Instead of panic, a cool calculation settled over me.

So far, each skill took roughly the same amount of ‘actions’ to increase in level. This strongly implied that the system hadn’t yet implemented varying experience gain for different skills. Going from level one to level two took three actions as an example. That meant that it was likely that I could extrapolate the exact number of crafting operations it would take to get to level 10 to craft the agate. Five minutes of scratching into the dirt, I'd done just that.

34.

Given the mountain of assumptions from before, it would take 34 crafting operations to hit level 10. Assuming a single unit of rat fur dropped at a rate of 1 in 128, some simple multiplication revealed that I would need on average 4,352 rat kills to achieve this.

The dangerous aspect came from the distribution of drops. If the system had implemented the naive approach, where each drop was independent of the others, I might experience huge metaphorical droughts or floods of rat fur. Getting lucky would be ideal, but too many dry streaks could double or even triple the number of rats I would need to kill to get to 10 crafting.

I let myself sink into this new train of thought as I dismissed my worries. It was calming. I had no control over the exact mechanics of the system. I could only work to optimize my experience gain to the best of my ability.

The rat respawned once every minute. I could kill it in one blow, say...three seconds, but if I missed the first blow, it could take up to about 15 seconds to chase it down and squash it. As a conservative estimate, I figured I could kill one rat every 68 seconds. Which equated to 52.9 kills per hour. Divide 4,352 by 52.9 resulted in slightly over 82 hours or 3.4 days of continuous rat killing. Assuming a 16-hour work day, bumped that number to just over five days.

Which meant I needed to find water.

Sources of liquid included: Tree sap, rat blood, urine...

I grimaced, the concept momentarily knocking me out of the zen state.

There was one other option. Die somehow to force the world to reset and hope the system updates to be easier. I picked up my sword and stared at it. My mouth went dry, and my heart thundered behind my ears. I didn’t like the thought. Not one bit. Humans could survive without water for up to a week, so the grind was technically possible. I just had to commit.

I just had to commit.

----------------------------------------

Fifty-eight rats later, the first rat fur dropped. I grinned, setting it aside and going to cut the nearest tree. As I’d killed more rats, I’d started incorporating cooking the rat meat into the process. The minute downtime between kills gave me just enough time to cut a regular tree, light it on fire, and cook one piece of meat. Cutting an oak took too long, and I had a slowly growing pile of rat tails I wasn’t able to finish processing in time.

Still, this new method meant that I would have cut, burned, and cooked over 4,000 times by the time I was done with this grind. That was an order of magnitude more experience than I had gotten previously and should skyrocket my levels. I’d also decided to use the battle axe for the grind. While boosting my attack to unreasonable levels might be nice, having balanced stats would better prepare me for more situations.

The rat respawned, and I returned to my rhythm. Three kills later, another fur dropped. I laughed, doing a little jig as I collected the fur. Maybe I’d miscalculated, and the rat fur dropped more often than once in 128. If that was the case, I was guaranteed to finish this grind way before I would need to drink...unsavory things.

Happy, I settled in. Rat spawned. Rat died. I cut a tree and lit a fire. Then I checked the drop. Meat, I cooked. If it was a tail, I’d slice it with my knife, then cook it if I had time. Then I’d scratch a tick mark in the soil to mark the kill and the rat would spawn and I’d repeat.

This continued for over two hours before the next fur dropped. 122 kills, by my count. Perhaps I was unlucky in this instance, but I didn’t let it get me down. I was three furs in, and taking a quick break to process the items put me at level 2.

With a second wind, I continued. An hour passed. Then two. I could feel the anticipation rising with every kill, though the cool voice in the back of my head warned me of my fallacy. The drops were independent. Just because I’d killed rats for over two hours didn’t make the next rat any more or less likely to drop some rat fur. I acknowledged the voice, but secretly, I couldn’t help it.

The third hour passed and my anticipation grew sour. On the fourth, doubt crept in. Perhaps there were a limited number of rat fur that could be dropped. Or was there some hidden multiplier that reduced the drop rate once the kill count grew obscene?

By the fifth, I’d grown bored enough to start throwing my stack of copper knives at the rats. I missed sometimes, which reduced my rate, but I couldn’t be arsed. Interestingly enough, throwing the knives one-shot the rats as often as it didn’t. I couldn’t be sure, but it felt that despite throwing the knives, I was benefiting from the attack stat when the system calculated damage. It was an intriguing thought that I couldn’t wait to use to cheese future bosses.

By the sixth hour, I was losing it. Rat after rat died, and nothing but meat and rat tails. Holy. So much meat. My levels had gotten so high that I could chop, burn, and cook the drops in as little as 40 seconds when I was really in the zone. Those extra twenty seconds allowed me to start stacking the meat into shapes and structures.

When I’d figured out how to construct a window in a growing house with the flabby building materials, the fourth rat fur dropped. For a second, time stopped, then I whooped and dug the beautiful thing out of the clear goop. The rat respawned, but I went directly to crafting another set of rat fur boots. I didn’t get a level up, but all was right in the world. The system hadn’t randomly broken on me, and the stupid rat still dropped rat fur.

I estimated I’d been doing this grind for almost 10 hours by now. I was tired but surprisingly energetic considering the circumstances. The forest was beautiful, and the task itself wasn’t physically difficult. Just repetitive. The hardest part was remembering to kill the rat as soon as it spawned. As the rate-limiting step, I could be as lazy as I wanted elsewhere and still have optimal rates as long as I did that.

Four and a half hours and 239 rats later, night had fallen, and I obtained the fifth rat fur. I crafted it quickly and gained another crafting level.

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I gave a half-hearted cheer, then took a break. I hadn’t slept last night and the lack of sleep was starting to get to me. I still felt like I could keep going, though. It was such a strange feeling. Like being hungry while feeling full. My eyes itched, but I felt no muscular exhaustion. It was odd. Another of those strange changes inherent to this world.

Laying down to rest was surreal. Curled up in the softest area I could find, I closed my eyes, then opened them, and it was morning. The itch in my eyes was gone, and my throat felt tacky and parched. I blinked, having trouble with how well I slept on hard ground without a blanket, pillow, or anything.

I mulled over the strange sleep while I returned to killing rats. The first fur of the day dropped at 68 kills, and I got another lucky drop six kills later. It was an excellent start to the day. Naturally, the next drop took over three hours to get, but I wasn’t dismayed. I was starting to get used to the huge variance possible between drops.

More hours passed, and my levels steadily rose. Each time I felt like losing faith, a woodcutting level popped up. Or maybe attack or firemaking. It didn’t matter, but each time it happened, my faith renewed. I was making progress. However miserable it sometimes felt.

When evening arrived, I took a break to try and collect water. I was well and truly dehydrated by now. Exhaustion that had nothing to do with sleep crept up on me. I got dizzy when standing up too fast, and my lips were cracked something fierce. In an effort to avoid the more unpleasant options, I started collecting leaves. Crushing them eeked out a tiny amount of ultra-bitter liquid. It was...drinkable. Barely. Despite my raging thirst, that first sip made me gag. It was a real struggle to swallow the rest of the sap.

The next three hours of rat grinding were miserable. My stomach ached, and my mouth felt like I had chewed on an entire bottle of aspirin. Killing the rat helped take my mind off my misery though, and soon true darkness had fallen. I continued working, determined to make as much progress as humanely possible.

By the time the sun rose, I was knee-deep in the biggest dry streak so far. I’d gained nine rat fur yesterday and through the night. After the ninth, the system, god, or some higher force decided to piss on me.

Ten hours of rat grinding and nothing. I would have thrown in the towel if not for the constant level-ups in other skills. By my estimate, I’d killed over 550 rats consecutively, and still nothing. After the 500th rat, I’d sat down and done the math on how ridiculously dry I was. Assuming a 1 in 128 drop rate, there was a 98% chance I should have dropped at least one rat fur. As the kills went by, that number was rapidly approaching 99%.

When the drop finally came on the 582 kills, I almost cried in relief. Naturally, the shitty ass system decided that two kills later would also drop a fur. I kicked that fur halfway across the chunk before deciding that this was deserved. Fourteen kills after that, and another fur dropped. It seemed like my luck was turning around.

I rested, exhausted from the crazy events of the day. I had no trouble falling asleep like before, despite my thirst, and I awoke refreshed but completely dehydrated. That morning, I tried drinking rat blood. It was admittedly better than the leaves, but I only managed to get a couple of drops before the struggling rat would convert to clear gel that clogged my throat. The gel provided temporary relief but it soon evaporated and the thirst returned with a vengeance. If I incorporated this into every kill, I could hopefully avoid an uncomfortable session involving the most disgusting lemonade ever.

The day passed, and my first skill hit level 50. Woodcutting and firemaking had been keeping pace with each other until I started cutting the oak tree for the hell of it. Ever since then, woodcutting outpaced firemaking by a fair margin.

I slept again. Not even 10 hours after the last rest, I found I couldn’t continue. Luckily, rest was easy and quick to fall into. Waking up sucked, but I pushed away the fog and kept grinding.

That day was rough. The twenty-second rat fur was another dry streak. And a bad one as well. 100 rat fur. 200. 300. The hours passed like water as I dozed. My will to keep up the hyper-efficiency of woodcutting and firemaking waned. At times, I used the previous campfire. At times, I didn’t even bother cooking the rat meat. My cooking was approaching level 50. Why should I bother?

The 500th rat died, and I kept going through sheer force of will. Death by dehydration felt inevitable. All I wanted was to cut that damn agate before I succumbed. I just had to continue. Keep going. One kill at a time. Counting to 4,000 minute by minute. Kill by kill.

I got the fur on kill 562. There was no fanfare or reward. I simply set it aside and kept going.

I always got the fur. Eventually. The grind continued. Sometimes, it took longer. Sometimes shorter. On the whole, my luck evened out. Perhaps a touch unlucky. I’d stopped trying to do the exact math a while ago. I simply drew strength from that cool, confident voice in the back of my head to keep going. The numbers do not lie. The calculations are accurate. This grind is possible.

You can do it.

As the crafting levels increased, I was able to craft more than just boots. At level 3 I crafted some gloves that increased my attack by 1. At level 5, I created a grungy hood that increased my defense by 1. At level seven, it was a ratty cloak with the same effect as the gloves.

Each one was an inconsequential increase but served as massive motivators for me. They were tangible, real milestones on my journey. At no point did I go as dry as I had. Never again did it take more than 4 hours for a single piece of rat fur. I killed, cooked, and crafted. Days passed in a fugue until the fateful notification popped into my vision.

“Thirty...thirty...three?” I mumbled, confused. Looking at my huge block of tick marks documenting my journey showed that I’d killed a total of 4,926 rats who’d dropped 33 pieces of rat fur.

It should have taken one more. I was sure of it. Thirty-four operations were needed to get to level 10. So...how come it had only taken 33? The voice in the back of my mind calmed my rising panic. I’d crafted my first pair of boots before I’d started the grind. I hadn’t been counting that one. So I had crafted 34 items. I'd simply forgotten to count the first one.

I slumped to the ground in relief as I pulled up my stats. They had...ballooned.

Combat level:34 Health:42/42 Attack:49/49 Defense:48/48 Recovery:17/17 Woodcutting:52/52 Firemaking:48/48 Crafting:10/10 Mining:18/18 Smithing:20/20 Cooking:49/49

My stats had approached the high-40s in all the stats I’d trained. The levels had grown few and far between, and I was sure the system was exponential. Despite only four levels of difference between firemaking and woodcutting, there was a massive difference in experience between those two skills.

During the beginning of the grind, I’d been meticulous in writing down in the dirt how many trees it had taken per level, but I had slacked off later in the grind. Still, it wasn’t hard to tell that the requirements were doubling every few levels. The ratios were too exact for anything else.

I lifted the agate with tired hands and gently touched it with the chisel. The rock shed layers of rough stone to reveal a perfectly faceted gemstone underneath.

I was sucked into the void. My exhaustion and thirst vanished. In an instant, I was back to perfect health.

I’d done it.