Chapter 52: The Effect of Talent

All morning, Su Ning’s face remained sullen. By noon, she and her two companions had fought their way to another small path for a morning break.

Ding’s mother could only watch from a distance. After hesitating for a long while, she didn’t cross the snake field, much to Qiao Duoduo and Huo Yang’s relief. It wasn’t that Ding’s mother didn’t want to try, but the mother and child, who had always stayed in the newbie village, were only level 7, while the Red-Spotted Snakes were at least level 11.

Moreover, Ding’s mother had to pay rent and eat at restaurants, leaving her nearly penniless and unable to buy snake-catching tools. With their fighting efficiency dropping, in just two days, mother and son would have no choice but to go catch spider rats, and would no longer pester Su Ning daily.

Qiao Duoduo, seeing her friend’s gloomy expression, asked with concern, “What’s wrong?”

“The buyer from the shop said there’s a problem with my raincoat. His girlfriend got sick with a severe cold. The temperature was the same as ours. I’m confused—did his girlfriend run outside naked? Why would she get sick and come looking for trouble?”

Su Ning said this with frustration. Speaking out made her feel slightly better, but she still refused to deal with him.

Huo Yang, always straightforward, said, “At worst, just pay some compensation.”

“I said he didn’t dare accept it,” Su Ning replied.

“Of course he didn’t. If you compensated or refunded him, would you still take his orders in the future?” Qiao Duoduo asked mischievously.

“Definitely not. He’d be blacklisted,” Su Ning said. In this world, the saying “the customer is king” applied only to buyers; sellers of equipment were the real power. Losing one customer didn’t matter to Su Ning, but losing her as a source of gear would significantly impact Luo Nanchuan’s strength for a while.

That’s why Su Ning could scold him freely, and Luo Nanchuan had to be cautious.

By afternoon, Su Ning noticed Ding’s mother and son leaving the snake field and was slightly surprised. “Already finished? Such chill players!”

“They probably weren’t strong enough and couldn’t keep going,” Duoduo explained.

With that, Su Ning felt reassured, hoping Ding’s mother would soon face reality. After all, the two groups were incompatible.

That evening, to avoid any accidental encounters, Su Ning didn’t go to the restaurant. She stayed home alone, organizing her inventory and crafting equipment, thoroughly enjoying herself.

After several days of neglecting her inventory, Su Ning started a group chat with Qiao Duoduo and Huo Yang. They could hear her rambling as she shared her inventory. If she found particularly interesting items, she would post the card attributes in the group.

Su Ning divided ordinary items and food into three batches and mailed them first.

Next were the hundreds of large snake corpses she had recently collected, which she sent separately to Duoduo, asking the restaurant staff to help process them.

The remaining items included what Su Ning needed most: sewing materials—snake skins.

The skins were clearly from Red-Spotted Snakes, with distinct patterns and fine textures. But Su Ning was cautious and would never use them forcefully unless necessary.

Next came medicinal ingredients:

Snake heads, snake eyes, snake sheds, snake bile, snake liver, snake ointment, and snake venom.

Even the snake meat could be used medicinally. Su Ning discovered a new “golden talent.”

For example, snake sheds initially only showed as usable in medicine. Su Ning took one out.

“Beep. This item is medicinal. Conduct medicinal analysis?”

“Yes.”

After Su Ning’s talent analysis, the card changed:

Blue-grade Snake Shed
Details: Medicinal, associated with the liver meridian. Functions: dispel wind, calm convulsions, detoxify, reduce corneal opacity. Used for pediatric convulsions, spasms, corneal opacity, throat obstruction, abscesses, and itchy skin.

Although Su Ning didn’t understand medicine, upgrading a green item to blue amazed her. She didn’t fully understand the effects, but the grade increase made her feel like a genius.

Before she could recover from her excitement, another familiar prompt appeared:

“Beep. This item is edible. Conduct food appraisal?”

“Yes.” Su Ning grinned like an idiot and checked the card again:

Blue-grade Snake Shed
Details: Edible, taste: salty and sweet, nature: neutral.
Medicinal effects: same as above.

She posted these attributes in the group.

Huo Yang: “Bro Su, awesome!”

Qiao Duoduo: “Oh my, you can eat this? Bro Su, enhance the snake meat grade. Save it for me—I’ll make a snake meat soup tonight.”

Su Ning: “No problem, looking forward to it.”

Huo Yang: “Wifey’s the best. You’ll definitely make it even better this time.”

Qiao Duoduo: “Of course! I’ve never used green-grade ingredients before. Using blue-grade this time—I’m proud.”

Huo Yang: “No worries. From now on, let Bro Su appraise all ingredients—always use blue-grade.”

Su Ning: “.”

At times like this, Su Ning wondered if helping Huo Yang pursue Duoduo was just so she could eat “couple content” later.

Despite her thoughts, Su Ning diligently sorted everything.

Next, she examined a snake-skin sleeping bag—the one Luo Nanchuan had used. Though she liked it, she already had a mouse-hole hideout, a pull-out bed, a giant spider-silk bed, and various furniture. She simply mailed it home.

Next were green-grade snake-skin bags, about twenty of them.

These were great—even if they didn’t increase backpack slots, they could store cards and stack, outperforming ordinary colorful small bags.

Su Ning imagined having hundreds of snake-skin bags filled with cards—she’d be the richest woman in the future world.

While dreaming of wealth, she found another item:

Blue-grade Snake-Skin Plaster
Details: Quickly heals various external injuries. Uses: 0/10.

Although Su Ning was a healer and didn’t need it herself, for many combat classes, it was a rare treasure.

Finally, there was equipment:

Blue-grade Snake-Skin Belt
Details: Crafted from a whole snake skin. Agility +9, Strength +1.

Blue-grade Snake-Skin Shoes
Details: Crafted from snake skin. Agility +6, Constitution +3.

Blue-grade Snake-Bone Wand
Details: Refined from an entire snake bone. Intelligence +7, Agility +3.

Su Ning shared the equipment in the group, first with Huo Yang, hoping he’d give the belt to Duoduo while he took nothing. Seeing his generosity, Duoduo was happy. They already had the shoes, and neither could use the wand.

Naturally, Su Ning benefited.

But as luck would have it, before she could examine the new gear further, a knock came at the door: “knock, knock, knock.”