Yet she saw that toad close its mouth, the red name above its head merely flickering once—
[Red-Eyed Toad (Favorability 6/100)].
It went up, but only by a tiny bit.
Song Xu knitted her brows.
Favorability increased by so little; did toads not like eating rice?
Right now, she didn’t have any moth meat to feed them either.
What a pity.
Song Xu pulled out her bow and arrows.
Aimed, shot!
The toads were only a few meters away from her, and combined with the assist function of Intermediate Archery, this arrow hit the Red-Eyed Toad straight in the head.
[-59! Killed Red-Eyed Toad x1, Experience Points +5, Points +1]
An instant kill.
The other four toads, still oblivious to danger, continued attacking the straw shed.
Song Xu rolled backward, breaking through the straw shed and darting out amidst flying thatch.
She was now LV5, and her attack power could already completely crush these LV1 trash mobs.
The bowstring vibrated.
Whoosh!
-78! (Critical Hit)
Without pausing, whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh!
Five toad carcasses lay on the ground; the battle ended in less than ten seconds.
Song Xu lowered her bow, her chest heaving slightly.
It wasn’t that she was exhausted, but rather that she hadn’t expected her movements to become this fast.
She was a bit unaccustomed to this feeling of adrenaline surging.
Walking over to the carcasses, she deftly sliced open the female toad with her short sword, digging out a fist-sized chunk of toad oil.
Stashing the materials away, she glanced at the shattered straw shed.
Picking up the usable parts back into her backpack, she was actually able to recycle about half of the basic materials.
Originally, she had intended to ‘seduce’ more toad pets to farm a huge wave of experience and get more toad oil in passing.
However, it was daytime now, and she couldn’t catch moths to feed the toads.
She decided to finish the quests she had accepted earlier first.
Checking the quest list.
One was to kill a Scarecrow, while the other four collection tasks targeted berries, carrots, iron ore, and wooden planks, respectively.
She hadn’t seen any of them before, but they were all marked with approximate coordinates.
Song Xu found a tree branch and scribbled on the ground.
“Four coordinates in four directions.” Song Xu knitted her brows.
Running back and forth like this was way too wasteful of stamina.
In the game, walking, running, gathering, and killing monsters all consumed stamina points.
While sitting down on the spot to recover stamina, she casually opened the regional chat channel.
The moment she opened it, her heart sank slightly.
[Regional Channel (Currently Online: 473 players)]
In less than four days, half the people were gone!
Information rolled rapidly in the channel:
[Romeo and Pig Over Night: Help! I just stayed at home for a bit, and my sober time ran out! The dog system actually deducted my lifespan!!]
[Meng Jiaojiao: Big brother is so amazing, having points to go home. Boohoo, I’m scared of killing monsters, can big brother help me?]
[Heaven Rewards Diligence: Buying any food at high prices! Water works too! I’ll trade thirty stones!]
[Tomato Stir-Fried without Egg: Is the person above dreaming? Wanting to trade for food with thirty stones? I just spent fifty small branches to trade for two teeth-sour wild fruits!]
[Cherry Little Finish: Who has Earth Dragon Fungus? I’ll offer a high price!]
[South Wind Knows My Intent: I have Earth Dragon Fungus, trading only for weapons or building blueprints, private chat.]
[Brother Knife: Selling Bronze Machete, Attack +15, those who want it DM with offer.]
[Romeo and Pig Over Night: Bronze Machete?! Big boss! Where did you get that?]
[Brother Knife: Heh, without courage, there’s no yield.]
[Meng Jiaojiao: Big boss, please carry me! I’m about to starve to death, as long as you give me something to eat, I’ll do anything~]
[Heaven Rewards Diligence: Girl above, I advise you to stop begging. Instead of wasting that time, why not gather more supplies? The novice protection period is over, and the guide says extreme weather may appear starting from tonight.]
Seeing this, Song Xu raised her eyebrows.
Pulling out the beginner’s guide from her backpack, she read through it again.
Sure enough, a friendly tip appeared on the blank pages behind.
[Congratulations to the player for surviving the novice period]
[Climate Cycle System activated. In the future, you may encounter extreme weather events such as extreme cold, blistering heat, heavy rain, hurricanes, etc.]
[Climate events have no fixed pattern. Please pay attention to environmental changes and make preparations in advance.]
[Upgrading the shelter as soon as possible is recommended.]
Just then, her private chat channel began flickering.
[Vicious Stepmother: Sister, help! Is there still food? I’ll trade this with you! (Iron Ore.jpg)]
Song Xu’s heart stirred.
The quest happened to require iron ore.
The Earth Dragon Fungus was gone, so she pulled out a portion of rice from the Large Stomach Bag and packed it into a disposable lunch box.
Just as she was about to take a screenshot for Vicious Stepmother to see if trading this was okay.
She lowered her head, and when she saw the attributes labeled on the rice, she froze.
[Steamed Rice: Upon consumption, Health Points +3/sec, Stamina Points +1/sec, lasting 10 seconds. (Cross-Dimensional Ingredient, Non-Tradeable)]
It could actually recover stamina points?!
But it was non-tradeable!
Why!
The toad oil she brought back sold quite well in the real world, didn’t it?
Song Xu ladled out another bowl of noodles and a bowl of Chinese cabbage soup.
[Egg Drop Noodle Soup: Upon consumption, Health Points +5/sec, Stamina Points +3/sec, lasting 15 seconds. (Cross-Dimensional Ingredient, Non-Tradeable)]
[Golden Soup White Jade Stew: Upon consumption, Health Points +6/sec, Stamina Points +4/sec, lasting 20 seconds; ‘Spirit’ attribute +5 within one hour. (Cross-Dimensional Ingredient, Non-Tradeable)]
Refusing to give up, Song Xu shook everything out from the Large Stomach Bag.
Instant noodles, spam, biscuits… even raw pork and chickens had their attributes labeled.
Song Xu had a face full of tears without crying.
The good news was that most of these foods could recover health points and stamina points, and some even had very nice additional attributes.
The bad news was that none of them were tradeable, not even the seasoning packets!
Song Xu’s eyebrows were tightly knitted, her mouth drooping.
A complete waste.
She bought so many things, originally thinking she could strike it rich overnight!
Now that trading wasn’t allowed, she could only eat them herself?!
How long would it take to eat all of that?
The private chat messages were still jumping.
[Vicious Stepmother: Big sister! Please reply, any food works, don’t you need iron ore? I have another good thing here, see if this works? (Skill Fragment.jpg)]
!!!
Song Xu’s eyes immediately lit up.
She began rummaging through her bag.
Her ingredients in the game world only had two pieces of snail meat and half a piece of black bread remaining…
Pulling out the cooking pot.
After putting the snail meat inside, she tried dropping a grain of rice into it.
She wanted to test whether adding a little bit of real-world ingredients would work.
As a result, the small text “Non-Tradeable” still appeared after the recipe.
Sigh.
Obediently taking that grain of rice out, she added the clean water provided by the game.
The cooking pot displayed that it could make a one-star Steamed Snail, Health Points +20.
Without cooking it immediately, she opened the private chat:
[Baobao’s Mom: I only have two pieces of snail meat and half a piece of black bread here right now, will you trade?]
[Vicious Stepmother: Trade trade trade! Heavens, big sister, your bread actually isn’t finished yet! Can I trade five pieces of iron ore for it? No, 10 pieces, ten pieces of iron ore for two pieces of meat and half a piece of bread.]
[Baobao’s Mom: Deal. As for that skill fragment of yours, what do you plan to trade it for?]
[Vicious Stepmother: This… to be honest with you sister, I randomly opened a treasure chest dug up while mining iron ore, and I haven’t seen anyone else selling it. I feel like this thing should at least be traded for enough food to keep me fed for ten days or half a month.]
[Baobao’s Mom: Got it, hold onto the fragment for me first.]
[Vicious Stepmother: Okay, thank you, big sister!]