The next day is much the same. Well, not exactly the same, but similar enough.

I decide that I might as well make more ‘pottery’, if not for any other reason than to level up my skill. The first batch hasn’t dried yet, so I can’t move forward with that. Then, I tackle the problem of actually harvesting some bark.

For that, some kind if sharp implement is going to be needed. Good thing that I have a skill called improvised implements. Now, while I may be an amateur at this survivalist thing, I do believe that the sharpest thing I’ll find in nature is a rock.

And there are usually rocks near rivers and lakes. So, I set about searching for one of a bigger size. River stones are usually round, polished by the river current, but if I break if it should form a nice and sharp edge. I hope.

After yesterday’s experience with how cold the lake is I decide not to search for stones in the river, but near it. And sure enough, I do find one that’s bigger than my fist. And soon a couple more, just in case the first one doesn’t develop the edge that I need. Then, I carry it all back to the lakeside where my pottery and impromptu ‘workshop’ is.

And I set about bashing stones against each other. Yeah, if I hadn’t felt like a caveman before, I sure do now. Let’s just hope there’s nothing left to be attracted by the sound. A couple minutes later I have a pile of broken rocks before me.

Picking out the best and sharpest one I hesitate. Perhaps I should also sharpen it? I don’t exactly know more about it than just rubbing it against another rock. And I don’t want to ruin it. Ah, I’m sure it’ll be fine. I can try that if it dulls later on.

So, I take my sharp rock and head to the treeline. Hmm, I don’t actually know that much about birches, especially not about how to eat them. Or rather, which ones are the best for it. Mind as well pick at random.

Soon, I’m striking the trunk of a midsized birch with the edge of the stone. I’ll be honest, it isn’t really effective. Sure, using it is better than just a blunt rock, but still. It takes me a couple of minutes to carve in a decent distance into the bark.

Inserting my fingers, I try to pull it off. I think I read once somewhere that it’s supposed to come off rather easily. But it doesn’t, so on to more bashing I go.

Only once I have the beginning of an outline of a square in the tree am I able to peel it off. Which gives me a square about the size of eight palms. Yeah, I’m not very good with measurements. What’s that, maybe thirty centimetres to a side? Who knows? Or cares?

Ok, so. Bark secured. Is it actually edible? Who know, but I’m willing to bet it is. At least once it’s cooked.

Speaking of, I’m going to need a fire. Not just to cook the food, but also to fire the clay. Because I really don’t want it start dissolving once I pour water inside.

Fortunately, the forest nearby is full of branches and leaves to start a fire. The only thing missing is something to set it ablaze. Some matches or a lighter sure would be convenient right now. But no, the System had to plop me down into this world without even my clothing.

That leaves me with a couple of options. I can wait for thunderstorm to set a tree on fire and then use that. Not very plausible and also very dangerous. I could dedicate myself to learn magic and conjure some fire. Again, not very plausible in the short timeframe before I start to really starve. And also, there’s the slight possibility of there not even being any magic. Not that I believe that, but yeah.

The more realistic options include finding some flint to strike a spark. Which I don’t find likely, since I don’t know how flint looks like. And lastly, rubbing some wood against each other (and no, that’s not a euphemism).

As such, grabbing a flatter piece of wood and a more or less straight stick, I get to work. When people usually talk about this, they talk about spinning the stick between your palms or even better, using a bow. Since I don’t have a bow though and have some faint recollections of someone saying that rolling it with my palms creates nasty blisters, I’ve decided on a third way.

Sure, it was a long time ago, but seem to remember that in the book Robinson Crusoe, the character Robinson Crusoe started a fire by rubbing a stick back and forth on a flatter piece of wood. Or did he try and fail? No matter, it won’t hurt to at least try.

I set about to doing just that. And immediately understand why humanity invented an easier method. This is, quite frankly, hell. Not only is it an extremely repetitive task, but it’s also physically intensive which, in turn, makes you unable to just space out in fear of hurting yourself.

Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

It’s good then that I have just the right skillset to manage it. Not the best, mid you. It’d be better to have a dedicated skill for starting fires, but that feel too specialized for me. Besides, maybe my improvised implements skill will help with this. If not now then eventually when it’s high enough level.

So, while I’m, hopefully not fruitlessly, doing that, I’m also at the same time back inside my mind theatre watching some imaginary television.

And while I’m at it, I also dedicate a part of my mind to thinking. But dedicate is such an imprecise word to use in this situation. I mean, it’s not like I’m paying it much attention or anything like that. More of stray though that I can leave without a leash thanks to the parallel processing skill. But I digress.

Once I have this fire going, I’ll first have to finish my pots. I have no idea whether or not it’s been long enough for them to dry and not crack in the fire, but I have enough of them to experiment a little bit. After that I’ll finally be able to cook. And once I’ve had my fill it’s time for magic. God, am I excited to start with that.

Which will make me dedicate some more skills for that. And I highly doubt there’s a unifying ‘magic’ skill. Depending on how it actually works it may actually take up more than five of them. Hmm, I rather hope really hard that it isn’t such a needlessly complicated magic system.

It takes me maybe half an hour more before the first signs of smoke start coming off of the piece of wood. But I don’t stop. As far as I know, just smoke isn’t enough. What I need is an ember. Once I have it, I’ll move it onto the dry leaves, which should easily catch fire and consequently make it easier to light first the smaller and then the thicker branches.

Which only takes a couple more minutes and soon I have a small campfire. At this point all I have to do is make sure it doesn’t go out and I’m set. After only a couple more minutes it’s blazing nice and big and I think it’s ready.

I put one pot inside. And that’s it. Just one. After all, I’m not an idiot. At least not a complete one. While I’m going to test it just in case, I don’t think that when firing pottery, you put it in when the fire is already at its hottest. If I remember correctly then I should have put them in when the fire was only beginning and slowly build it up. But I’ve got no patience for that, so instead I’ll be slowly adding them as the fire dies down.

Which gives me a chance to start with my meditation training. And since meditation apparently requires me to have an empty mind, I’ll have to stop thinking about a bunch of things with my parallel processes. Let’s hope this works.

Over the next couple hours, I do just that. Except that every now and then, whenever I feel like it, I stop and add a pot or branch into the fire. I’m sure that it isn’t helping me learn meditation, but what can you do. This isn’t exactly the best environment for learning calming techniques.

Once all the pots are in the fire (only he ones from yesterday, todays ones are still too wet), I take a burning branch and use it to make a second fire a little further away. Now I can let this one die out completely and retrieve my pots. I hope at least one survived.

Half an hour later, I’m lying near the lake with a hand submerged underneath water. Yeah, make fun of me all you want. How was I supposed to know that when the fire is gone the pottery will still retain some of the heat? It’s not like I have a tutorial to work off of.

Sadly, not even once the sun goes down have the pot cooled down enough for me to use them, but at least I can safely say that at least one did indeed survive the process. Sure, there are a bunch that have cracks running through them, if they aren’t completely shattered, but at least it’s something.

So, to cheer myself up, I look at how much my skill levelled. Damn, it been a while since I last checked. The last time was before I had even found the river, wasn’t it? There’s bound to be a huge amount of growth.

Level Up!

Silent step – level 25 -> 31

Fortified mind – level 26 -> 34

Languages – level 1 -> 9

General knowledge – level 16 -> 24

Visualize – level 17 -> 28

Parallel processing – level 15 -> 30

Improvised implements – level 0 -> 14

Nice. Very nice actually. It’s rather obvious now that the first couple of levels come very easily. Just look at improvised implements. Though the skill ‘languages’ does go a bit counter to that. Then again, I haven’t really been using the skill for its intended purpose and the ‘language’ that I’m creating is barely even in its nascent form. I’m sure I’ll receive a huge boost once it begins to come together into a proper language with grammar and stuff.

And I’ve broken into the thirties! With three skills even! Sure, silent step and fortified mind were kind of expected, I’ve been using them from pretty much the moment I arrived here, but parallel processing is a bit of a surprise. On second thought, although I have had it for a shorter time, I have been using it constantly to maximize the levelling of my other skills.

I do have to say that I’m not unsatisfied. Silent step will drop off a bit now that I’m not moving about as much, but the others. Well, I can expect them become quite ludicrous. I wonder if a high enough improvised implements skill will allow me to magically change a pile of stick into something, I don’t know, maybe a shovel. That’d be extremely cool.

Hopefully tomorrow I will finally be able to cook up some birch bark ‘pasta’. I’m not sure how long I’ll be able to take this on an empty stomach otherwise.

But if I do eat tomorrow… oh, I’m going to have so much fun in that case. Maybe not immediately after, definitely not immediately, but once I get me some proper magic…

I’m getting giddy just imagining what I’ll be able to do. Controlling the elements, flying, conjuring whatever I want. There’ll be nothing I won’t be able to do!

I can’t wait!