In this battle, Ethan, with the absolute advantage of his equipment, was purely bullying weaker opponents.
The opponent completely lacked the courage to fight him to the death, which meant Ethan didn't even have a chance to use his only defensive magic, the Ice Shield.
However, he took this opportunity to thoroughly test his combat capabilities.
"From now on, when facing ordinary bandits, not only will I not get hurt, but I can also perfectly counter-kill them."
This was definitely not an illusion!
He retrieved the two short arrows. These pure metal arrows were not easy to replace, so Ethan would retrieve them whenever possible.
While he was at it, he searched the bodies of the few people he killed and found some scattered items, but the most valuable things were still their weapons.
"Maybe I can trade these for some low-level magic stones?"
In fact, even the old clothes these people wore could be traded for something, but Ethan didn't do that. Besides not being short of this 'money', he also felt a bit resistant deep down.
Although they weren't good people, since they were already dead, what was the point of humiliating a corpse?
Because of this thought, the bandits kept their clothes, retaining their final dignity, and were buried together.
"Right, these guys had a boat moored by the sea. I wonder what kind of boat it is?"
There were six people here, and it was unclear if there were crew members left behind on the boat. Even if there weren't, a boat that could carry six people must be considerably larger than his own.
Regardless of whether they had found other islands before, and without considering how much food and water they had on their boat, just having such a boat was already a significant gain. Ethan's trip out to sea was not in vain.
After being busy for a while, the sky gradually darkened. He didn't plan to return to his own camp but decided to go and check out the bandits' boat.
If there were crew members left behind, he would take advantage of the cover of night to eliminate them all. If not, he would take the opportunity to inventory his spoils of war.
Following the small path that Rodney and the others had cleared earlier, Ethan quickly found where they had moored their boat.
It was a two-masted sailboat, about fifteen meters long, its shape somewhat resembling the caravel he used in sailing games in his previous life, just slightly smaller.
It was much taller than his own boat, with two decks. Unlike the so-called two decks of his small boat, the interior deck of this boat was spacious enough for a person of normal height to move around freely.
Furthermore, the main sail of this boat used a triangular sail-like design. Although this type of sail was less stable than standard square sails, it was excellent for speed and flexibility, especially suited for the sea conditions of the Calm Sea, maximizing the advantages of speed and maneuverability.
Of course, it was also more troublesome to operate. If he were alone, sailing this boat would likely leave him completely flustered.
"Sell it when I get back?"
That seemed a bit wasteful. It was rare to get a better boat without having to buy one himself. If he sold it directly, he would have to buy a new boat later, which seemed a bit foolish.
"Maybe I really need to find some companions. Adventuring alone at sea just doesn't feel reliable."
By this time, the sky had completely darkened, but there was no light lit on the boat.
"Looks like there's no one left on the boat."
Ethan searched all the way into the cabin but found no one. However, he didn't immediately light a lamp but stayed alert and guarded in a dark corner throughout the night.
It wasn't until the sun rose again above the horizon that he was certain there were no other enemies.
He searched the boat again and also inventoried the remaining supplies on board. The situation was much better than Ethan had expected.
There was plenty of food and fresh water on this boat. It was clear that Rodney and his group had likely just replenished their supplies and then quickly discovered this island.
"Could these bastards have been following me specifically?"
This wasn't impossible. When he set sail, Rodney had seen which direction he was heading. Although finding someone in the vast ocean wasn't easy, with the floating island and the island pointer, finding someone wasn't an impossible task.
Once they determined the course, they just had to sail in one direction and then head towards the first island locked by the pointer. The probability of catching him would definitely exceed seventy percent.
"Still too inexperienced. If I really want to shake off pursuit in the future, I need to go in circles more, at least completely avoid the most easily targeted routes."
Learning from experience, Ethan silently noted another lesson, then got off the boat and searched the area near the shore again.
There were no signs of a camp being set up. Rodney's group likely headed directly towards the center of the island as quickly as possible after landing. Perhaps in their eyes, whether he was on this island or not, they needed to seize the most important things on the island first.
Or rather, they believed that if he was on the island, he would definitely be exploring the center of the island at this time, so no matter what, rushing directly there was the most correct and time-saving choice.
After eliminating all potential threats, Ethan continued his previous exploration, spending another two months to thoroughly investigate the island.
He searched everywhere he could. The biggest gain was finding a hidden mine shaft. Of course, he couldn't determine what kind of ore it was, but ore was a very valuable resource. Any kind of ore could be exchanged for a large amount of supplies.
Because he had an extra 'big boat', he also had the possibility of transporting a large amount of ore. So, soon the raw ore filled the warehouse of the big boat. For this, Ethan even moved all the fruits and drinking water to the land, only planning to bring some fruit to maintain vitamins when leaving, and relying entirely on the water-making spell for drinking water.
With the sudden increase in heavy cargo, the big boat's draft deepened considerably. Ethan even spent some effort moving the boat to a slightly deeper area to moor it properly.
Just as he was preparing to continue his exploration, a sudden tremor almost caused him to fall.
"Earthquake?"
An earthquake was a warning that a floating island was about to sink. According to Ethan's speculation, the foundation beneath this island, which had inexplicably surfaced, had become unstable and could collapse at any time, causing the island to 'sink'.
"Looks like there's not much time left."
This was an island without animals, so it wouldn't remain floating on the sea for very long, ranging from a few months to just a few days. Now that he had lived on the island for two months, it had already existed for a relatively long time.
"It's a pity I haven't found any magic stones."
He kept the words the guild members told him in mind, so his primary goal on this island was always magic stones.
When he first found the mine shaft, he thought he had found the right place, perhaps deep within this mine, where ore was so abundant you could pick it up anywhere, was what he was looking for.
Unexpectedly, this ore vein was shallower than he thought. He didn't have to go far before there was no more path. Although his eyes were filled with ore, Ethan was still unwilling to give up and used the long sword Kasha gave him to play the role of a miner. The result was that besides tiring himself out like a dog, he only collected more ore whose use he completely didn't know.
The tremors became more frequent, from once every half a day initially to about every two hours now, and the duration and intensity of the tremors also increased. Ethan knew he couldn't stay on the island any longer and began preparing to evacuate.
As early as the first tremor, Ethan had already packed everything that needed to be packed. To avoid the inconvenience of trying to sail the boat out of the small bay in a hurry, he had even moved his boat to a different location beforehand.
Another tremor occurred, and Ethan felt the frequency had increased again. The intensity of the tremors began to cause noticeable damage to the island: the ground cracked, hillsides turned into large pits, everything was reminding Ethan to leave quickly.
He did just that, sprinting quickly towards the spot he had already chosen. But just as he was about to leave, he suddenly saw a flash of white light in a large pit not far away.
"What is that?"
Ethan initially thought it was an illusion, or something like ore, reflecting the sunlight and dazzling his eyes, but the clear magical energy fluctuations reminded him that it was not ordinary ore.
"Magic stone!"
Ethan quickly ran to the side of the large pit and immediately saw the white stone emitting a soft glow and rippling with magical energy.
"A white magic stone? I wonder what attribute it is."
Observing the structure of the large pit, Ethan made a judgment in the shortest possible time and then leaped down.
In that instant, he almost burst out with speed and agility far beyond his limit, and in the intermittent tremors, he grabbed the magic stone that had been shaken into the air.
Then, with movements more agile than a monkey's, he climbed back to the ground along the route he had chosen earlier, and then sprinted towards the sea like a mad dog let loose.
He wasn't far from the sea in the first place, but he hadn't expected the magic stone to be right on the coast near his planned departure point and buried in the ground. If not for a series of coincidences, Ethan would never have found this magic stone.
After returning to the boat, Ethan immediately raised the anchor and hoisted the sails, steering his Goddess of Dawn towards the large boat that was already moored quite far away.
He glanced at the still-trembling island. Although the tremors had become more intense and it was no longer suitable to live on the island, it didn't look like it would sink anytime soon. Ethan also put aside his worries and looked at the white magic stone in his hand.
"What attribute is this thing?"
Ethan looked at it for a while and suddenly felt that the fluctuations of this magic stone seemed a bit familiar? He hadn't seen many magic stones, mostly red fire-attribute ones.
The only white one he had seen was the one used by the guild when they helped him fill out his information.