Volume One: No Matter Where You Face, It's All Sea

Chapter 1: Setting Out

　　Ethan pinched his throat, then gently took a sip of water from the wooden spoon.

　　"There's only a little water left. If I don't see land or get another rain soon, I might become the first transmigrator to die of thirst." Glancing at the nearly empty water bucket, Ethan felt that dying this way was just too lame—an utter disgrace to the transmigrator community.

　　Putting down the wooden spoon and covering the bucket, Ethan stood once again at the bow of the small boat, telling himself in his heart, "Heaven never bars one's way!" and "Everything will get better!" At the same time, he straightened up and gazed out at the endless sea, hoping something—anything—would appear at the edge of his vision, as long as it wasn't just more boundless seawater.

　　He raised his left hand, focused his mind, and a faint blue light suddenly appeared in his upturned palm. Then, a blue, semi-transparent orb of light materialized in Ethan's hand.

　　There was nothing particularly special about the orb, except that there was an arrow-like thing in the center, pointing in the direction the boat was sailing.

　　"I firmly believe you're my golden finger, so please don't let me down..."

　　Thinking back on the past few years since he arrived in this strange world, Ethan suddenly felt that pinning his hopes on something he didn't even understand was really unreliable.

　　"In the future... I can't do such reckless things anymore... if there is a future..."

　　Ethan, in his previous life, was also called Ethan. The only difference was that his surname was Yi in his past life, but in this world, he didn't even have a surname—just a simple name: Ethan.

　　In his previous life, Ethan was a very ordinary person. He wasn't particularly good or bad at studying, wasn't especially good or bad as a person, found a job that was neither profitable nor a loss, and lived a passable life.

　　He thought he would live out his life in such plainness, but an acute illness took his life. When he woke up, he was already in this world.

　　Fortunately, he had directly possessed the body of a gravely ill teenager and fully absorbed the boy's memories, learning the language and some basic knowledge of this world. This allowed him to quickly integrate into his new life without the boy's father noticing anything amiss.

　　Thus, under the care of his new father, he gradually grew up. Over these years, he also learned what kind of world this was.

　　A world full of seawater, with extremely scarce land, unable to support too large a population. Even though the seas around the islands had pleasant climates and abundant marine life, there was always a limit.

　　Over the years, Ethan had seen countless people leave everything to their children, then set out alone in a boat toward the completely unknown sea, searching for the legendary endless land—none of them ever returned. Ethan had never seen it himself, nor had he heard from the few elderly people that anyone had ever come back.

　　So, Ethan came to a conclusion: this was a backward and ignorant little island, surviving by the simplest rules, and those who set out to sea were merely giving their descendants a better chance to survive. The so-called endless land might just be an ordinary continent, but the island's boats simply couldn't reach it.

　　"They must have all died at sea."

　　Otherwise, there was no reason not a single one had returned. Surely, at least one person would have wanted to bring back their wife and children, right?

　　Whether this was true or not, Ethan didn't know. But when he was sixteen, his father fell seriously ill after returning from a voyage and passed away after holding on for half a month.

　　In the days that followed, after fulfilling his duties as a son, Ethan did not take over his father's job and "fill in" for the most "coveted" fishing fleet on the island. Instead, he found the small boat his father had quietly prepared long ago, loaded it with supplies, and set out on a journey to find the "endless land."

　　He made this choice not only because he didn't want to live another ordinary life on a "backward and ignorant" little island, but also because of the strange orb compass in his hand.

　　From its initial vague and shapeless form, to gradually taking shape but flickering as if disturbed, and finally to its current stable orb form without any issues, Ethan had spent a full seven years.

　　During these seven years, ever since Ethan could tell it was a compass, the direction it pointed had never changed, always steadfastly indicating a fixed direction.

　　Having been influenced by countless novels in his previous life, Ethan felt this was telling him, "Leave that hopeless little island—there's a brighter future waiting for you."

　　He set out to sea, going from clumsy to gradually skilled. The theoretical knowledge he learned from his father slowly turned into practical skills. Although he occasionally fumbled and made mistakes, fortunately, this sea was very gentle, with no storms or huge waves, giving this rookie plenty of time to improve his sailing proficiency.