I stretch a bit then stare about the empty field.

The tutorial's done – there’s no more quests. I’m on my own now.

What should I do first? That’s a good question me. If my goal was simply survival, it would be food water shelter – sorry shelter water food is the correct order of the priorities, the other way just sounds better.

I start to walk slowly around my world as I think. Those would be my priorities if I was just trying to survive…but I already have a water bottle and food and the sleeping bag might be considered enough to count as shelter…not really but it’s a place to sleep and the grass is soft.

I should probably check those right? I walk back over to the system panel and pull the water and ‘food’ out, picking them up from where they dropped to the ground beside me.

The energy bars are packaged in a small box of ten. Covered in chocolate but without a single marking to say what brand they might be, or what might be in them.

The water bottle is a ‘giant’ one liter container. That looks like it will run out first if I drink how you are supposed to – I’m bad at drinking my daily water okay! I tried – even got one of those bottles with little lines telling you when to drink every hour – but I end up just forgetting and being bad at hydration.

Oh! Technically I could get milk from my slime…wherever it is. She is? He is? It gives milk so it’s probably a girl but its technically just made out of milk…it probably doesn’t actually have a gender. Does it split like a cell? Asexual reproduction?

I do need a bucket if I want to milk her and should probably try some of the water sometimes.

Does the milk slime need water? How will it replenish itself if I milk it? Does it just ‘fill’ by magic or is it like a cow that converts grass and water into milk or…

I’m getting distracted. Let’s see…I feel like the first thing I should do is get better supplies? You’re right, that does seem smart.

The goddess was nice to leave me with some things, but I need so much more. There’s also some concerning stuff on my status. Things I should probably get to in a while…but supplies first.

Alright! A plan! That’s a good place to start. I put all my supplies back into my inventory then switch to the store for the first time.

The store panel opens to a single button that I once again have to click. It loads for a bit and then the store is open.

In front of me a sort of eBay-like website appears. It’s a bit more simplistic – there’s no ads and everything is in soft shades of blue and purple – but it’s basically what you would imagine a shop website would look like.

There are filters to sort by different parameters – oh hey it looks like I’m already logged in as a user somehow it shows my history and my listings – both none…

It also shows my money.

Zero. Zip. Zilch. Wow – the goddess didn’t leave me with pocket change to buy a bucket and shovel and stuff. Rude! Foiled at step one.

…

Okay she’s not my parent and she doesn’t need to give me money on a drip feed. I’m a big girl, I can figure something out.

Let's try and sell stuff.

I put my grass rope into my inventory and then try and list it.

-1 money (confirm) ->breakdown.

I click and read the rude breakdown.

It…will cost me money to “dispose of trash” in the store. Do you know how much time I spent sticking those pieces of grass together? Rude! Even ruder than Mr Wizard!

Ugg okay. It's not that easy.

The biggest ‘thing’ I’m ignoring is she did solve this problem. Kind of – she gave me a skill I could use to make money in a guaranteed way…I decided not to gain it for my first skill, but I have a slot again. It might be smart to gain just in case? Yeah, I think I read a story once where someone made magic crystals and fertilized their crops with it. I’m sure the skill will be useful outside of money.

Okay! I’m doing it.

Navigating back to the inventory I suddenly remember I forgot to put the skill stone back.

Shoot I’m dumb. That’s probably really expensive isn’t it. Where is it? Spinning around I finally spot the awakening stone a meter or so away hidden in the grass. Okay. Let’s go to the wizard and shove this bad boy in.

Moving to the skill panel I open it up and push the stone into the screen. It sticks for a second and then – with a squelch – is sucked into it in an entirely different manner to the inventory. The inventory sort of just let you push it in and it felt like the screen wasn’t even there. This on the other hand felt like pushing it into mud or something – the stone making the screen ripple for a second as it enters.

Weird. Why the different method goddess?

Accepting the awakening stone I wait – and I don’t have long to wait at all.

This time the skill gaining event starts off the same but rapidly changes. A growing tight feeling that’s exciting instead of uncomfortable at this point. A growing chill and then suddenly that stops. It feels like a pair of arms wrap around me almost. Like the goddess is behind me giving me a surprise cuddle. It feels kind of nice. Her arms aren’t here obviously and I don’t really feel the touch per say…

While calmed and held in her embrace I can feel one of her hands wandering. It seems to carefully reach into my stomach and carefully press and poke about my insides. I hope you know what you are doing goddess – I didn’t even know you could poke my insides like that. Really she should get to know me better this is surprisingly intimate feeling. Take a girl out to lunch before you re-arrange her insides!

After less than a minute of this the feeling vanishes – the embrace leaves me, and I’m left alone once more.

Come back arms! I wasn’t done yet.

The arms do not return.

…

Walking back to my status I find several changes. It seems the goddess’s awakening stone straight up gave me the skill at level two. How broken! Is this the cheat of heroes? I mean if level 1 is just the unknown affinity and level two is the locked in skill I guess it makes sense it needs to be locked in as a default?

The cheat of goddess given skills.

Self status (click to expand)

Tier 4

Skills 2/3 ->

[Triboadhesion] Tier 2

[Mana Crystal Creation] Tier 2

The skill also seemed to have come with some sort of muscle memory. I know how to use it despite never having created a mana crystal before.

What is mana? Usually in games it’s a resource you use to cast spells…but Triboadhesion doesn’t feel like I’m using anything at all? Other than my fingers to rub things I mean.

I’m also quite aware I now have a third skill I could gain right away but it feels like I shouldn’t gain even more before I even know what my current ones do if that makes sense? It feels like rushing in the wrong way. Maybe it’s a dumb thought – there might be a way to practice multiple skills at once so not picking up a third now is a waste of grinding potential…but my gut – my rearranged gut – still feels like its best to take things one at a time.

This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.

Ah well. Time to make my seed funds, I guess.

I sit down cross legged on the grass once more and cup my hands together near my chest. Not really necessary but it feels like it might help.

All I have to do is breathe…breathe and sort of imagine that tight compressing feeling that happens when I gain skills but imagine it’s happening between my hands.

Slowly I try. My mind tells me I’ve done this before but it’s still hard – it’s boring this is. Worse than sticking stuff together! At least with sticky rubbing, I have something to do with my hands. This feels like meditation. It’s boring!

Minutes pass and my hands feel like they are pressing on something cool or hot or smooth or sticky. Wet and dry and various tones of sensation pass in between my hands as I work. I move out slowly as if to give it more space and then push inwards as if squeezing the air together following some innate feeling the skill is pushing me towards.

I keep peeking in but can’t see anything yet. Are mana crystals invisible? I certainly feel like I’m holding something – might as well be mana.

Time continues to pass – finally after almost ten minutes I realize the feeling is more ‘real’. There’s a tiny blobby shape floating between my fingers.

This…this does feel like magic – the shape spins and leaks so I continue to compress and push mana into the crystal. It only takes a few more minutes before it stops leaking. It’s complete! Mwahahaha! A lumpy glass marble blob streaked with different tinged colours.

It’s pretty – and took me almost 15 minutes to make. Maybe? I wasn’t really counting, and it feels like double that.

Okay. Let’s make a few more – I want enough money to buy all the things!

I cup my hands together again – much more willing to go through the process now that I know it actually creates results and FOCUS.

The visualization is kind of relaxing and kind of new and kind of exciting…even if it’s also kind of dull and boring.

I’m probably doing this wrong – but no, this time it does seem to be going faster. What took me around 15 minutes before only took me 11 minutes with proper concentration.

I don’t know how many more of these I have in me though. It’s been almost half an hour and I feel restless.

Standing up I try it once again while walking slowly. This skill is weird. Visualization is weird – since when have people been able to imagine things and have them come true?

I mean since they had skills, but you know….

Creating a crystal while walking feels different. If I had to describe it, its easier to gather stuff while walking – because I’m moving into “fresh” areas of the atmosphere? But its also harder to hold onto it…because while walking the stuff I’ve gathered slips away.

If I angle my hands more less slips through and if I concentrate really hard, I can keep them from slipping away.

Okay. A semi equal size stone was created after nine minutes. Definitely faster even if it was a bit harder. The stone is shaped weirdly through – almost like a teardrop the tail facing away from the direction I was moving.

I continue to move and create teardrops until I really can’t anymore. I’m sorry I haven’t embraced the grind yet. I’ll try again later when I have nothing to do.

Pushing all my stones into my inventory they each show up as different items refusing to stack nicely.

Inventory

[‘snowpea seeds’ -> obtain]

[‘sleeping bag’ -> obtain]

[‘bottle of water’ -> obtain]

[‘Nutrition bars’ -> obtain]

[‘Small poor quality wild calm bent raw forged mana crystal’ -> obtain]

[‘Small unstable poor quality wild raw forged mana crystal.’ -> obtain]

[‘Small poor quality wild raw forged mana crystal.’ -> obtain]

[‘Small unstable wild raw forged mana quasi-crystal.’ -> obtain]

[‘Small unstable wild movement bent raw forged mana crystal.’ -> obtain]

Are they really that different? I mean sure they looked shapes of blob but enough to count as different items? Maybe I had to put them in a bag if I wanted them listed together.

Also poor quality. Rude. I tried okay. First try I might add. Should rename ‘poor’ to ‘good attempt’.

Switching to the market I found a listing tab and several options. I could sell ‘at cost’ to the website (the lowest potential profit)…I could list the price I wanted them to sell for, then transfer to the auction house and pay for them to hold it until it sold…I could list it without transferring it and send it off as soon as it sold – an option that was locked due to my account not being in a good enough standing yet.

Or I could literally auction it. Set an amount of time transfer to the auction for that amount of time and then have them go to the highest bidder.

Seeing as how I didn’t know how the money here worked – there wasn’t even a bill type my tab simply said ‘money: 0’ – the bidding version seemed best.

I had to pay to list the items – one money to transfer the bulk of them – and pay to hold them until sold – one money per hour each – but because of how small they were and due to my first timer bonus… The fixed cost actually ended up being wiped – I only had to give the auction house 40% of my profits.

40%. Of my hard work. Rubbish. Highway robbery! The store the goddess connected me to is a rip off! Scammers!

But it’s my only option so fine. Whatever, I’m not salty – I’m really salty – it’sss fine. I can make more stones. Maybe if I make enough, I can pay fixed costs for listing and holding and transfer…how much is the auction houses percentage take if I do that?

18% at my current standing and using the same sort of setup as I have right now as long as I’m willing to pay a lot more fixed costs and transfer quite a bit more bulk…

That’s…that’s not that bad. I mean it's bad obviously but… it's less than half the gross forty. Definitely a break even point. Looks like if I sell just under 100 its cheaper to go that route.

I list the stones, then begin to pace. Back and forth and back and forth. Ahhhh! How much time did I set it for again? An hour? That’s wayyyy too long. Maybe I should make more stones? Was an hour too little? I wanted to get supplies by the end of the day at least.

Yeah, making stones is a productive use of my time.

Walking slowly about my world, I focus on crystal creation and actually try to make them good quality – or at least not bad quality. I don’t know if walking breaks the process because I think all the teardrop ones I made were the ones that mentioned being unstable? They were much prettier, so I hope not.

Finally, I have seven more stones – only half of them unstable. Turns out the little tail drifting away is bad but if you focus on compressing and strengthening it more at the end it stops showing unstable…

They are almost like Prince Rupert drops! Snap that little tail and the whole thing shatters.

A faint ding rings out – I figured out how to set that up while waiting.

The auction is done! Ding means done!

I left the auction screen open so when I rush over one of the first things I see is my results.

Five items sold. +50 Money.

Detailed breakdown using your listing names.

Poor quality calm bent stone: 25

Unstable poor quality stone: 7

Poor quality stone: 5

Unstable stone: 17

Unstable movement bent stone: 30

Grand total: 84 money.

Auction house cut: 34 money.

Final payout: 50 money.

Fifty money! That’s great…I think? Maybe? I’m starting to look at the price of things and…there seems to be a problem folks. Why does everything cost so much???? How much is 50 money worth? Everything is in the thousandsss.

I’m slightly dejected as I list the new batch of stones – these ones had some better quality looking ones – then go back to scrolling. The cheapest items I can find are all in the hundreds. This is ridiculous, can I even buy anything?

Let’s…lets sort to non-magical items. I wanted a bucket and a shovel after all.

Plain Metal bucket…50 money.

Suspicious. Super suspicious. Do they know how much I have?

Okay there’s also a 13 pack of buckets for 260 moola. So…okay that’s a much better price per bucket.

Do I even need that many? A baker’s dozen of bucket boyos?

I mean I want to make a farm. Feels like more is better.

Fine, I’m not immediately rich but I can still do this. Just a few more hours of work and I can afford to splurge on 13 buckets.

What are the shovels like? Super mega awesome shovel 4000 is 4999 monies. Fine it’s not called that but still. Where’s the normal ones…okay a regular super simple looking shovel at this auction house is 140 moonies.

Let’s try and figure out how much these are worth. Do they sell burgers? What’s the burger rule again?

Messing about in the action I find a sad lack of food. There’s energy bars – a different brand then the one I was given – grain and ‘feed’ for animals (they look like fruit loops I kind of want to see what they taste like)…bread…a bunch of salted meat on a limited time only deal. Honestly it’s less like a grocery section and more like the weird shelf near the back of a drug store that has a few random items on it.

I’m starting to better understand how much ‘money’ is worth though. Price of shoes. Price of blankets. Price of a bag of energy beans (Looks like coffee to me) and I have some sort of baseline. Everything is obviously priced a bit differently according to supply and demand, but I think I know how much stuff is worth.

One ‘Money’ is…very very roughly ten cents. So, my 50 money is basically 5 dollars.

Wow. An hour of work for 5 dollars. That’s worse than minimum wage. The 5 dollar shovel is looking even more low quality with that context.

I’ve almost spent an hour looking at things sadly, so I switch back to my listing tab and stare at the sell items sadly instead.

Oh! I can see what the highest bid is on them! And! One of them is currently going for 80 money! You go small concentration bent! And it just popped up to 85!!! WOOOHOOO TO the top. Let’s break the 10$ barrier!

I celebrate by jumping up and down and pumping my hands as I watch the number climb with the personal investment of a gambling addict. No one’s around to judge me, okay? Don’t tell me you don’t act like this when you are home alone.

Maybe I was too harsh on the store. Most of the stones I sold last time were poor quality and unstable. Let’s see what I get on this batch…

I wait counting down the time to auction end. Why is the time moving so slow???

Finally with serotonin-producing ding the auction finishes and my money is deposited into my account.

Seven items sold. +272 Money.

I jump up and down in glee trying to ignore the ALMOST TWO HUNDRED MONEY THE SCAMMERS STOLE FROM ME!

Checking the detailed breakdown, I nod. Small concentration bent went for the highest at 105 but some of the others were starting to get up there as well.

I have enough to buy a stack of buckets – more than a girl needs but those sweet sweet savings are there.

I’m really going spend my entire first day making mana crystals, aren’t I?

It’s not the most exciting but a girls gotta get supplies.

Back to the grind I go. Hi ho, Hi Ho.