Though she had baited the hook several times, He Ni still hadn’t caught a single fish or shrimp.
She truly couldn’t understand why.
After casting her line once again, she opened the World Channel:【Player 421985: Caught a sea fish weighing five to six kilograms. Those needing food can hit me up, low prices available.】
【Ocean Duel: Anyone interested in a turtle? Around eight kilograms. Will trade for a weapon. DM me if interested.】
【Picking a Name Is Hard: No bait needed! Can catch with just an empty hook. Anyone want a big lobster? A hefty 14 kilograms!】
She hadn’t misread it—the Newbie Fishing Rod really could catch seafood!
So why couldn’t she catch anything?
He Ni was genuinely baffled.
She stared at the screen for a long time.
It wasn’t that players were bragging; many had posted photos, and the Trading Hall was slowly filling with fish, shrimp, crabs, and turtles for sale.
Because of this, seafood prices had plummeted, and the most valuable commodity now was freshwater. Fifty milliliters of freshwater could even be exchanged for five units of fish meat.
One unit of fish meat refers to 500 grams of system-processed fish fillets, excluding the head and tail.
It made sense—living off the sea meant seafood was abundant, but freshwater was scarce.
Under the blazing sun, without water, players probably couldn’t last two days.
Theoretically, freshwater could be obtained through distillation, but due to limited equipment, it was extremely difficult and costly.
While He Ni was scrolling through the World Channel messages, the float a few meters away twitched again.
She snapped back to focus and raised her fishing rod:【Obtained Plastic Bag x1】
Her face showed no change, but inside, it was like a cold bucket of water had been dumped on her.
She had realized—she wasn’t failing because of poor technique. It was simply bad luck.
This was the most frustrating kind of helplessness.
You could improve skill, but bad luck was impossible to overcome.
She closed the virtual screen and surveyed the surrounding waters. Seeing nothing worth salvaging, she resigned herself to continue fishing.
She refused to believe her luck was that bad, catching junk every time.
For several hours, she fished intermittently, recovering stamina while collecting floating debris.
Gradually, she gathered Plastic Bags x5, Foam Lunch Boxes x3, Discarded Tires x2, Coconut Leaves x2, Thick Wooden Boards x1, Water Pipes x1, Waterlogged Alarm Clock x1, Shampoo Bottles x1, Broken Fish Traps x1, Rubber Tubes x1, and a Small Yellow Duck Toy x1.
With the Newbie Fishing Rod down to its last 5 durability points, He Ni’s heart had turned as cold as the butcher’s knife in the big supermarket.
A faint smile played on her lips.
When the float twitched again, she expertly reeled in her line, eyes burning with anticipation to see what worthless item awaited her final catch:【Obtained Discarded Bicycle Tire x1】
Haha!
A discarded bicycle tire!
More junk!
Hahaha!
I’ll catch them all!
I want to catch everyone who throws garbage into the sea!
Her plastic bucket was already full, unable to hold any more.
The rubber tube and broken fish trap she had caught afterward went into her backpack for now.
Mechanically, she rinsed the mud-covered tire in seawater.
Just as she was about to lay it across the plastic bucket, a golden notification popped up on the virtual screen:【Deep-Sea Fishing, how could there be no trash? Trash drop rate is 100%. Your luck makes the Sea God laugh. Congratulations Player 117177 on receiving the Sea God’s “Lucky Talent Card” x1】
!!!
What?
Lucky Talent Card?
He Ni jerked upright.
A golden card hovered before her eyes, shimmering brilliantly under the sun.
She half-wondered if she was hallucinating from frustration, quickly reaching out to touch it.
The texture was smooth and warm—it was real.
A Talent Card—she had obtained a Talent Card!
Countless thoughts flooded her mind.
Covering her pounding heart, she wondered if she had somehow become the heroine of a Sea Survival Literature story.
Had her golden finger finally arrived?
A string of prompts appeared:【Lucky Talent Card: Using this card allows the player to awaken a random lucky talent.】
【Note 1: Lucky Talent Cards are tradable; once a talent is awakened, it cannot be transferred or replaced. Each player can use only one such card.】
【Note 2: Lucky Talent Cards appear only on the first day Divine Game is launched. All rights reserved by the Divine Game Production Team.】
【Detected Player 117177 holding Lucky Talent Card x1. Awaken unique lucky talent?】
Well, judging by the notes, this wasn’t some exclusive golden finger but rather a standard game feature.
Still, He Ni was already satisfied.
Without hesitation, she selected [Yes].
The next second, the Talent Card dissolved into golden sparkles that sank into her body.
Like soaking in a warm spring, her growing hunger and thirst vanished, as if a shriveled seed was absorbing abundant nourishment from spring rain.
Her status and energy rapidly restored.
Her personal panel values surged upward.
A talent awakening notification popped up:【Steadfast mindset, terrible luck, repeated failures, persistent fighting, and passionate collection of every piece of junk obtained—no one but you deserves the title [Scavenger].】
【Congratulations Player 117177 on successfully awakening the B-Rank Talent [Scavenger].】
An insultingly direct description.
What did “passionate collection of junk” mean?
Did she really enjoy collecting garbage!?
She wanted to catch the Sea God along with it all.
But from her current state, she could tell the talent’s buff was significant.
She immediately checked the talent details:【Scavenger: B-Rank 0.00% (Upgradeable)】
Survival instinct compels you to seek opportunity among ruins.
【Skill 1: Fix It Up and It’s Usable】 A keen-eyed scavenger can repurpose old junk.
Consume a certain amount of energy points to modify any material (Energy regenerates +5 per day, accumulative; current energy: 5).
【Skill 2: It All Fits (Passive)】
A scavenger’s backpack is special!
Your personal storage space is permanently expanded by 5 slots, and the stacking limit per slot is removed.
【Skill 3: Let Me Search Again (Passive)】
When acquiring any material through legitimate means, there is a 35% chance to trigger extra critical bonus.
One active skill, two passive.
Though only B-Rank, the skills seemed pretty good.
He Ni immediately checked her inventory.
Next to the original 15 slots, five new gold-framed slots had appeared.
The “no stacking limit” applied only to these five slots.
But she was very pleased—now she could carry five more types of materials than others, and these five slots allowed unlimited stacking.
In a survival game where resource collection mattered most, just this passive made her secretly much stronger.
The “Let Me Search Again” passive was also nice.
Extra critical meant double materials.
A 35% chance wasn’t high, but a critical hit at the right moment was a pleasant surprise.
Of course, the most intriguing was “Fix It Up and It’s Usable.”
She could repurpose junk into useful items.
What if some junk was actually treasure?
Her heart flared as she looked at the Newbie Fishing Rod.
All day, the only thing she hadn’t caught was the rod from the gift pack.
Picking it up, He Ni followed the prompt to activate her talent.
The virtual screen displayed:【Use skill “Fix It Up and It’s Usable” to modify “Newbie Fishing Rod”? This modification consumes 35 energy points.】
【Insufficient energy points.】
【Note: Newbie Gift Pack items require an additional 30 energy points to modify, as they are blessings from the Sea God.】
She couldn’t modify it!
And this fishing rod, seemingly ordinary, was a “Sea God blessed gift”?
He Ni looked it over several times but couldn’t find what made it precious.
Now wasn’t the time to investigate.
She turned to the pile of junk in the bucket.
Assuming the rod wasn’t blessed, modifying it required only 5 energy points.
That meant she could only modify one item per day.
Or did different items consume different amounts of energy to modify?
With this in mind, she tried to use the skill on the plastic bucket:【Use skill “Fix It Up and It’s Usable” to modify “Plastic Bucket”? This modification consumes 3 energy points.】
Sure enough, modifying the bucket consumed fewer points than the rod.
After testing, He Ni had a clearer idea.
Natural items like coconut leaves cost 2 energy points to modify.
Crafted but damaged items like broken fishing nets or buckets cost 3 points.
Water bottles and compressed biscuits from the gift pack, like the fishing rod, required an extra 30 points.
Excluding these three, the highest modification cost was a mysterious key at 30 energy points.
Now He Ni had two options: choose one item she could currently modify to test her talent, or restore stamina first and see if she could salvage something more valuable to modify later.
She glanced over the supplies on the raft.
What she needed most now was basic survival materials: freshwater and food.
But in less than an hour, night would fall, so lighting and weapons were also important.
Her grappling hook lightly tapped the wooden raft, producing a dull sound as she pondered.
Suddenly, a buzzing thought exploded in her mind.
He Ni looked down at the raft beneath her.
Could the raft itself be modified?
This idea made her heart race.
Setting aside the grappling hook, she pressed her hand against the raft:【Use skill “Fix It Up and It’s Usable” to modify “Player 117177’s Raft”? This modification consumes 20 energy points.】
【Insufficient energy points.】
It really was possible!
But to modify the raft, she’d need to save up energy for four days.
The newbie period ended at 6:00 on June 4th.
That meant the daily reset happened every morning at 6, and by 6 AM on the 4th, she’d have the 20 energy points just in time to modify the raft, still within newbie status.
After some thought, He Ni quickly made her choice.
Saving energy to modify the raft was the best option after weighing pros and cons.
Food, water, fire, and weapons were replaceable with many ways to obtain them.
The raft was different—it was the foundation of every player’s survival at sea. If modified successfully, she might leverage the upgraded raft to overtake luckier, stronger, or more talented players and secure her right to live.
Of course, in such harsh conditions, refusing to use this skill would make survival many times harder.
The risk was high, but it was worth trying.