The [Stone Axe (rare)] was the best axe Baba had ever wielded, and it was one of Baba’s biggest regrets to date that he broke it, but the disappointment from losing the axe had long been washed away.

The human had a shack now, and he was going to make him a new axe— and not just any axe, an axe better than before!

Baba was excited, then the human turned the new shack into stone and kicked him out.

“Come back later.” It said. Leaving Baba facing the shut door of the shack in shock.

...

“It’s dark...”

After kicking Baba out Capra barricaded himself in his new home. He closed all the windows, and made sure the door was locked, however, there was an issue.

“Damn.”

The shack was completely dark. It wasn’t a big problem, but he’d have to solve it before he could continue working. Luckily player homes had their perks.

“System, display house options.”

Player Home Options:

Owner: Capra.

Quality: Uncommon.

Durability: 100/100 (+400)

Style: Goblin Shack (Modified).

Location: Hard Foot Tribe Village.

Storage Locker: Empty.

Available upgrades: 0.

Purchasable House Items: 4.

“Display purchaseable items.”

1. Torch:

* Cost: 2 copper or 1 wood branch.

2. Wooden Bed:

* Cost: 20 copper or 4 wood branches and one wood log.

3. Wooden Table:

* Cost:20 copper or 4 wood branches and one wood log.

4. Wooden Workbench:

* Cost: 10 copper or 4 wooden branches and half a wood log.

5. Wood Chair:

* Cost: 5 copper or 4 wooden branches and a quarter of a wood log.

“Purchase four torches. Utilize wood branches from my inventory.”

Capra knew that If a player had enough money they could purchase cosmetic accessories for their home through the house options menu; however, there were big limits to what could be done that way, and those limits depended on the quality of the home.

Capra’s shack should have been common quality or worse, but essence forging the walls had increased its quality all the way up to uncommon, which was enough for him to purchase some common items. If he gathered and stored enough resources into the house’s storage he’d be able to purchases a few more items, maybe even upgrade the house in the future, but that was something for another time.

Fwoosh.

After Capra’s command four torches immediately took their places on the shack’s walls and the dark shack immediately lit up.

“Purchase one workbench, a chair, a bed, and one wooden table. Utilize copper coins. ”

The items he requested quickly appeared and fell to the ground with a “clunk,” and he proceeded to essence forge them with stone for sturdiness, then he was satisfied. Now he just needed to designate a spawn point.

System Notification: You are designating your home as your primary spawn point. Are you sure you want to do this?

“Yes.”

System Notification: Processing... Designation complete. You may choose to spawn at your home should you die within 50 kilometers of it.

Capra hadn’t forgotten the lesson given to him when he nearly turned himself into stone, so this time around he made sure to have a spawn point in case anything went wrong and he didn’t want to risk losing any more stat points to remove a curse.

With that done he grabbed his new chair and sat at his crafting bench. It was time to work.

...

Capra pulled out a few pieces of wood from his inventory and set them aside in a pile, then he picked out a few pieces and placed them on his crafting bench. His skinning knife moved deftly as it carved at the wood until eventually Capra made a hammer. Then he made a knife, a chisel, and an extra large nail he could use to create perforations. These were all tools Capra thought he would need to improve his crafting results.

The process took about 50 minutes, and when he was done he essence forged each tool.

“Good.” He spoke, clearly satisfied with his work.

The increase in his woodworking skill had made him stronger, but it also made working with wood easier, so the tools he made looked half decent.

Capra had a lot of things he wanted to try with his new tools, but he decided that the first thing he’d do was make Baba’s axe. After all, he was almost certain the goblin was still waiting outside.

His wood pile had woods of varying lengths and sizes, but Capra chose the longest and thickest branch from out of the pile. It was a branch half a foot thick, and at least a meter long. It was the best branch Capra had available for an axe handle, the only downside to it was that it was bent at the middle where it went forward for a little before straightening back out.

As Capra used his new chisel on the branch the branch’s bottom half slowly developed a shallow groove. Then Capra pulled out a leaf from his inventory that had already been essence forged and used it to sand down the rough edges. Within a few minutes he had a workable axe handle.

System Notification: You have made one [Unusual Axe Handle]. Beginner Wood Working Mastery (lvl. 3): +5 exp.

He repeated the process various times with different branches until eventually he had 10 axe handles of varying shapes and sizes which he could use to make an axe.

Then he used a few thicker branches to carve out ten long axe blades which he put to the side.

System Notification: You have made [Unusual Axe Blade]. Beginner Wood Working Mastery (lvl. 3): +5 exp.

System Notification: Beginner Wood Working Mastery (lvl.3) becomes Beginner Wood Working Mastery (lvl.4). +2 Strength.

Capra ignored the level up message and grabbed a long branch which he then split into 10 pieces. They would be test pieces.

...

The flying horror essences were the most tempting to work with, but Capra decided he’d start off by testing the effects of the unknown fruit essence he had gathered before, just to be safe.

“Enchant, use unknown fruit essence (1).”

The fruit’s essence surged out from the enchant spell. It was a bright purple and yellow essence, and it quickly saturated the small wooden test piece. Because the test pieces were small the enchanting process was relatively quick, and used very little essence.

[Essence forged block of wood]

A chunk of wood taken from the branch of a tree indigenous to the [Sinking Depths] region. It has been saturated with the essence of an unknown fruit essence. It is a unique material, the first of its kind.

Weight: 0.01 kg

The item description wasn’t much help with testing the essence, and Capra made a mental note to get a few levels in herbalism, but he wasn’t too worried. An item description wasn’t the only way to gain information about an item.

After being essence forged the wood had become purple with yellow spots just like the fruit. Capra poked and prodded at the block of wood with his skinning knife and noticed that it had actually toughened a little, which made sense given how hard the fruit was.

The skinning knife continued to jab into the block of wood, until eventually it went in further and the block of wood released a white liquid.

“Interesting.”

A finger went into the liquid a few seconds after its release. Capra had a spawn point now, so he was feeling brave. Maybe a little too brave for his own good.

System Notification: You have come into contact with a powerful poison. -2 hp.

“Gah!”

The liquid from the fruit was highly poisonous and the finger Capra put into the liquid started turning purple and yellow as soon as it made slight contact..

“Shit. Shit. Shit.”

Capra conjured water and washed off his finger in a hurry. It had only been a finger but the poison was spreading quickly. It continued to spread and do damage as Capra frantically washed it off with water, but after reducing his health by 30 it stopped.

“Phew... close call.”

After the danger passed Capra accessed his data log in the system menu and wrote down the results. He was glad he didn’t eat the fruit to test it, given that his pain settings were still on max, he knew he wouldn’t have enjoyed the experience.

Seeing as he was safe and had verified the usage of the unknown fruit essence he grabbed another piece of wood and continued working.

...

In the end Capra tested, and re-tested every essence he got from non-organic objects, and wrote the results in his data log. Now he needed to test out the organic essences he’d gotten from monster.

“It’ll be okay. It’ll be okay.” He repeated.

In truth Capra didn’t want to test those essences. They were the most interesting to work with, but he felt they would also be the most hazardous, but he knew he needed to.

In order to stay safe Capra decided to use the [Blue Moon Rabbit Essence] first, but he chopped the already small test piece of wood into a smaller piece of wood just in case.

“Enchant... Blue Moon Rabbit Essence.”

It was the first time Capra was using the essence of a creature to enchant so he expected the experience to be different than normal, and he was not disappointed. The [Blue Moon Rabbit Essence] he had originally collected was peaceful, and he didn’t notice anything different about it other than that it was an odd shade of blue, but now that he was using it with [Enchant] the entire situation changed.

“Grahhh.” he grunted.

The [Blue Moon Rabbit Essence] was rebelling. Normally Capra could control the flow and direction of essences with finger movements. It was a weird control system, but Capra had figured out the trick behind it; however, now that he tried to infuse the test piece with [Blue Moon Rabbit Essence] he found that there was an invisible force constraining his finger movements.

He was slowly losing control of the essence, and soon it formed the shape of a blue moon rabbit head.

“What?” Capra was stunned.

The head was solid, but a little transparent due to being made of essence, however it had vivid detail, and before Capra knew what was happening it turned and stared at him.

Its gaze wasn’t filled with malice, if anything it looked like a lost ghost. It soon lost interest in Capra and tried to float away but it was as if there was an invisible cage above Capra’s hand, constraining it. The essence didn’t like the cage and it rebelled.

It clashed against the invisible cage time and time again, and each strike caused Capra’s hand to tremble.

“It can’t leave.”

Capra recovered from his shock and started observering the rabbit essence. He could hardly control it, but the rabbit head couldn’t get away either – no matter how fiercely it struggled –, so they were at an impasse.

“What are you?” Capra asked.

Essence siphoning obviously wasn’t necromancy, and although the rabbit head looked like it was a ghost, Capra was sure it wasn’t; however it did seem to have a will of its own.

Seeing as Capra couldn’t force the essence to go into the wood test piece Capra decided that he would bring the wood test piece to the essence instead. Capra picked up the small piece of wood and brought it close to the essence.

The rabbit head saw that the piece of wood was coming towards it and it slammed against the invisible barrier containing it even more fiercely. The closer the test piece got the more fiercely the rabbit head struggled. Eventually sweat started dripping down Capra’s forehead.

He wanted to slam the test piece into the rabbit essence but he moved slowly. He didn’t want to risk contaminating his hand with essence because of carelessness.

By the time the wooden test piece was within 2 inches of the rabbit essence, it suddenly started to calm down. The test piece had passed through the boundaries of the wooden cage and the rabbit head carefully floated around it, avoiding it cautiously, but occasionally coming closer to sniff it.

Things became peaceful, and Capra decided to not force the test piece on the essence. After a few minutes the essence calmed down completely and started to enter the test piece of its own volition.

System Notification: You have successfully essence forged [Block of Wood]. Proficiency: +5

System Notification: [Block of Wood] needs a name.

What would you like to name it?

“What?” Capra was confused. Why would the test piece need a name?

Skri..

As Capra was wondering what was going on with the system notification he heard a noise and looked down at his hand. The small block of wood he’d used as a test piece was changing. It grew fur on its back, and its body started elongating slightly. Then it grew four legs, and two ears.

Within a few seconds capra had what looked like a miniature blue moon rabbit in his hand, the difference being that its fur was composed of blue leaves, and it had no mouth. In places were there was no fur, there was wood.

System Notification: [Block of Wood] needs a name.

Name it?

The miniature blue moon rabbit stared up at Capra, seemingly waiting, meanwhile the system notification prompted Capra again.

Capra was stunned, but the notification helped him refocus on the task at hand.

“Uhh..” He hadn’t expected the situation at all, so he didn’t have a clue what to name the miniature rabbit, so in the end he went with a name he was familiar with.

“Ulysses.”

Acknowledged.

Generating familiar [Ulysses]'s stat page..... processing. Task Complete. Displaying results.

Name:

Ulysses

Class:

Familiar

Level:

1(0%)

Health:

20/20

Mana:

30/30

Mana Regen:

0.05 MP/s

Health Regen:

0.11 HP/s

Physical Defense:

1.25 PDef

Magical Defense:

1.07 MDef

Base Physical Damage:

10

Base Magical Damage:

1.416666667

Available Stat Points:

0

Strength:

5

Dexterity

10

Constitution

5

Intelligence

1

Wisdom:

1

Skills:

Skill Damage:

Skill Cooldown:

Skill Cost:

Skill Duration:

Tackle:

15

3 seconds

10 Mana

NA

Nature's Fulmination:

-5.75 /s

15 seconds

10 Mana

5 seconds.

System Notification: Awarding title...

...