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What could a small knife be made into?

These were all crafting attempts that were obviously going to fail...

At least ten yuan had vanished into thin air. Qiu Shuyu simply couldn't bear to watch anymore.

Granted, everything belonged to Song Xiaozhu, but she had only managed to craft these things after who knew how many failures. Wasting them like this meant squandering her own blood, sweat, and tears.

Thinking of how much worse Song Xiaozhu would feel once she calmed down, Qiu Shuyu could only blame herself for reacting too slowly and failing to stop her in time.

How could Song Xiaozhu

have known what she was thinking, let alone that she had imagined an entire drama in precisely the wrong direction?

Song Xiaozhu looked at her. "What's wrong, Sister Shuyu?"

Qiu Shuyu stepped forward and held down the hand that had been emitting Force all this time. "Rest... take a break."

Song Xiaozhu said, "It's fine. I'm not tired. You might not know much about 'craftsmen,' but this class uses very little Force. And I, well, seem to be pretty talented, so... I'm really not tired. I still have plenty of Force..."

A vein throbbed on Qiu Shuyu's forehead as she listened. She didn't know whether to feel relieved by Song Xiaozhu's "confidence born of ignorance" or regret having painted too rosy a picture for her...

In short, she was riding a tiger and couldn't get off. She stammered, "Well, you should still rest a little. This crafting process for 'craftsmen' sometimes also depends on... on... fate!"

She remembered something Master Bai often said when treating patients and hurriedly borrowed it. "Yes, fate. With some illnesses... pfft, I mean, whether some crafting attempts succeed or fail doesn't depend on the 'craftsman's' skill, but on... heaven deciding seventy percent of the outcome."

Qiu Shuyu's patchwork explanation finally made Song Xiaozhu catch on.

So all her hard work making chests and moving things looked to Sister Shuyu like a gambler getting carried away and gambling away everything she owned...

Thinking it over, it really did look a little like that...

And Song Xiaozhu had no way to explain it.

"Craftsmen" could make tools, food, and even more complicated machinery, but they certainly couldn't make "storage chests."

Especially when this storage chest was "invisible"-anyone who couldn't see the workbench couldn't see the storage chest either.

Without a way to explain the storage chest's existence, there was only one answer left for Song Xiaozhu's series of actions-she had failed repeatedly at crafting and was ruining things in frustration.

Song Xiaozhu: "..."

She wasn't, she hadn't, she treasured things very much...

Fine, she was.

Song Xiaozhu's acting was mediocre, but Qiu Shuyu's eye for it was even more mediocre. The two canceled each other out, leaving one bold enough to act and the other genuinely believing it.

Song Xiaozhu put on a look of sudden realization, filled with remorse. "Sister Shuyu... I... what have I done..."

She lowered her head, looking at the empty room (all the wood was gone), then at her own hands (this damned Force). Drawing on her regret over those two pieces of "ginger candy," she staged a grand performance of a gambler's remorse after coming to her senses.

"It's okay, it's okay..." Qiu Shuyu pulled her into a hug and gently patted her back. "It's all practice, all experience. Failure is

the mother of success. Once your proficiency goes up, you'll succeed every time!"

Song Xiaozhu froze. Her already unimpressive acting now had even less room to work-

She hadn't expected Qiu Shuyu to worry about her so much.

She hadn't expected to be held so tightly.

Qiu Shuyu was taller and more solidly built than she was. She held her against her chest like a mother protecting her young. Though her stream of words was clumsy, every word burned hot and reached straight into her heart.

Song Xiaozhu's eyes stung as she thought of her family, far away in another world.

Could she still go back?

This was something Song Xiaozhu had been avoiding thinking about all along...

She was afraid that if she thought too deeply about it, all that remained would be icy despair.

"Don't be afraid. Don't be afraid."

Feeling how small and frail the girl in her arms was, then recalling how calm and composed she was when things happened, Qiu Shuyu marveled at her determination to be strong and felt even more for her:

"There's wood everywhere. Tomorrow I'll take you to the logging site and cut lots and lots of wood for you. You can practice as much as you like. There's no rush right now. Wait until tomorrow to make things. You're... yes, you're really talented. Look how much Force you have. Once your proficiency goes up, you'll definitely become a really, really amazing master 'craftsman.'"

Her words brought Song Xiaozhu back, and much of the gloom that had welled up in her heart dispersed.

A really, really amazing master craftsman...

The corners of her mouth couldn't help curving upward.

Daydreaming was useless.

Only by staying alive would anything be possible.

There were even "spatialists." Maybe this world really did have an ability that could cross through space.

When that time came...

She might really be able to go home!

The thought filled Song Xiaozhu with energy.

With her low spirits gone, this clumsy act became even harder to keep up. Fortunately, there was no need to continue. She followed Qiu Shuyu's lead and said, "Yes, Sister Shuyu, I'm fine now. Take me to the logging site tomorrow and teach me to cut down trees. I want to gather wood myself."

Qiu Shuyu immediately answered, "No problem!"

Only after seeing Song Xiaozhu gather herself and perk up again did Qiu Shuyu let out a long sigh of relief.

After all that fuss, it was getting late.

Song Xiaozhu had finished making the storage chest and was thoroughly satisfied. She only had [raw wood material] on hand and lacked [raw stone material], so she wasn't in a hurry to synthesize anything else.

Stone was a material found everywhere. Surely there would be no shortage of it at the logging site.

Qiu Shuyu stayed in Bai Jing's shack again.

She was worried about Song Xiaozhu, and Song Xiaozhu was happy to have company.

The night passed without incident. Early the next morning, the moment Song Xiaozhu opened her eyes, she received a string of notification sounds: "All current level 1 recipes have been unlocked. All current level 1 achievements have been unlocked. Repair Quest triggered. Upon completion, the workbench can be upgraded to level 2."

"Repair Quest requirements:

First, 100 experience points.

Second, 20 repair points.

Third, unlock all level 1 'synthesized items.'"

"Growth Quest 2 triggered. Please choose: