Duncan knew that his idea was bold and bizarre, even to the point that it seemed too outrageous even in this mysterious deep-sea era - transforming a real celestial body into a "stone ball" with a diameter of ten meters in front of him and making it float on the sea, this could no longer be described as a delusion.

But once this idea came into his mind, it was difficult for him to completely expel it from his mind. No matter how absurd it seemed, he couldn't help but associate it with it.

Because... they are really too similar, not just in appearance, but also in a strong... "intuition", and even a kind of "familiarity" that seems to transcend time and the dimension of the world, surging in his mind.

Duncan looked at the pale sphere in front of him. For a moment, he even felt that he had returned to that familiar world, gazing at the moon of his hometown.

He stared at the moon floating beside the side of the Brilliant Star, his expression frozen for a long time, until he heard footsteps beside him, until Lucrecia's voice reached his ears: "Father, this is it."

Duncan turned his head. At this moment, he himself did not realize how strange his expression was: "Ah... yes, that's it..."

Of course, Lucrecia noticed the difference in Duncan's expression and tone. She seemed to be slightly nervous for a moment, and then she said with concern: "Are you okay? You don't look very well... Is there something wrong with the stone ball?"

"It's...very good. Thank you for your concern, Lucy." Duncan waved his hand and tried to adjust his expression. Then he turned his head and pointed at the stone ball. "It..."

He stopped.

He had no idea how to explain this to Lucretia, how to describe the concept of "moon", how to explain the other world, and how he was reacting at this moment, just like he had in front of Tirian - he didn't even know how to explain what a "planet" was.

So he could only open his mouth and change the subject stiffly: "Has anything changed since it fell? Was it like this from the beginning?"

"Yes, it was like this at the beginning," Lucrecia nodded immediately, and then recounted the general process of how she found the fallen object, and added some details about the process of transferring it to Breeze Harbor, "... It floats in the air at a certain height above the sea surface by an unknown mechanism. In the absence of interference, it will stay in place completely, but can be dragged by the ship's external force. Its interior is solid and dense. Several careful samplings have proved that its internal texture is similar to stone, but so far we have only collected the shallower components - the deeper you go, the harder it is, and the drill bit can't drill at all..."

Duncan listened quietly, then asked, "Besides? What else did you find?"

"We are also trying to unravel the mystery of the 'light' around us," Lucrecia continued. "The huge geometric luminous body wrapped around the 'stone ball' continuously releases 'sunlight', the scale of which can illuminate the entire city-state. However, this light does not come from the 'stone ball', or at least it does not 'emit' light in the way we understand it - the light is 'generated' directly in the nearby space and then spreads out evenly.

"In order to verify this, we built a large sunshade to completely cover the stone ball. It turned out that this had no effect on the luminous geometric body or the 'sunlight' on the nearby sea...

"In addition, we have also confirmed that the surface of the stone ball is covered with a very, very fine layer of 'dust'. They are 'attached' to the stone ball by an unknown force. Although they can be scraped off for sampling, they will not 'fall' off the ball if there is no external force. Even the dust at the bottom of the ball is the same. It's as if some invisible force is 'adsorbing' them..."

Lucrecia did her best to explain to Duncan the various tests that scholars had conducted on the "stone ball" and the information she had known so far.

During this process, she had been paying attention to the changes in Duncan's expression, trying to guess what kind of mood was hidden behind her father's overly serious and solemn expression.

However, she could not see through it. All of her father's thoughts seemed to be shrouded in a thick layer of fog, shrouded in the depths of that familiar yet unfamiliar majestic face. The only thing she could be sure of was that her father really cared about this "stone ball" - more than she and Tirian had imagined.

After a long silence, Duncan finally spoke: "You did a lot of sampling?"

"Yes, we have scraped samples from the surface of the stone ball from various parts, and this sampling is still ongoing," Lucrecia nodded. "The deep part of the stone ball is very hard and difficult to sample, but its surface is relatively 'loose' and grayish-white debris can be scraped off. The properties of those debris are no different from stone powder..."

At this point, she paused, looked at Duncan hesitantly, and pointed to the floating platform used to study the stone balls not far away: "Do you want to go over there with me?"

"……good."

Duncan and Lucrecia came to the "research station" built by the elves, and then passed through the connecting bridge on the upper level of the research station to a platform directly connected to the surface of the stone ball.

A diameter of ten meters is insignificant for a celestial body, but as an object right in front of us, it is still considered a behemoth. Even if we don't count the height at which it floats on the sea, the diameter of the sphere itself is actually more than three stories high.

The elves fixed a platform at the "waist" of this behemoth, and secured it with a hoop surrounding the sphere and a series of anchor bolts and diagonal braces. The platform was small, only a few square meters, but it was enough for a foothold.

Duncan stood on the platform, stretched out his hand, and gently touched the...moon.

The rough and cold touch came from the fingertips, like touching a stone.

He withdrew his hand, looked at the grayish-white dust on his fingertips, rubbed his fingers, and let the grayish-white dust slowly fall away.

Some dust slowly drifted towards the sphere and fell back onto its surface.

"This phenomenon is also puzzling to us," Lucrecia's voice came from the side, "The dust scraped off the sphere seems to be attracted by the sphere itself. When the distance is close enough, the debris will actively return to the surface of the sphere. However, this 'attraction' only exists between the materials of the stone ball itself. We have tested it with other lightweight powders..."

Duncan hummed, but didn't say much.

"I heard from my brother that you called this strange stone ball the 'moon'," Lucrecia said while carefully observing Duncan's reaction, "and you seemed very excited when you saw it... Do you know anything about this stone ball?"

"It..." Duncan hesitated for a moment, then finally spoke slowly, "It's different from what I know. It should be very big, much bigger than it is now..."

"Very big?" Lucrecia blinked. "Bigger than the Lost Homeland?"

“It’s much bigger than that.”

"Bigger than the pilgrimage ark of the Four Gods Church? Or bigger than a city-state?"

Duncan shook his head: "Bigger, bigger than you can imagine."

"...Can it be bigger than the Infinite Ocean?"

"I haven't measured the Infinite Sea, but... maybe," Duncan said softly as if talking to himself, "maybe it is bigger than the Infinite Sea, because this sea named 'Infinite' is actually just a cage surrounded by fog."

Lucrecia's eyes widened.

For some reason, she suddenly thought of her childhood. The questions and answers just now seemed to have taken her back a century, triggering memories that had long been dormant in the deepest part of her mind. She vaguely remembered that many, many years ago, she had asked her father similar questions.

At that time, she asked her father how big this boundless ocean was.

Her father told her that the sea was very big, bigger than the Homeland Lost and bigger than the city-state - it was as vast as its name suggests, and could accommodate a person's lifelong curiosity and urge to explore.

She remembered it firmly and followed in her father's footsteps to become an explorer, a "border scholar". As a member of the Lost Home Fleet, she followed her father to many places, including the distant and mysterious "border". She felt that her father did not deceive her in her childhood - this sea was really big.

But now her father told her that the "Boundless Sea" was just a cage surrounded by fog.

This "stone ball" in front of us, with a diameter of only ten meters, should be larger than the boundless ocean.

Lucrecia narrowed her eyes, raised her head and looked up at the "moon" in front of her, trying to imagine that it was bigger than the boundless ocean. But for the first time, she felt that her imagination was so limited - not only could she not understand what her father said, she couldn't even imagine it.

"Such a big 'moon'... How big a space would be needed to accommodate it?" She couldn't help asking, "Like you said, it's even bigger than this world..."

The vast ocean is not the whole world.

This sentence came to Duncan's mind instinctively, but he controlled the urge to blurt it out.

Because he has never really measured this world, let alone passed through the fog called "border".

He was not sure whether this boundless sea was really all that the world contained.

And Lucrecia was destined to never understand what a universe large enough to accommodate billions of stars would look like.

Even though she owned a ship, and the name of that ship was "Brilliant Star".

"...I'm sorry, Lucy," Duncan finally sighed softly. He turned his head and looked into the eyes of the "Sea Witch." "I can't explain this to you."