The Clockwork Empress

by Dark Gear

Momonga wasn't the only person to be brought to the New World. What happens when the unseen force has brought in another that it probably shouldn't have? What happens when it brings in... a developer. Fortunately for her, she has a few advantages to give her the edge over any player. Unfortunately for her, she's going to need those advantages, as she doesn't start like Momonga.

4. Ch 3 Personal Challenges

A loud bark echoed through the cave that suddenly startled Selene awake from her slumber. Her eyes shot open as she looked around, confused and worried.

"WHA! WHO! HUH!" She yelped out as her eyes searched for where the sound came from. The light was barely showing through the top of the boulder door, meaning it was early morning. The black male was sitting at the door entrance, watching her.

"Oh. Yeah. You." She squinted carefully as she looked at him through bleary eyes. She noticed him as close to the boulder as physically possible, sitting on his haunches. He probably needed to relieve himself. It was morning, regardless of how long she wanted to sleep. The dev looked around the cave to see where the other two were. The white runt was still in the crook of her arm, but she was awake as well, whining. The grey and brown one, surprisingly, was laying next to her. What suddenly made her freeze was her right hand was lying on her left paw. Her head was also laid on her right paw. The adolescent female was looking at her.

"Uh…" she was unsure what to do. Had her hand moved in the middle of the night? She was scared if she moved her arm the wolf would bite her. The black male barked again.

"Ok! Ok, I'll… let you out." She built up the courage to move her right hand slowly up and away from the paw it was resting on. The grey female raised her head and looked at her. "It's ok. It's ok, I'm just going to get up and let you all out." She held her hand still for a second with open palm, then slowly brought it close to her nose. The adolescent sniffed her hand for a few seconds before finally giving it a small lick. Everything was ok.

"Alright, potty time." Selene got up and opened the door up, and as it was barely big enough for anyone to fit through, the black male bolted through and nearly knocked her left leg out from under her. "Hey!... fine…" She figured he couldn't hold it anymore, so she gave him a pass for being so pushy. As she exited, the grey female came out right behind her and the white runt waddled in a close third. All three went to the edge of the forest and did their business, while the woman would head to her relief spot. Dawn was just breaking with the rays getting brighter, the sun making its return and casting away the shadows… and telling her to get to work. Once they were all done, everyone headed back into the cave for breakfast. The black male barked as he stood near the campfire.

"Alright! Sheesh, don't order me around." She was getting annoyed at how blunt he was at trying to communicate. Was he trying to be the alpha of this pack? She'd have to set him straight and prove she was in charge. This was a matriarchal pack and she controlled things here. She would also need to name them, as calling them "black male" and "grey female" wasn't going to cut it. While she was cooking breakfast, she watched each one carefully. The white runt seemed to curl up again after going potty and looked like a little white ball. Her eyes were still open, waiting for her to finish cooking and to feed her more. She kind of reminded her of the moon when she hid her paws under her tail.

"Luna" she said out loud and pointed at her. Her little head popped out of the ball, her little ice blue eyes staring at the finger. The woman then looked at the grey female. She hadn't figured out the mannerisms all that well considering they had been with her all of one night. The wolf had somewhat accepted her at least, and seemed relatively friendly, considering she probably acknowledged her as the alpha. She couldn't come up with anything interesting for a name though, other than the color of her fur.

"Ash?" she questioned herself as she looked at the adolescent female. The wolf didn't move or make a noise, just stared at her. She mentally chastised herself, wondering why she had expected the wolf to acknowledge that as her name.

"Fine, Ash it is." She moved on to the black male. She was thinking of calling him Asshole or something insulting, given how he acted so far, but that would just show she had no class. She finished the cooking and placed their meals down; interestingly, Luna got up and slowly waddled over to the dish that Selene was about to feed her with. She was getting stronger, but she was still sick. Those herbs and that food had helped. As she watched them eat and chewed on her own food, her eyes kept drifting to the black male. His fur was jet black, almost shining blue when the light hit it right. That was it. His name.

"You are gonna be Blue." The male looked up at her while he continued to eat, ignoring the finger she was pointing at him. He was hungry, and anything she said until he was done was irrelevant. Once they were finished, she cleaned the bowls and checked her inventory. She was a little low on edibles, which was fine, because now was her chance to tech up to tier 6, Chalcolithic Era. Before she teched up, though, she needed to finish using the hide of the pups "parents." Once she had crafted a long sleeve shirt and even a small hair band, along with some sleeping spots for the wolves which now looked like basic hide and almost indistinguishable from something she could get from a deer or boar, she felt she was ready with almost nothing in her inventory or other materials lying around the cave. She focused on the upgrade and learned all the new tools she'd need to make. She also got her first real sword in the mix, and, a shield. Neither one was probably going to be all that great considering they were copper, but still. She could at least defend herself.

What she noticed was that she could have made trash tier equipment once she had reached tier 5, Neolithic. It would have been a hide shield with a stone tipped spear, which wouldn't have saved her from very much. She also didn't have enough hide to go around throwing it at all her crafts right now. Despite having all the wood and stone she could want right now, and maybe water considering the lake, she needed to be careful how she used her materials until she got a decent supply… that she didn't need to sacrifice each time to the tech gods. Her tools were the first thing she would probably need, and she'd finally get a hand axe that had a handle! She was really surprised she hadn't found out how to make one in Neolithic, but it didn't matter now. Some of the tools seemed useless due to having her special power, but she couldn't be too careful learning everything.

"Alright, wall first. Gate next, then forge and copper." She was almost giddy with excitement. She ran to the forest quick as she could, collecting what wood she needed to build the remainder of her walls. It was not going to be fancy, three walls with a gate on the middle. It would have enough space for a wooden hut or log cabin, a small vegetable garden, some space set up for any workbenches she might soon need, a forge spot, and hopefully a small potted area for healing herbs. Regular herbs would grow with the vegetable garden.

Once she got back, she built the two remaining walls she needed and worked on the gate, but she now realized she would need some copper ready for hinges and pivot points. As she checked through her list of what she needed to make, she stared at the ancient forge she was now going to create and install. She took a deep breath, grinning afterwards. The wolves watched from the doorway to her "inner sanctum." For all she knew, they might have thought she was going insane running around gathering stuff and cutting trees down.

The forge was crafted, and she placed it down in a specific spot away from her new, and small, log cabin. There was nothing in the cabin yet, not even a bedding spot, but that would come later. She placed the forge down and… tried to figure out how to make it work.

"Fuel, so wood, no not wood… charcoal to heat? Needs to be hotter… a bellows, well that's obviously included… The ingot cast… finally crucible." She raced to gather some clay from the lakeside. Once she had enough, she bolted for the open gate and crafted the ingot cast to put in the sun, trying to use her MR power to quicken the pace. These would have to be very thick, thicker than what she had previously tried to make to not crack in the heat. She also built a thick crucible to use inside the forge so that she could pour the melted copper. She'd have to be quick about it, as she now knew the cooling temperature for copper was high, with the melting point being well over a thousand degrees Celsius. She made a wood to charcoal mound and set the thing blazing inside more clay, creating a big batch of it. Her bellows was now made of the blanket she had been using. She'd replace it soon, assuming she found another large animal to skin or some smaller animals to stitch together their hide. Once everything was complete, the morning was already reaching mid-day.

She ran over to the second cave opening and instead of trying to pull small amounts of metal out of the wall, and melting it in the process, she just started breaking chunks of stone away until she saw raw malachite ore. Selene started to pop out the ore chunks until she couldn't see anymore and took some hide she was tanning to make very thick blacksmith gloves that went up her arms. She was almost there, just a little more and she'd have her first ingot.

She took the same branch "tongs" that she used to cook rocks to boil water and picked up a few of the ore pieces, malachite, placing them in the heating forge. The crude crucible would melt the malachite ore into copper, which she could then drain into the ingot mold she had made. She watched the ore inside start to get hotter, but then she realized she needed to use the bellows. The dev started to pump the bellows as often as she could, trying to feed the flames and cook the copper so it would melt and become exactly what she needed. Apparently, she couldn't use raw ore to craft anything, it just didn't let her. It had to be in ingot, billet, slab, bloom or rail form for crafting usage.

After half an hour, she was getting tired.

All of this, just for one ingot. This is tough!

After roughly ten more minutes, she pulled the crucible out a little bit to see how well it was doing. The heat had melted the malachite into a liquid completely, but she needed to get rid of the slag on top. She didn't really have anything made yet that could clean it out, but she did have her special power. She just hoped it didn't cause any issues. As she poured the molten copper quickly into the molds while suppressing the movement of the slag, she realized that the slag was just going to ruin her crucible if it stayed there. She'd have to remove it right after.

As she set the crucible down and got rid of the slag into a pile of dirt she had placed just for the refuse, she looked over at the molds, or should she be saying… mold. The malachite had given her a total of one full ingot.

"All of that for one ingot?! Oh god… just to get enough for a few different things… more tools… a sword… shield… there won't be any time to get food… shit… there has to be a better way than what I'm doing…" she looked up at the wolves sitting barely inside the cave. She had enough time to cast one more batch, then she'd have to drop what she was doing, set up the garden to start growing, and then go fishing. If she worked hard enough, she'd have enough food for lunch, and then finally dinner. She pushed herself to melt the remainder of the ore all at once and make four more ingots, and she had barely enough to make a fifth final one. With all six ingots, she could make a short sword and a medium shield, a small knife for cutting food so she didn't have to keep concentrating her power on everything, and a spear tip as well as caps for the gate sides as well as pivot points so it would turn. She'd have to hold off on making arrow tips for later, but at least the gate was finished and capable of being opened and closed with some effort, without using her power to move it around now. It even had a large latch on the front. By now, she was getting hungry, and it was well past afternoon. She gathered as many berries as she could once she set up her garden, though she was finding it difficult to get many now from the bushes.

"Good thing I set up the garden already." She hoped there were more bushes further away, but that would take longer to collect, and more energy burnt. Selene headed to the lake and caught five fish; she was getting better at it, at least she thought she was, but there was one larger fish she never could catch, and it kept swimming near her. Her eyes kept glancing at it as she tried to spear anything that came near, but by the time she could turn, it had swum away. She called it quits after two hours and didn't try to push her luck. The next thing on her to do list was to get some more herbs, and if she hurried, she could try and find more grubs.

It took her longer than she was expecting to find another area that had the herbs, but what she wasn't expecting along the way was to find lemon grass. Her blue eyes scanned the small patch that had been sitting on the hill she was scouting, pulling what she could of any restoratives and throwing in her inventory while picking up only a little lemon grass for the garden. Just as she was about to leave, her vision caught something purple on another hill. She did a double take and squinted stopping movement completely with her head turned over her shoulder.

"It couldn't be…" she turned and started walking over to the hill and looked around. Growing on the second hill was lavender, or at least ten flowers worth of it. She couldn't find anymore, but at least she knew where it could grow now.

"Oooh… soap…" the idea shot into her head as fast as using it to freshen her cave up. She had tried to take a bath each day at the lake, but there wasn't a whole lot she could use to clean herself besides water. She just needed to get her hands on some lard, which sadly would probably come from another boar if she could find it. The previous lard, or should she call it animal fat since it hadn't been boiled, that had been in her inventory had obviously disappeared, so that wasn't an option. It hadn't occurred to her to boil it until now. Hopefully she'd find one and be able to kill it… this time with arrows instead of the spear. The lye would be easy to get since she'd have wood ash due to what she was already making now, along with her campfire.

Now that she was thinking about it while heading back to the small fort, she wondered what she was going to do about trimming herself. Her armpit hair would eventually grow beyond what it was now, which wasn't much at the moment, but it would be a problem eventually, her leg hair and… other… areas too. She'd need a copper razor soon added to her toolset. Could she use her power on her own hair? She didn't want to test that until she knew she could focus it more efficiently. She still couldn't tell if the time she took on different actions with it was going down or staying the same. What she did know, was that it was helping her get on her feet.

Once she passed through a small spot of the forest heading to the fort, she was able to find about a handful of grubs and that was it. Things were getting a little scarce it seemed near her new home. She'd have to explore further out and learn to travel farther. Just as she got to the fort, it was starting to get dark. As much as she wanted to try a second attempt to get more ore, it was better if she could see if something was green in the stone.

Just as she passed through the gate and turned around, her eyes spotted Ash sitting in a corner near the East log wall, holding something in between her teeth as she tried to chew it. It was a small rabbit. She had caught one. Selene was a little surprised for a second, and then realized she was a wolf after all. The dev just hadn't figured either of the adolescents were well taught yet on how to hunt. She might have just gotten lucky or caught it off guard. What worried her was the gate was closed, so she couldn't have gotten out, which meant there was a small hole somewhere in the defenses the rabbit got in and tried to go for the just barely made garden. There was nothing fully grown yet, so she couldn't figure why it was there. Regardless, Ash had just proved she could sometimes find her own food.

"Hey, you." She said softly. Ash looked up at her and then down at the rabbit. The wolf licked her chops and stared for a second, then did something she didn't expect. Ash picked up the rabbit carcass and carried it over to her, then dropped it on the ground at her feet, looking up at her. She already considered her the alpha.

"You know what, thank you, but I'm not going to take that kill from you. Here, lemme help." She picked up the rabbit and walked up into the cave and sat down to start cooking dinner. Ash sat near her, respectfully watching as she skinned the rabbit with Molecular Deformation and then cooked the meat. The grey wolf didn't, however, expect the food being given back to her.

"You earned it. Good job." Ash just looked at her for a moment, then a slight woof escaped her mouth before digging in. A small whine came from Luna near her as she waddled up expecting her share.

"Ok ok, you're hungry, I get it. I'm making it right now ok?" Selene started to cook the fish she had caught, making sure to rub the herbs into Luna's share, but saving a few of them for the second garden. Luna was able to eat her own helping now, without any assistance… or bit fingers. Now that she had some energy, she wasn't so vulnerable or weak. The little one ate carefully, as if she was expecting bones to be found. The auburn-haired woman had already removed anything that could get caught in her throat. Blue was sitting behind Ash, silent.

"I suppose you want your share too?" she said to him with a smirk. He just blinked at her. She shook her head and put his bowl down. He scarfed the fish as quickly as the bowl touched the ground. Afterwards, he just got up and went to the back of the cave. Her eyes rolled. Domestication was going to be tough, if not impossible, for him. He might just need to be let out and fend for himself, that's how much he might not like her. He hadn't caused any real issues yet, and the previous actions could be forgiven due to the circumstances at the time. Once all of them had finished eating, and the bowls were cleaned, she noticed the water levels on the jugs were low. She'd have to get some more tomorrow. What perked her up was that she easily hit requirements to reach The Bronze Age which she would do tomorrow morning, but her enthusiasm died quite a bit when she realized that required a decent amount of copper, tin, lead and zinc. She wondered if some of the previous "puddles" she created were any of the ones she needed. That would now cut down how much she had available tomorrow.

After cleaning the bowls, the wolves and herself headed outside to relieve themselves, but the wolves headed back inside the cave. Selene sat outside for a little bit and watched the stars.

While her day wasn't the most productive, she at least had new equipment, especially the sword and shield, even though both were registered as trash tier. She was a little irked at that. Even the speed in which her power cut up food seemed to go up, which she thought meant she was getting better at using it. Tomorrow would be better, in the long run, she hoped, as she laid down on her bedding and tried to pull the blanket over her… that didn't exist anymore. A slight groan escaped her lips as she remembered the bellows. Hopefully she could figure out how to make bronze easier than the copper ingots, as it took way too long just to make a few of them. If it was only going to get worse, then it would heavily slow her down in getting anywhere. Ash laid down next to her and Luna curled up in the crook of her arm again after getting something to drink.

While the woman thought the next day would be a little easier, lady luck would sadly rain on her little parade through the New World.

The Fifth Day

Selene woke up with a groan as her neck felt sore. She must have slept wrong during the night, as well as her left arm had fallen asleep due to the angle she was holding Luna. Ash was slowly waking up, and Blue was nowhere to be seen.

"Blue? Blue? Where are you?" she asked out loud. No response, for obvious reasons. She got up carefully with Luna wondering where she was going. The woman walked outside just in time to have Blue walk through the cave entrance, ignoring her body standing there and pushed past her right leg. She let out an exasperated sigh with her hands in the air as she watched him walk over to the campfire and sit down, looking at her. Thankfully, the cave door was no longer blocked so they could exit out to relieve themselves when they wished, but she was still a little annoyed the way he didn't care she was standing there. Ash had proven she would wait until she had cleared the entrance before exiting or entering.

"Yeah, morning to you too." She blew her bangs away from her eyes and then tied her hair back with a hide band. It was morning at least, which meant breakfast. She remembered the water was running low, so she needed to get more of it. She also needed to try and get some more ingots made, this time of bronze once she officially teched up. The dev looked at her boots, which were getting a little dirty. She'd have to clean them up or make new ones if they were too worn out. She now had to get some water first, then she needed to get some more assorted ore, and finally after she made some more ingots fish and try and hunt. She had also promised to practice with the bow and arrows.

You need to make a training dummy. How else are you going to get better?

Selene picked up the water pots and brought them with her to the lake, looking around for anything she might be able to use later. As she passed the bushes, she tried to get a few more handfuls. There was almost none left, just two berries found. Her head cocked back a bit as she tried to dig deeper, but a thorn caught her left glove and poked through somehow.

"Ouch!" she yelped as she pulled her hand away, the glove being torn away from her fingers by the bush. "Crap!" she swore as she tried to get back inside, but the way she had pulled had caused the glove to fall deeper into the bush, away from where she could reach unless she wanted to scratch up her arm. "Damn it, now I have to make a new one…" the woman huffed and got up to head towards the lake, a little frustrated with her bad luck and hoping there were other bushes nearby. There were no more berries it seemed, at least none she could reach in that area. She'd have to go further out and try and find another grouping of them. Maybe there were more, further up the lake?

Once she reached the large body of water, she tried to fish after she filled up the pots. The second pot, once filled, slipped from her hands as she was putting it in her inventory, splashed her in the face, and crashed to the ground, breaking into twenty pieces. "Damn it!" she snapped, wiping her face down and trying to see where the shards had flung. She was getting even more frustrated with how things were going for her. As she started to wade into the water and look for any fish for lunch, the larger fish, what she thought might be a catfish as she couldn't really tell above the water line, swam near her.

This time I've got you!

Unfortunately for her, the trash tier copper tipped spear she had crafted, had other plans. She had used it quite a bit yesterday, and now, it was due to not be so strong given how primitive her crafting was. The bindings broke as she stabbed and hit stone below the water's surface, and the copper tip floated away just as she struck out for the catfish. The fish dodged just barely in time, and as it turned the tail knocked it further through the water and deeper into the lake, away from her. The fish zoomed after the shiny thing and grabbed it in its small maw, carrying it off.

"Fuck! Why me?!" she groaned in annoyance as she looked up at the sky and closed her eyes, then looked off towards the edge of the lake. This just wasn't her day. Everything was going well for her in the past few days, but everyone did have some bad luck. She just had to calm down and think straight so that she could-

Another boar could be seen further down, drinking. She couldn't believe it; her luck was turning around. She didn't have the spear now, but she wasn't going to use it anyways. She had to use the bow and arrows, even though she hadn't had any time to practice. This was her chance to get some animal fat. As she slowly got out of the water, nearly slipping in her crouched state, she pulled out her bow and notched an arrow as she tried to run up to a tree to hide. It was a perfect opportunity. She raised her bow and took aim carefully, hoping she could land a few shots. Surprisingly, she'd never get the chance.

A small squeal was heard behind her as she looked back to see what just caught her off guard. What she wasn't expecting was a piglet to come busting out of the brush behind her and knock her off her feet. The arrow went flying off into the lake, and both the boar and piglet ran away. To top it off, she had the wind knocked out of her from the fall from a rock she landed on.

"Damn it, damn it, damn it damn it!" she yelled out in between coughs. Why was she having so much bad luck today? Was it some god playing tricks on her here? Or was it just bad coincidence? Selene slammed her fist down against the ground, angry at what was happening. She needed to keep a level head, but it was hard when so many things had already gone wrong today. She now needed to make a stone spear, catch some fish, make a new pot and then go get some ore. Once she had all of that, she'd make some ingots and hopefully upgrade even further. She huffed and got up to gather some clay and throw it into her inventory, then made a stone tipped spear to replace the copper one. She was really bummed about losing that. That was copper she couldn't replace right now.

Once she had the spear ready, she tried to catch what she could, but this time she only caught three fish. No more seemed to be swimming anywhere near her, and each time she moved, they swam away.

Little bastards must be putting the word out not to go near the feet. Great.

By now, it was past noon. The fishing had taken longer than she had expected, and she needed to get the water boiled before she started on the ore mining. As she passed a rotting log, she was able to at least get a handful of grubs but nothing else. She checked her usual spots but couldn't find anymore, and very nearly opened a log to see just in the nick of time a snake tail barely poking through. She'd cleaned the area out. The dev had to either hunt now or explore further. Exploring unfortunately took her in the opposite direction of the fort and took more time, where she needed to go home at least temporarily. She might have time to head out and find some more berry bushes, or maybe find some smaller game.

As she reached the fort and opened the gate up to head into the cave, she noticed Blue in the corner with something long in his mouth. He caught a snake. It couldn't have been the one she saw in the log, so there might be a few of them out there. She'd have to be a bit more careful.

"Fuck, I forgot to close whatever hole is in the walls!" she groaned but realized Blue had potentially saved her from a bite. She motioned for him to come over to her, but he ignored her.

"Come on, don't you want me to cook it?" she asked. That would probably be a no, given the fact that wolves didn't need anything to be cooked in the first place, unlike her. Selene walked up and kneeled in front of him. He growled a little as he chewed on the body. He would snap at her hand if she tried to grab it.

"Hey! Look!" she pointed towards the door frame. His head tilted up and away from the snake and looked where her finger was pointing. While his eyes were away from his meal, her right hand quickly grabbed the snake away. He barked at her and growled.

"Enough! I'm going to give it back, just let me help you!" she yelled back. She stormed over to the campfire and cooked the snake as Blue sat there letting out little growls here and there. He was annoyed. She stuck her tongue out at him.

"I can't have you getting any random poison in you right now, even if you might be resistant! I've already got one sick pup, I'm not sticking my fingers into your mouth too! You might actually bite them off!" she snapped. After cooking it, she threw it out to him. He quickly picked it up and carried it to the back but watched her get up and leave before starting to eat it.

As she stormed out and through the gate, straight to the mining cave, she grumbled something about shaving Blue to teach him a lesson. She didn't really mean it, but she had to vent somehow. As she neared the cave and started ripping stone away, she found some zinc as well as lead, but no malachite. She continued in, almost making the cave as large as the first one, and there was still none gain. Tin appeared, at least one vein, some more zinc, and lead. No malachite.

"Oh, come on, please? I really need this!" She dug deeper and deeper, with nothing green gained. By now she had a decent pile of zinc and lead and tin which as she now knew was rarely found in the same area as copper ores, enough for what she figured might be twenty-five ingots, but no green. The sun was slowly heading passed and only a few more hours before dusk would come about, and she really needed to get some new gear. The woman was about to tear her hair out, until a thought occurred to her. She could melt down her copper sword and shield and recreate them into a bronze sword and shield. It might provide at least a little left over for a small bronze spear tip if she also melted the copper knife too. She took a deep breath to calm down, putting her hands up in a show of settling her frustration and setting her mind to the next task.

Bronze sword and shield, bronze spear tip if any is left over, bronze knife. Nothing to it.

Selene worked hard on the forging process, melting down her copper equipment and then recasting it. Almost as soon as she finished crafting each one, including the time to pour the ingots, three hours had past. On top of that, her crucible cracked. She held her hand up to her forehead as she couldn't believe what was happening. Was that considered trash tier too?! It wasn't real equipment used on her person though and didn't have the tier info in her inventory! She realized she'd need to make a new one, cook it so that it would hold up to the heat, then get the chance to use it. That would take another hour or so. She was almost fed up. Just then, movement happened just outside the gate, and pushed against it. She flipped around and stared at it. Ash came out to see what was going on. Blue was just behind her.

It could be the boar! God, I could use some good luck right now.

The movement stopped and left the area as she gathered her things again, sheathing the sword and pulling the shield onto her back. She used her remaining glove as the straps for the shield, but she figured she could get more leather once she took down the boar to make a new pair. If the piglet was with it, then all the better. She stepped outside, closing the gate just as Ash and Blue came up to it, and tried to find the creature that had pushed on the gate but was having a bit of difficulty. Suddenly, movement through the bushes much further out, heading towards the hills and around the far side of the forest. She charged after it, hoping she could get some shots in as soon as she saw it with an arrow notched and ready. What happened next was not what she was expecting.

As she cleared the brush and bushes to step out in the open, her eyes landed directly on something squat and green. A goblin. Time seemed to slow down, and she stopped dead in her tracks as it turned around. Its eyes seemed to be dull as it blinked at her and roared a tiny roar. The thing charged her as she pulled up her bow and fired, completely missing. There was no time to shoot again. She pulled her sword but didn't have enough time to attack as he lunged at her with his own iron blade. She dodged, barely, to the left and rolled, her left arm scraped by a rock along the way. She needed to pull the new shield right now.

The goblin turned and looked at where she landed as she got back up as fast as she could, her heart pounding. What the hell was this thing doing here? Were there more than wolves out here? She was expecting animal predators, maybe lions or tigers or bears (oh my!) but not some sort of humanoid… thing. Her hand pulled at her shield and got it off her back just in time for the green skinned creature to attack again as she backed up and tried to swing at him. He jumped around and dodged her flailing attacks. As he jumped at her again, she blocked with her shield and pushed forward, slamming him back and onto the ground. He quickly recovered, but his nose had been bloodied.

"Get the fuck away from me!" she screamed at him. It didn't have much effect, as he charged her again. She tried to block again with the shield, but he leapt and grappled the sides. Now her shield was a riding spot for him to try and attack behind it, to stab at her. Selene flailed the shield around and he tried to attack, one strike cutting against her left arm at the shoulder, another the tip of his sword barely cutting her left cheek. She was trying desperately to shake him off before seeing a tree nearby and charging for it. The goblin was slammed against the tree with an ACK! sound blasting out of his ugly mouth, but it didn't stop him from still trying to impale her on his sword. She kept trying to slam him again and again against the tree, hoping to knock the wind out of him. On the third try, he started to climb up over the top of the shield to try and finish the fight once and for all with a sword to her head. She struck first.

Her blade shot forward just over the shield, impaling his skull against the tree. His sword arm swung around a little bit in a twitch response, his left arm's fingers wiggling a little bit. His sword managed to put another cut on her left arm and shear away a section of her hide shirt before the arm went limp. She pulled away and dropped onto her butt, staring at the body as she panted heavily. The whole fight had lasted maybe a few minutes at most, but she was exhausted. Her attacks did almost nothing as he had dodged everything, the only way she had not been killed is she reacted to strike just over the lip of her shield. Had he not been doing that, she might be dead right now.

Her right hand flew to her left cheek and felt the blood flowing, then to her left arm at the two gashes. She'd have to poultice each and bandage them up. She took one more look at the body, then the sword. It was iron, something she didn't have yet. The little bastard had better equipment than she did. The wounded woman picked up the sword tentatively while watching the body, as if expecting him to jump up and attack her again. Then, just as slowly, she started to run, which turned into a dead sprint as she went straight for the fort. As she got inside the gate, she forced a large mound of dirt in front of the entrance to keep anyone from trying to open it. She was frightened right now. There could be more of those things prowling around.

You need armor if you're ever going to fight again. You should make some tomorrow.

Today was not a good day. She had classified it as such with definite certainty. She just wanted to barricade the gate door and never come out again, but she knew tomorrow she'd have to go out there to gather, and the pups needed food. She needed food. Selene couldn't just hide and hope they go away, otherwise they'd find her and break through the gate, probably killing her and the pups… or worse. She didn't want to think about the worse event that could occur, or the thought of them breaking through. It was already early dusk, so there was no chance of going out for more healing herbs. She'd need to use the spares she was going to plant in the garden, and hopefully find some more tomorrow… if she lived through tomorrow.

Her arm hurt now that the adrenaline was slowly wearing off, so the dev went quickly into the cave and started to mash up the herbs in the mortar and pestle. The entire time her arm ached with some sharp pain due to holding down the mortar, but once she pressed the poultice mix into the wounds, she hissed due to the stinging, followed by a numbing of the nerves. The woman bandaged herself up with some plant fiber made cloth. She already knew the poultice would very slowly heal her and help keep any scars from forming, and the bandage would keep any dirt out and stop any infection. Technically, both could do more than that, if she had crafted a better quality of each.

Poultices could come in a variety of mixtures, but they tended to always do the same thing, at least depending on the tier. The tiers were Extremely minor, Very Minor, Minor, Light, Medium, Large, Very Large, Grand, Super, Mega, Ultra. Apparently, any sort of potion followed a similar tier system. The bandages, on the other hand, followed a level 0 – 10 tier system. Zero was just a basic bandage, but each tier above that increased healing by ten percent, being considered "Medicated" bandages. The poultices were just slow regeneration systems for players in Divine Apocalypse, even being able to be chewed for the effects in combat along with any potions, elixirs, flasks, kegs, scrolls or other assorted buff items. The ones she had made were the lowest tier though, extremely minor or "X minor", which meant it was just there to stop the pain and to keep her from receiving any scars. The healing effect was so low it might as well not even be there. She pushed some poultice mix into the cut on her cheek, wincing as she did so before pasting a piece of plant fiber bandage to it with some berry juice from the two berries she had.

The entire time she was doing this, she was trying to keep tears from flowing from her eyes and sniffling. The three wolves were watching her, with Ash coming up to her alpha and lying down next to her in a comforting motion. Luna tried to climb up onto her lap and just looked up at her, with Blue staring intently from his spot in the back of the cave.

I'm hurt, but I still need to practice and make the training dummy. My accuracy was horrible back that, if I can't hit anything that isn't point blank range what's the damn point of using the bow!

Selene picked Luna up and put her down on the bedding to head outside. She had enough grass from the morning walk to the lake to make a very primitive training dummy with some wood holding it up. As she notched an arrow into the bow, she saw a flash of the goblin in her eyes taking the place of the dummy. She fired, the arrow whizzing past the head. She fired again and again, most of the arrows missing, a few hitting nonvital spots.

"GOD DAMN IT! WHY AM I SO BAD AT THIS! WHY DO I SUCK SO BAD AT ANY OF THIS! AM I REALLY SO PATHETIC?! I CAN'T DO ANYTHING BUT CODE IT SEEMS!" She screamed out loud and just looked at the sky. Stars were slowly showing up. The tears were now flowing freely. She never really had a chance to hit the boar in the first place, or the goblin. If she didn't get better soon, she figured she'd be dead within the next few days. As far as Selene was concerned, she was only prolonging the inevitable.

The dev walked into the cave, feeling defeated. She'd try to practice in the morning, but she didn't expect much. Blue trotted over to the campfire and barked, expecting food again.

"Fine! Fine, I'll feed you, you ungrateful little – "she looked up into his eyes as she sniffled back the tears. He just blinked and kept staring at her. She let out a big huff and started to cook the three fish that were available, as well as the grubs. There were no berries, she hadn't found any roots to eat, and the fish were obviously going to the pups. That left the gruel she made for herself. Her eyes just stared at it as the wolves ate, Luna finishing first surprisingly. Ash let out a small whine as she lay down and yawned, looking at her. A small sigh came out of her mouth as she started to eat her food, then cleaned the bowls. One of the edges was chipped now, which seemed to be another thing to add to the pile that broke the camel's back. That was another thing she added to the list for tomorrow to do.

Once they were all settled for the night, Selene just laid back with her right arm draped over her forehead and stared up at the ceiling, her character sheet and inventory opened. The inventory slots just kept saying empty, and she had closed and opened it a few times, almost hoping to see a change and find food hidden somewhere that she didn't see.

What am I going to do about breakfast tomorrow? I'll have to wake up early just to find anything, and the fish won't even go near me now! The berry bushes are picked clean, at least close by, I probably will never be able to take down that boar again without probably killing myself using a spear, and for all I know there's a whole horde of goblins out there waiting to… to…

She covered her eyes with her arm, not wanting to think about it. The woman was afraid she'd have nightmares tonight, which was probably true. Her arm moved up a bit as she looked at her character sheet one last time for the night. Level 9. She was level 9 and at Bronze Age. She had enough actions completed to hit the Iron Age now, at least tomorrow, for all the good that will do. She hadn't seen any iron veins yet. Her stat bar next to her body portrait had the same yellow color it seemed… wait, had it always had that color? It was blue before when she first looked at it, but it might have changed just because she played with the design. It wasn't as if it mattered either, the color meant nothing or the little arrows on the sides probably pointing towards her inventory and mocking her. "Hey! Look at this! She has nothing!" it was saying. Selene could change the color, but there didn't seem to be a point to it.

Selene closed the sheet and rolled over, with Luna wondering why she had moved. Her arm changed to a better position and cuddled the white pup close. She needed a little comfort from the fluffy creature, and the white pup needed some body heat, so she welcomed the attention. Ash was to her back lying on her new bedding, and Blue was just being Blue, lying in the back and not on his bed. She'd go to sleep, but she wouldn't get much rest, as nightmares of goblins breaking down the gate and stringing up the heads of her pups ran through her mind, laughing as they did so and reaching out to grab at her.

The Sixth Day

The defeated woman woke up groggy, her body still tired from the bad dreams she had. As she got up, she looked around to find Blue was nowhere to be found yet again. As she got up to go outside, she saw the gate was partially open. She froze, her eyes looking around. Ash was gone too.

"Fuck, fuck!" she panicked and looked around, expecting to find goblins in waiting for her. Nothing else stirred inside the fort, except Luna who had followed her outside to relieve herself. Somehow, the adolescents had used the pile of dirt to reach the latch on the gate and got out.

You smart little… damn it Blue! I expected you to abandon me at the first chance, but I didn't expect you to lead Ash with you! Gaaaah!

She kicked at the dirt and wanted to hit something, but obviously the only thing around was little Luna, which there was no way she would lay a finger on the girl. That was it then. She had just herself and Luna to take care of. They must have sensed weakness in her and went to join another pack. Maybe they were better off, she could only guess given what she was doing. As she walked slowly back to the cave, her eyes fell on the forge.

"A lot of good that will do me right now" she whispered to herself. Her thinking changed as she stopped and looked at the cave. She didn't have any food, so a tech up right now wasn't a problem. It wasn't like she had anything to look forward to until she was able to find something for the both to eat. As the tech up upgraded her knowledge and she learned multiple uses of iron, she turned around and moved the dirt and opened the gate even more.

"Luna, you stay here, I'm gonna see if I can find something, anything for us to eat." Luna just barked a little and ran back to the cave, looking at her. She might not have understood there was no food yet to give her. The woman headed out with her stomach growling again, looking for whatever was edible. She found a squirrel, and barely caught it as it tried to climb a tree. Once she was at the lake, Selene tried one more time to spear fish, but she didn't even catch one. By the time she got back to the fort, it was mid-morning. Luna was whining, and she didn't want to disappoint her. The woman cooked up the squirrel and fed it to the little pup, and just sat there watching while her own stomach growled. The small hide could barely be considered for gloves, but at least they were something. There were a few meat scraps that she ate, which took the hunger edge off.

You've got to make some form of armor, even some basic padded armor so that goblin fight doesn't kill you next time. You need some protection!

The dev was tired and hungry, but she went out to pull up some grass with her power to create some cloth armor over her hide clothing. It really wasn't much, as it would probably only protect against blunt weapons and not anything that could cut, and it was trash tier, so it was going to fall apart quickly. She felt as if she had painted a big target sign on her head just standing in front of the training dummy wearing it.

"Fuck this, and fuck everything that seems to be happening to me." The dummy obviously didn't respond. She picked up her bow and fired some arrows, missing most of the time. She was angry she had such low accuracy, and it didn't seem to improve no matter how hard she aimed or concentrated. She threw the bow down on the ground and stormed over to the forge. It was taking so much resources just to build anything worthwhile, and it was so slow to melt the ingots. She thought for a second, wondering what else she could do that she hadn't done before. She could try and put it in her inventory, maybe she could craft the ingots without it being "out in the field" near her.

As she placed the thing inside and looked at it, the info told her it requested charcoal and the other ingredients to craft an ingot. It worked! She loaded the remainder of the charcoal sitting in the mound, as well as her bronze knife to test if it could in fact melt it down to an ingot. She could always make a new one quickly after. Unfortunately, right after she had prepared everything, nothing happened. The forge just sat there in her inventory, saying it would take an hour to produce the ingot, but the minutes, and even the seconds, never went down.

"AaaaaahhhhhhHHHHHH!" she screamed and scratched at her hair, ruffling it as she was so fed up with what she wasn't understanding. Did she really have to go through the whole damned crafting process to get a few ingots? This was how the rest of the world really did this, without her special power, so why couldn't she?

Because I'm fucking alone that's why! I must do the mining, the fishing, the woodcutting, the smelting, the crafting, everything myself! The real world has many people doing different jobs! Also, game features are fucking me over instead of helping me!

She closed her inventory and looked at Luna at the cave entrance. She was wagging her little tail. It was a little heart breaking. She was her alpha, her weak, pathetic, alpha.

"You deserve better. It probably isn't me hon." Selene walked to the gate door, picking up her bow along the way. She needed to get at least some more food. Maybe if she tried spearing at rodent holes, she'd catch something. Maybe a weevil, maybe a snake, she didn't care, she was just hungry. This was the perfect time to go exploring, as there wasn't anything else to do. She tried to rip some stone out of the second cave before she left, but all she found was more stone. She figured as much. The second cave was now the size of the first, with the same material seen all around. She stormed out and started looking for holes in the ground, anything that looked like it might be a home to an animal. As she looked around, she walked further and further away from the fort, heading towards the lake, and finally to the other side of it.

Just as she found a hole, she thought she saw a rodent dart into, she noticed the bushes in front of her a good ten meters had some noises coming from behind. The dev slowly crept up to the bushes and looked through a small opening… and froze, her eyes widened in terror. Five goblins were standing around, arguing about something. Their speech wasn't something she seemed to understand, but it seemed somewhat like English. The problem was the words seemed almost like baby talk, with garbles and hoots mashed together

No no no no no, this can't be happening this can't be happening…

If they found her, she was dead. She barely managed to fight off one of them, there was no way she could take out five. She stepped back from the bushes and stepped on a twig. It cracked, sending out a noise that the goblins heard. They turned and started walking towards the bushes, then burst through them. They didn't find her, as she slipped behind a tree, but there wasn't anywhere for her to run to. If she bolted, they'd see her, then catch her. That would be the end.

Don't be the deer in the headlights that freezes up and gets stabbed without doing anything, if you're going to die, die fighting!

She pulled her bow and notched an arrow. They were somewhat close, but not close enough to reach her before she fired off at least two arrows. She knew she could get off at least that much. That might kill one, maybe two if she didn't miss? If it didn't kill the first one, it might wound them or startle them, if it even hit. She couldn't lose confidence right now, it was already too low. She peeked around the tree and watched them fan out to look around. If she ever needed her Molecular Reformation to do something in a fight besides launch dirt into the air, it was now. She had tried to fire off effects before, but that was when she was panicking. If she controlled herself, she might just get a stalagmite to burst up and impale one. Then she had to shoot a second one, that left three. She might be able to get away or at least fight one more that got in her way, that would leave two while she sprinted. This was if everything went perfectly for her, which the odds were horribly against. This was her only chance, as one of the goblins was heading for her tree.

One

She focused carefully on the one walking towards her and saw him stop as he looked down at the ground confused. It was trembling a little bit and as he carefully inspected the dirt and lowered his head, a stalagmite finally burst forth and shot through his right eyeball. He went limp immediately as his brain turned to mush. The other four turned and looked at his body and that was when an arrow flew. She had tried to focus on not the ground below him, but further below the ground to cause a sort of gaseous explosion to launch the rock and dirt upwards.

Two

The arrow struck the second one further away in the chest. She was aiming for his head. She could have easily missed if she aimed a little more to the right. The other three narrowed in on her location from where the arrow fired and charged. A second arrow launched but completely whiffed. She pulled her sword and grabbed her shield, turning around and shooting off in a dead sprint. She got a good distance closer to the lake, but slipped on a wet platform of stone, crashing into the ground.

FUCK FUCK FUCK!

As she turned around and tried to get up, they were almost upon her. One was just in front of the others and took a swing down at her, the shield blocking the strike. Her arm nearly went numb from the vibration flowing through it. Selene could feel this was the end, but something else had other plans.

A black blur shot from the bushes and tackled one of the goblins, dragging him away a few feet and shaking him by the neck. It tried to struggle, but then there was a loud crunch sound as its neck was snapped. Blue was here. The second goblin turned around at this new adversary, but he was about to be caught off guard as well. Ash jumped from the bushes and landed on him, biting into his arm that was holding the sword as Blue charged to help her, tearing the little green bastard apart as he grabbed at his left leg. The last one was so surprised he didn't realize Selene had brought up her sword and stabbed right through his back. The goblin struggled for a few seconds before his eyes glazed over and he slumped backwards, sliding a bit more down her sword. She tossed it aside and looked at both wolves, laughing and crying at the same time while trying to get her breath back. The whole process sounded weird to the wolves.

"Both of you! I thought you had abandoned us! God are you two a sight for sore eyes!" she was so happy they were there. Ash padded up to her and whined while Blue just stood there, watching her. Selene wrapped her arms around the grey wolf's neck and hugged her for all she was worth, then looked at Blue. She motioned for the black wolf to come over.

"Come over here you big dummy!" she laughed out. He fidgeted a little bit. She thought for a second. Apparently, he didn't like being called names. "You did great boy. You were amazing. Thanks." He finally padded over slowly and looked at her outstretched hand. The adolescent male wolf sniffed it for a second, then licked it. She rubbed his muzzle and gave him a scratch behind the ears. As she got up slowly and picked up her sword, knocking the goblin off it in the process, she looked around. These pups, despite being not adults yet, took out two goblins by themselves. She didn't really expect them to be a match for a human that was prepared, but the goblins were almost the same size as them. That evened the odds greatly. She had also thought they didn't know how to hunt and had just gotten lucky with the snake and rabbit. Clearly, she was wrong, and she couldn't have been happier to be so.

"Let's go home. I'll figure something out for-" she shut up as they trotted away from her and back through the bushes.

Or not. Maybe they were just paying their debt to her taking care of them before all of this.

She started to turn around, but heard the bushes rustle again. Both came back out, each carrying a large rabbit. Those might have been the parents of the small one Ash had caught. It was roughly enough to feed all four of them tonight. She laughed and closed her eyes for a moment. Her pack had come to protect her, and pitch in to feed everyone.

"The power of a wolf is in its pack. You take on one, you better be ready to take them all on."

As they walked back to the fort, she kept looking at Blue. She had him figured out the wrong way. He might have been sleeping in the back because he didn't know where his place was in the pack. All she did was get annoyed at him, and each time he had barked, it was for a reason. He wasn't being mean, he was just stating things with barks and woofs. It was the only way he was able to communicate, she just wasn't listening. His barks near the campfire was him telling her "food time." He wasn't telling her to cook, he was telling her he was there and ready to eat! He also was probably being so annoyed because he wasn't being useful to the pack. He had no chance to show he could help.

Once they got back into the fort and latched the gate, she skinned the rabbits and cooked all the meat up. There was nothing left for breakfast, but she, and the two powerful wolves in her little pack, would figure something out. The rabbit tasted amazing due to the hunger she had endured throughout the day.

As they settled down and she lay back on her bedding, she looked over at Blue who went to the back of cave.

"Hey, uh uh. Your place is right over here. No one is taking it. Come on. Nice and warm." She patted the bedding made of hide just for him. He looked at her for a moment, then got up and trotted over to lay down beside her. She gave him a scratch behind the ears and he started to pant happily. "Good boy. You did great today. So did you Ash. Better than your parents ever could be. You both should be proud."

Ash gave a soft woof to talk back to her, and Luna seemed to want to be a part of all of this, letting out a small howl to show she was a deadly killer too. Selene laughed and gave her a scratch.

"I didn't forget about you, little killer. You are just a great little survivor. I swear, all of you make me so happy. I'm just sorry you're following such a bad alpha. I hope I can somehow be worthy of your loyalty in the future. You too Blue, I'm sorry for… I'm sorry for how I've acted. I just lost it on a bad day. I really should have kept my cool, but I didn't." A small grin had cropped on her face. She might be bad right now, but she just had to push to figure things out. She'd been on this world for what, six days? Basic military training on Earth tended to take six weeks just to finish boot camp, then there were the courses beyond that. For work there was college, and trade schools, etc.

The fact was, she had never fired a bow before she got here, so of course she'd be bad at it. She just needed to keep trying. She took out one goblin today with an arrow, next time she'd take out all of them. And she'd have help. There was no rush to push beyond Iron Age right now, she had plenty of time to tech up. She had a bronze sword and shield, she just needed to maintain what she had and try to work out other ways to do things. Spear fishing didn't work anymore, she could see if she could make a fishing pole. No feet to look for, and she didn't need to look for the fish, they'd just get caught and she'd reel them in. The garden would eventually grow what they needed too, and Luna didn't seem to need a whole lot of the healing herbs anymore. They would be ok if she took things slow.

As she looked up at the ceiling and opened her character sheet, she checked her level. She had reached level 10 from everything she had done for the day, including the fight with five goblins. The tech tier was ready to upgrade as well. She kept looking at the color of her stats bar with the arrow pointers on the sides. Her inventory was almost empty besides the forge, so what was it trying to tell her?

"I get it, but it'll fill up eventually" she whispered to herself. She tried to focus on the arrows themselves, maybe they would go away if she acknowledged them. What happened next was not what she expected, at all.

Her sheet swapped temporarily to every stat she could ever have, with a point listing in the upper right-hand corner. She had attribute points, and she never used them! She didn't even know about them! Her jaw dropped in awe and in pure amazement at her stupidity.

You aren't stupid! Do you realize what you've been doing?! You've been practically soloing a new world without using any stat points! There are achievements for that in the gaming community!

She could easily see attributes such as strength, carry weight, agility, dexterity which seemed different from agility, intelligence which couldn't possibly mean how smart she was and more than likely was for mana or the other bars. The rest included spirit, perception, movement speed, accuracy, crafting speed, crafting quality, crafting bonus chance, resistances, critical chance, critical damage boost, etc.

She let out a loud laugh and startled all the pups as she saw "Molecular Reformation" speed, range, AOE, control and power in there as well. She gave them each a scratch to calm them down and then looked at the sheet some more. What she had available was 110 points to spend, with probably ten of those points a sort of achievement freebie like "hey, congratulations for not dying after hitting level 10! Keep on doing the living thing! We're rooting for you!" This meant she received ten points per level. Given that she might not have a level ceiling at all, there was no telling how high she might be able to get some of her stats, except there may not be a reason to level some of them beyond a certain range due to it not having any effect. It wasn't that there would be a soft cap or even a hard cap, it just felt like some things might not work beyond a certain amount.

Accuracy, could this go passed 100 percent? She knew of one game that just added extra base damage onto ranged attacks, but it didn't really affect critical attacks. There were so many she'd have to work on, and each one seemed to be a percentage. All her stats were at zero percent, which probably meant there were no bonuses or debuffs for her. That was helpful, as it meant that it gave a boost to whatever she had now or if she say, increased strength and worked out to become a muscle fitness amazon, they'd stack. She might be able to swing a sword and cut through a building later if she fed points into it and worked out.

She also remembered there might be potions, healing potions to be specific, probably mana potions as well. This also meant there could be stat potions like some games had to move past any restrictions from a level cap, and buff potions. She might need an alchemy station to brew up all of this, and get more stat points than her level allowed, provided she had the ingredients… if she could find the ingredients. No, she couldn't think that way. She would find the ingredients.

Below the stats, there seemed to also be a skills list with what she had already learned. Each one was again at zero percent, so while she knew what to do, there was no guarantees she was any good at it. They seemed to be universal skills as well, making them not useless as she continued up the Eras. "Farming" was there, as was "Metallurgy." Melee Weapons, Ranged Weapons, Cooking, Armor Proficiency, Gathering. Gathering seemed especially important, as combined with upgrades to the Molecular Reformation ability and its stats could drastically increase yields she found or gained and would speed up how quickly she dug. Finally, below skills was perks, which was empty. That was definitely an eye raiser, as she knew exactly what that was.

The perks system was a crafted "bonus" that Divine Apocalypse had created. Basically, it helped with a somewhat significant buff to a certain action you were performing, or skill. If you were cooking, and you had a perk that increased quality or yield of any meat by ten or twenty percent, then when the food was prepared you had extra. She had no idea if that would work in a real-life situation right now, as that seemed to break a law of physics. Given that she was looking at a floating character sheet in front of her, and had a special power, and was on another planet without using a spaceship to get there, and recently fought goblins, she decided to stop thinking about what couldn't or could be done.

Selene was so happy she could burst. There would need to be some testing tomorrow, but for now she wasn't going to use the points. There might even be an extension of her food and water bar, her stamina bar and her health bar making it difficult to kill her. She looked up at the hp bar and it was still a little lower than full. Her arm was still healing with the poultices, as well as her cheek. It would be back to full in no time. Her only problems now seemed to be getting a steady source of food, figuring out how to work the forge or any other crafting assistance stations, and getting a steady source of minerals.

She flicked from the stats to the inventory with a grin and stared at the forge. Still one hour and not going down.

"Why are you frozen… frozen… wait, stasis!" it hit her like a Mack truck. Her inventory was creating a stasis field on everything that went into it, so nothing would rot or waste away. She needed to figure out how to make it not have a stasis field.

If the inventory has a stasis field, and it's connected to the Spider Radial menu… can I make a separate bubble for a different inventory with different rules?

She had never thought about that before. The dev quickly built a new bubble and linked it to the original inventory, then tried to figure out the specifications on what was allowed. As she focused on removing the Time Dilation Field for the new secondary inventory space, the bubble went red.

"Shit! Did I break it?" she was now anxious. Nothing seemed to happen, so she tested moving the forge over to the new storage bubble without the TDF. Immediately the timer started to go down. It was working! In the morning, her bronze knife would be melted down into a bronze ingot. It was a small price to pay for figuring out she wasn't using all of her "tools" to the best of her ability.

Tools. Tools. Use your tools. USE YOUR TOOLS!

She thought long and hard on that idea. Her tech tiers were constantly giving her tools to use, like a hand axe or a wood drill or a blacksmith hammer, even a workbench to craft equipment on, but she had Molecular Reformation. Why would she use the tools unless… they had some effect on anything she did? Her mind was moving a light year a second. The cutting speed for her power when she made a knife had increased, so she didn't have to prep the food for as long to feed the wolves. It was all making sense. She's had so many features piled onto to her to help her out, but nothing was forced on her. If she wanted to screw up and not explore what was available to her, that was her prerogative. If she wanted to make things harder on herself, she could accept that challenge. She sighed as she realized she'd been doing this all wrong, from the get-go. There were no tooltips beyond the training on how to us technology she learned, nothing was holding her hand and telling to actually use it. She was a developer. She should be smarter than this.

Hell, she might be even crafting the items themselves wrong and not just what she was crafting them with; she could probably have passed trash tier if she just kept making it. It might have followed the same route as teching up, requiring one hundred actions or creations before she'd see anything of shoddy quality. The crafting quality stat would obviously help, but she figured that would only affect the stats of the quality tier, not the tier itself. A trash tier piece of chest armor would have higher armor rating and better durability than a regular trash armor piece, but shoddy was probably still better. In order to do that, she'd just have to keep scrapping the old ones for spare materials to keep costs down until she had some perks that dropped the material requirements or crafted some specials that helped with that.

Tomorrow would be different. Tomorrow, she was going to improve herself, and she was going to use everything at her disposal. She wasn't going to feel sorry for herself anymore, as the only one who was making it difficult… was her.