YM778.TV Chapter 53 - 48: Reaping Dual Techniques i
Qin Niu watched the prompt that suddenly appeared, his heart filled with wild joy.
He was over the moon for having acquired two skills at once.
Utilizing termites to clear the crops of pests was a step in the right direction.
At the very least, it proved this path was entirely feasible.
He checked his personal attributes.
Agricultural: Sowing Proficiency 34.4/100, Soil Loosening Slightly Accomplished 516/1000, Fertilizing Slightly Accomplished 656/1000, Watering Slightly Accomplished 429/1000, Weeding Slightly Accomplished 520/1000, Pest Removal Beginner 0.01/10.
Insect Control: Insect Trace Identification Beginner 0.02/10, Insect Communication Proficient 13.51/100, Insect Identification Beginner 0.01/10.
An additional Pest Removal appeared in agricultural skills.
Another Insect Identification emerged in the Insect Control skills.
Both were very good skills.
The improvement of agricultural skills could be achieved by adding labor points, and Qin Niu was not at all worried about their upgrading.
He tried adding labor points to the Pest Removal skill.
Up to now, he had accumulated a total of 1246 labor points.
Later, since there was no need, he didn’t use them but kept saving them instead.
Now, they came in handy in a big way.
The corn in this acre urgently needed advanced pest removal skills to kill the pests.
He added 100 points in one go.
Pest Removal went straight from beginner to slightly accomplished.
It rose by two grades.
He found that both his pest extermination knowledge and skills had greatly improved.
Now when he looked at the cornstalk in front of him, he could, like an experienced farmer, detect the presence of pests by observing the color and shape of their leaves, and whether the stem had insect holes or some other traces.
Moreover, his skill in catching various pests had improved by more than tenfold.
He knew how to eliminate them without leaving any problems behind.
For instance, a cotyledon of this stalk of corn was withering due to aging, and on the back of the leaf, he spotted a cluster of brown insect eggs.
He directly tore off the entire leaf and then put it into a basket.
Taking it home to burn it would prevent the hatching of a large number of sugarbeet armyworm larvae.
During this process, his skills improved: Insect Trace Identification Proficiency + 0.01, Insect Identification Proficiency +0.01, Pest Removal Proficiency +0.01, Labor Points +0.21.
It seemed that the Agricultural Pest Removal skill was interconnected with the Insect Master skills.
Therefore, his Insect Master skills improved as well.
The increase in labor points by 0.21 surprised him.
Could it be that labor points were calculated based on the number of insect eggs?
He counted them, and sure enough, there were exactly 21 eggs.
This seemed like a huge BUG!
Labor points that could swiftly upgrade agricultural skills were naturally always welcome.
Qin Niu was privately elated for reaping benefits from a single effort, and the sensation of harvest satisfaction was quite fulfilling.
He continued to search for targets. Due to the improvement of his pest removal skills, as soon as he saw bite marks or crawling marks on leaves, he could immediately determine what kind of pest it was by the bite marks, and he could even judge whether they were nearby based on the freshness of the bite and crawling marks.
Like on this stalk of corn, there was a white mark on the stem at waist height.
It seemed to be left by a snail.
It was dry and noticeably faded.
This indicated that a snail had crawled over this spot a long time ago.
How many days ago, he couldn’t determine with his weak Pest Removal and Insect Trace Identification skills.
“What would happen if I upgraded my Pest Removal skill by one more level?”
Qin Niu found that breeding insects to help him with pest removal could also increase the labor points of the master, so he wasn’t worried about running out of labor points at all.
The ant colony was still small in number, but once the Ant Queen’s Breeding Skill was upgraded, producing 20,000 eggs a day, how terrifying would that be?
One termite could earn him 0.01 labor points, so 20,000 of them could earn him 200 labor points at once.
In fact, the number of termites in a colony could reach several million or even more.
When that time actually came, Qin Niu estimated he could simply lie back and let the insects do the work for him.
He gritted his teeth and directly added 900 labor points to his Pest Control skill.
“[Adding points failed. Skill level cannot exceed Grade Two of occupational level or above.]”
He hadn’t expected this regulation.
He was currently a low-level farmer. His cultivation skill proficiency had reached a moderate level of achievement, which only a mid-level farmer would possess.
His level was limiting his development!
Farmer low level 75.4/100.
Ever since he had finished sowing, his farmer level experience hadn’t increased at all.
Weeding, fertilizing, watering, loosening the soil, pest control, none could increase the farmer level experience.
Qin Niu guessed that only seeding and harvesting could increase a farmer’s level experience.
This thing seemed only to care about results, not the process.
Alright then, in just over a month, the harvest would be ready.
He’d reassess the situation then.
As he thought about it, going to work on the Yan Family’s farm specifically to sow seeds might be a good idea.
Unfortunately, the Yan Family had very strict hiring practices and only hired permanent hands, not temporary workers.
After some consideration, he temporarily dismissed the idea.
The most important thing right now was to help the Ant Nest develop quickly, creating a group of termite experts that could grow more safely and swiftly in the jungle.
If possible, he’d also tame a Queen Bee and breed a colony of honeybees.
These two matters were urgent priorities.
It would not be too late to think of ways to increase his farmer level once he had a stable insect population.
Otherwise, he would lose sight of the bigger picture for the sake of small gains.
He certainly wouldn’t engage in such shortsighted and eager-for-quick-success behavior.
Having Pest Control skill at a moderate level of proficiency was barely adequate for now.
At least it should be enough to handle the pests in the cornfields,
Accompanied by five termites, Qin Niu began to clear the pests lurking on the corn seedlings one by one.
It was shocking to see how many there were only when you started catching them.
Apart from Core-Boring Worms and beet armyworms, he found several types of pests including snails and aphids.
He even caught two locusts mating.
Without any mercy, he exterminated them on the spot.
He would save the bodies to take up the mountain later to feed the termites. He was even thinking that it might be a waste to burn the collected insect eggs; saving them to feed the termites might lead to some new discoveries.
Qin Niu kept busy until the moon came out that evening before bringing the five termites back home.
The basket now held many leaves with insect eggs.
The jar used to house the termites was currently filled with the bodies of various insects.
There were so many that it would be enough for the termite colony to eat for many days.
He had only cleared pests from four plots in the cornfield. This pace was considered very fast.
He estimated that seven more evenings of hard work would enable him to completely eliminate the pests from the cornfield.
Not to say that he would eradicate them perfectly, but at least he could ensure that the cornfield’s yield wouldn’t be affected too much.
That was good enough.
Truly purging the cornfield of pests would only be feasible once the number of his termite colony reached over ten thousand.
Upon returning home and securing the door, he still worried a bit that Old Five and the other four termites might fall prey to enemies like rats or centipedes.
Thus, he found a large jar to keep them inside.
The lid wasn’t sealed to allow air in.
There was no helping it; under the current basic conditions, many things had to be tackled one step at a time.
First, he ate three pounds of bear meat, then he bathed, and afterward, wearing only a pair of shorts, he went to the backyard to cultivate.
The growth of the foxtail grass beside the well had visibly slowed. Around the spot where he had cultivated the previous night, the weeds were growing wildly..