Salty Marsh    

"S-salty?"

Rain sprawled onto the dirt and took a closer look at the murky water. It wasn't much, but he had really thought that the problem of water in his land would finally be addressed.

Oh, how wrong he was.

Rain lightly touched the water with the tip of his finger before tasting it.

"SALTY!"

Rain screamed as his hope sank into the salty pool. Even if he purified this, it was still undrinkable.

Great.

This place had groundwater, but it was salty.

Rain rolled onto his back and looked over at the horizon. "This world will never make it easy for me, will it?"

"And I thought everything would finally be fine and one of my problems would finally be solved. But . . . what am I going to do with salty water?!"

Maybe he could make a pool and the others could take a bath in it. Rain wanted to lighten his mood.

Not that it did.

"At least I could make salt in this heat . . ." Rain muttered without much thought.

Salt . . .

Rain threw himself into a sitting position, his eyes wide with realization.

"That's it!"

~Chii?~

"Chi! I finally have a brilliant idea!"

~C-chii?~

"Why haven't I thought about it sooner? I read about this in one of the books in my quest to survive in this place. In arid regions where the groundwater is close to the surface, more water may evaporate from the lower layers of soil than can be replaced by precipitation, causing the soil to become salinated and forming a salt marsh. This area is a salt marsh!"

Chi tilted her head to the side, not understanding what Rain was talking about.

Rain quickly grabbed a solid rock with some hallow formations around it, so it could hold water. "So all we have to do is put some salt marsh here and pour water over it like so."

Rain retrieved the 1L water bottle he had extracted form earth and poured a small amount over the salty dirt. "The evaporation point of salt is much higher than that of water, so we can use evaporation to extract salt from this salt marsh.

"In hot climates like this, all you need to do is leave it in direct sunlight for several days, then collect the dry salt from the bottom of the container. Since I only poured a small amount, we can expect the salt to crystallize after sundown . . . I hope."

~Chiii!~

Chi was amazed, though she still didn't understand what Rain was talking about. 'As long as my lord is happy,' she thought gleefully.

Rain grabbed a few more rocks to hold the saltwater solution and left them under the sun before deciding to go back to the others.

"Let's check it back after the sun goes down," Rain said. He really hoped his theory would work in this world. He needed the salt to make his next plans.

Rain smirked, his eyes glinting mischievously. Just watch, whoever put me in this place. If you don't want to give me water, I'll make one myself!

Muwahahahaha!

"Oh, guys," Rain called to the little chicks. "If you've finished resting, come gather around, and I will evolve all of you."

The little chicks looked at each other before chirping excitedly!

Rain had 500 EP, enough to evolve his remaining four troops, with 100 EP left to spare.

He started with troop #2 and then moved his way to troop #5.

Silky threads began to appear around the little chicks, forming eggs that seemed to incubate them inside. The eggs glowed and emitted heat waves.

Rain carefully gathered them and put them beside his statue so it would be easier to guard them in case something happened. They were vulnerable in this state, so he couldn't afford to let his guard down.

Chi was outside the shelter, surveying the surroundings and making sure no threat could surprise them.

Meanwhile, Rain was in a daze as he watched the eggs glow. He remained in that state for a few more minutes before he finally snapped out of it when his stomach grumbled.

"Even though I ate so much before I left," Rain said as he rubbed his tummy, "all that walking must have drained my energy reserves."

He didn't want to wake up and go back to the real world just to eat, so he decided to eat some bread. It wasn't enough, though.

"Right . . . there is some lizard meat left . . ." Rain stared at the raw meat in his inventory, his expression constipated. Nothing could make him eat raw meat except if it were a stake, sushi, and sashimi.

"Oh, that's right. I did extract that here."

Rain searched for the lighter that he had extracted. Since he was planning to sleep here, he wanted to make a bonfire to keep warm. This place turned ice-cold during the night, so a little fire wouldn't hurt.

But Rain couldn't find the lighter. "Huh, I could have sworn . . ." Rain trailed off when he remembered . . . he forgot the lighter back in the real world!

He had placed it on the table so he wouldn't forget, but he still forgot to extract it!

Damn it!

Rain slapped his head. "How could you forget such an important item?" He didn't even bring a blanket because he couldn't afford the extraction price.

How was he going to survive the cold in the night?

Rain rubbed his hands over his face before his enthusiasm reappeared. "No worries. I can just start a fire on my own."

Rain grabbed some twigs, wooden planks, bark chips, and branches from his inventory that they had accumulated on the way.

"As for the rope . . ." Rain looked around. "None. Figures."

His eyes then went to the silken threads that wrapped around the little chicks.

"Perfect timing. I'll take just a little." Rain pinched some threads from each of the eggs and began to braid them to form a rope.

"Aha! Who knew that camping school would bear fruit? Now let's see if I can still remember how to make a fire."