Finally a nice and natural environment to farm, no more ruins and desolation.

As soon as he reached the edge of the forest, John took a short stop to change into his farming gear, and he was looking fierce. There could be some improvements with his pants, and he realized he still needed gloves (and face-palmed for forgetting to buy some at the hardware store).

He couldn't put the tool belt over his harness, but there was a reason he bought two of them. He set both a belt and the harness on the ground before using Craft to combine them. It did not work yet, but when he added one unit of light metal and one Shadow cat hide to the pile, the skill managed to trigger.

The light brown leather harness turned into a matte black one that had even more places to put things on.

Scout harness: special item.
Always ready! Do you think you'll have enough slots for all of your toys?
+6 inventory slots
+1 weapon slot (side)
+1 small weapon slot (chest)
+1 small weapon slot (side)
+1 harvesting tool slot (back)

It cost him 50$ on top of the materials, but it was money well spent. He put the large axe on his back, the machete and Saber at his sides, and the slingshot on his chest, and then he filled the inventory slots with ammunition and the other tools. Like in most video games, the inventory system was frustrating: the fact that a large shovel took one inventory slot and a can of soda took the same space made no sense, and being able to stack up to 50 units of something in the same slot added to the confusion. Still, it would work to his advantage when farming. He could gather literally tons of materials and cram them in his inventory, weight not being an issue unless he tried to lift the stuff. He pondered that there was certainly a limit and that he probably couldn't take anything too heavy for him to lift, but if he could even barely lift it, then he could take 50 of it per inventory slot, that's video-game logic for you!

He began trying his tools out in the real world, not sure if trees in a barrier would count as environment (and as such couldn't be interacted with). After a few minutes swinging the large axe as described in the small booklet, he had felled a small tree.

It disappeared and was replaced by two stacks of items, one of long beams and one of randomly shaped bits of wood.

7 units of white oak wood
5 units of lumber (white oak)

So, apparently lumber could probably stack regardless of the trees it came from, but each unit kept its origin. It would matter once back at his place, as he could easily sort it through his inventory before putting it in his storage chest for future use.

Using the shovel on the ground gave him similar results.

1 unit of organic materials
1 unit of gravel
4 units of earth

When he managed to break a rock with the pickaxe, he got two messages.

Achievement unlocked: I Want All The Things!
You harvested three different kinds of materials using the proper tools. How many more can you get?
+5% chance of rare materials on Harvest.
5 units of crystal
5 units of amber
5 units of ore
120$
50xp

New skill: Harvest lvl 1, passive.
You can now gather resources using the right tools. Having this skill will give you better quality and quantity of materials. You also can find shiny things.
This skill can only work in the real world and in designated spots in barriers.
+10% quantity of material extracted
+10% quality of materials extracted
+1% (6%) chance to get rare materials from common resources.

It could work in barriers, but it would be like in most video games: he would have to hunt down the spots to use it. Still, it was better than nothing, and he could always do some farming in the real forest if it was too slow or dangerous to do it in a barrier.

After checking that he didn't leave anything laying around and that he was at his max for mana he decided to change environment.

Instant Dungeon

He found himself in a forest that was different than the one he had left. It was a lot greener and full of life. There were green leaves, grass and flowers everywhere.

"Well, first things first. Let's see. Verdant Glade, creator: the Gamer. Phew, this time no surprises. It is just a place I made and not an ancient and forbidden place full of cursed stuff. So, what will I find here? Hey what's that?" he remarked.

Not really far from him, there was a tree that had a strange glow.

Young oak tree: resource spot
7 units of lumber
12 units of oak wood
10 units of organic materials.

"Hey! Perfect, I am either lucky or those are not very rare. You'll become part of my kingdom, I need some new furniture," he said. As he swung his axe at the tree, he noticed that he didn't see any creatures there yet, no birds, no animals; he hoped the place wouldn't be empty, he could use the xp.

He just finished felling the tree and gathering its resources when he felt a sharp pain in his arm. There was a strange thorn stuck in it through his armor.

-2hp

At least it wasn't that dangerous, but where was it coming from?

He looked around and saw that what he had first taken for bushes and small trees had uprooted themselves and were now looking at him with angry faces.

Angry Sapling lvl 5 creature.
The spirit of the forest gives life to the trees to protect itself against trespassers.
Weakness against fire.
Each sapling has two of three attacks:
Throwing thorns
Smashing branches
Strangling vines
90/90 hp

So individually weak but a lot of them. And the strangling vines thing would make them really effective as a group if one of them managed to immobilize him.

Most of them were too thin for the axe to be effective, so, under a barrage of thorns most of which had no effect when hitting reinforced parts of his armour, he put it back on the holster on his back, getting out his Saber in his right hand and the machete in the left one.

Flexing his legs and trusting his new shoes, he jumped, launching himself at the closest creature and hitting it with both weapons.

The soft twigs and small branches were easily cut, and he was able to maim it with each strike, depriving it of its weapons.
Before it could even strike back the first Angry Sapling was cut to bits and fell to the ground.

15xp

Not that much, but there were a bunch of them gathering for punishment.