Global Mining.

Chapter 40: Uninhabited Island, Abyss
The island is not big, and the whale quickly pulled the boat around the island. No living person was found on the radar.

Dachun remembered what Valrhona said before leaving to conduct a population survey, and he made it clear that it had meaning.

Anyway, now that we have radar and whales, it’s time to get brave enough to land on the island.

Dachun walked to the island cautiously, holding a red blood bottle in his hand like a handshake.

After the battle in the sewer, there were 40 red blood bottles left, but the weight of these 40 bottles made it difficult for the weak Dachun to run, so he took 10 with him and put the others on the boat.

Dilapidated dock streets, hospital signs all over the street, residential buildings covered with plants, and a bank with a gold-lettered signboard that can be roughly recognized even if the vision is blurry!
Damn, there is a bank! If the player becomes a lord and can have his own bank... this is simply awesome!
Elaine said: "There is a bar next to it, and there seems to be wine on the counter!"

During the public beta period of the Spring Festival, I had been studying wine. I immediately went in and took a look. I really found a box of 40 bottles of unopened wine among a pile of empty bottles, broken cans and random boxes - huh?

Ailian laughed in surprise: "Tapioca roast?"

This wine is so cheap that no one drinks it because it is often poisoned! But is it because of this that you can keep a box of it?
Dachun smiled and said: "How can I say that the cassava yaki has been preserved for hundreds of years, so it is probably different?"

Ailian disagreed: "Probably."

If you can't move one box, try to carry 5 bottles with you, and then hide the box again.

After leaving the bar, there is a blacksmith shop next to it, with all kinds of tools, molds, stoves, coal, and spare mining hoes in the corner.

Dachun habitually pulled out a mining hoe to defend himself.

Then he saw the golden light shining on the cabinet shelf: "That's it?"

Ailian was excited: "It seems to be gold?"

Dachun immediately stepped forward to inspect it. It looked like a trophy covered in dust and cobwebs.

After taking it off and wiping it, it really shines like gold - holy shit! Dachun was excited, and with a creak, a thin layer of gold powder was rubbed off, revealing the core of black iron.

Elen laughed: "It turns out to be gold-plated!"

Dachun was a little speechless: "There seems to be writing on it? Help me take a look."

"Congratulations to Smith on his promotion to the Master Smith Award."

Dachun was really in awe: "It turns out there was a master here!"

It's just that Smith's name is too vulgar, just like a Chinese blacksmith whose surname is Tie Mingjiang.

Elian sighed with emotion: "It is said that the masters in the Great Development Era were all true masters! It's not like now, where standards are lowered and professional titles are rampant."

Dachun was stunned: "Is there such a thing?"

Ailian snorted: "I heard the gentlemen chatting off the stage. Because the Golden Empire wants to monopolize technical talents and prevent the five major cities from becoming bigger, it fooled some water-filled masters, including the master-level dance teachers who taught us. "

Damn it! Hidden information!
Dachun suddenly thought of the mining master who picked up the magic stone, and felt that it was indeed a bit overwhelming. In fact, I have discovered that normally upgrading skills only adds weight-bearing stamina, muscle memory will add life, and illness and fatigue will add energy. Rather than saying that this is the Golden Empire monopolizing technology, it is better to say that the consortium-related households are distancing themselves from ordinary players.

Dachun couldn't help but sigh: "That's right, even Favna said that the Chamber of Commerce Order in later generations will be weakened."

After leaving the blacksmith shop, there were a lot of crows in front of me, which made Da Chun feel nervous!
Elaine said: "It's a church!"

church? That's the resurrection point. It shouldn't be dangerous, right?
Dachun walked forward slowly and saw not only the dilapidated building, but also the densely packed cemeteries around it. Crows were jumping around on the tombstones, not afraid of his arrival at all. As expected of the Plague Crow, he was indeed arrogant.

Dachun's scalp was numb: "At night, will there be many zombies crawling out of these cemeteries? Or the King of Crows or something?"

Elaine smiled: "Then you can stay at the church tonight and have a look. Maybe there will be a dance of the dead?"

Although it seems like a joke, it is most likely the connotation of this island! Even being an undead lord is better than having nothing at all.

"Then let's wait until tonight."

Around the church is a small hill, where several rusty mine carts suddenly fell over.

Elaine said: "It's a mine! Do you want to use radar to detect it?"

"Let's explore."

"Stand at the entrance of the cave to facilitate the return of sound waves."

As soon as Dachun arrived at the entrance of the cave, the red light alerted - the system prompted: Warning! You are exposed to poisonous gas, and your Whale Power becomes immune to the poison's effects.

Damn it, just the entrance to the cave is poisonous, and it’s even poisonous inside!

As the radar was activated, a deep, grand and dense underground terrain map like a spider web appeared before Dachun's eyes.

It’s poisonous and so big, this is what this island is about!

Dachun immediately became excited: "Do you think there are any precious minerals in this mine?"

Elaine sneered: "How precious can it be? If there really is a gold mine, how can it not be abandoned just because of a plague? Even if prisoners are sent to death row to wear anti-virus equipment, they still have to mine it——"

At this point, Elian was stunned again: "No, if there is a gold mine, the Golden Empire's invincible fleet will definitely come to snatch it! Who's turn to mine in Black Iron City?"

"makes sense."

Dachun still hoeed the mine at the entrance of the cave out of habit.

——System prompt: Do you want to turn on the automatic mining mode?
Oh? You can also automatically hang up here! That's fine, I'll recall the large mining skills here when I go offline one day.

Then bypassing the mine was a large fence overgrown with weeds. Dachun couldn't see clearly: "Is it a vegetable field?"

Elaine sighed: "It looks like a wild pumpkin, but it's only as small as a fist. This island is really barren."

Da Chun's heart skipped a beat: "Could the pumpkins growing in the Plague Land be a herbal medicine for treating the plague?"

Elaine said: "It is very possible that the plague will be lifted after you take it for a while."

Even so, Dachun had tasted the benefits of practicing skills while sick to improve his energy, so how could he be willing to treat his illness? There are still one and a half days left in the first three days of the Newcomer Blessing Promotion. In fact, during this last time, you shouldn’t care about the island. You should focus on practicing your skills, right?

After bypassing the weeds and vegetable fields, we returned to the residential area and the dock.

Overall, the city is not exactly the size of an island town, but it has all the shops and institutions it should have.

Elaine sighed: "This island is neither the nearest nor the largest, nor does it seem to have any fishing grounds. The land is not as fertile as the later developed Watermelon Island and Vanilla Island. I really doubt the vision of the Black Flag Chamber of Commerce."

Dachun also felt that it was hard to explain: "Maybe because it was nothing, there were no powerful monsters here at that time, so it was easy to build..."

Ai Lian sighed, "Do you think it's worth 100 billion?" Dachun had no concept of 100 billion, but he did feel that something was wrong.

Suddenly, Dachun remembered an Internet joke - if a compound villa suddenly appeared in a barren mountain with nothing, then it would either be a treasure trove or a tomb robbery! Because only by building large-scale construction on the treasure land can we cover the treasure digging.

Dachun was inspired: "Ailian, I still think this island may have particularly precious minerals!"

Ailian was stunned: "I just gave you the reason why it's impossible!"

Dachun forced an excuse: "Is it possible that this island was built because a gold mine was discovered, and then an accident caused the secret to be leaked. This plague is to cover up the existence of the gold mine and prevent it from being robbed by the Golden Empire, so they killed everyone on the island?"

Ailian laughed out loud: "You are so bad, I like it!"

Dachun said unhappily, "I just speculated on this possibility."

Ailian smiled and said, "Then go to the mine as you wish. You are not afraid of poison gas anyway."

There must be a hidden boss somewhere, so why would anyone dare to go there? But if we follow this inference, it's impossible for them to dig for gold right under the noses of so many people on the island, right?
Dachun's thoughts continued to wander: "I think that mine is used to deceive people. The gold mine is definitely not on this island. Maybe it's on the seabed, or maybe on the seabed of a distant island."

Ailian smiled: "Then let the whale go to the bottom of the sea to find it!"

Well, even if the idea wasn't entirely reliable, having a clear path was better than having no clue at all. The key point was, I could use the last day and a half of searching for underwater gold as an excuse to practice my skills!

……

Dachun returned to the boat. In order to reduce the burden on the whale, he first moved most of the water and food on the boat to the dock, and then found a broken box to cover it - by the way, is this broken box infected with the plague?

Then he called to the whale, "Let's search the surrounding underwater islands to see if there's any treasure?"

The whale excitedly sprayed water and pulled the boat again.

Soon, what was supposed to come finally came!

System prompt: Congratulations! You've overcome extreme weakness and restored your muscle memory to level 1 of Advanced Fishing Technique, earning you additional achievement rewards: +1 Health, +1 Spirit! Your module combination skill proficiency has increased.

System prompt: Congratulations! You are exceptionally intelligent and have persevered through your illness, successfully mastering the first level of elementary boatmanship. You receive achievement rewards: +1 Carrying Weight, +1 Stamina. You also receive an additional achievement reward: +1 Spirit!
I've reached a higher level, I've gained some understanding, and I've gained 2 more points of energy. So cool! So, is this considered genuinely advanced?
And as you get more advanced in fishing, your proficiency is still increasing! So you can put aside all the things on the island for a while!

Just when he was feeling high-spirited, the whale snorted - the system prompted: the whale was feeling hungry and needed to go find food first.

Um, that’s right!

Dachun felt distressed and said, "Then please stop pulling the boat and go find some food."

The whale hummed a few times - system prompt: The whale is unwilling to give up guarding you.

Dachun was anxious: "I can get ashore!"

Ailian said, "That's fine, actually. Let the whale help find any fishing grounds nearby. If there's any danger, we can still protect it."

Dachun finally realized: "That's right, I was too worried just now."

But how do we protect it?
The boat was pulled out to sea, and Plague Island became a floating shadow in the distance on the sea level.

Just then, the whale let go of the fishing rod and began to circle.

"Found a fishing ground?"

Dachun turned on the radar in surprise. Although he didn't go far below the sea surface, he didn't see any fish.

Ailian said in a deep voice, "Where there are fishing grounds, seabirds usually gather and large sea beasts and fish appear. The water here is so dark, it must be very deep."

That’s right, green water is deep, black water is abyss, this is the sea abyss!

The deep sea is often home to sperm whales' old enemies, giant squids and octopuses. But considering this whale's old age and scars, could it possibly defeat a giant octopus?

The whale hovered for a while, then seemed to have determined its target and dived into the deep sea.

Although Dachun's radar cannot penetrate deep into the sea, it can still track the whale all the way because of its large body.

Ailian also kept confirming the depth: "100 meters, 200 meters, 300 meters..."

Dachun was shocked. He didn't know about it in the game, but in real life, the limit for humans to dive without equipment was 100 meters, and the limit with the most advanced diving equipment was 700 meters. As for sperm whales, 2000 meters was common! This game even created the void, so they really could create a 2000-meter abyss! He couldn't help at all!

Then, it disappeared from the radar.

Dachun waited for more than ten minutes, feeling extremely anxious! The only thing he could do was clap his hands to call it back. Wasn't it just about finding food? There was no need to fight a deep-sea monster to the death.

——System prompt: You start "Whale Guardian"...

After a while, its figure appeared on the radar again. Dachun breathed a sigh of relief.

Ailian sank down and said, "Its rising speed is not much faster than its diving speed."

Dachun's heart tightened. Could he be hurt?

Finally, there was a loud splash, the sea surface instantly turned red, and the whale's body was covered in blood!
Dachun was stunned: "How is the injury?"

The whale spurted out a tube of red blood - system prompt: The whale discovered a giant octopus in the shipwreck below.

Shipwreck Octopus!?
Octopuses are soft, so the scratches should only be superficial? But even with Dachun's blurred vision, he could still see several large dents! Could this octopus's strength be comparable to that of a giant python?

The only thing Dachun could do was to bring out 40 bottles of red medicine: "Treat it first, and I'll pour it into your mouth!"

These 40 bottles are just a drop in the bucket for the whale, but as long as they can stop the bleeding a little, it will be fine.

Just then, Ailian made a discovery: "Look, what's stuck in its head?"

Amidst the sand, stones, wood chips, blood and flesh left behind by the fight, Dachun faintly saw a flash of something that he didn't know whether it was black or golden light!
WTF gold mine!!
Dachun quickly took it off and took a closer look. It was a golden nugget as big as a mung bean! ?

——System prompt: You have discovered unknown artifact-level materials.

"Artifact material!!!"

Ailian was shocked: "It's not gold, it has a black shimmer, it's the legendary magic gold!"

Holy crap!!! Magic Gold, Mithril, the game's top artifact material mines, get one and you'll split the world!
Dachun was so incredulous, as if he had dreamed of winning the lottery: "There really is a mine! I was just guessing, and I got it right!"

Thinking about it carefully, when Fafner said that finding an unowned mine would be enough, was that actually a hint? It's just that the search was going so smoothly, and it seems that without a whale, it's really impossible to find it. It feels like an obvious coincidence!
(End of this chapter)