The Cave Abode was spacious, but only its foundations had been completed.
There was no furniture, not even the most basic tables, chairs, or stools, let alone brushes, ink, paper, and inkstones.
Still, the countryside had its advantages.
Everything here had to be made by hand, which kept costs very low.
It was nothing like the Capital City.
Here, he could claim a mountain and rule it; in the Capital City, land and houses were piled up out of gleaming silver.
Buying a single chair might cost several taels of silver.
Living in the Capital City was no easy feat.
But the trouble with living in the countryside lay in time and efficiency.
In the Capital City, as long as you had money, you could do nothing at all and simply enjoy life.
In the countryside, even money could not buy you anything.
Just like now: Lin Ke could not buy anything he wanted. He could only make it himself.
"I'll make a desk first."
Reading and writing on the ground simply would not do.
Lin Ke left the Cave Abode, chose a large tree nearby, and chopped it down. With a few swift strokes, he made a desk and a chair with a backrest.
Then he returned and took out some watershadow stone.
"Smelting ore also requires the Fire God Mantises..."
Lin Ke suddenly realized that the Fire God Mantises had other uses, too.
Ore veins were everywhere in Cloud Dream Marsh, and turning raw ore into metal required heat.
All those Fire God Mantises were practically the perfect workers and coal rolled into one!
They generated their own fire, hauled materials, and smelted ore... each was practically a mantis-shaped factory.
But that brought him back to the same problem: how would he feed them?
If all else failed...