Chapter 143: Chapter 140: Upgrading "Formless Pure Ice"! The 48th-Ranked Treasure

The *Thunder God* was a Silver-level Wandering Ship. Its interior was relatively spartan, containing only a small storeroom. Inside, there were just two boxes filled with dazzling crystals.

Pure Dome Crystals.

Shi Ming’s eyes gleamed as he gazed at the shimmering crystals. This was all his hard-earned money!

A full 1,000 of them. He stored them all away immediately!

He planned to use them to completely repair the 48th-ranked Wonder: the Phaseless Pure Ice.

As for the wandering ship itself?

To gain captaincy of a wandering ship, there were two methods: a voluntary transfer of command or a forced takeover. Without the key, brute-forcing the ship’s system would take far too long. Since Shi Ming couldn’t afford to linger in this sea region, his only option was to take its Energy Crystal Core—the Sailing Crystal.

It was a decent haul in itself.

Reviewing the rewards from this bounty hunt, his haul was enormous, far surpassing what he’d gained from exploring the *Huangshi*. Of course, that didn’t include the profits from infiltrating "Let There Be Light." Besides, the biggest prize of this entire endeavor was the bounty itself.

A whopping 1,500 Pure Dome Crystals!

In addition, he had obtained a Sailing Heart and a Sailing Crystal! The former was the core component of a Golden Ship and would be the most crucial material for upgrading his ship, the *Dayun*, in the future.

Furthermore, the wealth of intelligence from the Chimney Smoke Intelligence Agency also had immense hidden value.

Finally, there was Reinhardt’s personal collection.

Compared to the bounty, this portion wasn’t much. Reinhardt had a permanent residence on the Twelve Stars and hadn’t carried all his wealth aboard the *Chimney Smoke*. Shi Ming only managed to find 20 Pure Dome Crystals, over 100 Dome Crystals, several hundred High-Level Sea Crystal Stones, and a number of regular Sea Crystal Stones.

As well as a fair amount of luxury items.

Vintage red wines, spirits, and beers; art pieces from a bygone era; a Prussian Longsword; a case of black and white truffles; a box of aged cheese; a handwritten manuscript by the musician Ludwig; and a Faustian woodblock print of dubious authenticity...

’So Reinhardt had a bit of an art bug.’

Once everything was stored away, Shi Ming began to sift through the meticulously organized intelligence reports.

’An "Overview of Wondrous Items in the Endless Sea Region"... It’s a little different from Miss Yan’s version, but it’s obvious Reinhardt’s is a mix of fact and fiction... This alone shows the vast difference in caliber between him and Miss Yan.’

’"Information on S-class Awakened of the Twelve Stars"... Hmm, no mention of Mr. Lei. Looks like "Mr. Lei" is just an alias. His appearance is probably fake, too.’

’"Reinhardt’s Personal Journal"... 107 female "confidantes," cataloged in separate volumes... Eighteen of these women bore his children.’

’"A Mind Map of the Golden Tower’s Bounties"... very logical and clear...’

...

At six o’clock in the evening, after a celebratory feast on deck for their successful haul, Shi Ming returned to his captain’s cabin.

With a rare moment of downtime, he decided to use the Brain of Creation’s ability to upgrade a few items he had in mind.

The most important among them was the long-awaited "Unformed Phaseless Pure Ice."

[Unformed "Phaseless Pure Ice".]

[Level: 9]

[This was meant to be the "Phaseless Pure Ice," ranked 48th on the list of Wondrous Items of the Endless Ocean. Buried within the planet’s polar ley lines for a millennium, it was dislodged by the movement of continental plates and lost its final chance to fully form.]

[Upgrade Requirement: 1,000x Pure Dome Crystal]

This was the treasure he had found in the Eye of Extreme Cold. Its discovery had even drawn the pursuit of an S-class sea beast, the Dusk Whale. Luckily, he had used his system’s inventory to seal off the aura of the Phaseless Pure Ice in time, allowing him to avoid a direct confrontation with the giant whale, which was half-rotted and half-pristine.

The moment he took out the Unformed Phaseless Pure Ice, the temperature in the captain’s cabin plummeted by more than ten degrees.

And it continued to fall.

With his current constitution, Shi Ming could withstand temperatures of over fifty degrees below zero, but forcibly touching the blue, spherical crystal still felt extremely unpleasant.

’Upgrade!’

SHIMMER!

The one thousand Pure Dome Crystals instantly dissolved into a thick, visible vapor that swirled around the Phaseless Pure Ice. The ice rapidly absorbed and converted the energy, giving Shi Ming a true taste of what it meant to spend money like water.

’He’d gone to all that trouble to get this massive fortune, this astronomical bounty, and in a flash, more than half of it was gone!’

The blue, spherical crystal spun rapidly, the chilling aura around it flaring out one moment and drawing inward the next.

Twenty minutes later, its state finally stabilized completely. The blue crystal had become even more translucent, its 256 facets glittering brilliantly under the light. Every ray of light it refracted carried a bone-chilling cold.

Its description reappeared before Shi Ming’s eyes.

[Phaseless Pure Ice]

[Level: 10]

[The "Phaseless Pure Ice," ranked 48th on the list of Wondrous Items of the Endless Ocean. Buried within the planet’s polar ley lines for a millennium, it was dislodged by the movement of continental plates but has now been made whole after being repaired with concentrated energy.]

[Trait 1: Eternal Ice Domain]

[Trait 2: Perfect Crystal]

[Promoted to maximum level. Cannot be upgraded further.]

Fortunately, since the Phaseless Pure Ice had been upgraded from a damaged state, Shi Ming was able to skip the trial-and-error phase and learn about its two traits directly through the Brain of Creation.

Trait one: Eternal Ice Domain!

[Within a ten-meter radius of the wielder, the temperature is held constant at forty-five degrees below zero Celsius.]

If the chilling energy within the Phaseless Pure Ice was actively triggered, the temperature could drop even lower.

Theoretically, it was capable of lowering the temperature to -273 degrees Celsius—the lowest possible temperature in thermodynamics—but doing so was extremely difficult. Moreover, no matter how powerful, no carbon-based lifeform could withstand such extreme cold.

Trait two: Perfect Crystal!

This ability was something else entirely!

It was a one-time-use ability, but it was absolutely worthy of its number 48 ranking! If he hadn’t used the Brain of Creation to "exploit a bug," so to speak, and learn its description, it would have been impossible for anyone to discover this ability!

’It was hidden far too well.’

[Eat it. Survive for 120 seconds without dying, and you can replace any one of your ice-attribute skills—regardless of its level—with "The Third Law," ranked 29th on the S-class skill leaderboard.]

The Third Law!

Rank 29!

Shi Ming was very familiar with the Third Law of Thermodynamics. Simply put, it states that the entropy of a perfect crystal at absolute zero is zero. But what would that look like when manifested as a skill? The Brain of Creation didn’t specify.

Shi Ming’s ambition flared once more.

’It wasn’t that he disliked his Ice Annihilation skill, but... hey, you’re an A-class skill. Don’t you want to get better?’

But...

’The difficulty of eating the Phaseless Pure Ice was immense! A treasure that could theoretically reach absolute zero... could any carbon-based lifeform actually eat it?’

Shi Ming’s first thought was to combine it with his "Brink of Death" skill.

’But that wouldn’t be enough.’

Once triggered, Brink of Death only granted a state of infinite regeneration—in other words, immortality—for 60 seconds.

Even stacking the Black Tortoise Shield five times would only grant 75 seconds of invincibility. That was still a long way from the required 120 seconds!

As he was deep in thought, a voice suddenly came through his communicator. It was Stone Pillar.

"Captain, the sea has frozen over. The *Dayun* has run aground."

???