Chapter 602: 194. A few genuine items

Noland Lee and Denise Green followed Nelly, wandering around the archipelago’s east side until noon.

Nelly arranged lunch for Noland and Denise at the Exchange. After lunch, Noland and Nelly learned some things, ultimately leaving the Exchange under the pretext of “needing to consider more”.

After looking around all morning, they found over 300 islands with prices below 100,000 gold coins.

Besides Snow Mountain Island 1, which had been depleted of its mineral resources, the other islands were all small with a width of less than 10 kilometers.

Developing and utilizing these small islands was difficult due to factors like their small size, remote location, and numerous underwater reefs. Large-scale projects such as Magic Eco-farms, Magic Water Purification Facilities, and ports could not be established on these small islands.

The security in the east side of the archipelago is another important factor impacting island prices.

The Deep Sea Branch is responsible for providing security services.

There is a Magic Outpost every thirty kilometers, a drone-type facility floating on the sea surface and patrolling between the islands.

Magic Servants work within the outposts.

When a conflict arises, the Magic Outposts will rush to the scene and use brilliant fireworks to alert the Deep-sea Wizard bases set up between the islands by the Deep Sea Branch.

Upon receiving the message, the Deep-sea Wizards at the base will immediately go to the scene to deal with the dispute.

The closer the islands are to the patrol routes of the Magic Outpost and the Deep-sea Wizard Base, the higher the quality of security services, and the higher the island prices will be.

After considering factors such as island location, security quality, terrain, the number and size of havens, and price, 15 islands met Noland and Denise’s requirements, including Snow Mountain Island 1.

Snow Mountain Islands 1 through 3 are close to each other.

Before being exploited, the resources on these three Snow Mountain Islands were extremely rich.

To prevent theft, the Deep Sea Branch set up the Wizards Base and the Magic Outpost nearby the three Snow Mountain Islands.

Once the Deep Sea Branch’s Wizards Base and Magic Outposts were established, they would not be easily moved. Therefore, even if the mineral resources on Snow Mountain Island 1 were depleted, it would still be within the range of high-quality security services.

After narrowing the list to the 15 suitable islands, Noland didn’t rush to make a payment.

As he told Nelly, he “needed more time to consider”.

However, he wasn’t contemplating picking one from those 15 islands.

What he was really considering was “cheating the system”.

He discovered an extremely important, but often overlooked, System Knowledge.

As everyone knows, before deconstructing something, if one has already mastered the deconstruction results and scholarly skills related to it, the deconstruction consumption will be reduced.

The System usually states this as:

Since you have the Deconstruction Results for XXXX, the deconstruction consumption for this attempt is reduced.

Or it might be like:

Because you have mastered “XXXX Study (XX Level)”, the deconstruction consumption for this attempt is reduced.

These two types of system messages indicate that the item Noland is trying to deconstruct is related to the deconstruction results and Scholarly Skills he has already mastered.

So the question is, can this commonly known System Knowledge be applied to the exploration of island resources?

For example:

Before mastering a Scholarly Skill like “Mineral Exploration Study”, Noland throws a Deconstruction Technique at Island A, receiving the unmitigated deconstruction consumption value A1.

Later, after learning the Scholarly Skill through self-study, he throws the Deconstruction Technique at Island A again, receiving the reduced deconstruction consumption value A2.

The difference between A1 and A2 is the deconstruction consumption reduction value due to mastering “Mineral Exploration Study”.

Since the reduced value solely relies on Scholarly Skills, it’s easy to deduce that a larger reduction value means more resource-extraction potential on a given island.

By comparing the reduced values for all the islands, one can deduce the amount of resources each one has!

Further comparing the deconstruction consumption reduction values with the islands’ recorded resources reveals an approximation of undiscovered resources on each island.

This often overlooked, yet crucial, System Knowledge is extremely useful when applied correctly.

To think of this series of actions, Noland had to thank the mathematics he had learned in high school and college. Many ideas in these calculations relied on mathematical concepts like “algebra”, “derivatives”, and “limits”.

After leaving the Island Exchange, Noland took Denise to the Freedom Marketplace in the Trade District.

The Freedom Marketplace is a commercial plaza occupying more than 50,000 square meters.

Its core building is the Magic Items Trading Center. Numerous shops are located around the white walls, cramming the commercial plaza.

Once in the marketplace, Noland and Denise split up.

Living on an island required purchasing many necessary daily items. Denise took on the miscellaneous tasks of buying everyday supplies and would wait at the department store in the Freedom Marketplace until Noland came to find her.

Noland, on the other hand, shuttled alone through the crowded streets, searching for anything related to Scholarly Skills.

His goal was very clear.