Alex opened his eyes to the morning light streaming in through the cracks in the shutters. Sitting up, Alex started planning.
'I've got access to plenty of water, I just need to boil it. My current stockpile should last me about 2-3 days in this heat, all things considered.
Food is a bigger problem. I made quite a haul yesterday, but winning the fight with the murder chicken was lucky, and the system healing my wounds may be a one off. I've invested somewhat in vitality, but I doubt it works well enough for me to survive those sorts of injuries.
I can try devising traps and hunting with the spears I've got should be possible. Problem is I have no idea how to track prey.'
Alex decided to check his status on a whim.
[Honor System]
[Name: Alex]
[Existence Tier: 1]
[Ability: Water Control]
[Ability points: 0]
[Mana: 13/13]
[Soul Force: 88]
[Strength: 0]
[Endurance: 0]
[Dexterity: 0]
[Vitality: 2]
[Resilience: 0]
[Cognition: 0]
[Perception: 3]
[Available stat points: 10]
'WHAT? Where did these stat points come from? My mana also shot up by 10 points.
Was it the sleeping? Or the eating? When did this happen?'
Alex sighed.
'Guess I'll have to be more diligent about checking my system so I can figure out when changes and improvements happen.
Now what should I spend my points on? Perception will help me track food and avoid getting hunted, so that seems good to stick with. Vitality will keep me from getting sick, help me survive food poisoning, and heal from wounds. Getting seriously sick could be the end for me as I don't have a good way to stock up food.'
Alex pondered the remaining options,
'Strength, and dexterity are more combat oriented, but I think I'm trying to avoid fights, so I'm going to write these off for now. Cognition will improve my thinking speed, but all I've got right now is time, though it might help with tracking. Resilience might be good if I need to survive an ambush. Endurance seems like the best choice though, as it will literally let me escape, and travel farther in a day, on top of going longer without food.'
Alex decided on his new stat distribution:
[Honor System]
[Name: Alex]
[Existence Tier: 1]
[Ability: Water Control]
[Ability points: 0]
[Mana: 13/13]
[Soul Force: 88]
[Strength: 0]
[Endurance: 0->3]
[Dexterity: 0]
[Vitality: 2->5]
[Resilience: 0]
[Cognition: 0]
[Perception: 3->7]
[Available stat points: 0]
This time, the increase to his perception was more noticeable than last time, his head spinning from the incoming stimulus.
'The sun is too damn bright.'
He waited around 5 minutes as his eyes adjusted to the light. Next Alex jumped out of bed and ran to the nearby forest, realizing he'd some business he needed to take care of.
'See how good my squat form still is.'
Hunkering down in some bushes Alex then came to a new realization, as his face distorted with panic.
'I don't have toilet paper.
Leaves???
Triple ply or bust.
Maybe I'll spec resilience to protect my delicate butt.'
As he cried to himself and pondered his new life in the forest, he came to another conclusion.
'There's a piece of technology dedicated to this problem.
The bidet.'
He reopened his system interface, and there it was, his savior - water control.
"YEEESSSSS!!"
Alex's voice resonated out in the early morning, as he shook his fists in the air in victory. After realizing his newfound plan, Alex resolved himself to use leaves, whining the whole time.
After finishing his business and returning to the village, Alex resolved to master water control. His mana was full, so why not get some practice in now?
Alex then decided to head to the river, where he scooped up some more water. Imagining the image in his head as he did last time, he pulled a drop of water up from the rest of the water, levitating it.
'Much easier than last time. I can actually keep my eyes open.'
Next he tried moving the drop of water in a circle, which it seemed happy enough to comply with. Alex smiled to himself as he watched the water drop circle in the air, willing it to spin faster and faster, as he increased his concentration.
He noticed that if he closed his eyes, his concentration improved, and he could better feel the water drop under his control, and he visualized it zipping around in a circle.
'Yeah, water control practice is definitely best performed with my eyes closed for the next while.'
He kept his eyes closed and focused on feeling the drop of water as he spun it around and around, continuing until he abruptly lost control.
'Guess I ran out of mana.'
Alex willed his system interface to open.
[Honor System]
[Name: Alex]
[Existence Tier: 1]
[Ability: Water Control]
[Ability points: 0]
[Mana: 0/13]
[Soul Force: 88->100]
Stats:
[Strength: 0]
[Endurance: 3]
[Dexterity: 0]
[Vitality: 5]
[Resilience: 0]
[Cognition: 0]
[Perception: 7]
[Available stat points: 0]
'Interesting, so practicing with my water control seems to improve my soul force.
Does that mean that my control is improving? My improvements could just be practice related.
It'll require more testing, but it's hard when the only thing I've got to work with is my water control.'
His practice had taken him barely a few minutes, though Alex was guessing as to the exact time frame.
'I need to figure out if I can make some sort of clock. I can probably make a poor man's sundial, but there's going to be some serious spitballing on the math.'
Alex went through his remaining firewood pile, searching for a relatively straight stick of wood. Finding the appropriate target, he proceeded to bury it upright in a relatively empty spot in the clearing.
'So if the sun sets over there, and rises over here, I need to get some rocks and lay out a decent circle. It'll be far from perfect, but you take what you can get.'
Alex spent the next 15 minutes walking back and forth between the river and his sundial, as he picked out appropriately sized rocks, and placed them around his sundial, spacing them in rough 12 point increments. Alex then paused.
'Wait, if I'm not on earth, then I have no idea how many hours are in a day.
Shit.
Whelp, I'll hope it's just 24 hours and do my best.'
Alex then decided it was time to set out and prep some traps.
'I think I'm going to be stuck making pitfalls, I've got no idea how to make a snare, and it's not like I've got any idea what prey animals there are.
I'll have to hunt prey animals, and trap predators.
More murder chickens please!
...
How am I going to dig pitfalls? I doubt there's a shovel or a pickaxe.'
Sure enough, Alex was right, and after searching through the houses he came up empty handed.
'Do I try making stone tools?'
Alex departed for the river, where he spent the next 15 minutes searching for stones. Unfortunately nothing was appropriately shaped, nor could he find anything brittle enough that he could crack it. Giving up on the idea of rock tools, he tried to remember if there was anything else he could use to make tools.
'Hold on, I've got some bones from the murder chicken.'
Returning to the remains of the carcass, Alex grabbed the femur of the creature. Holding it up, it was roughly a foot long.
Next he used the dagger he'd found to carve some notches into the back of the bone, after which he started sawing down on the front end of the bone. Finally after getting the bone cut to roughly the shape he wanted, he proceeded to mount the femur to one of his pieces of firewood, wrapping one of the vine's he'd gathered around the firewood and the bone, fixing them together.
'Nice, a bone pickaxe.
Let's see how tough chicken boys bone's are.'
Alex walked to the forest carrying his new toy and gave a tree a good whack. Finding his makeshift pickaxe embedded a good 2 inches in the wood, Alex grinned.
'Excellent.'
He then gathered his tools and made his way into the forest towards where he'd met the murder chicken. After walking for around 15 minutes, he proceeded to locate some relatively sandy soil about 100m from the riverside, right at the edge of the treeline.
He then proceeded to use the pickaxe to loosen the soil, after which he'd use his dagger and hands to scoop out the broken up soil. Break, scoop, rinse, repeat.
'Endurance might be the ideal stat.'
After around 2 hours, he'd made a satisfactorily deep pitfall, about 1 meter deep. Next, he gathered the required wood for stakes and sharpened them with his dagger. After covering the bottom of the pitfall with his sharpened stakes, he wiped his brow, satisfied. Finally, he covered the trap with thin sticks, over which he placed leaves, mimicking the surrounding underbrush.
'Now for bait.
Unfortunately, all I have left from the murder chicken is what I dried. Not very fragrant or good for baiting traps with.
Gotta find a new victim.'