Run A Medical Clinic In The Abyssal World

Chapter 27: Versatile Earthen Stove

Vivian changed into her new dress and put on a new headpiece before coming downstairs.

With her petite figure and a fitted gray long skirt, black short hairpiece, and two cat ears poking out from between her hair, she looked like an adorable little cat.

"It seems that only women truly understand women," Charlotte couldn't help but feel emotional as he looked at Vivian wearing the dress that seemed tailor-made for her.

Vivian spun around in place, the hem of her skirt fluttering, but suddenly, her nose tingled.

She used to have several closets filled with beautiful dresses. She thought that entering the Abyss was like entering hell. Unexpectedly, her former imaginary enemy, Charlotte, became her boss, and she could still wear pretty little dresses.

Her mother was still waiting for her in the imperial prison, and she had to work hard to improve her strength while seeking people who could help her.

Cromwell's influence was too powerful, to the point of despair.

"What's wrong? Don't you like the dress?" Charlotte noticed Vivian's low mood and asked.

"No... I like it." Vivian shook her head, forcing a smile. "Then I'll go and refine some medicine. We bought so many materials today, so I can make more hemostatic potions."

"Go ahead." Charlotte nodded.

As a capitalist now, he loved having workers who would arrange their tasks.

After tinkering in the study for a while, Charlotte left with two blueprints in his pocket.

Baka Street was over ten meters wide, with thick stone slabs covering the ground. It wasn't exactly smooth, but it was wide enough for carriages to pass through.

The houses on both sides of the street were built with large black stones, which were common in the Abyss. The hundreds of meters-high black cliffs were made of this kind of stone, and the single-story houses had a height of around five meters, enough to accommodate the majority of the races.

Entities like Emos, who was exceptionally tall, usually frequented open-air establishments or places specifically designed for large individuals.

Baka Street was relatively stable, but Charlotte remained alert, holding a magic rune hidden under his sleeve, ready to activate it at any moment.

The commercial ecosystem on the street was well-established, providing everything from clothing to food, and shelter.

However, the pedestrian flow was average, and there were no particularly famous shops.

The four major families controlled the area, collecting rent from the merchants as protection fees.

But the underlying logic of commerce was consistent: the better the location, the larger the pedestrian flow, and naturally, the higher the rent.

If the business on this street was sluggish and there were no people in sight, it would lead to vacant shops and low rents.

Baka Street belonged to the type of commercial area that was neither good nor bad. The customers came from nearby residents, and the shop owners barely made a living but couldn't make a fortune.

The rent was neither high nor low, just at a level that the merchants could accept.

Carefully avoiding two street fights and passing by three theft incidents without looking, Charlotte safely arrived at the end of Baka Street, where the blacksmith shop was located.

As soon as Charlotte stepped into the blacksmith shop, a wave of scorching heat hit him, and the clanging sound of ironworking made his eardrums ache.

"Boss!" Charlotte called out.

The sound of hammering abruptly stopped, and a stout dwarf carrying a large iron hammer, almost the same height as him, walked out from the forge.

"Doctor Charlotte!" Guy was somewhat surprised as he approached. "What brings you here?"

"I need a set of cooking utensils to be made," Charlotte got straight to the point and handed his sketches to Guy from his pocket.

Guy took the blueprint and looked at it, his expression filled with confusion. He looked up at Charlotte and asked, "Why is the pot designed like this?"

In his blacksmith shop, aside from forging weapons, Guy also took on some projects to make pots and tools during his free time. But the pots he usually made either had three legs at the bottom for cooking over a fire or had handles on the edges for hanging.

However, the pot depicted in Charlotte's blueprint was open, larger than the usual pots, and of moderate depth. It didn't have support legs at the bottom or handles on the edges, making it look strange.

"This is my design, different from the usual pots, and it needs to be used in conjunction with this stove." Charlotte took out another blueprint.

He wanted to create a versatile earthen stove that could steam, stir-fry, pan-fry, and stew.

Imagining chicken stewing in the pot on the earthen stove, surrounded by a circle of flatbreads placed around the pot's edge, the taste was beyond imagination.

Guy looked at the blueprint for a long time but still couldn't understand the unique design of the stove. He finally said, "I can forge the pot according to the blueprint, but as for the stove... you'll probably need to find a stonemason to build it. Luckily, there's a stonemason shop right next to mine. I'll take you there and let them give you a good price."

"Thank you very much." Charlotte nodded gratefully.

Ten minutes later, Charlotte emerged from the stonemason shop with a dwarf stonemason, pulling a cart loaded with large black stones back to the clinic.

First, Charlotte crafted a new stove in the alchemy room on the ground floor, allowing him to work on alchemy simultaneously with Vivian. Then, in a corner room on the second floor, he built an earthen stove with a chimney facing inward.

The project didn't seem significant, but the stonemason had never built this style of stove before. Charlotte supervised and made adjustments while the stonemason worked, and it took an entire afternoon to complete.

Looking at the polished and smooth stove surface, and the neatly constructed chimney, Charlotte nodded in satisfaction. Now, he only needed the large iron pot from Guy.

"Thank you for your hard work," Charlotte settled the bill with eight hundred copper coins, which covered both labor and materials, and the price was fair.

Afterward, Charlotte went out to purchase a few pieces of furniture, including a shelf for miscellaneous items and condiments, a small square table, and two small wooden stools.

With this, the kitchen-cum-dining room was starting to take shape.

If it weren't for having to wait two more days for the iron pot, Charlotte would have considered going out to buy some ingredients and cook a meat and vegetable dish for himself.

However, while buying furniture, Charlotte discovered that the grocery store was selling flour for ten copper coins per pound, which was almost comparable to the price of meat. He bought a pound of flour and then obtained two and a half pounds of lean and fatty wild boar meat from the butcher's shop.

Having had enough of black bread, Charlotte planned to make steamed buns to improve his meals.

During his university days, he had worked part-time at a steamed bun shop for a semester, and he was familiar with the entire process, from fermenting the dough to preparing the filling. He had even been designated as the successor to the master at one point.

The new alchemy pot hadn't been contaminated by strange substances yet, so he placed a few chopsticks on the rack, ready to steam the buns.

Without yeast, he used low-alcohol rice wine mixed with sugar to ferment the flour, and the results were quite good.

He simmered a pot of rich broth from the wild boar skin, froze it into solid blocks in the freezer for storing special potions, and then cut it into small squares. He mixed the diced broth with minced lean and fatty wild boar meat and wrapped them together in the buns.

Even with limited resources, soup-filled buns were a must-have!

While Vivian worked on concocting a hemostatic potion, Charlotte steamed the buns on the newly constructed stove nearby.

"Boss, what is this? It looks plump and white," Vivian couldn't help but stop her work when she smelled the aroma. She curiously looked at Charlotte and asked.

"This is our dinner, soup-filled buns." Charlotte smiled.