"Mr. Yakushi is actually searching for the Elixir of Eternal Youth! Does the Elixir of Eternal Youth really exist?"
Grace could barely believe her ears. For a moment, even her thoughts stalled.
"But why would he appear in Wakasa Bay in Fukui Prefecture?"
Although Grace was a foreigner, she had attended university in Japan, and her understanding of East Asian culture was far from superficial. Especially after April, when monsters and deities from various myths and legends began appearing, the Metropolitan Police Department had specifically invited folklore and history scholars to give its foreign staff supplementary lessons.
Unlike the Western pursuit of eternal bliss in heaven, or Buddhist teachings about reincarnation, immortality and ascending to become an immortal were the romantic ideals of East Asia.
Throughout history, emperors, kings, generals, and ministers had braved every danger and spent fortunes for the sake of immortality, only for it all to prove as illusory as the moon reflected in water or flowers in a mirror.
One of East Asia's most familiar legends about immortality concerned the First Emperor sending Xu Fu east across the sea with three thousand young girls to seek Mount Penglai, an immortal mountain overseas, and ask its immortals to bestow the secret of eternal life.
Japan was also an East Asian country, and its regional folklore contained plenty of anecdotes about the Elixir of Eternal Youth.
One popular theory in Japan held that Japan was actually Mount Penglai Immortal Island, which the First Emperor had sought, and that Xu Fu, who brought three thousand young boys with him, was the ancestor of the Japanese people. There was even a Xu Fu Shrine in Saga City.
Some scholars had even written A Study of Xu Fu's Founding of Japan, arguing that Xu Fu was Emperor Jimmu.
But the archaeological