2024-08-23 20:34:12There are plenty of solar panels among the scraps. On top of them, he is going to buy new ones along with an inverter to power his grandfather’s house. From what he remembered, it is a very remote island. So much so, even these days, they had to live like primitive people.
His grandmother and grandfather have electricity allowance. Getting an electricity station to their island is too expensive, so they were given an electricity subsidy by the government. Ofcourse, it is barely enough to buy and maintain a solar panel to keep a light bulb on. With what Eric had on his hand, he could probably light up their island like a christmas tree.
Behind his grandmother’s back, his grandfather sent him his wishlist, along with cash.
Eric noticed the machines his grandfather asked for all had something to do with his complaints last time he went. A mud crawler, so that they could drive on the mud flats easily. Iron mesh to keep out mosquitoes, and few odds and ends which are needed to repair the machines, and a boat with an engine.
The rest are fine, but the boat is quite fancy. His grandfather should not have had the cash or connections to buy such a good boat !
Eric mused for a moment there, but there is no problem with storing the boat, so its ownership should not have any problems either.
His mother, listening to him, listed up all the items she really wanted to take with her.
Water buckets, cooling boxes, plastic boxes, barrels of gasoline, gigantic industrial canners and racks for making dried fish, a home sized desalination plant. No wonder his mother had to tone it down.
At the end of the day, the most important among these was the desalination plant. Technically speaking, the weight of these items is small. All of these could be carried on the train save for the gasoline barrels, but he had a feeling his mother added it just for the laughs.
“ Mom ! Can I really buy them all ? “ he asked, looking at the list surprised.
“ Sure, if you can carry, buy them all. “ she told him.
Eric checked the solar distillers online. The one he liked most was the one which worked as a rain catcher as well as sea water distiller. The rain is aplenty on the island. It’s just that they have to be able to store it well. Except for gasoline, he really bought them all. Then, to his surprise, his mother helped him buy the barrels of gasoline.
“ I will have my friend transport them all. He’s doing me a favor. He already has a big customer in the area, we just need to transport manually for the last leg of the journey. “ Eric told her.
His mother believed him.
Now, his general shopping is all done, he focused on the very last item. A composite bow that could kill wild boars. What is the point of being a player if he is not hunting and fighting ? Moreover, wild boars can be hunted any time.
Now came the testing of the second part of his legendary digitization skill.
First, he opened the disassembly game. Every last machine he cleared up as trash could be disassembled in this game. He continued to disassemble the pieces, piling them up in piles of plastic, iron and chemical piles roughly.
Once he collected enough trash, he moved to another game, recycling the items. In the end, he had enough iron and titanium to make a compound bow with a hundred pounds of draw. He dedicatedly banged away at the iron in his shop, till he made the perfect bow. Once he’s done, he’s ready for the real world test.
His heart beating like a drum, his eyes full of anticipation, he opened the item box.
He put his hand in, held the compound bow, then drew it out.
‘ Yes ! Yesssssssss! Oh, Yeah ! ‘
He screamed internally like a fan girl as he held the glistening black bow, which he named Malor. Malor also comes with tungsten alloy arrows, which can penetrate a rhinoceros, much less a wild boar.
Now, he is all ready.
The next day, they set off to the island, with high speed rail, and five different ferry stops. No wonder mother tones down the items she brings every time, Eric thought as he boarded the last boat, which felt too small to be sailing on open sea.
Their family owns more than two thousand acres of tidal flats, along with a volcanic island. The entire island has five acres of tilling land, just enough to produce food for three to two families. The volcano rumbles all the time, but there is nary a hot spring in sight.
It is only after getting down at the island Eric realized his grandfather had agreed to film a documentary about the never ending poverty of islanders. It can not be said to be wrong. Despite owning thousands of acres of land, at least technically, his grandfather was dirt poor. He is too poor to hire labor, he is too poor to ship the goods … even getting basic necessities had to be budgeted carefully.
It is for this reason his grandfather transferred his entire filming f*e to buy the boat. Even that boat was sold to him a bit like charity, for a rich second generation knew about this documentary, so he sold his out of style fishing boat cheaply.
They got down at the small pier in the morning. After two hours of walking, they reached his grandfather’s house. It was barely a shack. The filming crew asked permission to film.
“ If you are paying the same amount of compensation, I will allow you to film, otherwise no. “ Eric told them bluntly.
“ Eric Song ! “ his mother chided him for his rudeness, but she did not change his words.
The film crew muttered among themselves.
While they were doing that, Eric decided to choose a campsite and set up tents for them to live in temporarily rather than occupy the bed in his grandfather’s house.
The first thing he did was bring out all his cosmetic creams. First, he applied moisturizer all over his body, then, he applied sunscreen to his face, neck and ears. Everywhere else, he applied insect repellant, making sure not to miss an inch of his body. Once he was done, he repeated the process for his sister.
His grandmother watched him intently.
“ Grandma ! Come here. Apply moisturizer. “ he called her.
Looking at his slick operation, the film crew started puffing like a steam train. They must get it ! the contrast between the grandson from S-city, and the poor conditions of the grandma are in such contrast, they must get it !
“ Grand pa ! Apply sunscreen. “ Eric called after his grandfather.
“ What sun shade and water cream ?! I am a man, the sun won’t kill me ! The water cream is for girls. “ his grandfather denied outright.
Eric looked at his little sister and winked. There’s not a soul in their family that’s not a sucker for his little sister.
“ Grampa ! Grampa ! Mimi has too much moisturizer. Can you help ? “ Mimi wiggled in front of his grandfather.
As expected, his grandfather kneeled down. Mimi put moisturizer on his face and hands with her little hands.
Eric followed behind her, and sprayed his grandfather with sunscreen.
The filming crew could not bear it any more. The grandfather is having trouble buying rice, while the grandson splurges on imported sunscreen. How could they miss such a good frame ?
Eric only started his work after all the documents were signed and payment was put in his account.
First, he went to the beach. The house is near the beach, but this beach is not appropriate for the boats to come through. Their entire island is like a gigantic oval pie chart, with 0.1 % of it being above sea level. The five acres of the farmland, and the jutting out volcano form this little piece of land. The pier is inside a sea cave which forms a slight crack on the right side of the volcanic mountain. The deep water bay allows even docking of a full blown steamer cargo ship, but … you have to walk from there to the house of his grandfather, which is on the open beach.
This time around, Eric walked straight to the open beach with three gigantic buckets and three umbrella-like things in his hand. He set up the rain catcher plus desalination umbrella, setting up a bucket in the bottom. Then, pretending to be filling sea water in the can, he let it into his item box, released the sea water into the undercarriage bag. By the time night is through, they should have plenty of water.
The film crew, who thought and planned a series of unfilial, prodigal and incompetent looked on with open mouths.
“ Grand son ! What is this ? “ one of the directors asked curiously, filming all angles of this water maker.
“ It’s the latest water maker which is being tried out in Africa. The sea water is filled in the undercarriage bag. When it evaporates, it catches on the transparent film here. If there’s rain, it’s even better. The rain gathers in the transparent bag, going down to the water buckets underneath. It’s easy to clean even for an old person. “ he explained to the shocked crew.
He smiled inside looking at their betrayed expressions.
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39 - The boat
[ Host player does not have necessary permissions needed to make this change. ] Mona replied in a monotone. ‘ Fine. whatever. ‘ Eric groused, before starting on the day’s work. Today's task is to weld the boat, and take it to the sea. He was going to live broadcast the entire process of boat making, plus taking it to the sea. He is making a flat bottom boat, with side boards. Simply put, it’s a giant floating box, in the shape of a boat. He took Woooldridge Rogue boat as the inspiration. Which is just right for him, given the lagoon was previously made of mudflats, and in some areas, the height of water could be as low as one feet. The first task is to weld the aluminum sheets together to make the base. Eric attached two bicycle wheels on two ends of a bamboo beam. The frame is tightly tied by rope. Then, they put the frame on the flattest boulder they could find, secured it by putting most weighty rocks on it. He and his grandfather hauled over the aluminum base onto the top of
38 - Rename
“ Your highness, you wanna come and say hello to Island channel’s viewers ? “ Eric asked. Mimi skipped over to him with ballet steps.“ Hello, citizens of Arendelle. Morning greetings to you all. “ she greeted, then skipped back up to the pavilion with one twirl at each step. [ daughter_slave999 ] : Wow ! She is so cute ! [ tablefor11 ] : Children are so happy anywhere. Which idiot said she was abused ! [ nonaMakers ] : A fine morning to you too, your highness. How is the ice production going ? Will it be enough to make a milkshake any time soon ? [ ttt_ioeil ] : Seems you are back to normal life. I am happy for you dude. “ Thanks guys. We will finish unpacking after breakfast. First, we will install the rope lift in the bay. Hopefully, we can go to the sea today. “ Eric informed the guys on the broadcast. Eric’s grandfather took over the screen after that. The last bag is unpacked in front of the audience. [ Aluminium sheets x 10 ] [ Welding tools x 20 ] [ Welding powder x
37 - Quest Altar
Eric just returned as the live barrage was full of activity. Chills ran on his spine as he looked at their conversation about the house. To be truthful, he made the bricks on planet Kepler, and the cement too. Fortunately, the island really did have a cave. They really used to store soy sauce and the materials there. There was some oyster shell cement there. Eric used that little bit of it to just give a dab on the house, giving it an effect of being built with oyster shell cement. ‘ I have such good foresight. ‘ he gave a pat on head for himself. The living though, he had been worrying about it too. His grandfather was finally able to catch one sentence at this time. So, he answered instead of Eric. “ My grandson says, we will buy a helicopter in the future. “ he told the audience. [ fans ] : ???“ and we will run a hotel. “ [ fans ] : ?????!!!Eric smiled at his grandfather’s succinctness. He took the phone to himself. “ Hello dear viewers, I am back. “ Eric said, looking a
36 - how to make a living
Eric and family finished their daily routine, then Eric habitually turned on his phone for the live broadcast. He has monetized his channel since the first day he began constructing the house. He was shocked to find the subscriber count increased significantly, and the donations are on the rise. After some searching, he realized the reason is because of the weatherman who came in the morning. The comments in the live stream are all worrying for his family. Eric reassured them. “ Everyone, please do not worry. We have a freshwater supply. People can live up to three months on just water. Even the heavens will run out of water if they want to keep raining for three months, right ? “ Eric said a bit cheekily, as he jumped from one of the boulders to another. The supply drop fell right in the middle of the boulder basin. It looked like a flower fallen among dinosaur eggs from this high up. Eric speeded up towards the supply crate. If not for his stat increased physique, he almost cou
35 - the house
After the departure of the filming team, Eric was able to work freely. He entered the Factorio game, removed the mines. When he adds a game building feature to a real piece of land, that area becomes inaccessible in reality. The others, like his family, instinctively avoid the place. When they were forced to enter, they … felt like they hit a barrier. As soon as he was done with the little experiment, he opened the laptop. He switched the game to home builder. He has more than enough wood, limestone, iron and iron plates. He simply used the production games to create bricks, then smelt the iron into rods he needed. Almost all apocalyptic games offered some kind of brick making, yet, he chose to make his bricks in the Dyson Sphere program, choosing planet kepler 452-b. By now, he has grasped the reality conversion feature roughly. When he places an iron mining drill on a random digitized area, as long as the AI could find iron in any digitized part of that planet, iron can and wil
34 - Filming Closes
His return was as silent as his departure.However, that all changed when he brought out the treasure chests. “ How ? “ his grandmother breathed in, with wonder and disbelief on her face. “ The cove forming the bay is also raised in elevation, grandma. Water receded from their resting place. But … Do you know these chests ? “ he asked curiously. When he retrieved them, he thought they belonged to the game system that made him a player. “ We brought these chests with us when we escaped in the seventies. “ his grandmother told him. It seems his grandparents were residents of S-city, and they arrived here during the time of great dislocation… probably to avoid persecution. What’s even more surprising was that his grandfather retrieved a set of bronze keys from his pocket. He put it through the first chest, opened it cautiously. The entire chest was filled with pure gold bars. Eric’s eyes were dazzled. Even in the present day, gold has not depreciated much. His grandfather nonchala
