Tect took his new chicken back to camp. The rope between it's ankles was tied off to a nearby tree, and Tect gave it a few of the fresh veggies he had in his spatial bag. The chicken attempted to peck Tect a few times, and to fly off, but it was pretty securely tied. After it tasted some of the veggies it calmed down a bit. It was hard for the chickens to get the good stuff, the slimes would often run them off before they could get much to eat.
Tect pulled out the rooster and began to pluck its feathers, the shafts of the feathers were anchored deeply in the chicken's thick skin and Tect took whole patches of skin off in a few spots. Still after a while he was able to get it more or less clean, then he gutted it and lit a fire to cook it. While the flames were still high he used them to burn off the remaining downy feathers. Once the fire burned down to coals Tect used 5 flat stones to make a primitive oven, placed the bird in and packed the coals around it. While that cooked Tect began to skin the cow. It was a good thing Tect had increased strength otherwise he may not be able to skin it as easily. Tect Started by gutting the cow. Once he removed the internal organs he wrapped the heart, liver, and kidneys in leaves. Then he took the rest of the organs, and the organs from the chicken and buried them away from his campsite. He would have liked to keep more, like the intestine, stomach, and lung, but he did not know how to properly prepare or store it and was worried about getting sick. The rest of the cow would definitely be put to good use. The spatial bag could keep raw meat fresh for about a week, a cow was a lot of meat for one person to eat, but Tect had a plan. Not far from Tect was the snow line on the mountain ring that surrounded Mountain Heart. The nearby stream actually came from the melting snow. Tect planned to get some snow to pack the meat with, after he made some dummies tomorrow.
Skinning the cow was a bit awkward for Tect, a Short Sword was definitely not the best tool for the job. It took a while but Tect eventually skinned the first side of the cow, he made a few holes in the hide, but it could be way worse. The second side went way better. Tect used the holey hide for the dummies, and after cracking the skull he removed the brain and wrapped it with the good hide before storing it.
The spatial bag was a very handy tool, without it Tect would not be able to handle the cow on his own. With the help of the bag Tect was able to take the cow's carcass to the stream to wash it. The cold water would help chill the meat as well which would hopefully add to its shelf life until Tect could get snow.
Were anyone to walk up and see Tect right now they would be horrified. The sight of a Tall Handsome goblin in his underwear waist deep in water, wrestling the corpse of a dead cow would certainly draw a few distasteful glares. Even so Tect finished up rather quickly, stored the now clean carcass and returned to camp.
The smell of roasted chicken wafted through the air, Tect added more coals to the oven, then smashed up some herbs and sour fruits he had found and rubbed them on the top. "I really wish that the mine had salt in it. Maybe when I leave I can bring some bags back, it's basically the only thing this place doesn't have."
The chicken was still raw so Tect used the time to find a few decent tree limbs, and 2 decently large logs. He needed to clean the meat and fat from the cow hide before he could use it. Tect had never made a fleshing blade from wood before, but the short sword was not a good choice for this job, so he used the sword to carve the tree limbs into long wedge shapes with handles on either side, then he tested them. They were still green so they were very flexible, because of that only the shorter of the two was of any use, but it was barely passable, still he made progress. By the time the chicken was ready a pile of fat and meat scrapings had formed at Tect's feet. Tect then made a frame from some limbs to hold the upright beside the fire, then he removed his chicken using the short sword to scoop it up by the body cavity and set it on a clean rock at the side before throwing an arm full of green tree limbs on the hot coals. Before long the smoke began to roll heavily, and Tect moved the hide into position to get covered in it.
Tect enjoyed his meal immensely, it had been a while since he had meat. The skin of the rooster was too damn thick and had gotten a bit rubbery, but the meat was nice and greasy which made up for that. Tect went to sleep with a bulging belly and a smile.
The next morning Tect jumped up early to check the hide, it had gone from a pale white, to a tan brown. The hide wasn't properly processed, so it would still rot, but thanks to the smoke it would last long enough for Tect to practice. Tect moved the hide away from the cooling coals of the fire, and used some dried brush to get it going again. The first thing Tect did today was feed his captive chicken. Surprisingly, she had laid an egg overnight, so Tect gave her some grains he had found, and a carrot. She pecked away eagerly, but then she noticed a strip of fat and meat stuck to the bottom of Tect's boots from the hide processing the night before. She immediately charged over startling Tect and quickly gobbled up the meat. Tect was shocked, he had only ever fed chickens grains and veggies. He had seen them eat insects, but this was beef, he had reason to be shocked right now. What if his chicken got sick?
"Calm down, it's a bird. Most birds will eat meat if they have the chance. The chicken is fine." If Azulak had eyes they would be rolling right now. Even he knew chickens ate meat on occasion.
"Should I give it all of the scraps then?"
"No it'll upset it's stomach, just leave it be with its carrot and grains. If you get lean meat in the future it's ok to give it a little piece though. With it tied out it may have trouble getting bugs."
Tect just shook his head, you learn something new all the time. The morning went as usual, Tect did stretches, and practiced mana control. No crazy breakthroughs today but even Tect could tell they must be rare so wasn't expecting them to happen daily or anything. After washing up he used a flat rock to cook his egg and some left over chicken from the night before. The grease from the chicken coated the rock, and the egg nearly slid right off, but thankfully didn't. It was a pretty good breakfast.
Now it was time to make the practice dummies, Tect was going to try to make 2 if he could. First he cut strips from the cow hide, and used the short sword to shave the hair, and then the fire to burn off the stubble, it stank like hell, but it wasn't as bad as the next part. He scraped the burnt hair away then began to chew on the leather strip. He needed it to be soft, and he wanted it to swell up a bit so when it dried out it would shrink and get tighter. Once he had chewed it sufficiently he made a cross with two thick branches and used the hide to bind them into the shape of a cross. Then he cut a piece of hide into the two shirt-like shapes, used a sharpened stick to poke holes around the outside edge, and began chewing more strips of hide. He would keep chewing this long strip as he carefully cut sections and tied the two shirt shaped hides together around the stick cross. Once it was nearly done he stopped and used a small untied section to stuff leaves and sticks into the dummy. This would be his tough dummy. He repeated this same process again but stuffed it with leaves feathers and grasses, this was his squishy dummy. The squishy dummy would flex more and hopefully last longer, the stick filled dummy would let him practice exerting mana inside the target, hopefully not damaging it too much, but making the sticks break apart.
It was just after midday when he finished, the sword should be done the next morning. Tect was excited to begin practicing but before that, he wanted to make a trip up to the snow line. Tect spent too long starving to feel ok letting the cows meat go bad, especially if he had a way to prevent it.
Tect belted on the short sword, grabbed a nice walking stick and headed for the snow line.
The inside edge of the mountain ring was exceptionally steep, but it seems as though the ancient goblins had made trips up the mountains before, and had cut paths up. The paths wound back and forth making a trip to the 7500 ft snowline quite a long one. Thankfully there were no obstructions and Tect reached the snowline in 3 and a half hours. At this rate the last half hour of his walk home would be in the dark, but that was no problem.
Tect took his time rolling the snow into compact balls, before storing it. Midway through his last ball Tect heard a screeching noise. At the last second Tect rolled to the side, his short sword slashing towards the unknown attacker. When his sword hit the creature's claws sparks flew.