Surviving in the chaos of war begins in the wilderness.

Chapter 12 The Story of Brick Making

More than a month later.

Zhou Ye was wearing a chainmail suit weighing over 40 pounds, and each of his calves was strapped with a sandbag weighing about 15 pounds. His figure shifted rapidly, weaving through the trees at high speed, almost leaving a blur in his wake.

This is the revised cultivation method, which can still increase the experience points of the basic movement technique to 8 points for two hours each day. It utilizes the principle of cultivating under the gravity of Earth.

After an hour of training, Zhou Ye smiled with satisfaction, his basic movement technique had finally been upgraded to mastery.

During this period of training, Zhou Ye first honed his basic cleaving skills to the level of Basic Cleaving (Unskilled): Minor Success (3/200).

Now you must master both basic movement techniques and basic throwing techniques.

Back at his small home, Zhou Ye took off his chainmail and sandbags and immediately began practicing basic throwing techniques.

First came 10 sets of throwing knives, then 100 rounds of pebble throwing, and finally 20 rounds of spear throwing.

The javelin was made by Zhou Ye from a wooden stick. After sharpening the tip, he heated it in a fire until it was charred. Its power was... barely noticeable!

After all, Zhou Ye's strength was too weak; not only was the throwing distance relatively short, but the power was also insufficient. Furthermore, he was using a damaged wooden spear, so its lethality was certainly not great.

However, the low damage output doesn't matter, as long as it provides experience points. This is also a revised training method. Therefore, after an hour, Basic Throwing also leveled up to Mastery.

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

No. Stay calm and don't be reckless. A few ordinary people aren't anything special; there are martial artists and demonic beasts outside. So we need to continue to play it safe and continue to improve our strength. Ignore everything else for now and focus on leveling up our basic slashing skills!

Meanwhile, construction of the three main houses in the small community is also in its later stages.

Zhou Ye plans to build a wooden house, which will require a large amount of logs and will be similar to the European-style wooden houses on Blue Star. However, the roof and exterior walls will still be made of clay and thatch.

Roofs and exterior walls like these might not be very sturdy and will need repairs in a few years. But Zhou Ye didn't think about it lasting a thousand or ten thousand years; he knew he would eventually leave.

At this moment, the outer wooden walls are all completed, with logs lined up side by side. Today is the day to install the final main beam, the most crucial step in building the house.

A massive log like the main beam—Zhou Ye couldn't possibly move it by himself. Not to mention, it would need to be hoisted onto the roof.

So Zhou Ye used another clumsy method.

Using the wooden wall as a support, Zhou Ye built a ramp with long tree trunks and then tied the two ends of the main beam together with rope.

Using the slope, Zhou Ye first dragged one end of the main beam. After pulling it a distance, he secured the rope. Then he dragged the other end…

In this way, the main beams rose alternately and were eventually dragged onto the wooden wall.

Then the main beam was rolled along the wooden wall until it reached its designated position. Once it was in place, further adjustments were made...

After finishing the installation of the main beam, Zhou Ye felt proud. This was the amazing wisdom of the terrifying upright ape!

The next step should be the installation of the roof beams. However, before that's finished, there's one very important task—building the chimney!

Since a stove and fireplace will be installed later, although a single chimney can be used, fire prevention measures must be taken. Therefore, it would be best to have some bricks.

Speaking of bricks, you need a brick kiln. So after finishing that work, Zhou Ye immediately headed to the old camp...

……

Thanks to the +5 Agility and the mastery of basic movement techniques, the round trip, which used to take two days, can now be reduced to one day.

When Zhou Ye arrived at the old campsite, it was indeed not yet noon.

After another inspection of the old campsite, it was found that there was almost nothing left. Apart from some essential living items, including empty wine jars, empty baskets, and old clothes, everything else had been moved there.

However, this time the main purpose wasn't the old camp, but the charcoal kiln outside.

Thanks to the survival show, and also thanks to the original owner's arduous charcoal-making labor. Zhou Ye was familiar with everything from charcoal making and brick firing to the construction of charcoal and brick kilns.

The principles behind both are the same; it simply requires slight modifications to the kiln. It can even be used to fire pottery.

However, this is not possible when firing porcelain, as it requires even higher temperatures.

Upon arriving at the charcoal kiln, we discovered that the people there must have been busy fleeing, as the kiln itself had been completely extinguished. Inside, there were several thousand kilograms of burnt charcoal. Adding to the charcoal left over from the old camp, there should still be over a thousand kilograms remaining.

Forget about the charcoal for now. Let's tidy up the tools here. The most important ones are the two leather bellows and the wooden lever bellows. Although one of the leather bellows is damaged, it can still be repaired and used as a spare. Let's pack them all up and take them with us for now.

There was also a large sledgehammer, two hammers, and three pairs of iron tongs of different sizes, which were used to remove charcoal from the kiln.

Zhou Ye tied all these things to the carrying pole, then picked it up and left...

In the following two days, Zhou Ye made two more trips and took away all the refractory bricks that were stored next to the charcoal kiln.

These refractory bricks were intended for use on the fireplace. However, in case the brick firing failed, Zhou Ye had another backup plan: to dismantle the entire charcoal kiln and remove the old refractory bricks inside.

However, this is an enormous undertaking. This solution will only be adopted as a last resort.

After finishing all that, Zhou Ye spent a day at his small garden, carrying a lot of clay down the steep cliff to build a brick kiln. He also used a wooden box as a mold to shape the clay into mud bricks, which he then laid out to dry on the ground. The remaining clay would be used for the construction of the brick kiln.

The mud bricks will take several days to dry. Taking advantage of this free time, Zhou Ye plans to collect some more charcoal. Charcoal burns at a higher temperature and can be used as fuel for firing the bricks…

……

In the mountains and forests, Zhou Ye hummed a little tune, carrying an empty carrying pole on his back and holding a wood-chopping knife in his hand.

As for defensive weapons, besides the leather armor he wore, he had a waist knife and five wooden javelins strapped to the side of his backpack. He had now replaced his bow and arrows with javelins, since he didn't have many arrows left. In fact, in an emergency, the javelins could also be used as short spears for thrusting attacks.

As for throwing knives and pebbles, Zhou Ye didn't bring any with him. His strength was too weak, and the power of such small items was too insignificant.

Zhou Ye once tried throwing pebbles and actually hit a rabbit. However, the rabbit was knocked over and rolled over again, then disappeared in a flash.