Chapter 121: Chapter 121: Snowflake Slabs

Meanwhile—

Chang Xia held the foundation stone, exchanging a glance with Chen Rong.

She lowered her head, staring intently at the stone in her hand. Could it explode and blast the rock apart? But Maple Leaf had just said how valuable these stones were.

Clearly, it couldn’t be anything as destructive as that.

“Chen Rong, can you figure out how to use it?” Chang Xia tilted her head, inspecting the stone from all angles, but still couldn’t see how it worked.

Chen Rong played with the stone, glancing at Maple Leaf and the others.

Their faces were all lit up with strange, expectant smiles.

Thinking quickly,

Chen Rong suddenly smashed the foundation stone against a nearby snowflake rock.

Bang—

A loud crash echoed out.

Chang Xia, startled, jumped in shock and stared wide-eyed at Chen Rong.

Crack!

Before Chang Xia could ask why Chen Rong had done that, a crisp cracking sound rang out. The man-high snowflake rock in front of them suddenly split apart with a sharp crack, shattering into pieces scattered all around.

“Foundation stone... for striking stone?” Chang Xia murmured in disbelief.

Maple Leaf and the others exchanged glances, their eyes full of admiration for Chen Rong.

When they first encountered foundation stones, they’d been just as clueless as Chang Xia, and the tribe elders had teased them plenty. Chen Rong’s reaction was impressively sharp—he figured out the use of the foundation stone within minutes. That was really something!

Coming back to her senses, Chang Xia’s face lit up with excitement.

She grabbed a foundation stone and went to a nearby rock, giving it a heavy whack.

There was a slightly softer crack than before.

Soon, the snowflake rock she’d struck split open, though only three or four cracks appeared—it didn’t shatter completely. Chang Xia had only been testing the stone and hadn’t used much force.

She stared at the cracks in shock,

then looked back at the foundation stone in her hand.

“This is even better than an iron hammer!” she muttered.

Maple Leaf smiled and said, “Amazing, right? Each one is worth a hundred beast pelts. Our tribe has a decent relationship with the Fish Tribe, and it still took us years to get ten. The Bird Tribe? They’d be lucky to have five in total.”

The Fish and Bird Tribes don’t get along.

They’re not exactly mortal enemies,

but whenever they meet, they have to compete over something. The idea of them being friendly is a joke.

“All right, everyone, get to work!”

“We still have to grind the slabs—let’s sort out the broken stones first, then find a spot to grind the slabs.”

Maple Leaf handed out the foundation stones from her beast pouch, urging everyone to pick out snowflake rocks. The foundation stones could be used to break up the rocks, but also to grind stone tools.

Of course, foundation stones are precious.

Unless beast claws can’t do the job, you’re not supposed to use them.

Besides foundation stones, thousand-year ironwood can also be used for grinding, as can other hard stones.

Before long,

the air above the rocky beach was filled with the sound of pounding.

After having her fun, Chang Xia tossed her foundation stone to Ya Dong and started moving the broken rocks. With primitive tools, it was impossible to make slabs of uniform size, so Chang Xia just tried to grind the fragments as thin as possible for easier assembly.

This way,

the difficulty was greatly reduced.

After breaking up more than a dozen man-high snowflake rocks, everyone started moving the fragments.

They planned to grind the slabs right there on the rocky beach that afternoon, instead of hauling the stones back to the kiln courtyard.

Bang, bang—

The ironwood clubs had been prepared by Maple Leaf ahead of time.

Foundation stones were too valuable to waste on grinding slabs. Ironwood clubs were a good alternative. For lower-quality rocks, beastfolk usually just transformed their hands and used their claws to grind.

“Changxia, is this thickness okay?” Chen Rong asked, holding out a slab of snowflake stone about two fingers thick.

Changxia examined it and said happily, “Yes, that works. It could even be a little thicker.”

Shaping and smoothing the stone with an ironwood stick took some effort, and Changxia worked slowly, unable to keep up with Chen Rong and the others. On average, it took her five minutes to finish a slab, while Chen Rong and the rest could finish one every minute or two. Even Nuanchun was faster than Changxia.

But it wasn’t Changxia’s fault—after all, she’d spent most of her first decade or so lying on a vine bed. It was only after she grew up that her bloodline energy gradually nourished her body back to health. She’d finally recovered, but coordinating her limbs for manual work was still a challenge.

“Changxia, your cave courtyard is pretty big. It’ll probably take a few thousand of these snowflake stone slabs to cover the whole thing. Are you sure you want to pave it all?” Nuanchun asked.

Changxia shook her head. “No, Nuanchun, it won’t take that many.”

Her courtyard was spacious, but she planned to build a fish pond with pebbles, a flower bed, and maybe some other things—all of which would take up space. Factoring those in, she estimated that six or seven hundred slabs would be enough to pave the courtyard.

She also wanted to fix up the path from White Lake to her cave. For that, the slabs didn’t need to be perfectly flat, so it would be much easier.

“With the pond, flower beds, and spots reserved for fruit trees, a few hundred slabs should be enough to cover the whole courtyard,” Chen Rong explained. “Changxia, do you want to fix up the path outside your cave while we’re at it?”

“Yes, I’ll fix up my path too,” Nuanchun chimed in.

Yadong nodded in agreement, indicating he’d do the same. Nan Feng didn’t say anything, but his expression said it all.

They’d never paid much attention to the paths before, but now that they were living in clean, tidy caves, it felt awkward to come home with muddy feet during the rainy season. Fixing up the paths would definitely be an improvement.

After all, there was no shortage of rocks on the stony beach—building a few paths wouldn’t be a problem.

“Let’s do it together, then,” Changxia said. “Once the paths are fixed, it’ll be much cleaner and easier to walk.”

“We might not have enough resin,” Chen Rong reminded them.

The tribe’s stockpile of resin had been almost used up with the recent construction of all the new cave dwellings.

At this, everyone fell silent.

Resin had to be collected—there was no shortcut. And it wasn’t the right season for harvesting it, either.

“When do we usually collect resin?” Changxia asked. She’d never participated in the tribe’s group activities before, so she only had a vague idea about many things—about as much as the tribe’s young cubs. No wonder the tribe didn’t dare let her leave the settlement; with her lack of experience, the risk of something happening was just too high.

“End of the warm season, start of the cold season,” Maple Leaf replied.

Resin was the sap from oil trees, used as an adhesive, similar to cement. Unless they were planning to build new dens, the tribe usually didn’t bother collecting it, so their stockpile was always limited. This round of cave construction had used up almost all of it.