"I have to admit, you have a point. It's a bit frightening when you put it that way." Li Ke didn't pick up on Erina Nakiri's thoughts, but he agreed with her that the female merchant looked terrifying. It was the uncanny valley effect. When you see a completely expressionless and unchanging face, especially in dim lighting, you naturally feel a sense of dread.
"But her chest is really big, and she feels warm to the touch, so that's why I'm not afraid." Li Ke spoke his mind directly.
"See! You are a perverted old man! How can something like that make you not afraid?" Erina Nakiri seemed to have recovered psychologically after realizing she could also kill zombies, and she couldn't help but retort.
"But being afraid doesn't help. We need this merchant, so we have to find a way to not be afraid of her!" Li Ke shrugged. This was his genuine opinion. If he were alone and had discovered this, he might have done even more "sick" things, like trying to take off the female merchant's pants. Because even with the uncanny valley feeling, you had to admit that the female merchant was no different from a real human, except that she couldn't be harmed and had no consciousness. She had saliva, a soft tongue, and her skin felt real to the touch. When something looked, felt, and smelled like a human, Li Ke truly believed that if he were alone for a long time, some "sick" things would inevitably happen.
But… Li Ke couldn't help but sigh as he looked at Erina Nakiri's chest swaying as she walked and her long, pale legs. He felt that having her as a teammate would make him "sicker" faster than if he were alone! It couldn't be helped. If he were alone, he would have to find ways to relieve his loneliness by constantly doing things and crafting various items for protection. Now, while he still needed to do these things, he could do them much faster and with more convenience.
For example, when scavenging houses. If he didn't have Erina Nakiri, he would be playing a stealth game, afraid that one or two zombies would pop out and catch him off guard, forcing him to give up. But now that he had Erina Nakiri, he was much bolder and faster when searching houses. It was just that his companion was too beautiful and had too good of a figure, making it easy to think about "those" things.
"You always come up with weird reasons for everything." Erina Nakiri blushed and turned her head. She was still a little angry, but she was also carefully observing her surroundings and looking for things they could use. Unfortunately, there was nothing.
On the other hand, Li Ke discovered some interesting things on the way to the shop.
"Oh, I'm level three? I level up pretty fast." Li Ke looked at his character panel and smiled. He tried to open the other tabs again, but the quest, skills, and map tabs were still locked. But the Crafting tab could be opened now.
"Oh?" The moment Li Ke opened the crafting tab, he saw his inventory, but this time his character image and status bar were gone. In their place was a list of strange items on the left. "Wood frame, crate… hmm? This is similar to the crafting list in other survival games, just a bit strange. So I can craft firearms, right?" Li Ke scrolled through his crafting list and found it very interesting because it contained many things. He even saw things like a stone axe. In the icon, Li Ke saw a wooden handle with a rope tied to a stone, but in the crafting interface, it was made of branches, grass, and small rocks.
"Hmm, if I craft this, will the system help me twist the grass into a rope, or will the system just craft it directly?" Li Ke was curious about these things.
Fortunately, the materials weren't hard to find, so Li Ke bent down and picked up some stones. In the process, he found something amazing. The stones on the ground were only the size of a loaf of bread or an egg. There were almost no stones the size of a fingernail or a soybean.
"Interesting…" Li Ke didn't think too much and, after collecting enough stones, began to collect the plant fibers described in the recipe. Although the recipe said "plant fiber," the icon showed weeds, so Li Ke tried pulling a clump of grass. The game confirmed it, and he collected plant fiber. Twenty of them, in fact.
"This is way too easy, right?" Li Ke couldn't help but complain, but something even more absurd happened. When he tried to use the axe in his hand to chop some wood, he came across a withered bush. He tried to collect it into his system space. Then, out of the corner of his eye, an icon flashed. It was an icon of a wooden plank with the number +3 next to it. Li Ke's eye twitched. So he grabbed some more bushes, broke them, and tried to put them into his inventory. But no matter if the bush was as tall as a person or only came up to their calves, after breaking it, it was classified as wood by the system.
"So, what are you doing?" Erina Nakiri watched Li Ke curiously. She didn't know what Li Ke was trying to do or why he was suddenly collecting these strange things.
"I leveled up to level two and unlocked a crafting system, so I wanted to try it out. You should be close to leveling up, too. You killed a lot more zombies than me in that last horde." Li Ke explained to Erina Nakiri. The next moment, he selected the stone axe in his inventory. There was no flashy animation or experience points popping up in front of Li Ke. He just saw the stone axe icon appear in the bottom-left of his recipe book. The next moment, a stone axe with a "1" on the icon appeared in his inventory.
That fast?
Li Ke suspiciously took out the stone axe and saw that it looked exactly like the icon. But when he tried to hit a tree on the side of the road with it, a crack immediately appeared on the stone axe, and a piece broke off.
"What is this garbage…" Li Ke was speechless as he looked at the axe in his hand. He put it back into his inventory, but then he looked at the empty slots in his inventory below his eye. After a moment of hesitation, he put the stone axe, which had lost half of its durability, back into his inventory. But nothing happened. So, Li Ke looked at the stone axe in his inventory and thought about using it. The next moment, a stone axe appeared in his hand.
Li Ke closed his inventory and swung the stone axe at the large tree again. A magical thing happened. The tree didn't have a single scratch, but in Li Ke's eyes, a number appeared: 536/600. Not only that, but a prompt appeared on the right, showing that the number of wood had increased, and it had increased by a whopping five!
"I see. I get it now." Li Ke nodded and smiled menacingly. He repeatedly brought the stone axe down on the large tree, and with the tenth swing, the tree's durability was completely depleted! He expected the tree to fall to the ground and was ready to dodge, but to his surprise, the moment its durability was gone, the tree instantly turned into a pile of pixels and disappeared into the air. The leaves and branches all vanished, and the amount of wood he received was no longer five but twenty-five.
"How very game-like."
"I want to argue with you, but this is truly amazing…" Erina Nakiri agreed with a nod. She was slowly starting to accept this ridiculous world but couldn't help but marvel at it.
Li Ke licked his lips. He saw something called a "wood frame" in his inventory, and his intuition told him that it was probably a basic building block, just like in other games. It took ten wood to craft one wood frame and two seconds to craft it. Li Ke had several dozen wood, so he decided to craft one to see what it was. Two seconds passed quickly, and two little objects that he had high hopes for appeared in his inventory. He immediately took a wood frame out of his inventory. A small bag appeared again. Li Ke opened the bag, revealing a one-meter by one-meter plywood-like wooden block inside. He frowned and tried to push it. It felt and weighed exactly like plywood.
So, he put the other wood frame into his action bar below him. The next moment, a transparent ghost image of the wood frame appeared in his vision.
"It should be right-click." Li Ke aimed it at the asphalt road and tried to use the wood frame. The wood frame appeared on the asphalt road out of thin air. Not only that, but when Li Ke tried to push it, he couldn't. It was as if it was embedded in the road, and there was no way to lift it.
"This is getting more and more like a game." Li Ke couldn't help but click his tongue. This thing was a godsend! If he could place it in the air like in Minecraft, he and Erina would have nothing to fear from zombies! They could find a river, build a farm in the sky, and live a cute little life!
So he crafted another wood frame, placed it on top of the first one, and pressed the E key in his mind to recall it. The next moment, the third wood frame, which he had high hopes for, fell directly to the ground. Before he could do anything else, the frame shattered into a pile of pixelated junk.
Li Ke had a bad feeling. He placed another wood frame, took out his iron axe, and swung it at the plywood. The axe got stuck in the plywood but didn't go all the way through, only halfway. But when he swung the axe at the wood frame placed by the system, the frame shattered into a million pieces.
"..." Li Ke put down his axe, looked at the mess on the ground, and helplessly summarized his findings to the curious Erina. "It seems that items created by the game system are very different from items that appear in reality. When you use the game system to use something, you get some magical abilities, but on the other hand, they are inferior to their real-life counterparts."
Li Ke kicked the real-life version of the wood frame. Although it looked like plywood, its durability was surprisingly much stronger than the wood frame placed by the action bar. He took out the stone axe again, and with a system-viewed swing, he hit the real-life wood frame. The next moment, the real-life frame's durability appeared: 2/100.
Li Ke then placed two more frames and hit each of them with the stone axe. 36/100.36/100. It was very fair, with no difference. The only difference was that the digitized frame had no changes, while a large part of the real-life frame had been shattered.
"It seems like this system has double standards. I wonder which logic the zombies follow." Li Ke wasn't sure, but he had a feeling that the zombies, like him, would follow real-world logic when they encountered real-world items and data logic when they encountered digitized items. This way, they could exploit many loopholes. Li Ke stepped directly on the data-based wood frame. Although its durability had dropped by more than half, no matter how much he jumped on it, there was no problem. But the real-life version was different. He only stepped on it once, and the half-shattered plywood snapped. Let alone jumping, Li Ke almost fell off it!
"I think I understand what you're trying to prove with all these tests." Erina Nakiri looked at Li Ke, who had jumped off the frame, and nodded. "You want to build a base?" Her eyes sparkled.
"That's right, but it's unrealistic for us to build a sturdy house on our own. But with these things helping us, we can build a trench and a reliable house. And we should also be able to find a way to fix the RV so we can escape if we need to." Li Ke nodded. If the stone axe was so powerful, what about a stone shovel? Or an iron shovel and an iron axe? And if he remembered correctly…
Li Ke looked at the axe in his hand. The next moment, the axe appeared in his inventory with a green "4" on it. Li Ke took it out and hit another tree with it. The tree's durability instantly dropped by 166! Most importantly, he had read the description for the wood frames, which said they could be reshaped. And the stone axe could repair and upgrade items! It was a versatile tool! With this system, they no longer needed to find a way to open doors when they were scavenging houses. They could just smash the wooden walls with an axe and walk right in!
"That sounds… so powerful…" Erina Nakiri imagined the scene Li Ke described. She and Li Ke building a sturdy and reliable house together, and no matter how dangerous it was outside, they could live peacefully inside their big house. That life was much better than the one they were living now, constantly on edge!
"Then after we go to the merchant, let's go back and do it quickly! Li Ke!" A smile appeared on Erina Nakiri's face. She grabbed Li Ke's hand and ran quickly toward the shop, which was no longer far away.
A smile appeared on Li Ke's face as well. With the strength and rules of the zombies he had seen so far, as long as they didn't act recklessly at night, nothing could go wrong, and they wouldn't be in danger! Unless there were more dangerous zombies in this world! And he had seen something called a "pipe machine gun" in his crafting menu. The recipe was very simple: six pieces of wood, two bottles of glue, and four iron pipes! As long as he could craft that, he and Erina Nakiri could find a mountain and dig a hole. What zombie could kill him then? How could a zombie possibly kill him?! Impossible! There weren't any! It was out of the question! Would these zombies be able to attack from a distance and cause explosions stronger than TNT? Li Ke's face was filled with a joyful smile.
Of course, Li Ke still had to be cautious. Anything was possible in a game world, but that didn't stop him from thinking about the future with such a positive attitude. With a happy heart, Li Ke walked into the shop. He looked at the still disheveled young lady, swallowed subconsciously, but quickly opened her inventory and sold all nineteen of his gold bars to her. In an instant, his Duke's Casino Tokens reached a staggering 2,400! Then, Li Ke bought all the honey he could! Seeing seven bottles of honey in his inventory, Li Ke's heart finally settled down completely.
It was only then that he had time to look at other things. The exorbitant prices immediately put him off. Li Ke had to face the fact that he was poor.