Cave Refuge

You should know that compared to now, those groups exploring unknown areas and opening them up, mainly rely on the Contribution Points issued by the Maritime Bureau for their profits.

During the flood periods, these Hunting Teams away from the Water Base mostly profit from hunting Mysterious Ships, therefore, the rewards distributed are naturally Mysterious Cores.

It is not just Robinson William alone in the team who has a communicator to contact his family members, hence, everyone naturally knows that once the flood recedes, Mysterious Ships also vanish without a trace, and at that time, the value of Mysterious Cores is extremely high.

It is precisely for this reason that their team is very united in returning to the territory of Daxia.

However, it is also because of this reason that as soon as the team entered the base established by the Imperial Court at the northernmost of Daxia, the originally unified Hunting Team immediately fell apart. The team leader, quite decisively, according to the agreement, issued to everyone their due share of Mysterious Cores, not missing a single one, but then disappeared the next day with the remaining massive amount of Mysterious Cores.

It was also after receiving his due Mysterious Cores that Robinson William immediately hastened alone to the Magic Capital Base.

After listening to Robinson William's experience of wandering outside, Dong Tianyu felt somewhat emotional; indeed, at this time, it was essential to have a reliable mode of transportation.

In fact, at this time, obtaining a transportation tool is not difficult, just like the wooden bicycles that the Imperial Court has already made public; even ordinary people can create a bicycle directly in the wilderness using blueprints.

This simple bicycle does not require chains, the pedals are directly fixed with the wheels, but due to its entirely wooden structure and the absence of bearings, such bicycles can't ride too far before needing part replacements.

Even so, this type of bicycle inevitably becomes the most essential vehicle for the vast majority of people in the wilderness. Despite its myriad of disadvantages, the simple fact that it can be easily made or repaired anywhere there are trees makes it the most cost-effective vehicle in the wilderness.

Besides these bicycles whose manufacturing blueprints are completely public and can be freely made by everyone, the increasing number of transportation tools at this time are motorcycles, but the production of motorcycles, which is gradually increasing now, also features some changes typical of this era.

The main changes were the tires—from inflatable rubber tires to solid wooden tires—and the power system changed from consuming fuel to consuming the Inner Strength of Martial Artists.

The reason for this change is actually quite straightforward. During the time when floods submerged the land, humans had no capability to extract oil from underwater, and even the oil extraction plants established before were all damaged due to the flood.

Anticipating the flood, when the Water Base was completed, the fuel stored in the land cities was all transferred to the Water Base.

Everyone knew that no one could predict how many years the flood would last, and how long they would rely on the Water Base floating on the sea. To prevent a situation in the future where insufficient power on the ocean leads to inescapable risky circumstances, most people were willing to transfer all the oil in the cities to the Water Base.

Such a choice actually wasn't at all misguided as, according to normal circumstances, transferring to the Water Base, aside from some very natural 'loss' during the transfer process, even if the flood recedes later, one could still use the fuel stored in the Water Base.

But after all, compared to being submerged underwater and facing uncertain conditions with fuel, most people still felt it was safer to store things in the Water Base.

Indeed, at that time, the Water Base represented a Noah's Ark from the legends for most people. If the Water Base were to accidentally sink, then everyone residing there would have no means of survival.

However, what no one expected was that after the flood disaster, Mysterious Ships would mysteriously appear on the sea. Not only could the survivors merge with the Mysterious Ships to obtain various foods from the Mysterious Realm, but they could also destroy the Mysterious Ships to obtain the Mysterious Core, and use it to acquire their own Companion Spiritual Treasure.

As more and more people obtained their own Companion Spiritual Treasures, and with the Companion Spiritual Treasures possessing seemingly limitless ability to enhance, more and more people chose to set out to sea using their own Companion Spiritual Treasures.

Indeed, compared to vessels that could be controlled by Mentality and did not require any fuel consumption while sailing, other than the relatively slow speed, the Companion Spiritual Treasures posed no issues.

Moreover, it was later discovered that riding on Companion Spiritual Treasures could make one immune to attacks from aquatic creatures, thus very few people were willing to ride those ships built before the Natural Disaster.

However, due to this reason, as time passed, the consumption of the fuel stored at the base gradually decreased. Eventually, although the stored fuel was an irrecoverable resource, hardly anyone applied to purchase fuel, and the fuel was securely sealed in the deepest parts of the warehouse.

According to this situation, once the flood receded, it might be difficult for individuals to obtain fuel, but for the Imperial Court, the fuel stored in all the Water Bases combined could definitely meet the short-term usage requirements of the Imperial Court.

Yet, man's plans can never account for all eventualities. Shortly before the floodwaters receded, rusting winds suddenly began to blow. With the emergence of the rusting winds, all metallic ships on the water suffered devastating damage, and naturally, the Water Bases storing the fuel were also destroyed.

And if it were merely the ships sinking, perhaps after the flood receded, the survivors might have encountered these sunken Water Bases in the wild, and be fortuitously able to retrieve some supplies.

However, the appearance of the rusting winds completely corroded and destroyed all the metal on the surface of the water. The iron barrels used to store fuel were naturally not spared, and eventually, all the fuel originally stored in the warehouses of the Water Bases blended into the sea water and disappeared without a trace as the flood receded.

Due to this, in the absence of fuel, under normal circumstances, technological development should have retraced the path of Steam Technology.

However, just like the sudden discovery of the Internal Combustion Engine that could replace the Steam Engine, some Awakeners with special abilities directly used their imaginative brainpower to bypass the pre-disaster technological path, and in combination with the Inner Strength cultivated by Martial Artists, created a new type of power propulsion device.

Honestly, whether it was the Steam Engine or the Internal Combustion Engine, the power devices driven by Inner Strength were truly environmentally friendly technologies. Moreover, this type of power device achieved what was once jokingly claimed—hundred kilometers on just two steamed buns.

In the exchange list provided by the Maritime Bureau, Dong Tianyu did see many vehicles driven by Inner Strength, from the cheapest two-wheeled motorcycles to the costly but highly secure armored vehicles, there were indeed many types of vehicles to choose from.

However, for Dong Tianyu, who possessed the ability of Sword Flight, the vehicles on the exchange list were not very appealing. More importantly, Dong Tianyu was not in need of large land vehicles, especially considering he still had the Black Car parked in his Storage Space which hadn't emerged for a long time.