The next day, the sea was calm and the wind still.
The Black Knife continued sailing toward Little Will Island.
Little Will Island was not in the Pras Sea. As the name implied, the Seven Seas consisted of seven sea regions.
Opening the Sea Chart and counting from left to right, top to bottom, the Pras Sea was the sixth sea region, while Little Will Island lay in the seventh—the Sylvia Sea.
There were only three viable routes for the Black Knife to reach Little Will Island.
The first was to detour through the fifth, fourth, and second sea regions, make a huge circuit, and enter the Sylvia Sea.
That would take an enormous amount of time. It would take at least a year to reach the Sylvia Sea.
There were two other options. One was to pass through the Vesipus Strait between Yazhong Island and Vitalia Island; the other was to pass beneath Vitalia Island.
The former might draw attacks from the naval forces of both Yazhong Island and Vitalia Island, though it was also possible that the Black Knife could slip through quietly before either side noticed it.
The latter was more dangerous, because beneath Vitalia Island lay the Black Sea, along with countless hidden reefs. One careless mistake could lead to shipwreck and death.
At present, the Black Knife was heading toward the Vesipus Strait.
Hawkins sat in a deck chair, carefully sensing the changes in his body. The arcs of electricity around his fingers gradually formed into a bird, then suddenly softened and became a fierce tiger.
"Kill me, Son of Pirates! Why won't you kill me?"
The little Bat that Julian had become hung upside down from the mast, his eyes fixed fiercely on Hawkins. He struggled as he roared.
He was an extremely proud man. It would have been one thing if he had merely been defeated, but Hawkins had captured him alive. Even if Joyce rescued him afterward, he would no longer have the face to keep living. Rather than become the laughingstock of the Lineage, he would rather die.
Hawkins looked up at Julian and said with a faint smile, "Do you really want to die?"
"Hmph. If you have the guts, kill me!" Julian replied with a sneer.
Hawkins shook his head and smiled. "No, I won't kill you. And you may not truly want to die. You simply couldn't accept being defeated by me, and the intense humiliation gave rise to this extreme thought. But deep down, your subconscious doesn't actually want to die."
"Son of Pirates, you'll regret not killing me today!" Julian threatened darkly.
Hawkins nodded. "I look forward to that day."
In fact, after reading Julian's memories, Hawkins had embedded a biological virus in Julian's brain. At a critical moment, it could operate in place of the Mind Virus.
People often found it difficult to distinguish the source of every thought they had. The principle behind Hawkins's Mind Virus originated from precisely this.
The naval soldiers aboard the Black Knife were not completely controlled by Hawkins.
Suppose Marine A was preparing to sleep and was about to carry out the command "sleep." But at that moment, Hawkins's Mind Virus intercepted the thought of "sleep" and released the thought of "dance."
Marine A would not know that he had wanted to sleep. Instead, he would believe that he wanted to dance, and so he would begin dancing.
That was how Hawkins's Mind Virus controlled the naval soldiers aboard the Black Knife, making them carry out Hawkins's orders.
Most living creatures had muddled thoughts. It was difficult for them to clearly identify the origin of every thought, and they could not tell where their ideas truly came from.
Because of the Cursed Relic, a pure Mind Virus could not affect Julian. Physical-level interference was required instead—the Physical Consciousness Virus.
It was like how Hawkins had used hair to read Julian's memories. The biological virus carrying the Mind Virus emitted static electricity, subtly altering Julian's brainwaves. In the end, Julian would take actions beneficial to Hawkins without ever realizing that the virus had influenced his thoughts.
Unfortunately, this method did not work on everyone.
Mainly because Julian, due to the Cursed Relic, had a flaw in his immunity that allowed the virus to be implanted. If an ordinary person were implanted with this virus, he would soon catch a cold and develop a fever, his body temperature rapidly rising until the heat killed the virus—or until he died sick in bed.
Whether the virus was eliminated or the person died from illness, neither outcome was what Hawkins wanted.
Hawkins had no intention of taking any living creature's life. He had come to this world only to begin a new adventure and meet beings with whom he could communicate amicably. Killing and enslaving others had never been his intention.
Of course, he was not some saint either. He understood the cruelty of nature very well, so if anyone blocked his path, he would not mind sending them out of this world.
The first issue concerned Joyce.
In Julian's memories, Joyce was unimaginably powerful. If Julian's combat strength was 100, then Joyce's was 9,999,999,999+.
Joyce's body could turn into countless paper figures, and he had no weaknesses whatsoever.
In Julian's memories, people had tried attacking those paper figures with flames, concentrated acid, and weapons, but none of it posed any threat to them.
Furthermore, when Julian had gone out on missions with Joyce, they had encountered thunderstorms. Lightning had likewise failed to harm Joyce.
In his paper-figure state, Joyce was as though he had activated invincibility. He had never been defeated to this day.
However, Hawkins did not believe Joyce was absolutely invincible. If he were truly that powerful, Vitalia Island's ruler would have changed long ago.
Julian's memories showed that Joyce did not rank highly among Jabus's subordinates. He was not even in the top ten. Therefore, Joyce's ability definitely had a flaw; Julian simply had not discovered it.
There was also the issue of Cursed Relic classifications.
Among the noble class, Cursed Relics had strict grade distinctions: Fine, Dangerous, Fierce, and Death-Tier.
Fine-grade Relics carried curses as well, but those curses generally were not fatal.
For example, the Cursed Relic Julian possessed was a Fine-grade Relic called the Bat Necklace. It granted its wearer the ability to transform into a Bat, while its curse was that the wearer could only survive by drinking blood from then on.
Dangerous-grade Cursed Relics, as the name implied, were extremely dangerous relics.
Jordas's Bride's Scimitar was a Dangerous-grade Cursed Relic. Without the proper countermeasures, touching it meant certain death.
The grades of Cursed Relics did not represent the strength of the relics themselves, only the severity of their curses. The stronger the curse, the more complicated the required countermeasures tended to be.
As for the final Death-Tier relics, their curses were basically impossible to offset. Whoever touched one died, and it could even implicate all blood relatives, instantly wiping out an entire clan.
After learning about the grades of Cursed Relics, Hawkins developed a series of suspicions.
Could the Black Knife he possessed, as well as that mysterious Sea Chart, also be Cursed Relics? Perhaps they were merely Fine-grade Relics, which was why they were not fatal.
If that guess was correct, then what were their curses?
Although Fine-grade Relics were not fatal, their curses had to exist. Hawkins simply had never discovered them before.
Hawkins drew the Black Knife and gave it a light swing, then began carefully searching through the original Hawkins's memories for every clue and trace.
Both the Black Knife and the Sea Chart had been inherited by Hawkins from his father.
After inheriting the Black Knife and Sea Chart, Hawkins had not undergone any mental changes, nor had any physical mutation appeared.
"No, judging from the data, Hawkins's luck had been good and bad in the past."
"But after inheriting the Black Knife and Sea Chart, he had one especially unlucky day every month, exactly thirty days after the previous bout of bad luck."
"Did the misfortune come from the Sea Chart, or the Black Knife?"
"And if the Black Knife really is a Cursed Relic, what is its effect? It can't just be especially hard, can it?"
Countless questions flashed through Hawkins's mind. Finally, he opened his eyes and looked at the Black Knife in his hand. But the Black Knife was still the Black Knife; it had not changed in the slightest because of his discoveries.