Chapter 15: The Tea part 2

As soon as Foin closed his menu and grabbed the next pepper to harvest, his skill, Apriaiser, activated.

"Notice! Pepper! Level: Basic. Tier: 1. Quality: E. Type: Food. Maturity:98%"

"That is all?! That one single extra indicator? I know it took only some harvesting, but still... It feels too small of a change!"

Foin mumbled as soon as he read the new notification. He shook his head in slight disappointment and then resumed harvesting. However, although he had first wanted to harvest all of the crops, now that he noticed that they were not fully matured yet, he decided to harvest about seventy per cent of them and leave the rest on.

And just as he had imagined and planned, he followed through with his plan. A massive pile of Pepper was waiting for him next to his fire area. He looked back at the massive amount of product with a wide smile. He was filled with happiness to see the fruit of his work. Even if it was a greatly sped-up process, he felt happy.

The potatoes were no exceptions; they too were not matured perfectly yet, so he left almost half of them back in the ground, and at the same time, a few new plants had been planted back. While he was harvesting the potatoes, they, too, levelled up, and the exact same notification appeared as what he got for the peppers.

After he was done with the planting and harvesting of potatoes, he looked at his clothes. The clothes which he was wearing since the day he was taken to this world, the clothes in which he was beaten and shot. It had seen better days as it was already quite dirty, especially its sleeves from the plantings.

Suddenly, his eyes widened as he got a sudden great idea. He had tasted the power of the tea he created from the Élion; however, a new combination just came to his mind. He decided that he would create some sort of pit filled with water and try to put Élion into that flower. His plan was to see what effect the flower would have on him if he used it for bathing.

Strengthened by his new plan, he decided to clear another larger area around the river bank. Now that he could stand without any pain, thanks to the tea, the process was much faster. The large grass seemed to have grown since he had arrived. Previously, it was about knee high, but now the level was about five centimetres higher.

"Maybe I could try digging out a compost area for later... Perhaps using it would increase the quality of the crops."

He mumbled as he dropped the last bunch of grass down into the massive pile of grass. At that moment, he took a breather and filled his other bottle with water. He took a sip of water at first and then brought his half-full bottle with him to the area in which he wanted to start digging.

The first process he did was using a larger piece of stone; he drew the shape he wanted to excavate. Since he wasn't very creative, he simply decided to use a square-like base. It was about two meters by two meters, and once he had drawn the borders, he dropped the stone and started using his hand to dig.

Without any proper tools or materials to craft any tool, the process was quite slow. Since he planned to try and experiment with more containers and mugs made from mud, he tried to throw the excavated dirt into one area.

As the dirt pile grew, Foin got deeper and deeper down his bathing area. He noticed that the deeper he got, the softer the dirt got, and he noticed three distinct layers by the time he had reached the depth he wanted. When he stood in the pit, his shoulder was out of it.

The process was so long that the sun was starting to set by the time he finished digging, so he needed to improvise. Instead of starting a fire in his usual place, he decided to start one near his hole to give him some extra light. Since he didn't know how long it would take to polish the side and the bottom, he had to prepare a larger log once again.

Using his stone, Foi cut down a larger piece of wood, but this time, it was smaller than the one he used for drying the mud pots, as that burned for almost a whole day. And now he only needed a light source, not heat. He started the fire just as he always did. Some grass, sawdust and smaller pieces of wood.

While the fire was slowly starting, Foin quickly started watering the side of his pit and then started pushing on it to smoothen the surface. He poured an entire bottle of fresh water from the river onto the wall and then used his hands to compress and smoothen the walls. It was much faster than digging out the whole pit, but still, it was dirtier.

While the digging meant moving soil, the dirt was not sticky; here, the mud was quite sticky, and as he worked, his clothes got dirtier and dirtier. Just as he was finished, the sun was just barely visible over the horizon.

He quickly climbed out of his pit and then walked to the riverside. He left a few meters away from the river just to be sure that the wall would not collapse. Now that he was ready, Foin created a channel from the river to his pit. It was a bit over the width of his palm, and then the water started flowing in. He purposely didn't make the channel too deep so that the pool would fill up slowly.

The last thing Foin did in the setting sun was plant five more Élion plants and harvest a great number of flowers, almost all of them, and then he dropped them into the slowly filling pool he had created. While harvesting the flowers, he noticed that they were all mature.

The water was barely even flowing into the pool, but it was all part of Foin's plan. He'd rather the pool fill only to its half point than overflow, and then the river water and his special water be mixed up.

Before Foin went to sleep, he decided to perform the first and then the second page of the manual he was given as a reward. Although he still didn't understand what it could be used for, he felt that since he had a sore muscle, maybe it was something physically healthy.