Chapter 517: The Secrets of Twin Wing Island
With how bizarre this game was, Marcus wouldn’t be too surprised if the rod were to hook a Divine beast.
’Okay, that had been an exaggeration.’
A Mythic Artifact attracting a Divine Beast? The chances of that happening were practically nonexistent.
With everyone else occupied, Marcus leaned back against the bow and took out Silas’s map, deciding to study their destination more carefully while they sailed. Their next stop was the Sea Lion’s Tomb.
The more he looked at the map, the more he was reminded of just how unimaginably vast the Dreamland Continent truly was.
They had already been sailing for over five hours, yet they were still at least two full days away from the Sea Lion’s Tomb.
On land, it had never felt this enormous. The five major cities and more than a dozen smaller towns were linked by teleportation points, making travel incredibly convenient. Most remote high-level monster regions remained unexplored simply because players weren’t strong enough to survive there yet, so few people ever experienced the continent’s true size firsthand.
The sea was a completely different story. There were no teleportation points here, no convenient shortcuts, only endless water stretching to the horizon. Even with a ship or a flying mount, reaching Twin Wing Island still required at least three full days of travel.
Only now did Marcus truly appreciate how enormous and resource-rich the Dreamland Continent really was.
Thankfully, time inside the game flowed three times faster than in the real world. Three in-game days amounted to only one day outside, otherwise he and the girls would have spent their entire Sunday doing nothing but drifting across the ocean.
Silas the Wanderer really had been an incredible man. His map documented nearly eighty percent of the Dreamland Continent, covering not only its land but also its seas and skies. Every major location was accompanied by detailed descriptions, observations, and personal notes that made it feel less like a map and more like the journal of someone who had spent a lifetime exploring the world.
Marcus found himself reading more and more closely. According to Silas’s records, the explorer had once set sail on a whim, driven by nothing more than curiosity, and decided to attempt the impossible by navigating the dangerous waters leading to Twin Wing Island, an isolated archipelago surrounded by impassable chasms and seas filled with terrifying monsters.
It had taken Silas more than a year of trial, error, and relentless exploration before he finally charted a safe route through those monster-infested death zones.
That same route was the one Marcus was following now. More importantly, since Marcus was the sole inheritor of Silas’s map, no one else in the world knew it existed. The route belonged to him alone, giving him exclusive access to places that most people would never even realize could be reached.
The Sea Lion’s Tomb was one such place. Silas had stumbled upon it while resting on a small island after successfully crossing the deadly chasms and monster territories, just before arriving at Twin Wing Island itself.
As for Twin Wing Island... it wasn’t a single island at all. It was an enormous archipelago.
Nearly a thousand years ago, Twin Wing Island had been only two days’ sailing from Blue Sea Citadel on the eastern coast. The archipelago consisted of fifty-three major islands, and that count didn’t even include the countless smaller islets scattered throughout the surrounding waters. If every rocky outcrop and tiny island were included, the total easily exceeded a hundred.
Even the smallest of the major islands required nearly three hours to cross on horseback, while the largest would take more than an entire day of riding from one side to the other. That alone spoke volumes about the sheer scale of the Twin Wing Archipelago.
At its center stood two towering islands whose outlines, when viewed from almost any direction, resembled two lovebirds spreading their wings side by side. The islands were also home to countless real lovebirds, and that uncanny resemblance eventually gave the entire archipelago its name: Twin Wing Island.
When explorers first discovered it roughly two thousand years ago, Twin Wing Island quickly became one of the Dreamland Continent’s greatest attractions.
The islands offered both breathtaking beauty and untamed danger. Strange sea monsters lurked beneath the waves, forgotten treasures waited to be uncovered, and valuable natural resources were everywhere. Legends even claimed that phoenixes nested somewhere within the archipelago, sea dragons ruled the deepest waters, mermaids sang as the sun dipped below the horizon, and sea turtles so enormous they resembled floating cities occasionally appeared offshore.
Whether those stories were true or not, they were enough to draw countless adventurers to the islands.
Many of the islands were blessed with warm sunshine, soft white beaches, crystal-clear water, endless coral reefs, and scenery so beautiful that Marcus could immediately picture them. From Silas’s descriptions alone, several of them sounded remarkably similar to Hawaii, idyllic tropical paradises that seemed made for vacations rather than dangerous expeditions.
Some islands even possessed their own unique attractions. One contained natural hot springs hidden deep inland, while another boasted towering snow-covered mountains that remained frozen throughout the year, making it an ideal place for skiing despite the surrounding tropical climate.
Marcus blinked. ’Hold on.’ He frowned and reread the passage. Wasn’t Twin Wing Island supposed to be a tropical archipelago? Then how could one of its islands have snow that never melted? That sounded impossible. Curious, he looked more carefully through Silas’s notes, and the explanation came quickly enough.
The island in question was called Dragon’s Roar Isle. Located slightly south of the central pair of islands, it occupied one of the most important positions within the archipelago and was roughly circular in shape.
It was also enormous. Traveling in a straight line from one side of Dragon’s Roar Isle to the other would still require well over ten hours on horseback.
Unlike the other islands, Dragon’s Roar Isle had been formed by ancient volcanic activity. At its highest point, more than two thousand meters above sea level, lay a gigantic volcanic crater surrounded by several smaller ones that still released occasional plumes of hot steam.
Silas believed the volcano itself was at least twenty thousand years old. It had erupted repeatedly over a span of more than ten thousand years before finally becoming dormant around eight thousand years ago, gradually shaping Dragon’s Roar Isle into the landmass it had become.
By the time humans first discovered the island two thousand years ago, nature had already reclaimed it completely. Thick forests covered its slopes, medicinal herbs grew in abundance, wild grain flourished across the fertile land, and both animals and monsters thrived throughout the island, creating a rich and vibrant ecosystem.
Its southern coast embodied everything people imagined when they thought of a tropical paradise. Bright sunshine, golden beaches, swaying palm trees, rolling surf, and sprawling coral reefs stretched along the shoreline.
Farther inland, the terrain gave way to dense rainforest surrounding the towering volcanic crater, creating spectacular scenery unlike anywhere else in the archipelago.
The northern coastline offered something entirely different again. Vast reef systems extended for more than twenty miles into the sea, forming shallow waters that were perfect for exploring on foot during low tide.
The reefs were overflowing with crabs, lobsters, fish, shellfish, and countless other forms of seafood, so plentiful that gathering a feast required little more than reaching down and picking them up.