Free Web NovelChapter 21: Step 21 to Greatness: Remember, Your Ancestors Wants The Best For You (Second Day Settlement)
Adrian fell on the bed in the farthest room, and his body immediately ached.
He had never worked so much before, and despite his wounds and negative status effects being removed after he leveled up, he still felt tired.
As tired as he felt, he had a feeling he was forgetting something. As soon as he opened the inventory, he realized what it was.
"Oh shit! I completely forgot about these..." Adrian mumbled, smacking his forehead.
The things in question were the eleven random intel cards and pages of the book called A Guide to Wilderness. He had wanted to read them in the morning, but his declining favorability forced him to hunt first, and he forgot all about them.
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Name: Random Intel Card.
Type: Common
Uses: 1
Description: Upon activation, the card reveals one piece of information about the region of its activation. The range of intel varies from something useless like the location of animal droppings nearby to something precious like a hidden treasure chest.
Note: Bounded items would automatically be stored in your inventory.
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"Animal droppings..."
Adrian sighed and decided not to use these so-called random intel cards. Given his luck, even if he combined the cards, it would still give him the location of animal poop.
As for the [Torn page(s) of the book: A Guide to Wilderness], they were exactly that. They contained information about two plants written on each side of the page.
One side of the page looked like a strange species of potato, and the other resembled a cactus that evolved as a dense vine. According to the notes, both were edible, but the vines needed to be boiled and turned into a paste first.
Unfortunately, the blessing had backfired horribly on the item. Instead of getting eleven unique pages, Adrian found out all the pages were the same.
But what Adrian found even stranger was that the page was written in English. It must have been observational notes from one of the players.
Then again, the yellowed pages were clearly old. It made him wonder if there had been more such shelter survival games before and the notes belonged to one of the players from back then.
"How long has this game been going on for?"
He half expected one of the ancestors to answer him. Instead, he saw a familiar screen before him.
[Daily settlement has arrived!]
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• Congratulations! You have successfully survived the second day in the wilderness.
[Survival points awarded: +10]
• You captured more than twenty wild chickens, securing a stable source of food and livestock for your tribe.
[Survival points awarded: +15]
• You prepared and shared a skewer feast with the tribe, increasing morale and strengthening social cohesion.
[Survival points awarded: +10]
• You successfully constructed an Epic-grade Pit Trap capable of threatening even powerful beasts.
[Survival points awarded: +15]
• You obtained an Epic-grade Longhouse. Your tribe now possesses a permanent structure capable of housing multiple survivors and protecting valuable resources.
[Survival points awarded: +20]
• You obtained an Epic-grade Dagger, greatly increasing your ability to hunt and defend yourself.
[Survival points awarded: +15]
• You slew the Alpha Wolf that ruled the surrounding region, becoming the first survivor in the area to defeat an Alpha-class monster.
[Survival points awarded: +30]
• Your actions have earned you the Unique Title: [Fang Collector].
[Survival points awarded: +12]
• A Common-grade Raven has joined your settlement.
[Survival points awarded: +5]
• You successfully extended your lineage and contributed to the continuation of mankind.
[Survival points awarded: +15]
Overall Survival Rating: 147 Points
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"Woah! With a score this high, I have to have entered the leaderboard!"
Last night the highest global score was 129. Now that he had scored more than that, he knew he would at least be in the top five. Unfortunately, he wasn’t.
"...maybe I’m in the top fifty?"
[Nope. Not there either.]
"What the hell!? How could they have scored in the two hundreds!?"
Adrian had an epic-tier weapon, an epic-tier trap, killed an alpha wolf, and even had an epic-tier longhouse, and yet he barely made it into the global ranking at 99th place.
[You’re in a tribe. Hence, your survival difficulty has eased, while the top fifty rankers are going solo... but that’s just my guess. ]
"..." freewebnσvel.cøm
Since he had joined the tribe, was his life automatically easy? Of course not!
The tribeswomen, while attractive and helpful, weren’t that much of a help. In contrast, he was the one cultivating them, if anything! How come they just nerf his points for that stupid reason!?
Adrian sighed and shook his head. It wasn’t like getting angry would change anything. Instead, he went to check his rewards to lift his mood.
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Based on your performance, the following rewards have been automatically added to your inventory:
• [Weapon Card] Crude Hunting Spear x1 (+10)
• [Weapon Card] Short Hunting Bow x1 (+10)
• [Weapon Skill Book] Basic Spear Mastery x1 (+10)
• [Armor Blueprint] Reinforced Hide Armor x1 (+10)
• [Armor Blueprint] Bone Scale Vest x1 (+10)
• [Clothing Blueprint] Fur-Lined Hunter’s Outfit x1 (+10)
• [Random Intel Card] x1 (+10)
• [Torn Page(s) of the Book: Primitive Beast-Taming Notes] x1 (+10)
• [Attachment Card] Alpha Wolf Clawx1 (+10)
• [Resource Card] Tough Sinew Bundle x1 (+10)
• [Resource Card] Tanned Hide Bundle x1 (+10)
• [Consumable] Minor Recovery Salve x1 (+10)
[10x Reward Talent Activated]
[All rewards multiplied by 10!]
Note: Two cards of the same type and quality may be combined to create a higher-quality card.
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The rewards were better than last night, which was to be expected, and it also solved the crisis of weapons in the tribe. As long as he didn’t go combining all of them like the last time, they would have plenty of weapons.
Whether they could use it or not was an entirely different matter. That’s where the skill books came in. Adrian made a mental note to check them after checking other rewards.
"Armor and cloth blueprints," Adrian nodded, looking down at his barely clothed self. "These would have been useless if I didn’t have the crafting table."
Despite having an epic-tier weapon, he did not have even a rare armor or clothes. That’s why he had to play safe around the wolf and got lucky that it was an old one, or else, he wouldn’t have gotten away without any harm.
"Intel cards and another page, hm... I hope it has something about raising chickens. Oh, and a new attachment too, nice!" he smiled, but a moment later that smile vanished. "What is this? No water or food?"
Last night he had gotten eleven bottles of water and some food among the rewards, but this time there was none. Food wasn’t an issue since he had too much meat at hand, but water was crucial!
There was a stream nearby, but drinking it directly wasn’t an option. If he did, he would probably get diarrhea and die of dehydration.
Boiling the water was an option, but how was he supposed to boil it without a container? He couldn’t use the plastic bottle for it.
"...I’ll talk to Nixa about it later."
The hide and sinew bundles were materials needed for making bows and even armor, so Adrian was more than pleased to get them as settlement rewards.
With all that taken care of, his eyes once again wandered over to the skill books.
"Alright! Let’s get the spear mastery!" he excitedly rubbed his hands together before touching the book, but nothing happened. "Don’t tell me..."
He opened the book and realized... it was an ordinary book. It wasn’t like in the games where he would just ’use’ them to learn the skill within seconds.
[You can thank the bookworm for it.]
"...what do you mean?" Adrian asked the Playboy ancestor.
[You know he wasn’t pleased with you 10x blessing?]
Adrian nodded.
[Yeah... he thought things were getting too easy for you, so he changed the rules a bit so you actually have to work for it.]
"Wait, wait, wait! You’re telling me... I could have learned the skill in a second, but I can’t because an ancestor threw a fit?"
[That is the gist of it, yes.]
As miffed as he was about the grudge of an ancestor, Adrian’s eyes suddenly shone.
"So... you can control the rewards I get?" he asked.
[Not exactly. It’s a bit complicated, but yes, we are involved in the process.]
"Then you can just give me—"
[Hell no! We’re not giving you additional rewards to break the balance. That’s the reason Four-eyes is so angry at the brute already.]
[In case you don’t remember, you died! And we cannot make things too obvious, or the goddess would notice something was amiss, kill you, and obliterate our souls along with yours.]
[Besides, we’re doing this to make a man out of you, not to coddle you after death.]
After saying his piece, the ancestor’s voice disappeared and didn’t appear even when Adrian called out to apologize.
"...it seems things are not as straightforward as I thought," he mumbled, scratching his head. "No wonder the scholar ancestor got upset with my blessing."
He continued, "He wants to protect me from being noticed by whoever this goddess is but this blessing is making that difficult."
