Sea Cultivation: Giant Ships and Heavy Artillery Knock on the Door to All Races

Chapter 183: Sufficient resources, great crisis, the possibility of the third level of blood hunting
It was Lin Haichao who killed the Abyssal Shadow Demon King, but the accurate information was brought by Zhang Chaoyang, so Lin Haichao was not stingy and gave him some of the less important spoils.

After confirming the safety of the ice field, Zhang Chaoyang notified the fleets that had already gathered towards the ice field: they can go out to hunt normally!
However, since the density of the second-level monster tribes on the ice field has greatly increased this year, the degree of danger has also greatly increased accordingly. He took the initiative to remind the ship owners to coordinate the operations with as many ships as possible to avoid shipwrecks and casualties. After all, these people are also making money for his Zhang family.

Although the main monster-hunting ships of each Jindan force have gone to participate in the Linglong Secret Realm, the number of monster-hunting ships that came here this year is still very large. In addition to the Jindan forces with basic conditions who are working at full capacity to produce/assemble monster-hunting ships, there are also many monster-hunting ships that migrated from the open sea.

These offshore monster-hunting ships have many hunting grounds to choose from, and they don't necessarily have to come to the northern ice fields, but dozens of them still came. They are obviously very smart people.

"This number... there must be more than three hundred ships in total, right?"

"Yes! The current situation is that all forces need to seize every opportunity to climb up. Only by constantly strengthening themselves can they cope with the upcoming new challenges. Therefore, many previously stable forces are actively seeking transformation."

"What new challenge?"

"It's storm season! Low-level monsters from the open sea are constantly pouring in, but the local ecosystem has a carrying capacity limit. Once the sea becomes unsafe, the excessive monsters will inevitably come to the island to eat people!"

hiss~
"Eating people on the island! That's a big deal. This is one of the foundations of the Inland Sea."

Those who heard this took a deep breath. In the past, when monsters came ashore during the storm season, they were just offering food, and the human monks who were waiting for them could just wait on the shore and harvest them. But this time, it might not be so easy.

"Alas, I've strayed from the topic. These matters should be considered by the major powers. We just need to take care of ourselves."

"Yes, for us, immediate interests are the most important."

"Tsk tsk tsk ~ The Zhang family enjoys eating, I'm so envious."

"Without the Lin family's support, he definitely wouldn't be able to take on such a huge benefit, so he will definitely consider giving the Lin family a share."

"Yeah, let's go."

Toot~
The Shield Mountain led the way, and dense numbers of demon-hunting ships followed in. Even the demon-hunting ships of small forces that used to like to fight alone were persuaded to find a few partners in the same situation in order to deal with unknown risks together.

"Fellow Daoists from the Purple Jade Islands, let's follow them!"

Not every foundation-building cultivator has a monster-hunting ship. Those forces without monster-hunting ships have long been unable to sit still after hearing about the abundance of monster resources in the northern ice field this year. Even some Buddhist cultivators have taken the initiative to participate.

Although they don't have a monster-hunting ship as a platform for rest, supply, defense, and combat assistance, they can find people to form a team!
Three to five familiar foundation-building monks form a temporary team, and multiple people work together to hunt small groups of second-level monsters. Under the premise of high efficiency, the risk is still controllable.

In the past, I didn’t come because there was no need and I didn’t have the admission qualifications, which would easily offend the vested interests. But now the resources are almost overflowing, and you’d be a fool to remain indifferent.

Moreover, they do not need to take a cut from the Zhang family, because they fly into the ice field by themselves and do not need the Shield Mountain ship to break the ice and lead the way. They don’t even have to sell their prey to the Zhang family.

It’s just that small forces have their own ways of survival. They are not stupid. They are all from the nearby waters and have indeed taken advantage of Zhang Chaoyang. They need to give enough face to the Zhang family.

Shield Mountain Ship,
"Friend Zhang, you're not kidding, are you? Why are the prices so low this year?"

"That's right! Isn't this bullying? Do you think you can do whatever you want just because you're allied with the Lin family?"

"Fellow Daoist Zhang, please give us a reasonable explanation!"

The captain of the first batch of monster hunting ships that returned with a full load looked at the price list of today's fresh catch given by the Zhang family with some disbelief. Compared with last year, the price was completely cut in half. Even the price of a few common sea monsters was less than 40% of last year's price. The gap was too big.

"Fellow Daoist Liu, calm down! Fellow Daoists, please be patient. It's not that my Zhang family is unfair, but this is the current market situation. This is the real-time price from Thousand Star City, updated daily. If we wait a month to send it over, we will be taking a huge risk."

"My fellow Daoists should all be aware that since last winter, the beast tide from the outer sea has been relentless, and it's even intensifying now. Vast quantities of prey are harvested daily both inside and outside the defense lines. Even with the massive throughput of Thousand Star City, it's unable to digest this prey quickly, which is why the overall market is being depressed..."

The Zhang family knew this would happen and prepared a complete explanation in advance. This is indeed the case. The supply is too large and the digestion speed cannot keep up, so the price will naturally drop.

Although the inland sea did not receive the direct impact of the beast tide and could not feel the surging tide of the beasts, in fact the beast tide was endless. The fishing volume in the four areas of the inland sea was really nothing compared with the spoils harvested by the defense line every day.

"The price can't be that low, right?"

"That's right! Even if Thousand Star City can't handle it, the other fourth-tier immortal cities can still share the burden. You have third-tier ships that can go to the nearest Chaochun City. The price there is definitely much higher, so you can definitely sell it to Chaochun City."

"My fellow Daoist, your words are out of line! Please mind your words! You earn your monster hunting fees, and I earn my fresh food collection fees. You can't borrow my boat to earn my fresh food collection fees, can you?"

How the Zhang family sells their prey is the Zhang family's business, and it is not the turn of these people to make decisions. Although the person in charge has a low level of cultivation, he is very confident and reminds them not to forget who is in charge.

"Um... I'm sorry, my words slipped up at the moment. Please forgive me!"

"How about this? You fellow Taoists can keep your goods with my Zhang family first. After the hunting season is over, we can settle the account based on the current real-time price. The rise and fall of the price is at your own risk!"

Who knows, maybe the price will go up again by then?

Even if someone doesn't want to sell to my Zhang family, that's fine. At that time, they only need to pay the corresponding storage fee to pick up the goods and take them away. My Zhang family will never stop them! But whether to sell or not, we must make a decision today!"

Zhang Jiaji, who was in charge of negotiations on the Shield Mountain ship, was very confident. Any smart person would not keep these things in his hands forever, but should sell them immediately, sell them for spirit stones, and then use the spirit stones to exchange for other more scarce materials to arm himself.

Sure enough, most of the monster hunting ships chose to sell directly to the Zhang family, but there were still a few forces that chose to only pay the commission they should have paid and then planned to take away the prey when the time came.

These prey can be brought back to their local forces to be further processed into elixirs, array plates, weapons, talismans and other valuable war materials that can be used directly.
They can use it themselves or sell it to the Thousand Star City at a high price, but few forces have this complete industrial production system for all categories. Without a complete system, they cannot digest it, which will lead to squeezing out.

The northern ice field is just a microcosm of the hunting grounds in the Western Regions and the four inner sea regions. Although it is not as easy to hunt second-level monsters in other hunting grounds as here, they are also full of resources and the profits are far greater than before.

It's not just the nine cardinal immortal cities on the two lines of defense. All other fourth-tier immortal cities have abundant resources without exception. It seems that the entire human territory has ushered in a great opportunity and great development.

Linglong Mist Sea,

The Wind Rider has had pretty good luck these past few days. While fishing for the Hidden-Scale Fish Monster, it also successfully hunted three Water Spirit Guards and a second-level monster in succession, which was a complete surprise.

The second-level monsters that can be attracted to the Linglong Secret Realm are generally not very intelligent, and intelligence is an important component of the monster's strength, so their strength is quite average. Ordinary second-level monsters in the early and middle stages will either flee or die when they encounter the Wind Rider.

Captain's cabin, the day shift leader reports,

"Master Thirteen, we're running low on bait. Should we head straight to the Heart of the Sea of Mist now?"

"Oh? So quickly? What were the results?"

"These baits were extremely effective, filling the nets to the brim. The two crews seized the opportunity and worked around the clock to maximize the efficiency of the Windriders. The remaining bait was only enough for the last three nets."

"I blame myself for not being well prepared! In that case, let's head straight for the Heart of the Fog Sea. It's still early, so we can slow down a bit and drag the remaining three nets. Let's give everyone some rest and get back into top form. There might be a big battle later."

"Yes! Thank you, Master Thirteen, for your size~"

"Go."

After completing his daily training, Lin Qianfan put away the Jinglian cushion, walked out of the captain's room, and looked at the endless fog outside the protective formation.

The closer one gets to the heart of the sea of fog, the thicker this highly contagious mist becomes. The prey caught nearby no longer contains outsider monsters; they are all Hidden Scale Fish Monsters transformed by the secret realm. "Our ancestors must have paid a heavy price when they first developed this secret realm. It was truly a great sacrifice."

Lin Qianfan knew that the reason why the Wind Rider was so successful was not because it was really that powerful, but because it stood on the shoulders of its predecessors.

Nowadays, ships that come to explore the Linglong Secret Realm have complete structural charts of the secret realm, the best safety strategies, and even special pointers specifically designed for navigating the Linglong Mist Sea. However, the predecessors who first came in to develop this secret realm did not have these advantages.

For them, just getting out of the Linglong Mist Sea is a life-or-death test, and they need to keep trying to find a way out. I wonder how many pioneer ships have sunk to the bottom of this mist sea.

"How's your recovery going?"

“In great condition~”

Yin Lin had to go into battle every time, and in order to win quickly, he even had to exchange injuries for control to assist Lin Qianfan in killing the target. Fortunately, he had prepared various healing pills in advance, and he was not afraid of skin injuries and fog infection.

After skinning and bleeding the second-stage early-stage siren that was hunted earlier, everything left was given to it, even the demon pill, which made it feel happy.

Ordinary second-level demon beast pills that cannot be used to refine foundation-building pills are relatively less valuable. In addition to being used in some pill recipes to refine second-level pills, their biggest use is to feed spirit beasts.

It is somewhat unrealistic for a foundation-building cultivator to absorb a second-level demon pill. The power in the demon pill is violent, wild, complex, and strange, and even contains residual demon beast essence. A second-level alchemist needs to go through multiple specific steps to eliminate most of the alien power.

But it is different for large-sized, strong-blooded second-level spirit beasts, especially those with the same attributes or race, which can absorb all kinds of useful powers in the demon pill to the greatest extent, and have extremely high resistance to alien powers that cannot be absorbed. It only took Yin Lin a few days to initially refine the demon pill. Not only did it repair all his injuries, but even his aura increased.

However, when cultivating a spirit beast, one cannot feed it with demon pills endlessly. Instead, it should be assisted with more daily training step by step. This is not because they are afraid of developing resistance or weakening their foundation, but because they are afraid that the demon pill's essence will erode their minds over time, and eventually make them irritable, easily angered, or even insane. After all, there are also many cases of crazy demons in the world of cultivating immortals.

As the Wind Rider slowly approached the heart of the Fog Sea, other monster hunting ships gradually appeared around it. It seemed that they were in generally good condition and none of their formations were broken. It was relatively rare for them to be sunk in the Linglong Fog Sea.

"Master Jiu!"

Seeing the Hunter, the Wind Rider immediately moved over.

"What's the profit?"

"Not bad, I got four water spirit beads in total."

"Not bad!"

Jiu Ye, who has already reached the fifth stage of foundation building, has a more reserved and steady temperament. He only speaks a few words to close foundation building cultivators like Lin Qianfan, and rarely speaks to others on weekdays.

"Where's your ship?"

"Eight, mainly thanks to Blood Hunter."

There is usually only one chance to form a pill in the Linglong Secret Realm. Except for a very few forces that have high expectations for this opportunity, everyone's main goal is still the Water Spirit Pearl. Even if they go to the inner layer of the secret realm, it is to obtain more Water Spirit Pearls there.

The effect of the Water Spirit Pearl is similar to that of the Foundation Establishment Pill, but the time span for which it can be stored without damage is much longer than that of the Foundation Establishment Pill. It can be collected as a kind of foundation for the Golden Core forces, and can be used as an exclusive foundation-building spiritual object for the family's water spirit root and ice spirit root foundation seeds. In the long run, it has great strategic significance.

"Is it possible for Blood Hunter to advance to the third level?"

Before Lin Qianfan established his foundation, Lin Dayan had already started to retreat and prepare for the breakthrough to the Golden Core. The two had almost no contact, and the Blood Shark came and went without a trace and rarely showed up, so they had no intersection.

But Lin Qianfan still hopes that the Blood Shark will have a chance to advance to the third level. If the Blood Shark succeeds in advancing to the third level, the master and servant can work together to get a third-level battleship and go to the outer sea to make profits in the future.

Because the Yulong Islands have a development bottleneck, if the Lin family wants to continue to develop, they must either move to a larger territory, like the Yunshang League.

Or they need to participate in the distribution of interests in the open sea, like the Yaoyue Alliance, but they need ships and people.

Jiu Ye shook his head when he heard this.

"Although the Blood Hunter is a water-attributed monster, it takes the path of blood killing to prove its truth, leaning towards the category of blood demon. The general water-attributed pill-forming opportunities are less effective on it. The difficulty of advancing a blood demon is already high, requiring great opportunities and great luck, which is very difficult!"

When Lin Dayan was forming his elixir, he fed back to Blood Hunt, which made it reach the peak of the second level now. However, it is still far from the third level demon king.
Considering its lifespan and the peak state of its Qi and blood, if it cannot find a suitable opportunity for advancement within a hundred years, then there will be no chance.

"I remember that the Jindan opportunity produced by this Linglong Secret Realm is also of water attribute, right?"

"High probability of water attribute and low probability of ice attribute, you mean?"

"Is it possible for our Lin family to go up and compete?"

Now that they were here, every time the Lin family entered the inner layer they would go directly to hunt the water spirit guards, but this time was different. Although the new merchant alliance had many ships, they were just making up the numbers, and Guanlan Fairy City was also at its weakest moment in the past few hundred years.

"Plus, the Bingling might have a fighting chance, but that goes against the family's principle of being low-key and reserved. It's not good to be too prominent."

"Master Jiu, it's an indisputable fact that we're getting stronger day by day. Even if we keep a low profile, the outside world will still notice us. Besides, even a second-tier secret realm like Linglong Secret Realm doesn't dare to compete for first place, so what about the other secret realms in the future? Continuously giving in is not a long-term solution. We should take action when the time is right, and it may even force other forces to give in!"

Although the Lin family fleet does not have very strong foundation-building cultivators, the only one in the late foundation-building stage is an ally of the Zhang family, but the second-level peak Blood-Splitting Shark is considered one of the strongest on this trip. In addition, the Lin family's ships are all good ships with large displacement, so they may be able to compete.

"If it's a water-attributed opportunity, fight for it! If it's an ice-attributed opportunity, give up!"

Jiu Ye was also decisive. He immediately decided to fight for a future for the Blood Shark depending on the situation. It all depended on its luck.

Appointed on the seventh day,
All seven ships of the Lin family fleet arrived as scheduled, and everyone also collected the Linglong beads needed to reach the inner layer of the secret realm.

But if you count carefully, there are only eighty-two monster hunting ships gathered here today, accounting for two-thirds of the total number of monster hunting ships entering the secret realm, and they belong to eleven different larger allied forces.

Not every force's ships have to enter the inner layer of the secret realm. Some small Jindan forces that are self-aware choose to give up going to the inner layer, and instead spend more time hunting in the Linglong Mist Sea.

For them, the large amount of Linglong Pearls produced by the Hidden Scale Fish Demon and the small amount of Water Spirit Pearls produced by the Water Spirit Guards are already very good opportunities. It is not worth the risk to spend an extra amount of Linglong Pearls to enter the inner layer of the secret realm.

In fact, the Lin family did not always go to the inner layer in history. When there was no mid-stage Jindan cultivator in the family and they could not find a strong ally, they would not take the risk of going to the inner layer and chose stability.

At three quarters of noon,

The tide in the center of the foggy sea recedes to an extremely low level, and a sinking current begins to appear. The monster hunting ship needs to ride the sinking current to reach the inner layer.

"The agreed time has come. Fellow Daoists who haven't come yet will not come. Please take out your Linglong Pearls."

The leader of the new merchant alliance fleet, who was at the ninth level of foundation building, took the initiative to come forward and preside over the sacrificial ceremony. Each ship took out its own share of the ticket money. The ships that dared to go to the inner space to hunt had certain abilities and would not be unable to raise enough money for the ticket.

The fleets were arranged in order, and after sacrificing a considerable amount of Linglong Pearls together, they successfully boarded the tidal sinking current and headed for the inner world of the Linglong Secret Realm.

"How magical! It's like someone designed it layer by layer. Is this really a naturally formed secret space?"

(End of this chapter)