Gunpowder

Keith opened his eyes to the dim light coming from the entrance of his cave. The vitality of his character got depleted in under a few seconds, and he realized he would have to go back in the depths of the sunken to recover the entirety of his inventory.

Since he was visited by another player a few hours ago, Keith decided to play it safe and immediately build a bed where he could be respawning to. That was why, he did not really care to die by natural cause near his base.

Recently, he has been drying a lot of grass and other plants in order to make useful crafts such as rope. Crafting a bed has thus been a breeze because this game considered a simple plant cover as a bed. Obviously, this type of construction had its cons, such as the fact one could not be recovering their vitality on a rudimentary bed.

However, Keith had not planned to fight a lot in the future and a simple bed serving as a respawn point was enough for him.

Now that he discovered sulfur in his cave, he was very enthusiastic in going back to explore its depths. However, he needed a bit of preparation beforehand.

First of all, he realized his inventory could not be holding everything that he wanted to gather. He thus decided to make a few bags out of dried plants to hold onto light resources. He also needed a really large rope so he could make it safely to the bottom of the crevasse he came across. His body certainly fell to the bottom of it, and he had to recover all the resources he had collected up until now.

Though, apart from a quick estimation, he did not quite now the depth of the hole. His torch did fall for a few seconds before hitting the ground, and he was thinking it should not be much more than twenty feet deep.

Once he was done with all the preparations, Keith took a torch abd headed towards the edge of the pit he fell into half an hour ago. With all the plants he has been drying up recently, he started weaving a big rope.

'Hopefully, this should be enough to bear my weight.' Keith meditated, uneasy.

After another hour or so getting busy with his rope, he was finally able to put feet at the bottom of the pit. He had tied one of its end to a large rock at the top of the cave, so he could be going back up after recovering the resources he needed.

His body was fortunately intact, waiting to be recovered. Apparently, inside Project Overworld, a corpse would be lasting for several hours if it still had resources in its inventory. Just after Keith emptied it, though, the body disappeared almost immediately as if it did not exist in the first place.

'Kinda strange...' Keith thought. 'So, is there any sulfur left in the area?' He wondered. After a while, he did manage to come across yellow-colored cristals and gathered as many of them as possible. 'Nice! I should be able to make quite a bit of explosives with this amount.' Since he was sunk in the depths of the cave already, he then decided to go around and explore for a bit. He still needed to find some ore veins so he could be exploiting them and building a few reinforced tools, after all.

After a few more hours of looking around the area, Keith noted the topology of the grotto in his mind as he discovered some strangely-colored stratas in the rock. According to him, there should be some interesting metal ores such as tin that he would be using in the future.

'Okay, let's go back home for now and come back here after making a few more tools.' Keith decided.

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The builders of the New Dawn guild were starting the foundations of their future base. They decided to establish on top of a hill so that they could be having a good view of the surroundings while having an easier time defending the area.

Everything was progressing pretty well, as Alan was giving out order and organized their party. He was, in fact, used to mangage large groups because he has already be taking care of guilds in some other game. Thus, everyone was dispatched in groups such as gatherers and builders in order to efficiently settle themselves on the hill.

Nobody seemed to have any complaints about the fact Alan was being so authoritarian, and they were all accomplishing their tasks with diligence.

After discussing with her boss about the caveman she had talked to, Amber managed to convince him that he would be helping them building tools and that she could be taking care of this matter by herself. Since he had nothing to lose in that process, apart from a few resources, Alan agreed with her and discussed the contract that they should be doing with this sort of person.

After sorting that out, Amber started going back to the area she encountered the caveman. She packed up a bit of resources with her to seal the deal and went on her way, alone.

_______________

Keith went hunting some animals in the nearby forest to resupply his food stocks. On his way there, he realized it would not be convenient over time to travel several miles in order to find a bit of food. However, cultivating and breeding would be taking too much time to settle for now, so he was more or less forced to do it. The 'System' did accelerate things a lot, like the day and night cycle and the plant growth. However, it would still take several weeks, nay months, just to have some farm facilities going on.

The day and night cycle was much faster in Project Overworld than in real life, so that people who could not be playing at certain hours of the day could still be enjoying the advantages the day and those of the night. This was mostly the reason why everything, including the growth rate of a plant, was sped up to match this cycle. In the end, the game was accelerated by about ten times compared to real life.

On his way back, Keith was still thinking about how to solve his food problems when he suddenly felt an awkward sensation, like an ominous feeling. He rushed inside his cave, just to find out that the girl he met several hours ago was looking around.

- "What are you doing here?" He inquired, aggressively.

- "Oh, hey! I came here to seal the deal. I've brought some resources so that the first part of our contract may be fulfilled. Don't worry, I don't expect you to build a lot of tools for us as of now. My name is Amber by the way, nice to formely meet you!" She said as she stuck out her hand towards the young man.

'Oh, I see... She's literally invading my base and doesn't even break a sweat about it. Well, in any case, i should be friendly too so they don't get the idea of turning against me.' Keith pondered while gently grabbing her hand.

Amber smiled upon seing the contract has been accepted on both party.

- "Then, from today onwards, I will be coming here every day to bring some resources in exchange of a few tools. Would that be okay with you?"

- "Yep, no problem about it." Keith played it cool.

- "Then, could you try and make a few spears for us? Three to four should be enough for the time being."

- "Noted." Keith said while nodding. "Just to be clear, you meant every day as in every real-life day, right?"

- "Yeah, obviously. I figured it would be taking some time to make some tools and it should not be needed for us to meet too frequently." She explained. Since the caveman did not seem to have anything else to say, Amber headed outdoors to join back with her friends. However, she was stopped by the Keith who officially introduced himself too.

- "My name is Keith. Thanks for the resources, I'll make sure to repay you in the future."

'Oh, he finally showed some courtesy!' Amber excitedly remarked.

After Amber left, Keith inspected his base to see whether she took anything from his stocks or not. It would not be that smart of her, but he could not quite trust her just like that. As he did not seem report any missing item, he equipped himself with a torch and some sturdy and sharpened rocks before going back to mining in his pit.

Now that he had access to sulfur, his future seemed quite a lot brighter. He only needed two more materials to make some black powder, better known as gunpowder, that could be used in many way. Since his situation was actually dire as of now, he would be a lot more confident once he had some gunpowder in his arsenal.

Fortunately, one of the other materials needed for this explosive powder was charcoal, and he could be making it quite easily. As for the last one, saltpeter, he could be finding near the surface of caves as it could be commonly found mixed with some rock. Since the area he established into was so hilly, he was fairly confident in being able to find some other grottos containing all the resources he needed.

However, gunpowder's usage was only so limited. In fact, if he really wanted to progress Keith would need to find some ferrous veins and begin the exploitation of iron. Only then would he be able to advance to the next era and make some really elaborate tools.

'Alright, let's do this!' Keith exclaimed in his mind while he was getting ready for the exploration of his cave.