Cultivation Struggles of a Lowly Fox

Aiko didn’t want to count how many saws she broke through the process of trying to split the whole thing.

However, with that being said, she now had 4 pieces that she could work with, or saw even more of it, since she had to make it to size, so it could fit under the caravan.

With this wood, she wouldn’t have any problems with durability, so you could always say that this was just a one time thing, which it really was. Aiko already decided that she wouldn’t touch this cursed wood again!

Needless to say, it was time to do this!

First, she needed to make it slightly longer than what was under the caravan. That’s to make sure, that just in case something went wrong, she still had enough material to shave it off.

The next step would be to somewhat round it, just enough so that it fits into the brackets that hold the axles to the caravan. The caravan didn’t need to steer, or rather the steering was supposed to be done by the horses that would normally pull this.

This meant that she didn’t need to do anything elaborate, it was pretty much a piece sitting on another piece that allowed the front part of the caravan to turn.

It was pretty stiff turning, and you also couldn’t turn when it was completely still, but that was fine. Well, you could, if you wanted to ruin the wheels, but that was beside the point.

Carving the damned thing was as hard as chopping the tree. The easiest part was actually making the whole tree into 4 parts and the hardest would be this one, since you couldn’t just take a saw and call it a day.

If the wood was not smooth enough, it would introduce even more stiffness, not only slowing down the caravan, but also making it harder to pull.

To prevent that, she could use the smiths spinning sharpening stone to make it smoother and down to size.

However, she couldn’t really use this on the whole part as it would clog up the spinning sharpening stone.

That was a damn shame, since it actually worked very well with the wood in terms of speed of work.

Unfortunately, Aiko was unwilling to get a new spinning sharpening stone for the whole log, as it would take dozens of them to just do one part.

However, the important part was already sized down and would fit into the brackets and the rest needed just a bit of shaving to prevent it from getting stuck on the underside of the caravan.

The next step would be to make a square for the wheel, so that those two things would fit together.

”No, how am I supposed to make this wheel?” Normally you would just bend the wood to be able to make a wheel, but she couldn’t really do that here.

Her wood was so solid that it was hard just to cut, much less try to bend it.

”Fortunately, only the wheels require this, so I will either have to make the wheels from different wood, or make it a bit blocky.” Aiko nodded her head seriously, things were progressing well beside the wheels, so she was looking forward to her finished product.

The next step would be to replace the main thick planks of the underside, so that the brackets had a place to sit on. Those planks would then connect horizontally to it, connecting it to the other side. Then those planks would be further reinforced before putting the actual floor in.

That way the caravan would last longer since you only had to replace the floor and wheels, but the underside would be robust and hard to break.

This required a lot of nails-

”Wait, will the nails be able to pierce it...?” Aiko had yet another realisation. It was already a miracle that she was able to get this far with her measly tools, but there was yet another problem.

”I will ask for a refund if this doesn’t work.” Aiko nodded her head seriously. Since these nails cost quite a bit, she was expecting that the nails would be able to actually pierce the wood.

”What’s the next step...” Aiko observed the old caravan and through disassembling it, she was able to learn a lot.

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There were some things she didn’t understand, but most of the things made enough sense that it didn’t need any explanation.

Aiko took the nails next to her and a questionable hammer that would surely work on a wood that would dull anything and everything it touched.

Surprisingly, those nails really sank into the wood, so she was able to connect the bracket with the actual wood and thus securing the axle with the underside.

With this done, she had two options.

Make the wheel immediately, so that she could put it on and didn’t need to bother about it later.

Or.

Make 4 towers that the axles would sit on, that way she didn’t need to clumsily lift it when she got the wheels later.

Well, 3 options, actually. The third one being that she could reuse the old wheels on this one and call it a day before making the new ones.

Aiko didn’t know which one to pick, since all of them had positives and negatives.

With that being said, she needed to reinforce the underside before she could lift it, so she had a bit more time to do that.

Aiko added wood to all the corners to make it more robust when anyone pushed against it. The previous version was quite wobbly to the side, but with this addition, it no longer moved at all. This allowed for further reinforcements to prevent cracking and then other reinforcements so you could put down the flooring.

”So much...” Aiko really wanted to skip some steps, considering how tough her actual wood was, but then what if all of these things were not just about reinforcements but also about other things?

”Let’s just go through it...” Aiko sighed, shaking her head. It would take a lot of time to finish this, but she would create a... rolling fortress?

With that being said, she needed more planks, but...

”Who knew that deforestation would actually be hard.” Aiko shook her head, but then she had an idea.

She returned to the safe area and went into the mining section. There, she picked a few cool sticks, with sparkly wires sticking out of them...

Yeah... Aiko was planning to blow the tree up...

Returning to the forest, she was considering how to properly do this.

”I ain’t drilling any holes.” Holes were simply impossible considering how just sawing was difficult.

”Bottom?” What about digging a hole right under the tree and placing those sticks there?

”It could work, right?” Aiko was considering this, but also considering the toughness of this tree.

It was very much possible that the tree would be left unharmed, and only the soil would move. However, that was fine. If she could expose the roots, maybe she would have easier time felling the tree.

With that plan in mind. Aiko dug out a small hole right under the tree, where she put ten sticks.

This was definitely an overkill, since just one stick was able to expand the mine greatly, but with ten, she might actually do some damage to the tree.

Aiko lit up one of the wires, or whatever sparkling thing was and immediately ran away.

*BOOOM*

Soil was flung everywhere as Aiko stared at it from a safe distance.

As she expected, she did literally 0 damage to the tree, but the soil under it vanished, being replaced by a crater.

Aiko didn’t expect the crater to be so big, but what made her even more speechless.

”The fucking roots are still holding up the tree...” That’s right, the tree didn’t move an inch, being held up in the air thanks to just roots!

”This is fucking ridiculous, what the fuck.” Aiko was cursing a lot because this was such an unbelievable situation that she couldn’t wrap her head around it.

Aiko went down into the crater and picked a root. She would try to cut it and see if it was even possible, considering all circumstances.

*ding~*

”...?” Aiko looked at her axe and then back at the root. The root didn’t budge a millimetre, but her axe already had a dent in it.

Needless to say, the roots were actually tougher than the actual tree, which meant that it was pointless trying anything else.

Moreover, these trees wouldn’t have the common ’holes’ from parasite and birds, due to its resilience and toughness.

As such she couldn’t even test the sticks on the actual tree.

She was also considering just digging all the roots at once, but who knows how long those fuckers were. She might be spending days on it, only to find out it was impossible.

Since Aiko would rather avoid that, she was back to the saw and axe.

”How many trees will I need...?” Aiko didn’t want to count the trees, but she also had to keep track of her progress so that she could know how much more she needed.

”One at a time.” Aiko shook her head. It was time to fell the tree before considering anything else.

”I really want to buy tools, but I have no idea how well they would work, so I don’t want to spend the Soul Points.” Aiko shook her head. If she had more, she would get those tools even if it meant that they would break from one tree.

It would still be a better mileage than what happened to her current tools.

”Anyway.” Aiko swung the axe a few times before she had to sharpen it again and the whole journey progressed....

...

......

Progressed a lot. Aiko didn’t know how much time she spent on this, but it was oddly fulfilling to see her creation slowly brimming with life.

The underside was finished, and the reinforced part was also finished. What was left were the low walls and floor. Seat for the driver, some side seats and compartments for tools and such and-

”There is still so much to do...” Aiko didn’t even get to the roof part, and she was already facepalming.

”Good thing it doesn’t rain.” Aiko nodded her head seriously. This whole time there was no rain or anything, which was nice.

”Anyway.” This time, Aiko would have to actually use a lot of those spinning sharpening stones, since she wanted to polish the floor to be nice on her feet.

Sure, she would also get many furs to stuff them there, but a nice floor was necessary until she got to that part.

Nodding her head. She made thinner planks than what she used on the underside. Those planks were closer to decorative only, since the actual floor under it was already so reinforced that you could consider it a brick floor.

Maybe that’s why they included those parts, but it was so much more work...