Farming Games are All About Grinding

This week's inventory list was relatively simple, but it included something Han Qiwu really needed.

Pet bracelets.

With these, he could directly teleport home with Xiao Dian and Xiao Lai using the Teleportation Scroll in the future.

Although they were a bit pricey, they were still acceptable.

As for the purple sand clay and the durable long rope, Han Qiwu hadn't thought of any use for them yet, but since they weren't expensive anyway, he decided to just buy them and store them away.

"Everything except the one at the bottom," Han Qiwu said, handing the inventory list back.

The one at the bottom just looked like trouble.

How much would he have to save to afford that?

The little merchant smiled and handed the three items to Han Qiwu. "Thank you for your patronage. The total is 26,000 gold, but with the 20% discount, it's 20,800 gold."

"20%? That's the best discount I get?" Han Qiwu pursed his lips. "Those two strawberries just now were 10,000 each. I'll give you another 800 gold and call it a day."

The little merchant stared at Han Qiwu in shock, his face screaming: Are you crazy?

"These strawberries are delicious, but they're worth, at most, 500 gold."

"Deal."

Han Qiwu immediately agreed with a big grin and paid the remaining 19,800 gold.

He made a tiny profit—after all, the selling price of the strawberries was only 260 gold each.

The little merchant reluctantly accepted the money and looked up at Han Qiwu. "Destiny's Gift is a great item. I hope you can save enough money to buy it this season."

"I hope so too," Han Qiwu replied helplessly. "Why don't you give me some tips?"

"Expand the scale of your processing equipment. Processed goods are worth far more than raw materials," the little merchant said before happily riding off on his pink pig.

Watching the little merchant's retreating figure, Han Qiwu fell into contemplation.

He was right.

Faced with the money-guzzling genetic editor, he really needed to expand the scale of his processing equipment at home.

Not to mention, once the four or five hundred strawberries he had accumulated at home were fully processed, they would directly bring in hundreds of thousands in revenue.

"The materials needed to make canning jars are pretty basic. After the Tomb-Sweeping Festival, I'll focus on increasing the quantity of jars," Han Qiwu silently noted to himself before riding his little horse back home.

As they walked, the little horse, who had been exchanging notes with the pig earlier, suddenly bounced on the spot, nearly throwing Han Qiwu off.

Han Qiwu steadied himself and looked down at the horse's innocent, watery eyes. "What's up?"

"Neeeighhh!"

The little horse proudly raised its front hooves, as if to say: Surprise!

Han Qiwu: "..."

"Stop learning from that pig. It's so fat, even if it shakes, the merchant won't fall off," Han Qiwu patiently explained.

"Neeeighhh…" The little horse reluctantly lowered its hooves and galloped home with Han Qiwu on its back.

Fine, no bouncing. Hmph!

After returning home, Han Qiwu left the little horse to find a spot in the yard to munch on fresh dragon grass, then grabbed Xiao Dian and Xiao Lai to test the pet bracelet's effects.

Just like the mount bracelet, storing and releasing pets was smoother than silk chocolate.

Super convenient.

Looking up at the puffy clouds in the sky, Han Qiwu decided it was time to test out the cork float's effectiveness.

Let's see if he could catch a few dinosaur fish.

Even Big Deng's Fish was worth 8,500 gold, so dinosaur fish might be over 10,000, right?

If he could catch a hundred of them, he'd have enough to buy Destiny's Gift.

Of course, Han Qiwu was just daydreaming.

Who knows if the secret realm could even support a hundred dinosaur fish?

Upon arriving at the entrance to the secret realm, Han Qiwu pushed the door open and walked inside.

[Time remaining today: 1.5 hours]

Since he hadn't used up the bait he bought last time, he went straight to the big reef, swapped out the float for the cork one, baited his hook with the dinosaur fish bait, and cast it into the water.

After waiting quietly for over ten seconds, a dinosaur fish, as massive as a submarine, swam into Han Qiwu's view.

The oppressive shadow of its fins was intimidating.

It seemed to have just finished feeding; its mouth was still chewing as it approached the bait. Then, with one big suck, it swallowed the bait.

Fishing game triggered.

Upon entering the game, Han Qiwu noticed that thanks to the cork float, the length of the float was now one centimeter longer than the dinosaur fish.

This increased his chances of catching it significantly.

The dinosaur fish in the game began moving slowly away from the float.

Han Qiwu didn't give it a chance, maneuvering the float quickly toward it.

Just as the float was about to touch the dinosaur fish, the creature turned its head and forcefully rammed into the float, knocking it back.

"Wait, isn't its skill supposed to be Bloodline Call? How can it knock my float back?" Han Qiwu muttered as he continued maneuvering the float and recalling information about dinosaur fish.

Hold on.

He remembered something about the dinosaur fish's movement pattern being a straight charge.

No way.

Could it be that the dinosaur fish's movement pattern inherently included a ramming effect? That would make it a dual-skill creature.

Cheater!

Shameless!

In a fit of fury, Han Qiwu unleashed three skills in quick succession.

[Golden Edge]

[Golden Sun]

[Intermediate Thunder Technique]

With the three skills in play, the dinosaur fish finally calmed down, and Han Qiwu took the opportunity to cover it with the float.

The progress bar started to inch upward.

By the time the skill effects wore off, the progress bar was already halfway there.

Victory was in sight!

The awakened dinosaur fish looked furious and repeatedly rammed its head into the edge of the float.

Han Qiwu noticed a pattern—the ramming special effect seemed to only activate when the float blocked its movement path.

As long as he avoided the fish's path with the float's edge, he could prevent it from being knocked back.

Ha!

That's all it had?

At four-fifths progress, the dinosaur fish became extremely agitated. Its ribbon-like fins stood upright and trembled wildly.

After a few seconds, the dinosaur fish let out a roar like an ancient beast.

"Roar!"

A shadowy projection of a dinosaur's head appeared in front of Han Qiwu and bellowed, startling him so much he almost jumped.

"Bloodline Call? Does this mean the dinosaur fish actually has dinosaur blood?" Recovering quickly, Han Qiwu continued stabilizing the progress bar.

The roar had knocked the progress back to halfway.

As he refocused on the fishing game, Han Qiwu realized something was amiss.

What was going on?

He was clearly fishing for dinosaur fish—why did it have legs now?

Inside the game, the dinosaur fish now resembled a giant salamander, with four chubby, fleshy legs sprouting from its body.

With its newfound legs, the dinosaur fish's once-clumsy movements became much faster, darting up and down erratically.

[Intermediate Thunder Technique]

Seeing the progress bar on the verge of resetting, Han Qiwu quickly cast Thunder Technique to stabilize the situation. Taking a deep breath, he focused all his attention on chasing the erratic, four-legged dinosaur fish with his float.