Chapter 18: 18. Evolve

The mission was a long way, 177 nautical miles in total according to the charts, but with plenty of time to get there in just seven days, Raine and the crew were perfectly in time.

Of course, this is where the advantages of having a large crew come into play.

Terry, Avril and Armin, and Arsan could take turns operating the hand-cranked thrusters, and with four people working in shifts, no one would be too tired to sail 30 nautical miles in a day and arrive well within the time limit.

"Hey, why isn't anyone controlling the rudder, Captain, you just take control of the rudder and we'll crank the thrusters," Terry said.

At that very moment, a human male voice suddenly sounded from the empty bow, "I'll take control of the rudder."

Raine's sudden appearance startled the Terry family and all three men looked at Avril in horror, "Captain, is that, is that who is speaking? Is this ... is this a ghost ship?"

"Ghosts my ass!" Raine said nonchalantly, "I am this ship, and I am also the captain and helmsman of this ship."

The three men's eyes almost glazed over as they looked to Avril for help, but Avril simply nodded to them.

"Avril, talk to them, how can you be my crew when you're scared like this little encounter!"

Avril was too qualified to communicate with them, when she had just heard Raine's voice she was scared half to death too, only at that time she was so sad that she didn't act so exaggerated.

After some communication, the three of them finally understood what was going on.

"Well, now you understand, don't worry, I'm just a boat, I'm not going to eat you, why are you so nervous?" Raine said lightly, "You are also my crew now, I hope we can work together, in this Azure Era, only when we are strong ourselves, we can live better!"

"Aye ...... aye, Captain," Terry replied warily.

Raine didn't want to enlighten them any further and continued, "Arsan, get hungry? I have some dried fishes here, you can eat first and catch more if you don't have enough, there is no reason for my crew to go hungry."

"Captain, but ......" said Arsan hesitantly, "I may be a bit of a big eater."

"I know, you're in the mutation stage."

"mutation!" The crowd gasped in disbelief.

Raine said blandly, "The sea monster you encountered the other day may have been an alienated female that had come into contact with Arsan, causing changes to Arsan's body, you don't have to worry, her mutation is benign and it's not contagious."

"Really? Arsan, you ... you've really mutated?"

Arsan knew that her body was undergoing some wonderful changes, but she had been too afraid to tell anyone for fear of being driven away, and now Raine said this, which was a relief.

"Captain, am I really benignly mutated?"

"Eh, your strength is growing and the cells in your lungs are dividing so quickly that they could potentially develop into fish gills."

"I can't believe it's a diving mutation, great Arsan, we've got a mutation in the family too!"

Raine looked at the happy group, it seemed that people didn't mind too much about human appearance now, they were more interested in evolving the ability to adapt themselves to survive in this world.

And yes, what was the point of looking good and not being able to live, it was more practical to have something practical, especially for these civilians.

In the two days that followed, the Arsan family gradually became less afraid of Raine, and the fact that Raine could actually tell that Arsan was evolving somehow made them trust the peculiar captain even more.

Avril told them some precautions, such as not to reveal the identity of the captain when there were people, and according to Raine, when there were people around them, everyone still went by Avril as the captain.

The Arsan family said yes repeatedly.

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The group had to stop along the way to catch fish because of Arsan's heavy appetite, but it was still in time.

Seven days later Raine finally arrived at the Mississippi market and completed the transport.

Avril got another white pearl and their total wealth came to 4 white pearls!

Raine had previously used seven units of timber in a very extravagant way to build the simple cabin, and at this point, with the increase in the crew he had built a seawater purification unit, so Raine was now three white pearls short of buying enough timber.

After a day's stay in Mississippi, they never received a mission, and thinking about what Goldwell had said earlier, Raine turned around and headed back to Morgan's Trading Post.

........................

The man was not a bad person, though his eyes were a bit lustful and he couldn't stop looking at Avril, and he kept picking out the rest of the assignments for them.

Understandably, it's rare to see a woman of some beauty at sea. So if you can't eat it, at least you can see it.

A month later, when Avril was paid for her latest mission, they finally had enough for seven white pearls!

Raine then immediately sailed the boat, headed to the trading area, and purchased 70 timbers.

"No rush now, go where no one at night!" Raine lowered his voice and said impatiently.

Avril immediately complied and waited until night, when all the boats around them had extinguished their fires before they quietly left the trading market and headed off into the distance.

It was the first time that the family had seen such an amazing sight, the huge amount of wood being cut, sanded, polished, and pieced together with unimaginable speed. It was Avril and White, on the other hand, who looked almost as excited and anticipatory as Raine.

"Wow, look at this keel, it's at least seven or eight meters long! It's so thick!"

"The hull is so spacious, at least three meters! My goodness!"

"The craftsmanship is perfect, the mortise and tenon inlay is tight, not a single gap ...... Wow, what is that? A self-contained cabin? It's so spacious!"

These were not Raine's words, but Avril's, and Raine grimaced. Avril had stolen all his lines!

But Raine had come to trust Avril after all this time, she was a good-hearted, trustworthy, intelligent and capable girl.

"Hey, also beautiful yes, but I can't do ......" Raine let out a long sigh.

"Eh? Captain, what are you talking about?"

"Nah, nothing, I said you're smart and capable."

"No, you just said I couldn't do it, how come I can't do it?"

"Uh ...... You can do it, it's me that can't do it, all right!"

"No, you are our captain, you can do it too, you can do anything!"

Raine's heart was in agony, he's a boat, how can he do it!?

Without Raine's bleeping, the system was getting lazy and it took eight minutes to finish building the new ship.

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