Chapter 254: Section 42: Son, go ahead!
“We found a survivor up ahead!”
Soon after, the crowd gathered around the survivor.
The survivor had already passed out.
He was a skinny old man, his face full of deep wrinkles, with sunken eyes and prominent cheekbones. His sparse hair was grizzled, like a flickering candle in the wind.
Grey stepped forward cautiously to examine him, “He’s a regular person, with no injuries, but he’s in poor condition. He probably passed out from hunger.”
Since he wasn’t a Transcendent, the crowd somewhat relaxed.
However, Cang Xu remained skeptical, “There are no ports or fishing villages near the Magnetic Island. How did a regular person get here? This place isn’t safe.”
“Continue searching nearby. Next, let’s wake this old man up,” the Dragon-man youth ordered.
The crowd carried Healing Potions with them.
Little Bird stepped forward, pried open the old man’s mouth, and poured down a small red Healing Potion.
The old man’s eyes remained closed, and he did not wake up.
“From what I’ve heard, certain monks in the Eastern Empire practice a very delicate and subtle way of controlling their Fighting Energy. If we had that kind of energy, we could help this old man quickly absorb the nutrients from the potion and wake up,” Little Bird said regretfully.
The assembled pirates could only wait.
The Fighting Energy of Grey, combined with his Rat-man Bloodline, caused injury when transferred into a Human Race body.
The Dragon-man youth’s Blast Fighting Energy was bursting by nature, precision and subtlety were where this energy was weakest. In fact, even his prior Bai He Fighting Energy couldn’t achieve such a delicate manipulation.
As for Di Lou, he was a Spellcaster. Like Cang Xu, they both had to maintain their condition to deal with emergencies. Spells were much more flexible and widely applicable than Fighting Energy.
“Sir, we found a boat! It must be the survivor’s dinghy.”
Everyone rushed over and saw a damaged lifeboat. Most of its body had disappeared, leaving only the bow.
“This old man is really lucky to have made it to the Magnetic Island. He might be a survivor of a shipwreck.”
“I think he’s rather unlucky. He barely escaped with his life, making it to land, only to end up in the Magnetic Islands!”
When night had completely fallen, and the temporary camp had just been set up, pirates reported to the Dragon-man youth—the old man had woken up.
“I originally was a fisherman from White Wings Port. The nobles’ excessive taxes were unbearable, so I joined a pirate ship to earn a living. Then, a bigger pirate group attacked us and defeated our fleet. I was near the lifeboat when the ship sunk, and I desperately climbed aboard.”
“Ah, who had time to grab food and water in an escape? Then a storm hit, and few sailors on the small boat remained. Later, we encountered sharks…”
“I don’t even remember how I got ashore. I just remember passing out from hunger on the boat.”
“Thank you for saving my life, but I…,” the old man spread his hands with a sorrowful expression, “I’m afraid I can’t repay you anything.”
“Saving you wasn’t for the sake of a reward,” the Dragon-man youth shook his head.
“Haha, old man, consider yourself lucky to have encountered our Justice Pirate Group,” Little Bird laughed heartily.
“Justice… Pirate Group?” The old man was baffled, how could these two polar opposite words be linked together?
“What was the name of the pirate group you joined? And who attacked you?” Cang Xu asked.
The old man’s answer startled everyone.
The pirate group he joined was inconsequential, but the attackers were the Silver Hook Pirates!
“How are Silver Hook’s people around here?” the crowd exchanged confused looks.
A Sea Chart of the Night Spirit Sea Domain simultaneously emerged in everyone’s mind.
The latest news they got was that Silver Hook’s people had attacked an Empire supply ship. Although the exact location of the robbery was unknown, the closest point on the route to the Magnetic Island was still a considerable distance away.
“Those people are really audacious, aren’t they? Robbing an Empire supply ship and daring to wander around out here!”
“If we aren’t looking for them, and they come to us instead. What do we do?”
“Could their target also be the Magnetic Island?”
The leaders were all somewhat astonished.
Silver Hook Pirates’ power exceeded that of the Justice Pirate Group. Entangling with them was unwise.
The Dragon-man youth furrowed his brow.
His true purpose here was not to search for treasures on the Magnetic Island, but to verify if this location hid the temple of Mei Lan, the mermaid god.
Since Mei Lan’s original form was a mermaid, Her temples are rarely built on land; most are under the sea.
Currently, the state of this foreign Sea God was dire, with very few of Her temples left around. However, Her Main Temple remained hidden, with no news of it being found or destroyed.
It was almost certain that Her Main Temple was somewhere underwater. The Sea Chart obtained from the underwater secret chamber by the Dragon-man youth also confirmed this guess.
A cunning Desecration Priest was also targeting Mei Lan, having researched for a long time and marked several major suspect locations on the active sea chart. He had already infiltrated among the Mei Lan Believers, and might already be at the Mei Lan temple.
To replenish the Divinity of the Mermaid’s Fairy Tale, the Dragon-man youth and his team had to find the Mei Lan temple quickly. If they couldn’t hitch a ride with the Pagans, they would have to probe each location.
After some research, the group determined Magnetic Island was the most worthwhile suspect location to explore.
The target of Silver Hook’s group might not necessarily be Magnetic Island. Even if it was, they might not necessarily have a conflict with them. After all, the terrain of Magnetic Island was ever-changing and incredibly complex.
Falling back, the Dragon-man youth considered the worst-case scenario—they would clash with Silver Hook Pirates.
“Even if we can’t defeat them, we can still manage to escape.”
After pondering for a moment, the Dragon-man Captain gave the order: “Inform Zong Ge of this important intelligence and tell him to be more vigilant. The exploration team will continue exploring the island, and to save time, an elite squad will explore overnight.”
“One night should be enough to confirm whether the Main Temple of Mei Lan’s Divinity is hidden here,” the Dragon-man youth said, not confident in himself but confident in the Deep Sea Monster Fish and Mermaid’s Fairy Tale.
Although the Deep Sea Monster Fish was an Alchemy Ship created by an Alchemy Grandmaster, its alchemy technology was extremely advanced, allowing it to freely explore under the Magnetic Islands.
With Mermaid’s Fairy Tale at its core, an Array for detection had been set up inside the Monster Fish. As soon as it approached Mei Lan’s temple, the Array would react.
That very night, the Dragon-man youth, Cang Xu, Big guy, and others continued to venture out to explore, while Little Bird and Di Lou stayed behind to guard the temporary camp, and the man in grey returned to the pirate ship to help Zong Ge mainly prevent threats from the Silver Hook.
Cang Xu took out the greed Divine Finger.
The Divine Finger, hanging from a rope, trembled and turned directions tremulously.
Following this direction, the elite squad gradually moved away from the temporary camp.
Before long, they found a gathering place of Earth Element creatures.
The limitation of the greed Divine Finger was precisely this.
The bone contained greed Divinity, but like Mermaid’s Fairy Tale, everyone could only use it rudely.
Being overly greedy, the Divine Bone would point towards anything of value.
It naturally included Earth Elements containing essence or magnetic stones within its range of direction.
However, it still provided significant help to the exploration team.
At least, it allowed the team to save a lot of time and energy by directly finding the Earth Element colonies.
“Don’t rush to eradicate them. Can you attract one over? Let our Giant get some practice,” the Dragon-man youth said.
Being surrounded by their own, he was less concerned.
Those close by also knew the real purpose of this trip; if they could find treasures using the greed Divine Bones, that would be ideal. It was normal not to find anything.
The authenticity of these treasure rumors was hard to distinguish. Even if they were real, the fact that no one had discovered them after being buried so long showed their difficulty.
Although the team had the greed Divine Bones, and despite it being praised as a “Demigod Artifact,” it was still just a piece of Divine Material.
The fourth-generation Pirate King was assassinated and killed, his Divine Bones scattered around the world throughout the long history.
A mere divine finger bone was nothing significant.
It’s very possible that a long, long time ago, someone used other parts of the greed Divine Bones to come to the Magnetic Islands in search.
“Let me handle this,” Cang Xu personally cast a Spell and successfully attracted an Earth Element.
The Earth Element left the colony, and upon seeing everyone, it immediately launched an attack.
“Go, remember the dodging moves I taught you, this is an extremely rare opportunity for real combat,” encouraged the Dragon-man youth to Big guy.
Big guy nervously stepped forward, and although he was larger, his presence was evidently weaker than the Earth Element.
The Earth Element, with its human form, had outstanding defense but was not very powerful in attack.
And it moved slowly.
Big guy exchanged blows with it. At first, he took a few punches, but soon he adapted, dodging more and more agilely and even managing to parry occasionally.
“Speaking of which, Big guy hardly had any chance to fight alone on Mysterious Monster Island.”
“He’s got a good physique, though just an ordinary person, his physical condition is comparable to a Silver Fighter. Training him would be very beneficial for us.”
“Don’t forget his madness.”
“Haha, we still have our Captain, don’t we!”
Conversations like this reminded everyone of the days on Mysterious Monster Island, and smiles appeared on their faces.
Back then, the knight youth was specifically guarding the ship-building site; whenever Big guy fell ill, the youth would promptly knock him out.
Eventually, the youth got so adept at it that often, at the slightest sign, Big guy would be knocked unconscious, rendering him completely incapable of resistance. Many people ended up feeling somewhat sympathetic towards Big guy in the end.
Practical combat made Big guy improve rapidly; the Earth Element was quite a suitable opponent for him.
Encouraged continuously by his father, Big guy fought more and more bravely.
Sensing danger, the Earth Element finally gave up fighting alone and let out a roar, alarming the entire colony.
A large number of Earth Elements charged over.
Just as the Dragon-man youth was about to take action, Cang Xu volunteered, “Let me handle this.”
Undead Magic—Chilling Spirit Technique!
After brewing the Spell, it was successfully cast.
Translucent gray ripples spread outwards in waves.
The Earth Elements struck by this Spell suddenly stalled in their momentum, their bodies flailing wildly.
After about ten breaths, their forms collapsed and dispersed into heaps of stones and dirt.
Everyone was astonished.
The killing efficiency of the Undead Magic was so high!
“Undead Magic targets living beings because all living things have souls. Earth Elements are no exception,” Cang Xu explained briefly.
The enemies were unimaginably strong, and the Earth Elements lucky enough to survive hastily retreated.