Although Su You didn’t know if the round trees in this world still had this particular trait, she’d rather believe they did—after all, it couldn’t hurt to play it safe.
Because of this, whenever Su You peeled bark, she always chose round trees, and when she chopped down trees, she picked round ones, too.
It wasn’t because round trees dropped more wood, but because a round tree with its bark stripped looked so ugly. Since she’d already peeled off its bark, Su You felt responsible for it—she couldn’t just let it live on looking so hideous, risking the scorn of the other trees around it (or so she imagined).
After peeling five more round trees and chopping down another five, Su You finally gathered all the materials needed to upgrade her backpack to level one.
She glanced at the pile of items on the ground—things she couldn’t pick up because her backpack was full—and immediately opened her inventory.
[Do you want to use Rope*5 and Bark*10 to upgrade your backpack to Level 1?]
Looking at the dialog box projection in front of her, Su You didn’t hesitate to select “Yes.”
Almost the moment she made her choice, her open backpack interface was forcibly closed. When Su You opened it again, her backpack, which had only five slots before, had expanded to ten. The rope in her bag had decreased by five, and all the bark was gone.
Before going back to pick up the items she’d dropped earlier, Su You checked the stone axe in her hand—Durability: 11/100.
Yep, a number sure to drive anyone with OCD crazy.
Each round tree she chose took exactly ten swings to fell. She’d chopped down six in total, using up 60 durability. The extra 29 points of durability were spent peeling bark—29 swings, 29 durability.
Even though it was an annoying number, Su You didn’t mind. In fact, it worked out perfectly for her.
Since she didn’t need any more bark, Su You found a random tree with 10 HP, chopped it down with a few “thunks,” picked up the dropped items, and tucked the stone axe—now down to just 1 durability—into her backpack.
After that, Su You spent some time picking up all the broken bark she’d left behind while chopping trees, as well as the excess wood she couldn’t carry before, plus any branches, leaves, and even a lucky piece of flint she found along the way.
So, scavenging as she walked, by the time she returned to the first round tree she’d chopped and picked up the items she’d left there, her newly upgraded backpack was almost full again.
After tidying up her inventory a bit, Su You’s current resource collection looked like this:
Backpack (9/10): Rope*5, Flint*3, Wood*20, Wood*2, Red Berries*50, Branches*20, Leaves*42, Broken Bark*84, Stone Axe*1 (1/100)
With her supplies more or less gathered, Su You felt she’d completed her first day’s tasks—not above and beyond, but she’d gotten everything she needed. Now, all she wanted was to hurry back and get some rest.
Just walking around and picking things up had already drained her stamina to half, not to mention she hadn’t started at full stamina to begin with—what with all the bark peeling and tree chopping, her energy was even lower.
If she hadn’t taken a break halfway through, she’d probably have collapsed by now.
Even so, her stamina was now stuck at 21/100.
Stamina at 20, 40, and 60 are three special thresholds: below 20, movement speed drops sharply; at 20–39, all actions other than walking (like chopping, digging, crafting, building, etc.) slow down; at 40–59, hunger depletes faster.
Low stamina was a pain, but if you could keep it at 60 or above, you’d get a speed boost for all actions.
Su You’s current state was definitely not great—her stamina was low, and her hunger bar, which she’d just filled, had dropped by more than half. Still, bad as she felt, she had enough energy to walk back.
Stopping and starting along the way, Su You used a little trick almost everyone knew: by the time she reached her temporary camp, not only had she not lost any stamina, her stamina had actually gone up by two points—from 21 to 23.
This trick took advantage of the game’s stamina recovery and depletion mechanics. By deliberately interrupting actions, you could keep your stamina from dropping, and with practice, even make it rise a bit.
It was a great trick, especially in the early game when your stamina cap was low—almost a lifesaver. The downside was that it wasted a lot of time… What should have been less than an hour’s walk took Su You a full hour and a half.
When she finally arrived, Su You visibly relaxed.
The first thing she did was sit down to recover her fatigue and stamina, then start organizing her things.
She had no clock, no phone, and the data panel didn’t display any time-related info, so Su You had to find other ways to tell the time.
On her way back, Su You had spotted a pale yellow wildflower and casually uprooted it. Now, as she sorted her things, she planted it nearby.
[Sunset Flower]
Category: Other
Quality: White
Effect: Eating it reduces HP by 1.
Description: An ordinary little yellow flower. It’s poisonous, but only slightly. Its only notable feature is that it blooms for a while at sunrise and sunset.
The Sunset Flower’s trait was clear: it would bloom for a period at sunrise and sunset. As long as she could confirm those times, Su You would have two chances each day to adjust her sense of time.
Unlike the real world, unless there was special weather or some unusual event, sunrise and sunset times in each season never changed.
And in the world of Sunset Continent, the seasons weren’t spring, summer, autumn, and winter, but “Mild Season,” “Rainy Season,” “Disaster Season,” “Destruction Season,” and so on.
The forest resource point always started in the Mild Season. Its biggest feature was that it had no features—everything was calm and peaceful. It wasn’t the best season, but it was the most suitable for early development, since there weren’t too many special events.
In the Mild Season, sunrise and sunset were both at six o’clock… But for now, Su You didn’t need the Sunset Flower to tell the time, since she had another way, though it was only available for a limited period.
Su You glanced at the yellow flower, which showed no sign of blooming, and got back to work.
As mentioned before, not only was her stamina low, her hunger was too. So, the first thing Su You did after sitting down was to prepare to process the red berries she had with her.
Unlike crafting ordinary materials and tools, processing food required a dedicated kitchen workbench for cooking.
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