Chapter 153

Chapter 153

 Quan Nan quickly brought the people over.

However, following behind Quan Nan were not only the somewhat foolishly smiling Hu Qiao and Xi Zhou, but also an extra Niu Cheng.

Seeing Niu Xi looking at him from the doorway, Niu Cheng's face flushed red as he said, "Can I come?"

"Stop with the useless talk. Since you're here, get to work quickly," Niu Xi looked Niu Cheng up and down before directly shoving a stone hammer into his hands. "We don't want people without strength."

Niu Cheng straightened his back: "I have plenty of strength. I can do any work."

"The iron blocks are coming out of the furnace. Everyone be careful."

The several people who had just received tools immediately scattered upon hearing Shu Lin's shout.

Xiong Feng used two thick wooden sticks to clamp the iron block from the furnace, quickly moving it onto a tree stump in front of the furnace.

In just this short time, the thick wooden sticks clamping the iron block had caught fire. Xiong Feng quickly rubbed them on the ground to extinguish the flames.

On the tree stump was an iron block only about the size of a fist, now glowing orange-red all over. Just getting slightly close enough, one could feel the heat it emitted.

Hu Qiao swallowed hard: "Leopard Bai, what should we do?"

By then, Qi Bai had already used two new wooden sticks to secure the iron block and said, "Use the hammer heads to strike the iron block."

Xi Zhou glanced at the iron block somewhat hesitantly: "Leopard Bai, if you have us strike this iron block, could it break?"

Although Xi Zhou hadn't worked with iron before, he had polished many stone and bone tools. Not to boast, but he could smash ordinary stones to pieces with one hammer strike. However, stones were everywhere after all. If he accidentally broke this hard-earned iron block, it wouldn't be good.

Qi Bai thought to himself, this young man sure talks big, actually thinking he could break iron. He smiled and said, "Whether you can break it or not aside, if you don't start soon, this iron block will cool down and we'll have to reheat it later."

"Ah, ah, okay."

Hearing Qi Bai's words, Xi Zhou hesitated no longer and immediately struck the iron block with the stone hammer.

As the stone hammer collided with the iron block, countless sparks flew. With a "snap," a small fragment fell to the ground.

However, what broke wasn't the iron block—a corner of the stone hammer in Xi Zhou's hand had chipped off. Fortunately, he had held back his strength and not used full force, otherwise the stone hammer probably wouldn't have survived.

The hammer's owner, Shu Lin, not only didn't care about his hammer but instead shouted happily: "It's really that sturdy!"

Unlike Niu Xi and Lu Guo who had previously made small iron knives with Qi Bai, Shu Lin had only seen the black iron lumps Qi Bai took out of the furnace. He hadn't expected the iron to be this sturdy. After all, pottery and charcoal also came from firing, but they were very brittle.

Qi Bai was also happy to see the dent on the iron block. He flipped the iron block with a wooden stick: "Alright, keep hammering. Let's first see if we can make a hammer head."

Using stone hammers to forge iron wasn't impossible, but the wear and tear was too great. They needed to quickly make a few small hammer heads first as a transition.

The几人 looked down at the stone hammers in their hands, not quite understanding what Qi Bai wanted.

Although the stone hammers everyone held were uniformly called stone hammers, their head shapes varied greatly. Just around the tree stump, there were seven or eight different shapes of stone hammers in people's hands—long, square, flat, round, even notched ones. Basically, as long as a stone could be tied to a wooden stick, beastmen considered them all stone hammers.

Qi Bai pointed at the long-shaped stone hammer in Quan Nan's hand: "With an iron block this size, we should be able to make a hammer head like this. It just needs to be roughly similar, not exactly the same. But we need to leave a flat area on the side for hammering things."

With a clear goal, everyone quickly sprang into action.

Lu Guo and Niu Xu索性 didn't go back to making pottery blanks. The clay was readily available anyway—they could just add water later to reuse it, no need to worry about it spoiling.

There were ten people in the forging room now,正好 divided into three groups.

Xiong Feng and Niu Cheng formed one group, Hu Qiao and Xi Zhou another, and Lu Guo and Niu Xu the third group. They were responsible for striking the iron blocks with stone hammers. Niu Xi, Quan Nan, and Shu Lin held wooden sticks, responsible for flipping the iron blocks for the six people forging.

Don't underestimate Lu Guo and Niu Xu—although they were beastmen, their strength was no less than the other four horned beastmen.

The remaining Qi Bai wasn't just watching the spectacle either. He had to do all the miscellaneous tasks—adding charcoal to the forging furnace, heating the iron blocks, operating the bellows.

Most importantly, he had to handle questions from both the furnace room and forging room时不时.

Was this area struck too hard? Was that area struck too lightly? Their iron block was too hard, while others' iron was too soft.

In short, on the first day of forging, everyone encountered many, many problems.

Qi Bai, who only knew a little about the subject, had to tackle these problems one by one, even if he was in over his head.

Outside, the wind and snow howled, but inside, the几人 were so hot they恨不得 took off their hide clothing.

The forging furnace was different from the enclosed smelting furnace—its middle was completely open. The bellows stoked a large fire that quickly raised the indoor temperature. At this point, continuously striking the scorching hot iron blocks with stone hammers quickly made everyone sweat profusely.

Hu Qiao wiped the sweat from his face: "I feel like it's summer again."

Quan Nan, opposite Hu Qiao,噗嗤 laughed. Seeing Hu Qiao look over, she quickly turned her face away.

Hu Qiao, having finally seen Quan Nan's smiling face, wanted to move closer to say a few more words when Xi Zhou beside him stopped his hammering动作 and laughed heartily while looking at his face.

Hu Qiao glanced at Xi Zhou, telling him not to interrupt unnecessarily, but was also amused by Xi Zhou's face.

Xi Zhou, who had been hammering the iron block alongside him, had a pitch-black face that was almost unrecognizable from his original appearance.

Of course, it wasn't just them—almost everyone was in quite a state.

The reason lay in the wooden stumps they used for forging.

The iron blocks were extremely hot, and the wood quickly caught fire when placed on the wooden stumps. Combined with everyone's repeated hammering, plant ash from the wooden stumps naturally flew everywhere, covering everyone's heads and faces with black soot.

After sweating and then wiping it, Hu Qiao's face inevitably showed clear finger marks.

Qi Bai said with a smile: "Hang in there. After we make the hammer heads, we'll first make a few forging platforms. Then there won't be so much plant ash."

Xiong Feng said with a憨笑: "Being dirty isn't scary. We can use this. Don't waste iron."

Qi Bai shook his head: "How is this wasting? 'A worker must first sharpen his tools if he is to do his work well.' We'll be forging iron every day from now on. We need to make proper tools first."

The temperature of the iron block from Shu Lin's group had dropped. He used a wooden stick to put the iron block into the forging furnace, scratched his head and asked: "Worker's tools? Leopard Bai, what do you mean? I don't understand."

"'A worker must first sharpen his tools if he is to do his work well.'" Qi Bai spoke without noticing he had used an idiom.

Qi Bai thought for a moment and explained in the simplest way: "When we usually chop firewood with stone knives, doesn't a sharper knife chop faster?"

Shu Lin blinked, suddenly enlightened. However, what he understood wasn't Qi Bai's idiom. He patted the brick wall of the forging furnace and said: "I see! I always wondered why I couldn't match Tu Ya and She Li at chopping firewood. Turns out it's because my stone knife wasn't sharp enough."

Shu Lin wasn't stupid, but he used to be a bit lazy. This laziness wasn't about not working, but rather being懒得思考. Combined with his easy-going, non-competitive nature, Shu Lin had always been at the bottom among beastmen in gathering ability in his previous tribe. After getting used to it, he didn't think much of it.

However, the principle Qi Bai explained today suddenly made things clear in his mind.

If he also used good tools, could he also gather more food and firewood?

Qi Bai nodded: "That's right. This saying tells us that if we want to do our work well, we must have good tools. Now our iron forging is just like chopping wood—only by preparing good tools can we forge iron quickly and well. So using iron to make tools isn't wasteful at all."

Regardless of anything else, one thing everyone present understood was that no matter what you do, rushing in recklessly definitely won't work—tools are very important.

Thinking carefully, it seemed really reasonable.

Beastmen had encountered tools very early on, and the tribe was now accustomed to using many new tools that Qi Bai had introduced.

However, everyone just thought the tools were useful—no one had deeply considered how much tools had changed their lives. But now their thinking seemed to have suddenly opened up, somewhat understanding the奥秘 within.

Hu Qiao, thinking about being able to make many iron tools, was very motivated. Waving his arms, he said: "Make tools! Make ironware!"

With this motivation, everyone hammered the iron blocks even more vigorously. In just half a day, several stone hammers had already been broken.

Through repeated heating and forging, the originally near-spherical iron lumps were slowly beaten into rectangular shapes.

Qi Bai looked at the sky: "Let's stop here for today. We'll come back tomorrow to finish making the iron hammers."

The几人陆续 walked out of the forging room.

Niu Cheng intentionally walked slower, staying near Niu Xi who was closing the door.

Niu Xi tilted her head: "Do you need something else from me?"

Niu Cheng swallowed hard, took out a small hide bag from his clothes, and stuffed it into Niu Xi's hand: "This is sweet potato flour I ground. You can have it."

Niu Xi looked at the horned beastman with a scarred face before her and asked somewhat puzzled: "Why are you giving me food?"

Niu Cheng said somewhat nervously: "I have strength. I can earn work points and exchange for lots of food. Can you be with me? We can raise younglings together?"

When they were at the Scarlet Mountains, the people cooking for the team were clearly Qi Bai and Niu Xi. But for some reason, Niu Cheng only had eyes for Niu Xi's face flushed red from the cold, and of course her delicious cooking—the fragrant roasted meat and meat soup that sometimes made Niu Cheng wake up hungry in the middle of the night.

It's just that other horned beastmen pursued people by giving feathers and stones. Niu Cheng thought about it for a long time and felt those were useless. It would be more practical to give some food to Niu Xi.

Niu Xi: "......" What's going on? How did this person suddenly take a liking to her?

Qi Bai didn't know someone was confessing behind him. Walking at the front, he soon reached his doorstep.

There was no movement from Lang Ze's room—it seemed he hadn't returned yet.

Qi Bai first filled the pottery pot with water, planning to take a bath later.

After lighting the fire, he brought out the wooden tray containing the pigskin glue.

The pigskin glue had already formed a large lump in the wooden basin and could be poured out directly. He cut the soft glue into small pieces, placed them on a winnowing basket, and took them outside.

Everyone's current houses had one bedroom and one living room, with not much storage space. Many diligent beastmen would place a grass stack outside their doors.

The outside of the grass stack was woven from dry grass, which is well isolated from heavy snow. Inside the grass stack, people stored dry firewood they usually collected and food that needed freezing.

The grass stack against the outer wall of Qi Bai's house contained shelves moved down from the cave. He had previously dried collected pinecones and sweet potato chips here.

Qi Bai opened the outer layer of the grass stack, went inside, and spread the small pieces of pigskin glue flat on the winnowing basket.

Although there was heavy snow outside now, the weather was actually very dry. Food left outdoors would quickly freeze rock-hard. After drying the pigskin glue and storing it, he wouldn't have to worry about the glue spoiling.