The first step was to clear the trees around the great tree and create a clearing.
The trees were chopped down one by one with an axe. The remaining tree roots were turned into fertilizer after a few hoeing operations. The weeds were cut with a sickle and set aside to dry in the sun to be used as fire starters or for other purposes.
But Takumi wasn't too anxious. He just cleared out the south-facing side first, which was about fifty meters by fifty meters. Then he started digging a well. Although he knew there was a river five kilometers away, for the convenience of short-term water collection, he still had to dig a well first.
He first dug down diagonally and knocked out steps with a hammer. The salt soil from the salt soil layer was collected for later use in boiling salt. It has to be said that the Universal Agricultural Tool is really easy to use. It only took about an hour in total to get this done.
After digging out the water, Takumi returned to the ground. Taking advantage of the bright sun, he quickly produced a magnifying glass. Using the hay collected earlier as a guide, he made a fire.
"By the way, why can a universal farm tool turn into a magnifying glass? Is this considered a farm tool?"
Takumi looked at the magnifying glass in his hand and couldn't help but complain. It could not be transformed into other tools, but it could be transformed into a magnifying glass... Was this specially intended for him to light a fire? Or was it used to observe soil and plants? He couldn't figure it out.
Takumi simply didn't bother to think about it and continued to build his new home. After the water and fire sources were secured, the next step was shelter.
As for food? There was nothing he could do about it for the time being, unless prey came to the door. Otherwise, even if he started farming with his knowledge, the harvest would not come until tomorrow at the earliest. In addition, with a healthy body, as long as there is water, even if he does not eat and starves for half a month, he will not suffer from negative status effects.
So, the top priority was to build a house first. Takumi didn't want to be blown by the night wind, let alone spend the night with mosquitoes. After making the decision, Takumi started planning. As mentioned before, he grew up in his hometown when he was a child. He had seen many people build houses in rural areas, so he had a reserve of knowledge in this area.
"I kind of miss the days when I helped move bricks with my friends in the summer and earned ten cents to buy popsicles."
Takumi used a hammer to pound the soil dug out from the well, knocking it into concrete-strength bricks. While remembering his childhood, he couldn't help but sigh. Of course, he didn't make the bricks to build a full brick house. The main reasons were for the foundation, stove, and fire pit.
The stability of the house depends on the foundation. Takumi planned to make one stove inside and one outside. If the weather was good, he would use the outside one to avoid filling the indoors with smoke. The indoor one was for winter use so he wouldn't have to go out. By the way, it could also provide lighting and facilitate the storage of fire. The fire kang was also prepared for winter. In the future, he would depend on it for warmth and sleep.
After finishing the bricks, Takumi started to work on the wood again. This time it was much slower, mainly because the design and calculation took up the most time. Takumi needed to use the mortise and tenon structure passed down from his ancestors.
Takumi knew this technique, but he had only learned a little bit from a neighbor's carpenter uncle in his hometown and was not very proficient. More skills were learned later by reading books, but they had remained only on paper without practice. However, Takumi had a good foundation and strong hands-on ability. By leaving room for modification and practicing, he soon found the trick.
He laid the foundation, erected the pillars, laid the foundation bricks, built the frame, left spaces for doors and windows, the stove, and the smoke vent, and put up the wall panels. Takumi made double-layer wall panels with hay filled in the middle to achieve better insulation and waterproofing.
Then there was the crossbar. In the original work, Hiraku Machio was so embarrassed by this step that he could only build a low house. But this was not difficult for Takumi. He prepared scaffolding and used hooks to successfully build the beam.
Then there were the tiles on the roof. Takumi used wood to plane them into strips—long tiles with a semi-circular arc like half-bamboo. He laid one row at the bottom with the opening facing up and another row at the joint with the opening facing down. He laid out the top on both sides, then covered it with a larger section and fixed it.
In this way, a large house of 100 square meters with a height of about 2.4 meters was basically completed. Finally, there was the stove, the kang, and the floor.
The stove was easy to build. Takumi made a double-layered, double-port stove common in rural areas. There were two sections: the upper layer burned the fire, and the ash would fall to the lower layer through the gap. In this design, because both floors were ventilated, the fire would burn vigorously without much effort to control it.
As for the fire pit, Takumi built a very large kang that stretched out three meters from the wall and was seven meters wide. It was a bit like a communal bed where people could sleep in a row. Of course, this wasn't just for sleeping. Takumi was thinking about using a low table in the winter to do all his daily activities on it.
He formed the kang surface, the countertop of the stove, and the middle partition using clay. Between the bricks, they were filled with soil and hammered down. This ensured the seal left no gaps and remained strong. For the floor, Takumi first laid a layer of mud and hammered it firmly to get a surface as strong as concrete. A few strokes with a file made it as smooth as porcelain floor tiles!
With a few touches to the walls and columns, the interior decoration was complete.
"Nailed it!"
Takumi looked at this masterpiece and felt proud. Although it still lacked furniture and beds, and looked empty except for the stove, it was undoubtedly a house! He built it bit by bit with his own hands. There was a great sense of accomplishment, satisfaction, and security in having walls and a roof.
"Phew! This feels comfortable!"
"No, I almost forgot, the doors and windows haven't been installed yet!" Takumi quickly installed the doors and windows he had prepared. When he looked up at the sky, he found that it was almost dark. Just when Takumi was about to bring fire into the house for light...
"Ding! Detected that the host has established a settlement! The system is officially launched! Starting up!"
"Startup completed!"
"Hello host, the Dimensional Gate system will serve you."
Takumi was stunned, then he reacted and said in surprise: "I actually have a system? Isn't that cool?"
Originally, being the protagonist in "Farming Life in Another World" was already great, but he didn't expect it to come with a system! This is like a heifer riding a rocket—totally awesome!
Takumi said excitedly: "System, introduce your functions to me."
"Okay. This system is called the Dimensional Gate System. As the name suggests, it can open dimensional gates for the host. It allows the host to travel to various dimensional worlds, such as anime, novels, and movies, and also invite people from those worlds to visit the host."
"If the host goes to other worlds, non-mandatory tasks will be released, and the host can complete them for rewards. When people from other worlds come here, the host only needs to receive them or satisfy their requests to get rewards."
"At the same time, to protect the host's life and property, visitors cannot harm the host. Anyone with ill intentions toward the host will be unable to pass through the dimensional gate. Without the host's consent, guests cannot perform aggressive actions, including physical, magical, spiritual, or other means."
"During a visit, if a guest becomes malicious, the system will remind the host, and the host can force the guest back at any time. The same applies to accompanying guests, so please do not worry, host."