I built a manor in the Middle Ages

Chapter 5 Everything is difficult at the beginning
Luc felt that his luck was not bad, or rather, it was a blind cat that caught a dead mouse.

After a night of settling, Luc got up and found that the brine in the pot cake had separated into two parts: the brine at the bottom was turbid and had some mud-like sediment, while the brine at the top was shiny and translucent!

This discovery made Luc very happy. It seemed that his previous steps had been accidental and he had barely reached the threshold of salt production!
Luc knew what to do next without any instruction. All he had to do was to pour out the clean salt water, filter it again, and then slowly boil it down to make salt.

It sounds simple, but the actual situation is very difficult.

The first question that comes to mind is: what to hold it in?

The only vessel Luc had that could hold water was his helmet. Apart from that, pottery? That stuff had to be fired first. Besides, how to make pottery was still a blind spot for Luc, and he needed to figure it out bit by bit. He believed that he could figure it out with some time, but at the moment, distant water could not quench immediate thirst.

Confused about this, Luc had no choice but to go to have breakfast. On the way, he went to the roof to look at the deerskin and yellow mud. Seeing that they were almost dried, he took away the deerskin and prepared for tanning.

Since there is no good solution to the salt water problem, why not try to make tanned leather first?
This deerskin is actually quite large, just right for making a bed, even after removing the rotten deerskin - although Luc doesn't have a bed yet.

After being air-dried, the deerskin had become somewhat hard. Relying on the fragmentary memories in his mind, Luc first burned a pile of wood ash, then dug a pit, soaked the wood ash in water, placed the deerskin in it, and rubbed it continuously.

Leather tanning cannot be completed overnight. After rubbing it for a while, Luc planned to soak it for a day and a night, and then dry it in the shade.

In fact, the steps to make a good tanned leather are never so simple. The leather made in this way will always have various problems, but one must eat one bite at a time, so Luc is not in a hurry.

All things are difficult at the beginning. Once you gain experience, you will be more skilled in handling the next piece of leather.

But speaking of it, wood ash is really a good thing. Not only can you get a little salt from it, but it can also be used as fertilizer and even to filter water. In this dark age, it can be called a panacea.

Wait, Luc suddenly had an idea and knew how to make a temporary vessel!

With his eyes shining, Luc quickly took his axe and chopped down a thicker tree. Felling wood almost every day these days made his tree-cutting skills increasingly sophisticated, and he chopped the tree to the ground in a short while.

Then he got some thick branches and started a fire. When the branches turned into charcoal, Luc put a round shield covered with sand on it and fell on the felled tree trunk.

The still burning charcoal gnawed at the tree trunk like ants. Luc added some firewood from time to time to prevent the fire from going out. About an hour later, the charcoal burned a shallow pit on the tree trunk, and the surface of the pit was covered with a layer of ash!

At this point, a relatively hygienic temporary container was born!
"Although it's not as good as a proper vessel, at least it can be used for a while!"

Wood ash has certain cleaning properties and can be eaten in small amounts. A hole made with charcoal is much lighter and cleaner than one made with an axe.

Luke did not forget his original purpose. He turned around and brought the pot cake, and carefully poured the top layer of salt water into the ash pit.

Luc’s hands were very steady. He didn’t have any filtering tools, and the most important step to get good salt is filtering!
But Luc was helpless. After all, even coarse salt was better than no salt.

So Luc was very nervous, fearing that his shaking hands would cause the dirt below to fall in.

When all the water had settled, Luc breathed a sigh of relief, then washed the Guokui carefully, then immediately turned back and put the washed water back into the Guokui.

After this back and forth, the salt water was no longer clear. It was mixed with some wood ash, and some of it was absorbed by the tree trunks.

But Luc didn't care. Instead, he excitedly held up the barely filtered salt water and started the evaporation process!
Luc's heart was pounding. So far, all his methods of making salt were unconventional, which he had come up with by tinkering around. He had no idea whether he could make salt successfully.

He suppressed his nervousness and lit a torch to warm his helmet.

Unlike the previous salt rock boiling, this time Luc had to boil the brine dry, a process that would take an incredibly long time. He stared intently at his helmet, stirring it with a peeled branch from time to time. Perhaps the water heated too slowly, as half a day passed without a single salt crystal appearing. Luc's heart sank.

"Maybe I'm too impatient. Let it simmer down. I'll do something else to distract myself!"

The importance of salt is unparalleled, and it is far less easy to obtain than hunting for food. It is normal for Luc to be a little anxious for a while, but what Luc is best at is adjusting his mentality. After calming down, he began to think about making a wooden door for himself.

Wooden doors are a delicate job and need to be lighter, so they can only be made with wooden boards.

Luc pondered for a while, cut down a tree, hit the axe in the middle of the round trunk, and then hit the back of the axe with a wooden stick. With two bangs, there was a click, and the tree was split in half, becoming two semi-cylindrical pieces of wood.

After that, the above steps are repeated continuously, chopping down piece after piece of wood, and then carving it with a knife, and the wooden board is completed.

Luc also has a way to put these wooden boards together - after placing the wooden boards side by side, just stack another board diagonally from top to bottom and nail them one by one along the board.

When the work was done, Luc cut some more vines and fixed the door at the gap of the wooden house. Finally, a wooden house with a door and a roof appeared before his eyes!

Luke even took into account the possibility that the door would be blocked by heavy snow in winter and installed the door to open inwards.

After finishing his work, Luc started thinking about the tables and chairs.

The exterior of the cabin was basically complete except for the thatched roof, but the interior had no thatch at all, causing Luc to sleep on the floor every day.

Adhering to the principle of starting with the easy and then moving on to the difficult, Luc casually cut out a piece of wood, smoothed both sides, and it became a wooden stool.

Tables are more difficult to handle, after all, they must have legs to support them.

While searching for suitable trees, Luc's eyes suddenly came across the place where wooden doors were made, and he stopped in his tracks.

Yes! Who says a table must have a chair? Why not just suspend the tabletop?

Luc grinned and laughed twice. As long as you use your brain, there are always more solutions than problems.

Use the same method as making a wooden door to make a five-foot-long and one-foot-wide wooden board, then chisel a hole at both ends and pass the vine through. Then walk into the wooden house, nail the wooden nails on the top of the west side of the house, and hang the vine. In this way, a suspended table appears in the wooden house!
"Not bad, it's becoming more and more like a place for people to live."

Luc looked at the simple furnishings with satisfaction, but his heart was filled with pride.

All of these were created step by step by myself, and I feel a great sense of accomplishment!

Busy work can divert people's attention and also divert bad emotions. The hopeless loss of boiling salt just now disappeared. Luke returned to the helmet with a calm mind, but everything in front of him made his mood ups and downs in an instant!

“It’s salt!”

Luc screamed in disbelief:

“The salt is out!!”

(End of this chapter)