The 'Involution King' Second Female Lead Quits [Quick Transmigration] - Chapter 56

Chapter 56

The Island

Sharks are not difficult to deal with, as long as you get the timing right.

Li Jianwei proved this with her actions. Just before the shark began its bite, she thrust her wooden spear forward, ruthlessly jabbing the shark in the eye. A bloody scent spread through the water, and the shark, in pain, swam away. It hadn’t fled, though. It was just searching for an opportunity to launch a second attack.

Li Jianwei expertly surfaced for air, then plunged back into the depths, patiently waiting for the shark’s second attack.

A survivor’s physical condition in the game doesn’t improve over time. The only way to get stronger is to eat specific beneficial foods created from recipes. This means that Li Jianwei, who could fill her entire display with shark heads in her previous life, can still easily kill a shark in the early stages of the game.

Even though her weapon was just a basic wooden spear, a shark was still easy to kill in her eyes. All she had to do was find the precise moment when it opened its mouth and poke it with the spear. This would make the shark pull back in pain. She would then patiently wait for it to stealthily attack again and repeat the process.

A shark’s attack frequency is very high, with intervals not exceeding two minutes. The damage from a wooden spear is limited, requiring a staggering fifty hits to successfully kill it, which is incredibly difficult for a novice. Fortunately, the one thing Li Jianwei had in abundance was patience. She could cast her hook hundreds of times a day, so naturally, she could also stand in a two-hour standoff with a shark and successfully kill it in the end.

A shark’s body is five times the size of a survivor’s, but when you pick up the loot, you only get a fixed amount of shark meat (5) and one shark head. The shark head can be worn on a survivor’s head, partially obstructing their vision. It is rumored that it has a chance to confuse sharks into thinking you are a companion. Why rumored? Because Li Jianwei had tried it at least ten times in her last life, but it never worked. The moment she got into the water, a shark would chase her butt, forcing her to pull out her weapon and kill it.

As a basic monster, sharks respawn at dawn and dusk. This means that before the sun sets, Li Jianwei can go to town with her Scrap Hook and mine to her heart’s content below the island.

Li Jianwei wasted no time. However, without an oxygen tank, the amount of time she could hold her breath was very limited. If she didn’t surface before her oxygen ran out, her life points would drop by 1 per second. Therefore, Li Jianwei had to give up on the deeper copper ore and instead mine some iron ore, clay, sand, and scraps, while also scavenging any seaweed and large clams she could find.

After returning to the raft and storing the materials in her chests, Li Jianwei discarded her now-useless wooden spear. She then crafted a new one by hand and once again headed towards the island.

The small island held no real danger, so the resources you could collect were not as abundant. When you chop down a common palm tree with a stone axe, it is guaranteed to drop wood planks and palm leaves. Palm seeds and coconuts are random drops that depend on your luck. Wild pineapples and watermelons drop fruit when harvested, and their seeds are also random drops. Additionally, there were many flowers, but Li Jianwei only had fifteen open slots in her inventory and no time to collect them, let alone their seeds.

After finding only two wild pineapples, Li Jianwei chose to eat them immediately to restore her stats. She saved the two large watermelons she found later in her inventory to use when she was low on water.

Li Jianwei’s goal was now very clear: she was going to climb to the top of the small island to find a basic treasure chest. According to the general rule, every small island has a chest, either underwater or on the mountaintop. Li Jianwei had already searched the bottom of the sea twice; she had dug up almost all the clay and sand but found no chest. So the chest had to be on the mountaintop. If she was lucky, she could even find useful blueprints or recipes.

But before she found the chest, Li Jianwei saw another survivor wearing the novice outfit. Instinctively, she crouched down and hid in the grass, not exposing herself.

In this survival game, you are not supposed to encounter other survivors while drifting. All communication is supposed to be through the game’s system. But it’s a little different once you land on an island; island mergers can occur around treasure chests. In other words, when a survivor sees another person on an island or underwater, it means they are very close to a chest. Survivors are allowed to attack each other, and killing an opponent has a chance of dropping some of the items in their backpack. When a survivor dies, their corresponding raft is also destroyed, and all the items and resources in it disappear.

Most survivors don’t choose to attack others; they mostly just trade materials and information before returning to their own rafts. But in the later stages, some players specialize in hunting others at treasure chest locations, believing it’s a more efficient way to obtain resources.

Li Jianwei wasn’t one of them. She was just cautious around others. After all, her raft capsized because she ignored a person she considered insignificant.

“The resources on this island are so abundant, but my backpack is almost full. I wonder if I can expand my inventory later.” “Wood planks and palm leaves are must-haves, I can’t throw them away. Seeds and flowers don’t seem very useful, maybe I can drop them for now to make room for more useful stuff.” “Ugh, why can’t a cup of clean water stack? The fish I catch can stack together.”

The survivor seemed to have a habit of talking to herself. She babbled on about a bunch of things in a short amount of time. Li Jianwei wasn’t sure if it was just her personality or if she was trying to vent her emotions.

After observing for a while and realizing the survivor wasn’t very aggressive, Li Jianwei quietly backed away. After she was out of sight, she stood up and walked toward her with heavier footsteps.

“Who’s there?” The survivor pulled out a wooden spear and warily looked into the distance.

“Who are you?” Li Jianwei also held her wooden spear, with a more intense wariness in her eyes than the other survivor.

“Um, maybe we’re companions?” the survivor said, and she put her spear away. “I was just going to try out this game, but for some reason, after logging in, I can’t log out. The game seems different from what I remember.” “I came to this island after getting a system notification.”

Li Jianwei also put her weapon away. “Me too. My name is Li Jianwei.”

“Just call me Little Ding. That’s my in-game name,” Little Ding said. “Where is your raft? I’ve been floating on the sea for a long time and haven’t seen any companions. I didn’t expect to run into you as soon as I landed on an island.”

Li Jianwei replied, “It’s probably in the southeast. I’ve been anchored here for about five hours.”

Little Ding looked surprised. “I’m in the southeast, too, but I didn’t see any other rafts. Did you forget to anchor yours? I landed about two hours ago.”

Li Jianwei shook her head. “I secured my raft with a disposable anchor. I went back to it about two hours ago.”

Little Ding fell into thought, her eyes focused on the air, likely checking the World Channel.

“Some people have also met companions on islands, but they said the other person just disappeared after a while. I wonder if this game has a friend system,” Little Ding mumbled, instinctively rambling again.

“If that’s the case, should we try it out?” Li Jianwei suggested.

Little Ding agreed without much thought. The two of them walked in the same direction, keeping about two meters apart. Li Jianwei understood this ‘linking’ match-making mechanism very well. The moment she saw Little Ding’s figure disappear, she quickly turned back towards the mountaintop. Linking is completely random. If you leave a linkable area and re-enter, it counts as a reconnection. The next person you meet might not be Little Ding, but Duamu, Yoyo, or someone else.

Li Jianwei had no intention of sharing important resources with others in the early game, nor did she want to harm a seemingly kind survivor like Little Ding. So, manipulating her to leave the match-making area was the best solution.

By exploring the boundaries of the linkable area, Li Jianwei easily deduced the location of the chest. The basic chest was very inconspicuous, looking a bit gray and dusty, but after opening it, it dropped a lot of items, instantly filling her empty storage slots.

[Obtained: Scraps * 2, Metal Ore * 1, Wood Planks * 3, Stones * 1, Recipe: Simple Fish Stew, Nails * 1]

Her luck was good. The very first chest she opened had a recipe, but since she hadn’t built a stove yet, the recipe was destined to stay in her inventory for now. The wood planks could stack with her existing ones, but the other five items each took up a slot, severely limiting Li Jianwei’s ability to collect more resources. After some thought, Li Jianwei temporarily discarded the stones and nails and replaced them with more wood planks and palm leaves.

When her stone axe’s durability hit zero, Li Jianwei skillfully picked up the overflowing wood planks and then headed back towards her raft in the southeast. Her food supply was long gone, with only the two large watermelons remaining in her inventory.

Returning to the raft as the sun set, Li Jianwei immediately dismantled her disposable anchor and used the simple plastic and wood paddle to change the raft’s direction, letting it drift with the currents again.

After sorting out the items in her inventory, Li Jianwei pulled out the sand and clay she had mined earlier. After researching them one by one, she unlocked the recipe for crafting bricks. Two clay and two sand could be combined to make wet bricks. After being left on the raft for a period of time, they would turn into dry bricks that could be used for crafting.

There were not many resources under the small island. Li Jianwei only managed to mine 15 clay and 20 sand. After deducting the research costs, she could only make seven bricks. Researching bricks can unlock the blueprint for a Simple Furnace. If she remembered correctly, a furnace required exactly six bricks to build.

Li Jianwei chewed on a potato while she thought. After placing the seven wet bricks in a safe place, she took out her Simple Fishing Rod and began to fish again. You want to sleep? When my life is at 100, why would I sleep? I should be using this time to accumulate resources! After all, a new challenge would arrive at dawn!

…

[Today’s sunrise seems exceptionally dazzling, making you feel that something is wrong. The hot weather is coming. Please do not expose yourself to direct sunlight for a long time.]

The system’s warning made Li Jianwei subconsciously check her status bar.

[Name: Li Jianwei] [Status: Life (100/100), Hunger (60/100), Water (58/100)] [Days Survived: 10]

She had just replenished her hunger and water before, and in theory, they should have been dropping at the same rate while she was fishing. It seemed the hot weather had already arrived before the system’s warning, causing her water consumption to increase.

While lamenting this, Li Jianwei used her plastic cup to take water from the Simple Water Purifier, raising her water stat to over 80. She also moved her fishing spot from outside the cabin to inside.

[Jiong Er: Drink more water, clay and sand from under the island are useful. Combine them to make a furnace to smelt glass and unlock more blueprints like the advanced purifier!] [Kakali: You can collect dirt from the caves on large islands. Researching it unlocks planting blueprints. Seeds are very useful.] [Dec: There are boars on the large islands! A single charge will drop your health by thirty, and you’ll get a bleeding debuff!] [Scorpio: The large island I landed on has vultures. They’ll grab stones and throw them at your head. It’s a real pain in the neck, and you’ll be stunned for three seconds.]

Seeing that the survivors on the World Channel were sharing information with each other, Li Jianwei hesitated for a moment about whether she should join in. The function of sending one message of up to thirty characters a day was indeed a bit useless, but it was different if everyone was sharing tips. Even though you couldn’t control the scroll speed or see past messages, if you kept an eye on it, you could still avoid many detours.

[Li Jianwei: The furnace can smelt metal, and researching it can unlock many important blueprints.]

Li Jianwei sent out a not-so-important message, then closed the chat and continued to drift and fish, waiting for the wet bricks to dry.

Around 2 PM, the seven bricks were all dry. After successfully unlocking the blueprint, Li Jianwei immediately crafted a Simple Furnace and began to smelt sand, seaweed, and metal ore. After getting the smelted products—glass, vine adhesive, and metal ingots—she immediately put them on the Research Table. In an instant, she unlocked dozens of blueprints.

You get very thirsty in hot weather, but with this weather, the advanced water purifier, which is solar-powered, works much faster.

Advanced Water Purifier requires eight thick wood planks, six plastic, and four glass. Li Jianwei looked at her three lone pieces of glass and sighed. Of course, it requires four glass. It looked like she would have to find a new island to collect more materials.

Li Jianwei wasn’t discouraged. She had enough wood planks, and her basic water purifier was sufficient to get her through the hot weather; she just had to work a little harder to boil water. The night was much cooler than the day, and her water stat dropped more slowly. Li Jianwei still didn’t sleep. She held her fishing rod and stayed near the Simple Furnace, processing all the materials she could. She first unlocked the blueprint for the plastic bottle, then researched the plastic bottle to unlock the blueprint for the oxygen tank. In between, she had to circle her cabin, sorting the collected resources into her basic chests.

Actually, after smelting metal ingots, she could also use them to craft important parts like bolts and hinges. With hinges, wood planks, ropes, and scraps, she could craft much larger chests. But her metal ingots were limited, so Li Jianwei chose to arm herself first, upgrading her wooden spear to a metal spear. It was much stronger, requiring only twenty-five hits to kill a shark. If she didn’t miss, she could take down a shark in just an hour. This way, she could fill her stomach with shark meat every day, even without fishing.

As if on cue, the moment the metal spear was crafted, the sound of a shark destroying her raft from behind Li Jianwei. Li Jianwei shot over, skillfully jabbing the shark three times, making it retreat in pain. Next should be the three-second staredown between the person and the fish, where she could take the opportunity to…

Wait? When did the shark’s eyes turn red?

Li Jianwei looked a little dazed, but her muscle memory still guided her to stab the metal spear into the shark’s eye.

Pain! You’re a bad person!

Two voices drilled into Li Jianwei’s ears one after another. She quickly snapped out of her daze, raising her cold-gleaming metal spear and thrusting it even harder at the shark.

You’re a bad person!

The voice pierced Li Jianwei’s ears again, but the shark twisted its body and quickly disappeared from her sight.

Li Jianwei looked thoughtfully in the direction the shark had left. She was certain she hadn’t hallucinated. The voices had indeed come from the red-eyed shark. Could this shark be possessed by that red, glowing thing I saw before? But the system said that closing your eyes would let you hear God’s teachings. So was that red thing not a god? Was it a shark?

Li Jianwei’s head was filled with questions, and a dull pain started to spread. Rubbing her head, Li Jianwei sat cross-legged by the furnace and opened the World Channel, wanting to see if other survivors had encountered a red-eyed shark.

[Qi Yi: I tried it, the shark bait does work, but it only stalls the shark for 10 minutes.] [Aceris: I suggest you just eat the fish instead. The bait requires two fish to craft.] [Qiao Mu: Can you eat the seagulls circling overhead? Do they count as monsters?]

Seagulls circling overhead? Li Jianwei froze, subconsciously looking up at the sky. The moon hung high in the southern sky. Perhaps because the sun had been exceptionally hot during the day, the moonlight was also exceptionally bright. You could see without a light.

Li Jianwei couldn’t help but stand up, trying to change her position to get a better view. But it was no use. No matter where she stood on the raft, Li Jianwei couldn’t see any of the seagulls that were supposed to be circling above her. Seagulls weren’t monsters; they were prey. When survivors grow things in the open, seagulls might come down to eat the seeds. During this time, a survivor can attack the seagulls with a weapon. A bow and arrow is recommended because you only need to hit them to get the loot. Melee weapons have a lower success rate because seagulls fly away when you get close.

This isn’t right. If the seagulls are gone, don’t I lose a reliable way to get feathers?

Li Jianwei tried hard to think, to recall her memories from the daytime, to see if seagulls were circling then. Unfortunately, Li Jianwei had been so busy all day that she hadn’t had time to look up and notice. Maybe it’s because the red-eyed shark appeared, so the seagulls disappeared. Isn’t that what happens during the perpetual night? The seagulls also disappear for seven days, and even the sharks’ attack frequency drops.

Li Jianwei consoled herself with this thought. After catching her guaranteed fish, she ran to her cabin and lay down on the simple bed to sleep. Not sleeping for a long time can cause more monsters to appear at night. Since she hadn’t slept yesterday, she needed to today.

The next day, when Li Jianwei got up from bed, the first thing she did was push open the door and look at the blinding sky.

Caw! Caw!

The seagulls’ short, raspy calls sounded a bit harsh, but to Li Jianwei, they were music to her ears. Her seagulls were still here! She still had a stable source of bird legs and feathers for the future.

Oh, right, large clams can be used to make a bird’s nest, and a bird’s nest attracts seagulls. If I’m lucky, I might be able to eat bird legs tonight!

Good news, large clams can indeed be used to make a bird’s nest.

Bad news, she only had one large clam, and it was used for research materials.

Well, then I have to go into the sea. It looks like landing on an island is a must.

Li Jianwei sighed to herself. While fishing, she looked left and right. When she saw the outline of an island on her left, she immediately switched to her plastic paddle and paddled hard toward it.

Compared to the last island, which was relatively safe, this time, Li Jianwei noticed a massive bird circling above it before she even got close. Without a doubt, the large bird was a vulture, a monster that would grab rocks and aim them at a survivor’s head. And an island with vultures was guaranteed to have boars. If a survivor was attacked by both at the same time, without medicine, they would be in serious trouble.

Should I keep going or play it safe? Li Jianwei had to think calmly. She had made a bow and arrow, but only one. Even if she hit every shot with a stone arrow, she would struggle to kill a vulture before the bow’s durability ran out.

Should I take a risk or play it safe?

Li Jianwei slowly exhaled, then increased the range of her arm swings, making the raft approach the large island even faster.

Since I’ve already come this far, I might as well take the risk!

…

Damn, I’m so unlucky!

Shu Heng ran wildly with her metal spear. She had to dodge a charging boar while also keeping an eye on the movements of the vulture in the air. Shu Heng knew that if a falling rock stunned her, the boar behind her would definitely gore her, and after a smooth combo attack, her health would be critically low.

Shu Heng, while running, didn’t forget to look around, hoping to find a cave. If she could get inside, she could temporarily avoid the vulture and start a one-on-one fight with the boar. Shu Heng was lucky. She found a cave before her water stat dropped to 20. But before she could get in, she saw a survivor wearing the same novice outfit as her come out of the cave, holding some freshly picked mushrooms.

“There’s a boar! Run!” Shu Heng didn’t have time to explain much and just shouted a warning.

Then, Shu Heng saw the survivor’s eyes light up. The mushrooms in her hand instantly turned into a cold-gleaming metal spear, and she charged at the boar without hesitation.

No way! Are other survivors really that brave? She’s not even going to avoid the head-on attack?

Shu Heng was shocked, and then she turned her head and watched the survivor leap and jump as she fought the boar. That’s right, it was literally “leaping and jumping.” The survivor from the cave seemed to have a lot of experience. Not only could she skillfully dodge the boar’s charge by jumping, but she could also free up a hand to attack the boar as it made a sudden stop, giving it a solid jab in the butt.

“Watch out for the…”

Before Shu Heng could finish her warning, the survivor executed a practiced roll to dodge a falling rock from the sky and even found time to give the vulture an uncivilized hand gesture.