Life at sea was... dreary. Nope. That was putting it lightly. A week in and I was very much tempted to send myself overboard already just to try something new and inject a little life in my dying veins. I was someone who gets listless during relaxing times. I had to do something or find something to vent my energy on or else my mental health will deteriorate. It's as bad as having my mind constantly high strung.
In fact, I have already explored the entirety of La Miel. And when I say the entirety of her, I mean from its stem to its stern; from the navigation room to the cargo hold. The crew was basically used to my presence by now and my spontaneous questions along with requests for demonstration of whatever the heck they were doing that I find interesting. The other passengers who hitched a ride across Atalenta Gulf gave me funny looks though. Not that I blame them nor care.
I even had an exchange of ideas with the Captain regarding navigation and navigation tools. I saw that they were still using sextants and astrolabes, which in my opinion are a bit too traditional. C'mon people, you have magic. I'm not even demanding GPS from you. Can't you make something similar to radars or even just a simple gyroscopic compass? Navigation would improve by leaps and bounds.
I secretly thanked in my heart those inventors and scientists back on Earth. My experience with navigation was tons more enjoyable.
Hooray for innovation!
I'm not disregarding the importance of the old tools though. Sailors have relied on them for decades now and enabled them to traverse uncharted waters. I was merely pointing out that some useful novelty helps every now and then.
Captain Otto gazed at me like I'm some sort of strange creature when I raised this issue. It did immediately change into one of admiration though, after I construed the main principle of the ideas. I couldn't exactly explain what magnetism and magnetic field were. So I simply expressed why not make a compass that always points due north.
Radio waves and radio detection were even more difficult to illustrate. Hence, I simply suggested making a device that could locate objects beyond the range of vision through the projection of magical signatures. Or something along the line of those principles. I left the rest to his imagination. I wasn't an expert on this. I just knew tidbits here and there. I did hope it would help somehow.
The Captain seemed baffled at my ideas yet pleased all at the same time. He must have figured out something from the little input that I gave him. He even asked me potential names for these devices in case. Of course, my lazy ass couldn't be bothered to think of other names so I stuck to what the devices were called back on Earth.
I wasn't that surprised at Captain Otto's interest in this. After all, he was a captain of a ship not to mention their company owns four. Despite looking like the typical brawny dude, I felt that the Captain was actually clever and shrewd. I guess he wouldn't be an elder of a mercantile company if he doesn't have any brains or business acumen. Appearance can indeed be deceiving.
Little did I know that my off-handed suggestions would revolutionize the seafaring industry and that I would be honored as the co-inventor of this world's first gyroscopic compass and magic radar. But that's a story for later.
At this time, my glorious self is lying belly down on my cabin bed. My brain was busy coming up with possible activities to busy myself with for the next three weeks. It was then that the bracelet on my fair wrist caught my eye.
Right. There was this little trinket. Grandpa said it was capable of turning into any type of weapon. But was it really just that? Perhaps it's capable of much more. And that is something that she must figure out and require further experimentation or else I'll never know.
I looked at the bracelet in a sort of creepy way. If it was sentient, it probably would have ran away from me by now.
Sitting down from the bed, I held the bracelet nearer to my face and squinted at its details. The body of the bracelet was made out of a plain sheet of silver metal about three millimeters thick. It glowed in a pearlescent white like that of a pearl. There were runes carved along it but they didn't make the overall aesthetic crude. Quite the opposite in fact.
They made it look classier and mysterious. Better than the so-called love bracelet of that famous jewellery brand. Right smack in the middle was a smooth stone. It looked gray at first glance. Insignificant and dull. But if the longer one viewed it, colors seemed to come and go.
I channeled my thought to the stone and willed it to form a dagger. The bracelet vanished from my wrist and reappeared into palms as a dagger whose blade held the same features as the stone. Its hilt though were reminiscent of the body including the engraved runes.
"Huh. So pretty. Is it sturdy though?" I asked myself. I wanted to test that aspect but changed my mind at the last minute. It was better to minimize the commotion. I've already made enough the last few days.
Aren't instruments another type of weapon as well? I mean, I've seen multiple Xianxia movies and novels where characters made use of musical instruments to deliver deadly blows to their enemies. Hmm.
I should try.
I held the dagger gingerly. And held my other palm out and willed the stone to turn into a guqin. Like the one that hottie from that series about the patriarch of diabolism uses.
I felt a slight vibration from the dagger. For a minute there, I thought it would be a failure. But a second later I was holding an exquisite silver seven-stringed guqin. Its strings held the same luster and curiously varying colors of the stone.
I jumped up and did a little victory dance. Success! It was a success!
You might wonder, dear readers, why I'm almost desperate for a musical instrument. It's because I loved music. I often secretly sing by myself when I'm alone. My voice back then was nothing notable. I'm being euphemistic. I actually sound like a dying frog. But that doesn't really stop me.
It even drove me to learn different musical instruments every chance I get. I was most proficient in the guitar though. Since one of my team members had one and it was readily available at the barracks.
Still I was acceptable at quite the odd combination of instruments; guitar, violin, guqin, erhu, and xiao. The variation of instruments was due to the fact that my mentors were the friends of the old geezer. When I say acceptable, by the way, I meant that I could at least properly finish a song because these so-called mentors only taught me one or two songs at most.
I plucked at the string gently, its light tone echoed in the room.
"Good one!" I exclaimed. I giggled unabashedly as I set down the guqin. Yep. This is totally the right way to use an ancient artifact. I'm such a genius!