Road to becoming the wealthiest: Starting From Treasure Hunting in the Cabinets
Chapter 1539 - 734: Constructed a 700-Level Pagoda_2

Chapter 1539: Chapter 734: Constructed a 700-Level Pagoda_2

By gathering little by little, salvaging everything here would indeed amount to quite a fortune.

Of course, one must be more careful when salvaging here, so as not to be discovered by others. After all, the Mediterranean Sea is essentially cradled between Africa and Europe. It’s not far from either shore, and its location is actually within the maritime territories of other countries.

Salvaging in someone else’s backyard is illegal.

So Sean Knight didn’t linger here, instead instructing Elijah Hastings to steer the yacht slowly towards the nearby port.

He planned to head back out to sea at night and use the cover of darkness to probe the depths.

Due to the waterway being blocked, the port was exceptionally busy, and it was with some difficulty that Sean and his team managed to secure a berth.

The people aboard the boat weren’t tired, and neither were Sean and his team. So they didn’t go to the pier but instead rested on the boat.

At night, as the cargo ship set sail, a team member remained on the yacht while Sean Knight chose a relatively large light point not too close to the port to investigate first.

This location was less than twenty sea miles from the port. It wasn’t far, but it wasn’t close either. It wasn’t near a busy waterway, and at night no ships were in sight.

The water was only about forty to fifty meters deep—a perfect depth for salvage.

Sean dove into the water with Elijah Hastings and Lincoln Harrington and soon discovered a sunken ship.

To his surprise, the sunken vessel turned out to be a modern cargo ship, its holds mostly filled with decayed goods.

Of course, whatever was glowing in Sean’s mind couldn’t possibly all be spoiled. Among the wares in the hold, there were over a hundred tons of copper ingots.

Sean remembered he had once paid attention to them. Even scrap copper was almost worth 10,000 US dollars a ton. These copper ingots were valuable and worth the trip to sea.

Moreover, even if he wasn’t interested, the many people following him also needed some motivation.

Finding no other items of value in the cargo ship, Sean and his team began to salvage a package of copper ingots and rose to the surface.

Although the cargo ship wasn’t a professional salvage vessel, it was equipped with some small-scale equipment. By securing the load and working together, they could bring up about twenty to thirty tons over the course of a night.

When the cargo ship returned to port, Douglas Cooper immediately went to find a buyer.

Copper was considered a strategic material, and there weren’t many merchants dealing in it. Surprisingly, Douglas found a domestic buyer.

Sean didn’t meet the buyer. Twenty-seven tons of copper were sent off at a packaged price of 9,000 dollars a ton. The buyer seemed to notice something amiss and told Douglas that they would be staying in the area for a few more days. If Douglas had more goods, they would take them at any time.

Over the next five days, Sean and his team’s cargo ship made a trip out to sea each night, salvaging copper to bring back.

In a week, when Sean and his team left that sea territory and headed to the next port, each team member received at least five thousand US dollars in bonuses, and everybody was delighted.

Moving forward, with fewer ships around, Sean arrived at the next spot and didn’t go to the port. Instead, he dropped anchor on the sea and began salvage operations directly.

Progressing in this manner, stop by stop, as Sean and his team were nearing the sea exit at the Strait of Gibraltar, they finally discovered another large light point.

By then, the cargo hold of the ship was nearly full.

Sean hesitated for a moment but ultimately decided to dive in.

If the items below were too scattered, he wouldn’t bother with the salvage.

Luckily, after diving, he found that it was an ancient sunken ship carrying some iron weapons, two suits of armor, and a box of gold and silver coins. There were fewer golden coins but more silver coins, and there were also some copper coins fused together in clumps.

Although not many, the gold and silver coins, mainly the weapons, and the two suits of armor, were well preserved due to the tight packaging and not too severely corroded; they could probably be sold as valuable antiques.

Since there weren’t too many items, the salvage was relatively easy.

The divers would take care of salvaging the items, while Sean casually grabbed a handful of gold coins and surfaced.

Now that there were many capable hands around, it wasn’t a good idea to always do the work himself, as it would make the divers uncomfortable.

He had thought there wouldn’t be much else to do here. However, before the salvage was finished, a ship approached.

It was a cargo ship, but what was odd was that it was carrying two containers.

Sean habitually activated "Sky Eye" and took a quick glance inside the containers, then a strange expression crossed his face.

Inside these containers, people were packed!

One small container squeezed in about forty or fifty people!

They were crammed in like canned meat!

Sean Knight quickly realized what was going on. These people must be illegal immigrants, smuggling themselves aboard!

Normally, this wouldn’t concern him. But at the moment, his Sky Eye had scanned over the container, and the people inside were nearly suffocating!

Watching dozens of lives about to vanish before his eyes, Sean Knight couldn’t just stand by and do nothing!

He immediately shouted to Elijah Hastings on the yacht:

"Chase after them, force them to stop! If they don’t stop, start shooting!"

Elijah Hastings promptly steered the yacht into action, while Lincoln Harrington asked from beside:

"Boss, what’s going on?"

"They’re transporting smuggled immigrants in that container, and they’re about to die..."

Lincoln was stunned by the revelation, visibly surprised, then quickly ran to the ship cabin. When he emerged, he was already holding an automatic rifle!

The yacht was faster than the cargo ship, and it didn’t take long to cut off the vessel’s path. Then, Lincoln fired a warning shot.

Meanwhile, Elijah was in the cockpit, trying to communicate with the other vessel using the ship’s PA system.

Unfortunately, the other party did not speak English nor understand Chinese, and they didn’t stop, instead maintaining a course as if they intended to ram through.

Bullets hitting the cargo ship were essentially ineffective.

"Time for missiles!" Sean Knight said directly, "Take out the bow of their ship!"

Lincoln also realized that using a gun was indeed useless. The tiny bullets merely pelted the ship’s hull, without much effect, likely alerting the other side to adapt and respond.

So, he decisively launched a miniature missile directly at the ship!

"Boom!"

With a loud explosion, a large chunk of the cargo ship’s bow was blown off, fire and debris flying chaotically through the air!

The cargo ship realized they were facing a serious threat; if they didn’t stop, their whole ship was likely to be blown apart, so they begrudgingly halted the engine.

The yacht swiftly pulled alongside the cargo ship, and Elijah and Lincoln, together with two team members, climbed aboard with guns ready. The deck was deserted, but through his Sky Eye, Sean Knight could see that some people had already jumped ship from the opposite side. Others were in the process of lowering lifeboats, evidently planning to abandon ship.

It made sense; with nearly a hundred people packed into two containers, if caught, they’d be facing a lengthy imprisonment, if not worse!

Elijah and his team didn’t have time to worry about the fleeing crew members. Instead, they quickly set up a perimeter and went about figuring out how to open the containers.

The containers were just normally locked, but because there were too many people inside, it had become suffocating.

Elijah and Lincoln split up and opened the two containers. People immediately poured out, then collapsed on the ground, gasping for breath.

More people kept surging out, clearly, the conditions inside the containers had become extremely dire, or else these smuggled individuals wouldn’t be so desperate to risk escaping.

After all, what they were engaged in was illegal.

Elijah and Lincoln didn’t bother with these people and approached Sean Knight to ask:

"Boss, what do we do next?"

It was clear that they couldn’t take these people aboard their own ship, but to leave them here unattended wasn’t viable either.

After all, having rescued them, it was best to ensure they continued to live.

"Don’t worry," Sean Knight said with a smile, "The sound of the missile would have carried far from here. If I’m not mistaken, there should be coast guard officials arriving shortly. When they do, we’ll hand these people over, and then we’re done."

Elijah and Lincoln understood, this was indeed the most sensible course of action.

After regaining some composure, most of the smuggled individuals looked toward Sean Knight and his team with fearful eyes.

Sean Knight and his team didn’t interact with these people; they just waited nearby on the deck.

Some of the braver individuals went looking for food and water in the ship cabin. Seeing that Sean Knight’s group didn’t interfere, the rest of the people quickly followed suit.

As Sean Knight had predicted, it took less than half an hour for a patrol boat to arrive.

What followed was straightforward.

However, Sean Knight and his team’s salvage operation had to be suspended—this was another country’s maritime territory, after all!