This was a place that resembled either a large control room or a grand meeting hall.

They walked in. The décor here was much more stable and luxurious, though it was extremely messy.

Overturned, ornate tables and chairs, the shattered remnants of a brass telescope, a stained Persian rug… But the most striking feature was the large circular window embedded in the back wall, covered in a web of cracks! Most of its glass was broken, replaced by thick fog and the profound darkness of night.

“You can actually see outside from here. “

“The Ether Field is so incredible… It’s like some kind of… higher-dimensional space. ” They walked up to the broken window, and then Li Aimin’s eyes flickered.

“Look down below. “

Right beneath this window, pressed against the wall, stood an overturned, peculiarly shaped large table, half-floating outside the cabin, held aloft by twisted ribbons of the ether field for who knows how many years.

“What’s that? ” Karl asked, craning his neck.

Kim Tae-cheol followed over and was taken aback. “Is that a navigation table? “

“Huh? You know what that is? ” Li Aimin looked at Kim Tae-cheol with great curiosity.

“Don’t forget, our country is a peninsula. Ships are no strangers to me. “

“Wow, you must be the second-in-command of your association, Manager Kim. What group are you from back home? “

“We… ” Yang Zicang decided to give the kid a heads-up. “We’re the ‘Lighthouse Travel Group.’ “

“Travel… Lighthouse! Freedom? ” Li Aimin’s eyes lit up as he turned to Karl. “Ah, did you create this travel group? No, wait—you’re just the captain, not the president. So why call it a lighthouse? “

“Too hard to guess. You better stop thinking about it. ” Kim Tae-cheol said and then jumped over the window sill.

Karl sighed, walked over, and patted the firefighter on the shoulder. “Think about where a lighthouse is most needed. ” With that, he too jumped over the sill.

Li Aimin looked at Yang Zicang, a look of sudden realization dawning on him. “So that’s the meaning! You want to light up this world! “

“Ah, well… ” Yang Zicang, who was about to climb out the window, gave a dry laugh. “Taking it as our new goal doesn’t sound too bad either. “

He dismissed the thought with a sweep of his Holy Sword, slicing open a chasm-like passage and stepping through.

It was probably because it hung outside the ship, and moreover, a structure manifested by the conceptual force field of the Aetheric Mindscape, so nobody paid any attention to this suspended navigation platform.

On the platform, the measurement and observation instruments lay scattered about, unlike the other Ether rooms above, where most of the more valuable items had already been lost, leaving only a chaotic floor.

“This compass seems a bit special. “

Amidst their rummaging, Li Aimin discovered something emitting a faint, energy-mist aura from an interior compartment.

“Try if you can pick it up! “

“Hm. ” Curiosity piqued, Li Aimin reached out to grab that translucent compass. His fingers easily passed through the phantom projection, only sensing a faint current of energy. Instantly, several warped images flashed through his mind.

A high-speed vessel, but out of control; a storm raging with turbulence; a canvas rattling ominously. A surge of panic made him yank his hand back as if shocked.

“Chiz! Can’t get it! ” he exclaimed, shaking his hand.

“Let me take a look. ” Kim Tae-cheol gathered the Chrono-Void Flame cautiously around his palm. This time, when his ethereal flame touched the compass projection, it flared brightly. The needle spun faster, emitting a high-frequency hum.

Simultaneously, a chaotic surge of emotions, laced with a desperate sense of course heading and a thick, cocoon-like despair, enveloped Kim Tae-cheol. Yang Zicang was about to raise his Holy Sword, but Kim Tae-cheol grunted, his face paling as he yanked his hand back.

“So intense. It felt like I was on an out-of-control ship about to slam into an iceberg. Utter panic, like a nightmare. Want to give it a try? “

“This isn’t really abouttryingit, is it? ” Li Aimin said, frowning and looking at his own hand.

“Brothers, ” Karl suddenly interjected, “Did any of you notice our ship just lurched forward twice—like it suddenly accelerated? Felt unstable, though. “

“Oh? ” the others turned to look.

Feeling the ship, Yang Zicang nodded. “It has. I wouldn’t have noticed it if you hadn’t mentioned it. Karl, you’re the captain. Why don’t you give it a shot? “

Buzzing with excitement and keeping his buzzed head held high, Karl walked over. He reached both hands into the hidden compartment, amplified his nihilistic fire, and pressed his palms outward over opposite sides of the compass.

“Come on! “

A wave of energy surged into his body, but Karl himself also let out pulses of energy, tinged with a faint bloodline aura—their other ends connecting to the statue.

With a loudthud, the compass-bound Karl stumbled backward, swaying wildly as if his whole body were a flag in the wind, staggering like a man over-drunk.

Just as the others moved to steady him, they felt the entire space around them begin to shake and sway.

“Damn it—get rid of it! THIS thing might have set the course for the entire etheric ship! “

{_ “What are you guys doing? The ship is swaying left and right! ” _}

Ruan Wenxiong’s panicked voice was amplified through the financing broadcast.

Karl immediately dropped the compass, but lingering traces of bloodline energy still clung to it, causing the needle to spin erratically.

“What now? Do we wait for the energy to drain before it’ll stop? “

In a spot nobody noticed, the First Mate’s blurry figure loomed overhead, quietly observing the group below.

{_ “First Mate, it seems this new captain will throw the entire Ether-Gnosis field into chaos. ” _}

{_ “Hmph. A captain who understands nothing—poking at these Essence-Gnosis relics that anchor the ship’s traits, no different from a child randomly smashing buttons on a control panel. Let’s go. They’ve created enough trouble for themselves. ” _}

Just as he turned to leave, a sudden sound of roaring waves shifting to a deep, heavy high-speed rush caught his attention.

{_ “What! ” _}

He whipped his head around.

“It actually works. “

Below, the young man who’d gotten the treasure last night was withdrawing his hands from the compass, rising from a crouch.

{_ “Sir, h-he… what did he do? He can control a compass even you wouldn’t dare touch. ” _}

The First Mate’s eyelids twitched.

{_ “He managed to repair a navigation compass polluted by the traits of ‘Chaos’ and ‘Shipwreck.’ Just how did this guy even get on board? ” _}

……

Li Aimin looked on in amazement as Yang Zicang, with just a touch of his hands, stabilized the entire turbulent ether-psionic force field and propelled it at high speed in a single direction.

“Boss, you’re incredible! How can you do everything? “

“It’s nothing. ” Yang Zicang wiped non-existent sweat to hide his earlier nervousness. “It just so happens my ability is trajectory control, so I thought I’d try to see if it could affect the compass needle. I didn’t expect that after expanding my station’s potential, I’d meet the exact standard required to control it. “

Kim Tae-cheol, who had been squatting on the ground staring at the compass needle, looked up.

“A station? Boss, what station rank are you to control it? “

“Hmm, the fifth rank: Ten-thousand-rank. “

Kim Tae-cheol’s mouth dropped slightly, while Karl exclaimed, “You, you’re already able to expand a Ten-thousand-rank station? ” He gave a bitter smile. “We’ve been following Wager for a long time and haven’t saved enough chronometers to expand a Ten-thousand-rank yet. “

“Alright, enough of that. Let’s see if we can find anything else. “

“There’s also a sea chart auxiliary. “

Li Aimin pulled out a leather scroll stuck between the navigation table and the wooden ship and handed it to Karl.

“Here you go, buddy. “

This time, nothing unusual happened. The sea chart seemed merely like a rendered map from reality.

Li Aimin scratched his head. “I really wonder how they originally ‘synced’ such a large ship into this ether space. How much energy and precision control would that require? “

“Right, it’s quite astonishing here. “

Karl looked toward Yang Zicang. “President, you said the figurehead is the activator of the ‘Sound Wave Force Field’? Is there anything else you know about this space? “

“Hmm… the Sound Wave Force Field. I did say that. ” Yang Zicang fell into thought, then suddenly lifted his head to look at the others. “Come to think of it, that phrase doesn’t really sound like my style of speech. You earlier… “

The First Mate, hidden above his massive psychic force field, watched the young man. Just from that one inquiry, it seemed like he was about to uncover the biggest secret of this place, and a decision was instantly made in his mind.

{Can’t wait any longer. }

{My lord, you… }

The blurry, ashen-black shadow watched as a luminous point, like a tiny cross-shaped rotating star, appeared once again in the First Mate’s hand.

{This one down there is no ordinary person. This guy absolutely possesses the potential of a top-tier Wave Burner… He… damn it, he’s about to sense my existence. }

His hand suddenly clenched tightly around the fleeting light.

{Sublime holy saint of the sea, I, Adrian of the ‘Wave Runner,’ pray to you… }

His arm raised upward, one finger pointing straight!

The gray shadow beside him emitted psychic waves of “heartache ” and “regret. ” But as it drew close to the First Mate, the fluctuations slowly dissipated.

A steady, solemn voice resonated throughout this tiny ethereal projection space.

{Grant that this burning fingertip may stir the fortunes that trouble the ignorant soul, bestow upon him the opportunity to immediately embark on a distant new journey, and pit this once-burned fate against your great feat! }

A slow, shimmering cruciform starlight appeared at the tip of his finger.

{I invest in “Heroic Flash / Group Radiance Flash ” for Chairman Yang’s hazy and gloomy future! }

……

Yang Zicang was about to ask the others a question when suddenly, with a clatter, the navigation table fell and crashed to the ground.

The entire sturdy table shattered and broke into several pieces, startling the few people around him.

“It can even break? “

-｛Distributor Loki Tata Mingqi says “it’s pure dumb luck. “｝

-｛Distributor Di’an is looking at me with envy.｝

-｛Distributor Di’an lowers his observation value to file four.｝

In the dispersing phantom images of the shattered navigation table, a finely crafted single-tube telescope appears.