In mid-April of Terra Year 774, Ian prepared to leave Harrison Port and return to Xiahui Territory.
But before leaving Harrison Port, he still had one or two final matters to wrap up.
Recently, Ian had instructed Azure Tide to hire a group of people from adventurer and mercenary gathering spots in nearby towns, preparing for the future opening of the South Sea Grand Labyrinth.
Put simply, these preparations meant hiring shills.
After all, no matter how bold ordinary adventurers were, a strange Great Labyrinth would still require a long time before anyone took the first step... That pace was simply too slow. So Ian would hire these adventurers and mercenaries as shills, have them demonstrate several classic exploration routes, and mark out dangerous locations such as nearby Magic Beast nests.
After all, compared to official announcements, adventurers trusted the lessons and experience passed around among adventurers far more.
Azure Tide had once been a mercenary himself, so he naturally had connections and channels. Ian found that very reassuring.
Besides that, there were quite a few other things these shills could be instructed to do.
For instance, there was the matter of intelligence concerning the "Maze Lord—Lightning Steel-Armored Shark."
These past few days, whenever Sha Sha met Ian, her face had worn the expression of, "I haven't rammed a ship all day; it feels like Fairies are crawling all over me"... How could Ian possibly bear to let Sha Sha suffer such agony?
So after much consideration, Ian made a somewhat immoral decision.
He had Azure Tide spread word among the adventurers and mercenaries that the South Sea Grand Labyrinth was guarded by a powerful labyrinth-breed Steel-Armored Shark. It would ram through every vessel that made it feel threatened, and this was the greatest difficulty in exploring the Labyrinth.
But!