Chapter 524

Chapter 391: Surveillance

Conquer Sea, Shining White Pearl.

On the dark sea, the massive cruise ship continued to cut through the waves. Inside one of the cabins, Dorothy sat on her sofa, summarizing the results of her zombie puppet investigation and pondering a series of questions.

Due to the ship’s misdirected course, Dorothy had dispatched a small zombie puppet to investigate the bridge and captain’s cabin. Her investigation unexpectedly revealed an abnormally high humidity around the captain’s cabin. To confirm this, she specifically operated a drunk puppet to wander in the abnormal area near the captain’s cabin, which was indeed taken away by a sailor exiting the captain’s cabin.

This confirmed that the dense moisture in the air around the captain’s cabin had some form of detection effect. If someone were to rashly enter this humid area, they could be easily perceived by those inside the cabin. It seemed to be a counter-surveillance defensive measure.

“The moisture around the captain’s cabin is ordinary water vapor, containing no unusual spirituality. It’s not something released by a supernatural creature. It doesn’t resemble the relationship between human-faced spiders and spider silk or the spider fang priest and bl**d mist. These moisture principles are different.”

“However… even such ordinary moisture can serve as a detection method. This proves that the person in the captain’s cabin can sense ordinary moisture and natural things without spirituality… This is a characteristic of an elementalist.”

“A simulation of a thunder summoner like me can occasionally sense natural discharges in clouds during rainy days. Therefore, other elementalists should also be able to perceive their corresponding natural elements. Abundant moisture in the air, when significantly disturbed or adhered to a person, could likely be sensed by a supernatural being of the wave path.”

“This method of using moist air for counter-surveillance is quite ingenious. Such a degree of humidity increase would be imperceptible to ordinary people or even supernatural beings, as the moisture is ordinary and lacks any unusual spirituality. Hence, methods like my spiritual vision chalk’s spiritual perception or the Radiance Lamp’s focused detection of unusual spirituality would fail to detect it. If not for my ability to use airborne insect zombie puppets, which are more sensitive to humidity changes, I might have just sent the puppet directly and been detected.”

“The captain of the ship, Costa, is very likely a supernatural being of the wave path, and judging from his acute perception of natural moisture, he isn’t of low rank. At least, he’s at the level of Chalk.”

After realizing that the captain himself was a supernatural being of the wave path, Dorothy couldn’t help but feel the gravity of the situation.

A captain of a cruise ship with thousands of tourists being a supernatural being of the Chalk level, and now the ship might have deviated from its original course—this situation couldn’t be reassuring no matter how you looked at it!

Following this, Dorothy became even more determined to gather information about the captain’s cabin. However, due to the damp air, she didn’t dare send her small zombie puppets directly close.

“It seems I need to use some other means…”

Sitting on her bed, Dorothy muttered to herself while focusing her attention on a gecko zombie puppet inside a distant ventilation duct. With a thought, the spiritual thread once again activated, transmitting a certain state to the gecko zombie puppet. Instantly, invisible microscopic currents flowed over the surface of the puppet.

Electric Body State: This was an ability possessed by the black earth tier thunder mage of the howling path. Simply put, by consuming spirituality, one could adapt to electric shocks, allowing currents to flow over the body under constraint, electrifying the skin. In this state, one could perform electric touch attacks on enemies or electrify handheld conductors.

Unlike summoning lightning or electric arc emission, the electric body state was a condition similar to a buff, akin to the ‘eat’ buff, and thus could be transmitted via spiritual thread. Dorothy used a small amount of spirituality to transmit the electric body state to the gecko zombie puppet.

After wrapping the gecko zombie puppet in a thin current, Dorothy maneuvered it resolutely towards the damp area ahead.

Upon entering the damp area, as the gecko zombie puppet moved, tiny water droplets inevitably attached to it. Dorothy then used the subtle current on the puppet to electrolyze these droplets.

Using this method, Dorothy avoided disturbing the moisture and being affected by it, advancing deeper into the ventilation duct and carefully observing the captain’s cabin door from afar.

To minimize disturbance to the moisture, Dorothy moved the gecko zombie puppet very slowly, electrolyzing moisture as it progressed.

A supernatural being of the wave path could sense unusual disturbances in the moisture, but if the moisture disappeared, there would be nothing left to sense. These droplets were merely ordinary water, unlike the bl**d beads of the spider fang priest, which were part of their body. The slight disappearance of these droplets shouldn’t alert anyone in the captain’s cabin.

Thus, under Dorothy’s operation, the gecko zombie puppet advanced slowly yet steadily. As it moved, nothing unusual happened in the captain’s cabin. Seeing this, Dorothy breathed a sigh of relief.

“Phew… looks like this method works…”

Continuing to operate the gecko zombie puppet, it eventually approached the end of the ventilation duct, right outside the captain’s cabin vent. As it got closer, Dorothy felt the spirituality in her veil ring starting to deplete. The gecko zombie puppet was being detected by some form of spiritual probe.

“This is… similar to the Radiance Lamp’s spiritual detection… Since the wave path is a subsidiary of the ‘lamp’ path, it possesses some of the ‘lamp’ detection capabilities. The moisture plus this, it’s almost like a double safeguard…”

“Fortunately, this detection isn’t too strong; it can be countered with a bit of ‘shadow.’”

Dorothy thought to herself, maintaining both the veil ring and electric body state buffs on the gecko zombie puppet, countering the moisture and ‘lamp’ detections simultaneously. She slowly guided the puppet forward in the ventilation duct, finally hearing voices from within the captain’s cabin.

Inside the captain’s cabin, two male voices were conversing. They weren’t speaking Prit, and after recognizing the language, Dorothy confirmed that they were speaking Iwig.

To exchange for the dragon roar, Dorothy had learned multiple languages, including Iwig, at Crown University Library. Although she mainly relied on phonetics to memorize words, recent interactions with foreigners on the ship had improved her Iwig skills. Now, she could barely understand the conversation in the captain’s cabin.

“So, how is your preparation going?”

“It’s almost ready. I’ll arrange the exhibition hall tomorrow morning, and the formal display will start tomorrow afternoon. Although Deep Blue Heart has been placed in advance, its display will be at night.”

Hearing the sounds from the captain’s cabin, Dorothy’s heart raced. She continued to manipulate the gecko zombie puppet forward until it reached the vent. Through the iron grating, she finally saw the scene inside the captain’s cabin.

Inside the luxurious captain’s cabin, two middle-aged men sat facing each other. One wore a uniform and captain’s hat, with a beard, unmistakably the captain of Shining White Pearl, Costa. The other wore a neat suit with a mustache, whom Dorothy recognized from posters as the jewelry collector Massimo, who was organizing a jewelry exhibition on the cruise ship.

“Costa and Massimo… the captain and the collector, both important figures on this voyage are here. There must be something fishy going on…”

Observing the scene, Dorothy thought to herself, then focused on listening to their conversation.

“Deep Blue Heart needs to illuminate our path, so it must be placed before the bow. Is your stand secure? Don’t let it fall into the sea because of the waves.”

Inside the cabin, Captain Costa spoke to Massimo, who immediately responded.

“Don’t worry. The angel stand is custom-made for Deep Blue Heart. Not only is it made of steel and very sturdy, but the installation interface is specially designed. Once the gem is placed there, it locks in place. Even with a hammer, it won’t come off unless someone like us uses all their strength to break the entire stand, or I personally unlock it.”

As he spoke, Massimo took a sip of deep red liquid. After hearing this, Costa nodded and continued.

“Hmm… Hearing you say that, Deep Blue Heart seems safer on the angel stand than in a safe…”

“Heh… if we compare it to a regular safe, that’s true.”

“Alright… as long as it’s safe. The ship will reach the bl**d Offering Sea in about a day. To make the sea deity Haemohois appear, the light of Deep Blue Heart is indispensable. We can’t mess this up.”

“Don’t worry, it won’t happen…”

Massimo replied to Costa, and at that moment, the cabin door suddenly rang. Costa glanced at the door without asking who it was and simply said, “Come in.”

As Costa spoke, the door opened, and a sailor in a clean uniform entered, bowed deeply to Costa and Massimo, and said, “Gentlemen, I’ve checked the person who was loitering around the captain’s cabin. It was a drunken passenger who got lost and accidentally came here.”

The young sailor respectfully reported to Costa and Massimo. After hearing this, Costa spoke sternly.

“A drunk? Was he really drunk? Has his identity been verified?”

“It has been verified. His name is Martin, a Faraluo. We confirmed at the bar that he was indeed drinking heavily. His family has been found and taken back. Initial inquiries and checks revealed no abnormalities on them. They are essentially ordinary people.”

The sailor spoke seriously. After listening, Costa pondered for a moment and then said, “I see… Given this, let’s temporarily halt the public investigation of them. But we can’t let our guard down. Keep an eye on them covertly. If anything unusual happens, notify me immediately.”

“Yes, I’ll arrange for someone to watch them covertly.”

The sailor said, then bowed to Costa and Massimo before leaving. After the sailor left, Massimo spoke to Costa.

“It’s getting late, so I’ll head back. Tomorrow is the official start of the ceremony, and I need to rest well.”

“Alright, no need to see me out.”

Massimo stood up, left his seat, and walked out of the captain’s cabin. After Massimo left, Costa closed the door and paced back and forth twice inside the cabin. He then looked at a map on the wall, staring at a particular sea area for a while before muttering to himself.

“Haemohois… I hope this ceremony will please you…”

…

“Haemohois…”

In the guest cabin, Dorothy, having heard the intelligence from the captain’s cabin, sat on the sofa, frowning and muttering to herself. She wasn’t unfamiliar with the strange term mentioned by Massimo and Costa.

In the secret transmission she traded with Misha from the An Yin Bureau, The Map of the Sea, Dorothy had seen a similar-sounding term.

In The Map of the Sea, there was a record of a sea monster. Its Prit pronunciation was very similar to Haemohois. According to the records, this sea monster had the body of a whale and three enormous snake heads. It usually dwelled in the deep sea, enjoying overturning ships and hunting humans. Due to rumors of its connection to abyss serpents, it was listed as an object of worship by the Abyss Cult.