Grand Voyage : Surviving on a Ghost Ship-Chapter 148 - First entry into the Bountiful Sea Region

In the lab, Suna was busy at work. On the table lay a white crystal resembling a block of condensed milk.

As soon as she saw Yang Yi enter, she waved him over.

“What’s up?”

Yang Yi’s gaze lingered for a few seconds on the milk-like block on the table, then shifted to a fat pufferfish sealed in a nearby glass tank. Though it hadn’t puffed up, it was already as round as a ball.

Suna picked up the milky block and a bottle of colourless liquid.

“This white fluid isn’t oil or fat. It’s actually a high-concentration sugar solution, with a boiling point of around 200°C and an ignition point of 600°C. I tried evaporating and separating it, and ended up with two products: Delicious Honey and freshwater.”

That milk-brick-like substance was the crystallised honey she obtained through evaporation.

She cut the milky block in half and dropped each piece into a different liquid, one labeled freshwater, the other saturated saltwater.

The freshwater turned white almost instantly, while the saltwater formed a distinct milky-white layer floating on top, not mixing fully. Salt also began to precipitate.

Yang Yi wasn’t surprised. Wasn’t that the same phenomenon seen at sea?

Suna explained:

“This milky-white solution has a lower density than saturated saltwater and doesn’t easily mix with it. So, I experimented on them and found...”

She pulled out two glass jars from under the table.

The first contained a piece of soft, greasy meat, from the earlier Delicious Meat Chunk, which had shrivelled badly in saltwater, as if dehydrated. The other was soaked in freshwater and showed no changes.

“Salt harms the meat chunk.”

Suna took out the meat from the freshwater jar and sprinkled salt on it. Almost immediately, the meat visibly began to dehydrate and shrink, just like a slug.

“You could’ve just told me the conclusion,” Yang Yi muttered.

He picked up the meat and gave it a squeeze, it had become tough, and its aroma had weakened.

“There’s more!” Suna continued.

“I was wondering, so many marine creatures are gathering here. Shouldn’t they be suffocating from lack of oxygen?

So, I tested this pufferfish.

And now I can confirm: this white fluid can directly power biological life, or it supplies energy without needing oxygen!

This pufferfish has been alive for over three hours in the exhaust gas left from combustion and it still hasn’t died!”

She elaborated.

Yang Yi immediately understood the implications.

No need for oxygen means organisms can grow much larger, unconstrained by oxygen availability. That greatly increased the likelihood of gigantic creatures in the sea and covered the major findings.

Salt was effective at damaging stage-four creatures. It would be essential to stock up or synthesise more, since once they entered the Bountiful Sea Region, acquiring salt could become impossible.

Yang Yi turned to leave the lab, but Suna grabbed him.

Thankfully, she didn’t make any demands. She simply handed him a vial of potion, containing a light red liquid with some flocculent substance floating inside.

“A prototype to restore mana essence. Give it a try.”

Yang Yi took it. The item was still registered as an unknown potion, with possible ingredients including his own spinal fluid, wolf fur, or other unknown substances. But he wasn’t ready to drink it yet, concerned it could interfere with his exploration of the Bountiful Sea Region.

Back on deck, Yang Yi piloted the Nightmare Star forward and officially entered the Bountiful Sea Region.

Unlike the previous transition into the Extreme Winter Sea, this boundary was obvious, as if passing through a membrane. Even the air inside felt thicker, and the temperature was several degrees higher.

Yang Yi slowed the ship and used his three-eyed vision to survey the surroundings, while checking the sea map inside the crystal orb.

It was dotted with sesame-like specks but in reality, they were floating chunks of meat.

They came in all shapes and sizes, some were just slabs of meat, others resembled mushrooms, and some even looked like trees.

The seawater was milky white, as if the ship was sailing through milk, a sea of sweetness and honey beneath them.

Yang Yi took pictures to document the Bountiful Sea’s conditions, then aimed at a nearby meat chunk and fired.

Boom!

Twenty metres ahead, an irregularly shaped meat chunk about two metres long had a large hole blown into it.

But it barely reacted as if it didn’t feel pain. Its wound closed up rapidly before their eyes.

Not convinced, Yang Yi fired several more rounds and even used the ship’s cannon, tearing the meat chunk into several pieces but it still wouldn’t die.

He switched to using his three-eyed vision and that’s when he noticed something strange.

The meat chunk had numerous pores beneath the water, constantly contracting and expanding as it gulped down the white seawater. Meanwhile, its wounds healed rapidly.

Even when it was torn into multiple pieces, it didn’t die instead, each piece split into an independent entity. And when they touched, they would start devouring and merging with one another.

Which meant it was practically unkillable in the white seawater.

Maybe fire could work against it, but that would likely set the entire sea ablaze.

Yang Yi hesitated for a moment, then steered the Nightmare Star towards the fragments of meat that were floating nearby, merging with each other. freewebnøvel.coɱ

As he got close, the meat pieces seemed to sense something. They floated over and stuck tightly to the hull of the Nightmare Star, seemingly trying to fuse with and consume the vessel.

Yang Yi ordered the bone arms to pull the stuff off, but it wasn’t very effective and even provoked attacks.

Though the thing was made purely of meat, it had a unique method of attacking: devouring.

Several of the bone arms were swallowed by the meat, and the Nightmare Star's durability began to drop.

Once attached to the ship, it could actually damage it over time.

Possibly drawn by the commotion, a giant sea mushroom, over three metres wide, drifted over from a short distance away.

Yang Yi pulled out a bag of table salt and dumped it over the meat clinging to the ship’s hull.

In an instant, the meat reacted as if hit with acid, it rapidly dehydrated and withered, abandoned its attack, and retreated into the sea.

“Salt works. Physical attacks are nearly useless. Not sure if killing it drops an egg,” Yang Yi concluded.

More meat chunks were drifting over from a distance. Yang Yi didn’t bother to engage, he simply piloted the ship in reverse and backed away.

Although he had only lingered briefly on the outer edge of the Bountiful Sea Region, thanks to the three-eyed scan, he had already swept through a wide area.

The sea was littered with floating meat chunks. It was impossible to avoid them all. Forcing a path through would be like rolling a snowball, soon, the hull would be completely covered in meat.

And at that point, even if the ship could withstand it, it probably wouldn’t be able to move.

Eventually, the meat would merge into a single mass, encase the entire ship, climb onto the deck and no one onboard would escape.

Yang Yi formed a theory based on the information he had.

The salt on board was limited. It wouldn’t support a deep expedition into the Bountiful Sea.

If the ship got entangled in meat, things would get very messy.

“Scattering salt, the entire way through this sea? That’s just not realistic…”

Yang Yi grumbled inwardly.

Maybe coating the ship’s hull with a layer of crystallised salt could repel the meat chunks that tried to approach. That seemed far more practical and feasible.

He shared the idea with Suna, who agreed. It had high viability.

After the initial exploration, the Nightmare Star retreated from the Bountiful Sea Region, and it was already evening.

Yang Yi noticed the lookout tower had finished cooling down, so he activated a scan and unexpectedly discovered the coordinates of an island, located within the Bountiful Sea Region, about 1,000 nautical miles away.

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