From the Ship of Fools to Earl of Wugang

When Edmund woke up on the iron bed, Farian's bed was covered only with crumpled sheets and a faint smell of mud.

After all, someone had died on such a dull and isolated Fool's Ship, so the breakfast restaurant was bound to be filled with gossip.

Edmund sat down alone with his breakfast, reviewing everything he had witnessed the previous night.

"He has already returned to the Silver Crown; we are too late."

Farian once worked in some kind of supernatural organization, but lost his supernatural abilities after being invaded by an alien soul. He ended up on this ship for some unknown reason, and Sister Maria, as a first-order hermit, was unable to save him.

The conclusion is simple: in this world, the supernatural is something that can turn a conscious scholar into a cold corpse in just a few days, and Farian's death is proof of that.

The fragments of knowledge obtained from the "Sea Corpse Spirit" pieced together a picture, suggesting that the extraordinary power of this world seemed to operate through certain spiritual dimensions.

Edmund put down his spoon, his thoughts turning to the Golden Finger.

His "golden touch" has so far exempted him from most of the side effects of the "cost," but there are limits, such as not being able to exempt him from physical damage.

If John Coresom's punch had landed squarely on his face, he'd be eating with a swollen face right now.

Information flow can only be triggered when one comes into contact with or gazes at supernatural objects, resulting in fragmented and incomplete information.

The boundary is clear, and the advantage is obvious: he can safely access knowledge that is extremely dangerous to others.

Farian was invaded by the alien spirit; if it were him, he would probably be exempt from this, and might even get the knowledge fragments for free.

Edmund chuckled self-deprecatingly.

From this perspective, he might have to leverage his "golden touch" through trial and error, much like the ancient primitive priests who gained "revelation" by inducing hallucinations through eating poisonous mushrooms.

His thoughts drifted elsewhere.

If Farian knew he was going to die—and judging from his rapidly deteriorating health, he probably did—what would he do?

Suppose that for some reason he doesn't leave his inheritance to the nuns, nor could he leave it to the patients here.

The notes were key. Edmund had seen the pencil and the leather-bound notebook, but Farian couldn't keep the notes in his hospital gown for long.

The notes may be hidden elsewhere, so if you want the inheritance, you'd better act quickly, because the nuns won't wait for you.

Having suffered a soul invasion from an alien species, Edmund felt it was reasonable for him to take some of Farian's legacy as "compensation for emotional distress."

If he is lucky enough to get it, he'd better get off the ship as soon as possible—staying on the Ship of Fools would only make him feel constrained, and there's always something going to happen.

Fortunately, he had plenty of "tickets" to disembark: bar of soap, extra bindings, familiarity with the ship and the nuns' shifts, and John, a rough man he might be able to use...

Edmund stood up and took the empty bowl to the recycling center.

Today's goal is clear: find any notes or clues that Farian might have hidden before the nuns take inventory of his belongings.

If the notes cannot be found, or if the notes do not provide substantial help, then tonight we need to test the restraints' escape methods in preparation for possible nighttime operations.

He desperately wanted to find a chance to escape the Ship of Fools and take a good, long bath.

-----------------

After breakfast, most of the nuns were preparing for Mr. Madeleine's sea burial, and Edmund could hear the sounds of the ceremony from afar.

"...Return to silence...The silver crown protects...The Holy Mother has mercy..."

Sister Maria allowed patients in stable condition to go to the edge of the deck and watch the sea burial from a safe distance.

Edmund, taking advantage of the nun's inattention, returned to the cabin and examined Farian's bed.

The search yielded no results, and the information feed was not triggered.

This was different from what he had expected, but it wasn't entirely wrong either.

The nuns have probably already cleaned this place. However, if Farian left his belongings lying around and they were confiscated, then what he left behind is probably not worth the risk.

Edmund, on the contrary, breathed a sigh of relief.

Farian had been writing and drawing in his notebook every afternoon for the past few days; he remembered the location.

He then wandered to a corner of the library where Farian had spent a long time.

Because of the funeral, the library was nearly empty, allowing Edmund to take a good look around the area.

After carefully examining the wooden wall panels and floorboards, he indeed discovered an inconspicuous crack below the wall panel near the window.

He scratched at it with his fingernail and pulled out the familiar notebook with satisfaction.

Edmund carefully took a book, put his notes inside, and sat down in a corner to open it.

The notebook seemed to have been torn quite a bit, and the remaining parts were covered with dense symbols and numbers written in pencil.

He only saw one sentence in writing: "...not very orthodox, but the cost and reward are both high."

[The Incomplete Encrypted Notebook]

[The notes are encrypted using the ciphertext of the Silver Cross Laity Order, which incorporates Old Syracuse numerals and symbol substitutions.]

[The decoding key requires referring to the "Selected Prayers of the Orthodox Faith Order" and the "Shipping Atlas of the Sea of ​​Rending Hearts".]

Edmund quickly stuffed the notebook into his hospital gown and got up as if nothing had happened.

He easily found the two books on the bookshelf and sat back down in the corner to read them.

The cheat code didn't provide any further hints, so he had to figure it out on his own.

Fortunately, he quickly found a trick: he mapped the letter sequences to a coordinate grid and tried to piece together the symbols on the notes.

After about an hour or two of patient comparison, Edmund gradually pieced together a series of pieces of information:

[A Traveler's Log]

[An encrypted record by a traveler regarding the marking of heritage. It contains an incomplete ritual recipe, an alchemical potion recipe, and a sequence of coordinates.]

[The coordinate sequence appears to mark a specific location in a sea area on the western shore of the Riftheart Sea.]

Edmund tapped his fingers on the coordinate grid of the atlas, his brow furrowing slightly.

The functions of the ritual and the potion cannot be determined by the cheat code for the time being; it will probably require escaping from this ship and testing them again.

In addition to latitude, longitude, and subscripts, there was an extra negative value in the coordinate sequence, which he couldn't determine.

If he understood correctly, these coordinates indicated the location as... the seabed?

-----------------

Over the next two days, the Silent Audrey's course noticeably accelerated.

The nuns reduced the patients' outdoor time and increased the frequency of rounds.

Mother Maria's face grew more and more somber each day. She often stood on the bridge, holding up her binoculars and looking out at the distant horizon.

By the evening of the third day, the sun painted the horizon a sickly dark red, and the clouds in the sky twisted into vortexes, spinning at an illogical speed.

The nuns strapped all the patients to their beds beforehand.

This time the restraints were exceptionally tight. Edmund felt the straps on his wrists and ankles almost digging into his flesh.

Sister Maria personally inspected the restraints on each patient, her gaze lingering for half a second when it swept over Edmund.

"If you see or hear anything unusual tonight, do not panic. Close your eyes, pray, and go to sleep. The nuns will take care of it."

She raised her voice, whether to Edmund or to all the patients, it was unclear.

As night fell, the boat slowed noticeably. The engine's roar became deep and muffled, like the panting of some giant beast.

The cabin lights were dimmed to the minimum, and the iron bed loomed in the dim light, making it feel like a cage with iron bars.

At some point, faint singing began to drift into the cabin.