Chapter 822 822 Ship Investigation

After two days of relaxing fun on the beach and swimming through the walled parts of the ocean, it was finally the night that the mysterious ship was to arrive.

'Mraz, are you in position?' Marcus asked.

'Yeah, I should be high up enough to where no one can easily see me, and I have a full visual on the resort.' Mrazivý responded.

'Got it. Keep an eye out for the ship for me. I am ready to go whenever it arrives.'

Floating just beyond the gate of the resort, Marcus waited for their target to arrive.

While he did that, Mrazivý was positioned several miles up in the air and looking down at a wide range to keep an eye out for the ship's approach. Her vision was good enough that she could see clearly over vast areas that far exceeded what Marcus could.

This made her perfect to act as a lookout, and for Marcus to be the infiltrator.

As much as Mrazivý wanted to sneak onboard as well, there was simply too much disparity between their stealth skills. Under most circumstances Marcus was completely undetectable.

'Anything yet?' Marcus asked after nearly two hours had passed.

'No, as far as I can see there are no ships on the horizon. But it is supposed to come in like clockwork from what I was able to gather so it should honestly be within the range of my sight by now if it is going to be on schedule.' Mrazivý said with a frustrated tone.

However, all they could do was continue to wait for the ship to arrive.

Time seemed to move by incredibly slowly as they kept and eye out for their target, until finally, Mrazivý spotted something from her position high in the sky.

'Marcus it just appeared!' Mrazivý shouted over their telepathic connection.

Coming out of his stupor Marcus became immediately alert and looked out towards where he expected it to be coming from.

Yet it was still not in his range of sight, so he asked Mrazivý where exactly it was going from.

'The ship is in front and slightly to the right of you. But when I said it appeared, I meant that it suddenly just warped out of nowhere! Even though it is not a large ship, for it to be equipped with the ability to teleport is preposterous. It must take an immense amount of mana to move it from place to place that way.'

Marcus could hear the shock and awe in Mrazivý's voice, and he completely understood.

He had a unique skill that essentially allowed him to warp from one place to another and it took quite a bit of mana for him to create a portal just for himself. Plus, his unique skill had stipulations to it that prevented most individuals from using it. He could not imagine ho many resources it took to teleport an entire ship around.

Nevertheless, Marcus could not just keep floating around stunned by this information and quickly began flying towards the ship.

He wanted to finish his investigation of the vessel before it reached the resort and would likely have far more security around it.

But now he had far less time than anticipated since it had simply appeared only thirty miles away from the resort's wall. Far enough away to not be spotted warping in by the guards on the walls, but close enough to where the remaining journey would not take very long.

At the very least this meant that the ship did not have any extra escorts and Marcus only needed to worry about whatever defenses were already there.

Soon enough the sleek black vessel came into view and Marcus could immediately see that it was well guarded.

'Yep, those are homunculi as well. Though they are far stronger than the ones that serve as staff on the resort.' Marcus thought while examining the people he could see on the deck of the ship.

It was not very large in comparison to the cruise ships, being only around a hundred feet long and only having two decks.

'The cargo hold must be pretty small, but whatever it is carrying should be important. If we are lucky, it will be bringing in the pseudo soul fragments.'

Steeling himself, Marcus floated down towards the deck and carefully examined the area.

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He had rarely run into magic enchantments that could detect him while ethereal, but they did exist, and he needed to watch out for them.

Thankfully, while the vessel did have plenty of magical formations to keep it protected and undetected, there was nothing that was a threat to Marcus so long as he stayed in his ghost form.

Still, he proceeded with caution, nonetheless. He had walked into plenty of situations where he was detected unexpectedly. The most recent one being his encounter with the resort's guild master that was still fresh in his mind.

'Crew quarter, crew quarter… ah the cargo hold!'

After searching for around a minute Marcus found what he was looking for.

Inside the cargo hold were a number of sealed crates and a dozen guards that were all geared up in adamantine armor.

Frankly it could be considered excessive protection, but it showed just how much the mastermind behind the resort valued these shipments.

Unfortunately, their defenses were ill equipped to deal with Marcus and he simply pashed his head into one of the crates and looked inside.

The first thing he saw was a white powder that brought up an illicit substance he remembered from Earth.

Except on closer examination, he found that it was not any sort of drug but finely ground bone dust.

'What the hell?!' Was all Marcus could think seeing this.

Unsure why simple bone dust was being so carefully guarded he slipped out of the first crate and into the next.

What he found there was more of the same, and it was not until he searched the sixth crate that he found something else.