Although the purpose of the plastic fragments is unknown, it's clear they're a usable resource. Hoarding resources, advancing technology, exploiting bugs—these are the three things Xi Xi, a seasoned gamer, was most passionate about when playing various open-world survival games, and they remain so now.
It's not that openly collecting empty plastic bottles is wrong, but Xi Xi scrolled through the public chat for a long time and found that there was currently no demand or business opportunity for it in the market. This meant that very few people knew about plastic scraps, and it was really not wise to alert them. With the right timing, location, and people, now was the perfect time for her to secretly develop and seize the market.
Currently, the most direct source of plastic debris is plastic bottles. Water resources are severely scarce in the desert, and it's practically impossible to find another person using so much water to make snake bone soup like she did tonight.
Others desperately needed hot water, and she wanted empty bottles; it was a win-win situation for everyone.
Xi Xi : "If you need hot water, please DM me as soon as possible. I'll be closing up shop in half an hour."
A gust of cold wind blew by, and Xi Xi shivered, quickly putting on her military overcoat. The air was so dry and cold, with very low moisture content, that the wind felt biting and piercing. Xi Xi frowned, a little worried, as she experienced the sudden drop in temperature firsthand. But it was only half an hour; she should be able to hold on.
Xi Xi only had one iron pot, so progress was inevitably slow, and the number of private messages urging her to hurry up increased. More and more people were complaining about the cold on the public screen, and even though the deadline had passed, new customers were still messaging her to boil water.
Xi Xi wasn't one to be overly compassionate; she kept her promise to close the order deadline in half an hour. After boiling the last batch of hot water, Xi Xi quickly added some firewood to the fire and then retreated back into the cart.
She checked the time and roughly calculated based on today's journey and fuel consumption. Conservatively, she estimated that even if she ran the air conditioning from now until tomorrow morning, it would only consume a dozen or so units of gasoline at most. Assuming there wouldn't be a gasoline shortage before setting off tomorrow, the extra gasoline she stocked up tonight would be more than enough, if not more.
Xi Xi drew all the car curtains, turned on the heater and set it to external air circulation, left the rear window slightly ajar and closed the screen, and a sense of security from the enclosed space welled up inside. Xi Xi even noticed a hidden latch on the screen that could be locked securely, ensuring the safety of the car interior, and she was even more impressed by how wonderful the car window curtain was.
[112 small empty plastic bottles and 26 medium empty plastic bottles were detected. Should they be decomposed?]
[Ding! Disassembly successful. Congratulations! You have obtained 23 plastic fragments.]
There were four empty bottles left at her feet. Xi Xi collected them one by one and checked her personal interface. Wow, [Survival Points: 1552]! Now she finally understood the joy of the old lady in her neighborhood who used to collect aluminum cans to sell as scrap metal and earn money by collecting garbage every day. Anyway, she had nothing better to do than boil water and collect garbage. She earned 1312 points in no time.
[Materials detected: All materials available. Consume 20 Plastic Fragments, 10 Common Wood, and 8 Common Stones to craft a basic workbench?]
"A workbench?" Xi Xi hadn't expected a racing game to have something like this; the level of freedom was just too high! "Yes! Craft it!"
Some pixel particles flashed past her eyes, and the plastic fragments in front of her decomposed into light particles and disappeared. They then merged into a low table. Xi Xi reached out and touched it. She couldn't tell what the table was made of. It felt neither like plastic nor wood or stone. She just felt that the structure was magical and very solid.
Immediately afterwards, a small light screen crafting list appeared on the workbench. Xi Xi looked at it for a while and was a little disappointed. She thought there would be a wide variety of crafting lists like in sandbox games, but the workbench could only craft "tools" and nothing more.
Could it be that she hadn't collected enough basic materials? Xi Xi felt that this possibility couldn't be ruled out. She looked at the crafting list repeatedly until the last column: Upgrading to an intermediate workbench requires 1 basic workbench, 4 metal fragments, 10 hardwood, 10 common stones, and 20 common wood.
"Metal fragments? Hardwood?" How could she obtain these? Xi Xi muttered to herself, secretly memorizing the names of these two materials.
[Would you like to craft a standard stone axe using 2 pieces of common wood and 1 piece of common stone?]
[Ding! Successful synthesis! Congratulations on obtaining 1 Common Stone Axe]
"Wow, so heavy!" Xi Xi crafted an axe first, but the moment she held it, her hands felt a sudden weight, and the stone axe almost hit her toes. Xi Xi's heart tightened. Without time to examine it closely, she quickly opened her personal interface. When she saw that her stamina had only dropped from 8 to 7, she breathed a sigh of relief. "Thank goodness, it only consumed 1 point of stamina." Crafting plastic fragments and a tool table doesn't consume stamina, but crafting each tool will consume one point of stamina. Xi Xi remembered this.
[Item Description: A common quality stone axe. Primarily used for logging, but can also be used as a self-defense weapon.]
The craftsmanship of this stone axe was much more refined than Xi Xi had imagined. The handle was of moderate length and had a smooth curve, with lines that were both strong and soft, making it very comfortable to hold. The axe blade was carved with a familiar tower-shaped totem, as if it had been hammered and polished countless times, shimmering with a slight cold light. The blade edge presented a perfect arc, looking extremely sharp.
Xi Xi weighed the weapon in her hand and concluded that, given sufficient stamina, the axe might not be too heavy and could be considered a suitable weapon for an average player. However, it was still far inferior to the premium-quality laser blade scythe in her hand. Putting aside other factors, even in her current predicament of limited stamina, she could easily pick up and use the laser blade scythe, making the difference in quality immediately apparent.
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