The red light of dawn found me rushing out of bed and doing my morning routine. Part of that was rushing up to the sewing machine to collect the bright orange pants. I wasn’t about to put any more building clothes on there, so I put on all my building clothes before pulling out the stone blocks and placing the last of the blocks into upgrading the storage. I waited patiently, staring at the storage, when I saw the words shift and change.

0/75 bricks

I smiled to myself. “Perfect.”

I grabbed the thirty bricks I had ready to go and dropped them one by one into the storage. I got halfway before I started to contemplate what I was doing. It was going to rain for three days straight. I don’t remember the last time the fence asked for bricks, but there was still a chance it would. If it did, then I would have to make sure I had enough baked clay in order to give it what it needed.

A chill raced down my spine. I hadn’t thought of that until now, but once I did, I knew it would be stupid to not to have some baked clay prepared, or even regular bricks to make sure the tool wasn’t clogged up in case other things needed to be created in the three days.

I stopped putting bricks to upgrade the storage unit and started counting what I had left. Ten baked clay, fourteen bricks. If I saved all of them, that would give me twenty-four bricks. Despite how much I wanted to update the storage unit to give me more space, I also needed to make sure that bricks especially would be well stocked up. They needed the sunlight, and I wouldn’t get sunlight for three days.

Today might be a day that I made sure I had a good collection of baked clay, which meant more clay gathering.

Today’s morning routine also involved cooking more fish and chips. I had enough to make five more plates, and I would have the space for it.

Could I cook in the rain? I hadn’t actually thought about it. I had a huge selection of soup, and since they were attacking tonight, I was going to eat most, if not all of the fish and chips to help my sanity. I did not want to drop below fifty percent if I could help it. Cooking the fish and chips was something that would take up space, but before the night was over the space in the storage unit would return. But as I started the fire and put the ingredients in the pot, I started to wonder what might happen if I ran out of soup during the next three rainy days. I wasn’t sure if I could cook. It might be another experiment I would have to do.

I walked toward the greenhouse, really aching to get the storage room upgraded. But I was too worried about needing bricks for the fence. It didn’t matter. In one more day I’d figure out a new to-do list and see if I would need those bricks. If I didn’t, then great, I’d just dump all the bricks into the storage room. But if I did need them, then I’d have them. I could spend one more day waiting.

I entered the greenhouse, collecting tomatoes and potatoes. I went to the second greenhouse to see the lettuce ready to be picked. I took a deep breath, then grabbed the lettuce. This would be the first time picking lettuce, and I was waiting to figure out what exactly this new produce would give me.

As I broke off the leaves of the lettuce, I felt it unlock in the clipboard. Once I finished gathering the lettuce, I watered the stubs to grow more leaves. I then grabbed my three baskets of food and returned, gathering a plate of fish and chips on the way and starting another plate. I dropped the produce in the storage unit before walking over and picking up the clipboard, flipping through the pages of recipes. There was one that unlocked, but the recipe covered an entire page. I brought it closer to read.

Salad Bar

Every salad must have a base of these three ingredients:

0/5 lettuce

0/2 carrots

0/2 tomatoes

From there, the more complex the ingredient, the higher the percentage you get back for stamina. The optional ingredients to put on the salad are as follows:

Basic: Add small percentage to stamina when consumed with salad

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0/1 onions

???

???

???

Complex: Add larger percentage to stamina when consumed with salad

0/1 cooked egg

0/1 meat of choice

???

???

???

Must need chopping station in kitchen to make this

I raised my eyebrows at this. It looked like I had the option of making salad that gave different amounts of stamina depending on what was in it. I would have to test the base of the salad to see how much it gave me, but having possible add-ons to give more stamina would be nice. And it looked like there were a lot of things to still unlock.

But what hit me like a ton of bricks was that final sentence. Chopping station in the kitchen. I could make food that wasn’t dependent on the fire!

I flipped through the pages of the clipboard again to the buildings. They were all grayed out still, but I looked for one in the kitchen.

Must reach cooking level 15 to unlock this

That must be it. That had to be the chopping station in the kitchen. In an excitement, I flipped through the pages again toward the back to view my progress.

Farming level 19

Cleaning level 21

Logging level 22

Cooking level 14

Building level 23

Animal Care level 16

I was close. Really close to that cooking level 15. Considering I was cooking some food now, I could possibly reach it.

Also, I was slacking on the animal care clothes. I needed to check this more often. I checked all the other things to see if there was anything else available, but they were all either bought already or locked away.

“Once those sections reach level twenty, it really is a grind,” I said, glancing at my building levels that were so close to 25. I’d been building a ton, but it still seemed to go so slowly.

For not having a to-do list, I was certainly making a lengthy one for myself today. I put another fish and chips on the fire, hoping a few more of these would get me to level 15. Between the option of having a fireless cooking place and needing to get more clay baking, I was going to be busy today.

I finished the last few things in my morning routine before staying by the cooking fire with the last twenty minutes on the timer, staring at the trees. There was no doubt about it now. The golds, reds, and oranges were spreading. Summer was ending, and fall was making its entrance.

I didn’t like sitting when I had so much to do, but I didn’t think I could go down to the river, gather clay, and return without losing so much time on the fire, and I couldn’t buy whatever that chopping thing was for the kitchen without raising my cooking levels a bit more, which required me to stay here and cook.

Once I had the final fish and chips going in the fire, I glanced at my progress. Still not enough. With that, I began my trip to the river. Once there I caught a fish, gathered some clay, and returned to the house to check my progress. I did that one more time before finally reaching level 15 in cooking.

I took a deep breath, flipping through the sheets to check the building options before it told me I needed to buy the level fifteen outfit for cooking.

“So picky,” I mumbled, going back to the catalogue of clothes. I chose a pair of black slacks, taking ten points out of my total. It still left me with a nice 37.03 total dopamine points.

The cutting station was another ten dopamine points, which I gladly gave up to have an opportunity to make something inside instead of outside. As usual, this came with some assembly required, but honestly, two boards seemed almost insulting compared to all the other things I had to build recently. Cutting down an entire tree to get two boards, however, felt particularly wasteful. I wouldn’t have enough room to store all those logs.

I realized that this didn’t seem nearly as much to build because cooking had always fallen a bit behind from all my other stats. Now that fishing counted as part of gaining experience for cooking, it was finally catching up with the others. I placed two boards onto the cherry wood kitchen island and right at the end appeared a huge cutting board with a sharp knife.

I checked again my progress levels to see how much leveling I would have to do in cooking to meet up with the next lowest. I realized animal care was only at level 16. I’d have to see if I could do something else to bring both animal care and cooking up. I also realized that at level 16, I hadn’t gotten the level three clothing item for animal care. With dopamine points burning a hole in my pocket, I dropped ten more points to get scratch resistant gloves.

I barely bought the item when the entire clip board started to glow. Out of instinct I dropped it, backing away, eyes wide. Words filled my vision.

All levels at 15.

All clothes bought for level 15.

Upgrading…

Upgrading…

Upgrading…

I stared, heart pounding. “This is good, right?” I said out loud. “Because this is scaring me, but it’s supposed to be good. Right? Right?”

A breeze picked up my hair, blowing it around as I felt myself lift off the ground an inch. I glanced down, surprised to see my body glowing as well. Before I had time to fully freak out about the whole thing, I dropped to the ground again and the light went away. I stood there, panting. I patted my clothes, feeling something there. It was the oddest feeling, but for whatever reason, I felt like there was some sort of pocket dimension in the small of my back. I reached in, frowning. How the hell was it in my back?

Upgrade complete.

On-person inventory granted.

Can hold up to TEN items in inventory.

I stared at the words as they faded away, then I felt an excitement bubbling up inside me.

“This is going to make getting clay. So. Much. Easier.”