Of all the things he needed to purchase, the first thing Su Mo thought of was cloth.
At present, there were not many places in the shelter where cloth was needed. For washing and scrubbing pots, for example, they had been making do with grass mats woven from plant fibers.
Considering that the base might spring a leak, using cloth to plug the holes was also a reliable choice.
There was quite a lot of cloth in the Trading Market. Some had been put up for sale after being stripped from old clothes, while some had been found in chests. All sorts of scraps were piled together.
"I'll buy two rags, and some ordinary scraps of cloth to plug the holes."
After a round of trading, he spent 50 ml of Psionic Water and bought one gray rag, one dark-blue rag, and a piece of cloth the size of a human head.
"Now that I have cloth, it's time to look at the various resources."
Just as Su Mo was about to continue checking, a private message began flashing in the lower-right corner.
It was a message from Chen Ping An, who had previously sold him the Monster Compendium.
After the two of them had traded, they had automatically become friends by default. Thus, when Su Mo opened the Game Panel, he could see the message notification directly.
Chen Ping An: God Su, do you want composite nylon? I happen to have a piece here.
Su Mo: I do! Do you want food or water? I can cook the food right now!
When he saw the words "composite nylon," Su Mo was delighted.
The composite nylon he had put up a purchase order for in the Trading Market that afternoon still had not arrived by evening. He had not expected Chen Ping An to have some.
"Looks like his combat power is pretty good. You can't find this stuff in the wild."
Su Mo speculated silently.
After transmigrating into this wasteland, Chen Ping An had no idea whether he relied on luck or strength, but he had been the first to obtain the rare item, the Monster Compendium. His strength could not be underestimated.
Judging by the frequency of their trades, Chen Ping An's life should not be too bad either. At the very least, with this level of combat power, he would not kick the bucket before any large-scale disasters arrived.
Chen Ping An: I want water—Psionic Water. I'll trade one piece of composite nylon for 500 ml of water. Is that okay?
Su Mo: Sure!
Chen Ping An: Holy crap. Are you that loaded, bro? You're not even going to haggle?
The last time he had put the Monster Compendium and Water Pear up for sale in the trading channel, the number of trolls below the listing had been terrifying.
Not to mention all those people who had tried to shave a little off the price, there had even been several thousand who had offered absurdly low prices.
Someone had even shamelessly said, "Do me a favor, big brother. Can you just give me this Monster Compendium?"
Therefore, Chen Ping An had deliberately quoted a high price this time. He had not expected Su Mo to—
Su Mo: You can go back on your word, but our trades will end here. I'll block you.
When dealing with people like this, Su Mo knew one basic rule very well: principles.
It was a rule of conduct he had realized during his everyday shopping.
With the same vegetables at the same price, when they were sold at a market, everyone would think about going over to haggle twice, just to see whether they could get the price down.
But when the same vegetables were placed in a supermarket, where no one could bargain, everyone could only put them in their bags and take them away.
Even if the former succeeded in haggling, buyers would still feel slightly dissatisfied when they thought it over carefully, because they could never figure out where the seller's bottom line was.
The latter involved no haggling, but since everyone paid the same price, they could not feel how much they had lost.
If Su Mo agreed to Chen Ping An's price increase now, it would plant a seed in his heart: the principle that there was no bottom line.
Future trades would very likely not go as smoothly as this one!
Chen Ping An: God Su, don't! I was joking. You're my big brother—don't be mad at me! Five hundred milliliters is fine too. I desperately need Psionic Water to stay alive. This wilderness is way too dangerous; there are monsters everywhere.
Su Mo: You've gone out exploring?
Chen Ping An: Yeah. I chose a ground-level shelter, so I can only survive by sweeping the map for resources. The monsters in this wasteland are fiercer than the last. I can only pray that no creatures mutate during the disasters to come. Otherwise, it'll truly be a disaster for humanity.
Reading Chen Ping An's words, Su Mo grew somewhat curious.
Suppressing the urge to ask Chen Ping An about the wilderness environment, Su Mo put up a trade and specified Chen Ping An as the seller.
After one exchange, 500 ml of Psionic Water successfully brought back a piece of rare composite nylon.
During that brief period of trading, the price of water continued to plummet.
Even food prices were falling steadily. By contrast, minerals that had usually been cheap were slowly climbing in value.
The market's rising and falling trends seemed like an invisible hand controlling the fate of humanity in the wasteland.
Su Mo silently understood the reason for this development.
But with his mouth full of bitterness, how could he calmly voice that cruel truth?
It was not that all the humans who had transmigrated to the wasteland no longer lacked water or food.
The real reason was that those who had failed to survive the early stages and had no way to steadily obtain water and food in the wilderness had already died!
It was already the evening of the fourth day on the Doomsday Calendar. After four days had passed, those who had been unable to obtain water had fallen forever upon this wasteland.
Without any concrete figures, Su Mo could not guess how many people there were.
He could only judge the fate of humanity as a whole from the current market prices.
Watching the increasingly chaotic fluctuations in the trading channel, Su Mo had no choice but to act himself and begin buying up materials.
This time, he mainly focused on materials for developing the base, collecting as much iron and copper as possible—materials that appeared everywhere.
"Oreo, go stand guard outside. I'm making dinner."
He called out to the silly dog. After receiving the order, Oreo charged to the doorway, panting happily, then sat down obediently.
The stone door could not block scents.
In this environment, Oreo's usefulness was no less than that of a Monster Compendium.
After carefully scrubbing the Iron Pot clean with a rag, Su Mo added 600 ml of water to it, then put in Large Rye Bread according to the morning's recipe.
As the fire grew stronger, the water began to boil.
He added some seasoning and a vegetable packet.
Two bowls of steaming bread soup were ready.
After dinner, the sky over the wasteland had completely darkened. Across the entire wilderness, only the shelter still held a few traces of warmth.
The Iron Blocks and copper blocks he had put up for sale before dinner had also been collected for the most part.
His luck was pretty good.
Most people had not yet reached Su Mo's stage and had not realized the importance of stockpiling basic resources.
Unfortunately, no one had chosen to sell ordinary nylon.
Just as Su Mo thought he would not be able to collect any ordinary nylon today, the 100 ml he had put up in the trading channel was snapped up twice in succession. The sale succeeded, and he obtained two pieces of nylon.
With that, all the materials for the Hunting Compound Crossbow were complete!
"It's all here!"
Su Mo was delighted and opened the crafting page.
At that moment, in the weapon section of the crafting page, the blueprint for the Hunting Compound Crossbow had lit up. The hammer symbol behind it indicated that it could be crafted! He selected the blueprint with a thought.
He chose to craft the Hunting Compound Crossbow and five matching bolts.
Confirm crafting! Tiny hammers clanged against the blueprint as the materials in the item bar gradually vanished.
The Iron Blocks melted into iron liquid and began casting the shape of the crossbow. Copper blocks rose from the ground, transforming from standard squares into their final form.
The two pieces of nylon were stretched taut, while the composite nylon was pulled back and forth before being tightened over the crossbow frame.
Record: You lost Wood-10, Iron Block-9, Copper Block-4, Nylon-2, Composite Nylon-1 Record: You obtained Hunting Compound Crossbow Record: You obtained Crossbow Bolt*5
Watching the progress bar finish.
A crossbow suddenly appeared in the item bar, radiating a chilling gleam even at a glance.
With a thought, an exquisitely crafted crossbow, seemingly shaped by nature itself, appeared in Su Mo's right hand. On the ground, five bolts appeared, perfectly identical, as though copied from a mold without the slightest deviation.
"Good heavens. Although this structure is crude, its precision is completely up to standard?"
After carefully examining the structure of the crossbow mechanism, Su Mo could not help but be shocked.
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