Chapter 534

Chapter 534: Monster Attacks on the Ship

On the sea.

After several hours of effort, He Miaomiao once again collected dozens of wooden treasure chests and two bronze treasure chests.

These treasure chests yielded her a lot of water, food, and wood.

Of course, from the bronze treasure chests, He Miaomiao obtained a total of fifteen spirit stones.

“Next, I should practice.”

He Miaomiao remembered the system announcement at the beginning, which stated there was only a three-day safety period.

After three days, fierce creatures might attack her.

Now, one day had passed, leaving two days remaining. He Miaomiao wanted to enhance her combat power, and she believed that practicing was the best way.

In the ship’s cabin, He Miaomiao held a spirit stone in each hand, practicing according to her technique.

Half an hour later, He Miaomiao successfully sensed her spirit roots.

The moment she felt her spirit roots, He Miaomiao clearly noticed that the spiritual energy in the spirit stones in her hands and the spiritual energy drifting in the air were rapidly attracted to her spirit roots.

Countless streams of spiritual energy entered her body and quickly transformed into true Qi after passing through her spirit roots.

This true Qi circulated through her meridians and was immediately marked with a unique mark belonging to He Miaomiao.

Once the true Qi was marked, cultivators could manipulate it effortlessly.

Not knowing how long had passed, the sky gradually brightened.

He Miaomiao felt that many threads of energy had appeared in her body, enabling her to command them as if they were extensions of her own limbs.

“Have I successfully cultivated?”

He Miaomiao opened her eyes, channeling true Qi into her vision.

In the next moment, she instantly noticed that her eyesight had improved several times over.

She then directed the true Qi to her ears, and at that moment, He Miaomiao realized that even the faintest sounds were crystal clear to her.

She could even hear the quick movements of fish swimming underwater near the ship.

He Miaomiao then channeled the true Qi into her hands.

In an instant, she felt a significant increase in strength in her arms.

After a moment of thought, He Miaomiao took out the Xuanlight Sword.

Holding the Xuanlight Sword, He Miaomiao decided to input true Qi into it.

In the next moment, a stream of sword energy formed along the blade of the Xuanlight Sword.

He Miaomiao glanced at a nearby bronze treasure chest, and in the next moment, she directly slashed at it with her flying sword.

Swish~

In the next moment, He Miaomiao saw that the bronze treasure chest was split in half by the Xuanlight Sword.

“How impressive!”

Seeing such an effect, He Miaomiao couldn’t help but exclaim in surprise.

However, He Miaomiao soon discovered that after using true Qi, her consumption of true Qi was much greater.

Seeing this situation, she quickly stopped using true Qi.

“Burp~”

After a moment, He Miaomiao finished eating two bread rolls and drank a bottle of water.

Next, she prepared to continue her practice.

As for treasure chests, she did not plan to continue searching because she had already collected enough.

Otherwise, after the safety period ended, there would likely be danger.

So now, He Miaomiao had to prioritize enhancing her combat power.

Two days passed in the blink of an eye.

The three-day protection time quietly slipped away as well.

That day, after finishing her practice, He Miaomiao looked at the chat channel.

She noticed that many people in the group were worried about encountering danger after the safety period.

He Miaomiao also checked the number of people in the chat channel and saw that, in these two days, more than ten people had died.

[System Announcement: Congratulations to the 4675791st Chosen One for becoming the second to upgrade to a medium-sized ship, receiving one top-grade spirit artifact as a reward.]

Suddenly, a game announcement rang out.

With the appearance of this announcement, the chat group erupted.

“Damn it, he tricked us to get the reward, that scoundrel…”

“Damn it…”

Seeing the game announcement, many of those who had crowdfunded for this person were infuriated.

Clearly, he had deceived them, as they had all been blocked by him.

He Miaomiao was surprised that this person had only upgraded successfully after two days.

Hadn’t someone previously counted that the person had collected nearly nine hundred pieces of wood?

Did he really take two days to gather the remaining hundred or so pieces of wood?

What He Miaomiao did not know was that she had a special advantage that allowed her to easily find treasure chests.

However, ordinary people could only rely on luck to find treasure chests.

With good luck, a person fishing for a day could average three treasure chests. If fortune smiled upon them during their search, they could find about ten treasure chests in a day.

As for wood treasure chests, approximately five treasure chests yielded one.

So, for that person to collect about a hundred pieces of wood in two days was really quite an achievement.

That night, He Miaomiao was practicing.

Suddenly, she noticed several red dots appearing on her system map, and these dots were moving.

“Is this… monster attacks coming?”

He Miaomiao quickly left the cabin and arrived on the deck.

She looked in the direction of the red dots, but perhaps due to the darkness of the night, she could not see clearly.

Soon, several red dots approached the ship.

At this moment, He Miaomiao finally saw what the red dots were.

Those red dots were actually large sharks.

After discovering He Miaomiao’s ship, the large sharks attempted to attack twice, but they soon realized that their attacks could not harm the ship at all.

“Luckily, I upgraded to a medium-sized ship. If my ship were still a small raft, I would probably be dead by now.”

At this moment, He Miaomiao stood on the deck, holding the low-grade spirit artifact, the Xuanlight Sword.

As for the few large sharks, they circled around the wooden ship, determined not to give up.

Even though He Miaomiao held the Xuanlight Sword, she felt quite anxious inside.

Could she really kill such large sharks?

“Bang!”

Suddenly, He Miaomiao felt the ship shake.

She quickly looked toward the direction of the sound.

She discovered that a large shark was actually crashing into her ship.

Just as He Miaomiao looked over, one shark was already charging toward her.

“Damn it.”

He Miaomiao hurried over.

She steeled her resolve; as the shark approached, she gripped the Xuanlight Sword, activated its three-foot blade, and swiftly struck down at the shark.

Splash!

With a splash, He Miaomiao’s long sword directly split the large shark’s head.

[System Notification: Congratulations on killing the man-eating shark, you receive one Essence of Origin as a reward.]

Just as He Miaomiao killed one shark, a message arrived in the game’s private message channel; it was the game reward of the Essence of Origin.

He Miaomiao did not expect to receive a reward for killing monsters.

Although she did not yet know what Essence of Origin was, she felt more courageous now.

Quickly, He Miaomiao saw another shark coming towards the side of the ship and swung her sword to strike; she had already turned the sword into a blade.

Splash!

In an instant, another shark was killed.

[System Notification: Congratulations on killing the man-eating shark, you receive one Essence of Origin as a reward.]

Receiving another Essence of Origin made He Miaomiao very happy.

A few minutes later, the last shark was killed, and He Miaomiao received five Essence of Origin.

After the battle ended, He Miaomiao finally had time to check the details of the Essence of Origin.

The Essence of Origin looks like a piece of ammunition. According to the instructions, it can be consumed directly to enhance cultivation.

The Essence of Origin can increase a person’s cultivation speed by dozens of times.

Moreover, one portion of Essence of Origin is enough for a whole day of absorption.

Seeing the introduction of the Essence of Origin, He Miaomiao’s breath quickened; she felt very excited.

Does this mean that if she used all the Essence of Origin for cultivation, it would equal six months’ worth of training in just a few days?

However, He Miaomiao’s excitement did not last long; it quickly turned into silence.

She saw that the number of people online in the chat channel was rapidly decreasing.

This indicated that countless people were dying at that moment.

“Help! I encountered a seal that jumped onto my small raft and dragged me into the water…”

“Brothers, I ran into a group of piranhas, and the ropes of my small raft are about to be bitten through. If the rope breaks, my small raft will sink. Can anyone lend me five pieces of wood so I can upgrade my small raft to a small boat?”

“Help, someone come save me! There’s a seal attacking me…”

In the Regional Chat Channel, countless people were desperately seeking rescue.

Most of those seeking help had not upgraded their small rafts.

Seeing this situation, He Miaomiao couldn’t help but shake her head.

These people cannot gather ten pieces of wood to upgrade to a small boat in three days. What does that show? It shows that they are either lazy or they sold the wood they collected and did not prioritize upgrading their ships.

Of course, in addition to the people seeking help, there were also some who were showing off.

“Hahaha, I killed a seal with my oar, and the game rewarded me with one portion of Essence of Origin. Essence of Origin is amazing; it can boost my cultivation speed by dozens of times…”

And there were those who found joy in others’ misfortune.

“Hahaha, are you all stunned now? Who told you not to upgrade your ships? In three days, unless you are disabled, you should be able to gather ten pieces of wood to upgrade to a small boat, right? Once you have a small boat, you’ll have an oar, which is very sturdy and can be used as a weapon…”

To those childish people with small rafts, He Miaomiao could only think that those who suffer have their reasons for being hated.

In three days, even if they did nothing, they could catch three treasure chests each day using a Fishing Rod.

Three a day means nine in three days.

Just nine treasure chests would yield nine pieces of wood when broken down.

If they also opened one more piece of wood from inside the chests, upgrading to a small boat would be very easy.

Yet, even with this, many people still did not upgrade their small boats.

These people likely traded their wood for other things with others.

Of course, even if they upgraded to a small boat, it wasn’t very safe.

Because, in the chat channel, there were cases where small boat owners were dragged into the water and drowned by monsters.

Only by upgrading to a small ship could the ship’s sides be around eighty or ninety centimeters high, making it necessary for ocean creatures to climb over those high sides to attack.

In such a situation, people on the ship could calmly defend themselves with their weapons.

Half an hour later, the monster attacks finally came to an end.

At this moment, the number of people in the chat channel had dropped to over 60,000.

This meant that more than 30,000 people had died.

Such a situation left many feeling completely silent with fear.

Over 30,000 lives were lost just like that.

Meanwhile, He Miaomiao noticed that most of the wood listed in the trading market had been removed by players, leaving only a few extremely high-priced pieces.

From this event, many people had realized the importance of wood.

With wood, they could upgrade their ships, and only upgraded ships could protect their lives.

So compared to their lives, nothing else mattered anymore.

As a result, it became very difficult to find wood in the trading mall.

He Miaomiao could only let out a regretful sigh.

It seemed that buying wood in the trading market would not be easy in the future.

“Eh?”

However, He Miaomiao quickly shifted her attention to something else.

She discovered that many blue markers had appeared on her system map.

These blue markers represented bronze treasure chests, instantly filling He Miaomiao with motivation.

A few minutes later, He Miaomiao piloted her ship to collect a bronze treasure chest.

When she opened the bronze treasure chest, it predictably contained five spirit stones.

Breaking down the bronze treasure chest, He Miaomiao obtained a copper ingot.

Next, He Miaomiao continued to search for more treasure chests.

She decided to save a batch of spirit stones so that her cultivation would not affect the effect of the Essence of Origin.

“Everyone, look! The trading mall just stocked weapons; anyone can buy them!”

Suddenly, someone in the chat channel posted this message.

Before long, the entire chat channel was filled with messages about this news.

He Miaomiao also saw the information.

She quickly opened the trading mall to take a look.

The trading mall was divided into the Chosen Ones trading page and the system store page.

Previously, the system store page was completely empty.

However, now many weapons had appeared in the system store.

These weapons ranged from low-grade magical artifacts, middle-grade magical artifacts, high-quality spiritual weapons, top-grade spirit artifacts, low-grade spiritual weapons, middle-grade spiritual weapons, to high-quality spiritual weapons, top-grade spiritual artifacts, immortal tools, and so on.

A low-grade magical artifact required 10 spirit stones to purchase. A middle-grade magical artifact required 100 spirit stones, a high-quality spiritual weapon cost 1,000 spirit stones, and a top-grade spirit artifact was 10,000 spirit stones. The low-grade spiritual weapon cost 100,000 spirit stones.

“Wow~”

Seeing the prices of the weapons, He Miaomiao couldn’t help but gasp in surprise.

“So, the reward for upgrading my medium-sized ship means I earned a hundred thousand spirit stones?”

Additionally, He Miaomiao saw that the prices of weapons had increased by a hundred times once they reached the spirit artifact level.

For example, a low-grade spiritual weapon costs a hundred thousand spirit stones, but when it reaches the middle-grade spiritual weapon level, the price becomes ten million spirit stones.

The high-quality spiritual weapon is even more expensive, reaching one billion spirit stones.

The top-grade spiritual weapon costs as much as a hundred billion spirit stones.

As for the immortal tool, it costs a trillion spirit stones.

Seeing these prices, He Miaomiao lost all thoughts of acquiring a middle-grade spiritual weapon.

It was too difficult; it really was too difficult. Ten million spirit stones—if she continued to search for treasure chests to collect spirit stones, who knows how long it would take.

Just when He Miaomiao thought she had earned a hundred thousand spirit stones,

the chat channel buzzed with people discussing the spiritual energy He Miaomiao obtained and another player who had acquired a top-grade spirit artifact.

Although the top-grade spirit artifact only required ten thousand spirit stones, it was still too expensive for most people right now.

“Who can lend me some wood? I want to push for third place…”

“Are you serious? Who is going to lend you wood now? Everyone is short on it themselves.”

While many people were chatting, He Miaomiao was busy collecting treasure chests.

Now, she earned one bronze treasure chest for every three wooden treasure chests she collected.

Moreover, He Miaomiao noticed that the chance of finding wood in the wooden treasure chests seemed to have increased.

Now, when she opened two wooden treasure chests, one would usually contain a wood treasure chest.

As for the other treasure chest, it had a fifty percent chance of containing spirit stones, and the other half would contain food and water.

This situation made He Miaomiao very happy.

With more wood treasure chests, she could gather wood faster.

As for food and water, she already had plenty stored.

Three days later.

During the day,

He Miaomiao was searching for treasure chests when she suddenly noticed that several red markers had appeared again on her system map, and they were rapidly approaching her.

“Is this the monsters coming to attack the ship again?”