Chapter 54: Shared Blueprints
[Bone Ashes Mixed with Rice]: Miss, spread the word: once one thousand players hit the ten-thousand-kilometer mark, a new instance will open. Tell everyone to step on the gas.
[Jiangzhehu Inheritor]: ! Boss, is that true? What kind of instance? Can I enter too?
[Bone Ashes Mixed with Rice]: Of course it’s true. It’s a district-wide instance—a vehicle rally race. Anyone can take part. No hunting ghosts or killing monsters, just a pure test of speed and driving skill. There are three difficulty levels. You can try the easy track.
[Jiangzhehu Inheritor]: Awesome! Thank you so much, Boss! I’ll get people to spread the word right away.
With that, she logged off to coordinate with her informants.
Lin Huai glanced back at the basic workbench in her vehicle, which was steadily churning out talismans, and an idea struck her.
[Bone Ashes Mixed with Rice]: Miss, how many blueprints do you have on hand right now?
[Jiangzhehu Inheritor]: Are you looking to share blueprints, Boss?
Lin Huai raised an eyebrow. Share blueprints? Does this girl’s mind really move that fast?
Before Lin Huai could even type a reply, Jiangzhehu Inheritor had already sent over screenshots of her entire blueprint inventory.
Along with the images, she outlined a blueprint-sharing model. For now, she was only testing the waters inside the Elite Squad.
She had a basic workbench, while Old Wang from Building Materials was a major blueprint collector. Brother Wang would share his blueprints with her and supply the raw materials. She would then craft the matching talismans or gear, after which they would split the finished goods according to an agreed profit ratio before returning the original blueprints.
This way, the young lady obtained finished items she lacked the blueprints for, and Brother Wang received crafted gear without needing his own workbench.
On paper, it sounded like a win-win system, but the hidden risks were enormous.
Running a crafting service across the entire district—or even within the broader five-hundred-person guild—was an invitation to trouble.
People running off with borrowed blueprints, stealing crafting materials, or even resorting to murder and robbery would be endless.
The only reason the young heiress dared to try this was because she had Lin Huai’s fearsome reputation backing her up.
Knowing the risks full well, she had restricted the trial run to the inner circle of the Elite Squad.
Lin Huai considered it for a moment, circled a few specific blueprints from the screenshots, and sent the image back.
[Bone Ashes Mixed with Rice]: Miss, can I borrow these blueprints for a little while? I’ll return them within an hour, and I’ll pay you one Yin energy crystal for the trouble.
[Jiangzhehu Inheritor]: Boss, if you need them, just take them! No need to pay me anything. I’ll transfer them right over.
Without hesitation, the young woman traded the blueprints directly to Lin Huai.
Lin Huai accepted the transfer. Regardless of whether Jiangzhehu Inheritor wanted payment or not, she still sent over a Yin energy crystal.
In truth, she planned to duplicate the blueprints with her portable item printer. But because she wanted to keep the printer’s existence a secret, she told her she needed an hour. In reality, copying a handful of designs wouldn’t even take ten minutes.
She slipped the blueprints into the scanner, loaded a batch of Yang energy crystals, and hit start. Within three minutes, the machine finished printing the complete stack.
Thirty Yang energy crystals had produced duplicates of three low-tier talisman blueprints, three mid-tier talisman blueprints, two low-tier magic artifact blueprints, one mid-tier magic artifact blueprint, and a protective raincoat blueprint.
Disaster-response blueprints only dropped during active natural disasters and were extremely rare. In her previous life, Lin Huai had only ever found one, but she hadn’t been able to use it because she lacked a workbench.
Even so, she had never considered handing her blueprints over to someone else to craft; the risk of betrayal was simply too high.
In her past life, some lucky players might have owned both the blueprints and a workbench, but the vast majority had to rely on scavenging crates for disaster gear. High-tier protective items were almost never listed on the public exchange, and no one had ever sold them on a commercial scale.
After finishing the copies, Lin Huai loaded the newly printed blueprints into her basic workbench, added the raw materials, and watched the gears turn. Moments later, a fresh talisman was successfully completed.
Having confirmed that the duplicates functioned perfectly, Lin Huai waited until an hour had passed before returning the original blueprints to Jiangzhehu Inheritor. Then, she pitched her new proposal.
[Bone Ashes Mixed with Rice]: I can back you publicly so you can expand this blueprint-processing business to a larger scale, but I have two conditions.
[Jiangzhehu Inheritor]: Boss, forget two conditions—even if you had ten, I’d agree to every single one!
[Bone Ashes Mixed with Rice]: First, I won’t be your only backing. As we said before, you’re the treasurer for the whole squad, not just me. The profits from your crafting service must still follow our agreed revenue split.
[Jiangzhehu Inheritor]: Of course! Even if you hadn’t brought it up, that’s exactly how I planned to handle it. My combat skills are weak, but I’m sitting on a mountain of wealth. I definitely need the squad’s protection to stay safe.
[Bone Ashes Mixed with Rice]: Second, whenever anyone brings you a blueprint to craft—no matter what type it is—you must hold it for one hour and lend it to me first. And I need you to keep this completely confidential.
[Jiangzhehu Inheritor]: Understood, Boss. My lips are sealed.
[Bone Ashes Mixed with Rice]: Good. That’s all I need. Go get them, Miss! My Level 5 vehicle upgrade is counting on you!
[Bone Ashes Mixed with Rice]: Oh, and keep an eye out for three specific materials: Blazing Fire Jade, Black Tortoise Dragon Bone, and extra emeralds.
[Jiangzhehu Inheritor]: Leave it to me, Boss!
With their agreement set, the young woman set off to draft her business plan and roll out the service.
Lin Huai, meanwhile, put up another batch of ash bricks on the public trading post. This time, she changed the accepted currency to either paper underworld coins or rare crafting materials.
She still needed to expand her supply lines for Yin energy crystals. More importantly, she needed a steady source of Yang energy crystals, as using them to charge the hearse’s weapons and power the printer burned through them at an alarming rate.
Steering the hearse down the long, wet road, Lin Huai reviewed her plans for the future.
The bone-crushing box she had taken from Tchaikovsky Driver had yielded a rare material she desperately needed: jadeite.
Her current inventory of special items was looking quite impressive:
[Basic Workbench x1, Low-Tier Talisman Blueprints x10, Low-Tier Artifact Blueprints x8, Mid-Tier Talisman Blueprints x5, Mid-Tier Artifact Blueprints x3, High-Tier Talisman Blueprint x1, Undertaker Work Permit x1, Altar Token x2, Portable Item Printer x1, Ice Soul Stone x1, Earth God Temple Road Guide x1, Nine-Headed Bird Feathers x3, Pawnshop Token x1, Instance Shards x2, Outpost Token x1, Jadeite x15]
Upgrading the Yellow Springs Road Guide to the intermediate tier had consumed a Heart of Amber and an Azure Water Jade, along with a mountain of basic supplies.
Upgrading the basic workbench to the intermediate tier, on the other hand, was an even heavier investment. It required 1,000 metal, 1,000 wood, 1,000 stone ore, an Ice Soul Stone, a Blazing Fire Jade, and a Black Tortoise Dragon Bone.
She already had the Ice Soul Stone in hand, leaving only the Blazing Fire Jade and the Black Tortoise Dragon Bone to find.
She held several mid-tier talisman blueprints in her inventory, but she couldn’t craft any of them because her workbench was still locked at the basic tier. Lin Huai was eager to upgrade the workbench as soon as possible, but both the fire jade and dragon bone were extremely rare. Finding them would depend almost entirely on luck.
For now, she could only wait and see which set of materials she managed to complete first.
