Chapter Twenty-Six: Purchase (3/5)
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“You have sold an item on the virtual trading platform. Income: 10 Apocalypse Coins.”
A flood of notifications engulfed the system prompts. Yang Fan quickly shut off the alerts and instead took out water for everyone to drink, followed by some vegetables that could be eaten raw. The rest of the food was useless, as there was no fire to cook with, but the Ladies’ Painting possessed an automatic decomposition function.
Thus, Yang Fan planned to bring the group into the world of the Ladies’ Painting. After an hour, once they had all eaten and drunk their fill, he explained the nature of the painting and posed the same question: did they wish to live their lives as ants, relying on others, or would they rather learn to survive on their own?
No one wanted to cling to someone else, so Yang Fan took them all into the Ladies’ Painting. Naturally, this meant more food would be needed. Yang Fan was fair—Bai Su and Wu Yinmei also entered the painting’s world. At first, Liu Qiaoqiao and Bai Su were unwilling, but Yang Fan told them sternly: without training, they would just be burdens when they left. Only then did they agree to stay. As for Bai Su, Yang Fan didn’t care what she thought.
In total, thirteen girls remained. The painting’s artifact spirit tallied up all the provisions Yang Fan had gathered, discovering it was only enough for five batches of training—about five years’ worth. This shocked Yang Fan, as he thought the food could easily feed a hundred people for a year—how could it amount to just half a month for their group?
The painting’s spirit explained: human food did not meet the requirements for intense training, so it had to be compressed—one hundred pounds of rice condensed into one pound of pure rice, able to fully sustain human nutritional needs. It was like the difference between someone raised on poor-quality food and someone with a rich diet—the latter would always be stronger. This, Yang Fan understood and accepted.
Among the group, Bai Su, Liu Qiaoqiao, and one other girl showed potential to be trained as Goddesses of War. Yang Fan gave the remaining eight training slots to the three of them.
However, his relationship with Bai Su had not improved. Perhaps this was a form of compensation. Yang Fan told her directly, “What I’m doing now is to repay the love the Bai Su of the past gave me. Once you have the means to protect yourself, I’ll let you go.”
Since the day she kept demanding an apology, Yang Fan had given up on her. Now he spoke without reservation. Bai Su’s beautiful face showed a bitter smile, which Yang Fan saw but chose to ignore, focusing instead on the training. Of the five remaining slots, Yang Fan asked the artifact spirit if Little Swallow Python could be included.
The painting allowed it, though not as a goddess, but it could help the snake unlock its potential. So, Yang Fan placed Little Swallow Python within the painting as well, then left after instructing Liu Qiaoqiao to purchase everything necessary.
One thousand four hundred and eighty units of materials, sold at 10 Apocalypse Coins each, were completely bought up in just over thirty minutes, earning Yang Fan a total of fourteen thousand Apocalypse Coins—far more than he expected. He had thought it would take an hour to sell them all, yet it was done in half the time.
This was partly due to opening the Divine Treasure Chest, which had allowed many to survive and kill more zombies, giving them the means to purchase these goods.
Fourteen thousand Apocalypse Coins—a tremendous fortune. The first thing Yang Fan bought was attribute potions: level 4 at 160 coins each, level 5 at 320, level 6 at 640, and level 7 at 1280. He bought three sets at once, totaling 7,200 coins—one set for Liu Qiaoqiao.
The other two sets were for himself and Zhu Liang, but he’d give them to Zhu Liang incrementally, one level at a time.
Yang Fan also had Liu Qiaoqiao purchase two portable satchels—the kind with ten cubic meters of space each, costing 500 coins apiece. In total, he spent 8,200 coins.
Level 4 Intermediate Strength Potion: randomly increases strength by 8–100, depending on bloodline and luck; requires level 4, costs 160 coins.
Level 4 Intermediate Agility Potion: randomly increases agility by 8–100, depending on bloodline and luck; requires level 4, 160 coins.
Level 4 Intermediate Endurance Potion: randomly increases endurance by 8–100, depending on bloodline and luck; requires level 4, 160 coins.
Level 4 Intermediate Intelligence Potion: randomly increases intelligence by 8–100, depending on bloodline and luck; requires level 4, 160 coins.
...
Level 7 Advanced Strength Potion: randomly increases strength by 20–100, depending on bloodline and luck; requires level 7, 1280 coins.
Level 7 Advanced Agility Potion: randomly increases agility by 20–100, depending on bloodline and luck; requires level 7, 1280 coins.
Level 7 Advanced Endurance Potion: randomly increases endurance by 20–100, depending on bloodline and luck; requires level 7, 1280 coins.
Level 7 Advanced Intelligence Potion: randomly increases intelligence by 20–100, depending on bloodline and luck; requires level 7, 1280 coins.
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This was how potions were classified: levels 1–3 were basic, 4–6 intermediate, 7–9 advanced. Potions were also ranked from first to ninth grade.
First-grade potions doubled their effects; second-grade tripled them, and so on.
To refine a first-grade potion, you needed three bottles of ungraded potion fused with a 90% success rate. Each subsequent grade decreased the success rate—second-grade was 80%, third 70%, until the ninth grade, which was a mere 1%.
Just imagine—a single bottle of level 9 potion cost 5,120 coins; three bottles would be 15,360 coins. Then, fusing them for first-grade, and for second-grade you needed three first-grades, totaling 46,080 coins. Running the math, a ninth-grade, level 9 potion would require 100,776,960 coins.
And you couldn’t fail even once—a hundred million coins! Yang Fan couldn’t even imagine it. Of course, only fools would pursue this. In his past life, some had tried, but third-grade was as far as anyone dared go—it was simply too expensive beyond that.
Yet Yang Fan was excited. He could use Liu Qiaoqiao’s discount ability to reap enormous profits, but that was a matter for the future.
Potions could be used freely, resetting one’s attributes each time. If the opportunity arose, Yang Fan planned to retake all the attribute potions at level nine, aiming for at least second or third grade.
With potions sorted, next came special items. Yang Fan purchased a small radar, able to detect all zombies, mutated beasts, insectoids, and humans within a kilometer—for 1,000 coins with a thirty-day time limit.
Now, with 9,200 coins spent, only about 5,000 remained, which Yang Fan reserved for equipment.
However, since mutated beasts hadn’t appeared yet, the system hadn’t evolved, and attributes like life value weren’t implemented, Yang Fan decided to hold off on buying equipment. He bought some excellent bread instead—twenty coins each, a hundred loaves in total. With Qiaoqiao’s 20% discount, the cost came to 8,960 coins, leaving 5,120 coins.
The excellent bread randomly increased all attributes by 1–3 points. Having returned from rebirth, Yang Fan had plenty of ways to make money, so he was generous.
Once everything was ready, Yang Fan had Liu Qiaoqiao begin training in the Ladies’ Painting. Of course, he wouldn’t forget about opening treasure chests. Bai Su and Wu Yinmei had opened their chests; the others had not, so within twenty-four hours, Yang Fan needed to acquire some Silver-class chests.
(Chatting in my author group, some people doubt Melon Seed’s book, saying my results are inflated, that it’s hollow without cohesion, and that there aren’t many real readers. The phrase “Zero Intelligence” is blatantly written on the door. So... Melon Seed hopes that readers who enjoy this book can help push it up, top the rankings, and prove them wrong! There are 1,100 of you—do you have what it takes? Can you do it? Thank you all!)