Blacksmith vs. the System

As I arrived at the third-floor outpost, I once again planned to stay outside, ready to observe the general mood. Admittedly, with the trees planted all around the base, they no longer had to deal with the dungeon mist blocking their view, so their behavior wasn't as unfiltered.

There still was a difference between that, and how they would act with their 'boss' walking among them.

However, the moment I approached the outpost enough to catch the details, that plan had changed. I got caught flat-footed by the sheer transformation. The first thing that I noticed was the scale. The outpost now spread roughly as a circle of a mile radius. Every inch had already transformed.

Admittedly, while the scale was significant, it wasn't truly impressive. I could probably achieve that scale alone if I pushed myself. Considering there were two thousand Farmers living there, transforming less than one square mile wasn't exactly a miracle.

But, the way they had transformed…

I had trouble convincing myself that it was still the dungeon, the hostile place that regularly spammed monsters, and not a small corner of heaven. The rough desert of the third floor had been transformed into a beautiful garden. Every inch of ground had been covered with some kind of plant, be it flowers that had colors brighter than anything I had ever seen before, sprouting from between the blades of grass that looked sculpted.

The air was crisp, tinged with a complex scent that felt heavenly compared to the dust and dry smell of the third floor, let alone the swamp of the other two floors. I took a deep breath, feeling the life of the place fill my lungs.

It was overwhelming.

The farmers, in just one day, had carved a small paradise out of the wilderness. The terraced gardens sprawled on any cliff, and under each tree, there were gardens. Most of the gardens showed flowers and other decorative items, but the occasional plots dedicated to food looked equally impressive. Wheat and barley swayed gently, taller and more golden than I'd ever seen, while rows of vegetables and herbs flourished in neat, orderly lines, enough to satisfy anyone who suffered from OCD.

The trees caught my attention the most. They were tall and mighty, which wasn't exactly a shock. After all, it was the way I had raised them, but any tree I had grown was wild, with branches sprawling in every direction. Their trees looked gentle and orderly without losing anything of their might.

Also, they looked three times as tall as the ones I had grown. Whether it was a perk or something else, I didn't know, but either way, it looked amazing, especially with multiple tree houses poking out of them, their roofs covered in moss and wildflowers that looked rustic yet amazing.

Yet, the most interesting detail, among everything else, was the happiness of the Farmers as they walked around, the slight stumble in some of their steps showing that they were somewhat drunk. They were clearly in a celebratory mood.

I didn't blame them. After all, they were under explicit orders not to hunt monsters until we brought their Class skills to the limit.

Still, as I watched them, I couldn't help but wonder how much of their relaxed attitude was about my order to Harold and the other guards to not to enter any deeper than the perimeter. Initially, it had been a way to let them relax, as I had noticed just how tense Farmers acted around the other classes.

Not that they weren't justified in feeling that way. After three years of being dismissed and treated like dirt, I didn't even want to imagine how bad they had been feeling.

Thinking that, I approached Harold first once he moved away from the perimeter. "Sir," he greeted me even as he threw a hesitant glance toward the new state of the outpost.

"You look tense," I said as I gestured for him to walk closer, not wanting to alert the rest of the camp to my presence yet. "What's wrong?" He looked hesitant. "Are you trying to see whether I'll blame you for the situation of the camp?" I asked.

He nodded hesitantly.

"Don't worry about it," I said. "There's a reason I asked you to stay in the perimeter. I want them to feel comfortable."

"Is this some kind of test? To see who would continue to work hard to grasp the great opportunity you're offering."

"Nothing so complicated. It's just that, for the first time in a long time, they had a chance to relax while having a reason to look positively towards their future. Just let them relax for a few days."

"If you say so, sir," he said.

"Don't worry about it. Just stick to the perimeter, and don't interfere with their schedule. I have my own reasons."

That put a smile on his face as he accepted the answer, and we started talking about other details. Signaling the existence of some kind of future conspiracy addressed his concerns better than claiming that I was treating Farmers like humans.

I wondered if it was just another part of the nebulous indoctrination, or just the base human ugliness that always wanted to elevate ourselves higher by putting others' pure worth as a living being into a debatable concept.

On the grand scale of the new social norms, Harold's attitude was the best I could hope for.

A sigh escaped even as I finished the discussion with Harold, and circled the enclave, getting a more detailed breakdown of their activities, immediately noticing that Harold's comments were biased. As I got closer, I noticed a training area which I hadn't noticed before since it was on the other side of the outpost.

It was an open-air structure, where the Farmers had been practicing with their spears. Almost three hundred of them were there, using their dummy spears to practice, half of them without a skill.

Their actions were crude and shaky, showing their limited experience wielding weapons, but the same couldn't be said for their determination.

At the center of the formation were five Farmers I had recognized from the first batch of volunteers, doing their best to teach them Basic Stab. A good preparation for the future.

I had initially thought about staying away, but even from a distance, I couldn't help but wince as I watched them. Their intention was good … their performance, was not so much. Repeatedly showing the same attack and asking the others to repeat was suboptimal at best.

Yet, I managed to suppress the desire to rush forward and correct them, afraid that my intervention would ruin the small yet efficient setup they had managed to put together. Even if they didn't stop their training, their instructors would without a doubt lose their courage to take the lead.

In the long term, it would hurt more than it helped. Instead, I stayed outside the tree line, taking some mental notes about how they could teach better, my own experience with the spear helping me to put a better schedule.

And, those spear-wielders were not the only group working hard. Another, smaller group had gathered near the edge, close enough that I could listen to them. There were merely fifty of them, but they were debating intensely about how to best modify the colors of the flowers, whether it was better to make that change once the flower had grown, or if it was more appropriate to adjust its growth continuously.

"Clever," I noted even as I listened to them, the way they had used the skill was completely novel. From the application of their skills, I could easily assess that most of them were still at the Uncommon stage, and even with the added flexibility given by the Perks, I should be easily able to copy what they had been doing.

Just like, theoretically, someone receiving Repair as an external skill would theoretically be able to copy what I could … but just like how I got familiar with my skill, they had worked on theirs.

And, now that they finally had the opportunity to advance their skill, they wanted to take advantage of it just like I did.

I continued to listen to them from a distance, glad that they didn't keep their voices low. It was a rare thing, to see people discuss their skills openly, but I could see why they had a different outlook. Nurture was not an offensive skill, or a valued production device. Its biggest value came from unlocking a chance to upgrade their class.

It meant that, for them, trying to hide the secrets of the skill represented something far lesser than what other people experienced. Not to mention, since I was the one who 'gifted' the method, they probably didn't have the sense of ownership the other people had toward their skills, making it even easier to share their information.

A smile popped onto my face as I continued to listen, but soon, I decided to multitask. The fact that they were sharing information was a good thing, but the process they used for it was horrible.

As an academician with a decade's experience who often had to manage my own research teams, I was used to organizing such processes. Moreover, since my mathematical sociology discipline had been a relatively new area that lay in the intersection of multiple disciplines — practitioners of which disdained each other — I was used to managing all types of conflicts.

However, while designing a better debate environment was easy, actually delivering that was a harder challenge. I was afraid that, the moment I showed some interest in the topic, it would distort whatever that was developing among them naturally.

Then, my gaze fell on Terry, the same young man who had distinguished himself during the earlier experiment. Unlike the other farmers, he wasn't intimidated by the sheer prospect of talking with me, and he looked magnetic enough to convince the others.

Maybe I should arrange a meeting with him, and see if he was willing to take a new role.

It had been a while since I had a teaching assistant.