NOVEL WEB Chapter 17: Heavy Progress
Almost everything was ready for it to become a town.
Construction had begun both inside and outside the village boundaries. Luke had directly told 70% of the elves to start working on handicrafts.
Elves were skilled at ironworking. Though dwarves were far more proficient, the elves' hands truly transformed everything they touched into something exceptional.
For this reason, Luke had assigned a few elves to the forge in his manor and asked them to simply make arrows.
Arrows began to be made using the iron ingots he had purchased from the shop panel and those Callum had brought, along with arrowheads and naturally collected wood.
The remaining elves were guarding the walls. Luke, with Callum's help, had divided the Sun Tree pieces he had stored in his inventory into smaller pieces.
As a result, everything had become much more organised in a very short time.
Luke calmly found greenhouses of average size, covering two hundred square metres, on the shop panel and decided to conduct a test.
He set up the greenhouse next to one of the huts in the animal farm and, with the help of the villagers, planted tomatoes, potatoes, peppers, and other vegetables inside.
Still, the greenhouse was very cold. Naturally, there was no way to keep it warm at the moment. It was clear that the planted seeds would die soon. It was difficult to grow anything in temperatures reaching minus twenty or even thirty degrees Celsius.
Therefore, Luke took fifteen of the Sun Tree pieces he had returned to his inventory, which had been further reduced in size, and placed three pieces in each corner of the greenhouse, for a total of twelve pieces. After that, Luke searched for a place where the seeds would not be affected by the heat.
Additionally, he found an irrigation system carrying water from an unknown source and identified the area where the system sprayed the most water.
He placed the remaining three Sun Tree pieces exactly in that area, right in the centre of the greenhouse.
Along with this, fifteen Sun Tree pieces were used.
After doing this, he carefully began to check the irrigation system directly inside the greenhouse.
He realised at that moment that water was not unlimited and noticed that there were nearly five thousand litres of water in the entire irrigation system.
The only reason he thought it was unlimited was because the greenhouse automatically started watering as soon as seeds were planted, and every part of the greenhouse—every part that could be planted—was filled with seeds. During the half-hour Luke spent marking the spots where he would place the Sun Trees, the irrigation system did not stop for even a second.
Greenhouses required a lot of water. Greenhouses constructed according to their design—for winter or summer use—needed different amounts of water, heat transfer, seeds used, and other factors.
Therefore, one had to be prepared for everything. Greenhouse farming was not as easy as it seemed.
A single greenhouse had required much more gold than he had anticipated.
He had managed to purchase a 200-square-metre greenhouse for exactly 100 gold coins. This alone spoke volumes about how durable the greenhouse was and how high-quality the materials were.
Once Luke had finished, he began to notice that the greenhouse was truly starting to heat up, how effectively the soil formed within the greenhouse absorbed water, and the impact of the Sun Tree components on the plants.
It was already visible that the seeds had begun to sprout, albeit slightly.
As everything began to take shape in more detail, Luke finally managed to leave and wanted to move on to the next phase of his plan.
More accurately, this phase would not begin directly. There were some topics Luke wanted to explore, or rather research.
So he called Kevin over, entered the tent in the middle of the village, and spread out a metre-long piece of paper on the table inside the tent.
There were diagrams on the huge piece of paper. They were carefully drawn diagrams that had been thought out in great detail in terms of architecture and engineering.
'Your Majesty, isn't it a bit early for this?' Kevin asked when he saw what was on the paper.
'No. We're entering winter, Kevin, and there's not much time left. If we start construction any later, all of our plans for next year will be deactivated. We must be careful,' Luke replied.
Each of these plans was a road plan.
Perhaps one of the main issues that could be seen as a major problem in snowy regions. Building roads in snowy, icy regions was far more challenging than dealing with hell itself.
Luke had been thinking about this issue constantly for the past month. Of course, it would be more accurate to say that he had been thinking about this issue alongside his other sketches.
He knew what he wanted to do, but he didn't know what materials to use. More accurately, even though he knew what materials were available, he couldn't make a choice. To be precise, there were many white, black, and red marbles to choose from, and even moonstone, which was expensive but still affordable.
Even if it wasn't very expensive, moonstone was still a favourite among the nobility.
The details of the plans were a little complicated.
Due to his fear of erosion, Luke had designed the flat areas around the village as follows:
First, the area would be dug up, and iron dust would be poured onto the base. This iron dust would then be melted in Kevin's flames and left to cool. This would ensure that the main road had a solid foundation at least a few metres deep.
After that, stones that did not bond with each other but could provide support would be placed on top of the iron base, so that even if erosion occurred, it would take an enormous force to destroy the road.
Ultimately, these stones, which do not fuse together, would disperse the energy created by the collision with erosion, and the iron foundation would absorb and dissipate this energy.
After that, the topmost foundation made of moonstone or any type of marble would be laid, and the road would be complete.
This was the entire plan for the main road.