Treasure hunting in endless ocean

Water purifier

Not just any sand could be used for filtering water or filling stove bottoms. 

In the ocean, there are small fine sand accumulations. They stand out even more in clear water. This sand is extremely fine, and is quite useful for various purposes. 

First, Neil made five buoys, making sure the rope length is as tall as himself. 

With these, he will mark shallow sand accumulation areas. 

Then, all he would have to do is drive the raft there, and then, bring sand up with the wooden bucket. 

Before those two tasks, first create a drying rack. He set the drying rack to be built. 

Within fifteen minutes, he marked at least five locations. They are not too far. 

That much is enough for now.

He retrieved the drying rack, and the extra trays he had the rack build. 

He spread the trays at the raft edge, dived in with the wooden bucket. 

After an hour, all the trays are full of sand. 

He was too tired to do any more, so he climbed onto the boat. 

Only, while he was down, he touched many things other than sand. 

For one, there are sea cucumbers. 

Then, there are clams. 

He could eat both of them, Neil knew. 

After all, he cooks for himself, he knows seafood pretty well. 

However, in the wild, he is not hundred percent confident in his ability to recognize them. 

After all, poisonous and edible clams all look alike, while he knows sea cucumber is edible, he still doesn’t know how to clean and prepare it. 

Good thing is  -- there is a lot of kelp. 

He knows for sure which one is the edible one without any doubts. 

So, he brought the kelp up, and just washed it in water, cut it and ate it directly like a salad. 

It tasted like salad. Surprisingly, not as bad as expected, despite the slimy texture. 

The next building is the toilet. 

Sure, he hasn’t gone till now, but he could not hold it forever. 

It is still early in the morning, thus, he is able to hold it in. 

The toilet is made in fifteen minutes, the bottom is just a wooden barrel, with some sand spread on it. 

He wiped it off with pieces of banana leaf. 

Later, he would make a sand and ash mix to spread on top to stop the smell, but for now, there’s nothing. 

After going out, he drank a few more sips of water, and settled into opening barrels. 

[ 1 bow, 1 steel wire spool, 10 arrows ] 

Oh… Finally, a normal weapon. Obviously, he’s not good at bows, but he knew how to use one thanks to summer school. 

He moved on to the next barrel. 

[ 1 large pitch ball, 10 resin packs, 1 glue packet ] 

Hmm.. glue does seem to have some uses. 

The next one is a total surprise. It’s a copper barrel. 

[ 1 super planter blueprint, 1 green house blueprint, 1 all grain seed set ] 

It has been sealed really well, with wax tightening all around and a double layered wooden lid, and copper lid. 

Oh.. he could replace the silver basin with this one to heat water, and collect water in the silver basin. 

Neil checked the research once more, to see if the fireplace has been researched. 

[ Building small camp fire place ] 

[ Items needed 8 logs, 1 sand ] 

[ continue building fireplace ? ] (yes) ( no) 

Yes, please build. 

It’s needed urgently. 

Meanwhile, Neil retrieved the saw, and set about making a pillar like structure, with an attached T shaped wood. 

This mixed ‘T and L’ shaped wood will be attached horizontally to a strong pillar. 

The banana leaf will be tied to the top part of the T, and will hang in air over the silver basin. 

So, evaporated water will flow along the banana leaf, fall right into the silver basin. 

He would have happily manufactured this item from buildings in the game, but the damned fantasy world is full of too fantastic things, then lacking basics. 

In the game world, water will only ever flow in the silver basin. Neil is sure in this world, they will fall all over the deck, then the game will remind him spitefully to keep the cleanliness of the raft too. 

He chopped up another log to make the fire wood. He made a sand bed with the wet sand, and set the small fireplace in it. 

Thankfully, dried seaweed is good enough as a kindling, and he had a lighter in hand. 

Thus, it was easy to start a fire. 

The fire lit and is burning strong. 

Neil put the copper barrel with one quarter full of sea water on the fire. 

He could always add water, and he wanted to see the success of this experiment sooner than later. 

The waiting for the water to form is excruciating. 

He decided he would rather do something than really wait for the water to evaporate. 

First, he chopped up another two logs to make firewood for the small stove. 

He added one log, then opened the game interface again. 

It’s time to sort out those miscellaneous research items again. 

There are many semi materials that need to be researched. 

[ Research wooden tile with 10 logs ? ] (yes) ( no) 

[ Research raft plank with 30 logs, 10 sea weeds ? ] (yes)(no)

[ Research pillar with 10 logs ? ] (yes)(no) 

[ Research storage rack with 30 logs ? ] (yes)(no) 

[ Research glue with 10 brown seaweeds ? ] (yes)(no) 

Neil kept choosing yes till the question stumped him. 

Brown seaweed could be made into glue? He did not know that. 

Neil jumped into the water with a rusty knife to collect some. 

After all, there is plenty of it around. There’s no fines for cutting it. 

He dived in, cutting a whole bunch of seaweed at a time. 

Soon, he collected hundreds of them. 

It’s really easy to collect them. 

In fact, it was so easy, he collected far more than needed. 

After all, it is one thing that’s actually going in his favour after entering this world. 

By the time he jumped up, the one quarter of water had boiled down to one tenth. 

Neil retrieved the silver toast cup, and had a taste of the water. 

They were lukewarm - a turn off for someone who liked cool water above all, but it’s drinkable. 

A message popped up in front of him once more. 

[ you have created a new way of procuring drinking water in the raft.] 

[ Do you wish to avail this machine’s blueprint to the general public ? ] 

[ Sufficient compensation will be paid. ] 

[ Sell water purifier blue print ] (yes)(no)

Neil accepted the deal. 

If this kind of a basic thing did not exist, then some people might really die. 

He would rather such a thing not happen. 

[ A s-ranked artifact, micro organism sample collector is paid as remuneration ] 

Neil opened his inventory. 

Sure enough, there's a mysterious shiny black cotton swab-like implement in his inventory. 

Neil removed it, waved in the air. 

[ Collected 1148 types of microorganisms. ] 

[ You can verify samples through the game’s main interface ]

‘Wow’ 

Does this mean he could collect any and all micro organisms as long as he waves it? Isn’t that way too powerful? 

Wait, wait! 

That’s why the thing is ranked ‘S’. Plus, it’s an artifact. As a gamer, Neil knew more than enough. An Artifact is one level above legendary. In fact, many artifacts are even better than mythical items, it’s just that mythical items are built for specific purposes while artifacts are generic. 

Or.. mythical items have too much dogma. Artifacts are far better for an wanna be couch potato like himself. 

He simply put it in sea water and waved it through. 

[ collected 12389 types of microorganisms. ] 

Neil remembered he had moldy bread in his hands. It’s a good thing he did not throw them away. 

Hey! He could collect penicillin. He could actually make it.. Though he doesn’t have an exact idea how to make it. 

All the same, he retrieved the moldy bread, stuck the black-swab near the mold on bread. 

[ collected 1012 types of microorganisms ]

Alright. 

Then let's try stale bread. 

[ collected 69 types of microorganisms. ] 

Oh.. well. It’s a good thing he did not eat the bread. Seems it’s too full of bacteria. 

Neil threw the bread piece in his hands into the sea water. 

Soon, plenty of fish gathered to eat the bread. 

What the? 

Where did these fish come from? 

He thought this entire area is devoid of fish. 

Instead, these fish were hiding all too well. 

Wait.. if these many fish are here, will the sharks be here too? 

Ocean games always seem to have sharks in them. That won’t be the case here as well, correct? 

Never mind the sharks for the time being. 

Doesn’t this many fishes mean he could eat fish for lunch and dinner? 

Yep, That sounds absolutely right. 

He needs a fishing net. 

With that, Neil returned to the game interface once more.