It's a wonderful feeling.

Duncan could clearly feel what was happening in the distance - he could feel that the Lost Homeland was drifting on the boundless ocean, that the living ghost ship was constantly exploring the route on the chart under the control of a goat-head, that there was a cursed doll with a not very strong head turning around in the cabin, familiarizing itself with the environment on the ship as if on an adventure, the deep and dark sea was slowly undulating around him, and countless strange things were hidden in the sea.

However, in his other sight, he was sitting in an antique shop in the lower town of Plande City-State. The voices of people and cars on the street came into his ears, which made the shop even quieter. A human girl named Nina was sitting opposite him, eating the cheapest cake in the lower town in small bites.

He is Captain Duncan, the master of the Lost Homeland, the mobile scourge on the vast ocean - he sits here like an ordinary person, eating his breakfast, deep in the peaceful city.

He didn't know if it was an illusion, but he felt that a piece of his heart that had always been hanging and uneasy was settling down little by little. It might be the nerves that were tense for a long time on the ghost ship, or it might be something else, but he felt that this was not a bad thing after all.

As if she noticed the gaze coming from the side, Nina, who was eating cake, suddenly raised her head and looked at Duncan curiously: "Uncle Duncan, don't you want to eat it?"

Duncan glanced at the food on the other person's plate and asked, "Is it enough for you?"

"That's enough. Eating too much sweets is not good."

"Um."

Duncan nodded, picked up the cake and took a bite. He carefully felt the rich taste that he had not tasted for a long time, and felt the rough sweetness slowly dissolving in his mouth - then, he clearly felt this body begin to process the food he had eaten.

He felt a little relieved, knowing that the situation was as he expected.

This body was "better" than the first one it temporarily occupied - its "parts" were intact, it had not been dead for long, and its own soul had taken over and almost seamlessly restarted the life in the body, which was completely different from the previous open-minded corpse.

He is breathing now, blood is flowing, and his heart is beating - although the beating speed seems to be a little slower, it should still be within the normal range.

There should be no need to worry about the body's decay, and there is no need to worry about soaking it in preservatives. In addition, it will be less likely to be exposed to ordinary people.

But there is one thing Duncan is still not sure about.

He knew that his body must be sick - among the memories he devoured, the negative impression of being seriously ill was more profound than all other memories, and the strong liquor and painkillers found in the cabinet before were also proof of this.

He didn't know what disease this body had before, because the time and cause of the onset seemed to be memories from a long time ago and had long been blurred, but one thing was very clear: at this moment, apart from the feeling of weakness brought to him by the physique of an ordinary person, he did not feel that there was anything wrong with this body.

Did the disease disappear? Did the body heal itself because of the spirit world? Or was it because the projected soul was ultimately limited in perception, so that the body could not actually feel the problem, and the health of the body was actually still deteriorating?

Duncan ate his meal calmly while thinking, and then suddenly glanced at Nina who was eating opposite him: "Don't you have to go to school today?"

Nina lives in the lower town. Her economic conditions are not good, but the city-state of Plande has obviously developed to a level where basic education is relatively popular. She now attends a school jointly run by the church and the city hall, majoring in steam machinery - this kind of school can be regarded as a "vocational high school", mainly to supply skilled steam craftsmen to factories and churches.

Half of Nina's tuition was paid by her uncle, and the other half came from a subsidy from the city hall.

For a city-state that has developed into the industrial age, it is quite worthwhile to train craftsmen in this area even with official subsidies - and it is undeniable that such a school with a very clear purpose has at least solved the literacy problem of civilians.

Nina was very studious, and in her uncle's memory, the girl had excellent grades in all courses.

"I don't have any classes this morning," Nina nodded, "I only have two history classes in the afternoon. Also, I have to go and tell Mrs. White that I won't be staying in the dormitory these days..."

Duncan suddenly stopped what he was doing. He looked at Nina seriously and asked, "Don't you think staying here to take care of someone like me will delay a lot of things? You can live in the school for a long time, which may be more helpful to your studies."

Nina was stunned. She looked at her "Uncle Duncan" in a daze, and then suddenly became angry: "You shouldn't talk like that! You are just sick, just follow the doctor's advice and take the medicine - Mom and Dad entrusted you to me..."

"Your parents entrusted you to me," Duncan corrected seriously. He used his memory to organize his words while speaking, "You were only six years old at that time."

"But now I'm seventeen years old," Nina puffed her cheeks and stabbed the last piece of cake hard with a fork, "You are not even as good at taking care of yourself as I am - if I really move out, you will make a mess of the room in less than three days. In fact, you can also let me help take care of the store, at least clean it up, the windows are so dirty that I can hardly see clearly..."

Duncan listened to the girl's nagging "sermon" with some helplessness. He didn't expect that his casual "test" would cause such a big reaction from the other party.

But slowly, he couldn't help laughing again.

He felt a kind of warmth from the girl named "Nina"... a warm warmth as if bathed in the sun.

"Well, I was just saying that," he shook his head, stirring the last bit of soup in the bowl, "There's history class this afternoon... How's your history class going lately?"

"Uncle Duncan, are you really okay?" Nina opened her eyes wide in surprise. "You never... well, at least you never asked me about my school affairs in the past two years."

Duncan opened his mouth and was about to say something, but the girl in front of him continued talking: "We have been talking about ancient history recently. Mr. Morris was telling us about what happened after the Great Annihilation... To be honest, it's quite interesting. Many parts of ancient history sound like stories, which is far more interesting than modern history and contemporary history."

Duncan thought for a moment and said seriously: "It sounds like you have learned well? Then let me test you. What are the concepts related to the Great Annihilation?"

Uncle Duncan was strange today. I couldn’t tell what was strange about him, but he was just different from usual.

But Nina didn't think too much about it - compared to her uncle's slightly strange words and deeds, this simple girl was happier at the moment that Uncle Duncan finally cheered up and seemed to be in a good mood.

She was very happy that Uncle Duncan's questions were exactly what she had just mastered.

So she smiled proudly and began to tell Duncan what she had just learned:

"The Great Oblivion occurred about 10,000 years ago. Although for unknown reasons, ethnic minorities with unique cultural heritages such as the elves, the Sen'jin, and the Gypro have recorded inconsistent times in their own calendars, the archaeological community generally agrees that the Great Oblivion occurred at the end of the Order Era 10,000 years ago..."

Duncan listened calmly.

My mind is full of question marks.

Elves? Sen'jin? Gypro? What's going on? It turns out that humans are not the only intelligent race on land? And elves... is this the same concept as the "elves" I understand? Are there still elven city-states living in the steam industrial age in the vast ocean?

Some very strange pictures appeared in his mind, and Nina's voice was still coming from the other side:

"...There are some differences in the records of the Great Annihilation among various city-states, but the common point is that the Order Era before the Great Annihilation was a far more prosperous, stable, and secure era than today. At that time, there were extremely vast continents, and the ocean area was far from being as boundless as it is today. Moreover, there was no so-called 'real border' between the ocean and the land...

"The era after the Great Annihilation is called the 'Age of the Deep Sea'. It has continued to this day, and there is still no sign of its end. The most notable feature of the Age of the Deep Sea is that the boundless sea covers almost the entire world, and the land is less than 10% of the old era, and it is divided into large and small islands or 'foreign lands in the fog'. Many city-states today are built on relatively stable islands, and various ocean-going ships have become a means of communication and communication between islands.

"In the early days of the Deep Sea Age, the remaining people of the Old World suffered a heavy blow, and the old civilization was almost completely destroyed. The 'Ancient Kingdom of Crete' that rose from the ruins was the earliest civilization ancestor of the Deep Sea Age that can be verified. Although this ancient kingdom lasted less than a hundred years, it left behind a lot of heritage that had a profound impact on later generations, including the most primitive and superficial classification methods for many anomalies and phenomena in the Deep Sea Age, as well as a lot of valuable experience in maintaining survival in the Deep Sea Age..."