Chapter 47

Chapter 47: Useless Items

At first, the Water-Chilling Stones didn’t cause much of a reaction. That was understandable. It was nighttime.

Most players were either asleep or busy brawling on the game forum, but Ling Mo wasn’t worried. She logged out of the shop and opened the individual marketplace.

Besides shops, individuals could sell items too. Not everyone could afford to open a store. The downside was that the System took a cut.

Ling Mo browsed through listings. Most people were selling old winter clothes or luxury jewelry and bags, trying to trade for long-lasting food like rice, flour, and canned goods.

She dug around for a while and didn’t find anything that tempted her.

Then she noticed a search bar at the top. After a moment of thought, she typed: game items.

She hadn’t expected much, but results actually popped up. The prices were outrageous, but since they were game items, she figured maybe there was a reason.

That thought lasted right up until she read the descriptions.

Never-Dry Feather Pen: light as a feather, can write smoothly on anything.

Price: five vacuum-sealed 10-jin bags of rice, or twenty boxes of canned meat.

Color-Changing Sunglasses.

Price: two crates of all-meat sausages.

Sunshade Umbrella: can change size at will, change color, and is extremely sturdy.

Price: two household first-aid kits.

Color-Changing Contacts: can change your eye color at will.

Price: two vacuum-sealed 10-jin bags of rice.

Ling Mo stared at the four items, each more useless than the last, and fell silent.

Then she looked at the prices again.

Wasn’t this just robbery with extra steps?

And yet… she bought them anyway.

Some things became surprisingly useful as long as you didn’t use them the way they were intended.

Sunglasses, for example. The UV outside during the day was brutal, even in the afternoon it could sting so badly she could barely open her eyes. With these on, she wouldn’t need to dig out eye protection from pocket space whenever she threw a flash grenade. When she wasn’t using them, she could wear them like normal glasses without attracting attention.

As for the Sunshade Umbrella, once enlarged it would be a ready-made shelter. She had a portable tent too, but a tent still had to be set up. An umbrella could be opened instantly and packed away just as easily.

The feather pen and the contacts? She hadn’t figured out their best use yet, but she bought them anyway.

Once she confirmed the trades, the four items appeared in front of her.

The umbrella looked like the cheap transparent kind you could buy anywhere. If the System didn’t strictly ban counterfeits, she would’ve thought she’d been scammed. This was supposed to be a Sunshade Umbrella?

Then her hand touched the handle, and a flash of white light ran over it. In the next second, the umbrella had transformed into something that matched her aesthetic perfectly.

So it changed based on what the user imagined. Not bad. Really not bad.

She put it away and tried the sunglasses next. The moment she slid them onto her face, the black lenses shifted and reshaped into sleek, silver, rimless glasses.

She looked in the mirror.

Yeah. Glasses really did change the vibe. She looked softer, less sharp.

The Never-Dry Feather Pen worked exactly as advertised: it wrote on any surface. The ink was liquid, and it wouldn’t come off. The only way to erase it was with the feather at the back of the pen.

The Color-Changing Contacts, however, had functions the seller hadn’t mentioned at all. They protected her eyes, eased eye fatigue, and even gave her night vision.

Come to think of it, the sunglasses seemed to have similar functions too. Their previous owner probably never realized.

If they’d known, they would’ve either kept them or doubled the price.

Ling Mo put in the contacts and tested them, shifting her eye color smoothly enough that it felt like she’d been born that way. After playing around for a bit, she returned her eyes to their original amber.

Then her thoughts drifted.

Should she sell the learning machine?

In theory, with Qie Man, she didn’t need it anymore. Selling it to someone who needed it more sounded reasonable.

But she hesitated.

People online were already trying to find Soy Sauce Drunk. Some offered high bounties for information. Some organizations were openly calling for her to join them, promising her status and power. Others posted shameless guilt-tripping moral lectures that made her want to throw her phone.

She’d expected this. She’d brought out interstellar machines and piles of food. Of course people with ambition would get greedy.

Ling Mo had never underestimated human nature.

What worried her was whether someone might awaken a divination talent, or obtain divination tools, and use them to confirm her identity.

It wasn’t impossible.

And if she exposed the learning machine, those people would only go more insane.

She scrapped the idea immediately. At least until she could protect herself, or found a solid way to hide her identity, the learning machine stayed hidden.

“Right,” she murmured. “Does the System shop have anything I need?”

She opened the System shop. The inventory had refreshed again: lollipops that slowly restored stamina, bubble gum that could temporarily suppress hunger.

She ignored the flashy nonsense and kept scanning until she finally found something that made her eyes light up.

A half-transparent cloak, shimmering with flowing colors. The name was blunt: Illusory Cloak. It could conceal identity and, most importantly, it had invisibility.

Just hiding her identity would’ve been huge. Invisibility on top of that?

Ling Mo’s excitement spiked so hard she nearly laughed out loud.

Then she saw the price.

Thirty thousand coins. Exactly the combined original price of the Blessing Gem and the Thousand-Feather Bow.

Below it, a line of small text appeared: If coins are insufficient, energy rawstones may be used. One energy rawstone equals one thousand coins.

That exchange rate was tempting. She could scrape together thirty energy rawstones if she had to, but…

Ling Mo narrowed her eyes.

The System was absolutely trying to bleed her dry.