The wolf escaped him, but that's alright. He'd gained life-changing powers apparently every toddler on the planet can access. Shiv also learned that not everyone had access to earth magic. Different clans had access to only a single other element. Like earth, water, and fire, etc.
Not that he cared about any of that, as he was currently engaged in manipulating the earth around the clearing to build walls. He was tired of being interrupted in his work by terrifying animals. He'd walked to the edge of the clearing and stuck his hand on the ground in between two trees, with the stone molding slightly into the trees. He made it grow till it was just a little bit higher than his head, then he focused on thickening it until it was as thick as his thigh.
Then he moved to the next spot and repeated the process. Then again, and again. As he went, he started to notice that his stomach was growling. Then, as he manipulated more and more earth, it started aching. Then hurting.
Eventually, at midday, he had finished the wall around his clearing, with a tree at one point in it that would allow him to climb in and out of his new base of operations without issue, but cause his hooved neighbors no end of trouble.
"Do you plan on letting your stomach eat itself?" The wolf was lazily sitting on a lower branch.
"Did you curse my stomach to make it hurt so much?" Shiv groaned as he slowly sat at the base of the tree in which his bed-branch was. "Why am I so hungry?"
"Instead of questioning why, why don't you question what could have been the cause. It is no curse. What could you have done to cause it?"
"That's way too much work." Shiv whined as he did exactly as the wolf suggested. 'So this world has a mana system like that one game I played, but it uses food instead of mana.' With a possible solution found, he crawled to the alcove in a large tree that he was keeping the fruits and veggies specifically for eating in. With many groans and much pain, he shoved every last piece into his mouth and swallowed it almost before chewing. When he had emptied his stash, he felt much better.
He leveraged himself back into a sitting position with his back to the tree, and absentmindedly swatted at the cloud of bugs trying to get at the sweet juices on his face and fingers. "Magic is powered by food. That's insane." He thought of the fat man who owned the general store. "He could make walls all day." He laughed.
With that, he got up and began working on the next task, which was to gather the plants he had located. It took more time than he would have liked, but he succeeded in gathering all of the plants except for the biggest group. He looked through the canopy of trees and the massive sun, which was very close to setting, and decided to risk it. 'I don't want to get them all tomorrow. I don't want to get them tonight, either.' Shiv considered the conundrum as he made his way to the last batch of plants, the wolf lazily following along.
Shiv usually had to climb a tree or dive into some bushes to hide from the monsters that lurked in the woods, but when Uriel went with him, he noticed the distinct lack of menacing creatures, and he appreciated it.
They made it to the last batch of plants successfully, and he gathered as much as he could in his arms, and began to walk away.
"I'll take some of that off your hands," Uriel said.
"Hah! Please don't eat my plants."
Uriel walked up to Shiv and half of the plants disappeared, "Tasty."
"W-what did you just do!?" Shiv yelled with much distress. "Spit it out! Now!"
The plants reappeared in Shiv's arms, "They were so good, though!"
"Was that… an inventory? How do I access my stuff? There's gotta be a way I can see all of my abilities. Right?"
"Say abracadabra and focus on the object you want to store."
"You made it work without saying it." Shiv pointed out.
"I can also make plants bend to my will," Uriel made a tree branch tap Shiv on the shoulder. "It is a matter of level."
Shiv checked over his shoulder to make sure no one was around, then shrugged and focused on the plants in his arms and whispered, "abracadabra."
The plants disappeared, and he distinctly felt their presence within him, though where exactly, he couldn't say. He felt more than knew that he could carry double the amount of items he currently had in his inventory. "You know, knowing this just a few short hours ago would have saved me like twenty trips going back and forth gathering plants."
"Knowing you were going to be inept would have saved me a lot of headache, but you live and you learn." Uriel added.
Shiv absentmindedly threw a plant at the wolf and began the walk in the fading light back to his clearing. He was already focused on the next part of his plan as the wolf walked off, unnoticed, in the opposite direction.
The next day, after waking up sweating and yelling in fear from the same nightmare, he got up and began planting. It took half the day, but he stuck to it, and was satisfied with everything he'd accomplished since he'd arrived.
He spent the rest of the day gathering plants that the book identified as valuable in the medicinal field and storing them in his inventory, in which time did not seem to pass. That night, he spent some time manipulating earth up the tree to his bed-branch where he began work on a smooth, softer platform. That night, if not for the nightmares, would have been the best night of sleep he'd ever had in his life.
That morning, he cleaned off the mud in the stream and made himself look as presentable as he could with the resources at hand, then made his way to town. Upon arriving, he knocked on Fran's door frame and looked through the, once again, open doorway. "I'm looking for someone to sell some medicinal plants to. Do you know of anyone who'd buy?" He called out.
The sound of shuffling feet announced the arrival of Old Lady Fran, who merely walked into Shiv's line of sight and waved for him to follow her. He did so, and ended up in a cozy little room with a fireplace and two surprisingly comfortable chairs made of stone.
"Show me what you've got, Shiv." Fran said without further ado.
"How'd you learn my name? Did the Shaggy Longtooth tell you?" Shiv asked while pulling the items out of his inventory and placing them on the ground in front of her.
She nodded in response and created a ball of water that grew into a rope, of sorts, that wrapped around the plants one by one to bring them close enough to examine in detail.
"This plant is useless. It looks just like feverfew, but you can tell that it's not because of the pleasant smell. Real feverfew has a bitter smell." She tossed it into the fire smoldering in the fireplace, causing it to flare up and crackle loudly for several seconds, then die down to a pleasant smolder again.
And that was just the beginning of the wisdom she shared with Shiv. She took time to explain the uses of each plant and where it was most often found, as well as the usual prices for them. She told him that, and more, though he didn't pay attention to a good portion of it. But he did gain a lot of useful information to fuel his future searches, as well as a nice pile of coins to stash in his inventory.
He went back to his fledgling farm with a full belly, from the food she'd insisted on feeding him, and slightly positive thoughts about his stay on this planet, which Fran had informed him was named Glasmoore.
But as the days passed, despite the copious amounts of water he drenched the buried seeds in, there was no sign of growth in his farm. He spent most of his time not spent pulling weeds and watering his farm on gathering the medicinal plants Fran was willing to pay the most for. Every two days, he would enter town to sell her the plants, and get a free meal. The town's people noticed his entry and exit, and he became a novelty to them. Some people would gather close to Fran's house to see the state of the shirtless man who always came in with a frown and left with a twinkle in his eye.
Each day he came in, it seemed to them as if his frown was becoming more and more prominent, till one day he entered town with a full-on scowl marring his features. That sent the townspeople twittering and gossiping as they considered the possible reasons behind this.
"He's out there gathering plants, right? So maybe he didn't find any this time." The bar owner offered his opinion to the rest of the gathered folks.
"I'm not so sure that that's the case." The fat general store owner frowned around his pipe. "He's a determined one, that one."
"So something bad must have happened to him? Is there herd of deerbucks headed our way?" One woman asked with wide eyes.
This opinion sent the townsfolk into a deep discussion about the defense methods they should utilize, and a nervous energy encased the growing crowd.
They all fell silent when Shiv exited Old Fran's house, and an almost palpable fear enveloped the people in the crowd when, instead of ignoring them and walking right back into the woods like always, he turned toward them and stalked toward them with a deep scowl and continuous muttering.
A good majority of the crowd backed away from the shirtless young man as he approached, but they stopped when he halted directly in front of the general store owner. "-I'm going to kill every last bug on this horrible, disgusting planet." The general store heard the last bit of muttering Shiv did, before Shiv spoke in a strong, clear voice. "Hey, do you have any bug killer stuff in your shop? I need all of it. Every last drop. You hear me?"
The crowd's eyes widened. Bug spray? Was there a horde of giant termites headed toward them? What else could warrant the use of so much pesticide? This was worse than they had imagined.
Thankfully, the store owner was able to keep his head. "Sure sonny, I've got some. But why do you need it?"
Shiv blinked and cocked his head, trying to figure out if it was a trick question. "To… kill bugs. Why else would I need it? Oh, and make sure the spray doesn't kill plants, because I don't want to kill my farm. Just the bugs eating my plants."
There was a collective sigh of relief at Shiv's words. He wanted to save his farm. Not kill an army of encroaching man-eating bugs.
The fat man adjusted his britches and informed Shiv, "Alright, sonny. I don't know about any 'spray', but I do have pesticide I could sell you." Several farmers in the crowd perked up and approached the young man now following the general store owner.
As they walked, the farmers began talking to Shiv about the problems they'd had with pests in their own farms, and the methods they used to exterminate them. He was quizzed on every aspect of his farm, and having been a farmer in his previous life, he was able to impress them. Though they did have a few new tricks that he wasn't aware of, mostly having to do with the environment and the soil that was unique to this planet.
In the store, he was able to successfully obtain the pesticide he was searching for, and returned to his farm only after assuring the farmers that he'd be back to talk to them in two days to continue swapping tips and tricks.
"Now to begin fulfilling my orders to destroy." Shiv sneered maliciously at the neat rows of fledgling plants as he pulled out the containers of dark red liquid that would be his first tools of death in this new world.