Endless Ocean: Survival Begins with a Dugout Canoe-Chapter 109 - 106: Earning Money and Selling
"Captain, are we still going back?"
The crew hadn’t managed to glimpse the Rotting Whale’s horrifying form, but they had spent years drifting at sea and weren’t fools. From the stench pervading the air alone, they could deduce that an incredibly terrifying Sea Beast had just passed them by.
Now that the foul stench had dissipated, did that mean the Sea Beast had moved on?
"No. We’re returning to the Twelve Stars."
Shi Ming looked at the Glacier Dragon lying on the deck.
It wouldn’t do to just leave this A-rank Sea Beast on the deck. It was time to dispose of it.
The Eye of Extreme Cold had formed, just as he’d suspected, from Formless Pure Ice that had leaked from the planet’s ley lines. Now that he had obtained the Formless Pure Ice, the Eye of Extreme Cold was no more, and the energy of the Sea Crystal Stones there would return to normal.
There was no need to go back.
As for that half-rotted whale...
’It’s best not to provoke it,’ Shi Ming thought.
Putting aside the question of whether he could even win a fight, anyone who could tolerate that stench wasn’t normal. Two S-rank Sea Beasts had been detected in this part of the Europe sea region, and Shi Ming would much rather challenge the Deep Sea Titan in the ocean’s depths.
Moreover, bathing in the blood of a High-level Sea Beast carried a chance of developing some of that beast’s traits.
Take the Black Tortoise, for instance. It makes you tough—
high Defense Power and strong regenerative abilities.
But if he bathed in the blood of that Rotting Whale and ended up with one half of his body rotting and oozing pus while the other half remained perfectly fine...
Tsk, tsk, tsk. 𝘧𝘳𝘦ℯ𝓌𝘦𝒷𝘯𝑜𝑣𝘦𝓁.𝒸𝘰𝓂
Shi Ming suddenly understood a bit of what Edward must have felt. Then again, seven eyes on your chest could at least be hidden under clothing.
In any case, this Rotting Whale was the first S-rank Sea Beast Shi Ming had seen at its peak. Just a glance from afar was enough to give him a deeper understanding of such a powerful creature.
Unlike A-rank Sea Beasts, they possessed a blatant, innate aura.
It was like an oppressive force that came from their very bloodline, placing them naturally above ordinary creatures. Even the strongest A-rank Sea Beasts would feel utterly inferior before them; the gap between them was as vast as that between heaven and earth.
’Looks like I still have a long way to go before I can kill an S-rank Sea Beast on my own!’
But with his own unique opportunities and ambition, Shi Ming believed he could close that gap soon enough.
...
In the captain’s quarters, he inwardly inspected the "Formless Pure Ice" in his system’s inventory.
Strictly speaking, it wasn’t Formless Pure Ice, but rather "Unformed Formless Pure Ice."
This was the greatest prize of his trip, even more valuable than the ice dragon on the deck. It was supposed to be the "Formless Pure Ice" ranked 48th on the List of Marvels of the Endless Ocean. It had been buried in the polar ley lines for a thousand years, but an accident had left it just one step away from its final form.
Ranked 48th on the List of Marvels!
What did that even mean?!
The Map of the Endless Sea was already ridiculously overpowered, and it was ranked outside the top 100!
Shi Ming couldn’t even begin to imagine how incredible a marvel ranked 48th would be.
Unfortunately, it had leaked out due to the shifting of continental plates and lost its chance to fully form. But that was precisely why Shi Ming had been able to obtain it. To remedy this flaw and turn it into true Formless Pure Ice, he would need 1,000 Pure Dome Crystals and the power of the Brain of Creation to upgrade it.
’One thousand Pure Dome Crystals!’
That was equivalent to 10,000,000 High-Level Sea Crystal Stones!
According to the bounties posted by the Black Society and Jinshan, that was worth half of his own head.
’I need to find a way to make money, and fast!’
They were still over 200 nautical miles away from the Twelve Stars.
The *Dayun* had recently been run too hard and was now in a cooling-down period, so its speed was not very fast.
He took out the Ocean Hunter Terminal he had acquired on the Twelve Stars and opened it. He planned to search for anyone looking to buy an A-rank Sea Beast carcass so he could get rid of the Glacier Dragon as soon as possible. If there were no takers, he would post a sale listing himself to find a potential buyer.
’Let’s see what A-rank related missions are available.’
Missions involving A-rank Sea Beasts were all high-level, and there weren’t many of them on the Ocean Hunter Terminal.
At the very top was the same mission that had been there for 268 days, untouched: "Bounty for A-rank Sea Beast Blood."
There were a few similar missions, all of them ignored.
The reason they were ignored was obvious: the reward wasn’t high enough.
The reward amounts were either listed as "negotiable" or were insultingly low, only a paltry two or three hundred Pure Dome Crystals. What a joke. Getting A-rank Sea Beast Blood for that price? That was nothing but a pipe dream!
Did they really think A-rank Sea Beasts and Awakened were a dime a dozen?
Most of those capable of hunting A-rank Sea Beasts were powerful factions or Awakened, and none of them were fools willing to sell their prize for a pittance!
Rather than sell it for cheap, they would rather use it for their own second awakening or to cultivate another A-rank Awakened for their faction!
Shi Ming scrolled for a long time without finding anything suitable. He couldn’t be bothered to sift through the garbage any longer, so he exited the mission board and went to the posting section. Using the name "Stone," he created a sale listing.
[For Sale: A-rank Sea Beast Carcass. (Blood not included! Blood not included! Blood not included!)]
[Sea Beast Type: Glacier Dragon.]
[Price: ...]
After a moment’s thought, Shi Ming entered "Negotiable."
He even went out on deck, took a photo of the Glacier Dragon, and uploaded it to the Hunter Terminal as an attachment.
[Contact: Platform private message or add xxxxxxx]
He didn’t use the Hunter Terminal often and worried he might miss messages from potential buyers, so he included his personal communicator ID as well.
Listing private contact information was allowed on the Ocean Hunter platform. After all, it wasn’t like one of the tech giants from Shi Ming’s past life that had to worry about liability. They simply provided a public trading platform and took no responsibility for what happened afterward.
Even if it resulted in scams, death, or losing both your money and your goods.
Therefore, anyone taking missions or making trades on the platform had to rely on their own judgment.
In this kind of environment, high-level accounts like the Lv5 Hunter, Wright de Albert, were far more trustworthy. They had higher visibility on the platform, and their posted missions were much more popular.
Users like Shi Ming, who had demonstrated the power of an A-rank Awakened upon registration, also received slightly higher priority.
After posting the listing, he placed the terminal on the nearby desk, sat down in the rocking chair in his quarters, and began to relax for the first time in a long while.
A pleasant sea breeze drifted in through the window.
...
BEEP.
BEEP.
BEEP.
Shi Ming was woken by the incessant beeping of his communicator.
He stood up from the rocking chair and stretched, relaxing his body. It was rare to get a few hours of such complete rest. A good sleep, especially after a battle and an awakening, truly felt like it reactivated every cell in his body.
’It was nice to steal a moment of leisure from this fleeting life!’
He picked up his communicator.
He glanced at it and saw over a dozen friend requests, all of which had arrived in the last few minutes.
He checked the time.
’There’s a three-hour delay before a listing goes live on the Hunter Terminal,’ he recalled. Nearly five hours had passed since he’d posted it. ’Even if you account for a delay of over an hour for people to see the listing and then add me on my communicator... that means all these people added me in just the last ten minutes or so?’
As he puzzled over this, another new friend request popped up, this one from the Africa Region.
???
’Are that many people really interested in an A-rank Sea Beast’s carcass?’
’In that case, I’ll just have to sell to the highest bidder.’
