Chapter 324 Journey To Fujian Island
Two days later;
Outside the palace gate, the King of Western Moon and his daughter were standing there to send off the guests.
While King Shen Niu looked like he wasn't all that pleasant, the princess appeared to be very happy. She was smiling from ear to ear as if she had found some heaven-defying treasure.
"Okay, I'll be leaving, Princess Shen," said Mark as the others got into the vehicle.
Shen Ling smiled brightly and replied, "I already told you that you don't need to be formal, Lu Zhen. We aren't strangers anyway."
"Well, it'll take time, I guess." Mark shrugged his shoulders in response before turning around to walk away.
"Lu Zhen." The princess called his name, to which, as he turned his head, she further said, "I'll be waiting."
Mark let out a smile and nodded before continuing to walk toward the vehicle.
As the vehicle started to leave away from the palace, Shen Ling and her father watched it until it disappeared from their sight.
Turning around to return to the palace, he said, "I didn't expect him to accept this marriage, my daughter."
Shen Ling replied, "Well, I told you, father. He will be my husband."
"Yeah, I really underestimated you and him." The King gave a vague comment with a hidden meaning inside. He implied that Mark agreed to the marriage because of that adamantium treasure and she basically convinced him through a bribe.
As he walked away at a brisk pace, the princess could only shake her head as she mumbled, "You don't understand, father. The one who made this possible is neither me nor Lu Zhen. It is that lady of the Song Clan."
She started to remember the private talk she had with Song Yue.
Two days ago, after Mark and Song Yue returned to the palace, suddenly, their behavior changed a lot.
In Shen Ling's eyes, they didn't just makeup with each other but something had happened, which she has no idea about. But, she was too happy that Mark officially told her father about the acceptance of this marriage proposal.
Hence, she didn't put too much attention to the matter.
However, after the dinner, while Mark had wine with the King and the Prime Minister, Song Yue initiated the conversation with her, asking to her talk in private, just the two of them.
Song Yue revealed the real reason behind her engaged status and she further thanked the princess for unknowingly pushing Mark to confess his real feelings. And that made their fake engagement, a completely real one.
Song Yue told her that she was no longer worried about Mark getting married to someone else as long as she was in his heart.
Seeing the sincerity from Song Yue, the princess of the Western Moon kingdom expressed her thanks and clarified her that she doesn't plan on stealing Mark from her. The princess also reiterated that she was really interested to be friends with Song Yue as she is very important to Mark.
Back to the present, Mark was driving the vehicle toward the port city of Lushan.
In about six hours, he covered 396 kilometers and reached the destination. After having lunch in a restaurant in the city and packing enough food for the next few days, he drove the vehicle to the harbor with hundreds of boats docked.
After renting a medium-sized houseboat for five gold coins per hourly rate, Mark and others got into it.
The captain of the ship expected this family with a powerful beast to roam in the sea for several hours, if not, more than a day. Hence, he thought he would be able to earn a considerable amount.
Even Song Yue and others thought that they will travel for days. However, to everyone's surprise, after 45 minutes into the sea, Mark walked toward the edge of the boat and raised his hand to look at the platinum ring on his left index finger, connecting his consciousness with the storage ring.
"Okay, let's do this."
All of a sudden, a giant warship appeared in front of the boat, creating a huge wave as a result.
Lan Ju, the zheng acted fast by conjuring up an ether barrier over the boat. The wave hit the barrier and passed away without being able to hurt anyone else.
As the captain thanked Lan Ju, Mark told him that they were going to stop traveling on their boat, further asking him to get near to that giant warship in the middle of the ocean.
Except for Lan Ju and the zheng, the other two were familiar with the destroyer. Hence, they didn't stay in a daze for very long. And thankfully, the zheng wasn't that attached to materialistic things.
Only the manticore was in a daze for a moment, looking at its massive size. It felt like it seriously underestimated the humans.
Soon, everyone boarded the warship while Mark went downstairs to the captain's cabin. According to the system's instruction manual, just one person is enough to completely operate the warship, from sailing to launching attacks. It's just too much workload, that's all.
However, at the moment, Mark just has to sail it across the ocean to reach the island of Fujian and its 12 islets, which he insisted on only swapping with the previous one (Nanqu island) despite the fact that the king is ready to give him all the islands as a gift.
Hence, it posed no problem for Mark to sail it to his destination.
After about 12 hours of sailing in the ocean without encountering any unwanted trouble, the destroyer reached the island.
The destroyer was docked at the shores of the island and everyone got out to the deck to take a look at the scenery before them. All of them were taken aback.
The Fujian island was supposed to be a beautiful tropical island paradise with the velvety white sand beach to walk around in barefoot, warm glistening blue waters to play in, the beautiful mountain in the center of the island, and the green palm trees everywhere around.
However, the scenery before them is quite different.
The palm trees were burned. The blue water was red and the white beach was full of aquatic and land beasts' corpses. There was a giant snake curled itself around the peak of the mountain. It was so big that it can be clearly seen from the shores.
Looking at it from far away, Lan Ju immediately said, "A beast king of the 7-circle realm."
Mark furrowed his brows and intently stared at the anaconda-like snake.
"This snake destroyed my island. It won't leave from this place." He was naturally displeased by its act as he owns this place.
Thankfully, Mark's party members were formidable enough to destroy any kingdom, much less a beast king of the 7-circle realm.
Now, the only question is how to punish it.
Mark didn't have any advanced grade spirit beast contract scrolls left. And he still needed to tame six more monsters to activate the taming skill, upon which, he won't need any external support like contract scrolls to tame any type of monster.
At the moment, he cannot forcefully tame it. And killing it appeared a small punishment.
It was then he suddenly remembered something he read from the manuscript written by the greatest beast tamer, Xie Chen. It was given to him as a present by Shang Jiao at his engagement ceremony.
The manuscript not only contained the guide but also the characteristics of different types of beasts.
Mark turned his head to look at the zheng, "Lan Ju, I need you to do something for me."