Chapter 260: Travels in the Clouds

March 15, 250 kilometers from the outpost core, 300 kilometers from the super-large sky island.

The return route of the first batch of caravans dispatched by the territory.

"They are still chasing us!"

The lady from the Geological Society said in a panic, obviously experiencing this kind of thing for the first time.

"There are always some guys who want to get something for nothing, haha, they can't catch up with us."

Jiang Liu said to Aina to reassure her. Our ship moves faster than them, and their broken wooden barrels are still too much to catch up with the territory's floating ships.

Even if they are caught up, the eleven musketeers on their ship are not afraid of the other side in hand-to-hand combat.

He was indeed afraid of fighting, because most of the things on this ship were plant seeds. They had to be sent back to the territory for cultivation, and he would feel bad if one was damaged.

"We will probably have to pass through five more sky islands as jumping points, and we are almost there."

Jiang Liu steered the rudder and shook off the robbers behind him who wanted to bite him tightly, but could not catch up with him because of the speed deficiency. This kind of guys are often composed of guys who can build a small camp on an island. If they see other merchant ships coming, they will be eager to find them to collect money.

As the opponent's barrel ship disappeared in the clouds, Jiang Liu turned around to check the map hanging on the wall of the cockpit. The rough map only used small dots to mark the location of each island and the inaccurate relative distance. A mechanical clock purchased from the Holy City was placed in the cabin to provide accurate time.

Jiang Liu would use a ruler, his direction, the time of sailing, and the island of departure to calculate his location. After arriving at any island recorded on the map, repeat the above process, over and over again, and then accurately return to his own port.

And crossing a straight-line distance of more than 600 kilometers, point-to-point navigation, that is something only a madman would do. Constantly correcting and confirming one's relative position is what every captain should do. If you can't confirm your relative coordinates, the map is just a piece of waste paper.

Jiang Liu is not very worried, because once they have obvious deviation. The lord can also find their location through the small map and send a rescue fleet to help them.

But they were not super-patient people, and they also avoided bothering the patrol forces of the territory. Along the way, Jiang Liu was steadily advancing with the Sky Island as a jumping point, and rested on the Sky Island when he could.

And the geologist lady they carried would occasionally collect some plants under their protection when they rested. Then she took the airship to circle the entire Sky Island, and she outlined the shape of the floating island.

Jiang Liu did not ask her to pay, but only asked to share the map after the preliminary exploration with her. Aina touched her not-so-full wallet and agreed happily.

Her funds had to be kept on the Sky Island to hire these guys to help her find her master, so in such a place, she would save as much as she could.

Slowly sailing in the air, it was as difficult to distinguish the direction and coordinates as sailing on the sea.

The sky and the clouds were connected in one color.

The drifting clouds turned into a barrier to block the view, and occasionally rain clouds floated by, blocking their way forward, swallowing them in with their gray-black bodies, obscuring their vision.

The sky was covered by dark clouds, as if entering a completely dark night. With the crisp echo of raindrops hitting the warehouse wall, the ship closed the portholes and lit the rune lamps for temporary lighting. Every crew member prayed that the abnormal celestial phenomenon would pass soon.

The dark clouds basically had no effect on the hull, but they would greatly affect their observation field of view and increase psychological pressure.

Hanging in the air, it seemed that they were the only ones left in the sky facing nature alone.

Occasionally, they could hear some terrifying cries from the depths of the clouds, and some cloud-dwelling creatures shuttled through the rain clouds.

"Wait, are we about to reach this island?"

Aina suddenly remembered something, took out a more detailed map from her bosom, and pointed to an island on it to Captain Jiang Liu.

Her teacher specially marked a coordinate point with a small blue mark on one of the very few islands on this map. She only discovered this when she was looking over and over again in her own compartment.

Life on the ship was extremely boring, and there was no fun except watching the soldiers play cards.

Occasionally, they would get together to share stories about their hometowns, and Hackett would talk about the good days in the manor before his small family collapsed...

More often, they would play cards there, a kind of cards they called poker; or two people would play a kind of chess there, and a group of people would surround them and shout loudly.

Aina also saw that they all had no ears, but the leader Jiang Liu fooled them by saying that their group just had no ears.

Not being special is also a kind of special. You see, he can also use spells, so there is no need to worry at all.

Already on the pirate ship, she could only convince herself with difficulty to believe Jiang Liu's statement.

There was no way to disbelieve it, he was the boss on the ship.

At least the other party didn't look like a bad guy.

She could only look through her map again and again out of boredom, and then she discovered the specialness of this map. But when she found out, the ship was about to enter the airspace of Sky Island No. 3, and that island was the last island in her map that connected the known airspace with the unknown airspace.

"Well, are you talking about this island? There is about an hour's journey."

Jiang Liu used a scale to confirm the location of the islands on the two maps, and finally gave an uncertain answer.