Chapter 30: Intuition for Finding Water

Chapter 30: The Intuition for Finding Water (Please Bookmark)

"The bones of this little rat are actually quite suitable for making bone needles—thin and fairly hard."

Xu Yi felt that this find was far more tangible than the water-finding intuition the system had just prompted.

He carefully picked out two leg bones, intending to polish them later.

He planned to sharpen their ends and carve a small groove at the tail end to tie thin cords securely.

Piercing a hole?

That was unrealistic—he didn’t have the tools for that.

"Wait, I have a SIM card ejector pin."

Xu Yi took out his phone, removed the protective case, and retrieved the tiny pin used for changing SIM cards.

"Using this, I should be able to punch holes in the bone, right?"

He said happily, grateful that he had kept it on the back of his phone.

"Could this silicone case be of any use?"

Looking at the silicone phone case, Xu Yi pondered.

He decided to make use of everything he had—wasting no resources at his disposal.

"Softened and reshaped into a water cup?"

"No, that won’t work; the silicone is still too thin and might leak."

"Forget it, I’ll just put the case back on for now and figure it out later."

He returned the phone case and the SIM pin to their places.

His bone needles weren’t yet sharp and thin enough to drill holes, so attempting now would be pointless.

Holding the slender bones, Xu Yi began polishing them with his stone knife.

Unable to sleep through the night, he needed something to occupy his time.

Otherwise, he felt he couldn’t endure until dawn and might just fall asleep.

This place was too risky for both of them to sleep at the same time; one needed to keep watch.

He had to be careful while polishing, lest he cut himself.

An injury could lead to infection.

In the wilderness, avoiding wounds was paramount.

The best way to protect his hands was to wear gloves.

Thus, Xu Yi planned to make a pair of gloves for himself and Su Keke from snake skin once the bone needles were ready.

But halfway through polishing, the bone needle in his hand broke.

Because the bone was hollow, sharpening it made it fragile and prone to snapping.

"It seems I’ll have to use snake bones or fish bones after all."

The prehistoric giant snake’s bones were too large and unsuitable—they required too much time to polish.

Earlier, he had caught two big snakes that were too small; their bones were short and not practical.

At least, he needed to find a snake or fish of the right thickness to make bone needles from their bones.

Of course, he could also try making pottery needles.

Glancing at the time, Xu Yi noticed it was just past three a.m.

Though no wild beasts had approached, he couldn’t be careless and go to sleep.

He added more firewood to the fire, then went back to the place where he smoked the snake skin, adding more wood, leaves, and damp grass.

After returning, he closed his eyes to rest briefly, just enough to let his body recover slightly.

Finally, dawn arrived.

Not long after daylight, Su Keke woke up.

"Ladies and gentlemen, today marks the fifth day. I didn’t expect us to make it through five days so smoothly."

"Although we haven’t found a water source yet, thanks to the water vines, we can at least meet our basic daily hydration needs."

"Today, we hope to find water and a suitable spot to build shelter."

As of this morning, 5,098 challengers remained.

However, as time goes on, more and more people will be eliminated.

Xu Yi didn’t know how others were faring, but he was fairly satisfied with his own condition.

It had been five days since entering this parallel world, and neither he nor Su Keke had gone hungry or lost weight.

He believed not many challengers could manage that.

After rinsing their mouths with the last of the tree vine water and drinking some, they started eating rabbit meat.

Because the rabbit was quite large, a big chunk, weighing about a pound, remained after breakfast.

"This should be our lunch," Xu Yi said, handing it to Su Keke to put in the basket.

Then he went to pack up the snake skin.

"It’s soft, yes, but it could be softer."

"Given our current conditions, this is the best we can do. Tonight, I’ll smoke it again and see if it can become more supple."

The snake skin was fine for making tents, bags, and backpacks.

But for gloves, it wasn’t soft enough.

The 15-meter-long snake skin was somewhat heavy.

However, with Xu Yi’s improved strength and better stamina, carrying over ten kilograms on his back was hardly noticeable.

After extinguishing the fire, Xu Yi and Su Keke set off again.

"I think my chances of finding water are better in this direction."

Originally, Xu Yi had planned to go the route he had initially intended, but a sudden inspiration struck him, and he chose a different path.

Was this sudden insight the system’s rewarded water-finding intuition?

Not based on experience but purely intuition?

That was almost mystical.

After some thought, Xu Yi decided to trust the system.

He had never felt anything like this before.

Su Keke had no objections; her only thought was to follow Xu Yi wherever he went.

The audience could not influence Xu Yi’s decisions.

So, he led Su Keke toward the direction his intuition indicated.

Along the way, both kept an eye on everything around them.

Xu Yi noticed some large clumps of dry feces but, lacking experience, could not tell which animal had left them.

Still, the presence of large animal tracks increased the likelihood of nearby water.

Wild beasts needed water too.

They trekked through the jungle, earnestly searching for water.

But by noon, they had found no signs of water.

"Keke, let’s rest here. There are many stones; we can look for some suitable to make tools."

Xu Yi’s tools were still too few; it was best to make more.

With better tools, survival would be easier.

Stone axes were good for chopping trees, but for clearing small shrubs, a stone knife was more effective.

Xu Yi wanted to find long, flat stone shards suitable for sharpening stone knives.

Of course, finding stones of the right shape and hardness was extremely difficult.

Unless one was very lucky.

Thanks to the readers Qian Gu L Ya Yi and others for their support.

(End of chapter)