The following day after his workout Jasper immediately got to work cleaning up his area. He cleaned all the ink off any rocks and bark that weren’t in use. He then sorted them into different baskets rock in one and bark in another. It made sense to him to reuse some of the materials that he’d used in his experiments for later use. Once he finished cleaning up the area, he got to work cleaning all the meat from the bird carcass.

Now that he had the rotting meat from the carcass, he sorted all the bones into baskets as well figuring that once he’d leveled up his Summon Toolbelt skill again he’d eventually get something that he could use to carve runes into bone. Most of the large bones were too big to put in the basket but the smaller ones were fine. He also plucked all the feathers and sorted those as well. The bigger bones he placed in as neat of a pile as he could make. Jasper stood back up after setting the last bone into his pile and smiled. He felt a sense of accomplishment and pride from the work that he’d done.

“Looking good right?” He spoke out loud. He wasn’t talking directly to Effen of course, but it still bobbed up and down as if to say that it agreed with him. He noticed the movement and wondered for a second if the stone knife could understand him. Jasper shook his head tossing the idea out. “Probably just a bit of wind.” he said sheepishly. Shrugging off the feeling he decided it was time to upgrade his house a bit. He had a saw far better than the stone one that he’d created days ago, so it would be possible to make more exacting cuts.

He started off by stripping all the limbs off the tree that he felled the day before then beating them against a boulder by the river to get rid of all the leaves. He sorted all the limbs by size before cutting up the trunk of the tree. He used the same trick that he’d used on the bark to make some of the limbs grow, this time though he included control runes so that he could make several logs all the same size. He placed four medium sized stones of similar shape in a square formation. After stripping all the bark from his logs, he placed two of them on top of the stones straddling two each.

Then he went about placing notches in each of his large logs he had made. Once he’d made the proper sized notches, he began placing them together pushing hard against them to make sure that they fit properly and wouldn’t be blown over by the wind. He continued in this fashion until he had a proper four walls around him. He wanted to make a place large enough that he could place all his baskets and even make different rooms later, so he knew that this was going to be a huge project. The walls, while sturdy, did not stop any of the wind from getting through the large spaces between each log.

Jasper sat down to think about how to fix that problem. He really did not want the winter season to was forced into trying to find a cave away from his water source. He started playing with the dirt underneath him while thinking about his issue when he finally got the idea he was looking for. He climbed over the wooden wall about his size before he realized that he would have had to figure this out anyway if he wanted to ever cut a door out of his wood cabin.

He wanted to start digging up the mud on the riverbank and carrying it over to the cabin but before he even made it a couple of steps he stopped. Jasper groaned slapping his hand on his forehead and dragging it down his face clearly frustrated. It seemed that every time he managed to have an idea another problem would pop up. Jasper could dig all the mud he wanted with his hands, but it would take forever to carry handful after handful of mud back over to his new project. He would need a bucket to help him carry all the mud that he would need to help insulate his walls.

“Just one more thing huh?” He whispered. He thought for a second that he could use his extra baskets for now until he figured out how he could make a bucket. All the buckets that he had used in his lifetime had been either plastic or metal. He had no access to anything like that right now, so he’d just have to make do.

He gathered a few of his baskets and brough them to the riverbank with him so that he could start his new project. With his hands he moved several of the river stones out of the way so that he could get to the grey-bluish mud underneath. When he started to fill the baskets with it a large amount spilled out of the spaces that the reed-woven baskets displayed all throughout it. Luckily, after a while the mud compacted enough that he didn’t have to worry about most of the spillage. Throughout the day of hauling logs around Jasper had managed another two points in strength, so hauling the baskets the hundred or so feet back to camp wasn’t an arduous task.

Once he’d gotten them there, he started gathering large clumps of grass and mixing them all together with the mud. With the mixture fixed he started slapping handfuls of the mud grass mixture into the spaces of the walls. He then had to shape the mixture and keep it from running off too much until it was dry enough to hold itself together. Unfortunately, just one small space took at least an hour to get to the point where it could hold, and by the time he was ready to start on a new one the mud in the basket would have already started getting dry and hard itself.

He had to go back to the riverbank and scoop handfuls of water into the mud and grass mixture turning it over and over with his hands until it reached the right consistency. It was backbreaking work and by the time the sun was setting for the day he’d only managed to fill a single space between the logs. Jasper knew that he’d bitten off more than he could chew for now, but he’d already started the project and knocked down his little hut. He was in for a rough night of sleeping, but it was what it was for now.

Jasper went on like this for a few days until one morning he woke up with an idea of how he could fix his slight problem. Of course, he wanted to get to it immediately, but he had to do his morning routine first. He’d missed it once a few days ago and hadn’t felt right all day. Jasper had completely forgotten about the fact that he wasn’t just a crafter he was a rune crafter. It was like the complete opposite problem that he’d had before. He’d just gotten so excited about having figured out his baskets and enjoyed working with his hands so much he just hadn’t taken advantage of his runic abilities.

Once he’d finished with his exercises and his breakfast he got to work on a new runic project. This time instead of just placing a rune of growth on a piece of bark he also coupled it with a few runes of direction and control. All these runes together allowed Jasper to create a pot out of a piece of bark by controlling the direction that he wanted the bark to grow. It was so simple that he wondered why he hadn’t thought of it before. He was still happy about his baskets and didn’t plan on giving up on it as a hobby to keep his mind off his. “Crippling loneliness.” He thought pausing his crafting before pulling himself back together and focusing on the matter at hand. With his mind back in the right place he erased his work on the pot and drew the combination that he knew would make the pot float just like Effen.

LEVEL UP! +2 To all stats.

It was about time that he leveled up again, at least if you asked Jasper's opinion. He had been getting some low-level experience from his experiments, but it hadn’t been enough to level him up because he hadn’t done anything that had a purpose in a while, at least regarding runes. When the system asked him if he’d like to name his new craft, he agreed and named the pot Flot. It was a combination of floating and pot and the final nail in the coffin that proved that Jasper was not so great at naming things. He just shrugged and gestured for Flot to follow him. Effen buzzing around the new addition to his entourage of floating tools.

“You two behave yourselves and come along.” He said in a half chuckling tone. They followed him obediently of course and once he had filled Flot with mud and grass he began his next day of work. This time though he didn’t just stand by continuously shaping the mud and grass to keep it from falling apart while it dried. Instead, he shaped several more pieces of bark into a kind of mold that would keep the makeshift mortar in place. Through this method he could do several chunks in a row while also going to grab more mud or making more bark molds.

After a while he had fully automated his process of filling the gaps and it was time to continue building upwards. Once the front area of his new house was sturdy and insulated, he used his saw to cut out an ovular shaped arching doorway. The logs managed to hold, but Jasper didn’t want to risk anything so he grew a new piece of wood and fit it directly into the slot where he would one day build a door. He realized that with enough patience he could most likely grow the entire house from nothing but a piece of wood, but that didn’t mesh well with his sense of aesthetics or allow him to continue keeping his mind off of the horror and anger that always managed to bubble itself to the surface any time he accidentally let himself have a moment of introspection.

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With his new door frame installed he got to work cutting and shaping the logs to continue building his new cabin. He wanted it to be big enough that he could build a second story one day. He’d spent most of his life in a cramped room with a bunch of other boys. It would be nice for him to have enough space to move around in for once. It took him another three days to build the structure tall enough that he could stack at least four of himself inside on top of each other’s shoulders and still have enough room to walk around.

As his strength stat grew Jasper noticed that his muscles had gotten slightly bigger although he was still on the lean side. He figured that had more to do with his diet than his stats though he had just been getting by on meat and poisonous grass. He had managed to put together a fire using the electrical rune which meant at least the meat he’d been eating would be perfectly cooked. It was easy to do, he just needed to use a little bit of tender on which he wrote the rune of electricity. The wood would spark and immediately catch fire.

In the middle of his camp far enough away from his cabin that he wouldn’t have to worry about it catching fire he’d made a small circle of rocks where he had his meals every morning and night. He’d even grown himself a little bench during the hours that he wasn’t working. The bench had the same design as the one he’d sat on with his friends the night that he’d received his class, and often he’d found himself thinking about them and feeling a deep sense of sadness. Still, he knew that the next day would present him with new challenges.

Effen had been a godsend of a tool and he caught himself talking to her increasingly often. He knew that she wasn’t real, but it was hard not to find himself thinking of either of his named tools as just pure hunks of wood and stone with a purpose. As the days passed Jasper started imagining Effen and Flot as siblings who didn’t get along. Effen would buzz around Flot as he diligently carried on his duties of carrying things for Jasper.

A few days later the walls were finally done, and it was time for him to start on the roof. This time he had to do some more detailed work to cut the wood he would need for the rafters. Eventually though he’d covered the entire top of his new house with the basics he would need to build the roof. Jasper cut several planks of wood but when he went to place them, he realized that yet again he’d gotten ahead of himself. He had no way to attach the planks to the top of the house.

This was a difficult problem for him to solve as he had very few tools at his disposal. He didn’t have any nails and even if he did, he wouldn’t have a hammer to drive them. After two days of thinking about its Jasper had almost given up. He was feeling depressed and even considered knocking down all his hard work and going back to living in the bark shack he’d have to rebuild. Of course, those thoughts were nothing but self-pity. He could just make a big wooden platform and stick it on top of his walls to keep out most of the rain. It just wasn’t what he’d wanted, it wasn’t what the idea was in his head from the very beginning of this project. He wanted a home out here not just a hut with a flat roof. He sat down and started making another basket, which he’d taken to doing either when he got stuck on an idea or when he just had extra time that wasn’t devoted to building, studying, or hunting. As he stared at the reeds in his hand, he started to develop a new idea for his roof.

It wasn’t as fancy as a roof with all those rafters and planks, but it would still cover him, and it would even look like a nice roof. Jasper began gathering as many long reeds as possible to bring them back to camp. Then he went back into the forest to look for the other things he would need. It didn’t take long for him to find the vines that he’d seen growing the day he’d come into the forest. Jasper started to pull the vines away from the face of the tree that they were growing up but when he did the vines pulled back. They wrapped themselves around his wrists and ankles, even snaking themselves around Jasper's waist and neck.

Effen didn’t like that at all and got to work slicing through the vines in short order. She was even kind enough to leave enough length to the vines so that Jasper could use them later. He fell to the ground gasping and spluttering, but he had received the kill notification. He choked on a laugh as he saw the name of the plant monster Effen had just killed for him. They were called “Overly Friendly Hugging Vines,” Which both tickled Jaspers' sense of humor, but also made him wary of the plant life around him. He’d heard about plant monsters before, but this was his very first time interacting with one. A shiver ran down Jasper's spine as he realized exactly how close to death he’d just gotten.

Once again, he thanked Effen before gathering up all the vines that she had so kindly cut for him. He walked back towards his camp, but this time he was more nervous about the plants around him. Because of his traps, and readily available fish to eat in the river Jasper had gotten complacent about the dangers of this world. It was something he would have to do his best not to forget in the future. He stepped back into his camp about an hour later making sure that he controlled his perimeter of electrifying traps so as not to be ensnared in them himself. It was time for the real work to begin.

Using a large floating platform made of wood he attached dowels onto the sloping frame he’d already built using the vines he had collected. Then he did it again forming a checkerboard pattern with his dowels. Once that was finished, he cut a thin flexible slice off the dowels that ran horizontally to the house. He hadn’t detached the strip completely leaving enough space that it wouldn’t easily be ripped apart. Then he took a bundle of reeds and wove the strip over it and under the next one tied it off once he’d secured the last bundle to the roof.

He used a stone to hammer the ends of the reeds until they were all even then continued layering more reed bunches on top of the other. This continued until the reeds peaked over the top of the triangular frame Jasper had built. He had already had to go collect more reeds as his work continued and Flot helped with it as much as he could, but he wasn’t really built to carry long reeds. Even so Jasper was thankful for the help and made sure to tell Flot as much. Jasper got back to his camp after bringing in the last number of reeds he thought he would need for the roof. The sun was setting again so Jasper decided that he would start again the next morning. He went inside and almost trembled with excitement as he saw his half-finished roof.

When he woke up, he noticed that some of the thatched roof had shifted, so after his routine was finished, he went to figuring out how to secure them a little more. Eventually he decided to sharpen some smaller sticks, split them in half while keeping the two pieces connected and driving those over each bunch of reeds. When he finished, he could barely see where he had driven each of his makeshift staples from the outside, but he could see them from the inside. That was easy enough to solve using his growth technique. He just grew the staples a little more and then tied them just tight enough that the reeds would no longer shift in the wind. He then cut the tips of the staples off so he wouldn’t have to think about the tiny spikes hanging above his head.

The rest of the day was spent building the other half of the roof and getting it as perfect as he could. He used Effen or his pliers to cut off some reeds that wouldn’t stop sticking out. Of that was done Jasper sent Effen to work blending it all in and making it as close to a perfect slope as possible. It would have to rain before he could really test the effectiveness of his thatching skills and so far, even though Jasper had been out here for a month he hadn’t seen even a sprinkle falling from the sky.

Jasper floated down hopping from his wooden hover disc. He couldn’t wait to have more tools that would make wood carving applicable. Then he could finally give Flot more permanent runes just like Effen. He would also feel more comfortable naming more of his crafts if he knew that the enchantments would be permanent. So far, his ink could easily be washed away by some water or even by rubbing it too hard. It was slightly harder to do so on wood than on stone because the wood was porous and absorbed the ink better than stone did, but it was still easily washed away.

Jasper stepped back to admire the work he’d put into building his new home. It was unimaginable that he was able to do something like this. It wasn’t perfect, some of the logs, and dowels stuck out too far, and it didn’t have the polish of the buildings made of metal and glass that he was used to. There was even a big crawl space underneath the house from where Jasper had placed the first few logs. But he had put his blood, sweat, and tears into building a place that he could not only survive, but somewhere that he could call home eventually. A place that would be the start of his empire one day, probably a long time from now.

Jasper felt pride at a job well done; a feeling that he was growing to really like and get used to. He’d already come up with an idea for filling in that big space under the house, and he just hoped that it would look and work as good as he thought.

He spent the rest of the day traveling around the area using Flot to pick up rocks of all kinds of shapes and sizes. Then he started dinner, which of course was one of the fish that never seemed to quit swimming over the waterfall. Jasper felt content while sitting next to the fire and decided to count all of the good things in his life. First of all, he was warm. The fire crackled cheekily as if it was saying “You’re welcome.” Secondly tonight he would be sleeping under a roof for the first time in about a month. Sure, it wasn’t the best roof in the world, but it still made Jasper feel slightly more human.

Then of course he was thankful for Effen, and Flot as well as for his class that had helped him survive so far. Out of all the things he thought that he’d feel thankful for he never thought that one of the biggest ones would be for his class. After all, it was because of his class that he’d been tossed out of the cities to begin with. It was because of his class that he had to be extremely careful when fighting monsters and that he had lost everyone in the world that was important to him.

But it was also because of his class that he’d been able to survive even a single day after he’d been left behind. If it hadn’t been for his class coupled with Pirka’s gift of the ambulance, then the poison and radiation would have left him as a puking stain on the planet’s surface. Maybe in another thousand or so years someone would have found his bones and used him in their own crafting projects. Because of his class he’d been able to make his first weapon that helped him survive on his trek to find water. He’d made Effen gaining an achievement, and finally made himself a defensible position that he could call his own.

He imagined what his life had been like back in the city. He’d always been scrambling for a better job to be able to pay for a roof over his head and pay for food and clothes. Often times he had to go without one of them when he desperately needed another. Now though he had his own room his own food, and... Jasper looked down at the tattered and stained rags that had once been clothing.

“Guess I’ll still need to work on that.”