With little time left, the four said their goodbyes and prepared to leave.
Before they left, Wu Qing took out three pills and distributed them to them. Before anyone could ask, she spoke first.
"Take the antidote within 10 hours, or you're doomed."
After saying that, Wu Qing turned into white light and disappeared from the instance.
The remaining three people looked at each other, speechless, holding the pills.
Zhang Shi was speechless for a moment, feeling that his sincerity had been betrayed. But he could understand Wu Qing; after all, in the middle of nowhere, no one would dare to gamble with their own safety and the morality of others.
With a flash of white light, Zhang Shi was back in the familiar stone house. Pipi, seeing Zhang Shi return, excitedly jumped on him and frolicked.
After fighting in the dungeon all day, dusk was falling, and sunset was approaching. The wind and snow outside had stopped, and Zhang Shi checked the courtyard. Everything seemed normal, except that the temperature was getting lower and lower.
The items obtained from this dungeon run were all combat-related and not very helpful for production or daily life. Zhang Shi still had to keep up with all the tasks he needed to do.
After collecting the charcoal and filling the iron ore bins as usual, Zhang Shi opened the trading market and sorted out his gains. He noticed that many people below his trading orders were speculating about his identity.
Zhang Shi wasn't bothered by this. Ever since he publicly sold plums in the chat channel, he had no intention of hiding his real name. Apart from this dungeon run, he hadn't heard of any survivors meeting each other. He wasn't afraid of being targeted by anyone with ulterior motives.
I checked the seedlings in the greenhouse. Thanks to the farm owner's module, the seedlings are growing vigorously and have already sprouted leaves. At this rate, they will be ready to mature soon.
Inside the poultry shed, two eggs were still incubating, showing no signs of life, leading Zhang Shi to suspect they were rotten.
After adding some hay to the sheep pen, Zhang Shi returned to the stone house, cooked himself dinner, took a nice hot bath, and went to bed early to rest.
In fact, some people in the trading market have already taken action regarding fuel resources.
Chen Beipan's mutual aid group has many members, including several survivors from nearby coal mines.
Chen Beipan invested considerable resources in training them and, through them, acquired a large quantity of coal. This coal caused a sensation as soon as it entered the market.
Coal burns faster and releases more heat than charcoal. In the original world, charcoal was more than ten times more expensive than coal. Due to the mining costs in the Wilderness World, coal was actually more expensive than charcoal in the market.
Whether intentionally or unintentionally, Chen Beipan set the price of one unit of coal at the same level as Zhang Shi's charcoal sales, which was equivalent to two units of timber. This move significantly impacted Zhang Shi's charcoal business.
Zhang Shi lay in bed, examining the market anomalies. He quickly spotted a familiar ID.
"Prometheus, is it him again?"
Zhang Shi discovered that a large portion of the coal was flowing through his hands. It seemed that this person had no intention of hiding in the shadows, but was openly competing with him on price.
Zhang Shi wasn't worried about this at all. The mining costs were fixed, and his charcoal production was almost entirely automated; it was just a matter of who could outcompete whom.
Subsequently, Zhang Shi entrusted Zhao Feng to purchase a large quantity of coal from Prometheus.
"If we don't take advantage of this opportunity, we'll be doing it for free."
...
Meanwhile, Chen Beipan was trading tools and food with several members who owned coal resources. After the transaction was completed, he didn't forget to promise the members lucrative rewards.
Chen Beipan: Fellow coal miners, you've braved the freezing cold to come down into the mine. You've had a hard day. Here are some high-quality tools and some high-calorie food. I hope you all keep up the good work. Once we completely dominate the fuel market, I guarantee you'll all be living the high life from now on.
He then instructed his men to spread rumors about charcoal in chat channels and trading markets. These included things like, "A friend of mine died of charcoal poisoning," or "Another friend froze to death because charcoal wasn't warm enough," and so on.
Zhang Shi opened the regional chat channel and went lurking. He found that quite a few survivors were still relying on their unlocked panel and high constitution to choose to go out and explore, but their efficiency was very low and the losses outweighed the gains.
Wang Wu: Hey, after unlocking the panel today, I thought I had become a grandpa. I walked two miles in the freezing cold, thinking of hunting some wild game, but I ended up freezing like a grandson, didn't get anything, and even caught a cold.
Zhu Dachang: Brother, hurry up and get some medicine. Getting sick in this world is no joke.
Cheng Xiaobai: Bro, I have some ginger here. Trade it to me, and you can boil it and make some water to drink.
Wang Wu: Thank you everyone. Don't worry about me. I've already upgraded my stone house, and I have plenty of yang energy so I'm not afraid of the cold.
Duan Bi: Brother, explain in detail about the strong yang energy, @Wang Wu.
Hou Kun: Sigh, this chat channel feels more and more like a crematorium. People are talking about unrelated topics, but the popularity is getting higher and higher.
Zhu Dachang: @Hou Kun, how dare you talk like that? Message me privately and turn on your mic.
...
Seeing that the chat channel was shifting again, Zhang Shi switched back to the main panel.
Wang Wu's words just now reminded him that after the novice period ended, he didn't know if the next stage of the shelter had been unlocked yet.
Upon opening the shelter interface, I indeed made a new discovery.
[Brick and tile structure house (not yet unlocked): Intermediate shelter, providing protection from wind and rain and maintaining warmth. It also offers decent defense against natural disasters and wild beasts.]
Zhang Shi checked the upgrade requirements. It required 500 wood, 1000 bricks, 1000 concrete, 500 pig iron, 100 glass, and one level 4 shelter blueprint.
Zhang Shi checked the material requirements again and found that none were available on the trading market. After looking at the manufacturing formulas for the materials, Zhang Shi was delighted. Materials like bricks and glass could be crudely manufactured using smelting furnaces and brick kilns, and he already had two such furnaces working tirelessly in his own home.
Zhang Shi immediately climbed out of bed, took some sand, and put it into the smelting furnace to melt. Not long after, Zhang Shi received a system notification.
System notification: Congratulations on obtaining:
[Glass (White) x1: Basic material, colorless and transparent, essential for building intermediate and higher-level shelters.]
Seeing that the experiment was successful, Zhang Shi added enough sand and prepared to refine the grains overnight.
Making concrete is actually very simple; you just need to mix cement and sand in the right proportions. The problem is that cement is rare in the market and is extremely expensive.
As for the bricks, they need to be shaped in advance, which will be more work. Zhang Shi lit a campfire in the yard and dug a pit. He added water to the pit and made mud blocks.
Finally, the bricks are divided into neat small pieces by the old bricks and fired in a charcoal kiln. Before long, a pile of neat square bricks is produced.
After systematic processing, each brick was perfectly shaped and uniform in size, saving Zhang Shi a lot of work. Zhang Shi made a large number of clay bricks at once, piled them up by the campfire, and added new bricks whenever he had time.
Lying back on the bed, Zhang Shi's mind was filled with all sorts of trivial matters. Although the shelter wasn't large, there was a lot of work to do, and Zhang Shi was already feeling quite tired. He fell asleep soon after.
In the middle of the night, Pipi started barking fiercely. Zhang Shi was awakened by the noise. He was in a bad mood, but when he heard the banging on the iron gate outside, he immediately calmed down, followed by an even stronger feeling of anger.
"Damn it, can't people just get a good night's sleep?"
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