After they returned to ‘Aisha’, captain Rahal immediately turned the ship towards the south west. Alex expected for them to stay in these waters at least until the sunrise and try to look for more survivors, but for some reason Armenidians were not in the mood to save anyone besides their own from ‘Delila’.

Alex’s guess was that the risk of staying was too high and even though in their absence ‘Aisha’s’ crew successfully repelled another attack, apparently from those who burned and sunk the ‘Halil star’, there was a high chance of more incoming attacks.

The attitude of officers on the ship towards him had softened quite a bit, especially sergeant’s, and Alex was ‘promoted’ to help out Caden in the galley. Basically that meant he almost didn’t have to do anything since their meals consisted of dried meat and cookies anyway. He spent his days sitting around and listening to Caden’s stories who, contrary to the most crew members, was still in the mood for talking.

What Alex worried about was their limited water supply that kept continuously depleting, but the crew was allowed to consume the disgusting ale in almost unlimited amounts until six days later they arrived at an island archipelago where they anchored and resupplied. Afterwards ‘Aisha’ continued on its way and another three days later Alex finally experienced a real tropical storm.

Except for a few days when it was sunny and the waves died down, up until this point the sea was, what the crew called it, ‘unruly’. But now Alex experienced waves at the size of five storey buildings throwing ‘Aisha’ around like a leaf. He already began to prepare for his next rebirth, but the attitude of the officers on the ship made him feel as if they were on excursion to an amusement park. Alex was not clear if that was only a facade or they really enjoyed it, but on the second day he was also more or less used to the storm.

Alex was in the galley conversing with Caden when a deafening cracking sound blasted in his ears as if a giant hand smacked the ship in bits and the last thing he noticed were the widened eyes of the cook when he himself was thrown at a wall and his vision turned back.

When Alex regained consciousness, his first thought was, ‘F*ck my life. To start everything from scratch is so annoying!’

But a second later he realized that instead of his mother’s heartbeat he only heard a sound of wind and soft buzzing of waves washing at the shore. It took him some effort to open his eyes and when he finally managed to part his eyelids a bit, a bright light pierced his vision causing a stinging pain to radiate through his head.

‘Ok, I didn’t die yet …’ Alex inwardly grinned.

It was fine to bear some pain – the perspective of becoming a toddler again scared him more. He quickly scanned his body and verified all parts were still attached, but the problem was – he felt like a lobster that was thrown in a pot with boiling water. He was currently lying on the back and obviously his face and the rest of the body got serious sunburns.

With some struggle Alex turned over and got on his knees, but then he realized his nose, mouth and even his lungs were burning in pain – almost like someone had nicely polished him with a sandpaper from inside.

‘Right … the damned sand …’ Alex cursed.

What usually the city people dreamed of was currently coming out from all his orifices together with snot and blood. After coughing for several minutes, Alex finally felt slightly better, crawled over to the water and washed himself. Even though the waves were negligible, he still lost his balance a couple of times and fell in, but in the end climbed out clean and somewhat refreshed.

Only now he had the strength to look around, but there was not really much to see. To his left and right a golden sandy beach stretched towards the horizon, but around hundred meters to the front there was a lush jungle. After the attack Alex did begin to think of ways to leave the ship, but to become stranded in the middle of nowhere was not one of his plans.

Be as it may, he had to get to some kind of civilization – this time he didn’t even have a knife on him, to not speak of anything else useful for survival in the wild. He decided to check if it was possible to go through the jungle or he had to walk along the beach for who knows ho long, when he tripped and fell face down in the sand again.

Cursing his own luck Alex got up, but then noticed he actually tripped over a leg. Turns out some people had worse luck than him to be buried in the sand and only then Alex realized there might be other survivors. He carefully looked around, but the only thing, apart from scarce rocks, that didn’t fit the picturesque scenery was the leg he tripped over.

Alex sighed and tried to pull the person out, but couldn’t move them. It took him several minutes to dig the guy out and the whole time he was questioning himself why did he even bother – there was no way anyone could survive being buried for so long.

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Turns out – this guy could. The fat cook, Caden, was not breathing, but still had a weak pulse. Alex stared at the large body for few seconds in despair realizing he kind of had to perform mouth-to-mouth since theoretically Caden was still alive and only wasn’t breathing. But he really, relly didn’t want to!

But then he sighed and turned the man to one side. After the seawater stopped flowing from Caden’s mouth, Alex turned him on the back again, but just as he neared his mouth to breath the air in Caden’s lungs, the cook suddenly opened his eyes and began to cough – just like Alex did few minutes ago.

Thanking all the possible deities for saving him the unpleasant experience, Alex waited for the cook to recover. One had to note, the fat man, being a Qi warrior, only needed few moments and soon was washing himself up while kicking and cursing the gentle waves as if it was their fault for him getting in the current predicament.

“Where are the others?” Was the first thing Caden asked after he came out the water.

Seeing Alex shake his head, he sighed and even his large body seemed to deflate a little. But then he noticed something in the distance and with unbelievable speed charged away along the beach. Alex helplessly followed him unable to catch up, but after few minutes he saw Caden’s large stature leaning over a body.

When Caden got up, Alex recognized Uwe despite him being all dirty and covered in sand, but judging from how Caden sprinted away again, the talkative youth was not going to speak anymore. Alex came closer, verified Uwe was not breathing and quickly searched his body. The guy didn’t have anything on him except for a knife, but that was more than enough to make Alex happy.

Within an hour one after another Caden found half a dozen other crew members, including the first mate, but no one was alive. In addition, no matter how they looked, there was no sign of any Qi warriors surviving.

After letting his steam out by kicking the sand and cursing everything from the sea water to gods and even the emperor, Caden finally calmed down.

“I guess it’s only two of us, Troublemaker.” He said.

Alex didn’t care for the obvious.

“Do you have an idea where we are? And where we can find a water to drink?” He asked.

“No and there.” Caden shook his head and pointed towards the jungle.

Alex held back a cynical remark when he saw the cook take few steps off the shore and cut off a vine. From the top part drops of watery juice began to drip out and Caden immediately sucked on the vine quenching his thirst.

Alex didn’t linger and intended to do the same, when Caden stopped him.

“Wait! Not that one!” He said, “Take the one to the left … ye … it would be annoying to carry you ...”

Even though Alex has been an alchemist’s apprentice in the previous life, it was a different world and while this one had many similarities, there were plenty of things he didn’t know. Caden’s experience came in handy, although the cook was in a bad mood for the first two days and almost didn’t say a word.

Alex wasn’t surprised they didn’t fight their way through the thick jungle, but went down the shore to the south. During the day they hid from the sun in the shadows cast by the jungle and at night slept in the nests they constructed above the ground. They traveled from the sunrise till midday when the scorching sun became too hot, then rested and continued on their way when the temperature cooled down in the afternoon.

Alex was not certain how far they had gone in the past five days, but it was clear that sooner or later they had to find other people. He enjoyed the beach much more than the atmosphere on the ship, although at first it was a bit weird to walk on a solid ground after swaying in the waves for almost a month – when they left the spot they were washed ashore at, Alex had the illusion of the ground swaying and him continuously going up and down a hill. It gave a weird feeling of being slightly drunk and served as a light amusement at the same time.

After Caden returned to his normal self, he became chatty again. Turns out he was actually from the empire’s south east region’s capital called Marounad and according to him, after covering the distance of at least fifty kilometers per day, they had to be ‘not too far’ from it.

When he realized they were not going to starve or die from thirst, Alex was not in a rush to return to the civilization. Of course, he would’ve loved to take a bath or at least a shower, but it could wait. Actually they had a nice swim in a river delta that they had to cross, but it was cut short when Alex learned it might be inhabited by ferocious reptiles.

Alex didn’t intend for his manhood to be bitten off by a local alligator-like creature, especially since he hadn’t utilized it to its fullest for the last few lifetimes. In addition, the new information about ranked beasts potentially existing in this world made him weary.

People didn’t actually call them ‘ranked’, but ‘ferocious’. But the fact that some beast types formed their own Qi cores, definitely put them in the same category Alex was in the ‘beast world’.

Back in Haldenburg Demy did told him stories about strong creatures, but Alex took them as fairy tales and insisted she would provide him with ‘useful’ information that could help with his cultivation. Turns out he missed out on quite a lot, but in the end he decided to blame the lacking educational system and the non existing libraries.

Luckily Alex now had a walking library accompanying him and intended to milk Caden of all the knowledge he had. On the ship he had to listen mostly about women and how their parts and characters varied on different sides of the world, but now there was a ‘legit’ reason to learn about the wildlife since they were actually in the wild. Caden was not against it – he had nothing better to do anyway.

Thus they walked and chatted for several days until they saw the first signs of other people. Contrary to Alex’s expectations they didn’t meet a fisherman or a hunter, or stumble on a coastal village. What Caden noticed were several ships in the distance in full sails going the same, southern direction. Only now Alex understood why the cook was continuously staring at the sea – instead of being nostalgic, he was actually looking for the sign of a nearby port.

From this moment on Alex learned what it meant to run a continuous marathon. The ‘fun’ part of the travel was over and he had to do his best to keep up with the fat Qi warrior, who for some reason not only didn’t loose any weight, but after surviving on fruits and vine juice for days even got a healthy glow on his cheeks.