Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation
Upon seeing the dumbfounded look on the tribal Conqueror’s face, Tugra replied respectfully, “Great Conqueror, the sea chart is filled with text and symbols that have become incomprehensible while soaked in the sea. The overall outline is like the one you hung in the treehouse, so I think it must be part of the nautical chart of the Hellfire Archipelago.”
“Show it to me right away, Tugra! Bring the chart to me!” Zhang Lisheng said in a hurry.
The sea chart and the nautical chart sounded similar, but in truth, they were different. If the sea chart was equivalent to a rough ocean topographic map; the nautical chart included the ocean current data, the distribution of the reefs, and an encyclopedia of island products of the entire sea area.
Although Zhang Lisheng had taken the Hellfire sea region out from that satellite image of Shrimp World No. 2 that contained the entire Hellfire Archipelago and most of the mainland before turning it into a sea chart, if he wanted to draft a sea route, sailing between the islands in the foreign world’s ocean that was lurking in danger, where the ocean floor was filled with reefs, the currents that drifted rapidly in strange directions, the sea monsters that appeared one after another, and where the extremely horrifying weather that would appear every time, it still remained a vast, and tremendous project. If he could have a ready-made nautical chart, even if it was only a tiny part of it, it would still be enough to make him excited and anxious.
“Yes,” Sensing the eagerness in the heart of the tribal Conqueror, the Wizard Li’s headman stood up and hurriedly replied. After a short while, he brought along with him eight native choresmen who carefully carried a piece of a wooden board back to the bark house.
Before going up to Zhang Lisheng, Tugra secretly gestured to the choresmen to set up the planks and bent down to explain to the young man, “Great Conqueror, the effects of a storm had already tattered this nautical chart when I found it, so I could only preserve it by ticking it on a wooden board.”
At the instant Zhang Lisheng saw the huge nautical chart stuck onto the wooden board with gum, it immediately attracted his gaze.
“But it’s a pity that it’s greatly damaged! I don’t recognize the words as well. Looks like they’re not from the same hometown with that old man Armandnik,” the young man muttered regrettably. After that, he proceeded to praise the Wizard Li’s headman without hesitation, “No matter what, Tugra, you were very thoughtful! Very thoughtful…”
While the young man was speaking, he began to study the outline on the bottom corner of this nautical chart carefully that was similar to the lower corner of the Hellfire Archipelago’s region in the satellite image of Shrimp World No. 2. After many minutes later, he shook his head and muttered, “Marking the ocean with different colors must be to facilitate the identification of sea depth. The words written beside the arrows between the islands should either be warnings or descriptions of the ocean currents’ distribution. These are small drawings of monsters. It must be the distribution of dangerous marine life races in the Hellfire sea region. This is indeed a nautical chart. I was wrong; my train of thought has been wrong. I thought these mainlanders must still be in the early days of Shrimp World No. 2’s geographical discovery when I saw their wooden ship, but I’ve forgotten that this is a world with sorcery…”
Lamenting at his own slow mind for a while, Zhang Lisheng shifted his gaze reluctantly from the nautical chart to the Wizard Li’s headman. “Tugra, it seems that you have also carefully memorized the sea chart of the Hellfire Archipelago in your heart, otherwise, you wouldn’t have been able to see the link between this nautical chart and the Hellfire Archipelago’s sea-chart in just one glance. Very good! You do indeed live up to my trust. Oh, by the way, you said that you’ve locked those mainlanders in the stone prison, right? It seems like they are a precious resource now. Nobody is sick or dying, right?”
“Great Conqueror, they are very healthy and strong. Even though they are locked in a stone prison, I’ve given them plenty of delicious food and feed them well for thinking they may be of use to us.”
“Oh, Tugra, you should hear yourself when you said that you feed them well.” Zhang Lisheng said, “I’ve already said before that ‘cannibalism’ is a bad habit. It’s not right even to eat our enemy! The Wizard Li tribesmen should become civilized. We fish our fish on the big iron ship that even the mainlanders couldn’t make. In the future, we’ll reach the islands by airship, and we’re different from other Hellfire Archipelago tribes. We’re all truly civilized people, because…”
“Because we are your people and believers, Great Lord of Wizard Li,” Tugra interrupted Zhang Lisheng’s words, something that he rarely did and kneeled beside the young man’s feet.
“Call me ‘Lord’ only after I’ve become the Island God, Tugra.” Zhang Lisheng looked stunned for a while before smiling. “Let’s not be in a hurry with the flatteries. Build a bark house in the jungle near the stone prison where the mainlanders are kept. Make sure it’s well hidden. I want to stay there for a few days.
“Yes, Conqueror,” Even though Tugra did not know that the reason Zhang Lisheng wanted to stay near the mainlanders’ prison was that he wanted to learn their language using the Eternal Comprehension Spell, he still replied without hesitation.
Soon after, under the personal supervision of the Wizard Li’s headman, they built a unique treehouse silently in the jungle near the stone prison where they held the mainlanders.
Living in this bark house, Zhang Lisheng could hear the shouting noise of the detained mainlanders even if he did not have great hearing.
In the days to come, the young man stayed in the new treehouse and killed his time by cultivating a secret cultivation method and hatching the Manifestation Gu’s stone egg while patiently waiting for the day he could finally understand the mainlander’s language.
One morning after eight to nine days, the refreshing smell that was peculiar to a pristine jungle filled with a tinge of rotten plants drifted towards the nostrils of Zhang Lisheng who was sitting cross-legged on a mat weaved from tree fiber as he chowed down on smoked animal legs and fat worms.
A huge tree stump with a concave surface was placed not far away in front of him. A round, huge ball they weaved from animal tendons, spider silks, and tree branches were placed inside the rabbet on the tree stump. Eight native choresmen were pouring fresh, warm blood that was just taken from a beast onto the huge ball using a pottery jar drawn with simple patterns.
When the beast’s fresh blood permeated the thousands of fine holes on the large ball and infused into it, the stone bug egg in the large mottled-colored ball slowly absorbed all the fresh blood droplets with no waste and transformed it into kinetic energy as it slowly throbbed like a beating heart.
“Tugra, this bug egg is precious. I have integrated all kinds of methods of raising ancient strange insects to keep and hatch it. Looks like I have done it correctly. If this egg still doesn’t hatch in a short time, order the choresmen to bathe the eggs with blood every day using this method when I’m not on the island, understood?” Looking through the mesh around the round ball of bug egg that was expanding and shrinking continuously, Zhang Lisheng swallowed a mouthful of juicy cooked meat and whispered satisfactorily to the Wizard Li’s headman, who was kneeling beside him.
“Yes, Great Conqueror!” Tugra kowtowed and replied in a low voice.
“One more thing! The chief craftsmen Tumulu is producing the iron ship already, right? Even though those iron ships are not the final products, it’s better to let the boatmen learn how to sail it as soon as possible. Yeah, give an order that I will give the first 50 sailors who master the art of sailing a status of one-feathered, no, make it a two-feathered chief position, and they will be known as the captain. In the future, even if it’s a warrior, craftsmen, tribal headman, or just an ordinary Wizard Li tribesman, everyone will have to listen to the captain’s orders when they get on the iron ship to sail.”
“Great Conqueror, the chief warrior must obey the command of the boatman on the ship? I-Is this okay?” Even though Zhang Lisheng had already hoodwinked the entire Wizard Li, Tugra still could not help but blurt out when he heard such an order.
“Lower your voice, Tugra. We don’t want to alarm those mainlanders,” Zhang Lisheng smiled and put a finger on his mouth before saying in a whisper, “I’ve said that this is the most effective way to incubate our power on the sea to become powerful. Now is the best time to use this method.”
The young man’s confidence came from the positive effect of the theory of ‘the captain is the king of the sea’ during the Age of Exploration on Earth. That time, a large part of the reason why the British miscellaneous troops could defeat the invincible fleet of the tyrannical sea tyrant Franco was that their sea troops practiced ‘the captain is the king of the sea’ theory.
The far-sightedness that the superior civilization brought about made Zhang Lisheng feel happy. Suddenly, he heard somebody shouting in a whisper from outside the window. “Hurry and wake up, Mifad, the natives are sending the food over soon…”
“The Eternal Comprehension Spell has come to effect now…” The young man froze. Surprised, he threw the beetle skewer in his hand and stood up. He focused on listening and soon, more human voices resonated in his ears.
After making sure that he had mastered the mainlander’s language, the young man smiled and rubbed his hands together. He pulled away from the delicate apron sewn together from beautiful leaves and attractive animal skin that was covering his nether region and changed into his old Earth’s canvas shorts and shirt before telling the Wizard Li’s headman, “Tugra, let the show begin. Find the most clever choresman and play along as planned.”
Then, he strode out of the treehouse.
A few minutes later, the young man blended into the midget choresmen and carried a wooden barrel filled with fragrant miscellaneous soup as they passed through the woods towards the two adjacent stone prisons.
The two stone prisons differed in size. The huge one had an area of about 300 to 400 square meters while the small one was only about 100 square meters. They were all built from square stones with a height of over five meters that were tied together with thick sturdy ropes from top to bottom, leaving behind only a gap of the size of an extra-big bowl that even a three or four-year-old kid could not escape from. The stone prisons were imprisoning about 100 male prisoners and 20 to 30 female prisoners, respectively.
The prisoners had an appearance similar to Earthlings with different skin colors. Even so, they were mainly made up of Caucasian and brown-skinned races with different hair colors. There were about ten black people and even fewer yellow-skinned people who only made up of three to four of them.
After secretly studying them in front of the stone prison for a while, Zhang Lisheng imitated the native choresman’s actions and used a long wooden ladle to scoop up thick chowder soup into the wooden bowl held in the hands of the prisoners.
It was hard for the young man to go unnoticed among the short Hellfire Archipelago tribesmen. When most of the prisoners in the stone prison met his eyes, they had an indescribable disgust on their faces. Only a few of them who seemed to be a ‘yes-man’ could not help but show an irrepressible pleasant surprise at the corner of their mouths, but they dared not speak at all.
