Chapter 72: Building the Post Station

The same logic applies to berry meat soup.

As for premium meat and gourmet meat, their quantities are the same as regular large cuts of meat. However, when used in cooking, the difference is that the resulting dishes taste better, restore more hunger, and have a small chance of granting a beneficial aura.

Thinking about all these cooking recipes suddenly reminded Su You that she still had a copy of [Advanced Cooking Skill Book] stashed away in her chest.

Since she didn’t have any cooking talent herself (physically incapable), and she certainly wasn’t going to become the territory’s chef in the future, she’d just left the skill book untouched… She’d almost forgotten it existed.

Although there were now four people in the territory, none of them had any cooking-related talents. Even though cooking skills weren’t particularly useful at the moment, Su You didn’t want to waste the skill book… After all, it was an advanced one.

Giving it to a random NPC with no talent would be a waste; she might as well sell it for some money.

So after thinking it over, Su You decided to keep the skill book for now. When the tavern refreshes in a couple of days, she’d see if she could recruit an NPC with some cooking talent. That way, someone else could handle the cooking, and she wouldn’t have to do it every time.

...

Once everything that needed to be crafted was done, Su You rummaged through the chest next to the bounty board.

Besides the tools she’d put in there, there was also the wood that Lake had collected while she was out with the wooden cart. Su You counted and found nearly two hundred pieces of wood.

“My lord?”

Just then, as Su You was counting the wood, Lyle returned with another batch he’d just chopped.

He was pushing a wooden cart—something Su You had given him permission to craft at the workbench before she left the territory.

Before they had the cart, Lake and Lyle had to carry everything by hand, which was obviously inefficient. Now, with the cart, their efficiency had increased several times over.

Looking at the cart, Su You asked, “About how much wood is here?”

Lake thought for a moment and then gave her a number.

“Around seventy pieces… If that’s not enough, my lord, I can go chop more right now.”

Seventy pieces, plus the nearly one hundred ninety in the chest… That was plenty.

Su You shook her head and told him to take a break.

Having someone keep working after collecting over two hundred pieces of wood would be too much, even if materials were scarce—Su You wasn’t that heartless.

“Chopping trees is important, but you should rest first. Otherwise, your efficiency drops and it’s counterproductive.” NPCs’ chopping speed also depends on their stamina, so Su You preferred efficient, well-paced work over long hours at low efficiency.

“I’ve put the newly made copper tools in here. Use these from now on—stone tools are retired for now.”

“Understood.”

“Go ahead and turn in your quest. I’ll be able to build two more structures soon.”

Lake nodded and submitted all the wood from the cart, earning 14 copper coins. With what he’d saved up before, he now had 82 copper coins.

After he finished, Su You took all the wood out of the chest and went to the workbench to start crafting materials.

While Su You was crafting, everyone had lunch together. After lunch, they all went back to their respective tasks.

Duoya was still resting due to her hand injury. After lunch, Dory followed Su You’s instructions and continued gathering fiber. Lake, after a short break, returned to the mines to dig for stone. Lyle, upon learning the territory was short on wood, grabbed a copper axe and went back out to chop trees nearby.

As for Su You herself, seeing that the territory was running low on whetstones and with no one else available, she planned to go out and dig up some whetstone and sandstone once the materials were ready and the buildings were placed.

Su You brought the materials to the appropriate workbenches and began synthesizing.

The most troublesome thing about Sunset Continent was this: gathering resources wasn’t hard—just chop and dig. Synthesizing resources wasn’t hard either—just toss them on the workbench. But it all took a lot of time.

Synthesizing a single material might only take a minute or two, but when you have a lot, it adds up to ten or twenty minutes. And because you need to synthesize so many times, it effectively increases the workload.

Plus, because of the material tier system… Tier 2 materials must be synthesized from Tier 1, and Tier 3 from Tier 2. You can’t just use a bunch of Tier 1 materials to make Tier 3 directly, which makes the process even more tedious.

Fortunately, the workbenches in Sunset Continent can be placed and used simultaneously. Otherwise, just synthesizing materials would keep Su You busy for ages.

Originally, Su You only had three basic workbenches, plus a portable one, for a total of four. But now that things were getting busy, she made two more and set them up.

Now, next to the territory’s heartfire, there was a whole row of busy workbenches—a pretty impressive sight.

If she had more people, Su You would definitely assign someone just to watch over the workbenches…

She didn’t know how long she waited, but at last, Su You got the materials she needed.

【Obtained Planks x10】

【Obtained Stone Bricks x10】

With the materials in hand, Su You pulled up the building she wanted to construct and began adjusting its placement.

She walked over to the spot opposite the tavern—this was a central axis formed by the heartfire and the gate, a spot symmetrical to the tavern.

After careful measurement and adjustment, Su You placed the building.

【Consume Planks x10, Stone Bricks x10 to build Post Station?】

【Constructing: Post Station. Estimated time: 600 minutes】

With the tavern and the post station, the left and right sides of the territory now had landmark buildings.

With these landmarks, Su You no longer had to worry about misaligned construction.

She then took out another set of materials, ready to build the warehouse she’d been wanting.

【Consume Planks x10, Stone Bricks x5 to build Level 1 Warehouse?】

【Constructing: Level 1 Warehouse. Estimated time: 120 minutes】

Just these two buildings used up a full 240 pieces of wood and 60 pieces of stone. The 260 pieces of wood she’d just collected were instantly reduced to a tenth of that.

Good thing Lake and Lyle were so efficient at gathering materials, and that Su You had Dory stop collecting fiber and switch to chopping wood. Otherwise, she really wouldn’t have been able to get both buildings done today.

(End of Chapter)"

"73. Organizing the Warehouse

After finishing a round of construction, Su You grabbed her copper pickaxe and headed to the sandstone resource point...

...

...

By evening, Su You had already mentioned that they’d be having something nice for dinner and had even sent Dolly out to collect berries. So, she came back from the stone monsters a bit earlier than usual, ready to start prepping dinner as soon as she returned to the territory.

There was no other choice—Dolly was a well-known kitchen disaster. As for the other three, maybe Duoya could cook, but with her injured hand, even a five-star chef would be out of commission.

As for Lake and Lyle, neither of them had any cooking talent. Of course, not having talent doesn’t mean you can’t cook at all, but to avoid wasting ingredients, Su You decided to handle it herself.

She’d promised a good meal, but with limited ingredients, the best she could manage was something like berry meat stew or grilled meat.

Even though the variety of ingredients was limited—just meat and berries—the quality of the ingredients made up for it.

With blue-quality premium meat, even if you accidentally overcook it, the flavor is still top-notch.

Su You picked out some of the meat she’d collected earlier and made it all into grilled meat, skewers, jerky, and similar items to extend their shelf life.

As for the premium meat dropped by the black-striped tiger, Su You set some aside for the berry meat stew, but didn’t turn the rest into jerky like the other meats, even though it would last longer that way.

Jerky keeps for a long time, but the downside is that it’s not very cost-effective, and no matter how good the ingredients are, turning them into jerky won’t give any extra attributes. So making jerky out of premium meat would just be a waste.

“Lord, is there anything I can help with?” Lyle, who had just finished chopping wood and was heading back to rest, saw Su You busy by the hearth and offered to help.

Su You glanced at him, handed him a wooden spoon, and motioned for him to keep an eye on the heat.

“This is stew. It’ll be ready in about half an hour. Remember to stir it every few minutes so it doesn’t burn on the bottom.” With a recipe, Su You could have just used the workbench to make food automatically, but food made at the workbench doesn’t get any bonus attributes.

Otherwise, if workbench-made food had extra attributes, there’d be no point in NPCs having cooking skills—Su You could just build dozens or hundreds of workbenches and do it all herself.

“Alright.” Lyle took Su You’s place and kept an eye on the stew.

Even though it was just a simple meat stew, the addition of sweet and tart berries gave the copper pot a delicious aroma—a mix of meaty richness and fruity tang—that made everyone’s mouth water.

Even though Lyle wasn’t all that hungry, he couldn’t help but swallow as the smell teased his senses.

With someone watching the pot, Su You had some free time and started moving everything from the wooden crates into the warehouse.

There were still thirty minutes until dinner—plenty of time for Su You to get the warehouse fully organized before the stew was done.

While sorting the warehouse, Su You glanced at the workbench, grabbed some wooden planks, and built a third residential house next to the post station.

Residential House 1 was for Dolly and Duoya, Residential House 2 for Lyle and Lake, so naturally, Residential House 3 would be for Su You herself.

Technically, as the city (territory) lord, Su You had a special building called the “City Lord’s Mansion” she could live in, but due to lack of materials, she couldn’t build it yet, so she’d have to make do with a regular house for now.

Once House 3 was built, Su You got to work organizing the warehouse.

...

The bulk of the inventory was basic resources, which took up the most space. So, all the wood, stone, fiber, and other basic materials that had been stored in the wooden crates were moved into the warehouse.

Besides the basic resources, Su You also moved all the food into the warehouse, since it had a function to slow down spoilage.

While moving supplies, Su You took the opportunity to take stock of what the territory currently had.

First, the commonly used basic materials: Branches x58, Bark x74, Charcoal x74, Ash x19, Wood x124, Wood Blocks x14, Pebbles x26, Stone x8, Fiber Scraps x957, Twine x4, Sandstone x98.

Then, the food: Small Grilled Meat x3, Berry Grilled Meat x15, Small Jerky x8, Large Jerky x20, Large Cuts of Meat x13, Premium Meat x47.

Looking at all this, Su You was grateful that the warehouse had a stacking limit of 100, so items that would have taken up over thirty slots only used a bit more than twenty.

Even so, the once-empty warehouse was now more than half full.

With supplies on hand, the foundation for survival was set. Seeing the well-stocked warehouse finally gave Su You a sense of security.

Of course, this wasn’t all the territory’s resources—there were still other items, like wild boar tusks, deer antlers, animal hides, sinew, copper ingots, and so on, that weren’t stored in the warehouse.

The reason was simple: since there weren’t many of these items, keeping them in the wooden crates was enough. There was no need to waste a warehouse slot (with its 100-stack limit) on them.

With the warehouse now holding all the bulk materials, Su You reorganized the two wooden crates by the hearth.

One would hold tools, the other miscellaneous materials.

Now that they had plenty of stone—and even copper ingots—Su You was able to replenish all the tools they’d been missing.

Currently, the territory’s tools were roughly as follows:

Stone Axe x1, Stone Pickaxe x2, Stone Shovel x1, Stone Hammer x1, Stone Knife x2, Stone Hoe x2, Portable Copper Lantern x1, Copper Axe x2, Copper Pickaxe x2, Whetstone x12.

Except for special items like whetstones, all other tools couldn’t be stacked, so it was necessary to have a separate crate just for tools.

However, the tools in this crate were mostly old or rarely used ones.

The copper axes and copper pickaxes, for example, were kept in the crate bound to the bounty board (Crate 3).

Speaking of the bounty board, now that they’d discovered a mine and had a basic resource cycle going in the territory, the tasks on the board had also changed.

[Take Care of the Fields]

Posted by: Lord

Objective: Tend the fields (0/4)

Reward: 5 copper coins

Required Tools: None

[Collect Wood] (Repeatable)

Posted by: Lord

Objective: Submit wood (0/10)

Reward: 1 copper coin

Required Tools: Copper Axe (To borrow this tool, pay a 2-copper usage fee and a 30-copper deposit; deposit will be refunded when the tool is returned.)

(End of Chapter)"

"Here’s a fluent, natural English translation of your text:

---