Gu Sanqiu brought out his bowl of Polar Bear Stew from the kitchen. He had set it aside earlier to see what might happen.
“Beep, beep—”
Opening his inventory, Gu Sanqiu shoved the bowl into the black hole interface.
“Bon appétit and bon voyage~”
Item Detected — Spirit Broth
Item Identified — [Polar Bear Stew]
Grade: Green
Danger Level: Zero
Eligible for Exchange: Yes
Confirm Exchange: [Yes] / [No]
“There’s an option for this?”
Gu Sanqiu was stunned. He’d fed plenty of quality items into this inventory before, but never had it triggered an exchange prompt.
Maybe this three-in-one counterfeit product with zero instructions required some sort of special trigger.
“Does it have to be something I made myself?”
But the Dragon Scale Shield was handmade too, yet he never considered trading it. Maybe, subconsciously, he hadn’t seen it as tradeable. A bowl of stew, however, was another matter.
It was a reasonable theory, he thought.
He probably wouldn’t have succeeded in taking down that Polar Bear if not for the Dragon Scale Shield—and the fact that the bear had its power restricted by the golden fishing rod.
“Ah, so you only like premium items, huh?”
Without hesitation, he confirmed the exchange.
Exchange Confirmed
Generating…
Moments later, a green light shot out of the black hole, landing in Gu Sanqiu’s hand—a large, golden bone gleaming with an eerie luster.
Item: Thigh Bone of the Crimson Berserker Bear
Origin: Wasteland Realm
Note: A thigh bone? Good for stew or for cosplaying a caveman?
What the hell!
Gu Sanqiu tossed the bone aside—a long femur that looked like it had been gnawed clean, the kind of thing you might find half-buried in a junkyard. Who knew what weird creatures had licked it, or if it was someone’s discarded snack.
“What am I supposed to do with this?”
“Never mind, back to the plan.”
With a dark expression, he started dumping everything he had purchased into the inventory—his precious materials. With the Dragon Scale Shield in his right hand and a hammer in his left, he prepared to handle whatever emerged.
Bang!
Boom!
That day, every neighbor around the Gu estate—and even the spies keeping tabs on him—heard the beastly roars echoing from his courtyard. Some even wondered if the man was some sort of sadist.
When night fell and the inventory glowed blue, Gu Sanqiu finally breathed a sigh of relief. A pile of animals lay strewn around him, creatures that had met the happy end at his hands.
“After all this effort, why do I keep getting food? My luck can’t be this bad. It’s gotta be the inventory’s fault.”
Resolutely, he blamed everything on his malfunctioning inventory. Forget getting anything purple-tier; he couldn’t even pull a decent blue-tier item.
“So, what did I blow all that money on today?”
After his spending spree, he divided his prizes. The living creatures—still warm—went into the cold storage, while the rest required careful sorting.
“Iron ore, explosives, generators… What the—Mongolian medicine?”
His eye twitched. Some of the items definitely had a not-so-legal vibe.
“Still, I could run more experiments with these.”
Gu Sanqiu, deep in thought, tucked the questionable materials into his basement and went to fetch ingredients from the cold storage.
An hour later, he emerged with a plate of beef slices, marbled with exquisite patterns.
Item: Great Horned Ox
Origin: Too numerous to list
Note: A horned bovine with massive horns. All its nutrients go to the horns, making the body lean—an alchemist’s favorite raw material. Strangely, due to the scarcity of meat, some idiots even consider it a luxury delicacy.
Gu Sanqiu didn’t care about the snide remarks in the notes. For him, the low nutritional value made it perfect for his experiments.
“No beeping sounds, huh. So it doesn’t even qualify as green-tier?”
He stroked his chin. He’d removed any elemental influence, reducing it to its “meat” essence, yet it lacked the confirmation he got with the stew.
“Does it have material standards, or…”
An idea struck him. He disappeared back into the kitchen, fiddling around for a while, and came back with a brown vial in hand.
Beep, beep—
Item Detected: High Purity Alchemical Potion
Unnamed
Same old interface and generic text. He didn’t bother to read it carefully before selecting “Yes” and tossing the vial into the black hole.
“Maybe one day I’ll open a stress relief clinic. A hundred Mora a pop to toss junk or shout into the inventory void.”
Hand on his chin, he chuckled. “Not a bad idea, and I could get writing material for Xingqiu from listening to people’s woes.”
The green glow of the inventory pulsed, sending a bottle of green liquid into his hand.
“Perfect. So if I create something myself and willingly exchange it, I’m guaranteed something in the same category.”
“Let’s see what I got this time—”
Item: Forgiveness Elixir
Origin: A shady alchemist with a criminal record from an underground clinic
Note: Spray it on an angry spouse after cheating, and they’ll forgive you and love you as before? This practice shouldn’t continue—execution of that idiot alchemist was justified. Kudos to the law enforcers.
…
Gu Sanqiu’s hand trembled, hovering between smashing the vial and incinerating it with a fire spell. Somehow, he suppressed his rage.
“What kind of trash is this?!”
His blood pressure skyrocketed. It felt like his lungs were about to burst, and a wave of dizziness hit him. He resembled a gamer who’d grinded for months, only to be rewarded with trash, laughing bitterly in a corner while lighting a cigarette.
“Usable… well, after a careful review, there are a few usable things.”
It was a meager consolation, like picking the tallest dwarf from a sea of rejects.
“You’ve got one body—no point getting a heart attack over this,” he reminded himself, tucking the Forgiveness Elixir into his pocket. Now he had to figure out the best way to sell this for a decent profit.
“That sleazy sailor? Nah, he can’t pay enough, and he deserves a good slash-and-burn ending.”
Live for the thrill, die by the sword.
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