Everyone began brainstorming intensely.
Seeing everyone deep in thought, Bruce also harbored some anticipation.
The current iron tools in the camp include only saws and iron knives, yet plenty of wooden tools have been created.
However, due to the camp's recent consolidation and the severe setbacks from before, wood is not yet abundant enough.
Thus, except for some small essentials like wooden buckets and ladles, no large items have been produced.
Even wooden beds are only available to the hunting and Axebreaker team members.
But as the Axebreaker team continues to bring back more wood, and with the Craftsmen Workshop system in place, Bruce believes more and more wooden products will emerge.
"The ten saws are currently used by the logging team, and the three iron knives are mainly for processing Cold Beasts, so I need to help forge a batch of iron carpenter tools.
Let me think; what woodworking tools were there in the previous life—measuring tools, small hand saws, wood planes, files, hand chisels…"
Though Bruce is not a woodworker, relying on memories to think of tools for woodworking and then crafting them using a polishing stone, simply imitating the shapes is feasible.
All these tasks only need a head start to progress.
With these tools, the many people in the camp will naturally innovate continually.
The civilization of humanity in the Ice Abyss World, although fallen, is not completely lost.
From the beginning of his journey, Bruce had already discovered this.
While humans have indeed regressed to a primitive era to some extent, this was largely due to the extreme environment's pressure.
Yet, from many aspects, one can still see traces of civilization's former existence.
From the human camps' concepts of family and marriage, surname culture, funeral rites, even the writing system; down to basic craftsmanship, gathering tools, and leather products, up to cooking food and avoiding raw water, and so on…
Initially, Bruce thought these retained habits were due to the disaster that caused civilization's downfall not being too distant in the past, but he overturned this idea considering the harsh cold environment and biological evolution.
Earth's temperature requires centuries to shift by a few degrees, but the extreme cold climate of the Ice Abyss World, the might of the Cold Beast, and even the inexplicable deceitful monster, obviously couldn't have formed in a short time.
Based on what he heard from William, according to Lex and Matthew, the Abyss Era might be exceedingly distant.
Thus, concluding this way, humanity's endurance of so many civilized habits must be credited to civilization's own resilience.
Extreme environments can drastically reduce populations, but it's not that simple to completely erase a civilization with no trace.
The human desire to survive is one of the most powerful forces in existence.
What other camps are like, Bruce isn't sure.
But having arrived in the Ice Abyss World and been born around Redwood Ridge, he often feels fortunate.
In extreme environments, the extent of human malice burst equals the extent of kindness that can grow—this is the power of civilization, or one could say, the inertia of civilization.
This is precisely proven by all the camps around Redwood Ridge.
If civilization had truly fallen completely, there wouldn't exist people venturing out to gather resources to feed hundreds of ordinary people, or talk of sharing Cold Beast Meat with others would be absurd.
Civilization can raise wisdom, mutual support, helping each other, unity and cohesion, responsibility and sharing, any resistance to selfish behavior—these are manifestations of wisdom.
The primary reason for humanity's dire situation is the extreme cold environment, followed by Cold Beasts and deceitful monsters.
Extreme cold makes food and travel problematic;
Cold Beasts and deceitful monsters make safety unguaranteed.
To thoroughly eliminate these three issues seems nearly impossible at present.
"Unity, strengthening power, adapting to environments, continuously responding to challenges posed by Cold Beasts and deceitful monsters is humanity's only way out."
Faced with these three issues, Bruce thought for a long time and came to this conclusion.
Change the last "humanity" to "Harper," and this conclusion, under Charlie and others' promotion, soon became a well-known ideological guide in the Harper Camp.
This statement would suit humanity more, but given the current strength of the Harper Camp, proclaiming it blatantly feels slightly rhetorical, grandiloquent.
No collective organization can do without ideological guidance.
To put it simply, it's about ensuring that every person in the camp knows what they're doing and why they're doing it.
Only then they'll have the drive toward a common goal.
With ideological guidance and accompanied by Bruce leading frenzied hunts, with sufficient Cold Beast Meat distribution, in the subsequent period, everyone in the Harper Camp visibly busied themselves.
The Hunting Team, led personally by Bruce, almost returned fully loaded every night, though occasionally some injuries occurred, mainly minor.
A month following the policy's official implementation, during the second distribution of Cold Beast Meat to children under thirteen in the camp, the reserve of Cold Beast Meat in the camp's mine already reached over thirty thousand kilograms, enough to last two months without hunting.
Bruce had not concerned himself with the Logging Team matters, leaving it to Jason and Edward, yet from the growth in his resource data, and the height of timber stacked on both sides of the valley, the Logging Team's gains were also significant during this period.
The plan to build new cabins had already spread within the camp by Edward, so during this time, the Logging Team focused mainly on cutting down the Golden Frost Trees.
It's worth mentioning that since Cold Beasts frequently huddle on the Golden Frost Trees, sometimes cooperation from the Hunting Team is necessary.
They first hunt the beasts on the trees, and then the Logging Team proceeds with cutting.
Although the Rogel Camp had penetrated the Redwood Ridge's thousand-meter area before, in this time, Bruce still limited the huntings and logging area of the Harper Camp to five hundred meters on the outskirts without leading anyone further in.
For one, he wasn't familiar with the inner surroundings, nor had encountered new types of Cold Beasts, wary of potential issues; for another, resources the Harper currently needs are abundantly within the five hundred meters on the periphery, with no need for further depth.
The area where Harper currently gathers resources at Redwood Ridge is no longer limited to the meager initial five hundred meters.
Rogel, Tayler, Samsung, Banana, including its previous territory, now wholly undisputed belong to Harper, from the east side of Redwood Ridge, from the valley's position southward for four kilometers.
With such a vast space for resource-gathering, Bruce naturally avoids advancing foolishly, focusing first on gradually strengthening power, and waiting until the periphery resources can't sustain the camp's development to delve deeper, undoubtedly more prudent.
The Hunting Team and Axebreaker Team faced heavy tasks, yet not a trace of fatigue could be found on the thirty-six individuals' faces.
Instead, their enthusiasm grew with each outing, and their smiles returned even brighter each time.
Bruce clearly knew the reason because these people, himself included, were enhancing their strength at a remarkably rapid pace.
Others, he didn't specifically delve into, but regarding the fifteen members of the Hunting Team who followed him each night, he was aware of how astonishing their progress was during this period.
The daily consumption of Cold Beast Meat by the Axebreaker Realm ranges from five to ten kilograms, while these fifteen from the Hunting Team receive ten kilograms each night, their supply far exceeding consumption, enabling them to absorb and enhance in an almost extreme state every day.
Moreover, Bruce's four sets of long fists had been fully transmitted down, with martial arts enhancing their absorption rate, thus naturally accelerating their improvement.
According to Bruce's observations during hunts, it's expected that Aaron would be the first to break through to the Earthripper Realm, followed by the three Reeves siblings.
Another unexpected individual for Bruce was Charlie.
A month ago, during the first outing with the animal trap for hunting, Charlie's strength was just under seven thousand kilograms, and within a mere month, he had risen nearly to eight thousand kilograms, now matching the Reeves siblings, only slightly under Aaron.
Although Bruce hasn't paid special attention to the Axebreaker Team and reserves' training conditions, deducing from their fervor for training upon returning from outings each day, he can guess the situation somewhat.
The camp's overall strength is steadily rising, and given equivalent circumstances of Cold Beast Meat supply, Bruce understands that next, he merely awaits the arrival of the explosive period.
Of course, while others steadily progress, he himself cannot fall behind.
After one month of the new regulations in Harper, Bruce gave the Hunting Team its first night off, and after distributing the Cold Beast Meat as usual, he walked alone to the spot outside his cabin, where the Force Measuring Stake was stored.
Those who were already training outside noticed Bruce's movements, realized he was about to test his strength, and immediately stopped what they were doing, eagerly gathering around him.
"In a month, Charlie increased from less than seven thousand to eight thousand, gaining over a thousand kilos; Aaron went from just over eight thousand to almost nine thousand, increasing by more than eight hundred; the three Reeves brothers also increased from over seven thousand to eight thousand, which is around eight hundred as well;
They can eat at most eight kilos of Cold Beast Meat a day, while I've been consuming twenty to thirty kilos a day this month, basically reaching the limit of my intake. My strength improvement should be even higher than theirs!"
Regarding the increase in his strength, Bruce had a rough idea, but to know the exact number, testing was necessary.
He noticed the crowd watching, but paid it no mind and began handling the Force Measuring Stake by himself.
He first placed a Ten Thousand kilos Pile at the bottom, then added five more Thousand kilos Piles on top, hesitated for a moment, and added another one.
Bruce took a deep breath, squatted, and wrapped his arms around the base Ten Thousand kilos Pile.
Then, with a loud shout, he slowly exerted force at an extremely slow speed.
All the onlookers were already holding their breath.
As Bruce stood up, the Force Measuring Stake slowly lifted off the ground.
Ten centimeters… twenty centimeters… half a meter… one meter…
Until finally, as Bruce fully stood up, the Force Measuring Stake remained securely in his arms, and a touch of reverence appeared in everyone's eyes.
Bang...
"Fifteen thousand kilos, I should be able to add a few hundred more at the limit. The increase over this period is not bad!"
Bruce directly slammed the Force Measuring Stake to the ground, massaging his nearly exhausted arms, a hint of joy appearing in his eyes.
Previously, when fighting Snow Mane with the wooden mannequin, his Basic Strength was over thirteen thousand.
In just a month, it increased by nearly two thousand, which is quite a substantial improvement.
However, judging from the increase, his improvement was obviously not as good as Charlie's, Aaron's, and others', consuming two to three times their resources, yet the increase slowed down.
This also proves that the higher the Basic Strength goes, the harder it becomes to improve further.
Fortunately, Cold Beast Meat supply is no longer a problem now.
As long as I continue with this steady improvement, the thirty thousand kilos limit will be reached sooner or later.
"George mentioned before that the limit of the Earthripper Realm is thirty thousand kilos. But after reaching that limit, he doesn't know how to advance strength any further.
How to break through to the Cold Resistance Level that Lex and Matthew mentioned, I have no clue."
Bruce frowned slightly, but soon relaxed.
From the current rate of increase, reaching the thirty-thousand-kilos limit is still far away.
Even if there's no clue about future cultivation methods, there's no need to worry for now.
Where there's a will, there's a way.
When the thirty thousand kilos limit is reached, I might as well go explore the Arrow Bamboo Forest like George and ask questions at the giant camp called Beehive.
After testing his strength, Bruce turned around and found that all the people who were just watching were still staring dumbfoundedly at the Force Measuring Stake on the ground without dispersing.