In the calm waters east of Elta, a fast sailing ship is sailing southwest on the waves.

On the deck, the swaggering sailors are lounging leisurely against the railings, or lying directly on the polished oak deck basking in the bright afternoon sun that is rare in winter.

It takes at least thirty days to travel from the island of the Church of the Two Moons to the port of Kamla in South Elta. Such a long voyage was also a great torture for a sea-bound sailor: although this commission would allow them to eat without worrying about food on board, and not having to fight with the cable canvas for at least half a year after disembarking, they could not see land at sea for a long time, and their heads were either blue or white or damn gray...... It's so monotonous, forget it.

This feeling is always summed up as "the romance of the crew". But how many people can understand the distress of the sailors, the "old sea ghosts"?

The childhood sweethearts who exchanged rings with each other before setting sail may have been promised to others when they came back, and there was a ring box left to send back......

The old parents, who were still at home when they sailed in the spring, returned in the autumn with only new tombstones covered in fallen leaves......

The old sea ghosts across the ocean had to silently smash their teeth and swallow blood at these times. Those families who live on the ship have become their envy at this moment, but from the moment they step into this industry, how can they be able to bring their families who do not do anything on the ship?

Luckily, the man who could be a transoceanic merchant sailor was at least mentally good - at least in the eyes of Neuesas, the crew was the best of all the combinations he had ever seen.

On the deck, there was even someone playing the ukulele, and another person was holding a bone flute. The level of the main ukulele is not high, and the accompanying bone flute is even more stumbling, which is simply a novice.

But at least twenty days after going to sea, there is still interest in playing the piano, which shows how good the psychological state of this group of mortals is.

As for yourself? Noy Esas smiled. The deadliest loneliness and forgetfulness can be conquered by yourself, so what is the sea?

It's just that no matter how he escapes and how he has a good attitude, the curse of oblivion still binds him tightly.

"When was the last time I plucked the strings of a ukulele and held down the stereotype?" Noysas opened his fingers slightly, opening and closing when he was aiming at the sun, as if in doing so he would bring the unspeakably long old days closer to him.

"God-sama, are you measuring the angle of sunlight?" Hearing the greeting, Neesas snapped away from his memories and saw the captain humbly hunched over, holding a large copper plate in his left hand.

"You can't measure the angle of the sun by hand, you should use an astrolabe. Mr. Captain, is it time to measure latitude so soon? ”

The captain picked up the astrolabe in his hand and asked back with some surprise, "Lord God, do you know how to use the astrolabe?" No...... Do you know how to sail? As for timing, I just asked the crew to measure the current speed by throwing ropes, which is almost the same latitude as our goal. ”

"A little insignificant ability, more than ten years ago, I once drove a fifty-ton sailboat to the wild land of the south to find out...... Well, if you don't mind, can you, Mr. Captain, let me relive that fun with my astrolabe? ”

"Gladly." The captain felt more and more that this seemingly young god was a wonderful man—this time the work seemed to be much easier than he had imagined.

On the deck there is a horizontal nail on the mainmast with a wooden strip with loose leaf. At the end of the strip there is a copper-clad hook, which is the mechanism used to hold the astrolabe.

The basis of the astrolabe is a copper concentric hollow scale disk, and in the center of the disk is fixed a guideline like an hour hand pointer, with small holes on both sides of the guideline, to ensure that the astrolabe itself is placed vertically, the user only needs to let the two small holes shine sunlight (starlight), and then write down the angle marked on the guideline to calculate the latitude according to the compass and star map.

And as long as the latitude and the wind direction of the sea area are roughly the same, and with the compass made of magnets to determine the direction of sailing, the ships of the Church of the Two Moons can go to any port they want to reach, which is quite practical in this plane.

Of course, the method itself is constantly evolving. The navigators of the Church of the Two Moons used wooden poles protruding from the deck to hold the astrolabe in place, but later discovered that the angle of the ship would shift the measurement, and the uneven loading of ballast could cause the hull to deviate slightly from 0-5 degrees, although the human body was able to adapt automatically...... But the error of the astrolabe is unexpected.

A small improvement may save a lot of time and effort, and the same is true of the astrolabe in front of Neuisas now, which is now used by the captain, which does not have the hollowing and gauge of the previous astrolabe, but has a master disk with tick marks, and a sub-disk with a scale pointer and a hole in it.

However, no matter how much the external things are modified, the inner principles are still exactly the same. Neesas expertly flicked the disc with his fingers, repeatedly checking the passing light on both sides, and finally picked up the paper and pen handed by the captain, and quickly jotted down a number.

A papyrus with an angle on it was handed to the captain by Noy Esas, who asked him to lean in front of the astrolabe to take notes. The greased sub-disc spun around slightly twice before returning to the captain's fingertips.

Not surprisingly, the captain's approximate bearing was exactly the same as that measured by Neuesas. Within a few minutes, the captain had also jotted down a number on the papyrus.

"The results are very good, God-sama." The captain respectfully took the paper and showed it to Neuesas. "The angular values you and I recorded, while not sure who was more accurate, would not have been more than a three-hour flight overall. As for the detailed latitude, please forgive me for going to the cabin below to calculate before I can give an answer.

Of course, the mathematical study of the Bimonthly Church is not bad. At least in the nautical, architectural and artistic traction, and on the basis of the simple study of mathematics on the basis of predecessors, it has reached the level of the early industrial revolution of the earth's civilization, and may be slightly surpassed in geometry.

However, for the "right direction of study" of magic, mathematics has long been reduced to a specialized discipline that only bookkeepers, tax collectors, navigators, and draftsmen need to master. In the captain's cabin, Neuesas watched as the captain was able to write down a series of alphanumerical numbers (see Roman numerals) and arithmetic symbols fluently, bringing parameters into ready-made functions and calculating them, and then arriving at beautiful lattitude results.

But what's the use of that? The "secret art" mastered by the captain could not change the fact that he was a low-level magician, and could only wave his staff to light a lamp and fan the wind.

"Very good technical skills, Mr. Captain." Seeing the captain finally draw a line on the chart with wipeable chalk, Neuesas clapped his hands and exclaimed.

Undoubtedly, the captain's heart was in high spirits at this time—if the trip had been constantly admired by Neuesas, then he might not need to do business with a license issued by the military at a high price, as long as he said a few kind words...... No, that's the minimum.

But he still had to pretend to be flattered, and whispered: "It's really an honor to be complimented by you......

To his surprise, Neuesas was a little unhappy with the compliment. He turned the globe on the captain's desk a few times with his fingertips, and struck it solemnly: "What I want is not a subordinate who can only nod his head and praise you, but a friend who can impart knowledge to each other." Mr. Prino, if you want to get money or status from me with compliments, you are very wrong. ”

Neu Esas changed his honorific title to his name, which made the captain feel a great deal of pressure - perhaps because Neu Esas's appearance was too deceptive, and Captain Prino was always a little triumphant, even fluttering.

Well, he didn't speak, and he didn't know what to say, so he stood in front of the drawing table and chair and looked straight at Neuesas, dumbfounded.

"Hmph." Turning back on deck, Neu Esas had seen enough of the situation. Once these mortals know their identity, they will be cheeky enough to lean in on it, first flattering, and then ...... Can we be less routine and more sincere?

If ordinary people have the divine power of immortality, then they will definitely be keen on pretending. But more than pretending, not only has a false name, but also aesthetic fatigue, and what is even worse is that you must keep a considerable distance from normal people from now on.

It's a pity that the vast majority of the gods in the present world are ordinary people in terms of mentality. In the course of time, they had to communicate with their friends without pretensions: for the subordinates who did things and had something to ask for, their red tape could be as high as the steps of the temple, and for the young men and girls who entered the temple to serve, many of them had been distorted to the point of curiosity—as if they were not living people who voluntarily climbed the steps, but inanimate dolls.

Luckily, Neu Esas doesn't look like an ordinary person. When traveling abroad, many times he deliberately concealed his identity as a god in the world, so that those old drivers and old-timers treated him with an equal or even apprentice attitude, so that they mistakenly thought that he was just behind a certain aristocrat who was keen on adventure and had no desires; Or devout believers who wish to climb the mountain, in short, there are all kinds of disguised identities, and so on.

But unlike his hypocritical identity, in those times, he really felt that he was indeed alive: with the herb pickers, he climbed the cliff of the ice peak with only two pickaxes fixed to his arms; In the small and unknown country of the equator, join the ama who are diving for a living and collecting shellfish to explore the unknown giant steel wreck; Discover an oasis of abundance in the desert with a time-tested guide......

He likes to treat mortals as companions rather than as poor, life-spanned dolls and as tools for fame. It is from this that Neuesas finds the joy of living and enjoys it.