Clearly there was nothing more important in life than making wooden planks.

Killing a castle lord? Insignificant. Gaining access to the lost library of Alexandria? Not even worthy of mention. Chopping trees and trying to turn the giant tree trunk into usable material? Now that was where things got serious.

Marcello could only question his entire life choices leading up to this point as he sized up the large tree that he just felled. He received quite a lot of carpenter information after he selected the class, as it was downloaded into his brain like usual. The only difference was that he not only gained knowledge about physical carpentering techniques, but also of how to use mana to make the process much easier and how the rusty hatchet would transform into a saw when needed.

While other carpenters would need a variety of different tools, it seemed like the god of carpentry himself granted Marcello with the jack of all trades tool that was the rusty hatchet.

In essence, the unique properties of the rusty hatchet allowed for cuts into the wood to be clean and precise, allowing the hatchet strikes to generate decent cuts with relatively flat finishes rather than the jagged cuts that followed the wood’s natural grain that would normally result from manual wood cutting.

“Alright, time to segment this wood,” Marcello said. Wielding his rusty hatchet, he cut off the end of the trunk that was still a bit jagged from felling the tree, then made another cut down the log about a meter or two from the end of the trunk.

Chopping was really backbreaking work, and he munched on some grapes that he purchased from the shop earlier as Frosty watched his master’s handiwork. This work really gave chop chop a different meaning. Each swing of his hatchet seemed to be guided ever so slightly by the rusty hatchet itself, as the hatchet adjusted and fine tuned some swings just a little bit so that the cuts would be a bit straighter.

Finally, he cut through the log, forming a smaller log with reasonably flat ends on both sides. He would’ve absolutely butchered it without the guidance of the rusty hatchet, but he also realized that this kind of handiwork would only get better in the future as he familiarized himself with wood work and leveled up his carpentry.

“Time to make planks,” he said, wiping the sweat off his brow as he stood in the terrestrial biome with just a t-shirt and shorts on. His muscles were already starting to feel a bit of a burn from segmenting the log.

Just like magic, the stupid rusty hatchet that he was so angry about purchasing changed into a saw, showing its capabilities as an all-purpose carpenter tool. Well, that was awfully convenient, although it still didn’t justify the ridiculous 120,000 points price he paid for it. Marcello used identify on it just for shits and giggles.

[Rusty saw] – A saw that appears to be slightly rusted over. Still good for cutting through wood. Will never break.

Yeah, another garbage description.

Anyway, there were a few ways to work a log into usable planks. He could use the conventional sawing pattern, which would produce two very thick planks as the main yield and two sideboards.

But that wasted a lot of wood on the sides of the log. The more resource efficient way to cut wood was the Nordic sawing practice, which involved more cuts and yielded three main planks, and four side boards. The planks and boards were a bit smaller than those from the conventional technique, but more volume of wood was used overall.

To conceptualize it visually, wood grew in rings and thus the face of a log was a circle. Trying to fit four planks into it would waste more wood than fitting in seven planks, and as Marcello’s highschool math teacher would have droned on, as the limit for number of planks reached infinity, the area encapsulated by the planks would reach the area of the circle.

In ape speak, more planks more wood, but also harder to cut.

The nordic method was a good balance between feasibility and resourcefulness. It was the method Marcello would use. Those guys were really great at ship building after all, with their viking heritage.

Rrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.

rrrrrrrrrrrr

rrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.

More laborious work, just sawing and sawing and sawing each individual cut across the entire length of the log, his arm going back and forth. First, he cut off the four edges of the log to make a perfect square. Those edges would be made into planks later. Then he cut down three times to make three nice and sturdy planks, although the plank in the middle contained the tree’s tender pith and was probably a little less sturdy.

The three main planks were done.

Ding!

Quest: [Carpenter’s first project] You have found yourself in a new environment, full of trees that can be turned into lumber. Chop down some trees and make some wooden planks. Planks made [3/2]

Ding!

Quest: [Carpenter’s first project] Congratulations. You have successfully created the basic components of carpentry, wooden planks. Planks may be welded together through the use of wood element mana. Try to weld two planks together. Planks welded [0/2]

So this was a serial quest, teaching him the basics of carpentry. The description of wood element mana was very interesting, but Marcello decided not to tackle the second leg of the quest just yet because he wanted to finish off making the side boards.

He wanted to make a ladder to reach the next level with. One giant reusable ladder. Sure, there were probably other ways to get up there, but they would probably be just as time consuming as this, and this way he’d get to try out and level up his new profession at the same time. Killing two birds with one plank.

A whole lot of sawing later, Marcello separated the bark from the outer sides of the four wood sections and trimmed them into nice and even side boards. Perfect. These four side boards would be the stepping rungs that he would use to climb the ladder with.

Now onto the next part, trying to glue the side boards to the main planks with wood mana. Marcello raised his hand and placed it against the wood, feeling kind of silly while doing so because he had no idea how to use wood mana or whatever the hell this called for.

“Glue together!” he said.

As stupid as that may have sounded, it did seem to trigger the system to utilize his magic carpentry skills. His mana bar fell a bit, and a strange tendril of mana extended into the three pieces of wood and began to meld them together.

Frosty looked on intently, curious to see what wood-imbued mana looked like in action, as he himself was a creature of ice element mana.

Whenever an ability was given by the system, Marcello really didn’t need to put in any additional input for the ability to go off. It was like a pre-packaged function that was just executed on command. The only downside to that was that he didn’t glean any information on how the skill worked, only that it worked.

Ding!

Quest: [Carpenter’s first project] Congratulations. You have successfully created the basic components of carpentry, wooden planks. Planks may be welded together through the use of wood element mana. Try to weld two planks together. Planks welded [3/2]

Ding!

Quest: [Carpenter’s first project] Congratulations, you have successfully implemented the basics of wood manipulation through mana. Now you are ready to move on to creating constructions of use. You have decided to create a ladder as your first construction. Ladder constructed [0/1]

No complaints there, Marcello thought. The system recognized his goals and now presented them to him as a profession quest. Now it was time for him to get to work.

Marcello spent the rest of the afternoon chopping more wooden logs, segmenting them, and melding them together with the skills and techniques from his new profession. He felt tired as hell, and his arms and hands hurt, but the vital force from the ground pumped new energy into his veins allowing him to work further.

This terrestrial biome was the ultimate training grounds for the carpenter profession. As he worked, a familiar voice from the heavens began to speak.

Welcome to area three, earthling initiates. Congratulations for passing the two trials beforehand! I am your tutorial guide, and I will be explaining the details and rules for the third zone.

The next zone is a FOREST, and will be the final and longest phase of the tutorial. It is here where you will hone your skills as initiates before your population’s assimilation into an existing Plane. Before I explain the intricacies of the forest phase, let me first talk about the changes to the tutorial store.

Three floors of the tutorial store have now been opened for your use. The second floor contains items in average of uncommon rarity with a few exceptions, and the third floor contains items in average of rare rarity with more exceptions. Uncommon and rare items are powerful even by Plane standards, and so you are highly encouraged to spend your tutorial points to purchase equipment and items. Unused exit passes have now been converted into points. At the completion of the tutorial, the fourth and final floor of the tutorial shop will be opened for your use in the end zone.

Now, onto the forest. This area has been designed to be a microcosm of a plane, with the addition of plane staples such as beasts, dungeons, quest givers, and shops. Attacking quest givers and shopkeepers is prohibited. Exploration is highly encouraged.

Your current objective is survival and growth to face the challenges of the plane. Your sector of the tutorial is sector 2. Initiates from sectors 1-10 will also find refuge in the forest from their own domes. Each sector has two hundred initiates to a total of two thousand initiates, although this number has decreased due to casualties.

New rules will be introduced periodically. The barrier to the forest has now been lifted. The sector two dome area will be closed off in twenty four hours.

For now, survive, explore, and thrive! Good luck, sector two initiates.

Wow. Looked like Troy, Emma, and the rest of them were going to be in for a lot of interesting times, Marcello thought to himself bitterly. Meanwhile, he was stuck here making a wooden ladder.

Before he could continue making planks, another notification began.

Special message to impossible trial candidates. Upon completion of the impossible trial, you will be placed outside of your sector’s dome.

Short and simple, to the point. Guessed he was going to join the fun a bit later.

Anyway, none of that was important. Right now what was of divine importance was making planks. P L A N K S.

Marcello was the king of this biome, and all the planks were his subjects. All the trees were just planks waiting to be made. Yeah, even those giant trees that he could never feasibly cut down by himself.

He got to work again. Patience was the key to craftsmanship, and he knew that the structural integrity of his ladder could be the difference between life and death when he actually used it to try to scale the waterfall.

Chop. Chop. Chop. Chop.

Such heart pounding, exhilarating work. More logs, more hatchet action, more planks. Rinse and repeat for the entire tree, which was finally enough to scale halfway up the waterfall cliff. The good thing was that there was a ledge about halfway up, so this length was enough.

After hours of intense work and three mana potions, which he did not regret buying anymore, he finally finished the incredibly long ladder.

Ding!

Quest complete: [Carpenter’s first project]. Congratulations, you have successfully created your first wooden construction. Ladder constructed [1/1]

[Shoddy wooden ladder]

A wooden ladder made by a novice carpenter with potential. Despite its shoddy nature, it was constructed with the finest quality wood from the terrestrial plane, giving it sturdiness and flexibility. The craftsman’s perseverance can be felt through this construction.

Grade: Shoddy

Stat bonus: None

Characteristics: Sturdy, flexible.

Marcello blinked at the surprising amount of info that was brought up when identified the wooden ladder. Maybe this carpenter profession wasn't as bad as he first thought?