Cave in the Great Demon Law Forest:-

“So, I have to live in THIS!?”

[Yes, it is required that the host inhabits this location.]

“What next?

You’re gonna tell me to remove my clothes, start wearing banana leaves and speaking ‘Unga Bunga’?”

[Though that would be a great sight for this system to watch, the system regrets to say that it cannot fulfil the host’s wish.

The host needs to use the “Residence Editor” they have received from the system’s starter pack to convert the inner layout of the cave into a proper residential area.]

Harry sighed in relief after hearing the system.

He had initially thought that he’d be living like a caveman or something after seeing the cave he was supposed to reside in.

But fortunately, he had the thing called the “Residence editor”!

“All right! I have ABSOLUTELY no idea how the heck am I supposed to use that ‘Residence Editor’ to turn this stinky cave into a house!”

[The host does not have to worry about that.

The “Residence Editor” is a piece of highly advanced space manipulation technology that the host needs to use to reshape the insides of the cave to a residential area of their choice.]

The system replied matter-of-factly.

‘This guy!’

[Yes, host?]

“Oh dang! Nothing, nothing… uh, I mean, um, look the thing is, dear system, I’m not from some Star Trek civilisation, okay? I’m a regular college-going guy from 21st century Earth, a time where stuff like Star Trek and Star Wars is still Sci-fi.

So, how in the world can I know how to operate this ‘piece of highly advanced space manipulation technology’? I didn’t even know that such a fantasy world existed a week back, much less about how to use this sci-fi level tech!”

[Apologies. This system is used by hosts that are from better civilisations. But the host needn’t worry.

Even though the host is from a very backward world, this system will guide the host through the process.]

The system said this to Harry in a very apologetic manner.

But it was obvious that it had slid an insult towards him and all humans on Earth in the middle of that apology.

Harry couldn’t do much about it.

This system was his only way to survive in this world.

Without the system’s help, he would have been dead again.

So, Harry decided to follow the system’s instruction.

The Residence Editor was surprisingly easy to use.

When he turned it on, a holographic mini-map came up in front of him where, as the system instructed, he had to select the location of his residence.

On selecting the cave, a 3D hologram of the cave popped up.

Harry could see the entire inside structure of the cave.

It wasn’t a large cave system of anything, but from its thick walls, Harry could see a lot of room for expansion.

The entire modification process felt like he was using some 3D editing software.

All he had to do was remodel the area using his fingers on the hologram.

And as he did the remodelling on the hologram, a small drone-like thing was released that copied his movements on the actual cave.

Harry figured that the drone had some warp drive-like spatial expansion technology since it was both destroying and rebuilding parts of the cave according to Harry’s designs.

After spending around half an hour working on the cave, Harry felt that this was the best he could do.

The cave had been remodelled to have one living area, one kitchen and three bedrooms. (One for each person that had to live there.)

But just as he was about to turn off the device, Harry’s eyes fell on a flashing tab on his toolbar.

Opening it, he found that there were several complementary furnishing options available.

These included everything from flooring, paints, bathroom furnishings and some amount of furniture!

Seeing this, Harry got very excited and spent another hour redesigning the entire place.

By the time he was done, the system informed him that it was already 9 at night.

Even though it was pretty late, Harry was quite satisfied with his work.

He now had a presentable looking house, at least on the inside.

He had redone the entire place to look like a somewhat luxurious two-bedroom apartment house.

He had to remove the third bedroom to make space for the bathrooms and the other spaces.

He had even built a new room on the system’s instructions to serve as a place for his future guests (The siblings) to cultivate.

Aside from this, there was a food storage room, a weapons storage room, a gym and a lab for any experiments he might want to do in the next five years.

The Residence Editor also seemed to have an atomic editor feature (confirmed by the system) since it had converted the stone and dirt of the cave into all the various other materials like paint or the cloth on the couches in the living room.

“Well, people do say that advanced technology feels like magic to the ones who can’t understand its working principles… or something like that.”

The complementary furniture was pretty basic.

But after seeing how the stuff was being made, Harry had begged the system to allow him access to the good stuff.

After 15 minutes of begging and negotiating, it was decided that Harry could use some of the better items since this place was also meant for the Long siblings.

In the end, the bathrooms had a bathtub, a shower, water taps, a flushable toilet among various other amenities like auto-refilling soaps and shampoos.

It looked like a five-star hotel to Harry.

But the only reason why this was possible (and also why Harry referred to it as “somewhat” luxurious) was that the system’s standards of luxury were some very high futuristic stuff.

So, anything that just mimicked the five-star luxury (Like a remote water collection that could teleport the water into storage tanks, to be used by the taps) was allowed by the system as it felt that it was all too basic.

Naturally, for the Long siblings who lived in an ancient Chinese-like world, all this would be beyond godly. But the system didn’t pay much attention to that and continued judging most things based on its own standards.

After rechecking the place for any mistakes, Harry carried himself to the bedroom and hit the sack.

The guy had died, been poisoned and had to walk for hours in a forest. There was no way in Hell that he wouldn’t be tired.

That’s why the moment Harry felt the comfy bed on his face, he fell asleep like lightning.

***

The next day, Harry woke up thinking that he was still in his bedroom and wondering when did he get such a nice bed.

“Ah right, forget my bedroom, I’m not even on Earth any longer…”

Wishing the system good morning, he started his day.

He hadn’t shaved for days. (Or at least his body hadn’t.)

And there was no way that Harry could stand having that itchy beard any longer.

He asked for a shaving razor from the system and got to work. (He did think of using his daggers or something, but quickly realised how unhygienic that would be.)

Luckily the system wasn’t stingy about the basic necessities like shaving razors.

Next came his long af hair!

It was pretty common for people in Wangxiu to keep long hair like the ancient Chinese.

That being said, it still wasn’t unusual to find people with shorter hair either.

But unfortunately for Harry, this Prince Kalong belonged to the long hair faction.

And Harry, being like most guys back on Earth, couldn’t stand hair any longer than a few centimetres above his head.

Harry took out his daggers and sliced off 90% of the hair on his head.

Then, getting a pair of hair-cutting scissors, Harry began cutting his hair with the system’s help.

It took about an hour before Harry managed to get a somewhat satisfactory haircut.

It was nothing fancy, but it was way more manageable than his previous Rapunzel-style. (It wasn’t that long, but the hair was still down till his knees.)

“Freedom!!

Imma burn that hair down!

Or maybe use it as fertilizer or something.”

Harry went with option two and buried the hair in the ground near his base.

The hair was too long to be flushed down the drain anyway.

[Congratulations host on your achievement!

The rewards you get for this achievement are the shaving razor and scissors that you used!]

“Yeah, yeah, bad joke!

Enough of that.

So, system, what do I need to do now?

You got me here and got me a house. Now, all that seems to be left is to play the waiting game till those two siblings arrive, right?”

[Unfortunately, the host is partially wrong about that one.

The host has to wait for them to arrive. However, just sitting around and doing nothing in the meantime just won’t do!

The host is currently very weak. Training is required.

However, this system also knows that just one month of hitting the gym won’t do anything major.]

“So, I need to exercise for much longer than a month when I only have a month?

What do you want me to do? ‘Make’ time? I can’t do that, because last I checked, that should be impossible no matter how you look at it!”

[But it is possible to do, host.]

“The future seems to be one convenient af place, no?”

[Not exactly.

Time manipulation is an advanced form of space manipulation. It was discovered by accident by scientists who were trying to test the limits of spatial manipulation.

However, it is very, very difficult and hence very expensive to perform, even for short durations.]

“And you plan on doing it over a month for me? Didn’t you just say that it’s basically impossible?”

[It is not impossible, just extremely difficult to do.

The host should realize just how valuable the host is to the gods for the system to be doing such a task for the host. And that too for free.]

“Say, system, if the gods are willing to put so much time and effort on a guy like me, why don’t they just come down and do it themselves? Won’t it be way easier and less time taking than trying to control some random dude into doing their bidding?”

[The host needs to understand that due to the presence of immortals in this world, the gods responsible for bringing the host can only indirectly interfere with Etheldor like this.

That’s why they are willing to put in as much effort as is required to ensure that the host can smoothly develop this world.]

“So, it’s like that? So, what do I need to do?”, asked Harry.

[The host’s task is simple. The system will provide the host with a small device.

The host needs to turn it on and select the entire base in the map being displayed, similar to what was there in the Residence Editor.

This will mark the area to be affected by the time manipulation.]

After Harry selected the area on the device that appeared in his inventory, the device split into a large number of dust particles (nanobots) and spread across the entire place.

[The field has been set up. Now all the host needs to focus on is exercising in the gym apart from taking short breaks for sleeping or eating. The time will be extremely slow, so the host will not grow much age-wise. However, this will be highly beneficial to the host’s muscles as they will be able to grow at a much faster rate what is than normally possible. The food shall be taken care of by this system. The host doesn’t need to worry about a thing.]

Right after the system finished saying this, a plate of breakfast formed on the dinner table.

The food looked surprisingly normal-looking compared to Harry’s initial expectations of getting some sort of futuristic food capsule or something.

And so, Harry’s life began in this world as a shut-in.

All Harry did was mainly exercise the entire day.

Sometimes, he did make some bits of furniture by asking the system for some wood. (He wasn’t allowed to go out due to the time disparity.)

All his other basic needs were taken care of by the system.

From his food to washing his clothes to making his bed.

The system had also put up some sort of cloaking device to make the demon beasts outside avoid this area.

One of Harry’s sources of entertainment was watching the sun go down and the moon rise outside the window after what felt like forever.

Time was kept track of by the system and according to what it said, Harry was getting a whopping 3-year time extension over the one month he had to wait.

Damn! The gods were desperate!

Harry’s energy consumption was high and he used to eat a lot of food.

He also kept growing strong.

But the one funny thing he found was that his cells seemed to be degenerating very, very slowly.

Unfortunately, the explanation for this went completely over his head when he asked the system about it.

Harry kept doing the demonic training regimen that he followed even later on after the first month. (That’s the one that Qing and Shin saw.)

He did sometimes practice shooting and using his daggers as well, but that was only to get the feel of it. His brain already had been fed the information to use them.

This routine continued until one day when the system announced that it was time for the time distortion to end since the time for the siblings to arrive had come.