Chapter 1 The Current Situation

At our current speed, we'll reach the vicinity of Lightwind Port in a day—but that's according to the charts. As for whether the Vanishing Sail is actually in that area, we still need to confirm. After all… this matter is too unbelievable."

The goat-head's tone was grave and hesitant, and Duncan had rarely heard it react this way since he'd met the fellow.

Without a doubt, what was happening to the Vanishing Sail was completely beyond the first mate's experience.

Duncan braced his hands on the edge of the navigation table, his expression solemn as he looked at the slowly rippling fog on the chart. Between the phantom image of the Vanishing Sail and the northern route, large patches of mist floated—that was the route the Vanishing Sail should have taken, but it was still shrouded in fog.

"In the two hours before the sun went out, we skipped the entire voyage from the northern route to the southern seas, and even you don't know how it happened," Duncan said, raising his eyes to look at the goat-head on the edge of the table. "But the White Oak, which was also on the Boundless Sea during the solar eclipse, didn't experience this phenomenon—they're still largely maintaining the correct course."

"I don't know how to explain it either, Captain," the goat-head said, shaking its "head" slightly, looking embarrassed and uneasy. "The Vanishing Sail and the White Oak were both baptized by your flames, but the differences between the two ships are too great, and any difference in detail could be the cause of this phenomenon."

Duncan was silent for a moment, his face stern as he pondered for a few seconds, then he seemed to suddenly remember something, breaking the silence. "When did the chart change?"

"Just this time," the goat-head answered with unusual speed.

"When the sun relit, are you sure?" Duncan knew the other party wouldn't lie to him, but he still asked subconsciously.

"Certain," the goat-head nodded vigorously. "I've been paying attention to everything related to navigation, including the movements of the chart. During the solar eclipse, the chart didn't change at all, as if we were standing still. And after the sun relit, the chart began to show some chaos, like the chaos after each surfacing from the Spirit Realm to the real world. I thought it was just calibrating itself, but I didn't expect that when it stabilized again, it would show the Vanishing Sail near Lightwind Port."

Duncan listened carefully to the goat-head's account, then frowned suddenly. "In other words, this jump most likely happened the moment the sun relit."

The goat-head slowly nodded.

The entire captain's cabin fell into a moment of "silence."

Duncan didn't know what the goat-head was thinking at the moment. He only knew that his mind was now filled with chaotic guesses and countless questions, and all these questions seemed to revolve around one core: what exactly happened to the Boundless Sea during the process of the sun going out and relighting?

At first, he thought it was just a temporary darkness, like the sun rising a few minutes late before. In that delayed dawn, apart from a few people who noticed it feeling nervous and panicked, the whole world seemed to be completely unaffected.

But soon, he discovered that the solar eclipse had caused many strange things—including the interruption of communications between the city-states and the White Oak's observation of bizarre border phenomena.

And now that the sun had relit, he realized that the strange effects of this event were far more than just those. The entire Vanishing Sail had teleported two-thirds of the "journey," arriving directly near Lightwind Port, and Tyrian reported that the other city-states had no idea the sun had ever gone out.

It seemed that, in the switch between the sun going out and lighting up, the whole world had briefly presented some kind of bizarre appearance, with various tear-like disharmonies, and the Vanishing Sail, this ghost ship wandering on the edge of reality, had briefly and clearly crossed this torn rift.

Duncan couldn't help but have a creepy thought. What exactly is the role of the sun?

Is it just to provide light and heat while suppressing the extraordinary and the erosion in this world? What exactly does it suppress?

Or is it the world itself?

"Captain," the goat-head's voice suddenly came from the side, interrupting Duncan's thoughts. "What do we do next? If the Vanishing Sail has really reached the vicinity of Lightwind Port..."

"Should we contact Miss Lucrezia?"

"Confirm the surrounding situation first, don't approach the city-state rashly." Duncan thought for a moment, then couldn't help but think of his previous experiences in Prante and Frost, and subconsciously shook his head. "Let the Vanishing Sail hide in the shadows and the mist, and contact Lucrezia when the time is right."

The goat-head immediately lowered its head. "Yes, Captain."

Duncan nodded, then stepped over to the corner of the room again.

He stood in front of the oval mirror, reaching out to gently knock on the surface. Dark shadows floated in the mirror, and in the blink of an eye, Agatha, dressed as a female adventurer, appeared before him.

"I never thought that my first voyage with you would be such an incredible experience," Agatha said with a sigh. "Just as you said, by setting off with the Vanishing Sail, I will witness all the unbelievable things in this world. My pre-departure imagination was too conservative."

"Feeling overstimulated?"

"It's okay, thankfully I don't have a heart that jumps around at the drop of a hat anymore," Agatha said with a smile. "Next, you need me to keep an eye on the changes in the Spirit Realm, right?"

"The Four Spirit Realms, and those shadows wandering between the Spirit Realm and the real world. If possible, also pay attention to the situation below the sea surface," Duncan said without ceremony. "I always feel that even if the sun relits, the subsequent impact of this event is not over. It's always good to be cautious."

"Understood," Agatha said, putting away her smile and nodding solemnly, "Oh, according to the rules on the ship, I should say, 'Yes, Captain!'" The figure in the mirror gradually dissipated.

Duncan, however, still looked grave, quietly pondering in front of the mirror.

Flying colorful paper scraps spiraled over the streets, through the gaps between the uneven roofs and buildings, and finally flew into a building near the City-State University, into the study of the elven scholar Talan Ehl.

Lucrezia's figure condensed from the colorful paper scraps. In the next second, the Sea Witch frowned in confusion. The elven scholar was nowhere to be seen in the study. "Could he still be stuck on the roof?"

Lucrezia couldn't help but mutter to herself, turning her head to look at the still-open window not far away. But just as she was about to fly onto the roof to confirm whether the elven scholar was still stuck up there, a slightly flustered sound of footsteps suddenly came from the corridor outside, interrupting her actions.

Listening to the movement in the corridor, Lucrezia casually waved at the door not far away. With a bang, the door suddenly opened, and then, a shadow rushed into the corridor in the direction of Lucrezia's finger. There was a brief scream and the sound of falling outside, and after a moment, a trainee who was flailing his arms and desperately trying to stand up was "invited" into the room.

The trainee came in lying down, looking as if he was floating a few centimeters above the ground, but when he stopped in the room, the things that had sent him into the room swarmed out from under him. Countless "toy soldiers" crawled out from under the trainee and quickly lined up on the floor next to him, and then, to the music of drummers and trumpeters, they marched neatly and quickly back into the shadows beside Lucrezia.

The trainee who had been invited into the room looked in horror at the toy soldiers running on the floor, then his gaze fell on the owner of the soldiers and shadows. He looked up at "Lucrezia," who was standing by the window, and finally realized who this vaguely familiar lady was.

"Witch… ah, Lady Lucrezia!"

The trainee quickly rolled over and got up, greeting this great figure shrouded in many legends and halos.

"Good afternoon, good afternoon." As he spoke, the trainee couldn't help but twitch his body suddenly—a small toy soldier crawled out of his pocket, fell to the ground and shattered, but then the toy soldier reassembled, quickly rolled over and ran to his mistress, and burrowed back into the shadows.

Lucrezia didn't care about the young trainee's panic and impoliteness, or the straggling toy soldier, but asked directly, "I'm here to find your teacher, where did he go?"

"I was just about to look for him," the trainee swallowed and quickly replied to the legendary, aloof, and cursing expert, as fickle as the sea, "Someone saw him go to the Cloudflow Tower when the sun went out, from the roof of the university."

Lucrezia raised her eyebrows. "From the roof of the university?"

"Yes… yes, someone saw him. He seemed to be in a great hurry. And he hasn't come back yet, I'm worried something happened to him."

"He's bound to have an accident, going to the roof of the university to climb the walls with a hundred years of frozen shoulder and cervical spondylosis—even as an elf, he shouldn't challenge this extreme sport," Lucrezia said casually, then waved to the young trainee, "I'll go check on his situation—by the way, what's your name?"

The trainee quickly straightened up. "Joshua Dino."

"Okay, I'll tell your teacher to deduct three points from your academic conduct assessment," Lucrezia said.

Joshua was immediately stunned. "Why?"

Lucrezia's figure had already turned into scattered colorful paper scraps, spinning and flying out the window, leaving only a sentence vaguely passing into the young trainee's ears: "No running in the research building."