Chapter 523 - 520: Into the Sea of Clouds

Chapter 523: Chapter 520: Into the Sea of Clouds

The mist grew thicker and thicker, layers of white completely obscuring the team’s vision. They gradually emerged from their complex emotions.

As the airship sank into the dense mist, orderly, pure white lines of clouds appeared outside the gondola, stretching into the distance.

"These are turbulence trails. We need to find a region of stable currents to keep the airship moving forward."

At one end of the gondola was a row of sophisticated instruments. A team member walked over to them and began to observe them intently.

After a moment, he decisively pressed an operation button beside the instruments.

After the button was pressed, the airship’s trajectory changed. The vessel, which had been steadily ascending, suddenly began to drift along the orderly cloud lines, as if propelled by a gentle current.

Li Luo glanced around for a moment but still couldn’t spot a power source.

"Do you feel that?" Zhou Chao asked from beside her.

"Feel what?"

"That gentle push. It’s like we’re just drifting with the current."

"I do," Li Luo said, nodding.

"That *is* the airship’s power source. Or rather, the airship doesn’t need one. It just has to go with the flow."

Zhou Chao gazed at the mist outside the gondola and began to explain to Li Luo...

"Just like atmospheric circulation on Earth, the Sea of Clouds on the fourth level of the Abyss has its own patterns. Different regions have different circulatory currents."

"In the beginning, people just discovered that the Sky Islands tracked by beacons would return to their original positions after a certain period. Their paths, though chaotic, were repetitive, much like planetary orbits."

The routes these Sky Islands traveled were recorded, which is how humanity discovered the patterns in the currents.

"This is also why the beacons are so important."

"Beacons don’t just record a Sky Island’s position; they can also map the trajectories of the currents in different areas."

"On Earth, you have the Hadley cell. Air heats up and rises near the equator, moves north in the upper atmosphere, gradually becoming a westerly wind. Around thirty degrees north latitude, a current of air sinks, splitting into two branches in the lower atmosphere. One branch returns south toward the equator, while the other moves north."

"It’s the same in the Abyss. The center of the upper Sea of Clouds, where the sun hits directly, heats up and expands outward. This pulls the air currents from below upward. The outer, thick cloud bands then cool, drop in temperature, and sink downward, forming a ’Sky Island Gyre’ that acts like a fountain."

"This circulation is called the Great Upwelling. It’s the most influential current on the fourth level. The smaller currents, formed by factors like Sky Islands and relic phenomena, only affect certain parts of the Great Upwelling, creating regional turbulence."

The beacons on the Sky Islands revealed their trajectories, and their routes largely conform to the direction of the Great Upwelling’s flow.

"So, all the airship has to do is go with the flow, follow the Great Upwelling, and ride the currents. We’ll quickly reach a nearby monitoring station."

"Won’t we fly somewhere else and miss the station?" Li Luo asked, confused.

"No. Most monitoring stations on the fourth level are stationary, fixed in one place. These locations are essentially nodes in the circulatory currents. The stations also have a certain surveillance range. Once the people on a station spot a drifting airship, they’ll perform a capture."

"Our beacon’s signal will reach the station long before we do. The people there will use its position to calculate our arrival time. All they have to do is lie in wait for us."

’With the support of massive amounts of data, calculating the precise arrival time of a drifting object isn’t a difficult task.’

After hearing all this, Li Luo nodded in admiration.

She realized then that humanity had always been exploring the Abyss using the methods they excelled at.

"Sound familiar? It’s how you calculate the movement of a weather balloon. You must have learned it in the third grade."

Li Luo nodded. "Yes, a very simple calculation."

She remembered her elementary school teacher shouting at the class.

"This lesson is very important! If you don’t pay attention, you might get lost in the Abyss one day!"

’It turns out the teacher wasn’t just saying that for effect. That knowledge really would come in handy one day.’

’The seemingly chaotic circulation of the Void Sea was just air currents surging under thermal forces. As long as one could summarize the patterns and understand the conditions, even the most complex currents could be predicted.’

The mist outside surged faster and faster. Before they knew it, the airship had been flying through the Sea of Clouds for a long time, and the gondola grew increasingly quiet.

Zhou Chao looked around and said to Li Luo, "You should rest for a bit. You must be exhausted from your time on the Sky Island..."

Li Luo nodded, went to the edge of the gondola, and sat down, leaning against the wall.

Seeing this, Zhou Chao also found a spot and began to rest.

Though the starlight had left their minds buzzing with excitement, their bodies were exhausted. They had barely sat down before they fell into a deep sleep.

The airship swayed gently, like a cradle. A soft current lifted it, guiding it into an even more stable circulatory route.

Mo Ling curiously had the Block fly back and forth inside the simple gondola, occasionally observing the returning investigation team members, and sometimes looking out at the huge objects flying past in the Sea of Clouds.

One of the investigators kept staring blankly at the flying Block. He only snapped out of it when a companion tapped him on the shoulder.

"What are you staring at?"

"Nothing. I just remembered... back when I was a bottle cap, I took that Block on as my apprentice," the team member said, scratching his head in embarrassment.

"You took a relic as your apprentice?" his companion asked, glancing at the Block in astonishment.

"Yeah, my mind was a little fuzzy at the time, haha." He laughed awkwardly.

Listening to their conversation, Mo Ling finally understood why that man kept staring at him.

’So it’s Master Bottle Cap.’

With that thought, Mo Ling had the Block fly over and offer the team member a bottle of Coke.

The team member stared at the Coke that had been placed on the floor, stunned once again.

He didn’t hesitate, though. He picked it up and started drinking.

"Thanks," he said to the Block between gulps. He patted it again, his eyes filled with nostalgia.

...

The airship’s speed through the Sea of Clouds increased, but its flight remained perfectly smooth.

The airship, made of a special material, seemed to possess a unique stability. Those inside couldn’t feel the slightest bump, and before long, many of the team members had leaned against the walls and fallen fast asleep.

Huge, blurry objects occasionally flashed past the windows.

Mo Ling’s vision could make out the edges of these objects. Most were Sky Islands or floating chunks of rock that hadn’t yet formed into islands, but there were also some very strange-looking things.