You never realize how loud the world is when you're just living your life. Cars driving along a nearby road, the clammer of people walking by, the constant background hum of electricity flowing all around us, the chirping of birds, and so much more.

And then you end up in a place without any of that, and it's just… quiet.

Sorry, I should probably explain.

If you're reading this… actually, I don't know what has happened if you're reading this. I'm writing this journal on the smartphone the Company gave me because we don't have any paper, something Levy has complained about a few times. She was the one that suggested I keep this journal, as a way to pass the time. I think she just wants something to read though.

So if you're reading this, you're either me in the future, reminiscing, or you're one of my girls, and you're reading out of curiosity, or to get a look at what the early days were like. Are like? Whatever.

Or maybe you're some employee of the Company, keeping tabs on me? I have no idea how deeply they snoop, but after seeing what they're capable of, I'm just going to assume they see everything. Well, if you are from the Company, this journal isn't for you. It's for me. Mostly present me, to keep me sane and help organize my thoughts.

I've gone off on another tangent. Let me start over.

My name is Roland Grisham, I'm 22 years old and my hobbies include gaming and programming. Though I haven't done any of the latter in a few years…

I was a pretty normal guy until very recently. I grew up with a normal set of parents, was an only child, had friends in high school, went to college, flunked out, and got a job stocking shelves at the local grocery store. I tried to do a little streaming, but I was lucky if I ever got viewer numbers in the double digits.

One evening I was browsing job postings when I found… well, it was a pretty vague post, and honestly, it was pretty sketchy. But retail was hell and I was willing to take a chance. I met all the requirements and the pay was good, so I applied. And the next thing I knew I was sitting in a fancy office somewhere.

Now, I want to be clear. I was at home when I applied. And I wasn't rushed off to an office building. I hit the submit button, I blinked, and then I wasn't at home anymore.

If you're reading this, I'm going to assume you're familiar with the Company and their Catalog, so I won't bore you by explaining it all. To keep it short, I was recruited as a Contractor, and I had no reason to say no. Though there was one thing I wasn't happy with.

See, back home when I played games, I tended to play hard ones. If it wasn't a challenge, either testing my skills or my brain in some way, then I tended to lose interest quickly. This ranged from beating RPGs at level one or giving myself other arbitrary restrictions in games. No healing items, only items, whatever.

But my absolute favorite, the one that I sunk the most time into, was a Minecraft mod pack known as Skyblock.

The concept of the Skyblock is simple. Instead of spawning in a normal world, you spawn on a tiny island floating in an empty sky. There is no ground below, only void. The sun rises and sets, clouds and weather still happen, and most of the rules of Minecraft are still a thing.

But all you have is that island and the small number of resources on it.

The goal is simple. Take those resources and break all laws of conservation of mass by turning them into a massive and sprawling complex of automation and power until you are an invincible god creating enough energy to power a solar system.

I loved it. Starting with nothing and growing it out? It was a test of patience, smart decision-making, and good planning. There were dozens of different ways to accomplish your goals and it was up to you to figure out the best one for you and what you wanted to accomplish. There were endless possibilities and I played it over and over again, exploring different paths and refining my setups to peak efficiency.

So when the Company provided me with my starting options and I began to think of all the different things out there, I asked if they had anything like that.

Unfortunately, they didn't.

Fortunately, they were more than willing to set something like that up. I believe the man I was speaking to said something along the lines of them always being happy to see Contractors challenge themselves in new and interesting ways.

A few minutes later I was presented with the Catalog Skyblock challenge. Zero credits, I either had to go as myself or a low-level Possess, and the only two things I could bring with me were the free Stamp and a Tier 5 companion of my choice. The latter was my biggest lifeline.

Let me tell you, it was not easy choosing who to bring. Sorry, Levy, if you're reading this, but it's the truth. I chose you in the end anyway.

I considered a lot of things when making my choice. Being able to help on the Skyblock, to create or grow things, was important. But so was them being able to help capture more girls(I'll explain that in a minute).

But when I came up with my list and thought about it, I realized that it wasn't just a matter of picking someone useful. I'd be spending a lot of time with them, just the two of us for days on end as we built up the Skyblock.

First and foremost, they needed to be someone that I wanted to spend that much time with.

That made the decision a lot easier, and I chose Levy McGarden from Fairy Tail. She's cute, she's fun, she's interesting, and her magic is super useful. Like, insanely useful. But I'll get into that later too.

And choosing a companion was the only decision I could make. None of the other amazing perks were available to me, not without any Credits. But how do I earn credits if all I have is a little island in an empty sky? Well, there's one more mechanic to the whole thing that makes it possible.

Once a week a portal to a random other world will open up, and I'll have twenty-four hours to explore it and gain as many resources as I can. Materials and people.

What's that you're asking now? How am I meant to capture people when I only have twenty-four hours but the Stamp takes three days? Well… that's part of what makes the challenge so hard. The captures won't finish until the portal closes, at which point they'll be stuck in their world unless the portal opens back up on their world again.

The chances of that happening naturally are pretty low. But, among the special purchases I can make is the option to force the portal to open to a world I've already been to. I'm not sure if it'll ever be worth it, but it's an option.

I'll still get the credits for the capture though, so it's not pointless. They'll just be stranded if I don't convince them to come with me through the portal before it closes. I can also sell the stranded captures for a few more extra credits. Not sure how I feel about that, but it is an option.

So I can still earn credits and get new things. It's slow, it's a pain in the ass, and there's a whole lot of downtime in between chances.

And I love it.

I'm genuinely thrilled. The beginnings of Skyblock challenges are always slow when you have to do everything manually, so I was fully expecting something along these lines. So I didn't hesitate to finalize my choices. As soon as I did, I passed out.

When I woke up, it was to the feeling of sunshine on my face. I'm not exactly a morning person, so I was a little disoriented at first. But by the time my brain started processing things again I woke up the rest of the way very quickly.

In front of me was an empty sky with a brilliant sunrise in front of me. And that eerie lack of ambient sound that I was talking about earlier? That's when it hit me, as I watched the sunrise. The only sounds I could hear were the ones I was making by moving, the faint rustling of leaves in the wind, and a quiet breathing to my side.

I looked around then, remembering what was going on and where I was. It didn't take me long to see everything. I had woken up sitting on the ground with my back against a tree. The 'ground' was little more than a square. I knew from the rules I had read that it was 25 meters on each side, which is something like 80 feet if I remember my conversions correctly.

(Edit: Yep, this phone has a handy little conversion calculator. 25 meters is 82 feet and some change. Totally nailed it.)

It was big enough to not feel claustrophobic, but it was pretty cozy considering that it was the entirety of our world. And the sharp flat lines denoting the edges made me a little nervous, even before I approached them.

One corner of the block has a small pond. It's not especially large. It's probably the same size as a kiddy pool, though it's a bit deeper than that. And of course, there's the tree that every Skyblock starts with, and the one I woke up against.

But I wasn't the only one sleeping against the tree. I stopped and stared as I spotted Levy sitting there, her eyes still closed and head tilted to one side. Her chest rose and fell as she breathed gently. She was wearing her iconic orange dress, and with how she was sitting the bottom hem of it had ridden up slightly, exposing most of her thighs.

Uhh, I didn't stare too long at her, of course. That would be creepy. I was just surprised at seeing one of my favorite characters in the flesh, that's all. And no one can prove otherwise.

I didn't want to wake her up so I turned my attention to the one other thing the Company provided me. In the very center of the island was a large wooden crate. Thankfully it was the kind with hinges that made opening it easy, rather than being nailed shut.

Inside the crate I found an assortment of survival gear. Wilderness survival wasn't really the main goal of a Skyblock challenge, so the Company was nice enough to provide the basics. The tree had fruit that would provide the food we needed, the pond had water, and in the crate were all the tools and shelter we needed.

I started pulling it out and placing it on the ground so I could get a handle on what we had. I started with the largest objects, a bundled tent and two sleeping bags. According to the label the tent was rated for two people, and the sleeping bags were simple but serviceable. Or they seem to be, I'm hardly a camping expert.

I then pulled out all the tools. A shovel, a pick ax, a normal ax, a knife, and two empty metal canteens. The tools all felt sturdy but were still mundane as far as I could tell. That was fine with me though, I didn't plan on doing a ton of remodeling anytime soon anyway.

I think that was when it really hit me, the enormity of the task I had taken on. It was one thing to do something like this in a game, where the timespan of things was measured in hours. But here? Any possible projects would take me days at the very least. Weeks, months, or even years of my life would be spent on this. It would be months before I made decent progress on building things up here.

As exciting as it was, it was equally daunting, and honestly, I'm not sure I'm up to the task. I flunked out of college because I got bored. I just stopped giving a fuck about classes, exams, or anything. I had a lot of passion about it at first, but that dried up as the monotony and dredge work piled on. Who's to say that won't happen here?

It was as those thoughts were cycling through my head that I heard a new sound. A voice. "Umm. Good morning?"

I spun around and saw Levy standing a bit behind me. She was smiling, though there was just a hint of awkwardness there like she wasn't entirely sure how she should be acting. Which was pretty understandable in my opinion. Waking up with a stranger on a floating island in the sky is an unusual situation.

"Uh, yeah. Good morning," I replied back, a little unprepared for socializing. "Did you sleep well?"

She shrugged. "I guess? I don't feel tired at least." She glanced at the equipment I had taken out of the crate. "Oh good, there's a tent. We won't have to worry about rain then."

"Yeah, we've got all the basics," I agreed. "Might be a little cozy but we won't have to worry about staying alive at least."

She made a humming sound but didn't say anything as she stepped up to the crate and peered inside. The only thing left were ten square silver packages that contained some emergency meals.

"Do you know what's going on?" I asked after a moment of silence. From what she had said and the way she was acting I assumed she had at least some idea of what the situation was, but I wasn't sure she knew everything.

"Yep," she nodded, looking up at me again. "You're a Contractor, you're doing this Skyblock challenge thing, we have limited resources, and a portal to another world will open up once a week and we can get stuff there." She grins. "I'm excited about that. Imagine what kind of books other worlds have!"

I smiled as well. It was hard not to, seeing her so genuinely excited. "We'll make sure to grab a handful in every world we can," I promised. I was glad she seemed to be okay with ending up in this situation, it would make the days a lot more pleasant. "Come on, let's start setting up the tent. I'd rather get it out of the way now than try to rush it before we go to sleep tonight."

"I've never set up a tent before," Levy admitted.

"Really? Never had to while on a job or anything?" I asked.

"The rare few times we had to camp out it was my teammates who set up the tents," she explained.

"Ah. Well, let's figure it out together then. I don't think I've camped in… probably over ten years." I could just barely recall going camping with my parents one summer when I was a kid. "But it shouldn't be too hard for us to do."

I won't bore you with the details of us setting up the tent. She agreed to help and we picked a spot. We ended up putting it pretty close to the tree, under its branches and facing the center of the island. Thankfully there was a set of instructions for how to put up the tent. With Levy acting as an extra set of hands, it only took us an hour to set up the tent.

Then we moved the crate, something that took both of us lifting, to be right next to the tent as well and put everything back in it except the tent, obviously, the sleeping bags, and the canteens, which I filled from the pond. I was assured by the Company that the water in the pond was drinkable and safe, at least to start. If we contaminated it though, it'd remain that way until we figured out a way to clean it.

Levy and I took a rest after that, drinking some of the water. It wasn't cold at all, but I had worked up a sweat and it was refreshing nonetheless. While we set up the tent we chatted a bit. Well, it was mostly me telling her the same stuff about myself I just wrote earlier in this entry. It was weird knowing stuff about her but her not knowing anything about me.

There was a bit of an awkward silence as the two of us sat there and relaxed. I glanced up at the sky. The sun was pretty high but hadn't reached its zenith yet. I spent a moment trying to remember how sundials worked because I knew it was more complicated than just "stick a rod in the ground and draw a circle around it and it just works like a clock", but that was all I knew.

I was about to ask Levy if she knew when I remembered that I had a smartphone with infinite battery life that could tell me the exact time. I pulled that out from my pocket, glad I saved myself some embarrassment. It was a little before ten o'clock. I didn't see what time we woke up, but if I had to guess, it was about two hours before then.

And then I was out of things to distract myself with, so I decided to strike up a conversation.

"So, what can your magic do, Levy?" I asked after I took another sip of water. "I mean, I know roughly what you can do, but what are the limits?"

"Hmm," she thinks, her brows furrowing cutely as she thought about it. "As you know, I can create different things by writing the words for them with my magic. It's a little more complicated than that of course, but that's a good enough understanding of it without getting into the nitty gritty stuff."

I nodded to show I understood and she continued. "So there are three main limitations. Length, Understanding, and Cost. The first one is simple- I can only use single words, not phrases."

I frowned and thought about that. "Why? And does the language matter?"

"The why is related to the nitty gritty. The simplest way to explain it is that there's no real way to connect the two words together- well sort of. You can make two or more separate one-word creations that can be combined after they've been made, but that's not the same thing as turning multiple words into a singular object."

She then shot me a grin. "But your second question is thinking along the right lines. It has to be one word, but it can be in any language that you know well. That ties into the second limitation, Understanding. You have to understand the word you're using, in multiple ways. You have to know the language well enough that you can deeply and immediately connect the word to the thing or effect, and you also have to understand the thing or effect that the word describes. Like, I know how fire works on a molecular level, so I could write "Fire" and summon one. But I had to study how that worked before it would work."

"So if I told you how to spell the word Uranium, you wouldn't be able to create it?" I asked.

"Nope, because I've never heard of whatever that is," Levy confirmed. "What is it anyway?"

"It's uhh… a type of material? I think it's a metal?" I explained. "It's radioactive, which means it decays and gives off energy just by sitting there. That energy is dangerous to your long-term health if you're close by, but it can also be used to create power." I shook my head. "Sorry, I don't know how it works exactly, so I can't explain it."

"All the more reason to get as many books as we can," Levy replied with a smile. "The more I learn, the more I can make. But there is one final limitation that I think would probably affect my ability to make Uranium, and that's Cost. Specifically, the mana cost. I only have so much magic, and the stronger the effect, the more it costs. It's not an exact one-to-one ratio, but pretty much it takes as much magic energy as it would produce."

I furrowed my brow as I thought that over. "So, to go back to the fire example, if you created a flame, it would cost as much magic as it would to fuel that fire with other means?"

"Yep!" she answered before continuing. "Fire is a bad example though since you can usually use a small fire to create a much bigger one so long as there's fuel. Light would be a better one. Here, let me show you."

Levy lifted her hand in the air with one finger pointing out, the tip of which began to glow as she moved it through the air. It was backwards for me, but I could clearly see her write the word "Light", and it hung in the air in very neat penmanship.

The word flashed as she finished the last letter and then began to glow brightly and rose in the air. "This word will steadily draw from my reserves. I could probably keep this up for hours without issues though, Light doesn't take too much magic to create."

"How do you control it?" I asked. "Could you change the color? Its position? Its shape?"

"All of that is decided when I write it," she explained. "I just have to visualize exactly what I want it to do, and so long as it's something close enough to what I understand the function of a 'Light' to be, it'll do it. This one floated up because I was picturing it as a kind of lamp that would act as a light source. Once it's like this, the only thing I can do is cut off the flow of magic."

After she said that the light immediately started to dim until it wasn't glowing at all, at which point it broke into little pieces that faded away.

"Hmm," I replied as I thought about it. "What about things that don't have a constant flow of energy? Like, for example, a rock? Would that have an upkeep?"

"It wouldn't, no," she said. "But it does cost more magic initially to create something like that. And technically speaking, it wouldn't create a rock."

She raised her hand again and wrote 'Rock', though this time she wrote it much smaller. When she finished there was an odd crunching noise and the words grew as they became round and stony. It landed with a thud in her outstretched hand, and she lifted it up to show me.

"This isn't a rock. Instead, it's stabilized magic that has taken on all of the properties of a rock. Functionally speaking, there's no actual difference between this and a rock. The only thing of note is that spells and effects that affect magic directly will treat this as magic. Anti-magic will cause it to destabilize and turn into ambient mana which will dissipate into the air. It's treated as being a magic material by anything that needs that. But for things that don't interact directly with magic, it's just a rock in the shape of the word 'rock'."

She handed it to me, our fingers brushing against each other, though she didn't seem to notice. I forced my attention to the rock, rather than make a fool of myself by making a big deal out of such a simple touch.

I turned it over a few times in my hands, running my fingers over the surface and feeling the weight of it in my hand. It definitely felt like a rock. "It has to be in the shape of the word, right? What happens if you break it?"

"It has to be created in the shape of the word, yes," Levy explained. "There's some leeway, it really just needs to be legible, but it needs to spell the word, and that's the form it'll take. However, once it's made, you can do whatever you want to it. If you took a hammer to that rock, you'd get a bunch of smaller rocks."

"So we can still use your magic to get raw materials, even if it comes in weird shapes," I thought out loud. "Is there a limit to how big you can make the words?"

"Only in terms of what I can afford to create," she said. "But there is one more limitation I should mention. I can't create anything alive. I can make things that move, and potentially even something that mimics a living thing on a superficial level, but it won't be alive. It can't grow or eat or anything."

"Even something simple like grass?" I asked.

"I could make a word feel and look like grass, but it would be fake," she explained. "It wouldn't grow or absorb nutrients or have any nutritional value for an animal to eat. It's a hard limitation of Word Magic. Of magic in general really."

I nodded at that, because it made sense with what I remembered from the manga. "Anything else?"

Levy put a finger to her chin as she thought. "I don't think so? Those are the big ones at least. The only other limitation that I can think of right now is, as you mentioned earlier, the shape. I can make wood and even iron, but they won't be useful in those shapes. And I can only do nouns. Verbs are a little too loose for this kind of magic."

I closed my eyes and leaned back as I committed what she told me to memory. One of the reasons I picked Levy was because of how useful her magic is, so memorizing the rules and limitations was important. Until the portal opens up, her ability to create things with her magic is the only way to introduce new materials into this world.

The scale at which she could do that was pretty small, all things considered. But that was fine, it was just two of us and we didn't need to rush. We had food and water, so we'd survive.

Thinking about food must have reminded my stomach that I hadn't had any breakfast, as it chose that moment to let out an audible growl. Levy looked at me with an amused expression and a raised eyebrow. "Hungry?" she asked.

"Apparently so," I joked back in good humor. I looked up in the tree and spotted the fruit that I was told would be there. "It's a little early for lunch, but let's take a break to get some food." I stood up and made my way to the tree.

"Oh, is there fruit in the tree?" she asked. "I thought we would eat the meals in the crate."

"Nope, those are for emergencies only," I said as I looked for the lowest branch. "If something happens to the tree somehow, those will keep us fed until the portal opens up." I found a suitable branch and, with some exertion, pulled myself onto it, settling into a sitting position on top of it.

I stopped there to take a breath and look around. The tree isn't very big, all things considered. If I were to stand up on that branch my head would reach halfway to the top, and the branches at that height didn't look thick enough to support my weight anyway.

Thankfully, all the fruit seemed to be growing on the lower branches. Two of them were conveniently within reach, so I plucked both. They pulled easily from the branch and I took a moment to examine them.

They felt very similar to apples in my hand, with a thin but solid dry peel with firm fruit underneath it. It didn't squish or leak as I held it. But unlike an apple, it was a deep purple color and it was perfectly round. And with the way the stem was connected, it could easily be pulled off so the entire fruit could be eaten, kind of like a berry. Actually, that's a pretty good way to describe it. It was like the cross between an apple and a blueberry.

"Here, catch," I said as I suddenly half-dropped half-tossed them to Levy. Her eyes widened in panic as she suddenly scrambled to catch the fruit. She managed to secure both of them and then she glared up at me. I just shot her a grin before scooting off of the branch I was sitting on and falling back to the ground, landing on my feet.

I held out my hand for one of the fruits, but she hugged both of them to her chest. "What? Aren't these both for me? You did throw them at me after all."

I rolled my eyes. "I'd hardly call that throwing. What, did you want me to climb down with fruit in my hands?"

"It didn't look like you needed your hands to get down to me," she retorted haughtily. But then she relaxed and gave me a cute smile. "But I guess you did go through the effort of getting them, so I suppose you can have one." She held one of the fruits out for me.

"Thank you for your generosity," I joked as I took the offered fruit. I looked at it for another second, wondering how I should approach it, before just shrugging and biting into it.

The flavor was not at all what I was expecting, tasting neither like an apple nor a blueberry. It had the nice crisp texture of an apple, but it was far sweeter than one. The closest comparison I can think of is that it tasted like a peach. Not quite the same, but that's the best way I can describe it.

"That's pretty good," I said out loud for Levy's benefit since she was watching me and waiting for my reaction. "Very sweet."

Encouraged by my glowing review, she started eating as well. They weren't particularly large, so it didn't take us long to eat the entire fruit, discovering the seeds in the core. They were large seeds the size of a marble, and very tough.

You know, writing this journal now, I realize that we should come up with a name for the fruit because calling them 'the fruits' over and over again is annoying. Let me talk to Levy.

Okay, after a few minutes of discussion, we definitely agreed to call them blapples, because they look like blueberry apples. Levy said we can't call them that but she didn't have a better name so I'm calling them blapples for now.

Anyway, after we finished our blapples and stored the seeds in the storage crate to maybe plant later.

And then we started making plans.

"Alright, so we have five and a half days until the portal opens up," I said. "Until then, the only things we can do are restricted to the resources we have right now. We have a steady supply of food, we have enough water to last us, and we have shelter. It's all basic, but we'll live. Other than that we have a few basic tools and your magic. So, what do we not have that we want?"

When making plans or figuring out problems I find it helpful to think out loud and summarize the situation. Seeing all the tools available to me helps me figure out what my options are. Levy was a good listener, and immediately had several suggestions.

"We need a way to clean ourselves!" she said. "We can't use the pond since that's our water source."

I nodded, mind going over options. "Okay. We have a shovel and plenty of ground. We can dig a second pond. You can make water with your magic, right? We can fill it with that."

"How would we empty it?" she asked. "And wouldn't that just turn into mud? We're not going to get very clean in dirty water."

I crossed my arms as I thought, visualizing different mechanics for emptying water. "We… put the tub near the edge of the island," I said after a moment. "We dig a small channel from the tub to the edge and block it with something. We can empty the water by pulling out the block and letting it flow off the side."

I frowned. "But block it with what? We'll need to make a tub of some kind too. But anything you make will be a word with gaps in the letters, it won't be watertight. Could we fill the holes with crushed stone? That would work for the bottom but then we'd still have the sides…"

I trailed off, and my mind went back to the video game that inspired this challenge. Most of the methods of advancement there relied on specific equipment or quirks of how Minecraft physics and crafting worked and so weren't really applicable here. But Levy was also a cheat of a kind, allowing me to skip steps, and I racked my brain thinking about all the different things the game offered before I finally hit upon the perfect one.

I looked at Levy. "Can you make clay? Like, normal soft clay that we can make stuff out of?"

Levy's eyes widened as she understood. "I can! And we can shape it into whatever we want!"

"We'll have to make a kiln, right?" I said, planning out the process in my head. "I know you need to get it really hot to work. But a kiln big enough to fit the walls of a bathtub sounds like a major pain in the ass."

Levy shook her head. "No, we shouldn't make them like that. It'd be too fragile. What we should do instead is make some simple bricks. Then we can use those bricks to make a kiln and we can use that to make some nicer bricks. Then we can use those bricks to make other things, like the bathtub."

"Or walls, or a house, or lots of things," I agreed. "We'd need some kind of mortar though, to keep the bricks together."

"We can just use mud or clay so long as we're not making anything too big or anything that needs to last too long," Levy explained. "It'll work until we get a better bathtub."

I frowned at that. "Is it worth it then?" I said, mostly thinking out loud. "In six days we'll have twenty-four hours of access to a most likely modern world. Worst case scenario I can probably find some barrels somewhere and we can use that. Or we can get the stuff we need to produce something better."

Levy lost a bit of energy at that, which made me feel bad for a second, but it was a question that needed to be asked. I didn't want to spend six days making a brick bathtub only to immediately replace it a day after finishing it.

"I think making bricks is worth it at least," she said after a moment of thought. "Like you said, we can use bricks for lots of things. And we don't know for sure what we'll be able to get when the portal opens. Shouldn't you be prioritizing getting Credits anyway?"

"Maybe," I said. "The downside of it being a low-danger world is that the people there will probably also be a low tier, so they won't give much. Depending on the world, prioritizing mundane purchases to improve our life here might not be a bad idea."

"And if it's a world where you can get a lot of Credits?" she asked. "Then we have to go another week without a bathtub?"

I sighed. "That's a good point. Okay, yeah we'll definitely make bricks. As for the tub… if we make a brick tub above ground really it's just a brick box, right? We can repurpose it for something else when we get a better tub."

Levy nodded. "Yeah, that sounds like a good idea."

"What else do we need to work on?" I continued, thinking out loud. Several things came to mind, but they were all conveniences. A house, beds, power generation, etc. Those were future projects, not something to work on immediately.

I was racking my mind to figure out if we could do some basic blacksmithing by making a forge out of bricks when Levy raised her hand, a sheepish look on her face. "Umm… a bathroom?"

I froze at that, surprised I had overlooked something so important. But nature hadn't called for me yet, and mentally I was still treating this as a game, not reality.

But in the end, it was just another puzzle to solve. "Chamber pots, for now," I said, a frown on my face. "They're gross, but we can use the same clay to make them and the kiln to fire them. Then we use them and dump them over the edge."

"Is… is that okay to do?" Levy asked hesitantly. "Is there a bottom? If we dump something off will it just fall down from the sky?"

I opened my mouth to deny the possibility of that happening, but then I remembered that I had definitely played versions of the Skyblock where that happened. I closed my mouth and then looked around.

"Let's find out," I said as I spotted the 'Rock' Levy had made earlier laying on the ground. I picked it up and walked over to the edge, Levy following close behind me.

I approached the edge carefully. I wasn't scared of heights but… seeing that completely empty sky below me? No sign of any kind of ground or anything? It was enough to make anyone nervous.

Still, I approached the edge, thinking about all the edges and drops I've stood at in my entire life that I didn't fall off, and how the edge of the skyblock wasn't any different from those.

I got just close enough to the edge to dangle the 'Rock' off the side and then I dropped it.

I immediately took a few steps back, forcing Levy to step back as well. If it did loop around and come from the top, I didn't want it to be standing where it might fall.

We stood there, waiting, our heads tilted up to look at the sky, which was empty of clouds at the moment. A minute passed without either of us saying anything or any signs of the rock appearing again. Then another minute passed, but still nothing.

After what my internal clock said was about five minutes of waiting, I decided to call it. "I think we're safe on that end," I said. "Whatever we toss off the edge is as good as gone."

Levy nodded in agreement. "Okay, chamber pots will work then. But I don't think we'll be able to finish making one before it becomes an issue."

I sighed. "We'll just… dig a hole somewhere, and we can fill it up when we do make chamber pots," I said. "It'll be gross, but I don't think there's a better solution short of trying to go directly off the edge, and that's way too dangerous."

Levy shivered. "No, yeah, there's no way I'm doing that."

"Let's get started on that. We just drank and ate some food, it won't be long before we need one. I'll dig while you keep planning stuff we need."

She nodded, and I retrieved the shovel from the crate. We picked a spot a few feet from the edge of the block furthest away from where we set up the tent, agreeing that the exposed nature of it was better than dealing with the potential smell. I handed my phone to Levy as I started digging so she could take notes.

Though she had a cute moment where she marveled over the technology. It only took a minute to show her how things worked. She's a smart girl and the technology is honestly pretty intuitive. She fell in love with the note-taking app and the idea that she can effectively store an infinite amount of text in such a small device.

I'm going to have to get her one of those reading tablets and just fill it with books somehow. Would her magic reading glasses work on those? We'll have to find out.

But back on topic. The keyboard gave her a bit of trouble since she had no context for the QWERTY layout and so was constantly hunting down the letters. But by the end of it her speed had improved so I'm sure she'll be typing faster than I can sooner or later.

So as I started digging, we started going over more options. Levy revealed that she could make soap with her magic, meaning we could actually stay clean. She could also make clean water, which made me realize we could just use the pond, but Levy pointed out that mud would still be a problem. The pond water was only clean because nothing was agitating the water enough to mix the dirt into it. Though she agreed we should probably switch to storing water in a clay pot as soon as we could.

I asked her to make a shopping list for a modern world and add barrels to it. Those will collect and store water much better. Or other things. I have some ideas about making wine out of the excess blapples, but I need to do some research on how wine is made first. I'm pretty sure you can't just take juice and let it sit for a few weeks, but that's as far as my alcohol production knowledge goes, and Levy wasn't sure either.

So we had soap, but we didn't have anything else. I remembered seeing something about chewing sticks to make them into toothbrushes, which was better than nothing and would last us until I could purchase a few. Those also got put on the list, alongside toothpaste, shampoo, and laundry detergent.

I paused in my digging, catching my breath. The dirt was soft and lacked rocks, but digging still wasn't easy. By that point, I had dug a hole about a foot wide and a foot deep, but I wasn't going to be finished until it was three times that deep.

But since we were on the topic of hygiene, a question occurred to me, so I looked at Levy. "What about… menstruation?" I asked, admittedly a little awkwardly. Logically I know it's a normal thing and that we should be more okay with talking about it and blah blah blah. But that doesn't mean it doesn't feel weird to ask a girl you've known for less than eight hours about her period.

Though the fact that I was digging a hole for us to poop in indicated we were past the point of shying away from gross bodily functions.

Still, I wasn't the only one feeling awkward, as Levy looked ever so slightly shocked as she lowered her eyes and blushed. "You… you don't need to worry about that," she said, voice quieter than before. "There's a common birth control spell that I use that prevents that as well."

I nodded. "Got it, asked and answered. Any other hygiene issues you can think of?"

"No short-term ones," Levy said, visibly relaxing at the change in subject. "We'll definitely want some kind of medical professional sooner or later though."

"Yeah," I agreed as I started digging again. "We'll see who we can find, or who we can get once we have some credits available. And once we have more space. And more food."

"Then, in that case, I don't think there's anything else to worry about right now," she said. "We'll keep making a shopping list for when the portal opens, but without knowing what we'll get from that trip, we can't plan much more. Working on these bricks will take up all of our time anyway. We'll need a lot."

"Okay," I said. "I've still got a bit left to go with this hole. Can you get started on the bricks for the kiln?"

"Sure thing!" she replied cheerfully. "I've got just the idea for how to make the bricks too."

Later, after I finished the hole and joined her, I discovered her clever idea. She had used her magic to make the word 'STONE', but the inside of the 'O' was styled into a rectangle. Unlike the 'Rock' she made, the letters weren't attached, meaning she could use each one individually. She put the 'O' on the top of the crate, filled it with clay, and then used the 'T' to pack it in tightly and scrape a smooth line off the top. Then she just had to lift the 'O' up and she was left with a pretty uniform block of clay.

She had already made a handful by the time I got there and they were lined up on the grass to the side. The finished bricks were wet looking, and not perfect, but they looked very nice considering our extremely limited resources.

Levy made another 'STONE' for me, pointed me at the pile of clay, and I went to work right beside her.

We didn't talk much as we worked, focusing on getting as many bricks done as we could. The sun had passed its zenith when we were discussing plans, and we had a lot of bricks to make before the sun set.

The work was relaxing in a way. The clay was slimy but cool, and it felt nice to work with it, even if it caked the entirety of my hands. And it was satisfying watching the field of bricks grow as we continued.

We both did end up using the 'toilet', the other awkwardly looking away. I'm not into waterworks, so peeping wasn't exactly something I was interested in trying. Still, when it was my turn, I threw a little of the dirt I dug up to make the hole onto it when I was done, and that seemed to help with the smell.

Levy declared that we were done right as the sun was setting and we had made about eighty bricks. I didn't bother counting the exact number. Levy said we'd let them air dry overnight. Sun drying would be better, but so long as it doesn't rain, they'll be dry enough for us to dry them the rest of the way with a fire. She knows way more about this than I do so I'm just following her instructions.

And that brings us pretty much to the present. We washed our hands using Levy's magic and then laid back to relax. Twilight here is really beautiful, and even with the last bit of the sun's rays lighting up the sky, the stars had already started coming out.

And now, in the time it's taken me to write this journal entry, they've taken over the entire sky.. I've never seen them so clearly. There's no light pollution here, we don't even have a fire going, and the sky is so full of stars. We've been laying here for the past couple hours, just looking up.

If I'm being honest, things are a little awkward between me and Levy still. We just don't know each other very well yet. Sure, I've read the manga she appeared in, and I told her a bunch about myself, and that was enough for us to work well together and even joke around a bit. But there's really no substitution for having to spend more time together to get to know each other.

…If I'm actually being honest, a good deal of the awkwardness is coming from me. I've fantasized about a scenario like this fairly often, a character that I love in love with me. But… well, in my fantasies I'm not me. I'm someone more confident and charismatic, and I know exactly how to handle every situation.

I don't know how to handle this one though.

Levy is guaranteed to like me and want to have sex with me. Unfortunately, I haven't had a girlfriend since high school and I never got past second base. And this isn't exactly a normal situation. Should I just go for it tonight? Start getting handsy and see how that goes? Should I order her to do something?

No, neither of those sounds right. I'll just not do anything for now. I don't know how strong the compulsions are for her, and souring the mood between us could be really bad when it was just the two of us and I was kind of depending on her to make any progress. I'll let things develop slower, more naturally.

I think I'm gonna end this journal entry here. It's already way longer than I thought it would be, but it's been kind of a crazy day. Writing it has really helped me put my thoughts in order though, and I've thought of a few more ideas, so I'll probably keep writing it.

Uhh. Good night I guess? No, that's dumb. Whatever.

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AN: Another new fic? Sorry. But this is the first thing I've managed to write in the past couple of weeks and it's better than nothing. I'm not committing to this fic either, it's just what I'm motivated for right now. Also decided to experiment with doing it journal-style. Hope you like it!

Levy's magic isn't very well explored in Fairy Tail canon afaik, so most of the talk of limitations are things I'm guessing based on what she's shown, what makes sense to me, and what keeps her at a T5 level.

I watched a lot of Primitive Technology, a YouTuber who makes videos about him making various things using only tools and supplies he can make and gather himself in the wild, to research the clay stuff to make sure it was feasible. And it is. It's a little basic, and the longevity might not be the best, but by the time that would be a concern, they'll almost certainly have upgraded.

I've got several more chapters being uploaded alongside this, because this chapter was so heavy on explaining shit and setting up and not enough plot or characterization, so I saved up the first week's worth before posting. Make sure to read it all!