Chapter 21: The Fruit part 2

After completing the formation of that strange bucket, Foin kept staring at it. Although it was still quite moldable and flimsy, as time went on, it grew harder and sturdier. This greatly surprised Foin, as he was not expecting it to happen. He even tried to test its durability by hitting it harder and harder. Although it did fly away, it was quite resilient.

Based on its colour and seeming structure and texture, he believed that it was some sort of stony material which would break easily. He quickly turned it upside down, and with great force, he hit it. He didn't care if it broke because he was extremely curious to see how durable it was or how easily he could break it. Since it had a very thin and uneven wall, he had the impression that it would shatter under his punch.

However, he was wrong. With his mighty punch, he didn't achieve the expected results. The bottom of the bucket, which he had hit, slightly bent in, and a loud, almost metallic, noise was produced. Also, the bucket slightly sank into the ground due to the sudden force, but it was practically undamaged.

Stunned by the durability of that material, Foin leaned back and looked at the tiny tree. He was grinning since he had just found something interesting, useful, and exciting. The cogwheels in his head had just started working on newer and newer ideas which he could use later.

The very first idea that came to his mind was about his house. Seeing how easily the liquid solidified and how sturdy it got, he could use it to help him keep the walls and even the bricks closer easily. However, he also wanted to conduct even more tests on the substance, but now that he has a sturdy bucked, he wanted to use it instead of destroying it.

He was unaware of when the next fruit would be produced, so he needed to wait for further tests, so he got ready to dig another hole. Or, to be more precise, he wanted to expand the pit for the composting area. Although he didn't know how far he would like to expand his farm, at least he would have a larger area to store unneeded plants.

Just as he jumped down into the hole to continue expanding it, something struck him. He never watered his plants. Maybe he needed to water them in order for them to produce higher-quality products. Driven by that thought, he quickly jumped out of the pit and filled his new bucket with water.

It filled up so much faster than his water bottle, and emptying it would also be much faster. He quickly stepped over to the tree and poured the entire bucket of water on it. The water hit the tree, and it didn't even move. Since that tree was currently his favourite plant, he watered it three times just in case it would speed up its growth more.

And then he proceeded to water every other plant as well. Since his garden was quite large, it took him quite some time, but it was all worth it, in his opinion. As a result, he made sure that every single plant was well watered. And only then did he go back to his pit.

He started greatly expanding the composting area, and since he was now a container, moving the dirt was somewhat easier. He put the dirt he had just dug up into the container, and once it was full, about three to four shavelings later, he brought the dirt over to where he kept the pile before he turned most of the dirt into bricks.

This process was much more efficient as he could better control where he put the dirt and didn't need to fling his shovel with great force so that he could throw the dirt out. However, it came with its own challenges. It was heavy labour, so after the first round, he took off his shirt. Since he needed to climb out of the pit with the full bucket of dirt, which was quite heavy, he quickly started sweating.

However, he was surprised to notice that he had been working hard, yet his body didn't get tired that easily now. He worked for hours, and even then, he felt only a little bit of exhaustion. Of course, it was thanks to his tea and his new physique.

About two hours before sunset, Foin stopped digging. Although he was uncertain how much more dirt he would still need, since he had found a new way to improve his house, he didn't want to rush things. As a result, he grabbed the now somewhat dry mud bricks and transported them closer to his construction site. He carefully placed them in one large pile, which formed a triangle as he put more and more down. Just as he was done, he looked at his bucket and smiled.

"Let's make some extra tea today... and tomorrow I will take things a bit lighter... maybe I will just focus on slowly clearing a bit more land for the farming area and keep planting some more plants..."

He mumbled as he slowly filled his bucket and two bottles with water and then put a few flowers of Élion in them. He carefully placed them next to his house. Since the ground was not very even, he needed to smoothen it so that his bucket would not fall.

With that done, he harvested a few more flowers of Élion and dropped them into his pool. He wanted to raise its water level a bit more, so once he had dropped the flowers in, he grabbed his shovel and removed some dirt from the river's side. Water started flowing into his pool at a greater rate, and then he proceeded to do the next page of exercises in the manual.

While he was following the instructions, he once in a while glanced at his pool to avoid it being overfilled. He wanted to keep the level somewhat low still. As a result, as soon as he was done with his exercise, he sealed up the water once again and went to sleep early.