The fisherman druid is in another world

Chapter 787

Two short but intense life-or-death battles quickly earned the Moon Elf Estes considerable fame in Cape City.

After all, the moon elf's pale hair, tall figure, and androgynous humanoid appearance, combined with the unique aura brought by the Black Robb soul, made Estes highly recognizable.

This is obviously a good thing for Black Rob, who is still in the intelligence-gathering stage.

For example, at the Orange Ring Tavern in Cape City, which was famous for selling information, Black Robb received ample courtesy and easily purchased a copy of the latest information related to the Skyraven Treasure.

Afterwards, while drinking and making a rough analysis based on the new intelligence, I also chatted with four brokers who had offered their services.

If it weren't for the fact that the fourth broker suited his taste better, he believed he would have encountered a fifth, a sixth, or even more brokers before leaving the tavern.

All those who come and go in the land of the Sky Raven are driven by profit. As news of the Sky Raven Treasure spread, the intelligence and headhunting business became even busier than the trade and sale of goods, which had been booming due to the influx of adventurers.

Following the broker who piqued his interest, Black Robb arrived at a tavern called Blue Ring in a corner of the left district of Cape City.

Black Rob knew that the orange-ringed octopus was a well-known, highly venomous supernatural creature in the Earth Sea, while the blue-ringed octopus was a relatively recognizable bioluminescent jellyfish.

From this perspective, the name "Blue Ring" for this bar seems to be an attempt to piggyback on the popularity of "Orange Ring," as if it's specifically designed to scam out-of-towners from the cave region.

However, perhaps the locals, who were based at the Blue Ring Tavern, knew how to read people and treat them well. Black Rob's series of encounters here felt pretty good. He spoke with substance, without too many veiled meanings, saving time and effort.

In less than an hour, the intention to cooperate was verbally agreed upon, and the next step is to wait for the meeting.

Simply put, Black Rob has chosen the shared boat adventure mode this time.

The local boatmen hired their trusted brokers to organize a trip, and once the adventurers had staked their money, they set off for the location of the Skyraven Treasure.

Boatmen act as providers of transportation and platforms (including forward bases), while adventurers act as escorts and gold miners operating on a self-sustaining basis.

The meeting was held on time a day later on the Anglerfish.

Perhaps it was because the adventurers the broker found were all reliable, or perhaps it was because these adventurers were all in high spirits and only thinking about how to make money after landing on the island, and were too lazy to care about anything else, the formal agreement was reached without any trouble. After the sixteen representatives of the adventure teams, each with their own thoughts, paid the deposit, all that was left was to board the ship the next evening and depart the day after tomorrow morning.

Black Roborock is relatively more picky.

After all, if it weren't for maintaining his public image, with the manufacturing capabilities of his established forces, he could easily assemble a ship with better overall performance than the best so-called sea fortresses among the coastal city-states.

However, if needed, Black Rob does know how to demonstrate emotional intelligence.

He did not criticize the ship owner in front of other forces.

Instead, he waited until after the meeting to speak privately with the ship owner, saying, "The Anglerfish does look clumsy, just like an anglerfish, but that doesn't mean it's sturdy enough."

As he spoke, he used water molecules to outline the Anglerfish's 3D structure in the air, then continuously marked it with red and yellow symbols.

There are more than twenty red spots alone, and at least three times as many yellow spots.

"My people and I will not pay you, but we promise that the red markers will be repaired one by one on the way to the volcanic island, and the yellow markers will be removed once the Anglerfish returns successfully."

The boat owner only glanced at a few red and yellow marked locations and knew he had encountered a true expert, someone who likely knew more about the boat's condition than they did.

Because the other party seemed to possess an incredible ability to see through things, allowing them to have complete control over every detail of the entire ship.

The conditions offered by Blackroboron were not just about eliminating potential hazards, but also included maintenance during the voyage.

A simple calculation reveals that, given the value of these jobs, even squeezing every last penny of profit from this voyage wouldn't be enough.

After all, a regular major overhaul requires the ship to be docked in a dry dock. Given the reality of supporting over a hundred crew members on such a large ship, the time cost alone is a considerable expense.

The boat owner said half-jokingly, "How about I transfer this boat to you?"

Black Rob said with a look of disdain, "We're here to make money, not to add bad assets. The waters of the Earthsea are too deep; having a good ship doesn't guarantee a stable way to make money. One important reason why the Moon Elves chose to live by the lake instead of seeking development on the coast was that they didn't have enough people to die."

Upon hearing this, the boat owner smiled and agreed to Black Rob's work-for-pay scheme...

Thus, Black Robo's Moon Elf squad boarded the ship half a day earlier than the other fifteen squads, and soon after, accompanied by the ship owner, they began the repair work.

The Anglerfish was a large ship, 900 meters long and 400 meters wide. In the context of the surrounding coastal states, this size was just barely considered a large ship.

In terms of materials and craftsmanship, the Anglerfish is not outstanding, and it cannot be compared with special ships of the same class. However, it is not a haphazardly assembled ship either, but a capital ship built according to mature processes. It's just that the version and model are obviously outdated.

With its increasingly powerful industrial system at its back, Black Robo obtained detailed information and data about the Anglerfish. After a calculation by its extraordinary AI, it was able to figure out the advantages and disadvantages, as well as how to improve it.

First is the keel.

The Anglerfish's keel had four hidden wounds, two medium and two small, which Black Rob replaced with the Moon Spirit Bone, a renowned artifact of the Moon Elf.

This material is lightweight yet strong, with decent toughness, excellent superhuman force flow, and self-healing properties. While it can't compare to the Black Robo-Giver's Source Nano series, for the Underground Hundred Clans, it's already considered a high-end superhuman material that offers excellent value for money.

With the appearance of the Moon Spirit Bone, the ship owner was completely relieved.

On one hand, it confirms that Black Rob and his group are indeed moon elves.

On the other hand, using moon spirit bones as the keel of a seagoing vessel is something many ship owners desperately want but can't obtain. Now he has the opportunity to replace one of these bones on his large ship and make a fortune.

But in reality, the Moon Spirit Bone is fake.

Of course, counterfeit products do not necessarily mean that their performance is worse than that of genuine products.

The Black Robo imitation of the Moon Spirit Bone has superior overall performance compared to the real Moon Spirit Bone.

If you insist on saying that counterfeit goods are inferior to genuine goods in certain aspects, then it's because they can't reach the highest standards.

When applied to individual cultivation, a genuine Moon Spirit Bone can undergo a breakthrough, while a fake one cannot; its normal upper limit is simply higher than that of a genuine Moon Spirit Bone.

Regarding this detail, Black Rob didn't think it was wrong to pass off inferior goods as superior ones.

While the true Moon Spirit Bone can unleash its full potential, in reality, the Anglerfish lacked both the stage and the conditions for such an event.

The conditions for a performance surge are very demanding, and the aftereffects are also very significant. If the Anglerfish wants to achieve a performance surge, it needs a systemic upgrade, rather than just having a single needle-shaped Moon Spirit Bone Dragon Bone.

Leaving aside the astronomical costs of a systemic upgrade, just considering the application scenarios, the inhabitants of coastal nations who rely on the sea for their livelihoods will likely never encounter an event requiring such a massive vessel like the Anglerfish to undergo a dramatic transformation. It's fair to say that while a sudden surge in power might feel exhilarating, it could also lead to bankruptcy and even certain death.

Although the Moon Elves have warships made entirely of Moon Spirit Bone, those are designed for sailing on Earth Lakes and are generally only a hundred meters long. They might not be able to afford to do that in the Earth Sea.

Since the explosive power of the real Moon Spirit Bone is basically not practical in the Earth Sea environment, who dares to say that the fake Moon Spirit Bone, which has stronger conventional performance than the real one, is not a more suitable choice?

Of course, Black Rob isn't a fool; his technological advantages allow him to make a fortune in material recycling.

The original keel of the Anglerfish ship contained a considerable amount of rare and extraordinary materials, which is the fundamental reason why it was able to explode in power.

On the other hand, the downside is that repairing this dragon bone, which is rich in rare and extraordinary materials, requires either more rare and extraordinary resources or a sufficient amount of ordinary extraordinary resources plus a lot of time.

This leads to expensive repairs, which is painful for boat owners; slowly maintaining the boat until it's completely out of service is unaffordable, so they can only focus on keeping it in good working order. But like a rope that's always short and thin, those who make a living on land and at sea rarely have the luck to go through decades without disaster or misfortune.

Therefore, the most common pattern is that if the keel is severely damaged, it will be reluctant to be repaired; if it is damaged again, it will be relegated to the second line of duty, suffering various minor damages until it is scrapped.

Not only the keel, but the entire ocean-going vessel follows a similar life cycle. As for those who are particularly unlucky or particularly lucky, it is not a common occurrence and there is no need to go into details.

After replacing the keel, we need to talk about the hull.

Like most large ships of coastal cities, the Anglerfish used a seaweed hull.

Algae stone is not a single material, but a combination of two materials: mutated seaweed and stone.

Stone is one of the most readily available materials in the underground world.

The area around the coastal city-state is rich in a material called mesquite, which is somewhere between the extraordinary and the ordinary, and its properties make it the preferred material for ship hulls.

As for mutant seaweed, it is specially cultivated based on natural seaweed. Its existence brings two major characteristics to the hull of ships: toughness and sealing.

Its presence is like rubber. Although limited by the weight of the large ship, these algae coatings cannot turn it into a bumper boat, but they do greatly reduce the severity of damage to the hull and play a significant role in preventing shipwrecks.

As for how these two materials are organically combined, it is not difficult to understand by simply looking at the structure of the ship's hull from a macroscopic perspective.

After the dense crystal is cut into slabs, it is welded using a mud-to-stone technique similar to electric welding.

However, the technique of turning mud into stone cannot transform mud into dense crystal.

Even if the crystal is crushed and made into mud, it is still considered a special type due to its semi-supernatural properties. There are few spellcasters who can master special abilities. In addition, factors such as the construction period of shipbuilding cause the price of a fully integrated crystal hull to skyrocket. Neither the military nor private individuals can afford such a price. Only wealthy people who are just doing it for fun can afford to build a special ship to show off.

Therefore, the mud-like parts of the fossil were filled with algal veins, and their overall layout was like the veins of a leaf, evenly spread on the large bathtub-like hull. This energy vein affected both the inside and outside, generating a layer of algae on both the outer and inner layers, making the dense crystal shell like a sandwich. These algae are attached like barnacles, so they do not damage the overall shape of the ship.

When Black Rob and his team replaced the keel of the Anglerfish, it affected the ship's hull system. Because of the vein-like structure of algae, the main vein is located in the keel, which not only provides energy to the veins but is also closely related to the keel's self-repairing ability.

Therefore, Black Rob also used his extraordinary powers to infect and mutate this mutated algae.

This then involves the selection of the ship's hull power supply and even the propulsion system.

This is all part of a whole, closely interconnected, and a change in one part can affect the whole.

Of course, there is still a distinction between primary and secondary aspects.

Black Robo started off extremely efficiently, completing the three major components while the ship was still moored: the keel, the hull, and the propulsion system.

They are, respectively, Moon Spirit Bone, Moon Night Algae, and Moon Glow Furnace.

Therefore, when the Anglerfish set sail, its original blackish-purple hull had been replaced with silver-gray.

The sea conditions on land are far more complex than those on the surface of the ocean, which leads to the design of ships that are more similar to submarines as understood by people on Earth, thus achieving greater resistance to wind and waves.

Unlike most ocean-going vessels whose bow shape resembles that of a catfish, the Anglerfish's bow shape is indeed closer to that of an anglerfish, making it appear more cumbersome.

And it does indeed have a flexible mast light that illuminates from the top.

This is a magical lamp used to communicate with other ships. It is made flexible because a rigid, freestanding mast simply cannot withstand the raging waves.

Based on this alone, it's not hard to imagine how terrifying the waves of the Earth Sea must have been.

After the Anglerfish set sail, Black Robb saw all sorts of ships from other city-states.

His impression was that the overall structure of the ships, both land and sea, largely resembled that of horseshoe crabs.

Whether the front half is catfish-shaped, anglerfish-shaped, helmet-shaped, or shuttle-shaped, it all features a perfectly round, airtight design, so it doesn't matter even if it's completely submerged in seawater. Thanks to its hollow structure, it can quickly rise to the surface.

The rear half of the hull has its own characteristics. For example, the Anglerfish, being a warship converted into an armed civilian ship, has armor but few turrets, so it has a terrace-style multi-deck design.

But the deck doesn't even have railings; it's only suitable for standing on when the sea conditions are good so that people can enjoy the fresh air.

The problem is that, most of the time, the sea conditions in the Earth's oceans are worse than those in the North Atlantic during the monsoon season. Waves can easily become massive.

Therefore, large ships often float and rock violently in the ocean.

Starting from the third day after setting sail, Black Rob and his crew experienced such sea conditions. Some adventurers who came from afar, even those with a high level of superhuman ability, were so tormented that they needed to take potions to combat the turbulence.

The crew members generally said that this was already considered a good sea condition; there were far more terrifying sea conditions than this, and they encountered them frequently.

Black Robb didn't have much time to lament the dangers of life at sea. Since setting sail, he and his small team had mainly been tackling the armor of the Anglerfish.

Simply put, the Anglerfish's armor comes in two types: physical armor and energy armor.

Regardless of the type, both involve watertightness and anti-sinking ability.

Because their performance is the most frequently used, the armor system of the HMS Anglerfish, as an old and decommissioned warship, is generally not very good.

Blackroboron prioritized repairs, starting with the bow armor.

This time, he wasn't as efficient as when he replaced the three major components.

Besides not being too conspicuous, it's also to make it more logical.

The keel can be explained by the fact that they came prepared.

The energy contamination of seaweed is closely related to the energy pool and operating system of the power system.

From a certain perspective, as long as you're willing to spend money and the method isn't fundamentally flawed, then infection can indeed be achieved very quickly. The real problem lies in whether the infected seaweed can still fulfill its primary value as before. This needs to be tested in practice.

Armor is different. If the armor of the Anglerfish can be quickly repaired or replaced, it means that the Moon Elves' shipbuilding is very mature and they have a deep understanding of the ships of the coastal city-states. They are ready to participate in the division of interests in the land and sea at any time.

In particular, armor is a consumable item that can be purchased in large quantities. If a faction can efficiently replace its armor, its advantage will keep other factions up at night.

Therefore, the slow progress of armor repairs brought a sigh of relief to the ship owner.

Although his crew members are mostly old comrades who rely on him for their livelihood, loyalty has a price, so it's best not to test them.

The enormous changes that have taken place on the Anglerfish are already quite striking, but they can still be barely explained by the fact that the services were pre-arranged and purchased at a high price.

But if this armor were to be repaired or replaced so quickly right under the noses of so many crew members and adventurers, that would be too conspicuous. It would definitely bring him and the moon elves endless trouble.

The moon elf did not cross this invisible red line. Whether it was because he truly lacked the ability or because he exercised a sense of propriety, it was something he was extremely happy to see.

In return, he was willing to repay the Moon Elf in other ways within his power.

In this way, Black Robo, relying on his technological advantage, truly solved the problems of advancing and retreating and moving bases, laying a solid foundation for the treasure hunt.

(End of this chapter)