Infinite Farmer

The new sphinx gave Tulland just enough time to get away from his broken partner before diving. He didn't try to dodge the attack. His tolerance for the stupid combination beasts was as low as he could imagine it being for any animal. Instead, he waited until it was close, propped the pitchfork into the dirt, braced it with his arms, and adjusted the angle just so.

The impact was still stronger than his weak, mostly-mental-stats frame could stand up to. He was blown back from the shockwaves, but not before he saw the tines of the pitchfork bury themselves as far in as they could go, past the sphinx's rib cage and straight into what he imagined were dozens of things it didn't want to get stabbed.

Tulland was hurt from both the impact with the sphinx and the impact with the ground. One of his legs was very badly broken, while the other was scraped and cut deeply. He still didn't have it as bad as the sphinx, which had taken the same impact internally. Hobbling over on his pitchfork, Tulland balanced on one leg as he stabbed the sphinx one last time through the head, then fell over to rest.

"That was stupid." Necia was standing over him, smiling down. "You could have stalled. You look like hell."

"I didn't want it using you as a distraction if it figured out it could do that. And I'm not as bad as I look." It was true. His new farm-aligned regeneration was pulling him together with surprising quickness. "I'll be fine in just a minute."

"I'm almost there myself." Necia stretched. "Let's take this next one together. I think it should be easier that way. Did I tell you I picked up another level in one of my armor skills?"

"No."

"Well, I did, in that last big scuffle. I think I might just be able to take a hit without shattering my arm, now."

"That's big, if it's true."

It turned out to be true. The next impact with a sphinx ended up knocking it silly without also shattering the bones in Necia's arm. It still looked like it hurt, but Tulland was able to completely disable the sphinx in the stun period that followed, if not to entirely kill it.

Another two fights with the sphinxes took them all the way back to the farm, where Tulland was finally able to stock up on his fighting plants.

See that, System? I'm thinking this is when the real bloodbath starts.

I should say so. Let's see it, Tulland. And good job back there. I didn't know you had that in you.

—

The general ease of the fights after that meant that Tulland had some time to examine his notifications. There weren't a ton of them, but there were several, and all were pretty significant. The first were generic level ups to some of his skills, followed by pure level-up stat gain that he didn't think about that much. These days, pretty much all of the points were going into focus, especially now that he knew just how much of the power of his farm was feeding back into the Produce Armament skill. He got done with those adjustments quickly.

The bigger notifications were bigger. Tulland's farm bursting forwards in power to the tune of almost-thousands of points meant a lot of bottlenecks were removed from a lot of skills. Most notably, Market Wagon had expanded to allow him a bit more carry capacity alongside the ability to designate two more combat primaries, complete with their own separate storage space. While the sphinxes were still attacking, he didn't have much time to figure out new synergies with the rest of his plants, so he just loaded the storage with Giant's Hair vines, Acheflowers, Silver Star fruits, and Clubber Vines. It was still a massive increase in how confident he felt, even without optimization.

The next notification was somehow even bigger.