Chapter 39: Preparing to Open the Shop

Holding onto the thought that "Products from the System must be premium," Lily Rhodes placed the Observatory on her small island, despite feeling it was not very practical.

The unique title, in particular, was incredibly appealing.

"I have it, and others don’t. It is the only one in the world, one of a kind," she thought.

With this thought, Lily’s mood improved significantly. With a shift of her mind, the Observatory flew from her hand. It continuously expanded and unexpectedly hovered in mid-air. Bathed in the moonlight and starlight, it gleamed, looking incredibly mysterious and sacred.

Perhaps this Observatory truly had other uses, but she needed to discover them herself.

After placing the Observatory, Lily was in no rush to open the remaining Treasure Chests.

She looked up at the vehicle leaderboard. Aside from the first place receiving a special building reward, the second and third places also received special building rewards. However, they each only got one, while the rest of the prizes were building fragments.

Only by gathering a sufficient quantity could one possess the corresponding special building.

Seeing this, Lily pondered for a moment. Although she felt the chances were slim, she still sent private messages to the second-ranked Finn Lynch and the third-ranked Jane Yates, hoping to purchase the special buildings in their hands.

She did not want to miss out on the building fragments held by other players either. She began acquiring them at the price of five hundred milliliters of Healing Water for one special building fragment.

It should be known that her Healing Water was currently highly sought after among the Survivors.

All of this was thanks to a single player.

This player was named Paige Quinn. On the fifth day of the Sea Beast Frenzy, she was careless while salvaging a Treasure Chest and suffered an attack from a Deep Sea Merfolk. Although she eventually counter-killed the Deep Sea Merfolk, she was severely injured. If she did not receive treatment, her death would only be a matter of time.

Because Lily needed a large number of Crystal Cores, she released a portion of diluted Healing Water every day, which she called Basic Healing Water.

After Paige paid her entire net worth in exchange for one hundred milliliters of Basic Healing Water, her injuries quickly recovered. Because of this, she specifically expressed her gratitude in the world channel.

Following this incident, the Survivors who had originally complained about the diluted Healing Water instantly shut their mouths.

Even if it was diluted, it was still a rare and holy healing item.

Neither of the top-ranked players replied immediately, which was within Lily’s expectations. After all, these were unique special buildings. If she were either of those two, she would not be willing to sell them either.

As for the remaining individuals in the top ten of the leaderboard who held special building fragments, almost all of them chose to trade.

Lily looked at the special building fragments she had obtained through trading.

Among them were The Omni-Kitchen fragments (3/5), warehouse fragments (2/5), sunroom fragments (3/5), and combat training room fragments (2/5).

These people probably felt they could not gather a complete set, so they simply sold all their fragments to Lily.

She calculated the number of fragments. She was still short five fragments compared to the total number rewarded on the leaderboard.

Those five fragments likely belonged to prominent figures who were reluctant to trade them away.

However, Lily was already very satisfied to have obtained these.

After all, these fragments might never form a complete set in someone else’s hands, but that was not necessarily the case with her.

At this collection speed, she would be able to gather all the fragments for these special buildings by the time the next vehicle leaderboard was calculated.

After storing all these fragments into the warehouse, Lily looked at the two Advanced Self-selected Item Boxes.

The process of opening Treasure Chests was already thoroughly familiar to her. Thus, after browsing through all the items this time, she quickly selected what she needed.

The first was the Basic Alchemy Manual, which recorded a lot of alchemy knowledge and basic alchemy recipes. She had a potion crafting table on hand, which would pair perfectly with it.

Additionally, she saw the Guild Token and Squad Token among the box’s options. This meant that in this world, teaming up among Survivors was actually allowed, or rather, supported.

However, Lily did not choose either of these two. Instead, she chose something else: a Sheepskin Contract.

[Shop Contract: Upon use, you will obtain a shop that belongs exclusively to you.

PS: After opening the shop, please ensure a rich variety of goods in the store. Otherwise, the shop will automatically go bankrupt.]

Although her previous trades had all been conducted in the trading area, just like the other Survivors, Lily could not take her eyes off this item when she saw it.

After all, she had so many good things in her possession, and there would only be more in the future. Owning her own shop shouldn’t be too much to ask.

Moreover, since this item appeared here, it meant it might appear again in the future. She wanted to take this opportunity to secure the spot for the very first shop.

After clicking to use it, a white panel entirely different from the previous ones immediately appeared in front of Lily.

[Please choose a nice name for your shop!]

Lily had always been terrible at naming things. Especially at a time like this, her mind went completely blank, and she genuinely could not think of a good name on the spot.

However, as the very first shop, the name definitely needed to be a bit more imposing.

After pondering carefully for a moment, she entered the words: The Supreme Shop.

[Welcome to The Supreme Shop. As the shop manager, please list no fewer than twenty types of goods on the shelves within twelve hours.]

Twenty types!

Seeing this, Lily thought about the various supplies she currently possessed. Listing twenty types of goods would not be a difficult task.

However, today’s vegetables had not yet ripened. Fortunately, there were still twelve hours, which should be plenty of time. Moreover, a batch of fruits and vegetables would mature today, along with staple crops like sweet potatoes, corn, and wheat. As for weapons, aside from the previous Fish Spears and Fishbone Daggers, Lily also prepared to list items that could be crafted in The Commons Workshop.

Then there was The Seasoning Mill. Now, in addition to salt, the chili peppers and soybeans had also ripened.

Chili peppers could be used to make chili sauce, and soybeans could make soybean paste. Furthermore, brewed seasonings like soybean oil, soy sauce, and vinegar could also be put on the agenda.

After calculating, twenty types of commodities were more than enough.

Lily was very clear about where her current advantage lay.

Right now, everyone else was still in the development phase, barely able to maintain enough food and warmth for themselves and their families. Her advantage was that she was just one person sitting on a wealth of resources. What she needed to do was maintain this edge, then utilize it to snowball her advantage, making it bigger and bigger.

She categorized the Healing Water into Basic, Intermediate, Advanced, and Healing Essence.

Among them, the Basic and Intermediate Healing Water were relatively cheap and could be exchanged for Crystal Cores. The Advanced Healing Water was priced higher, requiring one hundred Crystal Cores for fifty milliliters, and could be traded using Crystal Cores, props, or special building fragments. As for the Healing Essence, it required props or Skill Books.

After doing all this, Lily did not immediately open for business. After all, the goods had not yet been placed on the shelves. While waiting, she opened the regional chat channel.