As everyone conversed, Cattleya emerged from the captain's cabin. She walked past the people on deck and approached Nina, asking, "Are you ready?"
"Captain, I need to wait a bit longer. The bottle of Nepos I just opened isn't finished yet."
As she spoke, Nina, holding Pace, walked towards another cabin.
Cattleya nodded to Nina, then her gaze fell on Klein. After a moment's consideration, she explained, "Someone discovered a ruin here on the seabed, said to be from the Fourth Epoch. We plan to take a look while we're here."
Frank dragged a basket of live fish out of the cabin. His eyes gleamed with excitement as he looked at the people gathered on the deck and shouted, "Hey, ladies and gentlemen, does anyone need a drink? We have red wine, milk, coffee, and Lanti."
The crew members of the Future, who had been gathered together, scattered quickly as if startled, discussing awkward topics in twos and threes, moving away from Frank.
Seeing that no one was paying him any attention, Frank had no choice but to turn his gaze to Leyton and the others still by the ship's rail. He dragged the basket of live fish over.
"Captain, do you need coffee? It's pure coffee, a bit bitter, but I also have milk here. You can mix them together."
Frank enthusiastically promoted the drinks he had made to Cattleya.
Cattleya pushed the glasses on her nose with an expressionless face and said calmly, "No need. It's still morning; I don't need coffee to wake me up."
Frank took out two still-wriggling silver-scaled fish from behind him and offered them to Cattleya, saying, "There's also milk and red wine!"
Was he doing it on purpose, or did he genuinely not notice that everyone on this ship was resisting the things he made?
Klein looked at the silver-scaled fish Frank held tightly in his hand and suddenly remembered what Leyton had said earlier about fish that could grow by being planted in the soil... Could these be the fish grown in the soil? They didn't look any different from the fish in the sea. Did Planter mean that anything could be grown from the soil?
Frank glanced at Klein, who was staring at the fish in his hand. As if understanding something, he smiled suddenly and brought the two fish closer to Klein, saying, "Gehrman, do you want to try?"
Looking at the fish offered to him, Klein's lips moved stiffly as he mumbled, "No, thank you."
"Are these also the fish you grew last night?"
Leyton, with some curiosity, reached out and took one of the fish from Frank's hand. His right index finger glowed with starlight as he lightly scraped the fish's belly.
Dark red liquid immediately flowed from the fish's body, carrying a faint scent of wine and fish.
Leyton collected a bit of the dark red liquid with his finger, then put it to his lips to taste. The red wine flavor was strong, with a hint of the unique fishy smell.
He smacked his lips twice, as if savoring it, then spoke: "Is it Sonia blood wine?"
"That's right! This is my prized collection."
"All the red wine in the dining room this morning was this special Sonia blood wine I provided. Those guys really enjoyed drinking it."
Frank smiled proudly and nodded, as if he had done something extraordinary.
Leyton saw Klein's expression suddenly freeze, his gaze turning complicated as he looked at the fish in Leyton's hand, still dripping wine, as if he wanted to pulverize it with his eyes.
Leyton tilted his head to look at Klein, who was staring intently at the fish in his hand. A faint purple colour flashed in his eyes, and he directly conveyed the information he wanted to share into Klein's mind:
The dining room on the Future has always been managed by Frank, and it's also where he holds his tasting events. Hmm, there usually aren't any problems, and even if there are, Frank himself is the best doctor on the Future.
Klein suddenly looked up, his gaze fixed on Leyton's eyes, as if saying: Why didn't you tell me something so important sooner?
Leyton shrugged, threw the fish into the sea, then turned to Frank and said in a calm voice, "There's a faint fishy smell; it really affects the taste."
Frank nodded gravely, taking note of Leyton's feedback, then said, "There's nothing I can do about it. I replaced the blood in these fish's blood vessels, which improves their nutrition, but also inevitably leaves some fishy smell."
"I don't have time to tackle this problem right now. I'll solve it after I've conquered the cross-breeding technology for cows, sugar, and coffee."
"I think your suggestion is very meaningful. Squeezing a cup of pre-brewed hot coffee directly from a cow would save a lot of unnecessary steps."
No, I think these steps are very necessary... I feel like by the time I step off the Future, I probably won't be able to look at cows and coffee directly anymore.
Klein sighed inwardly, while subtly glaring at Leyton. "The Future is truly blessed to have crew members like you."
Leyton's mouth twitched. He could already feel Cattleya's complicated gaze on him. If this continues, Frank and I are at risk of being thrown overboard at any moment.
Sighing inwardly, Leyton looked at Frank, who was still narrating his ideas, and interrupted him: "Frank, don't you think using cows is very inconvenient?"
"You could completely modify coffee trees so that they no longer bear fruit, but rather juice encased in a thick shell—juice mixed with coffee, milk, and sugar. Besides, growing trees is much simpler than raising cows."
Frank thought seriously for a moment, then nodded and said, "That's a good suggestion. I've researched mushrooms that can produce milk before. With a few changes, I can graft that characteristic onto trees."
Nina, dressed in black tight-fitting clothing that looked like it was made of fish skin, walked out of the cabin with a scent of alcohol and said to Cattleya, "Captain, shall we start now?"
The somewhat scandalous size of her chest made the pirates on the surrounding deck unable to take their eyes off her, wanting to press their eyes against her chest.
Cattleya gave Frank and Leyton a deep look before turning her head and nodding gently to Nina, "Start."
No sooner had she spoken than Nina strode to the ship's rail, pushed off forcefully with her right hand, and leaped directly over the rail into the sea. Like an agile fish, she quickly darted into the deep sea.
Leyton, as if sensing something, turned his head to look into the depths of the Future's cabin, then quickly withdrew his gaze and said to Cattleya and Klein, "I woke up too early today. I'm going to my room to catch up on some sleep. If you find anything, remember to wake me up."
After speaking, he walked directly into the cabin, but he did not return to his own room. Instead, following his intuition, he walked deeper into the cabin.
After descending several layers of cabins, thick, green vines suddenly hung down around him. They covered the surrounding area like a downpour, intertwining to form a lush green forest, layer upon layer, with no end in sight.
Bernadette, with long chestnut hair and a tall figure, suddenly appeared before Leyton.
She wore an Intis-style women's shirt with large lace flowers at the collar, an indigo patterned captain's coat over it, cream-colored trousers, and knee-high boots. On her head, she wore a tricorn hat with feathers, dressed like the leader of a pirate ship.
This was probably her most fitting attire for the image of Queen Mystic... Leyton sighed inwardly, then bowed slightly and greeted her, "Good morning, Lady Bernadette."
Bernadette nodded politely and distantly, then asked in a calm voice, "You've returned to the Future at this time. Do you intend to go to the Sea of Ruins, or do you wish to Paces through there to another place?"
"Perhaps both."
Leyton was not curious about how she knew the Sea of Ruins might connect to somewhere else; he simply gave a brief reply.
Bernadette also seemed not to care much about Leyton's answer. Her gaze, deep and profound, looked towards the ground woven from verdant vines, as if her sight penetrated layers of obstruction, seeing the dark and abyssal seabed.
After a brief silence, she spoke in a deep voice, "That ruin at the bottom of the sea is very unusual. The higher the Sequence, the greater the danger."
"That ruin has clear traces of human activity, or another civilization similar to humans, but its history is so ancient that even I cannot see through it. A very long time ago, perhaps a civilization existed here, a civilization skilled in smelting Steel and manufacturing machinery."
"I noticed the complex and intense emotions that surfaced in your eyes when you looked at the seabed earlier. I cannot decipher those emotions, but that state is somewhat similar to my father's moments of deep thought."
After Bernadette finished speaking to herself, she fell silent. She did not ask questions, nor did she make any superfluous movements. Her eyes, deep and profound, gazed downwards, seemingly observing the strange and dangerous deep-sea ruin from afar.
After a period of silence, Leyton suddenly spoke, "You have never sought your father's last mausoleum. Is it because George III of Loen is about to advance to Black Emperor?"
"That's part of the reason, but more importantly, I made some prophecies when I advanced to Sage earlier, including Cattleya's current journey to the Sea of Ruins. Your appearance was not in my prophecy."
"She is too overconfident and has overlooked the influence of that sea area on Heath Doyle on her ship. This will lead to irreparable consequences for them. Apart from your friend, who holds many secrets, it will be very difficult for anyone else to survive."
Bernadette calmly narrated her prophecy and a possible Future that the Future might encounter.
So it's a Mother's worry... Leyton muttered to himself, then changed the subject: "The drilling well at the bottom of the sea goes straight to the Earth's core, connecting to the Chaos Sea deep within the Earth to some extent."
"Drilling well? Is that a direct transliteration of a word? What does it mean?"
Bernadette nodded slightly. She didn't press about the Chaos Sea, but instead asked about the drilling well.
Because there is no oil deep underground in this world, there naturally wouldn't be drilling wells. When communicating with Bernadette, Leyton had directly pieced together an Intis word based on its pronunciation.
After a moment's consideration of his words, he simply explained, "It's roughly a very, very deep well, used to extract things buried deep underground."
Bernadette nodded slightly, not pressing further about the drilling well. Her gaze, Condensation, lowered to look at the ground beneath her. After a moment, her right hand extended forward, grasping a brilliant, indifferent eye condensed from starlight from the void.
She casually cast this eye downwards. Like an illusory object, it easily passed through the forest woven from verdant vines, through the Future's cabin and the cold seawater, landing on Nina, who was exploring the seabed.
At the bottom of the sea, Nina, enveloped by the cold seawater, suddenly felt her thoughts become much clearer. She looked at the wellhead ahead, which even a child couldn't Paces through, and hesitated for a moment. Something in the dark, deep well seemed to be slowly calling to her, but this feeling was not strong, and she easily resisted it.
Then she casually found a few stones from the surroundings and threw them down. After confirming there was no response, she picked up a metal bar, whose original appearance was completely unrecognizable, and a piece of black, hard, honeycomb-patterned soil nearby, then swam back towards the surface.
At the back of her head, where she couldn't see, a clear blue, cold and indifferent eye without eyelashes blinked twice, then dissolved into specks of starlight and vanished into nothingness.