Early morning.
The sea fog was as thick as watered-down milk, damp, cold, and heavy.
Elias kicked the trapdoor open and hauled up Jack, who was still curled up in a ball on the straw mat.
“Time for work, young man.”
“Even landlords don't have surplus grain. Free food and lodging aren't in the agreement.”
Jack, sporting two heavy dark circles under his eyes, rubbed his aching shoulders in grief and indignation.
With a gun pointed at him, he had no choice but to do the hard labor.
They went behind the lighthouse.
There was a patch of relatively soft ground here.
Though called soft, it was actually covered in hard gravel, and the soil was as frozen as cast iron.
Elias crossed his arms, leaning against a wind-sheltered reef to supervise.
Jack, on the other hand, held a rusty shovel he had dug out of the storage room, huffing and puffing as he dug into the ground.
“Brother, this ground is harder than the guillotine in Landon,” Jack complained as he wiped away his sweat.
The shovel struck the gravel, sending sparks flying.
Elias sneered.
“Cut the chatter. More physical labor improves blood circulation.”
“The whole day's work depends on a good start in the morning!”
Jack rolled his eyes and could only grit his teeth and keep swinging the shovel.
They used a few old wooden barrels from the cottage that reeked of dead fish, smashing and splitting them apart.
Under the guidance of Elias, the “master carpenter,” they roughly cobbled together a crude wooden box.
This would be Mr. Ryan Moore's final residence in this material world.
Elias walked over and helped Jack place the shriveled, stick-thin corpse inside.
Ashes to ashes, dust to dust.
In this bizarre world, being buried with an intact corpse was already considered high-class treatment.
A pity it was a bit late.
They filled in the dirt and patted it firm.
Elias found two more wooden strips, tied them into a crooked cross with hemp rope, and drove it firmly into the mound.
He stood before the grave and solemnly drew a circle over his chest.
“Alright, Brother Ryan.”
“Your sister got the high-definition footage. In a few days, she's going to Hastings Port to blow up Wayland Company's stock.”
“Rest easy down there, and remember to short the stock when the market opens next time.”
With all this done, the daily routine of the white lighthouse officially began.
With a bitter face, Jack pocketed the standard revolver issued by the company and rowed the small boat out to sea to inspect the alchemy buoys.
Meanwhile, Elias carried a canvas bag and began beachcombing on the gravel shore.
Though it was called beachcombing, one shouldn't forget that this place was literally a desolate wasteland.
The sky was dead silent; not even a single seabird was willing to fly by.
This wasn't because the place had bad feng shui, but entirely due to the spiritual turbulence in this area.
On the other side of those alchemy buoys in the sea, negative spirituality was constantly being discharged from the depths of Moon Bay.
And the lighthouse itself was continuously emitting the purification power of the Dawn Lady.
These two diametrically opposed energies engaged in a daily tug-of-war on this offshore reef.
The scale of this struggle was so vast that it directly churned the spirituality of this area into a chaotic mess.
Only supernatural creatures with actual resistance could thrive in such a place.
Among them was Elias's current target—the sea mirage.
According to the records in Jack's books, although this “sea mirage” had “mirage” in its name, it wasn't a bivalve mollusk at all.
It was a sea-fog type of supernatural creature.
If one had to describe its appearance, it was more like a translucent, soft membrane.
They loved attaching themselves to sea reefs, shipwreck planks, or the damp, cold stone walls near the lighthouse.
This creature's camouflage skill was completely maxed out.
During the day, it was one hundred percent transparent, blending perfectly with the seawater and air, making it completely invisible to the naked eye.
Only at night would it reflect moonlight, its edges displaying a neon-like iridescence.
Usually, it could use the sea fog to create brief mirages.
Causing distant lights, ship silhouettes, and even human outlines to shift by several hundred meters.
It didn't possess any strong aggressiveness itself.
However, it would use holographic projections to mislead passing ships into misjudging distances, ultimately causing them to crash headfirst into the reefs.
A single one couldn't cause much trouble.
But when these things gathered in large numbers, it was a disaster for ships at sea.
Elias spent half the day scraping around the stone crevices with his bag, his fingernails filling with black sand.
His train of thought was very clear. They had only recently resolved the sea fog issue in Hastings Port.
Even though there was a high probability that this isolated offshore reef was not within the range of the sea fog stirred up by the Mist Veil Society back then, he still adopted the mindset of “never leaving empty-handed” and planned to try his luck here.
If he could score a “sea mirage membrane” for free, his new Scale One recipe would be a major step closer to completion.
However, reality was harsh.
He kept busy until noon, even stepping his leather boots into puddles, but he still couldn't find the so-called “sea mirage.”
Instead, he picked up quite a few bizarrely shaped shells.
They were shells emitting a faint spirituality, adorned with strange silver patterns.
Upholding the iron law of anglers to never go home empty-handed, Elias packed a large bag full of these shells and carried the heavy load on his shoulder.
Just then, Jack, who had finished inspecting the alchemy buoys on the sea, came drifting back in his small boat.
The young man tied the boat to the crude pier. Looking up, he saw Elias standing on the shore, lost in thought with a large canvas bag on his back.
Jack approached out of curiosity.
“Mr. Rockland, any luck?”
Elias expressionlessly untied the bag and held it out to Jack.
Jack craned his neck to look inside and froze.
“Silver-rimmed caps?”
The young man pointed at the silver-gleaming shells in the bag, his tone filled with confusion.
“Why did you gather so many of these?”
“The shells are brittle, there's barely any meat, and they taste bitter and salty.”
Elias's heart skipped a beat, and his hands subtly tightened on the bag.
“I was looking for sea mirages. As for these things, I just picked them up along the way,” he said calmly.
He didn't want to actively ask Jack what a “silver-rimmed cap” was.
From what the kid said, it seemed this thing was not only useless but also tasted terrible and was utterly worthless.
Dammit!
Back when Old Ed was still online in his head, he could ask him questions anytime, anywhere.
This prevented him from exposing his shortcomings as a mystical illiterate.
Now, the old ghost had completely vanished since the last incident, leaving Elias exposed in his raw, illiterate form.
Hearing Elias's response, Jack could only nod blankly.
He figured the other party must be gathering them to brew some secret medicine or craft a supernatural item.
“Is everything normal?” Elias decisively changed the subject.
“Everything is normal,” Jack replied honestly.
The two of them returned to the somewhat dilapidated cottage together.
Jack obediently went to fulfill his forced-labor agreement to catch some edible fish.
Meanwhile, Elias chewed on the jerky from their supplies, each bite a life-or-death struggle against his tooth enamel.
Sitting at the doorway of the cottage, he spread out Introduction to Mysticism, which he had swiped from Jack, and began reading it page by page.
He desperately needed to change his status as a supernatural illiterate, lest he pick up something like “silver-rimmed caps” again next time and treat them like treasure.
He had only read a few pages when a subtle spiritual fluctuation began to ripple through the space beside him.
Elias grew alert.
However, judging by the gentleness of this fluctuation, it was unlikely to be an enemy from the spirit world.
Even so, he closed the book and cautiously pulled out The Roaring Cane.
A moment later, in the void half a meter in front of him, a narrow rift to the spirit world split open.
Immediately after, an all-black raven flew out from within.
The bird circled half a turn in the air before landing lightly on the brass handle of the wooden cottage's doorframe.
With a soft snap, the spatial rift closed behind it.
Elias froze.
For the black bird perched on the door handle had opened its barbed beak.
A moment later, a cold, elegant female voice with a familiar accent echoed from the raven's throat.
It was Ms. Cecil's voice.
“Mr. Rockland, long time no see.”
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