Chapter 1120 - A Cape City (1/2)

Chapter 1120: A Cape City

Translator: Transn Editor: Transn

“Here comes the ship, chaps! Get going!” Simbady hollered while wringing his fist in the air.

“Yup!” The Fishbone clansmen all swarmed toward the dock and commenced working. Some of them went to fix cables while some build springboards. Although everything seemed to be a chaos at the first glance, everybody knew what they were doing. These clansmen were as good as experienced sailors. It was uninmaginable that just a year and a half ago, they had never been to the sea, let alone working on a ship.

The ship was quickly unloaded.

“Simbady, they say we can load the ship now!”

“Red or black, and how many for each, do you know?”

“Rest assured. I wrote it all down on the back of my hand!”

“Great! Let’s begin!”

The word “black” was the term they used specifically to describe the black water of the Styx River, which was the only product produced at the Endless Cape. Nonetheless, as the mine gradually expanded, Sand Nationals found two more underground streams bearing two different colors: deep red and dark green. They were both combustible, only their properties and scents were quite different. To avoid confusion, they called the black water “black”, and soon northerners adopted this name as well.

This was the fourth time that Simbady came to work at the Festive Harbor.

The first time he had stepped on this deserted land, he had simply wanted to survive the first three months and then stay as far away from this place as possible. However, much to his surprise, a city was gradually formed at the far south of the desert. If the revival of oases was a miracle, then the development of the Festive Harbor was a divine bliss.

The reason the Endless Cape had always been a settlement to exile prisoners was that there had literally been nothing except perils and dangers. Even the most experienced hunter would not be able to survive on this land. Sand Nationals believed only Three Gods could build a town with hundreds of thousands of residents out of this bleak emptiness.

Simbady had thought the chief would eventually abandon his ridiculous idea after several fruitless attempts. He had not expected, however, that it was Sand Nationals themselves, who had been living in the desert for hundreds of years, were the ignorant ones.

There was something at the Endless Cape.

They had just never noticed it.

The first problem they had solved was water.

That official from the northern kingdom named Konkrete first took them to a large pond surrounded by numerous sheds covered with black films. They did not find anything unusual about it at first, but after the Months of Demons, they soon noticed white salt had come out of the seawater. Water vapor condensed into liquid on the films, trickled down a slope into a groove, and finally into a water storage tank. Water was collected in a much faster manner when heat went up. Although they could not produce much drinking water with one pond, they could collect a lot with several hundred.

As the number of such ponds increased, they now not only had sufficient water for daily use but also excess for the ships from Neverwinter. This technology completely broke Sand Nation’s stereotype that there was no water in the desert.

The second was accommodation.

Apart from water, they also had to shelter themselves from the scorching sun in summer. Tents were obviously not a long-term solution.

It was rumored that all the building materials shipped to the Iron Sand City were from the Southernmost Region when it had yet to be a desert. That was why there was only one city at the Silver Stream, although there were many oases.

Northerners taught them to use local materials to build houses.

They built numberless furnaces, fueled them with the Blackwater, filled them with dirts at the bottom of the sea, and then mixed them with sifted fine sand to make bricks. Since there was an inexhaustible supply of dirts and sand, soon brick houses rose at the Festive Harbor, with double-bricked external walls and ceilings. Although the houses were not shaded by trees like those on the oases, they were, at least, proper dwellings.

The last was food.

The elder of the Osha Clan Thuram instructed them to spread dozens of fishing nets at the beach, which would totally submerge in tidal waves when the seawater rose. Once tides ebbed way, many strange creatures would cling to the nets, such as crabs, sea snakes and sea urchins. At first, Simbady was too afraid to try these gruesome food. However, under the threat of a whipping punishment, he forced himself to eat.

They were actually pretty good.

Although Sand Nationals still relied on Neverwinter for staples, they ate much better than a year and a half ago.

With a place to live and food to eat, Simbady gradually changed his mind. After the three months was over, he made a choice that even astonished himself — he chose to stay at the Festive Harbor.