Day 8 - August 21:38

Faith 2 / 10

Hunger 91 / 100%

One froze. He did not dare to take another step forward. To his left there was a rather big wolf watching his every move. One scanned his surroundings as much as he could without letting the beast out of his sight. Not a single other creature was visible. Wolves usually hunted in packs, so encountering more than one would not have come as a surprise to him. One now had three options. First one was to fight while trying to dodge potentially lethal attacks.

The second was very similar. Run. While hitting himself to trigger the movement speed buff continuously. As wolves were very good runners and rather enduring creatures he figured that to be a very bad idea though. Fighting was one thing, simply running would not work very well. As One found both options unworthy of consideration he decided to go with option three. Tame the beast. Had there been more than one this option would have not been available. One quickly grabbed 5 [Bonfire Meat] out of his inventory.

The wolf immediately reacted. His attitude changed as it went from observation to greed. He really had to be starving. Poor thing. One placed them on the ground and started eating one piece of the meat clearly visible to the big wolf. The beautiful creature slowly approached One. His fangs exposed he really seemed to threaten One. He would try to steal the flesh from him. One kept standing tall above his loot and chewing on another piece of meat from his inventory. When he was a little younger he had read a bit about the psychology of wolves in a manga. It was astonishing what these books taught him over the years.

Friendship, the importance of protecting it and your family no matter the cost, and various bits of information on many things in mediocre amounts. Among all those parts of general knowledge he remembered this. If he shared the food after eating as the first person, the wolf would consider him the alpha. As this was still far off a healthy friendship or pack thinking between them, One had to be patient. If the wolf followed him around, the continued sharing of food would make him more trusting and caring for his human partner. That was the moment a wild beast would be able to be tamed. Of course it sounded far more easy than it actually was. It was not calculable how the wolf would react in a game at all.

Chewing on his piece of meat One watched the grey wolf approach. It was really scared, getting closer and closer, meter by mete. While closing the distance he got more and more careful. Then One turned his head towards it. The wild hound froze. One stepped back half a step, then he kicked his small pile of meat on the ground with the tip of his boots. One’s childlike body was no real threat to the beast, as he was only half the size of a fully grown human.

As the beast got closer and closer, and finally latched onto a piece of meat, he hurried back a couple of meters instantly. Fearing that One might attack him, clearly. Soon thereafter the wolf got greedy. It tried to steal two pieces of meat while showing his fangs and growling. One figured he would try to do so, after all those deliciously prepared pieces of flesh were a real snack for the senses. One hushed the wolf with a sudden step in, without being scared and with total authority. Then he picked up and ate one of the two pieces himself.

He was the alpha, and he would show dominance. Respecting the step-in of this daring, fearless child, clothed in shadows, the wolf backed off more than necessary. He recovered from his shock all too quickly and came to eat another piece of the delicious treat without the growling attitude. One was happy that it worked so well. He had feared at least a snap of the beast's jaw and more aggressive behavior. No resistance was really lucky.

But he did not believe in luck. As long as Loki was there to troll his ingame experience, One would never have “luck”. Here it must have been his passive bonus, which he had gotten from the starting name “Uffe”. +80% to domesticating wolves. That was a huge bonus and without it this whole scenario would, most likely, have run along rather differently.

After the meat was gone, the wolf backed off, diving into the high grass growing all around him.. One continued his march through the grassland without him. If the beast would run away that was fine with him, even though he would very much prefer it to have a companion alongside him. His way through the high grass led him to many swamp like areas, that he wanted to avoid, getting into the water would most likely cause debuffs or be risky.

You never knew, if a fantasy creature hid there and One wanted to decrease potential risks. Since walking around took only a couple of minutes he was not all too troubled. When he finally arrived in the woods, he kept his eyes open for seeds, squirrels and rabbits. If there were a lot of them around he could work with his traps and set up camp to bring down a tree for now. He would need to stockpile food for later, especially if he was to succeed in taming his new friend. As nighttime came One did not see that many rabbits or squirrels out, but a lot of mice were hunted by owls. It was quite the spectacle and One failed to hit the majestic flying creatures time and time again.

They were just too fast when dashing from a tree, and never let him out of their sight either. Even the motion that began his dagger throw tipped them off far in advance. After walking for about an hour he came to a small flowing river, right next to some bunny holes. One counted eleven. He figured that the coming day would drive them out of their homes, so he set up some traps around. The hunter job mastery reached 94% while preparing the snares.

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One decided to not grind this one yet, since the traps he had to set up from time to time would do the trick themselves anyway. Soon afterwards he equipped his woodcutter axe and started his work. A small pine tree was his chosen target, and it should be enough to push the level one mastery to 100%.

[100%/100%]

[Small Pine Tree]

Age: 72 Days.

A skilled woodcutter may find [Pinewood] aside from:

[Common Wood] 77.14%

[Normal Wood] 17.95 %

[Rare Wood] 1.47 %

[Legendary Wood] 0.44 %

[Seed: Pine-Cone] 3.00%

Grown by: -nature-.

After testing for a couple of minutes he figured out the total time needed to cut it down. Nine hours and 42 minutes. Quickly he got to work and continued to mindlessly hit the tree with his axe. Noticing that his Faith had reached two points, he quickly spent them. 48 more to go until the next skill would be available.

The work itself progressed rather peacefully and the wolf he had fed earlier was now lurking a couple hundred meters away in the dark, watching One patiently do his work. It decreased the distance a couple of times, but was still over a hundred meters away when the sun finally rose. When the tree finally cracked sharply and started falling over, the beast quickly went off through the woods. But One figured he would be back sooner or later.

[You successfully cut down: Small Pine Tree. 72 Days.]

Day 9 - September 08:37

Faith 9 / 10

Hunger 42 / 100%

The woodcutter job mastery had climbed up to 93%. Maybe the harvest of the wood would do the rest? At least that was what One hoped. Rather unlikely considering the speed decreased with every point got closer to 100%. He also noticed that the temperature had really decreased quite a bit over night.

One really had forgotten that winter was right around the corner. It would be rather difficult to finish a small house before that happened, so he really had to find a cave as soon as possible. Winter would come and it would be merciless. The cold would kill him straight up if he failed to care for himself. Hopefully the bonfire skills he had acquired would help him get through this more easily. But even then, he would not be able to increase his skills at all if he was unable to go outside for having to warm up near the bonfire constantly.

One took out some [Bonfire Meat] and started chewing patiently. Now was a crucial time. If the wolf approached him again to feed he could really start to befriend him. That would be so awesome! His own pet. It did not take long until the smell attracted it. When the beast finally showed between the trees again One’s hearth really had skipped a beat. The wolf was so beautiful. The grey fur paired with its piercing blue eyes was quite stunning, while his approach was silent. Only his tucked in ears and the low-held tail were signs of his insecurities.

One held the meat towards him, and he slowly sniffed it before he took small bites. Then finally he sunk his teeth in and devoured the piece of meat in one go. Another two followed while One ate his share to full his hunger-bar. Soon afterwards the wolf remained in direct range to the cut down tree, where his benevolent provider of snacks spent his time grinding away at the tree. Nearly an hour later One was finished. In total he gained:

[Common Wood] 46 x

[Normal Wood] 11 x

[Rare Wood] 2 x

[Seed: Pine Cone] 1 x

The job mastery increased to 98% and he used up all of his Faith points which had accumulated to 10/10. After he used them he only needed 38 more points to unlock the new skill bar. As cutting down the tree had not been enough, so One decided to use up all of his seeds. Planting all of them would increase his [Foresting I] skill as well as the overall mastery, which he hoped would rise quite a bit this way.

After planting 38 [Seed: Pine Cone], which took him more than an hour his mastery increased to 100%, while foresting climbed to 28%. Excitedly One searched for his [Received: Receipt of Approval: Woodcutter Beginner I] and finally was able to use it. The axe in his hand vibrated and changed form first. The wooden hilt grew from a used up old trunk to be polished, although still rather old looking. Meanwhile the axe head grew a little in size and the edge looked much more sharp. All in all a real upgrade.

Then One himself began to shine from within, which honestly started to creep him out. If felt really weird to shine in the first place, but the feeling of a thousand ants crawling all over his body did not make it any better. Luckily it was over after a few seconds and a popup appeared again.

[You have reached [Woodcutter: Beginner II].]

[You have reached [Chopping Wood II].]

As suspected his skill leveled up as well. Now he just needed to reach the third level and figure out how to upgrade them afterwards. Sekomi would help him for sure. One continued to empty all his traps, which he set up earlier and looted all the rabbits that were caught. The traps were not as successful as they had been in the temple of Loki. In total he looted:

[Fresh Meat] 14x

[Brown Rabbit Pelt] 4x

After he was done, he saw the wolf approaching again. This time he had something in his jaws.

The wolf had brought him prey.