Chapter 31: Pharmacy Bench Prompt

Chapter 31: Chapter 31: Pharmacy Bench Prompt

The reply came quickly: [How many bottles of water are you offering?]

Their tone was urgent, as if they couldn’t wait to trade it away.

Shi Zhile checked her backpack. She had forty-five bottles of purified water, but those were easy to carry, so she wasn’t going to trade them.

The water from her seawater filter and the freshwater lake was drinkable, but she didn’t have any bottles for it.

She replied: [I can give you 80 bottles at most. If you provide the bottles, I can give you five extra.]

[Foam: 100 bottles. Give me one hundred bottles of water and we have a deal. I’ll provide the bottles myself. Just deliver them in installments—five bottles a day. How’s that?]

’Decisive and not greedy. My favorite kind of partner,’ Shi Zhile thought.

[Contentment Brings Happiness: Deal. That gives me time to filter the water anyway.]

She sent the agreement over. After the other person signed it, they sent five empty bottles.

Shi Zhile filled them with filtered seawater and sent them over. After the other player accepted them, they sent another message.

[Thanks! By the way, my sand can be smelted into glass. You can contact me if you need some.]

’Glass?’

The Rare Blueprint she had received was for making glass. She’d only given it a quick glance at the time and hadn’t paid much attention to the required materials.

She pulled it out, and sure enough, it was a blueprint for making glass.

[50 kg of sand for one bottle of water. Deal?]

[Foam: Deal! How about we sign a permanent agreement? We can always trade at this price from now on.]

Afraid that Shi Zhile would back out, she immediately sent the agreement.

A permanent agreement was just like a mutual trade agreement, with the only difference being that neither party could raise their prices on the other.

Shi Zhile worried that Foam would raise the price of sand if she saw her selling glass for a premium. Foam worried that if Shi Zhile failed to produce glass, she would demand a lower price for sand.

Foam’s suggestion of a permanent agreement was exactly what she wanted.

After checking it for issues, she signed it and sent over a bottle of water.

The other party was even faster, sending over the sand and the pharmacy station the instant the agreement took effect.

[Sand x100 (50 kg)]

[Sand: A housing construction material. Can be smelted into glass and mirrors, provided you have a furnace and a special flame. When combined with cement, can be used to build a sturdy fortress.]

’How could such a vital resource be so hard to trade away?’

She figured it was most likely because no one had cement.

[Pharmacy Station x1]

[Pharmacy Station: An essential tool for processing medicinal herbs and creating medicine. (It doesn’t matter if it’s traditional or modern medicine. As long as I have a sample, I can analyze its components and reproduce it based on the full list of ingredients.)

Note 1: For the player holding the Pharmacy Station, the probability of traditional medicinal herbs appearing on their starting island is reduced to 1%.

Note 2: For the player holding the Pharmacy Station, a new island will spawn 100 kilometers away every three days.]

No wonder Foam had been so quick to trade the Pharmacy Station.

But on her Stone Island, where not even weeds could be bothered to grow, did she really need to worry about a reduced chance for herbs to appear?

’As for the new islands spawning...’

’They won’t be like Rainforest Island, with another dungeon, will they?’

The Rainforest Island dungeon had left her traumatized. If she could help it, she never wanted to set foot in another dungeon for the rest of her life.

Of course, she could just not go to those islands, but that wouldn’t stop others from coming to hers.

To be safe, she had to set up traps around her island.

The ability to both attack and defend was the only guarantee of survival.

’Can’t rush!’

Once she got her farming and animal husbandry up and running, she could create her own ecosystem. Then she could live quite well just by staying on her island and playing defense.

The reeds in the yard had dried. Holding out no hope for her Handicraft Old Six Passive Skills, she opened the Quest Hall.

[Materials for Basic Reed Mat: Reeds x100.]

[Materials for Intermediate Reed Mat: Reeds x50, Rope x10.]

[Materials for Advanced Reed Mat: Reeds x30, Cloth x1. Reward: Reed Curtain x1, Rope x1.]

The Advanced one came with a reward, but she didn’t have any cloth.

She then remembered that she had been looking for someone to trade for cloth in the first place.

She contacted Foam again and traded ten bottles of water for two bolts of cloth.

"Craft Advanced Reed Mat."

Half the reeds in the yard vanished.

[Advanced Reed Mat x1]

The reed mat materialized out of thin air and fell right on top of Shi Zhile’s head.

"SYSTEM!!! GO TO HELL!"

’That damn thing holds such a grudge!’

She pulled the mat off her head, extremely satisfied as she felt the smooth cloth.

A sharp pain shot through the wound on her head. She went back into the cave, took out the wooden bed, laid the mat on top, and hung the curtain over the entrance.

"I have a cotton coat, but I’ll still need a blanket. A fire alone won’t be warm enough this winter."

She sat on the edge of the bed. Exhausted, she lay down and fell asleep not long after.

When she woke up, Shi Zhile felt dizzy and her vision blurred. A wave of nausea washed over her, and she couldn’t stop herself from dry heaving.

The heaving aggravated the wound on the back of her head, making it throb with even more pain.

’Don’t tell me I got a concussion!’

A head wound was nothing to be careless about. She fought back the nausea and took a few sips of spring water to calm her stomach.

She reached for the back of her head and her hand came back wet with blood.

’I’m screwed!’

She paused. "System, you made my wound reopen. Rest assured, whether I live or die, I’m taking you with me."

[HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH ME!]

"I don’t care! We might not live together, but we’ll definitely die together!"

After managing to treat the wound, she pulled out the cotton coat to prop herself up, trying to move as little as possible.

[Player’s wound has worsened. Life Value will continuously decrease. Risk of infection. (Life Value: -10/hour. Current Life Value: 73)]

It seemed that simply applying medicine and a bandage wasn’t enough to stabilize her Life Value.

She took out an anti-inflammatory pill and washed it down with spring water. The next moment, another system announcement came.

[Life Value +5. Current Life Value: 78/100 (-5/hour).]

The rate of loss had slowed. At this rate, she had about 15 hours to live.

A concussion required bed rest. She would have to lie flat until she recovered and maintain her Life Value by eating snake meat three times a day, along with spring water and anti-inflammatories.

While she was injured, she absolutely could not let her Life Value fall below 50.

She closed her eyes to ease the discomfort and silently opened the chat in her mind.

[Contentment Brings Happiness: Trading food for anti-inflammatory meds. PM if you have any.]

After midnight, she took out the Wish Drifting Bottle.

"Quintuple all materials I gained today."

No golden light appeared.

"Quadruple all materials I gained today."

...

"Triple all materials I gained today."

A bright light flared.

Soon, she received a private message.

[Old Timer: Comrade, I have anti-inflammatory pills. What are you trading for them?]

[Contentment Brings Happiness: Instant noodles or drinking water.]

Seafood was out of the question. Everyone lived by the sea and ate from the sea; besides her, who couldn’t seem to catch any fish, no one was likely short on it.

[Old Timer: I have five boxes of anti-inflammatory pills. I’ll trade you four of them for a fire source and ten packs of instant noodles.]

Shi Zhile was surprised. He was asking for so little.

It seemed he was desperate for food.

Or perhaps he was a player from Server 3.

[Deal. For the fire source, I’ll give you some ever-burning lava. I’ll throw in a stone basin to hold it, too.]

She sent over the agreement, and the other player signed and sent back four boxes of anti-inflammatory pills.

[Anti-inflammatory Pills x4]

[Today’s Materials Triple Bonus: Anti-inflammatory Pills x12]

One box contained twelve pills, so twelve boxes meant she had 144 pills. Taking three a day, that was enough to last for 48 days.

Shi Zhile sent over her own stone basin of lava and the instant noodles.