The [Universal Farming Tool] was a shapeshifting implement. I could summon or dismiss it at will, and as long as I was using it, I felt no thirst, hunger, or fatigue.
But what exactly constituted "using" it?
If I transformed the tool into a Hoe, for instance, "use" counted from the moment I wound up for a swing until the moment the blade left the earth. Basically, the effect lasted as long as I kept hoeing. Most forms followed this rule. However, if I used a Hammer to drive ten stakes, the time spent actually striking the stakes counted, but the time spent moving from one to the next did not.
Consequently, the short gaps between tasks were starting to take their toll. I was currently parched, famished, and beginning to feel the weight of exhaustion.
After basking in the morning sun, I descended into the Slanted Well I had dug the day before. I brought along a wooden cup I had carved during my sleepless night. Water had pooled about a meter deep at the bottom. I tried to scoop from the clearest part of the surface. It looked drinkable. It had to be drinkable. Parched as I was, I didn't have the luxury of choice. Fortune favors the bold, right? I tilted the cup and took a cautious sip.
No tingling, no strange aftertaste. It tasted like normal water—or at least, I desperately wanted to believe it was. My thirst won out over my caution, and I downed the rest. It was delicious. Now I just had to wait and see if my stomach rebelled. In the meantime, I took stock of my situation.
I had a hollowed-out tree for a bedroom, surrounded by soft, tilled soil. Nearby sat my Slanted Well. Leading away from it all was a five-meter-wide "path" of plowed earth stretching about a hundred meters back to my initial landing site. It hadn't been my intention to make a road, but it certainly looked like one. Aside from the [Universal Farming Tool], I had the collection of wooden cups and plates I’d whittled throughout the night. Since I had worked for hours, I had a decent amount.
I needed food. Fruit would be ideal—apples or grapes would be a godsend. But first, I needed fire. I wasn't going to repeat yesterday’s failure. I gathered the wood shavings from my carving, transformed the tool into a Magnifying Glass, and focused the sunlight. Once the tinder caught, I added dry wood to stabilize the flame. It took longer than expected, but I finally had a fire. I couldn't leave it unattended for fear of a forest fire, so I decided to expand my clearing while keeping the flames in sight.
I worked with a steady rhythm, swinging the Hoe in a widening circle around my tree. I might have overdone it, though; by the time I stopped, I had cleared a space roughly two hundred meters wide. As I thought, hoeing was fun.
Realizing that turning every tree into fertilizer would leave me without building materials, I switched to the Axe to fell a few properly. I discovered that I could summon a tool based on its function even if I didn't know its specific name—like a Crowbar for moving logs. With it, I could haul massive trunks between one and two meters in diameter without feeling any weight at all. This tool really was incredibly convenient. I stacked the logs behind my home; I wouldn't be running out of lumber anytime soon.
Then, through a stroke of either luck or tragedy, I found my dinner. As I was plowing, a creature suddenly darted in front of my Hoe. It looked like a rabbit, but it was the size of a medium dog, its eyes burned with hostility, and two saber-toothed fangs protruded from its mouth. I wasn't even sure it was a rodent. Regardless, my momentum was too great to stop. The Hoe came down in a flash, catching the lunging creature right in the neck. It was over in a heartbeat. The head was instantly converted into fertilizer, leaving only the body behind.
The shock of taking a life hit me, but my stomach was far more pragmatic. I had meat. I pressed my hands together in a brief prayer of thanks, then got to work. I transformed the tool into a Kitchen Knife. Since I had no idea how to properly butcher an animal, I simply hacked it into manageable chunks, fur and all. I panicked slightly when I hit the internal organs—spilling the stomach contents would be a disaster. Given its fangs and aggression, it was clearly a carnivore, and the short intestines confirmed it. I carefully removed the guts and discarded them, then shaved the skin away until only the meat remained.
I could have used the Frying Pan, but I didn't feel like putting it directly into the fire, so I opted for wooden skewers instead. I'd have to make proper stone griddles later. For now, I just wanted to eat.
The result was... terrible. It was just singed meat with no seasoning whatsoever. But after a decade of bland hospital food and IV drips, even this was a luxury. I told myself it was moving enough to bring me to tears, but the smell of burnt, gamey blood was hard to ignore. Still, I forced down as much as I could.
I roasted the leftovers to keep them from rotting—better tough than spoiled—and turned the remains and fur into fertilizer using the Hoe. My stomach felt fine, so the water was definitely safe. For the first time in a long time, I was full.