Chapter 16
The overall look was rather disjointed, and the styles did not match at all, but Song Xiaozhu beamed at the sight.
Who cared about all that? As long as it worked!
Song Xiaozhu touched the little box, and it opened automatically, revealing five recesses inside. It was quite a curious sight, a little like the "slots" that appeared when she opened her inventory in a game.
But a game was two-dimensional, while this was three-dimensional, and the "slots" had become "recesses."
Song Xiaozhu happened to have one [raw wood material] left, so she tried putting it inside. Judging by its dimensions, a single [raw wood material] would fill the little box, but the moment it entered, it shrank to the size of a recess and fit snugly inside.
Song Xiaozhu saw a tiny number in the bottom-left corner of the recess: 1.
Why specifically display a "1"?
Even without it, she knew this was one [raw wood material].
Song Xiaozhu's heart gave a sudden tremor. Could it be...
She hurried to fetch some wood, placed it on the "Workbench," and deftly synthesized one [raw wood material].
Song Xiaozhu put this [raw wood material] into the little box too, aiming for the first recess. She watched without blinking as the [raw wood material] stacked onto the first one, and the tiny number below changed to: 2.
They could stack!
Identical items only took up one little recess.
In that case, this crude box could hold a lot!
Shoddily made?
Mismatched styles?
Out of place?
No, this little box was her precious treasure!!
Chapter 16
The storage box only had five slots, but if items could stack in each slot, its capacity was quite impressive.
What Song Xiaozhu wanted to know was how many items could stack in each slot. Based on her gaming experience, there were usually two possibilities: either 10 or 100...
Stacks of 1,000 existed too, but those were generally limited to certain materials consumed in large quantities.
For a relatively basic "inventory" in a game, in particular, 10 was the most likely.
Song Xiaozhu looked over the remaining wood and estimated that she could synthesize at least another 18 [raw wood material]. That would be enough to test the slots' stack limit.
She immediately began another round of [raw wood material] synthesis. This time, she lived up to her "unlucky player" reputation and actually failed once. With two additional critical successes, she synthesized 19 [raw wood material] in total.
Now that she had a storage box, the "Synthesizer's" prompts had updated too, directly asking, "...Store in the storage box?"
Song Xiaozhu saved herself the step of taking them off and transferred the [raw wood material] directly into the storage box.
Once the [raw wood material] in the first slot reached 10, they stopped stacking. The 11th [raw wood material] occupied the second slot.
Song Xiaozhu had been right. Each slot in this crude little box had a maximum stack size of 10. She wondered whether that limit would rise as its level increased.
Of course, its current capacity was already quite good.
Fifty [raw material] could make plenty of things!
Even if she only used it to stockpile food, 50 simple meals would feed her for over half a month.
While Song Xiaozhu was delighted with her synthesis, Qiu Shuyu was so distressed she nearly cried.
She could see neither the "Workbench" nor the "storage box." All she saw was Song Xiaozhu repeatedly wrapping pieces of wood in the white mist from her palm. At first, neat, smooth wooden blocks had appeared, but later... even those wooden blocks vanished into thin air...
From Song Xiaozhu's tenth synthesis onward, all Qiu Shuyu saw was: failure, failure, failure... the crafting kept failing...
Was being a "Craftsman" this hard?
Was the failure rate for crafting items really this high?
Even more suffocating was the fact that she truly had not seen Song Xiaozhu make anything valuable.
No wonder the awakened in Ink City looked down on "Craftsmen" so much. No wonder "Craftsmen" had such low status...
This class really was of little use.
Not only had it was-
ted an Awakening Stone, it had nearly destroyed a person.
A life stripped of any sense of worth...
Could leave someone unable to recover.
Qiu Shuyu did not want Song Xiaozhu to lose heart, but she felt utterly powerless.
Song Xiaozhu finished her work. Looking at the [raw wood material] lying neatly in the little box, she felt fulfilled and reassured.
Then she thought of her "tools": a Simple Hoe, a Hunter's skinning knife, and a simple axe she had only made today.
Song Xiaozhu left only the simple axe outside and put the Simple Hoe and skinning knife into the storage box. They each occupied one slot, but her heart sank when she noticed there were no numbers beneath them...
Could these tools not stack?
Then what about food and water?
This was important.
Garbage Mountain might be covered in highly contaminated water and rotten food, which she could easily synthesize into water and simple meals with the "Synthesizer," but she would not stay on Garbage Mountain forever. There would be places that did not even have highly contaminated water or rotten food...
Of course, even if they could not stack, it was no big deal. People could cross deserts without storage boxes. It simply took more effort.
Song Xiaozhu put in the lightly contaminated water first. The water filled the little recess, leaving the plastic bottle outside.
The tiny number 1 beneath the recess made Song Xiaozhu breathe a sigh of relief.
Good. Water could stack.
She picked up a bowl of "simple meal" and was just about to put it in the little box when Qiu Shuyu cried urgently, "Xiaozhu!"
Qiu Shuyu grew anxious and could not help speaking up to stop her.
Stop wasting things!
A big hoe and a sharp little stone knife... both had vanished into thin air!
Before Qiu Shuyu could even grieve over them, she saw Song Xiaozhu reach for the water and food...
To her eyes, this was clearly Song Xiaozhu suffering an emotional breakdown after repeated crafting failures, losing control and starting to squander "materials" at random.
What could a hoe possibly be made into?