Over the course of the morning, Yang Yi caught four Coral Cagefish. With a little more effort that afternoon, he could bring the total to ten!
His target for the day was ten fish, enough to make 100 bottles of Dead Spider Potion, or 10 liters.
Before long, he received a private message.
The second Catapult was finished and ready to trade.
The seller made them to order, messaging Yang Yi to sell each one as soon as it was finished. Each cost 650 Conch Coins, making four Catapults a total of 2,600 Conch Coins.
The fortune Yang Yi had saved up was now down to just 1,600, but fortunately, he had plenty of food and water, so eating and drinking were no concern!
That afternoon, he successfully caught five Coral Cagefish and used up all his Eyeball Fruit. He thought he would fall short of his target, but when he hauled in his fishing net, he found an unexpected catch inside: another Coral Cagefish!
He handed all the Coral Cagefish to Su Na, then headed to the Nightmare Star's Atrium to find places to install the Catapults.
When uninstalled, these Catapults resembled miniature figurines, only a few centimeters across and easy to move.
Presumably, all ship equipment worked this way. Otherwise, it would have been impossible to carry.
Yang Yi looked around, then installed the Catapults symmetrically along the left and right sides of the Nightmare Star's Atrium.
The Nightmare Star finally had long-range offensive capabilities.
But Yang Yi had another clever use in mind for these Catapults!
He opened the chat channel and posted his usual message: "Paying top prices for fire-starting tools, such as lighters!"
He immediately followed it with: "Buying stinking fish, rotten shrimp, rotten meat, rotten vegetable leaves, spoiled fruit, and moldy bread! If it doesn't stink, I don't want it. PM me if interested!"
"Holy shit, do you want fish covered in fuzzy mold?"
"Yes, absolutely!"
"Man, you've got some seriously hardcore tastes!"
"Are you making compost to grow crops on your ship?"
Yang Yi couldn't be bothered to explain. He simply bought everything at outrageously low prices.
The people selling this spoiled food didn't care about the price either. It was trash they were about to throw into the sea anyway. They would probably trade it for even a single Conch Coin.
In the end, Yang Yi spent 100 Conch Coins on several hundred jin of stinking fish and rotten shrimp, a partially eaten sheep that had rotted, and a pile of rotten vegetable leaves.
Suddenly, a private message arrived from Yu Dawei, captain of the Iron Will.
"Want some stinking whale meat? You can have it for free!"
"Sure, just not too much. My ship's small!"
"I haven't gotten around to throwing these three chunks away. They're yours!"
Before long, the capsule machine spat out three chunks of whale meat, each a meter across.
Who knew how that octopus head's tentacled mouth, only the size of a fist, managed to spit out such enormous things?
But this capsule machine didn't even belong to the same visual style. There was no point thinking about those details.
Yang Yi looked at the stinking fish and rotten shrimp covering the deck and smiled.
"This should be enough!"
He planned to use the Delicious Chef's Knife to turn this spoiled food into delicious treats, coat them in Dead Spider Potion, then launch them onto the island with his Catapults!
He called this move-delicious poison!
"It stinks! What are you doing?"
Yang Yi expended considerable effort dragging all the stinking fish and rotten meat into the hold, much to Su Na's displeasure. She came out pinching her nose.
Her Witch Laboratory was connected to the hold.
"Don't worry, you'll think it smells delicious in a minute!
"But let me say this first: no sneaking any bites. Don't say I didn't warn you!" Yang Yi grinned like a scoundrel.
Su Na seemed to understand what Yang Yi intended. She wrinkled her nose and put on the Beak Mask she had purchased from the laboratory.
The two divided up the work.
Su Na was responsible for making poison.
Yang Yi was responsible for "reheating" the spoiled food and turning it into delicacies.
He divided the food into portions weighing about one jin each, then wrapped them in cloth to make ammunition.
The food weighed over a thousand jin in total. Once wrapped, it made exactly 1,100 portions.
By then, it was late at night.
The hold was packed, but there wasn't a trace of stench. Instead, a mouthwatering aroma filled the air.
This was the effect of the Delicious Chef's Knife.
The knife wasn't particularly lethal and looked utterly ordinary, but it was actually extremely dangerous.
Yang Yi even felt... this chef's knife was more dangerous than all his Relics!
Even Yang Yi, who held the knife, had to stay completely alert, afraid he might carelessly start eating this pile of "crap."
"The potions are ready!" Su Na handed over a batch of Dead Spider Potions, 104 bottles in total.
"All right, go get some rest. I'll work a little overtime!" Yang Yi told her.
"Do you want me to help?"
"No need. I'm afraid you won't be able to stop yourself from stuffing your face!" Yang Yi teased, turning down Su Na's offer.
He hadn't actually told Su Na everything.
Smelling the peculiar fragrance from this pile of rotten meat for too long would lower Sanity.
Yang Yi was fine. His high Spirit gave him high Sanity resistance, and he wouldn't go mad even if his Sanity fell low.
Su Na's Sanity was below sixty. If she went mad... she might really grab this stuff and eat her fill.
After Su Na left, Yang Yi spent 10 wood to make a simple wooden bucket and poured the Dead Spider Poison into it.
There were just over 10 liters of poison, enough to fill only half the bucket.
Yang Yi dipped the cloth bundles of rotten meat and vegetable leaves into the poison, then took them out.
Leaving them overnight afterward would allow them to marinate and absorb the flavor.
Yang Yi turned 10 liters of Dead Spider Potion into 462 rotten-meat shells.
The wooden bucket was dry. Even the last drop of Dead Spider Potion had been absorbed.
The remaining rotten meat could wait until tomorrow. After all, he could keep catching Coral Cagefish and making potions.
He checked the weather forecast. There were only two hours left until dawn.
Time really flew.
Tomorrow would probably be a day of low energy!
"I still need to push Su Na to make an Energy-Recovery Potion as soon as possible. The Frenzy Potion's side effects are too awful!"
He slept until dawn.
In those brief two hours, Yang Yi had a nightmare that left a deep impression.
Yet despite that impression, he couldn't quite remember what he had dreamed. He could only say that the dream had a powerful presence.
It seemed to involve a gigantic spider, one whose size was difficult to measure...
Whenever he tried to remember, Yang Yi's head throbbed as though it would split, and he retched with nausea.
"There's something that powerful on the island?"
A wave of lingering fear washed over Yang Yi, strengthening his resolve to poison these spiders to death.
He checked his energy. It was below 70. But he didn't plan to go ashore today, so that was basically enough.
He was now very close to the island, less than 50 nautical miles away.
Towing the undismantled large sailing ship, the Nightmare Star approached the island in under two hours.
Yang Yi hadn't forgotten to fish along the way.
He delivered three newly caught Coral Cagefish to the laboratory, then used a large piece of cloth to carry the 462 rotten-meat shells to the Atrium in batches.
"Let me give you something extra to eat." Grinning wickedly, Yang Yi launched a bundle of "delicious food" into the Dense Forest.
The Catapult worked reasonably well, launching a one-jin portion of rotten meat four hundred meters.
Although a few hundred meters was still only the outskirts of an island five kilometers in diameter, Yang Yi believed these spiders would follow the scent and come to him!
The cloth wrapping the food wasn't sturdy. It would certainly burst open upon hitting the ground, becoming a heap of minced meat and rotten vegetables that several spiders could share at once.
After launching a dozen or so bundles, Yang Yi noticed movement in the woods-the disturbance caused by some kind of large creature moving.
"It's working!"
Yang Yi maneuvered the Nightmare Star, changing angles and positions several times before launching more.
The four hundred-plus bundles of delicacies were soon running out. In the blink of an eye, only a few dozen remained.
Yang Yi had also reached the other side of the island.
Somehow, the spiders spotted the Nightmare Star and came running out of the woods.
They varied in size, the smallest only palm-sized and the largest a meter across. Their long, slender legs made Yang Yi's scalp crawl.
Among them was a special specimen three meters across, with a section of withered human body perched atop its spider head. It had no limbs or head, only a torso.
[Upon seeing an Anomalous Creature, your Sanity decreased by 5]
"What's... going on with that spider?"
Before you continue