Chen Chen stood over the carcass, his breath forming thick clouds of steam.
Ding!
A treasure chest appeared above the boar. But this one wasn't the rough, splintery wood of the previous crates. This one was reinforced with iron bands and had a polished sheen.
[You have obtained: Reinforced Wooden Supply Crate]
"Better quality," Chen Chen noted, a smile cracking his frozen lips.
He didn't open it immediately. First, he had to deal with the carcass. In this temperature, the boar would freeze into a solid block of ice within twenty minutes, making it impossible to butcher.
He dragged the heavy beast into his cabin. The warmth of the Level 1 Shelter enveloped him instantly, a stark and welcome contrast to the biting frost outside.
He spent the next hour working with his crude knife.
[System: You have butchered the Ice-Armored Boar.]
[Obtained: Frozen Boar Meat x10 units (5kg total)]
[Obtained: Tough Boar Leather x2]
[Obtained: Boar Tusks x2]
[Obtained: Animal Grease x4]
Ten units of meat. Five kilograms.
Chen Chen sat back, wiping sweat from his forehead. To a starving person, this pile of raw, red meat was more beautiful than gold.
He opened the [Reinforced Wooden Supply Crate].
[You have obtained: 500ml Vitamin Water x2]
[You have obtained: Iron Ingot x4]
[You have obtained: Blueprint - Frost-Resistant Boots]
"Jackpot," Chen Chen whispered.
He drank one of the Vitamin Waters in a single go. The sweet, citrusy taste washed away the metallic tang of blood and sweat.
He checked the Regional Channel. It was Day 2, and the desperation had evolved.
"I found berries! Frozen red berries! They taste bitter, but I'm eating them!"
"Don't eat those! My neighbor ate them and his avatar turned grey an hour later. Poison!"
"I'm so cold... I ran out of wood. I'm burning my clothes."
"Has anyone found food? Real food? I caught a mouse but it was just skin and bones."
Chen Chen looked at the pile of boar meat. He couldn't eat 5kg before it spoiled—even in the cold, bacteria would eventually work, and he had no salt for curing.
He selected 1kg of meat two hefty chunks and opened the Trading Hall.
He searched for "Meat".
Zero results.
He searched for "Food".
A few listings for moldy bread or mysterious mushrooms, asking for exorbitant amounts of wood.
Chen Chen cracked his knuckles and created a new auction.
[Seller: Chen Chen]
[Auction Item: 500g Fresh Boar Meat x2 (Auctioning separately)]
[Required: Iron Ingots, Copper, or Core Fragments]
[Seller's Note: High protein, high fat. Essential for generating body heat. Freshly killed. Highest bidder wins in 10 minutes.]
He didn't set a fixed price. In a market this starved, the price was whatever the desperate elite were willing to pay.
The moment the listing went live, the Regional Channel froze for a split second, then detonated.
"Meat?! Red meat?!"
"It's Chen Chen again! The guy who sold the Kung Pao Chicken!"
"Is he running a farm? How does he have fresh pork?!"
"I see blood in the icon photo... he killed a beast? Is he insane? Those things are monsters!"
"I have Iron! I found a subway track ruin! I have tons of scrap iron!"
"Chen Chen, I'm a streamer with 5 million followers, give me the meat and I'll shout you out!"
"Shout out? You're gonna die here, idiot! Bid or shut up!"
Chen Chen watched the private messages flood in. 99+ in seconds. He ignored the beggars, the threats, and the marriage proposals.
He watched the bids.
[Bidder: DragonTeeth] offers: Iron Ingot x2
[Bidder: SnowQueen] offers: Iron Ingot x3 + Copper Ore x1
[Bidder: Survivalist_01] offers: Iron Ingot x5
The price was skyrocketing.
"Iron is good," Chen Chen mused. "But as people figure out mining, iron will become common. Food, however, will only get scarcer as the newbie protection period ends and the beasts get stronger."
He selected the two highest bids.
[Trade Complete.]
[You lost: 1kg Boar Meat]
[You obtained: Iron Ingot x12]
[You obtained: Copper Ore x4]
"A profitable exchange," Chen Chen nodded. He still had 4kg of meat left for himself—enough for a week if rationed.
He turned to his [Workbench].
With the Iron Ingots from the chest and the trade, plus the leather from the boar, he could upgrade his gear.
He slapped the [Blueprint - Frost-Resistant Boots] onto the table.
[Crafting: Frost-Resistant Boots]
[Materials: Leather x2, Iron Scrap x2, Fiber x2]
"Craft."
A moment later, a pair of heavy, fur-lined boots with iron-studded soles appeared.
Chen Chen swapped his flimsy dress shoes for the boots. The difference was immediate. The chill that had been creeping up his ankles vanished. The iron studs dug into the wooden floor, promising excellent traction on ice.
Next, he looked at the [Stone Skin Poncho] available in the default list. It required leather, but he had used his boar leather.
He frowned. "I need more leather. And to get leather, I need to kill more beasts."
He grabbed his Iron-Tipped Spear. It was time to clear the perimeter.
He stepped outside. The sun was high, but it offered no warmth. The world was a blinding white sheet.
He moved differently now. With the boots, he didn't slip. With the spear, he felt dangerous.
He scanned the snow. The system had warned of scavengers attracted by the "stench of death" from the first night.
Sure enough, about a hundred meters away, near a rocky outcrop, he saw movement.
Three pale, hunchbacked figures were digging at the snow. They looked like monkeys, but hairless and white, with long, spindly fingers.
[Mutated Creature: Snow Ghoul (Scavenger)]
[Level: 1]
[Note: Pack hunters. They dig up frozen corpses to eat. cowardly alone, vicious in groups.]
Chen Chen crouched. There were three of them.
"Pack hunters," he muttered. "If I charge, they might swarm me."
He picked up a fist-sized rock.
He wound up and hurled it at the leftmost Ghoul.
Thwack!
The rock hit the creature in the ribs. It screeched, a high-pitched sound like grinding metal.
The other two snapped their heads up.
Chen Chen stood up and banged his spear against his shield (which he realized he hadn't crafted yet—damn). He banged it against his boot instead.
"Come on, you ugly freaks!"
The Ghouls saw him. They saw a lone human. They hissed and scurried across the snow on all fours, moving frighteningly fast.
Chen Chen planted his feet. The studs in his boots locked him into the ice.
As the first Ghoul leaped, Chen Chen didn't retreat. He recalled the muscle memory of the spear blueprint.
The iron tip caught the Ghoul in mid-air, piercing its chest. The momentum skewer it.
[Critical Hit!]
Chen Chen kicked the dying creature off his spear and spun to face the second one.
It lunged for his leg.
Chen Chen sidestepped the traction of the boots saving him from a fatal slip and brought the spear shaft down on the creature's spine.
The Ghoul collapsed, paralyzed. A quick stab finished it.
The third Ghoul, seeing its packmates decimated in seconds, screeched and tried to flee.
"Oh no, you don't," Chen Chen grunted. He chased it down. The creature was fast, but it slipped on a patch of black ice. Chen Chen didn't.
He drove the spear through its back.
[Battle Ends.]
Three glistening Wooden Supply Crates hovered over the corpses.
Chen Chen grinned. "100% Drop Rate. It really is broken."
He collected the loot.
[Water x500ml]
[Bread x2]
[Bandage x1]
"Not bad," he assessed. "Basic supplies are always needed."
But as he looked around, he realized something troubling.
Except for these three scavengers and the boar earlier, the area around his cabin was empty.
The chat had mentioned that people were finding fewer and fewer monsters near their spawn points.
"The novice zone is drying up," Chen Chen realized. "The game spawns resources near us at the start to give us a fighting chance. But now? We have to venture out."
Venturing out meant leaving the safety of the Shelter. It meant risking getting lost in a sudden blizzard.
He looked at the horizon. To the north, the terrain grew rugged, rising into jagged ice peaks.
He needed wood. His stockpile was decent, but the Level 2 Shelter upgrade would likely cost a fortune.
He equipped his Stone Axe and marched toward a cluster of frozen pine trees about two hundred meters away.
The work was grueling. Sweat pooled under his layers, turning cold the moment he stopped moving.
He had to take breaks to drink water, keeping his hydration up.
"Labor consumes water. Water costs resources. It's a loop," Chen Chen panted, wiping his brow. "If I didn't have the 100% drop rate providing me with constant water, I'd be dead just from trying to get wood."
After an hour, he had gathered 30 units of wood.
The sun began to dip. The sky turned a bruised purple again.
Chen Chen shouldered his wood and turned back toward his cabin.
"One more sweep," he decided. "I need that leather for the armor."
He took a detour past a snow dune, hoping to find another boar.
He crested the hill and froze.
Below him, in a small valley he hadn't explored yet, the air was shimmering. It was a structure.
Buried half-deep in the ice was what looked like the ruins of a modern convenience store. The sign was shattered, reading "7-Ele..."
But that wasn't what made Chen Chen's blood run cold.
Pacing around the ruin was a creature unlike anything he had seen yet. It was tall, perhaps two meters, made entirely of jagged, translucent ice. It walked on two legs, and its arms ended in massive, heavy icicle spikes.
And in the center of its chest, pulsating with a rhythmic blue light, was a glowing core.
[Elite Creature: Ice Golem]
[Level: 5]
[Warning: Extremely Dangerous. Immune to piercing damage.]
Chen Chen crouched low behind the snow dune, his heart hammering against his ribs. Level 5. Immune to piercing.
He looked at his spear. Then he looked at the convenience store ruin the Golem was guarding.
Through the shattered window, half-buried in snow, Chen Chen saw shelves. Shelves with colorful packaging. Cans. Bottles.
A massive, untouched stockpile of Earth food.
"High risk," Chen Chen whispered, licking his dry lips. "But the reward..."
If he could kill that thing, the loot box would be incredible. And the store contents? That would make him the richest man in the region.
But how do you kill a walking iceberg that is immune to spears?
Chen Chen's eyes drifted to the [Iron Ingots] and [Animal Grease] in his inventory.
A nasty idea began to form in his mind.