It's been five days since Alisha first came into this universe, and she's never been busier.
"Mrrow!?"
After she got her -Mining Proficiency-, she continued mining for several hours, digging up as many metals as she could. Her mining spree ended once her iron pickaxe finally broke, and she came back to the surface to see that night's fallen.
But, of course, all the metals she's mined up are still underground. And so she headed back and forth, bringing as much of what she mined back to the surface. It was daytime when she finished that.
Once she was done with her mining ventures, she began Fabricating.
"Grr-! Nyaow-!?"
Completing [First Mining] gave her a Low-Tier Refining Set. It isn't anything overly interesting—it's just another black cube, holding inside it a metal desk outfitted with a number of incredible technologies capable of refining certain materials to their purest form. She used it to refine the ores she brought back into actual bars, and stored the Refining bench back into the simulated universe it came from.
Her reward for [First Refining] was a Low-Tier Fabrication Set. Again, the thing came in a black box that vanished into her body, giving her access to another metal bench—this time capable of turning all sorts of materials into a number of items.
Naturally, she completed [First Fabrication] as well, but her Crafting ventures ends here, for now. Smithing comes next, and that isn't something she can do at the moment.
And besides, she has more pressing matters to attend to.
"Haap!" She swipes forward, and the last of the pack of Galins falls onto the sands, blood leaking from the wide gash in its neck. She flicks her spear to the left, and blood splatters across the ground.
When she killed that first pack of Galins, she worried she was upsetting the ecosystem in some way. She is, after all, an invasive species. Ecosystems back on Earth tend to collapse when a foreign entity enters the carefully balanced cycle.
She shouldn't have worried.
[Galin (Corpse)]
[A corpse of a recently killed Galin. It died due to blood loss.]
[Time before Rotting: 2 Hours, 47 Minutes, 12 Seconds]
[Remaining Galins on Planet J11397271: 211,378,992]
Constantly using her -Identify- increased its level, and with it comes more information. There's really no need to worry about killing off the Galins—at least not with how many there are past the mountains caging her.
A good thing—Galins are fairly common here. She keeps finding a pack or two every day.
Aside from a constant source of protein, it gives her the chance to get used to her new -Novice Spear Combat-. Her mind was flooded with instincts and information when she first got the Skill, but there are moments when her body still can't quite keep up. The Galins provided a perfect target.
That, and it also means racking up more hours fighting with the spear, which means more progress towards the next level.
And she still needs to get used to her new spear.
She takes a glance at it. Having graduated from her wooden pikes, the spear she's holding is far more lethal. It's nearly as tall as her, and its blade is particularly sharp, courtesy of her Fabrication bench's superior technology. It gleams white under the sunlight, discolored only by a few specks of dried blood.
[Iron Spear (Common)]
[An iron spear, forged by Fabrication. A primitive tool of Land-faring wars, but still lethal in the hands of a warrior. Its durability and sharpness far outshines its ancestor.]
[Durability: 94%]
She smiles. It's amazing, really. With its sharpness and the power of her -Novice Spear Combat-, she's able to cut down trees with a swing. It's nothing notable when compared to the insanity that happens in this universe, but she can't help but marvel at how much stronger she's become.
But it won't be enough.
Her smile falls, and she stares back at the ocean. The leather strip over her right eye stops her from using -Identify-, but even now she knows that there are beasts hiding in those waters. There are monsters past those mountains and under the ocean, mutated and dangerous.
And what lays beyond the stars is even more dangerous. Warring factions, pirates, ancient monsters, and more. In this universe, there is safety only in power.
She doesn't have that. This spear of hers is nothing compared to the weapons capable of destroying entire solar systems.
She needs to repair her ship.
It's been…slow. She's repaired the hull, and it won't be long before she repairs the engines, but fuel is something she's lacking. The Sistra isn't capable of changing bio-materials into fuel like most ships can. It needs electricity to power its engines instead, and that means either using solar or the in-built oil generator the ship has.
Solar's out of the question—her Fabrication bench isn't advanced enough to make solar cells.
Which leaves oil. And that means more digging.
She can't even make it faster! She can make a drill to speed up her endeavors, but she has no electricity to power it.
Joy.
She looks out to the ocean, watching the waves roll over the sands, glittering under the searing sunlight. It's still early in the day.
"The perfect time to work in the coal mines." She says blandly, smiling tiredly as she begins her trek back to her damaged ship, intent on grabbing her recently-fabricated pickaxe.
…
…
…
It's been ten days since Alisha first came into this universe, and she's never been this tired.
Mining for oil, as it turns out, is no easy feat. She has nothing to pinpoint where the closest source of oil is, nor does she have anything else but her pickaxe to dig through the stone.
She's fairly sure she would've gone insane from the boredom if she didn't have -Identify-.
[-Mining Proficiency-]
[Level: 3 | 59% to Level 4]
[Increasing mining speed by 300%. Slows down Durability Decay of Mining Tools by 3%]
With a new level comes more information, and she's glad she's able to see how much progress she's made towards her Skills' next Level. If she'd just been swinging her pickaxe, blindly hoping for the next Level to come, she's sure she would've given up long ago.
Thankfully she knows, and the sunk cost fallacy has kept her hooked.
She isn't mining at the moment, however. She's back at the beach, laying prone on the sands as she watches the stars twinkle in the night sky. The Fabrication bench is just a distance away, whirring softly as it churns through the haul of metal she fed into it, slowly morphing it into something she'll be using soon.
She should be doing something. She has time—she should be spending it doing something productive. She should be scouting, or back underground, or training with the spear.
But she isn't. She can't find the motivation to.
For the past ten days, she's been working. Fighting, creating, mining, thinking, planning—her only reprieve comes when she sleeps, and even her rest is uncomfortable.
There is nothing to entertain her. No internet she can lose herself to. No computer she can mindlessly use. No games she can play. No movies she can watch. No one to talk to.
She is alone.
She takes a deep breath, willing the darkness in her mind away. She thinks of those days, of slaving away in her office, silence filled with nothing but the monotone typing of keys on her keyboard, of keeping herself awake with coffee, silently laughing as she and the rest of her team works as much as they can in what little time they had before the next update.
She thinks of days of playtesting, of finding as many bugs as she can to fix in the future. She thinks of the eventual relief once an update was released, only to be followed by dread at the thought of the next.
She takes a deep breath, pushing away the clawing thoughts whispering behind her ears.
It doesn't work. It never has.
She squeezes her eyes shut, and she breathes. She's been thinking a lot lately.
She can't help it. She took a random questionnaire, and suddenly she's in an entirely different universe, piloting a body she doesn't recognize, stranded on a world light years away, outfitted with a system that is beyond suspicious.
Why is she here? How is she here? Who did this body belong to? Was she part of the Yaegin Empire? A scout of theirs maybe? A spy? What shot her down to this planet? Is her consciousness still somewhere in her head, or did she take her place when she died from the crash?
Questions, questions, questions.
She doesn't know the answer to any of them. And she isn't sure she'll be able to find answers to them any time soon.
That's fine, she supposes. Right now, staying alive and finding a way out of this planet is more important than that. Which means back to waiting for her Fabrication bench to finish.
…It seems she has to wait a little more.