Naniii?! Yu Zhiye almost thought he saw it wrong, but…

  “This is…”

  

  [Recipe: Crafting Table (Green)]

  x4 Any Planks

  A simple description, a simple image of four plank blocks arranged on a 3 by 3 grid.

  Everything was so simple and familiar, yet so... mindblowing!

  “Seriously?! Isn’t this one of the most basic recipes in the game? Do I even need a recipe for this? What a joke!”

  Unless… there was another rule in play…

  Once that bad feeling hit him, Yu Zhiye rushed out the door and hurried over to the shed next door.

  Here, sand and cobblestones formed two piles. He went over to the little dune of sand...

  Scoop. Scoop. Scoop…

  Soon, four sand blocks got added to his inventory hotbar.

  Yu Zhiye quickly pulled up the game interface.

  Right above the inventory hotbar was the panel containing the 2 by 2 crafting grid embedded into the player’s interface.

  “If I’m not wrong, just fill the four grids with sand block...”

  Touch, drag, and drop.

  According to the recipe, the output should be a sandstone block. But…

  “As expected, nothing. Seems like we’ll have to collect recipes in order to craft anything? Bleh! That’s so lame! What’s this? A collect em’ all game? Not cool at all!”

  Then again, such a nerf makes sense.

  The original game’s crafting system was a basic core mechanic of the sandbox game, and every player took it for granted, but once this crafting system gets projected into reality…

  Just imagine: a superpower that lets its user craft almost any game object instantly, then use that to build whatever they can imagine.

  Even if there were no other cheats, just possessing such a magical ability was game-breaking!

  With that much sand outside, any player can build themselves a sandstone castle within a day!

  Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  Then, the game will boil down to whoever has more prior knowledge about the game.

  Since there’s no internet here, knowledge monopoly will happen eventually and certain players will have an unfair advantage over others.

  Given enough time, this gap in knowledge will shrink, but will those at the top allow that to happen?

  Even in the game, social classes exist. In all classes, there’s always those bad apples. Griefing and bullying happens. So did robbery and murder.

  Real life will only be more complicated.

  And all these issues? They were only the internal matters for the players owning this sandbox game system.

  What about outside?

  Earth had billions of lives. If they all transmigrated, will they all obtain a similar system? Or will there be differences? Will there be fairness?

  Who knows.

  But Yu Zhiye got a clue from this single event.

  Recipes found in treasure chests… a comfort zone in the middle of a harsh environment… put two and two together…

  “Well, what a cliché trope.”

  “Right now, we’re probably getting the novice tutorial treatment, but if we don’t grasp the true way of survival through exploring and treasure hunting...”

  One day, the comfort zone might disappear and all hell will break loose.

  But Yu Zhiye didn’t worry too much. His survival route already got handed to him from the get-go.

  “Fishing will be my lifeline. Both food and treasures can be fished up. But the questions is… how will the game arrange for others to survive?”

  Will there be treasure chests out there? Ruins to be found? Loot from mobs?

  Speaking of mobs…

  “Night should come soon? I wonder if there will really be those monsters from the game…”

  Yu Zhiye wasn’t sure if that’ll get changed up or not, but it was best to prepare.

  “Know thy enemy, know thyself. Even if it’s safe in this pocket dimension, the first night, or at least a part of it, must be spent outside. Only then can I get firsthand information about what I have to face.”

  Don’t expect others to tell him anything, especially after the boundary he established earlier.

  “But first…” Yu Zhiye headed back over to his shack next door to organize the place.

  The wooden casket became his new storage box and that got set aside. The compass temporarily went into his inventory, but...

  “The crafting table recipe didn’t appear in my recipe book yet. How do I use this? Tear it?”

  Yu Zhiye wasn’t sure. But there’s no need to take any risks now.

  “Can hold off on that until I find a planks recipe… or somebody else preaches the right way to do it.”

  After giving the crafting table recipe one last glance, he stored it with the string in the box.

  That left seven items in his inventory hotbar.

  

  “That short stick might be more useless than my rod, but you never know when it’ll save a life. As for those rocks…”

  Those who understand will understand.

  Yu Zhiye believes he has prepared to the best of his ability for what’s to come.

  Next was just a matter of playing safe and watching out for danger…

  “Well, just keep quiet and stay behind the rest of them cannon fodders…”

  ...

  When Yu Zhiye returned to the store from out back, he found most of the players gathered around the area where most of them woke up.

  At a glance, he saw the loners: mainly the scruffy uncle and the highschool girl. A bit surprising they haven’t joined any groups.

  As for groups… what stood out were naturally the two teams led by four-eyes and the baldie.

  Both teams were stationed at their own corners, where their lackeys guarded a small pile of food like hens protecting their chicks.

  Typical hoarding behavior. The root of all conflicts.

  Yu Zhiye had barely taken a seat on the ground when he saw the sun-and-sand-battered Mob Characters B and C return from their expedition.

  Both looked exhausted, but proud like hunters who had a good harvest.

  And the first thing these suntanned hunters did when they returned? Start a conflict.