ctnovel Chapter 59 Exploring the Legendary Maritime Path
Chapter 59 Exploring the Legendary Maritime Path
"Teacher, I'll head back now. Don't worry, I'll definitely finish this entire workbook."
Before getting into the carriage, Shirley, clutching a thick stack of books in her arms, bowed solemnly to Miao Meng and patted her chest, promising that she would definitely finish her homework.
"Well, if you encounter a particularly difficult question, you can skip it for now and come back to me when you're really unsure."
Miao Meng was actually quite serious about Shirley's studies. Although he wouldn't say he would hand over his best skill—magical device making—he didn't hold back on some basic alchemy knowledge.
Therefore, apart from a small amount of hands-on alchemy practice, the focus was more on laying a foundation for Shirley and cultivating a sound scientific understanding in her.
In this way, even if they are no longer taught by their own teachers, they can gradually expand their knowledge based on their existing knowledge, instead of being stuck in the same place.
However, Shirley is, after all, the Earl's granddaughter, and cannot stay here indefinitely. It is easy for a young girl to have a negative psychological impact if she is away from her parents for too long, so she works four days and rests three days.
After sending Shirley away, Miao Meng arranged for some newly recruited guards to look after the fishermen and have them carry out the preliminary preparations for the dock according to the design drawings.
The real elite soldiers, or rather the guards, accompanied Miao Meng to explore the dungeon, since the summoned creatures wouldn't stay there for long once Miao Meng entered.
Fortunately, Miao Meng already knew about this when he returned to the main world last time; otherwise, he wouldn't have hired a butler and guards in advance.
[Ding! The "Legendary Journey at Sea" instance has been activated. Your initial identity is that of a descendant of a fallen noble family.]
Seeing the background information provided by the website, Miao Meng discovered that the Black Knight title he had acquired was still active, and he felt that the world was being far too biased towards nobles.
[Ding, you are currently being checked. You do not meet the requirements to carry a boat. Please select a boat as your initial vehicle.]
Then information about several ships appeared in front of Miao Meng. Judging from their design, they were the spoils of war from the pirates that Count Black had killed.
It is roughly shaped like a fishing boat, but the hull is narrower and the sail is larger. The specially adjusted bow seems to have the effect of cutting through the wind and waves, making it run faster.
However, Miao Meng looked down on these small fishing boats. He scrolled back a bit and found his target, an extremely large ocean-going vessel, which was undoubtedly the main body of the "Hunter of Fortune".
There is a peculiar relationship between ship girl forms and ships. Although the two can coexist, the ship girl has no physical form when the ship exists.
In other words, when transformed into a large ship, people can be placed on board, but once in battle, the ship girl form has no combat power and can only rely on the ship itself to exert its strength.
However, ships have no advantage over ship girls. While their firepower is the same, they differ greatly in size and agility.
When facing a hail of bullets, the normal boyish size of the ship girl form is much more agile than a ship that is tens of meters long, and the area that can withstand attacks is also much smaller.
[Ding! Your vehicle selection is complete. Initial data is being generated. The Black Pearl medium you will be using will allow you to explore for sixty days. Enjoy your sea voyage!]
Miao Meng clicked confirm again, and then the surrounding environment changed from the manor to an island. However, this island was different from the one in the nautical tales, and there were not as many corpses in the background.
"Gurgle~ Da".
A dull thud of dice rolling followed, and then Miao Meng found himself in front of a map covered with a bunch of patterns of all sizes.
There are different patterns in the four directions: east, south, west, and north. Some are crossed swords, some are question marks, and some look like campfires. At first glance, they are not much different from the dungeon in the nautical adventure.
But after experiencing the feedback from the dungeon, Miao Meng knew the difference between the two. This dungeon was more game-like than the Maritime Adventure.
There are no standard routes on the map, but rather it's like a net where you can freely choose your flight path, and there are no limitations on your strength.
Whether it's modern equipment or a magical fleet, you can use them all here; the only limitation is time.
The time resources consumed between islands vary depending on their distance. Some islands may trigger special encounters that also consume a considerable amount of time, so careful planning is necessary.
After understanding the rules of the dungeon, Miao Meng turned his attention to the two dice next to the map.
This is the real key to the dungeon. When facing special challenges, it will give a numerical judgment based on its own attributes, and then determine whether it will succeed by the index of the dice.
"What's this? Has it completely turned into a tabletop role-playing game? I wonder what the combat system is like now, is it a card game?"
Miao Meng pondered for a moment and, finding that the instance had not provided any feedback, had no choice but to put it aside for the time being and prepare to pick a target on the map to try.
1. Eastern Island - Normal Battle (3 days); 2. Western Ocean Whirlpool - Unknown Event (5 days)
3. Southern city port – Socializing (1 day); 4. Northern wandering ships – Socializing/Plundering (3 days)
Although this was the first time Miao Meng had seen this type of dungeon mode, he wasn't completely at a loss. He had encountered similar games before, so he picked it up quickly.
Considering that each route has a corresponding time consumption, it is unclear whether this time consumption refers to the time required to reach the destination or the time consumed by the event itself.
However, none of this would affect Miao Meng's preparation to choose a battle route; otherwise, all his thorough preparations would have been in vain.
[Ding! You have been sailing eastward at sea for three days and have stumbled upon a small island. It is covered in lush greenery and you can hear animal calls.]
After this notification appeared, the islands surrounding Miao Meng transformed into a ship, and he was now standing on the deck, gazing at the distant islands.
Although there was still quite a distance to the island, the island's abundant energy and the calls of various birds and animals made Miao Meng feel the island's warmth even from the boat.
"Huh? That's it? Shouldn't a few more options pop up to tell me what to do?"
Miao Meng casually made a comment, then looked at the two dice floating in front of him, hesitating whether he should roll the dice now and try out the rules of this thing.
"Gurgle~"
But before he could even handle them, the two dice started spinning on their own, spinning for a full five seconds before suddenly stopping.
[(Simple) 2D6=11, less than your charm value, this assessment passes.]
[Your charm has successfully won over the gorilla tribe on the island. You can now recruit gorilla warriors on the island using food.]
Gorilla Warrior: Level 4, Beast Warrior, consumes 5 units of food per week, and requires 10 units of food per person for the first recruitment.
The current food reserves are 0. The gorilla tribe currently has 6 warriors available for recruitment, with one more added each week until the recruitment cap of 10 is reached.
"Oh, that's interesting. I think I understand now."
Miao Meng snapped his fingers and opened the detailed supplies panel floating on his ship.
Besides food, there are also a variety of other supplies such as timber, precious metals, jewelry, and fresh water (and alcohol), but now they are all marked with 0.
The only exception is the Disaster Coin, which has reached six figures in this resource column, undoubtedly a huge number compared to the other duck eggs.
"Normally, I should go back to the port city to buy supplies and then explore along various routes, but the ship girls don't need to eat, so food resources didn't pop up."
After browsing through various resources for detailed information, Miao Meng gained a deeper understanding of the rules of this instance and became even more interested.