Stockpiling at Sea: The Super Scrap-Mechanic

Shi Yao was inexplicably pulled into a maritime survival game on his way home from work. All around him was an endless expanse of water, and he started with a battered wooden raft. The only way to get supplies was to fish.

With his eyes wide in shock, Shi Yao shakily reached out and pressed the [Salvage] button.

First haul: [Rusty Nail]

Second haul: [Detached Bicycle Chain]

Third haul: [Damaged Discarded Pulley]

Fourth haul: [Sorry, you have used up today's salvage quota. Please come back to work tomorrow~]

Shi Yao: ?

Wait, why was everything he hauled up industrial waste? Was this sea so badly polluted??

Had all those players in the world chat who'd fished up instant meal packs, waterproof tarps, and even treasure maps cheated?

Utterly disgruntled, Shi Yao lay down on the little raft. On a whim, he fastened the chain he'd found to the pulley, then secured it with the nail.

[Ding! Congratulations, you have successfully crafted 1 inferior bearing.]

[Your talent, Scrap Mechanic, has been activated. Explore the vast ocean freely, work hard to find more garbage, and strive to become a legendary master mechanic~]

Shi Yao: ???

At first, Shi Yao figured that if this was how life was going to be, he might as well make do. It wasn't as if he could just jump into the sea.

Seven days later, his starter raft had been upgraded into a medium-sized, fully automatic fishing boat.

Twenty days later, it had become a multifunctional engineering speedboat.

When the torrential rain disaster arrived, gales howled and waves churned outside the window. Shi Yao sat quietly curled up in a recliner in his bedroom, holding a hot milk tea and waiting for the autopilot to steer the boat out of the storm zone.

Fishing, managing his boat, upgrading it, and studying mechanical theory and alchemy basics in his spare time, Shi Yao suddenly felt that maybe this kind of life wasn't so bad.

Except...

Could someone tell him what the heck this moving, talking, unidentified thing he'd fished out of the sea was?

At first, everyone called Shi Yao "that guy who collects trash."

Later, they called him "that mysterious mechanical expert."

And eventually, he became "that once-in-a-century alchemy genius."

Forty thousand energy towers built on sin collapsed overnight. A maritime empire was born amid flowers and applause. The fall of the old order and the emergence of a new world: no one could have imagined that it all began with one tiny fishing rod.

An idea born from the author's failed attempts to enjoy life as a scrap mechanic and raft survivor.

The author has zero experience with wilderness survival or mechanical crafting. All the theories in this story were researched online and in relevant books. Corrections are welcome.

Theme: Every walk of life has its outstanding talents.