All of that took a month and a half for context, mana for the win I say.
But that's just once aspect of my current life.
The other one is food and hygiene.
If hair isn't washed long enough, it'll transform into dreads, which could lead to more problems. If I don't clean my teeth, more problems too, those are my main concerns.
I took care of my hair by washing it once a day in the river, using just water and using my fingers as my brushes, same for my beard.
For my teeth I saved a bone, using mana drilled a few holes and inserted course fur in there.
The toothbrush is on the rougher side, but with my increasing toughness and the fact that I don't have a dentist at hand, I endured.
The next thing is food.
Stronger beasts have appeared, actual carnivores, like wolves or bears. I've also found moose and bison. And stronger variants of existing monsters, like what do you mean there exists a rat so fast it I can't follow its movement.
My most dangerous moments come when I interact with the carnivores, specifically wolves.
With bears, since they're alone, if I'm smart I can beat it and since there are at most one or two of them, I don't need to divide my focus that hard.
Plus I can shoot a blast of mana at them
Sadly some of them are tanky enough to just brush off my hits so I either do my best to guide them away from coming close to my territory or make them run away.
But I use that only when I can't beat them, since their defense is too large and I don't want to wear myself out so much since there are a bunch of 'what if's.
But I hate wolves the most.
They hunt in packs and so they're extra annoying and actually harder to deal with due to the number advantage
First, I have to spread my focus from dodging their attacks, some learned to do ranged attacks, I have to dodge those.
Second I have to strategize on how to beat them, which regardless takes a while, since there are 12 of them minimum, unless I find a wounded pack, then it's less.
Third, even If I manage to beat them, I have to throw away most bodies since I don't have anywhere to safely store that many, so I have drag them away so less beasts approach my territory.
As for what I drag back home?
I butcher it and then either eat some, whatever I manage to eat in 24 hours, then I smoke and sadly I have to throw out the rest.
There is also a nuance of leftover scents and maintaining my territory.
I'm only one guy, so I have to make traps, usually disguised pitfalls with spikes underneath.
That's the best I can do since currently rope is a luxury.
I also eat rocks sometimes and saw that my gains from pebbles and flint plummeted quick, after 2 tries each.
The digestion decreased, but not by as much to make it worth continuing consuming flint or stone.
There is no way I agree to consume a stone, then wait for it to finish digesting, which takes 4 hours by now, repeat it 6 times, only to get a single stat point. Not worth it.
The other thing is I also started to prep bricks, I can only thank pit firing for that.
Remember the clay spot I found?
Well, I mined some of it. Since it was dry, what I mined I dumped into the water to soften, then mixed sand and some straw I left in the sun to dry into it.
Then I shaped them into bricks with wooden molds and then left them in the sun to dry.
In the mean time, I continued with my work, mostly hunting, sowing whatever seeds I can find and building a proper, deforesting sure gives me more land I can work with.
(A/N: the following processes are taken from real historic examples (with a few exceptions), but to not spread out as much and to move one to the next scene, I'll refrain from giving too much detail, either way if you want an easy explanation for something if you're confused, you have internet)
(A/N: Also please don't forget that MC has magic and a wide and deep knowledge of craftsmanship, but craftsmanship is 99% of what he knows.)
Once they dried, I stacked the bricks into a large pile, but left some air channels, inserted some wood and dry sticks for a fire, covered in a mix of mud, clay and dirt and left it there for a couple of days.
After 4 days I went back, picked up whatever bricks were good, I started to build a kiln from them, but crushed the cracked ones back into the clay I use to form the new bricks, I made 8 batches over 4 rounds that way, plus the first one, which was more of a warm-up.
Once I got everything ready, I began to build my kiln.
First I build a circular base out of stone, then used bricks to build the walls, made sure the walls have a slight inwards taper.
As I built up the walls, I built in a firebox, firing chamber and a chimney in that order.
Once that was built, I immediately started making clay tiles for the roofs.
And in the meanwhile I also started building a furnace.
And the furnace, or to be more precise 2 furnaces, is the main reason for my concerns for the roof of the smithy building.
One of them is a blast furnace to melt down ores, the other for smithing.
For these I should find lime for the best result…but I don't have the time nor patience, so clay it is.
The blast furnace I plan to build is a 5 meter one, on the shorter end I'd say.
Thus I started using rocks and clay mortar as a foundation. The walls alone will have to be 1.5 meters thick to withstand and hold in the heat I'll need, that's why I'm building one by the smithy, but I still want to build some sort of roof around it.
First I built a cavity at the base, all of which was lined with refractory bricks. As for any gaps I found, I pushed in as much clay as I could in them. And then I made a slightly sloped floor towards the tapping hole.
Then I built an angled opening entering the hearth from the side, inserted a special pipe I made of stone as a temporary measure, I'll replace it with an iron pipe asap, and connected to the bellows outside, which I made from wood, wooden pegs and leather.
I'll remake the bellows too if I can.
Then I built a vertical narrowing chamber, lined it with refractory clay and then smoothed everything to the best of my abilities.
For the charging platform, I made a separate staircase that connected to the top, where I left an open top to change materials.
At the front base I made an arched opening, which I'll seal with clay during usage, but will have to open periodically to drain what I melted. I also prepped sand molds, the best I could use before I make proper molds.
But that's when a problem arose.
As I was once again gathering food, I encountered footsteps the length of my palm and a half.
I should've felt something if it was so big, I mean I do send mana waves periodically to feel out the surroundings.
But I bet it left since the footprints were heading past my house, though I did feel a slight shiver, but looking around I felt no one observing so I guess it was something else.
Back to the blast furnace I finally finished building…
By the way, this all, from the beginning of making the houses to this moment took at least 3 months, since it's early summer now, I can tell because it has no right to be so hot outside, I mean I'm already naked and I still sweat like I'm in a sauna.
Screw the gods and praise the river I say, for it is my savior in this rising heat.
But this also brings my next problem, the weather, there is not a single cloud in sight and the river is starting to dry up, bit by bit, but I can already tell the difference.
So I did the only logical thing.
I did ABSOLUTELY nothing. I know no rain magic, I can't cast any magic to affect the weather nor do I know any, so yeah, sucks to be me, envy me.