A stack of maps of various sizes lay stacked on the table.
As the maps were brought up, the others fell silent, sitting quietly nearby without interrupting.
Now it was time for Alka, the captain, to think alone.
Generally, after consulting a map, Alka would have a goal and make a decision.
After spending so many years together, they had become familiar with Alka's habits.
He looked at the pile of maps being pushed over.
Alka lifted the first one from the top and examined it.
This one couldn't really be considered a map.
It was a simple, yet clearly labeled map of an island chain.
This island chain map was incredibly clear and easy to understand, with all sorts of information labeled on it.
The approximate time and distance of each island were clearly spelled out.
There was also a gear symbol in the upper right corner of the map.
It was clearly a map published by the Church of the Holy Machine. It was meticulously detailed, with clear data.
It deserves praise.
Below was a stack of various maps related to the islands in the chain.
"The Twin Island Chain consists of six connected islands. Two of them are relatively important. They produce some important supplies and have a large permanent population.
Of the remaining four islands, two are inhabited, primarily for food production. The last two are deserted, one large and one small."
After briefly describing the general situation, Sofia quietly waited for Alka to examine the maps.
Alka examined the maps.
Surprisingly, there were maps for every island. This collection was remarkably comprehensive.
And judging by the level of detail of the island maps, it was clear that they were constantly updated.
There were also different versions of the same island, even from different time periods.
Except for the two deserted islands.
That would be much simpler.
Arka first picked up the map of the Twin Islands, blinked, and examined it carefully.
As the largest of the Twin Islands.
However, the map only showed three white dots, almost all of which were located at the island's border.
This meant they were likely just valuables buried on the beach or sunk to the bottom of the ocean.
Maybe worth a few silver coins, or perhaps a fortune.
However, Arka hadn't expected the island to be so pristine.
He had expected the Twin Islands to be quite clean after their current level of development, but not to have only three white dots.
He reached out and pointed.
All that was displayed were ordinary treasures, indicating that Arka had no information.
With some regret, he set the map aside and examined the other maps.
First, the two resource islands with larger populations.
Two islands separated the two churches, one controlled by each.
Alka blinked and looked around.
There weren't many white dots, just one or two blue ones. He reached out and tapped them as well.
But this time, something was interesting.
One white dot and one blue dot revealed the name of a treasure.
This suggested Alka might know a little bit of information related to it.
But it was almost guaranteed to have no relevance to their goal.
Then he looked at the remaining four maps.
They were all interwoven with white and blue, and most of them contained treasures without names.
The remaining treasures only revealed their names and some minimal information.
This suggested Alka might only know insignificant details about these treasures.
Perhaps this information was derived from various other pieces of information.
For example, Alka knew a place name or the name of a family.
Yet, the target information he sought was completely unavailable.
The only thing he could be sure of was this:
This family did indeed have a hidden treasure vault, but they just didn't know where it was.
It was also possible that the vault was on one of these island chains, but someone had already gotten there first.
It wasn't impossible that they were a step too late.
After all, it had been over 50 years. When this family was first destroyed, countless people must have set their sights on the treasure.
Or perhaps the vault wasn't on these island chains, but hidden somewhere more secluded.
It was certainly possible that such a powerful family had some secrets of their own.
Not to mention that Alka and his companions knew very little about the deeper aspects of the Infinite Sea.
Seeing the map, Alka scanned it with a gloomy look.
He piled it up and threw it into his space ring.
"Looks like we didn't get much this time?" Sofia asked from across the way, observing Alka's expression.
Alka nodded.
"Not much. I didn't detect any signs of valuable treasure in the areas indicated by these maps."
"That's a shame," Jason said, leaning back in his chair.
But he didn't express much regret.
Treasure hunting is like that. After all, they were only taking a tentative look.
The information they knew wasn't any more than others, and possibly even less.
Mainly, they didn't put in much effort.
Cutting losses early was also a good thing.
This might be where Alka could be most valuable.
At least that's how they saw it.
In real treasure hunting, sometimes, a large portion of the effort and time can be wasted.
"Don't worry. I have a very interesting map here."
Sofia said with a smile. Hearing this, several people in the room turned to look at her.
She pulled out a map, nearly a meter wide, from her space ring, meticulously crafted.
The material alone was distinct. Alka and Simon, present at the scene, could tell at a glance that it must be a spell material.
Using spell material to draw a map.
Alka was filled with anticipation.
She took the map from Sofia's hand and examined it carefully.
"A regional map?" Alka thought, somewhat surprised, as she looked at the map.
"Is this an ocean? Not an island? And this depicts an ocean without any landmark islands, right?"
Hearing Alka's confusion, Sofia nodded. "Yes, that's right. I was also very surprised when I saw this map. Logically, there shouldn't be a map like this in the Vast Ocean.
But then I thought, this is the Vast Ocean."
Yes, this is the Vast Ocean. What's so strange about it?
"What's going on?" Simon asked curiously.
According to their understanding, the Vast Ocean is extremely chaotic. Aside from landmark islands and their chain islands, all other islands are basically drifting haphazardly on the sea.
There's simply no logical reason to find them.
Under such circumstances, even if a sea map is surveyed, it would be useless.
Because it's subject to change.
Only island maps are of any use, and then there are the bizarre island chain maps.
The island chain map wasn't so much a map as it was a data annotation, with only simple directions and time stamps.
It was completely different from a map.
"The area depicted here is called the Zehai," Sofia said, looking at the map in Alka's hand.
"Zehai?" Alka repeated, frowning in thought.
He seemed to have heard the term somewhere before.
"You've heard it?"
"Hmm... I remember." Alka patted his head, remembering where he'd heard it.
"I heard about this place on a sign in the church's bounty area. It's a relatively dangerous area.
Cults, all kinds of wanted criminals, and serial killers—they all hide out in this hellhole."
At least four or five of the targets on those bounties were in this area.
Sofia also began to explain her knowledge of the area: "According to the map seller, this is a swamp-like sea area, very dangerous.
But if you frequently sail around the Twin Islands chain, you might encounter it. This swamp sea appears from time to time in this large area.
It's not just the Twin Islands, but also landmark islands like Nokaan Island and Iceberg Island, where you'll encounter this sea area.
You're using such a rhetoric to recommend that I buy a map. What if I get into trouble?"
"What do you mean?" Simon looked even more confused.
"Those landmark islands I just mentioned are all scattered around the Twin Islands. Simply put, they're neighbors of the Twin Islands.
Although they're quite far apart, that's enough."
"And while this marsh sea drifts randomly, it seems to have a certain pattern and range.
It's around these island chains. So, ships operating between these landmark islands will, if unlucky, encounter this area."
Hearing this, everyone roughly understood.
In other words, while this sea area doesn't belong to the landmark islands and drifts randomly, it at least drifts within a certain area.
It's not drifting haphazardly in the boundless, unfathomable expanse of the Infinite Ocean.
Although this area can be described as absurdly large, even estimated to be larger than the entire Home Sea,
At least, for the Infinite Ocean, it's within an acceptable range.
But it wasn't an island, after all. It was an entire, very unique sea. Over the centuries, as more people encountered it, they naturally came to understand it better.
Arka looked at the sea map before him.
Although the map looked relatively clear, much of the information was very vague, including the exact size of the sea.
But the sea was indeed large enough.
Because in Arka's eyes, this wasn't considered a single sea area. It didn't fall into the category of island maps or regional maps in Arka's classification.
Arka's classification included world maps, regional maps, and island maps.
Of these, regional maps provided the least information.
Almost no information at all.
They only marked light spots on the islands covered by the map.
But in Arka's view, the map was actually divided into three regions.
In other words, this map was essentially similar to a world map.
It was simply a world map covering only one area.
The three areas can be simply divided into the upper area, the left area, and the right area.
The upper area took up almost half of the area.
Arka reached out and tapped the upper area.
[Mysterious Area]
[Treasure Quantity: White - Large, Blue - Large, Gold - Small, Orange - Trace.]
[Area Difficulty: Insane]
[Area Description: None]
A long-awaited introduction, a status description section Arka hadn't seen since leaving the Home Sea.
After all, there was no such thing as a world map in the Vast Ocean.
Uncharted Waters? Clearly, it wasn't because this area was called Uncharted Waters, but because Arka had no idea what it was called.
When he'd looked at the world map of the Home Sea before, he hadn't had such trouble because these areas were clearly marked on the world map.
What really concerned Alka was the number of treasures marked on it.
In such a large, fixed area as the Boundless Sea.
White and blue meant a large number, Alka could understand.
But why? Even golden treasures had a small number of this magnitude.
A small number wasn't just one or two.
According to Alka's previous speculation, there were probably more than three.
Were they starting to appear in large numbers?
And this tiny number was a rating Alka had never seen before.
Perhaps it meant there was only one.
But the problem was, it was orange.
A [Scepter]-level treasure.
This meant Alka had obtained information related to a Scepter-level treasure, even if he didn't necessarily have the ability to obtain it.
But knowing was better than not knowing.
This gave him more options.
And then there was the difficulty.
Crazy.
This is an acceptable difficulty level, indicating the extreme chaos here, practically a complete absence of order.
Not only are there enemies, but the environment itself is incredibly dangerous.
This was Alka's understanding.
Because even in the Home Sea, there were areas with this level of danger.
Curious, Alka reached out and tapped the lower right corner.
[Mysterious Area]
[Treasure Quantity: White - Large, Blue - Large, Orange - Trace.]
[Area Difficulty: Crazy]
[Area Description: None]
Alka was sure he had seen it right, and sure he hadn't clicked the wrong area.
But it was clear that this area still contained orange treasure.
Another one.
Aside from the lack of gold treasure, this area was no different from the previous area.
So what the hell was this place? Alka had already spotted two locations with orange treasures.
This is all considered part of the Marsh Sea.
He reached out again and tapped the last area. There was no way another orange treasure would appear here.
Alka couldn't help but think.
If another orange treasure appeared, Alka would have to assess whether they had the strength to even venture into this area.
Because if that were the case, it was clear that this Marsh Sea was in serious trouble.
[Mysterious Area]
[Treasure Quantity: White - Large, Blue - Small, Gold - Trace, Red - Trace]
[Area Difficulty: Insane]
[Area Description: None]
Looking at the description of this area, Alka silently mentally zipped his lips.
What the hell?
Can anyone tell me what this thing is?
Indeed, there were no orange quantity markings.
But the golden marking reappeared, a trace amount, indicating a golden treasure. This was great.
If that were all, Alka would be delighted.
But that was clearly impossible; a completely new color had appeared.
So the question arose.
What is red?
What could be red?
According to normal logic, only one treasure remained without a color marking.
Undoubtedly, that was the [Crown].
Crown-level treasures were certain to be accessible only to those who had reached the sixth stage of strength.
They were the pinnacle of all treasures.
In the formula for becoming a god, only one was needed.
For Alka, who couldn't even master the [Scepter] level and wasn't qualified to obtain one,
He didn't want to hear about [Crown]-level treasures at this moment.
This is just a small matter to him.
For him, there was no benefit at all, not a single bit.
The appearance of two orange items in a row had already made him suspicious and wary of this place.
Now, things were different.
This place had even yielded a top-tier treasure, and Alka had already begun to back off.
Their team's strength, at best, was only at the third stage.
Alkanu diligently used special means to unleash the fourth-stage strength he possessed in his dreams.
But so what?
They had only just entered the starting ranks of the Infinite Sea's powerful warriors.
So what the hell was this place?
"Your expression doesn't look right. Is there something wrong with this place?" Sofia asked Alka.
Hearing this, Alka looked up at Jason and Simon beside him.
"Is my expression obvious?"
They both shook their heads.
"No, your expression didn't change at all."
"Hmph, you just weren't observing carefully enough, and you don't know Alka well enough."
"Your eyes were quite serious just now."
"Really?" Simon and Jason looked at each other, then at Alka.
After a long, careful examination, they shook their heads.
Jason looked at Sofia with a perverted look.
"What's that look?" Sofia asked, frowning uncomfortably.
"Nothing." Jason waved his hand, silently looking away. "I'm praising your observation skills."
"It's best not to mess with him."
Sofia's punches are fast and heavy these days.
"I can't handle a single one of them." "Alright, alright, let's stop talking about this nonsense."
After saying that, Alka tapped the map in front of him, frowning and looking at everyone with a serious expression.
"The aura of treasure in this damn place is almost overwhelming me."
"Really?" Jason's eyes lit up.
He was desperately short of money. His damned instructor had said there was a treasure trove hidden in the mortal world, but he had no idea where that damn place was.
He suddenly remembered that the world had shattered, and the place he'd hidden it in had probably long since turned to rubble.
He was so broke that tears streamed down his face.
If he didn't get some money, the Crystal Dragon would really start to starve.
He would then have to rely on the help of the others on the ship.
As a member of the treasure hunting team, he was so poor that he had to borrow money from others. That would be embarrassing if anyone knew about it.
At that point, Alkaboro and the others will definitely take advantage of his misfortune.
They'll give him a good beating.
No, no.
At the thought, Jason shook his head frantically. This future wasn't what he wanted.
Faced with Jason's question, Alka nodded.
"Judging from your expression, it's not that easy, is it?" Sofia asked.
Alka nodded, his expression still serious. "That's right, besides the aura of the treasure. The danger in that place is chilling. It's very dangerous, and not necessarily a place we can easily set foot in."
After these words, everyone was a little confused.
To be honest, they had a certain degree of confidence in their own strength.
Simply saying that simple self-preservation was no problem.
Escape in Alka's presence was considered first-rate.
But if they were to expect anything more powerful, they certainly couldn't. Seeing a moderately powerful individual, they had to think about how to escape.
There was a moment of silence.
Alka knocked on the table, thought for a moment, and said, "Forget about that Nafas family. Let's gather intelligence on Zehai. All of it."
Compared to Zehai's treasures, the Nafas family's treasure could be completely forgotten.
"We'll assess the danger level there when the time comes. After all, where we want to go isn't always possible.
It's drifting freely across this vast ocean.
We can only wait, and we have plenty of time to prepare."
Everyone nodded at this.
Then they called the others in and began to discuss.
This place must be visited.
Even if they didn't go, they still needed to understand it.
But they couldn't go blindly. They needed to have sufficient knowledge and look for the right opportunity.
After determining the target, everyone began to take action.