Alka raised his head and gazed at the sky.
He could see the entangled forces beyond the heavens.
Those forces clashed and clashed within the outer world, tangling within the starry sky.
These forces weren't just those of the Four Gods; there were many others he had never seen before.
But that was all he could see.
Gathering his thoughts, Alka suppressed his emotions.
Even worrying now was pointless; he had no idea what was happening beyond the outer world.
Perhaps further advancement would allow for a clearer view. Alka was almost certain it was related to the Four Gods.
Because he had already seen traces of their power within this entanglement.
"Rest," Alka said, standing up and patting his buttocks.
Then he led the two towards the poop.
They each returned to their respective rooms, and Alka sat on the bed.
"Wait? Why am I alone in my room?"
He suddenly noticed something was amiss.
Then he looked up at the ceiling.
The aft deck rest area was divided into three levels.
In addition to the kitchen and dining room on the first floor, the empty rooms on the first floor also included a utility room and Juanlu's room.
His room also had a small side door leading directly to the kitchen.
The second floor housed Simon, Alka, and Jason's rooms. However, only Alka and Jason usually lived there, as Simon usually slept in the forge below.
Upstairs, the other girls' rooms were located.
Pororo and Julia's rooms were located in the lower part of the ship, at the bow and stern, respectively.
Originally, they had planned to create another room in the middle of the ship for Mathilda's room.
After all, she was a marine species, so creating a semi-dry, semi-wet room underwater would help her rest. However, at Matlisa's request, her room was still reserved on the third floor.
Because, although a marine species, she wasn't as dependent on seawater as Pororo and Julia.
In fact, they could rest better at night in a place without seawater; otherwise, they wouldn't have built their tribe's residence on a cliff.
At this moment, above Alka was Sofia's room, and next door to Sofia lived Lusilia.
"Voice of the Dawn, help me connect my room, and Sofia and Lusilia's rooms."
At Alka's words, movement occurred in the ceiling, as if vines were pulling away. A hole appeared, connecting to the upper level.
As the hole opened, Sofia leaped down from it within seconds.
"I thought you wouldn't do that," Sofia said, smiling as he walked over and sat beside the bed.
Lucilia also flew down from above. "Just opening a hole like that is too unsightly, isn't it?" Lucilia said, looking at the room above.
Her and Sofia's rooms could still be connected by a normal door, which would look normal and not awkward or strange.
But opening a hole to connect the two rooms together was indeed a bit awkward.
"I'll design it," Sofia said, pulling out a blueprint and beginning to draw on the spot.
Seeing this, Lucilia became extremely interested. She came up behind Sofia, rested her head on her shoulder, and offered suggestions.
Alka was also watching.
After a while, a simple draft was drawn, and Dawn Voice began to make some simple changes based on the design.
This change resulted in half of the ceiling being cut away, creating a guardrail.
A half-spiral staircase connected to the upper floor.
Half of the wall in Sofia and Lucilia's room had also been cut away, essentially completely connecting them together.
And so, the work was done.
…
"What's that noise?"
Jason, lying in bed, opened his eyes and removed the foot from his face.
It was Ululius's leg, now lying sideways in a disgraceful manner.
The ridiculous sleeping position revealed Ululius's unusually poor sleeping habits.
However, Jason's calm face revealed that he was accustomed to it.
Then he became aware of the voice of Dawn.
"Room renovation? Who's that... I get it."
As soon as he asked, Jason seemed to have a sudden thought; no wonder there was a vibration in the ceiling.
"Why didn't I think of this method? A little beautification is definitely better than just drilling a hole."
"What's wrong?" Urulius asked drowsily, adjusting her sleeping position.
Jason didn't answer. He pulled the blanket over her, then fell asleep quietly in her arms.
He planned to learn how to fix it tomorrow.
If there was a little light in the room, he could see a gap in Jason's ceiling as well.
It turned out that he had already dug a passage to Urulius's room upstairs a long time ago.
It was just too crude.
Although Urulius had insisted on sharing a room with Jason, a new room was eventually set up for her on the rooftop.
And now, inside Alka's room...
The three of them were resting in bed, a rare moment of quiet, without any activity.
By this time, Alka's thoughts had sunk into his dream.
He lay flat on the grasslands of his dream, surrounded by numerous dream creatures leisurely strolling around him, some even hovering in front of him.
After lying like this for a long while, Alka finally left his dream bubble.
He arrived at the crystal throne floating in the center of the dream realm.
Sitting there, he felt his own strength. Ever since reaching the eighth stage, the rapid advancement had begun to slow.
He had reached the eighth stage when he was already at the sixth stage, a gap of two stages. Now that he had reached the seventh stage, his strength in the dream world was around the upper eighth stage, and his progress was naturally becoming increasingly slower.
Clearly, the gap between dream and reality would once again return to no more than two stages.
Since then, Alka sat on the throne, debating whether to begin independently improving his strength in his dreams.
In the dream, his strength had already reached the upper eighth stage.
This meant that after a while, he would naturally reach the perfection of the eighth stage.
It was precisely because of this strength that he had discovered the secret of his eyes in the dream.
Given his current strength in the dream, his abilities were basically enough to begin the journey to godhood.
In other words, to the dream world, the status of the kings was equivalent to that of gods in reality.
In fact, to the dream world, the power of the kings was slightly higher than that of the so-called dream gods.
After all, dream gods are real, and living beings master the dream world and its authority to ascend to godhood.
For example, if Alka ascended to godhood in reality but did not attain the status of a king, then the Dreamcatcher Crystal Ball would grant him the authority to control the power of dreams.
This was certainly a huge difference from the dream kings who were born and raised in the dream world, surviving and growing up, and gaining power to become kings. Otherwise, the fragment of godhood that Alka had devoured, the Primarch Gatekeeper, wouldn't have become such a powerful being, for it was both a dreamlike being and a tangible being.
Thus, Alka had already ascended to godhood within his dreams.
Sitting on the throne, Alka took a deep breath.
Closing his eyes, the surroundings began to reverse.
The speed of the reversal grew faster and faster, until it completely transformed into a halo, and lines began to extend backward.
Suddenly.
The retreating lines and light stopped.
The environment once again remained fixed, no longer changing.
But the environment at this moment had already changed drastically.
This was within the starry sky, like touring the vast universe.
Countless stellar lights were located throughout the world, stretching as far as the eye could see.
The Milky Way, constructed of stars and astral bodies, circled around.
Alka still sat on the throne, but now his eyes were open, radiating a faint golden glow.
But he could see that everything around him, whether it was the surroundings or anything else, seemed somewhat illusory. Only the throne and Alka atop it could be considered real.
Suddenly, a disturbance appeared in the astral realm not far away.
It was as if rising heat distorted the surrounding air.
This disturbance continued there.
Then Alka gently waved his hand forward, and time began to accelerate from its previous backward motion.
It was unknown how long this continued, as the surrounding light and shadows constantly shifted. The source of this disturbance was unknown.
This strange, distorted disturbance continued for an unknown amount of time. In the eternal astral realm, there was no concept of time.
The advancing light and shadow suddenly stopped, and time returned to its normal speed and began to flow. Something was approaching.
A closer look revealed a fragmented and spliced continent. A closer look revealed that the fragments between the continents were completely engulfed in seawater.
The ocean currents, swirling through complex natural phenomena, unexpectedly lifted the continent aloft in the astral plane in a round, square shape.
Four points of light could be seen surrounding the continent, representing the Four Gods.
This fragmented continent was where Alka was currently, the Infinite Ocean.
From the vast astral plane, this was what the Infinite Ocean looked like.
As they drifted...
The Infinite Ocean, which had just broken apart, gradually approached the disturbance.
The disturbance was insignificant compared to the size of the Infinite Ocean, like a speck of dust.
If Alka hadn't been focusing on the disturbance above, it would have been right next to it.
Alka immediately zoomed in on the disturbance and examined it closely.
Suddenly... The disturbance grew stronger.
I wondered if it was due to the approach of the Infinite Sea.
The distortion grew stronger, but it didn't expand.
The distortion, focused on a single point, forcibly opened up space, causing a rupture at that point.
Then something fell out.
He had seen this scene before.
Alka had seen this scene before.
With the help of someone.
To be honest, this ability to view one's past through a phantom of time and space, directed at oneself, was something he had learned from this person.
The illusory ball of light that fell out was himself, or rather, his soul.
The point of the disturbance was most likely where his soul had fallen into the cycle of reincarnation, passing by and falling into the shattered space.
The combination of all these coincidences gave rise to the present Alka.
The soul fell out, merging the distorted mass that had caused the disturbance and shattered, as well as the fragments of space created by the shattering, into its own body.
Since the Infinite Ocean lay nearby, the newly emerged ball of light reflected the state of the soul.
As the Infinite Ocean passed by, the soul seemed to fall into it.
As if during its descent, the Infinite Ocean's world consciousness instinctively sensed the soul. The world's mechanisms began to operate, and the world consciousness began to precisely control Alka's soul.
An invisible force began to lift the soul, pulling it into the Infinite Ocean, and in turn, maintaining its near-shattering state.
At this moment, Alka also saw the source of the disturbance and the shattered objects merge into a single mass along with the shattered soul.
Alka had seen this scene long before.
When sinking into the World Sea.
Moving forward, his body was pulled into the Boundless Ocean, then received by the Virgin Mary.
At this point, the Virgin Mary was directly above Alka as she entered the Boundless Ocean.
She happened to be closest to her; it could be considered fate.
But at this moment, Alka had no interest in looking forward.
Spacetime flowed backward once again, transforming once again into the scene of the disturbance.
Alka watched, watching over and over again.
"Why is this scene flowing backward?"
Even if Alka used the Reverse Flow on himself, he shouldn't have seen a disturbance like this.
For example, when the friend who taught him this flowed backward, the source of the final flow was the moment when space shattered and his shattered soul fell out.
The moment he fell in was the moment he left his mark in this world, so he could only flow backward at this moment.
Because after that, Alka had never entered this world, and there was no such thing as him. There was no trace of him, so even the strongest force couldn't flow back out.
Unless it was strong enough to break through the constraints of the astral realm and reach a higher level.
But now he could flow back again, even back to the moment before he fell out of the shattered space.
The reason for his appearance in this world was the disturbance in this space, because the limit of Alka's ability to flow back was the moment the space began to disturb him.
"Why?" Alka couldn't help but ask.
Thinking carefully, it was easy to understand.
The culprit for the disturbance in this space was within his body.
Time advanced at the moment he shattered and fell out.
Alka paused the image.
Looking closely, he could clearly see that the moment his soul fell, not only did a portion of the shattered space merge into his soul, but the disturbance also instantly disappeared.
Either it dissipated or departed due to the destruction of space, or it merged into his body in that instant. Based on the backward flow just now, it was basically clear that the power of this disturbance had entered his body.
But why didn't it extend further back before?
The strength of the person who taught me this ability was obvious to all, and was definitely far stronger than myself.
Why didn't I flow back to this stage then? Instead, now that Alka has gained sufficient strength, I've flowed back even further?
Is it because of this disturbance? Does it have the ability to conceal itself?
Alka exhaled, stretched out his hand, and the illusion dissipated. When he opened his eyes, he appeared in the realm of dreams.
It was as if the previous backward flow had never happened.
The strength in the dream was already approaching the ninth stage.
At that time...
Perhaps I would understand this disturbance, the reason why I had come to this world.
That disturbance was, unsurprisingly, the golden finger in his mind.
It could see through hidden objects, analyze the light points of treasures, and expand more through a little information.
Information.
The sound of dawn, under the moonlight, met a swift gallop across the shimmering sea.
The ocean currents automatically parted below, eliminating resistance to forward movement.
A constant breeze enveloped the ship, allowing it to continue its journey at an incredibly fast speed even without sails.
…
The ship continued its journey.
In a region like the Infinite Ocean, sailing is a lonely and solitary experience.
Due to the constant shifting of the sea, all islands, except for the Landmark Island, shift with the changing sea and space.
This also made it difficult to encounter even a single ship in areas not near the Landmark Island.
Under the sunlight, the sea surface glowed with a pale golden sheen.
Everyone on board was busy with their own affairs, or in their own little worlds.
Arka stood at the bow, watching the direction of travel.
Nearby, Sofia gestured with the map in his hand.
"At our current speed, we should be there soon."
Their destination was the first tower Alka had mentioned.
According to the number, it was the Trial Tower closest to them.
Alka had long ago numbered these Trial Towers based on the information he knew.
The numbering was based on the distance from them at the time.
Although there was a slight deviation, the numbering was generally correct.
So, he was heading to the Trial Tower he had numbered as number one.
This Trial Tower had already been brought under the control of the Church of the Four Gods through negotiations and exchanges.
According to the previous agreement, Alka only needed to go and take the tower.
There would be no problems along the way, and the others would provide him with assistance.
With a vague understanding of the current situation, Sofia put the map away and looked at Alka, asking, "So the time we'll spend most of this trip will probably be spent traveling?"
Alka nodded.
In total, only four towers might require their own efforts to reclaim. The remaining towers were already completely under control; they simply needed to go through the formalities of reclaiming them.
So, overall, the sea voyage would definitely be the most time-consuming.
"So which tower is the first one we need to deal with?"
Alka, who had already memorized the information, said directly, "Number 3. Number 3 is occupied by a race from the ocean."
This would also be the first helper they would encounter.