Yang opened her eyes as sunlight streamed through the roof of the shelter. She sat up slowly, managing to not agitate her leg despite her drowsiness. With a stretch and a yawn, she forced the last bits of sleepiness from her mind and body before tossing her new crutches out of the shelter and crawling after them.

Yin wasn’t here, but that was to be expected. Her sister had always been the type to be up at the crack of dawn no matter the occasion. Yang had gotten used to waking up early for hunting, but now that she was out of commission it was easy to slip back into her old habit of sleeping until it was nearly noon.

‘Although, it’s not that bad right now.’ Looking up, Yang could see that the sun was still a few hours away from its peak, making it closer to nine o’clock or so.

Pulling herself to her feet, Yang grabbed some food from the Kitchen before making her way to the Workshop.

It was fairly calm at this time of day, but moving through the area was still difficult as crafters moved back and forth, searching for tools and materials or arguing over some project.

Most of the crafters ignored Yang, but a few would look up as she walked past, giving her a quick nod of acknowledgment before returning to their work.

Yang quickly tried to grab some tools and her materials from yesterday from the storage area but stopped as she realized it was too much to carry while using her crutches.

“Damn it,” she said under her breath, cursing that Iron Ant for the millionth time this week. “Hey, can you help me real quick?” She asked a passing player.

“Sorry, I’m not taking commissions right now,” he said dismissively, not even looking at Yang as he picked up a dirt-filled basket from the storage area and began to walk away.

“No, I mean can you help carry my stuff real quick? I’d do it myself but,” she raised one of her crutches.

He looked at her, then at the pile of wood before shrugging and picking it up under one arm, resting his basket on his shoulder. “Alright. Where do you want it?”

“Just over here. Not like I want to walk too far.”

Yang sat down at a clear spot near the entrance, setting her crutches down before pulling out the knife. The other player set down her materials gently, more so than Yang would have.

“Thanks,” Yang said, grabbing a half-carved branch from the pile.

“No problem.” He was about to walk away but turned back to her. “Say, aren’t you one of the hunters? Yang, right? What are you doing in the Workshop?”

Yang gestured to her leg. “I can’t exactly go hunting like this.” She reached over and grabbed a piece of wood from the pile. The branch was half-carved from yesterday, still slightly green from its freshness. “If I’m going to be stuck like this for another two weeks, I may as well try to keep gaining EXP.”

He hummed in understanding and looked at the pile of materials. “The heavy armor design is pretty bad for EXP though.”

“How did you know I was making the armor?” Although Yang had spent several hours practicing with Rika yesterday, most of the pieces she carved had been mistakes that were only good for firewood. She still had one good piece that Rika had made as a demonstration, but aside from that her materials just looked like a random pile of branches.

“You’ve got nothing but straight sticks here, too short for spears but too long to be weapon handles, and too thick for either. Also, the half-carved one in your hands has that flattened shape that only the armor uses.”

Yang looked down at the wood in her hands. “Damn, have you memorized the Workshop items or something?” Although the piece she was carving definitely looked like a piece of her armor, she felt like she could have easily assumed that it was for some other project if she was in his position. She certainly didn’t know enough about the items made by the Workshop to come to a conclusion so quickly.

The crafter shrugged. “A lot of us have already made a hundred copies of the more basic items, and I’ve definitely made a few dozen of the more complicated ones. It’s not like we have any other way to farm EXP.”

“Yeah, that sucks.” Yang was about to start carving but looked up at the basket in the player’s hands. “So what’s with the basket of dirt?”

“It’s clay, I helping with-”

“Hey, Syrus!” Someone shouted from across the Workshop. “What’s taking so long?”

“Sorry!” The player talking to Yang shouted back. “I got to go, good luck with your armor.”

“Thanks. Good luck with whatever the hell you’re up to.”

Alone again, Yang turned her attention back to the piece of wood in her hand and began carving. Her Stone Knife cut roughly into the soft wood, taking off chunks rather than long smooth strips. Although the knives used by the crafters were of higher quality than the ones given to the hunters, they couldn’t make up for Yang’s lack of skill. The boards each needed to be an even thickness from end to end, otherwise it would create weak points in the armor.

“Damn it, will you just-” Yang stopped before she became too worked up.

‘Just breathe Yang, you did this yesterday, just take it slow.’

Taking a deep breath, Yang put the knife against the branch and began peeling away the wood piece by piece. She started small, making little wood chips that were barely half an inch long. As the minutes passed her strokes became longer and deeper, and soon enough Yang was finished. The board wasn’t as smooth as the one Rika had made, but it was enough.

‘Now for the hard part,’ Yang thought, remembering Rika’s instructions from yesterday. Setting down the knife, she picked up a stone chisel and a heavily dented block of wood to be used as a hammer. Double checking the board against her body, Yang began using the chisel to dig a hole into the wood.

The armor needed to be held together with leather straps, but if those straps were exposed to the outside they could easily be cut or torn when receiving an attack. Rika’s design fixed this by making two holes in the pieces so that the leather could be kept exclusively inside the armor. Yang couldn’t help but notice how this made the armor look like window blinds, but she wasn’t going to argue its effectiveness. However, that wouldn’t stop her from complaining about how difficult making the hole was.

Yang focused on the board as she slowly and gently hammered the chisel. With an STR of 25, she was significantly stronger than any of the other crafters and it made work like this incredibly difficult. It technically wasn’t that detailed compared to what some of the other crafters were doing, but that didn’t change Yang’s lack of experience and control.

The hole needed to be made slightly off center. Too close to the center and you risked exposing the leather to attacks, but if it was too close to the edge then the wood could snap from a powerful blow.

Yang was just slightly too strong for this. If she applied too much force or if her hand slipped with the chisel, the hole would end up too close to the edge and that’s if she didn’t snap the wood entirely.

“Fuck,” she spat as the chisel slipped once again. She put down the tool and took a closer look at the piece of wood.

The chisel had hit closer to the edge than she intended, but it was still far enough to work with. Unfortunately, the hole wasn’t done yet and she knew that didn’t have the skill to finish it without taking more off of that side.

‘It may as well be ruined. Another one for the fire.’

Yang took a deep breath in an attempt to ease her frustrations. No matter how hard she tried, she just couldn’t manage to keep the chisel straight, the force of striking it either knocking it off course or shifting the wood itself.

‘If I could get a better grip on the wood then maybe I could do it, but I’m already holding the block and chisel.’

“If only I didn’t need the…” Yang paused as she looked at the wooden block she was using as a hammer.

Looking up, she noticed Syrus walking by again.

“Hey, Syrus! What’s the highest STR among the crafters?” Yang asked, an idea forming in her head.

“Highest STR?” Syrus seemed puzzled by the question, but closed his eyes to think it over. “I don’t think anyone has any more than single digits, or maybe the mid-teens. We don’t get to level up that much so we tend to focus most of our points on DEX or PER, but a few of the guys working on the kiln have started raising AGI too. Why do you ask?”

“Nothing too crazy then… I’m going to try something.”

Yang discarded the wooden block and picked up the board. Holding just the chisel, she pressed it against the edge of the hole and began driving it into the wood. There was some resistance, but Yang’s 25 STR and the hardened point of the chisel still burrowed into the wood with relative ease. Now having a greater degree of control, Yang could easily finish the hole without weakening the edge.

“You’re able to use the chisel without actually hitting it?”

“I mean, a chisel is just meant to increase the pressure right? Looks like my 25 STR was enough to get around that.”

“That makes sense. I imagine having high enough stats would let you circumvent a lot of different crafting tools.

“Yeah, with my STR I might be able to just mold iron with my bare hands.”

With that last comment throwing off her concentration, Yang looked up, surprised to see who she had been speaking with.

“What are you two doing here?”