Grand Voyage : Surviving on a Ghost Ship-Chapter 157 - In that case, let’s sell salt first

Yang Yi once again controlled the Penitent Armour to land on the island.

The situation was different; his right hand was encased in a complete arm guard, giving him an even higher level of control over the armour, to the point of actually feeling sensations through it.

As long as he concentrated, there was almost no difference from physically going ashore himself.

Once the armour reached the island, it walked straight towards its centre. The deeper it went, the looser the salt on the ground became. About a hundred meters from the coast, the salt beneath its feet had completely acquired a sandy, very loose consistency.

All along the way, the armour wasn’t attacked. On the other hand, there were no unexpected discoveries either. It seemed there was nothing on the island besides salt. Even what looked like shrubs were actually salt formations, crumbling at the slightest touch and scattering salt grains across the ground.

“How am I supposed to handle this?”

Yang Yi felt at a loss.

The armour had reached the island’s centre, where he swung the Ironbreaker (Imitation) to shatter the surrounding “shrubs”, revealing a white desert beneath.

He tried digging, hoping for something hidden underneath. However, even after going at it for a long time, all he found was salt. Moreover, because the salt grains behaved like flowing sand, the digging couldn’t continue effectively. After a certain depth, the surrounding salt would slide down and refill the hole.

Yang Yi gave up, controlled the armour to climb out, and continued wandering aimlessly around the island.

Three hours later.

Yang Yi, still controlling the armour, boarded the raft and returned to the deck of the Nightmare Star.

To prevent it from drifting away, a rope was tied to it, which could be secured to the ship’s ladder, completely eliminating the chance of it floating off. fгeewёbnoѵel_cσm

After handling all of that, Yang Yi opened his eyes and got up, ready to head to the deck. But an unexpected sight stopped him in his tracks.

Suna was pressing down on a large pot with all her might, half her body draping over it, yet something inside was still struggling.

“What’s in that pot…?” Yang Yi asked in surprise.

Logically, there shouldn’t have been any other living creature on the ship with that much strength.

“It came alive. Quick, help me hold it down!”

“It?”

Yang Yi picked up on the key word — it seemed Suna had found something.

He walked over and pressed down on the lid with his hand, and weight, instantly subduing whatever was inside the pot. Then Suna quickly grabbed a big bag of sea salt from the side.

“Salt?”

Suna nodded. “Open the lid, I’ll pour the salt in.”

Yang Yi did as told and, catching the creature off guard, flung the lid open. Inside, a few fleshy tentacles emerged and were immediately hit with a large amount of sea salt, shrivelling up on contact.

Yang Yi finally got a good look at what was inside the pot.

It was an irregular lump of flesh, with multiple tentacles reaching out, trying to latch onto something. Yet like a slug or leech, it instantly shrivelled when exposed to sea salt, its body dehydrating and darkening.

“What is this…?”

“It’s the same soil, or rather, dehydrated tissue, from the corpse-whale.I tried soaking it in fresh water, but nothing happened. Then I tried soaking it in that white seawater, and it came to life! After absorbing the white seawater, the soil started devouring itself, expanding rapidly. I only had time to toss it all into the pot…”

Suna recounted the dangerous moment as she sprinkled generous amounts of salt on the revived corpse-whale flesh, rendering it completely inert.

“So, this island, or rather, this corpse-whale, is actually alive?” Yang Yi immediately grasped the key point.

“Seems so. When it encounters the white seawater, it’s very likely to revive!” Suna confirmed Yang Yi’s deduction.

She had tested the collected sea salt and soil samples separately.

Whether it was the sea salt dug from the ground or the sea salt that made up the Salt People, in essence, it was no different from any other sea salt. Dissolving it or even melting it at high temperatures didn’t produce any special reaction, it was just ordinary sea salt.

However, the soil was different. It seemed to be desiccated body tissue, brittle like dehydrated vegetables, in a state of suspended animation or dormancy, only reviving upon contact with the white seawater.

Suna shared her findings with Yang Yi, summarised in two points:

Yang Yi nodded. Suna’s discovery strengthened his resolve to carry out his plan! Since the island was dangerous, and any living being that went ashore would die, then he simply wouldn’t go himself!

He quickly headed to the deck.

Under his control, the Penitent Armour opened its chestplate, spilling out nearly 200 kilograms of sea salt. After wandering around the island and finding nothing of value, Yang Yi had shifted his goal from exploration to selling salt for profit. There was no way he was going to leave empty-handed!

Since the Salt People didn’t attack him, they probably wouldn’t mind if he helped himself to some of the island’s salt.

Yang Yi checked the current market price for sea salt.

It was selling for 50 Shell Coins per kilogram, five times higher than before. If the safe zone wasn’t still in place and sea salt wasn’t so easy to obtain, the price might’ve been even higher.

So, the single trip by the Penitent Armor brought in 5,000 Shell Coins. And that was despite wasting most of the time on exploration. If he focused solely on harvesting salt and found ways to boost efficiency, the income rate would be astonishing. For example, if he equipped the Penitent Armour with a cart, the salt transportation efficiency would increase dramatically.

Yang Yi considered several options but eventually decided that, due to the high buoyancy of the surrounding seawater, using wooden barrels to transport the salt by sea would be the most efficient.

First, he repositioned the Nightmare Star to an ideal location, then shot an arrow from the lookout tower towards the island, with a rope attached, creating a simple zipline.

One end was tied to a sturdy mast, the other anchored with stones to keep it taut. It didn’t need to bear much weight; it was just a tool for quickly delivering empty barrels.

Once the Penitent Armour received an empty barrel, it began using the Ironbreaker (Imitation) to dig and fill it with salt. Once the barrel was full, it would be tossed into the sea and float back over. The barrels could be retrieved using the ship’s grappling hooks, enabling rapid salt collection.

The Penitent Armor didn’t even need to return to the deck, its efficiency was frightening! Thus, for the next four hours, Yang Yi devoted himself entirely to mining and selling salt.

Very quickly, all the salt near the coast was dug up, revealing the dry, black soil beneath. By the end of the afternoon, Yang Yi had mined 11 tons of sea salt, and even he was surprised — the armour, with its infinite stamina and no need to sweat or rest, truly delivered high efficiency!

Yang Yi wiped the sweat from his forehead, feeling a bit tired. After all, he’d spent the whole afternoon playing "gold miner" and had climbed the mast several times, significantly boosting his attribute experience.

During the transportation, one or two barrels occasionally tipped over, spilling salt into the sea. But it didn’t matter, as there was an endless supply of salt on the island anyway.

What he’d taken was just a drop in the ocean!

With no risk of overloading, all the mined salt was quickly sold, and Yang Yi earned 550,000 Shell Coins, matching the money-making efficiency of his earlier lumbering days.

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