Chapter 56: Silver Ship Crossing the Sea, Advancing to Resonance

Returning to the lighthouse from the church, Lin Bo lined up the three relics he had harvested this trip.

[Historical reverberation detected. Sacrifice relics to search the spacetime slice repository.]

He was in no hurry. Instead, he held the items in his hand, attempting to listen to their whispered tales. The ring, the jewelry box, and the cloth doll all recounted their memories.

However, Lin Bo failed to perceive even a shred of sound from the historical reverberation. This power maintained absolute silence toward a True Name Mage. If not for the Network prompt, he would have been completely unable to distinguish the reverberation relics from other old objects.

"Confirm sacrifice."

The reverberations of the three relics were extracted one by one, then turned into dust that vanished with a breath of wind. Even gold, deemed eternal and immortal, shattered just the same, ultimately leaving no trace behind.

[Collected reverberation: Pure Love Jewelry Box]
Reverberation Level: Faint
Affinity: Gems 49%, Blood Kin 30%, Disease 21%
Description: A jewelry box crafted by a jeweler for his daughter before his death. Unable to fill the box with genuine gold and silver jewels, he could only stuff it with some pretty beach stones, yet his daughter still loved it very much.

[Collected reverberation: Bereavement Wedding Ring]
Reverberation Level: Faint
Affinity: Misfortune 44%, Beloved 36%, Covenant 20%
Description: A husband stepped into the ring of a civilian sword-fighting competition and lost his right hand. His wife worked in a gold smelting plant, going mad from long-term inhalation of mercury vapor. The husband bought gold to forge into a ring, placing it on his wife's finger. There was no parting in life between them.

[Collected reverberation: Companion Cloth Doll]
Reverberation Level: Faint
Affinity: Spirituality 55%, Childhood 33%, Friendship 12%
Description: A boy believed he had an invisible friend who spoke through the cloth doll. Years later, owing to his lifelike ventriloquism, the boy became a celebrated master of puppet theater.

Among the three reverberations, the one that surprised Lin Bo the most was the Companion Cloth Doll. "Spirituality" was an attribute strongly correlated with miraculous power. Additionally, the "Misfortune" of the Bereavement Wedding Ring was also an affinity linked to the extraordinary, carrying a relatively high probability of drawing a magic-side dungeon.

He considered whether he should immediately consume these two reverberations.

Yet with merely a faint level, drawing a tier 1-3 dungeon ultimately could not fundamentally solve his problems.

Lin Bo's professional level had stagnated for over two weeks, and for the time being, he still saw no possibility of progressing further.

Through a magic-side dungeon, finding the spellcaster community would mean little more than a richer variety of trade goods and an elevated level of scholarly knowledge. But no matter how thick and deep one's foundation was, it would still remain buried beneath the earth.

Better to wait for the person suspected to be of the Sea Folk to arrive in Stone Tower Town and inquire about the whereabouts of the Sea God Church relics. A whale skeleton imbued with mana would be sufficient to bear a higher-level reverberation.

Even if that Sea Folk individual had no relevant clues, Lin Bo had already dispatched a Monastic Order merchant to Golden Shell to purchase whalebone artifacts, and news would be sent back shortly.

As for the money needed to acquire the artifacts, although the disaster coins on hand were not abundant, converting them into gold would yield a considerable sum.

"Then I'll wait a bit longer." Lin Bo put away his Network panel, preparing to continue building the East Cliff Grottoes, but after a brief thought, he still felt somewhat uneasy about that Sea Folk individual.

Beings who had never touched the open ocean could hardly appreciate her fickleness and ruthlessness. Even though that island was no more than three hundred li away from Stone Tower Town, relying on a crude boat and even with a completely smooth, following wind, it would still take about twenty hours to make landfall.

Gigantic waves, getting lost, and water shortages could strip away the lonely life of a sailor at any moment.

To ensure this person's life remained secure, it was necessary for him to go out to sea himself.

Lin Bo looked at the sky. The sun hung in the center of the firmament. He listened closely to the low murmurs of the waves, which told the mage that the coming days would be entirely clear, with no storms in the nearby waters.

He spoke to the waves, asking if they could locate a solitary boat sailing toward the lighthouse.

Yet the waves could not answer this question; the target was too insignificant. Even a ten-thousand-ton giant vessel sailing across the ocean's surface was no different from a speck of plankton.

Therefore, Lin Bo activated his reconnaissance flock of birds.

The Little King transmitted his command to the East Cliff Grottoes, and the gathered birds took flight with a great rustle, spreading a search net toward the vast sea.

The Night Watchman stepped out of the lighthouse and came to the pebble beach at the edge of the headland, gazing out at the boundless ocean.

Long-distance journeys were not suited for flying travel; his spell power could not sustain it, so it was best to find a vehicle.

Lin Bo opened a dungeon teleportation passage by the seaside, hauled a large quantity of steel plates out of the ancient mechanical factory, and piled them on the shore. In less than a quarter of an hour, he reshaped them into a slender rowboat.

He sat down near the stern, donning the Visage of the Mage to observe his surroundings, and chanted the True Name of the waves. The billows suddenly surged ashore like galloping steeds, lifting the hull and engulfing it into the sea.

The rowboat was pushed forward by the surging tide, as swift and light as a flying arrow. The dome of heaven and the ocean were azure, and the sunlight was warm and enthusiastic. Lin Bo slightly adjusted his sitting posture, leaning back more comfortably.

On the sea surface hundreds of li away from him, two dugout canoes were tied bow to stern with ropes. The trailing boat held a few jars filled with fresh water, some berries, and a few smoked fish, while the leading boat seated a bearded, disheveled man who was rowing hard, his bare white skin sunburned to a brilliant red.

He had set out since dawn and had been rowing continuously all morning.

"Live, you must live!"

With pale lips, hard-to-bear low fever, and fatigue and weakness permeating his body and mind, he used speech as the driving force for his muscles.

"Viren Pearl, you will not die today, you will not die here!"

The man used his gaze like iron nails, driving them fiercely into a whalebone statue placed at the bow. This was an ancient relic he had found in the shrine of an abandoned Sea Folk village. He had insisted on bringing it aboard for the sake of divine blessing.

"Holy Father, Kind Mother, Warrior, Artisan, Elder, or perhaps you, Sea God. I don't care who it is, any god that lets me live is a good god!"

Driven by a fierce desperation, he swung his oars repeatedly, trying to expel the sickness and weakness entrenched within his body. This willpower indeed squeezed out extra strength, and for a fleeting moment, the man even felt as though he had recovered.

Suddenly, a blur crossed his eyes, and his hands and feet lost sensation as if snapped strings. He fainted outright, the oars slipping from his hands and dropping into the ocean.

Two faces surfaced within his dark mind: the worried face of the plump mayor of Stone Tower Town and the cowardly face of the bald owner of the old street. They issued persuasion with distant sighs: "Do not go out to sea. A hurricane is coming."

"Who told you that?" another young voice demanded in his mind.

"It is the Night Watchman. You do not know that he is favored by the Five Gods. Since you refused to heed advice, it is predestined that you will die upon the sea." The faces of the mayor and the shop owner blurred together, turning twisted and terrifying, resembling skulls.

"Ah!" Startled awake from his fainting spell, Viren Pearl sat up, his hands grasping only to find no oars. "No, no... no!"

He punched at the air, snot and tears bursting forth all at once. He howled in agony on the boat for over three hundred seconds until he exhausted his strength and finally calmed down.

After the wave-like despair receded, nothing remained enshrouding Viren Pearl's heart except peace. Knowing that he could not escape death, he was no longer captured by fear.

He began to recall the experiences of the past few days: drifting to an uninhabited island, finding the abandoned village of the Sea Folk, gathering food to prepare for the voyage home, staking everything on a single throw for survival. The ending did not seem very pretty; had he stayed on the island, he might have lived a few days longer.

Gazing at the azure sky, the shifting sun warmly roasting his aching body, and the circling seagulls—an hour ago, Viren would have wanted nothing more than to catch and eat these fat birds, but now, he merely watched their free postures.

"How beautiful... Have you come to see me off?"

The few seagulls overhead landed, perching on the gunwale and leaning in to inspect him. They let out a few caws, and one of them flew up and headed east, as if reporting to someone.

It didn't matter. Unless the seagulls could summon the gods, who could rescue him in this boundless sea?

More and more seagulls appeared within Viren's vision, making even him, trapped in philosophical contemplation, feel a sense of strangeness.

The cries of the flock grew increasingly clear and loud, possessing a distinct rhythm like the drumbeats of a military band or the hymns of a choir, welcoming the descent of something.

They circled neatly in the air like a whirlpool, resembling a pure white eye gazing down at the ocean. Viren Pearl could not help sitting up, peering directly beneath where the flock flew in circles.

On the distant sea surface, a slender, dazzling silver ship sailed over, escorted by galloping waves. Standing at the stern was a figure draped in a cloak, whose deep, pitch-black skull visage watched the distressed vison from afar.

He stared blankly as the skull visage drew closer. When the silver ship stopped, the waves around the hull dispersed, and the water surface was smoothed flat by an invisible force like a mirror. The vast, desolate sea wind blew past, stirring up nothing more than fine ripples resembling skin wrinkles.

For the first twenty-nine years of his life, Viren Pearl had not believed in miracles in this world.

The three-eyed skull upon the silver ship extended a hand toward the mortal.

Viren knelt silently, cautiously grasping that palm. The texture returned to him was solid, warm, and dry.

This was not the Grim Reaper.

Lin Bo pulled the vison onto his own boat. By now, the iron boat had been baked warm by the autumn sun. He retrieved a mechanic's vest and a windbreaker from his backpack and handed them to the shivering, wandering vison kneeling on the boat.

"Th-thank you!" Viren spoke in a hoarse voice, trembling as he put on the clothes.

The three-eyed skull nodded slightly, its attention drawn to a whalebone statue on the dugout canoe. The statue was only a foot long, and the image of the sea god was that of a woman with a ferocious visage.

[Historical reverberation detected. Sacrifice relics to search the spacetime slice repository.]

Holding the whalebone statue in his hand, a faint, elusive sound of tides echoed by his ears. He could be certain that this was the advanced reverberation he needed.

He looked at the dazed Viren beside him, raising the statue in his hand. The other party immediately said, "This is my offering to you, please take it!"

A gust of wind drifted out from beneath the mask.

"Confirm sacrifice."

[Collected reverberation: Sea God Shrine Statue]
Level: Minor
Affinity: Religion 56%, Ocean 40%, Spirituality 4%
Description: Crafted by the last batch of sea god priests evacuating their homeland before stepping onto their sailing ship, meant to kindle the spark of faith on a new island and witness the rise and fall of the village.

The billows rose, bearing the silver ship away toward the east.