After hauling a batch of trees up, Qin Zhiyu realized that carrying them was highly inefficient, making her even more eager to obtain a storage device.
Just as she was dragging two massive logs uphill, Qin Zhiyu caught a glimpse of a black figure out of the corner of her eye.
“Someone?!” she thought to herself, her heart skipping a beat. When did this person arrive? Where did they come from? How long have they been here? Are there accomplices?
As these thoughts raced through her mind, a sudden rush of wind whistled past her ear.
“Damn it!”
Qin Zhiyu quickly dropped the logs in her hands and rolled to the left.
“Open the Sanctuary gate for us nicely, and we’ll let you go,” said a burly man, leering at Qin Zhiyu.
“Look at her, she’s quite the beauty. I’d say this Heavenly Disaster came at just the right time—sending us a house and a woman all at once, hahaha!”
A short, skinny man emerged from the grass, eyeing Qin Zhiyu with malicious intent.
The third man mentioned by the skinny one descended from behind the Sanctuary, holding a wooden axe just like the other two.
“Why should I? This is my Sanctuary!”
Qin Zhiyu quickly calmed herself, trying to divert their attention. This wasn’t a good place for a fight! The hard mountain terrain offered limited space to dodge, and swordplay would be difficult here!
“What’s yours is ours, right, boss?” The skinny man laughed heartily, speaking confidently to the tall man beside him.
“Enough talk, finish her off!” the black-clad man who had descended from above said coldly.
“I can give you the Sanctuary, but…”
“But what, little beauty?”
Seizing the moment, Qin Zhiyu delivered a swift kick to the tall man’s groin, breaking his defense. She then drew the Iron Sword strapped to her waist and smoothly turned to stab another man in the abdomen.
“Damn it, you bitch! Third brother, kill her!” the tall man roared in anger. He never expected the rabbit he saw as prey to bite back—what a disgrace.
After swiftly dealing with two of them, the black-clad man saw his useless brothers couldn’t even handle a woman. Ignoring the half-dead second brother, he lunged at Qin Zhiyu!
By then, Qin Zhiyu had pulled out the Iron Sword and leaped into the grass on the other side, crouching low to hide.
In the pitch darkness, visibility was severely limited. She could see the black-clad man entering the grass, but he couldn’t spot her.
Cautiously, the black-clad man stepped into the grass. Qin Zhiyu, slender and agile, moved silently, her faint footsteps masked by the boss’s agonized groans. She slowly circled around to the black-clad man’s side and cleanly stabbed him from behind.
One left.
Qin Zhiyu thought calmly. Even in his dazed state, the boss realized the situation had turned dire.
Qin Zhiyu gave him no chance to escape.
“Spare me, warrior! I—I just lost my mind for a moment. Please, spare me, spare me!” The lecherous man knelt on the ground, a faint stench of urine mixing with the smell of blood.
Without hesitation, she ended his life with the blood-stained sword.
All done.
Qin Zhiyu had no intention of letting a tiger return to the mountains. Either don’t kill, or leave no survivors. Besides, there was no need to keep such scum around to harm women and children.
Qin Zhiyu pondered that during her previous reconnaissance, there had been no one here, so this person must have sneaked in later.
This encounter also served as a warning for her to remain vigilant. After all, the scope of reconnaissance was limited and couldn’t be updated in real time. Skills weren’t omnipotent—she couldn’t afford to let her guard down completely. Maintaining personal alertness was equally important.
She picked up the three dropped Treasure Chests: two Common ones and one Bronze. As expected, even the Heavenly Disaster must have deemed them incompetent.
After retrieving two logs and returning to the Sanctuary, she took out a shovel, dug a pit, and buried the three of them to prevent the strong smell of blood from attracting other creatures.
Once that was done, she went back to finish chopping and transporting the remaining trees.
Following her routine, she completed the day’s tasks and opened the three chests. As expected, these would likely be her final gains for the day. She hoped her luck would hold.
【You obtained Common Medicine Pack*5】
【You obtained Common Set*3】
【You obtained Common Bedroom Blueprint】
【You obtained Common Living Utensils】
【You obtained Common Storage Device】
【You obtained Common Furniture】
Death extinguishes life like a lamp going out, and after death, the Sanctuary disappears as well.
Generally, the rarest items among a person’s possessions would transform into treasures within the Treasure Chests. However, these three idle brothers likely hadn’t even placed a Sanctuary, so there was little hope of them having many valuable items. The loot had to be randomly generated.
Naturally, the quality of the chests determined the quantity of items inside, but Qin Zhiyu couldn’t help but admire her own good fortune. Although these items were ordinary, they played a crucial role.
Obtaining a Common Storage Device was truly a stroke of luck, worth more than all the other ordinary materials produced by these three chests combined.
The drop rate for Storage Devices was roughly 2%, not something that could be easily obtained. Before the Heavenly Disaster, Qin Zhiyu, who was typically unlucky, would never have managed it.
She changed into a clean set of clothes and used the old ones to wipe away the bloodstains on her body and inside the Sanctuary.
The other two sets of clothes and the Medicine Packs were placed into the Storage Device, which took the form of a bracelet that could be worn on her wrist.
Now that she had Blueprints for the kitchen, bathroom, and bedroom, along with a certain accumulation of materials, she planned to organize and tally the materials. Then, using her replication ability, she would replicate the most expensive items before developing these basic functional living areas.
Qin Zhiyu opened the trading section. A full five pages were filled with exchanges for various materials. Currently, materials were mainly used to develop living areas within Sanctuaries, indicating that some lucky individuals had already obtained Blueprints.
After sorting through the items being traded, she realized that exchanging materials for Blueprints was currently the fastest way to obtain raw materials, as materials were the easiest to acquire.
Whether through opening chests or laboring oneself, Qin Zhiyu’s haul from the three chests could be considered incredibly lucky.
Weapons could also be exchanged for large quantities of raw materials, but Qin Zhiyu had no intention of doing so. What if the person she traded her weapon to happened to be nearby? That would be like lifting a stone only to drop it on her own foot!
If she chose to exchange Blueprints for raw materials, the Kitchen Blueprint was the hardest to obtain.
No one in the trading market was using Kitchen Blueprints as a trading item, so Qin Zhiyu could replicate the Kitchen Blueprint three times.
Three chances, allowing for the replication of eight blueprints.
It’s practically a steal.
The prices for other blueprints, such as the bedroom and bathroom, range between 3 cubic meters of wood or stone, 2 cubic meters of iron, and 1 cubic meter of copper.
Qin Zhiyu decided to set the price for one Kitchen Blueprint at 3 cubic meters of wood, 3 cubic meters of stone, 2 cubic meters of iron, and 1 cubic meter of copper!
This is essentially price gouging, but so what?
When goods are scarce, they become valuable. In an unequal supply-demand relationship, the seller holds the power.