Lord of the Myriad Worlds

Chapter 438: The Test of the Harsh Winter

"Add it all to Life!"

Li Wei had currently long since opened comprehensive hosting mode through the Prestige Stone, directly avoiding the possibility of some people blindly adding points from the source.

Subsequently, he exhausted another ten thousand points of Hunting Experience, selecting two hundred people and binding and activating one-star Hunter Cards for them. Conveniently, he exhausted another ten thousand points of Hunting Experience to freely farm them to two-star.

This way, they could obtain another ten attribute points. Still, they were all added to Life. Even until Life reached Level 1 Awakening, he had to continue adding, ultimately pooling it to 150 points of Life.

Like this, there was no fear of ordinary wind chill and colds. Taking a bit of freezing, being a bit tired from working, and suffering a bit—they would be able to hold on.

Finally, Li Wei took out enough Woodcutter Experience to compensate all the refugees who hadn't obtained a second Profession.

In short, aside from those thirty-four Soldiers, as well as the thirty-two Artisans, Tailors, Butchers, Blacksmiths, Stonemasons, and other refugees who originally possessed very high statuses, the remainder—even the children—all became dual Class Holders.

An average of 150 Health Points per person! Some refugees with relatively better foundations could even have a few more Free Attribute Points to add to stamina and Strength.

It was like celebrating the New Year!

With a swish, that Loyalty was all entirely completely full at a hundred again.Li Wei sneered disdainfully, once again experiencing Second Aunt's kind of helplessness.

Next, he generated a number of missions through the Prestige Stone again.

Ranked first was to build some sturdier wooden houses—the kind that came with fireplaces and heated brick beds. Twenty of them needed to be built, striving for each to be able to house twenty people.

There was no problem with this, because Li Wei had brought all the building materials from the mountain bay village. The houses they originally resided in were similar wooden houses. It even saved on intermediate processing; they only needed to be assembled using iron nails.

Li Wei didn't even need to specifically go and command; the refugees could build them themselves. Originally, what restricted them was only physical weakness and frailty. Now, these were no longer problems.

Especially under the circumstances of having sufficient tools.

Sixty people were distributed to this part: ten Artisans and fifty unskilled laborers. They could simultaneously start the construction of five wooden cabins.

The second mission was the construction of the blacksmith shop. Among the refugees, there were three Blacksmiths. One of them was actually a Three-Star Blacksmith, and the remaining were two two-star Blacksmiths. Then it also encompassed fifteen Blacksmith Apprentices. For this part, this Blacksmith Orpheus could independently settle it.

With a blacksmith shop, it would also better facilitate construction.

Eighteen people were distributed to this part.

The third mission was building perimeter walls. Over four hundred people needed a very large space, and the exterior of this space still needed a perimeter wall with at least a one-kilometer circumference.

Currently, conditions were limited, so they would first adopt a combination of log perimeter walls plus stone walls.

This matter had no technical difficulty, but it was basically heavy physical labor, so sixty people were also distributed to it.

The fourth mission was the need to conduct exploration and excavation of the surroundings. This required the Soldiers to escort the Woodcutters out to chop firewood. The firewood consumption volume this winter would be very large. During this period, they could conduct hunting, gathering, and the like.

This part was handed over to Chris's squad as well as twenty Woodcutters. The former was responsible for hunting and concurrently security; the latter only needed to fell trees, chop wood, and transport it. Of course, this round trip might require a journey of over a hundred li.

The fifth mission was the gathering of supplies and the production of food. This part could arrange for many robust women to do the work. A total of forty people were arranged.

The sixth mission was reclaiming wasteland.

Yes, this was a mission that couldn't be used now, but would be very important next year. That is to say, only because Li Wei reinforced all the refugees through bleeding himself; otherwise, it fundamentally wouldn't be its turn. There wouldn't be sufficient manpower to do this.

But now, Li Wei was able to draw out twenty robust Farmers, letting them reclaim wasteland together with him in the camp. For the mission objective, let's first get three hundred acres!

As the saying goes: Grain in Hand, No Panic in Heart. This was forever an irrefutable truth.

However, one point of difference was that the farmland reclaimed by the other Farmers was for sowing next year. The farmland Li Wei reclaimed, however, was prepared to be sown immediately.

His speed was very fast. In less than a day's time, he reclaimed ten acres of farmland. The soil moisture content was not bad, so there was no need for irrigation either. Li Wei directly uniformly buried three hundred Fire Crystals within these ten acres of farmland.

Hm, just consider it an experiment.

He wanted to plant Winter Wheat. This season was definitely late, but perhaps after applying magical 'hardcore solutions', it could succeed!

After burying the Fire Crystals, he subsequently sowed the seeds, then paved a thick layer of wheat straw on the surface layer of the farmland, and pressed tree branches on top.

And it was worth mentioning that Li Wei used Two-Star quality Winter Wheat seeds; their cold-resistance ability was 40% higher than ordinary Winter Wheat seeds.

On the third day after he planted the Winter Wheat, the weather changed. Gray cloud layers piled up in the sky, and a cold wind blew over from the Northwest Direction. Overnight, the temperature plummeted by over ten degrees.

The greatest challenge had arrived.

Fortunately, at this time, the first batch of five wooden cabins had successfully been built. At the same time, the blacksmith shop could also fire up the furnace to forge some iron nails and other supplies.

Li Wei also had to pause the work progress of the hunting group and the woodcutting group, turning around to throw himself into the construction of houses. Unfortunately, there were only these ten Artisans who knew how to build houses. This wasn't something that could be settled by adding more manpower.

It was worth mentioning that this kind of vastly differently styled wooden house was unique to this world. It seemed inherited from that era over two hundred years ago, and hadn't undergone much optimization after two hundred years.

As long as the foundation was laid well, they could achieve rapid stability, sturdy solidity, and the warmth retention performance wasn't bad either.

But asking these Artisans to design and produce another kind of house would leave them very dumbfounded.

The abilities of these Artisans were all passed down from generation to generation. They had fundamentally never undergone orthodox training. For example, some formula for force or whatever—what was that?

This point also gave Li Wei a headache.

You must know that initially, his idea was to build large-scale log Fortresses in order to enhance the thermal effect. If this topic was placed in Li Wei's Blazing Territory, let alone an engineering bigwig like Zhao Qingshan, and let alone solidly founded engineers like Nelson or Linus, just any random engineering team captain below could design at least two sets of blueprints within a few hours.

Not only that, but they would also have many whimsical ideas, and then be able to effectively apply them to practice.

Back during the development process of the Blazing Territory, this abundant team of engineer talents had simply been a huge help to Li Wei.

Unfortunately, the Artisans of this world were just at this level. You don't accept it? You try!

Li Wei truly couldn't handle it. Different Professions are like Different Mountains!

Therefore, seeing the temperature plummeting now and a heavy snowfall about to fall, he could only personally step in to cut and plane wooden planks while commanding the Woodcutters to nail the wooden planks onto the windows of the built wooden cabins. He essentially started doing the later-stage house decoration work.

There were enough wooden planks. Moreover, with Li Wei stepping in, the standard was guaranteed: three-centimeter thick wooden planks with consistent length, width, and height. They were nailed in a layer along the outside of the wooden cabin, ensuring it was tightly sealed without gaps.

At the same time, another layer was nailed on the inside. This could be considered an alternate-world version of an insulation layer.

At this time, there was also a portion of Farmers being commanded to dig earth, dig water wells, and concurrently mix mud, conducting internal plastering and pointing for the houses with nailed wooden planks. This was likewise a warmth retention method borne out of having no other options.

Of course, this also inevitably necessitated bringing out the great killer weapon: the heated brick bed.

Previously in the Blazing Territory, Li Wei had never had the chance to use it. Because Nelson, Linus, and that bunch of capable people thought of more than Li Wei did. His heated brick bed plan hadn't even been implemented yet, and they had already welded out hot water boilers and installed indoor heating over there.

But over here? Each wooden cabin could only house ten people!

Yes, although Li Wei requested to house twenty people, the Artisans believed that would destroy the stable structure of the house. Alright, it made sense.

Your Domain, you have the final say. But for this heated brick bed, I must have the final say!

Li Wei was truly very adept at this matter, because he had simulated it in his brain many times previously.

After all, it was actually simple.

In short, two heated brick beds and two fire stoves were arranged in one wooden cabin, one south and one north, corresponding to each other. Squeezing a bit, it truly could house twenty people.

As for a fireplace, forget it, don't even think about it.

Because Li Wei had now already acutely realized that this winter, they would not only lack food, but also lack firewood.

The surrounding mountains were all bare. Originally, there were many trees, but they had all been chopped clean. Gale Fortress required massive amounts of firewood for heating every year!

By the time the decoration of the first wooden cabin and the production of the heated brick beds were completed, it was already snowing heavily outside.

However, the Artisans' progress in producing wooden cabins hadn't stopped. Their work enthusiasm was exceedingly high. After all, no one wanted to live in subterranean dwellings.

At this time, Li Wei ignited the two fire stoves. The smoke and gas leisurely dissipated from the chimneys outside. The effect wasn't bad.

However, these two heated brick beds would need at least ten days before they could be completely dried; moving in would also have to be ten days later.

Therefore, before Li Wei could even go over to decorate the other four wooden cabins, they were already packed full with a pile of shivering, freezing refugees.

This f*cking...!

Alright, it was indeed too cold. The lowest temperature was already approaching minus twenty degrees.

Among everyone, aside from Li Wei who didn't care, the others—even Soldiers like Chris—weren't relaxed either. After Life Level 1 Awakening, their freeze-resistance ability could only be said to have a certain enhancement; it wasn't truly being fearless in a world of ice and snow.

So ultimately, he could only ensure that wooden planks were nailed to the inside and outside of every wooden cabin, striving to reduce the penetration of the cold wind. For the rest, they could only forcibly endure it.

As for the construction of wooden cabins, it could not be stopped.

Because wooden cabins with fireplaces—even if they still weren't very warm—were still vastly superior to subterranean dwellings.

Fortunately, while they lacked everything else nowadays, they didn't lack people. The unskilled laborers rotated once every hour. The ten Artisans would suffer a bit more, wear a bit more, and work a bit less, but they could actually still hold on.

The heavy snow only fell for a night before stopping. A thickness of ten centimeters, but it still couldn't reach the standard for building snow walls and ice houses.

The weather next didn't continue to get colder, but many refugees inevitably developed frostbite.

Unfortunately, Li Wei didn't have any better methods regarding this either. He also hadn't thought things would develop to this step!

To be honest, he had already done everything he could and should do.

Over the past ten days or so, he hadn't even closed his eyes.

It was only because his stamina was sufficiently abundant and his Spiritual Power foundation was thick; otherwise, he truly wouldn't have been able to support it.

Because this bunch of refugees was truly like mud that couldn't support a wall.

For dangerous links that required many people—like putting the beams on the houses—he had to do it. The cutting and planing of wooden planks, he still had to do it.

The water well hadn't dug out water yet, but the daily water usage for over four hundred people in the camp all required him to run over a hundred li away to fetch water.

Although he had Resource Cards to carry it and fetching once was enough to use for three days, there were truly too many matters.

This had simply become his tribulation.

Fortunately, everything was improving. The refugees' performance was also considered relatively reliable. There were no complaints, no grievances, and their mental state was very stable. Instead, they felt this kind of life was unprecedented, so they were also very desperate when working. Among each other, they also knew to look after the old, weak, women, and children first. When there was no specific work, they wouldn't idle either: clearing snow accumulation, melting snow water, continuing to go out to move stones and build the perimeter wall. Even with a body full of frostbite, they gritted their teeth and held on. As long as they didn't freeze to death, they had to keep working.

Then, on the fourteenth day of migrating to this camp, the third batch of five wooden cabins was successfully built.

On the fifteenth day, the water well finally dug out water.

On the sixteenth day, the first wooden cabin with heated brick beds could be moved into. The boiling-hot heated brick beds conquered all the refugees at the first instance. Thus, the second wooden cabin and the third wooden cabin also synchronously began to build heated brick beds.

It was also at this time that Li Wei finally couldn't hold on anymore. After giving a greeting, he lay down on the heated brick bed and slept till the sky was dark and the earth was dim, unable to distinguish north, south, east, or west, not knowing where he was.

(End of Chapter)