Chapter 71: Lava Crystal

A red bead rolled out from inside.

Seeing this, Lily Rhodes bent down to pick it up. However, just as her fingers were about to brush against the bead, she yanked her hands back.

"It’s so hot. What in the world is this thing?"

Lily opened the interface and scanned the item using the System panel. This was a built-in System function, but it was incredibly rudimentary. It couldn’t identify many ordinary items—or perhaps they simply weren’t worth identifying. Even when it did provide an appraisal, it offered only a few sparse words. She would have to uncover its more advanced features on her own.

[Lava Crystal: The Volcanic Venom-Snail absorbs vast amounts of magma within volcanoes, purifying it to form Lava Crystals stored inside its body. When encountering danger or suffering an attack, these Lava Crystals revert into high-temperature magma.]

Reading this, Lily came to a sudden realization. The Volcanic Venom-Snails hadn’t been spewing actual magma earlier; they had been shooting Lava Crystals.

"So what is this thing used for?" Lily wondered aloud.

This time, the System gave her absolutely no response.

"Forget it. I can’t count on you."

The temperature of the Lava Crystal was excruciatingly high. Touching it barehanded was impossible, let alone carrying it away. Left with no choice, Lily took out a Bronze Treasure Chest, planning to store the Lava Crystal inside it.

Yet the instant she placed the Lava Crystal inside, it burned a blackened hole straight through the bottom. The entire Bronze Treasure Chest was completely ruined. Lily stared with wide eyes. However, the more destructive the item was, the more it proved its immense worth. Refusing to give up, she pulled out a Golden Treasure Box.

This one held up a bit longer, but it ultimately melted through and was destroyed as well.

Seeing this, Lily decided to pull out the most Advanced container she had on hand: the Seven-color Crystal Treasure Box. This particular Treasure Chest was exceptionally gorgeous, and its internal space was the largest among all her boxes. She had never quite figured out what to use it for. After tossing the Lava Crystal inside, the box finally held firm without burning through.

Lily opened The Supreme Shop’s interface and added a new listing to purchase Lava Crystals. The buying price she set wasn’t high. After all, no one knew the item’s actual use yet, and the storage conditions were overly demanding. Once the request was posted, Lily tossed the matter to the back of her mind. She would simply check on it later during the latter stages of the event.

And just like that, after spending nearly half an hour on the seabed, Lily took her sailboat back to the surface. The deep-sea diving suit she wore was on the verge of falling apart. She had to resurface to change into a brand new set. Unfortunately, during her previous Treasure Chest gathering, she had only managed to collect this single complete outfit. Although she had other scattered parts, they couldn’t form a full suit. With no other options, returning to the surface was a must.

Because it was night, her surroundings were pitched in total darkness.

Just then, Lily noticed a vast number of wooden Treasure Chests floating on the sea. There were so many—truly a staggering amount, far too many to count. She had struck absolute gold.

"Who cares what kind of luck this is? I’m grabbing all these boxes first." With Shelly underwater, she didn’t have much to worry about. "Maybe I can..."

Steering the sailboat, Lily began hauling the floating loot up one by one. Because the sailboat lacked sufficient space, she popped the boxes open right on the spot. Aside from holding back two sets of deep-sea diving gear for her own use, she bundled all the remaining pieces into full sets and listed them on The Supreme Shop. Whether it was diving gear designed for humans or protective equipment meant for vehicles, everything sold out the second it hit the storefront.

Seeing this incredible demand, Lily fished out the Treasure Chests with renewed vigor.

By the time she had swept this entire stretch of sea clean, dawn was already breaking.

Thanks to the Potential Seed, Lily’s stamina regenerated incredibly fast. Still, she lay down in the sailboat’s cabin to rest. She discovered that the deep-sea diving suit didn’t just resist oceanic pressure; its thermal insulation was also phenomenal. Lily let out a yawn. After busting her tail all night, she was practically dead on her feet. Closing her eyes, she quickly drifted off to sleep.

With Shelly standing guard, she had no fear of ambush. Besides, everyone else’s attention was likely glued to the System event, and daylight was fast approaching.

An unknown amount of time later, Lily opened her eyes and sat up from the floor, grimacing in pain.

She stretched her aching body and muttered, "I’m never being lazy and sleeping directly on the floor again."

By now, it was broad daylight outside, and the blazing sun was blindingly hot. Then, she saw it. The ocean was completely blanketed in Treasure Chests once again. She refused to believe these boxes had simply drifted over on the current. That left only one possibility: these Treasure Chests had spawned right here on their own.

"I’m rich! I’m gonna be filthy rich!"

Lily kept chanting this under her breath as she downed a cooling potion. She then stepped outside and began hauling up the floating Treasure Chests one by one. While she harvested the sea’s surface, Shelly wasn’t idling down below. By this point, her ranking had already skyrocketed into the top ten.

Over in The Supreme Shop, quite a few people were already trading intact Shells for cooling potions. Although she was still far from hitting the ten-thousand mark, at this rate, three days would be more than enough. On the other hand, the trading volume for Lava Crystals was nowhere near that of the Shells. After all, acquiring a Lava Crystal required killing a Volcanic Venom-Snail before it could expel the magma from its body. This process inherently destroyed the Shell. It was perfectly normal for fewer people to manage such a feat.

Lily sat inside the cabin to rest. Gripping a freshly popped cola, she guzzled it down. GULP GULP GULP.

After polishing it off, she let out a long, satisfied exhale. In this kind of weather, slamming an ice-cold cola was the absolute best feeling. Once she finished her drink and confirmed no new Treasure Chests were spawning on the surface, Lily piloted the sailboat and dove back into the sea.

Deep on the ocean floor, the sheer number of Volcanic Venom-Snails had multiplied exponentially, nearly covering the entire seabed. It was no wonder Shaun Hayes had previously described them as underwater locusts. Wasn’t the scene unfolding right now the exact spitting image of a plague of locusts darkening the skies?

Yet, faced with these massive swarms of Volcanic Venom-Snails, Shelly operated like a runaway bulldozer. Everywhere the beast moved, the snails in its path were crushed into absolute paste. The pulverized remains churned the surrounding waters into a murky haze.

At this moment, Lily noticed something startling. Hordes of Volcanic Venom-Snails would rapidly swarm wherever Shelly had trampled. They frantically and greedily devoured the remains of their fallen brethren, zeroing in especially on those crushed red gems.

Those were Lava Crystal Stones.

The Volcanic Venom-Snails truly were like locusts. One or two possessed virtually zero lethality, but once their numbers swelled, even a skilled human had to retreat and avoid their edge.

Lily stared down at the squirming mass below. Gripping her Fish Spear tightly, for a brief moment, she honestly didn’t know where to strike first.