The Echelon Tower

Chapter 3 - Woodcutting

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In a dense forest, a young boy was sitting on a huge rock. In his hand was a piece of wood that he was grinding on a small rock, turning the wood into a makeshift knife.

'Although I would love to use my Bayonet, revealing it here is way too risky,' Jonathan thought to himself.

His cynical instincts told him that he would absolutely regret showing some of his assets. After all, humans will fulfill their own needs before the social one, as shown by Maslow's Hierarchy.

'Although they might not act against him immediately since they still have leftover values from our previous world, this group will undoubtable crumble. And when it does, all order will be gone. When that time comes they will desire such a useful tool and not hesitate to assault me. Nothing will stop them at that time. After all, a rule is only as powerful as the entity that enforces it.'

Jonathan could easily compare this to his previous lifestyle. Ordinary people would almost never kill since law enforcement would go through heaven and earth to catch them. On the other hand, music, movie and software piracy was extremely popular since absolutely no one would enforce it. You might get an email from your ISP, but no legal actions will be taken against you.

The reason for that was simple, there was no worth to doing so.

The situation of the group will turn the same. When everyone could barely find food to eat and even going to take a sh*t would use valuable energy, was stopping someone from ganging up on another person to steal a mere tool worth it?

Absolutely not.

At best, people would tell themselves they would stop someone from doing that when their situation will be stabilized, but these were all empty words.

'As such, I have the be very weary of my actions. Although showing that I have information on survival is inevitable, there is no other alternative.' Hiding himself looking at his phone was almost impossible. 'Furthermore, I cannot use the situation to my advantage, as most people that have good stuff are way older, hence stronger.'

Pushing these thoughts to the side, Jonathan continued the construction of his knife.

By the instructions of his survival guide, he had found a thirty-centimetre-long piece of wood with an around three centimetres diameter. He then carved out a fifteen-centimetre blade in it. Through his multiple failures, he had formed a knife in about thirty minutes.

After stuffing it in his pocket, he headed out to help Stephanie gather material for a shelter. Although the water her wasn't freezing, it was still cold at around seventeen-degree Celsius. There was also a constant light wind. Although it might seem like nothing, your body used energy to create heat. There wasn't much food here, so that energy was extremely valuable. A shelter helped keep heat in to not require more to be produced.

Soon, Jonathan found himself with Stephanie.

"We're looking for three main materials now. One, many long, strong and flexible branches. Seeing how high the trees are here, it shouldn't be hard to find branches of this type. Two, much softer branches that we can split and use as rope. Well, must go in the more humid zones to find those. Three, large leaves. This also shouldn't be hard to spot. Along the way, we should also look for an area to settle. Remember BLISS. Blend with surroundings, low silhouette, irregular shape, small, secluded location." Jonathan had given his instructions according to his survival guide which was amazingly handy.

"Got it. I'll look for leaves and a location to build the shelter and you'll find all the necessary branches." Stephanie felt quite confident since she wasn't acting of off her guts like everyone else.