Chapter 29: Adjustment

By noon, the sun was at its highest, shining stronger than usual after the recent rain had settled the dust in the air.

After baking for a long time, Qin Tian and Ye Lin’s clothes had long since dried. Now dressed, they sat inside the wooden shed, sheltering from the harsh sunlight.

Under the scorching sun, the camp’s muddy ground began to dry. When the sunlight weakened slightly, Qin Tian and Ye Lin stepped out of the shed and started tidying the camp.

Though the camp looked messy, there wasn’t much to clean. Once the fallen wooden frame was thrown aside, the camp felt much tidier. The rest was just gathering the broken earthenware pots to prevent anyone from stepping on shards.

After finishing this, Qin Tian and Ye Lin moved everything stored inside the wooden shed out, sorting and arranging it carefully.

Among the items were dried wood pieces, though sadly, most had been soaked by last night’s rain. Qin Tian and Ye Lin each picked out the dry wood to store separately and stacked the wet wood under the sun to dry.

***

It was worth mentioning that while clearing the wood, Qin Tian discovered wild rabbits hiding within the pile.

Originally, Qin Tian had moved the rabbits’ cages into the wooden shed, assuming they had escaped after their cages were broken. Unexpectedly, they had taken refuge in the woodpile, likely because the chaos at the time prevented their escape.

There was no choice but for Qin Tian to make a new cage to contain the wild rabbits before continuing the inventory.

Besides the wood and rabbit cages, Qin Tian also stored jars containing lard soap, dried pork, and lard inside the shed. Unfortunately, the three jars had been shattered beyond repair by the wild boars trampling through.

The painstakingly rendered lard mixed with dirt was completely unusable; the lard soap was crushed into several chunks but still usable; and the dried pork, being hard by nature, remained intact.

For now, Qin Tian kept these three items in broken pottery shards.

Among the stored items, the most important bow limbs were intact and hadn’t been soaked by rain — truly a stroke of luck amid misfortune.

With so few things, Qin Tian and Ye Lin quickly finished their inventory.

***

There was no time to rest. They began shaping pottery from the previous night, having gone without drinking any water since then and already parched after so much work.

Lacking enough dry wood, they didn’t start a kiln. Instead, they dried the clay vessels under the sun before firing them directly in the campfire.

By the time the pottery was finished, night had fallen. After eating some dried pork, the two sat by the campfire to rest.

“Do you think that group of wild boars won’t come back tonight?” Ye Lin suddenly asked.

Recalling last night’s ordeal, Ye Lin felt as if it had all been a dream, so unreal.

Qin Tian, unaware of what she was thinking, reassured her, “Don’t worry, the noise from the boar herd running is so loud we can always avoid them ahead of time.”

Ye Lin fell silent.

Seeing this, Qin Tian sighed helplessly.

“Why are you sighing?” Ye Lin frowned at his expression. “I was just wondering what we’d do if it happens again.”

Her reaction startled Qin Tian. He almost forgot Ye Lin had grown. Yet he still treated her as fragile—his mistake.

Qin Tian smiled. “Have you thought of a good plan?”

“Only for a minute.” Ye Lin rolled her eyes.

“Then think harder. I’m going to sleep first.” Qin Tian lay back.

Ye Lin didn’t respond. Qin Tian closed his eyes.

Despite staying up all night and working through the day, exhaustion should have knocked Qin Tian out quickly. But it didn’t.

Last night’s events had left him on edge. As soon as he lay down, he tensed up, alert and restless, tossing and turning before finally falling asleep.

Ye Lin was less fortunate. She suffered the same, only worse.

Every time she closed her eyes, she saw the wild boar attack scenes flashing through her mind. She only dozed off in a haze just before dawn.

***

After heavy rain comes clear skies.

The next two days were bright and sunny, perfect for Qin Tian and Ye Lin to restore the camp to its pre-storm state.

During this time, they rebuilt the kiln and earthen stove with yellow clay and fired a large batch of pottery. They also built a smaller wooden shed to store miscellaneous items, so they wouldn’t have to move everything back inside the main shed when it rained.

By the third day, they had three clay bowls, five pots, two stone pots, five cups, a spoon, and a large clay jar.

Among these, three pots were dedicated to storing lard soap, dried pork, and daily drinking water. The large jar was for storing dried wood, preventing it from getting wet again.

***

By the fourth day, the camp was even better than before the rain. Qin Tian finally had time to work on his recurve bow.

He planned to finish it today. After breakfast, the two got busy, with Qin Tian making the bow limbs and Ye Lin crafting the bowstring.

Before making the bow limbs, Qin Tian placed the shaped limbs by the fire to bake off excess moisture, making the limbs more flexible and less prone to breaking.

Qin Tian had made three bow limbs, but the bow frame wasn’t just a simple matter of binding the three limbs together.

Setting the shortest limb aside, he overlapped the medium and longest limbs with the bamboo sides facing inward.

Due to the curve, the two limbs formed an inverted ‘X’, but one side was larger than the other.

Then, Qin Tian tied two loops of string, each the length of the difference between the bow arms.

He connected the bow arms with these loops, twisting the longer limb so the loops tightened into a coil of string, pressing the longer limb firmly against the longest limb.

Next, he took the shortest limb, clamped it on the outside, wrapped the handle with previously prepared wild rabbit skin, and bound the three limbs securely with string.

With that, the recurve bow’s frame was complete.

Exhaling a breath, Qin Tian put the frame aside and looked at Ye Lin. “How’s the bowstring coming along?”

Ye Lin was weaving string and a white fiber together. The white fiber wasn’t just anything—it was tendon threads from a pig’s leg, softened and pulled apart.

Ordinary string could serve as a bowstring but lacked toughness and was prone to snapping. The pig tendon’s flexibility perfectly compensated for that weakness.

“Halfway done.” Ye Lin answered.

The bowstring needed to be thin and uniform, weaving two materials tightly together. There was no rush; otherwise, Ye Lin wouldn’t have spent so long.

“All right, call me when it’s ready.” Qin Tian stood and slipped into the nearby woods to search for arrow-making materials.

According to the Wildcraft Compendium, the best wood for arrows was a shrub called Six Dao Wood, but Qin Tian had no idea what it looked like. After wandering around, he could only gather a bunch of straight branches as a substitute.

Making arrows was much simpler than making bows.

Qin Tian stripped the bark off each branch, then smoothed the surface with his dagger to ensure the shaft was even and wouldn’t snag on the bow arms during shooting.

After preparing them one by one, Qin Tian sharpened one end into arrowheads with the dagger, carved notches on the other end, and split leaves in half to bind with string around the shaft as fletching.

Just as Qin Tian finished making the arrows, Ye Lin completed the bowstring. Qin Tian immediately strung it onto the bow frame, and at that moment, a notification sounded:

“Ding — Host has crafted a Recurve Bow, gaining 2000 Points!”

***

Perfect! Hearing the Points gained, Qin Tian clenched his fist. Now with 11,000 Points, he had enough to redeem a talent.

“Looks pretty good.” Ye Lin commented, unaware of Qin Tian’s excitement as she looked at the recurve bow in his hands. “I just wonder if it actually works.”

“Try and see.” Qin Tian withdrew his thoughts, took some charcoal from the campfire, and drew a target mark on a tree about ten meters away.

Returning to the camp, Qin Tian nocked an arrow and took a deep breath before slowly drawing the string.

After so many days of effort, the bow frame was quite successful.

As he drew, he felt the bow’s power.

The longest limb bent as he pulled, then the string loops engaged the second limb for a second phase of tension—this mechanism allowed the recurve bow to maximize power regardless of the limb lengths.

Aiming at the bullseye, Qin Tian released the arrow. A sharp whistle pierced the air as the arrow flew.

“Hit!” Qin Tian murmured.

To both their delight, the arrow struck the target, avoiding the tree trunk and disappearing between the branches.

At that moment, Qin Tian felt as if a crow had just flown overhead.

“First time’s awkward.” Qin Tian cleared his throat, nocked a second arrow, and shot again—still missing the mark.

Only then did he realize that shooting was easy, but hitting the target was not.

Silence fell. After a moment, Qin Tian nocked a third arrow—still missing, but closer.

On the fourth shot, he took a long aim. Though he missed the bullseye, the arrow struck the tree trunk.

Going from missing to hitting the target was a huge improvement.

To familiarize himself with the bow’s tension points, from the fifth arrow onward, Qin Tian paused long before releasing.

Gradually, his accuracy improved. While not perfect, it was far better than before.

After just ten arrows, Qin Tian had used them all.

***

Sheathing the bow, Qin Tian and Ye Lin approached the tree.

Qin Tian had hit the target with five arrows; three fell to the ground, and two pierced the tree trunk shallowly, indicating he hadn’t used full force.

Ye Lin frowned as she looked at the tree. “Is the power a bit weak?”

All five arrows left only shallow dents, and even the two embedded arrows barely scratched the bark—less than a centimeter deep.

Ye Lin understood the significance of having a bow and arrows for their survival. Yet, after all this time spent crafting the recurve bow, its power was so limited.

“Why the long face?” Qin Tian held an arrowhead, unable to suppress a smile. “For practice arrows, this power is already quite good.”

Hearing this, Ye Lin glanced at the arrows and noticed their tips were completely dulled.

“These arrows are just for practice—they have high moisture content and soft texture,” Qin Tian explained. “If we switch to dry wood for the shafts and properly sharpen the tips, their power will easily double!”