[Daytime, Next Day]
The shock of realizing when he arrived in Gielinor did not wear off too quickly, even as he woke up the next day. Cole understood that the Elder Gods must have sent him back to a point far before Guthix's arrival to Gielinor so that he had the time to grow up in relative peace from the purview of the gods, but that did not give him much hope. From the game, he knew that the true events of the game wouldn't begin until the year 169 of the Fifth Age where the World Guardian would set out from Tutorial Island to arrive in Lumbridge.
He sat in the living space of the ash log cabin, sitting in a creaky basic wooden chair in front of a basic table and a clay fireplace, while reading through the System notifications that he had not yet fully read. Cole already knew that he was in a different reality due to the beginner rewards informing him that he was, in the most obvious way, stuck on Gielinor in the distant past until he was able to cross back over to his original world. It was also fairly obvious that he could since the System notified him of qualifying for a super long quest that, just by sheer instinct, he knew he had no chance of completing quickly.
Cole checked his stats again, but understood that none of his so-called "skills" from Earth had translated to anything credible in terms of how the Elder Gods see it. It made sense that, here on a world meant to be fantastical in nature, nothing gained in the modern era would translate to much unless you had trained in it before. If he possibly kept up with training himself physically, he could potentially have higher strength and agility levels.
Speaking of levels and skills, Cole noticed that there were two sets of them in his [Profile]. He knew that the other skills (the ones that went up to level 120) were directly from the game, but he didn't understand why there was a more "streamlined" version of them above them that all had a resounding ten points allocated. That was when Cole decided to mentally select all of the stats, starting with Vitality.
====-+-====
Vitality: Unlike the {Constitution} skill, this stat affects your lifespan. Each point allocated to this stat grants you ten years of lifespan and affects resistances against disease, infection, and other sources like poison and toxin.
Strength: Unlike the {Strength} skill, this stat affects your physical carry limit. While you can have a near-infinite Inventory space, this limits the amount of stuff you can store in the space. Each point allocated to this stat enables you additional carry weight and every tenth point (10, 20, 30, etc) grants you an extra ten slots in the inventory.
Agility: Unlike the {Agility} skill, this stat grants increased stamina recovery and capacity. Each point allocated to this stat gives ten points of stamina and a small percentage of recovery per second.
Perception: This stat enables sharper vision and depth perception. Each point allocated in this stat grants an extra meter of clear vision and deeper depth perception. It can also synergize with the {Combat} and {Gathering} skills.
Intelligence: This stat affects Energy capacity and mental processing. Each point allocated to this stat increases the Energy capacity by 20 units and sharpens the neuron synapses within the brain to better process information and retain it. Unless already owned, this stat can, eventually, grant the [Eidetic Memory] perk.
Wisdom: This stat affects Energy regeneration and decision-making skills. Each point allocated to this stat gives 2 Energy units of regeneration per second and helps to refine pre-existing neuron synaptic connections for decision-making.
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After reading through each of the stats he mentally tapped on, he understood a bit more about what the System was trying to say. Despite the fact that he was stuck so far back in the past of Gielinor's history, and not on the mainland of the planet, Cole had a System-guaranteed way to live long enough to reach the Fifth Age. Even back home on Earth, he knew that every human body has a set defined limit of years coded into the DNA and this was due to cell division slightly deteriorating the telomeres at the end of the strands. From what the Vitality stat description said, Cole understood that it would be adding bits of telemere to each end of the strand to reduce the loss by a tenth and it was per point.
Cole physically relaxed as he realized his more long-term goals were feasible as long as he grinded stat points to add into Vitality. It should be relatively easy for him to do so as long as he had good eating habits and focused on keeping his body healthy with the latter being very easy to do as Gielinor was far different to Earth's standards of health. Food preparation isn't the best as ranges weren't invented in Gielinor yet, but there was wood around to make campfires and, thus, a way to make cooked food. There is also the clay fireplace in the cabin, too, but Cole realized that the cabin wouldn't come with infinite stock of split logs to use for firewood.
He decided to get up and walk out of the cabin to venture back outside. The warmth of early morning still gave him a deep sense of peace as the soft silence, easily broken by splish-splashing of nearby fish, eased his mind. Cole knew that this peace would last for a very long time before Guthix's arrival and subsequent opening of the World Gate, but even knowing the future was not going to deter him from enjoying the peace for as long as he could.
From what the System told him, Cole was currently living within the era just after the formation of Gielinor but before the Elder Gods went to sleep. This would mean he'd be able to witness and live through the eras prior to Guthix's arrival and subsequent events leading up into the events of the game, yet Cole was more concerned about the ancient TokHaar people who reside deep below the planet's surface. If he was here when they were active prior to the events of the Sixth Age during the events of the Elder God Wars, that could be troublesome if they decided to investigate his presence here.
Despite his concerns about the TokHaar, Cole decided to let his future self handle that as he currently wanted to work on surviving here. He remembered from the game that the Dragonkin wouldn't arrive on Gielinor for a long time and would settle down on a continent north-east of the mainland that, in the future, would be called Anachronia. This is because, currently, they were surviving deep within the Abyss and hadn't yet found a direct way to Gielinor. As for the how and where, Cole didn't bother to care as long as they wouldn't arrive in his archipelago.
With his first steps out of his cabin and onto the soft ground below his feet, Cole received a new quest notification from the System.
==={+}===
Quest Started: Basics of Survival.
After arriving in a brand new yet familiar world, you will need to survive in your new environment. For that, you will have to learn the basics of cooking, chopping trees, burning wood, gathering seeds and growing plants, and gathering ores to smelt into usable resources. Unlike in your previous world, this place is deeply saturated in Anima Mundi and learning how to manipulate it for your own benefit will greatly increase your chances of survival for future events.
>Objectives<
1) Gather loose twigs to craft a {Crafting Bench}: 0/4
2) Gather loose twigs and loose stones to create both a Logging Axe and Pickaxe: 0/2
3) Construct the following processing stations:
- Furnace: 0/1
- Spinning Wheel: 0/1
- Loom: 0/1
- Smithing Anvil: 0/1
- Grill: 0/1
- Rune Altar: 0/1
- Tannery: 0/1
- Fletching Table: 0/1
4) Achieve level 10 in the following skills:
- Mining: 0/10
- Smithing: 0/10
- Runecrafting: 0/10
- Construction: 0/10
- Crafting: 0/10
- Woodcutting: 0/10
- Cooking: 0/10
- Fishing: 0/10
- Farming: 0/10
>Rewards<
1) +1 Level Up (System).
2) +100 Vitality Points.
3) Full Access to next quest: Basics of Survival II.
4) Ability to construct Lodestones and partial access to the Abyss.
==={+}===
When he finished reading through it all, Cole felt both excited and concerned. From what he understood of both the objectives and rewards, it was clear enough that Cole would need to build up his strength to endure the eventual events of Kerapac and his inventions dealing with Shadow Anima. This meant he'd need to stay away from Orthen and just stay in the archipelago until Guthix's arrival where he'd have to find some way to encounter both young Jack and the future World Guardian.
Unfortunately, for some time, Cole would not recall the ability to construct boats and sail across the vast oceans of Gielinor until much later...
===[RS:NS]===
Continued in: A Relentless March.