Endless Ocean: Survival Begins with a Dugout Canoe-Chapter 51 - 49: Bountiful Harvest

After becoming the master of the Yellow Stone, Shi Ming could come and go as he pleased. Aside from the completely destroyed and sealed-off areas, the entire massive wandering ship was open to him.

This greatly increased his treasure-hunting efficiency!

Having been submerged for years, the ship’s deck had accumulated a thick layer of sediment. Shi Ming stepped onto the soft mud, quickly entered the ship’s cabins, and began to search. His system warehouse still had plenty of space, and he planned to take everything that caught his eye.

The first step in treasure hunting was, of course, to go to the warehouse.

He first arrived at the Yellow Stone’s warehouse.

The warehouse’s iron door was severely corroded. Even without a command, Shi Ming kicked open the rickety door with a single blow.

Rows upon rows of large chests came into view.

Shi Ming casually opened one of the chests.

The brilliant gleam of gold almost blinded his night-vision eyes.

It was Gold!

’They’re the size of bricks, and there are dozens of them! Back in the land era, this could have bought so many luxury villas!’

Although he wasn’t sure if Gold was useful in the Wandering Era, it was simply too captivating; the emotional value was off the charts. Most importantly, their brick-like size didn’t take up much space, so Shi Ming collected all of them into his warehouse.

’Maybe the Brain of Creation will need it for an upgrade!’

’Sailing Coins? Three large chests of them. This stuff takes up too much space, and its value is nowhere near precious metals. I’ll deal with them last. If there’s room, I’ll take them.’

’Ordinary Sea Crystal Stones, ten large chests. They’d take up half my warehouse space. If they’re not high-level, I don’t want them.’

’What’s this? Red wine? Useless.’

’Canned herring, don’t want that either!’

Shi Ming was experiencing the thrill of opening loot boxes.

Most of the chests contained daily supplies for the crew, like coins, red wine, cured meat, and canned goods. It was clear the crew of the Yellow Stone had an extremely high standard of living, far exceeding that of the crew on a typical Silver Wandering Ship.

Supplies like Sailing Coins and Sea Crystal Stones had some value, but not much.

The food items, in particular, like the red wine and cured meat, had been at the bottom of the sea for so many years they had long since spoiled.

The warehouse was well-stocked, and there were also items that made his eyes light up.

’Black Blood Crystals? Crystals formed from condensed Sea Beast Blood. This is good stuff, worth way more than Sailing Coins. I’ll take them!’

’Unknown ore? It looks unremarkable, but the chest it’s in is so high-quality, the ore’s price can’t be low. Taking it!’

’Five Sky Net Intelligence Chips! I used one of these when I upgraded the food production equipment on my Silver ship. To think there are five of them here.’

’Take it, take it, I’m taking it all!’

He wasn’t picky. As long as an item was more valuable than ordinary Sea Crystal Stones and didn’t take up too much space, he threw it into his warehouse.

It was like a supermarket shopping spree where the first 30 minutes are free. Time was tight, and he had to grab the most valuable items quickly.

He lifted the lid of a relatively small chest.

Inside was a chest full of High-Level Sea Crystal Stones!

’Just what I needed! Although I have a way to get High-Level Sea Crystal Stones on my ship now, the efficiency is low. To upgrade the Golden Small Ship to the next tier, I’ll need a huge amount of High-Level Sea Crystal Stones. Looking at this chest, there must be at least 300 of them. This really solves a major problem for me!’

After unceremoniously stashing them in his warehouse, Shi Ming turned his attention to other areas.

The various ores stored here could all potentially be materials for the Brain of Creation, so Shi Ming left none of them behind.

In a corner, there were several safes that couldn’t be opened.

Everyone knows the best things are kept in safes. Moreover, these safes had excellent seals, so it was highly likely the contents were undamaged. Without hesitation, Shi Ming moved them into his system warehouse and took them all.

...

Searching the warehouse took less than ten minutes.

His time was limited, so he quickly moved to the Yellow Stone’s engineering deck.

Many of the machines here looked broken, but in reality, if he used the Brain of Creation to upgrade them, they would be automatically repaired in the process. What was junk to others was the greatest treasure to Shi Ming.

The only thing he had to consider was the capacity of his system warehouse.

’A drink dispenser. Nice, I can take that.’

’A Dome Crystal extractor. Taking it!’

Dome Crystals were a higher grade of Energy Stone than High-Level Sea Crystal Stones, and above them were Pure Dome Crystals. A Sea Crystal Stone extractor couldn’t process the higher-grade Dome Crystals, but this Dome Crystal extractor filled that gap.

’What’s this fully-automatic entertainment machine? You have to lie down on it to activate it?’

’...Is this thing decent?’

’The Yellow Stone’s food production equipment must be very advanced, but my warehouse just can’t fit it. Nothing I can do. Besides, the thing is a single unit; I can’t even take it apart.’

’These firearms look pretty good.’

...

With his free shopping spree time running out, Shi Ming’s final stop was the captain’s quarters.

Anyone who’s been a captain knows that the captain’s quarters often hold many surprises.

The daily items here had rotted from being soaked in seawater. When the water was pumped out, many things lost their buoyancy and had now collapsed and broken. Shi Ming even found a deep-sea electric eel with scales in a corner of the captain’s quarters, which he dispatched with a single slash of his blade.

Its blood was completely useless, not even D-rank.

An ancient-looking battle saber and a firearm of an unknown model hung on the wall of the captain’s quarters.

Underneath the collapsed desk was a pile of small, ruined boxes, likely the captain’s private collection.

There was another safe in the corner.

A communicator was also buried under the thick mud.

Naturally, all of these now belonged to Shi Ming.

He was the captain in name now, after all.

’There’s not much time left. I need to leave a sufficient margin for error in my retreat to avoid any unexpected situations.’

The Yellow Stone was huge; he couldn’t explore all of it. He would have to come back later if he had the chance. But he had already swept through all the key areas. The biggest prizes from this haul were the several unopened safes, the massive amount of ore, and the damaged equipment.

He was content.

He would crack the unopened safes one by one after he got back.

On his way back to the deck, he saw the beached cuttlefish still flopping around. He showed no mercy, dispatching them one by one with his blade. When he killed the first one, the red pattern on his right arm had already absorbed all the power from its blood.

The newly awakened D-rank skill "Ink Stain" was devoured by his S-rank skill, permanently increasing Shi Ming’s Physical Strength by 2 points.

But through experimentation, he found that the blood of a single type of sea beast could only evolve him once; bathing in it multiple times was useless. Thus, his idea of farming points this way had to be abandoned.

These cuttlefish were all very large. Shi Ming picked one with a relatively intact corpse and stuffed it into a corner of his system warehouse.

It would be good for either trading to others later or for his own crew to awaken their abilities.

Next, he had to get back to his Golden Canoe and retreat before the water-repelling function failed.

Just as he was passing the Yellow Stone’s main control console, the struggles of a beached sea beast hidden in the shadows of the control room caused the console’s decaying structure to collapse with a loud crash.

CRASH.

The massive machine fell from over a meter high, landing on the thick silt and completely falling apart.

A gleaming, blue-glowing Crystal Stone fell out from inside the control machinery, rolling onto the damp mud, exceptionally conspicuous in the darkness of the seabed.