[NR] Mend To Dry - Chapter 635

Courtney sighs, “No, that isn’t someone traveling to see what is out there. I wonder if I can filter those reports to remove mandatory trips like that?”

Jason only has to raise an eyebrow for her to sign again, “Of course not. That would reveal something they’re clearly trying to keep under wraps. How do you even know this?”

Jason shrugs, “I guessed. Most kids ignore it, but when a field trip is literally just a round trip on a train and with how they parade us around the garden right outside the arcology entrance? Well, I’m not going to be the only one who sees it. Except, people in your situation won’t realize it. I’m sure you’ve been to multiple other arcologies and gotten to see gardens, preserves, and farms all over.”

Courtney, “You aren’t wrong.”

Jason, “I will however admit that it isn’t some sort of gilded cage. If you exclude special locations like places used to stabilize endangered animal populations, a normal person can decide to just go there. If the poorest guy in this arcology wanted to go to the other side of the world for a month, they could do it.

“The only cage is of our own making. Hell, part of the required field trips is a visit to the observation deck on top of the arcology. Though I suspect that one is to root out any attempts to revive the old flat earth nonsense.”

Courtney nods, “I can see that. Anyway, do you have any plans while we wait for the stuff to arrive? Because I can’t exactly leave until the book is handed over, so Rosha probably isn’t going anywhere either.”

Jason, “Not particularly? I’m waiting on the information I’ll get because of a bottleneck in my main skill.”

Courtney, “Huh, I guess we’ll just have to wait it out then. Do you need help working on any of the stuff around the clearing?”

Jason shrugs, “Resources, nothing special mind you, just regular stone, wood, and clay. Though Rosha can probably help processing the wood. Right now our buildings are more log than cabin. Since we haven’t exactly done much with them, we can totally disassemble them, process the materials better, and put them back up.”

Courtney, “That shouldn’t be a problem. If anything, we should try and get at least one building done properly to keep the books in.”

Jason nods, “Sounds like a plan. Let’s start with this building since it is more of a shared use building.”

And so the group settles in. Jason and Rosha deconstruct the original building, while Courtney sneaks around the clearing to find resources.

Jason and Rosha are the first to have success. The buildings being easy enough to take down, being the classic log cabin. Most of the difficulty coming from the defensive platform Jason had added on for Rosha and the roof in general. This left them with a bunch of logs, which Rosha gets to breaking down.

While her carpentry experience was more on making a bow, she at least knew how to handle a log. Not that Jason didn’t help, but for the first bit he was putting up a simple open walled building to help dry the planks.

Though they didn’t go the traditional way. It would have taken way too long to season the wood or require too much fuel. This was part of why Jason had gone with logs. Sure, green logs could still warp, but it was a calculated risk on his part. They needed housing and he knew that the houses would be rebuilt, anyway.

So how was Jason going to dry the planks out? Why, he was going to cheat of course! Well, in a fantasy world, it isn’t really cheating to use said fantasy solutions.

Now, a common problem with quickly drying a plank is that it will tend to warp. Jason figured he had a way around it. To put it simply, the reason wood warps while drying is either a problem in the grain which he couldn’t really do anything about. Or the wood dries unevenly. One side ends up drying quicker than the other? That’s a curved plank now.

So Jason’s solution was just as simple. If warping happens from uneven drying, use magic. He would have of course preferred to use Energy so he could power it himself, but that will have to wait until after he gets those formation manuals. For now, he borrowed Courtney to apply magic on them every once in a while.

What kind of magic? Why, the simple mending spell. Great for sealing up cracks and mending small holes in the cloth. Its greatest weakness being that it can only work with what’s already there and isn’t able to cause too much physical change.

Jason was sure someone else had figured out the quirk of the spell that he was going to take advantage of. In fact, it wasn’t even so much something he figured out, but rather a feature he learned of recently and realized another use for it. See, part of what it can do is equalize the condition of an item.

Jason found this while looking into vellum. See, the mending spell would be used to equalize the moisture content in the book. It wouldn’t add or remove moisture. That would be too convenient. Except, equalizing the moisture in an object is exactly what Jason needed right now.

Of course, he propped the planks up so that air can get to all sides as much as possible and used a bunch of small fires instead of one big one at the center. Still, despite those precautions, some planks showed signs of beginning to warp or even split. That is, until Courtney drops in and casts mending on them.

The moisture equalizes, and warping is smoothed out. Even the start of cracks mended themselves, though that took a good bit more Mana. Better yet, this pulled the moisture out of the core of the planks, which would significantly speed up the drying process and remove some potential for splitting.

Though this did mean that Jason was stuck babysitting a bunch of small fires. Still, this mix of heat and magic was reducing a process that could take over a year to just a few days. The mending spell was even removing the tension that would normally be present in a freshly dried piece of wood.

In fact, Jason felt that it worked too well, went too quickly. This was more than the sum of its parts and he suspected System shenanigans. Though not specifically targeting them, but rather a general speed boost so players don’t complain too much.