Chapter 25 Square World

She walked up to the nearest apple tree and looked at her square mosaic fists.

She tried hammering the trunk with her hands, and a circular progress bar appeared on the trunk, barely emptied.

It seemed effective, so she hammered a few more times and quickly, the apple tree vanished, bursting into 4 Wood Blocks and 1 apple.

It took her a total of 10 hits to knock down the tree, each blow making her fists ache, but her square body showed no signs of bleeding. However, her health bar dropped slightly, and her energy level decreased by one unit.

Feeling her mouth dry and without any water sources in sight, she chose to eat the apple. Indeed, food restored her energy, and once her energy was refilled, her health bar quickly recovered.

The flow of time in the Trial World seemed different as well—an hour of Trial Time allowed her to stay here for a day and night, but a day and night in this world only amounted to about three to four hours in reality.

Besides, after she had chopped down a tree and a few Wood Blocks appeared in her backpack, she finally discovered a way to convert items to reality and earn Source Power.

[Wood Block]

[Function: Basic material used for crafting various items]

[Physical Conversion: 1 Source Power can convert 1 set of Wood Blocks (100 pieces)]

[Physical Description: 1000 standard units of wood]

[Source Power Conversion: 5 sets of Wood Blocks can be converted into 1 Source Power]

This text appeared in the description of the Wood Block. Physical conversion meant transforming things from the Trial World into reality, whereas Source Power conversion meant turning things from the Trial World into Source Power.

If Wood Blocks could be converted, could other items be converted as well?

Mu Ying looked at the crafting table with various item recipes, especially the ones for the backpack and the Box.

The backpack, like the one she was wearing, added 10 Storage Spaces, while the Box added 50 spaces.

Unfortunately, she lacked the materials to craft them now and couldn't see the specific conversion requirements and effects.

To make a backpack, 10 pieces of leather were needed, whereas the Box required 8 Wood Boards—none of these items were difficult to collect.

With a goal in mind, Mu Ying was full of energy.

If she wanted to profit from the Trial World, she needed to collect resources and earn Source Power, and the prerequisite for all this was survival.

Although she had not encountered any danger so far and the animals in the forest did not attack her, her trial role in this world was fully digitalized, and all activities required the consumption of energy.

Food did not increase satiety nor had any flavor; it only boosted energy.

With enough food, she would have the strength to collect resources, exchange for Source Power, and even perform physical conversions.

After inspecting the crafting recipes carefully, Mu Ying realized that everything started with tools. Tools were essential for saving energy, obtaining food, and gathering materials.

Wood Blocks were necessary materials in many tool crafting recipes, but collecting them barehanded was not cost-effective.

Wood Blocks could be crafted into Wood Boards and Wooden Sticks, and these two items were required to make the most basic wooden production tools.

Mu Ying, using the Wood Blocks she had collected with her bare hands, crafted a wooden axe, only to find its durability was too low for prolonged use.

More advanced than wooden tools were stone tools, which required Wooden Sticks and stones to craft.

Considering that stones were easily available, using stones instead of Wood Boards to make basic tools was more durable and efficient.

Mu Ying crafted a wooden pickaxe and then ran to the nearest mountain base, where rocks were exposed.

Mining with the Mining Pickaxe saved much more energy. Until the wooden pickaxe broke, Mu Ying mined a total of 18 rocks and, fortunately, also mined 2 coal blocks.

Wood and stones, these were cubic blocks with a side length of one meter.

While mining rocks, Mu Ying made sure to only create a hole big enough for one person to enter, and she tried to keep the inside as square as possible.

Up till now during the day, she hadn't encountered any danger, and animals did not attack her. If there was any danger, it was likely to occur at night, making this mining cave an ideal place for her to spend the night.

She turned all the wooden planks in the box into Wooden Sticks and then crafted a Stone Axe, followed by crafting a Stone Sword using 2 stones and 1 Wooden Stick.

With the last remaining Wooden Stick, she crafted a second axe, yet Mu Ying discovered that the two axes couldn't stack in one slot. To save space, she decided to craft another one only when necessary.

Holding the Stone Axe, Mu Ying ran toward the Apple Forest, stopping only after the two Stone Axes had worn out. She had collected a total of 80 Wood Blocks and 20 apples.

During the tree chopping process, Mu Ying often needed to replenish her energy with apples, consuming a total of 6 during that time.

After the axes were used up, she began to hunt using the Stone Sword. The Apple Forest mainly had chickens and pigs, and she only encountered one cow by the river. These animals were neither easy nor difficult to kill.

Approaching them wasn't difficult, but after one strike, they would frantically flee. Chickens required 2 chops to kill, pigs needed 5, and cows even more. Cows also fled faster, requiring quick reflexes to catch or else a lot of energy would be consumed.

However, the raw chicken, pork, and beef dropped replenished much more energy than the apples did, though they did not quench thirst. The cow also dropped a piece of leather.

Mu Ying had only killed 1 pig, 1 cow, and 5 chickens, consuming 10 apples and 1 piece of raw chicken to replenish her energy during the process, using up one Stone Sword.

From the position of the sun, it was already past noon, and Mu Ying didn't continue hunting. She crafted a Water Bag from the leather, filled it with water at the river, and then walked back along the river.

With one empty slot left, she planned to gather some common wheat on the riverbank on her way back, from which bread could be crafted. While collecting, she also gathered some wheat seeds.

Mu Ying thought it over, crafting a Stone Sword from the last Wooden Stick and two stones she had left and kept it in hand, freeing up a slot for the wheat seeds.

When she reached the mine, the sun was just about to set.

At this time, her backpack contained: 82 Wood Blocks, 10 stones, 2 coal blocks, 4 apples, 1 Water Bag, 30 wheat, 60 wheat seeds, 4 pieces of raw chicken, 1 piece of raw beef, and 1 piece of raw pork.

After returning to the mine, she quickly used a stone to block half of the entrance. Then, she converted 2 coal blocks into 8 pieces of coal and 1 Wood Block into 8 Wooden Sticks for crafting 2 stone pickaxes. She used the remaining 4 Wooden Sticks and 1 coal to craft 4 torches.

The mine was very small; one torch was enough to illuminate it, with each torch lasting for 24 hours.

There wasn't much space left for her items, but that wasn't a problem; she quickly crafted a Box from 8 Wood Blocks.

[Box]

[Function: A box containing 50 slots, each slot can hold up to 100 items of the same type]

[Physical Transformation: 100 Source Power per item]

[Item Description: A wooden storage box containing 50 cubic spaces]

[Source Power Transformation: Not transformable]

The box couldn't be transformed into Source Power, and the Source Power needed for physical transformation was too much. It wasn't something to consider right now.

She placed the Box against the wall, reorganized the items in her backpack, putting the coal, raw meat, apples, and wheat seeds into it, and put one stone pickaxe in as well.

After a day's trial, Mu Ying found that all items could be transformed into physical items using Source Power.

The transformation prices for common materials like stones, apples, raw meats, wheat seeds, and coal were very low, and the items produced were ordinary. In the outside world, these items also existed and were typically not worth transforming into physical items.

However, when accumulated in enough quantity, they could be transformed into Source Power. The easier an item was to collect, the more was required for transformation, such as stones and Wood Blocks.

Items synthesized on the crafting table couldn't be transformed back into Source Power, only into physical items. Their prices were generally calculated based on the effects of the transformed items.

Items like the Box, despite being easy to craft, had a high price due to their transformation into a 50 cubic storage wooden box.

However, items crafted on the crafting table, though not as magical when transformed for use in this world, did have some special effects.

Tools like axes, hoes, and Mining Pickaxes, when transformed, became items that could increase work efficiency and were as durable as regular tools. Of course, while much cheaper than the box, costing only single digits of Source Power, she still couldn't afford them.

The more Mu Ying looked, the more she coveted them, but without Source Power, it was all just talk. She quickly calmed her mind and continued with the task at hand.

All the wheat was crafted into 10 pieces of bread, which she stored in her backpack for tonight's meal.

After finishing, just as she was about to go mine some stones to make a smelter for cooking the meat, dark had fully set in and strange noises started coming from outside the mine.