Chapter 70: Recycle Shop

Soon, Lily Rhodes saw a wooden Treasure Chest floating toward her on the surface of the sea. She steered her sailboat and quickly pulled up alongside it.

Just as she reached out to fish up the wooden Treasure Chest, the seawater nearly scalded her. Looking at the red burn on the back of her hand, Lily drew a sharp breath. She had not expected the surface water temperature to rise this high.

Opening the Treasure Chest, she found a black helmet inside. It was a diving helmet that allowed the wearer to stay underwater for an hour. However, a helmet alone only permitted lingering in the shallow sea. To dive down to where the Volcanic Venom-Snails were located, she needed a full set of gear. Aside from the helmet, she also needed a diving suit and flippers. With the Water-Repelling Pearl, she did not have to worry about underwater visibility. In truth, what she wanted most was equipment that would allow her vehicle to dive as well.

Next, Lily did not rush to kill the Volcanic Venom-Snails. Instead, she focused entirely on searching for Treasure Chests. Even though she did not hunt them personally, her kill count for the venom-snails steadily climbed. While she was no longer in the very top ranks, she remained within the top one hundred.

This was all because she had a vehicle with a mind of its own.

As the number of Volcanic Venom-Snails increased, Shelly inevitably encountered them underwater. Given Shelly’s current massive size, the creature could crush the Volcanic Venom-Snails to death without doing a single thing. However, because Lily needed to search for Treasure Chests, the sailboat moved slowly. Consequently, Shelly did not come across many Volcanic Venom-Snails down below, which was why Lily’s rank hovered steadily within the top one hundred.

In reality, as long as Shelly was around, she had practically secured first place. Yet, there was one major flaw when Shelly killed a Volcanic Venom-Snail: its body would be completely pulverized, Shell and all. Judging by the feedback from other Survivors in the regional chat channel, the System collected Volcanic Venom-Snail Shells, and their value was quite high. However, it only accepted perfectly intact Shells; even the slightest blemish would render them worthless.

After searching continuously for several hours, Lily finally gathered a deep-sea diving suit for herself, as well as deep-sea diving gear for her sailboat. It had been far from easy. Furthermore, once she equipped the sailboat with the deep-sea diving gear, the entire vessel underwent an earth-shattering transformation, turning from a simple boat into a rudimentary submarine.

At the same time, Lily discovered something new on her interface.

"A recycling shop? So this is where it is," Lily muttered as she looked at the shop window.

No wonder she could not find the collection point for the Volcanic Venom-Snail Shells earlier, and no one in the regional chat channel had mentioned it either. It had been right here all along. At a glance, the shop was filled with all sorts of items, even including Elixir Pills and Talismans from a Cultivation World.

Lily browsed through the items to see if there was anything she needed, hoping to find some motivation for herself over the next three days. After looking for a long time, her gaze settled on a specific item.

[Gold Spirit Pearl: Once fused, it makes a vehicle incomparably hard and indestructible.]

To her surprise, the Gold Spirit Pearl she had been searching for actually appeared here. Looking at the price, however, it required ten thousand Points to redeem. One Shell equaled one Point, which meant she needed ten thousand Shells. Ten thousand Shells did not simply mean killing ten thousand Volcanic Venom-Snails, because the recycling shop only accepted flawless Shells. In just three days, even working without sleep or rest, it would probably be impossible to gather ten thousand perfect Shells manually.

With this in mind, Lily opened The Supreme Shop and changed the price of the cooling potion to one perfect Shell per bottle. She could not hunt ten thousand Shells by herself, but she could definitely collect them from others. With The Supreme Shop at her disposal, gathering a mere ten thousand Shells would be a piece of cake.

After making her preparations, Lily piloted the sailboat and slowly began to dive. Protected by the deep-sea diving gear, she did not feel any heat at all, though the lighting was a bit dim.

Once the sailboat reached deeper waters, Lily stepped out of the vessel holding a golden Fish Spear. The previous reward from the vehicle leaderboard had been an Advanced Self-Selected Weapon Box. She had not opened it immediately back then, but now that she wanted to hunt Volcanic Venom-Snails, she chose a weapon specifically designed for Armor Piercing and dealing with shelled creatures.

"Let’s see how effective this Fish Spear is."

After leaving the sailboat, Lily quickly found a Volcanic Venom-Snail crawling slowly through the seawater. The venom-snail was entirely red and looked incredibly beautiful, like an erupting volcano. Wherever it crawled, it left a deep scorch mark across the seabed.

While Lily had been searching for Treasure Chests, someone had already published a guide on how to kill a Volcanic Venom-Snail while keeping its Shell intact. According to the guide, there were three spots where the venom-snail could spew magma: the front, the back, and the top. To kill the venom-snail, one had to attack from the side, thrusting their weapon into its lateral body.

Unlike other snails, the Volcanic Venom-Snail’s organs were not inside its shell. The shell was filled entirely with boiling magma. Instead, all of its vital organs were located underneath its body. A direct attack there would result in instant death. But the process did not end there. After killing the venom-snail, the magma inside the Shell had to be quickly scooped out. Once the Volcanic Venom-Snail died, the magma would rapidly solidify. If it hardened inside, extracting the magma would destroy the Shell.

"What a hassle," Lily complained.

Muttering to herself, Lily approached the side of the Volcanic Venom-Snail, golden Fish Spear in hand. After kicking the venom-snail over, she directly plunged the Fish Spear into its body. Simultaneously, three streams of boiling magma erupted from the Volcanic Venom-Snail. In an instant, the surrounding seawater began to churn and boil, but thanks to her diving gear, Lily merely felt a wave of heat.

Having successfully harvested her first Poisonous Snail Shell, Lily did not immediately search for the next one. She realized that her diving suit had a limited lifespan. Hunting just that single creature had dropped her gear’s durability by a tenth. In other words, this set of diving gear could only sustain the hunting of ten Volcanic Venom-Snails at most.

Thinking about it this way, if players wanted to use Points to exchange for items in the recycling shop, their options would be extremely limited. That was, unless they worked as a team—one person responsible for searching, while the other focused on killing the venom-snails.

"Forget it. I’m better off putting my hopes on The Supreme Shop."

With that thought, Lily simply abandoned her cautious hunting approach. When she spotted another Volcanic Venom-Snail, she directly impaled it to death with the Golden Fish Fork in her hand.

The Shell was punctured with a massive hole, rendering it completely useless. Because she had killed it so quickly this time, the Volcanic Venom-Snail did not have time to spew out the magma inside its body. Then, she noticed that the magma that was supposed to solidify... actually didn’t solidify at all...