Chapter 77: Section 78: Oasis Rest


    The next day.


    Lord Zhenjin prioritized scouting the entire oasis, finding it unexpectedly peaceful and tranquil.


    The footprints by the lake were basically those of gun scorpions and acid liquid lizards. It was easy to infer that there were only two large-scale groups of beasts near the oasis: gun scorpions and lizards.


    The water of the lake couldn’t be explored, so it was unknown what was hidden within it.


    However, according to the traces left by the beasts around the lake, there seemed to be no signs of fighting or struggle, which might indicate that there was no threat hiding in the water.


    There were quite a few small creatures.


    ...


    Such as small lizards, normal scorpions, spiders, and jumping rats.


    Occasionally, birds would land on a palm tree in the sky.


    After discussing, Lord Zhenjin began to chop down these thick palm trees.


    After picking all the coconuts, he processed the trunks, splitting them into firewood and using the core part to make the body of the short bows. Sёarch* The Novёl?ire.n(e)t website on Google to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.


    Zi Di prepared potions. Compared to the barren desert, the oasis was much richer in resources.


    Cang Xu was in charge of twisting hemp ropes.


    Now, the exploration team was down to five people, two of whom couldn’t even walk on their own. Of the remaining three, Cang Xu was elderly and Zi Di was just a fifteen-year-old girl, so the labor force had sharply decreased.


    But fortunately, since there were fewer team members, they needed fewer things.


    By the end of the morning, Lord Zhenjin had made five short bows. Zi Di finished the initial grinding process and began testing the medicinal properties of various materials.


    In the afternoon, Lord Zhenjin dug deep by the lake and got a lot of mud.


    Using this mud and fire, Cang Xu started making pottery jars.


    By evening, Lord Zhenjin stopped chopping palm trees and climbed to the top of one to pick coconuts.


    The coconut shells were very hard. As long as they didn’t hit rocks, they remained intact even when falling to the ground.


    Lord Zhenjin also picked a large amount of palm leaves.


    Like the coconuts, both the palm leaves and the palm trees themselves emitted a strange sulfur smell.


    With the help of Zi Di’s potions, the first pottery jar was made.


    At dinner time, the pottery jar was successfully heated on the fire to boil water.


    Drinking hot water and eating grilled meat, Lord Zhenjin and the others felt a strong sense of bliss.


    “This is the ultimate pleasure in the world!” Zi Di exclaimed sincerely.


    The morning of the third day.


    Swish.


    A wooden arrow shot out, startling a bird in the palm tree canopy to fly away.


    Lord Zhenjin sighed beneath the tree.


    “Although the first short bow was made, I am not good at tuning bows, and the arrow’s accuracy is very poor.”


    He moved his left shoulder, the previous injury had mostly healed, no longer affecting Lord Zhenjin’s archery.


    Watching the bird fly away, Lord Zhenjin took out a wooden dart and threw it on instinct.


    In the instant of the throw, Lord Zhenjin activated his Heart Core, mutating his arm into a bear’s. Almost immediately, he canceled the Mutation.


    The dart was incredibly fast, like a bolt of lightning, striking the bird ferociously and accurately, falling to the ground with it.


    Lord Zhenjin walked over, picked up the dead bird. The wooden dart was deeply embedded in the bird’s chest, with only the tail of the dart remaining inside, almost piercing through completely.


    Now, bird meat was no longer precious, there was still a lot of lizard meat. But bird feathers were critical, a source of material for arrow feathers. Bones of the bird were useful too.


    Last night, Lord Zhenjin told himself to try not to use the Demon Core in his heart.


    But without bird feathers, it was impossible to make qualified arrows. Additionally, the number of birds in the oasis was very scarce, could not compare with forest or rainforest areas, so Lord Zhenjin couldn’t easily let go of any bird.


    Carrying the bird, Lord Zhenjin returned to the original spot and found a newly woven vine basket.


    The basket was filled with the mud from the lakeside.


    Breakfast had been eaten, and Lord Zhenjin’s original goal was to dig up the mud and transport it back in the basket.


    Seeing the bird on his way back, the young knight didn’t let it go and shot it down directly.


    Carrying the bird in one hand and the basket in the other, Lord Zhenjin returned to the temporary camp.


    Zi Di was in the camp, setting up tents.


    The tents were rudimentary, constructed with a few long thin wooden poles split to create a stable triangular structure and then covered with palm leaves. Then, vines or hemp ropes were used to tie the palm leaves and wooden poles together.


    The broad palm leaves, layered over one another, in addition to the tent floor covered with fluffy dry grass, successfully created a private resting place that was warm and windproof.


    They planned to build five tents like this, one for each person including Lord Zhenjin, Cang Xu, and others.


    Zi Di had already finished building one and was constructing the second. According to this rate, everyone would not have to sleep outdoors on the ground tonight.


    “There’s an unexpected gain,” Lord Zhenjin handed the bird to Zi Di.


    Zi Di looked up and smiled at Zhenjin, “Just put it on the ground, here, this is the potion I prepared. It hardly smells to humans, but it can repel mosquitoes, insects, and poisonous ants.”


    Zhenjin took the potion and checked on Bai Ya and Lan Zao.


    The two lay motionless on the grass, not far from each other.


    Zhenjin bent down and touched Bai Ya’s forehead, finding that his high fever had subsided and his breathing was steadier than before.


    This was a good sign.


    Zhenjin felt a slight joy inside, Bai Ya was better at handling the bow than him, but he couldn’t rely on him yet.


    “Hopefully, he wakes up soon,” Zhenjin silently wished.


    If Bai Ya woke up, he wouldn’t need to be fed water anymore and could eat on his own. He would eat more than he currently did, take in more nutrients, and recover his health more effectively.


    As for Lan Zao…


    He was already awake.


    He curled up on the ground, still motionless, his expression dull, his gaze numb, like a lifelike puppet.


    He was a Bronze Level cultivator with fighting energy, physically much stronger than Bai Ya. But his mental state was very poor, showing no interest in the food placed in front of him.


    Zhenjin sighed softly.


    The young knight was not good at persuasion and comforting, and more importantly, he harbored complex feelings for Lan Zao, who had killed his own younger brother to survive.


    Even the act of comforting Lan Zao filled Zhenjin with a faint fear.


    Was this a sort of indulgence and forgiveness for his own dark side?


    If indulged further, would he become utterly despicable?


    Would he let the heart core erode his spirit, and instead of a noble Holy Temple Knight, become a dark, fallen evil-doer?


    Zhenjin carried a basket of soil and left the temporary camp to a nearby open space.


    This area was originally a grassy field, the grass lush and taller than a man’s knees, but now it had all been burned away.


    The bare ground had been dug into a fire pit, around which Cang Xu was building with wet clay.


    The structure he was building was taking shape, like a towering cylinder encircling the fire pit.


    “This is a clay kiln. We burn wood underground here; this is the grate, dividing it into upper and lower layers. The wood burns in the lower layer. This design allows air to flow in faster, making the fire burn more vigorously,” explained Cang Xu.


    The nascent clay kiln only reached Zhenjin’s knees, and even a complete kiln would not be half as tall as Zhenjin.


    Zhenjin looked down and immediately saw the bottom of the kiln, separated by a firebridge. The firebridge was a round clay brick, about thirty centimeters in diameter, its thickness unclear. The brick appeared to be air-dried with small round holes evenly distributed. Zhenjin could imagine: once the kiln was operating, the dry wood below would ignite, and flames would shoot through these holes onto the top of the firebridge.


    Although very small and simple, once built, this kiln would be much more stable than a campfire, burning hotter and more practical.


    “With this kiln, we can make bricks and tiles, initially building wooden houses with tiled roofs. If we expand the scale of the kiln, or build more, we could bake bricks from clay and then construct brick houses,” Cang Xu continued to explain.


    Zhenjin could not help but admire, “Scholar Cang Xu, is there anything you don’t know?”


    Cang Xu shook his head with a smile, “There is still too much I don’t know. Actually, I only grasped all this knowledge in recent years. I’ve long wanted to go to the Wilderness Continent, to complete my writings. I studied many materials on the Beast Race, which are actually their living techniques. The Beast Race is much more primitive than the Human Race, mostly still in the tribal stage. On the vast Wilderness Continent, there are few city-states of the Beast Race.”


    “So, is this mud enough?” Zhenjin pointed at the basket filled with muddy soil.


    Cang Xu calculated for a moment, “It’s more than enough to build the kiln, but probably not sufficient for making pottery. I’m afraid I must trouble Lord Zhenjin to make another trip.”


    Of course, Cang Xu had no plans to make bricks or tiles.


    Having gone through two teleportations, everyone knew that as long as the Teleportation Array existed, any houses or camps built on this island had no practical value.


    The reason for making pottery was because they needed containers for storing water.


    Zhenjin, Cang Xu, and Zi Di each had a water bag. But filling these water bags was far from enough for their water reserves.


    They needed more water, and the more, the safer.


    The oasis was just a resting place; they still had to embark on a journey, trekking through the desert.


    With a significant reserve of drinking water, even without a new water source, they could last a long period. This would allow them to face greater risks.


    Zhenjin dumped all the lake mud, took the now empty basket, and left the clearing.


    He didn’t head straight for the lakeside but scattered a circle of potions around the camp.


    No threats were detected.


    For now, this oasis seemed safe.


    But going out was better left to Zhenjin.


    Neither Zi Di nor Cang Xu could easily fend off sudden attacks.


    When Zhenjin returned to the camp, Zi Di was already setting up the third tent.


    The progress was so rapid because these personal tents were too small.


    A few wooden sticks formed a framework, then layers of natural palm leaves were draped over it. Once inside the tent, one could only lie flat, barely covering head and foot. It was difficult to even turn over in this natural, green “makeshift coffin,” as the space inside was very cramped.


    Seeing Zhenjin return, Zi Di immediately relaxed and resumed her work.


    She knelt on the ground, half her body diving into the tent, appearing to adjust the palm leaves inside. Her lower body remained outside, her light brown leather boots no longer obscured by the magic robe. Due to her posture, the robe clung tightly to her rear, outlining an alluring curve. Zhenjin couldn’t help but be slightly moved by the sight.