Starting With a Reef [Global Survival]

Du Ruan-tian hadn’t expected Yun Luohe to have a Toolbench too.
So far, she was the only one in the Lucky Club with a Toolbench—even Wu Jing didn’t have one.
And since Yun was a close friend, of course she had to invite her into the club.

Yun Luohe saw the message and gave a helpless smile.
“I’m not a Lucky One. My Luck Stat is really low, so I’m not a good fit for your club.”
Du Ruan-tian: “Ah! How can that be? Well, that’s a shame. There are a lot of perks to joining us. Everyone trades the food they don’t like to eat, so there’s a wide variety of options every day. Plus, high-grade materials get traded too, even blueprints.”
Yun Luohe was a bit tempted, but she really wasn’t a Lucky One. Compared to the supplies Wu Jing got, her stuff would just be looked down on in the club.
Nothing those Lucky Ones pulled from shells was worth throwing into the Trash Can.
Even if she joined, she wouldn’t gain much from it.

“Yeah, I guess it’s not gonna work.”
Honestly, even the Lucky Club model didn’t suit those of them with bad luck.
Du Ruan-tian: “Alright then. I’ll hook you up with some work. Someone just asked me to make a Wooden Bed, but I need to make a Stove, and my Toolbench is occupied. I’ll hand it over to you.”

Yun Luohe: “Sure!”
That was a good thing. It seemed like Du Ruan-tian had plenty of these orders coming in. Joining the club naturally widened your network, and lucky players had more materials and were usually more generous when paying.
“Mhm, so your processing fee is still any 3 items, right? I’ll go tell her.”
Yun Luohe: “That’s right. Thanks a lot!”

Soon, Du Ruan-tian forwarded her friend’s order to Yun Luohe.
Crafting a Wooden Bed took thirty minutes.
The other player sent all the materials needed to make the bed, along with payment: Ocean Stone ×1, Palm Leaf ×1, Plastic Bottle ×2…
Maybe thinking the stuff wasn’t worth much, and feeling a little bad about it, they even tossed in an extra bottle.

Yun Luohe was happy to accept.
What was trash to others—Plastic Bottles—were actually valuable to her.
She stored the Palm Leaf and tossed the Plastic Bottles into the Trash Can.
She used the Scrap-for-Cash Skill twice and earned 2 Ocean Stones.

—
Meanwhile, others in the Lucky Club had also noticed Yun Luohe.
“I just saw someone else with a Toolbench. Why hasn’t the president recruited her yet? She should totally join us.”
Wu Jing: “Oh, that? She’s my friend. Don’t need you to tell me—I already asked her. But she said she’s not a Lucky One, so I couldn’t push it.”

“She’s got a Toolbench this early and says she’s not a Lucky One? Maybe she just said that to avoid joining. Did you tell her how great our club is?”
Du Ruan-tian: “I just asked her too. She said the same thing to me—that her Luck Stat’s too low and she doesn’t fit in. Doesn’t seem like she was lying.”
“If her Luck Stat is really that low, then yeah, she doesn’t meet our standards. But then how the heck does she have a Toolbench? Some kind of hidden golden finger?”

Wu Jing: “That’s not something we can know. And people aren’t gonna tell you even if it is.”
Wu Jing sent a private message to Du Ruan-tian.
“You added Yun Luohe as a friend too?”
Du Ruan-tian: “Yeah, ages ago. Oh, so did you.”

They started chatting casually.
The two of them had the highest Luck Stats in the club, but had never messaged each other before. Du Ruan-tian had been introduced to the club by other members.
Meanwhile, Yun Luohe had gotten a few more business orders through the chat channel.

And to be honest, quite a few people were reaching out. A lot of players were offering trash as payment for her to make Wooden Beds and Tools.
Yun Luohe didn’t turn anyone away. Before long, her client list was already marked up to #10.
She’d added so many friends that she had to number them just to keep the orders in order.
Half of the ten orders were for Wooden Beds.
One of them came from someone she knew—Yang Mian.

The other half were for Stone Hoes, Stone Axes, and one person even wanted a Wooden Chest.
With so many orders coming in, Yun Luohe changed her status message to:
(10 orders full, not accepting new ones during the day today.)
Who knew a signature message could be this useful—it really saved her time.

Right after changing it, the number of friend requests dropped sharply.
But a few players still added her to ask if they could reserve a slot and wait until she was done—no rush.
Looked like there really weren’t many players in the entire region with a Toolbench.

Yun Luohe started wondering if maybe she should raise her prices.
Three of any item might be too cheap.
She’d wait and see how things went tomorrow. If orders were too overwhelming, she’d bump it to five items.
Otherwise, she just wouldn’t be able to keep up.

She crafted tools while keeping an eye on the fishing net.
By the time the sun set behind the western mountains, she’d finally completed all 10 orders.
She received: Wood ×14, Beer Bottle ×1, Plastic Bottle ×10, Rotten Slippers ×1, Rotten Gloves ×1, Palm Leaf ×1, Rotten Cabbage ×1, Moldy Potato ×1

Not bad.
Yun Luohe tossed all the Plastic Bottles into the Trash Can.
After recycling, she gained 10 Ocean Stones and got another lottery chance.

She’d already recycled more than 20 times today, but Yun Luohe knew she’d never run out of trash in the future, so there was no point in capping herself at 20. She still needed to farm EXP every day and level up as fast as possible.
[Lottery Start!]
[Reward: Plastic Umbrella Blueprint ×1]
Huh…?

[Plastic Umbrella: A transparent plastic umbrella used for keeping out the rain.]
[Crafting Materials: Plastic ×3, Iron Ore ×1]
The system had already announced that spring would bring frequent rain, so an umbrella would definitely come in handy when it started.
This blueprint wasn’t bad at all.
She put it away for now—she’d craft one when the rain came.

It was getting late. After a full day of work, she was starving. She decided to take out that bowl of Plain Noodles and eat.
The noodles had a glossy layer of oil shimmering on top, garnished with a bit of cilantro and green onions. The aroma of noodles wafted up as soon as she opened it.
Yun Luohe used one Wood to craft five pairs of chopsticks, then eagerly began eating.

The noodles were chewy and springy—she couldn’t stop after the first bite. She slurped them down and even finished the soup with satisfaction.
Her stomach felt warm, her whole body relaxed.
She remembered she still had some flour. Once the cabbages grew, she could make her own noodles, toss in a handful of cabbage, and cook a nice bowl of veggie noodles.

Just then, the fishing net caught something again.
She got lucky this time—it was a White Pearl.
[Obtained: Ocean Stone ×5, Bamboo ×1, Soybean ×1, Fishing Line ×1, Towel ×1, Palm Leaf ×1, Rusty Iron Chunk ×1, Leaky Wooden Bucket ×1, Tofu Pudding ×1]

More and more items were piling up.
Her backpack couldn’t hold it all anymore.
Where could she even find a Space Stone?
Maybe those Lucky Ones had some.

After all, they definitely had more supplies than she did.
Unless they made Wooden Chests, there was no way they’d have enough space for all their loot.
Of course, making a Wooden Chest was also a good option. The ones crafted at a Toolbench functioned as Storage Chests, with 10 slots—similar to a backpack. The only downside was that chests could only be placed in a Thatch Hut and couldn’t be carried around.
But since players were stuck on their reefs anyway, a Wooden Chest was still incredibly useful.

The only issue was that one chest cost 20 Wood to make.
Yun Luohe was reluctant. She wanted to save her Wood for upgrades.
Upgrading required 300 Wood, and she hadn’t even hit 50 yet.
Yang Mian: “Got any food? I’ll trade Wood for it.”

Just as she was debating whether to make a chest, a message from Yang Mian popped up.
Talk about perfect timing.
Yun Luohe: “One bowl of Tofu Pudding for 15 Wood.”

This bowl had mushrooms, black fungus, daylily buds, all topped with thick sauce—it looked delicious.
Thankfully, Yun Luohe had already eaten, or she wouldn’t have been willing to trade it.
And she was asking for quite a bit—15 Wood. If Yang Mian didn’t agree, she’d just keep it for herself and eat it tomorrow.
She didn’t have that much food left, either.

She sent a screenshot of the Tofu Pudding to Yang Mian.
To her surprise, he agreed right away.
Yang Mian had already run out of food.

He and his little sister, Yang Mei, had only shared one Steamed Bun between them all day.
He could endure it, but his sister was still young and growing—he couldn’t let her go hungry.
Fifteen Wood was a lot, but he traded it anyway.

He and Yang Mei were good at pulling in materials, but they just weren’t finding any food.
It was a major headache.
If only his Luck Stat were just a bit higher, he could’ve joined the Lucky Club.

But both his and Yang Mei’s stats were low.
He was thinking of forming his own group—gathering people and pooling their resources together to solve problems like this.
For example, players like him who had lots of materials but no food could easily trade for it.
He could also team up with someone who had plenty of food and supply them with materials.

But Yang Mian also wanted to level up quickly, so he couldn’t afford to give away too many materials every day.
And ⊛ Nоvеlιght ⊛ (Read the full story) it’s not like he never fished up food—it really depended on luck.
Today, he hadn’t caught a single edible item but had pulled up loads of materials.
So he figured trading was the best option.
After receiving 15 Wood, Yun Luohe went straight to the Toolbench and crafted a Wooden Chest.

Now she could store the items she didn’t plan to throw into the Trash Can right away.
Things like Palm Leaves and Beer Bottles—she had several of those now. She was saving them to recycle tomorrow.
It was getting late.
Yun Luohe sent a message to Mu Zitang.

“How are you doing? Did you gather enough materials to upgrade?”
If he didn’t reach Level 3 tonight, he’d be eliminated.
Yun Luohe noticed a lot of people in the chat channel were complaining—saying the system’s notice had come too late. There wasn’t enough time, and they didn’t know how to get the materials they needed.

A lot of people were posting frantic trade messages, dumping everything in their backpacks in hopes of trading for upgrade items.
Yun Luohe had been too busy earlier to pay attention.
Now that she messaged Mu Zitang, she figured she’d take a look—maybe she could snag something interesting.
—

“I’m desperate! Still short 10 Ocean Stones and 5 Fiber—I’ll trade everything I own! Anyone?? [image][image]”
“Only 4 hours until midnight! Damn it, where the hell am I supposed to find 15 Fiber?”
“Anyone want Seeds? I’ve also got two packs of tissues—just give me 10 Ocean Stones!”
“I have a Blueprint! If you help me level up, it’s yours!”
“You with the blueprint—I’ll help! Added you as a friend! DM me!”
“That easy? Didn’t even ask what kind of blueprint it was?”
“I’ve got a blueprint too—just a broken one. Anyone want it? I’ll sell it cheap.”
Yun Luohe wasn’t that interested in full Blueprints.
But broken ones—those made her eyes light up!