The 'Involution King' Second Female Lead Quits [Quick Transmigration] - Chapter 55

Chapter 55: World Four [1]

◎A Diligent Survivor◎

[Name: Li Jianwei] [Status: Life (73/100), Hunger (20/100), Water (35/100)] [Days Survived: 1]

Hunger and Water decrease over time, and the more you move, the faster they drop. Life, on the other hand, recovers slowly over time, with sleeping increasing the recovery rate.

During the novice period, the ways to get food and water are limited; you can only rely on random drops from the barrels you find, besides the basic resources. Li Jianwei had been so focused on frantically collecting basic resources that she hadn’t paid much attention to what came out of the barrels. When she checked her inventory, she found that most of the ten slots were already taken.

[Wood Planks * 86, Plastic * 52, Palm Leaves * 60, Potatoes * 12, Beets * 6, Scraps * 8, Ropes * 4, Stones * 16]

The initial inventory has only ten slots, plus five built-in storage slots for a total of fifteen. Each slot can stack up to 99 items. If both your inventory and built-in storage are full, your first attempt to pick up an item will fail. If you force the pickup, it will replace the item in your hand by default.

Opening the crafting page, Li Jianwei saw that without a Research Table to gain new blueprints, the things a player could craft were very limited, only basic items like the Plastic Hook, Tool Hammer, and Plastic Cup. The Research Table is only unlocked after surviving the novice period, which means Li Jianwei currently can’t craft a Simple Grill to cook food.

Potatoes and beets can be eaten raw, but they provide very little satiety, and their water content is negligible.

Li Jianwei looked up at the sky. Before unlocking the clock blueprint, she needed to use the position of the sun and moon to tell the time. Judging by the sun’s position, it was around noon, about six hours since she was dropped into this world.

She didn’t hesitate, gobbling down the potatoes and beets to raise her dangerously low hunger bar to around 50 before stopping. If any of the three stats drop below 20, the survivor enters a weakened state, which reduces both movement speed and visible range. Life at zero means instant death, but zero hunger or water won’t kill you outright—it just causes your life to continuously drop, a kind of slow death sentence.

Day and night in the game are fixed. From 6 AM to 6 PM is daytime, and the other half is night. Night can be with or without a moon; the latter is more dangerous, but you can avoid attacks from unspeakable monsters by sleeping.

Surviving seems easy enough, right? Just keep using the hook to salvage items, eat when you’re hungry, and eat when you’re thirsty, and you’ll survive? That conclusion isn’t entirely wrong, but it only applies to the novice period. Li Jianwei, who had worked hard to survive until the fifty-ninth day in her previous life, only to suffer a setback in the end, knew all too well that the Endless Sea was not a calm place.

Thinking about the reason for her failure, Li Jianwei’s face darkened. It took a while for her to calm down and continue salvaging. She kept at it until 6 PM, when the sun set in the west and the moon slowly rose in the south. The sun rising in the east and setting in the west, and the moon rising in the south and setting in the north, were the key landmarks for telling direction in the early game.

Li, the Master Scavenger, glanced at her overflowing inventory after a day’s hard work. She crafted a Building Hammer with wood and ropes and began expanding her raft. The required materials for basic expansion were wood and plastic: two wood and two plastic for a basic plank, and three wood and three plastic for a reinforced one. Li Jianwei thought it over and decided to save resources in the early stages. She spent 24 wood and 24 plastic to expand her 2×2 raft to a 4×4, so she wouldn’t accidentally fall into the sea.

Remembering that the double-drop bonus would end at 6 AM tomorrow, Li Jianwei chomped down all the beets she’d collected to restore her stats. She then crafted a new Plastic Hook and began another round of hard work. The double-drop bonus was addictive, but the limited inventory space restricted her progress. She only started expanding the raft after her wood plank count reached two full stacks.

After being awake for 24 hours straight, Li Jianwei heard the system notification again.

[Novice protection period has ended. Detecting that the survivor is alive, dropping Research Table blueprint *1. The survivor world channel has been opened. In the Endless Sea, begin your own legend.]

The system message was short, but what was more direct for Li Jianwei was the halving of resources she received from salvaging.

[Shui Yuege: Why isn’t there a logout button in this game? Did I get a virus?] [Yan Gou: Watch out for the surface, I see a shark!] [Jiong Er: Why is speech limited to thirty characters and only once a day? That’s too harsh. Requesting to open the friend system.]

Li Jianwei didn’t pay too much attention to the World Channel. Before the rainstorm period was over, the channel was useless for anything other than casual chat. Thinking about what was coming next, Li Jianwei wasted no time. She used wood and scraps to craft a Research Table and placed it in the center of her raft. The Research Table’s function was just as its name suggested: you had to use it to research materials to unlock more blueprints, such as the Simple Grill and the Simple Water Purifier.

After the novice protection period ends, sharks will spawn around the survivor and attack the raft at random times. Using a weapon can temporarily scare the shark away. If you don’t, the shark’s sharp teeth will destroy a basic plank. If there are items on that plank, they will also be destroyed. This means that if you don’t expand your raft or craft a weapon after the novice period ends, the shark will quickly get a good meal.

After unlocking the blueprint, the first thing Li Jianwei did was craft a low-level chest to transfer resources from her inventory. The capacity of a low-level chest was extremely limited, holding only five types of materials. Li Jianwei had to make four of them to free up enough space. There was no other way; cooked food couldn’t be stacked, and she needed to craft a weapon to deal with the shark and process basic materials. A mere fifteen storage slots were nowhere near enough.

After a flurry of activity, she crafted a Simple Grill and a Simple Water Purifier, leaving her with very few resources.

[Name: Li Jianwei] [Status: Life (100/100), Hunger (80/100), Water (88/100)] [Days Survived: 2]

Li Jianwei was very satisfied with her good stats. She then took out her Building Hammer and started building again, constructing a small 2×2 room and using her remaining scraps to make nails for a door and a roof. After walking around, she used palm leaves, wood planks, ropes, plastic, and nails to craft a Simple Palm Bed.

Just as Li Jianwei placed the bed inside her small room, a system notification sounded.

[A rainstorm is approaching. Survivors, please build a shelter in time. When the sea rages with giant waves, please hide in a safe place and close your eyes to listen to the teachings of God.]

Li Jianwei’s heart tightened. She instinctively opened her inventory.

[Wood Planks * 16, Plastic * 25, Nails * 3, Palm Leaves * 3, Ropes * 16, Cooked Potatoes * 3, Cooked Beets * 5, Clean Water * 1, Wooden Spear * 1.]

Too little. Basic resources are still too scarce.

Li Jianwei thought for a moment, using six wood planks, two nails, and eight ropes to craft a Collector Net, which she installed on the right side of her door. The Collector Net can automatically intercept nearby resources on the sea, with a maximum storage of 10 items. It diligently collects resources while the survivor is busy with other tasks.

A crunching sound came from behind her. Li Jianwei instantly jumped up from the floor, pulled out the Wooden Spear from her item bar, and charged at the shark gnawing on her raft. One, two. On the third strike with the spear, the shark released the raft and stared at Li Jianwei with its deep, dark eyes before slowly sinking back into the sea. Li Jianwei accepted this with ease. The shark would attack roughly every hour. If it was not driven away, the time between attacks would be halved, with the highest frequency being once every five minutes. Conversely, if it was driven away every time, the time between attacks would slow to once every two hours.

BOOM!

Thunder sounded without warning. Within a few breaths, the clear sky was filled with dark clouds, and large raindrops began to fall. The moment the thunder rang out, Li Jianwei turned and ran toward her small safe house. She pushed open the door and shrunk inside the four-square-meter room just before the downpour started. Li Jianwei would have liked to build a larger safe house, but wood planks were simply too scarce, as they were needed for almost everything. She had only ten wood planks left, which she was saving for fuel to cook food and purify water.

Having no plans to go out, Li Jianwei opened the World Channel, which had been previously blocked, and began to read the messages.

[Chao Tuan: Don’t get rained on! If you’re in the rain for too long, you’ll get a negative buff!] [666: Help! How do I get rid of this negative buff? My health is already dropping!] [Lexar: Has anyone researched the system message? Why does it say to close your eyes and listen to the teachings when there are big waves?] [Qing He: My intuition tells me it’s best to follow instructions, or something bad will happen.]

Li Jianwei scanned the World Channel. The negative buff would go away simply by avoiding the rain, so it wasn’t a major threat. Any survivor who had been diligently salvaging during the novice period would have been able to build some kind of shelter. As for the system’s warning… Li Jianwei couldn’t help but push her door open just a crack, looking at the horizon where the sea almost merged with the sky. In her last life, she had been unable to suppress her curiosity and had opened the door to look, but what exactly did she see? Why couldn’t she remember?

Reason told Li Jianwei that the correct response to the rainstorm was to stay inside her small house or lie down on the simple bed. But her growing curiosity made her push the door open further, from a crack to a full opening. The rain outside was quickly swept inside by the strong winds, and if this were reality, Li Jianwei would have been soaked. But she was in a survival game. The door blocked the rain, and even the powerful winds were weakened by half as they entered, only enough to tousle her hair.

BOOM!

Another flash of lightning lit up Li Jianwei’s deep-set, chiseled features and the undeniable curiosity in her eyes. What did I see last time? Why can’t I, with my eidetic memory, remember anything?

The rain grew heavier, and the waves on the sea became larger. The raft rocked back and forth violently. If Li Jianwei hadn’t expanded it multiple times, she probably couldn’t have even sat still.

*&#@%

Gibberish that she couldn’t make out floated into Li Jianwei’s ears. Her eyelids instantly grew heavy, and an urge to lie down and sleep appeared in her mind. I’m tired, so tired. I should be sleeping now. The bed is ready. What am I waiting for?

No, I can’t sleep. I have to see what is out there on the sea that the system doesn’t want me to look at directly.

The gibberish grew louder. Li Jianwei had to pinch her own thigh to fight off the overwhelming sleepiness.

After another crack of thunder, a red pinpoint of light appeared on the pitch-black sea. At first, it was as small as a grain of rice, but as Li Jianwei stared at it, the red light became more and more distinct, and larger. Tears welled up in her sore eyes. Li Jianwei wanted to blink, but her instincts told her not to. Once you choose to look directly, you must not blink!

After what felt like an eternity, the red light slowly receded, and the storm clouds were carried away by the wind. The sea gradually calmed as the rain disappeared. Realizing the rainstorm was over, Li Jianwei tried to blink to relieve the soreness in her eyes. But she found that she couldn’t close them. She had to use her hands to cover her eyes and force her eyelids shut.

After repeating this three times, Li Jianwei finally stopped her silent tears and opened the chat channel.

[Qian Di: Just a heads-up, don’t drink the rainwater directly.] [Cai Cai: I’ll add to that, it’ll cause you to lose health, about 3 points.] [Qing Dan: So did you guys hear anything? I closed my eyes, but I didn’t hear anything at all!] [Bai Ling: I think I heard something about “sacrifice”? “Mercy”?] [Bao Geng: Sisters, look at your stats! Hunger and water have dropped a lot! And the system didn’t even warn us this time!]

My stats dropped? Li Jianwei’s mind worked slowly. She sluggishly opened her status screen.

[Name: Li Jianwei] [Status: Life (30/100), Hunger (34/100), Water (68/100)] [Days Survived: 2]

Hmm? My life dropped by seventy? Is it because I was staring outside?

Li Jianwei snapped back to reality and instinctively pulled out a cooked potato and started eating.

[Status: Life (29/100), Hunger (44/100), Water (68/100)]

What? My health is still dropping? I don’t even have any injuries!

Li Jianwei finally realized something was wrong. She pulled out all the food and water from her inventory and ate and drank everything, raising both her hunger and water stats to 100. With both stats at their maximum, her life recovery rate sped up, and her health finally stabilized at 29.

Phew. Next time, my curiosity should be curbed. I almost got myself killed.

But here’s the problem. Did I have this much food and water stored up on the second day in my last life? And did I look directly at that unspeakable being back then too?

Li Jianwei stroked her chin, realizing she still couldn’t remember anything. She could only push the door open to retrieve the resources from her Collector Net, then take out her Plastic Hook and start diligently collecting materials again. When she heard the crunching sound, Li Jianwei nimbly pulled out her Wooden Spear and began to poke the shark. The retreating shark still stared at Li Jianwei with its deep black eyes until Li Jianwei, unable to resist, poked it again during the staredown. Only then did the shark sullenly swim away.

Were the sharks this strange in my previous life too? Li Jianwei thought to herself while mechanically casting her hook, and then she was horrified to realize that her memories from her past life were slowly fading. The more she tried to think, the more she couldn’t remember.

No, you have to remember. The rainstorm lasts for seven days. Survive it, and the island mission will unlock! After the rainstorm comes a heatwave. When you get to the island, you must remember to collect fruits and seeds and to stay hydrated!

Li Jianwei repeated the most important points over and over until the sun began to set in the west, and she stopped this somewhat neurotic behavior. Coming back to her senses, Li Jianwei saw that her salvaged resources were already automatically popping out of her inventory because she had no space left. She hurriedly stuffed everything into her low-level chests.

After crafting scraps into nails, Li Jianwei spent a lot of wood and ropes to install a total of five Collector Nets, which she arranged in a circle around her house. Her raft was now a 5×5 grid. Concerned that the shark would bite off her nets, she added another basic plank on each side for protection, leaving her with a dangerously low amount of wood planks. But it wasn’t a big problem. The five Collector Nets were working automatically. Although their efficiency was not as high as manual salvaging, they could still consistently catch 2-3 items per hour.

Li Jianwei used her last wood planks and ropes to craft a Simple Fishing Rod. She didn’t want to keep eating potatoes and beets. She needed protein! Li Jianwei’s fishing skills in reality were terrible, but fortunately, fishing in the game had a guaranteed drop mechanism. She was guaranteed to catch one fish every hour. If she lost the fish halfway through, she would successfully catch it the next time. In other words, even if her luck and skill were the worst imaginable, she could still catch a fish within two hours.

After cooking two tilapia and putting them in her inventory, Li Jianwei emptied her nets and then lay down on her simple palm bed with her health stuck at 29.

…

Li Jianwei woke up automatically when the sun rose. After a night’s rest, her health had recovered to 100, but her hunger and water were almost at the critical point, so she had to eat and drink a lot again.

The rainstorm weather was not too difficult to handle. As long as you built a place to hide from the wind and rain and didn’t, like Li Jianwei, choose to look directly at the unspeakable being, the difficulty of survival was not high. The dangerously low health she had experienced made Li Jianwei give up any ideas of being curious today. She reverted to diligently collecting resources and obediently hiding in her safe house when the rainstorm came.

This time, Li Jianwei obediently closed her eyes, but she did not hear any so-called “divine teachings,” only gibberish and strange laughter that followed her. Before entering the game, Li Jianwei was an extremely hardworking person in all aspects. If she hadn’t won a free trial of a holographic pod, she wouldn’t have even considered playing this game. After entering the game, she maintained this good habit, always working hard at everything. Whether it was collecting resources, poking the shark, or looking directly at the waves on the second day, she did it all very hard.

[Congratulations, survivor, you have successfully passed the rainstorm period. After the rain, some islands have appeared on the sea. Bring weapons and supplies and go to the islands, you might find some unexpected surprises.]

The system notification sounded on the ninth day. By now, Li Jianwei had expanded her raft to a 7×7 grid. Her Collector Nets had increased from five to sixteen, circling her small house. Additionally, ten simple chests were filled with basic resources, and her rainproof house had expanded from a 2×2 to a 3×3, with windows added to the walls. Both the Simple Grill and Simple Water Purifier had been moved inside.

[Dong Ensang: Has any big shot landed on an island? Is it dangerous?] [Li Qu: The system literally says there are good things on the island. I’m going to bring my weapons and supplies to check it out.] [Passerby K: I found a small island. Sisters, wait for my report tomorrow!] [Shu Heng: I haven’t found any danger on the small island yet. Remember to secure your raft before landing.]

A familiar name made Li Jianwei stop eating her fish. She instinctively looked around, and the outline of a small island came into view. Li Jianwei recognized Shu Heng. They had met on a medium-sized island and even worked together for a short time. They had agreed to form an alliance the next time they met, but unfortunately, Li Jianwei’s raft capsized first. She wondered how Shu Heng reacted when she saw her avatar turn gray.

Wait. When was the friend system unlocked? What were the prerequisites for unlocking the alliance system?

A dull pain began to throb in Li Jianwei’s head, and her tear glands involuntarily started to secrete liquid. It took her a while to recover. She opened her status screen. Her 100 life points allowed her to breathe a sigh of relief. It’s fine. As long as my health doesn’t drop, a little headache is okay.

Li Jianwei was optimistic. After finishing her fish, she drank a cup of water, and after making sure her three stats were full, she took out a Scrap Hook and a Wooden Spear and prepared to set off. In the early game, the raft drifted with the wind. The way to secure it was to craft a disposable anchor, which could be made from rope, wood planks, and stones.

After tossing the stone anchor, Li Jianwei stepped onto the island’s edge and looked back at the water. The shark was still circling, but when a survivor was away from the raft, the shark would stop attacking it, preventing you from returning to find your home destroyed. Li Jianwei hesitated. She knew very well that the resources on the island and those underwater were equally valuable. If anything, the resources below the surface were more abundant: seaweed, stones, scraps, various ores, large clams, and low-level treasure chests.

Since I’m already here, I might as well jump in and dig up some useful things!

The moment she made up her mind, Li Jianwei leaped into the sea. Her eyes scanned the azure seabed, and in no time, she saw a shark with its jaws wide open, swimming toward her.