After waiting for about five minutes, the creature seemed to be merely crawling around without making any further moves.
To build up her courage, she opened the chat interface.
[Romeo and Pig spend the night: Is anybody there! It feels like something is scratching the tree bark outside my hole! So terrifying!]
[Donut: Same here, that thing seems to be coming in, help!]
[God helps those who help themselves: Absolutely do not go out. According to the guide, as long as we don’t leave the shelter, that thing cannot hurt us.]
[Brother Knife: Didn’t the beginner gift pack give you matches? Why don’t you light a campfire?]
[Weakling: Big bro, wouldn’t lighting a fire burn the shelter down!]
[Brother Knife: Speechless, what a bunch of fools…]
Song Xu slapped her forehead.
She had been so focused on making torches—why hadn’t she thought of lighting a campfire outside just now?
With stones and wood available, building a larger campfire would have been far more practical than a torch.
Now, however, there was no chance. Her stamina was down to only 10 points, and her eyelids were too heavy to keep open.
Curling her body up, she muttered softly, “Heh, whatever you are, either come in and kill me, or I’m going to sleep…”
Before she could even finish her sentence, her snoring was already ringing out.
No matter what terrifying noises that monster outside made, she did not hear a single thing.
By the time she suddenly jolted awake from her dream, she realized it was already bright daylight outside.
Checking the system time, it was eight in the morning!
She had unexpectedly slept for nearly seven hours straight without noticing a thing.
Ever since her daughter was born, she had never slept for such a long stretch.
Gathering up her hair, Song Xu checked her attribute panel.
Her stamina was fully restored, and her health was at 35/50.
Fourteen hours had passed in game time, which meant just over 1 hour and 24 minutes had passed in reality.
Her daughter was wearing diapers and slept deeply at night, so she would not wake up unless there was an unusual situation.
She quickly chewed on a few mushrooms, crawled out of the shack, and stretched her arms and legs.
Opening the system panel, she froze for a moment.
The number of online players in the regional channel had decreased!
Currently online: 901 people.
In a single night, nearly a hundred people were gone?
She silently scrolled through last night’s chat history. Many frantic pleas for help that had spammed the channel ultimately ended abruptly.
Some were strangled to death by a cold monster in the middle of the night because they lacked shelter.
Some experienced rapid health drops at a rate of -10 per minute due to extreme starvation.
Some whose stamina dropped below 10 points suffered excruciating headaches, lying motionless on the ground and able only to send cries for help in the chat channel.
It was not that no one reported their coordinates to ask for help.
However, even when two people had coordinates close to each other and identical surrounding terrain, they could not meet at all.
Particularly terrifying was one person who, after lighting a campfire, accidentally set the nearby forest on fire.
His final message mentioned flames everywhere, thick smoke rising to the sky, and no way to escape.
Yet, not a single person noticed where the forest fire had started.
Everyone speculated that the Beginner Canyon existed independently—that it consisted of many parallel spaces existing simultaneously.
A chill ran down Song Xu’s spine.
This was not a game; it was purgatory.
She had to become stronger as fast as possible.
She did not know who that old beggar really was or why he had suddenly sent her such a crucial skill card.
Having gained a huge head start because of it, she had absolutely no reason to lose heart.
Only one task remained on her panel: kill the Red-Eyed Toad.
It seemed that until she completed this one, no new tasks would refresh.
Song Xu opened the built-in system map.
Her own coordinates were displayed on it, and any place she had explored was lit up.
Unexplored areas remained black.
She decided to head south first; the forest in that direction was misty and looked a bit damper.
She checked her status.
[Player ID: Song Xu]
[Level: 0]
[Health: 47/50]
[Stamina: 70/70]
[EXP: 3/100]
[Basic Attributes]
[Spirit: 5]
[Qi: 7]
[Luck: 10]
Equipment: Damaged Stone Axe, Matches, Simple Bow and Arrows x1, Torch x1, Cooking Pot Blueprint x1.
Resources: Black Bread x1, Clean Water ~300ml, more than half a cluster of Mushrooms, Snail Meat x3, Intact Snail Shells x2.
Points: 30.
Cooking Pot Blueprint?
Only then did Song Xu remember the reward from completing the task in the dark last night.
It indicated a requirement of Stone x0/3, so Song Xu picked up a few stones nearby.
After clicking synthesize, a greyish-white stone pot about the size of a washbasin appeared before her eyes. It came with a lid and felt quite heavy.
The system panel suddenly flashed.
[Congratulations to the Player on successfully synthesizing basic cookware, triggering the Life Skill Task Chain.]
[Available Task: First Cooking Attempt]
[Task Requirement: Independently prepare a dish with a deliciousness rating of ★ or above]
[Task Reward: Points +5, Clean Water 500ml]
[Tip: Completing this task will officially unlock the ‘Cooking’ skill interface and open recipes]
Song Xu immediately accepted the task.
Gathering a pile of dry firewood away from the trees, she encircled it with some stones, lit a campfire, and placed the cooking pot on top.
There were only two types of ingredients. She carefully broke off some bits of mushroom stems, picked out a piece of snail meat, and threw them into the pot.
Just as she was hesitating whether to pour a little water in, a line of small text suddenly floated above the cooking pot:
[Earth Dragon Mushroom + Grey Rock Snail Meat = Unknown Dry Pot Dish, Deliciousness ???]
Song Xu was both surprised and delighted!
This cooking pot actually came with a built-in guiding feature!
She hurriedly covered the pot with the lid.
A ten-minute countdown appeared above the cooking pot.
Not knowing what the final result would be, Song Xu rubbed her hands together in anticipation.
Taking a small sip of water to moisten her throat, she could not just sit around waiting.
She pulled out the simple bow and arrows awarded from the task.
The moment the bow touched her hands, Song Xu’s mouth twitched uncontrollably.
This bow and arrow set was laughably crude.
The bow staff was just a flexible wooden strip barely bent into shape, its surface covered in uneven knots.
There were only ten arrows in total, which were merely straight, thin branches with a few bird feathers haphazardly embedded into their tails.
She tried pulling the bowstring back.
It was more strenuous than expected, and the rough fibers bit into the pads of her fingers with a sharp sting.
Aiming at a twisted tree trunk not far away, she held her breath and let go.
The arrow flew out wobbling, scraped past the edge of the trunk, and fell into the dirt behind it.
[Archery Proficiency +1.]
A line of small text surfaced at the edge of her vision.
Proficiency?
Song Xu hurriedly opened the system panel, and sure enough, she found a newly appeared icon on the skill page.
[Passive Skill: Beginner Archery]
[Proficiency: 1/1000]
Does it take 1000 points of proficiency just to level up once?
Song Xu gasped.
Time was pressing; only 52 hours remained in the novice protection period.
Once the novice protection period ended, no one knew what they would face.
Some people in the chat channel mentioned that higher-level monsters might appear.
Others said they might be teleported to even more dangerous places.
Meanwhile, players who had seen the Red-Eyed Toad mentioned that this monster was extremely fast, taking away ten health points with a single lick. It could not be fought in close combat and could only be attacked from a distance.
She had to raise her archery skill as quickly as possible.