Homesteading in a fantasy world

The entire time we were moving back to the farm my mind was on what David had told me. This world's technology was at a higher level than I first thought but not on the technology side but more thanks to the fantasy side.

Apparently, when you reach a certain power level the world truly opens up for you and you get access to a lot more interesting gadgets and tools that bridge the gap between Earth technology and this one.

For instance, there are communication devices that would work similarly to modern texting even allowing for group chats and there are other fascinating gadgets.

Then there are of course bookkeeping books that keep track of everything and everyone you want and by the descriptions and examples that David gave those devices can be extremely efficient and even better than Earth systems of tracking things.

There are some things called ledger books that can be made to keep track of huge quantities of stuff even more than the book's size would explain. Those can be then connected with other books which could use some or all the information from the first book to add to its output. It all reminded me of programming.

You could have books in every village where people put their collected food numbers and that information would be transferred to the archives of the kingdom where you would have perfect records of the amount of food collected in the Kingdom.

Of course, this would be quite expensive, and you would need people with certain abilities to make it work. Still, I was impressed by the ingenuity and was again reminded that people are still people and if you give them enough time and resources, they can come up with anything.

When we made it back to the farm the first thing we did was go to the barn and deal with the animals but after that, I had a problem that needed solving. There would be people coming to this farm, but I wanted to hide certain things. That meant I needed a good place for that and how could I half-ass it? I had an idea a while back and I guess it’s time to start actually doing that.

While my apprentices are doing their own thing and also preparing the sauna for today, I went into the root cellar and to the side where the potatoes were. I was so happy that I didn’t need any living fire to see but could use the dungeon stone and my eyes to see everything like it was daylight down here. I planned to make a room that was underneath the cellar that would have a secret entrance this way I could store things that I wanted to keep hidden.

At the start, I instantly walked to the back and observed the floor where I wanted to start making the entrance, but I had to stop myself and think this through. The back of the cellar would be the first place someone would be looking and how would I hide the marks that there was an entrance right here on the floor? I walked around a bit thinking and then I was back at the entrance and came up with an idea that might work.

To my left side is a wall as soon as I opened the door and walked into the root cellar. Now, where would be the best place to hide a secret door that no one would think about? Right next to the entrance door.

There was another benefit if I made it into the wall. Behind the future secret door was dirt and after that the other root cellars wall but from the outside, this isn't visible. I would also want to make the door be a push-in so there wouldn't be any visible scraping on the floor that might indicate that there is a secret door in this location.

I also didn’t want to have any cut marks on the wall so the door will not be in the shape of a regular door but follow the edges of the stone bricks that make up the wall. I double-check my thinking before proceeding.

Taking out my knife and starting to concentrate on it to make it cut the stone apart where my merging joint ability joined the two different stone bricks when I was building the root cellar. This job was time-consuming because I wanted to be extremely careful so there wouldn’t be any visible marks that the rocks had been cut open again.

The hardest part wasn't finishing the cut it was getting the door out of the way so I could start digging out to dirt behind it. I wish I had suction cups but instead of those, I had to use my abilities creatively. I ended up making something similar to the roots that I used to kill the noble. I spread them behind the wall and then I was able to pull it out enough so I could lift it and put it to the side. I worked over the door again with my merging joints ability to make it as solid as possible.

Now it was time to do some digging but unfortunately, I also needed to bring out all the dirt that I was digging out. This was a long process of using sacks to get the dirt out and away from the root cellar so no one would notice visible dirt around it.

I didn’t make that room very big I can always expand it later on. Currently, I had taken away the dirt between the two root cellar walls so that the door would be able to be pushed in and then pushed to the side so there would be enough space to walk down the small ramp that led to the underground room.

There wasn't a lot of space between the two root cellar walls, but you could still walk without having to turn your body to the side which was good because I also needed to get all the items down there in a reasonable time. I had to put my job on hold as the day was already over and it was time to go to the sauna and get some relaxation.

The next day it was time to start working on the real problem and that was how the door mechanism would work. I wanted to make something that was simple yet would stand the test of time so all I was left to work with was rock.

In my head, I went through multiple different designs. With some, I was able to get close to the finished design but some stupid design elements that I couldn’t change would mess up everything.

In the end, I was left with a push design that required strength to achieve. I was completely fine with that. But to make this work I needed to bring in a lot more rocks and start to cut and merge them into the design I needed.

Basically, I was going to have to make another wall that has multiple rock shelves on it and then make grooves into the door so that when you pushed it in the shelves in a wall will guide the door as you keep pushing on it.

When the door was pushed in enough the shelves would be made in a shape so they would lift the door up a little bit and when it was clear of the inner wall you could start pushing it sideways and open a way into the underground room.

This took quite a lot of careful work but by lunchtime, I was finished. After lunch, it was time to put the finishing touches on the door. Those being a locking mechanism on the door so no one can accidentally push on this wall and just find the entrance by dumb luck.

Making some bricks that you could push down would be simple and again easy to find. What I wanted was to make that you needed to pull out the brick a certain distance so they would disengage the locking mechanism.

The locking mechanism would be quite simple. When you push in the bricks that would be shaped to lift up and push in place the locking bars that would make pushing in the door impossible. Well not impossible but you would need a lot of strength to pull it off.

That meant a bit more carving into the wall that surrounded the door. Then came some cutting and shaping of door bricks. In the end, I was left with a door where you needed to pull out four bricks to disengage the locking mechanism and then you can push the door inwards. Then push in the four bricks so you could push the door sideways to open up the passage to the underground room. To pull out the bricks I used the same method as I did with removing the door the first time just on a smaller scale.

I tested the door multiple times and one thing it wasn’t was silent. The grinding of stones was quite loud but other than that it was awesome perhaps, even more than just awesome. I could understand our ancestors a bit better. Making things like this was so satisfying. This build was so fun, and I can’t wait until next year when I will have enough time to hopefully build out the underground room and not just have a dirt hole that I’m calling a room.

I proceeded to bring in the mana orbs and most of the coins and a few other items that filled up most of the room. Thankfully I didn’t need to bring anything that was affected by the elements as this room was not good for that currently.