Pain.

Pain beyond words.

Julian felt as though an iron spike had pierced his chest. He was cold and weak, and something precious seemed to be pouring out through the hole. Every nerve writhed under the strain, screaming.

Yet he could not wake. He lay trapped in a long, oppressive dream.

In that dream, there were two versions of him, two utterly different lives.

In the first, he had grown up in an orphanage in modern Singapore. Circumstances hemmed him in, but he dreamed of traveling around the world. He had worked for only a few years, not nearly long enough to save for the journey, when he developed a rare disease: amyotrophic lateral sclerosis. ALS.

Beginning with his arms, his body had failed him piece by piece. Within a few short years, he could no longer move, speak, swallow, or even breathe on his own. His flesh became a prison for his soul, until at last he died alone, helpless and despairing.

In the other life, he had lost his mother at birth, but he had a stern, loving father and a large, close-knit family.

There was an uncle troubled by intermittent bouts of mental illness, yet wise and kindly most of the time; a beautiful, gentle aunt who treated him as her own son; an older cousin who often took him hunting and taught him swordsmanship, riding, and navigation; a childhood companion with whom he spent his days chasing chickens and dogs instead of doing anything useful.

There were other loving relatives, too, and loyal vassals, dependents, and guardian knights...

Frustratingly, both lives had been blurred from the beginning, as though he were viewing them through thick frosted glass. However hard he tried, Julian could recover none of the details.

He had only a vague sense that some recent catastrophe had dealt him a terrible blow.

A crucial section of the vast “memory palace” that formed his personality had vanished, setting off a chain of collapses. This had exposed the first life, which had always lain beneath it as a foundation. Those memories barely kept the palace standing, but left him utterly confused.

Now he was like a small boat that had lost its [anchor], adrift in a torrent of shattered memories with nowhere to turn. Beyond deeply rooted instincts and common knowledge, even his sense of who he was had begun to blur.

After an unknowable stretch of time, only one image remained clear enough to hold.

A stormy night.

Beneath his feet stood an immense warship, towering like a mountain, with a [blue-dragon figurehead] mounted at its bow.

His father from this life was speaking to him, his face frantic. Julian could see his mouth moving, but heard nothing.

Then cold, dark seawater swallowed everything...

Instinct told him that this might be the key to the catastrophe. But the harder he tried to grasp the memories, the faster they slipped away.

Who am I? What happened that stormy night? Where did the rest of my family go...?

A great splash of icy seawater struck his face.

Julian jolted awake.

He never noticed the almost imperceptible glimmer that flashed through his right eye, blue as the sea, the instant it opened.

Slowly, he raised his head. To his astonishment, he was lying in an awkward heap on the deck of a wooden sailing vessel among a group of equally drenched men. Ropes bound their hands behind their backs and secured their feet.

Several ragged, vicious-looking sailors stood over them.

Their leader was a burly man two meters tall, with a cutlass and a flintlock pistol at his waist. He exuded a cold, bloody menace. Raising a bottle, he swallowed a great mouthful of rum.

“Stop lying on the deck playing dead, you pigs,” he snapped. “The captain’s little darlings don’t like eating corpses that won’t move. Get up. Don’t make trouble for us.”

Julian’s heart sank. Huddled among the prisoners, he glanced discreetly around.

Fresh sword cuts, ax marks, and bullet impacts scarred the waist-high bulwarks. The golden bronze cannons on the weather deck still reeked of powder smoke. Dirty traces of blood lingered between the deck planks, not quite scrubbed away.

Everywhere he looked, muscular sailors in ragged clothes were tying broken sail lines back together, repairing damage from a naval battle, or tending the wounded.

High atop the mast flew a black pirate flag bearing a white skeleton riding a shark.

There was no doubt about it. This was a pirate vessel fresh from a savage, bloody fight.

Astern, no more than one nautical mile away, a merchant vessel battered by gunfire burned fiercely as it sank through the hazy white mist.

Apparently, it had put up a desperate resistance, even counterattacking the pirate vessel at one point, only to suffer plunder and slaughter all the same.

The blood-red no-quarter flag flying high on the pirates’ mast confirmed it.

That flag meant everyone aboard the enemy vessel was to be killed.

In principle, pirates carried out this bloody punishment without fail, with almost no exceptions. It was meant to deter merchant vessels from daring to resist them.

Together with the pirate leader’s words, it told Julian that his situation was very bad indeed.

I’ve been captured by pirates? And they’re going to feed me to some sort of pets?

Most of the merchant sailors who had survived the attack were old sea dogs with years of experience. Their sense of danger was sharper than his. They also knew far better just how savage the North Sea pirate crew aboard [Maneater Shark] could be.

Ignoring their bleeding wounds, they hastily dropped to their knees.

“Mr. Marrowcrack, the captain ordered us to fight! We’ve surrendered! Please, don’t kill us!”

“Spare me! I’m Pelican’s gunner. I have a skilled trade! I’ll join Maneater Shark!”

Their pleas left the pirate leader unmoved.

Bram, known as “Marrowcrack,” was the vessel’s first mate. He took another deep swallow of rum looted from the merchant vessel and gave them a chilling smile.

“Bad luck for you. Your cook, the one who supposedly worked for nobles, earned himself a chance to prove his worth by stabbing your captain in the back. The rest of you don’t qualify for Captain Redgaze’s mercy. Enough talk. The little creatures must be getting impatient. Send them down!”

He waved a hand. The other pirates advanced at once and hauled the terrified prisoners off the deck, some of them close to wetting themselves.

At this pitiless death sentence, many of the sailors broke down.

“You maggots of the sea! You’ll come to a bad end, and so will that filthy traitor!”

“Let the ghost ships of legend take my soul! One day, the spirits of the dead at sea will have their revenge on the living! God will never forgive you!”

Some cursed the pirates. Others called down curses upon them, while still others hurried to pray in what little time remained.

Beside Julian, an old sailor’s teeth chattered.

“Al... almighty Creator! We should never have obeyed the captain. We should never have sailed at a time like this. What does the Kingdom of Hastings’s war of succession have to do with poor sailors like us? Even if House Ravenshaw of the Red Rose lost, our Pelican Trading Guild is only a dependent of one of their dependents. With Your mighty protection, surely House Ashcombe of the White Rose won’t harm us now that they’ve taken power...”

From the sailors’ desperate outpourings, Julian finally began to piece together what had happened.

This otherwise unremarkable act of piracy had taken place in the North Sea, off the shores of the Old Continent.

In the nearby island nation of Hastings, two great houses whose emblems were the Red and White Roses had fought over the throne for a full thirty years.

Recently, these two noble houses, both possessing the right of succession, had once again led their dependents into bloody conflict on land and at sea.

Then, late at night five days ago, a storm of extraordinary violence had suddenly struck the scene of their naval battle: the Dover Strait, at the southernmost end of the North Sea.

The struggle for the throne between the White Rose and the Red Rose had thus been decided once and for all.

Every male member of House Ravenshaw of the Red Rose, which had held the throne of Hastings, had vanished in the storm.

Even [Azure Dragon King], the first-rate warship carrying the former king, Alaric VI, had sunk.

Nobles great and small, along with merchants who had depended on the Ravenshaws, were fleeing for fear of reprisals from the new king. Some sought refuge in other countries along the continental coast of the North Sea. Others headed straight for the thriving overseas colonies.

The merchant vessel Pelican had sailed from Hastings two days earlier, carrying part of the household wealth of Lord Aldwick, a member of the Ravenshaw faction. Its destination was the colonies in the Bantaan Archipelago to the south.

Instead, it had unexpectedly encountered [Maneater Shark]. The brutal pirates had attacked, bringing its voyage of escape to an abrupt end.

Julian himself was a “castaway” whom [Pelican] had pulled from the sea while passing through the outer waters of the Dover Strait, near the former battlefield.

No one aboard had known who he was, not even the captain, who had now gone down with his ship.

And so Julian had found himself a pirate prisoner alongside Pelican’s crew, without understanding how he had come to be there.

“The Red and White Roses. Azure Dragon King. Ravenshaw...”

His gaze grew unfocused.

Those few words seemed to give his drifting, disordered memories an anchor. Faces began to rise before him, some clear, others indistinct.

One image stood out above the rest: a Red Rose emblem burning fiercely amid blood and fire.

Warmth, a child’s love for his elders, romantic longing, regret... Overwhelming emotions surged through him, making his heart ache in painful spasms.

“Aaah!”

A piercing scream struck his ears.

Julian flinched back to himself. His head snapped up.

The executions had begun.

On the forecastle, a group of burly pirates hauled together on a stout length of rope, running from starboard to port.

A bare-chested sailor was dragged underwater across the keel, which was encrusted with sharp, parasitic barnacles, then brutally yanked above the surface on the other side.

It was like being sliced apart a thousand times. Countless bloody wounds, deep enough to expose bone, covered his body.

The sailor had barely screamed before they dragged him underwater toward the opposite side, without giving him time to draw a breath.

After two or three passes back and forth, his body was a shredded ruin, scarcely recognizable as human. Even the water near the bow had turned a deep, bloody red.

Keelhauling. One of the most dreaded punishments at sea.

Then came something even more horrifying.

As though summoned by the scent of blood, a mass of black shark fins rose from the water like blades. They cut white lines across the surface, converging within moments.

Clearly, these were the pets kept by Maneater Shark’s captain, the ones First Mate Bram had mentioned.

Meanwhile, a long wooden plank was extended over the side.

Waving cutlasses, the pirates drove several merchant sailors along it, forcing the men to inch toward the end with their hands and feet bound. As they went, the pirates opened bloody cuts on their bodies.

Praying or cursing, each sailor eventually stepped into empty air and fell screaming into the churning waves.

After a bloody scramble, all of them vanished beneath the surface.

As their companions died one after another in the sharks’ jaws, despair spread among the remaining sailors. The helplessness of watching and waiting for their own execution was enough to drive them mad.

Some of the more knowledgeable old sea dogs had already realized that this was no mere execution.

The pirates were conducting an exceptionally cruel rite of blood sacrifice.

“So much for those rubber heroes who make adventure look like a game. This is what pirates really are!”

Standing at the back of the line, his face as grim as the others’, Julian blurted out words that baffled everyone around him, and even himself.

Then the pirates shoved him roughly onto the long, narrow plank.

Just beneath his feet churned blood-red waves and dozens of gaping maws filled with cold, sharp teeth.

The pungent reek of blood made his scalp prickle.

Unless something unexpected happened, he would never have another chance to recover his memories or uncover the truth he had lost.

Splash!

Driven into the sea by the pirates’ bloodstained cutlasses, Julian vanished in the last splash to break the surface.

The burly first mate, who seemed to reek even more strongly of blood now, laughed without restraint.

“Be grateful for the mercy of Bram Marrowcrack! No need to summon the man-eating sharks with more human blood and the terror of dying sailors. Walking the plank is a lot more comfortable than keelhauling! Ha ha ha...”

Soon, some of the sharks had eaten their fill. A bloody light kindled in their eyes, and they began swimming around the pirate vessel in a perfect circle, as though directed by an invisible force.

Bram watched them with hunger in his eyes.

“True, making them scout and fight like armed guards for the ship takes a human blood sacrifice every three days. But whatever the price, this is supernatural power! A few more raids with the captain, and Captain Redgaze might grant me that wonderful power, too!”

He turned and walked away, unconcerned that any of the “sacrificial victims” might survive the plank.

Over the years, the blood and tears of countless victims had fed the pirates’ arrogance and earned [Maneater Shark] a fearsome reputation throughout these waters.

And events were unfolding much as Bram expected.

The sharks that were still hungry easily tore apart the old sailor who had fallen into the water ahead of Julian, then rushed straight at him.

His hands and feet were tightly bound. He had no way to resist.

Julian knew that even a fully armed knight would have been doomed in this situation, let alone an unarmed prisoner. At the sight of the scarlet light in the sharks’ eyes, his heart sank further.

These aren’t ordinary beasts. They’re supernatural creatures!

From the scraps of common knowledge left in his mind, he had a vague sense that he had witnessed supernatural power many times before. There was nothing unfamiliar about the sight.

But knowledge alone could do nothing to save him.

He could only watch as the sharks opened their jaws and surged toward him through churning eddies.

Blood reflected from the broken surface. Black fins stirred the water into turmoil. Gaping maws opened, hundreds upon hundreds of daggerlike teeth gleaming coldly...

Julian’s sea-blue pupils contracted. His thoughts accelerated.

It was like the stories of a life flashing before someone’s eyes in the moments before death.

Anchored by the fragments he had overheard from the sailors, the two sets of memories from his dream rose again.

An emaciated young man lay in a hospital bed, ravaged by ALS. His extraordinarily bright eyes met Julian’s.

“I never want to lie helpless in a hospital bed again, all alone, waiting to die! I want to run, jump, swim, and go adventuring wherever I please. I want to see the glaciers, deserts, auroras, endless forests, and boundless seas of this world... If I could die amid towering waves one day, that would be the perfect redemption!”

Another boy, armored and drenched in sweat, practiced with a heavy longsword. He worked through each movement without slacking, even at the limits of exhaustion.

Years of hard training since childhood had driven an unyielding fighting spirit into his bones.

He swung his sword and shouted, “A knight presses forward and counts a wound in the back a disgrace!”

The two figures suddenly merged, sealing the hole in Julian’s consciousness that had tormented him.

At the same moment, something unexpected happened.

The blue light that had returned to his right eye when he entered the sea seemed at last to meet some prerequisite. It burst from his pupil.

Great church bells rang inside his skull. Wondrous scenes unfolded before his eyes.

The sun rose and set. Clouds gathered and scattered. Ocean tides flowed and ebbed. Life sprang from the earth...

Ancient tribes practiced slash-and-burn farming. Two-legged wyverns hunted freely. Massed knights swept across battlefields in a tide of steel...

An endless succession of images, from humanity’s beginnings to the present, washed through Julian’s consciousness.

What... is this?

Before the question had fully formed, that river of many-colored light had coursed through every tiny blood vessel and nerve in his body.

It condensed before his eyes into a book with yellowed pages and traces of dried water stains.

A diary...

No. An ancient [Logbook]!

There were no words on its cover, only the image of an eye as blue as the sea.

The instant Julian met its gaze, the book opened. Deep blue ink began writing of its own accord.

“A passion for life, a longing for freedom, the courage never to retreat before a powerful enemy, and an... [anchor] from ‘correct history’!

“Conditions met!

“Logbook restart. Recording of a new history will begin shortly!”

The title page turned, and the main text began.

“Some say we live on a tranquil island called ignorance, surrounded by an endless black ocean.

“Perhaps we should never have set sail at all!

“Yet we have no choice.

“The Logbook will record the captain’s explorations of the unknown and of Secrets, granting [spirituality] and [traits]!

“Starting Point: October 12, 1471, Silver Era. The War of the Red and White Roses in the Kingdom of Hastings has ended. The throne belongs to House Ashcombe of the White Rose!

“Captain Julian Ravenshaw (Evan Cole), perhaps all you need is a little assistance to write your own legend in this age!”

Something seemed to explode inside Julian’s mind. His eyes blazed.

“I’m Evan Cole, from another world, and I’m also... Julian Ravenshaw of the Kingdom of Hastings? Ravenshaw of the Red Rose! The house whose throne was usurped!”

Wind roared in his ears. A torrent of memories, heavy with the reek of fish and blood, swept his consciousness away.

Thunder crashed.

Lightning split the night sky.

By its light, Julian saw himself in a midshipman’s uniform aboard a sailing warship as massive as a small mountain.

Several flags snapped in the gale from the royal mast.

The blood-red cross on black of the Kingdom of Hastings. House Ravenshaw’s Red Rose noble banner. The Sword of Kingship flag marking the king’s flagship.

The Tempest Banner of the Grand Commander of the Order of Tempest Knights flew there as well, along with a fleet command flag and a captain’s commissioning pennant. A [blue-dragon figurehead] adorned the bow.

“This is... House Ravenshaw’s first-rate ship of the line, [Azure Dragon King]!”

Through the power of the [Logbook], Julian’s consciousness had returned to five days earlier, to the night when the Ashcombes and Ravenshaws had settled the fate of the throne.

The very stretch of memory he had inexplicably lost.

Before that night, the fleets bearing the Red Rose and White Rose emblems had fought for days in the Dover Strait, at the southernmost end of the North Sea.

Neither had been able to gain a decisive advantage, just as in the thirty years of intermittent warfare before it.

According to the sailors, a sudden storm that night would bury House Ravenshaw forever.

But as his lost memories returned, Julian knew from his own experience that it had not been a storm that defeated the Ravenshaws.

It had been...

“No!”

His expression changed violently. He was about to turn and rush into the ship’s interior.

He knew nothing could undo what had happened five days ago, yet he still imagined he might do something.

But the catastrophe was already arriving again, exactly as before.

A shrill, disordered piping pierced the curtain of rain from deep within the storm, grating on Julian’s nerves and turning his stomach.

Something unknown rapidly stained the waters around [Azure Dragon King] and the Red Rose fleet pitch-black.

It was as though an immense creature were creeping through the darkness, giving low, wet bellows and exuding a horrifying stench that seemed to seep into the marrow.

Julian had been on duty that night and had remained on the sterncastle. Apart from him, every sleeping Ravenshaw throughout the fleet suddenly opened their eyes.

Blank-faced, they emerged from their cabins and walked one by one onto the decks of their warships.

Among them were Julian’s father, Roland Ravenshaw, Prince of Sorenburg, and his uncle, the reigning king of Hastings, Alaric VI, [the Riven King]!

The naval sailors who should have been on watch already lay unconscious, sprawled everywhere.

The tragedy unfolded again.

It began with the ordinary members of the family, those who had no supernatural rank and the weakest resistance. One after another, the Ravenshaws leaped into the black sea.

They vanished without even a splash.

Not one escaped.

Even the family’s middle- and high-Sequence supernatural practitioners, briefly shocked awake by the seawater and the threat of death, immediately went rigid. As though drowned spirits had seized their ankles, they sank helplessly into the bitterly cold depths.

In the lightless darkness on the seabed, fear itself seemed to have taken solid form.

They could not fight it. Could not evade it. Could not escape.

Once again, Julian felt the full weight of helplessness and despair.

This time, he finally heard what his father had said.

Before sinking into the sea against his will, Roland had invoked his supernatural ability as a [Tempest Knight]. A gale answered him, carrying a gold dynastic signet ring toward Julian.

His face frantic, he shouted, “The danger comes through dreams! Julian, run!”

But being awake at the beginning had not spared Julian.

Only a few breaths later, he had followed the rest of his family into the water, together with [Azure Dragon King], which an immense black shadow dragged beneath the surface.

As his consciousness grew rigid, in the last instant before darkness claimed him, a flash of lightning gave him a faint glimpse of something below.

An enormous silhouette, impossible to describe, seemed to dissolve silently like a bubble in a dream.

With it vanished the memory that held this “Secret,” and even his consciousness itself.

There was only one thing that set him apart from the rest of his family.

He had come from another world.

When the attack through dreams devastated his surface consciousness, the unawakened earlier life that had always served as its “foundation” revived at once.

It barely filled the gap in his mind, leaving him clinging to life.

He had become House Ravenshaw’s sole survivor.

The chaotic currents of that stormy night had carried him into the outer waters of the Dover Strait, where he had become caught up in [Maneater Shark]’s attack on [Pelican].

Only now, with the [Logbook] activated under its particular conditions, had he recovered the memories swallowed by that nameless thing.

Or rather, the “Secret” that no one was permitted to record.

His two lives had become one again.

And this wondrous [Logbook] seemed to have been hidden within his memories as Evan Cole.

But Julian, Evan Cole, finally himself again, had no time to ponder what unknown secret lay behind those memories.

His eyes burned with ferocity.

“Revenge!”

Meanwhile, the [Logbook] continued writing at speed.

“Captain, you have glimpsed a Secret within a great turning point of history: Shadow of the War of the Red and White Roses. Historical Influence: 31%.

“If House Ashcombe truly possessed the power to destroy the Ravenshaws so easily, why did they not use it during the past thirty years?

“The blood feud born of a stolen throne and an exterminated family clearly goes beyond a simple war of succession.”

“Based on this Secret’s Historical Influence level, and as a reward for your first decryption:

“You have gained your first trait, [Historical Revisionist] (can be activated after formal initiation into any supernatural profession). Your spirituality has increased greatly.

“Legend holds that the Northern Bayfolk, the pirate people who once plundered the entire world, have always upheld their people’s maxim: No Wrong Goes Unanswered!

“The ancient Bayfolk blood within you begins to boil.

“Spiritual sublimation begins!”

Water rushed...

As the final character appeared, silver-white ripples spread across the [Logbook]’s cover and surged into Julian’s body.

Warm power smoothed the wounds in his consciousness like a mother’s hands, then nourished his soul as swiftly and gently as spring rain.

Something intangible, once confined to the currents of his mind, burst through the boundary between the mental world and the material world.

Thunder sounded. Julian seemed to hear someone singing an ancient epic of the Northern Bayfolk beside his ear, in a voice as coarse as sea salt.

“The sails met a gale,
Flapping, wheeling without end;
‘Death!’ the helmsman roared.
Spare not a single foe!
With our iron keel
We struck the enemy ship;
The hull pitched and rolled,
And sank into the black heart of the sea...”

Deep within his mind, a seed took root, sprouted, and began to grow...

It bore his consciousness swiftly upward from his brain, growing until it blossomed and bore fruit.

At that moment, Julian’s breathing, heartbeat, touch, perception... all reached the finest state a mortal could attain.

He was like a seasoned sailor gripping the ropes of a wind-filled sail, the sea breeze blowing through his hair. He felt the joy of a ship cutting through the waves. Sail, ship, wind, and sea resonated in harmony within the sailor’s veins.

An age seemed to pass. Or perhaps only an instant.

The epic rose to a sudden crescendo.

“Thus, covered in wounds,
I broke the prison gates;
My soul climbed into heaven,
Ascending my homeland’s stars!
The warriors’ souls raised their cups,
And drained the overflowing wine.
May you fare well!
Northland! May you fare well!”

Boom!

Above him, stone gates crashed open.

A “fish,” trapped in the sunless depths, finally leaped clear of the sea.

Like the ancestors of land-dwelling creatures hundreds of millions of years ago, it took its first step onto land and beheld the magnificent world beyond in all its variety.

Julian, too, found a point of support within his mind, lifting his entire life and metaphysical standing beyond the mundane.

His [spirituality] had awakened!

He could distinctly sense an invisible third eye, one that let him perceive wonders hidden from ordinary vision through [spirit sight]. He also had an invisible, intangible third hand, astonishingly nimble. With a thought, he easily undid the ropes binding him.

Among the common people of this world, at least 90% were illiterate. But as a descendant of a great royal house, Julian had received a thorough basic education and access to supernatural knowledge from childhood.

He knew exactly what was happening to him. In the blink of an eye, he adjusted to the unfamiliar experience.

“[Spiritual awakening] is like gaining a wondrous, intangible organ inside your body. You can’t see or touch it, but it’s the starting point of all supernatural power, and a prerequisite for initiation into every occult profession!”

He also knew that his awakening was not yet complete.

“In this world, humans are merely mundane beings who rose from dust. We’ve never ruled the supernatural world. Every [spiritual sublimation] is a ‘transgression’ in metaphysical standing, carrying unpredictable risks. At this stage, I have to connect with the source of humanity’s supernatural power and complete the final anchoring. Only then can I truly command power that never belonged to humanity in the first place!”

He immediately opened his spirit sight to its fullest extent.

An immense silver network appeared, encompassing the entire world, boundless and present everywhere.

This was the [Silver Law], protector of the human nations and source of all orthodox supernatural power.

And from the Law had arisen a series of supernatural advancement systems: the [Ladder of Glory]!

But just as Julian prepared to complete his anchoring according to the supernatural knowledge he had studied, the awakening that had proceeded so smoothly encountered a problem.

In theory, the [Silver Law] had seven layers. Yet even its first layer, the only one he could currently perceive, seemed impossibly distant. He could not reach it.

“Is the Law rejecting me?”

Julian, Evan Cole, was fundamentally an outsider. That sense of not belonging soon revealed the problem.

Understanding came in a flash. Silently, he declared:

“I am... Julian Ravenshaw!”

He affirmed who he was, accepted his fate and responsibilities, and cast his first [anchor] in this world.

The barrier between him and the [Silver Law] vanished at once.

Pure white spiritual radiance became an anchor like a ribbon of light. It easily caught the Law’s first layer, securing his existence completely.

He became a node in that vast network.

The “knowledge” and “experience” flowing through the law network fed back into him, granting him genuine supernatural power.

Sublimation complete!

The long transformation in his mental world had taken only an instant in reality.

Utterly changed, Julian let out a deep breath and watched it rise toward the surface in bubbles.

Cold, brilliant blue spiritual radiance shone from his sea-blue eyes as he fixed them once more on the red-eyed sharks before him.

Through [spirit sight], the man-eating sharks, which had seemed unusual only for their glowing eyes, now looked entirely different.

Red, wronged souls clung all over their bodies, wailing in agony. Their limbs plunged deep into the sharks like tentacles, leaving them attached like malformed fleshy growths.

Some sharks carried only a few. Others bore dozens.

These were clearly the “sacrificial victims” the sharks had devoured, and part of some supernatural ability used to control them.

“The innate abilities gained during spiritual awakening usually arise from a person’s strongest desires and needs. They aren’t necessarily combat abilities, but they can work wonders when death seems certain. Like mine... [Cognitive Revision]!”

Julian stopped trying to evade them. Following the knowledge he had received from the Law, he unleashed his new ability.

His spirituality resonated with his flesh. Invisible ripples echoed through his veins, spilled from his ocean-blue eyes, and burst outward.

“Get lost!”

A hum rang out.

The sharks were already close enough to bite him with a snap of their jaws. In an instant, they reacted as though they had encountered an orca, the ocean’s street bully, something they could not afford to cross.

Every one of them wheeled around and fled in a frenzy.

Julian seized his chance. Swimming with both hands and feet, he found his way back behind the pirate vessel’s sterncastle, into a blind spot where the pirates could not see him, and broke the surface.

He scrubbed the seawater from his face, then turned toward the Channel Islands of the Kingdom of Hastings.

Something flickered in his cold gaze. In the end, he suppressed the impulse to slip back and take revenge on House Ashcombe of the White Rose.

His two lives had merged, tempering his personality in the process. The once-carefree young man had become more mature and seasoned, able to yield when necessary and act when the time was right.

He knew that nothing was more useless than an impossible daydream.

He longed for a grand life spent pursuing freedom, even if it ended amid towering waves. But charging blindly ahead was not courage.

Not until he understood what had truly caused that catastrophe, and possessed the power to challenge an entire nation!

At that thought, Julian instinctively turned his attention to the [Logbook] lodged in his right eye.

He now knew its ability, Echoes of History:

[By coming into contact with relevant things or personally experiencing an event, the “captain” can record and retrace their history, glimpsing the unknown and the Secrets concealed within.

Depending on those Secrets’ Historical Influence, he may receive an increase in spirituality or a unique trait.

However absurd a trait may be, once written in the Logbook, it will interfere with reality and grant him genuine power.

Historical Influence: (0, 10], from one person to a village or town; (10, 20], from a city or locality to an entire region;

(20, 30], from a region to a nation; greater than 30 begins to affect a continent or even the entire world.

Secret: Shadow of the War of the Red and White Roses. Historical Influence: 31%. This means it can have a continent-wide impact, and the benefits it grants are correspondingly rich.]

As Julian watched, deep blue ink slowly inscribed a line of strange, almost pictographic writing across the ancient cover.

“Write the truth, without a single lie!”

It had something of an ancient chronicler’s integrity. But Julian had already confirmed that the Logbook possessed no intelligence. It could not communicate. It simply followed its rules without deviation.

With his [spiritual awakening], the Logbook had also gained access to the memories of his previous life as Evan Cole.

All its writing changed into the Chinese characters he knew so well, characters that only he could read.

Its style abruptly changed, too, adapting to his reading habits.

Captain: Julian Ravenshaw

Bloodline: Northern Bayfolk (direct descendant of Garrick, founder of the ancient North Sea Empire, [the Wyrmbathed], bearer of the [Royal Title: Azure Dragon King])

Maxim: No Wrong Goes Unanswered!

Title: Last of the Ravenshaws

Son of Roland Ravenshaw, Prince of Sorenburg. Formerly seventh in line to the throne of Hastings. Now an avenger with nothing left.

This Title may bring unexpected gains when you experience events related to the Kingdom of Hastings, the Northern Bayfolk, dragons, House Ravenshaw, and other associated subjects.

(Some people are born to struggle for a living. You were born at the pinnacle of power, and every step since has taken you farther down. Unfortunately... that kingdom you were born to inherit is gone!

Title effect acquired: Enemy of House Ashcombe. Hunted forever, until one side is dead!

The closer you come to Hastings’s sphere of influence, the stronger the effect.)

Legend: [12]

(This is a supernatural world with various forms of prophecy magic. Word that you survived has evidently begun circulating within a small circle in Hastings. Abandon wishful thinking and run for your life!)

Spirituality: [1]

(Awakened. Achieving spiritual sublimation on your own at seventeen, without [Awakening Elixir] or aromatic resin, doesn’t make you some inconceivable genius.

Still, you’re far, far ahead of those who will never have any hope of gaining supernatural power, and of another avenger who witnessed his entire family’s murder only to awaken a tiny spark of power in his eyes.)

Profession: Not Initiated

Rank: None

Crew: None

Innate Abilities:

[Cognitive Revision] Awakened in response to your strongest desires and needs during spiritual sublimation.

Allows you to imitate other creatures or members of your own kind at the level of cognition. You can pass for a predator, one of their own, or prey, and even take another person’s place perfectly. (An incredible ability for running away.)

[Weather Sense] Many animals have senses far beyond those of humans, particularly when it comes to detecting changes in the weather. Now you do, too.

(An additional ability derived from the royal house’s azure dragon blood, which continues to grow thinner despite nearly a thousand years of inbreeding.

Haul a cutlassfish out of the sea and it’ll smell more strongly of its ancestry than you do. Don’t dream of reawakening your ancestral bloodline and leaping straight to the pinnacle of life.

That isn’t your destiny.)

Knowledge:

Tempest Swordsmanship (Your knight training in the kingdom’s knightly order gave you a solid foundation);

Navigation, gunnery, musketry, warship dueling (An outstanding graduate of the Royal Naval Academy. You understand the duties of every sailor’s position, but lack experience);

Jurisprudence and natural history (Your birth gave you a perspective far beyond that of commoners, and opportunities to acquire all kinds of valuable knowledge, helping you avoid as many dangers of the supernatural world as possible.

Be grateful you didn’t start out as some hapless novice, stumbling around in the dark without even basic knowledge);

Hittite Sun Script and runic script (Knowledge is the source of the supernatural. Ancient writing is the key that opens its doors);

Each field of knowledge corresponds to a supernatural Sequence within the [Ladder of Glory].

Clearly, even with your family destroyed, you still have far more choices in life than ordinary people!

Secret: Shadow of the War of the Red and White Roses (You have discovered part of this world’s truth. Historical Influence: 31%. Decryption: 11%.)

Additional Trait: [Historical Revisionist] (Inactive)

Special Notice:

In this dangerous world, no human can cross the sea by bodily strength alone.

Captain, please acquire a ship or become a crew member aboard one as soon as possible, and formally begin writing your own [Logbook]!

The Logbook laid out Julian’s abilities and circumstances clearly enough for him to settle quickly on a course.

“For now, increasing my supernatural power has to come first. Both my innate abilities can remain active without consuming spirituality. Even with its limits, even if it only works on low-Sequence supernatural practitioners for now, [Cognitive Revision] is an exceptional means of staying alive. And [Weather Sense] is an ability sailors and Navigators would dream of having!

“But those two abilities alone are nowhere near enough to escape, let alone take revenge. I need to complete my initiation as soon as possible and gain at least one rank in a combat-oriented supernatural Sequence. Only then will I have the beginnings of the power to protect myself. That should also activate the trait the Logbook gave me, [Historical Revisionist]. And I happen to have a key item for performing an initiation rite.”

At that thought, Julian raised his left hand.

The [dynastic signet ring] that should have been on his index finger was gone!

But when he noticed that even the sapphire buttons on his shirt cuffs were missing, he immediately calmed down.

“First a merchant vessel rescued me, then a band of pirates captured me. Expecting them to leave my belongings untouched would be wishful thinking. Whoever took them, they must have ended up aboard this pirate vessel.”

A moment’s consideration was enough to decide him.

“First, I need to recover my belongings from the [Maneater Shark], especially the [dynastic signet ring]. That’s the most important thing. Only through that supernatural object, a medium symbolizing House Ravenshaw’s kingship, can I perform the initiation rite for a supernatural profession and cut off any further attempts by House Ashcombe to find me through divination and hunt me down.

“I’ll ride this pirate vessel out of Hastings’s coastal waters as fast as possible. After that, whether I head deeper into the vast North Sea or make for the overseas colonies, there’ll be countless opportunities. With the [Logbook] to help me, I can grow stronger quickly simply by continuing to explore the unknown. It’s a perfect fit for this Age of Exploration, less than a century old, with countless blanks still waiting on the maps. A naval career would be walking straight into a trap, but privateer captain, pirate, independent adventurer, bounty hunter... any of those would do!”

Julian caught hold of the carved ornamentation on the pirate vessel’s stern gallery and climbed silently upward.

At the end of the Logbook, a line appeared in ink:

House Ravenshaw’s hatred may be hidden for now, but a day will come when blood and fire sing in concert.

* * *

Meanwhile, in the kitchen in one of the Maneater Shark’s lower compartments, a young man in a white cook’s hat stood staring at a cutting board, a kitchen knife in his hand.

Outside the porthole, the merchant sailors’ screams weakened from piercing cries to silence. With a slightly crazed expression, he muttered to himself.

“I did nothing wrong! The captain insisted on that ridiculous chivalry, swearing to defend Lord Aldwick’s property to the death. The man was a pillar of the Ravenshaw faction, and they’ve already been wiped out! When the captain insisted on fishing that unknown castaway out of the sea, clinging to his plank, I told him the knights’ Eight Virtues were a joke. Stubborn old fossils don’t last long on a sea this dangerous.

“If the captain hadn’t led the boarding party onto the pirate vessel like he wanted to get himself killed, I wouldn’t have shot him in the back. They say Oswald, Redgaze, captain of the Maneater Shark, is ruthless. A powerful supernatural practitioner, too. If we’d forced him to act, everyone would have died. At least I survived. That makes it worth it!”

But as he slowly lowered his gaze to the ingredients on the cutting board, fear crept back into his face.

“Except I’m just an ordinary sailor who cooks on the side. Even the coarse brutes aboard our ship complained about my food. What do I know about fine dishes for nobles? Besides, everyone knows the thinnest book in the world is a cookbook from the Kingdom of Hastings. How am I supposed to satisfy that vicious Captain Redgaze unless I go study next door in the Kingdom of the Iris?

“The pirates told me to get ready. They’ll be taking me to see Redgaze soon, to learn what he likes so I can prepare his meals. What do I do? What am I going to do?”

He paced anxiously, his feet thumping against the lower deck.

Clearly, this was the cook First Mate Bram, Marrowcrack, had mentioned earlier, the only man aboard the merchant vessel Pelican who had been given a chance to live.

On one condition: his experience of having “served members of the nobility” had to win over Captain Oswald Redgaze’s discerning palate.

Unfortunately, he was a fraud who had talked himself up.

The rumors that this pirate captain ate people alive, like the “cannibals” in stories, terrified him almost out of his wits.

He looked around. The kitchen was empty, and none of the pirates were paying him any attention. Knife in hand, he edged tentatively toward the porthole.

He was about to put his head out to see whether he could escape by jumping into the sea. Then he remembered that the sharks that had eaten his shipmates might still be hungry, and quietly drew back.

He was a perfect picture of indecision, desperate to flee but too frightened to try.

Time slipped away. When pirates’ footsteps sounded outside the kitchen, he finally gritted his teeth, summoned his courage, and cautiously poked his head out.

A large hand reached from beneath the porthole and clamped around his throat like an iron band.

Crack!

His neck was ruthlessly snapped before he could even beg for mercy.

As his vision went black, just before his consciousness faded altogether, he heard a cold, utterly level voice.

“Traitors deserve to die.”

Julian had just climbed up from the stern when he happened to overhear the merchant vessel’s last survivor talking to himself.

He had acted without hesitation.

Still gripping the cook’s broken neck, he hauled the man’s upper body out through the porthole. The kitchen knife remained clenched in the dead man’s hand. Julian knew that if he had been any less decisive, he would probably be bleeding now.

He took the knife, cut several deep gashes in the cook’s body without a change of expression, and tossed the corpse into the sea.

Only after watching it disappear among the swarming man-eating sharks did he swing himself through the porthole into the kitchen.

He picked up the cook’s hat, which had fallen to the floor during the struggle, flicked off the dust, and put it on.

As he turned, an ocean-blue spiritual glow rippled through his deep eyes. In the space of a breath, his entire bearing changed.

His innate ability, [Cognitive Revision].

“For this particular use, I think [Psychological Disguise] would be a better name.”

He looked down at his hands. His appearance had not changed at all, yet the cook’s image, name, manner... every identifying quality had been revised onto him.

To anyone who saw him, he was the cook. Julian himself had vanished completely from the world.

Just as someone born red-green color-blind could not recognize the condition until someone else pointed it out.

“This identity doesn’t carry much status. He’s no first mate, second mate, helmsman, or gunnery officer. But he’s a newcomer, just like me. He hasn’t had any dealings with the pirates that I’d need to remember, and there are no existing relationships to take over. He’s the best choice for blending into the [Maneater Shark] and catching a ride.”

Bang!

The kitchen door was suddenly shoved open from outside, and a very young-looking pirate walked in.

He paused briefly at the sight of the figure in the cook’s hat, then greeted him quite naturally.

“You, the new cook. The great Captain Redgaze is waiting for you. Come along. Oh, I haven’t asked your name yet, have I?”

Julian straightened his clothes and hat, then gave the young pirate a friendly smile.

“Julian. My name is Julian Valemont.”

According to the [Logbook], Julian, the Last of the Ravenshaws, had a Legend of [12]. That put him at the level of someone known throughout a region.

His name must already have circulated among the upper ranks of the Kingdom of Hastings, particularly within House Ashcombe, his mortal enemies. They might even have issued a wanted notice.

Yet Julian had no fear that his given name alone would expose him.

About a thousand years ago, the Church, whose authority was supreme across the Old Continent, had issued a peculiar religious edict. All believers were required to choose their children’s names from the sixty-five male names and forty-eight female names in the Gospel of Creation. No other names were permitted. Even royal houses were granted no exceptions.

The edict had only been abolished eighteen years ago, in 1453 of the Silver Era, and its influence persisted to this day. Among the many countries in the eastern Old Continent that worshipped [the Creator], the repetition of personal names was simply staggering.

Commoners distinguished themselves with nicknames such as Fatty, Shorty, or Crooked Mouth. Nobles had the names of their estates attached to their given names. Even kings shared names so often that numerals were needed to tell them apart.

Julian’s uncle, Alaric VI, the Riven King and previous ruler of Hastings, had been the sixth king of his dynasty named Alaric. The king before him, Julian’s grandfather Alaric V, had been the fifth. His great-grandfather Alaric IV had been the fourth.

So, even while fleeing for his life, Julian only needed to change his surname.

Valemont had come from his mother in this life.

The young pirate leading him was another example of the same naming custom. With a few carefully chosen questions, Julian learned that he was called Young Peter, while his father was Old Peter. Both served as ship’s carpenters aboard the pirate vessel.

Like Julian, they had been seized as “spoils” during a raid. Father and son had been much luckier than the Pelican’s crew, however. Instead of being fed to the sharks, their fine woodworking skills had earned them a respectable position aboard the pirate vessel.

A respectable position? And still so young?

Recognizing a good opportunity to gather intelligence, Julian deliberately slowed his pace.

They climbed the wooden stairs one behind the other, leaving the lower deck beside the lowest compartment, crossing the continuous gun deck, then taking the stairs toward the weather deck.

Young Peter had no idea that, over this short walk, the Logbook had already used [Echoes of History] to uncover the vessel’s past.

Deep blue ink raced across its pages.

“Pirate Vessel: Maneater Shark. A small galleon developed from the carrack.

Length: 22 meters; Beam: 6 meters; Draft: 2.75 meters; Displacement: 200 tonnes. Armament: seven 6-pounder cannons on each side of the weather deck, with two 2-pounder cannons at the bow and two at the stern.

The hull and decks are built from white oak native to Hastings’ Channel Islands. The masts are snow cedar grown on the Evernight Peninsula.

Originally built as an armed merchantman for the Kingdom of Hastings’ Bantaan Oceanic Trading Company.

Later extensively refitted by the shipwright Old Peter.

The forecastle and sterncastle were lowered to improve speed and handling, and the gun deck was converted into sailors’ quarters. At considerable expense, the original 4-pounder cannons were replaced with 6-pounders.

Its speed, firepower, and manpower are more than sufficient to overpower other merchant vessels of the same type.

Estimated Value: approximately 10,350 pounds. Slightly more expensive than a sixth-rate cruising warship built by the Admiralty, but worth far less than a fifth-rate warship. The gap in fighting strength is greater still.

For a novice captain’s first command, however, it could hardly be more suitable.”

Anything Julian focused on within three meters of him generated an exhaustive entry under Stores in the Logbook. It was like carrying an experienced appraiser around with him.

For mundane objects with no supernatural properties, a glance was enough to reveal most of their secrets. Investigating supernatural phenomena or events, however, required him to expend his own [spirituality] in exchange for a few clues of varying depth.

After that, he had to work like a detective, using ordinary methods to unravel the mystery piece by piece before he could uncover the underlying secret.

Reassured by the Logbook’s information, Julian patted the smoothly polished stair rail beside him and offered what sounded like an offhand compliment.

“The Bantaan Oceanic Trading Company’s merchant carracks are thoroughly unremarkable ships by design. But the skill of the shipwright who refitted this one has given her an entirely new life. I served as household steward to the distinguished Lord Aldwick, and had the good fortune to accompany him during a period of service with the Channel Fleet. I met quite a few shipwrights renowned throughout Hastings, and even across the Old Continent. In my opinion, probably only the shipbuilding engineers at the Royal Dockyard, those who are [Artificers of the Tower Sequence], could match craftsmanship like this.”

As expected, he caught an irrepressible smile on Young Peter’s face out of the corner of his eye. Even the acne marks on the tip of his nose reddened slightly with excitement.

There was none of the modest deflection Julian remembered from certain people in his previous life. Young Peter happily seized his hand.

“Julian... sir, I had no idea you had such a good eye, or knew so much about shipbuilding! The truth is, the shipwright who refitted this vessel is my father. He’s always been my idol and my example. He’s never managed to achieve [spiritual sublimation] and become an [Artificer] of the Tower Sequence, but when it comes to shipbuilding experience and skill, he’s every bit as good as those famous men. He’ll be delighted to know someone appreciates his work so much. Once we’re back from seeing the captain, we must have a proper drink together.”

Julian feigned surprise, as though this were news to him.

“A master shipwright, right here?”

Then he waved his hands in quick denial.

“Really, I’m only speaking the truth. Anyone who knows sailing ships could see at a glance what an excellent vessel this is. St