As the new day started I was greeted by the hard whack of Rumble feeling the first rays of light making their way into the shack. With a groan of pain that only a fellow man would understand, I was officially awake.

“Just a little longer, I bet it's still cold out!” Mia groggily said.

“What the heck Rumble!? No more sleeping next to me if thats how you are going to wake up every morning!”

With an embarrassed and crying pair of emojis I knew he was sorry, but in all honesty I wasn’t about to forgive his wanting to be the worst alarm clock available. But now awake with the pain starting to fade, even if the nausea wasn’t quite yet, I made my way over to the cabinet in order to get breakfast started.

Come to find out, when Mia arrived back yesterday evening from her property we realized that we started with different supplies of roughly the same value/usefulness. Instead of an axe and shovel, she had a machete and trowel. Yes, their functions were quite different but they allowed us a bit more ease while working together on the same property. She also had different seeds. Instead of cauliflower and potato seeds, she had 15 green bean seeds and 5 strawberry seeds along with some posts and wire to string them along while they grow.

All in all, our seeds selections were pretty well suited to us. Mine were pretty simple in terms of how to grow them. Plant, water, and harvest once. Her seeds needed a few extra steps and even extra harvests.

With the eggs starting to cook and the oil to pop, Mia started to stir once more. “Ugh, this dirt floor is definitely needing to be replaced. I wonder how expensive some cheap beds would be. Maybe we can just grab some of the tall grass and make mattresses tonight once the sun starts to go down.” Mia commented.

“Ya, I was thinking something similar myself. I don’t know much about construction or crafting, but I bet we could figure out something as simple as piles of grass. I was also thinking that maybe we should get a book explaining how to do a few simple crafts to help with farming.”

“Okay, I’ll see what I can find in town. I will try to get back as fast as I can, but I may need to hit up a few different shops to make sure we get the best deals for what we buy. Right now our coin is low and Rumble is currently the only profitable part of our business venture.”

As those last few words were said, a rustle of leaves came from my sleeping area accompanied by an ecstatic emoji.

“That he is, but I’m hoping he will be able to help me plant some seeds today. Maybe he can use the shovel or use his roots to stir up the dirt. If I have to do everything then it will be an extremely long day, especially since I still need to cut down the tall grass, expose the soil, and plant the seeds.” I said.

“Oh! I meant to ask this yesterday, but do you think the plants will be safe from monsters?” Mia asked in a fit of worry.

“I’m not sure, hopefully they are. Even if its just safe for them at night, then we could do patrols during the day. Ugh, there sure is a lot that we need to worry about. Should we wait to plant anything until we can read up on this stuff tonight?” I asked.

“I really do not want to wait, but it might be for the best. If we lose all of our seeds because of monsters then we are totally screwed.” Mia conceded. “You are pretty good at cooking eggs by the way. You somehow managed to avoid getting the edges burnt!”

“Haha, I got in trouble a lot during school. I had to work in the cafeteria almost daily for the last few years.”

“You do not seem like the bad boy type to me.” Mia bluntly stated.

“I’m not, I just slept in all the time.”

“Really!? You got up so early the past few days, so I am pretty surprised to hear that.” Mia said.

“Mia, that's only because you can sleep through someone screaming in pain. Let’s hope the shack doesn’t burn down at night, because you won’t make it out. I jokingly said.

“Did something happen?”

“Ya, Rumble keeps hitting me awake whenever the sun comes up.” I explained.

“Oh, well, maybe we can get him his own little blanket to sleep with at night. That way you can sleep in too!” Mia suggested.

“That can be a long term goal we set. For now let's focus on getting enough coin before we run out of food.” I said.

“Agreed, we should focus on knowledge, tools, and food for the foreseeable future. Maybe we can buy a few chicks to raise like you suggested. Anything that can help us become more sustainable and or profitable.”

“Well, you have our coin. Make sure that you get what you can and get back early. If you can get back early enough then you can help me finish the preparations for planting while Rumble spends more time hunting monsters in order to refill our coffers.”

“Once again, I agree. I’ll also try out using my farming skill tonight. I’m not sure how much it affects and to what degree, but the time required to use it is 30 minutes and it has a 23 hour cooldown.” Mia stated.

“What skill is that!? That sounds insane! It better be an awesome skill. I mean, it seems like leveling that would be a huge pain." I said emphatically.

“Ya, that is what I thought after I had already selected it. The skills choice menu really doesn’t describe your options well. The skill is Enrich, it enriches the soil and raises the quality of the dirt. Like I had told you before, my goal is to have a ‘Farming services’ business. I want to go around to other farms, selling services to help their farms become more profitable. I was thinking that if I leveled up Enrich enough that I could surely do a whole farm per day and start raking in some cash without all the hard work of farming.” She said.

“If you didn’t want the hard work of farming then why did you choose Farmer as you class?” I asked incredulously.

“Because I didn’t want to live the city life. At least I didn’t think so, and now I definitely don't want to after seeing what it was like yesterday. I’ve always dreamed of having a house looking over the rolling hills with a pond out back that I could drift in while taking a dip for some swimming fun.” She said as she fantasized about it.

“Okay… Well, hopefully we can make some good money this season to get us both off of the ground and on our way towards our dreams.”

“What is your dream? Why did you choose farmer and druid? I get why druid, after entering into our contract I was able to pull up a basic profile on you since we are partners. I saw that it is a legendary class. I didn't even get an epic option, much less anything so awesome. What are your goals with farming?”

“Well, I loved farming games in school. I also loved playing tabletop role playing games, so I have a passion for making funny character builds that hopefully are stronger than the summation of the individual parts. I figured a plant focused druid build would benefit greatly from a farming class.”

“Rumble is great, but did being a farmer actually help him yet?” Mia asked.

“Ya, it did. So far I only know of his HP being directly affected by my skill ‘Bountiful harvest’, but I suspect that more of his stats have been impacted as well. I can’t see his full profile yet, so I am still unsure.”

“Oh, then that worked out!. I am also glad to hear that ‘Bountiful harvest’ was the skill that you chose!”

“It has turned out well so far. It probably helped keep him alive through more than one of his battles so far.”

As I said that Rumble started to rustle his leaves in agreement.

Sharing a laugh, we finished our breakfast shortly after and went out and got started with our day.

With her blanket tied around her shoulders like a makeshift backpack, Mia set off down the road with a final farewell and promised to return as fast as she could.

With farewells said, I turned to the work ahead of me. I figured that I would start cutting the tall grass, in the field, as close to the ground as possible. Having accomplished that, I planned to have Rumble carry the pile of grass into the home while I turned the soil for seeds to be planted in, and hopefully chop up the remaining grass bits enough that the grass stalks wouldn’t regrow.

Almost immediately after starting to cut grass, Rumble took of into the grass and a moment later I saw 3 foot long stick get launched through the air and into the road. With Rumble bursting forth after it, the stick sprouted two hooked stick arms and 6 stick legs.

As the battle between them raged a description popped up over the creature describing it as a Mantis (branch variant). With its razor like arms it started to slice chunks off of Rumble’s bark. Piece by piece his armor was getting hacked off but in return Rumble was yanking it back and forth and slamming it into the ground. After a few moments more the monster went flying across the road and into a rock sitting at the edge. Before the thing could get back up, Rumble himself was smashing into it and finishing the fight.

Running up to help my familiar finish the thing off, I noticed that the thing was already lootable. As I bent over to check what was on the body a notification flashed before my eyes.

“You’ve got to be kidding me!” I screamed out at the floating box. “I literally just arrived here, got a plan together, and was going to plant seeds! Ugh, Rumble we’ve got some work to do. Keep an eye out, we are going to stick close to one another for a bit. If you see anymore then let me know and we will tag team them.”

With nothing but a bob up and down along with a saluting emoji, we got cautiously back to work in the field.