Chapter 716 Ship Shadow <TOC> Chapter 718 Lucas's Captain's Log
Translator: SumTLMan
This was a wooden ship, or more accurately, an extremely dilapidated wooden ship. Even the white sails had rotted away, leaving only tattered grey cloth strips behind.
As for the ship’s design, Angel couldn’t tell the difference personally, but he felt that it was extremely ancient and indeed distinct from modern vessels.
Especially the figurehead on the bow of the ship. Modern ships often have sculptures that can deter sea monsters, but the bow of this wooden ship featured a semicircular array of feathers resembling a peacock with its tail spread open. The faint remnants of color still clung to these feathers, which, if they were truly from a ship three thousand years ago as Helen had said, would have been incredibly vibrant when intact.
The overall impression this ship gave Angel was that of a broken and antiquated old vessel.
“Logically speaking, a ship that’s this damaged should have sunk to the bottom of the sea. Why is it still floating on the surface?” Angel wondered as he heard the sailors below discussing in fear.
“A ghost ship?” Angel caught the gist of their conversation and carefully looked at the ship again. It did indeed give off a ghost ship vibe.
Seeing the people below getting increasingly agitated and fear beginning to spread, Angel frowned and jumped straight onto the deck.
Angel glanced at the crowd, and in an instant, everyone fell silent.
He walked directly to Helen’s side and asked, “Do you recognize this ship?”
“I’ve never seen it before, but the design of the ship is not contemporary. It looks very much like the style of the ships from the Shining Gold Era three thousand years ago,” Helen replied immediately.
“To be precise, it’s an exploration ship from the Shining Gold Era,” Alvin emerged from the cabin and respectfully addressed Angel.
According to Alvin’s explanation, this ship’s design originated from the Feran Continent. Three thousand years ago, the Feran Continent was in a period of rebuilding, known as the Shining Gold Era. Unsatisfied with the resources of the continent and curious about the outside world, people began to explore the seas and enter a maritime age. The design of this ship was the iconic exploration vessel of that era.
After Alvin finished his explanation, he also looked at the approaching ship with a puzzled expression, “This is a typical three-masted ship, but the exposed keel already has cracks. Why hasn’t it sunk yet? Could it really be… a ghost ship?”
“Why not go over and find out?”
Angel’s words prompted Helen and Alvin to dissuade him in unison, “Sir, the Devil’s Sea is full of strange occurrences, and even seemingly ordinary places can harbor great danger.”
“Don’t worry, I haven’t sensed any energy fluctuations inside, nor do I have a dangerous premonition.”
“Sir, if you really want to go, you can use a scouting puppet.” Helen suddenly thought of something: “There’s a scouting puppet in the lower cabin, but we can’t control it, only a wizard like you can use it.”
Angel had actually already secretly probed the “ghost ship” with his mental tendrils and didn’t find anything unusual, so he decided to board and take a look. However, since Helen mentioned there was a scouting puppet on board, Angel didn’t insist further.
A scouting puppet is a relatively basic alchemical item, one that Angel could craft himself.
Its appearance is like a small orb, akin to an eyeball, which can serve as an extension of a wizard’s vision… In fact, its effect is quite similar to the Wizard’s Eye.
For apprentices who have not learned the Wizard’s Eye trick, this is a rather useful alchemical item. Its only flaw is that its scouting range is limited to one kilometer, much shorter than the range of the Wizard’s Eye.
After activating the scouting puppet, a pair of eyes with transparent wings slowly took flight. They flew over the misty ocean and landed directly on the ghost ship.
In Angel’s field of vision, the ghost ship was almost the same as when he had probed it with his mental tendrils earlier. There were no major anomalies – it was dilapidated, with even a hole in the deck.
Following the hole, the scouting puppet flew into the cabin.
It was pitch black inside, but the scouting puppet had a built-in lighting system, so it wasn’t as if everything was obscured.
However, as soon as the light went up, Angel’s brow furrowed.
Standing next to him, Helen and Alvin felt their hearts skip a beat, secretly wondering: Could there really be danger on the ship?
Helen swallowed nervously and gestured with her eyes for all the sailors to be ready. Should anything go awry, she was prepared to hoist the sails and speed up at any moment.
“It’s strange, the inside of the cabin is wet.”
Upon hearing Angel’s quiet murmur, Helen let out a long sigh of relief: “Sir, this ship has been in the fog for years; it’s normal for it to be damp, isn’t it?”
“That’s not necessarily true, it might not have been in the fog for years,” Angel said with a furrowed brow. “I can distinguish between dampness and being soaked in water. The cabin has been soaked, and the scouting puppet hasn’t even reached the bottom yet; it’s only on the first level below the deck.”
Seeing that Helen and Alvin didn’t understand his meaning, Angel simply snapped his fingers, conjuring an illusion in front of them.
As he continued to explore the cabin with the scouting puppet, he displayed the interior through the illusion for them to see.
Amazed by this magical illusion, Helen and Alvin’s eyes were filled with surprise. However, their astonishment soon vanished as they became engrossed in the scene before them.
“Indeed, there are traces of it being soaked in water!” Helen exclaimed, then added, “Moreover, there are no watermarks on the wooden planks of the walls. It’s as if it was submerged in water just moments ago and was suddenly pulled out. Otherwise, there would definitely be watermarks.”
After hearing Helen’s words, Angel also noticed this point.
“Indeed, as Deputy Captain Helen said, it doesn’t make sense according to logic. Could it be that this ship was previously submerged in the sea, and now it suddenly surfaced?”
Angel paused after speaking, “In this bizarre Devil’s Sea area, any possibility could happen. It might be possible, but if it had been in the sea before, there should be sediment, right? But there is no sediment here.”
Unable to figure out this strange situation, Angel decided to continue forward. When they came out later, they could have the scout puppet bring back some residual moisture to study whether it was seawater or not.
Angel continued to control the scout puppet to move forward. The vast majority of the cabins were the same and had been soaked by water.
However, apart from that, there were no other abnormalities. The only anomaly was that it was too clean. Although every cabin had some living utensils, there were no traces of people, not even skeletons.
The scout puppet finally reached the bottom.
There, Angel saw a huge hole, with the dark sea water below.
“Why didn’t the seawater overflow into the hole?” Helen expressed doubt, “Such a big hole is enough to sink the ship, how could it still float on the sea?”
“Take a closer look,” Angel suddenly said.
The illusion focused on the hole.
At first, Helen was puzzled, but suddenly she seemed to remember something. She exchanged glances with Alvin, and they both ran to the side of the ship and looked down.
“This ship is not touching the sea at all, it’s floating above the sea!” The ship was extremely close to the sea, even close up it was hard to notice anything, but there were no ripples on the surface, confirming that the ship was not in contact with the water.
It floated above the sea, so the seawater couldn’t overflow in.
However, why it was floating above the sea was another question. But just this fact alone made everyone feel a chilling sensation.
“Sir, do you want to continue investigating?”
At this point, Angel was somewhat grateful that he didn’t board the ship. He hadn’t felt any energy fluctuations from the ship, yet it floated directly above the sea, which was indeed bizarre.
However, Angel didn’t want to give up halfway through the investigation.
“Go to the captain’s cabin.” Although Angel expressed his determination to continue the exploration so decisively, he had already removed his right glove and replenished the waning Nightmare Aura on the Cloud Conch. It was clear that his heart was not as calm as it appeared.
The scouting puppet began to ascend, as the captain’s cabin was generally on the top level of the ship, and this one was no different.
As soon as the captain’s cabin was opened, a gust of dust flew out from inside.
“Dust indicates very little moisture inside,” Helen wondered, why would the captain’s cabin and the outside present two different states?
In the illusion, the dust disappeared, revealing the captain’s cabin’s appearance. Decayed, old furniture and tattered cloth were scattered about. Beyond that, there were many intact gold ornaments.
“Indeed, this is the style of the Shining Gold Age, and from the decorations, it could very well be a ship led by nobility,” Alvin pointed out, referring to the patterns on several ornaments.
At that moment, the scouting puppet focused on a desk near the window.
Upon entering the ship, the first and only skeleton was placed here.
Helen: “This skeleton should be the captain of the ship, right? The decayed clothes must have been quite exquisite before. However, why is this skeleton headless?”
It was a headless skeleton.
Why was there only one skeleton on the entire ship, and why was it missing a head?
The ship was filled with various anomalies and inconsistencies, but strangely enough, there hadn’t been any danger so far.
As Angel pondered the key to this mystery, a cry of alarm came from the sailors on deck. Helen looked over, puzzled, and her pupils suddenly contracted: “Sir, the bottom of this ship has disappeared!”
Angel looked up sharply, and the bottom of the ship was disappearing at a visible rate.
The entire ship seemed to be embedded in another dimension. In just two seconds, the disappearing area had reached the deck.
As the disappearing area was about to reach the deck, Angel frowned, controlling the scouting puppet to pick up a parchment from the desk in front of him, then quickly dashed out the window.
When the scouting puppet returned to the Cloud Conch, the ship in front of them had completely vanished, leaving only a vast, white fog.
It was as if everything they had experienced before had been an illusory bubble.
However, the parchment held by the scouting puppet clearly told everyone else that the ship had undoubtedly existed before.
“Sir, what on earth is going on?”
“I don’t know, perhaps it’s some kind of Omen Sign, or there’s a different dimension here,” Angel shook his head, looking at the parchment in his hand.
Chapter 716 Ship Shadow <TOC> Chapter 718 Lucas's Captain's Log