A Big Deal Is Coming

"A distant relative. My dad bought this shovel from him."

"If I buy ten, can you get them to me as soon as possible?"

Gal was the person in charge of the D72 Star Ore Mine. This wasn't just a position for someone who handed out work and paid wages.

He had a lot of power. As long as the mine paid its required quota each month, the guilds would purchase the rest from him at the market price.

The more ore collected, the greater the contribution and the rewards. Failure to meet the fixed quota would result in punishment.

It was essentially a contracted responsibility system.

Gal had long been tired of staying there. If his performance was good this year, he might even be able to aim for a junior crystal ore mine in a B-class Star Block.

The profits there were much higher than in this low-grade crystal mine.

It would be worth it even if he had to invest a little upfront.

"I can deliver next weekend, but..."

Zhou Yi took the shovel back from Gal.

"I'm charging a commission of ten Nutrient Solutions per shovel. You know I'm too poor to afford to eat."

If Xiao Fu hadn't gone offline at that moment, he would have cursed her again for being shameless.

Acting as her own middleman, Zhou Yi, you're something else!

"Fine, no problem."

Gal could completely accept charging a mere one percent service fee for selling a shovel.

"I'll give you this shovel. I only used the new one for a day. I'll take ten thousand Star Coins and the service fee now, and the rest when I deliver next week."

Zhou Yi was extremely poor right now and wanted to pocket whatever she could first.

Gal wasn't fussy, perhaps because this amount was truly insignificant to him. He directly added Zhou Yi's contact information, transferred ten thousand Star Coins to her, and handed her a small box containing one hundred Nutrient Solutions.

After their transactions, both parted ways, satisfied.

Zhou Yi, dusty and disheveled, carried the small box back to school, a smile still on her face.

The security guard at the entrance watched her return and shook his head with a sigh.

Poor girls have to grow up fast.

She still didn't go back to the dormitory and headed straight for the library's warehouse.

She still owed someone nine small shovels. Classes would start tomorrow, so she had to seize tonight to make two more.

After personally using the shovel during the day, Zhou Yi was much more at ease when making the shovels this time. She improved several aspects to make them more suitable for mining.

The warehouse lacked many things, but it didn't lack scrapped mechs.

Most of these mechs had been there for many years, some already rusted.

These items were just trash, and besides Zhou Yi, no one else paid them any attention.

If mechs weren't classified as difficult-to-degrade hazardous waste that couldn't be casually disposed of, and if there weren't disposal fees, Huadun would have thrown them all out long ago.

Now, being put to good use by Zhou Yi, it was perhaps the best outcome.

Zhou Yi skillfully dismantled the usable parts from the mechs. She used a blowtorch to burn off the colored coatings from the colored parts, uniformly making them silver.

Her hands moved non-stop.

During this time, Xiao Fu went online once. Seeing Master Zhou start messing with this useless stuff again, he was so angered that he fainted.

Zhou Yi continued to work like this, seemingly without feeling any fatigue.

When she finally stopped after using up the pile of newly dismantled materials, three shiny silver shovels were already laid out in front of her.

"It's just this set of tools in my hand that's too garbage; otherwise, I could have worked even faster."

Zhou Yi looked disdainfully at the set of tools she had picked up from the "junk pile." She thought that once she had money, she would definitely buy a good set.

She made three small shovels in one go, but Zhou Yi didn't feel tired at all.

Glancing at the time, only a little over two hours had passed. Since she wasn't in a hurry to go back to sleep, she decided to drink three Nutrient Solutions and then sat on her small mat to examine the crystal stones she had put in the small warehouse that morning.

The seven crystal stones had clearly shrunk by a noticeable amount, and the impurities inside had visibly reduced.

Zhou Yi had never seen what intermediate crystal stones looked like, and she didn't know if these stones met the standard for intermediate crystal stones.

"You're still a long way from intermediate crystal stones. What are you thinking? Still dreaming of getting rich overnight? You've already got all the money you want."

Seeing that Zhou Yi was finally getting down to business, Xiao Fu finally appeared, ruthlessly mocking Zhou Yi's money-grubbing nature.

Zhou Yi wasn't disappointed either. She stuffed all the newly acquired crystal stones into that small warehouse and decided that this small warehouse would be her crystal stone vault from now on.

Putting the Crystal Marrow into the pink small box and taking it outside, Zhou Yi began to cultivate diligently.

Time was always insufficient for her, so she could only compress her nighttime hours for cultivation.

Zhou Yi didn't spend most of her time studying; instead, she went out to make money, which wasn't entirely due to a lack of money.

Of course, being too poor to afford food was also a very important factor.

The main reason was that whether it was Mech Infantry, Mech Masters, or, more importantly for Zhou Yi, Star Weavers.

All these identities require one thing: a mech.

Without a mech, any theoretical knowledge Zhou Yi learned would be useless.

That's why she had to find a way, whether it was earning money or upgrading her Crystal Stones to high-grade ones capable of powering a mech, these were the most important things right now.

The night passed quickly.

For others, painful cultivation was enjoyable for Zhou Yi. She enjoyed having complete control over every inch of energy in her body, enjoying the gradual strengthening and filling of power during cultivation.

But even the most comfortable cultivation couldn't replace food and sleep.

Famished, Zhou Yi drank her Nutrient Solution and went straight to class without even returning to the dorm.

She sat down in the classroom and immediately put her head on the desk to sleep, as if nothing around her mattered.

Fortunately, she was sitting in the last row, and since half the class was asleep, Zhou Yi didn't stand out too much.

"She's truly pitiful."

Lu Xiaoxiao looked at Zhou Yi, who was slumped over the desk, with immense sympathy, her eyes shining with maternal affection.

"Indeed..."

For Hu Manduo, Zhou Yi was the most down-and-out person he had ever seen.

It wasn't that these two looked at her differently. After returning from the mine yesterday, Zhou Yi went straight to the warehouse. She hadn't even changed her clothes, forgotten to wash her face, and then came directly to class today.

She looked disheveled and pathetic, like someone who scavenged on the streets.

Actually, Zhou Yi used to be very clean. However, when she first arrived, she discovered her family was too poor to even afford baths. She quickly abandoned her obsession with cleanliness and rapidly adapted to her new life.

She hadn't expected to adapt so well now, becoming more of a native than the natives.

(Natives: We're not as dirty as her!)

For two days, she was busy hauling bricks during the day and doing handicrafts at night. The child was exhausted, and she slept until the afternoon, missing lunch.