Under Kurogane Ren's urging, the system opened up a new interface.
It was extremely simple.
There was only one large green button on the screen.
Sign in.
The moment Ren gave the command in his mind, the green button turned red.
Then the interface shifted into a 10x10 grid.
The system spoke at once. "Host's first sign-in complete. Extra reward granted. Lottery chances +1. As a beginner, the host also receives one beginner's gift pack, granting one ten-draw."
Ren's eyes lit up, and he shouted in delight.
"Oh hell yeah!"
One draw from signing in.
One extra draw as a reward.
And one ten-draw on top of that.
That meant he had twelve chances in total.
Ren rubbed his hands together, already impatient to begin.
"System, start the draw!"
A line of text appeared on the screen.
"The host may randomly draw from one hundred rewards."
Since he had twelve chances, Ren decided to test the waters with a single draw first and save the ten-draw for later.
"System, give me one single draw!"
The instant he finished speaking, a point of light began jumping wildly across the hundred squares.
As it slowly started to lose speed, Ren shut his eyes and prayed with complete sincerity.
"Buddha, Guanyin, Allah, Christ, Three Pure Ones... please bless me. Let my single draw produce a miracle!"
Ding!
With a crisp chime, the light finally stopped.
The chosen square flipped over.
At the same time, the system announced in a cheerful voice, "Congratulations, Host. Your first draw has awarded one bag of 500 grams of refined salt."
A moment later, Ren felt something appear in his hand.
He looked down.
It was a bag of salt.
The bold label on the package clearly read: 500g Refined Salt.
Ren stared at the salt in his hand, then slowly looked up at the endless ocean around him.
The next second, he hurled it to the ground.
"I'm standing in the middle of the sea! The ocean around me is full of salt, and you give me another bag of it?!"
He had every right to be furious.
He was trapped on a barren island without even a blade of grass. There was sea in every direction. At a time like this, a bag of salt wasn't even as useful as a toothpick.
"System, get out here!"
"Yes, Host?" the system replied calmly.
Ren pointed at the salt on the ground. "What the hell is this?"
"The lottery is random. The host may draw anything."
"Then why the hell was it salt? You could've at least given me a bottle of mineral water as emotional support!"
"The lottery tests character and luck. It has nothing to do with this system."
"You... you..."
Ren choked on his own anger.
In the end, all he could do was console himself in silence.
Single draws never give good stuff.
I've only drawn once.
There's still hope.
After calming down a little, he decided to go again.
"System, another single draw!"
The interface refreshed, and the lottery began once more.
This time, Ren didn't close his eyes.
He stared at the jumping light the entire time.
Ding!
The sound announcing the end of the draw rang out again.
"Congratulations, Host. You have obtained one pack of bait that guarantees a fish on every cast. One pack can catch ten fish."
Ren looked at the small packet that had appeared in his hand.
The reward itself was great.
Actually, it was amazing.
The problem was...
He didn't have a fishing rod.
And that just made him even more annoyed.
After all, the only reason he had transmigrated in the first place was because he had helped someone watch a fishing rod. Now, anything related to fishing instantly pissed him off.
On top of that, aside from the clothes on his back, he didn't even have a single chopstick. This godforsaken island had nothing but rocks everywhere. Even if he wanted to make a rod himself, he couldn't.
Smack!
Ren threw the bait to the ground too.
"What kind of bullshit is this?!"
"System, start the ten-draw!"
The rewards from those two single draws had already sent his blood pressure through the roof, so he went straight for the ten-draw.
But the moment he said it, he regretted it.
My luck is this bad... I should've washed my hands first.
Too late.
The words were already out, and the system had already started the draw. All he could do now was pray that the ten-draw would finally give him something decent.
Ren waited quietly.
More than ten seconds later, the system's voice rang out again.
"Congratulations, Host. You have obtained one pack of tissues!"
"Congratulations, Host. You have obtained ten jin of flavorless biscuits!"
"Congratulations, Host. You have obtained one 5-liter bottle of mineral water!"
"Congratulations, Host. You have obtained a transcendent item: one pair of never-wearing-out flip-flops!"
"Congratulations, Host. You have obtained one pair of military binoculars!"
...
Looking at the ten items spread out before him, Ren let out a long sigh.
The results of the ten-draw were definitely better than the single draws, but there was still no real divine artifact in sight.
He began sorting through what was actually useful.
First, the mineral water and biscuits were essential.
A person had to eat and drink to survive.
The tissues were somewhat useful too.
The binoculars, however, were excellent.
Ren had already tested them. Not only could they see extremely far, but they also had adjustable focus and seemed to come with some kind of night vision function.
With those binoculars, he would at least be able to scan the sea more effectively and search for passing ships.
But the item he was most satisfied with was the tent.
With that, he wouldn't have to stay exposed to the sun and sea air all day.
Then Ren suddenly paused.
Now that he thought about it...
He had been on this island for quite a while already, yet he still hadn't felt any wind.
He looked around.
The sea was eerily calm.
The sky was vast and cloudless.
A chill suddenly ran down his spine.
He didn't live by the sea, but even he knew that windless conditions were rare on the ocean.
And yet here he was, surrounded by the sea, without feeling even the slightest breeze.
There weren't many worlds that fit that description.
And the most famous one that did...
...was probably the Calm Belt from One Piece.
Ren muttered to himself, "No way... I can't be that unlucky, right?"
Still, there was no proof yet.
In the end, he decided to set up the tent first and drink some water. He had already been in this world for several hours, and with the blazing heat overhead, he really needed to rehydrate.
"System, put everything away except the food, drinking water, binoculars, and tent."
"Host, this system does not come with built-in storage space."
Ren froze.
"What?"
He stared in disbelief. "System, don't tell me you don't even have a storage space?"
The system replied flatly, "May I ask what kind of system I am?"
"The Myriad Worlds Sign-In Lottery System!"
"There you go. I'm not some warehouse storage system."
Ren's face twitched.
"A system without storage space is no different from a salted fish."
"Host, I feel like I just heard you insulting this system."
Ren instantly denied it. "No. Didn't happen. Don't slander me."
...
"Draw! System, hurry up and draw!"
A week had passed since Kurogane Ren ended up on the island.
During that week, he spent every day holding the binoculars and scanning the sea in every direction, hoping to spot a passing ship.
Unfortunately, after so many days, all he saw was more sea.
At night, he slept inside the tent.
The happiest moment of every day was always the daily draw.
Over the past five days, Ren had done five more single draws.
One of them gave him a loaf of disgusting bread.
All Ren could say was that the food produced by the system was genuinely awful.
Those flavorless biscuits from before were exactly that.
Flavorless.
He swore that if not for the fact that he needed to fill his stomach, he would rather drink water than eat those biscuits again.
As for the bread, after one bite, he felt sick for two whole days.
Besides that, he had also drawn two 10-liter bottles of mineral water.
That part, at least, made him pretty satisfied.
At the very least, it meant he wouldn't die of thirst anytime soon.
The other two draws gave him an elementary school arithmetic workbook and a map from some unknown world.
The arithmetic workbook had already been put to use for post-bathroom hygiene.
As for the map, Ren had put it aside for the time being.
He had no idea what world it belonged to, but he still decided to keep it.