Sea Cultivation: Giant Ships and Heavy Artillery Knock on the Door to All Races

Chapter 192: Secret Visit to Lingjiao Village, Comprehensive Improvement
"What about cargo ships, merchant ships, and passenger ships?"

"Frequently used fixed routes are fine. They're constantly maintained, with more ships traveling back and forth, making them relatively safe. However, some less frequently used routes still require two or three ships to operate together, or a more capable deputy captain to be temporarily assigned. Otherwise, it's still dangerous, which has reduced the efficiency of resource allocation between the various factions."

"It seems that the Inner Sea needs more foundation-building monks!"

First-level monsters don’t matter, but the density of second-level monsters is increasing. Only by increasing the number of foundation-building monks can the new balance be maintained.

"Well, the current foundation-building opportunities are not as rare as before. On average, one can find a demon pill that can be used as the main ingredient for the foundation-building pill among one or two hundred second-level demon beasts.
Now that every family is encouraging the birth of foundation-building cultivators to maintain their respective bases, our Lin family should be among the first to emerge."

The secret exploration fleet returned directly to the Ichthyosaur Islands with the help of the ice hunting fleet.
Any time you cast your net along the way, you can catch a lot of prey. There are a lot of worthless spirit fish and crabs, and the number of small demons is abnormally high. This is obviously not a good sign.

It is spring now, the season when all things flourish. Nature can continuously produce huge amounts of basic resources to barely support this obviously abnormal ecosystem, but what about the storm season?
Obviously, when the storm season arrives, the seabed ecology will completely collapse, the sea will boil, and the sirens will kill each other. The sirens driven out of the sea will come ashore and attack land creatures.

Fortunately, the Ichthyosaur Islands were not without any preparations.
On his return voyage, Lin Qianfan crossed the main channel of the Yulong Islands from north to south. On the way, he found that the entire Yulong Islands seemed to have begun to enter an atmosphere of large-scale infrastructure construction.

"The Ichthyosaur Islands are full of human aura. This is a warning of danger to clever monsters, but it is an opportunity to attract stupid monsters. A large number of monsters from the outer sea will inevitably attack."

The demon king or the clever second-level mid-to-late stage demon beasts that sneak into the inner sea will not actively attack the local forces. At most, they will stay for a short time and then continue to go deeper into the quiet sea area deeper in the inner sea. Although the quiet sea is very barren, it is suitable for escaping and avoiding disasters.

Only the first and second level monsters whose intelligence has not kept up with their strength will continue to stay in the Western Regions, thinking that they can escape the beast tide by fleeing into the inland sea, but they cannot withstand the large numbers and collapse is inevitable.

The Carp Dragon Demon King was also not idle. He would come out every few days to show his presence and scare away all the foreign monsters in the inner circle of the archipelago.

But the Ichthyosaur Islands are so large, and the Carp Dragon Demon King is not a cheap guard. There are so many first- and second-level monsters that they can never be driven away. When one group leaves, another group will come. They have nowhere to go and can only swim to the human-controlled area where the density of monsters is low, looking for life.

Therefore, the Lin family invested heavily to support the infrastructure construction of all the large and small forces under the Yulong Islands, and now everyone has work to do.

When monsters come ashore, they will inevitably come into contact with humans on the shore. The Lin family living in the inner ring of the archipelago naturally has no safety issues, but the first and second level spiritual islands in the middle and outer rings will all accept challenges. The closer to the outer ring, the more dangerous it is, and their own strength is weaker and their ability to resist risks is weaker.

Therefore, in addition to supporting some forces, the Lin family also allocated special funds to select a large number of suitable medium and large spiritual islands in the inner and outer rings of the archipelago to build fortifications, establish defensive formations, and set up counterattack facilities.
Clearly defined shelters were set up for the nearby gathering places of all sizes, and when the time comes, they can just move into the shelters and work together to fight the sirens.

Some small forces living on very small spiritual islands have no ability to resist risks. Their ecological niche is very low and very fragile. In addition, they have weak mobility and a small range of activity, making it difficult for them to escape. The Lin family must provide them with certain assistance, otherwise they will be eaten by the sirens when they come ashore.

These capital investments are not without returns. Large-scale construction can bring a large number of jobs. Even weak cultivators in the early and middle stages of Qi Refining can find work and get a decent salary.

Now that they have money, they naturally need to buy various survival supplies and weapons and equipment, such as buying various elixirs for cultivation and breakthroughs, buying magic tools and talismans to improve combat capabilities, buying spiritual rice and animal meat for enjoyment, etc. The money will eventually return to the Lin family.

These fortifications and shelters are not disposable. They can be used every storm season and only require a small amount of maintenance. The Lin family can also collect and recycle the profits from the prey obtained by the monks who gather together and use the fortifications to fight back.
No matter how you calculate it, the entire Yulong Islands have become stronger, the total labor force and gross domestic product have increased, and the Lin family, as the owner of this place, will inevitably benefit the most.

Back to Yanglong Bay,
The family recovered all the gains gained by the Wind Rider on this trip.
Linglongzhu can be distributed as a family benefit to Qi-refining clan members of appropriate age to help them move up a level. Even if all the clan members of appropriate age who are in the early or middle stages of Qi-refining are collectively promoted to a higher level, it will be a significant improvement.

The exchange conditions for Water Spirit Pearls are much more relaxed than those for Foundation Establishment Pills. The threshold for late-stage Qi Refining cultivators who are not in the Foundation Establishment Seed sequence to obtain foundation-building resources has been lowered. The family is encouraging core members who have made great contributions to the family and have a high level of cultivation to boldly try to break through.

Lin Qianfan did not leave this large amount of contribution points idle in his account, but exchanged them for a large number of high-quality second-level refining materials for backup.

There are many categories of refining materials. Now, due to the beast tide, the prices of monster materials have dropped significantly, which has also led to the collapse of other non-monster materials. For example, the prices of various spirit gold ores that can be used for refining are being forced to fall.

Lin Qianfan planned to take this opportunity to equip all twelve flying swords needed for the "Phantom Sword Dance" sword formation, and then master this offensive method as soon as possible, so that he would have the confidence to face the cultivators in the middle stage of foundation building.

"Now I have a Thunder Slashing Sword. I also need ten ordinary flying swords and one Phantom Flying Sword. But as for this matter... I still have to do it myself."

Lin Qianfan is a second-level shipbuilder, so naturally he also knows the second-level weapon refining technique. He just has no experience in refining second-level flying swords. However, the Phantom Sword Formation is his trump card and cannot be leaked easily, so it is difficult to use someone else to do it.

However, before settling down to refine the weapon, Lin Qianfan still had two more important things to do:

The first thing is to ask the family to go to the Thousand Star City to purchase a more advanced detection array inheritance. The detection array of the Lin family's monster hunting ship needs to be completely updated.
The encounter at the Quiet Water Ice Abyss this time was due to the insufficient level of the detection array. If the array's detection radius could still penetrate three or four hundred feet underwater when being suppressed, we would not be so passive.

Although the situations of all families were similar at that time, Lin Qianfan knew that this was just a problem of the backward inheritance of the local Jindan forces in the Western Regions, not that the Storm Ocean Xiuxian civilization was unable to do it.
Lin Qianfan himself has a more advanced inheritance, but the family needs to cover it up by purchasing the inheritance at a high price.

After receiving Lin Qianfan's request, the family attached great importance to it and promised to buy back a new inheritance that could meet Lin Qianfan's requirements when they transported goods to Thousand Star City next time.

This is definitely not something that only the Lin family would do. The Jindan forces that suffered losses in the Ice Abyss this time should all pay a large price for this. By then, the Wind Rider can secretly use the military detection formation inheritance of the Great Qin Immortal Dynasty, so that they can deal with such situations more safely in the future.

The second thing happened after Lin Qianfan returned, unable to forget the scene of that day. For a captain, such an ability was too extraordinary. He then secretly traveled to the neighboring Blazing Sea to investigate the medium-sized ship from Lingjiao Village that day, hoping to determine the identity of the person possessing such divine vision. As nothing new happens under the sun, Lin Qianfan personally went to inquire and soon learned that the medium-sized ship was called the "Qingluan Sail," one of Lingjiao Village's most important monster-hunting vessels. Its captain was a veteran captain named Yue Yaozong, a sixth-level Foundation Establishment level captain. He was well-known in the northern part of the Blazing Sea and had considerable personal strength.

But when Lin Qianfan got the rubbing of his portrait, he immediately ruled this person out.

Lin Qianfan's sixth sense told him that the person who had given him a hateful look that day was not very powerful and could not be much stronger than himself, otherwise he would not have been able to catch that fleeting flash of inspiration. The old captain who was at the sixth level of foundation building could not possibly not hide his emotions, so he should be a young man.

Check again,

It turned out that the two ships from Lingjiao Village that went to the Linglong Secret Realm were temporarily equipped with deputy captains, but the deputy captain of the Qingluan Sail never showed up from beginning to end, and he never took action, even when the Qingluan Sail was attacked.

"That's right, it seems that this is most likely the person."

Although his curiosity was partially satisfied and even a hint of greed appeared in his heart, Lin Qianfan did not continue to explore further.

Various traces indicate that this person's identity is not ordinary, and he should have a very high status in Lingjiao Village. However, there is no target that fits the character's description in the sequence of foundation-building cultivators currently disclosed in Lingjiao Village. So he is most likely a foundation-building cultivator secretly hidden in Lingjiao Village. Therefore, we can't continue to investigate, otherwise it will easily bring trouble to ourselves.

When Lin Qianfan returned to the Yulong Islands, the White Whale, which had just returned, was docking with a large number of Zhang family transport ships. The Zhang family fleet was constantly moving out huge amounts of prey and loading them onto the White Whale.

"This is…"

Lin Qianfan was puzzled. Hadn't the Shield Mountain's prey always been sold directly to the Thousand Star City? Why was it brought aboard the White Whale?

"Now that the price in Thousand Star City is too low, we will ship these things to Chaochun City. Selling them there will be the most cost-effective, which is mutually beneficial."

Granny Ju, who was assisting with the accounts, took the initiative to answer.

"I see!"

The White Whale's route to Chaochun City, which it had obtained from the former Yunshang Alliance, was to pick up and drop off long-distance passengers twice a year, one trip each during the winter snow season and the storm season.

But that was a business with a fixed route, not the limit of the White Whale's activities. After the White Whale opened up the route, it could actually run four round trips if it kept running all year round.

Among them, the other two have been cooperating with the Zhang family. The Zhang family sells the prey collected from the northern ice field to the Lin family at a price slightly higher than that of the Thousand Star City, and the Lin family takes them to Chaochun City to sell.

The City of Chaochun was not hit by the beast tide. Although there were many third-level ships constantly transporting goods there, the price of fresh goods was still strong, and it was profitable to make a single trip. However, only third-level ships could pass through the Silent Sea smoothly, otherwise it would be easy to get in but difficult to get out.

As for why the Shield Mountain ship didn't go there themselves, the Zhang family had their own considerations. There were many reasons behind this, right? The safest option was to give part of the benefits to the Lin family.

Return to the cave,

Lin Qianfan, who was about to start refining the weapon, saw someone triggering a storm of spiritual energy to pour it down. Apparently, someone had successfully established their foundation again.

"I wonder who's the lucky guy again."

There are quite a lot of cultivators in the late stage of Qi training in the Lin family. Not to mention those who have poor talents and can only rely on aging to advance, there are also many former foundation-building seeds who failed in building the foundation and potential people who failed the assessment and selection.

Normally, it is difficult for them to gather enough money to directly exchange for the Foundation Establishment Pill. For people who come from ordinary families, do not have extraordinary immortal skills and are assigned fixed jobs by their families, it is too difficult to gather (save enough) thousands or even tens of thousands of spirit stones, and they have to wait for many years.

However, as the supply of Water Spirit Pearls and second-level demon pills that can be used to refine foundation-building pills increased, and the family needed more foundation-building cultivators to maintain the new balance, the threshold for exchange was lowered accordingly.

The originally limited supply has become unlimited supply. As long as you have money, you can get it in stock, and the price is also greatly discounted. Except for the highest quality foundation-building pills that need to be reserved for the family's foundation-building seeds, the prices of other foundation-building opportunities have plummeted.

Even the difficulty for other foundation-building forces in the archipelago to obtain some less popular goods from the Lin family has been reduced accordingly, except for the new group of people. Only the old and trusted foundation-building forces that have been in the Yulong Islands for a long time can get them.

Only if the overall strength of the Ichthyosaur Islands is enhanced can they resist the coming Kraken, and this enhancement must be comprehensive.
Only by strengthening the old foundation-building forces in the archipelago as a whole can we balance the influx of foreign residents and keep them in line;

Only by strengthening the overall strength of the Lin family can we balance the growing power of the subordinates and make them always respect the Lin family;
All Lin Qianfan can do is to master the Phantom Sword Formation as soon as possible. Only with stronger personal strength can he obtain more resources in the upcoming crisis.

(End of this chapter)