The Rise of Otaku

Chapter 3 Cutting Trees

A strange seed and a strange hoe, they could even be seen, even without having the glasses on. There was a sense of weight when Zhou Yu held them in his hands, it meant that they were all real. However, what were the use of them? Could it be said that after planting the seed, it would grow an idol girl for him, to do something that was inappropriate to even mention? Then the imagination of the otaku -Zhou Yun began to run wild. He could not even control his excitement and began to find a flower pot and prepare for his glorious business hegemony of planting idols in a hurry.

There were many flower pots, that were used to be used by his grandfather and grandmother during the leisure time. However, they were left here after they were moved to the city. Without having anyone taken care of those flowers, most of the flowers and plants had died, leaving only some of the wild grasses still occupying the site.

Having gone to the yard, he found a flowerpot that was only slightly damaged. However, he had never planted anything since he was young, let alone growing flowers this type of highly skilled task. Digging a pit, burying ‘the body’, and then watering and fertilizing, this is the standard procedure that everyone knows. However, how deep of the pit he had to dig, and how much water it needs, the soil pH level, and sunlight, etc, which made the armature farmer – Zhou Yu, scratch his head constantly.

He really could not think of any methods. The old farmers in the village probably also never grew this kind of flower before. So without having any previous experiences, he could only feel his way around. God bless, hopefully, he would not get an ugly idol, especially not the fat ones. Otherwise, it would not be tragic, it would be horrific.

What he used to dig a hole, was ”Beethoven’s birch hoe’, however, he wondered if this famous musician had really used this hoe before. But it indeed had some special effects: Adding ‘music effect’ to the soil, increasing the musical talent of the ‘crop’, and increasing the probability of the ‘crop’ becoming a ‘composer’.

The soil, that was plowed by it, had indeed become different. From time to time, one or two musical symbols would come out of the soil and then disappeared in the air shortly. Of course, unless you also had an pair of eyes like Zhou Yu’s, otherwise you would only see an ordinary flower pot.

After the seed was planted, Zhou Yu noticed that there were some texts floating above the flower pot. It was just like the information commonly found in the game: “Idol flower, status – good.”

Well, all it left now was to wait for the result.

Whether it was the ugly one or beautiful one, it would still come out eventually.

After planning the idol flower, a red warning signal appeared on the minimap. After zooming in and taking a closer look. It turned out, that one of the places where was originally displaying the question mark, was now changed to: “Flower fertilizer refresh point. The refresh times are 6:00, 12:00, and 18:00.”

It was the special fertilizer for the idol flower. He must get some.

Hastily rushing out of the house again, and following the map, he arrived at the location that was shown on the map. So, the refresh point was a rural public toilet! Upon entering the toilet, a progress bar suddenly appeared before his eyes. the entire duration was around 5 minutes. For the future idol girl, Zhou Yu could only tolerate the terrible smells.

After 5 minutes of squatting, the collection was finally completed. A small bag of thing that looked like an instant noodle’s sauce bag appeared on the ground out of thin air, and as Zhou Yu lowed his head to take a closer look, it was actually a real object. However, it was very tiny. Perhaps it was only for one-time use. But Zhou Yu did not know how frequent he needed to fertilize the flower. If it was three times a day, then he would have to keep running to the public toilet.

As soon as Zhou Yu arrived home, he immediately sprinkled the flower fertilizer into the flower pot. The frequency of music symbols coming out of the soil immediately increased significantly, and the number of music symbols also changed from one or two to three or five. The seed’s status instantly became excellent. The effect seemed immediate, and it seemed like before the effect disappeared, there was no need to fertilize again.

Having nothing left to do, he went back to his room and switched on his computer.

……………………………

In the evening, he had an erotic dream. A beautiful Tian Luo girl entered his house and cleaned up the house for him. As she waved her hands, Manchu Han Imperial Feast suddenly appeared on the table in front of him. Cleaning house, delicious food, and the beautiful woman, all three wonderful things appeared in front of him at the same time. There was nothing more, that Zhou Yu would ask for at that moment. However, when he woke up the next morning, everything was still the same except for a pair of childish underwear hanging in the yard.

However, his life was indeed going through a dramatic change, he just did not know whether it was good or bad.

The thing he did after he got up was to check the flower pot. The seed had already formed a bud. The speed was quite fast. It seemed that the day of the arrival of the real Tian Luo girl would not be far. The effect of flower fertilizer was still there. However, Zhou Yu still went to the public toilet to gather the flower fertilizer once again, in case of any accidents.

The old dragon king and the beaver carpenter were playing the Chinese chess under the banyan tree in his yard. Seeing Zhou Yu came out of his house, they seemed to be very happy. Because they could not move the stone chess pieces on the stone chess board, they could only call out moves, and play the game like playing blindfold chess. Now that Zhou Yu came out of his house, they could directly ask him to move the chess pieces for them. It was the easiest way to avoid the arguments, such as accusing the other party of mistaking the position of a chess piece.

The seniors’ requests should not be refused, so he sat down next to the stone table, and arranged the chess game and the moves of the chess piece in accordance with the instructions. Zhou Yu’s chess skill was not very good, but he could still see that those two players were definitely considered as masters. It was just that he did not know which level they were.

Suddenly, he felt like this scene was quite similar to “Hikaru no Go”, the only difference was that there was one more spirit here. If he goes online now, he might even reproduce the classic scene of the mysterious chess master Sai defeating many other chess masters over the internet in “Hikaru no Go”.

Of course, it was just a thought. Showing off the skill he did not have to stranger was one thing, but making money off it was something that did not match Zhou Yu’s personality. If he was willing to go out to work, he would not fall to the point where he had to live in a small village.

In the end, the old dragon king skillfully won the game and left proudly and wandered to other places. Zhou Yu did not get any rewards this time, but the level of the friendliness of both old people increased slightly. Although Zhou Yu did not know what the level of the friendliness was, based on years of gaming experience, having NPCs with a high level of friendliness usually meant a good thing.

The beaver carpenter lost the game, so it was not very happy. It turned its head and said to Zhou Yu, “This old man is born to play with wood, and not in harmony with stone, that’s why I lost. Young man, go help me to find a suitable wood in the mountain, I want to make a wooden chessboard, so that I will defeat the old dragon until he begs for mercy. ”

After saying that, an axe was thrown out. It kept becoming bigger from just 5 cm to a normal sized axe. As Zhou Yu took a closer look, the status of the axe was shown as: “an ordinary axe.” Well, that was competently different than the thing that came out of the gashapon machine. It did not provide any other special effects at all. It was junk equipment for newbies.

‘Better than nothing, let’s go cutting some trees.’ Zhou Yu thought.

However, This trip scared his old neighbor, who was also the village chief to death. A young man with a flashy sharp axe on his waist. what was he planning to do? Was it because he stood at home for so long that he lost his mind? Did he want to axe some people for fun?

Zhou Yu could only explain in embarrassment: “Old village chief, I just want to find a few pieces of wood to do some woodwork, not to hurt people, my mind is also very clear.”

The old village chief was still dubious. The carpenter’s work was not something that anyone could do. However, he still took Zhou Yu to the area that was rented by his family and pointed at a wild pine tree that had already died. “You can axe that one. It did not grow in the right place. If you really want to cut trees, you need to let me know. The lower part of the mountain was rented out, you can’t just axe any tree there for fun…”

The village chief was right, if he wanted to find some trees that were not rented out, he needed to go to the top of the mountain. However, with his current physical strength, it would be a blessing from God, if he could even climb to the middle part of the mountain. Fortunately, the old dragon king and the carpenter beaver were short, and a small chunk of wood was more than enough to make a checkerboard for them. If it were not for the fact that the quest specifically asked him to cut down a tree, he could just simply use a small piece of firewood.

Anyway, it was time to cut trees!