In the end, Ye Miao got more than 800 gold coins from the monsters, and the boss dropped more than 2,000. It was a huge sum of money for her who was penniless after upgrading the camp.
The three of them then returned the same way, leaving the dimly lit basement. The moment they left the room, the surroundings suddenly became brighter. Ye Miao adjusted his gaze for a moment, then fixed it on: "Traveling Merchant!"
A familiar crowd appeared at the corner of the street not far away, and surrounded by them were the traveling merchants.
Ye Miao’s gaming habit: When he sees an NPC that appears randomly and sells rare items, he will take a look first, no matter how poor he is.
Besides, anyone who's played the game knows that lacking in-game currency isn't a big problem. Even if you're broke, you can still survive by leading others to fight monsters, grinding for materials, or selling off some of your own supplies.
Relatively speaking, rare items are sometimes missed once you miss them, and you don’t know when you’ll come across them again!
Ye Miao said excitedly, "I'll go and take a look!" and took a step forward.
Fang Yuming and Tan Kening didn't mind taking a look, so they followed along nonchalantly. Passing by the traveling merchant, they overheard two female players selecting items whispering to each other, "There's a lot of new stuff. Is it because the novice period has ended and new features have been enabled?"
"How do I use this farmland? Can I just buy it and plant crops right away?"
"200 gold a piece, not cheap. The thatched huts in our camp only sell for 200 gold."
Hearing the last sentence, Fang Yuming's eyebrows jumped. He lowered his eyes and saw Ye Miao subconsciously looking over. He couldn't help but touch her with his arm and teased, "Do you feel like you've lost a hundred million?"
"Huh?" Ye Miao was stunned, then shook his head, "No."
"Thatched huts are the cheapest residential buildings. I think they should serve as a safeguard, ensuring that all camp members can afford them. If we want to make more money, we can earn it from higher-end residences. Otherwise, small players won't even have a place to live. How can they survive?"
Tan Kening was curious: "Are the thatched huts in your camp very cheap?"
"50 gold." Fang Yuming said.
"So cheap?!" Tan Kening was dumbfounded. After a long pause, he said earnestly, "Boss, I'm asking seriously, are you still hiring at your camp? Can I apply to join?"
Ye Miao smiled and said, "Just apply directly. I will process all the applications when I get back tonight and approve them according to the needs of the camp."
She wasn't just trying to be perfunctory with Tan Kening. As of yesterday, her shelter had only been open to offline applications. Perhaps because of its remote location, aside from a small group of people who signed up to join the shelter on the first day of the recruitment announcement, few people had applied since.
But today, the novice period ended, the shelter was upgraded to a camp, and the online application function was opened. Suddenly, more players applied to join. After all, in the end times, joining a team is much more reassuring than fighting alone.
Ye Miao came all the way to T City to kill monsters. System messages kept popping up. When he opened the drop-down menu, he saw that it was all applications.
In this case, even though the camp has gained more than 20 new places after the upgrade, it may not be enough, so she wants to carefully select them in the evening, strive to make members have their own strengths, and ensure the overall development of the camp, so it is not easy to directly agree to Tan Kening to join.
After hearing her answer in such a "businesslike" manner, Tan Kening felt he couldn't afford to shirk his responsibility, so he had to ask for the name of the camp first.
Ye Miao: "'Get rich overnight.'"
"..." Tan Kening was secretly complaining while filling out the application. The boss is indeed a boss. With this aesthetic and this naming, he must think that vulgarity is elegance!
Tan Kening sent the message, and the three of them lined up in silence. After about twenty minutes, they were in front of the roving merchant. The system recognized the three of them as teammates, and the roving merchant's pop-up panel became visible to all three of them simultaneously.
Ye Miao took a look and saw that the [Shelter Construction Permit] was still sold out, but the matching barrier stones were still available. Besides that, the first page was filled with various potions, all priced quite high.
Turning to the second page, Ye Miao saw the farmland that the two female players had just talked about, but in fact, farmland is divided into three levels: primary, intermediate, and advanced, and 200 gold is only the cheapest.
【Name：Primary Farmland】
[Price: 200 gold coins]
[Description: After use, you will gain 1㎡ of farmland, where you can plant barley and rice, and harvest a certain amount of crops after they mature.]
[Others: Primary farmland has a minimum yield protection, which is very suitable for novice players to practice~]
【Name: Intermediate Farmland】
[Price: 800 gold coins]
[Description: After use, you will gain 1㎡ of farmland, where you can plant barley, rice, potatoes, beans, and melons. When mature, you can harvest more crops.]
[Other: Intermediate farmland does not have a minimum yield protection. The level of planting skills directly affects the yield. It is recommended to purchase after reaching a certain level of planting skills.]
【Name: Advanced Farmland】
[Price: 3000 gold coins]
[Description: After use, you will gain 1㎡ of farmland, where you can plant any plant and harvest a large amount of crops after they mature.]
[Other: There is no minimum yield protection for high-level farmland. The level of planting skills directly affects the yield. It is recommended to purchase after reaching a certain level of planting skills.]
This classification of farmland levels is the same as when Ye Miao played games before.
Her own planting skills have been fully utilized, so it would be most cost-effective to buy high-quality farmland. However, high-quality farmland is too expensive. If she buys a piece now, she will return to poverty.
Then the cost-effectiveness of the intermediate farmland is also quite good. Besides her, Sun Chen, who has a level 60 planting skill, should also be able to produce a good yield on the intermediate farmland.
Ye Miao thought about it seriously, clicked on the member information and took a look. He found that in addition to Sun Chen, there were also Hu Hao and Zhu Yihua who had planting skills, but their levels were not very high, one was level 15 and the other was level 7. Probably only primary farmland with yield protection could guarantee the yield.
Another benefit of buying primary farmland is that it allows players who don't have the Planting skill to activate it. Theoretically, as long as you haven't opened all five leveling directions, you can activate the Planting skill. The speed of leveling depends on your hard work and talent.
Ye Miao looked at the few gold coins she had and decided to buy two intermediate farms and five primary farms, which would cost her a total of 2,600. After much deliberation, she couldn't resist buying another NPC blind box.
Opening blind boxes is so addictive!
This must be XXMart's conspiracy.
Tan Kening and Fang Yuming could clearly see Ye Miao's purchase process as they exchanged money for the goods. Fang Yuming couldn't help but wonder, "Blind box?"
"Yeah." Ye Miao nodded and explained, "NPCs can be randomly opened. NPCs have different skills and are only loyal to their owners. The handsome Jin Jie and Da Zhuang in the camp were both opened by me when I bought blind boxes."
Tan Kening couldn't help laughing when he heard these three names. Fang Yuming asked thoughtfully, "Can we buy it even if we don't own the camp?"
The traveling merchant replied, "Yes. Whether there's a camp or not, the NPCs will serve you loyally."
"Then I'll buy one too." Fang Yuming said as he took out the money. Tan Kening was also curious and bought one as well.
The transaction was completed, and the three people left the peddler's location. Tan Kening opened the blind box, took out the doll-like figure, and saw the system's warm reminder: Please place it on an open space for activation.
"Why put it in the open to activate it?" Tan Kening, who was completely clueless, blurted out, "Will he beat me if I just use it to activate it? Activate!"
"Don't--" Ye Miao wanted to stop him but it was too late. A white light flashed in Tan Kening's hand, and the doll, which was only one finger high, instantly turned into the size of an adult. Tan Kening was stepped on and leaned forward uncontrollably, falling headfirst to the ground.
Ye Miao: “…”
Fang Yuming: “…”
The NPC stepped back sympathetically. "It is my pleasure to serve you, my respected master."
"Ahem...you're welcome!" Tan Kening hurriedly got up from the ground, dusted off his clothes, and looked at the other person.
The blind box NPC in front of him looked to be about the same age as Tan Kening, male, but with a strong physique and clearly visible muscle lines.
Ye Miao asked curiously: "Please show me the panel!"
"Okay." Tan Kening clicked the panel to make it visible to his teammates. The panel displayed:
[Name: Male NPC with some strengths (players can change the name)]
[Quality: Blue (Drop Rate 26%)]
[Health: 5000, Mana: 400]
[Combat: Level 40, Healing: Level 10, Gathering: Level 6]
[Skills already possessed: Healing (You can use skill cards to learn more skills)]
[Description: If you need a warrior to fight alongside you, he might be just the right person.]
"It looks like a T." Ye Miao said.
The health value of 5000 is already higher than that of most players. The blood is very thick, which is suitable for carrying monsters. At the same time, there are level 10 healing spells and healing skills [Healing]. In addition to carrying monsters, it can also restore blood for yourself and teammates.
But 400 mana is ridiculously low, and he'll run out of mana after using a skill twice. Fortunately, Tan Kening is a mage and has plenty of mana, so having a warrior to help him pull aggro and carry monsters is perfect.
Tan Kening turned his head and was curious about Ye Miao and Tan Kening: "Why don't you two try to activate it?"
"I'll go back and reactivate it." Ye Miao said sincerely, "NPCs also have stamina. If their stamina is depleted before we get back to the camp, I'll have to carry them on my back."
Tan Kening glared: "Why didn't you say so earlier?!"
"Did you give her a chance to speak?!" Fang Yuming said expressionlessly, "You acted too quickly. If you were even a second slower, you wouldn't have been so tripped."
“…”
Tan Kening wilted.
It makes so much sense, I can't refute it.
Fortunately, Tan Kening didn't have to travel as far as Ye Miao and Fang Yuming. He didn't join any shelters or camps, and like Hu Hao and Miao Lin, he bought an RV to make a living.
So after returning to the camp, Fang Yuming sent a message asking if he had arrived home safely. Tan Kening replied that he had. Fang Yuming smiled and said, "It seems that his blind box was not so tiring that he had to carry it back."
Ye Miao pursed her lips: "I don't think he will. Warriors usually have high stamina."
Then the two of them went back to their respective residences. The blind box attracted people, and Ye Miao didn't bother to deal with the new member application and the house purchase application. He found a stone house for himself to live in, put the blind box figurine on the ground, and pressed "activate".
The next second, a light flashed, and after the light faded, an old man appeared in front of Ye Miao.
The old man had flowing white hair, a pair of gray-blue eyes, a staff in his hand, and a white robe on his body, like a wizard in classic European literature.
Ye Miao looked at the appearance and thought that a high-level priest had appeared, but the panel showed:
[Name: Male NPC with outstanding abilities (players can change the name)]
[Quality: Purple (Drop Rate 14%)]
[Health: 4000, Mana: 6700]
[Alchemy: Level 50, Healing: Level 22, Animal Taming: Level 19]
[Skills already possessed: Mist Alchemy (You can use skill cards to learn more skills)]
[Description: It seems to have some ability to create the world...]
Ye Miao: Wow! Purple quality!
Wait, what is alchemy?
She had been playing the game for so long and had never seen alchemy before, but looking at the description, it seemed very cool.
Ye Miao asked in confusion, "What is alchemy? And what is the skill of Mist Alchemy?"
The old man was ruthless and didn't talk much. Seeing that Ye Miao had doubts, he directly showed the skill panel of Mist Alchemy.
At three o'clock in the afternoon, in a raspberry bush not far from the territory of Get Rich Overnight, Su Xinran put a handful of freshly picked raspberries into his backpack, then wiped the sweat off his face and looked at the sky.
She and her roommate, Lu Weiwei, were both freshmen majoring in animal taming. After arriving in another world, they first acquired the art of animal taming. Later, forced to fight monsters a few times to save their lives, their combat skills were activated, but leveling up wasn't very fast.
After joining the Get Rich Shelter, everyone formed a team to fight monsters. The two of them were timid and cowardly, which made them somewhat disliked and they were very unhappy for a while.
But fortunately, they also have gathering skills, and the level is higher than combat skills. The big boss Sun Chen, who has level 60 planting skills and level 43 gathering skills, extended a helping hand to them. He asked them to go out to pick together every day. He directly paid for the resources they picked and paid them wages.
In this way, Su Xinran and Lu Weiwei made a small profit in two or three days. But something seemed wrong today. Seeing Su Xinran wiping her sweat again, Lu Weiwei asked her, "Do you feel that it seems particularly hot today?"
"It's hot!" Su Xinran agreed immediately.
A few steps away, in the open space, Sun Chen was wondering why wild raspberries could grow on the same soil, but his own seeds wouldn't survive, and even the seeds had disappeared overnight. Hearing Su Xinran and Lu Weiwei's words, he looked over and asked, "So you guys are feeling the heat too?"
Su Xinran & Lu Weiwei: “?”
Sun Chen scratched his head in a naive manner: "I thought I was getting angry."
Su Xinran: “…”
Lu Weiwei said, "It's hot today, and it's been hot for a long time. Before, it was only slightly hot around noon, but now it's past three o'clock and it's still so hot that I'm sweating."
Sun Chen thought back to what she had said and frowned. "Now that you mention it, I suddenly realize... the weather seemed to be very stable for the past two weeks. I hardly noticed any changes."
Indeed, the weather had been unrealistically stable for the previous half month.
Every day was sunny, with the sun coming out around 6 or 7 a.m. The temperature was slightly lower in the morning and evening, and slightly higher at noon, as if the system had copied and pasted the temperature day after day.
The weather changed suddenly today, not much, just very hot. Like a northern summer, the sun scorches the earth with all its fury, lasting the entire afternoon without a single breeze.
"Is it because the novice period is over?" Su Xinran pondered, "In other words, the difficulty has increased? I feel like my physical strength is depleted quickly when the weather gets hot."
"Indeed." Lu Weiwei nodded. "I drank one more bottle of stamina potion today than the previous two days, and I ate a bit more at lunch, too."
The three of them discussed this, and Sun Chen, who was quite experienced in the game, said carefully: "Everyone, pay attention to your physical condition and the changes in your surroundings. If it's just a fever, it's not a big deal. But if the game changes, it might become a complete mess. We have to be careful."
"Okay." Su Xinran and Lu Weiwei agreed, wiped the sweat off their foreheads, and continued picking.
[Alchemy of the Mist]
【Quality: Purple】
Description: After using this card, a random card with random quality and attributes will be cast. Using skills consumes fog elements, and the amount of fog elements used will affect the drop rate of high-quality cards.
In the brand new stone house, Ye Miao stared at the skill panel the NPC showed her, stunned: What does this mean? Making cards with bare hands!
No wonder the NPC described it as "seemingly having some ability to create worlds." In a card game world, being able to shuffle cards by hand, isn't that world-creating?!
Then she asked, "What is the fog element? How do I obtain it?"
The NPC said, "You can get it by killing monsters."
Ye Miao: "What kind of monster can drop it?"
NPC: "Any monster has a chance to drop it."
Ye Miao: If you say so, I’m not sleepy anymore!
She did nothing else these days but kill monsters, and collected a bunch of random drops. Except for some cards and equipment that she distributed to the camp members, the rest were stuffed in the warehouse.
Ye Miao asked the NPC to wait for a while and went to the warehouse to look through it. As a result, he actually found the fog element, but there were only two.
Back at the stone house, Ye Miao handed the fog element to the NPC and asked him to make a card. However, the NPC said, "It takes 2 hours to make a card. You can go do something else first."
"...Okay." Ye Miao nodded, letting him concentrate on his work in the stone house, and she picked up the Pi Xiu and ran away.
After walking two steps out of the stone house, she suddenly remembered something, stepped back through the door, turned around and said to the NPC, "Just call me Lao Shuai!"
The younger one is called Xiao Shuai, and Xiao Shuai’s father is called Lao Shuai. If the plot does not involve the father, other older people can also be called Lao Shuai - this is what is done in the movie commentary of a certain audio platform!
The old man with a sage-like demeanor smiled and said, "Okay, I'll call you Lao Shuai."
After Ye Miao went out, he first built a "chic green house" for the old commander, and then he walked the Pixiu while handling various applications.
As a mythical beast, the Pixiu is a high-level pet in the game. Its personality is like that of a kitten, but when it goes out for a walk, it is more like a dog and will follow its owner obediently without fear of getting lost.
Ye Miao walked in front, occasionally throwing a gold coin to feed it. The Pixiu ate with a meow and ate happily. Ye Miao used his free hand to play with it from time to time, and felt that the endless pile of applications was not so annoying anymore.
There weren't many applications for buying houses, even fewer than Ye Miao had expected. She belatedly realized there was a flaw in her assumption: it might be harder for ordinary players to make money than she had imagined.
She had played this game for so long that she had forgotten how difficult it was at lower levels. But now that she thought about it, the amount of gold dropped from killing monsters in the game depended not only on the level and type of the monsters, but also on the speed at which she killed them.
Take the skeleton monster she encountered when she first crossed over, for example. She killed it with one strike, and in addition to equipment and materials, it also dropped 17 gold coins. However, low-level players kill it slowly, and the gold coins gradually decrease over time. By the time it dies, it might only drop 1 gold, or even no gold at all.
Calculated in this way, ordinary players may not be able to earn many gold coins a day. It may be possible to buy a thatched house for 50 gold coins, but it will be difficult to replace it with a wooden house for 300 gold coins after a few days.
Hey, all the calculations are in vain, the investment direction is a bit wrong!
But—when it comes to investing, how many ordinary people can guarantee they won't make a mistake? She even bought funds in the first half of 2022. Fortunately, she didn't buy much, otherwise she might have jumped off a building before she even crossed over. By comparison, the money spent on building these houses can at least be said to "earn it back sooner or later."
Ye Miao comforted himself and let out a miserable laugh.
Compared to house purchases, there were more applications to join the camp. Over a hundred applications accumulated in a single day, but there were only twenty more spots available. Ye Miao carefully selected five players with decent combat skills, three with ranged combat skills and two with melee combat skills. The remaining dozen or so players were assigned to various other players. Three more healers were added, and several applications were approved for gathering, cooking, construction, animal training, and planting.
Apart from these, there are still three or two spots left. Ye Miao plans to keep them for now, in case he gets lucky and encounters a senior player who applies for them one day.
By the time she finally finished, more than an hour had passed, and it was almost five o'clock. The members who had gone out to hunt monsters and gather food were returning one after another. Ye Miao stopped and looked at the camp gate. Seeing Sun Chen coming back from a distance, she went to greet him.
But Sun Chen didn't see her. After returning to the camp, he said goodbye to Su Xinran and Lu Weiwei, and then went to find He Kailai.
At this time, He Kailai and Hu Haomiao Lin were busy making dinner. Sun Chen pushed the door open and walked in directly. He put the backpack full of raspberries, apples and wheat flour on the table with ease.
He Kailai was heating the pot when he heard the noise and turned his head to take a closer look: "It seems to be less than the previous two days?"
Sun Chen sighed, "It's hot today, so we're working slowly. You can figure out how to charge us."
"I'll calculate it for you when I'm done." He Kailai said.
Miao Lin poured him a glass of orange juice she had bought from Sister Jin to quench his thirst and casually said, "How can Ren Guoqing sell so much bread and jam every day? Where does he get it from?"
"I think so. I didn't ask." Sun Chen shrugged.
He and Ren Guoqing hadn't been working together long; today was only their fourth day, so it wasn't easy for him to ask too many questions. Besides, to him, none of that mattered. All Ren Guoqing had to pay him was enough to justify the hard work he, Su Xinran, and Lu Weiwei put into picking the fruits, and enough to cover the cooking trio's wages.
Ye Miao followed them to the door and just happened to hear these conversations. He was surprised to find that he already had a small and complete industrial chain on his own little piece of land!
The picking trio is responsible for finding raw materials, the cooking trio is responsible for making the finished products, and Ren Guoqing is responsible for selling them.
——What a healthy, sustainable and profitable model!
"Knock knock," Ye Miao knocked on the door twice cheerfully. When the four people turned around, he raised his thumbs and said, "Great!"
The four of them were stunned for a moment, and then they all felt a little awkward: "Boss."
Ye Miao didn't object to the title. While it was a bit embarrassing, it helped her establish her authority. In the apocalypse, order crumbled, and establishing prestige within the team was crucial. There was no need for unnecessary politeness.
She then calmly walked over and asked Sun Chen, "Are you busy picking fruits? Would you like to try farming some time?"
"Farming?" Sun Chen sighed and shook his head when this was mentioned. "To be honest, I've tried it myself, and I can't grow anything."
"What if I have farmland dedicated to farming?" Ye Miao smiled.
Sun Chen stood up suddenly: "Is there such a thing?!"
"Yeah." Ye Miao nodded and said slowly, "If you're interested, try growing one. If you grow anything, we'll split the profits 50-50. How about that?"
"Okay!" Sun Chen agreed readily!
"Happy cooperation!" Ye Miao has always been efficient and effective in his work. Seeing that the cooperation was reached, he left without saying a word and planned to go out and find a vacant land to prepare the farmland.
After she left, He Kailai couldn't help but say something mean to Sun Chen: "Brother, is this what they call a tenant farmer in ancient times?"
"What tenant?" Sun Chen slammed the table and glared angrily. "I farm for my ideals, for love! I love farming! Farming makes me happy!"
The author has something to say:
Saturday, the first day!
I'll give you more red envelopes for this chapter, and for all comments before the next chapter comes out, muah
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com