[NR] Plant Them, Dry Them, Separate Them Into Parts - Chapter 625 (Patreon)

Next day dawns bright and early. Emphasis on bright as it seems Jason’s room was facing where the sun rises. And despite the medieval style of buildings, glass windows were very much there to let the light in. The buildings were just rough because they expect them to get broken frequently by monsters and so anything that isn’t easy to fix like solid chunks of material are kept to a minimum.

In fact, in a sort of twist, glass is easier to repair than the wooden walls. Since glass is actually an amorphous solid, repair magic can just nudge the pieces together. Whereas with wood, you have to take into account the grain and such. Besides, wood tends to break messily with splintering and twisting. All of which needs to be put right if you want to retain the wood’s strength.

Jason didn’t particularly appreciate these interesting quirks. Not that he had planned to stay in bed or anything, but he preferred to wake up on his own and not by an outside force. Just a hold over from cultivation and how if you’re deep into it, being disturbed can cause problems.

Either way, he was awake now and breakfast was ready. In the sense that if you wanted stew, well, there was always stew. Though this time Jason didn’t buy any greens. They would be heading out into the forest momentarily and Lily could browse the greenery out there.

Jason can’t help but grouse a little. He had actually just harvested his portable planter recently or else that would have been a solution. Though his herb garden is feeling a little stale. The long-term herbs, of course, are going to simply take time to mature. But as for the normal stuff? He had harvested the Energy Herbs and so on more than a few times at this point.

Not to say that having a dependable source of such things is bad. It is just that when Jason thinks of a personal herb garden; he thinks of a bunch of one-off long-term plants with very tricky growing conditions. All the while his plants don’t even need their temperature to be maintained besides making sure they don’t freeze.

At least the bloody lingzhi requires a blood-soaked log to start, but after that it grows like a normal mushroom. As the trio make their way back to the clearing, he makes up his mind to at least try and find some odd herbs out in the deep Wilds. Well, after finishing the Tome. That is going to take a decent amount of time so any plans for the portable planter or a garden in the clearing would have to wait.

This doesn’t mean that on the way back to the clearing, Jason isn’t looking. He just doesn’t find anything interesting. Their clearing being a bit too close to spatial stabilized space for any earthly treasures to be hanging out. Sure, something might be around, but that would be pure luck and serendipity.

Though soon enough, they’re back at their clearing. Not that Rosha and Courtney hang around too long. It is early enough that they feel up to heading out and so they do. While the house Jason made for them is comfortable enough and they had even acquired some proper sheets for the beds, the call of adventure and exploration had really taken root in them.

Jason actually takes a while to think on this instead of heading straight into preparing his materials. Even players don’t go out exploring as aggressively as the pair have been. People like having a base and living in it. Even those who are nomadic will set up in an area for a while or at least bring their homes with them.

He shakes his head and heads towards a small shed he had built recently. Inside is mostly empty except for narrow shelves to both sides of the door and an enormous pile of dry hardwood in the rafters. Quite utilitarian, but it would work fine for the moment. Sure, for a proper carpentry workshop you’d need all kinds of equipment and tables to hold it. Except Jason didn’t need a plethora of tools when he had already figured out using his Energy as a substitute.

Yes, it wouldn’t be as effective as when done for butchery, but the quality of the carpentry isn’t the most important thing. As long as what he is about to make doesn’t have splinters everywhere, it would be fine. And what is he making?

A bunch of wooden frames. Real simple stuff meant purely to stretch the hides while he works on them. The most challenging but was attaching the hides and sheer tedium. After all, there are 35 frames to make and attach hides to.

This process is going to take multiple days to complete, though after only the first day, he takes a break from it for another important task. That of taking care of the plants he bought for various processes and inks. Some he planted in small plots near the carpentry shack, others he hung up to dry, and one was separated into parts.

Then it was back to framing the untreated hides. Even the overly scarred hide is put on one so Jason can practice without worry. Though not before he cuts a few strips off to turn into leather straps. He had felt that at least the straps should be made of the same material the pages were.

That left a whole lot of scraping for Jason to do and as a bonus, this for some reason still counted as butchery so his skill actually worked. Jason’s best guess on this is that the hides are untreated. Whatever the case may be, it allowed him to really scrape the hides thin. Even better, by the time he was done turning it into vellum, his skill had gone up a level and a half.

This growth likely being the result of using the skill in an “unusual” way. Not that a ton of people aren’t out there using butchery to process hides into vellum. Just that the original skill wasn’t exactly meant for this application. Besides, it isn’t like scraping the hide is the only step. Jason was relieved of many of those steps as the settlement had already done those jobs.