Chapter 91: Planning and the Scale

Wade gained a skeleton carpenter companion, a soul that had truly immersed itself in the carpenter’s path for many years now inhabiting this body. Compared to this expert, Wade could only be considered a novice in woodworking.  

After awakening the carpenter, Wade returned to the cave entrance.  

With a true expert at hand, his first thought was to have the carpenter examine his house for any possible improvements.  

The skeleton carpenter observed the cave entrance, then crawled inside to explore further.  

After watching for a while, it began moving the thorny branches Wade had stuck on both sides of the cave.  

The skeleton carpenter took some wood strips from areas that were too tightly packed and relocated them to nodes that needed more support.  

Its furniture-making experience allowed it to know which structures were more stable.  

In these times, a carpenter took on many varied jobs. Often, carpenters were involved in the design and construction of houses and basements, so they could be considered half-house designers.  

The skeleton carpenter managed to save several thorny branches, sat down, and began weaving them together. It bent the flexible long wooden strips, then wedged short strips at the load-bearing points to create arched support frames.  

Without needing a ruler, relying purely on experience, the skeleton carpenter quickly produced three suitable arched support frames. The carpenter placed these frames respectively at the cave entrance, inside, and the back, acting like beams that supported the cave.  

These modifications saved space and made the cave more stable, far more reasonable and effective than Wade’s crude method of simply sticking wooden strips into the sides.  

Wade communicated mentally with the carpenter and asked whether the cave could be expanded further and if enlarging it would increase the risk of collapse.  

The carpenter replied that upward expansion would be difficult, but it was possible to dig downward, excavating a deeper rectangular large cavity, then simultaneously digging and refining the four walls to create an arched load-bearing basement.  

Through his communication with the carpenter, Wade understood how the Tanians dug basements.  

In those cold regions, many people dug places like cellars and basements to store food and wine. If wood was scarce nearby, locals even lived in semi-underground turf houses.  

Those turf houses were only half above ground, with the real sleeping and living areas covered by about a meter of soil and easily obtainable turf. Even sheepfolds were built underground, with people and sheep sharing the same space to withstand the cold winters.  

The carpenter seemed adept at designing such basements. These were not simple dug-out caves but comprehensive constructions combining excavation, stone stacking, wood framing, and soil covering.  

However, Wade was still worried about the sandy soil material here and whether it would make the basement prone to collapse.  

He asked about this concern, and during their mental exchange, the carpenter gave a precise answer.  

The land on this wasteland was not as fragile and loose as Wade had imagined.  

From the carpenter’s perspective, this soil was very suitable for digging basements downward.  

Although there was a lot of sand and dust on the surface of the wasteland, it was not a complete desert.  

Most of the soil was original loess, untransported and deposited by water flow.  

Moreover, based on what the carpenter observed while modifying the cave, the soil here was deep and fairly uniform, showing visible vertical textures overall.  

The reason the cave felt unstable was that it was still within the sandy layer, but the soil at the cave bottom was no longer sandy or gravelly.  

The places truly unsuitable for basement excavation were those with loose sandy soil or hard rock layers. This loess, neither too soft nor too hard, was actually very suitable for digging.  

The biggest problem for basements was waterproofing, but Wade had stayed here a long time without seeing rain once. The moisture was pitifully scarce, so waterproofing could probably be neglected.  

Wade considered the feasibility of the carpenter’s plan. The current cave was indeed too narrow and crude.  

One could not even stand upright, and the stability was worrying.  

Natural caves within sandy layers were easy to collapse and could not withstand strong winds.  

With the conditions for modification, he was naturally willing to improve his home.  

He was no longer alone. Once he found suitable bodies, he could have as many as fifty souls working with him.  

As long as Wade was willing, they were an absolutely united construction team, with no communication troubles.  

More people meant more strength; materials and tools for modification could be handled by transport and manual crafting.  

There also needed to be a place to store the souls’ bodies; they could not all sleep outside where their bodies would easily be damaged.  

Without hesitation, Wade instructed the skeleton carpenter to plan and list the roughly needed wood, stone, and tools.  

Wade planned to make a trip to the Skeleton Sands, the place where skeletons often emerged, to gather as many bodies as possible and increase the workforce.  

The carpenter’s soul temporarily left its body and returned to Wade’s mental space, joining the other souls to calculate together.  

During this time, feeling tired, Mia returned to her small bed and fell asleep.  

That body sat against the wall. Wade did not leave alone; he planned to wait for Mia to rest well before taking her to the sands. Since the renovation plan was not yet finalized, there was no need to rush.  

He blocked the cave entrance with stones again and lay down on the cloth mat.  

He sensed a change in his mental space and wanted to go see.  

Like Mia, Wade entered a dormant state and arrived at the pure white space.  

This place felt several times larger than before. The glowing dots of souls gathered in corners, communicating with each other. Because Wade needed a basement renovation plan, the carpenter began exchanging ideas with the other souls.  

Besides the carpenter, there were other souls skilled at building houses.  

Wade did not disturb them. His attention first went to the twenty-sided die, still floating as always. Wade grabbed the die, and the twenty-first face—his heart—turned gray-white again.  

It would take time before going out again; that doorframe had returned to a blank frame.  

This time, Mia seemed not to need Wade’s help digesting the necromancer souls. The parts she had taken were incomplete anyway. Most of Quasimodo’s soul had been taken by the Flame Demon, leaving only a small portion she could digest herself.  

After she finished digestion, she would feedback some part to Wade.  

These parts had not changed since the last time they came here.  

The biggest change was a new object beside the doorframe—a small scale…  

A seemingly ordinary silver scale with trays hanging on both sides, like the precise scales Wade remembered used for weighing expensive spices sold by the gram.  

The scale floated next to the doorframe. As with the doorframe’s appearance here, Wade seemed to understand the scale’s purpose.  

Placing something on the left side to weigh it, if the value was sufficient, something like an “exchange” could be obtained on the right side.  

But not everything could be weighed.  

Wade silently looked at his palm. The three transparent crystals floated there in his hand.  

An intuition as natural as breathing told him he could bring the crystals the Grudging Spirits had gifted him here and use these crystals for “exchanges.”