Chapter 8: Leveling Up Crafting Skills
Jia Zhengjin's stamina had hit rock bottom by the time he finished clearing a large patch of grassland by the river.
He looked at the cleared area around him with a smile, panting heavily.
He laid a layer of wooden flooring made from crafted lumber as a foundation, then placed a [stone campfire] and a [sleeping bag] on it.
After resting for a while in the warm sleeping bag by the fire, feeling refreshed, he switched to a [poor-quality stone pickaxe] and began mining the nearby exposed rocks containing iron ore.
The [poor-quality stone pickaxe] wasn't particularly fast at breaking rocks, but each successful chunk it broke off yielded plenty of stone blocks and [iron ore].
Mining was very strenuous, so his stamina was depleted quickly. Jia Zhengjin could only mine for a while, then rest, then return to mining. During his breaks, he used the mined stone blocks to craft the simplest stone bricks.
A [Stone brick], as a basic building material, didn't have very high durability, only 200 points. However, compared to wooden building materials with 100 durability points, they were much sturdier.
Mining was a monotonous and tedious task. For an entire day, Jia Zhengjin did little else besides excavating rocks, storing iron ore, and using the mined stone blocks to make stone bricks.
As the sun began to set, he decided to call it a day. He put away his stone pickaxe and started using the stone bricks to build walls, constructing a sturdier [stone brick house] than the previous night's shelter.
He could have built a more aesthetically pleasing house, or even a magnificent castle given enough time and materials. However, in the early stages with scarce resources and precious time, this square, unattractive matchbox-like room without even a window besides the door was the most practical option!
Before darkness fell completely, he successfully built a simple square [stone brick house]. Fearing the appearance of undead creatures like the previous night, he also crafted the most basic defensive trap, [Ground Spikes], using wood, and laid a layer of the traps around the house.
[Ground spikes] were essentially made of sharpened wooden sticks that could injure creatures stepping on them. Although effective, they only had 50 durability points and broke easily. Still, it was better than nothing.
He crafted two torches and hung them on the walls inside the room, dispelling the darkness. Tonight was much better compared to the first day, and he wouldn't be bored at night because he had collected so many stones and iron ore. He could make more stone spears and use the stone blocks to craft a furnace to smelt the iron ore into iron ingots.
After storing enough iron ingots, he planned to set up basic hunting traps the next morning, then hunt some of the weaker otherworldly creatures to level up and gain skill points to unlock the iron tool crafting skills.
Quickly crafting iron tools, weapons, and armor would further enhance his survival abilities.
The [furnace] was simple to make, requiring only 8 stone blocks. However, a whole day's collection of iron ore only yielded 10 iron ingots when smelted. The low-grade, [poor-quality stone pickaxe] was partly to blame, but his lack of mining skills was the main reason.
But there was no helping it; this was how the early stages were!
Ten iron ingots were only enough to craft one [iron axe], and with his current Lv1 crafting skill, it would definitely be the poorest quality, a [Poor-quality iron axe] or another tool of the same level! It was frustrating that a full day's mining only produced one iron tool.
So Jia Zhengjin decided that after leveling up tomorrow, he would first craft an iron pickaxe. This would speed up his mining and yield more resources!
Of course, improving tool crafting and weapon crafting levels was also essential.
The numerous stone blocks mined during the day, along with the plant fibers obtained from clearing grass, plus the previously stored logs for making wooden sticks, could all be used to craft stone tools. This should raise his crafting skill by about one level. At Lv2 tool crafting, he would have a chance to make white normal quality tools.
Incidentally, the initial poor-quality tools had gray names. Normal ones had white names, then the colors progressively improved to blue for fine quality, gold for perfect quality, green for superior quality, orange for legendary quality, and purple for epic quality.
Epic-level tools, weapons, or armor were considered the ultimate equipment sets, with excellent collection and monster-killing efficiency. Before his transmigration, Jia Zhengjin's game character always maxed out his skills and wore full purple equipment to dominate.
So even in this real otherworld, his strategy wouldn't change. He would definitely frantically collect resources to level up his skills. First, he would max out tool crafting skill levels, then max out weapon and armor crafting skill levels. Each successful craft would grant crafting experience points. To achieve max-level skills, one needed sufficient patience!
"Whoosh, whoosh~~" The flames roared in the furnace, with the charcoal burning extremely efficiently.
While the iron ore was being smelted, Jia Zhengjin, having eaten and drunk his fill, sat in the hot room, preparing to grind his tool crafting level.
However, before that, he first used wood and plant fibers to craft a [poor-quality bow], then processed stone blocks into [stone arrowheads], and combined them with wood and the feathers he had collected during the day to make eleven [stone arrows], which were slightly better than wooden arrows.
He stored the bow and arrows in his backpack for hunting later.
Then, of course, came the monotonous task of continuously using the materials collected during the day to craft the most material-efficient stone axes to increase his tool crafting experience.
Outside the house was the forest, which was much noisier at night compared to the beach area. Various unknown otherworldly creatures made calls that rose and fell in volume, making it difficult to concentrate.
Jia Zhengjin tried his best to ignore these sounds, focusing intently on grinding his tool crafting level, watching stone axe after stone axe come into being by his hands, steadily increasing his tool crafting experience.
He continued until he felt utterly exhausted, his eyelids heavy and almost closing automatically. By then, he had used up all the wood in his backpack. There were still plenty of stone blocks and plant fibers left, but without wooden sticks made from logs, he couldn't continue crafting tools.
Actually, the crafted tools could be disassembled, with each tool returning a certain amount of materials based on its current quality when broken down.
However, looking at the pile of poor-quality small stone axes stacked beside him, Jia Zhengjin didn't plan to disassemble them. These shoddy small stone axes would at most return one stone block each, yet it would require him to work non-stop until noon the next day to break them all down, which wasn't worth the effort! But unlike in games, he couldn't just throw these tools on the ground to refresh them away. So he decided to sleep first and then take all these poor-quality small stone axes outside the room to burn them after waking up the next day. After burning them, he should still be able to obtain a considerable amount of charcoal, which was very useful for smelting iron ore!
Today's goal was somewhat accomplished. His tool crafting skill had successfully reached level 2 and a certain amount of progress was made towards reaching level 3, giving him a certain probability of crafting normal quality tools. He hoped to push it to level 3 with some extra effort tomorrow, which would allow him to consistently produce normal-grade tools!
Check out Building a New World under Novels on cherrytranslations.com to read more chapters or go to Early Access Plans to access chapters before they are released for free.
Comentários