Chapter 13: Time to Go Farming Mobs
After upgrading the Item Exchange Box, Ling Jing set about spending her points.
First, she spent twenty points to upgrade the Item Exchange Box’s storage capacity to thirty cubic meters.
The box’s default ten cubic meters wasn’t small by any means, but it was always wise to leave a comfortable margin.
Next, she spent fifty points in the Mall to purchase a small natural gas burner, followed by fifteen points for an iron wok.
Naturally, she would continue offering roasted potatoes and roasted sweet potatoes, but fresh menu options were a must.
Besides, this would allow her to experiment with unlocking “New Recipes”—she couldn’t let those fresh bamboo shoots that landed right on her doorstep go to waste.
Ling Jing scrolled through the Mall interface.
A chef’s knife was an absolute necessity. Exchange: ten points.
She needed it to prep all sorts of ingredients.
Seasonings were indispensable as well. She wasn’t an omnipotent deity capable of conjuring spices out of thin air.
A large jar of salt: ten points. A tub of soy sauce: ten points.
She exchanged five points for a supply of natural gas for the burner.
A five-point canister should last roughly two days.
With careful calculation, she had burned through nearly all of her hundred and thirty points.
Only ten points remained.
Earlier, Ling Jing had felt that selling that much on her opening day was quite respectable.
Yet looking at the system interface now, a hundred and thirty points vanished like a single drop of water swallowed by the vast ocean.
It wasn’t nearly enough.
She held onto the remaining ten points for emergencies.
As for other ingredients?
Ling Jing browsed through the raw goods available in the Mall. The selection was vast, but the price tags were staggering.
[One Catty of Tomatoes]: 20 Points.
[One Catty of Pork]: 50 Points.
Even the fresh bamboo shoots she had acquired for zero cost today went for thirty points a catty in the Mall.
What kind of sucker would spend precious points buying ingredients from the Mall?
Not a chance.
Ling Jing rolled her neck and shoulders, raised her hand to tap [Recall] on the tent, and stowed it back onto the tricycle.
She rearranged the cargo bed, carving out a decent pocket of space.
Hanging the lantern from the handlebars, its warm glow pierced through the steadily darkening twilight.
The emerald mist hanging in the air seemed to grow thicker by the minute.
Perfect timing.
Ling Jing hopped onto the tricycle and pedaled straight toward the heart of the mist.
Free mutated beasts and plants were offering themselves up everywhere—wasn’t that infinitely better than paying Mall prices?
Time to go farming mobs.
The further she pedaled away from the towering wall, the denser the emerald mist became.
Once darkness fell, the surrounding terrain took on a noticeably different character than during the day.
Ling Jing pedaled leisurely, scanning her surroundings with sharp eyes under the warm glow of the lantern.
Most of the vegetation showed no reaction to the emerald mist.
A rare few, however, slowly unfurled their branches and shoots.
Clearly, in the immediate vicinity of those shifting plants, the surrounding mist thinned out considerably.
They were absorbing it.
She stopped pedaling, pausing beside a waist-high shrub to observe.
Having swallowed the surrounding emerald mist, the shrub settled back into stillness.
To the naked eye, it looked no different from any ordinary bush.
Immediately after, Ling Jing watched a dark green… fluid begin beading along the veins of its leaves.
It looked as though an excess of mist had been sprayed over the foliage, condensing into heavy droplets that trickled toward the lowest tips.
Then—drip, drop—they fell to the ground.
Solidifying into an all-too-familiar sight.
Small crystals.
So that was where these crystals that converted into City Coins came from.
Ling Jing fell into thought.
It appeared to be a secondary precipitate formed after vegetation absorbed the emerald mist—or perhaps crystallized residue of the mist itself?
Since apocalyptic survivors could scavenge this substance to trade for currency, what reason did the human authorities have for hoarding it…?
With so little data on hand, she couldn’t deduce much.
Judging by the reactions of the locals that afternoon, the humans in this world had likely taken extensive measures.
The closer flora and fauna were to the high walls, the lower their degree of mutation and “vitality.”
It resembled a designated safe zone.
This might very well tie back to those “Awakeners” the survivors constantly mentioned.
Having arrived only today, the information she had gathered was still fragmented.
Though countless threads seemed quietly interconnected, the puzzle pieces were too scattered to assemble a clear picture just yet.
No rush; one step at a time.
Since Ling Jing was out farming mobs, she had no fear of venturing beyond the “safe zone.”
She kept her tricycle rolling straight along a single trajectory, venturing deeper into the wilderness.
After riding for who-knew-how-long, she felt a distinct shift in the surrounding environment.
The flora seemed to have “come alive.”
Looking closer, they remained rooted in place, entirely motionless.
Yet Ling Jing felt an intense, prickling sensation of being watched.
Behind her?
The moment the thought flashed through her mind, she whipped her head around.
Sure enough, a bizarre, grotesque beast covered in black-and-green fur came charging straight at her!
It was massive—standing tall like a warhorse, built broad like a grizzly, yet sporting two curving tusks protruding from its snout.
Atop its skull sat a festering, tumorous spore, dark green bordering on black.
Hiss… Truly an eyesore.
Hard to believe this monstrosity could be turned into food.
Whoosh—
The black-green beast charged with blistering speed, and vanished just as swiftly.
Slamming headlong into the white barrier surrounding the tricycle, it dissolved into ash in the blink of an eye.
Ling Jing glanced at the empty space she had cleared in the cargo bed.
A massive pile of meat steadily materialized.
Thoroughly descaled, shaved, and butchered.
Pork?
An entire, massive carcass of butchered pork nearly shoved her potato basket right off the edge.
That thing was a mutated wild boar? It had been warped beyond all recognition.
Thank goodness the protective barrier automatically processed killed flora and fauna into fresh, clean ingredients.
Otherwise, if she were forced to dress a diseased carcass like that black-green abomination by hand…
Ling Jing was certain she would need some serious mental preparation first.
Dismounting, she inspected the spoils with great satisfaction.
An unexpected windfall. She hadn’t anticipated kicking off her mob-farming run with an entire pig.
With this, didn’t she have both meat and lard sorted out in one go?
The only issue was the cramped space on the tricycle; half the pork slab hung precariously over the side.
She needed to find a fix…
A short while later.
Ling Jing dusted off her hands, admiring the wooden cart hitched behind her tricycle with deep satisfaction.
Riding a bit further, she had stumbled across a dilapidated wooden shack that had sat abandoned for decades amid endless ruined farmland.
She had dragged this cart right out of the wreckage.
She had even scavenged two wooden barrels, which would serve nicely for washing and storing ingredients.
Wasn’t this infinitely more cost-effective than buying from the Mall?
The wooden cart’s wheels creaked and groaned, but it was fully functional.
It accommodated the heavy slab of pork perfectly.
Along with a few catties of radishes.
Those were miniature mutated radish monsters that had thrown themselves into her barrier along the ride.
Ling Jing had even tried shoving a radish into the Item Exchange Box to see if she could cheat the system and convert it into City Coins.
The attempt to exploit a bug failed miserably; the Item Exchange Box spat the radish right back out.
A line of floating text had even scolded her:
[Host, please refrain from depositing items into the Exchange Box yourself!!!]
The three trailing exclamation marks felt like an indignant protest against her opportunistic antics.
Ling Jing had no choice but to abandon her brilliant scheme.
Time to head back.
Originally, Ling Jing’s idea of “farming mobs” had merely been scavenging some greens beyond potatoes and sweet potatoes.
She hadn’t anticipated a mutated wild boar completely upending her plans.
It was a delightful surprise, but it added nearly two hundred catties of dead weight to the tricycle.
Ling Jing had pedaled the entire way standing up, gritting her teeth with every strained rotation.
Adding the wooden trailer only increased the burden.
At least she no longer had to constantly glance over her shoulder to make sure the pork didn’t roll off into the dirt.
Alright, that’s enough for tonight.
Ling Jing poured her strength into the pedals, steering the cart toward home.
Exhausted in body, yet brimming with anticipation in spirit.
The most thrilling part of running a restaurant was always the preparation of new dishes.
Though forced to start from scratch, there was something genuinely captivating about building an enterprise from zero and watching the fruits of your labor steadily accumulate.
Loaded to the brim, returning in triumph.
Head back, tidy up, and prepare for a proper grand opening tomorrow.
Featuring fresh ingredients harvested from tonight’s mob-farming run!
