A few days passed since my fight with the cat, and my wounds slowly healed. Thankfully, my arm wasn’t broken, though it was heavily bruised. I could move it around, but it was painful. I had to stop myself from doing any heavy work for a while. Occasionally, I’d hear voices outside the cave—people talking—but they would soon pass by. I didn’t want to meet anyone now, they might use me as bait again or steal everything I’d fought so hard to gain.
The items I bought from the shop were a Leather Breastplate and a Chain Arm Protector. The wrist armor was useless for my current situation since my wrist was heavily bruised, and putting on the wrist armor would only cause me more pain and discomfort.
So today, instead of using my dominant right arm, I tried to wield my short sword with my left. It felt strange, and I struggled to get used to it, but I had no choice. I had zero copper coins left after spending the rest on food. My options were either to hunt or gather herbs and plants.
With my wounds still healing, I chose the safer route of gathering herbs. Days passed, and my wrist finally healed. After that, I bought a new piece of armor. Just like last time, I started searching for monsters I could hunt. I encountered quite a few weaker ones—easier targets—so I easily killed them. I did get hit a couple of times, but with the armor taking the brunt of the attacks, I avoided more dangerous strikes and only received a few scratches.
I didn’t let my ego inflate, I remembered the cat that suddenly attacked me. I stayed alert at every moment, even when I killed other creatures. I looked around constantly, in case anything tried to sneak up on me. From gathering herbs and plants for coppers to hunting monsters, I collected 3 silver in three days!
It felt like my efforts were finally being rewarded after all the struggles I’d faced. But as I continued hunting, I had to go farther and farther to find monsters. Soon, I would have to migrate to another place if I wanted to continue hunting.
I decided to search for a new location once night passed.
Preparing myself for a grand venture left me scared and ecstatic. As the night passed, I ventured out from my cave, following the river so I could easily find my way back if I didn’t find anything.
Several hours later, as the sun began to rise, I moved down the river and found more and more monsters. I thought about camping near the river but gave up when I realized how long I would have to wait to hunt anything. I didn’t want to waste my time sitting in one place all day, waiting for a beast to come within range. And what if a monster appeared that I couldn’t handle? All my time would be wasted.
The hours dragged on, but I didn’t find anything where I could spend the night safely. Unlike on Earth, where the moon provides some light at night, here there is no moon. It’s complete darkness at night, and no one dares to hunt in it. Setting up camp is a great risk—monsters that hunt at night are accustomed to the darkness and can see in it.
As I was thinking, in the distance, I saw some mountains. I could set up a base in the mountains, there could be many caves. I picked up my pace, having spent ten hours walking. It took another three hours to reach the mountains. As I climbed up, the air was fresher, and the plants I encountered were all herbs! One sold for 40 copper, making it the highest-priced herb I’d sold yet. I tried to search for more of it but to no avail. Most surprisingly, I couldn’t make out what kind of plant it was. Likely extraordinary, but even mortal plants had little use other than to make a place smell nicer.
But buying the extraordinary herbalist occupation would cost 20 silver! I’d rather buy the gene cap potion. Just thinking about it made my blood boil. Taking in big breaths, I calmed myself down and started focusing on climbing this mountain.
Soon, I found my first cave, but it was filled with bat shit—literally, the whole ground was covered with it. I skipped it and went to search for another. Living in the wilderness and having clothes that are torn and worn down was bad enough, but sleeping in shit? Nah. Just the smell alone would scare off any monster, let alone sleep there.
After another hour, I found a small cave.
Like the one in the waterfall, this one has a small stream coming out from it. I started crawling inside this small cave, and as I did, the cold stream washed over me and my clothes. As I looked back occasionally, I saw the water turning dark from its crystal-clear appearance. I hoped no one drank from it, as it could cause a stomach ache—or worse.
As I reached the end, the cave expanded slightly. It was smaller than the one behind the waterfall—3x3x4 meters. In the middle, a small water stream led outside, forming a small pond where it emerged. As I finished exploring my new home, I went outside again, crawling around for about 5 meters.
Sadly, I couldn’t set up a fire here as there was no way for it to escape, so I would just end up suffocating inside the cave. I searched for good monsters, and soon I found a rock turtle. When it spotted me, it used its front legs to cause a rumble and lose my balance, but it was useless as I was too far away. Likely a warning as it just watched me and did nothing.
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I looked at the rock turtle but gave up on hunting it. Its whole body was as hard as a rock, and its eyes had special protection from stabbing attacks. A waste of time and effort. As I left, the turtle started digging again for something, but I didn’t care about it. My whole day passed gathering herbs and selling them to the system. But I found quite some rock turtles in this mountain, and each one was like the first one—digging for something. Wait, could they be building their nest?
I soon remembered the places I passed by and made sure to remember them. Licking my lips in anticipation about the money I could make, but would the rock turtles leave their eggs alone? I’d never encountered one in my life. But I gave up. If I stay near the turtle, it might never lay its eggs down, and I’d waste my time.
As I went around exploring the mountain, I found more and more precious herbs while climbing higher. Something was telling me there was a great treasure at the mountain peak. But another problem came while climbing. Giant birds! Their size was enormous. The wingspan, from what I could tell, was around 40 meters. It could easily pick me up and carry me away, just as it had dragged a rock turtle away like nothing. Just how much does a rock turtle weigh? From the looks of it, around 400 or 500 kg. Mainly because of their rock bodies.
Now I have to watch out for these giant birds too. Their size alone makes them dangerous, and with my small frame, likely, they won’t target me. I’m less effort for them to catch than a rock turtle, which is much slower.
But then I encountered another problem—the mountain above became extremely steep. No wonder these giant birds live here. Who could climb up these mountains? Seeing no way to climb up, I started going around to find a way up. But I met the same fate everywhere. Without proper equipment, it would be extremely dangerous, and I already gained 4 silver on the way up the mountain. I felt this whole mountain was made out of treasures.
So I had a total of 6 silver and 33 copper now—getting closer to the potion I desperately needed. As I saw the sun starting to set, I decided to go back to the cave and prepare for the night, but I took a longer route so I could explore more. Sadly, this whole mountain was full of rock turtles, which I couldn’t hunt down with my current equipment. I could only descend the mountain and search for other prey. But this mountain gave me a much better view, and I saw behind this mountain was a big field. I saw many animals eating there, so I decided to make that my way the next day.
As I was nearing my way, soon a small earthquake happened. I lost my balance and fell to the ground, and rocks started falling from the mountain. As I looked up the mountain, I saw its peak split in two. Shaking my head, thinking I might be imagining things, I looked again, but the mountain was split in two. Just what in the world happened? Some things humans found out about this world are similar to Earth, but the world is dead. The planet's core is cold, and no continent is moving, so the only explanation is that something did it.
What is capable in the first realm to cause an earthquake and split the mountain peak in two?
Giving up on going up, as I might encounter the creature who did it, while I was watching, I heard a big shriek.
“Shrieeek!”
The sound was deafening, my eardrums almost felt like they would pop. I covered my ears, but it didn’t get better, so I went inside the cave where the sound was weaker. Soon another round of earthquakes happened. I prayed that it stopped, otherwise, this cave would collapse, and so, as I wished for it, it stopped shaking. A bestial roar filled with pain sounded out.
“Eek!”
With a big boom, an even bigger explosion happened. Did those rock turtles and giant birds fight? Most likely. I only encountered these two in this whole mountain and a ton of herbs that I sold to the system. As everything went quiet, I prepared a small bed for myself by going outside and collecting grass or leaves for a makeshift bed. I spent the night sleeping in my cave, and as morning came, I prepared to check what happened on the mountain.
I didn’t have to worry about other people as this place was even farther away from the settlement. The forest was already 11 kilometers away from the settlement, and I surely walked in the opposite direction to this mountain another 4 kilometers. With no other person around, and if there were, they were most likely the same as me—running far away from the settlements because of the outrage of those organizations, and not likely strong people.
As the enxt day came I climbed up the mountain, I looked around and saw no rock turtles anywhere, as if all of them had disappeared overnight. Even the giant birds did not fly around in the sky. As I reached the same position as yesterday, I found the crack already extended here, and, using it, I climbed easily up the steep mountainside.
When I climbed up to the position to overlook, I saw many herbs—already from what I could see, a hundred or even more. I picked them up crazily and started cashing them out.
[You sold a Mountain Lotus for 11 copper.]
[You sold a Mountain Lotus for 10 copper.]
[You sold a Mountain Lotus for 10 copper.]
Soon, rows upon rows of information flooded my brain, but all I was on was selling all these herbs. Sadly, as if the system was trying to stop me from growing strong this way, it started reducing how much I could sell them. In the end, I only gained 1 copper per Lotus.
In the end, I ended up with a net worth of 44 silver and 29 copper. I could buy 4 potions, but I held back and told myself that only if I went back to the cave would I buy them and use them.
Searching for more herbs, sadly I could not find any more. I had a hard time climbing as the crack started to become even wider, and I could hardly climb it like a ladder. I could not reach the other side of the crack. But I did not give up—if these herbs could be sold for so much, how much could I gain from those caves higher up in the mountain?
From time to time, I stopped and bought food from the system to replenish my strength.
As I reached the peak, there was a giant bird nest that was split in two, with the corpses of hatchlings littering it. I tried to sell them, but the system did not respond to me. Because I did not kill or collect them, the system viewed it as cheating. Good to know—if I ever became rich and started buying monsters and tried to sell them, that time I would lose out a lot.
Looking around, I found nothing, and I could only descend the mountain slowly. Eating the monsters? My gene cap was already maxed out at 71. I could not gain any more from eating. I only hunted monsters for money and experience, but this didn’t even check for one of the requirements, so I left them to rot here.