Chapter 344: The Fountain of Youth (1)
Since she had decided to keep a low profile, Everly did nothing unnecessary for the rest of her time and settled down peacefully on North Eleuthera Island.
Not only Everly herself, but also the temporarily disfigured Kesuye obediently lay low in the waters surrounding the island, no longer going after Grant and causing him trouble.
He was even reluctant to show his face in front of Everly, because he thought he was too ugly.
Fortunately, the healing suppression caused by the thorns was not permanent. As time passed, the force preventing the wounds from healing gradually weakened. After resting properly for three days, most of Kesuye’s injuries had healed, and he finally dared to meet Everly again.
Since Kesuye wasn’t wandering around causing trouble and no one reported any ships being attacked or crew members going missing, the rumors about a killer whale around the island soon died down without anything coming of them.
Before long, December 5 arrived.
That afternoon, Everly made one final trip to stock up on supplies on the island, then drove her yacht away from the island. Late that night, she anchored the yacht in an empty stretch of sea far from any signs of human habitation.
She stood on the deck, waiting for a long time as the night breeze blew around her. Finally, the clouds cleared, and a crescent moon appeared in the sky.
The time had come.
Everly knelt on the deck and unfolded an ancient parchment covered with a map and various witchcraft sigils, laying it flat on the deck.
She then took a white crystal tied to a strand of golden-red hair from her bag. Holding the end of the strand in one hand, she suspended the crystal cluster above the parchment with its tip pointing downward.
This pendulum divination tool had been made by a Star Chart Witch. During her sophomore year of college, Everly had helped Natalie investigate the mystery behind a client’s disappearance. As payment, Natalie had given her this tool, which could point the way toward an island.
Following the instructions for its use, Everly began reciting a complex Latin incantation beneath the moon.
“‘The pulse of the stars flows here, the soaring moonlight carries forth the seed. From north to south, from east to west, with pure crystal as my guidepost, please guide me, Pavuka Oris Ananino, Pavuka Oris Ananino…’”
As the final words of the incantation fell, the crescent moon in the sky suddenly cast a brilliant beam of moonlight downward.
The silvery-white light fell precisely onto the white crystal and was absorbed by it. The crystal, which had originally been hazy and milky like mist, instantly became crystal clear like glass.
Even though there was no wind, it began swinging rapidly in a certain direction as though someone had plucked it.
Seeing this, Everly quickly moved her hand in that direction until the tip of the crystal cluster could touch the parchment map.
And the crystal did not disappoint. Its tip lightly tapped a certain coordinate on the map.
Everly marked the spot with her pen.
She had barely finished marking it when a dark cloud drifted across the sky. The crescent moon gradually disappeared, and the golden-red strand of hair suspending the crystal gave a soft “snap” and broke in the middle. With nothing supporting it, the white crystal toppled onto the parchment and shattered into a pile of fragments.
Everly took the map back into the cabin and found a modern map enlarged to the same scale. After spending quite some time measuring it with a ruler, she finally located the coordinates indicated by the crystal:
27.3°N, 78.9°W.
Limited by the accuracy of the parchment map, this was already the most precise result possible. Around 30° north latitude, even an area covering just 0.1 degrees of latitude and longitude encompasses more than 100 square kilometers, roughly the size of a medium-sized American town, including its surrounding suburbs—or, to put it more visually, the area could contain more than 14,000 standard soccer fields.
Fortunately, the coordinates were out at sea, where visibility was wide open. If an island suddenly surfaced somewhere in the area, it would be extremely conspicuous. With Kesuye and Lamia’s blessings to help her, finding the emerging island quickly was not entirely impossible.
Once she had confirmed the coordinates, Everly tidied everything up and went to sleep first. The next day, she officially set out, driving the yacht toward the new coordinates.
The coordinates were northeast of the Bahamas and not particularly far from Everly’s current position. The yacht traveled at full speed across the sea for about four hours before successfully reaching the edge of the designated area.
There were no islands in these waters, nor was it located along any major shipping route. It was extremely remote. Everly hadn’t encountered a single ship on the way here.
A few kilometers from the designated coordinates, she dropped anchor and stopped the yacht.
Everly had no intention of going in to explore just yet.
Today was December 6, and there were still several days until the 11th. There wouldn’t be anything to see if she went in now. If Grant Megan had already arrived, an early encounter between them might even bring unnecessary danger.
Besides, Everly didn’t need to enter the area to find out what was happening there. She still had Kesuye!
Kesuye was bored. Extremely bored. He desperately wanted to take part in Everly’s adventures and do something interesting. So when Everly set out to find the island of the Fountain of Youth, Kesuye followed her once again, and there was no talking him out of it.
Everly figured having an extra pair of hands would be useful, so she didn’t refuse him.
She assigned the merman-form Kesuye a reconnaissance mission, explaining all the requirements and precautions. Kesuye listened attentively, gave a crisp response, then flicked his tail and dove into the sea. Before long, he had disappeared without a trace.
While he was away, Everly busied herself setting things out on the deck—an underwater camera, laptop, sample bottles, a low-temperature storage box, a tracker… Once everything was arranged, she also found an oversized T-shirt bearing the logo of the famous American environmental organization the Sierra Club and pulled it on.
Everly had purchased or specially ordered all of these items through various channels while staying on North Eleuthera Island.
The area around the coordinates was simply too remote. If she did nothing but leave her boat anchored there, being discovered by Grant would easily arouse suspicion.
If she disguised herself as an environmental volunteer and claimed to be staying there to collect seawater samples, observe marine life, and so on, her presence would seem much more reasonable.
For this purpose, Everly even used the affinity aura she possessed to lure over a few Atlantic spotted dolphins from nearby to serve as her “observation subjects.”
So when Kesuye diligently swam through the entire coordinate area and returned after finishing his reconnaissance, the first thing he saw was a group of black-and-white chubby-headed fish excitedly playing around the yacht.
“Wuu…”
Seeing those eyesores, Kesuye instinctively wanted to transform and drive them away as a whale. But soon, he remembered what Everly had told him before he left. She had said that she needed to conceal her identity, so she would bring some dolphins over to the area…
His transformation abruptly halted, and even his cheerfully swishing tail drooped listlessly. With his eyelids lowered, Kesuye swam toward the yacht in a gloomy, dejected mood.
“You’re back. How did it go? Did you see Grant’s ship?”
Kesuye shook his head.
His hearing was exceptionally keen. Even while submerged several meters underwater, he could clearly hear sounds coming from the surface hundreds of meters away. It was thanks to this hearing that he had originally been able to detect Grant’s whereabouts.
Just now, Kesuye had thoroughly combed through the entire stretch of sea indicated by the coordinates, as though plowing a field. He hadn’t heard anything at all—not the roar of an engine, nor human voices or footsteps.
Everly asked again, “What about the seabed? Did you find anything?”
Kesuye shook his head again.
“As expected, there’s no way to exploit a loophole…” Everly was slightly disappointed.
She had originally wanted to see if she could find a loophole and locate the island hidden beneath the sea before the transit of Venus, allowing her to explore it in advance and familiarize herself with the terrain and routes. But now, she didn’t know whether the island was simply hidden too well or whether it wouldn’t appear before the appointed time. Either way, Kesuye had searched the seabed and come up empty-handed.
That meant she could only wait until the day of the transit of Venus before going ashore.
After asking everything she wanted to know, Everly leaned forward and handed Kesuye the smoked-meat sandwich she had specially prepared as a reward for him. As she withdrew her hand, she casually plucked a fragment of antler coral caught in his hair.
As she handed it over, she asked offhandedly, “What’s wrong? You seem a little down. Are you tired?”
Kesuye took the sandwich, and his mood immediately improved considerably. When he felt the movement atop his head, he instinctively stretched out his neck and rubbed the top of his head firmly against Everly’s palm.
After rubbing against her hand, the gloom in his heart vanished in an instant, like air escaping from a punctured balloon.
Whatever. They were just some stupid, chubby fellows, after all…
Kesuye brought the sandwich to his mouth and savored it carefully. His large eyes narrowed contentedly, while the ear fins on either side of his head trembled like little fans. His tail, hidden beneath the seawater, swished uncontrollably back and forth, smacking against the underside of the boat with a series of “slap, slap” sounds.
“Geez, do you really like smoked meat that much?” Everly rested her chin in her hand and watched him for a while before she couldn’t help laughing.
Kesuye was difficult to understand sometimes, yet at other times, he was as simple as a blank sheet of paper, with everything about him visible at a glance. What an adorable giant whale. Sometimes she really wanted to give him a good pinch just to see him stare at her in bewilderment, completely at a loss for what to do…
……
Everly spent three days anchored at the edge of the area while disguised as an environmentalist.
On the fourth day, December 9, Grant Megan’s ship finally appeared at the coordinates.
It was a modified high-speed speedboat. The hull had been painted a discreet dark gray, and a high-powered propulsion system had been installed at the stern. As the speedboat raced forward, it left a long white wake trailing behind it across the sea.
Long before the speedboat appeared, Kesuye, who had been patrolling the surrounding waters, had already detected its presence.
His swimming speed was faster than the speedboat’s, so he came over ahead of it to warn Everly. This allowed her to avoid Grant’s route and move to another location to continue playing the part of an environmental volunteer.
As for Kesuye, after delivering the information, he slipped back into the sea and continued following Grant’s ship, taking the opportunity to eavesdrop on the conversations aboard.
That night, once everything had grown quiet, he swished his tail and swam back to Everly, sharing everything he had overheard throughout the day.
“I counted. There are twenty-seven people on the ship altogether.” Kesuye clung to the side of the boat and spoke earnestly. “Besides Grant and the witch, there’s one shaman and twenty-four mercenaries.”
“You mean, aside from the Thorn Witch, the only other psychic they have is a shaman?”
“Mm-hmm.”
“How could that be…?”
At first, Everly was puzzled. Searching for the Fountain of Youth was obviously something steeped in supernatural elements, so why hadn’t Grant brought more psychics along to help? But soon, she remembered the “killer whale” incident that had occurred near North Eleuthera Island.
Just as she had suspected, Grant had indeed initially gathered a group of bizarre psychics to accompany him. But they had all been eaten by the “killer whale,” Kesuye.
Psychics weren’t cabbages growing in a field that could simply be harvested whenever you wanted. After losing so many helpers at once, even Grant would probably have had a hard time finding suitable replacements in such a short period of time.
Mercenaries, on the other hand, were different. As long as you could afford their fees, you could hire as many as you wanted.
That was probably why his current team had such an unusual composition.
Looking at it that way, Kesuye’s previous attack had practically been a major contribution!
“Where is Grant’s ship anchored now?”
“Here.” Kesuye handed over the tracker.
The tracker’s screen displayed a string of coordinates—the exact location Kesuye had measured while hiding beneath Grant’s ship:
27.314°N, 78.903°W.
Everly figured that Grant was so resourceful that the coordinates for the island in his possession might be even more precise than hers. She wrote down the coordinates with her pen, then reached out and affectionately ruffled Kesuye’s hair.
“Thank you. You really helped me out this time.”
“Mm.” Kesuye blushed and ducked into the water, happily blowing out a string of bubbles.