The Current Without a Map

Lang Tuyet immediately turned back toward him.

“You can still laugh?”

“At least now we’ve confirmed that we really have entered an unexplored region of the Sea.”

She fell silent for a beat.

Then even she laughed.

“That is certainly one way to confirm it.”

Lanh Hoa stood nearby listening to them.

The corner of his mouth moved slightly, but he said nothing.

He simply returned his attention to the sea, continuing what he considered the most useful task available.

The Cosmic Ark continued traveling according to the directions they had chosen.

But from that point onward, no one aboard could determine exactly where they were.

The next four days passed beneath almost unchanging scenery.

Gray-blue sea stretched to the horizon.

Low clouds drifted overhead.

Thin mist often appeared in the mornings.

The wind was mild.

The waves were relatively steady.

At first glance, the journey seemed far easier than the days before.

Yet Lang Tuyet became increasingly certain something was wrong.

On the first day, she assumed the sea was simply too vast for the surrounding scenery to provide useful reference points.

By the second, when her charts continued failing to match reality, she began recording the position of the sun, wind direction, water temperature, and changes in the surrounding spiritual energy.

On the third day, she chose a simpler method.

She carved a tracking formation into a small block of wood.

Then dropped it into the sea.

If the Cosmic Ark continued moving away from that position, the block should inevitably be left behind, regardless of where the current carried it.

Less than half a day later, Lanh Hoa, standing watch near the bow, noticed something familiar floating ahead.

He looked down.

Then called Lang Tuyet over.

“Miss Lang, is this the object you dropped this morning?”

Lang Tuyet examined it with spiritual sense.

She immediately recognized the formation she had carved.

She retrieved the block and studied it.

Then added a second mark beside the first.

“The current may have carried it ahead of us.”

“Let’s try again.”

She dropped it back into the sea.

On the fourth day, the same block appeared near the bow once more.

This time, Lanh Hoa did not need to wait.

He directly retrieved it and handed it to Lang Tuyet.

“It’s the same one.”

“Both marks remain.”

Lang Tuyet accepted it.

She stared for a long time.

Then handed it to Hao Nhien.

He examined the two marks.

“We returned to the same place?”

“Possibly.”

Lang Tuyet frowned slightly.

“But the current may also have brought the block back toward us.”

“Without knowing exactly how the water is moving, it’s difficult to distinguish between the two.”

Hao Nhien looked over the sea.

He did not answer immediately.

Little Spirit was leaning against the railing near the bow.

It seemed almost completely uninterested in the discussion.

Hao Nhien suddenly turned toward it.

“Little Spirit, do you recognize this place?”

The child thought.

Then nodded.

“The Ark remembers.”

“Remembers what?”

“This place.”

Hao Nhien’s gaze sharpened.

“We’ve passed here before?”

“Three times.”

Lang Tuyet spun around.

“Three times?”

“Why didn’t you say anything?”

Little Spirit looked up at her with a completely innocent expression.

“You didn’t ask.”

Lang Tuyet went speechless.

Eventually, she could only sit down in a nearby chair.

Hao Nhien turned his head away.

Readers should know that carries the author's chapter, but these words were copied without approval; the author is supported there.

The corner of his mouth rose despite himself.

“You’re laughing?” Lang Tuyet asked immediately.

“No.”

“I was thinking about the currents.”

She looked at him suspiciously.

But when he turned back toward the sea, she let the matter go.

After a moment, Lanh Hoa spoke.

“If the Ark has already passed here three times, then perhaps the directions we chose are not taking us out of this region at all.”

Hao Nhien turned toward him.

He nodded.

“That’s likely.”

“We may need to reconsider how we’re determining direction.”

Lang Tuyet looked at the wooden marker in her hand.

Then slowly stood.

“Then tonight we review everything from the past few days.”

That night, all four gathered around the table on deck.

Lang Tuyet spread out the notes she had recorded.

One by one, she marked the position of the sun, wind direction, changes in the current, and the density of spiritual energy across the previous four days.

The information was not useless.

But placed together, it showed that the apparent directions had shifted continuously.

Determining their actual path became extremely difficult.

She drew a line across a temporary map.

“On the first day, we believed the Ark was traveling southeast.”

“On the second, the wind changed.”

“On the third, the spiritual currents differed from what we had recorded.”

She paused.

Then placed the wooden block with the two marks in the middle of the table.

“If we follow the directions we calculated, we should have traveled very far.”

“But this marker and Little Spirit both show that we have repeatedly returned to the same region.”

Hao Nhien looked at the paths she had drawn.

After thinking for a while, he stood and walked toward the bow.

There was no moon that night.

Small points of light occasionally appeared beneath the surface.

He could not tell whether they came from sea creatures or concentrations of spiritual energy.

Hao Nhien slowly closed his eyes.

His spiritual sense extended into the surrounding water.

The currents near the surface moved in relatively stable directions.

Deeper down, the water moved differently.

But even that was not enough to explain how the Ark had repeatedly returned to the same area.

Hao Nhien extended his spiritual sense farther downward.

At the third layer, a far larger current gradually became clear.

It moved in another direction and influenced the layers above.

Yet even this was not the entire system.

Still deeper were additional currents.

Each layer possessed a different direction and speed.

They constantly affected one another, forming a system of movement far more complicated than anything visible from the surface.

After a long time, the cause began to become clear.

If he examined only one or two layers near the surface, none of the directions they had chosen appeared obviously wrong.

But once the overlapping movement of deeper currents was taken into account, those directions no longer reflected the ship’s true path.

Hao Nhien gradually suspected that their reliance on isolated signs had repeatedly caused them to choose routes which, once joined together, curved into one enormous loop.

Lang Tuyet’s records were not wrong.

They simply described only a small part of the greater system moving beneath the sea.

Hao Nhien suddenly remembered the Realm of Direction.

Within the gray-white emptiness, he had realized that he did not need to see an entire road before stepping forward.

Yet here in the Sea Region, he had still been using a fixed direction to judge whether each step was correct.

If they wanted to escape this circulating current, why did they have to move farther away from their starting point immediately?

Hao Nhien continued observing the deeper layers.

This time, he did not search only for currents flowing toward the direction they had previously chosen.

After a while, he found a small branch flowing back toward the region they had already crossed.

Farther along, however, that branch descended and joined a much larger current they had never attempted to follow.

The deeper current extended beyond the range of his spiritual sense.

He could not determine where it ultimately led.

But at least it opened another possibility.

There was nothing contradictory about that.

Hao Nhien looked at the current hidden beneath the sea.

Then quietly laughed at himself.

“I thought I understood it.”

“And still acted exactly as I did before understanding.”

He did not believe he had suddenly achieved some profound new enlightenment.

Everything he was thinking had already appeared inside the Fate-Convergence Realm.

The difference was that when confronted with a real situation, old habits had still led him instinctively toward familiar choices.

This time, he noticed before repeating the same mistake indefinitely.

Hao Nhien remained there for a while.

He memorized the relative position of the smaller branch current.

Then returned to rest.

The next morning, the moment Lang Tuyet stepped onto the deck, she realized the Cosmic Ark was traveling in a direction different from the previous days.

She took out her records.

Compared them.

Then turned toward Hao Nhien.

“This direction is taking us back toward the old region.”

“I know.”

Lang Tuyet looked surprised.

“You know, and you still want to go this way?”

Hao Nhien nodded and pointed downward.

“There is a smaller current beneath us.”

“It flows backward for a distance, then descends and merges into a much larger deep current.”

“I want to follow it.”

“Where does that current lead?”

“I don’t know.”

“My spiritual sense cannot follow it far enough.”

“But at least it does not curve back in the same direction as the routes we already tried.”

Lang Tuyet looked at him.

Then at the notes in her hand.

She thought for a while.

Finally, she slowly put them away.

“You want to try another road without knowing where it ends.”

“We already tried the roads we thought we understood.”

She paused.

Then laughed.

“Fair enough.”

“Continuing in circles certainly won’t give us anything new.”

Lang Tuyet turned toward Little Spirit.

“This time, follow Hao Nhien.”

The child nodded.

“Mm.”

The Cosmic Ark slowly changed course.

It began following the branch current Hao Nhien had identified.

For almost half a day, every visible sign suggested they truly were returning toward the region they had already crossed.

Lang Tuyet continued checking the surroundings.

But this time, she did not ask to change direction.

By afternoon, the smaller current began descending.

The forces around the Ark shifted slightly.

Hao Nhien remained attentive, repeatedly directing Little Spirit to adjust the ship’s movement according to the deeper current.

The Ark no longer attempted to maintain one fixed heading.

Sometimes it moved sideways.

Sometimes it appeared almost stationary relative to the surface water.

At moments, it even turned backward briefly before continuing onward.

Little Spirit controlled it naturally.

The constant changes caused no irritation.

Lang Tuyet stood near Hao Nhien with her records in hand.

She could not perceive the entire deep current as clearly as he could.

But through changes in water temperature and spiritual density, she gradually realized his adjustments were not arbitrary.

They entered regions of colder water they had never encountered during the previous days of circling.

Thin streams of spiritual energy appeared and stretched in relatively stable directions.

Lanh Hoa remained at the bow.

After several hours, he was the first to notice another difference.

“Clan Chief.”

“The lights beneath the sea have changed.”

Hao Nhien opened his eyes.

He followed Lanh Hoa’s gaze.

During the previous days, small pale-blue lights often appeared beneath the surface.

Now, silvery-white bands drifted below the Cosmic Ark.

Sometimes they gathered into clusters.

Then dispersed again.

Hao Nhien could not tell whether they were living creatures or concentrations of spiritual energy.

But the change was consistent with what he had sensed in the surrounding currents.

“Keep going,” he told Little Spirit.

The child nodded.

Its small hand rested against the railing.

By evening, the deep current had changed noticeably.

The branches that had repeatedly curved back upon themselves gradually merged into one larger flow.

It no longer returned toward the old region.

Instead, it extended steadily forward.

At the same time, a colder, thinner field of spiritual energy appeared beyond the area Hao Nhien had originally been able to observe.

He concentrated for a while.

Then finally opened his eyes.

Lang Tuyet stood nearby.

She had just compared the newest records with those from the previous days.

Then she looked up.

“The wooden marker still hasn’t appeared.”

Hao Nhien nodded slightly.

“I also can’t feel the force pulling us back toward the old region anymore.”

Lang Tuyet looked over the sea ahead.

A trace of hope appeared in her eyes.

“So we’re out?”

Hao Nhien did not answer immediately.

He observed the deep current again.

Only then did he reply,

“We’re getting out.”

Lang Tuyet was silent for a beat.

Then she smiled.

“At least this time it isn’t ‘probably.’”

Hao Nhien smiled as well.

He did not elaborate.

Ahead, the colder, thinner spiritual region continued beyond the range of his senses.

The Cosmic Ark moved with the deep current.

It was not traveling faster than before.

Nothing about the vessel itself had visibly changed.

But the familiar signs of the circulating sea had gradually begun to fall behind them.

Lanh Hoa remained at the bow, watching the unfamiliar waters.

Lang Tuyet returned to the table and carefully recorded the changes they had discovered.

Little Spirit sat once more upon the railing.

Its small legs began swinging again as though nothing unusual had happened.

Hao Nhien slowly withdrew his spiritual sense.

Within his body, True Qi continued moving naturally through the meridian branches that were gradually adapting.

Ahead of them lay only the vast, unknown Sea Region.

The journey toward the New World had barely begun.

But for the first time in many days, the Cosmic Ark was no longer returning to somewhere it had already been.