The Hunger Feels This Real?!

Returning to the valley, I Shoot You Innocent and the other two were in the woods, grunting as they chopped down trees.

Da Qing and After Three Rounds of Drinks were visibly taken aback when they saw this.

They had thought chopping trees meant casually swinging an axe at a tree a few times, then hearing the trunk snap in half.

It was just a game, after all. Surely they would not actually have to chop it down one swing at a time?

But seeing I Shoot You Innocent and the others chopping trees now, it was clearly the latter.

This was way too realistic!

When the Tree Chopping Trio saw Da Qing and the other man carrying Wild Deer, they stopped working, their faces full of envy.

"They went hunting and came back so quickly?"

"That's a deer they're carrying, right?"

"This is unfair! Why do they get to go hunting with the chief while we have to chop trees here?"

"I'd say chopping trees isn't bad either. You get 2 experience points for every tree! Chop a dozen or so, plus the 20 experience points from the quest reward, and we can level straight up to Level 1!"

Going from Level 0 to Level 1 required 50 experience points.

"A dozen trees? Are you kidding? I've been huffing and puffing for ages, and I've only chopped down three!"

"This is too hard!"

Lin Feng did not hear the three of them complaining. He took Da Qing and the other man back to the cave and began processing Wild Deer's carcass.

Without treatment, the deer would rot within a day or two.

In the tribe, the usual way to preserve raw meat was to air-dry it.

Larger tribes, such as the Fire Feather Tribe and the Baimu Tribe, also chose to cure it with coarse salt.

Fangzhang Island was an island, so salt was naturally plentiful, especially for a dominant race like the Fire Feather Tribe.

But for the small tribes living at the bottom of Fangzhang Island's hierarchy, salt was an extremely precious commodity.

The coastal regions were all controlled by powerful races, and they could not get anywhere near them. If they wanted coarse salt, they could only trade with larger tribes.

Like Lin Feng's tribe, all their coarse salt was traded from the Baimu Tribe using prey. Naturally, they could not afford to use it to cure food.

They could only preserve it by air-drying it.

Having lived in the Savage World for years, air-drying raw meat was naturally no difficult task for Lin Feng.

He first had Da Qing and the other man help skin the deer. Then, after cutting off a large piece of meat for today's meal, he began butchering the rest.

Under his direction, Da Qing and the other man helped out nearby.

Noon.

"Gurgle..."

"What was that sound?"

I Shoot You Innocent looked around curiously.

"My stomach growled."

Wanhuatong pointed at his belly.

"Now that you mention it, I'm feeling a little hungry too."

Wind Flower Snow Moon rubbed his stomach.

After chopping trees all morning, how could they not be hungry?

"Come to think of it, even the hunger in this game feels so real. They didn't just represent it with a hunger meter. As expected of a game with one hundred percent realism."

"There's pain too."

Feng Hua Xue Ye looked at his slightly swollen palms.

"But the pain doesn't seem as real as it would be in reality."

He said.

If his hands had swollen this much after chopping trees all morning in real life, they should have hurt much more, right?

"Of course the pain can't be one hundred percent realistic. Otherwise, if a monster bit you during a fight, the pain alone would kill you."

Wanhuatong said.

He thought that was perfectly reasonable.

Players wanted games to be as realistic as possible, sure, but pain did not need to be that realistic.

"The pain level can be adjusted. Check your status panels."

I Shoot You Innocent said.

Wind Flower Snow Moon and Wanhuatong opened their status panels and indeed found an option to adjust the pain level.

The highest setting was thirty percent, and the lowest was one percent.

The default setting was ten percent.

The two silently lowered their pain settings to one percent.

At that pain level, even getting an arm chopped off would probably feel about the same as a mosquito bite.

The adjustable pain range had been set by Lin Feng through the system.

It could have been set as high as one hundred percent!

After careful consideration, Lin Feng ultimately set the adjustable range between one and thirty percent.

If he set it too high, he was afraid some idiot would turn the pain level up to one hundred percent for the thrill.

If they got seriously injured in the game and passed out from pain, affecting real life, that would be bad.

"Let's go find the chief and see if there's anything to eat for lunch. The game can't be so realistic that we have to find our own food too, right?"

Wanhuatong said.

The facts proved that the chief's heart was not quite so black.

When they returned to the front of the cave, Lin Feng had already built a bonfire at the entrance. A large piece of venison was sizzling on a rack over the flames, dripping with fat.

They could smell the mouthwatering aroma from dozens of meters away.

"Gurgle, gurgle, gurgle..."

The three of them became even hungrier.

"The meat needs a little more time. Have some fruit first."

Da Qing, who was beside the bonfire, picked up several green fruits from nearby and handed them to the three.

The fruits had been picked by the five little ones in the inner valley, so there were no safety concerns.

In the tribe, adult men were responsible for hunting outside, while women and children gathered wild fruits near the tribe.

Naturally, the little ones knew which wild fruits were edible and which were not.

"You got to go hunting with the chief and now you're here roasting meat. You've got it easy. The three of us spent all morning huffing and puffing while chopping trees. We're exhausted!"

I Shoot You Innocent sat by the bonfire, gnawing on a wild fruit as he complained.

"Don't even mention it!"

After Three Rounds of Drinks shook his head repeatedly.

"We followed the chief out hunting, but the chief killed that deer with one throw of his spear. We didn't help at all. We just went along for nothing! When the quest was settled, the system said our contribution to the hunt was too low and deducted half our experience, giving us only 10 points."

After Three Rounds of Drinks looked utterly depressed.

Hearing this, the Tree Chopping Trio immediately felt much more balanced.

Over the morning, each of them had chopped down five or six trees and earned more than ten experience points.

Though it was tiring, they had not earned less experience than the others.

What After Three Rounds of Drinks did not mention was that they had later helped the chief process Wild Deer's carcass, which had also given them a quest and experience.

Lin Feng listened from the side as he roasted the meat.

The experience rewards for quests were automatically generated by the system, so he could not control them either.

If he could control them, he would have loved to give the players hundreds of millions of experience points directly and let them all reach max level.

Then they could sweep across the Savage World.

"The roasted meat is ready."

Lin Feng sprinkled some coarse salt over the meat, turned it over and roasted it a while longer, then spoke.

The five players who had been waiting eagerly immediately lit up.

They were practically drooling from the wait!

Lin Feng removed the meat from the rack, took out a bronze knife, and cut the roasted meat into several portions.

He had traded this bronze knife from the Baimu Tribe using prey.

Of course, the Baimu Tribe did not possess the technology to forge bronze tools. The only race on Fangzhang Island capable of making bronze ware was the Four-Armed Giant Tribe, who lived in the center of the island and were the absolute rulers of all Fangzhang Island.

The Fire Feather Tribe could be considered a regional overlord in the eastern part of the island, but before the Four-Armed Giant Tribe, they were nothing but little brothers.

The five players took the roasted meat and eagerly stuffed it into their mouths, feasting heartily.

"Mmm, delicious! The game's taste system is way too realistic. This is amazing!"

"So this is what venison tastes like? It really is much better than beef or mutton!"

"I wonder if real-life venison tastes like this too?"

Although the only seasoning was simple coarse salt, the five players still ate with great relish and gave it a five-star rating.