[Vine +20]
["Lan Qingyou's Shop" has been activated.]
Looking at the pop-up on the small screen, Lan Qingyou now had a shop with its own storage.
It was only ten slots, but that was still better than piling everything in this tiny room.
She tested the small screen's storage and retrieval functions with the mineral water bottle — instant transfer, extremely convenient.
After finishing the test, Lan Qingyou checked her Personal Info to confirm what that person had said yesterday.
Sure enough, she was down 20 Mana Points.
'Can't afford that. Definitely can't afford that.'
'Better go look for more chests first.'
Lan Qingyou turned and flew out of the room, starting her search for any Supply Boxes nearby.
Compared to nighttime — when the green glow served as a beacon — finding chests during the day was far from easy.
She scanned the ground with her eyes while absentmindedly nibbling on the sausage.
When she finished and was about to toss the casing, a thought struck her. She stuffed it into the pocket of her hospital gown instead.
'A place this beautiful and fantastical deserves less industrial pollution.'
As for her hospital gown...
Though she'd been lucky enough to get a dress from last night's chest, she hadn't changed out of the gown — partly because she hadn't bathed in days, and partly because she'd be out exploring today anyway.
'It's already dirty. A little dirtier won't hurt.'
After about half an hour of flying, Lan Qingyou hadn't found a single Supply Box.
But her outing wasn't entirely fruitless.
During that half hour, she'd been carefully monitoring her Mana Points — and discovered that after all this time, her mana was still at 60.
No increase, no decrease.
Which led her to a bold hypothesis.
Her mana recovery rate was probably exactly 1 point per minute.
If that was the case, then as long as her mana never hit zero, she could theoretically fly forever.
That was excellent news for Lan Qingyou — at the very least, she could let herself soar without worry.
'That spot over there looks strange.'
When Lan Qingyou flew over a relatively open area, she noticed a massive, slanted mass of vines climbing up the base of a tree.
It looked as though someone had pitched a tent beneath all those vines.
'Could it be a Shelter?'
Though the entire forest radiated vitality and life at every turn, Lan Qingyou recalled that someone in the chat had needed only vines for their Shelter upgrade. She proceeded with caution.
After hovering around the spot for a good ten minutes, checking from every angle without finding a door or window, she finally dared to fly closer.
She parted the vines with her hands — and found a wooden cabin, half collapsed.
Squeezing her way inside with some difficulty, Lan Qingyou was greeted by a scene of utter ruin.
Tables, chairs, bookshelves — everything had rotted and toppled to the ground.
Moss, weeds, and other plants had already claimed every surface.
Dilapidated as it looked, Lan Qingyou wasn't about to give up on this place.
'A spot this well hidden — what if there's a chest?'
So she searched every section that hadn't collapsed.
She even mustered every ounce of strength to flip the fallen cabinets over.
"Hmm..."
After rummaging around for a while, Lan Qingyou didn't find a chest — but she did find something far more interesting.
A notebook.
A palm-sized notebook with a cracked, brown leather cover stamped with the words "Albert's Alchemy Notes."
She couldn't tell exactly what material it was made of.
But the text inside was perfectly legible, which told Lan Qingyou this thing hadn't been corroded by time the way those tables and chairs had.
'Is it because mana is flowing through it?'
Lan Qingyou, who could faintly sense the mana fluctuations coming from it, thought so.
What was even more interesting:
She'd never seen the script used on the cover or inside, yet she could somehow read it without any trouble.
'Could this be Karim's native script?'
'A transmigration perk from the World Will?'
Lan Qingyou didn't know, and frankly didn't care — she just stuffed it into her pocket and moved on.
Having at least found something worthwhile, and seeing that the ruined cabin had nothing else left to search, she turned and flew out to continue hunting for chests.
By the end of the morning, Lan Qingyou had found two Supply Boxes.
Same size as last night's.
One contained a 500 ml bottle of Chafan tea, a 500-gram coconut bread, an apple, and a towel.
The other held a 500 ml can of Snowball beer and a value-pack of Kangshifu instant noodles.
There was even a wooden bowl — roughly twenty centimeters wide and ten centimeters tall!
Quite thoughtfully prepared. Thoroughness was clearly the theme.
She was starting to see the pattern.
Each Supply Box typically contained one drink, one or two food items, and one daily necessity. The daily necessities, however, were wildly unpredictable — anything could show up.
But regardless, the intent was clearly to keep everyone from suffering too much.
So she found two lengths of vine, tied the two chests together, and flew off toward home carrying them.
Throughout the morning's experiments, she'd discovered that as long as something didn't exceed her body weight, she could carry it while flying.
At about 170 centimeters tall and weighing around 50 kilograms, two chests were well within her limits.
The reason Lan Qingyou was bringing the empty chests home was simple: she had absolutely nothing in there, and a few extra boxes could double as storage cabinets.
"Hm? Did you see something fly past just now?"
Someone out gathering supplies suddenly looked up at the sky, then turned to the bespectacled guy beside him.
"Stop slacking off. Even if your mana is spent, you need to keep collecting materials. Who knows when this damn place will ambush us. I sure as hell don't trust that 'seven-day protection period' the World Will talked about."
"No, I really saw it. Just now. A dark shadow."
"Seriously?"
The bespectacled man, who had been earnestly chopping a tree, lowered his longsword and fixed the other with a grave look.
"Yeah."
"Then this area isn't safe anymore. Let's go chop trees to the south."
With that, the bespectacled man scanned their surroundings warily, hoisted his longsword and the timber, and hurried off. He grumbled as he walked.
"Should've picked the Axe. A longsword is awful for chopping trees."
"Uh..."
The one who'd seen the shadow hugged his bundle of wood and followed after him.
Lan Qingyou had noticed those two, of course.
But she had no intention of going over to say hello.
In truth, while zipping around in the sky all morning, she'd spotted quite a few people out gathering resources.
Those with mana used the Gathering Skill. Those who'd run out of mana used their weapons and tools.
In short, everyone was working hard to gather as much as they could.
Of course, none of that concerned Lan Qingyou.
She just wanted to survive on her own, and then see if someday she might run into the people who'd ruined her — and teach them a lesson they'd never forget.
Back at the Shelter, Lan Qingyou could finally catch her breath.
She drank some water, consolidated all the supplies into one chest, then pulled out the coconut bread, munching on it while browsing the chat.
The World Channel was the same as ever — too many people talking, impossible to keep up even with the screen locked, and precious little useful information.
The Regional Channel, on the other hand, was not only buzzing with activity but actually contained some worthwhile intel.
What kind of useful information, exactly?
The kind that gave Lan Qingyou a very clear picture of just what kind of environment she was in.