Cultivation Struggles of a Lowly Fox

Aiko tilted her head. "Do I have to count all the nails that I will need, or can I eyeball it..." She was considering just eyeballing it, but she also didn't want to waste too many Soul Points.

'I will think about it.' For now, she would take the cart and run it around to see how long it would take to get to her destination.

If it took too long, then she would consider including a bed, but if it didn't take too long, then she would just wing it.

Aiko was best at that kind of thing, so she didn't need to worry she would mess up something. It would either work or not work, nothing in between.

With her mind made up, she ran circles around this place before going outside and trying to run this stuff on the uneven soil. This was the most important test, since it would tell her if it was even worth it to do this in the first place.

'Wait...' Aiko suddenly paused. 'Will I have to pull this caravan myself...?' She didn't want that. If she made any modifications at all, it would turn heavy pretty quickly.

'I will just die again, won't I?' Aiko sighed inside her mind, no matter how much she thought about it, this whole situation would be a pain in the ass.

There was also an issue with the space inside this rundown thing. If she could fit her bed, then not much room will be left over for anything.

'How about I suspend that bed into the air, leaving plenty of room below it for storage?' Aiko already thought of a solution, but would it work? It was debatable if it would be a good sleep, but Aiko wouldn't know it until she tried it.

She could always secure the bed with some beams, so there wouldn't be an issue like. 'Oh well, I suppose I won't have any storage space because of the bed.'

Thinking about it again, she found it quite funny. Because she didn't ride the caravan, she didn't get to enjoy the comfort, but looking back.

"Yeah, that would rattle my brain out." Aiko was suddenly unwilling to have it pulled, and she had to ride it.

She would rather walk next to it, which would be possible and probably the best option, but then again she might run into the issue of: Oh, whoops, you are dead because of exhaustion~.

Aiko would hate that if it happened again, so she would have to be careful about the whole thing.

'Rest plenty... but what about food or water?' Aiko never really died because of it, but what if her journey outside takes a while, could she also die because of it?

[That is impossible, but you will need the bare minimum of food to take with you to prevent it.]

'So I won't die from direct starvation, as long as I prepare some food.' Aiko nodded her head.

[To be exact, you have to keep the food in 'fresh' state, not letting it spoil. The moment you let it spoil, is the moment that you will start to starve.]

'Gosh...' Aiko was no cook. She pretty much went along with everything, which was not always a good thing.

However, she did understand a few things. Like a lot of salt was a good preservative and the opposite would be sugar.

With those things in mind. She should be able to keep things fresh for a long time.

Who cares if the given food is so salty that you will get kidney stones!

Well, she wouldn't get them, but the amount of salt would still be staggering.

'Maybe I should learn something about food, just in case I will need it in the future?' Aiko was finally catching up with what this place was trying to teach her.

Well, one could say that it's better late than never, but this Wave might be her last one due to the sheer scale because she let things escalate too much...

...

With the test run finished. She checked her tools and went over to the shop with the nails.

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"I know they sell jerky, but they are chewy." Aiko nodded her head. While she didn't mind a bit of chewiness, jerkies were a bit too chewy for her liking.

Well, it was still considered almost a non-perishable food, so she would still take it with her.

'Next are the nails...' Just how many would she need?

'Let's go for 1,000.' Aiko decided very quickly, since this was the best course of action and even if she didn't use all of them, there was the bed project, and she could even take it to another level with drawers and such, which would require nails to secure and maybe even modify.

"There goes another 1,000." Her reserves were slowly dwindling, but at least she didn't have to buy the tools, those would be expensive.

With everything at the back of the caravan, she was able to pull it along the way. It was quite the strenuous job, so Aiko paid a lot of attention to her stamina that she had to estimate.

In other words. Work for one hour, rest for two!

This should be able to keep her from dying from exhaustion, but she was really just eyeballing everything.

'Next time I will bring something that can tell me the time.' Aiko grumbled. She had to count everything inside her head, making her thoughts wander.

...

The journey was uneventful. It didn't seem like those gobshits were interested in her, or maybe they were scared of her because she wiped out some of their companions and wolves.

The wolves were probably the biggest loss, since goblins reproduced very quickly. However, taming a wolf was not a simple task.

You would usually capture the pups and raise them, making them feel attached to you and that is pretty much almost all animals, so it was a very effective way to do this.

Another would be to train it from scratch when it was older, but at that time it would already have personality which would get in the way.

That's not to say it was impossible, just less desirable.

Shaking her head, she finally arrived at the forest entrance.

Aiko didn't really need to go inside, since what she needed were the trees itself.

"..." Aiko suddenly realised another thing. "How am I supposed to find the right tree?" She tilted her head. Could she use some of her abilities?

And sure enough [Spiritual Insight] worked even in this place for some reason.

Aiko knew that ability was good at spotting things, but she didn't expect to work on the intangible too.

This whole place was pretty much intangible, only created to make things easier for Aiko so she can understand them and research them.

Aiko picked up an axe and a saw. She would first make an indent, then use the saw and try to cut it.

You wouldn't normally use a saw, since it could easily get stuck inside the tree, but you also needed another person to help you with it if you wanted to do something as crazy as that.

The Human Cultivators would use Aiko's method to preserve as much material as possible.

The way they actually did it is that you needed a 'stopper'. You would usually use that to secure the doors, but here it was used to 'tilt' the tree, so you could actually use the large saw on the still standing tree.

The 'stopper' was kind of like a wedge, that allowed you to slightly part the tree, which would then allow you to cut without feeling like you are stuck or scraping something.

Aiko also had to keep in mind that this was supposed to be a two-man job, so handling the saw was a bit tricky considering its wobbliness.

The saw needed to be thin, in order to cut well enough without too many preparations. Sure, thick saws would live longer, but material preservation was important.

With everything in mind. She swung her axe to make a bigger indent.

The bigger she made this, the easier it would be on the wedge to go inside and while she did take a hammer to hammer the wedge deeper in. She still had to be mindful of how much of it she shoved inside.

It would be bad if the saw was suddenly stuck because of this.

You see, if you need to hammer something to get somewhere, that usually means you won't be able to retrieve it as easily.

The wedge would be stuck pretty deep and the weight of the tree would stop it from being pulled out.

It was an unfortunate situation, but also a great learning opportunity.

Aiko swung the axe for the first time, but she could feel like she was hitting metal.

"... What?" Aiko didn't even consider that wood could be metal, or be as hard as metal.

It was also quite painful, the impact of the axe even with the wooden handle.

'There are too many things to manage...' Aiko groaned, but she was already here, so she might as well get over this and do her best through this situation.

The main goal was to get enough wood to replace all the bad or rotten wood, but Aiko actually didn't check the state of the undercarriage.

Well, it was not like she forgot and more like she dreaded what might find down below.

If even the supporting shaft were rotten, then she might actually lose it!

Sighing gently, Aiko swung her axe several times before resting. The dent into the tree was so small that she was considering just turning around and leaving again.

'Maybe the saw will be different?' There had to be a reason why the axe struggled so much!

'Oh...' Aiko checked the blade and she was convinced. 'It doesn't have an edge...' She groaned unhappily, because she didn't consider faulty tools. She also didn't have any sharpening stones, meaning that she was fucked.

"Oh well." Aiko completely lost it and decided to use this opportunity to run an experiment.

What kind of experiment you might ask? Run away from your caravan and see if it is still here once she returns!

That's right, Aiko decided to leave for her safe area, pick the sharpening stones and bring them over!

She would run back, rest, get the things and return!

'Maybe I should get some cover that will keep it hidden?' Aiko considered buying something like that too, since it would come in handy when she was resting inside the caravan.

'What else will I need?' This time, Aiko would actually use her brains to figure out what she needed, or at least most things...