Liam woke when the light was already coming in through the windows, but the sun was still low. He didn't feel tired; in fact, he had far more energy than usual. He sat up in bed and looked around.Everything was the same as the day before.
"Thank God it wasn't a dream…" he murmured.
There was still no point in going into town. The sun was barely rising and, as a Stardew Valley player, he knew that at that hour almost everyone was still asleep, with few exceptions. He got out of bed and turned on the television.
The weather report appeared first. The presenter announced that tomorrow would be a sunny day. Then he changed channels and the fortune teller witch appeared, spoke briefly, and told him he would have good luck today.
"Perfect."
As soon as the screen went dark, he stepped out of the cabin.
Right next to the door was a rectangular wooden box that hadn't been there the night before.Liam paused for a second before crouching down. He lifted the lid and calmly checked its contents.
An old axe, the blade worn but solid. A pickaxe with deep marks from use. A hoe. A watering can. A scythe. Several bags of parsnip seeds.
They weren't pretty tools, but none of them were broken. On top of everything was a folded note.He read it slowly.
"These were some of the tools your grandfather used. They're not new, but they still work. You don't need to worry about them breaking; Clint gave them some maintenance. I thought you'd find them useful. " —Lewis
"The starting tools from the game…"
He took them out one by one. Held them. Tested the weight. They were heavier than he expected. There was nothing delicate about them. You could tell they'd been used for years.
He left the box open and took a few steps outside, not straying far from the house yet.
Liam walked around the cabin.
Behind it, almost pressed against the back wall, stood a fully blossomed sakura tree. That threw him off. Sakura trees only bloomed on specific days of the year. He was about to stop and think about it until he remembered that this place was Stardew Valley, and a sakura tree blooming almost all year round was completely normal compared to other things in this valley.
Something else caught his attention.
To one side of the tree was a small pet house, made of light-colored wood, with a slanted roof and a bowl out front. It was old, but intact. There were no recent tracks around it.
He stared at it for a moment.
'Dog or cat…?'
He shook his head and moved on.
A bit farther out, several meters from the cabin, he found a small pond. The water was still, with a few leaves floating on the surface. There seemed to be fish. It wasn't deep, but it looked clean, and that surprised him more than anything else.
He watched it for a few seconds before continuing.
Several dirt paths branched out from the house. They weren't improvised trails. They were paths worn in by time, slightly sunken into the ground, connecting different areas of the farm.
One led toward a forest that didn't look very dense. If he remembered correctly, that path led to the woods and Marnie's house. Another opened toward more open areas.
Along the sides of the paths were wooden fences.
He approached one and pushed it with his hand. It didn't move. The wood was worn, marked by weather and passing seasons, but it was still solid.
"It's really good quality… and this wasn't on the basic farm."
He remembered a certain mod that replaced the simple farm with a much more complex and better-designed one. He wasn't completely sure yet. Stardew Valley had many different maps.
He scanned the area for a coop, but didn't see one.He set that thought aside and truly ventured into the farm.
That's when he understood the problem.
The land was enormous, but moving around was a constant pain. Walking in a straight line was impossible. Large rocks were everywhere, some the size of a table. Fallen logs blocked the way and forced him to go around them.
Sticks and branches covered the ground unevenly. In many areas, weeds grew tall, shifting between green and bluish tones, brushing against his legs and forcing him to watch where he stepped.
Sometimes he had to detour around obstacles for several minutes. Other times he had to backtrack and look for another route.
"This is going to take time…"
It wasn't a friendly farm for someone who had just arrived.
He headed east first.
After walking for about ten minutes and crossing an area especially packed with stones, he heard water. He moved forward carefully until the terrain opened up and he saw the river.
It wasn't a small stream. The riverbed was wide and the current strong, marking a clear boundary of the farm.
He followed the river's edge and found a stone bridge. Farther ahead, another one.
From one of the bridges he saw a path leading north.
The path ended in front of a large wooden building, old and deteriorated. The walls looked dark, but he couldn't see it clearly. It stood atop a cliff, and the access was completely blocked by enormous rocks.
'Was there a structure like that? It doesn't look like the greenhouse.'
He tried to get closer, but the terrain didn't allow it.
Between him and the building were cliffs. They weren't huge, but a fall would be serious. The only visible access was completely blocked by massive rocks, wedged together with no gap to pass through.
He stepped closer to the edge and looked down.
'If I try to cross there without equipment… I'm definitely breaking something.'
Even with a long ladder, doing it alone would be stupid. One bad move and he'd be trapped or injured with no one nearby.
"That's for later. Much later."
He turned around.
He explored a bit more and found the cave. It was completely empty. By that point he'd satisfied most of his curiosity and didn't want to waste more time.
He headed back toward the cabin, already planning what he'd do over the next few days. It wasn't too complicated. Buy seeds from Pierre and keep exploring.
The stretch of land in front of the house would be used for crops. The areas limited by fences and weeds would be for future livestock.
He stopped and, out of habit, slipped a hand into his pants pocket.Something clinked.
He pulled out a small handful of coins, each marked with the number 100 and, on the other side, a G.He counted them.
Five coins.Exactly 500G.
Starting money. To begin properly.
He put the coins away and looked at the farm once more from the entrance. Dirty, blocked, hard to navigate, but huge and full of possibilities.
"First clear the land… then seeds."
He took the hoe and the seed packets and walked toward the area in front of the pond.
He had some doubts, but when he lifted the hoe and tried it, something felt strange. His body moved naturally. The grip. The balance. The swing.Everything went smoothly, as if he'd done it before.
He'd never worked the land in his past life. He seriously doubted his former corporate-slave body had any experience with this.But here… it just worked.
The first strike split the grass easily.
Liam stood still for a second, staring at the furrow he'd opened in the soil. There was no strange vibration, no pain in his arms, no clumsiness.
He lifted the hoe again and brought it down.Another clean furrow.
"…Wow."
He kept going. One after another. The motion flowed without him having to think. Straight back. Firm arms. Wrists adjusting the angle automatically.He didn't remember learning this at any point in his life.
'My body adapts way too fast.'
He didn't question it more than necessary. If it worked, it worked.
When he finished several short rows forming a fairly large square, he set the hoe aside and opened the parsnip seed packets one by one. He knew it would've been better to sell them and buy potatoes, but in the end he decided to use them.
He held them in his palm. They were small, each about the size of a small coin, dry and nothing special to look at.
He crouched and carefully placed them into the freshly turned soil, covering them afterward.
'This is way more satisfying than I thought it would be.'
He let out a sigh and picked up the watering can. He watered the seeds and gave one last look at the small plot in front of the pond, where the ground was clearer and access to water was easy.
When he finished, he straightened up and wiped his hands on his pants.He looked at the planted ground.
He didn't feel very tired. No hunger either—just a calm, steady feeling of having done something worthwhile.
'So this is how it starts.'
He left the tools resting near the house and sat for a moment on the front step.
His gaze drifted, unwillingly, back to the east. To the river. To the stone bridges. And beyond them, to that building he couldn't reach.
"Definitely not vanilla…"
The farm was too big. Too fragmented. Too many closed-off areas to be the basic map. And while there were maps with more content, none had another structure besides the greenhouse… except one.
Recognizing the structure and the path of that place, he reached only one conclusion.
'The GranPa Farm from Stardew Valley Expanded.'
He didn't want to get his expectations up, so he picked up the hoe again and made another plot with rows of holes before heading toward Pelican Town to greet his neighbors and buy seeds from Pierre or at the JojaMart, but first he wanted to compare prices.