Cave Refuge

The summoning order issued by the Imperial Court wasn't for building a new city, but for cleaning up a city that had once been submerged by floodwaters.

Compared to constructing a new city from scratch, cleaning up a city that had been underwater can save a lot of building materials. Although those buildings had sunk beneath the water for several years, as the saying goes, "Some things can endure a thousand years dry, ten thousand years wet, but not half a year both." It was like the dragon boats in Cantonshire. The best way to preserve them was to sink them to the bottom of the river and salvage them when needed.

Moreover, those shipwrecks at the bottom of the sea, even after hundreds of years, still maintain their rough outlines under water.

Although everyone knew that the buildings' original lifespans had definitely been reduced by the soaking, the immediate concern was whether there were suitable dwellings available. The lifespan of the buildings could be temporarily overlooked. Even considering the worst scenario, if these buildings could last more than three years, the Imperial Court might potentially initiate city reconstruction.

The Imperial Court's movement in organizing the city cleanup was much faster than Dong Tianyu had expected. This time, the Court's approach to the city cleanup was not meticulous. They roughly only needed to clean up the roads and the exteriors of buildings. As for the interiors of the houses, that was for the future owners to take care of.

In addition, since all the survivors who were still alive, excluding infants, basically had the Cultivation Level to become Martial Artists, the cleaning work would naturally progress much quicker in this time when everyone was a soldier.

As Dong Tianyu gradually approached the city, the first thing he certainly looked for was the logistics division of the Imperial Court to gauge supplies. He needed to verify whether the material reserves were sufficient since the Imperial Court had issued a summoning.

Most importantly, Dong Tianyu wanted to know whether other survivors needed to contribute their privately stored materials for the greater good after arriving here.

Perhaps due to the city not yet being fully cleared, Dong Tianyu found the area where the logistics division was set up outside the city. Before he even approached the logistics division, he could smell wafts of fragrance in the air.

Smelling the oncoming scents, Dong Tianyu felt a momentary wavering in his thoughts.

However, after Dong Tianyu used Divine Sense to observe the situation of the far-off material reserves, he noticed the logistics division's materials were divided into four distinct areas.

Firstly, the materials that were packaged most meticulously and neatly arranged, which were clearly carefully packed and stored, were placed in one area. In this zone, teams of two people, with four teams in total, were patrolling nonstop in a crisscross pattern.

The second area's materials were not as neatly and orderly arranged as in the first area. However, that was due to the diverse types of materials stored there. The only certainty was that, though the arrangement of these materials was somewhat disordered and messy, their packaging remained intact and very clean.

Compared to the neatly packaged materials in the first two areas, those in the third area had packages that seemed intact at a glance, but the materials here had been contaminated in various ways, and no longer were any of the packages clean.

In contrast to the materials with complete packaging in the third area, those in the fourth area had mostly lost their original packaging, and many foodstuffs were directly piled upon the muddy ground.

At this point, Dong Tianyu had also confirmed the source of the aroma he had smelled.

Not far from where the logistics division stacked the materials, there was an open space filled with several clay baking trays. Awakeners with different heating abilities used their powers to rapidly dry various processed seafood at high temperatures.

The fragrance Dong Tianyu smelled came from the steam carrying the scent of the ingredients as they were being heated in the baking process.

He then discovered the area where seafood was being processed. Although the flood had submerged the entire land, when the waters receded, the once-ubiquitous water sources became extremely precious. Thus, processing these seafood items was not like before the Natural Disaster, where they would be washed several times.

At each workstation, there was only one basin of water, which now turned murky black. Perhaps it was the fragrance from the baking area masking the fishy odor from processing seafood. However, without getting close, just a glance was enough to be head-clearing and revitalizing.

It also proved the old saying, "If it's not dirty, it won't make you sick." Anyway, as long as one didn't witness the seafood processing, it really wouldn't affect the original appetite. But having seen the entire process, Dong Tianyu didn't know how others might feel, but he himself estimated that he wouldn't eat seafood for a while, unless it was handled personally by someone he trusted.

Actually, to be honest, after the floodwaters had receded, those aquatic creatures left behind really shouldn't be eaten. After all, when the Natural Disaster submerged the land, think about all the waste produced daily by the survivors on the boats, which ultimately was dumped directly into the water.