A final look?
Strictly speaking, as long as Ethan and the others continued to live in this training ground and sail on this ring-shaped sea called the Sea of Miracles, they would often see the black wall that seemed to connect the sky and the sea.
It was just that they no longer needed to rush into this sea area and suffer.
It took many years and many things to get from the initial Sea of Calm to this point, but Ethan did not feel any sense of "finally reaching this point" and exhaling a long breath.
For Ethan and everyone on the ship, breaking out of the Sea of Storms and arriving at the Sea of Miracles was just a beginning.
"There is still the vast and boundless sea of stars waiting for us. There is no need to be in such a hurry to reminisce about the past."
Ethan did not run to the stern to look at the Sea of Storms, but stood on the bridge and looked out the window at the people sunbathing on the deck.
Everyone was lying there quietly, drinking drinks, reading books, sunbathing, and chatting. Except for Mordred, that crazy girl who climbed onto the barrel of the main gun to feel the sea breeze, everyone else was behaving normally.
"Aren't you going?"
"I'm checking the system data on the Prinz Eugen. If there are no problems, I'll go down later." Hill did not stop working. These tasks could be handled by the Prinz Eugen's intelligent system for automatic checks, but Hill was more used to checking them herself. "Aren't you going down? You seem to need the sun more than I do."
"I'm not thinking about sunbathing right now."
The Prinz Eugen had successfully arrived at the Sea of Miracles. The next step, according to the plan, was to approach the Island of Miracles, then anchor at a relatively distant spot, and Ethan, along with Selene and Ada, would go to the island to gather some information and see if they could find any clues.
During her time living on the ship, Betty had inadvertently revealed some information. Ada had gotten along well with Betty during this period, and this elite spy had managed to extract some extra details from Betty.
The most important point was that the so-called destination was not on the Island of Miracles, but on the other side of the Sea of Miracles corresponding to the island's position.
In other words, for the Prinz Eugen to reach the destination that Betty and the other trainees wanted to reach, they would have to travel at least half the distance around this ring-shaped sea to find that place.
According to the information Brad provided initially, there was no second unsinkable island on the Sea of Miracles besides the Island of Miracles. So this so-called destination was either hidden in the air or hidden underwater.
Of course, it did not matter which one it was. At worst, Ethan could just leave the training ground directly after getting a spaceship, without necessarily having to open a passage to get out.
The reason he wanted to find this destination was to understand more about this empire, because according to the information Ada had extracted, this empire had no sympathy for their group of "low-grade consumables" and would not treat them as people. Once they lost control, the response they would take would not be too friendly.
To put it simply, there was over a ninety percent chance of war breaking out.
"I originally wanted to get an ordinary spaceship ready to use directly when needed... Now it seems it's safer to get a battleship."
At the very least, he needed to get a space fighter. Unless an ordinary spaceship underwent a series of modifications, he did not dare to use it now.
"What kind of spaceship did you originally want to get?"
Hill was very curious about what kind of ship Ethan wanted to get, especially when she thought that she might be responsible for commanding this ship as well.
"Well..." Ethan did not know how to explain it, but fortunately he could use magic, and it would be much easier to understand with images. "It's probably like this."
He made a gesture of holding something in front of him with both hands. The light between his hands twisted and changed for a moment, finally turning into a holographic image.
Similar to the scene where Ethan demonstrated the Gold Cloth to the Dwarf King, he introduced the appearance and general situation of the spaceship he wanted to "get."
"This is a space exploration ship called the Prometheus. It has four engines and is mainly propelled by two reactors..."
As for the flight speed, the original plot did mention this: the Prometheus took twenty-eight months to reach a place thirty-four light-years away from Earth.
According to the analysis of countless "great minds" in his previous life based on special relativity, the Prometheus could fly at a constant speed infinitely close to the speed of light.
The only thing certain was that the Prometheus did not have warp drive capability, and some of the technology it contained was far less advanced than the ships owned by the advanced civilizations in the Marvel universe.
Currently, Tony Stark had more advanced technology in his hands. Given time, Tony could build more advanced spaceships.
So, from the beginning, Ethan simply considered the Prometheus as an alternative, a temporary transitional item to take everyone into the universe when necessary.
Anyway, they did not know where to sail in this universe and did not have a specific place they wanted to go. Not having warp drive capability was not a problem, and the long voyage would not bore Ethan and others who had the ability to travel between planes.
"An exploration ship?"
"An exploration ship."
Hill understood why Ethan gave up on this choice. Under the current circumstances, a ship without combat capabilities was really unsuitable. If they flew into space only to find themselves surrounded by an enemy fleet, would they not become a sitting duck?
"You would actually want to get an exploration ship."
"It's just for temporary emergency use." In fact, the reason he was thinking about this ship was that Ethan really liked the appearance of the Prometheus. Maybe he could still get that ship in the future if he was bored. Anyway, if he did not take it, the ship would be destroyed; it would be too wasteful to just be damaged like that.
It would be better if he took it back and modified it. At least it could be used as a "landing craft." Because the Prometheus had the ability to enter and exit atmospheric environments, while many large space battleships were not convenient for entering the atmosphere and could only stay in orbit.
Maria Hill was still a bit unaccustomed to Ethan's way of doing things, which was "as long as I like it, the function doesn't matter." She was more concerned with the practical use of the ship. In her opinion, the Prometheus was undoubtedly not a good choice.
However, this was not her domain after all, and she did not specifically express a different opinion on Ethan's idea. At most, she would remind the captain: Let's focus on space battleships with strong firepower or survivability for now!
"Well, there are actually a few options."
There were quite a few options for space battleships with firepower. For example, in a world where humans and bugs were locked in a death struggle, there were space battleships. If Ethan wanted, he might even be able to conveniently abduct a super strong pilot and a marine assault captain.
In another world where humans, bugs, and another race were in a mixed battle, there were also space battleships with powerful firepower, and he could also conveniently abduct a female soldier who would throw a nuclear bomb at the drop of a hat.
And in another world where humans fought bugs while singing, there were still powerful space battleships, with bonus singers and fighters...
"Why are they all bugs?"
Listening to Ethan's introduction, Hill felt uncomfortable all over. How terrifying must that world be? To actually fight bugs in the universe, how terrifying must those bugs be? What was even more terrifying was that in several worlds, humans were fighting bugs. Were bugs actually the overlords of the multiverse?
Also, what the heck was that singing and fighting bugs?
Ethan shrugged. He did not explain too much. When Hill was interested, he would take her to those worlds for a tour and she would understand.
Instead of going to the deck to sunbathe with everyone, Ethan went directly back to his room to rest.
For the next period of time, everyone on the Prinz Eugen lived a stable, regular life. Everyone was busy with their own affairs, and the island was growing as Ethan had planned. After Logan and Laura had the island to practice their Druid spells, they had a relatively "natural" environment, which allowed both of their Druid powers to make considerable progress.
Logan was even finally able to cast Druid healing spells, which was truly a huge step forward. Although the progress was a bit slow, given Logan's lifespan, this guy might actually grind himself into a Great Druid over his long life.
The progress of others was not as fast as these two, but it was not slow either. In this situation, everyone was a little reluctant to do anything else and wanted to focus on pushing their strength to a bottleneck first.
This was like when many people play games and are just about to level up and change professions. At this time, they want to put everything else aside. They will talk about other things after they finish this period.
Selene and Ada did not fall into a state of frenzied training, so Ethan's previous plan of a "stealth operation" was carried out as usual.
With the close cooperation of the three, the stealth operation was completed in just one night. The excellent spy Ada brought back all the information she could gather.
Not much of this information was useful. Most of it was meaningless. Among it, only one piece of information caught Ethan's attention.
"Since over eight hundred years ago, the Guild seems to have lost contact with the Empire. They are now just doing fixed jobs generation after generation in a routine manner, not out of loyalty to the Empire, but because it allows them to maintain their status in this world."
Everyone gathered in the dedicated conference room, listening to Ada's report on this mission.
"Overly outdated information in the Guild has been destroyed. The goal of collecting information about the Empire from the Guild's records cannot be achieved."
Ada was not discouraged by the mission failure. She continued to introduce her findings in a calm and relaxed tone. "However, there is one piece of information worth noting: every ten years, the Guild sends out a direct fleet to conduct a voyage around the Sea of Miracles."
Everyone looked at the projected sea chart of the Sea of Miracles.
"Their route has been different every time over the years, but this area... the Guild's direct fleet will never miss it!"
(To be continued.)