Duck hunter

"Quack Quack"

"No way!"

He hurriedly sneaked over to the reeds and looked further up the river to see 3 dark blue ducks with tall tail feathers leisurely swimming down the river towards him.

"It's like they're swimming right into my mouth! Now duck I can certainly stomach"

He carefully prepared his last two completely sharp spears that he hadn't been using on slimes and rats and prepared to strike when they got close enough.

"There's no way I'll be able to get all three but if I get one good surprise off I should be able to stab one before they can fly away."

Patiently watching them get closer he stayed hidden behind the reeds and tensed to strike at the first one to show themselves.

Luckily the first to round the reeds was the closest to his side of the river and he was able to immediately spring forward and stab it through the side, a piteous surprised cry escaping it as it became dead weight on the end of his spear.

Reaching back for his second spear he was expecting to have to rush out to get a clear jab on another of the fleeing blue ducks but was instead wrong footed by the two remaining ducks bursting through the reeds while screeching madly, their bills clacking opened and closed, tiny needle like teeth glinting inside and the bills themselves splitting in to four which opened in a cross shape incredibly widely.

Reacting much better to this horrifying new development than he had any right to, he managed to back step continuously while striking back with his spear, keeping the viciously little waterfowl at bay.

The duck's tails were held high with their long dark feathers spread in what Daniel had thought was a display designed to intimidate him until the closest of the two flicked its feathers in a strange motion and sent a flurry of them flying towards him.

Immediately his cloth trousers were torn through and he felt the sting of multiple thin lacerations covering his right leg.

"What the hell kind of safe zone is this?!?"

With no other choice he pulled his wooden sword up and closed the distance with the closest duck as he made one final jab with his spear.

Dodging the spear with ease the duck stepped right into the inexpert swing of Daniels sword and was sent flying back towards the river in a crumpled heap. The last duck clearly had no regard for its own life and seemed entirely driven by rage as it took this opportunity to jump on to Daniel's back and, using its large wings to steady itself, proceeded to larch its tiny teeth into his shoulder.

Dropping the spear entirely and hitting back blindly with the butt of his sword Daniel felt the connection three times before the duck's grip loosened and he managed to dislodge it.

As the bird fell to the ground and tried to right itself he mercilessly pummelled it with his sword and finely saw the exp notification.

As he felt warm blood running down his back and picked up his spear the adrenaline that had kept the pain at bay began to wear off.

"I only just won that, I think I might be lower than a duck on the food chain here"

The pain in his shoulder was making it hard to focus on anything and his mobility was making any hope of treating his wounds pretty slim when he heard the familiar notification.

[Congratulations Hermes, you are now level 2]

"It's not the time System!"

Suddenly though he felt completely refreshed, his pain had stopped and the one area he could see the wounds before, his leg, was now entirely wound free, the only blood there having soaked into his tattered clothes.

"It healed me when I levelled up? That's damn lucky, I thought I was going to bleed out!"

Laughing at his luck and resolving to head back to safety and investigate as soon as possible he got up and collected the duck corpses he'd almost died for. Wading out to collect the first duck and spear he'd left to drift in the water.

"Ok, a few reed heads and river stones then back to base"

Using the string he had to tie the ducks to the end of his spear by their oddly clawed feet he started his slog home just as the heavens opened.

An hour later he was back at the beachhead and utterly drenched, his HP may have been restored but his hunger was unabated and the exhaustion he felt remained.

Stepping through the dome he hoped to feel some respite from the elements but got none and had no prospect of a comfortable evening or a hot meal.

"I doubt I could start a fire with wet wood anyway but keeping it alight in this rain is just not going to happen"

Dumping the ducks and rats on the ground near the panels and taking the rest of his items with him to the converter he figured he might earn enough for a pelt or something to cover himself and maybe not freeze to death in this storm.

"I guess I'll be risking those blue berries after all. I know they're safe when dried but I'm not sure if there's some preparation process to make them edible. No use worrying now"

He immediately converted his earned slime gems and netted a surprisingly respectable 26 copper; he then tried his most heavily damaged spear.

[1 copper, receive now?]

"What kind of conversion rate is that? It cost me 50! Damaged or not it's just wood! I'd have been better off burning it!"

Angrily he went to the Storage panel and placed his equipment inside along with his wood, tinder and the cuttings he'd gathered

Spear (Damaged) x 2

Spear x 2

Tinder x 8

Sticks bundle x 1

Twigs bundle x 4

Smooth stones x 12

Palskry bush cutting x 3

Palskry berries x 1.5kg

Waterskin (potable, full) x 1

"So they're Palskry berries? Okay that's something. The waters listed as potable too so that's sorted"

Checking the store he found at least one answer to his food worries

Palskry Pie - Baked - 80 copper

Palskey Berries - Raw - 30 copper

Palskey jam – Preserve – 1 silver

"I can eat these raw then? Ok that's food and water sorted, now for shelter and warmth"

With 33 copper to his name he hadn't expected much but was still disappointed

"5 Silver is the cheapest tent? And it describes it as both poor and crude? Without shelter there's no point in trading my tools in for fire starting gear anyway. For now maybe I should just store the meat and tidy up my campless campsite"

Putting his tools in the Storage and collecting up the animals he'd hunted to do the same he thought about how depressing it would be to skin a rat without any tools in the pouring rain and sighed.

"I'll do them one at a time and re-store them after, hopefully the rain will clean me as I go"

Putting the first of the ducks in the inventory gave him a very pleasant surprise however.

"Well that's more like it!"

Crackbill legs x 2

Crackbill breasts x 2

Blue feather x 6

"I guess I lose some of the resources by having it in storage but in exchange it butchers the animal, that's a great trade if the whole idea is I should be hunting to level up"

"Will everyone get this when they come over or is it a function for just the Beachhead?"

He had intended to start quizzing the System over such details when he remembered how precarious his current situation still was.

"Ok, this is convenient but right now I have to think about shelter"

Putting the last two ducks in to storage he was again surprised by the rats yield from all 4 he got an odd selection

Giant rat pelt x 4

Giant rat tail x 2

Giant rat tooth x 3

Giant rat meat x 4

"Why only two tails? And three teeth? Still those pelts, this could be useful"

Taking the pelts out of the storage he received 4 roughly even sized one foot squared pelts which were clean and dry.

"It cleans them? And they're dry"

Feeling them he was surprised by the fact that they had clearly been tanned and treated making for a soft, clean and warm pelt he could happily sleep with.

"Wait a minute, dry?"

Excitedly he withdrew the stick bundle and found them to be bone dry also, though still entirely untreated he could definitely use these to light a fire immediately.

"This is great, okay, last thing is my shelter"

Replacing the pelts and sticks back into the storage he checked out the Colony construction panel and searched basic terms before simply searching all with price ascending.

Water butt - 3 silver

Fire pit - 3 silver

Allotment - 4 silver

Lean-to - 5 silver

Composter - 6 silver

Shed - 7 silver

Shack - 8 silver

Well - 10 silver

Allotment with shed - 10 silver

Communal fountain - 11 silver

Crude shower - 11 silver

Crude toilet - 12 silver

Bee hive – 13 silver

Tanning rack – 13 silver

"Ok, some interesting bits on there. No way I'm bringing anyone else here until I see just how crude the shower and toilet are but for now I just need 5 silver. A lean too would be perfect for my needs right now"

Knowing full well nothing he had from this world could net him anywhere near what he needed right now he took everything he had brought with him from Earth out of the storage panel and looked it over. Now it was in front of him he had a fair bit to work with but he was loath to give any of it up given their potential usefulness.

Hammer

Hack saw

Chisel

Screw driver

Measuring tape

Assorted nails

Assorted screws

Washers

Ball of string

Phone

"Ok well the washers are a given, doubt I'll be doing any plumbing with just them"

[68 copper, receive now?]

"Measuring tape"

[94 copper, receive now?]

"Damn it, with some effort I can use the screws even without a drill, I have to pick one so I guess the hammer and nails go first"

[2 silver 98 copper, receive now?]

[92 copper, receive now?]

"I need the chisel and the hacksaw for wood, I need the phone as a torch… ok forget the screwdriver and screws, what would I build with anyway, better to let the system manage the building at this point"

[1 silver 4 copper, receive now?]

[2 silver 66 copper, receive now?]

"Ok what do I have left?"

Hack saw

Chisel

Ball of string

Phone

"I need all of these… except maybe the phone but…ok how much coin do I have? 9 silver 55 copper? Damn living in luxury tonight!"

Without any further hesitation he collected his tools into his storage space and opened the Colony construction panel.

The shack was more advanced than he expected though it was most certainly a shack. Thin walls and door with gaps all the way around. There was no window and the wind could be heard coming in through every corner. It was not that it was in disrepair, it was clean and clearly new, it was just poorly made from poor quality material. It had a skillion roof leading to a leaking drain pipe, an internal half wall near the door emphasised the corner where the floor was an indented bowl of compressed dirt and clearly meant as a fireplace; the area furthest from the door was taken up by a roughly woven straw mat on top of what Daniel could only assume were rushes meant to soften the hard ground.

"Depressingly this is actually better than I expected"

Leaving again he checked the area around the shack. He had placed it right next to the column so he could immediately access the panels without spending too long braving the elements, though in the future he may have to replace it he thought that trying to maximise the colony design when he might freeze because of it was too counter intuitive.

"Okay, the rain water is just going to waste now"

Drinking straight from the stream falling from the gutter he went back to the Store panel and searched buckets, bowls and jugs. What he'd really like is a water butt but he didn't want to risk selling anything else just yet.

"1 silver 55 copper what can you get me… oh wait, not again"

Quickly flicking back to the flint and steel so he wasn't once more left without a source of heat he was left with 55 copper and finally settled on a pot cup and a pot bowl. They were rough but large enough to make good use of.

"I'd prefer to use the bowl for my meals but I can't let this rain water go to waste, I don't know the weather cycles after all"

Leaving the cup to collect water from the drain pipe he withdrew all his fire fuel and the stones before hurrying them inside the shack, by the time he'd transferred the pelts and stones in the cup was full and ready to be replaced with the bowl.

As he closed the shack's door thunder rolled again and the last vestiges of daylight were barely hanging on. He decided he didn't want to leave the shack again tonight so withdrew 2 of the duck breasts and 500g of the berries.

He couldn't help but laugh when he saw how the meat was delivered and also feel relieved

"Where did the parchment paper come from? It's like they were prepared at a family butchers"

Shaking his head at his luck he headed back into the shack and immediately set to work on the fire, the tinder was dry and the wind coming through the cracks of the door was doubtless helping the embers catch but it was still a process he was not familiar with.

20 minutes passed and he finally had a small fire which he was adding sticks to steadily; his hands had already become numb from the cold and repetition by this point so the feeling of the heat gradually building was wonderful.

He had already placed the smooth river stones by the fire and could see them getting hotter, these would be his lifeline tonight and would hopefully stave off the cold once the fire went out; for now the smoke was lazily drifting around the roof of the shack and escaping through the poorly sealed joints.

After another half an hour perched on his pile of rat pelts and tending the fire half his sticks were gone and the fire itself had built a strong enough heat to reliably cook by; not wanting to stain the river stones he would be sleeping with tonight he had already prepared one of his broken spears and snapped it to a good length so he could roast his duck breasts over the open flames.

Trying his best to hold them over the hot coals and lower flames he cooked both breasts well done to be safe with this unfamiliar creature. Anything would have satisfied his hunger at this point so ruining the flavour was the last of his concerns, his mouth watered as he watched the meat cook and he made a start on the berries.

Sweet and juicy with a small seed in each, these berries were close to tasting like raspberries and helped him resist the meat while he cooked it thoroughly. When he finally tasted the duck meat it was incredible, he could only imagine how good it would be prepared by someone with skill or even a pan.

Devouring both with relish and finishing the berries he'd brought in he switched out the bowl and cup and added the remains of his cooking spear to the fire along with the last of his sticks.

"That might last another hour if I'm lucky but at least it's warmed the house up well"

In spite of the poor construction the shack was actually quite comfortably warm now thanks to the small area.

He plugged any holes he could with some of the rushes and set up his pelts to act as pillow and stone cover for the night.

Laying down and preparing his hot stones he opened his Status interface and checked out his options.

Hermes: Level 2

Exp: 2/200

HP: 80/80

MP: 10/10

Strength - 3

Endurance - 3

Agility - 2

Intelligence - 2

Wisdom – 3

Free Attribute points: 2

Free Skill points: 2

*Transfer energy – 74

Skills:

Dimensional Transfer LV 1

Storage space LV 0

"Oof that is a steep exp jump, my health and mana are building nicely though; I assume its endurance and intelligence right?"

Figuring increasing his health pool might not be such a bad idea given how cold it was likely to get tonight he added one of his free stat points to endurance to see what would happen, as expected it just took some focused intent to achieve

HP: 95/95

"15 HP? So it was 25 each time before, I guess I get some for levelling up and 15 per point of endurance maybe? Ok well most games like this magic would be a big help early game but there's no point in improving intelligence if I don't even have any spells, my Transfer and Storage skills are separate from my mana use after all so I can't really count them, let's check out skills"

Eagle eyes

Orator

Keen ears

Sniff

Danger sense

Muffled

Flame

Sparks

Fairy lights

Radiance

Grim touch

Gasp

Mend

Earth shape

Geyser

Frost

"Ok so these are the 1 pointers? No way am I even considering the 2 pointers, I need one of these to upgrade transfer after all but I feel like I'm risking my life without being able to use the magic I'm storing up"

"I need something offensive, the physical skills all look great but I can't deal with upgrading bits of me through magic yet that seems too weird, I want a real magic spell not "Sniff"… yeah first spell, it's got to be"

The howling wind outside along with the fresh memory of desperation while lighting his cooking fire made the choice very simple. Immediately upon learning the flame spell he saw the spell pop up in his skill list and closed his status window.

Moving over to the now dimming fire he extended a hand and thought about the spell Flame tentatively. From his palm a small orb of flame formed and hovered in front of his hand, it was small and hovered above the palm as though invisibly attached to it, he could feel the heat on his fingertips as the orb hovered unmoving in his grasp.

"I was expecting it to explode out or something"

As he thought this and willed more from the flame it simultaneously grew and fanned out, spraying out as insubstantial tendrils of flame leaving his hand in a continuous flow that concentrated on the spot he had been holding his hand out to. The ash and embers of the dying fire exploded out and were extinguished by the rough treatment as his flame sputtered out and he was left in darkness choking on disturbed ash and smoke.

"Shit, where's my phone"

Using his phone to make his way back to bed and drinking some water which was now, like everything in the shack, much ashier than before he checked out his status again to find his mana pool completely drained.

"Ok, so potent but costly, that will take some practice"

"For now I think I need to understand the other Stats before I go any further – System? Tell me about the Stats"

Thinking about this opened the Information tab of his interface and he got a concise and surprisingly useful answer.

[Every one point of each individual attribute represents 5% of the average human's ability with regards to that attribute. The exceptions to this are Endurance (Which delivers this effect and permanently increases your health pool) and Intelligence (which represents mana sensitivity and is set to 0 for almost all humans and increases their available personal mana reserve permanently with each level. Note: this increased sensitivity also increases their mana comprehension ability affecting the potential skills they can learn/ ways in which they can interactive with/ manipulate mana)]

"Wow okay so that's why my agility was 0 starting out but my strength was 1, I guess I was above average strength and below average fitness"

"Okay, while I'm here give me the same breakdown of Transfer stats as before please, you said it would take 63 days to save up enough Transfer energy to come back here right?"

[Updated: it would currently take 61 days]

"What? Why? It hasn't even been a day yet, how could I have shaved off 2 days?"

[Original calculation based on no other activities and a stable mana environment. Time spent in an unstable mana environment: 10 hours 38 minutes, Mana rich activities: Hunting mana rich creatures, consuming mana rich food and drink.]

"Unstable mana environment? I've been on Eden longer than that. Does that mean outside of the dome? You originally calculated based on me spending all my time inside the dome with nothing to eat for 63 days?"

[Correct]

"Why?"

There was no answer from the System and all Daniel could do was shake his head and move on.

"Ok so aside from that the killing things and eating them had an effect, list the above activities in order of which has the greatest effect on my Transfer time"

[Hunting, Food, Environment, Drink]

"Yeah I figured, okay so I assume the hunting thing is just like with the exp, I siphon some mana. How about the environment, does everywhere outside the dome provide the same benefit?"

[Effect based on relative level of local biome]

"High level area = more energy in the air? Got it, Food and drink?"

[The more in tune with the background mana of Eden a creature is the greater the benefit to you when ingested, Food bought from the Store panel will have a fractional effect. Berries and local spring water will have a smaller effect than meat, etc]

"Etc?"

[Eggs, milk, honey, etc]

"Ok, anything else I should know about this?"

[There are some notable exceptions to the above rule, for example, the luminous fungi found surrounding local mana vents are actually…]

"Okay, I get the gist, thank you System"

He was getting really tired now and he was just thinking of finishing this tomorrow when he realised he needed to ask something important.

"System, what is the effect of levelling up the Dimensional transfer skill?"

[Unknown, no precedent]

"But there isn't a precedent for any of this is there?"

[Baseline System has been in development for over a century, Beachhead operations less than a decade. Only God would know]

"Still sounds weird…. Okay, level up Dimensional Transfer"

The system interface switched between tabs and highlighted the skills section, focusing in on the Dimensional Transfer skill, when highlighted it went monetarily grey and Daniel heard a clunking sound. A highlight by the skill name made him curse instantly

2 points

"You have got to be kidding me! How does this keep happening! Damn it God! You could have left a pamphlet or something, come on!"

Thinking it through it immediately became obvious to Daniel, if when he bought the Flame skill it was level 1 for one point it would make sense that to upgrade a skill to level 2 he would have to spend 2 points, realising this did not make him feel any better about his situation or his continual stupidity however.

"The knife, the flint and steel and now this, I'd never make these mistakes in a game"

Grumbling as he fell asleep his last thoughts for the night were how if he had just bought the Flame skill before the flint and steel he'd still have another silver to buy a blanket or something with.