The Sea Weekly

The "Nightmare Star" had a huge hole in it, and the repair costs were quite expensive—332 wood, 125 cloth, 108 stone, and 20 steel. It took half a day to fix it.

The system is quite efficient at resource recycling!

Disassembling the ship provided far fewer materials, but repairing it required double the amount...

However, Lucas didn't regret firing the shot. If he had to do it again, he would pull the trigger without hesitation.

Who knew what would happen if those spiders crawled out? They might bite people, or worse, they might combine into a single monster.

Better to be cautious, right? No harm in that.

The rewards were so great, a little material wasn't a big deal!

Three days later, the "Nightmare Star" was still wandering around the island.

Lucas had a sea chart, giving him a natural advantage—he could monitor movements around the island through it.

But for three days straight, no ships had appeared.

Perhaps Henry was dead, and when the other players who had been tricked by him realized they couldn't find him, they grew suspicious and stayed away from the coordinates.

Of course, it's also possible that Henry hadn't tricked many people, and Lucas was the last one he targeted.

For these three days, Seraphina had locked herself in the lab. Aside from drawing several vials of Lucas's blood, she barely came out, deeply focused on her research.

In the evening, as night was about to fall, Lucas entered the cabin and shouted,

"Seraphina, time to rest!"

Eight hours—this was the strict rule Lucas had set for her: no more than eight hours in the lab per day.

This helped avoid her sanity dipping too low and her falling into madness.

"Seraphina!" Lucas called again, a bit impatient.

"Just five more minutes!"

"You're bargaining now? Five more minutes? Get out now, or I'll kick you out!" Lucas threatened.

He had captain privileges and could literally boot her out of the lab by the system.

"Please don't! I'll come out myself!"

After a bit of rustling, Seraphina appeared.

"Any results?" Lucas asked.

"Still a bit more..." Seraphina seemed distracted, almost as if absent-minded.

Lucas was used to this and knew she was lost in her own world, so he urged her, "Alright, go rest. We'll talk tomorrow!"

Seraphina didn't respond much, like a zombie, she shuffled toward her room.

Lucas returned to the deck, stopped the ship, and kept a distance of over 100 nautical miles from the island.

These days, the fish he caught were the same old types, except for one odd fish he caught with an eyeball fruit in the deep sea.

It was about half a meter long and covered in coral, resembling a bamboo basket at first glance. But in reality, the fish itself was only the size of a palm, with the coral surrounding it.

[Name: Coral Basketfish]

[Type: Food]

[Description: Abyssal fish species, its body covered in highly toxic coral. It uses it as a protective shell. The flesh is also poisonous, not recommended for consumption.]

Seeing the word "toxic" was enough to make Lucas avoid it.

He stabbed the fish with a wooden spear and impaled it like a ball before sending it to the lab.

In the last few days, his luck was awful. He hadn't seen a single treasure chest. Apart from the fish, he had only caught 12 wood and 15 cloth.

The flaws in fishing had become apparent—it's highly unstable and depends on luck and skill.

Even the most skilled fisherman could face empty nets.

Once they start missing, they begin to doubt themselves, chasing after superstitions:

Throw the hook at the exact right time for a treasure chest...

It doesn't matter if you catch anything or not, just keep reeling...

Remember the spots where you've caught treasure chests or big fish, so you can fish there again (i.e., carving boats to catch fish)...

There are even people who worship their fishing rods with three bows and nine kowtows, hoping for the rod to be pleased and yield more catches...

Lucas believed all of that was nonsense, pure superstition! He'd tried it all, and none of it worked.

Now, he was lying in bed like a salted fish, browsing the world channel.

"Looking for a lighter!"

As usual, Lucas left a note in hopes of someone reaching out.

Scrolling up a few pages, a special fleet organized by a newspaper group caught his attention.

This group had appeared a few days ago when they were still recruiting members.

The leader must be the owner of a special ship and seemed to be capable of printing newspapers.

They were planning to set up a newspaper to gather the latest sea news and sell it in weekly issues.

After preparing for some time, their first weekly issue was ready to launch.

"The first issue is finished! It contains sections on trading, sea news, and monster information, with other sections still in development…"

"The price of the weekly issue is 100 sea snail coins. Monthly membership is 300 sea snail coins…"

"Feel free to provide news tips, and we will reward you with sea snail coins. If you provide fake news, you will be blacklisted forever! Advertising spaces are also available…"

Lucas had to admit the leader of this newspaper group was a business genius.

The newspaper was priced cheaply but could generate massive profits if they gained a few thousand customers—just imagine the money rolling in!

But first, they had to build a good reputation.

Lucas was also interested in the newspaper, so he sent a private message saying he wanted to buy a copy.

He quickly received a response.

"Pay first, then leave a message with your language preference. The newspaper will be sent to you as a free trade item.

You can also add me as a friend to get a membership. For 300 sea snail coins, you'll receive at least four issues per month. There's currently a promotion where if you subscribe for three months, you get one extra month free!"

"No need for membership. Just send me a copy!"

Lucas directly transferred 100 sea snail coins.

He couldn't be bothered to add the seller as a friend for the membership, and he wasn't missing out on much money either.

He anonymously bought a copy to check it out first.

If the content was good and valuable, he'd buy more in the future.

The newspaper group was efficient, sending the newspaper out even at night. In just a few minutes, the transaction was completed.

It was a very simple, ink-printed newspaper. It looked exactly like the old-fashioned newspapers, where if you wiped it too hard, the ink would smudge.

But right now, nobody cared about that. As long as the content was valuable, it didn't matter!

The "Nightmare Star" had no lights or fires, and only the witch's laboratory and Seraphina's room had lighting.

Lucas wasn't about to visit her room on the pretext of reading the newspaper. Instead, he slipped into the witch's laboratory.

It was eerily quiet, almost like another world. The air was thick with an indescribable odor, a mixture of fishy smells and the unique scent of abnormal organs.

The walls were lined with glass jars containing various organs, but Lucas didn't bother to look at them—he didn't need to risk losing his sanity for nothing.

He opened the newspaper and started reading.

The newspaper was double-sided, with the front containing a trading section, listing buy and sell items, with prices clearly marked along with the names and IDs of the ship captains, so players could privately contact each other.

Most of the items listed were self-made products.

Lucas scanned it and spotted a familiar name—Zhou Dai, captain of the Dawn Goddess ship. She was selling holy water, which was rather expensive—2000 sea snail coins per bottle or tradeable for equipment.

It seemed like her pricing was already a friendly internal price.

There was also some market confusion and scarcity of basic resources.

Lucas continued flipping through the pages and came across a troubling relic.

[Name: Introduction to the Flesh-Eating Cult]

[Type: Relic]

[Quality: Rare]

[Description: This book describes eighteen different ways to consume corpses to achieve the effect of supplementing what is lacking.

Except for your brain.]

Lucas felt his stomach turn after reading this and quickly decided to destroy the newspaper. It could not fall into Seraphina's hands.

She would undoubtedly pay whatever it took to get this book and try out its contents.

Just thinking about it sent shivers down Lucas's spine—he could almost see Seraphina eating a corpse.

He quickly disabled Seraphina's trade privileges, cutting off that possibility entirely.

The rest of the contents were less disturbing, and Lucas skimmed through them, finding that the items either had unreasonably high prices or poor effects.

If they were good deals, they would've been sold in the chat channels already.

However, Lucas did find one interesting ship equipment.

[Name: Barbarian Catapult]

[Type: Ship Equipment]

[Quality: Good]

[Description: A device to launch projectiles for long-range attacks.

Effective range 0-500 meters (it cannot launch heavy objects). It requires one square meter of space on the deck for installation.]

The "Nightmare Star" lacked long-range offensive capabilities, so Lucas considered buying this as a temporary solution, provided the price wasn't too high.

He checked the price: 2000 sea snail coins.

Lucas immediately dismissed it!

Upgrading the ship would allow for cannons, which are much more accurate than this cumbersome catapult.

The power of the cannons would also be much greater.

The only advantage of the catapult was its range, but even that wasn't much when compared to cannons—it was too slow to hit.

Lucas determined it wasn't worth 2000 sea snail coins.

If it were 500, he might consider it.

He sent a private message to the seller.

"500 per catapult, interested parties can private message me!"

The seller didn't respond, likely asleep. Lucas decided to check back tomorrow.

Lucas then looked through the buy section, which was mostly filled with well-known organizations like the New World, New Humans, and the Iron Brotherhood, all looking for supplies, gear, and fire-starting tools.

Prices were generally lower than the market rate, with a focus on quickly liquidating items.

"These organizations are all buying fire-starting tools. No wonder they're so hard to get..." Lucas clicked his tongue.

He personally couldn't compare financially with these groups, and his warehouse space was limited…

After finishing this page, Lucas flipped to the other side of the newspaper.

This page was split into two sections—Sea News and Monster Information.