Chapter 73: New Product - Bedding

Chapter 73: Chapter 73: New Product - Bedding

The Sea Survival Game’s third island, Glimmerstone Isle, could almost be considered the first major turning point. This was because after exploring the third island, Positioning Cards, sunken ship coordinates, and a massive number of new islands would appear. All of this meant bloody slaughter among players, opportunities for the weak to overtake the strong, and the emergence of a much wider variety of resources.

Future competition would only become fiercer.

Rowan Rhodes originally thought she would be thrilled. To her surprise, she was terrifyingly calm. Perhaps having such an excellent starting point in this life gave her the confidence to face the hardships ahead. After all, true strength provided absolute assurance.

However, there was still some time before Glimmerstone Isle emerged. Before then, she could finally upgrade her Level 7 Raft to a Level 8 Raft. After acquiring the highly valuable pelt of the Snowstrider Bear, her sudden advancement wouldn’t attract unwanted attention. Besides, there were quite a few Level 7 Rafts on the leaderboards now.

Since she had met the requirements long ago, Rowan directly selected "Upgrade."

[Territory: Initial Raft]

[Level: Level 8] [Upgrade]

[Introduction: Semi-Automated Raft]

[Specification: 100 Square Meters] [Expansion]

[Durability: 1000/1000 (Wooden House +200)]

[Defensive Power: 1000/1000 (Wooden House +200)]

[Current Equipment: Hook Claw, Fishing Net, Campfire, Long Spear, Wooden House, Wood Wall... Metal Wall, Medical Table, Seed Bed, Burning Bottle (C-level)]

[Unlockable Equipment: Raft (Metal Door), Production (Loom), Survival (Generator), Weapon (Vortex Torpedo)]

Scanning the interface, Rowan’s eyes immediately locked onto the few pieces of Unlockable Equipment.

[Metal Door: 4 Metal Ingots + 4 Wooden Boards + 2 Bolts + 2 Hinges]

[Loom: 10 Wooden Boards + 10 Bolts + 10 Metal Ingots]

[Generator: 10 Wooden Boards + 10 Metal Ingots + 2 Circuit Boards + 4 ropes + Blueprint]

[Vortex Torpedo: 3 Titanium Ingots + 2 pieces of magnetite + 2 gunpowder + Blueprint]

After reading the requirements, Rowan couldn’t help but let out a long breath. The difficulty had truly skyrocketed all at once. The hardest materials to acquire were the Titanium Ingots and the blueprints.

A Titanium Ingot had to be smelted from titanium ore in a Furnace. While there were several ways to obtain titanium ore, every single method was quite difficult. The first method was on islands, which required a Detector to locate. The second was on the seabed, which meant diving with an Oxygen Bottle and a Diving Suit to search, requiring a Map. The third was opening a Bronze Treasure Chest, though the drop rate was extremely low. The fourth was buying it from the Trading Post, but the Trading Post had to be at least Level 3. The fifth was scavenging scrap titanium from sunken ships on the ocean floor.

As for the blueprints, she would have to rely on the Trading Post or story-driven islands. Because of these bottlenecks, the Generator and Vortex Torpedo would have to wait.

What she could unlock right now were the Metal Door and the Loom. Soon enough, after crafting them, the two pieces of equipment appeared in her inventory.

The Metal Door was meant to pair with the Metal Wall. As for the Metal Wall, since she hadn’t had enough Metal Ingots, she had only unlocked it previously without actually upgrading her raft. Even now, she still didn’t have enough Metal Ingots on hand. But even if she did, Rowan didn’t plan on upgrading them just yet. Once her raft reached Level 10, she would be able to undergo another Expansion to increase its surface area. When that time came, she would need a massive amount of Metal Ingots. Reinforcing the foundation was far more critical than building walls.

More importantly, after enduring the Frost Phosphorus Shrimp’s underwater assaults on her raft, she realized something crucial. If she reinforced the exterior with Metal Ingots, the repair costs would be catastrophic if the raft took damage. For her raft’s current stage, it simply wasn’t worth the investment, especially since wood was far easier to gather than Metal Ingots.

After weighing the pros and cons, Rowan decided to keep things as they were, placing the unlocked metal equipment into her Storage Box.

Next up was the Loom. Rowan placed the Loom directly into her workspace.

[Loom: A tool for crafting cloth, clothing, and nautical equipment.]

In layman’s terms, the Loom could process certain plants into cloth, which could then be crafted into necessary equipment like clothes, sails, a Diving Suit, tents, and bedding. Rowan had been dreaming about the Loom for a long time. The bed she currently slept on was incredibly primitive—just a hard wooden board—but with this machine, she could finally make bedsheets.

Once it was set up, Rowan immediately inserted a Battery into the Loom to upgrade it.

[Loom has been upgraded to Electric Loom (C-level)]

Rowan took out her broken cloth and fed it into the machine.

[Cloth: broken cloth x2]

She then placed the freshly woven Cloth back into the Loom. The moment she did, several blueprints popped up on the interface.

[Cloth can generate Blueprint: Bandage, Blueprint: Clothes... Blueprint: Mattress, Blueprint: Bedsheet, Blueprint: Pillow...]

Spotting the equipment she wanted, Rowan quickly converted all the broken cloth she had on hand into Cloth. She then manufactured a mattress, bedsheet, pillow, and blanket. Moreover, these newly produced lifestyle items were all C-level. Combined with her wooden bed, which had also been upgraded to C-level, the bed’s overall function completely transformed.

[Cozy Wooden Bed (C-level): Rest, Life Value regeneration speed +40%]

The wooden bed originally offered an 8% bonus, but with the addition of the mattress and other bedding, it shot straight up to 40%. This meant that as long as she had enough time, Rowan could save her food rations and simply sleep to restore her condition.

A moment later, Rowan was lying comfortably on her cozy wooden bed. Glancing at the control panel, she watched her Life Value gauge visibly filling up. Equipment with buff modifiers like this was an absolute trump card in the Sea Survival Shop.

Most importantly, the required resource—broken cloth—was abundant across the entire server. Before other players managed to upgrade to a Level 8 Raft, she could make an absolute killing.

Acting on her thoughts immediately, Rowan started trading for broken cloth with regular players from other districts. Just as she expected, the moment the trade offer was listed, a steady stream of broken cloth flowed into her inventory through the Sea Survival Shop.

Once she had stockpiled an ample supply of the resource, Rowan got up and configured the Loom. With the settings locked in, the machine began continuously producing mattresses, pillows, and bedsheets. As soon as they were finished, she listed them on the market.

Even though she had just upgraded her raft, collected a massive amount of broken cloth, and immediately listed bedding for sale, she wasn’t worried in the slightest about people suspecting her secret identity. That was because her current public identity was a "player," not a wealthy merchant. If anyone questioned the convenient timing of her selling bedding, she could simply brush it off by claiming she had commissioned the Sea Survival Shop to acquire the materials for her.

Other players had done the exact same thing, hadn’t they? By doing this, she wrapped her true identity in multiple layers of plausible deniability. Even if one layer was exposed later on, she would still have another to fall back on.

Sure enough, the moment the bedding appeared in the Sea Survival Shop, District 122’s world channel instantly blew up with discussions.