The night passed, and the sky cleared, soon Edart woke up. Feeling pain throughout his body, he stretched as much as he could, trying hard not to fall. With a sleepy expression on his face and his eyes blurred.
Edart looked around for signs of his old room for some time, seeing nothing but the forest. He accepted his sad reality, reaching into his pocket, took out the last berries he had and ate.
— "Good morning, Éris."
— ["Good morning."] The voice in his head replied.
With a new day starting, Edart had to plan his next steps for that day, he couldn't make mistakes, because whatever that mistake was would result in his death.
After a bad night's sleep, he admitted that it wasn't a dream and that he really was in another world. A world without the privileges he had on earth. At least he didn't know the level of technology, in the worst case, he would have to create everything from scratch, or give the ideas to someone else to create these things for him.
Since he had an attribute for intelligence, if he focused his free points on that, perhaps he could become an 'Albert Einstein' and bring the miracle of technology to this world. Of course, that's if this world wasn't more advanced than his old one.
Having no beginner bonuses, such as a sword and some potions, his situation was precarious, and he could only rely on a club, so he had to carefully plan his next steps, so he made a list of things to do for the day.
First, he would have to explore further and look for water. Although this water may not be completely drinkable, it would quench his thirst. Even if he felt sick, he thought that as long as his health didn't reach 0, he could eat the Silver Moon petals to keep his health high.
His second objective was to find more 'Silver Moon' and collect all the ones he saw on the way. Since he didn't have a fire to boil water, this would be the way to keep his health high.
His next objectives were secondary, finding another source of food, finding a settlement, and finally, finding a way to get more experience points. If he wanted to survive in this world, getting more stat points would be the way.
To eat, he had rabbits that he saw eating the berries, but he didn't know if he could catch them and, if he did, there was no way to clean them up. Other than giving some experience points, the rest could not be used. Finding a town was not his main priority, as he didn't know how long he would have to walk to find one. By then, he could already be dead from hunger, thirst or by a predator.
In short, your to-do list for today was:
Find water.
Get more Silver Moon.
Find another source of food.
Find a way to gain experience points.
Locate a town.
Having finished thinking and organizing his goals for the day, Edart asked Éris for her opinion and asked if she had anything to add.
— ["I don't have much in mind that I could add to your plan, just maybe, we should keep this tree and its region as our base, during the night I didn't notice any dangerous animals approaching here."]
Supposed that she could look around while he was sleeping, as he had no eyes to look at, he questioned her.
—["I can use your 'Mana Perception' skill to look around, as everything has mana, I can distinguish between things and animals, although it is difficult, the stronger a being is, the more mana its body contains, which makes it easier to find out what it is."]
With the discovery that Éris can use his abilities, several ideas about combining attacks popped into his head. Questioned further about this, he discovered that although she can use her abilities, for her to use identify, the object in question has to come into contact with him. That's how she was able to identify the rabbit that attacked him.
She had the mana problem, that when she activated a skill, his mana would be consumed. As 'Mana Perception' was a passive skill, it had no mana consumption, just concentrate and the world would glow dimly showing the mana around you.
Keeping this in mind, Edart asked Éris to keep an eye around for any potential danger and warn him in advance. He also wanted to test whether his skill would level up.
Arriving at the ground, Edart looked towards the sun that was rising over the horizon. Although he was in the middle of a forest, the rays of light still reached the forest floor. Considering that the sun rises in the east, he looked around and headed south.
He decided to continue exploring in that direction, as the direction south was just cleaner. It wasn't because yesterday's rabbit went north, no, none of that has to do with his decision, thought Edart.
Advancing south, he explored every corner of the forest in search of something of value, while taking turns picking some berries, looking for danger and asking if Éris felt any danger.
To find his way back, he picked up a stone from the ground and started marking the trees with a very large X. All he had to do was follow the trail of 'Xs' and he would be able to return to the clearing and its tree.
Time passed, and soon it was 3 hours of exploration. As he went further south, the density of the forest became smaller, the trees became smaller and the undergrowth thinned. The sun managed to penetrate further into the forest and reach the ground.
Edart walked about 2 km, although it could have been more or less. Since he had nothing to measure the distance with, this was his best guess. Éris's tip was good, as the trees here would not serve as shelter because they are small.
— "Éris, did you notice any larger animals during our exploration?"
From time to time, he would ask her if she could detect anything that could attack him or serve as food.
— ["Not just little rabbits that ran away as soon as they noticed us…"]
Walking 2 km and finding no water, Edart was thinking about turning back and exploring in another direction. Although he could make this trip in 30 to 40 minutes without exploring, it was already a good amount of time spent just getting water every day.
Then, Éris continued speaking.
— ["Further on there is a higher concentration of mana, I don't know what it is, but I don't think it's an animal, as the mana is well distributed, I think it's worth taking a look"].
After she finished speaking, he looked towards the south. Edart could see that the forest was brighter in that direction, it could be more of a clearing.
— "Let's see if there's anything good, if not, we'll turn back and go in another direction."
Slowly they advanced, as they got closer to their destination, a noise began to reach his ear. With every step he took, the noise increased. With each step, Edart became more excited and the faster he walked.
It didn't take long to reach the end of the forest, and when he arrived, he saw a small stream running from east to west, separating the forest from the plain in front of it. The noise he heard was actually water running.
The stream was not large, about 1 meter wide and the depth varied a few centimeters, ranging from 2 to 10 cm. Crouching down at the side, he brought both hands together and scooped up some water. He took the water towards his mouth, but stopped a few centimeters from his mouth. He was wondering if the water was drinkable.
— ["The 'identify' didn't detect anything wrong with the water, you can drink calmly."] As the water was in contact with him, Éris was able to use 'identify'. With his worries eliminated, he drank until he was full.
— "Ahhhhh! How delightful."
After a day of not drinking anything, every sip he took felt like he was drinking the best water of his life. After confirming that there was nothing dangerous around him, he sat down on the bank of the stream to rest, it was around noon.
While resting, Edart was curious about the water, although it looked normal, it seemed to be better than what he drank previously. Concentrating, he tried to activate his 'Mana Perception' skill and after a while of trying, he finally succeeded, then he looked at the water.
The water flowed calmly, occasionally he saw small bright bluish dots, which he guessed to be the mana in the water. Curious, he looked up and focused on the plain in front of him.
The vegetation seemed to glow as well, but it was much fainter and more widespread in the plants. Probably, the mana is spread throughout the plant, while in water it gathers into small balls.
When he looked at the sky, he didn't notice any difference, it was just the normal blue of the sky. 'Maybe when I level up the skill, I'll be able to see something.'
After some time contemplating nature with the skill active, something came that he had been waiting for a while.
—["'Mana Perception' is level 2"].
After this message, the small glowing dots seemed to increase his brightness a little, and some other dots appeared in his vision. This made him more excited, and he continued to observe more things and things he had already seen to see if he saw anything different.
—["'Mana Perception' is level 3"].
Half an hour passed and the sun was high in the sky. Feeling a little hungry, Edart stopped using the skill and started eating the berries he picked earlier.
Savoring his simple lunch while looking at the plain in front of him, in his vision he could see 200 meters of the plain that went up a small hill (elevation 3 to 4 meters high), the rest was hidden behind the hill. Edart was thinking about exploring this plain in the afternoon and seeing if he could find anything else.
As he finished eating, his vision caught something in the distance jumping, going down the hill. As it was far away, at first he thought it was a rabbit.
'There might be a lot of rabbits here, if I can get a knife' He thought.
As time passed and the creature got closer to him, he soon saw that he was mistaken, and his jaw dropped when he realized what it was. Looking further, he saw that there were more of these creatures at the top of the hill.
Each one jumped in a different direction, they were different sizes, they were all different colors, but they all had a similar shape, they were round and shiny, looking harmless.
Yes, they were slimes. The more time passed, the more slimes could be seen coming from the other side of the hill.
— "I think I found my XP farm!!!" Edart said excitedly.
Slimes were the weakest beings in the gaming world. They were like a bag full of experience points, you just had to bend down and pick them up. The question was whether he, being as weak as a rabbit, would be able to kill these slimes.
Edart tried to use 'identify' on the nearest slime, but nothing happened, a distance of 100 meters was too far for the skill. 'I have to test the range limit later' he thought.
Looking at these free experience points jumping everywhere, Edart started to come up with a plan, he couldn't be careless, but he didn't want to waste time.
The plan was simple, he would look for the slime that was alone and away from the others. At this point, he would try to eliminate it as quickly as possible while Éris kept an eye on it so that no slime approached it.
If more than one slime joined the fight, he would return to the forest and make the slimes stop chasing him, then he would come back and do it all over again. Whenever he got tired, he would go back to the forest and rest.
Having another 5 to 6 hours of light, he would stay here for 4 hours, then return to the tree while looking for food.
— "The time has come to get stronger! Hehehe!" Feeling happy to find a way to strengthen himself, Edart stood up, picked up his club, and began walking towards the nearest lone slime.