"Speaking of which, I also chose the green room for the first one back then, and besides a blueprint, there was only a Snickers bar. If I hadn't accidentally discovered that breaking two machines could decompose damaged equipment, the yield wouldn't have been great."
Li Zheng climbed the stairs and headed to the second floor while beginning to inventory, trying to identify what each color room in the matrix represented.
"This time it's also a green room, and currently, I've gathered another Snickers bar, but in the basement, I managed to get a Black Iron Level lantern."
"But currently, the value of the items in this room is not as good as in the first room."
A lighting tool, although finished, is clearly not as valuable as the water purifier blueprint.
"After all, water is one of the essential survival supplies, and a lighting tool, in a sense, is optional."
So far, Li Zheng hasn't encountered a completely dark room.
"So there should be some more things to loot on the second floor."
Arriving on the second floor, what lay before him was a circular corridor, forming a square around the entire second floor, with a distinctive railing lining the edges.
On the other side of the corridor, in four directions, there were additional rooms.
Li Zheng entered a nearby room, finding it to be a bedroom.
A double bed, silk curtains, and luxurious bedding, all were present.
On the inner wall of the bedroom stood a silent metal door.
The detector indicated it was an orange-red danger door.
"Hmm, the metal door to the next room is indeed on the second floor, but there's no rush to explore it yet. There's still a lot of space to explore on the second floor."
Subsequently, Li Zheng checked the other three rooms.
One was a bathroom, with the internal metal door detected as empty.
Another was a small bedroom, with the internal metal door detected as red danger.
The third was a study, with just a desk and a bookshelf inside.
In the bathroom, Li Zheng found 100ml of fresh water in a wooden bucket and filled a water bottle with it.
As usual, before leaving, he smashed whatever could be smashed, but unfortunately, there was nothing that could be decomposed.
In the small bedroom, Li Zheng retrieved two components from a pillow. Upon contact, he discovered that the bedding and curtains could be decomposed directly, yielding 30 fibers.
[Fiber (gray) material
A soft, fluffy material that can be used to make specific items.]
Exiting the small bedroom, Li Zheng nodded: "Now, the items gathered from the two green rooms are roughly equal in value."
Entering the study, Li Zheng approached the desk and discovered a familiar screen embedded on the desktop.
"Research Data Desk!"
Stepping forward quickly, Li Zheng skillfully searched through the entire desk and opened a drawer to find two ports inside.
Taking out the water purifier blueprint and a USB stick, he inserted it, and the screen lit up, displaying the geometric blueprint of the water purifier.
The blueprint marked some data, and the edge of the screen showed the word [Learn].
Touching the word [Learn], the USB stick disappeared, and the data transformed into rays of light, pouring into Li Zheng's mind.
[Player has learned the blueprint and unlocked the manufacturing function.]
The system prompt popped up, and Li Zheng noticed a [Manufacture] button appearing on the screen in front of him.
Opening it, he found only one item available to manufacture: a [Small Water Purifier].
Selecting the Small Water Purifier, a page unfolded, clearly displaying the materials required for manufacturing and the materials Li Zheng currently possessed.
The Small Water Purifier can convert dirty water into clean drinking water.
Materials required for manufacturing: Parts*1/7, Iron Ingot*3/14, Copper Ingot*1/11
"The required materials aren't much. Let's make one and see how it turns out."
After choosing to manufacture, the materials were directly deducted, and after a short while, a notification appeared in front of Li Zheng:
[Small Water Purifier completed. Please find a place to set it up or put it in the capsule home.]
"I'll just place it on the desk."
With a thought, a silver-white machine appeared before Li Zheng.
Its size was not large, resembling a water dispenser, with a funnel-shaped water inlet on the top and a metal cup below.
[Lacking energy.]
A virtual arrow pointed to the back of the water purifier. Following it, Li Zheng opened it and found the size just right for a Power Core I.
He inserted one and closed the back cover.
[Lacking dirty water.]
"Where... can I find dirty water?"
Li Zheng was perplexed. Did all his effort end up creating something useless?
"I wonder if urine counts as dirty water..."
Li Zheng pondered for a moment, "It should..."
Upon thinking about it, he immediately felt the urge to pee.
"Let's give it a try."
Anyway, no one was watching, so Li Zheng began urinating with a stream.
He hadn't drunk much water since entering the matrix, just enough to fill a soda can.
With distaste, he pinched the soda can with two fingers and poured the pungent liquid into the funnel.
"Vroom Vroom."
The water purifier emitted a slight noise as it started working.
Almost simultaneously, the metal cup below began filling up. In just under two minutes, Li Zheng obtained 300ml of purified water.
"..."
"Amazing... nearly no loss in conversion, yuck~"
Although the system indicated the purified water was drinkable,
Li Zheng couldn't bring himself to drink it, knowing it was purified urine.
"I'll put it up for sale in the exchange... and sell this water purifier too."
He divided the 300ml of water into three portions, setting each for a trade for 20gB25 level manganese steel.
"Exchanging 100ml of water for twenty grams of bronze material - not much, but someone in dire need of water might want to trade."
Li Zheng was in no hurry. Since the exchange didn't charge a fee, he could just change the conditions and try again if it didn't sell.
"As for this water purifier... I'll give a subtle hint."
After removing the Power Core, he threw it into the exchange with a seller's note saying, "In what situation can a cup of water last a lifetime?"
Setting the trade demand to: Iron Ingot*2, Parts*5, Copper Ingot*2.
Almost double the cost.
Whether someone bought it or not, the price was set.
"Since I have time, let me clear my private messages."
Opening his private messages, countless unread messages appeared, directly displaying 9999+.
Li Zheng didn't bother reading them carefully, preserving chat records with Phoenix Mountain and Zhan Zhouzhou, while deleting all others.
Right after deleting, new unfamiliar messages popped up again.
As expected, it was still flattering words.
Li Zheng sighed and changed his private message settings to reject messages from strangers for some peace.
After finishing deleting, Li Zheng turned his attention to Phoenix Mountain and Zhan Zhouzhou.
Since both had trades with Li Zheng in the exchange, the system labeled them as "acquaintances."
Phoenix Mountain was long since unblocked from the blacklist, sending over twenty unread messages during this time.
Upon opening them, they were full of resentment, such as "Drawing circles to curse you" or "May your marriage fail, illness become cancer."
"This guy..."
Li Zheng chuckled, responded: "I'll save the Fire Element for you next time."
Guessing Phoenix Mountain had finished ten rooms and was now bored, the reply came almost instantly, but it was just one word:
"Hmph."
"Such a tsundere..."
Li Zheng laughed, ignoring him and instead looked at Zhan Zhouzhou's avatar, tapping to send a private message: "How's the effect? Any success in awakening?"
After a moment, Zhan Zhouzhou replied: "No."
As expected.
Li Zheng thought to himself.
Not everyone could be like Phoenix Mountain, a guy who triggered a 2% chance of awakening the Fire Gene just by using a flower.
But considering they traded a Silver Level Power Core for it, ending up empty-handed, Li Zheng felt responsible as the seller to show some concern for the buyer.
"It's normal not to awaken, the probability is indeed low. Next time if there's something similar, I'll give you a friendly price.
By the way, did you trigger that 30% probability?"
These words showed both human touch and concern.
Li Zheng felt he was a competent and caring seller.
Almost instantly, there was a reply from Zhan Zhouzhou.
Li Zheng opened it to find, again, a single word:
"Scram!"
"???
[The other party has blacklisted you for twelve hours.]
Li Zheng: "???"
What the heck?
Are you being unreasonable?