August came awake slowly, and despite his best efforts to hold onto the comforting embrace of sleep, it fell away from him. The sounds of breathing in the next hut reached his ears, and Kalters left leg jammed itself into his mind destroying any chance he might have had of wasting the early morning.

He found himself sitting up and rubbing at his eyes in an attempt to rid himself of the grime that had accumulated throughout the night. Once he was a little bit more comfortable, he started thinking about everything he’d need to handle for the day—the trip to the Bamboo forest wouldn’t be happening until whoever they decided was coming woke up.

That meant he had at least a little while to himself. He probably couldn’t finish the garden before then, and he didn’t want to tire himself out too much before setting out either—hadn’t he levelled up? August brought up the menu, navigating through it until he could see his skill points.

Skill Points: 1

60/1300 EXP

Barely over the threshold, but he’d take it. The question was, what exactly should he spend the point on? As much as he wanted to put the point in [Foundation] to unlock the Runecrafter job, he wouldn’t be able to use it until he could change jobs again, which was six days away. None of the others would benefit from him unlocking it either because Boko and Rittan already had jobs, and if Haiko or Kalter decided to join, he’d need to put the point into [Ruler I] to free up a population spot in the first place.

After everything that had happened in the forest yesterday, he wasn’t going to push the issue either, so he’d let them come to him about it, and in the meantime, he’d spend his points on something else. That left him with putting a third point in [Replenishment], which would gift him, Rittan and Boko increased health regeneration and restfulness after sleeping, [Prey I] to increase his personal ability to hide, [Predator I] if he wanted to increase the range of his ability to detect nearby lifeforms—and torment himself in the process—or [Animalistic Charisma] to increase his taming speed.

There were others, but none of them felt as immediately useful. August frowned down at the options for a long minute before deciding to place it in [Prey I]; being able to hide from something that was trying to murder him was probably the most direct increase to his survivability overall.

2/5 – Prey I

Remaining still decreases the likelihood of being found; +5 bonus to stealth per level.

August furrowed his brow at the update, not exactly sure how the bonus to stealth translated into reality, but all of the other skills seemed to have worked so far, so he had some faith in its ability to function. He closed out the menu and then got to his feet. August slipped out of the hut as silently as he could manage, following what had tragically become his early morning routine of dumping a bunch of Sadapples by the other hut and then eating one himself. He couldn’t help but feel like his response to the bitterness was far more muted than expected—was nine days on an island really all it took to rob him of his well-developed hate?

“Fucking Gaians,” August sighed, swallowing the bite. “How could you do this to me?”

August scanned the lake, a brief check to make sure nothing had crawled out of the water in the night, but it was just as barren as he’d come to expect. Seeing the series of uprights striking out of the ground was interesting, a sort of lasting testament to all of the work that had been put into it over the last few days. He started adding to it in his mind, imagining a series of bamboo framing for the ceiling, and a layered leaf roof on top of it.

For now, it really was nothing more than a long rectangle, but they could always add to it in the future to give themselves more coverage—another series of six uprights on either of the sides would get them towards more of a square. The amount of work that would take touched his mind a moment later; cutting down six trees wasn’t exactly an easy task, but they had the tools for it, at least.

What they really needed was a way to work the wood into more useful shapes with greater accuracy than just hitting it with an axe. A chisel wasn’t really the best tool for that job either, and the ones he’d made out of flint were annoyingly fragile, and without a proper handle, he always ended up with scuffs and scratches on his hands. A saw would be ideal for cutting the wood up into specific shapes, but he didn’t really have a blueprint for that yet—he could probably use [Etch] on one of the longer Otrogon bones to make a series of teeth on one side? That would probably unlock the blueprint.

Actually, maybe he should just make a full set of bone tools for the group to use—and a workbench to keep them at, instead of leaving the things strewn about all over the camp or hidden away in his inventory where nobody but he could even access. That would give them all more autonomy as well as the ability to take care of tasks on their own without having to come to ask him for things.

August took another bite out of the Sadapple and turned his mind towards the task. The blueprint for the workbench was simple enough, four legs and a flat top made of thick planks, heavy enough that it wouldn’t move around too much while you were messing around with it. He’d need to make an attempt at a saw first or spend a few hours burning a slab of wood into the correct shape with [Etch].