As he held the tiny blue rock in his hand he just kind of stared at it. His eyes would go wide but they had been going wide in shock way too much the past few days. So this time he just kind of awkwardly stared at it. Then it hit him, a mana stone? From the name he guessed that is was a sort of stone that held mana. And since the monster rabbit held one. He quickly surmised every monster may have one. The name also suggested there were bigger and better mana stones that held more than 100 mana. Now the real question was how could he make use of this stone. And how useful was it really.

And then a smile appeared on his face when he got a great idea. Now this was exactly what he needed. The mana stone would replenish a set amount of mana depending on the tier of mana stone. His minor mana stone for example would only replenish 100 mana.

Now why was Jake smiling so wide at this discovery? Well because a-lot of the options he could make with his construction skill took a lot more mana than he had. That gaming pc for example took 750MP and he only had 100MP But what if he got another 7 minor mana stones. The construction skill didn’t take the 750Mp instantly; it was spread out over the building process. So if he had another 7 mana stones to absorb. Wouldn’t that let him use a total of 800MP?

Didn’t that mean he wouldn’t have to wait to get some better technology and luxuries? This would give him both a better chance at survival and a more comfortable time doing it! Not to mention he could finally start making use of that drone pc link function. That way he could get a live feed of what his drone was seeing.

Yes, that thought made his smile grow even wider. Actually why get a pc. He had no need for good performances right now. All he needed was a device to receive the drones live feed. So why not get a phone? He had broken his phone in the panther fight. And if he had the option to always be able to check his drone feed on hand. Why wouldn’t he pick that?

Now before he started dreaming of his new building options and the expanded potential this just gave him. He would need to get more minor mana stones. And he already had a plan in mind. He quickly finished dismantling the poison terror rabbit for its poison. He threw the rabbit corpse in the corner of his base, stored the poison sack, and decided to check his mana.

60 / 100MP

It seemed like he,d taken a little longer to do everything than he had needed to. So he quickly finished his flush door. Now for him to be able to enter and exit his flush door he would need to be able to open and close it. And luckily for him his Construction skills,s miscellaneous tab had just what he needed. A remote control, just a simple remote with one button on it,that would cost 5MP. He,d be able to close and open the door from both sides, and even at a distance! Not to mention how cool it would look that as he arrived at his base he could see his hidden door in the wall opening up?! Truly one of his dreams coming true.

He quickly activated construction, about a minute later he had his remote. Very excited to try it out he pressed the button. And to his utter joy,the flush door actually opened. At that moment he forgot about the apocalypse happening to earth and all the system shenanigans, at that moment he was just a little boy again happy at seeing one of his dreams come true and happy at getting a new favorite toy. Now he wouldn’t actually use the door like a toy. It was what would keep him safe after all.

Now it was getting a little late but the sun wasn’t setting just yet. And jake wasn’t sleepy either. So before the sun went down he decided to quickly clean up everything he'd left outside his temporary base. Just to make sure there were no clear signs of anybody staying here. He didn’t know if there was actually anything smart enough around here to figure something like that out, but he wasn’t gonna take any chances.

An hour later he had made sure there were no clear traces of him staying here. The sun was setting by now so he decided to put off all other problems until tomorrow. Except then he remembered. His flush door would seal shut. Like seal as in shut good, as in no air would enter his base after he would close the door. And no air would mean no oxygen. Jake slapped himself on the forehead for forgetting such an important part. What if he had suffocated in his sleep due to totally forgetting this fact?!

He had 25MP after his hours worth of work and the 5MP he still had left over from earlier. After looking through construction it wasn’t enough mana to get an air purifier. No he needed 200 mana for that. So instead he spent 10Mp on creating a small hole a bit off the ground in his rock wall. It would do for one night. But as soon as he woke up tomorrow with 100MP he would try and use his minor mana stone idea to get that air purifier. Because even letting such a small hole exist in his rock wall would endanger him. After all, there were animals that had incredible senses of smell. Now out here a bit above the trees where the big rock stood,the wind blew away all the scents he left behind. But in his cave there was no air conditioning yet. And so animals would definitely be able to smell something was there.

But since he couldn’t do anything about it right now he quickly went back inside his now heated base and closed the door behind him. And then he smelled the dead rabbit. “fuck” Jake said out loud. He couldn’t leave it outside for other animals to grab since he would need it for his plan tomorrow. Tonight he might be sleeping warm, but he would also be sleeping in smelly dead rabbit air. Sighing at this, Jake walked over to his tent cozied up in his sleeping bag that he,d grabbed from his backpack. And closed the zipper to the tent. This way it would keep at least a little bit more of the smell out.

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The next morning when Jake woke up he immediately grabbed the minor mana stone. Got into build mode with construction. And tried to create the air purifier.

He immediately set it for construction in the corner of his base next to the door. He watched his status screen as the mana kept ticking down. Along with every point he saw disappear he felt a bit of energy leaving his body. And when he ran out he quickly accepted the option to absorb the minor mana stone the system gave him.

Replenishing mana…

And just as he had hoped the construction continued unhindered.When the air purifier had finished its construction he pumped his hand into the air while yelling “Yes!!”

Now there was just one more problem. He needed a way to power the air purifier. Now Construction would solve any connection issues but he would still need to do the wiring and create a power source.

Now he had found a stream of dirty water 5 minutes walking away from his base. If he could create a dynamo system and run the wiring underground with extra protective cabling to protect said wires. He,d have a self sustaining power source and it wouldn’t pose any risk. Since he was sure there wasn’t any animal, evolved or otherwise, that understood how electronics worked.

Deciding to make that his next priority for the day he just kind of waited around in his base. Lazing around while looking up at the ceiling. Taking a well needed 5 hours of calm after 2 crazy days.

When his Mp had fully replenished back to 100, he left his base and went towards the stream of water. Now the Dynamo added to the waterwheel would cost 40MP. The wiring itself would cost 50MP. And the protective cabling for the wires would cost another 50MP since he would use both a stronger material and add a layer of insulation to that,all the way back to his base. Since he only had 10MP left he decided to go back to base and wait till his mana regenerated.

He felt there was no risk involved with the cabling since it had both protection and if any animal somehow found the cabling. They would probably think of it as a weird tree root of some sort.

After 2 hours he returned to add the protective cabling. Feeling satisfied with his work he quickly ran back to see if the air purifier was actually powered now. And when the door opened he was greeted by a pleasant humming sound. He could even smell less of the rabbit carcass! Which was a truly necessary change, he wasn’t sure if he would’ve held in his meals much longer if that smell didn’t let up. Now the smell was still there. Just not as strong as it had been before. The smell was actually tolerable now. Not pleasant, just tolerable.

Now he still had multiple hours left before the sun would set. Deciding to wait an hour before he plugged up the hole in the wall he had made the day before. He laid back down in his tent and just lazed around a little more. While he was lazing around though he actually wasn’t entirely unproductive this time. He,d decided to send his drone on scout missions to find a suitable nearby clearing Then everytime it found one it would return and show him a one minute video of where the clearing was. Eventually giving a few clearings to pick from.

Knowing the locations of a few nearby clearings would be a part of his plan for the poison rabbit corpse. A smile appeared on his face as he thought of what the plan was for tomorrow. For now though he just waited until his mana regenerated and then spent it on 1 more scout drone. He was very excited for tomorrow. He would be making some big steps forward if everything would work out as planned.

When Jake woke up the next day it took him a while to realize where he was. Then he remembered, groaned, turned around, and woke back up one hour later. He had slept heavenly last night. In his tent, on a mattress, in a sleeping bag, warm almost fresh air all around him. It had all just been such a pleasant change, he had decided to give himself another hour's sleep. Well that and the nights before he had slept really bad because everything had been so uncomfortable. So a good nights rest plus a little extra was really what he,d needed to get back on top of things.

After he was done waking up though he ate some breakfast and then got to work. So his plan was pretty simple really. He would go to a clearing nearby and then deposit the dead rabbit there. The rabbit would act as bait. Now after he would place the multiple pieces of dead rabbit around the clearing he would order his 2 scout drones to attack and kill any creature that got far enough into the clearing. The then dead corpses of those creatures would then serve as even more bait until Jake got there to get all the mana stones and take some animals back with him for useful materials and other uses he may find. He would then leave the rest of the dead corpses in the clearing for animals to keep getting lured.

Leave corpses in clearing, let drones kill more animals for mana stones and useful corpses, leave the rest of the corpses behind as bait to lure in further animals. He would then repeat this cycle everyday. Not to mention it would decrease the monster population surrounding his base which would in turn make the area safer for him.

The clearing he had in mind was a 30 minute walk away from his base. Which wasn’t too far to get to nor to close to pose any danger to him when he was at the base.

Thinking this was a pretty good plan he got to work. As he stepped out of his base with the rabbit corpse and his trusty knife in hand. He stopped for a moment. He looked over the forest. Now he could have sworn a few days ago it hadn’t looked like this. The forest had grown a bit denser since he,d first arrived here. It was also more humid, the forest started reminding him more of a jungle than a normal forest really. The trees and plants were growing taller and larger too.

He decided to keep an eye on the growth of the forest. He had already expected things besides animals on earth to grow and evolve. But he was kind of surprised it was happening this fast and this noticeably. His fantasy of a floating island may not stay a fantasy after all. At this rate drastic changes to nature would only take a few months. He even thought that there might be mutated plants appearing eventually.

When he was done thinking about the issue he quickly set off towards the clearing. Once there he cut up the rabbit in four parts and put them around the clearing, away from each other. Then he gave his orders to the drones and quickly started making his way back to base.

By now 4 hours had passed since Jake had woken up, his mana was sitting at 100MP. So he thought; why not summon another drone? Just in case some stronger monster appears, having 3 scout drones that could function as terrifying flying metal ramming balls would be better than having 2 right?. He sent the drone off to join the other 2 in hitting creatures on the head. A minute after the drone was sent off a pleasant notification popped up

Terror rabbit (water) level 2 killed + 70XP

His current Xp now sitting at 258 / 300. And after a few more hours of waiting, he got 2 more kills. They were clearly less strong compared to the level 2 terror rabbit though

Flash squirrel (iron) level 2 killed +38XP

Flash squirrel (illusion) level 1 killed +18XP

Right after the second squirrel kill notification popped up another message appeared.

Required threshold reached..

Leveled up to level 2…