Chapter 20: Demonic Creatures Block the Gate

On the level three Creation Workbench, the tabletop was still covered with gears.

At first glance, aside from a deeper hue and a better texture, there was little change.

Yet inside, a new recipe had appeared—a pair of bark thermal pants.

‘When I was outside before, the cold numbed my entire lower body. If I had thermal pants, it wouldn’t have been so unbearable...’

The nights in this world were brutally cold, consistently below minus forty degrees Celsius, sometimes plunging to minus sixty.

Liu Hen quickly gathered some bark nearby into his spatial backpack, then selected his size and began crafting a pair of thermal pants.

The countdown remained one minute.

‘Hmm? It seems there’s an extra crafting slot... I’ll make another pair.’

He chose Xiao Heishi’s size and made a second pair; after all, the materials were cheap.

Besides, he could do without everything else, but not pants.

The minute passed swiftly, and the first pair was complete.

Liu Hen hurriedly claimed them.

[Thermal Pants: Just as bark shields a tree, these thermal pants retain human body heat. They drastically reduce heat loss even against biting cold winds. Within a similar size range, these pants automatically conform to the wearer's skin, offering sweat filtration and strong absorption. Wearing the same pair long-term gradually increases the thickness of your thermal clothing through filtered sweat accumulation.]

‘The description is almost identical. It really is a set. Will there be a set bonus?’

He immediately took a closer look and found the color and texture similar to the thermal jacket.

Unlike the single layer of the jacket, the pants featured a double layer at the crotch—essentially multifunctional pants with built-in undergarments.

Without hesitation, he stripped off the three pairs of pants he had worn for years, all full of holes, and put on the bark thermal pants.

Since there was no private space, he didn’t bother to avoid Xiao Heishi.

More importantly, survival was paramount now. He had no thoughts of modesty and changed in front of her directly.

Xiao Heishi by the campfire showed no reaction—no bashful covering of her eyes, no sneaky glances—just a natural gaze.

The pressure to survive left the wild folk no energy to consider shame. Passed down through generations, except for the fortunate few, virtually all wild folk had completely abandoned conventional notions of propriety.

Under such circumstances, there was no room for love among the wild folk.

Soon Liu Hen finished putting on the thermal pants.

Like the jacket, the pants slowly shifted and adapted automatically to his leg shape, gradually becoming like a second layer of skin for his lower body.

At first glance, they resembled tight-fitting jeans, but in reality, they felt almost weightless, like genuine skin—not constricting or tight.

The only difference from real skin was that this ‘thermal skin’ lacked tactile sensation, having no connection to nerve endings.

These pants combined the functions of underwear and outerwear—warm and comfortable.

‘Now I should be able to brave the cold winds without fear,’ Liu Hen thought happily, patiently waiting.

But after a long while, disappointment set in. The thermal pants and jacket functions appeared separate—no set bonus emerged, and no additional campfire-like stats appeared.

‘Did I guess wrong, or is the set incomplete?’

He looked down at his already hole-ridden shoes.

‘Do I still need shoes?’

---

Thinking this, he quickly retrieved the pants he had already made for Xiao Heishi and handed them over.

By the campfire, Xiao Heishi stood up promptly, joyfully accepting the pants.

“Thank you, sir!”

Having come to understand her master’s personality, she no longer refused as before, but gratefully and quickly put the pants on.

Though the wild folk had mostly abandoned shame, in such bitter cold, who truly liked being exposed?

Only the resilient adaptability inherited through generations had kept them alive in this extreme environment; otherwise, she would have long since frozen to death.

Liu Hen ignored Xiao Heishi’s excitement and swiftly went to the pile of iron ore, collecting four hundred pieces before returning to the Creation Workbench.

‘Upgrade!’

With a thought, he upgraded the workbench again.

Four hundred iron ores and four magic crystals vanished from his spatial backpack, and the countdown began.

This time, the upgrade would take three hours.

‘Time keeps getting longer, but since I’m about to sleep anyway, no rush.’

He returned to the campfire and lay down. ‘It seems every upgrade brings a new recipe. Hopefully, the next one will be shoes.’

As he thought this, he glanced at Xiao Heishi, now dressed in the pants.

“There might still be monsters outside. You keep watch first. When I wake up, you can rest.”

“Yes, sir,” Xiao Heishi nodded earnestly.

“No need to go to the cave entrance—just stay by the campfire.”

After over twenty hours of continuous gathering, Liu Hen was utterly exhausted.

Now, well-fed and safe, he could no longer resist and fell into a deep sleep.

When he awoke, it was late at night again.

Liu Hen told Xiao Heishi to rest and went to the cave entrance, peering through a gap at the top of the stone wall.

By chance, a mutated monster over three meters tall strolled past the defensive window.

It seemed to sense his gaze; suddenly, one of its heads snapped toward him.

The eyes on that head flashed with bloodthirsty madness as the entire head detached violently, flying straight toward him from the window slot.

“Damn!” Liu Hen’s face paled as he quickly backed away.

Boom—

Outside, a deafening explosion shook the stone wall, thirty centimeters thick, causing cracks.

Xiao Heishi, just asleep, was instantly jolted awake.

Liu Hen retreated nervously to the campfire, listening closely.

“Wah wah wah…”

“Bang bang!!”

Outside came the monsters’ howls and the sounds of the defenses being assaulted.

From the noise, there were definitely many.

Clearly, the previous group of monsters had not gone far and had been attracted by the explosion of the mutated monster’s head.

---

Perhaps disturbed by the regular monsters, or perhaps because it no longer sensed any living gaze, the mutated monster ceased its head-exploding attacks.

Or maybe the heads had independent minds and did not share memories.

Liu Hen and Xiao Heishi crouched by the campfire, tense and silent.

They were not afraid of the ordinary monsters; without ranged attacks, these creatures were firmly suppressed by the campfire.

The biggest threat was the mutated monster—the explosive power of its detached head was formidable.

Minutes later, the outside quieted again.

Liu Hen told Xiao Heishi to keep resting, then packed six hundred pieces of rubble into his spatial backpack and moved slowly to the cave entrance, activating the free-building function to reinforce the stone wall.

A sharp “snap” echoed as he placed stones.

Shortly after, more monsters’ cries and hammering on the wall resumed.

Some had climbed inside the enclosure, right outside the cave.

Fortunately, their attacks were weak, unable to breach the thirty-centimeter thick wall quickly.

Liu Hen relaxed and hastened to build the wall thicker.

“Snap! Snap! Snap…”

He kept placing rubble, each stone fusing seamlessly with the existing wall, visibly thickening it.

When the stones ran out, he dug more—there was plenty of stone here.

Finally, he increased the wall’s thickness to a full meter and stopped.

Though monsters still attacked outside, their presence felt distant.

‘Looks like we’ll be trapped here for a while,’ Liu Hen thought.

He felt no real pressure; he carried over forty pounds of tree cakes and had replenished a hundred blocks of ice.

With their current appetite, he and Xiao Heishi consumed only about half a pound of tree cake remnants per meal, roughly one pound per day.

Forty pounds would last more than forty days—more than enough.

Besides, he still had essence of tree cake saved.

He didn’t believe the monsters outside had that much patience.

‘If worst comes to worst, I’ll just dig a longer tunnel to escape.’

He decided to use this time to recover; his body had been severely malnourished and needed rest.

‘Right, the workbench upgrade should be done. Let’s see what new recipes appeared.’

He returned eagerly to the workbench and opened the crafting interface.

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