Like a shot of adrenaline, He Ni immediately perked up and began taking stock of her inventory: She originally had 46 large plastic shopping bags—the kind unique to supermarkets—but used 5 for expanding the compost bin, leaving 41.
There were also 61 specially colored garbage bags, 23 tissue packaging bags of various brands, 19 snack packaging bags, 17 preservation bags, 6 plastic films, and 8 sheets of bubble wrap.
A total of 73 plastic bottles and drink bottles of various sizes.
Other miscellaneous plastic items included rubber tubes, tire rubber, plastic hangers, and fake plastic flowers, totaling 34 pieces.
There were several foam lunch boxes and foam containers as well, but the foam containers had to be kept for other uses.
If she could trade all this trash, how far could she be from striking it rich overnight?
Expanding and upgrading the raft had cost her most of her inventory, and after the Beginner Period ended, the amount of drifting debris sharply declined.
She had originally thought it would take a long time to gather enough materials to upgrade to a level 2 raft.
But now it seemed unnecessary.
Her chance had come!
After organizing her supply list, He Ni took a ragtag group photo of the trash and posted an ad on the World Channel, calling out to trade combustible junk for fresh water and basic building materials.
As soon as the message went out, she once again experienced what it meant to be a top-tier Player; her private messages flooded with over 999+ strangers instantly.
【Old Popsicle: Two pieces of wood for one plastic bag, deal?】
【Yi Dou: Want iron nails? Two plastic bottles for them.】
【Tianzai Laile: Got a special functional straw hat, want it? Ten big combustible bags for exchange.】
He Ni’s eyes swam in a dizzying blur of messages.
She had to constantly stay alert for monsters, sift through the information, and haggle with others—her fingers nearly smoking from the nonstop work.
In less than an hour, boosted by critical luck from her talents, she successfully obtained 133 pieces of wood, 76 fibers, 32 coarse ropes, 24 waterproof canvas pieces, 17 iron nails, 13 liters of fresh water, and 2 units of tree resin.
She even traded for a fishing rod!
【Makeshift Fishing Rod: A simple fishing rod crafted from wood, fine string, and an iron hook. Used with bait, it allows deep-sea fishing.】
【Durability: 200 (5 stamina/use, 2 durability/use)】
【Special: Cannot be repaired】
It only loses 2 durability per use, which means it can fish about 100 times before breaking, but cannot be fixed.
He Ni thought of the word “Blueprint” frequently popping up in the Trading Hall, and a Player named Kun, who probably had the crafting Blueprint for the Makeshift Fishing Rod, otherwise, they wouldn’t be offering it for trade.
Trash during the day suddenly became hard currency at night; she could even exchange it for precious tree resin and a fishing rod.
The turnaround was beyond her expectations.
Looking at the pile of junk still waiting to be traded on her raft, despite the threat of monsters, the dimples on He Ni’s cheeks never faded.
At this rate, she could upgrade her raft to level 2 by tomorrow.
Judging from the daytime situation, not many players were successfully expanding and upgrading their rafts yet; she might even rank in the top 100.
The “Scavenger” talent might not boost combat power much, but it clearly helped with base-building speed.
Of course, she knew this “turning trash into treasure” bonanza tonight was just a lucky break and wouldn’t last forever.
No matter when, combustible trash always made up the majority of drifting debris.
Now that it was dark, players couldn’t see or lacked stamina, so they had to buy what they needed rather than retrieve it themselves.
But at dawn, with their stamina restored, they would focus on scavenging combustible trash to prepare for the night.
The combustible goods fiercely sought after tonight would lose their value tomorrow.
So she had to sell everything tonight.
Filtering messages and bargaining might seem simple but was extremely time-consuming; He Ni kept busy until well past midnight.
Three pieces of wood could burn for 135 minutes, but exchanging three pieces of wood for one plastic bag meant burning all night.
Both buyers and sellers won in such trades.
In just five or six hours, she nearly sold all her combustible waste.
Unread private messages still poured in; countless players wanted to trade with her, even scrambling over the smallest chip bags and candy wrappers.
He Ni was once again grateful that due to poverty and her hoarding habit, she had kept every torn bag and broken bottle.
After selling the last tire rubber and leaving only a few foam boxes, she finally took a satisfying inventory of her haul.
Wood alone had reached 377 pieces!
Other items were plentiful as well: 38.6 liters of fresh water, 147 fibers, 132 coarse ropes, 78 iron nails, 18 tree resins, and 659 pieces of large yellow croaker meat…
But the most valuable was a precious Flint Firestarter!
It had cost her three thick soy sauce buckets and a long plastic tube to obtain.
Though cumbersome to use, the Fire Starter had 400 durability, losing only 1 durability per use, with a 75% ignition success rate—enough to last a long time.
She finally solved her fire problem completely.
The feeling of striking it rich overnight was incredibly satisfying, and He Ni felt herself getting addicted.
Happily tallying her gains, she realized she now had more than enough materials to upgrade to Rookie Shelter Level 2, with plenty left over.
For the next ten days, even if she didn’t catch a single coconut, she could live comfortably.
But this good mood didn’t last long.
Around 3 a.m., after finishing the garbage sales, He Ni was browsing the Trading Hall for so-called “Core Materials” when she suddenly heard a faint sound—so soft she might have missed it if not for staying constantly alert: “Plop—”
It sounded like something sticky gently dropping onto the edge of the raft.
Her heart skipped a beat.
Gripping her crowbar, she used the dim glow of her fish oil lantern to quickly stand and scan her surroundings.
Though busy selling trash these past few hours, she hadn’t stopped paying attention to the World Channel, seeing plenty of monster-related chatter: 【Maka Baka: Not lying, I really saw some monster under my raft trying to get close. I had to wave my torch and fish spear to drive them off.】
【Dayu Wanlilai: Everyone, keep the fire going. I just burned through one piece of wood, didn’t keep the fire going in time, and felt creepy all over. When I relit my torch, I caught something quickly diving under the water—I almost got eaten without knowing it.】
【Liu Jiajie: Too scary! There really was something. My raft almost got smashed apart.】
【Player221532: Help! Anyone with weapons support? I see a monster…】
She’d felt similar unease in the last few hours.
Several times, as she turned, she caught out of the corner of her eye something darting by.
Like a pair of eyes watching her suddenly closing, or a monster stealthily slipping under the water.
But this time was different.
She truly heard an eerie noise close by.
Light but dull, with a sticky, moist feeling that made her skin crawl.
It felt like…something had climbed onto her raft.
Under the heavy night sky, the black sea swallowed everything, turning even the wooden raft beneath her feet pitch black.
He Ni scanned around and immediately noticed the anomaly.
At the edge of the raft, there was a black, tar-like unknown mass, shaped like a black stone, lying quietly and blending with the wood.
If she hadn’t searched carefully, she wouldn’t have noticed it under the dim light.
He Ni’s hair stood on end as she stared intently.
Looking closer at where the black mass met the seawater around the raft, the color was even darker than ink.
Coupled with the “plop” sound she had just heard, it was most likely part of a monster’s body.
It.
How big was its main body?
So far, the only monster she’d encountered was the Sha Chi Luo, and this was clearly not that.
The ocean was vast and endless; who knew how many kinds of monsters lurked beneath?
He Ni rallied her courage.
She had her crowbar as a weapon, and if that wasn’t enough, she had a Tar Torch.
Waving the torch could probably scare it off, but that would be a last-resort survival tactic.
She wanted to kill it.
Opportunities to make a quick profit by selling trash like tonight were rare and purely accidental.
Poverty and weakness hung over her like a blade, ready to fall at any moment.
She was desperate to kill the monster, earn rewards, upgrade her raft, and accumulate as many materials as possible to become stronger, richer, and more confident.
Killing monsters had positive returns, right?
Like how No Name earned achievements and medals after killing the Sha Chi Luo.
No matter what, she had to try.
But without knowing what kind of monster this was or what skills it had, she couldn’t act rashly.
Time seemed to freeze.
He Ni’s watchful gaze felt almost tangible, and the monster immediately realized it had been exposed.
Soon, the same “plop” sound came again, not just from behind her, but all around.
Black, tar-like masses appeared simultaneously around the raft, surrounding her.
He Ni’s heart trembled—was this a monster tide?
If she had been 80% confident of victory before, now she had only 30%.
Before she could think further, the monsters moved first.
Besides the one she had been staring at, black masses from all directions squirmed and launched toward her feet.
Strangely, their speed should have been lightning fast, but the air seemed filled with a gel-like substance that slowed them down to about 0.2x speed.
Using this moment, He Ni’s sharp senses caught the details clearly.
This was…a Giant Octopus?
The black plaster-like masses were the tips of the octopus’s tentacles.
What now lunged at her were its eight arms!
It was a massive octopus lurking beneath her raft, its tentacles spread out, attacking from all directions, trying to drag her into the black sea.
The expanded raft was a solid 3×3 meters—how enormous must this octopus be?
He Ni moved faster than she expected.
Before she could formulate a plan, her body reacted instinctively, leaning back sharply and narrowly dodging two tentacles curling in from the right.
But there were more tentacles.
She heard the rushing wind from the left and behind.
Her sudden move caused the raft to shake violently; seawater seeped through the gaps, soaking the sun-dried wood beneath her feet, making it dangerously slippery.
Half-bent over, she clumsily rolled sideways.
The octopus’s tentacles brushed along her spine and legs.
She slammed one with her crowbar, a flash of red damage numbers appeared.
The hit tentacle recoiled sharply, causing it pain.
Fire!
More tentacles came for her.
This time, He Ni noticed something.
Their seemingly chaotic attacks actually avoided the lantern in the middle of the raft.
The monster clearly feared the sudden flash of fire.
An idea formed in her mind.