Petrified Wood

The sun rose in the east, the sky clear and cloudless—another day had begun.

Ye Yuan's fishing boat sailed across the sea surface, accompanied by the sound of waves slapping against the hull. The Water Controller had already entered the international waters he had long been thinking about.

Last time, he had been only a few hours away from this place, but for certain reasons, he hadn't made it over.

In international law, the high seas refer to all parts of the sea that are not included in the territorial sea, internal waters, archipelagic waters, or exclusive economic zone of any state, and are not subject to the sovereignty or jurisdiction of any nation.

According to the 1958 Geneva Convention on the High Seas, the high seas are all waters not included in the territorial sea or internal waters of a state. With advances in marine technology and the development of ocean resources, coastal states expanded their jurisdiction, giving rise to new concepts and systems like exclusive economic zones and archipelagic waters, which reduced the area of the high seas.

The 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea stipulates that the high seas are all parts of the sea not included in the exclusive economic zone, territorial sea, internal waters, or archipelagic waters of an archipelagic state.

The high seas are open to all states for common use. They are not part of any state's territory, thus fall under no state's sovereignty, and no state may claim any part of the high seas as its own or exercise jurisdiction over the high seas themselves.

The high seas are a shared maritime area for all nations, and also the place where fishing boats clash most often. After all, within a country's own waters, there are maritime police to manage things, but on the high seas, there aren't as many restrictions.

The fishing boat sailed steadily across the high seas. Ye Yuan extended his perception and found that the fish schools in the sea were clearly more abundant than in domestic waters.

After sailing for a while, they were already close to R Country's waters. During this time, Ye Yuan also spotted a few R Country fishing boats engaged in hauling operations.

Just then, Second Brother stretched and yawned as he walked out of the cabin. That guy had really been worn out yesterday—he'd slept straight through until nearly noon.

"Hey, Fourth Brother, don't pull that kind of stunt again next time. My old bones can't take it. I woke up still sore all over," he said, yawning and looking out at the sea as he spoke to Ye Yuan.

"Your physique is way worse than it was back in school. Back then, you could play two straight basketball games without complaining about being tired. It's only been a little over a year since graduation—how did you end up like this? Remember an old saying: alcohol is a gut-piercing poison, lust is a bone-scraping blade. You've indulged in both, haven't you?"

Ye Yuan didn't let Second Brother off easy, directly calling out the "sins" of his past year.

Second Brother just rolled his eyes and didn't continue the topic.

Ye Yuan couldn't be bothered to deal with this guy anymore and let him move freely on the boat. Since they'd finally made it to the high seas, he had to go down into the water and take a look.

Second Brother lay down directly on a deck chair, closed his eyes, and basked in the sun, his expression practically saying, "Do whatever you want—I'm resting today, no matter what."

Once in the sea, Ye Yuan swam straight downward. The seabed here was a vast coral reef, teeming with diverse fish. Some small fish were being chased and darted into crevices in the rocks.

Reaching the bottom, the light was already very dim. He swam along the coral reef in one direction.

He didn't know how far he'd gone when he suddenly spotted a piece of wood about a meter in diameter buried under the sea sand, with only a small section exposed. If he hadn't been moving along the seabed at a very low position, it would have been hard to notice.

Ye Yuan simply scraped away the sea sand and found that there was still a very long section buried deeper. There was no way to pull it out by hand.

He observed it carefully for a while. Due to the dim light, he couldn't see clearly. The wood was pitch-black all over. He pressed hard on it with his fingers—it was extremely hard, feeling like he was squeezing a stone. This made him think of a rare item he often read about in books: Petrified Wood.

Petrified Wood typically takes between 2,800 and 8,000 years to form, not enough to become plant fossils, and it also doesn't count as a mineral.

Petrified Wood is a general term. It refers to trees like nanmu, toona, willow, and ironwood that were buried in silt due to natural disasters and underwent carbonization over tens of thousands of years under oxygen-deprived, high-pressure conditions.

Depending on the tree species, its market value varies, with Golden Silk Nanmu from the nanmu genus being the most valuable. The older and better preserved it is, the higher the price.

If this really was Petrified Wood, then he had hit the jackpot. This stuff wasn't measured by mere rarity—many precious Petrified Woods require tens of thousands of years of history to form.

Because this piece of Petrified Wood was simply too large, he couldn't extract it by himself. He would have to go up and use the fishing boat to help.

Back on the boat, Ye Yuan first had the fishing vessel sail to the designated coordinates. Then he grabbed a shovel and a very long rope, took two crew members, and dove into the water. One end of the rope was already fixed to the crane.

The group arrived at the spot where the Petrified Wood had been found. First, they used the shovel to clear away a large amount of surrounding sea sand, then secured the rope to one end of the wood.

One crew member surfaced to notify the boat to start the crane.

As the crane began operating, the Petrified Wood was slowly pulled upward. Ye Yuan and the other crew member continued clearing away the surrounding sea sand to reduce resistance.

After working for thirty minutes, a piece of Petrified Wood a full 15 meters long was hoisted onto the fishing boat by the crane.

Throughout the entire process, Ye Yuan had Ding Er record a video. If anyone discovered it later, he could explain that this thing had been salvaged from the high seas, avoiding a lot of unnecessary trouble.

"Hey, Fourth Brother, you went through all that trouble just to pull a piece of wood up from the seabed? Is it really worth it?" Second Brother said as he walked over and kicked the "wood."

"Ouch! Is this a rock? Why is it so hard?" Second Brother rubbed his foot, which was already a bit numb.

"Wood? I say, Second Brother, you're supposed to be a rich guy, and you don't even know what Petrified Wood is?" Ye Yuan shot a disdainful glance at Second Brother, who was sitting on the deck, still rubbing his foot.

"You're saying this thing is Petrified Wood? What tree species?" Second Brother ignored Ye Yuan's sarcasm and focused on the variety instead.

"Not sure. It was too dark down there to see clearly. I was planning to check it out after bringing it up. I'm not very familiar with trees—I need to look up some information."

Ye Yuan really didn't know what kind of wood this Petrified Wood was.

Hearing this, Second Brother immediately took out his phone to take a picture. Ye Yuan quickly stopped him.

"Don't. This thing is very sensitive. I'm not planning to sell it, and I don't want anyone to know about it."

"What are you afraid of? We got it from the high seas, not from our own country. Isn't it finders keepers on the high seas?"

Second Brother looked at Ye Yuan in confusion.

"Trouble. I'm not planning to sell it. Isn't keeping something this good for myself better?" Ye Yuan rolled his eyes at Second Brother in exasperation.

He directly instructed Ding Yi and the others to set sail, then pulled Ding Er into his cabin.

"Start learning carving now. How long until you reach a master's level?"

Ding Er thought for a moment. About a week would do, preferably with some practice material.

"No problem. Start learning right now. We'll talk about materials once we're ashore."

After Ding Er left, Ye Yuan began flipping through reference materials to determine which tree species this Petrified Wood belonged to.

After comparing a large amount of data with this piece of Petrified Wood, he finally confirmed that it was the most precious kind: Golden Silk Nanmu.

Forget Petrified Wood—even a piece of Golden Silk Nanmu this big would be worth a fortune.

This unexpected stroke of luck made Ye Yuan feel like he had stepped in dog shit. If the system had a luck stat, he would have thought his luck was maxed out.