Chapter 5: Level Up! Server-Wide Announcement

Chapter 5: Chapter 5: Level Up! Server-Wide Announcement

At 6:00 a.m. sharp, Rowan Rhodes woke up. The first thing she did was consume some bread and mineral water to replenish her stats.

Just as she finished eating and her stats had recovered to 80%, the shark spawned right on schedule and took a bite out of the raft. Rowan grabbed her long spear and killed it with practiced ease.

With the threat dealt with, Rowan glanced at the world channel. Overnight, the death toll had increased by over two hundred. Pursing her lips, she began preparing to salvage resources.

Suddenly, a system prompt popped up.

[The Durability of your Hook Claw has reached zero. Would you like to rebuild it?]

"Yes."

[Cost: scrap iron x3, rope x2.]

With the new Hook Claw in hand, Rowan felt a sudden jolt of realization. She had almost forgotten that the Hook Claw equipped with the raft required scrap iron and rope for Manufacturing. This was also a reminder to players to upgrade their rafts as early as possible. Otherwise, while still on a Level 1 Raft, if the Hook Claw broke due to zero Durability, players would lose their tool for catching materials. Their situation would become increasingly difficult, even leading to death.

The thought flashed through her mind, and Rowan chose to continue.

She salvaged a pile of items and set them aside on the raft. Once she reached the limits of her Thirst Value and satiety, she stopped. Looking out at the sea beneath the clear sky, she felt quite good despite her exhaustion.

While salvaging, she noticed that the resources drifting past her raft today were relatively dense. She had even encountered four treasure boxes. This was highly likely related to her leveling up. She had originally thought that the sea areas where the rafts were located had fixed ratings. She hadn’t expected that if the raft upgraded fast enough, the resources within the sea area could also improve. No one had ever mentioned this point. She had always believed that one could only obtain abundant resources by robbing others’ sea areas.

It seemed this was a trap set by the Sea Survival Game. By dividing the sea areas into different tiers, it forced players to slaughter each other. She wondered why those top-ranked big shots hadn’t mentioned it. Rowan realized one thing: those people believed that stealing someone else’s sea area was much faster than leveling up themselves. It could even eliminate some competitors, because the essence of raft development was competition. Players with a head start wouldn’t be Manufacturing competitors for themselves.

Understanding this, Rowan felt a mix of complex emotions. Some things truly required stepping back to see clearly. Keeping this in mind, she continued dismantling the empty wooden chests and tallying her harvest.

[bread x16, mineral water x16, Wooden Board x118, rope x50, scrap iron x45, garbage x28, iron nails x58, clay x9, dirt x4, bandage x4, Shark Meat x8, Shark Skin x2, Shark Oil x2, shark headgear x2.]

With the Wooden Board and iron nails, she could expand her raft by five square meters. This was just enough to upgrade the raft to Level 3. She also had quite a lot of bread and mineral water, which she could continue trading for empty wooden chests. If she traded all of them away, she could reach the requirements to upgrade to Level 4. Realizing this, Rowan’s heartbeat began to quicken. If the plan went smoothly, it meant she could upgrade to Level 3 today, and even have a chance to upgrade to Level 4.

In her previous life, by the time the novice period ended, she only had a Level 2 Raft. This was an absolutely perfect start!

Rowan once again listed the water and bread in the trading hall. Food and drink were hard currency, so there was no need to worry about them not selling. Sure enough, not long after she listed them, all the bread and mineral water had been traded, bringing back 32 empty wooden chests. Which amounted to 160 units of Wooden Boards and 64 units of iron nails.

Rowan didn’t dare to rest. She first built five rafts, upgrading her current raft to Level 3, making it 3 by 3 meters in size. After the raft expanded, its stats changed.

However, before Rowan could seriously check the stats, an announcement popped up on the screen in front of her.

[Server-Wide Announcement: Congratulations to player Rowan Rhodes for being the first to achieve the Level 3 Raft milestone, rewarded with a Bronze Treasure Chest.]

Seeing this message, Rowan was dumbfounded. She wondered if this had ever happened in her previous life. Scouring her memories, she was certain it hadn’t. In her memory, server-wide announcements only began after the novice period ended. Yet now, just by upgrading her raft to Level 3, she had triggered a server-wide announcement and even received a reward?

It was important to note that the leaderboards only officially opened on the morning of the third day after the novice period ended. The top ten players would all receive different rewards. At that time, the top ten players all had a Level 3 Raft; the rankings were just based on who got there first. Only later, as time passed, did people realize that a raft’s ranking depended not only on its Level, but also on the Equipment, production, survival facilities, and weapons on the raft. Looking back at the novice period, getting a raft to Level 2 was actually just a passing grade. If a player’s raft was still at Level 1 when the novice period ended, even if they survived initially, they basically couldn’t escape the fate of their ship being destroyed and perishing in the subsequent natural disasters that followed one after another.

She wondered if this announcement was rewarding her for over-completing the task. Having sorted this out, Rowan felt relieved. At the same time, she also understood one thing: because of her rebirth, many things were destined to be different from before, triggering a butterfly effect. She could trust the experience from her previous life, but she couldn’t rely on it completely. She still needed to maintain a newcomer’s vigilance to handle the various challenges of the Sea Survival Game.

Rowan opened the world channel, which was being flooded with messages.

"Holy shit, who is this Rowan Rhodes? How is she already at Level 3?"

"We all had the same starting point. How is she showing off like this?"

"God, she’s so incredibly strong!"

"So is this big shot the one trading for empty wooden chests?"

"This is a server-wide announcement, not a regional one. The person above is being too presumptuous."

"A Bronze Treasure Chest! You can tell at a glance it’s different from a Wooden Treasure Chest. I really want to know what’s inside."

"If you’re here, could you come out and say hi?"

"I feel like there’s something fishy going on. This is too much of a coincidence."

"Celia Lynch: What’s so fishy about it? Can’t they just be super lucky? This is a game of life and death. Even if they are here, they have no obligation to explain anything to you, alright?"

"Simon Quinn: @Celia Lynch, we just hope they could share some information to improve everyone’s survival rate, that’s all."

"..."

Rowan looked at the messages in the world channel and paused. She felt the players’ intuition was a bit too sharp. She had never spoken in the District 122 world channel, so no one had concrete proof that the empty wooden chests had anything to do with her. After a few rounds of discussion, it would by Nature be drowned out by other messages. After all, there would be plenty of various events in the Sea Survival Game coming up next.

She just hadn’t expected this Celia Lynch to stand up and speak out. It seemed Celia might have been annoyed by others earlier. Or perhaps she thought that "Rowan Rhodes," like herself, was in a high-tier sea area where having abundant resources was perfectly normal. Rowan calmly withdrew her gaze.

Now she was wondering whether she should continue upgrading the raft to Level 4. She thought about whether the system would reward her with another treasure box after she finished upgrading. Since she had already been "high-profile" once anyway, she wasn’t afraid to do it again. Getting her hands on the benefits was more important than anything else. She remembered that the leaderboard rewards after the novice period ended were only Wooden Treasure Chests!

Rowan immediately finished dismantling the traded wooden chests, continued to build seven 1-square-meter rafts, and initiated the upgrade to synthesize a Level 4 Raft.

On the screen, another announcement popped up.

[Server-Wide Announcement: Congratulations to player Rowan Rhodes for being the first to achieve the Level 4 Raft milestone, rewarded with a Bronze Treasure Chest.]

Happening once again, the world channel fell silent for a few seconds. Then—it exploded once more.

"Wasn’t she just at Level 3? How did she get to Level 4 so fast?"

"This has to be the same person, right? It can’t just be someone with the same name, can it?"

"It’s impossible to be such a coincidence!"

"Is she using hacks?"

"I’m going to report this. Someone is hacking."

"Celia Lynch: This is a mandatory, universal survival game. Hacks? I can’t believe you guys would even think of that. She didn’t buy empty wooden chests to upgrade this time; she probably just had a lucky encounter."

"But why is she so fast? I’m so jealous."

"..."