The day I was laid off, I carried a woven sack back to the village and squatted in the three mu of land my grandfather had left fallow for ten years. My palm warmed. The next day, they came to test me: F-rank, farming type, life ability, stamped "No threat." The whole village laughed. "Farming type? That's not even as useful as my two oxen!"
I didn't answer. I just spent three days of my lifespan to press a handful of rice seeds into the soil. They sprouted overnight, and the first pot of spirit rice was ready, its fragrance drifting across half the village. A female investigator came to update my registration and drank a bowl of porridge. The hand she'd kept pressed against her stomach finally relaxed. Three D-rankers came to my door with knives to rob me of my rice. I served each of them a bowl. After eating it, the fire that had burned in them for two years died down, and the pent-up qi they'd held for half a year flowed freely. Their leader clasped his hands and said, "We'll take all the rice. You name the price."
Everyone thought I was an F-rank farming loser. Only I knew the wisp inside me never struck outward. It circled within me instead. That was cultivation, not an ability. And everything I planted took years from my lifespan.
I opened another furrow and pressed the rice seeds into the soil. "Let's plant." The number appeared: three days. This batch would cost me another three days.
