Chapter 41: Five Consecutive Draws

Yun Qing took out the purified meat, having already rested for a while and defended her cave against another monster siege. The timing for delivery was just right.

At the relief station, Yun Qing placed fifty portions of purified meat beside Aunt Ye Liu.

Aunt Ye Liu opened them up for inspection, and as expected, each portion had been perfectly purified.

"Shi Xiaotao's favorability towards you +10."

Shi Xiaotao was Aunt Ye Liu’s real name. She hadn’t expected such a significant increase in favorability from handing over so many portions of purified food at once.

But it wasn’t just the favorability—there was also a payment of one hundred taels of silver.

Looking at her total of one hundred and twelve taels on her person, and another hundred and five taels in her system, Yun Qing felt wealthier than ever before.

“Slippery, it’s still hatred points that accumulate the fastest,” she mused.

Slippery reminded her, “You’ve accumulated forty-eight favorability points. You can now do a five-draw on the beginner’s lottery. Would you like to draw now?”

During these days, Yun Qing had refrained from drawing, saving up her favorability points to do a batch draw. So much had happened recently, she’d almost forgotten that she only needed forty-five points to attempt the much-anticipated five-draw.

She knew the sacrificial lottery method was just psychological comfort, but Yun Qing still took three deep breaths to calm her excitement, silently chanting, “I sacrifice Ye Qiu Yue’s ten years of good luck for European luck—five draws!”

The number five on the lottery wheel dropped to zero, and a pointer appeared in the center, spinning faster and then slowing down, finally stopping at a question mark.

The question mark was removed from the wheel, and the pointer continued to spin until all five question marks had been selected and the wheel disappeared.

All five question marks opened at once.

System prompt: “Congratulations, you have obtained: Sub-cotton x10; Linen Robe Recipe x1; Sapling x1; Skill: Leap; Charcoal Recipe x1.”

Of the five items, some were good, some less so. Sub-cotton was the worst, not even worth a single tael of silver—perhaps system-lottery items were better. The sapling was slightly better than the sub-cotton.

Leap: Level 1, consumes 1 unit of spiritual power to jump three meters vertically. If out of spiritual power, it can consume 1 tael of silver instead. Note: Can be upgraded to double-jump with 100 taels of silver and 1 skill point.

Reading this, Yun Qing rolled her eyes inwardly. Jump three meters up? She’d once been a “fairy”—with lightness and escape techniques, she could easily leap that high.

Still, for her current situation, it was useful—though the silver consumption was rather outrageous. One hundred taels plus a skill point to upgrade; clearly, the system knew she had that much, hoping to swindle a sucker like her.

To upgrade a skill, you needed skill points, and so far, she only had one way to get them: achievements. For example, kill one hundred chickens to get the “Chick Slayer” achievement; harvest one hundred flax plants to become a “Junior Flax Harvester.” These achievements granted skill points.

All of these achievements were hidden, waiting for her to discover them. This made her realize that to become powerful, she’d need to earn all sorts of achievements and upgrade her skills. Grinding the same thing might raise her level, but it wouldn’t make her strong.

Currently, she wore a coarse cloth and beast-hide robe bought in the village, with the original owner’s fine clothing underneath. There were linen robes for sale in the village too, but their defensive power was lower than her beast-hide robe.

Charcoal was something Yun Qing had wanted, a necessity for crafting weapons and cooking food.

However, she’d searched everywhere and couldn’t find the recipes for the linen robe or charcoal.

When in doubt, ask the sprite. Yun Qing inquired, “Slippery, where are those two recipes? How do I find them?”

“You can see and craft them through the cave’s basic crafting machine,” was the reply.

Carrying a heavy bag of silver, Yun Qing returned to her room and entered the cave again.

The basic crafting machine now had two new items available: the linen robe and charcoal.

Linen Robe: Offers average warmth and minor protection. Materials needed: sub-cotton x10, flax stalks x20, flax leaves x20.

Charcoal: Widely used for cooking and heating. Materials needed: wood x1.

So, to make something, you first needed the recipe. Of course—alchemy required formulas, too.

Suddenly, Yun Qing understood: if she wanted to build a fence, she’d have to draw the fence recipe as well. No wonder Slippery hadn’t mentioned it before; he’d been too focused on wanting meat and didn’t want to bother explaining the need for recipes.

After figuring out the recipes, Yun Qing saw that the trees in her field hadn’t matured yet, but the basic crafting machine had already finished the floorboards and wooden walls.

She put away the floorboards and walls, then laid out nine floorboards in a square on her plot, placing a wooden wall at the edge.

Not wanting the crafting machine to sit idle, she used her remaining wood to make charcoal, and also set it to work on the linen robe.

She wondered how Ye Tao's injuries were. He should be able to leave the village for the cleanup mission. Shouldering her coarse beast-hide backpack, readying her canteen, salt, and roasted potatoes, she prepared to head to the village entrance once more.

To collect poisonous items, she decided to stop by the blacksmith’s to get a fine iron clamp.

The blacksmith’s shop was different from usual—the weapon-laden racks were now almost empty.

Prices had risen, but when Master Li saw that the buyer was Yun Qing, he sold to her at the original price, even inviting her to stay and work at the smithy for generous pay.

Yun Qing was a little tempted, lacking in crafting experience as she was, but told Master Li she’d come work as a helper, free of charge, after her cleanup team’s mission was finished.

Leaving the smithy, Yun Qing gritted her teeth and spent thirty taels on a fine iron clamp. The quality was average—the better ones had already been taken.

She thought she could probably pick poisonous items barehanded without issue; the original owner's body had been soaked in darkness before death, after all. But others wouldn’t see it that way.

Still, it was better with the clamp; her gathering skill wasn’t at level thirty-one yet, so gathering contaminated items would fail and grant no experience.

She’d wasted a lot of stones during the last monster siege. There were many soul corpses outside the village, so she picked up stones as she walked out. This time, there was no notice about increasing Ye Qiu Yue’s hatred value—no one was paying her any attention, and she quietly transferred the stones from her backpack into her system inventory.

When Yun Qing reached the village entrance again, the villagers’ simple funeral had already ended.

After nearly two hours of rest, most of the martial artists had recovered, and many cleanup teams were already out working.

The place where the wounded had been treated was now occupied by only two or three groups, one of which was Yun Qing’s own team.

Approaching her group, she saw Ye Mao sitting cross-legged behind Ye Tao, seemingly transmitting internal energy to help him heal.

Yun Qing didn’t interrupt, and instead watched quietly with Ye Xiaolang and the others. After a moment, Ye Mao rose from behind Ye Tao, shaking his head in disappointment.

Ye Tao smiled and said, “Don’t worry too much about me, everyone. Now that I can’t see, I’ll be able to focus even more on my martial training. I’ll break through to the innate level within two years.”

A chill swept through Yun Qing’s heart. Ye Tao had lost his sight—was it because that massive glob of saliva from the soul corpse had landed on his face?

Couldn’t internal energy purify it?

“The venom and the fragile tissue of the eyes have become inseparably intertwined. It’s affected Ye Tao’s vision, and whether he’ll ever recover is uncertain,” Ye Mao explained quietly to the team.

Ye Wenjing clenched her fists, her tone uncharacteristically intense, guilt and anger mingling in her voice. “Brother Tao, you suffered this calamity because of me. I never imagined Ye Qiu Yue would suddenly appear, and I couldn’t bring myself to sever her hand—this is the result.”