Chapter 78 Crash Course in Street Dance at the Icebox
[Congratulations, player! You have met the ship upgrade requirements. Would you like to upgrade?]
--yes.
The ship was once again enveloped in white light. The fifth-class ship expanded in size, becoming thirty meters long and twelve meters wide. The deck, which had been crammed full of various boxes and planting pots, was now spacious again.
[Congratulations to the player for upgrading their ship to Tier 5 – Ocean Fishing Vessel. Ship durability (3500/3500). Onboard facilities: Wooden House, Tier 3 Workbench (upgradeable), Wheelhouse (upgradeable)]
[Congratulations to the player who has obtained the unique title "The Lost Pearl," unlocked when the player upgrades their ship to Tier 5. Wearing this title increases the ship's durability recovery speed by 8%.]
[Congratulations, player! You have earned a chance to draw for ship facilities. Would you like to draw now?]
Chen Dixin chose to draw a selection, and three options appeared in front of him: the talent market, the watchtower, and the icehouse.
Her eyes lit up, and she asked for the freezer without hesitation. Lu Mingang had told her that food was spoiling faster that morning, so this was perfect!
Of the remaining two, one is an NPC that is hired.
Another one is generally considered a waste of resources. The watchtower can periodically detect special events on the sea surface, but it usually only detects small fish and shrimp, making it very inefficient.
Ice storage and special buildings are placed in the ship's cabin by default. Level 5 ships already have enough space in their cabins, and you cannot go down without placing buildings there.
After careful consideration, perhaps we can ask the one-eyed captain for an introduction.
She remembered receiving a mission from him in her past life. The captain hinted that this person could modify ships, but unfortunately, Shen Dixin lacked the ability at the time and failed to complete the mission.
She flipped through the calendar: "First summer, February 2nd, Christmas Day, hot and dry."
We'll be at the port of call in two weeks, which is a bit long. I should ask the captain for some island tokens when I get back.
When Chen Dixin counts in his mind, he always says a year, but in reality, a month at sea is only twenty-eight days, and a year is only six months long, with one month each in spring and autumn, and two months in winter and summer.
Summer has arrived, and Chen Dixin wiped away the sweat from his brow after being in the sun.
The temperature has been rising by almost two degrees every day for the past two days. I'm almost in my early twenties, and I'll be approaching thirty in the blink of an eye.
Shen Dixin didn't mind revealing this little bit of information; she took a picture of today's calendar and sent it to the chat channel.
King of Salted Fish: I was wondering why it seemed so hot lately. Turns out it wasn't just my imagination. It's only been a month, how come it's already summer?
Feng Sheng Shui Qi: Thank you to the shop owner for sharing the calendar!
Old Dream: Hurry up! If that's the case, then we can go home after enduring a year of spring, summer, autumn, and winter.
I've dreamt of this countless times: Can we really go home? I can't hold on much longer.
Going home... Shen Dixin remained silent. Although she had struggled at sea for so long, the real world had been suppressed in her heart.
But as a normal human being from a civilized society, how could she not want to go home?
With just over a week left, she could have waited until the following year, at least she wouldn't be swayed by what others said. What a pity…
Lu Mingang was also watching the chat channel. He looked somewhat confused and asked, "Dixin, do you know what the future holds?"
"I don't know, but we've come this far, it can't be worse than it is now."
Shen Dixin sighed, her eyes clear. Since she could endure for so long in her past life, she would only go further in this one!
Whether it's liberation or a new hell, go and see for yourself.
The most urgent thing now is to escape the heat; the summer heat is unbearable.
In any case, with the ice storage, her summers won't be too unbearable.
During the ice storage upgrade, Chen Dixin was handling the various structures of the upgraded ship. The cockpit would be expanded by several square meters after the upgrade, but that was not the main point.
The key feature is the newly unlocked motor!
This is a real gem! It's also connected to the driver's cab, and with it, you can unlock the automatic steering function, making a 360-degree U-turn a reality!
Of course, there's also the motor's primary function—to propel the boat. It generates power as long as electricity is supplied, and can increase the boat's speed by up to 40%!
It can move forward by motor even without sails, but the starting speed will be 10% of the original speed.
Power consumption depends entirely on how many motors are in use.
There are two initially, each motor increases the boat speed by 20%, and they consume three batteries per day. Compared to speed-up cards, they are very cheap.
Each subsequent upgrade to the cab will add two more motors.
With both motors running, the sea breeze felt even stronger on my face!
Shen Dixin peered down and saw the motor humming and kicking up two large white waves behind the boat. Now that's what a boat should look like!
The upgrade room has been completed, and the ice storage has been repaired.
Shen Dixin invited Lu Mingang to go down and take a look. He was clearly looking forward to the large refrigerator that he would be dealing with frequently in the future.
"Dixin, you actually managed to get your hands on a freezer! We won't have to worry about things spoiling anymore!"
Pushing open the door, the blast of cold air condensed into white mist, sending a shiver down their spines.
Shen Dixin walked in and looked around. It wasn't big; the area it occupied was only about the size of the driver's cab.
It even has lights installed inside, and she has to pay for the extra electricity consumption herself. A cold storage room uses up a battery every two days, and with the cab using up a battery every three days, the electricity consumption is quite considerable.
Only a solar panel in the heart can provide enough power for the icebox; otherwise, even if we built an icebox, it would be difficult to afford the power.
Since the storm passed, the sun has been shining brightly in the sky almost non-stop, and the charging panel has been working diligently, filling more than a dozen power storage units for her!
With the addition of electricity consumption, not only will the reserves not be depleted, but they will also slowly accumulate electricity.
Even if excessive electricity is consumed, the scale of the solar charging panels can be expanded.
Shen Dixin glanced at the two boxes of power storage devices and felt quite relieved.
Over the next two weeks, most players should be working on leveling up to level four. Once they have a cockpit, they'll start needing electricity. She can accumulate more electricity to sell, and once she's sold enough, she can release the solar charging panels to the market.
Thinking this, Shen Dixin waved her hand and made five more charging boards. She was short of supplies now, but she would make more once the loan was repaid.
Afterwards, she started helping Lu Mingang move supplies. To call it moving supplies was just a matter of storing ingredients and dishes in her space and then releasing them. It wasn't tiring at all!
Since the space was expanded to ten squares, Chen Dixin has hardly ever worried about not having enough space.
Five grids and ten grids may sound like only a doubling, but in actual use, the difference is three or four times!
When there are only five spaces, the three immovable elements—wooden planks, plastic, and rope—take up most of the space, leaving only two usable spaces.
But with ten slots available, the number of usable slots instantly drops to seven, making it a completely different level.
As she moved the goods, Shen Dixin suddenly realized that they already had so much stock!
She quickly made wooden boxes and frames, stacked them neatly, and then piled the fish and shrimp on them.
Sea fish were the most numerous, accounting for almost 80% of the catch. There were only three types: barracuda, mud carp, and mackerel, which were the fish that Shen Dixin caught most often.
There were also various kinds of evenly distributed seafood, and Lu Mingang went to great lengths to keep them.
A few white jade shrimp, a pound or two of king crab, a dozen or so starfish, a small clump of seaweed... these bits and pieces of seafood were just caught by Shen Dixin today.
She looked at the tiny few compartments in the space, sighed, found a fishing net, gathered them up, and dragged them over.
The dirty seawater dripped into the icehouse, quickly freezing into ice. Walking on it, Lu Mingang almost slipped for two miles.
"Pfft, a crash course in street dance." Shen Dixin joked. In her previous life, she had lived in extremely cold weather for more than a month and had already figured out some techniques for walking on ice.
Lu Mingang wiped his face, then dragged over a few rolls of canvas with a hint of resentment to pave a path, and then shoveled away the ice that had frozen on the ground.
There was a temperature difference when the door was opened, and a cool breeze swept through. He rubbed the goosebumps off his body.
The temperature in the cold storage is at least minus twenty degrees Celsius. The sudden change from cold to hot might make two people with poor health sick.
But this way, we don't have to worry about the summer temperature being too high. No matter how hot it is outside, they can hide in the cold storage!
Dixin said that it is already summer, and he is worried about how to store the ingredients.
He wasn't actually that sensitive to the temperature rise, after all, he was busy in front of the stove every day, and he was sweating profusely even in mild weather.
But as a chef, and one who has to deal with so many ingredients every day, Lu Mingang knows very well the rate at which each food spoils, which determines when he should cook them.
This morning, he keenly noticed that some ingredients were rotting abnormally. Fish that would normally sit in a cool place for a day had gone bad overnight!
Almost half of the meat had gone bad, but luckily Lu Mingang was efficient and only half a fishing net's worth of ingredients remained for the next day, otherwise he would have been heartbroken.
The slightly spoiled meat was all turned into fish bait by Chen Dixin, which extended its shelf life so it could be kept for another two or three days. It could then be used when fishing.
The finished food items were fine; apart from those stored in the space, Lu Mingang sold them all. Now that there's an ice storage, there's no need to plan ingredients every day anymore!
After carrying the supplies for a while, Shen Dixin spotted a supply box floating on the sea. Looking at what she had in her hands, she decisively called Yuanbao and the little elf for help and went to retrieve the supplies herself.
"Instruction 6: Move these items to the [cold storage]."
"Yuanbao, come here quickly, move this to the freezer, just go down from the driver's cab."
The rock turtle slowly approached, and with a single effort, it actually lifted the entire fishing net onto its back, even though its shell was only about half the size of the small cinnabar water tank.
After two upgrades, its size has gone beyond what can be measured by human heads; if you had to say, it's about two and a half heads in size.
It seems that the rock tortoise is indeed a large animal; the size change during its juvenile stage is too exaggerated.
Shen Dixin's eyes lit up. It was rare for him to notice that his little turtle, whose presence was usually very weak, had already reached level three.
The fact that cinnabar can absorb experience from the red tide shows that the daily experience a pet can actually gain can exceed the limit; it just requires double the effort.
When Yuanbao talks about cultivation, he doesn't just say it for nothing.
It just so happens that it's a land creature, and its level is low, so Shen Dixin doesn't bring it with her much when she comes to the island.
All day long, it does nothing but eat and train its physical fitness and shell hardness. Even when Chen Dixin catches a glimpse of it, he's afraid it might break its shell.
Gaining an extra 20 or 30 experience points a day is no problem, and this amount continues to increase as physical fitness improves.
It may seem insignificant, but it adds up to a considerable sum over time. For example, Yuanbao reached level three three or four days ahead of schedule, which is incredibly fast compared to the time it took to use cinnabar before.
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