Chapter 344: Chapter 344

With a dull thud, a transparent water balloon, tossed into the air by a rope, burst open in mid-air, precisely pierced by a bullet.

Jason lowered the long-handled Vibrating Stone Gun - Emerald Shooter in his hand. He was practicing his shooting and had been doing so for quite a while now, wiping the sweat from his forehead. The sun in the sky was exceptionally dazzling, and his current practice involved precision shooting operations under its glaring light.

He casually felt his pouch, only to find he had once again used up all his practice ammunition. Cradling the Emerald Shooter, he sat down on the deck.

He patted the mainmast. "Thanks."

The one practicing with him, using ropes to help him toss various small aiming objects, was none other than the Sound of Dawn. As their voyage lengthened, and with Alka’s enlightenment, the Sound of Dawn, having become a Ghost Ship, grew increasingly intelligent. This was because the three Treasures already on board all emitted Energy that influenced the ship. This enabled it to understand everyone’s words and commands with great precision, controlling the ship’s ropes to help Jason toss objects.

Jason retreated into the shade of the mainmast to avoid the scorching sun. Various simple maintenance tools appeared in his hands, and he began to service his firearm. After some simple maintenance, he stored the Emerald Shooter in his Pocket Ring.

Leaning against the mast, he found himself with nothing to do.

"Aaargh! So boring!" Jason couldn’t resist shouting. They were still sailing along the Advance Passage on the edge of the Sea of All Beings.

But the Advance Passage was truly desolate. Since leaving the Homeland Sea, they had been sailing on the Advance Passage for nearly two months now. Apart from earlier seeing those few ships that had left Shipwreck Island with them being chased by a Silver Threads Sea Beast, they hadn’t encountered any other vessels.

Firstly, they were the fastest among their batch, far ahead of the other departing ships. Secondly, the world rifts in the Sea of All Beings had not opened. After all, there were only four sea domains in total, and the opening interval for each was generally ten years, sometimes even more. And each sea domain didn’t open at the same time. This made encountering people from other world sea domains on the Advance Passage exceedingly rare, almost impossible. Not to mention, fish were scarce in this sea domain, and birds were almost never seen.

Hearing Jason’s loud shout, Juanlu, in the crow’s nest atop the mast, poked his head out and glanced at him. Follow current novels on novel•fire.net

"Jason’s acting up again," he muttered to himself, then pulled his head back in.

At that moment, besides the two of them, there was no one else on the open deck. Chadite and the other two women were in Lucilia’s room, doing who knows what. Alka had once again holed himself up in the crafting hall, pondering something—apparently a new Puppet Girl. As for Pororo, he seemed to be fishing in the sea.

Alka’s voice came from the lower deck. Hearing it, Jason remembered what he was supposed to be doing. He immediately ran towards the lower cabins, shouting back as he went, "Coming, coming!"

He arrived at Alka’s crafting hall. As soon as he entered, Alka admonished him, "Didn’t I tell you to be more punctual? Your bullet engraving still isn’t up to standard."

Jason quickly forced a smile and nodded in agreement, but his attention was drawn to the surrounding environment. The crafting hall was now filled with all sorts of silver threads, hanging everywhere. Their source could be traced to an ordinary, shapeless puppet.

Seeing this, Jason pointed at the puppet and asked, "Is this the new Puppet Girl you’re making? Are those threads the silver strands we collected on deck earlier? Are you planning for this puppet to use them?"

Hearing Jason’s question, Alka turned to look, then nodded. "That’s right," he said. "These silver threads are for a special function for the next Puppet Girl. I have a good idea I want to try out. It’s almost finished. After I’m done teaching you, I’ll proceed with the final step."

Hearing that only the final step remained, Jason grinned. "Well then, why don’t you finish it first, and we can call it a day?"

"No," Alka said, waving his hand in refusal. "Today, we’ll train you one last time, and then you’ll have pretty much graduated. The thought of having to train you again tomorrow is unbearable. Let’s get it done today."

Jason snorted at Alka’s words. "What do you mean by that? Am I learning too slowly?"

"No, it’s that your hands are too clumsy. You should practice the stability of your arms for delicate operations more."

When Jason was sniping or shooting, his arms were very steady. But asking him to take up fine engraving tools and draw patterns on something the size of a fingernail was too much for him; his fingers would invariably twitch a couple of times in such situations. If only he could extend the steadiness of his arms to his fingers, that would be excellent.

Then, before Jason could retort, Alka immediately said, "Alright, come on."

With that, Alka began Jason’s final lesson. The lesson continued until afternoon. Only then did Alka finally breathe a sigh of relief.

"Phew! Finally done. You’ve graduated. However, your success rate won’t be too high, so you need to be mentally prepared. But practice makes perfect."