Ch-9- 2nd Quest (First Edit)

When morning came, I was still asleep until the light of dawn had already passed.

Waking up, I unraveled myself for my bedroll and started making breakfast.

This morning, I decided to butcher one of the rabbits I caught yesterday, which took longer than I would have liked. While doing so, I set up a campfire just outside the house.

When I finished butchering the rabbit, I took some sticks and used them to roast the game over the fire. During this time, my stomach and nose were telling me to eat it immediately, whether it was cooked or not.

Persevering to the end, I took one of the rabbit legs and began eating; it was so good that I did not even know when I had eaten the entire rabbit. I started to think this might be a problem before shrugging it off, saying, "If food is good, it doesn't matter if it's a problem as long as I don't eat too much."

After breakfast, I opened the crafting menu and set the wooden workbench to craft before checking the required materials for the other types of production facilities that I wanted.

Most of what I needed was stone, but I also needed some iron. So I took off toward the boulder field once more while the workbench was crafting.

On the way, I allocated one skill point to geology and felt the information rush in. This particular skill point allocation did not provide much information because it was only a ten-point increase.

Arriving at the boulder field, I started placing the loose chunks of stone in my inventory while searching around the place for iron. I was not having much luck on finding anything until I reached the other side of the field, where I came face to face with a sheer cliff.

Luckily, I was at the bottom of the cliff, but that still left me with the issue of where to go from here.

Looking around, I spot a cave not far from my position with a few bones lying outside. Assuming the cave is occupied by something, I pull out my bow and a few iron arrows with what appear to be glowing tips.

I had not used these arrows before because I was unsure whether I had the stat requirements met.

With weapons in hand, I begin to approach the cave carefully and quietly. Knocking an arrow, I come up to the mouth of the cave before crotching low and peering around the entrance. Inside was a cougar bigger than the one I fought in the meadow, with almost pitch-black fur and two tails.

The beast was sleeping and had not noticed my presence from the looks of things. Taking a position at the door, I raised my bow, pulling it back to full draw, and lined up a shot for the cat's eye.

Letting go of the string, the bow snapped back into its resting position as the arrow began its sprint across from me to the cougar. The whistle from the arrow alerted the big cat, which opened its eyes to see what had dared to attack it. The only thing it saw was the arrow as it struck true and pierced the now-open eye.

The shot did not seem to kill it as the cougar started writhing on the ground, its strength shattering the stone around it. Taking a risk, I sprinted toward the writhing beast and kicked the back of the arrow, lodging it in further and causing the beast to spasm before it started to slow down and finally succumb to the wound.

Not liking the misery of the animal as it died, I placed the corpse in my inventory without looking too long at it.

[Congratulations, you have slain a higher beast, a Twin-Tailed Shadow Cougar that is over three major levels above you in cultivation and four major levels in strength. For how you have killed the higher beast, you have been rewarded with +1 (STR).]

[Congratulations, your title {Minor Lord of the Forgotten Forest} has been upgraded to {Middling Lord of the Forgotten Forest}]

[You have leveled up.]

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

That explained how he survived being shot through the eye.

Now that the beast was slain, I looked at the cave around us. The walls of the cave looked to have contained iron, so I stored my bow and remaining arrows in my inventory while pulling out my backpack, which had my tools strapped to it.

Unstrapping my pick, I took it to the walls of the cave in an attempt to break a piece off. Success answered by my third strike as a piece flew off the walls and toward my feet.

Picking it up and placing it in my inventory, I got the confirmation that the cave walls were indeed iron.

Without thinking too much, I put my hand on the walls and willed all the iron to enter my inventory.

Immediately, the iron disappeared, leaving a massive cave in its place as the ceiling began to rumble and chunks started to fall.

Fully realizing the mistake I just made, I bolt for the entrance and jump out to the side of the cave as the entire thing collapses in on itself. Thinking I was safe, I breathed a sigh of relief as I heard the rocks on the cliff start to shift. Not even looking, I bolt up and run into the boulder field, and the sounds of crashing rocks fill my ears.

When the sound stops, I am in the middle of the field, and I turn around to find that the cliff has now turned into a slope made of boulders and shattered stones leading to the top of where the cliff was.

Sighing in relief at not being caught in that, I turn around and sprint home, not wanting to stick around and find out whatever was attracted to that commotion I just caused.

When I arrive home, I go to the side of my little shack and put down the wooden workbench that I finished crafting a while ago.

With the workbench down, I open up the crafting screen. Here, I am presented with the option to transfer over to the workbench crafting tab. In doing so, I am presented with options for all of the stone workstations I have unlocked.

[Quest: Mainline 1: Catching Up to the Rest of the World]

{Task 1: Construct and place all stone workstations.}

{Task 2: Produce your first refined resources.}

{Task 3: Build your first product requiring refined materials.}

{Reward: +1 free Stat point}

Already planning on doing just that, I set the workbench to make a stone furnace to smelt down all the different metal ores I have.

This crafting will take a while, and metal is required for all the other workbenches, so instead, I walk a little ways away to practice my butchering skills.

I am keeping the metal I got from the ship for later, as I am fairly certain it is not ordinary.

When going through the animal carcasses, I begin to discover that defeathering birds is quite annoying and time-consuming, as, by the time I finish defeathering the birds, the furnace is ready to place.

Going over to the workbench, I take the furnace and put it right next to the workbench itself. Opening the crafting interface, I selected iron bars to be produced; this, in turn, required a fair amount of wood to heat the furnace. 

After I set the iron bars to be produced, I went into the forest to selectively cut trees and gather more wood for future use.

With a good portion of the outer edge of the forest somewhat near my clearing in my inventory, I returned to my home and checked on the iron. Over half of the iron I collected today was smelted and ready to be used, so I went back to my workbench and set the other workstations to be built.

With all this done, the day was nearing its end, and the sun was getting close to the horizon.

Knowing this, I went inside and lit the fire in the stove, then grabbed a pot of water from the stream to make some more stew. This time, I was using the birds I caught the other day with some vegetables for the stew today.

As I got dinner going, I went to the stream and stripped down to bathe in the water. After, I grabbed the comb that I had and went inside to watch the stew and comb my tail at the same time.

When the stew finished, I took a bowl and went outside to sit and watch the sunset while eating dinner.

Cleaning everything up from dinner, I checked the workbench to see how much time it had left to make the workstations, only to see it would still take a couple more hours. With this, I went to bed waiting for tomorrow two upgrade my house.