Time differentials and curios

"Hahaha, what a sharp kid!"

"We only figured that out ourselves after exchanging information with other fleets we met along the way."

"None of the fleets' voyage logs or time records matched."

"At first, everyone was wary of one another, thinking the others had tampered with their records. Only gradually did we realize..."

Wang Tai showed no embarrassment at being exposed.

Instead, he let out a lingering sigh, filled with awe and melancholy.

"Exactly! Whew... who could have imagined that time flowed at different speeds across this vast sea?"

Clang-

Qin Mao's eyes suddenly widened, and the Ram's Horn Hammer dropped to the floor with a thud.

A single day passed in the human world, while a thousand years ran their course at sea?!

"You don't notice it when you first set out, but the farther you venture into the sea, the slower time flows. In the deepest reaches of the Azure Moon Sea, the time differential can reach eight times normal. As for the Blood Moon Sea, I don't know."

Qin Mao committed each piece of information to memory, his understanding of this apocalyptic world revised yet again.

In other words, spending eight months deep in the Azure Moon Sea meant only one month passed in reality.

Inconceivable. The work of immortals and gods.

How on earth was it done?

Even time had been altered. What about space? What about physics?

This world could no longer be judged by conventional experience.

No amount of caution could be excessive!

Qin Mao lost all desire to hum nursery rhymes and hurried to send the remaining fish on their way.

The sky had gone completely dark, too. A layer of luminous green moonlight spread gently over the sea like gauze, indescribably eerie and sinister.

"What about you, brother?" Wang Tai asked.

"Me?"

There was little worth telling about Qin Mao's time at sea.

After all, he had become separated from his fleet just four days after boarding. He had not even gotten to know half the survivors aboard, and knew very little about affairs at sea.

"...I was stranded on Lonely Island then, and I wanted a boat so badly I was going mad. Somehow, I ended up awakening a Sequence and actually built a canoe to escape that little island... Then I met the Hope."

It was a dry story, a plot with little flesh to it, and sounded as though he was deliberately hiding things.

In truth, he really knew nothing, and did not dare make things up in front of Wang Tai.

He knew his own situation perfectly well. He was no transcendent at all, just an ordinary person.

If he wanted to live well aboard the Hope, he needed both to play the role of Shipwright well and to curry favor with Wang Tai.

To "truly" become his brother.

To show his sincerity, Qin Mao rambled on at length about his perilous escape from Bashu to the coast.

Inside, Qin Mao thought: Surely that's enough to show my loyalty to him?

Inside, Wang Tai thought: This kid still isn't completely devoted to me!

At the very least, the kid had glossed over the matter of those eight or nine transcendents.

With three hundred newly earned Kill Points from killing fish,

Qin Mao returned to his First Mate's cabin.

That night, a lilting violin melody reached Qin Mao's ears.

It was an unfamiliar piece, soft and low, melodious and pleasing.

Merely hearing it relaxed his body and mind.

It was as though a woodcutter carrying a heavy load down a mountain had suddenly returned home, put down his burden, washed his face, and drunk a large cup of cool tea.

"There's a violinist aboard the Hope? Won't that attract something eerie...? Never mind, it should be fine."

Qin Mao gave it a passing thought.

Then he continued to lose himself in the violin music.

Gradually, his eyelids grew heavier and heavier, as did his head.

If anyone had been beside his bed at that moment,

they would have seen his body twisting incessantly, struggling desperately to wake.

Yet the expression on his face was the opposite, utterly serene.

Just as a human-shaped wet patch formed on the bed boards,

"Bang-"

A short gunshot shattered the curtain of night.

The shot was exceptionally crisp.

It was not particularly loud, yet it reverberated throughout the Hope like countless sharp daggers.

Wherever the sound reached, survivors jolted awake, gasping for breath aboard the ship.

As Qin Mao rushed from his cabin to the deck, another shot rang out.

The violin music vanished from his ears completely.

All he saw was Wang Tai standing beside the helm at the stern, holding a gun in both hands.

He stared fixedly at a patch of calm sea behind the ship.

"Boss, boss! You all right?"

Zhang Qing ran barefoot out of his cabin, anxiously asking after Wang Tai.

"I'm fine. A Sound Charm. Too bad I didn't kill it... All right, go back to sleep."

Wang Tai shook his head.

The survivors returned to bed with numb expressions.

Clearly, this was not their first encounter with a Sound Charm.

Qin Mao's expression of shock and uncertainty stood in stark contrast to everyone else's calm.

"It's a kind of eerie entity that influences people through sound. It can make people sleep very deeply, even lower their guard and make them actively rationalize things. The longer you listen, the deeper you sleep, and there's a chance you'll die in your dreams."

Wang Tai yawned.

Seeing Qin Mao's intense curiosity, he offered an extra word of explanation.

"What a dangerous sea!" Qin Mao exclaimed.

Violin music out on the seas of an apocalyptic world? Any normal person would grow wary and plug their ears.

Yet this Sound Charm could actually lower people's guard and make them fall into a deathlike sleep without realizing it.

The Hope Fleet had sailed through such a dangerous place for so long, with five transcendents at its peak...

Just how powerful must it have been?

Yet even it had been almost entirely wiped out in the Blood Moon Sea...

Qin Mao cast a brief glance at the Flintlock in Wang Tai's hands.

A mere gunshot could instantly free everyone aboard from the Sound Charm's control. It was certainly no ordinary supernatural weapon.

"It's a very powerful curio, isn't it?"

"You mean this?"

Wang Tai hefted the gun and nodded.

"[Just Verdict], currently number 2879. If its cost weren't so heavy, it could rank even higher!"

"Rank... number?" Qin Mao looked utterly bewildered.

Was there some organization that still had the inclination to rank every extraordinary encounter in the middle of the apocalypse?

As though seeing his confusion, Wang Tai explained further.

So-called curios

were objects with incredible powers that had appeared after the apocalypse descended.

There were naturally born curios, wondrous beyond measure.

There were also acquired curios, created through chance circumstances or forged by Sequence Transcendents, in a wide variety of forms.

Using curios not only allowed one to do extraordinary things, but also to fight and injure eerie entities.

Different curios contained different powers.

Generally speaking, innate curios were stronger than acquired ones, but using any of them required paying a different price first.

By focusing one's mind on a curio, its [Name], [Rank], [Information], [Abilities], and [Cost] would automatically appear before one's eyes...

Some speculated that perhaps heaven and earth sensed the birth of every curio and automatically assigned it a rank.

The rankings even changed in real time.

When a more powerful curio was born, every curio below it would drop one place.

If a curio could grow, its rank would also keep rising and changing.

The reason was unknown.

Barely a fragment could be glimpsed.

It was inconceivable.

In short, people generally accepted that the higher a curio ranked, the more valuable and powerful it was.

And [Curio Materials], as the name suggested, were materials that could be used to forge curios, make potions, and so on.

Most were bizarre, eerie, evil, and dangerous.

Some caused harm merely by being touched, or even seen or heard.

Some were parts that fell off eerie entities.

Some were remnants left behind after eerie entities perished.

And some could not be spoken of.