Chapter 10

One night passed quickly.

 When Du Mingna opened his eyes, there was already a faint light coming through the small window on the roof.

 The light was not very bright, but enough to prove that it was daytime.

 Du Mingna got out of bed and tidied up the bedding.

 Old John had gotten up earlier than him and had already prepared hot water.

 They had black bread for breakfast to stave off hunger.

 Du Mingna had eaten a lot the night before, but when he woke up today, he found himself very hungry.

 Perhaps it was the effect of the basic physique potion, as the food he ate was quickly converted into energy to support his body's growth and development, making him hungry quickly.

 After breakfast, Du Mingna thought about taking a walk around the surrounding area of Gray Rope Village.

 After all, this was his territory.

 For the next period of time, he would develop around here.

 He needed to familiarize himself with the surroundings, know which land he could use, and what would be suitable for development in this area.

 The original owner had never cared about these things.

 Du Mingna couldn't find the answers in the original owner's memories.

 Even if he could, he would have to walk around and see the surroundings with his own eyes to better determine what could be done in those places.

 Coincidentally, Old John had been here before.

 He asked Old John to lead the way, so he didn't have to worry about Old John not explaining clearly enough.

 In Du Mingna's previous life, the environment around him might have changed a lot over the past decade.

 But in this world, in a remote place like Gray Rope Village, a decade was not much.

 Only major events could make the village drastically different in just over a decade.

 However, Gray Rope Village had been in a relatively stable state for the past decade.

 Old John agreed and accompanied Du Mingna out of the door.

 The terrain in the village was generally flat, slightly higher than the surrounding areas.

 Du Mingna and Old John had come here by ox cart before, climbing a gentle slope to reach the village land.

 There were some gentle slopes towards the mountains in the village.

 The closer to the Sipu Mountains, the more stones grew on the land.

 The stones looked abrupt, but many plants grew in the crevices of the stones.

 Old John didn't dare to take Du Mingna too close to the Sipu Mountains.

 He pointed at the large stones from a distance and said to Du Mingna, "Young master, look, these stones are said to be created by a ninth-rank magical beast, the Giant Stone Monster.

 It is said to live deep in the Sipu Mountains, mostly in slumber.

 But if anyone dares to disturb its sleep, it will turn everything that disturbs it into large stones.

 People, animals, and everything around them will turn into stones.

" Du Mingna's eyes flickered.

 Giant Stone Monster? No impression.

 It had to be said that the original owner had not worked hard before.

 Clearly lacking in skills, he always believed he could become a great magician without putting in the effort to learn.

 Du Mingna looked at the stones ahead, genuinely puzzled.

 "Old John, if this Giant Stone Monster is sleeping deep in the Sipu Mountains, how did it end up at the edge turning so many things into stone?" Old John shook his head.

 "It is said that the Giant Stone Monster occasionally has nightmares.

 When it wakes up from a nightmare, it will run around randomly.

 It may run from the depths of the Sipu Mountains to the edge.

 The areas it passes through will leave behind a lot of petrified traces.

 Perhaps many, many years ago, it had a nightmare, ran out of the mountain, and petrified this place?" Old John seemed to be asking, but Du Mingna could tell that Old John believed this was the truth.

 Old John then pointed to the small stones on the ground.

 "These small stones in the village also came this way.

 The large stones petrified by the Giant Stone Monster turned into small stones over the long years.

"They rolled out of the mountains and spread over this land, laying down a thick layer that left very little land available for cultivation.

" Just right, the position where Old John and Dumina are now is relatively high.

 Old John pointed his finger and pointed to some lower land behind the village.

 The land is behind the villagers' stone houses.

 In front of the land, there are some stone-walled enclosures.

 Dumina now looked over and saw only the enclosure at first glance, then saw some plants slightly higher than the enclosure.

 The plants peeked out faintly, lowered when the breeze blew, and hid behind the plants.

 "It's impossible to enclose everything.

" Old John shook his head gently, with a hint of sadness in his expression.

 "We can only enclose towards the side facing the Sui Pu Mountains, and try to protect the more important plants as much as possible, so that when the monsters attack, these crops can still be protected from being trampled.

 "Fortunately, most of the monsters that come down won't intentionally destroy the crops.

 When they see obstacles and find it not so easy to get in, they won't go in.

 "But every year, some crops are trampled by monsters.

 At least during my time in Hui Sheng Village, I always encountered such incidents.

" Crops are plants.

 Monsters living in the Sui Pu Mountains rarely come down specifically to eat certain plants.

 However, if it's the season when some ground crops are ripe and the monsters happen to come out of the mountains, they might go and eat them.

 Therefore, the crops grown in Hui Sheng Village are mostly underground crops, with only a small portion grown above ground.

 Although there may be some monsters good at digging holes, who dig near the mature crops and damage them, incidents of hole-digging monsters are much less likely to occur in Hui Sheng Village, often once every ten years, or even decades.

 When Old John mentioned the crop fields, he led Dumina to go around them.

 The village is not large, the residential area is just that small, the real large areas are elsewhere.

 When Dumina walked near the crop fields, he found that only some areas of the land were exposed soil.

 Larger areas of land had small pieces of gravel.

 There were also some sandy areas.

 Some areas of land appeared to have a layer of clay.

 The closer the clay was to the slope, the more there was.

 The slope was covered with small grass, which grew quite densely, making it difficult for Dumina to see clearly what was under the grass.

 There were people working in the crop fields.

 When they saw Old John and Dumina coming over, some people greeted them.

 Dumina had just arrived here and didn't know many people in the village.

 Old John, on the other hand, was very sharp.

 As long as he had seen the people here when he came here over ten years ago, he could definitely recognize them now.

 Old John greeted the others with a smile, and Dumina also responded to the villagers, trying to remember their names, but his mind was more focused on the soil.

 He had been thinking about what to provide for the villagers to learn writing.

 If he wanted to get paper and pen, even if he managed to get paper, he would still have trouble with the pen.

 The paper-making process was not short either.

 If starting from raw materials and producing writable paper, it could take weeks, months, or even years.

 First, it was necessary to experiment with usable raw materials and adjust the proportions, and it was unknown how long that would take.

 Even if not pursuing high-quality paper, but just making something usable, turning raw materials into pulp, drying it into paper, would take a considerable amount of time.

 When considering the pen issue, it became even more difficult.

 Now Dumina thought of another way to teach the villagers to write.

 Without paper and pen, they could use sand and sticks instead! If he makes something similar to a tray out of clay, then spreads a layer of yellow sand on top of this clay tray, and lightly scratches the sand with a wooden stick when writing, should he be able to make marks? The learning conditions are indeed extremely rudimentary, but who is to blame for him not being able to produce better things now? Seeing that he had walked a short distance, there were not as many villagers working in the fields next to him, Du Mingna began to dig the grass on the slope.

 He wanted to see if there was some clay underneath! Soon, he saw it.

 There really was some red, sticky, heavy soil underneath.

 Similar soil is more suitable for making materials like bricks, rather than for cultivation.

 Seeing this soil, Du Mingna quickly compared the size of the sand in the sandy area with his naked eye.

 He was basically sure that he could successfully make the alien sand version of the writing board he was preparing! Although there would definitely be many inconvenient aspects after making it, such as the person writing needing to be careful not to let the sand spill out, it could still be used to practice writing.

 Writing a word, after writing it, being able to see how it looks, is somewhat different from blindly drawing.

 When Old John saw Du Mingna digging the soil under the grass on the slope, he couldn't understand what Du Mingna was busy with.

 Now, seeing Du Mingna holding a handful of soil and looking quite happy, Old John was even more puzzled.

 However, this did not prevent him from putting his young master's needs first.

 "Young Master, do you need this soil? Do you want me to help you bring some back?" Du Mingna immediately waved his hand.

 "Yes! We need to bring this soil, and we also need to bring some sand from over there! Oh, Old John, we need to bring a little more back.

" He wanted to make a writing board, and he didn't know how many he would need to make.

 He also wanted to try burning it, to see if he could make a more solid clay board, which would make it more comfortable for students to write on.

 "A little more?" Old John was even more confused about what Du Mingna wanted to do.

 But it was not a big problem.

 Du Mingna had a need.

 The villagers were working here, so there would be some tools in the fields.

 Old John borrowed tools from the villagers and helped Du Mingna carry things back.

 It was not the busy farming season in the village recently, so although the villagers were also busy in the fields, they were not as busy.

 People like Gex, Daniel, and others had gone into the mountains.

 Although they did not dare to venture deep into the Sumpu Mountains, they dared to set traps on the edge of the area where only ordinary wild animals were active, hunting wild animals.

 If it weren't for the meat, fur, and other things obtained from hunting, relying solely on the little food grown on the land, the people in the village would have a hard time supporting themselves until now, and they would all be strong and healthy.

 When the villagers heard that Old John had borrowed tools and needed to bring back soil, they immediately offered to help.

 Before long, Du Mingna returned with a full load.

 When he was a short distance from home, he suddenly slowed down his pace.

 In front of his house, there was a little girl wearing a skirt.

 The fabric of the skirt was a bit old, but it was clearly washed clean.

 The little girl was holding a straw doll, which also seemed to have been tidied up and looked quite clean.

 Du Mingna recognized her.

 This was Daniel's daughter, Dora.