We brought the entire tribe back to the corpse of the beast. It was incredibly difficult to carry, I had to even get involved myself. The snake was extremely long, perhaps over 40 metres. We had to saw the snake in half and carry each half one at a time. Upon seeing it, they were just as astonished as we were when we first killed it.

The goblins responsible for butchering were slobbering at the thought of processing this snake. The artisans were drooling at the thought of working with the bones and scales, Olma's eyes were gleaming as she held a large scale. Others' stomachs growled while gazing upon the soon to be snake steaks. Voglo's was cheerfully rubbing his hands together, and firing up his potion-making cauldron. However, I was more concerned about the preservation of the food.

This entire snake, even after removing all inner organs, could feed our entire tribe for months, but the meat certainly wouldn't stay fresh for that long. We had to figure out ways to preserve it, and we needed them quickly. Before the butchering could start, I ordered the goblins to start gathering firewood, branches for drying racks, to dig pits for fermentation, and gathering more stone for me.

I put my [Stone-Shaper] into use. I quickly produced stone pots with lids. I made them shallow but wide, so many of them could be stacked on top of each other. Then I proceeded to make knives. I didn’t bother with complexity, so I made knives with a single, sharp and smooth side, while the rest of it was crude. I also made some large pots for general use, I created them with thin walls because otherwise, they would be too heavy to carry. And finally, I created simple, thin and smooth, square stone slabs, to dry meat upon.

Disassembly of the snake began. The butchers were trying their utmost to skin the snake without damaging the precious scales. Due to the size of this monster, the crew took nearly over 4 hours to get it done. The artisans took the skin and started cutting it into large squares, to be placed on drying racks. Then using the larger scales to produce armour and such. The undesirable parts of the snake were to be used as bait for traps.

When opening the stomach of the snake, we were met with a gruesome surprise. There were the skeletons of 3 men, all nearly digested, and the corpse of the goblin that had been swallowed. The humans' armour and clothes were riddled with holes due to the stomach acid. Also, there were the half-digested bodies of some goats, yet they did not resemble the bodies of any goats I was familiar with. Their fur was silver and their horns almost translucent. I did not know whether these were special goats or typical of this world. Yet where had these things come from? After weeks of hunting, we had not come across humans or goats, after all. Regardless, anything that was salvageable was saved and dumped into a pile.

The brain of the snake was enormous, almost as big as 3 goblins crouching together, but it was fairly smooth. It made me wonder how my [Intelligence] stat affected my brain. The shaman, Voglo, requested the brain, kidneys and venom glands of the snake, so he could make potions. I asked him what types, but he didn’t know, he simply wanted to experiment with them. Perhaps he wanted to raise his skill level?

The large pots I created were soon filled with the drained blood of the snake, but they're still plenty of blood left to be drained out. I quickly drank a mana potion and worked to create more pots and jugs. Although I personally never ate anything with blood in my previous life, except for medium-rare steaks, I knew blood was a valuable ingredient and can be made into lots of food. A business partner from England offered me some traditional blood pudding once, I declined by pretending I was vegan. Unfortunately, I could not be picky about my food my current situation.

During and after the fight, I had lost an incredible amount of blood, not because of the snake, but because my [Blood Scarred Opal] caused my injuries to heal much slower. All the rags I had brought with me had become completely stained with deep and dirty red. I had to rest for a few days unmoving in my bed to recover, yet I could not sleep, I merely stared at the ceiling the entire time, as my mind felt like tv static. Soon, my hand had become infected, yellow scabs slowly formed around the palm of my hand, the Shaman had to treat it with various tonics. Luckily, it eventually passed away.

Still, my mood had not improved, but it was no time to mope around. Some things needed immediate attention.

Interface Profile Name Gild Domov Race Amber Skin Goblin Affinity Earth Level 6 Experience 2/729 Class None Subclass None Strength 10 Agility 12 Dexterity 13 Intelligence 18 Willpower 20 Health 140/140 Mana 177/177 Free points 6

I was debating internally as to what to put my points into. According to Yantago, an average human had stats of 10 all across. This means I had twice the [Willpower] of a normal person, but my strength was average. But what was even an average human in this world? A peasant, a farmer, or a monster slayer, mercenary, mage? How rare is magic, and how much more efficient is it compared to a spear? For now, I’ll put points into my physical attributes, but I must greatly train other stats to balance myself out. I could not afford to be as lacking as I was when in front of that snake.

Interface You have raised your Strength by 2, (10 → 12) You have raised your Agility by 2, (12 → 14) You have raised your Dexterity by 2, (13 → 15) Interface You have new skills available. Select one. Shroud of Dust Cast the battlefield in a blinding, swirling cloud of dust, obscuring the vision of others and slowing down everyone. The skill is cast directly above the user, and the radius of the storm is 10 metres. The Dust Cloud will last until the user cancels it, or the user runs out of mana. Cast time: 3 seconds, Consumption: 20 mana/sec, Recharge rate: 1 Hour. Forbidden Ground Spread hard stone spikes of 5 centimetres tall along the ground, causing pain to those who step them. The user can select a region of a radius of 10 metres, within 40 metres of themselves, to cover in spikes. Cast time: 10 seconds, Consumption: 50 mana, Recharge rate: 3 Hours, Persistent. Disks of Stone Conjure up to 3 stone disks to float around you circularly. One can use bodily movements to control the stones, to send them forth to strike or to shift them elsewhere for utility. Each slab has a radius of half a metre, and a thickness of 15 centimetres, and have a range of control of 60 metres. Upon the stones breaking or cancellation, the spell will end. Cast time: 2 seconds per stone, Consumption: 2 mana per second, per stone. Recharge rate: 30 seconds per stone.

[Shroud of Dust] and [Forbidden Ground] are both skills related to controlling the battlefield, and yet those skills would also affect my own goblins. [Disks of Stone] seems to have incredible potential. It could be used for combat, defence and other things, so it seemed like the best choice. I picked [Disks of Stone], and the skill now appeared in my Interface.

As I walked through the camp, I saw some of the hunters and goblins that fought in the raid, staring blankly into the air, with pensive expressions. One scratched his head in thought. This must-have meant they had interfaces too.

Rugum sat on his typical stone carving a wooden bow, but his neutral and solemn face was gone. On the surface, he appeared the same, only his brow was furrowed and he was chipping away at the wood much more aggressively.

I approached him, which caused him to pause his bow making. He looked up at me, his disgruntled expression remained. "Is something the matter, Chief?" He asked in a calm voice, but I sensed a bit of venom in it.

I ignored the change of tone in his voice. "I wanted to see how you were doing."

"Well, I'm making a new bow." He showed the roughly carved piece of wood. "Helps to take my mind off things." His voice grew slightly fainter at the second part of his sentence.

I raised my eyebrow and I tried analysing his face clearly. "What things?" I asked.

"The death of the others..." He said gently. "We were all born from the same batch. They died because of weakness." His voice became choked up.

Weakness. The word caused my heart to falter, I unconsciously took a step back and made me release an audible gulp. I tried to regain my composure, and I stood straight. "Whose weakness?"

Rugum sat silently, he looked at his uncompleted bow and squeezed it tightly. "Everyone's." He stood up and quickly walked away from the camp, with his head down and not making eye contact with anyone else.