Thankfully, the cabin had a good stock of onions, garlic, and potatoes. Those were probably all brought up by Mom the last time she was here.

I pushed down the heartache while I imagined her unloading the groceries into the basement where they would stay as fresh as possible.

"You must always have some food in stock, Dee," she often said. "You never know what might happen.

I used to laugh at her doomsday prepping, but I was never so grateful for her paranoia.

"Thanks for taking care of me, Mom, " I whispered.

Other than canned goods, the shelves in the basement were also stocked with pasta, a few bottles of cooking oil, and bags of sugar and flour. I would be eating alright for some time. All I had to do was catch my protein.

The idea of hunting filled me with dread. I never killed anything before the Vineslashers and the Crowling, and I wasn't particularly looking forward to it. I was sure that the Shop Terminal had meat, but it would be a waste of credits when the forest was full of game. That reminded me that I hadn't seen any monsters around the cabin since I used the Land Claim Token.

I had assumed that they would skirt around the boundary, ready to pounce as soon as I stepped one foot outside. It was something to investigate.

An hour later, the sun was high in the sky and I had a steaming bowl of stew in my hands. I was sitting on the cabin's porch, thanking the stars for having an old wood-burning stove, rather than an electrical one. However, it made the inside of the cabin sweltering hot, even in the mild late spring weather.

The summer would be unbearable, as opening the windows only gave some relief.

I sighed and ate another spoonful of my delicious Crowling stew. It was a worry for the future Diana.

While I ate, I scanned the edge of the woods. A flash of grey fur caught my eye, and I almost dropped my bowl in surprise.

"That's not good, " I mumbled when I saw more movement in the distance. It seemed that I had summoned some company.

I spent some time just sitting there and weighing my options. I would have to go over there and investigate, but I also had to start working on my food production as soon as possible. Also, I had to test my new class skills as well.

My to-do list was getting longer by the second. Remembering the half-digested corpse of a rabbit, I hoped that it was just some bunnies, minding their own business. I decided that I would mind my own too, as long as they let me do my own thing.

After hauling some water to the kitchen and rinsing the stacks of dirty dishes, I couldn't put it off any longer. I decided to go about making some raised beds. This way I would kill two birds with one stone.

If my understanding was correct, the raised beds are used to extend the growing season of crops. That's at least what the System's blueprint description stated. But before I could start with that, I had to make some planks.

Since planks needed wood, I walked back to the shed where we kept our chopped firewood. I picked up one piece and stared dumbly at it. I felt rather silly not knowing how to make one I pulled up the blueprint for the plank.

Plank

A long piece of wood.

Resources needed: 2 wood

"That's so helpful."

On a hunch, I activated my Scavenge ability. I stared dumbly as the length of firewood in my palm glowed green and slowly faded into nothing, leaving behind just a few splinters.

"What the actual fuck?" I yelled. The birds flew off the nearby tree, spooked by my rude interruption. In return, I was interrupted by a notification.

You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

Due to your actions, you have earned an increase in an attribute: +1 Wisdom

My irritation lessened somewhat, and I crossed my arms on my chest. Where could the damned wood have gone?

I pulled up my inventory, thinking that it was the only probable place for something to end up. when one of my inventory slots showed 1 wood, I was pleasantly surprised to be right. The System seemed to be rather intuitive, at least in some cases. The main page of my character sheet showed that I have used 1 Energy for the action, leaving me with 59 left.

When I tried to pull the wood out of my inventory, I found that I couldn't. It was like wherever the inventory space was located was corraled off by thick iron bars, and my hands just couldn't reach through.

"Alright. Be like that, " I snapped in frustration. Then I shrugged. I didn't need to pull it out, but I was curious about what the wood looked like after I used my ability on it.

Making myself comfortable on the floor next to the pile of firewood, I started turning it into the wood resource. I needed a lot of it for my vegetable garden. I was just one person, but I had to produce as much as possible. The growing season was already underway, and the thought of it gave me massive anxiety. The winter was long in the mountains.

After a few times turning firewood into just wood, the novelty wore off and I was getting pretty bored. It took a little less than a minute for approximately 1 kilogram of firewood to be fully transformed into wood in my inventory, and I was never that good at doing boring things.

As I used my Scavenge ability for the fifteenth or sixteenth time - I lost count at that point - a horrible feeling started growing in the pit of my stomach, like someone grabbed my internal organs, and started slowly squeezing and squeezing. I struggled to catch my breath when the System's eye sent a pulse of green in my vision.

Warning: You have been encumbered.

Please remove excess items from your inventory.

I didn't have much to remove, just the dried twigs and Vineslasher poison the bushes had dropped when I killed them. I quickly willed them out, and the feeling subsided, but wasn't entirely gone. It took me a few minutes to gather my wits, and then I pulled up my inventory, trying to puzzle out what had just happened. I poured over my screen and then saw a small print in the lower left corner that explained it all.

Maximum weight: 16.5 kilograms

"Well, fuck that. "

When I thought about it, it made sense that I couldn't just dump a bunch of stuff inside of my inventory. It kinda sucked, but I had to accept it and move on. There was so much to learn about the System and the Universe as a whole, and I was bound to learn some painful lessons. This one wasn't so bad.

With that in mind, I decided that I should start making some planks. I needed a break from the monotony of using my skill, and I had enough wood to make two raised beds. Two wood per plank and four planks per raised bed. It was simple mathematics.

I opened up my blueprints screen and focused on producing planks. This time, an outline of what I assumed to be a standard-sized plank appeared on the ground in front of me.

Blueprint cost: 2 energy

Create plank now? Yes/No

I accepted the prompt, and then the real deal materialized over the next 20 seconds or so. I repeated the process until I ran out of the wood resource in my inventory. Satisfied, I eyed the eight planks on the dirt floor in front of me. With a quick look at my character sheet, I saw that I had 29 Energy left.

"I must have regenerated some while working. "

Still, I decided to take a short break to have some water. I stood on the front porch, looking for glimpses of fur between the trees, but saw none. It paid to be paranoid though. Remembering the Grizmorph, a chill went down my spine. The monster hadn't returned in these couple of days and I hoped it would stay that way.

I shook my head, banishing the unpleasant thoughts. I surveyed the front of the cabin. If I remembered the layout of my land correctly, I had about 7 meters of the front yard for my use. I couldn't be sure, so I decided to play it safe. I'd put five rows of raised beds in front, leaving a gap of 30 centimetres between them, so I could move easily between them.

I hauled the planks to what I mentally referred to as the front yard. Then I had the blueprint ready, the outline of a raised bed moving back and forth in my vision. I spent longer than necessary on placing the bed, trying to plan for the future layout.

"Just do it, Dee. You can always start over."

Confirming my placement, a pop-up appeared above the outline.

Planks needed: 0/2

Energy invested: 0/5

I smiled, looking like a complete idiot. I was following the Plan.

Name: Diana Mond

Age: 25

Class: Homesteader

Level: 1, 25/200 exp

Strength: 3

Constitution: 6

Intelligence: 6

Wisdom: 4 (+1)

HP: 50/60

Energy: 28/60

Points to distribute: 0