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Translator: Silavin
Yan Jiao left the wooden house, confused. He walked towards that open space, constantly muttering: “Dig holes?”
He really did not understand why they needed to dig holes to build a house, and use stones and dry grass to construct it.
With these doubts, Yan Jiao called over quite a few Totem Warriors, gave each of them a wooden stick, and started digging holes.
After all, Totem Warriors could dig holes much faster than ordinary people. An ordinary person might dig all day without making much progress, but Totem Warriors had great strength. As long as they had a specified guideline on where to dig, they could dig out a hole in two or three hours. Of course, it would severely deplete their stamina.
Su Bai brought the fox eared girl to that open space as well. After all, the holes being dug now were for the foundation of his future houses, so he needed to take a look.
“Shaman, why do we need to dig holes for houses made of wood?” Yu Ying scratched her head, “Won’t we be living underground then?”
When the fox eared girl heard about digging holes, this was the only thought in her mind. It was the first time she had heard of people living underground.
She even had a very exaggerated idea, which was to dig a hole, have people live below, and then seal it with stones on top.
However, she quickly shook her head and dismissed this idea. If it was like that, how would people get in? Leave a small gap as a door?
Yu Ying had heard Su Bai say that this stone house was meant to withstand the rainy season. [If there is a small gap at the top, wouldn’t the rainwater keep pouring in? Wouldn’t people drown inside?]
The more Yu Ying thought about it, the more confused she became. Moreover, what was the dry grass for? She initially thought it might be laid on the ground. But then she heard that the dry grass was used to stick stones together, which made her even more puzzled.
“Haha… This is called laying a foundation. We’re not going to live underground.” Su Bai was amused by the fox eared girl’s naivety.
“Foundation? What’s a foundation?” Yu Ying blinked her pink eyes repeatedly.
“Hmm… To simply put it, a foundation is like the roots of a big tree. With a foundation, the house won’t easily tilt, collapse, crack, or cave in, which would endanger our safety.”
Su Bai pointed at a big tree and continued: “Just like a big tree, the deeper its roots, the less likely it is to be uprooted by wind and rain.”
Su Bai knew about the need for foundations when building houses.
Yu Ying nodded with a mixture of understanding and confusion, saying: “So that’s how it is. I thought we were going to live underground.”
The fox eared girl felt relieved inside. The ground was already very damp, would it not be even damper underground? There would definitely be many insects too, which she feared the most.
“I don’t want to live underground either. Don’t worry, when it’s built, you’ll definitely be amazed,” Su Bai said with a smile.
He was already looking forward to the completion of the house. It would surely become a landmark for this Primitive Tribe.
After living in modern houses for so long, suddenly living in Teepees and wooden houses was quite uncomfortable. At first, it felt novel, but it became unbearable after a while.
The lack of soundproofing, poor ventilation, abundance of mosquitoes and insects, and lack of safety were all exposed. People always want to move towards better living conditions, so building houses was urgent.
Yu Ying blinked her pink eyes thoughtfully, quietly following behind him.
Su Bai arrived at the open space and looked down at the soil quality. The soil quality would affect the foundation, and the foundation design needed to be based on the soil conditions.
He needed to see if it was clay, sandy soil, mudstone, gravel, or soft soil (like peat). Different soil layers have different load-bearing capacities, with gravel layers being strong and soft soil being too weak for such a building.
Secondly, he needed to look at the surrounding environment, checking for rivers, caves, ditches, nearby buildings, and etc.
Environmental factors like rivers could erode the soil layer, causing geological collapse and affecting the stability of the building.
Nearby caves or tall buildings could cause uneven settlement of the building due to the uneven stress the ground was bearing.
Fortunately, the big river was some distance from the Tribe, so it would not affect the house’s condition.
Building a house was far from a simple matter. There were many things to pay attention to, which Su Bai had spent several late nights compiling.
“Shaman, is this correct?” Yan Jiao came over to ask, his hands covered in soil.
He was using the ruler Su Bai had given him to mark out the size of the house on the ground as required.
The unknown size was a total of one hundred square metres, which was quite a large house, looking overall squarish.
Su Bai glanced at the clearly divided lines on the ground and nodded. “Yes, start digging like this.”
“Alright.” Yan Jiao turned to leave.
“Wait.” Su Bai called him back.
Yan Jiao turned his head, puzzled as he asked. “Shaman, do you have any more instructions?”
“Have all the people digging come over for a moment. I’ll perform Shaman Technique on you so you can dig faster.” Su Bai said.
“Okay.” Upon hearing that the Shaman wanted to perform Shaman Technique on them, Yan Jiao immediately went to call everyone over.
About seven or eight Totem Warriors all lined up, each very excited. It was rare to have Shaman Technique performed on them up close.
“Blessing Shaman · Strength Enhancement Technique.” Su Bai took a second to form the Shaman Rune. After using it several times, he could form the runes very smoothly.
His hands emitted a crystalline red light after forming the Shaman Runes, just like the previous times.
Su Bai walked up to Yan Jiao and the others, raised his hands and placed them on their shoulders. The crystalline red light instantly entered their bodies, and then their entire bodies, like last time, emitted a faint red glow on the surface.
“Alright, I’ve performed the Shaman Technique on you. You can all start digging.” Su Bai put down his hands.
“Yes.” Yan Jiao and the others were already eager to start digging.
Everyone excitedly grabbed their wooden sticks and began vigorously digging the soil. In an instant, dust was flying all over the Tribe.
*Cough cough cough…* Su Bai coughed lightly a few times, waving his hand at the dust, and called out: “Sprinkle some water on it before digging, there’s too much dust.”
“Okay.” Yan Jiao stopped his wooden stake and started asking people to bring some water over.
Three hours later, Yan Jiao and the others had dug a large pit at the designated location.
During this time, Su Bai had performed the same Shaman Technique on them several more times. Otherwise, it would not have been possible to finish digging in such a short time.
Yan Jiao wiped the sweat from his forehead and asked: “Shaman, what’s the next step?”
He did not feel tired at all, only feeling that after each Shaman Technique was casted on him, his whole body seemed to have endless strength.
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