Chapter 99: Chapter 99: Milk and Dairy Products

"Result... beastman A weighs 3200 tons... Damn it!" (Note: 1 ton = 1000kg => 3200 tons = 3,200,000 kg)

Asher frustratingly tossed a tribesman’s exercise book aside and lay flat on the table. Kaelen was still busy coughing violently from choking on water.

3200 tons... Really... they dare to write just about anything. It was truly a miracle that the elementary school teachers hadn’t gone crazy by now.

"Sigh~" Asher let out a long breath and said, "Kaelen, is there anything entertaining? I am about to go crazy."

"Entertaining..." Kaelen tilted his head in thought for a moment and said, "There are a lot of entertaining things... Oh, let’s go make a deck of playing cards."

"Playing cards? What are those?"

"Just come make them and you will know. Let’s go, to Uncle Cassian’s place to get some wood scraps."

Making playing cards wasn’t exactly easy, but it wasn’t too difficult either. The only hard part was sanding the wood to the right level of flatness. Fifty-four cards meant sanding exactly fifty-four equal wooden pieces and rounding off the corners. They had to be adjusted so that the cards fit perfectly together, yet still left enough of a gap to fan them out without them sticking together.

Once the sanding was done, the carving began.

"Kaelen, I know the numbers, but what are these letters J, Q, K, A? Do they have any special meaning?"

Asher picked up the paper templates printed with the J, Q, K, and A cards and asked Kaelen curiously. Kaelen, while carving the shapes onto the wooden cards, patiently explained:

"These are a few special characters. J stands for the soldier, Q is the Queen, and K is the King. As for A, it is short for ’Ace’, which means number 1. It represents the beginning, and in some games, it is the most powerful card."

"Oh, it sounds like they have a story?"

"That’s right, each card has its own story, but it would take a very long time to tell. The stories of the cards are quite interesting; when I have free time, I will write them down in a book."

"Oh." Asher nodded, then held up two paper templates depicting clowns and asked: "What about these two extremely bizarre-looking cards?"

"They are called Jokers. A deck of cards will have two Joker cards, usually one colored and one black and white." He accepted the paper templates from Asher, pointing at each detail on the template as he said: "The special thing about the Joker is that it does not belong to any kingdom, nor is it bound by rules. In card games, the Joker is an unpredictable ’variable’. It can turn into any card the player wants, or rise up to become the strongest card, breaking all normal rules."

"Turn into any card..." Asher rubbed his chin, muttering to himself. For the time that followed, Asher seemed to sink into some other world. He said a few sentences but seeing no response from Asher, Kaelen let it be and focused entirely on carving his own cards.

"Oh my, you brat, why are both your eyes bruised black like that?"

While Kaelen was carving the cards, Cassian’s voice rang out beside his ear. He looked up and saw Cassian greeting a beastman who had come to pick up farming tools. The beastman helplessly scratched his head, the tips of his ears flushing red:

"Well... I came home too late last night, all the lights were out, and seeing my mate standing in the kitchen, I stepped forward to hug and kiss him. Who would have thought..."

"You mean you startled your mate so you were hit by him?"

The beastman grimaced and said: "It wasn’t that simple. That was my mate’s younger Sub-Beast brother, who came over to hang out yesterday and stayed the night. Those two are close in age and have quite similar builds. Lately, the Sub-Beasts in the tribe have all been using the same type of bath foam, so everyone’s scent is identical. It was too dark so I mistook the person..."

In short, that beastman was punched by his mate’s brother, bruising one eye. After his mate found out, his mate punched the other eye, resulting in the beastman having a pair of pitch-black ringed eyes like today.

Kaelen lowered his head, attentively carving the card in his hands, his hands trembling slightly. No, he was now the Little Priest; he could not laugh at the pain of his tribesmen.

But... it was just too funny!

"Haha!"

Roars of resounding laughter echoed throughout Cassian’s workshop, even pulling Asher, whose mind was wandering off somewhere, back to reality. He looked bewildered: "What happened? Why is everyone laughing so happily?"

Kaelen pulled Asher closer, whispering into Asher’s ear. The two covered their mouths, giggling.

Asher then said: "Speaking of which, during this time, everyone truly is using the same bath foam... bath soap. Perhaps new scents should be added, to prevent the beastmen from making olfactory mistakes."

Kaelen nodded: "That’s true, go back and tell everyone to take advantage of the afternoon foraging trip to pick a few fragrant flower and grass samples; I will sort out which ones can be used."

Asher nodded, his gaze sweeping down to Kaelen’s belly, voicing the doubt in his heart:

"Kaelen, you will lay eggs, right? I heard the Snake clan and Avian clan both lay eggs, even the Sub-Beasts hatch from eggs."

Kaelen nodded: "That’s right."

Asher was confused: "I heard that eggs at their largest are only the size of a beastman’s fist... Kaelen... isn’t your belly a bit too big?"

Hearing Asher speak, the hand Kaelen was using to carve the card suddenly stopped. He put down the carving knife and the piece of wood, lowering his head to stare intently at his own belly. There was a protruding lump there; judging by the size, it was probably equivalent to an Earth woman being five or six months pregnant.

"Or... or will I give birth to a live baby?"

Asher also scratched his head, looking clueless. The two Sub-Beasts who had never given birth didn’t know how to explain it, so they had to pack up the uncarved cards into a bag and go find Nyx and Collins together.

Collins shook his head, saying: "In the past, I only delivered babies for the Avian clan, I haven’t encountered any cases like yours. They all laid eggs, I haven’t seen anyone give birth to a live baby."

Nyx affirmed firmly: "All births in the Snake clan involve laying eggs; I haven’t met any mate of the Snake clan giving birth to a live baby either."

All four of them stared intently at the belly, falling into deep thought. Kaelen closed his eyes to feel, only sensing a gentle source of energy swirling around his spiritual power, which was the baby’s response; he absolutely could not see anything at all. Even if Walter were here, he wouldn’t be able to look through Kaelen’s belly to see inside.

Nyx comforted: "Do not worry too much. It might be because both you and Sane are powerful people, this child has been nourished too well so it is a bit bigger than normal."

Kaelen pursed his lips tightly, placing a hand on his belly, nodding in acceptance of this explanation.

His palm was bumped twice in a row; Kaelen’s tightly pursed lips gradually relaxed, the corners of his mouth curling up into a relieved smile. The child was comforting him; he could not let the baby worry about him.

"Sane has been gone for ten days now, right? I wonder how the situation over there is." Collins organized the stack of papers, asking while taking a sip of floral tea.

"He is already on his way back." Kaelen sat down and replied: "The matters over there have been resolved; those who needed to be chased away have been chased away, those who needed to be killed have been killed. Uncle Mossi plans to build the surrounding city wall all the way to there."

Nyx nodded in agreement: "I have to say that old man Mossi is also a person of talent, it is just that he didn’t show it on the outside before."

Kaelen pursed his lips slightly, speaking straightforwardly about the underlying intricacies: "The Mouse clan, Buffalo clan, and Badger clan had few people, and without an elder to back them up, they had to look at the expressions of the other clans no matter what they wanted to do."

Nyx naturally knew this. He took a sip of tea, letting out a long sigh, and then repeatedly said a few phrases like ’separating is for the best’. Collins and Asher did not comment. Regardless, that was the pain of the Obsidian tribe’s people; every tribe had a different way of operating, it was best not to judge.

While everyone was leisurely chatting, a guard beastman came in to report that someone from the livestock farming area had arrived. Upon receiving permission, the guard beastman led that beastman inside. After greeting everyone once, this beastman finally turned towards Kaelen and said:

"Little Priest, the first batch of milk has been milked and is currently still being kept on the prairie, please give your next instructions."

Kaelen almost forgot about this matter. He asked in surprise: "That herd of pregnant female goats was just caught a few days ago, and they already have milk?"

The beastman gave a "yes" and said: "The grass on the prairie was bathed in the auspicious rain; after those animals ate it, they all developed very healthily. Three of them gave birth the day before yesterday, and immediately produced milk after giving birth. Furthermore, the milk supply is incredibly abundant; the goat kids cannot drink it all. Since this morning, five wooden buckets have been fully milked."

Kaelen stood up joyfully. Goat milk was a good thing, highly nutritious, and was exactly what this continent was lacking.

The goat milk could be filtered and boiled thoroughly for the children in the tribe to drink, but they still couldn’t finish it all. Leaving it for long would spoil it, so it was best to process it into other finished products. Butter, condensed milk, milk candy, milk powder... A lot of things could be made.

He told the guard beastman: "Inform Mossi and Cassian to make a trip to the prairie, I will wait for them there."

The other day, he had tried asking Cassian to research a blender powered by a magic stone, but this thing exceeded Cassian’s scope of knowledge; he still hadn’t managed to figure it out. If they wanted milk powder, it would be a bit difficult. Although he could have the Water, Wind, and Fire elements combine to make milk powder, he just felt it was too wasteful. Then making condensed milk was fine too; condensed milk could be kept for a long time, and mixing it with water to drink was still very delicious.

Condensed milk only needed to be simmered on low heat with sorghum sugar for a long time to evaporate some of the water vapor, then poured into ceramic jars that had been boiled in water for sterilization. Sealed tightly, it could be kept for a very long time. The children mixing it with warm water to drink, or spreading it on baked sorghum flour bread to eat, would both be very delicious.

This was very easy to make and didn’t require alarming Mossi and Cassian. His purpose in calling those two was to build a processing workshop right on the prairie, saving everyone the effort of hauling milk, livestock, and poultry back to the new valley.

The prairie was vast enough to open a food processing workshop; the difficult part was channeling water, but he believed this would not pose a challenge to Mossi.

As for Cassian, he needed him to help make a butter churn.

Leaving behind a bucket of milk filtered through multiple layers of cloth and adding a sprig of fragrant grass to boil for the kids to drink, Kaelen taught everyone how to simmer condensed milk. After everyone had mastered the process, he finally turned to discuss the food processing workshop and the necessary tools with Cassian and Mossi.

"The milk after being milked, when left for a while, will rise with a layer of fat. Uncle Cassian, I need you to build ten cylindrical wooden buckets about waist-high, with a hole drilled in the lid to insert a piston agitator shaft that plunges up and down. It is called a butter churn. The continuous plunging force will separate the fat from the buttermilk. The Sub-Beasts or the slightly older kids can all do it."

Cassian nodded. The blender that Kaelen mentioned was what gave Cassian a headache; this butter churn, on the other hand, was quite simple. He and his apprentices would probably only take half a day to finish making ten of them.

"Uncle Mossi, the milk processing workshop must be separated from the slaughterhouse, and the same goes for the smokehouse. Each workshop area needs to be far apart from one another and slightly away from the livestock farming area to avoid causing food safety and hygiene issues. Especially the milk processing area..."

Kaelen spread the paper out on the stone table, drawing while explaining to Cassian and Mossi the operational structure of the food processing workshop, as well as the tools needed for these workshops.

The three ate and drank right at the prairie area, discussing together until the night dew grew increasingly heavy before stopping, and returned together to the new valley.

Kaelen returned home tiredly, lying on the bed unable to sleep. He placed a hand on his belly; the child had probably already fallen asleep, being very quiet. Kaelen missed Sane again, unable to resist pulling out the shed skin Sane had cast off when leveling up to hug into his chest. The cold snake scales gradually warmed up in Kaelen’s embrace, and he slowly sank into sleep.

In his dazed state he even thought, if he hadn’t fallen into the leveling-up illusion, he would probably spend his entire life living in fear of snakes.

Previously when he was still Bennett, he was not afraid of snakes; it was only after being smashed to a pulp by the Magic Snake and reincarnating as Kaelen that he developed an inexplicable fear of snakes. However, after the knot in his heart was untangled, the fear was no longer there; he only felt that little snakes were very adorable.

He wondered if the child to be born would be as adorable as Sane was in his illusion.