Chapter 50: Step 50 to Greatness: Securing Basic Resource Is A Must For Survival

"It probably looks a bit odd..." Adrian mumbled, scratching his head.

He wanted to extend the entire perimeter. The women wanted to do more, since they had been feeling a bit useless. After all, Adrian was doing everything for their settlement, and most of the time, they felt bad for him.

However, Adrian knew they weren’t in the condition to continue. Hence, he stopped the construction altogether and told them to rest. That’s how he ended up saving most of the fence fragments.

"Good thing I don’t have an aerial view of the layout, or it would probably look like a Mickey Mouse’s head but with one ear."

The girls had already retreated to the longhouse to rest. As for Seraphine, she woke up as Sera... not remembering anything she did as Seraphine.

"Honestly, it’s weird. Seraphine seems to remember everything Sera did and can even understand the tribal language, but Sera can’t do either of those."

Moreover, Adrian had also noticed the ’trigger’ for this exchange. As soon as a drop of blood appears on her, Sera turns into Seraphine, but to get her back, they either have to shock Seraphine or knock her out.

Figuring out the trigger was a good thing since now he could ’control’ her forms, to say it simply.

For now, he gave her the pottery instruction page, and she seemed thankful for it. Although she did have a troublesome realization, she didn’t tell it to him and said she would solve it herself.

"Forget about that," he said, taking out the pond cards from his inventory. "Now that I have space, I don’t have to settle with a common or uncommon pond... as long as it doesn’t get too big."

The common pond had a size of 24 squared meters. After combining, the size quadrupled since both the length and the breadth doubled.

At this rate, the pond might get too big for an epic-grade structure. Adrian didn’t want that. It was better to stop and make the best structure for now. After all, he could always slap a card on it later to upgrade it.

Even so, he couldn’t get rid of his greed.

"...let’s try the rare one. Even if I can’t use them, I’ll still have an uncommon pond card to construct it."

xxx

Name: Natural Water Reservoir

Type: Structure

Grade: Rare (Blue)

Structure Stats:

Water Capacity: 45,000 L

Surface Area: 18 meters × 15 meters

Depth: 5 m at the centre

Natural Refill Rate: 8–15% per day (depends on weather and nearby groundwater)

Water Quality: Safe for drinking after boiling if used to raise fish/aquatic creatures.

Durability: Permanent structure

Population Support:

⬩ Provides daily water needs for up to 40 people.

⬩ Supports irrigation for up to 120 farmland tiles.

Restriction:

⬩ Must be placed within 30 meters of a settlement structure.

⬩ Can only exist one per settlement.

Passive Effects:

⬩ Living Waters: Crops irrigated by this reservoir gain +20% growth speed and slightly improved yield.

⬩ Deep Stock: Creatures raised in these waters are up to 40% larger than their natural counterparts.

Active Effects:

⬩ Overflow: The pond can release up to 3,000L of water (depending on requirement) to instantly irrigate farmland or extinguish fires from harming structures within the settlement.

Cooldown: 48 hours.

Special Traits:

⬩ Water inside remains fresh indefinitely unless deliberately polluted.

⬩ During heavy rain periods, excess water is stored automatically.

xxx

"It’s almost as big as a basketball court."

Adrian looked at the ’big expanded area’ he had made, and suddenly it seemed pitifully small.

Just placing the pond would take up most of the area. If he wanted to make the epic pond, he would have to extend the fence even more.

But that wasn’t all. The water could get polluted from external sources. In other words, his enemies could poison the pond. The right choice would be to expand the fence further and then build the pond.

Hell no. I can’t do it today.

Slime farming had been put on hold for long enough. He was planning on taking Sera and Mika with him to get as much exp as possible as soon as Mika returned after foraging for fruits and berries.

Besides, he still had to construct the smokehouse as well and place the meat in there before it rots inside his inventory.

As for placing it near the edge, Adrian wasn’t worried much. Firstly, it was within the sentinel tower’s range, making it nearly impossible for someone to sneak in to poison the pond.

Secondly, Freki and Huginn were there to guard it. Even if someone fooled the tower, they couldn’t fool their beastly senses.

And thirdly, Adrian was already planning on placing some fish or other aquatic creatures in the pond. In that case, even if someone poisoned the pond, the creature would die first, alerting the tribe of foul play.

"Let’s just place it."

Adrian held the glowing blue card in his hand and walked to the center of the extended area. The rare-grade card shone and shattered into blue particles that disappeared into the ground.

A second later, the ground trembled. Adrian stepped back as the earth in front of him started sinking and automatically filled with water!

The crystal clear water of the pond was surrounded by countless smooth stones. Adrian took one look at them and wanted to practice skipping stones.

It wasn’t just that. A few small reeds and aquatic plants had already sprouted along the banks, giving it a surprisingly organic look.

Adrian walked closer and crouched at the edge, dipping his hand into the cool water.

"Damn... this is actually really nice," he muttered, scooping up some of the water to splash his face.

Looking at the pond, he could already imagine fish swimming in it someday.

"It’s been a while since I’ve had some fish—"

Splash!

Adrian was lost in imagination when something dark flew straight into the water. He looked back to see Huginn enjoying the water.

Not long after, Freki came running as well, only stopping at the edge of the pond. The wolf lowered his head and began drinking, all the while his tail kept wagging.

Adrian couldn’t help but chuckle at the sight. Leaving the pets to enjoy, he walked to the firepit and sat there. It was time to combine cards once again.

This time he didn’t even bother checking every grade and upgraded them straight to the epic-grade smokehouse. Thankfully, even at epic grade, it was just a 36-squared-meter structure.

There was more than enough space to make it next to the fire pit without affecting the sitting area.

"Use it," he said, holding the card.

As he did, a solid, low-lying structure materialized before him. It looked like a sturdy, windowless hut made of dark ironwood planks packed tightly with clay.

The roof was low and slightly sloped, covered with overlapping bark shingles of an unknown tree. A single low door was on one side, and two small openings sat at the base of the wall facing the firepit.

"Not bad at all," Adrian mumbled.

After walking around and looking at it from the outside, he ducked through the low door and stepped inside.

The interior was dark and warm, with three levels of hanging racks made of thick ironwood running across the room, attached to the central beam of the structure.

The air already carried a faint smoky scent, making it seem like meat had been smoking in there for years. A thin line of slanted tubes ran under each level of the drying rack, perhaps to collect the fat from the meat while smoking it.

"It’s a shame we don’t have clay pots or bowls ready to collect them yet."

Adrian shook his head and stepped back outside to check the two tubes that were running under the structure. Adrian looked at them and smacked his head.

He was in such a hurry, he forgot all about the smoking mechanism. A small ditch had to be dug out to catch the smoke and send it into the smokehouse via the two tubes.

"I used the card, but forgot about the ditch!"

Adrian grabbed a shovel and began digging two shallow trenches from the firepit toward the smokehouse.

He did his best to connect the trenches to the openings. Once the trenches were done, he covered them lightly with flat stones and soil, making sure the smoke from the fire would flow properly into the structure.

Now all that was left was to test everything.

***

Author’s Note: New image of the settlement and the Ogre Cleaver’s status page can be found here! (In the paragraph comment as usual, or on discord).