Having calmed from his miniature mental breakdown, Joey was barely able to get some sleep after tidying up the mess from carving four totems in such a frenzy. By the time he woke up, sunlight easily filled the room with just a crack in the door, and he headed off without the slightest issue.

Last night had been pretty cathartic, and he felt a lot more relaxed whilst walking through the forest. “Almost forgot my armour,” he said with a soothing voice. It didn’t take long to put on, and he grabbed a few more sticks on the way. The stone knife and his great strength made cutting through wood truly easy.

It should be noted that the blade wasn’t perfectly straight, but rather made of dozens of small serrations which easily tore through wood. In turn, it was pretty much just a tiny saw.

By the time he reached the oak tree, he also cleaned up 4 more branches into sticks.

“How much oak sap is there then, hopefully I get a full cup in a few days. Actually, why am I still using real world logic for this all?” When he considered that last line, it was only a few steps away from the tap beneath the tree, and he realised he couldn’t show the least bit of surprise at the nearly full cup of sap beneath.

In just half an hour it would reach the rim of the cup and overflow, in truth this was perfect for him.

Although, he never considered how strange it was for the tapped tree to immediately begin dripping sap.

He pressed the cup against his cube and crafted the glue stick before replacing it beneath the tap. If it took about 12 hours per cup, he could expect to collect two a day… But that raised an issue of not having enough cups.

“A concern for the future,” he wrote it off immediately.

The glue stick was an odd item though, and as he touched it the black putty, which he expected to be the ‘glue’ stained his hand black as well. This should be a mixture of the sap and charcoal then, but he didn’t exactly understand how to use this stuff.

It clearly wasn’t sticky in this form, so did it need to be dissolved in water first? Melted? Simply affixed between two objects?

He’d test all these things later, but for now he needed to gather clay, and check on the reeds he left drying in the sun. It only made sense that if things happened ‘faster’ in this world, that the process of drying might be accelerated too. Whether or not it made strict scientific sense didn’t matter, but rather that it fit within the logic of this world.

“And what do you know? I’m completely right, yet again.” Celebrating the correct answer, he laughed a bit at the sight of browned, dry hemp stalks on his drying rack. Even though only a day passed, they were as dry as bone.

The cube confirmed this as their name changed, and he placed another layer of green stalks down to dry out for a day. This rack held 15 stalks all stripped of their leaves, granting an adequate source of hemp fibres for now. But the patch of stalks here only numbered a few hundred in the first place.

At this rate he doubted that it’d last into his next week or two here, and thought about planting seeds around the place as early preparations.

It certainly made things easier in the long run, but for now he had to go grab that clay. This check on the stalks was a complete diversion anyway, as the river was in the opposite direction. While clay filled dirt does exist, he’d be best searching for that at an open air mine than some random section of a plain.

However, rivers are certainly a good place to start for clay. And in truth, it only took ten or so minutes of randomly digging out brown, pliable substances for him to dislodge a large chunk of the stuff. The cube confirmed it as clay, although he wondered if the water content mattered in this case.

Dry and wet clay are wildly different, as a child could tell you, not to mention his weak attempts at pottery and the production method of clay bricks as well.

The chunks of reddish-brown clay he gathered were enough to count as just 5 pieces in his inventory.

In other words, barely enough to form the crucible he needed.

However, this was not a furnace. And, unfortunately, neither of the recipes unlocked by this crucible were one. For the most part that is.

He required a hell of a lot more clay to create a clay oven, what simply appeared to be a small domed structure with some holes in the back to release smoke. Through it, he could raise the temperature within to potentially melt some metal ores, but whether it actually got to that point was out of his control.

He spent a few more minutes further grabbing clay chunks from the minor deposit he found, and crafted the new clay oven recipe just like that. It just required 7 clay pieces in the shape of an arch, and like that he already finished two of the eighth level recipes, not to mention the last one only required sand and clay.

That sounded good and all… Until he noticed the river he stood in contained no sand. It had a dirt and stone base, with clay strewn about.

But no sand.

“Where would I find sand then? The swamp might lead out to the ocean, and no doubt the shores will have some. But how far of a walk would that be? I need to scout first,” he spoke confidently, looking back at the massive oak tree in further realisation. It by far exceeded any of the forest trees in height, and as long as he held on tightly, climbing was a breeze.

After collecting a spare 20 pieces of clay, although ‘units’ may have been a more accurate term as the cube required certain sizes of the material to hit a requirement, he set off back to the tree, First, he placed a layer of clay on top of the grass, and then placed the clay oven on top. This way, a fire inside the oven wouldn’t result in any unexpected ones.

Also, he noted that the two clays quietly merged together a few seconds after placing the oven. While an absolute mindfuck of an experience, this strange function of the world did not go unappreciated.

He placed the crucible inside as well, and began climbing the massive tree to its very tip. It was a breeze to pull himself up as his body’s insane physical strength literally dug into the bark as a way to create handholds, from there not even needing to use his feet as a single arm could lift his whole body with ease!

In just a few seconds he reached the lowest branch of the oak tree, and climbed up on top. However, this wasn’t even halfway up the gargantuan starting location, and so began a further climb upwards. On the way, he either had to climb up progressively thinner branches, or completely swivel around the tree to avoid them

But soon, he stood near the top, and saw how the further branches waved gently even with a tiny breeze acting on them.

Such a thing couldn’t hold his weight.

But still in dense foliage, he got to work snapping off the branches which obstructed his vision and took note of what lay in the far distance.

And he was met with the biomes which lay beyond his comfy starting place.

To the side of the brown tree forest was an even denser woods, so much so that its dark green canopy completely obstructed all vision. Who knew what sort of things lived in there, and running from monsters would be impossible.

Next came a bit to the right, where the greyer tree forest laid. He was surprised to see that another plain existed there, but it made sense overall. Why would there only be a single grassland… Although it might be a prairie, he just couldn’t tell. More importantly, he noticed massive mountains in the far distance, and wondered if travelling there would ever be necessary.

He was not surprised to see that the wetlands escaped into a swamp, and later on pretty much opened out to the ocean. The wide blue sea travelled to the horizon, and he wondered if the cube ever expected him to navigate it.

“I don’t know how to sail, so don’t fuck me over. Please.” He rolled his eyes at that, but figured that some things might exist underwater that recipes required someday. But not today.

He didn’t see any sandy shores from here, but given the distance he deemed it unlikely anyway.

Although… it appeared that in the distance of the heavy forest he saw some yellow hills. A few moments of consideration only gave two ideas, the likeliest being some sort of sand pile.

But why would a desert be so close to this temperate region?

It was strange, and he prepared to get down before noticing something to the plains beyond the grey tree forest. There was very clearly a sloped hole in the area, a massive one at that, where rocks had been piled up.

For a few moments, he hoped it was the remains of some mine, and without any better options, he decided to scout out that place first. The journey through the swamp was so much more dangerous, and it was entirely within reason that some sand deposits had been dumped at the mine.

With a plan all set up, he checked his inventory and decided to use the broad oak leaves as the material for his leaf skirt. Their size made it easy to glue to one another, and thickness ensured some degree of durability.

He only needed these as a clothing substitute until the cube allowed him to craft some from hemp as well.

One problem he started with was tying the skirt around him to fit, but quickly came up with the solution using a length of hemp string. By gluing the leaves to this string, he could wrap it around his waist and tighten it as needed. A simple and rudimentary idea rather than trying to stupidly measure his exact waist size.

He knew nothing about tailoring, and the few times he tried stitching ended with little progress. Not to mention, he found it incomprehensibly boring. For a child that alone is enough to ignore such a thing.

Of course, he was able to test the glue now as well. His first test confirmed that smearing it on a substance did nothing, but the next choice was to melt, potentially avoiding another trek back to the river.

And it worked! He dabbed the semi-melted glue onto a leaf, before sticking a second to it. He now just had to do the same process for hundreds of leaves, building up a skirt which reached down to his knees as the notes specified. Halfway through, he couldn’t help but think of how much of an idiot he was for taking these random things so seriously.

But with the cube and its recipes as a bulwark, he simply lacked any proper reasons for avoiding it.

By the time he finished, the sun passed the zenith and marked the beginning of today’s afternoon. With only so many hours left, he placed the skirt safely into his cube and began to head in the direction of the potential mine. Cube in hand, it wasn’t hard in the slightest to walk through a sparser forest.

Time wasn’t exactly on his side though, the sun closed its gap with the horizon a considerable amount in the journey over. As always, he gravely underestimated the distance between two places.

Once on the other side, he took note of a few other things in this plain, or possibly a prairie, that being some more groves of hemp growing, as well as some other stalks of plants. Additionally, he found a few nettle patches and wondered if any for blackberries or the like existed.

But with unprotected feet, he remained vigilant of anything sharp from here on, walking towards the pit he remembered seeing from above. On the way, he noted that a small lake existed pretty far out in the distance. As it lacked any obvious algae growths, he knew it had to contain a flow for water. Once more, another great place to stay, but no good way to evade zombies or other monsters.

If other ones existed…

Finally he came to the pit he’d seen, a small mountain of rocks had been piled up on the leftmost side, but a quick check revealed nothing within them. Instead, the depths of the pit interested him more as some lines of black rock were spaced in between the thicker grey and yellow layers.

“That’s coal isn’t it? I have to get some of this, and here I thought I’d have to use a crappy wood fire to try to melt things!” Ecstatic at the discovery, he slowly descended into the pit and found a flat point tomine out a few chunks of the suspected coal.

His pickaxe, whilst just made of stone, was rather good at cracking minerals when smashed along the grain. In this case, the object of his desires formed in a sort of vertical plane and with the combination of just a few hard, downward strikes…

A bunch of black rock clattered to the ground with ease.

It was about enough for two handfuls, and it all vanished when tapped with the cube. He didn’t allow any tension to build from this though, and instantly checked his inventory to get that precious information.

Subbituminous coal… it was strange to see the term. He didn’t know much about the specifics, but coal was technically separated into types depending on carbon content, and better types burned better.

Although, he only actually knew of lignite and bituminous coals, the latter of which is superior. So this type was likely in the middle… either way, he had access to coal for heating his oven and potentially smelting in the future. After a bit of careful mining, he completely filled up the inventory orb to 99 ‘units’ of coal. Each unit was either a chunk around the size of his fist, or a handful equal to that.

Today had been extremely productive overall, even if the number of recipes decreased moderately.

He looked at the deeper portions of the mine and saw how a sizable tunnel actually followed into the underground, but with a lack of lighting he didn’t dare explore that far. Just this coal was enough for now, and perhaps he could bring that lantern in his room to investigate?

It was a task for tomorrow at least, and after a quick check of the nearby lake for sand, for which he found none, Joey headed back home.

Tomorrow would be interesting, to say the least.