Chapter 27 - Head Back

Chapter 27 – Head Back

Adrian and Valiant head to the river. The river was super clean and Adrian could see the bottom of the river. Inside the water, there were many fishes and luckily, none of them were dangerous beasts.

"The water is clean," Adrian was amazed.

"Although the slimes are dangerous, the best thing about them is that they eat wastes and rubbish. They are the ones keeping the river clean. If we can tame some slimes, we can use them to clean our sewage system in the future. The city I was in before used the slime that way," Valiant explained.

Adrian nodded. The slime had the same function as many other games. Progress made it more detailed but the developer retained the original identity of the slime.

Adrian and Valiant could see the many big stones pointed out of the river and they aimed for that. Be that as it may, only Valiant was capable of unearthing the big stones because Adrian did not have suitable tools.

Since that was the case, Adrian did not go into the river and collected small stones at the water banks. As he was collecting some stones, he suddenly thought of something.

"Sir Valiant, can't we use the coins to make tools? There are bronze, silver, and gold coins, right? We can use the bronze, silver, and gold to forge tools and equipment," Adrian asked. Since they could easily get the coins, they might be the best source of metals.

"Hahaha, they are indeed metals but it will not work. Many new blacksmiths had tried this before and they failed in their creation miserably. The equipment and tools they created are the worst and cannot even be called that," Valiant replied.

"Why is that?" Adrian was surprised.

"The coin's impurity is massive and the useful metal occupied less than 1% of the coin's composition," Valiant added, "I don't know the details but this is what I heard from many blacksmiths."

Adrian nodded and he understood that the game made it that way because they did not want the players to use the easy way of using the money as a source of metal. Realistically, no matter how many impurities the coin had, it was possible to melt them and make another item.

'Maybe this is also a lesson to not waste any money? I saw a lot of videos online turning coins into rings and stuff but that is not a big deal because coins did not have much value nowadays,' Adrian thought.

The duo continued with their work and in less than an hour, they decided to stop because they had gained quite a lot of them. Most of the work collecting the stones was done by Valiant. Adrian did half of the work before he started focusing on his work.

"If we dig a drain here, we can let the river water flow to the lake. We will make two drains where one will direct the water to the lake and another one redirects the leftover water back to the river," Adrian spoke.

Since there was no paper on hand, Adrian imagined it in his mind. The plan at hand looked easy but it was not. Digging the drains and lake sounded easy but Adrian would need to fortify them so that they would not break and be damaged especially during rainy days.

"If we have cement or any other materials similar to cement, we can make a stronger drain to the lake," Adrian sighed. He was not that verse in making cement but he could look it up. Even so, it would consume a lot of time because that was not his specialty.

Adrian continued with his plan and suddenly, he remembered something. He turned on the system and checked on his list of skills.

"I have Stone Mastery skill! So, I can also use the stone?" Adrian was excited and he found a method he could use to fortify the drains. Adrian had the minerals stats and stone was part of it. If he learned stone wall skills, he could easily fortify the drain.

[Remember, there is a flow to every skill. You need to learn any basic stone skill first before you can craft a more advanced skill like the stone wall. From my calculations, it will be a while before you learn that. It is better if you relied on other people for this. The blacksmith at the settlement will be more adept to this than you] Future gave his suggestion.

Adrian understood what Future meant. It would take a long time for Adrian to learn stone wall skills. The skill might be the most common and basic in other games but due to this 'flow' Future kept mentioning, it might be hard to gain it.

"Adrian, let's go. I have collected enough and if we stay longer, the slimes will appear again. I can feel some of them are coming here. Let's go," Valiant spoke. Adrian had observed enough and agreed with Valiant.

The duo left the river and headed back to the settlement. Along the way, Adrian told his plan to Valiant.

"Stone wall to fortify the drain… hmm… Let's ask that guy if he can learn the skill. I am not sure if he can do it but better ask than not doing anything," Valiant spoke. "I will also ask other people too about this and I think we also need to issue missions for digging the drain. You cannot do this alone."

Adrian agreed. Digging the drain and lake was not easy. If this was the real world, they would use many modern pieces of equipment to get the job done, and even with that, it would take many days and even months too.

"How will you issue the missions?" Adrian asked.

"Hmm? No, I am not issuing anything but if you check the Settlement Status menu, you will see this listed as problems currently faced by the settlement. All these problems are missions and if you want the rewards, just help solve the problem," Valiant spoke.

"Ah… I forgot about that," Adrian nodded.

"I will put this problem at the top. Since this pertains to our water supply, it needs to be at the top. I hope many people will help us with this matter," Valiant spoke.

'So, a leader has this kind of power too?' Adrian was surprised. He never thought that Valiant had the power to prioritize certain missions at the 'List of Problems'

"I know what you are thinking but there is a limit to what I can do. If the mission is indeed important, I can put it at the top but if it is a small matter, I cannot do that," Valiant smiled.

As they were heading back to the settlement, Adrian saw some rabbits and sparrows around them. Since they were normal animals, once they saw Valiant and Adrian, they ran away.