There isn't even a larger rock near Chris's shelter, let alone an iron ore mine. The only way to obtain resources was through trading.
After observing the exchange records of other survivalists, Chris was convinced that the locations of their initial descents varied. Some descended in the desert like him, only able to obtain a large amount of plant fiber but completely unable to obtain iron ore. While others descended in mines and could collect several units of iron ore just by taking a few steps. However, regardless of the location where they descended, the one thing that everyone had in common was: there was no water source. Whether it was a river or a lake, there was dry land everywhere around.
Thinking of this, Chris opened the system's trading module. The trading module was full of demands:
"Trade item: wood x 10 units."
"Demand item: 300ml of fresh water."
"Introduction: everyone needs a lot of wood to build shelters now, I chopped this wood for a day to get it out, it's totally worth the price, don't come and cut the price."
"Trade item: plant fiber x10 units."
"Required item: any thirst-quenching liquid."
"Introduction: brothers, as long as it's not a liquid with poison, just get me a couple bites, my throat is smoking already."
"Trade item: 500g of raw wolf meat."
"Required item: 1000ml fresh water."
"Introduction: I fought for half my life to get this, absolutely top full."
By observing the information on the trade list, Chris realized that some people had already started hunting and exchanging their prey for resources. If the hunted meat was indeed edible, then there was one more way to obtain food, even if the path was exceptionally dangerous.
After rummaging around for a while, Chris finally found a trade message selling iron ore:
"Trade item: 5 units of iron ore."
"Required item: 50 units of wood."
"Introduction: a minimum of 50 units of wood is required to build a shelter, don't cut the price, don't come to private chat if you don't have it."
Seeing this message, Chris lightly laughed and shook his head. Today was the first day, and wood was a necessity for building shelters, so it was definitely a tight resource. Luckily, he had the shelter gifted by the system and extra wood to make wooden beds and torches.
Chris opened the system warehouse to check and found that building the wooden beds and torches had already consumed quite a bit of wood, and there were only 35 units left in the warehouse. 5 units of wood were needed to make the Simple Water Extraction Device, and there were still 20 units left. But for Chris, who already possessed a stone axe, cutting 20 units of wood was no trouble at all.
Half an hour later, Chris returned to the shelter, opened the trading system, found the trade message and clicked "Trade". The transaction was completed instantly, and a green checkmark was placed after the transaction information. The amount of wood in Chris's warehouse was reduced by 50 units, leaving only 5 units, and 5 units of iron ore appeared in the place of the wood.
Chris rubbed his hands together, opened the manufacturing interface, found the simple water extraction device, and directly clicked "Manufacture". The corresponding materials in the warehouse disappeared, and a simple water extraction device appeared in the warehouse. Chris observed that this simple water extraction device was essentially a small well, including an iron bucket, a wooden windlass and a roll of hemp rope.
Chris chose to place the water extraction device in the corner of the shelter so that he could save space when expanding the shelter and be able to quickly hide the water extraction device if the need arose. After all, in a water-scarce environment, a well that can produce water continuously is certainly a valuable resource.
After placing it successfully, Chris couldn't wait to pull on the iron bucket, although it was placed for a short period of time, there was only about 100ml of fresh water in the bucket, but it was enough to moisten his throat. He took a long breath and felt the sweetness of the water.
After re-placing the iron bucket back into the water well, Chris opened the system again. Right now, the most sought-after resource in the trade list was fresh water. Timber could be cut down, iron ore could be traded, and food could be hunted. As long as one wasn't lazy, there were ways to obtain all the other resources, only fresh water didn't have any shortcuts. There are only two ways to get fresh water: find a river with plenty of water, or dig a deep well. In this dry environment, it was impossible to have water in the shallow ground, and only by digging to a depth of more than ten meters was it possible to obtain well water.
In the current trade list, nine out of ten trades were begging for fresh water. But everyone was begging for it, and the supply was minimal.