Mountain and Forest Kingdom

Night comes quickly.

The fire outside the shack grew brighter and brighter.

Lawrence leaned against the shack, with sacks of soft earth behind him.

He stretched out his legs, half sitting and half lying in the shack. At the door one meter away from his feet was a fire that occasionally crackled.

Occasionally, sparks would pop out of the wood and soon be extinguished on the nearby grass.

The mountain forest at night is damp and cold, the mist approaches here like a ghost, and from time to time, the penetrating roars of owls and wild cats can be heard.

Lawrence paused holding the dagger in his hand for a moment and scratched his itchy scalp.

Soon he carefully wiped the dagger dry with rat skin, placed the dagger under the wooden pillow, picked up the stone from one side, and continued to process the branches and wood chips placed on his legs.

Using this little time in the evening, Lawrence quietly made simple tools such as chopsticks and bamboo skewers.

Lawrence wanted to make a pair of fire pliers, similar to longer scissors, that could pick rocks out of the fire, or control mice and other prey that cannot be caught by hand without using hands.

However, it is not easy to make such a tool that is not complicated in design. The most troublesome thing is the material.

It must be made of stronger wood, and it cannot be too long. If it is too long, it will not easily bear the force and break easily.

In the absence of iron tools, wood and stone were the best tools.

For fighting or working, it is more convenient to go to the blacksmith down the mountain to buy iron tools. Lawrence held two bowl-sized stones and thought about the structure of the millstone.

He kept pressing the two stones together and turning them, and based on the rotation and discharging methods of the stone mills in his memory, he continued to restore the specific structure.

"There must be grinding marks between the two grinding discs to increase friction. When the upper grinding disc and the lower stone are grinding, these marks will rub against each other."

"In my memory, when the stone mill rotates, it will make a continuous friction sound, rather than one piece at a time. The dents on the two stone mills should be easier to bear and distributed more evenly."

"There can't be any overlap, otherwise it will get stuck."

"That is to keep interlacing. The dents should be able to catch the fallen wheat and beans, and then bring the crushed materials out of the dents into the next dent to continue processing. The function of each dent is to bring the materials down. An indentation that uses the gravity of the indentation and stone grinding to break up the particles.”

Lawrence had never made a stone grinder before, or even had any experience with it.

Many related technologies can only be restored by relying on incomplete memory and supporting basic knowledge.

Lawrence put down the stone, put his left and right hands together, put the palms of their hands together tightly, and slowly rotated his hands.

The friction feeling from the palm of his hand made it easier for Lawrence's brain to think.

He kept turning his hands left and right. Because the arm joints could only rotate a small distance, he had to repeat this process over and over again.

Soon Lawrence's palms became a little warm. When the two palms continued to crush hard, there was a heat and itching feeling in the palms of the palms.

Lawrence quickly and lazily leaned against the bag of dirt, holding two flat stones and thinking about how to process the stones.

It's definitely not possible to use a dagger, but it's basically useless to use wood or other stones.

You can actually do other handicrafts, such as making bowls and cups.

The problem is that we are not surviving in the wilderness now, nor can we just knead everything with our bare hands. Things like bowls and cups can be borrowed from Andrew's house, so it is not worth spending time to do these.

"If I make a stone mill, not only can I use it myself, but I can also exchange it for other supplies."

Lawrence roughly understood the internal structure of the stone mill, but he understood that whether it could be made specifically would depend on his hands-on ability.

"Tools, what if I don't have a strong iron nail or an iron pestle? In short, I can't do it well without an iron thing that can exert force."

Lawrence sighed, just as he was feeling frustrated, he suddenly thought of someone else.

"It makes no sense that others can easily do what I can't do. Is this a technical issue, not a strength issue?"

Lawrence frowned as he considered the villagers' mill.

There are many mills in the Luofen Kingdom, and almost every village has a flour-making mill. Such professional tools are indispensable in the noble manors in the kingdom's capital.

The mill is a special symbol of this era and a center of technology.

Lawrence knew that the mills in the noble manor must have manpower and material support, and he could only compare with the mills in the small villages.

There were several stone mills in the mill in Pumixiu, a village at the foot of the mountain. Lawrence had an idea instantly after thinking of the few stone mills in the warehouse.

"I'm thinking too much. I see stone wheels similar to stone mills in the village. Why do I have to break through technical and environmental constraints to make stone mills?"

Compared with stone mills, stone mills are heavier and more labor-intensive.

The stone mill can process fine flour, while the stone mill crushes and shells the grains. After the grains are crushed by the stone, they are placed in a flat basket and then bumped a few times to separate the broken shells and cracked grains.

The thin noodles that Andrew ate were not actually fine, but they were fine for Lawrence Sophia and the bitter cold people who ate potatoes all day long.

In fact, the wheat flour they eat is simply processed.

Of course, this is already very high-end. There is no intentional inclusion of sand or sawdust. It is already a very high aristocratic standard.

"You can make a stone mortar first. The stone mortar is much simpler. It is a small bucket for pounding medicine and grains. If you grind it with stone...it seems that you also need iron tools."

Lawrence found himself trapped in an endless loop. Whether he was making stone mills or stone grinders, he needed iron tools.

The stone grinding matter was not so urgent for the time being. When a gust of wind blew the bonfire to the point of extinction, Lawrence quickly climbed out of the hole and stood up.

The pine forest was full of the sound of swaying branches. In the dark, moonless night, the swaying branches around him, as well as the howling wind, quickly took away most of the heat from Lawrence's body.

"It is going to rain!"

Lawrence hurriedly moved the fire to the shack, where dry soil had been laid and a reserved [sanitary pit] was dug.

It was not a good idea to go to the bathroom at night. Lawrence's original plan was to bury it on the spot and throw it out tomorrow.

But today I didn’t eat any game, I ate the pie I brought with me, and even the water I brought to drink, so I didn’t have diarrhea and didn’t need it.

Lawrence rekindled the fire in the pit that was originally intended to prevent stomach upset, and placed spare fuel around it, using the firelight to dry some branches and leaves that were not very dry in advance.

Just after the flames were stabilized in the shack, thunder and lightning came from outside.

boom!

Thunder resounded across the sky and exploded among the mountains. At that moment, Lawrence looked through the narrow hole and saw the silent world outside that was as bright as day.

The sky only lit up for a moment, then darkened again the next second.

Invisible raindrops fell on the pine forest and the ground, and the sound of rain could also be heard on the sloping hut.

Lawrence squinted his eyes. He didn't care to feel the violent storm outside. At this time, he kept squinting and covering his nose.

He made a mistake by not making facilities such as chimneys in advance, and also ignored the difference between burning the same kind of wood outdoors and burning indoors.

The firewood collected by Sariel had been burned out, and when he used the branches he collected lazily from the woods to light the fire, the pungent smell of burning pine branches made Lawrence understand that he had to make a choice.

Should I continue to endure the pungent smell of fireworks, or endure the cold?

Humans and beasts may not be frozen to death, but they can be killed by thick smoke.

You absolutely cannot persist in this kind of thing, you will die if you persist!

Without much hesitation, Lawrence quickly buried the fire with earth and sealed the pine branches and leaves that emitted smoke.

There was a violent storm outside, and even the hole in the waterproof mound quickly gathered rainwater.

The rainwater quickly flowed away along the slope, and the surrounding branches, leaves and land were not prone to water accumulation.

The moisture and cooling brought by the heavy rain quickly seeped into the shack.

Lawrence used a dagger to open a breathing hole in the shack. There was still a lot of suspended smoke in the shack, which refused to leave the small and dark shack.

Unknowingly, Lawrence fell into a drowsy sleep. When he slowly woke up from the severe cold, he found that there was still a small amount of smoke remaining in the cave where he huddled.

The wind and rain outside are still noisy.

The coma does not last long, it may be just a few seconds, a few minutes, or an hour.

Lawrence folded his hands in front of him, found the animal skin blanket that he had not covered when he was working just now, and covered it with it.

Because of the cold, my body began to tremble continuously.

Lawrence wanted to stay warm, so he curled up under the blanket and closed his eyes thinking about tomorrow.

Soon, Lawrence missed the warmth of home and every ordinary night with someone before that.