He managed to arrive in the clearing without alerting any predators, though that was mostly to be expected, as he'd found no real evidence of predators around the clearing, save for the murder chicken upstream. Legs shaking, he stumbled into the center of the village, deer draped over his shoulder in a fireman's carry.
Throwing the deer corpse down, he promptly collapsed, his body completely drenched in a disgusting mixture of blood, mud, and sweat.
'Damn deer is heavy.'
'It's a Good thing this guy was pintsized.'
'Clearly I need to get stronger.'
After lying down for about 15 minutes, Alex got up and began skinning the deer, trimming off the fat and meat from the skin, which he started making into a pile. He made several mistakes, but still ended up with 6 decently sized sheets of skin - Alex planned to make it into leather, not that he really knew what he'd do with that.
Next he began separating the meat from the bones, and then further separated the fat from the meat he needed to make jerky with. He estimated he had gotten around 30 pounds of meat off the deer, and there was no way he was going to eat that in a sitting.
Alex threw the unused fat into one of the metal buckets, which he'd render down, too poor to waste anything.
He left himself 3 pounds of the fattier meat, and was going to set himself aside some meat for bait, but quickly decided against it.
'I don't exactly need more food than what I have right now, this'll last me at least a week.
'Probably better off baiting with one of those squirrels, provided I can actually catch them.'
He also started roasting up the heart and the liver, and having learned his lesson from last time, opted to eat the liver first, while he was still somewhat hungry.
His fire was getting quite cramped, with racks of thinly sliced deer meat hanging above the fire slowly smoking, a bucket of fat to the side rendering, and a bunch of meat and organs skewered on sticks over the fire, slowly roasting.
After around 30 minutes, Alex guessed that the meat was cooked, its exterior having browned, and the meat turned fragrant. He begrudgingly pulled the liver off the fire, and stared at it.
'Maybe it won't be that bad.'
Alex twisted the liver over examining it, and saw some veins protruding from it. Gagging, he shook his head.
'No, this is going to be an absolute nightmare.'
Just before he was about to dig into the liver however, he remembered to check his system, and was surprised again.
[Honor System]
[Name: Alex]
[Existence Tier: 1]
[Ability: Water Control]
[Ability points: 0]
[Mana: 15/15]
[Soul Force: 162]
[Strength: 0]
[Endurance: 3]
[Dexterity: 0]
[Vitality: 5]
[Resilience: 0]
[Cognition: 0]
[Perception: 8]
[Available stat points: 1]
'Where do these single stat points keep coming from? All I did was wait around and practice water sensing, then run after a deer.'
Sighing, Alex prepped himself again for his upcoming ordeal, it seemed it would be hard to get any answers regarding the system anytime soon. Steeling himself, he closed his eyes, biting into the liver, the pungent smell and flavour assaulted his mouth, causing Alex to gag and dry heave.
'System, am I able to temporarily disable my perception increase?'
'This feels like false advertising.'
'Perception seriously needs a buyer beware sticker!'
To Alex' dismay the system remained unresponsive.
'Guess that's a no.'
Grimacing Alex continued struggling as he force fed himself deer liver. Finally, after 10 minutes, he'd completed his ordeal. He then returned to the fire and spent 20 minutes polishing off the rest of the organs, as well as the slab of fatty meat he'd set aside.
'How much daylight do I have left?'
Alex wandered over to his sundial. He had around another 3 hours of daylight left by his estimation. While the meat continued smoking and drying out, he went to the river to start cleaning the intestines, skin, and the stomach of the deer. Intestines for a bowstring, the stomach a waterskin, and the skin leather for who knows what.
After thoroughly cleaning everything, he hung the stomach and skin up for drying using makeshift stands made of his precious firewood. He then laid out the intestines and carefully went over their length, carefully examining them. To his surprise, the intestines were ribbed with a side of fat, distributed along their length, he then tried stretching them and found them quite strong and slightly elastic.
'What am I supposed to do with the fat?'
'Somehow I doubt that it adds to the structural integrity.'
'Fat goes rancid, so I probably want to remove it. Don't want my bowstring getting smelly.'
He then carefully ran down the length of the intestines, trimming off the fat, which he added to his rendering bucket. with his knife, cutting off the fat. In total he only got around 20 feet of intestine, seeing as it was quite a small deer. Next he spread the sections of intestine out, and began the laborious process of twisting the lengths of intestine together.
Having finished his bowstring Alex got up and stretched, he'd either been butchering, eating, or processing the deer for almost 3 hours now. He felt surprisingly refreshed however, despite his fight with the deer earlier, and the exhausting trek back to the clearing.
Checking his status, Alex confirmed the change in his status with a smile.
[Honor System]
[Name: Alex]
[Existence Tier: 1]
[Ability: Water Control]
[Ability points: 0]
[Mana: 22/22]
[Soul Force: 162]
[Strength: 0]
[Endurance: 3]
[Dexterity: 0]
[Vitality: 5]
[Resilience: 0]
[Cognition: 0]
[Perception: 8]
[Available stat points: 8]
'It seems I gain both stat points and mana when I eat food.'
Alex re-read the description of vitality once again, focusing on one section,
—
Vitality: Improves digestion speed.
—
Alex came to a simple conclusion, eating food made him stronger, and vitality let him eat more, so he'd just eat more,
'You would think that living out in the wilderness would help me lean out.'
Alex then invested his 8 points into vitality and enjoyed the familiar sensation of warmth. He then walked over to the river where he spent a solid 10 minutes or so practicing water control, until he'd completely expended his mana,
Walking over to the fire, he grabbed one of the racks, amounting to around 4-5 pounds of jerky and slowly started munching. After a half hour Alex let out an exhausted cry, and proceeded to flop on the ground, staring at the sky.
'I can't believe I ever thought this was a good idea.'
'I'm going to develop an eating disorder at this rate.'
'An eating disorder where I compulsively consume foods I hate.'
Opening his system, he nodded his head in approval.
[Honor System]
[Name: Alex]
[Existence Tier: 1]
[Ability: Water Control]
[Ability points: 0]
[Mana: 30/30]
[Soul Force: 162->230]
[Strength: 0]
[Endurance: 3]
[Dexterity: 0]
[Vitality: 13]
[Resilience: 0]
[Cognition: 0]
[Perception: 8]
[Available stat points: 8]
'It seems that without fail, anything that increases my maximum mana increases my available stat points.'
'Eating also seems to refill my mana.'
Alex then began to wonder how to proceed with his plan of growing stronger. Investing in strength would obviously have immediate returns, however this reduced the number of points he could spend on other useful things.
'The traditional method of building strength should still apply.
Didn't vitality specify that it increased repair of damage, as well as growth?
Won't the benefits from increased endurance also apply?
My recovery times should be outright ridiculous, and with my endurance, I can probably blast through most sets.'
Alex was reasonably convinced that this was a good plan, so he decided to invest his stats, 4 points in both perception and endurance.
Alex again felt himself almost flattened by the perception increase, briefly blinded by the sun.
'I should practice some more water control'
This time, instead of trying to create an orb of water, Alex instead tried to create a continuous stream of water, circling around him before returning to the river. His initial attempts only yielded a small stream, about as narrow as his finger, which he twisted and wrapped around him like a rope. Focusing, Alex pushed harder, allowing him to thicken the stream to around the diameter to about 3cm.
Only able to maintain the extended stream for 30 seconds, Alex gasped upon emptying his mana.
Alex checked his system again, looking to see an improvement in his soul force.
[Honor System]
[Name: Alex]
[Existence Tier: 1]
[Ability: Water Control]
[Ability points: 0]
[Mana: 0/30]
[Soul Force: 230->320]
[Strength: 0]
[Endurance: 3->7]
[Dexterity: 0]
[Vitality: 13]
[Resilience: 0]
[Cognition: 0]
[Perception: 8->12]
[Available stat points: 0]
'This method seems to yield superior gains to the old method.'
He then walked over to the river, removing his clothing, and sat in the shallows.
'I could use a bath.'
Grabbing a porous rock he began to carefully rub himself down, removing the caked on blood and dirt he'd accumulated over these two days. Having finished cleaning himself, Alex moved on to the next stage in his practice.
"Time to get comfortable."
Alex muttered to himself as he leaned back, leaving only his face sticking out of the water. The river shallows were particularly calming to Alex, largely due to the fact that he was an experienced swimmer.
'It's not the same without the smell of chlorine.'
Without any immediate tasks to complete, Alex's mind started drifting, as he contemplated his situation.
'Was I the only one who got sent here? Is the system just for me?'
Various thoughts zipped through his head as he lay in the water.
'Am I going to see my friends and family again?'
Alex pushed aside those thoughts for later.
'Doesn't matter, the only thing I can do is move forward.'
'If the system brought me here, it can probably get me out.'
Resolute, Alex did his best to relax, feeling the light push and pull of the water in the shallows, he began emptying his mind.
'I've got enough food for 4-5 days at least, and I've got enough fat to last me for at least another month before I starve.'
'I can always hunt more, and I've got my traps.'
'Water could be handled by boiling.'
'That just leaves the creatures of the forest, fortunately nothing seems to dwell particularly close to the clearing. Shivering, he remembered the demon bear.'
'I need to get much stronger.'