Matrix Survival: One random treasure chest per day

Chapter 233 An Ordinary Sewing Table
After leaving the instance and returning to the room in channel 995, Li Zheng left Sakura and Pink Polly to play in the open space and released his capsule residence.

Once inside, he didn't rush to make a sewing table, but instead went to the place where materials were piled up to pick and choose.

"Power Gears are items without rank, but only a dozen or so are obtained by dismantling a BOSS with the lowest Platinum rank, which shows that they are not low in value. If we give them materials as compensation, it seems that items below the Gold rank are not worth enough."

"But I don't have many items of gold grade or higher... How about we exchange them for something else?"

Shifting his gaze from the pile of materials, Li Zheng looked at the potion-making station and the stove: "It seems that right now, only potions and cooking are things I can really show off?"

On second thought, instead of giving them materials or props, it would be better to give them something that could immediately boost their strength.

Medicine and cooking are indeed more suitable options.

"Hmm... I remember that almost none of their four attributes were at the Black Iron 3+ limit. How about we boost their attributes to the 3+ limit and then give each of them four Bronze-level dishes?"

After careful consideration, Li Zheng decided on a plan where all four people would have the maximum number of Black Iron 4+ potions, but the number of dishes would be reduced to four Black Iron level dishes per person.

After making the decision, Li Zheng took out the snake grass needles that he hadn't used in a long time and went on a shopping spree in the trading hall. He bought any black iron-grade blood with a relatively unclear price.

It took Li Zheng half an hour to prepare everything and send it to Wang Chaoran and the others one by one.

To save time, the dishes chosen were the fastest-cooking types, such as salads, cold dishes, and stir-fries, which allowed them to be sent out along with the medicine.

After finishing everything, the original quantity of snake grass needles, which was over 6,000, was reduced by 1%, making the price relatively outrageous.

When Li Zheng was still at the Iron level, there weren't that many Iron Blood in the trading hall. Back then, every player was like a hamster, hoarding everything regardless of whether it was useful or not.

After these days of exploration, there is an increasing amount of Iron-grade blood on the market. At the same time, most players have also discovered that these blood-type materials, except for a very special part, are almost useless. Therefore, more and more people are willing to put them up for trade.

Although there are more products available, the prices are rather outrageous, and few players are willing to make purchases on their own.

I reckon the price will drop a few more cents in a few days, and then the blood material market will stabilize.

One day, even the black iron grade stuff might become trash that someone casually throws away.

"The potion can quickly boost their strength. Although the food is a bit lacking, the most important thing for them is to improve their meals. They must be tired of eating roast meat every day."

Li Zheng was only willing to offer his cooking as a thank you because Wang Chaoran and the others had voluntarily given him some of their ingredients.

Otherwise, he would at least wait until someone complains about it on the world channel before bringing it up.

At that time, the value of the food will soar to its peak!
Even for a piece of Black Iron grade, those people are willing to pay an extremely high price to exchange for it!
After settling the payment for Wang Chaoran and the others, Li Zheng retrieved the blueprints for the sewing machine and confirmed its production.

The USB drive disappeared in a faint light. Thirty seconds later, the system indicated that the process was complete and instructed the user to find a place to store it.

“Since it’s a sewing table, it should be placed by the bed!” Li Zheng remembered that his grandmother’s old-fashioned sewing machine was placed by the window next to the bed in the bedroom, and he could occasionally see her sitting in front of the sewing machine mending his clothes.

Grandma was an excellent sewer; she could repair any hole in a garment using various methods.

Sometimes I wake up to find a little bear pattern on my shirt, which I took from clothes that I could no longer wear when I was a child.

Although his classmates would laugh at him for being "childish" and "immature" for wearing those clothes, no one ever mocked Li Zheng for wearing patched clothes.

In Li Zheng's memory, his grandmother's greatest skill was needlework. It is said that when she was young, his grandmother earned a lot of money for his father's snacks with this skill.

Unfortunately, Grandma has never touched that sewing machine since her eyesight deteriorated.

Li Zheng hadn't worn clothes mended by his grandmother for a long time.

He never got to wear it again until she passed away.

The sewing table was placed in front of the bed, but its appearance was completely different from what Li Zheng had imagined.

The metal tabletop is over two meters long and wide, with a moderate and adjustable height.

The table surface is engraved with many markings and has a detachable ruler. In addition, it comes with various sizes of scissors, which are hung on the side of the table.

The most important sewing machine is actually hidden under the tabletop and can only be raised by pressing a switch next to it.

Li Zheng tried operating it and found that the sewing table was actually completely manual!

"It doesn't even have an automatic production function?" Li Zheng was completely baffled. This design didn't seem as convenient as hand-making, did it?
What is the meaning of its existence?
Old Pu seemed to know his question and offered a hint to answer it:

With the development of technology, there are more and more automated production machines and more and more daily necessities. People have begun to appreciate the pure handmade products that were once discarded as worn-out shoes.

Although this sewing table requires manual operation, its benefits are beyond what a layman like you can understand.

I suggest handing it over to the right person; that young girl would be a good choice. She can answer many of your questions.

"Little girl?" Li Zheng was slightly taken aback after reading the prompt. Old Pu must be talking about Li Chun, right?

Why don't you encourage me to learn how to use the blueprints I got from the treasure chest? Instead, you tell me to give them to outsiders.

Wouldn't this be considered a classic case of siding with outsiders?
That being said, if you have the time to study, you might as well practice swordsmanship and master a skill as soon as possible.

"Fine……"

After thinking for a moment, Li Zheng turned off the private chat restrictions and sent a message to Li Chun, explaining that he wanted to rent the sewing table to her long-term on a no-value basis.

Although this sewing table was made from gold-level blueprints, it is essentially an upgradeable device. As long as the corresponding materials are found to replace the needles, threads, and other parts on the sewing machine, it can be used to make more advanced equipment in the future.

Therefore, giving it directly to the other party is definitely not realistic. At most, like with the platinum-level nanorobots, a long-term lease agreement could be set up, allowing the other party to use it for free.

Li Chun only needs to cover the energy consumption during the usage period. Incidentally, if Li Zheng has materials in the future, he can ask the other party to process them without any guilt.

The little girl readily accepted this.

The only difficulty is that... Li Chun's residence is still the same size as before, and there is not enough space to place this device.

Therefore, Li Zheng needs to set up a model where the item is immediately put back on the rental shelf after being returned by the other party.

Everything was done, and the sewing table I had just received and hadn't even had a chance to warm up disappeared from my sight.

Afterwards, Li Zheng and the other girls became familiar with the equipment before asking the other party about the differences between this sewing table and the hand-sewing equipment.

Li Chun answered all the questions patiently.

Overall, while this device sacrifices the convenience of hand-crafted equipment, its overall value is greater than that of hand-crafted equipment.

This is mainly reflected in the fact that Li Chun can use the sewing table to freely combine and use materials, choosing different furs or fabrics as needed to make different equipment.

This is actually quite unreasonable in terms of handcrafting, because handcrafted equipment only accepts a single material.

For example, Li Zheng's Eye Demon Boots only used Eye Demon Leather as a material, which ultimately resulted in limited properties.

However, with equipment made at the sewing table, as long as Li Chun selects the right proportions of materials, she can even add multiple properties to a single piece of equipment.

Taking finished equipment as an example, Death Sentence is a good example.

"That's not all. I just tried it on a finished garment and discovered that this sewing table has an even more amazing function." Li Chun brought Li Zheng another piece of good news at the end.

"That means the sewing table can also disassemble equipment! With the Eye of Prey provided by Brother Li Zheng, I even have a certain probability of obtaining the key parts that give equipment its special properties through disassembly!"

Li Zheng didn't quite understand: "What do you mean?"

Li Chun replied, "How about this, I'll demonstrate for you, and you send me those boots."

Li Zheng did as instructed, taking off the Eye Demon Boots and sending them over.

Ten minutes later, Li Chun finally sent the data back.

Li Zheng took out the combat boots and found that the returned boots seemed a little different; there was something like a patch on the surface.

"This is... the pelt of a Gold-level creature, the 'Gale Leopard Cat'?" Li Zheng learned about the patch's true form through the Eye of Preys's hint.

Looking at the patched boots, Li Zheng felt a moment of disorientation.

These dark-colored Eye Demon boots each had a piece of pure black fur sewn onto one side. The two pieces of fur appeared to be fragments, with irregular shapes.

But Li Chun's craftsmanship was truly superb; she managed to sew two irregular pieces of fur together so seamlessly that they looked perfectly natural.

Li Zheng even felt there was a strange "asymmetrical beauty" to it, as if the two pieces of fur should be sewn together like this, not even slightly crooked.

The last person who made him feel this way about mending was his grandmother!
At that moment, Li Zheng felt a touch of emotion and inexplicably wanted to cry.

Li Chun sent a message: "Brother Li Zheng, take a look at the results and see if you're satisfied."

"Satisfied!" Li Zheng glanced at the attributes of the Eye Demon Boots after they were repaired and added, "Extremely satisfied!"

These boots have changed not only in appearance, but also in their attributes.

In addition to the existing "short-distance leap" feature, a new feature called "rapid pace" has been added.

It can increase the speed of walking on flat ground, making it a very useful skill whether for traveling or for dodging in battle.

Li Zheng put on his boots and asked, "You didn't dismantle a pair of gold-grade shoes to get these fragments, did you?"

Sitting on Xiao Zhu's back, Li Chun was heading to the next room. Barefoot, she replied to Li Zheng, "Oh, these are just a pair of practice shoes. I'm glad you're satisfied, Brother Li Zheng."

Li Zheng subconsciously felt something was wrong. When did Li Chun become so extravagant? Even his practice equipment was at least gold-level?
However, he assumed that Li Chun had probably disassembled a pair of boots that were ready to be sold, so he didn't think much of it and replied directly, "Xiao Chun's craftsmanship is almost as good as my grandma's. I'm very satisfied."

For Li Zheng, this was nothing short of the highest praise.

After all, he used to watch many shows by so-called world-class fashion designers online, and he felt that the clothes designed by them were far inferior to the clothes his grandmother had sewn.

"I'm glad Brother Li Zheng is satisfied. I need to continue exploring, so I won't chat with you any longer!"

Li Chun closed the private chat interface, pounced on the little spider's back, hugged its ferocious and terrifying head, and happily exclaimed, "Little Spider, I helped Brother Li Zheng again, I'm so happy!"

"Hi~"

The little spider, its neck constricted, could only let out a perfunctory hiss.

"But we used some high-grade materials to upgrade the sewing table earlier, so let's find a way to earn it back today!" Li Chun sat up straight, pointing ahead with high spirits.

The little spider that was originally colorful had changed at some point; it was now entirely emerald green, like a walking piece of jade.

Pet: Jade Spider
Rank: Platinum Elite
Player: 0000879 Li Chun

Not only Li Zheng has been making progress, but the others are also gradually becoming stronger.

(End of this chapter)