I woke up in the cultivation room. Sitting on the mattress, I winced—my body felt wooden.

After a long night, my arms and legs had grown numb, so I immediately began to stretch them, getting the blood flowing. It was an unpleasant awakening, but sooner or later, I would definitely set up a cozy, warm room for myself.

The screamers in the chats, begging for a piece of bread, meat, a ration, or a sip of water, were undoubtedly feeling worse than I was—I had eaten in the evening, and my body had enough fuel to keep itself warm.

The trainer was nowhere to be found, but it was for the best; I wasn't ready for training right now. It was better to handle that after flying around the islands, to avoid running into monsters while tired.

After stretching, I left the room and looked around.

The hole in the hall wall had disappeared, although it wasn't repaired for free—two units of stone had vanished from the storage.

During the night, five smaller islands had flown up to mine. Three were to the left, the fourth was to the right, and the fifth was directly above me.

I couldn’t properly see what was on the islands—they were about three to four meters higher than mine, and I could only see the stony "bottom," covered with dry roots. I wonder if these islands descended to me from somewhere above?

I made my way to the telescope, where condensation had settled. Touching the wet metal, I aimed it at the solitary island.

“Here lives the Face-Changer. If you fly close enough, he will come over to you, eat your face, and start traveling between islands under your guise, devouring other people. Believe me: you don’t want this, nor do others.”

I definitely wouldn’t venture there.

However, the remaining messages were better:

“This island is a good option if you love pain and vicious birds. The birds sleep during the day, but their sleep is light. If you plan to walk on their island, be careful. If you make noise outside their island, they won’t hear it.”

“It is safe here, but there are no treasures. Maybe it’s worth taking the risk and picking a more difficult task?”

“An old rock dog lives here. You have enough strength to deal with him.”

Finally, I checked the island hovering directly above mine.

“There is water and food here.”

The empty island was closer, so I soared up, surveyed the rocky piece from above, and anchored to it. Then I towed it away, pressed “destroy,” and the island burst into stones, which my base absorbed.

The birds didn’t wake up. So everything was fine; they wouldn’t hear me, and there was no need to fly away.

Just in case, I checked the forum. During the night, people had grown hungry, and the chat was flooded with pitiful messages.

“Why don’t you just pull the lever?” I asked. The answer came almost immediately.

“You're an idiot and a monster! Almost a hundred people died while searching for supplies on the islands! Now you're suggesting I go after them?!”

“Do you think death from starvation is much more appealing?” I asked, amused.

Then I was bombarded with profanity. I waited for the tensions to subside and then tried to ignite the behinds of the suffering ones again.

“Why do you keep insisting on the inevitable death when there's at least a training room where you can learn to fight with weapons and give the nightmares a beating? I’ve been training for two days and have become immeasurably stronger."

“Because to level up this room, you need to destroy at least two islands. And we already know that the telescope doesn’t always warn about dangers. By the way, Nightmare, go to hell.”

Let the guys who are afraid to pull the lever toward the empty island go to hell. I headed toward the island with the rock dog, ascending to find myself above him; I wanted to test my idea with the rock fall.

“My first meat…” I muttered, diligently ignoring dozens of jokes about Koreans that popped into my head.

The dog had long noticed me and stood at the edge of the island, staring greedily.

The rock dog was completely gray. Its fur was matted, patchy in places. The dog was practically trembling with excitement. Large droplets of saliva dripped from its mouth.

I wonder if it’s possible to tame the poor thing if I could lure it to my island?

Well, I’d check that another time.

I hovered above the dog’s island, dumped stones near the edge, and started tossing larger and smaller rocks at the poor thing with my feet and hands.

It didn’t go as I expected—a small rock hit its back, and the dog yelped and started running in circles around the island. After taking a couple of laps, the dog squeezed into a gap between the boulders, from where I wouldn’t be able to dislodge it from above.

What a bust.

Until I leveled our islands, the dog didn’t show itself. I lowered myself but didn’t get too close, so my base wouldn’t release chains and dock with another island. Or so the dog wouldn’t leap over to my island.

Instead, I decided to try what I had been thinking about for a while. I decided to gather meat. A lot of meat.

From the resources I gathered yesterday and the chest that I had to dismantle for wood and copper, I made five ancient knives, which I stored in the training room along with the existing one. Unfortunately, I didn’t have the blueprint for a knife belt, and for some reason, I didn’t want to stuff sharp metal behind my waistband.

Ready, I gripped a dagger in my right hand and approached the edge of the island. About twenty meters from me, at the edge, the dog stood, dripping with saliva. It looked at me like the local muscleheads look at a huge chunk of fried meat.

Come on, Arthur. If anything goes wrong, just sit in the training room—there are low ceilings, and nightmares will struggle to fly.

I lifted the whistle I held in my left hand and blew into it. I heard no sound, but the dog twirled its shaggy head.

I stood tense, waiting for the sound of wings flapping, the rustling of flying bodies. But still, I heard nothing—it all happened suddenly. Two-meter-long flying snakes, like lightning, rushed at the dog. Before the dog could even yelp, the monsters had already coiled around it, tightening their rings, with their jaws gripping its neck.

There were five snakes in total. The other three dove down toward me. Their gaping jaws frightened me to the core, but not enough to forget the dagger I was holding.

I jerked to the side, swinging the blade sharply. The wound I inflicted on the snake was more painful than dangerous—I slashed through the creature's leathery wing, and the scaly body crashed to my feet.

Not allowing myself a moment to breathe, I stepped back and struck at the next snake. It recoiled, twisting, and I missed. The time I bought was enough to reach the hall and grab the knives.

Only one flying snake remained, along with two that were tearing the dog apart.

When I thought the snakes would be contained by the walls, I was wrong. The nimble creature flew into the hall and lunged at me, showing no discomfort from the cramped space.

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I thought if I could hit the center of the target, I could handle the snakes as well. But I didn’t account for how fast they would be. Two knives flew past the creature, clanking against the wall, while the third pierced the wing’s membrane. The creature flapped its wings chaotically but fell to the ground. I stepped on its neck near the mouth and cleaved its head. Then, I finished off the wounded one, and picking up my knives, I struck down on the second throw the snake that was choking the dog. Unfortunately, it didn’t help the dog—its body remained lifeless. The last snake hissed furiously and flew away.

I emerged from the fight smeared in blood, with a light wound on my arm—I didn’t even remember when I had gotten it.

I wanted to leave the island, but I didn’t find any corpses of the snakes. When the snakes fell on my island, they disappeared—it seemed the corpses immediately went to storage. Very convenient.

I moved closer to the island where the snakes had torn up the dog and dragged its body to my island. The corpse immediately vanished, and after a brief fight in storage, two new entries appeared.

“Snake meat. Stinking and tasteless. 4 kilograms.”

“Dog meat. Cleans the lungs, good for health. 3 kilograms.”

Next came training. When I entered the cultivation room, determined to train, the ghostly teacher was already there. He started off strong—with motivation.

“Let’s review yesterday’s lesson first. Do you remember how I showed you that strike?”

“It’s hard to forget something like that.”

“That’s just the tip of the iceberg of what cultivators can do. Concrete slabs, so thick that they can’t even be pierced by sniper rifles, can be shattered by one simple strike from a powerful cultivator. Imagine a person who can sink warships, destroy beasts the size of mountains. Not everyone can achieve those heights, but if you work hard at it, you will. Too bad I can’t show you anything like that. I can’t even leave this room.”

This massive power isn’t given to everyone, but if you reach such high mastery, your blood will boil from the unleashed potentials! The main thing is to strive for perfection and to perfect yourself. Now let’s start training again.

This time, I managed to fully fill the image with energy in one prolonged session lasting two hours. Unfortunately, I still couldn’t complete the full cycle of tempering—I reached the thirteenth pose before a severe cramp pierced my right leg. I nearly screamed; it felt awful, as if my muscle was about to tear. Fortunately, the teacher quickly arrived and kicked me in some clever way on the leg, making the muscle relax.

I collapsed onto the floor. I didn’t want to do anything, and I had no strength left.

“Do I need to accumulate energy through meditation after ‘building the foundation’ to use later in techniques?” I lazily asked, rolling my tongue.

“After you build the foundation, your body and spirit will become stronger. You’ll have to learn the techniques separately, but it won’t make sense to accumulate energy for them. Your body will have far more energy than you could accumulate through any meditation. And if you manage to use it, it will replenish passively much faster than through meditation.”

The teacher looked at me, frowned slightly, and added:

“Well, that’s enough for today.”

And he vanished.

As soon as my limbs stopped shaking, I got up. But instead of heading to the railing to enjoy the sky, I reached for a knife. Practice had shown I was terrible at hitting moving targets.

During the night, the target had been restored, and I repeatedly threw the knife, getting closer and closer to the center of the circle. I tried throwing knives while moving. Unfortunately, the target hung in one place, but there was nothing to be done about that—doubtless the teacher wouldn’t agree to carry a target around for me.

Thoroughly warmed up, I exited the training room, drenched, as if from a full workout. My warmed muscles no longer ached with pain; they felt pleasantly humming. It was time to rest a bit. And create something.

The accumulated capture points were enough to repair another building. Among the biolab, greenhouse, bestiary, and market, I chose the latter.

Contrary to expectations, a new building didn’t rise from the pile of stones next to me. Instead, another tab labeled auction/market appeared on the terminal.

The marketplace tab looked like the page of an online store. Just like in a store, products could be filtered.

First, I removed everything except food. I needed to know how severe the resource issue was.

There was hardly any food. For food bricks, they were asking for no less than five pieces of iron or wood, or two—steel. And those were the lowest prices; other products had outrageously extortionate prices.

There were no seeds or saplings at all: it seemed either nobody had found them yet, or they were snatched up immediately. I’d bet on the latter—I think about twenty people had already built a greenhouse.

There were enough beggars or those close to them:

“Exchange ‘nothing’ for ‘food.’ Just give me something to eat! I beg you!”

“Exchange ‘20 stones’ for ‘100 ml of water.’ I’m dying of thirst! Only dangerous islands are nearby, and I’ve run out of energy to reach the safe ones! Can someone save me?”

“Exchange ‘nothing’ for ‘food and water.’ I’m a beautiful girl! If you give me food and water, leave your contact info, and I’ll do anything you ask in the real world!”

“Exchange ‘nothing’ for ‘food.’ I’m not starving in the real world, and I’ll send you 10,000 rubles if you give me two food bricks or a kilogram of any meat. My number is 8914666011.”

Interestingly, such offers were indeed closing in just ten minutes of observation. It seemed someone was too compassionate, lustful, or somehow hoping to get money by calling a ten-digit number.

There were also some decent offers. Someone was offering blueprints in exchange for food, but those people were demanding at least a kilogram of meat. It seemed the blueprints were being sold by the same muscleheads who were clearing dangerous debris but were very much in need of food.

I didn’t have the time or desire to browse through all the offers. Today, I needed to put up my first trade lot with meat.

And I posted my first lot.

“Exchange ‘1 kilogram of meat’ for ‘any blueprint.’ Restrictions—ancient dagger, ancient knife, ancient hammer—do not offer.”

I copied the offer and posted it three more times. The lots closed within a minute, bought by different people. I received the blueprint for an ancient spear, an ancient shield, a regular spear, and a flute marked as a musical instrument. I was surprised by the last one.

“Why are you selling valuable blueprints in exchange for meat?” I asked all four. One replied:

“Maybe because they’re not that valuable, and I already have that blueprint? That’s it, brother, don’t message me. The last thing I want is the sound of a notification distracting me during training or in battle.”

With the dog’s carcass, I decided to do things differently. The products in storage had a “divide” button. So, I separated a 50-gram piece from the three kilograms of dog meat I had (I feel like there’s something seriously off with my math; there should be more meat). And as an experiment, I posted it on the auction.

“Exchange ‘50 grams of meat’ for ‘1 any resource.’ Restrictions—do not offer stone.”

Then I copied that lot and posted it nine more times. I would have posted a hundred lots but the market had a limit of nine positions.

Soon the trading proposal I posted was noticed. The forum exploded, just like the backsides of some seekers.

“Guys, did you see that? The trader ‘Nightmare’ is selling food for 50 grams! How stingy do you have to be to profit off people like that?!”

“If you have a lot of meat, share it with people! Or at least sell it without making fun of them. No one will buy a scrap.”

“50 grams? That’s not even enough for a cat.”

“Nightmare trader, give me some food, or at least water!”

But there were also normal, sensible people. That is, those who liked my offers.

“What? Lots with meat have appeared on the auction? I just ran out of food.”

“The price is negligible. I bought five right away—I’ll go prepare it.”

The lots closed in less than a minute, and I posted new ones—100 grams for 2 units of any resource. I received wood, iron, and copper. The rapid disappearance of the trading proposals made the dissatisfied even more vitriolic, and they started a witch hunt on the forum—somebody dug up the chat history and found out that just yesterday, I had first appeared here, and now I was already profiting off helpless people. For offering a sought-after resource, I suddenly became an enemy to a dozen people. Someone even suggested not sharing any information with me next time.

My inbox was flooded with tearful stories and requests for food. I had to spend five minutes methodically blocking each beggar. They could buy products from me, but they wouldn’t be able to message me again.

The next 10 minutes, I spent posting lots over and over. Oddly, the lot with 400 grams of meat for 8 resource units hung for the entire ten minutes, while the 250 grams of meat for 5 units were bought readily. It seemed I had found a psychological limit which shouldn’t be crossed.

Since I now had a sea of resources, I created a spear. I would need to learn to use it in case I encountered someone armed with a sword. Or—with long claws.

I also made five more ancient knives. I don’t know how the situation with food would play out in the future, but for now, they could be exchanged for useful things—resources and blueprints—so it was worth stocking my supplies. And I stocked up—the dog meat sold out completely.

After half an hour, I received another message from the buyer who had revealed the secret of blueprint sales:

“Don’t offer snake meat anymore. It smells disgusting, and cooking didn’t help.”

What a cheeky guy! You give him meat, scarce for all earthlings in this world, and he twists his face!

“Your opinion is very valuable to us…”

“Don’t be sarcastic, I didn’t just write to express my opinion. Listen, if you come across any other normal meat, just let me know first. I’ll buy a couple of kilos and even throw in some resources along with the blueprint.”

“I’ll keep that in mind.”

“By the way, have you ever played ‘Cheerful Farm’?”

“Looking for like-minded people?”

“Looks like I wrote to you in vain.”

I pondered and decided not to quarrel with the person who acquired blueprints by smashing nightmares’ faces. Who knows, maybe we’d meet one day, and he’d be upset.

“No, I haven’t played. Please, continue.”

“So, in that game, you turn ready-made products into other, tastier and more expensive ones. I’m saying this: if you sell cooked and tasty food, you can double your earnings.”

“You think people will pay two blueprints for cooked food?”

“I don’t know about other people, but I’m definitely ready. I hate cooking and I can’t do it. I found a pot in one house, trying to boil meat, but it turns out terribly, and it takes time.”

“If you give me the pot, I can sell you boiled meat next time.”

“I’m afraid my gratitude doesn’t extend beyond conversations and advice. Okay, Nightmare, goodbye for now.”

I’ll need to try exchanging two chunks of meat for one boiled one, but the truth is, if I manage, this way of enrichment won’t last long—people who cook better than me will surface, having not only a pot but skewers, spices, a frying pan, and oil. And the margin will be minimal — one unit of some resource. So I'll leave the position of cook to someone else. I'd rather spend my time cultivating and searching for resources.