Nate sat in the tree hollow trying figure out what to do with himself. It had been a whole day since the incident with the lizard beast and he hadn’t left his protective hiding spot since that time. His lack of effort was based on two main concerns.

First, he had found himself deficient in both the knowledge and protection to venture out into the wild safely. When he had realized that leaving a beast corpse near his home was a bad idea, his missing common sense towards the wilderness became evident. Nate understood that this was not his fault but was simply a consequence of growing up in Newcomb City. With his realization, Nate’s previously excited attitude toward the wilderness had completely shifted to cautiousness.

His other main problem was that he had no real way to defend himself. After almost dying with the snake beast, the day inside the tree had given him a moment to reflect on the incident. If he had another weapon, besides the knife, then maybe Nate could have killed the snake without even getting into a physical confrontation.

Nursing his remaining wounds and lost in thought, Nate took it easy inside the tree hollow while munching on some to the poor tasting snake meat. Luckily, he hadn’t had to each his few remaining nutrition bars. With the beast meat, Nate thought that he had enough food for another at least a week or more.

*****************

The next day, Nate awoke to a pain in his stomach and a system alert that left him speechless.

[You have been affected by ‘Poisoned’ status]

[All physical stats have been reduced]

[Your health will decline at a rate of 1 for every 5 minutes until ‘Poisoned’ status removed]

[Health: 93/110]

[‘Calm Survivor’ class effects are active. All Stats are doubled. All experience earned is doubled.]

[A skill, ‘Poison Resistance’, has been created]

[‘Poison Resistance’ has increased to Level 2]

Nate didn’t understand what had caused this problem out of nowhere. Thankfully, his class skill [Survivor’s Resistance] had helped him out by quickly allowing him to develop a resistance to whatever had caused his poisoning. However, even with the resistance, Nate still got sick to the point of vomiting. His condition certainly was pleasant and practically incapacitated him. So for the second day in a row, Nate spent the entire day inside worrying about his safety and ability to survive in the wilderness.

**********************

On the third day after his fight with the snake beast, Nate finally heard the alert that he was hoping would arrive.

[‘Poison Resistance’ has increased to Level 10]

[‘Poisoned’ status has been removed]

[Health: 18/110]

With his countless hours of thought the night before, Nate had managed to reason out what had caused his poor situation. The realization had even brought him several stat points in Intelligence and Wisdom.

The only thing that had changed in his routine was the snake meat that he had been eating. The first day after killing the beast, Nate had eaten the raw meat without any issues. But on the second day, the meat seemed to have tasted odd but Nate didn't think anything of it. Nate managed to confirm this theory by smelling the nasty odor the pile of meat inside the tree was now producing. The meat seemed to have gone bad.

Despite his fear of going out of the tree hollow, Nate willed himself to drag the rotting meat and his own waste out of the tree hollow to dispose of a good distance away from his home.

The trip was rather uneventful until he was about halfway back to his home. Something completely unexpected happened.

It started raining.

Nate freaked out at first since he had never seen rain before but as soon as he realized what was occurring, he grew excited. Regardless of his excitement, he still continued on to his home. By the time he was back to the tree, he was completely soaked with water. The whole experience was novel to Nate and he had definitely drunk his fill of rainwater as he settled back in the tree to dry off.

With the loss of the snake meat, Nate only had a few days worth of nutrition bars to feed himself. With the lack of food lingering, he began to plan his for his future survival. He had no idea how to hunt for food in the wilderness.

*****************

On the fourth day, Nate was still trapped inside the tree with the rain pouring down outside. He had never expected the rain to last this long. To his luck, his tree hollow remained relatively dry and safe. Being stuck inside, Nate had time to think and keep himself busy. With the time stuck inside, his habit of tinkering with things was quickly put to use with the metal scraps he had scavenged from the transport wreckage.

With consideration of the weapons he had helped assemble in the factory, Nate had decided to try to piece together a bow and set of arrows. In his mind, the concern about protection would be relieved if he had some additional way to defend himself.

One benefit of previously working in a weapons factory assembling parts was that Nate had developed a pretty exceptional understanding of how to put a few simple weapons together. That knowledge is what he had used to piece together a rather functional knife from scrapped parts in the factory.

Mentally reviewing his options, Nate remembered the pointy metal shards and scraps that he had scavenged from the transport wreckage site.

“I should make a bow and arrows,” Nate thought to himself, “or maybe a spear.”

With an idea in mind, he laid out the metal scraps and began to sort through them. After a few minutes of sorting, he found that he had most of the metal he needed to craft both a bow and arrows and a spear. The only materials he was missing were a few straight and narrow arrow shafts, a strong spear shaft and something to fix the materials together.

After formulating a plan of action, Nate knew what he needed to get but some of these items could only be found outside of his tree hollow. In his job at the weapons factory, Nate had access to all sorts of fasteners and equipment. Here, he only had a knife and some scrap metal so some innovation would be needed.

Working up his courage, Nate ventured out of the tree hollow for the second time in days. He only needed a few minutes to find several tree branches that met his criteria for the arrow and spear shafts. Once he found them, he quickly brought them to his shelter. The ongoing rain had made it very difficult to hear anything and Nate’s worry over something sneaking up on him had been pushed to its limits.

The two remaining materials that Nate needed were quite easy to obtain.

Just outside of his tree hollow, Nate spotted a few stones that were about the size of three fists. After some effort, he managed to pick up and toss about a dozen stones into the tree hollow.

Once the stones were inside, Nate climbed back in the tree and stripped his wet clothes.

Looking around in the mostly dark tree, a system alert sounded in Nate’s head.

[‘Dark Vision’ has increased to Level 10]

“Just in time,” Nate laughed to himself as he walked over to a dark spot in the tree and scooped out a handful of sticky tree sap with a part of a leaf.

When Nate was up all night worrying about his health from the poisoning, he could only stare off into the dark and think over his situation. The circumstances had allowed him to unknowingly take advantage of the bonus and level up his [Dark Vision] skill and a few stats. The major benefits of his class bonus were the added experience it offered when fighting for survival.

With the [Dark Vision] skill reaching Level 10, Nate could see fairly well in the darkness of the tree insides and had easily found the dark spots of the leaking tree sap. He had found one of these sappy areas accidentally a few days before. The bald spot on his scalp where he had to cut his hair free was a good reminder of the sticky stuff present inside the tree.

With the sap in hand, Nate walked over to the rest of the supplies and sat down.

The increased skill level made Nate curious about his system status. Nate pulled up his system interface.

—————————————————-

Name: Nathaniel Redsun

Level: 7 (Exp. 173/700)

Health: 71/110

Energy: 1/0

Primary Class: Calm Survivor (Level 4)

Class Skills:

Survivor’s Need (Passive) (Level 2)

Survivor’s Awareness (Passive) (Level 2)

Survivor’s Resistance (Passive) (Level 5)

Secondary Class: None

Stats:

Speed: 10 Agility: 10

Stamina: 10 Strength: 14

Intelligence: 12 Perception: 10

Wisdom: 12 Will: 17

Stat Points Available: 0

General Skills:

Silent Presence (Passive) (Level 3)

Dark Vision (Passive)(Level 10)

Pain Resistance (Passive)(Level 9)

Bleeding Resistance (Passive)(Level 4)

Infection Resistance (Passive)(Level 4)

Fear Resistance (Passive)(Level 6)

Poison Resistance (Passive)(Level 10)

————————————————-

“If the people back in Grey Sector could see me now,” Nate thought before quickly following up with, “They would think I was lying.”

Almost dying consistently was proving to be a stat and level boon for Nate.

“Oh, I still haven’t spent my available stat points,” Nate realized as he looked over his information, “How should I distribute all those points?”

“Let’s put them 2 in each of the physical stats and then the remaining 2 into Perception,” Nate said to himself. He didn’t really have any strategy in assigning his available stat points. He was never taught about strategy, but it just seemed right to him to try to keep his stats as even as possible.

[Speed Stat has increased by 2]

[Agility Stat has increased by 2]

[Stamina Stat has increased by 2]

[Strength Stat has increased by 2]

[Perception Stat has increased by 2]

The feeling of advancement spread throughout his body, but Nate had somewhat grown accustomed to the feeling. With the available stat points spent, Nate glanced over his system interface one more time before getting to work.

The materials were now lined up in front of Nate and his expression was serious. If there was one thing that Nate had learned in Newcomb City, it was work ethic. In Grey Sector, work ethic was a necessity for survival. If you didn’t work hard and intelligently, then you would be demoted to factory jobs that had a higher risk. Nate had never wanted to be responsible for crawling in boiler tubes so he had always proven himself to be a cut above the rest when working on weapons.

With a serious mindset, Nate got to work.

His first task was to shape the metal shards into functional arrowheads and spearheads. The process used in the factory consisted of moving the metal over an abrasive belt on a machine. Since Nate didn’t have the handy machines, he used the next only thing available, a rough flat stone.

Nate began to work and shape the metal by rubbing it against the stone. The scratching sound of the metal on the rock wasn’t loud or tiresome. The dust ground off of the metal shards was slowly piling up on Nate’s lap. Nate continued to work.

[Stamina Stat has increased by 1]

The alert brought Nate out of his single-minded concentration on shaping and sharpening the metal. After hours of effort, Nate grinned while looking at a pile of six arrowheads and two spearheads. Running a leaf across the edge of one of the spearheads, the sharpness was verified as the leaf separated into two pieces.

“Good edge,” Nate commented to himself. The edges of the metal were definitely sharp. His effort had paid off. The weapon tips were not as refined as those made on the factory machines, but they were so close that most people wouldn’t be able to tell the difference.

Taking a breather from his work, Nate looked around at his condition. The task had used most of the smaller metal scraps, but he definitely had enough to make a few more arrowheads. The pile of metal and rock dust in his lap was a bit much, so he started to move the pile over to the side.

“Gonna have to figure out what to do with that,” Nate said to himself, “ I don’t want it getting in my eyes.”

With the thought, a memory popped into Nate’s mind. Years ago in the factory, he had gotten a few metal shavings in his eye. The metal was extracted by one of the managers using a high strength magnet, but it hadn’t been pleasant. The incident had cost his a week’s worth of food and had left his eye swollen for days.

When the memory crossed his mind, Nate had the thought, “Maybe I could throw it in a beast’s eyes if they are trying to attack me.”

[Intelligence Stat has increased by 1]

[Wisdom Stat has increased by 1]

Considering the stat increases had confirmed his good idea, Nate wrapped up a pile of the dust into a few pieces of clothing pieces that he had set off to the side. After finishing his cleaning, he had three bundles of metal shavings that might provide some protection.

After his rest was over, Nate decided to make a few more arrowheads. Because the stone he had used for grinding the metal was in poor condition, he tossed it over to the side and grabbed another one.

With the fresh stone on his lap and metal in his hand, Nate got to work. But when with his first pass of the metal on the rock surface, something unexpected happened. A shower of sparks shot off of the rock as the metal moved along its surface. With a burst of heat, the sparks caught Nate's lap and some of the wood debris inside of the tree on fire.