When Jack woke up, it was light in the forest. He’d slept for a few hours straight, and it was midday now. He still sat on the ground with his back leaned against the huge trunk of the gigantic tree. When he lifted his head and looked around, he saw that the bodies of the croc-rats he’d killed last night still lay in the same spots. At least, some of them. As he continued to study his surroundings, he realized that some of the bodies were missing, and some of the others seemed to be half-eaten. He also noticed that large winged insect-like creatures were feeding on some of the croc-rats’ dead bodies. One of the creatures suddenly flew up, landed next to him, and tried to peck at a small wound on his leg.
“I’m still alive, dammit,” he yelled, kicking out at the bold creature, scaring it off.
Picking up his sword, Jack got to his feet. The other vultures noticed him do so and snarled at him.
“Don’t mind me,” he said to them.
The creatures continued to glare at him. Some of them hissed at him in a threatening manner, and a couple of others even took a step toward him.
“Hey we don’t have to fight,” he said to them, raising a placating hand. “I’m not gonna take your food. Unlike you, I don’t feed on carrion.”
Jack was pretty much sure he could kill them all if he needed to, but he didn’t want to get into another bloody, brutal fight so soon after his night battle with the croc-rats.
Luckily, none of the winged insect-like creatures attacked him. He took one cautious step back after another until the creatures calmed down and returned their attention to their rotting food. Jack turned around and walked away. He wandered aimlessly around the forest for half an hour, killing random creatures and getting some XP. At some point, he realized he desperately needed to pee. Picking a spot at one tree, he unzipped and emptied his bladder.
He couldn’t help but notice that all his clothes had turned into torn rags and he was covered in dirt and blood from head to toe. He needed to take a shower. He really needed to wash. But where could he do it in the forest? And where to get new clothes? Some armor would be nice too. He thought about all this as he wandered around the forest. He really needed to figure it all out.
And he also had to form some sort of plan for long-term survival. The previous night had almost cost him his life. He couldn’t just sleep out in the open when nocturnal predators lurked in the shadows. He had to come up with some idea to safely spend the nights in this extremely dangerous world.
At some point, he just sat on the ground under one of the gigantic trees and checked out the Store one more time. He currently had 1,800 gold in his virtual account. First of all, he decided to eat something. But before doing it, he checked the amount of XP he currently had. He realized he had collected enough Essence points to level up at least two times. Which he did. His level was 5 now, and he had two skill points to allocate. He put one of them into Strength to deal more damage to his enemies and the other one into Perception so he could see and hear better, especially in darkness.
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Then he returned his attention to the Store. He looked at the section where food was sold. He noticed that there were some self-heats for sale. The cheapest and the smallest cost 100 gold each. He bought some of the medium-sized tins for 200 gold instead. Beans with bacon. Beans with pork. Rice and stew, which looked pretty good in the picture on the outside of the doubly-layer tin. Every time he purchased a can, it materialized out of thin air and dropped to the ground in front of him. He also bought a water bottle for 100 gold.
Each tin can had a plastic spoon in a paper covering loosely glued to its outside. Jack detached the spoon from one of the tins and unwrapped the covering. He heated the can, waited the required three minutes, and then opened it. Steam rose from it.
“Ugh. Looks like shit,” he muttered to himself. “Probably tastes like it, too.”
He used the spoon to sample the food. It wasn’t as bad as he’d thought. He poked at his stew, bringing large portions to his mouth. While he ate, he was thinking.
So he needed a plan to survive another night. There were no tools, weapons, or armor in the Store. Only food, medicine, and consumables were sold there. There were also buildings and crafting materials for sale. Since he couldn’t just buy tools, armor, and weapons, he had to either craft or find them. While there were some crafting materials in the Store, he didn’t have a clue how to craft items yet, so they were of no use to him at the moment. It sucked that the system didn’t bother to provide him with any kind of tutorial on how crafting worked in this video game-like world.
He opened another can, the steam from the self-heat misting the chill air. Jack ate his fill, devouring three medium-sized cans before he felt satisfied. He then drank the water he’d bought.
Since he didn’t know how to craft the items he needed, for now, he could try and find them instead. He even knew where he could go to look for them. But before getting to that, he needed to build some kind of shelter or small house to safely spend the next several nights. This alien forest was formed by gigantic trees and there was no way he could fell them. But between them, here and there were much smaller trees, some of them resembling oaks and pines. He could fell these trees, but he needed some tools for that. Which he didn’t have. So for now, his only option to get a shelter was to simply buy one in the Store. The smallest and the cheapest house cost a whopping ten thousand gold as he had learned yesterday. He knew how he could earn money, but he had to work fast. He’d slept until midday, and it was already getting dark. He had to work very fast to earn 10,000 gold before the night fell.
Jack bought a protein bar and a bottle of water to eat and drink on the go when he would get hungry again. He then packed up and got to his feet.
With a plan formed in his mind, it was time to get to work.