A week passed and only a few days remained before Anton’s eighteenth birthday. Normally, the month of December would be devastatingly cold. Still, because they were approaching the part of the ocean that was near the equator, the temperature was high, almost like the temperature of a place somewhere in the tropics. According to Phillip, after a couple of months, they would reach their next stop, which was a gorgeous set of islands that was warm all through the year with a lot of palm and coconut trees, waterfalls, and white sand beaches.
Anton couldn’t wait to reach that island because it sounded heavenly and a perfect spot for a vacation. Another good news was, that the Amelia would rest there for a couple of weeks. That meant that they would have the time to explore those beautiful islands that everyone was talking about.
During the week that had gone by, they encountered another fierce storm that lasted for twenty-four hours. It was so fierce that a lot of people encountered severe sea sickness and everyone was thankful of Anton’s aura that could heal them of the symptoms brought by sea sickness even if the relief would only last for a few hours because they could always enjoy being healed by Anton again once the nausea and dizziness returned.
After the storm, they encountered an attack from sea creatures. Unfortunately, it was just an attack from a bunch of Sahuagins and there were no Kraken or other types of squid types monsters. Anton was hoping that there would be some since his stock of Kraken meat had dwindled to just half a ton and it would not last long. The attack lasted much shorter than the storm since the ship’s mages handled it without any problem.
The cinema was still showing the film Ever After but next week, they would change it to the new film on their list, which was the Dennis Quaid fantasy film Dragonheart.
To be honest, Anton was feeling a bit tired of watching fantasy films. Even though he had not seen Dragonheart before and chose it because of its setting, which was just the result of searching fantasy movies on the most famous search engine, watching just fantasy films was getting to him. He loved fantasy that was why he loved playing fantasy RPGs like Diablo but even if you love consuming something, if that was the only thing you had been consuming, there would come a time when you would look for something else.
The storm and the attack of the Sahuagin didn’t even disturb the day-to-day life of the passengers of the ship. Anton went to his classes, ate lunch with his classmates, practiced music with Torun, Blake, Andrea, and Soren, created enchanted items, and leveled up his Barbarian character.
He reached the maximum level up for the Barbarian and what he was doing after that was do some hunting for the “Best in Slots” gear for the said character. Unfortunately, he was a little unlucky and didn’t complete the search even after a couple of days so he decided that he would continue hunting until he got all of them and start the Amazon character after his birthday celebration.
Anton wanted to keep his focus on his family and his birthday celebration during the day it arrived since it was going to be the first birthday that he would celebrate in this world and after that, he would then shift his attention to the new character leveling up process.
The day finally arrived and his father and Anna led him to the hall that they had rented where the celebration would happen. The birthday celebration started at around noon and it was a Sunday. What Anton liked about the party was it only consisted of everyone he knew and even the VIPs were people he had met before like the Captain who briefly appeared, some of his officers, and some of the Supreme Wizards.
Of course, the VIPs didn’t stay long just like the Captain so at around two in the afternoon, the only remaining people at the party were his family and close friends. He loved every minute of it since he felt loved by everyone. The feeling sounded corny but he remembered what it felt to be alone since that was his situation when he was on Earth. Now he had a father who loved him and wanted the best for him, a sister who annoyed him but was close to him, and all the people that he now considered his close friends.
Anton knew that because of his closeness to his family and friends, he probably would not be like those protagonists from Korean web novels and manhwas who became very powerful because they had only a single focus and nothing to divert them from those goals.
He didn’t care because his system allowed him to increase his power anyway even if he was living a full life.
Anton and his friends Torun, Blake, Andrea, and Soren then performed a couple of songs that they had been practicing and because his friends were not professional and he didn’t activate his Globe of Browser sharing spell to cheat by adding professional sound music, the performance was riddled with mistakes which caused everyone to laugh.
It didn’t matter to Anton as long as everyone was happy. The celebration lasted until after dinner then everyone wished him a happy birthday again and went their ways. He received a lot of gifts from his friends and most of them were simple and inexpensive but he appreciated them a lot so he kept them in his inventory and planned to treasure them. He might even add some cosmetic enchantments on them.
The next day was the start of him as an eighteen year old and to be honest, his identity in this world felt like his true identity instead of his old one on Earth. He was a little happy that his age in this world was close to his actual age before he transmigrated so there wasn’t too much mental confusion.
While resting, Anton thought of the fact that soon he would reach the maximum level on the not-yet-created Amazon character and he wondered what would come next with his Diablo II system.
Even if nothing happened next to his Diablo II system and needed to shift his attention to the magic of this world to increase his power, it was a fact that his system allowed him to save his family from doom and live comfortably. The fact that his system allowed him to connect to the internet of Earth made him incredibly happy because he didn’t have to give up his hobbies.
Anton wondered though why he was still connected to Earth. Would there be a chance someday that he would be given a chance to return there? If it was a one-way ticket, he would definitely decline but if it was a two-way portal, that was going to be exciting but he felt in his gut that it would not be possible and he could not explain why that was.
He had heard from some mages that travel to another dimension was possible since the most powerful beings in this world were able to do it but why did he feel that travel to Earth wasn’t possible? Anton then just shrugged since it wasn’t really important to him if he could not go back to Earth because there was nothing for him to back for. He already had access to the internet and that was enough for him.