Sighing heavily, Ender sat down next to me on the beach sand. The sheriff correctly interpreted my facial expression and didn't argue when I asked him to step aside. I picked up a stick lying nearby, washed ashore by the waves, and aimlessly twirled it in my hand, pondering how to tell everything.

After the quester disappeared, my companions decided to complete today's training first and discuss everything in detail in the evening. Such tardiness was not advisable for me. So I called Ender aside and was now thinking about which words to choose.

"So." The sheriff couldn't stand the silence. "What happened? I can see that something did happen."

"My plans have changed. Abruptly and not by my will."

"I'm listening." Ender is not angry; his voice is more business-like than annoyed.

Having failed to come up with a way to explain everything covertly, I decided to speak bluntly, though I was sure that the Sacred Veil would conceal my words.

"I need to raise my rank to Bronze within three weeks. If I don't manage this, I will die."

"Repeat..." The sheriff shook his head. "I didn't mishear, a rank in three weeks?!"

"Did you understand what I said?" I was genuinely surprised.

"I did and did not. I understood the words, but not quite their meaning. Raise a rank in three weeks when you recently attained Iron? This is impossible, even for you!"

Apparently, because I didn't mention that I am from another planet or about the quester, the Sacred Veil didn't work.

"You didn't mishear. Yes, I need to reach Bronze within three weeks. And I disagree with you: technically, it's possible," I objected. "A dozen dungeons cleared solo will provide me with the Core density necessary for reassembly."

"A dozen?" The sheriff shook his head. "No, that's not enough! Even if you somehow find that many unclaimed dungeons, even if you clear them alone and survive, it will not be enough. Two dozen, yes, I could believe, but a dozen – definitely not."

"It will be enough - I have certain buffs for filling the Core."

"Certain?" The sheriff asked again.

"Substantial." If you add up all the bonuses from completing the trials, I wasn't understating.

"Still!" Ender shook his head. "This is madness! You survived once after going solo, but that doesn't guarantee that you'll do it a dozen times in a row and stay alive!"

"Stop." I halted him with a gesture as he was about to unleash a torrent of words. "This is not my whim. Not my decision. It's a condition for my survival. And I have only two options. The first is to spend three weeks in relaxation, drunkenness, and debauchery, so dying won't be so painful. The second is to get off my ass and try to accomplish, as you say, the 'impossible.' Again, this is not my choice."

"I see." The sheriff was surprisingly calm. "Well, I understand the conditions. And as far as I can tell, you're not planning to sit around and relax for three weeks."

"Exactly." I can't help but smile at how serious Ender's expression is right now. "How many iron dungeons are there in the archipelago?"

"Twenty-four," the sheriff replied without a second thought. Apparently, as a member of the Tunnellers' Guild, he made it a habit to find out everything about all the dungeons in the area. "But we are not on the mainland. You physically won't be able to reach more than a third. He raised a finger. "Even if we assume that you'll be extremely lucky with the ship routes. For instance, the nearest vessel will dock in Unudo tonight, but then it will head towards the capital island, and you don't need to go there. This is the sea, Raven, there are no regular roads here, and you can't cross it on foot."

He's right, and besides, there is no schedule for transportation in the sense that I am accustomed to in this world. There are rough estimates and equally wobbly directions, which can alter at any moment due to changes in the weather or trade.

"Look." Ender takes the stick from me and starts drawing in the sand. "This is the Isle of Un." A small circle appears first in the sand. "This is the Isle of Du." Another one is drawn right next to it. "A dozen hours with a favorable wind. It is on this island that Lao Fan's allies live, and the nearest copper dungeons to us are located." A short pause, and three more circles appear in the sand. "You're not interested in these islets. There's one dungeon on each, and they're all Bronze. Quad, the nearest of the islands with Iron dungeons, is here." The tip of the stick drew a circle in the distance. "More than a day's sail on a good junk, which goes directly, without stopping at other ports."

"Are there such trips?" It seems that everything will be much more complicated than I thought.

"Yes, one captain specifically sails the 'iron route,' as the locals call the path connecting the islands with iron dungeons." But before I could get too excited, the sheriff continued. "Alas, this ship doesn't stop at Un. As you like to say, 'theoretically,' you could get here." The stick points to the already familiar circle of the island Quad. "And wait there for this captain. But he won't wait for you and might only reach Quad in a month!"

"Oh!" I'm only now beginning to realize the depth of the mess the questers have thrown me into.

Damn it! They remember the past Cycles. Yes, they might not know that I have acquired their memory ability, but they surely remember that my past self killed one of them. Isn't this mission some kind of revenge for that act?

"How much is it to rent a ship for three weeks?" I ask.

"Renting the shabbiest junk will cost you five gold a day," Ender brings me back down to earth.

"Crap!" I can't help it and kick the innocent sand with my foot.

Ender's stick draws a zigzag line far from Un.

"Your only chance, as I see it," he says, "is to get to the mainland. In about two or three days, the 'Free Wind' should approach Un. This vessel always follows the same route, and after our island, it heads to the mainland. The journey will take another three days."

"A huge waste of time," I say through gritted teeth. "And there's no guarantee that I'll be able to quickly find my way on the mainland."

"Well, you don't have many options here. There are no ships at Un right now, and the closest one that is supposed to dock at the city's port is the 'Free Wind'." He shakes his head. "Sure, fishing boats and small coastal vessels might come in earlier, but you won't get far on them."

"Can these coastal vessels get me at least to Quad?" I grasp at straws.

"Hmm." The sheriff scratches his chin. "They, of course, crawl through the sea slowly, unlike the trading junks, but they might. And you can haggle with them to slightly change the route for a couple of dozen silver."

"Let's take this as a working option for now," I say, rubbing my temples. "Can you show where the nearest islands with Iron are?"

"I can, but it's better to go to the marshal; there's a detailed map of the archipelago there."

"I'm afraid I'm not in the mood for training today."

"Alright, I'll give instructions to my assistants, and we'll go to the marshal." He gets to his feet and winks. "Even if we don't come up with anything, at least there's beer there!"

The sheriff was gone for no more than ten minutes, and when he returned to the shore, we immediately headed towards the town.

"By the way, what's the fastest ship in the archipelago?" With the craziest plans forming in my head, I ask.

"Of course, it's the 'Defector'!" Ender grins. "It was built according to the Trade League's blueprints and is twice as fast as the local vessels. Tall masts, square sails, sleek lines, and it has a keel, unlike the local flat-bottomed boats! It can't carry as much cargo as junks of a similar size – only about a third, but Maestro Larindel isn't after bulk goods. He prefers hunting for rarities and stories."

"Stories?" I don't understand.

"Ah... Don't mind it, the Defector's captain is a half-blood Sidhe; he has these..." Ender spreads his arms wide, "...jellyfish in his head."

"Jellyfish in his head?" He's completely lost me now.

"I mean, he's a little eccentric. He has enough money, and his motives and behavior are strange even by my standards. For a bet, he might drop everything and sail wherever his eyes take him if he finds the said bet interesting. Last year he heard about a man who was swallowed by a whale. Swallowed, then spit out, and Larindel spent six months searching for him throughout the archipelago, completely ignoring all trade. And do you know why he was looking for this man?"

This novel is published on a different platform. Support the original author by finding the official source.

"Why?" I dutifully ask.

"He wanted to hear his story. That's it. Can you believe it? Wasted half a year just to listen to what someone has to say."

"Half-blood Sidhe live three times longer than humans." I shrug. "Sometimes it's hard for us to understand them. By the way, did he find the man swallowed by the whale?"

"What?!" Ender even stopped. "Of course not! It's just a tale, a sea rumor that resurfaces every ten years here and there."

"Is there a way to get in touch with the 'Defector'?" A plan began to take shape in my head.

"I don't have one." Ender shrugged but then suddenly stopped so abruptly that I ran into his back. "Wait. Maestro Larindel has some business with the stone master whom you know. At least when the 'Defector' docks at Unudo, its captain always visits the recluse." The sheriff turned to face me. "Do you want to intrigue Larindel with your 'Raise Rank in Three Weeks' story?"

"Yes."

"This might actually work!" Ender clapped his hands. "We just need to find out if Laoy has a way to send a message to the 'Defector'."

Having said that, the sheriff turned around and began walking away from the town. That's what I liked about him – once he made up his mind about something, he got to it immediately, without any procrastination. As we walked to the recluse Laoy's estate, the sheriff was thinking aloud, and each of his thoughts eventually came to the same conclusion. That the task I set for myself was impossible.

In theory, it could be done, and if I were a royal or ducal heir with unlimited resources, who could buy up dungeons left and right, something might work. But in my case, even if Ender invested all his savings, it wouldn't be enough to buy up the number of dungeons we'd need. And without buying them, nobody would let me in because it would lead to significant financial losses for local tunnellers. Of course, I could try sneaking up to the Gate. But that might work once, maybe twice, but eventually, I would be caught and, if not executed, then jailed, which in my case means failure and death. The situation was complicated by the fact that we were not on the mainland, and even if I had managed to enter a dungeon secretly, I would still need to find a way to escape the island unnoticed. The more I listened to Ender, the more I realized he was right.

"So you suggest I just sit down and give up?" I couldn't hold it any longer as we were approaching the recluse's house.

But before the sheriff could answer, the estate door opened, and the stone master stepped onto the threshold.

"Ender!" The hobbyist collector shouted. "Tell your companion that his spear will only be ready tomorrow."

"And a good day to you too, kind sir," the sheriff loudly greeted him back, then turned to me and whispered, "Wait for me here." He then cracked the gate and addressed Laoy. "I'm here on different business."

"Come in," the stone master waved his hand. "Come in alone."

Nodding to the sheriff, I stayed behind the fence. My thoughts were racing in my head like a flock of frightened pigeons. The more I thought about the new questers' task, the more clearly I realized how unattainable it was for me. For me, specifically, since I had just recently elevated my rank. Even my companions will find it difficult to achieve within such a short time frame, but they at least have a slight head start, and elevating from Copper to Iron is almost twice as easy as doing the same from Iron to Bronze.

Could it be that this task is really a form of the questers' revenge for one of them being killed in the last Cycle? But this thought seems far-fetched, as I remember that they are more like magical automatons rather than living beings with free will and emotions. But even knowing this, the thought of revenge as a motive for this task doesn't leave me.

Sitting on a boulder near the fence, I rubbed my temples with my palms. As far as I could recall, questers never issued tasks that were impossible in principle. This means there is a way out for me; I just need to find it.

If I had appeared again in Ain in the area of the great Patanga swamps this Cycle, like last time, I would have completed this task. I would have succeeded because I knew where to go, what to look for, and how to get stronger. Within a week, I would have gathered several artifacts and soloed two or three higher-level dungeons. With heroic-class artifacts, this would have been quite possible. And that would have been enough for Elevation. But the great Patanga swamps are halfway across the world, and I don't know the secrets of the archipelago. I am unfamiliar with places here where treasures are hidden for centuries or secret "sleeping" dungeons lie.

The longer I think, the more I lean toward the idea that I need to get to the mainland as quickly as possible. Somehow find an Altar of Shadow, learn the "Cloak of Shadows" spell through it, and actually "steal" dungeons. That won't work on the archipelago; Ender is right: even if I'm successful, just getting off the island unnoticed won't be easy. But on the mainland, one can disappear. Such a plan was also full of holes and most likely led to failure, but it was, albeit minimal, a chance. Staying on the archipelago without my own ship, which would obey my orders on where to sail, meant condemning myself to be erased due to a failed task.

I didn't really believe that something would work out with the "Defector," as Ender said. Some Sidhe half-bloods are indeed strange, and what the sheriff told about Maestro Larindel was just the tip of the iceberg. Most elves have trouble distinguishing fiction from reality. It is probably because the hidden forests of the Sidhe are essentially another space, not just an enchanted yet ordinary forest. In the last Cycle, "I" heard many stories about Sidhe half-bloods that resembled jokes rather than the truth. But many of those stories turned out to be true in the end.

Although, the older an elf gets and the longer they live among humans, the more reasonable they become compared to their younger kin. If I understood Laoy's and Ender's stories correctly, the captain of the "Defector" is about a hundred years old, which means it's possible to find common ground with him. But still, relying on this is not an option; the outcome is too unpredictable to bet my life on it. However, these thoughts are probably useless anyway since the stone master likely has no way to contact Larindel. Communication artifacts are so rare that not all royal houses possess them. So, I don't believe that such a rarity would be found in such a backwater place.

"Come in," my thoughts were interrupted by Ender, who appeared in the doorway.

Wow, what on earth did the sheriff say to the recluse that he's willing to let two guests into his house at once? As soon as I stepped onto the porch and entered the building, I was met by Laoy's scrutinizing gaze.

"I have a signal artifact." In the recluse's palm lay a fragile-looking glass orb.

Ah! Not a communication artifact, but something akin to a magical signal flare, which can only be seen by the holder of a second similar item. How did I not think of that immediately? Such things are pretty common in Ain, and many mages of Sapphire rank and above can create them. These signal orbs must be crafted to pass the exam for the Artifactors' Guild.

"Maestro Larindel left it with me with the request to break it if I find an interesting story," the recluse doesn't take his eyes off me. "Sheriff Ender is trying to convince me that your story is interesting enough. But is it?"

"Raven, show him," the sheriff nods.

He was just convincing me not to stick my neck out and not to spread rumors about me, and now he's telling me to do the exact opposite.

"Under my responsibility," the sheriff continues to press.

In principle, I don't lose anything. It's highly unlikely that recluse Laoy would run around telling everyone what he learned about me. It doesn't match his character.

"Alright," I agree and visualize the achievement.

"Ahem," the stone master coughs as he scrutinizes the Sign.

Realizing what this Sign represented, the recluse wobbled, and, to stay on his feet, he grabbed onto the wall. Meanwhile, the glass orb slipped from his hand, hit the stone floor, and shattered. A faint wave of magic swept through the hallway and disappeared as if it had never been there.

"Ha!" the sheriff laughed. "See, Laoy? Fate decided for you!"

"Pure Palm of Five Emp..." the stone master started to say, but the sheriff immediately placed a hand over his mouth.

"This stays between us," Ender winked at him. "You didn't think I'd take just anyone as an apprentice, did you?" The sheriff's words showed so much pride and smugness, as if it was he who had defeated the Monkey King alone. "Raven is no ordinary person, and what you just saw is only the beginning of his Story." He patted the recluse on the shoulder. "Don't worry - Maestro Larindel will be very pleased with your call."

The stone master turned out to be a bit more impressionable than I thought at our first meeting. The sheriff and I had to seat him in a chair and bring a glass of water, and only after taking several big gulps did the house owner come to his senses. When his gaze cleared, the sheriff gestured for me to go outside. Remembering the recluse's peculiar temperament, I didn't argue and left the house.

Sitting on the porch steps, I couldn't help but smile. The expression on Laoy's face when he saw the Sign of achievement, "Pure Palm of Five Empty Fingers," was simply indescribable. Strange, such a small thing, but it lifted my spirits a bit. Ranting and raving about the impossibility of completing a given task is, of course, a natural human reaction, but there is not much sense in letting it overpower oneself. On the other hand, it's also impossible to switch off one's feelings and experiences like a toggle.

So as not to sit idly by, I delved into meditation and, detaching from the world around me, began practicing the Basic Cross. The usefulness of this practice is that it occupies all streams of your consciousness. And if you still have the capacity to think and worry about a problem, it only means that there is one more unused stream of consciousness that can be occupied by another aura.

"Let's go," said Ender, coming out of the recluse's house. "And don't worry, Laoy isn't the kind to spread rumors."

"Is there any information on the arrival of the 'Defector'?" I asked, getting to my feet.

"No," the sheriff shook his head. "How could there be? Laoy only had a regular signaling artifact without any feedback."

"Yes, I understand that, but what if."

"'But what if,'" my mentor smiled. "What an expressive phrase; I need to remember it."

"Am I correct," I began again as we walked a hundred steps away from the stone master's house, "in understanding that we don't know when the 'Defector' will appear off the coast of Un and whether Maestro Larindel will even respond to the call?"

"Well..." The sheriff scratched his chin and continued. "Knowing Larindel a bit, I can say that he will most likely rush here after receiving this call. Unless, of course, he is busy with something important. But we don't know where his ship is, so we can't even guess when he'll arrive."

"When, according to you, arrives at Un the 'Free Wind,' the ship going to the mainland?"

"Two to three, maximum four days," Ender answered after counting something in his head.

"I can't take such a risk," I shrugged regretfully. "If the 'Defector' doesn't appear off the island soon, I'll leave Un on board the 'Free Wind'."

"Do you think that's wise?" Ender asked.

"Yes. The 'Defector' could be anywhere in the archipelago. And even if its captain has already weighed anchor and is rushing to Un under full sail, he may have been too far, to begin with."

"On one hand, you're right. On the other, Maestro Larindel is a Ruby mage and a master of Air. There's no faster ship in the entire archipelago than the 'Defector'."

"Is the 'Defector' capable of crossing the entire archipelago in a couple of days?" I asked.

"No," my mentor shook his head. "At best, even for this ship, the journey would take a week in favorable weather."

"See," I frowned. "That's why the risk is too high."

"Alright," Ender agreed with me. "It's your life."

"And also..."

"Yes?"

"My companions, they have the same survival conditions."

"You're not joking, are you?" The sheriff stopped dead in his tracks.

"Unfortunately, no."

"Well, we'll come up with something," Ender said with a clap of his hands.

"They also have significant bonuses to Elevation," I added. "Already now, thanks just to training alone, they have filled their Cores by almost one-tenth."

"Oh, wow!" The sheriff was genuinely surprised. "I wonder, where did you such come from all of a sudden? Hey! Don't answer! That was a rhetorical question! Let's go to our hill, finish training, and meet at the marshal. We'll sit down with the archipelago map and figure out what's what."

"I'm all for it."