A folding saw, a hunting knife, and a small entrenching shovel.
The tools would do.
He dug some beef jerky out of his pack and stuffed it into his mouth, chewing hard to replenish his energy.
Now was the time to put efficiency first, not cook himself a lovely wilderness meal.
Su Wei had prepared to make his living in the wild, so he ought to have the skills to match.
Cotton Candy seemed to sense his sudden concentration and squatted quietly beside him, head tilted as he watched.
Su Wei swallowed the food in a few bites, dug out a can, and opened it for Cotton Candy.
Then he grabbed the folding saw and entrenching shovel and plunged into the woods.
He needed two long, sturdy poles to serve as the sled's keel runners.
They had to be at least two meters long and seven or eight centimeters in diameter, sturdy but not too heavy.
Ideally, they would be straight spruce or birch, with few knots.
With the Gathering Module's scanning ability activated, he could see through the snow and sense the condition of the trees beneath.
He stopped in front of a stand of straight birches.
"Crrrack!"
The folding saw bit into the freezing trunk with a piercing rasp.
In temperatures below minus ten degrees Celsius, the wood was hard and brittle, and every pull took considerable effort.
Su Wei took off his thick coat, leaving only his thermal underwear on top.
Before long, heat rose from his forehead, and clouds of white breath swirled before his eyes.
This was nothing like anything he could have experienced tapping away at a keyboard in his previous life.
Here, he could see a tangible return for every bit of effort he put in.
He liked the feeling.
Grounded, comfortable, living for himself.
Instead of working overtime every day, listening to his boss nag and manipulate him.
Saw them down, trim off the branches, and cut them to length.
After doing it twice, he dragged two straight poles, each over two meters long, back in front of the camp.
Next came the crossbars.
He cut another five or six short poles, each about a meter long.
By the time all the materials were piled in the clearing, the sun had risen, its light filtering through the leaves and casting shifting shadows on the snow.
Su Wei sat on a pole, drew his hunting knife, and began the final work.
He used the back of the knife to scrape the bark off one side of each long pole, reducing the friction when they slid over the snow.
Then he had to cut a notch every thirty centimeters along the inner side of each long pole to hold the crossbars.
It was delicate work.
The original Su Wei had never done anything like it, but the body's original owner was a true Alaskan of Chinese descent.
Basic woodworking was a skill he relied on to survive.
Here, labor mattered more than anything.
His hands were exceptionally steady, the hunting knife cutting precisely through the wood.
Wood chips flew, and one notch after another appeared neatly along the poles, all roughly the same depth and width.
Cotton Candy came over curiously and sniffed the wood chips, fragrant with the fresh scent of timber, only to let out a huge sneeze.
The sneeze made his snowy white fur stand on end, leaving him a fluffy ball that looked utterly adorable.
But Su Wei had no mind to play with Cotton Candy just then; he was focused on the depth and angle of the notches.
He brought up Ballistic Trajectory's guide lines and used them to check the depth and angle of the notches.
He was finding all sorts of strange uses for the system's functions.
Once all the notches were cut, he fitted the short poles into them one by one.
The sled had begun to take shape.
The last step was to fasten it together.
He took out a small coil of nylon rope and began tying each joint.
He used a knot called a square lashing, which locked two crossed sticks together and tightened the harder it was pulled.
His fingers began to stiffen slightly in the cold wind, but his movements remained deft.
He wound the rope around and around, pulled it tight, and tied it off.
When the last knot was tied, a simple cargo sled two meters long and one meter wide was complete, resting steadily on the snow.
It looked crude, even a little ugly.
But every joint was extremely sturdy.
[Ding!]
A mechanical notification sounded in his mind.
[For the first time, you have independently crafted a practical object with a complex structure in a wilderness environment using limited tools.] [Your survival skills and hands-on ability have been verified.] [Life Module experience +50!] [Life Module lv2 (83/300)] [Congratulations, you have unlocked a new skill in the construction branch: 'Basic Woodworking'.] [Basic Woodworking LV1: You have gained a basic understanding of wood structure. When woodworking with simple tools, efficiency increases slightly by 5%, and finished product durability increases slightly by 5%.]
Su Wei froze for a moment as knowledge of basic woodworking and various kinds of wood flooded into his mind.
Once he had absorbed it all, a smile appeared on his face.
What an unexpected gain.
The Life Module could actually help him learn skills!
He stood up, loosened his stiffened back, and tied a long nylon rope to the front of the sled as a towline, then gave it a test pull.
The sled glided steadily over the snow, more smoothly than he had expected.
It worked.
Next came loading the cargo.
He folded the heavy salted deerskin and laid it at the bottom.
The enormous hiking pack went in the middle.
The thirty-odd pounds of Devil's Claw were divided among several bags and stacked securely around the pack.
Finally, he untied the bear bag from the tree, brought down the dozens of pounds of venison, and loaded it all onto the sled.
The sled was piled high, like a little moving mountain.
Su Wei estimated the total weight at well over two hundred pounds.
He clapped his hands and looked at his handiwork, a powerful sense of satisfaction welling up inside him.
The sense of achievement felt more real and intense than when he had finished a project worth tens of millions in his previous life.
Because this thing concerned his life and livelihood.
It also concerned whether he could keep that piece of land.
He glanced at the sky. The sun had passed overhead and was beginning to sink westward.
There wasn't much time left.
He wasted no more time, slinging the lightweight assault pack onto his back, taking his rifle in one hand and the entrenching shovel in the other, and calling to Cotton Candy:
"Let's go, Cotton Candy. Let's get the rest of our things back."
With the sled, he could take all his spoils home in one trip.
Chapter 22: A distress signal in the sky
"Cotton Candy, let's go!"
Su Wei called softly to Cotton Candy.
The little fellow immediately wagged his fluffy tail and trotted after him.
The sled Su Wei had made with his own hands was staying at camp for now.
He had no intention of taking it to fetch the venison; there weren't many stretches of the route where a sled could travel.
Walking was still faster, even if it meant more hard work.