The First Companion

"Is this your ship?"

Young Arthur was still at the stage where everything felt new to him. Having grown up in Merlin's isolated little valley since childhood, he was equally fascinated by the sight of the sea.

After staying in King Arthur's plane for a while longer, Yinsen returned to the Sea of Tranquility.

This time, he was finally no longer alone. Young King Arthur had come here with him, and he finally understood how the Traversing Magic Array brought people back.

For living beings with independent consciousness, as long as they stood within the Magic Array's range and subjectively wished to 'follow' Yinsen through it, the Teleportation Array would transport them as well.

As for things without independent consciousness, such as ores, water, books, and so on, Yinsen needed to 'bring' them back. Simply placing them within the Magic Array's range or having Yinsen touch them would not transport them along with him.

"So that's how it works."

After gaining a certain degree of control over Space-Time Energy, Yinsen finally received new information. Perhaps as his control improved, he would eventually understand all the mysteries of this Magic Array. At that point, he might be able to activate it with his own magic instead of relying on the pointer to search for specific Space-Time Energy.

Remembering something, Yinsen turned to glance at the hourglass sitting nearby. Only a little sand had fallen, as if the timer had only just begun.

"So every time I travel, time in this plane stops?" Yinsen shook his head. "No, that's not right. The moment I return must simply be extremely close to the moment I left. It seems this Magic Array does more than travel between planes. It also involves the domain of time."

He turned to look at Arthur again. The blond youth had deliberately cut his formerly long golden hair short. Yinsen had told him that long hair was troublesome to manage while sailing, and short hair would be more convenient, so Arthur had gotten a haircut before leaving. Yinsen noticed that after Arthur cut his hair, one small tuft was especially eye-catching, stubbornly refusing to lie flat against his head with the rest.

Besides that, young Arthur had all sorts of equipment given to him by Merlin, including silver-white light armor, a blue battle robe, and a two-handed greatsword over 1.2 meters long. As for the various miscellaneous items, Yinsen was not too sure. He only knew that Merlin had finally cast a blessing spell on Arthur so he would not drown in the sea.

Neither Yinsen nor Arthur understood the exact effects of this blessing. Arthur only vaguely felt that the endless seawater was somehow kind to him.

In just this short time, Arthur had already toured the entire ship and noticed the smaller vessel being towed behind it. "Is that your spoils of war?"

"No, this ship is my spoils of war."

Yinsen had previously given him a rough overview of the Sea of Tranquility, but he had not gone into detail about his experiences here. Since they had nothing else to do now, he told him about them.

"Seems this world has quite a few shameless scoundrels."

"Without restraints, many people keep pushing past the bottom line of morality."

The Caravel Sailboat not only had spacious interior room, but was divided into areas for various purposes, including a separate Captain's Cabin and a Crew Quarters.

However, there were only two people aboard now, and the Captain's Cabin was spacious enough, so Yinsen simply used it as a shared resting room for both of them.

As for beds, Arthur might have been heir to a kingdom, but he had received all sorts of training from childhood. Although he had never lacked food or clothing, he had not developed the habits of the nobility. He was not much different from an ordinary person, so he did not find anything wrong with the resting room's conditions.

"I suggest you take off that armor and put it away properly. Wearing that thing all the time is just making yourself suffer."

Yinsen had taken off his own armor as soon as he returned. If he had worn it any longer, he would probably have turned into an oven again.

The conditions on the Sea of Tranquility were excellent, which meant there was plenty of sunlight most of the time. Metal armor left under the sun for less than an hour would become too hot to touch.

Arthur, the foolish kid, was already drenched in sweat from the heat, yet it had never occurred to him to remove his armor. Yinsen did not know whether he was stubbornly clinging to the Code of Chivalry or simply slow to react.

Once Yinsen finished speaking, he watched the boy hurriedly remove his armor and let out a long breath. Seeing that, Yinsen realized it was probably the latter.

"But this place seems full of danger. Is it really all right not to wear armor at all times?"

"Don't worry. One advantage of being at sea is that you can see very far. Once you spot another ship, you'll have enough time to judge whether it's an enemy and enough time to prepare for battle."

In truth, Yinsen had only figured those things out recently himself. Now he was using them to educate Arthur.

After teaching him some common sense about life at sea, Yinsen had him organize his luggage first. Arthur had brought quite a lot of things, enough to fill several large chests.

Yinsen himself went to the place where he stored books. He took out the Book of Inheritance with his left hand, and under the impetus of his Mental Power, it floated before his palm. The open pages faced the books and emitted white light, drawing them one by one into itself.

When Merlin's Legacy Tome recorded information, it could either absorb the entire object or merely copy the information.

Simply copying information was more troublesome, took more time, and required more Mental Power to activate. Complete absorption was far more convenient. A beam of light shone over a selected book, and the book slowly vanished within the light while all its contents were recorded by the Book of Inheritance. When reading it afterward, it was no different from reading the original book, as if only the cover had changed.

"This really helps a lot."

He would collect more and more books in the future. Although his memory would continue improving, there was too much he needed to learn. No matter how good his memory became, he still had to spend time reading each book. The number of books would inevitably keep increasing, so this saved him a great deal of trouble.

Yinsen happily returned to the deck and saw Arthur standing atop the Poop Deck, constantly looking around. Occasionally, he stared blankly at something—perhaps the calm sea, perhaps the azure sky, or perhaps fish suddenly leaping from the water.

Finally, Arthur's gaze settled on the ship beneath his feet. He asked Yinsen, who was standing on the deck, "Is it difficult to build a ship like this?"

"Uh..."

Yinsen did not know how to answer that question. He truly knew nothing about shipbuilding, much less the shipbuilding techniques of this world. He could only answer based on a few impressions in his mind.

"I'm not really sure, but with the productive capacity of your world, if ordinary people had to build it by hand without using magic, it would be very troublesome... And it isn't just difficult to build. The timber used for shipbuilding isn't easy to find either."

Thanks to having read many novels in his previous life, he did happen to know some information about Sailing Ship construction.

Ships like these had strict requirements for the wood they used. Even after finding suitable timber, it had to undergo lengthy treatment before it could serve as shipbuilding material.

Among those materials, the keel—the ship's most important backbone—had even higher requirements.

Arthur nodded, then continued asking.

"A ship like this... isn't the best kind of ship, is it?"

At first, he had thought this ship was already excellent. It could race steadily across the sea even when loaded with cargo and towing another vessel. If his kingdom had ships like this, it would be invincible at sea.

But he soon remembered that Yinsen had said he had only recently begun adventuring on this ocean, and that he had seized this ship from another group of pirates—mere bandits only slightly stronger than ordinary people.

Thinking about it that way, this ship could perhaps only be considered average in this world. Otherwise, how could several pirates keep hold of such a ship in a world without powerful laws to restrain them? That could only prove that while this ship was decent, it was not top-tier in this world.

Yinsen had the same suspicion, and he was certain there were better ships. Otherwise, how could anyone cross the Sea of Storms? With this smaller Caravel Sailboat? That would be suicide.

He simply did not yet know what better ships on this ocean looked like, so he could only tell Arthur about ships from Other Worlds.

He gave Arthur a rough explanation of steam engines, internal combustion engines, and even Nuclear Power. Hearing about so many miraculous warships, young Arthur suddenly understood why Merlin had insisted that he travel with Yinsen.

"So Merlin was right. Traveling with you really does broaden my horizons."

After only the first day, Arthur already felt that this journey had been worth it.

Over the following days, Yinsen adjusted his schedule somewhat. Besides his original training regimen, he added sparring sessions with Arthur.

His Higher Level Mental Power training and his mastery of Space-Time Energy... the former was still arranged before bed, while the latter had to wait until he gathered more Space-Time Energy, since the Space-Time Energy stored in the pointer had already been completely used up.

Yinsen and Arthur lived very monotonous but regular lives in the days that followed. Then, as they gradually approached Stat Island, Yinsen was preparing to introduce the central city of the Sea of Tranquility to Arthur when they suddenly spotted a large ship on the distant horizon.

Using binoculars, they could already make out the ship clearly: it was at least twice the size of Yinsen's Caravel Sailboat.

But that was not the important part. The important part was that it seemed to mean them harm. Upon spotting Yinsen and Arthur, it immediately changed course and charged toward them. At the same time, something resembling a cannon barrel emerged from the front of the ship.