Water-Repelling Beads are a setting in the game “Return of the Voyage,” and are now considered a specialty of Mercury.
Holding this bead in your mouth allows you to breathe underwater.
One bead enables underwater breathing for 12 hours.
As a common specialty, these beads are also extremely easy to obtain—you just need to press sand from the seabed into a ball and expose it to direct sunlight; after a week, it will transform into a Water-Repelling Bead.
It’s because of this miraculous and convenient method of mutation that Water-Repelling Beads have always been called “the Sea God’s Blessing” by the people of Mercury.
When Sules used to play the game, she would mock the game developers for being careless, believing they could come up with such nonsense.
Now that she’s genuinely in the game, she can’t help but exclaim from the bottom of her heart, “Thank you, Lord Sea God.”
Sules’s diving suit was light green and a one-piece, which she had designed herself when playing the game.
The suit felt very smooth on her skin.
She hadn’t researched what material it was made of before, but vaguely remembered it being some kind of seaweed.
After putting on the suit, she opened the ship’s door and jumped into the sea.
Her neat short hair meant she didn’t need to do much to enter the water directly.
Sules had been an excellent swimmer back on Earth, and now with the Water-Repelling Bead, going into the sea was even less of a concern.
Claire wore a brown diving suit.
She quickly tied her long hair into a bun and then followed Sules into the sea.
The two swam a little further away, then leisurely trod water.
Sules suddenly remembered something.
She opened the system panel in front of Claire and stared intently at Claire’s expression.
The girl opposite showed no abnormality; when she felt Sules’s gaze, she even blinked at her in confusion, as if asking a question.
‘Looks like she can’t see the system panel,’ Sules nodded knowingly.
“I’m starting the upgrade!”
As she said this, she directly scrolled the system panel to the upgrade button at the very bottom, then pressed it without hesitation.
The next second, with a rumble, the small boat, which had been not far from their sight, suddenly trembled.
Something like smoke rose around it.
The smoke gradually thickened, eventually enveloping the entire small boat, leaving no visible gaps.
Sules and Claire exchanged surprised glances, both beginning to anticipate what the remodeled ship would look like.
With such a grand commotion, it couldn’t possibly start strong and then disappoint, could it?
Sules glanced at the system panel and saw the upgrade time clearly displayed at the bottom.
Time required for upgrade: 09:32
The time was constantly decreasing.
This was measured in minutes, meaning the ship would take a little over nine more minutes to be fully refitted.
Nine minutes was too long to just wait.
Sules quickly grew bored after a few glances at the smoke.
Compared to that, she was clearly more interested in what lay deep in the ocean.
Back on Earth, although Sules was an excellent swimmer, she was always busy with company affairs and had no time to go diving at the beach.
So her swimming prowess was more about technique than lung capacity.
Now, with the Water-Repelling Bead allowing her to disregard lung capacity, Sules naturally wanted to explore the seabed thoroughly.
She turned to Claire and said, “Claire, the ship still needs some time to upgrade. Why don’t we go stay in the sea?”
Claire was clearly completely uninterested in such an activity and even found Sules’s current enthusiasm puzzling, “I get seasick just going underwater, and you want to go down to play? What’s there to see down there? Especially in the shallow waters, there’s nothing.”
Sules hadn’t seen what the seabed was like here.
Even if there was truly nothing, it should still be interesting to her.
Thinking this, she coughed and said with a smile, “I haven’t been underwater for a while, and it’s been a long time since I came to the shallow waters. I really miss it. How about this: you watch the ship here, and I’ll go down and take a look.”
Claire nodded indifferently, “Alright, you go ahead. I’ll wait for you up here.”
Sules nodded excitedly and plunged into the water.
As soon as she entered the sea, she felt a bit unaccustomed, instinctively holding her breath and not daring to breathe.
However, she knew rationally that it was likely fine to breathe now.
After much mental preparation, Sules gently took a breath.
The air in the sea was a bit different from that on land.
It had a slightly salty sensation and a strong fishy smell, but this didn’t bother Sules, who had been going to the market every day recently.
After adapting for a while, she could breathe freely underwater.
Since it was shallow water, the sea here wasn’t very deep, Sules estimated it was only about three or four meters.
This meant their ship was small; if they had been large ships, they wouldn’t have been able to maneuver from here and would have had to enter the sea from the other side of the pier.
As Claire said, the seabed had nothing but a few small fish and seaweed.
Nevertheless, such a view was enough to excite her.
After all, this was the underwater world!
After swimming for a long time, Sules was a bit tired.
Her stamina, which hadn’t increased much compared to modern times, was insufficient to support her ambition of exploring the ocean.
Seeing that the time was almost up, she pushed off with her legs and swam to the surface.
Sules emerged at just the right moment.
The mist that had enveloped the ship quietly dispersed, revealing its true form.
It was still a crescent-shaped hull, but its size had doubled, and the ship’s walls were a bit higher.
It finally felt a bit safer, no longer the shaky little wreck that swayed with every wave.
Looking up slightly, a huge triangular white sail came into view, something Sules’s original ship didn’t have.
With a sail, the ship truly gained the ability to sail on the open sea.
“Wait? White sails?”
Sules pulled at the corner of her mouth, suddenly realizing something.
These sails were clearly made of cloth, which must be why fabric was among the required upgrade materials.
Most of the fabric on her ship was white, which was probably why the sails were white.
Sules suddenly understood how she should decorate her ship, just prepare the materials in the desired way.
New knowledge acquired!
Claire, who clearly knew more about ships, immediately exclaimed with surprise, “It’s a single-masted lateen-rigged ship!”
Lateen-rigged ship?
Such a distant and unfamiliar term.
Sules looked at the ship in front of her, lost in thought.
She recalled when she first played “Return to Sail,” she quickly spent money to upgrade her ship because she liked the art style.
The first upgrade, she seemed to remember, was called something like a “lateen-rigged ship.”
Claire had already excitedly swum to the side of the ship and turned to shout at Sules, “Sules, what are you waiting for? Get on board!”
“Coming!”
Sules replied, swimming over and boarding the ship with her.
As soon as she stepped onto the deck, a system prompt sounded in her ear:
“Ding! Congratulations, player, on completing the quest. Please go to the system panel to collect your quest reward.”
Now was definitely not the time to check.
Sules suppressed her excitement and began observing the ship’s new changes.
The biggest change was undoubtedly the increased space; the deck was almost twice as large as before.
The view was much more open, and it finally looked a bit like a ship sailing on the vast ocean.
Sules looked up at the mast, something her ship didn’t have before.
The sails on the mast could help the ship navigate the ocean using the wind, making them one of the most important components for ships in this sail-powered era without electricity.
Since Sules had played sailing games before, she knew a little about these things.
Single-masted ships were not very popular in this era; real merchant and warships that could sail the seas usually had at least three masts.
Now that was magnificent.
If she wasn’t mistaken, the next time it upgraded, this ship would probably become a three-masted one.
She nodded knowingly and walked a few steps to the cabin door.
Compared to before, the cabin had clearly grown quite a bit.
The width alone had increased significantly, and while the height had changed somewhat, it wasn’t a huge difference.
After pushing open the door and entering, Sules immediately felt relieved.
The small room had transformed into two rooms, each with two beds and a table, neat and clean.
White sheets covered the beds, giving Sules a faint feeling of being in a hotel.
It was clear these were purely for accommodation.
In her original world, it would probably have been renovated into a one-bedroom apartment rather than two dormitories like this.
However, this was good news for Sules, because a living room was useless to her, but more beds clearly meant more crew members could be added.
She walked into the cabin with satisfaction and casually found a bed to sit on.
A moment later, Claire also entered.
Seeing the changes in the cabin, her eyes widened in surprise.
She explored inside and out twice before sitting down next to Sules.
After a moment of calm, Claire sighed, “Wow! The changes are huge! The whole environment has improved so much. I just went to the back of the ship to look, and the cockpit is a bit more luxurious, and the kitchen finally has a stove and a pot! Finally, we won’t have to eat only prepared dry rations on our ship anymore!”
Hearing this, Sules’ eyes lit up, “That’s fantastic! Finally, no more eating that stuff!”
In just a few seconds, several coastal delicacies flashed through her mind.
Claire nodded, then said somewhat apologetically, “Unfortunately, my cooking isn’t very good. I probably can’t make anything too difficult. I think I can only simply boil fish or something.”
Indeed, Claire was a Level 1 Chef, which basically meant a basic understanding of cooking utensils and making edible food.
Sules snapped her fingers, “Don’t worry, if we have time, I’ll do the cooking!”
Claire asked in surprise, “Sules, you can cook too?”
Sules nodded. As an orphaned woman living alone, she couldn’t possibly order takeout all year round.
Plus, she had nothing else to do besides studying, so Sules had developed excellent cooking skills.
“Don’t worry, I promise to amaze you then!”