he could. He had options if he missed, but he didn't want to use them if he could help it. Luckily, the animal sensed something was wrong right at the last moment, and skidded to a stop not quite entirely out of Tulland's range. He swung as hard as he could.

The end of Tulland's new club was studded with pounds of briar vines and dozens of finger-long, razor sharp thorns. During the construction process, Tulland had reflected on all of the pain that his initial encounter with one of the monsters brought, and added more and more weight to the club until it literally couldn't hold any more thorns or vines. It turned out that, in the process, he had drifted dangerously far into overkill territory.

The club didn't just penetrate with its thorns or entangle with its vines. The weight of the thing crushed the animal at the point of impact, bludgeoning it to death at the same time the thorns punctured through it.

Tulland took a second to process what just happened.

"Holy crap. Did you see that, System?"

I… did. I did not suspect that things would work like that.

"Really? After all your centuries of doing what you do?"

It's not as if Farmers end up in dungeons often, boy. How would I learn this, besides watching your situation?

Tulland nodded. That seemed probable enough. Which meant that, for now, he had a way of destroying the enemies who lived in this forest. Farmer didn't seem to be a class that needed a lot of experience to level. The requirements would probably get higher and higher as his level got higher, but he probably could get at least one or two more levels out of this area before he topped it out.

While that was a victory of sorts, it was limited. On some level, Tulland knew that these terrifying little animals were the weakest, least-threatening beasts that this dungeon had to offer. They were a tutorial, something anyone with a sword and a sword-handling class would have mowed through without a second thought.

For Tulland, after days of pain and near-death experiences, he could just about fight them evenly. But after this floor, there would be another stronger and faster enemy, and another beyond that. Even this floor had threats he hadn't seen yet, probably bigger ones too. A club covered with kinda-magic vines wouldn't be enough to keep him safe forever.

Tulland would have to think of something else. For now, he had a little time until his traps caught enough of the Lungers to cap the experience he could get out of them. He had a vague hope that the traps would never give out, that they would be close enough of a thing to farming that the Dungeon System would reward him for them forever.

It wasn't meant to be. As soon as he hit the next level, the Dungeon System let him know the gravy train was stopped. Worse, the experience he was getting from farming each individual briar was now next to nothing. The leveling requirement was enough that it would take weeks and weeks before he hit the next one. It was too much time to wait and hope nothing went wrong in this place.

Tulland almost dumped the points he had gained from his new level into his physical stats before he stopped himself.

Farming. Huh. He hadn't thought much about the skills he got from his class except to bemoan them since he got here. But it was Enrich Seed and Quickgrow that had given him all the progress he had managed. While it would be nice to swing his club a little harder and faster, it wasn't going to save him from anything truly big and strong.

From what the tutor had said, mind was a mental defense stat, while spirit had to do with how fast magical force was restored. But force directly impacted how strong a skill became when it was released, how effective it was at doing whatever it aimed to do.

There was more to it than that, but those details weren't worth considering at the moment. This was a broad-strokes kind of situation, one where Tulland needed big changes, and couldn't afford to spend his limited resources on anything that didn't cause them.

Mental defense could wait, and Tulland had nothing but time to wait for his magic to restore itself. What he didn't have was any way to improve what he did, to make stronger plants.

And stronger plants is… it might be nothing. But it might be something, right?

Tulland looked at the club in his hands. It was something, but sooner or later, it would fail. That was certain. And when that happened, he needed something better. The chance of farming actually making a difference was slim, near enough to nothing to almost make no difference.

But not zero.

Tulland closed his eyes and put all five points into force, then went to dig a new pit trap. He was going to enrich a seed more than he ever had before, and he would be damned if it wasn't going to be well fertilized.

—

The System watched as Tulland threw his club back over his shoulder and moved back to his camp. He must have realized what the System had always known. There was a chance Tulland would climb a few floors with his own abilities and desire to live. And if he did, the System would profit from it. But the chances of Tulland actually clearing his way to the safe zone were nil. Standing in his unarmed and unskilled path was a real challenge. The kind that even the most talented warriors equipped with full System's gifts would barely overcome.

The Infinite was an elite dungeon, for the brave and successful. It was a place they came to prove that they were not just among the best, but the very best there was. The Infinite was where heroes went to gamble their lives on getting the power that their worlds needed to survive, thrive, and reach entirely new levels.

It wasn't a place for the weak. And if there was one thing the System was sure of, it was that Tulland was weak.