Looking at the chat messages, Chen Zhuo's brows furrowed, and he began to check his Shelter for any signs of leakage.
He breathed a sigh of relief when he found not a single drop of rainwater seeping in through the door crack.
At the same time, he was immensely grateful that he had built his Shelter directly into the mountain.
With his small house surrounded by mountains on three sides, he only needed to defend against the threat of acid rain from one direction at most.
In fact, although Chen Zhuo's Shelter was built at the foot of the mountain, it was not in a low-lying area.
There was a gentle slope from the road to the Shelter, so the acid rain would flow down the slope without lingering much at the Shelter.
The remaining acid rain was also completely drained away by the simple drainage ditch he had built.
“It was truly a wise choice to exchange for the drainage ditch blueprint back then.”
Chen Zhuo secretly congratulated himself on his foresight; the construction of this drainage ditch seemed particularly important at this moment.
The intensity of the acid rain exceeded many people's expectations, yet his Shelter remained safe and sound thanks to these thorough preparations.
After ensuring that the acid rain posed no threat to his Shelter, Chen Zhuo lay on his pure cotton coat, resting his arms under his head, and fell into a deep sleep... The heavy rain gently tapped the ground, a subtle and continuous sound that gradually became clear. Chen Zhuo, half-asleep and half-awake, was slowly roused by the gradually intensifying sound of the rain.
He slowly opened his eyes in the darkness, his consciousness detaching from the dream and returning to reality.
At 7 AM on December 5th, Chen Zhuo reluctantly climbed out of bed.
True to its name as a natural disaster, the acid rain showed no signs of stopping after falling all night.
Not only was it impossible to go out, but the acid rain also seemed to have caused the temperature to drop significantly overnight.
Chen Zhuo, who had used his only cotton coat as a cushion while sleeping last night, felt a bit chilled when he woke up in the morning.
He quickly lit a bonfire, put on his coat, and sat by it to warm himself.
As the bonfire gradually grew stronger, the temperature inside the Shelter began to rise, slowly dispelling the chill from Chen Zhuo's body.
He took out some pork, put it into a stone bowl, and added a little mountain spring water to simmer it slowly; going out in this situation was unlikely.
Early in the morning, Chen Zhuo leisurely cooked a bowl of pork soup to warm himself up.
While keeping an eye on the pork simmering in the stone bowl, he opened the chat channel again.
In the chat channel, other Survivors were sharing their situations, discussing the impact of the acid rain and their countermeasures.
Chen Zhuo concluded from the chat that stone houses could completely withstand acid rain, while solid wood houses already showed signs of corrosion after a night of acid rain beating down on them.
Moreover, for some Shelters located in lower terrain, the foundations of solid wood houses were submerged in acid rain, and after a night, they had suffered severe corrosion.
Many Survivors with solid wood houses began to look for ways to trade wood and stone, and the trading market was suddenly filled with many rare items.
“Good heavens, so many good things.”
Chen Zhuo's gaze carefully swept over the newly listed blueprints in the trading market, and he couldn't help but sigh at how shrewd these Survivors were, each one more cunning than the last.
Good things that were usually hidden without a trace were now being densely listed in times of crisis.
Although he really wanted to sweep up all these rarely seen items, Chen Zhuo's own supply of stone had been mostly spent in yesterday's seed trade.
Fortunately, his Shelter was built inside the mountain, so he could acquire stone on the spot without needing to go out.
Chen Zhuo had a premonition that during these seven days, he would pull far ahead of other Survivors who were at a similar stage.
Picking up the cooked pork soup, he added two grains of salt, and Chen Zhuo gently stirred it, allowing the salt to dissolve quickly in the hot soup.
He picked up the wooden spoon, gently blew away the steam, and finished both the soup and meat in a few quick bites, then eagerly started his work for the day.
【happiness points +3】
He summoned the territory keystone and roughly put the innermost wall, which was against the mountain, directly into his backpack.
The dark mountain body was exposed before his eyes, momentarily startling Chen Zhuo, who was just about to start chiseling the mountain.
His gaze was suddenly drawn to a faint glimmer.
“Hmm?”
Upon closer inspection, he found some dark, shiny ore embedded in a crack in a rock.
These ores reflected a metallic luster under the bonfire's light, forming a stark contrast with the surrounding sand and stone.
He squatted down and gently brushed away the dust from the surface of the ore with his hand, revealing a clearer outline of iron ore.
Chen Zhuo's heart skipped a beat, and a possibility flashed through his mind.
To confirm he hadn't misidentified it, Chen Zhuo summoned the system and aimed it at the ore, which was different from ordinary stone.
【Iron Ore: Blue, digging yields 3 units of iron blocks, an essential choice for manufacturing various weapons and tools.】
“Good heavens, it really is iron ore!”
After confirming the ore's identity, Chen Zhuo exclaimed.
Without hesitation, he immediately took out an iron pickaxe from his backpack and carefully aimed the tool at the iron ore to strike it.
With the system's iron pickaxe, it didn't take much effort, and in a short while, 3 iron blocks entered Chen Zhuo's backpack.
“There's more inside!”
After clearly seeing the minerals that appeared inside, Chen Zhuo's eyes lit up.
The usefulness of iron was self-evident; who would ever have too much? Seeing that there was more inside, there was no reason not to collect it.
Chen Zhuo, stimulated by the iron ore, seemed to be on a high, and throughout the entire day, he excavated an area roughly the same size as the stone house of his Shelter... In the evening, the torrential rain that had fallen all day began to turn into a drizzle.
Chen Zhuo, exhausted, lay motionless on the bed, but his heart was overflowing with joy.
Besides the whopping 188 pieces of stone, today's biggest gain was 20 iron blocks.
He immediately took out the huge sum of 80 pieces of stone to upgrade his house to a refined stone house.
【Refined Stone House: Happiness Value: 60】
As for furniture like the bed, table, and stools, Chen Zhuo didn't upgrade them.
He felt a bit speechless thinking about his previous actions.
Because he was so fixated on the happiness points, he hadn't properly considered whether upgrading these furniture items was appropriate, and he had upgraded them all in one go.
As a result, he wasted a lot of stone, and they weren't even more comfortable to use.
The main thing was that their upgrade paths were provided by the territory keystone, and the differences in levels purely increased sturdiness and durability, with no other comfort-oriented upgrade options.
He recalled the system's functions; it seemed that besides exchanging items in the mall, happiness points could be used directly to upgrade items, right?
“System, upgrade my bed.”
【Ding, item detected: Bed.】
【Can be upgraded to: Spring Bed, Palm Bed, Latex Bed, Polyester Bed, Bamboo Bed, Wooden Plank Bed, Water Bed, Children's Bed, Crib】
【Please select an upgrade direction.】
Seeing a bunch of options pop up, Chen Zhuo truly wanted to cry at how foolish he had been the past two days.
“Then a latex bed it is.”
【Ding, host lacks upgrade materials. Would you like to directly upgrade using 30 happiness points?】
“I'll upgrade nothing, cancel it quickly.”
“The happiness points consumed for this upgrade are too many. Since the system can provide upgrade directions, couldn't I just collect the materials myself?”
“While stone is most scarce right now, I'll dig more and sell it all to exchange for materials.”
“Otherwise, once they also dig up iron and make iron pickaxes, the price of stone will surely plummet.”