23 Farming III : The Basement Farm

Farming is exhausting, but to be honest there's a kind of satisfaction to be gotten from it. For the past one week I have had a crash course in underground farming from Dwayne, who if I should mention was now a member of my little rabble. Along with his daughter of course. Things have not been the easier for me since then, but I pulled through.

I had asked them to leave, telling them not to worry about what they owed me, but Xaseah was adamant about staying. She's a prideful woman, but then again all night elves have more pride than they know what to do with. She was going to pay back what she owed, every. Single. Sheras she said. And then that's when I realized the value of the Dasenite I had used to pay for both mine and Xaseah's release.

I felt like a fool. That was a lot of money, and from what she said, I could have bought my freedom out of here. At that moment I was happy because I still had enough Das with me to do that, not to mention I was sure it was still leaking from the hole in the mountain wall,(if it has not been discovered yet.) But then she had to go and pour cold water over my excitement. I could leave, if I had enough strength to keep my freedom. And I knew I was not strong enough, yet.

So I spent the past week avoiding Xaseah as much as I possibly could, even though we were actually staying in the same tower. But she did not even act as if she had noticed, as she busied herself arranging and rearranging the little things I had in the tower. I still didn't trust her, regardless of the [Údāmá]. But I couldn't get rid of her, so she was bound to find out about my secrets since she lived here and by extension so did her father.

She was surprised when she discovered I still had about two hundred plus flask of Dasenite left. I was practically the richest man on Shearath, and I couldn't flaunt it, or spend the money. When she discovered it, she forced me and Nisi back to the mine, to gather up what was left. We were able to get another fifty flasks, bringing my grand total to about two hundred sixty or so.

The giant red ruby that I had broken through to get the Dasenite was excavated and transported along with the rest of the ores back to the tower. One thing shocked me through out the whole ordeal, and that was the fact that none of the guards bothered to ask questions. I knew they went around making life miserable for a lot Vampire's, but a lot of them were avoiding me like I was the plague. But my troubles did not end there.

My public ripping apart of Xaseah's throat earned me looks everywhere I turned. It was a constant reminder of how I messed up, but seeing Xaseah around me at the time seem to have eased up on a lot of dirty looks. They all believed I was trying to make amends. Apparently Xaseah has a reputation much like her grandfather among the vampires of the Green district market, much like her grandfather indeed. Except of course it's the complete opposite. People like her, even the guards which was shocking, but she refused to tell me why. Her reason, and I quote.

"I will tell you everything about myself when you trust me enough to tell me how you made such a big hole on that mountain."

Safe to say, we're not telling each other our embarrassing childhood stories for a very long time to come, if ever. Teluna did not know about my weaving abilities, and Nisi did not even know what a weaver was, even though she had a seal too. I had to keep that part of me secret, which was why I carried all my books about weaving with me, and only read it when they were all asleep.After the Dasenite fiasco, Xaseah almost had a heart attack when she discovered that Teluna was unsealed. Suddenly they became best friends, thick as thieves even. And believe me Nisi did not like that one bit, so she was always butting heads with Xaseah for every little thing possible.

After three days, we all sort of settled into a routine, and I spent the remaining time learning from Dwayne about underground farming. On Shearath, Plants were extremely sensitive to light, they grew really fast under the proper care and management of their farmers, who augment their growth with the use of the system, channeling the ether for prime and optimum effects. Dwayne did not have a farmer class, he was born a blacksmith, and that has been his only class for the entirety of his two hundred and thirteen years of life. It was his late wife who was a farmer, and a damn good one at that.

Anyway class or not, Dwayne was able to teach me the secrets to underground farming, as much as he could. Apart from plants that survive naturally in dark places, (flowers mostly fall under thiscategory.) Normal plants could be grown in a place like this with the help of crystals know as sun stones. They're naturally found ores from the cores of meteorites. The sun stones absorb light and constantly release it, as a concentrated burst of ultraviolet rays, capable of burning or causing solar radiation, or growing plants in the dark.

Dwayne had four of them, and they were about the size of a fist. Then came the next problem, and that was how to utilize the sun stones in farming, Dwayne had suggested we build a shed over the my chosen field, then have the sun stones hung from four corners so that their light would reflect on the plants. The natural or is it artificial blue light in the district, would be enough to charge the stone for redistribution.

Dwayne, also told me, that without light, the stones would only work for a minimum of six hours before they would need to be recharged again, and it takes about the same twelve hours of time for it to have enough light for redistribution. With a recharge time like that, it was rather inconvenient for a lot of farmers, but it worked well enough for me.

Before I had gone looking for Dwayne to find out how to plant in the dark, I had asked Nisi to dig a basement. Her manipulation over earth has gotten significantly better over the last week, and she had completed it to the specifications I had given her, with some help from Teluna of course. So which brings me to today, farming.

The basement was about two hundred square meters, and had four patches of earthpositioned two meters away from each other, making them look like a cross if seen from above. I also asked her to use her ability over earth to make the patches good enough for planting. Then I had her create tiny holes on the roof of the basement, four to be precise, each one over the patches of earth.It was hard to see what she was doing it, but we got it done in no time.Then I inserted each one of those sun stones in the holes, making them hang over the patches like light bulbs.

After that I had asked Dwayne if here was any particular way I had to plant the seeds he had given to me...….he gave me a shock. Apparently all four were considered weeds. They could grow anywhere, and in any climate, regardless of the way they're planted. They were basically the food of the poor, as it was affordable, edible, easy to grow and had rapid growth periods. They were right there at the bottom of the ranks for a plant. Level 1 mortal plant he says. And even then they were not as delicious as their counterparts.

I felt cheated, again. But at this point in time it shouldn't really surprise me, Dwayne was a crook to the core. In the end I just threw all the seeds in the respective patches, and sprayed our limited supply of water over them. Thankfully they did not need much water to grow, and with that out of the way I can focus on something else. And that was my weaving.

My first stop would be the book about mental energy. Mental energy also had it's own realms and circles to achieve. It was not easy to train, but with the mineral mountain and it's strange effect, it is possible to temper mental energy.

I had to wait until everybody was asleep, and that was really hard considering Teluna and Xaseah spent house discussing and talking about every and anything. And Nisi would spend most of that time glaring at them and pouting in jealousy. But at least for today, they had already gone to sleep, and I have the basement to myself. This was after all the original reason why I had Nisi build it.

[The cultivation of mental energy is practiced as an auxiliary tool to complement the execution of techniques. It serves to strengthen the mind of it's practitioners, enabling them to handle the strain that comes with manipulating the ether. Mental energy is the physical manifestation of power that stems from our mind and brains, which are capable of great and powerful feats. The cultivation of mental energy is meant to ultimately unlock the potential of the mind, but such techniques have become lost in time.]

[Many years ago, the study and use of mental energy had various classes tailored for it. However the ravages of time has made it so, that such classes, or the proper name of realms of mental energy cultivation have become lost, forgotten and obsolete. There are no more classes that use mental energy solely to power their skills and abilities. Now it is just used as foundation for power and usage of skills.]

[Mental energy is mainly used by casting classes, with a few physical classes opting to train in it for more power. The original realms have been forgotten, so a new and optimum one has been put into use. Cultivation of mental energy has been forgotten, as such no one has been capable of reaching its peak, or a realm close to it in thousands of years.The cultivation of mental energy is divided into five realms and twenty five circles. They are the open mind realm, the essence mind realm, the vision mind realm, the divine mind realm, and the transcendent mind realm.]

[The open mind realm: at this realm the power of the mind is not that perceivable in a physical aspect, as all the change happens within. There's not much change, but the user has every brain function increased, he becomes capable of thinking faster, clearer, smarter and his mind becomes stronger. Capable of resisting debilitating and damaging skills meant to target their mind. At this stage they're able to improve the rate of knowledge and execution of personal skills, exhibiting thirty percent extra effectiveness with their skills and abilities. This realm is the limit for sixty percent of the people who try to cultivate mental energy. It has five circles or stages.]

[The Essence mind realm: in this realm, the practitioners, becomes capable of moving, manipulating and affecting any physical form of matter. They would be able to use their mind to lift weights ten times their size, and with each circle they progress to in this realm, what they can carry and move with their mind doubles. This realm is the limit of thirty percent of all practitioners of modern day mental energy cultivation. It has five circles.]

[ The Vision Mind realm: at this stage the practitioners develop a sixth sense capable of predicting, noticing, and avoiding danger. It also gives them a domain of three meters in diameter, where they can sense anything that happens, and influence what happens with a thought. With each circle they advance, their current domain size is multiplied by three.This is the final realm reached for any practitioner of mental energy in modern Shearath. Only ten percent reach this stage, and of those ten percent only one percent can advance to the second circle. As for the third, such a method is now lost to us.]