The System, that overpowered cheat, could casually let slip even the smallest things from between its fingers, and they’d all be good stuff.
The broken chest she had thought was just an ordinary old wooden chest turned out to be a 20-slot storage box, equivalent to having an extra fixed warehouse.
Duan Lili’s mood couldn’t have been more cheerful.
Duan Lili’s principle was that weapons, tools, food, medicine, and essential basic materials should always be carried on her person, while everything else could be stored in the fixed warehouse.
She immediately transferred the gallbladder, skin, and eggs obtained from the giant serpent into the Old Wooden Chest. Three slots were freed up in her Personal Inventory.
Turning around, she saw the Snake Sinew still lying on the "coffee table," so she picked it up too. It was a black, finger-thick strand that felt like a rubber band. Duan Lili gave it a tug—it had great elasticity. Its use was unknown for now, so she stored it in the storage box as well.
There were also the 20 raw wood logs piled behind the sofa, which she put in too.
Closing the lid of the chest, Duan Lili stood up, shook her right arm, and prepared to get to work.
The two most important needs were food and a house.
Right now, the ready-to-eat food she had on hand included 7 steamed buns and half a bucket of potato chips, while the ingredients consisted of 5 pieces of meat and 5 eggs. If necessary, Duan Lili could even consider holding her nose and gulping down the snake gallbladder.
Didn’t Yang Guo eat snake gallbladders too, and ended up with an incredibly strong body?
It’s highly nourishing.
Food could last for about two days for now, and with building materials in hand, she should take advantage of the daylight to build a house first.
In the Crafting page, there was a tab labeled "Construction." Duan Lili hadn’t opened it yet, but now that she needed to build a house, she clicked on it to study.
As soon as she opened it, she was stunned.
Because the "Construction" page was very similar to the "Crafting" page, except that the list it provided was for synthesizing building materials, such as "Crude Wooden Wall," "Crude Wooden Door," and so on.
But yesterday, Duan Lili had tested that Wood Blocks could be directly fused, meaning she could build a house directly, like stacking building blocks. Sandbox games were all like that.
Yet this "Construction" Interface was clearly a completely different mode. It was the typical construction mode of non-sandbox games.
In fact, the "Crude Wooden Wall" provided in the construction list looked very familiar too. The construction system in a survival game on Duan Lili’s phone was pretty much like this.
Chaos, it was just chaos.
Two view modes, two different construction modes… No game would mix and match like this.
Duan Lili once again felt a sense of dissonance.
When she felt uneasy, she couldn’t help but clench her fists and bite her knuckles. After biting them a few times, she let go: "System? System?"
But the System didn’t respond.
After all, it was a System on the verge of collapse and still in hibernation for repairs.
If it couldn’t be repaired and truly collapsed, probably everything—warehouses, tools, attributes—would all be gone. Relying on herself alone in this desolate place, Duan Lili definitely wouldn’t survive.
Duan Lili sighed, stopped calling the System, rolled up her sleeves, and prepared to build the house.
Duan Lili took out the Small Wooden Hammer and tried to craft a "Crude Wooden Wall" in the "Construction page." For now, all she could craft were crude wooden walls, crude wooden doors, and crude roofs—not even a window.
It took 10 minutes, consuming all 6 wooden planks in the warehouse, and the Crude Wooden Wall was completed.
Duan Lili took a few steps back, moving a bit farther from the sofa, and took out the Crude Wooden Wall.
A rather dilapidated-looking wooden wall now stood before Duan Lili. Three meters wide and two meters high—this was good, not wasting any planks at all, much better than crafting a Small Wooden Axe.
But after walking to the side of the wall to inspect it, Duan Lili decided to abandon this Construction mode.
It was just a thin plank wall, looking very flimsy.
In the island survival game Duan Lili played, there were dinosaurs on the island. If you accidentally provoked a dinosaur, it could easily smash such a crude wooden hut.
Not safe. Building a house was all about seeking a sense of security—what was the point of building something like this?
This was a place with giant pythons, and at night, pairs of eerie green eyes glowed in the forest, sending shivers down one’s spine.
Duan Lili decided to choose the building-block style of sandbox games. She now had 197 Wood Blocks in her Personal Inventory, which was more than enough.
Using the sofa as the center, Duan Lili paced out the approximate distance with her feet and began tossing out Wood Blocks.
First, she circled around the sofa, forming a 10×8 rectangle. On the side facing the river, she left a one-block gap at the corner as the door position.
This circle consumed 31 Wood Blocks.
Duan Lili took off her shoes and stood on the sofa to survey the layout.
Each Wood Block had a side length of one meter, so the enclosed interior area was 8×6 = 48 square meters.
Looking around, the surroundings were all mountains and forests, where wood was practically inexhaustible. She could even build a house several hundred meters large. But since this was her first time and there were other tasks waiting, she’d start with this size—enough to meet her needs for now.
The large area was secondary; the key was that this wooden wall was a full meter thick! Wasn’t that much better than the thin "crude wooden wall"?
For Infrastructure Construction, sandbox games were superior!
Duan Lili was very satisfied. She put her shoes back on and began laying the second layer of Wood Blocks. With the second layer added, the wall height reached two meters.
This height still wasn’t enough—it would feel oppressive. She needed to add another layer.
Leaning against the wooden wall, Duan Lili used two Wood Blocks to create something resembling stairs—though she had never seen stairs with a one-meter step height. One block was on the ground, and the other fused directly with the wall, suspended in mid-air.
Then, using these "stairs," she climbed onto the top of the wooden wall.
The wooden wall was one meter thick, flat, and sturdy. Duan Lili walked backward along it, laying the third layer of Wood Blocks in front of her as she went.
After completing the circle, the entire wooden wall stood three Wood Blocks high—exactly three meters.
Only then did she realize that to keep the house’s interior height at three meters, the wall height needed to be four meters; otherwise, there would be no way to lay the roof. Duan Lili ran another lap along the top of the wall, increasing the wall height to four meters.
The sandbox mode was so convenient. As long as two Wood Blocks were placed adjacent to each other, they would fuse into a single structure.
Standing on top of the wall, Duan Lili began laying the roof directly. She stepped onto the roof as she laid each block, placing one, stepping onto it, and then moving forward to lay the next.
She left an opening for herself, extended the earlier "stairs" higher, jumped down, and then tilted her head back to seal the roof completely.
With the final Wood Block sealing the roof, the inside of the house instantly plunged into darkness.
Duan Lili: "…"
She had no choice but to take out a torch to light up the space.
Looking around, no wonder it was so dark—there wasn’t even a single window.
Duan Lili walked around the house and removed eight Wood Blocks from the second layer. This created eight square window openings, one meter above the ground, and the house brightened up.
Duan Lili put away the torch and the "stairs," then walked outside the house, planting her hands on her hips and looking up.
Wow, this house was something else.
It stood 4 meters tall, 10 meters wide at the front, and 8 meters wide on the side. All the wood blocks had fused together seamlessly, as if the entire box-like house had been carved directly from a massive piece of timber.
It looked downright bizarre.
Duan Lili pressed a hand to her forehead. "Couldn’t the finished product’s appearance be a bit more polished? Anyone who sees this would be terrified…"
But complaining was pointless. The System had already scanned the area within a hundred miles, and there were no intelligent lifeforms around. Wild animals wouldn’t care either.
Bizarre or not, as long as it was livable, that was enough.
Duan Lili checked her inventory. Out of the original 197 wood blocks, only 31 remained—166 had been used to build the house.
With a fortress-like shelter, even though she was on another world continent, she suddenly felt a sense of security.
It’s said that the top part of the Chinese character for "safety" (安) represents a roof.
Having a roof over your head truly brings peace of mind.
No other mode could beat the sandbox mode for infrastructure construction. Building this house had taken less than an hour. The air temperature had just shifted from slightly cool to warm—it was still early morning.
She had woken up as soon as the sun rose, around 5 a.m. By now, it was probably only about 7 a.m.
Duan Lili ducked back into the house and plopped down on the sofa.
Her phone was on the sofa. She picked it up and saw it had run out of battery, the screen dark.
This was an expected outcome. Duan Lili sighed, placed the dead phone into the old wooden chest, added the half-empty bag of potato chips, and summoned the light screen. "I want to see the time."
The light screen switched to a time interface, but the display read "88:88." It probably hadn’t been calibrated yet.
Duan Lili thought for a moment and tried giving an instruction: "Calibrate the clock, using the time I woke up this morning as 5 a.m."
As she hoped, the clock instantly calibrated. It was now 7:41. Still morning, as expected.
Moreover, judging from the successful clock calibration, it seemed the System’s various functions were operating properly even though the one in hibernation was inactive.
Speaking of which, the one in hibernation was probably some kind of artificial intelligence, right?
After a busy morning, she was thirsty. Duan Lili picked up the cola bottle and drank the remaining half-bottle of water.
This cola bottle was now her only liquid container, so she had to take good care of it.
Duan Lili took the empty bottle and headed to the river to fetch water.
The river was clear near the shallow bank, with fish swimming leisurely about. These fish had probably never seen a human before and showed no fear, moving about unhurriedly.
Duan Lili stared for a moment, then put away the cola bottle, rolled up her sleeves, and tried to catch one with her bare hands. She caught one immediately!
This fish had to weigh at least 3 pounds.
Unfortunately, it was slippery all over. As it thrashed in her hands, Duan Lili felt her grip loosen, and the fish slipped back into the water, swiftly escaping.
What a shame.
Turning her head, she saw the same herd of deer from yesterday had come to drink water early in the morning.
Duan Lili narrowed her eyes.
Yesterday, killing the python had yielded 5 units of meat.
What was meat? Food!
And right now, surviving in the wild, food was crucial.
Small animals being too cute was somewhat hindering food production. If she really had to kill them, she felt a bit reluctant.
Duan Lili decisively switched to the sandbox view mode. Once everything turned cartoonish, her psychological barriers indeed lightened considerably.
Boldly, Duan Lili drew her small wooden knife, let out a fierce cry, and charged forward, brandishing the knife!
Build high walls, amass abundant grain!
No! Cross that out!
Through our own labor, we shall be well-fed and well-clothed!