Chantelle was still safe, and still ten kilometers away. But the strong feeling of concern I was getting from the Chosen Person connection was pulling me in that direction. I tried to send a feeling of safety back, but I had no idea if that was how the power worked. The snow was still coming down heavily, almost a meter high in places.

The first thing I would need to do was fill my orb with energy. I hadn't moved more than one hundred meters from where I appeared in this world, but it should only take a couple of hours to walk ten kilometers. Two full bonfires worth of energy should cover that.

I set about cutting down more trees. I had been unconsciously choosing to cut trees mostly in the direction of Chantelle, and there was a growing path heading in that direction. The trees grew thicker closer to the clearing, and spread out further away. Which left the ground in the forest immediately surrounding it mostly clear of snow, but large banks further out. Snow higher than my head was going to be hard to travel through.

It took half an hour to cut and stack enough wood to give me enough energy to be comfortable with. Chantelle's concern a constant background. There didn't seem to be a limit to the energy my orb could store, it just required a constant small amount of my attention to keep the inside from melting through to the outside, about the same as constantly clapping my hands would take up.

I was still losing heat into the environment from my body, though with my orb I could sustain the loss for weeks so long as I was awake.

I decided to make a cloak with a hood. Duplicating a small strip of cloth from my robe I noticed that the dull brownish red stain it had gained at some point extended with it. Cutting the strip of cloth away with my knife I rubbed it in some black ash from my bonfire and duplicated it again. Which left me with a dusty piece of cloth.

I formed a basin in the dirt of my platform and melted some snow into it. Adding charcoal and ash until I got a black slurry I soaked the cloth in that, pushing heat into it to get it to bind together. Another basin to rinse it off and I had a somewhat clean black strip of cloth. A few minutes, and a lot of energy, later I had a black hooded cloak.

I stopped to look at my building. It really does look ugly, mostly grey with seams of black. All sharp angles and rough-hewn stone. Some stairs cut into the platform leading up to it. I would be embarrassed if Chantelle saw it as it was. I could do better.

Infusing my power into the stone I smoothed the corners into nice flowing curves and used the extra stone as edging. The surface of the stone itself I smoothed to a fine polish, just as I had done with my orb. The streaks of black went from making the building look dirty to making it look striking.

I went back downstairs and got more stone. Forming a sloping channel going from the center of the roof to the corners, I added a small covered reservoir with a wick of cloth at each corner. Pouring oil from an oil tree into the covered input at the center of the roof filled the oil lamps on the corners. Lighting them gave the highly polished stone a warm orange glow.

Happy with the effect, I did the same for the inside of the building, lighting the entrance room, the stairs, and the growing room at the bottom of the stairs. A much better first impression for Chantelle.

I wasn't really set up for any sort of fight, and I wanted some sort of weapon before running off into the forest. My orb was also a source of concern, as it needed a constant cycle of energy pulled from its shell and pushed into its center.

I created a new orb and stored the heat from about half of a bonfire into it. Maintaining two orbs at once was a bit of a struggle and didn't leave me with a spare hand to do anything else.

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Throwing my lesser orb a good distance away into the snow of the clearing I was expecting an explosion of heat when I lost control of it. Which didn't happen. Soaking my power into the snow in the direction I threw the orb I shifted it out of the way to create a path. It took some concentration to do, and I could only move at a walking pace, and couldn't see where I was going in the deep snow.

It was easy to find the orb, as the only source of heat. It was in a melted puddle of snow that was slowly boiling around it. Reaching out with my power I could sense that the surface was only just hot enough to boil water, with the center still much hotter.

Some quirk of the simulation? Or maybe it was specifically targeted at my Matter Manipulation. Grenades and bombs charged up with my power could count as technology and be running into some natural law I didn't know. Which means I would have to make do with primitive weapons. My wooden knife was barely adequate in cutting cloth and fish, and I needed to sharpen it after every use.

But I'd gotten access to stone since making my knife, so I set about upgrading it. Filling a chunk of stone with my power and cutting it into the rough shape of a ten centimeter blade with a handle that fit perfectly into my hand was a good start. I made it entirely out of black stone and polished the blade until it shone, putting an edge on one side and leaving the other blunt. The handle I roughened the texture of, to provide a better grip. I also made a belt of cloth with a loop to hold my new knife. A knife wasn't much of a weapon, but it was just a test for the next thing I wanted to make. A short sword, with a half meter blade, should do perfectly.

I didn't have the material to make a scabbard for the short sword, so I would have to carry it in my right hand. My orb was in my left, and I wasn't going to be letting go of my energy source. The sword I made as a larger version of my knife, though it was mostly grey with a black streak running down the center of the blade.

Testing it out I found that I wasn't much of a swordsman. I had the physique for it, but I had little idea as to what I was doing. If I did get into a fight I would try to keep the sharp side facing the enemy and hope for the best. Maybe I could find some metal and make some armour?

I acknowledged to myself that I was just delaying seeing Chantelle. I was nervous, it was as simple as that. I could still sense her concern over the Chosen Person connection, but she still seemed safe, and was still the same distance away, so she hadn't had to move. I could maybe do a few more things, but it was coming on to midday, only three hours after dawn. I would have to leave soon if I wanted to get there when it was still light.

I decided to set up the doorway to my Pocket Dimension as the last thing I did before going to find Chantelle. The knowledge of how to set up the doorway, and the other characteristics of the Pocket Dimension, was just there when I thought about it.

It turns out I can have multiple doorways into the Pocket Dimension, using it as a sort of nexus of portals that I build as well as a storage and work area. I had to be near a doorway for it to be active, but if I or anything with a consciousness was in the dimension all of the doorways would be open.

I was assuming that Chantelle would want to move here so I could protect her, but when I actually thought about it, that seemed entirely unfair. Why would she leave her home and family to come here and live with someone she hadn't even met. And would she even need protecting in the short term. Sure the world was ending, but that could take years. Having a doorway here and another there would allow me, and anyone else with me, to easily travel between the two places. Although the Pocket Dimension being the only place I could set up my Artificial Intelligence means it would be limited to people I could trust.

I carved out a small hallway to the right of the room at the bottom of my stairs. There was a good five meters of bedrock above the rooms I was carving out before it got to dirt. Though I was careful as I went to check that there wasn't any stress in the roof of the rooms. I really didn't want to be stuck in a cave in, even if I should be able to save myself from it with the energy from my orb.

All of the stone I was carving out I was cutting into cubes and storing in a stockpile next to my bonfire upstairs.

At the end of the hallway I made a room three meters wide by three meters tall and three meters deep. On the far wall I made a five centimeter deep recess in the center, leaving a thin skirting framing the wall. Carving symbols into the skirting was much harder than it should have been, taking four times the energy as I was expecting.

Checking my artificial memories of the Pocket Dimension, it seems that the doorway inside the pocket dimension is being carved at the same time.

I was about halfway done with the symbols along the floor when I felt a flood of panic and fear over my connection to Chantelle.