《Ultimate Gamer System: Factory Must Grow! [LitRPG|Kingdom Building]》


 Chapter 1: Execution by exile

    "Prisoner one, step out of the carriage!"


    The guard''s voice was perfectly flat, monotone.


    For Theo, this was both the best and the worst day of his life, depending on the angle from which he looked at it. But for his guard?


    It was just another day on the job.


    ''Well then, off I go.''


    Having no better choice, Theo took a breath and rose up from the cold bench stuck to the side of the prison coach before following the guard''s orders and jumping down at the unmaintained, beaten path.


    The heavy, metal chains rattled, their weight pulling him down to the ground.


    The guard, Theo''s lone companion on the road to oblivion, was armed like some sort of high knight, with full plate armor protecting his flesh, a fully encased helm hiding his identity, and a long halberd suggesting what fate awaited those who tried to disobey his orders.


    Here, at the edge of the land of men, there were only two ways one could go.


    Back the way the carriage came from, which was where this guard would soon follow¡­ or down the narrow, winding path leading to the massive, ancient gate that separating the civilized land from the outlands.


    "For the crimes of shaming the duke''s family, breaching the betrothal protocol, and fratricide, you are hereby stripped of your titles, claims, and rights and are to be executed by exile into the outlands for a period of three months," the guard recited in a monotone voice. "If by divine grace you will survive your banishment, your execution order will be revoked, and your name shall be reinstated to your family registry."


    Theo tried not to laugh out loud.


    ''So that''s why I''m here,'' Theo thought, almost caving in to his instincts and rolling his eyes.


    This sure was one interesting way of learning what crimes his past self commited for Theo to find himself in the prisoner''s coach, driven all the way over to where the civilization''s reach neared its end.


    When he first came to be, he was already stuck in this cold, destitue prison coach, with neither its driver nor the fully armed guard bothering to answer any of his questions. In fact, by ordering him out and then listing his crimes, the guard finally revealed he wasn''t actually a mute!


    "Do you pledge an oath before the gods that once freed of those chains, you shall follow the path of fate?" the guard asked, finally acknowledging Theo''s presence by something as simple as asking him a question.


    "I do."


    Hoping to get this over with as soon as possible, Theo replied with a nod of his head.


    For a moment, the guard measured him with his eyes hidden behind the visor of his helmet before lifting one of his hands from the handle of his halberd and then opening his palm over the chains locking Theo''s wrists together.


    "Upon my authority, I command thee, open."


    For a moment, the guard''s glove shone with a faint light, only for Theo''s chains to suddenly click¡­ and then slide off his wrists, their lock no longer keeping them in place.


    By the time Theo merely managed to move to massage his pained wrists, the guard had already reaffirmed his hold over his halberd and leaned its blade towards Theo''s chest, nudging him onto the path leading towards a gate so massive, it could easily rival the great river dams he used to tour back in his original life.


    "The stone hanging off your chest shall vibrantly shine once your term concludes. If you survive until then, its light shall guide you back through the divine gate. Should you perish, its twin will break, bringing the news of your demise to your family, who shall offer incense upon your empty grave."


    With that, the guard spoke all that he wanted, now resorting to just nudging Theo''s chest away, as if to shoo him out of the lands inhabited by humans.Royal Road is the home of this novel. Visit there to read the original and support the author.


    "That''s so?" Theo muttered before rolling his eyes and moving down the path, away from the guard, away from the people¡­ and towards the unknown of his fate.


    Or, if he were to include the flashing message window in the corner of his eyes, towards the one and only hope he had for this weird reincarnation of his.


    [Mission: To Start Within The End]


    [Goal: Reach the Outlands where no human can hope to remain]


    That was it.


    Not a shred of information about what this mission was for, what the purpose of it was, or the potential reward.


    Just the name and the goal for him to achieve.


    "As if throwing me into a prison coach and then dropping me into execution grounds wasn''t bad enough of a start to my reincarnated life, huh?" Theo muttered to himself.


    The last two days were enough for him to come to terms with this newfound reality of his. Enough to accept that what awaited beyond this overwhelmingly massive gate was most likely an end to this short-lived reincarnation of his.


    ''Is it because I can''t even remember how I died? Or the very fact that I can say for sure that I did, that made it so easy for me to accept it?'' Theo thought as he walked down the path, nearing the massive gate with every step he made.


    Yet, instead of growing more and more anxious as he approached what was likely his doom, Theo actually couldn''t help but get strangely excited.


    After all, what else did he have to look forward to if not what hid behind this mission notification window?


    Before long, Theo found himself beyond this mountain-sized gate that stood guard at the entrance of an equally massive valley, with nothing but a narrow, dark tunnel piercing through it. And, having nothing better to do at that point, he took a deep breath and stepped right into the maw of this darkness, eager to find out what waited for him on the other side¡ªbe it some sort of cheat power or something as simple as a quick death.


    ''I really hope that if it''s death, it won''t be painful,'' Theo thought as he continued ahead through the darkness. ''Who knows, if I''m really going to die, maybe I will reincarnate again?''


    In the end, the gate''s tunnel was nowhere near as deep as the gate was high. And in what felt like just a quick stroll, Theo suddenly emerged on the other side, with nothing but a massive, primordial forest in front of him.


    ''That''s it?'' Theo raised his eyebrow, not really sure whether to be surprised or disappointed.


    After two whole days of waiting in silence and discomfort and then learning of his vile crimes, he kind of expected more from what was supposed to be his execution ground!


    ''Oh right, the system!''


    Shaking his head, Theo focused on the message window, only to realize that¡­ it didn''t change at all. Then, as he looked down, he quickly found the reason for it.


    He stepped out from the darkness of the tunnel into the light of the day on its other side¡­ but he still stood on a paved approach to the gate. Yet, as he turned around¡­


    "Wait, what the hell¡­?"


    The other end of the tunnel was now nowhere to be seen, replaced with the uniform texture of the massive wall stretching up as high into the air as the sides of the ravine itself.


    "Maybe that''s what this necklace is for?" Theo spoke to himself, raising his hand to the crystal the guard talked about, the one piece of equipment he was left with besides his clothes. He then shook his head and lowered his hand. "Whatever, it''s going to be three months until I will have to worry about it. And for now¡­"


    Theo gulped his saliva down before clenching his hands into fists while saying a prayer in his head.


    ''Please, please, please, let it be some sort of a good cheat! Judging from how that guard called this place, I really need one hell of a golden finger to somehow survive now!''


    Closing his eyes and gathering all his hopes¡­ Theo took a step and walked off the paved approach to the wall, only to step down on the soft grass of the clearing that spread for quite some distance between the massive wall and the forest itself.


    [Mission: To Start Within The End - Completed]


    XXX


    Rewards:


    - 100 ability points


    - Ultimate Crafting System


    - Basic Player Status


    - Basic Player Ability Shop


    XXX


    XXX


    Player: Theo (Theodore Evilbane)


    Status: Player (Banished Prince)


    Level: 1


    Abilities: N/A


    XXX


    The initial message window flashed and then vanished out of existence, leaving Theo with nothing but two new floating windows with text and a strange feeling in his right hand.


    A feeling that compelled him to mindlessly move forth, cross the open plain, and then reach his hand out over a small stone sitting at the periphery of the forest, some distance away from the nearest trees.


    [Mining - Progress: 3%]


    [Mining - Progress: 17%]


    [Mining - Progress: 49%]


    [Mining - Progress: 81%]


    [Mining - Completed!]


    A progress bar appeared before Theo''s eyes, filling up in a matter of just a few seconds¡­ only for the stone to shine with the very same light as the guard''s glove just a few moments ago¡­ before vanishing out of existence, as if it was nothing but a mere illusion that had now cleared out.


    [Mined: Small Stone]


    [Adding to dimensional pocket: 1x Stone]


    [Installation of the Ultimate Crafting System completed!]


    [New mission!]


    [Mission: Survive the banishment and return as the one spared by Gods]


    [Goal: Don''t die]


    [Time Limit: 3 months]


    [System Message: Good luck]

 Chapter 2: Testing the limits of the system

    "That''s¡­"


    Theo stared at the system prompts floating before his eyes, not sure how he was supposed to even comment on those.


    Yet, prompted by the feeling, he moved towards the nearest tree and then reached out towards it¡­


    Only for absolutely nothing to happen.


    ''Well, that doesn''t tell me much, but¡­''


    Theo pressed his lips together.


    ''If I start slamming my bare hands into it only for a cube of wood to be removed from its trunk while the rest of the tree will just¡­ float mid-air, I won''t get struck down by the almighty Copyrightous, will I??''


    Eager to check the extent of his system, Theo closed his fist and took a deep breath, before slamming it into the tree''s trunk.


    [Logging: 3%]


    "Auch!"


    Not even the new system prompt popping up before his eyes could win over the stinging pain of slamming his knuckle into solid, hard wood and bruising his skin against the sharp ridges of its bark.


    Still¡­


    "So it''s possible, huh?" Theo muttered to himself, torn between exaltation and despair.


    ''Well, this is real life. It''s kind of obvious my hand would hurt if I did that. The question for now is, however,'' Theo''s face darkened a little, ''do I have to just grit my teeth and do it, or is there another way to go about it?''


    For now, Theo learned an important lesson.


    There was a difference between just reaching out with his hand to harvest something, a process that appeared to only cost time, and actively trying to gather some sort of resource¡ªeven if he was to do it through something as stupid as trying to beat the shit out of that poor tree.


    ''Maybe it has something to do with the size of what I''m trying to pick up?''


    Noting down the observation for later, Theo temporarily retreated away from the forest''s edge.


    "They wouldn''t call this place an execution ground if it''s just about surviving in the wilderness," he muttered to himself, strategically turning his back to the massive wall so that he could keep his eyes on the forest¡ªjust in case.


    ''And my mission would likely be something else than just¡­ surviving the period of my banishment.''


    "Oh, on that note¡­"


    Eager to raise his odds of survival even higher, Theo stretched his hand out towards the ground and¡­ willed for something to happen.


    Yet, just like it was with the tree, this clearly wasn''t enough.


    ''Maybe if I¡­''


    Before he could even fully form the thought, Theo closed his fist and fell down on his knee only to punch the ground with it.


    ''Still nothing¡­''Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.


    Puzzled by the lack of consistency, Theo squinted his eyes.


    "Maybe I need to make the actions a bit¡­ clearer?" he muttered as he opened up his hand and then brought it back to the ground again, as if to shovel the grass and dirt below it away.


    [Digging: 7%]


    Finally, the progress bar appeared!


    "Heck yeah!"


    Forgetting about the potential dangers of the nearby forest, Theo failed to control his voice as he exclaimed in jubilation, only to quickly cover his mouth and cast a sweeping glance ahead.


    Thankfully, save for the treetops dancing on the slight winds, the forest didn''t move. And while that couldn''t be a proof there were no monsters creeping up its edge¡­ as it was something Theo had no control over, he decided to simply not waste his time worrying about it.


    Yet, this quick check on the forest came at a cost. For with the action now broken, the progress bar vanished, leaving Theo with nothing but a handful of grass and dirt stuck on his hand.


    "Well," he muttered, making sure to lower his voice to a safe level of a mere whisper, "let''s take care of my safety first."


    With a clear goal in his mind, Theo shoveled with his hand at the ground, summoning the progress bar once again. And just like expected¡­ the former progress vanished.


    [Digging: 7%]


    [Digging: 14%]


    [Digging: 21%]


    ¡­


    ¡­


    ¡­


    [Digging: 91%]


    [Digging: 98%]


    [Digging: Completed!]


    Poof!


    Just as Theo came to expect, a cube of roughly half of a meter long side suddenly vanished out of existence, only to reappear in the form of yet another system window.


    [Dug out: 1 block of earth]


    Theo raised up from the hole he just dug out and shook his hand to let it rest after the slight exertion.


    ''Just how much of a lazy bum was this body in the past, for something so simple to already tire me out, even if only a bit?'' he despaired, only to shake his head, grit his teeth¡­ and then get back to digging.


    He excavated one block down the already existing hole only to then drop down and repeat the process again.


    [Dug out: 1 block of earth]


    "Woah!"


    Knowing what was supposed to happen, Theo braced himself for the sudden loss of footing¡­ but even prior knowledge didn''t stop his body from panicking when the ground literally popped out of existence right below his feet!


    Yet, rather than despairing, Theo grabbed at the ground around him¡­ and started to climb.


    In theory, he could just dig a staircase out for himself for an easy way out of the hole, but doing so would defeat the purpose of his plan. Only when he finally managed to climb to the point where he could comfortably sit down on the hole''s edge did Theo breathe a sigh of relief.


    ''Now, if something were to try to jump me, I can just drop down and¡­''


    Realizing the one flaw of his plan, Theo searched through all the system prompts for the one crucial element of his system that he didn''t inspect yet.


    No matter how hard he searched though, the pop-up window for his inventory simply wasn''t there!


    "Just where the hell is it¡­?" he asked himself, clenching his fists as frustration started to settle in his heart¡­


    Only for the very window he was looking for to appear out of nowhere, listing out all the items stored in his inventory in a clear and extremely familiar array of various images decorated with a simple number in their bottom-right corner.


    ''One stone and three blocks of earth,'' Theo thought, confirming the details of his inventory before focusing on the latter¡­


    And by doing so, invoking yet another change to his vision.


    This time, however, it wasn''t a system notification window.


    No, this time, an overlay suddenly covered his vision, adding up a transparent, bluish cube that followed wherever he looked. Only when he brought it over to his hole, eager to ensure he could close it off at will, did the color of the projection change from blue to red.


    "Right, I can''t place it if I''m in the way, huh?" Theo thought, only to dismiss the whole overlay with but a thought and then lean back as he looked up to the clear, blue sky, leaving nothing but his inventory.


    ''Now, what am I supposed to do next?'' he thought, weighing all sorts of different ideas that popped up in his head.


    Clearly, this wasn''t just the direct clone of the system Theo knew from the world''s most famous block game, not with the progress bars, not with how he could pick up smaller objects by simply fanning his head over them for a few seconds.


    His abilities, whatever they were, were different¡­ and yet still familiar enough for him to understand how they worked by raw instincts, raw gut.


    That, however, left him in quite the pickle.


    "No matter what, the next step would be to get some wood, huh?" Theo muttered to himself as he raised his eyes up to the trees ahead.


    "The question is, do I yolo it?" he muttered, gritting his teeth as he realized that with each passing second, he was starting to like his current circumstances more and more. "Or do I try to be as careful as realistically possible?"

 Chapter 3: First craft

    On one hand, Theo could proceed carefully, biding his time to slowly approach the forest from the one direction the monsters were unlikely to attack him from - the underground.


    On the other end of the spectrum, he could focus on speed as opposed to safety. This would allow him to gather the materials he knew he needed before the beasts - that were quite likely to lurk within the woods - could get a chance to get a jump on him.


    In the end, however, Theo decided to follow neither of those paths.


    ''Why settle for one thing when I can get the most out of both?'' he thought, as he crawled through the short grass of the open field for a bit.


    Roughly five meters away from the hole he left behind him, Theo stopped before digging his hand into the ground.


    [Dug out: 1 block of earth]


    [Dug out: 1 block of earth]


    With two cubes of earth now transferred from the real world into his inventory, Theo slid into the hole only to then repeat the process once again. And so, he shoveled at the ground with his hand, patiently waiting for the progress bar of his digging action to reach completion.


    [Dug out: 1 block of earth]


    ''And now, let''s do it all over again!''


    The safe approach of just digging a hole and then taking his time to dig his way over to the forest came with quite the obvious cost - time. Time that Theo could afford if this was all but a game.


    Regretfully, in real life, there was no hunger or thirst bar that he could more-or-less ignore. And with how unearthing a single block of earth required him to shovel at the ground fifteen times, he could only progress at a rate of a single block of ground every ten seconds or so.


    With how each of those blocks would be only half a meter long, he needed to make the potential tunnel at least two blocks high to somewhat comfortably move through it, and then how there were roughly thirty meters between his current spot and the edge of the forest¡­


    ''That counts up to a total of a hundred and twenty blocks,'' Theo thought as he climbed up from the hole he just made, took a look around to ensure there were no threats in his immediate proximity, and then fully climbed out¡­


    Only to hug the ground again before crawling another five meters towards the forest and then repeating the whole process from scratch.


    ''Digging all that dirt would take me twenty minutes,'' Theo concluded, using it as a justification for his revised strategy. ''And that''s discounting all the risks of actually pushing my hands so far, when I still need them to gather other resources once I actually get to the forest!''


    With each passing second and every move he made, Theo''s reserve of energy would continue to drain. And with that in mind, digging up such a tunnel, even with these weird abilities of his, was simply not worth the effort.


    That didn''t mean he was willing to compromise on his safety, though.


    ''It''s already a long stretch for me to assume I can just reincarnate again,'' Theo thought as he stopped his crawl and started to dig another hole. ''And even if I actually could do so, who is there to say I would get abilities that have as much potential as what I have right now?''Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.


    This train of thought was what pushed Theo to devise his current strategy, of digging a hole he could safely seal every five meters. In this way, in case some monster jumped to attack him, he would never be further than just a few steps away from a perfect hiding place!


    Bit by bit, Theo progressed along the plain, steadily approaching the front of the woods. Yet, before he could even reach the nearest of the trees¡­


    ''Wait, what if I can actually use those too?'' he thought, staring at the one thing he didn''t really pay much attention to when he first approached the tree.


    It was nothing more than a slightly thicker bush made up of small, wooden sticks covered in a plethora of leaves and even some small, grape-sized berries.


    ''In that block game, it would be either a berry bush or just a part of the foliage,'' Theo thought, lying flat on the ground, only to then squint his eyes. ''But I don''t think one could pick up small stones directly from the ground in that game too. And that means¡­''


    Theo squinted his eyes as he made a silent prayer before rising up to his knees and sneaking up on all fours towards the bush. Once near, he reached out and¡­


    ''Yes!''


    [Gathering: 11%]


    [Gathering: 22%]


    ¡­


    ¡­


    ¡­


    [Gathering: 99%]


    [Gathering: Completed]


    [Gathered: 3 sticks, 1 berry, 1 foliage]


    ''Hell yeah!''


    Screaming out in his mind with joy, Theo instantly turned around and sprinted back to his nearest hole, happily diving in only to quickly whip out his system and seal its opening with one of the twenty-one blocks of dirt he gathered on the approach.


    ''Now that I have some sticks, I should be able to get my hands on some tools, right?'' he thought, taking the lesson from his recent experiences and just willing for the crafting window to appear.


    This time, Theo had no doubts in his guess. After all, he could still see ''ultimate crafting system'' written in bold at the top of the very first window that appeared before his eyes whenever he could be bothered to summon it!


    Yet, what happened next exceeded even the modest expectations Theo had for it, given how massive of a blessing his system was already shaping to be.


    Because not only a familiar window with a three-by-three grid appeared before his eyes, it also had a much more important element stuck to its side!


    ''A recipe book?! Are you kidding me?!''


    To not scream out in jubilation took all of Theo''s wits.


    After all, he was merely hiding from the monsters, rather than leisurely enjoying himself in a properly secured bunker. Right now, staying on the low-key of things was his best bet at staying alive.


    The existence of this recipe book meant a lot more than just having the ability to store recipes Theo already knew. A fact easily proven by how Theo didn''t actually know any of those, yet the book still came with a list of the tools he so wanted to craft - a list that contained literally every item he thought about within the limits of what he expected to be able to craft!


    ''Now we are cooking,'' barely able to contain his excitement, Theo quickly arranged two sticks, one above the other, before topping the whole recipe with the small stone he gathered when he first discovered how to use the system.


    And just like that, the whole crafting window before his eyes flashed, with a new element now appearing to the side - a picture that Theo simply couldn''t fail to recognize.


    [To complete a craft, simply will for it to happen]


    Before Theo could even try to figure out how to complete the whole crafting process, the system notification appeared before his eyes.


    ''Wait, isn''t this kind of advice¡­ kind of random? And why is it only now that it appears, instead of clueing me in on what stuff I can gather before?'' he thought¡­


    Only to end up dismissing the whole topic as he happily willed for the process to conclude, only for a simple, wooden shovel to materialize itself out of thin air and fall right into Theo''s lap.


    ''I know this makes no sense, be it by the logic of my original life or even by the rules of the blocks game¡­'' the young man thought, only to shrug his shoulders and silently laugh out.


    ''But whether it makes sense or not, I''m the last person willing to complain about it!''

 Chapter 4: Finally, proper tools!

    ''Now, just to stay as careful as possible¡­''


    Theo peeked his head out of the hole, taking a quick yet detailed look at the surroundings.


    Just like he didn''t know the actual past of his body, he didn''t know why getting exiled to this place was considered an execution.


    And, judging by the severity of the crime he was sentenced for, an actual, sure-fire method of execution.


    ''By all means, this three-month period of banishment is designed to be the last slap in the criminal''s face. A fool''s hope only added to make them struggle until the end, huh?''


    Theo took a shallow breath before pulling himself out of his hole and then slowly creeping forward.


    Now that he had confirmed the bare basics of his system, it was time to actually put it to good use. For while the stone shovel allowed him to cut the digging process from fifteen ticks of hand-based digging to just two swings of the tool¡ªeach netting 54% of the progress¡ªand even save his hands the mounting wear of digging bare-handed¡­


    Stockpiling blocks of dirt was the least of Theo''s worries, for it wouldn''t allow him to progress in any way or form.


    ''What I need right now is enough wood to get all the other tools, some weapons, and¡­ or wait!''


    Right as Theo reached out to the next bush and extended his hand to gather it, he realized yet another discrepancy between the block game he remembered and the reality of his system.


    ''Since when does the personal crafting window give out a three-by-three grid?'' he thought.


    On one hand, it was nice to be able to skip this otherwise extremely early step, for he could craft appropriate tools before actually gathering the materials in a proper way. On the other hand, however¡­


    ''The further the reality of my system strays from what I know, the more likely it is that this place¡­ No, this world,'' Theo threw a glance over the plain behind him and then the forest sprawling out in front of him, ''it is more and more likely to have quite a lot of surprises for me down the line, isn''t it?''


    [Gathering: 11%] > [Gathering: Completed]


    [Gathered: 2 sticks, 1 foliage]


    ''Hmm?''


    Theo''s eyebrows rose a bit as he looked at the system prompt.


    ''Is the loot random, or was the first result better because I gathered this kind of bush for the very first time?''Unauthorized content usage: if you discover this narrative on Amazon, report the violation.


    Eager to test out his theory and learn just a little bit more about this not-so-familiar system of his, Theo hugged the ground again before crawling over to another bush.


    [Gathering: 11%] > [Gathering: Completed]


    [Gathered: 2 sticks, 1 berry, 1 foliage]


    ''Just one more¡­''


    [Gathering: 11%] > [Gathering: Completed]


    [Gathered: 1 stick, 2 berries, 1 foliage]


    While the deeper parts of the dense forest appeared to be quite dense with massive, overgrown trees, its edge was still a quite bountiful source of materials for Theo to partake in.


    Yet, as his stock of sticks grew to a satisfactory level, he now turned his attention to something that was much harder to spot while he crawled as low over the ground as he could.


    ''Well, there''s no reward if there''s no risk, huh?''


    In the end, it was all about balancing the risk of being attacked by something and the cost of time that came with his attempts to reduce said risk. And with each passing second, his need for food and water would continue to grow more and more dire.


    ''The fact that I feel okayish right now doesn''t mean things are going to stay this way for long.''


    Gritting his teeth, Theo took another breath, armed himself with his shovel¡­ and then stood up, no longer facing the forest ahead like a worm, by wiggling on his stomach, but head-on¡ªlike a human should.


    ''Nothing is trying to jump me right away, huh?'' Theo thought, as he stood in place, right by his hole, ready to ditch the moment he spotted even the slightest hint of movement.


    Yet, no matter how long he put himself on a silver platter for any and all predators possibly lurking out there in the woods¡­


    Nothing came out to attack him.


    "Was I overly cautious?" Theo muttered to himself, before finally breathing out and then casting a sweeping glance over the nearby foliage.


    Surely enough, this bet quickly paid off. For while the low grass perfectly hid the stones from his eyes while he crawled, now that he stood up¡ªthey were out there, all free for him to just approach and grab.


    And what was even better, they weren''t even all that deeper into the forest than the bushes he was harvesting thus far!


    ''Now, just don''t get greedy. All you need is six small stones for an axe and a pick. With the first, you can get a lot of wood just by felling some trees, while with the former, I should be able to just dig out and mine as much stone as my heart would desire!''


    With a clear objective in mind, Theo lowered himself down to a squat¡ªjust for the sake of increasing his odds of survival¡ªbefore slowly creeping towards the nearest stone.


    Then, everything went as usual. He extended his hand over it, only for the "mining" prompt to appear, quickly fill up, and then be replaced with a looting prompt.


    [Mining - Completed!]


    [Mined: Small Stone]


    [Mined: Small Stone]


    ¡­


    ¡­


    ¡­


    [Mined: Small Stone]


    ''That should do it,'' Theo thought, finally breathing a sigh of relief as the number of small stones in his inventory now was marked with "x6."


    Knowing how his system worked, Theo wasted no time and quickly arranged the sticks and stones in the familiar fashion, quickly turning them into the two most essential tools for early progress in any blocky or survival game.


    [Stone Pick Crafted!]


    [Stone Axe Crafted!]


    Ping!


    [Congratulations!]


    [The host has advanced <Blocky System> to level 2!]


    [You''ve gained 5 ability points!]


    [You''ve unlocked 1 subroutine slot for the Ultimate Crafting System!]


    [Please check the system for more information!]


    ''Wait, what?''

 Chapter 5: Miyazakis Snicker

    Theo froze on the spot.


    He finally got his hands on the tools he needed to harvest a proper amount of the basic resources without putting his hands at risk of heavy strain and potential injury. Yet, as he stared at the system prompt, he couldn''t help but grit his teeth in frustration over his own inadequacy.


    ''I was so focused on this task at hand that it completely flew over my head that my system wasn''t as simple as being a replica of that blocky game!''


    Gritting his teeth in silent frustration, Theo stashed his new tools back into his inventory, only to whip out a shovel and then, following the tried and tested rule of never digging directly under one''s own feet, dug out a new hole to hide in.


    Only when he dropped down and safely secured the entrance by blocking it off with a block of earth from his inventory did he allow himself to relax a bit, stash his shovel, and whip out the main window of his system instead.


    [Ultimate Crafting System]


    Subroutines:


    - Blocky System: level 2 (+1% on every progress tick, -10% progress tick delay)


    [Basic Player Status]


    XXX


    - Player: Theo (Theodore Evilbane)


    - Status: Player (Banished Prince)


    - Level: 1


    - Abilities: N/A


    XXX


    [Basic Player Ability Shop]


    Available subroutines:


    Survival interface (30 points)


    - Material Scanner (80 points)


    - Item Customizer (300 points)


    - Blueprint Integration (2000 points)


    (More subroutines can be unlocked by raising the player''s personal level!)


    Available abilities:


    - Threat Detection (Foreign Subroutine - May unlock new subroutines!) (50 points)


    - Basic Inspection (Foreign Subroutine - May unlock new subroutines!) (100 points)


    - Compass (50 points)


    - Defense boost (100 points)


    - Attack boost (100 points)


    ''Woah¡­'' Taken aback, Theo felt like retreating a step to take a better, broader look at all the possible options that he foolishly missed up until now¡­ But in the tiny, narrow hole he was hiding in, there was no room for him to move almost at all.A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.


    Still, after scanning through all the options, Theo realized his choices were far more limited than what the system actually offered.


    ''Right now, threat detection is an absolute priority,'' he quickly concluded, wishing for nothing more than to be spared the humiliation of crawling on the ground in fear of something dangerous lurking nearby. ''But with that, I''m only left with just fifty-five points to spend, huh?''


    Theo''s initial choice only further decreased his options. Yet, in the end, this only allowed him to make his decision all the easier.


    "I guess that''s the best combination," Theo muttered to himself before clearing his throat and sighing away.


    ''System, I wish to unlock the survival interface.''


    There was no grand fanfare or fireworks going off to celebrate the evolution of Theo''s system.


    Heck, even if there were, as he hid in a hole like some sort of rat, he wouldn''t be able to see it even if it actually happened.


    Still¡­


    As the new subroutine integrated into his system, Theo''s vision blurred for a second, only to then quickly clear up, leaving him with three new elements that he was more than just familiar with.


    First, a hunger and thirst meter, currently still pretty much topped off, with markers designated as ''alarming'' and ''dangerous'' as the meter would drop down, all the way to ''Lethal'' at its very bottom.


    ''Good,'' Theo sighed out, more than happy with what seemed like a pretty ordinary and ultimately useless ability.


    As a human, he could feel his hunger and thirst all on his own, needing no help from the system to realize it. But, at the same time, his body would give him cravings based on his usual routine rather than the actual state of things.


    ''Stranded out in the unknown, it''s actually good to have an objective view of where I stand on those two critically important aspects,'' he thought, his heart filling with relief as the coins he spent didn''t turn into a waste.


    Yet, it was the third element of the interface that now appeared in Theo''s vision that truly made his first purchase show its worth.


    [Forest Outskirts - Safe Zone]


    At the very top of Theo''s vision, this simple line of text gave him the one piece of information he was in dire need of.


    And while ''safe zone'' didn''t necessarily mean an absolute lack of dangers¡­ At the very least, it was unlikely for some end-game, powerful monsters to just wander off to this place.


    "Still, that''s not enough," Theo muttered to himself as he quickly moved on and proceeded with his next, even more important purchase.


    ''I wish to buy the threat detection ability,'' he thought.


    [Foreign subroutine ability detected!]


    [Foreign subroutine requirements are too high!]


    [Integrating the ability into an existing subroutine!]


    [Your Survival Interface is now updated!]


    As soon as this prompt appeared, a new piece of the interface now emerged at the bottom center of Theo''s vision.


    [Threat level - No threats detected]


    [Forest Outskirts - Safe Zone] > [Forest Outskirts - Safe Zone (fake)(Miyazaki''s Snicker) - Within Range of Oilrat (level 147) patrol route!]

 Chapter 6: You miss all the shots you dont fire

    "Come on, man, you''ve gotta make your damn choice."


    Theo spoke out into the dirt just a few inches off his face.


    He then gritted his teeth and clasped his hands into fists, staring at the two slightly contradicting prompts of his now slightly upgraded system.


    [Forest Outskirts - Safe Zone - Within Range of Oilrat (level 147) patrol route!]


    [Threat level - No threats detected]


    ''Is the outside safe from threats, or is it all just a bait, noob-trap of sorts?''


    The fact that nothing came to attack Theo thus far meant nothing. The threat level of his threat detection ability meant nothing.


    After all, he was but a level-one human, lacking even something as simple as the most basic weapon. And from what the other prompt told him - this whole area was well within the range of the oilrat''s patrol route.


    That, on its own, would make Theo slightly curious at most, if not for the number that the system conveniently displayed for him right after the potential threat''s name - one hundred and forty-seven.


    ''I guess that explains the snicker part,'' Theo thought, easily recalling all the different titles heralded by the man name-dropped by the system to describe the type of area he was in.


    Games that were incredibly popular as they went against the grain of treating the players like idiots and guiding them everywhere by hand. Games¡­ that were known to be inherently difficult and unforgiving!


    And yet¡­


    ''No matter how much I cower in fear and hope for the best¡­ it''s not going to change anything,'' Theo thought, balling himself down in the limited space of his hole. Yet, even squeezing down and assuming a fetal position didn''t give him any sort of confidence or comfort.


    On one hand, all he wanted to do was just curl up like he just did, close his eyes, and hope he would find himself right back in his comfy bed¡­


    "Or do I actually want it?"


    It struck Theo like a hammer.


    Or, to make it more circumstance-specific - like the front bumper of a speeding truck.


    "Assuming I would actually wake up, what would come next?" he asked himself, surfing through what little details of his daily life he could recall from his time back on Earth.


    As a child, all he did was wake up, go to school, return, do his homework, play outside for a bit, maybe play some games, read some novels¡­


    And then, he would rinse and repeat this process ad infinitum.The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.


    School prepared him for college.


    College prepared him for university.


    The university prepared him for work¡­


    All of those trapped him in the endless boredom of the unending studying, labor, work. And as his age grew, so did his ability to endure more.


    An increase that his teachers, later professors, and finally bosses were more than happy to exploit, leaving him with nothing but a few hours in a day to just¡­ boot some stupid game up and try to forget about his miserable life for the short few hours before he would tire of the game''s gameplay loop.


    It was a comfortable life, where he could get meat or crops directly from a shop''s shelf as opposed to hunting for it or growing it with his own hands.


    Hundreds of years of progress put into effect by his ancestors pretty much eliminated all of the ancient hardships of human life¡­ only to effectively replace it with the endless monotony of a boring, pointless life.


    And now that he finally had the chance to do the one thing that he always liked to do¡­ was he just going to give up because of some potential danger lurking in the darkness of the forest''s depths?


    "Hell no!"


    Gritting his teeth even harder than before, Theo unballed himself before stretching out as far as he could within the limited space of his hiding hole.


    ''Thousands of my ancestors died trying to create a better tomorrow for themselves and their offspring. Hiding away when I have such an insanely overpowered tool at hand¡­ How cowardly would that be of me?!''


    Firing himself up, Theo pulled out his shovel before digging it into the suspended block of ground above his head.


    ''If I die, I will likely lose this system. Who knows if I will even be able to reincarnate again? But¡­ You miss all the shots you don''t fire. And how is it having this system and not using it any different from not having it in the first place?!''


    Squinting his eyes as the progress bar of his digging quickly completed, Theo swung his shovel again, only to then slam its stone blade into the ground around the height of his chest as soon as the daylight filled the insides of his hole.


    ''Let''s go!''


    Daring not to waste another second, Theo quickly confirmed the threat status of the area hadn''t changed, before using the handle of his shovel as a foothold as he climbed up out of the hole.


    "Now, for the test¡­"


    Rather than hugging the ground and reaching with his hand into the hole to pick up the shovel, Theo simply reached out in its direction and stood still for a moment¡­


    [Shovel recovered]


    Rather than appearing back in his hand, the shovel vanished into thin air, its presence now replaced by the system prompt appearing before Theo''s eyes along with the same old miniature appearing within his inventory.


    ''So this works,'' Theo took a note before turning around as he summoned his axe instead.


    Even though wood was but the starter resource, he still needed quite a lot of it, be it to craft sticks for tools or maybe torches, planks for a crafting bench and potential furniture, or even as something to fire the furnace up with once he got his hands on it.


    ''Normally, you would just rush through the wooden tools to get to the stone ones, turning trees into nothing more than a source of early-game fuel and maybe building blocks,'' Theo thought, recalling what he could about the game his system was quite obviously clowning on.


    Still, while the task of searching for stone still hung over his head¡­ contrary to the process of gathering wood, it didn''t seem to be all that dangerous.


    After all, what were the chances of encountering some insanely powerful monster near the rocky layer of the underground?


    ''Don''t let your thoughts wander off,'' Theo thought, quickly moving to the nearest tree while making sure to keep track of his hole at all times. He then gripped his axe¡­ and took a swing.


    Thump.


    The dull edge of his stone tool barely made a dent in the tree''s trunk. Yet, as if to prove just how magical Theo''s tool was, cracks then started to appear around the area he struck¡­ only to vanish about two seconds after he pulled the axe''s blade away.


    "The progress bar¡­ Why didn''t it appear?" Theo muttered to himself, puzzled by yet another discrepancy between what he expected and what he found out.


    Yet, rather than wasting time thinking about it while he was out in the open, Theo clenched his hand over the handle of his axe, pulled it back¡­ and then swung again.

 Chapter 7: Wood, blood and scare

    Thump.


    Thump.


    Thump.


    The cracks on the tree''s trunk continued to grow along with Theo''s anxiety over the repeated, loud noise the process was making.


    Yet, when he struck the tree for the fourth time, something changed.


    The sound was unlike anything Theo had heard before, and yet it was extremely familiar. And with this sound, the tree''s trunk finally gave, no longer able to support the weight of itself.


    It started to slightly lean towards the young man. Then, a little bit more. And then, as the bulk of its weight moved over the center of its mass, the whole tree started to quickly fall down, threatening to crush Theo underneath it.


    ''Woah¡­''


    Forgetting about this very viable risk of tree-felling, Theo jumped off to the side, out of the way of the falling trunk.


    And just like that, with a lot more noise than Theo would prefer, the tree fell down.


    ''That''s it?''


    Staring down at the poor tree he just slaughtered, Theo nervously gulped.


    ''I mean, I could try to get some wood from sticks and all, but¡­'' he breathed in and out, ''but is this really how this is supposed to work?''


    Gritting his teeth, Theo chased away all the needless thoughts, opting to reach out with his hand over the fallen tree.


    ''Maybe like this?''


    He held his hand out¡­ but to no avail.


    The progress bar for collecting it didn''t appear.


    "What if it''s too big?"


    Refusing to just¡­ give up, Theo took a breath before raising his axe above his head¡­ and then dropping it down, mixing the momentum granted by the gravity dragging the axe down with the pull of his muscles.


    Thump.


    The sound was exactly the same as when Theo struck the tree in an attempt to harvest it. This time, however, the effects couldn''t be more different.


    Poof!


    As soon as the stone axe struck the trunk of the fallen tree, rather than splitting it¡­ it somehow made all of its leaves, all of its numerous branches, all of what wouldn''t be a part of a cured log¡ªdisappear, vanish into thin air.


    "Wait¡­"


    Theo gulped his saliva for the second time, a sense of weird familiarity with such a process only making him even more anxious than before.If you encounter this tale on Amazon, note that it''s taken without the author''s consent. Report it.


    And so, pushed by his intuition, he brought his axe up yet again, and¡­


    Thump!


    He brought it down onto the cleared-out trunk of the tree, right along its length¡­ only for the sizeable log to split in half, not along its length¡­ but right over the midpoint of its height instead.


    ''Shit, so I was right,'' Theo gritted his teeth.


    Just like unearthing blocks of dirt with two swings of his shovel was something he could do in one type of game, processing fallen trees into more manageable chunks came from another, much more realistic and survival-oriented one.


    "And that means¡­"


    Knowing better than to waste time on something as impractical as just thinking, Theo pushed all of his thoughts aside and swung his axe again. And then again.


    And then a total of four more times, reducing the two halves of the massive log into four quarters before splitting each of the chunks into four¡ªa feat he achieved with only a single strike to each of said chunks.


    "That''s how far one would take it," Theo whispered, before gulping his saliva down for the third time and reaching his hand out.


    [Gathering: 11%]


    [Gathering: 22%]


    ¡­


    ¡­


    ¡­


    [Gathering: 99%]


    [Gathering: Completed]


    [Obtained: Block of Wood x 16]


    Finally, rather than lying on the ground, one of the chunks of the tree he felled found its way to Theo''s inventory. Quite noticeably, however, just like it wasn''t a cube before he gathered, it didn''t turn into a cube of wood in his inventory, keeping its quarter-circle shape instead.


    ''At the very least, I don''t need to gather them one by one,'' Theo thought, quickly confirming the status of his threat-detection prompt before exchanging his axe for the shovel as he moved to the next tree.


    One shallow hole later, he switched back to the axe. Yet, as he stood just a step away from the tree¡­


    ''I need to do it differently. But¡­ if so, how?''


    Theo closed his eyes, recalling to the best of his ability how the process would look in the game.


    Then, his eyes opened up.


    ''I went with a realistic cut, so it gave me a realistic response. And it didn''t happen before¡­ because I didn''t have the more realistic subroutine¡­?''


    As much of a stray guess as it was, Theo decided to roll with it anyway. And so, rather than striking at the tree as if he wanted to cut it down¡­ he just raised his axe-bearing hand to the level of his chest¡­ before gently tapping its blade down on the tree, as if he wanted to just hammer it down.


    [Cutting: 15%]


    [Cutting: 30%]


    ¡­


    ¡­


    [Cutting: 90%]


    [Cutting: Completed]


    [Obtained: Block of Wood x 1]


    Theo''s eyes instantly moved over to his equipment vision. Yet, pretty much as soon as he realized that this block of wood didn''t mix with the sixteen blocks he obtained before¡­


    THUMP!


    A scarily loud noise erupted right next to Theo, instantly dragging his eyes over to its source while sending his arms flailing in a desperate bid to shield his head from whatever caused this noise¡­


    Only for Theo to realize his mistake right as the tree started to rapidly fall¡ªand as fate would have it¡ªright in his direction!


    ''Shit!''


    Scared witless, Theo leaped over to the side, as far away as he could from the falling tree.


    This time, however, he wasn''t as lucky as before. Or rather, he didn''t have the same amount of heads-up to react appropriately in time. And while he managed to avoid getting squashed by the heavy trunk, one of the tree''s stray branches dug straight through the flesh of his arm, leaving an ugly wound behind.


    "Argh!"


    Theo attempted to grit his teeth¡­ but with a chunk of his flesh literally torn off his arm, the pain proved to be way too much for the spoiled child of a modern world to just handle.


    And right as the sound of the second tree falling¡ªand of course, blocking the entrance to the hole he made just in case something like this happened¡ªmixed with his pained scream and now the scent of his warm blood mixing with the soil it seeped into¡­


    The one thing that Theo feared had happened.


    The threat status of his threat detection changed.


    [Threat level - No Threats Detected] > [Threat level - moderate]

 Chapter 8: Level 1 vs Level 147

    [Threat level - moderate]


    This single line of text appearing at the bottom of Theo''s vision was all it took for him to nearly fly into panic mode.


    ''Not even a low threat first?!''


    He cried out as he took but a single look at the tree''s trunk obstructing his way into the hole in such a perfidious way that he simply could not hope to squeeze through.


    ''Even if I could, what if it would block me from covering its top up?''


    Before he could waste even more time deciding, Theo dashed to the back, in the general direction of where his last hiding hole was.


    He ran with all his might, the adrenaline exploding in his veins dulling the pain of his injury and speeding up his dash.


    [Threat level - moderate] > [Threat level - high]


    Halfway to the hole, the threat detection changed again, now flashing in red.


    Whatever was ticking it off was approaching fast. And with Theo''s blood spraying from his wound with every step he took, he didn''t delude himself into thinking he could hide for long.


    No.


    Right now, the only way for him to survive, even if only for a little bit longer, was to escape below the ground, below where the threats of the surface could reach him.


    ''Seeing how that tree followed the laws of gravity¡­''


    Theo attempted to form some sort of makeshift plan on the go¡­


    Only to realize that there was one element of the background noise so unnatural that it somehow perfectly fit the situation he was in.


    It wasn''t the beating of his heart so loud it felt as if his entire self was pulsating with it. It wasn''t the sound of the leaves, sticks, and foliage he crushed underneath his feet with every step he took.


    It was¡­


    A chorus slowly building up to the first climax of their song?!


    ''Shit!''


    Caring not for keeping his mouth pristine, Theo cursed and dove, his eyes already locking on the nearby hole.


    [Threat level - high] > [Threat level - imminent]


    ''FUCK!''


    Diving ahead, Theo dove head-first into the hole, summoning his building menu before he could even fully drop down into the shallow hole.


    ''Fuck! Shit! Curses!''


    By now, the chorus was entering its full swing, with the basses establishing a rapid rhythm matching the rate of the beating of his heart while the higher voices now rang on alarm in great excitement and joy of their serenade.If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.


    And to top it all off, Theo''s threat detection prompt now fully disappeared¡­


    Only to be replaced with something that had a uniform name across all the games, all the stories, all the media it ever appeared in.


    A boss'' health bar stretching across pretty much the entire width of Theo''s vision.


    ''Place it, now!''


    Crying out in his soul, Theo finally aligned the bluish, see-through blueprint of the dirt block with the entrance to the hole. And right as the top of his head struck the bottom of said hole, all the light suddenly cut off.


    ''Am I¡­''


    Theo gulped his saliva down, allowing himself but a second of respite.


    ''Wait, if I''m not down, then it worked!''


    The hole was now sealed.


    And it would be one hell of a relief if not for two things.


    The first of the two was the massive, blaringly red health bar with "Oilrat (level 148)" written right on top of it.


    The second, however, was far more mortifying. It was the shaking of the hole Theo hid in, indicating that even his escape underground didn''t push the boss of the area to give up on its prey!


    ''Dig.''


    Theo''s mind cleared as soon as his panicked mind finally solved the puzzle and marked down the one and only path to his survival.


    ''DIG!''


    Caring not for the pain, Theo summoned his shovel and bit its stone blade into the bottom of the hole.


    [Digging: 54%]


    [Digging: Completed]


    [Digging: 54%]


    [Digging: Completed]


    The ground shook right as Theo''s digging took effect, causing him to fall further half a meter, only to then drop again.


    Instead of stopping, he whipped out his building menu again, but¡­


    The faint shine of the daylight broke through the roof of dirt as the Oilrat above furiously slashed at it with its long, sturdy paws.


    What Theo could remove with two quick swings, however, the Oilrat took a bit more than that. And before it could break the hole''s seal, Theo slapped two more blocks into the place where he landed just before.


    Pushing only about a meter down, Theo could feel the ground around him noticeably calm down, the tremors of Oilrat''s furious digging now struggling to reach Theo''s current hiding¡­ coffin.


    Because that''s exactly what his hideout was, a two-by-one coffin of solid earthen walls.


    Barely enough space to curl his body up in.


    And so, more than eager to put as much distance as possible between himself and the boss of the area, Theo dug down.


    [Digging: 54%]


    [Digging: Completed]


    ''Normally, I should be reaching the rock level, shouldn''t I?''


    [Digging: 54%]


    [Digging: Completed]


    Theo fell down on his head, having no time to twist his body around in his narrow hole.


    And then again.


    All to escape as far¡­ as it would take.


    [Threat level: Combat]


    The dark-red warning continued to blare right at the bottom of Theo''s eyes. Right above it, the area''s name now revealed its final name.


    [Forest Outskirts - Safe Zone (fake)(Miyazaki''s Snicker) - Within Range of Oilrat (level 147) patrol route!]


    [Forest Outskirts - Safe/Oilrat (level 147) invasion]


    And then, just below it,


    [Oilrat (level 147) - Locked-in]


    [Digging: 54%]


    [Digging: Completed]


    [Digging: 54%]


    [Digging: Completed]


    [Digging: 54%]


    [Digging: Completed]


    Theo threw two more blocks of earth to block the path of retreat, only to turn and shovel away at the next three blocks, finally making enough room to turn so that his legs - not his face and injured shoulder - would face the direction of his digging and then the inevitable fall.


    ''I should angle out, not dig directly below my feet¡­''


    Theo gritted his teeth, judging the two options as he dug three more blocks.


    There were so many questions he had¡­


    But for now, he just dug away, rushing as far away as he could from the sharp fangs of the boss monster.


    And finally¡­


    [Threat level: Imminent]


    [Oilrat > Alerted]


    The drums of the choir finally slowed down to a tense background as the voices mixed through the air and then in Theo''s ears.


    ''Where is this music even coming from?!''


    Finally allowed to take a breath, Theo cried out in his soul, daring not to make a sound.


    And right as he did, the pain of his carved shoulder nearly knocked him unconscious.

 Chapter 9: Realm of the Forgotten

    "Ah!"


    A pained gasp filled the room as an elegant, middle-aged lady jumped up from her luxurious seat.


    In front of her, a small stool¡ªa humble type of pedestal¡ªhoused a small, green orb.


    The orb shone with a gentle hue of inner, green light¡­


    Light that had just flickered.


    Then, it settled down.


    Staring, blank-eyed at the artifact, the woman fell down on her seat, her knees no longer willing to support her body.


    "Gods," Lady Mae sighed, her anxiety painted all over her weary face.


    The aura of exhaustion surrounding her shoulders countered the effects of the elegant, dignified robes she wore, turning what was once a proud woman into but a shadow of herself.


    She didn''t even flinch when the doors to the chamber burst open.


    "Wake up," the duke of the estate stepped in with a dead-tired look on his own once-dignified face. "We are having guests."


    Mae merely glanced over before pinning her eyes right back to the orb.


    "It flickered, just now," Mae''s empty voice escaped from her heavy lips as she struggled to bring her hand up and point at the orb.


    Uriel closed his eyes and breathed out.


    Yet, even as he opened his eyes, his face revealed no answer to Mae''s desperation.


    All the way up north, in their family''s estate, they could do nothing to help their son anymore.


    And still¡­


    "He will make it," Uriel moved closer to his wife''s seat and gently embraced her from behind. "That''s what we have to believe in," his face was grim, his eyes slowly cooking in the searing flames of his youthful wrath.


    Even in the face of his perfect powerlessness to change his son''s fate, he refused to just¡­ lay down and take it.


    "We might have fallen off since the days of our grandparents, but I''m not going to just sit down and take it either."


    Uriel spoke, tightening his embrace over his wife''s weary shoulders.


    "But for now, we have one more duty to fulfill, no matter how tough it may be."


    Evilbane''s estate had long since fallen from grace, holding on merely thanks to the renown of their once-mighty clan.


    Ever since the sentencing of their older son, however, this usually bright and relatively happy estate had turned into a grim reminder of what once was.


    For their oldest son¡­ was rightfully condemned for the act of fratricide.


    An act that the duke''s political rivals held nothing back to exploit.


    "What is it?" Mae tiredly asked, raising her empty, exhausted eyes up to her husband''s face.


    "Lady Callane has arrived. And we owe her an explanation."The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.


    Mae closed her eyes and heaved a sigh so long, it deflated her even further.


    Right now, not even an iota of the once-charming, dignified lady remained, overtaken by anxiety and sorrow.


    "That we do."


    Mae closed her eyes and took a deep breath before freeing herself from the duke''s arms and standing up.


    "That we do," Mae stated again, only to turn to face the doors¡­ or more precisely, one of the servants standing watch. "Bring her in."


    Even though the Evilbane clan was but a shadow of its former self, the estate still operated in perfect accordance with noble etiquette. And in a matter of but three minutes, the delegation had arrived.


    It wasn''t just Lady Callane, though.


    "I see he has yet to succumb," holding nothing back, the long-nosed, short official in extensively decorated robes spoke with a sneer.


    Uriel''s hand hovered over the handle of his sword, his eyes darkening.


    "Shut!"


    A spherical wave of shock exploded from the lightly armed, young lady''s body, smashing the arrogant official into the nearby wall.


    "You dare to¡­!" The fiery-haired countess conquered the distance in a single leap, grasping the official''s throat as she slammed him against the wall for the second time.


    "Lady Callane!"


    Mae''s strict, stern voice somehow stopped the girl.


    Still, she refused to let go.


    "What happened?!"


    Snapping her eyes back to the ducal couple, the fires in Callane''s eyes suddenly stalled before freezing and slowly dying down.


    Ultimately, she relaxed her hand, letting the choked official drop down to the ground, only to desperately claw at his own throat as he fought to regain his breath.


    "Disgusting," Callane spat at the man''s feet before turning her eyes back to Theodore''s parents. "What. Happened."


    For all the glory that the house of Evilbane had lost, the family of Perell counts had grown.


    Callane knew it.


    And it just so happened, she was quite¡­


    Protective of Theodore like no other, she was one of the few to know the full truth.


    And because of this, she also happened to be extremely protective of her fianc¨¦''s¡­ murderer.


    Lord Theodore, the heir of the estate, had openly admitted to the killing of his younger brother, after all.


    A crime that led him straight to exile.


    "It''s my fault."


    Uriel stepped out, his head lowered, his gaze heavy with burden.


    "If only I''d stopped them a bit earlier¡­!"


    Tears appeared in the duke''s eyes, only for the middle-aged man to wipe them clean with his sleeve.


    "They were both our sons," Lady Mae spoke in a tired, monotone¡­ yet strangely calm voice. "And it was our choice to turn our eyes away from Julius'' doings. A choice that forced Theodore to make a much heavier choice in our place."


    Mae closed her eyes and heaved out a long, heavy sigh.


    "And now," she then raised her face to the young countess Callane, the armor-clad blonde beauty befitting the name of her generation''s madonna, "he pays for the results of our failures as parents."


    Uriel simply closed his eyes and turned his head down, overwhelmed with emotions.


    Mae, however, kept her eyes interlocked with the girl.


    "I know full well what he meant to you," she stated, refusing to buckle under the constant storm of her emotions, struggling not to look away to check on the orb.


    Right now, this was the only proof that their first and now only son was still alive.


    A genius of his generation, forever burdened by the haughtiness and crimes of his peer and counterpart, the generation''s chosen one¡ªJulius.


    Callane didn''t seem surprised. Her eyes, however, grew even further still and cold.


    "Exile." She spoke, expressing no emotion, depriving the ducal pair of the privilege of her reaction to their confession.


    Their murdered son was her supposed fianc¨¦, while she just happened to be Theodore''s greatest ally.


    Pretty much the only person close to him that saw through Julius'' ruse before its effects brought chaos and ruin to nearly all the villages around the estate.


    And it was only thanks to Theodore''s willing sacrifice that their family didn''t cease to exist back then and there, either by the hand of their youngest or the king''s execution order that would follow soon after.


    While Mae took the green token as her last source of hope, the last real reason to believe her son was still alive, when Uriel''s eyes burned with fires of grief-fueled revenge¡­


    Callane''s eyes first froze.


    Only for the avalanche of fierceness to spiral out from the bottom of her pupils and overtake the girl''s eyes as she turned on her heel and stormed off, leaving without another word.


    "She wouldn''t¡­" Connecting the dots, Mae twitched and then reached out her hand after the girl, as if to stop her in her tracks.


    "There''s no way," Uriel''s expression darkened. "No matter how heated, she is not that stupid."


    There wasn''t a single doubt in the man''s eyes as he looked at the girl''s back.


    "No matter how weak the monsters near the gate might be, especially for someone like Theodore¡­"


    Uriel shook his head.


    "The moment he spills blood once, it''s only a matter of time before all hell will break loose. And four months¡­?"


    The duke shook his head, his eyes emptying out of all life.


    "No one can survive exile for that long."

 Chapter 10: Coffin of dirt and stone

    [Grave injury detected]


    [Injury:


    - Damage: Moderate


    - Effects: Hemorrhage


    - Effects: Moderate Blood Loss]


    [Cost to heal: 3 ability points]


    "Ugh¡­"


    A pained groan escaped from Theo''s lips.


    His arm¡­ no, his entire shoulder felt as if it was on fire.


    Opening his eyes¡­ Theo quickly realized the futility of doing so, given the complete lack of light in his hole.


    Even breathing appeared to be a heck of a lot harder than it should, as if Theo had to suddenly put a lot more effort into doing something as simple as taking a single breath, with such breath lasting only a fraction of the norm.


    ''Oh right, if I''m buried like that, it''s a miracle I didn''t run out of air yet.''


    Theo shook his head, slowly pushing himself to come awake and chase away the drowsiness of the unintended sleep he fell prey to.


    The pain, while unpleasant, quickly turned into a crutch for Theo''s will to rest on, using it as the only sensation he could actually rely on.


    It became his anchor to reality.


    And so, before Theo would start to seriously suffocate in his earthen coffin¡­ he started to dig again.


    Block after block, he dug.


    Swing of his shovel after swing, he dug.


    And soon enough¡­


    The stack of earth blocks in his inventory reached its capacity of sixty-four, only for another stack to appear right beside it.


    [Approaching the limit of the inventory: 9/10]


    Yet, it was also right as this prompt appeared when Theo''s mindlessly pressed shovel struck something its blade could not unearth.


    ''Huh?''


    Barely awake, Theo looked down at a small angle, already forgetting his brain had yet to recover from the period of oxygen deprivation from before. Thankfully, whenever Theo dug out a block of earth¡­ he could feel the air in his hole growing fresher and fresher, as if the space occupied by the mined-out block wouldn''t turn into a void but be replaced with perfectly fresh air instead.


    Still, with his brain operating on a low amount of oxygen for only heavens knew how long, it was no surprise how Theo''s thoughts remained sluggish, drowsy.


    ''This pain¡­'' Theo thought, gritting his teeth.


    The more his head refreshed, the more vivid the pain in his shoulder grew. And at some point, the constant weakening from the loss of blood limited how far the young man could recover.


    ''Should I waste the ability points for something as simple¡­ as a heal?'' Theo groaned at the mere thought of doing so. But¡­


    ''You are in a damp cave of your own making. You already nearly died just because you were too slow to avoid the falling tree. Is it really a good idea to hoard those points when this place is so full of risks?''


    Gritting his teeth, Theo took a deep breath¡­ and confirmed the prompt flashing before his eyes from even since he woke up.


    And pretty much as soon as he did so, it felt as if a surge of energy shot into his flesh, burning away at his wound with heat so impossibly great, it smoldered and killed off the ends of Theo''s nerves in the affected areas before they could transmit the pain signals to his brain.Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.


    With such a level of torture, Theo''s ability to feel pain ended up overflowing and just failing to process the signals, leaving Theo in a state of a pleasant ¨C addicting even ¨C bliss.


    Yet, as much as he would love to just¡­ enjoy the moment, Theo had work to do.


    And it started with something as simple as checking out all the elements of his interface.


    The hunger and thirst indicators took a considerable drop, yet were still some ways off from reaching the first checkpoint.


    His levels didn''t rise at all.


    His equipment filled up with the earth blocks.


    But what Theo really cared about was how the two most important indicators had now returned to their former state.


    [Threat level: No threats detected]


    [Forest Outskirts - Safe Zone (fake)(Miyazaki''s Snicker) - Within Range of Oilrat (level 147) patrol route!]


    "Uff¡­"


    As much of a loss as it was for Theo to lose the chance to time out just how long the Oilrat would remain in an alerted state after the encounter, it was but an irrelevant detail.


    "I''ve survived¡­"


    Feeling as if a great weight dropped off his shoulders, Theo took a deep breath before taking his time to exhale it.


    "Okay then, what do I do now?"


    As¡­ exciting as the meeting with the local fauna could be, the hunger and thirst meters stuck to the left bottom corner of Theo''s vision constantly reminded him about the one currency he couldn''t really afford to waste ¨C time.


    "If I recall correctly, I couldn''t dig any further down, right?" Muttering to himself, Theo dropped down to his knees and touched his footing, quickly confirming his theory.


    Although located much deeper than he expected, he finally reached the layer of the stone.


    The second most important material for his advancement.


    And a realm where he could finally think about building a somewhat safe shelter for himself, given the small risk of a cave-in, as compared to trying to hole up directly in the ground.


    ''Even if I will later try to move a base closer to the surface, for now¡­ For now, this place has to suffice.''


    With the basic plan for his future set, Theo took but a moment to unearth several blocks of dirt around himself. With just enough room for his purpose, he stashed the shovel away and exchanged it for his pickaxe, only to grab it with both of his hands¡­ and just gently tilt it down towards the stone just ahead of him.


    [Mining: 15%]


    ¡­


    [Mining: Completed!]


    [Obtained: 1 stone block]


    ''Now, for the hard part,'' Theo thought, stashing his pick in his inventory before dropping down to his knees again and then slowly crawling around, marking the ground''s layout with his bare hands.


    ''I guess healing that wound of mine was a good idea, regardless of the cost,'' Theo thought as he worked away, hoping to gain some amount of room before even attempting to come up with a way to illuminate the place. ''I can''t imagine trying to touch my way around like that with my right arm only half-usable. Not to bring up the risks of infection, poor natural healing, complications¡­''


    Before long, Theo found the spot he dug out before sliding his feet into it and finally, for the first time since he left the ancient gateway''s approach, stood down on smooth, solid ground.


    ''Now, to turn it into a basic room,'' Theo thought, before gritting his teeth and then getting to work.


    Digging out enough stone to create the room he envisioned in his mind, however, was the first slightly tougher task that actually took Theo a considerable chunk of time.


    With each block only measuring fifty by fifty centimeters, he had to dig four layers of it to create enough room to stand comfortably in. Then, by digging two blocks out in all four cardinal directions from where he stood, he laid the groundwork of a five-by-five grid room.


    A task that Theo imagined to take him at most a few minutes, ended up taking nearly an hour¡­ or however long had actually passed, given the lack of any time-measuring devices for Theo to track its flow. Such was the cost of trying to keep his work area to follow his mind-design while working without even a single spark of light.


    "Finally¡­ done¡­"


    Despite doing nothing but gently swinging his pick for about an hour, Theo couldn''t help but collapse down to the ground pretty much the moment he confirmed the task was completed.


    After all, what was the point of standing if the very next step involved him doing nothing but testing the limits of his system with a simple goal in mind?


    ''Right, even if there''s a recipe for it, I don''t recall what it could be in that game,'' Theo thought back to the system that started everything, only to then take a glance at his inventory.


    "Even then, it''s not like I can go a long way with but a single unit of wood, can I?" he chuckled a little, only to turn his eyes to the other type of wood, one that refused to conform to the idea of existing as mere blocks.


    ''If it''s with that kind of wood¡­'' Theo thought, before quickly messing with all sorts of arrangements for the quadro-circular pieces of the wood within his three-by-three crafting window.


    And soon enough, Theo ended up discarding the second stack of dirt out of his inventory, all to make space for his very first fireplace, one that he wasted no time placing down.


    ''Now, just to fire it up¡­'' Theo thought, grinning from ear to ear as he found a certain sense of fulfillment from going from one step of his development plan to the next¡­


    Only to then freeze as he stared into the darkness, facing the brutal obvious.


    "But how the hell do I start a fire when I have nothing to start it with?"

 Chapter 11: The easiest solution

    A fire.


    Its invention was the single biggest step humanity took.


    It could be used to ward off beasts of the night or its shadows. A first step to freeing the species from the day and night cycle¡­ Or, on a much deeper level, their first step to controlling energy.


    Which, as it just so happened, was the way in which scientists conceived the idea of civilizational growth.


    It was never about something as flimsy as culture or society.


    For the ultimate goal of every possible civilization would be to control energy and constantly expand their level of doing so.


    The difference between a barbarian and a noble technocraft could all be boiled down to how much energy they had at their disposal. And harnessing fire was the very first step on this path.


    For the problematic part, it wasn''t all that easy to conjure fire in the dim, damp cave between the dirt and the stone of the deep underground.


    "I could try with the sticks, but¡­"


    Theo was well aware of how hard it would be for him to spark fire with what he had on his hands.


    That is, if he was limited to just what a normal person could do.


    "Let''s try¡­ this."


    Theo took a look into his inventory.


    The one block of wood he got from that dangerous tree turned into four blocky planks.


    ''Not enough, after all.''


    With only four blocks, Theo couldn''t build the thing that he wanted. Even if in the original game, four blocks would be enough, filling in the two-by-two inventory crafting window, it fell short when it came to creating a ring within Theo''s current three-by-three crafting grid.


    Still¡­


    ''I wonder if this will¡­''


    Splitting the stack of the icon of the rounded wood he got when directly chopping the tree. And after a moment of consideration, he moved half of his survival wood into the stack of its blocky counterpart.


    And just like that, the numbers in Theo''s inventory changed, providing him with just enough to craft the one essential item.


    ''Craft the crafting bench.''


    Finally, after much effort and danger, Theo took a simple yet solid step ahead.


    ''And now¡­''


    His goal remained the same as before.


    To light his temporary cave. And for that, he needed fire. Yet, with no coal to make torches with, he could simply build a furnace.


    Only for the stone he gathered as he cleared out the place to come in handy. Or rather, all that stone would come in handy if not for the five-minute timer.


    ''Ugh¡­''


    This was surely a first. Yet, regardless of how short of a delay it was¡­ it annoyed Theo more than any of the obstacles he faced before.


    Just waiting for something to happen¡­ didn''t feel right.


    Thankfully, the wait wasn''t all that long. And a few moments later, Theo finally got his hands on his long-desired item.If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. Please report it.


    The crafting bench.


    He didn''t afford himself any time to celebrate, though, instantly placing it down into the darkness.


    A wave of strange feelings struck across the young man''s body.


    As if the rules of the world itself suddenly all broke down, only to be remolded in a new and weird, imperfect way.


    The change that followed, however, couldn''t be more obvious.


    For Theo''s crafting grid now expanded to five by five, once again proving not to follow all the systems Theo was familiar with during his time back on Earth.


    Now, to fill it with the stone¡­


    Out of the fifty blocks of stone Theo had in his inventory, he quickly filled the edge of his crafting space with a total of sixteen blocks.


    And once again, Theo''s gut feeling proved him right.


    For the stone now vanished, replaced by the five-minute crafting delay. And a few breaths later, Theo finally placed yet another familiar block just a single block of floor away.


    "And now, let there be¡­ fire."


    This time, rather than the world changing around him, Theo felt as if he suddenly took a quick plunge into another dimension governed by some slightly different circumstances. And after splitting his remaining wooden planks he crafted from the wooden chops and blocks, he mentally moved them over to both spots within the inventory of his second important stationary tool.


    The wood at the bottom of the device served as fuel, while the remaining planks at the top baked in the furnace''s upper inventory.


    The moment it happened, he turned the last of his planks into sticks before firing them directly into the now-burning belly of the recently crafted furnace.


    Even though just the furnace was enough to light the entire cave up¡­ Theo pulled out a burning stick from the bellows of the blocky oven, only to then close his eyes and take a breath.


    ''Recall that feeling¡­''


    The moment when he just¡­ merged half of his survival wood stack into the blocky wood, allowing him to change the type of his items on the go.


    And just like that, the burning torch in Theo''s hand became but another of his blocky-type items, now turning into an item famed for never needing any sort of refuel.


    However, between the light of his furnace and his newly made infinite torch, Theo could finally see the effect of quite a bit of manual labor.


    On one hand, it was the most crude five-by-five-by-four one could imagine, sunk into the border between the layers of dirt and rock.


    But what would be a shameful display of one''s building skills in a game turned into a pinnacle when applied to the real world.


    Theo stood in the middle of a spacious, perfectly well-shaped cave.


    The slight amount of smoke from the furnace rose up along the way Theo used to reach the depth, forming a sort of natural chimney. Right by the furnace stood¡­ a wooden cube with some sort of pattern just drawn on it, imitating maybe some tools or blueprints.


    Still, by mere proximity, this simple piece allowed Theo access to a much greater variety of designs, some of which already started to pop into his head as they formed up in the library of the crafting he could easily access.


    "No matter how big this step is, however," Theo muttered to himself as he finally dropped down to the cold, stone floor and rested his back against the side of the crafting cube, allowing the warm fires hidden in the bellows of his furnace to slowly fight off the chill that seeped deep into his bones.


    Or was it the residual terror from when that damned oilrat nearly got its claws on him?


    In all honesty, Theo¡­ couldn''t really tell.


    "Okay. Now I have a basic base, some barebones resources, and relative safety. What is it that I''m missing? What would be the next logical step? What''s urgent, and what can wait?"


    Theo allowed his voice to wander as freely as his thoughts.


    And then, he condensed all of his thoughts, all of his ideas, all of his leisurely inspirations, pooling them all into a single pile that he then threw all of his intelligence at.


    The memories of when he played all sorts of games.


    The potential routes to follow, development paths to put into use and invest in.


    ''It''s way too early to look for any answers, not when I''m but a rat burrowing in its hole in fear of the big bad wolf or, in this case, the actual rat.''


    Theo breathed out.


    "Well, no matter what, defeating that rat is an absolute priority," the young man sighed as he slowly grew more and more aware of the herculean degree of the tasks ahead.


    In the face of what he absolutely had to do, what happened up until now faded into obscurity.


    "Only by clearing this area can I gain access to more resources. But stepping into the forest with that rat roaming around? Yeah, I can forget it. And the longer I''m blocked out of the woods, the further my thirst and hunger meters drop down."


    Theo muttered to himself, fully aware of the survival clock ticking in the background.


    This rat stood in his way. It was also the greatest threat to Theo''s life and safety.


    And so, it had to die.


    "How do I do it, though?" Theo sighed again as he slowly allowed himself to sort through his inventory to figure out what he should craft next.


    Then, Theo froze, as his eyes took on a weird look.


    "What''s the easiest way to solve such an issue in any of the applicable games?"


    For but a moment longer, Theo held his breath. Then, the corner of his lips twitched slightly.


    "It''s that obvious?" he smirked before breathing out a single bout of laughter.


    "I need to cheat."

 Chapter 12 - Planning the trap

    If this world perfectly abided by the rules Theo knew from the games his system was clearly inspired by, things would be nowhere near as easy.


    There would still be many possible ways for him to exploit the mechanics implemented by the developers to simplify more complex aspects simulated by the game¡­


    But doing so would require him to reach a certain level of development, a level he couldn''t achieve with just a bit of wood and some stone.


    Thankfully, this world didn''t seem to apply those mechanics fully. Or rather, after a moment of consideration, those mechanics only applied to stuff Theo actively did.


    And so, he could craft things in ways possible only in games. He could build structures out of blocks of materials he gathered. And yet, when subjected to something as simple as gravity, when deprived of proper support¡ªa structure would collapse rather than just floating away, forever locked in the invisible grid of the world.


    The considerable gash on the side of Theo''s arm was the best possible proof of it, just like his memory of the tree suddenly toppling over when he removed a cube of wood from the middle of its trunk.


    "The question is, how do I exploit those vulnerabilities?"


    As great a help as various subroutines of Theo''s system were, they didn''t really mesh well.


    The very way in which he obtained nearly a full stack of wooden planks was the best example of it¡ªby cutting down a single tree through survival-based means, he obtained a total of sixteen pieces of wood, each of which he could later turn into four planks.


    To nail the point down, he could get a full stack of wooden planks¡­ just by felling, harvesting, and then quickly processing material he obtained from but a single tree!


    ''Thinking about this, what if¡­''


    Prompted by nothing more than a feeling, Theo turned his attention over to the crafting bench again, only to bring out the remainder of his survival-sourced wooden chunks and then just¡­ slap it in the central point of his crafting grid.


    "This is really starting to get ridiculous¡­" Theo muttered, watching how the familiar picture of a wooden plank appeared in the result window¡­


    An icon that was accompanied by six times the number of the eight pieces of wood he put into the crafting window to begin with!


    ''I guess that''s another benefit of improving my crafting potential with the bench, even if there was no mechanic like that back in that blocky game.''


    That made things a little bit easier¡­ but still left the question of dealing with the Oilrat open.


    ''No matter how much I think about it, using gravity seems like the best possible way of ensuring its death,'' Theo thought as he stretched his legs out, happily immersing himself in the warmth still offered by the fire burning in the furnace''s bellows.


    "It''s easy to imagine dropping a massive stack of stone blocks right on top of it, but¡­ how do I trap it to keep it in place? And how do I even go about putting the stones up in the air in a way that would allow me to safely drop them down?"This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.


    This wasn''t a question of merely building a support structure and then stacking the stones on top¡ªTheo still needed some quick, decisive means of collapsing the whole thing at once, all the while in a safe spot where neither the falling weight nor the Oilrat''s claws could reach him.


    "Let''s stop thinking about all of this as one singular problem and divide it into separate tasks instead," Theo muttered to himself, only to push his ass to the back, all the way to the point where it pressed against the side of the crafting bench, only for the young man to lean in and lock his eyes on the stone floor just ahead.


    "First, I need to trap it in a spot it won''t be able to quickly run away from. Second, I need to be able to drop a huge amount of weight precisely into said trap. And lastly, I need a way for the whole process to be as safe as possible."


    Theo breathed out, feeling his mind somewhat unclog now that he took one unsolvable problem and divided it into a series of smaller, perfectly solvable issues.


    The trap itself was something he didn''t even need to waste his time thinking about.


    With the image of the Oilrat''s claws clearly burned into Theo''s memory, he could somewhat estimate its size, and through it¡ªthe size necessary for his trap to work. As for the trap''s design¡­ having real-life experience of constructing makeshift traps for actual rats, Theo didn''t even need to think hard to come up with one.


    ''Judging how the rules of real life apply here, all I need is a single, sturdy beam and then a light, thin plate.''


    By building up a thin surface atop a long, round beam, Theo could use it to cover a considerable hole in the ground. And with nothing to keep the whole thing from moving around, as long as a great enough weight was applied to one end of such construction, the entire thing would flip.


    "But that only solves one of the problems," Theo thought as he brushed his chin, picturing all sorts of designs directly on the cold, gray surface of the stone. "And it comes with the prerequisite of the weight appearing on either of the swinging sides. Because if the rat steps directly over the support beam, the whole thing would have no reason to tilt over at all¡­"


    Before Theo could utter as much as another word, his lips froze as a certain design suddenly came up in his mind.


    A design he used tens if not hundreds of times when playing a game that could be broken and simplified when one took into account the pathmaking of the enemy units.


    It was a simple design, using the trick of lifting the structure just a bit off the ground and then providing the player''s enemies with a seemingly clear path of least resistance leading straight to him¡­ only, for the final few steps, to be made with blocks that were too tiny to serve as proper support for the models of the enemy characters.


    In this way, the horde would run along the long, elaborate path, only to reach the player character''s proximity¡­ and fall back down to the ground, conveniently just a few steps away from where a ramp allowed them to return to their most optimal path.


    ''Building a ramp up is out of the question; it would make the whole thing too vulnerable to direct attacks,'' Theo thought, already imagining how the Oilrat would go on a rampage and end up destroying the support columns necessary to keep a survival base up in the air. ''So, a tunnel spacious enough for the Oilrat to enter, a trapdoor pitfall right near my position, a stack of heavy stones above it, and then a safety bunker at the end, with an escape shaft leading to the deep underground in it.''


    What Theo thought would take him days to figure out turned into a logical blueprint in a matter of mere moments.


    It was as if¡­


    It was as if his systems influenced his mind, making it somehow easier for him to plan his projects in his head, something he would never even attempt back in his modern life without either a piece of paper or proper blueprinting software on his PC.


    Yet, even without the paper for Theo to pour his creativity on and then take a look at how his imagined project shaped in a more visual, concrete form, there was one aspect of this whole enterprise that the young man conveniently overlooked.


    ''While building all of that would be quite easy¡­ it''s going to take a crapton of blocks to complete, isn''t it?''

 Chapter 13: Born yearning for the mines

    ''I was born yearning for the mines.''


    Theo thought, right as he swung his pickaxe down against the stone floor in the corner of his temporary base.


    Regretfully, Theo''s pickaxe was still on the stone level¡ªa level he could graduate from only by lucking out and finding a proper ore deposit for him to mine, smelt, and then use in lieu of the stone when crafting a new set of tools.


    For now, however, all he could do was take his time, executing a total of seven swings per block of stone to excavate it, raising the number of stone blocks he had in the inventory by one while clearing out just a single block for the first leg of his current project.


    The main agenda remained the same: to hunt down the Oilrat.


    Only by doing so could Theo unlock the whole area and secure his ability to go out to gather resources he couldn''t find underground. Or, at the very least, that''s how things should work if said Oilrat really followed the rules of the game its health bar and choral music came from.


    Still, whether killing the Oilrat would achieve Theo''s goals or not¡­ It didn''t really matter. If it did, he could finally solve the most burning issue of lacking both food and hydration, even if by spending several hours a day doing nothing but gathering berries from bushes.


    If removing the Oilrat from the equation would only serve to invite another monster into the area, however¡­ Then there was nothing Theo could do, save for making the most out of the time it would take before another boss would migrate towards the area.


    Regardless of what the long-term outcome would be, however, defeating the Oilrat was still a step Theo had no other choice but to take. And for that to happen, he had to prepare.


    ''Diggy, diggy hole¡­'' Theo sang in his thoughts, only to find the task of swinging his pickaxe just a little bit easier once he started to do so to the rhythm of the popular nerdy-rock song.


    Tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap¡­ poof.


    With two blocks dug out from the corner of Theo''s floor, he jumped down the hole he just made¡­ only to then repeat the process, one block off to the side and then one block deeper.


    Seven taps with his pickaxe, and a block of stone would vanish. Repeat it two times, drop down¡­


    And then spend three minutes correcting the earlier mistake and extending each step for one additional block, slowly working towards the goal of excavating the most common and most efficient structure in the history of the blocky game¡ªa staircase-bound mineshaft.


    First, Theo just kept digging all the way up to the point where he exhausted all the space left in the one and only stack of stone he could fit into his inventory¡­ Only to then realize his big mistake.


    ''Why do I even bother carrying everything in my inventory at all times, especially with how little space I have in it?'' Theo thought, his eyes drawing to the "Axe 1/1" icon that occupied the equivalent of sixty-four blocks of stone.The author''s tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.


    The young man threw one last look at the freshly mined five steps of his mineshaft, only to then turn around and climb right back up to his base and approach the crafting bench once again.


    ''First, let''s make a chest.''


    This process couldn''t be any simpler. The crafting recipe for the chest turned out to follow the exact same rules as the recipe of the furnace, with the only difference between the two being the material changing from stone to wooden planks.


    To make temporary room in his inventory for the chest, Theo made sure to grab his axe out of it, only to then spend sixteen wooden planks, turning them into the one item that pretty much nullified Theo''s greatest gripe with how his inventory worked.


    And just like that, a moment in the building mode later, Theo''s crafting bench and furnace now got a new piece of furniture to accompany them within Theo''s base¡ªa simple block of chest.


    ''I wonder if it follows the same rules as the chests in the blocky game,'' Theo thought, only to roll his eyes and then reach his hand out in the direction of the chest.


    Pretty much according to Theo''s expectations, there was a total of ten fields'' worth of space within the chest, allowing him to stash everything but his pickaxe and his shovel away, keeping said tools only for the sake of the task at hand.


    ''Before long, I will have to see how good those berries are at restoring my marks,'' Theo thought, glancing over at his ever-decreasing hunger and thirst meters, only to then quickly look away, sparing himself the headache of thinking about it.


    There was no use dwelling on the problems he had no means of dealing with. And so, instead, he quickly returned to his still shallow mineshaft before starting the catchy song in his mind again as he began to swing his pickaxe again.


    In the end, however, mining out the necessary amount of stone for the trap Theo designed¡­ was no easy task.


    And Theo''s forgetfulness didn''t make things any easier for him, when the light from his furnace could no longer dispel the darkness of his mine-staircase, forcing the young man to go back, craft some torches, and then go right back down to continue the job.


    But¡­ as he continued to dig, the entire length of the song played out in his head, leaving Theo with nothing but silence and the hard work ahead.


    ''Thinking about this, I do need to know how many blocks I should mine, shouldn''t I?'' he thought as he neared the completion of the second full stack of the stone, with the first stack already saved in the chest back in his base.


    This task, contrary to the song, took Theo quite some time to calculate, given how many times he had to redo the entire thing due to the lack of writing utensils necessary to actually write his findings down.


    ''For the tunnel leading up to the trap, I will need nearly a hundred and fifty blocks of stone, and that''s all assuming I will settle on just one layer of blocks for each wall. For the trap room itself, and excluding the stone I would want to drop down on the bastard, it''s nearly three hundred blocks of stone, once again, with only a single layer of blocks for every wall.''


    Finding the numbers out only made the pickaxe in Theo''s hand all the heavier.


    In but one moment when the final number at last appeared in his head, the two stacks of stone he gathered with quite some time and effort¡­ suddenly turned out to be but a drop in the ocean of what Theo needed.


    ''At the very least, the wooden platform necessary for the trap only needs like thirty or forty blocks of half-blocks of wooden planks,'' Theo thought, seeking any sort of relief from his calculations that he could find. ''Still, that means¡­'' Theo thought, only to sit down on one of the steps of his mineshaft as he heaved a long sigh.


    ''Excluding the two stacks I''ve already mined out, I still need what, three hundred and thirty blocks of stone more, huh?''


    Once again, a heavy sigh escaped from Theo''s lips¡­ only for the young man to stand up, tighten his grip over the axe, and then bring it over his head before dropping it down on yet another cube of stone.


    "Nothing good will come from just whining. Didn''t I claim I was born yearning for the mines?" he thought, grinning when yet another stone vanished, only to be replaced by empty space and a dose of fresh air. "I better get back to work, then!"

 Chapter 14: A miners zone

    The Zone.


    Contrary to the original meaning of its name, it wasn''t a place, but more of a state of mind often observed in sportsmen.


    To be in the zone generally meant to perfectly attune to their task, allowing one to execute things without calculation, without much thinking¡­ just by combining their long-honed instincts and the knowledge of the craft deeply ingrained into their flesh.


    A basketball player who entered the zone would have a much easier time landing the ball within the hoop. A programmer in the zone could write code he would later struggle to decipher and understand himself, but a code that would often work better than anything he wrote before.


    But what if a simple guy with a system went to mine and, just like all those professionals, entered the zone as well?


    The best answer to this question revealed itself when, several hours after taking a dip into the underground, Theo finally emerged from his mine.


    Those few short hours had changed the man.


    From a young, excited, and naive young man that delved deep underground, he turned into a¡­ man?


    His looks became rugged. His simple clothes grew torn and tattered, fully covered in the stone dust. His hair and even his beard appeared to have grown longer and thicker, even though mining stone out was never supposed to have any effect on the condition of his hair.


    The greatest difference out of them all, however, the difference that most contributed to Theo''s new look, were his eyes.


    Deadpan eyes lacking any sort of emotion, more fitting on the face of a sleepwalker rather than a man aware of his surroundings.


    Yet, mere seconds after Theo climbed up the last of the carved-out steps and finally reached the ground level of his base¡­


    ''Ugh¡­ Wait, what?''


    Looking around in confusion, Theo tensed up ¡ª all bewildered. It took him a second to realize that he was holding his pickaxe in his hand while resting the majority of its weight down on his shoulder. A few seconds more and he noticed the rugged state of his clothes and how the mining dust now ground against his skin with every tiniest move he made.


    The final discovery, however, didn''t come until Theo decided to take a look at his inventory.


    "Are you fucking kidding me?"


    Despite Theo''s best attempts not to soil his mouth with curses over some minor stuff¡­ Both the state of his inventory and what it implied just couldn''t be classified as minor.


    Because when it came to Theo''s equipment, one of its slots was occupied by a shovel¡­ while all nine of them were filled to the literal brim with full stacks of mined-out stone!


    ''There''s like what, nearly six hundred blocks there?'' Theo thought, gulping his saliva down as the state of his inventory finally provided a suitable explanation for the state he returned from the mines in.


    Yet, if the discovery Theo made by opening up his inventory was the first hint of what was to come, then what came after couldn''t be called anything else but a flood.


    [Achievement: "Yearning for the Mines(1)" unlocked!]


    This tale has been unlawfully lifted without the author''s consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.[Lore: Mine out a hundred and fifty blocks of the same resource]


    [Achievement: "Yearning for the Mines(2)" unlocked!]


    [Lore: Mine out five hundred blocks of the same resource]


    [Achievement: "Getting into zone" unlocked!]


    [Lore: Enter the "zone" mindset for the first time!]


    [Achievement: "Mining Zone" unlocked!]


    [Lore: Enter the "zone" mindset while mining for the first time]


    [Achievement: "Workout? You mean, going out to work?" unlocked!]


    [Lore: Burn out half of your hunger meter while mining]


    [Achievement: "Let''s Rock!" unlocked!]


    [Lore: Fill at least 90% of your inventory with stone by a single mining run]


    Theo blinked a few times, not sure whether those prompt windows were real or just an effect of some sort of hunger-caused hallucination.


    Yet, as he read through them, he could ¡ª at least ¡ª confirm one thing.


    While he was out mining¡­ his hunger meter did indeed drop below the first mark!


    It wasn''t even the achievements or their potential benefits that caught most of Theo''s interest. Instead, it was the one notification that was hidden behind all of those achievement prompts, forcing Theo to close them all down before he noticed its presence.


    [Do you wish to receive the achievement-related rewards?]


    Theo glanced over at his equipment before heaving a long sigh and moving over to his chest, readily depositing all three stacks of stone that he could still fit into the storage before dismissing the inventory view and turning his attention back to the prompt.


    ''Yes.''


    [Achievement: "Yearning for the Mines(1)" unlocked!]


    [Reward: +2 inventory slots, +1 blocky subroutine level]


    [Achievement: "Yearning for the Mines(2)" unlocked!]


    [Reward: +3 inventory slots, +1 blocky subroutine level]


    [Achievement: "Getting into zone" unlocked!]


    [Reward: +3 character level]


    [Achievement: "Mining Zone" unlocked!]


    [Reward: +3 blocky subroutine level, allows for manual activation of the "zone" state]


    [Zoned-out state ¡ª focus on completing a singular task until reaching predetermined limits. While active, host''s perception ability is muted out while his efficiency at the designated task doubles.]


    [Achievement: "Workout? You mean, going out to work?" unlocked!]


    [Reward: Halves the calorie cost of heavy labor]


    [Achievement: "Let''s Rock!" unlocked!]


    [Reward: Small chance to obtain randomized ore while mining out stone]


    "Haaa¡­" Theo breathed out a long sigh, struggling to hold tight while some strange force suddenly surged from within¡­ Only to then twist and turn the already malformed rules of the world around him. Yet, even when the process came to an end¡­


    Even more prompts suddenly appeared before Theo''s eyes!


    [Achievement: Main Subroutine level 5!]


    [Reward: You''ve unlocked the first passive ability for the "blocky" subroutine!]


    [New passive: Oresmeller ¡ª You will now grow aware of any and all ores within ten-meter radius]


    [Blocky level 7: 7% on every progress tick, -40% progress tick delay]


    "That''s¡­"


    At this point, Theo wasn''t really sure how he was supposed to react.


    A simple mining run that he designed as the preparatory part for the project he had in mind already came in a clutch, providing him with a whole plethora of different bonuses.


    The rewards ranged from extreme convenience ¡ª just like the inventory expansion slots, allowing him to haul more stuff and ¡ª at least for now ¡ª forget about juggling his spoils between his personal inventory and his chest, all the way to great optimization of his workflow when it came to mining itself.


    "Still, for how awesome all those perks are¡­ Why didn''t I get even a single combat perk?" Theo despaired a bit, fully aware that if his plan to hunt the oilrat were to go south, he would be left with a dangerously low level of hunger and thirst meters.


    "Maybe it''s because I didn''t do anything related to fighting?" Theo pondered out loud, sitting down by the still-warm furnace ¡ª its fires long extinguished over the lack of fuel ¡ª leaving his body in the sole warm spot of his base to get some well-deserved rest.


    "But if so, how the heck am I supposed to get any combat perks if the only mob in the area is a damned boss?"


    Theo took in a deep breath¡­ only to end up sighing it out.


    "Or maybe it was all planned, to force me to think outside of the box?"


    Even though there was no audience for Theo to speak to, he couldn''t help but smile at his last remark.


    "Well, tough luck, I guess, seeing how making a kill-box for that rat is exactly what I''m planning to do!"

 Chapter 15: It all starts with getting to the surface

    "I didn''t really take them for much before, but now¡­"


    Finally, after several hours of preparation, Theo started to progress along with the main task. Even if only in a way as simple as digging up, to the surface.


    Right now, Theo had several tasks in mind, all of which - however - started with him returning to the surface.


    First was the most obvious one that Theo had missed before.


    ''If I can dig so easily¡­ why not just dig my way back, over the gate?''


    Taking a short break from the digging, Theo sat down on the highest step of his upward mine staircase before reaching with his hand for his necklace.


    While extremely faint, he could now sense some sort of¡­


    The young man gritted his teeth.


    ''It''s really hard to put into words, how it feels,'' he thought, clasping his hand on the crude artifacts over the cloth of his simple shirt. ''But there''s certainly something weird about it.''


    Theo sighed.


    "If not, why would it be the only thing besides clothing that I would be wearing?"


    Theo shook his head before standing up and fixing his grip on the pickaxe, all to then slam its blade down on the face of the nearby stone.


    [Mining: 22%]


    [Mining: 44%]


    ¡­


    ¡­


    ¡­


    [Mining: 88%]


    [Mining: Completed]


    [Obtained: Stone Block x1]


    By now, Theo had long since adjusted the last notification to auto-close, a convenient detail added by whoever the hell created his whole system.


    The important part, however, was how it took Theo two swings less to complete the mining process!


    With the level of his main subroutine rising, his abilities also grew by a certain, relatively small margin. But once Theo extrapolated those small margins over the size of his designs, those small differences would quickly add up.


    But that wasn''t the only boon from his recent advancements.


    While far less noticeable than the literal progress bar, his swing now¡­ became somewhat easier.


    Theo didn''t need anywhere as much strength to swing the tool, allowing him to better control the inevitable rebound of striking it against the stone''s surface. And while still a far cry from the 40% promised by the system, Theo didn''t dare to complain.


    Not when the reduced delay between the progress tick translated directly to the ease of using the tool. A change that further reflected Theo''s hunger, nearly eliminating the added cost of calories of hard, manual labor.


    With all of those changes and a slight boost from his newly obtained zone ability, Theo managed to build a staircase out from the bottom of his base all the way to the surface in just a few minutes.


    The further up Theo went, however, the more attention he paid to the very part of his system that saved his ass before.


    [Threat Level: No threats detected]


    At the top of Theo''s vision, the name of the area remained exactly the same.


    Thankfully, even upon breaching the top, the threat level didn''t change, allowing Theo to emerge from under the ground¡­ Only to realize that the bright morning has long since passed, and judging by the position of the sun¡­


    He only had an hour or two, at best, to begin his project.


    First, Theo took a look around, trying to draw a mental blueprint of the whole area and position the upper end of his stairway within the greater area between the ancient gate and the forest itself. If you encounter this story on Amazon, note that it''s taken without permission from the author. Report it.


    And it just so happened, that Theo had quite the luck with his directions, given how just a few meters off, he would end up digging up the slope of the cliffs that the dam-sized gate was sitting on.


    Still, positioned roughly in the middle between the two, it offered pretty much no benefits to either building the trap or¡­


    Testing whether or not Theo could just dig his way out of this place and save himself the needless effort of fighting the boss monster.


    ''Other humans might still be a problem,'' Theo thought, fully aware that using his voice while on the surface wasn''t the best of the ideas, ''but I would take dealing with them over dealing with that rat, no matter how many times I would get to choose.''


    Still, with Theo''s hunger meter falling below the mid-point, he couldn''t afford to test out his most optimistic theory right from the get-go.


    Not if there was even the smallest chance that this theory would prove to be a dead-end, just like trying to force his way back to civilization on the surface.


    That''s why, Theo used his building vision to move back in the opposite direction his staircase faced only to then turn ninety degrees towards the forest and then¡­ start his earlier scheme all over again.


    Every three to four steps, Theo would excavate three blocks of earth, only to leave it behind and repeat the process, all the time making sure to keep his hiding holes perfectly aligned with each other.


    ''Fourteen¡­'' Theo thought as he approached the forest, diligently counting the distance.


    If he wanted to return to his base as opposed to just searching through the nearly endless expanse of the underground, his best bet was to return to the mined-out staircase.


    ''Fifteen¡­''


    Sadly, while his main subroutine perks applied to the process of shoveling, it hardly mattered for Theo still needed two full swings to undo one block of dirt. Using the shovel rather than digging with his hand, on the other hand, came with the convenient perk of Theo being able to dig out all three blocks for the next hideout¡­ without actually going down into the hole to get the range for digging out that last, third block!


    In the end, the distance that Theo could leisurely conquer with half of a minute of peaceful stroll took him around ten minutes to conquer, sapping at what little daylight time he had left.


    ''As much as I would love to start building right away, let''s cover my basics fists.''


    Even with the Oilrat still roaming around, there were several resources Theo absolutely had to secure. Especially now, that he no longer underestimated the scope of the project he set out to complete.


    ''First, bushes.''


    While it wasn''t possible to turn sticks into planks, rendering the bush-gathering obsolete in terms of gathering wood, it was Theo''s easiest way to obtain berries.


    And while he didn''t really test them yet¡­


    ''Beggars can''t be choosers, huh?''


    Theo took a breath and calmed down, rising up from above the last of the holes and reaching out with his hand towards the nearby bush.


    Then, finally, something other than stone or dirt entered his inventory.


    [Gathering: 17%] > [Gathering: Completed]


    [Gathered: 2 sticks, 1 foliage, 1 berry]


    [Gathering: 17%] > [Gathering: Completed]


    [Gathered: 1 sticks, 4 foliage, 3 berries]


    [Gathering: 17%] > [Gathering: Completed]


    [Gathered: 4 sticks, 2 berries]


    ''That settles this area¡­'' Theo thought after taking a look around, only to confirm he harvested all the bushes within his range.


    Normally, that''s where Theo would give up. But with just a few steps further into the forest, he could gain access to like ten more of those!


    And now that he could quickly build an escape path and had no plans to move further away than just a single step from his hiding hole¡­


    ''No, man, what''s the point of greeding after those bushes if I can''t even tell if those berries are worth anything at all?''


    Squinting his eyes, Theo gave up on his excursion attempt and slid right back down into his hole. A moment later, he reached out with his hand palm up, only to summon the first of the few berries he had gathered.


    ''Wait, woah!''


    Expecting a small cluster of even smaller fruits, Theo nearly dropped the huge, apple-sized, violet berry that appeared in his hand instead.


    ''Wait, if this is any good for its size¡­''


    Theo gulped his saliva down, only now realizing just how much his stomach lusted after this full, juicy fruit.


    ''Well, you only live once, huh?'' Theo thought, smirking at the hypocrisy it took for a reincarnator like him to think that, before bringing the fruit over to his mouth and taking a greedy bite.


    The sweet, slightly acidic juice exploded in his mouth, filling every nook and cranny with its refreshing, soda-like taste.


    ''If I could bring it back to earth and carbonate just this juice¡­''


    For a second, with his brain struggling to comprehend this level of tastiness, Theo nearly moved back to earth, with nothing but a dream and miraculous berry the taste of which he would use to take over the whole soda industry on the planet!


    Then, he realized the bitter truth.


    This full bite, for how juicy and tasty it was, regenerated a noticeable part of Theo''s thirst, washing off his parched mouth¡­ But hardly contributed to his hunger meter at all.


    ''So it''s like¡­ watermelon?'' Theo thought, attempting to example the remaining party of the berry¡­ Only to realize it pretty much vanished from his hand, leaving nothing but its outer layer behind, with all the mist just¡­ vaporizing away into the air.


    ''So that''s why it was so big, huh?'' Theo thought, staring with grief at the empty shell of the fruit. ''One has to hurry the hell up while eating it, I guess.''


    Still, this one simple test confirmed one thing.


    While not exactly optimal, those berries could be a source of sustenance. And while risky to gather¡­ Just a few of them would buy him at least a few more hours!


    ''And that means¡­'' Theo''s eyes turned over to the next gathering of the bushes, just a few steps away.


    The taste of the fruit still lingered on his lips¡­


    Yet, just as he grabbed the edges of his hiding hole, ready to venture out, the most crucial notification out of Theo''s whole system flashed as its content changed.


    [Threat level: light]

 Chapter 16: An opportunity

    ''Shit!''


    Adrenaline exploded in Theo''s veins.


    This time, however, he didn''t panic.


    ''Let''s wait a little bit more¡­''


    Standing at the bottom of his three-block hole, Theo merely needed to squat down a little to fully disappear amidst the grass.


    Just to be sure, however, he quickly dug his shovel at his feet, removing just one more block while already switching over to the building vision.


    Ready to drop down the roof and hurry up down, Theo leaned over the hole''s edge, using the slight nighttime vision effect of the building overlay to scour the nearby woods.


    Thankfully, the threat level didn''t change, even as Theo''s stillness and perfect silence stretched into nearly half a minute.


    ''¡­!''


    Theo squinted his eyes, locking in on the distant presence.


    Just like with his necklace, he could somewhat¡­ feel something vague but in a rather clear direction. And by following this feeling, Theo''s eyes quickly made out the boss''s silhouette amidst the thick, high grasses of the forest''s undergrowth.


    ''There you are.''


    All of Theo''s excitement died now in a single instant, his mind muting out all the spare details.


    For several seconds, he just¡­ observed everything there was to observe about this hog-sized rat with distinct, yellow sacks growing all over its back. The length of its claws, the structure of its skull, the size and likely sensitivity of its various senses¡­


    Merely fifteen seconds into Theo''s observation, however, the Oilrat stopped.


    It sniffed the ground before raising its long, gray face and then locking its burning-red eyes in Theo''s general direction.


    ''Don''t you dare to move.''


    Back on Earth, animals would be more attracted to movement than presence. And while Theo never had the chance to verify whether that was the case in this world or not¡­


    The rat had yet to move.


    For a few more tense moments, this weird, thickly shaped monster remained vigilant.


    Neither the threat level nor the name of the area changed, though, providing Theo with just enough confidence to remain still.


    Then, after what felt like a century, the monster slowly turned its head away, picking its pace as it lost interest.Unauthorized usage: this tale is on Amazon without the author''s consent. Report any sightings.


    ''Stay fucking still!''


    Theo''s instincts paralyzed all his muscles, stopping him from retreating to the safety of his hole to wait out the boss''s patrol.


    Swish!


    The Oilrat nearly broke its neck, swinging its long head with such speed and force, the shockwave of this move sent several nearby trees falling.


    Theo, however, kept perfectly still.


    Finally, the Oilrat turned its head and started to walk off again, no longer bothering with the pretended retreat.


    ''Now, to time out its patrol¡­''


    Slowly sliding down into his hole, Theo then turned his attention up and sealed the entrance. With his shovel at the ready, he then froze still with his eyes drawn to but one element of his interface.


    [Threat level: Low]


    ''And now we wait.''


    As valuable as the remaining daylight was, knowing the limits of his ability came first.


    And so, Theo just waited, desperate to breathe as silently as he could.


    There was no telling how the Oilrat could sense his presence. And so, until the threat notification would clear, Theo didn''t dare to move a muscle.


    In the end, the notification closed down on its own roughly five minutes after the boss left, giving Theo some deeper understanding of this ability''s range.


    Previously, the Oilrat took but a few seconds to cross from beyond the skill''s detection range and get almost on top of Theo. Now, it took nearly five minutes for it to leave the skill''s range.


    ''Judging by how I watched it walk away and assuming it kept that leisurely pace¡­''


    Theo attempted to crack the information he obtained, turning it into something he could actually use¡­


    ''But who is there to tell it moves in a straight line?''


    I closed my eyes and then started to dig directly down, moving one block to the side every two vertical blocks.


    This made for quite the narrow passage, impossible for the Oilrat to dig through with ease while just spacious enough for Theo to easily climb through. A few moments later, he suddenly lost footing, falling roughly a meter only to land on the steps of the mineshaft he excavated before.


    Safely deep underground, Theo could finally breathe a sigh of relief, only to look up the way he came.


    "It would be best to measure how long it will take to loop its patrol route," I thought, only to grit my teeth and then start climbing straight back up, eager to make the most of the quite likely limited time I had.


    Yet, even upon returning to the surface, Theo dared not to just¡­ dart out to gather as much as he could before the Oilrat would return.


    No.


    Once near the surface enough, Theo descended a bit lower only to then dig an additional tunnel heading deeper into the forest - right where the Oilrat attempted to rat him out.


    Those fallen trees were too much of a game changer for the young man to just ignore!


    ''Felling the trees is loud. I wouldn''t be surprised if that''s what initially alerted it before,'' Theo thought, grinning as he mined through the calculated distance, only to then start digging up through the dirt.


    And just like that, with one direct connection, Theo found himself at a spot where three trees conveniently fell, turning into a complicated maze of what parts of those trees to remove first, not to cause the entire thing to make a loud noise by collapsing.


    But with the Oilrat out on patrol and his plan in need of quite a lot more wood than what Theo still had on himself, it was an opportunity he simply couldn''t afford to waste!


    ''Now, let''s start with this part here,'' Theo thought, taking out his axe from the inventory before starting to lightly tap it against the trunk of the fallen tree.


    The first cube of wood vanished into thin air. And right after, the top-most trunk heaved, the stress of the structure it was a part of now redistributing only to quickly settle¡­ with the whole thing still in one piece!


    ''Phew,'' resisting the desire to wipe the sweat off his face, Theo looked through the puzzle only to pinpoint another vulnerable part that he could safely remove.


    ''This might be scary, but the sooner I get this over with, the sooner I can go back to the safety of the mines!''

 Chapter 17: Stairs of Freedom?

    ''That was one hell of a run!''


    Theo didn''t rush back into the underground the moment he managed to get most of the wood out of the trees the boss felled. As it turned out, when he removed those logs, the area around his hole turned out to be quite rich in bushes¡ªas one could expect from the deeper part of the forest.


    ''Seventeen berries, twenty-eight sticks, and half of a stack of foliage,'' Theo thought as he took a quick look at his inventory. ''Adding seventy-seven blocks of wood to that¡­''


    Theo shook his head before breathing out a satisfied sigh.


    "It really feels good!"


    The young man exclaimed while making sure not to make his voice too loud.


    Out at the edge of the forest, he could never know when danger was lurking around¡­ Or rather, whether or not nearby monsters had their hearing range greater than Theo''s threat detection subroutine.


    ''That was a job well done for sure,'' Theo thought, taking one more breath of rest before standing up and moving back right the way he came.


    First, he crossed over the small, shallow tunnel to the spot he picked for his future trap. Yet, rather than lingering there, he opted to go down his secondary stairway, reached the primary one, and then¡­ started to dig in the opposite direction of the forest.


    ''No matter what, this solution is too obvious not to try it out!''


    With the bare minimum of food now secured, Theo could get a little bit more liberal with his time.


    And so, just like he did for what felt like hours by now, he went back to digging, patiently swinging his shovel and then his pickaxe.


    ''That makes a third¡­ no, fourth staircase,'' Theo thought, doing his best to keep himself from getting into the zone. It was a great mindset to be in when he had to do some mindless digging¡­ But not knowing what to expect from his current goal, Theo dared not to just¡­ turn his mind off.


    ''I guess I should start naming them to at least know myself what the heck am I talking about¡­?''


    Increasingly bored, Theo used his creativity to find seemingly random topics to just think about.


    ''The first staircase I made, the one leading further down from my base, shall become the mining steps. The staircase leading up to the surface will be the main one. Then, that trap access¡­ Trap steps?''


    Theo smirked, still fresh enough to notice his lackluster naming sense.


    ''Then, since I went for practicality with the first three, how about I make a better name for the stairs I''m digging right now?''If you discover this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.


    Theo''s current tunnel couldn''t be more cramped, leaving only just enough room for him to carefully descend, practically squeezing through the excavated blocks.


    And yet, with the ultimate goal of those steps in mind¡­


    ''Freedom stairs doesn''t seem all that bad,'' Theo thought as he allowed himself to entertain the idea that he could just ignore the massive gate above and dig his way out of his exile by going underground.


    A hope that continued to reinforce itself the longer Theo dug¡­ only to come to a crushing end when his pick struck the stone, only for a notification window to appear instead of the progress bar Theo had long since grown used to.


    [Magistone - You need a magi-grade tool to break it!]


    For a moment, Theo just stared at the notification, only to then turn his eyes over to the magistone itself.


    There was absolutely no difference between the stones all around him and the stone ahead, a fact he confirmed after excavating around the place and then whipping out a torch from his inventory to inspect it closer.


    The only way for Theo to differentiate between normal stone and magistone¡­ was to strike it down with his pick. That is until he took the time to excavate around the area a bit more, only to soon realize that this wasn''t just a chunk or a gathering of some special ore but quite literally a wall of an element he couldn''t overcome. A wall stretching as far up, down, and to the sides as Theo bothered to venture.


    "I guess that''s the cue for me to give up, isn''t it?" the young man muttered to himself as he sat down on the nearby stone step and heaved a long sigh of resignation.


    Resignation that wasn''t matched by the growing fire of determination in his eyes.


    "As fucking if!"


    Using the momentum of his rage against his circumstances, Theo stood up¡­ and started to dig sideways. What''s more, no longer willing to hold anything back, he took a moment to turn his memories of the surface into a geoschematic in his mind¡­ before turning his zone ability on.


    ...


    ...


    ...


    "Woah!"


    Theo let out a small cry as yet another notification appeared before his eyes, slightly different from what he saw just before.


    [Hardstone - You need advanced-grade tool to break it!]


    Without a word, Theo turned around and even summoned his torch again only to wave it in the narrow tunnel¡ªonly to fail to see the end of it.


    ''Judging by the amount of stone in my inventory, I didn''t really dig all that far, but¡­''


    Still, it was a bummer.


    But even now, Theo had yet to exhaust all of his options!


    ''Surface it is, then.''


    Knowing better than to waste his time lingering on what didn''t go according to his desires, Theo hurried back across the tunnel he just finished up, taking roughly a minute to return to where he entered the zone and started to dig with the wall of magistone directly to his left.


    This time, however, Theo decided to dig up, creating a second leg of his freedom steps, leading all the way up to the dark-covered surface. Yet, pretty much as soon as Theo''s shovel broke the very top layer of the dirt leading him up to the ground, his head suddenly spun around, his vision blurred, and his entire sense of self crashed out like a computer about to flash its owner with the blue screen of death.


    This attack, bug, or whatever else it was struck Theo so heavily, he ended up falling right back down several steps of his staircase¡­ Only for whatever it was attacking him to cease its offensive as soon as he involuntarily retreated two or three meters underground.


    And so, lying there, struggling to process what had just happened, Theo could only come to one singular conclusion.


    ''Surface is a bust.''


    He thought, feeling the heartache of yet another avenue of escape from this hellish place closing down right before his eyes.


    But again, rather than making him give up, this setback only reinforced Theo''s determination.


    ''That leaves me with no other choice but to try to dig deep enough to reach the damned bedrock!''

 Chapter 18: With the blessing of the berries, its time to begin!

    ''And that''s another dud¡­''


    Theo sighed heavily as he dropped his butt down to the stone, staring at a simple notification that pretty much proved he was boxed in this place.


    [Bedstone - You need a modern-grade tool to break it!]


    ''That makes magistone in the direction of the gate, hardstone if I want to break through the underground of the cliffs, and bedstone¡­ bedrock?¡ªto dig below all of that,'' Theo thought, only to follow it up with another sigh.


    ''And that translates to magi-tool, advanced tool, or modern-grade tool, none of which I can craft right now, huh?''


    For the third and last time, Theo sighed.


    Then, he stood up, shook his head, and then slapped both of his hands against his cheeks.


    "It''s not like I didn''t expect it. I merely wished to ensure I wasn''t missing out on an easy way out. And now that I did¡­"


    Theo raised his head and looked up the third and last leg of his freedom steps, in the direction of the surface.


    In theory, there was still one way out of this place that appeared to be blocked by nothing but air¡­ and how inaccessible it was.


    But contrary to all sorts of staircases Theo could dig out directly in the underground¡­ This last-resort option involved building up instead.


    "Even if I can actually create a perfectly stable tower growing as high as that massive, dam-like gate, what if its effects will keep me from crossing above it anyway? Or worse, what if those effects make me stumble and fall from such a great height?"


    Theo shook his head before taking in a deep breath, throwing out a full stack of stone out of his inventory, and then using the spare space to stash his axe.


    "Now that I''ve exhausted my options, it''s time to do things as intended. But first¡­"


    Rather than rushing back to the point where the main steps and freedom steps crossed, Theo pulled out one of his berries, only to then take his time just staring at it.


    ''How do I eat it to get the most out of it?''


    He had already seen the majority of the berry''s meat sizzle out into the air from mere contact with the atmosphere. And while he knew not how such a process worked, he wasn''t all that keen to watch it happen again.


    ''Let''s try not to be greedy first,'' Theo thought, sitting down on the stone step before bringing the fruit up to his mouth and then taking a careful, measured bite.


    Instead of tearing the skin of the fruit open and taking a proper bite, however, Theo just sank his teeth into the fruit''s skin before slowly sucking at it, as if he were a toddler desperately suckling on its mother''s breast.Love this novel? Read it on Royal Road to ensure the author gets credit.


    Once again, the rich, refreshing juice flowed into Theo''s mouth. This time, however, thanks to the measures Theo took, it just kept flowing into his mouth as opposed to overflowing it in one go, only for the majority of the fruit''s meat and juice to just vanish.


    Still, even with Theo''s best attempt to keep the fruit from spoiling in the air, he only managed to suck on it for a few seconds before the fruit suddenly deflated, only to pretty much collapse right in his hand.


    ''I guess it''s not about being patient either,'' Theo took a mental note before taking a few moments to imagine all sorts of other ways of preparing this surprisingly complex berry.


    ''Cooking is out of the question; the top of the furnace wouldn''t get hot enough to work like a stove. That leaves me with the option of trying to cook it directly through its interface or using the furnace''s heat to try to dry it out. But¡­''


    Theo shook his head before standing up and starting his long ascent up the last leg of his freedom steps.


    "But that''s all for later."


    Consuming the berry allowed Theo to restore his thirst just above the first threshold while pushing his hunger right to the point between hunger and early starvation.


    Still, for how risky it was to gather those berries, Theo didn''t dare to waste them on something as rudimentary as appeasing his hunger.


    ''A man can go seven days without food, but only three without water. And while the first would make them miserable, just a day without a drink would leave anyone utterly useless.''


    Still, despite his attempt to stay hydrated, by the time Theo climbed all the way back up to his main steps, he had long since sweated away all the juice he managed to drink from the berry before it vanished.


    ''Now, time for another test,'' Theo thought, pulling another berry up as the mere sight of his thirst meter falling below its first threshold made him too uncomfortable to even think about working.


    This time, rather than staying patient, Theo made use of the one ability that college actually taught him¡ªhow to chug beers during parties.


    And so, with another berry out of his inventory and now in his hand, Theo brought it up above his face, only to lean his head back¡­ and then repeat the same process as before, with the slight change of digging much harder and tearing a lot more of the fruit''s skin.


    ''Chug!''


    With just this one directive in his mind, Theo opened up his throat and allowed the fruit''s juices to just freely flow down his mouth, sparing no time for something as wasteful as breathing.


    Gulp after gulp, Theo continued to chug at the fruit''s delicious, refreshing juice, managing to reach the point where he started to squeeze down on it to push even more of it out¡­


    Only for the berry to collapse right within his hands, turning into dust¡ªand because he was still trying to squeeze down on it¡ªcausing his hands to clap.


    ''That was¡­ a lot better than before,'' Theo thought, only to wipe his mouth with the torn sleeve of his simple shirt, watching with satisfaction how his thirst meter now moved quite a bit up.


    Sadly, the hunger meter wasn''t as eager to move, only rising far enough to justify using the berries for food as opposed to Theo growing more and more desperate to find a new source of it.


    There were still more ways for the young man to test just how useful those berries were. At least three more methods still existed for him if he made the trip back to his base¡­


    But for now, his meters were at a good-enough level. And with the threat level remaining at the lowest, what could be a better time than to start working on the trap?


    "I''ve been putting it off for long enough," Theo muttered to himself, only to glance up at his inventory where stone blocks once again filled up all the spots not occupied by the loot from the bushes, wood, or Theo''s tools.


    In other words, he now had absolutely everything he required to complete his trap and then pray that it would work as designed. Adding up how he confirmed there was no other way out of this place... Building the whole thing was just the next logical step on Theo''s mental itenary.


    And so, after making another quick trip up the trap steps, Theo removed the dirt cover at its top before emerging back to the surface, right as the night appeared to reach its darkest phase.


    ''That leaves me with just enough time to get the main frame up,'' Theo thought¡­ Only for his lips to then twist into a sour smile. ''I only wonder when my lack of sleep will start to catch up to me, though?''

 Chapter 19: Building Phase is on, baby!

    ''Threat level, clear. Surroundings, clear¡­''


    Theo did a quick sweep of his surroundings, knowing better than to rely on just his system.


    The experience at the foot of the gate was the greatest proof that while great, his system might not be perfect.


    There was no notification about the barrier that stopped him nor about any sort of attack he ended up suffering because of it.


    ''In other words, whatever that nauseating feeling was, it didn''t register in the system. And that means I can''t just take it easy to fully rely on it, can I?''


    Still, when it came to checking Theo''s surroundings, it appeared that the system was just good enough, with the subroutine''s detection matching the results of Theo''s personal observation.


    And with that, there was absolutely nothing left to stop Theo from putting his plans into action.


    ''First, the tunnel,'' Theo thought as he switched over to the construction overlay of his vision, whipping out the first stack of stone blocks.


    ''I saw how big that Oilrat is, so¡­ two meters high, six meters wide should be enough.''


    There was a chance that if the tunnel were too narrow, the rat wouldn''t dare to haphazardly enter it. On the other hand, if it were too wide and spacious, the material requirements for constructing it would grow at a pace Theo didn''t even want to imagine or calculate.


    And so, settling on the golden middle between those two extremes, he started the arduous task of selecting the location, dropping the block of stone, and then confirming the process, only to select another location and do it all over again.


    ''For now, let''s use the dirt for the floor, although it could be a good idea to replace a block just below the floor with stone too¡­''


    Even before finishing up the tunnel, Theo already started to ponder over ways of improving his design.


    ''Or not,'' he then ended up shaking his head, daring not to openly use his voice while outside. ''This place only has to serve its purpose once, only to then grow obsolete the moment the job''s finished. What would be the point of overengineering it, then?''This story has been unlawfully obtained without the author''s consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.


    Soon, the first half of a meter of the tunnel''s planned eight meters of length turned from mere numbers in Theo''s inventory into an actual arch, just high enough for a human - or an Oilrat - to comfortably walk below.


    From then on, the task of building grew a little bit easier, with Theo simply switching to the hiding hole five blocks away from the original spot, only to then add blocks to the already existing frame.


    In this way, building the hoarding tunnel of the trap took Theo but a fraction of the time he was expecting the task to take, allowing him to move on to the next part of the project - the trap hall.


    ''Now, this is going to be quite a lot bigger, won''t it?'' Theo thought as he merely imagined the actual meat of the trap appearing out in the real world.


    First, he had to build a hole massive enough for the boss to be unable to jump out of it. Then, he had to replace all of its walls with stone to make sure that damned rat couldn''t just climb out of it, doing the same to the floors to stop it from digging its way out.


    But that, while the most time-consuming part of the process, was there merely to ensure the Oilrat would stay in place long enough for Theo''s trap to spring up¡­ Or rather, for Theo to remove a single, conveniently placed block and send a huge pillar of raw stone crushing down right on top of that bastard of a rat''s head!


    ''I can leave building the payload for later. Right now, just making the trap hall should be enough.''


    Between the hidden hole for the boss to drop in and the massive chunk of stone ready to drop down, there were still three more elements just to this room alone that Theo had to prepare.


    First, he needed a trap-door mechanism, something that would abuse the edge between his subroutines and the laws of the world around him that still enforced their authority. Then, he needed to build a wall all around this place to ensure the rat would have no other choice but to step on the trap. Lastly, he needed to complete one test to help him determine just how he was going to drop tens of tonnes of stone down on that monster''s unsuspecting head!


    ''But for that test, I need space. And I''m going to have more than enough space once I dig the trapping hole out. And that means¡­''


    Theo took his sweet time figuring out the most optimal progression for his project before finally settling on the proper way for him to progress.


    ''First, the containment structure,'' Theo thought as he laid out the frame for a room fifteen by fifteen blocks, amounting to seven and a half meters squared of trapping space.


    ''No¡­ Now that I look at it¡­'' Theo squinted his eyes¡­ only to sigh out and then expand the frame to double its original size.


    ''Yeah, that''s more like it,'' Theo thought now that the insides of the containment structure now stretched out seven meters in every cardinal direction from its most central block. ''It''s going to be hell to finish up, but¡­''


    Theo''s eyes habitually dropped down to the bottom of his vision, only to see that the "no threats" part of his threat detection now changed to "Threat Level: Low."


    ''But for now, I guess it''s time for me to take some rest,'' Theo thought, only to rush right back into his hole, seal its entrance, and then dig down a few blocks just for a good measure. ''And if luck will have it, by the next evening...''


    Theo clenched his hands into fists as fires of determination once again ignited in his eyes.


    ''By the next evening, this whole place will turn into that bastard''s tomb!''

 Chapter 20: Hungry no more

    Theo''s first night¡­ Or rather, his first sleep in this foreign new world was surprisingly nice.


    Sure, he was deprived of all the goods of the modern world like temperature control, a comfy bed, or even something as simple as a pillow¡­


    But after nearly an entire day and night of constant stress, work, and planning, even the bed made out of blocks of foliage squeezed down underneath his weight allowed him to get some proper rest.


    Sadly, the same couldn''t be said about the moment when he woke up.


    ''Wha¡­''


    "WHAT THE HELL?!"


    Jumping up, Theo ended up striking his head against the ceiling of the small, coffin-like hole he dug into the side of his base before replacing the stone floor with dirt.


    "Where the hell¡­"


    Theo''s heart nearly jumped out of his chest, only for him to finally recall what was going on.


    ''Where the hell am I? What the hell is this place? What the hell am I even doing here?''


    Theo thought only to then shake his head.


    "As if any of those answers were going to just come to me, huh¡­"


    Shaking his head with exasperation over his naive wish for answers, Theo then clasped his open palm against his cheeks, hoping for the bit of pain to help him sober up from his drowsiness.


    ''Come on, man, you know what you need to do,'' Theo thought, sitting on the edge of his green bedding, resting his elbow against his knees while hiding his slightly burning face within his palms.


    A moment later, Theo stood up and jumped a few times to get the blood pumping through his veins.


    "I need to get back to work. But just before that¡­"


    Using the fact that he was already down in his base, Theo moved away from the sleeping edge of his underground base and back to where the original chest was now accompanied by two more of its cousins, all looked over by the majestic block of the stone furnace.


    "I''m really glad I got all that wood," Theo muttered to himself.


    Even though the next step of his trap-building process would net him more stone than he would know what to do with for the rest of his life¡­ It still felt nice to have his stuff somewhat organized between chests, with one of them housing nothing but ten full stacks of stone.Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.


    Right now, however, Theo''s focus was on the big black block of the furnace rather than the chests or their content.


    Because as it turned out, not only could he use a block of unprocessed wood for fuel¡­ the processing slot apparently accepted berries!


    ''Now, let''s hope for something¡­''


    The process of smelting the berry turned out faster than Theo needed to even finish his thought.


    ''¡­good¡­''


    The berry¡­ turned into some sort of deep purple powder. A reaction¡­ that kind of made sense.


    "A dye, huh?" Theo nearly spat down on the ground in frustration, stopping himself from doing so simply because he would be the one either cleaning or stepping into it later.


    With a sigh of resignation, he shook his head and took the dye out of the results window¡­


    [Obtained: Dried Berrymush x1]


    "Hmm?"


    For yet another time since everything started, the system managed to take Theo by surprise.


    ''So it''s not a dye?'' he thought, quickly pulling the mush out of the inventory¡­ Only for small bits much closer in size to the berries he knew about to appear in his hand and then drop all over from it, scattering all over the stone floor with only a few deep purple bits remaining in his palm.


    ''Food?'' Theo thought, too taken by the moment to even rush to gather the scattered pieces.


    "Well, it shouldn''t hurt much to try, huh?" he muttered before using his other hand to pick one of the tiny balls and then throw it into his mouth.


    The taste was¡­ pretty bland, as if processing the berry somehow robbed all of the flavor value out of it. And yet¡­


    ''Wait, that''s actually good,'' Theo thought, his eyes skyrocketing on his face when he felt just this one bit, less than a proper bite¡­ somehow deal with the empty sensation in his stomach.


    "But if that''s the case¡­" Theo''s eyes rolled up only to then continue rolling all the way to the point where they landed on the bits of dried berry that scattered all over the floor.


    "It''s clear rock, the same place spring water usually comes from, so¡­" Theo gulped his saliva, "it wouldn''t hurt anyone to pick them back up?"


    A split-second decision later, Theo threw the rest of the berry mush he still had in his hand over to his mouth before getting down on his knees and grabbing all the berries he could find within the narrow circle of light cast by the torch he whipped out from his inventory.


    Not long after, he managed to gather every last piece he dropped before, all before stuffing them into his mouth and then biting into another berry to wash this tasteless food down his throat with its momentary, divine juice.


    "Damn¡­"


    Shaking his head in exasperation as he felt somewhat sated for the first time in what felt like ages, Theo then took a glance at his hunger and thirst level.


    The change wasn''t all that massive, reaching nowhere near the levels of the high-level foods of the blocky or survival games.


    For now, what it was worth, however, they pretty much eliminated the most urgent of Theo''s worries. And all out of nowhere, the major reason for why he was in such a hurry to defeat the boss of the local area was no more.


    ''Still, knowing I can survive off those berries doesn''t change the fact that for as long as that boss lives¡­ I won''t have any form of peace. Not when every outing to gather more of them comes with the added risk of being torn to shreds.''


    Theo closed his eyes and leaned down, resting his hands against his knees as he took his time to chase the last remnants of his drowsiness.


    "Either way, the Oilrat has to die. And if I want to make it happen anytime soon, then I''ve wasted enough time already."


    Shaking his head, Theo took a deep breath before slowly, gradually letting it out.


    "No matter what, I will finish that damned trap by the end of today!"

 Chapter 21: Building the trap

    ''Threat level, check. Time of the day, check. Hunger and thirst meters, check.''


    Theo took a deep breath.


    "Time to get to work."


    Emerging from the endpoint of his main steps, Theo took just a little longer to look around, opting not to fully rely on his threat detection alone.


    Thankfully, be it through his system or through his eyes, no threats appeared to be present in the sun-basked border between the open plain and the edge of the forest.


    And so, wasting no further time, Theo came out from his hole and rushed straight back to the center of his project.


    ''First, the corners.''


    Theo started by digging out his standard, one-by-one-by-three blocks holes in each of the four corners of his projected structure, only to then happily fill them up with stone. Then and only then did he dish his shovel out and start to dig shallow, merely one-block-deep trenches that connected each of the corners with both of its neighbors.


    ''And that marks the outline of the whole thing. So, I guess, I can move on to building the walls!''


    While not the perfect, logical, and reasonable manner of building given the lack of proper, deep foundations for the walls, if there was one thing that Theo had to guarantee above everything when focused on his project¡ªit was his own, personal safety.


    And for that safety to amount to anything, creating a proper enclosure for the project was the very first step.


    That''s why, rather than digging out all the blocks necessary for the trap to be completed, Theo whipped out the first of his stone stacks before setting on the job of filling the trenches he just dug out.


    It was a simple task, yet it still forced the young man to use up nearly two entire stacks of stone blocks just to make an outline for his walls. A cost that then quadrupled, bringing the total cost of the above-ground walls alone to just a bit over nine full stacks of stone.


    Or, a total of ten full stacks when accounting for the inner walkways and makeshift stairs Theo dotted around the place to gain access to the upper surface of the finished walls.


    ''Damn¡­'' After making the habitual check of the system threat level, Theo took a moment to look over the more-or-less finished wall before sitting down on the bottom of one of the steps and sighing out.


    ''I might need to get to digging the hole proper quite a bit sooner than I expected¡­''Unauthorized use of content: if you find this story on Amazon, report the violation.


    Even with Theo''s commitment to finish his project before the end of the day¡ªa goal he soon changed from the end of the day to before he goes to sleep again¡ªit wasn''t something that could be done all that easily.


    After all, those four-block-high walls were only good enough to stop an average human from peering inside of the stone square Theo erected. When it came to stopping said average human, however, Theo was still at least one, or more likely two meters short.


    "And it''s not like I can expect that Oilrat to only be capable of what a human would be. So, until I put a roof above my head and reinforce my floors with stone to stop it from digging into the structure¡­" muttering to himself, Theo shook his head before clasping his hands at his face.


    As a child of a modern age, Theo wasn''t really used to doing stuff that he could track the proper progress of. He was much more used to the idea of just mindlessly repeating the same task over and over again, not to anyone''s benefit but merely to fulfill the fiscal and bureaucratic requirements of the company he used to work at.


    On one hand, now that he could reliably track the progress of the goals he set for himself, he should be filled with motivation, and yet¡­


    ''Seeing just how much it takes to build but a slight part of what I want to construct¡­''


    Shaking his head, Theo sighed away yet again before standing up from the steps and getting straight back to work.


    First, he threw several more stacks of stone to bring his walls one more meter higher into the air.


    They were still not high enough to stop a monster determined to jump over them¡­ but, to a degree at least, they provided Theo with a benefit nearly as important as his actual safety¡ªa certain degree of peace of mind.


    ''Now, not to make things harder for myself down the line¡­ How do I go about building the roof? Or should I even bother at this point?''


    With just the construction of the walls, Theo''s supply of stone blocks dwindled by over half. Adding up the stone needed to reinforce the walls by doubling their thickness, the stone he needed to create the frame for the roof, all the way to the stone necessary for the trap''s payload and the lining of the trap''s walls¡­


    "I guess it''s time to get back to digging, huh?"


    Daring to utter but a slight whisper, Theo shook his head before¡ªas opposed to forcing himself to make constant trips between the surface and his base¡ªhe used just a sliver of the wood he had stocked on to create another crafting bench first, before using it right away to craft a total of sixteen storage chests.


    ''Now, for the fun part,'' grinning to himself, Theo oriented himself over the location of his main steps underground, before walking off as close to the wall as he could¡­ Only to then start digging down a short trench, three blocks long and one block wide, starting with the block directly underneath the wall and continuing into the structure.


    A process that he supplemented by adding up a block of stone directly underneath the wall, then attaching a chest directly onto the stone foundation¡­ and then using the remaining, third block of the hole to repeat the whole process and go one block further down.


    ''For a trap eight meters deep, I need to excavate sixteen layers of dirt and stone. Counting the blocks within each layer, I will need just a bit more than a single storage chest to fit all of those blocks in. So¡­'' Theo smiled to his own thoughts as he continued to shovel away, removing one block of dirt after another while preparing himself for the bulk of his task.


    The one task he would be more than happy to use his zone ability to complete, fully aware of just how long and boring it would be.


    The job of unearthing over twelve and a half thousand blocks necessary to make his trap happen.

 Chapter 22: Finally, its ready

    Failure.


    No matter how much Theo wanted to deny it, that was the only way to describe the outcome of his proclamation, determination, and dedication when he finally threw them at the wall of reality.


    ''To think I''ve forgot about such a crucial element¡­'' Theo thought as he woke up yet again, his stock of berries running rather low now that he started to use them separately for both eating and drinking.


    Digging out the hole for the trap wasn''t anywhere as problematic as Theo assumed it would be. With his ability to zone in on the digging, he could simply turn his mind off as he was about to start the job and then regain his consciousness with the bulk of it completed.


    As long as the instructions for the job were simple and repetitive, Theo could count on his zoned-in self to get it done.


    What he didn''t account for was just how deep the layer of the dirt was. And as it turned out, digging out a huge, square hole as far down as eight meters didn''t bring him anywhere near close to the layer of the underground stone.


    Theo first discovered this miscalculation when he happily built a makeshift, dirt staircase to gain access to each of his storage chests¡ªeach tasked with holding the material excavated from a single layer they were assigned to¡­


    Only to find out that all of them were filled with nothing but simple dirt.


    A task that was supposed to provide Theo with both the trapping space for his project and the material necessary to complete the rest of the structure only managed to mark off the first out of the two goals.


    As such, having no other choice, Theo cleared out his inventory by throwing all the stacks of dirt away before using up the rest of his berries for one hearty and tasty meal¡­


    Before doing the most repetitive task of both the game his system came from and what his recent past was all about¡ªhe went back to the mines.


    Thankfully, whether he was digging out ground or mining out raw stone, his ability to just zone in on the task saved him from the boredom of spending¡ªquite literal¡ªhours doing nothing but swinging his pickaxe.


    What it didn''t spare Theo from, however, was both the ramped-up rate at which he burned through his hunger and thirst meters and the purely physical exhaustion that came with mining for hours on end.


    That''s why, the very first thing Theo did once he not only completed his hole but then also mined two inventories worth of stacks of stone blocks¡­ was to give up on the promise he made to himself and just go to sleep.


    Now that he woke up, however, all thirsty, hungry, and demotivated, his choice¡ªas reasonable as it was for someone under the constant threat of an attack by a boss monster over a hundred levels stronger than him¡ªdidn''t seem all that appealing.


    "If only I didn''t slack, this damn trap would be long finished," Theo muttered to the audience of his very own ears before slapping his cheeks with his open palms and standing up from his makeshift bedding.


    As much as he wanted to, Theo refused to allocate any real time to wallowing in self-pity in his schedule.


    Especially now that he ran out of food and could feel the cold touch of hunger and thirst reaching out for his shoulder, he simply didn''t have the time to spare for such folly!


    "Well, I''ve got all the materials I need for now, at the very least," he muttered to himself before, just in case, taking a quick look into his inventory.


    Popping up to the side, the inventory of one out of the total of now five of his base-located chests was filled with stone, just like the majority of his personal inventory.


    There, however, a surprise lay in wait ever since his return from the mines, a surprise he was too tired before to even notice.


    ''Seven pieces of coal? Well, I can make charcoal with ease so it''s not all that important, but¡­''This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.


    Theo gulped his saliva as he stared at a different icon in his inventory he didn''t really see before.


    An icon that he was familiar enough with to recognize it at a glance.


    ''Is that a freaking iron ore?!''


    Muffling out his shout of excitement in a bid to keep it to himself, Theo wasted no time rushing over to the furnace, stuffing it with wood and then placing the ore in the processing window.


    A short moment of wait¡ªa moment that seemingly stretched out into infinity for Theo¡ªthe first of the ore pieces vanished from the processing window, only to give birth to yet another item in the results window of the furnace.


    ''I guess there''s no achievement for smelting my first ingot, huh?'' Theo thought, staring at the new icon for a moment before sighing out and then moving it over to his inventory, mere seconds before the next piece out of the total of seven he somehow obtained would turn from ore into ingot.


    [Achievement: "Hardcore stuff"]


    [Reward: +5 inventory slots, increasing the odds of finding ore while mining out stone, +10% progress tick when using iron tools, unlocking new recipes!]


    At first, Theo couldn''t help but smile, feeling a sense of progress for the first time since¡­ since his walls reached three meters above the surface, pretty much enclosing him away from all the threats lurking in the forest.


    Yet, after taking a moment to think about it¡­


    ''Save for the growth of inventory and maybe the increased odds of random ore strike¡­ aren''t the other two pretty damn lackluster?''


    For an achievement unlocking when he smelted iron for the very first time, how was the added tick when using iron tools any good given how he couldn''t make them without this achievement to begin with? The same question applied to the new recipes¡ªhow was he supposed to use them if he didn''t have the iron before?


    In the end, however, growth was growth, whether Theo could find satisfaction in it or not. And while there was a portion of him that wanted to just wait for the iron to smelt to put it to immediate use¡­


    "Is there actually any point in doing so?" he asked himself, watching mindlessly as the third piece of ore finally became an ingot.


    He then shook his head.


    "Yeah, there''s no point. I went so far with a stone pick so I might as well just keep using it until I finish this project up. In this way, I can make the switch to the iron tools into a reward for dealing with that bastard of a rat!"


    Theo took in a deep breath¡­ before somehow convincing himself to believe in his own nonsense.


    ''As long as it gets me working, it''s good,'' he thought as he climbed up the walls only to then spend the next three hours adding the final touches to his project.


    First, he filled in the empty spots in the foundation for his walls, spots that he couldn''t fill while zoned in on the digging because he quite simply ran out of the stone for the task.


    Then, after climbing back up to the surface, he added just another meter of height to his walls before then reinforcing them with another layer on the outside¡ªjust in case the Oilrat was somehow capable of breaking through.


    With that done, he could then finally enter the last phase of building, starting by building a three-by-three pillar standing in the very middle of the trap, one that he then turned hollow on the inside once reaching the ground level.


    Next came the wooden platform for the floor, supported by nothing but a single wooden beam attached to lone two blocks of dirt Theo left in the entire structure, making it just resilient enough to support his weight, but nowhere near to support the weight of that hog-sized monster.


    Finally, for the second-to-last step of his project, Theo extended the pillar upwards, filling up its insides as he climbed up, only to then build the simplest part of the whole trap¡ªone that could serve as the roof of the entire structure for the time being.


    A massive cube of nothing but stone with the gap in the middle of exactly the same shape and size as the pillar Theo erected from the very bottom of his trap. And, to make dropping it down as easy as possible, the entire block of several tens of tons of raw stone was attached to the pillar itself¡­ with just a single block of stone, a block Theo could easily reach while hiding away in the pillar''s hollow inside.


    Then, with the new day already rising outside of Theo''s trap, he finally broke open the wall right at where the main chamber of his trap connected to the tunnel he built before getting his first sleep, only to then retreat straight back to his hiding spot within the pillar.


    "Now, here goes nothing¡­" Theo muttered as he placed his hand against the edge of the pillar''s insides, before gritting his teeth¡­ and driving his hand down as quick as possible, cutting his inner palm open in the process.


    A strong shiver moved down Theo''s spine as the animalistic part of his brain sensed danger long before his system could adjust the threat level, long before the boss of the place could reach within the range of Theo''s threat detection.


    Before that could happen, however, Theo made sure to seal the entrance to his hiding spot, leaving but one block worth of empty space open, both for the sake of ventilation¡­ and so that he could still access the trap''s lock from within the pillar.


    And then, right as Theo felt the first bite of the stinging pain in his palm, he came to face the absolute worst part about his whole idea of taking down the boss.


    The wait and the anticipation to confirm whether or not just the smell of his blood was enough to bait him in¡­ and then whether or not that Oilrat would be stupid enough to not only enter the tunnel leading up to the trap, but also slow enough to be helpless once the wooden platform would collapse down under its own weight.

 Chapter 23 - Dropping the payload

    The time flowed as slowly as if Theo did nothing but counted every passing second.


    To a degree, the pulsing of the pain in his now slightly wounded hand became his internal clock as he hid in the tiny hole within his stone column, equipped with nothing but a pickaxe in one hand and the building overlay already deployed.


    ''First mine the lock out, disconnect the payload from the column, then seal the hole just in case and hope for the best.''


    Theo kept his breathing steady, refusing to let his anxiety or excitement affect it.


    Yes, excitement.


    And a two-fold one at that!


    On one hand, Theo was excited to finally get this boss monster done and dealt with. After all, whether or not his trap would work¡­ in one way or another, this whole adventure would finally come to an end.


    On the other hand, though, Theo couldn''t help but feel nervous.


    ''It was one thing to gamble for another reincarnation back when I first stepped foot in this place, but now?'' Theo shook his head, exasperated by his own thoughts. ''After I''ve put in so much work? Only to risk getting a much more ordinary system, if any, in my next life, all the while assuming I wouldn''t just¡­ die?''


    This time Theo''s head moved further out to the sides only to end up with him gnashing his teeth and holding his breath for a bit to regulate the pace of his heart.


    With the drops of his blood now trickling down his palm, Theo could swear his wound pulsated to the rhythm of his heart¡­ the rhythm that, despite his best efforts, continued to slowly rise.


    Then, right as Theo started to lose grip over his emotions, it happened.


    [Threat level - light]


    Finally, the prompt at the bottom of Theo''s vision changed a bit. But this time, there were more changes than just the one to the system''s detection notification.


    [Forest Outskirts - Safe Zone - Within Range of Oilrat (level 147) (investigating) patrol route!]


    And before Theo could even swallow his saliva¡­


    [Threat level - high]


    [Oilrat (level 147)(hunting)]


    And then¡­


    A silent yet strangely powerful voice at the lower end of the frequency Theo could hear suddenly reached his ears, only to start growing louder, fuller, more solid by the second.


    A voice he could perfectly recognize by his heart, not only from the last time he heard it in this very same place¡­ but also from the countless times he''d heard it appear in the games he used to play.


    This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.


    [Threat level - Imminent]


    The voice reached the peak of its crescendo, only to be joined by a full choir singing something in what sounded like ancient Latin, with the high sopranos now taking over the task of leading the melody while the bass that kicked the whole thing up now became but a background for it.


    And as if all of that wasn''t enough¡­


    [Oilrat: Level 147]


    [¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª]


    The boss''s health bar appeared again, proving that Theo''s bait worked!


    ''This time, it''s going to be different!''


    Theo gritted his teeth while squeezing his fingers around the handle of his pickaxe, ready to dismantle the locking stone cube with four quick and short moves.


    For now, however, he waited.


    Thud¡­. Thud¡­ Thud¡­


    [Threat level - Critical!]


    By now, the air suddenly grew heavier, as if the boss''s mere presence was so powerful it managed to make it hard for Theo to breathe all on its own.


    Or maybe it was the sound of its heavy body now crashing through the relatively narrow tunnel?


    ''This definitely didn''t sound like an attempt to¡­''


    Crack!


    The sound changed. And before Theo could as much as wink¡­


    Thump!


    In Theo''s design, once the Oilrat stepped upon the wooden platform, its lone support¡ªthe single wooden pillar¡ªwas supposed to lose its grip on the two lone blocks of dirt it was pressed against, turning the whole platform like a wheel and dropping the unsuspecting boss in the hole Theo prepared in advance.


    Judging from the sound, however, rather than just turning on the axis of the wooden beam, the whole platform had collapsed under the added weight of the Oilrat, with the beam breaking before it could fully turn!


    ''NOW!''


    Springing into action, Theo smacked the locking stone with his pick.


    [Mining: 22%]


    [Mining: 44%]


    [Mining: 66%]


    [Mining: 88%]


    [Mining: Completed!]


    [Obtained: Stone Block x1]


    WHOOSH!


    Once again, the sound changed. After all, this time it wasn''t just a thin layer of wood cracking apart only to then follow the Oilrat down to Theo''s hole.


    This time, it was several tens of tons'' worth of stone suddenly losing its only support, only to come crashing down, with nothing but Theo''s narrow column to keep it in place!


    For Theo, hidden within said column, the whole world turned dark right as his hideout started to devilishly shake.


    But that, he expected. After all, this column, the very same place he had no other choice but to pick for his hideout, was the axis on which the stone payload was supposed to slide down into the hole!


    Still, to know something was about to happen and then to witness it from as close as physically possible¡­


    Thankfully, the whole ordeal lasted only a single instant, with the massive weight of the stone payload accelerating to its terminal velocity pretty much right away, making its fall way too short for Theo to spare more than just a single thought about it.


    What came next, however, was only worse.


    CRACKABOOM!


    Theo''s payload was a perfect fit for the shape of his hole. And so, when it finally came crashing down, the whole world around the young man appeared to just¡­ crack, as if the air trapped by the falling weight reached the levels of condensation only seen in explosives.


    But the devilish shaking, the deafening noise of the falling payload¡­


    All of those didn''t matter in the slightest, regardless of how terrifying they were.


    With the lone hole Theo left behind now firmly sealed, Theo pressed his hands against the sides of his narrow hideout to lock himself in place throughout the whole thing¡­ but all of his attention wasn''t on the real world around him but the one and only part of his vision that mattered.


    And yet, despite his trap working perfectly¡­


    The boss''s health bar didn''t change.


    ''Did it fail?'' Theo thought, a cold shiver moving up his spine as he imagined the possibility of the Oilrat somehow tripping the trap before actually stepping into it, only to now leave Theo hidden within the narrow column of stone, with no other place to go but down underground by digging through the column''s base.


    Yet, right as Theo''s heart was about to jump out of his chest¡­


    [¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª//]


    [¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª////]


    [¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª//////]


    [¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª////////]


    Bit by bit, at the speed of about two ticks per second, the boss''s health bar¡­ started to decrease!

 Chapter 24 - Long list of questionable rewards

    [¡ª¡ª///////////////////////////////]


    [/////////////////////////////////]


    The boss''s health bar finally emptied out.


    Yet, before Theo could even think about celebrating or, simpler, breathing a sigh of relief¡­ A swarm of messages suddenly invaded, swarming his vision to the point he couldn''t see anything beyond them.


    ''Well, it''s not like I could see anything in this perfect darkness to begin with,'' Theo thought before sighing and then swinging his pickaxe.


    A moment later, he removed the very same stone he used to fully seal his hiding spot in fear of the Oilrat''s retaliation. Then, he removed one more stone out of his way, creating just enough room for himself to leave the stone pillar and step out¡­


    Only to realize his mistake when his foot found no ground to rest his weight on.


    ''Right, the payload was quite a bit smaller than the depth of the hole,'' Theo thought, pulling his leg back before leaning out and taking a peek to the outside instead.


    With the distance to the roof of his payload now assessed, he slid back into his hiding spot only to go back to the one activity he grew extremely used to. And as he started to dig directly underneath his own feet, he finally allowed himself to start slowly working through all those messy notifications.


    [Oilrat (level 147) was entombed within stone!]


    [Oilrat (level 147) defeated!]


    [Level: 4 > Level 37]


    "That''s¡­" Theo muttered while putting a complex look on his face, a series of extremely different emotions mixing in his soul into an unexpected, hypocritical brew.


    On one hand, advancing to nearly ten times his former level couldn''t be a bad thing!


    On the other hand, however¡­


    ''Is that all I get for defeating a boss that''s so damn stronger than me?''


    As great of a growth as getting so many levels at once was¡­ Theo just couldn''t help but feel wronged.


    ''It was almost a hundred and fifty levels strong boss¡­ and I can''t even get myself to level fifty by killing it?''


    This feeling was likely born out of a total, nearly absolute lack of change Theo could feel about himself.


    He didn''t feel stronger, faster, smarter, or anything of the likes. And judging by the progress of his mining of the stone¡­ His ability to mine-out blocks or craft didn''t seem to be affected at all!


    ''Well, I guess I can only keep looking through those notifs,'' he thought, recalling how¡ªin the recent past¡ªhe already encountered a problem of the same kind, where only by actually going through the notifications would he gain the benefits of whatever it was that he achieved.


    [Unlocked: Class]


    [Class subroutine manual handling blocked!]


    [Class: N/A > Class: Crafter]


    [Development points - auto-assignment on]


    [Distributing development points - #ERROR#]


    [Applying the changes - #ERROR#]


    [Unlocked: 2nd tier of ability shop]


    [Blocky Subroutine: Level 7 > Level 13]


    [Survival Interface Subroutine: Level 1 > Level 7]Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.


    "That''s a little bit better," Theo muttered to himself as he mined the last of the blocks he wanted, before shifting his attention sideways and then digging himself a way out of the pillar, just a small step above the current roof of his stone payload.


    And one more look at his notifications later¡­


    [Blocky Subroutine (level 13): 13% bonus to every progress tick, -65% progress tick delay, average chance to obtain additional ore while mining, can sense the direction of the nearest ore deposit]


    [Survival Interface (level 7): Displays hunger and thirst status, displays the name of the zone and its type, small bonus to harvesting chance, improved the effects of status-related items]


    [Bonus information: Threat Detection range: 25m > 75m]


    [Bonus information: Displays the status of the area]


    "Yeah, that''s the actual good part," he thought, only to then realize that the speed at which he mined his exit¡­ was actually shorter than before.


    The difference wasn''t all that big¡­ but with the growth of his Blocky Subroutine''s level, he now clearly reached beyond the threshold of 25% per action tick, decreasing the number of swings he had to take to complete the task by one.


    At first thought, this wouldn''t seem like all that much of a difference, but once considered with the scale of Theo''s project in mind¡­ It was actually pretty damn massive!


    ''Adding up the perks of mining while zoned out, and I can now two-tap stone blocks, huh?'' Theo thought, already looking forward to testing out his new limits.


    But still, even after reading through all of this stuff, Theo wasn''t done sorting through all the notifications he obtained from killing just one boss!


    [Achievement Unlocked: Ratmason]


    [Reward: You can now entomb monsters by trapping them within <single material> blocks and then putting forth <single material> necessary to fill the tomb''s interior. Entombed creatures will now take 50% more damage per tick of entombment.]


    "Okay, is that supposed to be some sort of a joke?" Theo whispered before whistling out. "I mean, this seems like one hell of an overpowered ability, but¡­ Why can''t I find the cost of using it? And seeing how this place isn''t all that free for me to do as I desire, in just what way will the system screw me over when using it?"


    Theo''s system-granted abilities were broken.


    The fact that he could actually defeat the much stronger Oilrat was the greatest proof of it.


    Yet, at the same time, those very same abilities didn''t make him overpowered. Just like back in the modern world, he was the only animal to occupy two spots within the food chain¡ªone near the bottom as an unarmed human and then another one, right at the food chain''s very top as an armed man.


    Regardless, however, with this new ability¡­ It appeared that as long as he managed to box another creature within a structure of his creation, he could now instantly fill it with blocks, so that the creature inside would take constant damage just like the Oilrat did?


    ''I wonder where the downside of this ability is,'' Theo thought, before rolling his eyes and moving over.


    By now, he managed to deal with most of those annoying pop-ups, happily reading about all the ways in which he grew stronger.


    [Achievement Unlocked: Rock Hard]


    [Lore: You''ve found a creative way to turn a big stone block into a potent weapon!]


    [Reward: All stone weapons will now have their damage doubled.]


    "That''s¡­" Theo squinted his eyes. "That''s either insanely overpowered or absolutely freaking useless," he muttered before heaving a sigh. "I guess I won''t escape the idea of making a sword for myself, one from stone and the other one from iron, all to figure out which is actually stronger¡­"


    Shaking his head again, Theo quickly moved his attention to the last three notification windows, with the one buried at the bottom just big enough to appear from beyond the cover of the two more recent pop-ups.


    [Achievement Unlocked: Edging the System]


    [Lore: You''ve found a way to make use of the causal laws on the edge between physics and system-based rules.]


    [Reward: Increased tolerance to edge-case ruling.]


    "Okay, now that''s as ambiguous as it is stupidly strong," Theo admitted the truth before himself.


    The fact that he managed to exploit the gap between how the blocky game worked and how the real world did was but a pure fluke, something he came up with all on his own, without the intent of actually doing so.


    And yet, as proven by the very first notification Theo saw, it was actually enough to bridge the gap between him and this overwhelmingly powerful rodent!


    ''I guess only time will tell if this perk is any good¡­''


    Finally, Theo turned his eyes over to the last of the achievement notifications, already recognizing the marks of the pop-up window hidden below it.


    [Achievement Unlocked: Advancer]


    [Reward: Innate aura now grows to that of an advancer. Creatures below that level will naturally fear you, while creatures on that level shall no longer consider you an easy target.]


    "Finally, something actually good."


    Theo breathed out a long sigh of relief.


    No matter what, at the very least some of his growth turned out to be actually nice at the moment. And even if the abilities and perks he didn''t really see the value of right now would prove to be insanely good later on¡­ It wasn''t some distant future that had Theo worried, but the next three months or so!


    ''Thinking about it, even assuming I somehow survive that long¡­ Am I really ready to go back to civilization after my sentence concludes?''


    After taking a moment to walk around the top of his payload, Theo then approached the vertical, stone wall of his trap before digging into it, eager to make himself a way out of the hole. And as he did so, he finally found some time to look at the last, and arguably the best, out of all the notification windows he received.


    [Oilrat (level 147)(deceased)]


    [Do you wish to loot? Y/N]

 Chapter 25 - Where the true rewards lay

    ¡°Do I wish to loot?¡± Theo let out an ironic voice, his left eyebrow moving up in place of him just rolling his eyes as usual. ¡°Why is that even a question?¡±


    The young man shook his head before simply willing for the obvious.


    [Looting: 25%]


    [Looting: 50%]


    [Looting: 75%]


    [Looting: Completed]


    [Looted:


    - Infinite Oil Sack (x1) (rare)


    - Rat Skin (x3) (rare)


    - Tear Claws (x2) (epic)]


    ¡°And¡­ that¡¯s it?¡±


    Theo squinted his eyes while trying not to clench his teeth in anger.


    Sure, the loot itself didn¡¯t sound half-bad at all¡­


    But it wasn¡¯t something he got by either sitting down on his ass or even something he gathered while zoning himself out to cut the boredom of the endless grind.


    No.


    This was supposed to be the main reward for dealing with a monster nearly a hundred and fifty levels stronger than him!


    ¡®Since there seem to be ranks to items, I would expect at least something legendary, maybe even mythical, but this?¡¯


    Theo shook his head.


    This reward, pretty much like what he already went through before, felt underwhelming when juxtaposed against what he had to deal with.


    ¡°Still, what use is there for whining?¡± Theo looked up, asking the heavens themselves. ¡°It¡¯s not like the system will transform and materialize into a jade beauty to pat me on the back.¡±


    Theo took in a deep breath, held it in his lungs for a while before slowly breathing it out, pushing all the tension, disappointment, and anxiety out with it.


    ¡°It seems like the best reward, for now, is all the resources I can get out of the forest, huh?¡±


    Looking up beyond the limits of his trap, Theo sighed again before rising up and then orienting himself by a column of the dirt-filled boxes to find the right spot to dig.


    ¡®At this point, is there any point in keeping my old base? With all the wood I can get pretty much for free, I might as well just build a shack on the surface,¡¯ he thought as he slowly made his way up the side of the trap before finally emerging at the ground level of it.


    There, he wasted no further time adoring the intricate design of his own making, opting to push through the tunnel and then step out into the light of the day.


    Once up and on the surface, however, and with his eyes now locking on the nearby forest, Theo hesitated.


    ¡°Who is there to say there are no more monsters lurking out in the woods?¡± he muttered, keeping his eyes on the trees for a while, only to then shake his head. ¡°Who is there to say? I am!¡±


    Ignoring the potential dangers was stupid, foolish. But so would be living in the shadow of what could potentially be out there.


    ¡®And if anything, I¡¯ve got my system to warn me in advance, don¡¯t I?¡¯


    Pushing his fears away and putting his attention on his most reliable parts of the system, Theo gulped his hesitation away before stepping towards the trees that he had so feared before.If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.


    There, just a short trek away from where he formerly dared to roam, he finally found the proper reward for all his efforts of the last few days.


    ¡°Dang,¡± Theo whistled silently, daring not to make his presence known as boldly as the Oilrat did during its periodic tours of its territory. ¡°This is a resource bonanza!¡±


    All the things that Theo lacked before were all here in great abundance!


    Wood?


    It took Theo but a few swings of his stone axe to fell and then dissect a tree, turning the once-proud titan of the forest into a bunch of wooden blocks safely stowed away in an outer chest Theo set right at the forest¡¯s edge.


    Food?


    Several minutes¡¯ worth of scavenging the forest floor for small bushes allowed Theo to complete the first and then the second stack of them. In fact, if not for his curiosity about what else he could find just there for the taking, he would likely keep gathering them up to the point where he would have a full chest of those!


    Diving into the gathering frenzy soon proved to carry even more benefits than what Theo expected.


    [Achievement: Berrymaster]


    [Lore: After gathering over a hundred and fifty berries from the bushes, you can now find them even in places you formerly didn¡¯t notice!]


    [Reward: Sustenance from berries +50%, Berry Quantity when harvesting from bushes +25%]


    ¡®That¡¯s it,¡¯ Theo grinned, feeling as if a huge load had finally lifted from his shoulders.


    This was something that only someone used to the absolute comforts of the modern world could understand¡ªthe primitive fear of running out of food or drink, the terror of starving out or dying of thirst that often pushed human ancestors from less blessed times to feats unimaginable.


    Just like the ability to breathe or, to a lesser degree, a shelter to hide away from the elements and provide safety from the beasts, those needs were something a modern person would often forget about, too used to having such things in abundance to pay them any mind.


    Now, however, that Theo had managed to not only obtain a huge amount of supplies but also gained a perk that would not only make finding more of them easier but also give him more bang out of every berry?


    For the very first time since he got over the excitement of having a system and had no other choice but to face the grim reality around him, Theo could breathe a sigh of relief.


    For the first time since he reincarnated, he could fear hunger or thirst no more.


    ¡®At this rate, I should make a hoe and cut some grass with it, so that I might be able to get some seeds and start a farm or something,¡¯ Theo thought¡­


    Only to then quickly abandon the idea.


    ¡®Right, if I want the farm to work, I still need water. And to get water, I not only have to find some source of it¡­¡¯ he thought, raising his eyes towards the deeper parts of the forest where he formerly dared not enter, ¡®but then also something to carry it in.¡¯


    Thankfully, while finding the source of water could prove challenging, getting his hands on a container was no longer that much of an issue.


    ¡°Using up what little iron I have to make a bucket might seem like a waste, but¡­¡±


    Theo turned his attention back to the new perks his blocky subroutine received upon his latest level-up.


    ¡®Now that I can quite literally sense where the nearest ore is, it shouldn¡¯t be that much of a waste to do so.¡¯


    Breathing out, Theo shook his head before putting his attention to the prompts at the top and the bottom of his vision before turning to face the deeper parts of the forest¡­ and then stepping ahead.


    ¡®For now, finding the source of water comes first. Once I secure an infinite pond, though¡­¡¯


    As Theo¡¯s steps grew faster, a wicked grin appeared on his lips.


    The blocky game that he relied so much on¡­


    Who was there to say his system was based on the base game? Who was there to say¡­ all the ideas implemented by the modders were out of the question?


    ¡®All I need is just a bit more wood and iron to test it.¡¯ Theo sighed out as he cleared his thoughts and lowered his posture, pushing deeper and deeper into the denser part of the forest. ¡®And as soon as I get my hands on a gun, I will show all the beasts of this place just why an armed man sits at the ultimate top of the food chain!¡¯


    Theo¡¯s soul filled with a sense of nearing triumph and power¡­


    Only for the prompt at the top of his vision to finally change, and with said change¡ªinvite a new, unfamiliar notification window right into the very center of Theo¡¯s eyes.


    [Forest Outskirts - Safe Zone] > [Outer Forest - Unclaimed Zone]


    [Do you wish to claim this area? Y/N]


    [Warning! Unclaimed zones, if left alone, might end up claimed by the owners of the neighboring areas!]


    [Warning! Claiming the zone will invite challengers vying for its ownership!]

 Chapter 26 - Manor Subroutine

    ''What¡¯s with this damned system¡­''


    Lowering the axe down on his shoulder, Theo stared off seemingly into the abyss, his eyes locked on the fresh notification.


    ¡®Land claim?¡¯


    He closed his eyes and sighed out while shaking his head.


    ¡°You won¡¯t be kind enough to just go ahead and explain what the hell this land claim is all about, do you, system?¡± he asked out into the air, ready to roll his eyes and just put this notification aside, opting to focus on the task of gathering more wood.


    ¡®Even though I have more than enough of it now,¡¯ he thought, ¡®I still want to get the achievement related to it!¡¯


    [Land Claim: By claiming land, you can forcefully unlock subroutine for the system.]


    Theo¡¯s axe, which he was readying himself to swing down against the tree, nearly fell out of his hand.


    ¡®Another subroutine?¡¯


    This was more than just interesting.


    This was, quite literally, a jackpot!


    ¡®From how I can abuse the areas where my survival and blocky subroutines intersect, I can tell that the more subroutines I have, the merrier¡­ But is it really alright for me to go for it?¡¯


    Theo reaffirmed his grasp over his axe, only to then drop its blade down to the ground and use the butt of its handle as a rest for his arms.


    ¡°What are the benefits of the manor subroutine, then, system?¡±


    As weird as it felt to say it out loud, Theo made sure to replicate the manner in which he called out before, hoping this was the secret to communicating with his system¡ªa perk that could, quite possibly, be the most valuable out of all the abilities he had.


    Yet, not even using the same phrasing as before appeared to do the trick, leaving Theo waiting for, as it turned out, absolutely nothing.


    ¡°You really don¡¯t want to make things easy for me, huh?¡± Theo muttered with a hint of hostility, only to then roll his eyes and pick up his axe before getting back to work.


    ¡®The downside of accepting this subroutine is quite obvious. If I lay claim to this land, there will be monsters coming to challenge me for it. And right now, getting another boss monster to worry about is the last thing I want!¡¯


    Gritting his teeth in silent frustration, Theo swung his axe down with all his strength. The stone blade ate into the side of the tree¡¯s trunk, reaching deep enough for the young man to then struggle a bit to dislodge it back.


    ¡°On the other hand, though¡­¡±


    Theo turned his head and looked toward an even deeper part of the forest.


    ¡°If I don¡¯t claim it, another monster is going to come to take over the place anyway, leaving me right back in the same spot I was before dealing with the Oilrat, won¡¯t it?¡±


    For a moment, Theo struggled to decide between working on the tree and just making the bet and taking the opportunity his system offered.


    In the end, however, he swung his axe back to his shoulder and sighed out before slightly nodding his head.


    ¡°Just give me this land already¡­¡±


    Theo¡¯s voice was full of resignation. Yet, when his vision suddenly cluttered with a slew of new notifications, he couldn¡¯t help but feel a tinge of excitement.


    Excitement that only grew as he went ahead and started reading through the system messages.If you stumble upon this tale on Amazon, it''s taken without the author''s consent. Report it.


    [Outer Forest - Claimed!]


    [Outer Forest - Unclaimed Zone > Outer Forest - Claimed by Theodore Evilbane]


    [Manor subroutine unlocked!]


    [Manor subroutine: Level 1]


    [You can now construct: Wooden Manor, Stone Manor, Brick Manor.]


    [You can now construct: Tier 1 Wooden Manor Substructures, Tier 2 Stone Manor Substructures, Tier 3 Brick Manor Substructures.]


    [Warning! Types of manors can be stacked up!]


    [Warning! The manor subroutine¡¯s level is strictly related to the Manor¡¯s quality and development!]


    [Warning! You can only purchase substructure blueprints for the tiers within your manor¡¯s level!]


    ¡°Phew¡­¡± Shaking his head to get rid of the visual leftovers from all the notifications, Theo sighed out, straining his willpower not to let the excitement get the better of him.


    Yet, whether he was excited or calm, his next step was quite the obvious one.


    ¡°I wish to construct a wooden manor!¡±


    Tightening his hand over the handle of his axe, Theo could do nothing but wait while holding his impatience back.


    [Processing¡­]


    [Processing¡­]


    [Processing¡­]


    [Detected no suitable zone for manor construction.]


    [Requirements:


    - Water access (2/5)


    - Good quality soil (4/5)


    - Proximity of resource veins (3/5)


    - Open space (0/5)]


    [Highlighted potential suitable zone: Please visit the highlighted areas to learn more about them!]


    ¡°Well¡­ Isn¡¯t that just precious¡­¡± Theo grinned.


    What the system considered a failure was no less than one hell of a boon for Theo! Because right now, he could see faith glow hanging low above the forest¡¯s floor and splitting up into several different directions that led out deeper into the zone he just claimed!


    ¡®So¡­ Now not only can I find resource veins and water, but also areas where the soil is good?¡¯


    Theo shook his head, taken aback by just how many hidden treasures he managed to discover merely by exploring what he gained by defeating the Oilrat, as opposed to getting those perks and benefits directly after his victory.


    ¡°Well then, there¡¯s no point waiting around, is there?¡± he then muttered before stepping ahead and following the path outlined by the system.


    The first potential building zone was¡­ a dud.


    It was the closest one to the edge of the forest, already making it as much of a benefit as it was a handicap in case someone else would end up sentenced to execution by exile, but also lacking both in terms of water access and resource veins.


    The second zone was quite a bit further away, forcing Theo to move away from where the rest of the path directed him to¡­ Only to prove to be another dud, although for much different reasons.


    ¡°So this is what the system means about the soil¡­¡± Theo muttered under his breath as he stood at the edge of a stinky swamp ruled over by cloud-sized hordes of insects.


    [Building Zone: Sickly Swamp]


    [Water access: Check]


    [Good quality soil: Fail]


    [Proximity of resource veins: 2]


    [Open Space: Fail]


    Not even the two resource veins hidden somewhere nearby were good enough of a reason for Theo to think about building his manor here. Not with all those insects¡­ and definitely not in a place that had ¡°sickly¡± in its name!


    ¡®I don¡¯t have any sort of medicine, so getting some sort of serious sickness would be a game-over for me,¡¯ he thought, hastily retreating out of the area while making sure to mark the path he took.


    ¡®Even if I won¡¯t build here, there are two resource veins nearby. Once I¡¯m ready for another expedition, I will have to be sure to check this whole area out!¡¯


    Still, Theo didn¡¯t dare to give up. The fact that he had already spent nearly an hour traversing through the thick parts of the forest made him too committed to the cause to even think about taking a break, not to mention giving up.


    And before much longer, his efforts were finally rewarded.


    [Building Zone: Ancient Stonage]


    [Water Access: Check]


    [Good Quality Soil: Check]


    [Proximity of Resource Veins: 1]


    [Open Space: Fail]


    The whole area appeared slightly like some ancient ruins of some sort of a religious monument, with huge boulders arranged in a shape of a rough circle. Just a bit outside of said circle, there was a small stream of water cascading down some smaller boulders stacked up the side of a hill with pretty much every inch of the open space covered in thick bushes and huge, healthy trees.


    The only part of the system assessment of the place Theo couldn¡¯t spot outright was the resource vein, but¡­


    ¡®Judging by how this subroutine works thus far, it¡¯s likely going to give me some hints for it once I¡¯m ready to exploit it.¡¯


    Shaking his head, Theo took a breath¡­ And got to work.


    ¡®First, I need to clear out all those trees. Then, if it still won¡¯t be enough, I¡¯m going to mine those boulders out of the way. And then¡­¡¯


    Theo shrugged his shoulders as he lowered his axe and approached the nearest of the trees he mentally marked for removal.


    ¡®Then, I will see what I need to do next!¡¯

 Chapter 27 - No way in hell Im missing out on those perks, whatever they might be!

    ¡°Still not there?¡± Theo muttered as his eyes did the usual round over the three parts that became the main focal points of his vision.


    .


    [Outer Forest - Claimed by Theodore Evilbane]


    [Threat level - No threats detected]


    [Open Space: Fail]


    .


    The status of the land he claimed, the potential threats in his proximity¡­ and whether or not the system was finally satisfied with all the clearing work Theo did in the place.


    It¡¯s been several hours since he arrived in the area. Several hours during which he removed pretty much all the trees within the circle of the boulders, crafted a crafting bench, and then created more and more chests to store all the materials he got from doing so.


    Yet, even when the last tree within the rugged cycle of the boulders fell¡­ The system still refused to acknowledge the change, consistently failing the ¡°open space¡± check.


    Having no other choice, Theo moved to remove trees from the area around the boulders, still expecting said boulders to be an integral part of any future Manor he would construct.


    Since the time he began working, his wish for the woodcutting-related achievement was fulfilled not once but a whole two times, with [Woodcutter] and [Woodslasher] achievements popping up. The first one, just like it was the case for the mining, merely expanded his inventory and raised the level of his blocky subroutine by two. The latter, however¡­


    .


    [Achievement Unlocked: Woodslasher]


    [Lore: After felling over two hundred trees, you¡¯ve learned the best way of quickly and efficiently cutting them down!]


    [Reward: +3 blocky subroutine levels, +6 inventory slots, -20% projected durability for all wooden targets, +50% projected durability for all wooden structures]


    .


    Not only did it raise Theo¡¯s blocky subroutine by quite a bit, effectively decreasing the number of times he needed to swing his axe to remove a block of wood from the tree¡¯s trunk, not only did it grow his inventory to a comfortable thirty slots by now¡­ It also altered the attributes of both his wooden targets and wooden structures.


    A change that, all out of nowhere, made the idea of constructing a wooden manor all the more interesting!


    Still, no matter how many trees Theo removed, the system stubbornly refused to just let him get this manor constructed!


    ¡®If removing those two trees won¡¯t work¡­ I might have to go and mine out all of those boulders¡­¡¯


    Theo looked towards the huge blocks of raw stone with a sense of hidden grief.


    Even though, with his blocky system, removing those would be a matter of several minutes at most¡­ For some reason, he felt like this was the last thing he was supposed to do.


    ¡°I know it¡¯s just a feeling¡­¡± Turning his eyes away from the rocks, Theo turned his attention back to the tree and raised his axe. ¡°But what am I going to follow in my decision-making, if not my instincts?¡±


    Theo shook his head¡­ and swung his axe.


    .This narrative has been purloined without the author''s approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.


    [Cutting: 32%]


    [Cutting: 64%]


    [Cutting: Completed!]


    .


    With just three swings, a block of wood at the base of the tree vanished, causing the rest of the tree to rapidly drop down and then start leaning in a random direction.


    It happened fast¡­ But by the time the tree indicated which way it would fall, Theo had already managed to move out of the way, long since used to the antics of the falling trees.


    As for the cutting process itself¡­


    ¡®I wonder if I only need to go up to eighty percent of progress to complete the woodcutting task. And if so,¡¯ Theo smiled to his own thoughts, ¡®I can¡¯t wait till I get the matching achievement for mining, assuming there¡¯s one!¡¯


    If such was the case, not only would he be able to cut a huge chunk of the workload that came with mining¡­ What was even more important for Theo personally, this would mean that a stone-based Manor would be all the more resilient for it!


    Still, as much hope as he had for his future, for now, Theo focused on the present.


    A mere minute later, the last of the fallen tree turned into a block of wood stashed within his inventory, allowing him to move on and start chopping at the base of the last tree within the planned perimeter of the manor. And, just to make things a bit more interesting, Theo went ahead and chopped the tree the normal way, aligning not with his blocky but with his survival subroutine.


    ¡®It might be a waste, but it¡¯s faster. And by now¡­¡¯


    Theo sighed out.


    ¡®By now, I¡¯m done waiting.¡¯


    By switching over to the proper cutting technique, Theo put aside all the benefits of his blocky-related achievements. Because of this, rather than felling the whole tree in just three swings, he had to work on it for quite a bit.


    Contrary to the blocky cutting, however, once the tree fell over and crashed into the ground, he only needed a few more axe chops to cut off its branches, split it into logs, split said logs into chunks, and then reach out with his hand to harvest it all straight into his inventory.


    And then, just like he did many times before¡­


    .


    [Outer Forest - Claimed by Theodore Evilbane]


    [Threat level - No threats detected]


    [Building Zone: Ancient Stonage]


    [Water Access: Check]


    [Good Quality Soil: Check]


    [Proximity of Resource Veins: 1]


    [Open Space: Check]


    [Do you wish to build a Manor in the selected zone? Y/N]


    .


    ¡°Fucking finally!¡±


    Screaming out his exhaustion, anticipation, and annoyance, Theo allowed himself to just stumble to the ground, only to sit down with his legs stretched out, breathing out haggard breaths of relief.


    ¡®Wait, no, if this place is going to change¡­¡¯


    Closing his eyes, Theo took a moment to gather his strength before standing up and removing himself from the area, walking off as far as the edge of the forest clearing of his own making.


    ¡°Finally¡­¡± Repeating himself in a soft whisper, Theo breathed out before straightening his back and then looking ahead, more than eager to see what would happen next.


    ¡°Yes.¡±


    Theo waited¡­ But rather than the world suddenly starting to magically change before his very own eyes, all he saw was yet another system notification appear right in the middle of his vision.


    .


    [Manor Construction:


    - Tier 1: Wooden Manor: Cost: 1500 wood]


    - Tier 2: Stone Manor: Cost: 750 stone (applied 50% environmental discount)]


    - Tier 3: Brick Manor: Cost: 2000 bricks]


    - Which Tier would you like to construct?]


    [Warning! Changing the tier is only possible from a lower to a higher tier!]


    [Warning! Jumping tiers deprives the manor of the gradual progression perks!]


    .


    ¡®I still should have more stone than I know what to do with, but¡­¡¯


    For a moment, Theo hesitated, not sure whether or not to waste an insane amount of wood¡­ only to near instantly switch his manor up for the higher tier.


    ¡®Well, who am I trying to convince?¡¯ Theo then laughed out and shook his head. ¡®There¡¯s no way in hell I¡¯m going to miss out on those gradual progression perks, whatever the heck they are supposed to be!¡¯


    And so, with his decision made, Theo reaffirmed his glance and looked up, more than just eager to see what would happen next.


    ¡°I wish to construct the wooden Manor.¡±

 Chapter 28 - Just an optional stepping-stone?!

    A cold shiver went up Theo¡¯s spine.


    It was a weird feeling, as if some sort of half-corporeal energy surged through his flesh, starting from the very ground where the soles of his feet rested, only to shoot up his height and arrive at the top of his head.


    If the sense of this surge was slightly weird, though, then what happened next was an outright spectacle of what Theo was quite used to seeing in games but never expected to see with his own two eyes.


    At first, a small light started to shine right in the middle of his chest, only to then shoot forth, leaving behind a faint, glistening trail of light of seemingly no origin. A light that then coalesced into tiny chunks of purely light-based projection.


    Those chunks continued to gain more and more details, soon turning from but a bunch of fuzzy particles into fully-fledged, three-dimensional renditions of the icons Theo was already familiar with¡ªfor he saw them quite often both in his chests and in his personal inventory.


    ¡®That¡¯s¡­ wood?¡¯


    It wasn¡¯t just the several stacks of planks Theo had personally crafted from the wood that would shoot out from his chest. Nor was the light originating from his chest the only one that appeared.


    By the time the chunks of light from the first of the streams of lights finally manifested into tiny holograms of plank cubes¡ªholograms that freely frolicked in the air as they sped up towards the array of boulders Theo picked for the location of his mansion¡­ A new light suddenly streaked through the air, drawing a beautiful, shiny arc through the air only to then land right in the very same spot as its younger cousin.


    Precisely in the middle of the area marked out by those ancient boulders!


    Then, a third streak of light appeared, delayed by but just a slight instant and coming at barely any different angle. Then another one. And then one more.


    And by the time Theo managed to blink his eyes, several more lines of light appeared all over the place, some of them rushing from the direction of the forest¡¯s edge, while others originated directly in the chests he planted all over the place to store the wood he gathered!


    ¡®Does it mean whatever I decide to build can draw materials from the chests I¡¯ve planted?¡¯ Theo thought, his eyebrows moving up as all the streaks of light had now fully formed into orderly streams of floating holograms of planks.


    Yet, as soon as he paid this miraculous vision closer attention¡­


    This process wasn¡¯t as simple as it first appeared, for there were some cubes of unprocessed wood that would split into four cubes of planks before hitting the dead center of the designated building zone.


    The zone itself didn¡¯t remain the same either, as a faint glow of a half-transparent projection started to rise up from the ground up, perfectly filling up the holes between the massive boulders as it used them as a foundation¡ªan anchor of some sort¡ªfor the construction of quite the sizable building.


    Second by second, more and more light-based projections of wood continued to bombard the place, accelerating the growth of the thick, wooden walls.


    This whole process was so unbelievable, so unrealistic, so¡­ out of place, Theo couldn¡¯t help but just stare while rooted in place, his mouth agape.


    The young man couldn¡¯t tell whether the whole thing lasted an hour, a minute, or maybe but a few seconds. Yet, by the time the see-through projection of the building reached its final stage¡­ This holograph-like building suddenly started to gain essence, with the wood quite literally materializing out of thin air to replace the see-through projection.


    ¡°Woah¡­¡±


    Theo finally managed to utter a small, shocked moan roughly around the time the floors and the walls of the first story of the building had fully come to be, blocking the insides of the mansion-to-be from his sight. And what could be either a moment or an eternity later, the whole mansion finally materialized¡­If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.


    Only to suddenly jump in place a bit while condensing down to around a tenth of its total size¡­ before dropping right back as it decompressed with a satisfying thump.


    .


    [Wooden Manor: Completed!]


    [You have now unlocked access to tier 1 of mansion features!]


    [You can now upgrade the mansion by adding the following rooms:


    - Dining hall ¨C slightly boosts taste and effectiveness of the food and drinks consumed inside


    - Bedroom ¨C a furnished, designated sleeping area that improves the quality of your sleep, decreases hostile attraction during sleep


    - Drawing room ¨C a place of work and study, gives access to the basic blueprint mechanic


    - Storage room ¨C a place to store all your non-perishables, allows remote access to all your chests within the manor¡¯s claimed zone and remote access to it through the manor


    - Workshop ¨C crafting space, upgrade to the basic crafting bench, unlocks new recipes]


    .


    [You can now upgrade the manor by adding the following structures:


    - Well ¨C a source of fresh, clean water that taps into the local water vein, providing unlimited access to drinking water


    - Small Palisade ¨C provides a minor defensive bonus to the manor by keeping all unwanted guests out of its perimeter


    - Watchtower ¨C grants the user a localized and auto-updated map of the manor and its immediate surroundings, expands the threat-detection range to a small radius around the manor grounds


    - Garden Plot ¨C provides a small, designated area where the growth, yield, and quality of the herbs and small crops will be boosted. Besides the planting and harvesting, the rest of the growing process happens automatically


    - Training Ground ¨C a designated spot within the manor for training, provides a slight boost to physical and martial growth, increases the odds of obtaining new and improving existing combat-related skills]


    .


    For the very first time since the system first appeared before Theo¡¯s eyes, a notification appeared to not only fill two-thirds of Theo¡¯s vision¡­ but also come with a scrolling feature, allowing him to move up and down this wall of text-described options at will.


    As such, before he could even take his first step into the wooden manor he just¡­ crafted out of thin air, Theo ended up just sitting down on the ground while he helplessly fell into the rabbit hole of studying the details of his new opportunities.


    ¡°Some of those are quite damn insane¡­¡± he muttered upon taking a closer look at the list of options, seeing not only the face value explained by the system but also the value it indirectly implied.


    Just like an infinite well that could be used as a source of drinking water¡­ or as a source of water for Theo to water his crops, possibly boosting the output of his designated garden even more. Or the watchtower, when exploited to the limits of reason, potentially serving as a much steeper replacement for the small palisade¡­


    Then again, even without all the hidden perks Theo could see through the lens of abusing the dissonance between what the system provided and how things worked in real life, even the basic perks offered by those expansions were enough to make him salivate over his future!


    ¡°If that¡¯s what I can get on just the first tier, then I can¡¯t help but think, what about the second tier?¡± Theo raised his head up, as if longing to pin his eyes on the sky, only to realize that the trees surrounding his freshly built manor gave him quite the limited view of it.


    Still.


    While one hell of a reward for all his efforts thus far, all those opportunities didn¡¯t come without a cost. And while some, like the garden, the palisade, or most of the rooms, were within his reach, some of the options¡ªlike the workshop¡ªrequired him to either craft¡­ or actually find a whole slew of new items!


    And even those things that he could afford each cost an amount of resources that forced him to make a careful, calculated pick between all the options.


    ¡°Well, even if the insides of this building are all empty, I still have to prioritize the practical side of things,¡± Theo sighed before quickly settling on the two most vital upgrades to his wooden manor.


    The palisade and the watchtower. The two manor-type extensions that consumed pretty much the rest of his stock of wood¡ªsomething he naively thought would last him maybe not until the end of his days but at least until the end of his exile!


    Yet, as soon as the strings of light arched through the air and started to coalesce into projections of the items Theo¡¯s initial expansion required, Theo already moved his thoughts to the next and most logical step, if not the actual goal, of his whole manor experience.


    A goal for which getting the wooden tier one was just an optional stepping stone.


    And so, before he could even take a step inside his new home for the very first time, Theo took a breath and, without standing from the ground, looked up at the solid, two-story-tall building.


    ¡°I wish to construct a stone manor.¡±

 Chapter 29 - Upgrades, people, upgrades!

    Once again, streaks of light marked the sky. This time, however, pretty much all of them came from the direction of the forest¡¯s edge, posing quite the interesting question for Theo.


    ¡®Just how far will this construction pull the materials from, I wonder?¡¯ he thought, only to squint his eyes as he realized a certain discrepancy. ¡®Where exactly is that stone coming from? Didn¡¯t I use most of it for the trap anyway?¡¯


    Theo¡¯s memories of the exact state of his inventory weren¡¯t all that precise. Back then, he was more interested in finishing the trap than keeping an accurate mental stock of exactly how many blocks of each kind he had between his inventory and his chests.


    And yet, even if he couldn¡¯t recall the precise numbers¡­


    ¡°Yeah, I¡¯m quite damn sure I¡¯ve used up most of it¡­¡± he muttered, staring at the strings of light that didn¡¯t seem to care about facts or logic, bringing over the stone that he had no right to have. ¡°That is, unless¡­¡±


    Theo¡¯s eyes opened up wide as the realization came down on him.


    ¡®That is, unless it¡¯s deconstructing the trap!¡¯


    Theo took a step back, more¡­ appalled than he was surprised or shocked at this point.


    It wasn¡¯t the first time for his system to work in ways he didn¡¯t expect. And judging by how one of his achievements quite literally made it easier for him to abuse the gray area between the inner workings of the system and this world¡¯s physics¡­


    ¡°Well, even if that¡¯s the case, that¡¯s only good for me. Thinking about it, it would be only rational for me to go back and remove all the traces of what I did, just in case the folks from back on the other side of that damned gate decided to exile someone else,¡± he sighed, putting his curiosity aside and shoving the topic to the back of his head, classifying it as just yet another weird convenience.


    With this ¡®don¡¯t try to fix what¡¯s not broken¡¯ attitude aside, however, Theo still had one massive issue to process.


    And it just so happened that, just like with his crafting, now that he had moved on beyond just the most basic stuff¡ªor tier 1 manor, in the case of his current project¡ªit came with a time delay.


    Sure, the particles of wood and stone continued to surge towards the now occupied center of the building zone. This time, however, the way those strings of light behaved was quite different, with most of them all originating from the same place¡ªthe forest¡¯s edge where Theo formerly presided¡ªonly to then split up right before reaching their usual goal, with the blocks of stone floating towards the mansion itself while the blocks of wood fed into the palisade and the watchtower¡¯s see-through blueprints.


    The palisade itself was more of a privacy boon than an actual protective measure, standing at a measly two and a half meters tall while pretty much pressed right into the edge of the area Theo had cleared out from the trees and bushes before.


    The watchtower, on the other hand, soon appeared to stand at a respectable height of around ten, maybe fifteen meters, rising just above the tops of the nearby trees.


    ¡®It surely looks practical for someone standing watch to be able to see above the trees,¡¯ Theo thought while fully aware the tower¡¯s height¡­ was pretty much just a redundancy.


    He wasn¡¯t going to waste his time leisurely standing in that tower, nor did he have anyone to do it for him.


    No, the one and only purpose for this tower was to automatically warn him of any and all potential threats approaching the place so that he wouldn¡¯t be caught off guard. That, however, made its respectable height pretty much useless and, if not for the perks that came with it, nothing more than a waste of materials.Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.


    ¡°Judging by how quickly the blocks are filling up the projected image of how it¡¯s going to look once it¡¯s completed¡­ it shouldn¡¯t be more than two, maybe three minutes before it¡¯s done. On the other hand¡­¡± narrating his own thoughts to himself, Theo turned his eyes back to his freshly built mansion that he had already rushed to fully renovate into the higher tier.


    By now, the blueprint had completely remodeled the place. Not only did it grow nearly twice in terms of the ground area it covered, moving as far out as half the distance between the old wooden walls and the palisade itself, the building also grew by a whole new level, even if it remained as nothing more than a simple, see-through projection for now.


    When it came to the system filling in the holographic projection with an actual mass of stone, however, the process progressed at a much slower rate than the tier 1 wooden manor upgrades. The progress was so damn slow, in fact, that Theo couldn¡¯t even give an accurate estimate for himself of how long it would take to finish.


    ¡°It seems I¡¯ve grown quite impatient, didn¡¯t I?¡± he muttered to himself, helplessly admitting to his own faults. ¡°I guess this makes it as good a time as any to look into all the other tasks I should take care of, huh?¡±


    With the axe materializing in his hand out of thin air, Theo turned his back to the manor and stepped towards the palisade, only to quickly find a system-born beaten path leading from the projected mansion¡¯s doors all the way to what seemed like a gate within the wooden wall that now surrounded the place.


    ¡°There will be absolutely no use for this wall if there are trees all around it for the monsters to climb and then jump from,¡± he narrated his own thoughts again while approaching the wooden gate¡­ only for it to open all on its own as he approached, remain open when he stepped through it, and then quickly shut closed as soon as he escaped to the outside.


    ¡°Judging by how the mansion expanded during the upgrade, I should assume the same would be the case for the tier two walls, huh?¡± Theo muttered as he dropped the axe from his shoulder while circling the first of the many trees he had mentally marked for removal.


    He then raised the axe up and to the back, already calculating the proper angles and directions he should cut at for the tree to fall away from the wall.


    With the task now focused more on removing the trees rather than harvesting them for resources, Theo happily switched over to the survival mode of tree-cutting, one that was far faster and more reliable than removing them block by block while coming at the obvious cost of a much lesser yield of wood from each individual tree.


    ¡®Once I¡¯m done cutting them down, I should go mine out some stone so that I can start the second tier of upgrades as soon as the manor finishes upgrading itself,¡¯ Theo thought, already turning his attention off as he simply went through the usual motions of cutting the tree down, clearing its branches off with a single, miraculous cut, cutting it into short logs, and then quartering each of those before rising up and pinning his eyes on the next tree in line.


    ¡®That, and I should try to look for some ore, even if I don¡¯t really have plans to mine it out yet,¡¯ he thought, daring not to risk damaging the vein that he could potentially exploit just like he could now make use of the small stream by turning it into a well to draw infinitely more water than it originally would be able to provide him with.


    ¡°And then¡­¡± with another tree falling down to the forest floor, Theo raised his foot and stepped down on its trunk, holding it in place as he raised his axe with just one hand to remove all the branches with but a single cut, ¡°then, we will see what¡¯s next. After all,¡± he smiled lightly, ¡°what¡¯s the use of planning for the future when I can¡¯t even begin to imagine what it holds in store for me?¡±


    Theo chuckled, mindlessly chopping the log into blocks and then quarters, only to stuff it into his inventory and move on to the next tree.


    ¡°It¡¯s not like I could¡¯ve ever predicted how far I would go in just a few days back when I first took my first step in this place,¡± he spoke to himself while shrugging his shoulders. ¡°And just like that, seeing how my progress only seems to accelerate as it already grows faster and faster, there¡¯s absolutely no use trying to plan too far ahead.¡±


    Theo then sighed, suddenly realizing somewhat of a downside to his rapid growth.


    ¡°After all, I have just the feeling all of this¡­¡± Theo cast a sweeping glance at his surroundings, the wooden wall, the forest¡¯s depth, and then the projection of the third story of his mansion already peeking out from behind the wall, even though the actual progress of the upgrade was likely still completing the remodeling of the ground floor.


    ¡°This system of mine just might have a whole lot more in store for me than what I¡¯m even capable of figuring out.¡±

 Chapter 30 - The Challenge of scale

    [Small Palisade: Completed]


    [Watchtower: Completed]


    [Updating the threat meter]


    [Threat Level: no threats]


    [Manor Threat Level: no threats]


    .


    ¡°Oh?¡±


    Theo finished up his swing before taking a look at the notifications appearing before his eyes.


    ¡°That surely took a while,¡± he muttered as he turned his eyes over in the direction of the now finished defensive structure wrapping around his manor before moving his eyes over to the tower.


    While the palisade was nothing more than a bunch of wooden logs with spikes at the end stuck into the ground and then arranged into a neat, tight fence, the tower¡­ was as simple as it was actually complex.


    On its own, the tower appeared to be constructed in three segments, with four legs slightly angled towards the center of their support as they rose up to the sky, only to be finished with a simple square frame that bound their tips in place. This frame then served as the support for the second tier, which, in turn, supported the third and last tier.


    At the very top, instead of just an empty square, there was a small shack of around two by two in size, elevated walls to protect the observer from any potential projectiles, and finally, a thatched roof resting atop a simple wooden frame to keep the user from the rain or the sun.


    ¡®While it looks like it could topple under nothing more than a slight gust of wind¡­ This system of mine really doesn¡¯t strike me as something that would scam me like that,¡¯ Theo thought, only for his eyes to linger on the horizontal supports between each of the tiers before tracking the straight line of a simple rope ladder hanging all the way down to the point where the palisade shielded it from his eyes.


    ¡°Well, it¡¯s not like I can test it. And while I want to take a look from above, I don¡¯t really have any plans to stay there for long,¡± thinking out loud, Theo then quickly turned his attention back to the task at hand.


    Thankfully, with just three more swings of his axe, yet another tree turned into nothing more than numbers in his inventory, allowing the young man to raise the axe up to his shoulder and breathe out with the satisfaction of a job well done.


    ¡°Now, I only need to do it one, maybe two more times, and it should be all done,¡± Theo muttered before heaving a tired sigh and turning back.


    He had spent around two hours doing nothing but cutting down trees, a task that took surprisingly long even with the blessing of his system. The blocky subroutine aside¡ªgiven how a tree could have as many as up to a hundred individual blocks of wood in it¡ªby cutting the trees in the survival manner, he still needed to properly swing his axe around four times to bring it down. Clearing it of branches would take another strike, while portioning it off into chunks could take as little as three and as many as seven further strikes, a number that would then more than double when he moved on to quartering the pieces to turn them into items he could actually put into his inventory.


    All in all, it took Theo between twelve and twenty well-aimed strikes of the axe to turn a tree into a bunch of numbers in his inventory. A process that appeared easy when thought about yet still proved to take quite the heavy toll not only on his arms and body in general but also on his brain¡ªafter all, felling just one tree in the wrong way could result in Theo accidentally demolishing a solid portion of his very own palisade!This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.


    With that number and those properties in mind, taking just two or three minutes to properly remove one tree was Theo¡¯s average, allowing him to bring down just around fifty trees¡­ from an area that he calculated to have between one to two hundred trees in total!


    ¡°I know it would be best to clear the perimeter right away and stop at nothing before I¡¯m done¡­¡± Theo¡¯s voice hung in the air for a moment, only for the young man to then lower and finally shake his head in resignation. ¡°But I guess I¡¯m nearing my limit by now. I need to eat, drink, and then sleep!¡±


    Safety wasn¡¯t the only reason why Theo was so stoked about all those potential upgrades to the manor he could enact. And while he focused on his tasks, he forgot about one extremely vital question.


    A question he didn¡¯t even bother to ask, instantly assuming the system wouldn¡¯t bother to give him an answer.


    ¡°Hey, system, is it possible for me to use the manor¡­ or rather, the mansion during the upgrade process?¡±


    Theo waited for a few moments, even going as far as to delude himself into thinking the system had to either calculate the answer or ask some authority that ruled it¡­ only to give up when several minutes passed with no new notification appearing before his eyes.


    ¡°I¡¯m on my own with it, I guess¡­¡± Theo muttered before making his way back inside his small wall¡­ only to see that by now¡­ roughly around a meter out of the total of around ten meters of his mansion had turned into solid stone.


    ¡°There are some inner walls and floors¡­¡± the young man muttered as he looked over the ¡°completed¡± part of the project and through the see-through projection at the area where the mansion expanded.


    Its core, however, the wooden structure nested within the boulder stoneage, appeared to be as it was before, with the upgrade-related changes seemingly not affecting it at all!


    ¡°If that¡¯s how it is, then¡­¡±


    Sensing a feeling of budding hope at the bottom of his heart, Theo quickly summoned the familiar notification from the system before scrolling through it to find the two mansion upgrades he was currently most interested in.


    ¡°So the dining hall needs me to smelt some more iron¡­ Hell yeah!¡±


    While the missing iron for the dining hall was certainly a letdown, Theo couldn¡¯t care less.


    For right now, he could satisfy both his hunger and his thirst with just the berries. What was much more important, however, was how with just a bit of foliage, wood, and stone, he could actually add the bedroom to his mansion!


    ¡°System, you know what to do!¡± Shouting out with joy and anticipation, Theo willed for the construction of the bedroom.


    And just like that, the streaks of light appeared once again, adding up to the already existing ones that fed into the ongoing construction of the mansion¡¯s tier upgrade.


    Contrary to the slower progress of the update, however, the construction of the bedroom progressed quickly enough for Theo to see the progress before he would even need to blink his eyes!


    ¡°Come on, just a little longer,¡± he muttered while squeezing his hands into fists with anticipation, waiting for the familiar effect to happen¡­


    Only for a cut-out part of the mansion to suddenly squeeze itself down as it rose up half a meter into the air¡­ before decompressing as it fell down, perfectly fitting into the place it came from with the already familiar, satisfying thump


    .


    [Bedroom: Completed]


    .


    ¡®Finally!¡¯


    Not sparing even another second on waiting, Theo jumped over the existing part of the tier 2 upgrade to his mansion before then doing it again over one of the inner walls before reaching what used to be an entrance to his wooden home. From there, he came inside¡­ only to be faced with nothing but a series of empty rooms and a lone staircase leading up to the mansion¡¯s second floor.


    For now, however, Theo ignored the second floor and ran across the wooden corridor before finally arriving at the innermost chamber of the place, hidden all the way out to where the boulders pretty much made most of the walls, with the biggest open space between them already customized to serve as a chimney for the room¡¯s fireplace, and with all the other gaps covered with wooden planks.


    Then, there was the most important part of the place, an elevated podium just slightly larger than Theo was tall and more than two and a half times his width. Atop this podium lay a cushion made from what appeared to be crushed foliage neatly packed into¡­ some sort of material Theo didn¡¯t even want to know the source of.


    All in all, this was the one luxury he never expected to actually achieve so soon into his exile, even when the first wave of excitement struck him down when he stepped into this civilization-forgotten place.


    Out of all the things, it was an actual bed!

 Chapter 31 - New day, new points on the agenda

    ''Who could''ve thought that just opening my eyes could be such a challenge¡­!''


    Lying down in his simple bed and covered with a blanket made out of crushed leaves and the system''s magically-sourced material of some kind, Theo simply didn''t feel like leaving.


    The projects could wait. The further development would come with time anyway. For now, just lifting his eyelids seemed like a herculean task, not to speak about escaping the warm embrace of his crude blanket.


    His bed couldn''t be more crude. His blankets less comfortable.


    To be perfectly honest, his living conditions were hardly better than those of the cavemen who managed to score a suitable cave for living.


    And yet, after several days of sleeping in literal holes he dug out from the dirt or stone, even something as simple as this crude bedding was surprisingly effective.


    "Omh-kay¡­" moaning out through his drowsiness, Theo brought his hands up to his eyes, wiping the nightly oils away before blinking a few times and then finally pulling his eyes open.


    Looking up, all Theo could see was the nice texture of straight beams of thin stone running across the otherwise wooden roof.


    ''Stone, huh¡­''


    Still not quite properly woken up, Theo stared mindlessly at this small detail, taking a considerable moment for it to flower into a fruit of realization.


    ''Stone?!''


    Theo''s morning exhaustion vanished as if by the touch of a magic wand, sending him flying out of his bed, rushing out of his sleeping chamber, and then to the outside of his mansion.


    This time, he didn''t have to jump over the half-finished walls, for the first story of his mansion had already grown to its full size, forcing the young man to follow the building''s layout rather than the most direct path possible.


    Still, in but a few seconds, Theo managed to find a way out, only to burst through the main entrance and then keep running for just a little bit more before digging his heels into the ground and turning around.


    Yet, right as he turned to confirm his hopes¡­ the realization struck him, pretty much at the same time as the reality of his situation.


    To the best of his memory, he woke up without any notification blaring out before his eyes. And just like that lack of notification implied, the mansion''s upgrade had yet to be completed, with around the last two meters at its very top remaining but a see-through projection.


    "Well, that sucks," Theo muttered under his nose, shaking his head in slight disappointment.


    In terms of his anticipation, this sure was a letdown. Yet, when looked at from a more rational and reasonable perspective¡­If you stumble upon this tale on Amazon, it''s taken without the author''s consent. Report it.


    ''I''m perfectly well-rested. From what I can recall, the nights here are extremely short for now. And if it''s supposed to take an hour to complete a tenth of the full progress, then¡­'' Theo quickly did the math in his mind, only to then slightly furrow his brows in startled confusion.


    "Wait, did I really rest so well in just¡­ six hours?"


    For someone just a few years younger than Theo, this shouldn''t be a surprise. But he had long since passed the period when sleep was a matter of if rather than when, already deep within the realm where having his sleep cut short, even if only by a slight bit, was sure to come bite him in the ass through the day.


    And yet, against all the odds, Theo felt perfectly well-rested, as if he had slept not for just a few hours but¡­ a day and then six hours!


    "Well, the only thing that changes is that I still have the time to work for a bit before moving on to the next set of upgrades," he muttered, stretching his hands out above his head before leaning as far out to one side and then the other.


    What started as just a morning stretch soon evolved into a fully-fledged warm-up exercise aimed at getting Theo''s only slightly sore muscles back up to shape and ready for another day full of nothing but heavy-duty labor.


    "At the very least, I can''t complain about the lack of things to occupy my body or mind with," he smirked to his own thoughts, only now realizing that with the threat of the Oilrat gone, his life¡­ while by no means easy, continued to quickly grow on him.


    There was a distinct beauty in staying occupied throughout the day, all the while being able to watch with his very own eyes as his labor bore fruit.


    ''Should I go back to cutting trees?'' Theo thought once he stretched the last of his muscles. ''I mean, I still have to clear the perimeter out, but¡­''


    Before his attention could lock on the nearby trees hiding behind his lousy palisade, Theo''s eyes drew over to something as simple as the empty ground of his manor''s insides. He then turned his focus over to the stone walls of his mansion, weirdly charmed by their uniform, natural glister likely caused by the morning dew settling on the surface of the walls.


    Next, rather than turning around or roaming his place to search for all his chests, Theo simply summoned his inventory window¡­ only to then bite down on his lip, realizing what crucial element of developing his manor he had missed.


    ''My inventory is full of wood¡­ But contrary to what happens when I''m upgrading the place, I cannot really access my stuff,'' he thought, quickly coming to realize the true worth of one of the upgrades the system had already introduced him to.


    "I wonder if I can afford it¡­" he thought out loud, switching the system pop-ups around with nothing more than a sliver of his will.


    Thankfully, just like the rest of the upgrades of the first tier, the storage room extension came at a hefty but reasonable price. And while it would sap most of the wood he had left after already splurging on the bedroom extension¡­ he could still afford it!


    ''Allows remote access to all my chests within the claimed zone, and remote access to said storage through the manor, huh?'' Theo thought as he scanned the lore of the expansion before rolling his eyes and simply willing for it to come to be.


    And just like the few times before, that alone was enough for a surge of light to shoot out from the middle of his chest, only for it to quickly turn into a stream of small projections of tiny blocks.


    "Well, now that''s settled, it''s time to finally tackle the next main issue on the agenda," Theo muttered to himself, slowly growing quite weirdly used to narrating his life to himself.


    ''Is it a coping mechanism aimed at shielding me from going insane from being all alone, I wonder?'' he thought before rolling his eyes again and whipping out his shovel as he moved to one of the unoccupied parts of his manor''s inner courtyard.


    ''For now, though, it''s time to diggy diggy hole,'' the young man sang a little in his thoughts, a weirdly comfortable smile growing up on his lips as his stone shovel dug into the dirt. ''I wonder just what sort of resource vein is hiding in the underground. And beyond that,'' he thought, his eyes darting over to the pop-up window with all the possible tier 1 upgrades left, ''I still need enough iron ore to smelt out enough nails to buy both the drawing room and the workshop!''

 Chapter 32 - Finally, tier two... and a half?

    Be it the forest¡¯s edge that Theo was already familiar with or the outer forest, the layer of dirt Theo had to dig through before reaching the solid rock was quite annoyingly large.


    ¡®If this was the blocky game, I would be a fifth of the way through to reaching the bedrock, while here I¡¯m barely touching the stone¡­¡¯


    Rolling his eyes, Theo knelt down and touched the block of stone he dropped down to from the cube of dirt above.


    It was this difference in feeling in his feet that gave Theo the information he needed, yet he still went ahead to confirm.


    ¡°Since this is the mine directly below the manor, I guess it won¡¯t hurt to give myself some room to work with here,¡± he muttered, resisting the desire to sheathe his shovel and whip out his pickaxe, opting to take some time to widen the breach in the ground instead.


    Bit by bit, the blocks of dirt vanished into Theo¡¯s inventory. And by the time he took a moment to take a break and behold the fruit of his short labor, a series of notifications came in.


    .


    [Storage room: Completed]


    [You can now access all the chests within the area of your claim from the manor¡¯s storehouse]


    [You can now access the manor¡¯s storehouse from anywhere within your claimed area]


    .


    ¡®Great,¡¯ Theo thought, quickly whipping out his inventory and stashing away the two stacks of raw dirt he gathered while merely digging a swirling staircase down to the level of the stone and then by creating a small cave¡ªmining base, one could say¡ªat said level.


    ¡°I guess that means I no longer need to bother with the limitations of my inventory¡­¡±


    Even with all the upgrades that pushed the size of Theo¡¯s interdimensional backpack or whatever his inventory actually was to a whopping twenty-six slots¡­ once down in the mines, it was only a matter of time before those slots would fill up anyway.


    Adding up his tools occupying a slot each, a stack of raw and then dried berries and the likes, and the impressive twenty-six slots would quickly decrease to only about twenty¡ªand that many, Theo could fill with a single zoned-out mining run.


    ¡®Now then¡­¡¯


    With his underground base now prepared, Theo finally sheathed his shovel before switching over to his pickaxe. A bite of the dried berry mush complemented with a quick devouring of the raw berry later, he wiped his mouth and grasped his tool¡¯s handle before bringing it high above his head¡­ and then gently dropping it down against the stone.


    By the time he raised his pick above his head again, his consciousness already started to falter as the algorithm he came up with for his zoned-out ability kicked in.


    In essence, it was but a simple, short list of instructions he planned to follow while letting the time pass, saving himself the drag of enduring the pain and boredom of the prolonged task while also improving his ability to gather the materials.


    An ability that, given the costs of all the upgrades in tier 1 already forcing him to work for hours just to get one of them, was pretty damn likely to come in clutch the moment his manor upgrade would finish.


    And so, there were but a few paradigms Theo made himself follow while his consciousness would rest.


    First, it was to keep an eye on both of the threat meters and the status of the zone itself, the status that Theo could vividly remember changing back when he was the one challenging the Oilrat for its territory.


    Secondly, it was to follow the specific rules of mining, never directly striking down at his footing, ready to wake up were anything unexpected to occur.


    Thirdly, even upon the discovery of a vein of ore of any kind¡­ he would opt out of mining it, in fear that affecting it directly could mess up his manor¡¯s ability to exploit it through other, potentially infinite means.


    Finally, the last order Theo set for himself was just to mine away, only stopping if any of the earlier steps would warrant the ability breaking¡­ or if a new notification appeared before his eyes.If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.


    ¡®I¡¯ve already gone into the zoned-out state only to later find out I could get much more from all the mining I did if only I had confirmed my achievements and accepted those flashing messages,¡¯ Theo bit down on his lip right as he was about to let his sense of self float into the nothingness.


    ¡°Never again.¡±


    Gritting his teeth to the point of pain, Theo closed his eyes¡­


    Only to wake up who knows how far later into the day.


    The algorithm he set for himself worked out like a charm. It did so well, in fact, that Theo could still see the slight side effects of the new notification appearing before his eyes, artifacts that would normally vanish within the first few seconds from the system contacting him.


    .


    [Stone Manor: Upgrade completed!]


    [Your Manor leveled up to tier 2!]


    [Accounting for wooden foundations]


    [Stone Manor > Woodstone Manor]


    [Your Manor leveled up to tier 2.5!]


    .


    The first set of short notifications, Theo discarded with hardly any hesitation.


    ¡®Is that the gradual development perk the system mentioned before?¡¯ he thought, still sparing the notifications just enough thought to properly process the messages hidden behind them. He then shrugged his shoulders. ¡®If so, isn¡¯t this quite disappointing? I mean, I¡¯ve ended up sleeping under a solid roof, something I couldn¡¯t do if I went straight for the stone manor, but still¡­ if it¡¯s just a matter of getting a slightly higher number than I would otherwise do¡­¡¯


    Regretfully, there wasn¡¯t really any way for Theo to verify the situation, not unless he conquered another zone and decided to establish another manor there, all just to figure out whether or not his system screwed him over on this detail or not.


    And no matter how he looked at the issue, doing something like that wasn¡¯t just stupid¡ªit would be outright crazy in its pettiness!


    ¡°Now then, for the meat of what this upgrade comes with,¡± Theo muttered to himself as his eyes drew to the hefty notification that appeared as soon as the initial ones dispersed.


    .


    [You can now upgrade the mansion by adding the following rooms:


    - Hall of Arms - Allows you to remotely control your defenses


    - Map Room - When inside, gives you a map of your whole claimed area with all friendlies, enemies, and structures marked in real-time


    - Meditation Room - A place for restoring mental fortitude, can be used to practice magic


    - Craftechamber - Improved Workshop, upgrades the speed and complexity of existing technology


    - Study - A place of silence and learning, provides a discount for unlocking new abilities and technologies]


    .


    [Gradual progression mansion upgrade:


    - Constructor¡¯s Office - Increases the construction speed of manor rooms, upgrades, and extensions, decreases their cost]


    .


    [You can now upgrade the manor by adding the following extensions:


    - Smithy - A proper forge allowing the expansion of the range and the automation of smithing purposes


    - Lumberjack Guild - Provides passive income of wood-related materials, gradually removes trees from marked areas, can reforest marked areas


    - Mining Guild - Allows the exploitation of the area¡¯s resource veins, marks all the other resource veins on the map, provides passive income of stones and ores


    - Warding Tower - Decreases the strength of approaching enemies, increases the threat-detection range of the manor


    - Outer Stone Wall - A combination of a ditch, rampart, and a stone wall designed to keep even the strongest enemies at bay. Comes in three forms that can be either selected separately or constructed jointly at an increased cost]


    .


    [Gradual Progression manor upgrade:


    - Specialized Industry - Allows the selection of one industry the manor specializes in, possibly influencing the perks provided by other buildings while providing a passive income from the selected industry]


    .


    [You can now upgrade your claimed area by constructing the following:


    - Throne Hall - Part of the mansion, a prestige project necessary to unlock more advanced technology


    - Guild - Universal prestige project, can be built outside of the manor limits, provides passive income of the fruits of the selected industry


    - Monument - Customizable building, has to be placed within the limits of the manor, upgrades a selected building to a higher tier (only applicable before reaching tier 3)]


    .


    [Your manor has now reached tier 2 while you were still within your grace period. The ferocity of the nearby monsters increases]


    [Time before the first wave of challengers: 20:00:00]


    .


    [Time before the first wave: 19:59:59... 19:59:58...]

 Chapter 33 - So many upgrades to choose from!

    ¡®So many things to choose from¡­¡¯ Theo thought, momentarily stunned by the number of options the system offered.


    On one hand, he low-key expected this kind of a thing, given how there were only five options for upgrades to the mansion¡¯s insides and the extensions to its outside, just like it was the case when he got his manor to tier one.


    Taught by his experiences, however, he didn¡¯t expect the perk that the system brought up before to be of actually any real value!


    ¡°I stand corrected, system,¡± Theo spoke out loud, as if to make it known that he was fully and willingly acknowledging the system¡¯s help. ¡°Those gradual progression perks are awesome!¡±


    Just by seeing how long it took to get the manor upgraded to tier two, Theo could imagine just how bloated the timings for the other upgrades of the same level would be. And yet, as if to counter exactly this problem that artificially slowed his progress down, the system came in clutch with the constructor¡¯s office, which not only was supposed to cut down on those times¡­ but also decrease the number of materials needed to get those constructions started to begin with!


    ¡®That¡¯s a must-have for me,¡¯ he thought, quickly committing this particular upgrade to his memory before even allowing his eyes to move not down¡­ but up, to the very beginning of the notification, a choice reasoned by the fact that his eyes instantly drew towards the parts he couldn¡¯t instantly recognize as the direct counterparts of tier 1 stuff.


    ¡®What¡¯s the use of a hall of arms when I have yet to get any defenses for the place besides just the palisade?¡¯ Theo quickly squinted his eyes in confusion. ¡®That is, unless there¡¯s something else down there¡­¡¯ he quickly scanned the list, only paying attention to the names and then to the warding tower in particular¡­


    But despite his hopes, not a single active defense system appeared to be in store, making Theo question the very idea of building the first of the potential tier 2 rooms.


    ¡°Not only is it useless for me as of now, it does come at a steep price too¡­¡±


    If there was one thing that differed between the mansion and manor upgrades, it was the scale of their costs. And while neither was cheap¡­ the manor extensions were noticeably more expensive than their mansion counterparts.


    That is, such was the case until Theo laid his eyes on the cost of the war room upgrade.


    ¡°Ten thousand wood, five thousand stone?¡± Theo squinted his eyes again, worried he simply wasn¡¯t seeing right¡­ even though those system windows didn¡¯t seem to have anything to do with his eyes, being imprinted directly into his consciousness rather than appearing as some sort of magical artifacts only he could see.


    For a moment, Theo felt like cursing his fate, the injustice of the system, and then all its parts separately¡­ only to ultimately shake his head, roll his eyes, and sigh out before moving on to the next potential upgrade.


    In the end, however, there wasn¡¯t a single upgrade that Theo could claim to be particularly more excited about than the rest. And that was simply because all of them came offering one heck of an awesome perk!


    ¡®As little as people care about the map in games, having a live-updated one in real life¡­¡¯ Theo shook his head. ¡®I can imagine entire empires coming to blows over something so convenient, especially if it could be upgraded to be used on a battlefield¡­¡¯


    The corner of Theo¡¯s mouth twitched.


    ¡®And I get the feeling that a battlefield is what this place is going to soon turn into!¡¯


    With all those perks¡­ not even the material costs of implementing them made up for a rightful, justifiable price. And since it wasn¡¯t the construction cost that was the meat of the challenge, then¡­


    ¡°Well, there¡¯s no use thinking about it, is there?¡± Theo chastised himself out loud before putting his attention over the rest of the upgrades.


    The craftechamber that would open a whole new level of development and progress potential, the degree of which Theo didn¡¯t even dare to guess. The Study, where he could progress his potential even further by researching new techs. And finally, the meditation room that would open up the world of magic for him!


    Each of those upgrades was to kill for. Yet, each of them came at a cost steep enough to make even Theo, someone with the ability to farm resources like no one else in the world, hesitate.


    ¡°And that¡¯s all but a half of what¡¯s new¡­¡±


    Already mentally tired from all the excitement, Theo moved over to the constructor¡¯s office, pretending not to see its five-digit-long material requirements, as he focused on the external expansion paths for his manor as a whole.This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.


    ¡°Smithy will be big later, once I get the ore. For now, though, I can forget about it,¡± he muttered upon seeing the several iron ingot requirements attached to the rest of the construction costs of the place.


    The next two parts, the lumberjack and the mining guilds, however, were a lot more reasonable picks. And while they required stone, wood, and then some iron ingots¡­ their cost wasn¡¯t all that big for Theo to struggle to fulfill it.


    It was the warding tower and the outer stone wall that came with a hefty price tag, requiring Theo to spend quite a bit longer in the mines to get either of those¡­ or so he thought, before taking a look at the current state of his storage.


    ¡°Wait, what the hell?¡±


    Contrary to how things were in his personal inventory, the manor¡¯s storage accepted items in numbers way above the stack limit Theo had no other choice but to follow for now. That¡¯s why, while his personal inventory could fit maybe just above a thousand blocks of stone in total¡­ the current number of stone blocks the manor¡¯s inventory held could be rounded up to eleven damn thousand!


    ¡®That only makes me wonder,¡¯ Theo gulped his saliva down, ¡®how the fuck did I mine so much in the short two hours I was zoned out?¡¯


    Theo used the progress rate of the manor¡¯s upgrade as a clock of sorts, giving him the rough outline of just how long he spent in the mines.


    Still, how he managed to get so much stone so quickly was likely going to remain a mystery, for Theo¡¯s attention quickly turned over to how he could now actually afford not one, but both of those upgrades.


    ¡°Heck, I could even get several towers at once¡­¡± he muttered to himself, staring at the five thousand stone block price tag for the wall and the further two thousand for each of the warding towers.


    Still, knowing that he could, in theory, invest in those right away¡­ didn¡¯t make it the best or even the correct choice of action.


    ¡°I¡¯m still going to need some stone to get the constructor¡¯s office,¡± thinking out loud, Theo sat down cross-legged directly on the ground, turning his eyes over to the cost of each of the upgrades he was interested in.


    Regretfully, just like it was the case with the smithy, the constructor¡¯s office required him to come up with a total of a thousand nails and then a hundred iron ingots.


    In other words, if he wanted to take the optimal path around expanding his manor¡­ he had no other choice but to get back to the mines!


    Still, regardless of how much this task grew in importance ever since the manor¡¯s upgrade came through, Theo still decided to first go through all the news before deciding on any course of action, especially if it was something that came with a steep time-centered price tag.


    ¡°I wonder what this specialized industry is all about, huh¡­¡± Theo squinted his eyes, struggling to see through the value of the second line of the gradual progress perks, one that clearly had to do with the exterior rather than the interior, as was likely the case with the constructor¡¯s office.


    Still, after seeing the benefits of the aforementioned office, Theo dared not to harbor a single doubt about the value of this perk. A value that was only further increased by the insane material costs slapped on it!


    ¡®Ten thousand wood blocks? Ten thousand stone blocks? And then still, ten thousand iron nails and a whole thousand iron ingots?!¡¯


    Baffled by those numbers, Theo could do nothing but just sigh and shake his head.


    ¡°Well, I guess this is going to have to wait¡­ And this also explains what those lumberjack and mining guilds are likely for,¡± he spoke out to the sky as his eyes drew up, only to then dutifully move down to the second-to-last segment of his notification.


    ¡°Those¡­¡± Theo uttered a small moan, hardly even noticing the names of the potential expansions when his eyes drew to their respective prize-tags¡­ each of which boasted numbers that broke through the mental barrier of five digits and stepped into the realm of hundreds of thousands of blocks!


    ¡°Yeah, those are deffinitely the late game of this subroutine,¡± Theo muttered, overwhelmed by the massive numbers attached to each of the area upgrades, a completely new avenue he could expand his claim with.


    Still, that left him with one more, the very last part of the notification, one that was considerably smaller than all the stuff Theo went through before. And, as opposed to those, it also updated every second, making it quite clear what each of the numbers showcased was supposed to mean.


    .


    [Time before the first wave of challengers: 19:43:27]


    .


    [19:43:26]


    .


    [19:43:25]


    .


    [19:43:24]


    .


    ¡°¡­¡±


    Theo stood in silence, struggling to even gulp his saliva down when faced with the sudden emergence of what felt like a doom scenario for him, who dared to think his system would make his exile any different than what it was supposed to be¡ªa freaking execution.


    ¡°Well, I will be damned¡­¡± Theo finally managed to utter, feeling an overwhelming sense of dread take over his body and paralyze it, stopping him from even shaking in fear.


    Those challengers¡­


    Theo had no doubt they were either on the Oilrat¡¯s level or even stronger. And the wording of the warning was clear.


    It wasn¡¯t going to be just one or two of those.


    It was going to be an entire wave of them.


    And as it stood, Theo still lacked any real means to defend himself, his possessions, or his claim!


    ¡°I wonder what will happen if they take over the manor¡­¡± he muttered¡­


    Only for the fire of determination to suddenly spark up from the very bottom of his soul, chasing away the fear-induced paralysis and filling his body with strange energy that somehow felt extremely familiar.


    ¡°I¡¯ve worked too damn hard to get all of this done!¡± Theo shouted out to the sky as he jumped up to his feet, his hand already summoning the axe from his inventory. ¡°And I will be damned if I¡¯m going to just let a bunch of monsters take it all away from me!¡±