The Great Fortune sailed through the Mediterranean Sea, leisurely resting and recuperating on the Endless Ocean.

In the past two days, Shi Ming had used the Eye of the World to obtain detailed descriptions of the "Codex of All Nations" and the "Fruit of Eternal Youth," and he now understood their uses. The Fruit of Eternal Youth was a one-time consumable, while the Codex of All Nations was another wondrous item.

Fate was a strange thing.

Sometimes, he didn’t even have to look for wondrous items; it was as if they grew legs and delivered themselves right to his door.

[Fruit of Eternal Youth]

[The fruit of the Immortal Fusang Tree, containing the essence of the sun. After consumption, the body will maintain an "ageless" state for three years. During this period, one’s appearance, Physical Strength, and various bodily organs will return to their previous peak condition, before slowly declining after the three years are up. It can be consumed multiple times with no side effects.]

[Possesses an extremely strong allure for fire- and light-attribute sea beasts.]

He had only picked three Fruits of Eternal Youth.

Unfortunately, that Immortal Tree had been torn to shreds by the enraged Abyss Lord.

Shi Ming’s various physical stats were currently at their peak, so he had no use for such a fruit at the moment. If he were to sell it, it would definitely fetch a high price. In this world, there were plenty of people willing to pay any price to stay young forever.

But a treasure like this was a rare commodity worth holding onto; there was no need to sell it.

’Who knew when it might serve an even greater purpose.’

[Codex of All Nations]

[Also known as the Gorinchis Scripture, ranked 56th on the Endless Ocean’s List of Wondrous Items! Possesses the ability to establish laws within its area of effect (300-meter radius). Method of use: Flip to a blank page, infuse it with Spiritual Power, and read aloud the new legal rule. The Gorinchis Scripture will then manifest the rule, which will last for 60 minutes or until the Gorinchis Scripture is removed from the relevant area.]

[Rule 1: The law must be strictly followed. Laws enacted by the Gorinchis Scripture will be strictly enforced. If they are forcibly broken by an extreme power, the one who enacted the law will suffer a severe backlash.]

[Rule 2: Laws cannot be enacted lightly. Enacting multiple laws in a short period will cause the enactor to suffer a severe backlash.]

[Rule 3: The law cannot be detached from reality. Enacting a law that is too absurd will cause the enactor to suffer a severe backlash.]

[Rule 4: The law is subject to page limitations. The codex has a total of four hundred sixty-one pages. Only one law can exist per page, and its effective period is only 60 minutes. Once all blank pages are filled, the codex will become unusable! Using Purifying Marrow can purify and reset it.]

A treasure that could make one’s word become law!

’Now this is a real treasure!’ Although it came with a whole heap of restrictions, as long as he followed the rules, he could avoid the backlash.

Unfortunately, Lighthouse had already used up three hundred twenty-one pages of this treasure, leaving only a little over a hundred blank pages.

This meant Shi Ming could use it 140 times at most. If he exceeded this limit, he would need Purifying Marrow to clear its pages.

Purifying Marrow...

’When I find a clue to its whereabouts, I absolutely can’t let it go.’

As of now, Shi Ming possessed five treasures that were listed in the Endless Ocean’s List of Wondrous Items: Formless Pure Ice, the Map of the Endless Sea, the Taunt Stone, the Calm Sea Pearl, and the Codex of All Nations. The Star Lamp was not included in this list as it was not a wondrous item.

Four of these treasures were all spoils of war taken from his enemies.

No guns, no cannons; the enemy builds them for us.

Shi Ming now had a much deeper understanding of this saying.

’The great wisdom of the ancestors is truly no lie!’

A knock on the door.

"Captain."

"Come in."

Huang Cannon entered the captain’s quarters and reported to Shi Ming on the progress of the tasks he had been assigned. The two Cannon brothers were now both C-rank Awakened. Two months ago, this was something he wouldn’t even have dreamed of. Back then, his dreams were most often about just getting a full meal.

"Captain, we’ve contacted the *Ganges River* and purchased image versions of the last few days’ issues of the *Twelve Stars Morning Post*, the *Eternal Lighthouse Post*, and the *Black Gold Times*."

"Is there any news about me? Also, are there any related bounties on the Hunter terminal?"

"No. We asked Eliza, and the crew of the *Ganges River* also said there’s been no other recent news about the Great Fortune. There was just one piece in the underground reports, a press release titled, ’Mysterious Wandering Ship Retaliates Against the *Pharaoh* Again; Incompetent Ptolemy May Become the Admiral-Rank Wandering Ship’s Greatest Weakness.’ However, the *Pharaoh* denied it as fake news and strongly condemned it."

After the incident with the *Pharaoh*, Jia Fang died and the curse on Singer and the others was lifted. They weren’t fools; they had already figured out what the mummy curse on them was.

For this, the crew of the *Ganges River* was very grateful to Shi Ming.

But they were frustrated by the lack of evidence, otherwise they would have used Shiva’s channels to completely ruin Ptolemy’s reputation.

’Not a single piece of news? Strange.’

Not long after he first rammed and collapsed a corner of the *Pharaoh*, the news of his feat had spread like wildfire.

Everyone from the contacts he had made in the Twelve Stars, like Iruka and his former teammates, to merchant ships like the *Ganges River*, had contacted him privately. They all expressed their shock to varying degrees and tried to subtly fish for firsthand information. In fact, it was thanks to a few brief words of warning from Shi Ming that Eliza from the *Ganges River* had roughly guessed the truth about the mummy curse and decisively left the *Pharaoh* to escape the danger.

Shi Ming had even seen the bounty the *Pharaoh* posted on the Hunter terminal in a fit of exasperation.

But this time, everything was eerily quiet, as if nothing had happened.

There wasn’t a single bounty for him, not on the Hunter terminal nor on any other intelligence channel Shi Ming knew of.

There wasn’t any news about him either.

Even in "Let There Be Light," the reports were just business as usual; Trellin didn’t mention a single word about his failure. Although news didn’t travel very fast on the ocean, it was still inconceivable. For not even a whisper of such an earth-shattering battle and glorious victory to get out suggested a baffling level of silent coordination.

’Did Lighthouse and the Black Society just silently swallow this loss?’

’Or have they turned their attention to other matters?’

Shi Ming felt that Lighthouse would probably lie low for a while, at least until they had a clearer picture of his true strength.

Even back in the Land Era, Lighthouse hadn’t been omnipotent; their reach didn’t extend to the other side of the Earth, let alone in this Wandering Era. Unless a King-level Wandering Ship was dispatched on a personal expedition, sending more Awakened over would be like feeding them to the wolves—they would just be picked off one by one.

"Also, what’s the status on contacting the whaling ships?"

"We’ve had some initial success."

He wasn’t contacting whaling ships to go whaling.

He just wanted to learn from their experience.

Understanding the habits, weaknesses, and internal anatomy of whales would be helpful for Shi Ming’s hunt for the Dusk Whale. He didn’t have much experience dealing with large sea beasts, and the 230-meter-long Dusk Whale was a super-massive sea beast. To hunt it, he couldn’t rely on brute force alone.

If he was careless and got swallowed, it would really be game over.

It was just like in the stories where the Monkey King had to first understand the scorpion’s weakness before he could subdue the scorpion demon.

When it came to combat, Shi Ming would handle it.

But routine coordination and intelligence gathering could be left to his crew.

"Captain, through a task posted on Captain Lin Hai’s Hunter terminal, we’ve contacted a mid-sized, Gold-rank whaling ship, the *Dream of Salmon*. Their captain claims to be a former director of Novi’s Whaling Maritime Bureau from the Land Era. He says he has fifty years of whaling experience and knows the weaknesses of and strategies against large whale-type sea beasts like the back of his hand. He has also captured several whale-type sea beasts in the Wandering Era."

Back in the Land Era, only a few countries in the world had a tradition of whaling.

For example, Novi, Vortex Country, and Bingzhou...

It’s just that Vortex Country’s whaling was infamous and completely unrestrained, whereas Novi was relatively compliant with the International Whaling Convention.

"The *Dream of Salmon* is willing to teach us everything they know about whaling, but their price is that they need an A-rank Awakened to help them hunt a whale-type sea beast as a ’tuition fee’."

"They’ve got a big appetite, then."

’Trading a little bit of experience for the help of an A-rank Awakened is indeed asking for the moon. If they need an A-rank Awakened’s help, the target must also be an A-rank sea beast.’

"Tell them that Vortex Country once sought our cooperation and just gave us a ship outright."

"They can have an A-rank Awakened, but we want one-third of the hunted sea beast, including the corpse and the blood."