Endless Ocean: Survival Begins with a Dugout Canoe

Chapter 303 - 296: Harvest from Exploring Mount Everest

According to the plan, they would explore the "upper snowline" of Mount Everest separately for eight hours. Once the time was up, regardless of what they found, they had to gather at the designated location to execute the next phase of their plan.

As the time drew near, Shi Ming descended from the summit and returned to the designated meeting point.

Rong Bing and Li Jiuyuan had not yet arrived. While waiting for them, he mentally tallied his gains from this trip.

1. A complete Snow-Crested Jadeite.

2. A fruit-bearing seedling.

3. Nearly 3,000 grams of broken branches from the Holy Hall Fierce Beast, the "Creation Celestial Pillar."

4. The successful advancement of his Arm of Conquest and the Map of the Endless Sea.

5. Learning the hidden secrets of Mount Everest’s interior ahead of time.

6. The important information from the great stone stele, as well as three Inheritance Secret Scriptures.

’Crisis and opportunity coexist!’

Time was limited, so he hadn’t had a chance to organize most of the information from the stele. This was especially true for the three Inheritance Secret Scriptures. He had only scanned them briefly, but he knew they were undoubtedly priceless treasures.

The exploration mission was less than halfway complete, but his gains were already substantial. The original plan was for a one-day exploration of Mount Everest, yet in just eight hours, he had reaped rewards far beyond his expectations.

Only the mission for Da Yu remained to be completed.

And completing it would be simple.

All he needed to do was provide a small branch from the Creation Celestial Pillar to prove to Da Yu that a fallen Holy Hall-level Sea Beast was indeed here, which would earn him the Contribution Points they had promised.

But Shi Ming had no intention of revealing the remains of the Creation Celestial Pillar directly.

He preferred to guide them, engineering a "discovery" of the Creation Celestial Pillar’s traces while all three of them were present. To this end, he had intentionally left behind a small, budding Snow-Crested Jadeite he hadn’t picked... this would serve as another "leak point."

...

Amidst the swirling snow, the three of them gathered at the border between the upper snowline and the summit layer of Mount Everest. Although Rong Bing, with his "Sovereign Dominion," could also withstand the occasional sub-blade, his face and the armor on his arms were still marked with several cuts. They didn’t affect his combat strength, but he looked quite battered.

Li Jiuyuan, on the other hand, was completely unharmed, relying on his extraordinarily strong sense of conviction.

In terms of combat power, he might be far inferior to Rong Bing. But when it came to luck or fortunate encounters, with his power of idealism, he could truly make his wishes come true.

The three met in a natural ravine and shared their respective findings.

"Even though this is a lull period, the frequency of sub-blades in this area is much higher than the last lull 178 days ago. That’s something to note. Also, the temperature on the upper snowline has gotten even colder. The Life Detector didn’t pick up any signs of life in this area, not even plants..."

Rong Bing briefly summarized his findings.

Li Jiuyuan scratched his head.

"I did a blanket search of my assigned area. Didn’t run into a single sub-blade, and I didn’t find anything else either."

"Not a single sub-blade?"

Rong Bing looked at his own scars, momentarily speechless.

The sample size was too small to determine if this was just a normal variance or if his idealism was at play.

"Shi Ming, what about you?"

Shi Ming thought for a moment before speaking.

"I encountered no fewer sub-blades than Captain Rong, at least eight of them... Their cutting power is extremely strong; they can break through my skin’s defenses. However, actively deploying my Black Tortoise Shield blocks them easily. As for life forms here..."

"I did find a verdant seedling on a ridge. It looks a lot like the Snow-Crested Jadeite Captain Rong mentioned. The life energy there is relatively dense. Based on the intelligence from Da Yu, I think it might correspond to one of those so-called leak points. Of course, I didn’t try to dig it up on my own. I wanted to wait for the two of you so we could investigate it together. This might just be the key to completing our mission."

Shi Ming blinked.

This seedling was a young Snow-Crested Jadeite that had just sprouted, which he had deliberately left behind. Its value wasn’t immense, but it would make the completion of their mission seem natural. Finding evidence of the Holy Hall-level Sea Beast with all three of them present would also save Shi Ming a lot of trouble later on.

Taking this extra, seemingly unnecessary step wasn’t because he distrusted the King-level Wandering Ship they had cooperated with many times.

Da Yu didn’t belong to a single person, but to many. Factions with different agendas existed on the ship, and the presence of radical elements couldn’t be ruled out. Shi Ming had his own affairs to attend to and wasn’t good at getting caught up in such whirlpools of intrigue. He preferred to avoid trouble whenever possible. He was only responsible for leading the way; he would leave the subsequent matters for Rong Bing and Li Jiuyuan to handle. As members of Da Yu, they would surely be better equipped to deal with it.

"A seedling!"

"Are you sure!?"

Rong Bing’s eyes went wide.

Li Jiuyuan, however, wore an ’I knew it’ expression.

In thirty years, only two Snow-Crested Jadeites had ever been discovered.

One was found by the Xirang Research Institute while setting up holographic projection equipment on the peak. The other was discovered by an expedition team from [Fire Seed] while exploring Mount Everest—one of their explorers couldn’t resist the temptation of the emerald plant and ate it on the spot. If not for the Xirang Research Institute’s intervention, he would have died.

Unfortunately, when those two plants were found, Da Yu had not yet received the revelation from the Destiny Golden Toad and had missed the window of opportunity for investigation. When they went back to investigate the original locations a few years later, they found nothing of significance.

And now, they had actually found a third one?

"Shi Ming, your luck is incredible!"

"No wonder Elder Zhou said you’re Da Yu’s Lucky Star!"

Shi Ming blinked his eyes.

’That praise should go to the hardworking Ah Jian.’

...

Beside the verdant seedling, the three men gathered around the fingertip-sized Snow-Crested Jadeite, their voices trembling with excitement.

This was... living, breathing Contribution Points!

"Altitude: 4012m"

"Coordinates: 27.98812N, 86.92172E."

Rong Bing took out his communicator and sent the specific coordinates to the Xirang Research Institute.

The three of them didn’t have the ability to conduct a deep investigation, nor would they waste the precious lull in the Sub-Blade Storm here. They still had the summit to explore. Therefore, leaving the specialized work to the professionals was part of the plan from the beginning. In this regard, the researchers from Da Yu and Xirang would be even more cautious, especially after learning that this could be an energy leak point from a fallen Holy Hall-level Sea Beast. They would be a hundred times more careful.

Of course, Shi Ming and the others wouldn’t be left out of the Contribution Points.

As an additional reward, this Snow-Crested Jadeite seedling would also be converted into Contribution Points and distributed among the three team members, which was another part of the pre-arranged plan.

"Alright, coordinates have been reported. From here on, everyone needs to be extremely careful. The sub-blades on the summit layer will be denser, and the temperature will be lower. Jiuyuan, that especially goes for you. Even with your idealism, you absolutely cannot be careless."

"Don’t worry, Captain."

Shi Ming nodded as well.

He certainly wasn’t going to tell the other two that just thirty minutes ago, he had come down from the very peak, loaded with a pile of treasures.

Any single one of his gains would be enough to drive the great powers of the Endless Ocean into a frenzy.