167: Chapter 167 The Precious Sword and the Divine Crossbow

The two crossed the moss-covered deck and arrived before the rosewood doors.

The doors were nearly four meters high, their surfaces carved with patterns of fleets and exotic beasts.

The outer layer of paint had peeled away, but the door core remained sturdy.

Zhao Mengmeng pressed her palm against the door panel.

"It's dry."

"It's well-preserved inside."

Lin Ye sheathed his bone blade and gripped the door rings with both hands.

Zhao Mengmeng stood on the other side, bracing her shoulder against the door panel.

"Push?"

"Push."

The rosewood doors slid inward.

The door hinges emitted only the dull sound of thick wood rubbing together.

A warm, dry current of air rushed out to meet them.

Zhao Mengmeng stood stunned at the threshold.

The seventh level was filled everywhere with black water, corrosive fog, rotting ships, and the lingering stench of fish.

Yet this inner cabin was absurdly dry.

The floor was paved with dark, thick wooden planks, and the walls on both sides were lined with tiers of wooden shelves.

Bronze lamps were embedded in the ceiling.

The light screen did not pop up any environmental alerts.

There was no toxic miasma, nor were there any warnings of living dangers.

Lin Ye stood before the door and activated his Left Eye for a brief moment.

True Vision unfolded across his retinas.

Rich green light blanketed the wooden shelves, clay pots, storage chests, and the tools piled in the corners.

There were pitifully few gray spots.

Lin Ye closed his Left Eye.

The soreness in his optic nerves eased significantly.

Zhao Mengmeng stared at him: "How is it?"

Lin Ye lit a small fire using scrap materials.

A pale orange glow ignited, dispelling the gloom within the cabin.

On the wooden shelves on both sides, rows of coarse clay pots were lined up, their mud-wax seals intact.

Scattered on the floor were a dozen rusted weapons, their edges still harboring a cold glint.

At the deepest part of the cabin sat a massive beast-bone storage chest.

The chest body was carved and assembled from solid beast leg bones, its surface engraved with ancient constant-temperature patterns.

It took Zhao Mengmeng a while to choke out a sentence.

"We struck it rich."

Lin Ye nodded: "Yeah, we struck it rich."

The Great Xia Live Stream chat exploded instantly.

[A treasure vault! There really is a hidden treasure vault on the seventh level!]

[Before, he was gnawed by fish, robbed by people, bitten by bugs; it's finally Brother Eye's turn to restock!]

[If all these things in the cabin can be transmitted back, Great Xia will be celebrating the New Year tonight!]

Zhao Mengmeng strode toward the nearest wooden shelf, then abruptly braked.

"Brother Lin, can I touch them?"

Lin Ye briefly opened his Left Eye to scan.

"The left three rows are fine, don't touch that pot on the top right."

Zhao Mengmeng retracted her outstretched hand.

"Is there a problem?"

"The pollution is heavy."

"Alright, I also think it looks ugly."

Lin Ye drew his bone blade and pried open a clay pot with an intact mud seal.

A rich, mellow aroma of meat fat rushed to his nose.

Zhao Mengmeng swallowed hard.

"This smell, it's lethal."

Lin Ye used the tip of his blade to pick up a bit of pale golden oil paste.

In his Left Eye's vision, the oil paste glowed with an extremely soft green light.

The light screen for his right eye popped up information.

[Sealed Beast Fat Paste]

Lin Ye held it under his nose and sniffed.

"It's edible, extremely high quality."

Zhao Mengmeng immediately took off her backpack.

"Is Pot Brother going on duty again today?"

"Pot Brother is a model worker."

Lin Ye was in no rush to light a fire; he turned to continue selecting usable supplies.

There were twenty-nine clay pots in total.

Seventeen were pure, six had mild pollution, and four had heavy pollution.

The other two were sealed with unknown acidified residues.

He moved all the pure clay pots to the left side of the cabin.

He marked the mildly polluted ones for now.

He separated the heavily polluted ones and the acidified residues using wooden shelves and tied them off with beast-hide ropes.

Zhao Mengmeng rummaged in the corner and found a heavy, sealed wooden box.

Inside the box lay a set of well-preserved mechanical components.

[Ancient Style Powerful crossbow Launcher Components]

Double-layer pulleys, bronze locking springs, the material hardness was extremely high.

Zhao Mengmeng picked up her crossbow, her fingers swiftly disassembling and installing the parts.

Her original crossbow arms were already severely worn, and the string groove was stiff.

After swapping in the new components, she leveled the crossbow and tried a dry fire.

"Twang!"

The crossbow string emitted an extremely crisp and violent snapping sound.

Zhao Mengmeng laughed.

"The range will at least double."

"What about the power?"

"Give me arrows, and I could pin that White Elephant Scarface from earlier to the deck so he couldn't pull himself off."

"Not bad, too bad he sank early."

Lin Ye walked toward the pile of weapons on the floor.

That Fire Axe with the rolled edge had gotten stuck in the Giant Shark's snout and was officially retired.

The scimitars, short swords, and spearheads on the ground were mostly severely rusted.

But at the very bottom, a long blade was pressed down.

It had a black wood scabbard wrapped in copper, with no signs of decay.

Lin Ye gripped the hilt and drew the blade.

The edge glinted with a cold, sharp light, the blade was slender, and the center of gravity was forward.

The light screen popped up.

[Ancient Style Tang Saber]

Lin Ye briefly opened his Left Eye; the blade glowed with a steady green light, with even a few dark gold spots in the middle section, and very minimal gray spots.

Zhao Mengmeng whistled.

"Brother Lin, you changed your skin."

Lin Ye tried swinging the blade.

The blade cut through the air with a crisp, clean sound.

On the bottom tier of the wooden shelves, there was also a bundle of black bamboo arrow shafts and a box of bronze arrowheads.

Lin Ye checked them one by one, confirming the arrow shafts had no pollution.

The arrowheads had mild pollution; they could be scrubbed with beast hide and then roasted to remove it.

Zhao Mengmeng hugged the entire box of arrowheads.

"I'm finally not just holding an empty crossbow to scare people anymore."

Lin Ye walked to the beast-bone storage chest.

He used the back of the Tang Saber to flick open the latch and used both hands to push open the heavy bone lid.

No cold air rushed out.

Inside the chest were several sealed bone compartments.

Dried meat chunks, black salt crystals, hardened bone glue.

And packets of plant seeds compressed into bricks.

The light screen popped up continuously.

[Dry-Sealed Beast Meat]

[Black Rock Salt Crystals]

[Tough Bone Glue]

[Dormant Grain Seeds]

Lin Ye stared intently at those grain seeds.

In his Left Eye's vision, these seeds radiated an extremely subtle pale gold.

This was not just a simple ration.

This was likely a new crop source that the freezing and arid Blue Star desperately needed.

The Great Xia Live Stream chat was instantly flooded.

[Grain seeds! Those are grain seeds! This is ten thousand times more important than meat!]

[Upload this! Brother Eye must upload this tonight!]

[The Sea-Suppressing Dragon Bone Nail is also very strong! The transmission box can only take one item a day, how to choose!]

Lin Ye carefully sealed the grain seeds and tucked them into the shock-proof layer at the very bottom of his backpack.

The upload terminal would only activate at night.

He had enough time to weigh the ultimate value of the grain seeds versus the Dragon Bone Nail for Great Xia.

Zhao Mengmeng walked over, holding a pot of fat paste.

"Let's eat first; if we don't, my stomach is going to start eating me."

Lin Ye nodded.

"Fire up the pot."

The battered aluminum pot was placed on the small stove next to the bronze tray.

The warmth was enough to ignite the dry wood shavings.

As the fat paste went into the pot, the aroma of melting grease instantly filled the air.

The dried beast meat was chopped into chunks, and the black rock salt crystals were crushed and sprinkled in.

Zhao Mengmeng sat to the side, hugging her modified crossbow.

"This smell is too unfair."

Lin Ye handed the first bowl of meat soup to her.

"Slow down."

Zhao Mengmeng took it and gulped it down while blowing on it.

"I can't slow down, this soup is too delicious."

Lin Ye picked up the second bowl.

The piping hot soup slid into his stomach, and a wave of heat immediately spread through his blood.

The chill in his bones, the contusions in his muscles, and the weakness from continuous fighting were swept away.

The light screen for his right eye lit up.

[Vital Signs: Minor Injuries]

[pollution: 0.73%]

[Spirit Grid: 99.20%]

Immediately after, new information floated up.

[Physique: Slight Improvement]

Zhao Mengmeng also stared at her own light screen.

"Brother Lin, my physique increased."

"The ingredients are good."

"This treasure vault can really save lives."

The two drank two pots of meat soup in a row.

Zhao Mengmeng leaned contentedly against the wooden shelf pillar.

"If those fish outside realize we're stewing meat in here, will they get so angry they all ram the ship?"

"They don't have that kind of emotional management ability."

"True, fish life is all about being irritable."

Lin Ye did not fully relax.

He organized and put away the pure clay pots, grain seeds, and Dragon Bone Nail.

He used the Tang Saber to carve clear marks on the wooden planks.

Suddenly.

A very slow, dull thud came from beneath the cabin floor.

"Thud."

Zhao Mengmeng stopped chatting.

Lin Ye's hand holding the carving blade paused.

"Thud."

The second one was closer.

The sound echoed in the interlayer of the ship's bottom.

Something was clinging to the bottom of the mothership, climbing straight toward this inner cabin.

Zhao Mengmeng swiftly raised her crossbow, the bronze arrowhead aimed firmly at the gap in the floor.

"The treasure vault even comes with a doorman?"

Lin Ye snapped his Left Eye open.

A dark red light pierced through the gaps in the wooden planks, the danger level so high it made his optic nerves throb with pain.

"Sizzle—"

Pungent white smoke suddenly erupted from the edges of the wooden planks.

High-intensity acid was forcibly corroding the thick ship planks at the bottom.

The light screen for his right eye suddenly popped up a scarlet alert.

[Mutated Hermit Water Ghost]