Chapter 16: Lighting the Fish Oil

Chapter 16: Chapter 16: Lighting the Fish Oil

Seraphina Sinclair knew it was useless to dwell on such thoughts. Suppressing her emotions, she took another look at the Insight panel, even reading through the Description again.

And that second look led her to a key detail.

This monster was a low-level black mist creature!

That name was familiar to Seraphina Sinclair!

She’d seen it before.

Her breathing quickened. Seraphina had always had a good memory, and after a moment of thought, she remembered exactly where she had seen that term.

The Fish Oil!

That’s right! The Fish Oil!

Seraphina immediately looked over at the Fish Oil sitting quietly on the stone platform she had built. The spot hadn’t been contaminated by the black water yet, and while it was a short distance away, it wouldn’t be too much trouble to retrieve.

As for the lighter...

Seraphina always kept small items like that on her person.

She sprang into action, closing the distance in a few quick steps and grabbing the Fish Oil. She patiently checked its Description again to make sure her memory wasn’t playing tricks on her.

In her tense and anxious state, she had to flick the lighter twice before the Fish Oil caught fire.

A thin wisp of white smoke immediately began to rise. Seraphina had assumed it would take a moment to work, but the moment she lit the Fish Oil, all visible Blackmist Worms instantly retreated.

The black water was still there, providing cover, so Seraphina couldn’t be certain if all the Blackmist Worms had withdrawn. Just as she was about to scan the area again with her fluorescent lamp, she suddenly heard the Sunflower’s voice in her head: "They’re all gone. It smells so good. I like it."

’Is it because it likes the smell of the burning Fish Oil?’

Seraphina sniffed the air carefully but couldn’t smell a thing.

However, she had long since discovered that the Sunflower’s senses of smell and sight were quite different from a human’s, which was precisely why it was such an effective alarm.

So, while it was a bit of a shame that she couldn’t smell the Fish Oil, it wasn’t entirely unexpected.

The black rain would last for an hour. Seraphina extinguished the Fish Oil once during this time, and as soon as the white smoke cleared from the mobile cabin, the banished Blackmist Worms swarmed back in like flies to rotting meat.

With a sigh of resignation, Seraphina had no choice but to light the Fish Oil again.

Still, the Description said this piece of Fish Oil could burn for forty-eight hours. With the rain only lasting an hour each day, this single piece would last her forty-eight days, even if she had to light it every time she collected rainwater.

It was quite long-lasting.

After the black rain stopped, Seraphina checked how much water had been filtered into the tank.

Even though it had only rained for an hour, the tank had already collected 10 liters of utility water.

That’s right.

This type of filtered water was called "utility water."

The system had displayed this name when Seraphina checked, a fact she was quite pleased with.

liters of utility water might not seem like much, but for someone who hadn’t even been able to flush her toilet before, it was more than enough.

Brimming with anticipation, Seraphina went to the bathroom and reinstalled the water tank.

Now, she finally had a fully functional bathroom.

She would never have to worry about where to take a dump again.

Seraphina glanced at the smoke-blackened bathroom. The environment wasn’t great, but it was still a vast improvement over doing her business in the mobile cabin.

At this point, her quality of life had taken a huge leap forward.

The next things to worry about were how to permanently solve her drinking water and food problems.

But before all that, there was an even more pressing issue. ’In this godforsaken place, how in the world am I supposed to get stronger?’

’My attribute points can’t be fixed, can they?’

Frowning, Seraphina opened her panel again. It was identical to yesterday; the values hadn’t changed at all.

’Was this place so hardcore that you had to rely on your own efforts to get stronger, bit by bit?’

Seraphina couldn’t figure it out, but her body was honest.

She’d always enjoyed working out, and though she had no equipment to help her now, she was still far more efficient than most people.

An hour later, she stopped her daily exercises and opened the panel to check her attribute points again.

Great.

No change whatsoever.

She suddenly let out a small laugh. ’Even if this method could actually increase my attribute points, it’s not like it would work that fast.’

’Everything takes time and accumulation. This is probably no exception.’

’I’ll just continue tomorrow.’

After her workout, Seraphina found she had time left over with nothing to do.

She opened the regional channel, deciding to see what everyone else was up to.

"My arm is so sore from shaking this fluorescent lamp."

"Hilarious. I guess your arm doesn’t hurt when you’re typing? Talk about a double standard."

"Do you have to attack someone for making a casual complaint? So mean."

"Am I being mean just for stating a fact? So sensitive."

"Can’t handle this? Go home and practice before you come back online."

Seraphina Sinclair... "..."

’This... well...’

’It’s pretty normal, I guess. Isn’t this just daily life for the modern netizen?’

’It hasn’t changed no matter where you go. A specialty from back home, you could say?’

Seraphina scrolled back through the chat log for a while, and her search actually turned up a useful message.

[ImTheBoss]: This world is terrifyingly realistic. And this system thing is obviously meant to lower the difficulty for us. Its criteria for identifying things are very broad. For example, if you need cloth, you can just cut your own clothes into pieces, and the system will recognize it as cloth, a usable material. Of course, many of you have probably figured this out already. I’m just using it as an example.

[ImTheBoss]: With that previous message as a premise, we can now talk about something more advanced. Since everything can be obtained through our own efforts, we can totally craft our own equipment. Take a simple water filter, for instance. A plastic bottle with the bottom cut off, plus a few layers of filtering material, and we have a finished product.

What he said actually made a lot of sense, but the survivors’ understanding of the world was still far too limited. Many people were mocking him for his armchair strategizing.

"You made it. And then what? Where’s the water?"

"Never mind finding filtering materials, I’ll just ask you this: where am I supposed to find a wild water source?"

"Uh... dude, we’re trapped in mobile cabins, you know? You think this is some wilderness survival show?"

Up to this point, it was all information Seraphina already knew. She certainly wouldn’t have considered any of this "useful." What she truly found useful was the message that followed.

[ImTheBoss]: Since some people are questioning the practicality, I’ll share a few basic recipes that can actually save your life. Remember these. They might just save you in a critical moment.

Seraphina’s finger hovered over the screen, her eyes glued to the new message that popped up. The bickering in the regional channel seemed to fade away in an instant, her entire focus now concentrated on those few lines of text.