Soon, Neil fell into a rhythm. 

He collected logs left and right, filling his inventory one after another. 

That is until he saw a wooden barrel among the logs. 

He immediately directed weathervane towards the barrel. 

[ +20 experience ] 

Oh.. that’s far more than he expected. 

Oh, how he wished all these logs were barrels instead..!

However, that is impossible. 

They are but logs. 

He kept up his collection. 

[ level up ] 

[ you are now level 9. ] 

He continued ignoring the subsequent messages about this and that activating. 

Then, he got a message that truly made him lose his hope. 

[Inventory full. ] 

Fuck!

He could not collect any more. 

It’s almost evening, he also needs to move away from this place. 

He is already feeling thirst like a lost traveller in the desert. 

He would be severely dehydrated if he doesn’t drink soon. 

Neil sat down, looking at the horizon hopelessly. 

He could not remove items from inventory before he reached level 10. 

He could not add more items to inventory in order to reach level 10. 

For a moment, it felt like the world collapsed around him… then he remembered. 

As long as he doesn’t retrieve and uses up items, they do vanish from the inventory. 

With a new found determination, he opened the game interface. 

He could expand the raft. 

[ expanding the raft uses more stamina when using skill. ] 

[ Continue expansion ? ] (yes) ( no) 

He just drove his raft away from this place where the logs are too much. 

It is only now he is tired that he felt the drag of the skill on him. 

His stamina must have been truly high for him to last this long. 

However, he could not keep using auto row to stop moving against the current. 

He needs to build an anchor first. 

[ Building anchor ] 

[ Items needed : 1 long rope, 1 wooden barrel, a pile of rocks. ] 

[ The necessary item ‘pile of rocks’ is not found.] 

[ necessary item ‘wooden barrel’ is not found ] 

Fine. 

He will find some other way. 

He already expanded the raft by using sixty logs.

He now has enough room to stretch himself all the way, and a fence is built around in the middle, so he could even rest in the middle of the raft. 

Neil looked at the rest of the items. 

Research! 

It uses a lot of items. 

Sure enough, it did. 

It used twenty five logs each to research raft shape, raft stability, raft’s hardiness, and raft's maneuverability together. 

[ upgrade raft ? ] (Yes) (no) 

Neil chose yes. 

He is parched, he has been pulling on barrels, and manually stocked them on the raft on all sides. 

While the items were being researched, he was not idle. 

He built a rudder, paddles and then jumped into water to retrieve those rocks. 

The rocks stayed in the middle, waiting for the research to be over, 

He simply twisted seaweed net around logs, and tied a long train to himself. 

There are more than enough to get him to level ten, but he is getting more and more tired. 

The items from space are used up immediately. 

While the building process takes time, the inventory is emptied. 

There are two empty spaces, hundred logs which have been used to research, and the hundred which have been used to upgrade the raft now. 

He collected all the logs he tied up, filling up the space. 

The seaweed is just piled up on the boat. 

Surprisingly, building took a long time, but expanding the raft took very little time. 

Soon, the building is over. 

It is then that Neil has an idea. 

They never said he could not build more than one raft. 

He could totally create one more raft from scratch. 

He had enough material for doing such a thing. 

Neil made two rafts immediately. 

What do you know? It’s possible, and there are two rafts connected to his own like curved arrows linked with a thread. 

Right now, he tied the rafts together with rope, but he planned to connect them together with rope later. 

By now, he filled all his inventory. He built everything he could on all the rafts. That’s four hundred logs used. 

He started his collection immediately. Hiis inventory is full, and he needs to collect fifteen more logs to reach the final goal of reaching level ten. 

F**k!

Are you really going to screw me like this system? he screamed at the sky. 

There’s no response. 

However, Neil has a strange feeling that the person responsible for throwing him here would say something as heartless as ‘I am not responsible for your own stupidity’. 

Once again, he sat down on his raft with a listless gaze. 

The sky is full of stars. 

The ocean is full of colors. 

…

..

.

Full of colors? Ocean? Why? 

Ah! It must be because I have hallucinated because of dehydration!

The next one must be life flashing by … 

He idly mused, looking at the colorful lights. 

Even so, he moved his raft to the colorful lights. 

There’s a colorful orb stuck in the sea. 

Neil is too tired to go in there and swim. 

However, there’s no water to be found anywhere, it could very well be the one item that could be collected that brings him over that blasted fifteen points? 

Neil braced himself, took a deep breath, and jumped into water. 

He brought the colorful globe out. 

It’s shining in a gold color. It looked like gold coins, diamonds and gems rolling around in a snow globe. 

A very convincing voice started speaking all of a sudden. 

[My dear seafarer! Welcome to the trail of the treasure hunter system. ] 

[ What do you think treasure is? Isn’t it nothing but gold, diamonds and rare gems? Come, say yes, we shall find all the treasures within the seven seas together.] 

[ Come, just say Yes. ] 

The voice spoke very sweetly, and convincingly. 

It sounded exactly like the gold buying guy on TV, who promised exact gold price for your gold. 

However, Neil disagreed. 

Here, almost at the end of his life, he is not in the mood to give in to coercive marketing. 

“No, I don’t think so. Treasure is any item that betters your life when used correctly. Gold and gems are useless if you can’t sell it for something more in line with your taste. “ 

[ treasure hunter system -1 , Neil patrick harrison + 1 ] 

[ +1 experience ]

The fight continued. 

The voice prompt repeated, this time a different question. 

[ Is there a man who doesn’t like gold? Isn’t better to have more gold than random trash ] 

“No. For a man dying of thirst, water is the greatest treasure. Haven’t you heard? One man’s trash is another man’s treasure?” 

[ treasure hunter system -1 , Neil patrick harrison + 1 ] 

[ +1 experience ]

The fight continued that way, the treasure hunter system trying to make him agree gold and gems are the best treasure, while Neil kept refuting the system. 

Soon, the fifteen points piled up.

[ Level up. ] 

[ You have now reached level 10. ] 

[ You have unlocked Item inventory. ]  

He did not even wait for the system. 

The only reason he kept talking with such eloquence is because he was getting experience points for winning. If not for those, he wouldn’t even have opened his mouth. 

He retrieved the water bottle, and drank water like he would never get to drink another sip of water. 

Once he finished his water, he continued fighting with the treasure hunter system. 

Before he knew it, he amassed a hundred points. 

[ Congratulations!!! You have enslaved the renegade system Treasure hunter.] 

[ all auxiliary functions of treasure hunter system are unlocked. ] 

[ Treasure hunter system is hundred percent compatible with user’s skill ‘Auto row’ ] 

[ Initiating integration ] 

[ integration takes twenty four hours.] 

[ During this time, you will not be able to use the functions of the treasure hunter system.]

Neil dismissed the messages. 

First thing he had to do was make that anchor. 

He retrieved one of the wooden barrels. 

[ open wooden barrel ? ] (Yes)(no) 

He chose yes. 

[ You have acquired a long rope, glue packet and a banana leaf. ] 

Neil was surprised to discover the wooden barrel stayed even after he retrieved all the items from it. 

He built the anchor first. 

Then, he opened another barrel, building three anchors for his three rafts. 

Even if there are far too many items to be picked up nearby, he is too tired today to continue. 

Thus, he just ate his food, and settled on his paddle board to analyze the information he had in his hands. 

His gaming interface has more options now. 

Buildings , research, workstation, skills and chat. 

Neil stared at the chat. 

What the fuck? 

He could contact other people? He opened the chat eagerly. He always considered himself to be a lone wolf. 

However, this experience clearly taught him he is a lone city wolf. 

He would be rather alone in a crowd than be by his lonely self in the wilderness. 

Plus.. won’t he need people to inhabit his fledgling kingdom? As his thoughts fled in a thousand different directions, a chat page opened. 

There’s only one message on it. 

[ You are out of coverage area ]