[Damaged Supply Crate (Green): damaged in a fall; the items inside may have been affected]
Ye Fei looked at the Supply Crate marked as damaged, the corner of his mouth twitching, and opened it right where he stood.
[Bread +3, Water +6, grape seedling +1, cucumber seeds +3, Inventory Expansion Ticket +1]
Despite the warning that the items might be damaged, Ye Fei was still delighted by what he found inside.
Bread and water were standard fare. As for grapes and cucumbers, he had opened quite a few Supply Crates before, yet only gotten tomatoes and cabbages.
This one really was generous.
But what delighted him most was the Inventory Expansion Ticket.
[Inventory Expansion Ticket: adds 1 Inventory slot upon use; no usage limit]
One ticket meant one Inventory slot. Ye Fei took a closer look and saw that the ticket was multicolored.
He had always felt there were too few Inventory slots. Since this was something he could use, he used it immediately.
[Inventory slots +1] [Inventory 11/11: Level-One Blood-Replenishing Pill ×2, Level-One Spirit-Replenishing Pill ×4, Wooden Arrows ×2 bundles, basic wooden plank ×28, poor-quality wooden plank ×11, ice ×4, pine needles ×6, Bread +3, Water +6, grape seedling +1, cucumber seeds +3]
Everything went into his Inventory. Ye Fei checked it and found that even with the extra slot, it was still full.
Sure enough, his Inventory was nowhere near big enough.
Chopping down a single tree could yield four kinds of materials. Although they stacked, after opening a Supply Crate, he still had no choice but to head home first.
Once home, he put down the bread and water, then listed the ice and pine needles for sale again.
Four pieces of ice could now sell for only 1 point. Pine needles, on the other hand, had not dropped in price; six could sell for 2 points.
As for the grape seedling and cucumber seeds, Ye Fei looked around his yard, found an empty spot, and started digging again.
After a few minutes, roughly a square meter of ground had become soft soil, and he planted the grape seedling first.
Then he went over beside his existing vegetable patch and dug out a strip of soft soil half a meter wide and a little over a meter long, planting the three cucumber seeds there too.
With that, six Inventory slots were freed up again, and Ye Fei set off once more.
He went back out to chop trees. Although it did not earn many points, the ice and pine needles would cover the cost of buying axes, leaving the timber as payment for his hard work.
Watching the timber in his Inventory pile up again, Ye Fei happily listed the ice and pine needles he had just picked up.
His prices were not high, just the going rate, and his quantities were small. Players could not see who the seller was, but smaller quantities tended to sell a little more easily, since not everyone wanted to buy a huge pile of materials.
"Qingxue, it looks like we used up all our luck when we first headed out today. It's almost time to go home for lunch, and we still haven't seen any prey."
Ye Fei checked the time. It was already eleven thirty, so he headed home with the little fox.
Over the course of the morning, besides the timber they had gathered, they had also picked up two Supply Crates.
But they had not seen a single prey animal.
"Yip?"
Qingxue the Little Fox tilted her head at Ye Fei. She did not understand why the human looked unhappy.
Was it because we haven't caught any prey, so there's no meat?
"It's fine. We'll come out again this afternoon. We're bound to find some prey!"
Ye Fei was not particularly attached to those 3 points, but he wanted the Hunting Gift Pack.
Back home, he checked that none of the seedlings had frozen to death, then reheated the stewed meat and ate with the little fox.
After lunch, when they headed out that afternoon, the little fox shot off the instant she stepped outside and vanished.
"Qingxue, where did you go?"
Seeing her dash away, Ye Fei wanted to follow, only to discover that Little Fox had truly unleashed a burst of speed. She was gone in an instant, and he could not even tell which direction she had taken.
There was nothing he could do but wait where he was.
A few minutes later, he saw the little fox return.
He approached with some concern, Ye Fei took hold of the Pheasant with barely a sliver of health left, and finished it off, receiving his rewards.
[Pheasant killed, survival points +1] [Pheasant carcass: can be harvested] [Today's random quest: hunt ×1, quest progress 1/1, quest completion rewards: 3 survival points, 1 Level-One Hunting Pack]
A total of 4 points came in, along with a Level One Survival Pack.
But Ye Fei was still troubled. The little fox had run off without warning. What if she encountered danger out there?
At least if she got hurt, he had Blood-Replenishing Pills here that he could give her, rather than risk her slowly bleeding to death somewhere.
"Yip, yip, yip~"
The little fox pressed against Ye Fei's hand and nuzzled it, then obediently hopped onto his shoulder and stayed there.
I brought back prey. Now we have meat, so don't be unhappy anymore...
"You little... Thanks for the hard work. Next time, we'll go catch it together..."
Ye Fei suddenly felt as though he understood what the little fox meant.
Although a knife would not normally be the right tool, that was how things worked here, so he processed it in the prescribed way.
[White-Feathered Chicken +1, feathers +24]
The White-Feathered Chicken was fresh. As for the feathers...
Ye Fei took a look. It had yielded quite a lot of them.
He searched the trading listings. Quite a few people were selling them, with the lowest price being 1 point for 25. He did not have many, so he listed his 24 for 1 point too.
"Let's head home first. We'll put things away, then go out again."
Ye Fei took the little fox home, put down everything he could, and opened the Hunting Gift Pack.
[Level-One Blood-Replenishing Pill +3, beast bone +4, Wooden Fence Crafting Recipe +1]
The contents were random, so Ye Fei was not surprised. Besides, it had given him 3 Blood-Replenishing Pills, which really could save a life in a crisis.
The beast bones were rather ordinary, but this Wooden Fence Crafting Recipe...
Ye Fei looked at his own fence and suddenly felt as though he was being mocked.
So my handiwork was a little rough. What of it?
Now you're giving me a recipe outright...
Still, since he had a recipe, he definitely had to learn it.
[Craft Wooden Fence: basic timber ×10]
A single Wooden Fence section was one meter long, and each one required 10 pieces of basic timber. That left Ye Fei a little dumbfounded.
But he could not resist his curiosity and crafted one to see how it turned out.
[Wooden Fence: defense 20, durability 2000]
With that defense and durability, Ye Fei felt it was worth it!
Although no wild beasts had attacked his home yet, it probably would not be long before that happened.
A fence with this much defensive strength would make his home safer.
"Qingxue, we're still too poor!"
Ye Fei placed the fence section outside the Phoenix Tree, then headed out with the little fox. There was no need to agonize over anything else. He just had to chop every tree he saw.
Whenever an axe wore out, he bought another. Whenever a sales slot opened up, he listed more ice and pine needles.
Ye Fei spent the whole afternoon at it and only returned home after sunset.
Looking at the 1,265 pieces of basic timber piled up in his Inventory, along with over three hundred pieces of poor-quality timber, he took all the poor-quality timber to be smelted.
The Material Smelting Furnace converted unwanted materials, or materials with no apparent use, into energy for the house to consume.
Since he cooked every day, and cooked several meals at that, the energy reserves in Ye Fei's home were nearly depleted.
He put in 324 pieces of poor-quality timber, but they yielded only 32.4 energy. Gray materials converted at just 10:1. It seemed like a rip-off, but gray materials could not be listed for trade, so there was no other use for them besides smelting.
He had previously used gray materials to build fences, but those fences had no defensive strength at all. Once completed, they merely kept his yard enclosed.
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