Cathulhu Online, MUNYA!

A sea journey was usually long and arduous. It required resources, planning, manpower, and endurance. A massive ship might take days or months to travel around a continent due to its slow speed, sea currents, wind, and natural interference. This didn't include the issues of sickness and food supply for the crews.

However, in this game, magic defied logic. A certain black frigate traveled at the speed of 200 knots instead of cruising at the normal speed of 10-14 knots.

It was the speed of a plane instead of a ship!

After sailing south for half an hour, Xiaomao and his crew finally found another town. He turned toward Magdalene, who had fun yeeting the frigate forward with her magic.

"Slow down, munya! Let's dock and resupply at that city!"

Magdalene stopped her magic. Shepherd downed another cup of mana potion to replenish his energy and looked at his mana tank, which was now half-depleted because of Magdalene's energy maintenance. He let out a long sigh as he only blamed himself for having limited mana pool.

Xiaomao also didn't like how Magdalene damaged his ship.

Similar to the fishing boat's situation, the wind magic of Magdalene damaged the masts and the sail clothes. Fortunately, the frigate's hull was sturdier, and it didn't fall apart as quickly as the fishing boat.

Magdalene switched from accelerating the boat to repair duty. She rushed to the bottom deck and patched the damaged hull. Strangely, she grew strange plants down there, and they consumed seawater to grow and patched the damaged parts with their branches and leaves.

The ship soon steered toward a large port, which was located 100 km south of Bit City.

.

Xuan Town

Different from Bit City, this place was a territory of the Yuan Empire. A total of 1,000 households and about 3,000 people lived here. Most buildings were one-story wooden cottages with 14th-century Western Europe's architecture style. Only five buildings in the center of the town were made of stones and bricks._.

As this town was as small as Seaside Town, not many merchant ships docked here. Most of the ships belonged to the local fishermen. Moreover, the patrol ships here were small cogs, which were painted in white.

When Wellerboy approached the town, two white cogs of the town guards turned toward it, and the militias rushed toward the port.

Now, two cogs faced the big black frigate.

Lucky stood at the bow of the frigate. She waved a piece of white cloth, gesturing that they came in peace.

The two cogs came close to the frigate, and five town guards boarded the ship with their weapons. Xiaomao and Shepherd stood still, welcoming the guests.

Brad, the town guard captain, was a level-100 NPC. When he noticed the level of Xiaomao and Shepherd, he saluted and tapped his right fist on his chest.

"Welcome to Xuan City. I'm Brad, the guard captain of this town. May I know who you are and what your business here, sir?"

Noticing the polite tone of the NPC, Xiaomao was delighted. He jumped up and sat on Shepherd's shoulder.

"I'm Xiaomao, the captain of this ship, munya! We're here to resupply and contact the local Labor Guild. Do we have permission to dock here, munya?"

"Are you from a merchant guild or any association?"

"No, munya. But I have this!"

Xiaomao brought out a leaflet with his face on it. It showed that the emperor wanted him in the Capital City.

The guard took the leaflet and raised his brows. He looked at Xiaomao's face and compared it with the portrait again to make sure. Then, he passed the paper to his men.

"Confirm this with the adventurer guild."

One of the guards took the paper and left the frigate. He returned to the patrol cog and sailed back to the port.

Upon confirming that his men had left, Brad turned to Xiaomao.

"My deepest apologies. We need to confirm your identity first. Once we have confirmed that you're really Xiaomao that the emperor is looking for, we shall allow you to visit our town."

"Understandable, munya. Take your time. By the way, does this town sell herbs?"

While Xiaomao was speaking, he secretly glanced at the book that he had been keeping in his inventory. It was the Alchemy book that Lucky had brought him, but he didn't use earlier.

"No. You have to visit Yeet City for that. Our town's specialties are fish and gemstones."

"Gemstones? Does your city have a mine nearby, munya?"

Xiaomao got interested. Gemstone mines could give anything between normal gemstones, natural magic stones, and even spirit stones. Thus, many player guilds always sought to monopolize these mines whenever they had a chance.

However, at the current patch, no player could own a mine or a territory. It would take a year or so before players could purchase land deeds and discover natural resources underground.

"Yes. Most of our townsmen are miners."

The guard was kind with his information. Normally, no player would tell Xiaomao that sensitive information as it involved the town's safety.

Xiaomao appreciated that. He vowed that he wouldn't rob anyone from this city or trouble this nice guard captain.

After chatting for 20 minutes, the cog returned with the man that Brad had sent away. He approached the captain and reported his findings.

"Sir, the adventurer guild confirms that it's the truth. The emperor has summoned this person to the Capital City, sir!"

Brad nodded and turned to Xiaomao, "I'm so sorry for keeping you here. Please anchor your ship 100 meters away from the shore so that our fishing boats and our patrol ships can leave the port. We will provide small ships to escort you to our town."

Xiaomao accepted the invitation. He also took a mental note that his team also needed a few small ships for the future.

‘I guess I'll visit the local shipyard for a few safety boats.'

.

Xiaomao's crews managed to enter the town with Brad as an escort. The group visited the local adventurer guild first to register their presence here. Then, Brad excused himself.

In this town, a hundred players still loitered around as they used this town as their home base. One of many player guilds also used the adventurer guild as their gathering spot, and a dozen players with the [QUWB] prefix sat at a long table.

A few of them stared at Xiaomao and Shepherd when they first entered, but they ignored them.

Xiaomao also glanced back. All the players here were high-leveled. Among the crowd, the weakest one was level 90, and their character's rarity was no less than rare.

As Xiaomao had several things to do. He hopped on Lucky's shoulder and asked her to bring him to the Labor Guild.

Shepherd also looked around. He spotted a few supporting characters following their masters around. Unlike the poor retainers that he saw at Seaside Town, these people had bright eyes, and they had proper gears.

These supporters noticed Shepherd's stare. Their eyes met, and they sized up Shepherd's equipment.

Shepherd noticed their looks. He smirked and puffed his chest, showing off his Gnoll General's full set armor.

The retainers scoffed as they noticed that Shepherd was still using gears for level 50 characters. They waved their sheathed long sword, which was an uncommon level-100 weapon.

Shepherd was stunned for a moment. He was about to show off his status, but Magdalene suddenly hovered in front of his face.

<Magdalene is not happy that you're staring at the table with several girls.>

"…!"

<Magdalene has cast Blind on you!>

<You have been afflicted with an abnormal status, [Blind], for 2 minutes.>

"…!!"

Magdalene pulled his ear and dragged him to follow Xiaomao and Lucky.

.

Among the [QUWB] guild members, their guild leader was present in the adventurer guild as he was allocating the recent raid's rewards to his guildmates.

[Absolutely Halal] was the name of the guild leader. Although he was a player from the middle-east, he didn't dress like an Arabian warrior. Instead, he played as a handsome high-elf summoner, who could command elemental spirits at will.

When Halal's subordinates got distracted and stared at Xiaomao's group, he looked up and followed his guild mates' line of sight.

"What are you guys looking at?"

A dark elf assassin next to Halal whispered, "Boss, there's a player with a gold name. He hid his name after the escort NPC was gone."

"Gold name? Are you planning to PK him or what?"

"That player is using a UR character. It's a catopus."

"A catopus?"

Halal smirked and shook his head, "Leave him be. He must be a lucky player that got a good roll from the gacha. He's probably not a part of the elite group."

The elite group belonged to Halal and children of many important figures, who knew the secrets of the game. More than half of them joined the first world while less than 200 of them chose the third world to avoid competing with the others.

Halal was a son of an oil tycoon, and he owned a small guild, which was the closed social group of his friends and family.

However, Halal never liked illegal activities. He wanted to play the game normally like others. Thus, he didn't care about players with gold names.

Hearing Halal's order, the assassin next to him relayed his order to the others. The men stopped paying attention to Xiaomao while the retainers still stared at the cat.

Suddenly, one of the guild crew remembered something.

"Boss, that player's name just now is Xiaomao. Isn't he the guy that put the spiritual fruits in the auction house?"

"!!!"

Halal jumped up from the seat as he had seen the items. He tried to bid in the auction, but many tycoons and rich men raised the price to over 2 million dollars.

Now, every fruit had a price tag of over 3 million dollars, and the competition was still ongoing. At this rate, a rich game-addicted idiot might get tilted and overbid soon.

"Let's go invite him for a talk!"

Everybody rushed out of the guild building and followed after Xiaomao.