King of the Wilderness

He kept searching around and found some kelp that was frozen along the edge of the ice, with a white salt frost hanging on the surface. He also used the axe to chop them down and threw them into the bag together.

”These kelp are like natural condensed salt blocks. Boiling them together can greatly improve the efficiency of our salt production.”

Lin Yu’an quickly transported the bag full of high-salinity seawater back to the camp.

He didn’t boil it inside the shelter, as that would produce a large amount of steam, making the interior too humid.

Instead, he skillfully set up another fire near the shelter door, not using a simple campfire but building a wind-resistant ”U”-shaped stove with an opening using a few stones.

This not only concentrated the firepower but also conserved firewood. Then he used three wooden sticks to create a stable rack, hanging the iron pot above.

He first covered the pot opening with a piece of T-shirt fabric, then slowly poured the seawater through the fabric into the pot. Soon, fine sand and seaweed fragments were left on the fabric.

The flames quickly rose, licking the bottom of the black pot. Soon, the water inside the pot started to bubble and gradually began to boil vigorously.

A large amount of salty white steam rose rapidly and disappeared quickly into the cold air.

Lin Yu’an stood by his ”crucible” like a patient alchemist.

He needed to constantly add firewood to the fire to ensure the flames delivered maximum heat steadily and continuously.

As the water continued to evaporate, the brine in the pot became less and more viscous, with its color changing from deep translucent to cloudy milky white.

On the inner wall of the pot, where the waterline receded, a thin layer of snow-like salt flowers began to appear.

When only a shallow layer of water was left, turning into a porridge-like thick brine, he knew the most crucial stage had arrived.

He immediately stopped adding new firewood and pushed the vigorous burning wood aside, leaving only the hot coals below the pot for heating.

Too high a temperature would cause the salt to crystallize into hard, unscalable lumps, and could even burn the bottom, causing bitterness.

He picked up a stick and began to stir back and forth at the bottom of the pot continuously.

”Now, we need to keep stirring, allowing the salt to crystallize evenly into small granules during evaporation, rather than forming one solid block.”

As he stirred, a fascinating physical transformation was taking place.

The milky thick liquid in the pot began to make a ”rustling” sound, with more and more fine, moist white crystals quickly spreading across the pot bottom!

Lin Yu’an didn’t completely dry out the water in the pot.

When most of the liquid in the pot had turned into moist, snow-like white salt crystals, leaving only a small amount of viscous liquid, he promptly removed the iron pot from the fire.

”We can’t dry it completely. The remaining liquid is the ’bitter brine’ that gives salt its bitterness. We must remove it.”

He cleaned the T-shirt fabric used earlier to filter sand and tightly covered an empty wooden bowl with it like a filter.

Then, he carefully poured the mixture of moist salt crystals and bitter brine from the iron pot onto the fabric.

The white salt crystals were left on the fabric, while the viscous bitter brine slowly dripped through the fabric into the bark below, drop by drop.

A few minutes later, the filtering was complete, and he discarded the waste bitter brine.

”Although we lose a bit of salt, the quality of the final product is much better.”

He poured the snowy white, moist salt crystals from the fabric back into the already cleaned iron pot, placed it back on the fire embers, and dried it one last time over low heat.

This time, the pot was filled only with the dry, ”rustling” sound.

A fine layer of snow-white crystals entirely covered the pot bottom.

He took the iron pot off the fire and set it in the snow to cool it quickly.

Then, using the back of his Hunting Knife, he scraped off this hard-earned ”Platinum.”

This time, the salt crystals he obtained were whiter in color and crisper in texture.

He dipped a fingertip into it and tasted it, as the extreme saltiness burst on his tongue, with only a negligible hint of bitterness.

He carefully stored the coarse sea salt in a birch bark salt box and placed it on the warm stone slab by the fireplace for a final drying.

This time, he harvested nearly three taels of salt, enough to last for quite a while.

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