Lord of Arcane

Chapter 1063 The Destiny of Ordinary People Widens

In the captain's room of "Yuanfang", Xia Duo's sudden arrival really shocked Captain Bill, but this was only caused by the sudden presence of another person in the room.

After seeing who it was, Captain Bill heaved a sigh of relief decisively, and asked while saluting, "My lord, do you have any orders for looking for me suddenly?"

Xia Duo glanced at the narrow and messy room, opened the hatch casually, and said to Bill: "I do have something to say, let's talk on the deck!"

As he said that, he walked out of the hatch first, went outside, and walked to the bow in a few steps.

At this time, the "Yuanfang" had already docked at Harbor Harbor. Some crew members were arranging the cables, some were cleaning, and more were leaning on the side of the ship, chatting about dinner or a wandering warbler in the port.

Seeing Xia Duo suddenly appear on the deck, the chatting crew members all fell silent and began to help others with their work.

Xia Duo didn't say anything about it, it was just a group of temporarily hired crew members, it was already very rare to be able to do the right thing without making mistakes, and there was no need to care about minor details.

As for Hubble Port, it was beyond Xia Duo's expectation. He originally thought that Hubble Port, as a transfer point between the East and West Narrow Seas, should be very prosperous.

But in fact, this is a supply point, roughly two streets, one is near the sea, full of warehouses, and the other is a little bit inside, with some twists and turns, all of which are hotels, taverns and other rest places.

It is probably a shrunken version of the Sevington port area, which looks very simple.

A mage tower similar to the watch tower is located in the middle of the street inside. If spells are cast through that mage tower, Xia Duo feels that whether it can cover the entire port area is a problem.

Maybe it only needs to play the basic functions of communication and transmission.

"My lord—" Captain Bill came.

Xia Duo turned around and carefully looked at the old captain with a face full of wind and frost. Instead of directly arranging the next itinerary of the "Yuanfang", he asked Captain Bill a more personal question:

"Captain Bill, what territory is your hometown in, how many people are there in your family, and what kind of work do you do?"

Bill was taken aback when he heard the words, not sure what purpose his new employer had for asking these questions, but he still answered truthfully:
"My lord, my family is in Harlan, not far south of Severnton. There are also my wife, two sons, and their wives and children at home. They run a small leather shop together in Harlan. It's been a good day, and as for me—"

When talking about his family, Captain Bill's face was obviously filled with a happy smile, but when he mentioned himself at the end, his face instantly dimmed——

"When I was young, I was recruited by Lord Harlan to join his fleet. I started as a handyman who only washed clothes for the crew in the bilge, and now I am the captain. I have been doing this for more than 30 years.

"It's a pity that Lord Harlan decided to reduce the size of the fleet not long ago, and unfortunately I was the only captain who was dismissed. Maybe after this mission is over, I will go to Harlan to run the leather shop with my two sons.

"This may be a good ending for me, but for my three grandsons who can already call grandpa, it is almost a turning point of fate. One or even two of them will lose the ability to learn magic. Chance."

After listening to Bill's narration, Xia Duo once again felt lucky that he was able to get Mu Yan's help, and was even more grateful to Mu Yan.

A captain's grandfather and a leather shop can hardly provide one or two family members to learn magic. How much does he have to pay for a time traveler with no background?

Looking back now, if I didn't get the status of a formal apprentice when I first joined the Tower of Time, I couldn't use those learning scrolls and the opportunity to ask questions for free to create a communication group.

Then he may still be struggling to pay for the reading fee of the library, the usage fee of the magic laboratory, and the consultation fee for asking questions to others!

If there is no formal apprenticeship, there is no benefit that can be directly offered, even if the exchange group is theoretically feasible, but why should others believe him?
Even if he finally gained the trust of other apprentices and created a communication group, what about the time cost in the process?

You must know that there was a wave of orcs in the winter of the year he joined the Tower of Time. If he could not obtain the ability to cast spells before that, he might be exempted from being recruited, but the subsequent arcane competitions would be one step at a time.

Even now, it is still possible to become an official mage, but it is impossible to become the lord of Daxia, Niya's husband, or a senior arcanist.

In other words, if he hadn't followed Neil to the circus outside the town, he wouldn't have met Muyan. Sometimes a single thought could lead to a world of difference in fate.

But now that the real turning point of Captain Bill's fate has come, Xia Duo thought for a while, and then said what he had decided a long time ago:
"Captain Bill, you should know that I am the lord of the Great Xia Territory in the southern region. My territory is currently short of a veteran who is familiar with the affairs of the Northland. I think you can work for a few more years, Captain Bill!"

"My lord, do you want me to continue to serve as the captain of 'The Faraway'?" Bill had both joy and hesitation in his eyes.

The captain's income must exceed the income of the leather shop, but at the same time the risk of sailing is higher than that of the leather shop. He had already decided to return to Harlan after this mission, but he did not expect such an option to appear now.

Thinking of his grandson, Bill made a silent decision.

And Xia Duo did not disappoint him, "Yes, I intend to let you continue to serve as the captain of the 'Yuanfang', and the 'Yuanfang' will not need to go to sea in the future, but will use the inland waterway."

"Inland waterway shipping? I know that your lord's territory is in the south, but I heard that the river in the south is narrow. Can this ship pass?"

Being able to say this means that Bill has accepted Xia Duo's recruitment and is already considering Xia Duo. To this, Xia Duo's answer is——

"In the past, this ship might have been really inconvenient to navigate inland rivers, but now I can say with certainty that this ship is fine!"

The reason is naturally because of the previous tide of murlocs in Lake Mecht.

When Priest Morton was cleaning up the tide of murlocs, a torrent of negative energy swept across the north and south waters, taking away not only countless murlocs, but also some riverbeds and banks.

Under the erosion of negative energy, with Lake Mecht as the center, the north-south river channel has been expanded a lot. Although the narrow part is still not enough for two "Yuanfang" ships to meet, one is no problem at all.

However, when actually meeting other ships, the probability of being in a narrow place is extremely low.

(End of this chapter)