[Your pet is willing to follow you through life and death. Loyalty +19. Loyalty has reached its maximum. Your pet has entered basic evolution.]
Ye Fei was building his house and had only put up two or three wooden wall sections when the sudden notification pulled him out of construction mode.
"Qingxue?"
Looking at the little white fluffball on the pine tree, Ye Fei walked over and scooped her into his hands, unsure what to say.
The little fox was evolving. Her loyalty had reached the maximum of 100, triggering basic evolution.
But...
What exactly had happened? He was just building a house. Even if she was happy about having a new home, that hardly explained this sudden leap to following him through life and death.
[Snow Fox cub (pet), basic evolution in progress...]
There was no countdown, only a notice that she was evolving.
Ye Fei glanced at the pine tree, which had grown just barely past his knees, tucked the little fluffball into his pocket, and went back to building his wooden house.
He did not understand it, but reaching one hundred percent loyalty was a good thing for him.
He reopened the house interface, erected the four walls, installed the door and windows, and only then laid the floor.
Once the floor was finished, he moved on to the ceiling.
The house was two meters high. At 181 centimeters tall, he was not going to bump his head, but the lack of overhead space still felt oppressive.
Next came the roof frame. Only after crafting it could he see that it was a wooden support structure for the roof.
"Out of timber again..."
After finishing the matchbox-shaped house, he had only 20 units of basic timber left, while each roof frame required six...
He adjusted the roof frame's dimensions, extending its length to the full five meters he needed, but its width was only half a meter.
That meant he needed ten roof frames. He was short another 40 units of timber for those alone, not to mention the roof tiles he had yet to craft...
He went out again, axe in hand, to gather materials nearby.
The dead trees around him were not densely packed, but there were plenty of them. Amid the thud, thud, thud of his axe, they turned into materials one after another.
Over the course of the afternoon, perhaps because so many people were busy chopping trees, the prices of ice and pine needles dropped again. Even at four units for one point, there was no telling how long they would take to sell.
What Ye Fei needed right now was timber, so he was not too worried. He listed a few batches for the time being and left the prices unchanged when they failed to sell.
It was not until after five that afternoon that he finally covered the completed roof frames with a layer of wooden tiles.
Each wooden tile cost only one unit of timber, but the resulting tile was a rectangle measuring just 30 by 20 centimeters.
Fortunately, assembling them required no technical skill. He only had to select "Use."
[Build a house of your own: Through your hard work, you finally have your first house in this world. Reward: House Construction Gift Pack.]
With the house complete, Ye Fei received his reward.
Standing inside the empty wooden house, he was now fretting over how he would sleep, eat, and handle his other daily needs.
"A gift pack. Hopefully, it'll give me the basics for a livable house."
Looking at the gift pack in his inventory, Ye Fei took it out and selected "Open" right in the middle of the empty room.
[House Construction Gift Pack opened: Material Smelting Furnace +1, Finished Product Crafting Bench +1, recipes +4, survival points +10.]
Two large machines appeared before him, along with four paper recipes and ten survival points credited directly to his account.
[Material Smelting Furnace: Can smelt and recycle any material, converting it into energy for your homestead.] [Finished Product Crafting Bench: Crafts the items recorded in various recipes.] [Recipes: Basic Single Bed, Basic Bedding, Simple Boiler, Simple Tableware.]
Each of the four recipes could only be used once.
Still, Ye Fei figured that even without that restriction, he probably would not use them a second time.
[Basic Single Bed: Basic timber ×20.] [Basic Bedding: Basic fabric ×20.] [Simple Boiler: Iron ore ×20.] [Simple Tableware: Basic timber ×10.]
All the required materials were of the most basic kind and needed no further processing.
But looking at the materials he needed, Ye Fei had no choice but to browse the listings in the trading interface.
He spent two points on ten units of basic fabric. He already had ten, so once he had enough, he selected "Craft."
He still had some timber, so that was no concern. The single bed and tableware were already in the crafting queue.
The only thing that worried Ye Fei was the iron ore, but after searching for it, he suddenly realized that in some regions, obtaining it might be as easy as going outside to chop wood was here.
Iron ore cost just one point for 20 units.
Basic timber had originally cost the same, but house construction had driven its price up. It now cost one point for 13 units, and that could change further tonight.
After all, wooden houses were normal, stone houses worked too, and even thatched houses were an option. But sheet-metal houses...
At least, Ye Fei did not think he could quite accept living in one.
If it was too cold outside, the sheet metal would be freezing too.
If it was too hot outside, the inside would turn into a griddle...
[Crafting complete.]
They were only basic furnishings, so crafting finished quickly, and Ye Fei got to see the finished products.
The single bed was a wooden bed one and a half meters wide and two meters long. It looked quite sturdy.
He placed it near the wooden window. Ye Fei liked the idea of being able to look outside through the window as soon as he woke up.
The bedding was finished too: a coarse cloth sheet, a pillow, and a very thin coarse cloth blanket.
They were not soft, but after making the bed and lying down to test it, he found that they kept him surprisingly warm.
The Simple Boiler was even simpler: a circular stove shaped something like a mosquito coil, topped with an iron pot half a meter in diameter and thirty centimeters deep, plus a simple lid made from a round iron plate with a handle.
The Simple Tableware was the last thing he inspected. Thankfully, it was not just a bowl and a pair of chopsticks. In fact, there were more pieces than Ye Fei had expected.
Two wooden bowls, two pairs of wooden chopsticks, two wooden plates, one cutting board, one small wooden knife, one small square table, one wooden basin, and one wooden spoon.
The small table was one meter square, with legs thirty centimeters high, just right for him to sit on the floor while eating.
"Not bad. I've got the basic necessities now..."
Ye Fei placed the boiler against the wall, put away the Crafting Bench and smelting furnace for the moment, and went outside to set them in the yard.
Although there was still some empty space in his house, he did not want several enormous machines crowding his living space.
But when he reached the yard and saw how quickly windblown snow was piling up inside it, he was dumbfounded.
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