Back to the Stone Age I
Selene awoke groggy and aching due to sleeping on the stone ground of the cave. She had hoped through some miracle that the previous day hadn't happened, and she was still lying in her chair, ready to take off her Dive Gear. Sadly, that was not the case. She stood up carefully with some rays of light peeking through the slabs of stone that made up her wall, and carefully concentrated on one to push it out of the way. She'd need to make a door in the future to not have to do this each time. The entire process took three minutes. Getting the wall set up yesterday took a good half hour. She didn't know if she was getting better or worse due to just waking up.
As she walked outside naked as a jay bird, she breathed deep… and promptly had her stomach growl loudly. Her priority was clothing, then food and water. She hadn't bothered to check if the pond she had started near was clean enough to drink but trekking all the way back didn't sound like a good idea. She'd probably collapse after reaching it anyways.
She stepped out onto the grass nearby and tried to think of how to use her special ability. Her first thought was just how far Molecular Reformation would function. Did it have a max range? Could it be used as an AOE? Could it be used on living creatures? She'd have to find out through trial and error it seemed. At least with the grass, she could probably tilt the balance on her experience bar and level up to at least 2 right now, maybe try and chop down a tree with it?
Her mind swapped to the task at hand and tried to perform an AOE pull of the grass. Multiple stalks surrounding her started to rip out of the ground, the roots no longer capable of staying in the dirt due to the force. Once there was a pile of grass sitting on the ground in front of her, she walked to the edge of the circle she had created and started measuring with her footsteps, then she did the math to convert it into meters. The size of the AOE seemed to be roughly ten meters, give or take a few centimeters due to the size of her feet. The math wasn't exact and she, frankly, didn't care.
"Ok, that's not so bad, and it worked on grass so… living? Maybe? That might not count though. The tree might not count either. What can I test now… oh, maybe maximum range?" Her stomach growled again. She knew she would need to finish this up quickly. She focused on the tree at the edge of the forest, which seemed to be roughly a hundred twenty meters away. Nothing seemed to happen. As she moved forwards towards the tree, she noticed it was vibrating a little bit. Once she had reached one hundred meters, the tree started to have noticeable effects. The bark started to rip off, the leaves fell, and branches started to break. Finally, the trunk cracked, and the tree toppled over with torn fiber and roots. It wasn't a clean use of the ability, but it proved the max range. At least for now.
"Wait, how do I know this is the maximum for… my level… great, this didn't prove anything." She sighed and turned around, staring at the pile of grass. She opened her character sheet and checked her experience bar. Almost level 2. Since she hadn't yet created anything and didn't exactly know how to yet, she figured it was best to sacrifice some experience points right now and at least start with all the tech in Early Paleolithic Era. It wasn't like there was a scarcity of plants around to finally make some clothing. The cost of all the unlocks were also extremely cheap, one experience point per. Her experience bar started to go down, and she was further away from leveling to two.
As she focused on the tier update to fully complete Early Paleolithic Era, her mind started to fill with different ideas and designs for basic tools as well as how to use them. It was like someone was shoving knowledge into her brain. Was this causing any side effects? She didn't know, but if it helped her survive right now, that was a low priority to figure out. Unfortunately, the tech was lackluster compared to what she was expecting, at least what she chose right now given she hadn't "bought" the whole tier yet. Hand axes without a handle, fire starting tools, how to make a campfire, plant fiber clothing, a sharp stick. There were quite a few others, but those seemed the most important. During the tech up, the pile of grass stayed where it was, and the tree was still lying on the ground, undisturbed. That could change later once she gained the whole tech tier.
Selene focused on another patch of grass, and pulled it all up for extra materials, then focused on crafting it into clothes. It took more effort than she was figuring it would, as just the basic shirt and pants took a good half hour to weave. Granted, she wasn't actually touching any of the fibers as it slowly split and cut into the required lengths and widths in her inventory. It was amazing to see it build whatever she needed, or at least knew how to make, inside the inventory. The dev wondered if that would change later and she'd need a workbench or station with her to craft anything else. Would it auto craft without her needing to do anything? Would it need her to interact with it or would she just need to be in the area to use its effects, like an aura? That all depended on if she even had to build one.
She put the clothing she had made and looked down at her body. She'd like to have some underwear, but honestly thought better of it. The fiber might not breathe well and having a bra made of grass sounded like it would itch. Once she had some hide, if she ever managed to take down a large animal, she'd think about it. Her stomach growled, this time with an accompanying hunger pain. She also felt slightly light headed. She needed food and water now.
"Wait, trees. Trees need water to live. I wonder if I could…" she trailed off. She really needed to keep everything an internal monologue, as speaking was just causing her to waste more energy and dry her mouth even more. She took a deep breath and walked out towards the forest. As she neared the edge and found a fairly large Cedar near what she thought might be an oak. It was hard to tell, and she didn't know enough about trees.
As she approached, she tried to use Molecular Deformation to move the dirt and continued to do so until it started to turn into mud. Finally, she reached water. It was muddy and not very clean, but it was water. Just then, her eyes drifted up and she mentally chastised herself. Further up ahead, barely beyond the forest line or maybe it was the middle, was a lake. She didn't need to move any of that dirt. She felt completely stupid overcomplicating things, however what was done is done, and she might not have been thinking correctly with low blood sugar and being dehydrated. She walked carefully through the trees and then kneeled to scoop up some water and stopped to make sure it wasn't contaminated.
As she looked around, she tried to see any animals coming to drink from the lake as well. She saw a few birds here and there, a squirrel, and then finally a deer. She had finally concluded it was ok to sate her thirst, but she wanted to make sure. If anything caused an illness, there was no one to help her, and the animals tended to be more resistant to stuff as they didn't need to cook their food. She needed to make a campfire, then something to carry the water, then boil the water to drink. She knew how to make a campfire already, but she wanted to create one using her new power. She needed experience, and the best way to gain that experience was to craft using what she was given instead of what she already knew.
"How do I gain enough materials to… wait…" she quickly went back to the cave and moved past it. Despite having a nice little stone home, she didn't want to have it fall apart on her so quickly. Doing any sort of "aggressive remodeling" on her hole in the mountain was not in her best interest right now. Further down the mountain range she stopped and started creating a new cave, focusing on anything other than stone. If there were raw metals or salt, anything, she'd pull it out and try to craft ingots without a forge. She was thirsty and hungry, but if she could at least get to level 2 while building her "base of operations" it would help in the long run. There was no way to use the materials until at least Chalcolithic Era, in which she'd have access to copper. Her metallurgy skills were also lacking, and by that it meant she had no idea what to do beyond pull the metals from the mountain, and have it drop on the ground.
She focused carefully on the massive mountain and tried her best to get some minerals to come out. Fortunately, it worked, slowly. Unfortunately, she was causing friction, which was turning the metals into molten lava drooling out and causing small fires on the grass nearby.
Shit shit shit! How do I cool it down?! How do I cool it down?! Wait, slow the speed of the molecular movement. How the hell do I do that?! Just… just slow… slow slow slow…
She tried to focus on wicking away the heat by slowing down the molecules, and it worked, for the most part. What she now had were big globs of solid metal lying on the ground, some mixed together. Her experience went up though! Level 2. She had reached the next level at the risk of causing a forest fire. Smokey would have her ass if she was back on Earth. She hoped he didn't exist here. Just needed to get her full tech 1 tier.
Well that is all useless, but whatever, it'll disappear anyways once I craft a bunch of stuff and go get food.
Selene started to collect rocks and shove them into her inventory, then sticks on the ground and some dry leaves. She then wondered if she could excite a flame in the campfire instead of using a stick. She succeeded, though it was a small flame. That was all she needed as she blew slowly to feed the fire. She then ran to a tree and slowly broke it down. She had seen a "how to boil water in the wilderness" video on Gotube that was suggested to her awhile back, she had no idea why it was there. Random vids tended to do that, their algorithms might have been bugged.
Her stomach was angry at her, and the hunger pains were getting worse. She was almost there, she just had to get things prepped. Once she had a small log chopped, she slowly hollowed out the inside to make a sort of pot. She then took the log pot to the campfire and cooked a stone in the fire, getting it as hot as she could along with using her power. Once it was sufficiently cooking, she ran to the lake with the pot in her inventory, ripping two small branches along the way, and pulled the pot out and filled it up, then shoved it back in her inventory bag. Once she got it back to the campfire, she popped the log pot out and took the two branches she had ripped off to pick up the rock from the fire. The rock was dropped into the water and started to boil it quickly.
She then took a large leaf that came with the branches and tried to dip it into the water as it cooled it down over the next half hour. The water was still a little hot, but not hot enough to burn her mouth or fingers. As she blew on the water and tried to focus on the temperature, it calmed down to just above lukewarm. She drank it and immediately felt better. It might not have been cool mountain spring water, but it was the best stuff she had tasted since she came here, given how thirsty she was. Her stomach still needed to be filled, but at least she would be hydrated.
Next on her list was some food. The easiest would probably be some berries or nuts, but none of the trees looked like they provided them, at least she had no idea which ones grew nuts, so bush scavenging it was. Her plant fiber pants seemed to make a slight squeak as they shifted while she walked outside and started to search the forest. Roughly a mile out, she found some. They weren't in a clearing looking like something from a Disney movie, the bushes looked like anything else she would see in a forest, usually hugging a tree trunk or mashed together.
What the dev found were a few berry bushes with a few different types of berries, and just as she was about to reach for some succulent juicy looking red ones, a squirrel ran by. It bypassed the bush she was at and continued forward. She froze and thought for a moment, realizing these might be poisonous. As she watched the squirrel run away from that bush, it continued to a thorny shrub and dove in. When it jumped back out after a few minutes, its mouth was full. The small creature scrambled up a tree and disappeared. She quickly went over to the shrub and carefully pushed her hands into the vines, scraping the sides of her fingers along thorns as she slowly and meticulously picked some prickly berries inside. Once she removed all the small pointy bits which was relatively easy to do, she popped them in her mouth. They were somewhat tasty but a bit sour. She just had to spit out the pits or they would crack her teeth, and there were no dentists anywhere to help. The hole she had unceremoniously dug up near the tree also had some edible roots that she noticed, due to some survival training from the tech tier she was trying to fill. Selene quickly went to grab them and bring them to the campfire. One looked to be like a potato, but she couldn't really tell. As soon as they were done cooking near the fire, she dug in. She didn't like the flavor of them as they were very bland, but food was food.
If she could get a sharp stick prepared, she might be able to go spear fishing. She had never done it before, but there was always a first time. She just hoped there were fish in the lake. As she walked to a tree and ripped off a branch, then sharpened it, she started to think about how many fish she was going to catch. Her dream was probably going to be a long shot off what she would actually be able to do.
Ten? Five? Hell, I'd be happy if I caught even one without stabbing my own foot
.
As she made her way to the lake and slowly waded in, she looked around. She didn't really notice any movement, but from what knowledge she had been "imbued" with, the time she would have to wait and stand still would be a bit lengthy. She didn't have anything better to do besides get food.
Suddenly, she saw a small vectored wave appear on the top of the water. She tried to track it as it slowly made its way to near her feet. She looked down at saw what might have been a Bass, but she didn't know anything about fish. It swam a little bit around her feet as she stood as still as possible, ready to stab downwards. She needed the thing away from her toes or she'd just injure herself instead of getting him.
Come on… get a little further…
The Bass slowly moved away from her, and she struck. What she didn't expect was the stones she was standing on were a little slippery, and the water would slow her movement. The spear hit the fish, barely, but she lost her balance and flopped face first into the water. She also whacked her left knee against a stone and scraped it. Her head came above the water as she pushed herself up, wincing.
"Shit! Where is it?" She got up as quickly as she could without slipping again and looked for the spear while pushing her wet hair away from her face. After a minute of slowly searching and trying not to fall, she found it lying a few feet under water, with the Bass punctured on the end. She limped over to the spear and slowly kneeled to pick it up, her knee bleeding a bit. As she picked up the spear, the fish slowly started to slide off the end, and she quickly opened her inventory to drop it in. What she saw right after was interesting. She was ready to reach tier 2 tech already.
"Wait, was it craft one hundred things or perform one hundred actions involving the tech tier?" She asked herself. She couldn't remember, she had done so many jobs. Crafting one hundred items and tools didn't seem to sound right, as Divine Apocalypse attempted to make people level up by doing instead of gathering materials and sitting in front of a workbench or station. The "actions" could be making a spear and fishing, or gathering the materials and building a tent, or any combo of what she had learned. Maybe it was the latter, given that having someone learn what they have by doing would benefit more than just making stuff and selling it. Sitting in front of a crafting workbench for an hour would probably make players not want to stick around.
Selene was positive she hadn't created one hundred tier 1 items yet, she knew that much. She opened her inventory again to look at the fish.
"Fuck. I don't get to eat you!" She whined as she really wanted to tech up quick enough to get access to better tools. She tilted her head and looked up at the sky, letting out a deep sigh of frustration. That fish she had just caught, despite doing it poorly and scraping her knee, was an accomplishment.
No, I'm eating you before I tech up. You are going in my stomach. I got a skinned knee because of you. Because of me. Whatever.
Eight Hours Later
Selene had no idea how effective her actions were. Once dusk had settled, she had reached tier 3, Upper Paleolithic Era. She knew all the technology within those tiers. As soon as she had unlocked each tier completely, somehow her mind simply opened to new designs and tools, as well as simple knowledge on how to use them or even basic survival skills. She had no idea how to knap a hand axe or craft a stone tipped spear until soon after. The woman had created plant fiber clothing, a spear that broke while fishing, so she had to make a new one with a sharpened stone tip, a bow and about ten arrows, a strip quiver made of grass to hold them, and made poor sandals that would have to be crafted each day due to wear and tear. She had also crafted a campfire in the cave, made a somewhat leaking log pot and used it to carry water to boil over it, then crafted a makeshift cup out of a large leaf and some grass to sew together the sides.
It took a decent amount of time to figure out how to cut the tree down with Molecular Reformation, but it worked. She had extreme difficulty with fine tuning it and wondered if it would even work on a living creature besides a tree. She hadn't yet seen anything large enough to test it on, and she really didn't want to in all honesty. Some of the skills she had learned were more than likely not standard experience for a caveman, and probably added in for ease of entertainment for players. The leaf cup wasn't exactly something she'd expect a homo erectus or early homo sapiens to make, but she has been wrong before. She'd have to make a new one each day or every other day as the leaf would eventually dry out and become brittle. It was either that or find a more solid material to use, or make pottery.
The metals that had cooled in small puddles on the ground were long gone, and she had learned to quickly cool them. She would need to make an ingot cast in the future, probably during Chalcolithic Era.
All the tech tier upgrades came at a worse cost than just the metals, as all the materials and food she had gathered throughout the day had disappeared. She had to quickly gather more after she had gotten to Upper Paleolithic, which was just before the sun had gone down. It took another hour just to get two more fish, one was another Bass and sadly, the second was a minnow.
Selene was starting to get used to her inventory management and was opening it quickly and shoving what she figured she'd need later into the portal and pulling it out without needing to lift anything from one point to another. Weight meant nothing inside the inventory list it seemed, as well as looked to be infinite in size. She could even store caught fish she had gathered from the lake via spear fishing and it wouldn't go bad. There was no need to have a refrigerator with this feature in. It was like it kept all food or expiring items in a constant state of stasis. She wondered if she could grab fish with it, but worried about the water pouring out after she tried to reach in, splashing her.
As she walked back to the cave very proud of herself and slightly skipping, she noticed some sort of odd bulk lying on the ground near some trees. She couldn't really see very well with the sun going down. She crouched and slowly made her way around another tree to see what it was and to her shock it was the carcass of a deer. If this was Earth, someone would have enjoyed hunting it, as it was a fourteen-point buck, a big one too. Sadly, something else had already gotten to it. She covered her nose as flies were flitting about near some open wounds on the neck and near the chest as well as the rear. The buck might have been attacked and somehow gotten away but died from blood loss and shock. As she looked around, she concluded that the hide would just go to waste. She didn't like it, but she knew what she needed to do.
Sitting down near the body, she started to carve away at the hide and hooves and antlers with her hand axe as well as using her power, flailing her hands around to keep the flies away. It was disgusting in every way, but she needed the hide. Her new-found skills taught to her showed how to clean and tan the hide into leather or hide clothing and she was sorely in need of it. Once the carcass was stripped of everything she could make use of, including the brain for the tanning process, she continued back to the cave and started to craft a tanning frame. Just as she had finished creating it, she couldn't hold her lunch in any longer and vomited on the floor. What she had just done was carved meat and entrails out of a dead animal to survive, and this was something completely new to her. She was surprised she had held it in this long and hadn't done it near the carcass, covering the hide with her thrown up food. Luckily, she still had the fish and now left-over meat she had stripped from the body to eat later, along with small piles of berries and clean water. She had even found grubs inside a rotting log, and while she didn't like the idea of eating them, she did try one and found it wasn't as bad as she thought. The taste was somewhat nutty, almost like squishy almonds. She'd carve out the bone from the deer and turn it into a cup to boil after this, and hopefully not puke a second time. She didn't want to eat the marrow, despite it probably being nutritious.
To most people, the creation of a stone age camp in a cave would be an incredible accomplishment for survival. To her, she was at least coping and wasn't miserable. She had learned in order to use her MR power she had to keep her eyes open and looking at what she was trying to take apart or build. This didn't go so well when she carved up the carcass. Seeing the hide being peeled back just made her shiver in disgust. She was still going to eat the meat the flies hadn't touched yet, but only because she had to. If she managed to get back to Earth, she might consider becoming a vegetarian. Cooking and eating bugs, at least larva, wasn't exactly what she had in mind to survive either. It didn't stop her from cooking them up and eating the little things, however. She needed to keep her energy up so that she could explore and find more ways to level. Since she had reached level 3 in just one day, she figured she could at least reach level 5 and Neolithic by tomorrow evening at least. This was pathetic by any player standards of Divine Apocalypse. Level ten was usually reached in a few hours at worst.
Just from what she had reviewed in the tech tree, Mesolithic at least started to teach farming, which sounded like a good idea for her. She never had a green thumb, despite her mother trying to help her grow herbs in the backyard when she was little. She even killed her small potted cactus. That shouldn't have been possible.
Selene sat back near her small campfire and watched the stars for a bit. Her stone "wall" had been completed excluding a circular door frame that she hoped that she could get enough hide to turn into a flap and until then had a stone boulder rolled in front of. The fire kept her warm enough with the grass and leaf clothing, so she wasn't shivering, and her stomach was full, with a leaf cup of water to drink. Her "relief point" was outside near a scratched out dug up hole that she poured dirt onto with her power to keep animals from sniffing around. She even had a small bed of leaves and grass to sleep on. None of what she made could even be considered trash tier, it was that low end. She was even worried the bow and arrows would break on her they were that primitive. Despite that, she didn't complain. In one day, she had crafted all of that, with no previous survival training or experience. The tech tree was a miracle for her, as it not only was giving her new tools to use, but also new information on how to do something. There were her tooltips she was missing, at least in a new different way. She just had to be willing to learn and try new things.
Once it was completely dark outside, she pushed a large stone in front of the opening to her wall and went to bed. It would be another short day tomorrow, as she realized today had gone so fast due to trying to get everything needed to not die. Once she had all the basic tools, she was fine. She didn't have any sort of entertainment or friends to talk to, but what she did have was work to do that helped her not focus on how bad it was.
Once her head hit the top of her sleeping spot, she was out like a light. The campfire slowly burned down to embers through the night, with nothing bothersome happening throughout.