Chapter 20
◎ I’ll buy it! ◎
The items in the system mall were few and expensive.
Yu Chi scrolled up and down for a while and found that she couldn’t afford what she wanted, and she didn’t currently need what she could afford.
For example, this:
【Item: Water Repelling Pearl
Grade: Excellent
Description: Allows breathing underwater after use.】
You ask why she, who already had the skill to turn into a mermaid, would want an item that allows her to breathe underwater—in fact, it was precisely because of this skill that Yu Chi was eyeing this item.
You see, although the time she spent as a mermaid was short, the cooldown was also short! One minute wasn’t enough when fighting monsters, but she could do 10 one-minute sessions in a row.
The only thing to note was that every time the skill wore off, she would revert to a human in the sea. Although she would try her best to shorten the interval between skill activations, she would still unexpectedly get a mouthful of seawater.
After a fight, her stomach would be full.
Yu Chi: Great, I never have to eat again!
The item was great, but unfortunately, she couldn’t afford it right now. Yu Chi glanced at the price of 4999 a few more times, then finally tore her gaze away with a heavy heart.
When I’m rich in the future… hmm, don’t bully a young man for being poor.
However, although she couldn’t afford the rare-grade Water Repelling Pearl, Yu Chi did find a cheaper alternative in the system mall: a common-grade Water Repelling Talisman. Each use lasted for 1 hour. After the time was up, the water-breathing function would expire.
The price wasn’t expensive, only 10 Purification Crystals each. Yu Chi bought three.
However… using a talisman in the water? This description seemed like a trap. Yu Chi pretended she didn’t see the potential pitfall and tried to maintain her good shopping mood.
Just as she was about to close the system mall, something flashed before her eyes. The order of the items changed, and an item she hadn’t seen before suddenly appeared at the top of the screen.
Yu Chi saw the four words “Special Offer” at a glance. On a whim, she immediately bought it. It was only after she had paid that she felt she had been a bit impulsive.
Oh no, my DNA is acting up—
Yu Chi quickly found an excuse for herself. As everyone knows, special offer items are usually limited in quantity. So, when she saw the special offer item, a strange sense of urgency arose in her heart, causing her to pay instantly… that was understandable, right?
But now that her brain was back, Yu Chi touched her nose… actually, it was no big deal. After all, her special offer item just now only cost 200 Purification Crystals.
Although it was a split-second decision and her brain couldn’t keep up with her actions, Yu Chi had clearly maintained a bit of rationality… even if it was a special offer item, she wouldn’t have paid if it was too expensive!
Yu Chi finally closed the system mall with satisfaction and took out the item she had just bought from her backpack.
【Item: Purification Water Sphere
Grade: Excellent
Description: Can continuously produce purified water.】
Yu Chi: “!!!”
She took a deep breath, and only then did she see the line of small text below.
Original Price: 2000 Purification Crystals
Froggy, it’s a 90% off special offer!
Yu Chi quickly opened the system mall, looked left and right, and finally found a line of extremely small text in the bottom right corner: 【The system mall will release a special offer item at a random time every day, with a random discount from 10% to 90% off.】
Hot damn, this isn’t a system mall, it’s my second parents!
Could it be that the Sea God has taken a liking to me and decided to choose me as his devout holy maiden, which is why I’m so lucky… that’s too presumptuous, Yu Chi warned herself in her mind.
Seeing this Purification Water Sphere, Yu Chi thought of the purifier on her boat that was still struggling to produce 1L of water every day. It was enough for drinking, but it was a bit tight when it came to washing up.
These past few days, she could only be as frugal as possible when washing up, using the little bit of water she saved up every day to wipe her body. But now—Yu Chi subconsciously straightened her body, feeling that she had perfectly overcome the first major hurdle after entering the Sea Survival game.
Next up were body wash, shampoo, conditioner, toothpaste, soap, essential oils… Yu Chi shook her head, temporarily clearing these from her mind and trying to get back to the point—heaven knows how much she wanted to take a normal shower. Today was already the fourth day, the fourth day!
I remember I got a blueprint for the purifier, right?
Yu Chi’s eyes lit up. Having a blueprint meant she could easily make the item without using [Mental Meditation]. It also meant that as long as she had enough materials, she could mass-produce it.
In other words, this was money!
Yu Chi opened the player trade section and searched, but found that no one was selling water purifiers. This was actually normal. Even with her luck value of 8, she had only obtained one blueprint in these four days, and it was through the All-Purpose Fishing Rod. The difficulty for others to obtain a blueprint was self-evident.
And the most basic and important things for sea survival were food and water. It had only been a few days, and everyone could barely get by with the bottled water from resource chests, or experienced survivalist players could use solar distillation to make simple water purifiers. However, resource chests were scarce, and making purified fresh water with a self-made purifier was also troublesome. Once she put the water purifier up for sale, there would definitely be no shortage of buyers.
Thinking of this, Yu Chi’s eyes curved.
It was a good thing she hadn’t thought of making and selling water purifiers in the first two days… The currency was only unified after the official game started. If she had sold them before, she could only have exchanged them for some materials. However, she already had enough materials just by trading bandages and adhesive bandages.
Yu Chi opened the crafting interface to check the requirements for making a water purifier.
【Water Purifier (Common):
Materials: Wood Plank x30, Plastic x15, Nail x3】
She breathed a sigh of relief. They were all simple materials. A few days ago, there were four “marine debris tides” every day. After the official game started, it was reduced to two. However, she had a lot of plastic saved up that she had no use for. Now, it had a purpose.
Just as her shop was heating up, Yu Chi made ten water purifiers in one go. She sold each one for 80 Purification Crystals and listed them in her shop.
Most of the common-grade items in the system mall sold for around a hundred Purification Crystals, with the highest being a few hundred. And the player trade section was basically cheaper than the system mall.
Right now, water purifiers were relatively rare on the market. If he wanted to sell them for a higher price, there was still room for the price to rise. But Yu Chi had a burst of kindness and thought it was more appropriate to stick to the price she had estimated in her heart.
She only started to carefully calculate the cost after setting the price.
Currently, one Purification Crystal could buy one stone / twenty wood planks / ten pieces of plastic / two nails.
Yu Chi did a quick calculation and found that the cost was about 4 crystals, which meant the price she set was 20 times the cost.
…Well, that’s how we capitalists are. Scarcity makes things valuable!
However, Yu Chi also knew very well that the reason she could sell it for 20 times the price now was because water purifiers were scarce. In the future, when there were more water purifiers, she probably wouldn’t be able to sell them even for 10 crystals… but by then, she probably wouldn’t bother selling them anymore.
Selling water purifiers was doing a good deed. Although the price was 20 times the cost, Yu Chi didn’t feel guilty at all.
If you think it’s expensive, you can go buy it from the system mall. Yu Chi didn’t mind—there were no water purifiers there, only cheaper alternatives that were functionally inferior and still cost about a hundred crystals!
However, Yu Chi had overthought it. After she listed the water purifiers in her shop, no one thought the price was too high. They only thought the quantity was too small and they couldn’t compete with those “damn dogs” (ferociously).
Then they all left messages under the shop: 【More, please! More, please! Don’t feel bad for our money (pitifully)】.
There are indeed a lot of rich people.
Yu Chi wanted to sell more, but unfortunately, she didn’t have enough materials. To make this big money, she had to find someone to acquire materials from first. This couldn’t be rushed. She set up a few more acquisition orders in her shop for wood planks, plastic, and metal scraps.
The acquisition would stop after one hundred Purification Crystals. She put up three hundred Purification Crystals as a deposit. Including the previous five hundred, she had spent eight hundred Purification Crystals here.
She could only post five acquisition orders in her player shop, but she could list ten items for sale. She now only had one acquisition slot left.
Besides blueprints, Yu Chi could also mass-produce items she made through [Mental Meditation]. She opened the crafting interface to take a look.
The materials for the metal knife were too precious, so that was out of the question.
She still hadn’t made the flamethrower from the blueprint yet. (Yu Chi: …I was busy and forgot.)
That left the table and chairs, and the sail… The cost of these two was low, and the profit wouldn’t be too high, but they were also troublesome. Yu Chi, who had been thinking about making money, suddenly felt lazy. It felt like this money wasn’t a must-earn.
Well, it was all because the previous items had spoiled her.
Yu Chi pouted and simply put it aside for now.
Previously, in the system update’s new features and mechanics section, the only thing Yu Chi hadn’t studied was the player forum. However, she had just gone to take a look, and no one had posted anything useful yet, so she put it aside for now as well.
She stretched, cast the All-Purpose Fishing Rod’s hook into the sea. Making money was too vulgar for her. Fishing was more interesting (bushi).
Today was a lucky day.
Yu Chi had already realized this from the things that had happened in the morning.
So, it wasn’t surprising that she got three bites in an hour, and all of them were good things. Yu Chi was very calm, if you ignored the fact that she was hugging the items she had caught and weeping tears of joy.
The first catch was a material pack. She could choose one of five materials: wood planks, plastic, metal scraps, stone, and iron ore. After choosing, she would receive two hundred units of the material.
What’s the point of comparing iron ore with other materials? Yu Chi found it baffling. Among these five materials, iron ore was the most precious. She naturally wouldn’t choose the others over iron ore.
Two hundred units of iron ore instantly appeared on the boat. It was messy, so Yu Chi simply threw them into the Two-Sided Mirror.
The second catch was an excellent-grade item.
【Item: Flashlight
Grade: Excellent
Description: Emits light and has a repelling effect on contaminated creatures, with a special effect on insect-type contaminated creatures.】
Yu Chi had roughly understood that items, regardless of their grade, were divided into basic function items and special function items. At the same grade, items with special functions were much more expensive than basic function items.
The higher the grade of the item, the higher the probability of it having a special function. For example, this small, black flashlight in her hand, besides the basic function of emitting light, could also repel contaminated creatures. It was a pretty good item.
She happily put the flashlight into her backpack.
The third catch was a skill book. Yu Chi was overjoyed, thinking she was going to get a new skill, but when she opened it—
【Skill: Heal
Grade: Common
Description: Can restore thirty HP per hour.】
Another medical skill. Was heaven determined to make her a healer?
Yu Chi didn’t plan to go against heaven’s will, but she was a little disappointed. The type of skill wasn’t important. What she cared about was that this skill wasn’t very useful.
Restoring thirty HP per hour seemed to be more than the HP she restored when she first got First Aid, but the bandages and adhesive bandages made by First Aid could be saved up and used continuously. As for this skill… by the time it was useful in a battle, the daylilies would have already wilted.
But it was better than nothing. Just as Yu Chi chose to use it, a prompt suddenly popped up before her eyes—
【A skill of the same type has been detected. Choose to fuse?】
Yu Chi raised an eyebrow. Oho.
***