Chapter 2: Choosing the Shelter Location

While on the move, he casually chopped down a few scattered trees along the roadside with his iron axe. By evening, his backpack already held thirty-five chunks of wood.

As he kept walking, the vegetation grew denser and more lush—clearly, the place where he’d first arrived was some kind of anomaly. The plants weren’t just thicker; the dust floating in the sky had thinned out too.

Pushing forward, Chen Zhuo finally found what he considered the most promising spot for a shelter yet.

Before him rose a series of rolling hills, bathed in the golden glow of the setting sun. The landscape shimmered like something out of a dream—so serene, so peaceful—that it hit him like a slap in the face. Here, amid the ruins of a dead world, stood a pocket of quiet beauty.

Just a few kilometers away, the land was still a wasteland of ash and ruin. But here? Peace. Stillness. A breath of normalcy.

But Chen Zhuo didn’t have time to marvel. Judging by the sun’s position, it was probably around six in the evening. Nightfall could bring all sorts of dangers—this wasn’t Earth, no matter how much it looked like one.

He headed toward the base of the hills, winding through rocky terrain before finally settling on the narrow valley where two mountains met—the perfect foundation for his shelter.

“Place it?” the survival system prompted on screen.

“Yes.”

With a single word, a 3x3x3 wooden cabin materialized before him—visible only to Chen Zhuo. A faint blue aura pulsed gently around its edges.

He stared at the crude structure nestled between the two mountain bases. Something felt off. It wasn’t right. He’d come all this way because he thought building near the mountains would give him natural protection from one side. But now… why not go deeper?

*Why not build *inside* the mountain? Or even underground? That’d be safer.*

Then it hit him: *What if the cornerstone could be embedded into stone itself?*

No hesitation. He pulled the cornerstone from the ground and tried placing it into the base of one of the hills.

Like magic, the entire patch of soil and rock vanished—replaced by a small wooden house, barely visible, with just one wall peeking out, glowing softly with that same pale blue light.

“It actually works!”

A moment later, though, disappointment crept in. The stones, the sand, the earth—all gone. Not even a scrap returned to his inventory. Poof. Vanished.

“Guess I can’t exploit a glitch after all,” he muttered, shaking his head.

Shaking off the fantasy of free loot, he took a proper look at the tiny home he’d be calling home.

From outside, it looked like a boxy, blocky structure—like something ripped straight from a video game. Square. Minimalist. Just one door, 1x2 in size.

He pushed open the door.

Inside, the space was exactly nine square meters. The centerpiece? A two-meter-long wooden bed. That was it. A small table. A stool with no backrest.

“Not exactly luxurious. But you could say it’s… bare bones.”

Chen Zhuo sighed. Then, a spark lit in his chest. He still had his *special ability*. He’d been so focused on making it to safety before dark that he’d grabbed the beginner’s gift pack and rushed out without ever really checking what the system could do.

He sat down on the bed—hard as a plank—and whispered into the silence:

“System.”

A blue screen flickered into view before his eyes.

“No matter how many times I see it, I still can’t get used to the feeling—like it’s inside my head, but real enough to touch.”

The interface was stark, simple. Two options glowed softly on the screen.