On an island in Europe in a parallel world.
The thunderstorm raged on, bringing with it strong winds that made the ocean roar. The tiny island looked like a boat struggling to stay afloat in the terrifying storm, about to capsize at any given moment.
Flashes of lightning lit up the dark sky, revealing just how desolate things were on that fishing village on the island.
A young man frowned hard as he lay on his bed in his bedroom in a house somewhere on the island. He looked as if he were having a nightmare.
A few moments later, the young man opened his eyes in the dark and let out a long sigh.
The storm raged throughout the entire night.
By the time the skies had cleared, it was high noon the next day. Smoke billowed from the chimneys in the tiny fishing village, and the island finally looked alive again.
Over a dozen young men were carrying bamboo baskets as they walked along the beach, looking for spoils left behind by the tide after the storm was over. There were all kinds of conches, shells, and shrimp. Occasionally, one could even spot a fish flopping against the sore.
These young men had been looking forward to the "operation" the night before, while the storm was still raging on. As such, they rushed out of the village as soon as the skies had cleared. After combing the beach for a while, it was now almost noon, and their baskets were almost filled to the brim.
Elders from the village appeared later, joining the young people on the beach.
There was a natural bay formed by rocks on one side of the beach, and it served as the fishing village's harbor. Over a dozen ships were moored over there, with the able-bodied people from the village, young and old alike, pulling hard at the nets they'd cast out the night before.
There were also several fishing boat wrecks stranded between the rocks on the beach.
Zheng Yang didn't go out to hunt for seafood like the other people his age. Instead, he spent his time knocking around the wreckages, as if he were looking for something.
Zheng Yang, who had been deemed a loser back in his past life, had awakened about two months ago in this world with memories that were not his own.
He was 15 years old in his current life. His parents had gone out to sea over a year ago and had yet to return.
He had been looking through the wreckages on that beach for the past two months. Today, he actually managed to somehow dig out five pieces of wooden boards that hadn't yet rotted, along with some rusty nails.
He picked the shipwrecks clean of anything salvageable. It could be said that he had a pretty nice haul.
He then lugged the planks back to his compound about 15 minutes later, the nails still in his pockets. In the compound, there was a pile of planks, nails, and other trinkets and scraps he'd salvaged from old boats. There were nine pieces of wooden materials in total, including the five planks he'd just salvaged.
Fortunately, three of those planks were quite large.
"Well, these should do fine."
Zheng Yang knew what he was doing. He put down the materials he'd just salvaged and started to "cobble together" a boat.
Zheng Yang spent hours hammering and sawing away. By sundown, the pile of scraps in the compound was almost all gone, and in its place was a very, very crude-looking sampan instead.
The sampan was actually cobbled together from those pieces of wooden planks and whatnot, managing to somehow resemble a vessel.
That thing that Zheng Yang called a boat had a flat rear and pointed front. It was only two meters long, and the widest part of the thing was only about 70 to 80 centimeters in length.
This was Zheng Yang's "boat." He eyed that "boat" of his in silence for a brief moment, knowing full well that it definitely wouldn't last even 10 minutes out on the water before inevitably sinking.
"First step completed. The simpler the boat, the higher the success rate, right? Well, this boat here couldn't be any simpler."
Zheng Yang looked up at the skies and then took out a knife, carving the insides of his "boat" without even thinking about dinner.
He was utterly famished by the time he'd finished carving, which was some time after 10 pm. Finally, he took a break and got something to eat in the kitchen.
The fishing village was completely quiet. The only sound that could be heard was the waves crashing against the beach.
Soft, gentle moonlight fell over his place like a sheer, misty veil, illuminating it. Zheng Yang locked the doors and climbed up to the roof, checking to make sure that no one was around, before returning to his room and pulling out a wooden box from under his bed.
He then moved the box to the side of his "boat" and opened it, revealing the bottles and jars, as well as some weird-looking tools, sitting inside. Then, he lay them out by his side in a specific order.
The light of his torch fell on the containers, illuminating their contents. The jars held all manner of unknown liquids, powders, and even some internal organs from various animals. It was a rather harrowing-looking collection.
He took a deep breath after laying out the containers and fished a leather-like object from his pocket. He spread out the piece of leather, revealing an extremely complex drawing.
The drawing looked exactly like the one that Zheng Yang had spent hours carving into his vessel. He'd been practicing drawing that image in the sand more times than he'd bothered counting, eventually becoming so familiar with it that he could practically draw it in his sleep. However, he nonetheless checked all the details meticulously, throwing the piece of leather aside only after he confirmed that he had gotten everything right.
"I have no idea where dad got this ritual diagram from," he thought, "but I sure hope that this thing will actually transform my trashy boat into a spirit vessel, just like the travelogue says."
He opened the first bottle and sucked up the liquids inside with a brush, blotting the liquids at specific spots according to the image that he'd carved.
He opened the bottles and jars one after another, exhausting their contents and increasingly filling up the carving on the boat, which somehow looked rather old and rustic.
His materials included mercury, natural gum, plant saps, animal bodily fluids, and even powders ground from specific shells and minerals. It had taken him over a month to gather all of them from the island.
The list of materials was written in an ancient travelogue that his father had kept. Fortunately, his father had taught Zheng Yang to identify those materials at a very young age. Otherwise, he wouldn't have been able to collect all of them.
In the travelogue, his father had written about a semi-vitalized "spirit vessel." To craft it, one needed a combination of magic formations, rituals, and spirit lures. However, the rate of success was very low. The so-called lure was that image drawn on that piece of leather. The leather piece he'd taken out earlier was called a scroll, and it was considered a consumable.
Zheng Yang was puzzled as to why his father had never bothered to build the spirit vessel himself, considering the old man had had the ritual diagram, instead opting to teach Zheng Yang all that was related to the crafting of such a vessel.
He wondered if his father had done all of that to prepare him to carry out the feat instead, which was something he had a hard time fathoming.
After all the liquid materials were used up, he went on to sprinkle the powders in certain areas before laying out the animal innards one by one. Those internal organs were meant for some summoning ritual, and the innards consisted of things like bullfrog liver, owl eyes, and the likes.
"Gosh, this looks kinda evil," he thought, his face becoming incredibly serious.
"It all comes down to this very moment," he thought. "If I succeed, then I get a big ship and plenty of girls at my side. If I fail, then I go back to being a loser. I crave not for immortality, but a life where I can do as I please. O' heavens and gods alike…
Zheng Yang finished his "prayers" to gods and demons alike. Then, he sterilized a sharp knife with some alcohol and made a cut that was about four centimeters long on the palm of his left hand. He then pressed said hand on the scroll as blood started to gush from the wound.
"U Ke Ti…" (Spirit Awaken)
"It's lighting up!" he thought.
As he chanted weird verses according to the phonetics written on the travelogue, a blob of silvery light rose from the scroll and merged with the moonlight.
Zheng Yang then took a deep breath, determinedly picked up the scroll, and pressed it against the drawing on the boat.
Almost immediately, the silvery light spread all over the magic formation, completely enveloping both him and the entire boat.
The moonlight illuminating the compound seemed to be drawn by some kind of force. It poured down on him like mercury, causing the silvery light to glow increasingly brighter.
Vooom!
The scroll suddenly lit up in flames, and he quickly pulled his hand away.
At the same time, the internal organs he'd placed on the magic formation emitted bloody crimson light, which then linked with the flames and formed a spinning hexagram, creating a strange, eerie link to the unknown.
Dark clouds quickly covered the sky, blotting out the moon. Only the silvery light from the boat's magic formation remained. He wondered if all of this was the result of the events that had taken place just now.
Under the shroud of silvery light, the hexagram started weirdly pulsing. Waves of energy rippled out from its center, and a creature about the size of a human head emerged.
The hexagram flickered briefly before disappearing altogether, taking along with it that burning scroll, as well as the offering of internal organs. It left behind a black flying bug, which sat in the center of the magic formation, looking rather puzzled.
At that very moment, Zheng Yang was extremely tense. The ritual had been too surreal, and that black flying bug somehow made him afraid. All that had happened was so shocking that he almost forgot what to do next.
However, he remembered, nonetheless.
Whack!
Zheng Yang took a hammer and smacked it down on the head of that bug with all his might, immediately turning its head into a pile of goo.
But surprisingly, it had taken him a bit more force than he'd thought it would to squash it, making him realize that it was nowhere near as frail as common insects. In fact, it actually had tiny, tightly-packed scales all over its body.
In the silvery light, a soul-like wispy thing, which looked only half as large as the bug itself, then emerged out of the bug's dead body.
The darkness of the sky bore down on him, almost as if a storm were brewing, and it was out to snuff out the silvery light in the compound.
"Tro I Mo…" (Spirit Sealed)
He remembered every single step of the ritual and went on to recite another chant, which caused the silvery light coming from the magic formation to burst. The carved image seemed to come alive, quickly devouring both the insect's dead body and its soul, which were embedded in the boat and no longer visible.
The silvery light dispersed. Most of it seeped into the boat, while whatever was left infused with Zheng Yang. An image of the boat was drawn on the back of his hand, which was linked to a pocket space.
The dark clouds in the sky scattered, and moonlight returned to his compound, shining on both him and his boat.