Moving a piece of crushed rock, Zhen Jin personally led everyone in excavating as many buried supplies as possible.
Ultrasound displayed its value again, allowing Zhen Jin to accurately determine where the supplies were.
With continuous banging sounds, the holes in the ship were patched up with layers of planks. The most important part, the keel, was repaired with a great amount of wood and iron, then fastened with iron nails.
The sails were not seriously damaged, because they were all tied to the masts.
Several days later, the sliding track was also repaired.
“One, two three!” Everyone shouted and worked together, with even the giant pitching in.
The ship sped up as it slid down the track, until it finally hit the water, spraying it everywhere.
After the boat rocked a few times, it stabilized in the river.
The ship had become very ugly, there were patchwork planks on the ship railing and decks. In addition, the sides of the ship were higher than the deck, with a row of holes on each side of the ship.
From each row of holes, extended ten long wooden oars. There was an especially large oar at the rudder, it was specifically prepared for the giant.
His broken legs and the boat craftsman’s death made the giant depressed, he was uncommunicative and would cry to himself nearly every night.
In accordance with the boat craftsman’s dying words, the giant really treated Zhen Jin as his birth father, and only listened to Zhen Jin’s commands. Only when Zhen Jin gave him food and water, would he eat.
Zhen Jin first led the giant into the ship hold. The giant could not walk; thus, he used his hands to crawl.
Soon after, the others walked in.
Eighteen people went to the lower deck, each of them was assigned to an oar.
The giant sat at the very back, he alone was responsible for two oars.
The remaining people moved on the deck, they were in charge of opening the sails, straightening the rope, weighing the anchor, and other tasks, meanwhile Xi Suo operated the rudder.
During the shipbuilding process, Cang Xu had the sailors lecture many times, thus basically everyone was trained in how to operate a ship.
Following drumbeats, the sails opened. Twenty oars dipped into the water simultaneously, after an unhurried rowing movement, the oars extended from the water before dipping back into the water again.
The ship moved without a hitch.
As they moved through the turbulent river water, Zhen Jin regularly stood on the ship’s bow.
He secretly used ultrasound to probe the situation below the water surface.
He was worried a fierce artificial magic beast would appear; he was even more worried the gold level python vines would appear in the water.
The following passage was a pleasant journey.
There were no artificial magic beasts or python vines, however the water was murky, there were often whirlpools, and the unstable riverbank would often collapse.
The new river was the optimal shortcut to the island center.
The shortcut did not lack hazards.
Bat monkey and flying squirrel groups often attacked.
But with Zhen Jin, Zong Ge, and the others defending, these beast groups were routed and added to the survivors’ food reserves.
Nearly all of the survivors had a crossbow, furthermore, to survive the many cruel natural selections, those still alive were either the elite or had abundant luck.
Operating the ship was very difficult, and during the beginning, everyone beside Zhen Jin was flustered. The ship even bumped into the riverbank because it could not change direction in time.
Fortunately, nothing broke during the bump, but despite that, Zhen Jin still ordered everyone to conduct emergency training on the shore for a day.
The surviving sailors were immensely helpful as they skillfully controlled the ship without any abnormalities.
The ship left the jungle and smoothly sailed through the forest.
Leaving the forest, it entered the desert.
The air became blistering hot and the volcanic eruption’s lava pillar became more conspicuous.
Black “snow” fluttering through the air, volcanic ash.
Because of the hot weather, the glue and pitch between planks began to melt.
Water constantly seeped into the hold.
As the ship left the desert and entered the volcanic area, the water seepage got worse, it was getting harder for Zhen Jin and the others to keep it under control.
The river was also gradually getting narrower, and when the ship could no longer sail ahead, Zhen Jin commanded everyone to leave the ship.
They promptly moved their supplies, and after an hour, without any survivors bailing out the ship, everyone watched the ship sink into the river.
Everyone watched silently.
Zhen Jin deeply breathed and brightly shouted: “We no longer have a way out, onward!”
The path ahead was very challenging.
The scalding ground made it hard to walk.
With every breath, the scorching air burned almost everyone’s nose, windpipe, and lungs.
There was a layer of yellow fog in the air.
The extremely pungent sulfur made everyone uncomfortable.
Because the volcanic clouds covered the sky, it was dark. Only when lava erupted would the horizon look somewhat distinct.
Earthquakes constantly accompanied the survivors.
The closer they got to the island core, the stronger the earthquakes got.
While they sailed, earthquakes lifted waves that covered the sky. Now as they walked, the earthquakes became even more threatening. It would shake the ground and cause magma to bubble out.
Just a day after leaving the ship, three people died.
Two days later, the group encountered a gigantic lava turtle.
The gigantic lava turtle was in a fishy state, its eyes were red and was crazy, no longer was it docile and harmless.
It actively charged at the group.
As it was indeed a gold level magic beast and Zhen Jin was certainly not stupid, he led everyone in a prompt escape.
Luckily the gigantic lava turtle had insufficient intelligence and was slower than the people, thus after Zhen Jin and the others put enough distance between them and the turtle, it no longer pursued them.
Compared to the previous day, the dangers the group faced increased ten-fold.
Because they encountered a magic beast corps.
Zhen Jin and Zong Ge fought bravely and smashed the magic beast corps blocking their path.
But everyone's mood was heavy.
Because of the three blue dog fox wolves, they only killed two, with one escaping alive.
Blue dog fox wolves had outstanding intelligence, and that blue dog fox wolf would definitely return with more magic beast corps.
After Zong Ge suggested it, Zhen Jin had no choice but to risk it and increase the group’s speed.
This made the survivors suffer unspeakable misery.
A few days later.
Everyone gazed at the volcano, with many of them having numb expressions.
Despite searching the whole journey, they found no signs of a magician tower or the center of a magical formation.
“Shouldn’t the magician tower be hidden in the volcano?”
“As a matter of fact, that is extremely possible! The source of this island’s upheaval is the erupting volcano.”
“But how do we get in?”
“Lord Zhen Jin, we are dying!”
Everyone looked dismal.
These past few days, they had been pursued by the magic beast corps.
In the volcanic area, there were many blue dog fox wolves, with each of them commanding a small magic beast corps.
Were it not for Zhen Jin and Zong Ge fighting bravely on the front lines every time, the group would not be here.
Covered in dirt, Zhen Jin no longer looked handsome, but his eyes were still unflinching.
“Rest and reorganize here, we need to think of how we are going to enter the volcano.” Said Zhen Jin.
Cang Xu, Zi Di, and the others looked distressed.
The air was very hot, an ordinary person was already at their limits, and if they continued walking forward, their lives would be in danger.
Only those with outstanding bodies could walk closer.
As Zhen Jin and the others discussed, their expression suddenly changed.
“A magic beast corps is attacking! Quickly, prepare for battle.” Zhen Jin shouted.
No one doubted Zhen Jin’s prediction, during the journey they had relied on Zhen Jin’s predictions to battle against the magic beast corps, allowing them to kill their way here.
Time was limited, after picking a somewhat elevated location, everyone stood in formation, with Zhen Jin and Zong Ge on the front lines.
Not long after, they saw a large wave of beasts and magic beasts rushing at them.
“Too many, it can’t be just one magic beast corps!”
“There needs to be at least five blue dog fox wolves to gather this many.”
“We need to flee!”
Zhen Jin clenched his teeth and shook his head: “Where can we flee to?”
At that moment, his heart was also shrouded with despair.
Even if he abandoned all his apprehensions and completely transformed, it would still be difficult to hold off this amount of ferocious beasts.
Against this beast tide, preserving Zi Di’s and the others’ lives was simply a fantasy!
“I knew this would happen, we should have stayed in the rainforest and waited for help!” Hei Juan shouted, however it was too late for regrets.
The magic beast corps did not care if the people had regrets as the corps charged their position.
“Don’t save iron arrows, use as many as you can!” Zong Ge shouted.
Zhen Jin, Zong Ge, and the others fought for their lives, unexpectedly holding their position against the beast tide.
“Strange, this magic beast corps isn’t as good as it looks!”
“I still haven’t seen a blue dog fox wolf, where did they go?”
“Why do I feel these magic beasts aren’t actually attacking us, rather……they are running away?”
“Yeah, if you look carefully, many of them are wounded.”
The people had endless doubts when Zhen Jin looked into the distance, his expression suddenly changing.
People!
He had always been using ultrasound; however, he did not detect these people as they suddenly appeared over the horizon.
There were six strangers altogether, they were effortlessly chasing and killing all the magic beasts that could be seen.
They actually chased the magic beast corps away!
It's no wonder there were no blue dog fox wolves, they feared these people.
They only had six people, yet they routed the massive magic beast corps.
What was especially breathtaking and noteworthy to Zhen Jin and Zong Ge, was the glittering holy light on their bodies, and their clean clothes, all of it was inharmonious with the environment.
They had extraordinary power!
“Templar knight Zhen Jin, you’ve arrived at last.” The middle aged group leader opened his mouth, although the distance between the two groups was still far, his voice still clearly echoed in everyone’s ears.
The survivors were astonished and ecstatic.
“Could it be, help had arrived?!”
“But how did they go deeper into the center than us?”
“That is a Sheng Ming priest, those behind him are his templar guardian knights.”
“You are?” Zhen Jin slightly saluted.
The white clothed priest smiled and introduced himself: “My name is Jia Sha.”
Notes
Did you know, Jia Sha took so long to show up in the story that when I translated the first mention of him back in chapter 20 something, he hadn’t even appeared in the raws yet. I wonder how Jia Sha and co managed to get separated from the group. They sure would have been super helpful in literally everything that had happened over the last...155 chapters. Besides, I wonder where they were when the entire desert arc was happening, probably sitting around on the volcano cooking smores.