Starting Off Survival With A Small Treehouse

Chapter 189: Chapter 179: Art Also Has Its Limits

Xu Xin forged some more steel and handed it over to Li Wenxi. At the same time, he also gave Li Wenxi some coal.

According to his earlier observations, a piece of coal (green) can keep the furnace burning for one hour, which is shorter than the burning time of a piece of green wood.

However, coal is easy to obtain. He doesn’t know how long that pile of coal mine will take to be mined, and every time he swings the pickaxe, he can get a dozen or twenty pieces, which is much easier to obtain compared to a green tree that only yields five pieces of wood.

The most important thing is that coal can improve furnace efficiency.

”This is coal!” Li Wenxi was pleasantly surprised. ”It can actually enhance furnace efficiency! Did you find a coal mine?”

”Yes, it’s near my treehouse, buried about five or six meters underground.”

”So it was buried underground. I kept searching for coal mines without success... and you found it underground!” Li Wenxi blinked. ”Could it be your alchemy skills that helped you find it?”

”Probably similar to your ability to find ores.” Xu Xin smiled.

”...Okay then, I’ll go help you forge steel blocks!”

Xu Xin hung up the call and went to the art room, sitting at the sculpture painting workbench.

At his current speed, he can produce a small sculpture in fifteen minutes, yielding 40 points of decoration in an hour.

After eating an orange to maintain his Spiritual Power at its peak, Xu Xin picked up the carving knife and immediately entered the zone.

Soon, the first sculpture intended as a gift for Li Wenxi was done; he sculpted a little girl standing with hands on her hips, perfectly replicating the proportions of her head, body, and legs, as well as her figure.

The notification sounded, indicating he increased the decoration by ten points. Xu Xin set the small sculpture aside, took out a green crystal, and continued sculpting.

Immersed in carving, Xu Xin lost track of time, quickly creating one small sculpture after another. The sculptures depicted animals such as the Blood Pattern Rabbit, Blood Patterned Cat, and Blood-striped Marlin, the three medium-level mutated beasts he had killed.

Once the fourth sculpture, the one of the Blood-striped Marlin emerging from the water, was completed, Xu Xin breathed a sigh of relief, set down the carving knife, and leaned back in his chair. He glanced at the time: four sculptures, precisely one hour.

It was great—one hour for 40 points of decoration.

However, this time the notification changed.

[Detected placement of a mutated Marlin red crystal sculpture (green) in the treehouse, decoration +10, current treehouse decoration: 319.68 (266.4+53.28)]

[Treehouse green crystal sculptures have reached the upper limit; further addition will not increase decoration.]

...Indeed, the number of same-level crystal sculptures has a limit, although it is higher than untreated basic materials.

Art has its limits too.

Xu Xin calculated. Before today, he had sculpted a statue each for Keke, Mimi, Afu, Silver King, and his two small companions, totaling six green small sculptures, plus those he intended to give Li Wenxi and of the three medium-level mutated beasts.

In total, ten.

The limit for green crystal sculptures is ten, with each adding 10 points of decoration, totaling 100 points, complemented by the event reward of a 20% decoration increase. Thus these green crystal sculptures contributed 120 decoration points.

Quite a lot, considering untreated green crystals only add 6 decoration points, and his unprocessed purple crystal only adds 5 decoration points.

Though Xu Xin was somewhat disappointed, he had hoped to increase decoration points indefinitely. Now it seems other materials and methods are needed for more decoration points.

For now, there’s no need to worry. He can use redwood paper for painting to increase decoration points, and redwood is also a carving material.

Taking out another green crystal, Xu Xin began sculpting again. One of the sculptures is intended as a gift for Li Wenxi, so he naturally felt the need to make it up.

After completing the sculpture—a small wild boar—it was no surprise that there was no notification of increased decoration.

Xu Xin placed this sculpture on the bookshelf, ready to contact Li Wenxi to inquire about steel forging, when suddenly a notification sounded in his ear.

[Carving proficiency achieved, artist level increased to entry level.]

...Artist level increased?

Xu Xin immediately accessed the [Artist] option and found the line of text regarding level had changed.

Artist Level: Advanced.

The artist level has reached the next phase—Advanced!

The notification stated he advanced due to carving proficiency. Xu Xin calculated that, including the two statues for Li Wenxi, he had made twelve small sculptures in total, finally advancing to entry level.

His base level was entry, but with the enhancement from the Deep Sea Pearl (blue), his artist level increased to advanced!

Being at the advanced artist level, does it mean he can handle blue crystals now?

Xu Xin immediately took out a blue crystal. Compared to green crystals, blue ones were much larger. Green crystals are only the size of an egg, but blue crystals are as big as a fist.

The traces from his last carving attempt still remained on the blue-grade crystal. At that time, he could only manage a few cuts before he didn’t know how to proceed.

Xu Xin picked up the carving knife, and that immersive feeling reappeared, filling him with joy.

Indeed, he could now handle blue-grade crystals and create blue-grade carvings! This completely dispelled his disappointment upon learning there was a limit to crystal carving, and he immediately became absorbed in the task.

He didn’t know how much time had passed when the vibration of his watch brought him back to awareness; it was a video call from Li Wenxi.

Although he felt he was carving with fluid ease, as if guided by divine intervention, the completion of the blue-grade carving was remarkably low, not even reaching ten percent.

Glancing at the time, Xu Xin frowned.

It had actually been an hour since he started carving this blue-grade crystal!

A whole hour and not even ten percent complete?!

These blue-grade carvings truly were time-consuming! It seemed that to complete one blue-grade carving, he would need an entire day without doing anything else!

...Too time-consuming. For now, it would be better to improve the decoration level through other means, since he could create multiple green-grade artworks in just one hour.

Green-grade painting and green-grade redwood carving could both enhance the decoration level. After upgrading to the advanced stage, his artistic creation speed should be faster.

He should max out these for now, reach the quantity limit, add some augmentation points to the art room, and then consider the matter of higher-level blue-grade crystal statues.

The watch was still ringing, and Xu Xin answered the video call.

”What are you doing? You’ve been ignoring me for so long.” Li Wenxi asked, holding a piece of silver-shimmering metallic block, a bit puzzled.

”I’m carving for you,” Xu Xin lifted the small beauty statue in his hand and teased, ”You almost made me ruin my work, nearly carved your leg off.”

”Ah? Oh no... Isn’t it broken?” Li Wenxi’s voice immediately softened, her face showed a ”my bad” expression, cautiously asking.

”Just kidding, nothing’s wrong, it’s perfect.” Xu Xin tossed the statue in his hand.

Li Wenxi widened her eyes, hurriedly saying, ”Hey, don’t throw it! What if it breaks? That’s ’me’!”

Xu Xin caught the statue and stood it upright on the table. He had already noticed the piece of steel in Li Wenxi’s hand, glowing blue — it was clearly a blue-grade steel block.

”How’s the steel refining going, is the speed fast?” Xu Xin initiated a trade with Li Wenxi while asking.

Li Wenxi accepted the trade without delay, holding the statue lovingly as she examined it.

”It’s fast, I’ve refined a lot already. Hey, wait a minute, let me put the statue down first!”

She got up and walked to another room, carefully placing the statue on a shelf. The shelf also held the previous statue Xu Xin had given her, depicting her lying horizontally on a sofa.

Having done these, she returned to the sofa and picked up the silver-white steel block from the wooden coffee table.

”This is it, the steel block! I’ve refined both green-grade and blue-grade ones, and the refining time is also related to the grade. It takes much less time to refine a green-grade steel block than a blue-grade one. Hmm... green-grade takes only a few dozen seconds per block, while blue-grade takes fifteen minutes to refine one block.”

Indeed, professionals should handle professional tasks.

Xu Xin could take 50 minutes to refine one blue-grade steel block, while Li Wenxi could do it in fifteen minutes.

Moreover, she had many furnaces, and with the augmentation of the smelting room, even with many furnaces, the room temperature wouldn’t become too high to cause a fire, and she could enter the smelting room to control the furnaces without needing cooling, greatly multiplying the refining speed.

”Also, one bottle of steel fire can continuously refine five green-grade steel blocks, but only one blue-grade steel block. By the way, do you use a lot of materials for your steel fire?”

One portion of steel fire only needed one kilogram of mutated vine sap and 25 pieces of coal, not much at all.

Coal was currently abundant. Even though the concubine mined over a thousand pieces of coal, the coal mine seemed unchanged.

Even if the mutated vine sap was exhausted, with his current strength, he could easily move back and forth at the edge of the reserve, attracting the vines to drill out and kill them, then collect the sap.

”It’s not very demanding on materials. You give me the steel blocks first, I’ll see what I can make.”

”Okay.”

Li Wenxi also sent him all the steel blocks.

”...So wealthy?” Xu Xin was a bit numb looking at the materials in his hand.

Xu Xin had given her twenty portions of steel fire, and she returned him twenty-eight portions of steel blocks.

Among them, only ten blocks were green-grade, and the remaining eighteen blocks were all blue-grade steel!

The moment he got the steel blocks, his formula for steel quietly unlocked.