Mystery: Big Alarm Clock Ghroth Path

Chapter 268 The Scheme Against the "Chaos Sea" (Seeking recommendation votes, thanks to Hong for the Qidian Coins reward)

Seeing the "Hermit" Cattleya deep in thought, Roger's mind was filled with a flurry of thoughts.

In fact, he had always planned to go to the "Forsaken Land" and the "Silver City".

This is not only because there are "believers" of his musical rules there, but also because there are many other secrets hidden there.

First and foremost, Roger realized something during Derrick's efforts to obtain the meteorite with the help of "The Sun".

That is the "forsaken land," which may be of great help to one's advancement.

Roger received Derrick's help in both of his previous promotions.

The first time was when Roger was promoted to "Composer," he used "The One-Eyed Shadow of Fortune."

The "Shadow of Fortune" is a magical creature that has almost disappeared from the Northern Continent. It takes the form of a shadow and hides in dark and damp corners, then steals the good fortune of passersby or creatures to feed on.

Roger already knew that in some parts of the Northern Continent, such as present-day Intis and Segal, some strange folk customs had been passed down since the early Tertiary period or even earlier. For example, people were advised to avoid walking through ditches or walking at night when it was raining, as it was believed that they would be cursed with bad luck.

Even when he was a child, Wiseman Sr. often told him not to step on the manhole cover, saying it would bring bad luck.

At first, Roger didn't know why and asked old Wiseman why.

However, the latter did not tell him there was no reason, it was just a folk custom.

Roger only had a sudden realization after reading the list and descriptions of common monsters around Silver City provided by "The Sun" Derrick.

Because the "Shadow of Fortune" is similar to a semi-spirit, it usually exists in the shadows and is very afraid of sunlight.

It cannot exist for long periods of time on its own, but it can attach itself to other, self-aware life forms for a period of time, feeding on their luck to maintain its own existence.

The Shadow of Fortune existed in large numbers in ancient times, but with the mass deaths of creatures in each era, especially at the end of the Second and Third Eras, the Shadow of Fortune lost its abundant food source.

Most importantly, creatures whose luck has been drained by the "Shadow of Luck" will be unable to have their luck drained again for a period of time. If they try to drain their luck, there is a high probability that they will die.

This results in the number of "Shadow of Fortune" being at its lowest at the beginning of each era.

Beginning in the Fourth Age, six true gods began to appear and formed their own churches, and almost all the people of the Northern Continent had a fixed belief.

Without exception, these churches place great importance on protecting their "anchor," namely the safety of believers' lives. Therefore, they have established special organizations of extraordinary beings to eliminate all supernatural beings that threaten the safety of believers' lives.

Against this backdrop, the already rare "Shadows of Fortune" were killed in large numbers, to the point that they were almost extinct in the Northern Continent.

However, the situation in the "forsaken land" is quite different.

First, although this place has experienced a "great catastrophe", most of the area has fallen into darkness and desolation, becoming uninhabitable.

Most of these places are occupied by extraordinary creatures and monsters, a large portion of which possess self-awareness, and some even lack the means to counter spiritual beings.

These life forms naturally became the food source for the "Shadow of Fortune".

In addition, the reduction in the scope of human activity and the lack of divine protection mean that these "Shadows of Fortune" will appear from time to time to steal human destiny and even hunt them down. Even though Silver City has organized many campaigns to exterminate these creatures, it can only drive them back to a certain range, and they will approach again to cause trouble after a period of time.

This is why the "Shadow of Fortune" is a relatively common supernatural creature recorded in Silver City.

If Roger hadn't joined the Tarot Society and contacted Derrick, he would have been forced to attempt to steal the "One-Eyed Shadow of Fortune" from the Church of the True God's inventory. This would have been an extremely dangerous operation, not only failing to guarantee the accuracy of the information but also potentially costing him his life.

Secondly, there was the meteorite that Derrick helped him find.

This was also an extraterrestrial object that fell to Earth thousands of years ago. The unique nature of the "Forsaken Land" preserved it, allowing Roger to eventually obtain it.

Although Roger has obtained two other meteorites from other places so far, neither of them are as good as the one Derrick gave him, in terms of quality or history.

It not only carries information about the matter surrounding another extremely distant star, but has also undergone a long journey through interstellar space, making it an excellent auxiliary material for the potion of the "living star disk".

Considering that he might need some rare items that don't exist in the North or even the South, Roger had to go to the "Forsaken Land" no matter what. It was extremely dangerous for ordinary extraordinary beings, but for extraordinary beings with divinity, the opportunities far outweighed the risks.

Another reason is that although Roger and Adam had a joint plan to target "God" and try to kill him, Roger would not wait for Adam's invitation before going to the "forsaken land" on his own.

There are many benefits to doing this, one of which is that Roger had a hypothesis he wanted to verify.

That is, since Gheros's source matter can be associated with the "Source Castle", can it also interact with the "Chaos Sea", which is also the source matter that the adjacent pathway of the "Judgment Star" relies on?
In fact, Roger already had this idea, but when he had a divination done by Alger the Hanged Man, the meaning of the Three of Wands card gave him another hint.

He intuitively felt that this would be of great benefit to him, but he would have to try it to know for sure.

Regardless of the reason for going to the "forsaken land," Roger believed that two basic conditions had to be met.

First, one must become a demigod and possess true divinity.

Based on Roger's current plans, once he becomes a demigod, he will most likely be a dual-path demigod, and may very well possess divine-level fusion power.

In this way, he could directly utilize the "leaking" ability at the demigod level, combine the power of the "Black Knight" with the connection between the Sequence 0 "True Creator" of the same path, open the path to the "Forsaken Land," and thus gain entry.

Secondly, Roger must have at least one demigod-level helper and multiple Sequence 5 or Sequence 6 level helpers.

Even if he possessed divinity, he could not possibly venture into the "Forsaken Land" alone, for who knows what might be hidden in the depths of that darkness.

Therefore, Roger not only needs to win Bernadette's approval, but also needs to take advantage of this time to actively cultivate at least two or three extraordinary subordinates at Sequence 5 level.

In this regard, Roger was more optimistic about Lindsay.

This Sequence 6 "Pleasure Witch" is the closest in strength to Sequence 5, and she has basically no longer been subordinate to the "Witch Cult," so Roger can use her without any worries.

However, Lindsay was still haunted by the fact that her lover Miranda had been killed by the "Witch Cult," which made her progress in playing "Pleasure" extremely slow, which was undoubtedly bad news for Roger.

Therefore, before Roger traverses the ruins of the God War, he must help Linseria resolve her inner conflicts as much as possible. Only in this way can he truly help her experience "joy," thereby fully digesting the potion and advancing to Sequence 5.

The other two good choices for Sequence 5 are Sam and Cecilia.

Fors had previously helped Sam gather the materials necessary for advancing to Sequence 7 "Magician," and Sam should have already successfully advanced to Sequence 7 and is currently in the process of doing so.

Cecilia, with Roger's help, had already become a "psychic" and had been doing so for some time.

According to his younger sister, her digestion progress is going well, and she should be able to digest the "Psychic" potion sooner than Sam.

Besides these three, there was another very suitable candidate: Roger's own student, Alice Iman.

She has now been promoted to "Astrologer" and her progress in digesting potions is not much different from Sam's. The two of them can basically advance to Sequence 6 at the same time.

As for the "Siren" Ophina King, she was originally a good alternative, but considering that the "wrong" path itself had been dug into a huge pit by Amon, Roger, out of caution, will not consider taking her to the "Forsaken Land" for the time being, but will instead keep her in the fleet to take charge of the overall situation.

As for the helpers who can be generated at the Sequence 6 level, there are even more—Philip, Zeus, and even potential Matteo and Lupin all have a great chance.

Overall, Roger has no shortage of talent under his command; he just needs to give them more opportunities to grow.

Soon, the "Hermit" lady finished reading the materials in her hand and nodded with great satisfaction.

She promised to deliver the Notary's potion recipe to Derrick the Sun as soon as possible by "sacrificing" to Mr. Fool, and the deal was thus completed.

Then, Miss Justice recounted a special dream of hers, which included how she traversed the memory imprints of those human ancestors, descending step by step, and finally arriving at the depths of the collective unconscious, where she saw a giant dragon with gray, rock-like scales flying by.

Hearing this, the novelist Miss Magician was somewhat stunned, and the title of her book, "Miss Justice's Dream Travelogue," unconsciously appeared in her mind.

Then, Miss Justice asked everyone present whether they should continue to explore the depths of the collective unconscious to see if they could find the dragons' "city of miracles," Levihard.

Both the "Hermit" and the "Hanged Man" immediately objected to such an inquiry.

Because the ocean of collective unconsciousness contains not only magnificent fantasies, but also the malice, pain, terror and various desires accumulated by many humans and even powerful supernatural beings throughout history, it is best not to think about such things before Miss "Justice" reaches Sequence 5.

But Audrey was still somewhat unwilling to give up. She turned to look at the "Fool" at the head of the bronze table, trying to get His help.

This left Klein completely bewildered, as he knew absolutely nothing about matters of the mind.

Fortunately, Roger, the "Wheel of Fortune," came to the rescue in time, diverting Miss Justice's attention and giving her the same evaluation as Cattleya the Hermit and Alger the Hanged Man.

This put Audrey at ease, and she decided to advance to Sequence 5 first before making any further plans.

Keep in mind that Sequence 5 is already at the level of a pirate admiral, but Audrey remained completely unfazed.

After all, in Audrey's opinion, with the help of big shots like Mr. Fool and Mr. Wheel of Fortune, she should be able to reach Sequence 5 within one or two years if she is careful.

Only the gate of the demigods and demigods is truly difficult to open!
At the end of the meeting, Emlyn the Moon and Derrick the Sun argued for half a day about issues related to the Silver City, the Silver Kingdom, and the faith of Queen Omibella the Giant.

Finally, it was the "Hermit" who spoke up in time and explained to Derrick that the "Goddess of Harvest," Omibella, had apparently perished at the end of the Second Age, thus ending the argument between the two fools, Sun and Moon, who were talking past each other.

Somewhat troubled, "Fool" Klein wisely ended the day's gathering, watched all the participants leave the "gray fog" and transform back into a sky full of stars, and then breathed a sigh of relief.

"I don't know if it's just my imagination, but I feel like the rust color in the star that symbolizes Miss 'Magician' seems to have deepened a bit..." Klein muttered to himself for a while, but finally restrained himself from wanting to investigate the matter further, and decisively left "above the gray fog" and fell into reality.

Because of the presence of the "Hermit" lady, this "Tarot Meeting" lasted a long time, and before we knew it, it was almost dusk on Long Tail Island.

Some of the people sent out earlier have started to return one after another, including Zeus, Jennifer, Philip, and Lindsay.

"How about it?"

Roger tossed a bottle of beer to Zeus and Philip each, and asked with a smile.

"Thank you Captain."

Zeus took the beer, gulped down a few mouthfuls, and then continued:

"It didn't go very smoothly. We went to a few bars that Jennifer knew well where gossip was spread."

"Then I joined the chat and told them that a new general had appeared at sea, called the 'Galactic Admiral,' and that he was extremely powerful."

"and then?"

Roger smiled and glanced at Jennifer, who looked exhausted, beside him, before continuing to ask.

"Then they laughed at me!"

Zeus slammed the wine bottle against the barrel beside him with a loud bang and said angrily:

"They said I was talking nonsense, that there was no such thing as a 'Galaxy Admiral,' and that I was probably just drunk and talking gibberish."

"Then I retaliated by saying that 'Admiral Galaxy' killed 'Vice Admiral Twilight' Blatov and seized his fleet. This time, even the boss couldn't help but laugh at me."

"Damn it, my 'Wrathful People'... its power almost went off!"

Zeus looked furious, clearly having suffered a great deal of anger.

He almost said that his "Wrath of the People" potion was showing obvious signs of digestion, but then he realized that many people in the room didn't know about the "Acting Technique," so he shut his mouth.

"I said, are you stupid?"

At this moment, Jennifer finally couldn't hold back any longer and blurted out:

"I already told you that news of Bratov's death hasn't reached Longtail Island yet; it'll probably take another two days."

"So at this stage, how can others verify these unfounded things you're saying?"

"Following your line of thinking, what would your reaction be if I just appointed myself some kind of general and came to tell you that I killed some pirate general?"

Zeus wanted to retort, but Roger stopped him in time.

He could tell that Jennifer had definitely worried a lot when she was with Zeus. This girl was obviously more stable and mature than Zeus, otherwise she wouldn't have been trusted by Ophina.

In comparison, Zeus is relatively more flamboyant.

As the second mate, he could usually manage to act as a pillar of support when facing the crew of the "Star Lord," but when facing girls, especially a pretty girl like Jennifer, he couldn't help but want to show off and do some rather foolish things.

“Jennifer is right.”

Roger first affirmed Jennifer's rationality, and then said:

"You can continue doing the promotion tomorrow. Don't be afraid if you are ridiculed. Try your best not to hit anyone."

He knew Zeus would still be angry, but this would help him digest the "Wrath of the People" potion.

"why?"

Zeus felt somewhat aggrieved.

"Your hard work will always pay off."

Roger comforted him.

Jennifer couldn't help but look up at Roger; she already understood what Roger meant.

As Ophina's confidante, she knew of the existence of "playing the law" and realized that Roger's motive was to help Zeus digest the "Wrath of the People" potion.

After all, as the second mate of the "Star Lord", there aren't many people who can usually make Zeus feel angry.

As for the promotion of the "Galaxy Admiral" title, there's no need to pay too much attention to it.

As long as Zeus and himself continue to actively promote the cause, when the news of the capture of the "Twilight Admiral's" bounty is officially announced and reaches Longtail Island, those who originally looked down on Zeus will experience a strong cognitive backlash.

With Matteo and Dionysius releasing recruitment ads for the "Star Fleet" crew, many capable but restless sailors will be eager to apply for the title of "Galactic Admiral"!

These were Roger's real targets. After all, Longtail Island was broadly a subordinate unit of Bayam. Although there were many skilled people there, not everyone was willing to become a pirate.

There are many reasons for this, but to summarize, there are two main ones. First, real pirates generally don't have the guts to openly recruit people in a place like Longtail Island. Roger's actions could easily be seen as a sting operation by the military, so even if there were truly restless extraordinary individuals, few would take the bait easily.

Secondly, there are too many lunatics and psychopaths in the Sunia Sea every year, some of whom even claimed to be the "King of the Black Sea," but were eventually proven to be frauds.

Moreover, a relatively unknown "Galaxy Admiral" is even less likely to be trusted.

Once they finally believed in Roger's abilities, competition naturally arose. With competition came elimination, and the pool of talent became wider. This was a win-win situation for Roger.

After hearing Roger's words, Zeus could only nod. After all, he was doing things for the "Star Lord". Although he would suffer a little himself, it didn't matter if he thought about the long-term development of the fleet.

How are you two doing?

Roger glanced at the few unfamiliar faces following Matteo and his companion, and asked a question he already knew the answer to.

"It wasn't very smooth."

Dionysius, who had overheard the whole thing, unlike Matteo, was a quick-witted "briber" who, like Jennifer, also grasped Roger's true intentions.

"But Captain, you don't need to worry. I think this is only temporary. With such good benefits in our fleet, it's only a matter of time before we can recruit outstanding people."

Dionysius, acting like a senior, patted Matteo, who looked apologetic, on the shoulder and offered Roger words of comfort.

"Yes, I believe everyone can do this well."

Roger glanced at Dionysius and promptly offered emotional support.

While the group was talking, Philip and Lindsay also returned.

The two continued their loud bickering as always until they saw Roger, at which point they stopped and greeted him.

"How's it going? How did you handle the task I assigned you?"

Roger asked with a smile.

"Captain, we had the island's designer create three designs. I immediately took a liking to one of them and had him make a sample."

Linssaya spoke excitedly.

"Oh? Let me see."

Roger glanced at the scroll Philip was holding with interest and began to speak.

"Captain, I've already told Linseria that although I also think this version is good, I still asked her to bring all three versions back for you to see."

"But she was determined to choose this version, saying that you definitely wouldn't like the other two versions."

Philip looked rather helpless, but Roger could still tell that he also greatly appreciated Lindsay's aesthetic sense.

He took the scroll from Philip, opened it, and looked at the design on it.

Because this was just a design draft, it wasn't a finished flag, but rather a sketch drawn on a scroll.

The image shows a circle, from which two lines branch out. These two lines continue to split, from four to eight lines, and finally to sixteen lines, unfolding in a clockwise vortex, immersed in starlight of various colors.

"This...the Milky Way?"

Roger's pupils contracted.

"Isn't this just too much of a coincidence?"

(End of this chapter)