Boom!
Boom~
Boom.
Gunshots rang out one after another, each with a slightly different sound.
Lucas Hall was practicing his shooting skills.
The matchlock gun wasn't the most reliable, so he needed to improve his accuracy to compensate for its flaws.
A piece of wood was suspended at the back of the ship, and Lucas stood at the bow, firing.
There was a one-minute interval between each shot, and misfires didn't matter; it was all about practice.
Beside him lay his fishing rod, and from time to time, he glanced at the sea to check if anything had been caught.
By midday, he'd hit only a few times, nowhere near the level of a sharpshooter.
Lucas ate a long-legged sardine.
He had gotten used to it now and found it tasted great—especially those four long legs, crispy and chicken-flavored!
The storm, predicted by the system, was coming in a day's time.
Lucas had stocked up on ten eyeball fruits, a loaf of black bread, 6 liters of fresh water, and a dozen long-legged sardines.
During this time, he had even caught a big fish, half a meter long!
Name: Crimson-lipped Eel
Type: Food
Description: A high-quality fiery crimson-lipped eel, too bad it's on the fish's mouth! Want to kiss it passionately?
Abyssal fish species, edible, non-toxic, with tender lips.
This fish had startled him when it first appeared.
Eating it raw meant gnawing on its fiery red lips, which even Lucas found hard to do… unless he was really hungry.
Looking at the crimson lips, Lucas recalled the nightmare from last night.
That vivid dream was still fresh in his mind. In it, a red-eyed woman had pointed a gun at his head.
Her bright red eyes sent chills down his spine...
[You feel uneasy, sanity -8]
The gun she held was familiar too—it was his matchlock. He had no idea how it ended up in her hands...
Just thinking about it made him uneasy.
Thanks to that nightmare, he hadn't slept well. Now, his eyes were weighed down with dark circles...
At least his corpse poison was gone, and his wounds had almost healed, with health at 76. The only problem was his energy recovery was still too slow.
Even after a full night's sleep, he could only recover around 30 energy, and his daytime activities were heavily restricted.
This couldn't go on.
He needed a way to quickly recover energy to counteract this drawback.
Something like holy water would do the trick, but it was too expensive and not very effective...
As he pondered, Lucas suddenly received an anonymous message.
"Look up to the right, there's an island there!"
"Who are you?"
Lucas replied, but there was no response from the other party.
In this world, to privately chat with someone, you needed at least their ship name. If it wasn't a special ship, you also had to know their player name.
But Lucas had never revealed his information.
How did this person know?
Could it be a cheat?
After thinking for a while, he concluded two possibilities:
The person might have a special skill that allowed them to see his ship name and location, and they weren't far away.
It could be a special mission given by the system.
He circled his ship but saw no suspicious signs of other ships nearby.
To the upper right, there was indeed an island.
It was small, with a bit of greenery, and it seemed likely there were trees there.
Those trees could probably be chopped down for wood.
And the island might have other rewards too.
If he had discovered it on his own, Lucas would have definitely landed.
But now that someone had pointed it out, he was unsure.
After some thought, he decided to sail around the island first and observe.
If there were no signs of other ships or players, he would choose a good spot to land.
The gun in his hand gave him confidence.
At this stage, very few players had guns, at least none Lucas had seen in the chat.
As his ship drew closer, Lucas saw the full picture of the island.
It was a tropical island, about three kilometers in diameter, not large.
The edge had golden sandy beaches, and Lucas could spot some crabs and shells moving around. To him, these were all protein sources!
But the thing that attracted Lucas the most was the island's coconut trees.
The tallest tree even had a bronze chest hanging from it.
There were no signs of players having been to the island.
The coconuts hadn't been touched!
After some hesitation, Lucas decided to land.
He dropped anchor at a suitable spot, then disembarked.
As soon as he stepped onto the land, Lucas felt a sense of disconnection, as if he had traveled into another world.
He had only been at sea for a few days.
On the beach, he gathered some food, such as green crabs, clams, and scallops.
Name: Green Crab
Type: Food
Description: Common crabs, all-natural, and the meat is plump and delicious.
Name: Clam
Type: Ingredient
Description: A common shellfish, edible, can be made into delicious clam soup.
Name: Scallop
Type: Food
Description: If you have garlic and vermicelli, roasting a few of these will make you savor every bite!
...
Lucas gathered a bunch of them and tossed them into the ship's hold, planning to eat them later.
Now for the main event—the lush green coconut trees.
These trees were generally around seven to eight meters tall, with the tallest ones reaching over ten meters, and they were full of heavy coconuts.
This was a vital source of fresh water, and coconuts could be stored for long periods. Their flesh also provided dietary fiber.
The taste was good too.
This was a treasure that he could not afford to miss!
However, climbing trees wasn't his strong suit. If he wasn't careful, he might fall and break his leg—or even his spine.
Without any healing tools, he couldn't take such risks.
Using his gun to shoot the trees down... well, that would be easy, but it would create a lot of noise. If there were monsters on the island, that could be bad.
As Lucas walked around the trees, he noticed some rocks of varying sizes that caught his attention.
Name: Stone
Type: Material
Description: Collect as stone, used for crafting.
If it's a large stone, you'd better prepare a pickaxe.
Lucas picked up a few medium-sized rocks and placed them on the beach.
He then swam back to the Nightmare, adjusted the position, and used the grappling hook to pull them aboard.
After two trips, he had gathered 25 units of stone.
To craft a simple stone axe, he needed 5 units of stone and 5 units of wood.
This was a basic tool-making feature built into the system log, allowing the creation of some basic items, including fishing rods, spears, bows, arrows, and so on.
The quality was definitely poor, though, since it didn't even show attributes and was inferior to standard equipment.
Lucas grabbed the stone axe and headed toward the tallest coconut tree.
It had over ten large coconuts and a bronze chest hanging from it.
This was the first tree he was going to chop down.