There were many stones on the island; with these, Raine made two buoys so that he didn't need to keep watch over the nets as long as Avril waited a few hours after casting the nets, and then they could go harvest them.
Avril made a bed out of leaves and used some unusable twigs for the fire. After eating dried fish for so long, she could finally have a few hot meals.
"Captain! We've found something good!" It wasn't even two days before Avril and White returned with some happy news, "We found some clay!"
"So?" Raine wasn't sure what was so good about the stuff.
Avril was used to Raine's 'calmness'. She said excitedly, "Captain, there are a lot of crabs and hermit crabs here, besides sea fish, so grind their shells into powder, add sand and clay, apply it to the bottom of your boat, burn it dry and it will strengthen the bottom of the boat and better prevent leaks too!"
Raine's heart fluttered.
If Avril's method worked, it would be very useful to him indeed! He could wrap the bottom of the boat with a fish skin membrane on top of the clay, so it would not affect the boat's speed.
With multiple layers of protection, he would become even stronger!
"So what are you waiting for, do it now!"
Although Avril was only a 0.5 power combatant, she was pretty clever. She dug a hole in the beach and then used a log to roll Raine over the large hole so she could attach the clay to the bottom of Raine's boat.
Avril stood in the pit and applied a large pile of mixed black stuff underneath him. Then smoothed it out before baking up a fire in the bottom of the boat.
"What the hell, I put myself on the fire? Why would I do something like that?" Raine felt a little weird about it.
Though since he was protected by the clay, Raine didn't catch fire. His body just felt warm.
Throughout the afternoon, the system finished Raine's reinforced bottom. Following the original log track, Avril easily pushed Raine back into the sea.
"How does it feel now, Captain?"
"Slightly deeper draft, not much else."
"Haha, Captain, don't worry about it. I used to help my dad mend boats all the time. After treating them like this, they'll never leak even without fish skin protection!"
"Well, I'll believe you for now."
The days on the deserted island were particularly relaxed. Avril and White's tasks mainly consisted of fishing, eating barbecues and occasionally digging on the island.
Avril hoped to find some useful ores, but unfortunately, they never got anything besides clay.
Raine made the bottom most cover of the boat out of fish skin and made two simple water purification devices. Not only in greater quantity but also bigger than the previous ones. It used three units of his wood.
With the increased weight capacity of the boat, Raine also stocked up on dried fish just in case.
Raine didn't want to leave the extra timber on the boat. He didn't think he could fit 90 units of timber on board. He asked Avril to make a raft out of the timber. Tie the timber to the raft with fishing nets and drag it behind him when the time comes.
In the blink of an eye, they had been here for most of the month. By now, all of the preparations were complete.
That night, Avril and White returned to the boat to rest.
The sea breeze was unusually cold for the evening. Raine didn't feel the chill, but Avril couldn't help but shiver as the sea breeze blew through her malnourished pale yellow hair and danced gently along her cheeks. Avril tucked her hands into her sleeves and hugged White for warmth.
"Captain, where do we go next?"
Raine hesitated at the sight and said, "I don't know. Do you know of anywhere else to get wood?"
"With timber, you can usually only get it in the islands."
"But there are no more islands we can go to now," Raine said.
"Eh, my grandfather only left my dad a chart. We've checked all three islands. In that case ..." Avril tried to think, "if we can't get the wood ourselves, we'll get it from someone else by buying it or exchanging it."
"But then, we'd have to enter the human-class waters. Only there are there medium to large sized sea markets."
He only had two crew members with a combined fighting strength of 1.5. He was in great danger if he encountered pirates or something.
"I'm not going to enter human-class waters for now. At least until I'm another level up." Raine said.
Avril cocked her head and tried to think, "If we don't go into human-class waters, that's fine. We can go look around the human-class waters. Some places have sea markets. But they're all relatively small."
"It doesn't matter if it's small. It's fine if it's there." Raine said, "What do they usually trade for wood, though?"
"For everything, like iron ore, copper ore, etc. Gum, animals, food, water, sand."
"Eh? Sand too? Wouldn't there be plenty of it here?"
"Captain, the price of sand is very low. People have sand carriers of tens of tons. How much can you load? You probably won't even make a single piece of wood on the trade run."
Raine didn't really understand the current market situation, but after a little thinking about it, he did understand it.
Things are precious when scarce, like easily available supplies, fish, sand, etc. People can also obtain some things easily, so the price is naturally not high.
"So look, do we have any supplies that we can use to trade? The ones that are a bit more expensive."
"It seems... there is no... oh yeah, clay is quite valuable. It's just that... here clay we have collected all and used it all up. "
Avril splashed over a pot of cold water.
"Is it so hard to do business these days? Isn't there anything I can do?"
Avril thought carefully and said, "Captain, in fact, your craftsmanship is so good that you can process it on behalf of others. It's just that... people usually don't directly give their resources to strangers with confidence. You have to be in front of them to process it. In the state you're in, I'm afraid it's not good for others to see. "
Showing others that Raine can build instantly? Then it's possible that the sky-class seas' fleets will rush out and snatch Raine. Raine doesn't want to be caught and used as a laborer so soon.
"By the way, we can engage in transport to earn pearls and use them to buy timber directly!"
"What? What do you mean by pearls exactly?"
"In the market, pearls are the common currency divided into the ranks of white, black, and gold pearls, which vary in value. White pearls are the cheapest and gold pearls are the most expensive." Avril said, "Between the various trading markets, there are times when goods need to be shared in cases of overcapacity. So someone needs to help transport the supplies. But, of course, not for nothing. They get some payment after transporting them."
"And aren't they afraid the transport ships will abduct the goods?"
"They'll have someone with the ship. Besides, if what you say happens, the ship will be on the Navy's most wanted list and end up in a horrible situation. Captain, I know a few small trading markets. Shall we go?"
"And the Navy!" Raine realized that this Azure Era was quite developed, or at least moreso than he thought.
"Yes, but the Navy doesn't help for nothing. The various maritime trading markets pay a large number of pearls to the Navy every year for them to step in and secure the trading routes. The Navy only maintains the trading areas and the shipping lanes between them. They patrol the shipping lanes and repel pirate fleets that try to seize the transports. So it's all relatively safe around the shipping lanes. We'll be fine even if we drag so much timber with us."
"I see!" Raine was instantly impressed.
Now he had a way to earn money! All he had to do was buy 60 more timbers, and he could upgrade!