"When you put it that way, it really does sound a bit creepy," Li Ke muttered.
He didn't pick up on Erina's subtle jealousy, but he completely agreed with her point about the merchant being unsettling. It was a textbook case of the Uncanny Valley effect. When you look at a face that mimics human features perfectly but displays zero emotional micro-expressions—especially under the dim, ominous lighting of a tattered trailer—your brain naturally triggers a primal survival response of pure dread.
However...
"But she really is remarkably well-endowed, and she actually feels warm to the touch," Li Ke added, laying out his logic bluntly. "So that pretty much cancels out the fear for me."
"See?! You are a pervy mister!" Erina exploded, throwing her hands up in exasperation. "How can you let something like that override your survival instincts?!"
Now that she had proven she could hold her own against a zombie horde, her confidence had returned. Her psychological panic had ebbed, leaving her plenty of energy to aggressively critique his unfiltered commentary.
"Fear doesn't buy us groceries, Erina," Li Ke shrugged. "We fundamentally need this trader to survive. If the only way to short-circuit the Uncanny Valley creepiness is to objectify her as an attractive NPC, then that's exactly what I'm going to do."
That was his absolute, unvarnished worldview. Honestly, if he had been dropped into this digital wasteland completely alone, his survival mechanisms probably would have turned a lot darker by now. He likely would have spent his morning testing whether the system's "unequip" exploit could strip the merchant's lower garments too.
After all, despite the eerie puppet-like stillness, the trader was physically indistinguishable from a living, breathing woman. Aside from her static programming and complete invulnerability to axes, her physical anatomy was entirely organic.
When a person is stranded in isolation for months on end with a companion that looks, feels, and smells exactly like a human, certain boundaries inevitably blur.
But as he walked, his eyes caught the distinct, rhythmic bounce of Erina's chest and the smooth stride of her pale legs under her hemline. He let out a long, weary sigh.
Actually, having a teammate like her around might just drive me crazy even faster than being alone.
It was a classic catch-22. If he were solo, he would be forced to channel 100% of his nervous energy into a constant, paranoid loop of crafting fortifications and manufacturing defenses just to keep his mind occupied.
Now, with a high-stamina partner, their resource collection would be infinitely faster and safer. But the mental distraction was a whole different kind of survival challenge.
Take their current scavenging run, for instance. Without Erina watching his back, clearing these dilapidated suburban houses would feel like playing a hardcore stealth game. He would be moving centimeter by centimeter, terrified that a sleeper zombie would drop from a ceiling tile, catch him off-guard, and force him to type a premature 'GG' to his own life.
But with Erina keeping watch, his approach to searching the premises became significantly bolder and faster.
The only issue was that his companion was entirely too attractive. Her exceptional figure made it incredibly difficult for him to keep his mind focused strictly on survival mechanics.
"Whatever. You always have a way of spinning some bizarre excuse for your perverted behavior," Erina huffed, turning her blushing face away. She was still noticeably annoyed, but she maintained total vigilance, carefully scanning the brush to see if any useful resources were hidden nearby.
Unfortunately, the immediate yard yielded nothing.
Li Ke, on the other hand, made a fascinating discovery as they continued their trek back toward Trader Jen's compound.
"Oh? I've already hit Level 3? Well, look at me go. Leveling up is actually pretty fast out here."
Li Ke smiled, pulling his character panel back up. He tried clicking on the Quests, Skills, and Map tabs again, but they remained firmly locked down behind the standard permission errors. However, when he shifted his mental cursor over to the Recipes tab, the interface actually responded.
Oh?
The moment the blueprint catalog opened, his full 3D character avatar and vertical status effects vanished from view, replaced by a massive column of text spanning the left side of his vision.
"Wood frame blocks, storage chests... huh. This is basically the standard crafting index from every survival sandbox game under the sun. It's just implemented a bit strangely. I wonder if I can unlock high-tier firearms through this thing?"
Li Ke scrolled through the massive index, thoroughly intrigued. He spotted basic tool recipes, including the classic Stone Axe.
Examining the digital thumbnail, the axe was rendered as a crude piece of sharp flint secured to a wooden handle using thick, woven twine. But according to the recipe's ingredient list, the tool only required standard tree branches, raw grass, and small stones.
If I actually click craft, is the system going to force me to manually weave these grass blades into a rope, or does the UI just materialize the completed item automatically?
Li Ke was genuinely curious about how the physics of this sandbox reality operated.
Fortunately, basic crafting ingredients weren't difficult to find. Li Ke knelt down, scouring the dirt to collect a handful of loose stones.
As he did, he noticed an incredibly bizarre anomaly.
Every single stone scattered across the ground was uniform in shape—either the exact size of a bread roll or a large egg. There wasn't a single grain of gravel or pebble to be found anywhere in the dirt.
Fascinating...
Li Ke didn't overthink the rendering logic. Once he had pocketed enough stones, he moved on to harvesting the required "Plant Fibers."
According to the system thumbnail, plant fibers were visually identical to standard lawn weeds. Li Ke reached down and firmly yanked a thick stalk of grass out of the dirt. The moment the roots cleared the soil, the system validated the action with a crisp notification popup:
[Plant Fibers +20]
"Seriously? That's it?" Li Ke muttered, a bit dumbfounded by how incredibly generous the drop rate was. But an even more absurd exploitation of game logic was waiting around the corner.
Curious to see what would happen if he used his fire axe to chop down a nearby wooden structure, his hand brushed against a patch of dried, dead shrubbery. He focused his consciousness on the brush, attempting to move it into his digital system space.
The next microsecond, a transparent wooden plank icon flashed across the lower corner of his field of view:
[Wood +3]
Li Ke's eye twitched. Testing his theory, he reached out and snapped another handful of branches off a completely different shrub nearby.
It didn't matter if the plant was a towering, head-high thicket or a tiny weed barely reaching his shins. The moment his physical hands broke the wood, the system's rigid programming categorized the material under a single, generic item classification: [Wood].
"So... what exactly are you doing now?"
Erina watched his erratic movements with a mix of curiosity and confusion. She couldn't understand why he had suddenly started aggressively tearing up weeds and snatching random stones off the ground.
"Well, I hit Level 3 and successfully unlocked my crafting index," Li Ke explained as they walked. "I wanted to test the physics of the system. You've probably got your own crafting menu unlocked by now too, considering you slaughtered way more of that horde than I did."
As he spoke, Li Ke pulled up his digital interface, navigated to the Stone Axe recipe, and mentally clicked the craft button.
There were no flashy particle effects or sudden bursts of light. A small progress bar simply materialized in the lower-left corner of his UI, tracking a thumbnail icon of a crude stone tool. A couple of seconds later, a primitive Stone Axe stamped with a small digital number '1' popped directly into his inventory grid.
That fast?
Intrigued, Li Ke materialized the physical Stone Axe into his hand. It looked exactly like its low-res digital icon—a jagged rock lashed to a stick with grass twine. But the moment he experimentally swung it against a roadside tree, a sharp crack echoed through the air. A massive structural fracture rippled across the flint blade, and a small chunk of stone chipped right off the face.
"What a piece of junk..."
Li Ke grimaced at the flimsy tool. His first instinct was to hurl it into the weeds, but after a second of deliberation, he decided to test his inventory layout. He moved the half-broken Stone Axe down into his active toolbar running along the bottom of his HUD.
Nothing happened initially, so he focused his intention on using the toolbar item.
Pop. The Stone Axe instantly snapped back into his right hand.
Closing his full inventory menu, Li Ke swung the fragile stone tool against the massive trunk a second time. This time, a truly magical anomaly occurred. The heavy bark didn't suffer a single physical scratch or dent. Instead, a distinct, glowing health bar materialized directly over the wood in his field of view:
[536 / 600 HP]
Not only that, but a crisp, transparent notification instantly pinged in the corner of his eye, followed by a digital wood icon:
[Wood +5]
"No way... Alright, I get it now."
A massive, slightly unhinged grin spread across Li Ke's face. Planted firmly in front of the trunk, he began swinging the Stone Axe like a mechanical logging drone. He hacked at the bark in a continuous, rapid rhythm. On his exact tenth swing, the tree's structural health bar dropped to absolute zero.
He had already tensed his legs to dive out of the way, fully expecting the massive timber trunk to crash violently toward the pavement. But the moment the HP bar cleared, the entire tree instantly exploded into a cloud of digital particles, vanishing entirely out of physical reality.
The canopy, the leaves, the branches—everything dissolved into thin air. In their place, his UI logged a massive, flat resource drop:
[Wood +25]
"Talk about rigid sandbox coding," Li Ke chuckled.
"I really want to argue with you about how absurd this is... but wow, that is genuinely incredible," Erina murmured. She was slowly adapting to the absolute madness of this survival world, but her jaw still dropped as she watched a towering oak vanish into nothingness.
Li Ke licked his dry lips. His eyes had locked onto another blueprint in his recipe index labeled [Wood Frame Block]. His gaming instincts told him this item was functionally identical to the standard building block found in almost every sandbox crafting game.
A single Wood Frame required exactly 10 units of generic Wood and took two seconds to process. Since he had just harvested a healthy stack of lumber, he cued up a pair of blocks to see what they actually looked like in the real world.
The four seconds cleared in a flash. Two identical box icons materialized in his inventory. Li Ke immediately dragged the first one out of his grid to drop it.
A standard canvas drop-sack materialized on the asphalt. Li Ke pulled the drawstring open, revealing a rigid, one-meter-by-one-meter square cube built from basic plywood panels.
Nudging it with his boot, it had the exact weight and texture of standard construction plywood.
Intrigued, he shifted the second Wood Frame block into his active toolbar. The moment his fingers wrapped around the digital trigger, a faint, transparent green blueprint silhouette of the one-meter cube projected itself into his field of view, floating dynamically wherever he pointed his gaze.
"Right-click to place. Standard controls."
Aiming the holographic silhouette directly at the solid asphalt road, Li Ke executed the mental placement command.
Snap.
With a clean, mechanical thud, a physical plywood cube materialized out of thin air, anchoring itself seamlessly onto the blacktop. Li Ke stepped forward and threw his full body weight into the block, trying to shove it out of the lane. It didn't budge a single millimeter. The box felt as if it had been molecularly welded directly into the earth—there was absolutely no way to pick it up or push it aside manually.
"This is getting more and more like a video game by the minute," Li Ke muttered, a sharp whistle escaping his lips.
This wasn't just a basic building block; this was a literal divine artifact! If the physics engine allowed him to stack these blocks directly into the open air without structural pillars—just like in Minecraft—then he and Erina wouldn't ever have to fear a zombie horde again!
They could literally march out to the nearest river, build a floating fortress completely detached from the ground, plant a high-altitude farm, and collect clean rainwater. From that point on, they could just live out their days in cozy, absolute isolation!
Testing his theory further, Li Ke crafted a third block and snapped it directly into the open air, stacking it floating right above the first one. He then focused his mind on the second block and mentally executed the hold-down interaction command to pick it back up.
Snap. The middle block dissolved back into his digital system space.
The next instant, his dream of a gravity-defying floating fortress came crashing down. The third block—now completely detached from any ground support—instantly lost its balance and plunged straight down onto the blacktop. Before he could even blink, the plywood block shattered violently upon impact, dissolving into a pixelated pile of garbled geometric debris.
A heavy sense of foreboding settled deep in Li Ke's gut.
Structural integrity physics are definitely active, he thought grimly. No floating sky bases for us.
To run a comparative stress test, he cued up another wood frame from his active hotbar. This time, instead of using a primitive tool, he hoisted his real, physical steel fire axe—the one he had carried since yesterday—and delivered a massive, full-force chop right into the plywood face of the block.
The heavy steel blade slammed home, but it didn't split the block in half. Instead, it jammed deep into the wood, cleanly absorbing the blunt force.
Next, he targeted one of the blocks he had placed using the hotbar system. The moment his physical steel axe made contact, the system-spawned block instantly shattered into toothpicks, leaving behind a clean pile of generic raw resources on the road.
"......"
Li Ke lowered his axe, staring blankly at the contrasting piles of debris. Turning toward a thoroughly intrigued Erina, he calmly laid out his analytical deduction.
"Alright, it looks like there's a massive mechanical divide between items certified by the game engine and raw objects originating from physical reality. When we interact with things using the built-in system commands, we gain access to some incredibly supernatural, convenient abilities. But on the flip side, these digital blocks possess structural weaknesses that raw, physical objects simply don't have."
He kicked a piece of the shattered wood. Although the system blocks looked identical to basic plywood, their structural health code reacted completely differently to raw physical violence compared to real-world objects.
Curious to check the numerical data, Li Ke pulled his UI overlay back up, targeting his primitive Stone Axe at a physical, pre-existing structure nearby. The moment his mental cursor locked on, a distinct structural health bar materialized in his vision:
[2 / 100 HP]
Next, he placed two fresh, identical Wood Frame blocks from his inventory, delivering a single, calculated stroke of his Stone Axe to each one. The system precisely calculated the data, flashing matching notifications in both eyes:
[36 / 100 HP]
[36 / 100 HP]
The system's algorithmic damage output was completely fair, displaying zero mechanical deviation. The only major difference was purely aesthetic: the system-spawned block showed absolutely no visual wear or damage texture on its model, whereas the physical block was physically mangled and missing half its mass.
"This engine clearly relies on a double standard," Li Ke muttered, a thoughtful expression hardening his face. "The real question is—which damage logic do the zombies follow when they start attacking a barrier?"
He couldn't verify the code just yet, but his gaming instincts gave him a strong hunch. When the undead encountered a physical, real-world object, they likely calculated their attacks using standard real-world physics. But the moment they ran up against a system-spawned player block, they would immediately shift to rigid, numerical data logic.
If his theory held true, it meant the world engine was absolutely riddled with massive exploits waiting to be mined.
To test his weight hypothesis, Li Ke stepped directly onto one of his system-spawned wood blocks. Even though its numerical structural health bar had dropped below half, the platform remained rock-solid. No matter how heavily he stomped or jumped on the plywood top, the block didn't flex or budge a single millimeter.
But when he tried the exact same thing on the physical plywood block, reality immediately caught up. The moment his boot slammed down, the heavily fractured wood snapped completely in half with a loud crack. Forget about jumping—the platform disintegrated instantly, nearly sending Li Ke wiping out face-first onto the blacktop.
"I think I finally understand what you're trying to figure out with all these bizarre experiments," Erina said, watching him carefully pick himself up and dust off his trousers. A spark of realization ignited within her purplish-red eyes. "You're trying to plan out how we're going to build a permanent base, aren't you?"
"Exactly," Li Ke nodded firmly. "For just the two of us to build a fort using raw, manual carpentry techniques would be a complete pipe dream. But with these sandbox crafting tools at our disposal, digging massive perimeter trenches and erecting a fortified bunker becomes incredibly realistic. More importantly, we can use these repair mechanics to completely fix up that abandoned RV, giving us a reliable, mobile extraction vehicle if our compound ever gets overwhelmed."
As he spoke, Li Ke focused his mind on his reliable steel fire axe. Pop. The weapon instantly dematerialized out of his palm, snapping cleanly into his digital toolbar. Looking closely at the icon, he noticed a small, vibrant green number '4' stamped directly into the corner of the thumbnail.
Curious, he materialized the Tier 4 steel axe back into his hand, swinging it with everything he had against a towering oak tree bordering the road. The impact was deafening, and the tree's health bar took a massive, catastrophic hit:
[-166 HP]
Most importantly, as he scanned the technical description appended to his Stone Axe blueprint, he realized the tool possessed secondary functions. The item menu explicitly stated that the tool could be used to manipulate block shapes, perform structural repairs, and actively upgrade existing frames into higher material tiers!
It wasn't just a basic tool; it was a literal, all-purpose construction artifact.
With this system running in their veins, they would never have to worry about finding keys or picking locks during future looting runs. If a reinforced wooden door or a barricaded wall was blocking their path into a building, they could simply hoist a high-tier axe, smash through the structural blocks in a few swings, and march right inside!
"That... that actually sounds incredible..."
Erina pictured the vision Li Ke was describing. The two of them, working side-by-side, erecting a massive, impregnable fortress where they could live in absolute comfort and peace, completely insulated from whatever terrors lurked outside.
A life like that was infinitely better than the paralyzing dread they had been enduring!
"Then let's finish up at the trader's and get right back to building, Li Ke!"
A brilliant smile lit up Erina's face. Grabbing his arm, she eagerly pulled him into a jog toward the fortified compound, which was now just a short distance down the road.
Li Ke couldn't help but smile along with her.
Based on the daytime combat capabilities and movement scripting of the infected they had fought so far, as long as the two of them didn't pull any reckless stunts after dark, there was practically zero chance of things going sideways. They were safe!
...Unless, of course, this world spawned much more terrifying, specialized variations.
But he had already noticed another blueprint sitting in his crafting index cued under the firearms tab: a primitive weapon labeled [Pipe Machine Gun]. The required material list was laughably simple—just six units of Wood, two bottles of Glue, and four Short Iron Pipes!
Once he manufactured an actual automatic firearm, he and Erina could simply carve a deep bunker into the side of a mountain. At that point, what zombie could possibly threaten them?
How could any mindless corpse ever manage to breach their lines?!
It was impossible!
Completely out of the question!
Non-existent!
What were the zombies going to do, develop long-range artillery mutations and start detonating the terrain with organic TNT?
A triumphant, deeply relieved grin spread across Li Ke's face.
Naturally, his pragmatic survival brain would still maintain a healthy layer of caution. In a world governed by sandbox video game mechanics, absolute certainties didn't exist. But that didn't stop him from indulging in a beautiful, optimistic daydream about their future.
Buoyed by their sudden burst of hope, Li Ke strode back through the gates of the trader compound. Looking at the beautiful merchant woman—whose tattered lab coat was still visibly disheveled from his earlier experimental tugging—he instinctively swallowed a breath. Steeling his focus, he mentally executed the interaction prompt, pulling up her storefront UI to liquidate the nineteen solid gold bars stacked in his grid.
The transaction cleared instantly. With a crisp digital chime, his cash reserves skyrocketed, settling at a staggering 2,400 Dukes!
Without a millisecond of hesitation, Li Ke dumped his newfound wealth directly into her medical tab, purchasing every single jar of honey she had in stock.
Staring at the stack of seven pristine jars of raw honey sitting securely inside his inventory slots, the lingering knot of existential dread in Li Ke's chest finally dissolved entirely. He was cured. They were safe.
Now that his survival clock had officially been reset, he finally had the luxury to browse the rest of her high-tier wares.
But the moment his eyes scanned the astronomical price tags attached to the steel tools, pristine military firearms, and advanced vehicle blueprints, his jaw dropped. The sheer volume of zeros immediately crushed his shopping spree.
With a weary sigh, Li Ke closed the menu, forced to face a harsh, universal reality.
Even in a zombie apocalypse, he was still just a broke office drone.