Brick-Burning Matters

Over a month later.

Zhou Ye wore the chainmail that weighed over forty jin, with sandbags of around fifteen jin strapped to each calf. His figure shifted as he darted swiftly between the trees, weaving around trunks so fast he nearly left behind an afterimage.

This was the revised training method. It could likewise raise Basic Movement's experience by eight points every two hours, making use of Blue Star's gravity-training principles.

After finishing two hours of training, Zhou Ye smiled in satisfaction. Basic Movement had finally advanced to Mastery.

During this period of training, Zhou Ye had first raised Basic Chopping to—

Basic Chopping (Unranked): Minor Accomplishment (3/200)

Now, he needed to train Basic Movement and Basic Throwing to Mastery as well.

Returning to the Little Homestead, Zhou Ye took off his chainmail and sandbags, then immediately began training Basic Throwing.

First came ten sets of throwing knives, followed by one hundred pebble throws, and finally twenty javelin throws.

The javelins were made by Zhou Ye from sharpened wooden poles. After whittling their tips to points, he hardened them over a fire. Their power was... better than nothing, he supposed.

After all, Zhou Ye's strength was too low. Not only was his throwing range limited, but the power behind it was insufficient. And these were crude wooden spears to begin with, so their lethality certainly would not be great.

But low lethality did not matter, so long as they provided experience. This was also part of the revised training method. Thus, after two hours, Basic Throwing likewise advanced to Mastery.

At that moment, Zhou Ye felt his strength surge once more. He was now confident that he could probably deal with three to five ordinary people with ease.

No. Better stay steady and not get carried away. A few ordinary people were nothing impressive; there were still martial masters and demonic beasts outside. So he needed to keep lying low and keep improving his strength. Never mind anything else for now—first, he would train Basic Chopping to a higher level!

Meanwhile, construction on the three main rooms in the Little Homestead had also entered its final stage.

Zhou Ye planned to build wooden houses, requiring a large amount of logs, somewhat like the European-style log cabins of Blue Star. However, the roof and exterior walls would still be made from clay and thatch.

Roofs and exterior walls like these might not be especially sturdy, and they would probably need repairs after a few years. But Zhou Ye had never planned for them to last a thousand or ten thousand years. He would definitely leave someday.

At this point, the outer wooden walls had all been completed, logs lined up tightly side by side. Today, he would install the final main beam—the most crucial step in building the house.

A thick log like a main beam? Zhou Ye alone definitely could not carry it, much less hoist it onto the roof.

So Zhou Ye used another clumsy method.

Using the wooden wall for support, Zhou Ye arranged long tree trunks into a slope, then tightly tied ropes around both ends of the main beam.

Taking advantage of the slope, Zhou Ye first dragged one end of the beam. After pulling it up some distance, he secured that rope in place. Then he dragged the other end...

Like this, the main beam rose alternately, until it was finally dragged onto the wooden wall.

Afterward, he rolled the main beam along the wooden wall until it reached its intended position. Once it was fixed in place, he slowly adjusted it...

After finishing the installation of this main beam, Zhou Ye felt smug. This was the astonishing wisdom of the Terrifying Upright Ape!

Next came the installation of the roof framework. But before that could be completed, there was another very important task—building a chimney!

There would be both a stove and a fireplace in the future. Although they could share one chimney, fire prevention had to be done properly. Therefore, it would be best to have some bricks.

Speaking of bricks, he would need a brick kiln. So after finishing this work, Zhou Ye immediately headed for the Old Camp...

Thanks to Agility +5, along with Basic Movement having reached Mastery, a round trip that had originally taken two days could now be shortened to one.

When Zhou Ye arrived at the Old Camp, it was indeed not yet noon.

He made another circuit around the Old Camp and found that almost nothing remained. Aside from some necessary daily-use items, even the empty wine jars, empty baskets, old clothes, and all manner of odds and ends had been moved away.

But the Old Camp was not his main destination this time. He had come for the charcoal kiln outside.

He had to thank the Wilderness Survival program, and also thank the original owner's hard labor making charcoal. Whether it was charcoal-burning or brick-firing, including the construction of charcoal kilns and brick kilns, Zhou Ye was fairly familiar with all of it.

The principles behind the two were actually interconnected; it was merely a matter of slightly modifying the kiln. He could even fire pottery in it.

But porcelain was impossible. That required a much higher temperature.

When he arrived at the charcoal kiln, he found that the people here must have been busy fleeing at the time, for they had even completely extinguished the kiln. There were unexpectedly several thousand jin of finished charcoal inside. Added to what had been left in the Old Camp, there should still be over a thousand jin more.

He would not bother with the charcoal for now. First, he gathered up the tools here. The most important were the two leather bellows and one wooden pull-rod bellows. Although one of the leather bellows was already damaged, it could still be repaired and kept as a spare after being brought back. In any case, he packed them all up first.

There was also one large hammer, two mallets, and three pairs of iron tongs of varying sizes—tools used to remove charcoal from the kiln.

After tying everything onto a carrying pole, Zhou Ye shouldered it and left...

Over the next two days, Zhou Ye made two more trips, taking away all the refractory bricks stored beside the charcoal kiln.

These refractory bricks were meant for the fireplace. But if the brick-firing failed, Zhou Ye actually had another backup plan: dismantle the charcoal kiln entirely and take out the old refractory bricks inside.

However, that would be an enormous undertaking. He would only use that plan if driven to the end of his rope.

After finishing all this, Zhou Ye stayed at the Little Homestead for a day. He carried a great deal of clay to the base of the steep cliff, preparing to build a brick kiln there. At the same time, he used wooden boxes as molds to shape the clay into mud bricks, laying them out on open ground to dry. The remaining clay would be used to construct the brick kiln.

The mud bricks would need many days to dry. Taking advantage of this spare time, Zhou Ye planned to carry back more charcoal. Charcoal burned at a relatively high temperature and could serve as fuel for firing bricks...

In the mountain forest, Zhou Ye hummed a little tune. He carried an empty shoulder pole and held a machete in his hand.

As for weapons for self-defense, aside from the leather armor on his body, he had a saber at his waist and five wooden javelins tied beside the backpack on his back. He had now replaced his bow and arrows with javelins; there were only a few arrows left anyway. Besides, in an emergency, the javelins could also be used like short spears for thrusting in battle.

As for throwing knives and pebbles, Zhou Ye had not brought any with him. His strength was too low, and these little things were too weak as well.

Zhou Ye had once tried throwing a pebble and had indeed hit a rabbit. Yet after being knocked into a tumble, the rabbit unexpectedly flipped back over as if nothing had happened, then vanished in a flash?