CHAPTER 24: PREPARATIONS FOR THE JOURNEY

10 More days passed by since he had harvested the crops.

Thirty days have passed since he entered this world.

Today is the day he will control one of his clones to embark on a journey around the world.

The chief has announced he and his village will be evacuating and returning to their city tomorrow. So, he will let his clone leave here and explore the world.

Incidentally, Ray can't move from here, so his clone, along with Lily, will be joining the Chief and reaching the nearest city.

Ray has got quite the hang of managing his clones by repeatedly using them to do all the work in the field.

Ray has also quite successfully transferred his cultivation methods to clones from his memory, now they can reach the Mahayana realm as long as the spirit energy supports them.

Now all the other eight clones have reached 12 levels of qi training and are only a step away from reaching the foundation realm, while the main clone has reached the foundation realm.

The spirit rice could only support one clone to reach the foundation realm in ten days and only a quarter of the initial amount is left in his storage room.

The cycle of the Spirit rice to mature is only about 15 days due to Ruby's efforts, or everyone would be starving on this mountain.

"In five more days, we can harvest the rice and wheat," Ray thought.

As he was in deep thought about the provisions on the mountain, Lily and Ruby came back after feeding the fish that he had used to scale the upstream and reach back home.

He thought it might leave after playing for a few minutes after taking its reward but the next day he went down the mountain to overhaul the raft he saw the fish swimming near the raft bored while splitting water onto the raft.

As soon as the fish saw him descending from the mountain, it splashed water onto all our faces and joyfully danced in the lake by diving up and down.

Ruby and Lily were both fascinated by the fish's silly acts and began playing with it and feeding the spirit fruit to it.

Ray cleaned the water on his face with a towel and left the fish to play with Ruby and Lily.

As he neared the raft, he saw it was damaged here and there when the fish bumped it to play, and at a few corners, there were bite marks.

Ray first thought of overhauling the raft but seeing the ugly appearance of the raft after the damages, he decided to build a new big boat that could safely move through the mountain cave.

He went back up the mountain with his clones in tow, took his axe, and went back and forth between both forests to collect the necessary wood required to build the boat.

As Ray fell the dried tree and wooden bamboo, the clones collected them, transported them down the mountain, and pilled them up at the foot of the hill.

Later they split the wood and made it into planks or required wooden poles with the available equipment.

As the wood and bamboo poles were ready to use, Ray first built the keel with the strongest wood he could find in the piles.

He made the keel 50 meters in length and adjusted the width accordingly.

After constructing the keel of the ship, Ray began making wooden planks to build the hull of the vessel.

It took nearly ten days for 10 members to complete the boat.

"Master, the boat is ready, it is beautiful to look at from the outside and comfortable to live in it while traveling," Ruby informed him and dragged him down the mountain to see the completed boat.

"He is the one who designed and helped to build it, so he knows all about the boat. so, there isn't any need to drag him to see it again." Ray thought while allowing him to get dragged by Ruby and Lily.

 As he neared the boat, he saw a medium-sized yacht with a purple coating in front of him.

At first thought of building a small fishing boat that was enough to reach the village and take the chief's boat to travel to the nearby city and buy a big boat but on instance of Ruby's persistent request to see him build a large boat, he designed the current one.

After a last check of the boat which is arranged with the necessary supplies and utensils in the boat for his travel for a week, Ray leaves with Ruby And other clones while his identical clone and Lily are left on the boat.

Ray and Ruby now returned to the House and sat on the sofa for a few minutes to rest and asked if Ruby was ready to experience the outside world.

Ruby Impatiently closed her eyes without replying to Ray's question and connected with Lily through a soul link as they were from the same soul, Ruby could easily talk to her and see what she was seeing. With Lily's permission, she could take over the body for a few minutes a day.

Ray also closed his eyes and began controlling his clone which was at the bottom of the mountain.

As Ray opened his eyes, his is now present in the body of the clone.

He observed his body and noted a surreal experience of exclusively controlling two bodies at the same time, Normally the clones act as robots with only logical thinking and no emotions unless he takes over them, unlike Ruby who created Lily, Ray only needed a shell to contact the outside world, so he is satisfied with it.

Ray who has now switched to clone boarded the boat and started arranging the harness at the front, so the fish would bite it and drag the ship, it has reached the foundation-building realm with the feeding and pampering of Ruby and Lily, so it can easily pull the yacht without feeling tired. 

Ray whistled, and the fish appeared in front of the ship Then, Ray took a knife cut a wound in his palm let the blood drip onto a spirit fruit, and began feeding it.

With this, the contract is established, and the fish can now easily communicate with Ray through telepathy.