37: Chapter 37 The Pursuit of the Crowd

The ship set sail early the next morning.

It was a medium-sized two-masted merchant ship named "white gull".

The hull was painted with white and blue paint, but the paint had peeled off significantly under the erosion of the sea breeze. The sails, however, were newly replaced and billowed with the sea breeze in the morning wind.

On both sides of the ship's railing stood a row of ship guards, all of whom were former mercenaries. The position of the calluses on their hands indicated that they were people who had been wielding swords for many years.

The cabin was divided into two levels; the upper level was the passenger cabin, and the lower level was the cargo hold.

The conditions of the passenger cabin were average, but it had the advantage of being clean. Each room had a small round window that looked out onto the sea.

The voyage was expected to take three days and three nights to reach the island.

Two hours after the ship sailed out of the port, the land became a blurry gray line and eventually disappeared completely below the horizon.

The "white gull" bobbed and swayed in the swells. The deck was covered in splashed seawater, and sunlight occasionally refracted into short rainbows against the water mist.

Jinbao was seasick. After vomiting twice, he curled up in the cabin and refused to come out.

Morpheus and Richard sat at the stern of the ship fishing for squid.

The Mage Apprentice's white hair was blown into a mess by the sea breeze, but he clearly didn't care. After casting the fishing line, he leaned against the railing and chatted with Richard.

"Do you know, my friend?" His purple eyes appeared exceptionally bright under the afternoon sun.

"When I was twelve, I dug up a clay pot in the wasteland behind my family's manor."

Richard was wrapping the fishing line around his finger twice, and upon hearing this, he turned his head to look at him.

Morpheus seemed to have discerned his thoughts and laughed:

"This was no simple clay pot, but an artifact cursed for two thousand years. It caused my whole body to be covered in lizard scales. My father spent a lot of money to get a priest from the temple to help me remove the curse."

"Although I was cursed, the joy of discovering the unknown fascinated me so much that I knew then that I didn't want to do anything else in my life, I only wanted to excavate more historical ruins."

"A life with pursuits is meaningful," Richard said with a smile.

Morpheus's eyes lit up instantly upon hearing this. He sprang up from the railing, causing the fishing line to jerk.

"Haha, that's the logic! What I most want to go to now is the Lost Hall in the North, which is a ruin of the Dwarven Kingdom."

"Have you heard those legends? The entire city hollowed out seven mountains. The pillars in the great hall were chiseled directly from the mountain itself, and they are covered in the epics of the seven great Dwarven royal families."

"It has been submerged for at least three thousand years, and no one has ever found where the entrance is."

He spoke faster and faster, as if he wanted to pour out everything he had kept in his heart all these years in one breath.

"And then there's the Ancient Library located in the Dragon Spine Mountains. Legend has it that the collection of books inside is more than all the Mage Towers in the known world combined."

"But it is said that the place is guarded by a dragon clan, not just one or two, but an entire dragon clan."

"Some say they are silver dragons, some say they are golden dragons. Anyway, regardless of which kind, those who tried to break in never returned."

"You want to go there too?" Richard asked.

Morpheus said without hesitation: "Of course I want to, even if I get eaten by a dragon after seeing it, that would be fine."

"Uh... then it's better not to see it."

Morpheus laughed and cursed: "Have a little ambition, will you? Maybe in the future, we'll rely on you to become a dragon-slaying hero and take us in!"

Richard rolled his eyes speechlessly.

Morpheus continued: "Every time I encounter things left behind by ancient times, I wonder, the person who wrote these words, the person who carved these runes, what were they thinking at that time?"

"Would they have imagined that thousands of years later, someone would be sitting in the ruins reading the sentences they left behind?"

When Morpheus said this, his purple eyes gazed at the distant horizon, and his tone carried a heartfelt longing, completely different from his usual polite image.

Richard did not answer him, just remembered things from before he transmigrated.

In that world, he was also someone who spent every day in front of a computer, and he had also once had similar obsessions with certain things.

He didn't say anything, just let out the fishing line a bit more.

Cecilia sat on a wooden barrel not far from them, her sword laid across her knees.

She looked at Morpheus and asked:

"Those places you just mentioned, the Lost Hall of the Dwarven Kingdom, the library in the Dragon Spine Mountains, do you really believe they exist?"

"Of course they exist!" Morpheus said without hesitation.

"I have seen mutually corroborating records in three different documents. One of them is a memoir written by a Dwarven exile at the end of the Second Era, which details the column structure and inscription content of the great hall."

"A person could not fabricate such specific details out of thin air."

"Maybe he just made it up?" Cecilia said.

"Then he must be a genius, because the grammatical structure of the ancient Dwarven language he described was only deciphered by scholars in the last two hundred years, and that memoir was written thirteen hundred years ago."

"If he made it up, then he is the greatest writer and linguist in history." After Morpheus finished speaking, he looked at Lia with a "what else do you have to say" kind of look.

Cecilia did not argue further, her gaze falling on the scabbard on her knees, and she was silent for a few seconds.

"I do have a place I want to go, or rather, a thing I want to do," she said, her voice a little softer than before.

Morpheus immediately became interested, ignoring the fishing line, and turned to face her.

Richard also turned his head, just watching quietly.

Lia spoke: "When my father was still alive, I was just a little girl."

"Back then, the family had not yet fallen. We lived in a manor on East Pole Island. Outside the manor gate, there was a stone tablet, and the tablet was covered with names and achievements."

"The name of the first-generation family head was at the highest position, followed by the second generation, the third generation, down generation by generation. Whatever major event each family head did would be carved next to their name."

Her fingers unconsciously stroked the patterns on the scabbard.

"Pacifying pirate rebellions, carve a line; eliminating orc tribes, carve a line; sheltering pilgrims, also carve a line."

"When I was a child, I loved standing in front of the stone tablet, fantasizing about when I would be able to carve my name on it."

Morpheus opened his mouth, seemingly wanting to say "I completely understand you."

But seeing Cecilia's expression, he swallowed his words and just listened quietly.

"Later, my father and my brothers all sacrificed themselves in the war defending Dark Gold Island. No one would carve new names on it anymore, and my family completely declined. No one remembers."

Cecilia's voice was flat, as if she were talking about someone else's business, but her fingers were gripping the scabbard tightly.

She raised her head and looked at Richard and Morpheus through her veil: "One day, I will restore the glory that belongs to the 'Radiant Griffin' family and carve my name back onto that stone tablet."