MTLNOVEL Chapter 643 Taking a Slot
The placeholder session soon ended.
I changed it back before one-thirty in the morning.
Love you all.
The cold wind cut across the face.
Bi Fang stepped out of the cabin, exhaled a breath of cold mist, and shivered all over.
Suddenly entering the bitter winter from the height of summer, even those with strong physiques felt the bone-chilling cold.
By then, Bi Fang had already donned his storm jacket.
This place wasn't Greenland, but Langyel City in the Svalbard Archipelago.
Located at 78 degrees 13 minutes north latitude and 15 degrees 33 minutes east longitude, it is the northernmost city in the world.
Its approximately 1,800 residents are mostly Norwegian, making it the most populous city at the northern tip of the world.
The town also boasts a newspaper— "Svalbard Post", the world's northernmost post office. Discover hidden content at My Virtual Library Empire
Here, Bi Fang was quite close to the northernmost point of Greenland that he intended to visit, only separated by a stretch of the Greenland Sea.
Travelling by ferry, passing through the Fram Strait, he would cover several hundred nautical miles in less than two days to reach his destination.
In fact, Bi Fang could have taken a direct flight to Greenland, but he chose to first visit the Svalbard Archipelago and then take a cruise to Greenland.
One reason was to see the beautiful Svalbard Archipelago.
The scope of the Arctic is vast, referring both to the vicinity of the Arctic Circle and to the North Pole at 90 degrees north latitude.
As a traveler here, one should of course visit the homeland of the polar bear, the Svalbard Archipelago. The place is cold, yet not excessively so; a thick down jacket is more than enough.
Here one could see the aurora during daylight, free-roaming polar bears, Greenland whales, and houses nestled in the snowfields.
With no skyscrapers, this tourist destination is not as crowded as others, conveying a sense of peace.
The reason he didn't wait until after survival was...
Bi Fang suspected that after a hundred days in his current state, he would have no interest in tourism at all. It was better to create some beautiful memories for himself in advance.
The second reason was to give his body a period to adapt.
Going from a hot area with temperatures over thirty degrees to a cold area with temperatures below minus thirty or forty degrees—a temperature difference of over sixty degrees—was a stern test for the body.
Bi Fang had no desire to fall ill right after getting off the plane. Visiting Svalbard as a buffer, with one day of sightseeing and two days on a cruise ship, was enough.
He took out his phone to check the current temperature: minus three degrees.
Walking inside the airport, one could even spot young and beautiful girls exposing their smooth ankles.
He hoped they wouldn't suffer from rheumatism or arthritis in their thirties or forties. Bi Fang sent them his best wishes.
In coastal areas, the high humidity and low temperature made it easy for the cold to penetrate the body, causing significant harm.
"Everyone should keep warm in winter," Bi Fang made a point of advising the audience in the livestream.
Having just disembarked from the plane, Bi Fang had started his livestream, also wanting the viewers to enjoy the natural scenery together.
Perhaps the allure of the Arctic was too strong. It wasn't long before hundreds of thousands of viewers gathered in the livestream.
It's funny; these days have been all about traveling, but the audience in the livestream room has indeed had their fill of excitement, with live broadcasts to watch nearly every day.
And now, less than two days after returning from the Central Country, he was broadcasting again, presenting a completely different scene from the sunny beaches of the Central Country.
It was as if summer had suddenly turned into winter.
Everyone's clothes had become bulkier, especially for the majority of the audience who were still in the midst of the summer season. This feeling was very peculiar, as if they had entered a fairy-tale world.
Stepping out of the airport at Langyel City, the capital of the Svalbard Archipelago, Bi Fang immediately spotted a striking "Tourists Notice."
It was covered with a dense array of prohibitions.
One must not litter, hunt or disturb birds and animals, transplant trees, pick flowers, or damage artifacts here…
[Damn, isn't this a bit too strict?]
[What do you mean by strict...? Shouldn't civilized tourists be doing this anyway?]
So in the audience's mind, shouldn't a tourism city feature a welcoming slogan?
Instead, you are greeted with a list of don'ts, which can be slightly off-putting.
Bi Fang smiled but did not respond; instead, he started telling a story.
"On June 17, 1596, a Dutch exploration fleet caught sight of an island almost entirely covered by ice and snow on the vast sea.
Sheer mountain peaks stood out against the snow.
In that moment, the whole fleet nearly went mad with excitement. This was definitely a new continent, a new land never before discovered by humanity. And this was the first time the Svalbard Archipelago was revealed to the world."
"The adventurer was the Dutch explorer Willem Barentsz."
"Willem found a significant number of Greenland Whale pods in nearby waters at that time, and thus began a three hundred years' history of European nations plundering the whale resources of this ownerless land."
"After that, more and more adventurers arrived here. Especially as the rich mineral resources of the area were discovered, it attracted even more fervent adventurers."
The audience had a faint guess about the following part of the story.
Bi Fang sighed and talked as he walked along the road.
"The universe is vast, and humans have never stopped exploring.
Because of their special geographic locations, places like the Arctic, Antarctica, and the Tibetan Plateau have always drawn people to set foot on those unique lands.
As the most habitable region near the North Pole, the Svalbard Archipelago undoubtedly provides conditions for Arctic exploration."
"In the museum here, there's an engraving created in 1791 that vividly reenacts the scene from that time."
Bi Fang, following the travel guidebook, looked at the engraving.
On the sea, dozens of fishing boats drifted, with whalers thrusting harpoons viciously into whales spouting huge jets of water; ashore, hunters fired their repeater rifles at polar bears and seals.
The gifts of Nature, under human greed, appeared extremely fragile.
All this caused a vast reduction and even near extinction of many local species.
Not until the "Svalbard Treaty" was signed, confirming Norwegian sovereignty, did the local area gradually establish a more complete ecological conservation law, and the environment began to improve.
Destruction is easy, but recovery is extremely difficult.
And it was not something one person could accomplish to restore the Svalbard Archipelago to its original state; it required the collective effort of everyone who came here.
This nearly stringent "Environmental Protection Regulation" is one such effort, and the self-discipline of tourists, residents, and researchers is a major force contributing to environmental change.
Since then, the Archipelago's environment began to be effectively protected.
Only because of this, did Bi Fang see prohibitions instead of a welcoming greeting upon stepping out.
"However, there is actually good news for us Huaxia tourists," Bi Fang said.
Rolling up the travel guide, Bi Fang explained, "On February 9, 1920, Huaxia was among the nations that signed the treaty, which means we have the right to develop this land."
"We can engage in any non-military activities on this land, and citizens can freely enter and leave the Svalbard Archipelago."
"The only problem is that there are only flights from SAS and Norwegian Air from Oslo and Tromsø in Norway, so a Schengen visa is still required."