Before taking more than a few steps, Bai Bai’s feet came to a halt. She suddenly thought of a potential risk.
While her own body was scrubbed clean without any sour, rancid odor, she had to make sure that annoying little brat didn’t sniff it out one of these days.
How truly irritating, having a neighbor like that.
Bai Bai rubbed her fingers together. To maintain her dwindling humanity and moral standards in this apocalyptic environment, she could tolerate a annoying kid, but she couldn’t let him ruin her affairs.
So he had a sharp nose, huh? Fine then—she would go look for some foul-smelling substances.
Mulling it over in her mind without stopping her pace, she quickly reached the street.
Familiar with the route, Bai Bai walked into the first shop at the intersection.
Just as she was about to ask the boss if there were any goods that needed delivering, she saw four men already standing inside the shop.
They were familiar faces—neighbors frequently seen around the complex—belonging not to the Lulu Tong gang, but to another transportation team.
One person stepped forward to handle taking orders from the boss, before distributing team members according to destination and cargo volume.
Seeing a stranger enter, none of the four showed much of a reaction, at most casting a cold glance. No one spoke, proceeding with their work quietly.
Choked by the room’s imposing aura, Bai Bai swallowed back her words before she even had a chance to speak them aloud.
She silently backed out to the store entrance, continuing to peer inside.
She put on a posture of someone who refused to give up and insisted on waiting to see.
Taking an order was out of the question, but they were waiting to load cargo.
Inside her, the “wanting it” impulse kept stirring, to the point where Bai Bai could even “hear” her own heart accelerating.
Bai Bai licked her lips gently, locking her eyes onto one person opening their spatial storage while waiting for their assigned cargo.
She wanted it, and so she got it.
Copying again and again.
Her mental energy plummeted in rapid succession, before being pulled back up by Tier-2 Source Crystals, then dropping rapidly again, and being pulled back up once more.
With 5 Tier-2 Source Crystals in her space, there was plenty to go around.
When her own space broke past the 5-cubic-meter mark, Bai Bai discovered with pleasant surprise that her mental energy consumption had decreased; when all was said and done, she might even have Tier-2 Source Crystals to spare.
Did spatial volume actually have threshold tiers?
On second thought, bottom-tier spatial awakened users didn’t have large spatial volumes to begin with; 1 or 2 cubic meters was the norm for the majority, while those exceeding 5 cubic meters were qualified to apply as fixed logistics members for adventure teams.
With 5 cubic meters of strength, copying bottom-tier small spaces should naturally consume less energy—it would be stranger if it consumed a lot.
All four people possessed 1-cubic-meter spaces, and through flawless downward copying, Bai Bai’s space smoothly expanded to 7 cubic meters.
Bai Bai paced back and forth at the store entrance a few times before stamping her foot and leaving.
Turning into the second store, before she even stepped through the door, the clerk inside saw her and told her to leave.
“No more cargo! Just sent out the last of it.”
Bai Bai nodded, turning into the third store, the fourth, the fifth…
She believed she had set out early enough today, yet surprisingly, there were still no orders available.
While looking for work, she pulled out the rice ball she had just bought and held it in her hand for a moment. In just those few minutes, the rice ball was no longer as scalding to the touch as when she had first bought it.
Noting this feeling in her hand, she stowed it back into her space.
As for whether a 7-cubic-meter space could preserve freshness, she would find out in a little while.
Glancing back at her Tier-2 Source Crystals, she had 3 left.
Sure enough, there were some left over.
Bai Bai felt so exhilarated she nearly threw her head back and laughed out loud.
After asking at over a dozen stores in succession without finding any cargo to deliver, it wasn’t necessarily that they looked down on freelancers, but rather that the first orders every day after opening were usually heavy shipments. Freelancers with small spaces couldn’t handle them; only teams could manage.
Bai Bai recalled how she had landed an order on this street yesterday, realizing it was because she had left her room around mid-morning—by then, all the heavy shipments that needed to be dispatched were gone, making it just the right time to try her luck for small, miscellaneous orders.
It turned out that waking up early today was the culprit after all.
Still, it hadn’t been in vain.
Even though she hadn’t landed any jobs, she had copied spatial abilities.
In the process of asking at so many stores, she had successfully copied two more people’s spatial storage, bringing her volume to 9 cubic meters now, while consuming one more Source Crystal.
Asking around until her throat felt dry, Bai Bai didn’t dwell on it any longer, turning around to leave and head to an Anomalous Market to restock.
This time, she went to yet another new Anomalous Market, trading two bags of grain for 4 Tier-2 Source Crystals as before, bringing her reserve back up to 6.
She then pulled out the rice ball from her space and felt it—it had gone cold.
A 9-cubic-meter space still didn’t preserve freshness.
Stowing the rice ball away with total indifference, Bai Bai believed that since she possessed a spatial superpower, it couldn’t possibly exist solely for basic storage or holding long-shelf-life goods.
That didn’t align with the practical utility of spatial storage.
She firmly believed it must possess a freshness-preserving capability, but it was likely constrained by volume, meaning she had to keep expanding it.
Returning to wander the street near the Anomalous Market, Bai Bai finally landed a single order at a grain and oil shop, delivering a batch of grain and cooking oil to a restaurant.
Seeing that Bai Bai was an unfamiliar face, the boss initially didn’t want to hire her, but Bai Bai pulled out 2 Tier-2 Source Crystals directly to prove her capability.
Bottom-tier awakened users with 1 to 2-cubic-meter spaces struggled even with daily usage of Tier-1 Source Crystals; being able to carry Tier-2 ones on her person indicated that her space was definitely large.
The boss accepted the Source Crystals as a deposit and handed the delivery invoice to Bai Bai.
Once the cargo entered her space, she didn’t touch the grain—she wasn’t short on grain—and only duplicated the ten large jugs of cooking oil.
Ten became twenty; ten jugs were normal cargo, while the other ten jugs naturally became Bai Bai’s personal stock.
After delivering the goods to the restaurant, the kitchen was in full swing, with cooks rushing to prepare pre-ordered group meals before the noon peak.
Bai Bai naturally wanted to take on this job too.
Just landing a single order would do.
Yesterday’s food had already gone cold; if she could land an order now, she would have hot meals to eat for lunch.
“Boss, are your group meals for pickup or delivery?”
Bai Bai asked the moment she took back the signed receipt.
The restaurant boss remained silent for a moment. She understood what Bai Bai meant, but looking at her appearance, she felt a bit hesitant.
Large as her space might be—after all, she had just delivered that much cargo—delivering food, on the other hand…
Seeing this, Bai Bai tactfully removed her filthy outerwear, revealing the clean short-sleeved undershirt and squeaky-clean skin underneath.
Fortunately, she had taken a sponge bath last night.
The hesitant look on the boss’s face immediately relaxed.
“I have dedicated delivery couriers for group meals. If there are individual orders, I can give them to you, but you need to pay a deposit, and you can’t wear that jacket—deliver them just like this.”
“No problem, Boss.”
Bai Bai pulled out 2 Tier-2 Source Crystals again.
“Will these two do?”
The boss’s expression softened even further.
Tier-2 Source Crystals were worth an entire bag of grain; being able to produce them casually proved she had more.
“They’ll do.”
Bai Bai immediately put down the Source Crystals as a deposit, then rushed back to the grain and oil shop to hand over the invoice and settle the account. She retrieved her pledged Source Crystals, then returned to wait at the restaurant entrance for business.
She didn’t care whether it was a group meal or an individual order, as long as she got one.
Once hot food entered her space, wouldn’t she have a meal to eat?
A clock hung inside the shop. Before 11:00 AM, Bai Bai watched with her own eyes as the large table by the food window was stacked full with neatly packaged meal bags—a total of five large group meal orders.
Subsequently, individual diners coming for lunch walked into the shop one after another.
The boss’s relaxed expression lasted only until 11:10 AM, after which she checked the time frequently and picked up the walkie-talkie on the counter to call out every now and then, receiving no response whatsoever.