Chapter 98: Shocking Points

While others fished frantically, working themselves into a frenzy and even enlisting their entire families just to scrape together more Points, Lily Rhodes treated the event like a vacation. She ate when she was hungry and rested when she was tired. Though she spent her remaining time casting lines, she was completely relaxed compared to everyone else’s anxious desperation.

Whether it was due to her calm mindset or her choice of bait, Lily reeled in fish at a steady, consistent pace. Her Points climbed just as steadily. Gradually, she rose from beyond the thousandth place into the top thousand, and then pushed her way past the nine hundred mark.

By the second day, her name had reached the four hundreds. That score didn’t even account for a portion of her catch, which she had kept alive in the fish hold of her sailboat instead of turning them in for Points.

Over a day of experimentation, Lily hadn’t discovered any major secrets, but she did notice that the fish in these waters had specific tastes. Carnivores preferred grains like rice, though using small amounts only attracted tiny fish. The prettier the fish, the more they loved sweets, especially fruits and vegetables that matched the color of their own scales. She didn’t know if this counted as a hard rule, but it was all she had managed to deduce.

On the third day of the event, Lily walked out of the cabin, yawning. She checked her ranking out of habit. Unsurprisingly, her position had dropped from three digits to four overnight, and the number was still falling.

Everyone else had clearly fought hard last night. Since it was the final day of the event, those at the top were desperately trying to defend their positions so they wouldn’t be squeezed out like Lily, while those at the bottom were doing everything possible to boost their Points for a better rank. To achieve their goals, they had to fish like maniacs without a single break.

Lily scrolled to the very top of the leaderboard to see who held first place. Naturally, she hoped to see Silas Jennings, but unfortunately, he wasn’t there.

The top spot belonged to someone named Julian Bishop, with Silas right behind him in second. However, their Points...

Lily stared at their scores, her eyes widening.

"Seriously, are these two monsters? In just over two days, they actually hoarded nearly a hundred million Points."

She rubbed her eyes, suspecting she had read it wrong or missed a decimal point. After rubbing her eyes, the scores remained exactly the same. There were no missing decimals; the sheer magnitude of those numbers was real.

Julian had 98,726,454 Points. Silas had slightly less, trailing by a margin of less than a million. A million Points sounded like a lot, but compared to their massive totals, it was a negligible difference. Now she was even more curious about how they had pulled this off.

In stark contrast, starting from third place, the scores dropped back to normal levels.

"Could Silas’s Talent be related to fishing?" Lily muttered.

Whatever the case, it didn’t matter. She was just glad she had signed that contract with Silas earlier. Otherwise, facing Julian’s nearly one hundred million Points, she wouldn’t have been able to catch up even if she knew the Clone Technique.

"Silas, you’d better not let me down," Lily thought, cheering him on in her head before diving back into the fishing frenzy.

Since it was the last day, everyone pushed themselves to the limit. Survivors stared dead-eyed at the water, their very facial expressions twisted with intense focus as they tried to make a final sprint. Lily was no exception. Even though she had zero hope for first place or even the top hundred, she was still a famous figure among the Survivors. Ranking too low would make her a laughingstock.

Watching her score threaten to drop out of the top ten thousand, Lily immediately cast out two fishing rods at once. Double the work meant double the harvest.

She didn’t snap back to reality until the System’s announcement rang in her ears, signaling the end of the event.

She took two steps back and collapsed into her chair, panting heavily. The collective madness of the final day had been infectious. Not wanting to stand out as an anomaly, she had kept fishing nonstop, eventually becoming so deeply immersed that she forgot everything else until the System chimed.

Lily checked her final rank, which had settled somewhere in the five thousands.

"Fine, that’s barely acceptable. There are a lot of people, after all."

Considering the sheer number of participants, securing a spot in the top five thousand was already quite impressive. Plus, this rank came with a consolation prize: a six-inch cheesecake that still emanated a chilled mist, as if it had just been pulled from a refrigerator.

Without hesitation, Lily took the cheesecake and returned to Shelly.

"Home really is the most comfortable," she said with a sigh.

She placed the cake on the table and opened the sailboat’s fish hold. As expected, all the fish were still there. However, due to the cramped space and massive quantity, they were in terrible shape. They had only survived this long because Lily had spiked their water with Healing Water.

Seeing their miserable state, Lily realized she needed to find them a proper home immediately. As for where to move them, Shelly didn’t actually have a suitable place to raise fish at the moment. But that wasn’t a problem. Just because she didn’t have one now didn’t mean she wouldn’t have one soon.

Lily headed into her warehouse and located the section dedicated to rare materials. This was her personal stash, which included Environment Cards capable of generating biomes like oceans, deserts, or waterfalls out of thin air.

In her opinion, these Environment Cards didn’t seem designed for Survivors who lived on vehicles; they were much better suited for those who claimed islands as their territory. With these cards, an island owner could instantly terraform whatever environment they wanted. Because the other Survivors knew how precious these cards were, the only ones ever put up for sale were the seemingly useless ones, like deserts, canyons, and waterfalls.

However, Lily’s target this time wasn’t a card. She was looking for a specific special building.

"Found it!"

A moment later, an exquisite miniature model appeared in her hand. It was a special building called the Thousand Carp Pool. Just as the name suggested, it was specifically designed for raising fish. She had collected it after the previous vehicle ranking event ended. Although it was a special item, it was largely useless to most people, since not everyone enjoyed the same optimal living conditions as Lily.

That particular Survivor had decisively sold the Thousand Carp Pool to her, and Lily had bought it on the spot. Operating on the principle that it was better to hoard something useless than miss out on a potential treasure, she had snatched it up simply because the price was an absolute steal.