So then, Ethan opened the upgrade tab under the villa again.
He scrolled down, when he scrolled to the bottom, Ethan finally gained something, because he saw something that looked like a dormitory building.
"A dormitory building?"
Ethan narrowed his eyes.
Compared to the residential area in the manor for the subjects, this dormitory building was a hundred times more low-class.
But he was dirt poor now, and even the best cook could not make rice without grain, so what could he do?
With no choice, he could only make do for now.
After all, whose life is not just making do?
In the real world, it was the same.
In the real world, except for the privileged wealthy second generation and kids who got rich because their homes were demolished, most ordinary people lived their whole lives just making do, making do, and that was their whole lifetime.
[Dormitory Building Type A: 4 floors, total of 48 rooms. First floor has a dining hall and recreation room. A very dorm-like dormitory building. Every floor has a separate toilet and bathroom for the subjects to wash. (The equipment inside the bathrooms needs to be crafted separately.) Requirements to build: High grade stone 470/100, mud 380/200, high grade wood 115/100, vines 328/200, glass 93/54, earth core 1/10]
[Dormitory Building Type B (more space-efficient): 7 floors, total of 100 rooms. First floor has a dining hall and recreation room. A very dorm-like dormitory building. Every floor has a separate toilet and bathroom for the subjects to wash. (The equipment inside the bathrooms needs to be crafted separately.) Requirements to build: High grade stone 470/200, mud 380/400, high grade wood 115/200, vines 328/400, glass 93/108, earth core 1/20]
"This one is fine."
"The construction requirements aren't too ridiculous."
Type B had a little more than twice the number of rooms as Type A, but the construction materials would also double, making Ethan, a lord who already wasn't rich, even more miserable.
'Forget Type B then!'
Anyway, Ethan only had 40 subjects right now. forty-eight rooms were enough, and he could even have 8 rooms left for their kids to live in.
"Hahaha!"
"Not bad! Not bad!"
But just when Ethan was about to upgrade it...
[System prompt: Not enough earth cores!]
"What the hell!"
Everything else was enough, except he was short 9 earth cores.
Ethan suddenly remembered that before he went to sleep, he had put some things up for sale in the trade channel. Now was the perfect time to see how they were selling.
[Nightmare rat meat -98, spirit stones +980]
[Wood -10, yeast +10]
[Wood -100, kerosene +100]
[Wood -50, cotton +50]
[1 acid water -90, spirit stones +900]
A bunch of settlement notifications rang out instantly.
Ethan glanced. There were still 17 portions of nightmare rat meat that no one bought, and 50 bundles of cotton no one traded for, probably because no player had collected cotton.
But to make a sofa he only needed 20 cotton, so that was more than enough.
After taking down everything left that no one traded for, Ethan was about to adjust the trade listing for the nightmare rat meat.
Just as he switched spirit stones to earth cores to see if anyone would trade, he saw in the message feed someone named Sun Wukong who was excitedly leaving messages, ["Boss Ethan, can I trade earth cores for your nightmare rat meat? I remember you seemed to want cores. Please give me some meat, I'm starving!"]
"Huh?", Ethan had thought no player yet could take down monsters that dropped cores.
He didn't expect to be this lucky. Someone was actually coming to him with cores now.
Such a good chance, Ethan naturally wouldn't let it slip by. He quickly sent Sun Wukong a private message, ["Sure. How many do you have?"]
Sun Wukong messaged, ["I have 108. Can we trade?"]
Ethan replied, ["Holy crap! How did you get a hundred earth cores?"]
Ethan was honestly stunned on the spot.
He had worked hard, even with cheats and selling goods nonstop, and had only managed to get a few dozen earth cores total, 'Is this guy another player using cheats?'
'But that doesn't make sense.'
'If he is cheating, how could he be unable to even get enough meat to eat?'
In that moment, Ethan's curiosity was exploding.
He wanted to know how this Sun Wukong pulled it off. If he could replicate this guy's success, he would never have to worry about earth cores again.
Then Sun Wukong left a message, ["I really have to thank you, Boss Ethan. If it wasn't for you, I'd have had no way to deal with that nest of ants!"]
["Those damned white sickle soul-eating ants were right under my wooden hut, chewing on my floorboards. They bit me while I was sleeping, it hurt like hell."]
["And they kept hiding underground, moving super fast. I seriously had no way to deal with those damn things."]
["Luckily you sold acid water yesterday. I bought two bottles and dumped them all into the ant nest."]
["Hahaha..."]
["All those ants died! Even their corpses floated up. Every one of them was pure white, and the pair of mandibles next to their mouths looked like two sickles, at least half a centimeter long. Super scary."]
["Boss Ethan, your acid water was amazing."]
["To make sure every ant under there was dead, I pried up the floorboards and dug soil the whole night. And inside the ant nest, I found 108 earth cores."]
["I figured you wanted cores, so I came to ask you."]
Ethan's face lit up with joy. He quickly replied, ["You're way too smart. I really need them. But I only have 17 portions of nightmare rat meat left. I can give you a shortbow and ten arrows, plus a kerosene lamp to trade with you."]
You had to admit, this Sun Wukong kid was seriously talented.
Ethan didn't want to take too much advantage of him either. One hundred and eight earth cores were definitely worth trading for a hundred-plus portions of meat.
But red dragon meat had special attributes, so Ethan didn't want to give it away casually.
The bow, arrows, and kerosene lamp he had crafting blueprints for anyway. As long as he had the materials, he could make as many as he wanted.
This kid was still a player from Zone 7, and Ethan would rely on exploiting them in the future to fight against other zones. So he gave him some survival gear.
This way, they could benefit each other, and the guy wouldn't die too easily.
And it also laid a solid foundation for future exploitation.
Give Sun Wukong the bow and arrows, he hunts monsters, monsters drop cores, he sells cores to Ethan, Sun Wukong gets a new weapon, he hunts again, collects more cores, sells again, infinite cycle.
In the end, wasn't Sun Wukong basically working for him?
Very good logic.
Ethan gave himself a thumbs up again.
"How could there be someone so smart in this world?"
"Sigh!"
"Even I am almost impressed by my own brilliance!"
[T/N: MC isn't particularly narcissistic but I think he is humorous.]
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