Chapter 236 - A Thousand Items! Shopping Frenzy!
Chapter 236: A Thousand Items! Shopping Frenzy!
Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation
“Phew, the basic materials from the exchange this time should at least ensure that the Underground Shelter won’t have to worry about materials for a long time!”
The moment the secret trading realm’s time was up, Su Mo—who had been sitting in the ruins making an inventory—was teleported out with a whoosh and deposited at the entrance of the shelter.
The light on the secret trading realm’s gate began to dim as everyone was ejected, before a faint gust of wind finally sent it vanishing into the horizon.
As the bright spots of light dissipated, they did not seek to hide between heaven and earth like last time. Instead, they floated slowly toward the Underground Shelter as if they had found their master.
Just as Su Mo reached both hands out, intending to make physical contact with these bright points of light, they all trembled and flew uniformly in another direction.
“Huh?”
“Woof aroo?”
When she heard Su Mo arriving home, a curious Oreo dashed out and attracted all the bright spots’ attention at once.
A second later, after Oreo’s entire body had accepted the energy from the bright spots, her fur immediately began shining with a golden light that lingered for a few seconds before completely vanishing.
“F*ck me. Oreo, you eat just about anything now—you can even eat this?”
Seeing Oreo’s confused expression, Su Mo curiously walked over and lifted her into his arms to examine her closely.
Unfortunately, the golden spots of light seemed to have disappeared. If he had to evaluate her based on outward appearances, he could not see any changes in Oreo at all.
When he pulled up the game panel, Oreo’s properties panel did not show any notifications either.
After checking and realizing that the system could not sense exactly what was different about Oreo either, Su Mo had no other option but to record it in his diary and wait till later for further observation.
Golden light, the game, the system—there were more and more things defying logical reasoning that required constant observation before he could discover exactly what they were.
Still, when he glanced at the 100 cubic meters that were almost completely filled up with various resources, Su Mo’s footsteps quickened, and he arrived at the spot where he had placed the iron and copper from before.
In this round of exchanges, he had received 5800 more units of iron and 3900 units of copper.
Based on current shelter needs, before the next advancement in the technology tree, there would definitely be enough of these two basic supplies!
After utilizing the convenience of the storage space to sort the iron and copper into tidy piles, Su Mo returned to the third floor of the Underground Shelter.
Trading seeds in the secret trading realm was just the start of his “retaliation”. What would happen next would be the “heavy punch” that would destroy the seed market!
As the idea solidified, Su Mo looked at the game interface that appeared in front of him, as well as the thousands upon ten thousands of trade requests in the trading market. He could no longer suppress the happiness in his heart and started laughing.
This step was what Su Mo had really wanted to see after leading up to it for so long.
Trade requests could eliminate courier fees on the seller’s part. This meant that the trade requestor had to pay two courier fees, one to send and one to receive.
If Su Mo were the one selling seeds, even if he did not have to pay the receiver’s courier fees, he would still need to pay for sending the seeds.
Small amounts added up. If one person was counted as 3 points, a thousand people would be 3000 points!
Now, however… what if this base number were split between everyone?
The other party only had to pay no more than 10 survival points to be able to get excellent-quality seeds. This debt could be paid even if it were just a single individual!
“Haha, trading with a thousand people can’t compare with the joy of trading with billions of people!
“The gains from this round are enough to ensure the shelter will develop incredibly rapidly after this!”
Su Mo pulled up the market panel. Seeing various supplies on it as well as the increasing number of people requesting trades, he drummed on the table with one hand as he started setting up filtering conditions.
First of all, the requirement for seeds had to be half a catty and above, but if trade items did not meet excellent-quality, they would all be discarded.
Once these conditions were set, the trade requests that had already reached 40 thousand in number instantly decreased by 99%, leaving only 8000 requests.
Next, based on his previous idea, Su Mo set up a second filtering condition.
Items below good-quality that were already available in the trading market were also all discarded.
This condition was much stricter, but any normal-quality materials or those good-quality and below that were on the market were all filtered out.
The initial 8000 requests became 900 in the blink of an eye.
“Not bad, not bad. There are more than 900 items that are good-quality and above—this is what the market should show!”
With a base number of billions of people, being able to produce nearly a thousand good-quality items to trade for seeds when there were two strict filter conditions in place along with a few other factors was already a good statistic.
Moreover, as time went on, this number was still steadily climbing in a straight line, in the manner of a binary linear equation.
After looking through everything from start to finish, there was practically nothing else to filter. The 1000 catties of seeds he had previously used for trading started to disappear rapidly.
He traded them for… piles of items that began to appear in the shelter!
As long as it was good quality and above, as well as a requirement within half a catty of seeds, he bought all of them, whatever was available.
Without the hassle of courier fees, Su Mo only had to control his mental hand to endlessly repeat the action of buying supplies.
As he speeded up his actions, the sound of items landing in the shelter had already melded into one.
Clang…
Clang…
Items fell from the void non-stop, landing on items that were already there with a ringing crash.
Su Mo’s mood also went from initial delight to excitement, and then turned to numbness…
Too many things! There were just too many things!
Even if most of the people did not trade large items because of the courier fees, with just these small items alone, by the time he finished trading…
The third floor of the Underground Shelter was piled full!
In particular was the space in the gym, which was filled from top to bottom with a mixed variety of items.
“An excellent-quality toothbrush that only has an anti-dust function, outrageous!
“A good-quality Rem figurine from the Re:Zero anime that only has an anti-discoloration function. F*ck me, what garbage is this! Hurry up and put it away!
“10 good-quality soaps with extremely strong cleaning ability? Very moisturizing? Not bad, not bad. I can use them to play.
“An excellent-quality umbrella—within the boundaries of the umbrella, no water can get through. Good god, isn’t this like the Water Repelling Bead in the old Chinese legends! Okay, so it requires that one isn’t completely surrounded by water…”
From the outermost periphery where items had landed, Su Mo started checking properties step by step and collecting items as he moved from the outside in.
The 1000 catties he had used to trade had been completely used up. He had even exceeded this base estimation by an extra 500 catties.
Most of the things traded over were items that humans in the wasteland could not use at the moment because of the trading market’s rules and restrictions.
Only a handful of them could be immediately converted for combat use.
After putting everything in order and sorting all the items into their respective categories, Su Mo looked at the number of various items written in his diary and rubbed the back of his head, displaying a trace of unexpected distraction.
“Alright then, the humans who can have good things in the wasteland are still astute. It looks like relying on an opportunity like this to make a fortune isn’t possible!”
Based on his previous plan, even if he could not trade for many production tools, it would not be much of a problem to obtain several dozen of them.
Now, however, of the things that were traded, more than 600 were in the category of household supplies!
From carpets to bedsheets, from cushions to mattresses, from little dolls to three-piece beddings used exclusively by hotels—just these alone took up 200 items.
The remaining items were toothpaste, toothbrushes, towels, clothes, slippers, furnishings, figurines… and other such items for personal use. In total, there were 300 of these.
Most outrageously, even the number of items like putty, latex paint, wallpaper, and the like for wall painting that he had acquired was more than enough to clean up all three floors of the Underground Shelter and still have some leftover.
As far as the wasteland refugees were concerned, these things could not be turned into combat items or used for production. If they used the items themselves, they would still go hungry. Using these things was a luxury.
If they listed them on the market, even if they had to pay some courier fees, it was still a profit if they could trade for other things—what more if the items traded were indispensable materials like seeds.
“Once I have most of the equipment that can be converted into some form of power, either I use them or I keep them for survival purposes just in case. There are only a few people who are willing to trade after all, and they should have better equipment. After all, these are the remaining items after elimination.”
Aside from those 600-plus assorted items, many of the almost 400 remaining items could be put to immediate use.
For example, there were accessories to modify Earth Tiger—from wheel hubs and Michelin tires to headlights that could be used to replace the ones at the front of the car, as well as various car upholsteries. Many of these purchases could be used as soon as they were installed.
There was also some waterproof paint that might be of great use later on during the construction of ships in the future.
“Others might earn more than me, but I won’t ever lose out. These things can’t be used now, but there might be an opportunity to use them in the future.”
Su Mo closed out the friends list. When he looked at the neatly organized piles of various items, a sense of satisfaction welled up in his heart.
Household items were useless for others, but when placed in the Underground Shelter, they could raise his survival points by a set amount daily.
Furthermore, the living environment in the base would be greatly improved with this many items!
In the long-term when there would be fewer and fewer treasure chests in the future, these items could also become assets for the Underground Shelter and be used for a long time.
At the very least… within the next five years, he did not have to worry about toothpaste for the base!
“Next, once the airdrop distributions are completed, I’ll hurry to the Candlelight Shelter at once and start planting!”
After a sweeping glance at the many black market sellers wailing in the World Channel and seeing the cheers of other refugees, Su Mo turned off the chat box. He felt nothing at all in his heart.
People who made a fortune in this land by raising the price of seeds fifteenfold deserved to die, no matter what.
Unfortunately, some of the black market sellers this time were smart and made a fast getaway, handing the seeds in their possession to other people and making their escape.
However, a large number of medium and low-level “flunkies” fell way behind because this massive loss caused all of their accumulated achievements in the early stages to fall short, thus losing the qualifications to participate in the next market game.
Su Mo returned to the first-floor basement and sat down on the bench. He then began calculating the details of this round of trading as well as the loopholes that were not handled.
At the same time, he also examined the properties of the handful of design blueprints that were among the items traded, as well as the stringent requirements for building a furnace.
As long as he could create these things, the shelter’s development could be greatly sped up.
On the other end, Moore—who had slept for half the entire day—quietly woke up and rubbed his sleepy eyes, then followed the passageway to the first floor.
Su Mo looked at Moore and was about to speak when an airdrop marked with a No. 1 symbol slowly floated down!