Magnus Vane stopped in front of a large tree and opened the crafting section of his 7 Days to Die system.
After browsing through the available melee tools, his attention settled on one of the most basic items in the game.
It looked primitive, but Magnus knew exactly how useful it could become once the system translated its mechanics into the real world.
[Stone Axe: Quality 1]
[Crafting Materials: Small Stone ×2, Plant Fiber ×2, Wood ×2]
[Crafting Time: 00:01]
[Entity Damage: 6]
[Block Damage: 22]
[Durability: 250]
[Mod Slots: 1]
[Functions: Harvest Resources, Butcher Corpses, Repair Blocks, Upgrade Blocks]
The Stone Axe was one of the simplest tools available in 7 Days to Die, yet it remained useful from the first day of a game onward.
It could gather resources, repair structures, and upgrade building blocks, which made it far more valuable than its crude appearance suggested.
With enough materials, Magnus could eventually use the construction mechanics of the system to turn even an empty patch of ground into a fortified position.
Now that his group had a temporary base at Hershel’s farm, it was the perfect time to test what those mechanics could actually do.
Magnus spent the next few minutes searching the forest floor and quickly collected everything he needed.
Two usable stones, several handfuls of plant fiber, and enough fallen wood were more than sufficient for the recipe.
Looking at the basic materials in his hands, he couldn’t help smiling.
“Hard to believe this junk can turn into something that useful.”
He placed everything into the system inventory and mentally selected the recipe.
“Craft.”
A faint mechanical sound passed through his awareness and stopped almost immediately.
One second later, a rough Stone Axe appeared inside the tool slot of his inventory.
Magnus took it out and examined it carefully, surprised to find that it was more solid than the game model had ever looked on a screen.
The axe head was primitive but properly shaped, with a relatively smooth cutting edge held securely against the wooden handle.
It was crude compared with a modern steel axe, yet the balance felt surprisingly natural in his hands.
Magnus adjusted his grip, planted his feet, and put his waist and shoulders into the first swing.
Thud!
The axe buried itself deep in the trunk.
Magnus stepped back and stared at the damage.
The tree was roughly a foot thick, yet a single strike had removed a large portion of its effective durability.
He immediately understood what had happened.
“So resource harvesting works almost exactly like the game.”
He swung again.
And again.
After only a handful of strikes, the tree gave a loud crack and collapsed through the brush.
At the same moment, thirty-five identical units of wood appeared inside Magnus’s inventory.
The entire trunk had effectively been converted into standardized crafting material instead of forcing him to drag logs back to camp.
[Wood Acquired: +35]
[Experience Gained: +35]
Magnus studied the notification while catching his breath.
Apparently, the amount of wood depended on the size of the tree, and harvesting resources also produced experience.
The reward was tiny compared with killing walkers, but experience was still experience, especially when the action also produced useful building materials.
With the mechanic confirmed, Magnus immediately moved to the next tree.
He spent the next several hours cutting whatever trees were practical to harvest.
Larger trunks gave considerably more wood, but they also required additional swings and drained his Stamina much faster.
Rather than wasting energy trying to fell only the biggest trees, Magnus worked through a mixture of sizes and eventually brought down more than a dozen.
By the time he stopped, sweat covered his forehead and his inventory contained 352 units of wood.
Magnus opened the traps section.
The first available defensive structure appeared immediately.
[Wooden Spike Trap]
[Crafting Materials: Wood ×20]
[A basic defensive trap designed to slow and damage hostile targets.]
[Can be repaired with Wood or Forged Iron when damaged.]
“Three hundred fifty-two wood…” Magnus calculated quickly.
“That gives me seventeen traps with a little left over.”
He stored the Stone Axe and selected the recipe repeatedly.
One after another, Wooden Spike Traps appeared inside his inventory.
Magnus removed one to inspect it.
The trap consisted of thick wooden stakes crossing through one another, their ends sharpened into crude spikes capable of tearing into anything that stepped or fell onto them.
Against armed human beings, the barrier was too obvious to be especially dangerous.
Against walkers that mindlessly pushed forward without avoiding hazards, however, it was almost perfect.
Seventeen traps wouldn’t turn Hershel’s farm into a fortress, but Magnus wasn’t trying to build one yet.
He only needed enough warning and obstruction to prevent a wandering walker from quietly reaching the tents while everyone slept.
If a corpse stumbled into the spikes, the noise alone should alert the camp and give them time to react.
Magnus nodded in satisfaction before storing all seventeen traps back inside the system inventory.
He checked the position of the sun.
“It’s still too early.”
Returning to camp immediately with seventeen perfectly constructed wooden traps would raise questions Magnus wasn’t prepared to answer.
Hershel already distrusted enough about him, and there was no reason to explain the system before he understood it himself.
Magnus therefore kept the traps hidden and continued deeper into the woods.
Several hours passed.
Sunlight broke through the canopy in narrow beams, and the temperature climbed until Magnus’s combat clothes were soaked with sweat.
Despite the heat, a satisfied expression remained on his face.
He had spent the day gathering resources, testing system mechanics, and hunting every walker unfortunate enough to wander within reach.
Squish.
Magnus pulled the Horse-Bone Sledgehammer free from the skull beneath his boots.
Dark blood and fragments of bone clung to the weapon as another familiar golden glow flashed across his vision.
A light, almost cheerful system sound accompanied the notification.
His status panel opened.
[Magnus Vane]
[Level: Lv.6]
[Unused Skill Points: 2]
[Health: 106 / 106]
[Stamina: 30 / 106 — Recovering]
[Food: 48 / 106 — Decreasing]
[Water: 48 / 106 — Decreasing]
[Feels Like: 85°F]
[Walkers Killed: 64]
[Status Effect: Exhausted — Rest Required]
Magnus wiped sweat from his forehead with his sleeve and looked over the numbers.
“Not bad for one day.”
Finding walkers in these woods was nowhere near as easy as finding them inside Atlanta.
The uneven terrain and thick vegetation acted as a natural filter, preventing large numbers of the dead from moving efficiently through the area.
That meant slower experience gains, but it also allowed Magnus to fight isolated walkers without taking unnecessary damage.
His Health had remained full throughout the entire day.
He leaned against a tree and took several slow breaths.
His Stamina gradually climbed from thirty toward sixty while the exhaustion effect continued warning him not to push much farther.
Magnus had no interest in collapsing in the woods because he became greedy for another few kills.
Once he recovered enough energy to move comfortably, he started back toward camp.
This was his first time traveling this deep into the forest, but getting lost wasn’t a concern.
“Map.”
A translucent system map opened across his vision.
Most of the visible terrain was represented in shades of green, marking forests, fields, and other rural land.
A green block-shaped marker indicated the location of Magnus’s camp at Hershel’s farm, roughly three-quarters of a mile away.
Areas Magnus had already explored appeared clearly, while unfamiliar territory remained hidden beneath fog.
Farther north, another revealed area marked the quarry and surrounding woods.
The route continued northeast through previously explored terrain until it eventually connected with Atlanta, where Magnus’s journey in this world had begun.
Everything beyond those known areas remained covered.
The system wasn’t giving him free knowledge of the world; it was simply recording where he had already traveled.
Magnus closed the map and rested the Horse-Bone Sledgehammer across one shoulder.
Then he headed home.
By the time he reached the edge of the farm, daylight was fading rapidly and the surrounding woods had already become almost completely dark.
A branch snapped beneath his boot as he moved through the brush.
Click.
Magnus immediately heard the faint mechanical sound of a crossbow being readied.
He stopped.
Ahead of him, Daryl stood near the camp with his weapon aimed directly toward the trees.
He didn’t call out or announce his presence like an amateur might have done.
Instead, he shifted his stance slowly, kept his center of gravity balanced, and waited for whatever was hiding in the darkness to reveal itself.
Magnus decided not to test his patience.
“It’s me.”
He stepped out of the trees a moment later.
Light from the Greene farmhouse fell across him, illuminating the dried walker blood on his clothes and the more solid build produced by his rising Strength.
Daryl lowered the crossbow, though the irritation on his face didn’t disappear.
“When we woke up, you were gone.
Then me and Merle got back from hunting and you still weren’t here.
Another hour and we were going in after you.”
Magnus glanced down at the bloodstains Daryl was staring at and brushed his jacket with one hand.
“Relax.
Walker blood.” Daryl’s expression eased slightly, though Magnus could tell the man still wasn’t happy about him disappearing alone for an entire day.
Magnus pointed toward the woods behind him.
“Help me with something.
I built a few defenses out there.”
That immediately got Daryl’s attention.
Merle joined them a few minutes later, and Magnus led both brothers into the edge of the woods before pulling the first Wooden Spike Trap from his inventory while their attention was elsewhere.
Over several trips, they brought all seventeen traps back to camp and arranged them around the tents.
The placement formed a rough triangular perimeter, forcing anything approaching from the woods toward a smaller number of openings.
Magnus positioned the traps near the main approaches slightly farther outward so nobody returning to camp would accidentally walk into them.
At the safe entrance, he added a simple alarm made from several empty metal cans tied together with wire.
It wasn’t sophisticated, but anything pushing through the line would make enough noise to wake everyone nearby.
Daryl looked over the finished perimeter.
Merle kicked one of the stakes lightly with his boot.
Magnus rested the Horse-Bone Sledgehammer against his shoulder and studied the small camp.
It still wasn’t a fortress.
But it was safer than it had been that morning.
A review helps a lot.
P1treon: