Endless Winter: My Camp Upgrades Infinitely

With the cold beast meat distributed, everyone, regardless of whether it was still daytime, eagerly began their cultivation.

To call it cultivation was, in reality, just eating the cold beast meat and then, through evaporation, absorbing the energy contained within to enhance their basic strength.

Xia Hong didn't hold back either, instructing Xia Chuan, Yuan Cheng, and the others to pass on all four forms of the Changquan (Long Fist) style, so before long, the wooden house was filled with the sounds of fist strikes.

The wooden house, only thirty meters on each side, also had to accommodate the iron-smelting furnace and other supplies. Now, with over nine hundred people in the camp, all crammed inside, the level of congestion was unimaginable.

Therefore, only a small portion of people could practice their fist techniques. To be precise, it was mostly members of the hunting and logging teams, with a few reserve members able to find a vacant spot.

The radiation range of the iron-smelting furnace was a hundred meters in all directions. The area extending seventy meters outwards from the wooden house actually didn't differ much in temperature from inside the house. Ordinary people could move freely within this range at night, with the only difference being the presence or absence of wind.

But this wasn't possible during the day. The low daytime temperatures stemmed from the sunlight.

During the golden-eyed magic goat attack, Xia Hong had already tried it. Even with his Earth-Digging Realm strength, he couldn't withstand the chill contained within the sunlight, let alone the others in the camp.

Cultivation was inherently a nighttime activity, but today, because it was the first time everyone had received cold beast meat, they didn't bother with day or night and directly began cultivating.

However, the current wooden house was too small, and the lack of personal space was a reality.

Xia Hong frowned slightly, surveying the crowd. Seeing Mu Dong in the corner, pondering over a wooden board, he hesitated for a moment and didn't approach him.

Over the next few days, Xia Hong led the hunting team, bringing back two to three prey almost every night, even bringing back four on one particular night.

The supply of cold beast meat, as previously stipulated, was implemented without fail. Although the initial excitement of everyone in the camp had passed, their enthusiasm for cultivation only grew stronger.

When Xia Hong led his team out at night, the camp's reserve force was already standing outside the wooden house, practicing their fist techniques. By the time the hunting team returned, dawn was approaching, yet the reserve force was still almost entirely outside cultivating.

With an ample supply of cold beast meat, coupled with such enthusiasm for cultivation, Xia Hong eagerly anticipated the day when Great Xia's Lumbering Realm combat power would experience an explosive surge.

Xia Hong no longer personally oversaw the logging team's affairs, only listening to Captain Cheng Feng's reports each day and monitoring the rise in the system's timber resource numbers.

These peaceful and fulfilling days continued for six days.

On the sixth day, as Xia Hong led the hunting team back to the camp.

Cheng Feng and Mu Dong immediately approached him together.

As soon as they caught up with Xia Hong, Cheng Feng took the lead and said:

"Leader, these past few days, I've led the logging team to thoroughly explore the eastern periphery of Redwood Ridge, and we've identified a total of thirty-seven Ice Shuo trees. They all have the same growth cycle and have just fruited. Some of the fruit hadn't been harvested yet, so I had people gather it all, yielding a total of 140,000 catties of crystal fruit."

Xia Hong instructed the hunting team to take the prey away to be processed, then walked over to the iron-smelting furnace and sat down on the ground, gesturing for Cheng Feng and Mu Dong to sit as well.

Logically speaking, with a sufficient supply of cold beast meat, crystal fruit wouldn't be as significant anymore. After all, only a little over a hundred people in the camp weren't receiving cold beast meat. At an average of two catties per person per day, they wouldn't consume much in a year.

But the actual situation was different. As a cultivation resource, Xia Hong couldn't possibly use cold beast meat to replace staple foods. The current sufficient supply was largely due to the small population of Great Xia Camp. In the future, with a larger population and a large base of ordinary people, they would still be inseparable from crystal fruit.

Even for the sake of stockpiling food reserves, crystal fruit had to continue to be harvested.

More importantly, Xia Hong had used the decoction pot to identify that crystal fruit could not only satisfy hunger but also had medicinal uses. Not only crystal fruit, but in the past few days, Xia Hong had used the decoction pot to test out over ten kinds of medicinal resources, such as Snow Mane Tongue Powder, Frost Wolf Reversed Bone, Black Tribulus, Coal Stone, Iron Powder, Golden Frost Tip, and Vermillion Frost Stem.

These ten-plus medicinal resources had consumed over twenty units of Xia Hong's coal resources, causing him considerable heartache. The most frustrating thing was that he hadn't been able to generate any formulas.

It could solve the problem of monotonous food; it could be used as a food reserve; it also had medicinal value; plus, it was easy to preserve; and for the current camp, the harvesting difficulty wasn't high.

With all these factors combined, the harvesting of crystal fruit was definitely not to be stopped, including the exploration of Ice Shuo tree locations and the monitoring of their growth cycles.

"Currently, we've only explored within a five-hundred-meter radius. When you go out logging later, continue to pay attention to this area and see if there's anything we missed. After a while, when we extend our hunting range inward, your exploration range can be expanded. Ice Shuo trees are still very important to us, so we can't be careless!"

Cheng Feng nodded and replied respectfully, "Yes, Leader."

On the other side, seeing that Cheng Feng had finished speaking, Mu Dong quickly handed over a wooden board, his expression excited, "Leader, I've already drawn out the design for the new wooden house you talked about before. See if this is what you had in mind."

Xia Hong looked down at the diagram carved with a small knife on the wooden board and immediately became interested.

Mu Feng, who was next to him, quickly leaned forward, pointing at the diagram and explaining it to Xia Hong.

"According to what you said, Leader, the exterior of this wooden house will be built in a square shape, two hundred meters long and wide, and fifteen meters high, with three floors in total.

The middle floor will be five meters high and will serve as the camp's main hall, without any separate rooms. It will be used for daily meetings, camp assemblies, and for storing common supplies such as the iron-smelting furnace.

The bottom floor will be three meters high. Except for leaving an entrance passage and the central hall, the rest of the space will be divided into ten-meter-wide rooms using wooden planks. I've calculated that with a side length of two hundred meters, after deducting the walls, the five-meter-wide and seventy-five-meter-long passage, and the fifty-meter-wide square central hall, we can roughly partition out over three hundred such small rooms, which is more than enough for all the ordinary people in the camp.

The top floor will be five meters high, similar to the bottom floor, retaining the central hall and passage, plus a large warehouse, and dividing the rest into twenty-meter-wide small rooms. I've also calculated that we can roughly partition out ninety rooms, which is also enough for the current lumbering and hunting team members to live in.

The three-story wooden building will be separated by one-meter-thick wooden planks in the middle, and the top will be built with the hip roof structure you mentioned, Leader, and then covered with a layer of animal skin to protect against snow, water, and frost."

Mu Dong spoke with great enthusiasm, his excitement very obvious in his tone. He clearly highly approved of the new wooden house concept that Xia Hong had proposed earlier.

Xia Hong wiped the cold sweat from his forehead. He wasn't a professional architect, he had only proposed such a concept based on a bit of memory. Talking to Mu Dong was just a shot in the dark, he didn't expect the other party to actually come up with it.

Although he knew that the wood here was different from the wood of his previous life, since it was being built for people to live in, Xia Hong still solemnly asked, "Mu Dong, do you think it's feasible to build such a wooden house?"

Mu Dong was stunned for a moment, then immediately nodded and replied, "Of course it's feasible."

Then, he showed a hint of hesitation and said hesitantly, "However, there are a few very difficult problems that are not easy to solve."

"Tell me, and I'll see if we can solve them!"

After Mu Dong pondered for a moment, he replied:

"The massive demand for wood, the many types of tools that will be needed, the considerable amount of iron that will be consumed, and finally, the long time it will take to drive the foundation piles into the ground. Also, in some places, you might need to personally lend a hand, Leader."