The breeze lifted Lin Yue's hair.
On the roof of the shelter, his figure was solitary and silent.
At the highest point he could climb in this desert, he glanced around, missing no corner.
However, the desolate and barren desert, with exposed yellow earth and sparse clumps of wild grass, almost filled his entire view.
From time to time, some slowly moving black dots appeared intermittently among the sagebrush, and Lin Yue conservatively estimated that they were at least several hundred meters away from him.
Under the scorching sun, the temperature was continuously rising.
After drinking the last sip of water from the bottle, Lin Yue came down from the ladder and jumped to the ground.
Storing the ladder in his inventory, he felt a bit of doubt in his heart.
Why, in such a vast area, was there no trace of a second shelter?
Humans are social animals.
Especially in such a bizarre and eerie survival game, people looked for all the past solace in groups, filling the void that refused to stay empty in their hearts.
Although Lin Yue didn't want a random encounter with anyone, he still wished to find some signs of his kind in this doomsday-like survival game.
After all, from the beginning till now, for more than a day, he has only encountered the over nine thousand people in the group.
This survival game was full of countless mysteries.
You could chop trees to turn them into wood, or without lifting a finger, replace walls and roofs with timber.
Moreover, relying on imagination, you could craft a ladder out of wood and then obtain the blueprint for the wooden ladder.
Back inside the wooden cabin, Lin Yue closed the door and exhaled a breath.
The shelter was currently the safest place he could find.
Sitting on the edge of the bed, he pondered a question.
Exactly how vast is this world?
According to the survival manual, a total population of 7.8 billion was transferred to this Otherworld.
Excluding the elderly, children, and others with low survival abilities, the total should be about one-third. Lin Yue remembered seeing a number: when dividing Earth's land area equally, each person would get about 45 acres.
If this world placed individuals according to that average, then each person would have about 130 acres.
Roughly the size of 14 football fields.
But the area he saw from the rooftop exceeded this number.
Could it be that this place is even larger than Earth?
Or, during assignment, wasn't the population distribution equal, and was he merely unlucky, being placed further away from his neighbors?
Lin Yue felt this question needed answers from the group members.
Opening the group panel, Lin Yue suddenly noticed that the total number in the top right corner had drastically decreased!
8907!
Within a short time, a thousand people had already died.
Was the speed fast?
Before encountering the giant locust, Lin Yue might have thought it was exceedingly fast, even absurdly so.
But now, he no longer felt that way.
Yesterday's experience taught him how terrifying mutated creatures were.
The bodily fluid of small bugs could corrode a shoe sole, what would a large bug do?
What if it wasn't a mindless bug, but a mutated beast or bird instead?
No food or water seemed visible in the wilderness; they only appeared in treasure boxes.
To find water and food, everyone thought of defeating mutated creatures for treasure boxes, but the drop rate was astoundingly low.
With the massive loss of stamina, the onslaught of fatigue, thirst, and hunger, how many fell in battle against the mutated creatures?
Although for now, no overly dangerous mutated creatures had appeared, maybe this was the "beginner's benefit" at the start of the survival game.
Moreover, not just that.
The abundance of dung behind houses suggested that those mutated creatures would approach the shelter they wouldn't during the day, at night.
Night was the most dangerous time before the disaster arrived, and those who hadn't fortified their straw huts suffered cruel punishment at night, perhaps severely injured, perhaps erased entirely.
Lin Yue surveyed the entire shelter.
Both the roof and walls, as well as the main door, were crafted from solid wood, much sturdier than the previous straw huts.
But honestly, it wasn't as sturdy as imagined.
When the huge locust was trapped inside yesterday, its impact had the wooden house shaking continually.
A large bug could do this much; what if a stronger animal came? What if it wasn't alone?
Recalling those black dots in the distance, Lin Yue suddenly felt that the shelter was not very secure.
If wood won't do, then... how about stone?
Opening the trade mall, Lin Yue browsed around.
There were quite a few sellers, though significantly fewer than those selling wood and dry grass.
Lin Yue searched around.
There were roughly over three thousand messages for selling wood, about 1900 for iron blocks, but only over seven hundred for stone.
A simple comparison told Lin Yue that stone was scarcer than the other two.
Actually, saying it's scarce isn't accurate either.
The amount of stone mined should be considerable, but those who mined it almost universally used it to upgrade their shelters.
A stone shelter was much more solid and sturdy than a wooden one, and upon seeing the upgrade option to a stone shelter on their crafting panels, most people wouldn't hesitate to choose it.
Thus, besides water being a hard currency, stone too was a hard currency.
As for the exchange rate between the two...
Water was naturally more valuable!
[Seller: Lin Yue]
[Auction Item: 300 ml pure water]
[Required: Stone]
[Seller's Note: Auction, you know the drill.]
"This is Lin Yue's third time selling water, right...? Combined, it's 700 ml now? Comparing with others just kills me! I have to gulp down even a drop of water!"
"By the way, that big shot hasn't spoken at all, how did he get the water?"
"Humans facing a collective disaster, still hiding things now, simply inhumane!"
"The shelter must be near a river or lake. Hey, those who've bought the water, tell us, was the water murky or clean?"
"Reporting, I traded last time, and Farmer's Three Punches is a bit sweet, definitely not from a river or lake."
"Speaking of which, where did the person who found that green water go? I remember she sold a bit?"
"Don't ask, her avatar's already gray, she's long gone."
"I'm begging, life's too hard, Lin Yue big shot, spare me some water!"
"Delicate and gentle, easily pushed; I used to have hundreds sending rockets in my stream, Lin Yue darling, maybe consider? I only want the water."
The group was still lively.
Faced with envy, slander, desperate pleas, and temptations from many, Lin Yue just silently lurked, unfazed.
No matter what you say, endless questions and doubts would follow.
Of course, if he revealed his secret, he could also receive neverending exploitation until he died.
Before truly living comfortably, he saw no reason to concern himself with others' survival.
Who knew whom, anyway.