Chapter 138

Combination (1)

The Frostbloom would freeze your entire body as solid as the ice inside a stone icehouse if consumed raw.

If moved elsewhere and exposed to even the slightest change in temperature, it would melt like snow.

But if properly processed and consumed, it could grant powerful resistance to the cold.

└ Wild Grylls: Is there a way to process it?

└ Starlight Princess: I could probably do it with the technology in my workshop, but I’m not sure it would be possible in your environment. And even if you brought it to my workshop, it would melt immediately.

└ Wild Grylls: Is there any way I could do it by myself?

└ Starlight Princess: The important part is controlling the cold energy... For reference, you can’t simply boil it like soup.

└ Wild Grylls: Tsk...

I wanted to consume it somehow.

Resistance to cold would provide an enormous advantage.

It was so cold that even thick clothing barely kept me warm enough to avoid freezing to death.

You’d need fire energy to counteract the cold energy.

Could she at least explain the basic principle?

If I could absorb the Frostbloom, it would greatly improve my chances of survival.

At the very least, I’d be far less likely to die of hypothermia.

Even simply no longer shivering in the cold would be worthwhile.

Accumulating advantages like this one by one was how I became stronger.

The Starlight Princess did not reply for some time, seemingly lost in thought.

Just when I began wondering whether she had gone off to do something else, she posted another comment.

└ Wild Grylls: Didn’t people in ancient times eat these and record their effects? They wouldn’t have had extraction devices back then.

└ Starlight Princess: Why would anyone do something like that? It could kill them.

└ Wild Grylls: Then why do people eat pufferfish?

└ Starlight Princess: Oh.

└ That’s a damn good example. LOL

└ Who was the first lunatic to think of eating pufferfish? LOL

└ One mistake while preparing it and the poison kills you immediately.

└ I’m more curious about the first person who thought of drinking milk. How did they come up with the idea of sucking on an animal’s teat...?

└ All those attempts accumulated over time and gave us the ingredients we have today. Let’s show them some respect.

└ Not admiration, but "respect." LOL

└ Starlight Princess: You place the Frostbloom in an extractor, then infuse fire energy into the extracted liquid. The principle itself is simple.

└ Wild Grylls: Is that extractor something I could use?

└ Starlight Princess: It needs to be connected to a mana circuit, like a refrigerator. If I gave it to you, wouldn’t it become nothing more than an empty metal shell?

└ Wild Grylls: T_T

└ Starlight Princess: I hate to say this, but I think you should give up.

└ Wild Grylls: I really can’t just boil it in a pot?

└ Starlight Princess: Hmm... I’ve never attempted such a primitive method, so I’m not sure. The extractor is the only method I know.

Humans were fascinating.

We had eaten all manner of plants and animals.

We had even discovered methods of preparing the poisonous ones.

Pufferfish, for example, must have required an arduous process of trial and error before people discovered how to prepare it safely.

The same logic applied to the Frostbloom.

The Starlight Princess had not realized it, but this was the detail that caught my attention.

The Frostbloom was an extremely delicate medicinal herb that melted the instant the temperature changed even slightly.

Yet records existed of people consuming it and documenting both its effects and side effects.

In other words, people living in cold regions must have discovered those properties through repeated testing.

Even if there’s no record of anyone extracting it, someone must have found a way to consume it.

It was highly likely that someone had extracted it without specialized equipment or consumed it after it had been refined through some other process.

Still, this was only my hypothesis.

They said that someone who had read only one book was more dangerous than someone who had read none at all.

└ Wild Grylls: What if I post updates in real time while I experiment? If you notice anything strange, please tell me immediately.

└ Starlight Princess: That’s not a bad idea. But you must follow everything I say without question. Understood?

└ Wild Grylls: Of course. The stone icehouse takes priority, so I’ll contact you about this later.

└ Starlight Princess: Please don’t push yourself too far.

└ Passing Dwarf: Hey. That stone icehouse needs to be built underground. Don’t you have mithril inside your home?

└ Wild Grylls: I don’t have to build it inside the cave. I can build it outside. There’s no mithril out there.

└ Passing Dwarf: Then do you know which direction the wind blows? Not in winter—in summer.

└ Wild Grylls: Why does that matter?

└ Passing Dwarf: From what I can tell, you’ll need to use convection. Cold air sinks to the floor while hot air rises.

└ Wild Grylls: I don’t know. I’m only building a temporary one anyway, so just explain the basic principles. It only needs to last one month. The seasons here apparently change every week.

└ Passing Dwarf: What kind of ridiculous place is that? Anyway, got it. I’ll make a post soon.

Now I had to learn the direction of the wind as well.

This was getting absurd.

Fortunately, the seasons here changed weekly. If they lasted an entire month each, this would have been far more troublesome.

It seemed best to build the stone icehouse as a prototype and use a storage box for everything else.

SwordMaster had offered to give me a box made from well-insulated materials, so I could simply accept that.

But it would feel wrong to receive it without giving her anything in return...

What should I give her?

SwordMaster was actually the most difficult person to repay.

The Heavenly Demon would happily accept anything I gave him, but SwordMaster was different.

She refused medicinal herbs because she did not want to become stronger, and she barely cared about food.

She was someone who focused solely on my growth, which made it difficult to decide how to repay her.

Would she like a sword?

She did not merely like swordsmanship—she loved it.

Following that logic, perhaps she would like swords as well.

A master did not blame their tools, but that did not mean they were entirely indifferent to them.

Perhaps she would even enjoy a beautiful sword.

I can think about that slowly. First, I need to understand the icehouse’s structure.

I had plenty of time to think, but not much time to build.

The avalanche had swept everything away, leaving me with a long list of things to reconstruct.

Should I rebuild the furnace and oven more sturdily from the beginning? Or should I put them inside the cave?

While considering it, I sent SwordMaster a message.

I proposed giving her an exceptionally fine sword later in exchange for an insulated storage box.

[SwordMaster: She sent me a picture just to brag about hers. ;;]

[Wild Grylls: ;;]

The Heavenly Demon was acting awfully childish for someone her age.

Still, at least she had not made a public post about it.

And the fact that she had bragged specifically to SwordMaster suggested that she regarded SwordMaster as a friend.

SwordMaster would probably fly into a rage if she heard me say that, but it should be fine.

[Wild Grylls: In any case, I’ll give it to you later. Would you accept it?]

[SwordMaster: It’s fine. A master does not blame their tools.]

[Wild Grylls: It glows when you channel mana into it, though.]

[SwordMaster: I suppose there’s nothing wrong with keeping one as an ornament rather than using it in battle.]

[SwordMaster: Did you give that sword to the Heavenly Demon?]

[Wild Grylls: Huh? Did I mention that before?]

It was an outstanding sword, yet she intended to use it merely as decoration.

Still, I was relieved that she was willing to accept it.

Trading a Misricon sword for an insulated box could hardly be called an equal exchange, but that did not matter.

I only had to consider all the help SwordMaster had given me.

Until now, she had assisted me almost entirely without compensation.

The Heavenly Demon might feel neglected, so I should prepare something separately for her.

With that thought, I examined the box SwordMaster had sent me.

Perhaps because plastic had not yet been invented in her world, it looked like an ordinary wooden box from the outside.

Its interior walls, however, were surrounded by multiple materials, including marble.

Given how many layers it had, it should function well as an icebox.

Now I merely needed to fill it with ice.

I moved the box inside and thanked SwordMaster.

"The dwarf... posted it."

Perfectly timed, the dwarf had uploaded his instructions.

I opened the post immediately.

Title: Here’s the structure of a stone icehouse. Take a look.

Passing Dwarf

(An image of a stone icehouse’s structure)

(A cross-sectional diagram of a stone icehouse)

(An image of a stone icehouse surrounded by brick walls)

(An image of a brick-vaulted ceiling)

It looks roughly like this.

Building it properly will take a long time, so take it slowly.

When you put the ice inside, pack snow or straw into the gaps between the blocks. Buy a straw mat from the auction house and pull it apart.

└ Wild Grylls: Wait. The ceiling has to be built from bricks too? How am I supposed to do that?

└ Passing Dwarf: What do you mean, how? Use your ingenuity.

└ Wild Grylls: Damn. This is going to be brutal.

└ Where did you take those pictures? The cross-section aside, the others look like actual photographs.

└ Passing Dwarf: They were in a museum.

└ Grylls is the only bastard here living in a museum. LOL

└ Everyone else uses refrigerators while he’s stuck using a stone icehouse. LOL

People whose civilizations had barely reached the modern era were mocking me as a primitive.

I’ll have you know that I once enjoyed the pinnacle of modern civilization.

These people would wet themselves if they witnessed the destructive power of a nuclear bomb, yet they dared make fun of me.

So how am I supposed to build this?

There’s nothing else I can do, so I should shut up and build the stone icehouse.

Grumbling inwardly, I gathered my pickaxe and shovel.

Given how late it was, I had no intention of completing the work in a single day.

It’s supposed to be partially underground, right?

Ordinarily, I would have needed to account for the direction of the wind, but this one was merely experimental.

It would serve as a foundation for testing whether ice could be preserved for an entire month.

I planned to keep it small to reduce the labor involved, while still building it carefully.

The frozen ground isn’t making this easy.

Even digging the ground took a long time.

It would be better to light a campfire and work on something else while it thawed the frozen earth.

I continued digging until around four o’clock, then stopped.

I had other tasks to handle, including extracting the Frostbloom.

I’ll spend thirty minutes harvesting ice, then prepare the Frostbloom.

Carrying the insulated box, I headed toward the river.

With winter’s arrival, animal activity had dropped considerably.

Unless I encountered something that remained active during winter, such as a wolf, I was unlikely to be attacked.

I was staying vigilant just in case, so I would not be caught helplessly off guard either.

I’ll need to cut it with a saw, right?

Upon reaching the frozen river, I purchased a saw from the auction house.

I tapped the ice’s surface with the small hammer I had brought, then inserted the saw into it.

Scrape! Scrape! Scrape!

I began sawing out a precise square.

Now that I was cutting through it, I realized the river had not frozen all the way to the bottom. At a certain depth, the saw suddenly broke through.

Keeping that in mind, I continued cutting carefully.

"Heave-ho!"

Splash!

I extracted a neatly cut rectangular block of ice, and river water immediately filled the empty space.

Crackle!

Before long, even that water froze solid in the brutal cold.

Just how cold did it have to be for water to freeze almost instantly?

With considerable effort, I carried the transparent block of ice to the box and placed it inside.

I had noticed it while cutting, but the ice was incredibly thick.

Could I go ice fishing too?

The idle thought crossed my mind, but I dismissed it.

I continued harvesting ice while remaining alert in case something like a golden frog suddenly emerged.

Fortunately, there was no reaction from beneath the ice. Either all the frogs had frozen to death or they were hibernating.

Apparently, winter was the season in which I could live with relatively little fear.

"Ugh. My hands sting."

That did not change the fact that my hands were freezing.

I wore another pair of gloves over the World Tree gloves, making two layers in total, yet my hands were still cold.

The icy moisture had seeped through both layers.

At this rate, I might end up with frostbite.

I hurriedly finished the work and returned to the cave.

I had collected four blocks of ice in total.

For now, I placed them inside the box, but once the stone icehouse was complete, I intended to store them there.

"There’s... plenty of time."

Now that I had finished collecting the ice, all that remained was the Frostbloom.

One might ask why I did not simply extract it inside the cave, but I had an idea.

The mature mandrake.

The mature mandrake was a plant that contained yang energy.

And I had heard that yang energy represented heat.

Therefore, wouldn’t boiling the cold-energy-filled Frostbloom together with the mature mandrake work?

Thud! Smack! Thump!

"Squeak! Skree! Gweck!"

And so, I beat the mature mandrake senseless.

This thing had to be beaten before it would behave.

Carrying the limp mature mandrake, I returned to the cave.

I then prepared a suitable pot and lit the campfire.

As soon as the fire was burning, I made a post on the Gallery.

Title: Combining a Frostbloom with a mature mandrake

Wild Grylls

(A photo of the battered mature mandrake)

(A photo of the Frostbloom before harvesting)

Wouldn’t combining these two work?

└ Heavenly Demon: The theory itself does not seem unsound. It is an appropriate combination of yang and yin.

└ Wild Grylls: Right?

└ Starlight Princess: As the Heavenly Demon said, the theory isn’t bad. Although it does seem a little... crude.

└ Wild Grylls: Should I put them both in a pot and boil them together?

└ Starlight Princess: That would probably be best. Extracting their essences would somewhat weaken their energies, so boiling them raw may actually work better.

└ Wild Grylls: Understood.

Now that I had received permission from an expert, I harvested the Frostbloom.

Fortunately, human body heat did not appear to affect it, and it retained its original shape.

Now I put them in together...

I added a little water as well. That should allow their properties to seep out like a broth.

Once I covered the pot with its lid, all the preparations were complete.

Now I merely had to wait.

I did not forget to check periodically for anything unusual.

└ Wild Grylls:(Video showing the Frostbloom and mature mandrake still unchanged) Nothing has changed yet. The Frostbloom hasn’t even melted.

└ Starlight Princess: That’s probably because they’re both rare medicinal plants. You should wait patiently.

If I opened the lid, the mandrake’s screams would fill the entire cave.

I left it as it was and hurriedly asked the Gallery for advice.

How long would I have to simmer them before something changed?

I added another piece of firewood.

I wanted to work on something else, but I had no idea what might happen if I left the pot unattended.

And so I sat there, staring into the fire.

Clatter!

The pot’s lid suddenly began rattling.

"Skreeeeeeee!!"

The mandrake’s scream rang out from inside it.

Had it awakened after enough time had passed?

That would be a serious problem.

Do I need to beat it unconscious again?

I pressed down on the lid to prevent the mature mandrake from bursting out.

└ Wild Grylls:(Video of screams coming from the pot) I think the mandrake woke up. What should I do? I’m holding the lid shut for now.

└ Starlight Princess: Letting it continue screaming isn’t good either. Even if it’s risky, you should knock it unconscious again.

└ Wild Grylls: Understood.

After receiving the expert’s advice, I took a deep breath.

I would have to time this perfectly.

The mature mandrake did not scream continuously. It only shrieked intermittently.

It would fall silent and then begin screaming again.

Therefore, I had to act during one of the quiet intervals.

"Skreeeeeeee!!"

Before long, the mandrake screamed once more.

I waited until it fell silent, then immediately removed the lid.

And what I saw was—

"What the hell is this?"

The mature mandrake had turned completely blue.

Its face was so blue that it looked dead, yet it was clearly alive and thrashing around.

It had originally been red, so its sudden transformation into blue was even more bewildering.

Did they fuse instead of combine?

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