My HP sat at a miserable 6/35.

  Every movement sent a jolt of electricity through my hollow bones. My chest ached where the Crow had impacted me. My wings felt like they were held together by bruised tendons and sheer will.

  I sat in the gloom of the log, staring at the Gecko.

  [Fermentation Timer: 01:45:00]

  Too slow.

  The Larder demanded patience, but my metabolism demanded calories.

  I needed to move. Staying still made the pain worse. It allowed the stiffness to settle into the fractures.

  I stood up. My legs wobbled, then locked.

  I checked the perimeter. The log was secure. The [Reinforced Spikes] held the Badger and the Crow. The smell was atrocious—a mix of copper blood, musk, and the sweet, cloying scent of accelerated rot. To a human, it would be a biohazard. To me, it smelled like potential.

  I walked to the entrance.

  Briar was awake. The Sanguine Creeper had grown since its last meal. Its vines were thicker, pulsing with a deep, venous red. It sensed my approach and uncoiled a tendril, waving it lazily in the air.

  I clicked. Guard well, little plant.

  The plant didn't understand language, but it understood territory. It curled back around the opening, thorns bristling.

  I stepped out into the Basin.

  The air was cool. The metallic tang of the soil was sharper here.

  My material stocks were zero.

  Hunting was a failure waiting to happen. My wings were too brittle for the torque of another dive.

  Scavenging was the logical. I would gather. I would build.

  I moved slow. My feathers were dark, blending with the shadows of the massive iron-roots. I kept my head on a swivel, [Wisdom] highlighting the contrast of the forest floor.

  Movement.

  A Beetle, fifty feet away. Too far. Too armored.

  A Moth, fluttering high above. Out of reach.

  I ignored them. I was looking for materials. Stones for grinding. Clay for mounting spikes. Maybe a shed antler.

  I followed a game trail that wound between two massive oaks. The ground here was trampled. Mud churned into a paste by heavy hooves.

  I stopped.

  The mud was streaked with white, not the usual deep brown.

  I crept forward, lowering my body until my belly feathers brushed the dirt.

  In the center of a small clearing stood a rock. It wasn't the usual iron-ore or granite. It was jagged, crystalline, and milky white. The ground around it was beaten flat.

  I saw teeth marks on the stone. Scrapes from antlers.

  A resource node.

  I hopped closer. The air smelled different here. Sharp. Clean.

  I pecked the stone.

  Hard.

  I scraped it with my tongue.

  Salt.

  My eyes widened. Intense salinity flooded my beak. My nerves fired. It was a shock to the system, overloading my taste buds.

  [System Notification]

  [Material Identified: Rock Salt Deposit]

  [Quality: Impure]

  Salt.

  A preservative.

  I looked back toward the log. I had a Badger and a Crow rotting on spikes.

  But what happened if I added salt?

  Salt drew out moisture.

  Would it break the Larder? Or would it refine it?

  I needed to know.

  I looked at the rock. It was a solid boulder, rooted deep in the earth. I couldn't move it.

  I needed a chunk.

  I checked my Mana. 5/30. Enough for a small burst, but I didn't want to waste it on mining.

  I looked around. I found a fist-sized piece of granite lying in the mud.

  I gripped the granite in my talons. I fluttered up, hovering three feet off the ground, my wings screaming in protest, and dropped the stone on the salt deposit.

  Crack.

  A shard broke off. It was the size of my head.

  I landed, panting. The exertion cost me 1 Stamina.

  I inspected the prize. A jagged, white block of impure salt. It was heavy.

  I grabbed it with my beak. Too wide.

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  I grabbed it with my talons. Heavy.

  I couldn't fly with this. I would have to drag it.

  I hooked my claws over the rough edge of the salt block and began the slow, painful trek back to camp.

  Every few feet, the salt snagged on a root. Every tug pulled at my injured chest muscles.

  Drag. Rest. Scan.

  Drag. Rest. Scan.

  I felt like a worker ant, hauling a prize ten times my weight.

  A noise to my left.

  I froze.

  A Wire-Rat. Level 2. It was sniffing the air, whiskers twitching. It smelled me. Or it smelled the salt.

  I was at 6 HP. A fight was a gamble I couldn't afford.

  I released the salt. I fluffed my feathers, doubling my apparent size. I opened my beak and let out a hiss, making a sound like steam escaping a high-pressure valve.

  The Rat paused. It looked at me. It looked at the white rock.

  I snapped my beak. Click-click.

  The Rat decided the meal wasn't worth the fight. It scurried away into the ferns.

  I exhaled. My heart hammered against my ribs.

  I grabbed the salt and pulled.

  It took me twenty minutes to reach the log.

  Briar sensed me coming. The vines parted, allowing me entry.

  I dragged the salt block inside, leaving a white streak on the mossy floor.

  I collapsed next to the Gecko.

  I was exhausted. But the prize was here.

  I looked at the salt. Then I looked at the Badger.

  The Badger was huge. A mountain of meat. It was currently undergoing [Fermentation]. The smell was getting stronger. A sickly sweet odor of breakdown.

  I needed to process the mineral first. I couldn't just tape a rock to the carcass.

  I found my grinding stone, the flat rock I used to sharpen bone spikes. I placed a smaller chunk of salt on it and used a river stone to crush it.

  Crunch. Grind.

  It turned into a coarse, white powder.

  I dipped a claw into it. Pure salt.

  I walked over to the Badger.

  The carcass hung heavily on the [Reinforced Spike]. The fur was matted. The exposed flesh where I had gutted it was turning a dark, oxidized purple.

  I hesitated.

  If this failed, I might ruin the meat. I might stop the fermentation entirely and get 0 XP.

  But I'll never know unless I try this.

  I took a clawful of salt.

  I rubbed it into the exposed muscle of the Badger’s flank.

  The meat sizzled a with chemical reaction. Moisture was drawn out instantly.

  I grabbed more. I packed the salt into the chest cavity. I coated the raw edges of the skin.

  I stepped back and waited for the System to judge me.

  A blue window flickered into existence.

  [Interaction Detected]

  [Foreign Mineral Applied to Larder]

  [Analyzing...]

  The text hung there. The System was calculating.

  [New Process Identified: Curing]

  [Effect: Dehydration]

  [Result: Durability Decay Halted]

  [Fermentation Timer: PAUSED]

  I stared at the text.

  Paused?

  My heart sank. I didn't want it paused. I wanted XP. If the timer stopped, the XP stopped accumulating.

  I hissed in frustration. I had broken it. I had turned my XP source into a statue.

  I raised a claw to scrape the salt off.

  Then, the text updated.

  [Calculating Synergy...]

  [Skill: The Larder (Bio-Alchemist) + Ingredient: Salt]

  [Process Updated: Dry Aging]

  [Timer Resumed]

  [New Timer: 12 Hours]

  Twelve hours?

  The original timer had been five hours. It had more than doubled.

  I felt a surge of anger. I couldn't wait twelve hours. I would starve.

  But then I saw the bottom line.

  [XP Multiplier: +50%]

  [Status Effect Added: Preserved]

  I lowered my claw.

  The Badger was Level 4. Base XP was probably around 150.

  Fermentation usually doubled that. ~300 XP.

  Dry Aging added another 50%.

  300 + 150 = 450 XP.

  And the [Preserved] status meant the meat wouldn't rot if I didn't eat it immediately.

  I could store it. I could build a stockpile.

  I looked at the Crow.

  I had a choice.

  The Gecko was my dinner. It was almost done.

  The Crow was my breakfast.

  The Badger... the Badger was an investment.

  I went back to the salt block. I smashed off another chunk.

  I spent the next hour grinding. My shoulders burned. My mana ticked up slowly, but my stamina drained.

  I coated the entire Badger in white dust. I packed it into the wounds. I rubbed it into the fur.

  The smell changed. The sickly sweet rot faded, replaced by a clean, sharp scent of drying meat.

  [Target: Scavenger Badger]

  [State: Dry Aging]

  [Time Remaining: 11:58:00]

  I sat back, covered in salt dust and gore.

  I had unlocked a new branch of the tech tree. Preservation.

  This changed everything.

  Until now, I was living hand-to-mouth. Kill, ferment, eat. If I killed too much, the meat rotted before I could process it. The Larder was a bottleneck.

  But with salt, I could pause the decay. I could kill five rats, salt them, and eat them next week.

  I could build a hoard.

  I looked at the salt block. I had used maybe 10% of it.

  I needed more. I needed to mine that deposit dry.

  But first, I needed to heal.

  I looked at the Gecko.

  [Fermentation Complete]

  The timer had hit zero while I was working.

  The Gecko hung on the bone spike, its scales dull, its flesh softened to a gray sludge.

  My stomach roared. The hunger was a physical pain, a cramping void in my center.

  I approached the meal.

  I didn't salt this one. I needed the calories now.

  I tore the Gecko off the spike. It squelched.

  I ate.

  It was vile. Cold, slimy, and tasting of stagnant water. But to my body, it was ambrosia.

  [Consuming Fermented Biomass]

  [XP Gained: 120]

  [HP Restored: +15]

  [Stamina Restored: Full]

  The energy hit me like a drug. The pain in my chest dulled. My wings felt lighter.

  HP: 21/35

  I wasn't fully healed, but I was out of the danger zone.

  I looked at my XP bar.

  Level 4 Fledgling Shrike

  XP: 465 / 500

  I was almost to Level 5.

  The Crow would give me maybe 200 XP.

  The Badger... the Badger would be massive.

  If I survived the next twelve hours.

  I cleaned my beak on the wood of the log. I felt stronger. The salt dust on my feathers itched, but it was a good itch. It was the itch of progress.

  I looked at the Crow.

  Should I salt it too?

  No. I needed a proper food supply.

  Gecko: Eaten.

  Crow: Ready in 4 hours.

  Badger: Ready in 12 hours.

  Things are looking okay for now. I just need to manage all of this properly.

  I curled up near the entrance, keeping one eye on the Briar and one eye on the salt block.

  The forest outside was waking up. The sun was setting, casting long, bloody shadows through the Iron-Root trees.

  Night was coming. And with the night, the hunters.

  I was still small. I was still prey.

  But I was prey with a stockpile of food and a plan.

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