Chapter 7: A Fundamental Force

  Jack came to, sometime in the night. For a moment he panicked, awakening out in the open and not in the safety of his Beaver Den. He wasn’t sure how safe the den was, but it felt safer than lying in the open. Quickly he crawled into his den and spent the rest of the night huddled there.

  The next day, Jack awoke early in the morning. After eating another one of his prepared fish, Jack proceeded to do his exercises. This time there was no change to his strength stat, even after doing all the exercises several times. Eventually, Jack stopped as it was taking too much time from his day. Still, Jack was already starting to see a difference. His body was becoming leaner, and his muscles were starting to tone, but he couldn’t spend an entire day trying to raise one stat. Jack would have to keep working at it regularly.

  With that done, Jack started making a list of things he wanted to do today. He still needed to reach the kill total, but he had some time to finish that, and it didn’t appear that it would be too difficult. Instead, today he needed to spend the day improving his camp. He had a couple of ideas that he wanted to try to improve his situation though he wasn’t sure how much he would be able to accomplish.

  Jack began fishing to help replenish his stock of food. He managed to catch ten more fish before his spear finally fell apart. Jack was expecting the spear to fall apart eventually and was only glad it happened now as opposed to when he was fighting one of those Triliax. Improving his spear was one of the tasks that Jack had set aside to work on today.

  Jack set the fish and meat to cook on a fire, he started with his new Fire spell. He tried using the spell to cook a fish and meat directly, but channeling the spell to cook with had him emptying his Mana fast and he found out that like low Stamina, low Mana had its own side effects. Namely, a massive migraine and difficulty focusing until his Mana started regenerating to at least quarter of its maximum.

  While the fish and meat were cooking, Jack began to gather materials for crafting new spears. Jack didn’t want to go far, he didn’t want to leave his food alone, but there were plenty of materials for new spears close by and he soon had enough branches, rocks, and vines to make dozens of them.

  It didn’t take him long to create a new spear. It was just like Jack’s old one with little improvement. He wasn’t sure how much improvement could be made with the raw materials he had on hand. Placing the new spear down nearby in case the smell of the fish attracted some hungry predator, Jack then proceeded to experiment with spear creations. He tried different knots and other ways to reinforce the spear staff. Most of the attempts resulted in no change, and many fell apart mid creation. However, there was one aspect Jack noticed as he worked. Every time Jack succeeded in creating a spear, his Mana would drop. It wasn’t by much, only a couple of points, but it happened every time, which made him think Mana might be the key part that helped to keep the spear together.

  Testing his theory on another attempt, Jack made another spear exactly the same as his first one, but this time he focused on when the Mana drained at the time of completion and tried to push more into the item. It worked, and this time instead of his Mana dropping by a couple of points, it dropped by double the amount.

  *Item Created: Spear (Makeshift/Crude)*

  Quality: Trash

  Increased durability

  This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  “So, Mana is used in crafting,” Jack said. “Does that apply to all crafting?” There was only one way to find out, and he hadn’t seen any changes in his Mana when he was cooking.

  He spent the rest of the time waiting for the fish to cook, placing the other spears around the camp, so there was always one nearby, but he kept the last one he made. As he waited for the fish to cook, he tried infusing the fish with a small amount of mana. It took a lot of focus; he didn’t want to use too much. He wasn’t sure what the results would be, and he still wanted the fish to be edible when he was done. He only channeled a few points of his mana into each before letting them be cooked by the fire.

  *Skill gained: Mana Manipulation (Beginner)*

  Less than one week, and already attempting to manipulate one of the fundamental forces of the universe

  -Increased internal and external Mana control

  In the meantime, Jack cleared the immediate area of all plants, branches, rocks, and anything else that stood out. By the time he was done, he had several separate piles of rocks, branches, vines, thin narrow plant leaves, and mushrooms that he happened to find.

  *Skill gained: Herbology (Beginner)*

  Plants, plants everywhere! But what to do with them?

  Increase quality of plants harvested

  Chance to discover plant traits through consumption

  The fish were more than adequately cooked by that time, and Jack threw them into his bag with the others after inspecting one.

  *Item: Mana-Infused Well-cooked Fish meat*

  Increases Stamina and Mana rejuvenation (minor).

  The Mana infusion did something. At least it was enough to include it in the name of the finished item, but he wasn’t sure how much of a difference it made. Did food always give a Mana and Stamina rejuvenation boost? He didn’t remember it doing that before, but he didn’t think he ever paid enough attention to it either. Pulling out some meat he had left over from before, Jack inspected it to compare.

  *Item: Well-cooked Fish meat*

  Increases Stamina rejuvenation (minor)

  So, it did change. It added a Mana rejuvenating effect along with the Stamina rejuvenating aspect. However, that only raised more questions. Was the effect minor because he only put a few points in? What would happen if he infused more into the fish? And did the infusing make the stamina rejuvenating better as well? One question answered but more questions kept coming up. It would have to wait though. He was out of fish to experiment on, and he didn’t want to wade back into the river to catch more.

  Jack spent the rest of the day gathering rocks and stacking them around his beaver den creating a wall a couple of feet tall. He used mud and dirt to fill in the gaps and help hold the rocks in place and the branches to create the roof, holding everything in place with the vines and weaving the leaves through the branches. It created a slightly slanted thatched roof structure that fitted on top of the wall construct he made. For the flooring, Jack used the Umbra Skee’s fur to blanket the entire floor. He originally had a thought of using the fur for clothing, but he quickly realized that it was going to be a long time, if at all, before he was able to create clothes.

  Once he had finished assembling the building, there was only a little bit of daylight left and Jack was greeted by a welcomed notice.

  *Building Created: Hut (Makeshift/Crude)*

  Quality: Common

  Increased Durability

  Increase recovery while resting

  Jack took a glance at his Mana the moment he saw the System’s notice of the building creation and sure enough, his Mana had dropped once again. This time he had lost almost a hundred Mana when creating the hut. He blanched at that cost. He hoped that was for making buildings and not the amount needed for making any common quality item. He inspected the hut afterwards to see what changes took place when the Mana was introduced to it, and sure enough, the building appeared to be more solidly built. The dirt he used to fill in the gap of the walls was more uniformly spread and had a hardness now that reminded Jack of concrete. The roof of the structure, originally only placed on top of the walls, was now embedded into the walls. He wanted to experiment with making it again with different amounts of Mana, but now it was too much to bother with.

  +1 Wis.

  He let out a yawn and entered the hut. Those ideas will have to wait for another day. He was exhausted and tomorrow he intended to finish his hunting requirements. Still, he was proud of the changes he was able to make today.