The time for grinding has finished. Now, all I have to do is the back-breaking work that is manual labour.

Although her recent foray into mathematics had left her mind slightly wound up, her meditation had helped immensely in stabilising her mind and, as she prepared herself for construction, she felt energised both mentally and physically.

It was time to make some clothes.

Her first port of call was a cloak. It was simple clothing but very versatile, able to protect you from rain (if it had a hood), wind, coldness, and able to act as bedding as well. Not to mention, much easier to make than anything else.

It also should be the least irritating on her skin as well as not restricting her too much, though that seemed less important the greater [Leech] will become in combat.

The woman was actually thankful for her relatively small frame; it meant that the boars provided her with enough fur to make a cloak without needing to hunt for any more.

Not that hunting was much of an issue for her; she was just glad to avoid the inconvenience.

She had enough time to think about how she’d go about making this. Obviously, the lack of any modern machinery or materials severely limited her in what she could do but she figured out one way to make the cloak nice and snug but also easy to take off.

To make it so the cloak would fit snugly but would also be easy and loose to take off, she decided to make the tightness adjustable.

Using the bow drill, she drilled a hole straight through one curved tooth and then repeated it for another.

To make any clothes, you needed a thread of some kind. To make this, the woman collected her dried tendons, peeled them into fine sinew, and ran the strings through her mouth, coating them in saliva.

Twining them together, she passed them through the eye of the needle and began to pierce the fur-covered hide that she had cleaned both with water and a dashing of [Cleanse] to remove anything she didn’t want, like salts.

‘Tried’ being an important word. As it turned out, the hide was thick and, in combination with the bluntness of the needle, she struggled to get the needle through the hide.

And then it hit her; she’d probably have to prepare holes in advance rather than relying on the subpar needle to do the work for her.

To do that, though, she’d need a sharp tool for the job.

Digging through the pile of shattered and splintered bones (because she had forgotten to get rid of them yesterday. Lucky her) she found one of the longer pieces that tapered to a much sharper point than the needle.

Just in case, though, she sharpened that as best as she could with the coarse stone, as well as trying to smooth out and flatten the top of the bone.

With her make-shift bone awl finished, she stretched the fur taut and used a hammer stone she had prepared earlier to pound the awl through the fur, piercing largish holes in the hide.

Next, with her needle, she began to sew. It was a useful skill she had picked up in her life. It wasn’t vital by any means--clothing was incredibly affordable, after all--but a frugal part of her loathed throwing away perfectly good clothes that could be fixed for less than you could buy more of them.

So, sewing was a skill she had developed over time. It was relaxing, in a way, and versatile. Not to mention, the touch of femininity it lent to her she appreciated every now and then, a difference to her many other hobbies.

She tied up the edge a bit before sewing two large hoops on one side of the cloak.

With the other side, she threaded the twine through a tusk and attached that to the cloak, doing the same for the remaining tusk.

And, just like that, she had finished the clasps.

Picking up her half-finished product, the cloak had a fair bit of heft to it. She’d certainly notice the weight but, hopefully, given enough time, she’d get used to it. Her initial disarming lightness of not wearing any clothes had vanished with time, the degree of freedom she had became normalised, so the same could happen in reverse.

Chucking the cloak over her shoulders she pulled her arms out from underneath and hooked the teeth through their respective hoops.

It… Sits quite nicely on my shoulders.

With an elated grin to her face, the woman swivelled her upper torso around, feeling the cloak shift with her movement but otherwise remaining in place, the clasp pulling against her.

Gleely, she bounded forwards a few metres, a skip in her step, as joy radiated through her body.

Though it was midday, with the sun shining through the canopy, it wasn’t exactly very warm, and the cloak hugging her arms, shoulders, and back provided such wonderful insulation she hadn’t felt for so long.

She couldn’t help but exude satisfaction at her accomplishment.

But the cloak wasn’t done yet; she still needed a hood!

Shaking off the cloak, she brought over the fur she had prepared for the hood.

A hood was surprisingly more complicated than you’d expect. You’d want it to sit nicely on your head but not smother it with a mess of weight. In addition, it had to have just the right shape to it.

So, to achieve this, for the next hour or so, the woman simply held the fur in multiple compositions, trying to see what best shape she should go for.

Once she felt satisfied, she used the awl again to poke holes into the fur and the cloak and then went about sewing it all together.

Cloak completed, she set to the other piece of clothing she needed; footwear.

She wasn’t exactly sure how she should go about making footwear but she felt like she had two options; something that totally encapsulated the foot or sandals.

Sandals would be far easier to make but would only fulfil half of their purpose; providing protection from the ground and keeping her feet farm, the latter of which it would fail to do.

So, she decided to try making the other kind of shoe.

To do this, she cut up three pieces of fur; one for the sole, one for the sides, and one for the tongue. Using the awl, just like before, she punched holes where she wanted the threading to go.

All that was left was actually tying it all together which, thankfully, didn’t take too long of a time.

To finish up, she slipped her feet in and tied the shoe tight. It’d probably be a hassle to enter and exit these shoes all the time but she wasn’t planning on taking them off that much; mostly when she went to clean herself, as that would include her feet.

Finally, she was finished!

A supreme sensation swept through her upon regarding the finished product. Eagerly, she equipped the item once again, pulling up the hood and appreciating how much it protected her from her surroundings.

Granted, she’d need to use it down most of the time otherwise it’d negatively impact her peripheral vision but that was fine; she was expecting it, afterall.

And even her feet finally felt warm for the first time in forever! She danced around with happy little hops, appreciating the different feeling of walking but also the lack of needing to worry she’d cut or injure her feet somewhere.

Although her feet had begun to become calloused and rough, she still appreciated the extra protection shoes, no matter how badly made, provided for her.

Excitedly, even after all her hard, patient work, she gathered up all her items she’d be taking (essentially, her arsenal) and was glad to leave this hill after having to wait for so long.

What had been tying her down here was over and the creeping, lingering unhappiness of not making any progress further into the forest could be alleviated!

With enthusiastic steps, she traipsed off towards the brook before beginning to head downstream, following the paths she had taken already.

The stream meandered downhill, somewhat windy but inevitably heading in the same direction. The trees remained upright and towering, giving no indication she had moved somewhere else.

In fact, the similarity with her surroundings always made her question whether she had really gotten anywhere at all. After all, there was no way she could be sure of how far she had travelled from where she started off at. Maybe it wasn’t far at all.

But, nevertheless, she endeavoured on with her walking, her fluffy shoes easing the stress on her feet and her elation powering on her legs like there was no end.

She walked and walked for hours, further than she had gone any day before, as the forest remained stagnant.

And then, it changed. Rather than a gradual thing, like a forest gently giving way to its surroundings, this was extreme and radical. Once where there were trees, there were suddenly none.

She had entered a clearing. Except, this clearing was unlike any before. The previous ones seemed to be natural; likely a result of wind or animals randomly not dropping seeds there. This one, however, seemed entirely the opposite.

A humongous bowl sat in front of her; a crater of fog. The white, omnious cloud hung low, filling up the bottom of the crater as black stone buildings circled its circumference, half-buried in the ground just like the tower she had found the other day.

The trees were cut down and even the aged, rotted wood of the stumps remained. The stream flowed down into the crater but not before passing by what seemed to be half of a giant, wooden wheel.

A variety of buildings made themselves visible; simple houses to windmills to large, communal structures. If she had to guess, the woman would’ve thought this was the dilapidated remains of a town or village.

If she wanted to explore this place, dig into each house and see what was inside, how deep it went, that’d take days of her time. Days, not only because of how expansive this little place was but for another, more frightening reason.

Monsters.

She was far away now, only just at the edge of the clearing, but she grew circumspect as she could see small, lumbering white bodies moving in the distance. Their stances were strange, rhythm to their movements inhuman, and their gleaming whiteness reminded her so strongly of that strange creature she had encountered living in the tower.

Even more frightening was the existence of winged variations, their white bodies blanketed against the sky and so hard to see unless they were backdropped by the verdant orangey-green canopy.

As soon as these things came into view, the woman hunkered down and dropped her bundle of spears onto the ground, withdrawing one for safety.

The smart thing to do would be to run out of here; she had only ever fought three creatures at most at one time and this was a prospective hive ready to pounce on her, for all she knew.

While smart she was, there was a level to her caution. Running on the high from her power up, the curiosity tugged at her soul too strongly. Just what are they?

She had to find out.

So, she began to creep closer, slowly and methodically. The winged creatures were few and far between, spread out and hovering mostly over the fog hole in the middle, for some reason.

Questions ran through the woman’s mind, such as why was the last one living in the tower alone and do they need to eat? There’s not enough animals in the forest for that.

With her spear held out in front of her, she ventured forth to one building. It seemed to be a house of some kind, with only the roof and some of the top floor visible to the air.

As she moved to within 10 metres of the place, she suddenly stopped. She didn’t know why, couldn’t point out whatever it was, but a sensation ran down her back, her hair standing on end as she shivered, even under the blanketed warmth of the cloak.

Something’s here, she thought, a clairvoyant feeling taking over her mind. It was so odd—like a cloudy haze in her mind that fogged up her thoughts in that direction. She felt her eyes pulled to the roof of the building, a square hole with a smaller roof on top for smoke to exit from a fire.

And something moved. Just like with the tower, huge, hulking hands grabbed the sides of the roof as they lifted out a pure white, powerful body.

She watched as it emerged. The arms were large, hands tripedal with three thick digits, muscles bulging in its powerful form. It’s body was equally large, torso girth and head similar to a boar, albeit without the eyes.

It’s mouth, however, was the most terrifying thing about it; a gaping maw with razor sharp teeth that completed almost a full semicircle on its face, like splitting the head in two.

As its last two legs pulled it out of the hole and it settled itself onto the roof, its face settled on the woman.

No eyes looked at her but that didn’t make it any less unnerving. In fact, an eyeless, soulless creature, a monstrosity looking more eldritch than animalistic, gazing at her suddenly sent terror-filled shivers down her spine.

The creature didn’t squeal, didn’t howl; it was merely silent. As soon as it faced the woman, she reached out with her mind, rapidly visualising the swirling pools of energy as [Leech] connected.

Flooding the connection with excess essence, maximising the skills, the monster suddenly charged, opening its mouth as its long, prehensile, slimy tongue lolled out of the side, dripping with disgusting saliva.

Eight metres, six metres, four metres. It closed the distance quickly, though, not as fast as a boar, its strange body seemingly not suited for charging.

However, the woman didn’t stand in place. As soon as she recovered her body senses, she immediately began to dash in the opposite direction, holding onto the spear before deciding to toss it, believing it’d slow her down too much.

She ran back to the safety of the trees, her mind somewhere still able to feel the monster chasing her and closing quickly at that.

With a large, reckless jump, she latched her arms around a tree, using her knife to dig in, and rapidly began to climb, trying to maintain concentration on [Leech] as her adrenaline ran high.

And then a scary revelation made itself known; as she climbed a few metres, so too did the creature. It’s sharp claws dug into the bark, its powerful forelimbs pulling its body up not in steady, repeated movements like the woman’s but rather, jumping up the tree.

A few leaps until she felt a sharp, tearing pain pierce into her leg, throwing her off balance, barely clutching onto a branch with one hand and her knife in the other.

Looking down, the huge mouth of the monster had chomped down on her leg, the blood already pooling and staining the flesh white, only to fade as quickly as it appeared.

Unable to do anything lest she fall from the tree and into the clutches of the creature, the woman gritted her teeth and clenched shut her eyes, trying to sink her mind into the calming, all-encompassing mental paradigm that [Meditate] allowed her to.

She failed. Her nerves were wound up to no end, she couldn’t muster the mental willpower that allowed her enter the enhanced, regenerative state. But, nonetheless, she tried her best to enter a mental sea of tranquility.

Panicking would only worsen things.

The essence left her body quickly, dropping fast as she maintained [Leech]. She watched her essence drip down, counting up the accumulated damage as her health bar fluctuated back and forth, the monster tearing at the muscles while also providing the life force needed to stitch them back together.

The pain was agonising; her eyes were blurry from tears and her whole leg felt on fire as it reconstructed itself again and again and again. It was unimaginably; her flesh being torn not once but more times than you can imagine.

She growled, trying to suppress shouts or screams of pain. She closed her eyes, the stimuli from the surroundings too much to deal with. She closed her mind and focused on just her status bars, unable to cogently formulate any useful thoughts.

And then, it was gone. The jaw as powerful as a hydraulic press eased itself open as the teeth sunk out from her flesh, the sensation minimizing itself as the woman tried to open her eyes.

The weighty body that was pulling at her leg fell away so suddenly. Such strong, powerful biting strength to be reduced to nothing with no in between was surreal but as feeling began to return to her leg, realisation of what had happened did too.

As well as a notification.

[Maximise Mastery] [Level up]

[Level Cap] increased to 7

Her essence was nearly dry as she calculated the approximately 800 health the creature had, a staggering amount.

Her mind only briefly registered the blue box before dismissing it in a frenzied state, flushing her leg with a quick [Cleanse] to rid of any infection before quickly climbing down the tree and dashing off into the forest.

Just one creature could’ve killed her; two at once, or a flying one, and she’d be dead for sure.