Building a Civilization and Raising Cubs in the Beast World – CH33

Chapter 33

A waterwheel is one of the most energy-efficient irrigation tools, and it comes in various types. 

The two that Bai Tu remembered most clearly were the water-driven scoop wheel and the treadle waterwheel. The former relies on water flow to drive the wheel and lift water to higher elevations, while the latter requires manual effort—either by stepping or pushing—to transport water.

Bai Tu decided to start with the first type, which relied solely on water flow. The idea was to use the water current to rotate the wheel, lifting water into a trough at the right height. 

From there, water could flow through pipes to irrigate crops without any need for manual labor. For the water pipes, the abundant bamboo in the area was the perfect material. By hollowing out the bamboo and removing the inner partitions, it could easily serve as tubing.

Since it was the rainy season and there was no need to worry about watering crops for now, Bai Tu decided to take advantage of the downtime and start building immediately.

At first, he didn’t plan to make a large waterwheel. Instead, he intended to build a small prototype beside the fish pond. 

A smaller waterwheel would be easier to construct and adjust. Once they successfully built a functional model, they could scale it up proportionally, saving time and effort. 

Larger tools required more materials and adjustments, making them more challenging to build. The most critical material for constructing the waterwheel was wood, which needed to be resistant to moisture and not prone to rotting or warping, as the wheel would constantly be submerged in water.

Fortunately, the area surrounding the tribe had no shortage of wood. Hardwoods, softwoods, lightweight, heavy—there were even tree species Bai Tu had never seen before. He could take his pick.

Since Bai Tu was unfamiliar with the properties of some of these trees, he consulted Tu Bing, who had spent a long time with the gathering team and had extensive knowledge of plants. 

While they avoided unfamiliar plants for food, the beastmen knew very well which types of wood were the strongest. Their experience with burning firewood and crafting tools had taught them which trees were the most durable.

Each cave was already stocked with a significant amount of branches, some as thick as a wrist. 

It didn’t take Bai Tu long to gather most of the materials he needed. For anything not available in the caves, Bai Qi led a team to chop fresh wood outside. 

While hunting was difficult during the rainy season, the rain was not yet so relentless that they couldn’t step outside. During breaks in the rain, they could easily chop a few trees near the tribe’s territory.

Having help made the process much easier. 

As Bai Tu worked, he mentally pieced together the waterwheel’s structure while guiding everyone else in crafting the components. 

Without access to metal tools or adhesives, Bai Tu planned to use a mortise-and-tenon joint system to assemble the parts. 

This method relied on interlocking pieces of wood and didn’t require glue or nails. However, it was a time-consuming process, and Bai Tu had only a theoretical understanding of it. This was his first time attempting such a project, so he was essentially figuring things out as he went.

Bai Qi, who was helping nearby, was thoroughly confused. He had no idea what all these odd-shaped wooden pieces were for.

“Tu, what are you trying to make? Some new kind of food?” Bai Qi had been watching for two days but couldn’t figure out how any of this could be used. 

Was it another fancy cooking technique? But this seemed excessively complicated—chopping wood, cutting bamboo, and taking two whole days to prepare. Previously, even Bai Tu’s most time-consuming dishes had been ready to eat after a day. This time, two days had passed, and they still hadn’t even started cooking.

“A waterwheel,” Bai Tu explained, looking at the various parts spread out before him. 

The main difficulty wasn’t the design itself but the lack of effective tools. 

Chopping trees, especially thick ones, with stone or bone knives was painfully slow. If not for the help of so many beastmen, it would’ve taken him ten days—if not more—just to complete the parts.

With all the components ready, it was time to assemble the waterwheel. Bai Tu was extra cautious during this final step, as it had taken a lot of effort to create these parts. If something broke during assembly, they’d have to start all over again.

The central axle, spokes, water paddles, and water buckets… After working for most of the day, Bai Tu finally finished assembling the waterwheel. 

He carefully mounted it near the small fish pond alongside a trough. To properly test the waterwheel’s functionality, he had the beastmen dig a square-shaped water channel next to the pond. 

The channel was slightly wider than the waterwheel and simulated the flow of a river.

Digging holes in stone wasn’t a problem for the rabbit tribe. Once the water channel was secured, Bai Tu slowly poured a bucket of water into the upstream side of the wheel.

The water flowed against the paddles, turning the wheel. 

The buckets attached to the wheel were lifted to the top, where they tilted and poured their water into the trough below. From there, the water flowed through the bamboo pipes back to the upstream side, creating a continuous cycle.

The system worked!

Bai Qi, who had never seen anything like this before, stared at the waterwheel with wide eyes. “Tu, this is so fun!” 

No one had ever thought of using water this way before. 

Bai Qi immediately took back his earlier complaints about how long it was taking to build. 

Seeing the finished product, he no longer thought it was a waste of time. This was so fascinating—he could play with it for the entire rainy season!

Nearby, Bai Dong and a few children were sprawled on the ground, their eyes fixed on the constantly spinning waterwheel, not blinking even once. 

When they noticed the wheel slowing down, they quickly shouted to Bai Tu, “Tu! It’s not spinning! Add more water!” 

They had just seen how pouring water into the upstream channel made the wheel spin faster. If Bai Tu hadn’t repeatedly warned them not to touch it, they would have already started pouring water themselves.

Tu Shi stood to the side, itching to help but too afraid to act without permission.

Bai Tu: “…”

“This isn’t meant to be a toy,” Bai Tu said, picking up a bucket and pouring more water into the upstream channel. 

The wheel resumed its previous speed. Putting down the bucket, Bai Tu explained, “This is just a small prototype. I plan to build a larger one for the river. Once it’s set up, we’ll use it to lift water for irrigating the fields.”

The current setup was just a simulation. 

The small channel didn’t have a continuous flow of water, and the waterwheel lost energy during operation, so it couldn’t maintain a constant speed. 

But in a real river, as long as there was water flowing from upstream, the wheel could spin continuously.

The success of the small waterwheel gave Bai Tu tremendous confidence. However, he knew that building a large waterwheel would be a much greater challenge.

Take the water paddles, for example. The paddles on the small wheel were only about 20 centimeters long, but the paddles for the large waterwheel would need to be several times larger. 

Cutting and shaping such large pieces of wood would be a lot of work. Just felling a tree of the required size would take significant effort.

Smaller trees could be cut down and transported back within two or three hours if the beastmen worked together. But cutting down a massive tree—so large that it would take several people to encircle it—was a completely different story. 

The largest stone knives they had were not even wide enough to cut through the trunk. And with the frequent rain, it ended up taking three days to chop down just one tree. Fortunately, the beastmen had experience making wooden bowls and buckets, so they knew how to cut the tree in a way that required less effort.

The payoff for cutting down such a large tree was substantial. Bai Tu estimated that this single tree would provide more than enough material to build the entire waterwheel, with some left over. 

However, processing the wood would still take days.

Unlike the small waterwheel, which had been built with the help of only a few beastmen, this time, nearly half the tribe was involved. 

The livestock caves couldn’t accommodate so many people, especially with all the animals there. To make space, they transported some of the logs back to their own homes to work on them.

The beastmen’s claws came in handy during this process. While they couldn’t slice through iron like butter, they were just as effective as stone knives when it came to scraping wood. 

The only drawback was that their claws weren’t long enough—if they were just a bit longer, they could carve the wood into planks directly.

This time, Bai Tu barely had to lift a finger. Whether it was scraping the wood in their beast forms or chopping it with stone knives, the others were far more efficient than he was. He simply focused on supervising. Large wooden components had to be carefully crafted with no room for error, as the waterwheel was a long-term tool meant to last for years.

Because the small waterwheel was constantly spinning in the water, everyone’s enthusiasm for building the larger one reached new heights. Even when Bai Tu suggested they take a break, the beastmen remained excited and continued working. They all wanted to see how big the finished product would be and how fast it could spin.

The rainy season was typically one of the hardest times of the year, second only to the snowy season. Food was scarce, and the entire tribe would anxiously count down the days until the rain ended so they could resume hunting.

But this year, things were different. The rabbit tribe was having the most relaxed rainy season in its history. Not only was there plenty of food, but everyone also had tasks to keep them occupied.

Building the waterwheel quickly became one of the most popular activities in the tribe.

The second most popular task was processing food. Although the prey had already been cleaned and stored in the caves, it still needed to be portioned for daily meals. 

That cave was solely for food storage, and dividing up prey was an incredibly satisfying job. Seeing the stockpile of food firsthand brought immense joy.

Other jobs included curing and smoking meat. While these tasks weren’t difficult, they did come with the unique challenge of smelling the delicious aroma of smoked meat without being able to eat it. For the beastmen, who had enormous appetites, it was a sweet form of torture.

In past rainy seasons, more than half the tribe would sit idle. 

Hunger made it hard to sleep, and no one dared to waste energy digging or working, as it would only make them hungrier. They could only listen to the rain and dream of the season’s end. 

This year, however, the situation was completely reversed—many beastmen secretly wished the rain would never stop. With plenty of food to eat and meaningful work to do, life was perfect.

Time flew by under such circumstances. 

Before most of the beastmen realized it, two-thirds of the rainy season had already passed. 

Meanwhile, all the parts for the large waterwheel, which had taken nearly half the tribe to make, were completed. 

Bai Tu stored them in the caves to keep them dry. Once the rainy season ended, they would assemble it outdoors. Since the individual components were easy to transport, assembly could wait until the rain stopped.

The small waterwheel had become a favorite attraction among the tribe’s children, who spent hours watching it spin. 

This gave Bai Tu a sudden realization: the young cubs in the tribe didn’t have any toys—none at all! 

No matter the child’s age, Bai Tu had never seen them playing with toys. No wonder everyone, from Bai Qi to Tu You, wanted to spend all day in the cave with the waterwheel.

Adolescent beastmen, while technically still cubs, had a more childlike mindset than mature adults. 

Some hid it well, while others, like Lang Ze, were more obvious—having an older brother to shield him allowed Lang Ze to act like a child longer. 

Bai Qi, for instance, had become visibly more mature after Bai Chen’s injury but still occasionally revealed his playful side. If Lang Ze saw the waterwheel, he’d probably want to sleep next to it at night.

Bai Tu thought for a moment and decided to take this opportunity to make some toys for the cubs. There were plenty of leftover wood scraps from the water wheel project, and each cave had a stockpile of wood. Processing wood into toys would be an easy task for the beastmen.

The simplest and most fun toy to make was a wooden ball. 

The wood they had chosen for the waterwheel was lightweight yet sturdy—a tree Bai Tu couldn’t identify. 

After smoothing the balls down, a slight push would send them rolling across the ground. Bai Tu tested it by tossing one to a group of cubs, and within moments, the entire group was scrambling to play with it, completely forgetting about climbing out of the cave!

When making the wooden balls, Bai Tu severely miscalculated the size. 

The wooden balls turned out larger than the rabbit cubs themselves. Placed in bamboo baskets, the balls were noticeably bigger than the cubs, making the young ones look like they had wandered into a land of giants as they pushed the oversized balls around.

Bai Tu immediately reflected on his mistake and, together with Bai Qi, used the leftover wood to create a small slide. A slide, after all, was a must-have toy for children and a staple in nearly every kindergarten.

Since the rabbit cubs were so tiny, the slide was built as a miniature version. Bai Tu used rough stones to sand down the wood, removing any splinters to ensure the surface was smooth and safe. To make it even safer, he added a railing on both sides of the slide.

The next morning, Bai Tu witnessed the adorable sight of little rabbit cubs lining up in a neat row to take turns on the slide.