The auto-cooking feature literally automatically cooked the snake. It took the snake into a hologram where it was skinned, chopped up, and cooked. There was a little progress bar on the bottom showing me the estimated time until it was complete. I sat down and waited for about five minutes before it finished and transferred itself to my inventory. Skewered snake doesn't sound extremely appetizing but I don't know whether it was the fact that I was literally starving or if the system was just a good cook, but I'd never tasted anything better in my life.
Now that I'm no longer hungry I figure its time to check out the system's shop. It had six tabs: Weapons, Armour, Accessories, Skills, Monsters, and Misc. They were pretty self-explanatory and misc. was anything that wasn't categorized within the others. Now that I think about it, shouldn't I be able to buy a spaceship or something like that?
[The items available to host in the shop will increase as host increases in strength. Currently, at level one, you can only but common-uncommon items. Every ten levels a new tier of items will become available in the system shop.]
Hmm, so if I reach level ten I'll be able to buy rare-rated items as well?
[Yes, at level twenty you'll have access to epic items and so on and so forth]
That's good to keep in mind, but for now, I feel like I'm getting way ahead of myself, after all, I'm still only level one. After thinking for a moment on what to do I've resolved myself to go and level up. Alright, time to get my hunt on. I equipped all my items and stood up. I walked through the forest, spear at the ready. After a few minutes of uneventful walking, I came across a cave entrance. It was a large hole about twenty feet wide and ten feet tall. I was about to go in a bit to check it out when I heard a clicking and hissing sound behind me. My battle sense told me to move and so I did, jumping and rolling out of the way of a large acidic web. I tensed up as I turned around, finding myself looking at three giant spiders. Each of them was easily three feet tall. They had hard carapaces covering their bodies that I had a sneaking suspicion I wouldn't be able to pierce. My 'modified' soul, as well as my battle sense, kept me calm. Then I found that if I focused on them I could very faintly see red dots covering their joints and legs. I figure those must be weak points.
They hissed and chittered at me for a few moments before one of the leaped at me. I let instinct take over as I jabbed my spear in one fluid motion through its head, instantly killing it. It slowly slid off the end of my spear before plopping to the ground.
[Hunted Adult Cave Spider x1, 30 SC awarded]
System, can you show me the experience gains from killing monsters from now on?
[For 5 SC host can enable this option]
Sure, it'll make it so I don't have to guess so I figure it's worth it. The other spiders seemed more cautious after watching their friend go down so quickly. I made use of their hesitation to follow up and ran towards one of them. I jabbed towards his face again but stopped the stab halfway, switching to a slash. I cut off his front 2 legs in one clean sweep before backing off a bit. I was getting tired so I'd have to finish this quickly.
I jabbed at the one on my right before quickly slashing towards the one on the left, cutting halfway through its head and killing it. I pulled my spear out as the other one jumped at me. I used the but of my spear to knock into it, dazing it momentarily before I thrust my spear through its head and into the body.
[Hunted Adult Cave Spider x2, 60 SC Awarded, 60 EXP Awarded]
[Spear Mastery Level Up! (1->2)]
[Level Up! (1->2)]
I sat down, breathing heavily. That fight had taken quite a bit out of me. I took the corpses into my inventory before moving to a safer location and sitting down against a tree. I pulled out the corpse of one of the spiders as well as my spear. I gently pushed the blade of my spear against the carapace and finding that it didn't pierce I slowly added more strength until I was sweating using my full strength to press down and it finally went through.
Huh, that would make good armor... System, is there a way to turn these materials into armor?
[There are a number of crafting functions available to the host. Do you want a list of them?]
Sure, put their prices next to each one as well.
[Material Processor - 250 SC (Upgradeable) ]
[Smithing - 100 SC (Upgradeable) ]
[Alchemy - 100 SC (Upgradeable) ]
[Tailoring - 100 SC (Upgradeable) ]
[These are the functions currently available to the host]
I bought the material processor as well as the smithing and tailoring. The material processor worked a lot like the automatic cooking function. I put the materials into the window and it processed each part of the carcass into something usable. I threw away the eyeballs and organs and such so it processed the meat and the carapace. Here's what I got from processing all three:
[Cave Spider Meat x3 - Uncommon]
[Helps regenerate stamina when eaten]
[Cave Spider Chitin x10 - Uncommon]
[An unnaturally hard carapace has been processed into a material that can be used for armor]
I put the chitin into the smithy and it displayed a number of options for items to make. I selected leggings. As those were being made I checked my status screen.