I woke up, which is a much different—and better—feeling when your stomach isn’t growling and you aren’t scared of starving the next morning. The mattress was bad and lumpy, but Adri— Ma’s stew still wafted in the house, the low fire going through the night.

  Ma always said stew never went bad if you let it simmer.

  I went downstairs and my thoughts were about my field. I had a goal in mind: I had to produce at least nine Common-quality carrots. I haphazardly picked up the wooden bowl and poured some stew inside. I brought the spoon up to my lips...

  ...and spat it out.

  Flora damn it.

  I put the wooden bowl in the pantry, away from my grasp, as I just ate from the ladle, and went back to my thoughts.

  The soil quality in a few spots was back to 100%, but that didn’t mean the crop quality improved. All it meant was the seed’s chance to grow was now 100%. I had to increase it beyond 100, and for even higher levels I’d need the seeds of Common, and then Good, quality plants. That required a seed grinder.

  I groaned. Seed grinders were in the [Craftswoman] tree as well, but incredibly far up. It’d be easier to buy one, but the cheapest I knew was 200 gold, and it only turned one crop into a packet of seeds a day. For the first nine carrots, that’d be fine, but it was a scaling problem—one made easier if I could just make it myself.

  Focus, Ashley—that’s a future problem. Right now, you just need to make Common blood carrots, not think about a future problem.

  I went outside to the farm and took full stock of what was in front of me. I had thousands and thousands of tiles. Outside of a small clearing right beside the cottage, there was too much debris. I’d have to spend days and so much energy to clear and sort this mess. The weeds would die in winter, so I could focus on the rocks and stone then.

  I sighed and looked ahead. I had one clearing for carrots, but I had two pouches. I grumbled to myself and got to work. I took my scythe and began to cut the weeds. They were low to the ground, and with a common scythe I could only manage one at a time. My arms felt heavy after the first swing—but thankfully, there were only five sprouts in the way.

  And that meant five grass fibers, which I had no use for at the moment.

  The axe was next, and it felt heavy in my arms. I knew my body was frail, but I didn’t seem to have any strength at all. Even just removing five weeds made me feel winded. Holding the axe to the sky and chopping wood wasn’t any better, even as the twigs broke from my frenzied assault. Three in total, and that meant one stone. I stumbled forward and took the hammer. I almost fell back from the attempt. The iron head of the hammer struck against the stone and it cracked!

  That meant the field was ready for...

  Tilling.

  I was sweating, and my thin muscles ached. I took deep, raspy swallows of air, pushing whatever could enter into my lungs. I looked inside and then at the sun. I spent 2 hours, and my body was already hating me—just to remove weeds, three twigs, and a rock.

  I laughed to myself. I wasn’t built for physical labor, and while I could use [Mage Hand] to do it for me, I needed my mind more than my weak body.

  I knelt on the dirt, glad that my new clothing was at least comfortable to work in. I took a handful to use [Inspect].

  I blinked, looking at that information. I’d completely forgotten about that small tidbit. I looked at my hand and the scar from the last time I bled. I didn’t measure, and realistically, I had to improvise. But I also had my new talent—[Sanguine Font].

  Flora damn it, Ashley. You let your desperation mess up your experiment. You don’t know if human blood is more vital than animal blood, how much human blood you need, and how much your own blood changed. There was something else I could figure out, though, as I returned to my other field and used [Inspect].

  That was information! I knew I’d spilled my blood on it before, but there’s no transitive property. It didn’t reveal if [Compost] added to Blood Crop, or if it prioritized soil rejuvenation first.

  I would have to write all of this down in the Mortis Agrariae so I wouldn’t forget.

  I started a new chapter, away from my starting scribbles:

  ON SOIL

  On growing and cultivating the soil itself to make crops.

  I already knew some of this from my time with Pa.

  FACTS

  Soil Quality determines the seed’s chance to grow.

  → Going over 100% means the quality of the crop has a chance to increase.

  Increased seed quality means the starting quality of the crop is higher.

  → Common seeds make Common crops. Common seeds are not sold by vendors; only traded or made by a seed extractor.

  This immediately made two inferences for me. I also had to make a word for “Soil Blood Level”—[Soil Anima]?

  INFERENCES

  [Soil Anima] (Definition: the soil blood level—the % chance of creating a blood crop) is not related to the quality of the crop.

  Both [Soil Quality] (Definition: the soil’s chance to successfully grow a crop, and then at >100%, to upgrade to the next quality) and [Soil Anima] are relevant.

  Wait...

  I started a new column.

  HYPOTHESIS

  What happens when [Soil Anima] exceeds 100%? Can it exceed 100%?

  I got up from the ground to stare at my mostly untilled field and the dry dirt in front of me. I found my body shaking, but instead of tears?

  I laughed. It was the first honest, good laugh I’d had in a while, and tears flowed from my eyes. I was... smiling, as I picked myself up.

  I really put myself in a corner against Madeleine here, huh. But Ma didn’t raise no quitter.

  She also didn’t raise a killer. Your implication, Ashley Hart, is you need to kill a control group—rabbits—and use them to figure out what’s going on. You’ll need to drain and measure their blood, you’ll have to find out how much of their blood goes into the soil, and then...

  I shook my head. I’m a farmer.

  What I’m describing is animal husbandry. Except I don’t need to do it for milk or anything, and rabbits are ideal for this. I don’t need to hunt.

  You do need to butcher, Ashley. You never had the stomach for it. Remember Mirchie?

  ...I’ll keep one and call her Mirchie Jr.

  And then kill her children?

  Do you want to starve? We have to go back to Oakheart and get the meadow and barn set. For rabbits.

  I glanced at my gold. I had 5 left.

  The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

  No—I had 105. I growled to myself. There were two options in front of me: either take Adrian’s pity, get so many rabbits, and just handle my farm, or buy a bow and some arrows, hunt rabbits, and [Compost] them myself.

  I spat on the ground.

  My last 5 gold was spent on a beginner’s bow, some arrows, and a quick lesson on how to use it. The bowyer recommended a crossbow, but I wanted a bow. When I told him my plan was to hunt wild game, he just shrugged. He handed me an easy-to-use shortbow and told me to have fun and try the woodlot near my farm.

  And farm clothes were clearly not for hunting. My leather apron and workboots kept cracking twigs and getting caught on bushes, startling any game I found.

  That changed when I entered the clearing. A black rabbit with white whiskers sat, chewing happily on a shrub it had found. Its eyes scanned the area, noticing me, but since I’d kept my distance, it didn’t really care. Its little mouth pushed into its shrub and chewed happily, blissfully unaware.

  My eyes saw Mirchie, and though she was white with a black puffball of a tail, this bunny had the same eyes, watching me curiously. I closed my eyes, and my hand drifted upward, holding the grip of the bow. My fingers shook, vibrating the drawstring unsteadily. The arrow clattered, striking against the bow, and the nock wouldn’t seat against the string.

  I closed my eyes and took a deep breath.

  Mirchie’s corpse stood in the clearing, and the black wolf devoured its guts. I remembered screaming, and Adrian pulling me into him. The hot, warm tears flowed, as I just heard the sound of wood striking against the beast’s body. It whimpered, and my best friend panted in front of me.

  And then I remembered being embraced. “Sorry, Ashy... I’m so sorry.” Was Adrian really that bad? I hadn’t done anything wrong yet, and if I just asked, he’d help me.

  I didn’t want to do this.

  He’d lord it over me, like when I lost to the wolf. Watching me far too closely, making sure I wouldn’t get hurt. He’d sit quietly beside me and mock me in his head as I lamented Mirchie’s death. And then he’d stroke my back and tell me I was going to be all right—even though it was my loss. I wouldn’t get Mirchie back, even if something like that was replaceable to him.

  I swallowed.

  Fuck him. I want to be free.

  My hands stopped shaking, and the arrow flew... honestly, kind of clumsily. It still pierced the rabbit’s skull, and I heard the sounds of gray cicadas singing. I didn’t need the Whistle to tell me it was dead, since its eyes staring at the sky—finally free—told me enough.

  My stomach heaved. I was a [Farm Girl], not a killer.

  No, I was an [Acolyte]. I shakily stepped forward. My body wanted to give up and collapse, and the stew in my stomach wanted to expel itself. I dropped to my knees and sucked in air again. I would not cry. I held the body, still twitching.

  [Inspect]

  I pulled out the Mortis Agrariae and started an Appendix.

  Notes on creatures and animals, and other uncategorized things.

  Rabbits

  I looked up the tooltip and began to write.

  That was a lot of information and revealed so much. I immediately started a new portion of my book.

  HUSBANDRY

  Farmable animals and the conversion of them.

  FACTS

  Animals have different types (e.g., vermin).

  The freshness of a kill determines its [Compost] value.

  The freshness of a kill determines its [Drain Anima] value.

  Are those two linked?

  INFERENCE

  Bigger animal types have more [Compost] value and vitae.

  These two are not linked and will deteriorate at different rates.

  Which led to the next logical conclusion.

  HYPOTHESIS

  I need to kill an animal and observe the rate of decay.

  I gulped. To fix my tilled fields [Soil Quality], I’d need... 14 more rabbits. I’d need 20 rabbits per tile if I wanted to maximize the [Soil Anima]... which sounds excessive. I could use my blood in exchange, but I don’t know the rate or amount just yet. So, for my observations, I need 16 in total. 14 for the fields, and one to... bloodlet, and then another to rot.

  You hear yourself, right, Ashley?

  Moving on. I can do this.

  I returned to my farm with 16 dead rabbits. It wasn’t easier than the first one, but I slowly got over it. My determination to figure out how this worked was far more important than my memories of my pet rabbit.

  I began by inspecting the first rabbit I’d killed.

  I balked. It was hardly 2 hours—the rabbit was still warm. Anima must be tied to inherent life force. This was a needed fact to know. I looked at my last rabbit, and it was still “fresh” at 5%.

  I guessed I’d start with this. I lined them up and brought up the most recently killed rabbit.

  I pulled out an ounce of blood. It needed an ounce. I dropped it on one of my tiles, and I saw it increase by 5%. I repeated the process.

  The soil reached 20% before the rabbit was completely exsanguinated. More progress! Just five rabbits. An ounce was 30 mL, so that meant a rabbit had about 120 mL with some change.

  That dawned on me. I must have lost at least 9 ounces of blood when I did this for my field to make it grow. I don’t know how much I improved it by, but the likelihood of succeeding nine times seemed wrong. And my new blood was buffed. I wasn’t looking forward to that part of this experiment.

  I wrote it down under Soil.

  FACTS

  Each application of anima requires 1 ounce—30 mL.

  Then, under Husbandry, two new facts.

  FACTS

  An animal’s anima spoils quickly.

  The amount that can be extracted depends on how many ounces of blood a creature has.

  That... brought a grim inference.

  INFERENCE

  Blood farms.

  I underlined that term.

  HYPOTHESES

  Full exsanguination or safe extraction?

  I could also store it in a reagent holder, I assumed per the tooltip. I wrote that down under Facts.

  FACTS

  Anima can be stored in reagent holders—a blood vat. That would prevent spoilage.

  I...

  I stopped questioning what I was writing. It was getting tiring. These were all deductions; I didn’t have to do anything with it. It was knowledge, not application.

  I quickly flipped to my appendices and jotted down information on rabbits.

  Has 120 mL of blood—4 applications for a total of 20%.

  I threw fourteen rabbits on the newly tilled tiles and used [Compost]. The Symphony took over, and the soil on those tiles was restored to 100%.

  I then planted the seeds. Madeleine had provided me with poor seeds, so I’d use the two rabbits I had left to push one of my tiles to 200% soil quality. I’d harvest that Common carrot, put it through the town’s seed converter, and then begin producing Common ones. Of course, that’d mean I’d only be able to produce eight carrots for the next few harvests, then seven. One of my carrots would have to remain normal.

  I wasn’t going to run a blood carrot through the seed harvester. Too risky.

  So, one of my plots went to 200% soil quality, and then I moved on.

  I was curious about how strong my blood potency was, so, just to test, I pricked my finger—1 mL of blood. It dropped, and the soil became dark and began to seep. Cicadas chirped, and that cold stillness permeated.

  I then used [Inspect] on the soil.

  The system used my terminology. That made me smile, but then frown at OVERRIDDEN. I guess using my blood guaranteed a blood crop, but I wouldn’t know what happens if I went over 100%. 17 mL wasn’t much, but I clearly didn’t want to spend 8 liters of blood—I don’t even think I had that much in me—to do the entire field. This would be temporary.

  My field was growing, and I decided not to write about my own blood potency. I knew what I was worth already.