Aethelgard: The Survival Game (Chloe) novel Chapter 4

Chapter 4 Striking Gold

Chloe kept at it without a break, filling orders and selling fire to anyone who needed it. Even with imitators popping up left and right, orders kept flowing in.

Each trade still took time, and the vast majority of players were sitting in the dark with nothing to burn. After a solid half hour of nonstop work, demand finally started to taper off.

Chloe took stock of her inventory, and a grin spread across her face so wide it hurt.

[Pebbles x98

[Iron Scraps x37

[Plant Fibers x21

[Clay x10

[Plastic Scraps x5

[Wooden Logs x17]

Her wood supply had been the bottleneck, so this was as far as she could push it. Most players paid in stone or iron scraps, which meant the Trading Post was still buzzing with offers, but wood had quietly become the hot commodity.

A dull throb pulsed behind her temples. She pulled up her status panel.

[Energy: 12/200

[Severe Exhaustion, Migraine, Mild Starvation

[Beginner Tip: You need rest.]

From what she had gathered in the chat, a player’s Spirit and Endurance stats determined their energy cap. A maximum of 200 was already solid.

The problem was her endurance. Every action drained her faster than most players, and after running nonstop from daylight through the dark, her body was ready to quit.

She needed sleep. At least she had the nightstalker tent. And according to the chat, the monsters were gone. Total darkness or not, nothing was lurking out there anymore.

Novice protection, most likely.

Chloe deployed the tent, and a pitch–black shelter materialized on her tiny 6×6 ft patch of land.

[Use Nightstalker Tent?]

She tapped yes.

*****

The night turned out better than Chloe expected.

At first, she kept jolting awake from dreams of red–eyed creatures chasing her through the dark. But the nightmares faded eventually, replaced by a quiet sky full of stars, with moonlight pooling soft and still around

her.

That calm carried her through the rest of the night. The second half of her sleep was the deepest she’d had in a long time.

Morning light filtered through the tent walls, and Chloe’s energy bar was nearly full when she opened her eyes. [Energy: 172/200

[You had a relatively restful sleep.

[Novice Protection remaining: 14 days]

The tent’s durability had dropped by a single point, a small price to pay.

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Chapter 4 Striking Gold

Chloe sat up, took a long drink of water, and gnawed on a small piece of bread. The simple act of eating made her feel human again.

Food, water, and sleep were the holy trinity of staying alive. None of them came easy in this place, but sitting here with something in her stomach instead of going to bed hungry gave her a quiet sense of gratitude she hadn’t expected.

Her supplies were still one missed meal away from empty, though. Stockpiling food had to come first. The morning sun hung low and gentle. Chloe opened the Trading Post and felt her stomach drop.

Over three hundred players had died overnight.

The number sat there on the screen, blunt and final. This game did not give second chances. Chloe drew a slow breath and let her eyes go steady.

The hesitation and caution from yesterday had burned off completely.

People could die in this game. Chloe needed to hoard every supply she could get her hands on, gather resources like her life depended on it, and do whatever it took to survive.

The first thing she did that morning was cast her line. Fishing ran on autopilot, which freed her up to get other things done while she waited for a bite.

Her first side project was the crafting table. She pulled up the panel and a prompt appeared.

[Consume Wooden Logs x10, Iron Scraps x3, Plant Fibers x6, Pebbles x10 to build a Crafting Table?]

She tapped yes.

The moment she confirmed, some invisible force snapped the pieces together right in front of her.

A few heavy thuds later, a solid, square workbench stood where empty ground had been five seconds ago. A

small bulb sat mounted on top, and it flickered to life the instant she stepped closer.

[Construction requirements for Basic Arcane Dew Collector met. Consume 50 Energy to build?]

The structure actually cost energy to construct. Chloe built it anyway.

This one took longer. The timer on her interface read twenty minutes, so she left it alone and turned her attention elsewhere.

Her Talent Points had refreshed overnight, giving her two to work with. She resisted the urge to spend them right away. Points like those needed to go where they counted.

Today’s plan was straightforward, which was to hook another slime. If she could keep farming them, there was a real chance she could piece together enough tome fragments to learn an actual combat skill.

The wait stretched on even longer than yesterday. The dew collector finished assembling itself in the background, and still nothing had touched her bait.

Chloe gave up staring at the line and wandered over to inspect her new structure.

The collector looked like something pulled straight from a storybook. The entire frame glowed a deep purple, and a tiny slime–shaped ornament perched at the very top, water cycling endlessly through its translucent body.

[Basic Arcane Dew Collector

[Quality: Premium (reduced due to material limitations)

[Automatically harvests ambient water elements to produce natural dew. Higher water–element density yields greater output. Extremely rare chance to collect premium–grade dew.

[Current Output: 5 ml dew/hour

[Dew: A natural water prized by mages and witches. Uncorrupted and still favored by the elements.

[Chance to improve constitution and reduce fatigue when consumed.]

Chloe’s eyes went wide. This was a genuine find.

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Chapter 4 Striking Gold

Five milliliters per hour meant roughly 120 ml of clean water every single day, generated without lifting a

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