Chapter 24: Chapter 24

Her field of vision now included some game-like interface icons.

In the top left were three bars representing experience, stamina, and health. Below was an empty inventory row with ten slots, next to a hammer icon. Clicking it opened a crafting table with recipes for various items—collect the materials, and you could craft them here.

Of all the materials, the most basic and widely used was wood.

She tried to sense the power of nature, but felt nothing—her druid abilities were unavailable.

Everything in this world was made of one-cubic-meter blocks. She couldn’t even snap off a twig or pick up a stone.

No tools, no powers—how was she supposed to get wood from a tree?"

"She walked up to the nearest apple tree and looked at her own square, pixelated fist.

She tried punching the trunk with her hand. A circular progress bar appeared on the trunk, but it only filled up a tiny bit.

That meant it was working, so she kept punching a few more times. Soon, the apple tree disappeared, dropping four wood blocks and one apple.

It took a total of ten punches to take down the tree. Each punch made her fist ache, but with her blocky body, it was hard to tell if she was bleeding or not. However, her health bar went down a little, and she lost one stamina bar.

She also felt a bit parched, but there was no water source in sight. She decided to eat the apple. Sure enough, food restored her stamina, and once her stamina was full, her health bar quickly recovered as well.

Time seemed to flow differently in this trial world. One hour in the real world let her spend an entire day and night here, but a full day and night in this world only lasted three or four hours in reality.

Besides that, after she chopped down a tree and a few wood blocks appeared in her backpack slots, she finally discovered how to convert items into reality and how to earn Source Energy.

[Wood Block]

[Function: Basic material for crafting various items]

[Physical Conversion: 1 Source Energy can be converted into 1 stack of wood blocks (100 pieces)]

[Physical Description: 1,000 units of standard lumber]

[Source Energy Conversion: 5 stacks of wood blocks can be converted into 1 Source Energy]

This text appeared in the wood block’s description. Physical conversion meant bringing things from the trial world into reality, while Source Energy conversion meant turning things from the trial world into Source Energy.

If wood blocks could be converted, did that mean everything else could be converted too?

Mu Ying looked at the various crafting recipes on the crafting table, especially the backpack and the chest.

The backpack, just like the one she had, could increase storage by ten slots, while the chest had fifty slots.

Unfortunately, she didn’t have the materials to make them yet, so she couldn’t see the exact conversion requirements or effects.

Making a backpack required ten pieces of leather, while a chest needed eight wooden planks. Gathering these materials wouldn’t be too hard.

With a goal in mind, Mu Ying felt motivated.

If she wanted to profit from the trial world, she had to collect resources and earn Source Energy. But before all that, she had to survive.

So far, she hadn’t encountered any danger, and the animals in the forest didn’t attack her. But her trial character in this world was fully digitized, and every action consumed stamina.

Food didn’t make her feel full or have any taste—it only restored stamina.

With enough food, she’d have the energy to gather resources, exchange for Source Energy, and even perform physical conversions.

After carefully studying the crafting recipes, Mu Ying realized that everything started with tools. Tools were essential for saving stamina and gathering food and materials.

Wood blocks were a necessary material for many tools, but punching trees with her bare hands was not efficient.

Wood blocks could be crafted into wooden planks and sticks, and the most basic wooden tools required both.

Using the wood she’d gathered by hand, Mu Ying crafted a wooden axe, but found its durability was too low—it didn’t last long.

Stone tools were a step up from wooden ones, crafted from sticks and stone blocks.

Since stone was easy to find, using it instead of wooden planks made the basic tools more durable and efficient.

Mu Ying crafted a wooden pickaxe and ran to the nearest mountainside, where rocks were exposed.

Mining with the pickaxe was much easier. By the time the wooden pickaxe broke, Mu Ying had mined 18 stone blocks and, with some luck, found 2 pieces of coal.

Wood and stone blocks were all one-meter cubes.

While mining, Mu Ying made sure to only open up an entrance big enough for one person, and tried to keep the interior as square as possible.

She hadn’t encountered any danger during the day, and the animals didn’t attack her. If there was any danger, it would probably come at night, so this mine would be a good place to spend the night.

She crafted all her wooden planks into sticks, then made a stone axe, and combined two stone blocks and one stick to make a stone sword.

With her last stick, she made a second axe, but found that two axes couldn’t be stacked in one slot. To save space, she decided to only craft another when needed.

Armed with her stone axe, Mu Ying ran to the apple grove. She didn’t stop until both stone axes broke, ending up with 80 wood blocks and 20 apples.

While chopping trees, Mu Ying often had to eat apples to restore stamina, going through six in total.

Once the axes were used up, she started hunting with her stone sword. The apple grove had mostly chickens and pigs, and she only saw one cow by the river. These animals weren’t hard to kill, but they weren’t easy either.

Getting close to them was easy, but after one hit, they’d panic and run. Chickens took two hits to kill, pigs five, and cows even more—they ran fast, so she had to be quick, or she’d waste a lot of stamina.

Raw chicken, pork, and beef restored much more stamina than apples, though they didn’t quench thirst. The cow also dropped a piece of leather.

Mu Ying only managed to kill one pig, one cow, and five chickens, eating ten apples and one piece of raw chicken to restore stamina, and used up one stone sword.

Judging by the sun’s position, it was already past noon. Mu Ying stopped hunting, made a water pouch from the leather, filled it at the river, and walked back along the bank.

She had one empty slot left and planned to gather some wild wheat from the riverbank on her way back, which she could use to make bread. While gathering, she also got some wheat seeds.

Thinking it over, she combined the stick and two stone blocks taking up a slot into a stone sword, freeing up a slot for the wheat seeds.

By the time she reached the mine, the sun was about to set.

At this point, her backpack contained: 82 wood blocks, 10 stone blocks, 2 coal, 4 apples, 1 water pouch, 30 wheat, 60 wheat seeds, 4 raw chicken, 1 raw beef, and 1 raw pork.

Back in the mine, she quickly used a stone block to block off half the entrance, then turned the 2 coal into 8 pieces of charcoal, and crafted 1 wood block into 8 sticks. After making 2 stone pickaxes, she used the remaining 4 sticks and 1 piece of charcoal to craft 4 torches.

The mine was small, so one torch was enough to light it up. Each torch could last for 24 hours.

Her inventory was filling up fast, but that was okay—she quickly used 8 wood blocks to craft a chest.

[Chest]

[Function: Contains 50 slots, each slot can hold up to 100 of the same item]

[Physical Conversion: 100 Source Energy each]