Chapter 119: Gathering All the Materials

… Amid the lighthearted discussion, Huang Yunshuo hummed a tune as he stepped out from the resurrection point and casually wandered into a nearby shop to restock his rockets.

Logging back in was definitely more comfortable—it saved him some travel time.

He spent just over 20,000 copper coins to purchase 400 sets of materials, then used the one-click synthesis function to fill his backpack with a substantial quantity of ammunition.

He darted between several shops, spending the remaining 20,000-plus copper coins, yet he had only managed to gather about 70% of the materials needed for the thruster.

“So expensive,” he muttered.

His exclusive equipment included not only the rocket launcher, alloy battle armor, and thruster but also the core engine, evasion device, and energy barrier generator. At this point, he dared not even think about those items—they might not be exorbitantly priced but certainly wouldn’t be cheap.

Just as Huang Yunshuo was about to leave the materials shop, a sudden thought struck him.

“Is there a store that only accepts silver coins?” he asked a clerk.

The clerk pointed him in the right direction, and Huang Yunshuo’s spirits lifted as he hurried to the town’s northern guard street.

“Hey, hey, it’s you! Got any ores?” Old Song, lounging in a deck chair, jumped up excitedly and asked.

“Got ‘em? Get lost!” Huang Yunshuo kicked the sly merchant aside and dashed to the silver coin shop not far away.

Opening the shop’s item list, he couldn’t help but feel a pang of disappointment.

It was filled entirely with various precious materials—no equipment or potions. This silver coin shop, located in the player town, seemed tailored for hidden classes like himself or high-level players struggling to find materials for advanced quests.

All materials were priced in silver coins, ranging from a few silver coins to fractions thereof.

Huang Yunshuo spent nine silver coins to purchase all the materials he needed from the silver store, raising the thruster material completion to over 90%. The remaining items could be bought with copper coins, totaling nearly 20,000 copper coins.

“Hurry up, 20,000 copper coins!” he urged.

Yida was engaged in a fierce battle and found Huang Yunshuo’s private messages vibrating incessantly, which annoyed him greatly. Reluctantly, he stopped among the monsters to complete the transaction.

With the copper coins in hand, Huang Yunshuo dashed around for nearly ten minutes until he had gathered all the materials.

“Nine silver coins plus 90,000 copper coins—finally assembled this damn thruster. It’s not easy for me!” He felt like bursting into tears of joy.

Having spent all his copper coins, his credit point balance dropped to just over a million, essentially leaving him nearly bankrupt again.

“Wang, bro, speed it up—I want to get this done as soon as possible!” Huang Yunshuo urged, handing the materials over to Wang Dazui.

“It takes two hours to craft. Hurrying won’t help. Plus, the success rate for the thruster is only 60%. You need to be mentally prepared,” Wang Dazui said, though he was pleased himself. Once finished, he’d likely level up to a mid-tier blacksmith. Exciting!

“Forget the success rate—60% chance? I don’t believe it will fail!” Huang Yunshuo had no patience for probabilities now. He had been gone so long that Ye Piaoxue and Yu Shiyin were already impatiently pressing him.

“Is there really no way to speed up the crafting?” he asked stubbornly.

Wang Dazui frowned. “Well, there is a way—using Eternal Crystals under load can accelerate the crafting process.”

“How many Eternal Crystals? How much time can be saved?” Huang Yunshuo felt relieved to hear there was a method. Eternal Crystals were now reasonably priced; he could just spend his remaining credit points.

“One flawless low-level Eternal Crystal shortens the time by five minutes. The minimum crafting time is thirty minutes,” Wang Dazui explained.

“So, to cut ninety minutes, I’d need eighteen Eternal Crystals?” Huang Yunshuo calculated.

Wang Dazui nodded.

Huang Yunshuo choked on his saliva—it felt like death.

He had just checked; low-level Eternal Crystal fragments had plummeted to about twelve copper coins each, sometimes even ten copper coins. It took over 800 copper coins for one flawless Eternal Crystal.

Eighteen of them would cost at least fifteen thousand copper coins.

Damn it!

Where on earth was he supposed to get that money?

He still had 1.47 million credit points left, which could exchange for 10,000 copper coins, but that still left a gap of over 5,000.

He had plenty of materials lying around, but selling them to shops was a losing proposition; for the long term, he couldn’t touch them.

His gaze drifted, and he inadvertently glanced at the live stream interface.

He looked over the gift leaderboard somewhat blankly.

“Why are so many gifts being sent?”

Huang Yunshuo was surprised.

Before logging in, when he streamed, he had a clear idea of the gift leaderboard values. Now, apart from the first-place Old Liao, who was always spot-on, and second-place Morning Dew Frost, most names had changed—each roughly giving around 10,000 credit points!

He rubbed his eyes and saw that the treasure chest count showed four, meaning that in just three minutes, someone had sent four gifts worth at least 100 credit points each.

“Streamer, move your damn face—I’m about to eat!”

“Finally came to your senses! Why didn’t you explain during such an exciting fight?!”

“Morning Dew Frost or Piaoxue—which one do you choose?”

As Huang Yunshuo watched the stream, the barrage of comments surged.

The stream had 219,000 viewers, and followers had surpassed 400,000!

Huang Yunshuo was puzzled: “What just happened?”

The comments were a chaotic mix of explanations, gossip, and insults telling him to leave, but at least they made things clearer.

Apparently, his recent rampage had scared these viewers. They had never seen the Wings of Soaring or witnessed his heroic sweep through the mobs before, so no wonder they were so excited and showering gifts.

“A bunch of unworldly brats,” Huang Yunshuo laughed heartily. He scrolled down the contribution leaderboard; the 500th-ranked gift-giver had contributed over 100 credit points. Beyond 500, the statistics were unclear—who knew how many people had sent gifts?

Since the stream began, the total gift amount had reached 300,000 credit points!

He knew that since launching the stream, apart from one round of promotion, he hadn’t really paid attention—busy mining, exploring time-space dungeons, and now defending the city. The stream was often just a black screen.

Turning away, Huang Yunshuo had a suspicion.

The stream’s popularity was rising too quickly. Besides his purchased operational data and the ads everyone was posting, something else must have happened without his knowledge.

“The remaining copper coin shortfall… looks like I’ll have to find a way to earn it on the battlefield.”

Looking down from the seventh floor of the castle, Huang Yunshuo saw swarms of tiny yellow drones everywhere, their waves endless.

After bombarding along the city walls, the total player casualties had surpassed one million. Having eliminated the threat of the yellow drones, the players were now locked in a stalemate with the small white geese.

Players occasionally fell, and the white geese were dropping just as fast.