The rise of the pervert primordial-Chapter 767: The third day of the development trial (part 20)

Chapter 767: The third day of the development trial (part 20)

Though the working area that Mylene and the girls from the Lotus’s factions looked a bit weird, Aster immediately recognized the idea behind of it, since it was something, he himself had used before.

"Looks like someone got "inspired" after seeing how to process wood into charcoal", he jokingly said to which the pink haired girl softly sighed to then say.

"It’s all your fault, there is a whole bunch of girls getting fired up thanks to you, my work load has sky-rocketed, so I had to get "inspired" because they keep asking for all kinds of different alchemic products".

Which made Aster chuckle, he had an idea of who made Mylene use the "destructive distillation" method, which he had shown at the time of making charcoal.

The pink haired girl had made holes in the ground to then bury middle-sized metal containers, then they made holes at the bottom of a large metal pot which was then filled with specific parts of a tree like the roots, stump or any joint of a pine branch into it, before placing it on top of the previously mentioned container.

Next, they lit up a fire around the pots and once it had heated enough, they sealed the pot with a lid and let the fatwood inside of it be processed, as you can see it was the same method of burning "wood" in a low-oxygen atmosphere as the one Aster used to make charcoal.

However, the result was not the same as the girls from the sect who moved away the large pots to retrieve the metal containers that were buried into the ground for safety, that now were filled with a viscous dark brown substance, suggested.

That’s right, Mylene made "pine tar" which is a multipurpose substance refined through destructive distillation out of pine fatwood, this same substance is the reason as to why the large rafts that the girls of the sect had made, had gained a dark brown tone.

"I do know that some oils and resin-based substances are good to preserve wood and waterproofing them, however I doubt you went through all this trouble just for a couple of rafts, right?", said Aster as he narrowed his eyes for a second to which Mylene feigned ignorance.

"Ahem, miss Valentina asked me to prepare in case we had to face abrupt changes in weather, and since we also had to improve the rafts, I thought of this", she limited to say, only for Alice to render her efforts null by casually saying.

"It was that girl with glasses the one who asked for this pine thing, apparently she really wanted to surprise you with whatever she was working in, even I had to "work" a lot because some girl wanted to impress you, humph!".

Of course, with "work" Alice meant that she lashed out at the black horse so that it would pull on a cart to transport materials all over the place, because she wasn’t allowed to go near Aster for the whole day.

Luckily, the enthusiastic white haired girl Vivian, came to the rescue.

"Look Aster, I made an anti-inflammatory topic with pine tar, chamomile and rosemary with a bit of my refined blood to enhance the medicinal properties of the herbs~", said Vivian as she showed the project in which she has been working since lunch time.

That was what Valentina and the other sword users had asked Mylene, since they were going to swing their swords like crazy, for the up-coming days.

"Perhaps because she knows how to afflict others with the respective ailments, but this girl is amazing at medicine-making, I didn’t even mention the antiseptic properties of pine tar and she thought of adding it on her own after seeing it once", said Mylene with a praising voice.

Not to mention that the girls from the Orange Lotus were all looking at the white-haired girl with admiration, by the time this mission ends she will probably be their idol if things continued the way they were.

"That’s amazing, the more medicines we have the better", said Aster which made Vivian smile. 𝗳𝚛𝗲𝕖𝕨𝕖𝗯𝚗𝚘𝕧𝕖𝗹.𝗰𝗼𝕞

"Mm, I’ll make sure to make a lot of them", said Vivian with sparkles in her eyes, as always, she really was having a blast.

Not wanting to distract those two anymore so that they could wrap things up here, Aster left alongside Guardian and Alice whom Aster has accepted was going to be stuck to him until tomorrow morning.

The next stop was actually related to the previous one, though the destination was far from the tree agglomeration where Mylene, Vivian and the others were working since Aster walked all the way to the shore of the lake.

On the way, the lynx looked at the plastic curtains that formed a path which went from the lake to the area near the large log cabin at the start of the camp to then travel to the center of it before returning to the lake.

Luckily for Guardian, Angela and Eris who were waiting for them in order to explain what they have been working in since early in the morning, well, Eris also helped in the planification of the outer wall as well as designing the equitation training area with the help of the girls from the Rune Mastering peak but that’s beside the point.

"Hello, what’s with all the "mystery" you even covered up your project so that I couldn’t see it", jokingly said Aster as he greeted those two as well as Erick who was taking a break alongside the other guys from the Wanderer sect.

"Yo, brother Aster, we’ll leave so have a fun talk with glasses sister-in-law!", said Erick with that thunderous voice of his as he patted Aster’s left shoulder a couple of times, which resulted in a whole bunch of girls looking Angela’s way.

’This guy is going to make miss Angela work us to the bone!!!’, the other guys from the Wanderer sect with the exception of the saber young master Cayden who was laughing at Erick’s carefree attitude, all cursed to their insides.

Maybe unconsciously, Angela had made Erick do a lot of heavy work due to that little conversation he had with Aster early in the morning, and here he was once again calling Angela "sister-in-law", meaning she was already considered one of his brother’s lovers in other words, Aster’s lover.

"Come here you fool, stop causing other people troubles", said Sophia who rushed from wherever she was to then drag Erick away with her, not without apologizing with Angela.

The poor receptionist girl was beet reed so Eris took the initiative to explain what they have been working in.

"Though none of those girls complained, having to walk all the way from the bath or the kitchen to get water, was both a waste of time and annoying, specially at night when only those in watch duty are awake, so Angela approached me and we thought of a way to solve that".

"Combining the knowledge, I have about the origins of the water gathering formations and Angela’s intel about some rare mortal-exclusive settlements at the most distant low ranked Stellar Systems, we made this", she said as she moved the curtains to the side revealing what was hidden below of them.

Those two had basically created an "aqueduct", in quite an interesting way as well, they dug a path which went from the lake shore to the camp to then return to the lake.

Now, cultivators would have stopped here, after all the idea of making water flow through a desired place is not that hard to get, however Angela and Eris had thought further and used wood to keep the water from softening up the nearby ground, and also to prevent it from getting dirty with earth.

Also, it’s obvious that just making water flow closer to the camp to reduce the effort needed to fill their tanks, wasn’t the sole purpose of this project, otherwise those two wouldn’t have needed to use the whole day for it.

"I remember having seen a mortal smithy in one of my travels as an information dealer and they used a wood wheel to replace having to manually power the bellows of their forge, grinders and other tools...", mumbled the receptionist girl.

What Angela was talking about was using the kinetic and potential energy produced by water for mechanical work, using a water wheel or a water turbine and for such purposes the path carved into the ground was done so that there was a "fall" at the start of the aqueduct to add extra force to the flow of the water.

Said water then flowed through the large trunks which were cut in half vertically and hollowed out, this way the work required for the ducts was reduced quite a bit, since the tall and thick trees used for it already had the desired rough shape, as for the corners Angela and the others carved them to fit their needs.

They even started working in the parts for the water turbine, and here is what the pine tar was asked to Mylene for, they needed to protect the ducts and the parts of the turbine from rotting due to moisture and pine tar was perfect for it.

Also, since the water of the lake was being used for consumption and at kitchen, it was for the better than the ducts which transported it remained clean and pine tar is good for that as Vivian using it as antiseptic for her medicine, suggested.

"Basically, she made us work like hell, for you", said the wild dragon princess, who obviously didn’t want to share Aster’s attention with Angela.

"T-That’s not true, it was for the sake of the camp!", exclaimed the receptionist in a rush to which Alice smirked as she added.

"If that’s the case, then you don’t want a "reward" from Aster for this amazingly convenient tool for our daily life, right?".

’Ugh...’, Angela was cornered by the wild dragon princess so easily, which made Aster chuckle, she might be incredibly smart but she is also cutely innocent sometimes, at least she doesn’t know how to deal with Alice yet.

"Ahem, don’t tease her too much, thanks to this we’ll have an easier time from now and onwards, how about you show me how it works", said Aster which brightened Angela’s mood.

They have installed a basic "floodgate" made out of wood pallets so that they could control the flow of the water through the aqueduct.

"Mm!", the receptionist girl nodded and then opened the floodgate, which made water start flowing through the aqueduct, without waiting for Aster to say anything, Angela then rushed towards a random part of the camp where the aqueduct passed and placed a bucket on it.

The water flowed into the bucket by itself in a fraction of a second, showing the strong flow that those two had managed to create by artificially making the path lower in height than the lake, combined with the natural current in it.

"Additionally, the pine tar has another function besides waterproofing which I thought will be useful for us, to make "flaming arrows", added Angela, she truly was an expert at multitasking, to the point that she thought of a material that had uses for both water and fire, for daily life and as a weapon as well.

Seeing the "praise me" gaze in Angela’s pretty hazel eyes, Aster softly laughed, as he said.

"As expected from my "exclusive receptionist" and the future administrator of the Twin Sword Valley", this is something he has been pondering since some time ago, since he was planning to expand the business under his and the girl’s name, they needed someone to handle all the administrative work that will come along with that, and Angela was perfect for it.

And unlike what one would believe, instead of considering it a hassle, for Angela it was as if Aster had said "I love you" to her, well, the result was similar at least, she looked really, really happy.

"I’ll stop bothering you for now, wrap things up so that we can dine together later", added Aster to then leave before Alice’s gaze could pierce a hole through him.

Luckily for Aster, the next and last stop actually favored the dragon princess’s ego, as in Alice received envious gazes from the girls of the blacksmith peak who saw her holding onto Aster’s arm.

And of course, Alice being the wild dragon princess she is, purposedly clung onto Aster more than before "flaunting" her status as his lover, though that ended up having the contrary effect.

"Senior brother, look I finished six spears!", took the initiative to say one of the junior disciples from the Silver Anvil as she showed six finished pieces, as in they were mounted, polished and sharpened, and in case you think that doesn’t sound like a lot.

They had around twelve hours to work, which means that this girl in particular perfectly divided her time, making each spearhead took her one hour and twenty minutes, so that was eight hours, the remaining four hours were dedicated to polish, sharpen and mount the spears, forty minutes for all of that was a really good time for a beginner.

Especially since this girl basically maintained the same times for the whole six spears, which as Aster’s sword making mission proves, is not an easy thing to do.

"That’s not fair, she is a spear user and her manual is for flexible spear making as well...", mumbled some other girls who fell short one spear, which were the vast majority of the others, that’s right each of the blacksmiths made at least five spears.

Of course, while that junior disciple outstood, she wasn’t the one who won in the number of finished spears.

"I finished seven spears", said Blair as well as the remaining former disciple of the core elder from the Silver Anvil which had left the sect, those two actually used one hour to make each spear head, which was the limit speed Aster calculated they would be able to achieve, to reduce time further than that, they would need to have experience as mortal blacksmiths.

Despite those two having an "extra" hour which they earned due to how fast they worked in making the spear heads, they didn’t try to make another one, but were smart enough to know that they needed the time to finish processing the seventh spear head into a finished work, which sounds like something obvious, but when working it’s incredibly easy to lose sight of your times, especially when you gain extra time like those two did.

"Not bad, but before I declare today’s winner, I’ll have to see all your works", said Aster which made the eyes of all the other girls who hit the five spear limit "wall" sparkle, they might not have won in terms of amount, but they still had a chance in terms of quality.

And so, Aster was invited to inspect the works of all girls from the blacksmith peak, to begin with he didn’t find a single failure, all were solid and functional.

’What a shame that the effects of the "variations" only work in unprocessed steel and I have to be the one turning them into proper finished products’, thought Aster.

Still, he could see the gray inactive "description" given to the spears created by those girls.

[Handy Spear (Human Variations): a weapon whose base material was initially and further processed by though inexperienced, hard-working enthusiast blacksmiths in training with great potential, it decreases the required ability of the user needed to skillfully wield it by 5%, graded as "Intermediate" as it didn’t reach its full potential, further improvement is currently not possible as it wasn’t finished by a galaxy forger]

Of course, the previous didn’t apply since it couldn’t be activated, but it showed what the "malleability" property could turn into after being properly refined by the blacksmith into a weapon, it made the resulting work easier to handle by the user, which sounds basic but it’s probably the best advantage for beginners, in terms of mortal rank combat.

Just think about it, they would require less work to attain the desired results, so long as they kept using the weapon in question, 5% doesn’t sound as much, but let’s say you need 40 hours for the basics of spearmanship to settle in someone’s brain, these spears would reduce that in two hours.

’It says that the spears didn’t reach their full potential, so if I was the one making them, the result would be 10% instead’, thought Aster, and that would be only a "Regular" graded weapon, these spears were the best for training.

Also, the girls had to practice with them, since training with wood spears and proper spears with metal heads is not the same, so the reduced time would really come in handy, now he only had to see how many kilograms of "friendly steel" he could activate per day.

Anyway, thanks to the descriptions Aster could more easily declare the winner, because there was extra "information" to see if he wanted to, namely the star rating, which apparently didn’t affect the special properties of the weapon, but its base aspects such as durability, toughness, sharpness and the like, and it was thanks to that, that he knew the winner was...

"Jeanne is the winner, it’s only a "star" of difference, but this spear is the best out of today’s batch", said Aster as he grabbed one of the spears in the worktable of the girl from the Silver Anvil who has been competing with Blair, it’s worth mentioning that all the spears they made were two star works, except for this one which was a three star one.

"As a reward, you’ll be my assistant in a further training session of mine and the resulting weapon will be given to you", added Aster, which made quite a few girls pout, but they accepted the result and were actually inspired by the fact that the previous "champion" in other words Blair was defeated, meaning that they also had a chance if they put their backs into it.

Seeing the motivation burning in those girl’s eyes, Aster chuckled as he returned them to the real world by saying.

"Now, go to wash your faces and your hands, it’s time for dinner", said Aster, which made quite a few of them blush, naturally since they worked in a smithy the whole day, their faces and hands had charcoal stains in them, they looked cute instead of dirty for Aster though, but still.

"Yes~", with a single word response, they all ran towards the bath to refresh themselves, while Aster who had finished checking on the results also did the same, of course he went to his own bath... with Alice still stuck to him, luckily the wild dragon princess was also hungry so she didn’t try anything and just made up with asking Aster to wash her face for her.

"Enjoy your dinner senior brother~", said all the girls Aster met on his way to the table where everyone was waiting for him and Alice by the time they returned, even Guardian joined the festive atmosphere that invaded the camp at the end of the day where everyone talked about what they did.

Once dinner was over before the girls of the sect left to spend their free time however they liked, Valentina gave the announcement she discussed with Aster and the other leaders earlier, regarding tomorrow’s plans.

"Tomorrow, we’ll move in two groups, the ones selected by Aster will be led by him to leave early in the morning while those selected by me will follow a few hours later, we’ll meet and then decide how to follow, you’ll be informed if you were selected before bed time by the elders, in any case don’t stay up late since we’ll... be entering "war state" for the first time since we arrived to this place", she said.

Though not all of the girls will be participating in the fights that will take place tomorrow, that doesn’t mean that those that stay behind will just be resting, they’ll be alert in case reinforcements are needed or in case the camp is attacked, all of that has to be taken into account.