Yang Yi barely slept during the second half of the night.
When he saw daylight, he simply got up and tossed the few rotten bones beneath his bedding under the bed.
After all this time, the captain's skeleton should have been thoroughly dead.
After one night, Yang Yi seemed like a different person.
His face was pale, with deep dark circles beneath his bloodshot eyes.
As soon as he left the captain's quarters, Yang Yi noticed an extra... statue on the bow deck?
It was a cartoon octopus humanoid with wings on its back, squatting on a rock.
"What's this...?"
At the same time, an announcement popped up in the log.
[Last night, a total of thirteen thousand people successfully killed Otherworldly Demons, and one even achieved an astonishing double kill!] [The system will grant you a special talent based on your combat achievements.] [Meanwhile, the Monster Gacha Machine is now available. You can insert monster body parts into the machine to receive gacha rewards. The bodies will be forcibly reclaimed. But please note: do not throw random garbage into the gacha machine, and especially do not insert living creatures. This will anger the gacha machine!]
The world channel immediately erupted.
"There are monsters in this world? What do they look like? Has anyone seen one?"
"Just send me back! I'll give you anything!"
"There were talent rewards? I missed out!
"A skeleton monster banged on my door last night, but I didn't open it. If I'd known, I would've opened up and taken my chances."
"If you'd opened it, you might've died."
"Monster Gacha Machine? Have you guys found this thing?"
"I found mine. It's on the bow deck, a big-faced cat. Pretty cute, actually."
"Why's mine in the hold? It's a cartoon robot!"
"Shit, mine's a clown... scared the hell out of me, and it's right in the captain's quarters!"
"Is everyone's different?"
Yang Yi turned to look at his own gacha machine, a cartoon octopus humanoid with its mouth wide open, clamoring to be fed, tentacles covering its mouth...
[Reward issued. You have obtained the talent: ????] [Unlock condition: ????, count: 0/3.]
What was this?
It still needed unlocking?
What a rip-off!
Yang Yi opened the chat channel.
Others were also asking why the gifted talents needed unlocking.
Everyone's unlock conditions differed, as did the counts. Some required tens of thousands or even millions, while others needed only a few dozen.
His only required three, which was exceptionally low.
Soon, people began discovering their talent unlock conditions. They were all simple requirements.
"My unlock condition is walking. I need to walk a hundred thousand steps. What a rip-off!"
"Yours is fine. Mine's breathing three million times. I'll just let it happen..."
"At least you guys have a goal. Mine's 0/100. I have absolutely no clue."
"Maybe it's surviving a hundred days..."
"This system... if you don't want to give us talents, just don't!"
Yang Yi looked at his own 0/3, shook his head, and decided to let it happen naturally and leave it alone for now.
He went into the hold, planning to exchange the monster corpse inside for a gacha reward.
He couldn't use the captain's skeleton for a draw. There was only one.
So he only took the Drowned Dead's severed hand and inserted it into the octopus humanoid gacha machine...
The moment he inserted it, the machine's eyes lit up red, and the tentacles on its chin cycled through colors like ribbons.
Yang Yi turned the dial on its chest, and the sound of capsules colliding rang out from inside.
It really went all out on atmosphere...
"What a twisted sense of humor!" Yang Yi remarked.
Before long, a ball of light rolled out.
Yang Yi picked it up, and it turned into a bottle of ghostly blue potion.
[Name: Drowned One’s Grudge] [Type: Consumable] [Quality: Good] [Description: After consumption, sanity -20. For one minute, you will be regarded as a Drowned Dead and will not be proactively attacked by lesser Otherworldly Demons.]
Yang Yi's eyes lit up.
This was quite a useful lifesaving item.
In a survival game, an item like this was worth a lot.
The world channel also grew lively as a crowd of people showed off their prizes.
"I drew a token!"
[Name: White Bone Token] [Type: Relic] [Quality: Fine] [Description: Summons a skeleton that you can control to fight for you for 15 minutes. Once the time expires, it will escape your control and attack its summoner instead. Its corpse disappears upon death. Cooldown: 24 hours. Before using it, you had best make sure you can defeat the skeleton.]
"That's so strong! Sell it to me. I'll offer a hundred million!"
"What good is a hundred million? You need Conch Coins here, and there's no way to trade unless you meet up in person."
"How's this dagger of mine?"
[Name: Serrated Dagger] [Type: Treasure] [Quality: Fine] [Description: A sharp dagger with a comfortable grip. Deals minor damage. Its only drawback is that it's short!]
"All right, we all know yours is short now."
"I wouldn't want that weapon even if you sold it to me. I couldn't bear the embarrassment!"
"..."
Many people showed off their gacha loot, but fine-quality items were rare. Those were the only two he saw; the rest were all good quality.
Overall, relics had better effects than treasures, but carried a risk of reducing sanity and a chance of side effects.
The rusted flintlock in Yang Yi's hands could deal moderate damage, whereas most other fine-quality weapons only dealt minor damage.
It was stronger by far.
But it had major limitations: one shot per minute, misfires, and a sanity cost...
It was a form of balancing, he supposed.
Yang Yi looked away and swallowed half a long-legged sardine in one mouthful.
He was starving, and after last night's battle, he had far fewer reservations.
None of this was a problem if it meant staying alive.
[You ate a long-legged sardine raw. Your sanity decreased by 2 points.]
The fish had actually started to taste off, but fortunately, it hadn't rotted.
It could provide energy and a little moisture.
Yang Yi ate the entire sardine before he felt even slightly full, then checked his status.
After last night's rest, his energy and sanity had both recovered, but because of the nightmares and insomnia, his energy had recovered very poorly.
His wounds hadn't healed completely either. He didn't know whether they would become infected...
Yang Yi Status: Injured "A human figure with its arms and legs spread wide, with yellow at the wounds" Sanity: 74/100 Energy: 52/100 Vitality: 83/100
He entered the hold.
Today's top priority was making noise traps.
These Otherworldly Demons weren't very intelligent, so the traps didn't need to be particularly well concealed.
He only needed to use the basic crafting function to make some long cords, then punch holes in thin wooden pieces and string them together.
The wooden pieces were easy to get. He could simply take them directly.
In this game, wood could be turned into rectangular blocks of any shape. One unit was roughly equivalent to a cubic decimeter of wood.
After stringing the wooden pieces together, he tied knots to space them apart and hung them in the passage outside the captain's quarters and on the door.
Yang Yi tested them. The sound of the wind moving them was quite different from someone bumping into them, so they could provide some warning.
By the time he finished, the entire morning had passed, and the wood and cloth he had salvaged earlier were all used up.
Yang Yi wasn't in a hurry to gather those resources.
Fresh water was still the top priority. He needed to fish more while watching the drifting supplies to see whether there were any treasure chests.
As he was thinking, Yang Yi suddenly noticed something wrong with his body. He seemed a little hot, his face was burning, and his stomach hurt a little.
He immediately grew alert and checked his status again.
Yang Yi Status: Injured / Corpse toxin infection (mild) / Food poisoning (mild, diarrhea) "His entire body had turned yellow, with darker coloring around the wounds"
"Shit!"
The situation Yang Yi least wanted to encounter had happened after all.
The Drowned Dead carried corpse toxin, and he had been infected!
But he was out at sea, without any medicine...
Before you continue