Vol 2 Chapter 8: Boiled Potato part 2
The fire soon started spreading across the stick and then to the larger piece of wood. Foin then looked at his shrinking pile of wood. Although previously the ant brought two larger trees, now only a fraction of the wood remained.
While he was thinking about his next course of action, whether to go and collect more branches or use another fruit to make some sort of tool which would allow him to cop trees down, suddenly the sweet scent of the burning grass hit his nose.
The grass was already quite dried. As a result, he believed that it had lost its sweet scent, but no, on the contrary, it was almost as if the smell was even stronger than before. It was so strong, in fact, that the sleeping dragon woke up to it. Of course, Foin did not notice it, as he was more focused on the water. Which started soon boiling.
"It seems it will not be the best insulator, but at least it is quite sturdy..."
He mumbled as he kept staring at the pot. Then, he started thinking about how he would be able to produce alcohol from his potatoes. He was certain that traditional methods would not work as they worked in his world.
While being half a dozen off, a new idea came to his mind. He quickly jumped up, grabbed his bucket, walked to the edge of his cleared area, and started pulling more grass out. Although his plan was not to extend his land, he still expanded his farmland area a bit. The grass was then brought to his now greatly shrunken wood storage.
The process was repeated a number of times: filling his bucket with grass, then dumping them into one pile, and once he had a sizable pile of grass, he quickly returned to his boiling water. Carefully, he grabbed the end of the metal rods and lifted his pot off of the burning fire. He was ready to exert great strength to lift his presumably heavy pot full of water and boiled potatoes. However, it was relatively light.
Once the pot was no longer above the fire, Foin, without hesitation, poured it onto the ground. He wanted to get it over with as quickly as possible, and he had no time to wait for the water and the pot to cool down. He quickly grabbed a bucket full of water and splashed it over his pot to hasten its cooling. Then he tried to grab it with his bare hands. He was sure that it would still be hot; however, he managed to turn it around.
He then proceeded to grab a comfortably large piece of stone and returned to the pot. The pot was still somewhat hot, but he was now able to work with it. For the time being, he ignored the freshly completed boiled potatoes, and instead, he once again pulled out about the same amount of potatoes as before, but now onto the ground.
He used the piece of stone he had brought to smash and squeeze the potatoes. He grabbed the first one, and then, with the help of the stone, he started mashing and flattening the potato until nothing but liquid remained in the pot. The pot was slowly being filled with the liquid extracted from the potatoes; though he used the same amount of potatoes as before, it barely filled half of the pot.
Remembering the great effect of the élion, Foin quickly grabbed a handful of flowers and dropped them into the pot. He hoped that the sweetness of the flower would boost the liquid, and even if he failed, the liquid would be drinkable with the help of the flowers.
Once he was done with the liquid, he put the two rods back onto the fire, but he did not put the pot back on; he wanted to wait some time so that the fire would slightly diminish in strength, as he wanted to use the sweet grass as fuel. He didn't know whether it would have any effect or not, but he wanted to experiment with it.
He sat by the fire and just looked at the fire in the hole. Time flew by quickly, and every once in a while, Foin glanced at his field of products and sighed.
"A helper would be fantastic. Someone who could help, or just lend me a free hand to harvest... Or just watch over the fire."
Foin finally stood up, brought a bucket full of grass back, and then put the pot on the now weak fire. And then threw a handful of grass onto the fire. For a few seconds, the grass burned with massive flames despite being fresh and not dried, but then the fire once again calmed down. The sweet smell released by the grass lingered all over the area.
The fire Foin had previously gathered was gradually thrown onto the fire until nothing was left. By that time, the fire was just barely visible, and most of the wood had burnt.
Most of the day had already passed already, so Foin proceeded to harvest his peppers and continue building his house. Though he didn't have much time to focus on his house, he believed that at this rate, he would be able to finish it shortly, not that he really needed it for the time being as the weather and the temperature seemed almost utopistic.
At the end of the day, Foin went to sleep when it was still somewhat bright outside. His first attempt and experiment with alcohol was still outside over the now pile of ash and cooling in the pleasant temperature.
That night was special not only because Foin might have succeeded in making some sort of new drink, maybe even alcohol, in the long run, but also because that night also had a Green Moon. The beautiful green colour of the moon lit up his entire garden. However, he was fast asleep at that time already. He didn't even notice that a notification had popped up before his eyes.
As the hot, almost burning green light hit the garden, everything seemed peaceful, but suddenly, the élion plant, which he had planted from multiple flowers, started slightly shaking, almost as if there was a light wind.