After working hard for twelve hours, from morning until night, Faye Yardley was utterly exhausted. Besides taking breaks to eat a Delicious Little Bread and drink mineral water to replenish her stamina, she had been completely focused on fishing.
The sun was setting, and darkness would soon fall upon the sea.
Lying on her back as a gentle breeze brushed her face, Faye whispered, "First, let's take stock of today's haul."
In total, she had fished up eight treasure chests, two of which were Iron Treasure Boxes.
She had already opened five, leaving three unopened.
Faye hadn't wasted the empty chests, either. She dismantled all of them. A single Wooden Treasure Chest could be dismantled into 3 units of wood.
That meant as long as she fished up about seven Wooden Treasure Chests, she could upgrade her raft to Level 2 even if the chests themselves didn't contain a single piece of wood.
Her Hunger Level was still at 80, so she was fine not eating for now.
A tally of her opened chests revealed: [Mineral Water x6, Steamed Buns x2, Delicious Cola x1, Delicious Little Bread x1, Instant Noodles x5], [wood x62, iron blocks x15, cloth x4, Cotton x5], [Alfalfa Seeds x3, Vegetable Seeds x2], [Basic Iron Axe Blueprint x1].
It had to be said, the haul from just five chests was quite impressive.
She rolled over, quickly rinsed her hands in the ocean, and then Faye began to chant, "Jade Emperor, The Buddha, The Three Pure Patriarchs, please bless me, your faithful follower. May all my wishes come true; may I get whatever I ask for."
[A Wooden Treasure Chest has been discovered. Open it?]
"Open, open, open!"
This time, there were only two orbs of light inside. Faye frowned slightly. 'Did my luck get worse after washing my hands in the seawater?'
After she picked up the orbs of light, the system prompted: [You have obtained Ordinary Fishing Rod x1], [You have obtained Wooden Fence Blueprint x1].
A wooden fence?!
Hahaha!!!!
Faye really felt like kowtowing to all the gods. This was something she desperately needed; she had been so afraid of rolling off the two-meter-wide raft in her sleep. With a fence, her safety would be greatly increased.
There was still one Wooden Treasure Chest and one Iron Treasure Box left. No question about it, when your luck is running high, you open them immediately. No need to repeat the Spell—what if she messed it up this time?
[You have obtained Mineral Water x5, Egg Pancake x1]
[You have obtained Basic Wooden House Blueprint x1, Basic Wooden Bed Blueprint x1]
Wooden House Blueprint: Requires raft level to be Level 3 or higher. Materials required: wood x62/150, stones x0/50, iron blocks x15/10.
"No way. A tycoon like me can't even afford a basic Wooden House? Fine, fine, fine. Let's see who in this region could possibly be richer than me. System, open the regional chat channel, quick."
Faye Yardley stared at the regional chat channel scrolling rapidly on the virtual screen before her. Focusing her eyes, she noticed that posts with more likes were pinned to the top, which would make searching a little easier.
In a regional channel with one million people, even with only a small portion of them talking, the messages still flew by at a dizzying speed.
Messages vanished in the blink of an eye.
Trying to scroll up to read past messages? Haha, what a naive thought. The earlier messages had already been pushed up and away, impossible to scroll back to.
She looked at the messages at the top first.
[Leo Sloan: Has anyone found a Bandage or any medicine? I'll trade everything I've found so far, you can even have the treasure chests I fish up. Please, I'm begging for a Bandage or some kind of styptic.]
[Kyle Lewis: Mommy, Mommy, where are you? Kyle upgraded the raft, did you see?]
Huh?
'Two familiar names have been liked and pinned to the top by so many people. Looks like there are a lot of kind-hearted people out there.'
[Alice-Rae: I've been fishing all day and only got two wooden chests, not a single bottle of water inside. I'm dying of thirst. Can someone give me a bottle of water? I can sing, I can dance too.]
[Bonnie Callahan: It really takes all kinds. Everyone's short on food and water right now, who wants to see someone sing and dance? Anyone want to trade for wood? I can trade the eggs I got and some crab meat I fished up.]
[Hailey Miles: Everyone, if you don't have enough wood, you can dismantle the chests. One wooden chest can be dismantled for wood x3, and an Iron Treasure Box can be dismantled for iron blocks x2. They're useful resources, so don't just throw them away.]
[Phoebe Pierce: Hailey is so beautiful and kind-hearted. It's a shame I didn't know this before; I threw mine into the sea because I thought they were taking up space.]
[Yeah, yeah, feeling the pain +1]
[Feeling the pain +1,000,000]
[Feeling the pain + my social security number]
Hailey Miles's message was quickly liked and pinned to the very top. Watching this, Faye suddenly got furious and slapped her own forehead. "Faye Yardley, you're so stupid! How could you forget to steal Hailey Miles's thunder and farm some reputation for yourself?"
[Faye Yardley: Trading Mineral Water and Instant Noodles for wood, stones, and iron blocks. Also, if my 'brother' sees this, remember to add me as a friend!]
Faye spammed this advertisement three times in a row, using up all her regional chat messages for the day. She was confident someone would see her ad; now, all she had to do was sit and wait for people to message her with trade offers.
"System, what resources do I need to upgrade the raft to Level 3?"
[Raft Upgrade (to Level 3): wood x62/150. Insufficient materials. Unable to upgrade.]
Upgrading the raft only required wood. It seemed the early stages of the game were still simple.
It only took 20 wood to upgrade to Level 2, but upgrading to Level 3 required 150 wood. How much would it take to get to Level 4?
Looking at the regional channel, she saw that the vast majority of people had only found four to five wooden chests all day. The unluckier ones only got one or two.
And this was still the grace period. Once it was over, Faye figured that the people getting only one or two chests might not even be able to fish up a single one all day. They'd probably have to jump into the ocean and catch fish with their bare hands just to get ingredients.
Sure enough, just as she was looking at the raft upgrade information, she heard a continuous DING DING DING of notifications in the background.
Just as she was about to look away from the regional channel, she suddenly spotted a message.
[Zachary Pierce: Does anyone have a spare fishing rod to trade for materials?]
Seeing that his message was about to be scrolled off the screen, Faye immediately clicked on his name and sent a friend request.
Sure enough, his message vanished from the regional channel a moment later. Faye let out a laugh. She remembered this name being mentioned in the novel; he was a character on par with the male protagonist.
And unlike the novel's male lead, Zachary Pierce was supposed to be one of the officials.
The game had just started. Even if the officials had already reacted, it wouldn't be an easy task for them to contact each other and organize.
Her friend request hadn't been accepted yet, but Faye went ahead and sent a message first. She took a photo of the ordinary fishing rod next to the system-issued one and sent it over. The meaning was clear: 'I have what you need. Let's see what you can offer.'
The other party quickly accepted her friend request and sent a message: "What do you want to trade for the fishing rod?"
Faye was very direct in her reply: "I want wood, stones, and iron blocks. Or whatever you think is a fair trade."
Zachary Pierce: "I only have 50 wood and 4 stones. Deal?"
Faye didn't waste any words. The system hadn't enabled a trading function yet, so they could only trade based on trust. She directly sent the ordinary fishing rod she'd gotten using the Red Envelope function in the friend chat.
On the other side, Zachary Pierce fell silent as he looked at the Red Envelope notification...