Chapter 569: Return Voyage and Reorganization, Eye of the Sky

When Xia Duo returned to the "Lucky Owen," Masa had already returned, but the new subjects had not all arrived yet; it was not until the sky had completely darkened that everyone was finally present.

After counting, there were 432 new subjects in total, among whom 8 craftsmen had already been identified—those were the slaves Masa had managed to secure by pulling strings.

As for the others, it would have to wait until they returned to the Territory to be re-questioned, screened, and recorded.

……

Early the next morning, the six cargo ships hauled up their anchors and cast off their mooring lines, slowly sailing out of Severton West Port, heading south against the current of the Netheril River, which flowed north into the sea; they would be sailing against the current until they left the Inner Land.

Upon departure, Xia Duo stood at the stern for a while, watching the port gradually recede, before withdrawing his gaze; just as he was preparing to go to the bow to catch some breeze, he heard a series of scolding voices coming from the cabin.

After listening carefully for a while, it turned out to be the steward of the Silaiwen Chamber of Commerce and the soldiers on board, who were coordinating with the crew of the "Lucky Owen" to organize the able-bodied among the new subjects.

The voyage would take more than a month; establishing a system among the new subjects in advance could not only prevent them from causing trouble during the voyage but also utilize them to lighten the crew's workload.

The Silaiwen Chamber of Commerce was already very experienced in such matters, so Xia Duo did not interfere and headed straight to the bow.

Before long, the steward came to the bow to report the situation, "My Lord, we have organized two teams of able-bodied men, and First Mate Lusi, Captain Owen's nephew, is training them; once we reach the downstream section, we can let them try to rotate with the crew. There is also a team of women responsible for maintaining order and distributing food. The weapons and food are all under our control, please rest assured, My Lord."

Xia Duo did not turn his head, continuing to look forward; the northern section of the Netheril River had been widened many times, enough for passing ships to sail side by side without interference. Both banks were mature territories, and looking across, there was almost no sign of forest.

Now this is what a normal territory should look like!

Seeing that the steward had not yet left, Xia Duo gave two more instructions, "They are not slaves, nor are they prisoners of war; they are my subjects. Treat them well, but if anyone causes trouble, there is no need to be polite."

"Yes, My Lord."

"Go and get back to work!"

"Yes."

……

Afterwards, Xia Duo went to the other five ships to inspect them and, finding no major problems, returned to the captain's cabin of the "Lucky Owen." He planned to use spells to view the scenery while mapping out the general route.

Of course, the Library of the Tower of Time had general maps of the Inner Land, which Xia Duo had already looked at beforehand; now, it was mostly a matter of comparing them to see if there were any discrepancies.

The map he truly wanted to draw was the stretch from the Inner Land south to the Savile Territory. The Tower of Time had very few maps of this section, and most were hand-drawn by merchant caravans, with very distinct personal styles and not drawn strictly to scale.

For Xia Duo, such maps were very awkward to look at.

He intended to draw the map through spells, which was an application of 【Transcription】; the Tower of Time also had spells for creating magic maps, but the maps created by those spells were truly "magic maps"—once the magic faded, the map would cease to exist.

Under normal circumstances, it would still need to go through a "copying" process to become an ordinary map that could be preserved for a long time, whereas the map Xia Duo created through 【Transcription】 would be an ordinary map directly.

——4th-circle 【Xia Duo's Eye of the Sky】

An improved Scrying spell; it was not really putting a magic eye into the sky, but rather creating a movable Perception Field, extending all his perception to that location, similar to an eye.

Of course, it could also be called "Ear of the Sky" or "Nose of the Sky," because the Perception Field could also hear sounds and even smell odors, but "Eye of the Sky" probably sounded better.

Once the spell was cast, Xia Duo felt as if he were instantly standing in the sky; looking "down," the six ships were sailing south against the current in the river in a single line.

At the same time, he could still perceive the situation around his physical body, but perceiving from two perspectives simultaneously gave him a sense of mental disorientation.

Therefore, Xia Duo chose to close his eyes, focusing entirely on perceiving the outside world through the Perception Field.

It was as if he had personally cast 【Flight】 and flown into the sky, but in reality, this was just the effect of the Perception Field; it was as immersive as it could get.

The only regret was that this method could not capture the feeling or sound of the airflow passing over one's body as in real flight.

But this method, which was more swift and flexible than 【Flight】, also made Xia Duo incredibly addicted; one moment he was at the front of the fleet, and the next he was at the back.

Afterwards, Xia Duo kept flying higher and further, overlooking the earth, his mood incredibly relaxed.

Of course, during this process, he did not forget to compare the actual geography with the map of the Inner Land in his memory, but this was subconscious work; he was mainly just looking at the scenery.

It was not until the spell's duration ended that Xia Duo still felt a bit unsatisfied.

The Inner Land was the true land of civilization, with traces of human activity everywhere, whereas the Nan Jing was full of forests and wilderness, and the only trace of human activity was the Savile Territory.

It was truly a bit monotonous.

Of course, now one had to add the Daxia Territory, but compared to the Inner Land, where human activity stretched as far as the eye could see, the Nan Jing could only be considered a wild land.

However, this feeling only lasted for less than three days before Xia Duo grew somewhat tired of the monotonous scenery of the Inner Land.

Aside from farmland, there were orchards, and the buildings were not much different from those in the Savile Territory, except that there were more Mage Towers here than in the Nan Jing. Because of human activity, too much natural scenery had been wiped out.

After all, it was not a prosperous era; once the initial freshness faded, all that remained was unchanging monotony.

On the contrary, the forests and wilderness of the Nan Jing looked monotonous, but upon closer inspection, they were different everywhere.

Of course, what is most lacking in life is an eye for beauty; although it felt monotonous, he had to compare the maps on one hand and observe the situation of the Inner Land territories on the other.

Xia Duo continued to observe.

And as he watched, Xia Duo began to play a game called "Spot the Difference," which was to look for differences between two different territories.

Playing this, he actually regained the interest he had at the beginning.

There were many territories in the Inner Land, some large and some small, but without exception, as long as the territory exceeded a certain size, it was bound to have a Mage Tower built, and some territories even had more than one.

And besides Mage Towers, Elf-style architecture was also very popular; observing these two things became Xia Duo's new fun.

During this period, Xia Duo passed through the Xibodeng Territory and saw with his own eyes the so-called strongest shipbuilding territory in Netheril; it was indeed worthy of being the strongest in Netheril, but it was still a bit different from what Xia Duo had imagined.

News from Beilaila did not seem to have come back yet, and no one invited him to go ashore or anything, so Xia Duo just treated it as an ordinary territory and passed through quickly.

On the tenth day, the fleet paused for rest and resupply.

From then on, until the Savile Territory, there were no more territories where they could stop for rest; this was considered the final stop.