Join the management group, I've stockpiled millions of supplies for survival at sea.

She doesn't need a response.

The game has been shut down, all data has been archived, and the designer's identity is encrypted within the system, making it untraceable by ordinary players.

Even if someone guesses it, it's still just a guess.

She took stock of the supplies she had brought back from the desert island.

An axe, a crossbow, four crossbow bolts, a piece of canvas, a bundle of vines, and some dried meat.

The dried meat was no longer edible, so she threw it into the recycling furnace, where it was converted into five points of fuel.

The axe and crossbow were placed on the weapon rack.

Fold the canvas neatly and put it into the storage box.

Then she began to dismantle the raft.

The twelve logs were dismantled and automatically recycled into timber by the system.

The vines can be recycled into plastic materials.

After removing the wooden panels, the price jumped from 47 to 168.

The system alert sounded.

[Player's ship has been detected to have returned to safe waters]

[The data from the Tomb Raider game has been archived]

[Exploration progress of the icy sea area: 97%]

[Regional clearance rewards are being distributed]

[Receive 100 core lottery tickets]

One hundred cores.

Yin Leyao opened the lottery interface.

The interface is a circular turntable divided into ten squares, each corresponding to a different item category.

Weapons, armor, materials, blueprints, skills, special items, vehicle parts, pet supplies, consumables, and random items.

You're guaranteed at least one purple-quality item in every ten pulls.

She ordered a ten-pull.

The turntable began to spin at high speed.

The first round of ten-pulls was mostly white light, interspersed with two blue lights, and finally a purple light flashed by.

The purple quality item is a hull reinforcement blueprint, which can increase the hull's durability by 20%.

The blue item is a harpoon gun and a set of waterproof sealant, while the white items are basic materials such as wood, iron blocks, and plastic, in small quantities.

She used up the blueprints, and the number on the hull durability panel jumped from five hundred to six hundred.

Second round of ten pulls.

Three beams of blue light and one beam of purple light.

Purple represents blueprints for a weather detector, while blue represents anchor chains, sail repair tools, and a nautical chart.

The nautical chart marks the distribution of reefs in the turbulent sea.

The third round of ten pulls.

Five beams of blue light, but no purple light.

However, there is a core exchange voucher that can be used to exchange for a specific item in the exchange shop.

Fourth round of ten consecutive wins.

The purple light flashed right from the start.

The item drawn was a keel reinforcement alloy, which, after installation, increases the ship's resistance to wind and waves by 15%.

Rounds 5 through 8.

The majority of the ships were of blue quality, but one purple quality stabilizing fin was found, which reduced the ship's tilt angle.

The ninth round.

After a flash of purple light, a flash of golden light appeared, and Yin Leyao sat up straight.

Gold quality; this is the first time she's drawn a gold item.

The item is called Vortex Shield. Its function is to generate a water shield around the ship's hull that lasts for 30 minutes with a 6-hour cooldown. It can withstand a direct impact from one extreme weather event.

She stared at the screen for a few seconds before equipping the Vortex Shield into the ship's active skill slot.

The tenth round.

The last ten pulls yielded two streaks of purple light.

One is a deep-sea lighting device with strong penetrating power, capable of illuminating up to 20 meters ahead even in heavy rain and dense fog.

Another is an emergency repair drone, which automatically activates when the ship's hull is damaged to perform basic repairs.

All 100 cores were extracted.

Yin Leyao loaded all the equipment she could onto the ship.

The ship's durability has been increased from 500 to 600, its wind and wave resistance has increased by 15%, its roll has been reduced, and it now has active defense skills and basic repair capabilities.

The weather detector now features a small screen in the cockpit that displays real-time meteorological data for the surrounding sea area.

not enough.

The name "Great Chaos Sea" wasn't given lightly.

The challenges of the icy sea region lie in the cold and scarcity of resources; the pressure to survive accumulates gradually.

But the Great Chaos Sea is different.

She had seen other full-time employees' comments about Da Luan Hai in the management group—two out of three sentences were swear words.

The waves can easily reach tens of meters high, storms can come suddenly, there are things underwater, things on the water, and sometimes even things in the sky.

Her boat was a class 7, only slightly better than a raft compared to these things.

Yin Leyao opened the upgrade interface.

The conditions for upgrading from level seven to level eight are listed on the screen.

Materials required: 0 wood, 0 iron blocks, 0 metal, 0 core.

One upgrade component.

She stared at the string of zeros, momentarily stunned.

Then scroll down and you'll see the requirements for leveling up from level eight to level nine.

Required materials: 10,000 wood, 5,000 iron blocks, 2,000 metal, 500 cores, and one upgrade component.

Basic supplies were swept away by the turbulent currents.

Upgrade components are special materials that are tied to level breakthroughs; one is needed for each level breakthrough: from level 7 to 8, from level 8 to 9, and from level 9 to 10.

She had obtained one while doing a mission in the icy sea area before, and kept it at the bottom of her storage box.

In other words, excluding the upgrade components, upgrading from level 7 to level 8 does not require ordinary materials.

The one that truly consumes the ingredients is the eighth to ninth grade.

Two thousand pieces of wood, three thousand pieces of iron, one thousand pieces of metal, and five hundred cores.

Her current resource panel shows a little over 400 pieces of wood, 120 pieces of iron, and 7 pieces of metal. She just finished drawing all the cores.

The gap is huge.

She sent private messages to several material merchants she had met on the trading platform.

The other party replied quickly, saying they had wood and iron in stock, and could also exchange plastic and cloth at a discount, but they wouldn't sell metal or the core, only exchange them.

Yin Leyao exchanged twenty basic blueprints and five pieces of blue equipment for a thousand pieces of wood.

He then posted a trade ad in the chat channel, exchanging the crossbow he brought back from the deserted island and the remaining crossbow bolts for 1,500 iron ingots.

Crossbows are rare items for ordinary players. As soon as the news was released, three people bid on them, and the final transaction price was 30% higher than she expected.

There is still not enough metal.

She dismantled the ship's spare anchor and recycled it into metal blocks.

They also removed the metal parts from the axe they brought back from the desert island.

By piecing things together, the amount of metal barely reached a hundred. It's still far from a thousand.

You can accumulate the core skills gradually.

The upgrade is not something that must be done tomorrow.

The rewards for missions after entering the Chaotic Sea should include cores.

Yin Leyao turned off the supplies panel and began the final checks before entering the Chaotic Sea.

The ship's protective shield is intact.

The rainwater collector has a new filter.

The lettuce in the planting area was ready to be harvested. She picked the ripe ones and put them into the storage box, and then sowed new seeds in the empty trough.

Moltres had somehow wandered into the planting area and was standing next to the tomato trough, tilting its head to look at the unripe green tomatoes.

"Don't touch it."

The flamingo cried out, walked out of the planting area, and found a sunny spot on the deck to lie down.

Yin Leyao returned to the cockpit and pulled up the nautical chart.

The boundary of the icy sea region is marked with a blue dashed line on the nautical chart.

The area north of the dotted line is the region she has already explored, while the area south of the dotted line is blank, marked only with three words: Great Chaotic Sea.

She set the flight path to due south.

The system calculated that there were approximately four hours of flight time remaining to the boundary.

Four hours.

Yin Leyao sat in the driver's seat and took the Black Shark plush toy out of the drawer and placed it on the dashboard.

The doll's tail has grown a little longer than before; it's now longer than the doll's entire body.

A black tail drooped down from the edge of the control panel, its tip slightly curled.

She poked the tip of her tail with her finger.

The tail did not move.

The communicator rang.

It's a message from the management group.

Mackerel: "The survival data for the desert island is out. Out of twenty players, only two survived. Not bad."

Stinky Octopus: "The monsters I released killed seven, how many did your traps kill?"

Saury: "Five were killed by players, and the other six were killed by each other."

Little Yellow Croaker: "Special forces? I specifically selected him. He's a retired special forces soldier, and he's a perfect score in both combat and wilderness survival."

Stinky Octopus: "Dead. Died in the swamp."

Little Yellow Croaker: "?"

Mackerel: "He was lured into the swamp and drowned. The one who killed him was Yin Leyao."

The group chat was silent for a few seconds.

Little Yellow Croaker: "How did she do that?"

Mackerel: "I don't know. I only saw her come out of the mangrove forest with an axe in her hand. No special forces came out."

Jellyfish: "Her survival ability is higher than we expected."

Mackerel: "She's more than just tall. She built a raft on the island and finished it on the ninth day. On the tenth day, the volcano erupted, and she escaped on the raft. Another surviving player also took a raft, but that raft was much rougher than hers."

Turbot: "Where is she going next?"

Salted Fish: "Great Chaos in the Sea."

The group chat was silent for a few seconds.

Jellyfish: "Wow, the Chaotic Sea! Who's the administrator for that area?"

Salted fish: "Me."

Jellyfish: "That's fine then, you can handle it yourself."

Salted Fish: "Preparations are already underway."

Yin Leyao looked at the salted fish's profile picture.

A gray fish icon, never changes the profile picture, and rarely speaks in the group.

Each time he speaks, it's only a few words.

He is not the administrator of the icy sea area, nor is he the administrator of the tomb raiding game.

His role in the management group has always been ambiguous.

She closed the group chat interface.

The ship continued south.

The color of the seawater deepened, changing from dark blue to inky blue.

The waves on the sea began to grow larger, and the ship began to rock slightly.

The wind had changed; it was no longer the dry, cold wind typical of the icy sea region, but a moist, warm wind with a salty, fishy smell.

We've reached the boundary line.

A visible dividing line appeared on the sea surface in front of the bow of the ship.

North of the dividing line, the sea is relatively calm, although there are waves.

South of the dividing line, the sea surface looked as if it had been churned up by something, with white waves and whirlpools everywhere.

The clouds hung low, with dark and white clouds intertwined, and flashes of lightning occasionally streaked between them.

The weather detector's screen lit up.

The above indicates that the wind force in the sea area ahead is level 8, the wave height is 4 to 6 meters, there is a 60% chance of thunderstorms, and a 30% chance of waterspouts.

Yin Leyao took a deep breath and pushed the accelerator lever.

The ship crossed the boundary line.

The bow suddenly rose and then crashed into the waves, splashing seawater onto the deck.

The firebird sprang up from the deck, shrieked, flapped its wings, and flew to the cockpit door, where it pecked fiercely at the door with its beak.

Yin Leyao opened the hatch, and the firebird rushed in, its feathers half-soaked.

It stood in the corner of the cockpit, shaking off the water frantically, then curled up into a ball and refused to come out again.

The boat was rocking violently in the waves.

Yin Leyao gripped the helm with both hands, aligning the bow of the boat with the direction of the waves.

The stabilizing fins on both sides of the ship deployed, which reduced the tilt angle of the hull somewhat, but the up-and-down rolling was still significant.

Each time the bow of the boat glides down from the crest of a wave, the keel at the bottom of the boat makes a creaking sound.

That was the hull of a seventh-class ship being subjected to pressure close to its limit.

She glanced at the weather forecaster. A red warning popped up on the screen.

[A waterspout is forming 10 nautical miles ahead. Estimated arrival time: 15 minutes.]

Yin Leyao stared at the red warning on the screen for two seconds, then reached out and turned off the alarm.

Fifteen minutes.

The movement path of waterspouts is usually unstable and is affected by sea surface temperature and wind shear.

But the predicted path on the screen was straight, cutting directly into her flight path from the southeast.

It wasn't a fleeting encounter; it was a head-on collision.

She turned the steering wheel fifteen degrees to the left.

The bow of the ship deviated from due south and veered southwest.

The keel-reinforced hull produces a duller sound when turning, but it can still withstand the strain.

With its stabilizing fins firmly gripping the waterline, the tilt is kept within ten degrees, making it far superior to ordinary Class VII ships.

The weather detector recalculated the route, and the screen displayed a new forecast: the waterspout's expected arrival time was delayed by twenty-two minutes, and the relative distance increased to four nautical miles.

not enough.

Four nautical miles is too close for a waterspout.

The suction range at the base of a tornado is usually one to two nautical miles, but no one knows how big a tornado in a large, chaotic sea can be.

She pushed the accelerator lever to the front.

The engine revved to its maximum, white wakes billowed from the stern, and the speed increased from eight knots to twelve knots.

The bow cleaved through the oncoming waves, and seawater pounded against the cockpit windshield like a torrential downpour. Even with the wipers on their fastest setting, one could barely see what lay ahead.

The firebird huddled in the corner of the cockpit, its head buried under its wings, letting out a muffled cry every time the ship pitched violently.

While steering the ship, Yin Leyao glanced at the management group.

There are a few new messages in the group.

Mackerel: "The weather in the Chaotic Sea is really crazy. Last time I tested it, the boat capsized three times."

Little Yellow Croaker: "What kind of boat is that?"

Mackerel: "Level 4"

Little Yellow Croaker: "Level 4, you're venturing into the chaotic ocean?"

Mackerel: "It's just a test, not a real game."

Stinky Octopus: "I've adjusted the trigger probability of the waterspout twice, and the lowest I can get is 30%. Salty Fish said there's no need to adjust it anymore."

Jellyfish: "Yin Leyao just went in, don't let her get swept away by a tornado in the first round."

Salted Fish: "She won't."

Jellyfish: "You seem quite confident."

Salty Fish did not reply.

Yin Leyao looked away from the group chat.

The distance of the waterspout on the screen is decreasing; it's less than three nautical miles away now.

The main body of the tornado was clearly visible on the sea surface, with a gray-black column of water rising straight from the sea to the clouds. Its base was at least 100 meters in diameter, surrounded by white mist and splashing waves.

A huge whirlpool formed around the tornado on the sea surface, with the waves at the edge of the whirlpool estimated to be over eight meters high.

Her boat was climbing in the outermost swell of the whirlpool.

The bow of the boat was lifted up by the wave to a forty-five-degree angle, and then slid down from the crest of the wave. The feeling of weightlessness made her stomach churn.

The hull slammed into the water, causing the boat to shake violently. Something in the storage compartment fell over with a clatter.

The Moltres let out a shriek.

Yin Leyao ignored those things.

She stared at the Vortex Shield skill icon, her finger hovering over the trigger button.

Duration time: 30 minutes; Cooling time: 6 hours.

Use it now or wait?

She decided to wait.

The waterspout's direction of movement is changing.

The screen showed that the center point of the tornado was shifted one degree to due north.

This angle is small, but over a distance of four nautical miles, a one-degree offset means that the core of the tornado will not directly collide with her ship.

The real danger lies in the surge and wind speed surrounding the tornado.

She continued cutting southwest. The boat maintained a speed of twelve knots, the engine temperature was rising, and it was almost at the redline.

She glanced at the thermometer and manually turned on the auxiliary cooling system.

The waterspout swept past from the stern.

At its closest point, it was only 1.5 nautical miles away.

The ship's hull was swept by the outer band of wind from the tornado, and the wind speed instantly soared to level twelve.

Yin Leyao heard something being torn apart by the wind outside the ship's side; it could be a spare cable tied to the deck, or it could be the exhaust pipe of the recycling furnace. She didn't have time to go out and check.

The surge came from the side; it wasn't just one wave, but the entire surface of water was lifted up.

The boat was pushed sideways for more than ten meters, and the stabilizing fins emitted a piercing metallic scraping sound at their extreme positions.

Then suddenly it was quiet.

The tornado has passed.

The sea was still churning, but the wind speed had dropped back to level eight.

Yin Leyao looked back and saw that the waterspout was moving due north, getting further and further away from her boat.

There are no damage warnings for the hull, and the durability is still 600; it hasn't dropped.

She loosened the steering wheel slightly, removing her finger from the trigger button of the vortex shield.

The flamingo poked its head out from between its wings, looked around, and, probably feeling that it wasn't so shaky anymore, stuck its head out, then stood up and shook its feathers.

"It's alright now," Yin Leyao said.

The flamingo cried out, walked to the cockpit door, and pecked at it with its beak.

Yin Leyao opened the door, and it poked its head out to look. Seeing that a cable and half of the recycling furnace exhaust pipe were missing from the deck, it pulled its head back and lay down in the corner.

Yin Leyao went out to inspect the damage.

The spare cable is missing, and the exhaust pipe has been torn in half by the wind. The recycling furnace can still be used, but its exhaust efficiency will be reduced.

There were more than a dozen fish on the deck, which had been sucked up by the tornado and then thrown down; some of them were still jumping around.

She picked up the fish and threw them into the tank; live fish are more valuable than dead ones.

Another piece of metal, about the size of a palm, was found in a gap in the deck. It was blown in from somewhere and embedded in the gap between the wooden planks by the wind.

She pried it out with a dagger, and the number on the metal panel jumped from 107 to 108.

Back in the cockpit, the weather detector updated the forecast.

The wind force in the sea area ahead has dropped to level 7, the wave height is three to four meters, the probability of thunderstorms has dropped to 30%, and there are no new waterspout warnings.

She reset her course, ten degrees due south and west, with her target being the coordinates of the first island in the Great Chaotic Sea.

The island is marked with the name "Broken Reef Island" on the nautical chart.

The area around the coordinates is densely covered with reef markers, and the only safe passage is a narrow zigzag slit.

The flight takes about six hours.

Yin Leyao took advantage of this relatively stable period to begin processing the pirate ship's data.

She had seen someone discussing the pirate mechanics of the game in the chat channel before, but she hadn't looked at it closely at the time. Now she's rereading it.

The pirates in the Chaotic Sea are different from those in other areas. They are not monster ships spawned by the system, but rather transformed from defeated players.

When a player dies in the Chaotic Sea and their ship sinks, if the player does not have a resurrection item, they will be taken back by the system and become the captain of a pirate ship.

It retains some of its combat awareness and ship attributes from its previous life, but no longer has independent consciousness, and only attacks all passing ships according to the patrol route set by the system.

In other words, the pirates in the Chaotic Sea are all former players.

Yin Leyao found a post from half a month ago.

The poster said they encountered a pirate ship on the outskirts of the Chaotic Sea, with traces of player IDs painted on its hull.

He recognized the ID; it belonged to a player who had been quite active in the chat channel before, but had disappeared on the first day of the Chaotic Sea.

Someone replied to the post saying that he had also encountered this, and that the pirate ship's tactics were exactly the same as that player's in life, liking to board from the side and then engage in close combat to board the ship.

Yin Leyao memorized this information.

The pirate ship retained its fighting habits from its previous life.

This means that not all pirates are the same.

Some are skilled in long-range artillery fire, some are skilled in close-quarters combat, and some may not even engage in direct combat, instead setting up ambushes in reef areas.

She looked at the reef island on the nautical chart. The island was riddled with reefs and had narrow channels, making it the perfect terrain for an ambush.

The ship continued sailing south for four hours.

The sea conditions remained at Force 7 with no major changes.

A heavy rainstorm occurred during this period, lasting forty minutes, and the rainwater collector filled two buckets.

Yin Leyao channeled the excess water to the planting area and watered the lettuce and newly sown seeds. The tomatoes were still green; she wondered when they would turn red.

Moltres refused to leave the cockpit during the heavy rain, preferring to hold it in rather than relieve itself on the deck.

After the rain stopped, it rushed out, relieved itself by the drain, and then casually walked back.

In the fifth hour, the weather detector suddenly emitted a short warning sound.

It's not a red warning, it's a yellow alert.

[Three nautical miles ahead, ship wreckage detected, presumably at the site of a shipwreck.]

Yin Leyao slowed down the boat.

The wreckage area indicates that a battle took place here.

It could be a pirate attack, or it could be a fight between players.

Regardless of the type, the wreckage itself is worth searching for.

She saw floating objects as she approached the wreckage area.

Fragments of wooden planks, a plastic bucket lid, a life jacket, and half a boat storage box were upside down on the water.

There was oil on the water's surface, reflecting colorful light in the sunlight. The shipwreck hadn't been there long, no more than a day.

Yin Leyao took out a harpoon gun and stood on the side of the boat, looking into the water.

There is a blurry shadow underwater, which should be the main body of the sunken ship, at a depth of about ten meters.

Her boat lacked diving equipment and could only retrieve floating objects.

She used the hook of the harpoon gun to pull the floating storage box over.

The box was empty, but there was a laminated note stuffed in a hidden compartment.

She opened the inner compartment, and there was a line of text written on the note.

"Pirates in the chaotic seas communicate with each other."

Yin Leyao turned the note over; there was another line of writing on the back, the handwriting even more hasty, as if it had been written in a hurry.

"They're not patrolling randomly; there's someone directing them."

She put the note away.

This information differs slightly from what was said in the management group.

The management group said that the pirates were players who had been recycled by the system, had no independent consciousness, and patrolled according to the set routes.

But the note said that the pirates communicated with each other and were commanded by someone.

Either the person who wrote the note was delusional before they died, or the information in the admin group was incomplete.

Yin Leyao prefers the latter.

She continued searching the wreckage area and retrieved a few more pieces of wood and a bundle of usable cable.

No more important discoveries were made.

She returned to the cockpit, retrieved the salvaged timber, and stored the cables in the storage compartment.

It's less than an hour's flight from Broken Reef Island.

The waves on the sea began to change.

It is not a wind-driven surge, but a surge that rises from underwater, with an irregular direction, sometimes coming from the front and sometimes from the side.

This is a characteristic of the reef area.

The underwater reefs altered the direction of the water flow and the shape of the waves.

Yin Leyao reduced the boat's speed to five knots and turned on the deep-sea lights.

The beam of light penetrates the water's surface, revealing the outlines of reefs several meters below the surface.

The rocks are a variety of colors, some are black volcanic rocks, and some are grayish-white coral reef remains.

The two types of reefs are interspersed, forming a complex network of submerged reefs.

She followed the zigzag course on the nautical chart.

The first bend is a sharp left turn, with less than twenty meters of width between the reefs on both sides.

Her boat is six meters wide, theoretically with a safety margin of seven meters, but the surge will push the boat sideways, so the actual margin is only three or four meters.

As soon as the bow of the ship rounded the first bend, Yin Leyao saw the Broken Reef Island.

The island is small, with a bare rocky mountain in the center and a narrow ring of gravel beach around it.

There are no trees on the island, only some low shrubs and lichens.

On the south side of the island, there is a naturally formed stone cave pier. The pier is small and can barely accommodate two boats.

A ship is already docked at the pier.

It was a class 6 ship, painted dark blue, with a ram at the bow.

There was no one on the deck, and the ship was dark, as if it had been sitting there for a long time.

Yin Leyao did not go to the dock. Instead, she anchored the boat on the relatively open water at the edge of the reef area.

Then he picked up his binoculars and observed the ship.

The ship's name is painted on the stern: Deep Blue. The hull is undamaged, but there are dried bloodstains on the ram, the blood having turned black.

The storage boxes on the deck were open and empty, and the cockpit window was shattered, not from a shell, but more like it had been smashed from the inside.

She put down her binoculars.

There were figures moving around in the stone cave at the dock, and more than one.