Kaelen didn't have much time, and Walter was anxious to try touching the realm of the Beast God's knowledge. The two sides only exchanged a few points to note before quickly separating.
Kaelen hugged a pile of bark paper books to Jaxon's place. Jaxon had said he would find someone to come learn pottery with him; however, just having people wasn't enough. They also needed a place with suitable materials and a sufficiently discreet location to avoid causing panic among the tribesmen.
For this material search, Jaxon and his eldest son Nordhal brought two more young beastmen along with him. Kaelen sat on Jaxon's back, avoiding the paths frequently used by tribesmen, running to the depression where Kaelen believed there was clay.
This depression was located right behind the tribe, separated by a rocky cliff. This land was very vast, two or three times the size of the tribe's current location. Originally, the tribesmen intended to build the tribe here, but due to the terrain having few natural caves and the ground frequently flooding after rain, they had given up.
Kaelen jumped down from Jaxon's back and received a glaring look from Jaxon. He pretended to look down at the ground under his feet, not daring to look at the older man. Truly, every now and then he forgot he was pregnant and carelessly made such strenuous movements.
Squatting down and rolling a bit of soil to sniff it, there was no sour smell; conversely, it had the characteristic fishy mud smell of colored earth. This type of soil was truly nothing short of perfect for planting wet rice and crops.
Inspecting the area, Kaelen patted a spot of soil that was somewhat mushier than the others: [Jaxon, have your people dig this place up. Dig until I say stop.]
Jaxon pointed to a Mole tribe beastman, Oleck, who immediately transformed back into his beast form. His front limbs swung so fast they only left afterimages; layers of earth and rock were dug out by him, piling up into a small mound.
Digging down to a depth of about thirty or forty centimeters, Kaelen waved his hand to signal a stop. Jaxon shouted: "Oleck, that's enough!"
After Oleck crawled out of the newly dug hole, Kaelen hurriedly knelt by the edge of the pit, reaching out to scoop up a handful of vermilion-colored earth with a dense and slightly soft texture. He scooped a bit of stagnant water nearby, then squeezed and kneaded it, pulling the block of earth back and forth like dough, then rolled it into a long strip like a sausage before bending it into a circle.
The strip of earth didn't break. Kaelen looked up and gave a thumbs-up to Jaxon. Jaxon was so happy he shed tears:
"This is great, such a large area is all material for fired clay. The Beast God truly favors our tribe!"
Kaelen led them around a bit more, finding a suitable place to build a brick kiln. Finally, he chose a gentle hillside to make a vertical kiln. The advantage of choosing a hillside was that they only needed to carve half of the kiln into the hill. The hill's earth would act as a giant insulating jacket, preventing the temperature inside the kiln from escaping into the environment, while simultaneously serving as a solid base for the kiln's dome.
The construction of the kiln was assigned to Nordhal. The drawing was meticulously done by Kaelen. Oleck looked at it for a moment and said to Jaxon: "Tribe Leader, this kiln looks quite similar to the self-dug stone cave at Mossi's house. We could let Mossi try it."
Jaxon was a bit hesitant. Mossi was a Badger tribe beastman; Mossi was indeed good at digging caves and packing earth, but his temperament was very stubborn. Mossi had a very deep prejudice against Kaelen, so letting him come into contact with Kaelen was a very dangerous thing.
Hearing Mossi's name, Kaelen also shuddered slightly. When he was just four years old, he was almost slapped to death by Mossi, just because during their flight as refugees that year, Mossi's mate and son were attacked by wild beasts and died very tragically. For a long time, Mossi always looked for opportunities to kill the bringer of bad luck, Kaelen. If it weren't for Nyx and Jaxon doing their utmost to protect him, Kaelen probably would have long become a departed soul under Mossi's claws.
Although since he grew to be about six or seven years old, Mossi no longer rushed up to beat or kill him upon seeing him, those eyes were still not friendly at all. Kaelen truly did not want to clash with Mossi.
"How about this. Later, every time you come to supervise the kiln's construction, I will have Sane follow to protect your safety. What do you think?"
Sane was a level-three warrior beastman; in terms of combat strength, he was only slightly lower than Jaxon. If Mossi wanted to harm him, Mossi would have to defeat Sane first. And Mossi was just an ordinary beastman; aside from sharp claws and high physical endurance, there was no way Mossi could kill Kaelen in front of Sane.
Kaelen weighed his personal aversion against the tribe's benefits, and ultimately the scale still tipped toward the tribe. He nodded in agreement.
With the kiln construction settled, as for the pottery-making tools and the potters, Jaxon had also found a few trustworthy people. This group consisted mostly of a few older individuals with honest and kind temperaments, who didn't harbor too much prejudice against Kaelen.
After arranging this brick-making matter, Jaxon once again felt helpless due to the ignorance of the tribesmen. There were many talented people, but those who could be directly utilized were very few. If it weren't for their extremist mindsets, the development of the tribe wouldn't require such excessive worry and caution.
It was already past noon. The group of three young beastmen went off together to hunt, while Kaelen and Jaxon stayed behind to explore this vast land, seeing if they could discover anything else interesting.
If they didn't search, it would be one thing, but having searched, they were startled because the harvest was unexpectedly abundant. Water yams, vegetable ferns, water spinach, cattails; all were priceless treasures. At the end of the path, he even came across a huge patch of jute plants. It was now late autumn, the jute stems had shed their leaves and snapped down into the swamp. The decomposition process of the jute bark in the mud created a characteristic putrid smell.
"Achoo! Achoo! It stinks to death! Kaelen, hurry and get far away from here!"
A beastman's nose was naturally sharp; the smell of decomposing jute bark was no different from a biological bomb attacking head-on. Jaxon wished he could grow wings to fly far away from this place.
Kaelen not only didn't retreat, he even stepped forward, forcefully uprooting a broken dry stem and pulling it out from under the mud. The rotted bark emitted an earthy smell, but when Kaelen lightly pinched it with his fingers and stripped it down, the rotted bark slipped off, revealing long, light brown fibers woven tightly together.
He stripped all the bark off, dipped it into a nearby puddle to wash off the mud, then wrung the water out, quickly braiding it into a rope the size of a finger, and tossed it to Jaxon.
[Jaxon, try using your strength to snap it?]
Jaxon grimaced and grabbed both ends of the rope braided from the "Stinking Plant". Jaxon tensed his arms and gave it a yank. It didn't break...
Jaxon raised his eyebrows, using a bit more of a high-level beastman's strength to pull hard. The rope dug deep into the flesh of his hands, but absolutely did not snap. Jaxon used all of his available strength, and only then did the rope snap right in the middle; the rebounding pulling force made Jaxon stagger and fall back onto the ground.
"This thing... is so tough!" Jaxon looked at the crude rope in horror.
Kaelen smiled, pointing to the pile of jute plants lying flat in the mud, and said: [This thing can be used as a pulling rope, it can also be used to make containers instead of vine baskets, and has many other uses as well.]
The important thing was that jute fibers were easy to weave, not requiring as much meticulousness as linen or silk fibers. Weaving jute fibers would also depend on whether the Avian tribe could research a loom. Kaelen wasn't aiming for jute fabric to make clothes, because jute fibers were very stiff; making them into fabric for clothing would take a lot of time. Instead of spending effort researching how to soften jute fibers, it was better to research other types of plants with softer fibers.
"I didn't expect this foul-smelling plant to have such wonderful uses. This afternoon, I will tell the cubs who are too full of energy to come here and pull this plant back."
Kaelen suddenly felt a bit of sympathy for the young beastmen in the tribe. The putrid smell of the jute plant was not easy to sniff. However, sympathy was sympathy; what needed to be done still had to be done, all for the future of the tribe.
[When the jute plants are uprooted, throw them in that pond over there; they can only be used after a few days. Also, don't bring them back to soak in the river near the tribe, it will make the water stink and become unusable.]
The two walked around a few more times, not even missing the submerged rock crevices, but didn't find much else. Basically, the things that could be planted and used this winter were all cruciferous vegetables. It was a pity they couldn't find any rapeseed plants, otherwise they could have pressed rapeseed oil.
"I didn't expect the land we ignored to have so many usable things." Jaxon couldn't help but marvel. To Jaxon, vegetables that could survive the winter were already a huge luxury. During winter, all edible wild vegetables withered away; if they didn't wither, only the old leaves remained, tasting both bitter and astringent. Unless they were extremely hungry, people wouldn't want to eat them.
Especially the "Stinking Plant" and fired clay; with these things, why would they worry about a lack of food anymore.
The hunting beastmen returned, and everyone started a fire to grill meat, eating while discussing the things they had discovered. As the sky turned to afternoon, the group returned to the tribe. Cassian came to report that he had finished making the stone mill and a few agricultural tools as drawn in the plans.
Kaelen held a stone hoe to try it out. Aside from being heavier than a metal hoe, the other functions were quite decent. He then examined the pitchfork, shovel, five-tooth rake, and earth-digging spade; all resembled their later metal versions by 80%. Using these stone agricultural tools could reduce the wear and tear on the claws of the beastmen and Sub-Beasts, increasing labor efficiency.
He had originally planned to make stone plowshares, but Kaelen didn't dare let the beastmen in the tribe transform into their beast forms to pull the plow. He was afraid that as soon as he spoke it out loud, he would be accused of blaspheming the deities and then kicked out of the tribe. After all, Beastmen were the incarnations of the Beast God.
Perhaps adding animal taming and husbandry plans to the list of things to do would be more practical.