Simon’s brow was dotted with sweat and his face was slightly pale, but he dutifully continued mining.

By now, he had gathered nearly 10 cubic meters of stone, but he wanted to continue for as long as possible. After all, it would be beneficial for him; both in magic proficiency, and island progression.

However, though he had no problems manipulating the ice shards for a few moments, doing so for several minutes in a row was a different story altogether.

After all, he had to avoid collisions between other ice shards and activate and deactivate gravity and destruction magic at the right times, whilst also avoiding already broken down cobblestone. Such actions naturally took quite a bit of precision and tenacity, which quickly wore him down, as his body was still untempered.

But, that was precisely his intent!

Since his body was still untempered in this world, he would just temper it through strenuous tasks, such as mana manipulation. Thus, tiring himself was simply hitting two birds with one stone.

Soon enough, Simon finally reached his limit. By now, he felt like he had spent a day straight doing backbreaking work.

“Ughh”

After groaning and deactivating the magic, he recollected himself and jumped down to collect the cobblestone for the final time.

Thump.

Upon landing in a pile of cobblestone, he noticed a slight green glow hidden beneath the uppermost layer of cobblestone.

‘Oh?’ he glanced at the green glow curiously. Just what did he find?

He quickly brushed away the stone around the strange glow, to reveal a green crystal the size of a finger.

Upon seeing the crystal, he immediately grabbed it up and inspected it carefully with shaking hands. After all, it was giving off an aura that Simon was extremely familiar with.

“Mana Crystal?!?!” he couldn’t help but exclaim.

Though the system branded it as an [Essence Crystal], it was clearly a mana crystal!

His shock was understandable, as they were a high end currency in his previous world - only influential figures managed to get their hands one some. Even someone like Simon had a somewhat difficult time at getting them.

‘What the hell is this game? There’s even mana crystals here at the start of the game? Are you serious?’

‘...’

‘Damn, this is legit!’ Simon thought happily. He was beyond impressed with the game; it was simply too extravagant.

Unfortunately, the mana crystal that he found was so impure and weak that it could barely be considered to be a mana crystal; it wasn’t quite the same thing as the high quality goods of his previous life.

Nonetheless, it was a good omen for the future.

After gathering the loose cobblestone, Simon then threw the ice shards off the island with a wave of his hand and hopped out of the hole.

When he took a look around the island once again, he found that a new tree had popped up while he was underground.

‘Ah, I’ve been worried about a resource shortage, but it seems they will respawn.’ Simon thought with a nod.

After which, he stored his cobblestone and the mana crystal into his hut, and went back out to harvest more trees.

But this time, he naturally didn’t hold back and took down four trees at once.

Riiiip!

...

Then, he proceeded to gather berries from the bushes and pulled out some longer strands of grass.

...

After gathering all of these resources, he returned to the hut to process the trees and stored them, before checking his progress on upgrading the island core.

-----

[Island Core](Lv. 0)

It has mysterious properties and an infinite potential to grow.

Upgrade conditions: 4.6/20 Cubic Meters of Wood Planks, 10/10 Cubic Meters of Stone, 1/1 Essence Crystal.

-----

Upon checking his progress on upgrading the island core, Simon quickly found that he had nowhere near enough wood.

‘Damn’

He headed back out and glanced around the island once again, groaning as he witnessed the near empty island.

There was simply no wood to be found, and he didn’t want to wait all day for the trees to respawn. After all, if he were to merely wait, it would take at least 2 hours for him to get enough wood...

‘Wait!’

He turned towards the hut with glowing eyes, an idea suddenly surfacing within his mind.

He was not so dumb as to deconstruct the hut that he was trying to upgrade in order to get more wood. However… Who said he couldn’t repair it himself to save wood?

Simon then waved a hand, which sent a stream of light and nature energy into a small section of the wooden hut.

Skillswise, he would be classified as using [Healing Sovereign] and [Nature Sovereign] simultaneously. Though in reality, he was using true magic, not skill based magic.

Soon enough, a small section of the old rotten wood slowly became a healthy brown color, regaining its former glory.

He then checked the description of the hut again.

-----

[Mysterious Hut](Lv. 0)

Age: ???

It has mysterious properties and an infinite potential to grow.

Upgrade conditions: 4.6/19.6 Cubic Meters of Wood Planks, 10/10 Cubic Meters of Stone, 1/1 Essence Crystal.

-----

Simon then grinned in satisfaction. ‘Great, this is much more reasonable!’

He then proceeded to slowly and gradually repair the wooden hut.

...

A couple minutes later…

Simon wiped sweat off of his forehead, as he inspected the result of his efforts over the past couple minutes.

Though the hut did not look exceptionally good, it was for the most part, repaired!

He then checked the description of the hut once again.

-----

[Island Core](Lv. 0)

Age: ???

It has mysterious properties and an infinite potential to grow.

Upgrade conditions: 4.2/4.2 Cubic Meters of Wood Planks, 10/10 Cubic Meters of Stone, 1/1 Essence Crystal.

-----

A system notification then rang out, after he read the description of the hut.

[Would you like to upgrade the island core?]

‘Upgrade it!’ he thought without hesitation. After all, this is what he had spent the last couple of minutes trying to do.

Suddenly, the materials inside the hut disappeared into thin air as Simon’s vision darkened.

When his vision returned, he found himself standing in front of the island core.

It had undergone an earth shattering transformation; now, it looked more like a cabin than a hut! It’s edges were also now reinforced with stone, and its interior nearly doubled in size.

After entering the cabin, Simon also found that the floor was made of stone, and the once gloomy and dirty interior was replaced with a cozy and clean one.

The cabin even came with a small cot, a desk, a table, and two chairs. Moreover, the mana density within the interior was slightly higher than its surroundings.

He then turned to look out of a window, and found that his island grew by roughly 10 meters on every side, which made the island total at 45 meters in diameter.

‘Damn, this investment was not bad at all!’ he thought, satisfied. These upgrades - especially the mana density increase, would be very helpful to his progression.

As Simon investigated these upgrades, he was deluged by a series of system notifications.

[Island Core leveled up to Lv. 1, rewarding 100 xp, island rose by 10,000 meters]

[Island leveled up to Lv. 1, island rose by 10,000 meters]

[Unlocked: Shop]

[Unlocked: Settings]

Simon suddenly saw another two icons on the top of his vision and took a deep breath.

‘Nice, so I unlocked the shopping system and leveled up? It seems upgrading my hut gives enough xp to also upgrade my island, pretty convenient!’

‘Open Shop!’

He then found himself viewing a transparent list of items with prices attached next to them.

-----

[Item Shop] (Lv. 1)

Buy

[New!] Basic wheat seed, 1 copper. Basic rice seed, 1 copper. Basic corn seed, 1 copper. Cubic Meter of Limestone, 75 coppers. Cubic Meter of Oak Wood, 75 coppers. Slice of Bread, 5 coppers. Elderberry 5 coppers. 1 Cubic Meter of Water, 100 coppers.

Sell

[New!] Wheat grain, 0-1 coppers. Rice seed, 0-1.2 coppers. Corn Cob, 0-1 silvers. Cubic Meter of Stone, 25-250 coppers. Cubic Meter of Wood, 25-250 coppers. Slice of Bread, 0-1 coppers. Berry 0-10 coppers.

Notes: 10,000 coppers = 100 silvers = 1 gold: 100x increments between each.

Fluctuating prices for selling are due to the variety of the quality of goods. For buying, the product is fixed, so the price is fixed as well. As for selling, the quality of said material can vary, hence it’s range of prices.

-----

Seeing the prices in the shop, Simon was immediately puzzled. Most of the prices seemed pretty reasonable but the crops… were rather underwhelming.

‘Aren’t crops underpowered here? Why do they sell for so little?’ he couldn’t help but think.

The island was quite small, so the amount of crops that it would yield would definitely be limited. Plus, he knew just how strict the system was…

If it said 0-1 coppers, everything would probably sell for .1 coppers or less!

‘Eh, whatever. I’m a farming genius, I don’t believe I can’t make a hefty profit from farming!’ he thought confidently.

Even if they put him in a metal room without sunlight, so long as he had a seed and his magic, he could grow a garden effortlessly. This was what it meant to be a genius farmer; one could push the limits of agriculture in all aspects! He was not afraid of the system’s seemingly fraudulent prices.

He then decided to sell half a meter of stone to kickstart his farming career.

After selecting the “sell” option, and selecting a square meter as the quantity, a good chunk of cobblestone in his cabin disappeared with a ding, and some copper coins took their place.

[Received 13 coppers]

‘Man…’

Simon was sorely disappointed upon realizing that he only received 13 coppers from the stone that he sold - it was next to the minimum selling price.

‘Well I guess the stone was from a level 0 island, so it can’t exactly be of good quality…’ he thought, ridiculing himself.

Using the money that he had just earned, he then bought one of every seed, and they appeared in his cabin one by one.

After which, he opened his “Settings” with curiosity; in any case, he had essentially seen all that the shop had to offer for now.

His vision was then filled with a list that contained a myriad of settings. But a few specific settings caught his eye in particular.

‘Toggle resource gathering mode?’

He fell into deep thought for a while.

‘So having resource gathering mode on means that you can gather resources without fear, and having it off means that the resources don’t respawn? This should be very useful...’

Resource gathering mode was currently on, and for now, he didn’t plan on turning it off.

He then looked at the pain sensitivity setting, which was currently at 10%.

‘10% pain? How are fights supposed to be realistic when nothing hurts? It really is unfortunate that there is no 100% pain option…’ Simon thought with a frown.

If anyone else were to hear his thoughts, they would likely think he was a crazy b*stard. Though, they weren’t wrong. He was a crazy b*stard, but he was also from another world. Subsequently, he didn’t have a deep understanding of things such as modern laws and regulations…

He promptly maxed out the pain sensitivity to 50%, and exited the settings.

Then, he checked the changes to his stats after his level up.

-----

[Pro Farmer#69] (Human)

Island Level: 1 (0% -> 8%)

Island Altitude: (0 -> 20,000) meters.

Mining Level: 0 (0% -> 81%)

Gathering Level: 0 (0% -> 19%)

Forging Level: 0 (0% -> 4%)

Magic Level: 0 (34% -> 39%)

Nature Lv. 0 (73% -> 79%)

Hot Lv. 0 (41% -> 48%)

Cold Lv. 0 (40% -> 47%)

Dark Lv. 0 (34% -> 43%)

Light Lv. 0 (37% -> 42%)

Time Lv. 0 (35% -> 40%)

Space Lv. 0 (34% -> 39%)

HP: 2520 -> 2705

MP: 1143 -> 1233

Strength: 662 -> 702

Speed: 495 -> 545

Resilience: 535 -> 578

Endurance: 516 -> 546

Intelligence: 1143 -> 1233

Vitality: 484 -> 521

Skills:

Magic Derived Skills:

[Matter Sovereign] (II)(Lv. 2)

[Destruction Resonance] (II)(Lv. 1)

[Appraisal Resonance] (II)(Lv. 2)

[Hot Sovereign] (II)(Lv. 2)

[Thunder Resonance] (II)(Lv. 1)

[Flame Resonance] (II)(Lv. 1)

[Cold Sovereign] (II)(Lv. 2)

[Ice Resonance] (II)(Lv. 1)

[Hardening Resonance] (II)(Lv. 2)

[Nature Sovereign] (II)(Lv. 5)

[Summoning Resonance] (II)(Lv. 2)

[Poison Resonance] (II)(Lv. 2)

[Light Sovereign] (II)(Lv. 1)

[Healing Resonance] (II)(Lv. 1)

[Clairvoyance Attunement] (I)(Lv. 7)

[Dark Sovereign] (II)(Lv. 1)

[Soul Attunement] (I)(Lv. 9)

[Mind Attunement] (I)(Lv. 8)

[Spacetime Manipulation] (I)(Lv. 10)

[Gravity Resonance] (II)(Lv. 1)

[Perception Attunement] (I)(Lv. 9)

Miscellaneous Skills:

[Anomaly] (I)(Lv. 1)

You will unlock more of your stat page as you progress.

-----

After noting this information, Simon was somewhat disappointed since his stats didn’t rise following the level up of the island.

But when he thought of his next task, his disappointment evaporated in an instant.

‘Right, it’s about time to start my farm!’