Chapter 105: Digging For Civilisation
Tera had already decided on two channels, not one.
The system had been surprised when she settled on this during her recovery month, but Tera’s reasoning was practical. The clan would grow. More members meant more water. And beyond the settlement’s daily needs, the farm on the plateau required a reliable source too.
Two channels would be more than enough for that. It was more work upfront, but it would save them from having to dig another channel later when the demand outgrew a single supply.
Tera had spent a portion of the first month mapping both routes using the system’s blueprint feature and scan, charting the terrain between the stream and the settlement with painstaking care.
And what she had found had been a bit discouraging.
The terrain between the stream and the settlement was even flatter than she had initially thought. In some sections, it was almost perfectly level, and in others, there was actually a slight upward slope leading toward the clan. Gravity alone would not carry water to the settlement. It would pool, slow to a crawl, or simply sit there doing nothing.
This had been a persistent headache throughout the planning phase.
Tera had considered digging a well. The stream and lake were close enough that the water table was likely shallow, and tapping into it directly beneath the settlement would eliminate the need for channels entirely. But she didn’t have the tools for it, and boring straight down through compacted earth to reach groundwater was a different undertaking altogether.
And even if they managed to dig one, a well came with its own problems. It was an open pit in the middle of a settlement full of curious cubs. The risk of someone falling in, especially a cub who couldn’t climb out, was enough to make Tera’s stomach turn. Then there was the water quality. Groundwater would need to be purified, and she didn’t have the resources or knowledge to set up a reliable filtration system with barely any materials.
Besides, a well wasn’t even what the task required.
The system had specifically asked for a water transport system, not a water extraction system.
Tera spent more of her nipples purchasing additional hoes from the system shop, enough for every male in the digging team to have one.
The digging teams were assembled, and to Tera’s surprise, two females had volunteered to join. The extra hands were welcome, and the rest of the females remained in the settlement to supervise the nursery and the cubs.
Xavi and Ermin had made it very clear that Tera was not to touch a hoe, lift a rock, or do anything more strenuous than pointing at things and telling people what to do. She had grumbled about it, but didn’t entirely mind.
Before the first hoe hit the dirt, Tera had thick pieces of bark wedged firmly against the edges of the stream where the channels would start from. The bark served as temporary blockers, keeping the stream’s water from rushing into the unfinished trenches prematurely. They would only be removed when both channels were fully excavated and ready for the first test.
Looking at the scope of what needed to be done, Tera could not help but feel tired.
This amount of work would have been a quick job of a week or two in the modern world with proper machinery and tools. Here, with hoes and beast strength and nothing else, it was going to take considerably longer.
But she would make do.
Since gravity would not cooperate on the mostly flat and occasionally upward-sloping terrain, Tera had devised a practical workaround during her planning month. Every slight continuous drop in the ground, no matter how small, was enough for gravity to assist with the flow of water. The key was to make the channel exploit every one of those tiny natural advantages.
Where the ground rose, even by the smallest amount, they would dig the channel deeper, carving out artificial downward slopes that countered the natural incline.
At various points along the route, they would cut steps into the channel floor, creating small drop-offs where the water would be encouraged to fall forward rather than remain stagnant.
The result was a channel that did not follow a smooth, uniform depth. It was sectioned into five distinct segments, each one ending with a small step-down. When water filled one section, it would rise and spill over into the next segment.
This staged flow meant the water didn’t need to travel the full distance in one continuous motion. It only needed to fill one section at a time and overflow into the next, maintaining movement even across stubbornly flat ground.
Once the channel reached the settlement, it would empty into two deeper holding basins that the males dug out. The basins would store water even if the flow from the stream was slow. The first basin was positioned closer to the farm on the plateau, and the second was nearer to the settlement’s centre.
And because Tera refused to be wasteful, the design didn’t just end at the basins. The overflow from the basins would feed into a return channel that led the excess water back toward the stream.
They were redirecting water, not hoarding it. Whatever the clan didn’t use would find its way back.
Tera was grateful beyond measure for the system’s blueprint and scanning features. The measurements, the elevation readings, and the calculations for depth and slope at each segment.
All of it was processed through the system and overlaid onto her route map. Without it, she would have been guessing, and guessing with water was a fast way to waste weeks of labour.
The first channel took nearly a full month to dig.
The work was gruelling, repetitive, and lacked the visible satisfaction of building shelters. There were no walls going up, no roofs being placed, and no moment where everyone could step back and see something standing. There was only a long, muddy trench getting slowly longer, one hoe-strike at a time.
But despite the looming timer on her task, Tera found herself not panicking.
She was actually starting to enjoy the work.
It had been a long time since she had done something this slow. The steady, methodical process of shaping land to serve a purpose. Even though the tools were primitive and the workforce had to be reminded not to dig sideways, she was reading the land and making it work for her.
The clan members were excited too, even if they didn’t fully understand what they were building. They could see the channel taking shape, and the promise of water arriving at the settlement without having to walk to the stream had captured their imaginations.
Some of them would walk the length of the finished sections after the day’s work, looking at the empty trench and trying to envision it full of flowing water.
When the first channel was completed, Tera gave the clan a full week of rest. They had earned it, and the males needed to recover before starting the second route.
And unsurprisingly, the second channel went faster.
The males knew what they were doing now. They understood the rhythm of the work, the precision needed for the depth transitions, and the importance of getting the step-down lips right. Fewer corrections were needed, and the digging moved with a confidence that had been absent during the first channel.
But while working on the second channel, Tera came upon a long-awaited discovery.
She finally found clay.