Chapter 642: Gifts of Nature (Part 1) (Patreon)

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Upon hearing the explosion of the crashing plane, Arthur immediately stood up. He walked to the platform outside the cave and peered into the distance. However, due to the excessively humid air, the fire quickly extinguished, leaving only a wisp of cigarette smoke drifting up from the nearby forest.

"Quick, Arthur! Hurry..." Oliver, clutching his chest, tried to stand but ended up falling back to the ground. He coughed vigorously a couple of times, shook his head, appearing disoriented.

"You stay here; I'll go check," Arthur realized the gravity of the situation. Judging by the shockwave from the explosion, the entire plane had likely been destroyed. If there were any passengers...

Arthur didn't dare to dwell on the thought any longer. He swiftly leaped down the protruding rocks on the cliff and cleared away the scattered vegetation and fallen trees as he ran towards the crash site.

From a distance, he saw a thick plume of smoke, but by the time he reached it, the smoke had dispersed rapidly. He saw two figures standing there, and Arthur breathed a sigh of relief. If people were standing, it meant they weren't in immediate danger.

But as he got closer, Arthur was taken aback. The two standing figures were Schiller and Hal.

"Professor, and Mr. Pilot, what are you doing here?" Arthur jogged over and asked.

"I..." Hal wore an extremely reluctant expression, and Schiller poked him with an umbrella. Hal sighed and reluctantly admitted, "I intended to fly the plane to find you. Little did I know it would crash. It must be a problem with the aircraft's quality, not my piloting skills."

Arthur pursed his lips, looking at the wreckage of the plane in shambles. "Seems like the autopilot system isn't very reliable."

"Exactly, it's the autopilot system's fault!" Hal's eyes suddenly lit up. "I didn't even get a chance to pilot it. It just suddenly crashed, and it had nothing to do with my piloting skills."

"Wait, what's this?" Arthur suddenly noticed something peculiar. He walked over to find a piece of wreckage that was strangely intact. After a closer look, he realized it was located in the plane's storage compartment.

"Wow! This is great; we have supplies!" Arthur exclaimed with delight as he approached the wreckage. But then, he furrowed his brow and asked, "How did the plane crash? If it were nose-diving, the storage compartment should have been damaged, and even if it were tail-diving, it wouldn't have remained intact like this."

"Maybe it landed in the middle?" Schiller suggested, and Hal slapped his forehead. "Isn't that a smooth landing?"

"Never mind all that; let's just treat it as a gift from nature," Schiller walked over to the wreckage and said, "Oh, look, even the refrigerator is intact. The food inside should be in good condition too, right?"

Schiller opened the refrigerator door, took a quick look inside, then closed it with a snap. He walked over to Hal with a stern expression and whispered, "I asked you to use your Green Lantern energy to protect the refrigerator. Did you have to protect it this well?"

"What happened? Did it break?" Hal appeared nervous. He knew the refrigerator was filled with food, and if it were damaged, they'd be stuck eating fish for days.

At this moment, Arthur walked over, opened the refrigerator door, and before he could express his surprise, he said with a puzzled tone, "Huh? The freezer is perfectly intact. I can understand that the vegetables would survive a fall like this, but not a single egg is broken. Isn't this a bit..."

Inside the open refrigerator door, the right compartment of the middle shelf was filled with fresh eggs. Despite falling from a great height, none of them were cracked, and they were neatly arranged in the compartment, maintaining their original order.

Hal felt a bit embarrassed and said, "Well, it's probably just a gift from nature. We got lucky, that's all."

Although Arthur was still puzzled, he couldn't come up with an explanation. He decided to put it aside and said, "Let's move the refrigerator together, and then I'll search nearby to see if there are any materials we can use to repair the ship."

Hearing this, Schiller suddenly froze for a moment. He discreetly nudged Hal and, speaking into Grey Mist's mind, urged, "Hurry, identify which items here could be used for ship repair and destroy the rest."

Schiller glanced around to ensure no one had noticed his actions. Then he crouched down, pressed his hand against the ground, and the gray mist rapidly spread. In an instant, all remaining plane components and wires were consumed. Grey Mist communicated in Schiller's mind, "There, unless he can perform molecular-level decomposition and reconstruction, he won't find any usable materials."

Schiller finally breathed a sigh of relief. As Arthur returned to search for usable materials, he looked disappointed and said, "This plane must be too advanced. I couldn't find any wires inside. My goodness, how did it even operate?"

At that moment, Schiller walked up, patted him on the shoulder, and said, "Don't be too greedy; Gifts of Nature are always limited. We've been lucky enough."

Arthur nodded, agreeing with Schiller's reasoning. He had a big heart and wasn't too hung up on unanswered questions.

So, he returned to the problem at hand. He said, "There's too much stuff in this refrigerator. We could transport it in batches, but it's better to move it all at once. Otherwise, seagulls or lizards might steal it."

Arthur surveyed the surroundings and said, "We can use palm tree trunks. After cutting them down and laying them on the ground, we can use rolling logs to transport the supplies. It should be faster and more efficient this way."

"Isn't that too troublesome? I could just..." Hal was about to speak, but Schiller prodded him with an umbrella and gave him a disdainful look. He said, "Are you planning to cheat?"

"I..." Hal choked for a moment, then approached Schiller and whispered, "Didn't you cheat before?"

"I did use some special abilities earlier, but from now on, I don't intend to do so," Schiller replied.

Hal snorted and said, "Then let's make a bet. Let's see who uses their superpowers first, and whoever can't resist cheating loses."

"Let's bet then. If you lose, you'll be in charge of Green Lantern Corps work for the next two months," Schiller agreed.

While the two were talking, Arthur had already started looking for suitable wood. Soon, not far from the plane crash site, he found several suitable trees.

Palm trees were not difficult to cut down, especially with a massive plane wreck nearby. Arthur searched the wreckage and found some sharp metal pieces. He collected a few of these metal pieces, layered them, and used a stone to smash their edges together.

After multiple strikes, the edges came together, and he created a simple axe. Just when Schiller thought he was going to use the axe to cut down trees, he realized it was not an axe but a sickle.

Arthur hooked the metal part onto the tree trunk and began rubbing it back and forth. Soon, a shallow groove appeared on the trunk, and he believed that with a few more rubs, the tree would fall.

Schiller observed his actions and then walked over to the wreckage. He found a larger piece of metal and began searching for rocks on the ground. Hal didn't know what he was up to and asked, "What are you planning to do?"

"I'm going to make a saw. Help me find some suitable stones," Schiller replied.

Hal and Schiller began scouring the ground for stones. They soon found ones that were roughly the right size. The two of them repeatedly folded the metal sheet to create a fragile point, and then used stones to create notches at the folded point, turning it into a very crude saw.

When Schiller walked over with the saw, Arthur was a bit surprised. Schiller raised the saw with a somewhat proud look, but to his surprise, Arthur said, "Oh, I was planning to make a saw too, but I can't handle such a large metal sheet on my own..."

"Why didn't you ask me for help?" Schiller inquired.

"Well..." Arthur continued to saw the tree with the small sickle and said, "Professor, you don't look like someone who's good at physical work."

Arthur put it quite tactfully. Schiller glanced at himself. Arthur was 185 cm tall, and Schiller was two centimeters taller. But when it came to width, Schiller wasn't as strong as Arthur.

Arthur's Schwarzenegger-like triangular physique indeed matched his identity as a young Fisherman. In contrast, Schiller appeared somewhat thinner. He sighed, turned his head, and looked at Hal, who had just walked up. Hal rubbed his hands and asked, "How's it going? Do you need any help?"

"Forget it; you don't seem like someone who's good at physical work either," Schiller said, and then he carried the saw to cut the tree.

Hal glanced at himself; he was one centimeter taller than Schiller, but like Schiller, he had a slender build. Looking at Arthur's mountain-like biceps, he extended his arm, struck a bodybuilding pose, and patted his muscles, muttering softly, "Not bad."

Then, he remembered that Arthur was only 19 years old and sighed. He went to help Schiller carry the wood.

In reality, the amount of muscle didn't matter much for Schiller and Hal. They didn't rely on their muscles for strength. Therefore, when the two of them easily cut and transported a dozen or so logs, Arthur looked stunned and said, "Professor, you've really impressed me. Even our strongest Fisherman on the island couldn't gather so much wood so quickly..."

Although they had agreed not to cheat, both of them, who had unique physical attributes, coughed awkwardly. They looked at Arthur's achievements.

In just a short ten minutes, Arthur had collected four logs. This was not an easy feat, considering the difference in strength and tools between them.

Arthur effortlessly hoisted a thick palm tree log, and Hal and Schiller turned to look at him as he moved the log from one side to the other. Hal nudged Schiller with his elbow and said, "Are you sure we won't cheat and can beat him?"

Schiller replied, "I'm not sure."

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Next Chapter>>Chapter 643: Gifts of Nature (Part 2)