[Su Na, captain of the Astrologer, has used the rare item-Ship Merging Card-to request a merger with your ship. Supplies in both ships' holds will be combined. Accept/Decline] [Accept!] [Please vote for a new captain. If the votes are tied, the merger will fail and the merging card will be refunded. Note: the captain has absolute authority. A new election will only be held after the captain dies.]
Yang Yi voted for himself, of course, and Su Na would vote for him too.
They had agreed on this before the merger.
Yang Yi had to be the captain!
He would not feel safe with Su Na as captain.
Given her personality, she would most likely sail into some ocean trench and feed the ship to the sea monster inside, just to find out whether its appetite was big enough...
Once the merger was complete,
the ship interfaces in their logs became identical, but Yang Yi held the primary authority. He could assign certain permissions to Su Na, including allocating supplies, expanding the hull, steering, restricting entry to certain rooms, and so on.
They also had one chance to rename the ship.
Its default name combined the names of the two special ships: the Nightmare Astrologer.
That name was too long, so Yang Yi simply deleted two characters and changed it to the Nightmare Star.
Barring any surprises, the Nightmare Star should be the first merged ship among the players.
Normally, merging required paying a certain amount of supplies to modify the hull, but now those supplies were included in the reconstruction cost.
Rebuilding the Nightmare Star required a total of wood ×700, cloth ×300, stone ×100, and crystal ×20, steel ×10 before the ship could be rebuilt.
Yang Yi was pleased to see steel and stone.
This ship should be a little sturdier.
Wood was still the main shortage, though they were short on some stone and cloth too.
Yang Yi had originally hoped Su Na could help with supplies after the merger, but who would have thought... her hold was practically empty!
Wood ×1, cloth ×2.
She was poorer than a beggar. Had she even been taking survival seriously?
They now had 59 wood in the hold, leaving a shortage of a whopping 641.
They had 44 stone, leaving a shortage of 56.
They had 274 cloth, leaving a shortage of 26.
Stone was easy to obtain on an island. There were always plenty of rocks on islands and in the shallows near shore.
They could only try their luck fishing for cloth, but fortunately, they did not need much more.
But wood... he had no idea whether there were enough trees on the island to cut down...
"Su Na, how much wood have you collected?" Yang Yi asked.
Before he woke up, Su Na had already blasted down a large number of trees with the Flintlock.
It must have made quite a racket, yet he had been completely unaware.
No wonder Su Na said he slept like a dead pig...
"I've collected 292 wood in total. If we dig up the roots of these trees, we could probably get a little more," she replied.
"Including the stock in the hold, we have 351 wood altogether. We're still short by quite a bit..." Yang Yi frowned.
They could not trade right now, so they could only gather it themselves.
He looked around. Su Na had cut down even the nearby trees submerged in the sea.
Only farther out at sea were there still treetops sticking above the surface. Those trees had been submerged before she could cut them down, and they were over a hundred meters away.
To get that wood, he could only try swimming over, blasting them down with the gun, and bringing them back.
Fortunately, the storm had stopped, leaving the sea calm. The sea level probably would not rise any further.
"Give me back my gun!" Yang Yi reclaimed his precious Flintlock.
"Gather some rocks on the island and near the shore. We need 56 units. Don't bother digging up the roots. You'd be better off crafting a fishing rod and fishing!
"I'll swim a little farther out and bring back some wood," Yang Yi instructed.
"Sure!" Su Na agreed at once.
Yang Yi had a sharkskin swimsuit that reduced the stamina consumed while swimming, so he was the best person for the job.
Before getting to work, though, they had to fill their stomachs.
Diving in to catch fish was the quickest, most convenient option. Yang Yi also had a gun that could fire underwater, making catching fish effortless.
In just fifteen minutes, he caught two plump groupers.
But since he had shot them, the fish were in pieces. The two made do and ate them.
Afterward, Yang Yi swam farther out.
Su Na began collecting rocks and fishing.
Perhaps because this was a buffer zone, there were no monsters in the sea.
Everything went smoothly. After swimming a little over a hundred meters, he began finding trees.
Boom!
Sparks and a gunshot burst out underwater, scattering the nearby fish.
After another shot, a log over thirty centimeters in diameter floated to the surface.
This was the thickest tree nearby.
Yang Yi could bring back at most two logs at a time. He tried to pick thicker ones, since those would yield more wood.
Half an hour later, Yang Yi brought back two fairly thick logs, which the system recognized as 18 wood.
But swimming, diving, and pushing floating logs ashore were comparable to an athletic triathlon.
One trip alone consumed over 30 of Yang Yi's stamina.
He could make at most two round trips each time before he had to lie on the island and recover his stamina.
Without the Vitality Coconut Juice Refresher, his stamina recovered very slowly. Over the entire day, he only completed five trips, gathering 93 wood in total.
Su Na had gathered enough stone, with some to spare, collecting 74 stone.
Gathering stone on an island could be called the easiest, most relaxing job-as long as you had found an island.
As for fishing, Su Na had exceptionally good luck. He did not know whether she was still under beginner protection, but she caught two bottles of Nongfu Three Fists that day, both in the 2 L size.
The fish she caught all went into their stomachs.
She also obtained 5 wood and 8 cloth.
At this rate, they would be able to rebuild the ship in four or five days at most.
That night, for safety's sake, neither risked fishing, logging, or similar activities. Instead, they stayed in the center of the island and waited for daylight.
They also arranged night watches. Su Na took the first half of the night, and Yang Yi took the second.
Although there was no bed, Yang Yi slept soundly.
This was far more comfortable than sleeping aboard the Nightmare. He had no nightmares!
The chat channel.
Everyone was now guessing who the three players remaining in the Storm Sea were, and why they still had not come out.
"I bet all three are inside the giant worm's stomach and haven't been fully digested yet!"
"It's better if they don't come out. That way, the game won't enter the next phase, and we can take the opportunity to upgrade our ships and gather resources!"
"Could they have discovered a hidden dungeon at sea and be carrying out a secret mission?"
In short, there were all kinds of guesses.
But they could never have guessed that Yang Yi's and Su Na's ships had sunk, and they were gathering supplies to build a ship.
As for the other person.
Yang Yi had no idea what their situation was either. Perhaps they were repairing their ship too.
Some people who had added Yang Yi as a friend were asking whether he was safe and whether he had made it out. (Yang Yi had added some of the people who sent him gifts back in the Storm Sea.)
Before going to sleep, Yang Yi sent them all the same reply, just seven Chinese characters long.
"My ship blew up. I'm building one!"
"Holy shit, a pro really is a pro. His ship blew up and he's still fine!"
"Badass! Got room for a tagalong?"
Before you continue