Is it really that important that I figure out what was making that sound behind me? I didn’t even fight the Teerox and they were a comparably low level. But I have this skill now, so I should go ahead and try at least. I really shouldn’t though, I don’t even have a real weapon and I doubt whatever I came across is friendly.

Nik recalled that whatever he heard had been behind and to the left of him. With a few careful steps, he moved slowly in the general direction of where he suspected the perpetrator had been located. Stopping after reaching a few steps away from his own track and trying to activate [Tracking] didn’t lead to anything. After some fiddling with the skill structure in his mind, he looked around annoyed.

Trying to channel his inner Sherlock Holmes Nik scanned the ground as well as he could. To his dismay, he could only find a singular spot where some of the moss was indented but there were no further imprints anywhere around.

Well great skill-choice there, you picked something completely useless there Nik. Well, I guess that just shows that I need to be more mindful of my choices. Some more looking around did not result in any findings so Nik moved on to gather wood.

------

It took Nik what felt like several hours to amass a stack of twigs and branches large enough for him to be satisfied. During that time he had considered multiple times how odd the large number of branches all around was. But since you are not supposed to look in the mouth of a gifted horse he just went with it. This is really odd though, something weird is going on here.

The fact that he had never had much interest in blacksmithing or most antiquated forms of resource refinement stumped Nik somewhat. He barely had any knowledge about how smithing actually worked, much less about how to refine and purify metals to create ingots. He also didn’t know much about charcoal besides the fact, that if you burn wood long enough it turns to ash, and that somehow air was bad for coal making. His current hypothesis was that charcoal ideally only consisted of carbon atoms, removing water, and other potential impurities through the high heat leaving the carbon structure behind. He affirmed himself of that suspicion through the brittleness of charcoal.

With that in mind, Nik started using one of the sturdier branches around him as a type of shovel. He didn’t really want to start building anything large to create charcoal since he was uncertain of what would work well. Right now he was not that confident in creating any structures that would aid him during the pyrolysis. Thus he tried to think of an easier method of refining wood to charcoal.

After some consideration, he decided to try and process wood to charcoal under a layer of earth. Lifting the upper layer of the forest floor would result in a wall of dirt surrounding his pyrolysis area that would hopefully decrease the amount of air exchange. Isolated this barrier should only barely help with the charcoal generation. Additionally, he could use the layer of the ground as makeshift isolation on top to help increase the temperature and hopefully accelerate the process.

Lifting up a layer of forest floor took a lot longer than Nik had expected. He snapped several smaller roots with his hands and ignored two larger ones he came across, after all, those would become charcoal as well if he were to be successful.

After an hour of work, he had around a two square meter part of the floor severed from its original position and moved it to the side. The next step in his construction effort was to dig a depression. He went on that process but it proved to not be worthwhile to go further after reaching a depth of a quarter of a meter which had taken him half an hour. The groundwater must be rather high Nik observed as it slowly sept into the area going a bit further down than the rest of the depression Which is not really surprising giving my proximity to the stream. Nik internally chastised him for forgetting that the small river was just several dozens of meters away.

Then he went on to shovel some dirt back into the hole so the pyrolysis could happen efficiently, without the groundwater dampening the efficiency. Moving more dirt into the hole than necessary to provide a buffer. Next, he started setting up a small fire with the two stones he had used back when he still lived on the huge boulder.

It took Nik a while to get a small fire going but he managed to do that as well. The branches were rather dry and he used a stone to create some wooden shavings, to act as tinder. Reconsidering his actions as he looked at the soon-to-be charcoal he pushed the kindling fire to the back of his mind and moved to his pile of wood.

Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings.

I should have planned this better. I will need to first get the wood to be a good size to fit as much in there as possible. I should probably also create an exhaust so the gases can escape and don’t extinguish the fire. Hmm, maybe an underground fire is not the best idea I have had, but I don’t know if I actually need oxygen for the creation of charcoal or just high heat. I probably need oxygen, ... right.

With that change of plan, Nik focused on reducing the size of the branches he had while occasionally checking on the small flame, keeping the small fire alight. He reduced every single branch he could break to approximately the size of the hole’s width and stacked them in there right next to each other. The ones that were too thick or strong to easily break he elevated against a thicker branch and broke while throwing heavy rocks on top. A few of the thickest couldn’t be broken that way so Nik ignored them for now.

He wanted to try out the effectiveness of his [Lesser Hammer Strike] but was worried about the blowback. Knocking himself out with a freshly snapped branch was not on his order of business.

After being done with reducing the individual branch sizes Nik moved on to completely fill the hole. He then realized that he still couldn’t compact the wood a lot, but was not really worried about the fact. He was however slightly annoyed that he didn’t manage to get every branch he had cut inside the hole so he just continued with stacking the wood above the ground level.

In an effort to finalize his impromptu charcoal oven Nik dragged the dirt floor he had previously separated from the rest of the forest floor and put it on top of the woodpile. Then he moved on and build 2 makeshift air vents on all four sides of the wooden stack that reached just as low as the pit he had dug. To further reduce the overall airflow through his coal pit he trimmed small branches with leaves of some trees to reach from the ground up to the elevated dirt cover to create an air barrier.

Only slightly happy with his success so far - he had tested the effectiveness through blowing air through the leaves - he sat down to consider his progress thus far.

This is not gonna work unless I can get a real barrier. Well if all of my assumptions are correct. It might just be that I don’t need to really reduce the airflow as much. I should try though. What did they use back in the day when they just got started making charcoal. Probably some kind of furnace right? Shit, I will have to build a furnace too. Oh, that is gonna be interesting. I need clay for that right. Hmm, maybe wet dirt will do. I should try.

Nik got up from his kneeling position and start pushing some of the excavated earth over the leaf barrier he had created and pushed it slightly inwards. After having gone around the entire pit he walked towards the water to gather some wet dirt, hoping it would help with air isolation.

Quickly Nik remembered that he wanted to train his skills and activated [Stealthy Movement] again. At the stream, he scooped some wet dirt with his hands, returned swiftly, and slathered it across the now with leaves- and dirt-covered wood to create a more airtight barrier all the while tending to his fire.

After many round trips, Nik decided that he was sufficiently done. He went on to light the covered pile with the barely burning fire. He quickly realized two glaring issues with his design. He had no way to let the carbon dioxide escape and he had no good way of lighting the woodpile.

The first issue was resolved quickly by digging 5 small holes into the dirt layer above. For the second issue, he did some more thinking. As fire is basically heat it rose upwards and thus lighting it from the top would most likely result in a less efficient burning pattern. Therefore lighting it from the air intakes at the bottom could result in a more efficient charcoal production method. As Nik had practically no experience with fire making all of this was purely speculation.

He further decreased the air intake holes to a diameter of around 5 cm each, using some of the wetter mud from the river. Reluctantly Nik moved on to light the fire from the bottom, worried that he might have messed up somewhere along the process.

As the fire slowly started burning further into the makeshift pyrolysis chamber Nik sat down next to his branches and started weaving another two baskets. It took him some time but he got it done just before the sun started setting.

The fire though was still burning but the intakes had been sealed up some time ago, and Nik felt super tired even though he had frequently munched on stamina berries, so he got up did some stretches, and used [Identify] on both of his new creations.

wooden basket - poor quality

wooden basket - crude lesser quality

Preparing to leave for the night he had prepared something else to improve his sleep. While he had surprisingly managed to not fall down from the trees - something actually unexpected as he had never been a still sleeper - he had some minor neck ache during the day, most likely a result of his headrest.

To combat this Nik wove a rectangular map from branches, he would then place it over the y- fork in the trees to support his neck.

Having worked some on his comfort he went back towards the lake to sleep.