Chapter 115: Excavation, Backpack, and Getting Caught

The "Minecraft" skill is, frankly, overpowered. Its versatility is immense, its cost is virtually zero, and as long as Cheng has enough time and materials to level it up, he could probably craft a nuclear bomb with his bare hands.

However, the skill has a fatal flaw. Activating "S/M Mode" means Cheng fully embodies Steve, which means everything he sees turns into blocks. The sun is square, logs are square, dogs are square, and even Kotonoha, Yuno, and Ayase appear as blocks to him. This is truly a mood-killer. Fortunately, the visual effect doesn't persist when he switches back to normal mode; this is why the tunnel he dug while peeping at Saya didn't collapse. The "floating block" module is also quite buggy, as support points are completely unnecessary.

Setting aside that minor quirk, the skill has another devastating drawback that prevents him from fully utilizing its potential in construction or base building: he has no inventory. To be precise, his backpack's quick-access bar is shared with the standard player inventory, leaving him with only ten slots, just like any other lower-tier player.

With 73 cookies (a Minecraft product), 69 bottles of water (a Minecraft product), two rare items, and charms given to him by Yuno, Kotonoha, and Ayase (which supposedly contain hair and have special attributes), he only had three slots left. A stone pickaxe cannot be stacked and takes up one slot (even though it's held in hand while in use, it still defaults to occupying an inventory slot). Stone blocks stack up to 99 and take up one slot. Because the pickaxe has durability, he also carried 85 wooden sticks for repairs. Since he doesn't need a crafting table, he cannot build regular chests, meaning the massive piles of stone he gathered could only be discarded—he simply couldn't carry or store them.

Watching his materials vanish, Cheng’s face darkened. He pulled a lighter from his pocket, its flame flickering. One might ask, why didn't Cheng go out and buy something like the Frostweave bags currently gathering dust in Hao Ren’s space?

Upgrading one's backpack is not uncommon in the Mainframe space. There are various storage-expanding items: tailor-made bags from World of Warcraft, the "Pseudo-Horadric Cube" from the Diablo world, the "Temporary Carry Bag" from Monster Hunter, the Level 45 quest reward "Dazanig's Magic Bag" from Log Horizon, or "Mom's Bag" from The Binding of Isaac. These provide massive storage space while occupying only one or a few inventory slots. Of course, low-level bags can only store game items, functioning much like the standard inventory.

The prices aren't as exorbitant as one might think. Common linen bags (six slots) or small silk pouches (ten slots) sell for about 5 to 20 LP. Even Hao Ren’s Frostweave bag (20 slots, capable of holding various miscellaneous items) can be snagged for just a few hundred points. Furthermore, many players have returned after learning tailoring in World of Warcraft (though they rarely level it past 125), making backpacks a common, civilian-grade piece of equipment.

However, ever since Cheng acquired the "Minecraft" skill, these backpack items seem to actively avoid him. Whenever he enters a shop, any backpack—regardless of price—mysteriously goes out of stock or is pulled from the shelves. They never drop from quests either, as if cursed. Thus, reaching the rank of intermediate player and gaining a tenfold increase in inventory space is Cheng’s only way out.

Digging and digging, Cheng labored ten meters underground from morning until dusk. He went through countless pickaxes and discarded heaps of stone, yet the flame on his lighter burned steadily. This item was a specialty from the Silent Hill world: "Rose's Nuclear Lighter."

Item: "Rose's Nuclear Lighter." It never goes out in Mother Rose's hands. Rumor has it that it is a miraculous lighter powered by nuclear energy, but everyone who attempted to dismantle it for research was taken away by Alessa, so the exact nature of its fuel remains unknown. The lighter has two attributes: "Darkness Repelled," where the flame illuminates everything within a 5-meter radius, revealing invisible units and weakening dark-aligned entities; and "Absolute Combustion," where the flame is conceptual rather than physical, meaning it cannot ignite anything, nor is it constrained by fuel or oxygen—as long as one believes in it, it provides light.

This item was obtained when Kotonoha sawed off a certain player's head. Since it didn't take up space, he just shoved it in his pocket. Although no monsters spawned in the tunnel he was digging, the pitch-black darkness was still unsettling.

Wiping sweat from his face and glancing at the dark tunnel behind him, Cheng panted, drenched in perspiration. "Monster dens five times the size of pangolins, underground cliffs, sulfur hot springs—the underground really has everything. But this should be far enough, right?" Muttering to himself, he prepared to dig upward. After all, he still had three points he needed to collect.

The target card in his upper pocket read "213."

Digging a vertical shaft was easy. Cheng used stone blocks as stepping stones as he tunneled upward. Just as he broke through the 42nd stone block, a black shadow slammed directly into his head.

"Wha—!" Before Cheng could finish his exclamation, a sharp pain struck his neck, and he lost control of his body.

"Oh? Is this your Nen ability? But why don't I sense any Nen on you?" A slightly high-pitched, youthful voice rang in Cheng’s ears.

Cheng’s dantian and all his joints felt a sudden, piercing pain, but he still couldn't make a sound.

"Well, even though it's best to save your energy when not on a mission, this ability of yours is quite interesting."

Under the flickering light, the owner of the youthful voice, who was pressed tightly against Cheng’s back, held a signature round-headed nail before Cheng’s eyes and drove it in ruthlessly.

"Hm? Weren't you going to hibernate? Why are you out? And... where did you get a person in your hands?" Hisoka, sitting on a stone pedestal, looked bewildered. Illumi, who had just dug into the soil to hibernate less than three minutes ago, had crawled back out while carrying a young man covered in round-headed nails. What was going on?

It was dusk, and this was the exact spot where Illumi and Hisoka had met on the island.

As it happened, Illumi had just finished off a man who claimed to be a Bi-Anu warrior, bantered with Hisoka, and dug a hole to sleep until the final day of the competition, only for Cheng to foolishly dig through the soil beneath Illumi’s feet.

"This guy's ability might be interesting. I'm going to interrogate him. See you." Without further explanation, the long-haired, cat-eyed Illumi—who had a slight air of a cross-dresser—vanished into the depths of the jungle with Cheng, perhaps not wanting to share the spoils with Hisoka.

"How cold." Hisoka muttered in a spoiled tone. Seeing his friend had found something to do, he wondered if he should find something to occupy himself as well.

Although he didn't want to touch the unripe apple just yet, the more mature one...

Hisoka lightly tugged at his bracelet. The black fabric with blood-red patterns was clearly a medium crafted by Hao Ren. And looking at the quantity, there were already over a dozen of them.

In the end, Hao Ren hadn't dared to stop Hisoka from violating his Mobius Ring.