Chapter 8: Chapter 7: Playing with mud

-Alan POV-

The next morning I decided to get serious (as if I wasn't until now...).

If you wonder what I mean by that, is that now I had the tools to get the materials I needed to do a bunch of new and upgraded things!

So I spent the morning of this day just cutting trees and collecting stones.

Yep. Someone, please put an end to my suffering. Please.

Also, I produced more of the same fiber I made for the 'fire' bow, it comes from a sturdy tree's bark and thick leaves. And it comes in very handy on a lot of occasions.

Now about the projects topic.

What I'm about to do next might as well be considered cheating. I'm going to jump forward millions of years but oh well, that's an engineer for ya!

"Ha-ha-ha-ha..."

I should stop doing these laughs because Hikari tilted her head in curiosity while looking at me. She is incredibly cute, but I don't want her to think I'm a weird guy.

I want to do three different things, but today I will just 'prepare' the first one: making ceramics, also called pottery.

Until now, I had to do different travels of approximately one kilometer for the full round trip to bring water for Hikari and me, each time we wanted to drink!

So we need to make containers, fast.

And this was also a priority because, unlike the fire, this is actually fast and relatively easy to do.

When I saw the shining water river for the first time I already spotted clay on both sides.

I just had to mine and extract it, combine it with water, and give it a shape.

...

As always the tricky part was the most obvious one. The technique.

"At this point, I am not even angry."

For now, this will be enough. I was fairly successful at giving it the basic shape of: bowls, plates, and cutlery. But when I tried being creative I realized my lack of the 'artist' inside me. In summary, it was a disaster.

"Well, the main objective was accomplished so I would call it a win?"

*Preow!*

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Hikari consoled this pathetic me.

The next step was, well, waiting. That's why I said I will just 'prepare' ceramics because they need to become dry before they can be used.

They take a maximum of 72 hours to completely dry, but taking into account their sizes, they should be done before. Also, when making them, I had in mind they will shrink as they dry, so I doubt any of them is going to explode.

Man, it always feels good to use the knowledge humans acquired throughout millions of years in mere hours!

...

It was getting late, so together with Hikari, using the remaining light time, we just collected a few more resources and the strange apples we were going to use as today's dinner. Again.

I haven't thought about it before, but do cats eat apples? No, I think they can, even more when they are peeled off, but I read they weren't keen on eating them... And let's just say Hikari has zero trouble with the strange apples, sometimes it seems she even enjoys them...

Must be my imagination. Even cats have different tastes, right?

We returned to the cave and started the fire. As a fuel, I gathered a ton of the leaves I estimated had the higher burning time.

If I'm being honest I can't wait for tomorrow.

Point two is mainly remodeling the cave and creating a warehouse outside for the logs and rocks, alongside other materials.

I am not an order maniac, but I understand the importance of keeping things in their respective places.

We finished eating and started preparing to sleep.

By putting together a bunch of leaves we both managed to get a mildly comfortable bed, although it was far better with Hikari: she never used her bed and always came to my side, where she offered herself as a fluffy pillow, extremely addictive by the way.

And that's how this day came to an end...

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"Roooaaaaaarrrrrr!"

Such a sound could be heard from the inner depths of the forest.

Time was quickly running out.

The angry beast was slowly but steadily stomping towards Alan's camp.

The reason why no animals had still shown up, was because of his terrifying presence.

Fallen trees could be seen at the places he had been walking through...

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