Even though it was already 11:35 PM, Bonnie Callahan replied instantly: Holy crap, for real? Quick, send a video so I can see it for myself!
Faye Yardley actually used the system to film a video of her bathroom and sent it to the group chat.
Wade Warren: Did you get the Basic Wood House Upgrade Voucher by exchanging dungeon points for it?
Bonnie Callahan: I'm jealous. So, so jealous. I want one so badly. My current situation is... too embarrassing to even mention. *blush*
Faye Yardley: Yep, I exchanged for it in the Point Shop. It's only 100 points, and you don't need any extra raw materials to use it. It's a total bargain.
Bonnie Callahan: Aaaah... I missed out big time! I'm going to search the trade market right now.
Wade Warren: Don't bother. I just checked, and no one is trading it. Hopefully, I'll earn enough points in the next Dungeon to exchange for one, or get lucky and find one in a treasure chest.
Leo Sloan: Points are so hard to earn. I didn't even get a hundred total points from this trial Dungeon. Fortunately, I was able to exchange for some wood to upgrade my raft to Level 3 and also got a tent. At least I have some shelter from the elements now.
Wade Warren: The system announced that the leaderboards will go live after midnight. There will be two of them: a Raft Leaderboard and a Personal Combat Power Leaderboard. Each one will display the top one thousand players, and there are rewards for getting on the list. Personal combat power is calculated based on your Attributes and the bonuses from any weapons you have. The Raft Leaderboard considers not only the raft's level, but also the quality of its buildings and the completeness of its furniture. There might be other hidden criteria, but we'll have to wait until midnight to see.
Wade Warren had said this before, so repeating it now was clearly for Faye Yardley's benefit.
Faye Yardley: Thanks, Mr. Warren. I'll see what else I can do and try to secure a spot on the leaderboards.
Zachary Pierce: Thank you, Mr. Warren.
Bonnie Callahan: And here I thought the poster above was just an icon. I didn't realize it was a real person who could talk.
Faye Yardley chuckled when she saw the message. She stopped paying attention to the group chat and opened the trade interface, then began searching for anything she could think of.
To her surprise, after typing "table and chairs" and filtering the results, several pages of trade listings appeared.
She quickly scanned the listings and chose the most affordable blueprint: one for a small wooden square table with matching chairs.
She also searched for curtain blueprints and was surprised to find not only those, but even pre-made curtains for sale.
People were also selling blueprints for glass windows, but since Faye Yardley didn't have any glass, she had to pass.
Through these trades, Faye Yardley successfully crafted a small wooden table and two wooden chairs before midnight. She placed the set against the wall, opposite the fireplace.
Then she arranged the entire set of wooden dinnerware on the small table.
She also added a comforter to her bed. She could lie on one half of it and pull the other half over herself as a blanket. Combined with the comfortable pillow she already had, she could finally get a good night's sleep.
She created a window in the wall between her room and the living area, positioning it so the bottom sill was level with her storage cabinets.
She didn't plan on putting windows in the exterior walls until the weather grew hot.
That way, she could keep the door closed to keep the room as warm as possible.
As for whether using the fireplace would lead to a lack of oxygen, it wouldn't. A game's fireplace didn't have to obey the laws of physics.
Just after midnight, the system announced, as expected, that the leaderboards were now active.
What Faye Yardley hadn't expected was that she had actually made it onto a leaderboard.
[Congratulations, Player Faye Yardley. Your raft is on the leaderboard. Would you like to be anonymous?]
"Yes. What's my rank? View Raft Leaderboard."
1st Place: Anonymous, Raft Level 4, Happiness Index: 572
2nd Place: Logan Langdon, Raft Level 4, Happiness Index: 540
...
10th Place: Zachary Pierce, Raft Level 4, Happiness Index: 500
...
14th Place: Hailey Miles, Raft Level 3, Happiness Index: 478
...
51st Place: Bonnie Callahan, Raft Level 3...
There were so many anonymous players. Of course, since Faye Yardley was one of them, she had no room to criticize anyone else.
She just never expected her raft to actually be ranked number one. She really wanted to laugh out loud.
'Did I actually get first place just by relying on my own good luck and getting carried by an expert?!'
She looked at the avatar of the player in second place. 'Based on his looks, he's got to be the male lead, no doubt about it.'
'But isn't the male lead a bit too quiet?'
'I've never seen him say anything in the regional channel before. Of course, it's possible I just missed it. After all, I don't spend that much time watching the public chat.'
The fact that she was able to beat the original novel's male lead made Faye Yardley want to throw her head back and roar in triumph.
'Zachary Pierce ended up in 10th... is it because I took too much advantage of him?'
'Isn't Hailey Miles a little *too* competent? She actually managed to squeeze into 14th place.'
'And Bonnie Callahan's not bad either.'
Unfortunately, she didn't see Wade Warren's or Leo Sloan's names in the top hundred, and she couldn't be bothered to look any further down the list.
'I still don't get what this is ranked by,' Faye Yardley wondered. 'Happiness Index? Is it because I crafted all that furniture?'
'What a strange, hidden mechanic. I never got any notifications about a "Happiness Index" from crafting furniture.'
"System, open the Personal Combat Power Leaderboard."
1st Place: Zachary Pierce, Personal Combat Power: 3,688
2nd Place: Logan Langdon, Personal Combat Power: 1,470
...
991st Place: Faye Yardley, Personal Combat Power: 419
Faye Yardley laughed and said, "Logan Langdon is second again?! I almost feel sorry for him. And for someone as weak as me to still scrape onto the bottom of the combat power leaderboard... isn't this list kind of a joke?"
Meanwhile, the public channel was already being flooded with messages about the two new leaderboards.
The Personal Combat Power Leaderboard didn't allow for anonymity, so Faye Yardley scrolled through the top one thousand names one by one, looking to see if her brother was on the list.
In the end, even her own name was on the list, but she still hadn't seen her brother's. 'It must mean he's really not in the same region as me.'
'With so many different regions, who knows how long it'll be before I can get any news about him.'
'When a way to contact other regions finally appears, I'll have to ask Zachary Pierce to help me look for him.'
'Relying on myself would be like finding a needle in a haystack. It'd be way too hard.'
She glanced at the public chat and happened to see Hailey Miles talking.
[Hailey Miles: Oh no, not at all! I'm not as amazing as everyone is saying. My luck is just a little bit better than most, that's all. Please stop praising me, you're going to make me blush.]
[I want to see the lovely Hailey blush! Ahhh, I bet it's super cute. Mwah! Hope some of your good luck rubs off on me!]
[Back off! Hailey isn't someone you can just lust after. She's my wife! Wifey, give me a hug! Send some of that good luck my way!]
[That's enough out of you, poster above. If I couldn't see you're a woman, I wouldn't be able to hold back my 50-meter-long sword.]
[Doesn't anyone want to know how to contact Pierce and Langdon? Why do we never see them talk? Are all the top players so aloof?]
"Ugh, how tacky."
Faye Yardley quickly switched back to her group chat. It was much more normal and easier on the eyes.