Chen Qi followed his memory, trudged through the muddy pebble road, and came to his house in Maro Town.
Of course, to call it a house, from a structural standpoint, would be generous—it resembled a dilapidated large barrel, the kind with its lid pried open by a storm.
Creak!
Chen Qi violently pushed the wooden door open with his hand.
Inside the room, apart from a wooden plank bed, an oil lamp without oil, a secondhand "World Strange Illness Guide," and a few clothes, there was nothing else.
"The conditions are a bit poor, but at least there's a bed,"
Chen Qi consoled himself, took off his clothes, and revealed his back.
The tattoo on his back resembled deep blue tentacles, which converged to form a terrifying ghostly visage.
This ghostly back could not be gazed upon by ordinary people!
In this world, there was no such thing as care for the sick, especially for strange illnesses like this; if revealed, it would only incite fear in others.
All in all, no normal person would appreciate this back...
Wait, followers of a cult that worshiped the deep sea might actually like this back, as a being able to be parasitized by a Sea Beast without dying is the perfect sacrifice to fulfill their desires.
Hmm... and there are those with a taste for the macabre, like crows.
Chen Qi then picked up the dusty clothes from the floor, dusted them off, put them on, and casually grabbed some torn clothes to use as a blanket.
He was in the pioneering stage of the game and had to make do.
As the effects of Yellow Needle ended, he could feel a distinct muscle soreness.
There was a sense of being hollowed out and fatigued.
"Sleep!"
Chen Qi said as he collapsed into bed.
Creak!
The impact of his fall completely collapsed the bed, which was on its last legs.
The bed's quality was worse than he had imagined.
Chen Qi felt the cold sensation on his back and slowly closed his eyes.
When I earn my first sum of money in the crack, I'll have to get a bed that can withstand some flipping around...
...
...
At night, the storm once again battered the small island town.
When Chen Qi got up, he heard the curses of the fisherman's wife next door; she no longer wanted to stay in this shithole of a place and was even thinking of selling the house to move to the big city.
The fisherman predicted that with the recent increase in storms, Maro Town was becoming less suitable for living, making it the perfect time to sell the house.
"This timing of entry..."
The Age of Great Voyages was about to begin, and Maro Town would be an excellent starting point.
Chen Qi thought this as he headed to Maro Town's herbal medicine shop.
He exchanged the painkillers from his backpack for some money.
The Black Whale Group's painkillers were a rare, potent type on the market, with special added ingredients.
One bottle sold for a thousand Shell Coins.
In Maro Town, a common fisherman's monthly income was four thousand Shell Coins.
A thousand Shell Coins were enough to guarantee his food and warmth for a few days.
But for someone on the path to becoming Transcendent, this amount of money wouldn't even cause a ripple.
Chen Qi clutched the crumpled coins and headed straight for the docks.
Just like on Earth, in this world, money was needed for anything and everything.
And he had a very troublesome issue: he lacked a boat.
The small boat he had snagged from the Black Whale Group had become battered and barely seaworthy under the onslaught of the storm.
Ultimately, it was an emergency lifeboat.
Taking others' boats would mean wasting a lot of time.
He had to have a new boat; the best option was to rent one, which was undoubtedly a significant expense.
Hopefully, Maro Town would have a decent boat available.
The dock was crowded with fishermen, fishmongers, ship repairmen, and even the mayor of Maro Town.
Suddenly, he heard sighs of despair around him.
"The weather is utterly unpredictable; how can we go out to sea like this?"
"What does the weather matter? I heard someone saw the Black Whale pirate group's Sawshark near the coast; how can we go out to sea with that looming?"
"Pirates? The deep sea creatures are the scariest. I heard that a large fishing boat spotted the dominator of the near sea!
Fortunately, that sea dominator wasn't hungry, or else the ten or so people on the fishing boat would've been done for."
"The dominator of the near sea? I hear someone saw the Witch and a nameless monster on a passenger ship from the Golden Flower Bird Kingdom."
"..."
Chen Qi's ears perked up; their information was quite rich.
The dominator of the near sea, the Black Whale Group, the Witch...
The first two were pieces of intelligence he was aware of.
As for the Witch...
The Witch was an important character in the main storyline of the Witch Sea and an extremely mysterious entity. According to some players' speculation, this point in time was when the Flower Witch should have just arrived at the Witch Sea, and the Blade Witch should have been created.
But at the current moment, early in the game's timeline, no one would bother with the Witch's business.
With the strength they had now, getting involved in related matters was tantamount to suicide.
Before he knew it, he had arrived at where the boats were moored.
Chen Qi lifted his head; the sea breeze under the sun was always so comfortable.
Last night's storm led to many marine accidents, and the mood was not great.
But even so, for the sake of a livelihood, those who needed to fish still had to fish; life had to go on.
Many were preparing to set out to sea.
Chen Qi surveyed the ships before him.
The urgent task was to find a ship suitable for heading to the crack.
"Clunky big ships won't do, this one's already damaged, that one looks too expensive..."
Chen Qi muttered in his head.
"Wait!"
Just then, a small, steel-built travel boat caught his eye.
It was a steel-powered boat, not large, consisting of a small cabin and the hull.
Smooth lines, a steel-cast sturdy hull—