“Dan Xingyu, are you… trying to be cute?” He could hear the hesitation in Qiyu’s voice. 

Dan Xingyu felt his face grow hot for some reason, and he found himself wondering if he was being a bit too childish.

You’re already an eighteen-year-old adult—why are you acting like a little kid asking for a hug? 

But…

“Is that not allowed?” He met Qiyu’s gaze openly. 

“Huh? No, of course it’s allowed!” Qiyu’s tone was actually a bit excited. 

He dropped the snowman, hurried over, and gave his tall friend a tight hug.

Perhaps because Dan Xingyu was a swordsman who had been training his body all along, even though he was a year younger than Qi Yu, he was tall and muscular.

“I was just a little surprised,” Qiyu said, his voice tinged with astonishment and delight. “This is the first time anyone’s ever acted so cute with me.”

With a weight lifted from his heart, Dan Xingyu returned the hug.

He thought to himself with delight: “The brave enjoy the world first”—and sure enough, that saying didn’t let me down.

What’s the point of internal conflict?

With a straightforward local like this, there’s simply no need for it.

The two of them built another snowman of Qiyu together, placing it next to the one of Dan Xingyu.

Later, Qiyu had a burst of inspiration and used magic to conjure a small wooden cabin.

He said with a straight face, “This is our house. When night falls, or whenever we feel cold, Snow Qiyu and Snow Dan Xingyu can go back inside to rest.” 

Completely ignoring the objective fact that they were made of snow to begin with.

Dan Xingyu, ever the gentleman, played along earnestly: “Sounds great! You’ve thought of everything, My Lord!” 

Inspired by the idea of building a snowman, Qiyu used magic to sweep up large swaths of ice and snow, which was much faster than Dan Xingyu digging with his sword.

“Your storage backpack isn’t going to be big enough,” he said to Dan Xingyu.

At this rate, his storage backpack would definitely run out of space. 

However, Dan Xingyu had his own solution.

He opened his personal teleportation panel.

Although he was now in the Star Forest, just as Qiyu’s survival teleportation panel had worked normally when he went out exploring, Dan Xingyu’s personal teleportation panel also functioned as usual.

Unfortunately, the personal teleportation panel was still only visible to the player himself. Dan Xingyu thought regretfully; otherwise, he could’ve let the locals see how players from Server 88 were praising him. 

Server 88 Regional Channel:

【God Has No Form:】

【Low Battery: Er Shen, why are you starting your messages with a period? That’s not like you at all.】

【V50: Er Shen, why did you buy a down jacket? Is there some inside scoop we don’t know about?】

【Eternal Night: @God Has No Form, why did you suddenly buy a down jacket?】

Seeing that the discussion had heated up enough, Dan Xingyu finally spoke leisurely:

【God Has No Form: Check my trade page.】

After saying this, he waited patiently for ten seconds.

Back to the group chat:

【Eternal Night: ???!!!】

【V50: Godfather, where are you off to make a fortune?】

【V50: Why can’t I buy it?! I’m in a hurry, hurry, hurry, hurry, hurry!】

Dan Xingyu had asked Qiyu how the price for martial arts was set and learned the answer was 200 kilograms of ice and snow.

【God Has No Form: I’m in the Forest of Stars. It’s the complete opposite of here—currently over twenty degrees below zero, a frozen wasteland.】

【Eternal Night: Is that the prize for first place in the Speed Racing Carnival? Are you there with the “I Love Survival Game” envoy?】

Dan Xingyu raised an eyebrow. True to form for Eternal Night—though his strength might be lacking and he’s a bit petty, his mind is still sharp. 

【God Has No Form: That’s right. This ice was collected with the help of the game’s top player.】

After sending the message, he had already set the prices for the items in the trading section.

【“200 kilograms of ice and snow” for “1 Level 1 Beast Crystal.”】

The ice and snow listed there sold out instantly.

Upon learning this, Qiyu withdrew all the ice and snow he’d temporarily stored in the trading section and had Dan Xingyu list them in his own trading section instead.

The two went back and forth, passing the items between them.

Dan Xingyu couldn’t help but remark, “The second major benefit of having a teleportation gate has been realized.”

Since he came over in person and placed the items directly on the trading page himself, Qiyu didn’t need to make an extra transaction for him, saving a huge amount in transaction fees.

【Life Without a Phone Is Tough: Oh my god, Er Shen, did you clear out all the snow from the Star Forest?】

【Eternal Night: There’s no way he could have dug up that much all by himself. It was him— I Love Survival Game, or rather, a player from Zone 01—who helped out.】

【Eternal Night: @God Has No Form, this isn’t a workload one person could handle. Am I right?】

【God Has No Form: @Eternal Night, you guessed right, but no reward. I have no way to contact players in Zone 01—only the top players in the game have that kind of clout.】

【God Has No Form: I’ll treat you all to a surprise later tonight.】

【God Has No Form: You’ll get to ride my coattails, too.】

【V50: Godfather Er Shen! Don’t forget to thank my in-game dad for me!】

【Two Dogs Down There: Now it really looks like our Er Shen is marrying into a wealthy family. Er Shen, you’re not going to abandon your brothers to become a son-in-law in Star Forest, are you?】

【Life Without a Phone Is Tough: If you really do become a son-in-law, would the game big shot mind taking in a stepson? The kid is literally about to go crazy from the heat.】

Just how popular is “Ice and Snow” in Server 88?

Dan Xingyu had lost count of how many trips he’d made to restock—whenever he went online, his inventory would sell out instantly, and the server chat was constantly filled with players urging him to restock.

He could only estimate how much he’d sold by checking the Trade Board and the ever-increasing number of Beast Crystals in his account.

In fact, the number of Beast Crystals in his trading section had already surpassed 50,000. 

And the Ice and Snow they’d sold—the portion mined by him and Qiyu—actually accounted for only a small fraction of the total.

The lion’s share came from players in Server 01 who were using it to buy Martial Arts skills.

The quantity listed on Qiyu’s trading board continued to rise.

All it took was shoveling some ice and snow to exchange for a copy of “Martial Arts.” Whether they found it useful or not, players in Server 01 would choose to buy at least one copy.

Those of average strength would slowly scrape together 200 kilograms. The stronger players, such as the Liver Emperor, were grateful that Qiyu had set the price of the Combat Technique to practically “giveaway” levels, so they bought several or even dozens of copies at a time.

“My trading board already has 50,000 Beast Crystals.”

Dan Xingyu chose to withdraw them without letting the Beast Crystals enter his backpack. 

Clatter.

The crystals appeared out of thin air like a stream, then fell into the snow.

The snow was instantly crushed by the small mountain of crystals, forming a large crater.

Dan Xingyu muttered, “Does this count as a risk-free windfall?” 

Even after selling 50,000 units, players in Server 88 were still clamoring for more.

After all, Server 88 had a massive player base, and at just 1 Beast Crystal per unit, the price was truly affordable. From the previous Earthfire Dragon event, everyone still had a generous supply of Beast Crystals on hand. 

Of course, the most important reason was that players all had backpacks, which could temporarily store ice and snow.

God Has No Form claimed he was assigned to Server 01, but no one knew if there were restrictions on him visiting other servers, so everyone wanted to stockpile as much ice as possible.

“Master Mage, you earned all of this yourself, so please keep it.”

The snow was mined by players in Server 01, and they were able to mine it thanks to Qiyu’s martial arts skills.

He and the players of Server 01 had essentially scored a good deal—seeing as players in Server 88 had all paid for it, but where could you possibly get ice during this sweltering heat at this price if you bought it normally?

This huge pile of Beast Crystals also served as a reminder to Qiyu.

He opened the Server 01 channel:

【I Love Survival Game: .】 

【I Love Survival Game: I want to tell everyone something. I’m acquainted with God Has No Form from Server 88, and we have a channel for trading. The climate over there is the opposite of ours—it’s currently the scorching summer season. So I can sell the ice and snow over there.】

【I Love Survival Game: There’s no need to buy multiple copies of “Martial Arts” anymore. I may open a new trade for buying ice and snow in the future.】

After saying that, he went back to the trading page and set a purchase limit of 1 copy for “Martial Arts.” 

Since “Martial Arts” is a knowledge-based item, he hadn’t even considered the possibility of multiple purchases before, so he simply forgot to set a purchase limit when listing it.

Moreover, since his initial intention was simply to give the exchanged Ice and Snow to God Has No Form, he hadn’t considered the potential for profit.

It wasn’t until God Has No Form used them to sell so many Beast Crystals in Server 88 that he suddenly realized.

This is an item that players in Server 01 can use to make a profit.

Given that, it wouldn’t be appropriate to continue letting players in Server 01 give away so many copies for free.1

【Liver Emperor: Top players are so generous—with something like this, if you didn’t say anything, no one would even know.】

【Cockroach Taste Is So Weird: God Has No Form from Server 88? Boss, is that the super-handsome guy who was on your team during the racing event?】

【Irritable Brother: You mean that pretentious, cocky cool guy, right? The one who even has a dragon that’s just as pretentious. I remember the host saying he’s from Server 88.】

【Reaching for the Moon in the Heavens: Is this a reward from the Speed Carnival? That’s way too awesome. @I Love Survival Game, you’re way too humble, boss. Your martial arts skills are worth way more than this prize anyway—we’d gladly buy a few more copies. 】

【Little Old Me: Are there any other players on our server who took first place in the Arena as a team? Did they get the same reward?】

【Be a Good Person: What? Ice and Snow can be traded too? Well, now I’m wide awake!】

Little Old Me really hit the nail on the head with that.

Quite a few players from Server 01 participated in the Speed Carnival event.

Could it be that not a single other team received the event gift box reward?

Quite a few top-ranked players who played it safe in Casual Mode are now secretly regretting it.

If they’d known earlier that Casual Mode would ultimately offer such a huge reward, they would’ve given it a shot even if it meant using up some items.

Sure enough, a player spoke up.

【Twilight Watcher: I got it.】

【Twilight Watcher: As you can see from my name—I’m not even on the server’s daily leaderboard—I’m just an ordinary player. Last event, I was matched with teams of roughly the same skill level—I just got lucky and took first place.】

【Twilight Watcher: The grand prize for first place is a teleportation portal. That’s right—exactly what you’re thinking: a portal that lets teammates teleport to each other’s territories. But I still haven’t set up the portal.】

【Twilight Watcher: The thing is, that teammate and I were complete strangers before we joined the event— and I don’t even know his full ID name. Since this is just a fun event, we wouldn’t turn on each other, but who’s to say what’ll happen once we’re back home? I certainly wouldn’t feel comfortable letting a stranger into my sanctuary, and I imagine the same goes for the other person.】

【Twilight Watcher: After I logged out, I checked the zone chat and saw that the top player here and that top player from Server 88 must have been friends already. They must have trusted each other enough to set up a teleportation array right away, right? It’s definitely something to envy.】

This player, known as “Twilight Watcher,” posted a series of comments that actually helped calm the excitement of many people.