In the hardware store, I acted quickly and precisely. I had a clear list in my head, born from the Intellect Potion and internet guides. PVC pipes of the right diameter for the crossbow and water cannon, an elastic bungee cord, a compact pump, a pair of valves, nozzles. Parting with another hundred dollars was unpleasant. My wallet, which just yesterday was pleasantly bulging in my pocket, had become depressingly thin again. A final balance of a hundred bucks couldn't but make me nervous, making me feel vulnerable.
I mentally repeated the mantra: "Money is not a problem. I have a miracle box." Но it's one thing to know, and quite another to feel. Well, I have a clearly defined goal before me, and I must achieve it.
Starting the craft of the PVC crossbow. Craft. This word now evoked something akin to awe in me. It's not just an assembly process, but an act of creation that the System itself recognized and rewarded. So, where does the transformation of a plumbing pipe into a weapon begin? With bending.
I took a 70-centimeter section of 25 mm diameter PVC pipe. Over a heated burner, the white plastic began to slowly yield. A characteristic pungent smell appeared, and the pipe became pliable like clay. I carefully but confidently bent it into an ideal arc, measuring the bend at about 25 centimeters from the center. For the next five minutes I just held it in this position, feeling the plastic cool and harden, forever remembering the new shape. The bow was ready.
Now the body. Everything was simpler here. A similar pipe, but 50 cm long. I carefully made a notch at one end—a guide for the arrows. Then, using clamps, I attached a wooden block to the middle—a simple but convenient handle. Then it was a small matter: connect the bow to the body with screws, stretch an elastic and strong bungee cord over the bow. The string snapped into place with a tight, promising click.
The final touch—the trigger mechanism. I cut a small trigger lever from a wooden spoon and attached it to the body. A simple latch made of thick wire to hold the string, connected to the lever—and it was done. The crossbow lay in my hands, quite functional and formidable-looking. Но I didn't mentally mark the end, and the System remained silent. Of course. What kind of weapon is it without ammunition?
With the arrow, everything was orders of magnitude simpler. An ordinary 30 cm wooden dowel, sharpened at one end and with a notch for the string at the other. I pulled the string and placed the improvised arrow in the guide. Now—it's definitely finished.
For form's sake, I aimed the crossbow at one of the numerous cereal boxes and pulled the trigger. There was a sharp, cracking sound, and the arrow, whistling through the air, with a dull thud drove into the cardboard and the plastic bag of cereal inside, piercing them through. There is a penetration. And the System, fortunately, was of the same opinion.
[Simple weapon construction "PVC Crossbow" created. Difficulty: Minimal. Received +50 OP!]
Excellent, +50 OP. By analogy with the Potato Cannon, for the next crossbow I will receive 40, and so on—with a decrease. Но before putting production on stream, it was necessary to test one hypothesis recorded during the brainstorm under the Potion.
I took the just assembled crossbow in my hands and set about systematically deconstructing my creation. Disassembling was easier than assembling. When a heap of components lay before me again, I replaced the wooden handle with another almost identical block and started the assembly anew. Five minutes, and the crossbow was ready again.
No notification. Silence. The theory was confirmed. You can't fool the System by constantly assembling and disassembling the same thing. It rewards for the act of creation, for that very "Spark" that breathes new life into a set of components, turning them into something whole. The potential of the components within this creation is exhausted. However, these same components can be used to create something else. Checked again on the wooden trigger I initially made from a spoon. Logical.
Alright, next on the list—PVC water cannon. And, honestly, after the Potato Cannon, after the Marx Generator, and even after this simple crossbow, its creation felt like assembling a child's constructor set. Only four steps: creating a reservoir from a thicker pipe, installing a valve, adding a nozzle, and connecting the pump. Filling the resulting monstrosity with water and opening the valve, I deliberately aimed the stream at the bathroom wall. A powerful stream of water hit the tile, drenching everything around with splashes. Silly, simple, and surprisingly fun. And most importantly, the system accepted this craft.
[Simple weapon construction "PVC Water Cannon" created. Difficulty: Minimal. Received +50 OP!]
The remaining 65 OP I finished by making another crossbow and another water cannon, receiving a total of 80 OP for them. The balance of 415 OP pleased the eye and involuntarily I even thought about spinning the gacha for 300 OP, but it was a fleeting second-long desire that I easily ignored, mentally calling the system and pouring OP into unlocking the Magical Ore Crate. The OP were immediately deducted from the balance and without extra fanfare, notifications, or anything else, the crate appeared in my inventory. From the technology tab, fortunately, it didn't disappear, although the price for the next crate was now 500 OP; it will surely come in handy in the future, but for now one is enough, I hope.
Surveying my studio, which over these days had become a center of seemingly unsystematic chaos and disorder, I realized that manifesting a 2x2x1 crate here was not an option, and not even because space was tight; if necessary, I could organize such a patch of free space. It was about the floors. The house is old, the weight of a crate filled to the brim with ores of different densities and consequently weight is hard to imagine, and I don't want to risk the floor collapsing, even if it's an extremely small risk, which means I need to walk through the city in search of abandoned construction sites.
***
It was four in the afternoon. At this time Hell's Kitchen lived its usual, noisy life, and the daylight made its streets relatively safe. I pulled on inconspicuous street clothes and set out in search of a temporary lair. I needed an abandoned building—a place so unsightly that even the homeless would scorn it. There were plenty of such in this district, but I was looking for a special option: secluded, with a minimum of through passages and far from curious eyes.
After half an hour of searching, weaving through alleys that smelled of urine and rotting trash, I found what I needed. A five-story unfinished brick monster with empty eye sockets of window openings, standing on a small wasteland. The walls were completely covered with ugly graffiti, and the ground around was dug up and littered with construction debris. Ideal.
Но even in such a place one couldn't lose vigilance. I went into the nearest store and bought a pepper spray for ten bucks. A small thing, but with it I felt calmer. Squeezing the spray in my pocket, I slipped inside the building.
Inside it was semi-dark and smelled of damp concrete dust. Every step I took echoed loudly in the emptiness, making me jump. I moved carefully, looking into every room, until I found what I was looking for on the first floor—a small room without windows, with a single doorway, located deep in the building. Making sure I was alone, I held my breath and materialized the miracle box from the inventory.
It appeared silently, massive and alien in this realm of ruin. The crate was filled to the brim with rough, unrefined stones of all shapes and sizes. "Well, it's definitely packed," I muttered into the emptiness, and my whisper seemed deafeningly loud. "And, at first glance, the ore is not the most valuable, as I thought..."
I took a heavy, dark-gray piece with a metallic luster and placed it in the inventory for analysis.
[Piece of unrefined Earthly Lead Ore (galena). Weight 1.4 kg. Metal content 89%. Rarity: Common. Condition: 10/10]
Aha, lead. With almost 90 percent pure metal content! This isn't just ore; it's almost a finished product. I mentally bowed to the unknown creators of the crate. Curiosity spurred me on. What else do we have here? I pulled out a brownish-red stone.
[Piece of unrefined Earthly Iron Ore (hematite). Weight 1.7 kg. Metal content 82%. Rarity: Common. Condition: 10/10]
It became clear that I couldn't do without a full audit. Но sorting through hundreds of kilograms of ore right on the dirty floor was not an option. I desperately needed containers for sorting. This meant I'd have to go out into the city again and spend already meager money. Но looking at this treasure, I realized—it would be a sin to complain.
Hiding the crate back in the inventory, I left my temporary shelter. In the nearest household store I purchased a set of ten large cardboard boxes for moving. Another minus ten bucks. The boxes were flimsy, but for the inventory their physical properties didn't matter. Most importantly—they were containers.
Returning to the same secluded room, I laid out ten boxes on the floor, creating a semblance of a sorting center. Calling the cheaty crate again, I began the monotonic but incredibly fascinating marathon of assessing the treasures.
I took each piece of ore in my hands, sent it for a moment into the inventory for scanning, and having received the information, moved it into the corresponding box. First came the industrial metals.
[Piece of unrefined Earthly Copper Ore (chalcopyrite). Weight 1.2 kg. Metal content 84%...]
[Piece of unrefined Earthly Tin Ore (cassiterite). Weight 2.1 kg. Metal content 80%...]
[Piece of unrefined Earthly Aluminum Ore (bauxite). Weight 1.3 kg. Metal content 82%...]
Gradually the boxes filled. Но the real excitement began when I came across the first precious metal.
[Piece of unrefined Earthly Silver Ore (argentite). Weight 1.1 kg. Metal content 86%...]
My heart skipped a beat. And others followed it.
[Piece of unrefined Earthly Gold Ore (nugget). Weight 0.7 kg. Metal content 88%...]
[Piece of unrefined Earthly Platinum Ore. Weight 0.4 kg. Metal content 82%...]
[Piece of unrefined Earthly Palladium Ore. Weight 0.5 kg. Metal content 87%...]
[Piece of unrefined Earthly Titanium Ore (ilmenite). Weight 1.0 kg. Metal content 89%...]
When the first wave of audit was over, ten boxes stood before me, each signed with its metal. Only ten representatives of ordinary, "Earthly" ores. Quite... few, if you think about it. Where, for example, is nickel for alloys? Or refractory tungsten for serious tools? Но complaining was stupid. Gold, platinum, palladium—these aren't just materials for crafting; they are my financial independence. Especially with such an incredible pure metal content!
I already thought that the surprises were over, but digging through the remains of the ore at the bottom of the crate, I came across something else. There, among the ordinary stones, lay three pieces of ore that looked... wrong. One shimmered with all the colors of the rainbow, another was pitch black but absorbed light, and the third glowed weakly in the dim room. My inventory confirmed the guess—this was something of a completely different order. The box had saved the most rare and exotic options for me for dessert. And each of them even by the System's standards had immense value.
The first of the three unusual pieces of ore shimmered in the light with all the colors of the rainbow. I took it in my hands, feeling a strange, barely perceptible vibration, and sent it to the inventory for scanning.
[Piece of unrefined Vibranium Ore. Weight 0.3 kg. Metal content 96%. Rarity: Rare. Condition: 10/10]
My breath hitched. Vibranium. The metal from which Captain America's shield, Black Panther's suit, Winter Soldier's prosthesis, and who knows what else are made. The basis of the technologies of an entire secretive high-tech nation. I swallowed, carefully setting it aside as if it weren't ore but a sleeping grenade.
The second piece was pitch black, but so dense that it seemed to absorb light itself. It was deceptively heavy for its size.
[Piece of unrefined Adamantine Ore. Weight 0.4 kg. Metal content 93%. Rarity: Rare. Condition: 10/10]
Adamantine. The metal with which Wolverine's skeleton is coated. A symbol of absolute, unthinkable strength. A cold sweat broke over me. Holding two of these metals at once is not just luck; it's some kind of mockery of fate.
And the third... the third piece glowed dimly in the semi-darkness of the room with its own, unearthly light, as if inside it smoldered an ember brought from the forge of the gods.
[Piece of unrefined Uru Ore. Weight 0.5 kg. Metal content 98%. Rarity: Rare. Condition: 10/10]
Vibranium, Adamantine, and goddamn Uru metal of the Gods. In that moment I almost laughed from hysterical horror and delight. I still had no idea what to do with these Treasures. Но what I knew for sure was that for each of these unremarkable-looking stones in this world they are ready to not just kill. No... Here they are ready to rip out your soul from the other side to tell where you hid more. Shining such values was equivalent to hanging a neon sign around your neck: "Kill me and become one of the most powerful beings on the planet."
Collecting every last piece of these three ores, I put them in a separate cardboard box, mentally fixing their total weight, and immediately sent this box into the inventory. Let them not provoke reality.
Now that the most valuable was safe, a full inventory had to be conducted. The next two hours turned into monotonic but vital labor. The room filled with the dull thud of stones, the rustle of dust, and my labored breathing. It was the work of a loader, an accountant, and an appraiser rolled into one. I dragged hundreds of kilograms of ore from the miracle crate to the floor, weighed each batch, sending it into the inventory for weight summation, and sorted by boxes. When the dust settled, a full picture of my newly found wealth appeared before my mental eye:
- Iron ore: ~700 kg
- Lead ore: ~500 kg
- Copper ore: ~250 kg
- Tin ore: ~200 kg
- Aluminum ore: ~150 kg
- Titanium ore: ~80 kg
- Silver ore: ~60 kg
- Gold ore: ~12 kg
- Platinum ore: ~10 kg
- Palladium ore: ~6 kg
- Vibranium: ~2 kg
- Adamantine: ~1.8 kg
- Uru: 0.5 kg
About two tons of ore, of which two hundred kilograms were impurities. Not bad. The System didn't lie: the more valuable the ore, the less of it there is. The hierarchy was obvious.
The plan in my head built itself, clear and inevitable. Step one: Isolation. Gold, platinum, and palladium, the most valuable metals from a monetary point of view, had to be separated from industrial ones. Step two: Optimization. This whole main skeleton (iron, lead, etc.) had to be moved to a separate large container in the inventory so that the miracle crate remained empty and in a month would automatically fill with new ores. Step three: Constant development. Return home before the streets finally plunged into darkness and try to craft something to earn an extra penny of OP, even despite the hassle and business; I must earn a minimum of 50 OP a day. Step four: Legalization. Think through tomorrow's route through the pawnshops, not forgetting about melting down the gold obtained. I'll have to conduct a small comparative analysis of prices, but for this I won't even have to spend an Intellect Potion.
Mentally agreeing with this sequence, I placed the boxes and the crate with ores into the inventory, folded the remaining empty boxes and, taking them with me, headed home. Twilight was already gathering over Hell's Kitchen, and from the dark alleys night life was beginning to crawl out.
Tomorrow Monday will come, and it won't just be another hard day. It will be the first day of my new life. The day when I stop being a poor orphan from Hell's Kitchen clinging to survival. Tomorrow I will start building a sort of financial empire, albeit my own personal one for now.