Otherworld Bone Dragon Operation Guide

Chapter 44 Central Ocean Waters
When Su Ming woke up, it was already noon the next day.

Last night, he carried the girl down from the bridge, and she fell asleep as soon as she took off her wet clothes. Su Ming himself piloted the Zhiyuan, continuing to speed for five hours before switching to economical speed to sleep.

Because he was afraid of something going wrong, he slept directly in the control room.

Su Ming stretched, but the pain in his back stopped him halfway through. He examined his bones and figured it was just a soft tissue contusion, so he found some painkillers.

While swallowing the pills, Su Ming checked the system logs of the industrial control computer and found several areas in the equipment that needed maintenance, so he shut down the boiler and steam engine.

He scanned the area with his mast radar and located several small islands and reefs nearby. Using the nautical chart for positioning, Su Ming discovered they had traveled nearly 400 kilometers and were now completely in the open sea. There were no fishing boats at this location, and strangely, no merchant ships were visible in the vicinity.

According to the nautical chart, they should be located on the central shipping route of maritime trade between the East and West continents, in the busiest and most densely populated area of ​​seagoing vessels.

Su Ming went to check on Zi Jin first. The girl looked exhausted and asleep, which was heartbreaking. However, she seemed to have woken up once, as she had changed into her floral pajamas and her hair had been simply styled.

He also took the glass of water and aspirin he had placed by her bedside. These were the medications he had chosen based on the aftereffects of the Violet Magic Overdraft, which should alleviate her symptoms.

Su Ming helped her cover herself with the blanket, then thought for a moment and called the skeleton servant to cook.

After Su Ming selected the ingredients, he had the skeleton servant cook the soup and fry the fish. Aside from almost adding several times the normal amount of salt, there weren't any major mistakes. With some guidance, it had gradually become competent at this repetitive task.

After finishing his own meal, he packed Violet's portion into a thermos and placed it on the table. He then had his skeleton servant take the burnt fish pieces to the captain of the Four-Eyed Jenny, before heading to the engine room to fix some of the problems that had arisen earlier.

One of the large bearings was worn out, and another screw on the transmission mechanism was broken.

In the past few days, Su Ming has discovered a new use for the Summoning of All Things. He can make some local modifications to the loaded model, such as piecing broken parts back together, or even incorporating bone or alchemical materials for reinforcement.

This allowed Su Ming to repair damaged parts, strengthen vulnerable components, and maintain the working condition of the power unit.

After maintenance, he restarted the engine. The steam engine began to accelerate with a churning sound, spewing black smoke into the sky, and white spray reappeared at the stern, eventually forming a spreading V-shape.

With the sea breeze blowing through the window, Su Ming sat down at the table, opened his laptop, and began to write.

Zijin woke up, probably from the vibration when the unit was started. She sent a message to Su Ming to say hello and thank him for the lunch he had prepared.

"Don't force yourself to get up," Su Ming said to her. "You're not fully recovered yet, so get some rest."

"The medicine you prepared for me is working quite well," Violet replied. "My head doesn't hurt as much anymore."

“Then don’t do anything, especially don’t read,” Su Ming said.

Then he discovered that the scholar had run into the control room.

Zijin got herself a bench, wrapped herself in a blanket, and lay down in the control room. "I'll recover a little faster if I'm closer to you," she added, explaining, "because of the bone mark."

Su Ming created a WPS document on his computer and had already typed several pages.

The scholar looked at Su Ming with great interest and asked, "What are you doing?" She couldn't understand the Chinese characters on it. "Reviewing last night's battle."

Zijin thought he was still struggling with the fact that he had fallen into Catherine's trap, so she comforted him, saying, "Decisions made during a battle should not be viewed in hindsight."

Su Ming shook his head. "It's a technical review."

He explained that he was studying the battle process, analyzing Catherine's combat style and commands, listing the combat execution capabilities of each warship, and making detailed records.

“I’ve done this kind of work when reviewing previous matches,” Su Ming explained. “Games have video recordings, but this is my first time in a real battle. But doing a good job of analysis and recording can always serve as a reference for the next match.”

This was the first time Zijin had encountered something like this. "Does Catherine do these things too?"

“I think so,” Su Ming replied. “I don’t know how she will do the debriefing, but this step will definitely be there.”

Su Ming had almost finished, and the two had also discussed some issues related to naval warfare.

Not long after, Violet got tired and fell asleep leaning against the chair.

****
Thanks to the hull replenishment from the Four-Eyed Jenny, the Zhiyuan currently has ample fuel. Su Ming maintained an economical speed, heading eastward.

By the third day, Su Ming had returned to his normal routine, and Zi Jin's condition had greatly improved. She began to repair the core of the White Bone Fortress that had been damaged in the naval battle.

“Don’t worry too much about structural issues, as long as it doesn’t fall apart,” Su Ming told her. “I’ll be changing the ship type soon.”

Lunch was again fish, which both of them found a bit greasy, but there were no other options. Fortunately, with Zijin's recovery, they had a lot more freedom in choosing the type of fish.

After lunch, Su Ming turned on his computer and started writing documents in Chinese as usual. Although he had already learned the otherworldly script, his portable computer didn't have a corresponding input method.

Although Zijin didn't understand Chinese characters, she noticed that Su Ming typed very quickly. Moreover, the computer was convenient for editing documents, had numerous functions for creating charts and graphs, and provided rapid statistical analysis.

She was somewhat envious, but using this thing required solving the language barrier first.

Zi Jin closed the paper notebook in her hand and asked Su Ming, "What are you doing this time?"

“Compile a list of subsystems that currently need to be installed or improved, and possible modification plans,” Su Ming replied.

First and foremost, it's radar.

One major reason for falling into the UFO trap was overconfidence in the X-band shortwave radar, failing to consider the enemy ship's stealth configuration. Therefore, this aspect needs to be addressed. One approach is to add a longwave radar, ideally a military-grade meter-wave radar, which would significantly enhance the detection capability against stealth targets.

Next is the propulsion system, including the next-generation hull. The Zhiyuan can now accommodate at least two more steam engines, which means its speed can undergo a qualitative leap. If combined with a more advanced hull configuration, it will inevitably dominate the oceans of other worlds.

“We can’t use the sail form casually, especially to avoid people seeing the details up close,” Zi Jin said to Su Ming. “If the wing sail technology is leaked, it will cause us a lot of trouble.”

For the Zhiyuan, deploying its wing sails is like turning one pair of wings into two—a nice bonus. But for their enemies, it's a qualitative leap, a transformation from nothing to something, from beast to bird!
(End of this chapter)