With each minute he spent in the Sungrove, Jack liked this part of the forest more and more. There were plenty of tasty rabbits and berries to eat, and it was so bright here. He didn’t want to return to the Darkwoods at all even though there was the Storage One in that part of the forest. It was so dark and grim in the Darkwoods, and it was populated only by insect-like creatures. Jack didn’t even know if they were edible, but even if they were, he had no desire to eat disgusting-looking critters resembling huge insects.

Then he realized that he didn’t actually have to return to the Darkwoods. He could build a Storage Two here, in the Sungrove. Earlier on, he even found a blueprint of a small wooden house not dissimilar from the one he’d purchased for 10,000 gold. He only needed to gather some wood.

In the past few days, he’d found some useful blueprints including the one that let him craft an axe. According to the blueprint, he only needed a stick and a large stone to craft a very simple axe. It didn’t take him long to find the required crafting materials. Stick in one hand, stone in the other, Jack asked the system to make an axe out of these materials. As soon as he paid, the stick and the stone disappeared. He now held a small axe in his hands. Jack had expected the tool to be crudely made, resembling something right out of the Stone Age. However, when he glanced at the tool in his hands, he was surprised to see that it was actually a very well-made axe. It was the thing with the system—everything it created was perfect. No matter what Jack asked it to do, whether it be getting the fur from an animal carcass, cooking some food, or crafting something, the produced result was always of perfect quality. However, it never was for free. Every time he asked the system to do something for him, he had to pay quite a lot of gold. If he asked the system to do everything for him, he would run out of gold in no time flat. And the only way he knew of to earn gold was by doing bounties, fighting monsters and risking his life.

Now that he had an axe, it was time to get some wood. Since he’d never done it before, it took him some time and effort to fell a tree. He earned a few points in the Felling talent in the process. When the deed was done, he looked at the felled tree lying on the ground. He now had to delimb the tree and cut it into logs. Which would probably take him a lot of time. Could the system do it for him? As it turned out, it could. The system asked him if he wanted it to extract valuable crafting materials from the felled tree. Sure enough, he had to pay for the service, and quite a lot at that.

Jack knew that it’d be much better if he learned to do everything by himself, not to mention that this way, he’d be saving a lot of gold. But it was already getting darker in the forest. It’d taken him about half a day to get from one part of the forest to the other, so he knew that he wouldn’t be able to get back to the Darkwoods where the Storage One was before the night fell. And he wasn’t willing to spend the night out in the open knowing that dangerous creatures lurked in the shadows at night.

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So he gave the system his confirmation, and the required amount of gold was taken from his virtual account. The felled tree vanished, and in its place materialized a few perfectly cut logs as well as a bunch of long straight sticks. Logs were used in building houses and other structures, and sticks were used in crafting various items. Jack focused his attention on one of the logs, and a piece of info emerged in his vision.

Wood: 10

Logs gave the resource called wood. Each of the logs before him amounted to ten wood. To build the house from the blueprint, he needed 100 wood in total. He didn’t have enough logs to provide him with the required amount of wood, so he had to fell a couple more trees. Hefting the axe in his hand, Jack got to work.

A little later, he felled two more trees and with the system’s help, extracted all the crafting materials from them. He now had enough wood to build the house. He brought up the crafting menu and selected the blueprint of a small wooden house. The system requested him to select all the required resources that would be utilized during the creation process. He looked at one of the logs and selected it with a thought. He repeated the process with nine more logs. When it was done, the system told him he had to pay. Building with the system’s help cost quite a lot of money. Sure, it wasn’t quite as expensive as buying off-the-shelf houses from the Store, but it still cost a lot. He wouldn’t have much gold left after he paid. Jack promised himself that later on, he would teach himself how to build houses on his own. After all, he’d already learned a skill for that. But right now, he didn’t have time for that.

So he paid the price, and all the logs he’d mentally selected disappeared. In his vision appeared the outline of a small house. Jack was already familiar with this process. He picked an empty spot not far from him, and the outline jumped to that place. It didn’t change its color from green to red, which meant that the house could be built there. As soon as Jack gave the mental command, the wooden house materialized out of thin air. The house looked exactly like the one he’d purchased on the third day of his survival. It was small and rectangular, with four walls, a flat roof, one door, and no windows.

He pinned the location of this house on the map and labeled it as Storage Two. He then checked how much gold he had left. As it turned out, not much at all. He would have to spend the next day or two to earn back some gold. He didn’t even have enough money to buy some food from the Store. But he wasn’t all that hungry right now. Maybe he would return to the Storage One tomorrow because there were some self-heating meals he’d bought and stored there the other day. The journey would take him about half a day, though. It was a bad thing that the trip from one section of the forest to the other took so long. Was there a way to move faster? He then recalled the dragonfly rider he’d encountered on his second day. There was certainly a way to obtain a mount, but he was unaware of how to do so yet.

Jack thought about all that until he finally fell asleep in the house he’d just built. The eighth day of his survival came to an end.