In the steam boiler room on the third floor of the cabin of the Red Amber, the boiler workers were working fervently. Sun Wen stared blankly at the unfamiliar surroundings. He felt a bit dizzy and numb, his body cold. The indistinct, unnameable call in his ear had just faded, only to be replaced by the clear but noisy hum of machinery. The air was filled with a nauseatingly strong fishy smell.
'I've traveled through time...' Sun Wen suddenly smiled bitterly.
Ten minutes ago, he had closed his eyes and when he opened them, he was here. If he hadn't been a loner in his previous life, with little to miss, he wouldn't have accepted this so easily now. Even so, it would still take some time to fully accept the current situation.
Sun Wen rubbed his temples, trying to recall the situation of this body. The current him was called Gred Woven, a law-abiding citizen of the Empire, a sixteen-year-old boy who grew up in a seaside city. As for why he was here, on this moving steamship? Sun Wen looked not far away.
The dense steam and hot flames blurred his vision. Several boiler workers were working, sweating profusely, pushing tight hemp bricks one after another into the steel boiler. The hot flames turned the fuel into a sky full of black ash, high-pressure steam surged along the copper-aluminum pipeline, turning into the endless powerful power of the Red Amber. The residual heat of the boiler warmed the entire third floor of the cabin. The fish chasers relaxed in this warmth.
Gred was one of the fish chasers.
After his father died in the Empire's colony, the Woven family lost their main source of income, and he was forced to drop out of school and come here to become a fish chaser. However, Gred obviously overestimated his physical fitness. He didn't even see the ordinary fish, let alone the Black Shark Reef, and he lost his life at sea. What killed him was just a few days of uncontrollable diarrhea, also known as:
Newbie Sailor's Dysentery
Thinking of this, Sun Wen once again noticed the coldness and abdominal pain in his body at the moment.
"Sigh——"
Sun Wen sorted out his memories and couldn't help but sigh.
The civilization and order familiar to modern people, in this era still in the midst of the first industrial revolution, are just beginning. Famine, plague, gunfire, and even simple diarrhea...
Anything could kill people!
If you don't have any skills.
The life ahead is probably going to be tough.
Sun Wen's heart was a bit heavy, but he was no longer as panicked as when he first traveled through time. On the contrary, ten minutes had already given him a preliminary understanding of some situations.
"Although it's a mysterious time travel..."
"But it's okay, I'm not without anything!"
Sun Wen's eyes shifted, somewhat eager to try.
He closed his eyes, and his vision turned into his mind.
In the empty darkness, there was a seemingly virtual and real three-dimensional object floating, a pure white snake, its head and tail biting into a mysterious Ouroboros ring!
"Ouroboros, infinite regression..."
As for the snake ring in his brain that came with his time travel, Sun Wen didn't know much about it, just a sentence that came with it, and he couldn't help but feel a little nervous.
But when the abdominal pain rose again...
Sun Wen also let go of his nervousness.
"Regression!"
As soon as the thought came up, the Ouroboros in his mind immediately changed.
Sun Wen felt as if his soul had left his body, looking at himself from a third person's perspective, but it didn't seem like he was looking at a person in a three-dimensional space, but more like looking at a pile of overlapping two-dimensional images.
Each one corresponds to a moment of himself.
He suddenly realized:
'Is this the regression ability of the Ouroboros?'
Without waiting for more thoughts, Sun Wen pulled out one of them, which corresponded to the time when the original body had just boarded the ship.
The next second, the power of regression flowed through his body!
The abundant strength almost returned to this body in the blink of an eye!
The speed was so fast!
Sun Wen couldn't help but feel amazed!
He lifted his hand, the return of strength made him lift his arm very naturally and smoothly, all the negative effects disappeared at this moment!
Sun Wen looked at the others around him subconsciously.The boiler workers were working wholeheartedly, and the fish chasers were talking in twos and threes, or resting alone...
No one was paying attention to him.
In addition, the room was full of hot red firelight, and the dense steam made the figures hazy. Even if someone had their peripheral vision on him, it would be hard to distinguish the change in his blood color under the firelight...
Sun Wen's heart was slightly relaxed.
Even so, he still pretended to be a bit sick, as if he had recovered a bit through rest, but his mental state had not fully recovered.
With that, he withdrew his mind.
Sun Wen noticed - except for his stomach still empty, without regressing food, he almost instantly returned to the state corresponding to that picture!
'It should only work on me...'
'This is amazing!'
Sun Wen was overjoyed in his heart!
He knew what this meant.Especially in this era without even antibiotics!
He would at least not die from diarrhea - a reason that seems absurd from the perspective of modern people, it's like having an immortal body, he can chase everything he wants to chase in this era without the rules of time!
Money, power, beauty...
In the face of immortality, they all seem to be within reach!
Sun Wen's heart was filled with joy, and as his thoughts were stirring, something caught his eye, bringing him back from his future fantasies.He looked at the steel boiler connected to a row of pipes.Unconsciously, he had already restrained some of his joy, his brows slightly furrowed.
'Wait, this world...'
As a person of this world, the original body saw everything in this world as "natural", but Sun Wen, as an outsider, sorted out his memories and couldn't help but notice some strangeness in this world.
Fagen Empire, Seven Wine Sea, Alien King...
These were all unheard of in his previous life, not to mention this technology tree that seems to have gone astray from the perspective of his previous life - steam mechanical technology!
Sun Wen's eyes were slightly condensed.
Where his gaze fell, the unusually large man-made container was essentially a "heart" of steel machinery. The flames were burning fiercely, illuminating the sweaty faces of the workers.
The burning object was not "coal" in the history of his previous life.
But a "hemp" he didn't know where it came from.
This is a very unscientific plant in Sun Wen's view. It has low requirements for the growing environment and surprisingly high yield. Since its discovery, it has greatly promoted the development of steam engines.
Its only drawback is that it has a high ash content.
Even though Sun Wen was at sea, through the small window, he could still see a thin haze lingering over the sea. That was the countless tiny ashes suspended in the air.
About this.
Sun Wen was not unacceptable.Time travel has happened, whether it's scientific or not is no longer important.He just sensed a hint of discordant strangeness from it, this discordance even made him feel a hint of fear, albeit faint.
Although he didn't know where this fear came from.
In deep thought.
A voice interrupted his thoughts:
"Gred, how's your rest, time to get up."
"The ghost head is here."
The man who spoke was "Cyril McDonald", a man in his forties who was a widower. His robust physique made him stand out among his fellow workers.
Gred Woven was close to him and often called him:
Old McDonald
Old McDonald's reminder made Sun Wen start.He realized that his identity had changed.He could no longer be an outsider.From now on, he was Gred Woven.
'Alright... let's deal with the matter at hand first.'
Gred withdrew his thoughts.He thanked McDonald, and before he had time to think, a man with a dog walked into the boiler room on the third floor.
Gred looked through the dense steam at him. The man had crisscrossing wrinkles on his face, looked over sixty, and had a pair of strangely bulging fish bubble eyes. His face was twisted as if he was not human.
The fish chasers privately called him:
Ghost Head
He was the employer of the fish chasers.
He was also the supervisor that the fish chasers feared.
"The Black Shark Reef is coming, get ready."
"I don't care about the rest, you follow the old rules, but the 'Gem Scale Fish' that the ladies and gentlemen want, if anyone dares to hide..."
The ghost head paused.
A strange glow flashed in his swollen fish bubble eyes.The vicious dog he was holding seemed to be stimulated, drooling heavily, and barking madly with red eyes!
"Woof, woof, woof!"
"...then chop it up and feed it to my Binhan."
In the frenzied barking of the dog, the ghost head's voice was just faint, but it made the warm boiler room suddenly cool down, as if a chilling wind had rolled in!
McDonald bowed his head.His robust body was of no use, even facing the ghost head who was shorter than him, the highly aggressive pressure still made him shiver uncontrollably.
Before long, the ghost head left with the vicious dog.The fish chasers gradually calmed down.These fish chasers were used to the terrifying pressure of the ghost head, only Gred's eyes flashed a strange light.
He looked at the back of the ghost head leaving, lost in thought...