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【Fence successfully installed.】

The completed fence is about one meter high. Each meter of the fence consists of two horizontal pieces of wood and two vertical pieces of wood arranged in a grid pattern. 

Qiyu was highly skeptical that this short, makeshift structure could actually protect anything.

Not to mention the two mutated creatures he had encountered earlier.

The mutated boar looked like it could plow right through the fence with a single charge, and as for the gale rabbit…

Qiyu held up his hands to measure the gap—yes, the space between the wooden fence slats was wide enough for several gale rabbits to squeeze through.

【Current fence durability: 100/100. When durability reaches zero, the fence becomes ineffective.】

Qiyu realized it must be a mechanic of the survival game. It seemed that if any enemy attempted to attack an item protected by a fence, the system would prioritize attacking the fence first.

The only question was whether 100 durability would actually last. 

He walked inside and placed two plots of farmland.

This time it went smoothly; the once barren ground transformed into light brown, moist soil.

【Ordinary Farmland, Plantable, 100% Harvest.】

Qiyu now has two packets of seeds.

One packet of sunflower seeds, obtained through a trade with another player.

The other was a packet of gale grass seeds, obtained by defeating a mutated gale rabbit. 

Qiyu wasn’t familiar with either plant, so he chose to plant the sunflowers first, in the order they were obtained.

He planted fifty seeds evenly. 

A faint countdown appeared on the ground.

【The plant is 23:59:55 away from maturity.】

Qiyu had never farmed before, so he watched with curiosity, but aside from the countdown to maturity steadily decreasing, the sunflower seeds showed no signs of change. He couldn’t stay here forever.

Qiyu closed the fence. It was now 4:00 PM, and there were still two hours until dark. He actually had plenty of things he wanted to do.

For instance, he really wanted to read the two books he’d found in the silver chest in his backpack.

And the meat he’d obtained from killing mutated creatures—he really wanted to eat that.

But in this game, it gets dark at six o’clock, and it doesn’t get light again until eight the next morning.

During that long, dark night, he couldn’t go outside and would be stuck in the wooden cabin, unable to do anything. 

Daytime hours were especially precious; whether reading or eating, he could save those activities for the evening. At the thought of the activities awaiting him that night, Qiyu’s eyes shone with anticipation.

He spent the first hour chopping wood.

In the two days since he entered this survival game, the need for wood has never ceased. 

Wood is needed to craft furniture, and wood is needed to upgrade the shelter. Now, there’s another major consumer: fences.

An hour later, five trees lay felled, and his backpack was 80 units of wood heavier. He was quite lucky—he landed three critical hits in a row. 

With an hour left, he circled the safe zone, hoping to encounter a few more mutants. Unfortunately, after walking for half an hour, he picked up a pile of rocks and harvested a freshly spawned banyan plum, but didn’t run into a single creature.

With only half an hour left before dark, it looked like he wouldn’t be able to find much today, so Qiyu decided to head back. If he had time, he could still chop down a couple of trees.

Five hundred meters wasn’t far, and soon he spotted the high roof of the wooden cabin.

Qiyu’s footsteps suddenly halted.

He held his breath, blending silently into the shadows behind a tree, and peered in a certain direction.

The sound was coming from the direction of the cabin.

To be precise, the sound was coming from the fence he had just set up earlier that day.

A creature with colorful tail feathers… a chicken? Or a bird? Qiyu wasn’t sure.

It was massive, about as tall as an adult, and the one-meter-high fence looked like a toy in front of it. 

But this beautiful mutant creature was merely pacing restlessly around the fence; it seemed to take a particular liking to it… No. 

Qiyu suddenly realized: this mutant creature must have set its sights on the sunflowers he’d planted.

But just like the mutated creatures he’d encountered before, this pesky chicken—though it looked desperate to burst through the fence—seemed to be held back by some unspoken rule and hadn’t actually launched an attack.

The barbarian fang dagger had appeared in Qiyu’s palm at some point. His eyes gleamed—it had come to him without the slightest effort.

The agility bonus from his jade boots made his movements even more stealthy as he crept closer to the mutated creature. Just as Qiyu was about to strike, the mutated chicken suddenly looked up and let out an alarmed squawk.

Has he been discovered?

Qiyu’s heart sank; just as he was about to strike first, a flash of color suddenly appeared in his field of vision.

A colorful streak shot toward the mutated chicken like lightning.

Qiyu, who had just risen, immediately ducked back down, blending into the shadows behind the tree once more. The thread was moving so fast that the naked eye could barely make out a blur.

Just as it was about to make contact with the mutated chicken, the bird raised its head and let out an angry cry.

Qiyu saw its beautiful tail feathers begin to glow. Immediately, flames shot from its long beak, completely engulfing the colorful shadow. As the colorful thread hit the ground, Qiyu finally got a clear look—it was a snake about a finger thick and a meter long.

After being engulfed by the flames, more than half of the snake’s once-colorful scales had turned black.

The mutant chicken clearly understood the principle of striking while the iron was hot; it darted forward and pecked at the snake with its long beak, which glinted with a chilling light.

The two were clearly in completely different leagues. Qiyu watched and calmly assessed the situation. 

In his mind, he assessed his chances of defeating the mutated chicken.

This chicken wasn’t any harder to deal with than the mutated boar; the real problem was time.

He glanced at his personal interface; there were fewer than ten minutes left before nightfall.

Seeing the snake wriggle on the ground a few times before going still, Qiyu darted forward like a ghost. With such a massive treasure chest dangling right in front of him, who could possibly resist?

But before he could get close, the chicken suddenly began swaying from side to side, spewing flames haphazardly in all directions from its long beak. The attack was completely random, and Qiyu easily dodged it.

Thud.

Its heavy body crashed to the ground, sending grass and leaves flying.

Only then did Qiyu notice that the mutant chicken’s left claw was wrapped around a small, charred snake head.

The snake had been pecked by the mutated chicken until its head was severed; it appeared to have struck back in its final moments, biting its enemy one last time.

Before Qiyu could get a closer look, a faint white light flickered, and the snake’s head that had been wrapped around the mutant chicken’s claw vanished without a trace. Realizing what was happening, he swiftly drew his barbarian fang dagger and slashed at the neck of the fallen mutant chicken.

The massive chicken’s body followed the snake’s fate, vanishing into a white light.

【Obtained 20 kg of toxic brocade flame bird meat, 30 brocade flame feathers, 1 fire energy bead】

In addition, defeating the Level 2 Mutant Brocade Flame Bird dropped a fine iron chest.

Seeing that it wasn’t a brass chest, Qiyu wasn’t disappointed—after all, the brocade flame bird had been a pleasant surprise to begin with. It seemed, however, that not all Level 2 mutated creatures dropped brass chests.

An even bigger surprise came from the three other bursts of white light—they originated from the snake killed by the brocade flame bird.

【Obtained 10 ml of level two phantom color snake venom, 10 phantom color snake skins, 1 phantom poison needle blueprint, 1 phantom armor blueprint】

The snake that was instantly killed by the brocade flame bird was actually a Level 2 Mutant Creature, too, and it even dropped two blueprints!

Qiyu didn’t know that the phantom color snake’s lethality was no less than that of the brocade flame bird; it was simply unlucky to have encountered its natural predator, as the brocade flame bird’s species and skills are a perfect counter to it. 

However, the phantom color snake only dropped materials—no treasure chest.

“It seems only mutant creatures I kill myself will drop treasure chests.”

Qiyu quickly gathered all the materials; there were only four minutes left until nightfall.

He walked up to the fence and was surprised to find that the farmland, which had been nothing but brown soil when he left, was now sprouting countless emerald-green seedlings.

The sunflower seeds had sprouted.

No, it wasn’t just sprouting.

Those delicate little sprouts were dotted with flecks of golden light, like scattered gold.

Qiyu saw 【Sunflower-Mutated】 displayed on the interface. 

Qiyu fell deep in thought. Could it be that the brocade flame bird and the phantom color snake from earlier had both been drawn here by the mutated sunflowers?

It was almost dark.

He cast a few lingering glances at the little sprouts, made sure the fence was still intact with 100 durability, and then returned to the wooden cabin. After the upgrade, the cabin now had windows, so the room was still quite bright.

However, the world soon plunged into complete darkness.

Qiyu immediately looked out the window, only to find the night as dark as ink—he couldn’t make out a thing.

Qiyu calmly took some wood from his backpack, chopped it into small pieces with his axe, arranged it on the ground, and lit it with a fire starter.  

Sizzle.

The warm yellow glow rose in the darkness, reflecting in his bright eyes.

He took another piece of firewood and began whittling it with his barbarian fang dagger. In just a few strokes, it had been transformed into a long, slender skewer. He then took a piece of barbarian fang boar meat, cut it into small pieces with the dagger, and threaded them onto the skewer. 

As he did this, his movements were neither hurried nor slow, his expression serious and reverent. The fresh meat touched the flames, and the fat sizzled.

A sense of peace and happiness, unlike anything he had ever known, washed over Qiyu like a tide.

“Ouch, this is so good.” Ignoring the heat, as soon as the meat was cooked, Qiyu eagerly took a bite.

His tongue sizzled from the heat, but he couldn’t bear to spit it out.

There was no strange bitterness, nor any overpowering gamey stench. So uncontaminated meat really was this fragrant!

“Survival Game, I’ll be forever grateful to you.” Qiyu was a grateful person; even after his life had improved, he hadn’t forgotten to thank the survival game system that had brought him to the Survival Game system that had granted him this heavenly existence. 

【……】

After devouring a large chunk of grilled meat, Qiyu sat before the fire and experienced for the first time what it meant to feel “so comfortable he didn’t want to move.” He really wanted to just lie down right there, think of nothing, clear his mind, and get a good night’s sleep.

No way!

There were still so many things left to do.

He forced himself to snap out of that drowsy, blissful state. 

First, he needed to tally up the afternoon’s haul—the main items being the loot from two Level 2 Mutants.