An hour later Alex felt like he was facing the biggest challenge in all of his lives. He needed to go to the toiled so badly he swept the cabin floors one after another at a lightning speed in hopes to find a place to take sh*t, but not even an empty bucket was lying around. At first he refused the idea of doing the deed in the bucket he was using, but every second made his suffering greater and forced him to revisit the decision.

“Not bad! Even though you’re a troublemaker, at least you are not useless!” Alex heard the sergeant’s voice behind him. He already noticed someone approaching earlier and that made him postpone doing his natural needs.

“It was a good decision to entrust you with this.” Sergeant Nur said in a satisfied voice, “I’ll fix that trouble making character of yours in an iffy.”

“Sir, I need to … well … relieve myself.” Alex was already on the brink of breaking down, so decided to just ask the sergeant.

“So? Go hit the head!” Sergeant looked back at Alex as if he was retarded and pointed in the direction of the exit to the deck.

Alex nodded and quickly got out. The fresh air alleviated the stress a bit, but after glancing around he realized there was no other option than to take a sh*t over board.

“What’s up, Jacky? Already done?” A plain looking youth in a similar clothing to his suddenly approached Alex and asked.

The latter gathered all of his willpower, clenched the butcheeks and smiled back saying, “Almost, I just needed to … well, you know …”

“Oh, sure! Just go, hit the head.” The youth nodded in understanding and pointed at the front of the ship, “We can talk later. My name is Uwe, by the way.”

Alex nodded and turned into direction Uwe was pointing at only to see in the distance a man squatting at the very front of the ship.

“Right, Egon just went. He doesn’t like to get stared at, so you better wait.” Alex heard Uwe saying and slowed down half way.

He nodded back to the talkative youth and patiently waited at the front mast while finally taking a better look around.

They were still in the harbor, although anchored in the outer part. Alex’s earlier target, the foreign merchant ship was anchored not far away and even though it was evening and the sun was setting, there were dozens of people busying on its deck.

“You can go now.” The middle aged man who was just squatting in the front shouted at Alex while pulling up his trousers.

‘F*ck my life!’ Alex cursed to himself, ‘There are definite downsides to an evolved sense of smell.’

Luckily the box shaped thing that was supposed to work as a toilet was not dirty on the top. Alex quickly did the deed and finally could look at the world without tearing up from frustration. After washing his bottom with a water from a bucket nearby, he pulled up his pants not caring about them getting wet, just like Egon did a minute ago, and could finally sigh with relief.

But before he could start analyzing the situation with a clear head and make plans for the future, Alex heard a loud whistle coming from the bridge. All the people on the ship rushed to the deck and formed two neat lines. Alex also joined them, but stood in the back line somewhere at the end.

An old man with silvery hair and beard came down from the bridge. He wasn’t dressed in the blue uniform like the others, but wore a casual clothing as if he was a regular citizen, except it didn’t suit the current season at all – people normally walked around in a sleeveless shirts only during the summer. He was obviously a well trained Qi warrior.

The man shouted in a loud, but low voice, “There has been an incident in the city of Haldenburg and the navy is tasked with help to capture a fugitive. Our departure will be postponed for a day or two depending on when the fugitive is caught.”

“Captain!” Sergeant Nur suddenly stepped out and loudly said, “Our boys have been working hard through the day! Please allow them to have a meal before leaving!”

The old man, thought for a second and shouted, “Alright! The seventh brigade are not beagles for hire! Let the city dogs sniff around while you eat! And get back before the midnight! I don’t need you to be useless bums tomorrow!”

His decision was accompanied by loud cheers from the crew and Alex jumped in joy and whistled along with the others while trying to understand what he should do now. Everyone almost jogged to the galley and Alex followed the mass, when he heard the sergeant shout.

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“Troublemaker! Where the hell do you think you’re going?!”

Alex froze in his steps, but since he was still addressed as a ‘troublemaker’ there was no real reason to worry – he was still one of the sailors.

“Your punishment includes skipping the dinner! Back to your bucket!” Sergeant commanded.

Half an hour later most of the crew left, but Alex was sent to the galley to do the dishes. The whole endeavor seemed funny and he just went with the flow. The only downside were the stinky sailors on the ship, but he could endure them for now.

Alex was given different odd jobs till late night when his new crew mates returned tired, annoyed and grumpy. The only one who for some reason was in a good mood was the talkative Uwe. He noticed Alex right away and beckoned him to follow in one of the cabins Alex cleaned earlier.

It was relatively large and had eight hammocks – four at each side and six of those were already occupied.

“Jacky, take that one!” Uwe whispered and showed Alex towards one of the free hammocks, then put out the oil lamp that weakly illuminated the cabin, “Don’t worry, sergeant also went to sleep. Want me to tell you what we did in the city?”

Alex heard him laying down and before he could answer, Uwe continued, “They showed us a drawing of someone’s face and had us chase after him in the darkness. The funny thing is – the guy in the picture could be anyone! Half of us looked like him! And those stupid city guards pretended he was still hidden somewhere in Haldenburg even though everyone knows he left the city long ago. But I must say, the guy has guts! To cripple a saint …”

While Uwe continued to blab, Alex crawled in to the hammock, but after verifying it was not possible to sit in a meditative position, he had to lie down like all the others and unknowingly fell asleep.

When the crew was woken up after the sunrise, Alex realized he hadn’t slept during the past years at all. Every night he painstakingly cultivated in order to grow up and become stronger sooner and had already forgotten how pleasant it is to enjoy a careless dream now and then.

“Let’s go, Jackie!” Uwe was already up and cheerfully greeted Alex, “I wonder what’s for breakfast!”

“What do you think? The same disgusting porridge!” One of their cabin mates replied with a sigh.

“That’s Finn, recruit like us. Don’t mind his grumpiness in the morning, he’s actually a good guy.” Uwe immediately introduced, “Although he’s a bit older than us – he’s already twenty. Right, Jacky, how old are you?”

This was the question Alex already prepared to answer yesterday. He immediately said, “Sixteen.”

“Really?!” Uwe was surprised, “You look not older than fourteen, maybe even thirteen. But even sixteen is too early to get in the navy.”

Alex was prepared for this as well. He explained, “My uncle pulled some strings, therefore I was assigned, to … well, you know …”

“Ye.” Uwe nodded, but then leaned closer and whispered, “But you’re lucky you got lost! I heard the third and fourth brigades are going to support the empire’s expansion to the north west. Half of the guys will probably end up dead while we’ll go and escort the big mama to the south east. I wonder what the beauties of Halil look like!”

“Big mama?” Alex was confused.

“The ‘Halil star’.” Uwe explained, “The merchant ship from Sarani kingdom. We’re supposed to escort them.”

‘What a weird twist!’ Alex laughed to himself.

He did intend to go to Halil continent from the start and now he’ll be able to travel there ‘completely legally’. While he didn’t exactly buy a ticket and had to work for it, it was an interesting experience after all.

In addition, he already knew where to take a sh*t on the ship. All that was left was to learn what was the ship’s name and what exactly did the empire’s navy do.

After the breakfast Alex, together with the rest of the crew members, departed to the city and similar to what the sailors and the city guard did last night, searched the houses of locals. It was quite strange to look for himself, but also ironical.

Uwe kept close to him partially taking care of a newbie and partially because no one else could stand his blabbing. On the positive side, within hours Alex learned the names of all the crew members, their private life and the most important secrets of the empire, at least according to Uwe’s expertise.

Unsurprisingly the fugitive was not found even though the city guard, navy and the nearby army garrison joined the forces and did a throughout search upsetting the whole Haldenburg. Hansen family, similar to the rest of those who sided with the empire during the invasion, was not particularly loved and now people found it hard to mask their schadenfreude for the Hansen’s heir loosing his sainthood. ‘What goes around, comes around’ quickly became the most popular expression and actually Alex could not agree more to it.

In the afternoon the captain of ‘Halil star’ issued a formal note to the Haldenburg officials requesting an immediate permission to anchor up and, since there was no reason to make things difficult for merchants from a friendly nation, the permission was granted.

Alex’s crew was immediately recalled and he, along with the others, continued preparations for the departure.

There was one big downside in becoming a sailor – Alex had no opportunities to cultivate. Even during the breaks the fellow sailors gathered in groups and chatted or directly took a nap in their hammocks which, obviously, were not suited to meditate on.

It was too risky for Alex to sit on the cabin’s floor in order to cultivate even during the night, thus he had to think of a different style of training. Since sergeant made sure he was constantly swabbing the deck, Alex began to infuse Qi in his movements and tried to implement some simple footwork as well. From the side it didn’t look suspicious and he continued to think of new exercises for the rest of the day.

In addition to the fresh air and physical practice, being on the deck gave him the opportunity to observe his surroundings and learn. During the upcoming month he’ll probably have to do something else besides the swabbing and knowing few terms sailors used could become handy.

‘Halil Star’ departed right after the sunrise the next day. In a simple triangular formation it was accompanied by two imperial warships, ‘Delila’ and ‘Aisha’, carrying the sixth and the seventh naval brigades respectively. Alex wasn’t clear on how the numbering worked since it was impossible for the huge empire to have navy teams only in single digit numbers. But in the grand scheme of things it didn’t matter – for now he belonged to the ‘Aisha’s’ crew led by captain Halim Rahal.