Chapter 283 The Missing Treasure
South of Castres.
This is the location of the shipyard planned for the future. Now, everything is in ruins and there is naturally no sign of a shipyard being built.
Although the shipyard was not built, the ship had arrived.
Hughes stroked his chin and looked at the boat that the banshees had dragged back. He turned to Richard and asked, "How is it? Have you checked it?"
"The hull is basically intact, the lower deck is still a little bit lacking, and it can basically be used after modification. I mean ordinary sailing. Since we currently have no experience in modifying ships, please don't have too high expectations."
"No problem, give it a try."
How to convert a half-built sailboat into a steam-powered ship is really too niche knowledge. Even Hughes has no research in this area and can only try.
Fortunately, ships are not such delicate things, at least not the kind that Hughes planned to build.
He was even prepared to try to build a ship out of steel if he couldn't find a ship.
If the only requirement for a ship is that it can float and sail, then shipbuilding is actually a fairly simple matter. Especially since Castells has a high steel production capacity and sufficient trial and error costs, it can accumulate experience from scratch.
But that would consume a lot of time. Now that we have this hull, we can just put a steam engine in it and sailing should not be a problem.
"Renovate it as soon as possible. I will ask the factory to cooperate with you. Castel is in urgent need of a window for external communication. This ship is very important to us."
After seeing Richard nod, Hughes turned around and asked the Banshee who pulled the boat back, "How is the exploration of Gem Bay going? Besides the black stone I just mentioned, what else is there?"
The banshee's face turned strange. "We later went to several other islands. There are no indigenous people in the entire Martha Islands now, but most of the buildings have been preserved. We simply searched them."
"How is it, what supplies do you have?"
"There are a lot of food reserves, mostly dried fish and other things, and a smaller amount of coal - the Martha Islands don't seem to produce coal."
"No coal production? The entire Martha Islands don't produce coal?" Hughes was a little surprised.
"Yes, we found some account books in the warehouse. Almost all of this coal was shipped in from outside. We also found many mines on the island. There are all kinds of mines, but there are no coal mines, not even a single one."
No coal mines?
This is a bit strange. It is normal that the island does not have high-quality coal reserves, but it is almost impossible that there is none at all.
Coal is not oil. To form a mineral vein, it only needs to be covered by a large amount of plants. If there is no coal on a certain island, then Xiu Si can accept it. But there is no coal in the entire Martha Islands? You know, the Martha Islands cover a huge area. Although most of them are remote islands, they are a huge monster when added together. There is no coal reserve in such a place? Are these islands created out of thin air? How is this possible?
"Maybe we just haven't explored it well enough. If you look carefully, you'll always find coal mines. It's just a matter of quality."
Hughes didn't care too much about this. Castel's current industry was completely independent of coal. It would be better if a coal mine could be found, but it didn't matter if no coal mine could be found.
"Anything else you found?"
"Well, there are also a lot of other strategic reserves, whether it's steel or gunpowder, look at this."
The banshee handed over a notebook, which contained various statistical materials.
"Wow, that's quite a lot. It seems that the Pirate King is not sitting still and waiting to die. There must be quite a few smuggling channels." Zeus flipped through the booklet and said with interest.
"There's not a lot of steel. There are only a few dozen tons in the entire Gem Bay? It must be difficult to repair the weapons, right?"
"There's a lot of wood. It looks like the Pirate King put a lot of effort into it. This amount is enough to build another fleet."
"What is this? Moonlight sand? Eternal Blazing Earth?"
The banshee spread her hands and said, "We don't know either. This is the name of the warehouse's winning bid."
Richard came over suddenly and said, "My Lord, can you let me see these?"
Zeus handed over the booklet, and Richard's eyes lit up after just a quick glance: "These are all extraordinary materials, and they are quite precious extraordinary materials. They should have been collected by the Church of Poseidon. They have the sea at their backs, and extraordinary people from other forces rarely set foot here. They have been hoarding so many for a long time."
"Extraordinary material?"
This is somewhat beyond Hughes's knowledge.
"Yes, with these materials, more people can complete the promotion. We will have more extraordinary people soon!"
Xiu Si was surprised. He thought these materials were only used in rituals to let the fire-chasing moths summon an evil god or something. He didn't expect that they could increase the number of extraordinary people? "Extraordinary materials are needed to promote extraordinary people?"
"Of course, and the materials needed are very precious. Many poorer organizations are lucky enough to be able to afford one or two extraordinary people. The only exception is the Church of Poseidon. What they need is physical contamination. You know this."
This made Xius feel a little curious: "Doesn't that mean that all extraordinary people have to rely on organizations to provide resources, and there are no wild extraordinary people who are alone?"
"That's natural. Supernatural materials have long been divided up by the major churches. Many cults fight against the churches just to grab some resources. As for personal contact with the supernatural? That's almost impossible."
"I remember that one can become a transcendent by relying on one's willpower to cross the high wall of reality and enter the Sea of No Consciousness. What would happen if one entered the Sea of No Consciousness first without these materials?"
“You’ll die.”
"ah?"
"Many fire-chasing moths died in this way. They pursued knowledge too much, even if it meant crossing the boundaries of mortals." Richard's expression dimmed, as if he was thinking of something heavy in the past. He sighed, "Fortunately, now that these materials have been found, my companions don't have to suppress their thirst for knowledge anymore."
Zeus nodded with a complicated look in his eyes. Pursuing knowledge in this world is too dangerous. Even if you maintain your curiosity, you may kill yourself unknowingly.
Sometimes he wondered whether the world was hostile to human civilization.
"By the way, you haven't found the Pirate King's treasure yet?"
The banshee's expression became even weirder: "Yes, and..."
She hesitated for a moment before continuing, "We didn't even find many treasures. These things seemed to be hidden away specifically, and well hidden. We searched most of the buildings and couldn't find them. You know, fossils turn to mud."
The whole island was searched? Hughes stroked his chin and fell into deep thought.
If not on the island, where would it be? Under the island?
(End of this chapter)
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