Chapter 18: Seed Shopping—In the Face of Overwhelming Strength, Luck Means Nothing

Angelica Root! He had Angelica Root!

Wu Yuanpeng frantically searched the System for the screenshot function, took a screenshot of his Health Bar—which had fewer than ten points left—and sent it to Yu Tang.

Someone had said earlier that once a player’s Health Bar rose above fifty, the ongoing loss of Health would stop. After that, they only had to wait for the Simple Bed to slowly restore the rest.

If it weren’t for that, he wouldn’t have held on to the Angelica Root instead of eating it.

But now that there were healing pills, things were different. One would restore fifty Health instantly. That meant he’d live!

Wu Yuanpeng was lucky. When he messaged Yu Tang, there was exactly one of the pills set aside for injured players left.

As soon as Wu Yuanpeng got it, he swallowed the pill. His Health Bar immediately rose to sixty-two, and the Health loss stopped.

By the time the Simple Bed’s healing tick came around, his Health had risen from sixty-two to sixty-three.

He could feel his strength returning, and his wounds were already beginning to heal. Wu Yuanpeng broke into a relieved smile, overwhelmed with gratitude toward Yu Tang for saving his life.

At the same time, nine other people survived thanks to the healing pills. Some excitedly thanked Yu Tang over and over in Regional Chat. Others burst into tears, shaken by how close they’d come.

Once he’d traded for the herbs, Yu Tang made five more batches of pills, yielding fifty altogether. As before, he kept half and put the rest up for sale.

The healing pills lifted the mood in Regional Chat, and people even started making small talk.

“Hey, does anyone have a razor? It’s been almost three days since I shaved. I’m starting to look like a drifter.”

“You’re in the Survival World and you’re still that particular? If you don’t have a razor, use a sword.”

“Pfft. Be careful not to lop your face off if your hand slips.”

“You’re worried about your beard? I haven’t taken a dump in two days. My guts feel full of shit, and I’m about to lose it.”

“You haven’t asked the System? The Survival Game doesn’t even have that function.”

“??? What do you mean? We don’t have to pee or poop in the game world?”

A lot of players who’d been lurking came out of the woodwork.

“I’ve been chronically constipated, so I thought it was just me. The game’s the one doing this?”

“Not having to go isn’t so bad. I haven’t found any toilet paper, and even if I needed it, what would I wipe with? And where would I go? The sea in the Survival World is so clean I’d feel awful polluting it. Dumping it in the ocean would be a crime.”

Only then did Yu Tang realize what he’d overlooked the past two days.

He knew the ocean had a powerful ability to cleanse itself, and that a little waste wouldn’t really hurt it. But since he had to go into the water so many times a day, he couldn’t get past the thought of it.

It was strange to have things go in and nothing come out, but he had to admit, it was convenient.

“System, you finally did something right.”

System: […]

~

On the fourth day of the Survival Calendar, at eight in the morning, Yu Tang drank fish soup and ate a chicken wrap, missing soy milk more than ever.

The soup was delicious. It just so happened that soy milk went better with breakfast.

He didn’t have a soy milk maker, which meant no soy milk, tofu pudding, tofu, tofu skin, or dried tofu. The only thing he could hope for was bean sprouts.

Thinking of that, Yu Tang checked on the soybeans he’d soaked in a corner of the kitchen before bed.

They’d swelled to nearly twice their size overnight. Some of them were already showing tiny sprouts.

Yu Tang took an empty water tank and poked dozens of small holes through the bottom with a sharp nail. He spread the soaked soybeans evenly across it, then covered them with an old floral cotton-padded jacket from northeast China to keep out the light.

Now he just had to water them three times a day—in the morning, at noon, and at night. In three to five days, he’d have fresh, delicious bean sprouts!

Once he’d finished, Yu Tang took the iron ingots he’d put in the Furnace to smelt before bed and used them to craft new weapons. Then he checked the crop plots.

None of the seeds had sprouted yet, but the watering bars were almost empty.

He watered each planted plot, filling its Progress Bar back up, then glanced at the two plots that were still empty.

A gardener just couldn’t stand seeing empty plots. He’d have to fill them as soon as possible.

Camping on the Trading Market for seeds would take too much time, so Yu Tang thought it over and sent a private message to one of the most conspicuous players in Regional Chat.

…

Bao Bailing had a steamed bun between his teeth as he gathered new information and bought all kinds of scarce materials.

When a new private message popped up, he assumed someone had a deal for him. But the moment he saw Yu Tang’s name, he choked.

“Cough, cough, cough—”

Bao Bailing’s round body quivered with excitement. “What can I do for you, big shot? Just say the word.”

“I want to collect more seeds, but I’m too busy to handle it myself. Can you buy them for me? I’ll pay you for your trouble.”

Bao Bailing’s round face lit up with enthusiasm.

“Of course! I’m not bragging, but if anyone in Zone 666 knows what’s going on, it’s me. What kind of seeds do you want?”

“Vegetable and fruit seeds. Any kind of fruit. For vegetables, I don’t eat celery, crown daisy, loofah, broccoli, or okra.”

Bao Bailing: “…”

Of course the big shot was already picking and choosing while the other players were still struggling to survive.

“I also want seasonings and cooking oil, as well as fish skin, fish bones, iron ore, Angelica Root, White Peony Root, and Notoginseng. Other medicinal herbs are welcome, too. You can choose your payment: fish, sea urchins, seaweed, water, weapons, or healing pills.”

Bao Bailing’s eyes gleamed. “I want healing pills!”

The other supplies were precious, sure, but healing pills could save his life.

“After six tonight, I’ll pay you a commission based on the amount you collect.”

“Okay! Just wait, big shot. I’ll bring in a haul!”

With the seed problem taken care of, Yu Tang’s day went much like the one before, and much like the days before that. He crafted weapons and put them up for sale, killed man-eating sharks, and went diving with his homemade stone pick and wooden shovel to gather supplies from the ocean floor. The only change was that healing pills had joined the list of goods he regularly sold.

…

On another raft, Bai Xiao had woken up early. He yawned, still looking a little sleepy behind his polite expression.

He’d already gathered all the basic supplies: a Simple Bed, a filter, a campfire, and the rest.

Thanks to his exceptional fishing success rate, he’d expanded his raft by more than a hundred square meters. Half his Equipment Slots were filled, and he’d gathered the materials for Molotov cocktails—the ones other players struggled to get—from chests, which had let him complete the Kill Quest.

All he needed now was a house blueprint to finish his basic setup, and he was confident he’d find one today.

When he thought about it that way, he didn’t seem to need to rush around like the other players.

Bai Xiao relaxed and admired the rare view of the sea meeting the sky in the Real World. He was just wondering if he should take the day off when Yu Tang listed another batch of healing pills.

“…”

Bai Xiao wiped a hand over his face, his eyes lifeless.

Maybe he shouldn’t take the day off.

The big shots who were strong in their own right weren’t taking it easy. Bai Xiao had only been lucky. What right did he have to relax?

In the face of overwhelming strength, so-called luck meant nothing!

After breakfast, he’d go back to fishing. He wasn’t stopping until he’d hauled in a couple hundred pounds of fish!

…

Overnight, the Kill Progress Bar had passed two thousand, while the Survivor Count had only just crept above nine hundred thousand.

After the morning Supply Drop Wave, the numbers started changing again.

More and more players were completing quests and getting weapons. Instead of grabbing anything they could find, players had started choosing weapons that suited them.

The most obvious trend was that squishier players preferred bows and crossbows over melee weapons.

If the damage and miss rate were the same, bows and crossbows at least kept them out of harm’s way.

They might not be able to kill a man-eating shark in twenty minutes or half an hour like the skilled players, but they could take a whole day to wear it down.

As long as the shark’s Health Bar kept falling at a steady rate, they weren’t afraid of a long fight!

Players who’d gotten house blueprints were busy gathering building materials by every means available.

People posted their progress in Regional Chat. Some who’d already finished their houses proudly shared them on the Survival Feed, drawing plenty of envy.

A few had built stone houses and shared their Defense Values.

Stone houses did have higher Defense than the other options. The thirty- and fifty-square-meter models each had a hundred more points of Defense; no one had gathered enough materials to build a hundred-square-meter one yet.

So far, the three Level 1 houses ranked stone, wood, then thatch in Defense.

Their material costs followed the same order.

Some players also discovered by accident that building a house along the edge of a raft could effectively protect the raft from shark attacks.

The shark could only chew through the house’s Defense. It couldn’t reach the raft!

The news caused an uproar in Regional Chat.

“So once we have a house, we don’t have to worry about the raft getting chewed up?”

“Will the house break when its Defense runs out? The House Blueprint is a Single-Use Blueprint. If the house is destroyed, doesn’t that mean it’s gone for good?”

“You can repair the lost Defense with planks. Ten points of Defense cost one plank. As long as you chase off the shark in time, you’ll spend a lot fewer planks than you would building another raft section.”

The other players’ eyes lit up when they saw that. They immediately decided they’d do the same.

Some of the stronger players, though, didn’t plan to follow suit.

They had a feeling the house’s Defense Value had some greater purpose. It couldn’t just be for keeping sharks away from the raft.

Yu Tang was even less interested. A house built along the edge of the raft would make it a pain to get on and off.

~

The day passed in a blur of activity.

Yu Tang had another good haul.

He’d found twelve Wooden Chests on the ocean floor. He’d also collected forty-eight iron ore, fifty-one units of mud, twenty-six shellfish, eight White Pearls, three glowing shells, thirty-five clumps of green seaweed, twenty-one clams, fifty-four sea urchins, twelve portions of kelp, and plenty of fish.

He didn’t count the usual basic materials and household items from the Wooden Chests: clothes, bowls and chopsticks, face masks, copper and iron, sand, cotton, and so on. As for food, he’d gotten a few drinks, some instant red bean porridge, spicy potato crisps, dried tofu, a jar of chicken-of-the-woods mushroom sauce, and a jar of spicy pickled radish.

The rest was Attribute Points and blueprints.

Free Attribute Points ×4, Constitution Points ×4, Attack Points ×5, Speed Points ×2.

[Iron Shovel], [Ordinary Iron Arrow (Common Grade)], [Barbecue Grill], [Shell Lamp], [Watermelon Knife (Common Grade)], [Fish-Skin Shirt (Common Grade)], and [Level 1 Thatched Hut].

Yu Tang had seen people selling watermelon knives on the Trading Market before, but their stats weren’t as good as an iron sword. He didn’t have much use for one.

The other four new blueprints were far more useful.

Yu Tang imprinted each blueprint onto a Tool Bench or Forging Bench, then crafted one of each item.

[Ordinary Iron Arrow: Power +8–10. Must be used with a bow or crossbow.]

[Iron Shovel: A tool used to gather certain materials. Durability: 78.]

[Barbecue Grill: A cooking tool for making a variety of foods. No Durability.]

[Shell Lamp: A light that illuminates an area of thirty square meters. Durability: 168 hours.]

The iron arrows were about three to five points stronger than wooden arrows. Paired with a bow or crossbow, one shot could nearly match the power of an iron sword or spear. The downside was that one iron ingot only made five arrows, making them more expensive than wooden arrows or wooden spears.

The Iron Shovel cost more than a wooden shovel, too. But now Yu Tang wouldn’t have to carry several wooden shovels on his next trip to the ocean floor just to dig up mud. They took up space and couldn’t be stacked in a single Inventory Slot.

The Barbecue Grill’s name was a little misleading. He could stir-fry or stew food on it, too.

The one-meter-long grill was big enough to cook three or four dishes or staple foods at once, which would save him a lot of time.

Last came the Shell Lamp. One lamp required two glowing shells.

Both kinds of lighting had a seven-day life span, but the glowing shells gave off light constantly and went dark after seven days whether he used them or not. The Shell Lamps, on the other hand, could be switched on and off like ordinary lights.

If he used them for five or six hours each night, 168 hours could last nearly a month.

Yu Tang had eight glowing shells, enough to make four Shell Lamps. One of them had only 150 hours of Durability because he’d used some of its materials the night before.

He put the four lamps in the bedroom, workshop, living room, and dining room—one in each. That was perfect.

As for the outside of the wooden house, he could dive for more glowing shells tomorrow and make a few more. He could even sell the extras.

Players were busy at night, and lighting was very useful.

After dismantling the chests, Yu Tang started getting dinner ready.

He’d had seafood noodles for lunch again. For dinner, he wanted something different.

He settled on rice as the staple. For the dishes, he’d use the clams he’d gathered that day and the dried chilies he’d traded for on the Trading Market to make spicy stir-fried clams. With cold seaweed salad, sea urchin sashimi, braised fish, and a bowl of kelp soup, he had a simple but delicious four-dish, one-soup meal.

Then he opened a bottle of beer to enjoy with it. Perfect!

At six, the Supply Drop Wave drifted past. Yu Tang was full and feeling lazy, so he didn’t much feel like moving.

He remembered that he’d made a fishing rod but hadn’t used it yet. He might as well try using it to haul in the supplies.

By the time he’d fished up all the crates and materials, the rod’s Durability had dropped to thirty-eight.

The three Wooden Chests held the usual basic materials, plus a cream bun, a beef bun, four bottles of mineral water, and one 300-milliliter bottle of peach yogurt.

After putting the supplies away in the storage cabinets, Yu Tang opened his private chat with Bao Bailing.

“How did it go?”

Bao Bailing, who’d just finished gathering the Supply Drop Wave himself, replied at once.

“I promise you’ll be satisfied, big shot!”

He sent over all the supplies he’d traded for during the day.

Yu Tang had expected Bao Bailing to collect quite a bit, but he was still impressed by what the man could do.