Sky Island.
As he gradually grew familiar with his surroundings, Gu Yu tentatively reached down toward the ground.
His hand touched the grass, and a "crunch" sounded.
The grass turned into debris and scattered across the ground, leaving an empty patch.
If he kept pounding, he could see cracks appear in the Grass Block. With each hit, they grew deeper.
Whoosh!
A Grass Block popped loose, becoming a neat, miniature version of itself.
When he picked it up, it automatically went into his inventory. He got a block of dirt.
Aside from getting a little dirt on his hands, everything was exactly like the game!
"Improving a chunk isn't simply a matter of expanding it. The score depends on quality as well as size."
Gu Yu had also spotted the chunk's score and analyzed the situation.
For many people, surviving on a Sky Island with just one tree was already difficult, never mind expanding it.
It seemed impossible.
But expanding one's territory was the whole point of Sky Island Survival, so the rules suited him perfectly.
After collecting the dirt, Gu Yu turned his attention to the Reward Chest.
A bucket of lava and a block of ice—it was a classic starting setup.
He took them out and temporarily put them in his inventory.
"If you want to get rich, start by chopping down trees!"
Great cities were built one brick at a time, and one tree was more than enough to get started!
As for Park Sam-chang nearby, Gu Yu had spotted him long ago.
Mushroom Island had no value beyond a few mushrooms, so there was no need to pay him much attention.
He slammed both hands against the trunk. The cracks widened, and soon the tree shattered into small blocks that were absorbed into his inventory.
It took longer than in the game. Gu Yu estimated that each log would take about half a minute to obtain.
Five logs meant two and a half minutes to gather them all.
Then he crushed the leaves. From the whole tree, he got five logs, three saplings, and three apples.
Tree-for-Tree—those saplings were the materials Gu Yu needed to develop his island.
As he carried out each step with practiced ease, the arena outside—
Bullet Comments from many foreign viewers flooded in.
"So this is the player who knows the most about games? Not much to write home about!"
"He chopped down his only source of food?"
"That's hilarious! Is he going to survive by eating grass now that the tree's gone?"
"Does he think he can get resources by planting trees?"
"Idiot! Moron!"
Everyone thought Gu Yu could rely on nothing but that tree.
Chopping it down was tantamount to signing his own death warrant!
"Sigh!"
Inside the Research Institute, Dean Qi shut his eyes in despair.
Tree-for-Tree really was a way to break the deadlock on a Sky Island. The problem was—
Trees took far too long to grow!
They didn't need decades or centuries like they did in real life. A sapling could quickly grow into a log with a pop.
But it still took several days, maybe even a couple of weeks.
Could three apples keep him going for ten days?
"Based on my experience, Block Civilization converts a person's physical condition into stats. Let's assume the hunger bar has ten points."
"An apple restores two points, so three apples restore six."
Hunger naturally decreased over time. If it got too low, the player would become weakened.
Once it ran out completely, their health would start to drop.
With ten points of health, a player became even weaker when it fell to three. Their movement and combat would both be hampered.
If they still didn't eat, their health would gradually tick down by the last half-point, and they would die.
"The dead don't come back to life. Three apples can last at most four days—and that's without even accounting for monsters!"
Fries looked just as grave.
In his view, Gu Yu's approach seemed like he was killing the goose that laid the golden eggs.
If he hadn't chopped down the tree, it might have produced a few more apples and kept him alive a little longer.
"We can't blame him. We just got unlucky."
Fries shook his head with a sigh. He knew—
A newcomer picked in sixteenth place was doomed from the start.
Even if he weren't a newcomer, without a good starting setup, it would be difficult to advance and leave with a high score.
As the room fell silent, Dean Qi opened his eyes. He looked as if he'd seen something unbelievable.
His trembling finger pointed toward the screen in the sky.
"Is that a Crafting Table?"
"Gu Yu made a Crafting Table!"
"Logs, planks, and then a Crafting Table."
He opened his inventory.
A panel appeared, showing his character's stats and inventory items, with a four-slot crafting grid in the upper-left corner.
He put in a log, and it naturally broke down into four planks.
Then he arranged four planks in a square, and the Crafting Table was complete.
The process was so familiar that, in the blink of an eye, the Crafting Table was in Gu Yu's hands.
It was the first time he'd seen a Crafting Table this realistic with his own eyes.
It looked much like the one in the game: brown all over, with nine little squares on top and a hammer and saw below, symbolizing work.
Whenever he needed to use it, he could place items in the nine squares on top to craft things.
He casually set down the Crafting Table, broke the planks down into sticks, and made a Wooden Pickaxe.
The actions were practically instinctive, yet they left every viewer stunned.
"Where did the Crafting Table come from? He started with just one tree!"
"There was no chest and nothing else!"
"So Gu Yu made it by hand?"
"What? I thought Block Civilization gave those to you. You can make one yourself?"
"What's it made from? Wood?"
"Incredible!"
Everyone knew that—
Each player had a four-slot crafting grid, but most important items required a nine-slot grid.
Only a Crafting Table could be used to make them.
In previous civilizations, either a Crafting Table wasn't needed, or there was one in the village. No one had to go out of their way to find one.
As a result, they'd gradually forgotten about this crucial item. No one had even studied how to make one.
It was only when Gu Yu brought one out that they remembered—
Most chunks didn't start with a Crafting Table!
Among the chosen players, Gu Yu might be the only one who had made one himself!
"What, a Crafting Table?!"
Park Sam-chang was the most shocked of all.
He'd just been fretting over how he couldn't make Mushroom Soup without a Crafting Table. And now, all of a sudden, Gu Yu had one in his hands?
As a Veteran Player, he knew very well—
The Crafting Table was one of the most important items in the game!
Every raw material needed to be processed with a Crafting Table. The four slots players had seemed like plenty, but they were extremely limited in practice.
Without a Crafting Table, it was impossible to keep progressing.
"This thing is incredibly important. There's no way he could have crafted it!"
"It must have come with his chunk. Didn't he just open a chest? That's it, that's definitely what happened!"
After a brief moment of shock, Park Sam-chang quickly came up with an explanation.
With resources so limited on a Sky Island, it made perfect sense for a Crafting Table to be an extra reward in the inventory!
Following Park Sam-chang's reasoning, viewers from the stick country agreed.
"Exactly! I've never seen anyone make a Crafting Table!"
"A few pieces of wood are worthless. How could they possibly be used to make something so important?"
"Even if he got an extra Crafting Table, it's useless to Gu Yu!"
"He's a newbie. How many tool blueprints could he know?"
"And so what if he knows a few? Can a couple sticks of wood turn into the whole world?"
"Exactly! A good item is completely wasted on him. It would be better to give it to our Smida!"
"It's a shame there are no blocks, or this Crafting Table would be ours by now!"
"When they hear our stick-country name, won't the Nine Provinces be so scared they piss themselves?"
"Hahahaha!"
After their brief surprise, everyone accepted Park Sam-chang's explanation.
So what if there was a Crafting Table on a resource-poor Sky Island?
Could one tree really turn the world upside down? Victory would belong to them in the end!
Before you continue