The Genius Construction Worker Who Moved to America - Chapter 39

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Chapter 39

Alchemist of the Sea

Screech—screech-screech!

A harsh salt wind swept past the tip of his nose.
It had been roughly ten minutes since leaving Long Beach Harbor, Kang Jun steering the motor boat and wide barge ahead of him.

An artificial structure loomed into Kang Jun’s field of vision as he stood at the bow, scanning the waters ahead.

“Chief! There it is! Wow, it’s absolutely massive!”

Dominic, who held the helm, cried out.

A corroded eyesore, its steel scarred by saltwater and sea wind, red rust blooming in patches everywhere.

The drilling ship that once pumped black gold from the seafloor now lay abandoned, a burden left to rot.

“Ugh… up close it’s even worse. How are we supposed to dismantle that thing…?”

Leo, pale with seasickness, leaned against the barge railing and retched dryly.
Kang Jun patted Leo’s back gently.

“Don’t worry too much. What we’re pulling apart is just the valve stuck to the bottom of that ship.”

The motorboat and barge glided to a halt side by side beneath the drilling ship’s steel pylons.
Kang Jun tightened the chin strap of his safety helmet and turned to face the others.

“Leo and Sophia, wait here. No need for everyone to crowd into a dangerous spot.”

“But sir, I should verify the site conditions as well….”

Sophia stepped forward, clutching the bag containing the original contract, but Kang Jun raised a hand to stop her.

“Both of you monitor the situation from out here. If anything goes wrong, I’ll radio it in.”

Sophia and Leo nodded their assent.
Kang Jun shouldered his tool bag and turned to Max and Dominic beside him.

“Shall we begin the exploration in earnest?”

“Yes, Chief!”

“Been a while since I’ve seen a ship’s underside.”

Site supervisor Max, jack-of-all-trades Dominic, and Kang Jun.
Three skilled laborers climbed the ladder onto the drilling ship.

“You memorized the interior blueprints beforehand, didn’t you, Supervisor Max?”

“Of course, sir. We need to head down toward the tank that keeps the ship balanced. That’s where Bill said the bomb is.”

The three descended the narrow, steep metal staircase endlessly.
With each floor they dropped, a sickening stench of unknown origin assaulted their nostrils.

At last they reached the drilling ship’s lower depths.
At the far end of a corridor enclosed by massive steel plating, a heavy circular iron door appeared.

“That tank in there is where the problem Waste Oil is pooling. It’s the Balance Tank.”

Max adjusted his mask and spoke with a tense expression. Dominic seized the Handle of the Iron Door.

“Nngh!”

Dominic’s forearms bulged for an instant. Soon the Handle of the rusted Iron Door began to turn slowly.

Creeeeak—creak—creak—creak! Bang!

The firmly sealed tank door swung open.

“Cough, cough! What—what is that smell!”

“Ugh! It reeks like rotten eggs!”

The moment the door opened, a sickening stench billowed out.

Even Max, who had seen countless horrors at job sites, couldn’t suppress the urge to retch and clapped his hand over his mouth. Dominic’s eyes welled with tears.

Kang Jun furrowed one eyebrow and switched on his Flashlight.

“So this is the true nature of the poison Blackwood was trying to dump.”

As the beam of the Flashlight swept across the inside of the tank, a horrifying sight revealed itself.

A vast, murky swamp lay before them—seawater turned black, crude oil sludge, metal shavings, and heavy metal chemicals all clumped together into a single mass.

“Good Lord… so this is what Bill was talking about. This isn’t just Waste Oil anymore—it’s completely solidified.”

Max muttered in shock. Kang Jun pulled the Walkie-talkie from his shoulder and pressed the switch.

“Static—Sophia, do you copy? We’ve confirmed the site.”

[Static—Yes, Director. Standing by on the Barge. How does it look?]

“It couldn’t be worse. Water and oil, sludge—all of it’s fused together.”

A brief silence crackled through the Walkie-talkie, and then Sophia’s urgent voice came through.
She had made a point of researching information about the Drilling Ship before coming here.

[This is… Director, if my research is correct, that’s a Malignant Emulsion.]

“A Malignant Emulsion?”

[Water and oil don’t mix—that’s common knowledge. But when crude oil and chemical compounds get churned together under wave pressure, they solidify into a microscopic particulate form.]

Max and Dominic’s pupils trembled as they listened to Sophia’s explanation.

[In that state, conventional methods won’t separate the water and oil. The only way is to heat it to extreme temperatures and pour in specialized chemicals.]

Sophia swallowed hard and continued.

[That’s why Blackwood held out even after paying the fines. Processing a Malignant Emulsion like this would cost the price of an entire ship—no, possibly more! We’ve just inherited a ten-million-dollar time bomb!]

The moment Sophia finished her briefing, Leo’s scream erupted over the Walkie-talkie.

[Oh, for heaven’s sake! That’s exactly why I said that snake Julian would never hand it over without a fight! Ten million dollars… we’d drain everything we’ve made so far and it still wouldn’t be enough!]

Inside the darkened tank and across the barge, the atmosphere froze in an instant.

Waste Oil that couldn’t be separated without state-of-the-art chemical equipment.

But.

“A chemical plant? Specialized treatment compounds?”

Kang Jun let out a scoff and tossed off the gloves he’d been wearing.

“Sophia, I’ll be honest — I don’t know much about complicated chemical formulas. The answer to any unsolvable problem is to solve it the most crude way possible!”

[Wait? Malignant Emulsion can’t be broken down by ordinary methods….]

“Do you know what happens to a paint can frozen solid in winter, and then thawed?”

Kang Jun’s abrupt question met only silence from the other end of the walkie-talkie. He continued.

“The sediment sinks to the bottom, while only the water and oil layer float on top. No matter how badly the emulsion has set, when the water expands into ice crystals, it shatters the bond between the oil and sediment.”

But as Kang Jun finished speaking, he made a slight raising gesture with both hands toward Dominic and Max.

“Unfortunately, there’s nothing I can do about that right now. Let’s get outside and think this through.”

As the two turned to leave, Kang Jun added a quick remark.

“Oh! I forgot to take a sample of the Waste Oil. You two head out first — I’ll catch up shortly.”

“Sir, don’t stay in there too long. The gas might knock you out.”

Kang Jun confirmed the two had exited the tank, then placed his hand against the outer wall.

[Skill Activated: Pulse of the Earth (Lv.2)]
[Hidden Bonus Effect Unlocked: Earth’s Cooling is now active!]

Flash—!!

A pale, cutting cold erupted from Kang Jun’s palm.

Twenty degrees below zero. The extreme-cold energy poured outward, gnawing at Kang Jun’s stamina.
White breath clouded from his lips.

Crack! Pop-pop-pop—! Boom!

Hundreds of tons of foul-reeking Waste Oil began transforming into black ice in an instant.
It was the brute-force implementation of the Freeze-Thaw Method.

“Nngh….”

Kang Jun didn’t lift his hand until the water had completely crystallized into ice and expanded.

“Now… all that’s left is to wait.”

The tank had become a massive ice box. Kang Jun collapsed in front of it, breathing hard.

* * *

The next day at noon.
The blazing sun beat down on the waters off Long Beach Harbor.

Kang Jun, Max, and Dominic descended once more to the tanks beneath the drilling ship.

Kang Jun opened the iron door of the tank and swept his flashlight across the interior. In that instant, everyone who glimpsed what lay within froze in shock.

“Oh… my God…! How did this happen…?”
“It’s impossible! What on earth occurred in a single night?”

The sludge that had clung together like mayonnaise only yesterday had vanished as if by magic.

Instead, the tank now held a liquid separated with precision into exactly three distinct layers.

At the bottom lay sediment laden with heavy metals and sand, while the middle layer had formed into glistening seawater.

And at the very top, an amber-hued layer of oil, purified of its impurities, floated gleaming above the rest.

“This is nothing short of a miracle! A genuine miracle!”

Max rubbed his eyes repeatedly, unable to believe what he was seeing.

“They say the climate’s been acting strange lately. It seems things fell into place in the most extraordinary way!”

Kang Jun put on an exaggerated expression of astonishment, feigning surprise with practiced ease. Then he quickly activated the walkie-talkie on his shoulder.

“Sophia, Leo. Are you all set?”

[Yes, sir! The steel pipes, waterproof tarpaulin, and submersible motor you mentioned yesterday are all standing by!]

“Excellent. We’re heading up now.”

Kang Jun’s group made their way back to the barge without delay. The deck was heaped with construction materials of the sort you’d find on any ordinary building site.

“Sir. How are you planning to extract the separated oil? Don’t you think we’d need some sort of filtration pump?”

At Sophia’s question, Kang Jun smiled with unhurried confidence.

“A pump? Of course we need one. Why don’t we build it ourselves?”

Kang Jun began moving at lightning speed.

[Skill activated: Human Protractor]
[Skill activated: Craftsman’s Grip Strength (Lv.2)]

Golden gridlines bloomed across Kang Jun’s vision. He crisscrossed the steel pipes while tightening the clamps with an inhuman grip strength that defied measure.

In just thirty minutes, a swimming pool frame spanning over ten meters in both directions stood complete atop the barge.

Once he draped it with specialized waterproof tarpaulin and lashed it with rope, a makeshift containment pool capable of holding hundreds of tons of liquid took shape.

“The pool is finished. Now let’s extract the oil.”

Kang Jun submerged one end of a corrugated hose—thick as a forearm—into the uppermost oil layer of the drilling ship’s tank. He stretched the other end in a long arc toward the empty pool on the barge.

The oil layer in the tank sat positioned exactly two meters higher than the empty pool on the barge.

“Wait? The oil rises on its own without even a motor?”

At Leo’s puzzled question, Kang Jun placed his mouth to the hose’s end and drew in a single, powerful breath.

Thanks to the attributes bestowed by the system, the suction force of Kang Jun’s inhalation transcended the bounds of human possibility. Clear oil flooded seamlessly through the long hose.

“It’s the Principle of Siphon, as they call it. With nothing but gravity and a pressure difference, liquid at a higher level flows naturally down to a lower one. It’s the method used on construction sites when moving oil drums.”

Glug-glug-glug—! Splash-splash-splash!

The moment Kang Jun finished speaking, the oil floating on the surface of the Drilling Ship’s tank began pouring down through the hose.

“Wow… it really does flow down on its own!”

But as the uppermost layer of oil drained away, water and impurities from below began flowing down with it.

Kang Jun, as if he’d been waiting for this moment, set a Steel Drum upright in the middle of the temporary tank and dropped a Submersible Motor inside.

“Now let’s finish this. Dominic, turn on the switch!”

Whirrrrr—!

The Submersible Motor spun, creating a vortex inside the drum.

Centrifugal Separation. The relatively heavier water and impurities were pushed outward, while the lighter oil gathered at the center and rose upward.

The filtered oil began accumulating in the temporary tank through the Piping installed above the drum.

“You managed to complete such a difficult operation with barely any equipment at all?”

Leo let out a cheer at the sight of the oil sloshing inside the tank. Sophia, too, removed her glasses and stuck out her tongue in amazement.

Watching them, Dominic’s eyes shifted into the gleam of a merchant who’d spotted his prey. It was his turn to move.

“Boss! With oil of this quality, it’s top-grade Bunker C Fuel Oil stock!”

Dominic immediately contacted a Black Market dealer from right there.

Hours later, a dealer in a dark suit arrived towing a massive Barge. As he examined the oil in the tank, his pupils dilated in an instant.

“This Waste Oil came from that Drilling Ship? I’d heard Blackwood was having headaches over it, but how did you refine it? I’ll buy all of it!”

He’d transformed the trap Julian had dug into a golden goose, flawlessly.

Kang Jun, pocketing stacks of cash worth hundreds of thousands of dollars, looked down at the now-empty floor of the Drilling Ship.

“All that’s left is removing the lid.”

[Skill Activated: Aesthetics of Destruction (Lv.1)]
[Passive Skill: Craftsman’s Grip Strength (Lv.2) is activated!]

Flash—!
Kang Jun’s pupils tinged a deep crimson.

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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