Ch-4-First Steps as an Open World Survivalist (First Edit)

Throughout the night, I kept waking up to feed the fire until the first lights of dawn came over the horizon. With the day coming, I pulled out some rations to fill my empty stomach before setting off towards the rest of the shipwreck.

The first thing I decided to do was check one of the crew's skeletons to see how the loot system worked. As I approached, the skeleton gained a white outline, and a small screen popped up asking if I wanted to look at it.

Focusing on yes, a new screen popped up that looked like a video game inventory. This screen contains a scroll, a book, and a blue marble.

Focusing first on the scroll, a new window appeared with its name and what I wanted to do with it.

Thinking of sending it to the special inventory, the scroll immediately disappeared. Attempting to do the same with the other items yielded in the same result. Once there was no more loot, the screen closed on its own.

Moving over to another skeleton, the same outline and window appeared. Seeing a pattern, I looted the skeleton and moved on to the next. Like this, all the skeletons were looted.

The next thing that I tried was attempting to store the metal on the lower deck of the ship section in the inventory.

Unable to do it from the outside, I had to climb back in and down to the lower deck. This time was faster as I already knew the way there from yesterday. Once down there I focused on the thought of storing the metal in the inventory. The metal disappeared in a small flash of light that looked like someone had quickly turned on and off a flashlight while it was aimed at your face.

After this were the supplies, tools, and weapons in the store room upstairs. With all this in my inventory, I started to take everything that wasn't nailed down, then used my axe to pry up some of the things that were.

Finishing this deck, I moved to the top deck where I found I did not even have to remove the rope and netting on the supplies up there. Then I took the sails and everything else that looked like it would be helpful.

With the ship thoroughly cleaned of anything it could offer, I moved to scouring the beach for debris I could use. Once finished, I returned to my shelter with half the day left.

It was here that I grabbed the fire starter, putting it in my backpack along with the hammock and the single piece of metal I had not used.

With the shelter and ship empty I decided it was time to move on to the forest I could see about half a mile away.

Beginning the trek, I walked for about 20 minutes and finally started to realize that the trees were getting bigger and that they were much farther away than I thought. About another 20 minutes later, I managed to reach the start of the forest.

Looking around, I did not see anything that would tell me that there was some sort of civilization around here.

This, alongside all the natural debris everywhere, made me think that this place was relatively untouched by man. The fact that I know this is only temporary saddens some part of me before logic takes hold again.

Pulling out my axe, I start trekking into the untamed forest ahead of me.

Once 20 minutes pass, I spot a meadow-like clearing to the side of my current path. Heading there instead was the better choice for a more permanent base.

At the meadow, a small creek flowed through the center, and a wall of sturdy trees sounded the clearing, acting like a natural barrier to the outside. When I started to move into the meadow, I was startled by a sound chiming in my ears.

[Quest/Task Sub System Activated]

[Quest: Mainline 1: Homesteading]

{Task 1: Clear the meadow of hostiles.}

{Task 2: ???}

{Reward: Inventory unlocked}

After the sound, a window detailing the new quest appeared in my vision without me calling it out.

The contents were interesting as well as slightly different than the details I originally gave.

Probably a creative liberty that the goddess took when making it.

Regardless, I was fairly frustrated at the poor timing and, honestly, the dangerous distraction that the sound caused. Not long after, I thought that a new window appeared without any sound

[Notification Sound: Off]

'Problem fixed, apparently.' With this out of the way, I looked at the quest notification again.

The mention of hostiles reminded me that this world was far more dangerous than where I was from. While the forests back on Earth are still dangerous they are not as populated or deceptively peaceful as here.

Pulling back from the meadow, I looked around the entrance of the forest for some younger trees that I could reasonably chop down in a short amount of time.

Upon finding a few and cutting them down, I started to drag them together.

Once I finished with that, I opened the crafting screen to look for a wooden bow and some stone-tipped arrows. Finding the recipes in the menu, I discovered that there were two types of bows I could make: the first was a longbow, and the second was a short bow.

The longbow showed in the crafting menu that it had a higher strength requirement, so I chose to make the short bow when the menu changed to show that it would take five minutes. This was a change from the previous time that I used the crafting system prompting me to look at the system version again.

[Survival System: Version 0.1.a1-3]

With the change in system versions noted, I added the arrows to the crafting menu.

This set of around 40 arrows took 20 minutes to craft, giving a total crafting time of around 25 minutes, so I got comfortable, grabbed some rations, and waited.

When the crafting finished, a bow and 42 arrows appeared in front of me. Realizing the problem of attempting to carry this many arrows without a quiver, I looked for one in the crafting menu.

The problem there was that the quiver required leather.

It was at this time that I remembered that I had looted some weapons off the ship. Attempting to open my temporary inventory, I am presented with a list of weapons and realize I can not wield them when I see their requirements on the screen.

The only thing I can pull out is a quiver full of iron arrows. Not wanting to mix my ammo, I leave the stone arrows behind as I walk back into the meadow.

This second time around, I entered while trying to be as quiet and low-profile as possible. Subconsciously, I end up going downwind from the center and begin my approach.

It is here that I realize I can smell and hear the other party with my enhanced senses.

Aiming where my nose and ears tell me the other party is, I fire an iron arrow in its direction. At this moment, a small gust of wind hit and blew my arrow from the right, shifting my shot to where I would have missed my target. Then, right before my arrow disappeared from sight, a cougar's head poked out of the brush and into the path of my arrow.

It scored a hit and went right through the eye into the brain, killing it instantly.

[Congratulations {Task 1} of [Quest: Mainline 1: Homesteading] is complete. {Task 2} has been revealed]

[Congratulations, you have killed a forest shadow cougar that was at the mortal limit.]

[You have leveled up.]

[You have received the level-up rewards of +1 skill point and +2 tech points]

[You have completed the hidden quest [Punching Above One's Own Weight] for slaying an opponent that was two or more major realms above you in strength.]

[You have received the quest rewards +1 to (STR) and (END)]

[Quest: Mainline 1: Homesteading]

{Task 1: Cleared}

{Task 2: Build a more permanent structure to serve as your house.}

{Reward: Inventory unlocked}

After I killed the cougar, a flood of windows appeared in my vision, and I started blinking rapidly in surprise.

Reading them all, I got a handle on the situation.

It turned out the cougar had already started the beast equivalent of cultivation and was ready to break through in this meadow. It was also the only hostile creature here. There were also hidden quests that acted like achievements and gave highly valuable rewards.

That was something I did not have any hand in designing at all and was all the goddess's handy work.

Choosing to look at the skill page first I found a point counter in the top right corner that I did not pay attention to earlier, as well as all the skills had a plus mark lit up next to them.

Knowing that I will need medicine in the future I put my skill point in there.

Immediately, a lot of medical knowledge entered my head, ranging from the basics of Eastern and Western medicine preparation to the basics of their respective diagnosis methods, but not how to connect the two of them yet.

While that happened, I watched my medicine skill increase by ten points up to a combined total of fifteen.

Afterwards I changed over to the Tech tree to prepare for building a new house.