C4 Finding your way to the door

Albert instantly recognized the gentleman before him, the message man who had been thrown out of the tavern by Artus, John Laurenz.

"Mr. John Laurents, I'm having a field day trying to figure out how I can meet you."

John raised his white-gloved hand to shake Albert's and quickly drew it back.

"It seems that your Excellency has been to that barn-like tavern ......

I can't understand why a famous explorer and adventurer like Your Excellency would put the contact location in a stinky place like that, don't you have your own mansion?"

Albert smiled helplessly as he reached out to invite John to board the ship and led him straight to the captain's cabin.

"Welcome to the Crescent, this is my residence."

Albert said as he rolled up the charts and measurements, clearing the table he pulled out a glass of wine and prepared to entertain his guest.

"Oh ...... no no no, you should have a residence of your own on the mainland island, even if you only use it as your mailbox."

John said, accepting the glass, and after a quick glance at the cleanliness of the glass, he nodded rather approvingly.

"I don't have any money, I've spent almost all of it on exploring this thing."

"That's good, focus is necessary for success, and this will be useful for the rest of our partnership."

Albert was a bit surprised, he thought that John had come to talk to him about some search for the legendary relic empty island or something like that.

In order to search for the Land of Return, as long as he heard any legend related to the Land of Return or something similar to the efficacy of the Land of Return, he would listen carefully, gather information, and search for this place over the vast blue sea.

And cooperation, a word commonly used by merchants, made him wary.

John narrowed his eyes, sensing with old-fashioned skill that Albert's interest was slipping away, so he decided to go in single-handedly.

"Forgive me, Lord Albert, I did some research on you before I found you.

As far as I know, you appeared out of thin air on the Flying Gull Hunter five years ago, worked as a crew member for two years, then bought your own flying ship and

then explored all the way to the present.

I couldn't help but wonder what you were looking for.

Until today, when I ran into a retired first mate who told me the answer."

Albert narrowed his eyes, five years of being from Beyhaven had brought him a lot of trouble, and now, the presence of a stranger who knew him, and who, from the sound of it, had had a long conversation with Anthony, made him wary.

"Oh? You've met Anthony? What did he say?"

John put his glass down with a smirk on his face.

"You take it easy, Anthony has been praising your wisdom, he says you are the greatest captain on this continental island.

He told me how you control the flying ship through the ghost fog, how to escape from the overwhelming wing demons ...... in short wonderful."

Albert took a sip of his wine, showing no emotion at John's compliments.

"Didn't say anything else?"

"He said you were looking for a place called the Land of Return, is that right?"

Albert didn't move, and when John stopped speaking, he let out a breath.

It seemed that Anthony hadn't said anything about being from the Beyhive, he was just trying to pull a deal for himself.

"Well then, I'm sorry Mr. John Laurenz, since you know that I'm looking for a place to return to in the Aqua Sea, you should know that I'm not interested in other

other directions of exploration are of no interest."

"Of course I know, it is this place of return that I am talking about."

Hearing about the place of return, Albert pressed down his wildly beating heart, lest he get his hopes up and then be overly disappointed.

"Oh? You know where this place is? Or do you also think its existence is just a legend?"

"No, no ...... I don't really know." John shook his head and placed his hands on the table, his thumbs circling each other.

"It seems I need to re-introduce myself.

I, John Laurenz Chelvisi.

Tenth generation heir to the last Chelvessi King, and the only proper heir to the continent of Valance."

The other party's wordy self-introduction left Albert dumbfounded, and he who lacked knowledge of the history of the Valance Continent could never have imagined that he

before him was a descendant of a royal family.

The aura of this royal family almost subdued Albert, well in his world there is such a saying, the king's vassal would rather have a seed?

He kept his politeness and returned without being humble, "But you still don't know where the place of return is ah ......"

Not offended by what should have been an incredibly awkward question, John laughed twice and leaned forward.

"Do you know what you have the most of as a royal family?"

Albert thought for a moment and was left with only two options, money and women, and he suddenly felt incredibly vulgar.

"It's the collection of books, the royal family's collection of books is not something that ordinary people can imagine."

John said, the excited look on his face suddenly disappeared and was replaced by endless despondency.

"Of course, with the downfall of our family, the palace was destroyed, but a lot of knowledge and information we still preserved through the family record.

There was that one book which did mention the Land of Return, so I concluded that the Land of Return was real."

"So, you know where the Land of Return is?"

John sighed and said, "As I said earlier, I don't know where the Land of Return is.

When our family was at the end of its rope, in order to avoid being liquidated, the members of the royal family gathered thirty-nine flying ships and fled the island of Valance Mainland, loaded with riches, books, and exotic treasures.

Now that more than two hundred years have passed, no one knows where they are, and I hope that Your Excellency can help me find out where they are."

Albert pondered for a moment, pulled the small leather pouch from his pocket, took out the dark green stone leaf pendant, clutched the string and held it out in front of John's face.

"Take off your gloves and hold it, I have some questions for you."

John locked eyes with Albert suspiciously, who nodded slightly.

"Don't worry, it won't do you any harm."

John removed his gloves and grasped his aging but still delicate hand onto the dark green stone pendant, a sense of power flowed into his body, much to his surprise.

"Let me ask you, are you sure there is a book that records the location of the Land of Return?"

"I'm sure!''

John answered immediately, with a firm hand.

"Are you sure that this book followed the flotilla out of the Valance continent?"

John nodded vigorously and answered still firmly.

"Then how do you know what happened two hundred years ago?"

"That's easy, our family still retains the habit of recording our family history, and the loading catalog of the flotilla that left the mainland island two hundred years ago is still attached to the

our family history book."

"Then since it was two hundred years ago, how do you know that there is a book on it that records the place of return?"

"As I said earlier, we have a family history book, which not only records events, but also includes the diary of each family head, and the family head of two hundred years ago, Wall, mentioned in his diary that there was a book describing the Land of Return in the book that followed the flotilla away."

"I want to see this diary."

John's brows furrowed together, and Albert knew that the side effect of the leaf pendant would only make someone tell the truth, not obey.

With a pious expression, John sensed that he was having trouble controlling the spilling of the truth, and he hurriedly loosened his grip, looking warily at Albert.

"I hope you'll forgive me, Mr. John, I had to make sure that what you said about the Land of Return was true."

"Now that I've got that off my chest, we're on the same page, aren't we?"

Never in five years had Albert obtained so definite a clue about the Land of Return, and that desire to set sail at once beat wildly, even as

so, he forced his excitement to the back of his mind.

He asked as he put the pendant into his leather pouch, "So what do you want from me?"

John took a deep breath, sensing that the other man was convinced he was in a lighter mood at this point.

"I know, you are very good at sailing, you seem to have a sailing technique that doesn't belong to this era, these lines and strange symbols on your charts are unintelligible even to me, a captain who often leads merchant fleets.

Of course, this is also the main reason why I hope to cooperate with you.

But you don't have to worry, I'm not coveting your navigational skills, I'm if I'm a property that was taken away by the flying fleet two hundred years ago."

Albert detected ambition in the kind of snobbery that showed in John's eyes; it was a kind of royal family's characteristic superior's pressure, which still existed despite John's courteous behavior.

But Albert was not interested in the direction of the history of this world, he only wanted to return to that heartfelt surface world.

"Okay, the Book of Timothy is mine."

John nodded his head, and the two of them stared at each other in silence as the atmosphere became strangely awkward.

"In that case then, I need clues, the ports that set sail two hundred years ago, the course, the supplies carried, etc., all the information you have I need."

"Then I would ask Mr. Albert to follow me back to my humble abode for a moment."

John put on his gloves and stood up gracefully, a hint of curiosity tinged with deep wonder passing between his slightly furrowed brows.

"Please do satisfy my curiosity, where did you get that strange little stone ......?"

"Trust me, you don't want to know."

Albert smiled and let out a breath, finally having a reliable direction to explore, which put him in a pleasant mood.

Unlike Albert's pleasant mood, Priest Urien, who failed to fulfill his mission, was suffering from Bishop Marius' reprimand.

"Nine flying ships, nine directions of exploration, six missing, and only one brought back my Lord's sacred bones ......

Is this the candidate you picked? Urien!"

"My Lord Bishop, that's just a legendary empty island, it's normal that it can't be found ......"

"Legend? Are you questioning the Lord's existence?!"

Marius's chiding voice was like a stone rolling down a valley, low but echoing, and Urien shivered and sweated like a pig.

"No, not really, Lord Bishop, I mean those clues you gave were so vague that who could, with a few words, find an empty island in the middle of a vast blue sea

In the middle of the eye of a needle to find the empty island ah ......"

"Didn't that Albert do it!?"

Urian was silent, Albert's success was real, he couldn't argue with that.

"Those loser captains you found are wasting my Lord's precious time! If you miss the day of promise, you will wait for the Lord to rain down punishment upon you!"