Endless Ocean: Escape Starting from a Canoe

Chapter 34 Materials for Advancing to the Rank of General

The ship barely has all the materials needed for the upgrade!

Especially since he had just looted all the sea crystals from the Sakura, and also found 4 high-grade sea crystals! Adding the one left over from last time, he had exactly 5 sea crystals.

Moreover, the ship's functional hardware now meets the upgrade requirements, including energy production equipment, food production equipment, drinking water production equipment, pharmaceutical production equipment, beer production equipment, and so on. There are now four types of functional hardware on the ship.

"Upgrade? No, wait a bit."

Although the existing resources could upgrade the drifting ship to the next level, Shi Ming did not intend to upgrade it immediately.

Good steel should be used on the blade.

He decided to first check what the upgrade requirements were for his gold-class drifting canoe.
Drifting at sea, acquiring resources is not easy. He must make the most of his limited resources. The Golden Drifting Ship is already a level higher than others. If he only has enough resources to upgrade one ship, he must prioritize upgrading the Golden Ship.

He returned from the deck to the captain's cabin.

After closing the captain's cabin door, Shi Ming took out the gold-grade canoe drifting boat from the system's warehouse. No one else knew about the existence of this gold-grade drifting boat except for himself, so it could be considered one of his hidden trump cards!
Touching the canoe's unique material and its eroded surface, Shi Ming used the power of his creative brain.

Creative mind, activate!

Familiar information resurfaced before his eyes.

[Gold-class drifting ship, number 360]

【Level: 5】

[The Dragon Kingdom's Breath of Earth Research Institute, using leftover construction materials, created the last Gold-class drifting ship. Don't let its small size fool you; it even comes equipped with artificial intelligence! And because it's smaller and consumes less energy, its exploration capabilities are even more flexible!]

[Advancement Requirements: 1000 High-Grade Sea Crystals, 1 Heart of the Sea, 1000 grams of A-Grade Sea Beast Blood.]

have to.

High-grade aquamarine requires 1000 pieces.

He only has 5 now.

Not to mention the Heart of the Sea, which Shi Ming had never even heard of. What is that thing?

As for the 1000 grams of A-grade sea beast blood, he had stored some of it in his system's inventory before bathing in Xuanwu blood on Turtle Island, but he didn't know if it would work. However, this amount of blood certainly wouldn't be enough to awaken an S-grade skill, considering that Shi Ming had to absorb all the energy in the entire pool to awaken it!
With two out of three available, it seems that upgrading the drifting ship to gold-level is out of the question anytime soon.

However, Shi Ming also learned some other information from the system's prompts.

Firstly, there's the origin of this golden drifting ship. As confirmed in the notebook, the original owner of this golden ship was a researcher from the Dragon Kingdom's Breath of Earth Research Institute. Being able to pilot this drifting ship alone suggests that this researcher's status was likely quite high.

As for the Xirang Research Institute...

Ancient texts record that "the soil of the Xirang means that it grows and breathes endlessly, so it can stop floods."

The Xirang Research Institute is likely the research institute used by the Dragon Kingdom to study how to combat this disaster. They were also the main force in building the drifting boats, and this dugout canoe was built by them using the leftover materials.

Secondly, there's the "advancement" notification from the system.

Shi Ming noticed that when upgrading other items, the system prompts were always "Upgrade requires: xxx, xxx", but here it was "Advancement requires: xxx". This meant that as long as Shi Ming could gather these three items, this gold-level drifting ship could be upgraded to a general-level ship!
A general-class drifting ship, what an incredible concept!
All the general-class drifting ships in the world are veritable behemoths, each backed by a powerful force! If this canoe could be upgraded to general-class, Shi Ming would have the confidence to face even an entity like the Black Society alone!

Moreover, smaller admiral-class drifting ships will undoubtedly surpass giant admiral-class drifting ships in certain functionalities. Less is more!

"It seems I'll have to pay more attention to these advancement materials in the future."

"Sea crystals are formed by the energy device on the drifting ship, which extracts mysterious components from seawater. If I upgrade the energy device on the drifting ship a few more times, will it also be able to produce high-grade sea crystals?"

"You can give it a try, and keep an eye out for this 'Heart of the Voyager' thing in the future."

"Sigh, there are too many things to upgrade, and the system's three attempts a day are simply not enough!"

He had previously planned to upgrade the ship's pharmaceutical production equipment and beer brewing machines, but it seems that this will have to be postponed.

After stowing up the canoe, Shi Ming left the captain's cabin.

"Shidun, call a few members of the exploration team to carry two boxes of sea crystals and two boxes of iron ore onto the deck."

He planned to give his first upgrade opportunity of the day to this Silver-class drifting ship.

As for how to explain the use of these materials?
He's the captain; no explanation needed.

On deck, Shi Ming dismissed the crew members patrolling the deck, placed several large boxes of sea crystals and iron ore under the rudder of the drifting ship, and used the power of the Brain of Creation!

Upgrade Confirmed!

This time there was so much material that his eyes finally began to see a bit of the principles of the Creative Brain!

The massive amount of crystals melted rapidly, releasing energy as they gradually vaporized from liquid. Subsequently, the energy, now completely gaseous, merged with the rudder of the drifting ship, gradually fusing and spreading throughout the entire hull.

These details are impossible to see without careful observation.

It took a full half hour before Shi Ming received a system notification that the upgrade was complete.

At the same time, he felt dizzy and his mental energy was almost completely depleted.

[Silver-class drifting ship, number 23333]

【Level: 3】

[A top-tier Silver-class drifter, its external materials have been significantly improved, surpassing ordinary Silver-class drifters in both hardness and toughness. Furthermore, under the influence of acceleration, the hull can be used as a weapon simply through collisions. A new internal feature—the Advanced Repair Sleep Pod—has been added.]

Upgrade Requirements: 2000 Sea Crystals, 500 Iron Ore, 10 High-Grade Sea Crystals, and ≥5 Functional Hardware Items on Ship

Looking at the ship from the deck, there was no change at all, but only by touching the edge of the hull could Shi Ming roughly sense the upgrade in its materials.

He drew the sword hanging at his waist and, without using any other force, slashed at the railing of the ship.

There was only a faint white mark.

It's definitely sturdier now.

Shi Ming was very familiar with the materials needed to upgrade from level three to level four, but unfortunately, there wasn't enough iron ore and high-grade sea crystals on the ship, especially high-grade sea crystals, which he didn't have at all.

Sigh, I'm so poor!
Captain Junichi, why didn't you stock up more beforehand?
(End of this chapter)