A lucky start

To give a simpler example, if you ate over a hundred cucumbers in just two or three days, you would not be able to stand it either.

Fortunately, the hundred jin of rice he had obtained yesterday could improve his meals a little.

Still, he had encountered a few monsters yesterday, but he had not met a single one all morning today.

As Tang Zhixue cooked some rice in a Bamboo Tube, he pondered, Should I go hunting monsters in the Silent White Fog this afternoon?

The two Supply Cards from yesterday had given him a taste of the benefits. Obtaining supplies by hunting monsters was much easier than painstakingly searching for them himself.

Another thought suddenly occurred to him. If only I could get information on other items outside the Shelter's range, too.

He could obtain information about the Supply Cards dropped by monsters right where they fell, without having to be inside the Shelter, but that did not work for other items.

For example, if he could see information about the Thorned Strange Black Trees and Clear Spirit Trees directly, Tang Zhixue would not have to waste his strength chopping down trees he did not need.

"Tsk." Smelling the aroma that kept wafting over, Tang Zhixue smacked his lips. "Forget it. I'll just bring back anything that seems useful."

Without any other options, he could only resort to this crude method.

After quickly finishing lunch, Tang Zhixue went out into the woods and gathered plenty of vines.

Among them were twenty thick vines about the width of a finger and roughly two meters long, along with fifty or sixty thin vines about the width of a chopstick and roughly four or five meters long.

If he wanted to go out and bring resources back, a container to carry them in was naturally essential.

As it happened, his life experience had taught Tang Zhixue how to weave simple back baskets from these vines.

He had tested all the vines he gathered. The thick vines were fairly rigid and did not snap easily, while the thin vines were flexible and resistant to breaking.

Normally, these vines needed to be soaked in water before weaving to make them more flexible and prevent them from breaking.

But he did not have the means for that now. The water in the Water-Gathering Grass was all drinking water, and Tang Zhixue could not bear to use it to soak vines.

With Plant Vitality available, he had not even watered those Mutated Plants, let alone soaked vines.

For now, he could only make do.

Still, Tang Zhixue had brought back enough materials for several baskets this time. He would use one set for now and leave the rest untouched.

He took four thick vines and crossed them into an eight-spoked asterisk, with the intersection forming the center of the basket's base. Then he wound a thin vine around the intersection to secure it, keeping the thick vines from shifting out of shape.

Next, he took a thin vine and wove it around the intersection, alternating over one main vine and under the next to complete a circle. He continued coiling outward around the center of the asterisk, circle by circle. He pulled each round tight and held it down with his thumb, gradually widening the base.

During this step, however, he had to remember to leave a space on two symmetrically positioned thick vines on one side, where the shoulder straps would later be tied.

When a thin vine was nearly used up, he laid the end of a new vine alongside the tip of the old one and continued weaving.

Once the base reached roughly thirty centimeters in diameter, he bent the thick vines upward by hand.

With the base finished, it was naturally time to weave the other parts.

At this point, though, the weaving was really just repetitive work, still using thin vines in an alternating pattern.

Of course, as he wove, he needed to push outward from inside or squeeze inward from outside with his hands, gradually shaping it so that the top was wider than the bottom.

When it reached roughly fifty centimeters in height, he bent all the thick vines clockwise and tucked them into the gaps in the previous rounds of weaving, hiding them away. This made the rim very smooth and sturdy.

Finally, he braided two shoulder straps, each from three thin vines, then attached the straps to the basket through the holes he had left beforehand.

"Whew."

Tang Zhixue let out a long breath. "It's been ages since I made one of these. Pretty tiring."

Thanks to his previous experience weaving back baskets, he had only needed about an hour and a half to finish this vine basket.

To do a job well, one must first sharpen one's tools.

Advance preparation was essential, and Tang Zhixue could accept spending a little more time on it.

Normally, a finished basket needed to dry in the shade for three to five days before it could bear weight better, but he could only use it as it was for now.

Just as the basket was completed, an information panel abruptly appeared before Tang Zhixue.

[Item: Crude Vine Back Basket]

[Level: First Tier]

[Description: An obviously rushed item with limited load-bearing capacity.]

Tang Zhixue curled his lip. "What more can you ask for under these conditions? Getting it made at all is good enough."

Actually, he could also fill this basket with soil and use it for planting, but why had Tang Zhixue not made some baskets yesterday?

This one basket alone had taken him an hour and a half. How many baskets would he need to meet his planting requirements? How much time would that take?

Slipping the basket onto his back, Tang Zhixue picked up his Iron Axe and bow and arrows, then headed out.

He held the axe in his right hand and the Wooden Bow in his left, with the Quiver fastened at his waist.

Leaving the Shelter, Tang Zhixue could not help smiling. "My Pure Heaven and Earth Divine Mantra proficiency is going to shoot up in a bit."

Searching for strange monsters would definitely require him to disperse the Silent White Fog over a wide area, so he would have to keep reciting the Pure Heaven and Earth Divine Mantra.

He did not know whether his luck was good or bad.

This time, he had only gone about a hundred meters beyond the Shelter's range when five Rotting Living Corpses appeared.

Looking at the five Rotting Living Corpses before him, male and female, old and young, Tang Zhixue quietly moved behind a Clear Spirit Tree and set the Iron Axe beside his feet.

Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh!

Five arrows shot out in rapid succession within an extremely short span of time.

Squelch!

Without exception, each of the five arrows struck one of the living corpses in the forehead.

The five living corpses had no time even to roar before dying to Tang Zhixue's arrows.

Tang Zhixue, however, looked somewhat surprised. "Two cards?"

Only two white cards floated above the Rotting Living Corpses' bodies, unlike the hundred-percent drop rate Tang Zhixue had guessed at yesterday.

"Looks like it really isn't a hundred-percent drop rate." Tang Zhixue shook his head. "In that case, I'll have to hunt more of these strange monsters."

He stepped forward and collected the cards one by one.

[Item: Supply Card]

[Level: First Tier]

[Description: Tear open the card to obtain a barrel containing fifty liters of drinkable fresh water.]

[Item: Supply Card]

[Level: First Tier]

[Description: Tear open the card to obtain a bag containing fifty jin of edible potatoes.]

"Oh hey, the descriptions got updated?"

Perhaps because of Tang Zhixue's concerns yesterday, the descriptions on today's Supply Cards explicitly stated that all these supplies came in containers.

"All good stuff."

In a cheerful mood, Tang Zhixue put the two Supply Cards into his basket. "A lucky start!"