Chapter 831: Players Smashing

Editor: Dragon Boat Translation

Under Ji Chen’s efforts, the empty cavity continued to expand. It grew from the size of a one-story house to the size of a basketball court, then to the size of a soccer field.

What appeared before them now was a vast underwater space spanning thousands of square meters. It was filled with air, with a thick layer of seabed mud below. Though no sunlight penetrated due to the depth, rendering the interior dim and dark, the view from inside was the same pitch-black seawater.

However, without a doubt, with some additional light sources and the construction of houses from available materials, this place could become a habitat for land dwellers.

Yet, Ji Chen was not content with this. He continued to expand the space. While billions of tons of seawater could crush any living being, under the drive of oceanic authority, it compressed outwardly, creating a space deep in the ocean floor, enough to constitute a small world.

Soon, within this dim and lightless basin, there appeared a semi-circular space approximately one hundred thousand square meters in size, with a height of fifty meters.

It was only then that he stopped.

This size was comparable to the moving fortress on the back of a giant turtle. With proper construction, it could accommodate many residents.

“This underwater space still needs some renovation to be suitable for habitation. I’ll send some sea clans to help later.”

“But as the first underwater settlement of the Ocean Crown, it should have a name… Let’s call it Coral City. Not only will humans live here in the future, but also sea clans can stay.”

Ji Chen quickly decided on the name.

As for the connection between Coral City and New Moon Islands, he had already figured it out. He would use the Tier Four unit obtained in the early stages of the Ocean Crown—Deep Sea Rangers—as transportation vehicles.

The Deep Sea Ranger was one of the few Tier Four units that survived the battle against the Dreadlord due to its special nature, although it was not deployed on the battlefield.

Despite its mediocre combat power, it had good transportation and swimming abilities. With its mouth open, it could accommodate dozens of people at once and protect passengers well in the depths of the sea.

This unit had long been assumed by Ji Chen to be an alternative means of transportation in the absence of surface transport ships. However, later on, obtaining transport ships was very smooth, so this unit was neglected.

Now, undoubtedly, this unit could be reused.

Coral City would be the first underwater settlement of the Ocean Crown, but certainly not the last. Therefore, in addition to purchasing a core batch of Deep Sea Rangers for recruitment camps, there was a need to steadily increase the number of Deep Sea Rangers to meet the transportation needs of various underwater settlements.

After returning to New Moon Islands, under Wilus’s arrangement, a group of Ocean Crown residents quickly boarded Deep Sea Rangers and set off for Coral City to expedite the renovation of the environment and hasten the construction of habitable land.

In addition to Deep Sea Rangers as transportation, with the addition of the dwarf Theod, Thotmudo’s alternative world version of submarines made breakthrough progress.

Now, stable and reliable alchemical submarines could be produced, capable of diving to depths of thousands of meters and smoothly shuttling between New Moon Islands and Coral City.

From then on, the Ocean Crown possessed reliable transportation vehicles in the sea, land, and air.

Rotor airships soared in the sky.

Alchemy trains traversed between various regions, carrying a trainload of raw materials, ore carts, and industrial products.

Steel ships sailed out with full cargo of industrial products, specialties, and food, also carrying the reputation of the Ocean Crown to various parts of the Mid-Ocean.

Soon, even under the sea, there would be vehicles that even humans could use, navigating through the layers of heavy currents.

Just as many Ocean Crown citizens were enthusiastically constructing Coral City.

In New Moon Islands, inside a two-story courtyard house located in a remote corner of the port.

Dozens of players crowded into a small room on the first floor, discussing matters. A sign written in Chinese hung at the entrance of the room, indicating it was a meeting room.

At this time, it was midsummer on the New Moon Islands, feeling like they were near the equator of this world, where the sun was scorching hot. Even though they had placed a few large ice blocks bought from the Ocean Crown Supply and Marketing Cooperative in the room, it still felt somewhat sweltering.

If the house were bigger, they could have held the meeting in a cooler basement. However, the rent on the New Moon Islands was getting higher and higher, and renting a larger house would empty their wallets.

Seeing everyone looking miserable and sweating profusely, the middle-aged man sitting at the head of the table cleared his throat.

“Let’s try to overcome this difficulty a bit. It’s tough now, but things will improve soon…”

The female player beside him couldn’t help but retort, “Boss, stop painting such rosy pictures. Let’s talk practicalities; otherwise, people will start leaving.”

The middle-aged man’s face stiffened, but he still sighed and said, “Stop undermining me… Anyway, I just received news from the Ocean Crown City Hall that they want to hire a group of experienced people to reclaim land from the sea, build railway tracks to the northeast sub-island, and construct the third and fourth ports.”

“What about their own citizens? I heard there are hundreds of thousands of residents on the New Moon Islands. They shouldn’t be short of manpower, right?”

The middle-aged man shook his head and said, “I’m not too sure about that… But I heard that many residents of the Ocean Crown have been reassigned to another project, so it seems there’s a shortage of manpower now.”

Another male player scoffed, “So what? The Ocean Crown probably won’t hire us players; most of the time, they hire indigenous people.”