Cauron's gaze scanned over the first of the two Sea Kings, more specifically, the King of Wishes, Kauri Belvedere.
He was almost 2 meters tall with pale, whitish-blond hair framing a lean face and a pair of white eyes that scanned the approaching researcher closely.
The Sea King wore a black cloak clad with medals similar to the ones he had seen on Lord Drynch all those years ago, while his hands were covered in thin white gloves.
Resting between his fingertips was a smoking stick, a type of drug commonly enjoyed among the noble families of the Holy Capital and Land of Deities.
At birth, a misunderstanding had caused him to be mistaken for a girl, his name following suit, leading to quite a few rude jeers and jabs over the course of his career.
Overcoming it all and attaining the power at the peak of humanity silenced those who sought to drag him down, a story truly marvelous and inspirational.
Across from him sat Floyd Brymyn, a man whom Cauron Thorn was quite familiar with, as his research into Ghostships and mana cores fascinated him deeply.
He was a similar height to Lord Belvedere; however, his hair was a bit longer, stretching down his neck, the tips grazing his collar as he moved.
A beard and mustache clung to his jaw and lips, and his nose supported a pair of black glasses that rested over his eyes.
This man, too, matched both Leonardo Drynch and Kauri Belvedere with his attire that resembled mercenary robes, yet could not suppress the air of importance surrounding his figure.
With his capelet and a singular medal, he was clearly recognizable as the King of one of the ten seas and had the merits to show for it.
At his hip, Cauron noticed a shortsword buried in its sheath, and a thin strip of muscles revealed by his skin-tight black shirt.
Do even the Kings lack modesty?
Laughing internally, he kept a serious expression on his face as he sat on the empty sofa that rested between the seats of the two Kings.
Marcus Twynam followed suit and sat next to the young man, patting him on the back while balancing Julius in the middle.
"My friends, this is the protege of the late Lord Leonardo and the heir to his research. I hope I haven't disturbed your free time by bringing him here, have I?"
The Kings shook their heads, and Kaori then gazed at Cauron, addressing him directly.
"It is a pleasure to meet you, Mr. Thorn. We have heard plenty about you from Drynch."
He spoke warmly, the smoking stick now placed at the corner of his lips, burning lightly.
Floyd didn't speak at first, his attention too focused on the playing cards resting within his palms.
Patiently, the orange-haired man watched as he pulled out a queen card with a painfully noticeable blank space in the middle, exactly where the queen's figure would usually be depicted, whatever form she took.
Staring at the white surface that seemed so bright as if laughing at him, a look of annoyance came across the King's face.
"Dammit… How is gambling supposed to be fun without any real ladies on the cards!? I mean, sure, I could just make something up, but that's not the same as knowing there is an actual lady like that, somewhere out there! Right?!"
He turned quickly to Cauron, seemingly asking him the very question that he had just posed aloud.
"Uh… Yeah…"
Marcus laughed before calming himself down to explain.
"He's been working on a deck of playing cards for Lord Belvedere's growing casino business; however, to hand-draw the cards was seen as too much of a hassle to be worth it. Therefore, he's been experimenting with illusion magic."
The moment he finished speaking, the cards within the King of Curses' hand vanished in a flash of purple.
Exhaling hard, he looked at Cauron, now fully concentrating on the conversation, without an inkling of his previous absurdity.
"My apologies for my earlier demeanor… It is hard to keep one's sanity when you work tirelessly to expend your mana as a training exercise in producing cards…"
Groaning, he leaned back into the soft chair, closing his eyes and breathing in and out quietly.
"Is he always like that?"
The orange-eyed man addressed the question to Kauri, who had just taken the smoker out of his mouth and relit its tip.
He seemed to think on the query for a moment before nodding hard.
I expected them to seem more… Godlike…
Thinking back on his own life, he realized slowly that he was perhaps comparing them too much with Mr. L, a true deity.
Maybe being unlike a god isn't the worst thing.
Readjusting his position within his seat, he turned to face Floyd with a smile on his face.
"Lord Brymyn, I have an idea for a way to produce your playing cards without the use of mana."
The man's brown eyes shot open quickly, his body lurching forward as he stared at the orange-haired man in doubtful excitement.
"You jest…?"
He paused, waiting restlessly for a confirmation that he never received.
"How would it be possible? There is no such technology available that would allow mass production without mana or artists."
Even as a proficient scientist himself, the King was unfamiliar with engineering and the inventions that it could create, something that Cauron knew very well.
"I have read documents from the Library of Nautilus pertaining to tools used by the ancient Architects in their cities. One such record described forging a metallic stamp engraved with the image of your choice and then dipping it in ink. Then, after you have the Nortic letters engrained and the ink covering them, you press it against paper to place the ink all at once and with the same design each time."
Brymyn's head nodded rapidly as he scribbled what the boy was saying down onto paper, a grin coming across his lips.
"Where would you get the ink supplied from? Squid ink isn't easy to procure, and the costs are too extreme to be worth it?"
Kauri interjected into the conversation, causing the brown-haired man to stop writing and groan aloud.
"To prevent the arduous collection process, simply produce that ink yourself."
Cauron said it as if it were the easiest thing in the world, his steadied gaze not wavering for even a moment.
The two Kings looked at each other for a second before nodding quickly, Brymyn scribbling down more fervently.
"What would you suggest?"
Egging the man on, they continued to speak for hours more, their conversation spanning from night to day, then morning to evening, only ending two days later.
Marcus had long since fallen asleep, woken up, changed the baby's diaper, left, come back, slept again, and continued the cycle repeatedly.
He would've left earlier if not for the odd fascination Julius seemed to have with playing with Mr. Thorn's glasses.
Only after they finished their chat did he finally get to leave for good, a tired expression covering his face as he spoke with the orange-haired man on the way out.
Cauron, striding alongside the exhausted but visibly relieved man, seemed so enthusiastic that he was practically brimming with jovial joy.
Twynam had never seen either of them act as such, a fact that, even in his weariness, made him smile.
To think the death of Leonardo would bring us such an interesting child…
In the moonlight falling from the clear sky, he watched as Julius placed the glasses back onto Cauron's face, and then they said goodbye.
"I'll visit you again in a few months, Marcus, on my journey to the Land of Deities, then, we can truly discuss the future!"
He waved his hand outward towards the brown-haired father, who vanished off into the distance, accompanied by his child and wife, who came to pick them up.
Who knew that the Sea Kings were so open-minded! To think they've greenlit half of my ideas for mass production already!
In truth, he had believed his inventions to be useless in principle; however, that was likely just the voice of his overbearing and overachieving patron talking.
The printing press, machine gun, desalinator, depth measurer, and even his alcohol measuring meter had all been approved after only one conversation.
I wonder what they would've said if I had told them that those were only the ideas of my seven-year-old self…
Smiling as he set foot on the docks and walked towards his run-down ship, he prepared for a new voyage, one to a remote location in the Sea of Mystery that he wasn't quite sure existed.
The tales of an ancient land hidden in that unclaimed sea, at the point where currents of Heavenly Ichor converged, had fascinated him and his partner Leonardo to no end.
It was said that a great being once resided there, deep beneath the sea, further igniting their curiosity.
Now, he was ready to accomplish his short-term goal and discover if the myth was simply a fabrication or a hidden truth lurking in the depths of history.
…
October 12th, 3003.
Three years had passed in the blink of an eye, yet those years had paid off vastly.
Now, at the age of 21, Cauron Thorn stood within a lost cave buried into the edge of a mountainside.
A waterfall concealed a massive cavernous entrance to a humid, mossy cave.
However, the poor environment was of no importance when what lay before him sparkled with a radiance he had never known before.
A vessel the size of a fortress floated gently on the calm cove waters, its sails a flaming orange and its aura emitting the power of life.
He, after only three years at sea, had done what no other human could manage since Kauri Belvedere's ascension to the position of Sea King—he located a new Ghostship.