The next two days Jack spent in the part of the forest he’d named the Sungrove. He kept discovering new animal species in this area. Some creatures looked very similar to deer from Earth. They were easily scared and ran away when he approached them. Some of the other creatures looked a lot like squirrels. Their favorite food was nuts.
There were lots of both big and small game in the Sungrove. The snare traps let Jack catch bunnies and squirrels with ease. The former were easily lured into a trap with red berries, the latter with nuts. Wild boars, which also lived in the area, were edible too, but unlike deer-like creatures, they didn’t scare. Instead, they attacked him, which made Jack’s task of getting food so much easier. Wild boars were pretty strong, but fortunately, they never formed a group, each roaming the Sungrove all by its lonesome. Jack didn’t have much trouble killing sole wild boars, dealing with them one at a time.
The identification scrolls, which he found in caves every now and then, helped him learn about his surroundings. He discovered some edible plants, roots, and shoots. He learned which of the plants could be turned into spices and seasonings, and how he could do so. The process of turning plants into spices included cleaning, drying, grinding, blending, sieving, and grading. It wasn’t a very quick process, but Jack could always pay some gold to have the system do it for him.
He learned which herbs had savory or aromatic properties and could be used for flavoring and garnishing food. He also learned which plants could be used for brewing potions. This knowledge would surely come in handy when he found out how to create potions and learned the required talent for that.
Jack built a campsite near the building he’d dubbed Storage Two. He cooked food over the campfire and stacked and piled the resources like logs and sticks nearby. He wanted to build a proper house to live in but didn’t know how to do it yet. The only house blueprint he’d learned so far was that of the small rectangular structure he’d already built. So for now, Jack just collected various crafting materials for later use. As his survival talents steadily went up, he quickly adapted to living in the wilderness.
At some point, he discovered a small stream not too far from the campsite. The water was clear, but Jack wasn’t sure if it was safe to drink it. Though the water in the stream looked clean, it could still be filled with bacteria, viruses, and parasites. So he bought a couple of 5-gallon water bottles to carry water from the stream back to the campsite and boil it in empty cans.
Later that day, Jack also stumbled across a small river and a waterfall. He was finally able to wash himself and clean his armor. Some time ago, he’d even found a blueprint that taught him how to craft a bar of soap. He only needed some animal fat, wood ash, and fresh herbs with a pleasant scent for that. He wasn’t sure how to create a bar of soap out of these ingredients yet, but sure enough, the system could do it for him provided he had the required ingredients and enough gold on him.
It didn’t take him long to find the ingredients. After the system created a bar of soap for him, he washed in the waterfall. He also washed and cleaned his leather armor, rubbing away most of a few days’ worth of grim and dirt. He returned to the campsite in high spirits. It felt great to be clean once again.
This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.
He caught a rabbit and in the evening, cooked it with some herbs and spices he’d gathered and created earlier on. With his Cooking talent steadily leveling up, each meal he cooked was better and tastier than the previous one. The rest of the evening he spent sitting by the campfire, resting after another hard but fruitful day and listening to the sounds of the forest.
When he woke up in the morning, Jack decided to devote the entire day to earning some gold. It was day 10 of his survival in this world. Since it was the last day when the Store was available, he wanted to earn as much gold as he could and spend it on self-heating meals. He set off on his mission without any delays, fulfilling one bounty after another. Most of them had him clear out a cave or kill a certain amount of monsters.
He returned to the campsite in the evening, having earned a hefty amount of gold. He cooked a couple of rabbits he’d caught earlier in the day and boiled some water in an aluminum can. During one of the previous days, he’d even learned how to make an aromatic beverage. He put some fresh leaves of a specific plant into another can and poured boiled water over them.
“Bone apple tea,” he blurted out and froze, taken aback a bit. He didn’t know why he’d said it. He didn’t know when or where he’d heard the phrase, and he wasn’t even sure what it meant. It’d just suddenly come to his mind, and somehow it felt right to say it out loud before starting to eat. He smiled. Besides, the phrase sounded funny.
He then bit into the rabbit meat heartily.
After the meal, he brought up the Store. It was the tenth day of his survival, the last day when the Store was available. Tomorrow, it would be gone forever, so Jack wanted to look over all the goods for sale one last time and buy anything that he might need in the future. He carefully examined all the merchandise but didn’t find anything worth buying. There was some medicine, but health potions he found in caves healed all the wounds he received in battles. Later on, he would most likely learn how to brew potions by himself. There were also some crafting materials in the Store, but there was no reason to buy them either. He knew how to get all the crafting materials he might need for his current needs. Sure, there were some unknown resources in the Store, but since Jack had no idea what they could be used for, he saw no reason to purchase them.
So the only thing that he decided to buy from the store was a bunch of self-heating meals. He spent all his gold on them. Between the self-heats stored in Storage One and Storage Two, he now had enough of them to sustain himself for quite a long time if the need arose. Canned food could last for months, years even. Sure, he knew how to get food in this world now, but there was no telling what might occur in the future. It seemed that it was summer now. Come winter, it might become much harder to get food. So if push came to shove, he would have enough self-heats to get through winter.
After stacking the cans on the shelves along the walls, Jack lay down on his bed, staring at the ceiling of the wooden building. It seemed like he’d finally learned how to survive in this strange world. He knew how to get crafting materials, build houses, get food, and fight various creatures. This world didn’t look as grim and dreadful as before. It didn’t scare him anymore.
So Jack was pretty optimistic about his future in this world. Now that he knew how to survive in this place, what could possibly go wrong, right?