Chapter 33: Trade, Harvesting Crystal Cores

The temperature today dropped a bit more compared to yesterday.

Lily Rhodes checked the forecast for the next few days. Unsurprisingly, the temperature would continue to drop slightly almost every other day. The decrease wasn’t drastic, but it was undeniably getting colder.

Outside, a light drizzle fell over the noon hour.

Noting the weather, Lily walked over to where she kept her air moisture collectors. A row of the devices sat there, already brimming with clean water. She collected and stored the harvest for her daily use.

Ever since the recent upgrade, Shelly had undergone a complete transformation. It gained many new features, and even the original structures leveled up alongside it, including the air moisture collectors, The Commons Workshop, and the Arrow Towers. From now on, these structures would automatically upgrade alongside Shelly, saving her the trouble of gathering materials to upgrade them individually. This was the true advantage of a special vehicle. While much harder to upgrade than ordinary vehicles, its late-game dominance far surpassed them once it developed.

After taking a lap around the perimeter, Lily closed her eyes and began to listen.

Following the upgrade, Shelly had awakened a new ability: a telepathic link with Lily. Now, whenever she wanted, Shelly could hear her thoughts instantly. It was far more convenient than shouting her commands. After all, Shelly’s size was only going to keep expanding. She could still manage with shouting now, but eventually, she would have needed a megaphone.

Lily used her Talent to pinpoint the exact locations of nearby Treasure Chests and relayed the coordinates to Shelly. While the giant turtle traveled, she began preparing items for trade.

She took stock of her current supplies. It looked like a massive haul, but the amount of goods she could actually trade was quite limited. Her most valuable assets were the newly developed cold medicine and the Healing Water, followed by vegetables, fruits, and salt.

However, the cold medicine was naturally cheap. Since it cured illnesses instantly, its demand would only decrease as the Survivors’ constitutions improved over time and the likelihood of catching a cold plummeted. On the other hand, Healing Water was too expensive for most people to afford, and more importantly, its production was strictly limited.

As for vegetables and fruits, despite their high yield, they still couldn’t feed everyone. Besides, they had already been completely monopolized by the few members in the Advanced resource trading group, who paid exclusively in Crystal Cores. Over the past few days, Lily had realized those buyers were genuinely loaded and possessed plenty of premium items.

Although Shelly had now reached Level 7, its daily upkeep had increased substantially. Even if it did absolutely nothing all day, it still consumed a fixed rate of over ten Crystal Cores just to function.

"I’m still too poor. I need to find more Treasure Chests next, and hopefully, I’ll pull a few more blueprints."

With that thought, Lily took out several grills, lit the fires, and started cooking.

After days of practice, her grilling technique had reached perfection. Although salt was her only seasoning, the cheap price attracted a massive wave of buyers. This provided a nice side income while simultaneously distancing her public trading persona from the name Lily Rhodes. After all, who would suspect that the owner of a Level 7 special vehicle was out here selling grilled fish just for some basic materials?

As for the salt, they were surrounded by the ocean. Even if others lacked the specific tools to extract salt, tools weren’t the only way to get it. She silently thanked the System’s anonymity feature for covering her tracks.

After selling grilled fish for a while, Lily checked the trading interface and slowed her hands. The sales rate for the fish had dwindled, and fresh water was selling slower as well.

Having survived the novice period, the Survivors had already acquired basic survival skills. However, the subsequent arrival of their families threw them into a panic once more, heavily driving up the demand for basic resources—especially fresh water. Yet, despite this spike in demand, Lily’s transaction speed plummeted. Ultimately, it was because more and more people were selling water. To secure sales, the merchants engaged in a vicious price war, undercutting each other relentlessly.

Sitting on an entire lake and stream, Lily certainly didn’t lack water. She could easily afford to join the price war, but her mind shifted to another matter entirely. Right now, fresh water could only be exchanged for basic resources, which she didn’t lack at all. Furthermore, aside from opening Treasure Chests, basic resources could also be gathered by exploring islands. The yield from a single island expedition far outweighed countless Treasure Chests.

What she truly lacked wasn’t basic resources, but Crystal Cores.

With this in mind, Lily made a major decision: she would sell air moisture collectors. She immediately got to work.

Without taking down her fresh water listings, she crafted ten air moisture collectors and posted them on the market for twenty Crystal Cores each. This price was actually quite affordable for any Survivor who had lived through the consecutive days of Sea Beast attacks.

The moment they were listed, all ten air moisture collectors vanished, instantly replaced by two hundred Crystal Cores in her inventory.

"Finally, someone is selling a tool that produces fresh water directly! I don’t have to ration my drinking water by the bottle cap anymore."

"Now this is a respectable move. Those unscrupulous merchants out there hoarded their tools so tightly, acting as if someone was going to rob them."

"Well, they don’t have to worry about being robbed anymore."

The players who previously relied solely on Treasure Chests or buying fresh water cheered wildly. Even though fresh water had become extremely cheap, it was still an expense that couldn’t be wasted. The purchased water was barely enough for a family to drink; using it to wash up was completely out of the question. On top of that, some sellers peddled water that wasn’t safe for direct consumption and had to be boiled first.

In contrast, twenty Crystal Cores seemed steep, but it permanently solved a family’s fresh water needs. It was an absolute steal.

But where some rejoiced, others seethed. The few merchants hoarding massive amounts of fresh water to make a fortune turned green with rage when they saw the air moisture collectors on the trading board.

While they were busy fighting a price war, this seller had simply flipped the table entirely. Lily’s move had slashed right at their jugular. Previously, they had ruthlessly leveraged their fresh water to amass basic resources for vehicle upgrades. Now, unless they also sold their water-producing tools directly, their monopoly was dead.

Lily noticed her direct messages skyrocketing at a maddening pace. She didn’t even need to read them to know exactly what they said. Once again, she thanked the System’s anonymous function. No matter how many messages poured in, as long as she didn’t want to engage, no one would ever discover her true identity.