Chapter 1047 – Empire’s Focus

“You have a boat?” Hovering Feather asked, slightly surprised.

Like Mounts, boats were considered luxury items.

Currently, an independent expert would be lucky if they had one or two Gold Coins on them.

The better equipment an expert wore, the more costly their repair fees would be. Naturally, their expenditures were higher than other players’ as well. Moreover, there were concerns such as potions and scrolls. In the end, it wasn’t easy to save a lot of money.

Hence, in Ocean Viewing Town, despite some players having reached Level 40, they could not afford to buy a Common Mount...

Hovering Feather had wanted to form an adventurer team for a while now. He had also been quite lucky recently, having found several Treasure Chests in a row. After selling his harvest, he had quite a bit of spare money on hand, so he planned to splurge a little today and rent a fishing boat with sails.

He had never imagined that Shi Feng was rich enough to own his own boat.

“Leader, you’ve really found us an expert! We got really lucky this time!”

“I wonder when our adventurer team will have our own boat? If we had one, we could reduce our costs when we go adventuring.”

The party members turned to Shi Feng enviously.

...

Following which, under Shi Feng’s lead, the party reached a slightly less populated section of the port.

As everyone wondered why Shi Feng had moved them so far away, Shi Feng retrieved the glass bottle containing the Swift Dragon Speedboat from his bag. He then began to chant an incantation to release the speedboat.

A dark mist began to flow out of the glass bottle. Hovering Feather and the others’ eyes nearly fell from their sockets as they watched.

Generally, the mist from glass bottles holding ordinary fishing boats only expanded to about ten yards. Even if it were a slightly larger fishing boat, the mist would, at most, expand twenty yards, yet the mist from Shi Feng’s bottle stretched out over a full forty yards. That was double the size of Ocean Viewing Town’s best fishing boat.

“I’m not seeing things, right!?”

“This is a speed... a speedboat!”

“It looks so cool! Look at the ship’s bow! It even has a cannon!”

“Crap, the entire ship’s covered in magic patterns!”

“That’s not right. Even the high-ranking speedboats I saw NPCs use didn’t have magic patterns.”

Hovering Feather and the others were captivated by the Swift Dragon Speedboat’s elegance.

“Let’s go.” Shi Feng was quite satisfied with his speedboat. The Swift Dragon Speedboat had a streamlined appearance. Faint lights also circled its hull. It was the most elegant speedboat Shi Feng had ever seen. Moreover, its engine was made of two parts.

Without the engine, it relied on the wind in its sails.

If he were not satisfied with the boat’s speed, he could use Magic Crystals as a power source to gain more speed. However, this mode cost one Magic Crystal per ten minutes, which was the equivalent of 25 Silver every ten minutes. That was practically a day’s income for an ordinary expert.

When Shi Feng finished admiring his speedboat, he led the party to the boat’s deck. As Shi Feng released the Swift Dragon Speedboat, the distant passersby were stupefied.

“What kind of boat is that?”

“Could some Super Guild’s expert team have come to our Ocean Viewing Town?”

“That boat looks amazing! I wonder which apex adventurer team that is? I have to join them!”

Swiftly, word of the Swift Dragon Speedboat caused a commotion throughout Ocean Viewing Town. Upon hearing this news, members of the various adventurer teams and Guilds began to ask around for information on the speedboat.

When players began to approach to take a closer look, Shi Feng activated the vessel.

The magic patterns around the boat’s hull emitted a light blue glow. As if a sharp sword had pierced the seawater, it parted away from the speedboat. Following which, the Swift Dragon Speedboat began to move as a gust of wind blew by.

Compared to the Swift Dragon Speedboat’s Movement Speed, the fishing boats with sails looked like snails. In the blink of an eye, the Secret-Silver Speedboat passed these fishing boats, no slower than Bronze Mounts on land.

Rapidly, the Swift Dragon Speedboat grew smaller in everyone’s view before disappearing as if it had never graced Ocean Viewing Town.

“Isn’t it a little too fast?!”

“My eyes aren’t playing tricks on me, right?! How can a boat be that fast?!”

“Don’t tell me we’ve encountered the legendary ghost ship!?”

“That shouldn’t be it. I saw a few players boarding the ship a moment ago. It must be a speedboat that some god-ranked experts own.”

“I wish I had a speedboat. I’d buy one even if I had to go bankrupt!”

“With your pocket change, you can’t afford that boat’s rudder, much less the entire thing!”

The players on the docks gaped as they watched the Swift Dragon Speedboat disappear, shuddering with an indescribable excitement.

At the same time, news of the Swift Dragon Speedboat had spread to the ears of the various large Guilds’ upper echelons in the Apocalypse Empire.

“A high-ranking speedboat?”

“Find a way to contact the owner immediately! Our Guild must have that speedboat!”

Almost every upper echelon of the various Guilds gave out the command to find the speedboat’s owner.

The resources on God’s Domain’s islands and sea were far more abundant on land. However, exploring the ocean was too difficult. This difficulty wasn’t due to players lack of strength, but their ship’s lack of strength. Fishing boats couldn’t contend with sea monsters. It was even more impossible to rely on fishing boats to plunder treasures in dangerous sea zones.

However, it would be a different story if their Guilds had a high-ranking speedboat.

If they formed a team of experts to explore with said speedboat, their harvest could be even greater than raiding large-scale Team Dungeons.

Unlike islands, large-scale Team Dungeons had a Cooldown once they were raided. Moreover, players needed far more time to explore and raid large-scale Team Dungeons.

Now that income from Dungeons had hit a bottleneck, the Apocalypse Empire’s various large Guilds needed to transition their development towards the sea.

...

“Big Sis Rain, news just came in. It seems that a high-ranking speedboat has been sighted in Ocean Viewing Town. Moreover, it seems that the speedboat is of an even higher rank than NPCs’.” Upon receiving this news, Blue Phoenix contacted Phoenix Rain immediately. She also forwarded the images and videos of the Swift Dragon Speedboat.

Upon seeing the video, Phoenix Rain’s expression turned serious.

Due to the Dragon-Phoenix Pavilion ownership of the Town of Beginnings, the Pavilion had begun placing greater importance on maritime exploration. Phoenix Rain had seen plenty of speedboats on the ocean. However, those speedboats were nowhere near as fast as this.

“Blue, begin an investigation on that boat immediately. While you’re at it, spread word that the Pavilion is willing to purchase that speedboat for a high price!” Phoenix Rain commanded.

“I’ll get it done right away,” Blue Phoenix nodded repeatedly.

...

“Interesting. If Miracle has this speedboat, we can complete our quest in that dangerous sea zone. Send someone to Ocean Viewing Town. Find a way to get that speedboat; use whatever means necessary!” a man in his fifties growled.

Although this man was already in his fifties and looked as if he had survived many of life’s vicissitudes, his body radiated a frightening aura that caused the Level 40 apex experts around him to shudder involuntarily. These experts lowered their heads, not daring to make eye contact.

“Vice Guild Leader, please rest assured. We will complete this task!” the several apex experts declared.

...

While Shi Feng sailed towards the Golden Sands Archipelago, without his knowledge, he had become a focus in the Apocalypse Empire. Practically every Guild in the empire discussed his Swift Dragon Speedboat.

The Swift Dragon Speedboat really is fast. This should’ve been close to a twenty-hour journey. Now, we can reach the archipelago in five hours. I wonder how fast this boat moves if I spend Magic Crystals? Shock filled Shi Feng’s heard as he watched the outline of the Golden Sands Archipelago appear on the horizon.