LIGHTNOVELONLINE Ch-10-New house
In the morning, I untangled myself from my bedroll just like yesterday, though my tail was not as trapped as it was previously, and pulled out a potato with some rabbit meat.
Placing them on some kitchenware in the middle of the floor, I opened the stove and placed some logs in it before starting a fire.
While the stove is heating up, I place the potato in the fire to bake it and set the rabbit on top of the stove to grill it when the heat gets high enough.
Soon, the meat started to turn brown, showing that it was cooked, so I checked the potato to see that if it was done.
Opening the oven door and pulling out the potato, I saw that it had split down the center and was steaming. Taking that as good enough I placed the potato off to the side as I turned back to the meat and started to dice it.
With the meat fully diced, I placed it into the split-open center of the potato, thus making myself a simple meat-stuffed baked potato.
Seeing this, I could not help but think about the ones I would usually get from a small BBQ joint in my old world.
"Man... I wish I had some cheese and sour cream."
Sadly, the way to make those things is very much out of reach of someone in my position at the moment. So I grabbed the potato on its piece of kitchenware and sat down in the middle of the shack to eat.
When I was finished with my potato, I got up and put the kitchenware away before walking outside to start the day.
Walking over to my workbench, I opened the crafting tab to switch it over and grab the new workbench. However, I found that there was no way to switch tabs in there.
Confused, I looked around the menu and saw that the system version had changed.
[Survival System: Version 0.3.0]
With this change confirmed, I looked at the workbench to figure out how I was supposed to use it when a prompt asking if I wanted to open the workbench popped up.
Opening the workbench menu, I found all the things I set to build yesterday in a small inventory screen off to the side and the crafting menu beside it.
Grabbing the workstations from the inventory, I placed them in a large ring around me.
With all the workstations I could make placed down, I moved over to the stone cutting bench and got a prompt to open it like with the workbench. It seemed to me that all the workstations now operated like this, and given the number of workstations I now had, it made sense.
Opening the stone cutting bench, I set it to start crafting some stone foundations, half walls, and pipes before moving on to the woodworking bench.
Opening its menu, I set it to make some half-log siding, interior wood walls, interior wood floor, and weather-treated wood planks of varying sizes. Compared to the rest of the wood building pieces, which only required some wood and plant fibers, which can be gathered easily, weather-treated planks only required some resin on top to make them.
Next, I move to the mortar and pestle and set it to make some gunpowder from a few of the things I picked up around the forest. I also set it to make the stuff needed for bone china ware as I wanted to stop using the tools I needed to cook as plates and bowls.
Returning to the workbench, I open the menu and set it to make a stone stove and chimney, kitchen cabinets, and a kitchen sink. With all that set, I moved on to the stone furnace and lit it with some wood but only pulled out one iron bar from its inventory.
I then took and heated the bar in the now roaring furnace before taking it to the anvil and placing it on top.
Reaching into my inventory, I find a hammer, albeit not one used for what I intend to use it for, but it will work.
Pulling out the hammer, I strike it against the glowing iron, deforming it slightly.
I proceeded to repeatedly strike while the iron was still hot, forming the edge of a blade. Now that the edge is formed and the metal has started to cool off too much, I return it to the furnace and heat the iron again. With the metal heated once more, I return it to the anvil and begin forming it again.
Soon, I made a handle slot and took the edge to a wide, curved point.
With the forming finished, I took a barrel of fresh water I salvaged from the ship, which I had been drinking out of periodically, and placed it next to the anvil.
Dunking the newly made axe head in the water to quench it, I wait for the steam to stop before pulling the axe head out of the barrel and receiving a message.
[Congratulations, you have made your first metal tool all on your own. You have been rewarded with the tech metal tools.]
[Congratulations, you have made your first metal tool all on your own. Your forging skill has increased by five levels, and the next skill point placed here will award you a 25% boost.]
As soon as the windows popped up in front of me, the knowledge of how to forge many different metal hand tools nearly perfectly entered my head. It was not like any specific instruction on hammering methods or counts or whatnot, but more of how to get the shape of the different tools as well as the proper methods needed to temper them. There was also a lot of information about how to make a mold to pour molten metal into the rough shape of the tools.
I opened the menu for the anvil, as it was technically a workbench, and set it to make a few metal hand drills and saws.
Soon, however, the system sent a new notification into my vision that I had been ignoring.
[Congratulations [Quest: Mainline 1: Catching Up to the Rest of the World] Completed! You have received the reward of one free stat point.]
[New Quest Received]
[Quest: Mainline 1: New House]
{Task 1: unlock all tech necessary to build a better house.} (completed)
{Task 2: craft the structural pieces.} (in-progress)
{Task 3: Build the house.} (not yet started)
{Task 4: Furnish the house.} (not yet started)
{Reward: +5 tech points}
When I saw the reward I received for completing my quest, I held off on allocating the stat point for the moment as I did not know where to place it.
However, when I saw the new quest, I was slightly intrigued, so I looked at the details a little more.
The first thing I noticed was that the Quest title said New House and not renovated, which is what I was planning by making the new building pieces, so it more than likely wanted me to build a new building. This made me want to ignore it as I did not want to spend time building a new building, and I was just about to close the window to do that when I caught sight of the reward.
This turned my thoughts around and made me look at the tasks more closely.
The first three tasks were fairly easy, as I was already going to do those. However, the last one would require me to either spend the next few hours making furniture or spend two tech points on primitive bedding and furniture making.
With the promise of five more tech points, spending a couple now was far easier, and by the time that thought crossed my mind, I had already done that.
Now that the new techs had been purchased and the knowledge flooded into my mind, I found that the furniture was made in a separate workstation from the woodworking bench.
I had already made it during my workbench buying spree, as it was included in the materials refining tech.
Walking over to it, I opened the menu to see what I could make and was surprised by the contents.
I could make a complete dining set for six, which I did, a full queen-sized bedroom set including nightstands, wardrobe, and changing screen, which I also made two of and a white-washed stone standing tub that was way too large for me alone, which I of course made.
After this, I walked away from that workstation and ignored the little buying spree that I just had, which definitely was not me walking away to prevent myself from making more things I would not need, and checked on the mortar and pestle.
When I was inside its inventory, I found that it had completed everything I set it to do. Thus, I set it to make more gunpowder and took the base for the bone china I was going to make.
With the materials for the bone china in hand, I moved over to the ceramics/pottery bench and set it to make the kitchenware and dishes I wanted.
After all that was done, I went to the stone-cutting table, took all the foundations that it had made, and walked over to the stream where I would make my next building site.
There, I started to lay the foundations for my new house.
The foundation began on one side of the stream and went over it, with an arched channel built into it to allow the water to pass through without obstruction. On the other side, the house would hit a ninty degree and turn left with a hallway along the exterior wall next to the stream.
In this hallway were two rooms made to be guestrooms in case I encountered anyone in the forest who might want to stay here. Back in the main room, the entrance would lead to the dining room with a kitchen and stairwell in the back.
The upstairs would be the master suite with its own on-suite bathroom planned for when I got the tech to make that.
This design also left room for expansion from both the back and sides of the building, then, if I wanted to redo the roof, I could expand up to the second room.
With the foundations placed and a plan made for later, I went back to the workbench to check if the rest of the crafting was finished.
The stone pipes and random pieces of lumber needed some more time to finish, but everything else was ready. So I took it and walked back to the building site.
Once there, I began to place down the walls according to the design I had planned earlier for the shack renovations.
On the outside of the entire building, I placed a half wall of stone topped with a half wall of horizontal half-log siding. I then placed the interior wood walls along the exterior walls and separated the rooms with double thick walls after I placed the floors down.
I also used floor pieces for the roof, making it flat and partitioning the upstairs from the downstairs, leaving a hole where the staircase to the second-floor master would be placed. Then, Jumping off the walls like some main character in a game, I grab onto the opening in the ceiling and pull myself up.
Upstairs, I place exterior walls made entirely out of half logs with an interior wood wall behind them like I did downstairs.
Next, I partitioned a section of the room with interior walls to make space for the bathroom, which I will be placing up here.
Jumping down, I go back outside of the newly built house and go over to the workstations, which I am now just going to call the work area.
Opening the different menus as I walk past the workbenches, I grab all the freshly built stuff and head back inside.
The first thing I placed when I was back in the house was the kitchen with the stove on the side wall and the cabinets running along both sides; after this was the dining room set that was placed in the room right next to the kitchen.
Next, I head to one of the downstairs bedrooms and place down one of the bedroom sets.
Going back outside, I set the woodworking station to make a set of right-angle stairs and six roof sections.
Sitting there on top of the woodworking station, I waited for the stairs to finish before grabbing them and returning inside.
Once on the bottom floor, I placed the stairs on the far back wall, creating an L-shaped staircase that could be seen from the front door. I then ascended them and returned upstairs to place the second bedroom set and the bathtub.
Once these were placed down, I started to run the stone pipes through the walls for the eventual time when I would have running water hooked up to the house.
With all of that finished, I returned to the woodworking bench and retrieved the roof pieces needed to finish the new house.
Walking back and standing outside the building on the opposite side of the stream, I placed the roof pieces on the house.
During all of this, I found out that the building pieces were flexible and not in a fixed shape, making it so that I could build whatever I wanted with them as long as they fit the definition of what those pieces were made for. They also had a slight restriction on the size of what they could make, which seemed to be more dependent on how much materials were used to make the building piece.
Finishing all of that, a window appeared in my vision.
[Congratulations [Quest: Mainline 1: New House] Completed! You have received the reward of 5 tech points.]
[Congratulations on completing multiple quests back to back. For your hard work, you have received one point for your endurance.]
Seeing the completion of the quest, I looked to see where the sun was, only to find it setting on the horizon.
With that, I entered my new house to use the kitchen in there for the first time.
Putting a cougar steak on the stove, I lit a fire inside it and let the meat cook.
Though it takes longer to heat up, I am still able to enjoy my food while watching the last rays of the sunset leave this world.