5S
5S
It has already been a week since the Nameless Island had submerge to the bottom of the ocean, when Grim-chan relayed Wiezer’s message that it will resurface I thought it would be soon and so waited for a few days. But it was only wishful thinking. I must say, I really had gone off and got attached to that island.
But after two weeks the island did not resurface and eventually had recovered. I cannot just stay here waiting for an island that might reappear once 300 years. Surely, I cannot wait that long.
After saying my goodbyes to the now invisible island. Using my magical finger, I pointed at another black spot east of my current location and finally left the area.
While my lingering thoughts continued to long for the mysterious island, I had found that I will probably be traveling for quite a while, what should I do for the time being?
*****
Since there was nothing much to do, I started to do some write up. Just like how I have been writing this journal, I also wrote a few books. The idea came from reading Lunamaia’s Diaries and Notes and urged me to write my own.
Unfortunately, Magic was beyond me and I have decided to focus on my physical strength first before I can proceed to learning Alchemy so I could not continue Lunamaia’s works, instead I have decided to write about the monster Eco-system and all other specifics about them. The drafts were about the beast I have encountered on the forest.
On the first day of my new journey, I started to update those drafts into a manuscript with I had given a genius of a title: Monsterpedia. The contents detail the weaknesses, strengths, affinities, and other perks of the monsters I encountered on that mysterious island and its dungeon.
While not much of an artist I also made sure to sketch illustrations to give readers a rough visual on the monsters.
Currently I have written three volumes:
- Volume 1: Inhabitants of the Mysterious Island
- Volume 2: Demi-Human First Edition
- Volume 3: Haunts First Edition
Volume 2 and 3 are still on their first edition since they are general topics. I have yet to completely encounter all the DEMI-HUMANS in this world and this hold true for the UNDEAD and SPECTRE monsters. The first volume however is very specific so there should be no need for me to get another edition for it as I have encountered the monsters within and outside of battle in that mysterious island.
I had plan to take my time writing the three volumes, but when you have nothing else to do you finish things faster than you intended and soon finished the three volumes of the Monsterpedia on the 2nd week.
Once again, boredom caught up with me.
*****
While thinking up ways to lift my boredom, I remembered something that should have been prioritized all along -my spoils of war. Time to do 5S, a way to organizing things I learned in college and used it in my daily life thereafter.
Let us go and Sort, Set In order, Shine, Standardize and Sustain through our spoils.
First are my perishable goods in the form of lots of fruits, an abundant source of vegetables, some edible mushrooms, and a few meats. Some of them are selected by Wiezer and the others, so there is probably no need to test them for poison, I hope. But let us have faith on them.
The fruits and vegetables should last a year. The meat however would probably last for only week. But with them stored in the right place in mind, they should last longer. Some of these fruits will be planted (together with its seed) so that I can have more food sources just in case it would take some time for me to get to land.
Now allow me to digress a bit about the Carry to Ship Skill. According to the skill’s description anything that is considered mine will be teleported here, but this does not include corpses that I have killed.
I am quite grateful for this, as you might have known I had killed quite number of GOBLINS and ORCS during the Forest-Island Alliance War against the DEMI-HUMANS. If everything I had killed gets collected, I would have been greeted with large number of GOBLINS and ORCS corpses on the ship.
How then did I get the monster materials to the ship using the skill? Well, you must dismantle them first. This information was presented to me on the first day I had killed the GREYWOLVES. The GREYWOLVES dead bodies had stayed on the beach and only after I had blood let, dissected, and rationed them did the skill activated after leaving them for five minutes.
You might be wondering if I am regretting not having those GOBLIN or ORC meats. No! I did not want them! While the ORC could still be considered as pork and even tried to cook them out of curiosity, but they were too abundant of MANA that eating them is simply poison.
The GOBLIN meat just does not seem to fit on my taste. Not only was it hard as rubber it had this foul stench that was spoiling my appetite.
So, I had to give my thanks to the heavens for not allowing corpses to get transported with the Carry to Ship Skill.
*****
Next on the organizing list are crystal and metallic ores, and the precious stones which will be good materials for blacksmithing. Ton worth are scattered in the deck and could capsize a normal ship if not careful, thankfully the Grimoire Atelier is no normal ship and is able to support the added weight without problem.
Now I just had to separate the ones that could become materials for whatever crafts I can think off and those that will be sold for sums of money to augment my finances later.
Among the crystals that were I had sorted the Mana Crystals were abundant and were the ones that would be good left on their own. The crystals should increase on their own to places with great presence of Mana. By the way, my WATER and WIND Mana Crystals that I had experimented and placed on the sides of the main deck are especially growing faster, increasing in size day by day as I am currently sail out in the open sea.
With this way of thinking, I should also create a good place for other MANA elements to naturally gather, I can have my own MANA Crystals to harvest without having to go to Dungeons every time I am in need.
At first, I was a bit reluctant about placing such dangerous crystals near me, but if I am careful not breaking them, I should be somewhat safe. On that note, since the MANA Crystals are drawing the MANA that was in the surroundings, I was saved from the MANA that tends to gather naturally in places.
*****
On to the next things to sort are the trees and flower type materials. These materials are the ones I had foraged on the island together with the ones harvested on the Nameless Dungeon.
At first, I wanted to cut, grind, oil them up into materials instantly, but the number was simple too great to do it in even in one week and so decided to create a place for them to naturally grow.
If the flowers are planted and should live and grow making more ingredients in the future. The same could be true for the trees and while not true to all cases, trees are resilient and would grow so long as there is soil and water.
For other twigs or branches that will not grow on soil, I can make use of the marcotting skills I had learned, to give them a second life.
I am especially ecstatic with the Yggdrasil stuff and while the seeds and the fruits were planted. The twigs and branches can be good materials for crafting unfortunately as they were sturdier than regular trees, I have left them in a newly made room (which I had called ‘The Garden’) to ensure they do not easily rot.
*****
And last to be sorted out are the monster materials type. These types of materials are the ones I had dismantled to gain access to, like pelts, scales, skins, carapace, fur, poison and some other unknown fluid extracts, abundant number of diverse web coils, fangs, bones, and other monster entrails… Just what the hell have those guys been doing on the deck of my ship?
The entrails were good source of food and so had placed them on the food storage. The rest I had sorted by types so that they can be used as materials for crafting or augment my finances.
Among my spoils, these types are the ones that were on the smaller side in numbers. When I was still in the forest Island, I had practiced on how to dismantle to gain access to food but on the first 2 months the materials were simple not in good condition that I had to cast them on the sea.
By the time I got better at it dismantling, the war against the DEMI-HUMAN begun, after that war I could not bring to kill any of the inhabitants and lost the means to gain them.
While I was able to gain some materials like the threads from the spiders or the poison liquid extracts on some other monsters without having to kill them, I was not able to do with the others and the dungeon had a different system and simple did not allow the monsters to be dismantled.
But I still had to create some sort of storage just in case that I get to have an abundant source when I get to other settlements.
*****
Soon after separating the ones that can be used and those that simple could not be used, I decided to secure different storage for each type of these materials.
So, I invested some of my abundant Magic Cores to create four more rooms and made sure to modify their sizes, temperature and enclosed them in a time field to ensure that items stored inside will have a seemingly infinite shelf-life.
The first storage is the empty room on the bottom most deck, which I have now used for the perishable goods that could accommodate 1,000+ tons worth of food –The Food Storage.
The second storage is a newly created room modified to have fertile black loam soil so that trees, flowers, seeds, and other plant type materials can easily grow –The Garden. ‘I am especially interested on the Yggdrasil Seed and fruits that I had planted here.’
The third storage is also a newly created room modified to look like a cave to ensure stones, rocks, ores, and other crystals type materials would be able to grow naturally –The Mineral Cave.
The fourth storage is also another created room modified to make sure that monster materials will not rot or get damage –The Monster Storage.
And lastly is another created room to ensure rust, wear and tear for armors and weapon alike could be stored –The Armory.
These storage are also designated to be drop off points for the ‘Carry to Ship’ Skill. When I had asked Grim-chan about sorting, she had told me that we can simply have them sorted immediately on these storage the moment they are carried over.
I was glad that I had asked her, if not I would have to do one week-long just to do segregation. Right now, I had designated Grim-chan to do the 5S for me.
*****
While we are still on the subject about storage, I had mentioned earlier that the Mana Crystals were placed on places that were MANA naturally gathered. These storage are places which gathers MANA.
I had noticed this when I felt some minor pain similar when I get inflicted with MIS upon entering ‘The Mineral Cave’, ‘The Garden’ and ‘The Monster Storage’.
I then took out some of the Gathering MANA Crystals to an experiment and voilà, it had changed it color according to the MANA accumulated on the storage. Thanks to them hardening on the sides I can enter the rooms without having to suffer with my MIS.
While I must cull some of them ones in a while, this should be safe as long as I am careful when harvesting them.
The storage room is not the only place where MANA gathers naturally, the Power Room had this effect as well, but unlike the storage I do not get the pain infliction.
While the storage gather the 4 lower elements (FIRE, WATER, EARTH, and WIND) the Power Room gathers the 4 higher elements (LIGHT, DARKNESS, HOLY and UNHOLY). So, I made sure to increase the size of this room to accommodate more of the crystals.
Currently in this Power Room is also the strangest spoil of war. A spherical glowing orb about 1 meter in diameter I had no idea where I got it but strangely enough found it strangely familiar. Since it coincidentally fit the pedestal in the center of the Power Room, I decided to place it there until I can figure out what it is.
*****
After another one week, the sorting, organizing, cleaning, maintaining, and systematizing of the spoils and finally found another way to use my time until I get to my next destination.
That is back to blacksmithing.
Since all my METAL FORGED TRIAL SERIES weapons were not able to withstand my battle and had turned to dust together when the Dungeon Lord turned to particles of light.
While I got weapons from the dungeon some of them seemed inferior to those that I have forged. There were other weapons that seemed especially sturdy, but they were either too attention grabbing or too magical that could only be used on short duration.
So, I decided to forge my own weapons, using the inferior blades as materials while augmenting my strength from the superior ones. I decided not to use the ores until I can somehow gain the basics in blacksmithing.
So, I holed myself on ‘The Atelier’, the room where I can do most of my blacksmithing to forge weapons that would be used on the normal opponents.