Lin Bei's face lit up with joy as he quickly reached out and grabbed the exquisite purple-gold fishing rod.
He looked it over.
A stat panel instantly appeared before him.
[Master-Level Fishing Rod]
Level: 1
Quality: excellent
Description: An excellent rod reserved for fishing grand masters, boasting exceptional performance, automatic angling, and a dramatic boost to both bite speed and success rate.
Hook Rate: common chest 20%, Good chest 40%, Fine chest 30%, excellent chest 9%, Perfect chest 1%.
Durability: 50,000
---
"Holy crap, these stats are insane!"
Lin Bei stared in a daze, then broke into wild delight.
Originally, even if he'd fused a thousand Beginner Fishing Rods, he'd have ended up with just one Fine-quality rod.
But the Resource Critical Hit System had landed a ten-fold crit on the fused rod's quality.
It had actually pushed Fine quality up another tier, all the way to the astonishing excellent level.
He'd hit the jackpot!
"Worthy of an excellent quality Master-Level rod—automatic fishing!"
"And that hook rate is crazy; there's actually a chance to reel in a Perfect chest!"
"Plus, worst case I still get a common chest—no more trashy inferior crates!"
Lin Bei glanced at the public chat channel.
Many had pulled inferior chests—nothing inside but basic materials, no food, no water, and definitely no primal stones.
From what he could see, Survivors with beginner rods were gaining supplies painfully slowly.
He looked at the master rod in hand, walked carefully to the shoreline, snapped open the built-in stand, set it on the beach, and toggled the handle to "auto-fishing" mode.
[Ding! Auto-fishing enabled. Please wait patiently for results.]
A mechanical voice sounded from the rod.
Lin Bei gave the rod a firm shake; once he was sure it was anchored tight, he left with confidence.
All he had to do now was wait for the harvest.
At the same time, he pulled up the warehouse blueprint and prepared to craft it.
Right now he owned nothing but a few primal stones—no basic materials at all.
He'd have to buy some from other players.
So he opened the public trade channel and posted a buying request.
[Ding! Buying request posted. Current orders: 1/5.]
Lin Bei's eyes flickered.
"You can post five buy orders at once?"
Pleasantly surprised, he looked back at his mountain of supplies, then at the cramped island, and—clenching his teeth—posted another order for primal stones.
Rate: 1 primal stone for 100 g bread, max 300 trades.
That way, each bread would net him three primal stones.
Even if every deal went through, he'd only spend 100 loaves.
With nearly 2,000 loaves in reserve, he wasn't worried.
From chat he could see plenty of Survivors short on supplies; 100 g per stone was above market price.
Everyone else was begging for food and water—only he, on day one, was trading food for other materials.
The moment his order went live, it caused an uproar in the public chat channel.
"WTF? Someone's swapping food for wood and primal stones? For real?"
"Haha, what a saint! I just traded two primal stones for 200 g bread—no hunger today! Love you, Great Lord!"
"I traded wood and hardwood for bread too, so happy~~~"
"Damn, you animals—what kind of hand speed? Orders are locked, can't trade anymore!"
"Boohoo… eighteen years of single-life clicking speed and I still missed it! Curses!!"
"Upstairs, eighteen years is nothing—this thirty-year single speed got me two orders! Ecstatic! Hahaha—"
"Guys, doesn't it feel weird? Great Lord just listed tons of bread—how'd he do it?"
"Right! It's not scientific—does he have a secret? Great Lord, we're all Blue Planet folks, you can't watch us starve! Share your bread trick; we'll be forever grateful!"
"Yeah! You can't hog it all—that's selfish!"
"Ten-thousand signature petition for Great Lord to share the secret! (1/10,000)"
"+1!"
"+10086!!!"
..."..."
Lin Bei watched the spam, eyes narrowing slightly.
He focused on the first agitator—Turkey-Flavored Potba (ID.12121).
"This guy…"
He glanced at the orders in his backend—this Turkey-Flavored Potba had actually completed four transactions all by himself.
Two of the orders were for wood, and the other two were for primal stones.
"Brat, since you're targeting me like this, don't blame me for being ruthless!"
He once again spent 100 loaves of bread to reopen purchase orders.
Only this time, he opened the blacklist and entered Turkey-Flavored Potba's name and ID serial number.
Once that was done, no matter how fast the guy's hands were, he wouldn't be able to trade a single thing.
"Damn it! That bastard called Bei Ming deserves to die! All I did was ask him to share the secret of getting bread, and this idiot blacklisted me!"
On a tiny isolated island, a scrawny, bleached-blond youth stared at the order screen that had gone completely black and couldn't help cursing up a storm.
"You'd better watch your back! I'll rile everyone up and flame you to death!"
Then he opened the public chat channel and started railing against Bei Ming's selfishness, calling on everyone to boycott Bei Ming and force him to share bread for free.
Before long, the public chat channel was ablaze again.
"How can they be like this? It's too awful!"
On another island, a cute girl with shoulder-length hair was munching on bread along with some spam.
At the moment, she was frowning lightly at the public chat channel.
Unhappily, she posted a message defending Bei Ming.
But her words were quickly drowned out by insults and moral coercion, vanishing like a stone sunk in the sea.
"Argh—I'm so mad!"
The girl stood up and stamped her foot. Beneath her slender, fair legs she wore a pristine short skirt, though now it was smudged with dust and looked rather grimy.
Her hair was damp because she had dived into the sea earlier to retrieve supply treasure chests.
As for fishing… she wasn't really interested.
The chests floating farther out at sea were distant, but for her, hauling them in wasn't difficult.
It was the chests in the deeper areas, shrouded in fog, that pressed on her heart with a nameless terror, keeping her from acting rashly.
Otherwise, with her skills, she could definitely have obtained many more supply treasure chests.
She was Bei Bei Nan Gua, real name Bei Nan, a martial artist skilled in the North family's inherited kicking techniques.
She had originally been resting; who knew she'd wake up to find herself transmigrated onto this tiny island.
Even more vexing, her Newbie Gift Pack and supply treasure chests had contained not a bite to eat or a drop to drink.
So she thought of posting in the chat channel, hoping to trade for some food and water.
Instead, she was met with a wave of ridicule.
Luckily, heaven never seals off all exits. A kind soul named "Bei Ming" traded with her and gave her a huge amount of supplies, so she no longer had to worry about survival for a while.
To thank him for his generosity, she took out a precious scroll she'd obtained from a chest drifting at the edge of the fog.
Unexpectedly, Bei Ming sent her yet another large batch of survival supplies.
It moved her deeply.
As a martial artist, she burned through energy every day; though she wasn't fat, her appetite was about triple that of an average man.
With all this food and water, she wouldn't have to worry about survival for a long time.
"Hmph, these people are going too far!"
She sent Bei Ming a private message telling him not to mind the gossip.
Bei Ming quickly replied with a smiley face, clearly unfazed by the chatter.
"Whew—"
Seeing that, Bei Nan slowly exhaled in relief.
Then she looked toward the distant edge of the fog—there, two supply treasure chests glowing blue had appeared again.
The corners of Bei Nan's mouth lifted, her eyes curving into crescents.
She loosened up, stripped off her clothes, and dove into the sea like a lithe white mermaid… Meanwhile, Lin Bei had long since muted the public channel and blocked whispers from strangers.
He walked over to the Master-Level Fishing Rod at the shore; at his feet already lay two supply treasure chests.
One emitted a green glow, the other a blue one.
[Supply Treasure Chest (excellent): Open to obtain some high-quality resource rewards.]
[Supply Treasure Chest (Fine): Open to obtain some Fine-quality resource rewards.]
Both chests had actually surpassed common quality!
Sweet!
Lin Bei stepped forward, tore off the plastic seal, and opened them, then looked into the chests expectantly.
[Alert: You opened an excellent supply treasure chest! Triggered a 20× critical hit!]
[Alert: You opened a Fine supply treasure chest! Triggered a 10× critical hit!]
Light flashed before him, and a pleasant system chime rang in Lin Bei's ears.