Homesteading in a fantasy world

The next morning while I was eating, I started to think up a game plan. First, I need to collect the new rocks that have come up on the fields. If I don’t, harrowing will be hard and my farming equipment can break. I also need to find out what the fibre plants are actually called.

For collecting rocks, I will need to build a sled for the bull to pull. I would also want to make it multi-purpose. The sled part will be used for timber. I also want to build a cart that can be attached. That would be for rocks, and I guess dirt and other stuff like that where I can’t use the wagon.

When it's finished, I should be able to bring longer pieces of timber. Though I still think it would be a bad idea to bring the bull into the forest, it could be too dangerous for it. For that reason, I should make a quick release. So, I could quickly make him run away and hopefully save his life.

It’s a good idea to bring some extra timber. I think it would be best that for the next two days I bring in a lot of wood. I started doing my regular morning chores, and it was a bit annoying how long it takes. Because I wanted to get along with my other tasks. I chose this time not to make the cheese and only milk the cows a little bit. Only as much I can drink today.

Now I was back in the forest after checking out the trap. I started searching for the right trees. This time I wanted extremely heavy-duty wood for the sled. Then some regular building wood and finally I wanted to bring back some excellent wood for making bows.

Making bows was my life for a long time. I made most of my money with it and I was one of the best in the world, at least for traditional bow making. I hoped it would help me here too, if I ever got in touch with civilization. Finding a bow tree is as hard or easy as you want it to be.

I always say to whoever wants to make a bow that diminishing returns becomes a problem quickly. So, wasting your time hunting for the best of the best wood might only give you a few percent better bow than just excellent wood. Of course, it can be better than just a few percent, but you would need decades of experience to bring that out.

The best way to start out making bows is just take a piece of wood and start carving it. I recommend soft woods first and make short bows from them. Just giving them to children it’s a nice gift and an excellent way to start out.

Oh, man how I love bow making, but I really need to concentrate. One mistake here and I will be spending the rest of my life in this forest. Not wanting to just cut trees and waste the opportunity, I train my ability.

I continue to try to feel how energy moved when using the cutting ability. I also tried to push more energy into it. That made it brighter, and I could cut down trees faster and more easily.

I started with general purpose lumber. Cutting down the trees and removing the branches, then sawing it into smaller pieces that I could pull out. But when I started to pull a piece of lumber back with my harness, I also decided to help my energy move better and that made bringing them back even easier. So much so that I could bring back multiple pieces similar to the one I normally brought back.

Bringing the log across the bridge was a cringeworthy moment. After I put it where I want it, I went back and checked the bridge for any damage but absolutely nothing was wrong just as I hoped it would be. But this time before I went back, I looked for some extra rope and chain so I could make it so I could pull more lumber at a time.

Pulling back the rest of the tree at once was hard, but good hard. I had some trouble with the bigger branches at the start because they were getting stuck. Fixing that by putting them a bit more on top of the bigger logs was an easy solution. I continued cutting down the trees, then cutting them into smaller pieces, and dragging them back.

This was extremely tiring work and every time I got back, I looked at the bull and wishing it could pull them. I could just cut the tree I need for the sled and build it and have him pull and I was close to doing it like that, but after lunch when I was pulling another huge load. I got the notification that I gained one stat in strength, dexterity, vitality and endurance. That’s a full level up worth of stats.

I’m pretty sure that I will need to constantly move energy for the training to actually work in improving my stats. That’s why I continue to do it, not just to get stat points, but to better learn how this energy system in this world works. Now that the day was ending, I chose a big and strong oak tree I was going to use to make the sled.

First, I use my axe without any abilities and after the first swing I felt the sting in my hands. It brought a smile to my face. Oak is still as stubborn and hard as I remembered. It would've been a bitch and a half to cut it down if I didn’t have piercing cut.

Using the ability did make it easier, but not easy. While it took me about 10 to 20 minutes to cut down a tree, that's the same size as earlier today. It took me a bit over an hour and a half for this tree. It did give me a level of logging

I also couldn’t bring it back all at once and needed to make two trips. It was already dark when I walked across the bridge with the last load. Luckily, lifting up the bridge is easy because my legs were shaking from the strain that I put myself through this day. After I eat and was lying on the bed, I just smiled and said. “I get to do that again tomorrow. Fun.”

The next morning, I was feeling sore, but during the morning chores I was able to get the kinks out and feel normal again. That didn’t last long as I started to bring the lumber back. Today I also found some good bow trees. When they finally dry, I could make 20 bows from them. Maybe from the 20, 5 to 10 would actually make it as a good bow.

While the day was not completely done, I was completely spent. I could keep pushing myself, but I didn’t actually find a reason to do so. Mainly because I had brought back more lumber than I actually planned to bring back during these two days. Thanks to this being a fantasy world and me being able to use my stats effectively made it easier.

I didn’t want to start making the sled this late, but I also didn’t want to waste the rest of the day. So, I started to think about what I might need later on, and metalworking came up. For that I would need fuel and I will need to make charcoal. I have been preparing for it by bringing the branches back and now would be an excellent time to get started with that.

I have enough to make a huge amount of charcoal so much that it would take 10 days to make that much in one batch. But one mistake and all of it will burn to nothing. Normally, you would have someone watching it so it wouldn’t burn up. But I am all alone and I can’t keep watch 24/7 for over a week by myself, besides I also need to work on other things.

So, making smaller piles and just hoping that they don’t burn up when I’m not around is the best choice. I start by clearing up a section near the bridge on the farm side. Making sure that they are not close to anything and that they are far enough away from each other. I ended up with three piles when I finished stacking the branches.

Next, I started to cover the wood with soil, because to make charcoal I need to burn the wood with basically no access to air. Only so much air that it would not completely snuff out the burning.

If there’s too much air intake and there’s actual flame, then it would just burn into ash. Which could be useful to make soap before I run out and for other things, but it would be mixed with soil and that would be almost useless.

So that’s what I did for the rest of the day, since I know the next day will be a lot easier. I also stayed awake past midnight tending to the burning pile, making sure everything was running as it should and it wouldn't burn up. One of the three piles gave me the most trouble, but before I went to sleep, I think I was able to stabilize it enough. The next 2 and a half days will tell if I am able to get any charcoal.

The next morning, the first thing I checked was the charcoal piles, but they all looked fine. I went to sleep a bit more after that, but it wasn't for very long.

Continuing today with my usual chores except for the cheese making. I still wasn’t doing that because it was actually quite annoying getting all those things every day. Might need to find a better way so I don’t have to bring nettles and extract rennet from them every day.

I start by figuring out the sled and how I wanted to design it. It was just basically going to be a box with two sled legs underneath. In a perfect world, I want the sled legs to be covered with steel sheet. With that, it will be stronger and actually be easier to pull. Less friction with steel.

Unfortunately, I don’t have the facilities or the metal to pull that off currently. Maybe in the future I can add it. I love oak wood until I have to work with it, then I hate it. I wonder if there are even stronger wood in this world. That would be awesome and terrifying if I had to work with that.

I had to make the sled strong and not flexible, so I am using mortise and tenon joints. I start by squaring up the oak lumber. When that is done, I measure and cut out the centre piece I need. One side of that piece, I also cut a 30-degree angle, so when logs rested upon this piece, they would angle down, then most of the log would not touch the land or stay airborne.

I needed to make 3 more pieces like that except for the angle cut. 4 shorter pieces for the edges and 4 even shorter one to use as connectors and dividers. When put together, I have a box that looks like a frame of a box except it's made of thick oak wood.

Making the sled legs was difficult because I had to carve a curve into the front of them and all I had was an axe that was barely strong enough to do the work even with piercing cut.

In the end I had a wooden sled at the height a bit above 1 meter and 1 and a half meters wide and meter in length. I added a hitching system in the front.

Making it so it would be easy to connect and disconnect, just like any other farming equipment on earth. I made spots so I could connect the cart that I am going to make. And I also added notches so the chains holding the logs won't slip.

With that, the day was over, and I checked my notifications. I got a skill level in basic wood carving, basic wood crafting and basic energy manipulation.

Next morning, I do my chores and had to reset 3 traps. When I got back, I start planning out the cart so I could collect rocks from the field. This will be a bit difficult.

It would need to be able to handle a lot of weight and I also want it to have sled legs. Then when the bull is pulling it, it will only have four contacts on land, making it easier to pull. The cart would need to be made out of oak, but the oak boards also need to be thin enough so it wouldn’t have too much weight.

The best way to do it would be to make a simple box cart that will use up most of my nails when finished. Making the oak boards, cross supports and sled legs was the hardest and longest part.

Constructing the cart was the fastest and easiest part. Testing the sled and cart by pulling it myself was fun, but with my current stats, it will be impossible to pull a loaded cart. But it can be an excellent way to train myself and my stats.

When I was eating my dinner, I started to think about skills and what they gave and represented. Was it just a representation of how many actions you did within that skill to get some abilities, eventually? Or is there deeper meaning inside the skill? Could I get information that I didn’t know before from it?

I know that if I know how to do it, but I don’t have the skill, it will be harder to complete those tasks. Meaning penalties apply, but are there positives? I have not felt it but maybe my skill levels need to be higher. I hope there is also some knowledge I can get from skills. Thinking about that kept me occupied until I fell asleep.