Chapter 283: Gift
Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation
The dot was floating on the waves and became clearer and clearer as time pa.s.sed. With the amazing eyesight that Zhang Lisheng possessed, he could already tell that this was a large and tattered wooden s.h.i.+p that had a sail, which was drifting unbridledly on the sea.
After looking carefully for a while, judging from the exquisite vivid human-head fish-body statue at the bow of the s.h.i.+p, the sculptures of kids playing with trumpet-like instruments on the handrail of the s.h.i.+p’s side and the exquisite woodwork of the cabin stained with blood stains, he could tell that this s.h.i.+p definitely did not come from the hands of the h.e.l.lfire people.
“The s.h.i.+p of the Mainlanders…” Zhang Lisheng muttered. He had only seen the so-called ‘Mainlanders’ from the mouth of the h.e.l.lfire people once before, that was none other than Armandnik who accidentally entered Shrimp B1 Island while chasing the migration of Evnado Merpeople and who, in the end, was badly injured for discovering the secret of Earth’s invasion but ultimately died a miserable death for trusting the wrong person.
Speaking of it, the bad luck of this scholar was Zhang Lisheng’s good luck. The magical ability of his extremely useful Eternal Comprehension Spell was inadvertently obtained from the items left behind by Armandnik.
It was also because of his pleasing harvest during his first encounter with the Mainlander that caused Zhang Lisheng to have a slight covetous thought when he saw this abandoned s.h.i.+p from the Mainlanders.
He figured that even if there was no other discovery, just by obtaining the unmanned wooden s.h.i.+p that drifted all the way from across the ocean into the sea of the h.e.l.lfire Archipelago alone, he could also use it as a model for the s.h.i.+pyard to build s.h.i.+ps in the future and this would be quite a great harvest. For this reason, he jumped down from Ghostface’s back and shrank the wizard gu before placing it in his hand.
Then, Zhang Lisheng commanded wyrmdragon to fly up into the air from his shoulders to restore its body shape of seven to eight meters long. After tumbling a few times on the sea surface and enveloping its body with mist, it carried him to the s.h.i.+pwrecked s.h.i.+p in the distance.
The sea stretched out as far as the eyes could see. The wooden s.h.i.+p was just right in front of his eyes but it took a whole three to four minutes of flying for the wizard gu to finally reach the deck.
After boarding the s.h.i.+p, the young man found that the wooden s.h.i.+p was much larger than he expected. Not only that, there was about 70 meters of distance between the bow and the stern.
On the deck of the cabin, the two masts that could hang two layers of large sails at the top and bottom had already been broken, only half a sail was left behind. The mast at the stern that was used to control direction, on the other hand, still had a fully intact sail so it was perhaps because of this that this s.h.i.+p could sway rapidly according to the strong wind of hurricanes but could only sail slowly to escape from the misfortune of being sunken.
After walking around the exposed cabin, he noticed that other than a ma.s.sive amount of sprayed blood, and smashed wooden furniture that scattered everywhere, there was no other thing on the other cabins. Zhang Lisheng frowned and stamped a few times on the deck. After hearing some hollow sounds, he searched and found a spiral staircase covered with a loose thin plank and walked down to the cabin below.
The cabin on the second floor was filled with several s.p.a.cious rooms that were fully furnished with beds, coffee tables, soft chairs spread with feathers and even exquisitely carved dressing tables. However, right now, all of them were smashed into a pile at the moment.
“There’s also no corpse here, only blood. it seems that the pa.s.sengers and the sailors on the s.h.i.+p have had their corpses destroyed already!” After looking at most of the cabins and realizing that they were in the same condition, Zhang Lisheng muttered and no longer continued to explore.
He stamped on the second deck again and heard more hollow sounds. For this reason, he searched and walked a few rounds at the corridor and finally found the stairs leading to the third floor cabin hidden in a storage room.
He walked downwards along the stairs and came across a heavy wooden door that he had not seen between the first-floor and second-floor cabins. Zhang Lisheng was stunned. After a moment of pondering, he guessed that this wooden door should be the divider of the two different types of pa.s.sengers on the s.h.i.+p. The upper cla.s.s people stayed in the two-story gorgeous rooms that allowed them to walk up to the top deck anytime to enjoy the blue sky, white clouds, gentle suns.h.i.+ne and comfortable sea breeze while the people with lower social status must stay in the dark cabin on the lower stories of the s.h.i.+p, living a hard life like a mole.
“A pa.s.senger s.h.i.+p. Looks like this is really a pa.s.senger s.h.i.+p. I never thought that other than being a magical civilization, the Mainlanders in Shrimp World No. 2 actually master such high scientific literacy as well. A s.h.i.+p that relies on wind to navigate and actually has a weight that is at least 3,000 tons turns out to be only a pa.s.senger s.h.i.+p…” Zhang Lisheng frowned as he whispered, before pus.h.i.+ng hard on the wooden door.
The wooden door that had a thickness of half a foot was not locked. After it was pushed by force, it gradually opened with some creaking sounds. The instant a slit was opened, a disgustingly horrifying stench that could make a person go dizzy rushed into the young man’s nostrils right away.
“Don’t tell me that all of them have died here on the third floor…” After mastering the transformation power, Zhang Lisheng, who could still survive even without breathing for three days and three nights, held his breath and slowly walked down the dark stairs. At once, he was greeted by a tragic and h.e.l.l-like scene.
In the third-floor cabin, all of the wood part.i.tions on all of the compartments had been burned by fire and transformed into pieces of black scorched wood that were pressing against a pile of corpses that were gathered together from several hundreds of burnt and rotten corpses that already had mottled green mosses, growing on the rotten flesh.
Some pirates must have robbed the pa.s.sengers on board and ma.s.sacred them all before throwing them to the third floor of the cabin. Then, they must have started a fire to try to destroy the evidence as well.
However, the wood used to make this pa.s.senger s.h.i.+p was particularly resistant to burning so the fire was unable to destroy its overall structure. Instead, it sank into the seabed, but slowly flowed according to the ocean current and slowly drifted into Zhang Lisheng’s sight.
“Well, this seems to be a gift from a group of inexperienced pirates to me then!” Standing on the pile of corpses that were stuck together after being burnt, Zhang Lisheng remained expressionless as he muttered to himself, before turning around to walk upstairs.
He held his breath all the way to the open deck of the wooden s.h.i.+p before finally inhaling a few times. Then, he commanded wyrmdragon to swim into the sea and expand its body to push the wooden s.h.i.+p slowly towards the coast.
It took him three to five minutes to reach here but nearly half an hour to return. After transforming into a tall and st.u.r.dy giant using Money Toad’s power, he slowly placed the big wooden s.h.i.+p lying on the beach together with the wizard gu and then dragged it to somewhere where the high tide could not reach. Then, he retrieved his wizard gu and looked at the Tudenan s.h.i.+pbuilders, fishermen, and elite warriors who were guarding the s.h.i.+ps and fisheries and ordered, “One warrior, go and call all of the chief craftsmen to come here!”
Being able to serve G.o.d first was the privilege of the chiefs. A chief warrior, who had two feathers on his head, shouted right away, “Yes, Great Raider!”
Then, he climbed up from the sand and jumped up onto his partner’s back before commanding the big spiders to sprint away.
Not long after, the chief craftsmen of the Tudenan tribe rode on the neck of Lohlos and appeared in a swaying manner in front of Zhang Lisheng.
When these craftsmen saw the unimaginably huge wooden s.h.i.+p beside the Raider, delight and bafflement appeared on their faces unanimously. However, they still suppressed the strong emotions in their hearts and kneeled down one by one.
“I’ve long said before that you only have to pay homage to me once every day when you see me for the first time! After that, you only need to bow down to show me your respect!” Zhang Lisheng waved his hand and stated. “Aruba, stand up with your men and bring them to study this wooden s.h.i.+p carefully. See if you can create a s.h.i.+p like this.”
“Yes, Raider!” Aruba replied respectfully and climbed up from the beach. He surrounded the wooden s.h.i.+p that was lying on the beach with several dozens of aborigine chief craftsmen that had feathers on their heads and began to measure using all sorts of strange tools modified from the ruler and the protractor Zhang Lisheng given to them.
Upon seeing their excitement, Zhang Lisheng could not help but say, “A small wooden s.h.i.+p of only several dozen meters could already send such bafflement to you so won’t you all faint if you see the steel s.h.i.+ps parked at the stone city of the foreign tribe!”
Of course, the ‘stone city of the foreign tribe’ that he said was none other than the human gathering place on Shrimp B1 Island.
“Great Raider, in fact, I’ve long wanted to go to the magical stone city of the foreign tribe to take a look but due to the ban that you imposed, that will always remain a forbidden area for the Tudenan people…” Upon hearing the Raider’s words, Aruba, who had climbed up the s.h.i.+p and was measuring using a wooden ruler connected with iron nails, seized this moment to say in a regrettable tone.
“Don’t worry, Aruba! you’ll be able to go there to take a look soon!” Zhang Lisheng smiled at Aruba’s woes before continuing, “Oh yeah! This s.h.i.+p is divided into three stories. There are many scorched corpses of the Mainlanders on the third story so don’t be afraid later on.”
“Raider, only the Mainlanders who are alive are horrifying and useless. After they die, they’ll turn into fertilizer for the trees and this will actually make h.e.l.lfire people like them more!” Taking in the hot sea breeze, Aruba said with a grin, bragging the natural hatred between the Mainlanders from the civilized world and the h.e.l.lfire people who were living a difficult life in the jungle on a savage island, making him lose his graceful demeanor of a wise man.
Zhang Lisheng could not help but burst out laughing. No longer saying anything more, he watched the craftsmen getting busy for a long time. In the end, they finally measured the wooden s.h.i.+p from top to bottom, from outside to inside and recorded it with details on a piece of bark paper.
After completing the preliminary work, Aruba, who climbed out of the third-floor cabin and did not have any liking towards the Mainlanders, who had been stuck to become a pile just like how Zhang Lisheng said, bowed at Zhang Lisheng and said with a pale face, “Raider, this s.h.i.+p has a complicated structure. It’s difficult for us to copy it just by measuring with the naked eye alone. However, if we can dismantle it and study each part and the connection between the parts carefully, I have at least 80% faith in successfully copying it. ”
“In that case, dismantle it, Aruba! The purpose I picked this big wooden s.h.i.+p from the sea is because of this anyway!” Zhang Lisheng answered without hesitation.
Upon hearing the Raider agreeing to the dismantling of the s.h.i.+p, the Tudenan’s chief craftsmen cheered loudly before starting to dismantle the wooden s.h.i.+p slowly.
The dismantling of a 70-meter wooden s.h.i.+p into various parts was undoubtedly a very delicate work. The several dozens of chief craftsman called in 300 to 400 more men to work together. Even when evening arrived, they had merely completed less than one-fifth of the job.
At this moment, a lot of bonfires were made on the sh.o.r.e. Unfortunately, it was still impossible to illuminate the wooden s.h.i.+p as bright as it was day time no matter what on the open coastline. However, it was also precisely because of the continuous dancing of the light and shadows that allowed Zhang Lisheng to inadvertently discover a trace of abnormality at the bottom of the s.h.i.+p.