Chapter 963: Farmers Only

Chapter 963: Farmers Only

Things were going... rather slowly for a while. It had been more than three weeks since I heard that prayer on death’s door, meaning that we were now more than a quarter of the way to the next meeting. So far, I hadn’t heard back from Balu yet about the ‘protection service’ I had offered, but there was still plenty of time left. As she had said, that business was most suitable for near the end of the Standard Month.

That left me with little to do but waiting for my world to progress and working on my training. While it was certainly possible for me to skip ahead to let new technologies develop, it felt like it would be best to wait for that until I had finished completing my Martial Intent for both my gun and fist. At present, I had only touched the threshold of the gun intent, and had not made much progress with my fist.

As I was thinking about that and deciding where I wanted to train next, Terra’s voice spoke up in my mind. Mind coming to the Admin Room? We have some new systems for you to look over.

I couldn’t help but blink when I heard that. We? I responded back as I got up, preparing to make my way to my office.

Ashley and I. Her team has made some advancements, and they’re ready to be shown now. There was an obvious smile in Terra’s tone, but I had to admit that I was curious. She had told me about some interesting systems that the programming team was working on.

Without delay, I ascended to the Admin Room as soon as I was back in my office. Sure enough, both Ashley and Terra were already waiting for me in the conference room, a stack of papers sitting in front of Ashley. “How many systems have they come up with?” I muttered to myself as I moved to sit down, signaling for the two of them to begin.

“Just a few. Some of them have rather detailed specifications, though.” Ashley reported with a faint chuckle, squaring up the papers in front of her. “First of all... Terra told me that you were interested in a farming system to use the system to revitalize fields?”

“That’s right. It’s probably not all that important, since you can get fertilizer from Digital Conversion, but it would help in the long run.” When I said that, Ashley blinked, shaking her head.

“Using fertilizer that way isn’t really cost effective. There might be some slight gains, but that is the increase provided by the farmer themselves, not the fertilizer. After all, the fertilizer has to be of considerably high quality to nourish high level crops.” I paused when Ashley said that, glancing over at Terra questioningly.

“That’s why I didn’t list that as one of the feasible options... you were just so sure about it at the time that I wasn’t allowed to talk you out of it until someone did the research.” Terra gave a helpless shrug as she said that. “While the Digital Conversion system is undeniably one of the most powerful systems at your disposal, it is far from omnipotent.”Ne/w novel chapters are published at novelhall.com

“Right... sorry about that. So, they finished the farming system?” I looked over at Ashley, who nodded her head.

“That’s right. It took a little while to finish because the code kept mutating based on different changes, making us go through and patch things in the weirdest places.” Ashley let out a long sigh as she explained. “The system’s code isn’t a single fixed programming language. Instead, it’s more... organic? The language of the code changes based on how it is used. The command to replenish essential minerals and nutrients in the soil on its own, when connected to the Class system to determine Farmer level, instead creates a vacuum and spawns killer rabbits.”

“Because of that, the code has to essentially be rewritten every time the language mutates, taking into account the known mutations. I’m fairly certain that the problem could be resolved with a better integrated development environment, but I don’t know enough about the mechanics behind the mutating code to create one.”

“The worst part is when we face a mutation we haven’t encountered yet, and the team has to try to learn the code from the ground up to figure out how to make it work. That’s the main reason why these systems take so long to complete, even now that I have a team working on it.”

“Doesn’t that mean that the rest of the systems will mutate as well, once you add this stuff in?” I asked in concern, though Ashley shook her head.

“I believe that this system will encourage more citizens to take up farming, as it will provide an alternative to obtain raw resources, aside from manual mining and Digital Conversion.”

After she said that, Ashley placed her hands on the stack of paper, looking at me to wait for my opinion. This system was... a bit strange, to be honest. I wouldn’t say that it was bad, per se. However, I also wouldn’t say that it was something urgently required. Closing my eyes, I thought about it for a moment. “I’ll approve this system, but only for Lorek and Spica.”

“...Interesting choice, mind if I ask why?” Ashley asked with an arched brow.

“Lorek and Spica already have less naturally than other worlds. For instance, they can’t use runic magic, familiars, or the natural divinity progression. Their only way to grow is through cultivation, unless they are willing to leave their world and get their advancements elsewhere.”

“Additionally, Spica has the full adaptation trait. This trait should heavily synergize with the farming, allowing crops to grow with less nutrients. While the crop might have some defects if the nutrients were insufficient, it wouldn’t be a problem for them to grow in the first place. At the same time, Lorek has vastly more space to cultivate crops.”

“Most importantly, it’s the time difference. At present, Lorek and Spica are moving twenty times faster than the other worlds. That means that the crops will mature twenty times faster than in any other world, allowing them to hit the market more easily.”

“If we limit the resource seed system to these two worlds, I think it will help bring Lorek and Spica back into a good economic position with the other realms.”

Looking around, Ashley seemed convinced by my explanation, while Terra had a strangely proud expression on her face. Ashley set aside the next batch of papers, ready to move on. “This last one is a sort of two-in-one mod for the Digital Conversion system. Two of my team members were each working on their own mods, until they noticed each other and started working together to combine them.”

“The first aspect of the mod is Digital Repair. If you have a broken item, and you possess the file for the complete item, you can use this system to repair it, rather than paying the cost for the replacement. For instance, say you have an iron sword, but it snaps in half. Rather than paying for a brand new sword, you offer up the pieces you have, and pay for any missing materials with a small bonus fee. After that, the item is restored to the saved file version.”

“The second aspect is Material Conversion. This requires two files, and allows you to edit details of those files with materials from another file. So, with that iron sword, you could use the file of an orichalcum ingot to create an orichalcum sword. This doesn’t work with any files containing living material, though. So no combining a slime with a numbasic ingot to create a numbasic slime... Aurivy tried to fight for that one. However, it just has too much room for horrific abuse.”

I couldn’t help but nod my head in agreement. A fusion system like that had too many ways that it could go wrong if it wasn’t properly managed. “I’ll approve of this one. However... before these systems go live, I want you to write a small patch to the Digital Conversion system.”

Ashley’s eyes widened slightly as I spoke, leaning forward to listen. “I want you to include a ‘copyright’ system for files. Crafters can register their creations with the system, and the system will not allow that specific item to have new files created. So, using your iron sword example. Someone makes an iron sword, they register it with the system. That one sword is then protected. Someone else can make their own sword and register it, but that is a different item.”

“This makes the original file more valuable, as the craftsman has control over the ownership of it. They can choose to give a copy of the file together with the weapon, but that file can’t then be copied again by the one who purchased it. If they later sell the weapon, they can either keep the file to make another one, possibly selling it again, or they trade over the file as well.”

“Once this copyright system is in, the price of these items will increase considerably as long as the original file is included. Meanwhile, an item without a file will drop in price to below what you would need to spend to produce it with Digital Conversion.”

Ashley pursed her lips, thinking about the request. “Give me a couple days. As long as the code doesn’t mutate heavily, my team should be able to get this done. It’s just a small tweak to the scanning function.”