The storyline involving the gnoll Hog Gnawbone has been triggered, but it’s just an inconspicuous part of the ongoing gnoll extermination campaign.
At least for now, it hasn’t been able to make waves.
While combat players are busy farming points in the score pool to exchange for rewards, and new players are busy leveling up and getting equipment, the game pace of administrative career players hasn’t been affected by the great war that has begun externally.
For example, Heaven’s Chosen Grayman, the chief architect of Crimson Citadel, and his roommate assistant Bricklayer, logged on early today and rushed to the construction site in the city area of Crimson Citadel.
Today is a very important day for both of them, as the first 3-story “residential building” designed by their own hands is about to rise from the ground today.
If this succeeds, it means that Murphy’s Crimson Citadel reconstruction work can truly progress to the implementation stage.
More importantly, the construction of this building today is probably the first attempt to apply the “new construction method” on this continent, and the two “architects” themselves aren’t confident about whether it can succeed or not.
“I’m saying, it feels weird to construct without cement or measurements, relying solely on blueprints,” Bricklayer, holding a stack of blueprints, complained to the equally anxious Grayman beside him at the busy construction site outside the city area:
“And do you really believe their ‘stone to mud’ spell can progress according to our expectations? If it ends up as something bizarre, that would be a huge embarrassment.”
“I don’t know, who am I supposed to ask if you’re asking me? You won’t find a single senior who can build houses with spirit energy spells even if you search the entire design institute,” Grayman sighed for the 17th time.
He looked at the blueprints again, and finally shook his head and looked towards the “model” that was being set up by the camp workers in front of them.
It really was just a model!
The 3-story design had only completed the first floor, with the model’s main body fixed with long wooden boards and wedges, just like children playing with Lego, building from the foundation according to their design drawings.
Four wooden boards were joined together with reserved wedges and grooves to form a “hollow column” to support the structural strength of the entire first floor.
Because it was an experiment, Grayman and Bricklayer didn’t start by building exactly according to the planned 10 rooms per floor.
They made a series of three rooms, and it took the workers a full 4 days to complete the entire model. Now from the outside, it already looked like a proper square “wooden house”.
Workers standing on ladders were performing the “capping” operation.
They placed the hollow boards, which had been pre-assembled at the construction site, on top of the square house according to pre-drawn positions, leaving interfaces to connect its interior space with the hollow columns below, forming a “hollow structure” protected by wooden boards.
To ensure the structural strength of the house, Grayman and Bricklayer made these “wooden molds” quite thick, basically equivalent to the thickness of standard concrete walls and floor slabs.
This made the footprint of the wooden “model” in front of them look quite grand.
“Yo, this ‘building block toy’ looks really good,” Dump Truck Iaido, Bulldozer Man Charging, and Half Off With Full Coverage, the first three guys to try administrative careers, strolled onto the construction site.
They critiqued the “house mold” that was being built in front of them, and Dump Truck very humbly asked:
“So, are you planning to build houses using a method similar to ‘casting’? I heard you mention before that you’d first make a set of house molds, then have Spirit Mages use the stone to mud spell to reshape the stone material, letting the stone slurry flow into the mold and finally solidify, and after removing the external mold, a standard room would be formed?”
“Yes, that’s the principle, similar to the mainstream method used on construction sites back home, except there’s no steel reinforcement here,” Bricklayer sighed and said:
“Although we’ve consulted Lady Tris and received an affirmative answer, to be honest, we two brothers aren’t sure if it will work. In theory, as long as the Spirit Mage can ensure that the stone slurry flows evenly in the house mold and shapes quickly, it should definitely work.”
“Sounds convenient,” Bulldozer Man Charging rubbed his chin and said:
“If this works, wouldn’t you be able to continuously ‘replicate’ similar houses with one set of mold templates? Theoretically, if there’s enough stone material and the Spirit Mages can hold up, you could complete the residential area construction within a month, right?”
“It’s not that fast!” Grayman complained:
“Designing and making molds also takes time, and the workers aren’t skilled in assembling them yet. Most importantly, no one knows if the structural strength can support three floors. What if it collapses? That would be disastrous!
This is just the beginning, there are still many testing procedures to be done later.
And even if it really works, this modular construction method can only be used for basic buildings, only square or geometric structures can be made. If you want to add specific functions to the floors or do some fancy work on the building details, it still needs subsequent processing.
That would take a lot of time.
We’re recruiting stonemasons, but this profession is considered ‘high-tech talent’ in Transia, it’s hard to find suitable ones, we can only select clever and dexterous ones from ordinary workers and start training them.”
“You’re thinking quite far ahead,” Dump Truck scoffed:
“Just look at those tents in the camp first, the survivors would be grateful just to have a house that shelters them from wind and rain, who would be picky enough to demand patterns and statues? Those are things we need to consider when we’re prosperous in the future.”
“Hey! You’ve even reserved space for water pipes in the house mold? What’s that large passage through the floor slab for?” Half Off With Full Coverage walked around the construction site and quickly noticed the unique features of the house mold designed by Grayman. He came over to ask:
“I saw the workers stuff three wooden stakes into the hollow mold, won’t that leave gaps through the floor slab after the stone slurry is poured? Won’t that weaken the solidity?”
But their form had already been permanently changed into another appearance under the constraint of the wooden mold.
The entire spellcasting process lasted 5 minutes.
This was the result of Tris, a Spirit Sovereign, personally manipulating it. If it were an ordinary Spirit Mage or Spirit Mage apprentice, this process would be prolonged.
But to be honest, in Heaven’s Chosen Grayman’s original vision, this house wasn’t going to be “formed in one go”. He would have completed the construction of the house according to strict standards, repeating the process from foundation to pillars to capping.
Today’s experiment was just to verify whether the “rapid construction” method designed by him and Bricklayer could take effect. Of course, it’s hard to say if this is their original creation, after all, in real society, the same concrete pouring method is used when building high-rises.
It’s just that here, it’s replaced by more mysterious spirit energy means.
“Done!” Tris stopped casting, and as the spirit energy vibrations gradually subsided, she brushed her hair and turned to the excited Grayman and Bricklayer, saying:
“All the spaces in your mold have been filled with stone slurry, and they’ve solidified. Go on, remove the outer mold and see your work.”
“Go! Take it apart!” The excited Grayman gave the order, and the workers who could no longer contain themselves immediately went forward to dismantle the outer wooden mold.
The three older guys also ran to help, but the inner mold had already been sealed into the formed house structure according to Grayman’s design when the stone slurry solidified. Now they only needed to remove the outer mold to see the real condition of the house.
As they were dismantling, Bricklayer, who was always clear-headed, suddenly slapped his forehead and said:
“Ah! We don’t need to remove the outer wooden boards! After you remove them, you’ll still need to paint the walls and lay tiles, right? Why not just leave them as they are, consider it as a ‘protective layer’ for the outer wall? Whether it’s painting or secondary processing later, isn’t it better than working hard on the stone?”
“Oh, right!” Grayman had been too excited to think of that.
Hearing Bricklayer’s suggestion, he immediately agreed and ordered the workers not to remove the wooden boards. He himself grabbed a big hammer under everyone’s gaze and walked to the wall.
He looked at Bricklayer, who nodded vigorously at him.
So Grayman took a deep breath and swung the big hammer towards the wall in front of him.
This was to test the solidity of the formed house, with Half Off With Full Coverage beside him providing “voice-over”:
“Eighty! Eighty! Eighty!”
“Damn, how am I supposed to test with you doing this?” Grayman, who had hammered three times, laughed. He put down the hammer and cursed.
But everyone was looking at the wall in front of them. The three hammer blows had smashed the wooden boards, revealing the smooth stone layer inside, without any cracks or peeling.
This solidity wasn’t much inferior to concrete, after all, the stone materials produced in Transia were quite solid to begin with.
“All of you, step back!” Tris said from behind.
She made everyone keep their distance, then started with a spirit energy heavy strike, smashing into it. With a loud boom, one-third of the newly built house was shattered under the rampaging spirit energy, as if it had been hit by an aerial bomb.
“Ah, this!” Bricklayer patted away the dust flying in front of him, saying very disappointedly:
“Looks like the solidity isn’t good enough.”
“Not good enough?” Tris smiled and explained:
“With the destructive power of that spell just now, ordinary houses would have been completely leveled, but more than half of your building is still standing. This already proves that it’s more solid than the previous buildings in Kadman City.
Congratulations, warriors.
You’ve invented a quite powerful ‘rapid construction technique’.”
“Ah, I should give you adequate rewards. Whatever you want, I’ll fulfill it for you,” Murphy stepped forward and took Tris’s arm. He said to Grayman and Bricklayer in front of him:
“Your efforts have already laid a solid hope for the future of Crimson Citadel. From now on, our reconstruction will no longer just stay on paper. You’ll be busy for the next two months. Besides building residential areas for the survivors, I also need you to construct sufficiently solid houses for my subjects in the five planned collective farms.
This will be a big project!
But I believe you can do it well.”
“Ding!” Grayman’s Computation Bead made a light sound. He looked down and exclaimed:
“I’ve passed my administrative trial, I’m now an official village chief! Why does this profession quest called ‘Rise of the Stonemason Brotherhood’ feel strange? I’m not surnamed VanCleef, and do I really have to design and build a new city?
Damn, that’s really impossible!”