Setting Out

Yinsen pinched his throat, then took a small sip of water from the wooden spoon.

"Only a little water is left. If I don't see land or the next rainfall soon, I might become the first transmigrator to die of thirst." Glancing at the nearly empty bucket, Yinsen felt that such a death would be utterly pathetic—an embarrassment to transmigrators everywhere.

After setting down the spoon and covering the bucket, Yinsen returned to the bow of the boat. While telling himself, Heaven never bars one's path! and Everything will be fine!, he straightened up and stared across the boundless sea, hoping something would appear at the end of his sight—anything would do, as long as it was not endless seawater.

He raised his left hand and focused his mind. A faint blue glow suddenly appeared in his upturned palm, followed by a translucent blue orb.

There was nothing particularly remarkable about the orb. It merely contained something like an arrow at its center, pointing in the direction the boat was sailing.

"I firmly believe you're my Golden Finger, so don't screw me over..."

Thinking back on the years since he had arrived in this strange world, Yinsen suddenly felt that placing his hopes on something he did not even know the nature of was truly unreliable.

"In the future... I can't keep doing such thoughtless things... If there even is a future..."

Yinsen had also been called Yinsen in his previous life. The only difference was that he had borne the surname Yi back then, while in this world, he had no surname at all—only the simple name Yinsen.

Yinsen had been an ordinary person in his previous life. His grades had been neither good nor bad, his character neither good nor bad, and he had found a job that brought neither profit nor loss. His life had been passable enough.

He had thought he would live out his life in such an unremarkable way, but a sudden illness had taken his life. By the time he woke up, he was already in this world.

Fortunately, he had directly possessed the body of a severely ill boy and completely inherited the boy's memories. He learned this world's language and some basic knowledge, allowing him to quickly integrate into his new life without the boy's father noticing anything amiss.

He gradually grew up under the care of his new father, and over those years, he came to understand what kind of world this was.

It was a world filled with seawater, where land was exceedingly scarce and simply could not support too many people. Even though the seas around the islands had pleasant climates and abundant marine life, there was ultimately a limit.

Over the years, Yinsen had seen countless people leave everything they had to their children before sailing alone into the utterly unknown sea in search of the legendary Endless Land. Not one of them had returned. Yinsen had never seen a returnee himself, nor had he heard of a single case from the few elderly people on the island.

Thus, Yinsen reached a conclusion: this was a backward and ignorant island, sustaining life according to the simplest rules. Those who went to sea were merely giving their descendants a chance to survive. The so-called Endless Land might simply be an ordinary continent, one that the island's ships found difficult to reach.

"They all died at sea, didn't they?"

Otherwise, there was no reason not a single person had returned. It could not be that none of them wanted to come back for their wives and children, could it?

Yinsen did not know whether that was truly the case. However, when he was sixteen, his father contracted a serious illness after returning from one voyage and died after holding on for half a month.

After fulfilling the duties expected of a son, Yinsen did not take over his father's work and fill a vacant place in the island's most sought-after fishing fleet. Instead, he found the small boat his father had secretly prepared long ago, filled it with supplies, and set out in search of the Endless Land.

He made that choice not only because he did not want to live another ordinary life on a "backward and ignorant" island, but also because of the strange orb-shaped pointer in his hand.

It had started out vague and shapeless, then gradually took form while flickering as if disturbed. Now, it could maintain the shape of an orb steadily without any problems. Yinsen had spent a full seven years on it.

During those seven years, from the moment Yinsen recognized it as a pointer, the direction it indicated had never changed. It pointed resolutely toward one fixed direction.

Having been steeped in countless novels in his previous life, Yinsen felt that it was telling him, Leave that hopeless island. A brighter future is waiting for you.

After going to sea, he gradually went from awkward to proficient. The Theoretical Knowledge he had learned from his father slowly turned into practical skills. Though he occasionally fumbled and made mistakes, this stretch of sea was fortunately gentle, without violent winds, storms, or towering waves, giving this novice enough time to improve his sailing skills.

Especially after the three arrows in the orb pointer in his hand became two, and then finally one, the troubles he encountered after going to sea seemed to vanish. He grew more and more eager for the treasure he was about to obtain.

Until... the fresh water aboard the boat was nearly gone. Only then did he finally realize that he was in the vast, boundless ocean, with no one coming to save him. Everything he relied on was contained within this boat less than ten meters long. Without fresh water, he likely would not survive three days.

"Of course... I was just an ordinary person in my previous life. How could I suddenly become the Son of the Plane, the center of the world?"

Looking at the bucket that had been dried out by the sun, Yinsen instead became completely calm.

"Panicking is useless. Right now, I can either pray for rain or place my hopes on this pointer that I don't even know where it leads."

With nothing left to lose, Yinsen squeezed out nearly all of his potential. Not only did he sail the boat at top speed, but he also used the few moisture-rich fruits he had left to sustain his body.

He barely held on for another five days. Just as he was about to collapse, Yinsen discovered that the orb pointer in his hand had finally changed.

It no longer pointed ahead, but resolutely downward.

"Have I arrived? Here?"

He lowered the sail and dropped the anchor. Wearing a bewildered expression, Yinsen looked around. The scenery before his eyes had not changed in the slightest. It was still an endless expanse of sea.

"Could it be on the seabed?"

His expression worsened. Yinsen had lived on an island all his life and made his living from the sea, so naturally he was a capable swimmer. But after sailing for so many days without seeing any land, who knew how deep the sea beneath his feet truly was?

The only thing he could judge by was the color. Strangely enough, after sailing for so long, the seawater was still light blue with a hint of green. While that meant it was not truly deep ocean, it was still not a depth a person could reach without any equipment.

"I've been screwed over..."

He sighed helplessly.

"And screwed over to death at that! I just wonder whether I'll get another life this time?"

Yinsen sat helplessly at the bow, wondering whether he should simply jump in and take his chances. Perhaps drowning would hurt less than dying of thirst?

As his thoughts wandered, he raised his left hand again. Yinsen suddenly noticed a strange change in it.

Originally, aside from focusing his Mental Power into his left hand to summon that orb pointer, there had been nothing special about it. But this time, he discovered a complex pattern emerging on the back of his left hand.

"This..."

As the pattern gradually became clearer, he was slowly able to make out what it was.

"It looks like a Magic Array?"

Just as the Magic Array finally took shape and began radiating a soft blue light, a strand of Mental Power suddenly surged back from his left hand into his mind.

In that instant, Yinsen suddenly understood what this thing was.

"Hahaha, just as I thought, Heaven never bar—cough, cough, cough..."

People truly could not get too smug. Nearly choking to death, Yinsen stopped posing at the bow and obediently moved to the most stable spot in the middle of the boat. He then dropped to one knee and pressed his left hand against the "ground."

"It needs to draw on all of my Mental Power... I'm not in good condition right now. I don't know if I have enough."

No matter what, Yinsen decided to try once first. If this attempt failed, he might still be able to try again with the little food he had left. If he rested, the energy holding him up through sheer excitement might fade away. He might die before he could even last until then.

"There's no choice. I'm going for it!"

With nothing left to lose, Yinsen sent all of his Mental Power into his left hand. Years of practice had made the process second nature to him, with almost no difficulty at all.

The Magic Array, receiving Yinsen's Mental Power, grew brighter and brighter. Finally, it erupted with a blinding light, and an identical Magic Array appeared on the "ground" beneath him.

"It worked!"

Seeing the Magic Array appear, Yinsen knew he had succeeded. The Mental Power fed back from the Magic Array into his mind had not only told him how to use it, but also revealed the stance needed to activate it successfully, along with the Magic Array's function.

Plane Travel!

That was the function of this Magic Array.

Having been influenced by countless web novels, Yinsen did not need to think long to understand what that meant. Though it still contained boundless danger, he had no room to choose when he was about to die of thirst.

"No matter what, it can't send me somewhere without even a mouthful of water to drink, right..."

Just as the Magic Array's light gradually swallowed Yinsen and the transfer was about to begin, he suddenly felt dizzy. It was like the weakness he had felt after staying up all night fighting through games back in his school days, causing him to collapse to the ground.

"To fall at the very last moment... I really am unlucky..."

Before his consciousness faded, Yinsen vaguely saw the light around him slowly dissipate. A group of people in long robes were staring at him with wide, wary eyes. Among them, a bald woman in a yellow robe slowly approached him, seemingly saying something.