The wheels of justice turned slowly. But they did turn. Over the winter, Daniel was convicted of his crimes. The sentence was light—he was a first time offender—but he would be in jail for about a year. Less when considering the time he’d already spent there.

  Just in case he got any bright ideas, I beefed up security around both the house and the farm fields as best I could. I made sure to keep the aesthetic consistent. It wouldn’t do to have a crash barrier of a fence look like a crash barrier. That it would act like one was important. My safety was very important. After all, if I perished, so did humanity.

  Before spring came, I maintained the equipment and sold off most of the grain. I kept some in storage to plant in the new year—a much cheaper option than purchasing new seed. The downside was that I needed to pay a company a hefty sum for using their patented seed. It was still cheaper than buying all new seed, though. That company had a racket going for sure.

  The most important thing I did before I had to prepare the fields was to research how to grow a giant pumpkin. Part of it was getting the right variety, which I was able to do through tough wrangling and negotiation—I bought it off the internet from a reputable, if obscure, source.

  The instructions were pretty straight forward. It involved forcing the plant to grow just one pumpkin. That way it would focus all its efforts and turn the pumpkin into the enormous oddity I needed to win a prize at the state fair. There were other bits and pieces—like putting the pumpkin on a pallet so it would be easier to move once it was grown. I noted them all down before checking out the one advantage I had over everyone else: the system.

  In Searching through the available skills, I happened across several that looked like they might be helpful. While I wasn’t willing to spend experience on vanity projects, I was willing to use it to complete quests. Quests had a return on investment, so any small edge I could get would be helpful in attaining the top prize.

  I ended up picking three skills to help me. I leveled each a few times—but not to tier two. A small investment was warranted, but not hundreds of thousands. The first choice was Plant Vision, which was an extension to Identify that allowed me to see the status of plants. The second was similar—Soil Vision—which did the same for soil. Together, they allowed me to see what the plant needed and the soil provided. That way, I could amend to soil as needed to ensure the pumpkin would grow as perfectly as it could.

  The last skill I picked up was simply titled Grow. It did exactly what it said on the tin. While not just for plants—it would grow anything living—I had a plan for it. It would need testing to make sure I wouldn’t be breaking anything by using it a lot on the plant—like draining to soil of all its minerals.

  To power all of this, I leveled up to tier two. As I did, I felt a dramatic change wash over me. It wasn’t the most pleasant thing ever—it felt like I was being scrubbed inside and out with a stiff brush—but it was over quickly. At tier two, I felt a lot stronger than I would have just a few experience before. There was some sort of qualitative difference between tier one and tier two that I didn’t understand.

  That was something I would need to investigate. Not only because of how strong the monsters would become. I needed to know what the tiers truly meant and why there was this manifest difference in quality at that particular breakpoint. I figured I’d need to get to tier three at some point to see if that was something that would continue—something I would only feel comfortable doing if I had enough experience free and if it wouldn’t cause the monsters to level up more in the process.

  After turning the soil over and planting in April, I began working on a location for the pumpkin. I needed a place with a lot of sun and good soil. The extra chi from leveling up helped tremendously. It allowed me to use Soil Vision to find a suitable spot. It was near to the stream that ran through the fields behind the equipment shed.

  Before I could plant, I had to prepare the ground. I leveled the soil as best I could and installed trellises for the vines to grow on. I left space enough for a pallet. I also made sure to arrange the trellis in such a way as to give the pumpkin the most sun it could get. Then—before putting any seeds in the ground—I used Soil Vision to correct the nutrient and mineral levels in the soil.

  It took about a week for the pumpkin to sprout. In that time—and a little ways down the stream—I planted some others to test my skills with. While I let the first plant sprout without any intervention, I tried using Grow on the newly planted seeds. They sprouted and grew faster than the one I hadn’t used the skill on.

  The problems came soon after. Of the plants I used Grow on, they started looking weaker in spite of growing bigger in a short time. With Soil Vision and Plant Vision I was able to see that the soil was dangerously low on some of the nutrients. The plants perked up after I fertilized them. If I wanted to use Grow on the big pumpkin, that was something I’d have to keep in mind.

  Stolen novel; please report.

  Now that I knew what to look out for, I used the skill liberally. I still had to be careful, though. After every use, I checked the soil and the plant before fixing it as necessary. There was also another limit I came across. The plant needed enough energy to grow for the skill to do what I wanted and not actively harm the pumpkin.

  I fell into the routine of checking the plant daily, hitting it with Grow until it was depleted, and fixing the soil while giving it time to collect more energy. The main thing the plant needed was time. While I could speed it up some, it was only around a doubling of growth speed. I hoped that meant I would be rewarded with the mother of all pumpkins in the fall, but I would have to wait until then to know for sure.

  I invited Mom to shave dinner with me in early summer. Farming meant I was mostly tethered to the farm. The house wasn’t big enough for two families—since Mom and Dad were officially divorced. Mom didn’t live too far away. She’d moved closer than she used to be since I paid her a reasonable salary so she wouldn’t have to work if she didn’t want to.

  Because she lived closer, we could have dinner together every week or two—depending on how much work I had. All of my attention was on farming experience. That was something she didn’t appreciate. I could tell that she missed me and wanted a connection. A connection that I was having a hard time feeling.

  Mom picked me up from my house in the evening.

  “Where do you want to go?” I asked.

  “Anywhere but the places in this town,” she laughed.

  I didn’t blame her. The restaurants weren’t very good. They only stayed around because people couldn’t be bothered to travel an hour for something better—which is exactly what we did.

  “How’s the pumpkin?” Mom asked while she drove.

  “I’ve been pruning the buds so that the one I want to grow is the only one left.”

  “Has that been successful?”

  “Too early to say,” I said with a shrug.

  “I see. Oh, what about that Daniel guy? He should be getting out soon. Are you worried he’ll do something?”

  “Yeah. I’ve done what I can short of hiring security everywhere.”

  “Why don’t you?”

  “I don’t know. I mean, that seems like a rather extreme step to take.”

  “He seems like an extreme guy,” she pointed out.

  “I will escalate it if he does. For now, I’m watching and waiting.”

  “I’m worried about you. I don’t want to wake up to the news saying you were killed!”

  “Mom, I’ll be ok. I mean it. I have it under control.”

  “I hope so! You’re my baby and a mother’s supposed to die first, you know?”

  “Yeah, Mom. I know.”

  “It’s good that you know.”

  I hated putting on a false front, but it was the best way to deflect from the truth. I didn’t really care. The experience I’d sunk into myself made me feel strong. I wasn’t sure exactly how strong, but certainly stronger than the average adult. It wasn’t something I’d actually tested.

  Mom stopped outside the Italian restaurant she was taking me to. It was fancier than I was used to—my age was the only thing preventing anyone from making a fuss about how I dressed. We were seated promptly and ordered soon after.

  “Bread’s good,” I said with food in my mouth.

  “Eddy, don’t talk with your mouth full,” she admonished.

  I swallowed quickly.

  “The bread’s good.”

  “It is,” she nodded.

  “So what have you been up to?” I asked.

  “Well, I’ve been tinkering. I recently rebuilt my bicycle to have an electric engine on it.”

  “Oh really?”

  “Yeah. It’s nice to be able to ride around on the bike. Hills are a challenge, so I thought it would be nice to have a boost.”

  “I didn’t know you were so handy!”

  “Neither did I,” she laughed. “I discovered it now that I have so much free time—something I should thank you for. So thanks.”

  “That’s what family’s for, right?”

  “Right.”

  Our food came soon after. We chatted while eating. I had a good time talking, though it was mostly because I was getting away from the farm for a few hours. Mom and I ordered dessert to cap off the evening.

  Before it could arrive, I turned too quickly to glance at a sound I heard. In so doing, I knocked my water glass from the table. I went to grab it. It slipped through my fingers and smashed on the floor. Shards of glass ripped into my outstretched had. I recoiled reflexively.

  “Oh my God, are you ok?” Mom asked.

  That’s when I looked at my hand. It was fine? That surprised me. I had felt the impact and the sharpness. I should have been cut by it but somehow I had been lucky. Or maybe it wasn’t luck?

  “I’m fine, Mom. Look.”

  I showed her my uninjured hand.

  “Thank God,” she said, putting her hand over her chest. “That was dangerous!”

  “Mom, it’s ok. I’m not bleeding or anything.”

  The server came over to check on us. He cleaned up the mess while Mom apologized for the accident. After paying, Mom and I went back to her car. We talked some on the ride back to my house, but I spent a lot of time thinking.

  Had the tier up been the cause of the physical resistance I experienced? Plus, how far did that extend? Those were things I would have to test. Things I didn’t really want to test. I mean, who wants to hurt themselves on purpose? Not me! Still, it was something I would have to do in order to understand just how much of a difference tiers made. With that in mind, I purchased Heal. I didn’t level it any, as I figured it would be enough to handle the cuts and scrapes I was likely to encounter during testing.

  After Mom dropped me off, I went to the kitchen and grabbed a sharp knife from the wooden block on the counter. I hesitated for a long time. The act of hurting myself went against every fiber of my being. I took a deep breath and forced myself to act.

  The pressure of the knife increased the more I pressed it into the skin on my hand. It became painful quickly. I pressed harder. Long passed the point where I should have punctured my skin, I felt a sharp pain. Upon pulling the knife back, there was a small cut with blood beading around it. If I had used that same force on my hand before I leveled, the knife would have gone right through.

  To have only this level of damage confirmed that there had been a qualitative different physically when going up a tier. I would need to test again in the future to compare my results. I Healed my injury and washed my hands before retiring for the night. Thankfully, no one saw my tests. I don’t think either of my parents would have approved!