Chapter 47: Trading Refined Steel

In the past, he definitely wouldn’t have been willing to sell such a top-tier item. But those people had stolen his vehicle, even dismantling it right in front of his eyes. They had only left a few planks of wood for his family of three, leaving them to die in despair.

Desperate, he remembered the special vehicle auction he had seen in The Supreme Shop. In the final few seconds before the deadline, he uploaded the information for the Absolute Defense item. Not long after, a pop-up confirming the successful transaction appeared before him.

Seeing this, the man looked at his wife and daughter in excitement. "I did it! We finally have a vehicle again!"

And this time, it was a special vehicle.

As everyone knew, every special vehicle possessed unique functions. Aside from a slightly slower upgrade speed, they had almost no flaws. To the man, this wasn’t even a drawback. Although ordinary vehicles were easy to upgrade as long as the materials were gathered, those materials weren’t always readily available.

For instance, the Refined Steel needed to upgrade a Level 5 Vehicle to Level 6 hadn’t appeared anywhere yet. All ordinary Level 5 Vehicles were stuck at Level 5. Instead, it was Lily Rhodes, who owned a special vehicle, that had managed to upgrade hers to Level 7.

Hearing her husband’s words, the woman’s face immediately lit up with joy. "That’s wonderful, honey! We aren’t going to die after all!"

"Yeah." The man nodded firmly.

With a single thought, a dilapidated ship materialized before them. Its dark, rotting wood looked as though it had been submerged in water for countless years.

"Is... is this the special vehicle, the Pirate Ghost Ship?"

The man even doubted whether he had been scammed. However, the system panel confirmed that it was indeed the Pirate Ghost Ship, just in its primary state.

"Let’s go." Although the ship looked incredibly eerie—not just like it might attract ghosts, but like it absolutely would—he had no other choice. Gritting his teeth, he climbed aboard first, then pulled his wife and daughter up.

"You two go rest first while I look for a Treasure Chest. We have nothing right now, so we have to start all over," the man said.

The woman nodded and led their child into the cabin.

The man, however, stared out at the calm sea, his mind occupied by another matter.

Starting over was easier said than done. In a world fraught with danger at every turn, it was incredibly difficult. Let alone anything else, it was hard to say whether their family of three could even survive the night. After all, he no longer had the buffer of the novice protection period.

If he wanted to develop safely, perhaps he should try joining a Guild. He now owned a special vehicle. Even though its aesthetics were a bit morbid, those Guilds should still be more than happy to accept him.

Meanwhile, elsewhere.

After obtaining the Absolute Defense, Lily carefully stored it away and continued gathering resources on the island. Working all the way until evening, she had only managed to strip about half of it.

She returned to Shelly’s back. Looking at the remaining half of the island, she thought to herself that she should be able to finish clearing it tomorrow and move on to somewhere else.

Lily first took out the Absolute Defense and tossed it into the sky.

The item burst open like a firework, transforming into a protective barrier that firmly enveloped Shelly. This shield wouldn’t manifest under normal circumstances; it would only appear when encountering an attack or severe weather.

"Not bad." Lily was extremely satisfied with the Absolute Defense.

Next came her harvest from the island.

She had gathered an assortment of coconuts and over a dozen coconut crabs—having wiped out their entire nest—along with various trees, stones, and sand. There were also the small planter boxes she had made on the island and some transplanted vegetation. Aside from Dragon Hollyhock, she had also found fig and pomegranate trees. Oh, right, there were also materials like gold and Refined Steel Ore.

Although Refined Steel could be used to craft tools in The Commons Workshop, its direct selling value was far higher.

But she was a bit hesitant. Right now, almost all ordinary vehicles were stuck at Level 5 simply because of the lack of Refined Steel. If she sold her Refined Steel, those people would undoubtedly catch up to her progress. But if she didn’t sell it...

There had to be other ways to obtain Refined Steel in this world. Those people were only temporarily bottlenecked.

"Should I sell it or not?" Even after taking a shower, Lily was still struggling with this question. She wanted to trade the Refined Steel Ore for resources, but she didn’t want to give up her lead.

"What a dilemma." Lily lay down, rolling around on her soft mattress a couple of times.

"Forget it. I’ll just check my private messages and the chat channel," she thought.

Because of the sheer volume, she hadn’t opened her inbox in a long time. The messages inside had long since piled up to the point of overflowing. Lily ignored the older messages completely, looking straight at the newest one at the top. When she saw the sender’s name, she couldn’t help but chuckle.

"Finn Lynch."

She tapped open the message.

Finn’s message read, "Do you have any Refined Steel? I’m willing to trade my special building for it."

"Finn’s special building... I think I remember it being a library," Lily murmured to herself.

After some thought, she replied, "Sure, but I don’t have a lot of Refined Steel either. After all, you should know how hard this stuff is to get. If I didn’t happen to not need it right now, I wouldn’t bear to trade it away."

Finn replied, "One hundred pieces of Refined Steel, and I’ll give you the special building."

Looking at Finn’s asking price, it wasn’t that she couldn’t afford it. It was just that she only had a few hundred pieces of Refined Steel on hand. Moreover, Finn had clearly factored in the amount needed for his subsequent upgrade to Level 7 as well. That sly fox wanted to jump two levels at once, which was why he had come to trade with her.

Lily typed back, "One hundred pieces of Refined Steel is too much. No way. Although that library of yours is a unique special building, its functions are pretty useless. It doesn’t help with survival at all. I can offer fifty pieces of Refined Steel at most."

Upgrading a Level 5 Vehicle to Level 6 required thirty pieces of Refined Steel. Offering an extra twenty pieces was already very generous of her.

Finn didn’t reply immediately; he was likely mulling it over. Ultimately, he agreed.

"Deal," Finn replied.

After all, just as Lily had pointed out, a library provided absolutely no help to Finn at this stage. In fact, it was nothing more than a burden.

Once the transaction was complete, a miniature model of a library appeared in Lily’s hands. It was pristine and brightly lit; through its tiny windows, she could even see bookshelves crammed with books. The library had three floors in total, and it looked like it took up quite a large area. No wonder Finn was willing to trade it away.

Not long after their trade, Finn’s vehicle jumped from Level 5 to Level 6 on the vehicle leaderboard. This caused a massive uproar in the regional chat channel, with countless people asking him exactly how he had managed to obtain Refined Steel.