The afternoon sun rested over Solitude Spire like a warm, golden bowl of fresh honey.
Down in the terrace garden, the Sun-Lotus Cabbage was practically purring.
Its twelve emerald leaves had expanded by another hand-span, their translucent veins glowing with refined solar essence.
Around its roots, the fine gray locust ash had completely merged with the dark loam, turning the soil into rich, aromatic compost that smelled faintly of roasted almonds.
Beside the patch, Lord Nether-Bane was working himself to the bone.
Quite literally.
The ancient Ghost King was down on his skeletal hands and knees in his stained hemp apron.
In his bony right hand, he clutched his small, rusty iron trowel.
With painful, painstaking slowness, he chipped at the packed earth around the perimeter, turning the soil millimeter by millimeter to ensure every last speck of the celestial fertilizer reached the deeper roots.
His skeletal fingers were caked in mud.
A wisp of pale, exhausted ghost-sweat steamed from his bleached skull.
Behind him, the two spectral corsairs were taking turns fanning his ribs with dried palm fronds, their translucent forms trembling with fatigue.
"Captain, you should rest," the first corsair pleaded softly. "You have been tilling the boundary soil for three straight hours with that butter knife. Even an immortal soul-frame will develop marrow cramps."
"Rest?!" Lord Nether-Bane hissed, wiping his brow with the greasy hem of his apron. "How can I rest when the Sovereign has entrusted me with the sacred soil of heaven?! If this ground is not properly aerated, the roots will suffocate! A true gardener dies with his trowel in the dirt!"
He jabbed the dull iron blade into the hard-packed clay:
*Thunk.*
The rusty trowel bounced off a buried granite pebble, sending a sharp vibration rattling straight up Lord Nether-Bane’s arm bones.
The Ghost King winced, rubbing his skeletal wrist with a quiet groan.
Up on the covered cedar porch, a cheerful 8-bit electronic chime broke the afternoon hush:
*Ding-ding-ding-doo-doo!*
Felix Vance blinked beneath the wide brim of his straw hat.
He opened his eyes, yawning into the warm mountain breeze.
On the cedar side table beside his wicker recliner, the obsidian slate of the AetherDeck was pulsing with a bright, merry amber glow.
Felix reached out with a lazy arm, lifting the slate before his face.
The screen displayed a festive pop-up banner covered in tiny pixel confetti:
"A clear bonus?" Felix mumbled, his voice scratchy from his nap. "Nice. At least this game actually gives you loot for dealing with annoying pop-up events."
He tapped the screen to claim the reward.
A soft, golden chime rang out from the slate:
*Shing.*
From the glowing surface of the obsidian glass, a shaft of warm, honeyed light projected upward onto the cedar porch floor.
As the light faded, a modest-looking gardening tool materialized and clattered softly against the wooden floorboards:
*Clack.*
It was a small farming hoe, about four feet long from end to end.
Its handle was carved from smooth, pale white ash-wood that felt warm and satin-smooth to the touch.
The blade was forged from gleaming, sun-kissed gold, polished to a mirror sheen that reflected the sky without catching a speck of dust.
Felix leaned over the armrest of his chair and tapped his Inspector HUD:
【Item: The Auto-Tilling Golden Hoe】 【Classification: Primordial Mythic Farm Tool / Relic of Creation】 【Origin: The First Epoch Divine Granary】 【Passive Effect 1: Automatic Aeration - Tills, softens, and aligns spiritual soil meridians at a rate of 100 square feet per second with zero manual physical effort.】 【Passive Effect 2: Breath of Life - Neutralizes all necrotic, dark, or curses within three feet of the user’s grasp. Converts fatigue into pure vitality.】 【Inspector Note: An ancient relic once wielded by the Earth Mother to carve fertile valleys into dead stars. Now primarily used by lazy people who refuse to bend over to pull weeds.】
Felix picked up the hoe with one hand.
It weighed practically nothing—no heavier than an empty cardboard mailing tube.
He turned it over, examining the smooth golden blade.
"Looks clean," Felix muttered. "Auto-tilling at one hundred square feet per second. Sounds like a great tool for someone who actually likes doing yard work."
He set his bare foot on the porch floor, slipping back into his worn straw slippers.
"Too bad I'm not that guy," Felix sighed. "The whole point of an idle game is not doing chores yourself. If I wanted to dig dirt, I'd go play Minecraft."
He glanced over the cedar porch railing down toward the terrace.
Lord Nether-Bane was still down on his hands and knees, clutching his pathetic, rusty iron trowel.
The skeletal monarch was currently gasping for breath, desperately trying to pry a small river stone out of the dirt with the blunt tip of his rusty blade:
*Scrape... scrape... clink.*
Every time the trowel scraped the stone, the Ghost King’s bony shoulders slumped in sheer, agonizing exhaustion.
Felix shook his head in pity.
"Look at this guy," Felix said to himself. "Poor NPC is working on a dial-up connection with basic starter gear. He's going to snap his own arm bones trying to dig that ditch."
Felix reached out with his right arm, balancing the Golden Hoe across his fingers.
He leaned over the railing and called out in a calm, lazy voice:
"Hey, buddy."
Down in the cabbage patch, Lord Nether-Bane froze.
The Ghost King’s skull snapped upward so violently his neck vertebrae produced a loud, popping crack:
*CRACK.*
His hollow eye sockets widened in utter panic.
He dropped his rusty trowel into the dirt and threw his hands forward, pressing his skull flat into the loam:
"S-Sovereign!" Lord Nether-Bane stammered, his teeth chattering against the dirt. "Forgive this unworthy servant! Did my clumsy scratching disturb your sacred slumber?! I will mute the very stones! I will till the ground with my bare teeth if necessary!"
"Relax, man," Felix said, waving a hand dismissively. "You're working too hard with that rusty butter knife. You look like you're about to fall apart."
Felix casually tossed the four-foot Golden Hoe over the cedar railing.
"Here, buddy," Felix called out. "Use this. It's lighter."
The golden tool sailed through the air in a slow, graceful arc.
Down in the garden, Lord Nether-Bane scrambled backward on his knees, his hands shooting up in pure instinct to catch the falling object.
*Snap.*
The Ghost King’s skeletal fingers closed firmly around the pale ash-wood handle.
The instant his bone made contact with the wood, the entire mountain peak resonated with a deep, harmonic hum:
*OOOOOOOOMMMMMMM.*
A wave of blinding, sun-kissed golden radiance erupted from the hoe's golden blade!
The light washed over Lord Nether-Bane like a warm, cleansing ocean of pure celestial Yang energy.
*CRACKLE!*
The ancient, festering necrotic curses that had bound his spectral soul for ten thousand years shattered like brittle glass!
The black rot clinging to his ribs turned into harmless white steam, boiling off into the clean mountain air.
His hollow eye sockets, once burning with sickly green ghost-flames, flared with brilliant, crystalline golden light!
His brittle, yellowed skeleton turned the smooth, radiant color of polished white jade, singing with pure, uncorrupted life force!
Lord Nether-Bane stared down at the tool in his hands.
Underneath the golden blade, the hard-packed mountain soil began to move on its own.
Without Lord Nether-Bane even flexing a single muscle, the earth beneath the hoe parted like warm silk.
The soil churned, aerated, and fluffed itself into perfect, dark, nutrient-rich loam, rolling outward in silky, harmonic waves that spread across the entire terrace in less than three seconds!
Every buried pebble dissolved into fine mineral powder.
The ley lines of the earth aligned themselves into perfect geometric formations, singing with ancient, primordial joy.
Lord Nether-Bane’s jaw hung completely slack.
His jade-white skull trembled with such violent intensity that his teeth hummed.
"The... The Hoe of Creation..." Lord Nether-Bane whispered, his voice cracking into a broken, breathless sob.
"The ancestral relic of the Earth Mother... The primordial divine implement that parted the seas and sowed the first crops of the mortal realm..."
He looked down at the smooth ash handle resting in his palms.
He looked up at the porch railing.
"He... he threw it to me..." Lord Nether-Bane wept, thick, golden soul-tears streaming down his polished cheekbones.
"He called me 'buddy'..."
"He saw this sinner sweating in the dirt... and he gave me the supreme artifact of cosmic life because... because he thought my trowel was too heavy?!"
The Ghost King collapsed onto his knees, clutching the Golden Hoe against his jade ribcage like a starving child clutching a loaf of fresh bread.
He threw his head back toward the sky and began to wail with pure, overwhelming, hysterical grief and gratitude:
"SOVEREIGN! O MERCIFUL SUN! O BOUNDLESS HEAVEN!"
Lord Nether-Bane slammed his forehead into the freshly tilled soil, weeping until his voice tore:
"THIS LOWLY WORM IS NOT WORTHY! I WAS A SCOURGE OF THE ABYSS! I WAS A DEMON WHO SLAUGHTERED NATIONS! YET YOU CLEANSED MY MARROW AND HANDED ME THE TOOL OF CREATION!"
"I WILL TILL THIS DIRT UNTIL THE SUN COOLS! I WILL WEED THIS GARDEN UNTIL ETERNITY TURNS TO DUST!"
Behind him, the two spectral corsairs dropped to their knees, their burlap aprons soaking in their own tears as they wailed in unison:
"PRAISE THE SOVEREIGN! PRAISE THE MERCIFUL PATRIARCH!"
Up on the porch steps, Lyra Ashford stood with one hand pressed against her trembling lips.
Tears of profound, sacred awe shone in her silver eyes.
*He cleansed the Ghost King’s soul,* Lyra thought, her heart swelling with an emotion so deep it felt like prayer.
*He did not banish the demon. He did not destroy the sinner.*
*With a single casual toss of the Hoe of Creation, Senior Brother redeemed ten thousand years of abyssal darkness.*
*He turned a lord of death into a caretaker of life.*
*This is the supreme mercy of the Great Sun.*
*He does not judge. He simply shines.*
Lyra wiped a tear from her cheek, turning toward Felix with eyes full of worship.
"Senior Brother," Lyra whispered, her voice choked with emotion. "Your compassion is as vast as the astral sea. To bestow such a holy relic upon a redeemed spirit..."
Felix Vance stood by the porch railing, looking down at the weeping skeleton clutching the golden hoe.
Felix blinked twice.
"Why is he crying?" Felix muttered to himself, scratching his temple. "It's just a farming tool. Did the devs code these NPCs to be emotionally unstable?"
He reached down to the small timber side table, lifting his white porcelain Infinite Cozy Teacup.
The tea was still steaming, perfectly hot at sixty-eight point five degrees.
He took a slow, deeply satisfying sip of the warm, nutty liquid.
Underneath the short left table leg, Grandmaster Vivienne’s purple Sovereign Heart Seal held the table rock-solid.
On top of the wood, the Soul-Pearl paperweight glowed with tranquil, steady peace.
On the porch beam, Barnaby the clockwork owl stood faithfully on his perch, the black rubber stopper clamped over his copper tip as his brass gears ticked with rhythmic calm:
*Tick... tick... tick...*
Out in the meadow, the Thunder Gryphon let out a sleepy grumble, blew another tiny ring of purple ozone into the clover, and rolled back into the warm grass.
Felix looked down at the garden terrace.
The Golden Hoe was currently zipping across the soil on its own, smoothly tilling sixty square feet of earth per second while the Ghost King followed behind it on his knees, weeping and murmuring prayers of eternal servitude.
Felix smiled faintly, setting his teacup down with a soft, clean clink.
"Man," Felix sighed, settling back into his deep wicker recliner and pulling his straw hat over his eyes. "Automated farm tools and an NPC to hold them."
He crossed his hands over his chest.
Deep inside his ribs, his 1.0-Earth-Mass Sol-Class stellar core pulsed with warm, effortless nuclear fire, wrapping him in the cozy perfection of a private afternoon blanket.
"Best idle game ever made," Felix murmured.
Within moments, the Supreme Solar Patriarch of the High Sun Empire closed his eyes and drifted back to sleep.