King of the Wilderness

Finally, there was a whole roll of waterproof and moisture-proof material resembling a black carpet and several buckets of viscous asphalt glue.

When all the building materials were neatly unloaded at the construction site, sorted and arranged properly,

Old George’s gaze turned to the twenty-one concrete pillars standing quietly: ”It’s time to put them to use.”

”Before setting up any wood, we must ensure that all the tops of the pillars are on the same absolute horizontal plane.”

Old George pulled out a neatly coiled roll of transparent hose from the toolbox of his old Ford, with each end attached to a glass tube with clear markings.

David curiously asked, ”George, is this an ordinary water hose?”

Old George snorted dismissively, looking at him like an outsider, and said in his Texas-accented drawl, ”Ordinary hose? Kid, this thing is more accurate than your fancy laser instruments, and it’ll never run out of battery!”

He handed one end of the hose to Stan while he held the other, starting to fill it with water from a large water bucket.

He filled it while constantly raising and lowering the hose, muttering, ”Get rid of all the bubbles, any bubble will affect the final accuracy.”

Once the hose was filled with water and ensured no bubbles remained, they began the measurement.

Old George chose a concrete pillar located at the center of the foundation as the ”elevation benchmark.”

He took out a measuring tape, measured 10 centimeters down from the top on the side of the pillar, and drew a clear cross mark with a red marker.

”Why not use the top of the pillar as the benchmark directly?” David questioned again.

”Because the top of the pillar itself has errors, our goal is to eliminate these errors.” Lin Yu’an explained on behalf of Old George.

Old George shouted to Stan holding the other end of the hose, ”Stan! It’s your turn! Bring your end to the benchmark point!”

Stan stepped forward, pressing the glass tube in his hand tightly against the side of the benchmark pillar.

He carefully moved it up and down, while Old George continued adding water to the glass tube, until the top of the water line perfectly aligned with the center of the red cross mark.

”Okay, George! It’s lined up here with the water line!”

”Good! Hold it steady! Don’t move!” Old George ordered loudly after confirming that Stan was aligned on his side.

Then Old George, holding the other end of the hose, walked to a corner pillar furthest from the benchmark point.

Similarly, he pressed the glass tube in his hand against the side of the corner pillar.

According to the principle of the communicating vessels, the water line on his side would automatically maintain the same absolute horizontal height as Stan’s side, regardless of the hose’s height.

He waited for the water’s surface to completely stop shaking, then squinted, using the red marker to draw a cross at the water line position on his side of the glass tube.

”The first point is done!”

Old George straightened up and said to everyone, ”Now, the mark on this corner pillar and the mark on our central benchmark pillar are at exactly the same height, with an error no more than one millimeter!”

Next, everyone began standardized assembly line work.

Stan, acting as the benchmark controller, kept the hose on his side in place.

Meanwhile, Old George and Lin Yu’an took the other end of the hose and approached the remaining nineteen pillars in turn.

At each location, they repeated the same procedure: press the glass tube against the pillar, wait for the water level to stabilize, then make a precise mark at the water line.

After nearly an hour, when all twenty-one pillars had a red mark at the absolute water line, the first phase of the work was successfully completed.

”Alright, now we have an invisible horizontal line.”

Old George pointed at the marks and said, ”The next task is to grind down all the cement lumps that extend above this line!”

Old George approached the bed of his old Ford and pulled out a massively rugged-looking orange Stihl TS800 gas-powered cutting machine.

”My God, George! You even have this thing?” David exclaimed, his eyes wide.

He recognized this big guy; it was a tool only professional road rescue and construction teams would have.

Old George proudly patted the machine’s casing and laughed, ”In this damned yet beautiful place of Alaska, you need a few handy tools to get by!”

”I once used this machine to cut through frozen pipes in an oil field, and today, using it to handle these small concrete stubs is a piece of cake.”

Old George instructed, ”Kid, you’re young and strong, you handle this physical work! I’ll supervise, and Stan will handle the watering and cooling!”

Lin Yu’an put on the thickest 3M dust mask, goggles, and noise-canceling earmuffs, and took over this formidable tool.

He pulled the starter rope, and the huge diamond blade, nearly 400 millimeters in diameter, began to spin at high speed.

Lin Yu’an gripped the machine tightly with both hands and precisely aimed the high-speed rotating blade at the red marking line on the first pillar.

”Zzz—!!!”

As the blade made contact with the hard concrete, a burst of dazzling sparks erupted!

Stan immediately got to work, holding a hose connected to a bucket and a small water pump, and sprayed a fine stream of water onto the cutting area.