There was no coffee or tea in this biome. Oliver wiped the sleep from his eyes as he missed the caffeinated rush of his ritual morning beverage. This place seemed like a world of its own, maybe he would be able to find a substitute somewhere.
He saw the remains of the Devourer crab a few feet from the fire. Only a few scattered legs and the hard green carapace could be found, seems like Oliver was quite thorough as he ate quickly.
He picked up the shell and inspected the underside. Seems like the fire had been strong enough to cook the meat inside yet the shell had remained intact. The shell was big enough to hold a good amount of liquid if it was cleaned out properly, it could even be used to boil water. Oliver started his day by removing all the bits of flesh and exoskeleton that stuck to the interior of the shell. It would be a nice quality of life upgrade if he could use this shell as a bowl.
With the dishes done, he got to work on fortifying his home. He had a good supply of food at the moment, access to clean water, and a place to sleep. Now he wanted to feel safe. He piled the larger boulders he could find around his camp. This waist high fence took what Oliver estimated to be about 2 days of hard work.
During that time he munched on the already cooked Frogfish. When he was tired of lifting rocks he would sit by the pond and fish. The newly learned fisherman class helped him catch Frogfish that were even larger and higher leveled than before. It quickly leveled up to level two.
Surprisingly, his fishing skill also leveled up. It was the first time a skill leveled up through use instead of being learned through a class. Seems that if he focused his efforts on single skills at a time, he would be able to improve them. The level up had a noticeable impact on his ability to fish. In all honesty, the Frogfish barely put up a fight for him anymore. He was able to pull them out of the water the moment they breached the surface or decided to take a rest from fighting the hook.
Frogfish would come out left and right to tug at his lure. With that many fish piled next to him, he decided to make a drying rack above his campfire. This would allow him to better preserve the fish by smoking them.
[Drying Rack Successfully created.]
[Nourishment of preserved food will be slightly increased.]
[Stone Barrier Successfully created.]
[Hostile creatures within the barrier will now be easier to locate.]
These two buildings seemed to have passive effects when constructed. While Oliver had initially set out to just upgrade his quality of life, it seemed the system ran quite deep and was influenced by almost anything he did.
He had many other plans but decided they could wait for now and went on a recon throughout the forest. He casually walked this way and that as the cave was not very large and everything looked rather similar. He brought his hatchet with him in case anything hostile might be around. Alas, there was nothing interesting except the variety of plants that grew throughout the cave. Seems like this place truly had a unique ecosystem.
With a rough estimate, he believed the cave to be about 300 meters from one cave wall to another and seemed to be in a circular shape. While one could not see from one side to the other due to the heavy foliage, it was easy to find the camp as it was directly in the middle of the cave, as if the pond seemed to be a focal point of life.
With nothing else to explore in the area, he began to cut down a rather large bush that grew thick, straight branches.
[Mare's Death Bush acquired.]
While the name seemed rather ominous, it was quite easy to figure out why someone would call this bush a Mare's Death. The branches shot out from a small stump in almost every direction, the inner part of the bush almost completely shielded from view due to large oval leaves. The branches were quite sturdy and did not easily break or bend when force was applied to them. Ramming into one of these bushes would be akin to jumping onto a bunch of exposed rebar in a construction site. The effect of running into this bush at full speed with a horse must be catastrophic and gory. It was a well-named bush after all.
However, Oliver had other matters than plant name etymology and lugged the entire bush back to his base.
Oliver decided to put the system to the test and focus on crafting a single item over and over to see what the outcome would be. This item would be quite useful when he eventually returned to the night version of the forest. Using the branches of the Mare's Death he would attempt to craft a multitude of wooden spears.
He started by cutting off the branches from the main trunk and felling off all the little twigs and leaves. The task was easier said than done as the wood fought hard not to be cut and the angle at which he chopped was often bizarre and inefficient. However, after fighting the shrub for a solid hour, he managed to get a nice pile of cleaned off sticks. The stump was thrown into the fire, a spiteful end.
He then used the axe to cut the branches down to a comfortable length for a spear, sharpening the point with his axe and then knife. To temper the points he had them harden in the fire. This made it easier to shape the points into long and sharp edges. It did make the spear slightly more brittle but all in all it saved quite a bit of hacking away with the axe.
[Wooden Spear successfully crafted.]
[Material: Mare's Death Bush.]
[Quality: Average.]
Oliver received these pop-ups every time he completed a spear. When he was on his 7th spear he saw a new message float up from the system.
[Makeshift Crafting level 1 has successfully leveled up to: Makeshift Crafting Level 2.]
With the skill now leveled up, Oliver finished another spear. This time he felt the balance of the stick before beginning to craft, he looked at the grain of the wood and found a stick about 6 feet long with very little curvature. The twigs were trimmed, the point hardened and sharpened.
[Wooden Spear successfully crafted.]
[Material: Mare's Death Bush.]
[Quality: Uncommon.]
The resulting spear created was lighter and more maneuverable than the prior attempts. While the wood it was created from was already quite solid, Oliver was unable to even bend the spear while exerting all his strength. It was remarkable how the system could influence these inanimate objects to take on these properties solely by transferring his skill into the spear as he was making it. The applications of this were near limitless in the civilized world.
This biome was not the civilized world. Creatures would no doubt fight each other to rip off one of Oliver's legs, both of which were fine and healthy due to the crab meat and rest he had earlier. Speaking of crab meat, one of the best ways he had found to accrue experience points was to fish. However, he soon realized that this method of experience farming had given him a dead end.
As he fished and leveled up as a fisherman, he noticed the experience of his scavenger skill had not increased once. It seems classes had certain fields in which they gained exp. The Fisherman class would definitely take the experience from things like fish caught while fishing. It stood to reason the Scavenging class, which had a skill entitled 'Hunting', would most likely gain experience from fighting monsters and creatures in the night biome.
While the fisherman class definitely had its perks for securing food sources, it also had a lower impact on Oliver's Physique when he leveled up. Scavenger had strengthened him up physically and mentally, allowing him to react quickly and aggressively to any threat that presented himself. The boost in Health had been a full 20 points while the Fisherman class had only given him 3.
Oliver wanted to prioritize his physical strength at the moment as it would be what would eventually get him back to humanity. He had to focus his efforts to reap the benefits.
He prepared to go back into the night biome. The crystals had stayed bright for over 50 hours at this point and demonstrated no sign of changing their luminosity. He had to activate the rest feature to go find those monsters.
Before he did so he practiced wielding the spear, jabbing it into the air in front of him as if there was a target. At first he found the motion clumsy, his hands sometimes slipped and the spear would wrestle away from him. Over the course of a few hours he began to understand the basics and could jab the point almost two inches into a tree trunk. No skill had popped up yet indicating he had not fully learned the basics, but try as he might his learning seemed to have plateaued. He must have been missing a key requirement to unlocking whatever skill was related to spear hunting.
With his camp now surrounded by a decently tall perimeter fence and plenty of food on the drying rack, Oliver was confident in his ability to now face the creatures of the night biome. He went towards his sleeping platform, vowing to make it a bit more comfortable the moment he had the materials for it, and activated the Rest function. It was time to hunt some crabs.