Chapter 10: Blessed by Fortune

Chapter 10: Chapter 10: Blessed by Fortune

’Nighttime is the most dangerous. For me, sunrise is a symbol of safety, so I have to have a window.

But once I put in a window, my security will be compromised.’

After thinking it over and over, Shi Zhile ultimately decided not to put a window in the cave.

The problem of dim light was easy to solve, but the lack of oxygen had to be addressed.

She came out of the cave and looked at the stone wall directly to the south.

’The terrain is high here. A window here would let me see the sunrise and observe the coast. Instead of a window, I might as well just make a small door.’

The courtyard was now roofed over and could be used as a house.

’That being the case, why not build another courtyard to the south?’

’The main south side of the courtyard can have a main door and two windows for coming and going and for observing the sea.

The first room can be for storing supplies and cooking, while the cave will be for living.

If I install a door in each section, it’ll be like having three lines of defense. Even if monsters come ashore, it will give me enough of a buffer.

The cave will be my last resort. For future shelter upgrades, I can choose to build another room and courtyard behind it, or dig a basement downwards.’

The more she thought about it, the more feasible it seemed.

While she had plenty of stone and wood and her stamina was full, Shi Zhile picked up her torch and cautiously opened the side door.

There were no monsters. It was safe outside. Although the sun hadn’t officially risen, the sky was already bright.

Looking south, she could clearly see the waves lapping against the stone beach. The sound of the waves wasn’t loud; clearly, the tide was going out.

Walking to the outside of the southern stone wall, Shi Zhile began to figure out the best place to put a door.

When she first built the stone wall, she had staggered and overlapped the stones for sturdiness, which would make creating a doorway more difficult now.

It wasn’t that she couldn’t use the system to upgrade, but she was hoping to trigger the Passive Skill with a 0.01% activation chance.

After choosing a spot, she first retrieved a small stone from the middle, then did the same for the rest, removing the stones one by one into her backpack along the outline of her planned doorway.

Fortunately, the stones she had used to build the wall were thick and heavy. In the end, although the resulting doorway was ugly and narrow, it was at least possible to get through.

She had barely finished making the door when the system notification sounded.

[Shelter Downgrade Notice. Current Shelter Level: Level 1 (I’ve seen plenty of upgrades, but this is the first time I’ve seen a downgrade. What can I say? It’s ugly and unsafe. The door you made is more jagged than a dog’s teeth.)]

Shi Zhile: "..."

’What a vicious mouth!’

It was impossible for her to fill it back in now.

She opened the mission hall and selected the "Wall with Door" modification.

[Materials required to modify the stone wall with a door: Stone x30, Wood x30, Iron Nails x20]

"Confirm modification."

The materials in her backpack decreased, and the white mist appeared again. What was different from before was that the modification was extremely fast this time—so fast that Shi Zhile didn’t even have time to try and touch the mist.

[Modification Successful! Shelter Level: LV.2. A sturdy Level Two shelter. The space within the shelter will grant the player 100% safety.

(Singing? Dancing? No matter how much of a nuisance you are, unknown Level One creatures won’t be able to get in~)]

Shi Zhile’s eyes immediately locked onto the words "unknown Level One creatures."

It was understandable for shelters to have Levels these days, but it was definitely not a good thing for creatures to have them too.

Just thinking about it made her scalp tingle. She didn’t dare to speculate wildly.

Pushing aside other thoughts, she continued with the stone wall modification. This time, she wanted to extend the courtyard ten meters to the south.

She wanted to leave herself enough safe space.

Building the east and west stone walls consumed a total of 200 stones. The southernmost wall needed to have a door and two windows.

[Materials required to build a stone wall with a door and windows: Stone x50, Wood x70, Iron Nails x40.]

She had enough stone and wood, but she was short 35 iron nails.

She opened the [Chat] channel. She hadn’t realized it before, but one look gave her a shock.

After the news about monsters in the sea had circulated all night, supplies had become more and more expensive.

The only player who owned a workbench had raised the price of a single iron nail to two bottles of water.

It was relatively safe during the day, so she decided not to trade for supplies for now. She would lay low, develop her base, and observe.

She transplanted the coconut tree in a corner of the courtyard.

She went into the room, ate a can of eight-treasure porridge for breakfast, and then left the things she didn’t need for the time being in the room.

This cleared up 5 slots in her backpack.

Yesterday, a lot of seafood had been left behind when the tide went out at the starting point. It was still early today, so she could go beachcombing along the coast.

Yesterday, she had gotten a beachcombing set from a drop, and now she took it out.

[Beachcombing Set: Damage-Immune Rubber Boots, Bottomless Seafood Bucket, Clam Rake, Seafood Tongs.]

The prefixes "Damage-Immune" and "Bottomless" greatly added to the fun of beachcombing.

She changed her shoes, locked the door, and headed to the shore with the burning-underwear-version torch.

The tide had receded to the sandy beach, exposing the stretch of broken stones.

And, as if the game had bugged out, the damaged raft from yesterday was still in the same place, not having been washed away by the rising or falling tide.

To prevent the game from auto-fixing it, she first stored the raft in her backpack, then began searching for seafood in the crevices of the stone beach.

Having encountered sea monsters twice in a row yesterday, Shi Zhile couldn’t help but feel a flicker of fear upon seeing the ocean.

But when she thought about the treasure chests and supplies in the sea, her fear dissipated and was replaced by excitement.

She hadn’t decided whether to go out to sea today. ’Perhaps I should scavenge around the island first.’

A pool of seawater had collected among the broken stones. In the small puddle, a little fish she didn’t recognize was swimming back and forth.

This was the first time she had seen a live fish. Thinking of her "all-ambition-no-skill" fishing rod and her pitifully few supplies, she became determined to catch this fish.

Her hand was injured, so she didn’t dare let it touch the seawater. She could only chase the fish with her seafood tongs. After two failed attempts, the fish darted directly into a crevice between the stones.

She looked up at the sky and took a deep breath.

"What happened to the luck boost you promised! System, you’re a liar! If there’s no food, we can all just starve together."

It seemed the system had a crisis of conscience, as the seafood stranded on the stone beach began to pop up one after another.

She scrambled over, using both her hands and feet. She didn’t care about size or species; as long as the panel indicated it was edible, she happily accepted it all. 𝑓𝑟ℯℴ𝓂

In less than half an hour, she had caught more types of seafood than she had in her entire life.

The sun was fully out now. She put the torch in her backpack and continued beachcombing along the island’s coast. Whenever she came across trash washed up from the sea, she collected that in her bucket as well.

The chat messages kept refreshing. So far, all the players who had gone out to sea were safe.

Yesterday, they had returned at six. The monsters appeared randomly after six. ’Do the sea monsters have work schedules too?’

That was probably the case, but it needed to be verified. The players out on the sea were the primary vanguards for testing this theory.

The tide had receded far out, and there was very little seafood left on the shore. She picked up her small bucket and walked along the North Coast toward the forest.

She was going into the forest not only to collect dry branches for fire but also to search for fresh water.

She had been too rushed yesterday and hadn’t properly checked the areas around the forest and swamp. Taking this opportunity, she could try to pester the system for information.

At the very least, she had to figure out the system’s purpose.