Ten minutes later, a line of ships appeared on the distant horizon.
"They're here."
Xu Yi and the two elders rose and went to the harbor docks to wait quietly.
Another ten minutes or so passed before the Steel Fleet, arriving from the distant waters to the west, slowly entered the harbor.
The first Large Cargo Mana-Powered Ship had barely come to a stop when a small figure flew down from it and landed directly in front of Xu Yi.
"Mr. President, I'm back!"
Xu Yi laughed and crouched down to meet her eyes.
"Hey, Lumi, should I start by congratulating you on finally meeting your own people?"
Lumi smiled until her eyes curved into two crescents and nodded vigorously.
"Yes! Mr. President, thank you so much! I never thought the day would finally come when I could meet my people!"
Xu Yi nodded with a smile, then raised his head to look at the deck of the Large Cargo Mana-Powered Ship.
"So where are your people? Have they arrived?"
"I'll go get them." Lumi waved and flew back up onto the ship.
Xu Yi straightened up and watched Lumi fly away with a smile, genuinely happy for her.
Ever since all the other gnomes who had stayed behind with her tribe passed away, Lumi had spent hundreds of years living alone on the Sains Continent as its only gnome. It was easy to imagine how lonely and isolated she must have felt.
Now she had finally followed the Xinfei Merchant Guild's Deep-Sea Voyage Exploration Fleet to the legendary New Continent and actually found gnomes living there. Her joy was easy to imagine.
Two months earlier, when Xu Yi received word from the Demoncloud Continent that the Exploration Team had discovered a gnome tribe there, he had been rather surprised.