Eternal Fixation Black Knife

Qi-Suppressing Stone!

It was exceedingly rare in this world. Mark had not expected to encounter a Qi-Suppressing Stone so soon.

He looked at Hawkins, hesitated for a moment, then asked, "Captain, do you want to become a Curse Caster?"

There were already five Cursed Relics aboard this wooden sailing ship. No one knew how many Hawkins himself possessed, and now they even had a Qi-Suppressing Stone. Hawkins already met every condition for becoming a Curse Caster.

Mark's thoughts were actually complicated. Though he had not displayed any arrogance or acted high and mighty, he had never truly considered Hawkins to be one of his own kind.

It was like how humans would never regard apes and monkeys as their own kind.

Mark had even planned Hawkins's ending for him: once he grew weary of pirate life, he would silence Hawkins forever. That way, no one would know he had once been a pirate.

Though he did not consider himself some nobleman, pirates were a despised and cursed lot in every sea. Playing at piracy once in a while was fine, but he could not afford the shame of truly being a pirate.

But what had just happened made him recognize his own shortcomings anew, and showed him how unfathomable Hawkins was.

That was precisely why he asked.

It meant that he had truly begun to see Hawkins as one of his own kind.

Hawkins shook his head. "Now isn't the time. Let's deal with these corpses first."

Although he was curious about Curse Casters, he was even more curious about the Dream Realm behind them. The various abilities of Curse Casters were secondary instead. After all, unless it was a "god" in the truest sense of the word, it probably could not give him what he truly wanted.

After disposing of the corpses, the two returned to the Black Knife with their spoils, while the surviving sailors raised the sails and set off once more.

Inside the ship, Hawkins and Mark sat facing each other at a desk. The five men's Cursed Relics had been stored in a wooden box, while Mark had been invited to appraise the Magic Sea Chart.

Now that he knew Mark could assess the effects and approximate grades of Cursed Relics, Hawkins naturally intended to put him to full use.

Mark studied the sea chart closely. After quite a while, he said uncertainly, "This chart is indeed a Cursed Relic, but its grade is hard to say..."

"Hard to say?" Hawkins was somewhat surprised.

Mark nodded. "This Cursed Relic's ability should be just as you said, Captain—it marks all kinds of hidden treasures. But I can't determine the grade of its curse. It might be Good Grade, it might be Dangerous Grade, or it might even be Fierce Grade."

"You can't judge it right now... because the curse is unusual?" Hawkins asked Mark thoughtfully.

"For example... after you trigger a treasure's location, Captain, you might need to obtain that treasure within a designated time. If you fail to obtain it within the prescribed time, the curse will activate."

"Mm. Sounds like a time bomb." Hawkins nodded in understanding.

In truth, after hearing Mark's explanation, he accepted it, because he had already obtained the answer he needed.

The Magic Sea Chart's curse was indeed a trigger-type curse. Several times in Hawkins's memories, he had come within a hair's breadth of death. It was highly likely that the sea chart's curse had been responsible.

The Magic Sea Chart's curse was extremely similar to the Black Knife's, which was why Hawkins had not noticed any clues in the massive trove of data before. But with Mark's reminder, he still found traces of it within the sea of memories.

If the Black Knife's curse was possibly bad luck, then the Magic Sea Chart's curse should be misfortune!

In fact, both Huo Blackblade and Hawkins had most likely died under the Magic Sea Chart's curse. Misfortune had descended upon them, drawing powerful enemies. Misfortune had descended upon them, causing the original Hawkins to be replaced.

Hawkins looked at the sea chart, pondered for a moment, then removed the Black Knife from his waist. Looking up at Mark, he smiled. "This knife should also be a Cursed Relic, but I don't know what it can do. Take a look."

"This knife too?"

Mark froze briefly, but still accepted the Black Knife.

Yet after a long while, he shook his head. "I don't know. This knife doesn't seem to have any special abilities."

"..."

Hawkins was rather speechless. Even Mark could not figure out the Black Knife's abilities.

But Mark continued, "Captain, I once heard that some Cursed Relics have no abilities. Those relics have very weak curses as well. If that Meteor Hammer is the pinnacle among Fierce Grade relics, then this knife may be the very bottom among Good Grade relics."

Although Hawkins disagreed with Mark, he did not refute him.

He had personally tested the Black Knife's hardness, so he knew very well that it was absolutely not some bottom-tier Good Grade relic.

Hardness itself was an extremely terrifying ability.

Hawkins vaguely felt that the Black Knife might not be Good Grade at all, but a higher-tier Cursed Relic that had simply not been truly developed—or perhaps was missing something.

"Captain, you should already have two curses on you. You only need to add one more curse, then consume Qi-Suppressing Stone powder to become a Curse Caster. Would you like to try?" Mark asked, setting down the Black Knife.

Hawkins gave Mark a meaningful glance and asked in return, "Do you really want me to become a Curse Caster?"

"Captain, you saved me twice. I only hope that you become stronger and stronger. I absolutely have no other intentions. If you still don't trust me, you can wait until after I leave the ship before becoming a Curse Caster," Mark immediately answered earnestly.

Hawkins took out the Qi-Suppressing Stone from the wooden box and slowly turned it beside the oil lamp. "I trust you. Better to do it today than wait for another day. Let's do it now."

"Then which Cursed Relic does Captain intend to choose as the third evil curse?" Mark hurriedly asked with eager attentiveness.

Hawkins looked at the wooden box beside him, thought for a moment, then took out the eyeball and smiled. "This one!"

"Captain, the conditions for wearing this fake eye..." Mark's face showed surprise. He had explained it clearly before—this was a Cursed Relic that required one to dig out one of their own eyes before wearing it.

At that moment, Hawkins's left eyeball bulged slightly. Then the nerves inside automatically severed. He removed his own eyeball and smiled faintly. "That isn't much of a problem."

"..."

Mark's mouth fell slightly open, and he was completely stunned.

Curse Casters were accustomed to treating every mysterious and miraculous occurrence as the effect of a Cursed Relic. But Mark now clearly understood that Hawkins's ability was by no means caused by a Cursed Relic, leaving his thoughts even more tangled.

Without leaving one's doorstep, one never knew how vast heaven and earth were.

Mark watched Hawkins install the fake eye, swallowed involuntarily, and asked, "Captain, how did you do that?"

"It's complicated. I'll explain it properly when I have time." After Hawkins installed the fake eye, he discovered that it actually provided vision.

But under the fake eye's vision, many things in the captain's cabin were glowing.

Mark's entire body emitted a green glow, while the sea chart emitted an orange glow. The Cursed Relics in the wooden box also gave off different-colored light, with the red glow from the Meteor Hammer being the most blazing.

"Interesting."

Hawkins looked at the Black Knife. It remained plain and unadorned, with only a thin layer of black mist covering its blade.

As the fake eye's ability took effect, foreign information continuously flooded into his consciousness. He intercepted all of it, then pondered briefly before programming within his consciousness and feeding the incoming information into the program he had written. Moments later, a frame appeared before his eyes.

He looked at the Black Knife, and words immediately appeared within the frame:

[Ancient Black Knife] Ability: Eternal Fixation. Curse: The wearer's bad luck is suppressed by the Black Knife and released at a fixed time every month.

Hawkins's eyes slowly widened, as though he had seen something unimaginable.

As everyone knew, the universe was forever in a state of increasing entropy. Even occasional decreases in entropy could not affect the ultimate result: the heat death of the universe.

Hawkins had escaped from a universe that had already entered heat death, so he understood the universe's ultimate fate better than anyone.

He had assumed this universe was the same, but the Black Knife's ability gave rise to a string of doubts.

Eternal Fixation—only two words, yet when he considered the Black Knife's traits of neither absorbing nor releasing heat, not conducting electricity, and being impossible to damage, Hawkins thought of the essence behind those traits.

And since an Eternal Fixation Black Knife existed, could there also be an Eternal Fixation White Sword, or even an Eternal Fixation world?

"Cursed Relics... are even more miraculous than I imagined."

"It seems necessary to make a trip to the Dream Realm and see what exactly that world is like."

"If... if there is even a one-in-ten-thousand chance, then no matter what, I have to gamble on it..."

Hawkins rapidly calmed down, his mind entering an overclocked state. Though he had lived through countless ages, he was not without desires or wants.

As long as one was human, one would inevitably leave behind many regrets. In the past, he could only comfort himself with thoughts such as, "As long as I'm alive, we'll meet again someday," or, "They must be living well in a parallel world."

But now he saw a new hope, though he could not be certain whether Cursed Relics could fulfill his wish.

He looked at Mark and asked, "I'm ready. How much Qi-Suppressing Stone powder do I need to take?"

"The three Cursed Relics you possess, Captain, are not particularly strong, so only a small amount of powder should be needed. Of course, the more powder you consume, the longer you can remain in the Dream Realm and the more benefits you can gain—but it will also be more dangerous," Mark immediately replied.

Hawkins did not know the situation in the Dream Realm, so for the sake of caution, he chose a normal amount.