In the blink of an eye, many days had passed.
To the north of the East Coast in the Luobu Kingdom, a white three-masted sailing ship drifted atop the ocean, its sails billowed by the strong sea breeze, propelling the vessel forward.
Richard stood on the deck of the ship, staring at the sea, his eyes twinkling with a look of deep thought.
Since receiving the Clown’s gift, it had already been over a month, during which his life had been fairly mundane.
The only thing worth mentioning was that after receiving the Clown’s gift, he encountered the Blue Feather Trading Group, which was traveling by night.
At the time of meeting the Blue Feather Trading Group, Richard was somewhat puzzled, since he had been delayed nearly a week helping Princess Rose and testing the Clown, so how could the Blue Feather Trading Group possibly still be behind him?
After an explanation from Bade, the leader of the Merchant Group, Richard understood the situation.
Initially, the Blue Feather Trading Group had suffered losses from a Thief attack, but were eventually rescued by the army of the Black Holy Mountain Kingdom, leaving them just barely breathing. After expressing their gratitude to Princess Rose, the individuals of the Blue Feather Trading Group had not spared any effort to gather their goods and carriages and quickly departed the border, arriving in a city in the Black Holy Mountain Kingdom for repairs.
This repair took several days, not only to treat some of the injured but also to fix the damaged carriages, hire missing staff, and buy horses that had been killed by the Thief Group, leaving the Merchant Group Leader, Bade, wishing he could split himself in half— to act as two.
Fortunately, after a few days, they had finished.
However, once they were finished, Bade dared not relax. He led the caravan hurriedly on their way, hoping to arrive in the north early and sell their goods so he might not lose money.
Considering that the faster they moved, the greater the chance of breaking even and possibly being the first among all the traders to reach the "Sea Area Blockade" in the north, where the so-called "Hot-selling Goods" could be sold at a high price, might even earn them a fortune. The Merchant Group Leader Bade risklessly led the caravan into the darkness, and that’s when they met him.
After that, there was nothing more worthy of mention. Unsure whether it was out of compensation or the thought of earning another sum, Bade invited him to join them once again, and he had agreed.
Then came nearly a month of land journey.
Taking almost a month, the merchant caravan traced a large arc overland, finally circling around the Luobu Kingdom to a northern port—Naga Port.
At Naga Port, he parted ways with the Blue Feather Trading Group, with the Trading Group boarding a trading vessel headed towards "Ice Asia" — the Brusk, while he boarded the current "Bernicla" — symbolizing an unsinkable island, specifically shuttling between Mo’er Port and Naga Port.
Up to now, the "Bernicla" had also been sailing for nearly ten days, and together with the previous journey on land, more than a month had passed.
Clearly, it had been a long and monotonous month.
In this month, the things he did could be summarized in three main activities.
The first, was constantly reading the books and materials obtained from the treasure of Undead Island, reflecting seriously, seeking valuable, researchable knowledge that might yield some results.
After some effort, he indeed found a few, but the specifics of how to implement them required more time to sort out.
The second, was studying Pandora’s mysterious new abilities.
The so-called mysterious new ability of Pandora, was when she had left Eden and mentioned specific locations related to the Clown’s gifts—south, a day’s journey.
He had first encountered the White Crow at that location, and his guess was not wrong, but Pandora’s certainty made him ponder the reasons behind it.
Moreover, what Pandora initially said, that his lost item was there, seemed to affix that the White Feather delivered by the Clown belonged to him.
What was this situation?
A casual statement directly affecting the real world?
Or alternatively considering, was it Pandora sensing some special information, thereby speaking the so-called prophecy.
Prophecy! Prediction Ability!
After pondering, he believed that prophecy might just be Pandora’s miraculous new ability.
The strongest basis for this belief was when Pandora’s father—Giant Dragon Gregory, exhibited unusual behavior shortly before he left the forest and before the arrival of the wizard from the Mysterious Organization, as if he had a premonition of something.
According to his guess, Giant Dragon Gregory probably had a premonition of the wizard’s arrival, sensing the difficulty of escaping, which is why he decided to entrust Pandora to him.
Pandora’s capability might just be a genetic ability of this sort. However, due to her youth, this ability was not fully developed and was only showing slight signs, occasionally playing some non-critical roles. Only with slow nurturing could she become as strong as Gregory, or even surpass him.
This idea was confirmed in the subsequent tests he ran with Pandora: Pandora’s new ability indeed had a profound connection with prophecy, though the times it failed were more frequent than the times it succeeded. For now, at most, this ability served as a reference; relying solely on it would definitely lead to major losses.
In fact, in his view, prophecy was a very mysterious matter, a single sentence could have two entirely different interpretations. For instance, the famous prophecy "the one who will destroy Qin is Hu" could refer to the Hu people or to Qin Ershi Hu Hai, and perhaps it could be interpreted in even more ways.
Depending solely on prophecy to determine the outcome of an event was too absolute, after all, the world was complex.
He decided, until the principle behind the real prophecy magic in the Wizard World was clarified, even the most accurate prophecies should only be taken as references, not as absolute truths.
After these considerations came the third matter.
During this month, in addition to studying knowledge and Pandora, the third thing he did was research the Clown’s gift—the White Feather.
The White Feather was a reward he had painstakingly obtained, spending four days in duration and immeasurable effort. If after obtaining this reward it proved to be of no use, it would be an enormous waste, so he conducted many tests on the White Feather—more than the tests run on Pandora.
However, no matter how many tests he ran, he could not discern the purpose of this White Feather. At most, he observed occasional changes in weight and temperature of the White Feather. The reasons behind these changes and how to replicate them remained elusive, leaving him hoping to further study it over a long period after reaching Mo’er.
Considering the distance, he should be nearing Mo’er Port by now, right?
With this thought, Richard suddenly snapped back to reality on the deck, but before he could take any action, the lookout who had been staying on the ship’s mast suddenly slid down the rope quickly, running towards the Captain’s Room. While running, he shouted loudly, "Captain! Captain! The water ahead has changed, we’re entering a new Sea God’s domain! We’re entering a new Sea God’s domain!"