Putting away the flyer, Nan Liujing unfolded the newspaper.

This was his first time reading a newspaper from the Survival World. I wonder how it differs from those on Earth?

【Heart of the Morning Sun Daily, Disaster Era 213, Peace Day

Dear subscribers, thank you for subscribing to this newspaper. Heart of the Morning Sun Publisher—your best source for news from the Impermanent Sea.

【Weather Forecast】

Today’s Weather: Sunny and pleasant. Temperature: 20°C–24°C. Light breeze.

It’s a beautiful day! No rain is expected all day, and the gentle sea breeze is very pleasant. We recommend that our members take a stroll by the sea—you might be in for a pleasant surprise.

Print Edition

Tomorrow’s Weather: Sunny.

Temperature: 85°F–22°C. Light breeze.

Temperatures will drop slightly tomorrow, but there will still be no rain. It’s a great day to go out, but remember to bring a jacket.

【Today’s Update】

All the apples on Fresh Fruit Island have ripened, and the Harvest Association immediately dispatched professional staff to the island to harvest them. As of now, the harvest has been successfully completed. The Harvest Association’s project lead stated in an interview that the organization has always actively advocated for living in harmony with nature. Therefore, they intentionally left one-tenth of the apples behind to benefit the island’s wildlife.

The Giant Whale cruise ship returned today. Funded by the Storm Business Alliance and built by the Steam Association, this ocean-going vessel successfully completed its exploration mission under the command of the experienced Captain Sergei and has officially returned. During this expedition, the Giant Whale focused on the mysterious waterways in the depths of the Impermanent Sea, exploring three mysterious islands and reaping substantial rewards. It is said that Captain Sergei has selflessly drawn nautical charts of the three mysterious islands and released them into the open sea.

The Witches’ Roundtable recently held its 9,999th gathering. At the gathering, the astrological witches, led by Witches Freya and Cynthia, made prophecies regarding the natural disasters of the coming cycle. The results of these prophecies were not made public. Following the meeting, 32 witches placed orders with the Harvest Association for a total of 20 kilograms of dew grass seeds.

【Limited-Time Offer】

Earth Breathing Agriculture Association: Premium Farmland  100,000 Sol

Thor Fashion Alliance: Handcrafted Leather Boots 5,000 Sol

Good Taste Bakery: Salty Butter Cookies 300 Sol

(20% discount for members of this newspaper)

Members holding coupons may place orders using their coupons.

【Lottery Postcard】

First Prize (1 winner): Philosopher’s Stone (provided by the Alchemy Association)

Second Prize (10 winners): Automatic Mining Machine (provided by the Steam Association)

Third Prize (100 winners): Jasmine Essential Oil (provided by Mrs. Liz’s Salon) 

Participation Prize (unlimited): Stamina Potions x5 (provided by the Witches’ Roundtable)

Members wishing to enter the raffle should fill out the information correctly on the lottery postcard included with this issue and return it to the mailbox; our newspaper delivery birds will collect them shortly.

Thank you to all the associations for their generous sponsorship of this newspaper!】

After reading the final piece of information, Nan Liujing quickly summarized several noteworthy points. The one that concerned him most was the Witches’ Gathering.

“Natural disasters… prophecies…” Nan Liujing’s expression grew grave. “As expected, this survival game isn’t as simple as just scavenging supplies every day to stay alive; even after the tutorial, even more severe trials await the players. It’s a pity the witches’ prophecies aren’t made public; I can’t learn more about the nature of these natural disasters. But the fact that so many witches collectively ordered dew grass seeds after the meeting must mean something.”

Nan Liujing began to see the connection: “If we understand the characteristics of this dew grass, perhaps we can deduce the nature of the so-called natural disasters.”

He shook the newspaper, and a postcard fell out. Nan Liujing picked it up immediately.

This is a real gem that lets you get stamina potions for free!

Nan Liujing knew his limits. The top three prizes seemed too high-level, and with limited spots, his chances of winning were slim. Even if he did win, he wouldn’t know how to use them.

Reading Habits

But the participation prize was a different story—just by entering, you were guaranteed to win! And it was exactly what he needed. Free stamina potions? Who wouldn’t jump at that?

He immediately reached to fill out the form, but a sudden thought struck him—he didn’t have a pen. 

Nan Liujing: “……”

What to do? Sending a blank postcard definitely wouldn’t work. Was there anything he could use as a substitute…? Nan Liujing slowly looked down at his fingers, his expression torn.

Would writing with blood work?

“Wait a bit longer—maybe I’ll get one from a treasure chest?”

Sighing, Nan Liujing decided to temporarily abandon this dangerous idea and focus on opening the treasure chest and organizing his supplies first. He checked his stamina first; after this morning’s activities, his stamina had dropped to 【67/100】.

Besides gathering supplies and foraging along the shore, diving into the sea earlier had also taken a real toll on his stamina.

Fortunately, he had already awakened his talent, which halved stamina consumption, and luckily he had eaten an oyster earlier to replenish his stamina to 80; otherwise, he would have been exhausted by now.

However, compared to his haul, this small cost was nothing.

Counting the one he fished out of the sea, there were a total of four treasure chests in his backpack, including two oak barrels. As usual, he’ll check the other supplies first.

Wet Planks x4, Canvas Scraps x2, Palm Leaves x1, Wooden Dwarf Statue x1.

The rest were familiar items. Nan Liujing looked at the last one—it was a new face.

【Dwarf Statue】

【Category: Furniture】

【A cute statue—it looks like part of a set. Why not try collecting the whole set?】

“Wow, this game even has a collection element.” Shaking his head, he casually placed the statue on the ground. Even standing upright, it wasn’t as tall as Nan Liujing’s calf, so it wouldn’t get in the way no matter where he put it.

Next up were the treasure chests.

Four treasure chests lined up in a row, with the basic materials that needed to be dried next to them.

After opening two chests, Nan Liujing had given up on hoping for a single pull to yield gold. Instead, he stared at the tablet and frantically made a wish: “Give me a lighter, a lighter, a lighter…”

He didn’t care about anything else right now—he just wanted a source of fire.

“Come on out! Lighter!” Nan Liujing flung open the wooden crate. Canvas scraps x2, mechanical alarm clock x1, cotton socks x3.

“Ugh!”

Nan Liujing deflated instantly, but perked up again as he looked at the second wooden crate: “Here we go again!” 10 nails, 1 stainless steel spoon, 1 pencil case.

“……” Nan Liujing bit back a curse, picked up the pencil case, and shook it—there was a sound inside. Opening it, he saw two gel pens, two pencils, an eraser, and a ruler. “Alright, at least I can fill out a postcard now,” Nan Liujing told himself, forcing a sense of satisfaction.

There were also two oak barrels. Nan Liujing had given up all hope by now and casually flipped them all open. 10 wooden planks, 1 set of thermal underwear, 1 windproof lighter, 1 blueprint.

Talk about a silver lining! Nan Liujing jumped to his feet: “The lighter!”

He reached out eagerly, but just as his hand was about to touch the small rectangular object, he suddenly changed course and grabbed the blueprint instead. The practicality of the lighter was obvious, but by comparison, the blueprint was certainly more worth examining.

【Simple Axe crafting blueprint】

【A blueprint showing how to build a simple axe. Please tear it out to use.】

【Simple Axe】

【Category: Tools】

【A roughly crafted axe that requires a bit more effort to use. It can split logs into planks and planks into firewood.】

【Crafting Materials: Plank x1, Iron Nails x3.】

Dismantling two wooden crates yields 4 Wooden Planks and 4 Iron Nails.

In addition to that, here are the results of today’s beachcombing. Nan Liujing carefully read the beachcombing guides on the forum yesterday and successfully collected 5 cat’s eye snails, and 10 kelp.

He swapped out his soaked short-sleeve shirt for a newly acquired long-sleeve undershirt. His quick-dry pants were already half-dry, so he didn’t change them. Nan Liujing opened the forum’s trading section. His last trade request had been fulfilled: 1 Wooden Plank traded for 3 Damaged Plastic Items. Of course, they were all damaged beyond use, but Nan Liujing didn’t mind—he couldn’t have gotten undamaged ones at that price anyway.

He brought 4 wooden planks and 10 plastic items to the front of his inventory, clicked on the Construction tab, and the button for crafting a simple water collector lit up. He crafted it without hesitation!

A flash of light appeared, and a wooden box that looked somewhat like a water dispenser appeared in his backpack, with several dark blue plastic pipes attached to it. Nan Liujing took it out and noticed a new entry had appeared under the item description above it.

【Simple Water Collector】

【Category: Furniture】

【A makeshift water collector cobbled together from basic materials. It operates inefficiently and automatically collects 2L of fresh water daily.】

【Freshwater Collection Time: 5:00 AM.】

“So it’s not a countdown but a fixed daily collection time—guess I won’t be able to use it today.” Shaking his head, Nan Liujing felt a touch of disappointment. He had only one bottle of purified water left, and no matter how frugal he was, it would be gone by the end of the day. Still, he wasn’t exactly running out of supplies—after all, he still had a whole barrel of low-quality rum.

But in a survival game, drinking hard liquor to quench his thirst didn’t feel quite safe to Nan Liujing. He didn’t smoke or drink normally, so he had no idea how much he could handle, and with the rum clocking in at a whopping 55% ABV, he worried he might get so drunk he’d stumble and fall into the sea.

“Maybe I could list the rum in the trading zone? But aside from drunks, who would be willing to trade purified water for alcohol?” Nan Liujing wasn’t very confident about this. Besides, he lacked the containers to portion out the rum.

If he listed the entire 20-liter barrel at once, who could possibly come up with that much purified water to trade for it all at once?

“I’d better keep the rum for now. With such a high alcohol content, it might come in handy if something happens later.” Nan Liujing’s hoarding instinct kicked in—this was 20 liters of liquor, and he couldn’t bear to part with that much.

After giving his supplies a final sort, Nan Liujing focused on taking stock of his basic materials. Wooden planks x25, canvas scraps x13, palm leaves x4, iron nails x20.

“These materials are barely enough to build a makeshift shelter.” Although he hadn’t actually obtained the blueprints yet, Nan Liujing estimated that the construction materials would be quite costly. After all, even if it was just a simple structure, it was still a house! The required materials couldn’t possibly be few.

But worrying about it wouldn’t do any good. 

Nan Liujing’s current survival situation was entirely at the mercy of the elements. How much material he could gather didn’t depend on his personal efforts, but rather on how much the sea would give.

It wasn’t just him; the other players were in the same boat.

He had already mentally prepared himself for the possibility of not having a place to stay for a day or two.

With a few hours left until noon, Nan Liujing decided to take a stroll around the reef area before lunch.

Grabbing his oyster knife and putting on his gloves, Nan Liujing skillfully climbed onto the rocks, only to feel a sudden pang of dismay the next moment.

The rocks he had scraped yesterday were covered with large swaths of knife marks, and along the edges of the gouges were only a handful of purple mussels—each smaller than the tip of a pinky finger—and a few clumps of barnacles that no one had bothered with. The oysters and mature purple mussels he’d scraped away yesterday hadn’t returned.

“We’re screwed…”

Nan Liujing instantly realized that he had been confined by a gamer’s mindset. Although *Island Survival* was a game, it was also a real world

Here, the line between the game and reality was blurred; some aspects closely resembled game mechanics, while others adhered to real-world laws. Take, for example, the shellfish Nan Liujing had just scraped off the reef—they were real, living organisms. Unlike in a game, where resources could be repeatedly harvested in a short time, once removed, it would take a long time for them to regrow…

This timeframe might be shorter than on Earth, or it might be longer; with no countdown displayed, Nan Liujing couldn’t be sure.

The only thing he can be certain of is that this process definitely won’t be completed in a day or two. As a result, the value of this reef as a native resource point on the island is greatly diminished…

Admittedly, Nan Liujing had a reef area encircling half the island, but not every reef was covered in shellfish. He estimated that in another three to five days, the yield from this reef area would be completely depleted. And he would lose his stable source of food.

“This isn’t good,” Nan Liujing felt a deep sense of foreboding.

Worried about overharvesting, Nan Liujing became even more cautious during his next foraging session. Not only did he pick only the large ones, but he also took care not to harm the smaller juveniles. Under the pressure of survival, he even picked a few thick, lush pieces of barnacles—something he usually didn’t bother with.

Only after depleting his stamina to 37/100 did he climb down from the reef, feeling light-headed, and return to the rest area. The supplies in his backpack now consisted of 55 oysters, 850 purple mussels, and 20 goose-neck barnacles.

After swallowing two oysters to replenish his stamina, Nan Liujing opened his tablet to craft a simple axe. He then grabbed a plank of wood, preparing to chop some firewood to start a fire and cook.

Crack!

With a single swing of the axe, wood chips flew everywhere, leaving a mark on the plank that was neither too deep nor too shallow.

The makeshift axe was made entirely of wood, with only the blade coated in a layer of metal, so its sharpness was limited. Nan Liujing put all his strength into it and swung three more times; the plank finally turned into ten pieces of firewood, each as thick as a wrist and as long as a forearm.

He opened his tablet to check: 2 Stamina lost.

“I have a talent that halves stamina consumption, and I still lost 2 points of stamina?” Nan Liujing sighed. “This is really tough.”

In this game, everything requires stamina; without it, you can’t get anywhere. But stamina depletes so quickly—it’s simply never enough.

After obtaining 10 pieces of dry firewood, Nan Liujing stacked them in a crisscross pattern and took out his windproof lighter. After a few attempts, the campfire finally caught.

The flames crackled and danced on the wood, their warm glow illuminating the young man’s face.Nan Liujing brought over the stainless steel basin holding the crabs, then gathered all the cat’s eye snails and clams, three barely alive baby octopuses, and two mantis shrimp, nearly filling the basin to the brim.

Given the limited resources, there was no point in thinking about how to cook them—he’d just boil them.

Even when it came to the water for cooking the seafood, Nan Liujing had no other choice but to scoop up half a basin of seawater.

“Boiling it in seawater isn’t so bad—at least I won’t have to add any salt,” Nan Liujing told herself as she carefully placed the basin over the campfire.

The flames licked fiercely at the bottom of the basin, and soon a pale white steam rose and drifted away. Nan Liujing sniffed the increasingly pungent salty, fishy smell, couldn’t help but swallow, and fixed her eyes intently on the seafood in the basin.

Finally, I get to eat… my first hot meal since entering the game!

A Note from the Author:

Currently, the following actions consume stamina: gathering (1 point per action), using an axe (1 point per swing), fishing (2 points per cast), and diving into the sea (20 points per dive). Continuous movement while in a severely fatigued state will also slowly deplete stamina.

Crafting, cooking, walking, running, opening treasure chests, and browsing the forum (?) do not consume stamina.