Frank awoke with an expectedly sore back from the less-than-ideal sleeping conditions. Despite his clothes being unreasonably good at keeping him warm, his legs had still cooled significantly from sitting on the ground for all those hours. As he got up and started to get blood rolling, he made a quick attempt at using the rising sun to estimate how long he’d slept for, but he quickly gave up, seeing as he had no clue how long a night actually was.

  It was only as he went over what happened yesterday that he recalled the weird voice that spoke to him. Interestingly, he could clearly remember exactly what it had said to him. In fact, when he thought about it, the different things it had given him were all neatly listed and categorized in his mind.

  Class:

  - [Survivor] Level 3

  Skills:

  - [Basic Crafting]

  - [Basic Shaping]

  - [Sparks]

  Conditions:

  - [Actor’s Fa?ade]

  - [Person of Many Faces]

  - [Unique Essence Growth]

  - [Arvitae's Blessing (Minor)]

  Annoyingly, it didn’t inform him further about what anything did, not even when he tried hard to focus on any of the objects. He tried to take a guess at each thing as he went about his morning, getting water and eating a handful of the safe black berries.

  Starting with the Conditions. The last one was undoubtedly the easiest to figure out. It was the result of eating the leaf in Lydia’s domain. [Unique Essence Growth] sounded like the core of Alfred’s reasoning for what happened, but the name gave him very little information about what it actually did. It was definitely something to do with his essence, but Alfred never told him what his essence actually was. Though seeing as Alfred brought it up together with mana, his best guess was some kind of equivalent energy, if not something even more foundational or physical in nature. It could even be like aura in a bunch of fantasy stories.

  The last two conditions clearly came from his passion for acting, roleplay, and cosplay. ‘Or maybe my passions came from them?’ “Nope! I am not wasting my time with existential questions like that.”

  [Actor’s Fa?ade] sounded like something related to either staying in role or preventing other from seeing through his fa?ade when “in character”. [Person of Many Faces] was both more obvious and far less clear. It most certainly empowered him to play at being different people, but it said very little about how it would actually work. “I hope it’s just ‘Faces’ in broad term of different appearances, because I refuse to go around taking people’s faces from them.”

  It was when he arrived at the terms Class, Level, and Skills that he halted for a moment, quite confused why it used game elements like that; he had been too preoccupied when Lydia mentioned them previously to pay it any mind. Alfred had clearly implied that the System had existed for a long ass time together with the gods, so it was strange that it used the same terminology as modern games. His initial idea was that it may just adapt the information to how he’d best understand it, but that felt unrealistic on a number of levels, most clearly having Lydia’s trial be defined by him reaching a specific Class Level. It clearly sounded like Classes were something normal to this world.

  Before going much further with those thoughts, he quickly shook his head. “What did I just say about existential thoughts? It’s probably just a coincidence, or maybe our terminology was predetermined. Whatever the case that doesn’t matter now.”

  Regardless of all that, it felt obvious what the [Survivor] Class was about. It related to his abilities to survive the wild, if it even was that specific. Though the granted Skills certainly seemed to imply that. He also didn’t know if jumping straight to Level 3 was good or not, but at least it showed him that he didn’t need to kill to Level up his Class, which was nice. It also clarified why Lydia didn’t bother explaining how to obtain a Class.

  As for the Skills, they were definitely a little more abstract than the Class. [Basic Crafting] and [Basic Shaping] both sounded like something he was already skilled at, so it felt weird to have them granted by the System. They also sounded more like passive Skills than active ones, though he could of course be mistaken. At the very least it didn’t feel like much happened when he thought of activating them; even vocalizing them out loud did nothing. A small part of him considered if [Basic Crafting] would give him access to some kind of crafting interface like in a video game, but he did not hold out any hope of that happening.

  Lastly, [Sparks] seemed like the Skill with the most potential for being immediately useful. His gut instinct told him it was obviously related to the creation of sparks in some way, which should drastically cut down on the time needed to get a fire started. That is if he could figure out how to use it.

  The next few minutes were not promising in that regard. Regardless of what he said, thought, or gestures he made, nothing happened. Not even shouting, “[Sparks]!” did anything.

  “Maybe I need something to make sparks with? That is after all how I’d normally do it. It might be that it just makes it more likely if not guaranteed.” Figuring that it was worth trying, he picked up two stones, in his haste forgetting about needing specific kinds of stones.

  “[Sparks]!” He said out loud as he struck them against each other. And sparks did most certainly happen. An abnormally large amount of sparks spewed out and landed on the ground, where they stuck around for a good few seconds. That is to say, far longer than they should have.

  “Fuck yeah! No more fire drilling.” It was only after he got over his excitement that he realized something weird was afloat. “Hold up. These rocks don’t look like flints or other spark rocks.” Rather than letting his mind ramble on, he took the rocks and struck them against each other again and again, making no sparks whatsoever.

  When he then tried to use the Skill once again, nothing happened. Despite numerous attempts, no more sparks appeared. It was only when he tried to focus on the Skill a bit more that he found his answer; it felt faded – effectively ‘used’ – and like it was currently recharging, though it would be ready soon.

  Half a minute later, he did it another time, this time to as great success as the first attempt. “Wait a moment. Do I actually need to shout it out? I mean, I can feel it’s status without saying anything.” When the cooldown had finished a few minutes later and he tried again, the Skill went off without a hitch once more, even as he remained silent. “Awesome!”

  “Now for the slightly more important test: Since these rocks shouldn’t spark, do I even need them?”

  The first attempt was simply to strike his knuckles past each other, as if one used the other to strike a match with, and the sparks actually appeared. “Wait, what? Why did it work this time and not beforehand?” In thinking it over a bit, he made a realization. “I never quite struck anything against something else in my first test. Sure, I clapped and made gestures, but I didn’t strike anything. Actually, what constitutes striking, if that is the condition. Would a snap of my fingers be enough?”

  To test his hypothesis, he first had to wait out the cooldown, so he prepared to make more cordage in between each test. His first attempt was simply to snap his fingers, and that was enough, though it weirdly took a few attempts. After another few uses, he had it figured out. If his thumb and middle finger touched each other before he made the snap, nothing happened; they had to hit each other while at least one, if not both were in motion.

  In order to test how many elements needed to be in motion, he next struck his palm across his knee, and roughly the same amount of sparks as the other times appeared. He had, in his excitement, not thought about sparks and clothes mixing being bad, but they were thankfully shot far enough away.

  “Since only one part needs to be in motion, do I need to be part of both sides, or can I strike something else?” For this test, he took a stone and struck it across the ground like a match. And sparks appeared. It was almost as if now that he had figured out how to activate it, then it practically wanted to be activated.

  His last spark test was to try two sticks against each other, and to little surprise at this point, sparks appeared.

  Finishing up his experimentation for now, Frank was quite satisfied with the results. His biggest gain – besides not needing sticks to make fire anymore – was some slightly deeper knowledge on how to treat Skills, if not the System as a whole; knowledge that would likely be few and far between, given the lack of people to ask.

  In short, nothing of what it did for him should be taken for granted, and it’s imperative to always find what makes it tick and if there is another way to make use of it. He still felt far from being done with [Sparks], but he concluded that it was enough progress for now; he had a bunch of other things to do as well.

  The black berries alone should last him for multiple days, and there was certainly enough potential for other foods around him that he would gradually be testing. Thus, he was in no immediate rush to find more food, possibly outside of meat for something more energy, fat, and protein rich. Therefore, his four top priorities were to get a spear and axe, make some clay pots, and lash a basic bed together to get him off the ground.

  He decided to start with the pots, since they needed a long time to dry, fire, and cool off. However, it would be nonsensical to waste the time he spent getting to the clay deposit he had spotted along the creek. As such, he spent that time wrapping cordage of the bark he had gathered yesterday.

  That was all the time it took before he noticed the effect of [Basic Crafting]. While he already considered himself quick at wrapping fibers into cordage, it was going faster than usual, even when accounting for his tree fibers being on the larger side. It was as if his hands moved with minds of their own, though minds in perfect harmony with each other.

  His expectation had been to get about halfway through the materials he brought with him, but he had actually gotten through everything by the time he arrived at the deposit. Not only had he made over 5 meters of cordage while walking for less than half an hour, but it was also actually higher quality than it would normally have been.

  The clay deposit was located at a bank in the creek where it had likely built up over a long time. After a little consideration, Frank took off his shoes and socks before stepping into the creek to reach it. He then used a stick to break free a good chunk of clay from above the water line.

  By carefully mixing the loose clay with water while kneading it, he formed it into a large firm clump that he could bring back. During this process he also did his best to remove impurities like rocks and such. Before heading back, he found a good-sized stone with a large, flat area that wasn’t too thick. With the clump on the stone, he went home.

  The ‘workstation’ Frank made for shaping the clay on was incredibly basic, consisting of only three parts: The wide stone; a layer of ash spread across it to keep it from sticking; and his bark bowl filled with water. However, before he could start working, he wanted to get a good fire started.

  As such, he spent the next hour or so gathering tinder, kindling, and fuel mostly from the forest floor. He also cut down a few young trees that he intended to split and place around the fire to dry them as much as possible in advance. Though he made sure to remove the bark first.

  Now it was [Spark]’s time to shine and it quickly proved its worth. Instead of spending too long making a small ember with sticks, he was now able to light the tinder in but a moment. Not even the knowledge that it would work made the experience of using two sticks as a flint and steel any less weird for him.

  Once the fire got its grip, he could finally start working on his pottery. To start with, he grabbed a fist-sized lump and formed it into as basic a cup as possible. He couldn’t help a small smile as he was reminded of learning to make cups and firing pottery with his mother many years ago.

  Before he even realized, he had five unfired clay cups sitting on the stone before him. “That went faster than expected…” For a moment, he was about to just chalk it up to his mind being elsewhere, but then he gave it just a bit more thought. It was only in retrospect that he recognized a sensation similar to [Basic Crafting] had been there. “Ah, it was [Basic Shaping] that activated.” Progress and time flew by as he reminisced his parents.

  To reduce the risk of them breaking while firing, he placed each cup near the fire to dry out. This would greatly reduce the risk of explosions from trapped water vaporizing.

  After finishing them, he used the rest of the clay to make a larger pot with a lid. This time he paid closer attention to his Skill, and it really did activate. He used a completely different process to make it, though he still formed the bottom from a single lump. Once he had a wide disk, he layered lines on each other, coiling upwards to make the wall. On the inside of the pot, he added some extra clay at the edge to make it a curved transition, which would help to avoid things sticking in it. This pot was similarly placed next to the open fire.

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  While they dried, he went back into the forest to forage more sticks and larger pieces of fallen wood. His hands practically weaved the cordage on their own as he also looked for traces of wildlife to set traps for. Lydia had mentioned that the tree was good at keeping anything dangerous away, but he hoped that the effect didn’t go too far beyond the tree’s body.

  He needed to get almost all the way out to the creek before he even found a single trace, not to mention a trail. From there, he had to continue a bit beyond the creek to start finding trails with any level of frequency. After ensuring he had a proper idea where each location was, he’d set up a snare. Each snare consisted of a few meters of cordage and a few sticks and living branches or a young tree for the pulling force.

  Once set up, he would place berries as the lure. By now, he had already tried out some more of the berries, and they seemed as safe as the first, so he used some of those. He didn’t have big expectations for them to seriously bring in anything, but they would be worth the investment the moment anything was caught.

  After a few hours of trekking back and forth between the forest and his home, he had gathered himself a good pile of firewood and some young and straight trees. He had even gathered a decent pile of stones as well, since he intended to make a few more campfires for the pottery. Though this time he used a stick to dig them about 20 centimeters into the ground.

  With a new pit ready, he carefully moved embers from the still burning fire into it. In it, he placed two cups and the pot upside down with the lid by the side. They had dried a lot faster than he had expected, so he could move up the firing by close to a day. Carefully, he surrounded them in some tinder, followed by an increasing amount of fuel. The existing embers lit the tinder before long. Once it had caught proper fire, he set up the next fire with the three remaining cups.

  The goal was for the clay to turn red-hot inside the fire such that it would become ceramic. Then he had to let the fire burn out naturally, after which he would cover it in a light layer of dirt and let it cool down on its own in the hopes of it not cracking. Truthfully, he was not too concerned if either of the cups were to break; that’s why he made five. In fact, should some of them crack, he would use stones to grind them into grog to mix with the next batch of clay. This would in turn make the next batch less likely to crack.

  As it burned, he began a task he put off yesterday: making a “proper” axe. Proper in this case meaning to have a handle and being made for durability. The stone he had picked for the axe head was a good bit over two fists large, since he wanted to reduce it down to that size.

  Practically the moment he began the knapping, a small amount of excitement filled him; [Basic Shaping] was activating as he worked, and he could feel each strike remove material easier and more precisely. “This makes it feel a little too easy, but I don’t think I’m in a position to complain about my survival being easier. Also, I suppose that if everyone is super, then no one is super, so I should just get used to it.” With that sobering quote filling him, he spent the rest of the day refining the axe head.

  As the last of the sun’s rays shone through the canopy, he put down the stone and felt incredibly satisfied with the day’s progress. He had set up snares, got some pottery that would hopefully be done tomorrow morning, and practically finished the shaping of his axe head.

  The latter point was something he had expected to take a good amount of tomorrow as well. Now he just needed to grind out the edge on it tomorrow and possibly the day after and to make a handle. With a smile, he closed his eyes with his back against the root, fully expecting to wake up with cold and stiff legs.

  [Survivor Level 4]

  Waking the next morning, Frank’s legs were expectedly stiff, so he got moving quickly. The first thing he did was to dig his pottery out of the ground.

  “Come on, really? I suppose this is what I should’ve expected.” Both cups had survived the fire, but the pot had cracked into numerous pieces. Rather than being dismayed, he focused on the two that succeeded and the option for recycling the other. He then ground the broken pot into as fine a powder as reasonable, using the bark-bowl as a container for it since he now had more reliable liquid containers.

  The three other cups were left in the ground to cool further, as he belatedly realized that he should’ve dug those up instead, if not just waited longer for it all; even the cups had still been slightly warm to the touch when he uncovered them.

  While grinding, he thought a bit more about the System. “Interesting how I Leveled up thrice two days ago but only once yesterday. I wonder what goes into Leveling up and how fast the exp curve escalates. Along with that, what exactly is the difference between Level 3 and Level 4 in [Survivor] since I didn’t get any Skills.”

  While trying to apply his existing game knowledge to this system was fun, it did to some extent feel like an exercise in futility. After all, for what reason should it reflect the games or stories from Earth; it had sounded on Alfred like it was as old as the gods. Granted, he did not know how old the gods were in Earth terms. Regardless, he had already started to abandon the questions of why there were so many similarities between the worlds and just moved over to acceptance. He was in no way in a situation with enough breathing room for those ponderings.

  “Actually, did I get my Skills from my actions two days ago, or just from [Survivor]? It must be the latter; I don’t think I did enough of either basic crafting or shaping that warrant gaining Skills for them, at least not compared to everything else I did that day. Additionally, when I try to focus on them, they feel connected to [Survivor].

  “But that just brings back the quandary of what the difference is. I feel neither different nor a change in the Class, granted that I didn’t pay close attention to either yesterday.” As he mentally prodded at the Skills a bit more, he noticed that the two [Basic] Skills connected to [Survivor] a little differently to [Sparks].

  “Hold on. Why do they connect… earlier? It’s not worse connections than [Sparks]’s, but they do feel ever so slightly lesser or earlier. Those two also have the exact same connections. I wonder if this is because they’re both [Basic] Skills while [Sparks] is something else – maybe an active Skill? – or that I got them at different Levels.

  “But if it’s the latter case, then that implies that I can get multiple Skills per Level. That would actually fit with me not getting one now. Regardless, there is not much sense in thinking too much about it right now, since it probably won’t reveal itself before I Level some more.” With that sentiment in mind, he put in a little more effort to get the grinding done sooner, wanting to get as much [Survival] progress out of the day that he could.

  Before long, he was revisiting the clay deposit, bringing with him the two ceramic cups. This time around, he brought back enough clay for two pots and a bowl. On the way back, he cleaned the two cups and brought water back with him; it was nice to finally have something more solid than bark, even if they did have less capacity.

  Thanks to the time he had spent grinding grog earlier, he could prepare the clay relatively quickly once he got back. He mixed in about half of his stock, or roughly 20% of the clay’s weight. With the clay now properly workable, he set to make the pots and bowl. During this process, he used [Sparks] to start a campfire for drying his work as he finished shaping.

  While the shaped clay dried, he went out to gather firewood once more, taking a few detours to gather water as well. As always, he kept on either preparing bark fiber or actually making cordage as he walked; a behavior he planned to continue whenever his hands were free, and the materials were available.

  Since it would take some time for it to dry sufficiently, he brought the axe-head down to the creek to sharpen the edge. There, he used stones of varying grit to gradually refine the edge. Since he could not buy grindstones, he had been saving any stones that felt right. He ground the axe next to the creek to easily wash away the particles generated in the process.

  “I can definitely tell that [Basic Shaping] is active while I grind, but it’s hard to tell how much it’s actually doing given the inconsistent quality of stones I have,” He pondered out loud, since vocalizing his thoughts often helped him sort them out more clearly. “Actually, when I recall sharpening knives with dad, then it went just a bit faster than this, so the Skill is likely doing a lot of the heavy lifting.”

  A few hours later, about halfway through the process, the sudden sound of soft, rapid steps threw him out of his groove. They were the first steps he heard from another creature since arriving here. Throwing a quick look over his shoulder, he immediately cursed himself for wasting valuable time looking instead of getting up, all the while starting to move as well.

  A red furred wolf was charging at him from 8 o’ clock. Though what caught Frank’s attention were the flames in its mouth. He barely managed to catch that last part before his left hand and foot were pushing against the ground to spin him around. The right hand kept a grip on the axe head as he swung it around, praying it’d be enough to scare the seemingly lone animal away. Mentally, he was thanking his few years of martial arts training for making him not freeze but react instead.

  As he had feared, that alone was far from enough to scare it off. Though it did stall it long enough for him to go from on one knee to a proper stance. That was when he noticed that the claws looked like they were aflame as well, though they didn’t singe the surrounding foliage. Not willing to risk it, he backed into the water. While it would worsen his footing, he hoped it would at least extinguish the claws.

  Even just the time it took him to make that decision and take those few steps was enough for the wolf to resume its approach and cover most of the remaining distance. It slowed just a bit before the creek edge but not longer than a second; the burning claws extinguished in that time.

  It was while it made its way into the water that he realized that his biggest difficulty would likely be hitting it. The beast’s head barely reached his groin, a low height that would be hard to attack without a weapon to extend his reach; the stone in his hand didn’t work for that. On the bright side, the water that only went up half his shins reached above the knees of the wolf, which should affect it more than him.

  Despite it slowing the wolf slightly, it still moved with a frighteningly swift pace. This time around, as he swung down at it, it didn’t pause or retreat. Instead, it moved further to his right, as he had made sure his strike was a little more to the left of it to guide its direction.

  It did not surprise him when it immediately went for his right thigh, so his right arm was almost mid swing by the time pain flared up. Biting the pain in him with a grunt, having braced himself for it, he angled the rock in his hand to hit its head cleanly as the swing connected. He could feel his leg want to fold beneath him as he barely kept balanced, but the wolf had been thrown off him with a big crunch and a howl.

  He found it lying in the water less than a second later, locating it partially from its pained cries. Using his good leg, he pushed himself in its direction and landed on top of it with his right knee. The shock that went through his thigh made him see stars as he roared in pain. As soon as his vision even returned slightly, he started to simply bash in the head of the barely struggling beast; it had in hindsight probably been knocked out by taking an axe head to the skull, but Frank didn’t have the mind to think about that at that moment.

  Only after he was fully certain that it was dead did he drag it and himself out of the water. While the water was quite clear, he didn’t know if it was properly clean, so he’d rather get his wounds out as soon as possible. It was only as he did that he thought of checking if there were more wolves, which there, to his great surprise and relief, weren’t.

  Once out, he finally got a better look at the damage he had sustained. His right thigh had a pretty deep set of charred bitemarks on either side, though they thankfully weren’t bleeding. It would later confuse Frank that the wolf’s bite was on fire and immediately cauterized his wounds, since it’d to make more sense to bleed him out. But for now, he was in too much pain and only kept sane by adrenaline to consider that.

  He took off his undershirt to use as a makeshift bandage for his shin; the wolf had managed to claw him twice in the second or two it was within reach. Arguably worse than that though, was the sheer pain his femur was in, having taken a direct bite and subsequent fall.

  Gradually, as his adrenaline fell, he felt the pain set in in increasingly powerful bursts. Within a few minutes, the area surrounding each bite mark started to redden, swell, and blister at an incredible rate, bringing pain unlike any he had ever experienced with it. His screams rapidly tore at his throat as any degree of mental control had already gone out the window. When he was finally knocked out by the pain, he had no mind to perceive the words being spoken in his mind.

  [Survivor Level 6]

  [Skill – Tree Climbing obtained]

  [Skill – Lesser Constitution obtained]

  [Skill – Lesser Resistance: Pain obtained]

  [Class – Warrior obtained]

  [Warrior Level 2]

  [Skill – Lesser Strength obtained]

  [Skill – Smack obtained]

  How long he had been out he did not know, but by the time he finally came to once more, the pain had subsided enough for his mind to slowly get its gears turning once more. “Gods…” Unable to find any other words, he just sat there stunned at what had just happened. Eventually, he gave the burn wound a closer look, just to find little to no sign of the blistering and a great reduction in the swelling.

  “What the actual fuck just happened? It did blister before, right?” He asked out loud, if only in the slight fear that he had just imagined it. “Wait, was it the increased regeneration and immune system from Lydia? If so, then it might be as dangerous as beneficial.” Just the thought of something similar happening mid battle sent shivers through him.

  “On a more positive note, nothing attacked me while I was out, and the wound now hurts a hell of a lot less,” Now that he finally had the space of mind to think of anything else, his stomach made itself very known, as pangs of hunger assaulted him. “Ugh… I bet that took a lot of energy. I need food, and I need it soon.”

  He looked over at the dead wolf, which was still just lying there. The fur sat incredibly tight on it and a closer look revealed most features to look unnaturally sunken in, but it still had meat on it. And meat would be a great way of getting a lot of energy, especially compared to berries. The wolf wasn’t too big or heavy, so he should be able to drag it home, even with his leg.

  He crawled around for some time, before he eventually found a decent pair of sticks to use as emergency crutches. Using the cordage he always brought with him, he made a very basic harness to tie the wolf behind him for him to drag along. In the moment, he didn’t notice the weirdness of it being seemingly lighter to drag the wolf with only one good leg, than it normally should’ve with two.

  With his injured and dragging pace, the otherwise 10–15-minute trip ended up taking at least thrice that, full of breaks whenever he put too much weight on his thigh. Notably, the burn itself never actually hurt, only the area touching it, though that did still hurt like a bitch.

  Finally back, he drank half of the water he had and belatedly realized how troublesome getting water was going to be now. Then he used his ‘knife stone’ to get started on skinning and preparing the wolf. It wasn’t the best tool for the job out there, but it was the best he had, and for now that was good enough.

  Using a large, flat stone as a pan he cooked a few pieces of meat well-done, which both took a surprisingly long time and ended with him needing to place the meat literally in the middle of the campfire to cook in a remotely reasonable time. He chalked that up to the same thing that allowed the wolf to emit fire.

  While it seared, he gathered most of the ash from a previous firing together, doing his best to keep it as pure as possible, before getting the dried pottery firing. He then proceeded to use the wood ash to cleanse the scratches, trusting the fire from the wolf’s bite to have cleansed the others. “God damn it hurts. But it’s the best I have right now. I would never have imagined that I’d end up needing to rely on old methods like this, but here I am. I really need to look into something a little better than this soon, maybe some lye soap. But for now, I just need to keep it free of water before I clean it with my undershirt.”

  The meat had probably finished a little before he had dressed his wounds, but it only had a small char when he finally got to it. It was in return chewy as all hell, but right now that was preferable to no, or potentially worse, undercooked meat: Besides, it felt great to finally eat something with more substance. That said, he hoped to have at least one pot ready tomorrow to make soup or pottage instead. Though he would have to figure out how to fill it first. While he ate, he got the bowl and two pots firing.

  Incredibly exhausted, he dragged the wolf all the way to the Tree of Life’s trunk, just in case some animal came by from the smell. Hopefully it would just take the carcass and leave him be. Though he hadn’t actually seen or heard any signs of animals beneath the canopy of the tree, and even insects were increasingly rare to spot the closer to the trunk he got. So, he prayed that it was truly keeping animals away. Within minutes covering the pottery after getting back to camp, he leaned against the root and closed his eyes.