Steel, Explosives, and Spellcasters

The winter came somewhat late this year.

It was almost November, yet the evening sun still cast a sliver of warmth over the fields.

The dreamlike pure blue sky was smeared with a layer of vast twilight, enveloping farmhouses, open fields, rivers, and the distant forests and mountains shrouded in light purple haze.

Night was drawing near, and the farmers from the villages east and west of the river had long returned home to drink barley porridge.

But on the land that was once Mitchell's estate, now the first "Harvest" farm of Wolfton town, there were still people laboring.

An old man with his coat open, stubbornly lifted his wrinkled forehead, firmly holding the plough with both hands, walking barefoot in front.

Two draft horses struggled to pull the plow, walking ahead of the old man. Moist steam blew from their nostrils, and sweat gathered on their ribs, streaming down in beads.

Behind the horses, the deep plow blade dug a long furrow into the soil.

The subsoil was turned over, large clumps of turf spiraled in the air following the moldboard, eventually lying upside down next to the furrow.

In front of the plow blade were a pair of wheels, which alleviated the horses' burden and ensured the blade entered the soil a perfect nine inches deep, no more, no less.

This was the heavy plow, equipped with a yoke, wheels, and a moldboard fit for turning soil.

It was cumbersome and slow, requiring significant effort to turn. To minimize the number of times the plow had to be turned while plowing, the smallholder farmers' plots were narrow and elongated, arranged side by side like zebra stripes.

Having discussed the disadvantages, let's move on to the advantages. Simply put, it could cultivate the tough, heavy clay that was otherwise difficult to farm.

The soil of Paratu was sticky and heavy, with plenty of rocks. Before the invention and spread of the heavy plow, this kind of land was utterly worthless. It was left to grow trees and grass, unfit for settled agriculture and at best used for grazing.

So, the people of the Ancient Republic disdainfully called the fishing and hunting tribes living here "pig herders," because one of their major food sources was to drive pigs into the forests to forage and then hunt the semi-wild pigs in the autumn.

It could be said that the history of the Ancient Empire's expansion into the wilderness was the history of the spread and branching out of the heavy plow.

The horse-drawn heavy plow had another advantage over the ox-drawn one—speed.

The old man managed the plow, and in the blink of an eye, he had already covered a hundred meters.

Merely turning the soil over was far from enough; it also needed to be "harrowed" to make it loose and airy.

So, behind the old man followed a dozen or so youths. The ones in front wielded sticks and pickheads, shattering the large chunks of hardpan as they went; the others dragged a rake like that of a bed of nails behind them, gently scraping the surface of the earth and further breaking apart the clods, slightly leveling the field.

Harrowing was usually done by horses pulling a harrow frame. But Harvest Farm had more manpower than animal power, and the valuable horses were harnessed to ploughs, naturally leaving the harrowing to the half-grown youths.

Following the youths were their parents.

A short middle-aged farmer shouldered a small basket of seeds, rhythmically swinging his arm. The seeds leaked from his fingers like dripping rainwater from the eves, scattering evenly over the loose soil.

This was literally "broadcast sowing," completely done by hand.

It might seem like an easy job, since the short middle-aged farmer was hardly sweating. He walked unhurriedly under the slanted rays of the autumn sun, as if a knight were surveying his estate. Meanwhile, everyone else, old and young, was already drenched in sweat.

In reality, sowing was the most difficult task, requiring great skill. Only if the seeds were sown evenly could the wheat grow uniformly.

You might slack off on other farm work, and if done poorly, there was a chance to do it over. But if the seeds were sown unevenly, there was no second chance.

The sowing had always been supervised by the plow-holding old man himself. But now he was too old, and his hands had grown unsteady, so with mixed emotions, he handed the seed basket to his eldest son and went to man the plow instead.

Four adult farmers tugged a log roller, walking behind the sower.

The roller flattened the field the seeds were embedded into the soil, and the ground was appropriately compacted for easier harvesting later on.

Lastly, a few women carrying water jugs followed, bending over from time to time to water the ground where the wheat had been sown. Only after tasting water would the seeds germinate and root.

Watering was another activity requiring patience and precision; over-watering wasn't okay, and neither was under-watering, so this task was given to the women.

Two horses, a plow, and a group of diligent people slowly progressed across the open field, with the wheat seeds thus being sown.

Compared to the desolate, silent land, the seeds were tiny. But they were life, and life could grow. One day, the small seeds would stand tall on the earth in their golden bodies, bearing new life.

By then, this dead silence of the wilderness would be transformed into a golden ocean.

Three men sat atop the farm's fence, watching this ordinary yet grand scene enthralled.

From left to right, they were Bard, Winters, and Little Lion.

"Do you know what the easiest crop to grow in the world is?" Bard suddenly asked.

"Rye?" Little Lion asked curiously.

"No, it's people." Bard sighed softly, "[Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it]. These crops, once sown, will stubbornly grow even if left unattended."

Winters and Little Lion chewed on these words, falling into thought.

"The New Reclamation Legion has delayed us for too long," Bard lamented, "We simply don't have enough time to properly tend the fields. Right now, we must plow and sow as widely and quickly as possible, so we can't afford to be meticulous."