FATE: Target of Grand Master

Two Holy Grails?

Xia Yan recalled the plot of the Third Singularity and confirmed that there were indeed two Holy Grails.

One is the Holy Grail that Drake seized from a man claiming to be Poseidon, which originally belonged to this era; the other is in the hands of Medea Lily, who is deceiving Jason.

The only difference between the main storyline and the side storyline this time is the number of Holy Grails. In other words, Xia Yan follows the same path as Fujimaru Ritsuka, builds a good relationship with Drake, and gets Drake to give him the Holy Grail. This trial will then be considered complete.

Simple and easy! What a load of rubbish!

How could I possibly think that way!

BB definitely has another trap. The evidence is that the mission description says "possess the Holy Grail in 5 days" instead of "obtain the Holy Grail within 5 days".

Generally speaking, treasure hunt quests that involve obtaining a target item will use the phrase "obtained an item" rather than "possess" to describe the task.

The word "possess" implies that the target item may have been in one's possession from the beginning, or that obtaining the target item was extremely easy, while the difficulty lies in retaining the target item.

Following this line of thought, who would be the enemy to seize the Holy Grail?

In the original story, the Blackbeard faction that appears later fits this image, while the third party, the Argonauts, already possess the Holy Grail and have no desire to acquire a second one. Their logic is that Medea Lily tricked Jason into sacrificing his goddess sister Euryale to the Ark of the Covenant in order to achieve protection, but in reality, their goal was to destroy the world.

Therefore, at first glance, the Argo does not seem to contradict Xia Yan's trial objectives, but there is actually an extremely easy-to-overlook element hidden in it—time.

"The Holy Grail will be yours in 5 days"

Xia Yan dared not gamble on whether the Argo would need five days to gather his second sister and the Ark of the Covenant. If they were incredibly efficient, and the time required for the world-ending ritual and its effects were extremely rapid, Xia Yan might not even see the sun rise on the fifth day before he and the world perished together.

Therefore, side quests cannot be ignored; at the very least, one cannot start with the mindset of giving up.

Besides that, Xia Yan had another guess, but whether it would come true would only be known after he met Drake.

Following the directional markers found by the pirates who had used them as flagpoles, Xia Yan and his companions quickly discovered a flat area suitable for resting.

"Who is it?"

Just as Xia Yan discovered the camp, the people in the camp also discovered Xia Yan.

Bang!Bang!

At the same time as the question was asked, two bullets were fired.

Clang! Clang!

Cú Chulainn flung the pirate toward the makeshift camp, then took a bullet for his Master.

Xia Yan walked towards the temporary camp without any sign of nervousness. After pushing aside the bushes that were blocking his view, eight pirate-like men came into his sight.

Including the pirates Cú Chulainn just threw over, there were nine pirates in total. Except for the leader, they were all male, and the leader was a woman with rose-red hair and wearing a bright red navy uniform.

The two most striking features of this person are his voluptuous chest, which is stretched open into a deep U-shape like a double-door refrigerator, and a huge scar that has ripped across his beautiful face.

Without a doubt, this person was the captain Xia Yan was looking for—Francis Drake.

At this moment, Drake was still holding the gun with both hands, aiming, and the faint smoke coming from the muzzle proved that she was the one who had just fired the shot.

Xia Yan raised his hands in front of him and made a slight forward pushing motion to signal Drake not to be nervous.

"Hello, Captain Drake, my name is Xia Yan. You can think of me as a traveler. My purpose in coming here is to collect the Holy Grail. If you happen to possess it, we can sit down and have a good talk."

After hearing Xia Yan's self-introduction, Drake did not reply immediately, but instead focused his gaze on Cú Chulainn, who was holding a crimson spear beside Xia Yan.

Without a doubt, this was the man who blocked my bullet just now, and at such close range no less. This man's martial arts skills are extraordinary. It seems that today's guest is quite troublesome.

Just as Drake was pondering how to respond, the pirate who had just cosplayed the flag scrambled to Drake's side, grabbed the captain's leg tightly, and cried out about the inhumane treatment he had suffered.

Drake listened for a few moments, then impatiently ordered his men to drag the pirate away. He then said, "Stop crying and whining. Are you even a man? I always tell you guys to use your brains more. If he wanted to kill you, you'd be dead eight hundred times over by now."

Upon hearing Drake's words, the pirate crew member reluctantly shut his mouth.

Xia Yan was very pleased that Drake was so reasonable, so he simply sat down on a rock and patiently waited for Drake's reply.

Seeing Xia Yan's actions, Drake put away his pistol, sat back down on the rock beneath him, and said, "Mr. Xia Yan, is that right? Although I would also like to make a deal with you, unfortunately, you're too late. The Holy Grail is no longer in my hands."

Xia Yan frowned.

"Could you please explain in more detail, Captain?"

"Let me think about where to begin."

Drake scratched his head with his pistol and then said, "About two weeks ago, my 'Golden Deer' was inexplicably trapped in these waters. The compass was completely malfunctioning, the nautical charts were worthless, and we couldn't even determine direction by stargazing. In my experience, the ocean currents and directions in this area are completely unpredictable, and the unpredictable weather is worse than stepping in fresh dog poop. I think our being trapped in these waters is a supernatural phenomenon."

Seemingly realizing he couldn't say too many discouraging things in front of his subordinates, Drake cleared his throat and continued, "So, we're trying to get out of our current predicament. We encountered a storm earlier, and during those seven days without seeing the sun, we came across an unimaginably huge whirlpool and had a fierce fight with a guy who came out of that whirlpool and called himself 'Poseidon, the god of the sea.'"

We were lucky; we defeated that guy and got a golden cup. This must be the Holy Grail you were looking for, right?

Judging from Drake's description, his experiences up to this point are the same as in the original story, so the golden cup must be the Holy Grail.

Xia Yan nodded in response and waited for Drake to continue his narration.

Seemingly reminiscing about the wonderful time he had with the Holy Grail, Drake sighed, "Later, on one inadvertently, I wished the Grail for an inexhaustible supply of wine and food. To my surprise, the Grail actually began to continuously spew out wine and food. Soon, news spread that the island where we had first docked could be resupplyed. More and more ships came to our island, until that ship arrived."

At this point, Drake's expression immediately turned angry, and Xia Yan knew that this was where the trial would begin to change.

"Blackbeard, Edward Teach, came to the island this morning and stole the Holy Grail from me."